NCGUB: News & Articles on Burma - Monday,5 January, 2009

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Understanding new Thai policy towards Burma
China leads surge in foreign investment in Myanmar during first 9 months
Junta Determined to 'Guide' 2010 Polls
Bush to Discuss Burma with Ban at White House
Myanmar grants free rice export from Yangon region
Going metric would be nice global gesture
Foreign investment in Myanmar soars
Opposition: No hope for future of Myanmar
Defiant Burma junta marks independence day
Burma Blacklists U.S. Artist
Human Rights Abuse in Myanmar?
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REGIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Understanding new Thai policy towards Burma
By Kavi Chongkittavorn
The Nation
Published on January 5, 2009

AFTER EIGHT YEARS, it will not be easy to undo the Thai foreign policy towards Burma initiated by the Thaksin-led government and its nominees. A complete overhaul of the Burma policy is out of the question. However, some major shifts by the current government could be forthcoming that would firm up bilateral ties and strengthen Bangkok's voice on Burma within Asean. Additional principled guidelines, drawing from the Asean Charter, are imperative aimed at supporting the international community's effort to promote an open society there.

Gone quickly would be the preponderance of one-man decisions on key policies, especially those dealing with cross-border security, investment and trade cooperation.

In the past few years, Thailand has been rather compromising in its security considerations in exchange for economic benefits, which often went to individuals rather than the country as a whole. In particular, from 2001 to 2006, the Thai side allowed the Burmese side greater leeway along the 2004-km border such as issues related to Burmese migrant workers, illegal cross-border activities and harassment of minorities and Burmese exiles.

Picking up the pieces of Burmese policy where the Democrat-led government left off in early 2001, this time around the Thai foreign policy will be decided in a transparent way without any hanky panky as in the past. Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said succinctly that from now on, Thailand will deal with Burma in a straightforward manner without any dubious deals or transactions based on "four-eye meetings", which was the trademark of Thaksin's personalised diplomacy.

Prior to the return of the Democrat-led government, Thai-Burmese relations were very superficially closed, representing no real national agenda. Thai leaders were myopic, deluded in thinking that defending the Burmese regime within Asean and the international community would help them win favours from the junta leaders and subsequently secure the country's future energy and natural resources need. Indeed, the energy dependence on Burma was exaggerated to justify Thailand's closer ties with Burma, including its passivity.

Throughout the year 1999-2000, before Thaksin came to power, the Burmese people's struggle for democracy and open society was at its peak with all the support of the international community. Asean was far more united as far as peer pressure on Burma was concerned. Thailand dutifully played the leading role on Burma throughout by bringing in the international community. Former foreign minister Surin Pitsuwan, currently the Asean secretary-general, pushed Asean to engage in enhanced dialogue with Burma as well as emerging transnational issues affecting the region.

However, soon after the arrival of the Thaksin-led government in early 2001, Thai policy towards Burma turned upside down. After a few weeks of border tension and tough talks on Burma's role on cross-border illegal drugs trade, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra unexpectedly softened his Burmese policy, much to the chagrin of the international community. Since then, Thailand's credibility on Burma has disappeared.

During the Cambodian conflict, Thailand's role in Asean as a frontline state was well recognised as it was pursued based on the region's interest, not tempered with vested personal interests. Asean helped to internationalise the conflict playing out at the UN continuously for nearly a decade, which gave Asean an international voice, before the Paris peace agreement in 1989. In Burma's case, it was the opposite. Thailand failed miserably to assert itself in the Asean overall approaches albeit it was the most affected by the Burmese growing oppression. Bangkok's willingness to play second fiddle to Burma further divided Asean and stymied broader cooperation with international community.

Subsequent revelations by Surakiart Sathiratai, foreign minister in the Thaksin government, showed that investment and commercial deals with Burma at that time were not honest as they were coaxed with conflict of interest.

The scandal over the Export and Import Bank of Thailand's Bt4-billion loan to the junta was just one example. Like rubbing more salt into the wounds, former prime ministers Samak Sundravej and Somchai Wongsawat made ridiculous remarks defending Burma.

Samak was the most embarrassing as he praised the military junta leaders as peace-loving leaders and boasted about their closed friendship. Under the Surayud Chulanont government (2006-7), Thailand maintained a strict policy of no new contacts or improvement of existing ties.

Burma could have made a transition to democracy if the Thai governments in question had not indulged in personalising, nationalising and making the Burmese problem bilateral. The leader's personal and group interests linked to Burma weakened not only Thai credibility, it also belittled Bangkok's voice within Asean. That helps explain why in the absence of a Thai role, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia have become more pro-active in shaping the grouping's views and positions on Burma.

Coming to power at this juncture poses serious challenges to both Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and Foreign Minister Kasit on Burmese policy. They have to revitalise and synergise the role of Thailand, Asean and the international community to move the situation in Burma forward.

At present, the Asean Charter, imperfect as it is, will serve as a useful tool to encourage reluctant Asean countries to get more involved on issues of human rights and democracy. The rumblings over the charter's ratification in Indonesia and Philippines were indicative of the strong desire for such endeavour.

As the Asean chair, Thai leaders will adopt a comprehensive strategy on Burma that put together various parts and needs from within region. Furthermore, this strategy must also work in tandem with the current international efforts, especially through the offices of the United Nations and related agencies and its special envoy.

After all, the Burmese quagmire is not the problem of any particular country or regional community.

It must be kept at the multilateral level so that all stakeholders can work together to end the current impasse and sufferings.
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China leads surge in foreign investment in Myanmar during first 9 months
By Associated Press 3:10 AM CST, January 5, 2009

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Foreign investment in Myanmar — much of it from China — nearly doubled in the first nine months of 2008 compared to the same period last year, according to government statistics seen Monday.

Mining accounted for more than 88 percent of the total foreign investment — a record for that sector.

Investment from January to September last year jumped to $974.9 million dollars from $502.5 million in the same period the previous year, said the Ministry of National Planning and Development in its latest statistical survey.

That was the second-highest amount for this nine-month span after 2006, when Thailand built a hydroelectric plant.

China accounted for $855 million of the $860.9 million invested in mining while Russia and Vietnam added $114 million in the oil and gas sector. China has signed a number of agreements with the resource-rich country to mine gems, gold and nickel.

The U.S. and European Union have imposed economic sanctions on Myanmar to pressure the military government to improve human rights and release detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Since Myanmar liberalized its investment code in late 1988, it has attracted large investments in the hydro-electric power and oil and gas sectors.
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Junta Determined to 'Guide' 2010 Polls
By MARWAAN MACAN-MARKAR / IPS WRITER Monday, January 5, 2009

BANGKOK — Burma’s military regime ended 2008 with greater resolve to steamroll over opposition voices in order to pave the way for a junta-friendly government when the country holds general elections in 2010.

On December 30, nine supporters of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi were arrested when they staged a protest in Rangoon, the former capital, calling for her release. Some of the protesters were wearing the colors of the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party that she heads.

Burmese soldiers parade during a ceremony marking the country's Armed Forces Day in the country's new capital, Naypyidaw. (Photo: AFP)
The risk these activists took in placing their lives on the side of political freedom has been heightened in the wake of harsh judgments delivered against leading voices of the country’s struggling democracy movement in November. Some of them were given long jail terms and Min Ko Naing, a widely respected former university student leader, was put away for 65 years.

The November verdicts, which saw 215 political activists sentenced, were largely linked to the peaceful, pro-democracy street protests, led by thousands of Buddhist monks, held in September 2007.

Buddhist monks who were in the vanguard of the protests, which was crushed by the junta, were not spared. U Gambria, a leader of the All Burma Monks’ Alliance, was sentenced to 68 years in jail.

The verdicts delivered by a military-controlled court inside Rangoon’s notorious Insein prison were as harsh on Burmese who led a humanitarian effort to aid the victims of the powerful Cyclone Nargis, which tore through the country’s Irrawaddy Delta in early May, killing tens of thousands and affecting millions.

Zarganar, a well-known comedian who was arrested for leading a team of entertainers to help the cyclone victims, was slapped with a 59-year sentence.

"This is all part of an aggressive campaign to jail good, pro-democracy activists who could run in the 2010 elections," says Debbie Stothard of ALTSEAN, a regional human rights group monitoring abuse in Burma. "Anybody who could be a viable opposition figure has been locked up. There are no signs of the regime easing up."

Even token pressure from marginal voices in the country is being stifled, she revealed in an IPS interview. "The New Year will see more arrests. They are creating another Zimbabwe."

Such ability to crush an already beleaguered people has become possible given the ease with which the junta succeeded in bullying and bluffing the United Nations through the year.

Other members of the international community, including giants China and Russia, also played their part to help the Burmese military dictatorship impose its roadmap for a "discipline flourishing democracy."

The junta’s success at reducing the world body to a minor irritant became more evident after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon cancelled plans to visit Burma, or Myanmar, in December. That the junta was in no mood for Ban—or for a push by his office for concrete issues to be discussed during such a visit—was hardly a surprise.

Ban’s predicament highlighted a defining feature of how the Burmese regime was responding to international pressure. In May, Ban became the first UN chief to visit Burma following the devastating Cyclone Nargis. But all the assurances he got from the military regime for more openness to enable humanitarian assistance to the victims amounted to little.

The UN received another embarrassing snub from the junta in August, when Ibrahim Gambari, the world body’s special envoy to Burma, was treated like an unwelcome guest and relegated to meeting minor officials during a visit aimed to prod the regime towards democratic reform. Earlier in 2008, Gambari had received a tongue-lashing from Burma’s information minister, removing all doubt about the contempt with which the junta views the Nigerian diplomat.

Yet at the same time, sections of the international community still place faith in the UN to deliver. In early December, for instance, a group of more than 100 former heads of governments and states wrote a letter to Ban, asking him to travel to Burma to secure the release of Suu Kyi and the over 2,100 political prisoners by December 31.

"It is important that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon travel to the country himself and engage in serious dialogue with the military regime and impress on them the calls by leaders and lawmakers from Asia and around the world for the release of all political prisoners," Kraisak Choonhavan, a Thai parliamentarian, said at the time.

Among the leaders who signed this unprecedented petition were former US presidents George H W Bush and Jimmy Carter, former Australian prime minister John Howard, former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi and former Philippines president Corazon Aquino.

The petition to Ban drew attention to developments in the UN Security Council in October 2007, when a presidential statement had urged the prompt release of all political prisoners in Burma.

Yet what has prevailed since that rare pressure on the junta from the UN’s most powerful body illustrates the aggressive and defiant position Burma’s military regime is pursuing. In mid-2007, the number of political prisoners stood at 1,200; now it has nearly doubled to over 2,100.

The military regime "will stop at nothing to prevent people from joining demonstrations or be influenced by the voices of the democracy activists," says Bo Kyi, a former political prisoner who heads the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Burma, a human rights group based on the Thai-Burma border. "They want to create a greater climate of fear among the general public."

It is all part of the junta’s plan to be certain of victory at the 2010 polls "even before the elections," Bo Kyi explained in an interview. "They want to avoid a repeat of the 1990 elections."

At that poll, held after the regime brutally crushed a pro-democracy uprising in 1988, where close to 3,000 activists were shot to death, the NLD trounced the junta-backed National Unity Party with a thumping majority. But the regime refused to recognize the results and began targeting the elected parliamentarians.

Burmese political activists like Bo Kyi believe that only the international community in 2009 can stall the junta’s plans to hijack the 2010 polls. "The international community needs to exert real pressure that they will not accept the results of the 2010 elections without the release of all political prisoners and a free environment for the polls."
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy. org
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Bush to Discuss Burma with Ban at White House
By LALIT K JHA Monday, January 5, 2009

WASHINGTON — US President George W Bush will discuss the current situation in Burma along with other issues when he meets with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday in the White House.

It will probably be Bush's last meeting with Ban as the US President, the White House said.

Before handing over the presidency to Barack Obama on January 20, Bush has invited Ban and his wife, Ban Soon-taek, to the White House for lunch.

"This meeting will be an opportunity for the President to thank Secretary-General Ban for his leadership of the United Nations and his cooperation on key issues over the past two years," said White House spokesperson Gordon Johndroe.

"They will discuss the future of the United Nations and the challenges that remain, such as UN reform, the Middle East, Burma, Somalia and peacekeeping in Darfur," Johndroe said.

However, the meeting is unlikely to yield any result for the people of Burma, given that Bush is leaving office and Ban has been unable to make any headway towards restoration of democracy in Burma.

Ban was scheduled to visit Burma in December, but he has postponed his trip until a time when it would yield tangible results.

Johndroe said during the meeting the US President will stress the need for a United Nations that can act effectively to promote freedom, democratic governance, human rights and a world free from terror.

Meanwhile, in a statement issued Friday, one day before the 61st anniversary of Burma's Independence Day, the State Department wished the people of Burma well on the occasion of the 61st anniversary of its independence from the British rule.

"We wish to express our warmest wishes to the people of Burma on this occasion. As we reflect on Burma's independence struggle, led by Gen Aung San, we are reminded of our own history," said the brief statement.

The State Department said the US stands with the Burmese people on in honoring Aung San's vision for an independent, peaceful, and democratic Burma.

The US also looks forward to the day when Burma's citizens will be able to enjoy the fruits of freedom and democracy. "We earnestly hope that day will come soon," the statement said.
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Myanmar grants free rice export from Yangon region
www.chinaview. cn 2009-01-05 14:52:47

YANGON, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar has granted free export of rice from rice-producing Yangon region over six months after storm, the local Weekly Eleven journal reported Monday, quoting the Ministry of Commerce.

Export of surplus rice from other regions through border trade is also allowed; other local report also quoted the ministry as saying.

The country's rice export is mainly done through normal trade only but it will also be permitted to do so through border trade if there is surplus rice produced regionally, the sources said, adding that the grant covers surplus rice produced from Sagaing, Bago and Ayeyawaddy divisions.

So far, a total of 35,755 tons have been shipped by 19 companies, of which 3,055 tons were exported by 9 companies through border points since the near-end of last year.

According to the figures of the Central Statistical Organization, in 2007-08, Myanmar exported 358,500 tons of rice, gaining 100 million U.S. dollars. The export tonnage in the first three quarters of 2008-09 went to 150,000 tons amid storm.

Of the rice export, 101,235 tons were shipped to South Africa, 11,908 tons to Singapore, 8,007.85 tons to Sri Lanka, 2,499.7 tons to the United Arab Emirate, 1,500 tons to South Korea and 1,197.7 tons to Egypt, said the Myanmar Agricultural Produces Trading.

Myanmar government has urged agricultural entrepreneurs to make greater efforts for exporting more rice, saying that the country has enough cultivable land to boost paddy production.
Editor: Xiong
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Going metric would be nice global gesture
By Steve Elliott-Gower
For the Journal-Constitutio n
Monday, January 05, 2009

There are only three nations in the world that have not officially adopted the International System of Units (the metric system) as their primary measurement system: Liberia, Myanmar and the United States.

Now one can understand why America has declined to support the Kyoto Protocol, the Landmine Ban Treaty, the Arms Trade Treaty, the Cluster Bomb Treaty, the declaration to decriminalize homosexuality, and the International Criminal Court, but the innocuous metric system? How can this be?

Could it be that the idea was originally French? It was, after all, Louis XVI who first convened a group of scientists, led by Antoine Lavoisier, to develop a universal measurement system to replace the old French system of quirky lieues, lignes and vergees, which might mean one thing in Beauce and another in Provence. Despite the fact that both Louis and Lavoisier lost a few lignes at the guillotine, the metric system was adopted by the revolutionary government of France and today is officially recognized worldwide as the Systeme International d’Unites —- hence its abbreviation “SI.”

The opportunity to go metric was certainly there for America in the early 1800s. President Thomas Jefferson, an amateur scientist and mathematician, recognized the merits of metric, and there was a lot of pro-French, anti-British sentiment in the country. (Noah Webster, by the way, was busy changing the traditional British spellings of words such as labour, colour and velour.) But it didn’t happen. Although the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey used meter and kilogram standards, the rest of America stuck with its pecks, rods, gills, furlongs, hogsheads and Winchester bushels.

An opportunity was missed, but the idea of a metric America has never quite died.

The U.S. government authorized the official use of metric measures, alongside British measures, in 1866; signed the Treaty of the Meter in 1875; authorized a three-year study on the feasibility of adopting the metric system in 1968, resulting in the 1971 blockbuster “A Metric America: A Decision Whose Time Has Come”; passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975, which established the U.S. Metric Board (disestablished in 1982) and asked the private sector to make progress toward the metric system (amended in 1988 when the private sector said no thanks); and in 1991 required all government agencies to file an annual report on their efforts to go metric. There hasn’t been much activity since then.

Of course there has been some slow progress toward metrification. Our cars have KPH as well as MPH on the speedometers (although speed limits are posted almost exclusively in MPH), most packaged goods are labeled with traditional and metric measures, and we now have 2-liter bottles of soft drinks to sate our thirst. Yet we’re still a long way from joining the rest of the world in the metric system.

There just hasn’t been the political will to embrace metrification. It’s not the sort of thing that inspires Homeric rhetoric. Moreover, like raising taxes, it may just seem un-American and, well, too dang foreign.

Ultimately, America’s coolness toward the metric system may represent an example, albeit a minor example, of American Exceptionalism —- the idea that America is qualitatively different from other nations as a result of its unique history, institutions, ideals and destiny; a go-it-alone destiny measured in dollars and democracies, not millis and micros.

Which brings us to the present, the future and the point.

America can survive and even prosper without the metric system, but not without the rest of the world.

America can also play an enormously constructive leadership role in tomorrow’s interdependent world, but it will mean eschewing exceptionalism; it will mean joining the community of nations to recognize broader global interests. Joining the International System of Units would be a small gesture in that direction; more significant, of course, would be joining the Kyoto Protocol, the Landmine Ban Treaty, the Arms Trade Treaty, the Cluster Bomb Treaty, the declaration to decriminalize homosexuality, the International Criminal Court, and other widely supported international agreements.

> Steve Elliott-Gower is director of the honors program and associate professor of political science at Georgia College & State University.
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Jan 5, 4:10 AM EST
Foreign investment in Myanmar soars

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Foreign investment in Myanmar - much of it from China - nearly doubled in the first nine months of 2008 compared to the same period last year, according to government statistics seen Monday.

Mining accounted for more than 88 percent of the total foreign investment - a record for that sector.

Investment from January to September last year jumped to $974.9 million dollars from $502.5 million in the same period the previous year, said the Ministry of National Planning and Development in its latest statistical survey.

That was the second-highest amount for this nine-month span after 2006, when Thailand built a hydroelectric plant.

China accounted for $855 million of the $860.9 million invested in mining while Russia and Vietnam added $114 million in the oil and gas sector. China has signed a number of agreements with the resource-rich country to mine gems, gold and nickel.

The U.S. and European Union have imposed economic sanctions on Myanmar to pressure the military government to improve human rights and release detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Since Myanmar liberalized its investment code in late 1988, it has attracted large investments in the hydro-electric power and oil and gas sectors.

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Opposition: No hope for future of Myanmar
January 4, 2009 2:27 AM

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Myanmar's pro-democracy party marked the 61st anniversary of the country's independence from Great Britain on Sunday, saying it foresaw no hope for the military-ruled country.

At a ceremony inside the dilapidated headquarters of the opposition National League for Democracy, its chairman Aung Shwe also called for the release of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi and other party leaders.

Suu Kyi - who has been under house arrest for more than 13 of the past 19 years - put up a banner at the gate of her home quoting a speech her father, independence hero Gen. Aung San, had once given: ''Act decisively in the interest of the nation and the people.''

In a speech to about 250 party members and diplomats, Aung Shwe said that national unity is in disarray and that there is ''no harmony between the government and the governed.''

''Hope for the present and future of the country is totally lacking,'' Aung Shwe said.

Myanmar gained independence from Britain on Jan. 4, 1948, after more than 120 years of colonial rule. It has been under harsh military rule since 1962.

Meanwhile, the leader of the military junta Senior Gen. Than Shwe warned that ''neocolonialists' ' were interfering in domestic affairs and inciting riots to undermine unity and stability.
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Defiant Burma junta marks independence day
RANGOON, BURMA Jan 04 2009 09:04

Burma marked the 61st anniversary of its independence on Sunday with pomp and defiance, as the military junta called on citizens to support 2010 elections derided as a sham by democracy campaigners.

Soldiers raised the national flag at 4.28am (9.48pm GMT) -- the exact time of the country's freedom from Britain -- at a city hall in the remote capital of Naypyidaw, 400km north of Rangoon.

In comments read out by a subordinate in the bunker-like capital, Senior General Than Shwe trumpeted his seven-step "Road Map" to democracy, which the junta says will lead to multi-party elections next year.

He urged people to "cooperate in realising the state's seven-step Road Map with union spirit and patriotic spirit with the firm resolution to build up a peaceful, modern and developed democratic nation with flourishing discipline".

Than Shwe accused "neo-colonialists" -- usually a reference to the United States -- of interfering in Burma's affairs.

"The entire people are duty-bound to safeguard the motherland.. . while keeping a watchful eye on attempts of neo-colonialists to harm the sovereignty of the country," Than Shwe said.

About 3 000 ministers, government employees and senior officials attended the ceremony and the formal military parade, although the ageing Than Shwe was not present.

The US, European Union and United Nations have dismissed the lengthy "Road Map" as a sham due to the absence of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

Burma pro-democracy activists say the polls are aimed at cementing the military's grip on the nation, with Aung San Suu Kyi banned from running and 25% of Parliament seats reserved for members of the armed forces.
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Burma Blacklists U.S. Artist
2009-01-04

An American academic couple abandons a visit to Burma because one of them is blacklisted.

BANGKOK—A prominent American professor and human rights advocate has scrapped a visit to Burma after authorities turned away his wife at the airport, saying she had been blacklisted.

Eric Stover, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley , arrived at Mingalardon airport aboard Thai Airways in the former Burmese capital, Rangoon, on Jan. 1, with his wife, Pamela Blotner, according to sources who asked not to be named.

Stover, director of the human rights center at Berkeley’s Institute of International Studies, went to Burma to conduct a workshop on medical ethics from Jan. 9-11, the sources said. Blotner is a visual artist and academic in California.

A Thai Airways official and Burmese immigration official informed the couple that Blotner’s name was on a government blacklist, and the couple returned to Bangkok, the sources said. A third official photographed them.

Stover is a former director of the nonprofit Physicians for Human Rights. Blotner, an artist, created the Burmese American Art Exchange, which exhibited the work of 12 American and 24 Burmese artists at the U.S. Embassy in Rangoon in late 2007.

Blotner has paid several visits to Burma. Burmese artists, she was quoted as saying in a U.S. newspaper earlier this year, “bring the same wonder into making art that a child does but with an adult’s intelligence and sensibility.”

“On some levels, the [Burmese government] censorship is ...horrific but it’s also galvanizing. It’s something to fight against. These are the things that draw artists together.”

Reported and translated by Ko Ko Aung for RFA’s Burmese service. Service director: Nancy Shwe. Executive producer: Susan Lavery. Written and produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.
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01-04-2009 15:03
Human Rights Abuse in Myanmar?

By David Watermeyer

It is tragic, yet sadly unsurprising, that the Korean government has rejected a serious complaint filed against Daewoo International and Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS) by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) regarding their ``complicity in human rights abuses" in Myanmar (Burma) in the course of building a pipeline through the country.

``Burma'' is used here to show solidarity with those who denounce as nothing less than evil the actions of military junta who were responsible for naming the county Myanmar.

According to a news release put out by the Shwe Gas Movement (SGM), SGM global coordinator Wong Aung, a member of the Arakan ethnic group, through whose community the proposed pipeline will traverse, strongly criticized the Korean government's decision on Tuesday.

An extraction from the report says, ``The Korean government has decided to ignore the reality of major resource extraction projects in Myanmar and the specific devastating effects of the Shwe project on the people in the pipeline regions.

The Korean government has a responsibility under OECD guidelines. In rejecting the complaint they are abdicating their responsibility to investigate violations and mediate disputes in line with the guidelines; guidelines to which the have agreed to be obligated.''

All over the world people have watched in horror as atrocity after atrocity is committed by the military junta in that country, where unarmed Buddhist monks were gunned down like flies and rations from foreign countries after Cyclone Nargis devastated the country on May 3 meant for the starving millions by were blocked from delivery by this same military junta in an unspeakable act of callousness.

What is less known is how the junta continues to empower itself to rule over its people through dealings with various other countries and companies.

If these entities would not support the military junta but rather join the rest of the world in condemning and boycotting it, the tyrannical regime would not be able to continue.

The news release said, ``Daewoo International and the KOGAS have breached and will continue to breach a number of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises related to their activities in Burma (Myanmar)."

``These breaches are related to the companies' exploration, development, and operation of the natural gas project in Burma known as the Shwe Gas Project, meaning ``gold" in Burmese."

Few are unaffected by the trying economic times we are living in and that may play a part in why KOSGAS and Daewoo International, despite being told clearly at the highest level what is going on, appear to be paying no heed to the cries of the Myanmarese population.

But surely there are other options to explore than being complicit in evil.

David Watermeyer is a freelance writer residing in Seoul. He can be reached at davidnwatermeyer@ yahoo.co. uk. The views expressed in the above article is those of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of The Korea Times.