News & Articles on Burma-Sunday, 12 December, 2010

News & Articles on Burma
Sunday, 12 December, 2010
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Suu Kyi patiently seeks dialogue with junta'
Suu Kyi to 'persevere' for dialogue with junta
Burma not nuclear, says Abhisit
Myanmar top leader calls on Armed Forces to support new gov't
China loans Burma 2.4 billion dollars for gas pipeline project
Orders for Myanmar garments up
Ethnic Rebels Resist Junta’s March Toward Final Frontier
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'Suu Kyi patiently seeks dialogue with junta'
Agence France-Presse
Tokyo, December 12, 2010
First Published: 18:27 IST(12/12/2010)
Last Updated: 18:30 IST(12/12/2010)

Myanmar's newly-released democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has vowed to remain patient in seeking dialogue with military rulers following last month's controversial poll, which has kept them in power. "I think the credibility of the government does not depend on statistics. It depends on the will
of the people. It depends on the genuine support of the people," she said in a recent interview with Japan's public network NHK broadcast on Sunday.

"And we have to wait to find out how genuine that is."

The democracy icon has spent most of the past 20 years locked up but was freed from her latest seven-year stretch of confinement on November 13.

She was under house arrest during the November 7 election, Myanmar's first in two decades, that was widely criticised by democracy activists and Western governments as anything but free and fair.

The junta's political proxy has claimed an overwhelming victory in the poll.

"I would like to say whatever influence I have, if I have influence over the people, I would use it to bring about national reconciliation," said the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

"The junta has never been very keen on dialogue but we have to persevere," she said, adding that one month after her release is "not a long time".

"And we are capable of that much perseverance."

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party was disbanded for boycotting the election in response to rules that seemed designed to bar her from taking part.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/restofasia/Suu-Kyi-patiently-seeks-dialogue-with-junta/Article1-637568.aspx
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Suu Kyi to 'persevere' for dialogue with junta
Published on 12 December 2010 - 12:50pm

Myanmar's newly-released democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has vowed to remain patient in seeking dialogue with military rulers following last month's controversial poll which has kept them in power.

"I think the credibility of the government does not depend on statistics. It depends on the will of the people. It depends on the genuine support of the people," she said in a recent interview with Japan's public network NHK broadcast on Sunday.

"And we have to wait to find out how genuine that is."

The democracy icon has spent most of the past 20 years locked up but was freed from her latest seven-year stretch of confinement on November 13.

She was under house arrest during the November 7 election, Myanmar's first in two decades, that was widely criticised by democracy activists and Western governments as anything but free and fair.

The junta's political proxy has claimed an overwhelming victory in the poll.

"I would like to say whatever influence I have, if I have influence over the people, I would use it to bring about national reconciliation," said the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

"The junta has never been very keen on dialogue but we have to persevere," she said, adding that one month after her release is "not a long time".

"And we are capable of that much perseverance."

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party was disbanded for boycotting the election in response to rules that seemed designed to bar her from taking part.
© ANP/AFP http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/suu-kyi-persevere-dialogue-junta
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Burma not nuclear, says Abhisit

* Published: 12/12/2010 at 12:00 AM
* Newspaper section: News

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has dismissed claims in a leaked US cable that Burma is building a nuclear programme with help from North Korea.

Mr Abhisit said yesterday there was no evidence to support the accusation that Burma possesses or is producing a nuclear weapon.

He said none of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations members has any intention to possess nuclear weapons.

"I can remember that Burma confirmed in an Asean-US summit that it wanted to see Asean as a nuclear-free region," Mr Abhisit said.

Still, he said Thailand had been monitoring movements in neighbouring countries for the sake of national security.

A cable from the US embassy in Rangoon, released on Thursday by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, quoted a Burmese officer as saying he had witnessed North Korean technicians helping build a nuclear facility.

One foreign businessman told the embassy he had seen reinforced steel bars, larger than for a factory project, being shipped on a barge.

Dockworkers also told of seeing suspicious cargo. A cable dating from August 2004 revealed information from a Burmese officer in an engineering unit who said surface-to-air missiles were being built at a site in Minbu town in west-central Burma.

He said about 300 North Koreans were working at the site, although the US cable noted this was improbably high, The Guardian newspaper in Britain reported.

Burma has dismissed reports of its nuclear intentions and brushed aside Western concerns about its possible cooperation with North Korea. http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/210882/burma-not-nuclear-says-abhisit
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Myanmar top leader calls on Armed Forces to support new gov't
16:03, December 11, 2010

Myanmar top leader Senior-General Than Shwe has called on the Armed Forces to provide assistance and support to the incoming new government to achieve national development, according to the official daily New Light of Myanmar Saturday.

Than Shwe, Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council and Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services, made the remarks in his address delivered at the Graduation Ceremony of Defence Services Academy which was held on Friday in Pyin Oo Lwin.

In his address, Than Shwe also stressed that the army should serve their principal duty, strengthen the national defence and continue standing as the patriotic armed forces.

He underlined that the ceaseless efforts have been made by the army to put in place good foundations for national development with the goodwill so that the new government elected by the people can build a new, modern and developed nation.

He cited achievements in all sectors for all-round development of the country.

Meanwhile, a multi-party general election was held on Nov.7 this year.

According to the figures published by Union Election Commission (UEC),a total of 1,148 candidates representing political parties and 6 independent candidates were elected as parliamentary representatives at three levels.

The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), led by Prime Minister U Thein Sein, won the majority of 882 parliamentary seats or 76.43 percent out of the final total of 1,154 at three levels.

The USDP is followed by the National Unity Party (NUP) with 64 seats, Shan Nationalities Democratic Party (SNDP) with 57 seats, Rakhine Nationalities Development Party with 35 seats, National Democratic Force (NDF) and the All Mon Region Democracy Party ( AMRDP) each with 16 at three levels of parliament.

According to Myanmar's new state constitution, the elected parliament will call its first session 90 days after the election to elect president and vice presidents and to form a new government.

Source:Xinhua http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/7228163.html
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China loans Burma 2.4 billion dollars for gas pipeline project

Rangoon - China has signed a 2.4-billion-dollar loan agreemen twith Burma to finance the construction of a natural gas pipeline between the countries, media reports said Sunday.

The loan was inked between the China Develoment Bank Cooperation and Burma Foreign Investment Bank on November 30 in Napyitaw, the new capital, the Myanmar Times reported.

The pipeline is to run from Rakhine State on the Burmese coast, site of the Kyauk Phyu national gas project, to Yunnan province in southern China.

"The loan will be mainly for the natural gas project in Kyauk Phyu, which involves Myanmar, China, Korea and India, where Burma has 7.3 per cent of the shares," said Jin Honggen, economic and commercial counselor of the Chinese embassy in Rangoon.

He said the loan would help bring speed up construction of the project. Under the Burmar-China gas scheme, India is to help build a new port in Sithwe, Rakhine, to handle gas from offshore reserves and China will construct a 1,000-kilometre pipeline to deliver the gas overland to Yunnan.

"The natural gas from Burma will be used for Yunnan province's industrial requirements and for residential use," Jin told the MyanmarTimes.
Military-run Burma currently exports more than 1 billion cubic feet of gas (28 million cubic metres) a day of natural gas from its two offshore projects in the Gulf of Marthaban to neighbouring Thailand via an underwater and overland pipeline network.

Thailand pays a estimated 2 billion dollars a year for the gas imports.//DPA http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/China-loans-Burma-2-4-billion-dollars-for-gas-pipe-30144255.html
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Orders for Myanmar garments up

Dec 12, 2010, 5:39 GMT

Yangon - Orders for Myanmar-made garments from Germany, Japan and South Korea have surged this year due to the country's low labour costs, media reports said Sunday.

Competing demand for Myanmar-made garments this year has prompted German buyers to increase their paying price, Latwar Company managing director Khin Maung Aye told the Myanmar Times.

'Germany is increasing payment for its order, otherwise all the factories will switch over to South Korean orders only,' he said. 'Half my factory's orders come from South Korea, and half from Germany,' Khin Maung Aye told the English-language weekly.

Germany has been a leading importer of Myanmar-made clothes for years.

'South Korea used to order garments from North Korea, but the tension between the two countries has created a big opportunity for Myanmar,' Khin Maung Aye said.

Ba Myaing, another factory owner, said his business had gone up by 70 per cent this year thanks to increased orders from South Korea.

One of Myanmar's advantages over its neighbours is the abundant availability of cheap labour. Minimum wage in Yangon garment factories is less than 100 dollars a month, one of the lowest in the region.

But a major challenge to industry is the country's poor and erratic electricity supply, sources said.
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1605063.php/Orders-for-Myanmar-garments-up
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BURMA
Ethnic Rebels Resist Junta’s March Toward Final Frontier
By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Dec 10, 2010 (IPS) - An ongoing clash along the Thai-Burma border, pitting Burmese troops against ethnic insurgents, is raising the spectre of more violence in areas that the Burmese military sees as the final frontier to putting the country under the grip of one army for the first time in over six decades.

The fighting that erupted in early November, when a brigade from the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) attacked and occupied the Burmese border town of Myawaddy, has already seen some 35,000 civilians from the Karen minority flee across the Thai border for safety.

Reports of the death toll remain unclear in the wake of the Burmese troops retaliating and taking back areas from the DKBA. Some Burmese activists monitoring the fighting from the Thai border town of Mae Sot say as many as four people have been killed in the intensive fighting.

"The situation is serious and the (Burmese) regime seems to be very angry," says Win Min, a Burmese national security expert currently living in exile. "It is a show of force that they can fight all (ethnic insurgent) groups at the same time and pressure other armed groups not to make coordinated attacks against the regime."

This latest trigger to simmering tensions in an area where a civil war has raged for decades is a plan Burma’s military regime unveiled in April 2009 to bring the patchwork of ethnic insurgent troops along its borders under the command of the ‘Tatmadaw’, as the Burmese military is called.

But not all the armed ethnic groups have agreed to join the ranks of the planned Border Guard Force (BGF), which will come under Tatmadaw’s direct command. Among those resisting the Burmese monopoly of military power is the DKBA.

"The regime is going to fight smaller or weaker groups that have resisted the border guard transformation, and the DKBA fits the regime’s target," Win Min explained during an IPS interview. "The regime has tried to control all of Burma by occupying the ethnic areas bit by bit every year."

Signs of possible clashes in areas that are home to the Kachin and Shan ethnic communities are being reported in the Burmese exile media. The rebel groups from these minorities were among the 17 ethnic armed groups that signed ceasefire agreements between 1989 and 1995 with the junta in Burma, or Myanmar as it is also called.

An area near Chinese border is currently in the grip of an uneasy peace, states Human Rights Watch (HRW), the New York-based global rights lobby. "The tension with the ceasefire groups is set to continue in 2011, as fighting has also flared in parts of Shan State … (due) to the BGF scheme."

The military, which has held political power since a 1962 coup, is dominated by the South-east Asian nation’s Burman majority. Arrayed against them are 135 registered ethnic groups, which account for nearly 40 percent of the country’s 56 million population.

Yet ever since Burma got independence from the British colonialists in 1948, it has been divided along ethnic fault lines that have prevented Burman domination over the entire country. In the early years of post-independence, over half the country was beyond the reach of the central government in Rangoon.

The balance has shifted dramatically since then, with the Tatmadaw now 400,000-strong and controlling substantial parts of the country, and some 45,000 ethnic rebel troops standing in the way of the Burman army’s total domination.

Such a feat over past two decades has left the Burmese military with the thinking that soldiers are the only force to unify the country. "When the men in uniform looked to the past, they saw a country that tended to fall apart into little pieces and that had always needed to be melded together by force," writes Thant Myint-U, a respected Burmese historian, in ‘The River of Lost Footsteps’.

"They saw themselves in a long line of national unifiers and saw their task as unfinished," added Thant in his book, which charts the story of the country during and after British colonisation. "In their imagination, there remained the challenge of nation building, of creating and promoting a new Myanmar identity."

Burma’s 2008 constitution, which was approved in a referendum plagued with irregularities, personifies this military vision for the country more than the two previous charters, 1947 and 1974.

Following the general election on Nov. 7, the country’s first poll in 20 years won by a pro-junta party under questionable circumstances, the military regime is marching to reach new heights through the enforcement of the 2008 charter in early 2011.

This constitution is unequivocal about the military’s place in power, stating that the country can have only one army – the Tatmadaw.

"The Burmese junta has already given an ultimatum to the ethnic rebel groups to join the BGF under the command of the Burmese army, otherwise these groups will be declared illegal," says Kheunsai Jaiyen, editor of the Shan Herald Agency for News, a media outlet covering Burma from northern Thailand.

The military regime will use its twin weapons – a parliamentary majority and the constitution – to place the issue of the BGF on the agenda of the new government, he told IPS. "They will submit a motion to make all groups come under the Tatmadaw." (END) http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1132922279