News & Articles on Burma-Wednesday, 15 December, 2010

News & Articles on Burma
Wednesday, 15 December, 2010
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Myanmar: Renewed clashes between junta troops, DKBA faction kill nine
Myanmar: Renewed clashes between junta troops, DKBA faction kill nine
Indonesia backs Aung San Suu Kyi role in Myanmar political solution
WikiLeaks on Junta Leaders: 'Like Talking to Dead People'
Former US Diplomats Seek Use of 'Smart Power' in Burma
WikiLeaks: Singapore's Lee calls Myanmar leaders 'stupid'
US double talk on Myanmar nukes
Norway ‘funding abuse’ in Burma
Banana trucks from China resume operations in Burma
US Suggests 'Security Guarantees' For Burma's Dictators
Vietnam-Burma trade forecast to rise 60pc
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Myanmar: Renewed clashes between junta troops, DKBA faction kill nine
Source: Mizzima News
Date: 15 Dec 2010

Kyaw KhaChiang Mai (Mizzima) – Renewed clashes involving grenade and rocket attacks broke out between the Burmese Army and a unit of a breakaway Democratic Karen Buddhist Army brigade in Burma's eastern Karen State on Monday. At least nine junta soldiers were killed and four wounded, DKBA sources said.

About sixty troops from Kalohtoobaw strategic command under Colonel Saw Lah Pwe ambushed about 100 junta troops from Burmese Army Infantry Battalion (IB) 299 as they were being sent to reinforce the Burmese Army's Wawlay outpost in Kawkareik Township, about 20 miles (32 kilometres) west of the Thai-Burmese border town on Myawaddy, a command spokesman said yesterday.

The junta troops and the DKBA group fired rockets and lobbed grenades for more than an hour at each other near Chukalee, Kweethao and Tanawhta villages, more than 30 miles from Myawaddy, the spokesman said.

Although the Karen National Union (KNU) did not join the DKBA faction in the fighting, its troops guarded their flank, KNU Battalion 201 commander Major Kyi Aung said.

More than 200 refugees fled the fresh battles, escaping to Mae Sot on the Thai side of the Moei River opposite Myawaddy, where Mae Tao Clinic social workers gave them food, water and medicines.

"The refugees don't want to take refuge in the authorities' temporary camps as they are afraid of being sent back to Burma by Thai authorities when the fighting stops momentarily. They don't want to repeat the cycle of going back to Burma and fleeing again to Thailand. So they're taking refuge in their own temporary shelters near farms and beside brooks. Some refugees are taking refuge in relatives' homes," Mae Tao Clinic officer Tha Win told Mizzima.

A total 3,555 Burmese have taken refuge in Mae Sot, 758 of whom since November 8 when fighting started between units of the breakaway faction of the DKBA in Myawaddy, Kawkareik and further south along the border at Three Pagodas Pass, Tha Win said.

Mizzima reported last Friday that Thai authorities near Mae Sot on Tuesday and Wednesday last week had strongly encouraged and in some cases forced hundreds of refugees back into Burma. The practice came despite calls from rights groups that those displaced by the continuing clashes be allowed to stay until the fighting ends, aid workers and researchers working along the Thai-Burmese border said.

Burma's ruling military junta had sent for reinforcements in Wawlay, near with the area controlled by KNU Brigade 6, according to KNU's Major Kyi Aung.

The junta has been silent on the fresh fighting.

Karen military officers said that there were casualties on both sides during the armed conflicts between the junta troops and the DKBA fraction in Myawaddy and Kawkareik Townships over the past two weeks, but were unable to provide details.

Fighting broke out in a few locations within Dooplaya District, Burma on November 8, a day after Burma's first national elections in 20 years, as DKBA splinter battalions seized parts of Myawaddy, across the Moei River from Mae Sot. At least 20,000 villagers crossed into Mae Sot and five Thais were wounded when rocket-propelled grenades landed on the Thai side. At the same time, other breakaway DKBA units took over Payathonsu, a town about 333 miles (535 kilometres) south of Myawaddy near Three Pagodas Pass, sending at least 2,500 refugees into Sangkhlaburi, Thailand.

DKBA Brigade 5 under Saw Lah Pwe, aka Bo Moustache, has refused junta orders to bring his troops into the government's Border Guard Force (BGF) under Burmese Army command. In the middle of last month, 38 of the splinter group's members rejoined the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the KNU, long-time foes of the DKBA, which broke from the KNU and signed a ceasefire deal with the junta in 1994. The KNU refused to sign.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/MUMA-8C63PT?OpenDocument
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Indonesia backs Aung San Suu Kyi role in Myanmar political solution
Dec 15, 2010, 10:40 GMT


Bangkok - Indonesia said Wednesday that recently freed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi needs to play a part in the solution of Myanmar's ongoing political problems.

Suu Kyi was released from seven years of house detention on November 13, a week after military-ruled Myanmar staged its first general election in two decades.

Observers slammed the election as a sham designed to cement the army's rule over the country, which has been under military dictatorships since 1962.

The polls, held on November 7, seemed timed to exclude Suu Kyi from the process and undermine her potential role in the post-election period.

But Indonesia, which will assume the chairmanship of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) next year, made it clear that it still sees Suu Kyi as playing a pivotal part.

'Our vision from the start was that it would take the election and national dialogue, inclusive of Aung San Suu Kyi, for further development in Myanmar post-election,' said Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa.

'In short, what we are going to suggest in the most constructive way, is that we need to see Daw (Madam) Aung San Suu Kyi and the authorities in Myanmar as being part of the solution to the situation in Myanmar,' Marty told a seminar on ASEAN policy at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.

Indonesia will chair two ASEAN summits and the East Asia Summit, which includes ASEAN, Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Russia and the US.

Myanmar's political problems promise to be a major subject of debate at these forums, as they have been for the past two decades.

Western democracies slapped economic sanctions on Myanmar, in 1988 when the army cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrators, leaving an estimated 3,000 people dead.

ASEAN has traditionally followed a policy of 'constructive engagement' with the pariah state, even allowing it to enter its fold in 1997 despite objections from the region's main allies - the US and European Union.

Indonesia, in its coming role as ASEAN chair, is advocating greater cooperation between the two camps in pressuring Myanmar to become more democratic, with the West easing some sanctions when appropriate and the East being more critical of the military's lack of progress.

'We hope that in 2011 many of the external sides of the Myanmar issue will find some closure,' Marty said.

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1605838.php/Indonesia-backs-Aung-San-Suu-Kyi-role-in-Myanmar-political-solution
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WikiLeaks on Junta Leaders: 'Like Talking to Dead People'
By SIMON ROUGHNEEN Wednesday, December 15, 2010

BANGKOK — Former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew told US officials that the Burmese military rulers are “dense” and “stupid,” saying that talking to the regime was akin to “talking to dead people,” according to documents released by WikiLeaks this week.

Ridiculing the junta generals' mismanagement of what he termed Burma's resource-laden economy, Lee said that the US should approach Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to act as an interlocutor with the Burmese junta, or failing that, sound out Vietnam as a possible mediator. Dismissing his own suitability for the job, Lee said that he was perceived as too close to the US for the junta's liking.

In this November 13, 2009 file photo, Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew speaks at the APEC CEO Summit in Singapore. (Photo: Reuters)
Lee's comments were made to then US Ambassador to Singapore Patricia Herbold in Oct. 2007 as the Burmese dictatorship crushed the monk-led “Saffron Revolution” protests taking place in cities across the country. A confidential briefing on a 2007 conversation between Lee and US officials was released by WikiLeaks this week.

Earlier in 2007, China facilitated talks between the US and the Burmese government, with Beijing's diplomats suggesting that the US deal directly with junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe, according to the documents released by WikiLeaks.

In a March 2007 meeting between Assistant Foreign Minister Cui Tankai and recently-departed US Ambassador to Thailand Eric John—who was then Deputy Assistant Secretary for Southeast Asian Affairs in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs—the Chinese representative said that if the US wanted to make a difference in Burma, it should engage directly with Burma's apex senior-general. According to the March 2007 meeting transcript, China had repeatedly urged the Burmese junta to release political prisoners and to engage with the ethnic minority groups to promote national reconciliation.

While Lee appeared to find the Burmese rulers difficult to deal with, Chinese diplomats had a more benign view. In a meeting held in Beijing on October 14, 2009, the Director-General of Asian Affairs Department at China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Yanyi Yang told US envoy Kurt Campbell that Than Shwe is “easy-going” and not difficult to engage in conversation, according to words attributed to her by an American diplomat who attended the meeting. Than Shwe holds the US in high regard, said Yang, who believed that the junta was “not seeking enemies.”

More than year ahead of the Nov. 7, 2010 election, which the Burmese junta front party known as the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) is alleged to have rigged in its favor, Yang told Campbell that Burma “had expressed its commitment multiple times to free and fair elections in 2010,” and “had taken positive steps in advancing the democratization process.”

Going further, Yang said that “the regime was emphasizing economic development and paying increased attention to the needs of the Burmese people, particularly in the wake of Cyclone Nargis,” according to the US Embassy notes. In contrast, speaking months before the May 2008 cyclone which killed over 140,000 Burmese, Singapore's Lee said that Burma's generals had mismanaged the country's natural resources, saying that China had “heavily penetrated” the Burmese economy.

According to the American account of her meeting with Campbell, Yang “asserted that the junta was committed to building a peaceful, modern, democratic Burma” and that the Burmese rulers “viewed positively the advice of the international community and recently had taken positive steps, including meetings by top Burmese officials with UN leadership and a meeting between Snr-GenThan Shwe and Senator Jim Webb.”

Webb traveled to Burma in August 2009, securing the release of American John Yettaw, whose unannounced visit to Aung San Suu Kyi's Rangoon home led to an 18 month extension to the opposition leader's house arrest. Suu Kyi was released on Nov. 13.

In March 2007, the Chinese diplomats told their US counterparts that the Burmese rulers were open to talking to Suu Kyi, suggesting that they had sought to instigate a dialogue with the National league for Democracy (NLD), Suu Kyi's now-defunct opposition party. However, Lee said that Burma's rulers would not talk to Suu Kyi, and that she would remain anathema even to any hypothetical younger, reform-oriented military rulers who might succeed the current clique around Than Shwe.

Counseling restraint to his American counterparts, Cui said that the “Burmese people are known for their patience, so we must take a long-term approach.” More than two years later, Yang said much the same, telling the US that “the regime could not be replaced, and long-term stability and development would take time.” She concluded that “the people of Burma could best determine the course of the country's internal affairs.”

However, Lee opined that China remains worried about any possible unrest in Burma, echoing previous remarks by Cui, who said that China is “very concerned about the potential for unrest or political change” in Burma and implied that Beijing prefers the status quo to any form of democratization.

Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=20323
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Former US Diplomats Seek Use of 'Smart Power' in Burma

By LALIT K JHA Wednesday, December 15, 2010

WASHINGTON — Observing that the policy of sanctions and open criticism has yielded nothing in the last two decades, two former US diplomats who served at its mission in Rangoon urged the Obama Administration on Wednesday to use “smart power” to bring change to Burma.

“Perhaps it is time now, as Burma transitions to at least the trappings of civilian rule, to seriously try a different approach where the United States attempts to further its goals in Burma through 'smart power',” said Franklin Huddle and Donald Jameson.

Huddle was US Chargé d'Affaires to Burma from 1990 to 1994, and Jameson was Acting Deputy Chief of Mission to Burma from 1990 to 1993. The two American diplomats expressed their views after US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Joe Yun visited Burma and had meetings with Aung San Suu Kyi and Burmese officials last week.

Huddle and Jameson said the use of “smart power” by the US would include engaging in an effort to open up the country to increased outside influence that may enable nascent civil society groups now germinating to take root with the assistance and example of Western governments and NGOs.

“One thing many closed-off regimes fear most is hordes of Western assistance providers and tourists bringing in new ideas and values. This approach has been taken in dealing with other authoritarian regimes such as China and might be equally effective in Burma. Unless a serious try is made we will never know,” they argued.

State Department spokesman P J Crowley recently said the United States is willing to lift sanctions against the military regime but the ball is in the court of the junta, which needs to create conducive conditions.

“We are prepared to have a different relationship with Burma, provided Burma takes significant steps forward. There are very clear requirements for Burma, and it’s not about the United States dictating to Burma. It’s about what is in Burma’s best interest,” Crowley told reporters on Friday.

“Obviously, we welcome the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, but that doesn’t solve the broader problem of the 2,000 political prisoners who still remain in custody in Burma. It doesn’t solve the challenge of the fact that the central government is still at war with many ethnic groups within its borders,” he said.

“It doesn’t solve the challenge of having a political system that allows broader participation so that you don’t have a faux election here that just, in essence, takes generals and makes them civilians and pretends that’s a different kind of government. It is the same kind of government,” Crowley said.

Huddle and Jameson said the US policy toward Burma over the past two decades can only be described as ineffective. “Whatever the steps toward liberalization taken by Burma's ruling generals in recent years—such as the recent elections and the release of Aung San Suu Kyi—these mincing steps have taken place on their own terms and at their own pace, not as a response to admonitions by the United States and other Western countries,” they wrote.

“Meanwhile, the Burmese people have been pawns in a political game that has little relevance to their everyday struggle for survival,” they said.

The former US diplomats said the American policy toward Burma has remained largely the same for 20 years, consisting basically of strongly worded demands that the junta make major moves toward democratization and respect for human rights, including the release of more than 2,000 political prisoners now languishing in prison under harsh conditions.

“Our vehicles for bringing the generals to heel have consisted mainly of public castigation and an increasingly tight array of economic sanctions designed to isolate the ruling military junta and force their compliance,” Huddle and Jameson said.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=20322
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WikiLeaks: Singapore's Lee calls Myanmar leaders 'stupid'
15 December 2010

Associated Press
SINGAPORE, 15 DEC: Singapore statesman Mr Lee Kuan Yew considered Myanmar's junta leaders “stupid” and “dense,” according to classified US documents released this week by WikiLeaks.

The Singapore leader said dealing with Myanmar's military regime was like “talking to dead people,” according to a confidential briefing on a 2007 conversation between Lee and US Ambassador Ms Patricia L Herbold and deputy assistant secretary of state Mr Thomas Christensen released by WikiLeaks.

The 87-year-old Mr Lee is known for his outspoken and blunt assessments of world affairs, but avoids publicly insulting the leadership of foreign countries. Mr Lee was Prime Minister from 1959 to 1990 and remains a senior adviser to his son, current Prime Minister Mr Lee Hsien Loong.

A cable released by Wikileaks a couple of weeks earlier quotes Mr Lee calling North Korea's leaders “psychopathic types with a 'flabby old chap' for a leader who prances around stadiums seeking adulation”. The reference to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is from a cable citing a May 2009 conversation between Mr Lee and US deputy secretary of state Mr James Steinberg.

Mr Lee has not commented on the releases, while Singapore's government has dismissed them as “gossip” and cautioned against taking them out of context.

In the most recently released cable, Mr Lee said China had the most influence over Myanmar's leadership of any foreign country and that Beijing was worried the country would “blow up” and thus threaten Chinese investments there.

“Lee expressed his scorn for the regime's leadership,” the leaked cable said. “He said he had given up on them a decade ago, called them 'dense' and 'stupid' and said they had 'mismanaged' the country's great natural resources.”

Mr Lee said India was engaging Myanmar's leadership in a bid to minimise China's influence, but that “India lacked China's finer grasp of how Burma worked,” according to the cable. Mr Lee said a group of less "obtuse" younger military officers could take control and share power with democracy activists, “although probably not with Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, who was anathema to the military”.

After more than seven years under house arrest, pro-democracy leader Ms Suu Kyi was released on 13 November, a week after Myanmar's first election in 20 years, which were won overwhelmingly by a pro-military party. Critics have slammed the polling as a sham aimed at cementing military rule.

Singapore has questioned the veracity of some documents purportedly leaked by Wikileaks and published by some Australian newspapers. The reports quote Singapore diplomats as making unflattering remarks about Malaysia, India, Japan and Thailand during meetings with US diplomats.

In a statement issued late Tuesday, Singapore's foreign ministry said “what Singapore officials were alleged by WikiLeaks to have said did not tally with our own records”. “One purported meeting (between Singapore and US diplomats) did not even take place,” it said.

Singapore foreign affairs minister Mr George Yeo told reporters earlier this week that, in any case, such cables were interpretations of conversations by US diplomats, and therefore shouldn't be “over-interpreted”. “These are in the nature of cocktail talk,” Mr Yeo said. “It's always out of context. It's gossip.”
http://www.thestatesman.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=352151&catid=37
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Asia Times: Dec 16, 2010
US double talk on Myanmar nukes
By Bertil Lintner

BANGKOK - Is Myanmar truly trying to acquire a nuclear weapons capability and produce ballistic missiles with North Korean assistance, as alleged in a controversial June documentary made by the Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and aired by al-Jazeera, or is it all poppycock, as claimed in a November 12 report by United States-based ProPublica, an award-winning US investigative journalism outfit?

The DVB report was based on testimonies from Myanmar army defectors who had been scrutinized by Robert Kelley, a highly regarded former US weapons scientist and former United Nations weapons inspector. ProPublica, on the other hand, quoted an anonymous senior "American official" as saying that the US Central Intelligence Agency had reviewed Kelley's report "line by line and had rejected its findings".

Classified cables recently released by WikiLeaks from the US Embassy in Yangon, however, reveal a wide discrepancy between what US officials have said in public and the concerns they raise internally about Myanmar's nuclear ambitions. Judging by these leaked documents, it appears that ProPublica has fallen victim to manipulations by US officials who want to hide the true extent of the intelligence that US agencies have collected in order to enhance the political agenda of those who favor engagement over further isolation of Myanmar's military regime.

The US currently imposes economic and financial sanctions against the rights-abusing regime. Long before the Barack Obama administration launched its new Myanmar policy and began sending emissaries to talk with the generals, other US officials had tested a similar conciliatory tack. By any measure, those diplomatic efforts completely failed. In February 1994, US congressman Bill Richardson, who later served as the US's ambassador to the United Nations, paid a highly publicized visit to the country.

Accompanied by a New York Times correspondent, he met with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi - then under house arrest - as well as then intelligence chief General Khin Nyunt. At the time, Richardson's visit was hailed in the press as a major "breakthrough" - although he himself was very cautious in his remarks. After a second visit to Myanmar in May 1995, Richardson stated at a press conference in Bangkok that his trip had been "unsuccessful, frustrating and disappointing".

Similarly, a string of UN special envoys have for over two decades attempted and failed to engage the generals towards political change and national reconciliation. Myanmar's partners in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have also long advocated a policy of "constructive engagement" with the military regime, though so far with few tangible results apart from increased trade and investment with the impoverished nation.
The WikiLeaks cables and other internal US documentation show that Washington is indeed concerned by reports of North Korea's shadowy involvement in Myanmar as well as the military regime's nuclear ambitions. Comparing the content of the recently leaked cables with what US officials and other sources apparently told ProPublica shows that expressing such concerns publicly would make it more difficult to entice Myanmar's ruling generals to give up their newly established, cozy relationship with North Korea's weapons-proliferating regime.

Myanmar's close relations with North Korea's main ally, China, is also a concern, according to US senator James Webb, a staunch advocate of the US's new and to date ineffectual engagement policy with Myanmar's military government. At a breakfast meeting with Washington defense reporters in October, Webb called on the Obama administration to be more active in Myanmar and engage the country's military junta to prevent China from making Myanmar a full-blown client state.

Downplaying perennial human-rights concerns and dismissing the well-documented reports of Myanmar's nuclear ambitions are part and parcel of this new policy departure. From the afore-mentioned breakfast meeting, Foreign Policy magazine reported on its web site on October 27 that Webb "criticized what he sees as a double standard in the administration's approach toward human rights - and pointed to Beijing". "When was the last time China had an election? How many political prisoners are there in China? Does anybody know? What's the consistency here?" Foreign Policy reported. Tellingly, the November 12 ProPublica report quoted Webb as saying that the DVB report on North Korea and Myanmar's nuclear ambitions "made such an [engagement] approach impossible".

Difficult truths
The US Embassy in Yangon stated in a report dated August 27, 2004 - which has recently been made public by WikiLeaks - that one of their sources had said that North Korean workers were assembling surface-to-air missiles at a "military site in Magway Division" where a "concrete-reinforced underground facility" was also being constructed. An unidentified expatriate businessman had told the US Embassy that "he had seen a large barge carrying reinforced steel bar of a diameter that suggested a project larger than a factory".

While stating that these reports could not be "definitive proof of sizable North Korean involvement with the Burmese [Myanmar] regime... many details provided by [a confidential source] match those provided by other, seemingly unrelated sources". According to those reports, the embassy stated in its report, Myanmar and North Korea "are up to something of a covert military or military-industrial nature".

The report added that, "exactly what, and on what scale, remains to be determined" and that the embassy would continue to "monitor these developments and report as warranted". Asia Times Online reported as early as July 2006 (see Myanmar and North Korea share a tunnel vision, July 19, '06) on North Korea's involvement in the construction of an extensive underground complex in and around Myanmar's new capital Naypyidaw.

In another internal US document made public by WikiLeaks, a local Myanmar businessman reportedly offered uranium to the US Embassy in Yangon. The offer was not linked to any North Korean activity, but nevertheless added to the mystery and speculation surrounding nuclear issues in Myanmar. The embassy reportedly bought it and wrote in its cable to Washington: "The individual provided a small bottle half-filled with metallic powder and a photocopied certificate of testing from a Chinese university dated 1992 as verification of the radioactive nature of the powder."

The unnamed businessman also said that "if the US was not interested in purchasing the uranium, he and his associates would try to sell it to other countries, beginning with Thailand". It was unclear where the alleged uranium came from, but Myanmar is known to have several deposits of the radioactive metal used in nuclear reactors and weapons. According to a Myanmar government web site, there are uranium ore deposits at five locations in the country, namely: Magway, Taungdwingyi (south of Bagan), Kyaukphygon and Paongpyin near the ruby mines at Mogok, Kyauksin, and near Myeik (or Mergui) in the country's southeast.

Perhaps even more revealingly, according to an August 2009 report from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the US Embassy in Berlin marked "confidential" (but not included in the documents released by WikiLeaks), ambassador Susan Burk, special representative of the US president for nuclear non-proliferation, discussed "concerns about Myanmar's nuclear intentions" in a meeting with German officials.

The DVB documentary mentioned the involvement of German companies in Myanmar's alleged weapons of mass destruction programs. But, in ProPublica's version of events, the only noteworthy event related to Germany was that "officials" had said "they were aware that Burma had bought the equipment shown in the [Myanmar army] defector's pictures [some of it was exported by German companies], but have concluded that it is not being used to launch an atomic weapons program."

Furthermore, a UN report released in November alleged North Korea is supplying banned nuclear and ballistic missile equipment to Myanmar, among other countries. "China had blocked publication of the report which has been ready for six months," the French news agency Agence France-Presse reported on November 13. According to the report, drafted by experts who answer to the UN Security Council's sanctions committee, North Korea is involved with "the surreptitious transfer of nuclear-related and ballistic missile-related equipment, know-how and technology to countries including Iran, Syria and Myanmar".

The UN report went on to state that suspicious nuclear activities in Myanmar were linked to Namchongang Trading, a state-owned North Korean company known to have been involved in nuclear activities in Iran and Syria and the arrests of three people in Japan who tried to export illegally a magnetometer to Myanmar through Malaysia. In reference to the disclosures by the UN experts, the Washington Times reported on November 10: "Magnetometers can be used to produce ring magnets, a key element in centrifuges that are the basis of nuclear arms programs in Iran and Pakistan. That transfer was linked to a North Korean company involved in ‘illicit procurement' for nuclear and military programs."

In 2009, Namchongang and its director, Yun Ho-jin, were formally sanctioned by the UN for proliferation activities. According to a German Customs Bureau report, the company uses its offices in Beijing and Shenyang in China to place orders for the equipment, which is critical to building the centrifuges required to enrich uranium. The arrival of Namchongang Trading in Myanmar set off alarm bells in many Western capitals and convinced several previous skeptics of Myanmar's nuclear ambitions to take the recent reports more seriously.

At the same time, US officials continue to deny that such concerns exist, as was reflected in ProPublica's November report that cited a supposed Central Intelligence Agency assessment of the threat. ProPublica did not reply to e-mailed questions from Asia Times Online about its November 12 piece. But, if their source's intention was to appease the Myanmar regime, it clearly succeeded. On December 5, the state-owned daily newspaper Kyaymon (The Mirror) ran a full translation of the ProPublica report that trashed the DVB documentary and nuclear expert Kelley's assessment.

That response would seem to demonstrate that Myanmar's secretive military regime is still in denial about its true intentions: it has repeatedly stated that it has no nuclear ambitions and that there are no North Korean technicians situated in the country. Meanwhile, Myanmar's government has yet to publicly react to the recently leaked internal US documents disseminated by WikiLeaks.

However, it is now clear that there is one version of US perceptions about Myanmar's nuclear ambitions crafted for public consumption and diplomatic effect, and quite another making the rounds among Washington's security establishment. The recent disclosures of the latter cast the US's recent engagement efforts towards Myanmar in a new strategic light and raise hard questions about the policy's wisdom and sustainability.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/LL16Ae01.html
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Norway ‘funding abuse’ in Burma
Share Comments (0)TweetBy JOSEPH ALLCHIN
Published: 15 December 2010

Image taken from EarthRights International report
Norway’s state-owned pension fund is investing in companies that continue to do highly controversial business in Burma, according to a damning report released today.

The Washington DC and Thailand-based EarthRights International (ERI) says in the report that there is “a high likelihood that the Fund is contributing to grave unethical actions in Burma through its holdings in the Fund”.

The Norwegian pension fund is a sovereign wealth fund founded on the country’s North Sea oil wealth. It is estimated to be worth some $US500 billion and holds the largest number of stocks and shares in Europe, owning approximately one percent of global equity markets.

Its size means that it has channelled approximately $US4.5 billion into companies doing business in Burma, which includes “a cumulative $US450 million invested in companies participating in the controversial Shwe gas and oil transport pipeline project” to China, according to the report.

As of December last year, investments worth $50 million were concentrated in three companies who owned the majority of the Shwe project, off- and onshore: South Korea’s Daewoo International, GAIL of India Ltd., and Korea Gas Corp.

On top of this, the Fund had a $US244 million stake in POSCO, which owns the majority of Daewoo, and approximately $US12 million invested in Hyundai Heavy Industries, which is a construction subcontractor on the project.

Furthermore, around $US90 million is invested in PetroChina and $US58 million invested in Kunlun Energy Co Ltd., the distributors in the project. It also holds a $US168 million stake in Transocean Inc, the Swiss-American drilling company implicated in BP’s Gulf of Mexico disaster, which has also been used for offshore in Burmese waters.

ERI Senior Consultant Matthew Smith, who co-authored the report, says that the investment “puts the Norwegian people in an inconvenient position of complicity in grave human rights abuses in Burma”.

Indeed multiple NGOs, activists and residents are keen to point out that the Shwe project, which is set to net the Burmese junta $US30 billion over the next three decades, is being built with forced labour on land cleared of inhabitants by the military, and with little environmental or social impact assessments.

The Fund has a set of ethical guidelines which, ERI believes, such investments contravene. “The Norwegian peoples’ money is invested in corporate human rights abuses while the Ethical Guidelines go unapplied,” Smith said. “This report presents a distinct opportunity for Norway to do what is intended by its Ethical Guidelines.

“Now is the time for the Council on Ethics to recommend that the Ministry of Finance act on these companies and restore Norway to its position as a global leader in ethical investment,” he added.

Gro Nysteun, the chair of the Council on Ethics, an independent body that looks into investments by the Fund, said that while the findings of the report would be investigated, it would not make the Fund reconsider the stakes it holds in these companies.

“We don’t disagree on the situation in Burma but we can only exclude companies form the pension fund when the companies themselves are actively participating in the violations of norms,” she said.

“If we were to divest from all of the companies that have activities in Burma it would be the same as an economic boycott, and the signal would be that all of those companies cannot operate in Burma at all.”

The Shwe gas pipeline is a huge multinational project that will transport not only much of Burma’s natural gas wealth to China, but a portion of their oil imports from the Middle East and Africa.

As well as the Shwe project, the report is critical of the Fund’s continued investment in the French oil giant, Total, which runs the Yadana gas pipeline carrying natural gas to Thailand. The report says that in 2005 the Fund’s ethical committee surmised that the Yadana pipeline was no longer violating human rights and was therefore not an unethical investment.

ERI claims however that in February it documented two targeted killings close to the Yadana site that were carried out by a Burmese army battalion providing security for Total projects.

“[ERI] continues to document widespread forced labour and other violations by the Burmese Army on behalf of Total and its partners. In five of the last ten years, EarthRights International has documented targeted extrajudicial killings of villagers in the project area by Burmese Army battalions providing security for the Yadana pipeline, and the Yetagun pipeline that runs alongside it.”

It claims the Norwegian pension fund “has $US3.6 billion invested in five companies involved in the Yadana and Yetagun projects”.

Additional reporting by Francis Wade http://www.dvb.no/news/norway-%e2%80%98funding-abuse%e2%80%99-in-burma/13417
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Banana trucks from China resume operations in Burma
Tuesday, 14 December 2010 21:44 KNG
Dozens of trucks from China trundled into Burma again from Sunday back to the banana plantations, where the Chinese have invested heavily in northern Kachin State after a 17-day stoppage. The Burmese military junta had banned cross border trade in Kachin State as of November 25, said border sources.

In the last two days, over 50 trucks capable of carting 25 to 30 tons of bananas each, crossed the junta-controlled Lajayang border checkpoint and entered the banana plantations taken on lease by Chinese businessmen in Shadan Pa area in Burma, 10 miles from the border of the two countries’ in eastern Kachin State, eyewitnesses said.
Chinese banana trucks re-allowed entry to Kachin State, northern Burma. Photo: Kachin News Group

However, no border trade has been authorized except for that of banana. Trucks from China meant only for banana are being allowed to cross the Lajayang Checkpoint, said cross border traders.

The Shadan Pa banana plantations are situated in Daw Hpum Yang sub-township in Manmaw (Bhamo) district. The plantations are owned by Chinese businessmen from Yunnan province in China. The farm lands were leased out by the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) and the junta.

Banana trucks from China have been re-allowed entry to the plantations after a series of meetings between Chinese and Burmese officials for a couple of weeks over the impasse, said border traders.

Over 40,000 acres of banana plantations are spread out in Shadan Pa areas in Daw Hpum Yang sub-township in Manmaw (Bhamo) district. It employs several thousand Burmese workers and hundreds of Chinese workers, sources said.

Bananas from Shadan Pa fields are transported to Chinese markets in major cities, while some are exported, added sources.

To pressurize the KIO, the Burmese junta enforced an economic ban and forbade border trade at the Lajayang Checkpoint, the entrance to Laiza, the headquarters and border business centre of the KIO as of November 25.

All trade on the China-Burma border is carried out at KIO-controlled Laiza but all trade to and from Laiza is strictly banned at the junta-controlled Lajayang Checkpoint.

Chinese businessmen suffered losses to the tune of millions of Yuan following the ban on cross border transportation of banana-laden trucks during what is peak harvesting season for the fruit in Burma, said sources close to the traders. Stacks of banana bundles were damaged because of lack of transport facilities following the ban, said sources.

The junta and the KIO collect hefty taxes from owners of truckloads of bananas, but extra bribe is shelled out to Burmese Army battalions and local authorities in the areas where the banana plantations are located, said sources connected to the fields.
http://www.kachinnews.com/news/1822-banana-trucks-from-china-resume-operations-in-burma.html
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US Suggests 'Security Guarantees' For Burma's Dictators
Wednesday, 15 December 2010, 9:48 am
Column: Richard S. Ehrlich
By Richard S. Ehrlich

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Aung San Suu Kyi's "irrelevant" political party has "little concern for the social and economic plight of most Burmese," so America should offer "security guarantees" to Burma's military dictators and their families to remove them from power, according to a U.S. Embassy cable released by WikiLeaks.

"We should not expect an imminent coup to save us from the hard-line senior generals," the cable said.

Classified by the U.S. Embassy in Burma's Political Officer, Leslie Hayden, the cable gave "her candid observations on the current political situation, and her recommendations."

The "CONFIDENTIAL" cable, dated July 14, 2008 and titled, "SUBJECT: CONTINUING THE PURSUIT OF DEMOCRACY IN BURMA," was signed by U.S. Ambassador Shari Villarosa.

"We may also want to consider putting security guarantees on the table for the most senior generals and their families if we are serious about removing them from the scene.

"As we move toward the 2010 parliamentary elections, it may be a strategic time to begin talks with them about such an agreement," the cable said in a section coyly sub-titled, "Give a Little, Get a Little."

"While talking to the generals may be unpalatable, their firm control over Burma and the weakness of the pro-democracy opposition are a reality we must consider when working to promote change in Burma."

The U.S. Embassy painted a grim picture of the military's stranglehold on Burma, also known as Myanmar, which is the biggest country in mainland Southeast Asia.

"The generals keep their power through a vast system of economic patronage, not unlike a Western style Mafia. Military-owned enterprises control every profit-making natural resource and industry in the country.

"Economic prosperity can only be enjoyed by rising thorough the ranks of the Army, or having extremely close ties to the senior generals," the cable said.

Burma's Senior Gen. Than Shwe possesses "almost absolute power. He has the final word on all significant political and economic decisions.

"While outsiders may portray him as an uneducated, crass, and blundering man, he has successfully consolidated and held onto power for several years, while at the same time building lucrative relationships with his energy-hungry neighbors that undermine Western efforts to cripple his regime."

Mrs. Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party was run by a "sclerotic leadership of the elderly NLD 'Uncles'," the cable said, echoing Burma's traditional folksy adjective of respect for older gentlemen.

"Without a doubt, Aung San Suu Kyi remains a popular and beloved figure of the Burman majority, but this status is not enjoyed by her party," the U.S. embassy in Rangoon said.

"The way the Uncles run the NLD indicates the party is not the last great hope for democracy and Burma. The Party is strictly hierarchical, new ideas are not solicited or encouraged from younger members, and the Uncles regularly expel members they believe are 'too active'," it said.

"Many of the younger political activists are turning away from the NLD."

Mrs. Suu Kyi's party has not "made any effort to join forces with the technically sophisticated bloggers and young, internet-savvy activists, who have been so clever at getting out the images which repeatedly damaged the regime and undermined its international credibility.

"Instead, the Uncles spend endless hours discussing their entitlements from the 1990 elections and abstract policy which they are in no position to enact," the cable said, describing NLD politicians who were elected to be Members of Parliament in 1990 but forbidden by the military from forming a government.

"Additionally, most MPs-elect show little concern for the social and economic plight of most Burmese, and therefore, most Burmese regard them as irrelevant."

More than two years after the cable was written, Mrs. Suu Kyi's NLD boycotted a November 7, 2010 nationwide election, claiming the poll was unfair and stacked against them by the military.

As punishment for boycotting the election, the regime disbanded her NLD party.

On November 14 -- when Mrs. Suu Kyi, 65, was released from a total of 15 years of on-and-off house arrest -- she met her NLD's elderly leadership, and together they began a court case to make her party a legal entity again, under her leadership.

Minority ethnic minorities, meanwhile, have been fighting guerrilla wars for autonomy or independence in the north and east along Burma's borders with China and Thailand, though several of them signed cease-fire deals with the regime.

The majority of the country's population are ethnic Burman who often discriminate against the minorities which include Shan, Karen, Karenni, Wa, Chin, Mon and others who dwell mostly in mountainous jungles where they have created armed fiefdoms built on opium, heroin and methamphetamine manufacturing and smuggling, or by taxing other resources such as gems and timber.

Mrs. Suu Kyi's party is also mostly ethnic Burman and "they reduced the role of the ethnics to second-class supplicants," the U.S. Embassy cable said.

"The cease-fire groups remain an important component of Burma's future political stability, and it is noteworthy that none have chosen to support Aung San Suu Kyi and her party.

"Instead, they have entered dialogue with the regime, at the same time cutting lucrative concession deals for many of groups' leaders," it said.

"The NLD's continuing alienation of the ethnic minority groups gives credence to the regime's most effective argument with its neighbors and ASEAN -- that the military is the only force capable of guaranteeing stability in Burma," the U.S. Embassy said, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations which groups Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1012/S00146/us-suggests-security-guarantees-for-burmas-dictators.htm
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Vietnam-Burma trade forecast to rise 60pc
Tuesday, 14 December 2010 22:56 Mizzima News

Rangoon (Mizzima) – The value of bilateral trade between Burma and Vietnam has increased almost 60 per cent year on year and will reach nearly US$160 million, according to Vietnamese deputy industry and trade minister Nguyen Thanh Bien, in Rangoon yesterday.

Vietnam deputy minister of industry and trade Nguyen Thanh Bien speaks to Burmese and Vietnamese businessmen gathered for a conference aimed at boosting bilateral trade in Rangoon on Monday, December 13, 2010. The value of trade between the fellow Asean member countries is forecast to reach US$160 million this year, a 60 per cent year-on-year increase. About 50 Vietnamese and 200 Burmese businessmen attended the meetings at the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry building. Photo: Mizzima
His claims came today at a conference for businessmen from the two countries on Monday at the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry building held to promote bilateral trade.

Nguyen said bilateral trade values last year and 2008 were US$99 million and US$108 million respectively. “Trade promotion activities between the two countries are also very busy,” he said.

About 200 businessmen attended the conference and visitors exhibited products and services in the agricultural, fisheries, household goods and tourism sectors.

In April, Vietnam’s largest trade fair in Burma was held in Rangoon at which 70 Vietnamese enterprises participated. Direct Hanoi-Rangoon and Ho Chi Minh City-Rangoon flights were also launched.

Vietnam’s total trade value would reach around US$139.1 billion this year, the minister said, of which US$64.4 billion would account for exports and US$74.7 billion, imports.
http://www.mizzima.com/news/breaking-and-news-brief/4675-vietnam-burma-trade-forecast-to-rise-60pc.html