On the line from Burma earlier today..

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/todaywithpatkenny/2012-02-03.html - audio link on right-hand side of page

Did Burma’s generals change their ways because their leader feared the karmic consequences of his actions while in power? 

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22937

BANGKOK — “I’ve puzzled over that,” said Sen. John McCain, when asked his opinion on why Burma’s government has undertaken several landmark reforms in recent months.

Observers have been surprised by the changes—such as the freeing of political prisoners, relaxed press curbs and a newfound environmental and social awareness—described by McCain as unimaginable one year ago. The Burmese government says the new course is irreversible, while outside observers believe the reforms to be real, though many, like McCain, are no more than “cautiously optimistic” and remind that more needs to be done—such as fair elections, a free press and peace in ethnic borderlands.

Many exiled Burmese and even some recently freed political prisoners remain skeptical, reminding anyone who cares to listen that Burma’s 2008 Constitution vests ultimate authority with the country’s military, and that even if Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) win all 40 Lower House seats in a by-election slated for April 1, it will not affect power structures inside Burma.

Behind the scenes, an 11-man National Defense and Security Council (NDSC) is said to be exercising real control, leaving President Thein Sein as the moderate-sounding front man attempting to launder the reputation of a cabal of military strongmen nationalists, who want Western sanctions lifted and to reduce the influence of an increasingly powerful China on their country.

Former junta dictator Snr-Gen Than Shwe is said to head the NDSC, though close aides such as Shwe Mann, now speaker of Burma’s Lower House of Parliament, say that Than Shwe has retired from politics. Certainly the reforms undertaken by successor Thein Sein, suggest—on the surface, at least—a clean break with Than Shwe’s draconian rule and appear to confirm that the near-octogenarian ex-senior general has indeed retired.

But then, reforms or no reforms, nobody can really parse the signals from inside what is still one of the world’s most opaque polities. McCain believes the reforms to be partly a reaction to the Arab Spring, partly a desire to end Burma’s long isolation, partly a weariness with a decades-old pariah status.

Some are curious as to why Than Shwe would cede power to Thein Sein—a man he reportedly dismissed as his “postman” when the current president was still just prime minister under the former junta.

“We have to ask, why is Than Shwe letting this happen, and why now?” said Thai academic Thitinan Pongsudhirak. Than Shwe, after all, seized power in 1992 and later put former ruler Ne Win under house arrest, where he remained until his death in 2002. Does he not fear a similar fate for himself and his family?

Clues lie, perhaps, in what Thitinan described to The Irrawaddy as Than Shwe’s “farewell tour,” visiting India and China shortly prior to the 2010 parliamentary elections, after which he formally ceded control to today’s nominally civilian government under Thein Sein.

While visiting India from July 25 to 29, 2010, Than Shwe made cash donations to monks, meditated at Bodh Gaya, where Buddha attained enlightenment, and laid a wreath at the Mahatma Gandhi’s grave.

“I have heard from several inside sources that Than Shwe sees himself as deeply Buddhist,” said Thitinan. “He has money, he has power, but we cannot dismiss the possibility that he cares a lot about his spiritual well-being, despite the many abuses he was responsible for.”

It could be, therefore, that Than Shwe has stepped back from power because he fears bad karma from transgressions committed by Burma’s ruling regime when he was still at the helm, such as the beating and jailing of hundreds of Buddhist monks during the crackdown on the 2007 Saffron Revolution.

In response, the Burmese monastic community declared a religious boycott of the generals and their families, refusing to accept their alms or offer them the Buddha’s teachings—both necessary for earning karmic kudos. According to recently freed U Gambira, one of the leaders of the Saffron protests who was tortured in jail, the boycott still stands.

Burmese Buddhism has long been infused with nat worship—placating spirits to generate good fortune in worldly affairs. Knowing this, and seeing first-hand the nature of military rule, many Burmese question the sincerity and depth of Than Shwe’s Buddhism, says Ingrid Jordt, an anthropologist who studies Burmese religion and culture.

As far as Than Shwe is interested in his spiritual well-being, according to Jordt, he is following yadaya che, a non-Buddhist ritualism aimed at reversing bad fortune or compensating for misdeeds.

This can sometimes be passed off as Buddhist merit-making, as per Than Shwe’s pilgrimage to India, but sometimes there is no disguising the voodoo element, such as former Prime Minister Khin Nyunt’s cross-dressing incantations in 1990, when he dressed as a woman in a yadaya ceremony aimed at preempting predictions that a woman (Aung San Suu Kyi) would take power in Burma.

Jordt does not believe Than Shwe has retired, and that underneath the recent reforms, the power structures remain the same.

“Burma’s military (now civilian) leaders do not care a fig about democracy. They only care that the international community sees what they are doing as democracy. They will shape-shift as they need to,” she says.

Than Shwe is not out of the picture, she adds, but simply no longer needs “to micro-manage according to the old system.”

Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org

Thailand says it will continue backing the Dawei/Tavoy deep-sea port project in Burma despite recent setbacks, but won’t intervene on behalf of its Thai developer.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22910

BANGKOK—The Thai Government and key investors are backing the Dawei (Tavoy) harbor and economic zone project despite Naypyidaw’s recent cancellation of a 4,000MW coal-fired power station there and the Karen National Union (KNU) stalling a linking highway.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on the sidelines of  a Thailand Board of Investment (BOI) forum in Bangkok, Kittirat Na Ranong, Thailand’s deputy prime minister—who was appointed finance minister in last week’s cabinet reshuffle—said that he remained hopeful that the US $58 billion project will proceed. He added, “Thailand will never interfere with any other country for the benefit of any business group.”

According to Thai media reports earlier in January, Italian-Thai Development (ITD)—the industrial giant which won the contract to develop Dawei—was caught unaware by the government announcement.

On Jan. 9, Burma’s Electricity Minister Khin Maung Soe announced that a planned 4,000-megawatt coal-fired power plant, which would supply electricity to the port and surrounding area, would not be built.

“We [the government] listened to the media, and studied the impact of a coal-fire power plant. After reading [the reports], we said it is not appropriate to have a coal-fire power plant. We decided to cancel the 4,000-megawatt coal-fire power plant,” said the minister at the time.

In an email, an ITD spokesperson said that the company “has not received an official report from the Myanmar government to halt the power plant construction in Dawei.” But ITD noted that “the Myanmar government has ranked natural gas, alternative energy and coal to be the priority for the source of fuel to generate electricity,” and that it “will take such details into account in order to develop the power plant construction in the Dawei industrial estate.”

Environmental groups in the nearby area have campaigned against the project, seeking some modifications. Paul Sein Twa of the Burma Environmental Working Group (BEWG) welcomed the cancellation of the coal plant, but added “the overall project needs a proper environmental impact assessment and social impact assessment before it should proceed.”

These remarks have been echoed by the KNU—an ethnic rebel group operating near Dawei—which has forced the suspension of construction of a highway linking Dawei to Kanchanaburi in Thailand, according to sources inside Burma.

ITD and the KNU are currently negotiating a solution to the dispute, say both sides, a prospect perhaps made more likely by the recent inking of a ceasefire deal between the KNU and Burmese government. Contradicting claims of a stand-off, an ITD spokesperson told The Irrawaddy that “the road construction has proceeded very well and the accessibility is almost completed.”

Siam Cement is one of the big-player Thai companies interested in the Dawei project. CEO and President Kan Trakhulhoon told The Irrawady that “we are still committed to it, if they can provide natural gas then that is OK,” referring to the possible replacement of the canceled coal-fired pant with a gas-fueled alternative.

However, despite Burma’s offshore gas fields, there is not yet a pipeline linking them to Dawei, making it unclear to potential investors, such as Thailand PTT, if the gas option is feasible. PTT had not replied to emails about the issue at the time of publication.

Despite the sanguine noises from investors, some analysts say that the project remains fraught with challenges. In a research note published last week, DBS Vickers Securities assessed that “Despite potential to bring economic prosperity to Burma, the project is still in its infancy and clouded with risks. In our view, ITD faces a country risk and an unpredictable business climate. The sudden call to halt the 4,000MW coal-fired power plant project would make it difficult for ITD to secure strategic partners to help fund the project.”

However, Thai and other investors remain interested in the Dawei project, with Japan’s trade and economy minister Yukio Edano discussing it with both the Burmese and Thai governments when he visited the countries in mid-January. Dr. Virabongsa Ramangkura, chairman of Thailand’s Strategic Committee for Reconstruction and Future Development, told the BOI forum that “in meetings with Japan, the Dawei project came up constantly”.

If realised, Dawei/Tavoy will be the biggest development of its type in southeast Asia, and a potential boon for a Burmese economy that has languished due to military and government mismanagement as well as corruption, with Transparency International, a Berlin-based NGO that monitors graft, putting Burma close to the bottom of all its recent annual league tables.

Nonetheless, Dr Virabongsa believes that the Dawei/Tavoy project will benefit Thailand and southeast Asia. “The changes in Burma have given us a great opportunity in Thailand”, he said, adding that “we believe the new economic zone [Dawei/Tavoy] will be of great benefit to Myanmar and to the region.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22902

BANGKOK—A US delegation fronted by Sen. John McCain and Sen. Joseph Lieberman will request that the Burmese government allow international observers to oversee April by-elections, which, if deemed free and fair, will almost certainly see the US remove some sanctions on the Burmese government.

“Obviously we will have to look carefully at the process of the elections,” said McCain, who conceded that Burma’s reforms in recent months—including the release of several hundred political prisoners—are “a dramatic change in policy and behaviour in as short a time as a year ago,” he said.

McCain confirmed that the delegation, which arrived in Burma on Sunday, would ask Burma’s government to allow international observation of the April by-elections, in response to a question about the issue from this correspondent.

A positive assessment by the observers could pay off for the Burmese government, which refused to allow international monitoring of the November 2010 elections. Removing some sanctions could come after a free and fair April by-election, said Lieberman, who added that “the President can remove some of the sanctions,” but confirmed that others would require a legislative amendment.

“We are watching the changes in Myanmar very carefully” said Sen. Kelly Ayotte, part of the delegation along with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. Apart from a few references to Burma, the delegation mostly used “Myanmar” throughout the Q&A with several reporters on Saturday afternoon.

“My personal view is that we should not lift any sanctions before April,” and possibly not even then if enough progress isn’t made”, said McCain.

“We should all applaud what is happening in Myanmar but there are many times in history where we learned things aren’t what we thought they were”, he said, adding that ‘”I’ve puzzled over that,” said Sen. McCain, when asked why he thinks Burma’s decades-old dictatorship has undertaken reforms in recent months.

Asked how far the US expects Burma’s government to take reforms, McCain said “We do not expect perfection, but at the same time we do not expect one step to mean that we treat them like Sweden,” he said referring to the recent release of many of Burma’s high-profile political prisoners.

“We’d like to see a commitment by the government to improving the lives of the people,” added McCain. “I don’t agree with the assertion that the sanctions have caused that,” Sen. McCain said, referring to the dilapidated state of main city Rangoon and the Burmese economy. “It is government mismanagement,” said the Arizona Republican representative.

Fighting in Burma’s ethnic regions has pushed hundreds of thousands of refugees into Thailand, along with millions of migrant workers seeking jobs outside of Burma’s non-performing economy.

McCain expressed his thanks for Thailand’s long record of “care for Burma’s refugees, at no small cost to the Thai government or its people.” The delegation was in Bangkok after visiting the Philippines and Vietnam, before heading to Burma on Sunday.

Sen. McCain said that they did not discuss the recent jailing of US citizen Joe Gordon with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra during their Friday meeting. “The State Dept. and the embassy here say they have raised it at the highest level,” said McCain.

In Vietnam, the US delegation said they raised human rights issues with a government that could be set to assume Burma’s long-held position as Asean’s worst rights offender. Vietnam is seeking what Sen. McCain described as a “long long list” of arms from the US, as tensions between Vietnam and China grow over the South China Sea, known as the East Sea in Vietnam. “Concern about a rising China is on the lips of leaders in Vietnam and the Philippines,” said Lieberman.

But that will not happen without some human rights reforms in Vietnam—likely, as in Burma, to include the release of political prisoners. “There’s certain weapons systems that the Vietnamese would like to buy from us or receive from us and we’d like to be able to transfer these systems to them, but it’s not going to happen unless they improve their human rights record,” said Sen. McCain

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2012/0122/Is-it-Burma-or-Myanmar-US-officials-start-shifting 

Senators Lieberman and McCain after speaking to journalists in Bangkok on Saturday (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

BANGKOK, THAILAND – Burma or Myanmar? As the country’s military-backed government races headlong into reforms aimed at ending its long international isolation, US officials are changing their tone. For starters, they are beginning to use the government’s preferred name for the country, “Myanmar,” after two decades of sticking with “Burma.”

“We have visited the Philippines, Vietnam, we are here, we are going to Myanmar tomorrow morning,” said Sen. John McCain, opening a press conference given by four US senators for journalists in Bangkok on Saturday afternoon.

It may seem like a small point, but in the subtle world of diplomacy this is heady stuff. It would seem to signal US recognition of the changes afoot in Myanmar and a willingness to work with a regime it has shunned for decades.

Until now, the US took its verbal cues from opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi when it came to the country’s name. Attempting a symbolic stand against the arbitrariness of military rule, Ms. Suu Kyi and western governments have mostly stuck with “Burma” since the military junta changed the country’s name to Myanmar in 1989.

But throughout Saturday’s 45 minute Q&A with the senators, “Myanmar” was the term of choice, though the senior lawmakers at times slipped back into using “Burma.”

When I asked whether the etymological shift presaged a changing US policy, Senator McCain cracked a joke about the “West Philippine Sea” (the name used by Manila to refer to the disputed South China Sea, also known as the East Sea in Vietnam), before telling me that “you raise a good point.”

He moved swiftly along to the next question.

After US State Deptartment official Joseph Yun got an ear-bending last year from Myanmar’s Foreign Minister Wunna Waung Lwin over his use of “Burma” during a visit to the country, perhaps the senators were just getting the script right before meeting President Thein Sein.

McCain, fellow veteran Sen. Joseph Lieberman, and colleagues Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Sen. Kelly Ayote travelled to Myanmar/Burma today, after visiting Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand. They will also meet opposition leader Suu Kyi, partly to assess next steps on possible removal of some US sanctions on the country.

Her opinion will be key to whether the US waters down sanctions, as Senator Lieberman acknowledged on Saturday. “I wouldn’t say we’re giving her a total veto,” Lieberman said, but added that “her views over when to end sanctions would heavily influence US policy”.

The next shift is likely after April 1 by-elections, in which Suu Kyi will run, and if they are deemed free and fair, the senators see no option for the US but to respond by removing some sanctions.

But as far as anyone knows, Suu Kyi’s take is that the country’s name is “Burma,” itself a tin-eared British colonial-era rendering of “Bama,” a way people in country pronounced what was more formally called “Myanma.” But then, many Burmese are easy either way. “I say Burma, I say Myanmar,” one Burmese told me today when I raised the subject.

As an Irishman, I empathize, as many Irish place-names are mangled Anglicizations (manglicizations?) of Gaelic names, rather than meaningful translations into English of what the original actually means.

Back in 1989, the military regime spun the renaming as “Myanmar” as a concession to the country’s more than 130 ethnic minorities whom the army decided were discriminated-against by the use of the allegedly-ethnocentric British adaptation. This was fresh from gunning down some 3,000 student demonstrators in then-capital Rangoon/Yangon (another lexical wrangle: think Burma/Rangoon and Myanmar/Yangon and you get the idea).

But ethnocentricism lived on in much worse form, real rather than symbolic. The army has destroyed more ethnic minority villages in eastern Burma than the Sudanese Army and its janjaweed militia allies managed in Darfur, according to data in a 2009 Harvard University report, as well as a litany of abuses such as forced labor, extrajudicial killing, child soldiers, and gang-rape.

While the regime has claimed “Myanmar” is the more inclusive term, linguist Maung Tha Noe told the BBC in 2010 that “Bamar” means all the people in this country, but that “Myanmar” excludes the country’s ethnic minorities, such as the Karen, Mon, and Shan. But Bertil Linter, prolific author on the country, has a simpler take: “Burma” and “Myanmar” mean exactly the same thing.

 http://the-diplomat.com/2012/01/19/time-for-burma-exiles-to-go-home/

Some await more reforms and a government role for Aung San Suu Kyi, as Burma’s foreign-based media eye up the home market. India-based Mizzima is hoping to set up an office in Burma, according to editor, Sein Win, who said  “We’ll wait for the publication of the new press law, maybe in February or March. I’m hopeful they will abandon the censorship board.” 

In the years since the Burmese authorities crushed a 1988 student-led uprising, killing perhaps 3,000 in the process, many of the country’s opposition figures have been jailed or worked from abroad – or sometimes both. Some of those jailed were freed, only to be swept up in a junta dragnet after the 2007 Saffron protests, which also saw the jailing of hundreds of monks.

As a result of Burma’s historic persecution of dissidents, hundreds – perhaps thousands – live abroad, along with hundreds of thousands of other refugees and several million migrant workers scattered across Southeast Asia. Bangkok, New Delhi, London, Washington DC, Brussels are all bases for Burmese dissidents, with a mini industry-sized network of NGOs, media, refugee support agencies, clinics – not to mention armed opposition groups – all operating along the Thailand-Burma border.

Could all that be about to change? Since taking office in March 2011, President Thein Sein has, it seems, steered his military-backed government on a reform route – reaching a truce with the country’s longest standing ethnic militia, relaxing censorship laws, allowing the formation of trade unions and, with limits, the holding of public demonstrations.

Speaking on January 17 during a visit to Burma, U.S. Republican Senator Mitch McConnell said: “I’m convinced he [Thein Sein] is a genuine reformer, and more importantly, so does Aung San Suu Kyi.” His comments came soon after visits to Burma by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, and Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yukio Edano. McConnell’s assessment is particularly notable, given that to date he has been an outspoken critic of Burma’s rulers, openly questioning the sincerity and validity of the reforms.

Among Thein Sein’s reform initiatives was an August 2011 call for Burma’s exiles to return home. That was met with skepticism by many exiles, who believed they risked arrest and imprisonment should they return, and many remain to be convinced that Thein Sein’s reform drive has yet passed the point of no return. Indeed, Aung San Suu Kyi herself said on January 6 that the military could yet derail the reform process, though she has been working closely, it seems, with Thein Sein, giving his reforms the moral legitimization needed to allow Western governments to in turn give their own seal of approval.

In the intervening months, the Burmese government has released hundreds of political prisoners – something that exiles said needed to happen if they were to take Thein Sein’s “come home” offer seriously. One of these, U Thein Oo – an exiled member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) – says that Suu Kyi’s participation in Burma’s government could be a catalyst for return. “If she can get some form of guarantee for Burmese opposition living outside, then I think we can go back,” he says.

Suu Kyi will run in Burma’s April 1 2012 by-elections, amid rumors that if elected she will be offered a ministerial job by Thein Sein. However, not all Burma’s political prisoners or prisoners of conscience have been freed, and the country’s laws are based on a controversial 2008 Constitution that critics say enshrines military rule by proxy, irrespective of elections or other changes.

Zaw Win took part in the 1988 student protests, and now works for Memo 98, an activist group based along the Thailand-Burma frontier. He says he thinks that a formal amnesty is needed before exiles can go back to their homeland. “There are still many problems with rule of law in Burma,” he says.

Many Burmese exiles have lived abroad for a decade or more, and have acquired non-Burmese citizenship. “The government needs to make a law allowing for dual citizenship, this is very important to many Burmese,” Zaw Win says.

One opposition figure who returned to Burma during military rule was Nyi Nyi Aung, another 1988 student protestor. He was arrested and jailed for several months in 2009 after returning to Burma to visit – accused by the Burmese authorities of attempting to foment an uprising – and was only released after heavy U.S. pressure. Now in the United States, he told The Diplomat that any exile return should involve an “official announcement by law that exile democratic forces can come back to work freely for democratization, to participate in the process of transnational justice.”

But Burma’s overseas media groups are eyeing a shot at their home market, and may be among the first exiles to return home. For many years, organizations such as Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), The Irrawaddy and Mizzima have offered exile operated, Burma-focused news, filling a gap created by Burma’s draconian censorship laws and restrictions. Exile media has faced restrictions of its own, not being permitted to operate in Burma and with correspondents inside Burma who have had to work undercover for fear of arrest. Exile groups also face funding cuts, as European donors shift money inside Burma, a situation not helped by a recent corruption scandal at DVB, whose footage of the 2007 Saffron protests won the organization global plaudits.

Still, 13 DVB reporters were among the hundreds of political prisoners freed in last week’s high-profile amnesty, and one, Sithu Zeya, a video journalist who was given an 8-year sentence after attempting to photograph the site of explosions in Rangoon during the 2010 Buddhist water festival, spoke with me by telephone just after his release. “I’m very pleased to be free and that my father is also free,” he said. Sithu’s father, U Zeya, was also freed after being jailed for 13 years for working clandestinely with his son for DVB.

Such oppressive laws are about to change, believes Sein Win, managing editor of Mizzima. “I visited Burma last week,” he told The Diplomat, speaking by telephone from Chiang Mai. “It was the first official visit by Mizzima to Burma since we founded in 1998.”

Sein Win confirmed that he discussed the possibility of opening a Mizzima office in Burma with the country’s Ministry of Information. “We’ll wait for the publication of the new press law, maybe in February or March,” he said. “I’m hopeful they will abandon the censorship board.”

“I think all the Burmese exile media are now trying to work in Rangoon and inside the country.”

BANGKOK – Leadership changes and economic challenges facing China and the US this year will impact how far and fast Burma goes with its nascent political reforms.

A total of 302 political prisoners were freed on Friday with another 128 still in jail, according to Burmese government figures. Some have criticized the amnesty as incomplete, but it made international headlines and resulted in elated crowds greeting freed prisoners outside jails across Burma, as some of the country’s iconic dissidents emerged from detention.

In response, the US said it will appoint an ambassador to Burma for the first time since the bloody crackdown on student demonstrations in 1988. Leaders of these protests were among those freed last week, after spending many of the intervening years in jail.

However, it remains to be seen how far Burma’s reforms go and what the impact of geopolitical rivalries will be on Burma. Simon Tay, author of Asia Alone, a study US-Asian relations, said that Burma’s reforms are perhaps “an attempt to woo America and wean itself off China, rather than genuine attempt to reform domestic politics.”

The US recently launched a new defense plan focusing on the Asia-Pacific which sparked anger in Beijing, and Washington has been trying to cajole Burma out of China’s orbit since 2009. The Burmese government is a willing partner, with the Sept. 30 suspension of the Myitsone hydropower dam project the clearest indicator that it wants to lessen economic reliance on China.

How China reacts to this new US front-foot diplomacy in its backyard will have implications for regional stability. The contours of this, however, may not become clear until after the Communist Party leadership changes due by late 2012—also the 40th anniversary of Richard Nixon’s landmark visit to China as the US capitalized on tensions between Beijing and its communist ally-turned-rival, the USSR.

That engagement strengthened the US hand in Asia in the immediate term, but ironically paved the way for the economic reforms that have made China the world’s second-biggest economy. The US has seen its position in Asia weaken in recent years.

“China has undertaken an effective charm offensive in the past decade,” said Prof. Tay, chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. He added that Beijing sees the US as out to recover some of its lost predominance in Asia—a move that could be destabilizing.

But it might not be in Chinese or American interests to foment tension, and mutual economic dependency could cool rivalries. “Peace and prosperity are still what many countries want, not military alliances,” said Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai.

Similarly, Thomas Donahue, head of the US Chamber of Commerce, said on Jan. 12 that improved business ties could offset security-related tensions. “If we are advancing our economic relationships, then there is going to be less concern about the adversarial relationship but more about cooperation to deal with geopolitical issues in the region and around the world. We need to do both, but let’s put more energy into the trade and investment side,” he told a news conference.

But improved business relations do not mean that diplomatic cooperation over potential flashpoints such as North Korea and Iran can be taken for granted. A Jan. 15 editorial in People’s Daily, considered a two-way mirror into Communist Party thinking, slammed the US for sanctioning China’s Zhuhai Zhenrong Company over its business ties with Iran, amid concerns about Tehran’s nuclear intentions.

Referencing US plans to position one-third of its navy in the west Pacific, the article added that “it would be very strange if, in such circumstances, China stands in line with the US on its sanctions against Iran.”

Energy-hungry China is typically reluctant to get involved in Western-driven sanctions or attempts to censure “rogue states,” and Beijing’s wariness of taking up a geopolitical role to match its economic sway has been both lauded and criticized.

“China is not a revisionist state and has benefited economically from the status quo,” says Dr. Amitav Acharya, chair of the ASEAN Studies Center at American University in Washington D.C. He went on to dismiss parallels between China and early 20th century Germany, whose rapid and aggressive rise eventually trumped economic links with the likes of France and Great Britain, resulting in a devastating war.

As the US tries to make its way back into Asia, China seems set on challenging US influence in the West, at least commercially. Debt-laden European countries have sought Chinese assistance and, although Beijing has cooled on buying more debt, Commerce Minister Chen Deming said in late November that China will send a delegation to Europe to look at buying state assets and infrastructure, as EU countries look to cut costs and acquire fast cash.

But in Asia, Beijing has significant second-tier powers such as India, Japan and Russia to contend with, as well as the US. “China will not be able to impose its ideology on the region,” claims Dr. Acharya.

And with China set to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy, possibly as soon as 2016 according to one International Monetary Fund projection, Beijing is likely to be the fulcrum around which Asian relations and economies revolve—a revival of the Middle Kingdom era when China was “first-among-equals” in Asia.

“A lot will depend on whether other countries will accept this hierarchy” says Dr. Acharya. China’s aggressive approach to the South China Sea prompted Vietnam and the Philippines, who also have claims on the oil-rich waters, to tighten relations with the US. Beijing is also likely to see improved US-Burma relations in the light of this bigger picture.

For Burma, despite its recent attempts to reduce China’s influence and forge better political and business ties with the West, China’s perhaps inevitable rise to first-among-equals status in Asia will weigh heavily on its much-smaller southwestern neighbor.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s opposition leader and an icon for politically-aware Westerners, has stressed her neutral view of China—an acknowledgment that Burma will continue to do much business with the Asian superpower regardless of its future relationship with the West.

Hundreds of thousands Chinese migrants now live in Burma, and Chinese investors have put around US $12billion into the country. In addition, despite the Myitsone suspension, there are 25 other “mega-dam projects” underway in Burma, many of them Chinese-backed. So no matter what changes come to Burma, or global politics in 2012, China will likely remain an important factor for decision-makers in Naypyidaw.

Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org

Front page of LA Times, Jan 14. Right-click, save as to download .pdf

By Paul Richter, Simon Roughneen and Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-myanmar-prisoners-20120114,0,97902.story

Reporting from Washington, Bangkok and New Delhi — The Obama administration restored full diplomatic relations with Myanmar, moving swiftly to reward the military-backed government for reforms that include a cease-fire with ethnic insurgents and the release of political prisoners.

The move Friday came only six weeks after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made a historic visit that highlighted Washington’s attempts to reengage with a strategic Asian nation that remains under strict sanctions for its dismal human rights record.

The White House was eager for rapprochement partly to pull the resource-rich country out of China’s political and economic orbit. Clinton flew to the capital, Naypyidaw, shortly after President Obama announced a “pivot” in U.S. military and diplomatic policy to reassure allies in the Asia-Pacific region who are nervous about China’s increasing assertiveness.

Diplomatic relations with Myanmar were kept to a minimal level over the last two decades but never severed. The administration now will send an ambassador to the country for the first time since 1990, and it invited the Myanmar government to send an envoy to Washington.

On Friday, Obama hailed Myanmar’s progress on several fronts, especially the announced release of 651 prisoners. Although U.S. officials could not confirm the total, or the identities of those released, they said it included some pro-democracy leaders who had languished in prison since authorities in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, crushed peaceful antigovernment protests in 1988.

In a statement, Obama called Friday’s release “a substantial step forward for democratic reform.”

“Much more remains to be done to meet the aspirations of the Burmese people,” he said, “but the United States is committed to continuing our engagement with the government.”

U.S. officials also hailed the government’s cease-fire with the ethnic Karen rebels, saying it may open the way to ending one of the world’s longest-running insurgencies. The Karen have fought the central government for autonomy since the country won independence from Britain after World War II.

Clinton described the reforms as “historic and promising” and said Washington would “meet action with action.” But she said full normalization of relations, including steps to unravel the web of sanctions, would take time.

Since late 2010, Myanmar has held an election, released pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from detention and recognized her previously banned opposition National League for Democracy party. It also legalized labor unions and suspended construction of a controversial China-backed dam.

Though President Thein Sein has pushed through most recent reforms, analysts say army strongman Than Shwe still holds significant sway and could try to reverse course if he feels liberalization has gone too far. Thein Sein met with Suu Kyi three months after his March 2010 election, winning her support for many of his policies.

A senior State Department official said U.S. officials still lacked details on the prisoners who were released and that it wasn’t clear that the fighting between the government and the minorities had actually stopped.

“Unacceptable violence continues,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. wants Myanmar to release more than 1,000 other political prisoners and adopt laws that guarantee free speech, freedom of assembly and other basic rights.

Obama administration officials hope the diplomatic initiative will help further Southeast Asia’s pro-Western orientation and offset the growing influence of China. Business groups are hoping U.S. companies can get access to reserves of oil and gas, as well as other natural resources.

Another U.S. goal is to convince Myanmar to abandon what U.S. officials view as dangerous security ties with North Korea.

U.S. officials have worried in the past that Myanmar might try to develop a nuclear bomb, or ballistic missiles, with help from Pyongyang. Administration officials have urged Myanmar’s leaders, who deny any illicit nuclear program, to allow United Nations nuclear inspectors to examine records and facilities.

A 2004 U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks in 2010 reported that hundreds of North Koreans were allegedly helping to build missiles and an underground bunker at military sites hidden in the Myanmar jungle. In recent years, the U.S. Navy has turned away North Korean ships suspected of carrying weapons to Myanmar.

The restoration of ties was welcomed by key Republicans in Congress, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, both longtime critics of the regime. Their comments suggest the issue will not become a political target in this year’s presidential campaign.

State media in Myanmar said the prisoners released came from the country’s four main opposition groups: student leaders who inspired the 1988 uprising, monks who led a 2007 rebellion, army and intelligence officials purged in 2004, and members of restive ethnic communities.

This is “a glorious day for Burma. Freedom is reborn now,” said Htein Lin, an artist and former political prisoner who lives in London.

Human rights groups were more cautious. Amnesty International warned that restoration of ties could weaken the pressure to end human rights abuses in Myanmar.

Another advocacy group, the U.S. Campaign for Burma, also was wary. “We still want to wait and see what else would happen to those who are still in jail,” said a spokeswoman, Myra Dahgaypaw.

It could take several days to get an exact count of the political prisoners released, especially since the lists held by activist groups differ. Most said the number appears to be over 300.

Murray Hiebert, an Asia specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, called the cease-fire with the Karen rebels “surprising and significant,” but he added that cease-fires can easily break down.

Both sides acknowledged the agreement but provided few details. The Myanmar government says it is also negotiating with several other ethnic groups. The Karen were the only major ethnic group never to have reached a peace agreement, even temporary, with the government.

“I’d say this is one of the historic, great moments,” said Alana Golmei, a coordinator with India’s Burma Center Delhi activist group. “Guns are no solution, although there’s always a risk they could pick up guns again.”

“To say they’ve solved all the problems would be a mistake,” said Bridget Welsh, a political scientist at Singapore Management University. “But from where they’ve come in a year, it’s quite a ways.”

Times staff writers Richter reported from Washington and Magnier from New Delhi. Special correspondent Roughneen reported from Bangkok.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2012/0113/In-surprise-amnesty-Myanmar-releases-high-profile-political-prisoners

BANGKOK, THAILAND - Myanmar’s government today freed hundreds of political prisoners in a landmark release that could see Western sanctions on the former military dictatorship relaxed.

The surprise amnesty, the second significant prisoner release since the current military-backed government was formed and new reforms implemented, comes amid growing rivalry between the US and China in Asia. Myanmar (Burma) has long been an economically and politically tied to China, but some see its rulers as chafing under Beijing’s influence, while the US is trying to recover lost ground in the region.

Singaporean academic Simon Tay says that Myanmar’s reforms, though promising, could be more about forming better relations with the West, which has long called on Myanmar’s rulers to bring about change, than about real democratic progress.

The timing and magnitude of today’s mass release came as a surprise to many analysts, including Aung Naing Oo, a former student protester from Myanmar who is now deputy director of the Vahu Development Institute in Thailand. “The military moves slowly, cautiously,” he says explaining why the release came after some recent smaller amnesties that many found disappointing.

Among those freed today were student leaders of a 1988 uprising against military rule, monks who fronted the 2007 Saffron protests, journalists, and bloggers, as well as a former military junta Prime Minister Khin Nyunt and some former intelligence officials and military insiders who were jailed in a 2004 purge orchestrated by then-dictator Than Shwe.

The head of the EU delegation to Myanmar and Thailand, David Lipman, said today in Bangkok that the developments in Myanmar during the past 24 hours were “quite remarkable,” adding that EU governments would discuss Myanamar at an upcoming meeting in Brussels.

Freed prisoners speak

One of those freed today was Ko Ko Gyi, a former student leader who spent a total of 17 years in jail over three jail-terms. Speaking to the Monitor via a crackly telephone line from Yangon, said that “we are grateful for your support and efforts,” referring to countries and organizations that lobbied for the release.

He added that he wants to improve Myanmar’s reforming political system. He would not say whether he would seek to run in upcoming by-elections set for April 1. Ko Mya Aye, another dissident freed today, said by telephone from Myanmar that he plans to campaign for Aung San Suu Kyi when the opposition leader competes in the elections. “I absolutely trust her,” he said.

While the newly released prisoners look ahead, it remains unclear whether today’s release covers all Myanmar’s political prisoners. At time of writing, National League for Democracy spokesman Ohn Kyaing said by telephone from Yangon that his party was “active all across the country trying to verify the numbers of those released.”

“We have so far counted 232 political prisoners,” he said, speaking at 6:30 p.m. Yangon time. The count is expected to increase, as information comes in from the country lacking in modern telecommunications and with prison scattered in remote areas. Yangon-based newspaper Eleven News quoting Myanmar officials who said that 651 prisoners in total were released, including what they termed 591 “prisoners of conscience.” The remainder is believed to include Khin Nyunt’s former spies.

The 591 figure is the same number that NLD had said was the number of detained dissidents, suggesting that the opposition party had some influence on government moves. Ohn Kyaing said the party, headed by Myanmar’s most prominent former political prisoner, Nobel laureate Suu Kyi, was “very happy at the news of the release.”

Observers view the relationship between Myanmar’s President Thein Sein, and Ms. Suu Kyi as having blossomed since a watershed face-to-face meeting between the pair since last July. Suu Kyi now makes regular press appearances to show support for Thein Sein’s reforms.

New freedom, new candor?

Thai political scientist Thitinan Pongudhirak said that Myanmar’s newfound freedoms allowed him share some revealing anecdotes he picked up from talking to officials inside the country at a forum on Myanmar politics today: “Thein Sein’s wife is a big admirer of Aung San Suu Kyi,” he said.

But the apparent importance of such personalized politics may suggest that Myanmar’s ongoing transition needs to be anchored in stronger laws and institutions.

Soe Aung, an exiled dissident based in Thailand, told the Monitor “there must be a legal and institutional reforms to ensure that that our friends and colleagues are not rearrested and put back in jails again.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2012/0112/An-end-to-one-of-the-world-s-longest-wars-Myanmar-rebels-cautious.-video

BANGKOK – After a six-decade war between the government of Myanmar (Burma) and one of the country’s ethnic minority militias, a historic peace is in reach after ceasefire talks today.

The deal would mark the end of one of the world’s longest wars – the Myanmar Army and a Karen ethnic minority’s army have fought since 1949 – and is being taken as another signal that the Myanmar government may be sincere about reforming its old authoritarian ways. But members of the Karen ethnic minority aren’t celebrating just yet.

General-Secretary of the Karen National Union (KNU) Army, Zipporah Sein, says that “we are happy to hear that the government wants to make an agreement,” but says that the deal being discussed in the Burmese town Pa’an has yet to be finalized.

Earlier today, government representative Aung Min told journalists that “a cease-fire agreement has been signed,” and photographs emerged in wire reports of beaming delegates on both sides shaking hands across a table, the Burmese in green uniform and the Karen in traditional dress.

She perhaps has reason to be cautious. Hundreds of thousands of Karen and other Burmese have fled into Thailand in recent decades, where there are currently around 140,000 refugees, mostly Karen, in nine bamboo-hut camps dotting the Thailand-Myanmar border.

Several militias representing other ethnic minorities have signed ceasefires with the government, but since June 9, the national Army and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), a 10,000-strong militia in Myanmar’s northern Kachin state, have fought some heavy battles, with an estimated 50,000 civilians fleeing their homes.

A December order by President Thein Sein for the Myanmar Army to unilaterally cease fire in Kachin state has went unheeded, it appears, with fighting continuing almost daily in an area close to southwest China.

The ethnic minorities

In order for peace to be lasting, former refugee Zoya Phan, whose father was a former head of the KNU and assassinated in Thailand in 2008, says that a deal “should guarantee rights and autonomy for the Karen and bring peace for all the people in Burma.”

Myanmar’s last census was in 1983 and of its estimated 50- to 60-million population, it lists 135 ethnic groups. The ethnic Burmans form the largest group, at perhaps 65 percent of the total, with other significant groups including the Shan, Karen, Rakhine, and Kachin, all with strongholds along Myanmar borderlands with Thailand, China, and India.

In the past, Myanmar’s military has said that local autonomy for Myanmar’s minorities would result in the break-up of the country and used that as justification for its iron-fisted rule of the country and scorched earth tactics in the hills and jungles where ethnic minorities have their strongholds. The US regards some of the ethnic militias as mired in the drug trade – particularly heroin and methamphetamines – peddled from the Golden Triangle area of Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos.

Myanmar’s military elites have long viewed the Karen – who number an estimated 7 million-strong and are comprised of Buddhists, Christians, animists, and Muslims – as collaborators with British colonialists in Burma, and later as separatists bent on carving-off an independent Karen state.

However Myanmar’s new nominally-civilian government has undertaken a number of reforms, such as freeing political prisoners and suspending controversial dams and power plants in ethnic minority regions, where in the past the Army forcibly-cleared populations to make way for pipelines.

“A real peace would be welcome, of course,” says a Karen medical worker who regularly crosses the Thailand-Myanmar border, and is worried that she could be detained for speaking openly on this. “But Karen people are already confused. Will the army stick to the deal, will they stop abuses in villages?”