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.

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

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22700

Burma President Thein Sein pictured at the 2010 ASEAN/EAS summit in Hanoi, when he was Prime Minister under the military junta (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

ABU DHABI – Three weeks after U.S. Sec of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Burma, the U.S. says it “will be prepared to take further steps” provided the Burmese Government “keeps moving in the right direction”, according to a U.S. State Dept. spokesperson.

During her visit to Burma, the first to the country by an U.S. Sec. Of State since Burma was made a military dictatorship in 1962, Sec. Clinton announced a number of initiatives that the United States plans in Burma. These include increased assistance for civil society programs to support microcredit and health programs; a resumption of counternarcotics cooperation and operations to recover missing U.S. military personnel from World War II; and support for an expanded UNDP mandate in the areas of health, education, and micro-finance, as well as assessment missions by international financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

“We are currently taking steps to move forward on all of the actions that Secretary Clinton noted during her visit”, added the spokesperson, in an emailed response to questions about U.S. policy after the Clinton visit.

The Clinton visit, and the pledges made, came after the Burmese government – a formally civilian administration dominated by figures from the previous military system – relaxed media controls, released over 200 political prisoners, suspended a US$3.6 billion Chinese dam in the north of the country, and announced new laws allowing trade unions and another permitting political protest – the latter signed into law by Burma’s President Thein Sein during Clinton’s visit to Burma.

Former political prisoner Maung Thura, better-known by his stage-name Zarganar, was granted permission to travel to Thailand and Cambodia in recent days. “Now I’m here, this is improvement,” he was quoted telling journalists in Bangkok on Dec. 19, referring to the recent changes inside Burma.

However, some Burmese exiles and long-time Burma watchers remain cynical about the recent reform moves, suggesting that the U.S. should adopt a cautious approach for now, until the Burmese Government undertakes more reforms, such as the release of all remaining political prisoners and the cessation of military operations in ethnic minority regions.

Jennifer Quigley, Advocacy Director at the U.S Campaign for Burma, believes that despite Sec. Clinton’s various policy pledges made during her three day visit to Burma, the Burmese Government “in return offered nothing before, during, or after her trip”.

She added that “If the regime is serious in its desire to have a better relationship with the United States, it must go beyond empty promises and actually deliver. They cannot continue to say they are going to release all political prisoners, they must actually release all political prisoners.”

In the days leading up to the Clinton visit, which ran from Nov. 30 – Dec. 2, Burma was awarded the 2014 Chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), two years ahead of schedule. An unspecified number of the country’s remaining political prisoners – estimated at anything between 500 and 1700 – were rumoured to be set for release that week.

The release did not take place, though some prisoners were moved to prisons closer to families. According to Asia analyst Walter Lohman, of the Washington D.C.-based Heritage Foundation, the seeming about-face on political prisoner release was not a coincidence, and was “apparently abandoned after Burma was awarded the 2014 chairmanship.”

More political prisoners are now thought to be up for release early in 2012, a move that could prompt overtures from governments such as the U.K., whose Foreign Secretary William Hague will visit Burma in January 2012.

Burma’s capital Naypyidaw and biggest city Rangoon are hosting foreign visitors – be they heads of government or business delegations – in increasing number and seemingly in anticipation of a reduction of western sanctions on the Burmese government and its main domestic business partners.

Amid this increased activity, the U.S. should do more to build a co-ordinated response to reforms in Burma, say some analysts.

Kelley Currie, a Senior Fellow with the Project 2049 Institute, says that rewarding the Burmese government prematurely risks undermining the reform process.“There are those in the EU and among Asian allies who are ready to rush in with big aid and investment packages, and who are less concerned about ensuring that this reform process is irreversible”, she said, adding that the U.S. should try “to keep the irrational exuberance that some other countries have been experiencing a bit in check.”

When asked, the U.S. State Dept. spokesperson declined to comment specifically on what further steps the U.S. is prepared to take, should the Burmese Government undertake additional reforms, such as the release of more political prisoners.

One possible next step, according to Kelley Currie, would be for the Burmese government to permit international observers to work inside Burma during the country’s upcoming by-elections, which will be contested by long-time opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has given her blessing to the recent reforms in Burma. No date has been set for the by-elections, but “free and fair” elections are one of the conditions set down by the U.S. for the eventual lifting of sanctions on Burma.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22489

BANGKOK—The weekend’s Asia-Pacific summits in Bali will be dominated by a growing US-China rivalry, part of which revolves around Burma, with Hillary Clinton set to visit the country next month.

Burma’s Government has been granted its wish to hold the Association of Southeast Nations (Asean) chair in 2014, two years ahead of schedule and one year before the country’s next elections, due in 2015. This step-by-step rehabilitation continued today, with US President Obama announcing that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit Burma next month.

Obama flew into Bali on Thursday night—the first time an American President will attend an Asean/East Asian summit—and, in what China will surely take as a provocation, is likely to bring up the simmering South China Sea dispute.

Vietnam and the Philippines have sought backing not only from the US in their confrontations with China over ownership of islands in the sea, but also from Japan and India. All told, seven countries have claims of some sort on the mineral and fishery-rich waterway, and China’s uncompromising stance to date has set its neighbors on edge, offering the US a chance to step in.

In Bangkok last month, Kurt Campbell, the senior-ranking U.S official covering Asia, pledged that the US would shift resources and attention from the Middle East and South Asia to the Asia-Pacific region. However, the US has work to do, in Southeast Asia at least. According to a paper by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington D.C. think-tank, the US dropped from being Asean’s largest trading partner to fourth, a swing compounded as China went from ninth to first over the same time-period.

New US plans to launch a free trade bloc known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) seem explicitly designed to counter China’s growing economic weight in the region. The same proposal could prove a useful re-election peg for Obama next year, a buffer against Republican party accusations that he has been slack on boosting US trade links and has failed to stand-up to Beijing.

And while still-sanctioned Burma, with its mothballed economy and infrastructure, is a long way from joining any US-led free trade grouping, Burma hosting an Asean summit in 2014 is now a done deal, and if Obama is re-elected, therefore, he will likely visit Burma at least once in 2014 for the summits to be held that year.

On Friday, the US president announced that he will send Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Burma next month—for the first visit to the country by a US secretary of state since military rule was first imposed nearly 50 years ago.

The internationally-backed reputation-laundering of a once-pariah state will facilitate US economic and political relationship-building in Burma and—Washington hopes—will lay the groundwork for an attempted roll-back of China’s economic influence there, at least to the extent that Burma does not become a signed sealed and delivered Chinese vassal.

Two days after Burma’s foreign minister met with American officials in the U.S., Burma’s President Thein Sein announced —to international astonishment—the suspension of the US $3.6 billion China-funded Myitsone Dam project in northern Burma. By causing China to lose face in such a public and abrupt manner, and demonstrate that it is not yet the Chinese vassal some depict it to be, the Burmese government thinks it has done its bit to entice the US to “engage” more. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Thursday, Burma’s Information Minister Kway Hsan hinted at what the Burmese government wants next from the Americans by blaming US sanctions for hindering development in Burma and forcing the country to rely on Chinese investment.

That said, it seems that the US is not yet ready to relax sanctions, suggesting that the Burmese need to undertake additional reforms before topping the bar in Washington’s eyes. Speaking in Australia on Thursday morning, Obama said that “Some political prisoners have been released. The government has begun a dialogue. Still, violations of human rights persist. So we will continue to speak clearly about the steps that must be taken for the government of Burma to have a better relationship with the United States.”

One country that is not yet sure of its Asean approval is Timor-Leste, which submitted a revised membership application to the current Asean chair and former occupier Indonesia on Tuesday.

Previously, Timor Leste’s application had always faced rejection from Singapore, which argued that the country would hinder Asean’s moves toward an EU-style “community” by 2015. This week, Indonesia’s ever-quotable foreign minister Marty Natalegawa said that “Asean ministers welcome Timor Leste’s application. We have formed a working group to review the roadmap Timor Leste will take to become a member based on the Asean Declaration,” though it is not clear whether Singapore’s misgivings have been overcome.

Kurt Campbell speaks at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok on Monday (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22236

BANGKOK—Discussing what he described as early stages of change in Burma, a senior US diplomat on Monday promised his country “will match their steps with comparable steps,” as expectations grow that Burma will release some of the country’s almost-2,000 political prisoners in the coming days.

Burma’s new National Human Rights Commission published an open letter on Tuesday, in which it “humbly requests the President, as a reflection of his magnanimity, to grant amnesty to those prisoners and release them from the prison.”

If the release happens, the US is likely to relax or end some of the economic sanctions levied against senior Burmese officials and business cronies.

Commenting on Burma’s recent decision to suspend operations at the US $3.6 billion Chinese-built Myitsone Dam in war-wracked Kachin State, Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said this development is one of several that “demand closer attention,” confirming that the US is “looking forward in the course of the next several weeks to continuing a dialogue that has really stepped up in recent months.”

Campbell termed the recent discussions between Burmese President Thein Sein and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as “very consequential,” and described the president as “a serious interlocutor.”

Campbell spoke at a lecture at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, where he discussed US policy in East and Southeast Asia, saying that his country hopes to “shift resources and capability from the Middle East and South Asia to the Asia-Pacific region” over the coming years.

Campbell departed for China on Monday night after acknowledging that “it will take a remarkable effort” for the world’s two biggest economies and growing strategic rivals to deal with the range of issues confronting them.

He said that “Asians and Chinese need to invest more and purchase more products from the US” to help stabilize the global economy, which is under pressure due to debt problems and sluggish growth in Europe, Japan and the US.

China holds an estimated $1.1 trillion in US debt, saying via state media in August that the US needs to “cure its addiction to debts” and “live within its means,” a missive that came just after credit “rating agency” Standard & Poor’s downgraded the US debt rating.

In turn, the US argues that China deliberately undervalues its currency, giving Chinese exporters an advantage over American rivals.

US senators last week voted through a bill allowing Washington to impose additional duties on products from countries that allegedly subsidize exports by undervaluing their currencies.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai warned the US against the measure on Monday, saying “should the proposed legislation become law, the only result would be a trade war between China and the United States, and that would be a lose-lose situation for both sides.”

Burma is likely to be discussed during Campbell’s visit to China, with the diplomat saying that “it is in China’s interests to have a stable and reformed Burma.”

With India hosting Thein Sein on Wednesday, after Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang arrives the day before, China’s head-start in building new commercial and diplomatic links around Southeast Asia seems to be under challenge.

Campbell spoke approvingly of India’s “Look East” policy yesterday, hinting that the US is involved in discussions about New Delhi’s attempts to forge closer relations with countries in East and Southeast Asia.

Japan and India have joined the US in getting involved in the dispute over the South China Sea, where six countries have claims on maritime domain as well as on several islands said to sit near oil and gas reserves. China claims most of the sea for itself, but the US regards it as an international waterway, through which allies such as South Korea and Japan must ship oil and gas imports from Africa and the Middle East.

One potential U.S-China flashpoint—where the US appears less-ready to confront China—is over Taiwan. Asked about the recent US refusal to sell Taipei advanced F-16 fighter jets, instead agreeing to hand over older versions of the aircraft, Campbell emphasized the need for “preservation of peace” between China and Taiwan, which Beijing sees as part of China but which has a defense treaty with the US.

Despite refusing to sell the new model F-16s to its ally, last month’s announcement of a $5.85 billion arms package for Taiwan angered China, and Cui said on Monday that the sale would be discussed with Campbell in Beijing.

“By putting these issues on the table tomorrow, we hope to better address these issues and prevent them from excessively interfering in the normal development of China-US relations,” he said.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22031

BANGKOK — Amid speculation about a power struggle in Naypyidaw between “reformists” such as Burma’s President Thein Sein and “hardliners” such as Vice-President Tin Aung Myint Oo, recently released US diplomatic cables provide a portrait of the man believed to still wield the balance of power in the military-dominated country: Snr-Gen Than Shwe.

The apparent onset of a factional contest is seen, some say, in developments such as the rebranding of the old Myanmar Human Rights Body (MHRB) as a human rights commission and the recent offer of amnesty to Burma’s political exiles. In contrast, recent appointments, such as that of Maj-Gen Soe Shein as head of the country’s military intelligence, suggest that Than Shwe maintains a decisive influence behind the new institutions.

According to accounts drafted by US officials based in Burma, last year’s election was less about reform than about ensuring that Than Shwe’s successor did not subject him and his family to the fate he imposed on Ne Win, the former military dictator who was put under house arrest by Than Shwe in 2002.

A Burmese businessman told the US embassy that “many of the top generals believe Than Shwe knows he has only a few years to live, and has dictated the timing of the referendum and elections to make sure a parliamentary government, overseen by the military, is in place before he dies.”

US diplomatic cables from the country’s embassy in Rangoon depicted Than Shwe as a paranoid recluse, secluded from reality by sycophants and yes-men, yet simultaneously able to maintain absolute authority. According to then US Chargé d’Affairs Shari Villarosa, writing in a Jan 11, 2008 cable recounting her meeting with Yin Yin Oo, a Burmese Foreign Ministry official described as close to current House Speaker Shwe Mann, “No one speaks truth to power for fear of losing their privileged positions.”

Despite his “increasingly erratic behavior,” coming around the time he traveled to Singapore to receive medical treatment, Than Shwe remained “firmly in power and in control” and was “single-handedly calling the shots regarding the upcoming constitutional referendum and the next steps of the roadmap, including the parliamentary election,” according to another cable dated April 25, 2008.

In the days following the May 2008 Cyclone Nargis disaster, Than Shwe is described as “worried about a US invasion” and “isolated and unaware of the scale of the catastrophe that has befallen his country.” At the time, the Burmese rulers were castigated internationally for refusing for weeks to allow international humanitarian assistance to enter Burma, despite the destruction and death toll wrought by the cyclone.

Indicative of how centralized power—and fear, it seems—had become in Burma, the cable outlined that “no-one will approve visas for international humanitarian assistance workers without his direct approval,” suggesting that Than Shwe was prone to micro-management when it came to issues he was sensitive about, such as the presence of foreigners in Burma.

Seemingly exasperated with the official reaction to the Nargis disaster, which killed over 140,000 according to official figures, the business and media contacts referred to in the cable “pleaded with the US to request the Chinese to send a high-level emissary to speak to Than Shwe regarding the gravity of the situation, and to urge him to let in international humanitarian experts.” According to some accounts, of all the foreign delegations in Burma, only the Chinese diplomats could ensure that Than Shwe received or even read their messages.

Speculating on the extent of Than Shwe’s self-imposed isolation and the fear-ridden inertia his rule generated, the contacts even “doubted that [UN Secretary-General] Ban Ki-moon’s message to Than Shwe had even been delivered to him, as no one dared push up any bad news to the Senior General.”

Other cables point to Than Shwe lambasting visiting United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari, disputing that Burma had any humanitarian problems and restating the claim that there are no political prisoners inside the country.

Than Shwe apparently cited what the cable says were “bogus humanitarian statistics” while meeting Gambari—possibly similar data and interpretations to those given by Burmese officials at rare press conferences and seminars attended by diplomatic representatives. Along similar lines, at a Dec 3, 2007, news conference, Minister of Information Brigadier-General Kyaw Hsan, Director General of Police Khin Yi and Minister of Labor Aung Kyi “presented the regime’s conspiracy theory of how external agitators, not popular discontent,” were the cause of the nationwide monk-led protests in August and September 2007.

Despite his apparent omnipotence, Than Shwe revealed some vulnerabilities. According to one view given to the American embassy, he shunned extended stays away from Burma for medical treatment, as he was paranoid that rivals could move against him in his absence.

The cable recounting Than Shwe’s verbal assault on UN envoy Gambari jumped on old rumors that the regime’s No 2, Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye, was plotting against his boss, citing a Machiavellian scheme to stir Than Shwe into “a harder line” against the UN, which in turn could justify a move against him. However, it is unclear if such an attempt to oust Than Shwe was ever likely, given that his hardline reaction to the 2007 protests and negligence after Cyclone Nargis went unimpeded by would-be plotters. According to the post-Nargis US embassy account, “the military and bureaucracy remain paralyzed with fear.”

Despite his sullen alpha-male exterior, Burma’s military dictator was simultaneously capable of maudlin self-pity and peevish envy, it seems. In a meeting with American embassy officials, a departing Chinese diplomat recounted that Than Shwe once held his hand and asked, “Why do they sanction me—I have no villas and no foreign bank accounts, and yet they idolize a female [Suu Kyi] who has done nothing for the country?”

It seems that Than Shwe was not always so detached from reality, and, that in the past, he at least made the effort to spin a softer line to foreigners, without recourse to either blatant denials of patently obvious truths or completely-ignoring foreign dignitaries or representatives

A much older cable, from September 1992—the year he seized power—has the newly enthroned dictator telling the departing Indian ambassador that “the military cannot stay in power too long without risking unpopularity” and that “Burma’s economy won’t recover without foreign expertise.” The newly installed strongman even conceded to the Thai government that Burma held political prisoners—much to the chagrin of Khin Nyunt, the Prime Minister and intelligence svengali later ousted by Than Shwe in 2004.

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

Burma’s Foreign Minister told the Cambodian Ambassador that Aung San Suu Kyi’s party would be allowed run in the 2010 election. Leaked US cables highlight divergences between Western and ASEAN views on Burma, with Hun Sen sounded-out as a possible interlocutor with the Burmese junta.

Boeung Kak lake in Phnom Penh, where thousands of residents have been driven out to make way for a Chinese-backed development, adding to concerns about the Cambodian Gov's human rights record (Photo: Simon Roughneen

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21732

BANGKOK — In a meeting with Scott Marciel, the then-US ambassador for ASEAN Affairs and current ambassador to Indonesia, Cambodia’s Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said “that the Burmese FM told the Cambodian ambassador recently that elections will be held in May 2010 and that 10 political parties, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s, would be allowed participate.”

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), the party that won Burma’s previous election in 1990, only for the military to ignore the result, boycotted the 2010 election, partly due to the ban imposed on Suu Kyi from participating.

In any case, according to Burma’s state-run media, the NLD was officially proscribed on Sept 14, 2010, almost 2 months before the Nov 7, 2010 vote, which produced a landslide win for the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in an election widely dismissed as rigged.

The meeting, detailed in a US embassy cable dated Feb 12, 2010, added that “the Burmese government has requested that Asean send election observers.”

However, despite requests from Indonesia and others to send observers, the Burmese government refused to allow outside observation of the election, except for an election-day delegation of Naypyidaw-based diplomats led by the North Korean embassy.

Months before, on May 27-28, 2009, Cambodia played host to a testy meeting between foreign ministers from the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in which “[Aung San Suu Kyi] and Burmese human rights violations monopolized news conferences, informal meetings, and even formal discussions during the two-day meeting,” despite a wide-ranging agenda, according to another US diplomatic cable from the country’s embassy in Phnom Penh.

The atmosphere at the meeting was described as tense, as it came shortly after Suu Kyi’s arrest for her alleged role in harboring a foreign guest at her Rangoon home, in violation of Burmese law and the terms of her house arrest. In a bizarre and as-yet-unexplained incident, on May 3, 2009, less than a month before Suu Kyi’s term of house arrest was due to expire, American John Yettaw swam across a Rangoon lake to Suu Kyi’s residence, but was arrested by Burmese police upon leaving the house two days later. Suu Kyi was eventually sentenced to an additional 18 months of house arrest in August 2009, before being released on Nov 13, 2011, a week after Burma’s parliamentary elections.

Yettaw’s release was secured by US Senator Jim Webb, who visited Burma in August 2009. Webb then proceeded to Vietnam and Cambodia, where he met with Prime Minister Hun Sen, who “praised” the former Virginia senator for his visit, and noted “that he (Hun Sen) had not been able to see both Than Shwe and Aung San Suu Kyi during his own previous visits,” according to another Phnom Penh embassy cable dated Aug 19, 2009.

Previously, according to the account of the May 2009 EU-ASEAN meeting given by an unnamed European diplomat to his/her American counterpart, discussions were “quite hard,” with Burma’s Deputy Foreign Minister Maung Myint repeatedly objecting to the UK and other EU ministers use of “Burma” rather than “Myanmar,” the official name for country conferred by the Burmese military rulers in 1989. Referring to Suu Kyi’s arrest, Maung Myint said that Burma “does not accept pressure and interference from abroad” and went on to accuse the junta’s critics of threatening “Myanmar’s sovereignty, stating that [Aung San Suu Kyi's] trial is an internal legal issue, and it is not a human rights issue,” according to the account in the cable.

Suggesting differing views about Burma, as well as anger among Asean ministers that so much discussion time was spent on the country, Hor Namhong blamed the EU ministers for focusing on Burma, but added that he hoped that Burma “would move ahead in the democratization process.”

Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said that he “respected Burma’s insistence on non-interference, while Singapore’s Zainul Abidin Rasheed claimed that the “EU is a union of values but ASEAN is not.” He added “instead, diversity is, if not encouraged, at least agreed,” while re-stating Asean opposition to sanctions on Burma.

Nonetheless, “a strong and clear” joint EU-Asean declaration on Burma came out at the end of the meeting, with nine Asean ministers joining EU counterparts “to urge Burma to free all political prisoners including [Aung San Suu Kyi] at the end of the ministerial.” Burma’s delegation is said to have rejected portions of the statement and “adamantly refused any text related to the EU envoy [Piero] Fassino whatsoever.”

The US sought to engage Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen on Burma over a number of years, viewing the former Khmer Rouge man as a possible interlocutor with the Burmese junta. Hun Sen is regularly criticized for his alleged disregard for human rights in Cambodia. Noting this, he told unnamed diplomats, politicians and officials in Phnom Penh that “it made little sense for the international community to criticize Cambodia for its poor human rights record but then ask for Cambodia’s assistance in persuading Burma to respect the human rights of its people.”

In 2006, Cambodia established a legislative caucus on Burma, with Hun Sen allowing Burmese exiled dissidents and NLD members to attend the caucus’ opening in Phnom Penh, a move he felt would earn the wrath of the Burmese rulers.

According to a cable giving an account of the ceremony “the PM reportedly showed the delegation a letter from the SPDC [State Peace and Development Council, the name for the Burmese military junta] protesting the establishment of the Burma Caucus and the Cambodian government’s invitation to NLD MPs to join the launch. The letter allegedly referred to Burma’s democratic activists as ‘terrorists.’”

http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21720

BANGKOK—More recently-released US diplomatic cables have shed light on Thailand’s relationship with Burma as perceived by American officials at their embassy in Bangkok.

The documents suggest that despite rhetorical differences, there was continuity of policy both before the 2006-2008 crisis in Thailand—when then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted in a military coup—and afterwards when Democrat leader Abhisit Vejajjiva took over power.

The cables provide accounts of various US officials, including former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, discussing various aspects of Thailand’s foreign policy with Thai lawmakers such as Thaksin Shinawatra and outgoing Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya.

A cable dated Aug. 18, 2008, said, “for most of the Thaksin administration, [the United States] have been at odds over our respective approaches to Burma—essentially agreeing to disagree.”

When Rumsfeld raised the issue of Burma with Thaksin, the former PM said, “Thailand’s goals vis-a-vis Burma are the same as the US, but the reality of Thailand’s border with Burma precludes the [Thai government] from pursuing the same strategy,” according to the cable, which is a “partial extract” as the full text has not been released.

In general, US officials sought to persuade their Thai counterparts that “constructive engagement” with the Burmese regime, then known as the State Peace and Development Council, was unlikely to work. Thai officials appeared to tacitly acknowledge this with then-Foreign Minister Sompong Amornvivat saying that the Burmese leadership “stiffened” at the mere mention of democracy, according to a US Embassy cable dated Oct. 27, 2008.

But it seems democracy was not the only taboo subject when Thailand’s lawmakers met Burma’s rulers. Similarly, when Thaksin met with Burma’s military dictator Sen-Gen Than Shwe in 2006, he attempted to bring up the topic of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, according to an account given to Ambassador Ralph Boyce by Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathiai. “However, as soon as he did Than Shwe ‘cut him off’ with the usual litany of complaints, i.e. [Suu Kyi] is uncooperative, causes trouble whenever she is released, etc,” said the cable.

Two years after Thaksin’s rebuff by Than Shwe, Sompong said that Thailand would “look for indirect ways of promoting democratic development,” such as offering Thai assistance/training on local administration elections, since pressing anything labeled “democracy” on the Burmese would be rejected. This pessimistic analysis came just months after Burma voted on a new constitution in a referendum slammed-internationally as inherently flawed.

The junta sought to portray the constitution as a step toward democratization and elections, which were in turn held on Nov. 7, 2010, and were likewise dismissed as a sham—an assessment partly-based on the constitutional requirement that the military retain a behinds-the-scene veto on political change in Burma.

Whilst “agreeing to differ” on Burma policy in general, the US was angered by Thaksin’s sudden, unannounced trip to Burma on Aug. 2, 2006, which apparently came about after the Thai PM “got word” from Than Shwe on July 31 that a visit would be possible. Surakiart insisted the visit had nothing to do with Thaksin’s alleged business links in Burma, but was about convincing the Burmese junta to be more open in its dealings with the outside world.

Just over a month before he ousted Thaksin in a military coup, one member of Thaksin’s hastily assembled delegation, Thai Army chief General Sonthi Boonyaratkalin, met with then-General Thura Shwe Mann, now speaker of Burma’s nominally-civilian Parliament, while Thaksin sat with Than Shwe.

Agreeing with American concerns about the trip, Surukiart noted that the then-opposition in Thailand would “have a field day with this” and, in general, Thaksin’s relations with the Burmese rulers drew fire from the Democrat Party while Thai Rak Thai and its successor parties were in government.

On Dec 26, 2008, soon after Abhisit Vejajjiva took office and replaced the Thaksin-backed People’s Power Party (PPP)-led coalition in what critics slammed as a judicial coup, Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya met with the US Ambassador.

Responding to questions about the new government’s Burma policy, Kasit said, “PM Abhisit had made it clear to the cabinet that vested interests would not drive Thailand’s external relationships,” according to the confidential cable.

In an apparent reference to Thaksin’s attempts to forge closer economic ties with the junta, Kasit said, “the vested interests that drove Thailand’s past relationship with Burma (including the activities of companies and state agencies such as the [Electricity Generation Authority of Thailand] and [Petroleum Authority of Thailand] would no longer drive policy.”

Thailand’s investment in Burma increased under the Democrat-led coalition, which was beaten once more by a Thaksin-backed party in Thailand’s July 3 election. The flagship Thai project is the US$8 billion Dawei/Tavoy port development, which was first mooted under Thailand’s Thaksin-linked PPP governments, but was eventually signed on Nov. 2, 2010, five days before Burma’s election.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21130

New US rules outlining requirements for oil, gas and mining companies to disclose payments made to foreign governments, including Burma, have been postponed until August at the earliest.

Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Wall St. Reform Act, passed in 2010, requires publicly traded companies listed on US stock exchanges to disclose how much they pay foreign governments to acquire drilling and mining rights in the given countries. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was scheduled to publish rules governing Section 1504 on April 15, but has now delayed their release.

The SEC rules will likely cover some of the estimated 27 companies invested in Burma’s natural resource sector, possibly including Chevron, China National Offshore Oil Company, Daewoo, PTTEP (Thailand), Total and others. Unlike the Burmese government, Total and Chevron are both signed-up supporters of the EITI, which is seen as a precursor to Section 1504.

After the SEC postponement, Burmese will have to wait some time before finding out what payments the various companies have made to the Burmese military junta. If the Section 1504 rules are published in Aug. 2011, then companies will have until Aug. 2012 to report on payments made.

The Thailand-based Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) participated in the public debate on Section 1504 as permitted by the SEC. The group welcomed the proposed Section 1504, which it said would help people displaced along the Kanbauk to Myaing Kalay pipeline better understand the value of material losses they have incurred due to the opaque investment procedures surrounding the project. Kanbauk-Myaing Kalay transports gas from the offshore Yadana field to the Burmese domestic market, with the rest of the Yadana gas exported to Thailand via a separate pipeline.

Overall, assessing exactly how much money the Burmese government has earned in oil and gas revenues over the years is difficult. Billions of dollars are already banked—possibly in Singapore—with the actual amount blurred by the Burmese government’s fiddling of the kyat-dollar exchange rate.

And energy revenues are set to rise. New fields and pipelines will come on-stream in the near future, and the Shwe Gas Movement estimates the windfall to Burma’s government from the Shwe Gas field and pipelines being built into China to be a minimum of US $29 billion over 30 years. China National Petroleum Corporation and Daewoo are the majority shareholders in the Shwe project.

Some estimates suggest that the Burmese government spends 60 percent of its energy income on the military. The latest budget, announced in Jan. 2011 before the new Parliament went into session, allocates 25 percent of budgetary spending on the army—with only four percent for education and 1.3 percent for health spending.

The spending imbalance comes despite the growing gas, oil and gemstones revenues adding unknown billions to the state coffers, while ordinary Burmese are among the poorest people in Asia, living on average of less than $500 per year.

According to the SEC website, “Section 1504 requires reporting issuers engaged in the commercial development of oil, natural gas, or minerals to disclose in an annual report certain payments made to the United States or a foreign government.”

Companies listed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will have to report on these payments within one year or face possible de-listing from the exchange on which they are trading.

As the rules will cover all companies listed on US stock exchanges, not just US companies, 90 percent of the major internationally-operating oil and gas companies and eight of the 10 most successful mining companies will come under the Section 1504 requirements.

Amid speculation that lobbying by oil and gas companies contributed to the postponement, the SEC has not commented directly on the timing.

Giulio Carini of Global Witness—a London-headquartered organization that researches and campaigns on natural resource-related corruption and human rights issues—told The Irrawaddy that a number of other factors are likely to have contributed to the delay.

“Dodd-Frank is a huge, complex and multi-faceted piece of legislation, and staff at the Commission have a lot of separate sections to deal with,” he said.

The drafting and comment phase of the rules process has been open and transparent to date, says Karin Lissakers of the Revenue Watch Institute. She told The Irrawaddy that “companies have been trying to water down the rules,” as might be expected, but she is more disappointed that the consultation has become a protracted process.

Peter Voser, the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, recently warned that the Section 1504 requirements could undermine the progress made under the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), in which companies and governments disclose payments made and received in oil, gas and mining. The EITI has been touted as a success so far, but only 11 of the 35 implementing countries are fully compliant with the voluntary reporting procedures.

Voser added that Section 1504 “may even require companies to violate sovereign laws to disclose information that the laws do not allow.”

In a Nov. 2010 letter to the SEC, the American Petroleum Institute (API), a trade association representing over 400 oil and gas companies, said that “Section 1504 could provide competitors with commercially sensitive contractual information and insight into bidding strategies, placing US listed companies at a competitive disadvantage.”

Paul Donowitz of Earthrights International, which recently published a report on alleged human rights abuses along the new Shwe Gas pipeline, told The Irrawaddy that “The API is specifically requesting the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission grant an exemption to any company if the country where they operate passes a law making disclosure of payments illegal.”

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