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HEADLINES
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AP - Myanmar's Suu Kyi may be freed in 6 months, junta hints to ASEAN foreign ministers
AP - North Korea, Myanmar to dominate Asia's main security dialogue, inflation also on agenda
AP - ASEAN says it is deeply disappointed over extension of Suu Kyi's detention in Myanmar
AFP - Border dispute, Myanmar, top ASEAN ministers' talks
AFP - ASEAN urged to heap pressure on Myanmar
Khaleej Times - ASEAN to continue soft treatment of Myanmar
Khaleej Times - ASEAN not shedding kid gloves in treatment of Myanmar
The Billings Gazette - Myanmar visitor tells of relief efforts
MCOT - Police nab illegal 20 Myanmar migrants in Mae Sot
Washington Post - A New Generation of Activists Arises in Burma
Xinhua - Myanmar starts five key highway projects in cyclone-hit region
Bkk Post - Thailand condemned for kicking out refugees
Irrawaddy - Junta sells seeds which do not sprout to farmers in Irrawaddy

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Myanmar's Suu Kyi may be freed in 6 months, junta hints to ASEAN foreign ministers
By JIM GOMEZ,Associated Press Writer
AP - Monday, July 21

SINGAPORE - Myanmar's military junta has indicated to its Southeast Asian neighbors that opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi could be freed from house arrest in about six months, Singapore's foreign minister said Sunday.

The hint came as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations expressed "deep disappointment" at the decision by the junta in May to extend Suu Kyi's detention by another year. It was an unusually frank and unprecedented criticism of Myanmar by the region's main bloc, whose members usually stick to the policy of not interfering in each other's domestic affairs.

The comment by Myanmar's Foreign Minister Nyan Win to ASEAN is the most optimistic assessment of Suu Kyi's future by the junta, and the closest to a definite timetable for her release, which has been demanded by the international community.

Nyan Win made the hint during a dinner hosted by Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo for the foreign ministers of the ten member countries of ASEAN. The ministers will begin their annual weeklong meeting here Monday.

Yeo said Nyan Win explained to the others that under his country's law a political detainee can be held for a maximum of six years.

"And he told us that the six-year limit will come up in about half a year's time," Yeo said.

Asked if this means Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate, could be released in six months, Yeo said: "That is not an inaccurate inference."

Although the junta's mouthpiece media have said in the past that the government has the right to hold Suu Kyi for six years, it is the first time that such a senior member of the regime has ventured to suggest the possibility of her release in an international forum.

The military regime extended Suu Kyi's house arrest May 27 for the sixth straight year. She has now been detained for more than 12 of the last 18 years at her home in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party has denounced the extension as illegal, saying that its interpretation of the law is that she could be held only up to five years and not six.

After the dinner meeting, the ASEAN members issued a statement that came down heavily on Myanmar.

"The foreign ministers expressed their deep disappointment that ... Suu Kyi's detention has been extended by the Myanmar government," it said, adding that the ministers repeated a call by their governments for her to be released.

The ministers also urged the junta to engage in a "meaningful dialogue with all political groups and work toward a peaceful transition to democracy in the near future."

ASEAN also urged the junta to give U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari access to senior leaders and to allow meetings with "the widest possible range of contacts including Suu Kyi."

ASEAN has never laid down so many demands on Myanmar, and its willingness to do so now is a reflection of its frustrations. ASEAN is also fed up of the criticism it faces from the international community for not putting enough pressure on Myanmar.

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North Korea, Myanmar to dominate Asia's main security dialogue, inflation also on agenda
By VIJAY JOSHI,Associated Press Writer
AP - Sunday, July 20

SINGAPORE - Asia's annual security dialogue with the United States and Europe kicks off Sunday, weighed down by the recalcitrant regimes in North Korea and Myanmar, as well as spiraling food prices and disaster management.

A bubbling border confrontation between Cambodia and Thailand is the latest in a long list of security concerns facing Asian foreign ministers as they get together for the region's premier conference.

It begins Sunday with a working dinner of foreign ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations. They will hold a series of meetings with counterparts from neighboring countries, culminating in the main event Thursday, known as the ASEAN Regional Forum. The ARF comprises ASEAN and 16 countries plus the European Union.

In between will be the most keenly watched event on the sidelines of the conference: a meeting of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun and their counterparts from China, Japan, South Korea and Russia, who are taking part in the six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear program.

It will be the highest level of contact between the six countries since 2003 when negotiations began to get North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for political and economic incentives.

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said he does not expect Rice and Pak to meet bilaterally, but expects "there will be an informal ministerial level meeting of the six-party ministers."

He said the meeting is not expected to yield "specific outcomes."

The optimism over North Korea notwithstanding, the forum is clearly worried about the security situation in the region.

"Despite the ARF's best efforts ... security threat and challenges that could undermine the peace, security and stability of the region still exist," said a draft of the statement that will be issued at the end of the meeting. The draft was obtained by The Associated Press.

The challenges are highlighted by a dispute that has flared up between Thailand and Cambodia. Both countries have reinforced their troops along a disputed border area. Also on the agenda will be the behavior of Myanmar's junta, which has done little to allow democracy and has refused to free opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest.

ASEAN has been criticized for doing little to force Myanmar, a fellow member, to change its ways, but was hailed for persuading the junta to accept international aid and relief workers after a devastating cyclone in May.

Host Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo said ASEAN deserves a "C" grading for its performance in Myanmar. But ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan was more optimistic.

"I think probably a B-plus for me," he told reporters. "I'm not challenging him (Yeo), but I think he's being very cautious."

Disaster relief and management will be another main topic of discussion in the wake of the Myanmar cyclone, the May earthquake in China and a recent ferry sinking in the Philippines.

The participants are expected this week to pledge to intensify cooperation on disaster relief and management. Among the steps being discussed is the setting up of an interim ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Security for Asia is not only in terms of traditional military conflicts but also the "growing challenge posed by rising oil and food prices," said a draft statement of a separate ASEAN declaration.

The problems "pose a serious challenge to our peoples' welfare as well as our countries' continued economic development, " said the draft.

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ASEAN says it is deeply disappointed over extension of Suu Kyi's detention in Myanmar
AP - Monday, July 21

SINGAPORE - Southeast Asian nations have expressed their "deep disappointment" over a decision by Myanmar's military junta to extend the house arrest of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo says the Association of Southeast Asian Nations reiterated its call for Suu Kyi's release.

He says foreign ministers from the 10 ASEAN nations, including Myanmar, had a "full and frank discussion" Sunday of the country's political situation, and were briefed by their Myanmar counterpart, Nyan Win.

Yeo says the ministers "expressed their deep disappointment" that Suu Kyi's detention was extended in June for a sixth straight year.

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Border dispute, Myanmar, top ASEAN ministers' talks
by Jason Gutierrez
AFP - Monday, July 21

SINGAPORE (AFP) - Southeast Asian foreign ministers urged Thailand and Cambodia to show restraint in a border dispute, and urged Myanmar to free all political prisoners, as annual talks began Sunday night.

Ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) began their talks over dinner while two of its members, Thailand and Cambodia, were locked in an armed standoff over a border temple, and after rogue member Myanmar extended opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest.

Thailand and Cambodia have agreed to "exert utmost efforts" to find a peaceful solution to their standoff, Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo said after the dinner at a restaurant in the city-state's botanical gardens.

"Both sides affirmed that they would abide by their ASEAN and international obligations and exert their utmost efforts to find a peaceful solution to the issue," Yeo said in a statement.

More than 500 Thai troops and well over 1,000 Cambodian soldiers are stationed around a small Buddhist pagoda leading to the ruins of an 11th-century temple, where nearby land is claimed by both sides.

"We urged both sides to exercise utmost restraint and resolve this issue amicably in the spirit of ASEAN solidarity and good neighbourliness, " Yeo said.

The foreign ministers also expressed "deep disappointment" over the extension of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's detention and called for all political prisoners in the country to be freed, Yeo said.

"They repeated the call by ASEAN leaders for the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other political detainees as part of Myanmar's national reconciliation process," he said.

Myanmar's ruling generals extended Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest by one year on May 27. She has spent most of the past 18 years confined to her lakeside home in Myanmar's main city Yangon.

ASEAN has often been criticised for failing to act firmly against member Myanmar over human rights abuses and a lack of democratic progress.

Myanmar's junta should engage in "a meaningful dialogue with all political groups", Yeo said.

While the border dispute and Myanmar dominated the first night of the ministers' meeting, high on the official agenda is a new ASEAN charter which would create an EU-style economic block committed to democracy and human rights by 2015.

Efforts to get aid to about two million survivors of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar are also expected to feature prominently when talks continue on Monday.

Myanmar earned international contempt by refusing to allow a foreign-led relief effort when the May cyclone left 138,000 dead or missing.

ASEAN won praise for eventually bridging the gap between the junta and the outside world over cyclone relief efforts by taking the lead on a joint aid mission with the military authorities and the United Nations.

The mission is expected to release its full report on the humanitarian situation in Myanmar's devastated southern delta region here on Monday.

The temple standoff began after three Thai protesters were arrested on Tuesday for crossing a fence to reach the ancient ruins, which have been a source of tension between the neighbours for decades.

Defence officials from both countries plan to meet on the border on Monday to try to defuse the crisis.

Thai government representatives here said they could not discuss whether the countries' ministers would hold bilateral talks in Singapore.

"Any tension, any misunderstanding between and among member states is always an issue of concern for ASEAN," the bloc's secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan said earlier Sunday.

He said the ministers were keen to see the matter resolved "as soon as possible."

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ASEAN urged to heap pressure on Myanmar
Agence France-Presse
First Posted 10:47:00 07/20/2008

SINGAPORE--Myanmar must face more pressure over its handling of cyclone relief -- and its rights record -- when foreign ministers from neighboring nations, Washington and Europe meet this week, activists say.

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has often been criticized for failing to act firmly against its rogue member Myanmar over human rights abuses and a lack of democratic progress in that country.

But the response of the bloc after Myanmar's delay in allowing foreign experts to help the relief effort after the Cyclone Nargis disaster in May has earned it some praise.

Activists said the group must keep pushing to secure more assistance for up to two million people who, ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan said recently, remain in a "very precarious situation."

"For the first time in its history, ASEAN was actually effective at something," said Dave Mathieson, a consultant on Burma for the US-based Human Rights Watch.

"But there's still a lot of work to be done," he said. "So they've got to keep the pressure on."

Myanmar's military regime earned widespread condemnation by refusing to allow a major relief operation after the cyclone, which left 138,000 people dead or missing. Singapore, the ASEAN chair, called the delay "regrettable. "

The junta later agreed to allow in foreign aid workers, and asked its fellow ASEAN nations to coordinate the international effort.

Under a tripartite agreement with the United Nations and the Myanmar government, nearly 300 ASEAN volunteers operated in the hard-hit Irrawaddy Delta to prepare an assessment of those affected by the storm.

That report, to be released Monday, "will be useful to help guide the relief and recovery efforts" to meet the medium-term needs of victims, Surin said.

ASEAN ministers, who begin a series of meetings Sunday night, will be joined on Thursday by counterparts from other nations gathered in the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Asia's main security dialogue.

The grouping includes the United States and European Union -- whose sanctions and harsh words against Myanmar's junta have been at odds with the traditionally softer approach of ASEAN.

Debbie Stothard, of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma, a rights group, said that how Myanmar's junta "seriously mishandled" the cyclone will be "the elephant in the room as far as the ASEAN Regional Forum is concerned."

Aid agencies in Myanmar still face restrictions on their relief work, and Mathieson said ASEAN must press the junta to let aid workers operate unhindered, and for assessments of health, shelter and other needs to continue.

Critics say the junta's poor response to the cyclone was due to its lack of a democratic framework and respect for human rights.

Just seven days after the cyclone, Myanmar insisted on holding a referendum on a military-backed constitution. Despite the devastation, it claimed 98 percent of voters turned out, with more than 92 percent endorsing the charter.

The opposition party of detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, held under house arrest for most of the past 18 years, dismissed the referendum outcome as a "sham."

Senior Southeast Asian officials have recommended that their foreign ministers call on Myanmar to release all political detainees and for the junta "to take bolder steps" towards democracy, a senior official said.

If endorsed, the recommendation would signal a toughening of the bloc's attitude, but foreign ministers will debate the officials' recommendation and it could be watered down.

Myo Myint Maung, a Myanmar national who last year joined protests in Singapore against Myanmar and ASEAN, said activists will virtually ignore this week's meetings, having almost given up hope that ASEAN will bring about change.

"They have always refused to exert much pressure on the military regime," Myo Myint Maung said.

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Khaleej Times - ASEAN to continue soft treatment of Myanmar
20 July 2008

SINGAPORE - The Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is not planning to use the leverage of ongoing humanitarian operations for cyclone victims in Myanmar to pressure the country's military junta to implement democratic reforms.

Officials with the 10-member regional grouping said the ASEAN-led international mission to help nearly 2 million people displaced by cyclone Nargis is purely a humanitarian mission and will not be tainted by politics.

Nargis pummelled Myanmar's central coastal region in early May, wreaking havoc on the rice-growing Irrawaddy Delta and the former capital of Yangon and left about 140,000 people dead or missing.

A senior ASEAN diplomat said the bloc will not go further than issuing a "gentle reminder" of hopes for greater freedoms.

"It is clear and everyone agrees that it's a humanitarian issue and it should not be mixed with politics," said the diplomat requesting anonymity.

ASEAN, which includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, has been condemned by Western countries and human rights groups for failing to exert greater pressure of Myanmar to implement greater freedoms.

Prior to Nargis, Myanmar was blasted by the international community for violent crackdowns on pro-democracy protesters that left scores of protesters dead and hundreds of activists in prison.

The ASEAN diplomat said that while the United States and Europe are free to raise the political and human rights issues relating to Myanmar again during a regional security forum later in the week, ASEAN will simply take note of it.

"It will be counter-productive if we pressure the Myanmar junta," he said, as the likelihood would be more resistance to reforms.

"All the sanctions imposed by other countries have not worked in forcing Myanmar to implement democratic reforms," he said referring to the US and EU.

ASEAN Director General Surin Pitsuwan agreed and noted that tying aid to Myanmar's cyclone victims with political issues could generate resistance from the junta.

"We are addressing the emergency issue in front of us," Surin said. "If we complicate issues early on we may have that space limited and that will not be good for the victims and the people who need help.

"There are many ways of going around some thorny issues between and among us," he added. "I think you have to be creative, you have to be on alert that there are ways and means to address the same problems, but maybe not in the same way, not in the same manner as everyone would like to do."

Members of the Humanitarian Task Force, which included representatives from the UN and Myanmar, will present to the foreign ministers their report on the relief and rehabilitation efforts in the country.

The UN is hoping the report will help generate some 480 million dollars in fresh emergency funding over the next year in order to intensify rehabilitation efforts.

Debbie Stothard, coordinator of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma, warned ASEAN against kowtowing to the whims and caprices of the military junta that has turned the tragedy into cash cow.

"There has to be reforms in governance so that the system will become more transparent, more accountable and less corrupt," she said.

"There was widespread documentation that international aid for the victims of Nargis was being repacked and given to people as dole-outs of the generals," Stothard said.

"The junta also jacked up the estimated cost of rehabilitation to 11 billion dollars from the 4 billion dollars estimated by international agencies."

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Khaleej Times - ASEAN not shedding kid gloves in treatment of Myanmar
20 July 2008

SINGAPORE - For the last 11 years, the Association of South- East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been very lenient with Myanmar, despite scathing criticisms over its failure to push for democratic reforms in the military-ruled country.

While the 10-member regional bloc may have played a key role in convincing Myanmar's skeptical leaders to open up to foreign relief efforts following Cyclone Nargis' destruction in May, ASEAN has yet to shed the kid-glove treatment of its notorious member.

Even with the humanitarian effort in Myanmar, formerly Burma, ASEAN treaded carefully and did not ram its way into the situation, coming in only three weeks after the storm devastated low-lying delta communities.

"Even in such a calamitous situation, ASEAN failed to act decisively," said Debbie Stothard, coordinator of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma, a non-governmental organization pushing for democratic reforms in Myanmar.

ASEAN has refused to exploit the humanitarian operations as an opportunity to pressure Myanmar's military junta into fast-tracking the implementation of democratic reforms.

In annual meetings starting Sunday in Singapore, foreign ministers are expected to urge the junta to "take bolder steps in what they are doing to move on the roadmap to democracy," according to a senior Philippine official.

The ministers will ask for the release of political detainees without singling out opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Officials stressed that the ASEAN-led international effort to help some 2.4 million of people displaced by Cyclone Nargis is purely a humanitarian mission and will not be tainted with politics.

Nargis pummelled Myanmar's central coastal region in early May, wrecking havoc on the rice-rich Irrawaddy Delta and the former capital Yangon, leaving about 140,000 people dead or missing.

A senior ASEAN diplomat said the regional grouping will not go further than issuing the "gentle reminder" for Myanmar to fulfill its promise to implement democratic reforms.

"It is clear and everyone agrees that it's a humanitarian issue, and it should not be mixed up with politics," said the diplomat, requesting anonymity.

ASEAN, which groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, has been criticized by Western governments and human-rights groups for its failure to compel Myanmar to implement greater freedoms.

Prior to Nargis, Myanmar was blasted by the international community for violent crackdowns on pro-democracy protesters that resulted in the deaths of an undetermined number of protesters and imprisonment of hundreds of activists.

The ASEAN diplomat said that while the United States and Europe are free to raise political and human-rights issues relating to Myanmar again during a regional security forum later in the week, ASEAN will just take note of it.

"It will be counterproductive if we pressure the Myanmar junta," he said, as the likelihood would be more resistance to reforms.

"All the sanctions imposed by other countries have not worked in forcing Myanmar to implement democratic reforms."

ASEAN Director General Surin Pitsuwan agreed and noted that tying up aid to Myanmar's cyclone victims with political issues could generate resistance from the junta.

"We are addressing the emergency issue in front of us," Surin said. "If we complicate issues early on, we may have that space limited, and that will not be good for the victims and the people who need help."

The former Thai foreign minister said that ASEAN would have to be "creative" in tackling "thorny issues" with Myanmar.

"You have to be on alert that there are ways and means to address the same problems, but maybe not in the same way, not in the same manner as everyone would like to do," he said.

"We are leading a humanitarian mission there now. Other issues will have their own time, their own opportunity. "

Members of the Humanitarian Task Force, which includes representatives from the United Nations and Myanmar bureaucrats, are ready to present to the foreign ministers their post-assessment report on the relief and rehabilitation efforts in Myanmar.

The UN is hoping that the Post-Nargis Joint Assessment will help generate some 480 million dollars in fresh emergency money over the next year in order to intensify rehabilitation efforts.

Stothard noted that Nargis has complicated the problems in Myanmar.

"There has to be reforms in governance so that the system will become more transparent, more accountable and less corrupt," she said.

Stothard warned ASEAN against kowtowing to the junta, which has turned the tragedy into a cash cow.

"There was widespread documentation that international aid for the victims of Nargis was being repacked and given to people as dole-outs of the generals," she said. "The junta also jacked up the estimated cost of rehabilitation to 11 billion dollars from the 4 billion dollars estimated by international agencies."

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Myanmar visitor tells of relief efforts
Published on Sunday, July 20, 2008.
The Billings Gazette
By BECKY SHAY Of The Gazette Staff

Cyclone Nargis made international headlines when it swept through Myanmar on May 3.

The devastation remained in the forefront as people around the world worried about how surviving residents would ever recover. The country is ruled by a military junta, which keeps it closed off from the outside world and rejected international assistance after the cyclone.

The plight in Myanmar, also known as Burma, eventually fell out of mainstream concern. The junta says that the victims are recovering, but people like Chylo Laszloffy and his dad, Jeff, of Laurel know that much more remains to be done.

United States trip

This weekend the Laszloffy family hosted Tha Nyan, who goes by Sonny and is honorary general secretary of the National YMCAs of Myanmar. He is making his 12th trip to the United States, visiting friends like the Laszloffy family before attending a conference in Louisville, Ky., beginning early this week.

The Laszloffys are affiliated with Vision Beyond Borders, a Sheridan, Wyo.,-based Christian organization. Chylo recently visited Myanmar and delivered medical and other supplies for the cyclone victims. The aid was distributed through a network Sonny has helped develop.

"The bottom line is there is still a huge need there," he said. "It's just not going to go away, despite what their government tells us, that everything is all right."

Valuable medical items

Chylo knew that the supplies he delivered, including valuable medical items donated by St. Vincent Healthcare, made it to those in need, but that is the exception, not the rule, he said. At the hotel where he stayed in Yangon, Chylo saw representatives of nongovernmental organizations sitting around working on laptops all day because the Myanmar junta would not let them into the cyclone-hit area.

"Guys like Sonny are much more effective," Chylo said.

Chylo also helped locate and purchase six parcels of land that will eventually be used to build orphanages for the children of the country. Each orphanage is designed to house 100 children. There were 60,000 to 80,000 children orphaned by the cyclone, according to Vision Beyond Borders.

The children are especially vulnerable, Jeff Laszloffy said, as the slave trade, mainly from Thailand, moves into Myanmar. Providing them a place to live is one of the biggest safety issues available. Buying the land and building an orphanage costs about $50,000, according to Vision Beyond Borders.

"Lots of people in Montana drive pickup trucks that cost more than what it costs to house 100 kids," Jeff Laszloffy said.

Grace Bible Church in Laurel has already committed to building an orphanage and agreed to pay for its operation, he said.

Americans are quite wealthy by international standards, Chylo said. "This is our opportunity to show some generosity, to stand up and give," he said. "We can make a big difference without much sacrifice on our part."

For example, he said, to build a small house in Myanmar costs about $300. A more deluxe model, with kitchen, is $450.

"There's still a lot that can be done," Chylo said.

Vision Beyond Borders is also working to make sure that the Myanmar people can become self-sufficient. Long-term aid projects include buying rice seedlings to replant about 3,500 acres of paddies.

In Myanmar it is monsoon season, which is welcomed because the storms should help leach out some of the salt that the cyclone dumped into agricultural land. The salt was brought in by the storm surge that drove water and sand from the ocean into the delta.

Sonny said there are more than 11 million acres of paddies in the country, about 6 million of which were affected by the cyclone. While 3,500 acres is a small portion of the land, when planted it will feed 63,600 people, according to Dyann Romeijn, regional coordinator for Vision Beyond Borders.

It cost $90,000 to purchase the seedlings, or about $1.42 for each person they will eventually feed. Vision Beyond Borders went out on a limb and made the purchase because of the narrow window of time in which planting could be done this year, Laszloffy said.

Sonny said that about 80,000 people have been confirmed dead from the cyclone while another 1.2 million are listed as missing. In all, more than 5 million people were affected by the cyclone, and more than 1 million continue to need assistance.

Outside relief - such as food, medical supplies, clothing and other basic needs - will be required for at least another year, Sonny said. Rehabilitation - such as building houses and agrarian efforts such as livestock production - will take at least three years and probably much longer. After those basic needs are met, other essentials, such as building schools, can be addressed.

The combination of material and familial losses makes the victims psychologically vulnerable, Sonny said. "It takes a lot of time" to recover emotionally, he said.

His country's people, both Christian and Buddhist, have hope for a better life, Sonny said. There is a place in the cyclone recovery for evangelism, he said, because Christians can bring hope to those who feel hopeless, by teaching that God will protect them and provide an afterlife.

"They can know salvation, they can know Jesus," he said quietly and then broken into a grin and exclaimed, "Thank you, Cyclone Nargis!"

Sonny does not talk much about the ruling military junta - any political talk is too likely to lead to retribution.

"I would have to stay in Montana," he said.

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MCOT - Police nab illegal 20 Myanmar migrants in Mae Sot

TAK, July 20 (TNA) – Police on Sunday detained 20 illegal Myanmar migrants hidden in a pick-up truck in Thailand's Myanmar border province of Tak.

The police arrested the driver of the vehicle at a checkpoint in Mae Sot district. The truck was converted to carry passengers in the back, covered with vegetables.

Driver Itthiporn Chunchai confessed that he was hired to transport his undocumented human cargo from Tak on the Myanmar border to other provinces in Thailand's interior.

He told the authorities that he received 4,000 baht per person, Police will investigate to determine if the case is related to a human trafficking ring.

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A New Generation of Activists Arises in Burma
Network Strengthened By Junta's Crackdown, Post-Cyclone Bungling
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 20, 2008; Page A12

RANGOON -- They operate in the shadows, slipping by moonlight from safe house to safe house, changing their cellphones to hide their tracks and meeting under cover of monasteries or clinics to plot changes that have eluded their country for 46 years.

If one gets arrested, another steps forward.

"I feel like the last man standing. All the responsibility is on my shoulders. . . . There is no turning back. If I turn back, I betray all my comrades," said a Burmese activist who heads a leading dissident group, the 88 Generation Students, named for a failed uprising in 1988. He took command after the arrest last August of its five most prominent leaders.

In a nearly deserted Rangoon coffee shop one recent morning, he spoke in an urgent whisper, often glancing over his shoulder to look for informers.

The security apparatus of Burma's military junta was thought to have largely shattered the opposition last August and September, in a crackdown that included soldiers firing on an alliance of monks and lay people who had taken to the streets by the thousands to protest a rise in fuel prices. More than 30 people died. At least 800 were detained and many more were forced into exile, according to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

But a new generation of democracy activists fights on, its ranks strengthened both by revulsion over last year's bloodletting and the government's inept response after a cyclone that killed an estimated 130,000 people two months ago. Largely clandestine, these activists make up a diffuse network of students, militant Buddhist monks, social service workers and leaders of the 1988 uprising.

Some activists express impatience with what they call the largely passive policies of the National League for Democracy, the country's main opposition party and one of the few anti-government groups that operates legally. In 1990, the league won a national election by a landslide, but the military prevented it from taking office. Its emblem, a fighting peacock, endures as a symbol of resistance to the military for millions of Burmese.

From its closely watched headquarters in downtown Rangoon, a clutter of dusty wooden desks and chairs, the league is led by three octogenarians whom many people here call the "uncles." The men oversee the party while its leader, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, languishes under house arrest.

"Their biggest goal in life is to return the party to the lady," the honorific that sympathizers here use for Suu Kyi, said the leader of the 88 Generation. "They won't do anything. They are just guardians. . . . Because of them, their party is divided."

One woman who is active in the new opposition said she thinks that "the NLD has lost the trust of the people. They have been issuing many announcements, that the government must do this. But the government has not, and anyone who gets involved with the NLD gets in trouble."

Because of what it sees as an absence of clear direction from the NLD's leaders, the 88 Generation has acted on its own, issuing statements with the All Burma Monks Alliance and the All Burma Federation of Student Unions. The most recent statements criticized the junta for holding a referendum on a new constitution while the bodies of cyclone victims still floated in the waterways of the Irrawaddy Delta.

Since its founding in late 2006 by newly freed political prisoners, including legendary student leader Min Ko Naing, the group has launched a series of creative civil disobedience campaigns. Last year, people were invited to dress in white as a symbol of openness; to head to monasteries, Hindu temples or mosques for prayer meetings; and to sign letters and petitions calling for the release of Suu Kyi and other political prisoners. That effort resonated with so many that the group had to extend its closing date.

The group was at the forefront of the protests in August and reached out to monks, the 88 leader said.

"The struggle is still on," said a young lawyer who was sentenced to seven years in jail for starting a student union at a university. Since his release, four years early, he said, he has resumed regular contact with several groups of politically active current and former students. "Students will fight if they think it's just," he said, continuing a tradition among young people here that dates to the era of British colonial rule.

One group of young people, whose members gathered as a book club, decided to organize votes against the proposed constitution, dismissing it as a sham that reinforces the military's control of the country. So they created hundreds of stickers and T-shirts bearing the word "no" and scattered them on buses, in university lecture halls and in the country's ubiquitous tea shops.

Another student said he and some of his peers acted as unofficial election monitors during the referendum, taking photos and interviewing voters who were given already marked ballots or coerced to vote yes.

The 88 leader said such efforts have given him a stock of evidence to show that the vote was neither free nor fair.

Despite the obstacles, the group has not ruled out trying to become a legal party to run for elections in 2010, he said. "People think that if you accept to run, that means you accept the constitution. No! I want to have a legal party to fight from within," he said.

Outside experts have compared the network to Poland's Solidarity movement in the early 1980s, a broad-based coalition of workers, intellectuals and students that emerged as a key political player during the country's transition to democracy.

Just as Solidarity organized picnics to keep people in touch, some new groups here meet as book clubs or medical volunteers but could easily turn at key moments to political activity, said Bertil Lintner, a journalist and author of several books on Burma.

Meanwhile, the devastation wrought by the cyclone has sometimes been a trigger for more overt political activities. A handful of members of an embattled activist group called Human Rights Defenders and Promoters headed to the delta after the storm to hand out relief supplies as well as copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, according to a lawyer. They were subsequently sentenced to four years in jail, he said.

Monks remain politically active, too, in spite of increased harassment from security forces since the protests.

Some have hidden pamphlets inside their alms bowls to distribute when they go out to collect food in the mornings, according to a Mandalay monk. They have smuggled glue and posters inside the bowls to stick on street walls.

Ten years ago, the monk said, he started a library that has since expanded to 14 branches across the country. Under cover of membership, patrons take classes in public speaking and pass around poems and pamphlets that are often scathing about their rulers, he said.

"I told people to read lots of books, so they can start to know, and then they can change the system," he said. "Because we want freedom. Because it is difficult to speak and write in this country."

The cyclone's aftermath has also spurred vast new stores of anger, sometimes among monks, who take vows of nonviolence.

"Now we want to get weapons," said a monk known to other dissidents by the nom de guerre "Zero" for his ability to organize and vanish without a trace. "The Buddhist way is lovingkindness. But we lost. So now we want to fight."

In the dormitory of a monastery one recent afternoon, he sat among piles of handwritten speeches and recent clandestine pamphlets stamped with names of groups such as Generation Wave and the All Burmese Monks Alliance. Two young monks listening from a tattered mattress nearby nodded excitedly, and a third pretended to wield a machine gun.

Because of his role as a chief galvanizer of the monks in the protests, the monk has been on the run since September, moving from one monastery to the next. But since the cyclone, he has managed nonetheless to make about 20 trips to the devastated areas, where he buried more than 200 bodies and coordinated with monks and lay people.

"In September, we lost because everywhere, every village did not follow, because of fear," he said. But in the post-cyclone period, "we can do more. Now I can grow and grow."

At a 1,500-strong ceremony commemorating the victims of the cyclone, 15 dissident monks and lay people pondered their options, he said. Should they organize a strike in September to mark the first anniversary of the protests? Hold one to coincide with the auspicious date of 8-8-08, twenty years since the 1988 uprising?

Asked about prospects for an armed struggle, the 88 leader demurred. "We are totally, from beginning to end, peaceful," he said. But the militant monk, he said, chuckling, was a force to be reckoned with.

From house to house, meanwhile, Burmese whisper a new slogan:

"Mandalay, pile of ashes" -- for a fire that the government was barely seen to help extinguish.

"Rangoon, pile of logs" -- for city trees felled by the cyclone and still cluttering the streets.

"Naypyidaw" -- the generals' new capital -- "pile of bones."

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Myanmar starts five key highway projects in cyclone-hit region
www.chinaview. cn  2008-07-20 11:38:08

YANGON, July 20 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar has started implementation of five key highway projects in cyclone-hard- hit Ayeyawaddy delta region as part of its prevention program against natural disaster in the region, the local Biweekly Eleven reported on Sunday in this week's issue.

The five highways respectively stretch as Maubin-Mawgyun, Mawgyun-Pinzalu, Laputta-Pinzalu, Bogalay-Katonkani and Laputta-Teikzun.

These roads, which will be built as concrete ones within three years, will have facilities to resist storm and tide, the report said, adding that some of these roads will be built a height of 6-9 meters near villages to create shelter for villagers in case of natural disaster onslaught.

During a recent cyclone storm in early May, communications and road transport in the hardest-hit Ayeyawaddy delta region and villages near the sea were severely disrupted, creating much difficulties for carrying out relief work.

Meanwhile, Myanmar will also build and renovate 37 embankments in the cyclone-hit areas in a bid to prevent from flood in the future, according to earlier local report.

Due to the storm, over one million acres (405,000 hectares ) of farmland in Mon state were flooded and killed more than 200,000 cows and cattle killed.

The United Nations has set up an emergency telecommunication center (ETC) in Yangon to help for quick communication access in disaster relief and restoration works.

Myanmar is now entering into a second phase of resettlement and reconstruction after its first phase of rescue and relief was claimed to have finished up to a certain extent.

Deadly tropical cyclone Nargis hit five divisions and states on May 2 and 3. Myanmar estimated the damages and losses caused by the storm at 10.67 billion U.S. dollars with 5.5 million people affected.

The storm killed 84,537 people and left 53,836 missing and 19,359 injured, according to the latest official death toll.

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Thailand condemned for kicking out refugees
Karen civilians face violence in Burma
Bangkok Post - Sunday July 20, 2008
DEUTSCHE PRESSE-AGENTUR

New York-based Human Rights Watch yesterday blasted Thailand for forcing 52 Karen refugees to return to a conflict zone in Burma on Asarnha Bucha Day.

On Thursday, paramilitary troops forced the Karen civilians, most of them women and children, to leave two refugee camps in Mae Hong Son province and cross back to Burma, where they had fled a military offensive early this year.

''The Thai government cynically launched this illegal operation during the first day of a major Buddhist holiday,'' said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

''This, along with the Thai media's preoccupation with escalating border tensions with Cambodia over the Preah Vihear temple, provides effective cover for Thailand's serious breach of international law,'' said Mr Adams in a statement issued from New York.

Thai media attention has been focused this week on the Thai-Cambodian border, where both countries' troops have amassed over an escalating row over the ancient Hindu temple, perched on the border and subject to a territorial dispute.

Thailand, a magnet for hundreds of thousands of refugees and illegal workers from its less developed neighbours _ Cambodia, Laos and Burma _ has not signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, but Mr Adams argued that Bangkok is still bound by the principle of non-refoulement, a prohibition in customary international law, from returning refugees to any country where they are likely to be persecuted or their lives are at risk.

''The Thai government has ignored its obligations to protect refugees fleeing violence in Burma,'' Mr Adams said.

''Sending these people back to conflict zones dominated by the Burmese army is disgraceful. Forcing civilians back into an active war zone may be an easy answer for Thailand, but it's brutal _ a completely inhumane and unacceptable solution,'' he said.

Human Rights Watch called on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the European Union, the United States and other countries to pressure the government to immediately cease the refoulement of refugees and continue to provide sanctuary to people fleeing fighting or persecution in Burma.

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Junta sells seeds which do not sprout to farmers in Irrawaddy
Mizzima News - Saturday, 19 July 2008 15:32
Zarni   

Bangkok — Made to buy seeds that do not sprout, farmers in Burma's cyclone hit zone of Bogale township in Irrawaddy division are in trouble planting rice.

A farmer in Bogale Township's Aye Chan Thar village told Mizzima they have to pay for the paddy seeds received from local authorities but the seeds have failed to yield.

"A farmer is given one basket [equivalent to 16 bushels] of seeds. And we have to pay 1000 Kyat for it. But we found out that most of the seeds do not yield and we cannot use them for planting," the farmer told Mizzima.

The farmer said, before the seeds could be used for planting, they needed to be kept in water and spread out on a mat until the seeds start sprouting. But the seeds they have received fail to yield, forcing them to buy seeds from elsewhere.

"Since the seeds failed to yield, the seeds are of no use. We just feed them to chicken or to ducks. Now we are in difficulty as we do not know where to get the seeds for planting," the farmer added.

He added that the amount of seeds provided by the authorities is too little, because a basket full of seeds are only sufficient to plant an acre of farm land.

"Since a farmer is receiving only one basket of seeds, it is not adequate. Because one basket is only enough for planting an acre and most farmers here have at least 10 or more acres of land," he added.

The farmer said he feared shortage of rice production in his village as the time for planting rice is running out and most farmers in his village failed to find alternative sources of seed procurement.

An official in Burma's Ministry of Agriculture in Naypyitaw said they have begun providing paddy seeds to farmers in cyclone hit Irrawaddy delta to assist farmers to plant rice before the main planting season is over.

"Yes, we have been providing seeds to farmers in the Irrawaddy delta," said the official, not willing to mention the areas in which the government had provided paddy seeds.

But the official, when asked about the sales of paddy seeds in some areas and the unyielding seeds received by some farmers in Bogale township, declined to answer.

According to the United Nations food agency, more than 52,000 farmers are in need of support including paddy seeds and other farming equipment to plant 183,000 hectares of paddy before the main planting season is over in August.

The Food and Agriculture Organization had revised its aid appeal to US $ 33.5 million from the initial aid appeal of US$ 10 million to help Burma's cyclone affected farmers in the Irrawaddy delta, the main rice producing zone.

According to the FAO, rice production in the Irrawaddy delta, known to be Burma's rice bowl, is likely to be reduced by one-third this year, threatening food security in the Southeast Asian country.

Cyclone Nargis, which lashed military-ruled Burma in May 2 and 3, left more than 138,000 dead and missing and devastated over 2.4 million peoples' lives. It also flooded more than 780,000 hectares (1.9 million acres) of rice paddy fields and destroyed 90 percent of seed stocks.

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