Than Shwe Ready to Meet Suu Kyi
By The Associated Press - October 5, 2007
The top US diplomat in Burma was summoned for rare talks on Friday with Burma's hardliner government a day after its leader announced a conditional offer to meet with detained democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi.
[Photo: AFP]Shari Villarosa, the highest American official in Burma, received word on Thursday that she had been invited to meet with the military-led government that orchestrated a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters last week, the US State Department said in Washington.
Villarosa has been a vocal critic of the crackdown. During her visit, Villarosa was expected to repeat the US view that the regime must meet with democratic opposition groups and "stop the iron crackdown" on peaceful demonstrators, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington.
The talks were being held in Naypyidaw, the regime's remote capital carved out of the jungle about 385 kilometers (240 miles) north of Rangoon.
Hoping to deflect outrage over soldiers gunning down protesters, Burma's junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe announced that he was willing to talk with Suu Kyi, the democratic opposition leader—but only if she stops calling for international sanctions. Than Shwe also insisted that Suu Kyi stop urging her countrymen to confront the military regime, state television and radio said in reporting on the conditions set by the junta leader during a meeting this week with UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari.
The state media announcement came a few hours before Gambari briefed UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York on his four-day trip seeking to persuade Burma's military leaders to end the crackdown on democracy activists.
Many governments have urged stern UN Security Council action against Burma, but permanent members China and Russia have ruled out any council action, saying the crisis did not threaten international peace and security.
"This issue does not belong to the Security Council," China's UN Ambassador Wang Gunagya said Thursday. "These problems still we believe are basically internal."
"No international imposed solution can help the situation," he added.
State media in Burma gave new figures on Thursday for the number of people arrested during last week's bloody assault by troops. The reports said nearly 2,100 people had been detained, with almost 700 already released.
The government has said 10 people were killed when security forces broke up the mass demonstrations, but dissident groups put the death toll at up to 200 and say 6,000 people were detained, including thousands of Buddhist monks who were leading the protests.
In reporting on Than Shwe's meeting with Gambari, state media quoted the general as saying that "Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has called for confrontation, utter devastation, economic sanctions and all other sanctions."
While Suu Kyi has previously voiced support for economic sanctions against the junta, she has not publicly called for the devastation of her homeland or the government.
"If she abandons these calls, Snr-Gen Than Shwe told Mr Gambari that he will personally meet Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," the state media report said.
The report's use of the title "daw" was a conciliatory gesture. "Daw" is a term of respect for older women in Burma and it was an unusually polite reference to Suu Kyi, a far cry from the usual way state media denigrates her as a foreign puppet or worse.
Reaction to the olive branch was mixed.
"I don't believe there's one iota of sincerity" in the junta's offer, Josef Silverstein, a retired Rutgers professor and Burma expert, said on Thursday in a telephone interview from Princeton, New Jersey.
But, Silverstein added, he thinks Suu Kyi will take up the offer, since she has requested such talks for over a decade.
Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, scoffed at the general's proposal. "Applying such conditions shows the government is not really sincere about meeting her," he said.
Suu Kyi, who has spent nearly 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest, was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her democracy campaign. Her party won elections in 1990 but the junta refused to accept the results.
Burma has been ruled by the military since 1962. The current junta came to power after routing a 1988 pro-democracy uprising in bloodshed that killed at least 3,000 people.
The top US diplomat in Burma was summoned for rare talks on Friday with Burma's hardliner government a day after its leader announced a conditional offer to meet with detained democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi.
[Photo: AFP]Shari Villarosa, the highest American official in Burma, received word on Thursday that she had been invited to meet with the military-led government that orchestrated a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters last week, the US State Department said in Washington.
Villarosa has been a vocal critic of the crackdown. During her visit, Villarosa was expected to repeat the US view that the regime must meet with democratic opposition groups and "stop the iron crackdown" on peaceful demonstrators, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington.
The talks were being held in Naypyidaw, the regime's remote capital carved out of the jungle about 385 kilometers (240 miles) north of Rangoon.
Hoping to deflect outrage over soldiers gunning down protesters, Burma's junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe announced that he was willing to talk with Suu Kyi, the democratic opposition leader—but only if she stops calling for international sanctions. Than Shwe also insisted that Suu Kyi stop urging her countrymen to confront the military regime, state television and radio said in reporting on the conditions set by the junta leader during a meeting this week with UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari.
The state media announcement came a few hours before Gambari briefed UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York on his four-day trip seeking to persuade Burma's military leaders to end the crackdown on democracy activists.
Many governments have urged stern UN Security Council action against Burma, but permanent members China and Russia have ruled out any council action, saying the crisis did not threaten international peace and security.
"This issue does not belong to the Security Council," China's UN Ambassador Wang Gunagya said Thursday. "These problems still we believe are basically internal."
"No international imposed solution can help the situation," he added.
State media in Burma gave new figures on Thursday for the number of people arrested during last week's bloody assault by troops. The reports said nearly 2,100 people had been detained, with almost 700 already released.
The government has said 10 people were killed when security forces broke up the mass demonstrations, but dissident groups put the death toll at up to 200 and say 6,000 people were detained, including thousands of Buddhist monks who were leading the protests.
In reporting on Than Shwe's meeting with Gambari, state media quoted the general as saying that "Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has called for confrontation, utter devastation, economic sanctions and all other sanctions."
While Suu Kyi has previously voiced support for economic sanctions against the junta, she has not publicly called for the devastation of her homeland or the government.
"If she abandons these calls, Snr-Gen Than Shwe told Mr Gambari that he will personally meet Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," the state media report said.
The report's use of the title "daw" was a conciliatory gesture. "Daw" is a term of respect for older women in Burma and it was an unusually polite reference to Suu Kyi, a far cry from the usual way state media denigrates her as a foreign puppet or worse.
Reaction to the olive branch was mixed.
"I don't believe there's one iota of sincerity" in the junta's offer, Josef Silverstein, a retired Rutgers professor and Burma expert, said on Thursday in a telephone interview from Princeton, New Jersey.
But, Silverstein added, he thinks Suu Kyi will take up the offer, since she has requested such talks for over a decade.
Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, scoffed at the general's proposal. "Applying such conditions shows the government is not really sincere about meeting her," he said.
Suu Kyi, who has spent nearly 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest, was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her democracy campaign. Her party won elections in 1990 but the junta refused to accept the results.
Burma has been ruled by the military since 1962. The current junta came to power after routing a 1988 pro-democracy uprising in bloodshed that killed at least 3,000 people.
Myanmar's window to the world SMH
Friday, 5 October 2007
Reuters
DEALS WITH DEVILS?
Reuters
DEALS WITH DEVILS?
Singapore's soft stance on the violence in Myanmar stems from close economic ties to the country's ruling junta.
Singapore may have a lot to lose if Myanmar's generals can't retain control, writes Eric Ellis.
Singapore is not just skilled at mandatory exetions of drug traffickers, running an excellent airport and selling cameras.
It also does a useful trade keeping Myanmar's military rulers and their cronies afloat.
Much attention is focused on China and its role as host of the Olympic Games next year as a diplomatic triggerpoint for placing pressure on Burma's junta.
But a group of government businessmen- technocrats in Singapore will also be closely – and perhaps nervously – monitoring the brutality in Yangon.
Were they so inclined, their influence could go a long way toward limiting the misery inflicted on Myanmar's 54 million people.
Collectively called Singapore Inc, they gather around the $150 billion state-owned investment house Temasek Holdings, controlled by Singapore's long-ruling Lee family.
With an estimated $3 billion invested in Myanmar (and more than $20 billion in Australia), Singapore Inc companies have been some of the biggest investors in and supporters of Myanmar's military junta – while its government, on the rare times it is asked – suggests a softly-softly diplomatic approach toward the junta.
When it comes to Myanmar, Singapore pockets the high morals it likes to wave at the West.
Singapore's one-time head of foreign trade said, as his country built links with Myanmar in the mid-1990s: "While the other countries are ignoring it, it's a good time for us to go in. You get better deals, and you're more appreciated.
"Singapore's position is not to judge them and take a judgmental moral high ground."
By providing Myanmar's junta with crucial material and equipment mostly denied by Western sanctions, Singapore has helped keep the military government and its cronies afloat for 20 years.
(Indeed, since the last time the generals killed the citizens they are supposed to protect with industrial efficiency and brutality, as now.)
Without Singapore's support, Myanmar's junta would be greatly weakened, perhaps even fail.
But after two decades of profitable business with the generals and their cronies, that is about the last thing Singapore Inc is likely to do.
From hotels, airlines, military equipment and training, crowd- control equipment and sophisticated telecommunications monitoring devices, Singapore is a crucial manager and supplier to the junta, and Myanmar's economy.
It is impossible to spend any meaningful time in Myanmar and not make the junta richer, through contracts with Singapore suppliers to the tourism industry.
Singapore's hospitals also keep its leaders alive – strongman Than Shwe 74, has been treated for intestinal cancer in a government hospital in Singapore, heavily protected by Singapore security.
Much of Singapore's activity in Myanmar has been documented by an analyst working in Australia's Office of National Assessments.
Andrew Selth, a leading authority on Myanmar's military and now a research fellow at Queensland's Griffith University, has written extensively on Singapore Inc's connection to the junta.
Often writing as "William Ashton" in Jane's Intelligence Review, he has described how Singapore has sent military hardware to the junta, some of it seized by Israel from Palestinians in Lebanon.
Singaporean companies have provided computers and communications equipment for Myanmar's defence ministry and army, while upgrading the junta's ability to communicate with regional commanders – crucial as protesters took to the streets of 20 Myanmar cities.
The protests' sheer scale is causing logistical headaches for Myanmar's military.
"Singapore cares little about human rights, in particular the plight of the ethnic and religious minorities in Myanmar," Mr Selth writes.
"Having developed one of the region's most advanced armed forces and defence industrial support bases, Singapore is in a good position to offer Myanmar a number of inducements which other Asean (Association of South-East Asian Nations) countries would find hard to match."
Singapore also provided the equipment for a "cyber war centre" to monitor dissident activity, while training Myanmar's secret police, whose sole job appears to be ensuring democracy groups are crushed.
Monitoring dissidents is an area in which Singapore has expertise.
After almost 50 years in power, the People's Action Party, controlled by the Lee family, ranks behind only China, Cuba and North Korea in leadership longevity.
"This centre is reported to be closely involved in the monitoring and recording of foreign and domestic telecommunications, including the satellite telephone conversations of Burmese opposition groups," Mr Selth writes.
Singaporean government companies, such as the arms supplier Singapore Technologies, dominate the communications and military sector in Singapore. Mr Selth writes: "It is highly unlikely any of these arms shipments to Myanmar could have been made without the knowledge and support of the Singapore Government."
Ambassadors to Myanmar had included a former senior Singapore Armed Forces officer and a past director of Singapore's defence- oriented Joint Intelligence Directorate.
It was "curious" that Singapore assigned someone with a military background to the new Asean member, "not one of its many capable professional diplomats".
After Myanmar's 1988 crackdown, when 3000 democracy protesters were killed, "the first country to come to the regime's rescue was in fact Singapore".
Peter Seah, chief executive of Singapore Technologies, asked at his Singapore office about a model on his table of an armoured personnel carrier his company makes, said they were sold "only to allies".
Did that include Myanmar, given Singapore helped sponsor the military regime into Asean?
He was not specific: "We only sell to allies and we make sure they are responsible."
He did not say how.
A Singaporean diplomat to Myanmar, Matthew Sim, wrote a handbook for Singapore businesspeople, Myanmar on My Mind.
It is full of tips for doing business in Myanmar, odd given Singapore's contempt for corruption and lawbreakers.
"A little money goes a long way in greasing the wheels of productivity," he writes.
A chapter headed Committing Manslaughter When Driving describes appropriate action for a Singaporean who accidentally kills a pedestrian in Myanmar.
"Firstly, the international businessman could give the family of the deceased some money as compensation and dissuade them from pressing charges.
"Secondly, he could pay a Myanmar citizen to take the blame by declaring that he was the driver in the fatal accident.
"An international businessman should not make the mistake of trying to argue his case in a court of law when it comes to a fatal accident, even if he is in the right.
"He highly probably will spend time in jail regretting it. It is a sad and hard world. The facts of life can be ugly."
Of Singapore's usefulness to Myanmar, Mr Sim says: "Many successful Myanmar businessmen have opened shell companies" in Singapore "with little or no staff, used to keep funds overseas".
The companies are used to keep business deals outside the control of Myanmar's central bank, enabling Singaporeans and others to make transactions with Myanmar in Singapore, he says.
He may be referring to junta cronies like Tay Za and the druglord Lo Hsing Han. Lo is an ethnic Chinese, from Myanmar's traditionally Chinese-populated and opium-rich Kokang region bordering China.
Lo controls a heroin empire and one of Myanmar's biggest firms, Asia World, which the United States Drug Enforcement Agency says is a drug trafficking front.
Asia World controls toll roads, industrial parks and trading companies.
Singapore is the Lo family's window to the world, a base for controlling several companies. A former US assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Robert Gelbard, called half of Singapore's Myanmar investment "tied to the family of narco-trafficker Lo Hsing Han".
So when Australian Prime Minister John Howard vows to impose financial sanctions on Myanmar's regime, as he did this week, perhaps he should be calling Singapore's bankers rather than Australia's.
Singapore may have a lot to lose if Myanmar's generals can't retain control, writes Eric Ellis.
Singapore is not just skilled at mandatory exetions of drug traffickers, running an excellent airport and selling cameras.
It also does a useful trade keeping Myanmar's military rulers and their cronies afloat.
Much attention is focused on China and its role as host of the Olympic Games next year as a diplomatic triggerpoint for placing pressure on Burma's junta.
But a group of government businessmen- technocrats in Singapore will also be closely – and perhaps nervously – monitoring the brutality in Yangon.
Were they so inclined, their influence could go a long way toward limiting the misery inflicted on Myanmar's 54 million people.
Collectively called Singapore Inc, they gather around the $150 billion state-owned investment house Temasek Holdings, controlled by Singapore's long-ruling Lee family.
With an estimated $3 billion invested in Myanmar (and more than $20 billion in Australia), Singapore Inc companies have been some of the biggest investors in and supporters of Myanmar's military junta – while its government, on the rare times it is asked – suggests a softly-softly diplomatic approach toward the junta.
When it comes to Myanmar, Singapore pockets the high morals it likes to wave at the West.
Singapore's one-time head of foreign trade said, as his country built links with Myanmar in the mid-1990s: "While the other countries are ignoring it, it's a good time for us to go in. You get better deals, and you're more appreciated.
"Singapore's position is not to judge them and take a judgmental moral high ground."
By providing Myanmar's junta with crucial material and equipment mostly denied by Western sanctions, Singapore has helped keep the military government and its cronies afloat for 20 years.
(Indeed, since the last time the generals killed the citizens they are supposed to protect with industrial efficiency and brutality, as now.)
Without Singapore's support, Myanmar's junta would be greatly weakened, perhaps even fail.
But after two decades of profitable business with the generals and their cronies, that is about the last thing Singapore Inc is likely to do.
From hotels, airlines, military equipment and training, crowd- control equipment and sophisticated telecommunications monitoring devices, Singapore is a crucial manager and supplier to the junta, and Myanmar's economy.
It is impossible to spend any meaningful time in Myanmar and not make the junta richer, through contracts with Singapore suppliers to the tourism industry.
Singapore's hospitals also keep its leaders alive – strongman Than Shwe 74, has been treated for intestinal cancer in a government hospital in Singapore, heavily protected by Singapore security.
Much of Singapore's activity in Myanmar has been documented by an analyst working in Australia's Office of National Assessments.
Andrew Selth, a leading authority on Myanmar's military and now a research fellow at Queensland's Griffith University, has written extensively on Singapore Inc's connection to the junta.
Often writing as "William Ashton" in Jane's Intelligence Review, he has described how Singapore has sent military hardware to the junta, some of it seized by Israel from Palestinians in Lebanon.
Singaporean companies have provided computers and communications equipment for Myanmar's defence ministry and army, while upgrading the junta's ability to communicate with regional commanders – crucial as protesters took to the streets of 20 Myanmar cities.
The protests' sheer scale is causing logistical headaches for Myanmar's military.
"Singapore cares little about human rights, in particular the plight of the ethnic and religious minorities in Myanmar," Mr Selth writes.
"Having developed one of the region's most advanced armed forces and defence industrial support bases, Singapore is in a good position to offer Myanmar a number of inducements which other Asean (Association of South-East Asian Nations) countries would find hard to match."
Singapore also provided the equipment for a "cyber war centre" to monitor dissident activity, while training Myanmar's secret police, whose sole job appears to be ensuring democracy groups are crushed.
Monitoring dissidents is an area in which Singapore has expertise.
After almost 50 years in power, the People's Action Party, controlled by the Lee family, ranks behind only China, Cuba and North Korea in leadership longevity.
"This centre is reported to be closely involved in the monitoring and recording of foreign and domestic telecommunications, including the satellite telephone conversations of Burmese opposition groups," Mr Selth writes.
Singaporean government companies, such as the arms supplier Singapore Technologies, dominate the communications and military sector in Singapore. Mr Selth writes: "It is highly unlikely any of these arms shipments to Myanmar could have been made without the knowledge and support of the Singapore Government."
Ambassadors to Myanmar had included a former senior Singapore Armed Forces officer and a past director of Singapore's defence- oriented Joint Intelligence Directorate.
It was "curious" that Singapore assigned someone with a military background to the new Asean member, "not one of its many capable professional diplomats".
After Myanmar's 1988 crackdown, when 3000 democracy protesters were killed, "the first country to come to the regime's rescue was in fact Singapore".
Peter Seah, chief executive of Singapore Technologies, asked at his Singapore office about a model on his table of an armoured personnel carrier his company makes, said they were sold "only to allies".
Did that include Myanmar, given Singapore helped sponsor the military regime into Asean?
He was not specific: "We only sell to allies and we make sure they are responsible."
He did not say how.
A Singaporean diplomat to Myanmar, Matthew Sim, wrote a handbook for Singapore businesspeople, Myanmar on My Mind.
It is full of tips for doing business in Myanmar, odd given Singapore's contempt for corruption and lawbreakers.
"A little money goes a long way in greasing the wheels of productivity," he writes.
A chapter headed Committing Manslaughter When Driving describes appropriate action for a Singaporean who accidentally kills a pedestrian in Myanmar.
"Firstly, the international businessman could give the family of the deceased some money as compensation and dissuade them from pressing charges.
"Secondly, he could pay a Myanmar citizen to take the blame by declaring that he was the driver in the fatal accident.
"An international businessman should not make the mistake of trying to argue his case in a court of law when it comes to a fatal accident, even if he is in the right.
"He highly probably will spend time in jail regretting it. It is a sad and hard world. The facts of life can be ugly."
Of Singapore's usefulness to Myanmar, Mr Sim says: "Many successful Myanmar businessmen have opened shell companies" in Singapore "with little or no staff, used to keep funds overseas".
The companies are used to keep business deals outside the control of Myanmar's central bank, enabling Singaporeans and others to make transactions with Myanmar in Singapore, he says.
He may be referring to junta cronies like Tay Za and the druglord Lo Hsing Han. Lo is an ethnic Chinese, from Myanmar's traditionally Chinese-populated and opium-rich Kokang region bordering China.
Lo controls a heroin empire and one of Myanmar's biggest firms, Asia World, which the United States Drug Enforcement Agency says is a drug trafficking front.
Asia World controls toll roads, industrial parks and trading companies.
Singapore is the Lo family's window to the world, a base for controlling several companies. A former US assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Robert Gelbard, called half of Singapore's Myanmar investment "tied to the family of narco-trafficker Lo Hsing Han".
So when Australian Prime Minister John Howard vows to impose financial sanctions on Myanmar's regime, as he did this week, perhaps he should be calling Singapore's bankers rather than Australia's.
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