The European Union has imposed more sanctions on Burma.

The new sanctions, adopted at an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels, include an embargo on the import of timber, gems and metals from Burma.

They also extend a list of Burmese leaders and their relatives subject to a travel ban and assets freeze.

The EU foreign ministers urged Burma's military government to enter into a "meaningful dialogue" that will lead to democracy. They also called for the lifting of all restrictions on detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
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Students defy Myanmar protest ban at Asean summit

SINGAPORE - A SMALL group of international students at Singapore universities sought to defy a ban on protest in the city-state on Monday, calling for democracy in Myanmar at a summit of Southeast Asian nations.

Singapore has banned all outdoor protest at the Asean summit and rejected an opposition party's request to stage a Myanmar protest. It has also designated the summit venue as a 'protected areas", giving police the authority to search or detain anyone in the area or ask them to leave.

The students said they plan to move in groups smaller than four in other to get around police restrictions. Under Singapore laws, any public gathering of more than four people requires a police
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APPB Update on ASEAN Meeting

Dear Friends,

With regards to the 13th ASEAN Summit opening today in Singapore and the proposed adoption of the ASEAN Charter, the 88 Generation Students Group, has sent the second letter to the Asean leaders, following an earlier one dated September 17 today, November 19. The group has urged ASEAN to take action against the ongoing grave human rights abuses in Burma and to reject the SPDC's sponsored "roadmap to democracy" and increase pressure on SPDC to engage in genuine dialogue for national reconciliation. Please find the letter attached and also on APPPB blog.

There has been a lot of Burma solidarity actions have been taking place in Singapore during the time of Asean Summit. As updated you on Nov 17, hundreds of Burmese pro-democracy activists gathered at a forum. Yesterday on 18th, Human  Rights for Singaporeans organized another forum where Burma was a major focus of the forum, led by Dr. Chee Soon Juan of Singapore.

Starting today Nov 19 until 21, Solidarity for Asian People's Advocacies (SAPA) Working Group on ASEAN is bringing key members of the WG to going to hold a media blitz (series of media conference) in Singapore in line with the 13th Asean Summit on the outcome of the 3rd Asean + Civil Society Conference [ACSC3]held on Nov 2-4 and the ASEAN Charter to put forward the perspectives of civil society, as well as the two statements of the 3rd ACSC, to the Singapore media and international media.

Daily press conferences will be held at 3pm - 4pm at the SCWO/Singapore Council of Women's Organizations. The civil society networks found that the Charter is a disappointment as it is a document that falls short of what is needed to establish a "people-centered" and "people-empowered" ASEAN.

Meanwhile, Asean yesterday rejected the U.S. Senate's unanimous call to suspend Burma, saying the military-ruled country is like a troubled child who must be disciplined with dialogue. Southeast Asian leaders gathered Sunday for their annual summit with their bloc's credibility at stake as they grapple with Burma, as the SPDC has earned global scorn for its bloody crackdown on dissent. Ministers and officials from across the region held meetings under tight security ahead of Tuesday's formal summit, at which leaders are to sign a landmark charter and a blueprint for the creation of a free trade zone by 2015. As many analysts and civil society groups say the charter -- meant to promote human rights and democracy -- is meaningless if Myanmar cannot be held accountable for its alleged widespread abuses.

However, Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said the leaders would have "critical" talks at an informal dinner today on Nov 19, at which General Thein Sein would be asked to explain the junta's brutal response to the mass protests.

On Wednesday, Nov 21, UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari will brief ASEAN leaders and their counterparts from six other Asian nations including China and India. Singapore FM said, "If we can arrive at a common position, that will be very helpful for the process of national reconciliation in Myanmar -- it will mean that we are all lined up behind Ibrahim Gambari." It was reported that SPDC was mounting a last-minute campaign to block the UN envoy's briefing.

China on Nov 17 called on the Burmese junta to speed up with democratic reforms -- a move seen unusual for China which has traditionally refrained from criticizing the Burmese regime. The China's Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi made this call during his two-day meeting with the junta on 15-16 Nov and also expressed support for UN efforts for national reconciliation.

However, SPDC showed its lack of political will towards genuine national reconciliation process. Senior General Than Shwe announced on Nov 17 that his regime would proceed with its "roadmap to democracy", a non-inclusive undemocratic process which has left out key actors concerned to resolve the political crisis.

His words suggest that any discussions about political reform with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will have to take place within the framework of its existing plan, which is now at stage three -- writing a new constitution.

Burmese stakeholders of the national reconciliation process have dismissed the convention and its output as a blueprint for the army legitimising its grip on power after 45 years of unbroken military rule, as under the new constitution orchestrated by the regime, the head of the army will be the most powerful person in the country, with the ability to appoint key cabinet positions and suspend the constitution in the event of an emergency that he defines.

This is all for now, friends.

In Solidarity,
The APPPB Secretariat
----------------------------------------------------

Nov 6th, 2007
San Francisco Burma Resolution: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/badamember/pending/Burma.pdf?view=1&msg=3030&part=2
SF UN Day March Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/butensky/sets/72157602792301738/show/
Human Rights Watch, "Sold to Be Soldiers: The Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers in Burma:": http://hrw.org/reports/2007/burma1007/
A Karen youth Zoya Phan spoke at Conservative Party Conference 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW4fd8pUblM
San Francisco UN Day petition can be viewed and signed at: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/the-UN-is-failing-Burma
Senate hearing on protest in Burma: http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/archives/2007/archive100307p.ram
National Geographic Video: Monks "Vanish" at Myanmar Monasteries: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/10/071011-monks-video.html
Aljazeera: Exclusive footage of Myanmar crackdown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItPFPJ9c_E4
CNN Video of beating protesters: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/07/myanmar.video/
Black Friday Massacre - Burma: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MUbWD29-GM
Frontline Burma: State of Fear: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/burma601/video_index.html
House Subcommittee Hearing: Crisis in Burma: Can the U.S. Bring about a Peaceful Resolution? http://www.hcfa.house.gov/hearing_notice.asp?id=909
AP Slideshow of recent protests:  http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_international/myanmar_protests/index.html
Daw Mar Mar Aye Appeal/Music Video: 1  2 and song 1
------------------------------------------------------

Dear All,

"We hope that they ensure that their financial institutions are not being used as sanctuary for Burmese officials," said Silverberg, who is responsible for U.S. liaison with groups such as the Association of South East Asian nations (ASEAN).

Despite Washington's assertion that Myanmar's generals park their cash in banks in Singapore -- also their favoured destination for shopping and medical treatment -- Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong insists the financial system is clean.

"We don't play dirty money. We don't condone money-laundering," he told CNN recently.
----------------------------------------------

The proposed date of protest is Tue, Nov 20, which is when the actual summit will take place.

They also sell arms to Burma often as middle man. Those who call for Arms Embargo, be very careful about Singapore, their door could be wide open to Burma for purchasing arms.

Recently Singapore made some positive statements on Burma and allow Burmese to protest in a hotel and the monastery (They paid for the rental ect..). Don't be so excited about it, I think there are two reasons that they did allow it:

 1. They know the global public anger and outrage against crackdowns in Burma especially killing the Monks. So, only when the anger is mounting, they will be willing. Not as a policy, but to absorb anger.

 2. Burmese in Singapore, who are not allowed to protest, are getting behind Dr. Chee Soon Juan and protested when he protested against Burmese embassy. (Dr. Chee is the Singapore opposition/activist whom the government hated so much). They really do not what to see that Burmese activists in Singapore are getting closer to Dr. Chee. That's why they arrange for them to protest some how. The goodwill may not last very long.

And Singapore has yet to allow the Burmese to protest at the summit. So, we must keep the pressure on these governments. Otherwise, they will have a very short memory of what happened in Burma, and the true desire of the people of Burma. We have seen it enough!

Please also read very good work on new approach/tactics to Burma.

Thanks,
Nyunt Than
-----------

News Articles:

• Reuters: Myanmar tycoon says sanctions will not hurt regime
• SF Chronicles: Time for new tactics with Burma
• Foreign Affairs Meg: Asia's Forgotten Crisis, A New Approach to Burma
  
  http://www.13thaseansummit.org.sg/asean/index.php/web/programme/summit_programme
  ASEAN Summit Programme        
  -------------------------------------------------------   
  
  Sun, 18 Nov 2007     Day One
        ASEAN Standing Committee Preparatory Meeting
        
  Mon,19 Nov 2007     Day Two
        Presentation to the ASEAN Foreign Ministers on the ASEAN Charter by the High Level Task Force
        
        ASEAN HOS/Gs Informal Working Dinner
        
        Dinner hosted by H.E. George Yeo, Minister for Foreign Affairs, for the ASEAN Foreign Ministers
        Dinner hosted by H.E. Lim Hng Kiang, Minister for Trade and Industry, for the ASEAN Economic Ministers
        
  Tues, 20 Nov 2007     Day Three
        13th ASEAN Summit (Plenary and Retreat)
        
        ASEAN HOS/G Working Lunch with ASEAN Business Advisory Council Leaders (Presentation of ASEAN-BIS Summit Report)
        
        Lunch hosted by H.E. George Yeo, Minister for Foreign Affairs, for the ASEAN Foreign Ministers, Members of the Eminent Persons Group and High Level Taskforce
        
        Signing Ceremony of the 13th ASEAN Summit
        
        11th ASEAN Plus Three Summit
        
        Special Ceremony in commemoration of the 10th Anniversary of ASEAN Plus Three Cooperation
        
        11th ASEAN-China Summit
        
        Signing Ceremony of the 11th ASEAN-China Summit
        
        Gala Dinner hosted by H.E. Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore and Mrs Lee
        
  Wed, 21 Nov 2007     Day Four
        11th ASEAN-Japan Summit
        
        11th ASEAN-ROK Summit
        
        Signing Ceremony of the 11th ASEAN-ROK Summit
        
        6th ASEAN-India Summit
        
        Working Lunch of the East Asia Summit (EAS) HOS/G
        
        Lunch hosted by H.E. George Yeo, Minister for Foreign Affairs, for the EAS Foreign Ministers
        Lunch hosted by H.E. Lim Hng Kiang, Minister for Trade and Industry, for the EAS Economic Ministers
        
        Third East Asia Summit (Plenary and Retreat)
        
        Signing Ceremony of the Third East Asia Summit
        
        Press Conference by H.E. Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore and Chairman of the 13th ASEAN Summit
        
        Reception and Tour of Nalanda Exhibition hosted by H.E. Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore and Mrs Lee
        
        Dinner hosted by H.E. SR Nathan, President of Singapore and Mrs Nathan
        Dinner hosted by H.E. George Yeo Minister for Foreign Affairs, for the EAS Foreign Ministers and EU representatives
        Dinner hosted by H.E Lim Hng Kiang, Minister for Trade and Industry, for the ASEAN Economic Ministers and the EU Trade
  
  Commissioner
  --------------------------------------------------------------

Reuters: Myanmar tycoon says sanctions will not hurt regime

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar business tycoon Tay Za has slammed U.S. sanctions against his airline and other businesses with reputed links to the ruling junta, saying only the people of the former Burma would suffer.

"I condemn the sanctions which will hurt the general public and have little effect on the government," Tay Za told employees and officials gathered at a Yangon hotel on Monday to mark Air Bagan's third anniversary.

Air Bagan, owned by Tay Za's Htoo Trading conglomerate, is among seven Myanmar firms targeted by U.S. sanctions last month after the September crackdown on monk-led democracy protests in which at least 10 people were killed.

A Singapore newspaper reported last week that Air Bagan, which was struggling with declining passenger numbers after the crackdown, was suspending flights to the city state after Singapore banks decided to "stop dealing with" it.

"Air Bagan Ltd is a legally constituted company with funds earned through 100-percent legitimate means" and no government official or party outside the Htoo group held shares in the airline, Tay Za said.

Washington has imposed economic and trade sanctions on Myanmar for years, but last month it took aim at individuals and companies reputed to have close ties to the regime.

The Treasury Department blacklisted Tay Za, his wife and son, Air Bagan and other companies within the Htoo group on October 19. It also named Myanmar tycoons Htay Myint and Khin Shwe and their companies.

Experts say tightening the screws on the junta will only work if Myanmar's regional neighbours do so too.

A top U.S. diplomat told Singapore and its banks on Monday to sever financial links with the junta, widely believed to use the city-state as its main off-shore banking centre.

"We believe that there are regime officials with accounts in Singapore," senior State Department official Kristen Silverberg told reporters in Thailand during a regional tour to drum up support for a tougher Asian stance against the regime.

"We hope that they ensure that their financial institutions are not being used as sanctuary for Burmese officials," said Silverberg, who is responsible for U.S. liaison with groups such as the Association of South East Asian nations (ASEAN).

Despite Washington's assertion that Myanmar's generals park their cash in banks in Singapore -- also their favoured destination for shopping and medical treatment -- Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong insists the financial system is clean.

"We don't play dirty money. We don't condone money-laundering," he told CNN recently.

© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.

Asia's Forgotten Crisis
A New Approach to Burma
By Michael Green and Derek Mitchell

From Foreign Affairs , November/December 2007

Michael Green is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a Senior Adviser and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Derek Mitchell is a Senior Fellow and Director for Asia Strategy at CSIS.

U.S. policy toward Burma is stuck. Since September 1988, the country has been run by a corrupt and repressive military junta (which renamed the country Myanmar). Soon after taking power, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), as the junta was then called, placed Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the opposition party the National League for Democracy, under house arrest. In 1990, it allowed national elections but then ignored the National League for Democracy's landslide victory and clung to power. Then, in the mid-1990s, amid a cresting wave of post-Cold War democratization and in response to international pressure, the SLORC released Suu Kyi. At the time, there was a sense within the country and abroad that change in Burma might be possible.

But this proved to be a false promise, and the international community could not agree on what to do next. Many Western governments, legislatures, and human rights organizations advocated applying pressure through diplomatic isolation and punitive economic sanctions. Burma's neighbors, on the other hand, adopted a form of constructive engagement in the hope of enticing the SLORC to reform. The result was an uncoordinated array of often contradictory approaches. The United States limited its diplomatic contact with the SLORC and eventually imposed mandatory trade and investment restrictions on the regime. Europe became a vocal advocate for political reform. But most Asian states moved to expand trade, aid, and diplomatic engagement with the junta, most notably by granting Burma full membership in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1997.

A decade later, the verdict is in: neither sanctions nor constructive engagement has worked. If anything, Burma has evolved from being an antidemocratic embarrassment and humanitarian disaster to being a serious threat to the security of its neighbors. But despite the mounting danger, many in the United States and the international community are still mired in the old sanctions-versus-engagement battle. At the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed the former Nigerian diplomat and UN official Ibrahim Gambari to continue the organization's heretofore fruitless dialogue with the junta about reform. The U.S. State Department and the U.S. Congress have fought over control of U.S. Burma policy, leading to bitterness and polarization on both sides. Although the UN Security Council now does talk openly about Burma as a threat to international peace and security, China and Russia have vetoed attempts to impose international sanctions. And while key members of the international community continue to undermine one another, the junta, which renamed itself the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) in 1997, continues its brutal and dangerous rule.

Regimes like the SPDC do not improve with age; therefore, the Burma problem must be addressed urgently. All parties with a stake in its resolution need to adjust their positions and start coordinating their approach to the problem. Although this may seem like an unlikely proposition, it has more potential today than ever before. Burma's neighbors are beginning to recognize that unconditional engagement has failed. All that is needed now is for the United States to acknowledge that merely reinforcing its strategy of isolation and the existing sanctions regime will not achieve the desired results either. Such a reappraisal would then allow all concerned parties to build an international consensus with the dual aim of creating new incentives for the SPDC to reform and increasing the price it will pay if it fails to change its ways.

BURMESE WAYS

After General Than Shwe became chair of the junta in 1992, repression grew more brazen. Thousands of democracy activists and ordinary citizens have been sent to prison, and Suu Kyi has been repeatedly confined to house arrest, where she remains today. Since 1996, when the Burmese army launched its "four cuts" strategy against armed rebels -- an effort to cut off their access to food, funds, intelligence, and recruits among the population -- 2,500 villages have been destroyed and over one million people, mostly Karen and Shan minorities, have been displaced. Hundreds of thousands live in hiding or in open exile in Bangladesh, India, China, Thailand, and Malaysia. In 2004, the reformist prime minister Khin Nyunt was arrested. Two years ago, Than Shwe even moved the seat of government from Rangoon (which the junta calls Yangon), the traditional capital, to Pyinmana, a small logging town some 250 miles north -- reportedly on the advice of a soothsayer and for fear of possible U.S. air raids. And this past summer, the government cracked down brutally on scores of Burmese citizens who had taken to the streets to protest state-ordered hikes in fuel prices.

Burma's neighbors are struggling to respond to the spillover effects of worsening living conditions in the country. The narcotics trade, human trafficking, and HIV/AIDS are all spreading through Southeast Asia thanks in part to Burmese drug traffickers who regularly distribute heroin with HIV-tainted needles in China, India, and Thailand. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Burma accounts for 80 percent of all heroin produced in Southeast Asia, and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime has drawn a direct connection between the drug routes running from Burma and the marked increase in HIV/AIDS in the border regions of neighboring countries. Perversely, the SPDC has been playing on its neighbors' concerns over the drugs, disease, and instability that Burma generates to blackmail them into providing it with political, economic, and even military assistance.

Worse, the SPDC appears to have been taking an even more threatening turn recently. Western intelligence officials have suspected for several years that the regime has had an interest in following the model of North Korea and achieving military autarky by developing ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. Last spring, the junta normalized relations and initiated conventional weapons trade with North Korea in violation of UN sanctions against Pyongyang. And despite Burma's ample reserves of oil and gas, it signed an agreement with Russia to develop what it says will be peaceful nuclear capabilities. For these reasons, despite urgent problems elsewhere in the world, all responsible members of the international community should be concerned about the course Burma is taking.

FRUSTRATED NEIGHBORS

ASEAN may be the most important component of any international Burma policy. The organization invited Burma to join it in 1997 partly on the theory that integration would enhance ASEAN's influence over the junta more than would isolation (and partly out of concern over China's growing influence in the country). More recently, however, the ten-member organization has come to recognize that Burma is not only a stain on its international reputation but also a drain on its diplomatic resources and a threat to peace and stability in Asia. In 2005, ASEAN members began to pressure the SPDC to give up its turn to take over the group's rotating leadership, which was scheduled for 2007; they breathed a collective sigh of relief when Than Shwe allowed the Philippines to take Burma's spot. But particularly after Than Shwe's bizarre decision to move the capital and his rebuff of all international efforts, including by the Malaysian foreign minister, to persuade him to improve the junta's behavior, ASEAN states have only grown more concerned about Burma's direction.

Political liberalization in Indonesia and growing activism in Malaysia and the Philippines have also led ASEAN to redefine its mandate and apply greater pressure for change in Burma. When ASEAN was created four decades ago, its five founding states undertook not to interfere in each other's internal affairs as a way both to distance themselves from their colonial pasts and to avoid conflict in the future. But last January, ASEAN members prepared a new charter for the twenty-first century that champions democracy promotion and human rights as universal values, and they have established a human rights commission despite the SPDC's strong objections. With ASEAN's underlying principles under revision, leadership by Southeast Asian nations will become an even more essential component of any new international approach to the junta.

Japan will be another important force for reform. Tokyo and Washington perennially disagreed over their policies toward Burma in the 1980s and 1990s, but there has been a promising shift in Japan's attitude recently. Now that Tokyo has to contend with the slowdown in Japan's economic power and the rise in China's, it is articulating its foreign policy objectives and diplomacy in different terms. In November 2006, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso made a speech promoting an "arc of freedom and prosperity" from the Baltics to the Pacific and touting Tokyo's commitment to human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. His speech conspicuously omitted any mention of Burma, but there is no question that Japan's Burma policy has been shifting significantly. In September 2006, Tokyo finally agreed to support a discussion on Burma in the UN Security Council. Members of the Diet have created the Association for the Promotion of Values-Based Diplomacy, which seeks to infuse Japanese foreign policy in Asia with a renewed emphasis on promoting democracy. And last May, former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi joined 43 other former heads of state in an open letter calling on the SPDC to unconditionally release Suu Kyi.

Securing Japan's cooperation will be especially important. The Burmese people generally have a positive memory of Japan's assistance in helping the country throw off British colonial rule in the 1940s. Both the junta and the democratic opposition see opportunities for Japanese aid to help rebuild the country (although they disagree on the conditions under which that aid would be welcome). Furthermore, Burma presents a unique opportunity for Japan to demonstrate its bona fides on promoting democracy, protecting human rights, and advancing regional security -- especially at a time when the rhetoric and policies of China, the other Asian giant, continue to focus on outdated mercantilist principles.

UNHEALTHY COMPETITION

If ASEAN and Japan are critical components of any international approach to Burma, China and India could be the greatest obstacles to efforts to induce reform in the country. China has many interests in Burma. Over the past 15 years, it has developed deep political and economic relations with Burma, largely through billions of dollars in trade and investment and more than a billion dollars' worth of weapons sales. It enjoys important military benefits, including access to ports and listening posts, which allow its armed forces to monitor naval and other military activities around the Indian Ocean and the Andaman Sea. To feed its insatiable appetite for energy, it also seeks preferential deals for access to Burma's oil and gas reserves.

Beijing's engagement with the SPDC has been essential to the regime's survival. China has provided it with moral and financial support -- including funds and materiel to pay off Burmese military elites -- thus increasing its leverage at home and abroad. By throwing China's weight behind the SPDC, Beijing has complicated the strategic calculations of those of Burma's neighbors that are concerned about the direction the country is moving in, thus enabling the junta to pursue a classic divide-and-conquer approach.

In its own defense, China continues to assert its fealty to the principle of noninterference. In early 2007, China and Russia cast their first joint veto in the UN Security Council in 35 years to block a measure that would have sanctioned the SPDC. The move was consistent with both states' historical objections to any attempts by the Security Council to sanction a country for human rights violations. It also aligned with Beijing's overall strategic goals of the past few years: to secure the resources, markets, and investment destinations to fuel China's remarkable economic development; to shun risky international moves that might destabilize its neighborhood and distract the Chinese leadership from urgent domestic challenges; and to promote noninterference as an alternative model for international diplomacy -- all interests that will make it difficult to induce China to change its Burma policy.

But China's position could shift, particularly as Beijing considers its longer-term interests. China, like many other states on Burma's border, must be concerned about the effects of its neighbor's tortured development on its own security. In fact, Chinese officials in Beijing and the governor of Yunnan Province, which borders Burma, are reported to have been putting pressure on the SPDC to reform and urgently address drug trafficking and health issues. This quiet shift could track the recent change in Beijing's approach to another wayward neighbor: North Korea. As soon as Beijing realized that being hands-off did not prevent Pyongyang from testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles over its objections -- thus damaging China's reputation and threatening its security -- it agreed to UN Security Council sanctions to try to bring Pyongyang under control. The same could happen with Burma, and all the more readily because it occupies a less strategic position for China than does North Korea (China's northeastern border has historically been an area of strategic vulnerability and competition).

Another possible source of change is growing pressure from ASEAN nations, which have been suspicious of China's dealings with Burma over the last 15 years. Once Beijing comes to recognize that its current approach to Burma undermines its professed desire to be a responsible international actor, it will have good reason to redefine its real interests in Burma. The key will be for the United States and others to prioritize Burma in their diplomatic efforts with China in order to get Beijing to reach this conclusion.

It will also be a challenge getting India on board. Despite Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's trumpeting of democratic values, India has actually become more reticent when it comes to Burma in recent years. This is particularly regrettable considering that Congress was one of the Burmese democratic opposition's strongest supporters during much of the 1990s and that Suu Kyi continues to cite Mohandas Gandhi as a model for nonviolent resistance. The change occurred during the past decade, after New Delhi detected that China's political and military influence in Burma was filling the void left by the international community's deliberate isolation of the junta. Like China, India is hungry for natural gas and other resources and is eager to build a road network through Burma that would expand its trade with ASEAN. As a result, it has attempted to match China step for step as an economic and military partner of the SPDC, providing tanks, light artillery, reconnaissance and patrol aircraft, and small arms; India is now Burma's fourth-largest trading partner. Singh's government has also fallen for the junta's blackmail over cross-border drug and arms trafficking and has preferred to give it military and economic assistance rather than let Burma become a safe haven for insurgents active in India's troubled northeastern region.

Yet this shortsighted policy is clearly not in India's interests. Persistent repression and turmoil in Burma will continue to threaten India's security along its border. Internal political reform leading to a more open and reconciled Burma would be far more beneficial for India than anything that would result from India's current tactical accommodations. Of course, India is eager to counter Chinese influence and strengthen its linkages to ASEAN through Burma. But its efforts to become more integrated into East Asia would be better served by following the example of like-minded democracies such as Indonesia, which has spearheaded efforts to change ASEAN's positions on democratization and human rights, than by parroting outdated rhetoric advocating noninterference or pursuing pure mercantilism.

COORDINATED ENGAGEMENT

Given the differing perspectives and interests of these nations, a new multilateral initiative on Burma cannot be based on a single, uniform approach. Sanctions policies will need to coexist with various forms of engagement, and it will be necessary to coordinate all of these measures toward the common end of encouraging reform, reconciliation, and ultimately the return of democracy. To succeed, the region's major players will need to work together.

Bringing them together will require the United States' leadership. One way to proceed would be for Washington to lead the five key parties -- ASEAN, China, India, Japan, and the United States -- in developing a coordinated international initiative and putting forth a public statement of the principles that underlie their vision for a stable and secure Burma. The five partners should develop a road map with concrete goalposts that lays out both the benefits that the SPDC would enjoy if it pursued true political reform and national reconciliation and the costs it would suffer if it continued to be intransigent. The road map should present the SPDC with an international consensus on how Burma's situation affects international stability and the common principles on which the international community will judge progress in the country. One purpose of such a road map would be to reassure the SPDC of regional support for Burma's territorial integrity and security and demonstrate the five parties' commitment to provide, under the appropriate conditions, the assistance necessary to ensure a better future for the country. This would be an important guarantee given the Burmese military's traditional paranoia.

Clearly, any process of reform and national reconciliation in Burma will have to begin with the immediate release of Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, including other members of the National League for Democracy and ethnic leaders, and involve their full participation in the institution of democracy. The guidelines for a new constitution that were announced in September, ostensibly as a "road map to democracy," do not come close in this regard. Than Shwe and the SPDC despise Suu Kyi, of course, which is why some U.S. supporters of engagement with Burma argue that it would be imprudent to peg the international community's treatment of the SPDC on the junta's treatment of Suu Kyi. However, her party's success in the 1990 elections and the fact that Burmese society continues to venerate her mean that any legitimate and credible approach to reform in Burma will have to take her perspectives into account.

Potential chinks are also appearing in the SPDC's armor. Than Shwe's erratic behavior, his decision to imprison former Prime Minister Khin Nyunt and thousands of Khin Nyunt's military associates, and his efforts to create a Kim Il Sung-like cult of personality are signs of brittleness and division within the junta. If the SPDC were faced with an offer of new economic and political opportunities from other states in the region -- or greater international pressure and isolation should it fail to reform -- some of its members might eventually feel compelled to seek a different course for themselves and their country.

The five parties should not be expected to agree on everything or even on a single, uniform approach to the SPDC. Rather, the objective of such discussions would be to encourage a degree of compromise among the participants and coordination among their respective policies so that they may be channeled toward a common end. The current approach -- with each party pursuing its individual policy with an eye as much toward competing with the others for its own advantage as toward promoting change in Burma -- has clearly played into the junta's hands. It has allowed the Burmese government to avoid united international action while still gaining the resources necessary to hold on to power.

The participation of China and India, currently the SPDC's greatest enablers, will be critical. The United States could begin to influence both nations' thinking by making Burma a higher priority in bilateral dialogues. In discussions with Beijing, Washington could make China's Burma policy another test of its readiness to be a "responsible stakeholder," much as it has already done in regard to Darfur. With New Delhi, Washington could make India's Burma policy an important component of the two governments' evolving strategic dialogue and nascent partnership on international issues, including democracy promotion and regional stability. Even more important, the U.S. government should initiate a new approach with ASEAN, Japan, and actors outside of Asia, such as the European Union, which has had a long-standing interest in political reform in Burma. ASEAN alone does not have the cohesion or the clout to shape China's or India's policy toward Burma. But with help from the United States and others, it could take a leading role in spearheading a new coordinated, multilateral approach that neither Beijing nor New Delhi would be able to ignore. China was reluctant to host the six-party talks on North Korea at first, but it eventually preferred to take on that role rather than leave the job of dealing with Pyongyang's nuclear activities to the United States, Japan, and South Korea. Once a new multilateral approach to Burma begins to take shape, China will not want to be viewed as obstructing progress on an issue of importance to its neighbors.

In order to participate fully and effectively, the U.S. government, for its part, will need to relax its strict prohibition on official high-level contact with the SPDC. This will require close consultation between the White House, the State Department, and Congress; Congress should grant the administration diplomatic flexibility in exchange for appropriate oversight. The president should appoint a special adviser to serve as the coordinator of U.S. policy on Burma and as the United States' lead contact in its international outreach (and eventually as the U.S. envoy to the Burmese regime itself). In the meantime, U.S. sanctions regarding trade and investment should remain in place, both to avoid too sudden a shift in posture and to keep in reserve potential carrots that could later be offered to the SPDC to encourage reform. The United States should also continue to push for UN Security Council action on Burma in order to keep the issue at the top of its agenda with China.

The international community needs to act now to begin a process of concentrated and coordinated engagement for the benefit of the Burmese people and of broader peace and stability in Asia. As with the six-party talks on North Korea, a multilateral approach will require some compromise by all participants. The United States will need to reconsider its restrictions on engaging the SPDC; ASEAN, China, and India will need to reevaluate their historical commitment to noninterference; Japan will need to consider whether its economics-based approach to Burma undermines its new commitment to values-based diplomacy. But all parties have good reasons to make concessions. None of them can afford to watch Burma descend further into isolation and desperation and wait to act until another generation of its people is lost. In addition to humanitarian principles, there are strategic grounds for stepping up diplomatic efforts on Burma: it is now the most serious remaining challenge to the security and unity of Southeast Asia. Of course, change will eventually come to Burma. But without the coordinated engagement of the major interested powers today, that change will come at a great cost: to the stability of Southeast Asia, to the conscience of the international community, and, most important, to the long-suffering Burmese people, who languish in the shadows as the rest of the world concentrates its energies elsewhere.

To renew American leadership in the world, we must first bring the Iraq war to a responsible end and refocus our attention on the broader Middle East. Iraq was a diversion from the fight against the terrorists who struck us on 9/11, and incompetent prosecution of the war by America's civilian leaders compounded the strategic blunder of choosing to wage it in the first place. We have now lost over 3,300 American lives, and thousands more suffer wounds both seen and unseen.

Our servicemen and servicewomen have performed admirably while sacrificing immeasurably. But it is time for our civilian leaders to acknowledge a painful truth: we cannot impose a military solution on a civil war between Sunni and Shiite factions. The best chance we have to leave Iraq a better place is to pressure these warring parties to find a lasting political solution. And the only effective way to apply this pressure is to begin a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces, with the goal of removing all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008 -- a date consistent with the goal set by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. This redeployment could be temporarily suspended if the Iraqi government meets the security, political, and economic benchmarks to which it has committed. But we must recognize that, in the end, only Iraqi leaders can bring real peace and stability to their country.

At the same time, we must launch a comprehensive regional and international diplomatic initiative to help broker an end to the civil war in Iraq, prevent its spread, and limit the suffering of the Iraqi people. To gain credibility in this effort, we must make clear that we seek no permanent bases in Iraq. We should leave behind only a minimal over-the-horizon military force in the region to protect American personnel and facilities, continue training Iraqi security forces, and root out al Qaeda.

The morass in Iraq has made it immeasurably harder to confront and work through the many other problems in the region -- and it has made many of those problems considerably more dangerous. Changing the dynamic in Iraq will allow us to focus our attention and influence on resolving the festering conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- a task that the Bush administration neglected for years.

For more than three decades, Israelis, Palestinians, Arab leaders, and the rest of the world have looked to America to lead the effort to build the road to a lasting peace. In recent years, they have all too often looked in vain. Our starting point must always be a clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel, our strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy. That commitment is all the more important as we contend with growing threats in the region -- a strengthened Iran, a chaotic Iraq, the resurgence of al Qaeda, the reinvigoration of Hamas and Hezbollah. Now more than ever, we must strive to secure a lasting settlement of the conflict with two states living side by side in peace and security. To do so, we must help the Israelis identify and strengthen those partners who are truly committed to peace, while isolating those who seek conflict and instability. Sustained American leadership for peace and security will require patient effort and the personal commitment of the president of the United States. That is a commitment I will make.

Throughout the Middle East, we must harness American power to reinvigorate American diplomacy. Tough-minded diplomacy, backed by the whole range of instruments of American power -- political, economic, and military -- could bring success even when dealing with long-standing adversaries such as Iran and Syria. Our policy of issuing threats and relying on intermediaries to curb Iran's nuclear program, sponsorship of terrorism, and regional aggression is failing. Although we must not rule out using military force, we should not hesitate to talk directly to Iran. Our diplomacy should aim to raise the cost for Iran of continuing its nuclear program by applying tougher sanctions and increasing pressure from its key trading partners. The world must work to stop Iran's uranium-enrichment program and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is far too dangerous to have nuclear weapons in the hands of a radical theocracy. At the same time, we must show Iran -- and especially the Iranian people -- what could be gained from fundamental change: economic engagement, security assurances, and diplomatic relations. Diplomacy combined with pressure could also reorient Syria away from its radical agenda to a more moderate stance -- which could, in turn, help stabilize Iraq, isolate Iran, free Lebanon from Damascus' grip, and better secure Israel.

REVITALIZING THE MILITARY

To renew American leadership in the world, we must immediately begin working to revitalize our military. A strong military is, more than anything, necessary to sustain peace. Unfortunately, the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps, according to our military leaders, are facing a crisis. The Pentagon cannot certify a single army unit within the United States as fully ready to respond in the event of a new crisis or emergency beyond Iraq; 88 percent of the National Guard is not ready to deploy overseas.

We must use this moment both to rebuild our military and to prepare it for the missions of the future. We must retain the capacity to swiftly defeat any conventional threat to our country and our vital interests. But we must also become better prepared to put boots on the ground in order to take on foes that fight asymmetrical and highly adaptive campaigns on a global scale.

We should expand our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the army and 27,000 marines. Bolstering these forces is about more than meeting quotas. We must recruit the very best and invest in their capacity to succeed. That means providing our servicemen and servicewomen with first-rate equipment, armor, incentives, and training -- including in foreign languages and other critical skills. Each major defense program should be reevaluated in light of current needs, gaps in the field, and likely future threat scenarios. Our military will have to rebuild some capabilities and transform others. At the same time, we need to commit sufficient funding to enable the National Guard to regain a state of readiness.

Enhancing our military will not be enough. As commander in chief, I would also use our armed forces wisely. When we send our men and women into harm's way, I will clearly define the mission, seek out the advice of our military commanders, objectively evaluate intelligence, and ensure that our troops have the resources and the support they need. I will not hesitate to use force, unilaterally if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests whenever we are attacked or imminently threatened.

We must also consider using military force in circumstances beyond self-defense in order to provide for the common security that underpins global stability -- to support friends, participate in stability and reconstruction operations, or confront mass atrocities. But when we do use force in situations other than self-defense, we should make every effort to garner the clear support and participation of others -- as President George H. W. Bush did when we led the effort to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991. The consequences of forgetting that lesson in the context of the current conflict in Iraq have been grave.

HALTING THE SPREAD OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

To renew American leadership in the world, we must confront the most urgent threat to the security of America and the world -- the spread of nuclear weapons, material, and technology and the risk that a nuclear device will fall into the hands of terrorists. The explosion of one such device would bring catastrophe, dwarfing the devastation of 9/11 and shaking every corner of the globe.

As George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn have warned, our current measures are not sufficient to meet the nuclear threat. The nonproliferation regime is being challenged, and new civilian nuclear programs could spread the means to make nuclear weapons. Al Qaeda has made it a goal to bring a "Hiroshima" to the United States. Terrorists need not build a nuclear weapon from scratch; they need only steal or buy a weapon or the material to assemble one. There is now highly enriched uranium -- some of it poorly secured -- sitting in civilian nuclear facilities in over 40 countries around the world. In the former Soviet Union, there are approximately 15,000-16,000 nuclear weapons and stockpiles of uranium and plutonium capable of making another 40,000 weapons -- all scattered across 11 time zones. People have already been caught trying to smuggle nuclear material to sell on the black market.

As president, I will work with other nations to secure, destroy, and stop the spread of these weapons in order to dramatically reduce the nuclear dangers for our nation and the world. America must lead a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons and material at vulnerable sites within four years -- the most effective way to prevent terrorists from acquiring a bomb.

This will require the active cooperation of Russia. Although we must not shy away from pushing for more democracy and accountability in Russia, we must work with the country in areas of common interest -- above all, in making sure that nuclear weapons and material are secure. We must also work with Russia to update and scale back our dangerously outdated Cold War nuclear postures and de-emphasize the role of nuclear weapons. America must not rush to produce a new generation of nuclear warheads. And we should take advantage of recent technological advances to build bipartisan consensus behind ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. All of this can be done while maintaining a strong nuclear deterrent. These steps will ultimately strengthen, not weaken, our security.

As we lock down existing nuclear stockpiles, I will work to negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material. We must also stop the spread of nuclear weapons technology and ensure that countries cannot build -- or come to the brink of building -- a weapons program under the auspices of developing peaceful nuclear power. That is why my administration will immediately provide $50 million to jump-start the creation of an International Atomic Energy Agency-controlled nuclear fuel bank and work to update the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. We must also fully implement the law Senator Richard Lugar and I passed to help the United States and our allies detect and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world.

finally, we must develop a strong international coalition to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Iran and North Korea could trigger regional arms races, creating dangerous nuclear flashpoints in the Middle East and East Asia. In confronting these threats, I will not take the military option off the table. But our first measure must be sustained, direct, and aggressive diplomacy -- the kind that the Bush administration has been unable and unwilling to use.

COMBATING GLOBAL TERRORISM

To renew American leadership in the world, we must forge a more effective global response to the terrorism that came to our shores on an unprecedented scale on 9/11. From Bali to London, Baghdad to Algiers, Mumbai to Mombasa to Madrid, terrorists who reject modernity, oppose America, and distort Islam have killed and mutilated tens of thousands of people just this decade. Because this enemy operates globally, it must be confronted globally.

We must refocus our efforts on Afghanistan and Pakistan -- the central front in our war against al Qaeda -- so that we are confronting terrorists where their roots run deepest. Success in Afghanistan is still possible, but only if we act quickly, judiciously, and decisively. We should pursue an integrated strategy that reinforces our troops in Afghanistan and works to remove the limitations placed by some NATO allies on their forces. Our strategy must also include sustained diplomacy to isolate the Taliban and more effective development programs that target aid to areas where the Taliban are making inroads.

I will join with our allies in insisting -- not simply requesting -- that Pakistan crack down on the Taliban, pursue Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, and end its relationship with all terrorist groups. At the same time, I will encourage dialogue between Pakistan and India to work toward resolving their dispute over Kashmir and between Afghanistan and Pakistan to resolve their historic differences and develop the Pashtun border region. If Pakistan can look toward the east with greater confidence, it will be less likely to believe that its interests are best advanced through cooperation with the Taliban.

Although vigorous action in South Asia and Central Asia should be a starting point, our efforts must be broader. There must be no safe haven for those who plot to kill Americans. To defeat al Qaeda, I will build a twenty-first-century military and twenty-first-century partnerships as strong as the anticommunist alliance that won the Cold War to stay on the offense everywhere from Djibouti to Kandahar.

Here at home, we must strengthen our homeland security and protect the critical infrastructure on which the entire world depends. We can start by spending homeland security dollars on the basis of risk. This means investing more resources to defend mass transit, closing the gaps in our aviation security by screening all cargo on passenger airliners and checking all passengers against a comprehensive watch list, and upgrading port security by ensuring that cargo is screened for radiation.

To succeed, our homeland security and counterterrorism actions must be linked to an intelligence community that deals effectively with the threats we face. Today, we rely largely on the same institutions and practices that were in place before 9/11. We need to revisit intelligence reform, going beyond rearranging boxes on an organizational chart. To keep pace with highly adaptable enemies, we need technologies and practices that enable us to efficiently collect and share information within and across our intelligence agencies. We must invest still more in human intelligence and deploy additional trained operatives and diplomats with specialized knowledge of local cultures and languages. And we should institutionalize the practice of developing competitive assessments of critical threats and strengthen our methodologies of analysis.

finally, we need a comprehensive strategy to defeat global terrorists -- one that draws on the full range of American power, not just our military might. As a senior U.S. military commander put it, when people have dignity and opportunity, "the chance of extremism being welcomed greatly, if not completely, diminishes." It is for this reason that we need to invest with our allies in strengthening weak states and helping to rebuild failed ones.

In the Islamic world and beyond, combating the terrorists' prophets of fear will require more than lectures on democracy. We need to deepen our knowledge of the circumstances and beliefs that underpin extremism. A crucial debate is occurring within Islam. Some believe in a future of peace, tolerance, development, and democratization. Others embrace a rigid and violent intolerance of personal liberty and the world at large. To empower forces of moderation, America must make every effort to export opportunity -- access to education and health care, trade and investment -- and provide the kind of steady support for political reformers and civil society that enabled our victory in the Cold War. Our beliefs rest on hope; the extremists' rest on fear. That is why we can -- and will -- win this struggle.

REBUILDING OUR PARTNERSHIPS

To renew American leadership in the world, I intend to rebuild the alliances, partnerships, and institutions necessary to confront common threats and enhance common security. Needed reform of these alliances and institutions will not come by bullying other countries to ratify changes we hatch in isolation. It will come when we convince other governments and peoples that they, too, have a stake in effective partnerships.

Too often we have sent the opposite signal to our international partners. In the case of Europe, we dismissed European reservations about the wisdom and necessity of the Iraq war. In Asia, we belittled South Korean efforts to improve relations with the North. In Latin America, from Mexico to Argentina, we failed to adequately address concerns about immigration and equity and economic growth. In Africa, we have allowed genocide to persist for over four years in Darfur and have not done nearly enough to answer the African Union's call for more support to stop the killing. I will rebuild our ties to our allies in Europe and Asia and strengthen our partnerships throughout the Americas and Africa.

Our alliances require constant cooperation and revision if they are to remain effective and relevant. NATO has made tremendous strides over the last 15 years, transforming itself from a Cold War security structure into a partnership for peace. But today, NATO's challenge in Afghanistan has exposed, as Senator Lugar has put it, "the growing discrepancy between NATO's expanding missions and its lagging capabilities." To close this gap, I will rally our NATO allies to contribute more troops to collective security operations and to invest more in reconstruction and stabilization capabilities.

And as we strengthen NATO, we must build new alliances and partnerships in other vital regions. As China rises and Japan and South Korea assert themselves, I will work to forge a more effective framework in Asia that goes beyond bilateral agreements, occasional summits, and ad hoc arrangements, such as the six-party talks on North Korea. We need an inclusive infrastructure with the countries in East Asia that can promote stability and prosperity and help confront transnational threats, from terrorist cells in the Philippines to avian flu in Indonesia. I will also encourage China to play a responsible role as a growing power -- to help lead in addressing the common problems of the twenty-first century. We will compete with China in some areas and cooperate in others. Our essential challenge is to build a relationship that broadens cooperation while strengthening our ability to compete.

In addition, we need effective collaboration on pressing global issues among all the major powers -- including such newly emerging ones as Brazil, India, Nigeria, and South Africa. We need to give all of them a stake in upholding the international order. To that end, the United Nations requires far-reaching reform. The UN Secretariat's management practices remain weak. Peacekeeping operations are overextended. The new UN Human Rights Council has passed eight resolutions condemning Israel -- but not a single resolution condemning the genocide in Darfur or human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. Yet none of these problems will be solved unless America rededicates itself to the organization and its mission.

Strengthened institutions and invigorated alliances and partnerships are especially crucial if we are to defeat the epochal, man-made threat to the planet: climate change. Without dramatic changes, rising sea levels will flood coastal regions around the world, including much of the eastern seaboard. Warmer temperatures and declining rainfall will reduce crop yields, increasing conflict, famine, disease, and poverty. By 2050, famine could displace more than 250 million people worldwide. That means increased instability in some of the most volatile parts of the world.

As the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases, America has the responsibility to lead. While many of our industrial partners are working hard to reduce their emissions, we are increasing ours at a steady clip -- by more than ten percent per decade. As president, I intend to enact a cap-and-trade system that will dramatically reduce our carbon emissions. And I will work to finally free America of its dependence on foreign oil -- by using energy more efficiently in our cars, factories, and homes, relying more on renewable sources of electricity, and harnessing the potential of biofuels.

Getting our own house in order is only a first step. China will soon replace America as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Clean energy development must be a central focus in our relationships with major countries in Europe and Asia. I will invest in efficient and clean technologies at home while using our assistance policies and export promotions to help developing countries leapfrog the carbon-energy-intensive stage of development. We need a global response to climate change that includes binding and enforceable commitments to reducing emissions, especially for those that pollute the most: the United States, China, India, the European Union, and Russia. This challenge is massive, but rising to it will also bring new benefits to America. By 2050, global demand for low-carbon energy could create an annual market worth $500 billion. Meeting that demand would open new frontiers for American entrepreneurs and workers.

BUILDING JUST, SECURE, DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES

finally, to renew American leadership in the world, I will strengthen our common security by investing in our common humanity. Our global engagement cannot be defined by what we are against; it must be guided by a clear sense of what we stand for. We have a significant stake in ensuring that those who live in fear and want today can live with dignity and opportunity tomorrow.

People around the world have heard a great deal of late about freedom on the march. Tragically, many have come to associate this with war, torture, and forcibly imposed regime change. To build a better, freer world, we must first behave in ways that reflect the decency and aspirations of the American people. This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law.

Citizens everywhere should be able to choose their leaders in climates free of fear. America must commit to strengthening the pillars of a just society. We can help build accountable institutions that deliver services and opportunity: strong legislatures, independent judiciaries, honest police forces, free presses, vibrant civil societies. In countries wracked by poverty and conflict, citizens long to enjoy freedom from want. And since extremely poor societies and weak states provide optimal breeding grounds for disease, terrorism, and conflict, the United States has a direct national security interest in dramatically reducing global poverty and joining with our allies in sharing more of our riches to help those most in need. We need to invest in building capable, democratic states that can establish healthy and educated communities, develop markets, and generate wealth. Such states would also have greater institutional capacities to fight terrorism, halt the spread of deadly weapons, and build health-care infrastructures to prevent, detect, and treat deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and avian flu.

As president, I will double our annual investment in meeting these challenges to $50 billion by 2012 and ensure that those new resources are directed toward worthwhile goals. For the last 20 years, U.S. foreign assistance funding has done little more than keep pace with inflation. It is in our national security interest to do better. But if America is going to help others build more just and secure societies, our trade deals, debt relief, and foreign aid must not come as blank checks. I will couple our support with an insistent call for reform, to combat the corruption that rots societies and governments from within. I will do so not in the spirit of a patron but in the spirit of a partner -- a partner mindful of his own imperfections.

Our rapidly growing international AIDS programs have demonstrated that increased foreign assistance can make a real difference. As part of this new funding, I will capitalize a $2 billion Global Education Fund that will bring the world together in eliminating the global education deficit, much as the 9/11 Commission proposed. We cannot hope to shape a world where opportunity outweighs danger unless we ensure that every child everywhere is taught to build and not to destroy.

There are compelling moral reasons and compelling security reasons for renewed American leadership that recognizes the inherent equality and worth of all people. As President Kennedy said in his 1961 inaugural address, "To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required -- not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." I will show the world that America remains true to its founding values. We lead not only for ourselves but also for the common good.

RESTORING AMERICA'S TRUST

Confronted by Hitler, Roosevelt said that our power would be "directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. We Americans are not destroyers; we are builders." It is time for a president who can build consensus here at home for an equally ambitious course.

Ultimately, no foreign policy can succeed unless the American people understand it and feel they have a stake in its success -- unless they trust that their government hears their concerns as well. We will not be able to increase foreign aid if we fail to invest in security and opportunity for our own people. We cannot negotiate trade agreements to help spur development in poor countries so long as we provide no meaningful help to working Americans burdened by the dislocations of a global economy. We cannot reduce our dependence on foreign oil or defeat global warming unless Americans are willing to innovate and conserve. We cannot expect Americans to support placing our men and women in harm's way if we cannot show that we will use force wisely and judiciously. But if the next president can restore the American people's trust -- if they know that he or she is acting with their best interests at heart, with prudence and wisdom and some measure of humility -- then I believe the American people will be eager to see America lead again.

I believe they will also agree that it is time for a new generation to tell the next great American story. If we act with boldness and foresight, we will be able to tell our grandchildren that this was the time when we helped forge peace in the Middle East. This was the time we confronted climate change and secured the weapons that could destroy the human race. This was the time we defeated global terrorists and brought opportunity to forgotten corners of the world. And this was the time when we renewed the America that has led generations of weary travelers from all over the world to find opportunity and liberty and hope on our doorstep.

It was not all that long ago that farmers in Venezuela and Indonesia welcomed American doctors to their villages and hung pictures of JFK on their living room walls, when millions, like my father, waited every day for a letter in the mail that would grant them the privilege to come to America to study, work, live, or just be free.

We can be this America again. This is our moment to renew the trust and faith of our people -- and all people -- in an America that battles immediate evils, promotes an ultimate good, and leads the world once more.

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NOV 3RD.

Burma Updates: Burmese Monks inside/outside of Burma stepping up pressure

Dear All,

Some important developments occurred in the past week: 

On Oct 31, incredible show of courage and determination, the Burmese monks in Pakokku took to the streets again. Why did they risk their lives and every thing they have yet again? Because they are determined to help save the country, the people and, most importantly for them, the Buddhism itself. Now in Pakokku , monks are being warned to not take to the street again. Pakokky is the city where insult against the monks occurred on Sept. 5th angering the entire monk population in Burma, and eventually leading to the Saffron Revolution.

Few days earlier on Oct 28 in Los Angele the exiled Burmese monks have established an International Burmese Monks Organization with the mandate given by the monks inside Burma. Their primary goal is, again, to save the Buddhism in Burma. Should this dictatorship be allowed to go on, not only the country and the people, along with them, the Buddhism itself will soon become the casualty.

We all knew that, after crushing the 8888 uprising, which was lead by the university students, the regime dismantled many established universities in Rangoon to deter future student-led protests. Now, the saffron revolution is being led by the monks and, as always, this regime will not let anything standing in their way. That's why  the monks are so concerned that they are  taking the leadership and forming this organization in exile.

Besides, the new organization is being led by two well respected and proven monks leaders: Masoeyin Sayadaw and Penang Sayadaw and was joined in by the monks from Europe, Asia and North America.  Monks in Rangoon, Mandalay, Myin Chan, and Pakokku, along with exiled  artists supported it right away. They are leading us in the much needed time, and we must follow them. Therefore, let's welcome and support this new organization in any way we can.

In other news:

The regime kicked out the top UN official for urging to heed the voices of protesters just ahead of Mr. Gambari's visit.

In today Washington Post, there is an editorial (Unbowed in Burma) shedding great light on China and India, the nations with the most influence in Burma, outdo each other in appeasing the regime. So, we must keep the pressure on them. And also find below the news on the plight of Burmese Child soldiers called Nasty, brutish and short -- thanks to a Human Rights Watch report.

Last, but not least, please support the USCB action call to help passed  the Block Burmese JADE (Junta's Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act of 2007 authored by Congressman Tom Lantos in the congress.

In solidarity,
Nyunt Than
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1. DVB: International monk's organization established by Exiled Burmese Monks
2. NY Times: Myanmar Junta Orders Top U.N. Official in the Country to Leave
3. Washington Post Editorial: Unbowed in Burma
4. DVB: Monks warned against protesting in Pakokku
5. Reuters: Monks take to streets as Burma anger flares again
6. NewsStatesman: Nasty, brutish and short (Child soldiers of Burma)
7. Express-News: Myanmar temple is focal point of 'saffron uprising'
8. USCB: Block Burmese JADE (Junta's Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act of 2007: Get Your Representative to Co-Sponsor!

International monk's organization established

Oct 30, 2007 (DVB) Burmese monks living in exile around the world have formed an organization to raise international awareness of Burma's situation and lobby international governments.

The director of the new group is U Kaweida, a monk lecturer from Masoeyein monastery in Mandalay who was detained by the Burmese government after the 1988 uprising and now lives in New York.

The monks had originally planned to meet on Sunday to celebrate U Pyinya Wuntha,s 80th birthday and 50 years of his work promoting Buddhism around the world.

U Pyinya Wuntha said that the organization was formed as a response to the harassment, detention and ill-treatment of monks in Burma by the regime.

We are going to raise awareness about the issues inside Burma with the relevant governments, U Pyinya Wuntha said.

Burmese monks in Sri Lanka released a statement yesterday offering their enthusiastic cooperation to the new group and expressing their belief that it will be able to help find a solution to the political and social issues inside Burma.

Four Burmese artists living in exile also expressed their support for the newly formed organization.

We vow to follow the monk�s orders and accept whatever duties are given to us by the monks,� the artists� group said.

Myanmar Junta Orders Top U.N. Official in the Country to Leave

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Washington Post Editorial: Unbowed in Burma

The resistance continues, but it needs help.
Saturday, November 3, 2007; A18

BURMA'S RULING generals yesterday ordered the expulsion of a senior United Nations official, again demonstrating their contempt for international opinion. The official had expressed mild criticism of the regime, which was too much for the paranoid leaders of the Southeast Asian nation. That does not mean, however, that they are impervious to influence.

A few weeks ago, hundreds of thousands of Burmese, led by Buddhist monks, were peacefully demonstrating in favor of democracy. The junta lashed out in response: shutting down Internet access, raiding monasteries, rounding up thousands in nighttime raids. No one outside the regime knows how many protesters it murdered.

Amazingly, internal resistance has not ended. A few hundred monks resumed the protest Tuesday. Others have taken to the jungle to regroup. But the response from outside Burma has been less heartening. The special envoy of the U.N. secretary general has shuttled among Asian capitals in time-wasting busywork. The envoy, who is scheduled to reenter Burma today, needs to push hard the U.N. Security Council's call to the regime to free political prisoners and enter into dialogue with them. Meanwhile, China and India, the nations with the most influence in Burma, outdo each other in appeasing the regime. Does China not worry about hosting the Olympics as the protector of one of the world's most odious regimes? Does India care nothing for its reputation as the world's largest democracy? So far, apparently not.

The Security Council should tighten sanctions, particularly by enforcing an arms embargo. But the sanctions likeliest to persuade the regime to negotiate with democratic forces are banking restrictions imposed on top officials, their relatives and the corrupt businessmen close to them. The Bush administration led the way with such sanctions; Australia stoutly followed. The question -- and it could be dispositive -- is whether Europe has the spine to join in.
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Monks warned against protesting

Nov 1, 2007 (DVB)–Following yesterday’s peaceful demonstration in Pakokku, local authorities have urged monks not to go ahead with any further protests, according to a local monk.

The monks themselves were not invited to attend the meeting.

The local authorities did not say if any action would be taken against the monks if they continued to demonstrate.

Security forces did not intervene in yesterday’s demonstration, and those involved have not so far faced any repercussions from the authorities.

“We did not have much time to organize the protest as we did not actually plan for it, so there weren’t a lot of monks. But there will be bigger and more organized protests soon,” the monk said.

Monks take to streets as Burma anger flares again

BUDDHIST monks in Burma staged a protest march yesterday, their first since soldiers crushed a pro-democracy uprising a month ago, as UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari prepared a return visit to the troubled country.

A Rangoon-based Asian diplomat said Mr Gambari, who first visited shortly after the army crackdown, would arrive on Saturday on a second mission to coax the generals into talks with the detained opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

The latest march by monks in the central town of Pakokku, 370 miles north-west of Rangoon, suggests the crackdown merely managed to stifle, not eradicate, widespread anger at 45 years of military rule and deepening poverty.

The town has been a flashpoint since soldiers fired over the heads of monks in early September, transforming small, localised protests against shock rises in fuel prices into the biggest anti-junta uprising in two decades.

A witness said about 200 monks chanted prayers as they walked three abreast through the centre of the town.

"We walked around the town and chanted ... We are continuing our protest from last month as we have not yet achieved any of the demands we asked for," one monk told the Democratic Voice of Burma, a dissident radio station based in Norway.

"Our demands are for lower commodity prices, national reconciliation and immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all the political prisoners," he said.

"We are not afraid of getting arrested or tortured," another monk was quoted as saying.

He said they had little time to organise the march so it was small, but "there will be more organised and bigger protests soon." There were no reports of trouble.

Official media say ten people, including a Japanese video journalist, were killed when soldiers were sent in to clear the streets last month, although western governments said the real toll was likely to be far higher.

Mr Gambari has been on a six-country Asian diplomatic tour to press neighbours - especially India and China - to take a tougher line against the generals, one of the world's most isolated regimes.

"We think he is going to be busier during this visit than his previous one," the Asian diplomat said. After Mr Gambari's first trip, the junta appointed retired General Aung Kyi as a go-between for Ms Suu Kyi and the junta chief Than Shwe, who is widely known to loathe the 62-year-old Nobel laureate.

Gen Aung Kyi held a 75-minute meeting with Ms Suu Kyi last week, although it is not known what they discussed.

After talks with China in Beijing yesterday, Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, repeated his idea of offering incentives for the people of Burma if the government launches a political dialogue with Ms Suu Kyi and their talks make progress.

JUNTA 'SIGNS UP BOY SOLDIERS'

BURMA'S military junta is recruiting children as young as ten into its armed forces, a human rights group claimed yesterday.

Human Rights Watch, of New York, accused the junta of targeting children due to "continued army expansion, high desertion rates and a lack of willing volunteers". Its report said: "Military recruiters and civilian brokers receive cash payments and other incentives for each new recruit, even if the recruit clearly violates minimum age or health standards."

It cited the case of a boy who said he was forcibly recruited at 11, though he was only 4ft 3in tall and weighed less than 5st.

YANGON, Myanmar — A few long, wispy hairs dangled from the chin of the old, brown-robed monk. The skin on his hands was polished like dark parchment. Wearing a brown conical peaked cap, he looked like he was from an earlier age.

Roy Hamric/Special to the Express-News Monks are eager to answer questions about the Shwedagon temple complex. If You Go Getting there: All incoming flights must enter via Yangon (formerly known as Rangoon). Daily flights depart from Bangkok, Thailand. Lodging: Low-cost guesthouses and upper-end hotels and resorts abound in Yangon, ranging from $10 to $500 or more a day. Transportation: Several Myanmar airlines offer daily flights to Mandalay and to Bagan, the home of the largest collection of historical temples in Asia and a must-see destination for most tourists. Many tourists also travel via trains, buses or by riverboats that ply the Irrawaddy River from Yangon to Mandalay and farther north. Visa: Four-week tourist visas are easily obtained by applying at Myanmar embassies; see an embassy Web site for information, requirements and applications. The Strand: 92 Strand Road; rooms from $450 to $900. The hotel's bar, grill and restaurant attract an eclectic crowd. www.ghmhotels.com. Country protocol: Foreigners seldom have serious problems, but exercise common caution. Myanmar is a very conservative country, without the nightlife found in many Asian cities.   More Coverage Myanmar temple is focal point of 'saffron uprising'

He gently nudged me to the left, two steps, and there it was — a brilliant white flash: the 4,351 diamonds at the topmost orb of the Shwedagon stupa.

Only a few tourist and locals were at the temple on this late evening. Some places diminish in stature when you take away the crowds, but this religious site, one of Myanmar's holiest, becomes more impressive.

On a prominent hill overlooking Yangon (formerly known as Rangoon), the temple complex dominates the city. In the 1400s, a queen, Shinsawbu, donated her weight in gold (about 90 pounds) to the temple. The gold was beaten into gold leaf to gild the first stupa, setting off a series of gildings that continue to the present day, with more than 50 metric tons of gold now covering the stupa.

Shwedagon Temple, one of the holiest sites for Buddhists in Myanmar, found itself at the center of the violent pro-democracy demonstrations that erupted throughout the nation in late September.

Saffron-robed monks gathered at the temple complex to pray before starting their marches through the streets to protest the generals who have held power since they nullified a free, democratic election in 1988.

On the streets surrounding the temple, the monks were repeatedly threatened by security forces, who fired tear gas, shot their guns into the air and beat monks with truncheons.

Throughout the demonstrations, the monks chanted the "Metta Sutta," the Buddha's words on loving-kindness:

Let everyone be free from harm

Let everyone be free from anger

Let everyone be free from hardship

Before the protests ended, 1,000 monks had been arrested and imprisoned. An estimated 450 monks remained in prison in late October, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

The generals who rule Myanmar in effect own the riches of the nation, once one of the most prosperous in Asia — symbolized perhaps by the jewels embedded in the main stupa at the temple complex.

Hope for a better life

At mid-afternoon on the day I visited the temple nearly a year ago, the spiritual reverence had been palpable. Streams of pilgrims, both men and women wearing the traditional longyi cloth wrap, supplicated themselves before the golden stupa and the smaller temples and shrines, some of which are said to house symbolic Nats, or spirits. Families put down mats and set out steamed chicken, fried bananas and cups of sweet milky brown tea, preparing to spend the day. The air was permeated with a feeling of spiritual devotion.

But it was the light surrounding the stupa that casts the most poignant spell. To say the stupa is golden misses it entirely. The air around the stupa is golden. The air pervading the complex is golden and sparkling, the brilliance subtly enhanced perhaps by the other 1,383 gemstones embedded in the large stupa's surface at various points and especially by a single, radiant 76-carat diamond at the very top of the diamond orb, which I fancied I could actually see while standing at that exact spot where the old monk had placed me.

"It's nice look," he said, his teeth dark yellow from tea and betel nut. Earlier, the monk had walked me around the temple complex. People paid him reverence and gave him space. He was a Jathei (hermit) monk, a lineage of solitary wanderers, highly respected for their use of herbs and potients to treat people's physical and psychological ailments.

Jathei monks are homeless, roaming through rural Myanmar. Sometimes they can be spotted at their forest retreats by the small, round huts they build from twigs and large leaves. His last retreat was in the forest near Taungbygone, 20 miles north of Mandalay. He'd started walking toward Yangon two months earlier. This would be his last visit to the temple, he said, because he planned to move deeper into the forest.

A few steps removed from the diamond's sparkle was a shrine to Thanga Min, the king of the Nat spirits. Nat worship is the belief that spirits can exercise a good or evil power over a person or a place, such as homes, trees, hills or lakes. There's a saying that the Burmese people play it safe: They practice Buddhism for the future life and give gift offerings to Nats for problems in this life. A moment later when I turned back toward the monk, he was gone. I had wanted to ask him more about his life. I searched through the crowd, but he had disappeared.

A country of extremes

From the temple, I hailed a taxi, a little 1956 Toyota. I had promised myself a dinner at the Strand Hotel, one of the legendary hotels of the East. The driver, named Htin Swe, was another one of those Myanmar citizens you frequently meet who describe themselves as university students. They are typically in their late 30s or 40s. They explain their studies are incomplete, through no fault of their own. Myanmar universities are usually closed more semesters than they are open, a sign of the fear the ruling military junta has of students and the people. In 1988, the junta, now known as the State Peace and Development Council, gunned down more than 2,000 students, men, women, children and monks during a demonstration in Yangon.

I asked Htin Swe what he studied.

"I am an English major," he said. "Ahnoma topeeah."

"Onomatopoeia? " I said.

"Yes. The Highway Man," he said. "Fenimore Cooper. American. Shakespeare very different. Robert Frost. Two ways to go."

Like most of Myanmar's ordinary citizens, Htin Swe was a poignant mixture of sincerity and arrested development, emblematic of a people and a country with enormous potential that's been trapped in a time-warp closer to the '50s than today's world.

When the concierge swung open the high wooden doors of the Strand Hotel, built in 1901 by two Armenians, the Starkie brothers, I entered a world light years away from everyday Myanmar life. Recently remodeled, the hotel had retained its distinctive colonial-Asian charm and elegance with a shiny, black grand piano dominating the lobby. The natural oak and rattan furniture featured white cushions. In the nearly empty dinning room, leather-bound menus and heavy white parchment paper were stamped with the Burmese lion emblem. Delicate purple flowers sat in crystal vases on each table, and a young woman played a lilting folk melody on a xylophone.

The menu listed barramundi over glass noodles, Myanmar venison, seared Myanmar River prawns in green curry, sesame coated tuna rolls, golden crab cakes, peanut biscuits and more.

Looking through the window at the boulevard that ran parallel to the Irrawaddy River, I saw fenderless trucks sputtering along, belching black smoke, stacked with freshly cut teak trees still oozing oil from their base. Men with bulging calf muscles strained at rickety trishaw pedals, trying to dodge potholes. Students in red skirts and white blouses walked home carrying plastic book satchels.

The stark contrast between the refined Western inner world of the Strand's elegance and the outside world of daily Yangon street life still seemed very colonial British.

Clearly, Myanmar is a country of extremes — of haves and have-nots. Average citizens have very little and have been repressed for decades. However, the country is opening up to tourists and traveling within the country is easier. The feelings you take away from a trip to Myanmar are unusually deep, running an emotional gantlet from awe to sorrow.

As I left the Strand, I thought of the old monk at the temple. I had tried to take his picture, but he wouldn't allow it.

"I will remember you," he said. "You will remember me."

He was right.

Roy Hamric writes about Southeast Asia for newspapers and magazines worldwide.

The brutality and bluster of Burma's military leaders conceal the reality of an army increasingly reliant on forcibly conscripted child soldiers

Beyond the brutality of the military against protesting monks, and belying the bluster of senior army officers during their grand parades in the new martial capital at their jungle redoubt in Naypyidaw, is a reality that Burma's ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) does its best to conceal: many of its soldiers are mere children.

Human Rights Watch research this summer showed that boys as young as 10 continue to be forcibly enlisted into Burma’s army by a network of predatory recruiters, often soldiers themselves, who lurk at train stations and outside cinemas and tea shops looking for vulnerable young males to coerce into the Burmese military, or Tatmadaw.

Once forced into the army they are not permitted to contact their families, their ages are fabricated on enlistment material, and they receive harsh training before being deployed to bleak and dangerous outposts throughout Burma’s hinterland.

Boys are used to fight ethnic insurgents, mete out punishment to civilians, and as porters to support frontline troops. One young soldier I interviewed expressed the terror of his first experience of combat. When he tried to run away, his officer threatened to shoot him. He was 13. It is hard to imagine the psychological trauma and damage these experiences are inflicting on children.

The problem of child soldiers is hidden from the eyes of many international observers and Burmese citizens in towns and cities. Child soldiering usually takes place in the conflict zones of the borderlands where they are deployed. Once impressed into the army, child soldiers often eke out a desperate existence fishing and hunting for food and stealing from villagers, surrounded by malarial forests, landmines and ethnic insurgents.

Their plight is so desperate that many of their victims I have spoken to express their pity for them, despite the fact that these boys belong to an army which burns ethnic civilian villages, destroys their crops, and forces them into hiding or across borders as refugees in counterinsurgency campaigns almost medieval in their plodding atrocities.

Despite strong official regulations within the Tatmadaw prohibiting the use of child soldiers and frequent promises to the United Nations that the SPDC is serious about curbing the practice, former child soldiers Human Rights Watch interviewed testified that the practice remains rampant. It is almost impossible to place a figure on how many children under 18 are in the Tatmadaw, but there are certainly thousands.

It hasn’t always been this way. Before 1988, Burma’s army of 180,000 soldiers was a battle hardened and largely professional organization. The Tatmadaw fought large-scale conventional wars and brutal counter-insurgency operations against Communist and ethnic insurgents who were well armed and motivated. Almost all the soldiers and officers were volunteers, and child soldiers were rare. They were common, however, in ethnic opposition forces, and over 30 non-state armed groups in Burma still use children in combat.

Since 1988, when the army put down mass street protests, a major expansion of the armed forces has seen the military grow to an estimated 400,000 or more personnel, many of them children. Large arms purchases in the past 19 years -- ships, planes and helicopters from China, tanks and fighter planes from Russia and the Ukraine, artillery pieces from India -- all need soldiers to use them. Nevertheless, many army battalions are seriously under strength, with operational numbers of 200 soldiers, far below the optimum level of 800 personnel.

Internal army documents seen by Human Rights Watch point to high levels of desertions and seriously low morale due to poor living conditions and abuses by senior NCOs and officers against the ranks. Children are swept up in the need to replenish the ranks.

Recruitment of minors into the military mirrors Burma’s deteriorating social and economic conditions. Unemployment is high, corruption is endemic, poverty is the norm, and inflation, raging at over 30 percent, places even basic food items beyond the reach of many people.

It is this desperation that feeds the mercenary behavior of recruiters, who prey on large pools of destitute and vulnerable men and boys who are easy prey for press-ganged labor. While the world rightly watches political developments in Burma in the aftermath of the brutal repression of street protesters in September and October, governments such as the United Kingdom and other Security Council members should act at their upcoming meeting on child soldiers to protect a generation of boys from the rapacious Tatmadaw.

The place to start is an arms embargo and financial sanctions that will starve the military of the hardware and funds it needs to keep plundering Burma’s most important treasure, its children.
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Block Burmese JADE (Junta's Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act of 2007:
Get Your Representative to Co-Sponsor!

Dear ?,

Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA) introduced new sanctions to cut off major revenue from Burma's military junta. The Block Burmese JADE (Junta's Anti- Democratic Efforts) Act of 2007 has the power to force the regime to negotiate with Burma's democracy leaders and Ethnic nationalities. We must show the people of Burma that the U.S. is taking action to support their calls for freedom, democracy and human rights.  Call and write to your Representative today asking them to support the Block Burmese JADE Act! Organize your community to call in as well. Find your Representative and their contact info here - http://www.house.gov/writerep .

What the Act Does:

The regime makes hundreds of millions of dollars each year of the sale of gems.  More than 90 percent of the world's rubies and fine-quality jade comes from Burma.  The new sanctions will crack down on the regime's practice of avoiding U.S. sanctions by laundering gemstones through third countries before they are sold.

This Act also freezes the assets of Burmese political and military leaders, prevents Burma from using U.S. financial institutions via third countries to launder the funds of those leaders or their immediate families, and prohibits Burmese officials involved in the violent suppression of protesters from receiving visas to the United States.

 "This legislation will turn off a huge cash spigot for the thuggish Burmese regime," Lantos said. "If my colleagues come together and act quickly to pass these new sanctions, we can put an end to huge profits for the junta and its unscrupulous middle-men. We must ensure that the sale of some of the Earth's most beautiful natural resources does not continue to enable the horrors inflicted upon the people of Burma."

Burma also uses third countries to access the U.S. banking system.  These overseas banks process accounts in and through the United States for Burma's rulers, providing the regime with much-needed hard currency.  The regime uses these funds to purchase weapons and luxury goods, while the bulk of Burma's population lives in poverty.

Lantos' legislation tightens existing sanctions to prevent Burma's military rulers from profiting from sales to the United States, and blocks access to the U.S. financial system not just for Burmese human rights violators but also to those who provide the regime with banking services.

The Block Burmese JADE (Junta's Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act of 2007, if passed, would be the strongest action yet that the U.S. takes to pressure Burma's military regime to negotiate with Burma's democracy leaders and ethnic nationalities.

Contact information:

Contact information on your individual representative can be found easily by accessing the House website, www.house.gov/writerep . Once there, enter your zip code in the "Find your representative" box in the top left corner of the screen. This will give you a link to his House site, with all the relevant contact information.

Contact your representative's staffer. If he is not there leave a message and ask him to call you back. Call today and call every day until you get an answer!

To add their name as a cosponsor

Let them know that to co-sponsor they should contact Eric Richardson at the Committee on Foreign Affairs office at eric.richardson@mail.house.gov or 225-5021.

Talking Points for Staffer:

- Tell the staffer you want your representative to co-sponsor the Block Burmese JADE Act of 2007

- Give her/him proof that this policy works. It cuts off hundreds of millions of dollars to the regime and will specifically target the top generals' finances. 

- Mention that the military junta still deserves sanctions. On top of brutally crushing thousands of peaceful demonstrators, including monks, the military regime has destroyed more than 3,000 villages. It has forcibly displaced more than half a million people inside Burma as well as causing a million refugees to flee across the border to neighboring countries and has made no efforts to move toward democracy.

- Let her/him know it is important to send a strong signal to the regime that the US government will continue to keep American money out the hands of the junta.

- This is not the only action being taken against Burma. On top of many diplomatic efforts, the EU has imposed new sanctions, as well as Australia, and even Japan has decreased aid to Burma. 

- Finally ask the staffer to call you back when your representative has co-sponsored the Block Burmese JADE Act. Important: Leave your phone number!

Let him/her know that his/her constituents care about Burma!

Please let me know when you have contacted your Representative and how it went - thelma@uscampaignforburma.org.  These new sanctions will hit the regime where it hurts.

Oct 30, 2007
----------------------------------------

Dear All,

Many of you must have heard about the meeting between Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the SPDC's appointed minister. She has been calling for dialog since 88 uprising, and this is not the first time such meeting has taken place in Burma -- but yet to produce any positive results in the past 19 years. Why? Because the regime has no political will to compromise. Rather, they must keep pressuring her to give in (Recall what Dictator Than Shwe has demeaned her for a meeting with him). Not only they have been lying to us for forty five-years, they use such meeting only to divert international attention. We want a peaceful resolution in Burma, but based on the track record, we doubt this is the sign of a new beginning in Burma. It will definitely not be, unless we keep the pressure on. 

We know for sure that the international pressure accumulated so far is directly responsible for such tiny little positive sign in Rangoon. That's why we keep saying this regime understand only the language of force (or pressure), and, again, we must keep working towards more international pressure for the regime to behave.

We must also not forget about what's happening to the people there. The New York Times continues to run Burma news (often on the Front Page). I have collected there recent articles that paint the picture of  people's current plight in Burma. They are as usual at the mercy of  Burma's brutal thugs and are being punished and killed for taking to the streets. For the regime, the business is as usual -- keep killing its own people, even monks, to hold on to power.

It has been a month now, since the Sept. 27, the fist day of intense crackdown in Rangoon. That day, amid the killings in Rangoon, some major news paper in the US: LA Times, Washington Post and the New York Times, run editorial/opinion piece about the helpless plight of people and monks under brutal crackdowns; and how the world was responding with words, not with deeds -- including China and Russia blocking strong measures form UN. Please read them again below. They are really good. 

However long and hard our struggle may be, we must not loose hope though. As painful and costly as it is, with the recent protests, the brave people of Burma have waken up the world again. Their struggle and images aired all over the world have touched so many lives and have changed the attitude of many governments. Around the world, we now have many new friends who have just become big supporters and willing to help free Burma. Again, it is not only about how great our suffering is; it is also about how great our advocacy is. Therefore, we must help every concerned citizen of the world help Burma. And the freedom for Burma is much closer then ever now.

Towards Free Burma!
Nyunt Than

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Community Leaders Protest Situation in Myanmar
NY Times: Mission to Burma
LA Times: Saffron repression: The crackdown in Myanmar has begun, and the world responds -- with words, not deeds.
Washington Post: Save Burma: Will China and Russia give a green light to a slaughter of the monks?

NY Times: Uneasy Days for Monks in Myanmar
NY Times: On Quiet Streets of Myanmar Fear Is a Constant Companion
NY Times: A Monk’s Tale of Protest and Escape From Myanmar
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Community Leaders Protest Situation in Myanmar

San Francisco- On October 24, community leaders gathered in San Francisco’s United Nations Plaza to

LA Times: Saffron repression

Uneasy Days for Monks in Myanmar

The New York Times

One of the few monks left at Chaukhtatgyi Temple in Yangon meditated recently. Many fled monasteries there after military raids.

MANDALAY, Myanmar — As the lunch gong chimed through a tree-shaded monastery, several hundred monks in burgundy robes lined up on a mid-October day, all holding alms bowls.

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India Agrees to Help Sides Reconcile in Myanmar (October 24, 2007)

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The New York Times

Monks carrying alms bowls returned to Mahagandhayon Monastery in Mandalay recently after seeking donations.

It is a common scene in Myanmar, formerly Burma, where one out of every 100 people, many of them children, are monks. But the lunch line at the Mahagandhayon Monastery, the country’s largest, used to be much longer.

“We usually have 1,400 monks here,” said a senior monk. “Because of the situation, parents took 1,000 of them home.”

For decades, two powerful institutions have shaped Burmese life: the 500,000-member Buddhist clergy, which commands a moral authority over the population, and Senior Gen. Than Shwe’s junta, whose 450,000-strong military controls the population through intimidation.

Their uneasy coexistence has shattered. After scattered demonstrations erupted against sharp increases in fuel prices in August, thousands of monks protested the junta’s economic mismanagement and political repression. The military responded with batons and bullets.

The guns have prevailed over mantras, at least for now.

As of Oct. 6, the government said it had detained 533 monks, of whom 398 were released after sorting out what it called “real monks” from “bogus ones.” Monks and dissidents contend that many more were detained.

“They took away truckloads of monks and laypeople,” said the deputy leader of a monastery in Yangon, the country’s most populous city. “They had the monks kneel down, with their hands on the back of their heads. Anyone who raised his head was beaten.”

He said at Ngwe Kyayan, Yangon’s largest monastery, soldiers took food and donation boxes, and beat the abbot and vandalized images of Buddha, as some of its 300 monks fought back.

The monks, he said, began demonstrating against the economic deprivation of the Burmese. “It’s a terrible situation,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity, like others interviewed, because he feared government reprisals. “Monks took to the streets to draw attention to this problem, pleading for loving kindness. But our government is worse than Hitler’s Nazis. They have no respect for religion.” When it was over, The New Light of Myanmar, a state-run English-language newspaper, said, monks had been “defrocked” during interrogation so that they could be questioned as laypeople, then “ordained” and sent “back to their monasteries.” Monks denounced the process.

The junta also used divide-and-rule tactics, by persuading the state-sanctioned Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee, which oversees the clergy, to take its donations and to order monks to stop protesting or face punishment.

“Some of these senior monks are bribed by the regime,” said an editor at a Yangon magazine. “They have accepted so many good things in life — cars, televisions, big houses, telephones and mobile phones — that they simply have to listen to the regime.”

At the Mahagandhayon Monastery here in Mandalay, soldiers had pulled back by mid-October after cordoning off the temple for weeks. But their trucks continued to lurk in alleys nearby, as rumors circulated that, if the monks rose up again, it would probably be in this city, the nation’s second most populous. About 20,000 of its million residents are monks, one of the highest concentrations in the country.

Young men from across the country train here as monks, and they have grown more passionate about the poverty and injustice their nation has suffered under the military government.

The fear was still palpable at Mahagandhayon, where monks chanted mantras over their last meal of the day, a late-morning lunch of vegetable soup, eggplants, rice and a treat from a donor — instant noodles. But they were still reluctant to discuss the military’s crushing of the demonstrations in late September.

“They are afraid of guns!” a senior monk said before vanishing into the dining hall.

Long before the protests, monks were aware of people’s suffering. When they went to receive alms, said the senior monk in Yangon, they saw “no happiness in people’s faces, people whose minds are preoccupied with finding food and surviving one day at a time.”

But the military’s use of force against the monks has unsettled fundamental Burmese values.

“To Burmese, monks are like sons of the Buddha,” said Maung Aye, a taxi driver, as he drove around Yangon’s Sule Pagoda, which is said to enshrine a hair of the Buddha and was a focal point of the protests.

A shop owner in Yangon said his 5-year-old son, who had been reared with Buddhist beliefs in karma, had cried out: “I don’t want to become a soldier. If I have to kill a monk, the worst thing will happen to me in my next life.”

At a Yangon temple, sitting before a golden Buddha figure, two middle-aged monks spoke with resignation and anger.

“We learned a lesson from 1988,” one monk said of the large pro-democracy uprising that the military put down, leaving hundreds, perhaps thousands, dead. “If it changes nothing and only gets worse, why risk our lives?” The other monk said: “We would like to love our government. We tried but couldn’t. We want to like to go out and demonstrate again, but we know they are out there with their guns.”

During the Buddhist Lent, which lasts three months, into late October, monks focus on studying scripture and refrain from leaving their monasteries, except for early outings to collect alms. The fact that monks ventured out in protest during this period was widely seen here as a sign of just how angry they were. But by mid-October, many monasteries in Yangon were deserted, after military raids had driven thousands of monks to flee.

In towns across Myanmar, monks have traditionally filed down streets at dawn seeking alms, and laypeople have gained merit by donating rice and other food. Families take pride in what is often seen as adopting monks, providing them with food, clothing, books and other goods for a few months or years.

As poverty has worsened in Myanmar, however, the alms processions have increasingly turned into a sad exchange of apologies for having to beg and for being unable to give. Now, with the monks scattered, the alms lines have dwindled in big cities like Yangon and Mandalay.

For centuries, whoever seized power in this country sought legitimacy by lavishing money on pagodas and monasteries. When the democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi called for a “second struggle for national independence” in 1988, she chose Yangon’s gold-spired Shwedagon Pagoda as the site to deliver her watershed speech. So when monks marched in September to the home where she is under house arrest, the act was a moral reproof to the government.

But the monks are not immune to criticism. Although senior clerics are elected by monks and revered by laypeople, “they form a small, closed society which doesn’t know anything about the community at large,” the magazine editor said. “Some of them do not know how poor people live in a small village.”

Other laypeople defended the aging clerics who have taken gifts from the government. Those monks, they said, are under a moral obligation to accept donations, and fear that confrontation could cost more lives.

Still, witnesses said piles of rice donated by the government were left uncollected at the gates of some monasteries, a rebuff of the government’s effort to placate the clergy.

In mid-October at Mahagandhayon, the monks were going about their daily routine. The senior monk said he hoped that the rest of the students would return in a month or so. One young monk who had remained said, “Please go out and tell the world exactly what really has happened in this country.”

He added, “I am scared just talking to you about this.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/world/asia/26monk.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

On Quiet Streets of Myanmar Fear Is a Constant Companion

A Monk’s Tale of Protest and Escape From Myanmar

MAE SOT, Thailand, Oct. 25 — A 24-year-old Buddhist monk who says he was one of the leaders of the recent protests in Myanmar and escaped last week painted a picture on Thursday of a bare-bones group of young monks planning and organizing what became a nationwide uprising.

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Thomas Fuller/The International Herald Tribune

Ashin Kovida, a Buddhist monk, said he was a leader of recent protests in Yangon, Myanmar, and f