Geneva: A UN human rights expert on Wednesday urged the international community to seize every opportunity to make inroads into Myanmar and maintain dialogue with the government despite the apparent hardening of the junta.

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If there is one thing that the US and Europe can agree on without any soul-searching, it is that the Burmese military junta is unfit to host an international meeting. Burma has made no progress in introducing democracy or improving human rights in the last decade. Nor is the country an important enough oil producer or economic partner to cause the West to hesitate for long about isolating the regime.

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March 29: Burma’s fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are showing signs that they are no longer willing to turn a blind eye to its military junta’s suppression of democracy and human rights. (more…)

March 29: The rules of the diplomatic game in South-East Asia go something like this. Whatever a government, despotic or otherwise, chooses to do within the privacy of its borders is its business. Specifically, the key neighbourhood club – the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) – lists as a core principal the “non-interference in the internal affairs” of another member state. When ASEAN was founded in 1967 this cosy deal was enthusiastically embraced. At the time the region was in mainly authoritarian hands; Indonesia’s Soeharto was especially keen to have a blind eye turned on his political armoury of summary executions, torture and disappearances. The unprecedented threat from Malaysia to break the non-interference code over political repression in Burma has the potential to reshape regional diplomacy positively. Willing interference in Burma from ASEAN would be a far more powerful lever than the economic sanctions and condemnation Western nations can dish out. (more…)

Bangkok: A New York-based human rights group accused Thailand on Tuesday of cosying up to military-ruled Myanmar by forcing 3,000 refugees to move from Bangkok to overcrowded camps along the border or face deportation.

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March 27: As for the second blow, Thai agents with arrest warrants issued by the Mae Hong Son provincial court on suspicion of drug violations searched the house of 60-year-old former Wa prince and WNA commander, Ta Maha Sang, in Chiang Mai on February 1.

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Manila: Southeast Asian lawmakers will meet next week to discuss how to pressure military-ruled Burma into speeding up democratic reforms and may urge the region’s main economic bloc to deny the country its chairmanship next year, Philippine officials said Tuesday.

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Manila: The Philippines will lead pressure to strip Myanmar of the ASEAN chairmanship in 2006 during an international inter-parliamentary meeting, the country’s top legislator said Tuesday.

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US Ambassador Ralph Boyce expressed confidence yesterday that the overall interests of neither Thailand nor America would be compromised in their efforts to conclude a successful free-trade pact, The Nation reports.

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Geneva: Myanmar’s new regime is stifling any hope of democratic transition by arresting and jailing political and ethnic opposition leaders, the U.N. human rights investigator to the Southeast Asian country said Tuesday.

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A report urging the EU to ease pressure on the military regime in Burma has led to concern among Burmese pro-democracy campaigners. The report, titled “Supporting Burma/Myanmar’s National Reconciliation Process: Challenges and Opportunities,” deems the EU’s current approach towards the military-ruled country a failure, claiming that EU policy dating back to 1988 has been “based on misleading models from South Africa and Eastern Europe.”

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The International Labor Organization has warned the Burmese military junta to end forced labor or risk triggering sanctions from ILO member states. The group’s governing body has told the Burmese government it has to act soon.

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Imminent round-up will leave refugees incommunicado in closed camps

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Burma’s junta leader and head of the armed forces Snr-Gen Than Shwe vowed on Sunday that the country would move towards democracy with “fully institutionalized discipline.” The remarks were made during his speech marking Burma’s 60th Armed Forces Day in Rangoon.

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“There is no law in Burma except what comes out of the generals’ mouths,” sighed a delegate from Shan State, one among the thousand plus people who had been ordered to attend the National Convention, as he prepared to return from his weekly outlet in Rangoon to the venue at Naunghnapin 40 km away:

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Rangoon: A phone call threatening to blast the top Rangoon hotels sent the the authorities scurrying for extra vigilance in the capital of Burma, on the fascist revolution day yestereay.

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March 26: Civilians at the Three Pagodas Pass area at the Thai Burma border were given a curfew notice not to travel at night due to possible clashes between the Thai and Burma Armies.

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Shanghai: Scores of casinos along China’s borders with Russia and Myanmar have closed amid a major Chinese crackdown on gambling, official media reported Monday.

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Singapore: Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will visit Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia this week as part of a new leader’s traditional introductory trips to fellow ASEAN states, his office said Monday.

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Bangkok: Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra refused Monday to criticize military-ruled Myanmar, where the slow pace of democratic reform has led to calls to strip Yangon of its ASEAN chairmanship next year.

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