Support for Burmese military dictatorship

Articles:

1. China Props Up Brutal Dictators, Strips Burma Teak Forests - 2003-10-10

2. Burma may survive sanctions by turning timber into cash - Saturday Oct 4 2003

3. Burma - the land of gemstones, heroin and dictatorship

4. Dirty List' Exposes Companies Supporting Regime in Burma - CRSwire.com - 19 Aug 2003 (external link)

Websites:

1. The Burma Campaign UK - BCUK aims to achieve the restoration of human rights and democracy in Burma

From: Gonbo Tashi <gonbotashi@chushigangdruk.or.ti> Chinese banned logging in Yunnan, 1996? Chinese banned logging in the rest of China in 1998? Why they are still cutting trees in Tibet?! The giant, corrupt Chinese logging companies with strong connection with CCP, they need more and more trees. Tibet is not enough for them to rape. They need the most expensive wood to turn to cash for highest profit, like the ancient teak forest of Burma. The last stands on earth, the most valuable and rarest quality. Brutal Burma dictators need cash, don't care about trees. A perfect match, a new patron-client relation for communist emperors and a small Buddhist country like mine was. All civilize countries know Burma military is a terrible brutal goverment. It is also illegal one since democracy party won election by over 80% many years ago. All civilize countries agree on this, some put sanction or diplomacy pressure, public pressure statement, even Kofi Anan made such statement. Only China says rape and oppression of those dictators is an internal affair! Only China is the only patron of those murderers! Other Asian countries are more and more ashamed of those dictators and their crime. Only China says "internal affair, not anybody's business." Of course! China is very happy to rape the natural wealth of Burmese people, turn all those old teak forests into the highest amount of cash for corrupt communist logging companies. I feel sorry for our Burma brothers and sisters as their fate may be like our Tibet's fate. Their own land's riches is plundered by military and sold for Chinese to make the fat profit, there is nothing they could do but watch. If they say anything they disappear to jail. I feel my kinship with them for our similar experiences, and also our cultural link. Tibetan and Burmese languages are of the same family, and both are not part of Chinese languages. Oh, also one more.... we both have respected leaders who had been recognized for working for peace and non-violence by the world and Nobel committee. Gonbo Tashi, A Child of Tibet A Child of All Nations TIBETAN FREEDOM MOVEMENT One Nation in the Community of All Nations

Burma may survive sanctions by turning timber into cash By Amy Kazmin, Financial Times, Saturday Oct 4 2003 http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1059480336701 Burma is likely to survive international economic sanctions imposed since 1997, largely thanks to its vast forest resources, according to a new environmental report. The country has been subject to a range of sanctions aimed at loosening the military regime's grip on power. However, a report to be released next week by the Global Witness watchdog suggests the junta will survive these acts of disapproval, partly through its control of one of Burma's most precious resources: vast stands of old-growth hardwood forest, which have already been obliterated elsewhere in the region. "The ruling military has been the ultimate arbiter of forest resources both within Burma and internationally," says the report. "This control, together with the revenue derived from the timber trade, continues to play a significant part in the maintenance of its grip on power." In Rangoon's environmentally damaging "resource diplomacy", powerful Chinese logging companies - which have strong political ties - have been granted concessions to log swathes of Burmese virgin forest in exchange for political loyalty and material support. Thai companies, which enjoyed similar concessions until the early 1990s, still covet those opportunities. "Isolation has only served to [push] the Burmese regime into the arms of two countries, Thailand and China, that are more intent on helping themselves to Burma's natural resource wealth than helping Burma in any meaningful way," Global Witness says. "Resources have been traded by the regime in exchange for political, financial and military support from its neighbours." At home, the Burmese regime has shored up political support by using the lucrative logs as the foundation for "patron-client" relations, in which key commanders or their relatives, intelligence figures and former ethnic minority insurgent groups win control of vast tracts of forest. Logging concessions have also been granted to business allies. In 2001, the legal trade in Burmese timber - mostly teak trees destined for high-end users around the globe - brought in about $280 million or 11 per cent of the country's legal foreign exchange earnings. But data from wood-importing countries suggests actual Burmese log exports may be nearly twice the level recorded by the government. Global Witness says part of the generals' intransigent refusal to engage in political talks with Ms Suu Kyi about a political transition stems from their concern about "the potential loss of these economic perquisites in a more democratic society". As economic conditions worsen because of mismanagement and sanctions, the junta is growing more reliant on timber for foreign exchange, leading to increasingly unsustainable logging, including by the state's Myanmar Timber Enterprises, the report says. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Thai-Burma border was a focal point for taking Burmese timber out of the country. Today, the greatest wholesale logging activity centres on Kachin state on the border with China, the Rangoon regime's most important backer. China has relied increasingly on Burmese logs since a logging ban was imposed in Yunnan province in 1996 and nationwide two years later. Pornpimol Trichit, of the Institute of Asian Studies at Thailand's Chulalongkorn University, says logging is only one component of the complex relations between the Rangoon regime and China. "There are so many things China wants from Burma - not only logs," she says. "China uses a lot of jade, and the best jade is from Burma. They are also interested in transportation to cut across Burma. Logging might be important but it is not the whole picture." Meanwhile, some in the regime, which often calls Burma a lush forest idyll, may be having qualms about the pace of forest destruction. In July the forestry minister, suspected of turning a blind eye to wholesale illegal logging, was sacked. Since then, some participants in the timber trade have complained of difficulties, though sceptics say this may simply be part of a redistribution of privileges. "Because of international criticism, they seem to care more about environmental control now then before," said one Burmese academic. "They are more sensitive not because they understand environmental degradation but because of their image."

Burma - the land of gemstones, heroin and dictatorship

Background

There are many distinct ethnic groups speaking about 140 languages in Burma, renamed Myanmar by the military government in 1989. Apart from the Burmans, who make up about two thirds of the population, most of the ethnic groups are very small. However there are about half a dozen medium size groups, each consisting of about 3 million people, most of whom are involved in an armed struggle with the military government.

The vicious cycle of violence

The military government, which is mostly Burman, says that it will only hand over power to a democratically elected government when all resistance ends. Unfortunately most of the medium-sized groups, although no longer waging war aggressively, nevertheless refuse to disarm because they say their culture would be annihilated. They cite the fact that ethnic languages are not allowed to be taught to school children.

In response to this situation the Burmese military regularly evict these ethnic groups from their homes, imprison them in camps and burn their grain stores in order to prevent them having the capacity to provide support for rebels. On top of all this, the government impose impossibly high taxes, and allow wage levels to fall far below the cost of living.

Many members of ethnic groups have fled Burma altogether, and are now living on the Thai side of the Thai-Burmese border. The Thai government doesn’t accept them as refugees, so they are in a legal limbo totally at the mercy of local gangsters who exploit them as cheap labour in Thai agriculture, and often shoot them rather than pay them. The Thai border guards turn a blind eye, or take an active part in this exploitation.

The Chinese connection

The Burmese government is impervious to UN sanctions and political pressure because as well as receiving profits from the heroin trade, they are funded by China who use Burma as a trade route to the Indian Ocean. China is Burma’s closest ally, and over the past few years there has been a large influx of Chinese immigrants who run much of Burma’s industry and commerce.