Burma Related News-April 10, 2000.

Sunday, April 9 2:08 PM SGT

Red Cross breaks into Myanmar's prisons

YANGON, April 9 (AFP) -

For nearly a year now, workers from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have been visiting prisons in Myanmar, gaining unprecedented access in this pariah state.

The Red Cross has come across 30,000 inmates, of which 1,450 are held for reasons of "security," Leon de Riedmatten, head of delegation in Myanmar, told

Among those held for security reasons are politicians, students and rebel fighters, all arrested by the military regime for membership of "unlawful associations."

"It's a first in Myanmar ... Visits are so sensitive," said the Swiss Red Cross delegate.

The junta, spurned by the international community and under a raft of sanctions, is regularly accused of widespread human rights violations, most recently by the United Nations' special envoy.

Since May 1999, when the prison visits started, the Red Cross has been allowed into 25 jails, all the main ones, including the infamous Insein prison near Yangon.

Eight prisons were visited twice.

Since the beginning of last month, the Red Cross has for the first time also been granted access to labour camps. So far it has seen two agricultural labour camps located near the capital. Many more remain unseen.

The labour camps are holding common criminals and having them work on roads as chain gangs, in mines or in the fields.

The organisation has also inspected, twice, three government "guest houses", where members of Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy are detained. In effect, the "houses" are internment centres.

The NLD won an overwhelming victory in Myanmar's 1990 elections but the junta has refused to relinquish power and has imprisoned hundreds of party members.

Many prisoners who have served time in Insein jail have emerged with grisly tales of appalling conditions and claimed they were tortured or held in solitary confinement.

The Red Cross was given permission to open an office in Yangon in October 1998. There followed lengthy negociations with the junta over obtaining access to all the detention centres.

Per standard Red Cross practice, the ICRC also asked to register all prisoners, to hold talks with them in private and to be allowed repeat visits.

At the end of each inspection, ICRC workers make recommendations to the local prison authorities and pass their conclusions, confidentially, to the Prison Department.

In addition, the Red Cross is paying for families of "security detainees" to travel to the jail where their relatives are held.

Initiating the Red Cross' humanitarian mission under a paranoid and secretive regime has not been without its difficulties.

"It's easier on the second visit," said de Riedmatten. "Nowadays we can go anywhere."

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi herself at first expressed scepticism and was critical of the Red Cross, claiming the junta had transferred hundreds of inmates out of Insein before ICRC's first visit on May 6, 1999.

She also criticised the ICRC for not consulting her before accepting a government offer to visit Myanmar jails for the first time.

But after ICRC delegates were granted permission to return, and after their visits appeared to lead to an improvement in prison conditions, the opposition relaxed.

In effect, the ICRC's work in Myanmar has made it the only group in touch with all political factions in Yangon as well as with the diplomatic community.

"Some people have good reasons to discredit us but they see we are doing good work", said de Riedmatten, while admitting that "we cannot make everyone happy."

While some observers argue that the junta is using the ICRC to boost Myanmar's poor international image, others charge that Myanmar has been far more accomodating to the Red Cross than fellow closed states Laos and Vietnam.

"We have managed to achieve a lot in a short space of time," he said. "We must consolidate now, for instance with targeted medical and hygiene programmes."

Sunday, April 9 10:17 AM SGT

EU foreign ministers extend existing sanctions for six months on Myanmar

BRUSSELS, April 9 (AFP) -

EU ties with Russia will top the agenda when EU foreign ministers meet in Luxembourg Monday and Tuesday, following hard on the heels of a Moscow visit by the EU "troika" and the Council of Europe's surprise move to sanction Russia over Chechnya.

The ministers, meeting as the General Affairs Council (GAC), will be getting a first-hand report from Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama, whose country holds the EU presidency until June 30, and EU security and foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

Gama and Solana met with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and President-elect Vladimir Putin, and based on the account of those meetings, the 15 EU ministers will formulate EU position on ties with Russia, on the agenda later Monday.

In Strasbourg last week, the Council of Europe threw a monkey wrench into the works by dramatically shedding its long-standing talking shop image and doing what other international bodies and governments have hesitated to so far -- apply sanctions against Russia over Chechnya.

Furious Russian delegates walked out of the 41-nation forum Thursday when the human rights body's parliamentary assembly unprecedentedly suspended Russian voting rights over alleged human rights violations in Chechnya.

But after gathering in emergency session Friday, the Council's executive -- the ministerial council -- ruled out any moves to exclude Russia from the body.

According to a diplomatic source in Strasbourg, "no country appeared ready to engage in a suspension procedure" against Russia, which joined the Council in 1996.

Still, the subject promised to loom large at the Luxembourg GAC.

The Portuguese EU presidency had envisioned an informal, relaxed discussion on Russia among ministers over lunch Monday, with some more pointed conclusions on Chechnya later on.

The Council of the EU-Russia Association was to meet, followed by a working dinner, to be attended by Ivnov, expected in Luxembourg at midday.

The Europeans said this meeting, the third since the association accord with Moscow, was supposed to provide an opportunity for free association on several bilateral questions.

The EU is keen to talk about trade tensions and Chechnya, raised in Strasbourg by the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe which cited alleged human rights violations in Chechnya.

The council suspended Russia's voting rights, and Moscow hit back by suspending all visits by the parliamentary assembly, although the Russians agreed nonetheless to a visit by the EU "troika," according to Solana, high representative for security and foreign policy.

The troika used to consist of the past, present and future EU presidencies.

Today, although retaining its old name, it consists of the present and incoming presidencies -- in this case Portugal and France -- Solana, and the EU commission for external relations, at the moment Chris Patten.

The EU foreign mininisters will also get to the groundwork of the EU-Russia summit planned for May 17 in Moscow, being built around the EU's eagerness to develop a "strategic partnership" with Russia.

"Russia is always favorable to the development of relations with the European Union," Putin said as he received the troika on Friday.

But for the Russian president elect, "the enlargement of the European Union must not be done to the detriment of relations with Russia."

Beyond Russia, The EU foreign ministers are to talk about the Balkans, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe.

They are also to extend existing sanctions for six months on Myanmar, including a visa ban for those close to the regime in Yangon which expires at the end of this month, and may include an even tighter sanction regime, according to a Portuguese presidency spokesman.

The ministers were also to hear from EU foreign trade negotiator Pascal Lamy on what went wrong in talks with China on Beijing's long-standing bid to join the World Trade Organization (WTO).

On the agenda as well were talks on reform of EU institutions and qualified majority voting, part of the Intergovernmental Council groundwork for the EU's expansion into eastern Europe and the Mediterranean.

On Tuesday, the council for the association of Turkey, a member candidate, will meet in Luxembourg, presided by Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem, the first such meeting in three years and the first since Turkey was accepted as a conditional candidate at the Helsinki summit last December.

Saturday, April 8 3:52 PM SGT

Myanmar Leader Warns Cadets Against Outside Interference

YANGON, Myanmar (AP)--The leader of Myanmar's military regime has warned army cadets that the world's most powerful nations were fomenting disunity in the country with an eye toward intervention.

Senior Gen. Than Shwe, chairman of the State Peace and Development Council, said in a speech reported Saturday by official newspapers that the powers were trying to divide the government and ethnic minorities, many of which have waged rebellions over the past 50 years.

"Once unity begins to disintegrate, the disunity is used as a justification for intervention by powerful nations," Than Shwe said. "Therefore, to confront the challenges of the 21st century is the future objective of our armed forces."

The military in Myanmar, also known as Burma, has ruled the country since 1962. The opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, has made little headway over the past decade in urging the generals to ease their rule.

Since the current generation of generals came to power in 1988 after bloodily suppressing a popular uprising, cease-fires have been reached with most of the ethnic rebel armies that operated along the borders. Only one large group, the Karen National Union, is still fighting.

Than Shwe, who is also commander in chief of the Defense Services Academy, told cadets at their graduation ceremony that the armed forces must be "strong, capable and modern."

"We must be prepared physically and spiritually for modern warfare," Than Shwe said. "As long as the nationals are united, no enemy will be able to drive a wedge and disturb us."

The speech came three days after Suu Kyi, in a videotaped message smuggled to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, said that the government was creating a society with a military elite.

Suu Kyi said that despite the closure of the universities, which have been mostly shut since student unrest in 1996, the military was still keeping engineering and medical schools open for its own.

The New York Times

April 10, 2000

Burmese Rebel Chief More Boy Than Warrior

UAN PHUM, Thailand, April 9 -- Between them, the 12-year-old twins say, they command 400,000 invisible soldiers. If anybody shoots at them, the bullets just bounce off. And they can kill their enemies simply by pointing a rifle at the ground and concentrating really hard.

	Jason Bleibtreu/Corbis Sygma, for The New York Times
	Luther Htoo, 12, in the lap of a guerrilla aide called Rambo last week. Luther and his twin brother lead God's Army, a Karen rebel group.

These might be the fantasies of a million schoolboys. But they are the beliefs that have led grown men into battle -- the legends that surround two child warriors who lead a ragged ethnic insurgency called God's Army, just across the border in Myanmar, the former Burma.

Last week, one of the twins, Luther Htoo, made a four-day hike with 15 of his soldiers from his mountain hideout to the hills along the border for his first interview since God's Army carried out a suicidal raid on a Thai hospital in January.

He met with Jason Bleibtreu, an American photographer and video cameraman, and spoke with The New York Times by satellite telephone -- a fidgety child with a little-boy voice who answered many of the questions by turning to his followers and asking, "What shall I say?"

After some discussion, some of his answers were these: He wants freedom for his people, the Karen minority.

He is invulnerable to land mines and bullets. His favorite toys are real guns and ammunition. And he misses his mother and father.

On videotape, he seems more like a spoiled mascot than a general, carried through the woods on the shoulders of his men, handed a lit cheroot whenever he murmurs, "I want a smoke," and tolerated benignly as he climbs in and out of the laps of the men he commands.

He sports a camouflage fatigue shirt with a "U.S. Army" patch, a "Love" tattoo on his arm and a new short-cropped haircut, and he turns away from time to time to double over in a wrenching smoker's cough.

Jason Bleibtreu/Corbis Sygma, for The New York Times
A young Karen rebel on the Burmese border helped guard his 12-year-old leader. The rebellion has suffered defeat after defeat in recent years.

Luther and his brother, Johnny, did not join the January raid, in which all 10 gunmen were shot dead after taking hostage more than 800 patients and staff at a hospital in the town of Ratchaburi. But the chain-smoking twins with their long hair, vacant expressions and claims of divinity became the objects of widespread curiosity abroad.

They also became the targets of a stepped-up hunt by the Burmese military, found themselves barred from their potential sanctuary in Thailand and lost the support of other Karen separatists, who are now under increased pressure as a result of the disastrous raid.

On the run and short of food, the fighters say, God's Army has split into three small groups. The twins, leading two of the groups, now talk to each other only by hand-held radio. Altogether, their men say, they command fewer than 200 fighters.

In a separate interview here in a Thai border village, one of the boys' followers, a 45-year-old guerrilla, talked at length about the insurgency and the extraordinary legends that have grown up around the Htoo twins.

Using the Karen term "bu," or "little brother," he referred to Luther as Bu Lu and to Johnny as Bu Joh, and he was careful to note which miracles he claimed to have witnessed and which he had not.

"Once, when Bu Joh was bathing in a stream, he shouted to everybody, 'Look at me!' and he jumped into the water," said the guerrilla, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"When he came out he was an old man with long white hair and a white beard," he said. "All the soldiers were afraid, but he said, 'Don't be afraid: I'm Bu Joh! If you don't believe me, I'll change back.' And he jumped back into the water and came out as a boy again. I didn't see this myself, but more than 100 soldiers did see it."

	The New York Times
	A guerrilla at Suan Phung told of the legends about the Htoo twins.

Several other incidents described by the guerrilla also suggest that the boys are constantly proving their powers to skeptics.

In one incident he said he did witness, Luther gave each fighter three magic bullets but admonished them to save them for emergencies. One doubter disobeyed and shot one of the bullets at a tree. When he checked the tree, there were 10 bullet holes.

"After that, he believed," the guerrilla said.

In another incident, Luther sent his men into battle but remained where he was, pointing his rifle silently at the ground. Afterward he asked how many of the enemy had been killed. Twenty, he was told. He then held up his rifle; exactly 20 bullets had disappeared from its magazine.

Legends like that challenge the imagination of most people, including most other ethnic Karens. But one Karen student in Bangkok, who is not a follower of God's Army, said he was quite ready to believe that the boys are reincarnations of heroes from the past.

The emergence of charismatic holy men with claims to magical powers "is fairly common in Southeast Asia in times of trouble," said Dr. Sunai Phasuk, a Thai political scientist who has studied the God's Army phenomenon. "They don't have other sources of reference, they don't have support from authorities, and they don't have a big army, so they turn to supernatural beliefs."

The Karen have been fighting a separatist insurgency since Burma became independent of British colonial rule a half century ago. Most other ethnic groups have reached an accommodation with the government in the last decade, but some Karen have continued to fight. The emergence of God's Army in the last three years is a sign of divisions and desperation as the Karen suffer defeat after defeat.

Movements like God's Army are similar to end-of-the-world movements that predict an imminent apocalypse, Dr. Sunai said. Indeed, the guerrilla fighter quoted Luther as saying, "Please believe me, not too long from now the world will explode."

Like some other movements of this kind, God's Army lives by ascetic rules. Although smoking is obviously permitted, alcohol, drugs and adultery are banned, along with milk, eggs and pork. Many Karen are Christian, and the boys are said to know the Bible by heart although they have never studied it.

What is unusual about God's Army, he said, is that it is led, at least nominally, by children.

Their fighting force includes a number of other child soldiers, the guerrilla said, many of them orphans of the war. Indeed, he said, with God's Army split into three groups, a third 12-year-old leader with magical powers has emerged named Chopa Thupli, or King of the Black Tongue.

This boy, he said, is actually 200 years old, a Thai king who fought against the Burmese in ancient times and decided to return as a Karen so that he could keep on fighting them.

His divinity is marked by the black coloration of his tongue, a sign among some people here of magical powers. The guerrilla said the twins did not have black tongues, as others have reported, and Mr. Bleibtreu also said it did not appear that Luther had a black tongue.

But the twins are also reincarnations of past leaders, with a direct connection to heaven, the guerrilla said.

Johnny, the funny, talkative one, was born first and goes everywhere first, he said, even though Luther has greater divine powers. The difference is measured in the size of the armies they command: Luther has 250,000 invisible heavenly soldiers while Johnny has 150,000.

But it seems that Johnny commands more of the everyday kind of soldier. According to the guerrilla, he has about 100 fighters, who protect some 300 civilian followers, apparently including the boys' parents.

Luther has about 30 fighters, although in the interview he had to ask a subordinate for the number.

The boys' parents are simple farmers without magical powers, the guerrilla said. When the boys became leaders, their father put down his hoe and took up a gun to follow them. And now, if he is in need of special help, the guerrilla said, the boys will detach a contingent of invisible soldiers to assist him.

In their meeting with Mr. Bleibtreu on Thursday, the guerrillas -- both boys and men -- carried an assortment of M-16 and AK-47 rifles and grenade launchers. They wore fatigues, shorts and a Donald Duck T-shirt along with black head scarves and rubber sandals. Some were barefoot.

The deep forest was filled with bird song, the buzz of insects and the constant dry coughing of the fighters.

There was only one moment when gunfire seemed a possibility.

"I can shoot a weapon -- would you like me to show you?" Luther said to his visitor, but his soldiers told him, "No, no, better not, because the Burmese Army might hear."

Mr. Bleibtreu said the soldiers seemed to treat the boy with a mix of deference and patient parenting.

"They wouldn't allow him to act upon all of his whims," he said. "Sometimes he would want to ride on someone's shoulders. He would motion, lift me up, lift me up, and they would talk him out of it."

There seemed to be nothing extraordinary about this 12-year-old apart, perhaps, from his childishness.

"What struck me most was he seemed to want attention, emotional contact," Mr. Bleibtreu said. "He wanted more hugs from his mother. He would sit down with me and put his hand on my shoulder. I got the feeling he wanted me to hug him. He would jump from soldier to soldier to their laps. The other boys weren't doing this. I felt sad, as a father: geez, this kid wants a hug."

At one point, though, the atmosphere darkened for a moment as Luther seemed to grow annoyed at the constant questions. "He yelled out, and everyone was quiet. It was almost like a bark, and it was quite clear it was, 'Stop badgering me!' I was surprised, and I was taken aback by it, and the people took it fairly seriously."

At the end of the videotape, the group pauses in silence as one of the fighters leads a prayer. And Luther, the holy man, could be any child -- perhaps a 6-year-old child -- shifting and squirming in boredom.

Comfortably cradled in the lap of a tough-looking guerrilla, the boy yawns and rubs his eyes. Then he rubs his face. Then with an effort he sits forward and closes his eyes in an attempt at concentration. Then he begins playing with a canteen cup, wiggling its handle. Finally, as the men sing a closing hymn, Luther blinks himself back to attention and joins in for a word or two.

The guerrilla who is holding him seems used to this. He pays no attention.