[Kabar-indonesia] AT: Unplugging Thailand, Myanmar energy deals [3 articles]

[Joyo at aol.com]

also: IPS: Debating carrots and sticks for Myanmar; IPS:
Media - Burma: Exiled Cartoonists Deliver Darts With a Smile

Asia Times
Tuesday, November 14, 2006           Unplugging
Thailand, Myanmar energy deals

By Shawn L Nance

BANGKOK - Thai Energy Minister Piyasvasti Amranand says he
intends to scrap the previous government's controversial
multi-billion dollar plans to ramp up imports of
hydroelectric power and natural gas from neighboring
military-run Myanmar, signaling a potentially significant
shift in which direction the region's energy flows and a
possible new era of bilateral antagonism between the
historical rivals.

On October 9, Piyasvasti, making the first public statement
by a new minister, told a local radio station in little-
noticed comments that "sweeping reform" was in store for the
kingdom's energy policy, including bolstering the use of
renewable fuel in power production and reconsidering major
projects that aggravated social tensions, which had run high
since the September 19 coup that ousted former prime
minister Thaksin Shinawatra's government.

Toward that end, Piyasvasti suggested that he would shelve
long-standing and controversial plans to build a network of
five hydropower dams on the Salween river system in Myanmar.
At a cost that could exceed US$10 billion, the projects are
provisionally designed to generate some 12,500 megawatts of
power, about 85% of which would be delivered to Thailand.

Thailand's new energy czar, a widely respected technocrat
and energy expert with a doctorate from the London School of
Economics, reiterated that policy shift on Friday, telling a
gathering of foreign investors and reporters in Bangkok that
Thailand would aim to purchase more hydroelectric power from
neighboring Laos and to explore for more offshore natural
gas and oil in the Middle East and Africa, as well as closer
to home in Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam. Notably,
Piyasvasti omitted Myanmar from that list.

Under Thaksin, Piyasvasti was the deputy permanent secretary
at the Prime Minister's Office until he resigned in 2003
after clashing with the premier over several policy issues,
including the best way to privatize the state-owned
electricity monopoly, the Electrical Generating Authority of
Thailand Plc, or EGAT, and over the establishment of an
independent regulatory commission to guard against possible
monopolistic and collusive pricing behavior, which has long
left consumers beholden to EGAT's pricing discretion.

Similarly, Thaksin's Myanmar strategy, known as "forward
engagement", came under constant fire for placing commercial
considerations over pressuring Myanmar's junta to move
towards more democracy and human rights, and for throwing
the pariah regime an economic lifeline that buffered it from
economic sanctions imposed by the US and the European Union.
Thaksin's policy pushed forward the controversial plans to
build new hydropower projects on Myanmar's Salween and
Tenasserim rivers.

In October 2005, Thaksin reportedly signed an agreement with
the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) regime for
joint investment in the construction of the hydropower
plants. And last June, EGAT officials traveled to Beijing to
ink a memorandum of understanding with China's largest
hydropower company, Sinohydro Corporation, to jointly
develop the Hatgyi hydroelectric station on the Salween in
Myanmar's Karen state, located about 40 kilometers from the
Thai border.

Damming the Salween has been a lightning-rod issue since
Thailand signed the first agreement in 1994 to purchase
1,500 megawatts from the project. The forced relocations of
entire villages, slave labor to clear land and carry
supplies for the army, and extrajudicial killings have all
been part of the regime's military campaigns against ethnic
Shan, Karen and Karenni resistance fighters. Those abuses
have more recently been directed against civilians who live
in areas near the proposed dam sites, according to human
rights organizations.

Gas exploration in Myanmar is also a touchy issue.
Petrodollars are the Myanmar regime's prime source of
foreign exchange - accounting for some $2.5 billion, or
about 33% of all foreign direct investment since 1998.
Human-rights abuses associated with Myanmar gas projects are
a perennial concern. Two years ago, US oil giant Unocal
Corporation settled out of court two lawsuits filed in
California in 1996 by 15 villagers in Myanmar who alleged
that they suffered human rights abuses during construction
of its joint-venture Yadana pipeline, which carries gas from
the Andaman Sea to Thailand.

Highly coveted reserves During Thaksin's tenure, Thailand
had thrown its hat into the ring to develop Myanmar's
controversial but highly coveted offshore gas reserves in
the A1 and A3 blocks in the Bay of Bengal off the western
Arakan coast.

In August, Thaksin took a delegation that included top
energy officials to Myanmar's new capital at Naypyidaw to
negotiate exclusive exploration rights for the two blocks
for Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production Plc, or PTTEP,
a 66%-owned subsidiary of the state-controlled Petroleum
Authority of Thailand, or PTT Plc. And on October 31, PTTEP
announced it formally tendered a bidding application for a
15% to 20% stake in the two blocks, which are already being
developed by a consortium led by South Korea's Daewoo
International Corporation.

With several big state-owned Asian gas firms already vying
for the undeveloped gas fields, the prevailing feeling is
that PTTEP has joined the bidding too late. The Thai
company, however, already currently takes all of Myanmar's
natural gas exports from offshore reserves, piping more than
one billion cubic feet of gas per day at a cost of some $1
billion per year, all from the Yadana and Yetagun projects
in the Andaman Sea, in which it has a 25.5% and 19.3%
interest, respectively.

PTTEP also owns the exclusive rights to explore for oil and
natural gas in three projects in the Gulf of Martaban: the
so-called M7 and M9 blocks, the M3 and M4 blocks and the M11
block. As the sole importer of Myanmar's gas, the company
was long granted preferential treatment from the junta. But
now, says a company official, they are "alarmed" at the new
competition for the A1 and A3 blocks, which Daewoo estimates
to have proven reserves of 5.7 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) to
10 Tcf, with up to 8.6 Tcf believed to be recoverable.

Daewoo signed a production-sharing contract in August 2000
with the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise for A1 and has been
exploring the A3 oil field since 2004. Daewoo owns a 60%
stake in the project and is the major operator of the two
blocks; state-owned Gas Authority of India Ltd, or GAIL,
holds a 10% stake; India's ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm
of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp, has a 20% interest;
and state-run KOGAS, from South Korea, owns the remaining
10%. PTTEP's opening came in September when Daewoo said it
would announce by early 2007 whether it would divest a
portion of its shares to the company.

Landing transportation rights for the gas may be trickier
business. The South Korean firms have proposed to liquefy it
at a yet unbuilt liquefying plant in Myanmar and ship it as
liquefied natural gas (LNG). But the cost could be
prohibitive and it could be several years before an LNG
facility in Myanmar would come on-stream. Thus, constructing
pipelines is the more likely option.

To that end, GAIL completed a detailed feasibility report in
May for laying a $3 billion, 1,400-kilometer gas pipeline
from the Myanmar port town of Sittwe to Gaya in Bihar,
India, to supply its northeast with gas. And last December,
PetroChina signed a memorandum of understanding with MOGE to
build a 2,380-kilometer pipeline from Sittwe to Kunming in
China's southwestern province of Yunnan.

If allowed to tie up with Daewoo as a minority equity
partner, PTTEP would likely build a 1,100-kilometer
underwater pipeline from the Bay of Bengal to join up with
its existing 670-kilometer pipeline that currently brings
gas to Thailand from Yadana and Yetagun. It would be part of
the company's plans to spend 233 billion baht (US$6.16
billion) in the five years to 2010 to pump up output from
existing gas fields in the Gulf of Thailand and to explore
for new reserves abroad in offshore fields in Cambodia,
Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Oman, Algeria and South
Africa.

Currently, more than 70% of electricity in Thailand is
generated by natural gas, 30% of which is imported - all
from Myanmar. With domestic production expected to peak in
2010 and domestic reserves expected to run dry in 30 years,
Thai energy planners are scrambling for new sources of
power.

With Thailand's own hydro capacity already maxed out, non-
hydro renewable energy sources like wind, solar and biogases
accounting for less than 1% of generation capacity and
unlikely any time soon to play a significant role in power
supply structure, and with coal-fired plants sure to stir up
strong environmental opposition, Piyasvasti has admitted
that for now, Thailand must depend on its neighbors, apart
perhaps from Myanmar, to shore up its energy security.

The Malaysia-Thai Joint Development Area in the Gulf of
Thailand is scheduled to come on stream next year and
produce 700 million standard cubic feet per day of gas.
PTTEP is also exploring gas and oil options in Indonesia's
Nantuna field, considering building a pipeline from the Gulf
of Tonkin in Vietnam and more recently is engaged in
offshore exploration in Cambodia. Piyasvasti also said that
the government would boost hydropower imports from Laos.

Even with other options in the cards, and with independent
energy analysts claiming that Thailand's energy demand
forecasts have been inflated by almost 50%, PTTEP officials
who spoke with Asia Times Online still consider the A1 and
A3 blocks "very strategic", thus heightening worries that
they've entered the Myanmar hydrocarbons bonanza too late.

Political baggage Another hangup could come from Thailand's
new prime minister, retired army general Surayud Chulanont,
who has long been at odds with the SPDC regime and so far
looks to be in no hurry to patch things up. On his first
foreign trip as premier, which took him to Laos, Cambodia
and Malaysia in October, he snubbed Myanmar, to the dismay
of PTTEP officials - though later, on the sidelines of the
China-ASEAN summit in Nanning on November 1, he reportedly
met with Myanmar Prime Minister Soe Win and tentatively
scheduled a visit for later this month.

As army chief from 1998 to 2002, Surayud openly criticized
Myanmar's government for its complicity in moving drugs into
Thailand and he opposed moves to drive back the tens of
thousands of refugees who had fled Myanmar for safety along
the Thai border. More aggressively, in March 2002, he
ordered one of Thailand's largest military operations in
recent times, when Thai troops moved deep into Myanmar
territory to destroy several drug labs and military bases
controlled by the pro-junta militia the United Wa State
Army.

Sources close to the SPDC say the Myanmar generals have
never forgiven Surayud for that breach of sovereignty. To
smooth cross-border ties, in 2002 Thaksin shuffled Surayud
off to the symbolic post of supreme commander of the armed
forces. Now a member of the Privy Council, the palace's top
advisory body, and a staunch nationalist, Surayud's
appointment as prime minister will likely not sit well with
the junta's leaders.

Given India's and China's greater political leverage and
their headstart in the gas sweepstakes, and the legacy of
mistrust between the Thai and Myanmar governments, it's no
wonder that a PTTEP spokesperson told the press last month
that he was optimistic but "not fully confident" that the
company would secure the rights to A1 and A3. A former
Western diplomat with close ties to the junta's inner circle
was less sanguine: "They [PTTEP] can forget about it."

With the gas deal precariously in the balance, attention has
turned to the hydro projects, which until now continue
despite the avowals of Thailand's new energy minister to
scrap them. If all the dam projects go ahead, the Salween
would become one of the world's most heavily dammed river
systems in the world and would earn the regime plenty of
cash to sustain its misrule.

Politics aside, one reason Piyasvasti wants to wean Thailand
off Myanmar's energy, says a ministry insider, is that he is
dubious of the Asian Development Bank-sponsored Greater
Mekong Sub-region (GMS) integrated power grid, which
hypothetically would link Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia,
China, Laos and Vietnam in an energy-sharing pact.

He is also known to prefer bilateral deals to the multi-
country arrangement proposed by the Asian Development Bank,
which he feels lacks the legitimacy to tell individual GMS
countries what to do. Skeptical of the economic and
political sense of the project, Piyasvasti reportedly
thought the GMS program would eventually run aground,
according to the ministry insider.

But the project continues to move forward - to the point
where several observers feel that the dams may be too far
advanced to roll back the clock on the projects. The Hatgyi
dam, for instance, would be the first on the 2,800 kilometer
Salween, the last major free-flowing river in Southeast
Asia. Its installed capacity could reach 1,500 megawatts at
a cost exceeding $1 billion. Located in Myanmar's Karen
state, some 30 kilometers from the Thai border, the dam is
tentatively scheduled to be completed by 2013.

In December 2005, Thailand's EGAT signed a memorandum of
agreement with Myanmar's Department of Hydropower, under the
Ministry of Electric Power, for joint-investment and
implementation of the Hutgyi dam construction to commence in
late 2007. As with most of the dam and gas projects in
Myanmar, details of the agreement were not disclosed.
Highlighting the dangers that come with doing business in
war-torn Myanmar, in May EGAT geologist Chana Mongplee was
killed by a landmine explosion at an EGAT campsite near the
proposed site.

China's leading hydropower company, Sinohydro Corporation,
fueled by low-interest loans from state-run Chinese banks,
is set to act as the major investor and contractor for the
design, procurement and implementation of the Hatgyi dam.
The Tasang dam, designed at 228 meters high with an
installed capacity of 7,110 megawatts, would meanwhile be
the biggest in Southeast Asia, bringing with it an estimated
price tag of some $6 billion.

Planning is already at an advanced stage and several
agreements have already been signed for financing its
construction. Though located in the main area of conflict in
Shan state where resistance forces have been fighting the
Myanmar army for more than 40 years, and estimated to flood
some 870 square kilometers of land, sources who live near
the dam site say the construction continues on the road to
the Nong Ook border crossing in Thailand and on land being
cleared to build transmission lines to the country.

That construction is being carried out by Thailand's
privately-owned and well-connected MDX Plc, a floundering
real estate and infrastructure construction company based in
Bangkok. One of its advisors, Subin Pinkayan, was the former
commerce minister under the Chatichai Choonhavan government
(1988-1991), which like Thaksin's government was ousted in a
military coup.

A former MDX official who spoke with Asia Times Online
believes that the Tasang and Hatgyi projects will carry on
with or without Thai participation, though he added that
building the other dams - the Weigyi and Dagwin dams in
Karen state, and the Mong Hta dam in Shan state - would
likely be too risky to secure financing.
Some energy experts now wonder whether Piyasvasti will
really pull the plug on all the Myanmar mega-energy projects
and if he does, whether his ministry can devise an
economically viable solution to Thailand's pressing energy
dilemma.

In his then capacity as chairman of Kasikorn Asset
Management, Piyasvasti told a group of reporters last year
that the government should start considering a nuclear power
plant to shore up national energy security. Nuclear power,
he said, would prove less expensive and produce less
pollution than other options - presumably including doing
deals with Myanmar's military junta.

Shawn L Nance is former deputy editor of the Irrawaddy news
magazine. He is currently a freelance journalist based in
Thailand.

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Inter Press Service November 13, 2006

Debating carrots and sticks for Myanmar

By John Feffer

WASHINGTON - Myanmar is in the middle of a national
convention that its military leaders claim is the first step
in a sevenfold path toward democracy. But what mix of
toughness and engagement the international community should
employ against the country remains an open question, one
that has drawn some comparison with North Korea.

Observers remain divided over the prospects for political
change in the Southeast Asian nation, the degree of security
threat that Myanmar poses to its neighbors, and the most
effective measures that the international community can
adopt to encourage greater freedom within the country.

The example of North Korea hung over a recent discussion
organized by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation on international
policy toward Myanmar and the utility of current US-led
economic sanctions against the ruling junta and the elements
of a package deal that could potentially bring the country
out of its relative isolation.

"As someone said of North Korea, it doesn't respond to
pressure, but also doesn't respond without pressure. The
same can be said of Burma," Michael Green, senior adviser at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS),
said at the discussion. (Burma, the former name of the
country, is still preferred by Western governments, by some
Western media, and by many opponents of the Myanmar regime.)

As with North Korea, the assembled experts spoke of Western
frustrations over inducing change in Myanmar and the
difficulty of acquiring accurate information about the state
of the government and the conditions on the ground. Unlike
the North Korean regime, however, Myanmar's military
government faces a significant opposition movement, which
continues to exist amid strong government repression.

Toward military-led democracy The ruling military junta,
which has failed to recognize the 1990 elections won by the
opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), appears to
be on the threshold of introducing some measure of
democracy.

Although opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains under
house arrest and her NLD has boycotted the national
convention, the 1,000-plus delegates at the event plan to
complete a new constitution by year's end, as part of the
government's "seven-stage path to democracy".

The government promises to put the new constitution to a
vote through a national referendum followed by multi-party
elections that reserve a certain portion of seats in the new
parliament for the government party. The NLD and ethnic
minorities in the country favor a federal constitution that
permits greater decentralization of power.

"All the minorities and the NLD have talked about a federal
system," said David Steinberg, director of Asian Studies at
Georgetown University and a renowned Myanmar expert. "To an
American, federalism makes a lot of sense. But frankly, I
don't see the military agreeing to that. The convention was
tightly scripted and the military will remain in control."

Peter Christian Hauswedell, former director general for Asia
and the Pacific region for the German Foreign Ministry,
asked: "Will the NLD compete in these [multi-party]
elections - even if some of the constitutional framework
conditions were decided in their absence and probably with
the idea to limit their voting appeal? But the outcome of
those elections may be that Myanmar gets a constitutional
government.

"Even if that government will be heavily controlled and
influenced by the military, its formation may be an
improvement over the present situation," the former German
official argued. "So the NLD will have to think about the
consequences of a continued total rejection of the
government's plans and the non-participation in that
election."

The regime's critics describe a still-dismal human-rights
situation. Human Rights Watch, a US-based advocacy group,
has cited the regime for the detention of 1,300 political
prisoners, the killing of protesters, and the use of 70,000
child soldiers, which if accurate is the largest
concentration of under-18 conscripts in the world.

According to Jeremy Woodrum of the US Campaign for Burma,
"over a million refugees, most of them from eastern Burma
along the border with Thailand and China, are fleeing
because the regime has burned down 3,000 villages over the
last 10 years" as part of an effort to target civilian
populations in areas that provide a base for ethnic armies.

Hard to ignore

The flow of refugees, drug trafficking and the spread of
infectious diseases have made it difficult for Asia to
ignore Myanmar. These problems extend beyond the region as
well.

Myanmar "presents a serious security threat to the region
and requires attention from the United States and the UN
Security Council", argued CSIS's Green, citing how the
Security Council has under US pressure recently agreed to
address Myanmar's rights record.

Others, such as Myanmar watcher Hauswedell, disagree. "If
you would ask Myanmar's neighbors India, Bangladesh, Laos,
Thailand and China whether they see Myanmar as a threat,
they would not affirm this. Rather, India, China and
Thailand compete for the country's raw materials and
resources and refrain from criticizing Myanmar."

Recently deposed Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra
notably did not press for political change inside Myanmar,
and now his family stands accused of profiting from their
telecommunications-business investments in deals brokered
with the rights-abusing junta. The September 19 military
coup that ousted Thaksin has raised hopes that Thailand will
take a tougher stand toward Myanmar's military regime.

"The new Thai leader is known for his toughness against the
[ethnic] Burmese oppression of minorities living along the
border and his criticism of Burma pushing drugs into
Thailand," explained Pavin Chachavalpongpun, the author of A
Plastic Nation: The Curse of Thainess in Thai-Burmese
Relations. "The United States has already suspended military
aid given to Thailand and is using the military suspension
to urge a return to democratic rule and new elections and to
push Thailand to toughen up its position toward Burma."

However, whether the West's use of the stick since the 1980s
has positively influenced the junta's behavior is open to
question. "I don't think the leaders of the Myanmar military
regime are necessarily receptive or sensitive to outside
voices," argued Shigeru Tsumori, Japan's ambassador to
Myanmar from 2000 to 2002.

Hauswedell maintained, "We have seen 16 years of sanctions
and unfortunately they have not achieved their aim of
restoring and securing democracy in Myanmar. The sanctions
are not universal and are not supported by Myanmar's Asian
neighbors.

"They were meant to hurt the military government but on
balance, they have rather contributed to the economic misery
of the common people in the country," he said, adding:
"Rather than isolating Myanmar, the Western sanctions have
isolated the West from Myanmar and deprived it of influence
over the country's development."

The US Campaign for Burma's Woodrum believes that the
economic and investment sanctions, which the country's
opposition has continued to endorse, have been effective.
And, absent the sanctions that the United States imposed in
the late 1990s, Woodrum argued, "the regime would have been
much wealthier and much more of Burmese natural resources
would have been sold off".

Given the differences in emphasis between engagement and
isolation, the question remains whether all countries need
to approach Myanmar with the same policy. Tsumori believes
that "all countries don't have to put the same pressure on
Myanmar to the same extent. It depends on the individual
country. Japan, with its particular history, should use
different pressure from the United States. Coordination is,
however, indispensable."

Green believes such coordination could lead to a grand
bargain. In exchange for improving its human-rights record
and moving toward democracy, Myanmar would receive
humanitarian assistance, official recognition of the
country's name by Western governments, and the gradual
lifting of Western economic and investment sanctions.

-----------------------------------------------------

Inter Press Service November 13, 2006

Media - Burma: Exiled Cartoonists Deliver Darts With a Smile

Iris Lee

BANGKOK - They have completely different styles, but they
are bound by a common goal -- a free Burma.

"Even if we don't see the riverbank, we still have to swim
to reach the other side," murmurs Burmese cartoonist-in-
exile Harn Lay during an interview. While he does not see
the light at the end of the tunnel for his country at the
moment, he is still hopeful.

This is a sentiment shared by New York-based Win Tun who, in
an e- mail interview, said he believes he will one day be
reunited with his family in Burma.

The works of the two cartoonists, being shown in a month-
long exhibition at the Foreign Correspondents Club of
Thailand (FCCT) here in Bangkok, are aimed at creating more
awareness -- through images, humour and irony -- about the
plight of their country, which has been under military rule
for decades. The show ends Nov. 30.

Harn Lay was in his early 20s when the pro-democracy
uprising against the military in 1988 took place, sending
thousands into exile and putting Burma in the international
headlines. The crisis ended with a bloody military crackdown
which left scores, mostly students killed, injured, or
jailed.

Having studied fine arts at the School of Fine Arts Academy
in Rangoon, Harn Lay never imagined that he would eventually
move on from illustrating cinema billboards to witty, funny
yet blunt portrayals of reality.

"I used to do just line art, that is, very simple, black-
and- white drawings. But I thought that people are more
attracted to coloured cartoons. The funnier, the more
colourful, the better," says Harn Lay, who is known for his
amusing and vibrant cartoons as shown in the Chiang Mai-
based 'The Irrawaddy' magazine, where he is editorial
cartoonist.

One of his memorable cartoons is that of Burmese leader
Senior Gen. Than Shwe holding a birthday cake with candles
that completely shut in detained opposition leader Aung San
Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy party
whose victory in the 1990 election was never recognised by
the military.

The cartoon, commemorating her 60th birthday and her 17th
year under house arrest, has since featured in a textbook
released by the Indian National Council of Educational
Research and Training and used by ninth grade political
science students.
In stark contrast is Win Tun's style-- the more familiar
black-and- white, traditional cartoon. Popularly known as
'Mr Burma' after the English-language daily 'Bangkok Post'
published his first cartoon outside Burma, 53-year-old Win
Tun was a freelance cartoonist for several journals and
magazines in Burma.

After receiving warnings from the government for his
cartoons' anti-establishment content, he went into exile in
1990 and drew under the 'Mr Burma' pseudonym. When the
Burmese government discovered his true identity, Win Tun was
blacklisted. In 1995, he and his wife fled to the United
States as political refugees. His mother, some brothers and
sisters were left behind.

The government still issues warnings about his cartoons on
the 'Faxtoon' website and the Voice of Burma bulletin.
However, this does not scare him. "I do not care how they
(the government) could bother me, because I believe that I'm
doing the right thing for my country," Win Tun said.

Like Win Tun, Harn Lay takes these threats in his stride.
Both have embraced the difficulties that come with living in
exile.

For Harn Lay, being free to express himself as an artist is
like a breath of fresh air. "Although it's hard to live away
from one's country, at least I can draw whatever I feel
like, especially when it concerns Burmese politics," says
Harn Lay who tries to keep in touch with relatives no matter
how difficult.

Win Tun, meanwhile, says everything is fine where they are.
"I am also learning a lot about how their system works here
(in the United States). I hope someday we will be able to
set up a good system for my country. That is my dream...,"
he says.

Both believe that cartoons are powerful means of delivering
a message to the world, especially with regard to peace and
freedom.

Explains Win Tun: "Cartoons are a very effective and
peaceful method to point out the mistakes and unfair
practices of people. (This is why) I always try to use
language in my cartoons, for the government and all the
Burmese people for them to read and notice. Because
sometimes cartoons without words do not have as strong an
impact than those with words."

Harn Lay is aware of this medium's power and says that his
and his colleagues' cartoons somehow find their way to
Burma. "It's not easy to distribute political cartoons in
the country, but I have heard that these are being
photocopied and circulated in Burma," he says.

Harn Lay's best piece may even have reached the hands of the
junta's highest officials. This cartoon, a satire on the
Burmese government's dam projects, shows a military official
gloating over the new sources of electricity, but holding a
fan in his hand in a room that has a light bulb that does
not work.

Asked why the dream of a free Burma has been so elusive, Win
Tun opines that the country needs a "new kind of medicine or
a cure", especially when treating a "disease" such as the
military.

Harn Lay says it does not help that many countries still
maintain close ties with the junta-led government because
this legitimises their rule. "The regime is supported by
neighbouring countries through trade and business, which
makes it hard for pro-democracy groups campaigning for a
free Burma.''

Commenting on the U.N. Security Council's initiative to
finally open formal discussions about Burma, Win Tun says,
"The U.N. can do so many things if they (really) want to."

The FCCT exhibit, according to Shan Women's Action Network
(www.shanwomen.org) activist Nang Hseng Noung will be just
one of many future exhibits for Burma's cartoonists-in-
exile.

"This early, someone has already asked if these cartoons can
travel and we said, hey, why not?'" says Nang Hseng Noung.

The exhibit also features works by Harn Lay and Win Tun's
fellow cartoonists, Kham Pang and Shwe Mahn. The organisers
said that they wanted to get a woman cartoonist, but the
only one they know is living in Burma.

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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