Burma's missing monks still a mystery months after crackdown

Sat, December 1, 2007
Supalak G. Khundee
The Nation (Thailand)

Substantial political dialogue between the Burmese junta and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is difficult due to restrictions placed on her and the continuing arrest of dissidents, US Charge d' Affaires to Burma Shari Villarosa said Friday.

The situation in Burma since the massive public uprising in late September is "now quiet", but there have been no significant changes, the American diplomat said in a briefing of journalists during a stopover in Bangkok.

The Burmese military has shut down a number of monasteries and arrested more monks and people who were involved in the protests, Villarosa said.

"We have some questions about the sincerity of the military in pursuing what we consider genuine dialogue leading to national reconciliation, with ongoing arrests, monastery closures and the continuing restrictions on Aung San Suu Kyi," she said.

The military crackdown killed at least 15 people and some 3,000 protesters were arrested.

London-based Amnesty International on Tuesday accused the junta of continuing to arrest dissidents over the past two months and said some 700 protesters are still in detention. Among them is Buddhist monk U Gambira, head of the All Burma Monk Alliance who led the September protests, it said.

Villarosa said she had no idea whether Suu Kyi was in a good position to begin political dialogue with the junta while still under house arrest.

United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who is waiting for a visa to enter the military-ruled country again, is working to foster political dialogue between the government and the opposition to pave the way for national reconciliation and democracy.

"That [dialogue] is certainly our strong hope in that we want to see it, and the international community wants to see it, and most of all the Burmese people want to see it, but then we see the restrictions have not really been modified in any significant degree," Villarosa said.

Nonetheless, the US is maintaining its support for Gambari and the UN secretary-general's role in trying to bring about real dialogue, she said.

Speaking in Phnom Penh yesterday during a visit to Cambodia, UN envoy Gambari said he was making progress towards dialogue and urged the Burmese junta to release Suu Kyi if it was really serious about political reform.

While the world is condemning the Burmese regime, Cambodia sends Hor Nam Hong to pay respect to Soe Win, aka “the Depayin Butcher”

Hun Sen and Soe Win, nicknamed "the Depayin Butcher" by the Burmese opposition, during the ASEAN Summit Meeting in Cebu, Phillipines, in Januray 2007 (Photo: Reuters)

Mourning of the dead Burmese Prime Minister

Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

The Royal Government of Cambodia represented by Hor Nam Hong, the vice-prime minister and minister of information and international cooperation, has led a delegation to the Burmese embassy in Cambodia on Monday, to pay respect to the soul and to mourn the sad death of General Soe Win, prime minister of Burma. The Burmese embassy in Cambodia indicated that General Soe Win died on 12 October 2007 from leukemia. General Soe Win was born on 10 May 2049 on Tungyi, Burma. He is a Buddhist follower and he was a graduate of the Defense Services Academy (12th intake). He rose to the position of prime minister on 19 October 2004 and held this position until his death.

Blood rubies from Burma

Japanese tourists check out gems at a store in the Burmese city of Rangoon

'Rubies are red with the blood of Burma's young'

Mon 8 Oct 2007
STEPHEN MCGINTY (smcginty@scotsman.com)
The Scotsman (Scotland, UK)

THEY have decorated the headdresses of maharajas, the bellies of courtesans and the fingers of the world's affluent. The rubies of the Mogok valley in upper Burma are cherished for their clarity, quality and the lush red hue known as "pigeon's blood". Yet, as the trade funnels millions of pounds each year into the coffers of the military junta, campaigners now argue the rubies are red with the blood of the people.

While Leonardo Di Caprio and Hollywood have helped educate the public about "blood diamonds" - gems mined in war zones and sold secretly to finance insurgency or a warlord's army - there is a growing demand to have the precious stones of Burma rebranded as "blood rubies" and subject to the same boycott.

In light of the Saffron revolution led by Buddhist monks and the subsequent violent crackdown on the democratic movement by the military government, pressure groups outside Burma are critical of a trade they insist is built on the back of oppression and abuse. "It's said 95 per cent of all rubies come from Burma, so if you see a ruby in a shop, it's gone through the hands of the Burmese generals and is helping to pay for the soldiers and guns on the streets of Rangoon," Mark Farmaner, the acting director of Burma Campaign UK, said.

Debbie Stothard, of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma, said conditions in the country's mining operations were horrendous, with owners hooking employees on drugs to improve productivity, and where shared needles are common and AIDS rife.

She said: "Heroin is given to people at the end of the working day as a reward. Young people go off to the mines with big hopes and dreams, and they come back to die. These rubies are red with the blood of young people."

Burma's generals are estimated to have earned about £400 million since they began holding official gem and jade sales in 1964. A far bigger number of precious stones are smuggled over the border into Thailand and China. The official expositions, held twice a year in the tropical heat of Rangoon, are still increasingly popular. More Chinese bidders are attending, attracted by slabs of jade.

Last week, the European Union said it would consider a trade ban on Burmese gemstones, but for the moment there are no such restrictions. However, there is evidence of growing doubt about the morality of trading in such precious stones.

Eric Smith, the co-owner, with his wife, of Eric N Smith, a jeweller in Glasgow, said he was seeking a Burmese ruby for a client who had been insistent on its point of origin.

"Burmese ruby is considered the finest in the world," he said. "Each year, I travel to Bangkok and buy from small family traders who risk their lives to come over the border and sometimes have only two or three stones. The question is, do you cut off them and their families? It's difficult. Until now, no-one has bothered about Burma. It was known to be a topsy-turvy country, but in recent weeks, the conditions have been brought home to us. When I return in February, I will be having second thoughts about what to buy. It is a moral concern."

The ruby market in Britain is exceedingly small, with experts estimating it at no more than 1 or 2 per cent of a £3 billion jewellery business dominated by gold and diamonds. Jack Ogden, the chief executive of the Gemological Association of Great Britain, said: "It has always been said that Burma accounts for 90 per cent of the world's ruby, but this is taken from old text books of the 1930s. Now it can come from Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Cambodia and Madagascar."

The Mogok valley is the traditional home of Burma's ruby mining. One recent visitor was Ted Themelis, a geological consultant, and author of Gems & Mines of Mogok, an in-depth study of the region.

Mr Themelis, who is based in Thailand, told The Scotsman the situation there was far more complex than the image presented by protesters. He insisted that, under a deal thrashed out with the military government, former insurgents among Burma's large minority ethnic groups, such as the Shan, Lisu, Palaung and Karen, were given concessions over the gem mines, with 50 per cent of the proceeds going to the government. In November 2003, there were 1,250 licensed mine work sites, while in 1999 there were 850 different registered companies. As there is little mechanisation in the area, the panning, tunnelling and digging of pits is performed by hand, with children as young as 12 taking part. There are about 35,000 miners in the area, who live in camps and earn commission on their finds.

"The work is difficult, but it's not so bad," Mr Themelis said. "What else are they going to do? Grow poppies? At least this is positive. I don't agree with a boycott - the only people this will effect will be the workers. The generals in charge will just find a way around it."

Yet Philip Dundas, of the Scottish-based Burma Educational Scholarship Trust, insisted the situation was far more serious. "Burma has a long history of using forced labour, of getting people addicted to drugs so they cannot leave, and I find it hard to believe that this is not the case in the gem mines," he said.

In Thailand, where the majority of Burma's gems are bought and sold, the stone merchants have yet to be put off doing business with the junta. Pornchai Chuenchomlada, president of the Thai Gem and Jewellery Traders Association, said: "People are unhappy about what's going on, but they are not angry enough to stop buying rubies. If they killed a lot of people like they did in 1988, we might consider banning their products."

The ripples of concern among a few British jewellers, such as Eric Smith, have not yet generated a tide demanding change, according to Geoff Field, chief executive of the British Jewellers Association.

He said he had not been contacted by any members wishing to discuss Burmese rubies, and added: "There has been discussion in chat rooms among members who say they wish to continue to support the small self-employed traders they have been dealing with for years."

In the valley of Mogok, the rains still fall and the mines are largely silent, but in November, when the clouds pass, they will again echo to the sound of hammer and chisel and the scraping of dirt. In literature, the ruby has often been used as symbol of virginity, but in Burma, nothing about the gem business is pure. As Philip Dundas said: "At what price do we wear beautiful things?"

Mogok valley's gems highly prized for their purity and hue
A RUBY is a variety of the mineral rock called corundum, also known as aluminium oxide. The colour comes from chromium.

The mining of Burmese rubies stretches back thousands of years and has traditionally been centred on the Mogok area about 200km north of Mandalay, which is known as the "valley of the rubies".

The crimson stones have been dug from the ground at Mogok since prehistoric times and were previously a source of wealth for Britain during the age of Empire.

Mogok's rubies occur in marble. Millions of years of weathering has freed the stones, washing them down from the hills to the valley floors, where they have settled in the bottom of the streams and rivers.

They are freed from the gravel by panning, tunnelling and digging by hand. There is little mechanisation of the mining.

The gems from Mogok are prized for their purity and hue. The Burmese word for ruby is padamya which translates as "plenty of mercury".

The Burmese call their gems "pigeon's blood ruby" because of the deep red-magenta hue which is similar to freshly drawn arterial pigeon blood. The colour is also often compared to the hue of a pomegranate seed.

They are sold in markets in Mogok; however, foreigners require special permits to visit the town, and the purchase or export of gems at non-government licensed dealers is illegal.

Traders say a ban on Burmese rubies introduced in the US three years ago has been widely ignored and that the rare gems are more sought after than ever.

Last year, an 8.62 carat Burmese ruby fetched a record price of $3.7 million when it was auctioned by Christie's.

Myanmar Attacks Protesters, Arresting Monks

September 27, 2007
By SETH MYDANS
The New York Times

BANGKOK, Sept. 26 — The government of Myanmar began a violent crackdown on Wednesday after tolerating more than a month of ever larger protests in cities around the country. Security forces clubbed and tear-gassed protesters, fired shots into the air and arrested hundreds of the monks who are at the heart of the demonstrations.

A government announcement said security forces in Yangon, the country’s main city, fired at demonstrators who failed to disperse, killing one man. Foreign news agencies and exile groups reported death tolls ranging from two to eight people.

Despite threats and warnings by the authorities, and despite the beginnings of a violent response, tens of thousands of chanting, cheering protesters flooded the streets, witnesses reported. Monks were in the lead, like religious storm troopers, as one foreign diplomat described the scene.

In response to the violence, the United Nations Security Council called an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss the crisis, but China blocked a Council resolution, backed by the United States and European nations, to condemn the government crackdown.

However, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that the United Nations was “urgently dispatching” a special envoy to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

A spokesman for President Bush, in New York City for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, denounced the crackdown and urged restraint. A day before, White House officials had expressed hope that Mr. Bush’s announcement of new sanctions directed against the military government’s leaders would intensify pressure on them not to use violence against the protesters.

“The United States is very troubled by the action of the junta against the Burmese people,” the spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, said Wednesday afternoon. “We call on them to show restraint and to move to a peaceful transition to democracy.”

Though the crowds in Yangon, formerly Rangoon, were large and energetic on Wednesday, they were smaller than on previous days, apparently in part because of the deployment of armed soldiers to prevent monks from leaving some of the main temples.

But it appeared that an attempt by the military to halt the protests through warnings, troop deployments and initial bursts of violence had not succeeded. Political analysts said the next steps in the crackdown might be yet more aggressive and widespread.

The foreign diplomat described an amazing scene on Wednesday as a column of 8,000 to 10,000 people flooded past his embassy following a group of about 800 monks.

They were trailed by four truckloads of military men, watching but not taking action. The diplomat, in keeping with his embassy’s policy, spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to news reports and telephone interviews from Myanmar, which is sealed off to foreign reporters, the day’s activities began with a confrontation at the giant gold-spired Shwedagon Pagoda, which has been one of the focal points of the demonstrations.

In the first reported violence in nine days of demonstrations by monks in Yangon, police officers with riot shields dispersed up to 100 monks who were trying to enter the temple, firing tear gas and warning shots and knocking some monks to the ground. As many as 200 monks were reported to have been arrested at the pagoda.

Several hundred monks then walked through downtown Yangon to the Sule Pagoda, another site of the demonstrations, where truckloads of soldiers were seen arriving Tuesday. A violent confrontation was reported there; more shots were fired and a number of arrests were made.

On a broad avenue near the temple, hundreds of people sat facing a row of soldiers, calling out to them, “The people’s armed forces, our armed forces!” and “The armed forces should not kill their own people!”

In Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city, more than 800 monks, nuns and other demonstrators were confronted by some 100 soldiers who tried to stop them from marching from the Mahamuni Paya Pagoda, which they had tried to enter earlier, The Associated Press reported.

The demonstrations in Yangon have grown from several hundred people protesting a fuel price rise in mid-August to as many as 100,000 on Sunday, led by tens of thousands of monks in the largest and most sustained protests since 1988.

That earlier peaceful uprising was crushed by the military, which shot into crowds, killing an estimated 3,000 people. It was during the turmoil that the current military junta took power in Myanmar, and it has maintained its grip by arresting dissidents, quashing political opposition and using force and intimidation to control the population.

Now, emboldened by the presence of the monks, huge crowds have joined the demonstrations in protests that reflect years of discontent over economic hardship and political repression.

At first, the government held back as the protests grew. It issued its first warning on Monday night, when the religious affairs minister said the government was prepared to take action against the protesting monks.

On Tuesday night, the government announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew, banned gatherings of more than five people and placed the cities of Yangon and Mandalay under what amounts to martial law. Troops began taking up positions at strategic locations around Yangon and tried to seal off five of the largest and most active monasteries.

As the protests grew, public figures began to come forward, and on Tuesday the government arrested the first of them, a popular comedian, Zarganar, who had urged people to join the demonstrations. He had irritated the government in the past with his veiled political gibes.

The crackdown on Wednesday came in the face of warnings and pleas to the junta from around the world to refrain from the kind of violence that had made the country’s ruling generals international pariahs.

At the United Nations, President Bush on Tuesday announced a largely symbolic tightening of American sanctions against Myanmar’s government. The European Union threatened to tighten its own sanctions if violence was used. On Wednesday, the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, said the first step after any meeting of the Security Council should be to send a United Nations envoy to Myanmar.

The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, and Desmond Tutu, the former archbishop of Cape Town and antiapartheid campaigner, have spoken out in support of their fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy leader, who has been held under house arrest for 12 of the last 18 years.

The junta was also hearing the message directly from diplomats based in Yangon. The British ambassador, Mark Canning, said he met with a government official on Tuesday to urge restraint.

“You need to look very carefully at the underlying political and economic hardships,” he said he told the official. “The government must also understand what this is about — not fuel prices, but decades of dissatisfaction.”

Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting from New York.

US denounces 'brutality' of Myanmar regime

Myanmar activists hold pictures of Myanmar's opposition party leader Aung San Suu Kyi while shouting slogans during a protest against the increase of the price of fuel, outside the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok, 02 September 2007. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday denounced Myanmar's ruling military junta as "brutal" and said Washington was closely monitoring rising protests for democracy in the Southeast Asian state.

NEW YORK (AFP) — US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday denounced Myanmar's ruling military junta as "brutal" and said Washington was closely monitoring rising protests for democracy in the Southeast Asian state.

"Certainly, we are watching very carefully and the President (George W. Bush) has been very outspoken about what is happening in Burma (Myanmar)," Rice told reporters with her Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi beside her, ahead of their talks on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

"The Burmese people deserve better. They deserve a life to be able to live in freedom just as everyone does and the brutality of this regime is well known and so we will be speaking about that and I think the president will be speaking about that," Rice said.

The Rice-Yang meeting took place as 20,000 people led by Buddhist monks on Sunday launched the biggest challenge against Myanmar's military rule in nearly two decades, emboldened after a march to see the country's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

China, among Myanmar's closest allies and biggest military suppliers, has previously insisted it would not pressure the junta to open up, saying it did not wish to interfere in the internal affairs of another country.

But in a rare move this month, Beijing's top diplomatic advisor Tang Jiaxuan gently nudged the junta to adopt democratic changes.

Details of the talks between Rice and Yang on the Myanmar issue were not immediately available.

The swelling protests in Myanmar followed a landmark day Saturday, when the army allowed about 2,000 monks and civilians to pass a roadblock and gather by the lakeside Yangon house which has been Aung San Suu Kyi's prison for 12 of the past 18 years.

Tears in her eyes, the woman known in Myanmar as "The Lady" waved at monks as they recited Buddhist prayers, witnesses said, while supporters chanted: "Long life and health for Aung San Suu Kyi, may she have freedom soon."

The 62-year-old has become an internationally recognised symbol of non-violent political change since her National League for Democracy won 1990 elections by a landslide -- a result never recognised by the military.

What began as a protest against economic hardship has now grown, with marches against military rule attracting thousands of young monks to the streets of Yangon and other cities since Tuesday.

Rice will also highlight the Myanmar crisis at a meeting with her counterparts of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Thursday at the sidelines of the UN talks.

"Among other things, Secretary Rice will press for ASEAN leverage to end the crackdown in Burma and to initiate genuine democratic reforms in Burma," Assistant Secretary of State Kristen Silverberg told reporters.

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is a member of ASEAN, which also comprises Brunei, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Burma's monks on the march [-Beijing supports governments which disregard the interests of their people]

Emboldened Myanmar monks challenge junta rule (Photo: AFP TV)

Hundreds of monks briefly protested again on Friday in North Okkalapa, a northern suburb of Rangoon, Burma's former capital and still its largest city.

September 24, 2007
Dominic Faulder
Posted by The Nation (Thailand)

It marked the fourth day of peaceful protests against the perceived misrule and economic ineptitude of Burma's ruling junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), which has been led for 15 years by Senior General Than Shwe, 74.

"This is possibly the beginning of the end," said a Burmese journalist in Rangoon. "It's movement, and that is what is significant."

A much larger group of marching monks was applauded on Thursday by onlookers outside City Hall on Sule Pagoda Road in the heart of Rangoon.

An underground network of monks has been fanning unrest across Burma after a five-fold increase in fuel prices was imposed a month ago without warning.

Some monks are causing humiliation by refusing to minister to soldiers and their families. This revives a tactic first used in Mandalay in August 1990 after the military shot and killed a handful of young monks, and forcibly disrobed hundreds more.

One injured monk may have succumbed to wounds in the latest round of unrest - the most widespread and sustained in Burma for nearly two decades.

The generals may be rattled. Exiled Burmese are attaching significance to the SPDC's decision to cancel a quarterly meeting of some 20 regional commanders and their aides scheduled for today at the new capital, Naypyidaw, where Than Shwe now resides in regal glory but increasing isolation. Matters on the agenda included final adjustments to a long delayed new constitution, which has been drafted since the early 1990s.

Some analysts believe Burma is finally approaching a possible "tipping point" not seen since the military put a brutal end to a six-week, nationwide pro-democracy uprising on September 18, 1988, which left an estimated 3,000 unarmed civilians dead.

"If this goes on, more people are going to join them," predicts David Scott Mathieson, who monitors Burma for New York-based Human Rights Watch. "They are calling for peaceful dialogue and reform. This is not just Rangoon. The monks are responding to the needs of the people."

"It is getting very interesting," concurs Sunai Pasuk, a leading Thai human-rights activist. "Instead of political activists leading, we are seeing ordinary people coming out - housewives first and now monks."

"People are encouraged, and I think they will keep going. They know they are suffering from this government and not from a past life," says Win Min, a Burmese researcher at Chiang Mai University, Thailand.

Burma's failed democratic flowering in 1988 was also triggered by economic hardship and national mismanagement. As with the recent sudden fuel-cost increases, demonstrations were sparked in September 1987 by the abrupt demonetisation of most bank notes, effectively robbing ordinary Burmese of their savings overnight. The discontent snowballed into to a nationwide pro-democracy uprising on August 8, 1988 - known to Burmese as "8/8/88"

Leaked summaries of recent United Nations Development Programme studies suggest that the standard of living of ordinary Burmese has steadily declined with the military's economic mismanagement, even though Burma is the most resource rich country in Southeast Asia. Burmese have to spend virtually all their income on food, whereas their neighbouring Thais spend less than 40 per cent.

In recent weeks, the vitriolic official press has attempted to pin the blame for the floundering economy on Western sanctions, Burma's imprisoned democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, and "The Generation of '88" - student leaders from 1988. The latter have recently been thrown back into prison after failing to cajole the SPDC into dialogue.

If the economy is again approaching 1987-1988 levels, monks are uniquely positioned to know. Each morning they collect alms from the public for their own sustenance. "What they used to get from four or five houses, now takes 30 to 35," says Aung Naing Oo, a Burmese analyst in exile who himself once lived in a monastery.

The revered Burmese Buddhist brotherhood, or sangha, contains an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 monks and novices, which is roughly equivalent to the entire Burmese military. In recent years, Burmese monasteries have been drawn back into their traditional role of filling social needs. They run everything from HIV/Aids clinics to orphanages and schools.

"People are starving and can't afford to send their kids to school," says Aung Naing Oo, noting the Phaung Daw Oo, a prominent monastery in Mandalay, has swollen to 7,000 students. "A population of 10 monks would have another 35 people to feed," he says.

Aung Naing Oo warns that violent suppression could trigger anti-Chinese sentiments, particularly in Mandalay and northern Burma, which has seen a strong wave of Chinese migration post-1988. "If anything happens, it could turn into anti-Chinese riots," he says.

Beijing is currently the Burmese junta's best friend. It quashed a censure motion against the rogue regime in the UN Security Council early in the year. With the recent opening of a tribunal in Phnom Penh to indict an earlier ally, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, China may be more than usually vulnerable to criticism about its support for governments which disregard the interests of their people.

Southeast Asian nations urge Myanmar not to renew Suu Kyi's detention

A picture of Myanmar's detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi hangs on the wall of the opposition party National League of Democracy headquarters in Yangon. The United States on Tuesday urged military-run Myanmar to release democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners ahead of the junta's review of her detention this week. (AFP)

Tuesday, May 22, 2007
The Associated Press

"Authoritarian members, like Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, have adopted a friendlier attitude and have refused to engage in stinging criticism of Myanmar."

MANILA, Philippines: Southeast Asian nations appealed to Myanmar on Tuesday not to renew pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's detention — a demand that has sparked discord in their regional bloc.

Suu Kyi has been held continuously by Myanmar's ruling junta since 2003. A detention order for her expires Sunday, but the junta is expected to renew it.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has given a face to the junta's years-long political repression that has been condemned by Western nations, along with Myanmar's fellow member countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN.

"It's a consensus that we want to see her early release," Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Erlinda Basilio said. "We'd like to see the lifting of the order."

Basilio led a meeting of senior ASEAN diplomats to prepare the agenda for an annual meeting of the 10-country bloc's foreign ministers in Manila in July. The Philippines will also host a meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum, Asia's largest security forum, in August.

Myanmar's delegate, Aung Bwa, said he was unaware if his government would extend Suu Kyi's detention. "Let's wait and see," he said.

Imron Cotan, who led Indonesia's delegation, expressed impatience at Myanmar's slow pace of democratization. "We have made these calls repeatedly, and Myanmar has found it difficult to respond," he said.

In Bangkok, visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill urged the junta in Myanmar, also called Burma, to free Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.

"The continued incarceration or house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi is one of several issues that's posing a real blockage in terms of Burma being able to rejoin the international community," Hill told reporters after his meeting with Thai Foreign Minister Nitya Pibulsonggram.

Last week U.S. President George W. Bush told the American Congress that he intended to continue U.S. economic and political sanctions against Myanmar.

Calls for Myanmar to rapidly fulfill a pledge to democratize have become a familiar refrain in ASEAN's annual meetings, and its spotty human rights record is again expected to be a key issue at the Manila meetings.

Although bound by an ASEAN edict not to interfere in each other's affairs, some members, like Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia, have become more blunt in their criticism, urging Myanmar to show tangible progres toward its promised democratization.

Authoritarian members, like Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, have adopted a friendlier attitude and have refused to engage in stinging criticism of Myanmar.

Asked if Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who is visiting Myanmar, would take up Suu Kyi's detention with the junta, Cambodian diplomat Kao Kim Hourn did not answer clearly.

"In such a high-level meeting, anything is possible," he said.

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962, and the currently ruling generals took power in 1988. They called elections in 1990, but refused to recognize the results when Suu Kyi's party won a resounding victory.

Myanmar should have held ASEAN's rotating chairmanship and hosted the regional summit this year, but it gave up the chance amid protests by Western governments.

The prestigious chairmanship, rotated alphabetically among all members, was abruptly passed on to the Philippines.