ဗမာလူမ်ိဳးအား တိုင္းရင္းသား လူမ်ိဳးတစ္မ်ိဳးအျဖစ္ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္တင္ျပ။ (ရွမ္းသံေတာ္ဆင့္မွ ကူးယူေဖၚျပပါသည္)

         


          က်မကုိ ဒီလုိ တာ၀န္ေပးတဲ့အတြက္ အမ်ားႀကီးပဲ ဂုဏ္ယူပါတယ္။ေနာက္ၿပီးေတာ့ တာ၀န္ဆုိတာ အျမဲပဲႀကီးမား တဲ့ကိစၥ တခုပါ။ တာ၀န္ကုိထမ္းရတယ္။ ထမ္းရတယ္ဆုိကတည္းက ေလးတယ္ဆုိတဲ့ အဓိပၸါယ္ေတာ့ရွိတာေပါ့။တာ၀န္ေသးေသး ဆုိရင္ေတာ့ ခပ္ေပါ့ေပါ့ပဲ ထမ္းရမယ္။ဒီဟာကေတာ့ တာ၀န္ႀကီးႀကီးျဖစ္လုိ႔ က်မ အင္မတန္မွ ေလးေလးနက္နက္ စိတ္ထဲမွာ ထားလုိ႔ တာ၀န္ေက်ပြန္ေအာင္ႀကိဳးစားပါ့မယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ဒီလုိက်မတာ၀န္ေက်ပြန္ေအာင္လုပ္တဲ့အခ်ိန္မွာ က်မ ကုိ၀န္းရံၿပီးေတာ့ ကူညီေပးဖုိ႔လုိပါတယ္။ က်မတုိ႔ လူႀကီးေတြကလည္းအၾကံဉာဏ္ ေပးဖုိ႔၊ဆုံးမစရာရွိတာဆုံးမဖုိ႔၊ က်မတုိ႔ အထူးသျဖင့္ က်မတုိ႔တုိင္းရင္းသားေတြဟာ က်မတုိ႔ လုပ္ေဖာ္ကုိင္ဖက္ ဟုတ္ရဲ႕လားဆုိတာကုိ က်မတို႔ကုိ ျပဖုိ႔၊ တခ်ိန္လုံး တေယာက္နဲ႔ တေယာက္ တဘက္နဲ႔တဘက္စကားေျပာေဆြးေႏြးၿပီးေတာ့ ဒီတာ၀န္ေတြကုိထမ္းေဆာင္သြား ရမွာပါ။


က်မတေယာက္တည္း က်မသေဘာနဲ႔ ထမ္းေဆာင္သြားလုိ႔ မျဖစ္ပါဘူး။ အခု ဒီမွာ ေရာက္ေနတာက မ်ဳိးဆက္ေတြက လည္းစံုတယ္။ လူႀကီးေတြ..က်မတုိ႔ အခုလာကန္ေတာ့ေနတဲ့ ဘဘတုိ႔ရဲ႕ မ်ဳိးဆက္ေတြ၊ က်မတုိ႔ရဲ႕မ်ဳိးဆက္ေတြ၊ က်မတုိ႔ ထက္ငယ္တဲ့ ၈၈ မ်ဳိးဆက္ေတြ၊ ၈၈ ထက္ငယ္တဲ့ လူငယ္ေတြ မ်ဳိးဆက္ေတြေပါ့ေနာ္ ဒီမ်ဳိးဆက္ေတြမ်ဳိးဆက္ေတြဟာ ဒီတာ၀န္ေတြကိုဆက္ၿပီးေတာ့ ထမ္းေဆာင္သြားရမယ္။ ဘာျဖစ္လုိ႔လဲဆုိေတာ့ က်မတုိ႔ အခုက အေရးႀကီးတာက က်မရဲ႕ အျမင္ကုိ က်မေျပာတာေပါ့ေနာ္၊ ညီလာခံတခုထက္ အေရးႀကီးတာက စိတ္ဓါတ္ပဲ။ အဲဒီေတာ့ က်မတုိ႔ဟာ ပင္လုံ စိတ္ဓာတ္ကုိ ဆက္ၿပီးေတာ့ရွင္သန္ေနေအာင္ လုပ္သြားဖုိ႔ဟာ ေနာင္မ်ဳိးဆက္ေတြမွာလည္း တာ၀န္ ရွိတယ္။ အလုပ္တခု က ညီလာခံတခုနဲ႔ ၿပီးသြားတာမဟုတ္ဘူး။ ဒီညီလာခံကေနၿပီးေတာ့အေကာင္အထည္ေဖာ္လုိက္တဲ့ကိစၥ ေတြကုိအဓိပၸါယ္ ရွိရွိနဲ႔ ဆက္ၿပီးေတာ့ က်မတုိ႔ႏုိင္ငံအတြက္ ရပ္တည္သြားႏုိင္ဖုိ႔ဆုိတာ အားလုံးရဲ႕တာ၀န္ျဖစ္တယ္။ ဒီမ်ဳိးဆက္တခုတင္ မၿပီးသြားဘူး။ မ်ဳိးဆက္ေတြ မ်ဳိးဆက္ေတြ ဆက္ၿပီးေတာ့လုပ္ရမယ္။

တုိင္းရင္းသားေတြ အားလုံး ညီညီညြတ္ညြတ္နဲ႔လုပ္ရမယ္။ အခုက်မတုိ႔ ဒီလုိ၀ါရင့္ ႏုိင္ငံေရးသမားႀကီးမ်ားကုိ ကန္ေတာ့ ပူေဇာ္ပြဲမွာ ဒီလုိကိစၥမ်ဳိးနဲ႔ဆုံစည္းၿပီး လုပ္တာ အင္မတန္မွသင့္ေတာ္တယ္လုိ႔ က်မထင္ပါတယ္။ တနည္းအားျဖင့္ ဆုိလုိ႔ရွိရင္ က်မတုိ႔ ၀ါရင့္ႏုိင္ငံေရးသမားႀကီးမ်ား၊ က်မတုိ႔လူႀကီးမ်ားက က်မတုိ႔ကုိလက္ဆင့္ကမ္းၿပီးေတာ့ တာ၀န္ ေပးအပ္တဲ့ သေဘာပါ။ အဲဒီေတာ့ က်မတုိ႔ကလည္းအခုကတည္းက ဘြတ္ကင္လုပ္ထားရမွာေပါ့ (ရယ္လ်က္…)။ က်မတုိ႔ၿပီး လုိ႔ရွိရင္လူလတ္ပုိင္း၊ လူလတ္ပုိင္းကေန လူငယ္ပုိင္း အဆင့္ဆင့္လုပ္သြားရမွာပါ။ ဘယ္ေတာ့မွႏုိင္ငံေရးဆုိတာ ၿပီးတယ္လုိ႔ မရွိပါဘူး။ ႏုိင္ငံေရးဆုိတာ လူတုိင္းနဲ႔ ဘယ္သူနဲ႔မွလည္း ကင္းတယ္လုိ႔မရွိဘူး။ ဘယ္ေတာ့မွလည္း ၿပီးဆုံးသြားတယ္ လုိ႔မရွိဘူး။ အဲဒီေတာ့ က်မတုိ႔ ဒုတိယ ပင္လုံလုိ႔ပဲ ေျပာေျပာေပါ့ေနာ္၊ က်မ ၂၁ ရာစုႏွစ္ ပင္လုံလုိ႔ ေျပာခ်င္တာက ၂၁ ရာစု အျမင္ေတြနဲ႔လည္း ကုိက္ ေအာင္ ၂၁ ရာစုႏွစ္မွာ က်မတုိ႔ရမယ့္အခြင့္အေရးေတြ လုပ္ပုံလုပ္နည္း ေပါ့ေနာ္ လမ္းေၾကာင္းေတြနဲ႔ ကုိက္ေအာင္ဆုိၿပီးေတာ့ က်မက သုံးလုိက္တာပါ။

လူႀကီးေတြေျပာတဲ့ ဒုတိယပင္လုံဆုိတဲ့ စကားကုိဖယ္ရွားတဲ့သေဘာလည္းမဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ ထပ္ၿပီးေတာ့ ျဖည့္ဆည္းေပးတဲ့ သေဘာလုိ႔ပဲ က်မျမင္ေစခ်င္ပါတယ္။ က်မတုိ႔ႏုိင္ငံဟာ တကယ့္ျပည္ေထာင္စု စစ္စစ္ျဖစ္ဖုိ႔ဟာ လူတုိင္းရဲ႕တာ၀န္ျဖစ္ တယ္။ အဲဒီမွာေတာ့ က်မေတာ့ေျပာရမွာပဲ။ က်မတုိ႔ ..က်မက ဗမာဆုိေတာ့ ဒီလုိအေျခအေနမွာ ေျပာလုိ႔လည္းေကာင္း ပါတယ္။ လူမ်ားစုျဖစ္တဲ့ ဗမာေတြက ပုိၿပီးေတာ့ ႀကိဳးစားရမယ္။ ဟုိ.. ငါတုိ႔က လူမ်ားစုဆုိတာအခြင့္အေရးယူဖုိ႔မဟုတ္ ဘူး။ ပုိၿပီးေတာ့ တာ၀န္ယူဖုိ႔။ အဲဒီလုိပဲျမင္ပါ။ ကုိယ့္မွာ အင္အား ပုိၿပီးေတာ့မ်ားလုိ႔ရွိရင္ တာ၀န္ပုိၿပီးေတာ့ယူရမယ္။ အခြင့္အေရး ကုိ ေလွ်ာ့ၿပီးေတာ့ယူရမယ္။ ဒါမွ လူ႔သိကၡာနဲ႔ ညီညြတ္တယ္။ ဒါမွ က်မတုိ႔ႏုိင္ငံအတြက္ေကာင္းတဲ့ အစဥ္ အလာေတြ ျဖစ္ႏုိင္မွာပါ။

အဲဒီေတာ့ တုိတုိပဲေျပာပါရေစ။ က်မတုိ႔ ေတာ္လွန္ေရးဆုိတဲ့ေတာ္လွန္ေရးသမားဆုိတဲ့အဓိပၸာယ္ကုိ က်မေခၚဆုိတဲ့အခါမွာ တခါလည္းေျပာဖူးပါတယ္။ ဆရာႀကီးမင္းသု၀ဏ္ရဲ႕ ‘သူ႔မွာတမ္း’ ဆုိတဲ့ကဗ်ာေပၚကုိ အေျခခံၿပီးက်မေျပာေလ့ရွိပါတယ္။ ေတာ္လွန္ေရးသမားရဲ႕စိတ္ဓာတ္ဆုိတာ ေနာက္ဆုံးတုိင္ ..ေနာက္ဆုံး ဆုံးတုိင္…အဲဒီကဗ်ာကုိ မွတ္မိတဲ့ ဖတ္ဖူးတဲ့သူေတြ မွတ္မိတဲ့သူေတြဆုိ သိပါလိမ့္ မယ္။ဒီေတာ္လွန္ေရးသမားေလးဟာ ေတာ္လွန္ေရးမၿပီးခင္က်ဆုံးသြားတဲ့ အခါက်ေတာ့ သူက ေတာင္းပန္သြားတယ္။ အားနာပါတယ္ေပါ့ေနာ္။ေနာက္ဆုံးအခ်ိန္ထိ မေနခဲ့တာေပါ့ေနာ္။ အဲဒီလုိပဲျဖစ္ရမယ္။ ကုိယ္ကဘယ္ေလာက္လုပ္ေပးပါတယ္ဆုိတာကုိေျပာမယ့္အစား ကုိယ္ဒါ့ထက္ပုိ ၿပီးေတာ့ မလုပ္ေပးႏုိင္တာကုိမေက်နပ္ ႏုိင္ပါဘူး။ မလုပ္ေပးႏုိင္လုိ႔ေတာင္းပန္ပါတယ္ဆုိတဲ့ စိတ္ဓာတ္ က်မတုိ႔အားလုံး မွာရွိရမယ္။ အဲဒီလုိစိတ္ဓာတ္နဲ႔ လုပ္သြား မယ္ဆုိလုိ႔ရွိရင္… တကယ္ေတာ့ ႏုိင္ငံတႏုိင္ငံရဲ႕ေတာ္လွန္ေရးဆုိတာ...အခုဆုိရင္ ကမၻာႀကီးမွာ သူတုိ႔က အခုေနာက္ဆုံးေတာ္လွန္ေရးကုိ IT ေတာ္လွန္ေရးေပါ့ေနာ္။ ဒီလုိ သူတုိ႔ ေခၚၾကတယ္။ နည္းပညာေတာ္လွန္ေရး ေပါ့ေနာ္။ အရင္တုန္း က စက္မႈေတာ္လွန္ေရးလည္းရွိခဲ့တယ္။ တကယ့္ ျပင္သစ္ေတာ္လွန္ေရး…ေတာ္လွန္ေရးဆုိတာအမ်ဳိးမ်ဳိးေပါ့။ ေတာ္လွန္ေရး ဆုိတာဟာ အေျပာင္းအလဲႀကီးတခုပဲ။ သိသာတဲ့ အေျပာင္းအလဲႀကီးတခုပဲ။

အဲဒီလုိအေျပာင္းအလဲေတြဟာ က်မတုိ႔ ကမၻာႀကီးတည္သေရြ႕ဒီလုိ အေျပာင္းအလဲေတြက ရွိေနမွာပဲ။ အဲဒီေတာ့ က်မတုိ႔ အားကုိးမွာေတာ္လွန္ေရးစိတ္ဓာတ္ေမြးတယ္ဆုိတာ အဲဒါကို ေျပာတာ။ ေခတ္နဲ႔အညီ ကုိယ့္ရဲ႕တာ၀န္ကုိ ဆုံးခန္း တုိင္ေအာင္ ဆက္ၿပီးေတာ့ ထမ္း ေဆာင္သြားခ်င္တဲ့ စိတ္။ အဲဒီေတာ့ အခု က်မတုိ႔ဟာ ေခတ္နဲ႔အညီဒီျပည္ ေထာင္စု စိတ္ဓာတ္ေတြကုိ ဘယ္ေတာ့မဆုိ ခုိင္ျမဲသထက္ပုိၿပီးေတာ့ခုိင္ျမဲေအာင္လုပ္သြားရမွာက အဆုံးရွိမွာမဟုတ္ဘူး။ ဘယ္ေတာ့မွ အဆုံးရွိမွာမဟုတ္ဘူး။ ဒီ...ပင္ လုံညီလာခံ..ဒုတိယပင္လုံညီလာခံေခၚၿပီးလုိ႔ရွိရင္ ၿပီးၿပီဆုိတာ လည္း မဟုတ္ဘူး။ ပင္လုံညီလာခံက ဆုံးျဖတ္ခ်က္ေတြကို အေကာင္အထည္ေဖာ္ရမယ္။ ဆက္ၿပီး ဆက္ၿပီးေတာ့ဒီပင္လုံ စိတ္ဓာတ္ေတြကို ပုိၿပီးေတာ့ ခုိင္မာေအာင္လုိ႔ ပုိၿပီးေတာ့ က်ယ္ျပန္႔ေအာင္လုိ႔ က်မတုိ႔ ဆက္ၿပီးေတာ့ ႀကိဳးစားသြားရမယ္။

အဲဒီေတာ့ က်မဒီမွာ ခပ္တုိတုိနဲ႔ပဲေျပာပါရေစ။ ေပးအပ္ခဲ့တဲ့ …အခုေပးတဲ့ တာ၀န္ေတြကုိ ေက်ပြန္ေအာင္လုိ႔က်မႀကိဳးစား ပါ့မယ္။ ဒီလုိႀကိဳးစားတဲ့ေနရာမွာ ၀ုိင္းၿပီးေတာ့ ကူညီေပးၾကပါ။ အၾကံဉာဏ္ေပးၾကပါ။သေဘာမတူရင္လည္းသေဘာမတူ ဘူးလုိ႔ ေျပာၾကပါ။ ေနာက္ၿပီးေတာ့ ဘာျဖစ္လုိ႔သေဘာမတူတာလဲ။ က်မလုပ္ပုံကုိင္ပုံကို သေဘာ မတူလို႔ဆိုရင္ဘာျဖစ္လုိ႔ သေဘာမတူတာလဲဆုိတာကို ေျပာၾကပါ။ က်မက အဲဒီဘာျဖစ္လုိ႔ဆုိတဲ့ဟာ ...ေမးခြန္းက အင္မတန္အေရးႀကီးတယ္လုိ႔ ထင္ပါတယ္။ မႀကိဳက္ဘူးလုိ႔ ေျပာ႐ုံနဲ႔မရဘူး။ ႀကိဳက္တယ္လုိ႔ေျပာ႐ုံနဲ႔လည္းမရဘူး။ ကုိယ့္မွာ အေၾကာင္းအခ်က္ခုိင္ခုိင္မာ မာရွိရမယ္။အဲဒီေတာ့မွလည္း တဘက္ကနားလည္ႏုိင္မယ္။ ဘယ္လုိျပဳျပင္ရမလဲ၊ဘာျဖစ္လုိ႔ ျပဳျပင္သင့္သလဲဆုိ တာကို သေဘာေပါက္မယ္။ အဲဒီေတာ့ဒီတာ၀န္ထမ္းေဆာင္ဖုိ႔အတြက္က်မတုိ႔ ၀ါရင့္ႏုိင္ငံေရးသမားႀကီးမ်ားျဖစ္ၾကတဲ့ လူႀကီးမ်ား၊ က်မတုိ႔ရဲ႕အသက္အရြယ္ က်မနဲ႔ တမ်ဳိးဆက္တည္း ျဖစ္တဲ့ပုဂၢဳိလ္မ်ား၊ ေနာက္ၿပီးေတာ့ က်မတုိ႔ထက္ငယ္တဲ့ ၈၈မ်ဳိး ဆက္လုိ႔ပဲဆုိပါေတာ့ လူလတ္ပုိင္း၊ ေနာက္ၿပီးေတာ့ တက္သစ္စျဖစ္တဲ့ လူငယ္ပုိင္းေတြဟာ အားလုံး၀ုိင္းၿပီးေတာ့ကူညီၾက ပါ။အားလုံး ၀ုိင္းၿပီးေတာ့လုပ္ၾကပါ။ အားလုံးရဲ႕တာ၀န္ဟာ တေယာက္ခ်င္းတေယာက္ခ်င္းရဲ႕တာ၀န္ျဖစ္တယ္ဆုိတဲ့ စိတ္ဓာတ္ကုိ ထားေစခ်င္တယ္။ က်မတုိ႔မွာ အားနည္းခ်က္ေတြရွိလုိ႔ရွိရင္ အားနည္းခ်က္ဟာလည္း လူတုိင္းနဲ႔ဆုိင္ တယ္။ ေအာင္ျမင္မႈဟာလည္း လူတုိင္းနဲ႔ဆုိင္တယ္ဆုိတဲ့ စိတ္ကုိထားခ်င္ပါတယ္။ တခ်ဳိ႕က်ေတာ့ အားနည္းခ်က္ဆုိရင္ေတာ့ ငါနဲ႔ မဆုိင္ဘူး။

ေအာင္ျမင္မႈဆုိေတာ့ ဒုိ႔ပဲ..ဒုိ႔ပဲဆုိတာ " ဒါႀကီးကေတာ့မျဖစ္ဘူးေနာ္။ အဲဒီစိတ္ဓာတ္ကုိေတာ့ က်မတုိ႔ဖယ္ရွားရမယ္။ ဒါဟာပုဂၢဳိလ္တဦးတေယာက္ခ်င္းဟာလည္း ဒီလုိစိတ္ဓာတ္ထားရမယ္။ အဖြဲ႔အစည္းတခုခ်င္းကလည္းအဲလုိစိတ္ဓာတ္ ထားရမယ္။ အဲေတာ့ က်မတုိ႔လုပ္တာေအာင္ျမင္ရင္ ဒုိ႔ အန္အယ္လ္ဒီကြလုိ႔ အဲလုိေျပာ တာဟာအင္မတန္မွ မွားတယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ တခ်ဳိ႕က်ေတာ့လည္း က်မတုိ႔ ဒီႏုိင္ငံေရးနဲ႔ပတ္သက္လုိ႔ လုပ္တာေတြဟာ သိပ္အားမရဘူးဆုိရင္ အဲဒါ

အန္အယ္လ္ဒီပဲဆုိၿပီးေတာ့ လက္ညဳိးထုိးတာလည္းရွိတယ္။ အဲဒီႏွစ္ခုစလုံးက မမွန္ဘူး။ မမွန္ဘူး။ အားလုံးတကယ္ပဲ က်မတုိ႔ဒီတုိင္းျပည္မွာ စစ္မွန္တဲ့ စိတ္ဓာတ္ေတာ္လွန္ေရးႀကီးကုိ ေအာင္ေအာင္ျမင္ျမင္လုပ္ခ်င္တယ္ ဆုိရင္အားနည္းခ်က္ ေတြကုိလည္း အားလုံးနဲ႔ဆုိင္တယ္ ဆုိတဲ့ စိတ္ဓာတ္ထားရမယ္။

ေအာင္ျမင္ခ်က္ေတြကုိလည္း အားလုံးနဲ႔ဆုိင္တယ္ဆုိတဲ့ စိတ္ဓာတ္ကုိ ထားရမယ္။ ဒါဟာ တကယ့္ကုိညီညြတ္ေရးရဲ႕ အေျခခံပါပဲ။ဒီေတာ့ က်မတုိ႔ ပင္လုံစိတ္ဓာတ္ကုိ ထူေထာင္ႏုိင္ရင္ က်မတုိ႔တုိင္းရင္းသားအားလုံး ... က်မတုိင္းရင္းသား ထဲမွာ ဗမာကုိပါ ထည့္ၿပီးေတာ့ေျပာလုိက္မယ္။ ဗမာနဲ႔တုိင္းရင္းသားဆုိတာ ဒါေျပာစရာမလုိဘူး။ က်မ တုိ႔လည္း တုိင္းရင္းသားလူမ်ဳိးပဲ။ ဒီထဲက တုိင္းရင္းသားတစုပဲ။

အဲဒီေတာ့ က်မတုိ႔တုိင္းရင္းသားအားလုံးရဲ႕ လုပ္ေဆာင္ခ်က္ေၾကာင့္ ေအာင္ျမင္တယ္ဆုိတာကုိပဲ က်မတုိ႔ ေရွ႕႐ႈၿပီးေတာ့ ႀကိဳးစားသြားပါ့မယ္လုိ႔ … က်မ … ကတိျပဳတယ္ပဲေျပာ ပါရေစ။ က်မ … က်မကတိ သိပ္ၿပီးေတာ့ လည္း မေပးခ်င္ဘူး။ ကတိဆုိတာ ေသခ်ာတည္ႏုိင္တယ္ဆုိတဲ့ဟာကုိ အာမခံခ်က္ရွိမွ။ အဲဒီေတာ့ က်မ လုပ္ႏုိင္သေလာက္လုပ္သြားပါ့မယ္။ က်မ တတ္ႏုိင္သေလာက္ဒီတာ၀န္ကုိေက်ပြန္ ေအာင္ လုပ္သြားပါ့မယ္လုိ႔ပဲ ေျပာပါရေစ။ အားလုံးကုိေက်းဇူးတင္ပါတယ္။



VOB ပါ 17-11-2010 ရက္ေန႕က UNLD, UNA တိုင္းရင္းသားေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ားႏွင့္ေတြ႕ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးစဥ္ ေျပာၾကားခဲ့ေသာ မိန္႕ခြန္းကို ျပန္လည္ေကာက္ႏႈတ္ေဖၚျပသည္။

ပါတီဥကၠဌ ဦးေကာင္းျမင့္ထြဋ္ ( အလယ္တြင္ တိုက္ပံုႏွင့္ထိုင္ေနသူ)

Wikileaks စာမ်က္ႏွာတြင္ပါရွိေသာ ျမန္မာ့အေရးကိစၥမ်ား မူရင္း အတိုင္းေဖၚျပပါသည္ (၁၀)

       ျမန္မာအစိုးရ၏ ညဴ အစီအစဥ္ႏွင့္ပတ္သက္ေသာ ၾကိဳးပမ္းမႈျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ထိုအစီအစဥ္မ်ားသာ အေကာင္အထည္ေဖၚႏိုင္လွ်င္ တိုင္းျပည္၏ ေျမေအာက္သယံဇာတမ်ား အားလံုးဆံုးရံႈးဖြယ္ျဖစ္ႏိုင္ပါသည္။

Tuesday, 10 November 2009, 09:35

S E C R E T RANGOON 000732

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EAP/MLS, INR/EAP

PACOM FOR FPA

EO 12958 DECL: 11/10/2019

TAGS KNNP, PARM, PREL, NPT, PGOV, PINR, KN, BM

SUBJECT: BURMA: ANOTHER CONVERSATION ABOUT BURMA-DPRK

NUCLEAR ISSUE

REF: RANGOON 502

Classified By: CDA Larry Dinger for Reasons 1.4 (b) & (d)

¶1. (S) [NAME REMOVED] , who on [DETAILS REMOVED] informed Australian Ambassador Chan in Rangoon that Burma and the DPRK were engaged in “peaceful nuclear cooperation” (reftel), has changed [DETAILS REMOVED] story. In a November 9 conversation with Ambassador Chan, [NAME REMOVED] said there had been a “misunderstanding.” After Chan’s “blunt” response to the August revelation (Chan had responded with incredulity to the thought that the GOB might consider nuclear cooperation of any sort with the DPRK to be acceptable), [NAME REMOVED] had checked around Nay Pyi Taw. [DETAILS REMOVED] now says GOB-DPRK conversations were merely “exploratory.” [NAME REMOVED] cannot confirm any direct nuclear cooperation. [DETAILS REMOVED] added that, in any case, the Kang Nam 1 affair and Secretary Clinton’s remarks in Phuket in July “put everything on hold.”

¶2. (S)[NAME REMOVED] observed that Russia is the key GOB partner for a nuclear reactor, but [DETAILS REMOVED] said there has been no progress. Russia has proposed a commercial deal, and the GOB cannot afford it. [NAME REMOVED] added that many countries have relations with the DPRK, including Australia, “so why worry?!”

Comment

-------

¶3. (S) As with many issues in Burma, the truth behind and possible motivations for [NAME REMOVED] first version and the recent revision are difficult to ascertain. Ambassador Chan now believes [DETAILS REMOVED] was simply speculating in August and has corrected the record. We were not in the actual conversations, but to us [DETAILS REMOVED] revision sounds more like an effort to cover a lapse in judgment than to deny the earlier story outright. The comment about the Kang Nam 1 and the Secretary’s remarks having “put everything on hold” leave room for concern. That noted, other of [NAME REMOVED] comments have caused us to question just how well plugged in [NAME REMOVED] is on the “nuclear” issue. Bottom line: GOB-DPRK cooperation remains opaque. Something is certainly happening; whether that something includes “nukes” is a very open question which remains a very high priority for Embassy reporting. DINGER

Wikileaks စာမ်က္ႏွာတြင္ပါရွိေသာ ျမန္မာ့အေရးကိစၥမ်ား မူရင္း အတိုင္းေဖၚျပပါသည္ (၉)

          ပြဲစားအခ်ိဳ.မွအေမရိကန္အပါအ၀င္သံရံုးမ်ားသို.ယူေရနီယမ္သတၳဳကုန္ၾကမ္းမ်ားေရာင္းရန္ၾကိဳးစားမႈကိုေလ့လာႏိုင္ပါသည္။

Tuesday, 23 September 2008, 08:59

S E C R E T RANGOON 000749

SIPDIS

FOR STATE ISN/CTR AND PM/ISO/PMAT (24/7)

DEPT PLEASE PASS TO DEPT OF ENERGY

EO 12958 DECL: 09/23/2018

TAGS KNNP, MNUC, PARM, KCRM, PTER, ASEC, KCOR, BM

SUBJECT: BURMESE CIVILIAN OFFERS TO SELL PURPORTED URANIUM

238 TO U.S. EMBASSY RANGOON, BURMA

REF: A. 2007 STATE 162091 B. USDAO RANGOON IIR 6 812 0131 08

Classified By: CDA Larry Dinger for Reasons 1.4 (b and d)

¶1. (S//REL to USA, ACGU) Per Ref A, Post is alerting the Department and Washington agencies that on XXXXXXXXXXXX after USDAO Rangoon received guidance from DIA, a Burmese civilian met with members of USDAO Rangoon and offered to sell Uranium-238. The individual had initially contacted the USDAO eight days prior with the offer. The individual provided a small bottle half-filled with metallic powder and a photocopied certificate of testing from a Chinese university dated 1992 as verification of the radioactive nature of the powder. During XXXXXXXXXXXX interview, the individual claimed to be able to provide up to 2000 kg of uranium-bearing rock from a location in Kayah State XXXXXXXXXXXX , and further stated if the U.S. was not interested in purchasing the uranium, he and his associates would try to sell it to other countries, beginning with Thailand. See Ref B for further information.

¶2. (S//REL TO USA, ACGU) Details of the incident follow, keyed to questions in Ref A:

A) (S//REL to USA, ACGU) Current location of the material: Sample bottle is in transit via classified Diplomatic Pouch to Aberdeen Proving Grounds via DIA.

B) (S//REL to USA, ACGU) Transportation status of material: sample bottle in transit through diplomatic courier service. The sample was wrapped in several layers and placed inside multiple containers, including glass, lead, and wooden boxes/crates. Following instructions from DIA headquarters, USDAO has sent the package via Diplomatic Pouch to Aberdeen Proving Grounds, through DIA, 3100 Clarendon, Arlington, VA. The box is marked “Secret.” Dimensions are 16 X 16 X 8 inches. Embassy Rangoon assesses that the host nation is currently unaware of USDAO receipt and shipment of the material. However, the possibility cannot be dismissed that rather than a sale for profit, the seller is attempting to assist in executing a government entrapment scheme.

C) (S//REL to USA, ACGU) As noted, Post assesses that the Burmese government is currently unaware of USDAO receipt and shipment of the sample. Burmese authorities would likely seize any additional samples or stocks of the material if aware of their existence.

D) (S//REL to USA, ACGU) Sample is in transit by commercial air via Diplomatic Pouch.

E) (S//REL to USA, ACGU) Intended destination of material: The subject indicated his first choice for a possible buyer of the alleged uranium is the United States, via the Embassy in Rangoon. Other stated options include the Thai and Chinese Embassies. His intent appears to be to sell the material in Rangoon. Subject made no mention of intent to move material across borders.

F) Unknown.

G - J) (S//NF) Subject identified himself as XXXXXXXXXXXX .

(S//REL TO USA, ACGU) The subject brought with him a small bottle weighing 1.8 ounces and measuring 70 mm long by 26 mm in diameter, which was half-filled with a grey metallic powder. He claimed the material in question was Uranium-238 in powder form. The subject claims to represent a small group that wants to sell uranium to the U.S. Embassy. According to the subject, he has 50 kilograms of uranium-containing rock or ore at an undisclosed location in Rangoon, which is stored in a barrel that prevents the radioactivity from being toxic XXXXXXXXXXXX . He estimates there are at least 2000 more kilograms that could be dug up from the

site in Kayah State. The uranium was only recently brought to Rangoon (subject would not give a specific time frame). The subject claimed the uranium was discovered in Kayah state in 1992. XXXXXXXXXXXX

(S//REL TO USA, ACGU) The subject claimed XXXXXXXXXXXX know about the uranium. XXXXXXXXXXXX

K) N/A.

L) N/A.

M) (S//REL TO USA, ACGU) Interview occurred in a consular interview room (used for walk-ins) at the U.S. Embassy Rangoon.

N) Additional details: Ref B contains all other available information related to this incident.

¶3. (SBU) XXXXXXXXXXXX

DINGER

Wikileaks စာမ်က္ႏွာတြင္ပါရွိေသာ ျမန္မာ့အေရးကိစၥမ်ား မူရင္း အတိုင္းေဖၚျပပါသည္ (၈)

        စီးပြားေရးပိတ္ဆို.မႈသည္ အျခားေသာ ၾကီးမားသည့္ ကုန္သြယ္ဘက္ႏိုင္ငံမ်ား ရွိေနသ၍ အလုပ္မျဖစ္ႏိုင္ေၾကာင္း ၊ အင္ အယ္ ဒီမွ Elderly Uncle မ်ား၏ အလုပ္မျဖစ္မႈ ၊ ၈၈ ေက်ာင္းသား အခ်ိဳ.၏ သေဘာထား၊ အင္အယ္ဒီ၏ အလုပ္မျဖစ္မႈေၾကာင့္ ၂၀၁၀ အားျဖတ္သန္းျခင္း စသည္ျဖင့္ေလ့လာႏိုင္ပါသည္။

Monday, 14 July 2008, 06:56

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 RANGOON 000557

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EAP/MLS, DRL, AND IO

PACOM FOR FPA

EO 12958 DECL: 07/13/2018

TAGS PGOV, PREL, PHUM, BM

SUBJECT: CONTINUING THE PURSUIT OF DEMOCRACY IN BURMA

RANGOON 00000557 001.2 OF 004

Classified By: P/E Chief Leslie Hayden for Reasons 1.4 (b) & (d)

¶1. (SBU) Embassy Rangoon pol/econ chief departs Post this week after ending a two-year tour that saw the largest political uprising in Burma in twenty years, the arrest and imprisonment of the pro-democracy opposition’s most talented leaders, and the worst natural disaster in Burma’s recorded history. We asked her to share her candid observations on the current political situation, and her recommendations on how best to advance our democratic goals.

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

The Senior Generals

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

¶2. (C) The Burma army remains firmly in control throughout most of the country, with Senior General Than Shwe retaining almost absolute power. He has the final word on all significant political and economic decisions. While outsiders may portray him as an uneducated, crass, and blundering man, he has successfully consolidated and held onto power for several years, while at the same time building lucrative relationships with his energy hungry neighbors that undermine Western efforts to cripple his regime.

¶3. (C) The generals keep their power through a vast system of economic patronage, not unlike a Western style Mafia. Military-owned enterprises control every profit-making natural resource and industry in the country. Economic prosperity can only be enjoyed by rising thorough the ranks of the Army, or having extremely close ties to the senior generals. This is why China’s urging to the generals to begin reforming Burma’s economy falls on deaf ears. Economic liberalization and reform would require the generals to dismantle the very system that ensures their power. Dismantling this system will be one of the biggest challenges for any future democratic leader of Burma.

¶4. (C) Rumors of splits at the top of the regime are the result of uninformed analysis and wishful thinking of the exiles and outside observers. While the senior generals may disagree from time-to-time amongst themselves (as witnessed after Nargis), they follow the orders of Than Shwe. The senior generals are keenly aware that if they do not stand together, they will fall together. True democratic change will not likely happen until the top two generals, Than Shwe and Maung Aye, are off the scene. Both are extremely concerned for the safety and financial security of themselves and their families. Third-ranking general Thura Shwe Mann is rumored to be Than Shwe’s pick for Burma’s President in 2010, but if Than Shwe and Maung Aye are still alive, they will likely pull his strings from behind the scenes. Sources close to Thura Shwe Mann tell us he is smart, sophisticated, and well-aware of Burma’s problems. Some talented Burmese intellectuals and political dissidents tell us they pass him policy papers that are reportedly solicited on his behalf. However, he is intimately involved in Burma’s corruption, primarily through his sons’ business interests.

¶5. (C) Several of our sources close to high and mid-ranking military officers tell us that some of the regional commanders are reform-minded and aware of the need for political and economic reform. However, most of the military believe that working within Burma’s current military system is the only way to bring about this change while maintaining stability. While some officers begrudgingly respect Aung San Suu Kyi, they do not sympathize with the pro-democracy opposition in general. We should not expect an imminent coup to save us from the hard-line senior generals.

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

Aung San Suu Kyi and the Pro-Democracy Movement

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

¶6. (C) Since the September protests, the most dynamic and talented leaders of Burma’s pro-democracy movement have been jailed, left the country, or remain in hiding. Tellingly, the NLD remain free. While many outside Burma perpetuate the

RANGOON 00000557 002.2 OF 004

impression of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party as a large movement with massive support waiting to take the Parliamentary seats they won in the 1990 election, the reality is quite different. Without a doubt, Aung San Suu Kyi remains a popular and beloved figure of the Burman majority, but this status is not enjoyed by her party. Already frustrated with the sclerotic leadership of the elderly NLD “Uncles”, the party lost even more credibility within the pro-democracy movement when its leaders refused to support the demonstrators last September, and even publicly criticized them.

¶7. (C) Many of the younger political activists are turning away from the NLD and preparing to run in the 2010 parliamentary elections, to effect political change any way they can. This includes members of 88 Generation. There is reportedly an ongoing, heated debate among the 88 Generation leaders in Insein prison on whether or not the groups’ members should contest the election, with Ko Ko Gyi advocating members do so, and Min Ko Naing opting for a boycott. Those who want to run tell us they do not agree with the new constitution and despise the regime’s roadmap to democracy. However, with the absence of any alternative, they see the new Parliament as a possible mechanism for dialogue between the military, the pro-democracy opposition, and the ethnic cease-fire groups.

¶8. (C) The way the Uncles run the NLD indicates the party is not the last great hope for democracy and Burma. The Party is strictly hierarchical, new ideas are not solicited or encouraged from younger members, and the Uncles regularly expel members they believe are “too active.” NLD youth repeatedly complain to us they are frustrated with the party leaders. Repeated overtures from and “summits” with the leaders of the 88 Generation in 2007 failed to result in any significant cooperation between the factions. Indeed, lack of unity among the pro-democracy opposition remains one of the biggest obstacles to democratic change in Burma.

¶9. (C) The “Uncles” have repeatedly rebuffed the most dynamic and creative members of the pro-democracy opposition, who reinvigorated the pro-democracy movement throughout 2006 and 2007 by strategically working to promote change through grass-roots human rights and political awareness and highlighting the regime’s economic mismanagement. Nor has the party made any effort to join forces with the technically sophisticated bloggers and young, internet-savvy activists, who have been so clever at getting out the images which repeatedly damaged the regime and undermined its international credibility. Instead, the Uncles spend endless hours discussing their entitlements from the 1990 elections and abstract policy which they are in no position to enact. XXXXXXXXXXXX Additionally, most MPs-elect show little concern for the social and economic plight of most Burmese, and therefore, most Burmese regard them as irrelevant.

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

The Ethnic Cease-Fire Groups

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

¶10. (C) The cease-fire groups remain an important component of Burma’s future political stability and it is noteworthy that none have chosen to support Aung San Suu Kyi and her party. Instead, they have entered dialogue with the regime, at the same time cutting lucrative concession deals for many of groups’ leaders. However, many leaders of the cease-fire groups have told us they would cast their lot with whomever best looked out for their interests. However badly the regime does this, the NLD has repeatedly missed opportunities to reach out to the cease-fire groups to demonstrate that they would. Instead, it has consistently issued statements calling for a dialogue between the NLD and regime first, before the ethnic cease-fire groups are brought into the mix. They have also continually feuded with ethnic MPs-elect on the Committee to Represent the People’s Parliament (CRPP).

RANGOON 00000557 003.2 OF 004

¶11. (C) It is these long-held ethnic tensions that has kept the cease-fire groups from defecting from their dialogue with the regime to form an alliance with the NLD. Many of Burma’s neighbors, including China, are aware of the tension between the NLD and the ethnic nationalities. The NLD’s continuing alienation of the ethnic minority groups gives credence to the regime’s most effective argument with its neighbors and ASEAN: that the military is the only force capable of guaranteeing stability in Burma.

¶12. (C) The recent statement Aung San Suu Kyi released through UN Special Envoy Gambari indicated she is aware of this problem and wants to rectify it. The overture she offered to the ethnic nationalities was welcomed by the cease-fire group leaders with whom we spoke. But her party failed to follow up on her initiative and issued only a half-hearted invitation for the ethnic leaders to visit them at NLD headquarters in Rangoon. Once again, they reduced the role of the ethnics to second-class supplicants. The timing of ASSK’s statement was strategic: just before the referendum on a constitution, which many of the cease-fire groups were unhappy with because the regime had failed to include key compromises promised by former PM Khin Nyunt before his ouster. A genuine overture from the NLD offered the best chance yet to split the cease-fire groups from the regime and undermine its credibility with its regional supporters. The Uncles failed to use this opportunity, so the cease-fire groups continue their relationship with the regime.

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

Where do We Go From Here?

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

¶13. (C) Throughout the country, there is still widespread and growing frustration with the regime for its brutal and incompetent rule. Though most Burmese do not believe the NLD will be able to bring about democratic change, at least while ASSK is under house arrest, they have not given up on working for democracy. Instead, they are taking matters into their own hands and creatively working in what space is available to improve the lives of their communities.

¶14. (C) Like the many community-based organizations (CBOs), religious organizations, and civil society groups that responded to Cyclone Nargis while the international community was shut out, many dissidents and ordinary Burmese are creatively trying to incorporate democratic principles into their civil society programs, including private-tuition schools, environmental programs, health education, and religious organizations. Through this process, change will come about more slowly than most want, but it is a channel that functions where most other options were shut down by the regime after the September 2007 demonstrations. It is also a method that promotes change from the grass roots, teaching community responsibility at the local level, rather than a top-down movement by the urban, intellectual elite. A strong civil society is something we should seek and encourage in Burma. It will make any democratic transition in Burma more likely to succeed.

¶15. (C) Ending Burma’s isolation will also be integral to any successful long-term change in the country. No matter how democratic transition comes about in Burma, the military will be involved given its vast control over the political and economic structures of the country. We should make an effort to seek out and speak with the more progressive military officers and to those who have access to the senior generals. Their hostility to democratic change is motivated by paranoia and distrust of the West, and a belief that we seek to punish them and obliterate a significant role for them in Burma’s future. If we want to counter this, we should pursue dialogue directly with them rather than through intermediaries who can sometimes garble messages.

¶16. (C) If we do decide to speak with the generals again, we should do it strategically. Dialogue could be used as a tool to bring the generals into the twenty-first century.

RANGOON 00000557 004.2 OF 004

Discussions could take place on the margins of international fora, exposing them to the outside world and its diplomatic norms, juxtaposing Burma’s backwardness against the modern world, which could cause greater realization among the generals about their country’s lack of development. Careful preparation could be made before such events to make sure Burma’s neighbors send the same messages to the generals during their bilateral meetings. Such unity of message was extremely effective in persuading the regime to open up to international assistance after Cyclone Nargis.

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

Give a Little, Get a Little

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

¶17. (C) While our economic sanctions give us the moral high-ground, they are largely ineffective because they are not comprehensive. Burma’s biggest client states refuse to participate in them. However, the generals despise the sanctions and want them removed because they challenge the regime’s legitimacy. If we really want to see the generals make progress, we need to show them what they will get in return. This means being willing to gradually remove sanctions in exchange for true steps toward dialogue and political change.

¶18. (C) We should start small and hold them to real action (unlike the sham dialogue they purported to initiate with Aung San Suu Kyi last November). If they do make concrete progress, we should be ready to offer them something. For instance, removing them from Tier 3 on the Trafficking in Persons rankings, or taking them off the Narcotics Majors list, areas where the regime has actually made some progress. This should be a gradual process that would be based only on the condition of concrete results. Large rewards should come only with large compromises, such as lifting the visa ban if they release Aung San Suu Kyi. We may also want to consider putting security guarantees on the table for the most senior generals and their families if we are serious about removing them from the scene. As we move toward the 2010 parliamentary elections, it may be a strategic time to begin talks with them about such an agreement. Allowing international election monitors, lifting laws that restrict free and fair debate, and freeing key political prisoners could be tied to lifting specific sanctions.

¶19. (C) While talking to the generals may be unpalatable, their firm control over Burma and the weakness of the pro-democracy opposition are a reality we must consider when working to promote change in Burma. The prospect for democratic change in the near future is low, but despite the setbacks after the September demonstrations, there is hope change may eventually come. After many years of waiting for the outside world to help free them from the generals’ despotic rule, many Burmese are finding creative ways to take control of their country through community-based organizations and building the capacity of civil society. Through these organizations, leaders may emerge who will run in the 2010 elections and work for democratic change.

¶20. (C) We should seek every opportunity to support and increase the capacity of Burma’s nascent civil society by expanding humanitarian assistance inside the country that promotes self-reliance, conflict resolution, and respect for human rights. Such a policy will have the added benefit of expanding our influence and increasing our access throughout the country. Not only will this approach increase our knowledge of the subtle changes occurring inside Burma, but it will strengthen our position and influence inside when change does come, so we can assist the Burmese to reform their political and economic systems in a manner that best promotes U.S. economic and strategic interests. Above all, our Burma policy should be focused on helping those Burmese who are working to bring about democratic change themselves, for that is the only way it can realistically come. VILLAROSA

Wikileaks စာမ်က္ႏွာတြင္ပါရွိေသာ ျမန္မာ့အေရးကိစၥမ်ား မူရင္း အတိုင္းေဖၚျပပါသည္ (၇)

          တရုပ္ပါ၀င္ေသာ ျမန္မာ့အေရးႏွင့္ပတ္သက္သည့္ သတင္းေပးပို.ခ်က္မ်ားျဖစ္ပါသည္။

VZCZCXRO5943

PP RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHHM RUEHNH

DE RUEHGO #0044/01 0181034

ZNY CCCCC ZZH

P 181034Z JAN 08

FM AMEMBASSY RANGOON

TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7059

INFO RUCNASE/ASEAN MEMBER COLLECTIVE

RUEHGG/UN SECURITY COUNCIL COLLECTIVE

RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 0842

RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 4402

RUEHUL/AMEMBASSY SEOUL 7933

RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 5494

RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC

RHHMUNA/CDR USPACOM HONOLULU HI

RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 1282

RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC

RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC

Friday, 18 January 2008, 10:34

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 RANGOON 000044

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR P, EAP/MLS AND IO

PACOM FOR FPA

EO 12958 DECL: 01/16/2018

TAGS PGOV, PREL, BM

SUBJECT: CHINESE LOSING PATIENCE WITH BURMA

Classified By: CDA Shari Villarosa for Reasons 1.4 (b) & (d)

¶1. (C) Summary: Charge hosted the Chinese Ambassador for lunch on January 17. We discussed the lack of political dialogue and the need for all countries to speak with one voice to persuade the generals to start talking and quit dragging their feet. The Chinese Ambassador no longer tried to defend the regime, and acknowledged that the generals had made a bad situation worse. The Chinese have used their access to the generals to push for change, without much observable result, but remain interested in working with us to promote change. The Ambassador indicated that fear of losing power and economic interests may be the key obstacles keeping the generals away from the negotiating table. End Summary.

Chinese Fed Up

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

¶2. (C) Ambassador Guan Mu no longer tries to defend the regime as making any progress on political dialogue. He admitted that he did not know why the dialogue apparently stopped last November, although he added that some in the senior leadership understand that they must open up to the outside world. He acknowledged that accurate information about the current situation does not get passed up to the senior levels. Although claiming that it was un-Buddhist for monks to become involved in politics, Guan agreed that the monks’ involvement indicated how bad the situation had become in Burma. He pointed out the designated liaison officer met with Aung San Suu Kyi last week after a two-month hiatus, but quickly admitted that this gap was “too long.” Charge pointed to Senior General Than Shwe as the main obstacle to moving forward. The Ambassador responded that he believed that Than Shwe would be ready to open up in a few more years. The Burmese people can’t wait that long, the Charge warned, stressing that further delays would only increase the possibility of further turmoil.

¶3. (C) Ambassador Guan stated the various Chinese officials traveling to Burma have counseled the senior generals to speed up the political dialogue and warned them that the international community would not accept any backtracking. He agreed that the various parties just needed to start talking, and urged us to offer positive, constructive comments. Charge said “start talking now” was very constructive advice, and real dialogue would be welcomed by the whole world. If the generals were serious about a dialogue, they should be meeting everyday, not just with Aung San Suu Kyi, but with ethnic leaders, and other interested citizens as well. A one hour meeting with one person after two months was just for show, claimed the Charge, not serious. In addition, she continued, the regime has not permitted ASSK to meet with anyone else. The regime should be easing the restrictions on her, so she can get advice and counsel from a wide variety of people.

Control vs. Turmoil

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

¶4. (C) Guan cited two concerns that might be hindering the political dialogue from getting started: losing power and economic interests. Guan suggested, if the senior leaders could be offered assurances that they would not “lose their lives” and could keep their economic interests, they might be more amenable to ceding power gradually. He implied that the economic interests were of higher priority for the generals and their families. Charge replied that this could all be negotiated, reiterating the need to get started now. If turmoil breaks out as people’s frustration continues to grow, there might be nothing left to negotiate, she added.

¶5. (C) The generals want to stick to their roadmap, stated Guan. Charge suggested that they could still call it a roadmap while increasing participation at each of the remaining steps, including the current constitution drafting. Even though this might slow the roadmap process, she said it could produce more broadly accepted results in the end, which would be better for all. The roadmap process as it is will

RANGOON 00000044 002 OF 003

not deliver the stability that everyone wants to see, the Charge said, because it does not incorporate provisions the pro-democracy supporters and ethnic minorities want to see. Instead of taking credit for speeding up the roadmap as he has in previous meetings, Guan nodded in agreement. He repeated the Chinese interest in stability. Charge said more demonstrations were likely in the coming months if the people saw no signs a genuine dialogue was underway. She expressed confidence that many issues could be easily resolved, if the various parties just started talking and kept talking.

¶6. (C) Guan acknowledged that the regime has done nothing to improve the lives of the Burmese people, even though they recieved increased oil and gas revenues. He recognized that the huge increase in satellite fees will further turn the public against the military. Charge characterized the latter as an attempt to keep people from the news, but also effectively blocking them from some of their few escapes--soccer and Korean soap operas. Guan mentioned that China had learned that when the government tried to press down too hard, it increased the likelihood of an eruption; he understood the risks of more turmoil in Burma.

¶7. (C) Guan questioned whether democracy could work in Burma citing the experience of their first decade of independence and Ne Win’s efforts to promote a democratic transition in 1988. Charge explained that many nations went through the same struggles after independence, and reminded Guan that it was the current generals who blocked a transition in 1988. The Burmese have learned from the past, according to the Charge, if they have a voice in deciding their political future then they will have an interest in maintaining stability. Guan said there were some issues that were inappropriate for outsiders to decide, like sexual problems in a family. Charge agreed saying the role of the outsiders should be in persuading the parties to talk; what they talked about and the decisions they came to was up to them. Charge urged China to join with the U.S. in urging genuine talks get started now and keep going until a more broadly acceptable way forward can be agreed upon by all the relevant parties of Burma.

Meet the USDA, not the NLD

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

¶8. (C) Charge noted that the most recent Chinese visitor had spent a lot of time with Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA-the regime’s mass member organization) members. Guan described He Luli as a senior official from one of China’s eight political parties, and of the People’s Congress. Guan did not believe that her meetings meant USDA was preparing to formally become a political party. He noted that while USDA claimed 24 million members, 60% were under the age of 18, so could not vote. Charge asked if the He met with the National League of Democracy (NLD), and Guan quickly replied that the “government would not permit that,” referring to the Burmese government.

¶9. (C) Charge mentioned that the Foreign Ministry had complained that we visited NLD “excessively” and asked if the Chinese had been called in. He smiled, shook his head no, and asked if Charge visited NLD. Yes, she replied, adding she would be pleased to introduce the Ambassador to NLD members. He said he received a letter from U Aung Shwe, the NLD Chairman, requesting a meeting, had not scheduled anything, but shook their hands when he encountered them at National Day receptions. He noted that the Foreign Ministry did not prohibit Charge from seeing NLD, just advised against too many visits. Charge said we would go on meeting with NLD regularly since they were always willing to talk with us, unlike the government. Guan stated that Chinese officials had recommended to senior leaders that they meet with Charge, and said Than Shwe had told the Chinese Vice Foreign Minister that he would.

¶10. (C) Comment: The Chinese clearly are fed up with the footdragging by the Than Shwe regime. While democracy, demonstrations, and politically active monks make them nervous, they recognize that the risks of further turmoil are

RANGOON 00000044 003 OF 003

increasing so long as the generals refuse to talk. This turmoil will inevitably affect Chinese business interests here, making them more amenable to our approaches regarding Burma in the interests of promoting stability. The Chinese can no longer rely on the generals to protect their interests here, and recognize the need to broker some solution that keeps the peace, including bringing in the pro-democracy supporters. Those discussions need to get started now. The generals no doubt fear for their futures, so some quiet assurances of protection might help bring them to the negotiating table. The Chinese share our desire to get them to the negotiating table. The Chinese Ambassador has made clear his continuing interest in working together with us. VILLAROSA

Wikileaks စာမ်က္ႏွာတြင္ပါရွိေသာ ျမန္မာ့အေရးကိစၥမ်ား မူရင္း အတိုင္းေဖၚျပပါသည္ (၆)

          တရုပ္ျပည္သို. ယူေရနီယမ္ကုန္ၾကမ္းတင္ပို.မႈျဖစ္ပါသည္။

Tuesday, 30 January 2007, 10:23

S E C R E T RANGOON 000105

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR EAP/MLS, EAP/RSP

EO 12958 DECL: 01/11/2017

TAGS PARM, PREL, ETTC, MNUC, BM, CH

SUBJECT: BURMA XXXXXXXXXXXX REPORT SENSITIVE SHIPMENT

Classified By: Econoff TLManlowe for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

¶1. (S) Summary: Embassy contacts XXXXXXXXXXXX shared with us on XXXXXXXXXXXX documents for 112 metric tons of “mixed ore” shipped on January 25 from Burma to China via Singapore. XXXXXXXXXXXX noticed that authorities treated the shipment as highly sensitive, and suspect it may have included uranium. Our contact had no direct evidence to support this claim. End summary.

¶2. (S) XXXXXXXXXXXX, told emboffs that XXXXXXXXXXXX informed him they were suspicious about the behavior of authorities when handling a January 25 shipment of mixed ore from Rangoon. According XXXXXXXXXXXX, security was tighter than usual, surveillance was heavier, and officials paid closer attention to the movement of the shipment and activity at the port. XXXXXXXXXXXX also claimed that metals are usually exported in blocks, whereas the bags in this shipment were filled with loose earth and mud. The source of the mixed ore, Maw Chi, is also a source for uranium, they claimed. XXXXXXXXXXXX said the destination in China, Fang Chen, and the shipping line, Advance Container Lines, were unusual for routine ore shipments. Shipments normally go to other ports in China via Myanmar Five Star Line, the government-owned shipping line, according to them. The shipper, Myanmar Ruby Enterprise, is a joint venture, 30% owned by the Ministry of Mines. XXXXXXXXXXXX

¶3. (S) Key information contained in the documents we have seen includes: Carrier: Advance Container Lines Co., Ltd. Shipper: Myanmar Ruby Enterprise Address: No. 24/26 Sule Pagoda Road, Kyauktada Township, Rangoon Shipped from Rangoon: January 25, 2007 Vessel: Kota Teraju to Singapore Destination: Fang Chen, China Port of Discharge: Fang Chen, Guang Xi, China Consignee: Yunnan Minmetals Trading Co., Ltd. Address: F/8 No. (408) Beijing Road, Kuming, PR China Shipment: Six containers holding 3080 bags, 112.0049 net metric tons of Mawchi Mixed Ore: (tin, tungsten, scheelite mixed concentrate) Value: 534,263.37 euros.

¶4. (S) We have no further information about the shipment or the reliability of the documents. We would be pleased to forward copies of the documents received to anyone interested. VILLAROSA

Wikileaks စာမ်က္ႏွာတြင္ပါရွိေသာ ျမန္မာ့အေရးကိစၥမ်ား မူရင္း အတိုင္းေဖၚျပပါသည္ (၅)

          ေျမာက္ကိုရီးယား ဒံုးပ်ံႏွင့္ လိုင္ေခါင္း ကိစၥအား ႏိုင္ငံတကာမွ ေစာစီးစြာကတဲက သိရွိေနေၾကာင္း အေထာက္အထား ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ဤသည္ မွာလည္း စီမံကိန္းအ ေကာင္အထည္ေဖၚမွသိရျခင္းျဖစ္၏ ။ ၾကိဳတင္ျပင္ဆင္ရေသာ ကာလကုိမွန္းဆ လွ်င္ ယခု စာမ်က္ႏွာေပၚတြင္ ပါသည္ေန.စြဲထက္ ၅ ႏွစ္ခန္. ေစာႏိုင္ပါသည္။ ဤသို.ဆိုပါလွ်င္ ေနာက္ ၅ ႏွစ္ၾကာလွ်င္လုပ္မည့္ အ လုပ္ မ်ား အား ကၽြႏ္ုပ္တို.သိႏိုင္ရန္မွာ ၁၅ ေလာက္ေစာင့္ရဦးမည္ေလာ မေျပာတတ္ေတာ့ပါ။

Friday, 27 August 2004, 08:08

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 RANGOON 001100

SIPDIS

EO 12958 DECL: 08/26/2014

TAGS PARM, PINR, PREL, KNNP, BM, KN

SUBJECT: ALLEGED NORTH KOREAN INVOLVEMENT IN MISSILE

ASSEMBLY AND UNDERGROUND FACILITY CONSTRUCTION IN BURMA

Classified By: CDA, A.I. RON MCMULLEN FOR REASON 1.5 (A/C).

¶1. (S) SUMMARY: North Korean workers are reportedly assembling “SAM missiles” and constructing an underground facility at a Burmese military site in Magway Division, about 315 miles NNW of Rangoon, according to XXXXXXXXXXXX . This unsolicited account should not be taken as authoritative, but it tracks with other information garnered and reported via XXXXXXXXXXXX. End Summary.

¶2. (S) XXXXXXXXXXXX

¶3. (S) XXXXXXXXXXXX some 300 North Koreans are working at a secret construction site west of Mimbu, Magway Division, in the foothills of the Arakan Yoma mountains. (Comment: the number of North Koreans supposedly working at this site strikes us as improbably high. End comment.) The XXXXXXXXXXXX claims he has personally seen some of them, although he also reported they are forbidden from leaving the construction site and that he and other “outsiders” are prohibited from entering. The XXXXXXXXXXXX was confident that XXXXXXXXXXXX had the ability to distinguish North Koreans from others, such as Chinese, who might be working in the area. The exact coordinates of the camouflaged site are not known, but it is reportedly in the vicinity of 20,00 N, 94,25 E.

¶4. (S) The North Koreans are said to be assembling “SAM missiles” of unknown origin. XXXXXXXXXXXX the North Koreans, aided by Burmese workers, are constructing a concrete-reinforced underground facility that is “500 feet from the top of the cave to the top of the hill above.” He added that the North Koreans are “blowing concrete” into the excavated underground facility.

¶5. (S) The XXXXXXXXXXXX is supposedly engaged in constructing buildings for 20 Burmese army battalions that will be posted near the site. Of these, two battalions are to be infantry; the other 18 will be “artillery,” according to this account.

¶6. (S) [XXXXXXXXXXXX

¶7. (S) COMMENT: The [XXXXXXXXXXXX second-hand account of North Korean involvement with missile assembly and military construction in Magway Division generally tracks with other information Embassy Rangoon and others have reported in various channels. Again, the number 300 is much higher than our best estimates of North Koreans in Burma, and exactly how the XXXXXXXXXXXX allegedly came to see some of them personally remains unclear. Many details provided XXXXXXXXXXXX match those provided by other, seemingly unrelated, sources.

¶8. (S) COMMENT CONTINUED: We cannot, and readers should not, consider this report alone to be definitive proof or evidence of sizable North Korean military involvement with the Burmese regime. The XXXXXXXXXXXX description made no reference at all to nuclear weapons or technology, or to surface-to-surface missiles, ballistic or otherwise. XXXXXXXXXXXX This account is perhaps best considered alongside other information of various origins indicating the Burmese and North Koreans are up to something ) something of a covert military or military-industrial nature. Exactly what, and on what scale, remains to be determined. Post will continue to monitor these developments and report as warranted. McMullen

Wikileaks စာမ်က္ႏွာမ်က္ႏွာတြင္ပါရွိေသာျမန္မာ့အေရးကိစၥမ်ား မူရင္းအတိုင္းေဖၚျပပါသည္ (၄)

ရုရွား ေျမာက္ကိုရီးယား ညဴစက္ရံုကိစၥႏွင့္ပတ္သက္၍ ေလ့လာႏိုင္ပါသည္။

လြန္ခဲ့ေသာ ၁၀ ခန္.ကာလ၏ Rumors ႏွင့္ ယခုလက္ေတြ.အျဖစ္ကို ေတြ.ရမည္ျဖစ္ပါသည္

Tuesday, 20 January 2004, 09:44

S E C R E T RANGOON 000088

SIPDIS

NOFORN

EO 12958 DECL: 01/09/2014

TAGS PGOV, PARM, PREL, BM, RS, KS, KNPP

SUBJECT: BURMA: RUMORS OF CONSTRUCTION OF A NUCLEAR REACTOR

NEAR MINBU

REF: STATE 297614 AND PREVIOUS 03 RANGOON 1427

Classified By: COM Carmen Martinez for Reasons 1.5 (B,D)

¶1. (S/NF) An expatriate businessmanXXXXXXXXXXXX recently volunteered to an Embassy Officer that he had heard rumors that a nuclear reactor was being built near Minbu, in central Magway Division on the Irawaddy River. The businessman added that he personally had seen a “massive” barge containing large-sized rebar being unloaded on a trip to the area. After asking local residents about the rebar’s purpose, he was told that similar size barge shipments were arriving almost weekly and that the rebar was to be used in the construction of unnamed/unidentified factories. In the opinion of the businessman, the quantities involved as well as the diameter of the rebar suggested a project larger than “factories.” Along these lines, the businessman noted that there was a new airport near Minbu with a landing strip that, based on its length and thickness, seemed excessive, adding that “you could land the space shuttle on it.”

¶2. (S/NF) Comment: Rumors of construction of a nuclear facility in/near Magway Division date back to 2002 and generally refer to alleged Goverment of Burma (GOB) and Russian cooperation on a nuclear research reactor project. Similar rumors, sans the “Russia” angle, have been circulating with greater frequency within diplomatic and expatriate circles since a November 2003 Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) article which described signs of growing military ties between North Korea and Burma. While we have no direct evidence of this alleged cooperation, rumors of ongoing construction of a nuclear reactor are surprisingly consistent and observations of activity such as that described above appear to be increasing, as are alleged sightings of North Korean “technicians” inside Burma. Martinez

Wikileaks စာမ်က္ႏွာတြင္ပါရွိေသာ ျမန္မာ့အေရးကိစၥမ်ား မူရင္း အတိုင္းေဖၚျပပါသည္ (၃)

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 RANGOON 000378 

SIPDIS 

STATE FOR EAP/MLS, INR/EAP, EEB/TFS 
PACOM FOR FPA 
TREASURY FOR OASIA, OFAC 

EO 12958 DECL: 06/19/2019 
TAGS ECON, EFIN, ETRD, PREL, PINR, BM 

SUBJECT: BURMA: UPDATE ON CRONY ZAW ZAW’S ACTIVITIES 
REF: A. 07 RANGOON 1107  B. RANGOON 298  C. RANGOON 355  D. RANGOON 330
RANGOON 00000378 001.4 OF 004

Classified By: Economic Officer Samantha A. Carl-Yoder for Reasons 1.4 (b and d).

Summary
------- 

¶1. (C) Regime crony Zaw Zaw continues to expand his businesses in Burma. In addition

to Max Myanmar Group of Companies, Zaw Zaw owns a beverage bottling company, a cement

plant, a trading company, a jade mine in Phakhant, a rubber plantation in Mon State, 

and a professional soccer team. Embassy Rangoon recommends OFAC add Zaw Zaw’s additional 

companies and key management personnel (listed in paragraph 5) to the targeted sanctions 

list. End Summary.

Additional Business Ventures
---------------------------- 

¶2. (C) Zaw Zaw, one of Burma’s up-and-coming cronies, continues to expand his businesses.

His Max Myanmar Group of Companies, which overseas his construction and tourism operations,

is already designated on the Department of the Treasury’s sanctions list (Ref A). We have 

confirmed Zaw Zaw also owns Pinya Manufacturing Co. Ltd., which produces beverages including

Max Cola for the local market. Pinya Manufacturing began operating in 1998 with an initial 

investment of 12.5 million kyat (approximately USD 41,000 in 1998) and currently employs more 

than 70 workers. Pinya Manufacturing Co. Ltd. has 13 distribution branches throughout Burma.

¶3. (C) Embassy business contact XXXXXXXXXXXX confirmed that Zaw Zaw is expanding his business

ventures under the Max Myanmar umbrella, including construction of a cement factory in Nay Pyi Taw,

which allegedly will provide cement to Steven Law for Asia World’s airport project (Ref B), 

a concrete block factory in Nay Pyi Taw, a jade mine in Phakhant, and a rubber plantation in Mon 

State. According to XXXXXXXXXXXX , Zaw Zaw operates the Lone Khin jade mine in conjunction with 

the Ministry of Mines and recently received an additional 50 acres of land in Phakhant for jade mine

development. Zaw Zaw allegedly sold several lots of jade at the March 2009 government jade and gem 

auction, [name removed] noted.

¶4. (C) Zaw Zaw is currently Chairman of the Myanmar Football Federation, and he owns Delta United, 

one of the professional soccer teams in the new Myanmar Football National League (Ref C). Contacts 

confirm that Zaw Zaw hired Senior General Than Shwe’s grandson to play on the team (Ref D). Zaw Zaw 

has also begun to develop plans for the construction of a new soccer stadium in Pathein, Irrawaddy 

Division, the future home of the Delta United team,XXXXXXXXXXXX . XXXXXXXXXXXX  estimated the stadium 

construction cost will be more than USD 1 million, and should be completed by 2011.

¶5. (SBU) Below is information on additional companies owned by Zaw Zaw.
RANGOON 00000378 002.8 OF 004
-- Delta United Football Club; Pathein, Irrawaddy Division. Listed owner and partner: U Zaw Win Shaine,

owner of Ayeyar Hinta Co., Ltd.
-- Lone Khin Jade Mine; Phakhant, Kachin State.
-- Max Myanmar Cement Factory; near Taung Phila Limestone Deposit, Leiway Township, Nay Pyi Taw.
-- Max Myanmar Concrete Block Factory; Nay Pyi Taw.
-- Max Myanmar Rubber Plantation, Belin, Mon State.
-- Pinya Manufacturing Co. Ltd.; 37/38 Baw Maw An Twin Wun Street, Industrial Zone 3, Hlainthaya, Rangoon;

phone: 95-1-681-745, 95-1-685-75, 95-1-685-15; fax: 95-1-680-669. Managing Director: U Kyi Lwin, a.k.a. U Kyan Khinn.

Embassy Recommendation
---------------------- 

¶6. (C) Zaw Zaw is one of several mid-level cronies actively attempting to curry favor with the regime and to use his 

government ties to expand his commercial enterprises. He, his family, and many of his companies are already listed on 

OFAC’s targeted sanctions list. Embassy Rangoon recommends OFAC also designate the above-mentioned companies and senior 

management under the JADE Act.
DINGER
RANGOON 00000378 003.2 OF 004

¶6. (SBU) The Burmese government usually releases a supplementary budget later in the fiscal year reflecting higher 

expenditures; its total annual deficits are thus greater than in the initial official budgets. For example, the FY08-09

supplementary appropriation added an additional 743.9 billion kyat (approximately USD 743 billion at current rates) to 

that year’s budget, raising expenditures by more than 15 percent over projected totals.

¶7. (SBU) As in previous years, “Government” received the largest allocation of additional funding (USD 282 million), 

approximately half of FY08-09’s supplemental appropriation. Businessmen explained that money likely funded ongoing 

construction costs in Nay Pyi Taw, as well as other government infrastructure projects. SOEs received the second 

largest amount - 185 billionkyat (USD 185 million), a 65 percent budget increase. The Ministry of Defense received 

an additional 9 billion kyat (USD 9 million)and the Ministry of Finance received 53 billion kyat (US 53 million).

In response to Cyclone Nargis, the GOB allocated an additional 77 billion kyat (USD 77 million) to the Ministry 

of Agriculture while the Ministry of Social Welfare received 44 billion kyat (USD 44 million).

Weak Revenue Generation
----------------------- 

¶8. (SBU) During last year’s IMF Article IV consultations, IMF representatives highlighted the need for the Burmese

Government to improve its tax administration and modify its widespread discretionary tax exemptions. According to 

IMF officials, the GOB repliedthat one of its goals is to reduce the budget deficit by addressing the main causes: 

weak revenue collection, losses from inefficientSOEs and SEEs, unrestrained government spending, and budget 

expenditures for non-productive uses, such as defense and construction.However, business contacts reported that the 

GOB did little to modify its tax structure in 2008, leading them to question the government’sprediction of a 27 

percent increase in tax revenues in FY09-10.

¶9. (SBU) Over the past few years, authorities have attempted to increase revenues through stricter enforcement of 

income taxation and\through an informal 2007 Customs valuation rate hike from 450 kyat/$1 to between 800 and 1200 kyat

/$1, depending on the product and its origin. While GOB officials privately argue that this rate hike indicates an 

effort to reconcile the various exchange rates, it instead 

complicates Burma’s already complex informal exchange rate system.

¶10. (SBU) According to the FY09-10 budget data, most SOEs will operate at a loss. Even with extractive industries 

presumably posting sizable profits, the net SOE loss is predicted to be roughly 484 billion kyat (USD 484 million) -- 

though this estimate could be too low.State-Owned Enterprises registered a loss of 601 million kyat in FY08-09, 

substantially more than GOB initial estimates of 450 billion kyat.According to budget publications, SOEs lost 800 billion

kyat in FY07-08, 436 billion kyat in FY06-07, and 549 billion kyat in FY05-06.

¶11. (SBU) Corruption at all levels remains a problem in Burma, which affects the GOB’s ability to collect revenue.
RANGOON 00000378 004.2 OF 004
While the government cracked down on crooked Customs officials in 2006, the payment of bribes on the borders 

continues, according to business contacts. Corruption is also rife in other GOB agencies, including the Internal 

Revenue Department, Immigration, and the Yangon Central 

Development Committee.

Comment
------- 

¶12. (SBU) While the published budget provides a general guideline of how the GOB will allocate its funds, the lack 

of details in the document -- and the general unreliability of GOB statistics -- make it impossible to obtain an 

accurate picture of Burma’s fiscal situation. This problem is compounded by the lack of spending discipline by senior 

leaders, who will likely continue allocating money for pet projects with little oversightor regard for planned 

appropriations. Despite the GOB’s stated intention to reduce the budget deficit, another increase is far more likely 

due to uncontrolled spending, SOE losses, and the lack of tax reform. Burma’s economic future remains troubled.
DINGER

Wikileaks စာမ်က္ႏွာတြင္ေဖၚျပပါရွိေသာ ျမန္မာ့ အေရးကိစၥမ်ား ကိုမူရင္းအတိုင္းေဖၚျပပါသည္။

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 RANGOON 000355 

SIPDIS 

STATE FOR EAP/MLS, INR/EAP, EEB/TFS 
PACOM FOR FPA 
TREASURY FOR OASIA, OFAC 

EO 12958 DECL: 06/12/2019 
TAGS ECON, EFIN, ETRD, PREL, PINR, BM 

SUBJECT: BURMA: CRONIES LAUNCH NEW SOCCER LEAGUE 

REF: RANGOON 330
RANGOON 00000355 001.6 OF 003

Classified By: Economic Officer Samantha A. Carl-Yoder for Reasons 1.4 (b and d).

Summary
------- 

¶1. (C) On the alleged order of Senior General Than Shwe, regime cronies and businessmen launched 

the new Myanmar National Football League (MNL) on May 16, 2009. To date, the MNL has been a huge 

success, with high attendance and wide national TV and radio coverage. It is unclear if there is 

any political motivation behind the MNL, although many Burmese businessmen speculate the regime 

is using it as a way to distract the populace from ongoing political and economic problems. End 

Summary.

Let the Games Begin
------------------- 

¶2. (C) The Myanmar Football Federation (MFF), chaired by regime crony Zaw Zaw, launched the Myanmar 

National Football League on May 16, 2009. The league, the first of its kind, has eight professional 

teams representing different states and divisions. During the May-July season, teams compete for the

National Cup and title of Myanmar National League Champion. The teams are sponsored by regime cronies 

and businessmen (listed below). According to XXXXXXXXXXXX, Zaw Zaw and Than Shwe’s grandson created

the idea of a professional soccer league more than a year ago but had to obtain the Senior General’s 

support first. One well-connected source reports that the grandson wanted Than Shwe to offer USD 1 

billion for Manchester United. The Senior General thought that sort of expenditure could look bad, 

so he opted to create for Burma a league of its own. In January, Secretary-1 reportedly told select 

Burmese businessmen that Than Shwe had “chosen”  them to be the owners of the new professional soccer 

teams. XXXXXXXXXXXX said the owners are responsible for paying all costs, including team salaries, 

housing and transportation, uniform costs, and advertising for the new league. In addition, owners

must build new stadiums in their respective regions by 2011, at an estimated cost of USD one million

per stadium.

--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 Myanmar National League  2009 Teams
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
Team Owner and Company Sanctions  Subject
--------------------------------------------- ------ 

Kanbawza Aung Ko Win/Kanbawza Bank No
Delta United Zaw Win Shaine/Ayeyar Hintha No  (financially backed by Zaw  Zaw, owner of Max Myanmar Yes
Magway Steven Law/Asia World Co. Yes
Okkthar United Aung Kyaw Moe/Intl Brewery No  Trading Co.
RANGOON 00000355 002.2 OF 003
Zayar Shwe Myay Win Myint/Chair, Myanmar No  Chamber Of Commerce
Yangon United Tay Za/Htoo Trading Yes
Southern Myanmar Htay Myint/Yuzana Co. Yes
Yadanarbon Sai Sam Htun/Loi Hein Co. No  (sole distributor of soft  drinks produced by SOEs)

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

¶3. (C) The eight teams currently practice and play in Rangoon; by 2011, the MNL should have a 

nationwide presence, XXXXXXXXXXXX  stated. The teams have an average of 40 players and salaries

range from between USD 500-2000 a month, depending on the caliber of the players. XXXXXXXXXXXX  told us

that Steven Law’s Magway team pays the highest salaries, spending USD 155,000 a month, while Win Myint’s 

Zayar Shwe Myay team only spends USD 52,200 a month on salaries. Tay Za, Aung Ko Win, and Steven Law also 

pay their players high signing bonuses, XXXXXXXXXXXX stated. According to XXXXXXXXXXXX , Aung Ko Win, owner 

of the Kanbawza team, has budgeted USD 2 million for the 2009 season. Other owners will spend approximately 

the same amount, he noted.

¶4. (C) Several of the team owners have taken their obligations seriously, XXXXXXXXXXXX stated. For example, 

Tay Za has hired five players from Africa; and Zaw Zaw, who financially backs the Delta United team despite 

being Chair of the MFF, recruited several Argentinean players. XXXXXXXXXXXX  noted that Aung Kyaw Moe, owner

of Okkthar United Team and the International Brewery Trade Co. (which produces Myanmar Beer and Grand Royal Whiskey),

is currently sponsoring the July 2009 National Cup. Tay Za’s Air Bagan allegedly plans to host the next cup,

XXXXXXXXXXXX stated.

So What’s In it for The Owners?
------------------------------- 

¶5. (C) When asked why the owners would participate in such an expensive endeavor, XXXXXXXXXXXX  observed 

that they had little choice. “When the Senior General asks someone to do something, you do it with no complaints,

” he stated. He then added that several of the businessmen will receive incentives from the regime, such as 

construction contracts, new gem and jade mines, and import permits, which will more than offset their costs.

Sponsorship may also bring its own benefits. XXXXXXXXXXXX  explained that due to advertising associated with

the MNL, several owners, including Sai Sam Htun who owns Alpine Water, have seen an immediate increase in

business revenue. Several owners have plans to sell team merchandise.  As the league expands, business should 

boom, although it will take a few years, he concluded.

Early Success
------------- 

¶6. (C) The MNL to date has been quite successful. Tickets are relatively expensive by Burmese standards, ranging 

from USD .50 to USD 1, which can be as much as half a day’s salary for the average Burmese. Nevertheless, there 

has been heavy attendance at most of the games, with several games sold out.  Reportedly though, owners paid up 

to USD 3 per head to entice fans to the first games, when it looked like ticket
RANGOON 00000355 003.2 OF 003
sales were lagging. Proceeds from the MNL are used to support the MFF. XXXXXXXXXXXX noted that for the more popular 

teams, such as Yadanarbon and Magway, scalpers are able to sell tickets for up to USD 1.50. XXXXXXXXXXXX  commented 

that given the continued political and economic repression of the people, he understands why they want to spend 

their money on something enjoyable. For those who cannot afford to attend the games, MRTV (the GOB’s television 

network) shows the games live. During Saturdays and Sundays at 4pm, local teashops are filled with Burmese watching 

the games. Additionally, the matches are broadcast on the radio.

MNL: A Distraction or Just Good Fun?
------------------------------------- 

¶7. (C) While admitting that the MNL is “just good fun,” a number of our contacts question the regime’s motivation 

behind creating the league. Several have commented that it may be a way for the regime to distract the people from 

ongoing political and economic problems, or to divert their attention from criticism of the upcoming 2010 elections.

Many speculate that the regime will suspend the 2010 MNL cup, should it fall close to the election date, as the 

government may not want large crowds of people to gather. That remains to be seen. Whatever the reason, the MNL is

proving an early success, and something for the Burmese to talk about without threatening the regime.
DINGER

ဗိုလ္ခင္ညြန္. ေထာင္ေျပာင္း ဗီဒီယို အသံဖိုင္ႏွင့္တကြ နားဆင္ႏိုင္ပါျပီ

Wikileaks တြင္ ျမန္မာ့အေရးႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္ေသာ MM Lee (လီကြမ္ယူ) ၏ ေျပာျပခ်က္မူရင္းအားေဖၚျပပါသည္

------------ 
¶16. (C) MM Lee said China is following an approach consistent with ideas in the Chinese 

television series “The Rise of Great Powers.” The mistake of Germany and Japan had been 

their effort to challenge the existing order. The Chinese are not stupid; they have avoided

this mistake. China’s economy has surpassed other countries, with the exceptions of Japan 

and the United States. Even with those two countries, the gap is closing, with China growing 

at seven-nine percent annually, versus two-three percent in the United States and Japan. 

Overall GDP, not GDP per capita, is what matters in terms of power. China has four times

the population of the United States. China is active in Latin America, Africa, and in 

the Gulf. Within hours, everything that is discussed in ASEAN meetings is known in 

Beijing, given China’s close ties with Laos, Cambodia, and Burma, he stated.
 

¶17. (C) MM Lee said China will not reach the American level in terms of military capabilities

any time soon, but is rapidly developing asymmetrical means to deter U.S. military power. 

China understands that its growth depends on imports, including energy, raw materials, and 

food. This is why China is working with South Africa on the China-Africa Development Fund.

China also needs open sea lanes. Beijing is worried about its dependence on the Strait of 

Malacca and is moving to ease the dependence by means like a pipeline through Burma.

ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ လြန္ကာလႏွင့္ပတ္သက္ေသာကၽြႏ္ုပ္တို.အယူအဆ

Post Election -