http://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Myanmar/sub5_5c/entry-3065.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/burmese-generals-pocket-5bn-from-total-oil-deal-1784497.html https://jesscscott.wordpress.com/2015/09/05/burma-druglords/

1. Corruption is a form of dishonest or unethical conduct by a person entrusted with a position of
authority, often to acquire personal benefit.[1] Corruption may include many activities including bribery
and embezzlement, though it may also involve practices that are legal in many countries.[2]
Government, or 'political', corruption occurs when an office-holder or other governmental employee
acts in an official capacity for personal gain.
Grand corruption is defined as corruption occurring at the highest levels of government in a way that
requires significant subversion of the political, legal and economic systems. Such corruption is
commonly found in countries with authoritarian or dictatorial governments but also in those without
adequate policing of corruption.Systemic corruption (or endemic corruption)[8] is corruption which is
primarily due to the weaknesses of an organization or process. It can be contrasted with individual
officials or agents who act corruptly within the system.
Factors which encourage systemic corruption include conflicting incentives, discretionary powers;
monopolistic powers; lack of transparency; low pay; and a culture of impunity.[9] Specific acts of
corruption include "bribery, extortion, and embezzlement" in a system where "corruption becomes the
rule rather than the exception."[10] Scholars distinguish between centralized and decentralized systemic
corruption, depending on which level of state or government corruption takes place.
Burma is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, which is saying a lot. In the most recent
Corruption Perceptions Index published by the watchdog group Transparency International, Burma’s
rank was 180. The only countries that ranked worse were Somalia and North Korea.
Many of those who are considered rich in Myanmar are either connected with the military regime or
have connections to the drug trade or gem and timber smuggling enterprises. The most visible are
ethnic Chinese and the sons and daughters of the military elite. Some or Myanmar’s elite live in white
concrete and glass, neo-Thai mansions outside of Mandalay.
A diplomat told Newsweek, “It’s tale of two nations. The elite live in the First World of Rolexes, Land
Rovers and gold rings. The rest live in the ‘Third World.’”
http://factsanddetails.com/southeast-
asia/Myanmar/sub5_5c/entry-3065.html
SOCIETY IN MYANMAR
Burma-Myanmar has feudal traditions, Buddhist traditions, democratic traditions but no caste
system. According to the Joshua Project: “The single most important social institution in the village is
the temple. It symbolizes unity among the villagers, and provides a wide variety of activities for the
people. The Burmese do not recognize clans or lineages. Marriages are monogamous, and rarely
arranged by the parents
According to Countries and Their Cultures: “Not only is poverty widespread, there is marked
inequality. Essentially, the society is divided into a tiny elite, a fairly small middle class, and a large
number of very poor people. While there are traditional elites within most of the ethnic groups and

2. new elites in some groups whose wealth comes from smuggling, the national elite is overwhelmingly
Burmese. In recent years income from the narcotics trade has been an important source of wealth
for members of the elite. Although some segments of the middle class have prospered from the
economic reforms of the late 1980s, most have not done well and remain poor. [Source: Countries
and Their Cultures everyculture.com ]
The middle class is increasingly becoming more political involved. "In Burma, the middle class is
very thin," said a 38-year-old graphic designer who in 2004 helped found an undercover nonprofit
group that recruits potential political leaders, told the Washington Post. "We need to grow,
strengthen that. Most democratic countries have a broader middle class. It is the only way to go
forward."
See Repression
Rich in Myanmar
Many of those who are considered rich in Myanmar are either connected with the military regime or
have connections to the drug trade or gem and timber smuggling enterprises. The most visible are
ethnic Chinese and the sons and daughters of the military elite. Some or Myanmar’s elite live in
white concrete and glass, neo-Thai mansions outside of Mandalay. The Rangoon elite have
traditionally lived around the lake Aung San Suu Kyi lives on central Yangon.
A diplomat told Newsweek, “It’s tale of two nations. The elite live in the First World of Rolexes, Land
Rovers and gold rings. The rest live in the ‘Third World.’”
Life of Myanmar’s Generals
The military leaders live in isolated compounds with schools, hospitals and housing that are much
better than those of ordinary Burmese. The expensive villas of the top officers have satellite dishes,
huge lawns, polished teak floors, high ceilings and gorgeous gardens. These officers drive fancy
cars, eat sandwiches with the crust cut off delivered by servants, and spend their time playing golf.
Before the their new capital in Naypyidaw they like to play at the Yangon City Golf Resort, where the
membership in the 1990s was $3,000 (20 times Myanmar's per capita income at that time).
The generals enjoy things—such as cell phones, computers, air conditioners, Rolexes and Land
Rovers—that not every one else in Myanmar has access to. They always have electricity and water
unlike the rest of the country which often receives these services only a few hours a day. In 1997,
the military paid $.15 a gallon for gasoline while ordinary people paid $1.75.
The children of the generals have become Myanmar's spoiled elite. They wear expensive hip-hop
fashions, dance to rap and techno music, drink $3 beers at the Yangon's Galaxy disco and watch
bootleg DVDs of Titanic or Star Wars: the Phantom Menace. The irony of all this is that ordinary
Burmese are denied these things because they are regarded as too Western and decadent.
Many of the homes and offices of the ruling generals in Myanmar have teak-paneled reception
rooms, teak-paneled bedrooms, and teak-paneled hideaway bars.

3. The generals in the military regime love to play golf. They play on courses built when the British
controlled the country and on a few new ones built by businessmen with connections to the
generals. Brook Larimer wrote in Newsweek: “Every mourning at the City Golf Course n Rangoon,
dozens of military officers in creased khakis and saddle shoes traips off the first tee, followed by
platoons of young female caddies. The girls, who wear bright red lipstick and easy smiles, perform
different jobs for their 35-cent fee: one hauls the clubs, another holds the parasol, one lines up the
putts—and all applaud politely after each successful shot.”
See Separate Article MILITARY RULE AND MYANMAR’S SUPERSTITIOUS, HIGH-LIVING AND
PARANOID GENERALS
Hill Station for the Generals
The two military academies in Pin U Lain, a new town built from scratch near the British hill station
Maymo, have new buildings and young cadets walk about in sharp uniforms. The golf course has a
helipad.
Describing Pin U Lain, Bertil Lintner wrote in the Washington Post, “Built in the lush hills northeast
of Mandalay, the new town is a kind of refuge -- but for the Burmese military. Instead of the British
Victorian-style mansions of the old Maymyo, you'll find gaudy luxury villas in the new one. The town
is also home to the Defense Services Academy, Burma's West Point, which trained many of the
generals. [Source: Bertil Lintner, Washington Post, September 30, 2007 >
“When construction on the officers' town began in late 2005, the Irrawaddy, a magazine published
by Burmese exiles in Thailand, reported that "no expense has been spared to allow the generals to
live in what basically is a resort, complete with an artificial beach and a man-made stretch of water to
lap onto it." The theme-park retreat will also include replicas of a famous pagoda in Rangoon, the old
royal palace in Mandalay and a popular beach resort -- which, the magazine dryly noted, "is probably
where the fake beach comes in." >
Thanks to a newly upgraded airport, the retreat is a quick plane ride to Burma's new capital,
Naypyidaw, built in the wasteland and jungle 200 miles north of the old capital, Rangoon. Naypyidaw
means "Abode of Kings," and kings are precisely what the Burmese generals see themselves as. On
the capital's parade ground stand newly erected, larger-than-life statues of three famous pre-colonial
warrior kings whom the junta's leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, sees as his role models. >
See Separate Article on Naypyidaw
Than Shwe’s Daughter’s Lavish Wedding
One of Than Shwe’s few trips outside the capital was to his daughter's wedding in Yangon, in 2006.
The event angered many Burmese because it cost $300,000 and the couple received wedding gifts
worth $50 million, according to The Irrawaddy. Michael Casey of Associated Press wrote: Than
Shwe’s “government suffered a rare paparazzi-style scandal, when a 10-minute video clip, filmed at
the wedding in the old capital Yangon, surfaced on the Internet purporting to show the bride,
Thandar Shwe, swathed in sumptuous jewels - revealing the utter disparity in wealth between the

4. military elite and the impoverished general population. The champagne, five-star comforts and other
opulence became a sore point among exile-based dissidents and the butt of jokes mocking Than
Shwe and the junta's insistence that his military regime is not corrupt.” The same week the video
appeared Transparency International ranked Myanmar, along with Somalia, as the most corrupt
country in the world. [Source: Michael Casey, Associated Press, October 1, 2007]
Jonathan Watts wrote in The Guardian: “Strings of diamonds, cascades of champagne and tens of
millions of dollars worth of gifts would be considered ostentatious at any wedding. But in Burma -
one of the poorest countries in Asia - people are said to be up in arms at the luxury on display in a
video of the wedding laid on by the head of the junta, General Than Shwe, for his
daughter...Opponents of the military regime claim that spending on the couple’s marriage in July was
more than three times the state health budget. [Source: Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, November
2, 2006 /]
“In the most opulent sequence, the camera zooms in on glittering jewelled clusters in the hair of the
bride, Thandar Shwe, then pans down from her diamond ear-studs to at least six thick strings of
what appear to be diamonds. At a lavish reception, the groom - Major Zw Phyo Win, an army officer
and deputy director at the ministry of commerce - pours champagne over a cascade of glasses and
helps his bride slice into a five-tiered cake. What is not seen are the gifts, which reportedly include
luxury cars and houses worth a total of $50m (£26m). According to south-east Asian newspapers,
the rush to buy jewels as presents and decorations pushed up the price of precious stones in the
run-up to the wedding. The wedding video appears to have been filmed with the approval of the the
married couple and guests. It is unclear how it was leaked on to the internet or how widely it can be
seen in Burma. /
“Such mindless indulgence - smiling, well-fed guests wrapped in their finest clothing and most
expensive jewels - is an affront to the millions of Burmese suffering under the incompetence and
brutality of the country’s military leadership, and the millions of Burmese migrants trying to scratch
out a living on foreign soil because no proper employment is available at home,” wrote editor Aung
Zaw in Irrawaddy. “Than Shwe was the one who accused other top leaders of corruption whenever
he wanted to remove them. It’s the pot calling the kettle black.” /
“The minutiae of the wedding arrangements provided material for observers of the secretive regime
who believe Than Shwe may be preparing to step back from the day-to-day running of the country.
“In the seating arrangement, Than Shwe and his deputy were on one table and all the other junta
members were on a very distant table. That tells you a lot about the hierarchy,” Soe Aung of the
Bangkok-based National Council for the Union of Burma was quoted as saying by Reuters. In
footage of the ceremony at a state hall in Yangon, Than Shwe walks beside his daughter in white
shirt and a traditional orange wrap called a longgyi, a rare sight of a general almost always seen in
military uniform. Many other guests were in uniform. /
Wikileaks Cables: Myanmar General Considered Buying
Manchester United

5. Former Myanmar leader Than Shwe once considered spending a billion dollars to buy Manchester
United as a gift to his grandson, a soccer fan.
Robert Booth wrote in The Guardian: “The leader of Burma's military junta considered making a $1
billion (£634m) bid to buy Manchester United football club around the time it was facing rising anger
from the United Nations over its "unacceptably slow" response to cyclone Nargis.Than Shwe,
commander in chief of the armed forces and a fan of United, was urged to mount a takeover bid by
his grandson, according to a cable from the US embassy in Rangoon. It details how the regime was
thought to be using football to distract its population from ongoing political and economic problems.
The proposal was made prior to January 2009; only months earlier, in May 2008, the Burmese junta
had been accused of blocking vital international aid supplies after Nargis struck, killing 140,000
people. [Source: Robert Booth, The Guardian, December 6, 2010 ^]
“Than Shwe reportedly concluded that making a bid for United might "look bad" at the time, but the
revelation that the proposal was even considered is likely to fuel criticism of the regime's cruelty. The
senior general instead ordered the creation of a new multimillion dollar national football league at the
same time as aid agencies were reporting that one year on, many survivors of the cyclone still
lacked permanent housing, access to clean water, and tools for fishing and agriculture. ^
“The mooted price tag for Manchester United was exactly the same as the aid bill to cover the most
urgent food, agriculture and housing for the three years after the cyclone, as estimated by
international agencies including the UN. The proposal revealed that the regime, which is increasingly
exploiting its oil and gas reserves, felt confident of finding such a sum. According to Forbes
magazine's valuation of the club at the time, $1 billion would have been enough to acquire a 56
percent controlling stake. ^
"One well-connected source reports that the grandson wanted Than Shwe to offer $1 billion for
Manchester United," said the June 2009 cable to Washington. "The senior general thought that sort
of expenditure could look bad, so he opted to create for Burma a league of its own." Than Shwe then
reportedly coerced and bribed eight leading business and political figures to establish teams and
ordered them to spend large sums on imported players and new stadiums. ^
“The cable revealed that in January 2009, selected Burmese business people were told "that Than
Shwe had 'chosen' them to be the owners of the new professional soccer teams. [The informant, a
top executive at one of the sponsor companies] 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 $1 million per stadium." ^
“The Magway team was spending $155,000 a month on salaries while the Kanbawza team, linked
to a bank, had budgeted $2 million for the 2009 season. Rangoon United hired five players from
Africa and Delta United recruited several Argentinians. "When asked why the owners would
participate in such an expensive endeavour, [an executive with one company sponsor] observed that
they had little choice," the embassy reported. "'When the senior general asks someone to do
something, you do it with no complaints,' he stated." ^

6. “He added that several of the business people expected to receive incentives from the regime, such
as construction contracts, new gem and jade mines, and import permits, which would more than
offset their costs. The owners of the clubs in the Burma national football league, which launched on
16 May 2009, include "regime crony" Zaw Zaw, who also chairs Burma's football federation and
drew up plans for the league with the senior general's grandson. "Zaw Zaw hired Senior General
Than Shwe's grandson to play on the team," a separate cable adds. But according to the dispatch,
"many Burmese businessmen speculate the regime is using it as a way to distract the populace from
ongoing political and economic problems or to divert their attention from criticism of the upcoming
2010 elections". ^
Cronies in Myanmar
Simon Denyer wrote in the Washington Post, “A new English word has entered colloquial Burmese,
a word that could not even be uttered in public until recently. The word is “crony,” and it describes
the business elite who exploited their closeness to the country’s military rulers to amass vast wealth
in the past two decades. These well-connected elite made their money in industries such as
construction, rubber and logging, as well as in arms dealing and drug smuggling. Their gains have
only increased in the past two years, a result of changes that have privatized many state-owned
assets and enterprises — and allowed the rich to buy them up at bargain prices. [Source: Simon
Denyer, Washington Post, March 26, 2013>>]
“Burma’s business elite have been investing some of their wealth by erecting hotels and office
buildings in Rangoon and other cities. But outside these gleaming new buildings, cycle rickshaws
still ply the streets, and there are few signs of a more general boom. Small-business owners and
shopkeepers say consumer demand remains tepid. The business elite, say critics such as Zaw
Aung, a former political prisoner who is a research fellow at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University,
have the power to crush potential competitors, corner the benefits of Burma’s reform process and
prevent a new, more diverse middle class from emerging. >>
Aung Zaw wrote in The Irrawaddy, “Indeed, there are many questions that need to be asked. Can
cronies become builders of industry and national economic power? How can they contribute back to
society by building philanthropic foundations and provide life-long assistance to society? Many
showy tycoons and cronies in Burma are not interested in helping society. In fact, critics have
charged that contributions from cronies are tiny compared to the money they spend on their posh
Italian sports cars.” At same time some “cronies have quietly supported Suu Kyi and the opposition
movement and donated to the Burmese community. [Source: Aung Zaw, The Irrawaddy, January 28,
2013 ////]
“Sean Turnell, an expert on Burma’s economy at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, thinks
the cronies are destructive and resistant to reform. “I think the majority are cronies of the destructive
sort—but some might turn out for the better.” “They are rent-seekers pure and simple rather than
builders of genuine enterprise,” he added. “[They are] living off government regulatory largesse, the
recipients of monopoly and quasi-monopoly profits and so on. As such, they are political animals as
much as economic ones. But certainly there are some too who may emerge as something else. On

7. this front, I guess we have to hope so, since they are amongst the few with sufficient capital to do
transformative things, if this is what their desire is.” ////
Jill Drew wrote in the Washington Post, “"All they know is stealing," seethed one taxi driver as he
took a passenger on a circuitous route to the airport, slowing in front of the house of Tay Za, the
owner of a local airline who is close to Senior Gen. Than Shwe, leader of the junta. The villa had an
open garage, with two Ferraris inside, one red and one yellow. "They want money, money, money.
And we have nothing," he said. The driver keeps a notebook hidden under newspapers on his
dashboard. In it he writes, in Japanese characters, how the government controls gasoline sales to
siphon money for themselves. He wants to smuggle the notebook out of the country so foreign
media can report on the system. The government limits official gas sales to two gallons a day. To
buy more, drivers must purchase black-market gasoline -- obtained by sellers who pay kickbacks to
government-appointed filling station managers -- at nearly double the official rate.[Source: Jill Drew,
Washington Post, October 24, 2007 ]
See Separate Article LOCAL GOVERNMENT, BUREAUCRACY, CRONIES AND CORRUPTION IN
MYANMAR
Former Imprisoned Crony Still Looking for Ways to Make Money
The Washington Post reported in 2008: “The climate of nepotism and capricious junta policies
means that uncertainty pervades even among the most seemingly successful. In his sparsely
furnished living room, an avowed former "crony" of senior generals recounted how he grew a small
logging firm that traded rosewood and teak to China into a sprawling foreign investment firm that
eventually bankrolled three ministers and a mayor, all of them senior military officers. In return for
supplying licenses and contracts, the four received large deposits in private Singapore bank
accounts, he said. [Source: Washington Post, August 16, 2008 /|]
“Profits, however, one day started to slip, the deposits to those bank accounts slimmed, and the
businessman was thrown in jail, charged with the very thing that swelled the officers' accounts, he
said -- using a local company as a front for illicit foreign dealings. But nearly eight years behind bars
hasn't dissuaded him from attempting another trek down Burma's twisted path to prosperity. Only six
months since he was released, gray-haired and frail, from Insein prison, he says he searches the
Internet daily for information on how to tap the booming emigrant industry -- funneling unskilled
Burmese workers to jobs outside the country. "This is not a legal way. It is a form of trafficking," he
said. For help, he said, he would be turning to old friends in the Home Ministry. As for his clients, he
added, they don't really know what they're getting into. But "if they have a chance to go abroad, they
can make money." /|
Zaw Zaw: One of Myanmar’s Premier Cronies
Simon Denyer wrote in the Washington Post, “Zaw Zaw, the head of the giant Max Myanmar
conglomerate, is one of Burma’s richest men, having made his fortune through lucrative government
contracts, helping to build the country’s new capital, Naypyidaw, in the past decade, and
constructing roads and extracting tolls. He profited handsomely when state-owned assets were sold

8. off in 2011 in the largest privatization push in Burma’s history, picking up a banking license and
cement factory. He runs roadside gas stations, controls the auto import trade, owns a jade mine and
rubber plantations, and is fast expanding into luxury resorts. Zaw Zaw insists that he pays taxes and
creates jobs, and he says Burma will not prosper if everyone in the business community is vilified as
being cronies. “At this time, we all have to cooperate together to build the country,” he said. [Source:
Simon Denyer, Washington Post, March 26, 2013>>]
Aung Zaw wrote in The Irrawaddy, “Zaw Zaw—who is still in his mid-forties— is media savvy and
friendly. He will proudly tell visitors and the media that he once washed dishes in Japan before
coming back to Burma to run his own business selling used cars and later getting involved in the
jade mining business in Kachin State. “I have nothing to hide,” he told me. He was a university
student during the 1988 uprising in Rangoon and he witnessed the crackdown and his fellow
students being gunned down. [Source: Aung Zaw, The Irrawaddy, January 28, 2013 ////]
“Since his early days, Zaw Zaw’s business empire has expanded considerably. In addition to his
mining interests, he now has his own bank (Ayeyarwady Bank, one of the largest in Burma), a
cement factory, gas stations and a major construction company. The latter company was awarded
numerous lucrative contracts in Naypyidaw, the new capital, including a stadium for the 2013
Southeast Asian Games. ////
“Zaw Zaw may be rich, but he also know that he needs to contribute to society. In 2010, he set up
the Ayeyarwady Foundation, a charitable organization. Since then, he has been building schools
across Mon and Karen states and Irrawaddy and Mandalay divisions. Recently, the chairman of the
Max Myanmar also attended the wedding of a former student leader and member of the 88
Generation Students group.////
Tay Za: Another One of Myanmar’s Premier Cronies
Makoto Ota wrote in the Yomiuri Shimbun: “A mysterious tycoon lurks behind Myanmar's military
government. Tay Za, said to be 43 years old, is known for his close relationship with the junta
leadership. The United States earlier this month imposed fresh sanctions on Myanmar, freezing
bank accounts of businesses close to the junta, apparently targeting Tay Za. But observers have
said the sanctions will not sway the tycoon, who is said to be cunning enough to help the junta in
skirting most U.S. and EU sanctions. [Source: Makoto Ota, Yomiuri Shimbun, October 30, 2007 ||||]
“Tay Za built his fortune since 1990 through logging, teak log exports, hotels and tourism. The exact
size of his fortune and personal details are not known, but his close proximity to the junta and its
help in his success is well reported. He is the owner of Air Pagan--in which the wife of the junta's
leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, is an investor. Tay Za also is the only authorized import agent for
the Russian military industry. He, together with Vice Senior Gen. Maung Aye, the junta's No. 2,
clinched a deal to purchase MiG-29 fighter-bombers from Russia in 2002. It also is rumored that Tay
Za helped, through Air Pagan, Than Shwe's wife and others leave the country for locations such as
Vientiane and Dubai during the peak of September's antigovernment demonstrations. ||||
“Tay Za is said to have numerous subsidiaries, bank accounts and luxurious condominiums in
Singapore, and he has "no trouble lending his money out," according to a source in Yangon. This

9. diversification means the U.S. sanctions, which only freeze assets in the United States, probably will
have little impact on the tycoon. ||||
Aung Zaw wrote in The Irrawaddy, “Tay Za is known to be close to Burma’s senior military leaders,
including ex-dictator Snr-Gen Than Shwe....However, he told me that he never met the reclusive
former strongman until after his helicopter crashed on a snow-capped mountain in the far north of
Kachin State in February 2011. Than Shwe—who refused for a full month to allow foreign aid
workers into Myanmar after Cyclone Nargis claimed more than 140,000 lives—immediately ordered
hundreds of troops to conduct a search-and-rescue mission for Tay Za and his crew, all of whom
survived. Tay Za told me he later went to the residence of the recently retired junta supremo to
express his heartfelt gratitude. Tay Za also quietly met Suu Kyi soon after her release in November
2010. He had reportedly offered to assist the NLD. Party sources told me Suu Kyi did not reject his
offer. [Source: Aung Zaw, The Irrawaddy, January 28, 2013 ////]
Myanmar of Cronies Try to Improve Their Image
Simon Denyer wrote in the Washington Post, “Faced with a lot of bad publicity, the cronies have
been fighting back. Some have warned of legal action to try to silence critics; Khin Shwe has
threatened to attack the farmers who have occupied his land. But most have been trying to improve
their images — to make themselves more acceptable business partners in the new Burma, because
they fear retaliation and losing their wealth, or simply because they don’t like criticism. “It gives me
so much pain, I often cannot sleep at night,” Zaw Zaw, the head of the giant Max Myanmar
conglomerate, said in a rare interview last month while watching a soccer match in Rangoon, the
former capital, also known as Yangon. [Source: Simon Denyer, Washington Post, March 26,
2013>>]
Aung Zaw wrote in The Irrawaddy, “One Rangoon–based observer said that Zaw Zaw and other
cronies need to show not only that they support current political reforms, but also that they are willing
to make a long-term commitment to the development of civil society. They should also return land
that they acquired under the former regime, he said. “The cronies must show that they are part of the
solution, not part of the problem,” the observer added. [Source: Aung Zaw, The Irrawaddy, January
28, 2013 ////]
Providing cash and building schools and hospitals here and there isn’t enough, one Rangoon-based
diplomat said firmly. Some cronies now realize that strong recommendations from Suu Kyi and
prominent activists such as Min Ko Naing and Ko Ko Gyi and other actors in the civil society
movement are important, as the US is closely monitoring them.
Burmese Nouveau Riche
Foreign investment in the 1990s created a class of instant millionaires in Yangon, opened a yacht
club, three new golf driving ranges and nightclubs that sold lobster for $100 a plate. At that time
there were many new German, Korean and Japanese cars even though as of 1996 Myanmar didn't
have a single new car dealership.

10. Myanmar greatest entrepreneur in the 1990s was Thien Tun, a man who went from being bean
exporter in 1990 to an owner of hotels, factories, and a bank and the exclusive importer of a number
of items, including Safeguard soap and Chivas Regal Scotch. His first major venture, a Pepsi bottling
factory churned out 600,000 bottles of soft drink a day in 2000. At that time there were plans to boost
the figure to 5 million bottles after a new plant is opened in Mandalay. "I wouldn't say it's a gold mine,
but it’s a good investment" Theien Tun told the Los Angeles Times. "I already do gold mining, and up
to now, I haven't made money there yet." he said his motto is: "Low profile, move fast, make money,
live peacefully."
When Thein Tun was contacted by Pepsi-Cola in 1990 about forming a joint venture, he had never
heard of the soft drink company but his son Than Zin Tun—a handicraft dealer in Thailand—told
him, "Daddy trust me, this business can't fail." Among Tun’s planned joint ventures were a brewery
with Carlsberg, a whiskey distillery with Seagrams, an "energy" drink factory with Japan's Marubeni,
a plastics factory with South Korea, a Mitsubishi car distributorship and a gas turbine power plant
with Hong Kong's China Light and Power Co. [Source: Michael Hirsh and Ron Moreau, Newsweek,
June 19, 1995]
Khin Shwe, the owner of hotel and construction company that posted revenues of $60 million in
1994, at that time owned a large home, three new cars and 14 thoroughbred horses.
Poverty in Myanmar
Myanmar is one of the world’s poorest countries. Population below poverty line: 32.7 percent (2007
est.) The United Nations ranked Myanmar 138 out of 166 countries in its 2009 Human Development
Report and ranked it as one of the twenty poorest countries in the world, with an estimated annual
per-capita income of five hundred dollars. The per capita income in Myanmar is less than half that of
India and below Bangladesh and Nigeria.
In the 1990s a lack of foreign exchange was offered as an excuse why there was nothing—no
brooms, no soap, no toilet paper. Many people could only afford to have meat once a week and
water generally had to be boiled before it could be consumed. The government spent a lot of money
on supporting the army and buying new military hardware while most of the people lived in poverty.
Thomas Fuller wrote in the New York Times, “Many if not most of Myanmar's people are either too
poor or too isolated to raise their voices. Their main preoccupation is survival. The World Food
Program has quadrupled the amount of food it distributes in Myanmar over the past four years, but
still feeds only 300,000 people, a fraction of the 5 million who it says do not have enough food. Tony
Banbury, the regional director of the U.N. World Food Program, says poverty and malnutrition in
Myanmar are "one of the sad, forgotten stories of Southeast Asia." "There were a lot of wars and
conflicts in Southeast Asia, but most countries have moved on," he said. "There are millions of
people in Burma that the world has simply forgotten about." [Source: Thomas Fuller, New York
Times, October 25, 2007]
Thousands of people have died of AIDS because of the near-absence of retroviral drug treatment
outside Rangoon and Mandalay. In 2008, the government failed to provide aid to millions of people
affected by a devastating cyclone in the Irrawaddy River Delta. In early 2012, Myanmar President

11. Thein Sein said The government aimed to cut the poverty rate from 26 percent of the resource-rich
country's 60 million people to 16 percent by 2015 and use "all means possible" to fight graft, which
he said was one of the biggest threats to the country's progress. [Source: Aung Hla Tun, Reuters,
March 1, 2012]
"The World Food Programme [WFP] provides food aid to 500,000 people across Myanmar [Burma]
but that really only represents the poorest of the poor," Paul Risley of the WFP told the BBC. "What
we've found is that over the last decade, opposite to virtually every other country in Asia where
slowly poverty is being gnawed away at and food security is becoming more commonplace, in
Myanmar there are more people living below the poverty line and more people facing food
insecurity," he said.
Poor People and Poverty in Myanmar
In the Irrawaddy delta, where many Burmese villagers live, the poor live meal-to-meal in flimsy
thatch huts on bamboo stilts along coffee-brown rivers and rice paddies, according to AFP. After
being isolated from the rest of the world for so long, many are used to expecting very little in a
country where running water and electricity are still considered luxuries in many areas.
In 2007, Andrew Marshall wrote in Time, “Burma has a grave and worsening humanitarian crisis.
Half of Asia's malaria deaths occur here; a third of the children under 5 years old are malnourished;
most of its people live on less than a dollar a day. "People have been successfully intimidated into
keeping their heads down--maybe," says Shari Villarosa, chargé d'affaires at the U.S. embassy in
Rangoon. "But it's still a struggle for them to survive--to feed and educate their families, to get health
care. So there could be another eruption." [Source: Andrew Marshall, Time, October 11, 2007]
In the 1990s, the United Nations estimated that one in three children under five are malnourished, a
condition that makes children who 15 and 16 look nine or ten. To earn money to pay off loans for
food some families sent their daughters to Thailand, where they often were forced to work as
prostitutes and returned home with the HIV virus. When trains stopped at bridges people sometimes
approached the windows and moaned "We are hungry. Have pity." The passengers on the train
usually toss them food. One woman told Swerdlow, "It wasn't like this when I was young." [Source:
Joel Swerdlow, National Geographic, July 1995]
On the streets of Yangon you can see children sleeping on pieces of cardboard, groups sleeping on
bundles, women with malnourished children, and vendors selling worthless objects. In Mandalay,
people ties bags with leftovers to lampposts to give to the poor and beggars of all ages are a
common sight at Maha Myat pagoda, "We're not hungry or dying," a Rangoon shopowner told the
Los Angeles Times. "But there's a lots of hardship. People with contacts in the ruling class get richer,
but the average person can barely make ends meet."
Myanmar’s Poor Eek Out a Living with Leftover Gold and Jade
Reporting from Kharbar, Myanmar, Paul Watson wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “Squatting along
the rocky banks of the Nmai Hka River, villagers labor from dawn till dusk over large wooden pans,

12. scrounging for crumbs from the junta's table. Children barely big enough to swirl the heavy slurry toil
alongside men and women, doing backbreaking work that exposes them to toxic mercury. Every few
minutes, they pause and tilt their dripping pans to catch the sunlight, hoping for the glint from a few
golden flecks that haven't been scooped up with the rest of Myanmar's vast mineral wealth by the
ruling generals and their cronies. [Source: Paul Watson, Los Angeles Times, December 24, 2007 *|*]
“On a recent day by the river, Ja Bu, 46, strained to lift shovel loads of slurry as a 10-year-old boy,
ankle-deep in the cold, muddy water, worked a pan big enough for him to bathe in. Sixty miles west,
Ja Bu's younger brother was searching for jade in the drainage ditch of a mine exhausted years ago
by the junta. The few dollars that Ja Bu and her brother manage to scratch together each day from
what the generals didn't take buys food, clothes and shelter for 10 people. *|*
“The junta tightly controls access to its large gem and jade mines, but remote places such as
Kharbar” are beyond their reach. “But the junta doesn't let much trickle down to places like Kharbar,
a remote northern stretch near the Himalayan foothills, close to the Chinese border. It's a
spectacularly beautiful, unforgiving place where villagers live in thatched huts with walls woven from
bamboo. Thin as cardboard, they are flimsy shelter against frigid winter winds. And as the cost of
food and fuel rises, so does the villagers' resentment, which roils like the rapids of the Nmai Hka that
taunts them with tiny gifts of gold. *|*
“Dong Shi, a wiry man in a green sweater splitting at the seams, has been working the brown
slough and bamboo sluices here for three years. On a good day, he finds $8 worth of gold flakes, the
biggest about the size of a pinhead. Like other prospectors, he must pay $250, or more than half an
average person's annual income here, to the owner of the land for permission to pan just 10 square
feet of riverbank.After Dong Shi pays his stake's owner, his share of the diesel to run a generator
and sluice pumps, school fees for his four kids and other mounting expenses, he has little left. "We
eat all that I earn," he said. "I have nothing left in my pocket. Tomorrow I go back to work on the
river, just to have some more food." *|*
“It is grueling, risky work. To separate gold particles from the slurry, miners squeeze drops of
mercury from strips of cloth soaked in quicksilver, exposing them and the river fish they eat to
dangerous levels of the heavy metal, which can damage kidneys and the nervous system. For all the
prospectors' pain and risk, most pans come up bust. So they dig deeper, push the limits
harder.Desperate to hit pay dirt, dreaming of finding a rare nugget instead of just flecks, some
villagers rig up hand pumps onshore to homemade breathing hoses, and wade to the middle of the
river. They work up to three hours at a time underwater. *|*
“Child labor is an essential part of production at the bottom end of outdoor factories that surround
Mandalay's jade market. Children huddle on their haunches around glowing embers in metal
braziers, melting doping wax on the end of dop sticks, plucking small pieces of jade from a cup, and
carefully placing them on the wax blobs. They blow gently to harden the seals and then hand the
sticks up the line to other children. *|*
“On a recent day, one boy sat on the edge of a stool, stretching his leg to reach a wooden pedal
that he pumped to spin a bamboo cylinder, wrapped in sandpaper, as he ground pieces of jade to a
refined sheen. Once they'd done their best with small hands scraped by the grinders, the boys

13. passed the jade along to men. It takes an experienced hand to get the shimmering polish that will
bring the best price, a small piece of the profits that keep Myanmar's military in power. That can't be
left in the shaky hands of children. *|*
Economic Gap Between Thailand and Myanmar
On the economic and social disparities between Myanmar and Thailand, Thomas Fuller wrote in the
New York Times, “On one side, millions of Myanmar's people suffer from chronic malnutrition. On
the other, Thais enjoy a much more affluent society, where people are generally so well fed that
obesity among children is a big concern. Children die in Myanmar of diseases so easily preventable
that most people in Thailand have never heard of them. Burma was considered one of the most
promising economies in Asia during the immediate postwar years. Today, the comparison with
Thailand highlights Myanmar's missed opportunities under the grip of its military government and the
breadth of the country's problems. [Source: Thomas Fuller, New York Times, October 25, 2007 <=>]
“There are significant differences in the salaries of construction workers: a daily wage the equivalent
of 100 baht, or about US$3, on the Myanmar side, compared with double that in Thailand. A teacher
on the Myanmar side earns the equivalent of US$47.50 a month, residents say, compared with
upward of US$158 in Thailand. Crossing into Myanmar means stepping back in time. Bicycle
rickshaws are a major mode of public transportation on the Burmese side -- not because they are
good for the environment, but because many people are too poor to be able to afford a car or a
smuggled motorcycle from Thailand, which earns US$10 billion a year shipping cars and pickup
trucks around the world. <=>
“In both Thailand and Myanmar, the military has been deeply involved in politics in recent decades.
Thailand has had more than a dozen coups since the 1930s and, after the overthrow last year of a
democratically elected government, power remains in the military's hands. The salient difference,
says Sean Turnell, an expert on the Burmese economy at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia,
is that Thailand's leaders have allowed businesses to thrive. <=>
“During 45 years of misrule, Myanmar's generals have almost entirely dismantled the economy, he
said. There are no effective property rights and contract enforcement is nonexistent. "If in other
countries ruling regimes behave occasionally as mafioso in skimming a cut from prosperous
business, then Burma's is more like a looter -- destroying what it can neither create nor understand,"
Turnell said. The economic dysfunction means there is no financial underpinning for better
healthcare or more widespread distribution of medicines. <=>
“According to UNICEF, 10 out of 100 children in Myanmar die before reaching the age of five. In
Thailand, two out of 100 die. A woman has a one in 75 chance of dying in childbirth in Myanmar,
compared with one in 900 in Thailand. Because children in Myanmar are malnourished, 32 percent
are significantly below the expected height for their age compared with 13 percent in Thailand.
Cynthia Maung, a Burmese who runs a nonprofit health clinic on the Thai side of the 1,800km
border, has become accustomed to detecting malnourished children. "The skin peels easily," she
said. "The hair becomes brittle. The eyes look drowsy. There's muscle wasting -- you can't see the
muscles, just bone and skin." “ <=>

14. “Terrence Smith, a US gynecologist and obstetrician at the clinic, says most of his patients are
unnaturally lean. "We do ultrasounds and the transducer goes straight to the organs," he said. In one
corner of Smith's ward were two tiny, malnourished newborns dropped off and abandoned by their
mothers. Maung's clinic was set up to treat sick patients from Myanmar who cannot afford health
care inside their country. The clinic treated about 2,000 patients in 1989 when it opened. Last year,
100,000 Myanmar people came for treatment.” <=>
Image Sources:
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Lonely
Planet Guides, The Irrawaddy, Myanmar Travel Information Compton’s Encyclopedia, The Guardian,
National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP,
Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Global Viewpoint (Christian Science
Monitor), Foreign Policy, burmalibrary.org, burmanet.org, Wikipedia, BBC, CNN, NBC News, Fox
News and various books and other publications.
© 2008 Jeffrey Hays
Last updated May 2014
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/burmese-generals-pocket-5bn-from-total-oil-deal-
1784497.html
The Burmese military junta has earned almost $5bn from a controversial gas
pipeline operated by the French oil giant Total and deprived the country of vital
income by depositing almost all the money in bank accounts in Singapore, a
new report claims.
Campaigners say Total has also profited handsomely from the arrangement,
with an estimated income of $483m from the project since 2000. Campaigners
say that the windfall from the Yadana pipeline, operated by Total and two other
partners, has been so huge that it has done much to insulate the country's
military rulers from the impact of international sanctions imposed over its
human rights abuses. The report from EarthRights International (ERI),
published today, argues that this makes Total and their partners a major factor in
reinforcing the regime's intransigence. And it claims that while their people
suffer some of the worst standards of living in Asia, with miserable state
investment in health, education, infrastructure and everything else that affects

15. the lives of ordinary people, the self-perpetuating military elite has grown
obscenely wealthy.
The pipeline in eastern Burma, which carries gas from rich fields in the
Andaman Sea through Burma and into Thailand, has long been controversial.
Campaigners have regularly claimed that the authorities have used forced labour
in the project, security for which is provided by the Burmese armed forces. Last
month, Total rejected claims that forced labour was still being used.
Yet the information contained in the report from ERI, a respected Thailand-
based group, provides the most detailed insight yet into the vast sums earned by
the regime from the pipeline and what happens to that wealth.
In the report, Total Impact, which has taken two years to research, the group
says the junta, headed by General Than Shwe, manages to avoid including
almost all its dollar gas revenues in the national budget by using an artificially
low exchange rate. This way it calculates its revenue as just 6 kyat to the dollar
when the real rate is closer to 1,000. According to a confidential IMF report
obtained by ERI, the natural gas revenue "contributed less than 1 per cent of
total budget revenue in 2007/08, but would have contributed about 57 per cent if
valued at the market exchange rate". The report says that at these rates, the
regime has listed just $29m of its earnings while around $4.8bn is unaccounted
for.
The report says that "reliable sources" have indicated that the Burmese military
regime's portion of the Yadana earnings are located in two leading offshore
banks in Singapore - the Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC),
which holds the majority of the revenue, and DBS Group. ERI says that OCBC
is Singapore's longest established local bank.
"The military elite are hiding billions of dollars of the people's revenue in
Singapore while the country needlessly suffers under the lowest social spending

16. in Asia," said ERI's Matthew Smith, the report's main author. "The revenue
from this pipeline is the regime's lifeline and a critical leverage point that the
international community could use to support the people of Burma."
The apparent disregard for its people is a charge that has long been levelled at
the Burmese junta, which calls itself the State Peace and Development Council.
The group Burma Campaign UK has estimated the regime's spending on health
services is the lowest in the world – just 50 pence per person a year – while it
spends up to half its budget on the military.
Criticism of the regime increased last year in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis
when the authorities were accused of a fatally slow and inadequate response to
the storm that left 140,000 people dead. Suspicious of the motives of outside
organisations, the authorities resisted granting entry visas to scores of aid
workers. US and other foreign vessels carrying badly needed emergency
supplies were refused permission to dock.
Yet while the regime appears happy to let its people suffer – Burma today is the
poorest country in the region – senior members of the junta enjoy lives of luxury
and excess. In November 2006, a rare insight into the extravagance of the
regime was provided by a video of the wedding party of Than Shwe's daughter
to an army officer. In the video, posted on the internet, copious amounts of
champagne was poured while gifts totalling an estimated $50m were handed to
the couple. The wedding presents included cars jewellery and houses.
For a regime facing a series of sanctions and widespread pressure to release
political prisoners, including the detained opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi,
energy deals have become a key bargaining chip in its relations with regional
powers such as China and India.
The junior international partners in the Yadana pipeline are Chevron, which is
said too have earned $437m from the project, and PTTEP of Thailand, which

17. has earned around $394m. Burma's state-controlled Myanmar Oil and Gas
Enterprise is also involved in the operation. Last month The Independent
revealed allegations that the Yadana pipeline was still being serviced by forced
labour, claims that were denied by Total.
Last night the Burmese Embassy in London failed to respond to questions about
the report's allegations. A spokeswoman for Total said it was unable to respond
comprehensively to the claims made by ERI as it had not seen the document.
Asked about its earning in Burma, the spokeswoman said: "We do not usually
comment on our earnings per country. Nevertheless our amount in Myanmar
represents 0.7 per cent of the group's results."
She said that in 2008, the group's income was €13.9bn (around $20bn),
suggesting Total annually earns $140m from Burma and its controversial
pipeline.
A brutal regime: Military rulers who profit
Burma has been under the thumb of the military since 1962, and the current
junta has ruled since the late 1980s when it brutally crushed a democracy
movement, killing up to 6,000 people.
At the head of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) sits senior
leader Than Shwe, a former postal clerk now aged 76. Initially considered
something of a moderate, the general has shown himself to be increasingly
authoritarian and hostile to negotiations. Located in the remote jungle capital of
Naypidaw since late 2005, the SPDC's other senior members include vice
chairman Maung Aye, who has a reputation for ruthlessness and xenophobia.
Some reports suggest that he and Than Shwe are involved in a power struggle.
Third-in-command in the military structure is Shwe Mann, Joint Chief of Staff
and co-ordinator of the special forces. A father of three sons, Shwe Mann

18. became a powerful figure in the regime when he was appointed head of all three
services.
Then Sein holds the position of prime minister and is considered to be a strong
supporter of Than Shwe. In May 2008, as head of the junta's disaster
preparedness committee, he became the point man for relief efforts related to
Cyclone Nargis. He was notoriously pictured on the front page of a state-run
newspaper handing out television sets when people were desperate for food,
water and electricity.
The oil giant: Total's global reach
Total's adventures with the Burmese generals have disturbing parallels with the
involvement of another French oil giant, Elf – a company Total swallowed in
2000 – with corrupt military dictators in Africa. It's an inglorious story that
ended with one of Europe's biggest corruption trials in 2003 and the conviction
of three senior executives at Elf. Soon afterwards the company was absorbed
into Total and Elf's African operations were rebranded.
A Paris courtroom heard how the oil riches of West and central Africa from
Gabon to Cameroon and Congo to Angola had flowed back and forth between
Elf and its client leaders – three of whom are still in power while the third,
Omar Bongo, died earlier this year.
In that case, although not in this, the company's senior management were
accused of personally profiting from the deals. Elf's former chairman, Loïk Le
Floch-Prigent, received a five-year jail sentence in 2003, as did the former
director Alfred Sirven, while the company's "Mr Africa", Andre Tarallo, was
jailed for four years and fined €2m (£1.75m).
The court heard how huge sums were paid – more than €16m annually to
President Bongo – to ensure these leaders stayed loyal to Elf. The defendants

19. maintained that French leaders and parties received similar sums to ensure no
one interfered with the arrangement.
In Gabon, that meant Elf could act as a "state within a state", while the
sweeteners ensured that France's military and espionage operations operated
with impunity.
Today, Total is investing nearly $5bn (£3bn) in its Africa operations and is
doing business with the same stalwarts from the Elf years: Paul Biya in
Cameroon, Denis Sassou Nguesso in Congo-Brazzaville, and José Eduardo dos
Santos in Angola. What these countries have in common are sham elections,
broken constitutions, rampant corruption and mass poverty.
http://thediplomat.com/2015/11/the-few-generals-that-dont-exit-in-myanmar/
The (Few) Generals That Don’t Exit in Myanmar
Myanmar’s military took a bashing in the polls on November 8, but it will
continue to play a role in politics.
The extent of the electoral loss suffered by the ruling Union Solidarity and Development
Party (USDP) has surprised many observers, including the most high-profile members
of the party themselves. Among the old guard of the former junta and the hybrid
government that succeeded in 2011, many faced a humiliating defeat, including Thura
Shwe Mann, the outgoing speaker of the lower house, Wai Lwin and Hla Min, two
former defense ministers, and Htay Oo, the party chief.
Out of the 170-odd retired military officers (including about 150 USDP members) who
were candidates to an elective office on November 8, only 28 have been able to secure a
seat in one of the sixteen upcoming legislative bodies. A few prominent retired officers
and local strongmen retained their seats or were elected for the first time, and will sit in
the new legislature starting January. In that respect, the triangular relations between
the last bit of these USDP politicos (especially those with a military background), the
massive National League Democracy (NLD) parliamentary bloc and the 388 military-
appointed legislators, under full control of the top brass of the armed forces, or
Tatmadaw, will be interesting to follow.
Among them, there are a handful of former Tatmadaw big shots, including 20 senior
officers who graduated from Myanmar’s top military academy, the Defense Services
Academy (DSA). Hla Htay Win (DSA-20th intake), the recently retired Joint Chief of

20. Staff will be the only 4-star general in the new Union legislature. He stood for a
constituency in Naypyitaw. Three former chiefs of staff of the Myanmar Navy also
grabbed a seat: Soe Thane, a former minister in the presidential office took a seat in the
upper house (as an independent), as did Thura Thet Swe for the Coco Islands
constituency and Nyan Tun (DSA-16), who also happened to be one of the two outgoing
Vice-presidents of the Union.
Unlike his counterpart in the lower house, the speaker of the upper house of the Union
parliament, Khin Aung Myint, kept hold on his seat in Pyawbwe, a rural constituency
north of Naypyitaw. A retired major-general, he was the Joint-Secretary of the National
Convention that drafted the 2008 Constitution and one can expect him to act as a sort of
“minority whip” in the upper house, unless he is propelled towards a presidential
nomination by the military parliamentary bloc next February – and thus becomes one of
the two Vice-presidents. Pyawbwe, a city harboring the headquarters of the Tatmadaw’s
armoured operations command, also reelected another retired general, Thaung Aye
(DSA-20), a former Military Inspector General.
At the provincial level, three outgoing chief ministers with a military background
escaped defeat. Ex-Major Gen. Maung Maung Ohn (DSA-22) ran for a seat (Ann
constituency) in the Rakhine state assembly and won. In June 2014, he had been
appointed Chief Minister in the aftermath of the communal violence that ravaged parts
of the Rakhine State. His constituency also elected in the lower house Thein Swe (DSA-
13), a former minister of transport of the junta (2004-10) and USDP high-ranking
official. In the Shan provincial parliament (which will be next year the only local
assembly, out of fourteen, dominated by military appointees and the USDP), Sao Aung
Myat, also a DSA graduate, was re-elected. He may seek, if not in position to retain his
chief ministership (all fourteen chief ministers will be appointed by the NLD-elected
president, according to the constitution), at least to be appointed speaker of the
provincial house, headquartered in Taunggyi.
In Bago region, Nyan Win, the former minister of foreign affairs of the military regime
between 2004 and 2010, won his seat back at the Bago regional hluttaw but will not be
in position to grab any position of power in a region almost fully controlled by the NLD.
In the same constituency where he won (Zigon), Nyan Tun, one of Myanmar’s ex-Navy
chiefs and a former IMET student at the U.S. Naval War College, was elected in the
lower house. Furthermore, three outgoing army-appointed ministers for Security and
Border Affairs (respectively in the Shan state, and in Yangon and Mandalay regions)
were also elected provincial legislators.
Several other military retirees and local strongmen snatched a victory in conflict-ridden
areas, especially near China’s lawless borders, where they obviously were able to freely
canvass voters. Aung Than Htut, the recently retired Chief of Bureau of Special
Operations No. 2 grabbed a regional seat in the constituency of Laukkai, at the heart of
the war-torn Kokang region. T. Khun Myatt in neighboring Kutkai in northern Shan

21. State (for the lower house) and Zakhung Ting Ying in the Kachin State’s northern areas
bordering China and controlled by his militia (formerly known as the New Democratic
Army-Kachin, now a Border Guard Force under Tatmadaw command) also won seats.
Only two retired officers will stand in the next legislature as independent legislators: Soe
Thane (in the upper house), the ambitious minister in President Thein Sein’s outgoing
office, and Tin Aye (an eponym of the chairman of the electoral commission) in the
lower house. It will be interesting to see whether they will play politics along with the
military parliamentary bloc, the USDP or remain effectively autonomous and even join
hands with the NLD. Among its new legislators in the lower house, the NLD will count
on three DSA graduates. Observers will soon wonder whether their names will top the
list of NLD’s presidential hopefuls – according to the 2008 Constitution indeed,
presidential candidates should be “acquainted with security affairs”. Soe Htay was
elected in the constituency Kawkareik in Kayin state, where he defeated another ex-
colonel, who was deputy minister during the junta heydays; Aung Win won a seat in the
constituency of Hmawbi, a military base north of Yangon; and Tin Nu in Manaung,
Rakhine State. The NLD also pushed forward a current member of a Union
parliamentary commission, with an educational military background (a Master in
Defense Studies). He won a seat at the upper house for the Sagaing region No. 8.
With the exception of the NLD victors, very few of these 30-odd strongmen or
prominent retired military officials will be in position to capture key positions in the
new legislatures or governments early next year, when all posts will be distributed
according to the NLD’s wills and whims. At best some can get a parliamentary
committee chair or secretariat in the Union parliament. It would not be surprising to see
a former Navy chief being appointed chairman of a waterways committee, for instance.
This will depend on the choices the next speakers in the house will make. Still, this is
nothing fancy for a former military chief.
How will they behave in parliament – provided they regularly attend assemblies overtly
dominated by their most vocal opponents? A cynic would argue that they will seek to
defend their own vested interests through legislative means. Many a retired officer and
USDP leaders is also a manager, a member of a wealthy familial enterprise, or a local
notable in a remote constituency. But the NLD now holds a super majority in both
chambers of the Union parliament, and only three provincial parliaments do not fall
under the party’s full control. So if these former members of Myanmar’s ruling elite can
be expected to behave as conservative rule-followers, they may not be strong contenders
to the majority rule imposed by the NLD inside parliament. They can disrupt
parliamentary debates, though legal legislative means, as in any other lawmaking body
in any democratic society. But not much more.
The military appointees in all legislative bodies might be more straightforward, notably
if the NLD starts the next legislature with a contentious constitutional debate, and
appoints (through the two speakers and the president of the Union) proactive and vocal

22. members in the new constitutional tribunal. However, long-term challenges to the NLD
political and legislative agenda might instead come from below in coming months: from
the strongholds the defeated strongmen, or the few ones still sitting in parliament, kept
closely under their watch in Myanmar’s remote peripheries; from the armed forces
itself, as they no longer seem to consider valuable the use political proxies; but even
more significantly from the burgeoning civil society.
Renaud Egreteau (@R_Egreteau) is a 2015-2016 Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars in Washington DC.
https://jesscscott.wordpress.com/2015/09/05/burma-druglords/
On the historical links between the Singapore government and “Burmese Generals / Drug
Lords.”
1. LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS
Most of Burma’s 50 million people struggle to feed their families on less than $1 a day.
Regional analysts say most of that revenue and money earned on the black market goes straight
to the military leaders and the elite that surrounds them.
Ian Holliday, a Burma expert at the University of Hong Kong, says the generals also spend their
money in Singapore.
BANKS and BILLIONS
a) Nine banks have been given provisional licences to operate in Myanmar, of which two are
Singaporean — UOB and OCBC.
b) In early September 2009, the NGO EarthRights International (ERI) revealed that the French
and American oil companies Total and Chevron were using twoSingapore-based banking
corporations (DBS and OCBC) to finance Burma’s Yadana energy project.
This project might have generated huge dividends for the Burmese state and its military
associates (around US$5 billion in one decade according to ERI’s report), as well as for
Singapore. Singapore’s official bilateral trade with Burma hit US$1.86 billion during the 2009-
2010 fiscal year.
Source: Soldiers and Diplomacy in Burma (NUS Press)
c) “[Burma’s] military elite are hiding billions of dollars of the people’s revenue in Singapore
while the country needlessly suffers under the lowest social spending in Asia,” said ERI’s
Matthew Smith, the report’s main author.
Source: The Independent

23. d) Jelson Garcia, Asia Program Manager with the Banking Information Center (BIC), said World
Bank, ADB and International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials informed him last year that
Burma’s government held up to $11 billion in several Singaporean bank accounts.
Source: The Irrawaddy
3. DOUBLE STANDARDS and “BLOOD MONEY”
Stephen Law is the son of Burma’s notorious drug lord Lo Hsing Han, who, at one point,
was sentenced to death in Burma for drug trafficking.
Lo Hsing Han or Law Sit Han (1935 – 2013): Burmese drug trafficker and major business tycoon.
a) Lo Hsing Han’s Asia World (managed by son Stephen Law) and the Burmese junta are
partners in Singapore’s luxury Traders Hotel. The hotel’s November 1996 opening ceremony
was attended by the wanted guy, Lo Hsing Han himself.
According to a high-level US government official familiar with the situation, Law’s wife Cecilia
Ng operates an underground banking system, and “is a contact for people in Burma to get their
drug money into Singapore, because she has aconnection to the government.”
Source: John Harding, SBS: Singapore Sling, and Covert Action Quarterly
b) “If the Singapore Government truly feels drug abuse is a scourge on society, it would not just
want to catch and hang these small-time peddlers,” Singapore Democratic Party leader Chee
Soon Juan said, pointing out the Singapore government’s hypocrisy.

24. Chee Soon Juan, SDP
“You would want to go for the big fish and go to what the source is. Press the Government on
what it’s doing in Burma to stop this production of opium and heroin.”
Source: Singapore’s Hand in Golden Triangle
c) Is it so difficult to prosecute a drug lord? There is a conspiracy of intellects and governments
that feed the public with bullshit that corruptions are extremely difficult to prosecute and to
prove.
Money Trail | Image from loans.org
Nothing could be further from the truth. It is easy to steal $1 to $2, but to embezzle millions
you would leave trails of accountants, private bankers, large amount of bank accounts
transactions, etc. Those are the easiest things to track down.
Source: Veritas
d) Remember, you are dealing with a country like Singapore where the brutal military junta
leaders of Burma are not only given red carpet welcomes when they visit Singapore, while they
brutalize and torture their citizens, orchids in Singaporewere even named after them!
Singapore Botanic Gardens held an “Orchid Naming Ceremony” for Myanmar’s President Thein Sein, a former general, in 2009
There is a lot of dirty money to be made with Burmese drug money connections. Burmese drug
lords need lawyers too. Lee Kuan Yew does business with Burma. Many of them are drug lords.

25. Contracts for drug money transactions have to be drafted, banking agreements have to be entered
into and complicated money laundering transactions have to be worked out.
Source: Singapore Dissident (2011)
e) “The Singapore government knows it’s having dinner with the devil, and sharing a very short
spoon,” says former solicitor-general Francis Seow.
Francis Seow, former solicitor-general of SG
“And it is a terrible double standard. Drug moneys are being laundered apparently by the same
drug lords who supply the heroin for which small-time drug dealers are hanged. We are reaping
profits as Burma’s biggest investor, but we’re being paid with blood money.”
Source: The Nation
4. GIC, SINGTEL, and MEDICAL TRIPS to SINGAPORE
a) The close political, economic, and military relationship between the two countries facilitates
the weaving of millions of narco-dollars into the legitimate world economy.
. . .The Burmese government has kept computers and communication technology away from
students and others in opposition to the regime. Yet Singapore has made the best computer
technology available to the ruling elite and their business partners [through Singapore Telecom
(SingTel)].
Singaporean companies have also helped suppress dissent in Burma by supplying the military
with arms to use against its own people.
Source: Covert Action Quarterly
b) A former US assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Affairs, Robert Gelbard, has said half of Singapore’s investment in Burma has
been “tied to the family of narco-trafficker Lo Hsing Han.”

26. Medical trips to SG. Image of SGH byThomson Adsett.
Dissident groups say the trade-off for Tay Za’s government business contracts in Burma is to
fund junta leaders’ medical trips to Singapore.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Singapore has received criticism for its large investment in the military dictatorship of Burma.
In 1995, the government of then PM Goh Chok Tong pursued a diplomatic strategy of engaging
Burma while securing investment deals for its Soverign Wealth Funds (SWFs), including
the GIC’s investment in the Myanmar Fund (Financial Times1995). The state used its SWFs as a
diplomatic tool to open channels into Burma.
Source: Sovereign Wealth Funds (by Christopher Balding)
5. FORCED ORGAN HARVEST?
 Reader Tip: Take note of the two dates in the paragraphs below.
1) Burma’s Prime Minister Soe Win is being treated at a hospital in Singapore, an official from
the Burmese embassy in the city-state said. The official would not give details of Soe Win’s
illness, saying only that it was a “serious health matter.”
Source: BBC (21 March 2007)

27. 2) As Sim Tee Hua lay on life support in a Singapore hospital, seven of his relatives knelt crying
on the floor before the doctors, begging them not to remove his organs and give him a chance for
a miracle recovery.
“The hospital staff were running as they wheeled him out of the back door of the room,” said
Sim Chew Hiah, one of his sisters. “They were behaving like robbers.”
The harvesting surgeons had waited for 24 hours, but although his family still clung to hopes that
he could recover, Singaporean law assumes all citizens except Muslims are willing organ
donors unless they have explicitly opted out.
Source: Telegraph (2 March 2007)
6. LEE KUAN YEW on BURMESE LEADERS
Lee Kuan Yew (Photo: AFP/Files/Roslan Rahman)
From an article on CNN:
This time, the WikiLeaks cable shows Minister Mentor [Lee Kuan Yew] describing the
Myanmar (or Burma) leaders as “stupid” and “dense.” He was even quoted as saying that
dealing with the regime is like “talking to dead people.”
Source: Mr. Brown / CNN (2010)