Tuesday 31 May, 2011
Suu Kyi Plans Tour of Countryside in June
By KELVIN CHAN / AP WRITER Tuesday, May 31, 2011
HONG KONG — Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Monday she plans to tour the country next month in her first trip into the provinces since a 2003 political tour ended in her lengthy house arrest.
"I hope to be able to travel out of Rangoon in the month of June, as soon as I have got rid of all the work that has piled up," she said in a videolink to an audience at Hong Kong University. Rangoon is also known as Yangon, Burma's biggest city.
She said the authorities have not given her any "particular assurances" about security. She did not provide further details.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate drew large crowds when she last toured northern Burma, and her popularity rattled the military government. Exactly eight years ago Monday, supporters of the ruling junta ambushed her entourage. Several of her followers were killed, but she escaped, only to be arrested.
She was released last November after the country, also known as Myanmar, held general elections in which her party did not participate, calling the vote unfair. Suu Kyi's party won the last elections in 1990 but was not allowed to govern. The junta was officially disbanded after the November elections, but the current government is still military dominated.
Suu Kyi answered dozens of questions from students, alumni and reporters in the videolink with Hong Kong University. She has been jailed or under house arrest for 15 of the last 21 years, and during her brief periods of freedom she has not traveled outside the country, fearing the military would not allow her to return.
She avoided criticizing China, an important backer of Burma's government. Beijing provides the country crucial economic support, military assistance and diplomatic protection at the United Nations.
Burma could maintain neighborly relations with China while having a "friendship based on shared values of democracy" with Western countries, she said.
"I don't think we have to make it either-or. We can be friends with the West and we can be friends with China each in its own special way," Suu Kyi said.
Western nations and groups critical of Burma's poor human rights record had made her freedom a key demand. They estimate the country still has more than 2,000 political prisoners, and a UN envoy said last week Burma has changed little since its stated transition to civilian rule.
Suu Kyi said her party has tried hard to establish a relationship with China's government. But party members aren't even able to break the ice with Chinese diplomats at cocktail receptions, she said.
"Somehow they seem to be able to evade our people quite successfully. I wish they would talk to us," she said.
Suu Kyi ended by answering a question on how she felt about the death of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, who was killed by US Navy SEALs in a raid on his hide-out in Pakistan.
"With regards to the recent death of bin Laden, it just shows that violence ends with violence, and that there is too much violence already in our world and we've got to try do something about it," she said. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21394
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John McCain Will Press for Burmese National Reconciliation
By SAW YAN NAING Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Visiting former US presidential candidate Senator John McCain said he will press Burma's new government to initiate national reconciliation, release political prisoners and engage in tripartite dialogue during his trip to the country on Wednesday.
The Republican figurehead was speaking to journalists at Mae Tao clinic by the Thai-Burmese border in Mae Sot. He met with Dr. Cynthia Maung who founded the vital medical centre which provides free healthcare for refugees, migrant workers and others who cross the border from Burma into Thailand.
During his trip to Burma, Sen. McCain is also expected to meet Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday. Sen. McCain is one of the most powerful Republican voices in the US Senate and was defeated by Barak Obama in the 2008 US presidential election.
Cynthia Maung told The Irrawaddy that Sen. McCain visited the clinic and observed conditions there while pledging continued support for humanitarian assistance at the border.
Bo Kyi, joint secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, who met Sen. McCain in the sidelines, told the US senator that the Thein Sein-led government first needed to release the more than 2,100 political prisoners currently held if it sincerely wants political change in Burma. He added that they must stop all human rights violation across Burma, including ethnic areas.
“The change should not be superficial change. It should be a genuine change,” said Bo Kyi.
On Tuesday morning, Sen. McCain also visited Mae La Burmese refugee camp on the Thai border and listened to the views of refugees regarding the shifting Burmese political landscape.
In 2008, Laura Bush also visited Mae Tao clinic in Mae Sot and Mae La camp while her husband, then US President George W Bush, had luncheon meeting with Burmese dissidents in Bangkok and listened to their perspectives regarding politics in Burma.
Mae La is the largest of nine refugee camps located in Thailand’s Tak Province, and currently houses more than 40,000 Burmese refugees, mostly ethnic Karen people who left their homeland due to attacks by Burmese government troops.
Day Day Poe, a camp committee member who met John McCain for 30 minutes, told The Irrawaddy that the senator asked her and other committees about their perspective on the current situation in Burma.
“He asked us if we knew of any change in Burma and if we think there is any change in Burma or not? He wanted to know our opinion. He also asked how many people want to go back Burma and how many of them want to resettle in the US,” said Day Day Poe.
Accompanied by four US officials, including US ambassador to Thailand Kristie Kenney, Sen. McCain toured the camp, visited clinics and several houses belonging to refugees and questioned them about living conditions in the camp. He also questioned refugee families about difficulties of their daily lives in the camp.
Sen. McCain also asked the refugee committees if they want to pass any message to the new Burma government, led by ex-Gen Thein Sein, of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party.
“We told him that we want Burma President U Thein Sein to create national reconciliation as soon as possible. We said that we also support Daw Aung San Suu Kyi for her struggle for a national reconciliation,” said Tun Tun, chairman of the Mae La camp.
The refugee committees also told Sen. McCain that national reconciliation, ethnic minority ceasefires, democratic reform and security are necessary for refugees if Thailand repatriates them to Burma.
Current US President Barak Obama renewed its imposed economic sanctions on Burma in April despite several EU countries wanting to lift the restrictions. Sen. McCain has also expressed pro-economic sanction views on Burma. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21399
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Insein prison rejects strikers’ demands
By AHUNT PHONE MYAT
Published: 31 May 2011
Demands for an improvement to living conditions inside Burma’s most notorious jail have been rejected by authorities, despite a hunger strike by political prisoners last week gaining international attention.
Nearly 30 inmates had refused food at the Insein jail in Rangoon, a number of whom were sent to solitary confinement as punishment. Although the strike ended on 25 May with authorities pledging to meet various demands, it now appears that a wholesale rejection has been issued.
Several news journals inside Burma were yesterday ordered by the government to publish an article outlining the refusal: calls for mosquito nets and fans for prisoners were deemed too costly, the article said, as were adequately-sized prisoner uniforms that would be replaced every six months.
It also claimed that Insein’s sizeable political prisoner population would not be separated from the common criminals because of a lack of space. Insein prison was built by the British in 1871 to house around 5,000 inmates, but despite some expansion it remains heavily overcrowded, with an estimated population double its stated capacity. Authorities would also continue to record conversations between prisoners and visiting relatives, the article said.
Tate Naing, joint secretary of the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners–Burma (AAPPB), was critical of the response, claiming that authorities had broken prison regulations.
“If they are to keep someone in prison, then they must grant that person the rights accorded in the prison manual. Denying the prisoners these rights with excuses of security and financial issues is very groundless.”
The early phase of the strike, which began on 17 May with five female political prisoners refusing to leave their cells, followed the day after President Thein Sein announced a one-year commutation of all prison sentences that saw nearly 17,000 people released early. Among these however were only around 50 political prisoners.
In the past few days however, inmates in the remote Kale prison in northern Burma have also begun a hunger strike. Rumours suggested that it had also spread to Hkamti prison close to Burma’s border with India.
Four inmates in Kale, including influential monk Ashin Gambira and 1990 MP-elect Nyi Pu, had addressed a letter earlier this month to Burma’s home affairs minister complaining that they were being denied adequate healthcare, food and the freedom to communicate with their families. The strike was prompted by the lack of response form the government.
A Rangoon-based news journal editor who requested anonymity told DVB that publications were still waiting to see whether they could publish independent news on the hunger strikes, but noted that the official article on the demands of the protesters omitted the fact that some had been put in solitary confinement.
http://www.dvb.no/news/insein-prison-rejects-strikers%E2%80%99-demands/15915
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Swiss-backed dam ‘to displace 8,000’
By NAW NOREEN
Published: 31 May 2011
More than 20 villages in southwestern Shan state are facing the threat of impending flood and forced relocation due a hydropower project being built with the help of Swiss and British firms.
The Upper Paunglaung dam on the eponymous river that cuts through eastern Burma could submerge the homes of around 8000 people in the planned 61-square kilometre reservoir, according to a new report released by the Kayan New Generation Youth.
“Households will be forced to flatten their homes and abandon their farm fields, receiving in return just $US50 in compensation,” it said. Mu Moe Lay, of the KNGY, told a press conference in Chiang Mai, Thailand, today that no help would be given for the relocation, with the deadline set of October this year.
Aiding the planning and construction of the dam is the Swiss-based AF-Colenco Ltd, which will design and oversee the project, and UK-based Malcolm Dunstan and Associates, which has already been heavily criticised for its involvement in the Tasang dam, the largest of 48 dams in Burma.
“This project shows that whether from Europe or Asia, companies are willing to toss aside proper standards when working in Burma,” said Mu Moe Lay.
Security for the Upper Paunglaung dam has been handed over to the Burmese army, whom the report says has employed the use of forced labour in the seven years since construction began. Mu Moe Lay said that authorities had also moved troops from the ceasefire group, New Kayan State Party, to the dam location.
China’s Exim Bank and the Yunnan Machinery and Export Company have also provided capital and machinery for the project, one of nearly 40 hydropower developments in Burma that Beijing is playing a significant role in.
Sai Sai, from the pressure group Burma Rivers Network, said that most of the electricity generated from these projects are sold to neighbouring countries and are of little benefit for local populations. The Upper Paunglaung dam, which is located only 50 kilometres from the Burmese capital, Naypyidaw, will produce 140 megawatts of electricity.
http://www.dvb.no/news/swiss-backed-dam-%E2%80%98to-displace-8000%E2%80%99/15920
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Danger underfoot in Myanmar war zones
AFP
Danger underfoot in Myanmar war zones AFP/File – Myanmar is the only regime in the world that still regularly lays anti-personnel mines, according to …
by Daniel Rook – Tue May 31, 3:21 am ET
MAE SOT, Thailand (AFP) – The last thing Tee Pa Doh remembers before losing his foot is a bright flash. With his leg mangled and bleeding, he knew his best hope was a long journey through the jungle to the Thai border.
Today he counts himself lucky to be alive. But in the conflict zone of eastern Myanmar that he calls home, littered with landmines and with danger lurking at every step, his story is nothing out of the ordinary.
"My foot was blown off but I didn't fall. I stood there, holding my injured leg," said the 52-year-old village headman from Karen State, the scene of one of the world's longest-running civil wars.
"There was blood spurting out. Everyone was afraid to come over to me. I held my leg and hopped," he said, recalling the day in May when a landmine turned his life upside down.
He was taken on a tractor to the frontier several hours away following the incident in his village and crossed over to Thailand where the limb was amputated, following a path taken by many others before him.
"If there was no clinic in Mae Sot I couldn't do anything in Burma," said the victim, whose name AFP has changed for his safety, rubbing the stump of his newly bandaged leg at a clinic in the sleepy Thai border town of Mae Sot.
Myanmar, also known as Burma, is the only regime in the world that still regularly lays anti-personnel mines, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, joint winner of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.
"In most of the world landmine use is declining. In Myanmar there's been consistent armed conflict and use of mines by both the ethnic militias and the state forces," said Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan, a researcher for the pressure group's annual Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor report.
Nobody knows exactly how many people have been maimed or killed in Myanmar as a result of landmines, because the authorities do not keep count.
About 33 of Myanmar's 325 townships are believed to be contaminated with the controversial weapons.
Over the decade to 2009, the Monitor identified at least 2,587 casualties from landmines or explosive remnants of war, including 183 fatalities, but that might be just the tip of the iceberg.
"We believe it could be exponentially higher than that," Moser-Puangsuwan said.
"In countries like Burma, the fastest path to poverty is to become a mine victim," he added, noting that the injury can rob victims of a livelihood and force them to take out loans to pay for medical costs.
Most victims have no choice but to seek help from Myanmar's crumbling healthcare system, although some international relief groups such as the Red Cross help with rehabilitation.
Many of those living close to Thailand seek treatment there.
At the Mae Tao Clinic, founded by a Myanmar doctor to provide free health care to fellow refugees, Karen landmine amputee Maw Kel runs a workshop that sees about 15-20 patients every month, providing free artificial limbs.
Most patients cross over illegally from Myanmar and must return afterwards.
Tha Gay, who lost his leg in a landmine blast two years ago, returned to the clinic to have his own prosthesis repaired. He is one of eight people in his village to have lost a leg.
"If it weren't for this clinic, I would have died. There was nothing else I could have done," he said.
"I'm very happy to have been given this artificial leg. If I didn't have it, I wouldn't want to live. I would rather kill myself."
Myanmar has endured half a century of military rule and while the junta handed over power to a nominally civilian government in March after a widely criticised election, the armed forces still dominate the nation.
There are documented cases of people being forced to act as "human minesweepers" for army patrols, which regularly force civilians to work as porters carrying ammunition, firewood or other supplies.
"To take ordinary civilians and march them ahead of military units when they're being used for portering, or to order them to clear mines without any appropriate training, is a human rights atrocity," said Moser-Puangsuwan.
It is not just government soldiers who use landmines. At least 17 non-state armed groups are accused of using the weapons since 2009.
Across the border from Mae Sot, ethnic minority Karen rebels who have been fighting the government for six decades appear to have increased their use of landmines, either homemade or seized from the military.
They target not only state soldiers but also rival ethnic factions.
Caught in the middle, civilians in the conflict zones face danger underfoot whenever they leave their homes.
"Anti-personnel landmines and improvised explosive devices are probably the biggest security threat to most people in those areas," said David Mathieson, a Myanmar expert for New York-based Human Rights Watch.
"Villagers tend to anticipate when fighting is going to happen and they flee. But then what most factions do is to go in and landmine the area... booby trapping civilian areas and destroying agriculture and houses," he said.
Thailand's announcement in April that it wants to close its Myanmar refugee camps has raised fears across the exile community that it might be pushed back and landmine victims turned away.
But Maw Kel believes his prosthetic services will be needed for many years to come.
"Look at Cambodia. The war already finished 30 years ago but landmine incidents still happen. It's going to be the same in Burma," he said.
Ironically, the biggest danger may come when the war finishes and people rush to return home, said Moser-Puangsuwan.
"There are no records of these mines. They're not marked in any way. So when the armed conflict ends there's going to be a massive number of casualties and at this point there is virtually nothing anyone can do to stop it," he warned.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110531/wl_sthasia_afp/myanmarthailandconflictlandminerights_20110531072109;_ylc=X3oDMTEwaDM1Y3NxBF9TAzIwMjM4Mjc1MjQEZW1haWxJZAMxMzA2ODQzMDQ1
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US Dollar Hits Record Low in Burma
By AUNG THET WINE Tuesday, May 31, 2011
An influx of US dollars at the border, tensions between the government and ethnic armed groups and heavy domestic investment by Burmese entities has caused the dollar to reach a historic low on the Burmese currency market.
RANGOON — Two months after Burma's new government led by President Thein Sein was sworn in to office, the value of US dollars and gold dropped in an unprecedented manner, with the dollar reaching a historic low, according to business sources.
Some foreign currency dealers in Rangoon said the extensive influx of US dollars from the illegal drug trade at the Sino-Burmese border and the continuous decline in demand on the domestic US dollar market have lowered the value of the dollar. The dealers said that although the value of US dollars has decreased in world markets, the domestic currency market is not directly related to the international market.
“The rate for US dollars in Rangoon lies in the current exchange rate of yuan-dollar-kyat at the Sino-Burmese border. It is not determined in Rangoon. Now, the supplies of US dollars at the border have significantly increased. There are many reasons for the increase. There has always been a heroin and amphetamine market at the border involving US dollars. If dollar supplies there increase in value then the domestic market will decrease,” said a businessman in Rangoon who has been involved in the gold and dollar trade in connection with the China border.
A number of businessmen in Rangoon said they believe that the increase in US dollar supplies at the Burma-China border is related to tensions between the government troops and ethnic armed groups, which could lead to clashes at any time.
“There is news of a reunion of two ethnic Shan armed groups and of tensions between the Kachin and Wa armed groups and the government. Concerns about whether clashes will break out have forced dollar holders to sell off what they have in the market. Everybody predicts that the dollar value will decrease more,” said a gold trader from the Myanmar Gold Entrepreneurs Association.
The value of the US dollar has reportedly sunk as low as 789 kyat per one dollar on Tuesday in Rangoon's street exchange market.
One of the reasons for less demand in US dollars is reported to have been the formation of a joint company for importing palm oil that was permitted by the government.
“Since the government only allows any one person to import 3,000 tons of palm oil, those who want to do business in this area joined hands and formed a company. A joint company comprises at least 10 businessmen and each has to invest a minimum of 70 million kyat [US $ 85,366]. Some businessmen who can afford to do so invest about 100 million kyat [US $ 121,951]. The investment in this business caused a significant decrease in dollar buying,” said a businessman from The Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
On gold markets in Rangoon and Mandalay, the demand for gold has reportedly dropped in an unprecedented manner and daily sales continue to be quiet.
“The gold market is very quiet. There are people who want to sell, but only a few who want to buy. It is not in good in shape at all,” said a gold trader.
Currently, one kyat-thar [0.016 kg] of solid gold is reported to cost 667,000 kyat [US $ 813].
Business sources said although the new government has granted import and export licenses quickly, traders still have to go through many unnecessary steps and the amount of imports and exports have yet to increase under the new trade policy.
“Imports and exports haven't increased very much following the dissolution of the Trade Council. Only the license application process has become quicker. Other steps remain stagnant. Whoever wants to apply for an import/export license has to go to Naypyidaw. If they want to export rice they need recommendations from the Myanmar Rice Industry Association. They need every document required in order to apply for a permit. If something goes wrong they have to start over and go through many steps,” said a Rangoon-based businessman.
An economist inside Burma said that things have not improved in Burma and a down-turn is indicated.
“The prosperity of a country cannot only be measured by its exports, but also by imports. If the economy improves, the import of capital and other goods will also increase. But here in Burma, the import of consumption goods—such as gasoline, diesel and palm oil—is more than that of capital goods. The latter is imported only for the government or its projects. Private businessmen have imported only a small amount of capital goods,” said the economist.
He said that in exporting rice, various types of beans and fishery products, Burma needs to come up with plans to increase the export of high-valued products and the government should relax regulations in the license application process.
According to the Burmese government's official statistics, foreign investment in the country exceeds US $36 billion and China has invested the most in the energy and natural gas sectors. http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21395
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Investment Commission Bolstered, as Trade Council Sidelined
By THE IRRAWADDY Tuesday, May 31, 2011
President Thein Sein reportedly instructed members of the MIC to work on improving relations with potential foreign investors, particularly those from neighboring countries like China and India.
The Myanmar Investment Commission (MIC), which has replaced the now defunct Trade Council as Burma's main trade body, has been reinforced in its new role with the recent appointment of senior officials from President Thein Sein's government as key members.
On April 20, just weeks after Thein Sein's new government was sworn in, Burma's state-run media reported that the MIC would take over the Trade Council's responsibilities as the main body in charge of promoting trade and investment.
Since then, it has emerged that key positions in the MIC have all been filled by Thein Sein appointees. Leading the commission as its chairman is former Maj-Gen Tin Naing Thein, who heads both the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries and the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development.
A high-ranking official from the Ministry of Finance and Revenue in Naypyidaw told The Irrawaddy that of the remaining 15 positions on the MIC, 11 are occupied by deputy ministers and four by managing directors.
“The chairperson is Minister Tin Naing Thein, the vice chairperson is Deputy Minister of Railway Transport Thura Thaung Lwin, and the secretary is Deputy Minister of National Planning and Economic Development Dr. Kaung Zaw,” the official said.
Thein Sein reportedly instructed members of the commission to work on improving relations with potential foreign investors, particularly those from neighboring countries like China and India.
“The commission was told to adhere to the correct policies and implement them efficiently—not like the Trade Council,” said an official in Naypyidaw. Previously, the MIC scrutinized business proposals and then gave recommendations to the Trade Council and Cabinet.
Although the move was seen by some as an effort to streamline procedures for authorizing foreign investment in Burma, a member of the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry said the new government should focus on policy reform initiatives rather than institutional reforms.
Some observers suggested that by sidelining the Trade Council, Thein Sein was also trying to reduce the power of Thiha Thura Tin Aung Myint Oo, who as head of the Trade Council was notorious for favoring companies run by businessmen with whom he had strong personal ties, including Stephen Law (aka Tun Myint Naing) of Asia World Company and Zaw Zaw of Max Myanmar Company.
The Trade Council was a major source of revenue for its chairperson. According to sources close to the council, Tin Aung Myint Oo claimed a five percent commission on any foreign investment he approved.
According to unconfirmed reports, this led to some friction between Tin Aung Myint Oo and Thein Sein over who would be in charge of regulating foreign investment under Burma's new government. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21397
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Burma's Suu Kyi Announces High Stakes Political Tour
Posted by Emily Rauhala Monday, May 30, 2011 at 10:11 am
6 Comments • Related Topics: Asia, China, Conflict, Democracy, Dictatorships, India , Aung San Suu Kyi, aung san suu kyi political tour, Burma, democracy, hong kong university, myanmar, southeast asia
Pro-democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi confirmed Monday that she's planning a visit to Burma's provinces this summer. "I hope to be able to travel out of Rangoon in the month of June, as soon as I have got rid of all the work that has piled up," she said in a video conference hosted by Hong Kong University. The Nobel Laureate has spent almost 15 of the last 21 years under house arrest.
The tour, if it proceeds, would be her first trip since her release last fall and, indeed, her first sojourn since a pro-Junta mob ambushed her entourage as she toured the countryside exactly eight years ago. Several of her supporters were killed in the May 30, 2003 attack; Suu Kyi, who initially fled, was apprehended and detained. "The generals saw her crowds growing larger," a diplomat told TIME after the incident, "and decided they had to stop it."
That, of course, could happen again. But Suu Kyi didn't dwell on the danger, so neither will I. I've attached her keynote speech. And here are some of the most interesting bits from the live chat:
On Sanctions: Suu Kyi reiterated her support for international sanctions on Burma, saying that, as far as she can tell, the policy is hurting the government, not the people.
On China: "China can afford to be daring, to allow for all types of opinion," she told the crowd. "Open your greatness to everybody else." Suu Kyi also voiced support for imprisoned dissidents: "You are not alone," she told them.
On India: The democracy campaigner called out the world's largest democracy for its ambivalence on Burma. "India is not as concerned about our fate as we would like them to be," she said.
On OBL: "With regards to the recent death of bin Laden, it just shows that violence ends with violence, and that there is too much violence already in our world and we've got to try do something about it."
Just as the talk drew to a close, the power went out in Rangoon. It seemed a fitting ending: The Lady, in half-light, looking out at the world.
Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/05/30/burmas-suu-kyi-announces-high-stakes-political-tour/#ixzz1Nv9ZWnOm
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Mass revolt blurs Karen loyalty
By NAW NOREEN
Published: 31 May 2011
Hundreds of troops serving under a pro-government Border Guard Force (BGF) in eastern Burma are now refusing demands from their leaders and have donned opposition Karen fatigues.
Stopping short of a wholesale defection, the 500-odd soldiers are yet to commit to either the pro-government BGF or a renegade faction of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), whose insignia they now wear on their uniforms.
The group, based in Karen state’s Myainggyingu region and led by Colonel Phobi, say they grew tired of the lack of rations and what they claim is discrimination between the ranks of BGF 1012, the same group the last month attacked their own armoury. Growing disquiet prompted them to surround the bases of their commanders and on 27 May, fighting looked imminent.
An intervention by Karen abbot, Ashin Thuzana, who chaired negotiations between Burmese army officials and members of the BGF 1012, has reportedly calmed the situation, although the Burmese army agreed to demands that all BGF forces in the area surrounding Myainggyingu be allowed to wear DKBA uniforms – a symbolic coup for the onetime junta-loyalists who defected to the opposition last year in a rebuttal to the creation of a BGF.
Yet ambiguity still surrounds the allegiance of the 500 men – a lay follower of Ashin Thuzana told DVB that while they can wear DKBA uniforms in Myainggyingu, they will have to switch back to their BGF outfits whenever they leave the region. Moreover, they have reportedly pledged not to attack government-allied forces.
The report paints a confusing portrait of the situation in eastern Burma, where a loose coalition of Karen armies, including the DKBA and the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), are battling Burmese forces supported by a number of BGF groups.
The Karen opposition, whose six-decade conflict with the Burmese regime is one of the world’s longest-running, was given a boost in July last year when a faction of the DKBA broke off and turned against the Burmese army. A number of defections have since followed.
The latest revolt follows an attack by troops from the same BGF 1012 on their commanders on 24 May, which left three dead. Reports at the time suggested that Colonel Na Kham Mwe, who led the July 2010 defection of DKBA troops, had aided the assault.
Maj-Gen Johnny of the KNLA’s Brigade 7 said that the BGF 1012 continued to strengthen its forces in Myainggyingu, prompting Burmese troops to block roads around Myaniggyingu that KNLA forces could potentially use as thoroughfares to assist the revolt.
http://www.dvb.no/news/mass-revolt-blurs-karen-loyalty/15906
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Danger underfoot in Burma war zones
By AFP
Published: 31 May 2011
The last thing Tee Pa Doh remembers before losing his foot is a bright flash. With his leg mangled and bleeding, he knew his best hope was a long journey through the jungle to the Thai border.
Today he counts himself lucky to be alive. But in the conflict zone of eastern Burma that he calls home, littered with landmines and with danger lurking at every step, his story is nothing out of the ordinary.
“My foot was blown off but I didn’t fall. I stood there, holding my injured leg,” said the 52-year-old village headman from Karen state, the scene of one of the world’s longest-running civil wars.
“There was blood spurting out. Everyone was afraid to come over to me. I held my leg and hopped,” he said, recalling the day in May when a landmine turned his life upside down.
He was taken on a tractor to the frontier several hours away following the incident in his village and crossed over to Thailand where the limb was amputated, following a path taken by many others before him.
“If there was no clinic in Mae Sot I couldn’t do anything in Burma,” said the victim, whose name AFP has changed for his safety, rubbing the stump of his newly bandaged leg at a clinic in the sleepy Thai border town of Mae Sot.
Burma is the only regime in the world that still regularly lays anti-personnel mines, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, joint winner of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.
“In most of the world landmine use is declining. In Myanmar [Burma] there’s been consistent armed conflict and use of mines by both the ethnic militias and the state forces,” said Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan, a researcher for the pressure group’s annual Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor report.
Nobody knows exactly how many people have been maimed or killed in Burma as a result of landmines, because the authorities do not keep count.
About 33 of Burma’s 325 townships are believed to be contaminated with the controversial weapons.
Over the decade to 2009, the Monitor identified at least 2,587 casualties from landmines or explosive remnants of war, including 183 fatalities, but that might be just the tip of the iceberg.
“We believe it could be exponentially higher than that,” Moser-Puangsuwan said.
“In countries like Burma, the fastest path to poverty is to become a mine victim,” he added, noting that the injury can rob victims of a livelihood and force them to take out loans to pay for medical costs.
Most victims have no choice but to seek help from Burma’s crumbling healthcare system, although some international relief groups such as the Red Cross help with rehabilitation.
Many of those living close to Thailand seek treatment there.
At the Mae Tao Clinic, founded by a Burmese doctor to provide free health care to fellow refugees, Karen landmine amputee Maw Kel runs a workshop that sees about 15 to 20 patients every month, providing free artificial limbs.
Most patients cross over illegally from Burma and must return afterwards.
Tha Gay, who lost his leg in a landmine blast two years ago, returned to the clinic to have his own prosthesis repaired. He is one of eight people in his village to have lost a leg.
“If it weren’t for this clinic, I would have died. There was nothing else I could have done,” he said.
“I’m very happy to have been given this artificial leg. If I didn’t have it, I wouldn’t want to live. I would rather kill myself.”
Burma has endured half a century of military rule and while the junta handed over power to a nominally civilian government in March after a widely criticised election, the armed forces still dominate the nation.
There are documented cases of people being forced to act as “human minesweepers” for army patrols, which regularly force civilians to work as porters carrying ammunition, firewood or other supplies.
“To take ordinary civilians and march them ahead of military units when they’re being used for portering, or to order them to clear mines without any appropriate training, is a human rights atrocity,” said Moser-Puangsuwan.
It is not just government soldiers who use landmines. At least 17 non-state armed groups are accused of using the weapons since 2009.
Across the border from Mae Sot, ethnic minority Karen rebels who have been fighting the government for six decades appear to have increased their use of landmines, either homemade or seized from the military.
They target not only state soldiers but also rival ethnic factions.
Caught in the middle, civilians in the conflict zones face danger underfoot whenever they leave their homes.
“Anti-personnel landmines and improvised explosive devices are probably the biggest security threat to most people in those areas,” said David Mathieson, a Burma expert for New York-based Human Rights Watch.
“Villagers tend to anticipate when fighting is going to happen and they flee. But then what most factions do is to go in and landmine the area… booby trapping civilian areas and destroying agriculture and houses,” he said.
Thailand’s announcement in April that it wants to close its Burmese refugee camps has raised fears across the exile community that it might be pushed back and landmine victims turned away.
But Maw Kel believes his prosthetic services will be needed for many years to come.
“Look at Cambodia. The war already finished 30 years ago but landmine incidents still happen. It’s going to be the same in Burma,” he said.
Ironically, the biggest danger may come when the war finishes and people rush to return home, said Moser-Puangsuwan.
“There are no records of these mines. They’re not marked in any way. So when the armed conflict ends there’s going to be a massive number of casualties and at this point there is virtually nothing anyone can do to stop it,” he warned.
http://www.dvb.no/news/danger-underfoot-in-burma-war-zones/15902
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The U.S. could get on the right side of history in Burma
By Fred Hiatt, Tuesday, May 31, 5:34 AM
Long before Syria’s Bashar al-Assad was ordering the murder of his people, the generals misruling a Southeast Asian nation 4,000 miles distant had shown the way.
In 1988, the regime in Burma, a once-promising nation of 50 million, slaughtered unarmed university students to derail democracy. In 2007 the junta gunned down pacifist Buddhist monks in their robes and sandals.
But outrage fades, people forget, a few generals have traded in their uniforms for civilian suits — and so pressure is building from governments, companies and nonprofit groups to lift sanctions and “engage” with the regime.
Before that happens, it’s worth thinking about some early lessons of the Arab Spring.
The engagement argument comes down to this: Sanctions against Burma haven’t worked. Two decades since the regime threw out the results of an election that it had (in its delusions of popularity) allowed, it is no more popular but no less entrenched. With U.S. companies and diplomats mostly absent, China has become the dominant power. The Burmese people remain poor and isolated from the world.
Why not try something new? Why not jettison self-defeating idealism for something a bit more pragmatic?
A few possible reasons come to mind. One is that engagement with a regime that so suffocates its nation may strengthen the regime. Western Europe has been engaging with Cuba for decades; the Castros pocket the euros at no apparent cost to the stability of their dictatorship.
Nor would engagement do much for the U.S. economy. As long as Burma pursues its peculiar brand of paranoid crony socialism, it won’t offer much of a growth opportunity.
Moreover, it’s a bit unfair to say that sanctions don’t work, because the United States has never fully tried them. It hasn’t targeted the personal finances of Burma’s rulers and their relatives with any focus or intensity. It has never made clear to Burma’s neighbors — some of which are new democracies themselves, uncomfortable rubbing shoulders with brutal generals — that helping democrats inside Burma is a strategic priority. It talks about a United Nations commission of inquiry into the regime’s crimes against humanity — mass rape, child labor, ethnic cleansing — but has never pushed for it, despite support for a U.N. inquiry (though not a tribunal) from Burma’s democratic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
Pushing might dilute the perennial charge of hypocrisy (why bomb Moammar Gaddafi but do nothing as Burma’s regime empties village after village?). Pushing also might show Gaddafi, Assad and other Arab dictators that they can’t just wait out the world’s disapproval.
But the strongest argument emerges from a public opinion survey carried out this spring by the Pew Research Center — in Egypt.
There, for decades, the United States followed the entirely pragmatic policy of engagement. Led by U.S. ambassadors in Cairo for whom the Mubarak clan could do no wrong, U.S. governments routinely dismissed as naive and unrealistic the Egyptian people’s desire for a more dignified life. When Egyptians finally took to the streets to demand self-rule, the United States stuck with President Hosni Mubarak until any hope of his survival was gone.
The result? “Only 20 percent of Egyptians hold a favorable opinion of the United States,” Pew found. “The American president gets more negative than positive reviews for how he is handling the political changes sweeping through the Middle East. . . . A plurality of those who disapprove say Obama has shown too little support for those who are calling for change.”
The United States put itself on the wrong side of history, in other words, and now it is paying the price.
Which raises the question of where exactly pragmatism lies.
If you believe that the Burmese junta represents the future, then it makes sense to build ties and mend fences. And it’s true that no one has figured out how to predict precisely when a regime will crumble — or when its soldiers will decide they no longer want to shoot students and monks.
But the junta clearly understands that it is hated. That is why it censors all media, imprisons thousands of dissenters (many of whom have been on a hunger strike this month), bans the only political party with popular support (Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League of Democracy) and squanders billions on an isolated new capital where no ordinary people are allowed to live or even enter. On some level, as the rest of Asia speeds past them, these septuagenarian thieves must understand that they do not, in fact, represent the future.
The United States can affect the date of their demise only at the margins, just as it took the Egyptian people to bring about Mubarak’s fall. But what America does now could affect the results when Pew conducts its first survey in democratic Burma.
fredhiatt@washpost.com http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-can-get-on-the-right-side-of-history-in-burma/2011/05/27/AGXrGzEH_story.html
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The Nation, Bangkok Post to sell in Burma
By DAN WITHERS
Published: 31 May 2011
Burma’s commerce ministry has given the go-ahead for two leading Thailand-based English-language dailies to be distributed inside the country, but analysts have warned of heavy censorship before they reach the public.
Success International, which distributes Singaporean paper The Straits Times in Burma, announced it received the distribution license for the Bangkok Post and The Nation on Friday, DPA reported. Managing director Nyo Aung said he had been hesitant to request the licenses because of the papers’ stance. “Now the government has changed, so I thought it was a good time to apply for the license,” he told DPA.
Both the Bangkok Post and The Nation have long been critical of the Burmese military’s brutal authoritarian regime. Recent elections, decried by much of the international community as a rigged attempt to paint a democratic veneer on de facto military rule, have failed to blunt that criticism.
In an editorial in April, the Bangkok Post wrote: “The Burmese model of prisons, torture and secret arrests remains government policy; some 2,000 Burmese remain as political prisoners. This is sad, but perhaps not so sad as the way Burma’s neighbours and world opinion has bought into the fake claims that Burma is on the road to democracy.”
The move comes as President Thein Sein’s freshly elected government tries to employ its new “democratic” credentials to expand its role within the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Burma even hopes to assume the bloc’s rotating chairmanship in three years’ time.
Last week The Nation poured scorn on such efforts. “Without positive developments in Burma, ASEAN should not even consider allowing it to be chairman of the regional body in 2014,” it wrote. “Since its admission to ASEAN in 1997, Burma has got away with years of brutal atrocities and dubious undertakings.”
But readers inside Burma will almost certainly not be exposed to such content, with both papers facing the scrutiny of Burma’s chief censor, the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division (PSRD).
Zin Linn, the Thailand-based vice chairman of the Burma Media Association, said the PSRD would ban entire issues of the papers if they contained material that displeased the Burmese government. Editions of international news magazines such as Time and Newsweek had recently been banned for featuring coverage of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, he said.
Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International’s Burma researcher, said the censors would probably cast a wide net, targeting anything that implicitly criticised or threatened the Burmese government’s position. Stories about Thailand’s forthcoming elections, its red- and yellow-shirted protest movements and its population of Burmese refugees could all face the censor’s knife, he said.
“That being the case, I think it’s very difficult to see this as progress by way of freedom of expression,” he said. “It strikes me more as a business deal than it does a sign of any free press progress.”
With the Thai papers likely to be priced at more than 2000 kyat ($US2.30) each – two or three days’ work for an average Burmese worker – and English-language skills in short supply, few Burmese will be able to read either newspaper.
Nevertheless, said Zin Linn, Burma’s weekly political journals will likely attempt to test the censors’ boundaries by translating the content into Burmese. Few had previously dared to do so because the newspapers had to be smuggled into the country. “They were not officially inside Burma.”
Soon, it seems both papers will be “officially inside Burma”. How often they escape the censors’ attentions remains to be seen.
http://www.dvb.no/news/the-nation-bangkok-post-to-sell-in-burma/15897
Burma Flag
ေတာ္လွန္ေရးသီခ်င္းမ်ား(Politics Song)
Tuesday 31 May 2011
News & Articles on Burma
မေလးရွားေငြေၾကး ဒီဇုိင္း ေျပာင္းထုတ္ေတာ့မည္
ေမလ (၃၁)ရက္၊ ၂၀၁၁ ခုႏွစ္။
Centeral Bank of Malaysia
၂၀၁၂ ခုႏွစ္ ႏွစ္ဆန္းပုိင္းက စၿပီးေတာ့ မေလးရွားႏုိင္ငံရဲ႕ ေငြေၾကး ဒီဇုိင္းကုိ ေျပာင္းလဲထုတ္ေဝသြားမွာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ ႏုိင္ငံေတာ္ ဗဟုိဘဏ္ရဲ႕ ထုတ္ျပန္ေၾကညာခ်က္မွာ ေဖာ္ျပထား ပါတယ္။
အခု အသစ္ ထုတ္ေဝသြားမယ့္ ေငြေၾကး ဒီဇုိင္းမွာ မေလးရွား လူမ်ဳိးတို႔ရဲ႕ ယဥ္ေက်းမႈ ဓေလ့ထုံတမ္း အစဥ္အလာေတြရဲ႕ ပုံရိပ္လႊာေတြကုိ ထည့္သြင္း ရုိက္ႏွိပ္သြားမွာ မဟုတ္ေၾကာင္းလည္း ထုတ္ျပန္ ခ်က္ထဲမွာ ေရးသားထားပါတယ္။
လက္ရွိ အသုံးျပဳေနတဲ့ ေငြစကၠဴေတြထဲက ရင္းဂစ္ အေၾကြးေစ့ ၅ ဆင့္ ကေန စၿပီးေတာ့ ရင္းဂစ္ ၁၀၀ အထိ ဒီဇုိင္း အသစ္နဲ႔ ေျပာင္းလဲ ထုတ္ေဝသြားမွာ ျဖစ္ေပမယ့္ မေလးရွားႏုိင္ငံရဲ႕ ႏွစ္ ၅၀ ျပည့္ လြတ္လပ္ေရးေန႔ အထိမ္းအမွတ္နဲ႔ ထုတ္ေဝခဲ့တဲ့ ရင္းဂစ္ ၅၀ ပုံစံကုိေတာ့ ဆက္လက္ သုံးစြဲ သြားမွာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ ေမလ၂၃ရက္၂၀၁၁တြင္ ေဖာ္ျပထားေၾကာင္း သိရပါတယ္။(Central Bank of Malaysia)
Monday 30 May 2011
News & Articles on Burma
Monday 30 May, 2011
Two battalions of Burmese reinforcements deployed near KIA position
Monday, 30 May 2011 21:15 KNG
The military-controlled Burmese government sent two army battalions to the area near Battalion 9 of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), in northern Shan State, local residents said.
Battalion 9 connects the KIA headquarters in the north and Loikang-based KIA’s Brigade 4 Command as well as Kokang and the Wa (or United Wa State Army, UWSA) territories in the east.
kia-battalion-9-map-engAccording to local military observers, Burmese troops have been transported from Lashio and stationed at the village of Dima, close to the base of the KIA’s Battalion 9, since Saturday, May 28.
In Dima, about 60 Burmese soldiers had already been deployed before the new military reinforcements arrived in the village, the observers added.
The KIA’s Battalion 9 is now on standby for a military response if government troops enter into its controlled areas, sources close to the battalion said.
Dima is controlled by a pro-government militia group. The village connects with the KIA-controlled Daknai Village, on the east side of Dima Stream.
The road reconstruction intended to cross the area controlled by the KIA’s Brigade 4 was temporarily stopped by the Burmese government after a May 14th warning that it will lead to war.
Military tension and short clashes have gradually increased since the KIA rejected the government’s proposal to disarm and transform into the Burmese Army-controlled Border Guard Force (BGF), in August last year.
Local military analysts said China wants the Burmese government and KIA to avoid renewed civil war between them because it will jeopardize China’s multi-million dollar investment in the country.
The KIA officially demanded on May 19th that the central government withdraw all its troops from the areas close to KIA military bases by May 25. It also warned the government must take responsibility for the consequences of refusing to withdraw. http://www.kachinnews.com/news/1925-two-battalions-of-burmese-reinforcements-deployed-near-kia-position.html
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Burmese Delegation in Sweden Raises Concerns
By BA KAUNG Monday, May 30, 2011
The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) has denied having links with the new Burmese government or violating EU economic sanctions in connection with a program in which it is indirectly financing Burmese groups for the purpose of economic development.
The denial was issued following Swedish media reports about a meeting on May 20 in Stockholm between Sida representatives and a Burmese delegation that reportedly included members of Myanmar Egress, a Rangoon-based Burmese NGO, and possibly with individuals connected to the Burmese Chamber of Commerce.
Myanmar Egress is known in Burma for its pro-government stance, including support for the controversial election in November of last year and opposition to Western economic sanctions.
Burma's Chamber of Commerce is technically independent of the government but is known to be government-influenced. For example, the previous chairman of the Chamber of Commerce was Win Myint, who is also the minister of commerce.
The Local, a Swedish news website based in Stockholm, reported last week that the Burmese delegation was invited by the International Council of Swedish Industry (known as the NIR in Sweden), which on its website describes itself as the independent associate of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, representing some 60,000 member companies.
The Burmese delegation met with representatives of Sida, Swedish foreign ministry officials and the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. News of the meetings has raised the issue of whether Sida and the NIR's relationship with the Burmese government and groups close to it might be in violation of EU policy towards Burma.
In April, the EU lifted its visa ban on certain Burmese senior government officials, including the Burmese foreign minister, but decided to maintain its economic sanctions against Burma, known as the the EU Common Position on Burma.
Speaking with The Irrawaddy on Friday, Johan Akerblom, a senior adviser at Sida who met the Burmese delegation, said that one and a half years ago Sida began providing 12 million Swedish Kroner (US $ 1.9 million) annually to an NIR project involving several countries to promote “market development, human rights and democracy,” and Burma was only a small part of that project.
“This exchange with the Burmese delegation is part of an agreement between Sida and NIR,” said Akerblom, who added that the Burmese individuals he met were not representing the new Burmese civilian government.
In interviews with The Irrawaddy, both Sida and NIR officials declined to comment on the identity of the members of the Burmese delegation, citing policy reasons, and reaffirmed that both Sida and the NIR were in line with the EU Common Position on Burma.
But when asked if they had confirmed that the Burmese individuals in the delegation were not linked to the Burmese government, Akerblom said that Sida has asked the NIR for an explanation about these individuals and expected to get an answer by Tuesday.
“When it comes to Burma, it is very important to underline that Sweden follows EU policy and the NIR has to work in line with that. We are not cooperating with the regime,” he said.
The NIR's director of operations, Sofia Svingby, conceded in a local Swedish report that the Burmese delegation included members of Myanmar Egress. When speaking with The Irrawaddy on Friday, however, she said the NIR does not work with Burmese government and individuals connected to it.
Regarding the NIR's intentions for its programs directed towards Burma, Sofia said that the organization is now investigating what it can do for positive economic development in the country.
Asked whether the NIR is going to implement its programs in Burma regardless of the country's political conditions, she said, “Economic development, that is what we want. We are not into politics. We don't work politically.”
In the report in The Local, NIR CEO Erika Molin was quoted as saying that they [the Burmese delegation] believe that economic growth and a functioning industry is a fundamental prerequisite for the development of the country and the people.
“That's why we have invited these people,” she said.
Despite the EU decision to maintain its economic sanctions against Burma, Burmese opposition groups have expressed concerns that some of the bloc members, such as Germany, are trying to lift sanctions for business interests before any political progress is made.
According to a 2008 diplomatic cable from the US Embassy in Berlin that was disclosed by Wikileaks, German officials had previously expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of the EU's economic sanctions against Burma, and members of the German parliament did not want to see ordinary Burmese people hurt by sanctions,.
The US cable quoted the then German Foreign Minister and current vice-chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier as having the impression that the sanctions were “largely counterproductive, had helped to forge solidarity within the military, had increased China's influence and had given the regime excuses for legitimizing its rule.”
Early this month, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, a German foundation based in Berlin, invited a Burmese delegation, which included a representative from the Myanmar Egress, to come and speak about Burma in the post-election period. The Irrawaddy’s editor Aung Zaw also attended the conference.
Burma analysts have noted that some EU governments are eager to engage the regime and its proxies, such as the Myanmar Egress, who claim to have established civil society groups inside Burma. Government critics also point out that mainstream opposition members inside Burma cannot travel outside of Burma, but some “third force” members, such as the Myanmar Egress representatives, enjoy the freedom to travel internationally and are frequently invited to Western capitals to present their political views and paint the Burmese picture in a positive light.
As a result, critics say, international officials who have the responsibility to determine Burma policy on issues such as sanctions only hear the pro-government arguments while attending international events.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21389
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Suu Kyi Plans Tour of Myanmar Countryside
Associated Press
HONG KONG—Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Monday she plans to tour the country next month in her first trip into the provinces since a 2003 political tour ended in her lengthy house arrest.
"I hope to be able to travel out of Rangoon in the month of June, as soon as I have got rid of all the work that has piled up," she said in a videolink to an audience at Hong Kong University. Rangoon is the old name for Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city.
She said the authorities have not given her any "particular assurances" about security. She didn't provide further details.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate drew large crowds when she last toured northern Myanmar, and her popularity rattled the military government. Exactly eight years ago Monday, supporters of the ruling junta ambushed her entourage. Several of her followers were killed, but she escaped, only to be arrested.
She was released last November after Myanmar held general elections in which her party didn't participate, calling the vote unfair. Ms. Suu Kyi's party won the last elections in 1990 but wasn't allowed to govern. The junta was officially disbanded after the November elections, but the current government is still military dominated.
Ms. Suu Kyi answered dozens of questions from students, alumni and reporters in the videolink with Hong Kong University. She has been jailed or under house arrest for 15 of the past 21 years, and during her brief periods of freedom she hasn't traveled outside Myanmar, fearing the military wouldn't allow her to return.
She avoided criticizing China, an important backer of Myanmar's government. Beijing provides the country crucial economic support, military assistance and diplomatic protection at the United Nations.
Myanmar could maintain neighborly relations with China while having a "friendship based on shared values of democracy" with Western countries, she said.
"I don't think we have to make it either-or. We can be friends with the West and we can be friends with China each in its own special way," Ms. Suu Kyi said.
Western nations and groups critical of Myanmar's poor human-rights record had made her freedom a key demand. They estimate the country still has more than 2,000 political prisoners, and a U.N. envoy said last week Myanmar has changed little since its stated transition to civilian rule.
Ms. Suu Kyi said her party has tried hard to establish a relationship with China's government. But party members aren't even able to break the ice with Chinese diplomats at cocktail receptions, she said.
"Somehow they seem to be able to evade our people quite successfully. I wish they would talk to us," she said.
Ms. Suu Kyi ended by answering a question on how she felt about the death of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, who was killed by U.S. Navy Seals in a raid on his hide-out in Pakistan.
"With regards to the recent death of bin Laden, it just shows that violence ends with violence, and that there is too much violence already in our world and we've got to try do something about it," she said. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303745304576355160774891024.html?mod=rss_asia_whats_news
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Myanmar trial of Australian journalist adjourned until June 14
May 30, 2011, 12:39 GMT
Yangon - The trial of Australian journalist Ross Dunkley, arrested in Myanmar on charges of violating immigration regulations and sexually assaulting a woman, was adjourned at its start on Monday.
Dunkley, a co-founder of the foreign-funded Myanmar Times weekly newspaper, was arrested on February 10.
An hour into the proceedings, the trial was adjourned until June 14, Dunkley's defence lawyer said. Dunkley was questioned, but no more details were available.
Dunkley, 53, was released on bail from Myanmar's Insein Prison on March 29 and, at the time, expressed confidence he would be found not guilty of charges against him.
Insein Prison is notorious for its poor conditions.
The Kamaryut Township Court granted Dunkley bail of 10 million kyats (12,300 dollars), after six previous attempts at gaining his release had failed.
The Myanmar Times was founded in 2000 and is the country's only media outlet with foreign investment. Like all other media in Myanmar, it is subject to government censorship.
Dunkley told the Committee to Protect Journalists in 2008 that about 20 per cent of the stories he submitted for publication were censored.
Myanmar, also called Burma, has been under military dictatorships since 1962 and has one of the world's worst records for press freedom.
Critics say that the advent of a new elected government, packed with ex-military men, appears not to have changed the regime's attitude towards the press.
According to the CPJ there were 13 journalists in jail in Myanmar as of December 1, 'making it one of the five worst jailers of journalists in the world.' http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1642376.php/Myanmar-trial-of-Australian-journalist-adjourned-until-June-14
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President Thein Sein declared that the historical paukphaw (fraternity) relationship between Burma and China has reached “a strategic level” during his three-day state visit to China, potentially alienating Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) members in the process.
“Having been designated as partners for multi-strategic cooperation, Myanmar [Burma]—China relations have reached a new chapter and the highest level in China’s foreign relations,” he said while meeting Chinese President Hu Jintao at Bejing's Great Hall of the People on May 28, according to the state-owned New Light of Myanmar. “Both [of the] two countries have to work hard at all levels to maintain multi-strategic cooperation partnership relations.”
The two nations issued a joint statement defining the strategic level as: “The two sides will maintain close high-level contacts, continue to promote strategic mutual trust and further enhance friendly exchanges and cooperation between the parliaments, governments, judicial departments and political parties of the two countries.”
This was Thein Sein's first state visit to China after assuming the presidency and he headed a high-level delegation with more than a dozen cabinet ministers, deputy ministers and senior officials of the new government. He discussed a broad range of bilateral and regional issues with his Chinese counterpart.
During discussions with President Hu, Thein Sein apparently sought China's political support for Burma's relationship with Asean—specifically the issue of taking the bloc's chairmanship in 2014—and financial support for a number of development projects assisted by China.
In return for China's consistent support, Thein Sein pledged to President Hu that his new government maintained support for the “One China Policy” and backed its northern neighbor regarding South China Sea issues.
Thein Sein's vocal backing coincides with rising tensions between China and Vietnam in the South China Sea. Chinese marine surveillance vessels recently approached a ship operated by the state oil and gas firm PetroVietnam and cut its exploration cables, according to AFP.
Asean and China signed the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) on the sidelines of the sixth Asean-China Summit in November 2002, and so Burma has an obligation as a member state to respect the DOC and take a neutral standpoint. Thein Sein, however, decided to side himself with China.
Point five of the DOC stipulates: “The parties undertake to exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability including, among others, refraining from inhabiting the presently uninhabited islands, reefs, shoals, cays, and other features and to handle their differences in a constructive manner.”
Furthermore, Thein Sein's support for China in South China Sea issues could further weaken the unity of Asean and is not consistent with bloc leaders’ Joint Statement on the Asean Community in a Global Community of Nations, which was issued during the Indonesia Asean Summit in May.
According to this statement, Asean is making efforts to have a common platform by 2022 for “a more coordinated, cohesive, and coherent Asean position on global issues of common interest and concern, based on a shared Asean global view, which would further enhance Asean’s common voice in relevant multilateral fora.”
Thein Sein also sought China's assistance to be able to lead Asean in 2014. Referring to China's experiences in hosting international games and conferences, Thein Sein said: “Myanmar will host the SEA [Southeast Asia] Games in 2013 and the Asean Summit in 2014, so Myanmar would like China to offer its assistance.”
Thein Sein needs the support of Asean's dialogue partners in order for Burma to gain the bloc chairmanship, and the Chinese president is a crucial figure in this regard for the influence he wields. Other key partners are the European Union, Japan, United States, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Russia.
Kavi Chongkittavorn, senior editor for Bangkok-based newspaper The Nation, said that China's support is key for the Burmese chairmanship bid.
He said: “The scope and extent of China's influence and interest depends on the ability of Thien Sein's administration to gain international recognition as soon as possible. The best way to wrap up the seven-point road map is to chair Asean in 2014.
“China's attendance is important because of the East Asia Summit and other key meetings.
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Myanmar's Suu Kyi calls for China openness amid clampdown
ReutersBy Robert Birsel | Reuters – 52 minutes ago
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi urged China's Communist leaders Monday to be more open and tolerant amidst a heavy clampdown on dissidents and government critics in recent months.
"My message to China's leaders will be very simple," said Suu Kyi who was released after years of house arrest last November by Myanmar's military junta and is widely seen as a voice against political repression worldwide.
"China is a great country, the Chinese people are a great people with a marvellous and long history behind them. They can afford to take more steps, they can afford to be daring, they can afford to allow room for all kinds of opinions," said Suu Kyi during a video conference with an international audience at the University of Hong Kong.
With Myanmar subject to widespread international sanctions, China has remained its biggest economic and political ally and has maintained a no strings investment policy.
Myanmar, a former British colony also known as Burma, is widely considered to have one of the world's most autocratic governments despite releasing Suu Kyi and holding elections last year that were widely criticised as a sham.
Uprisings across the Arab world have made Chinese authorities jittery about any sign of instability and several prominent dissidents have been detained in recent months.
Suu Kyi's comments come days before the 22nd anniversary of a bloody crackdown in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989, when Chinese troops were ordered to fire on pro-democracy demonstrators.
The previous year, the military in Myanmar crushed a student-led protest movement.
While any public commemoration of June 4 is banned in mainland China, pro-democracy groups in Hong Kong are gearing up for a candlelight vigil that organisers expect to draw an especially large turnout given the ongoing clampdown.
"I don't think that we should despair," said Suu Kyi. "The Chinese people are so interested in economic progress that they have not quite reached the political side of the matter. I think that will come, and perhaps sooner than people imagine."
As for her own plans, Suu Kyi said she intended to make a trip around Myanmar in the next month or two to meet supporters, but she declined to give details.
On the Middle East uprisings and whether they might hold lessons for Myanmar's long struggle for democracy, Suu Kyi said it was too early to deem such populist uprisings a success, though she said she was against foreign military intervention of the kind seen in Libya.
"This is not something that we particularly want (in Myanmar). What we want to achieve is national reconciliation."
Myanmar's new president Thein Sein, who took office last month, is seen as a stooge for former junta supremo Than Shwe and analysts expect little change.
Western governments are pressing for reforms and the release of hundreds of political prisoners in Myanmar.
(Editing by Robert Birsel) http://uk.news.yahoo.com/myanmars-suu-kyi-calls-china-openness-amid-clampdown-124736186.html
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Police file whitewashes Depayin massacre
By DVB
Published: 30 May 2011
A police report following the infamous Depayin massacre in 2003 in which a convoy carrying Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters was attacked claims that only four people died, far short of the 70 deaths estimated by observers.
The title of the 11-page internal report, seen by DVB, refers to “the disturbance” that took place on 30 May 2003 in Depayin town in Sagaing division, and comprises “accounts from 117 witnesses”, none of which are identified.
It claims that a number of slingshots and pellets were found in the car Suu Kyi, her driver and bodyguard were travelling in, which came under attack eight years ago today. The discovery of the weapons, it claimed, was proof that Suu Kyi knew her supporters were preparing to “attack the peaceful protesters” that had harassed her convoy over the previous month as it travelled around Burma.
It also refers to the Nobel laureate, who spent the subsequent seven years under house arrest for what the regime said was for her own security, as Daw Suu Kyi – considered a disparaging name among Burma’s pro-democracy movement.
The findings of the report contrast sharply with documentation of the incident over the eight years since it took place. Members of Suu Kyi’s convoy, the majority of whom were National League for Democracy (NLD) members, have recounted how upon arrival in Kyiywar village on the outskirts of Depayin township, hundreds of people armed with sticks and other weapons blocked the road.
Her driver at the time, Kyaw Soe Lin, told DVB in an exclusive interview last year that a mob carrying knives surrounded the vehicle, some of whom were wearing monk robes. A number of young NLD supporters who had tried to act as a shield between the car and the attackers were beaten to death.
Kyi Kyi Myint, who was travelling in the convoy at the time said that two monks had flagged down the car near to Kyiywar village and asked Suu Kyi to make a speech. “Just as this was happening, our car shook violently, and we saw about five or six vehicles coming with their headlights on,” she told DVB.
“The mob started beating up people including villagers from Kyiywar, kids and the elderly indiscriminately, killing two men on the spot.” Kyi Kyi Myint and two women in her car were also beaten. “They kept on with the beating and when the noises died down, one of their leaders shouted: ‘It’s all good men! They are all dead. Get back into the cars’.” People who then began to flee the scene were arrested.
The police report states however that upon seeing the mob blocking the road, the NLD convoy “came charging into the direction of the mob”. One of these was a pickup truck carrying Suu Kyi, it claimed.
The truck “ignored the mob” and “instead came in with increased speed”, forcing “all the people – abbots, monks and commission members – to dive off their chairs to avoid getting hit by the vehicle”. A second vehicle brushed past a motorbike, causing the driver to come off, and “a third vehicle following the second one ran over the motorbike driver. After that, the driver lost control and the vehicle came to stop when it hit a tree”.
A convoy of motorbikes then “aggressively rammed into the mob”, the police report says. Many people scarpered down nearby dirt tracks, “but the motorbikes followed them down there, still trying to hit them”.
“The people [referring to the mob] finally lost their temper and a riot, lasting for about 15 minutes, ensued.” Around 150 NLD supporters from Kyiywar village then arrived with weapons and began smashing the windows of minibuses that had carried the mob, which is referred to as the “anti-DSK mob”, shorthand for Daw Suu Kyi.
The police file quoted an anonymous Abbot who was reportedly witness to events at Depayin. “We were lucky to be alive given that her [Suu Kyi’s] car was driven very fast,” he said. “She is a very vile and rude woman [who is] trying to provoke a problem. Why don’t you just leave given that circumstances are out of control?”
The exact identity of the plain-clothed men who set upon the convoy has never been ascertained, although speculation has rested on members of the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), which last year became the now-ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party, or the notorious Swan Arr Shin militia.
The Hong Kong-based Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) said in a follow-up report to the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) that it was “a well-organised and premeditated attack… planned in advance with the connivance of the highest authorities”, an evaluation supported by the Burma Lawyers’ Council.
Of the four people listed as dead in the police report, two are NLD members – Tin Maung Oo and Myint Soe – and two are “non-NLD members”. Three of these died from “injuries sustained from reckless driving”.
The Ad Hoc Commission formed of the Burma Lawyers’ Council and the National Council of the Union of Burma, said in a report dated 25 June 2003 that at least 70 people were killed by the 5000-strong mob that had gathered outside Kyiywar village.
http://www.dvb.no/news/police-file-whitewashes-depayin-massacre/15890
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Eight years after the tour that led to her arrest, Suu Kyi plans rural Myanmar visit
KELVIN CHAN
Hong Kong— The Associated Press
Published Monday, May. 30, 2011 8:30AM EDT
Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Monday she plans to tour rural Myanmar next month in her first trip into the provinces since a 2003 political tour ended in her lengthy house arrest.
“I hope to be able to travel out of Rangoon in the month of June, as soon as I have got rid of all the work that has piled up,” she said.
More related to this story
She said the authorities had not given her any “particular assurances” about security. She did not provide further details.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate drew large crowds when she toured northern Myanmar, and her popularity rattled the military government. Exactly eight years ago Monday, supporters of the ruling junta ambushed her entourage. Several of her followers were killed, but she escaped, only to be arrested.
She was unconditionally released in November after Myanmar held a general election in which her party did not participate, calling the vote unfair. Ms. Suu Kyi's party won the last election in 1990 but was not allowed to govern. The junta officially disbanded since the November election, but the current government is still military dominated.
Ms. Suu Kyi spoke Monday via videolink to an audience at Hong Kong University, answering dozens of questions from students, alumni and reporters. She has been jailed or under house arrest for 15 of the last 21 years, and during the brief periods of freedom, she has not traveled outside Myanmar, fearing the military would not allow her to return.
She avoided criticizing China, an important backer of Myanmar's military-dominated government. Beijing provides the country crucial economic support, military assistance and diplomatic protection at the United Nations.
Myanmar could maintain neighborly relations with China while having a “friendship based on shared values of democracy” with Western countries, she said.
“I don't think we have to make it either-or. We can be friends with the West and we can be friends with China each in its own special way,” Ms. Suu Kyi said.
Western nations and groups critical of Myanmar's poor human rights record had made her freedom a key demand. They estimate the country still has more than 2,000 political prisoners, and a UN envoy said last week Myanmar has changed little since its stated transition to civilian rule.
Ms. Suu Kyi said her NLD party has tried hard to establish a relationship with China's government. But party members aren't even able to break the ice with Chinese diplomats at cocktail receptions, she said.
“Somehow they seem to be able to evade our people quite successfully. I wish they would talk to us,” she said.
Ms. Suu Kyi ended by answering a question on how she felt about the death of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, who was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs in a secret raid on his hideout in Pakistan.
“With regards to the recent death of bin Laden, it just shows that violence ends with violence, and that there is too much violence already in our world and we've got to try do something about it.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/asia-pacific/eight-years-after-the-tour-that-led-to-her-arrest-suu-kyi-plans-rural-myanmar-visit/article2039578/
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Hunger strike spreads to remote jails
By AHUNT PHONE MYAT
Published: 30 May 2011
Influential monk Ashin Gambira is among a group of political prisoners in the remote Kale jail in northern Burma who began a hunger strike last week, only days after a similar protest in Rangoon’s Insein prison ended.
Four inmates there, including Ashin Gambira and 1990 MP-elect Nyi Pu, had addressed a letter earlier this month to Burma’s home affairs minister complaining that they were being denied adequate healthcare, food and the freedom to communicate with their families.
Khin Thu Htay, the sister of the monk, who is serving a 63-year sentence for his pivotal role in the September 2007 uprising, visited the prison over the weekend. She said that the lack of any response to the letter prompted inmates to begin the hunger strike on Friday.
“I inquired with guards at the prison’s gate if the situation has been solved and they said not yet,” said Khin Thu Htay. “Just as I was talking to them, a local police official and a Special Branch official arrived and apparently they were there to collect information about the hunger strike.
“[Ashin Gambira] said all political prisoners would stage a hunger strike together – so I know it wasn’t only him.”
Nearly 30 political prisoners in the notorious Insein prison in Rangoon joined a hunger strike last week, also in protest at conditions there, while reports are circulating today that inmates in Hkamti prison in far northern Burma are also refusing food.
The Insein strike began on 17 May, the day after Burmese President Thein Sein announced a controversial amnesty that saw only 50 political prisoners among nearly 17,000 inmates released in a countrywide commutation.
At least seven of the Insein protesters were placed in solitary confinement for several days before eventually returning to their cells on 26 May.
Ashin Gambira is no stranger to prison protests, which are often met with hefty punishment: previous demands he made for former junta chief Than Shwe to visit him in prison and begin dialogue were quickly dealt with by authorities, who filled his mouth with a cloth, taped him up and repeatedly beat him.
Thein Sein and the UN Human Rights Commission were among the would-be recipients of the letter from Kale jail, which includes requests for prisoners to be allowed reading books, radio and satellite television.
Burma is estimated to have around 200,000 prisoners in 43 jails across the country. Around 2,100 of its prison population are so-called political prisoners, a group that includes monks, journalists, lawyers and doctors. Kale prison lies close to Burma’s border with India, around 680 miles north of Rangoon, and houses more than 40 political prisoners.
http://www.dvb.no/news/hunger-strike-spreads-to-remote-jails/15878
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Myanmar opposition figure returns home after medical treatment
May 30, 2011, 12:56 GMT
Yangon - Outspoken Myanmar government critic U Win Tin returned home Monday after five days in hospital, his family said.
Win Tin, who is a senior adviser to opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and a founding member of her National League for Democracy, was hospitalized Thursday.
Win Tin served 19 years in prison for publishing anti-government propaganda to instigate civil disobedience.
Since his release in September 2008 he has been in poor health, suffering from both liver and heart problems.
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1642381.php/Myanmar-opposition-figure-returns-home-after-medical-treatment
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Military Cronies Expand into Media
By KO HTWE Monday, May 30, 2011
Burma's top cronies are expanding into the media industry by starting new publications.
Nay Aung and Pyi Aung, the sons of the secretary of Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) Aung Thaung, and owners of the IGE Group of Companies, are planning to publish a business weekly. On top of controlling large-scale import-export concessions, IGE currently has investments in information technology and the energy sector.
Aung Thaung and his immediate family are on the EU and US visa blacklist and are listed as a target of EU sanctions. Pyi Aung is married to former Deputy Snr-Gen Maung Aye's daughter.
“I heard they will put more investment in the media industry,” said an editor of a Rangoon-based publication on the condition of anonymity. “They have offered journalists twice their current salary.”
IGE offered the editor-in-chief position of the Myanmar Wall Street, the proposed title of the forthcoming publication, to a Burmese economist and is currently filling other positions.
At the same time, the Htoo Group of Companies, owned by influential Burmese tycoon Tay Za, also plans to publish a journal. A source close to the company have outlined some details of the Htoo publication, but issues such as the inaugural issue’s date of publication have yet to be worked out.
“Htoo has already hired reporters,” said the source close to Htoo; however, he refused to give the names of reporters who have been extended offers.
Htoo has not confirmed plans for a new journal.
“By using media, the tycoon Tay Za wants to influence the public,” said Maung Wun Tha, a well-known Burmese writer and journalist. Maung Wun Tha also added that Tay Za is aware of the media’s utility, and plans to capitalize on the media’s advantages.
Meanwhile, US-sanctioned crony Zaw Zaw is reportedly planning to buy Myanmar Times in the near future.
“IGE, Htoo and Zaw Zaw involve ministers’ children, and they also have political intentions,” said the editor of the Rangoon-based publication, “Businessmen associated with the military are preparing to enter the next election, and they believe the media will be an effective force.”
There are an estimated 170 journals in Burma, several of which have close ties to the current regime. Myat Khaing, a close associate of Snapshot publisher and Minister of Information former Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan, publishes Monitor. Tin Tun Oo, a USDP member, publishes the Myanmar Times, Pyi Myanmar and Thadin Hlwar. Zaw Min Aye, the son of former Lt-Gen Tin Aye, publishes Messenger, and ex-Lt-Gen Win Myint’s family owns Popular. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21388
ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ဇြန္လမွာ ခရီးထြက္ဖြယ္ရွိ
2011-05-30
၂ဝ၁၁ ခုႏွစ္ ေမလ ၃ဝ ရက္ေန႔က ေဟာင္ေကာင္တကၠသိုလ္တြင္ ျပဳလုပ္သည့္ “ေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ႏွင့္ ရာစုႏွစ္ အထိမ္းအမွတ္ စကားေျပာျခင္း” တုိက္ရိုက္ ဗီဒီယုိ ေဆြးေႏြးခန္း အစီအစဥ္အေၾကာင္း ေဟာင္ေကာင္ တကၠသိုလ္ အင္တာနက္စာမ်က္ႏွာတြင္ ေဖာ္ျပထားပံု ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ (http://www0.hku.hk/socsc/assk/)
ျမန္မာ့ ဒီမုိကေရစီေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ဟာ လာမယ့္ ဇြန္လအတြင္း နယ္ခရီးစဥ္ေတြ စတင္ေတာ့မယ္လို႔ ေအအက္ဖ္ပီ သတင္းမွာ ဒီကေန႔ ေဖာ္ျပထားပါတယ္။ ဒီကေန႔ ေဟာင္ေကာင္တကၠသိုလ္က ဆရာဆရာမေတြ၊ ေက်ာင္းသူေက်ာင္းသားေတြနဲ႔ အရပ္သား စုစုေပါင္း တေထာင္ေလာက္နဲ႔ အင္တာနက္ ဗီဒီယိုကတဆင့္ တုိက္ရိုက္ေဆြးေႏြးပြဲမွာ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ကို ပရိသတ္က ေမးျမန္းရာမွာ အဲဒီလို ေျဖၾကားခဲ့တာ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။
ခရီးစဥ္နဲ႔ ပတ္သက္ၿပီး သတ္သတ္မွတ္မွတ္ မရိွေသးေၾကာင္းနဲ႔ ဇြန္လ ၁၉ ရက္ေန႔မွာ က်ေရာက္တဲ့ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ေမြးေန႔ ေနာက္ပိုင္းမွာ ခရီး စတင္မယ္လို႔ စဥ္းစားေနေၾကာင္း ပါတီေခါင္းေဆာင္ပိုင္းကို ေျပာတယ္လို႔ ေျပာေရးဆိုခြင့္ရိွသူ ဦးဥာဏ္ဝင္းက အာအက္ဖ္ေအကို ေျပာပါတယ္။
“ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္အေနနဲ႔ ဇြန္ ၁၉ သူ႔ေမြးေန႔ ေက်ာ္သြားတဲ့အခါမွာ ခရီးထြက္ဖို႔ စဥ္းစားမယ္လုိ႔ က်ေနာ္http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifတို႔ကို အဲဒီလုိပဲ ေျပာတာ။ ေဒၚစု နယ္ကို ခရီးသြားမယ္ဆုိတဲ့ အစီအစဥ္ကိုပါ၊ သူက ျပည္သူလူထုနဲ႔ ႏုိင္ငံသားေတြနဲ႔ ေတြ႔ခ်င္တဲ့ ဆႏၵပဲ။ ဘယ္လုိပံုစံ ျဖစ္လာမယ္ေတာ့ က်ေနာ္ႀကိဳၿပီး မေျပာခ်င္ပါဘူး”
ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ နယ္ခရီးစဥ္ဟာ အမ်ိဳးသားဒီမိုကေရစီ အဖဲြ႔ခ်ဳပ္ NLD အေနနဲ႔ လြတ္လပ္စြာ စည္းရံုးေျပာဆိုခြင့္ ရိွမရိွဆိုတဲ့ အခ်က္ကို စမ္းသပ္လိုက္တာလည္း ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ ေအအက္ဖ္ပီ သတင္းမွာ ေဖာ္ျပထားပါတယ္။
ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ အပါအဝင္ NLD အဖဲြ႔ဝင္ေတြ၊ ေထာက္ခံသူေတြရဲ႕ လံုျခံဳေရးနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္ၿပီး အစိုးရက ဘာမွ တိတိက်က် အာမ,ခံခ်က္ ေပးထားတာ မရိွဘူးလို႔ ဆိုပါတယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံသားတိုင္းရဲ႕ လံုျခံဳေရးဟာ အစိုးရမွာ တာဝန္ရိွေၾကာင္း ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္က ေဟာင္ေကာင္တကၠသိုလ္က ပရိသတ္ကို ေျပာၾကားခဲ့ပါတယ္။(RFA)
ဒီပဲယင္း ႏွစ္ပတ္လည္အခမ္းအနားမ်ား က်င္းပ
2011-05-30
ဒီကေန႔ က်ေရာက္တဲ့ ဒီပဲယင္းအၾကမ္းဖက္မႈ (၈) ႏွစ္ျပည့္ အထိမ္းအမွတ္အျဖစ္ ဒီပဲယင္းခရီးစဥ္မွာ ကိုယ္တိုင္ လိုက္ပါခဲ့ၿပီး အရိုက္ခံခဲ့ရသူ သာစည္ၿမိဳ႕နယ္ အမ်ိဳးသား ဒီမိုကေရစီ အဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ ဦးသန္းေဆာင္ရဲ႕ ေနအိမ္မွာ ဆြမ္းကပ္ တရားနာၿပီး ေသဆံုးခဲ့သူေတြကို အမွ်ေပးေဝခဲ့ၾကပါတယ္။
ၿမိဳ႕နယ္ ၇ ခုက NLD အဖြဲ႔ဝင္ေတြနဲ႔အတူ ဒီပဲယင္း (၈) ႏွစ္ျပည့္ အထိမ္းအမွတ္ သံဃာ ၅ ပါးကို အရုဏ္ဆြမ္း ဆက္ကပ္လွဴဒါန္းခဲ့ေၾကာင္း ဦးသန္းေဆာင္က ေျပာပါတယ္။
“သံဃာေတာ္ေတြကုိ ပရိတ္ တရားနာၿပီး အႏၱရာယ္ကင္း ဆြမ္းေကၽြးကပ္ေပါ့။ ၿပီးတာနဲ႔ က်ေနာ္တုိ႔ NLD အဖြဲ႔ဝင္ေတြ အားလံုး ေရာက္လာတဲ့အခါ က်ေတာ့မွ ႏွစ္ပတ္လည္ေန႔မွာ ေဆြးေႏြးတုိင္ပင္ ေဟာေျပာေပါ့။ မေန႔က ကတည္းက လုံျခံဳေရးက လာၿပီး ေစာင့္ၾကည့္ပါတယ္။ ဘာမွေတာ့ တားတာ ဆီးတာ မရွိပါဘူး”
ဒီ ဆြမ္းဆက္ကပ္ လွဴဒါန္းပြဲကို သာစည္၊ ေပ်ာ္ဘြယ္၊ မိထီၳလာ၊ ဝမ္းတြင္း၊ တပ္ကုန္း၊ ေနျပည္ေတာ္၊ လယ္ေဝး၊ မႏၱေလး အေနာက္ေျမာက္၊ အေရွ႕ေတာင္၊ ျပည္ႀကီးတံခြန္ စတဲ့ၿမိဳ႕နယ္ေတြက NLD အဖြဲ႔ဝင္ေတြ တက္ေရာက္ၾကတယ္လို႔ သိရပါတယ္။
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အလားတူပဲ အေမရိကန္ႏုိင္ငံေရာက္ NLD အဖြဲ႔ဝင္ေတြကလည္း ဒီကေန႔ က်ေရာက္တဲ့ ဒီပဲယင္း (၈) ႏွစ္ျပည့္ အထိမ္းအမွတ္အျဖစ္ သံဃာေတာ္ေတြကို ဆြမ္းဆက္ကပ္ လွဴဒါန္းခဲ့ပါတယ္။ ဒီပဲယင္း ခရီးစဥ္မွာ ကိုယ္တုိင္ လုိက္ပါခဲ့တဲ့ NLD အဖြဲ႔ဝင္ေတြက သံဃာ ၅ ပါးကုိ ဆြမ္းဆက္ကပ္ လွဴဒါန္းခဲ့ေၾကာင္း အေမရိကန္ႏုိင္ငံ ဖို႔ဝိန္းၿမိဳ႕ေရာက္ မႏၱေလးတုိင္း NLD အဖြဲ႔ဝင္ ေဒၚညြန္ ့ညြန္႔က ေျပာပါတယ္။
ဒီ ဆြမ္းဆက္ကပ္ လွဴဒါန္းပြဲကို ဖို႔ဝိန္းၿမိဳ႕ေရာက္ ျမန္မာ့ဒီမိုကေရစီေရး လႈပ္ရွားသူ ၅ဝ ေလာက္ တက္ေရာက္ခဲ့တယ္လို႔ သိရပါတယ္။(RFA)
Friday 20 May 2011
News & Articles on Burma
Locals Fear 'Four Cuts' in Kachin State
By KO HTWE Friday, May 20, 2011
Villagers in Bahmo and Momauk townships in Kachin State are frightened that more clashes will take place after Burmese government troops fired a number of mortar shells into Kachin Independence Army (KIA) territory and the KIA was put on alert, according to local residents.
Recently, small clashes between government troops and the KIA have taken place across Kachin State, escalating tension between the KIA and the Burmese army. In addition, Burmese troops have been questioning villagers living in the area.
“The government troops scold the villagers and interrogate the farmers who are working in the fields. They also question the villagers who work in town,” said a resident of Bahmo Township.
Naw Din, the editor of the Kachin News Group (KNG), told The Irrawaddy that part of the government strategy to defeat the KIA is to drive villagers away from the KIA territory to the border.
“I see these are the signals of the Burmese army, to divide the KIA and the villagers using the “four cuts” strategy. Moving villages is in fact the strategy,” said Naw Din.
The “four cuts” strategy means cutting off access to food, funds, information and recruitment, often with devastating consequences.
In its fight with the Shan State Army, the Burmese army also used the “four-cuts” strategy, along with a military build-up, to drive many villagers in southern Shan State from their homes and land.
As a result, many villagers from Shan State Army territory in Shan State left for the border to find safer and better places to live.
The KIA attempted to negotiate with the new government, but the effort failed, said a KIA official on condition of anonymity.
“We have to fight back if they attack us. We are also ready,” he said.
“They said they should negotiate, if not the local residents will suffer with the escalating of tension. I don't know why the circumstances changed,” said Guan Sai, a member of the Kachin State Progressive Party (KSPP).
In 1994, the Burmese army agreed to a ceasefire with the KIA. However, tension between Naypyidaw and the KIA escalated after after the KIA refused the Burmese army order to transform into a Border Guard Force.
A Burmese army battalion commander was reportedly killed during an armed clash between government troops and the KIA on February. In addition, late lashttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gift year Burma's state-run media referred to the KIA as “rebels” for the first time since the ceasefire was signed. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21333
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Journalists Barred from Anti-poverty Meeting
By THE IRRAWADDY Friday, May 20, 2011
Burmese authorities have cancelled a previous invitation to journalists to attend a meeting in Naypyidaw on Friday when anti-poverty measures will be discussed. However, reporters for state-run media such as MRTV-4 are allowed to attend.
A Rangoon-based journalist who works for a foreign news agency told The Irrawaddy that the authorities had previously invited journalists to attend the meeting, but revoked the invitation on Thursday evening. No reasons were given for the decision, he said.
The anti-poverty conference will involve politicians, intellectuals and Burma economists, and will include economist Hla Maung, and retired UN official U Myint, who is currently a member of the board of directors at the Tun Foundation Bank.
Dr. Nay Win Maung, who belongs to the so-called “Third Force” also attended the meeting. The Third Force is a group founded by Burmese intellectuals during the International Burma Studies (IBS) conference in Singapore in mid-2006.
Recently, the Rangoon regional administration told journalists to provide detailed information—including the type of camera they may bring to events—to the local government office ahead of attending any media conferences.
The Rangoon regional administration has also suspended press conferences with Rangoon-based journalists, and have given no notice of when they might be resumed.
The move came after exile-based news agencies such as Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) broadcast and published critical news coverage concerning previous press conferences which were held in Rangoon on May 10 and May 17.
A minister of the Rangoon regional administration, Nyan Tun Oo, in early May said that his office planned to hold regular press conference with journalists every Tuesday.
On May 10, at the city’s parliament building in Rangoon, Nyan Tun Oo, told reporters during the press conference that media coverage which is sensitive to national security or critical of the state are banned.
Regarding freedom of press, he said that journalists can write stories if they are not sensitive to the state. No journalists can cover reports that endanger the state or national security, he told the journalists in Rangoon.
One Rangoon-based journalist who attended the press conference on May 10 complained that journalists were not able to ask questions freely even though the authorities said they held press conference for reporters.
Burmese journalists in Rangoon who work for foreign news organizations whttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifere not also invited to attend the press conferences held by the Rangoon regional administration, said a Burmese journalist in Rangoon who works for a foreign news agency. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21335
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Suu Kyi says presidential commutation not ‘amnesty’
Friday, 20 May 2011 18:35 Myo Thein
Rangoon (Mizzima) – Watch your language…that’s the message Aung San Suu Kyi sent to Burmese state-run newspapers, where a recent headline said, ‘Government grants amnesty for prisoners’.
Aung San Suu Kyi addresses a group of NLD members at headquarters in Rangoon in this file photo. Photo: Mizzima
Aung San Suu Kyi addresses a group of NLD members at headquarters in Rangoon in this file photo. Photo: Mizzima
Burma’s pro-democracy leader said on Thursday that the one –year commutation on all prison sentences ordered by President Thein Sein should not be labeled as an ‘amnesty’.
Her remarks were part of a press conference held in her lakeside home in Rangoon after a two-hour meeting with US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Yun on Thursday.
‘The meaning of 'amnesty' in their usage is very controversial’, she said. ‘So, I looked it up in the dictionary. The word, ‘amnesty’ means an order by a government that allows prisoners to be free. So, the commutation ordered by the president was not an amnesty. It was just commuting sentences. It was just a reduction in severities of punishments. Death sentences were commuted to life sentences and other prison terms were commuted by one year. It is just a commutation, not an amnesty', Suu Kyi said in answer to a journalist’s question.
In the meeting with Yun, Suu Kyi talked about her view of the new government and the issue of granting all political prisoners amnesty, according to sources.
Suu Kyi said that she believed in a policy of direct engagement between the Burmese government and the NLD in order to reach an agreements in areas that affect the country
She also said that she might travel to various townships within two months. On May 17, Burma began releasing about 14,600 prisoners across the country under the one-year commutation ordered by President Thein Sein.
According to the latest figures, 55 (0.3 percent) of the 14,600 prisonerhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifs are political prisoners and 27 of the 55 political prisoners are NLD members. http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/5300-suu-kyi-says-presidential-commutation-not-amnesty.html
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'A Good Foundation Has Been Established'
Friday, May 20, 2011
With Burma's new Parliament having completed its first session, there is now an ongoing debate as to whether the country's first legislative branch in 20 years will promote an agenda that benefits the people and where the nation's democratic transition is heading. To get a first-hand account of the parliamentary session and perspective on how effective the new legislature has been and will be in the future, The Irrawaddy reporter Htet Aung interviewed Dr Aye Maung, chairman of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP) who was elected to the Amyotha Hluttaw (Upper House) of Parliament. Aye Maung is also the chairman of the Guarantees, Pledges and Undertakings Vetting Committee for the Upper House.
Dr Aye Maung
Question: Do you feel satisfied with the previous parliamentary session? As a leader of the RNDP as well as a member of the Upper House, what is your analysis of the discussions in Parliament?
Answer: The Parliament has to be built on the foundation of the 20-year military administration. During the parliamentary session, the cabinet ministers, who are all members of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), viewed their ruling period positively and protected themselves when answering all the questions. Although our proposals would be beneficial to the people if the union government would carry out them, they were all blocked or rejected by the ruling government’s ministers to protect all of their state-building tasks which were carried out during the military rule in the absence of a constitution.
But at least we have been able to begin a good tradition in Parliament, under which all the government ministers have to come and answer all the questions asked by the members of the Parliament (MPs). It shows the role of the ministers in this new system. In the next 6 months or one year, when the Parliament will go back in session, the union government ministers will again be questioned by the MPs, who will then prepare a set of questions regarding their respective regions.
Such a question and answer session will become a good tradition and the minsters will have to pay due respect first to the speaker of the Parliament and speak in good terms in accordance with the Parliament's tradition. I just recalled an incident that happened in the Upper House in which a cabinet minister used inappropriate expressions when he answered the questions of the MPs and then the speaker of the House prohibited him immediately from using these words. What I mean is that no matter whether these ministers are elected or appointed, they have to pay due respect towards the Parliament and the MPs and to cordially respond to the MPs' questions on state affairs.
Q: There has been no Parliament in the past 20 years and the people have not had any information about what the government is doing. Now after the emergence of the Parliament, the people have come to know the state affairs to some extent. Some people view the right to question the cabinet ministers as a rare chance that has never happened before. On the other hand, some argue that all the ministers protected themselves and their work by displaying a huge pile of statistical data and information, resulting in maintaining the status quo. What is your response to these two different views?
A: There will always be two sides in viewing a thing. As I said before, we have to consider the fact that a good foundation has been established. When a situation has arisen for the people to voice their criticisms, they will be able to criticize the good and bad images of the Parliament by themselves. This will be to the benefit of all. All the discussions in the first Parliament session will be left as a historical record. In the interim time before the resumption of the second Parliament session, the MPs should study what issues they should raise and how they should approach the people to collect data on the issue. We should look into where the country is going and whether it is in accord with the Constitution. What shall be repaired? Are the government officers taking bribes? What is really happening on the ground? Are the people really enjoying their rights which are guaranteed by the Constitution? Do the people really have property rights, either for their moveable or non-moveable possessions? All these matters will likely be the questions in Parliament.
We shouldn't talk only about the union government. The Parliament should also look into whether the MPs are really representing the people of their constituencies or whether they are betraying their voters. For all these matters, the media will step in to investigate and criticize the performance of each individual MP. President Thein Sein mentioned in his first speech that the media is the fourth pillar of the nation. The media should also take a neutral stand to criticize all the good and bad aspects of the legislative, executive and judiciary bodies. We have to accept it. Whether or not we accept the 2008 Constitution, we have to demand the rights given by the Constitution gradually and to try to amend the Constitution.
Q: There were weaknesses on the part of the MPs in their questions or proposals, which didn't provide accurate facts and figures in order to make them strong. What are your plans to have a more effective discussion in the next Parliament sessions?
A: It is really important and the political parties must be systematic in their structures. To observe the situation at the grassroots level, we must have at least an R&D [Research and Development] department. To collect the accurate facts and figures, the parties also need the support of their local branch offices and the NGOs [non-government organizations] can also provide assistance. Later on, I will establish a research unit in my party.
Q: The government has all the data and information of the development projects that they are carrying out in the country. As chairman of the Guarantees, Pledges and Undertakings Vetting Committee for the Upper House, do you have the right to get access to this information? How much authority can this committee exercise?
A: The committee's duty and responsibilities are set already. The duty is that when a parliamentary committee has questions regarding the performance of the government, it can ask the respective minister to come and answer those questions in Parliament. In doing so, the Parliament can examine only the pledges that the minister made in front of the Parliament. There can be projects that the government is carrying out outside the Parliament, but the committees are in no position to examine them. We have to examine the pledges that the ministers made in their answers to the questions of the MPs and we can go to the place to which the pledge referred and examine it in the prescribed time frame. After conducting the inquiry, the committee has to submit its findings to the Parliament, which approves them with a majority vote and sends them to the President with the signature of the House Speaker. Identifying and enhancing the scope and authority of the Parliament in comparison with the other parliaments in the Asean [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] is the task that we have for the future in order to promote the role of Parliament to perform the act of “check and balance� against the administrative tasks of the government outside the Parliament.
Q: Do you think this Parliament is indeed meaningful? What is your response to the skepticism that there is no change because the new government was formed by the same ministers from the military junta?
A: In structure, it can't be seen as the same between the new and old governments. Although the players are the same, the rule is not. The president has already given the speech three times and we have to watch the consistency of his speech and deed. It is the responsibility of us all to watch whether the government keeps following its pledges correctly. Although the policies, but not the policymakers, have been changed, if they have the will to change their desire, feelings and visions, we can say that both the policies and the policymakers have changed after a period of time.
Q: Before the emergence of the Parliament, there was an assumption that as the parliamentary system was designed to be a civil-military one, there would be an opportunity between the military and civilian MPs to build a mutual understanding. How can you describe the relation between the 25 percent military-appointed MPs and the civilian MPs in the previous Parliament sessions?
A: Previously, I thought that the 25 percent military-appointed MPs would include some high-ranking military officials such as Maj-Generals and Brig-Generals and many Colonels, but in reality, they are majors and captains in their young ages. It is surprising, and the military may have an intention to send their younger new generation to engage in Parliament. In Parliament, they are just the listeners. But during the Parliament sessions, we were able to build a mutual relationship with them to some extent, based on some commonalities such as coming from the same birthplace, ethnicity and educational background. When we met outside the Parliament, they said that they can't speak out in Parliament this time and hoped to have their voice heard next time. If so, there will be questions from the side of the military-appointed MPs as well.
Despite the difference between the uniform and civilian clothes, it is necessary not to go in with a different way in mind. I found out that they also have their personal feelings because they were born to the families and relatives who are also part of the society. Especially if they are in the armed forces, their families have to rely on only a single income source, and they have also many feelings between the high and low ranking officers among the armed forces. They live under a strictly disciplined society while we come from a relatively free society, so we are freer than them even in our way of speaking. I often noticed that their faces looked encouraged while we were discussing the state affairs in Parliament, while they had to keep their mouths tight all the time. In the future, we can build a mutual understanding with each other through these commonalities.
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Female political prisoners on hunger strike in Insein Prison : AAPP-B
Friday, 20 May 2011 19:24 Aung Myat Soe
Bangkok (Mizzima) – Protesting the Burmese government’s one-year commutation of prison sentences, female political prisoners are on a hunger strike in Insein Prison in Rangoon, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) (AAPP-B).
insein-prisonSecretary Tate Naing said the strike started Tuesday, and, ‘One form of the protest is a hunger strike. They staged the protest against the presidential commutation ordered May 16 because they thought the commutation is not enough’.
Mizzima contacted the Prison Department, but an official refused to comment.
An activist in Rangoon who has provided help to political prisoners said that female prisoners in hall No. 7 in Insein Prison staged a hunger strike to protest against the commutation that was labeled as an ‘amnesty’ by some government officials.
The number of the protestors is not known, but activists Ohmma Myint, Thandar Aung and Aye Chan are taking part in the hunger strike, the activist said. When Ohmma Myint had a visitor on Friday she refused to take the food that was brought for her, he said.
According to an employee at the Prison Department, Ohmma Myint and Thandar Aung are not in good health and they have received medical treatment.
Meanwhile, the lack of information has increased the worries of political prisoners’ families.
The Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma said on May 3 that there were 420 political prisoners in Insein Prison in Rangoon and more than 30 of them were female political prisoners. Across Burma, there were 2,061 political prisoners and 156 were female.
On May 17, Burma began releasing about 14,600 prisoners across the counthttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifry under the one-year commutation ordered by President Thein Sein. According to the latest figures, 55 of the 14,600 prisoners are political prisoners and 27 of the 55 political prisoners are members of the National League for Democracy. http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/5301-female-political-prisoners-on-hunger-strike-in-insein-prison--aapp-b.html
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ASIA TIMES:May 21, 2011
Arakanese rebels freed from Indian jail
By Subir Bhaumik
KOLKATA - Thirteen years after they were detained on charges of gun-running, 34 separatist rebels from Myanmar's Arakan province walked free on Thursday from an Indian jail in Kolkata, bringing down the curtain on a murky episode involving alleged betrayal and abuse by Indian intelligence agents.
The National Unity Party of Arakan (NUPA) rebels were later in the day flown out to Delhi, where they will stay with the small Burmese community until they win asylum in third countries. "They will not be repatriated to Myanmar because they fear execution if sent back," said Indian human-rights activist Sujato Bhadro.
The 34 were among nearly 80 fighters and fishermen who set sail on two ships for the Andaman Islands from Thailand in February 1998. The Indian military had maintained that the Arakanese were arrested soon after the navy and the army launched "Operation Leech" to intercept gunrunners around the islands.
The NUPA rebels allege that when they arrived at the Andamans' Landfall Island they were at first promised sanctuary by then Indian military intelligence official Lieutenant Colonel B J S Grewal.
"Grewal took away six of our leaders, had them shot and put the rest of us in a prison," recalled Thein Oung Gyaw, one of the 34 recently released. "We were detained without trial in [the] Andamans for six years. No charge sheet was filed against us."
The NUPA alleges that their fighters were all framed on the gun-running charges by the Indian military, and at Grewal's behest. Among those killed by Indian troops was Khaing Raza, the NUPA's military wing chief.
Grewal left the Indian army soon after the incident and set up a bicycle parts manufacturing business near Yangon, Myanmar's old capital city. His family remains in a palatial mansion near Mohali in India's Punjab state, from where Grewal hails.
Though the rebels feel they were duped by Grewal, who allegedly fleeced them of nearly US$50,000 to help "get Indian support", Myanmar-watchers here believe it's unlikely that one official would have had the clout to get away with such an elaborate scheme on his own.
They believe the ploy was part of a broader strategy adopted by Delhi to win the confidence of the military junta in Yangon after years of supporting Myanmar's pro-democracy movement. Since then bilateral commercial ties have blossomed, with India securing several lucrative energy deals in Myanmar.
"In the 1980s and early 1990s, Indian intelligence adopted a conscious policy of developing close relations with rebel groups along its borders with [Myanmar],'' said Naba Kumar Singh, who heads the Myanmar studies in Manipur university in Northeast India.
''India's RAW [Research and Analysis Wing] supported the Kachins, the Chins and the Arakanese insurgents to neutralize its own northeastern militants along a long border but also to keep pressure on the [Myanmar] military regime. That changed in 1995," he says.
Once India decided to court the military junta, the Indian military started to crack down on the rebel groups it had once supported. The bases of the Chin National Front (CNF) in northeastern India's Mizoram and Manipur were raided and most of their fighters were forced to flee or were nabbed.
The Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which had received a huge consignment of weapons after its former chief Maran Brangsein visited Delhi twice and the chief of India's external intelligence RAW, were also told they could "no longer depend on Indian support".
The policy shift was controversial among the rank and file, many of whom had developed relations with rebel leaders. The RAW's late deputy chief B B Nandi actually offered to come to the defense of the 34 NUPA rebels in court because he felt they were victims of treachery.
Just before he died in Calcutta, he told this writer that he had opened the first parleys with the NUPA, the KIA and the CNF in an attempt to secure India's eastern borders with Myanmar from the "pernicious effects of insurgency, drug and weapons trade".
''These rebels served India's interest much better than [Myanmar's] military regime," Nandi told this writer.
The policy turning point came after the Indian army sought the help of their Myanmar counterparts to encircle a 200-strong column of three Indian rebel groups in April 1995. The rebels were heading for India's northeastern region after collecting a huge consignment of weapons at Wyakaung beach on the Chittagong-Arakan coast. In joint operations that came to be known as ''Ops Golden Duck'', Myanmar and Indian troops killed 38 and detained 118 rebels.
Ever since, the Indian army has pushed for a closer rapport with the Myanmar military. One former chief of India's eastern army, Lt-General H R S Kalkat, even told the BBC in a formal interview that India's Myanmar policy should be "better left to the army".
"We are soldiers and they are soldiers and our blood is thicker than the bloods of bureaucrats and politicians," he was quoted by the BBC as saying.
It's against that shifting backdrop that the NUPA rebels were killed and detained in 1998. Military officials summoned by a Calcutta court in the case at first refused to testify and later were reluctant to press the case when forced to take the stand.
However, pressure built up on the government to drop the charges once local media reports indicated that they had actually cooperated with Indian military to stop the movement of weapons and rebels from northeast India through the so-called Arakan corridor.
In July 2010, after failing to prove the gun-running charges with any evidence, India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) decided to reach a settlement. The plea bargain reached initially asked the rebels to pay a fine for illegal trespassing into Indian territory but the CBI later agreed to drop all charges.
The federal government has agreed not to extradite the group to Myanmar, as is normally done with foreign nationals against whom legal proceedings are dropped. ''It took us long to reach the settlement because we had to ensure the fighters are not sent back to [Myanmar]," said Soe Myint, a New Delhi-based Myanmar news editor who helped organize their defense.
Subir Bhaumik is chief of news operations at a leading Indian TV channel and a known specialist on Northeast India and Bangladesh. His book Troubled Periphery details Indian intelligence's connections with Burmese rebels until 1995. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/ME21Ae01.html
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WEISS: Burma’s first billionaire no military bagman
It is past time to recalibrate relations with the struggling Asian nation
By Stanley A. Weiss
The Washington Times: 6:19 p.m., Thursday, May 19, 2011
Every spring, Forbes publishes its ranking of the richest men and women on the planet. One person you won’t see on the list is Burmese business tycoon Tay Za. The charismatic Tay Za is chief executive of the Htoo Group of Companies, a business empire founded during Burma’s era of democratic rule that spans logging, gems and jade, palm oil, construction, hotels and tourism, mobile-phone services, an airline and more. At 46, he is widely believed to be Burma’s first billionaire.
Tay Za is a high-profile figure in Asia, with business ties in Singapore, Thailand and elsewhere - even more so since the United States and EU levied sanctions against him for his relationship with Burma’s ruling generals. Yet he remains largely unknown in the West, and has received remarkably little press attention.
I have visited and written about Burma many times over the past 15 years. During my last trip in January, I had the opportunity to meet Tay Za in his palatial home in Rangoon. Tay Za has shied away from the spotlight and seldom agrees to be interviewed. Yet, as Burma, an emerging economic corridor between India and China, becomes more important on the world stage, its leading entrepreneur is speaking out. Maybe it’s time for America to take notice.
Tay Za is eager for more engagement with the West, and welcomes the scrutiny that comes with it. That’s good, because this enigmatic tycoon is certainly no stranger to controversy. His critics claim he has derived most of his wealth by colluding with a regime notorious for human rights abuses. He is reportedly close to junta strongman Senior Gen. Than Shwe. The United States accuses Tay Za of arms dealing for the government; he now controls all of Burma’s business links with Russia. Tay Za and his family are barred from entering the United States, EU, Canada, Australia and Switzerland.
But Tay Za contends that “investigations, which I would welcome, will prove that I am not a crony and a bagman for the generals.” While admitting that he is on “friendly terms” with the military regime, he insists he makes “no contribution to the generals other than officially paying taxes levied on my various businesses,” pointing out, “it has always been the case worldwide that regardless of government system, businesspersons and the incumbent state leaders have to cooperate for the benefit of the country.”
Not surprisingly, Tay Za is strongly opposed to Western sanctions, noting that while the United States and EU have punished local Burmese business leaders, they have taken “no action … against Chevron and Total, the two prominent Western energy companies that are making billions of dollars annually from their natural gas project in [Burma].”
Moreover, he argues, sanctions hurt Burma’s most vulnerable, not its most powerful, deepening the hardship in a country where one in three citizens lives below the poverty line. He says the sanctions “have virtually no effect on the rich” - and he is in a position to know.
Tay Za maintains that “no two nations can flourish through isolation.” Lately, it appears several Western governments may be coming around to his way of thinking. Earlier this spring, the European Union signaled a more flexible approach to Burma when it relaxed some sanctions against members of the government. The Obama administration recently appointed Asia expert Derek Mitchell the first U.S. special representative and policy coordinator for Burma.
If the United States seeks to reevaluate and fine-tune its foreign policy toward Burma, figures like Tay Za - who operate at the nexus of politics and economic markets - should be at the top of our list of people to know and not to shun. For decades, Americans have viewed the country through the prism of opposition leader and human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi, who was recently released from years of house arrest after the country’s November elections. The resulting black-and-white perspective obscures a more textured and complicated story.
In addition, U.S. authorities should reconsider the policy of punishing dependent children of persons designated for financial sanctions. Whatever relationships Burma’s business leaders may have with the military regime, sanctioning their dependent children simply isolates the next generation from the West and pushes Burma ever closer to China by default.
In any case, Tay Za says, the Htoo Group will “continue with our business activities, regardless of the government system, be it military or otherwise.”
When asked about his goals for the future, he answers like a Burmese Bill Gates: “I hope to become a philanthropist after qualifying for a billionaire.”
Stanley A. Weiss is founding chairman of Business Executives for National Security.
© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/19/burmas-first-billionaire-no-military-bagman/?page=all#pagebreak
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China supplied advanced mine detectors to Burma
Friday, 20 May 2011 15:42 KNG
China supplied new advanced mine detectors with six trucks to neighbor Burma, where civil war to be broken out with ethnic armed groups demanding self-determination, in last April, said a reliable source of the two countries’ border.
Six trucks loading mine (or land mine) detectors with equipments crossed illegal Burma border door at Manwin in southeastern Kachin State, close to Muse border trade zone, and were supplied to the Burma military, said sources of Burma border security in Muse.
kia_soldier_frontline
KIA soldiers temporarily stopped in the frontline of Manmaw (Bhamo) district in Kachin State.
The sources said, unlike earlier Chinese mine detectors which uses in Burma military, the new detectors are more advanced than earlier for searching land mines and other aerial mines.
The new mine detectors was supplied to Burma before the visit of Xu Caihou, Vice Chairman of China’s Central Military Commission to the country and enhancing the two countries’ friendships and military cooperation from May 12 to 14.
Border-based military analysts thought the two countries’ military cooperation will lead to eliminate ethnic armed groups along the borders--- Kachin Independence Army (KIA), United Wa State Army (UWSA) and Shan State Army-North (SSA-N) who denied for transforming their groups into the Burma Army-controlled Border Guard Force (BGF).
China, the main ally of military-back Burmese government is the major arm supplier of Burma and Russia, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, India, Singapore, Serbia, Ukraine, Israel are also arms suppliers of Burma.
More than a dozen Burmese soldiers were injured by KIA mines on May 18, http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifwhen government troops tried to enter KIA controlled areas in three locations, according to KIA officials.http://www.kachinnews.com/news/1913-china-supplied-advanced-mine-detectors-to-burma.html
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Myanmar to get RI rifles
Dina Indrasafitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 05/20/2011 9:54 AM | World|
Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro says the government hopes to sell Indonesian-made SS-2 assault rifles to Myanmar.
“[Myanmar] looked at the SS-2. We have been offering it,” he said Thursday after the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting in Jakarta.
Purnomo said that the nation’s arms trade was currently conducted by Indonesian Incorporated, which represented Indonesia’s state-owned weapons maker, PT Pindad; the Defense Ministry and the Defense Industry Policy Committee (KKIP).
“Myanmar is already in the process of transition. They already had an election. It has to be done in phases,” Purnomo said.
Col. Jan Pieter Ate a special assistant to the Indonesian Defense Minister, said that in principle Indonesia would not limit its arms sales to any nation, including ASEAN member nations.
“They should control their own markets rather than countries outside ASEAN,” he said.
Jan Pieter said that Indonesia’s policy on arms sales was related to the ASEAN defense industry collaboration.
“It’s all right if we want to sell [arms] to Malaysia, Laos or Vietnam, and Myanmar. What we do not hope for — and we do not compromise in this — is if the weapons are used to threaten other countries,” Jan
Pieter said.
He added that Indonesia’s stance was firm, waving off the possibility that Indonesian-made weapons might be used on civilians.
“The main purpose of weapons is to defend a country. This appeals to us as well,” Jan Pieter said.
Weapons sales might help Indonesia support Myanmar’s shift towards democracy, he added.
“With such a relationship, we will have better access to the country to improve democracy. If one [nation] does not have a relationship with another, it would be hard to influence one another. One of the ways is through trade, and defense is one of the ways [to do that],” Jan Pieter said.
University of Indonesia security analyst Andi Widjajanto said the idea of selling Indonesian weapons to Myanmar was more positive than negative. “An ‘embargo’ of light weapons to Myanmar will in fact push the junta to enter the black market,” he said.
Giving Myanmar the option to remain in the international weaponry markethttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif would cause the transnational criminal network supporting arms smuggling to lose revenue, he said. http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/05/20/myanmar-get-ri-rifles.html
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Militia men from battlefields deserting
Thursday, 19 May 2011 15:56 Hseng Khio Fah
Dozens of militia men from the battlefields in Shan State North’s Tangyan township are reportedly fleeing almost every week since April after they were deployed to fight against the Shan State Progress Party / Shan State Army (SSPP/SSA), better known as SSA North or First Brigade, according to local sources reported.
Most of the deserters were from Tangyan’s Mongkao tract, where its area is connecting with the SSA controlled territory.
“There were no less than 70-80 men who have fled from their post since they were deployed together with the Burma Army soldiers to attack the SSA in March,” said a source from Tangyan. “Some would flee to the cities and other different places while some went to join other armed groups.”
According to him, there were around 30 men including their family members, who have fled and joined Shan State South (SSS) Company of Mahaja, known as the mayor of Homong since the departure of warlord Khun Sa following his surrender in 1996.
A source close to Mahaja group confirmed that the men have arrived to them but they were sent to resettle in other places for their safety.
Beside the militia men, dozens of Burma Army soldiers have also deserted from the fighting as well.
The Burma army, since 2009, has been recruiting and also beefing up local militias to reinforce its campaign against armed groups who refuse to join its BGFs program. All militia units were given military trainings as soon as they were recruited.
And when it started fighting the SSA since 13 March, it has used more militia units especially from Tangyan township in its frontline while some are to safeguard all roads and bridges leading to the SSA bases and areas along the Salween River in cooperation with Burma Army troops.
But on 15 May, the Commander of the Northeastern Region Command (NERC) Brig-Gen Aung Kyaw Zaw assigned more militia units across northern Shan State like Kawngkha militia led by Mahtunaw, and U Myint Lwin of Tamong Nge, U T Khun Myat of Kutkhai, Panhsay U Kyaw Myint of Namkham and U Keng Mai of Mongpaw (Muse township) to closely watch every movement made by the SSA from each of their assigned areas and inform the regional HQ.
The battles between the SSA and the Burma Army and had injured and killed dozens of civilians including at least 300 casualties on the Burma Army side, claihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifmed the SSA. http://www.shanland.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3698:militia-men-from-battlefields-deserting-&catid=86:war&Itemid=284
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KNU Statement on Bombing near Capital of Burma’s Dictators
Date : 19/5/2011
1. In an Agence France Press (AFP) report, datelined May 18, a bomb blast killed two and wounded seven civilians near billion-dollar, custom-built capital (Naypyitaw) of Burma’s military dictators and military controlled dictatorship government headed by former general, President Thein Sein. Without hesitation, a Thein Sein government’s official accused the KNU of being responsible for the blast.
2. We, the KNU, categorically reject accusation of the official, as the KNU has no policy of letting members of its armed wing, the KNLA, to engage in heinous acts of harming or killing civilians. Even in the frontline, the KNLA troops have to follow strict orders not to cause casualty to the civilians, who are regularly used by the Burma Army troops as human shields and forced labour.
3. It is very likely that the bombing was the plot of the dictatorship itself in a dastardly attempt to point fingers at the KNU, while an important US official was on a visit to the capital. It could also be the work of members of a clique within the Burma armed forces, which is against the dictatorship. It is clearly impossible for the outsiders to carry out such an act in places near the capital, which are under tight security, constantly.
4. It has been the policy of the previous Burma military dictatorships as well as the present military controlled one to use its army troops to commit gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity, especially against the ethnic civilian populations.
5. In their suppression drives against the resistance forces in the ethnic areas, the Burma army troops regularly perpetrate forced labour, forced relocation, extortion, looting of properties, burning down villages - destruction of farms, orchards, plantations, food stocks etc. – arbitrary arrest, torture, extrajudicial killing - planting landmines indiscriminately in the foot paths, villages etc. - assassination and, rape of women and underage girls.
6. It is time the military controlled Thein Sein dictatorship stopped devious attempts to divert international and domestic attention away from its policy of ethnic genocide. In conclusion, we call on it to engage with the ethnic and democratic forces for meaningful dialogue and national reconciliation, and walk on the path to genuine democracy, federalism and durable peace.
Supreme Headquarters
Karen National Union
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Burma to hold first forum on poverty
Thursday, 19 May 2011 17:39 Mizzima Newshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Rangoon (Mizzima) – Burma will hold its first ever ‘Forum on Poverty’ in Naypyitaw on Friday and President Thein Sein is expected to attend the forum.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
There was no information about who else might speak or appear at the conference.
Some local and foreign journalists have been invited to attend the forum, but they will not be allowed to put questions to the president, according to sources.
Such a forum is rare in Burma, and never occurred under the former military junta. The newly formed government has listed the economy and the agricultural industry as targets on its list of problems to be addressed.
http://www.mizzima.com/news/breaking-and-news-brief/5289-burma-to-hold-first-forum-on-poverty.html
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