News & Articles on Burma

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