June 22, 2011
Brisbane Times - Arab Spring stirs plea from Suu Kyi
Simon Tisdall
AUNG SAN SUU KYI, the Burmese democracy leader and Nobel peace prize winner, has issued a passionate manifesto for freedom in an unprecedented international broadcast describing the continuing 21-year-long struggle against Burma's military junta and the inspirational impact of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions.
Delivering the first of this year's BBC Reith lectures, which was secretly recorded in Burma and broadcast yesterday, Ms Suu Kyi spoke movingly of the price she and fellow activists had paid while travelling what she called the ''hard road to freedom'' - and of her heartfelt belief in the justice of their cause, which sustained her during nearly 15 years in jail or under house arrest.
''What is this passion? What is the cause to which we are so passionately dedicated as to forgo the comforts of a conventional existence?'' she asked. ''Going back to [former Czech dissident leader] Vaclav Havel's definition of the basic job of dissidents, we are dedicated to the defence of the right of individuals to free and truthful life. In other words, our passion is liberty.''
Ms Suu Kyi described the way those who choose the path of resistance and protest could become isolated, physically and spiritually, from ordinary life - and the toll such deprivation exacted. ''Human contact is one of the most basic needs that those who decide to go into, and to persevere in, the business of dissent have to be prepared to live without. In fact, living without is a huge part of the existence of dissidents.''
Ms Suu Kyi discussed the dangers inherent in the feeling of ''separateness'' experienced by the dissident. To counter this, Burma's most committed regime opponents were focused as far as possible on pragmatic, tangible objectives, such as freedom of speech, the freeing of political prisoners, or democratic elections, rather than the academic or philosophical benefits of liberty, she said.
''Whenever I was asked at the end of each stretch of house arrest how it felt to be free, I would answer that I felt no different because my mind had always been free. I have spoken out often of the inner freedom that comes out from following a course in harmony with one's conscience.''
Ms Suu Kyi also drew comparisons between Burma's plight and the revolution in Tunisia. The main difference, she argued, was how free and uncensored communications, especially via social media networks, allowed the world to know what was happening in Arab countries. This was not yet the case in Burma.
Although released from house arrest last year, Ms Suu Kyi is unable to travel outside Burma.
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The Christian Science Monitor
Burma (Myanmar) border conflict threatens to complicate ties with China
Analysts say China is caught between its need to secure energy supplies from Burma (Myanmar) and its fears of escalating conflict on its borders.
By Simon Montlake, Correspondent / June 21, 2011
Bangkok, Thailand
Deadly clashes between Burmese troops and ethnic rebels at a Chinese-run hydropower dam for nearly two weeks shine a spotlight on China’s growing energy interests in Burma’s strife-torn borderlands.
Beijing has called for a peaceful end to the fighting in Burma's northern Kachin state (see map here), where Chinese power companies are building a series of dams to supply electricity to southern China. The latest fighting erupted on June 9, when Burmese forces tried to secure a Chinese dam that is already in operation and has since been forced to shut down. Thousands of civilians have fled the area, and some have crossed into China, according to exiled Burmese media and Western diplomats in Bangkok.
Analysts say China is caught between its need to secure energy supplies from Burma (Myanmar) and its fears of escalating conflict on its borders.
The conflict represents a challenge for Burma’s semicivilian government that took power in April following a controversial election last November that sidelined many opposition voices. The ethnic minority Kachin Independence Army (KIA) is among several armed groups in Burma that have refused to convert into government border guards, to the frustration of Burma’s powerful military. Its political wing, the Kachin Independent Organization (KIO), signed a cease-fire in 1994 but was unable to field candidates in last year’s election.
What do Burmese troops really want?
Lahpai Naw Din, an exile who runs the Kachin News Group in Thailand, said the dam was a smokescreen for Burmese troops to overrun KIA positions. “It’s just a trick. In a short time they want to invade and control the dam area,” he says.
The hydropower plants lie on a tributary of the Irrawaddy River that flows the length of Burma and empties into the Indian Ocean. In March, the KIO sent a formal letter to the Chinese government to register its objections to dams under construction on the upper reaches of the river and cited the risk of conflict if Burmese troops attempt to drive the KIA from its bases.
“The KIO would not be responsible for the Civil War if the War broke out because of this Hydro Power Plant Project and the Dam construction,” the letter said.
The fighting in Kachin state comes at a sensitive time for President Thein Sein, a retired general who struck a conciliatory tone toward ethnic minorities in his inauguration speech but hasn’t followed up with any concrete policies. Some Kachin argue that the new government is no better than the disbanded junta and leans toward confrontation, not negotiation.
Burma’s state media said the KIA refused to withdraw its troops from the Tarpein dam site, despite repeated warnings, and resisted with heavy weapons that had damaged power lines and bridges. More than 200 Chinese workers had been evacuated and the plant shutdown had caused “great loss to the state and the people,” it said.
Exiled media groups had reported a lull in fighting in recent days as the two sides held peace talks, but clashes resumed Monday amid Kachin claims that Burma was moving troop reinforcements into the remote area near the Chinese border. Attempts to reach KIA representatives in Thailand and Burma were unsuccessful.
It’s unclear to what extent the fighting in Kachin state is driven by local military objectives. A KIO official said last week that he didn’t believe that the orders were coming from Nyapyidaw, the capital. Western diplomats say Thein Sein has struggled to consolidate his power base and faces resistance from military commanders, despite his former rank.
Burma's delicate dance with China
Last month, he made his first overseas state visit to China, Burma’s largest trading partner, which is building an oil and gas pipeline across Burma. A Burmese crackdown on a smaller ethnic militia group in August 2009 led more than 30,000 refugees to cross into China. An all-out offensive against the KIA, which has at least 8,000 soldiers, is certain to take a larger toll.
Naw Din said that the peace talks had failed because the Burmese government envoy wasn’t authorized to make concessions. He said a cease-fire was possible, but would still leave both sides on a war footing in the absence of political talks.
While the dam projects represent a useful source of clean energy, China’s biggest energy bet on Burma is the twin pipeline that is designed to transport imported crude oil as well as gas from Burma’s offshore reserves in the Indian Ocean. To reach China, the pipeline would have to pass through borderlands where the KIA and other rebel groups have military bases.
Matthew Smith, a consultant for EarthRights International, a US-based campaign group, said the pipeline’s planned route lies south of the scene of the latest fighting. But he warned that it appeared to pass another area now under the KIA’s control. “It’s an unwise business proposition to be laying a pipeline through a war zone at such an inopportune time,” he says.
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eTaiwan News - Myanmar opposition urges talks with ethnic rebels
Associated Press
2011-06-20 11:36 PM Fonts Size
Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's political organization on Monday called for negotiations to end fighting in border areas between the government and ethnic minorities.
The National League for Democracy said in a statement it deplored recent clashes between the government and the ethnic Kachin Independence Army in northern Myanmar.
It also said ongoing fighting in southern Karen state had escalated and thousands of refugees have fled to Thailand and that clashes had taken place between government troops and the ethnic Shan in northeastern Shan state.
The league said it urged the parties "to hold genuine negotiations through mutual respect and understanding."
Suu Kyi on her 66th birthday celebration Sunday at her group's headquarters also called for peace, saying that "sparks of war" are flying in the country.
Fighting between the Kachin and government troops since early this month has displaced 10,000 people and forced Chinese technicians working in hydropower projects to flee the country.
The Kachin say government forces launched a major offensive after the ethnic rebels rejected a call to give up a military outpost in the region, while the government said the army had to protect a Chinese-built hydropower project that had come under threat from the Kachin.
Neither side has given casualty figures for the fighting.
The 8,000-strong Kachin Independence Army, the military wing of the Kachin Independence Organisation, is one of several ethnic armies in Myanmar that have been fighting for decades for greater autonomy.
The KIO reached a peace deal with the country's former ruling junta in 1994, but the truce broke down last year after the group rejected a call by the government to transform its troops into border guards under army leadership. The junta made the appeal ahead of last November's elections, Myanmar's first in 20 years, which installed the nominally civilian government now in power.
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United Press International
Myanmar clashes continue along border
Published: June 21, 2011 at 6:22 AM
YANGON, Myanmar, June 21 (UPI) -- A rebel army in northern Myanmar reportedly warned its troops to expect protracted fighting after clashes with government soldiers forced thousands of civilians to flee.
Religious groups, including Christian churches, in the town of Laiza in the mountainous Kachin state bordering China are caring for the refugees. Hundreds arrive daily, a report by the independent news organization Democratic Voice of Burma said.
Fighting broke out June 9 near Bhamo, around 40 miles from the Chinese border. The clashes marked the end a 15-year cease-fire between the Kachin Independence Army and the Myanmar central government.
Unconfirmed reports said at least four rebels and a number of government troops died. Several bridges also were destroyed by the KIA.
The government blamed the escalation in fighting on the KIA, a report in the state-run newspaper New Light of Myanmar said. KIA troops entered the Tarpein hydroelectric dam, a joint China and Myanmar project, and seized ammunition from security guards.
Troops were moved into the area to protect civilians and the dam, the New Light report said.
However, the KIA said fighting is a result of the breakdown of talks aimed at having KIA members join the central government's Border Guard Force, made up mainly of former rebel forces. The KIA refuses to join the BGF.
The government's policy of maintaining the BGF has been a relatively successful tactic between it and insurgents in several sensitive border areas, mainly in Kachin, in Shan state directly to the south and in Karen state, further south and which borders Thailand.
DVB also said a human rights group in Thailand said seven Kachin women were raped in separate attacks allegedly by Myanmar troops. Four of the women were subsequently killed.
All incidents were in, or close to, Bhamo where additional battalions of government soldiers have been deployed in the past two weeks to fight the KIA, the Kachin Women's Association Thailand said.
Further south, the government -- ostensibly civilian but consisting of former military leaders -- sent more troops into Karen state after sections of BGF in the state returned to their rebel group, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army.
Last week, two battalions of government troops were sent to Myainggyingu, where BGF troops left to join the DKBA. Two more battalions arrived this week.
No fighting has been reported but the army is looking for the rebellious BGF soldiers, a commander with the Karen National Liberation Army, which is fighting alongside the DKBA, said.
Despite ruling Myanmar, formerly called Burma, for most of the years since independence was granted by the British in 1948, the military has had uneasy relations with the country's ethnic peoples along its borders.
Last November, at the time of national elections, clashes between the Myanmar army and rebels in Karen state left several dozen people dead and sent thousands fleeing into Thailand, it was estimated at the time.
Many rebel groups were pressuring their people to boycott the national elections that the junta was setting up as the first civilian poll in nearly 20 years.
Several Western leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, condemned the vote as a sham. The winning party was a group consisting of many of the former military rulers who resigned their commissions to run as civilians.
Also, one-quarter of seats in Parliament are reserved for military appointments, which critics say makes the government a military one in all but name.
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Nobel laureate Suu Kyi to address U.S. Congress on Myanmar conditions
By the CNN Wire Staff
June 20, 2011 9:05 p.m. EDT
(CNN) -- Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi will address members of the U.S. Congress this week, a rare foray into American politics for a woman who is lauded internationally even as she struggles to be heard in her native Myanmar.
Suu Kyi will not be in Washington for Wednesday's hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives' subcommittee focused on Asia and the Pacific. But she will testify via video about conditions in her nation, including on recent elections that drew widespread criticism, U.S. Rep. Don Manzullo said Monday in a statement. Myanmar is also known as Burma.
"This hearing will highlight these sham elections and Burma's difficult road ahead," Manzullo, R-Illinois, said. "I am excited to share the videotaped testimony of (Suu Kyi) so everyone can hear of the junta's continued military offenses against ethnic groups and the dire human rights situation in Burma."
The daughter of Gen. Aung San, a hero of Burmese independence, Suu Kyi repeatedly challenged Myanmar's long-time military junta and promoted democracy over the years. Her efforts helped her win the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, while making her a target of Myanmar's regime and leading to her decades-long detention.
Last November, Myanmar held its first elections in 20 years. The vote drew fire from critics who said it was aimed at creating a facade of democracy. The regime had refused to allow international monitors or journalists into Myanmar for the vote.
Members of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party were among those who boycotted the vote, describing it as a sham.
But shortly afterward, on November 13, the Nobel laureate was released from house arrest -- having spent most of the past 20 years under house arrest or in prison.
Since being freed, Suu Kyi has largely remained in Myanmar with some exceptions -- like an address last January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in which she urged the world's political and business elite not to forget the people of Myanmar as they rebuild the global economy.
Earlier this month, Sen. John McCain traveled to Asia and met with Suu Kyi -- whom he called "a personal hero of mine for decades." During his talks, he said that he promised U.S. support for her efforts to promote democracy.
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The Independent - Technology revolution is key to fight for democracy, says Aung San Suu Kyi
By Ian Burrell, Media Editor
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
The Nobel peace laureate and human rights campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi spoke yesterday in a BBC lecture of the vital role played by communications technology in modern democratic uprisings and said she was not morally opposed to the use of violence in exceptional circumstances.
The Burmese opposition leader and general secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD) has recorded two speeches for the annual BBC Reith Lectures, which were smuggled out of Burma last week.
In the first, which will be broadcast on Radio 4 next Tuesday, Ms Suu Kyi compared the 23-year struggle to win democracy in Burma to the fast-moving revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and said that the widespread availability of internet-based technology in the Arab world had been a crucial factor in the success of those movements.
The lecture was broadcast yesterday to an invited audience at Broadcasting House in London. Afterwards, speaking from a secret location in Rangoon, Ms Suu Kyi told presenter Sue Lawley that, just as Nelson Mandela had altered his position on political protest, "it's possible" she might change her longstanding commitment to non-violence.
"I have said in the lectures I do not hold to non-violence for moral reasons but practical and political reasons," she said. She said Mahatma Gandhi, the "father of non-violence", had "said that between cowardice and violence he would choose violence any time".
Ms Suu Kyi, who was 66 last Sunday, the first birthday she has celebrated as a free woman in nearly a decade following her release from house arrest last November, said the Burmese people wished to emulate the success of Arab democratic movements.
"The similarities between Tunisia and Burma are the similarities that bind people all over the world who yearn for freedom," she said. But two key differences had ensured that "the outcomes of the two revolutions have been so different", she added.
"The first dissimilarity is that while the Tunisian army did not fire on their people, the Burmese army did. The second, and in the long run probably the more important one, was that the Tunisian revolution enjoyed the benefits of the communications revolution and this not only enabled them to better organise and co-ordinate their movements, it kept the attention of the whole world firmly focused on them. Not just every single death but every single [person] wounded can be made known to the world within minutes."
Speaking from a simple room decorated with a single vase of flowers and wearing an orange-coloured blouse, she said that "in Libya, in Syria and in Yemen now, the revolutionaries keep the world informed of the atrocities of those in power" and that "communications means contact".
During the Q&A, she said the Burmese uprising of 1988 might have been successful if the world had seen what was happening. "The communications revolution made a lot of difference [in Tunisia]," she said, noting that although the Burma uprising was "much worse" in terms of violent repression, it had gone unreported.
"The shooting and the lack of images throughout the whole world had a lot to do with the way which our revolution has been going on for such a long time," Ms Suu Kyi said.
In Tunisia and Burma, young people had played a pivotal role in the uprisings, she said, applauding the influence of "young rappers" in Burma. "For those who believe in freedom, young rappers represent a future unbowed by... oppression and injustice."
During the live session, Aung San Suu Kyi was in the company of the BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson. She said that in making her broadcasts she was "exercising my right to freedom of communication".
She spoke on the nature of being a dissident and talked with fondness of her colleagues in the NLD headquarters. "Their weapons are their faith, their armour is their passion," she said. Dissidents had chosen their path, she said, but "it's not a decision made lightly – we do not enjoy suffering, we are not masochists".
In a passionate address she quoted Czech dissident Vaclav Havel, the English poet William Henley and the Russian poet Irina Ratushinskaya, finishing with lines from Rudyard Kipling's The Fairies' Siege. In the second lecture, which will be broadcast on 5 July, Aung San Suu Kyi will speak of the forces aligned against her National League for Democracy.
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'Hairy Cornflake' sustained Myanmar's Suu Kyi
Tue Jun 21, 4:53 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – The dulcet tones of a BBC disc jockey known as the "Hairy Cornflake" helped Aung San Suu Kyi endure her long years of house arrest, the Myanmar democracy icon has revealed.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi, who was released in November by Myanmar's military junta, said listening to a music request show hosted by DJ Dave Lee Travis on the BBC World Service "completed my world".
Asked about threatened cuts to the World Service by the British government, Suu Kyi told the Radio Times magazine: "I used to listen to all sorts of different programmes, not just classical music. I can't remember... the name of that programme... Dave Travis? Was it?"
Told that she was probably referring to Dave Lee Travis -- who earned his nickname because of his bushy black beard -- she said: "Yes! Didn't he have a programme with all different sorts of music?
"I would listen to that quite happily because the listeners would write in and I had a chance to hear other people's words."
Myanmar's junta freed Suu Kyi last year after seven years of house arrest.
In total she has spent most of the last two decades after the junta refused to recognise her National League for Democracy's victory in elections in 1990.
She has British connections as she studied at Oxford University and was married to British academic Michael Aris, who died in 1999.
Travis, who presented the show on the World Service from 1981 to 2001 before it was axed by the BBC, said it was a "pleasant surprise" to find out that his broadcasting had helped sustain one of the world's top rights campaigners.
"It came as a pleasant surprise that a leader of a country listened to my programme to get a bit of jollity in her life," Travis told BBC radio.
"I think it just goes to show that these people have normal moments as well as political ones."
Travis rose to fame on pirate radio and became a household name in the 1970s and 1980s, appearing on radio and television shows before quitting his radio show live on air in 1993.
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Australia media boss seeks acquittal in Myanmar
By Soe Than Win | AFP News – 1 hour 13 minutes ago
An Australian newspaper boss on trial in Myanmar asked to be acquitted Tuesday in closing arguments of a case that some observers say highlights the risks of doing business in the military-dominated country.
Ross Dunkley, co-founder of the Myanmar Times, the country's only newspaper with foreign investment, is on trial in Yangon on charges including assaulting a 29-year-old woman and giving her illegal drugs, leading to injury.
If convicted on all counts he could face up to 14 years in prison.
A verdict will he handed down on June 30, the judge announced.
"I ask for an acquittal for these charges as he didn't commit any crime," said defence lawyer Aung Than Soe.
A public prosecutor, Mone Mone, asked the court to hand down "an appropriate punishment," without demanding any specific sentence.
Dunkley was arrested in February and held in Yangon's notorious Insein prison until his release on bail in late March.
The woman he is accused of assaulting has previously asked for her complaint to be withdrawn, saying she was pregnant and unable to travel to court, but her request was rejected.
His business partner in Cambodia, David Armstrong, has suggested the newspaper editor was the victim of a dispute at his Myanmar company.
Dunkley co-founded the Myanmar Times in 2000 with local partner Sonny Swe, the son of an influential member of the junta's military intelligence service.
But Sonny Swe was jailed in 2005 and his 51 percent stake in the paper's publisher Myanmar Consolidated Media (MCM) handed to Tin Tun Oo, who is thought to be close to the regime's information minister.
Some observers believe that outspoken Dunkley -- who as a foreigner blazed a trail in Myanmar's tightly controlled media industry -- fell out of favour with the ruling elite in the authoritarian country.
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New Kerala - Datuk Michelle Yeoh hopes role of Aung San Suu Kyi will bag Oscar
Kuala Lumpur, June 21 : International superstar Datuk Michelle Yeoh is confident that her forthcoming film 'The Lady', based on the life of Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, will win several Academy Awards nominations next year.
"If the media continues to give the film good publicity and reviews, it could become a reality," the Star Online quoted Yeoh as telling reporters during a press conference on the International Ipoh Run 2011 Monday.
She is the ambassador for the event.
The Ipoh-born Yeoh, who was in award-winning films like 'Crouching Tiger', 'Hidden Dragon' and 'Memoirs of the Geisha', said she also hoped to be nominated for Best Actress for her role in the movie.
The film, directed by French filmmaker Luc Besson, would be released by the end of the year.
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Krishna lands in Myanmar capital
By Indo Asian News Service | IANS – Tue, Jun 21, 2011
Nay Pyi Taw (Myanmar), June 21 (IANS) Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna Tuesday arrived in this Myanmar capital for the first high-level interaction between the two countries since a civilian government took charge in March.
Accompanied by Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, he flew in by a special aircraft from Yangon, the erstwhile capital from where the government shifted base in 2005. Krishna is on a three-day visit that ends Wednesday.
He will hold delegation level talks with his Myanmarese counterpart Wunna Maung Lwin, when the two sides will review pending infrastructure-related joint projects.
These includeing the Kaladan multi-modal transport system that will link India and Myanmar through a sea-river-land route, easing access to the border regions of the two countries.
The two sides will also sign agreements on developing a second industrial park in Myanmar with India's help. Krishna will also give 100 computers to Myanmar to digitalise the country's land records department.
Krishna will meet Vice President Tin Aung Myint Oo, when the two sides will discuss the security situation in the region and the means to enhance their strategic relations, Indian officials said.
On Wednesay, Krishna will meet President Thein Sein before returning to New Delhi.
The new civilian government was voted into office in the November, marking the transfer of power from the military junta headed by Senior General Than Shwe.
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Myanmar, India agree to realign strategic transit project
By N.C. Bipindra | IANS – 1 hour 36 minutes ago
Nay Pyi Taw, June 21 (IANS) India's bid for an alternative trade transit route to its northeastern states took a giant leap forward with Myanmar Tuesday agreeing to a proposal to realign a strategically important multi-modal transport project through the Kaladan river in the Bay of Bengal.
The project envisages linking India's eastern ports, particularly those in West Bengal, through the sea route to Myanmar's newly-developing Sittwe port along River Kaladan's mouth in Bay of Bengal and from there, building a land route through Myanmar to India's northeast.
The project, which is likely to be completed by end of 2013, will ease out the trade traffic through the Siliguri corridor in West Bengal to the seven sisters of northeast India.
'The realignment had to be made as the jetty at Sittwe had to be taken a bit upstream due to the low draught in its present location. This change will increase the lengthh of the road by another 62 km, thereby increasing the total legth of the road to 129 km,' Indian officials accompanying External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna on his three-day visit to Myanmar said here.
Krishna, who arrived in Yangon Monday, held extensive talks with his counterpart Wunna Maung Lwin in the Myanmarese capital Tuesday, when the Kaladan project came up for a review, they said.
'The identification and acquisition of land for the jetty will now begin. We are trying to have an all-weather port and jetty,' the officials said.
India has already begun the work on the project with the dredging of the Kaladan river being carried out by India's private Essar Group.
Indian public sector company Ircon will now take up the construction of the road, but will first present a detailed project report after identifying the land for the jetty, the officials said.
'Further progress will take place once the Myanmarese government approves some of the project details,' they added.
The entire project will be funded by India, with Myanmar providing the land for the jetty and road free of cost, they added.
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India pledges Myanmar $10 mn, donates 10 rice silos
By N.C. Bipindra | IANS – 1 hour 48 minutes ago
Nay Pyi Taw/Yangon, June 21 (IANS) India made its first official contact with the new civilian government in Myanmar Tuesday with visiting External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna pledging $10-million to enable capacity-building in agriculture and dedicating 10 disaster-proof rice silos to ensure people have enough to eat during cyclones and floods.
India's bid for an alternative trade transit route to its northeastern states also took a giant leap forward with Myanmar agreeing to a proposal to realign a strategically important multi-modal transport project through the Kaladan river's mouth in the Bay of Bengal.
The $10-million aid will enable Myanmar enhance the capacity of its farmers by buying agricultural implements from India.
Krishna made the promise of funds on the penultimate day of his three-day visit when he met his counterpart Wunna Maung Lwin in Myanmarese capital Nay Pyi Taw, officials in the Indian delegation said.
The two sides also decided that India will set up an agriculture research centre in Ye Zin, close to the country's capital.
The research centre will come up after agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan, regarded as the mentor of India's Green Revolution and presently a member of the Indian prime minister's committee on food security, carries out a detailed study of the project.
Agriculture contributes about 43 percent of Myanmar's GDP.
Earlier in Yangon, Krishna inaugurated in the presence of Myanmarese Commerce Minister Win Myint, the 5,000 tonnage storage capacity silos India funded with a $2-million grant.
The silos are capable of withstanding wind speeds of 150 km per hour and are earthquake-resistant. For flood prevention, the silos are built on plinths two metres from the ground.
The need for the silos was felt by Myanmar after the devastating 2008 Nargis cyclone hit the Myanmar coast, rendering several thousands homeless and without food for weeks.
'One of the lessons learnt from the catastrophe was the need to have strong and weather-proof rice warehouses located at strategic positions in cyclone prone areas to enable speedy distribution of foodgrain in times of need,' Krishna said in his address at the event.
Of the 10 silos constructed in a year ending February, four are in Yangon region and seven in Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy) region.
And, in a major boost to cultural and historic ties with Myanmar, Krishna offered to renovate and restore a 12th century temple in the ancient city of Bagan in the Mandalay region, which the Myanmarese government accepted, officials in the Indian delegation said.
Krishna also agreed to India granting 100 computers to Myanmar's land records department for training its personnel and digitalise record-keeping in the department. For this, a computer training centre will soon come up in Myanmar.
On Monday evening, Krishna visited a 2,600-year-old Shwedagon pagoda, a Buddhist pilgrimage centre in Yangon.
He later paid homage to India's last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, who died in Yangon in 1862 at the age of 87 after being exiled from Delhi.
Because of its strategic location as a bridge to the ASEAN region, India attaches great significance to ties with Myanmar and has welcomed the formation of the civilian government here. China has a strong presence here and recently rolled out the red carpet for Myanamar President Thein Sein and offered loans and credits worth more than $765 million.
Since India cannot match China's economic diplomacy, it engages in public diplomacy with capacity-building and skill development that connects with the common Myanmarese. India is also talking about better connectivity with the northeast to encourage cross-border trade and better security cooperation against cross-border insurgents.
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Krishna opens rice silos in Myanmar for disaster relief
By N.C. Bipindra | IANS – Tue, Jun 21, 2011
Yangon, June 21 (IANS) In a bid to win the hearts of the Myanmarese, India Tuesday dedicated 10 disaster-proof rice silos with a 5,000-tonne storage capacity to ensure people don't go hungry during cyclones and floods.
External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, on the penultimate day of a three-day visit, inaugurated here the silos India funded with a $2-million grant in the presence of Myanmarese Commerce Minister Win Myint.
The silos are capable of withstanding wind speeds of 150 km per hour and are earthquake resistant up to eight on the Richter scale. For flood prevention, the silos are built on plinths two metres from the ground.
The need for the silos was felt by Myanmar after the devastating 2008 Nargis cyclone hit the Myanmar coast, rendering several thousands homeless and without food for weeks.
'One of the lessons learnt from the catastrophe was the need to have strong and weather-proof rice warehouses located at strategic positions in cyclone prone areas to enable speedy distribution of foodgrain in times of need,' Krishna said in his address at the event.
Of the 10 silos constructed in a year ending February, four are in Yangon region and seven in Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy) region.
'It is a matter of pride and satisfaction for me that the Indian government has been associated with such a worthwhile project, which will directly benefit the people of Myanmar. This project is truly symbolic of the close and friendly ties between the government and the people of India and Myanmar,' Krishna said.
Thanking the Indian government, Win Myint expressed Myanmar's 'gratitude for the generosity'.
He also said that the two countries were existing with a sense of 'peace, co-existence and cooperation', and this extended to the areas of education and economic development.
On Monday evening, Krishna visited a 2,600-year-old Shwedagon pagoda, a Buddhist pilgrimage centre in Yangon.
'It is a great honour for me that the very beginning of my visit (to Myanmar) is to pay homage at this historic, sacred and inspiring shrine. I am struck by the dignity and splendour of the pagoda as well as the atmosphere of peace, tranquility and spirituality,' Krishna wrote in the visitors book.
'This visit will remain an inspiration and a source of spiritual strength and sustenance for me. I pray that this symbol of Buddhism and the abiding common values of the people of India and Myanmar will guide our relations for ever,' he added.
Krishna also paid homage to India's last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, who died in Yangon in 1862 at the age of 87 after being exiled from Delhi.
He was the figurehead of India's first War of Independence in 1857.
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India to renovate temple in Myanmar
By N.C. Bipindra | IANS – 2 hours 44 minutes ago
Nay Pyi Taw (Myanmar), June 21 (IANS) In a major boost to its cultural and historic ties with Myanmar, India Tuesday agreed to renovate and restore a 12th century temple in the ancient city of Bagan in Myanmar's Mandalay region.
Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, who is here on a three-day trip ending Wednesday, made the offer to the three-month-old Myanmarese civilian government, which accepted it, a source in his delegation said here.
The Ananda Pahto, which dominates Bagan's skyline with a 51-metre temple tower, is one of the oldest of temples in Myanmar. Bagan is about 200 km away from Myanmar's second largest city, Mandalay.
'The Archeological Survey of India (ASI) will be lending its services to restore and renovate the Ananda temple in Bagan,' the source said.
The Ananda Pahto, along with the mighty mid-12th century temple Thatbyinnyu Pahto with 61-metre high tower, dwarf all other modern construction in Bagan including the archaeological museum there.
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21 Jun, 2011, 11.33AM IST,PTI
Economic Times - Krishna pays homage to last Mughal emperor
YANGON: External Affairs Minister S M Krishna offered floral tributes at the grave of India's last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar in Dagon township of Yangon.
Accompanied by Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and Indian Ambassador to Myanmar V S Seshadri, Krishna yesterday offered fateha (prayer) at the 'mazar' of the former ruler, who died here five years after he was exiled to Yangon following his defeat in the 1857 war of independence.
Krishna, who is on a three-day visit to the country, also offered a chadar at the emperor's grave.
"The memory of this great patriot has been kept alive by careful preservation and upkeep of this monument," he wrote in the visitors' book.
"The Mazar is a reminder of the close historical association between India and Myanmar and contributes to deepening relations between our two countries. The Government of India will continue to keep alive its active association with this important monument," he wrote.
Interestingly, till few years back, there was no authentic information on where exactly the original tomb of the last Mughal emperor lay. The tomb was discovered during a restoration exercise in 1991.
The tombs of his queen Zeenat Mahal, who died in 1886, and his grandchild are next to that of the Mughal ruler.
Krishna also visited the legendary and spectacular Shwedagon Pagoda.
The 2,500 years old Pagoda enshrines strands of Budha's hair and other holy relics and is one of the most sacred and impressive Budhist site here.
The Pagoda which began with a height of 8.2 metres today stands at close to 110 metres. The Pagoda is covered with hundreds of gold plates and the top of the stupa is encrusted with 4,531 diamonds, the largest of which is a 72 carat diamond.
Krishna said he was struck by the dignity and splendor of the pagoda as well as the atmosphere of peace, tranquility and spirituality.
"This is a great honour for me at the very commencement of my visit to pay homage at this historic, sacred and inspiring shrine. This visit will remain an inspiration and a source of spiritual strength and sustenance for me. I pray that this symbol of Buddhism and the abiding common values of the people of Myanmar and India will guide our relations for ever," he wrote in the visitor's book.
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Monsters and Critics - High-ranking EU delegation meets Myanmar ministers
Jun 21, 2011, 4:06 GMT
Yangon - An European Union delegation has held talks with the newly installed Myanmar government, aimed at strengthening relations, state media said Tuesday.
Robert Cooper, counsellor in the European External Action Service, the EU's foreign affairs department, met with Myanmar Vice-President Thiha Thura Tin Aung Myint Oo, Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin and other ministers on Monday in Naypyitaw, the capital, the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported.
The government mouthpiece claimed the meetings 'focused on the strengthening of relations and cooperation between Myanmar and European Union.'
Cooper and his delegation were scheduled to fly Tuesday to Yangon for talks with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy party, which won the 1990 general election but was blocked from power by the military.
Cooper is the latest of several high-ranking Western diplomats to visit Myanmar after the country held its first election in two decades on November 7.
US Senator John McCain visited the country this month, and US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Yun and UN special envoy to Myanmar Vijay Nambiar visited in April.
Suu Kyi was barred from running in the November 7 polls, which were won by the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party, largely viewed as the political arm of the military regime that has ruled Myanmar since 1988. Myanmar has been under military dictatorships since 1962.
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June 21, 2011
VOA News - India Puts Security, Trade With Burma Ahead of Democracy
Daniel Schearf | Bangkok
India's foreign minister is in Burma for meetings with top leaders that are expected to focus on security and trade. New Delhi says the trip, the first since a civilian government took office, is an opportunity to "further vitalize" the relationship.
S.M. Krishna’s visit is India’s first high-level engagement since the country’s military government was replaced with a nominally civilian leadership in March.
India says the two sides will discuss security cooperation as well as trade and investment.
Krishna is not scheduled to meet with opposition and democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was banned from participating in the election.
India was once a vocal Suu Kyi supporter but changed its policy in the early 1990s in order to have better cooperation with the military government.
Professor D.S. Muni at Singapore's Institute of South Asian Studies says India realized there was a heavy security cost for supporting Aung San Suu Kyi and calls for democracy in Burma.
“Certainly as a result of change in New Dehli’s policy there has been considerable cooperation on the border, for instance," Muni said. "Lot of northeast insurgencies which have been earlier taking shelter in Myanmar - the Myanmar government’s cooperation is forthcoming.”
Muni says although there is cooperation, India has not been entirely satisfied with Burma’s border security and hopes to improve communications with the new government over the issue.
Critics say Burma’s controversial November election merely gave a civilian face to continued military rule.
A quarter of all parliament seats were reserved for the military and the military party won by a landslide amid widespread reports of voter fraud and intimidation.
Muni says although India is not pushing openly for democratic change in Burma, it has engaged in quiet diplomacy on the issue.
The engagement policy has also paid off economically for both Burma and India.
Bilateral annual trade volume shot from tens of millions of dollars in the 1980s to about a billion and a half dollars last year. Muni says Burma has also discussed brokering new deals for critical energy supplies including oil.
While that remains far less than the several billion dollars of annual Chinese trade and investment, Muni says India is more worried about Chinese naval activity in the region.
"Recently there were visit[s] of the two Chinese ships," Muni said. "Now there is a Chinese ship coming to Singapore. The Chinese are setting up a port development in Sri Lanka, they're planning a port development in Chittagong [Bangladesh]. So, I think this naval activity has suddenly alerted almost anyone who has concern for security in the Bay of Bengal.”
The Indian foreign minister’s visit coincides with a visit to Burma by a delegation from the European Union.
The EU group also met with government ministers and was to meet Tuesday evening with Aung San Suu Kyi.
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No anti-India activities from our soil: Myanmar
PTI – 1 hour 28 minutes ago
From Snehesh Alex Philip
Nay Pyi Taw, Jun 21 (PTI) Myanmar today gave "firm assurances" to India that its territory will not be used for anti-India activities, as their foreign ministers held a series of "positive and constructive" meetings with focus on cooperation in security, energy and agriculture.
External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, who is on a three day visit to the country to talk and understand the "priorities and thinking" of the recently formed civilian government, held bilateral talks with the country''s Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin.
On the issue of security cooperation, sources said Myanmar has reiterated its "firm assurances" that the country''s territory will not be be allowed to be used for any anti-India activities.
Security cooperation has been a major part of India- Myanmar relations because of the long border that it shares with four Northeast states. Many insurgent groups operating in the area are known to take advantage of the thick jungles along the border in Myanmar to take refuge.
Krishna also called on Vice President U Tin Aung Myint Oo in the evening besides holding meeting with the country''s Minister for Electric Power.
"The talks were excellent, positive, constructive and forward looking," a member of the Indian delegation said when asked about the bilateral meetings held.
While the meetings were a bid to foster strategic and economic ties between the two neighbours, sources said a number of issues with regard to cooperation in the field of health and agriculture were also discussed. .
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TIMELINES: On June 21 of what year were pro-democracy protests violently crushed in Burma?
Epoch Times Staff Created: Jun 21, 2011 Last Updated: Jun 21, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
On June 21 of what year were pro-democracy protests violently crushed in Burma?
On June 21, 1988, in Rangoon, Burma, a coalition of protesters including students, Buddhist monks, factory workers and the unemployed, stage a mass rally opposing the military regime and demanding democracy. Riot police answer with violence, killing 70 to 100 protesters and arresting thousands. Yet two days later, General Ne Win, chairman of the Burma Socialist Program Party (BSPP) unexpectedly resigns after 26 years of rule. Sein Lwin, the hated leader of the riot police, takes over. The protests that began in March culminate in a crackdown on August 8, during which at least 1,000 protesters are killed. That rally also sees the emergence of Aung San Suu Kyi—daughter of Burmese independence hero Gen. Aung San—as opposition leader. The 1988 events lead to a coup against BSPP, but the generals who take over, promising democracy, never deliver.
Elections in 1990 result in a landslide victory for Suu Kyi’s National League of Democracy, but the poll is ignored and Suu Kyi spends 15 of the next 21 years in detention.
This Wednesday, Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi will address members of the U.S. Congress via video testimony from Burma (officially renamed Myanmar by the regime in 1989). Suu Kyi will address the current conditions in her nation as well as last November’s elections—the country’s first since 1990. The elections have been the subject of widespread international criticism and were considered by most to be a sham. The junta made it impossible for Suu Kyi to participate. She was supposed to have been released from detention before the vote, but her term was extended until six days after it. Meanwhile, the generals passed a law prohibiting any party with a leader under arrest from running.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton deemed the elections “neither free nor fair.”
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New York Times - Chinese Officials Greet Libyan Rebel Leader in Beijing
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: June 21, 2011
BEIJING — The leader of Libya’s rebel opposition arrived here for talks on Tuesday as a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman for the first time described the opposition as “an important political power in Libya.”
The leader, Mahmoud Jibril, is scheduled to meet with the Chinese foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, during his two-day visit here, the spokesman announced at a news conference. The foreign ministry tends to be very conscious of protocol, and the meeting with Mr. Jibril comes after Mr. Yang met with Colonel Qaddafi’s foreign minister in Beijing this month.
“We are in contact with both parties in Libya, urging the parties to ease conflict in order to facilitate the national and people’s fundamental interests as soon as possible,” the ministry’s spokesman, Hong Lei, said.
China has consistently preached nonintervention in recent years and has opposed international efforts to put pressure on even repressive governments like those in Zimbabwe, Sudan, Myanmar and North Korea. When the United Nations Security Council voted in March to authorize airstrikes against Colonel Qaddafi’s forces to prevent them from killing civilians in opposition areas, China was one of five countries that abstained.
China’s departure from its usual reticence toward political opposition groups has prompted significant discussion among experts on China’s foreign policy, with the main focus on the country’s shift from being an oil exporter as recently as the early 1990s to importing half its oil now.
“It’s unusual for them to negotiate with anyone other than the incumbent government, but clearly China has oil interests,” said ’Ben Simpfendorfer, the managing director of Silk Road Associates, an economic and political consultancy in Hong Kong that focuses on China’s relations with the Mideast.
Libya was a large oil exporter until the recent civil conflict halted shipments.
Asked at the news conference on Tuesday if inviting an opposition leader to negotiations reflected China’s desire to be prepared no matter which side wins in the Libyan conflict, Mr. Hong replied in part: “We believe that Libya’s future should be decided by the Libyan people. China respects the Libyan people’s freedom of choice.”
Mr. Jibril is the chairman of the executive board of the Libyan opposition’s National Transitional Council.
Strong criticism of Colonel Qaddafi by other Arab countries, like Qatar, as well as efforts by African leaders to negotiate a settlement in Libya may have made China more willing to depart from its usual practice of avoiding contact with opposition groups, Mr. Simpfendorfer said.
China buys half of its oil and gas from the Mideast, and now buys more oil and oil products from Saudi Arabia, for example, than the United States does.
China also buys sizable quantities of oil from Libya, although less than it buys from Saudi Arabia. China purchased $4.45 billion worth of Libyan crude oil last year, according to data from Global Trade Information Services Inc., a data service based in Columbia, S.C.
China’s ambassador to Qatar, Zhang Zhiliang, met another Libyan opposition leader in Doha on June 2. Chen Xiaodong, the director general of the West Asian and North African Affairs Department of the Chinese foreign ministry, said a week later that China would welcome a visit by Libyan opposition envoys.
“China believes that the Libyan opposition National Transitional Council has become an important political force in Libya,” Mr. Hong said on Tuesday. “We would like to remain in contact with the N.T.C. and work towards a political solution.”
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Philippine Star - Myanmar private airline to add one more int'l direct flight service
(philstar.com) Updated June 21, 2011 01:35 PM
YANGON (Xinhua) – A Myanmar private airline, Air Bagan, is planning to add direct flight service between Yangon and Siem Reap (Angkor Wat) of Cambodia, a local weekly reported Tuesday.
The flight to be launched in October this year without specific date announced will be the third regional air route operated by the Air Bagan after Chiang Mai and Phuket, the Voice said.
The Air Bagan has been flying domestically to 20 destinations.
Meanwhile, the Myanmar Airways International (MAI) had inaugurated biweekly flight service between Yangon and Siem Reap in February this year as its international flight extension.
Since 2007, Myanmar and Cambodia have been working in collaboration for realization of direct air link and visa exemption, aiming to promote tourism industry between the two countries.
The work plan includes diverting more tourists from Cambodia's Siem Reap to Myanmar's Bagan, both of which are tourist destinations of the two countries, as Siem Reap has developed a tourism market enough for such diversion.
Myanmar and Cambodia signed three agreements in October 1996 on tourism cooperation, air services and establishment of sister cities between Bagan and Siem Reap.
Inaugurated in November 2004, Air Bagan, the first full private- invested airline in Myanmar set up by the Htoo Company, stands as the third largest domestic private airline in the
country after Air Mandalay and Yangon Airways.
Using two Fokker F-100 aircrafts, two ATR -72 aircrafts and two ATR-42 aircrafts, the Air Bagan has been flying the above destinations.
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The Nation - Thailand should extend its kindness to refugees a little bit longer
By Supalak Ganjanakhundee
Published on June 22, 2011
The National Security Council (NSC) recently reiterated its policy to repatriate Burmese refugees who have been living along the western border for more than two decades now, but this may not be the best time because the conflict in Burma is far from over.
Sheltering some 100,000 refugees for a long time is definitely a burden, but Thailand cannot shrug this responsibility due to humanitarian reasons. In the eyes of the international community, Thailand has always been a country of kind people who are ready to extend a helping hand.
Thailand has been sheltering Burmese refugees in nine camps in four provinces - Mae Hong Son, Tak, Kanchanaburi and Ratchaburi - since violence erupted in Burma in 1988. The Kingdom has always been a safe haven for all kinds of displaced persons, be they migrants, asylum seekers or refugees. Many of these people are fleeing conflicts that Thailand has no part in.
It is understandable why the NSC wants to get rid of Burmese refugees, but this policy would not solve the problem permanently. It is not possible to say that democracy has returned to Burma just because elections were held last year. The new government is actually just another face of the previous military regime and it continues to suppress the opposition and dissidents, notably the minorities.
Battles between government troops and the ethnic armed forces are still going on in many locations near Burmese borders, because many of these ethnic groups are refusing to become part of the so-called "Border Guard Forces".
Besides, the conflict in Burma after the election has become a bit more complicated because it is no longer a purely political conflict but is mixed with a so-called "development discourse".
Fighting broke out between the Burmese army and the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) early this month at two of the Dapein dams, breaking a 17-year-old ceasefire pact. China's state-owned company Datang is building the dams.
Scores of people died in the latest conflict and more than 2,000 refugees fled to the Chinese border. The Burmese army, meanwhile, has posted hundreds of troops to secure the dams, which are located close to strategic KIO military bases.
Fighting has spread, with clashes breaking out near Shweli 1 Dam in northern Shan State, with offensives near the Nong Pha Dam on Salween River forcing thousands to flee their homes over the past three months. This is making the burden on Thailand even heavier.
"The root causes of Burma's social conflict have not been addressed and despite the formation of a new government, the country is still under the military regime's mismanagement," Sai Sai, coordinator of the Burma Rivers Network, said.
Rather than simply announcing a repatriation policy, the NSC is considering the whole picture and looking for ways to deal with the problem at its root. However, Thailand cannot handle this issue alone, but requires help from Asean and the United Nations.
Repatriation should be at the last stage of the plan, and only take place as and when the conflict in Burma is over. Otherwise, the repatriated refugees will only sneak back in to escape war.
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The Irrawaddy - Opinion: Ethnic Conflicts are the Generals’ Golden Goose
By Dr. ZARNI Tuesday, June 21, 2011
The last 10 days saw the breakdown of the ceasefire between Burmese generals and the Kachin minority, one of modern Burma’s founding ethnic communities. But it’s important not to view this primarily through prism of ethnicity—emphatically, the generals are equal opportunity oppressors who discriminate not on the basis of ethnicity or religious faith, but in terms of their personal and institutional interests.
While there are “natural” ethnic prejudices among Burma’s “communities of difference” (in terms of religion, ethnicity and ideology) these prejudices don’t automatically evolve and deepen themselves into ethnic hatred and intractable conflicts. After all, Aung San Suu Kyi’s father—the slain national hero Aung San—was able to work out a multi-ethnic treaty on the eve of the country’s independence.
On the basis of ethnic and political equality, the country’s minorities, with legitimate historical claims over their own ancestral regions, agreed to join the post-independent Union of Burma.
This was no small achievement in the face of various attempts to mobilize ethnic grievances by local minorities and majority political elites, as well as some external players such as conservative elements within the British colonial and military establishments. As sincere as he was when he won over the Kachin, Shan and Chin leaders with his pledge of “Bama one Kyat, Shan one Kyat”, the strategic importance of the adjacent minority regions to the Bama majority’s interests was not at all lost on him.
The country’s conflicts regarding different ethnic communities are political because they are fundamentally rooted in the minorities’ demands for, and the Burmese ruling classes’ rejections of, the recognition that modern, post-independence Burma was the result of the voluntary coming together of different ethnic groups where were all equally indigenous to the land.
The politically defiant minority organizations and communities have been fighting the Burmese government since 1947—that is, just months before the country’s independence from Britain. The historic agreement to unite Burma as a voluntary federation based on the inviolable principle of ethnic equality was buried along with Aung San’s remains that same year. Virtually all of his Bama nationalist contemporaries, soldiers and civilians, held the mistaken view that federalism was about secession, and have done everything to kill minorities’ federalist aspirations accordingly.
The result was the minority groups feel the dissolution of British rule only brought them under the internal colonial arrangement imposed on them by the Bama post-colonial civilian elites, the likes of Prime Minister Ba Swe and Deputy Prime Minister Kyaw Nyein, with the help of their allies in the military who helped institute this “internal colonialism.”
Even before the decisive military coup of 1962, successive military leaderships since the country’s independence have pursued policies or strategies on a broad continuum between minimal accommodation of ethnic minorities at best, to total annihilation at worst.
During a nearly 10-hour interview with me in 1995, the well-respected nationalist former Colonel Chit Myaing said that the founding of the Bahtoo army town in Shan State as the original seat of the country’s Defense Services Academy in the early 1950s was one of the first attempts to build military bases in strategic locations throughout non-Bama ethnic regions.
The hidden objective was to ready the Bama Tatmadaw or Royal Army for preemptive strikes against any minority group with federalist and independence aspirations. The resultant dynamic is the crux of the ethnic conflicts in Burma.
Because the generals have come to view the conflicts, especially the “ethnic conflicts”, as their main justification to maintain their power structures, they have shown no interest or political will for establishing genuine and lasting peace.
In fact, the generals have turned domestic conflicts into their golden goose. That is one of the reasons why the generals have never attempted to translate the “gentleman’s ceasefire agreements”—reached in the early and mid-1990s with around 17 different armed minority organizations—into lasting political agreements.
In keeping these conflicts alive, the Burmese military regime has retained the old colonial-era politics of exploiting ethnic differences in order to suit its strategy of “divide and rule.”
Typically, the Burmese military have induced, searched, amplified and exploited detectable differences of interests, generations, religious faiths and visions between the Burmese majority and the minorities, between one single minority community, between families and clans, and among minorities themselves.
For instance, in Shan State where there was strong armed resistance by Shan nationalists, the military would encourage, facilitate and support formation of the Kokang Han Chinese and Shan-Chinese into minority militias and allow the latter to engage in lucrative narcotics trade.
In turn, the militias formed under the military’s indirect patronage would cooperate with the Burmese military, for instance, in terms of local intelligence gathering or providing Burmese military commanders a share in their economic spoils.
Contrary to the empirically false academic view which paints Burma’s generals as simple-minded “war-fighters” who don’t do politics, these men in uniform have proven themselves adept at manipulating both domestic and external developments.
During the past 50 years of military dictatorships under different disguises, ethnic and dialectic differences get multiplied and amplified by the regime in order to create an impression that—with more than “100 different ethnic groups”—the dreadful Balkan scenario lurks just beneath the surface of the country’s ethnic politics and will be unleashed without the strong central hand of the military to hold these centrifugal forces together.
Within Asian regional context as well as internationally, the military has maintained a very active propaganda campaign, tailoring the content to resonate with the target governments and organizations.
With Burma’s neighbors, generally stability-conscious national governments and UN agencies, the military propaganda regarding ethnic minorities is designed to stoke the general fear of Burma’s balkanization, perceived or real. In this context, the military paints itself as the only strong hand which is capable of guaranteeing the integrity of territorial boundaries and internal stability.
For the dominant Burmese majority and the Burmese-dominated military rank and files, the military maintains and propagates its own revisionist history where the ethnic minorities
are secessionists hell bent on triggering the balkanization of Burma, a country where the Burmese majority have always been a superior group whose contributions—vis-à-vis those of other ethnic groups—to state and nation-building are unparalleled. From this racist and statist standpoint, genuine federalism based on ethnic equality is tantamount to nation-disintegrating political arrangement.
As a matter of fact, the generals have been modulating the volume of these conflicts, depending on the international climate of the day. Throughout the Cold War, under Britain’s arrangement, anti-Communist Burmese generals would be on study tours in Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia to observe first-hand how the British military was applying “Four Cuts Strategies” (cutting the enemy of intelligence/information, supplies, new recruits and finance) against the Malay communists—strategies which the Burmese would later apply against not only their own communist troops but also minority rebel strongholds.
Within the Burmese Army itself, the uncompromising military leadership has consistently crushed any moderate cliques who begin to seek genuine understanding and peace arrangements with armed resistance leaderships such as the Kachin or the Karen minorities.
Recurring waves of dissent within the military and corresponding wholesale purges are in part related to signs of some sub-cliques within the military wanting to pursue a more peaceful—as opposed to annihilationist—policy towards both the minorities and majority Burmese dissidents.
Since the end of the Cold War there have been the shifting alliances and/or business partnerships among Burma’s military, neighboring governments such as Thailand, India and China, and various armed ethnic organizations along the 3,000-plus kilometer Indo-, Sino- and Thai-Burmese borders. These have had significant impact on the dynamic and political economy of ethnic conflicts in Burma. In this connection, the two unfolding phenomena warrant a close-up look: the resurgence of economic developmentalism and the creation of a single, integrated lucrative energy market in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region (GMS).
In Burma’s neighborhood, governments are focused on development and economic growth through large-scale projects such as dam constructions, overland cross-border trade, special trans-boundary economic zones which will turn displaced Burmese populations into cheap laborers in assembly lines and dirty industries such as oil refineries.
The integrated energy market in Southeast Asia intends to draw much of its resources and electricity from the border areas of Burma. Most of these projects are situated across ethnic minority lands.
The generals’ insensitivity to the survival needs of local communities results in the rise in military tensions with respective ethnic armed organizations. This the military uses as a way of re-framing itself as the guarantor of physical safety of these mega-development projects and provider of market stability. Ominously for the multi-ethnic communities of Burma, a confluence of interest and (pro-market) ideology between the generals and external players is emerging.
Dr. Zarni is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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The Irrawaddy - Letter from Laiza: High Spirits at the Kachin Rebel Headquarters
By RYAN LIBRE Tuesday, June 21, 2011
In Laiza spirits are high. There is a vibrancy in the air and the leadership of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) and its armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), talk of their options with optimism. Many civilians have huddled into churches and makeshift refugee camps just meters from the Chinese border. They have chosen this spot because they don't trust the central government not to order an attack on civilians, but know that Naypyidaw is concerned about shelling China by accident. Those left in the city don't look scared.
The Kachin are in the honeymoon stage of war. If this turns into a full-scale prolonged war, this honeymoon will fade as the realities of war and refugees grow. However, the celebratory atmosphere in Laiza is not without warrant. I have personally seen many factors, some of which are still unknown even to specialists on the topic, that give the Kachin reason to be optimistic about their position and enable them to bargain with the central government with authority. The Burmese army has no chance of quickly wiping out the KIA as they did the Kokang in 2009.
The Kachin are known to be fierce fighters, but they are not warmongers. Even now, in the excitement of renewed fighting, one of the most frequently spoken words I hear during the long civil debates among the leaders and elders is “simsa,” which means peace in their native Jinghpaw language. The Kachin are the most peace-loving, kind and tolerant people I have ever come across.
However, the Kachin cannot live peacefully without their own army under the current government. As one civilian member of the KIO's central committee told me, “There are so many gross abuses of power now, I can't image what would happen if we had no arms to create a balance.”
Naypyidaw demanded that the KIO/KIA accept the Border Guard Force (BGF) plan without addressing any of the reasons the Kachin feel they need to protect themselves. In the many talks the two sides held to discuss the BGF issue, the central government never truly negotiated. It thought it had enough weapons and power to bully the KIA to accept, but in the end was unable to get its own way, which brings us to the inevitable fighting this week.
The commander of the Burmese army's Northern Regional Command, Brig-Gen Zeyar Aung, wrote a letter to the KIO under the heading, “In response to your request [for a cease-fire],” even though the KIO had never asked for a cease-fire. Before the Kachin leaders could even begin to draft a reply, they had to decide what this example of Orwellian doublespeak was actually supposed to mean. Reading between the lines, they decided that the message from the northern commander was this: “There is no meaningful dialogue to be had with us.” After much deliberation and many drafts, the KIO replied, in part, that if the government wanted the fighting to stop, there was no need for a cease-fire. Simply stop your troops from entering our area and the fighting will cease by itself, they said.
This is proof that the central government is incapable of, and seemingly not even interested in, working toward a lasting solution to the deep-seated problems that have been with this unequal union from the very beginning. The KIO has asked China to step in and mediate the situation. But at this stage, they seem more convinced than ever that the “road map to disciplined democracy” was created to give directions to a dead end and waste time so that the central government could continue to rape the land and amass wealth and weapons.
Even though they appear to have lost all faith in Naypyidaw, the KIO/KIA still believe that peace will return to their homeland. The US, EU and UN can all do more to bring lasting peace to the Kachin and Burma. However, even combined, they have less influence over Burma than China does. What China will do is still not clear.
What the Kachin see as a solution is clear. As Gen Gam Shawng, the KIA chief of staff, told me: “If we get real state rights and a federal union, we will lay down our arms. It will be a clean and lasting diplomatic solution.”
It is equally clear to the Kachin that the Lady in Rangoon, rather than the generals in Naypyidaw, represents their best hope of achieving the permanent peace they seek. This is probably why, at a time when Laiza had been emptied of much of its population, many of those who remained, including KIO/KIA leaders such as Gen Gam Shawng and Gen Gun Maw, took precious time away from their duties to pay their respects to Aung San Suu Kyi on her 66th birthday last Sunday.
Some 150 people attended a birthday event organized by a group known as the Democratic Force, consisting mostly of students from the '88 generation. The majority were Kachin, although there were also many other ethnic groups and Burmese at the party.
After the ceremony was finished, people lined up to sign a two-meter tall birthday card for Suu Kyi. Gen Gam Shawng was the first to add his name.
It is impossible to understand how the Kachin see Suu Kyi without looking at the relationship her father, Gen Aung San, had with them. It was Aung San who convinced the Kachin to join the union. They trusted his promise of a union based on equality, a promise that was betrayed by his successors. This history has forever changed Kachin State and its people, making it difficult for some Kachin to put complete trust in Suu Kyi's promises.
The fact that many now see her as a person worthy of real admiration is perhaps a signal that the KIO/KIA is willing to let go of the past and work together for the future.
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The Irrawaddy - Kachin Displaced by Conflict in Need of Food, Medicine
By SAI ZOM HSENG Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Around 2,000 Kachin war refugees who have fled recent fighting between Burmese government troops and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) are now in need of food, shelter and medical assistance, according to relief groups.
Seven local Kachin groups are assisting the refugees and have already formed a committee to assist the fleeing villagers. The committee is responsible for distributing food and small amounts of medicine donated by other villages in the area.
People from around 60 villages have fled their homes since the fighting began nearly two weeks ago. Most are living in the jungle, while some are receiving assistance from relatives living in villages outside the conflict zone, according to Mai Ja of the Kachin Women's Association Thailand, one of the groups engaged in relief efforts near the Sino-Burmese border.
“We provide food and a small amount of medicine donated by other villages, but it isn’t enough. They are still hiding in the jungle, and many are in need of medical assistance,” said Mai Ja, speaking to The Irrawaddy on Tuesday.
“We are especially concerned about the spread of malaria, flu and diarrhea. There are already many cases of diarrhea, although no one has died from it yet,” she said, adding that there have been reports of the disease at almost every location where the refugees are staying.
Most of the refugees are from Momauk, Bhamo, Mansi and Waingmaw townships. A few are from villages near Laiza, where the headquarters of the KIA and its political wing, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), is located.
According to La Nan, the joint-secretary of the KIO, there are plans to build three camps for the refugees in the area controlled by KIA Brigade 3. The camps will be in the villages of U Ra Pa, Na Ya Pa and Naw Hpar in Momauk Township. All are about one day's walking distance from the conflict area.
“Right now, we are able to provide some food—basically just rice, salt and oil—and a small amount of medicine. We can’t solve all of their problems, but we will do as much as we can to help the refugees,” said La Nan.
Meanwhile, there have been reports that some refugees who crossed into China nearly a week ago have been forced to return.
“The Chinese authorities told them that fighting had stopped in their area, so they were told to go back,” said Mai Ja.
Clashes between the Burmese army and the KIA erupted on June 9, after negotiations between the two sides over a hostage situation broke down. According to a KIA statement released on Monday, the Burmese army fired the first shot.
However, according to the state-owned New Light of Myanmar, the KIA initiated the conflict. “Tatmadaw [Burmese army] columns inevitably counterattack KIA troops for their threats and armed attacks,” read the headline of a report published in the newspaper on Saturday.
On Sunday, KIA troops destroyed a Burmese intelligence outpost in Bhamo Township. Since then, the situation has been quiet but tense.
There has been no official contact between the two sides since the government sent four Kachin leaders to Laiza as intermediaries to call for a cease-fire on Friday. In response, the KIA asked the government to provide some evidence that it has ordered its army to stop firing.
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Election Commission threatens to dissolve Bauk Ja’s political party
Tuesday, 21 June 2011 20:07 Myo Thant
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The Burmese Election Commission has threatened the politician-activist Bauk Ja that her political party could be dissolved because of her advocacy for 19 Kachin students living in Rangoon who were ordered by the authorities to return home, according to the National Democratic Force (NDF).
Rangoon Region Election Commission Secretary Myint Swe said on Saturday that the activities of the NDF party member threatened national unity. Myint Swe invited NDF central committee members Myo Zaw Aung, Toe Toe and Bauk Ja to his office in Rangoon to discuss the issue.
‘The election commission warned me and other party leaders that activities which could affect national unity might lead to dissolving our party. He also said that we should put a priority on party interest above personal affairs and the interest of the state should be above the party interest’, Bauk Ja told Mizzima.
The conflict has arisen following the authorities threatening the Kachin students that it would not renew their guest registrations, and they were ordered to return to their homes. No reason was cited, but the order came about the time of the outbreak of renewed fighting between the government and Kachin forces.
The students are living in a rented house in Bogyoke village in Thanlyin Township. Bauk Ja took up their case and advocated for them through the exile media. In an interview with Mizzima, Bauk Ja said:
‘I have lived among wars since my childhood and suffered a lot of pain. I could not care about my own life when I realized how important it was to work for the people. I see these students as my own children who are in deep trouble. My wish to work for them outweighs my fear’.
NDF committee member Khin Maung Swe said that Bauk Ja, who is from Phakant Township, had actively worked for the people even before joining the party.
‘I believe she represented the students in good faith and has no ill will toward the state. She told the students’ story and your media covered this news. We know that she stands for national reconciliation’, he said. ‘The commission might misunderstand her, or they might have fears because of her interviews’, Khin Maung Swe said.
The local authority is still investigating the students’ case. The students say they want to remain in their rented house and attend school, but if they cannot get their guest registration renewed by the local authorities they could be arrested.
Bauk Ja said that the village authority has asked for the students’ permanent address, a transfer certificate from their school and the address of the current school they attend.
Bauk Ja contested in the Phakant constituency as a NDF candidate in the 2010 general election. She lost to Ohn Myint, a former Northern Command commander who is now serving as minister of Cooperative Societies.
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Corruption in Burma Part IX: Primary school fees
Tuesday, 21 June 2011 12:41 Mizzima News
Rangoon (Mizzima) – In an effort to clean up corrupt primary schools in Burma, the government has published a list of the 'corrupt' schools.
On May 17 the Rangoon Region government said that enrolling at the primary level was free, but named some schools that were collecting enrollment fees.
The regional government published a list of the most corrupt 19 schools in the Rangoon Region and a phone and fax number for complaints.
One parent complained that he was asked to pay more than 4,000 kyat (US$ 5.13) in enrollment fees at a primary school.
‘I live in Insein’, he said. ‘I have two school-age children. My eldest son dropped out when he was in Grade 4 to support his younger siblings in schooling’, he said.
‘My youngest son is enrolled for school for the first time this year in kindergarten. Another son is in Grade 4. I was glad when I saw the news that primary school was free. I thought I would not be indebted this academic year. But I had to return home on the day I visited the school for enrollment because I could not pay 4,200 kyat (US$ 5.35) for kindergarten and 4,400 kyat (US$ 5.64) for Grade 4.
‘I noted down all the fees asked by the school. The Region Government is saying we can lodge a complaint about corruption so I planned to lodge a complaint but my wife said no.
‘She said that lodging a complaint would not make any difference because everybody was paying bribe money. My children would face a grudge and be discriminated against by their teachers if we refused to pay this bribe to them. I am not happy with the situation, but I have to give in to my wife’s argument'.
He identified the school as State Primary School No. 16 in Insein Ywama West Ward.
Some parents are willing to pay bribe money even if not asked to get better treatment from the teachers for their children, he said.
‘But people like us who live hand-to-mouth cannot pay this money’, he said.
Cost of bribes or grease money was 4,200 kyat (US$ 5.53) for kindergarten; 4,300 kyat (US$ 5.51) for Grade 1; 4,100 kyat (US$ 5.26) for Grade 2; and 4,400 kyat (US$ 5.64) for Grade 3 and Grade 4.
The detailed breakdown of the cost was 300 kyat (US$ 38 cents) for Form A; 200 kyat (US$ 26 cents) for Form B; 50 kyat (US$ 7 cent) for an eraser; 400 kyat (US$ 51 cents) for six pencils; 2,100 kyat (US$ 2.70) for a dozen exercise books; 100 kyat (US$ 13 cents) for a leave request form and 150 kyat (US$ 19 cents) for extra-curricula activities in the schools.
Other expenses were 200 kyat (US$ 26 cents) for school badge; 200 kyat (US$ 26 cents) for eraser; 150 kyat (US$ 19 cents) for acknowledgment; 150 kyat (US$ 19 cents) for assessment card; 500 kyat (US$ 64 cents) for school identity card; extra 2,500 kyat (US$ 3.20) for those who bought one dozen of pencils and one dozen of exercise books at market price.
Sr. Grade School Fees PTA fees+ Library fees Books expenses
1 Kindergarten Nil Nil 230
2 Grade 1 Nil Nil 300
3 Grade 2 Nil Nil 370
4 Grade 3 Nil Nil 520
5 Grade 4 Nil Nil 630
6 Grade 5 400 1,000 940
7 Grade 6 600 1,000 880
8 Grade 7 700 1,000 1,030
9 Grade 8 800 1,000 1,170
10 Grade 9 900 1,000 1,150
11 Grade 10 1,000 1,000 2,100 for Bio subject
2,140 for Eco subject
Note: All costs are in Burmese currency. The current exchange rate is 780 kyat against the US dollar. PTA stands for Parent Teacher Association.
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Mizzima News - Burma is ‘red with the blood and the cries of our children’
Tuesday, 21 June 2011 13:45 Hnin Pan Ein
(Commentary) – For the past three years, I have personally experienced the meaning of World Refugee Day (June 20).
Before World Refugee Day this year there was a call to provide food and clothes to needy new refugees at our refugee camp. Life in our camp is hard.
The number of refugees is constantly increasing in our camps rather than decreasing. The news of more refugees arriving to the new camps with new names in new places hurts our hearts.
The war refugees from Karen State live not far from our refugee camp and many people are still taking refuge in the deep forest as displaced persons. They brought some rice carried on their foreheads with slings, their bodies wrapped in plastic sheets. They did not wear footwear because they had to cross deep forests. They had many bruises and cuts on the perilous journey.
Why are new wars breaking out even though a new government has been installed? Where are the MPs now who said that they would speak in Parliament to silence the guns?
I remember an article written by Dagon Taryar.
‘The form of the struggle is determined by the oppressors, not by the oppressed. The oppressed have to resist armed oppression by arms’, writer Dagon Taryar said.
A new round of fighting is underway in Karen State. Ours is an agricultural country. Farmers grow their crops in the monsoon season. If they cannot grow their crops now, then they have to flee from their paddy fields as war refugees.
Recent refugees from Hlaingbwe told me about their plight:
‘We are farmers living with slash and burn farming (Taungyar). This is our farming season. In some places, we use cows for plowing. In Taungyar, we slash and burn in the summer season because the soil is so hard. In monsoon season, we use bamboo spikes to till the soil for better harvest.
‘In previous years, it was peaceful in the monsoon season, but now we have to worry about war. My grandmother once said that she had heard gunfire for 60 years. When someone shouted “Burmese soldiers are coming” the message was relayed to one another and all the villagers prepared to run'.
‘We cannot do our work well because of this war. Recently, for much of the time, we had to stay in the forest. We gathered firewood. We starved when the war dragged on. In wartime, we cannot cook our food. We gulped down dried rice with water while hiding in the forest.’
‘Adults slept under the trees in exhaustion. Boys performed sentry duty in the night. We prepared to flee from our camp when we heard the barking of dogs. In the forest, only the Burmese soldiers wear combat boots. They want us to perform as forced porters in their military operation. A lot of people are in deep trouble this monsoon season.
‘The most annoying thing for me is the crying of children. They cry in hunger. We will have nothing to eat when the war stops. Some die of diarrhea and high fever in the forest while fleeing from the war. We came to this refugee camp because some of our relatives are here. I had five children during these years while running between our work and our hiding places in the forest. I wonder if we will ever have peace.
‘World Refugee Day was observed in our camp. The officials from the UN and Thai camp officials spoke on this occasion. The refugees also spoke about their feelings both for themselves and other ethnic refugees on this day. Some observed this day by writing articles.
‘If I were a painter, I would draw a painting on this World Refugee Day. In the painting, I would show a map of Burma in only one color–red.
‘Yes, why? Because in our country, the new president claims they are building for peace by fighting against the “non-disintegration of the union”, but he is writing peace with blood not with ink. Our country is red with the blood and the cries of our children'.
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DVB News - Two die after gunman opens fire in Karen state
By NAW NOREEN
Published: 21 June 2011
A Burmese soldier and a motorbike taxi driver were killed after an unknown gunman opened fire on them yesterday close to the Karen state border town of Myawaddy.
The incident happened on a mountain path between Myawaddy and Kawkareik. A Myawaddy local said the shooting “It looked more like an assassination than a gunfight.
“It not known who the gunman was – he wrapped himself in a longyi, walked up the road between two checkpoints and opened fire on [them]. He opened fire as the soldier was being distracted by a motorbike passing through the checkpoint.”
Tensions are high in Karen state following the deployment of four battalions to a region controlled by a renegade group of one-time Border Guard Force troops. Around 600 extra troops are believed to have been sent to territory belonging to unit, who have now defected to the opposition Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA).
In addition to the shooting, four DKBA soldiers are believed to have been killed outside of Kawkareik yesterday after coming under attack from Burmese troops.
The deployment of additional battalions marks a further escalation of hostilities in Burma’s border regions, where several groups have refused to transform into government-controlled Border Guard Forces.
Fighting has raged in Kachin state over the past fortnight, while Burmese troops have also launched assaults on the Shan State Army.
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DVB News - Border wars risk turning back the clock 20 years
By BRIAN MCCARTAN
Published: 21 June 2011
Fierce fighting in Kachin state adds to speculation that widespread civil war may not be far off in Burma. Three separate insurgencies and the potential for more to break out threaten the country’s internal and border security. Also at risk are the small gains in economic and social development in the country’s border regions that have been made since the beginning of the ceasefires two decades ago.
The spiral toward civil war began on election day on 7 November last year when troops from the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) revolted against joining the government’s Border Guard Force (BGF) plan. After briefly seizing two border towns, the group allied itself with the still insurgent Karen National Union (KNU) from which it split in 1994.
Government pressure against the 1st Brigade of the Shan State Army-North (SSA-N) resulted in skirmishes that progressed to an army offensive in early March. Opposed to joining the BGF, the 1st Brigade resumed guerrilla warfare and spread its operations from its central Shan state base area into northern Shan state. By 21 May it had joined forces with the insurgent Shan State Army-South (SSA-S) along the border with Thailand to become the Shan State Army (SSA).
The largest fighting to date began on 9 June when army moves into territory of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) were resisted with force. Much of the hostilities are centered around the sites of two hydropower dams being built by the China Datang Corporation on the Taping River, leading some analysts to speculate the army’s aims are to secure the dam sites, perhaps with tacit Chinese approval. However limited the army’s aims may or may not be, KIA units to the west and south of the fighting have taken steps to prevent army reinforcements and resupply, moves that threaten to spread the conflict to other areas.
The fierce reaction of the KIA indicates the army is unlikely to repeat its rapid victory against the Kokang in August 2009. That offensive saw the virtual destruction of the Kokang Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) in operations that lasted only days, but which generated some 30,000 refugees and the most severe rebuke from China to date. After twelve days of fighting, the Burmese army has yet to force the KIA away from the dams.
The army has likewise been unable to decisively defeat the SSA or the DKBA after months of fighting. Instead the conflict has only grown with both groups allying themselves with other insurgent groups. Additionally, tensions created by the fighting have resulted in a revolt of other units of the BGF in Karen State.
It is unlikely, however, that the insurgents will be able to seize power. Too small to confront the army individually, their best hope is an alliance. Fifteen insurgent and ceasefire groups, including the KNU, KIA, and SSA, formed the United Nationalities Federal Council in February 2011 as a military and political alliance. It is still too early to tell what impact the alliance will have, but insurgent efforts to organize military or political alliances have historically achieved little success. They have often foundered on mistrust, competition for leadership and an inability to operationalise cooperation across the large distances separating the various groups.
Alliance or not, continued distrust of the military and a government perceived as simply a new manifestation of the previous dictatorship, together with the human rights abuses and killings that accompany the army’s operations, will only fuel insurgent resolve to resist. Numerous human rights reports have extensively documented the pervasive human rights violations that accompany army counterinsurgency campaigns. Already Kachin, Shan and Karen human rights monitors have reported rape, torture and extrajudicial killings by army units.
Instead of creating the stability promised by President Thein Sein in speeches immediately after his inauguration, army operations threaten to destabilise the country, reversing whatever economic and social development has been achieved in ethnic minority areas in the past two decades. Large-scale displacement brought on by army operations and fighting will force villagers to abandon fields, livestock and personal belongings. Infrastructure will be destroyed, movement restrictions imposed and trade routes heavily regulated or closed. Already, the KIA has destroyed several bridges and the military has closed routes between Bhamo and Myitkyina and the Chinese border.
Human rights abuses attributed to the army, or the fear of them, have long been a greater cause of refugee outflows and internal displacement than armed conflict. The army’s penchant for using civilians as guides and porters has been cited by refugees as major reasons for fleeing areas of potential fighting. Already, Kachin sources estimate around 10,000 people have fled to refugee camps set up by the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) along the border with China.
Large refugee flows are potentially destabilising to Burma’s neighbours, China and Thailand. Burma was recently listed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as the fifth largest producer of refugees in the world. Around 30,000 refugees fled to China in the wake of the Kokang offensive in 2009 and 20,000 fled to Thailand in November 2010.
Fighting close to the border also brings the risk of stray artillery shells and spillovers of fighting as insurgent and army forces maneuver for advantage. Several Thai soldiers have been killed and wounded by mortar shells and landmines along the border since November.
A further destabilising influence is the increase in drugs and smuggling likely to result as insurgent groups seek to maintain their war chests and replenish weapons and ammunition. Thailand is currently waging a drug war that began with an increased influx of narcotics as ceasefire groups sold off stocks to purchase more weapons. Jane’s Intelligence Review in April reported a large shipment of weapons and ammunition originating in Cambodia to the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and the possibility of the purchase of weapons stolen from Thai army armories in March 2011 and September 2010.
A spreading ethnic civil war could bring an end to the military’s experiment with ‘disciplined democracy.’ Insurgency and Shan moves for discussions on instituting a formal federal system resulted in the military coup of 1962 and 48 years of military misrule. Increased fighting could give the military a pretext for reinstating direct military rule, a possibility enshrined in the current constitution.
Already, opposition and ethnic politicians have called for restraint and dialogue by both the army and insurgent groups. Their calls are supported by the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party of pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi which was barred from participating in the elections, but still commands much support.
Recent government overtures for a ceasefire with the Kachin were perceived as insincere. Army battalions are moving in as reinforcements in all three regions and fighting is expected to escalate. Without a negotiated settlement and concessions by all sides, Burma is set to witness fighting, destruction and displacement in the ethnic states that it has not witnessed in twenty years.
Brian McCartan is a Bangkok-based freelance journalist.
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Wednesday 22 June 2011
BURMA RELATED NEWS
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