News & Articles on Burma

Saturday, 10 September, 2011
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The Peninsula
New American envoy meets ministers in Myanmar
Saturday, 10 September 2011 02:15
YANGON: A new US envoy to Myanmar kicked off his first trip to the country yesterday as part of Washington’s strategy of engagement with the army-dominated nation.

Derek Mitchell, who was appointed as the first US coordinator for policy on Myanmar last month, began the visit by meeting foreign minister Wunna Maung Lwin in the capital Naypyidaw, a government official said.

He is then scheduled to see a variety of other senior figures including speakers in the parliament -- formed after last November’s controversial elections -- before returning to Yangon on Saturday.

Mitchell, a veteran policymaker on Asia, will meet democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday, according to her spokesman Nyan Win.

In his Senate confirmation hearing in June, Mitchell said he would seek “direct and candid” dialogue with Myanmar’s leaders but that the United States should be flexible in its approach.

His post was created when Congress, under then-president George W. Bush, approved a law on Myanmar in 2008 that tightened sanctions against the country, but the position was not filled at the time due to a political dispute.

After taking power in 2009 President Barack Obama’s administration changed tack, concluding that the sanctions aimed at isolating Myanmar had been ineffective.

Mitchell is also set to meet party leaders in Yangon, including representatives from the National Democratic Force (NDF), which split with Suu Kyi’s party to contest the election.

AFP http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/s.-asia/philippines/164650-new-american-envoy-meets-ministers-in-myanmar.html
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US special envoy arrives in Myanmar for talks with government
By Associated Press, Published: September 9

YANGON, Myanmar — A United States Embassy official says Washington’s special representative to Myanmar has arrived in the country’s administrative capital of Naypyitaw for talks with officials of the new nominally civilian government.

Derek Mitchell is scheduled to meet the foreign minister and other government officials during the trip that began Friday. Aung San Suu Kyi’s spokesman says he will return to Yangon on Saturday to meet with the pro-democracy leader.

This is Mitchell’s first visit to Myanmar since the country’s military regime handed power to a new nominally civilian government led by president Thein Sein, an ex-general who was prime minister under the junta.

Mitchell’s trip follows a visit by U.S. Sen. John McCain in June.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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The Times of India
Security forces confirm Myanmar ops against NE militants
TNN Sep 9, 2011, 09.36am IST
Paresh Baruah

GUWAHATI: Security forces on Thursday confirmed the claim made by Ulfa's faction headed by commander-in-chief Paresh Baruah that the Myanmarese army has launched an offensive against Indian militants holed up in the neighbouring country.

"There are reports of Myanmar launching an offensive against Indian rebels at their unified camp in the Taga area of Kachin region, which is close to Indian territory. This place houses Ulfa's mobile military headquarters and also serves as the base of eight other outfits of Manipur, including the NSCN (K)," a key security official said.

He added, "We have intercepted Ulfa's radio messages from Myanmar meant for its men in Assam where they have described the situation as 'ghoror phale bhal abastha nohoi' (the situation here at home is not good)."
He said, "Ulfa has about 80 to 90 members in the unified camp. Top leaders of Baruah's group like Jibon Moran, Michael Deka Phukan, Bijoy Das and Sujeet Mohan are hiding there. However, we are not sure about Baruah's presence. Ulfa has three other camps in Myanmar - the Arakan base with about six cadres, the Naga base with about eight inmates and the 28{+t} {+h} battalion headquarters with just three rebels."

The official added that the PLA, UNLF, PREPAK and KYKL also have their men at the unified camp.

Another source said the Myanmarese army would be successful in flushing out the Indian militants from its soil like Bhutan if it remained committed to the job. "In the past, we have seen Myanmar launching offensive against Indian militants - a pressure tactic to force the outfits cough up huge amount of money for shelter. The bases of militants in Myanmar are well marked by Myanmarese forces and can be easily cleansed."

Baruah, in an emailed statement on Thursday, said the Indian government has been pursuing all its neighbours to flush out Ulfa militants from their respective territories. "In 2003 it was Bhutan, which got Rs 1000 crore aid from India in reciprocation. Then came Bangladesh where India has pledged a loan of 1 billion US dollars. We have information that New Delhi has given an aid of Rs 2000 crore to Myanmar," said Baruah. He has pledged not to surrender and continue his fight for Assam's sovereignty.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-09-09/guwahati/30135003_1_paresh-baruah-ulfa-militants-indian-militants
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Indian agencies deny ULFA leader injured in Myanmar
Guwahati, Sep 10 (IANS)

Media reports that elusive commander-in-chief of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) Paresh Baruah was injured in a military offensive by the Myanmarese junta have been denied by the Indian intelligence agencies.

“We have no hard intelligence to indicate that Baruah is injured in Myanmar. Radio intercepts of the ULFA leaders communicating with leaders of other rebel groups in the last few days also do not suggest or hint at anything abnormal happening inside Myanmar,” an Indian intelligence official told IANS on condition of anonymity.

There were speculations in the media that Baruah survived the military offensive launched by the Myanmarese Army but was injured in the attack.

The reports could not be denied or confirmed independently from the ULFA.
The ULFA commander-in-chief is believed to be entrenched somewhere in the Sagaing division of northern Myanmar with an estimated 100-150 cadre - the same area is also the base of at least half-a-dozen other militant groups from the Indian northeast.
The Baruah faction of the ULFA, in an email Wednesday, claimed rebel bases of the outfit and some other northeast militant groups were attacked by Myanmarese troops.
“The Burmese Army has been aided with heavy arms and ammunition by India and the gunfights would get severe in the days ahead,” said the statement signed by the faction's publicity chief Arunodoi Dohotia.

On Thursday, the ULFA faction in another statement released a photograph of Baruah wielding a rusty AK series assault rifle and wearing blue socks and donning a camouflage cap.

Myanmar from time to time, especially with the onset of the winter, launches military operations in the rough and hostile northern region to flush out Indian militants.
“These attacks are nothing new and we always find the Indian government backing Myanmar in carrying out such offensives,” a National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-Khaplang) leader told IANS.

The ULFA's mainstream leadership offered a unilateral ceasefire in July and with New Delhi signed a truce accord last week aimed at pulling the curtains down on one of northeast India’s longest running rebellions. The ULFA was fighting for an independent homeland since 1979.

The pro-talks majority faction led by chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, however, is now not seeking an independent homeland and instead wants protection of the cultural and economic rights of the indigenous Assamese.

The peace process started after Bangladesh arrested four top ULFA leaders, including Rajkhowa, in 2009 and handed them over to India.

But Baruah is opposed to the peace talks and from time to time accuses the pro-talk leaders of being puppets in the hands of the Indian government.

More than 10,000 people have lost their lives to insurgency in Assam during the past two decades. http://www.deccanherald.com/content/189971/indian-agencies-deny-ulfa-leader.html
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Top EU aid official 'encouraged' by Myanmar visit
Saturday, 10 September 2011
BRUSSELS: The EU's top aid official wound up a visit to Myanmar Saturday, including the first talks between an EU commissioner and peace icon Aung San Suu Kyi, "encouraged" by official pledges of greater access to troubled areas.

"I was encouraged that the authorities are willing to expand humanitarian access to more areas of Burma/Myanmar," Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva said in a statement released in Brussels.

"I hope to see a tangible sign of this commitment soon, in the form of permissions for humanitarian experts to visit and work in areas of substantial need," she added.

During the two-day visit, aimed at discussing ways to step up support for the country's most vulnerable people, Georgieva held talks in the capital Naypyidaw and Yangon with government representatives and humanitarian groups.

The EU's executive arm, this year donating over 22 million euros of humanitarian and disaster relief, as well as aid to refugees in Thailand, needs "assurances that humanitarian agencies have full access to those who need relief", she said

Her talks with ministers as well as with democracy icon Suu Kui, she added, "give me hope that we will be able to do more to tackle these challenges".

The Nobel peace laureate "is the face and the voice of the most vulnerable people in Myanmar", Georgieva said.

"This is why, as the EU humanitarian commissioner, I was glad to have the opportunity to present to her our response to humanitarian challenges and disasters and to discuss how Europe can help the most needy people in the country in their quest for survival and development."

The isolated nation's nominally civilian government has recently appeared to be seeking to improve its image by reaching out to critics such as Suu Kyi, who last month met President Thein Sein, a former general, for the first time.

The Nobel peace prize winner was released from seven straight years of house arrest by the junta days after controversial November elections.

The regime has also called for peace in minority areas, but its overtures have so far been met with distrust by rebel groups.

Over a million people benefit from assistance provided by the Commission, which supports basic health services, water and sanitation projects, food and nutrition assistance and relief to cyclone and earthquake survivors.

The primary focus of Commission assistance is to the civilian victims of the protracted conflict between the army and rebellious ethnic minority groups in border areas. (AFP)

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/s.-asia/philippines/164710-top-eu-aid-official-encouraged-by-myanmar-visit.html
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Protests around the world for press freedom in Burma
By Zin Linn Sep 10, 2011 1:15AM UTC

Reporters Without Borders, Info-Birmanie, Amnesty International, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and other human rights activists and members of the Burmese community participated in the demonstration outside the embassy in Paris, during which a letter was handed for Ambassador Kyaw Zwar Minn.

Concurrently, a number of campaigners came together in front of the Burmese embassy in Bangkok today to protest against the detention of 17 journalists in Burma. Some journalists have been given over 20 years prison terms for what campaigners regard as “no more than doing their jobs.”

Reporters Without Borders participated in the demonstrations that were staged outside Burma’s embassies in several capital cities today in response to a call from Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), a radio and TV station run by Burmese exile journalists.

“Hla Hla Win is serving a 27-year jail sentence because she wanted to tell the world what was happening in Burma,” Reporters Without Borders said. “ There are many other Burmese journalists who, like her, have paid a high price for exercising their right to report the news.

“We want to show our support for DVB’s 17 detained video journalists and to urge the international community to reiterate its requests to the new Burmese government to release all detained netizens, dissidents and journalists, including DVB’s reporters, without delay.”

Around 20 journalists and bloggers have been arrested by the police or the army in Burma since the Saffron Revolution in 2007, Reporters Without Borders claimed.

The “Free Burma VJ” (Free Burma’s Video Journalists) campaign of DVB was launched son 3 May, World Press Freedom Day. Reporters Without Borders has strongly supported demonstrations held outside the Burmese embassies in Bangkok, Paris, Geneva and London, today.

According to a Reporters Without Borders’ press release, the protesters marched from the Palais Wilson, the headquarters of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, to the Burmese Mission in Geneva, where they handed over a petition addressed to foreign minister, Wunna Maung Lwin, who was also Burma’s former ambassador to the UN in Geneva and New York, calling for the immediate release of Hla Hla Win and all political prisoners.

The press release says that the Swiss section of Reporters Without Borders plans to continue staging regular demonstrations in Switzerland’s cities until Hla Hla Win is released.

If the junta is candid about democratic reforms, the media must be free at the outset. Free access to information is crucial to a healthy democracy. According to the Burma Media Association and Reporters Sans Frontieres, more than two dozens journalists and media workers, including poets and writers, are still in custody since the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis and the constitutional referendum in May 2008. Some have received long prison sentences, including the film director, writer and comic Zarganar and blogger, Nay Phone Latt.

Burma was at the forefront of press freedom in Southeast Asia before the 1962 military coup. There were around three dozen newspapers, including English, Chinese and Hindi dailies under a civilian government. Journalists were free to set up relations with international press agencies.

The situation changed in 1962 when the military seized power. The military regime set up a Press Scrutiny Board to enforce strict censorship on all forms of printed matter including advertisements and obituaries.

Looking at an article by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi which recounted her recent trip to the ancient city of Bagan was permitted to be published in a Burmese journal - The People’s Era – some people might think that press freedom has improved. But, the Messenger journal was recently disqualified from publishing its supplementary paper for a week by the PSRD since it published the full coverage of Aung San Suu Kyi’s photo.

On Wednesday, Information and Culture Minister Kyaw Hsan told the Lower House of Parliament that the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division (PSRD) is still necessary to censor publications. The country is not matured enough to enjoy press freedom. As a result, the PSRD scrutinizes improper writings against national security for the benefit of the country and its people, he added.

It is clear that the new government has no intention of allowing freedom of press in accordance with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

According to a few analysts, there has been no improvement regarding media freedom since the new president has come into office. There have been the usual restrictions on the media and on journalists and further restrictions on Internet users as the information minister is the same as the former junta. http://asiancorrespondent.com/64630/protests-around-the-world-for-press-freedom-in-burma/