EU sees 'important changes' in Myanmar
AFP News – 9 hours ago
A senior EU diplomat has hailed political changes under way in military-dominated Myanmar, where a new nominally civilian government has made a series of gestures towards reform.
"There are important changes going on in this country," Ambassador David Lipman, head of the EU delegation to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, told reporters late on Sunday.
"The European Union is very much hoping to support and to encourage this momentum of change," he added.
Lipman was in Myanmar's main city Yangon for a two-day workshop, organised by the European Union, on financial reform and poverty reduction that began on Monday.
The United States and European countries have imposed economic sanctions on Myanmar over its human rights record, including the imprisonment of about 2,000 political detainees, about 200 of whom were freed last month.
Myanmar is now ruled by a nominally civilian government but its ranks are filled with former generals.
Hopes of political change have grown, with efforts by the new regime to reach out to opponents including pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who also attended Monday's workshop.
The government has also invited a team from the International Monetary Fund to visit the country formerly known as Burma to offer advice on reforming its complex foreign exchange system.
On Friday Myanmar's president approved changes to a law on political parties, a move that could potentially pave the way for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party to rejoin the official political arena.
The NLD boycotted a rare election held in Myanmar last year, largely because of rules that would have forced it to expel imprisoned members.
As a result it was officially delisted as a political party and is now considering whether to re-register.
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US, UN hopeful on Myanmar reforms
AFP News – Sat, Nov 5, 2011
Senior US and UN officials said they were encouraged by nascent reforms in Myanmar, with Washington saying it will look at new incentives to spur change including the expansion of microfinance.
In a first, Myanmar allowed in the US assistant secretary of state handling human rights, Mike Posner, who said he voiced concern about the treatment of ethnic minorities and political prisoners but also saw signs of progress.
"There are some encouraging steps and signs. We need to go forward in a way that recognizes what's been done and what's being done that is positive, and build on that," Posner said at the US embassy on Friday.
Vijay Nambiar, special advisor to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, also said the UN was encouraged by the "significant efforts" under nominally civilian President Thein Sein to bring reconciliation in the divided country.
"If sustained, these and other efforts offer a historic opportunity to set the country on a course than can fulfill the promises made to the people of Myanmar," Nambiar said in a
statement after meeting with top government members and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Posner accompanied US special envoy to Myanmar Derek Mitchell, who paid his third visit since September to the country previously known as Burma, where earlier this year the military nominally handed power to civilians.
Mitchell said that President Barack Obama's administration, which launched an engagement drive with Myanmar in 2009, was ready to respond to concrete progress, although an end to sanctions would need to come from the US Congress.
"There's a natural inclination in Washington toward pressure. We need to start thinking about how we respond to reform, as we see it happen. And we can support reform, get behind it and encourage further reform," Mitchell said.
Mitchell said he spoke with Aung San Suu Kyi about expanding microfinance -- small loans offered to farmers and other low-income people to help them build livelihoods.
The US Agency for International Development already has a program but wants to expand it to ethnic minority areas of the country, Mitchell said.
The envoy said that the United States had also used travel as an incentive, noting that the administration invited Myanmar's foreign minister, Wunna Maung Lwin, to Washington in September.
Myanmar recently defied China by freezing work on an unpopular dam in a border area. The government also announced a prisoner amnesty, although critics say the step is symbolic as few high-profile inmates were freed.
"We welcome the release last month of more than 200 political prisoners, but continue to strongly urge that the remaining political prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally," Posner said.
Posner raised specific cases of prisoners and understood that Myanmar is considering their release, although there were no clear promises, Mitchell said.
"There was no concrete sense of a release or release date of any sort in the conversation. There is clearly a discussion going on internally about it, though," Mitchell said.
Amnesty International said that Myanmar is believed to be depriving some 15 political prisoners of drinking water, with eight held in cells designed for dogs without beds, mats or windows.
The human rights group also expressed fears about the serious illness of U Gambira, a prominent Buddhist monk held in solitary confinement in northern Myanmar's Kale prison for his role in anti-government protests in 2007.
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FIFA reinstates Myanmar to 2018 World Cup
5 hours, 23 minutes ago
ZURICH (AP)—Myanmar has been reinstated to the 2018 World Cup qualification tournament after FIFA partially accepted its appeal against disqualification for crowd violence.
However, FIFA says Mynamar must play all its home matches in a neutral country.
Myanmar had been disqualified from the next World Cup after fans forced a 2014 qualifier against Oman in July to be abandoned in the first half. Fans threw stones and water
bottles onto the field when Oman led the second-leg match 2-0.
FIFA awarded a victory by the same score and Oman advanced 4-0 on aggregate.
FIFA’s appeals committee ordered Myanmar to pay a fine of $27,700.
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6 November 2011 Last updated at 20:03 ET
BBC News - Viewpoint: Has a year of civilian rule changed Burma?
By Marie Lall South Asia analyst
One year after the controversial Burmese elections the debate about whether there have been any significant changes inside the country rages on louder than ever.
The debate, as usual, is conducted largely outside of Burma, and today the battle lines are drawn between old guard activists who maintain everything Nay Pyi Taw does is window dressing, and the slowly increasing numbers of those giving credit to the new government.
Inside the country the changes are perceived as gradual but real, and everyone is hoping the government will continue on the reform path.
So what are the main milestones?
One can really only look at the period after the handover of the military's State Peace and Development Council to the new government on the last day of the first parliamentary sitting at the end of March 2011. Prior to that, the military was still in charge.
The new structure has been tested by what has seemed like an internal struggle between more reform-minded and more hard-line ministers. Yet despite this internal contest, quite a few things have been engendered:
Just before the second sitting of parliament there was direct engagement of the government with Aung San Suu Kyi. First there was a dialogue with Labour Minister Aung Kyi and subsequently her visit to Nay Pyi Taw, with her meeting the president.
Since that time she has said herself that she believes changes are happening. The question remains if her party, the NLD, will re-register and take part in the political processes of the country.
It is likely to have been discussed but details of the negotiations are not in the public domain.
No-strings release
Another big milestone was the release of at least 220 and possible as many as 270 political prisoners as part of the 6,000+ amnesty in September this year. The amnesty resulted in some controversy on the numbers of prisoners of conscience who had not been included.
It emerged that rather than the universally accepted figure of 2,000 political prisoners, the real figure was more likely to be around 700 (even the NLD holds a list with that number).
This means that close to 30% of political prisoners have been freed, and for the first time without any conditions attached to their release. This is a big step for the government and one for which the reformers in Nay Pyi Taw probably had to battle hard.
A few days later President Thein Sein suspended the construction of the Myitsone Dam, despite vocal protests by China.
While other dams are still planned, and the Chinese presence in the northern ethnic areas remains unchallenged, the halting of the construction in light of the geographic and ecological dangers shows that the thinking of the government goes beyond receiving Chinese money and political support no matter what the cost to the Burmese population.
The president followed this announcement with a trip to Burma's other giant neighbour, India, rebalancing at least symbolically its foreign policy priorities in the region.
India has to date been much less involved than China, and prior to this it was understood that northern Burma was simply becoming a Chinese satellite.
New labour laws
Most importantly for the people of Burma, yet hardly mentioned abroad, have been the legislative changes.
The passing of new labour laws allowing the formation of labour unions is a big step and according to the ILO at least the draft they saw was up to international standards. As Burma's industries develop, workers will now have rights they have not had since 1962.
Many other issues have been debated in parliament since August.
They include education in ethnic languages for ethnic states, the legality of private education and the peace process with ethnic insurgent groups.
Not all motions are passed, but they are raised and debated, again something quite new. Internet controls have been relaxed and press censorship is now far less strict.
Why the change?
Burma is well set on a reform path and many ask why. In fact many, especially in the West, will say that it was tough policies such as sanctions which brought these changes about.
In India we are also hearing those who say their policies brought about the changes - here it was not sanctions, but quiet constructive engagement which set Burma off on the right path.
The fact is that neither Western sanctions nor Asian constructive engagement should be credited for what we are witnessing today.
The new government needs to be given credit for re-assessing the country's position in light of three phenomena: Burma wants the Asean chair in 2014, needs the Asean free trade area in 2015 for its economy to thrive, and the current government wants to win the 2015 elections.
Overarching these objectives though is the major interest of assuring the security and stability of the state which is now thought best achieved through reform rather than repression.
Where now?
Despite all these quiet successes and new policies, issues remain.
Fighting in ethnic areas, especially in Kachin state, continues. However more recently various groups such as the Wa and the Mongla have taken up Nay Pyi Taw's new structure for negotiation - the peace committees at state level.
There have also been talks between other Shan groups and the New Mon State Party (NMSP). The issue of the Border Guard Force, the major stumbling block in the previous negotiation, seems to have been put on the back burner.
Hopefully in the near future the new structure for negotiation will bear fruit across the country, including Kachin State.
So where does Burma go from here?
Burma is not about to turn into a Western-style democracy, but Nay Pyi Taw has set out on a strong path for reform which will benefit the Burmese people.
The first priority for the government is now to set the economy right, both with regard to exchange rates to boost trade as well as with regard to employment and wages so as to improve the living standards of ordinary Burmese.
The government is well aware of the economic problems the country is facing. If the government is allowed to continue on its present path change will be gradual but life-changing for those living inside the country.
Marie Lall is a Reader in Education Policy and South Asian Studies, Institute of Education, University of London.
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Washington Post - How Burma can show it’s really changed
By Fred Hiatt, Editorial Page Editor
Published: November 6
Life in the new Burma:
Fifteen political prisoners who embarked on a hunger strike to protest their confinement have been denied water as punishment. Eight of them, according to Amnesty International, have been sent to cells built for dogs, which have no light, no mats or bedding, and insufficient space for humans to stand.
In the past year, more than 100,000 ethnic minorities have been forced to leave their homes by brutal army tactics, including gang-rapes.
U Gambira, a Buddhist monk serving 63 years in prison for his role in a peaceful 2007 movement for democracy, is rapidly deteriorating, according to Amnesty International, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) and his elder sister, Ma Khin Thu Htay. The monk, 32, apparently has never recovered from being tortured in 2009 and is being given narcotic injections to silence him rather than appropriate medical care.
None of this would have been surprising in the past, because Burma, a nation of 50 million or so in Southeast Asia, has long been ruled by one of the world’s most brutal regimes (which calls its country Myanmar). But in recent months, there have been signs of change and, along with those, arguments in the West about how to respond.
Longtime opponents of pro-democracy sanctions have urged a rapid easing of those. The International Crisis Group, for example, in September proclaimed a “major reform underway”: “President Thein Sein has moved rapidly to begin implementing an ambitious reform agenda . . . strong signs of heralding a new kind of political leadership in Myanmar . . . a completely different tone for governance.”
Among the changes: Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of Burma’s foremost pro-democracy political party, has been freed from house arrest and allowed to meet with diplomats and Burmese leaders. Her photograph has emerged in many Rangoon homes from its hiding place beneath mattresses or between book pages. Her party, now banned, may be permitted to re-register.
Domestic media remain strictly controlled, but Internet access has been eased. A dam construction project, which would have displaced thousands, has been suspended.
That decision not only cheered Burma’s beleaguered environmentalists but also angered neighboring China, which was helping to finance the project and would have received almost all of the electricity generated. That, in turn, suggests that Burma’s leaders, like those of other countries in the region, are chafing under China’s increasingly peremptory attitude toward its near-abroad. Chinese businessmen in Burma buy property, claim natural resources and export young girls to become forced brides in Chinese villages.
Indeed, a leading argument against sanctions has been the opening they would give China to a strategically located, resource-rich country. Now it seems the sanctions — and Burma’s desire for someone to play a counterbalancing role — may be one factor swaying the regime toward the pro-reform steps it knows the West will insist on.
If that’s the case, the logical response is assurance that true reform will lead to Western engagement — but no premature removal of the incentives for change.
How to define premature? There is no single yardstick. But one basic requirement would be freedom for all political prisoners (1,700 or so), including the 120 suffering from severe health problems — among them U Gambira.
Four years ago, while he was on the run inside his country, the monk published an op-ed on this page in which he “welcomed the strong actions of the United States to impose financial and travel restrictions on the regime and its enablers.”
“Burma’s Saffron Revolution is just beginning,” U Gambira bravely wrote. “The regime’s use of mass arrests, murder, torture and imprisonment has failed to extinguish our desire for the freedom that was stolen from us so many years ago. We have taken their best punch.”
Sadly, the regime set out to prove him wrong. According to his sister, he was beaten on the head with a stick “every 15 minutes for the entire month of April 2009.”
“He was beaten in this manner for requesting permission to walk for his health,” she wrote in a recent letter to Burma’s president. “While he was being beaten, his hands were placed behind his back and handcuffed, and he was forced to wear iron shackles. In addition, he was hooded with a black cloth bag and pieces of cloth were forcefully put in his mouth . . . he was fed meals with a spoon by prison guards . . . and [had to] urinate or defecate on the chair.”
By the time he was transferred to another prison in May, he was, according to a prison official, “a crazy guy.”
The new Burma regime is, perhaps, not responsible for the crimes of May 2009. But one would think that a “completely different tone for governance” will include freedom for the dictatorship’s most damaged victims, and an end to its most appalling crimes.
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ABC Radio Australia - Burma marks one year since elections
Updated November 7, 2011 22:39:38
One year on from Burma's democratic elections and there's a mixed assessment of the progress to a more democratic society.
Last year's November election was billed by some as a major step towards ending Burma's decades old military rule.
But on the anniversary of the poll, a report by a group of NGOs shows more than 100 000 people have been displaced in the country's south east over the last year.
The worst figure since the reporting began a decade ago.
Presenter: Cameron Wilson
Speaker: Alistair Gee, executive director of Act For Peace
Listen:Windows Media(http://www.abc.net.au/ra/asiapac/stories/m2046661.asx)
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ANALYSIS: "Dramatic developments", but challenges ahead for Myanmar
YANGON, 7 November 2011 (IRIN) - One year after Myanmar held its first election in 20 years, domestic and international opinion is still cautious about the prospects for meaningful change in this nation of more than 55 million people.
Much of the reaction to reforms introduced since President Thein Sein's inauguration in March 2011 reflects hope that the country can break from a heavy-handed authoritarian past involving human rights abuses that make it the target of economic sanctions.
Recent events and reactions include:
* Opposition leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), Aung San Suu Kyi, said after a groundbreaking meeting with Thein Sein in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw, on 19 August that she believed he wanted to achieve "real positive change". She has been released from house arrest imposed by the previous government.
* The US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Kurt Campbell, described the dialogue between Aung San Suu Kyi and the government as "very consequential", adding it was "also undeniably the case that there are dramatic developments under way".
* UN special envoy on human rights in Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, said the country was at a "key moment" in its history. "There are real opportunities for positive and meaningful developments to improve the human rights situation and deepen the transition to democracy."
But Quintana acknowledged that while the government had taken steps to improve its human rights record, much remains to be done to ensure civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.
In any transition to democracy, a critical issue is whether the country can achieve ethnic harmony, which has proved elusive since independence from Britain in 1948, say analysts.
Fighting has flared again in 2011 in the north between the government "Tatmadaw" forces and the Kachin Independence Organization, and in the east with Shan and Karen armed groups.
The president's call in August for peace talks has thus far failed to yield any results.
While aid organizations report better access to most parts of the country in contrast to the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in 2008, they are still unable to access areas of ethnic unrest, according to both a western diplomat and the head of a UN agency in Yangon.
Progress has been reported on one front of the conflict: speaking out against the forced recruitment of child soldiers.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) office in Yangon reported receiving 355 complaints about child soldiers from the start of 2010 to end-June 2011; 77 children have been discharged while investigations into the remaining 242 cases are pending.
This was up sharply from 2009, with 78 complaints (62 children were released) and in 2008, 29 complaints (23 released), a trend ILO attributed to greater awareness.
Change
In an inaugural speech to parliament on 30 March, Thein Sein spoke of the need to alleviate poverty - barely acknowledged by the previous government - tackle corruption, end conflicts with various ethnic minorities and work towards political reconciliation. Last year's election was boycotted by the NLD.
Other recent changes include:
* Pension increases for retired public servants;
* Vote in parliament in favour of amnesties for political and other prisoners, followed by the release of more than 6,500 prisoners in October 2011, including prisoners of conscience;
* Financial assistance to farmers;
* Easing of media censorship - with the head of the censorship authority calling for it to end in the near future;
* Establishment of human rights commission to "promote and safeguard fundamental rights of citizens";
* Proposed changes to electoral laws, designed to encourage the NLD to contest future elections.
Reactions
Reaction to these and other changes ranged from distrust to cautious optimism.
Sein Win, managing editor of New Delhi-based publication, Mizzima News, said he was both sceptical and encouraged by the changes.
"After first clapping my hands, I leaned back in my chair [to think deeply] as to the reasoning behind the moves of Thein Sein's government," he said.
Sein Win said while some changes were positive, he questioned why political prisoners were still in jail and called for legal amnesty for exiles and a lifting of remaining media restrictions.
Richard Horsey, a Myanmar analyst and the ILO representative in the country from 2002-2007, said he was "very much encouraged" by the reforms. "These are the most significant changes in the government in half a century," he told IRIN. "Much remains to be done and many challenges lie ahead, but the direction is positive and the momentum appears strong."
Momentum
But can the president maintain this pace and path of reform?
Derek Tonkin, chairman of the UK-based Network Myanmar NGO, working on reconciliation issues in Myanmar, said while the pace of change could alarm conservative elements in the government, "the president is showing great confidence, which seems to be based on general support in the military and civilian hierarchies".
But Sein Win said the situation was still "totally unpredictable during this stage of sensitive transition".
Much depends on Thein Sein's "leadership, capacity, wisdom and tolerance of diverse opinions," he added, warning there "could again be a U-turn involving a military coup to counter an untimely opposition challenge to the government".
"Transforming the political direction of any country, but particularly one that has been under authoritarian rule for so long, is a massive task," said Horsey.
Tonkin agreed the transition to democracy is bound to be "fraught", which heightens the need to resolve "serious internal problems relating to the non-Burmese nationalities whose desire for a measure of autonomy is strong".
Sein Win said the biggest obstacles were "the general public's lack of trust in the government - old habits die hard - power dynamics within the government and a lack of resources".
A former government employee now working at his family business in Yangon, U Shwe, 55, told IRIN he saw little evidence of change thus far.
"Our hardship remains the same. Though some people say there are changes, we do not feel our life has changed. We are still restricted by previous laws and regulations. Ethnic areas are still seeing the wars in their areas. No peace at all. As long as no peace is there, there is no safety there.
"You will be laughed at if you ask these questions of the ethnic people about any improvement in their areas under the new government."
For others, the pace of change is not coming quickly enough.
"If the government wants to change the country rapidly, there are many things they have to reform with the advice of experts," said a phone accessories seller in a local shopping mall.
But expertise is in short supply, said Horsey. "The biggest risk that I see at the current time relates to capacity: implementing the various reforms in a coordinated way requires strong administrative capacity and expert technical advice, both of which are in short supply."
Administration, key to carrying out any reform, is another obstacle, said Renaud Egreteau, a research assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong. "The state structure and administration... are in pretty bad shape [and] lack autonomy and expertise."
Analysts note that a key issue that could boost the country's domestic and international legitimacy is whether changes proposed to political party laws would lead to the return of the NLD to the electoral process - an outcome that could result in an easing or lifting of US and EU sanctions.
Aung San Suu Kyi has publicly said the NLD will consider participating in elections if the changes are approved by the lower house.
"Participating would allow the NLD to enter the parliament, where much has been going on, but it would also antagonize a portion of its supporters. It is a difficult choice the NLD is facing," said a Yangon-based political analyst.
For Sein Win, it is too early to say whether these proposed changes are enough to bring NLD back into the electoral process as hardliners may peg the party's return to the fate of their imprisoned members.
"If a majority of political prisoners are left out in an amnesty, there would be the potential of a Catch 22 for the NLD," he said.
The US and EU - Myanmar's second- and third-largest providers of overseas development assistance (ODA) in 2009 - have for years linked the easing of sanctions to an improvement in the human rights record, including the release of prisoners of conscience.
Myanmar received about US$7 per capita in ODA in 2009, compared with $66 for Laos and $48 for Cambodia, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and population data reported to the UN.
The fact that Myanmar receives a fraction per person in ODA compared with Laos or Cambodia, which each have a higher gross national income, is clearly a result of "political pressure", said Frank Smithuis, founder of the NGO Medical Action Myanmar, who has worked in the country with medical NGOs since 1994.
"Withholding aid affects the poor, who pay the price for this immoral political game," said Smithuis.
Egreteau said Myanmar's military elites recognized the need to change. "They are not blind. They know that the region is changing fast, that the Burmese economy is dire and that domestic politics still very much hinder Burma's path towards development."
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The Nation - Burma's opposition to consider registering as political party
November 6, 2011 11:34 am
Rangoon - Burma's main opposition group will meet this week to decide whether to re-register as a party after the government amended political legislation, sources said Sunday.
President Thein Sein on Friday endorsed an amendment that would allow the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, to register as a legal party before an upcoming by-election.
"All amendments in revised political parties’ registration law met our requirements," NLD spokesman Nyan Win said. "We will hold a meeting on Tuesday to decide whether NLD would re-register or not, but there is a high possibility for re-registration."
The amendment was one of several priorities of the international community to gauge the government’s sincerity in democratic reform.
Thein Sein has in recent months initiated talks with Suu Kyi and pushed through a series of legislative changes that have raised optimism that the country, long ruled by the military, is inching towards a more democratic system.
Progress under the new government was welcomed by German Minister of State Werner Hoyer who visited Myanmar last week.
"We have a feeling that everything should be done to encourage those who are taking rather bold decisions in order to bring Myanmar back to the international community," Hoyer told dpa in Bangkok.
"When we’re talking about economic cooperation, I think we can do more than we did before and we are ready to do so," Hoyer said, noting that the director-general of the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development would probably visit soon.
Hoyer cautioned that the improvements might prove "reversible," and said Western democracies were awaiting more reforms, such as the release of all political prisoners and an assurance that the upcoming by-election was "free and fair."
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11/07/2011 12:38
AsiaNews.it - MYANMAR: Govt overtures to let Aung San Suu Kyi and NLD into political system
After their exclusion from the 2010 parliamentary elections, the main opposition party and its leader could become legal. The president signs three amendments to the Political Party Registration Law that would open the doors to the Nobel Prize laureate. EU, US and UN praise and encourage the changes.
Yangon (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Senior US, EU and UN officials have come out in favour of “important changes” that have been recently introduced in Myanmar. They have also urged the government to continue on the path of reform. Myanmar President Thein Sein recently signed into law amendments to the Political Party Registration Law after they were approved by both houses of parliament.
Under the changes, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) would be able to rejoin the political system and reregister as a party.
Under the old law, the NLD was illegal because it had refused the conditions set by the old military regime to take part in the country’s November 2010 elections.
Last Friday, Myanmar state TV reported that President Thein Sein had signed the law that changed the existing legislation in three areas to accommodate Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy.
One article was amended to say that registered parties shall "respect and abide" by the constitution rather than "safeguard" it. The constitution was adopted by the military in 2008 after a referendum riddle with allegations of fraud held during the crisis caused by Cyclone Nargis. The change was evidently made to accommodate criticisms of the charter by Suu Kyi's party without making them illegal.
The old law also banned anyone convicted of a crime from being a member of a political party. Suu Kyi has a prior conviction.
The third amendment says that any party that registers after the general election must run candidates in at least three constituencies in by-elections to remain legally registered. The original law said a party had to run at least three candidates in the general election, which would have been an impediment to Suu Kyi's party, since it boycotted the 2010 polls.
On 9 November 2010, Myanmar held its first parliamentary elections after 20 years of dictatorship, marking the transition from a military to a civilian parliamentary regime. However, the vote was rigged and the new government is largely a creation of the military.
Despite the situation, the president appears to have started a process of greater democratisation, beginning with the release of the main opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and the loosening of media censorship.
Political changes, which are driven by a desire for international legitimacy and an end to Western-sponsored economic and trading sanctions, have been met with support.
"There are important changes going on in this country," said Ambassador David Lipman, head of the EU delegation to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Burma. "The European Union is very much hoping to support and to encourage this momentum of change," he added.
US special envoy to Burma Derek Mitchell has acknowledged the positive steps taken by Myanmar, including the release of political prisoners and the overtures towards the National League for Democracy.
Vijay Nambiar, a special adviser to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, also concluded a visit Friday and added his voice to those encouraging further reforms.
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New Kerala - Myanmar government paves way for Suu Kyi's return to politics
Yangon, Nov 6 : Myanmar's government has introduced a revised law on political parties in an apparent attempt to encourage Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy to accept the political system and re-register as a party.
President Thein Sein signed the amendments to the Political Party Registration Law as senior US diplomats were ending a visit to encourage his government to push forward with democratic reforms.
The amendments of the party law signed by Thein Sein alter three areas of the law to accommodate Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy, Express.co.uk reports.
The law, originally enacted in March last year by the previous military junta, prohibited anyone who has been convicted of a crime from being a member of a political party
Suu Kyi had been convicted on a trumped-up charge and would have had to leave the party she helped found.
But the clause has now been dropped, clearing the way for former political prisoners to enter politics.
Another article was amended to say that registered parties shall "respect and abide" by the constitution rather than "safeguard" it.
The change was evidently made to accommodate criticisms of the charter by Suu Kyi's group without making them illegal, the report said.
The third amendment said that any party that registers after the general election must run candidates in at least three constituencies in by-elections to remain legally registered.
The original law said a party had to stand at least three candidates in the general election, which would have been an impediment to Suu Kyi's party, since it boycotted the 2010 polls.
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Nov 8, 2011
Asia Times Online - The good, bad and ugly in Myanmar
By Benjamin Zawacki
BANGKOK - On November 7, 2010, on the occasion of Myanmar's first elections in 20 years, Amnesty International commented that the polls which had "presented an opportunity for Myanmar to make meaningful human rights changes on its own terms" were instead "being held against a backdrop of political repression and systematic violence." A year on, what is the state of play?
Reading the commentary of the past several months - much of it in this newspaper - is of limited help. That optimists and pessimists have emerged would normally be productive, except that these camps are more and more categorically opposed to one another. With few exceptions, Myanmar watchers of all stripes have increasingly dug their heels firmly into doctrinaire territory, unwilling to concede even the most basic (and often simply factual) points to the other side.
This has not only left the Myanmar debate in a polarized state, but more importantly has hindered the sort of clear, objective assessment on which the right human rights and other policy decisions depend. To a certain degree, this confusion is understandable since for years (if not decades) there was little room for nuanced thinking on Myanmar.
"To sanction or not to sanction" was one of the few points of contention, itself located within a broad consensus - certainly in the West and among much of Asia and the global South as well - that Myanmar was a (choose your adjective: political, economic, humanitarian, public health, educational, human rights ...) disaster on a bleak trajectory.
Since the elections last year, however, that trajectory has changed direction, such that it is no longer possible to interchange the litany of adjectives or speak of Myanmar - as many commentators still do - as a black-or-white situation. Nor is it advisable to do so. The human rights situation in Myanmar must be disaggregated, and addressed on that basis.
The qualified good
There is political and economic change underway in Myanmar, much of which could be to the improvement of people's civil and political, as well as economic, social and cultural rights. Those who deny this are simply not paying attention or are allowing their personal, political or institutional agendas to get in the way.
Aside from releasing pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest a week after the elections and a late April 2011 inaugural speech by President Thein Sein that promised increased political participation, for six months Myanmar's new government enacted few positive changes.
Since July however, a steady stream of new moves and policies has become apparent, albeit of greatly varying significance to the human rights situation. Other than the appointment of a National Human Rights Commission (discussed below), a guardedly positive development but whose focus is largely uncertain, almost all have been confined to the political and economic spheres and centers.
Myanmar's Labor Minister Aung Gyi has met four times with Suu Kyi, and Thein Sein has met her once in talks she described - in contrast to those with Aung Gyi four years ago - as a "positive development." She has twice been permitted to travel outside of Yangon, and unlike in May 2003 when government-backed thugs attacked her motorcade in Depayin and killed or injured over 100 of her supporters, her trips this year occurred without incident.
And contrary to declaring her National League for Democracy (NLD) political party illegal after it refused to register under new electoral laws in 2010, the government has invited it to reregister under amended provisions of those laws. These events show a small improvement in the freedoms of expression and association, particularly as they involve a former prisoner of conscience whose house arrest was illegally extended just months before last year's elections.
More significant, if still tentative, steps toward increased freedom of expression have come in relation to Myanmar's once robust media industry. In October, Radio Free Asia cited Tint Swe, director of the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division, as saying that censorship is inconsistent with democratic values and more political content has been allowed in recent months.
Again, enter Suu Kyi: previously strictly prohibited in the domestic media, her name and picture have been allowed to appear and for the first time in 23 years the authorities permitted her in September to publish her own piece in the Pyithu Khit News Journal. Internet restrictions have also been substantially reduced; the websites of both international outlets and those run by Myanmar exiles - almost uniformly critical of the government - are no longer blocked. The authorities recently signaled a lifting of a six-year ban on satellite television receivers as well.
While these changes improve freedom of expression in Myanmar in relation to both the transmission/dissemination and reception of information and mark a relaxation of draconian restrictions during (when the Internet was severed altogether) and after 2007's "Saffron" revolution, they are not supported by changes to the relevant laws.
Nor are they unqualified in practice. Not only did the authorities cut all political content from an exclusive interview of Suu Kyi by the Messenger News in September, but more seriously, on the day after UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar visited the country in August, former military officer Nay Myo Zin was sentenced to 10 years in prison for allegedly sending abroad a political document on how to achieve democracy.
One month later, Sithu Zeya, a young reporter with the exile-run Democratic Voice of Burma, already serving an eight-year prison term, had his sentence extended by a decade under the 2004 Electronic Transactions Law. Extensive legal reform in relation to not only the media but to freedom of expression generally is long overdue in Myanmar, and the persecution via prosecution of journalists should stop immediately.
Closely related to freedom of expression are the freedoms of peaceful assembly and association, which in passing the Labor Organization Bill last month Myanmar took a substantial step toward promoting and protecting. The law allows workers to form trade unions - effectively banned previously under the 1962 Trade Unions Act - and to legally go on strike. The important matter of whether the unions will be independent of the government, however, remains to be seen.
In the same speech in which he promised increased political participation, President Thein Sein also pledged to fight poverty in Myanmar. This was a welcome message considering the government's initially obstructive response to Cyclone Nargis in 2008. Recent months have seen a mixed record in Myanmar, still weak on the humanitarian side, somewhat stronger but still with much room for improvement on development.
Currently, the humanitarian situation in Myanmar is especially grave in several ethnic minority states where armed conflict is taking place, as well as in Rakhine and Chin States where food insecurity is severe. Despite slow movement in the right direction, however, the government has kept in place lengthy and complex administrative procedures for obtaining travel permits both for those who already have a presence and for new humanitarian agencies seeking permission to work in the country.
In conflict areas, authorities have in some cases simply blocked any and all access to the tens of thousands of persons internally displaced by the fighting, especially those in camps on the Myanmar-China border. These practices should cease immediately.
At the same time, the international donor community needs to respond to the "humanitarian imperative" in Myanmar, especially by addressing people's lack of access to minimum essential levels of economic, social and cultural rights. In particular, this requires them to meet pledges made for relief and/or recovery after Cyclones Nargis (May 2008) and Giri (October 2010) so long as they are satisfied that distribution of humanitarian aid is provided transparently, is for the purposes agreed upon, and is based solely on need.
Organizations and local communities have also highlighted the need for a stronger international response to the humanitarian disaster in the latest conflict areas (near the Myanmar-China border). The rights of people whose lives have been devastated by these events should not be held hostage to politics by either Myanmar's new government or the international community.
Myanmar's development situation is slightly better but more complicated. Five years after the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria decided to leave Myanmar, partly on account of reported government interference, the new administration signed an agreement in November 2010 welcoming it back. This move, most positive in itself, should have the additional effect of allowing the Three Diseases Fund, which had filled the gap left by Global Fund, to focus more on other critical health care issues such as maternal and child health.
In July, the Myanmar government also raised substantially state pensions for nearly a million people, most of them poor, and announced plans to provide micro-credit for poor farmers. Last week it finished hosting a visit by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to discuss unifying its foreign exchange rate policy and lifting certain currency restrictions, something which could also be to the economic benefit of its cash-strapped citizens, and agreed to increase its assistance to migrants working in Thailand.
These initiatives should be acknowledged by the international community. At the same time, there are reasons for continuing concerns such that increasing international assistance and cooperation and lifting the restrictions under which multilateral agencies (such the IMF, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and the UN Development Program) continue to work in Myanmar should be matched by the government making additional moves of its own.
It should reallocate more resources to the social, educational, and public health sectors, which currently combined receives only about 5% of gross domestic product (GDP).
Myanmar should also utilize the estimated $5 billion in foreign reserves it has accumulated over the years, mostly from the sale of natural resources, toward advancing the economic, social, and cultural rights of its people. Last month on a bilateral basis Japan at least partly demonstrated this attention to Myanmar's domestic policies by citing unspecified "progress" in Myanmar in its reported decision to resume official development assistance there, which it had suspended after the Saffron Revolution in 2007.
Pessimists take note: politically and economically there are limited - but real - human rights changes taking place in Myanmar. While the government must do a great deal more, nothing in the way last year's elections were orchestrated suggested this would be the case a year on.
The categorically bad
Unfortunately, what many optimists disregard is that these changes are confined to Myanmar's political and economic centers. There is another story in Myanmar concerning a substantial portion of the civilian population that has been ignored, sidelined or outright dismissed by many since the story of the "qualified good" broke: serious human rights and humanitarian law violations in several ethnic minority areas.
The irony is that the event most often referenced in relation to the recent political and economic reforms - last year's parliamentary elections - is the same event that marked the start of this "categorically bad" development.
On the very day of the polls, ethnic minority Karen elements launched an attack on the Myanmar army in the border town of Myawaddy. March and June this year marked respectively an intensification of conflict with various ethnic minority armed groups in Shan State and the breaking of a 15-year ceasefire with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Kachin State. Smaller conflicts continued or resumed as well in Kayan (Karenni) and Mon States.
While the civilian population almost always suffers in conflict zones, the critical difference in this fighting - for both the Myanmar government and the international community - is that civilians have been a target set of the Myanmar army. From Kayin (Karen) State (and bordering parts of Bago and Tanintharyi Regions), there are recent and credible accounts of the army using prison convicts as porters, forcing them to act as human shields and mine-sweepers.
In Kachin State, sources report extrajudicial executions, children killed by shelling and other indiscriminate attacks, forced labor, and illegal confiscation of food and property. And last week Amnesty International spoke with ethnic Shan civilians who recounted stories of torture, arbitrary detention and forced relocation.
As a result, there are roughly 30,000 "new" internally displaced persons in Shan State and a similar number in or near Kachin State (including a small number of refugees), in addition to approximately 36,000 internally displaced persons in Kayin State. In October, the Thailand-Burma Border Consortium reported that in the past year alone 112,000 persons were forced from their homes in Myanmar (to say nothing of the more than 150,000 Burmese refugees in Thailand and those in other neighboring countries).
Nor are these ongoing human rights violations just recent or unprecedented. They recall the findings of an Amnesty International report published nearly three and a half years ago: extrajudicial executions, torture, arbitrary detention, forced labor, confiscation of land and food, and forced displacement of Karen civilians on a large scale, starting in late 2005.
Moreover, as that report's title indicated, some of the violations amount to crimes against humanity in eastern Myanmar and elsewhere in the country, as well as to war crimes. They are widespread and systematic, and they are pursuant to known attacks targeting ethnic minority civilian populations.
It is the ethnic minority situation where the gap between Thein Sein's words, in both his inaugural speech and with his meeting with Suu Kyi, and his actions is most apparent. Indeed, human rights violations are not confined to the conflict zones either, as reports of forced labor on a large scale in Chin and Rakhine States (usually targeting the Rohingya ethnic minority in the latter) indicate. Either a contentious policy division between the civilian government and the army has emerged, or no proper division between the two has in fact been established.
The exception proving the rule is the president's decision in September to suspend construction of the controversial Myitsone Dam in Kachin State. The project was fueling not only intensified hostilities but the forced displacement of Kachin civilians as well. Although the authorities have shelved their plan to have all ethnic minority armed groups become official Border Guard Forces, stated that refugees and exiles may return home, and engaged in talks with certain groups, these moves have not been accompanied by a cessation of the grave violations noted above.
This - and the fact that no one has been held accountable for them - is not acceptable. Yet beyond calling on the Myanmar government to immediately halt the violations, there is disagreement among observers as to what else, if anything, should be done. Since May 2010, Amnesty International has called on the United Nations to establish an international commission of inquiry into grave crimes in Myanmar as a means toward determining the facts, pressuring the army to cease targeting civilians and holding perpetrators accountable.
First and foremost, this commission (not a court) would inquire and investigate (not prosecute individuals) as to what has taken place in Myanmar's ethnic minority areas. It would be objective and impartial, looking at the policies and actions of all sides. Second, in carrying out its work, the commission might well convince the combatants to stop attacking and otherwise persecuting civilians, and deter them from doing so in the future. Finally, once the facts were established they could be employed in any number of ways - including but not limited to legal prosecutions - toward holding perpetrators of international crimes to account.
While Suu Kyi has herself clearly expressed her support for this initiative, arguments abound as to why it should not move forward. Most relate to its political viability, both inside and outside Myanmar, and its strategic advisability. None withstands scrutiny.
It is not a foregone conclusion (though risks becoming one should the international community abandon or give up on the idea) that a UN Commission of Inquiry would not have access to Myanmar. Even if it was denied, however, a similar 1997 commission by the International Labor Organization compensated for lack of access partly through the testimony of forced labor victims outside Myanmar and various experts, among them Amnesty International. Two years later, Myanmar passed a law prohibiting forced labor.
Indeed, a consistent argument for opposing a commission of inquiry is that it would not have "buy-in" from the Myanmar authorities. This view is supported by Article 445 of Myanmar's Constitution (as well as by decades of impunity) which codifies immunity from prosecution for officials for past human rights violations.
One caveat to this argument is the formation in September of a National Human Rights Commission. Some opponents of an international commission of inquiry in Myanmar have suggested that the national commission, which according to its chair is empowered to investigate complaints of human rights violations, might eventually fill the role.
This is most unlikely, however, considering its questionable composition (some members with a public record of denying human rights violations in the country), its doubtful level of independence from the government (appointed by the president), and especially its legal underpinning in the Constitution (Article 445).
Yet the lack of "buy-in" is precisely why an international commission is needed; if the Myanmar government was willing to initiate its own process of fact-finding and accountability (to say nothing of ceasing the ongoing violations), the UN would not have to. It is because of Myanmar's refusal to institute a domestic option, and not in spite of it, that the international community must step in.
"Must" in the case of international crimes is the operative word, because though there are options in how accountability can be established, accountability itself is not optional. Absent Myanmar's domestic "buy-in", it is the responsibility of the international community to ensure justice for the victims of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Myanmar. And an international commission of inquiry is the only option left.
To withhold support by citing political constraints (in the form of votes in the UN Security Council or consensus in the UN General Assembly), is both conveniently self-fulfilling and contradicted by the 16 nations that have thus far publicly signaled their support for such a commission. To claim that it is not the correct political strategy is to overstate the breadth and depth of recent human rights improvements, and to pretend that engagement and pressure are mutually exclusive. Both excuses are an abdication of responsibility to Myanmar's ethnic minorities.
Optimists take note: Any human rights changes in Myanmar's ethnic minority areas since last year's elections have been for the worse. While modest improvements in political and economic rights should be built upon, they should not come at the expense of ongoing international crimes or impunity for their perpetrators.
The plain ugly
In May, the Myanmar government released 77 political prisoners under a one-year reduction of all prison sentences in the country. In September, the first substantive act of the new Myanmar National Human Rights Commission was its publication of an open letter to President Thein Sein in three state newspapers calling on him to release "prisoners of conscience" who do not pose a threat to state or public stability. While 239 political prisoners were set free two days later (pursuant in fact to a parliamentary decision), the release exposed several ugly realities in Myanmar.
The first is that while the Commission's use of the term "prisoners of conscience" is welcome there is debate over how many political prisoners are actually being held in Myanmar. This fact was underscored not only by the mixed reaction both inside and outside Myanmar to the release - Amnesty International called it a "minimum first step" - but by subsequent contradictory statements by Ko Ko Hlaing, a senior political adviser to the president.
On October 19, he was reported as saying that there were "about 600" remaining prisoners of conscience in Myanmar but in an interview with the Irrawaddy magazine eight days later he conceded that he did not "have exact figures." He also said that differences may "depend on how people define prisoners of conscience and ordinary prisoners."
The government must clarify who they classify as political prisoners - and who they don't. As there are significant differences between the government's figures and those put forward by some opposition groups, the authorities should resolve this issue transparently and cooperatively. No political prisoner should be subject to an unjust prison term on account of a dispute over definitions.
While primary responsibility for resolving this issue rests with Myanmar, the United Nations should assist the Myanmar authorities in convening a panel, including the NLD, to ensure that all political prisoners are identified. Encouragingly, the International Committee of the Red Cross was recently authorized for the first time in years to conduct an international staff-led engineering survey in three of Myanmar's prisons, despite it not involving contact with detainees and so not amounting to a prison visit according to its protection criteria.
The second ugly reality, related to the confusion over political prisoner numbers in the wake of last month's release was an emphasis on "quality" over quantity. The unfortunate (if doubtless unintentional) implication in Suu Kyi's statement that "There still are a number of important political prisoners who need to be released as soon as possible", is that there are unimportant political prisoners.
This is not the case and cannot afford to be accepted as such by the Myanmar authorities. Indeed, the reverse is true: the "who" among the released should not merely be secondary to the "how many", but totally irrelevant to it. All political prisoners should be released as soon as possible.
Note that this point is distinct from being particularly concerned, in the event of an only partial release of political prisoners, with certain groups and individuals: Amnesty International was able to identify only five political prisoners among the 239 released last month as being from ethnic minorities. Many such political prisoners - some of whom are members of armed opposition groups - may be wrongly classified as common criminals in the country's extensive prison system.
If political prisoners have committed an internationally recognized offence, authorities should give them a prompt, fair and public trial, or release them. Of course, prisoners of conscience, having clearly committed no such offense in their entirely peaceful political expression, should be released immediately and unconditionally. And as evidenced by Amnesty International's dissemination of two Urgent Actions (about Buddhist monk U Gambira and a hunger strike) just last week, both on account of torture or other ill-treatment, conditions for the remaining prisoners have not improved.
This speaks to the final ugly reality in Myanmar, namely that the release of prisoners of conscience in Myanmar is being staggered in a seemingly calculated way by the government. Whether to win similarly staggered concessions from the international community (including a relaxation of economic sanctions), curry domestic favor in stages in the run-up to national by-elections within the next few months, or merely keep at bay both domestic and international criticism, there is no room for a "process" in the release of prisoners of conscience.
Does Amnesty International really expect, as per the proverbial and rhetorical words, that this should literally "happen overnight"? Yes, we do. By their definition, prisoners of conscience should never have been detained in the first place; they should be released - every last one of them - immediately and unconditionally.
That 316 political prisoners have been released by the post-election Myanmar government marks a modest improvement of the country's human rights record, but until and unless all are freed it will not be improvement enough. In that sense, the situation of political prisoners in Myanmar is a microcosm of the human rights situation there generally one year after the elections. For the sake of further human rights progress in Myanmar - a country, not a cause - both pessimists and optimists would do well to keep this in mind.
Benjamin Zawacki is Amnesty International's Myanmar researcher and a member of the US Council on Foreign Relations.
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Nov 8, 2011
Asia Times Online - Russia targets China's clout in Myanmar
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - Myanmar's recent suspension of the US$3.6 billion Myitsone dam project has raised speculation over cracks in the "rock-hard relationship" between Myanmar and China, while reviving debate over the extent of Myanmar's dependence on China.
Myanmar's dependence on its giant neighbor is indeed immense - China is its largest investor and arms supplier, and its third-largest trade partner - but this is on the decline as Myanmar seeks out new partners. Contrary to the Western media's portrayal of the country as isolated with few friends, Myanmar has a string of suitors keen to engage it in diverse ways.
While the role of neighbors such as India, Thailand and Singapore in trade and investment has been the focus of much analysis, the significance of Myanmar's relationship with a more distant partner, Russia, has gone by largely unnoticed.
Drawing attention to the importance of Myanmar's relationship with Russia, Lawrence Prabhakar, a China expert and associate professor at the Madras Christian College, told Asia Times Online that by acquiring "weaponry and even possibly nuclear power from Russia, Myanmar could get itself space and autonomy vis-a-vis China and if put together with Indian civilian economic and technical assistance, the China factor [in Myanmar] could be well-balanced".
"This does not mean that 'weaning away' Myanmar from China would be complete, but at least it would be balanced," Prabhakar observed.
Defense relations between Myanmar and Russia have grown steadily over the past decade, but are not as robust as with China, which has provided $1.6 billion worth of military hardware since 1989. However, Moscow is an important option that Nawpyidaw is turning to.
In 2009, China lost a major bid for a fighter aircraft deal to Russia. The Myanmar government chose to enter into a $570 million deal with Russia for 20 MIG-29 fighter jets, turning down China's offer of its latest J-10 and FC-1 fighters. The MiG-29s are due to arrive in Myanmar in 2012. Russia's MiG aircraft company has maintained a representative office in Myanmar since October 2006. It is reported to have helped upgrade Myanmar's main military airstrip, Shante airbase (near Meiktila).
Russia has sold Myanmar 10 Mi-35 attack helicopters worth $71 million to Myanmar. In 2001, Myanmar bought 12 MiG-29 fighters and two dual-seat trainers from the Russians reportedly at a cost of $130 million. In addition, Russia has supplied Myanmar with large caliber artillery systems, air defense systems, tanks, radar and communication equipment, among others.
An important area of Russo-Myanmar cooperation is in the field of civilian nuclear energy. In 2007, Russia agreed to build a nuclear research center that would include a 10MW light-water reactor working on 20%-enriched uranium, an activation analysis laboratory, a medical isotope production laboratory, silicon doping system, and facilities for processing and storing nuclear waste. It also undertook to train 300-500 Myanmar research scientists for the nuclear research center, which was part of a larger program under which thousands of Myanmarese have been educated or received training in Russia.
While the training component of the agreement has made progress, the construction of the nuclear research center has made no headway. According to a report by Anton Khlopkov and Dmitry Konukhov of the Moscow-based Center for Energy and Security Studies (CESS), Myanmar has not yet signed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Additional Protocol or accepted the modified Small Quantities Protocol (SQP), which requires notification of the IAEA of plans to build new nuclear facilities.
These were among the conditions that were to be fulfilled before the contract for construction of the research center came into effect. Talks between the two countries that broke off in fall 2007 in the wake of monks' protests dubbed the "Saffron revolution", and are yet to be resumed.
Although the plans for civilian nuclear energy cooperation between Russia and Myanmar have stalled, the fact that the generals turned to Moscow has ruffled feathers in Beijing.
Myanmar's trade with China, which was worth $4.4 billion in 2010, dwarfs that with Russia, which stood at $114 million that year. Still, the pace at which Russia's trade with Myanmar is growing - 54% in 2009 and 110% in 2010 - is important. Machinery and various transport equipment dominated Russia's exports to Myanmar in 2010.
Unlike China, which dominates infrastructure building in Myanmar - its cumulative investment since 1988 touched $9.6 billion in January 2011, Russia is yet to embark on any major project in this country. However, it took its first step a few months ago when it won a contract to build an underground metro in Myanmar's capital, Nawpyidaw. Quoting the project's chief architect, the Voice of Russia reported in August that geological surveys and designing of the 50-kilometer-long line were underway. Russia is involved in gas exploration and mining projects in Myanmar too.
Russia's value to Myanmar stems from the fact that like China it is a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
In January 2007, Moscow along with Beijing vetoed a US-sponsored resolution in the UNSC that was critical of the junta's human-rights record. Explaining Russia's position, its ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly I Churkin said that Moscow was of the view that the situation in Myanmar "does not pose any threat to international or regional peace"; and that "this opinion is shared by a large number of states, including most importantly those neighboring Myanmar". He pointed out that "attempts aimed at using the Security Council to discuss issues outside its purview are unacceptable."
Russia has in certain cases been more supportive of Myanmar than China in the UN Security Council.
In 2009, the Myanmar government put Aung San Suu Kyi on trial for allegedly violating the terms of her house arrest when she allowed an American who swam to her lake-house to stay there for days. China voted along with the US to support a press statement critical of the junta's decision. In this case it was Russia that did the heavy lifting to defend Myanmar's government.
Analysts have been drawing attention to the role India can play in balancing China's clout in Myanmar. India as well as Myanmar's civil society believes that India has a major role to play in Myanmar's democratization process. The Indian government, for instance, is hoping to engage in capacity building and sharing its experience of building democratic institutions with Myanmar.
However, Myanmar's nominally civilian government appears to be looking elsewhere for inspiration and ideas. In July this year, a parliamentary delegation from Myanmar led by speaker Shwe Mann visited Russia as part of a "fact finding mission" on Russia's democracy model.
Given their wariness of democracy in the first place and particularly one that is argumentative and noisy like that in neighboring India, Myanmar's rulers, who have often spoken in favor of a "disciplined democracy" are looking to Russia for ideas but also to Indonesia for experience in steering a highly militarized polity towards democracy without ruffling the feathers of the military.
In the wake of recent gestures by President Thein Sein in the direction of more openness and democracy in Myanmar, many have drawn comparisons between him and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's experiments with glasnost (openness) and peristroika (openness) . Will Thein Sein meet the fate of Gorbachev? Will his moves set in process momentous changes like those the Soviet Union underwent two decades ago?
It seems that Russia's role in Myanmar's present and future will go well beyond simply counterbalancing China's clout.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore. She can be reached at sudha98@hotmail.com
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Strategy Page - The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss
November 7, 2011: A year ago, elections were held for the first time in two decades. The voting was rigged, but a lot of people with no connection to the military junta got elected.
Most of the generals in the junta retired, and no one stepped forward to take their place. Although a retired general was elected to run the country, most new government leaders were civilians. But many were people who worked for the previous military government. To the surprise of many observers, the new government instituted a lot of reforms. But Burma remained a police state, with the same people controlling the economy and making deals largely because of government support. Apparently the generals concluded that their half century old dictatorship was crumbling (which it was) and that last year's elections and subsequent reforms are an effort to achieve a "soft landing" (and avoid prosecution). That remains to be seen, although such things are not unknown (look at what happened in South Africa during the 1990s). As more reformers get out of jail (or exile) and into government, the shape of the future will become clear.
Despite the more open government, the UN and other aid groups are still being kept away from hundreds of thousands of tribal people forced from their homes by the fighting in the north and east. The new government is eager to get more new economic projects going, and is taking more land from people. Over 100,000 people were displaced like this in the last year. This is more than any year in the past decade, and represents government efforts to encourage foreign investment. But it is causing more unrest. While the military government is trying to be more democratic, it is also trying to make its key people rich.
After six months of fighting, there is a cease fire in Shan state, where several tribal rebellions flared up again after the elections last year. The army responded with a major offensive, but that came to an unannounced halt in September. Some of the rebels want to stop the fighting to protect their drug business. Opium production has returned to Shan State, and doubled in the past two years. Shan State (150,000 square kilometers and nearly five million people) is south of Kachin State, and borders China and Thailand.
November 5, 2011: A Karen rebel group (Kaloh Htoo Baw) has worked out a cease fire and peace deal with the government. There are several rebellious tribal militias among the seven million Karen in Burma. These rebellions have been going on since Burma became independent of Britain after World War II. The ethnic Burmese never got along well with tribal peoples like the Karen and Shan (the two largest groups).
November 4, 2011: In the southeast, one of the Karen rebel groups (DKBA, or Democratic Karen Buddhist Army) has negotiated a ceasefire with the government.
October 31, 2011: China, Thailand, Myanmar and Laos have agreed to increase security and cooperation along the Mekong River. This was in response to increased violence along the river, and especially the murder of 13 Chinese sailors (the crews of two small river freighters) last month. Most of the cargo ships on the Mekong are Chinese, and the 13 dead sailors appear to have been involved with drug smugglers (900,000 methamphetamine pills were found on the two boats.) The chief suspects in the murders are a group of Thai soldiers who were apparently out to steal the drugs on the two ships, but things went wrong.
October 27, 2011: Some 60 farmers demonstrated in the capital to protest the seizure of their land by the government (for urban and commercial development). Police broke up the protest and seven of the demonstrators were arrested and face up to a year in jail. Such demonstrations are very rare, at least before the elections a year ago. Because of the Internet and cell phones, news of such demonstrations now gets out and apparently has some impact on government decision making.
October 25, 2011: In the capital, a bomb went off in a taxi, wounding two people.
October 24, 2011: India and Burma have opened up much of their borders, mainly to allow local tribal peoples to freely cross for economic or family reasons. Burma, for example, allows Indians to go 16 kilometers into Burma without a passport or visa.
October 21, 2011: Although Chinese construction operations are still halted in the north, where dams were being built, the government is now converting the dam project into a gold mining venture. The high world price for gold makes it profitable to mine gold in many areas of northern Burma. The gold mining uses many noxious chemicals, which get into the water supply. Large scale gold mining is even less popular than the Chinese dams.
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Christian Today - Volunteer health workers go extra mile to tackle HIV in Burma
by USPG Posted: Monday, November 7, 2011, 13:29 (GMT)
Government health spending in Burma is among the lowest in the world – less than $5 dollars per person – which is why the Anglican Church of Burma’s intervention is essential.
To date, the church has recruited hundreds of volunteer health workers who receive basic medical training before being sent out to remote rural communities.
These health workers are so dedicated that they are prepared to buy medicines with their own money in the hope that their patients will be able to pay for their treatment.
The Anglican mission and development agency USPG is helping to support these health workers – and you can help through USPG’s alternative Christmas gift scheme: Life-giving Gifts [www.lifegivinggifts.org].
HIV is one of the biggest challenges facing the health workers.
In a country where official statistics are difficult to obtain, the exact extent of HIV is unknown. And the subject is taboo, so it can be difficult for the health workers to deal with. Indeed, providing education to challenge the stigma surrounding HIV is one of the goals of the health workers.
In a country where official statistics are difficult to obtain, the exact extent of HIV is unknown. Also, because the subject is taboo it can be difficult for the health workers to talk about openly.
In the Anglican Diocese of Sittwe, one health worker described how she persuaded a mother-of-five to have an HIV test – no small feat as the mother had to make a journey of several miles to the nearest hospital. She was found to be HIV-positive and is now on antiretroviral drugs to help combat the disease.
The health worker discovered that HIV was being brought into rural communities by menfolk who had been working in the north in jade mines where sex workers ply their trade.
Another concern of the health workers is the existence in every community of bogus doctors (known as ‘yanku’ doctors). The government has conducted campaigns against these doctors, and communities have complained about ineffective expensive cures and bad advice.
Raising awareness, tackling the stigma that surrounds HIV and general education in health are all key tasks of the health workers.
This work is going on throughout Myanmar. USPG’s Anthony Mckernan met the health co-ordinator for Yangon Diocese.
He said: "She was impeccably organised. She talked me through a range of charts that illustrated the range of care being offered to people affected by HIV/AIDS, including home visits, antiretroviral treatment and palliative care. All of this work is supported by USPG.
"The church the only organisation providing healthcare in many parts of the country. Mobilising volunteers to minister the love of God through health initiatives is a primary activity in many parishes. It was really inspiring to observe."
• You can support AIDS work in Myanmar – and many other development initiatives set up by Anglican Churches around the world – through USPG’s alternative Life-giving Gifts scheme.
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Mail & Guardian - DA demands answers on Burma ambassador
LIONEL FAULL & MARINA SIMPSON
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - Nov 07 2011 15:21
The Democratic Alliance has called on President Jacob Zuma to send the Burma ambassador to South Africa packing, after a Mail & Guardian investigation raised questions about diplomat Myint Naung's human rights record.
Kenneth Mubu, the DA's shadow minister of international relations and co-operation, said: "In terms of the Vienna Convention, the president has the power to refuse access to members of diplomatic missions should their credentials not stand up to scrutiny. Accordingly, he should now use his powers and revoke Naung's diplomatic accreditation."
"This government needs to stop embracing dictators and human rights abusers and start practising the ubuntu it preaches in its foreign affairs policy," Mubu said.
The M&G investigation cited news reports from Burma's state and exiled media, as well as documentation from rights groups, which suggested that the ambassador is a former brigadier general, who commanded a unit that was responsible for a wave of human rights abuses in Burma's eastern Karen state.
Brigadier General Myint Naung's name has also been linked to a brutal attack on a Buddhist monastery in Rangoon in 2007.
The M&G established that the ambassador's wife has the same name as that of the brigadier general's, and that both men are "crazy about golf". A source from the Burmese community in South Africa described a conversation with the ambassador in which he referred to being "away at shei-dan [the frontline or battle zone]" in his previous life.
The ambassador has still not responded to questions about his past sent by the M&G more than a week ago.
Similar calls
Mubu's call for Zuma to take action echoes similar calls by local and international human right activists.
Last week, political analyst Kiru Naidoo said: "With the decades of well-documented atrocities in Karen state, any risk that South Africa could be harbouring war criminals should be taken seriously.
"If there is even a hint of war crimes, an offending ambassador should be marched out of the country."
Mubu said he would be submitting parliamentary questions this week to both Zuma, and to International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, as to "why Naung was granted access to South Africa, and whether his reported links to human rights violations were investigated at any point".
The department of international relations has so far not responded to the M&G's requests for comment.
The M&G story has generated wide international response. The article has been circulated inside Burma itself, and has been carried by Irrawaddy -- a popular online news magazine run by Burmese exile journalists based in neighbouring Thailand.
An Irrawaddy reader commented that Burma's attempt to transfer power from the military junta to a civilian government is compromised by promoting former military commanders to important posts, both in Burma and overseas.
"If the ambassador designate's past is questionable, so is the so-called civilian government of [President] Thein Sein and their Constitution," commented the reader. "Their Parliament and MPs of both the upper and lower houses are infested with military personnel, retired or otherwise."
South Africa remains a key diplomatic pressure point for Burma, ever since the Mbeki government voted in 2007 against a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning human rights abuses by Burma's military junta.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu described the vote as "a betrayal of our noble past".
* Got a tip-off for us about this story? Email amabhungane@mg.co.za
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Phnom Penh Post - Ancient Burmese stupa restored to original glory
Monday, 07 November 2011 12:00
Michael Sloan
A crumbling stone stupa atop a remote mountain in Pailin province may hold the key to determining the origins of a Burmese ethnic group that once dominated Cambodia’s gem trade, according to Pyonne Maung Maung, who is heading up efforts to restore the monument.
Erected more than 100 years ago, the Aung Sula Mani stupa is believed to have once contained a tooth belonging to Buddha.
It’s the only remaining trace of Pailin’s once-thriving Burmese community, known locally as Kola, who transformed the town into centre of arts and literature in the 19th century.
Ten months and US$100,000 worth of painstaking restorat-ion work by Pyonne, chairman of the Burmese IT company SeaNet Technologies, will pay off on Thursday as the stupa re-opens.
He hopes the resulting publicity will encourage descendants of the Kola community to come forward.
“We still don’t really know who they were. But they were not just a small group of people from Myanmar who crossed the border into Cambodia, built the stupa and left. The people were living here for over 100 years as one of the ethnic groups of Cambodia,” he says.
“The name ‘Kola’ has no meaning for Burmese people and doesn’t make any sense in Khmer. We still don’t even know which Burmese ethnic group they were from.”
Pyonne and several coll-eagues stumbled across the 25-metre stupa, 150 metres above sea level in the foothills of Phnom Yat mountain, in June last year while travelling to the Thai border.
Noticing the distinctly Burmese architectural style, and inscriptions on its surface in Burmese script, the group stopped their car and began asking around about the stupa’s history.
Pyonne told the Post he was amazed to learn about the historical presence of a large Burmese community in the area – a discovery that prompted him to offer to fund the restor-ation of the monument.
“The first objective was just to restore it, as it’s an old monument related to the people of Myanmar, and as a link between the two countries,” he says.
“But then later on, after doing more research, I was fascinated by the historical background, how the people settled here a long time ago, found some gems, decided to stay here, built a community with a lot of intelligent people – and then disappeared. They all disappeared.”
Pyonne told the Post his team had been able to piece together bits and pieces of the stupa’s history from local records and folklore, including its name, Aung Sula Mani, which roughly translated means “successful heavenly stupa”.
“Aung is definitely Burm-ese, but Sula Mani comes from Sanskrit.
“This is not a Cambodian stupa that was used as a tomb. In Myanmar, a stupa is a temple that is supposed to contain relics of Buddha – in this case, a tooth that has since vanished.”
According to Pyonne, Aung Sula Mani was erected in 1890 as a place of worship for the hundreds of Burmese prospectors who came flooding into Pailin, then under Thai control, following the discovery of gems in the area 20 years earlier.
“People from Myanmar came freely to do trading and search for gems, and after the 1870s they began to form the small gem-mining town of Pailin,” he says.
“The Kola were big in the gem industry. They started to get wealthier and wealthier and, especially after the French took over Indochina, they started sending their sons to study in France.”
The influx of wealth into Pailin saw the town grow into a regional centre of around 5000 people Pyonne says, and it quickly gained a reputation as a centre of learning and the arts.
“Because of the level of education, Pailin produced a lot of books and literature that were very famous. For example, there are surviving novels and poetry from Pailin, and evidence that these books were well known among Cambodians at the time,” he says.
The Burmese presence in Palin persisted until the 1970s, when the community found itself targeted for eradication by the Khmer Rouge.
Waves of migrants to the area following the surrender of the last Khmer Rouge guerrillas in 1996 have completely changed the character of Pailin, and now the only remaining trace of Burmese influence is the hill-top stupa.
After approaching Pailin’s governor and the Ministry of Culture last year, Pyonne and a team of Burmese engineers and local labourers were granted permission to begin restoring Aung Sula Mani in December.
After erecting lattices around the stupa’s spire, the team set to work chiselling out the crumbling cement between each stone block and mending the gaping cracks on its surface.
Structural work on the stupa will finish on Thursday Pyonne says. The occasion will be marked by a visit to the site by Burmese government officials including Energy Minister U Than Htay.
Aung Sula Mani will be off-icially inaugurated next March during Cambodia’s National Cultural Day, which is scheduled to be held in Pailin in 2012.
For his part, Pyonne told the Post that restoring the stupa was just the beginning, and he plans to erect a museum next door, pending approval from the government.
“I’m proposing to have a kind of museum on the hilltop as a place for people to come and learn about the Burmese influence in Cambodia and help solve the mystery of who these people were, and whether there are any of their descendants left.”
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Calcutta News.Net - India, Myanmar must conclude banking cooperation deal: CII
Monday 7th November, 2011 (IANS)
India and Myanmar should conclude an agreement on cooperation in banking and financial services to boost flow of two-way investment and trade, industry lobby Confederation of Indian Industry CII said.
'Myanmar represents a bridge between India, ASEAN and East Asia through India's northeastern states and offers huge investment scope to Indian companies,' Sanjay Kirloskar, chairman of CII Asean regional committee, said in a report Monday.
Kirloskar, who is also chairman and managing director of Kirloskar Brothers, said Indian firms see good business opportunities in Myanmar's energy, forestry and mineral sectors.
In the report, CII has recommended that border trade and investment facilitation as well as cooperation in services and technology transfer must be addressed for greater economic linkages with between the two countries.
'The two countries should conclude an agreement on cooperation in banking and financial services to enable greater private sector engagement,' it said.
With a view to boost bilateral trade and investment, CII in association with the commerce and industry ministry and Indian embassy in Myanmar is organising a four-day trade show in Yangon beginning Monday.
A high-level delegation of 30 chief executive officers led by Kirloskar is participating in the event.
Bilateral trade between India and Myanmar has increased from nearly $500 million in 2004 to $1.3 billion in 2010.
India's exports to Myanmar stand at $334.4 million and imports at $1 billion.
However, the report said informal border trade between the two countries exceeds formal border trade by several times.
India imports agricultural products especially vegetables and wood from Myanmar while exporting pharmaceuticals, iron, steel, electrical machinery and equipments.
The CII said there was huge scope of collaboration between the two countries in the areas of agro-tech and forest-based products, metals, oil and gas exploration, infrastructure and communications, IT training, pharmaceuticals and engineering goods.
'Availability of financial services will be critical for it,' it said. The two countries have already started negotiation for an agreement on cooperation in banking and financial services.
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Calcutta News.Net - Six Myanmarese held in Tripura, sent to jail
Monday 7th November, 2011 (IANS)
Six Myanmar nationals arrested for illegally entering Tripura from Bangladesh were Monday sent to jail for 14 days, police here said.
There were three women among those arrested, all between the ages of 55 and 60. They told police after their arrest in western Tripura Sunday night that they had crossed over in search of jobs and to see the Buddhist sites in northeast India.
'Acting on intelligence information, Tripura police arrested the Myanmarese from a motorstand in western Tripura Sunday night. On Monday, the detainees were presented before a local court, which sent them to 14 days' jail custody,' a police official told reporters.
After the 14 days in jail, they would be pushed back to Bangladesh.
'In search of jobs and to visit the Buddhist sites, they illegally crossed over to western Tripura through the unfenced Sonamura border from Bangladesh and attempted to leave for elsewhere in India via Guwahati,' the official said, quoting those arrested.
They told police officials that authorities in Myanmar were indifferent to the plight of the people living in the hilly areas bordering India and Bangladesh. 'Intermittently, the Myanmarese Army have committed atrocities on a section of nationals, especially Rohingya Muslim communities,' the official said after speaking to the Myanmarese nationals.
Alleging starvation and torture, they said they had fled from Myanmar to northeastern Bangladesh and then come to India. They were not allowed to travel from one place to another within the country without permission from the army and could not even get married without a nod from authorities.
Over 50,000 Myanmarese have been living in different parts of neighbouring Mizoram, bordering Myanmar and Bangladesh.
A Mizoram home department official said: 'With the approval of the union home ministry, the state government has given temporary stay permits to these Myanmarese, who work in jewellery shops, vehicular service centres, shops, restaurants and cloth factories and at construction sites.'
Since the mid-1990s, over 225,000 Myanmar nationals have been sheltering in the Teknaf region in Cox's Bazar district of southeastern Bangladesh.
India's four northeastern states of Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh share a 1,643 km unfenced border with Myanmar.
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Feature: Chinese Buddha sacred tooth relic receives first day of public obeisance in Myanmar
English.news.cn 2011-11-07 22:41:08
By Zhang Yunfei
NAY PYI TAW, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Uppatasanti Pagoda, located in the heart of Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar's new capital, was emitting golden rays under sun Monday, the 7th of November 2011.
The golden pagoda appeared more glorious than before in the eyes of Myanmar Buddhist followers as the genuine Buddha ( Sakyamuni) sacred tooth relic of Beijing Lingguang Temple, which stands the paramount sacred object in their eyes, received the first day of public obeisance after it was conveyed to Myanmar on Sunday.
Buddhist pilgrims from across the Nay Pyi Taw region came to the Uppatasanti Pagoda early in the morning and entered the platform of the cave of the pagoda batch by batch in order after normal security check.
Among the pilgrims were old people of over 80 years of age, babies held by their parents, local inhabitants in Nay Pyi Taw, people traveling from far-flung areas and disable people with stick or on rolling chair.
The group of pilgrims, young and old in different faces, all came with their common faith -- Buddhism and paid deep homage to the tooth relic constituting an endless wave of pilgrims. Some left after worship, while some still wanted to remain there for more homage and were unwilling to leave the scene and some were filled with delight with their face.
A work staff of a religious organization at the scene told Xinhua that the conveyance to Myanmar of the Buddha sacred tooth relic from China is not only a major religious event but also a major daily event of Myanmar, saying that it is not an easy matter for ordinary Buddhist believers to go to remote Beijing to pay the homage.
He felt that it was fortunate for them (Buddhist disciples) to have this opportunity to do so in Myanmar now.
U Pho Hyar, an 87-year-old man taken care by his family members, traveled for more than two hours from a townhsip in Mandalay region for paying the homage. The old man, with good consciousness and facing our camera, burst into tear before he could open his mouth and say a few words, continuously praying for well-being of the people.
On the same day, Myanmar Minister of Religious Affairs U Myint Maung in an interview with Xinhua after meeting with the Chinese Buddhist delegation, led by Wang Zuoan, head of the State Administration of Religious Affairs of China, thanked the Chinese government and the people for the conveyance of the Buddha sacred tooth relic, expressing belief that through the event, the friendship between the two countries and the two peoples will be greatly enhanced.
A participant of the event said the day (Nov. 6) can be described as an auspicious day as far as massive Myanmar Buddhists are concerned.
He added that it is the fourth time for the Buddha sacred tooth relic of China to have been conveyed to Myanmar for public obeisance. The event is undoubtedly a major event for the Buddhist circle and is bound to bring auspiciousness and harmony to the peoples of the two countries and would further consolidate and develop the two countries' friendship, opening a new page for bilateral cultural exchange.
Carried by a special plane of Air China and escorted by a team, led by led by Master Chuanyin, President of the Buddhist Association of China, the sacred tooth relic arrived at Nay Pyi Taw international airport on Sunday afternoon and was then conveyed by decorated float to Nay Pyi Taw's Uppatasanti Pagoda where a grand consecration ceremony was held to keep the relic for paying homage, attended by both President U Thein Sein and two vice presidents U Tin Aung Myint Oo and Dr. Sai Mauk Kham as well as about 6,000 Buddhist followers.
The Chinese tooth relic will be kept in Myanmar for a total of 48 days for public obeisance from Nov. 6 to Dec. 24 covering three major cities -- Nay Pyi Taw, Yangon and Mandalay.
At the invitation of successive Myanmar governments, the Chinese Buddha sacred tooth relic had been conveyed to Myanmar three times with the first time in 1955 to Yangon for nine months (Oct. 15, 1955 to June 6, 1956), the second in 1994 to Yangon and Mandalay for 45 days (April 20 to June 5) and the third in 1996 to Yangon and Mandalay for 90 days (Dec. 5, 1996 to March 5, 1997) .
Of Myanmar's 60 million's population, over 80 percent believe in Buddhism, deeply influencing its politics, society and culture.
Myanmar people believe in Theravada Buddhism (Little Vehicle) which possesses a glorious Buddhist culture. The country has about 500,000 monks and nuns with pagodas and temples scattered across its land and enjoying a grand title of "Land of Pagodas"
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Myanmar vice president meets Chinese Buddhist delegation
English.news.cn 2011-11-06 23:02:41
NAY PYI TAW, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar Vice President Dr. Sai Mauk Kham met with visiting Chinese Buddhist delegation, led by Wang Zuoan, in Nay Pyi Taw Sunday after the arrival of the Chinese Buddha sacred tooth relic in the country for a 48-day public obeisance.
Wang is Director of the State Administration of Religious Affairs of China.
Vice president Sai also met the Buddha sacred tooth relic escort team separately, led by Master Chuanyin, President of the Buddhist Association of China.
Sai said the conveyance of the Buddha sacred tooth relic from China represents a major event of Buddhist culture exchanges between Myanmar and China, adding that the event contributes to the enhancement of friendship between the two countries and the two peoples.
He thanked China for offering the opportunity of conveyance of the sacred Buddha tooth relic to Myanmar.
A grand welcoming ceremony was held at the Nay Pyi Taw International Airport on Sunday afternoon to greet the arriving tooth relic, attended by Vice-President Dr. Sai Mauk Kham
and other high government officials, representatives of Buddhist circle and followers totalling about 2,000.
The sacred tooth relic was then conveyed by decorated float and a white elephant to Nay Pyi Taw's Uppatasanti Pagoda where another grand ceremony to keep the relic for paying homage took place, attended by both President U Thein Sein and vice presidents U Tin Aung Myint Oo and Dr. Sai Mauk Kham as well as about 6,000 Buddhist followers.
It is the fourth time that the Chinese Buddha sacred tooth relic was brought to the country for obeisance 15 years after the last time.
The Chinese Buddha sacred tooth relic will be kept in Myanmar for a total of 48 days for public obeisance from Nov. 6 to Dec. 24 covering three major cities -- Nay Pyi Taw, Yangon and Mandalay.
At the invitation of successive Myanmar governments, the Chinese Buddha sacred tooth relic had been conveyed to Myanmar three times in 1955-56, 1994 and 1996-97 respectively.
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eTravelBlackboard - Asia Edition: Exo Foundation Officially Opens New Village Library in Myanmar
Monday, 7 November 2011
Exo Foundation has now officially opened its village library in Muang Shwe Lay, Myanmar. Exo Foundation is a charity based in Thailand that has been established as a supplementary branch of Exotissimo Travel to support charitable initiatives in the region, working independently to operate and implement the company’s responsible tourism efforts.
The village library in Muang Shwe Lay has now been officially opened at a recent ceremony, after Exo Foundation offered financial support for the establishment and running of the project. The library has been a huge success, proving extremely popular amongst villagers whom show great appreciation for the facilities provided.
Since its soft opening in July 2011, nearly 200 new membership cards have been purchased providing additional revenue that will be important for future investment and its long term success. The 100 items every day that are currently being checked out are testament to its popularity.
Showing their commitment to the project, Exo Foundation has set a five year plan in place for fully supporting the library including covering all overheads such as salaries, on-going training, electricity, cleaning and the purchase of new books. During this period Exo Foundation will be working with the villagers towards developing alternative income streams in Muang Shwe Lay to make the project self-sustainable.
Product & Adventure Manager for Myanmar, Anne Cruickshanks, said “The response from villagers since its recent opening has been overwhelming. I don’t think anybody expected it to be quite so popular. Local people are very appreciative of the library and there is a strong desire for even more publications with novels being the priority as they prove most popular. With the help of Exo Foundation and the turnover generated by the library itself, we are very positive about its future and potential to provide further education in the community.”
In attendance at the opening ceremony was the Head of the Kyauk Ka Lart village group, an Inspector from the Information & Public Relations Township Department, local school teachers and the Head of the Village. At the end, two boxes of books and some chairs were presented to the library on behalf of Exo Foundation. Plans are now being made to increase the current size of the library to accommodate reading areas and further book shelves, and possibly even a classroom added. Exo Foundation will help guide and plan these developments with the villagers and staff at the library over the coming year.
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China Daily - A town that gambled on a change
Updated: 2011-11-07 07:50
By Zhang Yan, Li Yao and Hu Yinan (China Daily)
Ruili, on the Myanmar border, is now a shining example of clean commerce, Zhang Yan, Li Yao and Hu Yinan report from Yunnan.
An estimated 10 million people annually cross the Myanmar border at Ruili, a town in China's southwestern Yunnan province. Many belong to the Dai and Jingpo ethnic groups. Their communities straddle the border and, until recently, they crossed it without hindrance.
But as border trade prospered in the absence of concrete regulations, so did gambling, prostitution and trafficking, both in people and drugs. About 75 percent of China's first HIV/AIDS cases were found in Ruili in 1989, three years before border trade even officially began.
In 1999, Time magazine, citing the casinos, massage parlors and beauty salons (a popular cover for prostitution), called it "the only real nighttown in the People's Republic of China".
Those days are long gone. Authorities on both sides of the border declared war on gambling and organized crime in 2005 following a series of kidnappings, for ransom, of Chinese nationals by casino owners in Myanmar.
Casinos in neighboring Kachin state were shut, and their water and power supplies cut off and road access blocked. The popular one-day travel permits for Chinese tourists to these areas were suspended. Travel agencies were banned from taking tourists there for gambling.
The number of officers patrolling the 4.2-kilometer border in Ruili at any given time was doubled from a mere dozen. The entire inspection station employs more than 200 people, although most of them still work in the office. And for those who do patrol, they no longer have to do so on foot, as the station is now equipped with cars and closed-circuit television.
A larger, multilateral antigambling initiative cut the number of casinos along China's borders with Myanmar, Russia, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Vietnam. Where 149 casinos operated in 2005, there were 28 by early 2007, figures from the Ministry of Public Security showed.
In February, the Lao government said it would not allow any more casinos to be built. Its four existing casinos attract many gamblers from China, the Xinhua News Agency said.
Chinese bettors
Ruili is relatively stable today, but the sheer complexity of the region and mounting pressures by its increasingly violent and confrontational drug traffickers and terrorists should not be underestimated, said He Jialin, head of Ruili's frontier inspection station.
As with all border towns, Ruili presents challenges for local officials. Gambling is illegal in China and now in Kachin, too, but it is still in demand. China loses about $94 billion a year to other countries through illegal betting - via bookies and the Internet, for example - according to the China Center for Lottery Studies at Peking University.
Border casinos from the country's northeast to its southwest, meanwhile, are mostly Chinese-owned and cater specifically to Chinese. If their operations are confined to territory outside China, enforcement options are limited for China's border patrol or its army, which is now responsible for defense affairs of the frontier inspection station in Ruili.
The frontier station itself has no law enforcement power, even within Ruili, and is therefore not entitled to penalize law offenders, said Jin Wanglu, head of the station's political department. If they found any people breaking the law they would hand them to the local public security bureau.
'Getting much better'
With clear regulations in place, cleaner streets, improved amenities and persistent efforts to combat crime, Ruili appears to have returned to order. Corrupt officials who squandered vast sums of public money in border casinos here, and the ones who operated them, have been imprisoned.
Kang Zhenglong, an official with the Ruili branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, was at the core of China's biggest online gambling bust and was sentenced in 2008 to 19 months in prison. As part of a cross-border gambling ring that profited $31 million in seven months, Kang helped open several hundred bank accounts for money laundering.
With people like Kang out of the way, Ruili has worked hard to shake its reputation. A joint inspection force of patrol officers - these are armed paramilitary forces but are neither army nor police - plus local police and volunteer residents has been set up in Ruili to maintain order and make timely reports about thefts, robberies and street fights. In addition, the Ruili border police now meet regularly with their Myanmar counterparts on intelligence, border management, and repatriation of cross-border suspects.
A local jewelry trader, who identified himself only as Li, said things are "getting much better" around the border.
"The local government has created a sound environment and favorable conditions for us to do business. And as border trade booms, more and more people from Myanmar are coming over to do business here, where we live in harmony and engage in fair competition," he said.
The value of imports and exports in Ruili was $1.3 billion last year, up from $157 million in 2000, official figures show. In April 2010, the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planner, identified Ruili as one of the country's four key pilot border sites of opening-up. The others are Dongxing of Guangxi, Kashgar of Xinjiang, and Manzhouli of Inner Mongolia.
Coming and going
Residents at the border have never been strangers to moving back and forth for work, trade, marriage or family visits. Yang Lan, 42, a villager from Myanmar, has no relatives on the Chinese side but nonetheless crosses the border daily. She shops, does day labor and makes occasional visits to rural clinics in Ruili, which offer free medical checkups for all.
For Yang, the 40 or so yuan ($6) daily pay she receives for construction work - roughly half of what her Chinese peers receive - is sufficient to help her support the family.
"I feel safe and comfortable in Ruili. My husband cultivates maize and rice back home, and I do what I can to help support our big family," said Yang, a mother of six.
Crossing the border isn't headache-free, however, for those who make a living doing border business. Stricter crossing lineups at Ruili's three checkpoints with Myanmar are time-consuming and hardly effective.
Aung Aung Kyaw, 22, lives in Myanmar's Muse town directly opposite Ruili, and crosses the border every other day as he prepares to open a jewelry store on the Chinese side. He endorses efforts to strengthen management at the Chinese border, but says it takes too long for people to obtain a border pass each time.
Refuge and risk
Meanwhile, patrol officers in Ruili say that with a small police force fragmented along the border, a limited budget and outdated weapons and telecommunications equipment, the challenges for securing the border are enormous.
On an average day, the Ruili frontier inspection station checks 6,800 vehicles and up to 30,000 people who cross the border, according to figures the station provided. That translates to a minimum daily workload of 150 to 200 vehicles and 1,000 to 1,500 people for each patrol officer.
"Gamblers and casino bosses who are familiar with these officers' patrol shifts would figure out 'blind spots' during the day for illegal entry," said Ji Yutian, a senior officer with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the military wing of Kachin state's ruling Kachin Independence Organization. Aside from his role with the militia, Ji has been doing jewelry business in Ruili for years.
Just across the border from Ruili, the KIA has been fighting the Myanmar government army since the latter scrapped a 17-year-old ceasefire agreement in June and launched military offensives in the region. Weapons have been fired, and both sides have reported casualties.
According to China's foreign ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, some Myanmese living in the border area have entered China seeking temporary refuge since the confrontation in June. China has given them the necessary help, he said at a news conference in July.
The military campaign may have effectively ended gambling in Muse, where casinos reopened after earlier antigambling efforts. According to the Thailand-based Kachin News Group, these casinos were still active in spring 2009. It has not reported on local casino activities since then, but Ji, the KIA officer, said "at least a dozen" are still operating underground.
The influx of Myanmese into China because of military confrontations on the other side of the border poses potential security risks, said He with the Ruili frontier inspection station. He did not give an official estimate on the number of Myanmese who have entered China since summer.
A costly lesson
But the times are peaceful in Ruili, where only stories told by survivors of past tragedies are reminiscent of its more turbulent days. A man who narrowly escaped from a Myanmar casino after 12 days of detainment in July 2003 regrets the impulse to gamble each time he tells his story.
Chen (he gave only his surname) was on a trip to invest in Yunnan, but instead ended up losing all the money he had - $63,000 - overnight in a casino in Myanmar. Determined to win his money back, Chen borrowed from the casino's owners, with interest more than twice that amount, and again lost.
Chen, now doing business in Zhejiang province, still comes to Yunnan and occasionally crosses into Myanmar. But he has quit gambling.
"Nobody will ever get anything out of a casino. I was lucky enough to come out of it in time and realize its harms," said Chen, who now has a 5-year-old son.
In Ruili, Ji, the KIA officer-businessman, said the days when he always had to go out with a knife for self-defense and worry about his family's safety are far behind him.
"I don't have safety concerns when I go out alone in the night anymore. The entire city is now prettier and cleaner, and there are favorable policies for us to do jade business here," he said.
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November 05, 2011 12:28 PM
More Armed Group In Myanmar Signs Peace Agreement With State Government
YANGON, Nov 5 (Bernama) -- One more Kayin ethnic armed group, the Kaloh Htoo Baw armed group, has signed an initial peace agreement with the peace-making group of the Kayin state government to pave way for talks with the central government, Xinhua news agency reported, citing official media report Saturday.
The Kaloh Htoo Baw armed group was former Democratic Kayin Buddhist Army (DKBA).
The five-point peace agreement was endorsed in Hpa-an of the state Thursday by U Saw Mu Shay, deputy leader of the Kaloh Htoo Baw armed group, and Colonel Aung Lwin, Minister of Security and Border Affairs of Kayin State Government and leader of the Kayin State Peace-Making Group, after discussion were held between them, said the New Light of Myanmar.
The five-point peace agreement covers ceasefire in Kayin state as of Nov 6, temporary settlement of Kaloh Htoo Baw armed group at the environs of Sonseemyaing, opening of temporary liaison office of the armed group at Myawaddy for further talks during the ceasefire, bilateral coordination be made in advance for travelling carrying arms beyond the areas except the areas under bilateral agreement during the ceasefire.
It also include holding further talks on peace and stability in the region, development, settlement and livelihood of armed group members and ensuring eternal peace between central-level peace making group and senior level peace making persons of Kaloh Htoo Baw armed group, led by Major-General Saw Lar Pwe at a place and time acceptable to both sides.
Myanmar's central government had initiated the first peace agreements with two armed groups based in Wa Special Region-2 and Mongla Special Region-4 respectively in early October.
The government, in its peace efforts, issued an announcement on Aug 18, calling on anti-government ethnic armed groups to come for peace talks to end internal armed insurrection and build internal peace in the country.
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Asian Tribune - WLB through a short film demand accountability of Burma’s military for war crimes and crimes against humanity
Mon, 2011-11-07 01:38
Bangkok, 07 November, (Asiantribune.com): The Women’s League of Burma (WLB) is today launching a short film highlighting continued systematic and widespread rape against women and girls in Burma, in particular in the areas of renewed military offensives in Kachin, Karen and Shan State after so-called democratic elections.
The film entitled Bringing Justice to Women reiterates WLB’s calls for a UN-led Commission of Inquiry (CoI) leading to the referral of General Than Shwe and his cronies to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The film gives more evidence of the regime’s army for war crimes and crimes against humanity by interviews with survivors of rape, the community members, and women’s groups.
The film restates that Burma military government immediately implements UN Resolutions on Burma, and put an end to sexual violence persistently carried out with impunity by members of the Burma armed forces.
“This film has given more evidence of systematic rape and other forms of sexual crimes with impunity by the State. We would like member states to live up with their commitment to human rights, fundamental freedoms, peace and security, Tin Tin Nyo, General Secretary said.
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Human Rights | 07.11.2011
Deutsche Welle - 'The jury is out' in Myanmar
Elaine Pearson is the deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch. She is based in New York and spoke to the Deutsche Welle from Jakarta.
Deutsche Welle: Positive changes have taken place in Myanmar since President Thein Sein took office in May of this year. The rhetoric of the government has changed too, as Human Rights Watch remarks in its press release.
Elaine Pearson: Now this is the government that actually talks about human rights; it thinks about the need to address economic, social and cultural rights. So, at least in terms of the public statements that are being made, this is a positive step. We've also seen media restrictions relax somewhat. Aung San Suu Kyi, about whom previously the censors had not really allowed any reporting, now there are press articles in which she is quoted...We've also seen a few bills that have been passed by the parliament: one on labor organizing, basically giving unions the right to form independent trade unions and the right to strike. Secondly, amendments to the political party registration law, which is quite important. There were certain restrictions which were put into place last year that basically made it very difficult for the NLD (Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy: the ed.) to register, because it said basically that parties cannot have members who are serving prison terms. And obviously there are hundreds of NLD members serving prison terms...
So would you say the situation has improved on the whole?
These are encouraging signs, but what we should remember is that there are still a lot of laws on the books that allow for repression. When we look at the situation, for instance, in the ethnic areas, we are seeing the same old abuses that have been happening for many years: attacks on civilians, summary executions, forced labor. In fact, since the election last year, offensives have increased in Kachin State and in the Karen and Shan States. And we've also seen the continuing use of convict porters, which is about using prisoners as human mine-sweepers to carry equipment through heavily mined areas for the troops.
Things are changing so quickly in Myanmar. What is your prediction regarding the short-term political future of the country?
The jury is out. Everyone will be watching very closely to see how the by-elections go. There are local by-elections happening in November and a real test will be if the NLD now does register in one of the elections - you know, are these elections carried out in a free and fair way? We had a lot of concerns about how the election one year ago was carried out, in a sort of very fraudulent process, with a lot of concerns about advance ballots being used and so on. So I think people want to get a sense of how the political situation will develop by seeing how the next round of by-elections progresses.
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The Irrawaddy - When Unarmed Women Are in the Hands of Armed Men
By SAW YAN NAING Monday, November 7, 2011
“I was terrified. I kept screaming, and then he threatened to punch my baby through my stomach if I didn't stop,” said a pregnant woman from Kachin State, describing her rape at the hands of a Burmese government soldier.
“I was so afraid. All I could do was cry while he brutally raped me,” she said, sobbing.
The woman was speaking to women's rights researchers who had traveled to war-torn Kachin State to produce a documentary about sexual violence perpetrated against women in the conflict zone. She was just one of 18 women known to have been raped by Burmese soldiers in the state, where the Burmese army is mounting a major offensive against the
Kachin Independence Army.
The documentary, produced by the Thailand-based Women's League of Burma (WLB) and titled “Bringing Justice to Women,” makes harrowing viewing.
“If possible, I want legal action taken against the military government in Burma,” said the woman, not looking very hopeful that that would ever happen.
Kachin State is not the only place in Burma where ethnic women are targets of sexual violence. In neighboring Shan State, rights activists reported that four ethnic Shan women, aged between 12 and 50 years old—including one women who was nine months' pregnant—were raped by soldiers in July.
The film highlights the ongoing systematic use of rape as a weapon against ethnic minorities in areas of renewed military conflict in Kachin, Karen and Shan states, one year after Burma held its first election in more than two decades.
At a time when Naypyidaw is stepping up its efforts to win international legitimacy, the film, using interviews with rape survivors, community members and women’s rights groups, provides compelling evidence that war crimes and crimes against humanity by the government's army continue unabated under the new military-backed “civilian” regime.
Moon Nay Li, a spokeswoman for the Thailand-based Kachin Women's Association Thailand (KWAT), told The Irrawaddy, “In the war zone, women are most vulnerable and their lives and safety are at risk. Some are raped then killed by the government army.”
“The situation is getting worse instead of better, especially in ethnic areas, after the general election in 2010,” she added.
Civilians routinely become victims of forced labor, torture, rape and murder in Burma's conflict zones. The fact that such abuses have not stopped despite the supposed transition to democratic rule means that it is too early to be optimistic about recent political developments in Burma, according to Moon Nay Li.
With no signs of improvement in the army's human rights record, the WLB has renewed calls for a UN-led Commission of Inquiry (CoI) leading to the referral of Than Shwe, the chief of the ex-military regime, and other former leading generals to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
One reason the army continues to commit rampant human rights abuses is that for decades it has acted with impunity. In fact, Burma's 2008 Constitution guarantees the country's military leaders immunity from prosecution. Under Articles 443 and 445 of Chapter XIV of the Constitution, members of the current regime cannot be held accountable for their wrongdoings in the past.
Article 443 states that “the preparatory work done by the [regime] before this Constitution comes into operation, to bring the Constitution into operation, shall be deemed to have been carried out in accord with this Constitution.”
“No proceeding shall be instituted against the [ruling military council] or any member thereof or any member of the Government, in respect to any act done in the execution of their respective duties,” according to Article 445.
According to Moon Nay Li, the 2008 Constitution, which was written by handpicked representatives of Burma's various social and ethnic groups, serves only to protect those who have committed crimes in ethnic regions, and offers no security to ordinary citizens.
The WLB's documentary therefore argues that the only way to achieve justice in Burma is by calling on the government to implement the terms of UN resolutions demanding an end to acts of sexual violence carried out with impunity by members of the Burmese armed forces.
The US special envoy to Burma, Derek Mitchell, who made his third visit to the country in less than two months last week, has also called for an end to rights abuses in ethnic areas.
Speaking to reporters, he said, “We heard about the continuing conflict in ethnic areas, a continuation of decades of conflict in which many thousands of non-combatants have been the victims, and where serious abuses, including against women and children, continue.”
“We continue to be greatly concerned about these issues and we have raised these concerns with the government officials with whom we met,” said Mitchell.
Giving a live speech to a conference in Canada on May 23-25 this year, pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said, “Rape is used in my country as a weapon against those who only want to live in peace, especially in areas of the ethnic nationalities. It is used as a weapon by armed forces to intimidate the ethnic nationalities and divide our country.”
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The Irrawaddy - Irony of Burma's Flawed Election
By BA KAUNG Monday, November 7, 2011
Exactly one year ago on Monday, Burma held its first parliamentary elections in two decades which were marred by widespread vote rigging and boycotted by opposition groups led by Aung San Suu Kyi—then under house arrest.
How has this rigged election shaped Burma 12 months on? Did this usher in the recent tentative political and economic reforms and bring forth the thaw in hostility between the quasi-civilian government and critics including Suu Kyi and the US-led Western bloc?
These reforms are not insignificant because they include a relaxation on media censorship and espouse greater tolerance for the opposition. There have been two anti-government protests in the country since new President Thein Sein came into power in March, but the Burmese authorities did not violently crackdown on demonstrations nor arrest those involved—a radically different response from the previous military junta.
In addition, the government's decision to revise its foreign exchange rate regime and redraft banking and foreign investment rules with the input of academics also reveals its desire to liberalize the country's economy and help the impoverished general public to some extent.
Given the political deadlock and economic woes suffered over decades of military dictatorship since the first army coup in 1962, most people naturally welcome these reform steps. Of course, the new government is led by ex-army leaders of the state-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) which unsurprisingly won more than 80 percent of parliamentary seats in last year's election.
Even the US Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner, who visited the country last week, remarked that the beginning of a transition is underway in Burma.
But none of these reforms were a direct consequence of the November elections. Rather, they were careful steps taken to successfully establish “the discipline-flourishing multi-party democracy” under a Constitution that enshrines a continued powerful role for the military in Burmese politics.
Up until now, little has been done to address the core issues that originally led Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) and other opposition groups to boycott the elections and the Constitution.
Prior to the vote, NLD officials called for a review of the controversial Constitution, the unconditional release of all political prisoners and a political dialogue between the government and opposition groups including Suu Kyi.
More than 1,000 political prisoners remain in jail including influential dissidents. There has not been any sort of Constitutional review that would reduce the role of the army in the country's executive branch or Parliament.
The 11-member National Defense and Security Council—established by the Constitution and formed with six military retirees including Thein Sein plus five active military personnel—makes final decisions for Burma.
The USDP and military-dominated Parliament attempts to dispel criticisms that its role is little more than a rubber-stamp. Even though the bills proposed by opposition MPs rarely get passed in the Parliament, it was the home minister, a military official, who proposed the freedom of assembly bill. And even military MPs, appointed by the army to a quarter of parliamentary seats, joined calls for an amnesty for political prisoners.
In this context, the election merely served as a chapter for the then-ruling military junta and its offshoot party, the USDP, to legitimize the new system. But the suspension of the unpopular Chinese-backed hydropower dam project in Kachin State and a private meeting between Thein Sein and Suu Kyi are welcome moves that have considerably improved public perception towards the government.
It is indeed ironic that the free elections held in 1990 which Suu Kyi won by a landslide achieved virtually no benefits for the Burmese people, while last November's flawed ballot has at least heralded some positive reform.
However, steps towards a concrete political transition are yet to be taken. Until that happen, the United States may not lift its punitive economic sanctions against Burma—one of the clearest reciprocal benefits which the Burmese government expects from its reform package.
Even so, optimism reigns in Burma today. Reflecting that overall mood, veteran political commentator Maung Wuntha said on Monday, “We have seen good changes for the country within the past year. But we say this by looking at the outcome of these steps, instead of judging them by the causes behind.”
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Professionals urge authorities to reinstate their licenses
Monday, 07 November 2011 18:17 Mit Thet
Rangoon (Mizzima) – Pro-democracy activists whose professional licenses have been revoked for their political activities and students who have been dismissed from school should have their licenses reinstated and students should be allowed to continue their studies, activists said on Saturday.
The lawyers, doctors and students organized a press conference in Rangoon on Saturday to publicize their plight. They have submitted an appeal to President Thein Sein and the Myanmar Human Rights Commission.
“If it doesn’t work, we will submit an appeal to the International Human Rights Commission,” lawyer Aung Thein, whose license was revoked, told Mizzima. Twenty-two lawyers, seven doctors and seven students signed the petition sent to the president.
“It is like punishing a person twice,” said Aung Thein. “We were imprisoned and when we were released lawyers and doctors cannot do their work and students have been dismissed from school. In this era, that should not happen. Will the new government continue the former government’s way regarding these actions? The new government should resolve it,” Aung Thein said.
Aung Thein was sentenced to four years in prison under the former junta for alleged contempt of court while defending his clients. He was released from prison on March 6, 2009.
Htay, another lawyer whose license was revoked, said that some clauses of the 2008 Constitution should be amended if the government really wants national reconciliation. Union Attroney-General Dr. Tun Shin has said that the Union Supreme Court and the Bar Council are cooperating to decide the issue.
Meanwhile, the National League for Democracy (NLD) said it would submit appeals to the Union Supreme Court for professionals, students and artists who have been forbidden from performing their art.
On October 23, NLD General-Secretary Aung San Suu Kyi met with Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Burma and it was one of the issues discussed.
Ye Min Oo, a student who has been dismissed from school, said, “I would like to tell the president to reconsider my case. I’m not allowed to attend school because of these unfair laws.”
Dr. Zaw Myint Maung of Mandalay, whose medical license was revoked, said that he filed an appeal to the Myanmar Medical Council without success, and he urged authorities to review the issue fairly.
Zaw Myint Maung’s license was revoked because he allegedly was involved in trying to form a provisional government after the 1990 general elections. He served 18 years in prison.
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Japanese used cars arrive in Burma: part of car-swap deal
Monday, 07 November 2011 19:14 Mizzima News
Rangoon (Mizzima) – The Panamanian-flagged container ship Ocean Blue carrying 110 used cars imported from Japan docked in Sule Port in Rangoon on Saturday.
The imported cars are the first batch under a program announced on September 19 in which Burmese cars that have been in service for 40 years or more will be swapped for newer used cars.
The Myanmar Port Authority reported that the cars were inspected and unloaded from the ship.
“The owners must take their cars by showing their documents. Only the drivers and the owner or representatives of the owner can enter the port,” a port official told Mizzima.
The eight-story ship carried 2,000 cars. About 1,500 cars were in route to Chittagong, Bangladesh.
Most of the imported used cars are Toyota Mark II. Mitsubishi Pajero and Hilux Surf were also included.
Since 2000, Burmese car import permits have been tightened and prices on the market are artificially high compared to prices in foreign countries. In the Burmese car market, used cars dominate over new cars.
In the swap program, cars made between 1995 and 2002 can be imported. Starting on October 27, the latest car models could be imported, Minister for Commerce Pwint San said earlier during a press conference in Naypyitaw.
Under the swap program, more than 2,000 cars will be imported through December, according to port authorities.
Starting on Tuesday, 8,331 cars between 30 and 40 years old will be swapped under the program. From January 2012, 36,875 cars between 20 and 30 years will be swapped.
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A bomb destroys a cargo boat on the Salween River
Monday, 07 November 2011 21:38 Tun Tun
New Delhi (Mizzima) – A cargo riverboat was damaged by a bomb blast in the Salween riverside village of Measalat in Hphapun District in Karen State on Sunday, according to residents.
The bomb blast hit the ship about 9:30 a.m. It was broken into two parts by the blast and two other cargo boats were also destroyed.
There were no reported injuries.
The ship is owned by a Thai citizen and registered in Burma to provide transportation services, according to residents.
“The ship can carry at least 80 buffaloes or cows. I think it was a time bomb. Bomb splinters and five cell batteries were found,” a resident told Mizzima. “The bomb was made with gunpowder and was very powerful.”
The underground militant group All Burma Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF) based in Mae Hong Son Province in Thailand, which is located near the blast site, confirmed that a bomb blast took place, but said it had no other details.
“There was a big boat in a village on the Salween River. The boat was bombed or mined. That’s all I know,” said Win Tint Han, an ABSDF official.
Residents said the boat may have been bombed because it had transported government troops. Government security forces are guarding the boat.
“The government troops wanted to move from Darkwin to Thawlayhta. The troops asked for help from the ship owner,” a resident said. The Maesalat Port is also known as Thawlayhta Port.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Major Saw Phaw Do, a commanding officer from Brigade No. 7 of the Karen National Union (KNU) said he did not know which group was responsible for the blast.
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DVB News - Private banks to reintroduce ATMs
By THUREIN SOE
Published: 7 November 2011
As Burma’s economists go to work on rejuvenating the country’s moribund banking sector, residents of Rangoon may soon benefit from the reintroduction of automatic teller machines (ATMs) and banking cards.
Kanbawza Bank is one of a number of banks given permission to install ATMs, a luxury only afforded by private enterprises. An official there told DVB on condition of anonymity that machines were already being installed at the headquarters in the former capital’s Kamaryut township, and at three other branches.
“We are going to provide ATM services free of charge for now as it’s only been approved in Rangoon so far,” he said.
The scheme, still in its infancy, will be trialled for one year, and Kanbawza will begin with just four machines. The Voice journal said the first one thousand users will get the service free of charge.
“There are more that will arrive by the end of this month and we are planning to install them in essential areas and at our other branches in Rangoon,” he continued, adding that the maximum withdrawal amount would be one million kyat (US$1,170) per day.
First introduced in the mid-1990s, ATMs and banking cards were withdrawn in the banking crisis of 2003. Now 13 private banks have been permitted to use them.
The managing director of Asia Green Development bank, Ye Min Oo, told the Myanmar Times in September that Mandalay and the capital, Naypyidaw, would also see a reintroduction of machines.
The announcement is the latest in a flurry of measures aimed at overhauling Burma’s beleaguered economy, and follows reports late last month that the government had committed to developing a viable stock exchange by 2015.
A team from the IMF was in the country last week to advise the government on how to reform the country’s multiple exchange rates, seen as one of the prime stumbling blocks for more general reform of the economy.
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DVB News - Burma is changing, but not towards a simple state of freedom
By JOSEPH ALLCHIN
Published: 7 November 2011
Denial is not just a river in Egypt, Mark Twain once famously quipped. Indeed it seems it is a river in the memories of many international observers now swooning blindly over President Thein Sein and his reform agenda.
Things are changing: the sun sets, the world spins, people, even dictators, evolve. The nature of current changes is, however, all too often hugely simplified to analyses that suggest either a clear misunderstanding of this country, or an intentional misrepresentation of its politics.
Now, a year after the country’s elections, in which Burmese have lived under a government they did not choose, the state of power in the country must be scrutinised as an antidote to the cries of progress. One major change has been Burma’s relationship with China. Most would agree with the words of Burmese economist Khing Maung Nyo, who says that Burma“needs new friends”, and that her reliance upon China has had to end.
China’s weight on the country is keenly felt, none more so than by Burma’s generals who also have successfully pursued a neutralist policy since independence. They, according to the US embassy, mistrust their neighbours motives the most. And Burma’s generals need finance and a source of cheap loans. Why this is the case is because of the delicate power balance that exists.
Burma is not poor, but government spending is completely unsustainable for the economic long haul, as it has been since 1962. Nearly a quarter of the budget goes on the military, with no sign that this weighting will change any time soon. “I don’t think spending on health and education will change remarkably,” says Khin Maung Nyo.
“Remember there are really two governments in this country,” adds Win Tin, a political veteran and founding member of the National League for Democracy, noting that the core of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) is believed to be opposed to many of the recent legislative reforms that the president has sought. But in fact there could be three, with the country’s military remaining a powerful force.
The most notable area of reform that the self-proclaimed elected party has fought hard against is agriculture: farmers make up nearly three-quarters of the population, but the USDP was deeply against their inclusion on the Labour Organisation Bill, a move that would have been remarkable were it not for an intervention by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
But in other legislation, such as the Land Act, the USDP had their way in legally subjugating the vast majority of workers. In a country where land confiscation, which amounts to the theft of people’s livelihoods, is a growing problem, the Land Act makes these disputes go not to a court of law, but to a committee. Thus the aiding of impunity before the law for the powerful and the elite, from which strata the USDP hails, continues unabated. As Khin Maung Nyo explains, “we are trying to change agriculture into a business” by taking small holdings and turning them into large commercial agribusinesses. The Land Act that prevents legal issues from arising will aid this.
So if the country doesn’t want to rely on China, it needs to placate the West to fund the dual priorities of the military and to kick start the economy.
Western priorities run fairly juxtaposed with the more upwardly mobile business elite in Burma, many of whom have been schooled in the West and many of whom now brief experts like the International Crisis Group’s Jim Della-Giacoma and other visiting dignitaries in air-conditioned hotels as far removed from the population as possible. This elite then desperately wants the trappings of the West – the credit cards, 24-hour electricity, the Western export markets and the international “economic legitimacy”, as Khin Maung Nyo terms it.
The IMF has of course just finished a trip to the country. The reluctance of institutions such as this to engage with Burma is one of the most powerful tools that visitors like US envoy Derek Mitchell have to pressure Thein Sein. The loans that such institutions can provide will be essential: at present the government has put a number of large-scale infrastructure projects on hold, and this as the value of government debts have soared by some 30 percent, despite massively increased tax revenue and foreign investment.
Mitchell will relate to Thein Sein on the basis of easily communicable signs of change, such as political prisoners. In all probability he will have read Della-Giacoma’s assertions that there was a “general amnesty”, which is fiction – the only thing “general” about it was the military rank of the man who ordered it, Thein Sein. In actual fact it was unremarkable.
In the government’s communiqués on the amnesty, it made no reference to any substantial change of tack – instead Thein Sein et al still claim that the 1,700 remaining political prisoners are in jail under existing laws, and refuses to show any contrition towards them or their sentences. Similarly, the government-appointed National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had to refer to political prisoners as “so-called ‘prisoners of conscience’”. The amnesty moreover was acted upon on an auspicious full moon day, indicative of the fact that this was not the opening of “freedom’s gate” as the Financial Times saw it, but a vain attempt to shore up whatever karma is possible for the soul of a Burmese general.
Della-Giacoma also claims in a shameful twist of logic that the amnesty was different in that the military nominees in parliament are now in favour of the prisoner release, thereby “indicating the move is openly backed by the armed forces in a way that previous releases have not been”. But who else has “backed” previous releases? Only the military has locked up political prisoners, and only the military can or has decided to release them, as they have done at intervals for years. Nothing has changed then, which suggests these commentators have a woeful lack of understanding of why there are military men in parliament in the first place – to do the bidding of the institution from which they hail.
Win Tin contends that the president would have gained approval for the amnesty from an 11-member military council of which he is the only “civilian” member, and that this council would not permit the move for all political prisoners. He claims that it is fearful of the “young men”, Win Tin describes inmates such as Min Ko Naing, who can still disrupt to the government’s controlled reorganisation. Councils such as this meanwhile simply will not allow for the cuts in military spending that are required alongside the crackdown on their vast corruptions that would allow the Burmese a fighting chance in terms of social spending. More money then must be sought.
The dynamic that parliament has worked under has caused interest. Primarily it seems there are breaks from the party line, with some government-aligned MPs straying from the traditional conservative bent of the USDP, while most have acted in unison with the particular house they are in. So there is an allegiance to the house of parliament they sit in, whether upper or lower. Both houses are naturally dominated by the USDP, whose ranks are filled with former military personnel and other elites. The upper house has a greater ethnic make up because of the regional weighting, and has reportedly sided more with the president, whilst the lower is more conservative.
The question of what brand of democracy Burma is headed towards must be asked. Thein Sein’s decision to suspend the Myitsone Dam was hail as a positive sign, although it should be seen more as a vital tool with which to make the reciprocal sensation felt once more in politics, and temporarily appease the people – after all, it has only been suspended, and does not necessarily mark a radical break with the country’s rapacious enthusiasm for destructive industry.
It would be impossible to put an appraisal on the year that has been without commentating on the upsurge in violence against two of the largest ethnic groups in Burma, the Kachin and the Shan. It could be that Thein Sein, despite his statements, has no control over this; that the conquests are solely in the hands of the “third government”, the army. Yet those who boast that he has forged peace with groups like the Wa and Mongla are attempting to distract us from the continued violence elsewhere: these two groups are keen business partners of the Thein Sein government, whom various experts have implicated in the country’s narcotics trade. Other “overtures” to the likes of the Kachin provide more evidence of the army’s intentions, given that they have been accompanied by various reports of rape and shelling of civilians.
Of the praise heaped on Thein Sein by key players in the international community, Win Tin provides some sobering afterthought: “Men like this simply do not change overnight”, he says of the man who has a lifetime of service in war and whose tenure in the top job has only heightened conflict.
On the other key area of sanctions, Burma has used the gullible ones out there to help massage the notion that its economic ruin is the fault of the West’s blockade, and not its own feudal system of governance and economics. The ICG followed suit by slating sanctions as “counterproductive, encouraging a siege mentality among its leadership and harming its mostly poor population”. The only thing now breaking this “siege mentality” is a realisation that the government desperately needs what sanctions blocked, finance.
So while Burma is changing, its change is not towards a simple state of “freedom”, but towards greater Western capitalism. This is elite-orientated and engineered, and arguably threatens its sovereignty as much as China does. As Western capital will sweep into a corruptible land with little rule of law, it will become party to the corporate seizures of farmland and squabbles over her mineral-rich hillsides – a corrupt feeding frenzy that remains the envy of Western companies.
Burma has not changed because of the good will of her leaders or their desire to be more democratic. The people on the street are not fooled; they appreciate the suspension of the dam on the “mother river”, the ability to buy posters of their hero Aung San Suu Kyi, but they do not forget. Rather, they still live in fear and know that the constitution that has been implanted on them reinforces the impunity for those above them and clamps a feudal yoke upon their shoulders.
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DVB News - NLD close to deciding on registration
By JOSEPH ALLCHIN
Published: 5 November 2011
An amendment to the electoral law has passed through parliament, with key changes that were suggested by the National League for Democracy (NLD) and that would allow the party to take part in an upcoming by-election.
The party is now waiting for a copy of the new law before its central executive committee will vote on whether the NLD shall re-enter the fray. Key players however remain divided. Aung San Suu Kyi is said to be a proponent, whilst veteran founding member, Win Tin, has expressed ambivalence.
“I don’t think it is really good to go into parliament,” he told DVB.
The key amendments however include the removal of the crucial clause that had said that “all political prisoners must be expelled from the NLD,” explains Win Tin. Further the clause that parties shall “preserve and defend” the 2008 constitution, which would have been impossible for the party to abide by as they have repeatedly voiced their opposition to key elements of the constitution. This was reportedly changed instead to “respect” the constitution.
“It was said that we have to defend the constitution, which we can’t accept, we couldn’t accept a military constitution, so we refused to abide by that point,” says Win Tin.
The key elements of concern were voiced by the party in their 2009 Shwegondaing proclamation states Win Tin, which called for the release of all political prisoners and rewriting the 2008 constitution.
He states that the government’s overtures have not been complete. “All these things are not fulfilled yet, especially this constitution.”
One such area of concern was recognition of the 1990 election. The speaker of the Pyidaungsu Hllutaw, the combined national parliaments, was said to have “recognised” that poll in an interview with a local journal on Wednesday, although the practical implications of this were unclear.
Aung San Suu Kyi meanwhile met Labour Minister Aung Kyi for the fourth time since March on Sunday. Whilst neither party was particularly forthcoming with details of the meeting, the state mouth piece, the New Light of Myanmar, published questions that Suu Kyi answered after the two met.
“NLD’s registration depends on the law. The registration is the issue we can tell only after the law is approved and enacted. When the law is approved, we will hold a meeting. According to the rules and regulations of our party, we can make decision after the meeting,” Suu Kyi was quoted as saying by the New Light of Myanmar.
She told journalists that the party would wait until the electoral law was enacted and also once they had time to review the law in full, as bills passed in parliament are often not made available to the public.
“We can tell when we see the law. We can’t tell now because we have not yet seen the law,” the Nobel Laureate added.
However there will likely be differences of opinion within her own party. Last year’s boycott induced a wholesale split in the party, with a group of prominent members leaving to form the National Democratic Force (NDF). This again split to form the New National Democratic Party, headed by Pyithu Hluttaw MP Thein Nyunt. Party member and youth wing co-ordinator, Yatha, told DVB that he believed the party would rejoin the NLD should it re-register.
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ေတာ္လွန္ေရးသီခ်င္းမ်ား(Politics Song)
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
BURMA RELATED NEWS - NOVEMBER 05-07, 2011
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