Obama offers Myanmar fresh start in relations
By Shaun Tandon | AFP – 3 hrs ago
US President Barack Obama offered Myanmar a new era in relations if it reforms and promised democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi his eternal support in letters hand-delivered by his top diplomat Thursday.
The high-stakes personal intervention in a country long regarded by the West as a pariah state came during a historic visit by Hillary Clinton, the first US secretary of state to set foot in the isolated nation for 50 years.
In a message to President Thein Sein, Obama offered a "new phase" in relations and requested "tangible outcomes" from a political reform effort which Washington has decided to test before deciding its next steps on Myanmar.
The country formerly known as Burma has surprised observers with a series of reformist moves in the past year including releasing Suu Kyi, holding dialogue with the opposition and freeing some political prisoners.
Obama told Thein Sein, a former general, that Washington wanted to "explore how the United States can support and advance your efforts to transition to democracy and promote protection of human rights".
US officials said the message, released by Clinton's aides, aimed to signal that Obama was ready to invest personal prestige in engaging Myanmar.
The letter did not mention the words "Myanmar" or "Burma", thereby bypassing the controversy over the impoverished Southeast Asian state's true name.
The former military junta renamed the country Myanmar in 1989 but the United States still uses Burma, in a practice intended to irk the generals who ceded to a nominally civilian government this year.
In her landmark talks, Clinton won promises of further reforms from Thein Sein and offered cautious incentives to encourage new action, saying more needed to be done before US sanctions could be lifted.
"Any steps that the government takes will be carefully considered and ... will be matched because we want to see political and economic reform take hold," she told reporters in Myanmar's isolated showcase capital Naypyidaw.
Thein Sein, who took charge in March after Myanmar nominally ended decades of military rule, himself hailed a "new chapter in relations" as he met Clinton at his imposing palace decked out with chandeliers and gold-leaf chairs.
Clinton said the United States would open talks with Myanmar to start joint searches for the remains of troops killed in World War II, when the strategically placed country was a major battleground.
She also invited Myanmar to join as an observer the Lower Mekong Initiative, a US programme that offers cooperation on health and the environment in Southeast Asian nations, and voiced support for IMF missions to the country.
"These are incremental steps and we are prepared to go further if reforms maintain momentum. In that spirit, we are discussing what it will take to upgrade diplomatic relations and exchange ambassadors," Clinton told reporters.
The United States has been represented by a lower-ranking diplomat, a charge d'affaires, as a protest since Myanmar's military rulers refused to accept the results of 1990 elections swept by Suu Kyi's forces.
The opposition leader holds sway in Washington -- where Myanmar exile groups keep up a vocal lobbying campaign against the military-backed government -- and any easing of US sanctions on Myanmar would almost certainly need her approval.
In an indication of the high esteem in which Suu Kyi is held in Washington, Clinton was due to meet twice with the democracy champion -- first for dinner Thursday and then for more formal talks on Friday morning.
In his letter to Suu Kyi, Obama signalled there would be no daylight between Washington and her interpretation of political events in Myanmar.
"We stand by you, now and always," Obama wrote, telling his fellow Nobel laureate that he had long admired her "brave and unwavering struggle for democracy".
Suu Kyi's opposition, which boycotted last year's poll, plans to contest by-elections next year that will be a major test of the new political climate.
Obama announced he would send Clinton to test reform efforts in Myanmar two weeks ago during an Asia-Pacific tour, in the most significant US gesture towards the country in many years.
The top US diplomat urged Myanmar to free all political prisoners, estimated by activists to number between 500 and more than 1,600, and pressed the government to end long-running ethnic conflicts.
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As US-Myanmar ties warm, China stands conflicted
By CHARLES HUTZLER, Associated Press – 7 hours ago
BEIJING (AP) — China is a conflicted observer to Hillary Rodham Clinton's trip to Myanmar, caught between worries about U.S. encirclement in Asia and a desire to see its isolated, at times teetering neighbor become more stable.
The discord is evident in Beijing's public pronouncements about the U.S. secretary of state's visit. While the Foreign Ministry expressed support Thursday for Myanmar's outreach to the West, a top Chinese leader called for closer military relations when meeting Myanmar's armed forces commander this week. On state-run television, a commentary appended to footage of Clinton's arrival showed U.S. aircraft carrier groups in the Pacific.
"Beijing understands Myanmar's aspiration to diversify its international engagement and improve relations with the United States. However, Beijing doesn't wish to see those goals achieved at the expense of China," said Sun Yun, an expert on China's foreign relations at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Though estranged for decades when China armed anti-government ethnic groups and supported communist revolution in what was then called Burma, Beijing pivoted in the 1990s to lavish the benefits of trade on Myanmar, just as its military-backed government was sinking deeper into international isolation.
Now as Myanmar's largest economic partner, with $4.4 billion in trade last year and nearly $16 billion in total investment, China has unmatched reach. Its state companies are extracting minerals and timber and investing in dams and pipelines. Chinese food products, medicines and other goods flood Myanmar's markets.
As a result China is both ubiquitous and unpopular. The infrastructure projects have drawn protests from ethnic and environmental groups, which in part led to the new government's recent decision to suspend the $3.6 billion China-funded Myitsone dam. Myanmar companies complain they cannot compete with lower-cost Chinese goods, many of which are smuggled over the border and not taxed. One midsize maker of cakes and cookies has said it might have to shut down.
"The Chinese are surprised by the changes in Burma. They misunderstand our country, our people," said Aung Kyaw Zaw, a former Burmese Communist Party strategist who lives in the Chinese border city of Ruili. "They have good relations with the government, but not with the people of Burma. There's more and more anti-Chinese sentiment among the people and among the army."
Further unnerving to Beijing is that Myanmar's tentative rapprochement with Washington comes amid a push by the Obama administration to strengthen ties with other countries on China's periphery as a hedge against its rising power.
As Myanmar warms to Washington, some Chinese foreign policy experts want renewed backing for the ethnic groups to tweak the Myanmar government and bring it in line, said Sun, the Brookings expert. For decades Beijing ratcheted its support for the groups up and down as leverage with Myanmar.
Though that remains an option, Sun said there's no evidence China is doing so. In recent years, Chinese policy has generally been to cool temperatures on its border with Myanmar.
Beijing-approved peace talks between the government and ethnic rebels have foundered in part over renewed fighting that Myanmar watchers said have displaced thousands, sending them to relief centers along the border.
Such chaos raises the prospect for Beijing that Myanmar could become another North Korea — a client state whose dysfunction could spill across the border and destabilize China. The remedy for that, many experts inside and outside the government argue, is for China to encourage Myanmar to welcome Clinton and improve relations with the West, bringing in trade and investment that will spur growth and stability.
"If it improves relations with the United States, then its international environment will be better, and it can concentrate on economic construction and improving the lives of its people," said Qu Jianwen of Yunnan University, in the Chinese province bordering Myanmar. "Myanmar's internal political difficulties and ethnic disturbances have for too long prevented it from focusing on economic development."
Though better relations with Washington may allow Myanmar to reduce its dependence on China and give it some bargaining power, ultimately, Myanmar experts say, any distancing is limited by geography and by the pools of ready Chinese investment.
On Thursday, China said it will host the headquarters for a multinational security detail with Myanmar, Laos and Thailand to better police shipping on the Mekong River along their borders.
"I think people get confused when they say the Burmese want to move away from China. No no no," said Maung Zarni, a longtime exiled activist who is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics. "The Burmese cannot move away from China, because of geographic location, and the economic penetration as well as the demographic influence of China over Burma. What they want is the best of both worlds."
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Myanmar forms centre of economic love triangle
Dec 1, 2011 11:00 EST
By Wayne Arnold
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
Myanmar has been thrust into the centre of an economic love triangle. The visit of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirms the strategic importance of the former pariah state for the United States, but also for China and India. For would-be investors, the biggest risk may simply be that Myanmar gets too popular, too quickly.
Five decades of virtual isolation haven’t been kind. Myanmar’s citizens live an average 65 years, and a third of them are in poverty. But abundant forests, gas and oil reserves, and a fledgling consumer market of 50 million people provide attractions for investors. So do legacy institutions from British colonial days, which help explain why Myanmar’s GDP grew more than 5 percent a year for the past two years, according to the Asian Development Bank.
International sanctions are the immediate barrier. But Myanmar also has to prove that its military junta is history by making further reforms, releasing political prisoners and easing media restrictions. Letting opposition figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy contest free and fair elections is one thing. Letting its members serve out their terms and contest again will be the real test.
The lack of rule of law will also be a challenge. Foreigners cannot own property or a majority stake in a local business and its currency is pegged at 100 times above the black-market rate. That’s not a deal-breaker, but Myanmar will need transparent investment and commercial laws to offer foreign capitalists adequate protection.
Most worrying is the effect of superpower politics. Myanmar sits between the two most populous nations, India and China, whose economic ascendance is causing visible tension. The United States, meanwhile, has shifted its gaze from the Middle East to Asia, posting 2,500 Marines to Australia. All three have good reasons to get Myanmar on side.
If that means openness and capital come too soon, corruption and inequitable growth could follow. Myanmar needs infrastructure more than it needs exports – it spends only 0.2 percent of GDP on healthcare; even Angola spends 10 times as much. Myanmar will have to manage its suitors cautiously if its charms are to translate into sustainable returns.
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Malaysia's Petronas says bidding for Myanmar oil field
KUALA LUMPUR | Thu Dec 1, 2011 5:00am EST
Dec 1 (Reuters) - Malaysia's state oil firm Petronas has put in a bid for an onshore energy field in Myanmar, Executive Vice President of Exploration and Production Wee Yiaw Hin said on Thursday.
"At the moment in Myanmar we are only offshore and the business has been quite good," Wee told reporters after announcing Petronas' quarterly earnings.
"There has been recently a bid on the onshore block and we are looking at opportunities to go onshore in Myanmar."
Wee said the bidding process will end some time next year. He added that he was not aware of any other Malaysian companies bidding for the same blocks.
Wee was earlier quoted as saying Petronas was deriving good value from operations in Sudan, Myanmar, Turkmenistan and Vietnam and is on the lookout for "new basins and a few value growth areas" in these regions.
Myanmar closed its biggest oil and gas exploration tender in years in August, a few months after it cautiously started political reforms, and the government is now processing bids.
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Flood-affected Myanmar migrants vulnerable to ruthless landlords
01 Dec 2011 17:03
By Thin Lei Win
BANGKOK (AlertNet) – The corridor is dark and dank even in the middle of the day, the concrete floor uneven and dirty. The staircase, just a few steps from stagnant greenish-brown floodwaters, is full of unidentifiable stains and smells.
Impoverished workers from Myanmar cook, eat and sleep in tiny, one-bedroom apartments in this grimy multi-storey building in Samut Sakhon, a province next to the Thai capital Bangkok with a large migrant population.
Families, couples and friends share the apartments – sometimes four in a room – for around 2,000 baht (about $65) a month.
On Thursday, some were fretting about the rent which is due in a few days.
“We haven’t had any income, only costs,” Ko Ko*, a migrant worker who has been in Thailand for seven years, told AlertNet.
Tens of thousands of migrant workers in the area have been out of work since floods forced many factories to close at the start of November.
They get about 300 baht ($9.70) a day working at different factories but much less if there is no overtime. After rent and other living costs, they have little left to save even when they had work.
“We can't even borrow money from each other anymore because nobody has any,” Ko Ko said.
The landlord has been known to threaten people with a gun if they fell behind in their rent, he added.
Many in the building suffered when the landlord cut off their electricity and water for two weeks, citing the floods.
VULNERABILITY DEEPENS
Similar concerns and fears were repeated at the different places AlertNet visited with a mobile team from the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) on Thursday. The team was trying to ensure there are no outbreaks of disease among the Myanmar migrant community.
Many have returned to Myanmar since their factories closed, but many others stayed because they can’t afford the fare home. They are increasingly at their wits’ end.
Aung Zin*, another worker in neighbouring Nakhon Pathom living in similar conditions, said he and his neighbours have not been paid for the two days they’d worked before floods closed down the knitwear factory where he was employed.
“We can’t pay our rent if there’s no work. We haven’t paid our rents for two months. At least the landlord has not asked yet,” he said.
“The government says we are supposed to get a certain percentage of our wages for the month but we hear the factory is not giving that either,” Aung Zin added.
A member of staff from Aung Zin's factory - Lilly Knitwear - told AlertNet they have no plans to lay off any workers and that it would reopen when the water level falls from the current 80cm to 20cm. But he was unaware of any compensation plans.
Stranded for days in their flats located deep inside a small side street which now resembles a long, narrow lake, Aung Zin and his neighbours have received little assistance except from MSF and other Myanmar expatriates.
“The stories that are emerging from these migrant flood victims simply give more examples of systematic failures of both Thailand and home countries of migrants, particularly Myanmar, to ensure a timely and migrant-specific response to this flooding crisis,” Andy Hall, an expert on migrant issues in Thailand, told AlertNet by email from Geneva where he is at the United Nations raising such issues with relevant agencies.
Such failures are “leaving migrant flood victims to fall victim to exploitative situations, whether from employers or agents/brokers”, he added.
DISEASE THREATS CONCERN AID WORKERS
Inner Bangkok heaved a collective sigh of relief after being spared from Thailand’s worst floods in decades which have killed more than 600 people and disrupted the lives of over 13 million since July.
Yet for residents elsewhere - especially migrants living a hand-to-mouth existence - the floodwaters have added to their problems. Not only have they lost work, they also face the threat of disease from dirty water.
“Has anybody been bitten by crocodiles yet?” asked an MSF staff. Laughter ensued from a group of men and women sitting on the floor, but they became serious when the question turned to mosquitoes.
The mosquitoes came with the floods, everyone said, and have not left. They were thankful when MSF provided pregnant women and families with young children with insecticide-infused bed nets.
Some migrants and their children are suffering from diarrhoea, while a few injured themselves stepping on broken glass bottles walking in the opaque water. Thankfully, there were no cases of dengue, malaria or cholera.
“The main things we are worried about are cholera and vector-borne diseases,” MSF told AlertNet.
While the Thai government has the capacity and expertise to conduct medical surveillance among the local population, migrants – especially the illegal ones – tend to fall through the administrative cracks. MSF’s mobile clinics are filling this gap.
However, access is still a problem.
Many small streets in Samut Sakhon and Nakhon Pathom remain flooded and cut off and, although the water level has fallen, it has not receded enough for businesses and factories to reopen.
It also means aid groups still have to use several forms of transport to reach remote places where the needs are greatest.
* Names have been changed to protect their identity.
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Full text: Obama letter to Aung San Suu Kyi
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 8:35 AM EST, Thu December 1, 2011
Yangon, Myanmar (CNN) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally delivered a letter from President Barack Obama to Myanmar's leading democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi Thursday. Here is the letter in full as released by the State Department:
Aung San Suu Kyi
Rangoon, Burma
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi:
It was a pleasure and an honor to speak with you recently. As I said during our conversation, I have long admired your brave and unwavering struggle for democracy, and I consider our conversation a highlight of my recent visit to Asia.
I am pleased that the Burmese government has taken several encouraging steps in the direction of democracy and reform. Secretary of State Clinton's visit will explore how the United States can support efforts to foster political opening and respect for universal human rights, as well as demonstrate the seriousness of our commitment to helping the people of Burma achieve their democratic aspirations.
I thank you for your welcome of the Secretary's visit, and look forward to speaking to you again. Thank you for the inspiration you provide all of us around the world who share the values of democracy, human rights, and justice. We stand by you now and always.
Sincerely,
Barack Obama
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Full text: Obama letter to Myanmar's president
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 8:35 AM EST, Thu December 1, 2011
Naypyidaw, Myanmar (CNN) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally delivered a letter from President Barack Obama to Myanmar's President Thein Sein Thursday. Here is the letter in full as released by the State Department:
His Excellency
Thein Sein,
President of the Union of Burma,
Naypyidaw
Dear President Thein Sein:
I am pleased we had an opportunity to see each other in Bali (Indonesia), at the U.S.-ASEAN Leaders Meeting two weeks ago. I am encouraged that under your leadership your country has undertaken several encouraging steps on the path toward reform.
I have asked Secretary of State Clinton to visit your country to discuss your vision for reform, explore how the United States can support and advance your efforts to transition to democracy and promote protection of human rights, and talk directly to your government and citizens about prospects for enhancing relations between our two countries. To that end, she will engage your government about our continuing concerns in the spirit of mutual interest and mutual respect. There is much work to be done, and as Secretary of State Clinton and I have said previously, the United States stands ready to serve as a genuine partner in your effort to achieve lasting change.
I appreciate your government's help in planning and preparing for this milestone visit. I look forward to hearing the tangible outcomes of Secretary Clinton's discussions, which we all hope will put us on a path to a new phase in our bilateral relationship.
Sincerely,
Barack Obama
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CNN - What can Clinton achieve in Myanmar?
AUNG SAN SUU KYI
November 29, 2011|By Hilary Whiteman, CNN
Hillary Clinton's arrival in Myanmar is something many never expected to see.
It's been 50 years since a U.S. Secretary of State stepped foot in the country, now shattered and isolated after decades of military rule.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced Clinton's impending visit in late November, an unexpected move following a series of surprising concessions by Myanmar's new government.
At the time, Obama said the U.S. was seizing an opportunity to forge a new relationship with the country, which is also known as Burma.
"That possibility will depend upon the Burmese government taking more concrete action," Obama said.
OPINION: Clinton visit presents opportunity
Clinton added that she wanted to test Myanmar's commitment to both economic and political reform. "How real it is, how far it goes -- we will have to make sure we have a better understanding than we do right now," she said.
What concessions has Myanmar's government made?
One of the first came with the election last year of Thein Sein -- a formal general -- as the country's president, albeit in a vote called by the country's military rulers and at the time slammed by Obama as a "sham" election.
Days after the vote, the new government released long-time political prisoner, Aung San Suu Kyi whose party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), recently announced its intention to contest upcoming parliamentary elections.
Since her release, Suu Kyi has hit the road to spread her message of political reform, something that would have been unheard of a little over a year ago.
The Nobel Peace Laureate has said she "deeply believes" President Sein wants change in the country.
One of the president's political advisers, Nay Zin Latt, recently told the Wall Street Journal that the country's reform process was "not (in) the initial stage. It would be in the middle of the democratization process."
Last month, dozens of other political prisoners were released and there are promises that more will follow, this is viewed as a huge step forward for a country that previously denied it imprisoned people for their political views.
There have been calls for greater press freedom from the head of state censorship, and Human Rights Watch reports that the government has passed reforms protecting basic human rights. However, the group has also noted that the government retains tight control over the country.
What is the reaction to Clinton's visit inside Myanmar?
"A lot of people inside Burma are very excited," says Aung Zaw, the editor of Irrawaddy Magazine, adding "I think it's a huge, major development."
Irrawaddy Magazine was founded in 1993 by a group of Burmese journalists living in exile in Thailand, who say they aspire to report news from Myanmar without political interference.
Aung Zaw says Clinton's arrival is a victory for Myanmar's new government which yearns for international approval, despite international criticism that it was elected by a vote that was neither free, nor fair.
"They are craving for international legitimacy and recognition and this visit will boost the government's ongoing reform process and legitimacy, no doubt about it," he says.
How has China, Myanmar's long-time ally, reacted?
In the days leading up to Clinton's visit, China sent its own envoy to Myanmar in the form of Vice President Xi Jinping, who is also vice chairman of the Central Military Commission.
Xi emphasized the close relationship between China and Myanmar, and the country's commitment to deepening their ties. "China will work with Myanmar to further bolster the comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation," he was quoted as saying by Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua.
Myanmar shares a border with China, which became an important source of trade and investment for the country during its years of isolation from the West.
Aung Zaw says Myanmar will need to engage in "delicate and sophisticated" diplomacy to retain its close ties with China while improving its relationship with the U.S.
After years of isolation, why change now?
"There's a realization from the government as well as the opposition that it has to change: 'We can't keep going on like this'" Aung Zaw says. "So I think also there's their own self interest, geo-political strategy concerns and a combination of pressure from inside and outside."
He says it's in Myanmar's interests to nurture a relationship with the U.S. to balance its close ties with China.
"Burma will have to maintain a good relationship with China but also it has to find a major power to counter-balance China and its growing clout. I think this is how Burma wants to play a balancing game," he says.
What does the U.S. stand to gain?
In a recent article for Foreign Policy magazine, Hillary Clinton wrote of the importance of the Asia-Pacific as a future focus for U.S. diplomatic relations.
"At a time when the region is building a more mature security and economic architecture to promote stability and prosperity, U.S. commitment there is essential," she wrote.
Obama has said the the U.S. remains "concerned about Burma's closed political system, its treatment of minorities and holding of political prisoners and its relationship with North Korea. But we want to seize what could be a historic opportunity for progress."
The secretary-general of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Surin Pitsuwan, has said the benefits of bringing Myanmar in from its political isolation extend far beyond the U.S.
"It's the beginning of a new chapter of the region because the integration of Myanmar into ASEAN more effectively and Myanmar into the international community will be a benefit for everyone," he said earlier this month, as Asian nations endorsed Myanmar for the chairmanship of its regional grouping in 2014.
Is Myanmar really headed towards democracy?
Outside observers have expressed skepticism as to whether Myanmar's leaders are truly committed to providing greater freedom for its long-suffering people.
Human Rights Watch says the country continues to hold hundreds of political prisoners, and it has not repealed repressive laws on free speech and assembly.
"With this backdrop, it is too early to know whether the government's change of tone and talk of reform is cynical window-dressing or evidence that significant change will come to the country," the group wrote in a briefing paper.
"It's been hit and miss," Aung Zaw says. "I'm not fully convinced that Burma is heading toward concrete reform."
"The reform is encouraging - we should encourage it -- but I also think that some people have a doubt (and think) that the government is making small token gestures to gain international legitimacy. If that is the case it would be very disappointing for a lot of people."
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Suu Kyi briefs U.S. think tank as Clinton visits Myanmar
PARLIAMENT
November 30, 2011|By the CNN Wire Staff
A day after she announced she intends to run for Parliament, Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi planned Thursday for her first meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- a dinner at the U.S. Chief of Mission residence.
It will be the first time the U.S. secretary of state has met the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner and one of the world's most famous pro-democracy supporters, but they have spoken on the phone before, a senior State Department official said.
The dinner wraps up a busy schedule for Clinton -- the first American secretary of state in 50 years to visit to the reclusive state.
Clinton's schedule Thursday included meetings with Myanmar President Thein Sein, Foreign Minister Wunna Muang Lwinand and members of both houses of Parliament.
Before her dinner with Suu Kyi, Clinton was scheduled to visit the ornate Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, the former national capital, which also is known as Rangoon.
On Wednesday, Suu Kyi told a major U.S. think tank she intends to run for parliament and emphasized the importance of political reform in a country where she was under house arrest for most of the past two decades.
Suu Kyi briefed an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington by video from Myanmar.
"I hope the secretary's visit will open the way to a better relationship," Suu Kyi said, referring to Clinton's trip. "I think she will be able to discuss some of the very important issues (with the government) and they will be able to come to some kind of understanding to encourage reforms to go further."
Clinton's historic two-day visit comes as the Asian country, known for its repressive policies, is undergoing a period of rapid political change that the Obama administration cautiously says it finds encouraging as well as promising. Clinton's trip is an indication that the time could be right to forge a new relationship between the nations, the White House has said.
Ruled by a junta since 1962, Myanmar is now under a new president, Thein Sein, elected in March. The new government freed dozens of political prisoners last month following the release of Suu Kyi last November.
Suu Kyi touched on reform and a range of topics, including her political aspirations, in her discussion with the Council on Foreign Relations. Her National League for Democracy (NLD) recently announced that she will run in the next parliamentary election. The group also decided to re-enter politics.
While she hopes to run for Parliament, she doesn't know exactly when the special elections will be. Asked what role she would play once elected, she quipped, "the role of a member of parliament."
She said her platform is rule of law and ethnic harmony. She is also supportive of constitutional amendments, but didn't elaborate on these ideas. She said she expects the NLD to field a number of female candidates.
Suu Kyi called for judicial reform and noted the importance of learning to disagree in forging national reconciliation. She also emphasized the importance of the rule-of-law concept.
"I would like to remind everyone that even more important (than political prisoners) is the issue of rule of law. Even if all the prisoners are released tomorrow, they could be re-arrested," she said.
Suu Kyi said media outlets in her country have more room to operate than they did in the past two decades and that the number of journalists has increased.
Young people in her country are more engaged in politics, a development that heartened Suu Kyi.
In 2002, she said, people felt politics was a "dangerous game," and did not want to be involved. But now this has changed and she credited social media, in part. She said young people in Burma can use the Internet to connect with others in and outside of Myanmar. As a result, she said, they've become better informed. She said she herself is not on Facebook or Twitter because she doesn't have the time.
When the moderator asked whether internal resistance or international pressure led to Myanmar's reforms, Suu Kyi said, "Some in the government and the military saw that Burma couldn't go on in this way. I do believe there are people in the government and military who want what is best for the people and the country."
Meanwhile, Clinton was greeted by officials in a low-key and cordial manner as she arrived at an airport in the capital of Naypyidaw on Wednesday.
"I will obviously be looking to determine for myself what the intention is of the current government with respect to continued reforms," Clinton said from Busan in South Korea before taking off for Naypyidaw.
"We and many other nations are very hopeful that these flickers of progress, as President (Barack) Obama called them in Bali, will be ignited into a movement for change that will benefit the people of the country."
The United States has greeted the reforms with cautious optimism, still referring to the country as Burma, the name the country used before democratic election results were thrown out by the military junta more than 25 years ago.
Obama has noted the release of some 200 political prisoners, relaxation of media restrictions and new legislation that could open up the political environment, but he said there is more to be done. The administration still is concerned, officials say, about Myanmar's closed political system, its treatment of minorities and the holding of other political prisoners.
Clinton said the United States wants more political prisoners released, a "real" political process with elections, and an end to conflicts with ethnic minorities that have displaced tens of thousands of the country's residents.
The administration, however, is not ending sanctions and is not making any abrupt changes in policy. In an interview with CNN's Brianna Keilar, Clinton said one of the reasons she was going "is to test what the true intentions are and whether there is a commitment to both economic and political reform."
U.S. officials say the Obama administration began reviewing its policy on Myanmar in 2009 when it came into office. It began talking with major players in the region, including China, and with European leaders.
A key conclusion among the countries was that the policy of stringent economic sanctions was not yielding results for the strategy the administration wanted to follow. So began what the administration refers to as "parallel engagement" -- talking with the regime while, at the same time, talking with Suu Kyi.
Obama also spoke to Suu Kyi by phone two weeks before Clinton's trip, the official said. Asked about her call with Obama, Suu Kyi said she told him, among other things, she was in favor of engagement between the nations.
"I also asked about his dog," she said.
Asked if she was too much of an interlocutor between the United States and the Myanmar government, Suu Kyi answered, "No," and noted the United States engages other democratic opposition groups.
As for regional and international issues, she said she hoped the Association of Southeast Asian Nations chairmanship would continue to shine a light on human rights issues in Myanmar, as many countries have done. She noted that some countries are "more interested in democracy and human rights than others."
Asked what India and China could do to support Myanmar, Suu Kyi said democratic India should help promote democratic values. She said Myanmar had a good record of friendship with China and she hoped they could maintain that.
"I do not think simply because we believe in different systems of government we need be hostile to each other," she said.
She urged the United Nations to play a more proactive role in Myanmar and other parts of the world. She called for for any International aid or help to be sustainable and provided in a way that empowers the citizenry. Donors, she said, must insist on transparency and accountability.
Suu Kyi urged Myanmar's government to do more for the country's "ethnic nationalities," such as well-coordinated humanitarian aid. The CIA World Factbook says 68% of the country's ethnic makeup is Burmese. Other groups include Shan, Karen, Rakhine, Chinese, Indian, and Mon.
"There has to be action taken to make the ethnic nationalities understand that their interests are considered by the government," she said. "We should never forget the Burmese are one of many ethnic minorities."
Suu Kyi said the American government had made it quite clear what is expected of Myanmar before sanctions could be lifted, "and the best way to lift sanctions is to meet these conditions" that were set when Congress implemented them. "When the conditions have been met, then that time has come."
Myanmar democracy veteran Win Tin, the 82-year-old, NLD free speech campaigner who spent almost 20 years in prison, says the changes have been cosmetic and will only benefit the country's ruling elite.
"Changes happen, but actually they happen on paper," Win Tin said. "(There have been) announcements to the media and (talks with) Aung San Suu Kyi and so on. But at the grass roots level, there is no change at all. People suffer a lot ... people suffer human rights violations."
He said he did not know what was driving the reforms but suggested that members of the government could fear prosecution for human rights abuses if the opposition wins parliamentary elections in three months' time.
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Bloomberg - Clinton Presses Myanmar on Freedoms Before Meeting With Aung San Suu Kyi
By Daniel Ten Kate and Nicole Gaouette - Dec 1, 2011 1:46 AM PT
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is pressing Myanmar’s leaders over concerns about the country’s links to North Korea and its lack of internal freedoms, ahead of a meeting with civil rights icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
The visit by Clinton comes as Suu Kyi confirmed yesterday she will run for parliament in upcoming elections, one of the steps the new government has taken to loosen restrictions in the military-dominated country. Clinton told Myanmar’s rulers the U.S. is prepared to enhance ties if democratic changes progress, the Associated Press reported.
Clinton, who arrived yesterday in the capital of Naypyidaw, is the highest ranking U.S. official in half a century to visit Myanmar, dominated since 1962 by a repressive military regime that still exerts control through a new civilian government.
She will discuss specific steps the U.S. would like to see Myanmar’s leaders undertake, and also will meet with ethnic minorities and democracy advocates, according to a State Department official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.
The overall U.S. desire is to be in listening mode and to test the seriousness of the Myanmar government’s intent to reform in the period ahead, the official said in a briefing with reporters en route to Myanmar. Clinton told the country’s civilian government that as a first step toward encouraging progress the U.S. would provide incentives including not preventing increased cooperation with the International Monetary Fund, AP said.
Releasing Prisoners
The country’s leaders have reached out to the U.S. and made a series of changes, releasing hundreds of prisoners, allowing greater press freedom and passing a law that permits public protests. President Thein Sein, a former general, has opened communication with pro-democracy advocates, changed a law to persuade Suu Kyi’s party to participate in elections and consulted her.
Going forward Myanmar must release political prisoners and end ethnic violence by pushing for national reconciliation in order for U.S. relations to improve, Clinton said, according to the AP.
In a video webcast to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Suu Kyi said she backed the U.S. involvement in her country and confirmed that she will take part in as-yet- unscheduled parliamentary elections.
“I will certainly run for the elections when they take place,” said Suu Kyi, who has called for the government to release 525 political prisoners who are still locked up.
Recent Steps
The U.S. has been surprised by some of the steps Myanmar has taken recently, the State Department official said. He added that Clinton will tell Thein Sein and other leaders that this is a first step and that several other things will need to happen for the U.S. to be able to support their efforts.
That includes a discussion about concerns that Myanmar may be engaged in weapons trade with North Korea. The U.S. has blocked North Korean ships thought to be carrying weapons to Myanmar, also known by its previous name Burma.
The official said the chief U.S. concern is missile technology, not nuclear weapons. Even so, Clinton will ask Myanmar leaders to sign an International Atomic Energy Agency protocol that would allow nuclear inspections, the official said.
In Yangon, where Clinton will arrive later today, taxis, buses and motorcycles darted through one of the city’s six-lane, tree-lined main boulevards. A billboard touted the country’s first call center.
‘Slowly Changing’
“This year I’ve seen more foreigners than any other,” said Aung Than Oo, 47, who has been a taxi driver for 21 years. “We like this government because it’s given us a little bit of democracy. Things are slowly changing.”
Amnesty International said Myanmar has released at least 318 political prisoners this year and that more than 1,000 remain imprisoned. The Myanmar army continues to commit human rights violations against civilians in ethnic minority areas on a “widespread and systematic basis,” the group said on its website.
“Myanmar’s human rights situation has improved modestly in some respects but is significantly worsening in others,” said Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International’s Myanmar specialist.
Clinton’s visit also makes the resource-rich Asian nation a new focus in the struggle between the U.S. and China for influence in the Asia-Pacific region. Myanmar has made a concerted effort to reach out to the U.S. to improve relations. In a recent Washington Post opinion article, Zaw Htay, director of the president’s office, asked the U.S. to have patience as Myanmar goes about making changes.
‘Transform in Steps’
“The United States must recognize that Myanmar’s politics will transform in steps,” Zaw Htay wrote. He called for strong support from the U.S. if it wants Myanmar “to become a democratic country as measured by their values and norms.”
He pointed to the government’s September decision to suspend construction of a $3.6 billion Chinese-backed dam in the northern part of the country, saying it “signaled to the world what he stands for.”
Douglas Paal, director of the Asia program at Washington’s Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Myanmar’s leaders are looking for a counterweight to Beijing.
“China has been so overwhelmingly involved in Burma that it’s looked like a Chinese province,” he said. “They want some balance.” Rejection of the dam “was seen as an important step in defying Chinese influence,” Paal said.
Myanmar’s moves to engage the West are “not really” about reducing reliance on China, Nay Zin Latt, a political adviser to Thein Sein, said in an e-mail interview on Nov. 26.
‘Warm Relations’
“We should have warm relations with our neighboring countries such as China, India and Thailand,” he said. “In the meantime we should also be on good terms with the Western world.”
Ahead of Clinton’s visit, China’s Vice President Xi Jinping hosted Min Aung Hlaing, head of the Myanmar armed forces, in Beijing on Nov. 28 and discussed boosting military cooperation.
China welcomed the moves by Myanmar “to improve its relations with western countries and hopes its measures help Myanmar’s stability and development,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said yesterday.
In China, some see Clinton’s visit as “another move to encircle” the country, said Sun Zhe, a professor of international relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing. “A lot of people think we don’t have to worry that much because we also have historical friendship and historical ties with Myanmar,” Sun said.
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Washington Post - Clinton meets with Suu Kyi, challenges Myanmar to expand reforms, break ties with NKorea
By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, December 1, 9:03 AM
YANGON, Myanmar — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday shared dinner with Myanmar’s most famous former political prisoner and challenged the nation’s leaders to expand upon recent reforms, end violent campaigns against ethnic minorities and break military ties with North Korea.
“We believe that any political prisoner anywhere should be released,” Clinton told reporters during the first visit to this long-isolated nation by the top U.S. diplomat in more than 50 years. “One political prisoner is one too many in our view.”
Clinton made her comments before her private dinner with opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released last year after two decades of on-and-off imprisonment and has said she will run in upcoming elections. Clinton and Suu Kyi were to meet more formally on Friday.
Meeting earlier Thursday with President Thein Sein and other senior government officials in the capital of Naypyidaw, Clinton offered a small package of rewards for steps the country has already taken but made clear that more must be done. She said the U.S. was not ready to lift sanctions on the country.
Clinton hand-delivered letters from President Barack Obama to Thein Sein and Suu Kyi in which Obama expressed hope that relations could further improve.
“I came to assess whether the time is right for a new chapter in our shared history,” Clinton said, adding that the U.S. was ready to further improve relations with the civilian government in the Southeast Asian nation — also known as Burma — but only if it stays on the path of democratization.
In a series of modest first steps, she announced that Washington would allow Myanmar’s participation in a U.S.-backed grouping of Mekong River countries; no longer block enhanced cooperation between the country and the International Monetary Fund; and support intensified U.N. health, microfinance and counternarcotics programs.
A senior U.S. official said Thein Sein had outlined his government’s plans for reform in a 45-minute presentation in which he acknowledged that Myanmar lacked a recent tradition of democracy and openness. He asked for U.S. help in making the transition from military to full civilian rule, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the private diplomatic exchange.
Clinton replied that she was visiting because the U.S. was “encouraged by the steps that you and your government have taken to provide for your people.”
Yet, she also made clear that those steps must be consolidated and enlarged if the U.S. is to consider easing near-blanket economic sanctions that block almost all American commercial transactions with Myanmar. “While measures already taken may be unprecedented and certainly welcome, they are just a beginning,” she told reporters.
“We’re not at the point yet where we can consider lifting sanctions that we have in place because of our ongoing concerns about policies that have to be reversed,” Clinton said. “But any steps that the government takes will be carefully considered and will be matched.”
She called for the release of political prisoners and an end to brutal ethnic violence that has ravaged the nation for decades. She also warned the country’s leadership to break suspected illicit military, nuclear and ballistic missile cooperation with North Korea that may violate U.N. sanctions. “Better relations with the United States will only be possible if the entire government respects the international consensus against the spread of nuclear weapons ... and we support the government’s stated intention to sever military ties with North Korea,” she said.
In his presentation, Thein Sein vowed that Myanmar would uphold its U.N. obligations with respect to North Korea, according to the senior U.S. official. He also told Clinton that Myanmar was actively considering signing a new agreement with the U.N. nuclear watchdog that would allow unfettered inspections of atomic sites in the country, the official said.
Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, welcomed the U.S. package of rewards and said, “The incentives will help promote better relations and a better future for the country and I hope the government will expand its reform process.”
Clinton rejected the idea that the U.S. outreach to Myanmar was partially motivated by the growing influence of China. “We are not viewing this in light of any competition with China,” she said. “We are viewing it as an opportunity for us to re-engage here.”
“We welcome positive constructive relations between China and her neighbors. We think that is in China’s interest as well as in the neighborhood’s interest,” she said.
Recalling Obama’s mention of “flickers of progress” in Myanmar when he announced that Clinton would visit the country, Clinton urged the leadership not to allow them to “be stamped out.”
“It will be up to the leaders and the people to fan flickers of progress into flames of freedom that light the path toward a better future,” she said. “That — and nothing less — is what it will take for us to turn a solitary visit into a lasting partnership.”
Before dinner with Suu Kyi, Clinton toured the Shwedagon Pagoda, a 2,500-year-old Buddhist temple with a massive golden stupa.
Despite the historic nature of Clinton’s visit, enthusiasm has been muted within Myanmar.
Chan Tun, a 91-year-old veteran politician and a retired ambassador to China, said: “This is a very critical visit because U.S. will understand Myanmar better through engagement. U.S. engagement will also help Myanmar’s dependence on China.”
But Clinton’s presence has been overshadowed by the arrival Thursday of the prime minister of Belarus and his wife, to whom two large welcoming signs were erected at the airport and the road into the city. No such displays welcomed Clinton.
The Belarus Prime Minister made the front page of Thursday’s edition of the government-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper. Clinton’s visit was mentioned in a two-paragraph story on page 2.
Still, some in Myanmar welcomed the attention from the U.S. “I watched the arrival of Ms. Clinton on Myanmar TV last night,” 35-year-old taxi driver Thein Zaw said. “I am very happy that Ms. Clinton is visiting our country because America knows our small country, whether it is good or bad.”
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Washington Post - Clinton offers small incentives for Burma’s reforms
By William Wan, Thursday, December 1, 1:56 AM
NAYPYIDAW, Burma — The highest-ranking U.S. official to set foot in Burma’s presidential palace, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday brought a message of praise to Burma’s president for his nascent gestures of reform even as she warned him that significantly more progress was needed for change to take root.
The table may be set for “a new chapter in our shared history,” Clinton said at a news conference shortly after the meeting, adding that “while the measures already taken may be unprecedented and welcomed, they are just a beginning.”
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton challenged the leaders of Burma to continue to expand reforms. She offered the isolated country a small package of rewards for steps it has already taken but made clear that more must be done. (Dec. 1)
For weeks leading up to Clinton’s visit, the Obama administration had emphasized cautious optimism in dealing with authoritarian and reclusive leaders of Burma — a country with a long history of repression and strife that has seen promises of progress dissipate before, and in some case, devolve into brutal and lethal crackdowns.
Seeking to allay such doubts, Burma’s President Thein Sein spent much of their meeting giving a detailed 45-minute presentation to Clinton about further change, according to U.S. officials. His plan for reforming areas of his government long criticized by the U.S. and others included: the gradual release of political prisoners, a cease-fire in the war between Burma’s military and ethnic minorities, political reform, media freedom and adopting international agreements on nuclear programs to allay suspicions about Burma-North Korea weapons trades.
Clinton said she responded by telling him that the United States will ”match action with action” — greater aid, economic rewards and diplomatic prestige in return for bolder reforms.
Thein Sein and others in his government have pushed repeatedly for Washington to lift economic sanctions against Burma — viewed as the ultimate prize for their overtures to the West.
In their meeting Thursday, Clinton offered the Burmese significantly smaller incentives in hopes of nudging them forward without giving up too much too fast. She discussed U.S. support for loosening restrictions on health and microfinancing programs by the United Nations and offered U.S. support for exploring other international aid.
The most direct result of the meeting, however, could be a restoration of U.S. diplomatic relations and an upgrade of Burma’s mission into a full embassy with a U.S. ambassador — something Clinton said she discussed with the Burmese officials.
The historic exchanges on Thursday suggest Burma, also known as Myanmar, could become the long desired example of success for the Obama administration’s approach to oppressive regimes. His early pledge — to reach out to those despotic governments who “unclench their first” — has largely gone unanswered for two years.
Iran has become increasingly isolated with Western powers now pulling out diplomats fearing for their safety. North Korea has remained as defiant as ever — launching provocative attacks last year on South Korea, perhaps the closest U.S. ally in Asia. And Syria remains embroiled in its brutal repression of a revolution.
From that bleak global picture, Burma’s political and economic reform emerged suddenly and unexpectedly, U.S. officials said.
“It was good policy by the Obama administration, but they also, to a degree, got lucky,” said Ernie Bower, a Southeast Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
While much has been made of Burma’s recent overtures to the West as an attempt to guard itself from an increasingly powerful and assertive China, the change is also believed to be result of internal politics among its secretive leaders — power dynamics U.S. officials readily admit they still do not understand — and fear that the country is falling far behind its neighbors because of its isolation and international sanctions.
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Washington Post - Myanmar government holds exploratory talks with ethnic Kachin rebels, agree to more meetings
By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, December 1, 5:40 AM
YANGON, Myanmar — A Myanmar government delegation has held talks with representatives of a major ethnic rebel group with which it has had armed clashes since June, state-controlled media reported Thursday.
The state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper said the high-level delegation met Tuesday with six representatives of the Kachin Independence Organization led by its chairman Zaung Hara — also known as Zawng Hkra — in Ruili in China’s Yunnan province.
The report said both sides agreed at the meeting to continue the initial peace talks aimed at a cease-fire and political dialogues.
Myanmar for decades has been at odds with ethnic minorities living in border areas who seek greater autonomy. A military junta that took power in 1988 signed cease-fire agreements with many, including the Kachin, whose state is in the north.
In recent years, however, as the central government has sought to consolidate its power, some of the pacts have been strained, and sporadic warfare broke out with the Kachins in June this year as the government tried to break up some of their militia strongholds.
Kachin sympathizers have circulated accounts of government brutality, but the remote area is mostly inaccessible to foreigners and the allegations are difficult to confirm. The government had reported little on the fighting.
A website sympathetic to the ethnic rebels, The Kachin Post, confirmed Tuesday’s talks and said the meeting was the fifth between the sides.
The meeting took place a day before U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived on a visit to encourage the political and economic reforms started by the new nominally civilian but military-aligned and elected government.
A report released Wednesday by the U.S.-based group Physicians for Human Rights said its investigations had found that Myanmar’s army in Kachin state had “looted food from civilians, fired indiscriminately into villages, threatened villages with attacks, and used civilians as porters and human minesweepers.”
The group said the finding showed that ethnic minorities in border areas had not benefited from the reforms, and it urged U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to make their plight a priority in talks with the Myanmar government.
Clinton on Thursday challenged the Myanmar’s leaders to continue and expand upon the reforms, calling for the release of all political prisoners, an end to violent campaigns against ethnic minorities and a breaking of military ties with North Korea.
Clinton made her comments ahead of a meeting with Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released from house arrest last year after two decades of on-and-off imprisonment.
She last month expressed concerns over the hostilities in Kachin state and said she would be willing to help with peace negotiations.
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Washington Post - Clinton meets opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on historic visit to Myanmar
By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, December 1, 5:39 AM
YANGON, Myanmar — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is meeting with opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi (ahng sahn soo chee) on a historic visit to Myanmar.
The two women were having a private dinner at the home of the top-ranking U.S. diplomat in Myanmar on Thursday before a more formal meeting at Suu Kyi’s residence on Friday. It is the first time the pair — two of the world’s most recognized female political figures — have met in person, though they have spoken by telephone. Clinton has often referred to Suu Kyi as a personal inspiration.
Clinton is in Myanmar to test the long isolated and repressive country’s new civilian government on its commitment to reforms that have prompted Suu Kyi to participate in upcoming elections.
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Washington Post - Clinton in Myanmar to test new leadership’s pledge of reform; says US cautious but encouraged
By Associated Press, Published: November 30
NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar — Looking to cement a foreign policy success and prod democratization in one of the world’s most isolated and authoritarian nations, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought Thursday to test the willingness of Myanmar’s leaders to expand nascent reforms.
On a historic visit here, Clinton said she was hopeful, but not yet convinced, that “flickers of progress” in the Southeast Asian country will burst into flames of change.
Clinton, speaking to Myanmar’s President Thein Sein during their meeting, said: “I am here today because President Obama and myself are encouraged by the steps you and your government have taken to provide for your people.
Sein said Clinton’s visit was a historic chapter in relations between the two nations. Their meeting took place in a grandiose palace that has 40-to-60 foot ceilings, chandeliers and teak doors. It is situated near a virtually empty, 20-lane highway.
Clinton’s diplomatically risky trip to a nation that receives few outsiders and still heavily restricts what its people can see and read is meant to test whether new civilian leaders are truly ready to throw off 50 years of military dictatorship. U.S. officials said she would also press the leadership on severing military and suspected nuclear ties with North Korea.
“I am obviously looking to determine for myself and on behalf of our government what is the intention of the current government with respect to continuing reforms both political and economic,” Clinton told reporters before her arrival here. Hers is the first trip by a U.S. secretary of state to the country also known as Burma in more than half a century.
She was meeting senior Myanmar officials, including the president, the foreign minister and top lawmakers, in the capital Naypyidaw on Thursday before heading to the commercial capital of Yangon. There she will see opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is returning to the political scene after decades of detention, harassment and violent repression.
Successive military regimes canceled 1990 elections that Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won. She has said she plans to run in upcoming elections.
“We and many other nations are quite hopeful that these flickers of progress ... will be ignited into a movement for change that will benefit the people of the country,” Clinton said. President Barack Obama used the same description — “flickers of progress” — when he announced he was sending Clinton to Myanmar.
Clinton was greeted at Naypyidaw’s small airfield by a deputy foreign minister, several other officials and a large contingent of international press who were granted rare visas to cover her visit. But her presence here appeared to take second stage to the expected arrival Thursday of the prime minister of Belarus and his wife, to whom two large welcoming signs were erected at the airport and the road into the city. Belarus is often criticized for its poor human rights record and is subject to U.S. sanctions similar to those Myanmar is under.
No signs welcoming Clinton were visible as her motorcade bounced from the airport to the city on a bumpy cement road that was largely devoid of vehicles, with traffic police stopping small and scattered groups of cars, trucks and motorbikes at intersections.
Officials say Clinton will be seeking assurances from Myanmar’s leaders that they will sign an agreement with the U.N. nuclear watchdog that will permit unfettered access to suspected nuclear sites. The U.S. and other Western nations suspect Myanmar has sought and received nuclear advice along with ballistic missile technology from North Korea in violation of U.N. sanctions. A U.S. official said missiles and missile technology are of primary concern but signs of “nascent” nuclear activity are also worrying.
The Obama administration also hopes to loosen Chinese influence in a region where America and its allies are wary of China’s rise. Myanmar has historic ties with China, but has pulled back from a major dam project sought by China amid signs the new leaders are sensitive to criticism that China is taking unfair advantage of its much smaller but resource-rich neighbor.
U.S. officials are cautious about what Clinton’s three-day visit can accomplish beyond being a symbolic stamp of approval for the small steps of political and social reform under way since elections last year. They are careful to point out that there are no immediate plans to lift heavy U.S. sanctions on Myanmar imposed because of an abysmal human rights record.
That could come in time, if Myanmar proves serious about reform. Other steps being contemplated include upgrading diplomatic relations that would see the two countries exchange ambassadors.
Some members of Congress have expressed concern that the trip is an undeserved reward for the regime.
“I am concerned that the visit of the secretary of state sends the wrong signal to the Burmese military thugs,” said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “Secretary Clinton’s visit represents a monumental overture to an outlaw regime whose DNA remains fundamentally brutal.”
Suu Kyi said Wednesday that she still supports U.S. sanctions against her country’s government, but will have a better idea of the chances for reform after she meets with Clinton. She said she would like to see cease-fires and serious talks with ethnic minorities fighting the military as well as respect for the rule of law, a clean judiciary and the release of political prisoners.
“There has to be enough progress in those directions for us to be sure the reforms will keep going forward and not regress,” Suu Kyi told a webcast to the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington. “What we have to do is make sure no one can put a stop to the reform process. We all have to cooperate to make sure it goes forward.”
The trip is the first major development in U.S.-Myanmar relations in decades and comes after the Obama administration launched a new effort to prod reforms in 2009 with a package of carrot-and-stick incentives. That effort failed, but rapprochement sped up when Myanmar held elections last year that gave power to a new government that pledged greater openness.
Last week, Myanmar’s parliament approved a law guaranteeing the right to protest, which had not previously existed, and improvements have been made in areas such as media and Internet access and political participation. The NLD, which had boycotted previous flawed elections, is now registered as a party.
But the government that took office in March is still dominated by a military-proxy political party, and Myanmar’s commitment to democratization and its willingness to limit its close ties with China are uncertain.
Corruption runs rampant, hundreds of political prisoners are still jailed and violent ethnic conflicts continue in the country’s north and east. Human rights activists have said Clinton’s visit should be judged on improvements in those conditions.
Myanmar’s army continues to torture and kill civilians in campaigns to stamp out some of the world’s longest-running insurgencies, according to rights groups. They say ongoing atrocities against ethnic minorities serve as a reminder that reforms recently unveiled by the country’s military-backed government to worldwide applause are not benefitting everyone.
Aid groups have reported atrocities that occurred as recently as last month: A village leader was killed, allegedly by soldiers, for helping a rebel group, his eyes gouged out and his 9-year-old son buried beside him in a shallow grave. The boy’s tongue was cut out.
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The Christian Science Monitor - Hillary Clinton barefoot in (Burma) Myanmar
Hillary Clinton and her entourage went shoeless to visit the Shwedagon Pagoda in Burma (Myanmar). Later, Clinton had dinner with Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
By Andrew Quinn, Reuters / December 1, 2011
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her security detail went barefoot for a tour of one of Myanmar's most revered shrines, a towering golden pagoda that is the symbol of a country seeking fresh rapprochement with the West.
Mrs. Clinton arrived at the Shwedagon Pagoda shortly after arriving in Myanmar's main commercial city, Yangon, and took off her shoes to follow respectful Buddhist tradition at a site rich with religious and patriotic significance for the country also known as Burma.
Clinton's U.S. diplomatic security detail quickly followed suit, while barefoot agents in business suits fanned out across the huge complex of spires and Buddha statues, muttering into their radios.
A crowd of tourists and local visitors applauded as Clinton made the rounds, stopping to make an offering of flowers in front of the Gold Buddha statue, one of the centerpieces of the elaborate pagoda site, as well as to pause and hit a huge bell three times with a gold-adorned staff.
"Hitting the bell means she is sharing the merits of today's events for both of our countries," said Phone Myint, one of the tour guides at the shrine which dates back as far as the 6th century.
The visit represented an incongruous mash-up of official Washington, Asian tradition and modern-day tourism, with Clinton and her entire staff of diplomats, advisers and the travelling press all shuffling shoe-less past Buddha statues decorated with neon halos and stalked by feral cats.
The pagoda stop was also one of Clinton's few chances to see anything of modern-day Myanmar, which is implementing tentative political reforms as it seeks to improve ties with Washington after decades of estrangement.
She is the first U.S. secretary of state to visit in more than 50 years, and U.S. officials say they still know little about a country many view as both hermetic and hard to read.
After finishing her pagoda tour, officials handed out moistened towelettes so the U.S. delegation could clean their feet.
Clinton later left her hotel for a dinner at the U.S. charge d'affaires residence with Aung San Suu Kyi, the veteran pro-democracy leader and Nobel peace laureate who has endorsed Washington's outreach to Myanmar's new military-backed civilian leaders.
The pair - arguably the two most famous women in the world - will dine on their own during their first face-to-face meeting, comparing notes on Myanmar's political reforms and the country's halting steps to re-engage with the rest of the world.
Earlier in the day, Clinton got an up-close view of another side of Myanmar, meeting President Thein Sein at his enormous presidential palace in the new capital of Naypyitaw - an almost deserted city established on orders of the former junta several years ago.
Clinton was the first senior U.S. official ever to visit the presidential office, and her car zipped along a deserted, 20-lane highway to reach the complex, a vast concoction of marble and chandeliers set on a bluff and protected by what looked like a moat.
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Time Magazine - The Barefoot Diplomat: Hillary Clinton Begins Landmark Visit to Burma
Posted by Hannah Beech Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 9:25 am
One of the most surreal experiences in Burma is to leaf through the New Light of Myanmar. The English-language newspaper, which refers to the country by its official name, is among the most retrograde publications in the world. With tidbits like “True patriotism: It is very important for every one of the nation regardless of the place he lives to have strong Union Spirit,” it makes no apologies for being the propaganda arm of a military-linked government that has, in one form or another, ruled Burma since grabbing power in 1962.
Often times, it's what's not reported in the New Light that's as illuminating as what is. Consider the front-page headline on Monday November 28: “Belarusian Prime Minister and wife to pay goodwill visit to Myanmar.” Sure enough, on November 30, Mikhail Myasnikovich and his wife, Ludmila, arrived in Burma's secluded new capital Naypyidaw. The Prime Minister of one of Europe's most repressive states was greeted at the airport with fanfare and a pair of billboards.
The same day as Myasnikovich's arrival, another foreign dignitary landed in Naypyidaw. Hillary Clinton was making a historic trip to Burma, the first by a U.S. Secretary of State in more than half a century and a watershed moment in the long-frosty relations between the two countries. (Just one point of contention: The U.S. government—and many of the country's opposition leaders, including democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi—call it Burma, while the nation's government and most citizens refer to it as Myanmar.) But you wouldn't have known about Clinton's imminent arrival from reading the New Light in the days leading up to her visit. On Nov. 30, the day Clinton arrived, the front page of the New Light ran a story that took up the entire front page, entitled “Ways and means to be sought for boosting crop production to ensure food sufficiency for increasing population.”
While the Belarusian Prime Minister got some love at the airport, nary a welcome sign was prepared for the American delegation. On Dec. 1, the New Light did note that Clinton and her delegation had “arrived in Nay Pyi Taw by special aircraft at 4.30 pm today,” but that article was on page two of the paper and the story was merely a recitation of the top officials in her entourage and the high-level dignitaries who met her at the airport. By contrast, the Belarusian P.M. received lavish front-page treatment.
Although Clinton's visit has raised hopes of a détente between Burma and the U.S., both sides are downplaying any immediate tangible results from her trip. The Americans have cautioned that there will likely be no announcement on a potential easing of the U.S. trade sanctions placed on the Burmese regime for its appalling human-rights record. State Department officials reiterated that any financial loosening would occur only if Burma's new nominally civilian government takes substantive steps, such as releasing political prisoners and making peace with ethnic minorities who constitute some 40% of the country's population. The U.S. will also press Burma to suspend its ties with fellow pariah state, North Korea. The Burmese side, as evidenced by the New Light, has proven rather laconic so far, save new President Thein Sein, who Clinton met on Thursday, proclaiming the visit “historic and a new chapter in relations.”
Clinton's summit with Thein Sein—a former member of the military junta that handed over power to a quasi-civilian government in March—was relatively brief. Not much is known about the new President, apart from the fact that he is soft-spoken and well-traveled—two characteristics that make him stand apart from some of Burma's more belligerent and bunkered army men. Presidential political advisor Nay Zin Latt, who did not know Thein Sein until earlier this year, calls his new boss “a good listener.” Unlike other former junta generals, Thein Sein has little direct battlefield experience. In August, the new President, who retired from the military to lead a so-called civilian government that still has plenty of top brass in it, startled Burma-watchers when he met Aung San Suu Kyi, the once-jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate whose National League for Democracy won polls in 1990 that the junta ignored.
After her summit with Thein Sein and other government officials, Clinton flew to Rangoon, Burma's former capital and largest city, where she headed straight from the airport to the country's spiritual epicenter, the Shwedagon pagoda. A soaring golden spire that provides a beacon not only for Rangoon but all of Burma, Shwedagon has also been the hub of political protests, most recently in 2007 when monk-led demonstrators gravitated to the holy space before a military crackdown across town eventually left dozens dead.
Clinton toured Shwedagon in bare feet (with polished red toenails), as is the Buddhist custom, accompanied by beefy U.S. secret service personnel who looked rather less threatening with their naked toes emerging from their suit pants. As a historian explained the site's religious and historic significance—Shwedagon's lore is that it contains eight strands of the Buddha's hair—the Secretary of State asked about the process of laying gold leaf on the shining pagoda. (The answer, in a nutshell: it takes a lot of time and a lot of gold leaf.) Although many Burmese and tourists crowded around to see Clinton walk around the stupa, providing her with polite bursts of clapping, other locals who had come to pray simply sat their ground, meditating with closed eyes as security personnel and a media scrum tried not to trip over them.
Thursday evening, Clinton is having a private dinner with opposition leader Suu Kyi, whom she is scheduled to meet twice during her three-day trip to Burma. At Shwedagon, I watched as a young monk from central Burma craned his neck to see Clinton's blue-clad figure stride by golden Buddhas illuminated further by the flash of foreign media cameras. “This is the most exciting day of my life,” he told me in English, which he had learned mostly from Hollywood movies. “She is a freedom woman.”
Later, the monk and I circumnavigated the 100-meter tall stupa together and he told me: “I am happy because your Foreign Minister will meet our leader.” For a moment, I was confused and thought he had mixed up his English future and past tenses. But then I realized he meant Suu Kyi, not Thein Sein. Somehow I doubt the New Light will be covering the meeting between the two ladies with the thoroughness it gave the Belarusian Prime Minister.
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The Nation - Hillary Clinton in Burma: Checking China, Testing Reforms
Rajeshree Sisodia
November 30, 2011
After the invasion of Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld infamously said that "democracy is messy." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may well be thinking along similar lines as she visits Burma this week.
Clinton's historic trip—the first to Burma by a US secretary of state since 1955—signals a significant but complicated détente between the two countries. The opening was made possible by a series of reforms initiated by Burma's quasi-military USDP government following its victory in the November 2010 elections. These include the release of more than 300 political prisoners, the cancellation of a controversial hydroelectric dam project in northern Burma, limited improvements in freedom of expression and assembly, and the legalization of labor unions. They are among the biggest changes made by the regime since the military seized power in a coup in 1962.
Clearly, the Burmese government has realized that in order to strengthen its position economically and politically, it has to secure investment and technical assistance from foreign governments along with credit from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. But progress will be possible only if Burma loses its pariah status, re-engages with the international community and weans itself away from what it views as an over-reliance on China. The United States, meanwhile, is eager to encourage a transition to democracy in
Burma as it seeks to counter China's growing influence in the region.
Even though recent steps toward democratization in Burma are tentative, they have already yielded tangible improvements. Aung San Suu Kyi—the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and leader of the main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD)—was quick to acknowledge the significance of the overtures. Realizing that progress could come only through negotiations with the regime, she pledged that she was willing to work with the government, even though it is dominated by a military that had placed her under house arrest for most of the past two decades. The NLD's decision to apply to re-register as a political party in November stemmed from the belief by Suu Kyi and senior party members that the government is serious about reforms and democratization. This step means that the NLD leader will more than likely stand in by-elections scheduled for next spring.
Clinton's foray is similarly tentative, a cautious testing of the waters before Washington decides whether to re-engage further with the southeast Asian country and thereby provide greater legitimacy to its government. She is scheduled to hold talks with former military man and current President Thein Sein as well as Suu Kyi, and she is likely to encourage the Burmese government to continue making space for political opponents.
There is no doubt that relations between the United States and Burma have come a long way in a short period of time. The Burmese exile began in 1988: after the regime brutally cracked down on unarmed pro-democracy protesters that year, Washington cut off foreign aid, downgraded its diplomatic presence and gradually imposed a raft of sanctions that are still in place. Since 2009, however, the United States—mindful of China's growing economic, military and political presence in Burma—has shifted its hardline stance. The Obama administration realized early that the United States had failed to secure the progress on democracy and human rights it sought in Burma, and had lost what little influence it had in the region, as the regime simply looked to India, North Korea, Russia, Thailand and China for assistance. Clinton's trip is the culmination of a series of visits over the past eighteen months by other senior US officials, including US Special Representative to Burma Derek Mitchell. During this span of time, the administration has come to understand that a mix of engagement and pressure may be an effective way to push for its three main aims in Burma: strengthening democracy, ending the appalling litany of human rights abuses perpetrated by the military and countering Beijing's influence in the region.
While Clinton will rightly applaud Thein Sein's government for its apparently genuine commitment to implementing the recent reforms, she should not lose sight of the fact that the majority of changes have so far benefited only Burma's political and economic elites, who live in its cities and towns. The majority of Burma's 50.5 million people (among the poorest in the region) live in rural areas and rely on farming, and have yet to see the dividends of any of these reforms. Sein's government prefers to use the roughly 2,000 remaining political prisoners as a bargaining tool with other governments and rights groups, and it continues to provide military and political officials accused of committing human rights abuses with immunity from prosecution. It remains to be seen whether the regime will revert to tightening the screws (re-imprisoning political opponents or cracking down on demonstrators who exercise their newly gained freedoms), as it has done in the past.
Clinton should also be wary of focusing too narrowly on the political relationship between the government and the NLD. In this binary narrative the crucial relationship between the regime and the ethnic communities—including the Kachin, Karen, Shan, Mon and Chin, which along with other ethnic groups make up around one-third of the population—is neglected.
Overlooking the systematic state repression of these ethnic groups would be costly. Prospects for peace and stability in Burma have been hampered by civil wars between ethnic insurgent groups and the military since the 1940s. The issue of ethnic conflict is an integral part of any substantive debate on Burma, as President Obama acknowledged last month when he said a peaceful resolution to conflict in ethnic areas was vital.
Though the Burmese government has initiated piecemeal cease-fires with many armed ethnic groups, these truces remain strained and brittle. In the northeastern Kachin State, a cease-fire collapse in the wake of last year's polls has led to a new round of war between the army and the Kachin Independence Army. Reports from rights workers and analysts in Burma as recently as last week speak of growing violence in Kachin State, with an estimated 30,000 men, women and children being forced to flee their homes to escape the fighting. New research released on November 28 by the charity Partners Relief and Development points to the military's systematic use of rape, torture and murder in its Kachin campaign. Once again, the military stands accused of war crimes as it continues to flex its muscle in the restive border regions.
Without genuine and inclusive negotiations between the regime, the NLD and all of Burma's ethnic communities, the conflicts will continue, and durable peace, stability and democratization will remain elusive. Though both Suu Kyi and Sein have spoken of their commitment to an "inclusive" peace, these words have yet to translate into any concrete policy change by the military.
If ethnic tensions are allowed to fester, the country's long-suffering people will likely see a continuation of the status quo in which two Burmas co-exist: one where areas under government control enjoy limited reforms and an opening of political space, and another where regions under military rule (including most areas populated by ethnic groups) suffer an escalation of violence and repression.
Clinton must address this enormous challenge. If Burma's military and government are serious about a political transition, they have to negotiate with all ethnic groups and tackle the underlying political and economic problems that have fueled the ongoing wars. Doing so will provide the state with the international legitimacy it craves and may help make the regime feel more secure in pursuing its reform agenda. It is this desire for acceptance that the United States must use as leverage to initiate further change. But if Clinton's foray is perceived by the military as a tacit nod by the West that the regime's brutal policies will be overlooked, then accusations that the visit is premature will be harder to fend off.
There are no easy answers to the Burma question. Have prospects for democracy improved in the country in the past twelve months? Some analysts say yes. Has the situation deteriorated? Other experts say yes. Both camps are right.
Ultimately, it is up to the people of Burma to decide what needs to change and how. While many Burmese will welcome Clinton's visit, the promise it represents for economic, political and social improvements remains fragile. Hardliners inside and outside the regime could attempt to derail the gains that have been made. The current climate of engagement should be fostered, but the true measure of progress will come long after the fanfare over Clinton's visit has faded.
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ASIAONE - Myanmar takes a step out of the shadows
AFP Thursday, Dec 01, 2011
NAYPYIDAW - Built from scratch by paranoid generals for maximum seclusion, Myanmar's remote capital is now gingerly stepping into the limelight as it hosts one of the world's most powerful political figures.
In a telling sign of the tentative nature of reforms in the long-closed nation, Myanmar's leaders hailed Clinton in private but there was little public welcome for the first secretary of state to visit in a half century.
The government-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper offered only a page-two photograph and a short piece announcing Clinton's arrival, with the front page featuring a dry curriculum vitae of the visiting prime minister of Belarus.
Billboards made no mention of Clinton's visit but welcomed Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich as well as visiting telecommunication ministers from Southeast Asia, who picked an unlikely destination considering the rudimentary phone and Internet network in the country formerly known as Burma.
Myanmar in 2005 abruptly moved its entire capital from the coastal hub of Yangon to a remote patch of farmland, for unstated reasons believed to include astrologers' advice and fears of a seaborne invasion by the United States.
The sprawling city now features an imposing museum devoted to gems, and glittering supermarkets, but most of its wide boulevards remain empty with only pictures to hint at future construction where water buffaloes now graze.
Hundreds of police fanned out across the capital Naypyidaw to guard Clinton, some waving their arms to shoo away non-existent traffic from cross-streets, as her motorcade cruised through a barren 12-lane highway to the presidential palace.
Workers in conical hats cut grass on their hands and knees below the palace, which rose like a pyramid above the quiet capital. Visitors walked by high-rising fountains into cavernous marble rooms of gold-leaf furniture and wood-carved Buddhist statues.
Despite the cautious public welcome, President Thein Sein - a former general now at the vanguard of reforms - smiled broadly as he greeted Clinton and saluted what he called a "new chapter in relations".
Myanmar's security guards were surprisingly relaxed as foreign and local journalists swarmed into the palace, elbowing one another for the historic shot of Thein Sein and Clinton. Authorities imposed no unusual restrictions on reporters, although Myanmar officials did not speak to the press.
And while some observers compare Naypyidaw to North Korea's other-worldly capital Pyongyang, the mood among the general public was clearly welcoming, even in a city devoted to the government and military.
"We are so proud to have her here. This is the first time in 50 years," said a worker at Clinton's hotel where staff welcomed the US delegation with cool towels and fresh watermelon juice.
A taxi driver looked visibly excited upon learning that his passenger was from the United States, exclaiming in what appeared to go beyond requisite politeness: "USA - very good!"
"I support Aung San Suu Kyi. We want democracy," he said of Myanmar's opposition leader who was freed last year after spending most of the past two decades under house arrest.
A senior US official travelling with Clinton said the United States was pleasantly surprised by Myanmar's cooperation on the visit, crediting the government with issuing visas more easily than at any time in recent memory.
"They're generally uncomfortable with (security agents), with guns. They've been very accommodating in a variety of the areas that we're seeking, what we would call hospitality," the official said on condition of anonymity.
"That's important to us, but what's really important to us is what are the steps that they're going to take (on political reform)."
However historic the visit, the US delegation will be left only with memories - Myanmar is still subject to strict US sanctions, making any souvenir shopping a no-no.
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Manila Bulletin - Western oil firms avoid Myanmar
By AUNG HLA TUN
December 1, 2011, 11:19pm
YANGON (Reuters) – Myanmar's reputation as one of the world's most isolated and secretive states is changing rapidly, but many foreign investors remain wary of exploring for oil or gas there, leaving the sector open to Indian, Thai and Malaysian firms.
Myanmar closed its biggest oil and gas exploration tender in years in August, a few months after it cautiously started political reforms, and the government is now processing the bids.
Details of the tender are still trickling out, but oil industry executives say Western oil companies were conspicuously absent, leaving regional firms as the main contenders.
US firms are barred from new investments in Myanmar under government-ordered sanctions, but there were no expressions of interest from Europe. Some executives say the blocks on offer were not particularly lucrative.
Chinese oil firms, historically dominant in Myanmar, appear lukewarm to the bidding for 18 onshore oil and gas blocks because of concerns over the blocks' prospects. Additionally, bilateral ties have been strained since September, after Yangon shelved a China-backed dam in the north of the country.
Industry sources in Myanmar said the tender had attracted about 50 bids, but further details were not available.
''They probably have attracted as much as 50 bids, but each field may have been counted as a separate bid, so the number of individual companies bidding are very likely much lower than 50,'' said H.S.Yen, a consultant at FACTS Global Energy.
''They may have only attracted a single bid from a European company. I certainly don't see a major company that isn't already present in the country venturing into Myanmar given the risks of doing business there and the small reserves size.''
So far only Thailand's PTT Exploration and India's ONGC Videsh have publicly expressed interest in this tender, with ONGC saying it is evaluating data. A senior official in Yangon has said Malaysia's Petronas is among the bidders.
Petronas said it has no comment on the matter at this point.
The firm had said it has ongoing studies for unconventional oil in Myanmar.
Japan's Marubeni Corp. also said it does not comment on individual auctions, while Mitsubishi Corp. and Mitsui & Co Ltd declined comment on anything related to bids.
A Reuters survey of European and Asian firms showed that global majors such as Total SA, which already leads the $1 billion Yadana gas project in Myanmar waters in the Andaman Sea, would not take part in the tender. ''Total did not take part in the Myanmar bidding round,'' its spokeswoman said.
Christophe de Margerie, the French major's CEO, said last month Total would like to play a bigger role in the Southeast Asian country but wanted to first see concrete signs of increased democratization.
Myanmar ushered in a civilian government in March after 49 years of harsh military rule, but many of its top leaders are former generals. Nevertheless, reforms picked up pace as authorities initiated talks with opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi, released political prisoners and reached out to armed ethnic groups to end decades of violence.
The moves were breathtakingly fast by Myanmar's standards, and US President Barack Obama has said he has been encouraged.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to visit Yangon next week to explore new ties, a major endorsement of the Myanmar government.
But US officials have warned that sanctions will only be lifted after concrete and sustained signs of progress.
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Dec 2, 2011
MYANMAR IN THE MIDDLE
Asia Times Online - China-Myanmar: border war dilemma
By Bertil Lintner
This is the final article in a four-part series.
Part 1: China embrace too strong for Naypyidaw(http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/MK29Ae01.html)
Part 2: India-Myanmar: a half-built gateway(http://atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/MK30Ae01.html)
Part 3: US engagement as nuclear pre-emption(http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/ML01Ae01.html)
NONGDAO, China-Myanmar border - While many foreign observers have enthused about recent, seemingly liberal developments in Myanmar, it is an entirely different on-the-ground reality in the country's border areas, where fighting between the Myanmar Army and ethnic rebels has flared anew.
On June 9, President Thein Sein's government ended a 17-year old ceasefire with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), a rebel group that refused to surrender its arms and join a government-commanded Border Guard Force. The KIA has insisted on its demands for autonomy in Myanmar's northernmost Kachin State, which the predominantly Christian Kachins have been fighting for since 1961.
Both sides have made peace overtures, but by late November fierce fighting was still raging along the Bhamo-Namkham road in the southeastern corner of the state, around Shwegu to the west and near the state capital of Myitkyina. Skirmishes were also reported from northern Kachin State as well as the Kachin-inhabited areas of northeastern Shan State. Hard-pressed in a difficult terrain and under constant ambushes from Kachin guerrillas, the Myanmar Army has even used tanks in its assaults in the Momauk area east of Bhamo.
The fighting has forced at least 30,000 people to flee their homes, with thousands seeking shelter in town churches and along the Chinese border. The flood of refugees has put Beijing in a dilemma as it does not want to allow the fleeing Kachin into their territory and be seen as supporting the rebels. On the other hand, China can ill-afford to antagonize the KIA, which operates over a large geographical area where Beijing has made substantial investments in logging, hydroelectric power, and jade and gold mining. The China-backed, US$3.6 billion Myitsone dam, on which the Myanmar government suspended work on September 30, lies in the heart of Kachin State and the Chinese have not abandoned hope of eventually resuming the megaproject.
West of the Yunnanese town of Ruili, Nongdao is one of many Chinese border areas where people have fled the fighting. The only way to travel to the temporary camp is by motorcycle, more than an hour on a rutted dirt track through the forest and border mountains. More than 400 people are now staying there in temporary huts and under plastic sheets. Some aid comes from local church groups and sympathetic ethnic Kachin villagers in China. Although they have not been pushed back across the border, Chinese authorities have made it clear that they are not welcome to stay long-term.
Judging from refugee accounts, little has changed in the Myanmar Army's behavior since the heyday of its counterinsurgency campaigns in the 1970s and 1980s. Those who have fled tell the same tales of killings, beatings, plunder and rape which have been heard for decades from Myanmar's ethnic frontier areas.
Dashi Kaw, an 87-year-old woman who has to support herself on a wooden staff, says she had to walk for two days through the jungle to get to the border because of her fear of government soldiers. Mahka Naw, a 70-year-old Kachin man, says government soldiers came to his village and slaughtered all his livestock and ate them without compensating him. He believes that since he fled his house has been burnt down by Myanmar Army soldiers.
On November 28, Partners Relief and Development, a Christian non-governmental organization (NGO), released a 57-page report titled "Crimes in Northern Burma", which details recent atrocities committed by government forces in the area. According to the report, villagers have been tortured, killed and forced from their homes while others have been forcibly recruited to carry heavy loads for the army. The NGO accuses the Myanmar Army of war crimes and supports a United Nations-led Commission of Inquiry into its alleged crimes.
However, the Myanmar Army has changed in some respects. Prior to the conclusion of ceasefire agreements with more than a dozen ethnic rebel armies in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Myanmar Army was a poorly equipped but battle-hardened light infantry force. Since then, Myanmar has purchased vast quantities of military hardware primarily from China but also from Russia, Ukraine, Singapore, North Korea and other countries.
Government soldiers today are much better equipped, have nicer uniforms, and officers have been given ample business opportunities to ensure their loyalty to a regime that almost collapsed under a pro-democracy uprising in 1988. Suppressing the uprising in urban areas and making peace with the ethnic rebels in the border areas were part of the same policy: to prevent a link-up between the urban dissidents and the armed insurgents.
Military weakness
That worked for a while, particularly as the ceasefires held up, but now the policy seems to be backfiring. None of the various ceasefire agreements addressed the main reasons ethnic rebels had taken up arms in the first place; rather, they temporarily froze the problems, and now they are coming back to haunt the new nominally civilian government that has claimed to be working towards national reconciliation. After almost two decades of ceasefires, now smarter-looking soldiers have had little or no fighting experience.
Most battalions are also undermanned since budgets have been used to buy sophisticated weapons' systems instead of supporting the privates. According to a well-placed source with access to inside information, the Myanmar Army consisted of 182 battalions before 1988. A full battalion should have been made up of 777 men, but the usual strength then was between 500-600. Now there are more than 500 battalions, each with no more than 150-160 men of which on average 40-50 are officers.
As a result of that inexperience and dilution, the Myanmar Army has taken a severe beating in Kachin State, suffering heavy casualties and having several of its men, including officers, captured alive by the guerrillas. The counter-move has been to use heavy artillery to pound Kachin positions from afar, a tactic that has inflicted few casualties on the guerrillas but caused heavy displacement of the civilian population in the battle zones.
Landlocked in northernmost Myanmar, with no supply lines for arms and ammunition, the Kachin guerrillas may also soon face severe difficulties. In the past, the KIA benefited from Chinese supplies to the now defunct insurgent Communist Party of Burma, while some weapons and other equipment were previously obtained directly from China.
During the 17-year ceasefire spanning 1994 to 2011, the KIA was able to trade openly with China and most of its non-lethal supplies came from across the border. However, arms and ammunition are much harder to procure, and Kachin State is far away from Southeast Asia's arms blackmarkets. Resupplying ammunition could become difficult as the fighting continues.
China's border war dilemma is obvious, especially in light of recent deteriorating Sino-Myanmar relations. According to sources in Chinese border towns, it is unlikely that Beijing would opt to use the Kachins and other ethnic groups as a lever against the Myanmar government. Instead, Beijing has been seen as aiming to please the Myanmar government to protect China's massive and strategic investments in the country.
At the same time, antagonizing the Kachins could have far-reaching consequences beyond threats to cross-border trade and planned hydroelectric power schemes. Beijing is now constructing pipelines from Myanmar's southern coast to China's southwestern province of Yunnan to deliver natural gas from the Bay of Bengal and oil from the Middle East. The last stretch of those pipelines are scheduled to pass through Kachin-inhabited areas of northeastern Shan State, which is currently a theater of war. And the situation could get worse before it gets better.
China has a strong interest in restoring stability in its Myanmar border areas. On Tuesday, representatives of the Myanmar government and the Kachin Independence Organization started talks in the Chinese border town of Ruili - the distrustful Kachins are not willing to talk to government authorities in Myanmar - but China will be wary of becoming directly involved in a conflict it is clearly trying to avoid.
The war in Kachin State has only added to China's problems with Myanmar, where it is now stuck uncomfortably in the middle of the central government and ethnic rebels.
Bertil Lintner is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic Review and author of several books on Burma/Myanmar, including the forthcoming Great Game East: India, China and the Struggle for Asia's Most Volatile Frontier. He is currently a writer with Asia-Pacific Media Services.
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Telegraphindia - Myanmar aid sought to rein in rebels
By our correspondent | www.telegraphindia.com – 18 hours ago
Wed, Nov 30, 2011
Shillong, Nov. 30: After Bangladesh, the northeastern state governments and the Centre are on a joint exercise to convince Myanmar to take action against militant groups taking shelter in the neighbouring country.
Meghalaya chief minister Mukul Sangma, who has returned from Delhi after meeting several Union ministers, told reporters today that action against militants by both the neighbouring countries could bring lasting peace in the region.
There is a reduction in the number of militant camps in Bangladesh after the country took proactive steps. Later many militant groups of the Northeast, including Ulfa and NDFB, have shifted their camps to Myanmar.
On handing over of GNLA chairman Champion Sangma, who is said to be detained in Bangladesh, the chief minister did not give a direct reply. He said there is a palpable change in relations between India and Bangladesh and this has resulted in the neighbouring country taking action against insurgents from the Northeast.
A similar exercise to engage Myanmar is also on for a conducive atmosphere in the Northeast to maintain peace and improve economic activities in the region.
Commenting on the positive steps taken by the Bangladesh government, the chief minister said the leadership of both countries could break the ice, thereby enabling settlement of many issues including cross-border terrorism.
"There is a silver lining since a palpable change has emerged in the relations between the two countries as it is evident from various actions of Bangladesh that it would not be a safe haven for the militants from the Northeast," the chief minister said.
According to the chief minister, a similar exercise to engage Myanmar is being jointly pursued by the chief ministers of the region and the Centre.
Politician-GNLA nexus: Sangma also indicated that there can be a nexus between politicians and GNLA. "We are trying to address the root cause of militancy. We are aware some politicians are hand-in-glove with the GNLA and are eulogising militancy," the chief minister said, without naming any particular leaders.
Asked about the demand of the NCP to hold the winter session of the Assembly to discuss various issues concerning the state, including law and order problems, the chief minister said the government would act in this regard only when the need arose.
Letter to PM: Sangma said he had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking his intervention to allot portions of defence land in Shillong to be used for projects which can ease traffic congestion in the city.
He said the transfer of defence land, which is in the heart of the city, is the need of the hour as this will help the government to adopt ways and means to address the perennial traffic congestion. "We can widen the roads and construct flyovers if we can get the defence land," the chief minister said.
"The traffic snarls in parts of the city have become an irritant and hence the government has sent letters to the Prime Minister, the Union defence minister A.K. Antony, and minister of state M.M. Pallam Raju so that the government can get portions of defence land near Lady Keane college and Garrison ground in Shillong," Sangma said.
The chief minister said the government would explore the possibility of land swap so that the defence authorities could get separate land on the outskirts of Shillong, if they agreed to part with portions of land in the city.
In 2007, when D.D. Lapang was the chief minister, he suggested the need to constitute a high- powered committee to take up the issue of handing over unused defence land in Shillong.
The total area of land belonging to the defence authorities in and around Shillong is around 2,412 acres.
In the past, the ministry of defence had been urged by the government delegation on several occasions at the ministerial and official levels to part with wasteland unutilised by the defence authorities.
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December 1, 2011, 12:10 PM SGT
Wall Street Journal (blog) - Investors Eye Myanmar Real Estate
By WSJ Staff
The influx of visitors to Myanmar this year has put investors on alert to potential opportunities in what many see as the opening up of one of the last virtually-undeveloped real estate markets in Southeast Asia. Outside investors are already circling Myanmar, also known as Burma, in the hopes that economic sanctions could be eased after a series of reforms by the country’s new government, creating opportunities in everything from chemicals to excavation to power plant construction. Building real estate and hotels will no doubt also be a focus – especially if the current round of reform continues.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is currently in Myanmar on a fact-finding mission and could offer more insights into the improving relations between the two countries soon.
Tony Picon, associate director and head of research at Colliers International Bangkok, says investors are getting very interested in Myanmar, but it’s too soon to jump in headlong, given that reforms are still in the early stages and the discussion of lifting Western sanctions has only just begun, and will likely take some time.
“The jigsaws are fitting into place, but not all the pieces are there yet,” said Mr. Picon.
There are still giant obstacles for investors. For instance, the government has yet to introduce a highly-anticipated foreign investment law that would give foreigners more clout in controlling property. Currently it’s illegal for foreigners to own property; they can only hold leases for 30 years. Other Southeast Asian countries allow leases up to 50 years or longer.
But in an indication of the rising interest, Colliers recently published its own report on the Myanmar property market, possibly the first such assessment by an outside real estate firm in years.
What it found is a stock of real estate that is dated and undersized given the potential size of the market, including scores of dilapidated and mouldy old buildings dating back to the years of British colonial rule. The last period of new construction, especially in the commercial capital of Yangon, was during the mid-1990s, when Myanmar’s then-military-junta was experimenting with some free market reforms. But then the Asian financial crisis and the passage of economic sanctions in the U.S. and Europe, snuffed out most of the development activity.
Although there are a few cranes visible on the Yangon skyline and a small number of new projects in recent years, there’s been close to no new industrial or office space added since the 1990s mini-boom. When a reporter visited a prominent Yangon business last year with hundreds of office workers, he had to climb eight stories in a building whose elevators long ago stopped functioning.
Moreover, the number of hotel rooms and amount of office square-footage could prove to be remarkably small if Yangon becomes Asia’s next boomtown, like Ho Chi Minh City or Phnom Penh. Indeed, visitors in Yangon for Ms. Clinton’s visit this week have struggled to book rooms – a bad omen considering that Myanmar is tapped to host a string of big regional summits for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2014, which should bring thousands of visitors to both Yangon and the capital of Naypitaw. That should necessitate at least some new construction, possibly involving firms from neighboring Asian countries that don’t have sanctions of their own against Myanmar.
Currently there are just 1,700 upper-scale hotel rooms in Yangon, which is also known as Rangoon, with none added since 1998 and very little construction in the pipeline. It was so lonely in Yangon’s hotel sector for a while that many big hotels converted large blocs of their rooms to office space, especially for international aid groups. Now some hotels are reportedly trying to claw back those rooms for higher-paying business travelers.
Average room rates in the first half of 2011 were around $60 a night. Prices have since gone higher as the tourist season hit high gear and businesses accelerated their efforts to investigate Myanmar investment opportunities. It could take several years for new supply to be added.
“Even if you get a new hotel at 3-star level, with the new equipment, it would really impact the market,” Mr. Picon said.
The government said 300,000 tourists visited in 2010, and more were expected to come this year. That number could increase dramatically. Next door, Thailand draws 15 million or more tourists a year, with similar attractions. Many new arrivals have come to Myanmar since opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi wrote a letter in 2010 dropping her advice that foreign tourists should stay away to prevent enriching the country’s former military regime, whose generals and friends have controlled much of the country’s property stock. The latest news of reduced tensions between Myanmar and the West will likely encourage more to travel.
Other areas of opportunity include building serviced apartments, which cater to longer-stay businessmen. There are only 600 currently, and none built since the 1990s.
In terms of office space, there’s only about 540,000 square feet of it in the whole of Yangon. That’s the equivalent of a medium-sized office tower in New York or Bangkok. More will need to be built if multinational companies make their way into the country.
Land is not cheap in Myanmar, however, at least by historical standards. Local analysts and residents say businessmen enriched by trade in jade, timber and other commodities have invested heavily in local real estate – especially along Yangon’s well-known Paya Road – in large part because they haven’t been able to get their money out of the country due to U.S. sanctions against financial transactions. That, in turn, has helped push property prices higher. Plots along Paya Road go for as much as in downtown Bangkok, according to Mr. Picon.
“We can see land prices going up even further. When things open up, you get speculators – land is one of those things that gets bid up.”
If the experience is the same as when other nearby emerging markets opened up, such as Cambodia and Vietnam, there will also likely be some significant overbuilding and price drops along the way. For Myanmar, that’s tomorrow’s problem.
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The Guardian - India and China move to protect Burmese interests from US influence
While US officials deny Hillary Clinton's trip is primarily about countering Chinese influence, many in Beijing disagree
Jason Burke in Delhi and Tania Branigan in Beijing
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 1 December 2011 12.39 EST
Officials in India and China have moved to downplay fears that reforms in Burma will spark a fierce competition for influence between the two emerging Asian powers.
Delhi has long favoured engagement with the Burmese regime and opposed sanctions imposed by the US and the European Union.
"We are not in the business of hoorahs because we have been vindicated. You don't do that in the world of diplomacy," said one senior Indian official. "But we always said dialogue was best and sanctions were counterproductive."
The official said that Delhi had warned Washington and London that "a vacuum in [Burma] has unintended consequences" – a reference to the growth in Chinese influence. Burma has borders with both regional rivals.
Shyam Saran, a former Indian foreign secretary and ambassador to Burma, said the Burmese regime's growing concern about its heavy dependence on China was one reason for the recent changes.
"China has exploited the isolation [of the Burmese regime] to such an extent they are now keen for a rapprochement with India or others out of a desire to diversify their foreign relations," Saran said.
Strategists in Delhi worry that Chinese influence in Burma is a link in a chain passing through Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Nepal – which effectively encircles India. Chinese investment
in vast new facilities in the Bangladeshi port of Chittagong has particularly riled India, as have infrastructure projects in the north.
The surprise halt ordered by the Burmese government to the construction of a vast Chinese funded-and-built dam was therefore welcomed.
"There's no reason why some kind of modus vivendi can't be found, despite possible tensions," a second Indian official told the Guardian.
Gareth Price, an expert in Burma at Chatham House, the London-based thinktank, said the west needed to be careful not to antagonise China, which remains the country with the greatest leverage over Burma.
While US officials have denied that Clinton's trip to Burma is primarily about countering Chinese influence there and in the region, many in Beijing disagree.
"The more conservative camp sees this as part of a wider US effort to contain China and as part of a continuum of recent US engagement and policy pronouncements in the region," said Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt, north-east Asia project director for the International Crisis Group.
But she stressed there were widely diverging views. US engagement with the Burmese regime has potential benefits for China, which is worried about Burma's stability, particularly given the ethnic conflicts along their long border. Chinese businesses could also benefit from an end to sanctions, increased aid and a normalised business environment.
China is Burma's biggest economic partner, with trade hitting $4.4bn (£3bn) last year, and its largest foreign investor. It values the country's natural resources and access to the Indian Ocean.
The popular Chinese state-run newspaper Global Times warned in an editorial this week that Beijing would not accept "seeing its interests stamped on" but said it had no resistance to Burma improving relations with the west.
Beijing's anxieties about the visit in large part reflect President Obama's recent trip to the region: his message that the US was "here to stay" as a Pacific power; the announcement that the US would station troops in Australia; the discussion of a new trade alliance that would probably exclude China; and the decision to join regional powers in pressing China over South China Sea territorial disputes.
"Some people feel very nervous … [and] consider what's happening as containment. But I don't think the mainstream of foreign policy sees these developments in that way," said Professor Jin Canrong, deputy director of the Center for American Studies at Renmin University.
Experts also stressed that while Burma may be broadening its ties, it will hardly turn its back on Beijing.
"Burma will want to keep China on its side and ensure its interests are protected," Dr Ian Storey of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore wrote in an essay this week.
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The Irrawaddy - ICG Ethnic Conflicts Report: Thein Sein’s ‘Bold Peace Initiative’ Gives Hope
By SAI ZOM HSENG Thursday, December 1, 2011
The Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) released a report on Thursday called “Myanmar: A New Peace Initiative,” which describes Burma’s devastating 60-year-long civil war with the country’s ethnic armed groups as the biggest challenge facing the new government and says that President Thein Sein has moved decisively to build momentum behind a new peace initiative.
“A lasting solution to the problem requires going beyond just stopping the wars,” said Jim Della-Giacoma, the ICG’s South East Asia project director. “Multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious Myanmar [Burma] can only achieve genuine national unity and reconciliation by embracing its diversity.”
The ICG report said, “President Thein Sein has recognized the importance of the ethnic situation and pledged to make it a national priority. Myanmar now has an opportunity to comprehensively resolve these conflicts. The President has opened a dialogue with all armed groups and dropped key preconditions, such as the scheme to convert their armies into border guards. He has also offered an unprecedented national conference to seek political solutions to ethnic divisions.”
La Nan, the spokesperson for the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), whose armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), is currently involved in fighting with government troops, said that a temporary ceasefire does not make sense and the important thing is for the government to begin a political dialogue with the different ethnic groups.
“We believe that the civil war is happening because of political reasons and therefore the government needs to solve it by political means,” La Nan told The Irrawaddy on Thursday.
“If there is an understanding after a political dialogue between the government and the ethnic groups, they [the government] won’t need to impose a ceasefire as a special issue. The guns will automatically be silent,” he said.
The KIO signed a cease fire agreement with the previous Burmese regime in 1994 and the current clashes erupted in June, breaking the ceasefire.
The government has recently engaged in peace talks with some ethnic armed groups such as the KIA, the Shan State Army (SSA) and the Karen National Union (KNU), but has simultaneously undertaken offensive military action against each of these ethnic armed groups.
The ICG report says that Thein Sein’s outreach to ethnic armed groups “has convinced some of the major ethnic groups to sign peace agreements and others to agree to verbal ceasefires, with written agreements to be signed in the coming weeks.”
The United Wa State Army and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, who have worked together in the past and who had not been involved in any recent clashes with Burmese government troops, signed a new temporary ceasefire agreement in order to relax government trade blockades on their territories.
In addition, Brigade 5 of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), which had broken off from the DKBA, an ethnic militia which has long been a government proxy and is the only significant ethnic armed group to join the border guard force, also signed a ceasefire agreement with the government.
However, other than the DKBA, none of the other ethnic armed groups that have been involved in serious clashes with government troops—such as the KIA, SSA and Karen National Union—have signed a new ceasefire agreement, and according to sources inside the groups there is no indication that new agreements are imminent.
For example, an SSA officer said that their meeting with the government’s delegation in November was informal and no agreement was reached and they don’t expect any formal ceasefire in the near future.
In addition, the ICG report said that Thein Sein has offered “an unprecedented national conference to seek political solutions to ethnic divisions.” However, according to sources among each of the ethnic armed groups currently in discussions with the government, Thein Sein’s representatives have insisted that the government negotiate separately with each group and has not made any effort to date to organize such a conference.
The ICG report also said that President Thein Sein has moved remarkably quickly to implement reforms by taking actions such as releasing a significant number of political prisoners, cutting back on media censorship, signing a new law allowing workers to form labor unions and creating the conditions for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) to join the political process.
But Toe Kyaw Hlaing, a former political prisoner who is currently assisting current political prisoners in Burma, said that many prisoners of conscience remain behind bars and the number released by Thein Sein was very small.
“Releasing the political prisoners is a big step in the forming of a democratic country.
The NLD’s participating in the country’s current political field is also important for both the government and the citizens, but we have to monitor how much of a mandate they will gain,”
Maung Zarni, a Burmese research fellow on Burma at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the founder of the Free Burma Coalition, said that the ICG is known to promote the Burmese government agenda.
“For the Burma analysis on which ICG’s advocacy for Burma rests is grounded in faulty assumptions about the Burmese military’s ‘ruling class’ and its collective psyche, coupled with unfounded speculation about the prospects for even incremental change arising from recent political changes,” he wrote in an article posted at the Himal South Asian.
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The Irrawaddy - Activists Protest at US Consulate as Clinton Tours Burma
By SAW YAN NAING Thursday, December 1, 2011
As US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shakes hands with Burmese government officials in Naypyidaw, 30 ethnic activists and supporters mounted a demonstration on Thursday outside the US consulate in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, calling on the secretary of state to include in her agenda the Burmese government forces' horrific record of human rights abuses in ethnic regions.
They said political progress and development in the capital and in Rangoon is not enough, and that deep in the jungle—often far from international eyes—civilians are continually suffering from human rights abuses and even starvation.
The Chiang Mai-based activists and their supporters also called on the US secretary of state to push the Burmese government to end ethnic conflict in the country, and release all political prisoners.
“There is no progress in the ethnic areas along Burma's borders,” said Cheery Zahau, a leading ethnic Chin dissident. “We want to say that progress in urban areas alone, such as Naypyidaw and Rangoon, is not enough.
“Clinton should pressure the government to immediately end its ongoing armed conflicts,” she said. “We also call on her to push for a dialogue involving opposition parties, ethnic armed groups and government representatives.”
A humanitarian report released on Thursday by the International Crisis Group (ICG) claims that the peace process has been made more difficult due to renewed clashes between Burmese government forces and the Kachin rebels, and that much bad blood remains.
The ICG report said that the new political process offers a framework within which these issues could be addressed, but that it will require an honest reckoning with the failures of the past and a fundamental re-thinking of the way the country deals with its multi-ethnic make up.
A lasting solution to the problem requires going beyond just stopping the wars, it said. Multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious Burma can only achieve genuine national unity and reconciliation by embracing its diversity, concluded ICG.
On Wednesday, Brig-Gen Gun Maw, the deputy military chief of the rebel Kachin Independence Organization, told The Irrawaddy that military means will not achieve peace, and that the ethnic conflicts can only be settled by political means.
“We want Clinton to tell the Burmese ministers that they need to find a solution to the ethnic conflicts,” said Gun Maw.
He said he had heard reports that Naypyidaw have begun using helicopters to deploy Burmese soldiers and military supplies from Mandalay to Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, in an effort to reinforce its military strength in the area.
Writing in the Asia Times on Wednesday, veteran journalist Bertil Lintner said that on Nov. 9, a cargo plane landed at Mandalay airport with what was possibly “a delivery of Russian-made MI-24 helicopter gunships destined for military use against the Kachins and other ethnic rebel groups in Myanmar's restive border regions.”
The ICG report concluded that the greatest improvements to human rights observance would come from tackling the ethnic armed conflicts.
“Once peace agreements are reached, there is an important role for donor countries in providing development assistance and peace-building support to these areas,” it added.
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The Irrawaddy - Suu Kyi Wants India to Do More
By LALIT K JHA Thursday, December 1, 2011
Aung San Suu Kyi said on Wednesday that she wants a “friendly” relationship with China, and wants India to do more to promote genuine democracy in Burma.
“With regards to China, I've always emphasized the fact that we have not only been neighbors and will always be neighbors, we have enjoyed quite a good record of friendship … and I would like to maintain that,” Aung San Suu Kyi said in response to a question as she interacted with members of US intelligence and journalists by Skype.
The rare interaction with the popular Burmese leader was organized by the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington-based think tank. The early morning event attracted a full house in the US capital.
“I hope that whatever little snags may have arisen along the road, we will be able to overcome them and be able to maintain our friendly relations with China. I do not think simply because we believe in different systems of government, we need necessarily be hostile to one another,” Suu Kyi noted.
Responding to a question on India, she said she would like India to do more to promote democratic values in Burma. Similarly the United Nations too can play a more proactive role in Burma, she noted, but was quick to refer to the differences in the UN Security Council which prevents the world body from doing so.
Suu Kyi conceded that the climate in Burma is freer than before. “Certainly the media is freer. It's not totally free, but it's freer than it used to be. Young people are now able to read articles about politics, about the history of the independence movement in Burma, about our political figures now. They were not able to do that just a year ago. I think this has invigorated them,” she said.
The Nobel laureate said she supported the new policy of the Obama administration. “I think the United States has got it just right, because although, of course, we discuss many things very often, they also engage with other groups in Burma. I'm not the only democratic opposition party member with whom they discuss … the issue of engagement with the government,” she said.
“They understand that I did not wish to use our friendly relations with the United States in any way hurt the situation in Burma,” Suu Kyi noted.
Responding to a question on the lifting of US sanctions on Burma, Suu Kyi said she and her party has always said that the best way to get sanctions lifted in Burma is to meet the conditions that were set by the US Congress when sanctions were imposed—the release of political prisoners, negotiation with the democratic opposition, and humanitarian access to conflict areas.
“So if these conditions are met, then the time will certainly have come for sanctions to be relaxed, and whether I say it or not, I'm sure Congress will know that the time has come,” she said.
When asked if she believes in a federal system, Suu Kyi said the word "federal" has been misused terribly in Burma.
“It has become a very controversial word simply because it was not understood properly or perhaps it was understood quite well or too well by some politicians, but they deliberately misused the word to create the kind of political situation they wanted,” she said.
“There were many members of the army as well as some politicians who equated federalism with secession. They said that federalism would mean the dissolution of the union. Of course, we know that this is not so, and so we had to try to make the people understand first what federalism means,” she noted.
“If they understand that federalism simply means the division of powers between the central government and the state government and that this all has to be embodied in the constitution … people would be much less afraid of the word 'federalism,'” she said. “And then I think the people of Burma can decide what kind of system they want.”
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Burma pledges to Clinton it will release political prisoners
Thursday, 01 December 2011 23:21 Kyaw Kha
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The speaker of the Burmese Lower House Thura Shwe Mann said on Thursday that he made a pledge to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that all political prisoners across Burma will be released.
“She urged Burma to release political prisoners. In response, I said I pledged that we will do as much as we can in order that all citizens including political prisoners can be involved in building the nation and for the sake of national reconciliation,” Thura Shwe Mann said in the press conference in Naypyitaw after meeting with Clinton.
Earlier, Clinton met with Burmese President Thein Sein in Naypyitaw followed by a private lunch.
Burma’s relationship with the U.S. has evolved rapidly in the past several months to the point where the U.S. is now prepared to reinstate a modest aid program and not oppose moves by the International Monetary Fund and other key bodies to offer assistance to Burma as it attempts to emerge from two decades of isolation.
Burma’s big hope is that the U.S. will lift economic sanctions against the country, which were put in place after the former military regime attacked and killed hundreds of peaceful demonstrators in 1988 and began a systematic imprisonment of pro-democracy activists.
In the press conference, Thura Shwe Mann denied that Burma had tried to get North Korean nuclear technology.
“Some allegations said that some officials including me went there and signed an agreement regarding nuclear aid. That’s not true. All we did in North Korea is observe their defense systems against air attacks and their ammunition plants. We also observed their air force, navy and other affairs.”
The Lower House speaker also said Clinton told him that the U.S. will watch Burma’s efforts to move toward democracy, and pledged to reward it with aid to education, health and social programs.
Clinton said in a press conference that the US is not ready to lift sanctions against Burma until it sees further concrete progress in reforms, including the release of political prisoners, a resolution to the bloody fighting in ethnic areas, a more open democratic system that guarantees political parties the right to open offices and travel to all areas of the country, and an end to Burma’s “illicit” dealings with North Korea involving missiles and nuclear technology.
She said that she welcomed the Burmese side’s pledge to release political prisoners soon and to abide by U.N. resolutions on missile and nuclear technology.
Thura Shwe Mann said Clinton urged the newly elected government to continue to make changes that improved the lives of the people and offered greater freedom. He said any improvement in relations with the U.S. would not alter Burma’s relationship with neighbouring countries including China and India.
Meanwhile, on Thursday 70 people including Burmese activists and others staged a demonstration at the U.S. consulate in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, urging the Burmese government to bring peace to ethnic areas and to release all political prisoners.
Win Aung, a member of the demonstration, told Mizzima, “We want Clinton to urge the Burmese government to hold an all-inclusive political dialogue, to try to seek cease-fires and release all political prisoners.”
Since early June, there has been widespread fighting between Burmese government troops and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Kachin State in northern Burma.
The Associated Press reported on Thursday said a senior U.S. official said President Thein Sein outlined his government's plans for reform in a 45-minute presentation in which he acknowledged that Burma lacked a recent tradition of democracy and openness. He asked for U.S. help in making the transition from military to full civilian rule, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Clinton replied that she was visiting because the U.S. was "encouraged by the steps” Burma had taken, the AP reported.
"We're not at the point yet where we can consider lifting sanctions that we have in place because of our ongoing concerns about policies that have to be reversed," Clinton was quoted as saying. "But any steps that the government takes will be carefully considered and will be matched."
Nyan Win, a spokesman for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, welcomed the U.S. package of rewards and said, "The incentives will help promote better relations and a better future for the country, and I hope the government will expand its reform process."
Burmese officials hope Clinton's visit, which started on Wednesday, opens a new chapter in U.S.-Burma relations. Burma’s overriding goal is a lifting of Western economic sanctions. The AP said that Clinton's historic journey is a culmination of behind-the-scenes overtures since a newly elected President Barack Obama told the world's despotic regimes in 2009 that the "US will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."
Since then, Burma has released pro-democracy leader Suu Kyi from house arrest, installed an elected government, and opened a dialogue with Suu Kyi, offering Washington just enough of an opening to re-engage.
Three key sticking points block better relations: the remaining political prisoners in Burmese jails, a civil war it has waged against ethnic armed groups, and its illicit dealings with North Korea, which the U.S. believes could involve missile and nuclear technology.
For Burma, better U.S. relations offer a potential flow of badly needed aid and over time even a military relationship with access to U.S. technology and expertise. Better relations also would allow Burma to play off its dependency on China, its prime benefactor in terms of aid and lucrative energy deals involving oil, gas and hydropower. Burma benefits from its strategic position between India, China and Southeast Asia.
The AP quoted David Steinberg, the director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., saying: "They [Burma] do feel that they are in such a solid position that they can begin to do things that they could not do before."
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Burmese government wants to ‘modernize’ Rangoon
Thursday, 01 December 2011 18:03 Myo Thant and Min Thet
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – In a move to solve increasing traffic jams in areas of Rangoon, the Burmese government wants to construct four flyovers, but it lacks funds for the projects so it plans to borrow money from local banks.
Minister Soe Thein of Industry No. 1 and Industry No. 2 said the flyovers will be built at crossroads in Hledan, Shwegondine, Bayintnaung and Tarmway townships in Rangoon within four months. He made the announcement during a press conference at the Ministry of Industry in Naypyitaw on Monday.
The money would be borrowed from Kanbawza Bank, Myanmar Industrial Development Bank and a construction company, he said. He did not name the company.
“We will not use government money to build the flyovers. The government lacks the money. The government cannot spend money on this so we will borrow the money from banks. We want Rangoon to be a modern city,” Soe Thein said.
President Thein Sein wants Rangoon to be developed like Singapore, Soe Thein said. In spite of budget shortfalls, he said, “The president told us to modernize Rangoon.” The city now has about six million residents.
The minister said the Rangoon government is preparing to draw up a plan for Rangoon development projects including the extension of railroad and road networks, and improving the water distribution system and sewage system.
“We have to work within the budget realities, but we cannot wait five or six years. The faster, the better,” he said.
The secretary of the Public Accounts Committee of the Lower House, Maung Toe, told Mizzima that the deficit for the central government budget for the 2011-2012 fiscal year is 2,201.45 billion kyat while the deficit for regional and state governments is 170.495 billion kyat.
The government sent an official message to the Parliament on November 25, saying the Industry No. 1 and Industry No. 2 ministries will be combined.
At the press conference, Soe Thein said: “We have to streamline the government. We have to reduce costs.”
Meanwhile, the government is also trying to find foreigner investors to participate in building a sky train in Rangoon.
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Free Funeral Service Society sends aid to Kachin refugees
Thursday, 01 December 2011 13:39 Tun Tun
New Delhi (Mizzima) – To help cut the winter cold, the Rangoon- based Free Funeral Service Society [FFSS] has sent blankets and coats to war refugees in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State.
The aid will be dispatched to refugees camps in Myitkyina and Waimaw.
“We sent a lot––five or six big packages. Now, the weather is very cold. Children have suffered a lot,” Kyaw Thu, the FFSS chairman, told Mizzima.
Temperatures have dropped below four degrees Centigrade in the area, according to state-run newspaper. Residents in Maijayang said it recently had a snowfall and heavy winds.
“We cannot go to the border. If we went, we could encounter problems. We can’t go beyond a limited area. If we went beyond that area, we might be charged with political acts,” Kyaw Thu said.
The Mandalay-based Bawa Ahlin charity group and the Rangoon-based “88-generation student group” said they would travel to Kachin State to make donations.
In Maijayang, an area controlled by the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), an estimated 800 people suffer from lung ailments, refugee sources said. Thousands of refugees are living in six camps in Maijayang on the Sino-Burmese border.
Mai Ja, a member of the Thailand-based Kachin Women’s Association – Thailand (KWAT), told Mizzima: “Most of them suffer from coughs. They sleep on mats on cement floors. They’re cold, especially children and the elderly.”
Recent clashes between government troops and the KIO have increased the number of war refugees, which now number more than 40,000 across Kachin State, according to estimates by the KIO relief committee.
On Monday, residents fled fighting in Balaungdainsa, located between Bhamo and Muse, in southeast Kachin State.
“Mostly, they cannot stay in their villages. They have to build huts in the jungles. Now it’s winter. Everyone suffers from the cold,” said Dwe P. Sar, a civilian official with the KIO relief committee.
Since early July, residents say that local NGOs have been reluctant to aid refugees because of warnings from the government.
Mai Ja said, “We want the government to stop hindering aid workers. The government should help people not make trouble for them.”
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Ex-political prisoner dies of cancer
By NAW NOREEN
Published: 1 December 2011
A man sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2003, and whose family warned two months ago that he was in the advanced stages of liver cancer, has died at his home in Pegu division.
Zaw Lin Htun was released from Insein prison in Rangoon in the October amnesty following pressure from his family and supporters. They claim that doctors in the prison knew of the 38-year-old’s illness after he was diagnosed on 18 August, but despite several spells in hospital, he remained in prison and continuously struggled to access treatment.
“When he was in Rangoon, doctors predicted that he would only last from three to six months and [upon release] he decided to go back to his home down and die in his mother’s arms,” said a close friend, U Htay, adding that he had refused further treatment after deeming his condition had deteriorated beyond the point of return.
“Since he was suffering from the last stage of cancer, he stopped taking cancer medicine and was only on other medicine to ease the pain. His condition got worse about two days ago and we were informed that he wouldn’t make it so we were just preparing to go [to his hometown of Kyauktaga] and [yesterday] we heard that he had passed,” said U Htay.
Following his sentencing in 2003, after he was found guilty of taking part in an effort to re-establish the outlawed All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU), prison doctors diagnosed him with hepatitis B, tuberculosis and kidney disease. Tests later revealed he had cancer.
His family initial request to President Thein Sein in September that he be released was turned down. He was among more than 230 political prisoners released in last month’s amnesty.
An official from the government’s Prison Administration Department admitted last year that there were 109 medical staff assigned to all the prisons, equating to one for every 8,000 inmates. Only 32 of these were fully trained.
Prisoners are often forced to bribe medical staff in order to receive treatment; the majority who cannot have to rely on medicine supplied by visiting family members.
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DVB News - Belarus PM talks trade with Thein Sein
By JOSEPH ALLCHIN
Published: 1 December 2011
Belarusian Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich arrived in the Burmese capital today on the invitation of President Thein Sein. The three-day “good will” visit is expected to focus on boosting bilateral trade, and in contrast to the yesterday’s arrival of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Myasnikovich was reportedly greeted at the airport with a huge welcome sign and notable pomp.
It follows a visit to Belarus in January by then deputy foreign minister, U Maung Myint, during which he met with Alexander Ivanov, the head of the country’s state-owned arms exporter, BSVT.
Myasnikovich, who was appointed prime minister by President Alexander Lukashenko in December 2010, will take part in a “Belarus-Myanmar business forum,” during the visit, which follows a meeting with his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Tan Dung in Hanoi on 29 November. While little further information on the trip is available, previous talks have centred on cooperation in agriculture and technical cooperation on armaments.
Europe’s last autocracy has in the past supplied the Burmese army with MiG 29 fighter jets before Russia delivered a large consignment earlier this year. Burmese officials claimed the Belarusian planes showed high “attrition rates”.
During a high-level military delegation to Burma in April last year, a Belarusian government spokesperson told the state-owned Belapan newspaper that the country had “established military and technical ties [with Burma] in recent years.
“And although foreign currency revenues from contracts with this state remain insignificant, there are certain prospects for the development of cooperation in the military and technical sphere.”
Belarus is a popular source of Russian military equipment, and formerIvory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo is believed to have sourced much of his equipment from Belarus. A US diplomatic cable states that Belarusian military technology is “custom-designed to complement Russian hardware”.
Ties between the countries are close, with Russian gas giant Gazprom recently purchasing Belarus’s entire gas transmission network, Beltransgaz, for $US2.5 billion. Russia is helping to develop two nuclear power reactors at Ostrovet that a nuclear official says is to substitute for high-cost gas.
Burma has a close relationship with Russia over weapons’ procurement. In 2006, visiting Burmese Vice Senior General Maung Aye requested help to build a 10 MW nuclear reactor he claimed was for the health and education sectors. He is also believed to have bought an air defence system.
The shared Russian technology makes Belarus a convenient trading partner for Burma’s military, which has control over at least a quarter of the government’s spending.
Myaskanovich was said in a 2006 leaked US cable to be worth nearly $US300 million. Like his host, Thein Sein, he could be soon be subject to EU sanctions because of his “direct involvement in Lukashenko’s private money-making schemes,” according to the EUObserver.
Belarus under Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, has an economic system of patronage similar to that of Burma, whereby prominent crony businessmen, including allegedly Myasnikovich, pay dividends to the president in return for licenses to operate businesses in the country.
Like Burma, Belarus recently implemented a law requiring peaceful assembly to gain the prior consent of government authorities.
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DVB News - A new, albeit ambiguous, chapter opens in US-Burma relations
By ZAW NAY AUNG
Published: 30 November 2011
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Burma opens a new chapter in US-Burma relations. Following a telephone conversation with the Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi during his Asian trip, President Obama signaled a green light for Clinton’s to visit the isolated country. But the time may not yet be right to forge closer ties between the two countries.
It is too early to tell whether high-level US engagement will become a significant driving force for further reforms in the country. Although Obama acknowledged the “flickers of progress” in Burma, these could soon fade away. While the Thein Sein administration has made minimal and cautious reforms, the praise hailed by the Suu Kyi-led opposition and the external actors like ASEAN and the US have been dramatic and disproportionate.
Suu Kyi’s decision to re-register her National League for Democracy (NLD) for looming by-elections has meant the party will leave its stolen victory in the 1990 elections behind them and relinquish the plan of challenging the government on its legal status through the UN Human Rights Commission.
Meanwhile, human rights violations continue behind the flimsy reforms of the so-called civilian government. Up to 1,700 political prisoners remain incarcerated and the government still refers these prisoners as common criminals who violated the country’s laws, whose very existence ensures that political opponents are denied the freedoms to challenge the government. And despite peace talks with ethnic armed forces, history serves to dampen expectations. Gross violations of rights and freedoms against minorities remain a grave concern.
The whole mechanism of the old junta continues to operate in every single sector of the government. Cronyism is flourishing and deeply rooted corruption and rampant abuse of power remain untouched. The regime is simply waiting for substantial concessions and bargains from the pro-democracy opposition and the international community for its minimal and negligible reforms.
Suu Kyi, a principled non-violent campaigner for democracy, has firmly advocated for dialogue and reconciliation with one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world. Her support for the US dual-track policy of engagement and sanctions, and further engagement with the Burmese government, has encouraged Obama to send Secretary Clinton to Burma. It is also a move that sees the US attempting to re-exert its influence in the region and particularly in Burma, whose relations with its ally China have come under strain in recent months.
Despite this, however, the generals in Naypyidaw appear reluctant to get too close to the US. The recent visit of the Commander-in-Chief, General Min Aung Hlaing, to Vietnam suggests that they prefer to deal with other rogue states in the region rather than becoming an American ally. Yet there is an understanding within the government that a degree of openness towards Washington’s approaches could hold some benefits.
By allowing limited freedoms and civil liberties to exist at least in name, the government has shown an eagerness to normalise its relations with the west. Consequently, the termination of sanctions and the likely volley of western investments will follow, and Burma’s cronies and the ruling elites will be rewarded. Until Suu Kyi expands her role and leads the way forward in the military-dominated parliament to meet the needs of the people, those stuck behind bars for their belief in a free Burma will continue to suffer, and the thousands of people who are yet to experience peace in their ethnic homelands will remain trapped by war.
The US should prepare to take stronger measures against the Burmese government if its pledges are not met with tangible results. Suu Kyi, who will no doubt take every opportunity available to her to better her country, and the US and other western democracies need to work harder to pull Burma away from the clutch of tyranny.
Zaw Nay Aung is director of the London-based Burma Independence Advocates.
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Saturday, 3 December 2011
BURMA RELATED NEWS - DECEMBER 01, 2011
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