Burmese Soldiers Die For Nothing On Kachin Frontline
Written by: Asian Correspondent
October 6, 2011 By Zin Linn
Political analysts and observers are deeply concerned about widespread war in Kachin State in Burma. The Thein Sein government has been slammed for breaking every promise with the ethnic ceasefire groups.
KIA officials repeatedly said the civil war will spread across Kachin and Shan states if the government continues its war against the Kachin Independence Organization. The latest series of armed clashes in Kachin state have prompted observers to say that intentional warfare in the border regions may not be avoidable.
The government’s poor handling of the Kachin situation seems to be pushing the nation into an abysmal series of tragedies. New military offensives by the Burmese army on the Kachin, Karen and Shan armed groups will steer the nation into a vicious downward spiral.
The National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi released a statement in June calling for both the government and the KIO to stop heavy fighting immediately in order to protect people’s lives and properties. It also called for peaceful talks between stakeholders to settle the decade-long political crisis of the country.
However, the government has turned a deaf ear to calls for peace.
Although government troops have suffered heavy casualties, the decision-makers are still dragging their heels about stopping this useless confrontation. They have no sympathy for their fallen soldiers.
Ongoing civil war in Kachin State has been intensifying in various fronts. On Tuesday, Burmese armed forces expanded their offensive in central Kachin State. The fighting took place around Ja Ing Yang Village, near Sinbo, in central Kachin State.
The People’s Army soldiers under the KIA’s 3rd Brigade in eastern Kachin geared up for self-protective warfare. During fighting against the People’s Army under the KIA, several government soldiers died in action, local residents said Wednesday.
As the momentum increases in the civil war in Burma’s northern Kachin State, about 40 Burma Army’s soldiers were killed in a single day, a Kachin Independence Army (KIA) source in the war zone confirmed on Tuesday.
According to one KIA officer in the frontline, there were no KIA casualties in Tuesday’s battle.
Skirmishing between government troops and Kachin people’s armed forces has been taking place daily in different areas in the Shadan Pa Valley, close to Ja Ing Yang, according to local inhabitants.
According to KIA officials in Laiza, since the last week of September hundreds of government troops have arrived in those areas likely to launch a new offensive against the KIA headquarters at Laiza.
The KIA strongholds at Laiza – Alen Bum, Laisin Bum, Hpalap Bum and Mai Ja Yang – in eastern Kachin State are close to the Chinese border, which is approximately 25 miles west of the current battle sites.
The Burmese army is heightening its offensives against the KIA strongholds, since Shadan Pa and Ja Ing Yang are situated at strategic positions, KIA officials said. The fighting continues in the two areas, natives in the war zone said. There are casualties daily.
The President of Burma should take into consideration that all the fallen soldiers – Burmese or Kachin – are citizens of this nation. If the new president and the government truly want to reconstruct the country into a democratic and developed society, all the wars with respective ethnic rebels including KIO/KIA must be immediately stopped.
If President Thein Sein has genuine inspiration of poverty alleviation, he must stop all forms of civil conflict that make the country underprivileged in the region. Most analysts agree that allowing civil war and saying poverty alleviation looks like an impractical guiding principle.
So, it is really important for the president to end the civil war, especially war against Kachin. By doing so, president has to show the country is on the right reform path and can gain trust domestically and internationally. http://www.eurasiareview.com/06102011-burmese-soldiers-die-for-nothing-on-kachin-frontline-oped/
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The Japan Times: Thursday, Oct. 6, 2011
Dams muddy China's image
By BRAHMA CHELLAN
NEW DELHI — China's frenzied dam building at home and abroad is emerging as a flash point in inter- and intrastate relations in Asia. Burma's decision to suspend work on a controversial Chinese-funded dam marks a tactical retreat on a project that has symbolized China's resource greed and is a trigger for renewed ethnic insurgency in areas of northern Burma (aka Myanmar).
The Myitsone Dam, where work is being halted, is one of seven dam projects in northern Burma sponsored by China to generate electricity for export to its own market, even as much of Burma suffers from long power outages every day. China also has been erecting dams on its side of the border on the rivers flowing to Burma and other countries — from Russia to India.
The projects have drawn attention to their mounting environmental and human costs. In Burma, the submergence of vast tracts of land and the forced displacement of thousands of residents have instigated new interstate disputes, leading to renewed fighting and the end of a 17-year ceasefire between the Kachin Independence Army and government forces.
The giant, 3,200-megawatt Myitsone Dam — at the headwaters of the Irrawaddy River, the cradle of Burmese civilization — was conceived as China's project for China. The suspension of work on the largest dam project, so as to help stem a groundswell of public anger, represents a blow to China and a victory for local communities who had battled to protect their livelihoods and environment.
Burma is just one of several countries where hydropower projects financed and built by China have triggered local backlashes. China — the world's biggest dam builder at home and abroad — is currently erecting giant dams in a number of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, besides damming transnational rivers on its territory and thereby spurring growing concerns in downstream countries.
China contends that its role as the global leader in exporting dams has created a "win-win" situation for the host countries and its companies.
Yet, evidence from a number of project sites shows that, until Chinese dam builders embrace environmental-sustainability standards, those dams are imposing serious social and environmental costs. China is demonstrating that it has no qualms about building dams in disputed territories, such as Pakistan-held Kashmir, or in areas torn by ethnic separatism, like northern Burma, or in other human rights-abusing countries.
In Pakistan-held Kashmir, it has even deployed thousands of People's Liberation Army troops at the dam and other strategic projects. Yet it loudly protests when foreign firms seek to explore for oil in blocks offered by Vietnam and others in the disputed South China Sea.
China's declaratory policy of "noninterference in domestic affairs" actually serves as a virtual license to pursue dam projects that flood ethnic-minority lands and forcibly uproot people in other countries, just as it is doing at home by shifting its dam-building focus from internal rivers to international rivers that originate in the Tibetan Plateau, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Manchuria.
Today, as many as 37 Chinese financial and corporate entities are involved in more than 100 dam projects in the developing world. Some of these entities are very large and have multiple subsidiaries.
For instance, Sinohydro Corporation — which is under the supervision of the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of China's State Council and is made up of 10 holding companies and 18 wholly owned subsidiaries — boasts 59 overseas branches.
The frenzied dam-building at home and abroad has spawned two developments:
(1) Chinese companies now dominate the global hydropower-equipment export market. Sinohydro alone claims to control half the market.
(2) The growing clout of the state-run hydropower industry in policymaking has led China to aggressively seek dam projects overseas by offering attractive, low-interest loans and to increasingly tap the resources of rivers flowing to other countries from Chinese-ruled territories.
It was HydroChina, the country's largest dam builder, that last year revealed government-approved sites for new mega-dams, including one larger than the Three Gorges Dam to be built virtually on the disputed border with India.
In a number of nations, ranging from Burma and Congo to Laos and Zambia, Chinese dam construction is aimed at creating the energy infrastructure to extract mineral ores and other resources to feed the voracious demand in China.
Burma is not the only case where Chinese dam building has triggered violence. From Sudan to the restive Shiite-dominated areas of Pakistan-held Kashmir, such projects have sparked violent clashes and even police shootings.
In Burma, however, the violence spread from the Myitsone Dam — where several small bombs went off in April 2010 — to other Chinese projects, including the Dapein and Shweli dams.
China's dam projects in developing countries showcase its growing economic ties with them. In reality, however, these projects often serve to inflame growing anti-Chinese sentiment in those countries.
China has contributed to such sentiment by refusing to abide by international standards or its own regulations, including the State Council's 2006 directives that Chinese overseas businesses, among other things, "pay attention to environmental protection" and "support local community and people's livelihood cause."
The perception that China is engaged in exploitative practices abroad has been reinforced by the fact that it brings much of the workforce from home to build dams and other projects. This practice runs counter to the Chinese Commerce Ministry's 2006 regulations — promulgated after anti-Chinese riots in Zambia — that called for "localization," including hiring local workers and respecting local customs.
China can stop its dam builders from further undermining its image by enforcing its regulations and embracing internationally accepted standards.
Brahma Chellaney is professor of strategic studies at the independent Center for Policy Research in New Delhi and the author of the newly released "Water: Asia's New Battleground." http://search.japantimes.co.jp/rss/eo20111006bc.html
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JAKARTA GLOBE
In Surprising Burma, Seize the Moment
Thant Myint-U | October 06, 2011
Burma is at its most important political watershed since the establishment of army rule in 1962.
Over the next few weeks, the Obama administration can make a big difference in determining whether historic reforms under way there will lead to Asia’s newest democratic transition. President Obama should publicly support those changes, and back up those words with actions to end the country’s isolation, before hard-liners who oppose reform are able to push back.
Six months ago it was difficult to be optimistic. Elections had been held but they were widely condemned as being far from free and fair. And although Burma’s aging autocrat, Gen. Than Shwe, retired, the constitutional leadership that replaced his junta included many of the same former generals. Few expected more than minor reforms.
But U Thein Sein, the new president and himself a former general, surprised everyone. In his inaugural address to Parliament, he spoke forcefully of combating poverty, fighting corruption and working for political reconciliation.
By June, state pensions for nearly a million people, most of them very poor, were increased by as much as a thousandfold, taxes were reduced, and trade cartels were dismantled.
The government redrafted banking and foreign investment rules and began revising its foreign exchange rate policy — all of this in consultation with businesspeople and academics. That alone was a huge step, because army rulers had long shunned civilian advice.
Then, on July 19, Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader who was released from house arrest in November, was invited to the annual Martyrs’ Day ceremony.
The holiday memorializes the 1947 assassination of her father, who is considered the architect of the country’s independence. Thousands of her supporters were permitted to hold their first lawful march in years and several independent newspapers came to life. Suu Kyi’s name, which couldn’t be mentioned in print a year ago, began to appear regularly on the front pages.
By August, Parliament began debating sensitive issues, like the release of political prisoners, and passed laws legalizing microfinance for the rural poor and allowing independent trade unions. All Internet restrictions were soon lifted.
On Aug. 18, at a meeting with dozens of independent civic groups, the president called for peace talks with the country’s ethnic-based rebels and invited exiles to return. The next day, he met for over two hours alone with Suu Kyi.
I saw her soon afterward for the first time in over 20 years. She told me she believed the president was genuine in wanting change and that she hoped we were at the dawn of a new era in Burma.
This past week, we’ve seen previously unimaginable developments. On Friday, following increasing popular agitation, the president halted work on a $3.6 billion hydroelectric dam being built by China to send power to Chinese provinces next door. This was a victory for Burma’s nascent environmental movement and the area’s minority Kachin people. That the president would stop a Chinese-backed project of this size was the clearest sign yet that the country was at a turning point.
But monumental challenges remain — for example, even though the government agreed recently to a cease-fire with the country’s largest ethnic-based militia, deadly clashes continue with smaller militias fighting on behalf of minorities in the mountains to the north and east. It is hard to imagine a successful democratic transition while these long-standing and often brutal little wars continue.
Reformist voices are not the only ones in the new system, and a hard-line pushback is far from inconceivable. So the Obama administration needs to do three things, and do them quickly.
First is to unambiguously voice its support for the reforms under way, while at the same time being patient and refraining from demanding too much too fast. The alternative to what is happening is not a perfect revolution; the alternative is going back to square one.
Second, the administration needs to ensure that the reform efforts receive the technical advice and knowledge they desperately require. After decades of isolation, Burma suffers from a dearth of skilled people in every field, from banking to environmental regulation to public health. So the United States should lift all restrictions that limit the United Nations and international financial institutions like the World Bank from offering Burma their technical expertise.
Third is to move toward ending trade embargoes against Burma. Responsible trade and investment can play key roles in creating jobs, helping build a new middle class and hastening democratic change.
What we’re seeing today is Burma’s best chance in half a century for a better future. America needs to help end Burma’s isolation, urgently.
The New York Times
Thant Myint-U, a historian and former United Nations official, is the author of “Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia.” http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/in-surprising-burma-seize-the-moment/469773
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Burma’s new threat to global security
By JANET BENSHOOF
Published: 6 October 2011
For over forty years, Burma’s military rulers have ignored the rules of law that govern civilized nations. General Than Shwe and his fellow perpetrators enjoyed an unfettered rule by crime only because of the global community’s long standing “whine and wait” policy towards Burma.
However, the latest power ploy by the military – establishing a “civilian” sovereign state without sovereign powers – makes such inaction untenable. Given its lack of sovereign powers, control over its people, laws, and territory, Burma’s new “civilian” government is illegitimate. The most fundamental and accepted law of nations obliges all states to treat Burma’s constitution and the elections arising from it as “null and void.”
Let me explain how this happened and why Burma’s form of government is a new threat to global peace and security.
Burma’s new constitution, implemented on 31 January 2011, establishes the sovereign state of “the Republic of the Union of Myanmar” as being composed exclusively of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The military (“Defense Services”) is a separate, legally autonomous entity, outside of and supreme over the sovereign state. The new government of Burma, represented by the Head of State President Thein Sein, is incapable – even if willing – to enforce any laws, civil or criminal, against the military. All military affairs, civil or criminal, are under the exclusive control of the commander-in-chief. No law applies to the commander-in-chief, not the constitution or any rules spanning from controlling finances to nuclear development.
This bold attempt to establish a permanent “law free zone” for the military has escaped the notice of the global community. In fact, the influential International Crisis Group goes even further, enthusiastically describing Burma’s constitution and elections as “improv[ing] the prospects for incremental reform.” Nothing could be further from the truth. The military’s stranglehold over Burma is impervious to political reform given its constitutional basis.
Even if Aung San Suu Kyi were President of Burma tomorrow, she would lack the legal capacity to be able to enforce compliance with Chapter VII Security Council Resolutions, the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, the Genocide and Geneva Conventions, the ASEAN Charter, and international laws regulating trade when they apply to military-owned companies in Burma. Neither the executive nor judiciary can end the constitutionally-guaranteed impunity of the military for past and present war crimes and genocide, including the use of rape as a weapon of war and child soldiers.
Although the military currently lacks nuclear capability, its fixation on mimicking the “North Korea model” of using the potential of nuclear weapons as a bargaining tool on the world stage is a serious threat. The military’s access to mineable uranium and billions of dollars are strengthened by a constitutional structure that ensures their legal autonomy and control over Burma’s energy development projects, including nuclear power.
The issuance and implementation of this illegal constitution is an act of state of the utmost gravity under international law, violating the most central premise of the United Nations Charter; that all Member States are able and willing to comply with Security Council mandates necessary to secure global peace and security.
Burma now must incur the legal consequences of its “serious breach of peremptory norms.” Under international law all states are under an absolute obligation not to recognise the constitution and its subsequent elections and to take all measures possible, both collectively and individually, to ensure Burma revokes its constitution and invalidates the elections. This intransgressible legal duty of non-recognition cannot be ignored in favor a political strategy that accepts the validity of the 2010 elections. This was made plain by the Security Council in 1984 when it enforced this sanction of non-recognition mandating states treat the South African apartheid constitution and elections as null and void.
Enforcing the most fundamental law of nations is critical for the people of Burma for whom the new constitution legitimises their permanent status as prisoners of their own county. Equally important is for the world community to stop treating Burma as immune from consequences for its illegal acts. Continuing a “whine and wait” policy towards Burma, or worse, supporting the new illegal regime, should not be considered as viable political options.
Janet Benshoof is president and founder of the New York-based Global Justice Center. http://www.dvb.no/analysis/burma%e2%80%99s-new-threat-to-global-security/17971
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Shan army ‘ready for govt talks’
By DVB
Published: 6 October 2011
The opposition Shan State Army will come to the negotiating table, but only once a formal invitation is sent by Naypyidaw, the group said, marking perhaps the first step in an effort to end renewed fighting in eastern Burma.
It comes on the heels of other offers of “peace talks” to warring rebels groups in the country’s border regions. Burma’s periphery, from Mon state to Kachin state in the north, has been beset by heavy fighting since elections last year.
Major Sai Lao Hseng, spokesperson of the Shan State Army’s (SSA) political wing, the Shan State Restoration Council, said that only an official offer of dialogue would be accepted.
“We would like the government to make an official proposal with official representatives and then we could engage in peace talks after hearing the government’s demands.”
Naypyidaw’s approach to the SSA reportedly went via government-affiliated militia groups in Shan state. It has also sent high-level delegations to the Wa and Mongla ethnic groups in northern Shan state, and a state-level delegation to the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).
Earlier this week the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) responded to similar offers of talks by demanding that dialogue only takes place if the government agrees to negotiate with an alliance of ethnic armies, and not individual groups.
Both the KNLA and the KIA are part of the 12-member United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), as well as the armed New Mon State Party (NMSP). The spokesperson of the NMSP, Nai Hongsar, also stated that the group would only negotiate as part of the alliance.
President Thein Sein’s political advisor, Nay Zin Latt, recently travelled to Indonesia. Billed as a ‘study’ visit, the delegation sought to get to grips with Indonesia’s transition from military rule and cessation of conflicts with ethnic minority groups – something the new Burmese government has pledged as a goal. http://www.dvb.no/news/shan-army-%e2%80%98ready-for-govt-talks%e2%80%99/17985
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As Conflict Heats Up, Kachins Pray for Peace
By SAI ZOM HSENG Thursday, October 6, 2011
“We are asking for God's mercy to give us justice and equal rights for our people,” said Naw Sai, an ethnic Kachin man living in Myitkyina, the capital of northern Burma's Kachin State, explaining the purpose of a prayer event recently organized by the Myanmar Christian Council.
The event, which took place at churches throughout the city from Sept 28 to Oct 4, brought together a community growing increasingly anxious about a war that has reared its head after a decade and a half of relative peace, and now shows no signs of abating.
“We believe that our difficulties will not always be with us and will one day disappear. To make that day come very soon, we are asking for the mercy of God,” said Naw Sai.
Gam Shaung, a Christian minister from Myitkyina who asked not to be identified by his real name, said that local people want to see an end to the conflict between Burmese government troops and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), and need to find a way to calm their souls.
“The people know that the Kachin fighters are fighting for our land and dignity, and they want to support them in some way,” he said. “Therefore we decided to organize this seven-day prayer event, and will hold similar events in the future.”
Many others, he said, have been praying privately since the fighting broke out earlier this year.
Kachin communities inside Burma are not alone in praying for an end to the conflict now raging in their homeland. Kachin people living in foreign countries are also gathering at their churches and to pray for a KIA victory.
According to a Kachin student living in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, special prayer meetings are usually held after regular Sunday services. He said that although they wanted peace, they did not want it to come without achieving any real benefit for the Kachin people. He added that people's faith in God helped them to remain strong in spirit in the face of this crisis.
A ceasefire agreement signed by the Burmese military regime and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), the political wing of the KIA, in 1994 first showed signs of unraveling a year ago, when KIA troops fired warning shots at a Burmese army helicopter near Laiza, the KIO's headquarters, on Sept 23, 2010.
This was followed by a skirmish between KIA and Tatmadaw (Burmese army) troops in February of this year, after which Burma's state-run media stepped up its rhetoric against the Kachin army, referring to them as “rebels.”
The tensions that led to these incidents stem from the KIA's refusal to become part of a Border Guard Force (BGF) scheme first proposed by Burma's then military regime two years ago. Under the BGF plan, armed ceasefire groups would be allowed to retain their weapons, but only as part of a BGF under Burmese military command.
In the early stages of the current conflict, skirmishes took place only in the area around Laiza, near the Sino-Burmese border. More recently, however, the fighting has spread to northern Shan State, where there a few hundred KIA troops are operating.
At the end of last month, KIA Brigade 4 lost its headquarters at Loikang, near Kutkai Township in northern Shan State, after a huge military offensive by Tatmadaw troops.
Despite these setbacks, however, Kachin leaders remain defiant, saying that armed struggle remains the best way to achieve their long-term goal of turning Burma into a federal union with equal rights for the country's ethnic minorities.
Hkun Sa Mahkaw, the general secretary of the UK-based Kachin National Organization (KNO), said that reaching this goal would not be possible without the KIO and KIA, and so he continued to support their efforts.
“We raised awareness among the local Kachin community, we told them what is happening and what we need. Then we organized prayer services based on our religion and collected donations to support our troops financially,” Hkun Sa Mahkaw told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday.
Some military observers say that it is only a matter of time before the Tatmadaw starts a major offensive in Kachin State, and that the KIA will be hard-pressed to defend itself because of its relative lack of resources.
But Hkun Sa Mahkaw said he believes that the solidarity of the Kachin people, both inside the country and abroad, will keep the revolution alive.
“When the Burmese government took control of the Hpakant area, the KIO/KIA called on local people to contribute to its war funds. We also support them financially, not because we've been ordered to do so by the KIO/KIA, but as an expression of our solidarity,” said Hkun Sa Mahkaw, adding that Kachins living in the UK meet for prayer services almost every Saturday.
But religious gatherings are not the only way for Kachin people to show their support for Kachin soldiers fighting on the front line.
Since fighting broke out, many Kachins have started using the KIA flag as their profile picture on social websites such as Facebook and Hi5. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22208
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Myanmar, Thailand to strengthen ties
Published: Oct. 6, 2011 at 2:05 AM
NAYPYITAW, Myanmar, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- Thailand will seek to strengthen ties with neighbor Myanmar, visiting Thai Prime Minister Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra told her hosts.
During her one-day introductory trip to Myanmar, which currently has a civilian government, Shinawatra met with President Thein Sein and praised the country's progress in promoting democracy and reconciliation, the Thai News Agency reported.
Both Thailand and Myanmar, which was formerly called Burma, are members of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations. She invited Thein Sein to visit Thailand.
In her talks with Myanmar leaders, the Thai leader stressed her country's policy of not allowing any armed group to use its territory to launch any offensive move against the Myanmar government, the report said.
She urged Myanmar's cooperation to reopen the border checkpoint at Tak's Mae Sot-Myawaddy as a way to boost trade and other economic cooperation. The checkpoint was closed last year.
The report quoted President Thein Sein as saying the process would be speeded up once bridge repairs are completed.
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/10/06/Myanmar-Thailand-to-strengthen-ties/UPI-72241317881159/#ixzz1a0ZBkE4f
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Pipelines to China Become New Target For Burmese Activists
By BA KAUNG Thursday, October 6, 2011
Chinese-backed strategic oil and natural gas pipelines under construction in Burma have become the new target for Burmese activists following President Thein Sein’s suspension last week—under heavy public pressure—of the controversial Chinese-backed Myitsone Dam hydropower project in Kachin State.
Citing human rights violations, activists on Thursday called for the similar suspension of the US $ 2.5 billion oil and natural gas pipelines being constructed by state-owned China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC). The pipelines are to start at the Bay of Bengal in Arakan State on Burma's western coast, travel through central and northeastern Burma, and end in Yunnan Province, China.
“Widespread land confiscation to make way for the pipeline corridor has already left countless people landless and jobless, while others along the pipeline are facing human rights violations and exploitation,” said a group of Burmese activists from the Shwe Gas Movement, a campaign group opposing the exploitation of Burma’s natural gas reserves, in a statement on Thursday.
Map showing the route to be followed by the China-Burma oil and gas pipelines. (Photo: Shwe Gas Movement)
The oil pipeline, which CNPC was granted exclusive rights to build and operate, is even more economically and strategically important to China than the $ 3.6 billion Myitsone Dam, which was expected to generate 6,000-megawatts of electricity that would be sent mostly to China.
The pipeline, with an estimated capacity of 20 million tons of crude oil per year that will enjoy tax concessions and customs clearance rights from the Burmese government, will enable China to bypass the Strait of Malacca when importing crude oil from the Middle East and Africa, saving an estimated 1,200 km shipping distance.
As part of the oil pipeline project, China is also constructing a deep-water crude oil unloading port and oil storage facilities on Burma’s Maday Island off the coast of Arakan State—an investment that will provide China with crucial access to the geopolitically strategic Indian Ocean, where the US is poised to increase its navy presence in the coming decade.
The gas pipeline, scheduled to be completed in 2013, will be used to transport Burmese natural gas from the Shwe Natural Gas Fields located off the Arakan coast to Yunnan Province.
The pipeline projects have angered the people and politicians in Arakan State, which is rich with Burma’s largest oil and natural gas reserves but has a poor electricity supply.
On Sept 27, Ba Shin, an opposition MP representing Kyaukphyu Island off the Arakan coast, submitted a question to the national Parliament in Naypyidaw, asking whether his constituency would receive a share of the natural gas extracted from the Shwe Natural Gas Fields for the purpose of improving the island’s electricity supply.
In response, Energy Minister Than Htay reminded Ba Shin that the previous military government awarded China the right to purchase and export the natural gas generated by the Shwe Natural Gas Fields for the next 30 years, and therefore the gas was unavailable for local use.
“People opposed the Myitsone Dam because they don't want their natural resources being used to line the pockets of the regime and corporations with atrocious reputations, all at the expense of local people. The Shwe Gas Project must be stopped, recognizing that like the dam, it will be destructive socially and economically,” said Wong Aung, an Arakan activist with the Shwe Gas Movement.
On Monday, China's Xinhua news agency reported that construction of the pipeline was "proceeding smoothly" and that CNPC said it gave $1.3 million to Burma this week to help build eight schools in the country, as part of an agreement signed in April to provide $6 million of aid.
"Construction of the fourth stage of the oil and gas pipeline [within Burma] commenced on October 1, which is being built by CNPC Chuanqing Drilling Engineering Co. The pipeline project will continue after the rainy season in Myanmar [Burma]," Xinhua said.
Any major obstacle to pipeline construction, such as the broad-based public movement which prompted the Burmese president to suspend the Myitsone Dam project, could be a devastating blow to China-Burma relations.
Napyidaw's decision to suspend construction of the Myitsone Dam has already angered Beijing, which has called for the protection of the legal rights of the Chinese companies that have invested in the project.
In addition, the lead Chinese investor in the dam project warned the Burmese government of possible legal action.
Jim Della-Giacoma, the South East Asia project director for the International Crisis Group, said that the Myitsone Dam crisis has the potential to weaken the Sino-Burma relationship, particularly if it comes to be seen as some sort of strategic rebalancing of Burma's international relations.
“The relationship is deeper and wider than just one dam, but this is clearly a significant decision that probably involves environmental, political and other factors,” he said in an interview with The Irrawaddy.
But since Naypyidaw's decision is apparently part of a more calculated effort by Thein Sein to win support from the Burmese public for his reform agenda and improve Burma's standing in the West while still retaining close ties with China, the new president is expected to appease China by offering economic concessions and ensuring the successful continued construction of the pipelines.
However, even if the same type of public resistance that formed in the case of the Myitsone Dam project does not materialize, the oil and natural gas pipelines will still pass through conflict zones in northeastern parts of Burma, where Shan and Kachin rebels are operating. Military clashes between government troops and those ethnic armed groups have been ongoing since June and have escalated over the past few weeks.
Meanwhile, according to unconfirmed reports, Burma’s Vice-President Tin Aung Myint Oo will visit China in the next few days, leading a delegation of government ministers, including the minister of the Ministry of Electric Power No. 1, possibly in an effort to patch-up the relationship strained by Myistone Dam suspension. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22207
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October 5, 2011 9:59 pm
When a hero’s image signals a new Burmese dawn
By David Pilling
Of all the remarkable things that have happened in Burma in recent weeks, one of the most intriguing is the sudden reappearance of a photograph of General Aung San, the country’s independence hero. When Aung San Suu Kyi, the general’s daughter and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, recently met Thein Sein, the quasi-civilian president, a photograph of her father was, almost miraculously, hanging in the presidential palace.
As far as symbols go, this is pretty potent stuff. Images of Aung San were once ubiquitous. They used to grace banknotes and the walls of public offices. But when his daughter became the icon of democracy in the 1990s, the national hero’s picture vanished faster than you could slip on your jackboots.
Fortunately, the changed atmosphere in Burma – renamed Myanmar by the generals who shot their way to power in 1962 – goes well beyond the reappearance of a photograph. Last week, much to the anger of Beijing, Burma suspended the construction of a controversial $3.6bn dam that was to have supplied energy to China. Naturally, construction could start again at the drop of an edict. But the gesture was seen by many as a rare concession to public opinion.
Since mid-August, there has been a flurry of small, but significant steps from the government that came to power in last November’s “election”. Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy boycotted that poll, conducted according to rules that virtually ensured victory for its khaki-turned-mufti politicians.
Since then, Mr Thein Sein, a former military man and now president, has engineered at least the semblance of change. His government has in a few weeks set up a human rights panel; allowed the visit of a previously banned UN rapporteur on human rights; introduced a law to legalise trade unions, and unblocked previously censored international websites, such as the BBC.
Ms Suu Kyi, under house arrest until November, has been permitted to travel outside Rangoon and to hold public rallies. An interview with her was published in the tightly controlled Burmese press. A year ago, it was practically forbidden to utter her name.
Evidently encouraged, the Lady, as she used to be called, agreed to meet Mr Thein Sein on August 19. There are rumours of talks about bringing the NLD back into the political process. One western diplomat who met Ms Suu Kyi recently says she is exhilarated by the changed atmosphere.
Of course, she may be being lured into a trap. Those who have seen false dawns before are rightly cautious about how enduring such changes will be. A decade ago, Ms Suu Kyi held secret talks with Khin Nyunt, former military intelligence chief and prime minister. She was subsequently released from house arrest in 2002. But the thaw was brief. This time, too, hardliners could stage a counter-offensive.
None of the changes set in motion by Mr Thein Sein has yet been enshrined in law. That makes them little more than promises. They could be aimed solely at winning Burma greater international respectability. The new government badly wants to take up the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2014. It also wants the US and Europe to water down sanctions. Some parts of the government, thought to be uncomfortable at China’s growing influence, seek greater engagement with the west.
The Europeans, long disenchanted with sanctions, may be willing to budge. In April, the EU relaxed financial and travel restrictions on some members of the new government. Diplomats stress they will not do more unless they see substantial progress. But in principle they will consider further measures.
A crucial test of whether changes are real should come within weeks. The government has promised to release some of its 2,000 political prisoners. Diplomats say they will scrutinise the roll call of those let out. They want to see senior members of the NLD as well as prominent dissidents walk free. Of course, that alone would solve little. The government’s most intractable problem remains its conflict with several ethnic minorities. Democracy remains a far-off dream.
Still, Ms Suu Kyi told the BBC this week that she believed the president genuinely wanted change, although she recognised the fragility of the process. After all, prisoners can be rearrested and photographs taken down. Asked whether the wheels of democracy had started turning, she said: “I think I’d like to see a few more turns before I decide.” At least something has been set in motion. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6ec7e2de-ef3b-11e0-918b-00144feab49a.html#axzz1a071aEMG
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Myanmar independence hero Aung San back in the limelight
By Peter Janssen Oct 6, 2011, 5:02 GMT
Yangon - When Myanmar President Thein Sein held conciliatory talks with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in August, he made sure that Suu Kyi's famed father, Aung San, was part of the picture.
A portrait of Aung San, an independence hero and founding father of the Myanmar army, was on the wall behind Thein Sein and Suu Kyi as they shook hands for state media after a meeting that has set a new tone for national politics.
Thein Sein's predecessor, Senior General Than Shwe, who led the junta that ruled Myanmar from 1992 to 2010, was well-known not only for his dislike of Suu Kyi but also for distain for her father, who was gunned down by political rivals in 1947.
Prior to the Thein Sein-Suu Kyi meeting, no official portraits of Aung San were hung in government offices in the capital, Naypyitaw.
'Thein Sein sent a message to the people that he is a follower of Aung San,' said Kwin Maung Swe, leader of the National Democratic Force, an opposition party in parliament.
'Hanging the portrait was a message to the whole country that he will not deny the Aung San image,' Kwin Maung Swe said.
The National Democratic Force, a breakaway faction from Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, plans to propose to parliament that Aung San's portrait be reinstated on the kyat bank notes, a practice that was discontinued under Than Shwe's rule.
'He is a national hero,' Kwin Maung Swe said. 'We are trying to take things back to normal times.'
There are other signs of an Aung San revival in Myanmar.
Children openly sell small posters of Aung San and his famous Nobel Peace Prize-winning daughter to motorists in the country's largest city and former capital, Yangon, and the state-controlled media has been full of articles about the Aung San legacy in recent weeks.
'Aung San's image has been brought back again,' said Tin Oo, deputy leader of the National League for Democracy and a former general. 'Now the younger soldiers are beginning to understand who was the hero of independence and the father of the army.'
Before the rise of Suu Kyi as the country's champion of democracy in the aftermath of a brutal army crackdown on anti-military demonstrations in 1988, her father was revered by the military as the army's founder and a hero of the country's struggle for independence from Britain, its former colonial master.
Aung San portraits graced kyat notes and hung in government offices, and the anniversary of his assassination, Martyr's Day, was a national holiday marked by solemn state commemorations.
After Than Shwe moved the capital to Naypyitaw in 2005, Martyr's Day was presided over by the Yangon governor.
Unlike Than Shwe, Thein Sein, who took office in March, has acknowledged that he needs Suu Kyi on his side to achieve his goals: securing the position of the military establishment that still runs the country, ending Myanmar's pariah status in the world community and easing economic sanctions, observers said.
'If the regime thinks that Aung San Suu Kyi will now play ball, then reviving Aung San as the father of it all is fine with the army,' said Robert Taylor, author of The State of Myanmar. 'After all, he was their founder, so back to normality.'
Myanmar military strongman Ne Win, who overthrew the county's fledgling post-independence democracy in 1962, did not play down the Aung San legacy because it enhanced his own.
Both Aung San and Ne Win were members of the Thirty Comrades, young revolutionaries who sided with the Japanese in ousting the British forces at the beginning of World War II, who then turned on the Japanese before the war ended.
Many have criticized Suu Kyi for agreeing to meet with Thein Sein before the new government has made substantive concessions, such as freeing about 2,000 political prisoners and opening peace talks with ethnic minority rebel groups, which have been fighting the army for decades.
'They've kind of hijacked Aung San and Aung San Suu Kyi for their own purposes,' said Bertil Lintner, a well-known Myanmar expert and author of The Land of Jade.
But for Suu Kyi and her followers, small progress is deemed better than none at all.
'So long as we can make one inch of progress, we will work together,' Tin Oo said.
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1667048.php/Myanmar-independence-hero-Aung-San-back-in-the-limelight
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October 06, 2011 17:15 PM
Penang Police Detain 77 Myanmar Illegal Immigrants
BALIK PULAU (Penang), Oct 6 (Bernama) -- Penang police detained 77 Myanmar illegal immigrants during a four-hour operation from 8 am along the coast of Pulau Betong here Thursday.
South West District Police chief Supt Hatta Md Zin said the men, aged between 19 and 23, were hiding in the jungle there.
"Some fishermen saw them swim to shore after their boat anchored some 28 nautical miles from Pulau Betong," he told reporters.
Two of them were found to have on them United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cards.
Initial investigations revealed that the boat had been carrying 115 Myanmar nationals, he said.
Police are tracking the other 38 Myanmar nationals who are believed to be still hiding in the jungle," he said.
Those arrested were taken to the South West District Police headquarters before being handed over to the Immigration Department, he added.
-- BERNAMA http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsgeneral.php?id=618164
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Laptop reveals Maoists trained in Burma
By JOSEPH ALLCHIN
Published: 6 October 2011
Maoist rebels in northeastern India were trained at camps across the border in Burma, according to police in New Delhi who claim the details were discovered on a laptop belonging to an arrested member of the group.
Two men from the group, commonly known as the Naxalites, were detained by police on Saturday last week on suspicion of smuggling arms. According to the Times of India, the men, identified only as Dilip and Arun, were carrying a laptop that contained files on joint training operations with the outlawed People’s Liberation Army (PLA), an ethnic separatist group from Manipur.
Naxalite rebels have been described by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the country’s “greatest security threat”. They are active in a belt that runs from the Nepalese border south through nine Indian states.
“Crucial details related to Naxal operations and some maps of Myanmar [Burma] showing the place where a joint training camp is to be held in a few weeks were recovered from their laptop,” a policeman told the Times of India.
The group is composed largely of disaffected tribal villagers who inhabit states such as Chhatisgarh and Jharkhand. In response New Delhi created the Salwa Judum militia, which is blamed for brutal reprisals and forced relocation of communities to stem the support network of the rebels.
The PLA was recently accused of receiving Chinese help, with Beijing ostensibly supporting its fight for an independent state in a bid to assume control over the northeast Indian states it claims as its own. The PLA is also linked with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN).
The timing of the news about training camps in Burma, and China’s role in the insurgency, may not be a coincidence: President Thein Sein is set to make his first visit to the world’s largest democracy since being elected to office, and India has been stringently pressuring the Burmese to do more to combat groups who shelter along the remote shared border between the two countries.
The supposed common ambition of both governments to eliminate these groups resulted in an allegation from the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) that the Indians had been supplying artillery to the Burmese to help fight the rebel outfits. Able to hit targets from over 40 kilometers away, these weapons give the Burmese a significant advantage over their foe.
But the commitment of the Burmese to rooting out Indian separatist insurgents has been questioned by some, including journalist and author Bertil Lintner. He described an alleged recent assault on the ULFA as a “phantom operation”.
Indian requests for Burmese action, including those made by Foreign Minister S M Krishna on a visit to Naypyidaw in June, have persisted for years, but with little tangible effect.
The Naxal struggle was born in May 1967 and named after the village of Naxalbariin northern West Bengal state. The insurrection began when police opened fire on protesting landless farmers, sparking outrage.
Their struggle is synonymous with the failure of the Indian government to combat the ravishes of poverty in rural areas. States such as Bihar are renowned for feudal caste ridden politics in which tribal or Adivasi communities bear the brunt, with the World Bank noting that over 56 percent of tribal children are clinically underweight. It has also stated that “inequalities in nutritional status widened” during the 1990s, a period of rapid economic liberalisation.
Nationwide, the World Bank notes that the “prevalence of underweight among children in India is amongst the highest in the world, and nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa.”
Tribal lands in states such as Chhatisgarh are also rich in minerals. The state produces some 15 percent of India’s steel, with companies such as South Korea’s POSCO involved in mining that has displaced tribal communities.
India has recently set a target of doubling trade with Burma to $US3 billion over the next five years and is keen to compete with China for influence over Naypyidaw. Given its proximity to both Burma and China, suppressing insurgency in India’s volatile northeast is an essential component of this goal. http://www.dvb.no/news/laptop-files-show-maoists-trained-in-burma/17998
Burma Flag
ေတာ္လွန္ေရးသီခ်င္းမ်ား(Politics Song)
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
News & Articles on Burma
US visa lottery opens for 2013 – ဂရင္းကတ္ ကံစမ္းမဲ D.V Lottery စတင္ ေလွ်ာက္ထားႏုိင္ၿပီ
အေမရိကန္ျပည္ေထာင္စုရဲ႕ ၂၀၁၃ ခုႏွစ္ ဘ႑ာေရးႏွစ္မွာ အၿမဲတမ္း အေျခခ်ေနထိုင္ခြင့္ ရရိွမယ့္သူေပါင္း ၅ ေသာင္းကို ကမၻာ့ႏိုင္ငံစံုကေန ကံစမ္းမဲေဖာက္ ေရြးခ်ယ္တဲ့ ၂၀၁၃ Diversity Visa အစီအစဥ္ အခ်ိန္က်ေရာက္လာျပန္ပါၿပီ။
ၿပီးခဲ့တဲ့ စက္တင္ဘာ (၂၈) ရက္ေန႔က အေမရိကန္ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရး၀န္ႀကီးဌာနရဲ႕ ဗီဇာနဲ႔ ေကာင္စစ္ေရးရာ ဒုတိယလက္ေထာက္ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရး၀န္ႀကီး ေဒးဗစ္ ဒါနာဟယူး (David Donahue) ကိုယ္တိုင္ ႏိုင္ငံျခားသတင္းေထာက္ေတြကို ဖိတ္ ၾကားၿပီး ၂၀၁၃ Diversity Visa ကံစမ္းမဲေဖာက္မယ့္ အစီအစဥ္ကို ရွင္းလင္းေျပာၾကားခဲ့ပါတယ္။ ဒီ အစီအစဥ္အေၾကာင္းနဲ႔ အေရးႀကီးတဲ့ အခ်က္အလက္ ေတြကို Ko Ronnie Nyein က ဆက္ၿပီး တင္ျပေပးပါလိမ့္မယ္။
၂၀၁၃ ခုႏွစ္ အေမရိကန္ ဘ႑ာေရးႏွစ္ရဲ႕ ပထမႏွစ္၀က္ စက္တင္ဘာ (၃၀) ရက္ေန႔ ေနာက္ဆံုးထားၿပီး အေမရိကန္ျပည္ေထာင္စုကို ၀င္ေရာက္ရမယ့္ ဒီ ၂၀၁၃ Diversity Visa ကံစမ္းမဲေဖာက္ပဲြကို ၿပီးခဲ့တဲ့ ေအာက္တိုဘာ (၄) ရက္ေန႔က စတင္ခဲ့တာပါ။ ဒီ ကံစမ္းမဲေဖာက္ပဲြ ပိတ္ခ်ိန္က ေရွ႕လ ႏို၀င္ဘာလ (၅) ရက္ စေနေန႔၊ အေမရိကန္ အေရွ႕ဘက္ ကမ္း႐ိုးတန္း စံေတာ္ခ်ိန္ ေန႔လည္ (၁၂) နာရီ၊ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံမွာေတာ့ ႏို၀င္ဘာ လ (၅) ရက္ စေနေန႔ည (၁၀) နာရီခဲြအခ်ိန္ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။
ဒီတေခါက္ Diversity Visa အစီအစဥ္အတြက္ အေရးႀကီးတဲ့အခ်က္ေတြကို မတင္ျပခင္မွာ စက္တင္ဘာ (၂၈) ရက္ေန႔က အေမရိကန္ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရး၀န္ႀကီးဌာန ဗီဇာနဲ႔ ေကာင္စစ္ေရးရာ ဒုတိယ လက္ေထာက္ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရး၀န္ႀကီး ေဒးဗစ္ ဒါနာဟယူး (David Donahue) ရဲ႕ သတင္းစာ ရွင္းလင္းပဲြက တခ်က္ကို တင္ျပခ်င္ပါတယ္။
ေဒးဗစ္ ဒါနာဟယူး။ ။ ၂၀၁၃ Diversity Visa Program ေခၚတဲ့၊ ေရွ႕လာမယ့္ (၂)ႏွစ္၊ ၂၀၁၃ ခုႏွစ္ရဲ႕ ဘ႑ာေရးႏွစ္မွာ အေမရိကန္ျပည္ေထာင္မွာ အၿမဲ တမ္း အေျခခ် ေနထိုင္ခြင့္ရရိွမယ့္သူေပါင္း ၅ ေသာင္းကို ကမၻာ့ႏိုင္ငံစံုက ကံစမ္းမဲေဖာက္ ေရြးခ်ယ္ပဲြ အခ်ိန္ေရာက္လာျပန္ပါၿပီ။ ဒီႏွစ္ရဲ႕ အေျပာင္းအလဲက ေတာ့ ဒီႏွစ္မွာ ပါ၀င္ခြင့္မရိွတဲ့ႏိုင္ငံအျဖစ္ အသစ္တိုးလာကေတာ့ ဘဂၤလားေဒ့ရွ္ႏိုင္ငံရဲ႕ ႏိုင္ငံသားေတြပါ။ က်ေနာ္တို႔ရဲ႕ လူ၀င္မႈႀကီးၾကပ္ေရးဥပေဒအရ အခု အေမရိကန္ျပည္ေထာင္စုမွာ အၿမဲတမ္း အေျခခ်ေနထိုင္ခြင့္ ရရိွထားတဲ့ ဘဂၤလားေဒ့ရွ္ ႏိုင္ငံသားဦးေရ ၅ ေသာင္း ေက်ာ္သြားခဲ့လို႔ပါ။
(မွတ္ခ်က္။ ။ အေမရိကန္ျပည္ေထာင္စုတြင္ လက္ရိွ အၿမဲတမ္းအေျခခ်ေနထိုင္ခြင့္ရရိွသူ ၅ ေသာင္းေက်ာ္ ရိွေနေသာေၾကာင့္ ၂၀၁၃ Diversity Visa ကံစမ္းမဲေဖါက္ ေရြးခ်ယ္ပဲြအတြက္ ပါ၀င္ခြင့္မရိွေသာ ႏိုင္ငံမ်ားမွာ (အဂၤလိပ္အကၡရာစဥ္အတိုင္း) ဘဂၤလားေဒ့ရွ္၊ ဘရာဇီး၊ ကေနဒါ၊ ကိုလံဘီယာ၊ တ႐ုတ္ (ျပည္မႀကီး)၊ ဒိုမီနီကန္၊ အီေကြေဒါ၊ အယ္လ္ဆာေဗဒို၊ ဂြါတီမာလာ၊ ေဟတီ၊ အိႏိၵယ၊ ဂ်ေမကာ၊ မကၠဆီကို၊ ပါကစၥတန္၊ ပီရူး၊ ဖိလစ္ပိုင္၊ ေတာင္ကိုးရီးယား၊ ၿဗိ တိန္ (ေျမာက္အိုင္ယာလန္ မပါ)၊ ကမၻာတလႊား ၿဗိတိသွ်လက္ေအာက္ခံနယ္ေျမမ်ား၊ ဗီယက္နမ္တို႔ ျဖစ္ၾကသည္။)
ယခင္ႏွစ္က Diversity Visa ကံစမ္းမဲေဖာက္ ေရြးခ်ယ္ပဲြတြင္ ပါ၀င္ခြင့္ မရခဲ့ေသာ ပိုလန္ႏိုင္ငံသားမ်ား၊ ၂၀၁၃ Diversity Visa ကံစမ္းမဲေဖါက္ ေရြးခ်ယ္ပဲြတြင္ ျပန္လည္ပါ၀င္ခြင့္ရၿပီ။ အေမရိကန္ျပည္ေထာင္စုမွာ အၿမဲတမ္း အေျခခ် ေနထိုင္ခြင့္ရရိွခဲ့ေသာ ပိုလန္ႏိုင္ငံသားမ်ားစြာ ယခုအခါ အေမရိကန္ႏိုင္ငံသားမ်ား ျဖစ္လာၾကသျဖင့္ အၿမဲတမ္း အေျခခ်ေနထိုင္ခြင့္ ရရိွထားသူ ပိုလန္ႏိုင္ငံသားဦးေရ ၅ ေသာင္းေအာက္ကို ျပန္ေရာက္သြားျခင္းေၾကာင့္ ျဖစ္သည္။ ယခုႏွစ္ထဲ ကမၻာေပၚတြင္ အသစ္ေပၚလာေသာ ေတာင္ဆူဒန္ႏိုင္ငံ၏ ႏိုင္ငံသားမ်ားလည္း ၂၀၁၃ Diversity Visa အစီအစဥ္တြင္ ပါ၀င္ ကံစမ္းခြင့္ရိွသည္။)
အေမရိကန္ျပည္ေထာင္စုမွာ အၿမဲတမ္း အေျခခ်ေနထိုင္ခြင့္ (immigrant visa) တနည္းအားျဖင့္ ဒီ ဗီဇာကို အစိမ္းေရာင္ကဒ္ျပားေလးနဲ႔ ထုတ္ေပးတာေၾကာင့္ Green Card လို႔ ေခၚၾကတဲ့ ဒီ ဗီဇာကို ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံသားေတြထဲက ရရိွထားသူအေရအတြက္ ၅ ေသာင္းေအာက္မွာပဲ ရိွေသးတာေၾကာင့္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံသားေတြလည္း ၂၀၁၃ Diversity Visa ကံစမ္းမဲေဖါက္ပဲြမွာ ပါ၀င္ဆင္ႏဲႊလို႔ ရပါတယ္။
ဒီ ဗီဇာ မဲေဖါက္ေပးတဲ့ အဓိကရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္က အေမရိကန္ျပည္ေထာင္စုထဲမွာ လာေရာက္ အလုပ္ လုပ္ကိုင္ႏိုင္တဲ့ အေျခခံပညာအရည္အခ်င္းရိွသူ၊ လုပ္ငန္း တခုခုကို ကၽြမ္းက်င္သူ၊ အဲဒီလိုသူေတြကို ႏွစ္စဥ္ ေခၚယူျခင္းပါ။ ပထမဆံုးအေရးႀကီးတဲ့အခ်က္က သတ္မွတ္ထားတဲ့ ပညာ အရည္အခ်င္းပါ။ အနည္းဆံုး ႏိုင္ငံတႏိုင္ငံရဲ႕ အထက္တန္းေက်ာင္း ေအာင္ျမင္ထားတဲ့ လက္မွတ္ရိွရပါမယ္။ (သို႔မဟုတ္) မူလတန္းနဲ႔ အလယ္တန္းပညာ စုစုေပါင္း (၁၂) ႏွစ္ သင္ၾကားထားတဲ့ သက္ဆိုင္ရာအစိုးရ အသိအမွတ္ျပဳ လက္မွတ္ (သို႔ဟုတ္) ေထာက္ခံစာ ရိွရပါမယ္။
အဲဒီ ပညာအရည္အခ်င္းမ်ိဳး မရိွရင္ လုပ္ငန္းကၽြမ္းက်င္မႈ သတ္မွတ္ခ်က္ ရိွရပါမယ္။ အလုပ္အကိုင္ ကၽြမ္းက်င္မႈသတ္မွတ္ခ်က္ကေတာ့ အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စု အလုပ္သမား၀န္ႀကီးဌာနက သတ္မွတ္ထားတဲ့ အလုပ္အကိုင္ အမ်ိဳးအစားေတြထဲက တမ်ိဳးမ်ိဳးကို လြန္ခဲ့တဲ့ (၅) ႏွစ္အတြင္းမွာ (၂) ႏွစ္ လုပ္ကိုင္ဖူးေၾကာင္း၊အဲဒီလုပ္ငန္းရဲ႕ ေထာက္ခံစာ ရိွရပါမယ္။ မဲေပါက္ၿပီးခါမွ သတ္မွတ္ထားတဲ့ ပညာ အရည္အခ်င္း (သို႔မဟုတ္) လုပ္ငန္းကၽြမ္းက်င္မႈ တမ်ိဳးမ်ဳိးမရိွရင္ ေပါက္ထားတဲ့ဗီဇာ အပယ္ခံရမွာပါ။ သတ္မွတ္ထားတဲ့ အလုပ္အကိုင္ အမ်ိဳးအစားေတြကို အေမရိကန္ျပည္ေထာင္စု အလုပ္သမား ၀န္ႀကီးဌာနရဲ႕ internet website ထဲက၊ O*Net OnLine database မွာ သြားေရာက္ ၾကည့္ရႈလို႔ ရပါတယ္။
ေနာက္ထပ္အေရးႀကီးတဲ့ ကိစၥက ေလွ်ာက္လႊာနဲ႔တဲြတင္ရမယ့္ ဓာတ္ပံု အေၾကာင္းပါ။ အင္တာနက္ေပၚက ေပးပို႔ရမွာ ျဖစ္တာေၾကာင့္ ဓါတ္ပံုရဲ႕ အရြယ္အစား ကို digital စနစ္ရဲ႕ pixel အတိုင္းအထြာနဲ႔ ေပးပို႔ရမွာပါ။ ဓာတ္ပံုရဲ႕ အလ်ား pixle 600 x အနံ pixle 600 ျဖစ္ရပါမယ္။ ဓာတ္ပံုကို scanner နဲ႔ ကူးရင္ေတာ့ scanner ရဲ႕ resolution က၊ အနည္းဆံုး 300 dpi (dots per inch) ျဖစ္ရပါမယ္။ ဓာတ္ပံုရဲ႕ file format က၊ JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ဓာတ္ပံုရဲ႕ file size က240 kilobytes (240 KB) ရိွရပါမယ္။
ေနာက္ထပ္ အေရးႀကီးတာက ေနာက္ခံ အေရာင္ေဖ်ာ့ရပါမယ္။ ေနာက္ခံ အျဖဴ ဆိုရင္ အေကာင္းဆံုးပါ။ မ်က္ႏွာကို ဘာနဲ႔မွ ကြယ္မထားရပါဘူး။ မ်က္ႏွာေစာင္းမေနဘဲ ေရွ႕တည့္တည့္ၾကည့္ေနရပါမယ္။
ဦးထုပ္ (သို႔မဟုတ္) ေခါင္းေပၚမွာ တခုခု ေဆာင္းထားတာ မရိွရပါဘူး။ ဓာတ္ပံုထဲမွာ ဦးေခါင္းပိုင္းနဲ႔ ပခံုးပိုင္းဟာ ဓာတ္ပံုတခုလံုးရဲ႕ ၅၀%ကေန ၆၉% ၾကားမွာ ရိွရပါမယ္။ ဓာတ္ပံုကို သတ္မွတ္ခ်က္အတိုင္း လုပ္ေဆာင္ၿပီးၿပီဆိုရင္ေတာ့ https//www.dvlottery.state.gov/applications.aspx မွာ သြားၿပီး ေလွ်ာက္လႊာ ျဖည့္႐ံုပါပဲ။ ေလွ်ာက္လႊာမွာ ဓာတ္ပံုကို ခ်ိတ္ဆက္ (attach လုပ္) လိုက္ၿပီး ေလွ်ာက္လႊာဖိုင္ကို အခ်က္အလက္ေတြ အထပ္ထပ္ ျပန္စစ္ၿပီးရင္ ေအာက္ဆံုးက submit ဆိုတာကို click လုိက္ၿပီး၊ ပို႔႐ံုပါပဲ။ ဒါက တဦးခ်င္း ေလွ်ာက္လႊာတင္တာပါ။ မိသားစုနဲ႔ တင္မယ္ ဆိုရင္ေတာ့ မိမိရဲ႕ အိမ္ေထာင္ဘက္နဲ႔ အတူ လာမယ့္ ႏို၀င္ဘာ (၅) ရက္ ေန႔မွာ အသက္ (၂၁) ႏွစ္ မျပည့္ေသးတဲ့ မိမိရဲ႕ သား သမီးမ်ားနဲ႔ သားသမီးမ်ားရဲ႕ အိမ္ေထာင္ဘက္မ်ားကိုပါ ေလွ်ာက္လႊာတဲြတင္လို႔ ရပါတယ္။ သူတို႔ေတြရဲ႕ ဓာတ္ပံုေတြ ကိုလည္း သတ္မွတ္ခ်က္အတိုင္း ခ်ိတ္ဆက္ (attach လုပ္)လိုက္ၿပီး ေအာက္ဆံုးက submit ဆိုတာကို click လုိက္ၿပီး ေလွ်ာက္လႊာပို႔႐ံုပါပဲ။ ပို႔ၿပီးရင္ ေပၚလာတဲ့ ေလွ်ာက္လႊာလက္ခံရရိွမႈ အတည္ျပဳခ်က္ေပးတဲ့ စာမ်က္ႏွာ confirmation page ကို၊ print ထုတ္ၿပီး သိမ္းထားထို႔ပါပဲ။
ခုေနာက္ဆံုး ၂၀၁၃ Diversity Visa ကံစမ္းမဲေဖာက္ပဲြမွာ ေလွ်ာက္လႊာတင္တာကို အေမရိကန္အစိုးရကို တစ္ျပားမွ မေပးရေပမယ့္ မဲေပါက္သြားရင္ ေငြေရး ေၾကးေရးဆိုင္ရာ ဘယ္လိုရိွတယ္ ဆိုတာကို ၿပီးခဲ့တဲ့ စက္တင္ဘာ (၂၈) ရက္ေန႔က အေမရိကန္ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရး ၀န္ႀကီးဌာနဗီဇာနဲ႔ ေကာင္စစ္ေရးရာ ဒုတိယ လက္ေထာက္ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရး၀န္ႀကီး ေဒးဗစ္ ဒါနာဟယူး (David Donahue) ရဲ႕ သတင္းစာ ရွင္းလင္းပဲြက ေျပာၾကားခ်က္နဲ႔ နိဂံုးခ်ဳပ္ပါရေစ။
ေဒးဗစ္ ဒါနာဟယူး။ ။ ၂၀၁၃ Diversity Visa Program ကံစမ္းမဲေဖာက္ ေရြးခ်ယ္ပဲြဟာလည္း ခါတိုင္းႏွစ္ေတြလိုပဲ အခမဲ့ ျဖစ္ၿပီးေတာ့ အေမရိကန္အစိုးရ ကို တရား၀င္ေငြေၾကး တျပားမွ ေပးစရာမလိုပါဘူး။ ဒါေပမဲ့ ၂၀၁၃ Diversity Visa Program ကံစမ္းမဲေဖာက္ ေရြးခ်ယ္ပဲြမွာ မဲေပါက္သူ တဦးခ်င္းကေတာ့ သက္ဆိုင္ရာ ႏိုင္ငံေတြက အေမရိကန္သံ႐ံုးေတြ၊ ေကာင္စစ္၀န္ရံုးေတြမွာ ခါတိုင္းႏွစ္ေတြလိုပဲ ဗီဇာေၾကးေတြ ေပးသြင္းရပါမယ္။ immigrant visa အေျခခ် ေနထိုင္ခြင့္ဗီဇာေၾကး အေမရိကန္(၃၀၅) ေဒၚလာ၊ Diversity Visa လုပ္ငန္းစဥ္ေဆာင္ရြက္ခေၾကး ေဒၚလာ (၄၄၀) နဲ႔ လူ၀င္မႈႀကီးၾကပ္ေရးဆိုင္ရာ လံုၿခံဳမႈ ေဆာင္ရြက္ခေၾကး (၇၄) ေဒၚလာ၊ စုစုေပါင္း (၈၁၉) ေဒၚလာစီ မဲေပါက္သူ တဦးခ်င္းက ေပးသြင္းၾကရပါမယ္။
၂၀၁၃ Diversity Visa Program ကံစမ္းမဲေဖာက္ ေရြးခ်ယ္ပဲြအတြက္ သိသင့္သိထိုက္တဲ့ အေရးႀကီးတဲ့ အခ်က္ေတြကေတာ့ ဒါေလာက္ပါပဲ ခင္ဗ်ာ။
မူရင္း – ဗီြအုိေအ သတင္းဌာန http://www.voanews.com/burmese/news/
News & Articles on barma
Thai PM meets Myanmar president
Published on 5 October 2011 - 12:17pm
Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra met Myanmar's president on Wednesday during her first visit to the military-dominated country since she took office in August.
Yingluck was received by Thein Sein at his official residence in the capital Naypyidaw, according to a Myanmar government official who did not want to be named. It was unclear what was discussed.
She was not expected to meet pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi during her one-day visit, a second official said.
While Western nations have imposed sanctions on resource-rich Myanmar because of its poor human rights record, Asian neighbours such as Thailand, China and India have forged close economic ties, particularly in oil and gas.
In March, Myanmar's regime handed power to a new government whose ranks are filled with former generals, including Thein Sein, previously the junta prime minister.
Thein Sein has recently shown signs of reaching out to opponents including Suu Kyi, whom he met in August for the first time.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner was released from house arrest last November, shortly after an election marred by complaints of cheating and intimidation.
© ANP/AFP http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/thai-pm-meets-myanmar-president
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In Myanmar, Seize the Moment
By THANT MYINT-U
Published: October 4, 2011
MYANMAR, sandwiched between China and India, is at its most important political watershed since the establishment of army rule in 1962. Over the next few weeks, the Obama administration can make a big difference in determining whether historic reforms under way there will lead to Asia’s newest democratic transition. President Obama should publicly support the changes taking place, and back up those words with actions to end the country’s isolation, before hard-liners who oppose reform are able to push back.
Six months ago it was difficult to be optimistic. Elections had been held but they had been widely condemned as being far from free and fair. And although Myanmar’s aging autocrat, Gen. Than Shwe, retired, the constitutional leadership that replaced his junta included many of the same former generals. Few expected more than minor reforms.
But U Thein Sein, the new president and himself a former general, surprised everyone. In his inaugural address to Parliament, he spoke forcefully of combating poverty, fighting corruption, ending the country’s multiple armed conflicts, and working for political reconciliation. By June, state pensions for nearly a million people, most of them very poor, were increased by as much as a thousandfold, taxes were reduced, and trade cartels were dismantled. The government redrafted banking and foreign investment rules and began revising its foreign exchange rate policy — all of this in consultation with businessmen and academics. That alone was a huge step, because army rulers had long shunned any civilian advice.
Then, on July 19, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader who was released from house arrest last November, was invited to the annual Martyrs’ Day ceremony. The holiday memorializes the 1947 assassination of her father, who is considered the architect of the country’s independence. Thousands of her supporters were permitted to hold their first lawful march in years and several independent newspapers came to life. Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s name, which couldn’t be mentioned in print a year ago, began to appear regularly on the front pages.
By August, Parliament began debating sensitive issues, like the release of political prisoners, and passed laws legalizing microfinance for the rural poor and allowing independent trade unions. All Internet restrictions were soon lifted. On Aug. 18, at a meeting with dozens of independent civic groups, the president called for peace talks with the country’s ethnic-based rebels and invited exiles to return. The next day, he met for over two hours alone with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi.
I saw her soon afterward for the first time in over 20 years. She told me that she believed the president was genuine in wanting change and that she hoped we were at the beginning of a new era in Myanmar’s politics.
This past week, we’ve seen previously unimaginable developments. On Friday, following increasing popular agitation, the president halted work on a $3.6 billion hydroelectric dam being built by China on the Irrawaddy River to send power to Chinese provinces next door. This was a victory for Myanmar’s nascent environmental movement and the area’s minority Kachin people. That the president would stop a Chinese-backed project of this magnitude was the clearest sign yet that the country was at a turning point. And many in Myanmar now hope that the government will soon release most or all political prisoners.
But monumental challenges remain — for example, even though the government agreed recently to a cease-fire with the country’s largest ethnic-based militia, deadly clashes continue with smaller militias fighting on behalf of minorities in the mountains to the north and east. It is hard to imagine a successful democratic transition while these longstanding and often brutal little wars continue.
Reformist voices are not the only ones in the new system, and a hard-line pushback is far from inconceivable. So the Obama administration needs to do three things, and do them quickly.
First is to unambiguously voice its support for the reforms under way, while at the same time being patient and refraining from demanding too much too fast. The alternative to what is happening is not a perfect revolution; the alternative is going back to square one.
Second, the administration needs to ensure that the reform efforts receive the technical advice and knowledge they desperately require. After decades of isolation, Myanmar suffers from a dearth of skilled people in every field, from banking to environmental regulation to public health. So the United States should lift all restrictions that limit the United Nations and international financial institutions like the World Bank from offering Myanmar their technical expertise. This is not about giving money, but providing the knowledge needed to conceive and carry out reforms in the best possible way.
Third is to move toward ending trade embargoes against Myanmar. As the country opens up, it should neither become dependent on outside aid, nor become an even more corrupt crony-controlled oligarchy. Responsible trade and investment can play key roles in creating jobs, helping to build a new middle class and hastening democratic change.
What we’re seeing today is Myanmar’s best chance in half a century for a better future. America needs to help end Myanmar’s isolation, urgently.
Thant Myint-U, a historian and former United Nations official, is the author of “Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/opinion/myanmar-needs-us-support-for-reform.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
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Burma's mooted reforms must be watched closely
Lindsay Murdoch
October 5, 2011
Opinion
It is unrealistic to expect Burma to emerge suddenly from four decades of isolation and misrule to become a modern, competitive and democratic Asian nation. The corrupt generals still in charge of the impoverished nation have too much blood on their hands to give up their authority entirely.
But there are indications they intend to allow at least some change, stirring excitement among Burmese analysts and foreign diplomats. Even if that happens, the outside world should not rush to bring the errant nation back into the fold, past sins forgiven.
In the late '50s and early '60s the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma was one of south-east Asia's most important commercial and cultural hubs. People from around the region, including Bangkok, would travel to Rangoon, the nation's bustling riverside capital, to shop or dine in fine restaurants.
But in 1962 Ne Win, a highly superstitious nationalist general, seized power in a coup and introduced what he called the ''Burmese way to socialism'', which was based in part on extreme elements of Marxism.
His policies were disastrous for most Burmese, cutting them off from the world, wiping out their savings, plunging them into poverty and triggering a number of ethnic conflicts in border areas.
Corrupt and brutal military generals ruled the country for the following four decades, ignoring the results of elections in 1990 and brutally suppressing uprisings.
But six months ago the generals took off their uniforms, donned civilian clothes and proclaimed a new era of reform under the guise of a civilian government. The outside world remained sceptical because in the past the generals had made promises to appease the United Nations and its Western member nations, only to renege later.
They worried the generals were again faking reform to tighten their stranglehold with the help of Western aid and trade. But, in a flurry of recent activity, pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent 15 of the past 21 years under house arrest, has met the country's President, Thein Sein, one of the more moderate former generals, three times.
Bans on websites have been eased. Promises have been made to release prisoners. New labour laws have been drafted.
And in the most notable development, the government on Friday called a halt to work on a $US3.6 billion dam and hydroelectric plant on the Irrawaddy River that was being built in co-operation with China.
Ms Suu Kyi had been among a large number of critics of the project, including environmental and human rights groups. The generals had never before bowed to public pressure. The decision was even more significant because it upset Burma's powerful neighbour, China.
The next test will be whether the government releases all 2000 political prisoners being held in the country's jails, including supporters of Ms Suu Kyi. Western nations, including Australia, have told the generals the release of prisoners, many of whom have been tortured, would be seen internationally as an important step in any reform process.
Analysts warn much of what the government has promised so far lacks legal backing and could be quickly reversed. There are hardliners in government with vested interests to protect who are waiting for the first opportunity to sabotage the reforms, government insiders have publicly said.
Progress should be judged on what is happening across the entire country of 50 million people, not just in the new capital, Naypyidaw. Since the November election fighting has increased in ethnic minority areas, forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes.
Hundreds of prisoners taken from prisons and labour camps are being forced to work as porters in an army offensive against Karen rebels in the east of the country. Human rights groups say the Burmese Army is still committing human rights abuses on a ''massive scale'' in clashes with rebel groups. Fighting has recently spread to some border areas where it had not occurred for 20 years.
The upsurge in violence comes amid $US20 billion of investments in infrastructure projects such as dams and pipelines over the past year alone, much of it from resource-hungry China.
Mr Thein Sein has been lobbying for the end of US and European economic sanctions, promoting the vision of Burma becoming an important regional trade and industrial hub.
He also wants Burma to be given the nod to chair the 10-member Association of South-East Asian Nations in 2014, a role it has previously been denied.
What has become clear is that Mr Thein Sein believes accommodating Ms Suu Kyi in the decision-making will help achieve these goals, no matter how despised she is by some government hardliners. His relationship with her will be critical to Burma's future.
For decades the generals refused to speak to Ms Suu Kyi, the daughter of Burma's independence hero General Aung San, whose National League for Democracy party won 80 per cent of parliamentary seats in the 1990 elections.
But Ms Suu Kyi's views will be pivotal to how the international community reacts to developments in Burma in the coming weeks and months.
ASEAN nations should not endorse Burma's bid to chair their organisation until all political prisoners are released and there is a solid timetable for genuine human rights reforms.
Any easing of international economic sanctions should be tied to specific benchmarks, including guarantees for the future of 140,000 Burmese languishing in camps in Thailand, too afraid to return home.
Ms Suu Kyi believes there is an opportunity for change in the country while remaining cautiously optimistic it will occur.
''This is the kind of thing I could never have done [previously], so we are making progress, but we need more,'' she said in a recent video-link to a conference in New York. http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/politics/burmas-mooted-reforms-must-be-watched-closely-20111004-1l767.html
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The Myitsone Dam Decision in Burma
Posted: 10/4/11 03:18 PM ET
David Scott Mathieson
Burma Researcher, Human Rights Watch
Burmese President Thein Sein burnished his perception as a reformist last week by suspending one of the country's largest -- and potentially most destructive -- foreign investment projects. The Myitsone hydro-electric dam, the largest of seven dams to be constructed by the Beijing-controlled China Power Investment Corporation, would have flooded an area of more than 700 square kilometers, and displaced tens of thousands of villagers in northern Kachin State, close to the state capital of Myitkina. Several thousand have already been displaced by the first dam, built to provide the electricity for the larger ones in the series.
The dam project, affecting the Irrawaddy River, Burma's largest, was fast becoming one of the country's most contentious national issues. Its suspension goes against decades of state-directed resource grabs for Burma's neighbors and energy companies: logging, fisheries, oil and gas, and mining concessions sold off to China, Thailand, India, and other Asian and Western corporations.
The past few weeks did see some uncharacteristically open debate on the dam project in Burma, including public dissension from senior ministers. While some in Burma's parliament called for the project to be reviewed, the Electric Power Minister U Zaw Win, prior to the president's announcement, insisted: "we will not back down just because environmental groups are against it ... we will not back down now in fact we are to go ahead." Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi joined prominent artists and writers at an art exhibition about the Irrawaddy River, and the regulated Burmese media debated it. There has not been open discussion and high-level disagreement, at least not publicly, on an issue like this in Burma for a long time.
It's less clear that the suspension represents Thein Sein's newfound support for the environment or a more open society. Kachin environmental groups and community leaders in the dam areas and others have done exemplary work in documenting the project and its effects on Kachin State, which has encouraged more overt community activism in recent years. A recently leaked 900-page environmental impact survey on the dam project, produced by Burmese and Chinese government experts, was damning in saying the project was ill-advised. And it didn't help matters that the Myitsone dam site is situated just 100 kilometers from a major earthquake fault line.
The breakdown of the 17-year ceasefire with the Kachin Independence Organization in June was another headache for the government. The dam project had become a flashpoint for the renewal of armed conflict between the Burmese army and ethnic Kachin rebels that has so far displaced more than 30,000 civilians.
Many important questions remain: Is the Myitsone project on its way to being cancelled or is the government just waiting for the outrage to die down? Will the local community have a role in future discussions about the project, such as whether the mega damn at Myitsone will be reworked into a number of smaller dams? Did the Chinese agree to the suspension, and was it a temporary trade-off because China wants to ensure the strategically more important oil and gas pipelines? The answers to these questions are not just crucial for environmental protection and foreign investment in Burma, but for whether the Burmese government's claims of being more open and accountable are for real.
Meanwhile, there are more than enough energy projects in Burma that have potentially disastrous community and environmental and human rights impacts: the hydro dams on the Salween River, including the pipelines, massive Chinese agri-business ventures in the north that involve land-grabbing and semi-feudal working conditions, the Dawei (Tavoy) port project and industrial park in southern Burma, and the Kaladan River and road project being pursued by Indian firms in western Burma. Add to this the widespread practice of the Burmese military to seize land for their own business interests, or to hand over to military connected companies, and there are more than enough abusive practices that adversely affect both ethnic minorities in conflict areas and the general population. These and many more environmental and human rights abuses have been well documented by community groups for several years.
Overall, people in Burma should be heartened by the suspension of the dam project. It is tempting to believe it signals a significant shift in the autocratic, plunder-and-profit mentality of the Burmese authorities. But it is doubtful. If it does lead to more open community discussion of development projects, and more regulation and oversight, it is a good thing, but don't expect the government's rapacious commercial practices to reform in a major way anytime soon. If the Myitsone decision is to have far-reaching consequences for sustainable development in Burma, it is up to Burma's leaders to ensure that their decisions about business are about people too.
David Scott Mathieson is a Senior Researcher in the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-scott-mathieson/the-myitsone-dam-decision_b_992964.html
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The Diplomat
Burma Bamboozles China
By Luke Hunt
October 5, 2011
Burma is becoming ever more baffling. Its decision to bite the usually friendly hand of Beijing by ditching plans to construct a massive dam flies in the face of everything the ruling elite had stood for in recent decades.
The Sunday Bangkok Post best summed up the prevailing mood at the weekend, writing: ‘It’s hard to tell what exactly is happening with our neighbours at the moment – and academics, journalists and professional Burma watchers seem just as bamboozled as the rest of us. Are we seeing real change under the newly “elected” civilian government, or is it the old wolf slipping seamlessly into sheep’s clothing?’
To be fair to Burma’s leadership, President Thein Sein has pushed his country in directions few would have thought possible prior to last November’s poll, which was widely condemned as a sham in the West.
Rapprochement with pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi appears to be going well since she was released from prison almost a year ago. Naypyidaw has also promised the UN General Assembly it will release more political prisoners. The United States, Britain, Australia, the European Union, the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have all indicated they will engage the civilian government in an attempt to win real reforms. Burma for its part desperately wants to hold the ASEAN chair in 2014.
Now, Thein Sein has gone much further, saying construction of a controversial hydroelectric dam has been suspended because it’s not wanted by the people. The Chinese, who were building the $3.6 billion Myitsone Dam, are upset, and Beijing has urged Burma to reconsider.
Disputes between the pair are rare. But this time, one Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman went so far as to say that relevant countries must ‘guarantee the lawful and legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies.’
Opposition to damming the Irrawaddy River in the country’s northeast had been low key, not unusual in Burma. It was to be built by China Power Investment Corp. which would sell on the bulk of the electricity produced back home, where the motherland is still undergoing rapid industrialization.
Thousands of villagers were to be displaced in an area that’s prone to earthquakes and routine clashes between the Burmese military and Kachin rebels.
An area the size of Singapore was to be submerged. Small street protests and a letter from Suu Kyi urging the dam’s construction be suspended had been sent out, but no one really believed Thien Sein would act.
His decision is tantalizing to observers, and has had some speculating that the winds of change might really be blowing through Burma.
If Thein Sein’s announcement marks a genuine shift in policy, including toward China, then the country really could be on the right path. But it’s still very early days. Few observers would be surprised if, as The Sunday Bangkok Post noted, the recent reforms prove to be little more than a proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing. http://the-diplomat.com/asean-beat/2011/10/05/burma-bamboozles-china/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+the-diplomat+%28The+Diplomat+RSS%29
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JAKARTA GLOBE
What Made Burma Shelve the Chinese Megadam? Hint: It Wasn’t Public Opinion
Bertil Lintner | October 05, 2011
At a time when Asian countries are increasingly worried about China’s growing assertiveness, Burma’s rejection of a huge Chinese hydroelectric dam project has raised new questions: Is this a rare victory for civil society in a repressive country? Or does it indicate an internal dispute over the country’s dependence on China?
Regardless of the answers to these questions, the public dispute over a close ally’s project marks a new stage in the Burma-China relationship.
On Sept. 30, Burma’s new president, Thein Sein, sent a statement to the country’s Parliament announcing that a joint venture with China to build a megadam in Burma’s far north had been suspended because “it was contrary to the will of the people.” The $3.6 billion Myitsone Dam would have been world’s 15th tallest and submerged 766 square kilometers of forestland, an area bigger than Singapore.
It’s unclear if Chinese counterparts were consulted before the decision was made public. Burma has depended on its powerful northern neighbor for trade, political support and arms since the West shunned the Burmese regime following massacres of pro-democracy demonstrators in 1988.
Public opinion may have played its part. Under the 2006 deal, 90 percent of power generated from Myitsone would have gone to China. Anger over environmental destruction galvanized people against the regime in a way the country had not seen for years. The dam was a dagger in the heart of the Kachins, the area’s predominant ethnic minority. Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi threw her support behind the anti-dam movement. Many made their voices heard over Facebook — a new tool for anti-regime activists.
People inside Burma can’t protest openly, but “Save the Irrawaddy” meetings have been held in Rangoon. Burmese exiles have staged anti-Chinese demonstrations outside Burmese and Chinese embassies abroad. Anti-Chinese sentiment is growing in Burma, especially in northern Kachin state, where Chinese influence is the strongest. According to reports, many Chinese nationals working there have fled to their home country following the outbreak of hostilities between the Kachin Independence Army and government forces.
Despite all that, however, the Burmese regime has never cared enough about public opinion to let it impact something as monumental as this. More likely, dissatisfaction within the armed forces over China’s growing influence in the country was the real reason for suspending the dam project.
The relationship between Burma and its northern neighbor has historically been strained. After Gen. Ne Win staged a coup in 1962 against a Burmese government that had long maintained a cordial relationship with Beijing, the Chinese prepared for all-out support of the insurgent Communist Party of Burma. Anti-Chinese riots in Rangoon in 1967 — orchestrated, ironically, by domestic military authorities to deflect public anger over a deteriorating economy — provided an excuse for the Chinese to intervene. On New Year’s Day 1968, armed CPB units entered northeastern Burma from China’s Yunnan province. In the next decade, China poured more aid into the CPB effort than any other communist movement outside of Indochina.
Mao’s death in 1976,however, and the subsequent return to power of pragmatist Deng Xiaoping marked the beginning of the end to massive Chinese aid for the CPB. Supporting revolutionary movements in the region was no longer in Beijing’s interest. Still, China coveted Burma’s forests, rich mineral and natural gas deposits and hydroelectric potential.
After the bloody 1988 suppression of a pro-democracy movement in Burma, Sino-Burmese relations grew by leaps and bounds. By 1991, apart from supplying Burma with vast quantities of military hardware, the Chinese had sent experts to assist in a series of infrastructure projects.
More recently, China has provided Burma with low-interest loans, and Chinese investment in the sanctions-hit economy is substantial. This is particularly true of the energy sector. For example, an agreement on a gas pipeline from the Bay of Bengal will be supplemented with an oil pipeline designed to allow Chinese ships carrying Middle Eastern oil to skirt the congested and pirate-ridden Malacca Strait.
This heavy dependence has led to consternation among many Burmese military leaders. They have not forgotten yesterday’s battles against the China-backed CPB, nor their comrades who were killed by Chinese arms. Aung Lynn Htut, a former intelligence officer who sought political asylum in the United States in 2005, drew on such memories in a September commentary for The Irrawaddy, a Burmese exile newsmagazine run out of Thailand.
China has called for “talks” after Thein Sein’s proclamation, but skeptics point out that a 2009 internal report by the China Power Investment Corporation, the company behind the dam, had already called for the project to be scrapped, saying its size was unnecessary. China still has contracts to build six other megadams in Burma.
That Thein Sein dared to make his such a public pronouncement reveals a wrinkle in Sino-Burmese relations, and it signals a possible return for Burma to its former policy of strict neutrality and non-alignment.
Some academic observers assert that Beijing’s influence has been exaggerated. China, according to author Andrew Selth, “has not been as successful in winning Burma’s confidence as often is reported.” The source of Burma’s arms supply offers evidence: Although China has provided Burma with up to $1.6 billion worth of military hardware since 1989, the regime has recently turned to Russia, Ukraine and North Korea.
Instead of democratizing the country, Burma’s new government seems to have chosen to play “the China card,” an attempt to win the support of the West. An unsigned opinion piece in The Bangkok Post, written by a Burmese government official, reportedly approved at the highest level in Naypyidaw, lays out its position: “We do not want our country to become a satellite state of the Chinese government. However, Western countries should not force us into a corner where we have no option but to increasingly rely on China.”
In this context, “force” means insistence on genuine democratic reforms. From the Burmese regime’s point of view, improved relations with the West could be accomplished simply by playing up the Chinese threat, with the hope of diminishing Western criticism of the regime.
But the regime has time and again stressed that how the country is governed is an internal matter. The West must decide if it will play along.
YaleGlobal
Bertil Lintner is a Swedish journalist based in Thailand and the author of “Blood Brothers: The Criminal Underworld of Asia.” http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/what-made-burma-shelve-the-chinese-megadam-hint-it-wasnt-public-opinion/469582
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Suu Kyi: Tutu, Mandela 'inspire Burma's quest for peace'
KATHARINE CHILD JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - Oct 05 2011 07:45
Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi says the people of Burma seeking peace and reconciliation have been inspired by SA's great men: Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.
It didn't matter that Nobel Laureate and Burma pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi was speaking from Burma in a prerecorded video; when she finished addressing the auditorium at the University of Johannesburg on Tuesday night, the audience rose to their feet and applauded her.
"The peoples of Burma want peace, they want freedom, they want security, they want reconciliation. All these you have taught us we can achieve through courage and endeavour. We look up to your great men -- Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu".
Suu Kyi's message was broadcast at a university graduation ceremony when she awarded an honorary doctorate on Tuesday night. The university said they chose to honour her because of her "revolutionary journey to bring democratic change to Myanmar, formally known as Burma".
Suu Kyi was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her activism in peacefully protesting against the military junta that has led Burma with an iron first since the sixties. When Suu Kyi returned from living overseas to Burma in 1988 to see her ill mother, she started to lead pro-democracy protests against the military government.
Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, won elections two years later but the military remained in control. Suu Kyi was kept under house arrest where she has spent 15 of the past 22 years.
She was released in November last year but told a group of activists and academics via a live-video link-up at UJ on Monday night that 1 300 political prisoners remain behind bars.
She said that she believed the widely published figure of about 2 000 Burmese political prisoners was not accurate and that she had heard the revised figure was lower. She said she hoped some prisoners would be released in the coming weeks but would have to wait and see.
"But even if there is one single political prisoner in the country, it is too many" she said. "One of the most important [pieces of] evidence of genuine democracy is that there should no political prisoners."
No Democracy, No Freedom. No Human Rights
Suu Kyi's first cousin, Dr Sein Win, flew from the United States to accept the honorary degree on her behalf. It is believed that Suu Kyi does not leave Burma for fear she will not be allowed back into the country. http://mg.co.za/article/2011-10-05-suu-kyi-tutu-mandela-inspire-burmas-quest-for-peace/
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Talking about the Weather? Thai PM Visits Burma Today
By SIMON ROUGHNEEN Wednesday, October 5, 2011
BANGKOK — Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra visits Burma today and meet the country's first civilian head of government in five decades, but passes up the chance to meet possibly Asia's best-known female political figure, Aung San Suu Kyi.
The Thai PM is scheduled to meet the Burmese president, former general and junta prime minister Thein Sein, on her first official visit to Thailand's energy-rich neighbor and major trading partner. She is accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Yongyuth Wichaidit and Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul.
“The first reason for the trip is to introduce herself as the prime minister of Thailand,” said Thai government spokesperson Titima Chaiseng.
Trade, investment and business links are high on the agenda, said Titima. Among the subjects to be discussed is the multibillion-dollar Dawei/Tavoy “megaport” and highway project being developed by Italian-Thai Development Co., which will create a Chinese-style special economic zone on Burma's southeastern coast.
The Karen National Liberation Army, an ethnic armed group active in the area, says that it is preventing work from continuing on the project until the Burmese government conducts consultations with local residents and carries out an environmental impact assessment.
Thailand is Burma’s second largest foreign investor behind China, according to figures released by Burma’s Ministry of National Planning and Development in 2010.
According to the Thai PM's office, Yingluck will spend approximately twelve hours in Burma's capital Naypidaw, departing Bangkok at 1 pm on Wednesday and returning to Thailand “around midnight.”
Spokesperson Titima would not say whether the political situation in Burma will be discussed, but mentioned that “Thailand appreciated the democratic development in Myanmar [Burma].”
Speaking by telephone from Rangoon, Ohn Myint, a spokesperson for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), told The Irrawaddy that “if the Thai prime minister wants to know the real situation in Burma, she needs to meet with the opposition, she needs to meet with the ethnic groups, and she should talk to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.”
Despite recent pledges on reform, including a surprise decision to suspend the Chinese-funded Myitsone dam in Kachin State, fighting in ethnic minority areas of Burma continues, and there are almost 2,000 political prisoners in jail.
Kraisak Choonhavan, a former MP from Thailand's opposition Democrat Party and a vocal critic of Burma's military rulers, said, “I do not think the current Thai government cares or even knows about human rights violations in the ethnic areas of Burma.”
“I fear the trip will be all about re-establishing the scandalous style of Thaksin's relations with the regime,” said Kraisak, referring to allegations that former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra—Yingluck's brother—forged inappropriate commercial links with the Burmese military rulers.
Nicholas Farrelly, a Southeast Asia-focused academic at Australian National University, said the Thai delegation is unlikely to raise political or human rights issues with the Burmese government.
“They understand that every country in Southeast Asia has its own problems on that score,” he said.
With Thailand's government pledging a renewed “war on drugs,” the growing narcotics trade along the porous Thail-Burmese border will also be up for discussion, but the prime minister's spokesperson could not say whether other important bilateral issues—such as the closure of the “Friendship Bridge” linking Mae Sot in Thailand with the Burmese town of Myawaddy, or the future of around 140,000 Burmese refugees in camps along the border—will be on the agenda. She did say, however, that refurbishment of the Mae Sot-Myawaddy bridge will be mentioned, hinting that the bridge could be re-opened soon.
Closure of the border has not only hurt trade between the two countries, but also worsened the plight of the two to three million Burmese migrant workers in Thailand. Routinely subjected to trafficking and extortion and now forced to enter Thailand through unofficial channels, migrants are more vulnerable than ever to abuse, say experts.
Andy Hall, a migrant worker rights expert at Mahidol University in Bangkok, said that both sides “need to work together to solve the serious and pressing problems both countries are facing managing migration and combating trafficking.”
Hall told The Irrawaddy that it would be beneficial if the Thai PM suggested that the Burmese authorities open more migrant verification centers in Thailand to facilitate the hundreds of thousands of Burmese migrants who have yet to register themselves legally in Thailand, a process that first requires the prior acquisition of official Burmese papers.
It is unclear whether such specifics will be discussed today, however, or whether the finer points will await meetings between the relevant ministers from both countries.
However, according to spokesperson Titima, a highlight of the visit will be the Thai government's presentation of meteorological instruments worth 40 million baht (US $1.3 million) to its Burmese counterpart.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22196
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US Remains Tough on Burma Sanctions
By LALIT K JHA Wednesday, October 5, 2011
WASHINGTON—Although encouraged by the recent steps taken by the new Burmese government, the United States on Tuesday said that Burma needs to do more before the Obama administration can consider lifting economic sanctions.
“We are encouraged by some of the progress that we’ve seen in Burma, but we think that more needs to be done,” a US State Department spokesperson, Victoria Nuland, told reporters at her daily news conference.
The US government is continuing that dialogue with the Burmese government, she said referring to the two recent rounds of talks with the visiting Burmese foreign minister in New York and Washington.
During those meeting, the Burmese officials reportedly urged the State Department to lift US sanctions.
Meanwhile, speaking on the Senate floor, a prominent US senator noted recent developments in Burma, and said he hoped that a time would come when sanctions would not be needed against Burma.
“I am hopeful that the time will soon come when sanctions against the Burmese government will no longer be needed—that like South Africa in the early 1990s, the people of Burma will be able to free themselves from their own government,” Senator Mitch McConnell said.
Referring to a recent letter written by the Burmese Deputy Chief of Mission in Washington, who sought political asylum, McConnell said the letter to the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, indicated that the Burmese junta appears to maintain an iron grip on its people, and continues to carry out a foreign policy that is inimical to US interests.
“The United States must continue to deny this regime the legitimacy it craves by continuing sanctions, and these sanctions must remain in place until true democratic reform comes to the people of Burma,” he said.
Speaking on the Senate floor a week after the Senate passed a bill to extend sanctions against Burma by another year, McConnell said this overwhelming bipartisan support for sanctioning the junta reflects the clear view of the US Senate that the purportedly “new” Burmese regime that took office earlier this year so far appears little different from the “old” regime.
“The casual observer could be excused for thinking that things have changed dramatically for the better in Burma over the past year,” he said. “After all, elections were held last fall, a new regime took office earlier this year, and Aung San Suu Kyi was freed. However, as our experience with Burma has taught us, things there usually require a closer look.”
The “new regime,” he said, appears to be essentially the junta with only the thinnest democratic veneer. The Burmese Constitution, which places great power in the hands of the military, cannot be amended without the blessing of the armed forces. Furthermore, those in Parliament are limited in how they can criticize the regime.
“The only legitimately good news was Suu Kyi’s release,” McConnell said. “Yet the extent of her freedom to travel remains an open question. Moreover, despite her release, nearly 2,000 other political prisoners remain behind bars in Burma. They are no better off than before. Neither are the hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced persons who are without a home due to the repressive policies of the junta.” http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22194
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Burma: Soldiers perish without cause in Kachin frontline
By Zin Linn Oct 05, 2011 11:57PM UTC
Political analysts and observers have been deeply concerned about widespread war in Kachin State. People are disappointing with the Thein Sein government for breaking every promise with the ethnic ceasefire groups.
KIA officials repeatedly said the civil war will spread across Kachin and Shan states if the government starts a war with the KIO. The latest series of armed clashes in Kachin state have prompted observers to think that intentional warfare in the border regions may not be avoidable.
The government’s wrong step of handling the Kachin topic seems to be pushing the nation into an abysmal gorge of tragedies. New military offensives of Burma Army on the Kachin, Karen and Shan armed groups will steer the nation into a ruthless poverty trap.
The National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi released a statement dated June 20 calling for both the government and the KIO to stop heavy fighting immediately in order to protect people’s lives and properties. It also called for peaceful talks between stakeholders to settle the decade-long political crisis of the country.
An open letter dated July-28 released by Burma’s pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, remarkably called for a cessation of hostilities between the Burmese government led by President Thein Sein, and ethnic armed groups, including the KIO, Karen National Union (KNU), New Mon State Party (NMSP) and the Shan State Army (SSA).
However, the government turns a deaf ear to public calling for peace-talks with Kachin ethnic group.
Although government troops have suffered heavy casualties, the decision-makers are still dragging their feet to stop the useless confrontation. They have no sympathy for their fallen soldiers.
Ongoing civil war in Kachin State has been intensifying in various fronts. On Tuesday, Burma armed forces expended their offensive in central Kachin State. The fighting took place around Ja Ing Yang Village, near Sinbo, in central Kachin State.
The People’s Army soldiers under the KIA’s 3rd Brigade in eastern Kachin, geared up for self-protective warfare. During fighting against the People’s Army under the KIA, several government soldiers died in action, referring local residents Kachin News Group said Wednesday.
As the momentum increases in the civil war in Burma’s northern Kachin State, about 40 Burma Army’s soldiers were killed in a single day, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) source in the war zone confirmed on Tuesday.
According to one KIA officer in the frontline, there were no KIA casualties in Tuesday-battle.
Skirmishing between government troops and Kachin people’s armed forces has been taking place daily in different areas in the Shadan Pa Valley, close to Ja Ing Yang, according to local inhabitants.
As said by KIA officials in Laiza, since the last week of September, hundreds of government troops have arrived in those areas likely to launch a new offensive against the KIA headquarters at Laiza.
The KIA strongholds at Laiza – Alen Bum, Laisin Bum, Hpalap Bum and Mai Ja Yang – in eastern Kachin State is in conjunction with the Chinese border. It is situated approximately 25 miles west of the current battle-sites.
The Burma Army is heightening its offensives against the KIA strongholds, since Shadan Pa and Ja Ing Yang are situated at strategic positions, KIA officials said. The fighting continues in the two areas, natives in the war zone said. There are casualties in daily basic.
The President of Burma should take into consideration that all the fallen soldiers – Burmese or Kachin – are citizens of this nation as well as manpower resources of the underdeveloped country. If the new president and the government truly want to reconstruct the country into a democratic and developed society, all the wars with respective ethnic rebels including KIO/KIA must be immediately stopped.
If President Thein Sein has genuine inspiration of poverty alleviation, he must stop all forms of civil conflict that make the country underprivileged in the region. Most analysts agree that allowing civil war and saying poverty alleviation looks like an impractical guiding principle.
So, it is really important for the president to end the civil war, especially war against Kachin. By doing so, president has to show the country is on the right reform path and can gain trust domestically and internationally. http://asiancorrespondent.com/66572/burma-soldiers-perish-without-cause-in-kachin-frontline/
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Burma: Kachin Conflict Escalates As Talk Of Change Grows
Wed, 2011-10-05 00:27 — editor
London, 05 October, (Asiantribune.com):
Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) is deeply concerned by reports of a deteriorating humanitarian situation in Kachin State, Burma. Information received by CSW from Kachin sources indicate an escalation in the Burma Army’s offensive against Kachin civilians, at a time when the regime in Burma is talking about peace and national reconciliation. Over 20,000 Kachin civilians have been displaced as a result.
In the past two months, the Burma Army has repeatedly attacked Kachin villages. Civilians have been taken for forced labor, raped, tortured and killed. At the same time, Burma’s new President, Thein Sein, has met democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, called for peace talks with ethnic nationalities, and responded to popular opinion by suspending plans for a major dam project at Myitsone, Kachin State, and worth over £2 billion.
On 20 August, Burma Army soldiers stationed in Je-U village, Man Si Township fired mortars at Nam Gau village. The village school teacher’s house was hit by a mortar shell, while the teacher, Mai Awng, was tutoring students inside. A six year-old child, Hpaula Htu, was killed and four people injured, including the teacher, her seven year-old daughter and two children, aged seven and six.
On 16 September, soldiers from Light Infantry Unit 387 arrested 12 Kachin villagers aged between 14 and 70, from Namhpathka village, Momauk Township, ten miles from a hydropower project at Taping. The villagers, accused of supporting the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), were tied with ropes, detained at the army base and severely tortured, before being released on 19 September.
On 21 September, Mr Tam Gam and his wife Roi Lam Ja Ngai, both aged 24, were seriously injured by landmines on a Roman Catholic prayer mountain near Jahtuzup, Phakant Township, while they were gathering bamboo. Rou Lam Ja Ngai’s right leg was blown off below the knees and her left leg was seriously injured. Her husband was injured in his face and chin.
These reports have been confirmed by the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), along with reports of increasing battles between soldiers of the Burma Army and the KIA. In June, the regime launched a new offensive against the Kachin, ending a 17-year ceasefire. According to the Kachin Relief Action Network for IDPs and Refugees (RANIR), at least 21,298 villagers have been displaced by the new conflict.
On 26 September, the Chairman of the KIO’s Central Committee, Lanyaw Zawng Hra, wrote to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, calling for international help to end the conflict in Burma. “The civil war …, which is based on ethnic conflict, directly affects the regional development and stability of the neighbouring countries as well. Therefore KIO is humbly calling for all stakeholders and international communities, such as United Nations, ASEAN, and our bordering countries, to help us find a solution towards ending our civil war and finally achieving national reconciliation.”
CSW’s East Asia Team Leader, Benedict Rogers, said: “The escalation in attacks in Kachin State is in marked contrast to the regime’s rhetoric about peace, and the signs of change that may be seen in other aspects of Burmese politics. We warmly welcome the talks between the regime and Aung San Suu Kyi, President Thein Sein’s recent decision to abandon the Myitsone dam in the face of public opinion, his offer of peace talks with the ethnic nationalities and the prospect of a general amnesty for political prisoners. We encourage President Thein Sein to continue on this path and, if there is substantial change, the international community must be prepared to respond positively and proportionately. However, if the regime is genuine, it much match rhetoric with action, end the horrific human rights violations in the ethnic areas and declare a nationwide ceasefire. We urge the military to stop its attacks on Kachin civilians, end its campaign of terror in all ethnic states, and engage in a meaningful dialogue with the ethnic nationalities to bring an end to decades of war and suffering in Burma. We also call on the international community to provide urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the tens of thousands of Kachin displaced along Burma’s border with China. There is much talk now about an opportunity for change in Burma. It is time to seize that opportunity, and turn it into an opportunity for peace, reconciliation and rebuilding.”
- Asian Tribune - http://www.asiantribune.com/news/2011/10/04/burma-kachin-conflict-escalates-talk-change-grows
Saturday, 8 October 2011
6P အစီအစဥ္၏ ဒုတိယအဆင့္ ေအာက္တိုဘာ ၄ ရက္ေန႔
စိုးလြင္။ ။ ကြာလာလမ္ပူ- တရားမ၀င္ႏိုင္ငံျခား အလုပ္သမားမ်ား အတြက္ ေဆာင္ရြက္ေနသည့္ 6P အစီအစဥ္၏ ဒုတိယအဆင့္ တရား၀င္ လုပ္ေဆာင္ေရး အစီအစဥ္သည္ ေအာက္တိုဘာလ ၄ ရက္ေန႔ ၀န္ႀကီးမ်ား ေကာ္မတီ အစည္းအေ၀းၿပီးပါက ထပ္မံ သိရွိရမည္ျဖစ္သည္။
ႏိုင္ငံျခား အလုပ္သမား ၂.၃ သန္းဆႏၵအေလ်ာက္လာေရာက္မွတ္ပုံတင္ခဲ့သည့္ ပထမအဆင့္အတြက္ စိတ္ေက်နပ္မိသည္ဟု ျပည္ထဲေရး ၀န္ႀကီး Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein က ေျပာသည္။
“ဒီထဲကမွာ ၁ သန္းက တရား၀င္ ျဖစ္ၿပီးေတာ့ ၁.၃သန္းက တရားမ၀င္ျဖစ္ပါတယ္၊ ဒီ ၂.၃ သန္းက အိမ္ေဖာ္ေတြနဲ႔ Sabah Sarawak က ႏုိင္ငံျခားသားေတြ၊ တသိန္းေလာက္နီးနီးရွိေနတဲ့ ဒုကၡသည္ေတြ မပါပါဘူး၊ မွတ္ပုံမတင္တဲ့သူေတြ ဘယ္ေလာက္မ်ား ရွိမလဲ ခန္႔မွန္းၾကည့္ပါလား” ဟု သူက ေျပာသည္။
ျပည္ထဲ၀န္ႀကီးဌာန လက္ေထာက္ အေထြအေထြ အတြင္းေရမႉး Datuk Alwi Ibrahimက မွတ္ပုံတင္အဆင့္က အခ်က္အလက္မ်ားကို ေသခ်ာစုေဆာင္း စစ္ေဆးၿပီး တရား၀င္ လုပ္ေဆာင္ေရး အစီအစဥ္ကို စက္တင္ဘာလလယ္တြင္ စတင္ႏိုင္မည္ဟု ယခင္က ေျပာခဲ့ဖူးသည္။
မွတ္ပုံတင္ျခင္းျဖင့္ ရရွိေသာ ႏိုင္ငံျခားသားမ်ား၏ အခ်က္အလက္မ်ားကို တရား၀င္ အလုပ္လုပ္ခြင့္အတြက္ အသုံးျပဳမည္ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္းလည္း သိရသည္။
တရားမ၀င္ ေနထိုင္သူမ်ားအတြက္ 6P အစီအစဥ္တြင္ မွတ္ပံုတင္ျခင္း၊ တရား၀င္အျဖစ္ လုပ္ေဆာင္ျခင္း၊ လြတ္ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းသာခြင့္ စီစဥ္ျခင္း၊ စစ္ေဆးမႈမ်ား ျပဳလုပ္ျခင္း၊ အေရးယူျခင္း ႏွင့္ နယ္ႏွင္ဒဏ္ေပးျခင္း စသည့္အဆင့္ ၆ ဆင့္ကို ေဆာင္ရြက္မည္ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္းလည္း သိရသည္။
တခ်ိန္တည္းတြင္ပင္ အတိုက္အခံမ်ားက ၎တို႔အာဏာရလာပါက ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ အလံေတာ္ကို အစားထိုးမည္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ဆိုသည္။ မေလးရွားႏိုင္ငံသည္ မၾကာခင္အခ်ိန္တြင္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ က်င္းပေတာ့မည္ ျဖစ္သည္။
မဲအတြက္ေတာင္းဆိုမႈသည္ ေဒသကိုဆြေပးသကဲ့သို႔ မေလးစားရာေရာက္သည့္ အျပင္ မ်ိဳးခ်စ္စိတ္မရွိေၾကာင္း Hishammuddin က ေျပာသည္။
“လုံၿခဳံေရး ဥပေဒ၊ ႏိုင္ငံသား ျဖစ္ေရး၊ ႏိုင္ငံ၀င္ခြင့္ ပါမစ္နဲ႔ ေမြးဖြားခြင့္စတဲ့ အတိုက္အခံေတြရဲ႕ ေတာင္းဆိုခ်က္ေတြကို ကိုယ္ခ်င္းစာတရားနဲ႔ လုပ္သင့္တယ္လို႔ က်ေနာ္တုိ႔ ျပန္ေခ်ပေနၾကပါ” ဟု သူက ဆိုသည္။
ၿပီးခဲ့သည့္ သီတင္းပတ္ကလည္း DAP မွ Kota Alam Shah စည္းရုံးေရးသမား M. Manoharan က အေထြေထြ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ တြင္ အတိုက္အခံမ်ား အႏိုင္ရပါက ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္အလံကို ေျပာင္းလဲမည္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ေျပာသည္။
ေျပာင္းလဲေနသည့္ ႏိုင္ငံေရး အေျခအေနႏွင့္ အတုိက္အခံမ်ားက ယင္းကိစၥမ်ားကို တင္ျပသည့္ သတၱိကို အစိုးရအေနျဖင့္ နားလည္ေၾကာင္း ဥပေဒသစ္မ်ား ေရးဆြဲေရးအတြက္၎တို႔တြင္ သတၱိရွိေသာ္လည္း မဲဆြယ္မႈႏွင့္ အာဏာတြင္ အကန္႔အသတ္ရွိေၾကာင္း Hishammuddinက ေျပာသည္။
“မ်ိဳးခ်စ္စိတ္နဲ႔ လူမ်ိဳးေရးေပါင္းစည္းညီညြတ္ၿပီးေတာ့ တဦးတေယာက္ရဲ႕ ဘာသာေရးကို ေလးစားဖို႔က အေရးပါပါတယ္၊ ေျပာင္းလဲဖို႔အတြက္ အစိုးရက ေလးနက္တဲ့ ေဆာင္ရြက္မႈေတြ လုပ္ရပါမယ္” ဟု သူက ဆိုသည္။
၁၉၆၀ ခုႏွစ္ ႏိုင္ငံတြင္းလုံၿခဳံေရး ဥပေဒ (ISA)၊ ၁၉၅၉ ခုႏွစ္ ျပည္ႏွင္ဒဏ္ ဥပေဒ၊ ၁၉၈၄ ခုႏွစ္၊ ရဲဥပေဒ ပုဒ္မ ၂၇၊ ပုံႏွိပ္ထုတ္ ေ၀ခြင့္ ဥပေဒ၊၁၉၃၃ခုႏွစ္ ေနထိုင္သူမ်ား တားျမစ္ခ်က္ ျပည္လည္ စိစစ္ေရး ဥပေဒမ်ားရုတ္သိမ္းေၾကာင္း ၀န္ႀကီးခ်ဳပ္ Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak က ဖ်က္သိမ္းေၾကာင္း မေလးရွားေန႔ မိန္႔ခြန္းမွတဆင့္ ေၾကညာသည္။
ISA ဥပေဒ ဖ်က္သိမ္းမႈအတြက္ တုံျပန္မႈ အေျမာက္အျမား ရွိခဲ့သည္။ Ummo အေျခခံလူတန္းစား ပါတီ ဒု ဥကၠ႒ ျဖစ္ေသာ Hishammuddin က ဖ်က္သိမ္းရျခင္းအေၾကာင္းအရင္းကို ရွင္းျပရန္ေတာင္းဆိုသည္။
သတင္း၊ ဆက္သြယ္ေရးႏွင့္ ယဥ္ေက်းမႈ ၀န္ႀကီးဌာနႏွင့္လည္း သူ၏ ၀န္ႀကီးဌာနက နီးနီးကပ္ကပ္ လုပ္ကိုင္ ေဆာင္ရြက္ေနေၾကာင္း၊ ပုံႏွိပ္ထုတ္ေ၀ခြင့္ ဥပေဒကို ၀န္ႀကီးခ်ဳပ္ရုံး ၀န္ႀကီး Datuk Seri Nazri Azizက ျပန္လည္ သုံးသပ္မႈမ်ား ေဆာင္ရြက္ေနသည္ဟုလည္း ေျပာသည္။
“လူေတြရဲ႕ အက်ိဳးစီးပြား အျပင္ ႏိုင္ငံရဲ႕ လုံၿခဳံေရးကိုလည္း က်ေနာ္ စဥ္းစားေနပါတယ္၊ ဒါေတြ ၿခိမ္းေျခာက္ခံရမယ္ဆိုရင္ သင့္ေတာ္တာေတြကို လိပ္ျပာသန္႔သန္႔နဲ႔ ျပဌာန္းရပါလိမ့္မယ္” ဟု Hishammuddin က ေျပာသည္။
ပုံႏွိပ္ ထုတ္ေ၀ပိုင္ခြင့္ကို ျပည္ထဲေရး ၀န္ႀကီးဌာနက ႏွစ္စဥ္ သက္တမ္းတိုးေပးပိုင့္ခြင့္ ဖ်က္သိမ္းခြင့္ရွိသလားဆိုသည့္ ေမးခြန္းကို ၀န္ႀကီးက ျပန္လည္ ေျဖၾကားျခင္းျဖစ္သည္။
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