Influx from Myanmar creates headache for China
Myanmar clashes spark China flight
China rebukes Burma after border fighting
The forgotten political prisoners
Myanmar border inhabitants begin to return from China as situation calms
Clashes along China-Myanmar border subside
Myanmar, the regime’s policy of “divide and conquer” against minorities
Myanmar refugees enter China
China seals Myanmar border
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Influx from Myanmar creates headache for China
By Mark Magnier Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 30, 2009 | 4:40 a.m.

The regime’s move against militants, which has sent refugees and rebels fleeing across the border, is seen as a bid to boost domestic support ahead of elections, and possibly a signal to Beijing.

Reporting from New Delhi – An uneasy calm settled over northern Myanmar today as Kokang fighters and refugees continued to cross the border into southern China in the wake of a military operation in the northern part of the country also known as Burma.

U.N. and overseas Myanmar groups say upwards of 10,000 refugees and hundreds of Kokang fighters are now in southern China, presenting a logistics headache for Beijing. Still unclear, analysts said, is whether this is only a lull in the fighting and how great an impact this human tide will have on Sino-Myanmar relations.

In the past, Beijing has downplayed political, social and human rights problems raised by the West, arguing that these were internal Myanmar issues that didn’t affect regional stability or China’s national interest. This stance may be harder to maintain now that the problem has washed onto Chinese territory.

” India will remain quiet as long as its national interests aren’t affected,” said Aung Zaw, the Chaing Mai, Thailand-based editor of Irrawaddy magazine, “But this puts China in a difficult situation.”

Analysts said Myanmar’s decision to attack the northern Kokang militants appears to be based on a number of factors.

“This is a several-prong strategy,” said Zarni, a senior fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, who uses only one name.

The move may be aimed at boosting domestic support in advance of promised elections in 2010, the first in two decades, under a new constitution. Northern Myanmar abutting the Chinese border is better off financially than many other parts of the impoverished nation because of smuggling, Chinese investment, trade and other links. So an attack on the Kokang, the weakest of several armed groups in the area, could win points among voters further south jealous of the area’s relative prosperity.

The attack on an ethnically and linguistically Chinese group may also be aimed at sending Beijing a signal that the giant neighbor and close ally shouldn’t try to push it around. While this risks awakening the sleeping dragon, Myanmar also knows that China’s Communist Party doesn’t want trouble in advance of the nation’s politically sensitive 60th anniversary.

Furthermore, China recently staked $1 billion on an oil pipeline project through Myanmar, which will likely make it think twice about applying too much pressure on the junta.

With Russia and India either in its camp or unlikely to embarrass it publicly, Myanmar may also be sending out feelers to the United States in a further bid to counterbalance China’s huge influence. This comes at a time the Obama administration is reviewing U.S. policy toward Myanmar.

This week the junta justified its crackdown against the Kokang forces as a move against drug trafficking — more likely to win sympathy in Washington — rather than as an attack on a domestic upstart.

Earlier this month, Sen. Jim Web (D-Va.) was given rare access to supreme military leader Than Shwe as well as detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on his trip to Myanmar. He also was able to secure the release of imprisoned American John Yattaw, with the junta hailing the senator’s visit in an official commentary as “a success for both sides as well as the first step to the promotion of relations between the two countries.”

Yattaw was jailed on charges related to a swim he took to Suu Kyi’s house, an incident analysts say served as a pretext to extend the Nobel laureate’s house arrest by another 18 months — putting her out of circulation through next year’s promised election.

Myanmar has been ruled by the military in various forms since a coup in 1962. In the interim, the southeast Asian nation has held only one election, in 1990. The election produced a landslide win for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, which the junta refused to acknowledge. Critics have dismissed next year’s polls as a ruse designed to legitimize and thereby extend the army’s grip on power.

In attacking the Kokang, the junta also hopes to send a signal to other armed groups in the area, analysts said, that they should fall in line with its plan to transform them into border guard units and not create trouble.

The junta wants various armed groups subdued and on message before the election and in particular wants to prevent their unifying politically. Given that the apparent routing of the Kokang took a month, the generals may have given themselves at least eight months before the vote — no date has been announced — should they need to take on several other groups one by one.

“For a variety of reasons, they can’t have bombs exploding while the campaign is underway,” said Zarni.

mark.magnier@ latimes.com
http://www.latimes. com/news/ nationworld/ world/la- fgw-myanmar31- 2009aug31, 0,5737444. story
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
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Myanmar clashes spark China flight

Sunday, 30 Aug, 2009 | 12:11 PM PST | —AP

BEIJING: Fighting erupted in northeast Myanmar on Saturday after days of clashes in which the leader of ethnic forces said more than 30 government troops had been killed.

The fighting in Kokang in Myanmar’s Shan state, following the deployment of government troops, has sent tens of thousands of people fleeing over the border to the town of Nansan in southwest China’s Yunnan province.

The leader of the Kokang Group which is fighting Myanmar’s army said his forces had captured at least 50 soldiers as well as killing more than 30 on Thursday and Friday, the Chinese Global Times newspaper reported on its website (www.huanqiu. com ).

In the telephone interview, Peng Jiasheng, also known as Phone Kyar Shin, gave no details on casualties among his forces, whom he said he was commanding from a safe location in Myanmar.

Reports from Chinese media and Myanmar groups in exile said the fighting began after the Myanmar military, allied with a local splinter group, took control of facilities run by the Kogang Group, also know as Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, in Laogai, in the capital of Shan state.

Myanmar wants ethnic groups to take part in its elections next year, the first in two decades.

Activists and observers say the junta deployed troops because it is trying to forcibly recruit rebel fighters for an army-run border patrol force.

One person was killed and several people were wounded by a bomb thrown across the Chinese border on Friday, He Yongchun, deputy president of Yunnan branch of the Chinese Red Cross, told the China Daily.—Reuters  http://www.dawn. com/wps/wcm/ connect/dawn- content-library/ dawn/news/ world/16- myanmar-clashes- spark-china- flight-hs- 14
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China rebukes Burma after border fighting
By Tim Johnston in Bangkok
Published: August 30 2009 12:54 | Last updated: August 30 2009 12:54

A high-stakes bid by Burma to bring to heel the ethnic militias which have challenged its rule for more than 60 years has driven up to 30,000 refugees into China and drawn a rare rebuke from the regime’s most important ally.

Fighting erupted last week between government troops and members of a militia known as the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army in the Kokang region of north-east Burma. The clashes broke a ceasefire which the government and the militia signed over 20 years ago.

The ostensible spark for the clashes was a move against a gun repair factory the government believed was being used as a front for narcotics manufacturing, but fighting escalated, with Burmese troops taking control of Lougai, the Kokang capital.

The violence intensified on Saturday despite a call by the Chinese authorities for calm, although witnesses on the border said it was calmer on Sunday, in part because 700 NDAA fighters had fled across the border and surrendered their weapons to the Chinese authorities.

The Chinese foreign ministry issued a statement on Friday calling on Burma to “properly handle domestic problems and maintain stability in the China-Burma border region”.

“We also urge Burma to protect the security and legal rights of Chinese citizens in Burma,” it said.

Kitty McKinsey, with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said “We have reports that between 10,000 and 30,000 people have crossed the border [into China].”

The Chinese authorities have set up a tented camp in the city of Nansan, just across the border in the southern Yunnan province, where the refugees are being provided with food and medical care.

The Kokang militia is one of 17 ethnic armies that have signed ceasefire agreements with the government.

The agreements have held for the best part of 20 years, but tensions have built ahead of planned elections next year with a government demand that the groups convert their forces into border guard units under the command of the national army.

The ethnic armies see the demand as a threat to the effective autonomy of their enclaves and none have yet submitted.

The International Crisis Group, the Brussels-based research group, said the regime’s demand for the ethnic armies to join the border guard “would greatly reduce their autonomy and would represent a major concession in return for which they are being offered no political quid pro quo by the regime.”

Though China has been the key patron of the Burmese military regime, Beijing also maintains ties with a number of the ethnic enclaves and much of the border region is heavily sinicised, with Chinese traders involved in gems, timber and jade and entrepreneurs opening hotels and restaurants.

The Kokang fighting has drawn in other ceasefire groups including the United Wa State Army, which with some 20,000 fighters is the largest ethnic army.

The US Campaign for Burma, an overseas opposition group, said on Saturday that they expected the government to move against other ceasefire groups in the coming days and weeks to force them to comply.

Some 40 per cent of Burma’s 56m people belong to an ethnic minority, with most concentrated in the highlands that abut the country’s international borders.

The government, led by Senior General Than Shwe, is keen to break the power of the ethnic armies before the elections. “When Than Shwe wakes up at night, he isn’t worrying about democracy, or international pressure,” said a western diplomat who did not want to be identified. “He’s worrying about the ethnic groups,”

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The forgotten political prisoners
John Yettaw may have made it home, but what of the regime’s other victims

Writer: Phil Thornton
Published: 30/08/2009 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: Spectrum

In recent weeks the Burmese military regime turned on the charm for US Senator Jim Webb in an attempt to ease trade sanctions between the two countries.

ROLLING HOME: John Yettaw of Missouri is pushed through Suvarnabhumi airport on Wednesday, Aug 19, 2009 after being freed the previous Sunday.

The regime allowed Senator Webb to fly out with eccentric US citizen John Yettaw, who was released on “humanitarian grounds” after being sentenced to seven years hard labour for illegally entering Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s house.

The senator’s high-profile visit did nothing for Mrs Suu Kyi’s freedom – a result of Yettaw’s home invasion; her house arrest was extended by 18 months. Nor has the senator’s meaningful dialogue with the regime gained anything for Burma’s 2,100 other political prisoners.

The regime’s quick release of Yettaw drew flak from Ko Bo Kyi, a former political prisoner and the co-founder of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

“Yettaw’s release, and Senator Webb’s mission, was a political stunt organised at the expense of political prisoners in Burma. It deflects attention away from the real issues – 500,000 displaced ethnic people, thousands of political prisoners and the continued house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi.”

Closed off and isolated from much of the outside world, the military regime has in recent months, in spite of Yettaw’s highly publicised release, stepped up its attacks on what it perceives as enemies of the state – its own citizens and its political opposition. The regime has created a climate of fear throughout Burma, using a vast network of security agencies, informers and neighbourhood spies to create a sense of paranoia were nobody is to be trusted. Secret police and para-military thugs have been dispatched in hundreds of night raids to drag opposition politicians, journalists, labour activists, artists, comedians, internet bloggers and Buddhist monks and nuns from their beds.

MAN ON A MISSION: US Senator Jim Webb secured the release of John Yettaw.

Those arrested are rarely charged, instead they are held, interrogated and tortured for days or months without access to lawyers or family in secret detention centres, jails or police cells. When prisoners are finally taken to court, it is usually behind closed doors or locked prison gates and without legal representation. Draconian sentences handed down in the last few months have ranged from three to 69 years for acts of civil disobedience.

The latest arrests are regarded by international observers as serving another purpose _ a cynical move by the regime to put political opponents in jail and out of the way before multi-party elections are held in 2010.

David Mathieson, the Burma researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch, explains: ”Burma’s leaders are clearing the decks of political opponents before they announce the next round of sham political reforms. The arrested, represent a broad section of civil society _ monks, artists, poets, writers, lawyers, doctors, activists and journalists.

”What they all have in common is a desire to see an end to the regime. The outcome of the elections is crucial to the regime’s plans to solidify its power and continue its political dominance.”

BO KYI: Jailed for the first time in 1990 for leading a demonstration for the release of political prisoners. PHOTOS: PHIL THORNTON

In spite of local and international condemnation of the arbitrary arrests, the regime continues to jail its opponents, Human Rights Watch estimates that Burma has 2,100 prisoners’ rotting away in prisons, more than double the figure in 2007, and since October last year, 350 political activists have been jailed.

These include :

Labour activist Ma Su Su Nway, who was arrested on Nov 13, 2007, attempting to put up an anti-government poster. A year later she was sentenced to 12 years and six months, later commuted to eight years and four months. She is serving her sentence in the remote Kale Prison, 680 kilometres from Rangoon.

- Gambari, one of the monks who led the September, 2007, protests, also known as the ”Saffron Revolution” . The regime took its revenge and sentenced U Gambari to 68 years in jail, 12 to be served as hard labour.

- Min Ko Naing, a leader of the 1988 student uprising and chair of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions. A strong believer in non-violent civil disobedience protests against military rule, after a series of court hearings he was sentenced on Nov 11, 2008, to 65 years in jail.

- Zargana is the stage name of U Thura, Burma’s most famous comedian. After the devastation of Cyclone Nargis, Zargana organised aid deliveries to people in 42 villages. He received threats from the military to stop. He was arrested on June 4, 2008. He was given a total of 59 years in jail, later reduced to 35 years. He is serving his sentence in a one square metre cell, in the remote Myitkyina Prison, in Kachin state, northern Burma.

NO TRESPASSING: Myanmar security guards sit inside a makeshift shelter in front of the lakeside house of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon on Aug 12, 2009.

- Nilar Thein was a high school student when she first took to the streets in 1988 to protest for political change in Burma. In 1991 she was jailed for two months.

In 1996 she was arrested again for protesting against the government and jailed for nine years. In spite of the harsh jail sentences, Nilar Thein refused to give up her right to protest. In August, 2007, she marched with her husband, Kyaw Min Yu, to protest at high fuel costs. Her husband was arrested on Aug 21, 2007. After avoiding arrest for a year, Nilar Thein was captured on Sept 10, 2008. On Nov 11, 2007, Nilar Thein and 13 other political activists, including her husband, were sentenced to 65 years in jail.

AAPP says Burma has 44 prisons and at least 50 labour camps, dependent on the regime’s infrastructure projects at the time. Many of the jails do not have hospitals, and at least 12 of them do not have a doctor. The regime jails political prisoners in remote areas as a deliberate ploy to obstruct family members from visiting and delivering much needed food and medicine.

IN JAIL I LEARNED I HAD NO FUTURE

In a small wooden house inside a tree-lined compound on the Thai Burma border, a group of men and women tap at computer keyboards, talk on mobile phones and show guests around a reconstruction of a prison cell. They work for the AAPP and all are former prisoners. Their sentences ranged from 14 years for writing leaflets, to five years for attending student demonstrations.

KYI KYI: Imprisoned for violation of the Illegal Publication Act.

Bo Kyi, a founding member and now secretary of the AAPP, has made it his life’s work to ensure these prisoners will not be forgotten. Bo Kyi was jailed for the first time in 1990 for leading a demonstration for the release of political prisoners: ”I was sentenced to three years hard labour. I was interrogated and tortured for 36 hours. I was given no food or water, and was kept handcuffed and blindfolded. ” Bo Kyi was denied access to his family and says they did not know what had happened to him.

”I was put in a small cell, I could see blood and many names, including those of my friends, on the walls. I was not allowed to shower for nine days.”

In spite of the torture and beatings Bo Kyi was determined to stay positive.

”I wanted to study. I had an English dictionary smuggled in. I ate the pages as I learned them. I also learned I had no future. It [jail] taught me to live in the present, otherwise I would have gone crazy thinking about the future.”

Despite this, Bo Kyi is not out for revenge. ”Those who tortured me are also victims of the system. Sooner or later Burma will change, the people want change, but in the meantime people will have to speak out. International NGOs working inside Burma have been silenced, but they need to speak out. We can’t let our brothers and sisters rot in jail because they had the courage to protest for change.”

THEY STRIPPED AWAY OUR HUMANITY

Bo Kyi introduced me to a woman who seemed full of energy and laughter, despite having endured similar experiences.

Kyi Kyi (pronounced Gee Gee) Khin covers stories about the lives of migrant workers and refugees in her work as a video journalist for the Democratic Voice of Burma.

”I was a member of the All Burma Students Federation Union. We wrote a newsletter. I also worked as an election campaigner for the NLD in the 1990 election. I think this was the real reason for my arrest. They wanted political campaigners out of the way.”

Kyi Kyi says it is easy for security agencies to know what political activists are up to: ”We had to submit all our travel arrangements and our planned activities to the local authorities. We had to give them all the details. It’s similar to now, but now it’s even harder. They know everything about us.”

Kyi Kyi was arrested and taken to Military Intelligence 4, in the Bassein Division in the Irrawaddy District.

”I was locked in a dark room for 28 days. I couldn’t tell when it was night or day. The floor was concrete; I had a bed base, a pot for a toilet. Water was only given at meal times.”

Kyi Kyi felt the process was meant to humiliate political prisoners.

”You were only allowed to use the pot in the morning, at 6am. The smell was disgusting. When they fed us they slide a plate through a panel at the bottom of the door. They fed us twice a day, we had to eat in the dark _ it could have been anything.”

Kyi Kyi says she was not beaten, but the mental torture was constant.

”I was interrogated five times in 28 days, I had to stay on my feet all night, it was difficult. It was November, very cold, I got sick with fever. I couldn’t sit down during the interrogations. I had to lean on the wall.”

Kyi Kyi’s brave face breaks as she talks of her dignity being stripped from her by her tormentors. Her laughter turns to tears as she remembers.

”You can’t see, you can only guess what’s going on. Next to my cell a 16-year-old boy sobbed, on the other side a 60-year-old man continually cried for water.”

Kyi Kyi responded to their plight with the only weapon she had: ”I tried to comfort them by shouting and singing student songs. I had to do something. We were being stripped of our humanity.

”After 28 days I was transferred to jail, I was not charged. I was kept isolated, but at last I was given a shower. I smelled so bad. I had worn the same clothes for 28 days _ they stank and had rotted on me.”

Kyi Kyi, now 43, says being kept in the dark wore her down.

”I was so angry I kicked the door, I screamed, I cried. Most of the other prisoners had left. It was now so quiet. I could hear my heart beating.”

Kyi Kyi was taken to a special court in the jail were she was charged under the Illegal Publication Act and given two years prison.

”Jail was always bad, the food was bad, the rice was never cooked well and it was not always edible. Before I was charged I was kept separated from the prison population, after I was charged we all mixed together. We learned from each other. Thieves taught us how they operated and we talked politics with them.”

After two years, in 1992, Kyi Kyi was released. She stayed in Bassein, and from 1992 to 1995 worked with other political prisoners bribing guards to let them take food and medicine into the jails.

When the regime arrested its then Prime Minister and Military Intelligence chief, General Khin Nyunt, Kyi Kyi took advantage of the confusion during the dismantling of the Military Intelligence infrastructure to leave for Thailand.

”I told no one I was leaving. My father was worried, he didn’t know where I was, so he travelled to Thailand to look for me. On his return he was arrested and sentenced to eight years for communicating with illegal political groups. My father is still in Insein jail, he’s now 70, has high blood pressure and his health is failing.” Kyi Kyi’s family is not allowed to visit her father.

”In Burma, if one person is involved in politics the whole family will suffer. The family, the children, are denied promotions or education and will lose their jobs.”

Kyi Kyi says prison taught her a lot about herself and maintaining her dignity even when it seems hopeless.

”I followed my beliefs and kept my values. Political prisoners even got respect from guards and other prisoners because of our resolve.”

Following the regime’s crackdown in September, 2007, many people were dragged from their homes by plainclothes police and taken to army interrogation centres. Myat (not her real name) was one of those arrested.

”They came for me at my home on Oct 10. I was taken to a detention centre and interrogated for five days before they sent me to Insein jail.” Myat, 19, was studying law at a Rangoon University and was a youth member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy. Myat is thin, shy and hardly fits the ”enemy of the state” image bestowed on her by military intelligence. Over the next 15 days Myat was shifted back and forth between the jail and detention centre.

”I was terrified. Each time they said they’d release me, but they kept questioning me about who I worked for. The detention centre was dirty _ dirty food, dirty water, dirty floor and a dirty blanket.”

Myat worried about being tortured.

”I could hear people crying all the time, at night the lights were broken. I was scared they would come and beat me. Other people were terrified of ghosts. It was bad place where bad things happened to people.”

Myat’s small, windowless cell was hot and cramped. She shared it with a sick seven-month pregnant woman who was arrested for watching the protests from a teashop.

”She was worried about her baby, she cried all the time. The guards told her to shut up. They came into the room and roughly massaged her belly, after that her baby didn’t move again. I think it died. I felt so sad for her. She suffered a lot.”

The authorities confiscated Myat’s possessions, leaving her with only the clothes she was wearing when arrested.

”They lied. They told my family I’d been released but I was still in Insein jail with four other women who had been arrested for watching the protests from a teashop. I had been held for about a month before my aunt found out where I was. She brought me food and clothes. They intentionally moved me again, so my family wouldn’t know where I was.” Myat was to remain locked-up for two-and-half months. She was eventually released after signing a statement admitting her ”crimes”. Free, Myat avoided politics and was afraid to contact her friends. She worried about the strangers loitering outside her house and those who stood too close to her when she was talking.

”I couldn’t take any more. With the help of the underground movement I made my way to Thailand. I want to go back to Burma, all my family is there, but if I do, it will be dangerous for me. I don’t want to spend my life in jail.”  http://www.bangkokp ost.com/news/ investigation/ 22966/the- forgotten- political- prisoners
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Myanmar border inhabitants begin to return from China as situation calms
www.chinaview. cn 2009-08-30 14:48:11

KUNMING, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) — Panic-stricken residents caught up in armed clashes along the Myanmar border have begun to return from China to their homes in Myanmar as the situation calms down, an unidentified official with the foreign affairs office of Yunnan provincial government said Sunday.

A large number of border inhabitants comprising both Burmese and Chinese fled into southwest China’s Yunnan Province after armed conflict in Myanmar broke out last week.

The Yunnan provincial government had settled those fleeing the conflict and supplied accommodation, food and medical treatment in Zhenkang and Gengma counties in Yunnan, the official said.

Myanmar had apologized for Chinese casualties in the incident, thanked the Chinese government for its friendly treatment of Myanmar residents, and promised to protect the safety and legal rights of Chinese citizens in Myanmar, according to the official.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Friday that China hoped Myanmar could properly solve its domestic issues and safeguard the stability of its border with China.

The conflict arose from confrontation between Myanmar government forces and an ethnic army in the Kokang area of Shan state in northeastern Myanmar. Kokang shares a border with Yunnan and has a population of about 150,000.
Editor: Xiong Tong http://news. xinhuanet. com/english/ 2009-08/30/ content_11966205 .htm
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Clashes along China-Myanmar border subside
(AP)

30 August 2009
MENG PENG, China — Fighting appeared to have subsided on Sunday along China’s southern border after days of clashes between Myanmar government troops and ethnic rebels sent thousands of refugees streaming into China.

At least one person was killed Saturday and dozens injured when a bomb was tossed into China, a report said.

The clashes pose a major concern to Communist China and its goal of stability ahead of the sensitive Oct. 1 celebration of its 60th anniversary. Beijing has told Myanmar to end the fighting to “safeguard the regional stability.”

The fighting also threatens to strain China’s close relationship with Myanmar’s military junta, which has been trying to consolidate control over several armed ethnic groups along its borders to ensure next year’s national elections, the first in nearly 20 years, go smoothly.

An official with the Public Security Bureau in China’s Zhengkang county, which oversees the border area, said Sunday there had been no reports of fighting since late Saturday. Like many Chinese officials, he refused to give his name.

In the Chinese border town of Meng Peng, several men who said they were rebels told The Associated Press they had turned in their weapons to Chinese officials. Dozens of men wearing blue overalls, issued to them when they surrendered their uniforms, were seen in the town shopping for civilian clothes.

“We surrendered our guns. … Besides, there was no way we would win,” Ri Chenchuan, a former rebel militia soldier, said, laughing.

State-controlled media in Myanmar, also known as Burma, have not reported the violence.

A statement Sunday from the Washington-based U.S. Campaign for Burma said fighting had stopped and about 700 rebels had fled from thousands of Myanmar troops into China.

Most of the refugees are Kokang, an ethnic Han Chinese minority group that speaks Chinese and has received support for decades from China because of its traditional ties to the Communist Party, said Aung Zaw, editor of The Irrawaddy, a magazine by Myanmar exiles.

“These are not your typical Burmese refugees,” he said. Simultaneously, “China continued to provide support to these ethnic groups and support the junta. I think China is playing a double-faced role in this conflict,” he said.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said up to 30,000 people have poured into the Chinese border town of Nansan from Myanmar’s Kokang region in northern Shan state since early this month. Chinese authorities are providing emergency food, shelter and medical care, it said.

The Yunnan provincial government said about 10,000 people had crossed into China and authorities were housing some in seven camps in and near Nansan.

One person was killed and several were injured Saturday when a bomb was thrown across the border into China, the China Daily newspaper reported. It gave no other details.

At least 25 people had been admitted to Zhenkang County People’s Hospital for injuries related to the fighting as of Saturday, said a hospital official who refused to give her name. Most of the patients are ethnic Chinese from Myanmar, she said.

Late Saturday, a few hundred refugees remained in tents and several unfinished buildings in Nansan, guarded by Chinese police and paramilitary soldiers. The scene was calm and orderly, with police and officials apparently registering refugees and taking their temperatures before letting them into the settlement area.

Li Hui, a local Foreign Affairs Department official, told AP reporters that media were not allowed in the refugee camps and ordered them to leave.

China has been known to seal off entire regions of the country during times of unrest.
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Saturday, August 29, 2009
Myanmar, the regime’s policy of “divide and conquer” against minorities
By Tint Swe

The “Biblical” exodus of the minority Shan is the latest chapter in a government policy that creates divisions in the country to later guarantee – with weapons – unity. The twenty-year strategy of agreements, concessions or repression of various groups is at a crossroads, in view of the general elections of 2010.

New Delhi (AsiaNews) – In recent days, AsiaNews reported on the “biblical” exodus of thousands of Burmese civilians, at least 30 thousand according to the latest data, who have crossed the border between Myanmar and China to escape the ongoing conflict between government forces and of the ethnic Shan rebel groups. The military junta in Myanmar – the nation consists of the majority Burmese and many ethnic minorities – has launched an offensive on rebel movements, the military means to force them to surrender in view of the general elections of 2010 and to cooperate with the government in defence of the borders national.

We publish the analysis of Tint Swe, a member of the Council of Ministers of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB) composed of refugees from Myanmar after the 1990 elections won by the National League for Democracy and never acknowledged by the junta . Fled to India in 1990, since 21 December 1991 he lives in New Delhi, and is a member of the NCGUB where he holds the post of information officer for South Asia and East Timor

Recent developments in the Sino-Burmese border are the result of a twenty-year agreement between the Burmese regime and the armed ethnic groups. The internal rebellion or civil war had no end, neither under democracy, nor martial law.
This regime has made a strategic choice, creating a so-called cease-fire agreement with different ethnic groups. And the first group to have signed it was also the first to experience the unfortunate consequences. This group is the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA).

The strong army of 450 thousand has neither the ability nor the desire to break the insurgency with the guns. For this reason it uses all available means, lawful or unlawful, without distinction. If you are strong, you get more concessions in return; otherwise just get the crumbs.

The China factor has played a leading role in quashing, at the end of the Cold War, the once strong Communist Party of Burma (CPB). When the Chinese government put an end to political support and material assistance, the Communist Party was no longer able to maintain its leading role among the various ethnic groups not belonging to the majority Burmese. This gave the newly installed military regime the perfect opportunity to pursue the policy of “divide and conquer”.

To MNDAA was followed by a number of other rebel movements related to various ethnic groups. In this way the regime has had the opportunity over the past decade to show the world, and the country itself, that it alone can ensure peace. As a result the SLORC – the original State Council for the Restoration of law and order – has become the State Council for Peace and Development Council (SPDC).

This gave the junta the opportunity to implement the next step in strengthening power. While it orchestrated repression after repression, the junta finalized the drafting, writing and approval of a new constitution, with all it has cost.

This is why 2010 is D-day. The time has come to address the issue related to the cease-fire and the rebel groups. The plan to turn them into border guards has not gone as smoothly as hoped. The smallest folded, but the larger groups continue their resistance.

This explains the regime’s decision to adopt the same tactic used previously for the Karen. The Karen National Union (KNU), the strongest political movement, has been infiltrated by the regime, it was bought and sold and then divided from within. The result was the birth of DKBA in 1994. The strange acronym stands for the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, consisting of a fringe group from the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the KNU. The result: Karens had to kill Karens.

Now MNDAA represents the last show of the pre-election campaign ahead of the 2010 vote. Kokangs must kill Kokangs. The State Council for Peace and Development has needed less than a thousand soldiers. Ten thousand civilians have fled to China. Now China has to decide whether to support the armed resistance of Kokang Chinese or Burmese army.

(With the collaboration of Nirmala Carvalho) http://pale- thwae.blogspot. com/2009/ 08/29-8-09- myanmar-regimes- policy-of. html
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Myanmar refugees enter China

Refugees from Kokang have streamed into Nansan town in China to escape the Myanmar fighting [EPA]

Groups of men who say they are fighting Myanmar government troops have entered China.

The clusters of men, weary and sometimes clutching a few belongings, said that fighting continued on Sunday in the Kokang area of northeast Myanmar’s Shan state.

The violence erupted after government troops moved into the enclave, seeking to dislodge local rulers and their militia who have long controlled this mountainous terrain next to China.

Myanmar’s offensive has thrown into question the future of the free-wheeling Kokang buffer zone, which is largely ethnic Chinese and where drug trafficking and gambling have long underpinned the economy.

Troops deployed

Thousands of people have fled to the border town of Nansan in China’s Yunnan province this month after clashes in Kokang, following the deployment of Myanmar government troops in the area.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Saturday, Kitty McKinsey, a UNHCR regional spokesman, said: “The Chinese in Yunnan have given the tens of thousands of refugees crossing into China aid and medical care. About 30,000 have crossed over.

“These people seem to have appeared from nowhere. UNHCR is not on the ground in Kokang, we don’t operate there. I do believe this [turn of events] took a lot of people by surprise.”

China urges Myanmar to quell border fighting
The battle erupted after the Myanmar military moved into the area as part of efforts to ensure ethnic groups participate in elections next year, according to reports by Chinese media and Myanmar exile groups.

One of those groups, the US Campaign for Burma, said in a statement early on Sunday that about 700 troops from the Kokang militia had fled to China and surrendered their weapons.

Myanmar groups in exile say the fighting began after the Myanmar military took control of facilities run by the Kokang Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), in Laogai, the capital of Shan.

The MNDAA had observed a ceasefire with the Myanmar government since 1989.

China has called on Myanmar to maintain stability in the border region and urged more measures to protect the security and legal rights of Chinese citizens there.

Covering an area of over 10,000sq km, the Kokang region has a population of about 150,000 people.

Refugees’ accounts

Many of the fleeing men said they escaped on Saturday after the latest burst of fighting.

“We are soldiers from the Kokang army. But we had to give up. The fighting was too much,” Xiong Zhaole told the Reuters news agency in Nansan.

Xiong said he and his companions had been told by Chinese soldiers who received them at the border to swap their army greens for blue outfits, abandon any plans to fight and find somewhere to stay with relatives or in refugee camps.

Another man who abandoned fighting the advancing Myanmar troops and fled to China said the battle had turned against the local militia.

“We were humiliated by them,” said Li Yingshu, a 25-year-old wearing the blue bodysuit given out by Chinese authorities. “We were not able to keep on fighting.”

‘Situation tense’

Commenting on the government’s moves in Myanmar, Aung Zaw, editor of the Irrawaddy magazine, told Al Jazeera: “[Action] is being taken against the Wa Chinese minority who are living in the Kokang area.”

The Wa are one of China’s more than 50 ethnic groups, and have a population of around 400,000 in China alone, with more living in Myanmar.

“The situation remains tense,” Aung Zaw said.

“I have been told around 2,000 Wa soldiers [militia members] are stationed in Kokang. At the same time, the Burmese [forces] are requesting more reinforcements.

“Chinese authorities have told me that if the two sides could not resolve the situation in the next two days, it could lead to a full-blown conflict.”
http://english. aljazeera. net//news/ asia-pacific/ 2009/08/20098306 161918344. html
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Aug 30, 2009
China seals Myanmar border
One person on Chinese territory has been killed by a bomb flung across the border

LINCANG (Yunnan) – FRESH fighting in north-east Myanmar erupted yesterday morning after days of clashes that killed at least one person on Chinese territory and sent dozens of wounded to hospitals along the Chinese border.

Tens of thousands of people have fled to the border town of Nansan in China’s Yunnan province this month after clashes in Kokang in Myanmar’s Shan state, following the deployment of Myanmar government troops in the area.

‘Our information is that as many as 30,000 people may have taken shelter in Nansan since Aug 8, saying they were fleeing fighting between Myanmar government troops and ethnic minority groups,’ said spokesman Andrej Mahecic for the UN refugee agency.

Chinese soldiers are guarding the border area, which has been sealed off, said a staff member at the Zhenkang County Public Security Bureau, who gave only his surname, Hui.

One person was killed and several people were injured by a bomb thrown across the Chinese border on Friday, Mr He Yongchun, deputy president of Yunnan branch of the Chinese Red Cross, told the China Daily.

‘We have received at least 22 injured people sent from Nansan. Most of them are from Myanmar,’ a woman working at the surgical department of Zhenkang People’s Hospital told Reuters by phone.

Nansan is a town in Zhenkang county.

China has called on Myanmar to maintain stability in the border region and sought more measures to protect the security and legal rights of Chinese citizens there.

Beijing is one of Myanmar’s few diplomatic backers, often coming to the rescue when it is subjected to pressure by Western governments over issues such as the imprisonment of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The leader of the Kokang Group which is fighting Myanmar’s army said his forces had captured at least 50 soldiers as well as killed more than 30 troops on Thursday and Friday, the Chinese-language Global Times newspaper reported on its website. — REUTERS, AP

http://www.straitst imes.com/ Breaking% 2BNews/Asia/ Story/STIStory_ 423224.html