BURMA RELATED NEWS – AUGUST 01-03, 2010
Aug 3rd, 2010
by Rachel O’Brien – Mon Aug 2, 2:30 am ET MAE LA CAMP, Thailand (AFP) – Hla Hla Aye wept as she recalled leaving her son behind when she fled Myanmar a few weeks ago — with three other children, she and her husband couldn’t carry them all to safety.
Her family joined about 148,000 refugees from the military-ruled country living in limbo in camps across the border in Thailand, most of whom fled civil war-torn eastern villages.
But these newcomers have arrived at a time of growing uncertainty, with an upcoming election in Myanmar fuelling talk in Thailand about sending the refugees back, despite expectations that nothing will change in their homeland.
“If the government stays like this, the country will not become peaceful, it will get worse,” said Hla Hla Aye, 28, as she breast-fed her baby in Mae La, the largest of nine refugee camps along the border.
“If people go back it is very, very dangerous for them,” she added.
Caught up in Karen state’s six-decade conflict between Myanmar’s military and ethnic rebels, who seek greater autonomy, Hla Hla Aye said her husband and other civilians were beaten for refusing to work as porters for the state army.
“Soldiers beat him a lot on his back and his wrist. He was in a lot of pain,” she said. “We didn’t dare to stay in the village, we kept having to run away… so we decided to come here.”
While the camps have provided refuge for 25 years, Thailand’s National Security Council chief Tawin Pleansri said their inhabitants would be sent back home “if everything in Myanmar is peaceful and orderly”.
“We have discussed repatriation, although we have not yet set a time frame, and we consider that the situation is likely to improve after the election,” he told AFP.
Western countries have widely criticised the junta’s preparations for Myanmar’s first elections in 20 years as a sham designed to shore up almost five decades of military rule.
No date for the polls has yet been announced but the vote is expected in October or November.
Activists warn that even the best-case scenario is unlikely to improve life in the refugees’ rural homeland, which is expected to remain heavily militarised.
“The election, even if it is free and fair, won’t immediately change the situation in terms of human rights abuses in eastern Burma,” said Matt Finch of the border-based Karen Human Rights Group, using Myanmar’s former name.
Vast numbers have fled to escape the junta’s counter-insurgency campaign, which rights groups say deliberately targets civilians, driving them from their homes, destroying villages and forcing them to work for the army.
Cases of rape, torture and execution by the military have also been documented by rights campaigners.
While an ongoing resettlement programme has allowed tens of thousands of refugees to move to third countries, an influx to the Thai camps of more than 1,000 people each month means numbers have not dwindled.
Within Mae La camp, home to riverside bamboo huts and about 47,000 displaced people, a bustling, town-like atmosphere belies the uncertain status of its residents.
Cheerful children sing folk songs in well-equipped classrooms and tear around playing football in the monsoon season mud, while street-side stalls offer stylish laptops, DVDs, handicrafts and even beauty treatments.
But an overall drop in assistance had begun to afflict the “very vulnerable” border group, according to US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, Eric P. Schwartz, who visited Mae La in June.
He said he was “particularly concerned” for the refugees ahead of Myanmar’s poll, with repression and restrictions in the unfolding electoral process unlikely to change their need for protection.
Therefore “it will be critical for authorities (in Thailand) to continue to permit such refuge,” he added.
Thailand sparked global anger in December when it used troops to forcibly repatriate about 4,500 ethnic Hmong back to Laos, despite fears of persecution on their return for their hill tribe’s US alliance during the Vietnam War.
The government is now cracking down on illegal immigrants, estimated to number more than one million, most of whom are from Myanmar and allegedly face rights abuses from a proxy state militia when they are deported.
While the majority in the camps have been registered as needing protection, 30 percent are yet to be screened and are therefore technically illegal migrants, according to Sally Thompson of the Thai Burma Border Consortium.
“There is a climate of… fear, doubt, as to what will be the future for the people in the camps,” said Thompson, whose organisation is responsible for the refugees’ food and shelter.
A UN Refugee Agency spokeswoman also stressed the need for efficient screening by Thai authorities to weed out people who lack legitimate claims to protection, who have been entering the camps with hopes of resettlement.
Registered camp dweller Cho Cho San, a pregnant 33-year-old who fled eastern Myanmar early last year, said she struggled to feed her family on the food rations provided and was worried about healthcare.
“This place is not the best place but it is better than Burma,” she said. “Even though we have some difficulties, we can stay here in safety.”
Sun Aug 1, 5:09 am ET
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – A new party formed by renegade members of Aung Sang Suu Kyi’s disbanded Myanmar opposition party opened its headquarters Sunday but says it now faces the hurdle of finding funding to field candidates.
All candidates contesting military-run Myanmar’s first election in two decades must pay the Election Commission 500,000 kyat ($500), more than half a year’s salary for the average schoolteacher.
The ruling junta has not yet announced a date for elections, scheduled to be held later this year.
Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, which won the last election in 1990 but was denied power by the junta, is boycotting the vote to what it calls unfair and undemocratic election laws and so refused to register.
As a result, it was disbanded, but several weeks later a faction of the party’s breakaway members formed the National Democratic Force. Suu Kyi has expressed dissatisfaction through her lawyer with the formation of the new breakaway party.
On Sunday, the National Democratic Force launched balloons into the sky to inaugurate the party’s headquarters in an eastern Yangon suburb as about 40 plainclothes police watched the event.
The party is one of 39 new political parties and five existing ones that have registered to contest the elections, which critics have dismissed as a sham designed to cement 50 years of military rule.
The “election is an initial step toward achieving democracy. There will be so many variables and we will face a lot of hurdles along the way toward election,” the new party’s chairman Than Nyein told reporters.
Fundraising is the first challenge, he said, noting that the party wants to field as many candidates as possible in parliamentary constituencies but still needs to acquire sufficient funds.
According to new election laws, political parties must pay a registration fee of 300,000 kyat ($300) in addition to the $500 fee per candidate.
Than Nyein said a party office had already been opened in eastern Shan state and several more would be opened around the country.
Than Nyein, 73, was a member of Suu Kyi’s central executive committee and won a parliamentary seat in the 1990 election. He served 11 years in prison for holding a party meeting in 1997. He was given a
seven-year sentence but was kept in prison four years beyond his term and released in 2008. He is the brother-in-law of former intelligence chief Khin Nyunt.
Malaysia to cease visas on arrival for tourists after many abuse easy process to overstay
On Tuesday August 3, 2010, 11:28 am EDT
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia will tighten visa requirements for tourists from countries including China and India after many foreigners took advantage of easy entry procedures by overstaying, an official said Tuesday.
Immigration Director General Abdul Rahman Othman said authorities will stop issuing visas on arrival to visitors from various countries starting Aug. 15. Currently, many tourists can obtain visas at Malaysia’s entry points if they show they have tickets to leave the country within up to 14 days.
Visitors affected by the new rule include those from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan, Abdul Rahman said. They will have to apply for visas before coming to Malaysia “for us to really vet our arrivals,” he said.
The visas on arrival were introduced four years ago to attract tourists. Officials previously said tens of thousands of people who received the visas had overstayed.
By DENIS D. GRAY (AP) – 2 days ago
MAE LA CAMP, Thailand (AP) – “Colonel Peacock, Major Hogan, Captain Bower … Shoot from the hip! Quick march! Right turn!” The names, ranks and barked commands of World War II British officers tumble from these old Asian soldiers’ memories as if it all happened yesterday.
But the war never really ended for the Karen tribesmen who fought with the British to drive the Japanese out of Burma, and who now live as refugees in jungle camps astride the Thai-Myanmar border or inside their ravaged homeland, impoverished and driven from their homes in a brutal insurgency.
These ethnic minority people, who were made promises by the British that were fatally broken, remain virtually forgotten and unrewarded by the outside world as the 65th anniversary of the Allied victory in Asia approaches on Aug. 15. For them, medals, parades and joyous family reunions all ring hollow.
Yet the Karen warriors, all in their 80s and 90s, have forgiven their former allies — and even remember them with stirring fondness.
“As I bent down to pull him away, the bullet hit me here,” recounts Sein Aye, pointing to a reddish scar on his neck. The Japanese had ambushed his unit, and the teenage soldier, recruited from a farming village, dragged a gravely wounded British officer to safety under fire.
Simeon U — 91 years old, twice wounded, four times decorated — recalls killing at least five Japanese “with my own hands” and staying behind their lines when the bulk of the battered British force retreated in 1942.
He fought in the hills as a guerrilla with Maj. Hugh Paul Seagrim, a lanky man nicknamed “Grandfather Longlegs.”
The Japanese announced that their reprisals would end if Seagrim surrendered, so the officer walked into their camp, only to be executed with seven Karen companions. He remains a legend among the Karen.
“He was a great chap. We trusted him. He inspired the Karen people,” says Simeon U, squatting on the floor of a bamboo hut at Mae Rama Luang, a camp embedded in a remote valley housing 20,000 Karen refugees.
When the Japanese invaded, the Burma Independence Army, an armed group composed mainly of the Burman ethnic majority, joined them in hopes of wresting independence from Britain, the colonial ruler. Among their targets were the Karen, whom the British had much favored.
When the British retreated to India, some, like Seagrim, managed to stay behind and later were joined by other British soldiers infiltrated back into the country. They organized the Karen into a fighting force.
But for the Karen, the war did not end with Japan’s defeat. In 1949, a year after Burma gained its independence, the tribe rose in rebellion, having failed to secure a state of its own as the British had promised. It would become the world’s longest insurgency.
In 1989 the country’s military rulers changed the country’s name to Myanmar.
The struggle has taken a massive toll: an estimated half-million people driven from their homes in Myanmar’s Karen State, some 150,000 of them living as refugees in Thailand.
The U.N. and human rights groups have detailed widespread killings, rape, torture, forced labor and burning of villages as the regime campaigns to deny the rebels support from the civilian population.
“We had nothing to eat. The Burmese soldiers came and stole our rice. We left with nothing,” says Sein Aye. In his late 80s, he lives in a small hut in Mae La Camp, existing on rations from aid groups. He lists his worldly possessions as two sarongs, three shirts and a broken watch.
The veterans’ plight was virtually unknown until 1998 when Sally Steen, a British aid worker with ancestral roots in colonial Burma, visited the border and met an 87-year-old ex-soldier who had served with the Burma Rifles. He was caring for a mentally impaired daughter, suffered from severe asthma and was destitute.
“When I asked him what I could do to help, he said, `I’d like you to inform my officers,’” Steen recounts. “In other words, (he felt that) his officers still had a responsibility. ”
Steen had to form her own group, Help 4 Forgotten Allies, because support was not forthcoming from the British government.
“That is a dead duck. They will not give pensions. … they are adamant,” says Steen, who is based in England.
In the past, officials have said the Karen are ineligible because they fought alongside the British rather than in British units.
The Burma Forces Welfare Association exists in England to help the veterans, and used to give them annual grants of $110. The grants stopped in 2008 but some will be renewed, Steen said. Last year, her group gave about $65 to each of more than 150 veterans and their widows. She admits it was a “miserable sum.”
Yet, few of the veterans show any rancor.
“The British government did its best to try to give us our own state,” says Simeon U. “Then, I did what I had to do. Now, I want the new generation, my sons, to take over and continue the struggle.”
Ka Paw Say, who helped to clandestinely distribute Steen’s grants to veterans inside Myanmar, said some of those he met imagined the British had come back to liberate them. “They were so thankful for the money, and they wanted some milk and bread which they had not eaten since the British days,” he said.
In the refugee camp, after telling his life story to a visitor, Dwe Maung asks to sing a song. The words, in the Karen language, pour out loud and clear as though he was still a young, eager trooper. “When you hear the sounds of the buffalo horn, the soldiers will gather, … Our flag will rise. We will fight bravely for king and country.”
Exiled, widowed, nearly blind and almost penniless, the old fighter waves a dirty, rolled-up towel over his head and a joyous smile sweeps across his furrowed face.
Next to him, Sein Aye rises from his chair with the help of a long cane. Then he stands, parade-ground erect, and says goodbye to a visitor with a flawless British Army salute.
Mon Aug 2, 2010 10:29am GMT
By Polly Yam
HONG KONG, Aug 2 (Reuters) – Taiyuan Iron & Steel, China’s top stainless steel mill, will take a 40 percent stake in an $800 million Myanmar nickel project to assure material for its Shanxi Taigang (000825.SZ: Quote) unit, a firm official said on Monday.
Taiyuan is buying a slice of the project started by CNMC Nickel Co, a unit of state-owned China Nonferrous Metal Mining (CNMC), which has rapidly expended overseas operations and will hold 60 percent. The joint venture will be called CNMC-TISCO Nickel.
“The nickel will be provided to our listed firm,” a Taiyuan official said of the metal from the Myanmar nickel project, Taiyuan’s first overseas nickel project.
The official declined to comment of the amount of Taiyuan’s investment and other financial or production-sharing details.
A CNMC Nickel official also did not comment on those details.
CNMC Nickel was set up by CNMC in 2008 to develop the Tagaung Taung Nickel mine in military-junta- ruled Myanmar, including a mine and a smelter, according to the company website(www.cnico.com. cn).
Annual capacity is expected reach 85,000 tonnes of ferronickel, containing 22,000 tonnes of nickel, when the project is completed next year.
Taiyuan also holds a 10 percent stake in Jinchuan, China’s top nickel producer with 150,000 tonnes of nickel capacity a year.
Shanxi Taigang operates Taiyuan’s stainless steel production with 3 million tonnes of capacity a year in China, which is the world’s top producing nation of the metal.
Shanxi Taigang uses about 100,000 tonnes of nickel a year, over a fifth of expected nickel consumption this year in China.
The firm plans to produce 2.8 million tonnes of stainless steel this year versus near 2.5 million tonnes last year, said an official at the firm’s securities division.
He said Shanxi Taigang aimed to reduce the portion of grades 300 stainless steel to 55 percent of the firm’s total stainless steel production this year, from around 60 percent last year, due to increased demand for grades 400 stainless steel.
Shanxi Taigang produces grades 300 stainless steel, which is nickel-based and used in building, chemical, oil and kitchenware sectors, and grades 400 stainless steel, which does not use nickel and is used in car manufacturing, a booming sector in the world’s top auto market.
Written by Adam Selene
Tuesday, 03 August 2010
‘Diplomacy by Stealth’ Needed in West’s Approach
The renewed dialogue between the US and the Burmese regime has attracted quite a bit of publicity. But these talks have yet to produce any tangible results.
This shouldn’t surprise anybody. Off the record, even American diplomats admit that the talks with the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) are about little more than the dialogue itself. There are no offers on the table. The US is sticking to its policy of demanding democratic change.
In the meantime, President Barack Obama has renewed the US sanctions against Burma. So, in reality, there is no real news on the “Western Front.”
What the West needs to realize is that the Burmese regime is not going to bow down publicly. The army in Burma stays in power mainly because it projects a strong image of unity and ruthlessness. Internally, this serves the regime well, because it keeps the Burmese people afraid and off the streets. In the psychological framework of the generals there is no chance they will ever voluntarily show signs of weakness. Junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe would lose face and his strongman image would crumble if he granted the US the concessions it wants.
There is another factor undermining the Burma policies of the West. The generals are not only politicians, they are businessmen, too. The SPDC doesn’t operate on a basis of trust. It wants rock-solid proof. In its dealings with China and India, the SPDC is used to operating on a tit-for-tat basis. Both parties are clear about what they want and what they will supply.
This deal-making aspect is lacking in the dialogue with the US. The Americans want something but they are vague about what reward, if any, awaits an agreement. This irritates the regime instead of softening it up.
The European Union is also lost in a counter-productive Burma policy. Like the US, the European countries have installed rigid diplomatic and economic sanctions. But to what avail? Hardly anybody believes nowadays that the sanctions have produced anything positive.
A couple of weeks ago, even the Dutch Foreign Secretary Maxime Verhagen – known to be a hardliner on Burma issues – admitted in a speech that the sanctions haven’t delivered. But he added quickly that he thought it was not an option to remove the sanctions, probably because it would rob the EU of the only card it has in its poker game with the regime.
It looks as if the EU has painted itself into a corner, too.
The counterproductive policies of the EU and the US are all the more sad since important processes are well underway in Burma. Exiled opposition forces may dismiss the elections as a sham, but the fact remains that the new constitution and the elections offer some freedoms and a level of participation that was sorely missing in recent decades.
Instead of marginalizing itself, the West should do everything within its powers to improve the democratic nature of the elections. The old approach hasn’t worked out, so a new one is needed. And quickly.
Two things are important. First, there should be a willingness to deal with the regime. Yes, the SPDC is a rogue government. But currently it is the only government in town. If anybody is sincere in the need to achieve anything in Burma, deals are inevitable. The sanctions can still be used as bargaining chips. Better still is to make the first move. Offer something and be clear about the nature of the “reward” — and build on that.
Of course, this is shaky ground because for the West, with all its democratic checks and balances and a past of morally inspired Burma policies, it is hard to start whistling a completely new tune. But time is running out. The elections are casting their shadow ahead, despite the regime being unwilling to announce a date yet. So better hurry.
The second important thing is not to publicly make a numbers game out of it. Let the regime have its deal and receive the credit for the softer line it takes. It’s the result that counts. The minute the West makes it seem as if the generals have bowed down, trust will be shattered and it will be back to square one.
What the West needs now is deal-making and diplomacy by stealth. If that means taking flak and biting the bullet so be it.
Despite several arrests and prison terms, the Moustache Brothers comedy team of Burma (Myanmar) haven’t give up their craft. They’re now confined to performing at home.
By Sarah Birke, Correspondent / August 2, 2010
Mandalay, Burma
“Come to Burma, but don’t steal,” says the slim and jovial Lu Maw, pausing for the punch line: “The government don’t like competition!” The crowd of 10 tourists, including six Thai monks huddled in a small garage in Mandalay, laugh.
Despite several arrests, prison terms, and the fact that they’re now confined to their house, the Moustache Brothers, the infamous Burmese comedy and performance troupe centered around three brothers, haven’t give up their craft. Two of the three, Par Par Lay and Lu Zaw, served seven years of forced labor after criticizing the junta during a performance at the home of Aung San Suu Kyi in 1996, at a time when the Nobel Peace Prize winner was not under house arrest. Their plight was later taken up by Amnesty International.
Though they’re confined to performing at home, and in English, the brothers have retained some of the show’s original satirical criticism of the regime but are limited by language and a foreign audience. Most of the show is given to jokes based on Lu Maw’s knowledge of English idioms (“My father died; he kicked the bucket!”) and pleas for tourists to visit the impoverished country. Those foreigners who do come inevitably end up in the Mandalay back street, happily watching a condensed version of the once-glorious comedy-and-dance show and buying souvenir T-shirts.
“It’s not the same as when we traveled around the country playing to the Burmese,” says Lu Maw. Nonetheless, the brave brothers say the show must go on. And go on it does.
Calcutta News.Net
Monday 2nd August, 2010 (IANS) Two Myanmarese nationals were arrested in Tripura after they sneaked into the northeastern state from Bangladesh, police said here Monday.
Acting on a tip-off, the Tripura police apprehended the Myanmarese men – Mohammad Tayub, 29, and Saho Alam, 20 – from a hotel in Agartala late Sunday night.
‘The foreign nationals illegally crossed over to western Tripura from Bangladesh and attempted to leave for Guwahati (in Assam) by train,’ Deputy Superintendent of Police (Central) Harimohan Das told IANS.
Police Monday produced the two infiltrators in a local court, which sent them to 14 days jail.
‘We are interrogating the foreign nationals and shall decide after two weeks about whether to push them back into Bangladesh or not,’ Das said.
Another police official told reporters: ‘The Myanmarese nationals recently fled from the refugee camps at Teknaf region in Cox’s Bazar district (in Chittagong) in southeast Bangladesh. They entered the Indian territory through Sonamura border in western Tripura.’
‘During preliminary questioning, Tayub and Alam told the police that they tried to go to Assam to find jobs. Some of their community members earlier went to Assam and other places in India in search of jobs,’ the police official said.
‘The minority Rohingya Muslims have been fleeing their country to evade atrocities by the members of the rival community in Myanmar where they are being denied even the most basic rights and needs,’ Tayub, one of the men, told the police.
‘We are not allowed to travel from one village to another within our country without permission from the army and we are not even allowed to marry without the permission of the authorities, ‘ a visibly traumatised Tayub added.
Earlier, in April, five members of a Myanmarese family, including four women, were arrested in Tripura capital Agartala after they sneaked into the state from Bangladesh.
They too had fled from the refugee camps at Teknaf region of Cox’s Bazar before entering India to go to Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh via Guwahati to find jobs.
Since mid-1990s, over 225,000 Myanmar nationals have been sheltering in the Cox’s Bazar district of Bangladesh. They are believed to have taken shelter in Bangladesh to escape religious oppression by the Myanmarese government.
India’s four northeastern states of Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh together share a 1,643-km unfenced border with Myanmar.
UPDATE : 3 August 2010
The Mae Sot customs office estimates that Myanmar’s border closure has cost Thailand about a billion baht in border trade.
Now, Myanmar has agreed to reopen its border to allow materials for the construction of an erosion wall through.
More than 20 trucks carrying construction materials, such as steel rods and cement, have been allowed to enter Myawaddy via the Thai-Burmese Friendship Bridge in Tak’s Mae Sot district.
The construction materials will be used to build an erosion wall on Myanmar’s Moei River bank.
Thailand’s construction aid is intended to help Myanmar complete its erosion wall at the same time as Thailand and to strengthen ties between the two nations.
After the dispute that led to the three-week border closure by Burmese authorities, many are confident Myanmar will reopen its border for trade within the next two to three days.
Traders have begun preparing goods to be transported across the border.
Meanwhile, Mae Sot customs officer Pimkarn Lorsiripaibul said since the border closure on July 18, Thailand has lost approximately one billion baht in border trade and Burmese workers traveling to Thailand were forced to illegally cross the border.
The border closure also affected the prices of goods in Myanmar, particularly in Myawaddy, where prices of consumer goods have shot up considerably.
Published: 3/08/2010 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: Business
The Thai government approved infrastructure investment projects yesterday in Laos and Burma worth a combined 4.2 billion baht.
The first project is the two-lane R11 Lao road construction linking Baan Thad Thong of Nong Khai province with Baan Namsang of Saengthong city in Laos covering 56 kilometres. This project is valued 1.39 billion baht with construction from 2011-2014.
Tharadol Piempongsan, deputy secretary to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, said the road will be built along the Khong River in Laos to enhance tourism between the countries.
The second project is an extension of 7.5 km of railway from Tha Nalaeng in Laos to Vientiane worth 1.65 billion baht. Rail already links Thailand’s Nong Khai province with Tha Nalaeng. The extension is planned for construction from 2011 to 2014. This project will benefit tourism and transportation between the two countries.
Mr Tharadol said the Thai government will grant 30% of the amount required for these projects with the remainder allocated through soft loans carrying an annual lending rate of 1.5% for 30 years.
In a related development, a committee to develop economic co-operation in neighbouring countries chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Trairong Suwankhiri agreed yesterday to grant 1.16 billion baht to improve the existing 18-km road from Myawaddy-Taninthary i and build a new 28.6-km road from Tanintharyi to Kaukarek district in Pa-an, the capital of Kayin State. These projects will take place from 2011-2013.
Mr Tharadol said the project will boost border trade between Thailand and Burma, particularly through the Mae Sot border checkpoint that generated trade of 25 billion baht last year.
21:44, August 02, 2010
India’s largest truck and bus manufacturer — Ta Ta Motors Company, will produce vehicles in Kyaukse industrial zone in Myanmar’s Mandalay division, a local weekly reported on Monday.
Joined with the Myanmar Automobile and Diesel Engine Industries under the Ministry of Industry-2, the Ta Ta Motors Ltd will produce saloon cars, light trucks and buses, the Weekly Eleven said, adding that the Indian company planned to produce 10,000 saloon cars annually.
With the signing of the contract on the production in 2009, Ta Ta has become the first Indian automotive firm to operate in Myanmar.
Besides, other countries such as Japan, South Korea and China have also joined with Myanmar in vehicle production.
India stands as Myanmar’s 4th largest trading partner after Thailand, China and Singapore and also Myanmar’s second largest export market after Thailand, absorbing 25 percent of its total exports.
India’s contracted investment in five sectors of Myanmar reached 189 million U.S. dollars as of December 2009 since the government opened the foreign investment in 1988, of which 137 million were drawn into the oil and gas sector in September 2007, the statistics show.
August 2nd, 2010 | Author: Online Press
Energy giants Total and Chevron have been accused of propping up Burma’s military government through their gas projects in the country.
Rights group Earth Rights International says this has allowed the government to siphon off $5bn (£3bn) in revenue.
The money has reportedly been stashed in banks in Singapore, instead of being used to ease poverty in Burma.
The rights group also accuses Total and Chevron of ignoring forced labour, killings and high-level corruption.
The two companies deny the allegations and say they play a positive and constructive role in communities, with development and educational programmes.
Two Singapore banks named in the report also denied involvement.
Government ‘lifeline’
Earth Rights International has published two reports about the Yadana gas pipeline project, which transports gas overland from offshore fields to Thailand.
”Total and Chevron have essentially provided the military regime with its single largest lifeline – that being the revenue generated from the project,” said Matthew Smith, the co-ordinator of Earth Rights International’s Burma project.
He explained that, in research conducted over a two-year period, sources explained how the Burmese generals kept the money out of the country’s budget and stored it in bank accounts in Singapore.
“Of the $4.83bn generated since 2000, approximately $4.8bn of that is not included in the national budget, and our sources indicate that the military regime is storing its illicit revenue and ill-gotten gains in two foreign banks in Singapore,” he said.
The report names the two banks, but both issued statements denying involvement in Burma’s Yadana project and saying the findings are untrue and without basis.
The allegation of human rights abuses are against the Burmese army which provides security for the Total and Chevron operated pipeline.
Sanctions?
Sean Turnell, an associate professor of economics at Macquarie University in Sydney who follows energy issues in Burma closely, says the way the ruling generals make so much money raises the issue of sanctions.
”As we know, countries like the United States and Europe have fairly strict financial sanctions on Burma,” he said.
“Burma’s generals are able to evade these using other countries and I think what could be an interesting step forward would be for the countries that are levying these sanctions to try and pressure some of the other countries to similarly apply sanctions.”
Chevron and Total are not restricted by economic sanctions imposed on Burma’s rulers by the US and the European Union.
According to the BBC’s Asia correspondent Alistair Leithead, there is a debate over whether sanctions should be strengthened or abandoned as an international approach towards Burma, where the majority of people live in severe poverty.
Source: Earth Rights International
Pattaya Daily News – Thai Agents Arrest Myanmar & Filipino Drug Smugglers
Thai authorities have successful apprehended two drug smugglers attempting to traffic illegal narcotics into the Kingdom recently. The Filipino woman and a Myanmar man were arrested in separate investigations.
Bangkok, the 2nd of August 2010: Narcotics Suppression Police and Border Patrol Region 3 officers successfully instigated an organised sting operation recently, arresting one Myanmar man in possession of 20kg of Ya-Ice and two explosive devices. The man was arrested in Thailand’s northern province of Chiang Mai.
Having been tipped-off as to the mans dealings in the illicit drug trade, coming into Thailand from Myanmar, the joint taskforce organised a sting operation, purchasing some 20kg for an amount of Bt900,000 (over Bt45,000 per/kg). The drugs have an estimated street value of approximately Bt60 million.
Arriving at the Doi Angkhang border crossing in Fang district of Chiang Mai, officers swooped and arrested the offender, known only as Mr. Yang, confiscating Bt60 million in Ya-Ice (crystal methamphetamine) and uncovering the presence of two explosive devices.
Mr. Yang is currently being detained by Thai authorities on numerous drug sale, possession and smuggling charges, with an additional charge of possessing an explosive device without permission expected to be laid.
In an unrelated bust, Thai customs officials at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport arrested a Filipino woman attempting to smuggle cocaine into the Kingdom recently.
Following a standard customs check the woman, known to be Miss Icoy Bethlehem Mamontong [32], was found with over 4kg of cocaine concealed within her luggage. The drugs were packed inside aluminium foil coffee bags.
Under interrogation, Miss Mamontong revealed that she had been hired by a transnational drug syndicate to smuggle the narcotics into Thailand from the Peruvian capital of Lima. They were intended for sale in Bangkok.
At present, Narcotics Suppression Police have detained Miss Mamontong for further investigation in relation to the aforementioned transnational drug syndicate.
Asia Times Online – India scores high on pragmatism
By Simon Roughneen
As India sought a way out of post-Cold War economic stagnation, its so-called “Look East” policy was a shot at finding its place in a globalizing world. Initially dominated by the US and later rebalanced by the dramatic rise of China, the new world order coaxed India to enhance its economic and diplomatic links with the growing Asian economies to its east.
The end of the Cold War was the nail in the coffin for India’s Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) aspirations, a proposed third way between the capitalist US and now-defunct communist Soviet Union. Without the two superpowers to play off against, the self-deception that NAM was a viable alternative was put to rest. With a stagnant economy fueling widespread poverty, looking east offered not only new markets and trading partners, but models of economic growth and development as India emerged out of socialist autarky.
“The Asian Tigers to India’s east were seen not only as role models for economic liberalization, but also as markets and a new geopolitical sphere – one with which India was more comfortable at that time than it was with a policy of reaching out in unambiguous terms to the West,” Sandy Gordon, who teaches at Australian National University and is a founding editor of the South Asia Masala blog, said in an e-mail.
India’s economic expansion continues to be impressive, with the International Monetary Fund now projecting 9.4% growth in 2010 and 8.4% in 2011. Like elsewhere in Asia, India has rebounded quickly – compared to the West – from the global economic downturn. India’s super-rich have taken their place alongside financial elites elsewhere, and as the country’s middle class grows, vast numbers of people are emerging from poverty.
The country is now producing world-class multinational companies such as Wipro, Infosys, Tata and others. However, vast poverty remains, as confirmed by a new “multidimensional poverty index” developed at Oxford University and soon to be harnessed by the United Nations’ Human Development Report. This index numbers 410 million Indians living in poverty.
To help these vast hundreds of millions climb the economic ladder, India will likely remain focused on boosting economic links with the Asia-Pacific region. Current projections indicate that this part of the world will remain the most vibrant region and drive the global economy over the medium term. India is now part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional forum, the East Asian Summit and ASEM, the Asia-Europe Meeting. The free-trade agreement (FTA) India signed with ASEAN in August 2009 has been described as the crowning glory of New Delhi’s “Look East” policy.
The main success of “Look East” “is clearly economic”, with East and Southeast Asia now key trade partners for India, according to Amitendu Palit, a visiting research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) at the National University of Singapore and previously an Indian Finance Ministry official.
However, India’s FTA is much more limited than the deal ASEAN signed with China, and India-ASEAN trade is growing from a comparatively low base. While the FTA is a milestone, it needs work, Palit said. “India needs to work with its eastern neighbors for improving trade facilitation and enabling greater export of services.”
Beyond economics, India has extensive defense dealings with Singapore, Australia and Japan, and emerging strategic relationships with Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. As China rises, its nuclear and strategic relationship with the United States fits Washington’s lurch from accommodationto confrontation, with Washington perhaps hoping to build up India as a hedge against China’s rise in an act of old-school balance-of-power politics.
This strategy has its limits, however, with the US also giving billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan, which India believes is funding jihadis in contested Kashmir and was behind terror attacks on the Indian parliament in 2001 and more recently in Indian cities.
My friend Myanmar
Given that China and Pakistan are long-standing allies, India will naturally seek its own arrangements elsewhere in Asia, and on its own terms. That has been seen most prominently in its amicable relationship with Myanmar’s military regime, which is allegedly working with the same North Korea that helped Pakistan go nuclear over a decade ago.
The big picture is that despite India’s growth and dynamism, China’s military spending is much larger, and has been for some time, meaning that India is falling further behind year by year. With China set to launch its first aircraft carrier in coming years and significantly boost its ability to project power into the Indian Ocean and beyond, India feels it needs to engage with Myanmar, economically and strategically, to counterbalance China, according to K Yhome, associate fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, a think-tank based in New Delhi.
China’s new port and pipeline facility on Myanmar’s west coast will not only allow it to pipe gas from the Shwe field into its southern hinterlands, but will also involve Beijing building a terminal designed to pipe oil and gas shipments from the Middle East and Africa into China.
This will allow China to avoid the need to send tankers through the heavily congested Malacca Strait and the South China Sea, where US naval power is likely to be dominant for the foreseeable future. Indian energy companies are investing in the Shwe field nonetheless, which is expected to generate almost US$1billion per annum in additional revenues for the Myanmar regime once it comes on stream.
Myanmar is a lynchpin – or “arrowhead” – for the “Look East” policy as it represents the land bridge between India and ASEAN. The two neighboring countries sharing a porous 1,640 kilometer border across which rebel groups have historically crossed at will. Up until 1993, Myanmar’s junta supported ethnic and leftist rebel militias in retaliation for India’s pro-democracy, pro-Aung San Suu Kyi policy stance towards Myanmar. The policy has since shifted from moralism to pragmatism.
Last week, Myanmar’s junta chief Senior General Than Shwe held talks in New Delhi with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the two signed agreements to combat the smuggling of arms, drugs and ammunition across their common frontier. They also agreed to cooperate in the fields of information, science and technology – where India and its formidable information technology (IT) sector promises a significant advancement for IT infrastructure and capabilities in tech-challenged Myanmar.
Than Shwe also presumably won much-craved international recognition for the 2010 general elections, the first Myanmar will have held in over 20 years. It is notable that while he was signing agreements with the world’s largest democracy, almost simultaneously US President Barack Obama was renewing economic sanctions against his regime. Than Shwe’s four-day visit to India notably took place just weeks after he hosted Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, and thereby reassured New Delhi that their bilateral ties are also important to his regime.
For many concerned about repression inside Myanmar, it was a troubling irony to see the man who ordered Buddhist monks to be arrested, beaten and killed to be feted at Bodh Gaya – the place where the Lord Buddha is said to have found enlightenment. This was compounded, without any apparent embarrassment, on July 27 when Than Shwe – a leader who has imprisoned the world’s best-known icon of non-violent political resistance and whose government has been recommended to be investigated for possible war crimes – received a bust of Mahatma Gandhi from the Indian government.
It is unlikely that India’s leaders were rattled by pro-democracy protests marking Than Shwe’s visit, or by US exhortations that they should put pressure on the Myanmar ruler to ensure a free and fair election and work toward genuine national reconciliation. The desire to improve regional trade links and counter China mean that, as K Yhome put it, “It is unlikely both countries would want to rock their hard-earned relationship in the near future.”
Simon Roughneen is a journalist covering Southeast Asia. His website is www.simonroughneen. com.
International Business Times – Is Myanmar diversifying its peaceful nuclear agenda?
North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun’s visit to Myanmar has raised concerns with reported revelations last June that Myanmar too has nuclear ambitions beyond civilian purposes.
The North Korean delegation was on a four-day visit to Yangon. The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) described it as a friendly visit saying, “at the talks the two sides exchanged views on the issue of developing the friendly relations between the two countries and regional and international issues of mutual concern.”
But the commonality of the two regimes — which are facing sanctions and relatively isolated global ties — is a matter of concern for many nations.
In a documentary produced by the Norwegian-based Democratic Voice of Burma, defecting Major Sai Thein Win, a former deputy commander of a military factory in Myaing, was shown spilling beans about a secret network of underground tunnels in the country which were suspected to be for a rudimentary nuclear research facility.
Another blow came from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week that military ties between the two countries were of concern. “We know that a ship from North Korea recently delivered military equipment to Burma and we continue to be concerned by the reports that Burma may be seeking assistance from North Korea with regard to a nuclear programme,” she said in Hanoi while attending a regional security summit.
Myanmar resumed diplomatic ties with Pyongyang in 2007 after severing relations in 1983, following an attack by North Korean commandos on the then visiting South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan who survived but left 21 people killed.
Though no closer ties were reported since 1983, a United Nations panel has come out with a report recently accusing North Korea of exporting nuclear and missile technology to Iran, Syria and Myanmar, despite a UN ban.
The 47-page report said North Korea tried to evade UN sanctions by falsifying export documents and using intermediaries as cover-up companies to trade its nuclear and missile technology to third countries.
While Iran’s name in the report was not surprising, the mention of Myanmar as a recipient country of North Korean exports has strengthened the Norwegian documentary which alleged that Myanmar has nuclear ambitions beyond peaceful civilian program and that North Korea is helping the Southeast Asian nation to achieve it.
Myanmar cannot be denied of its sovereign right to develop civil nuclear programme within the ambit of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) safeguards as it is a signatory to to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and also to the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (SEANWFZ) treaty.
Its proposed nuclear cooperation in 2001 with Russia was also cleared by an IAEA inspection team. The question is whether Myanmar can afford to diversify its reliance on Russia and China for its nuclear program.
But any deviation from its peaceful nuclear program will certainly place the country directly in collision with other ASEAN partners in the region on whose support the country currently survives.
English.news. cn 2010-08-01 18:31:57
YANGON, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) — More than 130,000 people were infected with tuberculosis (TB) annually, standing one of the 22 countries in the world with most prevalence of the disease, the local Flower News reported Sunday.
According to a statistical report for 2009, of the new TB patients, 9.15 percent were found infected with both TB and HIV, and these patients are being treated in 2010.
Sufficient TB medicines are in stock to treat the 130,000 new TB patients, the authorities claimed.
Myanmar has been making efforts to combat TB since 1966 under a national program, targeting to remove TB out of health issue by 2050.
Under the program, 325 townships in the country have been covered, report said.
In order to expose more hidden TB patients, the health authorities have been cooperating with private clinics to offer free treatment to patients by adopting public-private- mix approach method.
Meanwhile, Myanmar has introduced two modern biosafety level-3 laboratories respectively in Yangon and Mandalay as part of its efforts in combating TB.
The introduction of the modern labs was made in cooperation with the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnosis, according to the Health Ministry.
Myanmar has also been applying DOTS treatment against TB at national level since 1997, receiving aid of anti-TB medicine under GDF program from 2002 to 2009.
It was disclosed that up to one million patients have been treated with GDF medicine.
Moreover, Myanmar is seeking new means to fight TB, one of Myanmar’s three disease of priority concern, tasking to discover new drugs, diagnosis and vaccine through research to combat the deadly disease that is on the rise again.
The new means also covers the task of exposing persons suffering from TB, providing therapies with greater potency, promoting the anti-TB campaign with the cooperation of partners, fighting TB through primary healthcare and disseminating public health knowledge.
An annual report of the Health Ministry said the exposure rate of TB patients reached 94 percent and treatment success rate 85 percent.
However, the discovery rate has not met the target in southern Shan state, Chin state and some other townships, the ministry revealed, pointing out the need to step up hunting for TB patients in those regions and remote border and rural areas.
By LAWI WENG – Tuesday, August 3, 2010
The United Wa State Army (UWSA), Burma’s largest ethnic armed cease-fire group in northern Shan State, will ban political party campaigns in areas under its control, say UWSA leaders.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Monday, Bawn Thein, an official at UWSA headquarters in Panghsang, said, “Let them [the regime] do their election on their own. It’s not our affair. We will not allow any election activities in our area, because we will not participate in the election.”
Sources said that army leaders spoke publicly about the ban on campaign activities in their area in late July. The UWSA allowed the Burmese regime to hold a referendum on the Constitution in their area in 2008.
Observers said that UWSA leaders were unhappy about the results of the referendum in which the Burmese junta announced that the referendum received 94 percent support.
The UWSA made a cease-fire agreement with the Burmese junta in 1989. It is based in Panghsang and Mong Pawk, on the China-Burma border and the Thai-Burma border. About 700,000 to 800,000 Wa live in the region.
The ban on campaign activities would affect Wa political parties and the Union Solidarity and Development Party, which is led by the junta’s Prime Minister Thein Sein, according to Aung Kyaw Zaw, a Burmese observer on the Sino-Burmese border.
The Wa region has two political parties, the Wa Democratic Party and the Wa National Unity Party,led by Khun Tun Luu and Philip Kham, respectively.
Khun Tun Luu is the brother-in-law of Lt-Gen Ko Ko (chief of the Bureau of Special Operations 3). He is a former a member of the National Unity Party, a pro-junta party.
“Khun Tun Luu may not win in Wa areas because he hasn’t invested his life to help the Wa people before,”said Aung Kyaw Zaw.
There are six Wa self-administered areas, according to the 2008 Constitution, that include Ho Pang, Mongma, Panwai, Nahpan, Metman and Pangsang.
Political parties may be limited to campaigning in Ho Pang and Pang Yang townships, which are controlled by the Burmese government.
The UWSA is the first ethnic cease-fire group to announce that it will not allow any political groups to run election campaigns. The Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) and the New Mon State Party have not made any announcements about campaigning in their areas.
The UWSA has about 25,000 troops. It has refused to transform its army into a border guard force (BGF) under the control of the Burmese regime. The Burmese regime continues to pressure the UWSA and other armed ethnic groups to join the BGF before the election.
Nai Chay Mon, a NMSP spokesperson, said, “It’s too early to say anything about a ban on election campaign activities.”
More than 20 ethnic political parties will compete in the election. No date for the election has been announced.
Meanwhile, the Union Election Commission (EC) approved party registration for the Unity and Democracy Party in Kachin State, which supports the junta.
The Kachin Progressive Party, led by Tu Ja, a former KIO vice chairman, is still waiting for approval.
Tuesday, 03 August 2010 23:17 Mizzima News Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Burma’s military regime have finally responded to Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s requests to visit Burma this week, sources from the prospective host’s foreign ministry said, after Abhisit had told the press in Bangkok.
A source close to the Thai leader’s office said Abhisit had expressed a sincere wish to meet State Peace and Development Council (or SPDC, the Burmese junta) leaders with the goal of improving bilateral relations. The Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the visit would start on Friday.
The Democrat Party-led coalition government has recently expressed displeasure with the SPDC’s human rights record and democratic reforms, but an official in the junta’s secluded capital of Naypyidaw downplayed the potential influence Thailand could have over the generals ruling its neighbour to the west.
“The Burmese government is easily playing with the Thai government as a public relations exercise because, for the generals who dare to play with China and the US, the Thai government is nothing,” the official said.
Abhisit may not be expecting much from the regime nor was he expecting to meet junta leader Senior General Than Shwe during this visit, a Thai foreign ministry spokesman said.
He had announced early last month that he would pay his first official visit to Burma this month, ahead of the first elections to be held in military dictatorship since 1990, which Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party won by a landslide.
The Thai foreign ministry said Abhisit had asked SPDC counterpart Thein Sein to meet Suu Kyi in July last year after she was remanded in custody to Insein Prison over charges that she had broken the terms of her house arrest when American John Yettaw, swam uninvited across Inya Lake to visit her.
The junta has kept Suu Kyi in various forms of detention for at least 15 of the past 21 years and the authorities used the invasion to extend her detention. She has been barred from standing in this year’s upcoming polls, which are widely thought to be a sham aimed at putting a democratic face on the generals entrenched power.
Abhisit’s requests were rejected by Thein Sein who said it was an inappropriate time for such a visit. Thai Foreign Affairs Minister Kasit Piromya made numerous additional requests demanding Suu Kyi’s release but the junta ignored the pleas by Thailand, which holds the current Asean chairmanship.
Thai government’s approaches slowed after the US government’s new potential engagement policy was raised.
During the United Nations General Assembly, Kasit abandoned the Thai drive for Suu Kyi’s release from a bizarre legal set-up while Washington floated its engagement policy. During the assembly, a group of Burmese cabinet members including U Thaung, former Burmese ambassador and the current science and technology official overseeing nuclear development in Burma, and Foreign Minister Nyan Win, were allowed to visit the United States’ capital, Washington.
A mid-level regime official and diplomat who had worked on the US desk of the Burmese Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed this was a sign the US was changing priorities concerning help for Suu Kyi.
“Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been abandoned by the US lawmakers and government because of its national security concerns amid emerging SPDC nuclear ambitions,” according to the official.
“The regime has wanted to settle previously agreed mega projects … [and] pocket the money before any new government is installed [after the elections],” a Burmese businessman who requested anonymity said. “Now they have 100 per cent control but they may not be sure about the future so they have shown a tendency to want to rush projects through.”
Observers suggest that the SPDC needs the Thai government’s help to convince the Southeast Asian leaders of Asean in the wake of its ministerial meeting in Hanoi that the generals are willing to work with Asean, and say the junta will use the visit to win Thailand over.
Abhisit may also discuss border issues, particularly the junta’s closure of the Mae Sot-Myawaddy border to trade 21 days ago, in protest at Thailand’s Moei riverbank conservation scheme, which it claimed had diverted currents and eroded the Burmese side of the river. The Bangkok Post reported on Sunday that Thailand had lost an estimated 20 billion baht (US$620 million) as a result of the row.
By FRANCIS WADE
Published: 3 August 2010
The UN has been forced to defend its record on Burma in recent days with the fallout from a leaked memo that slated Ban Ki-moon’s impact on the pariah state showing no signs of easing.
The now-infamous 50-page report, written by Inga-Britt Ahlenius and leaked to the Washington Post in mid-July, said that the UN secretariat is in a “process of decay” after three years of “absence of strategic guidance and leadership” under Ban.
The comments were a parting shot from Ahlenius, who recently finished her post as chief of the UN’s anti-corruption agency, the Office of Internal Oversight (UNOIOS).
“We seem to be seen less and less as a relevant partner in the resolution of world problems,” she said, questioning the UN’s “capacity to protect civilians in conflict and distress…What relevance do we have in disarmament, in Myanmar [Burma], Darfur, Afghanistan, Cyprus, G20…?”
The secretary general used one of his first speeches as UN chief in January 2007 to urge for the release of Burma’s political prisoners, but since his last, and widely criticised, visit to Burma in June last year, he has barely mentioned the country in public.
Moreover, the UN is yet to appoint a successor to Ibrahim Gambari, the equally maligned UN special envoy to Burma who was reassigned to Sudan in late 2009. In January this year it defended the hiatus on reappointing an envoy by claiming that UN Chief of Staff Vijay Nambiar was temporarily filling the role.
But it has again been forced to defend accusations in the wake of the leaked report that it has been lax on pressuring the Burmese junta to reform. One reporter asked Ban’s spokesperson, Martin Nesirky, on 23 July whether the UN had indeed accomplished anything on Burma, which is heading towards widely-criticised elections this year.
“We continue to work, as I also said to you before; the good offices [team] is not one individual, if you like, it’s people working behind the scenes,” he said. “Not everything that happens is in the public eye…Sometimes you see those results quickly, sometimes it takes longer. Certainly we’ve been very public about the need for credible elections in Myanmar.
Nambiar also responded to the Ahlenius report by saying that Ban’s work as secretary general had been “visionary” and that he had balanced his UN role with “providing truly global leadership.”
But critics have argued that his method of dealing in “soft power” has reinforced the growing influence of China within the UN, at a time when Western nations are in a face-off over China’s support for the Burmese junta. Ahlenius said that Ban was “spineless and charmless” and was “struggling to show leadership”, an accusation that has apparently rattled his office.
By AYE NAI
Published: 3 August 2010
Four members of the opposition National Democratic Force (NDF) who have served prison sentences under treason charges are wavering over whether to appeal a ban on them competing in elections this year.
The NDF, who last week formally opened their new headquarters in Rangoon, have been permitted to run in the elections. A number of party members split from the now-defunct National League for Democracy (NLD) after it decided to boycott Burma’s first elections in 20 years.
But four NDF members – spokesperson Khin Maung Swe, Sein Hla Oo, Thar Sai and Tin Aung Aung – are currently banned from competing for seats. They were members of a group who sought to materialise a parallel government following the last elections in 1990, and were convicted of treason.
Under Burmese law, individuals who have been convicted of treason are banned from standing as candidates in elections. Khin Maung Swe said however that the four were informed by the Election Commission on 30 July to appeal against the ban.
“We still have not submitted the appeal – now we are just making preparations and discussing with our lawyers,” said Khin Maung Swe. “We were convicted under laws 121, 122 and 124, which are serious charges related to attempting to materialise a parallel government, and were given sentences from 10 to 15 years.”
“Since then, we were told that individuals like us, punished under serious charges, were banned for life from standing in elections. The EC told us the elections are drawing close and that we should submit an appeal addressed to the EC as soon as possible to remove the ban if we wish to stand in the elections. They told us there is more work to be done regarding the elections.”
He said it is not clear whether they will definitely be pardoned from the ban if they submit the appeal.
An attempt at a parallel government was made after the Burmese junta broke its promise to hand over power to the winners of the 1990 elections, the NLD, which is headed by imprisoned Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Despite the NDF’s approval last month, the US said that it remains deeply worried about the “flawed electoral process”.
“We respect decisions that former NLD members have made,” state department spokesman Philip Crowley said on 13 July. “We certainly do not have any expectation that what proceeds in Burma here will be anything that remotely resembles a free, fair or legitimate result.”
By FRANCIS WADE
Published: 3 August 2010
An order has been sent by senior Burmese army officials to troops in Karen state to capture the commander of a government-allied militia faction, as tensions appear to be escalating.
Officials have also introduced tight regulations on civilians in towns bordering territory belonging to the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army’s (DKBA) Brigade 5, whose commander, Saw La Bwe (also known as Na Kham Mwe), continues to refuse to transform into a Border Guard Force.
Fears that escalating tensions will erupt into fighting have already caused an exodus of refugees in Burma’s eastern Karen state into Thailand
An intelligence directive, received at the weekend by DVB, was sent by the Southeastern Regional Military Command to Burmese troops stationed close to DKBA Brigade 5 territory. It said that the “order by the Burmese army to capture the DKBA Brigade 5’s commander Saw La Bwe (a.k.a Na Kham Mwe) was dispatched to the frontline’s Military Operations Command 8”.
“However, according to the MOC8’s report, Saw Hla Bwe (a.k.a Na Kham Mwe) has gone into hiding in territory close to the KNU Brigade 6,” it added, referring to the opposition Karen National Union (KNU) whom the DKBA broke away from in 1995.
Zipporah Sein, general secretary of the KNU, said that there had been “no official information” as to Saw La Bwe’s whereabouts. “That’s the rumour – he was in KNU territory three months ago but it’s not clear where he is now.”
Since the split, the DKBA have been fighting alongside the Burmese army in their decades-old conflict against the KNU. Reports have surfaced in recent months of defections by DKBA members back to their old group.
“If [Saw La Bwe] fights against the Burmese army then we can accept him back, as long as he is no longer involved in drugs,” Zipporah said. The DKBA are reportedly involved in a number of illegal trade and activities, including trafficking of methamphetamine.
A wing of the Burmese army, known as the Frontline Military Strategic Command, has ordered troops in Payathonsu township, close to the Three Pagodas Pass in Karen state, to heighten surveillance on civilians. Brigade 5’s territory is said to stretch from Myawaddy, across the border from Thailand’s Mae Sot, to Payathonsu.
Regulations on civilians include a ban on carrying shoulder bags at night time – perhaps to diminish the threat of bomb attacks, although this is not clear – and a ban on civilians leaving or entering the town at night.
“Responsible personnel in the town are advised to keep collecting information and continue with other tasks,” it adds. Troops are also ordered to block communication between the DKBA Brigade 5 and members of the New Mon State Party (NMSP), another armed ceasefire group operating in the area.
“It is advised to use effective ways of punishment on the civilians who break the regulations,” the directive ends.
Saw La Bwe has repeatedly rejected the Border Guard Force plan, which would see his troops assimilated into the Burmese army. A Brigade 5 official said last week that the government had threatened force against the DKBA officials who were resistant to the idea.