BURMA RELATED NEWS – AUGUST 13-16, 2010
Aug 16th, 2010
Sat Aug 14, 6:51 am ET
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – The European Union told military-run Myanmar on Saturday that its Nov. 7 elections, the first in two decades, will not be considered legitimate in the eyes of the world unless it can ensure the vote is free and fair.
The junta announced Friday that it had finally set an election date for the long-awaited polls. Critics say the elections are a sham designed to perpetuate the military’s commanding role in politics.
“If these elections are to have legitimacy in the eyes of the people of (Myanmar) and the wider international community, the authorities must ensure that all parties can campaign freely and that the polling process itself is free and fair,” said a statement released by the British Embassy in Yangon on behalf of other EU nations with missions in the country, including France, Italy and Germany.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a similar statement Friday. Like the EU, Ban called on Myanmar authorities to release all political prisoners, including pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, so they can participate in political activities.
Myanmar has been ruled by the military for nearly 50 years.
Suu Kyi’s party overwhelmingly won the last elections in 1990 but was denied power by the military, which has kept the Nobel Peace Prize winner locked away, mostly under house arrest, for 15 of the past 21 years.
Her National League for Democracy is boycotting the upcoming elections, saying the rules that govern the vote are undemocratic and unfair. She is effectively banned from being a candidate.
Suu Kyi’s party and several others say the scheduling of the elections does not allow enough time to recruit candidates and mount campaigns. Candidate lists must be submitted by the end of this month and campaigning can only begin when the junta announces a campaign period.
The United States has repeatedly condemned the election process. After visiting with Myanmar officials in May, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Kurt Campbell said the junta’s unwillingness to compromise and reform the electoral process led Washington “to believe that these elections will lack international legitimacy.”
(AFP) – 56 minutes ago
OTTAWA — Canada has “serious concerns” that elections in Myanmar (Burma) later this year will be held under “oppressive conditions,” Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said Monday.
“While Canada welcomes the Burmese military regime’s commitment to hold democratic elections, we have serious concerns that the elections will be held under oppressive conditions and that they will not be conducted in line with international standards,” Cannon said in a statement.
“The people of Burma deserve to have their voices heard without fear of intimidation and violence,” he added.
“Canada calls on the regime to live up to its commitments to hold free and fair elections by unconditionally releasing all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, engaging in genuine dialogue with members of the democratic opposition and different ethnic groups within Burma, and enabling full democratic participation in the process.”
Myanmar’s junta said Friday it would hold its first election in two decades on November 7, about a week before democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s current house arrest is due to expire on November 13.
Suu Kyi, who has spent much of the past 20 years in detention and is seen as the biggest threat to the junta, is barred as a serving prisoner from standing.
Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won a landslide victory in 1990 but was never allowed to take office. It is boycotting the vote, saying the rules are unfair.
By Aung Hla Tun – Fri Aug 13, 5:05 pm ET
YANGON (Reuters) – Myanmar will hold its first parliamentary poll in two decades on November 7, state media said on Friday, ending speculation over the timing of a vote rights groups see as a sham aimed at entrenching military power.
The United States, Britain and human rights groups have said the elections would be illegitimate if the military junta denies a role to thousands of imprisoned political opponents, including Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi.
The election takes place about a week before Suu Kyi is expected to be freed from house arrest on November 13.
Her National League for Democracy (NLD) party, which won by a landslide in the last elections in 1990 only to be denied power by the military, has refused to register with the authorities in protest of election laws it says are unjust.
Forty parties have registered to take part in the elections for the first civilian government in almost half a century in the reclusive, army-ruled country of 48 million people. But several big parties said the poll’s timing undermined their ability to raise funds.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in New York he has “taken note” of the announcement while reiterating his calls for the military junta “to honor their publicly stated commitments to hold inclusive, free and fair elections.”
He urged the release of “all remaining political prisoners” — which his spokesman said included Suu Kyi.
U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell issued a statement dismissing Myanmar’s announcement as a “charade” and a “mockery of the democratic process.
“No one should be fooled,” said Elaine Pearson of Human Rights Watch. “The generals may be exchanging their khakis for civilian clothes, but these polls are still a carefully arranged plan to keep power in the hands of the military.”
MILITARY PROXIES
Many diplomats and analysts also see the polls as intended to strengthen the military’s power under the guise of civilian rule in an attempt to lure investment to the resource-rich country, nestled strategically between booming China and India.
A dozen parties registered with the election commission are believed to be proxies of the military, which will retain control of key ministries and enjoy a 25 percent quota of parliamentary seats under a new constitution.
The armed forces chief will be more senior than the president. There are no signs an estimated 2,000 political prisoners will be released before or after the elections.
Suu Kyi has spent 15 of the past 21 years in detention and remains under house arrest. Even if she were freed, she is barred from running because of her criminal record and because her late husband was a foreigner.
Her NLD party was dissolved this year after deciding not to register for the polls.
The National Democratic Force (NDF), a renegade faction of the NLD opposed by Suu Kyi, is running to challenge the junta’s proxies but is not expected to gain traction without her.
NDF chairman Than Nyein told Reuters the election timing was unfair because it requires the submission of a list of candidates for parliamentary seats by August 30, a deadline he described as “out of the question.”
“Before we submit the list, we have so many things to do including raising funds,” he said. “How can we carry out these things in about 20 days?”
Only 11 of 40 registered parties have submitted lists of candidates, according to the Election Commission.
The Union Democracy Party (UDP), another major opposition party, has threatened to withdraw from the elections if there are signs of foul play by the ruling military in the run-up to the polls. [nSGE67A0D6]
“We are not ready yet at all,” UDP chairman Thein Htay told Reuters. “We are still trying to set up committees in the provinces. It is quite clear they purposely planned it this way to cause inconvenience.”
Some parties also accuse the regime’s military intelligence unit of spying on and trying to intimidate their members.
Political analysts and diplomats, however, say the election could mark a turning point that, over the longer term, delivers a gradual transition of power to a civilian government free of military control.
They add that this would be an evolutionary process rather than a junta-inspired shift.
11 mins ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Barclays Bank PLC has agreed to pay $298 million to settle criminal charges that it violated U.S. sanctions in dealings with Cuba, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Myanmar, according to U.S. court documents filed on Monday.
The London-based bank was charged with violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Trading with the Enemy Act in its dealings involving $500 million from 1995 until September 2006, according to the documents.
US must oppose bogus ballot
Last Updated: 4:54 AM, August 16, 2010
Benny Avni
On Friday, the rulers of Burma — that is, the na tion renamed Myanmar by the junta that’s run things since 1962 — announced a general election to take place on Nov. 7. To help democracy, the United States needs to oppose this “election.”
Myanmar competes only with North Korea for primacy in the Asian evil-regime category. Both nations are led by isolated, ruthless paranoids who apparently read George Orwell’s “1984″ as a how-to manual.
So far, the junta has mostly menaced its own people. But its ambitions run higher — and it cultivates ties to such rogue nations as Venezuela, Iran and Zimbabwe. Call it a new Axis of Evil, whose members abet one another’s work from weapons proliferation to terror sponsorship to mundane counterfeiting and smuggling.
The Obama administration has mainly ignored Myanmar/Burma. It let lapse a Bush presidential order that imposed some sanctions, and let Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) attempt “engagement.” The heat went up a bit in June, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed “concern” over suspicions of nuclear cooperation between Myanmar and North Korea, and Webb cancelled a visit to Burma, giving up on his efforts at dialogue for now.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell rightly calls the coming election a “charade.” In 1990, the junta nullified the result of a badly planned election and arrested the landslide winner, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. This time, it’s leaving nothing to chance.
Suu Kyi, the charismatic but aging leader of the democracy movement, was once married to a Briton — so the regime made sure the new constitution (”approved” in a referendum amid the 2008 Cyclone Nargis crisis) bars from running anyone who ever wed a foreigner. Also barred from participation is any prisoner — including the hundreds of jailed leaders of Suu Kyi’s party.
And everyone knows who’s going to win: The junta’s leader, “Senior General” Than Shwe, will be elected president, then drop the uniform and name a military chief from among one of his senior cronies. Little else matters.
But the Obama administration, Burma’s neighbors and the hapless United Nations have so far mustered nothing more than muted criticism.
On Friday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon released a statement coldly saying he “takes note” of the election announcement. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has yet to comment. State Department spokesmen answer inquiries with word that the US “remains concerned” about the situation.
Outsiders can only guess why the aging Shwe and his cohorts do things when they do them — another similarity with North Korea’s rulers. Regime observers believe the decision to finally set an election date has to do with succession rivalry inside the junta. Not good news for the neighborhood: Generals competing for primacy often try to score points by initiating outside aggression.
Burma has a solid, well-organized opposition, which is likely to win the support of morally powerful monks who carry a lot of influence. As Aung Din, the leader of the DC-based pro-democracy group US Campaign for Burma, told me, “Change should come from the inside” — though he added that outsiders, especially America, can help.
The Obama administration must clearly end any illusion of engagement with the generals and start a credible dialogue with Suu Kyi instead. It should support her party’s election boycott and push its friends in ASEAN to officially end Myanmar’s membership. And it’s time to renew the Bush-era sanctions that Obama dropped.
The election could be a good moment for poking the Burmese boil, or it could solidify the junta’s hold on power forever — which is likely to come back to haunt us one day.
Mon, 2010-08-16 04:22 — editor
By Zin Linn
The Burma’s state-run television and radio stations on 13th August announced that Burma’s Union Election Commission (UEC) will hold the multiparty general elections for the respective Hluttaws (Parliaments) on Sunday, 7 November 2010 in accordance with the Article 34 (c) of the respective Hluttaw Election Laws and Rules 16 (a).
This announcement from the junta-appointed UEC said political parties have to submit names of their candidates between 16 to 30 August.
The announcement of the poll date comes a day after the UEC stated that a total of 330 constituencies will be contested in the election. According to the report by junta’s mouthpiece ‘The New Light of Myanmar’, the previous capital Rangoon will have 45 constituencies which earlier had 61 constituencies in 1990. Naypidaw, the new capital and it will have 8 constituencies.
There were 485 constituencies in 1990 general elections. The National League for Democracy (NLD) won 392 parliamentary seats and the junta-backed National Unity Party (NUP) managed to win only 10 seats. In the 1990 elections, out of 20 million eligible voters more than 15 millions turned out and cast their votes.
The Immigration and Population Ministry collected data by the end of 2009 showing the population is now 59.12 million, the bi-weekly Eleven journal reported. Of the total population, 30.74 million are aged 18 or above, the journal said. The minimum voting age is in Burma is 18 years.
The United States has said that Burma’s planned November 7 general elections cannot be “inclusive or credible” without the release of all the political prisoners held in the country’s notorious prisons.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also urged Burma’s military authorities to release all political prisoners, including pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, ahead of November’s general elections. His comments come as Burma’s election commission set November 7 as the date for the country’s first general elections in 20 years.
On 9 August, Mr. Ban criticized the Burmese military authorities for being slow to announce the date for the election. He told reporters that he and his Special Advisor Vijay Nambiar had been making every effort to continue engaging Burma’s authorities on the issue of the political process including the planned elections, but alleged of a frustrating lack of cooperation from them.
The European Union told military-run Burma on 14 August, that its Nov. 7 elections, the first in two decades will not be considered legitimate in the eyes of the world, unless it can guarantee the vote is free and fair. “If these elections are to have legitimacy in the eyes of the people of (Burma or Myanmar) and the wider international community, the authorities must ensure that all parties can campaign freely and that the polling process itself is free and fair,” said a statement released by the British Embassy in Rangoon, on behalf of other EU with missions in the country, including France, Italy and Germany.
The Democratic Party chairman, Thu Wai, said special branch police were visiting members’ homes and asking them for personal information and two copies photos of each person in the household. Another candidate, Phyo Min Thein, a former political prisoner, resigned as chairman of the Union Democratic Party last week and publicly announced that he would not participate in the election, because it would not be free and fair.
It is alleged that Burma’s military regime is bent on placing roadblocks to political parties and preventing them from campaigning. But, the junta-backed USDP has none of such barrier. The regime has maintained tight restrictions on political opposition in the country and has not granted any operational breathing space for political parties to interact with the public. “The nearer the election, the more difficulties we experience,” U Thu Wai, the chairman of Democratic Party (Myanmar), told the media.
There are seven regions and seven states in Burma/Myanmar according to the new state constitution, namely, Sagaing, Tanintharyi, Bago, Magway, Ayeyawaddy, Yangon and Mandalay regions, and Kachin, Kayah, Kayin, Mon, Rakhine, Shan and Chin states.
According to the region or state parliamentary election law, the region or state parliament is to be made up of two representatives from each township in the region or state with each representative elected from each ethnic minority determined by the authorities as having a population which constitutes 0.1 percent and above of the population of the union.
The 7th November elections will be for 330 civilian seats in the 440-member House of Representatives. Under the 2008 constitution, military personnel will be appointed to the remaining 110 seats. In the 224-seat House of Nationalities, 168 will be elected, and 56 will be appointed by the armed forces.
So far, the commission has granted legal registration for a total of 40 political parties out of 47 applied for registration. The remaining seven are still in the waiting list for approval. The 40 contesting political parties are made up of 35 new and five old parties from the 1990 general election.
The junta-backed USDP is expected to win, what analysts have claimed as a sham election intended for entrenching the military rule. Ethnic parties have complained that the USDP party is hindering the efforts of other parties. Promising candidates have openly complaint that the USDP was given special preferences by the Election Commission and granted approval to run in the polls early on, while other parties struggled with the registration process and large finances required to run.
Formed on April 29, the USDP is led by the junta’s PM Thein Sein and 26 ministers and senior officials have sworn to build the party steadily and run in the elections. Thus, election watchers and media groups believe votes would be rigged in favor of the USDP.
A leaked document of the USDP published in the Irrawaddy on 13 August, shows that the USDP was assured to win upcoming elections. “Our party (USDP) does not need to compete with any main opposition party,” said the document pointing out that the small parties are plagued with various problems within and are mostly hopeless.
Most important is that, the military-drawn 2008 constitution states that the National Defense and Security Council will have the power to monitor and overrule the civilian government. The eleven-member council will be controlled by the commander in chief of the Army and he can make a constitutional coup d’état at any time.
Junta has drawn the electoral process to legitimize the military rule under a new mask of civilian legislative body. All those outwardly intentional composition to free and fair elections in Burma, it would give the impression that Aung San Suu Kyi and the members of the NLD are almost certainly right in choosing to boycott rather than participate in the sham ballot process.
Zin Linn is an exile freelance journalist from Burma and vice-president of Burma Media Association which is affiliated with the Paris-based Reporters San Frontiers.
UN Urges Fair Elections, Political Prisoner Release For Myanmar
NEW YORK, Aug 14 (Bernama) — Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Friday took note of Myanmar’s announcement of the date for general elections, but he reminded the country to abide by pledges for a credible poll, Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported.
The military government in Yangon has decided to hold presidential elections on Nov 7, the first since 1990, when opposition leader Awn San Suu Kyi won in a landslide. She has been under house arrest since then.
The secretary general reiterates his call on the Myanmar authorities to honour their publicly stated commitments to hold inclusive, free and fair elections in order to advance the prospects of peace, democracy and development for Myanmar.
“As essential steps for any national reconciliation and democratic transition process, the secretary general strongly urges the authorities to ensure that fundamental freedoms are upheld for all citizens in Myanmar and to release all remaining political prisoners without delay so that they can freely participate in the political life of their country,” he said.
Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy, is serving a new prison term that would expire only on Nov 27.
She most likely would not be allowed to run because of new regulations barring people with prison sentences from seeking elected positions.
Bernama – U.N. reacts cautiously to Myanmar vote announcement
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 14 (Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reacted cautiously to Myanmar’s announcement on Friday that nationwide elections will be held Nov. 7, urging the ruling generals to ensure the vote is “free and fair.”
“The Secretary-General has taken note of the announcement by the Union Election Commission of Myanmar,” U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters in New York.
In a cautiously worded statement, he added that Ban “reiterates his call on the Myanmar authorities to honor their publicly stated commitments to hold inclusive, free and fair elections in order to advance the prospects of peace, democracy and development for Myanmar.”
State media announced on Friday in Myanmar that the election would take place on Nov. 7.
Ban’s statement did not explicitly mention detained Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, whose opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party refused to register for the vote in protest at election laws it says are unjust.
But Nesirky said Ban urged the former Burma “to release all remaining political prisoners without delay so that they can freely participate in the political life of their country.”
Nesirky later emphasized that Ban’s call “absolutely includes Aung San Suu Kyi,” who has spent 15 of the last 21 years in detention and remains under house arrest.
The election will take place about a week before Suu Kyi is expected to be freed from house arrest on Nov. 13. The NLD won by a landslide in the last elections in 1990, but the military ignored the results.
Forty parties have registered to take part in elections to create what is to become the first civilian government in almost half a century in the reclusive, army-ruled country of 48 million people. But several big parties have said the election timing undermined their ability to raise funds.
The United States, Britain and other Western nations have joined human rights groups in criticizing Myanmar’s junta for preventing Suu Kyi and other political opponents from participating in the election.
In contrast to the U.N. secretary-general, U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell issued a statement dismissing Myanmar’s announcement as a “charade.”
He urged President Barack Obama “to renew his support for Aung San Suu Kyi and pro-democracy forces within Burma and work to ensure that elements of the international community are not tempted to recognize this mockery of the democratic process.”
Many diplomats and analysts see the polls as intended to strengthen the military’s power under the guise of civilian rule in an attempt to lure investment to the resource-rich country nestled strategically between booming China and India.
By Denis D. Gray
Associated Press Writer / August 16, 2010
MAE RAMA LUANG CAMP, Thailand—The weary, weather-beaten refugee, gently cradling his sleeping son, gazes at the ceiling, bites his lips, but can’t hold back the tears.
“I cry for those who were killed and died of disease or went mad, for the children who suffered,” says Pawo Tu. “I cry for the food I had to beg for but could not repay.”
This 46-year-old orchard keeper is just one among half a million Karen tribespeople driven from their homes by the Myanmar military, and his story is typical of the sagas of suffering that emerge in this refugee camp on the Thailand-Myanmar border.
Aid workers call the regime’s campaign against the Karen rebellion “the hidden Darfur.” To Christians who work with refugees from the country they still call Burma, it’s “the Calvary of the Karen.”
The world’s attention to Myanmar has focused largely on pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her struggle with the junta that has held her under house arrest for 18 years in Yangon, formerly Rangoon.
Mentioned mostly parenthetically is the relentless war to eradicate a 60-year-old insurgency among the Karen, the country’s second largest ethnic minority, by cutting it off from the general population. Although the regime denies it, the U.N. and international human rights groups have documented executions, gang rape, torture, forced labor and mass relocations of civilians after their communities are torched.
Pawo Tu’s family fled when troops burned their village, Leka Deta, in 2006, suspecting it sided with the rebels who are fighting for an independent state.
“For five years we lived in the jungle in makeshift shelters of bamboo and banana leaves, always on the run, always afraid the soldiers would find us,” he said. Like most of the uprooted Karen, the family foraged, hunted, traded, tended small vegetable plots and sometimes begged from villagers. In their jungle hideouts, Pawo Tu’s wife bore five children.
With the food run out and the soldiers getting too close, the family risked land mines, cripplers and killers of countless escapees, to reach the Thai-Myanmar border. Here, some 150,000 Karen and other ethnic minorities live in nine camps.
“Once there were 100 families in our village, now only some ten are left,” says a recent arrival, Khwe Say Hto. “We became slaves of the military.”
Families are financially ruined, many refugees say, because the military demands “taxes” — sometimes nearly half a villager’s already minuscule income — for avoiding the draft or forced labor, or for no reason at all.
Farmers are kept from their fields doing long stretches of unpaid labor, hauling supplies, building military bases and repairing roads. Khwe Say Hto says that in his village of Palodu, men and sometimes women also served as human minesweepers. Two were killed and others wounded in the most recent incident, a few months back.
The 38-year-old farmer said he was shanghaied as a porter 10 times and on his last, grueling march three of his fellow villagers sank to the ground in exhaustion. The soldiers kicked them and then ground their boots on their throats until they died, he said.
“We could stand it no longer,” he said, so he fled with his wife and four children.
At another camp, Mae La, set up 21 years ago, so many refugees have poured in that it has become a virtual city of bamboo shacks, primitive schools and churches. It sits at the foot of soaring limestone cliffs in a remote jungle valley inaccessible by road during the monsoon rains.
In an open-sided hall, more than 200 teenagers gather to hear Rev. Simon Htoo talk about helping camp-born youngsters fight depression, drugs and AIDS.
“When we were in Burma, we were like wild cats, wild cats that were hunted, always fleeing the Burmese military,” reads a poem by one refugee, Toe Kro. “Living in the camp, we are like a wild cat that is being raised in domesticity, cannot go out of the cage.”
A sudden downpour erupts as the Protestant pastor leads the group in a song:
“We call our land Kawthoolei, the Land without Evil, a green and beautiful land,” the clear voices soar above the rain’s heavy patter.
“But today this land is rife with killing, fighting, land mines, and filled with evil. Widows, orphans are crying without help…We want peace. We want to go home.”
Some never will.
On a map of the U.S. in the camp, red dots from Seattle to Boston pinpoint the Karen diaspora. Since 2006, 60,000 Karen, who include Christians, Buddhists and animists, as well as other ethnic minorities, have left the camps, three-quarters of them bound for the U.S.
Hsa Gay, the camp’s deputy chief, says he is happy for those who find happiness abroad, away from the disease that afflicts up to 40 percent of camp-dwellers with bouts of malaria and 10 percent with tuberculosis at any given time. The refugees live mostly on rice and beans.
But Hsa Gay says resettlement has its downside, because those selected are usually the ones the tribe needs most — teachers, nurses, technicians.
Betrayed and forgotten: That’s how David Tharckabaw sees his people.
The vice president of the Karen National Union, the insurgency’s political arm, says that Britain, the colonial ruler until 1949, broke its promise to give the Karen a separate state.
Today, the plight of the Karen, who number about 4 million in a population of 43 million, has become a sideshow.
“Most countries give lip service but it is economic interests which are driving them. They see Burma as a market, a place with natural resources,” he said.
The U.S. and European Union apply economic sanctions, but China, Thailand and other neighbors trade with Myanmar, while the U.S., Tharckabaw says, is “hooked” on engagement as a way of coaxing the 38-year-old junta toward democracy.
The Karen insurgency, dating back to 1949, is considered the world’s oldest, and the adage that “old soldiers never die” seems true enough in the figure of Lt. Col. Saw Doo, at 82 possibly the world’s oldest recruit still on active duty in an army with no pensions or retirement age.
The farmer’s son joined the insurgency when it broke out, spent decades on the front lines, was wounded and never managed to return to his parents and native village.
Striding as erect as a young officer reviewing troops, Saw Doo still serves “the Karen revolution” as head of training for the Karen National Liberation Army, the military arm of the KNU.
Armed only with basic infantry weapons, the Karen have lost ground to the Chinese-supplied Myanmar military, which has moved at least 200,000 troops into Karen State. But still they hope their guerrilla skills, or the junta’s internal conflicts, or a general pro-democracy uprising, will turn the tide.
“There is only one way we can lose — if we surrender all our weapons to the enemy,” says the old warrior, one of 16 who joined the rebellion at the start.
Even older is 91-year-old Saw Tamla Baw, the KNU president.
Gravely ill from a lung infection, barely able to lift his head from a pillow, he lies on a mattress in a small, sweltering room with bare cement walls. A grandson fans his face with a scrap of yellow plastic.
“It will be difficult,” he says, struggling with every word. “But we can regain our country. I believe one day we will have our own Karen state.”
The Star Online – Chinese investment in Myanmar tops $8 bln this year – data
By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON (Reuters) – China has pumped $8.17 billion into military-run Myanmar in the current fiscal year, accounting for two thirds its total investment over the past two decades, official data showed on Monday.
Energy projects formed the bulk of the investment, with $5 billion in hydropower and $2.15 billion in the oil and gas sector of the reclusive, resource-rich nation whose neighours include economic juggernauts China and India, the data showed.
China also invested a total of $997 million in mining in the first quarter of the current fiscal year (April 2010-March 2011).
Total foreign direct investment (FDI) for the 2009-10 fiscal year was almost $315 million compared to nearly $985 million a year earlier, according to data released by the State-run Central Statistical Organisation (CSO).
Sanctions imposed by the West because of Myanmar’s poor human rights record, decades of mismanagement and graft at the hands of the military rulers have crippled Myanmar’s economy.
Myanmar will hold its first multi-party election in two decades on Nov. 7 in an attempt to gain legitimacy and lure investment. It is currently on a privatisation drive and enjoys close trade ties with China, India and fellow Southeast Asian nations, in particular, Thailand and Singapore.
However, official FDI data for Myanmar is notoriously unreliable, analysts say, with the figures quoted referring only to investments announced by the regime and often including pledges, rather than actual investments, in the totals.
Many deals are done in secret with the government and are not included in official data, which does not name the investing companies or the projects. Some investment pledges never actually materialise, experts say.
Myanmar has attracted over $20 billion in FDI since becoming a market economy in 1988, $12.32 billion of which came from China. That is followed by Thailand, with total investment of $9.57 over the same period, the statistics showed.
Yangon, Aug 16 : A 118-year-old woman in Myanmar is the world’s oldest woman, Xinhua reported Monday.
Daw Mya Kyi, who lives in the country’s Mandalay division, is older than French woman Eugenie Blanchard, aged 114, previously believed to be the oldest.
Daw was born in 1892, while Blanchard was born in 1896, the social welfare department said.
Daw currently lives in a monastery in Puak Chan Kone village and is in good health.
Among the country’s 58.3 million population, 5.13 million are over 60 years old, making up 11 percent of the total.
Melbourne, Aug 16 : The Burmese Army has procured radio sets from a Perth-based company by evading Australian Government sanctions in order to scramble its communications.
Barrett Communications has been selling radio sets directly in response to tenders by Burma’s Ministry of Defence, contradicting suggestions by the company it was selling radios to civilian Burmese government agencies, according to a Jane’s Intelligence Review report.
Barrett Managing Director Phil Bradshaw said the radios were used for general communications, and, were not of a kind “for military use”, after the use of the radios for military communication was first reported in January.
The company told Jane’s that any of the Barrett 2050 radios sold to Burma did not include the frequency-hopping option that makes monitoring all but impossible, and would contravene Australian export controls on sensitive military technology, including signals encryption, in place since 1991, The Age reports.
Bradshaw was quoted as saying the frequency-hopping option could only be installed at the company’s factory by authorised staff.
The Australian Defence Department in Canberra backed this up. “This could not be done in-country [by the customer],” the department told the journal.
But an industry source familiar with Barrett radios has said the processor and software that hops messages across 500 frequencies is built into every Barrett 2050. This and other extra functions could be enabled by input of a random nine or 10-digit code generated by a computer at Barrett’s office and matched to the serial number.
Jane’s reports that the Barrett 2050, costing about 3300 dollar a set, was coming into growing use by the Burmese Army for communications between its headquarters and divisional commands.
Hamish McDonald
August 16, 2010
BURMA’S army has evaded Australian government sanctions to obtain radio sets from a Perth manufacturer that allow it to scramble its communications, gaining a new advantage in its wars against domestic rebels and dissidents.
Prestigious British defence journal Jane’s Intelligence Review reports that Perth-based Barrett Communications has been selling its radio sets directly in response to tenders by Burma’s Ministry of Defence, contradicting suggestions by the company it was selling the radios to civilian agencies of the Burmese government.
When the military’s use of the radios was first reported in January, Barrett managing director Phil Bradshaw insisted the radios were used for general communications and were not of a kind ”for military use”.
The company told Jane’s that any Barrett 2050 radios sold to Burma did not include the frequency-hopping option that makes monitoring all but impossible and which would contravene Australian export controls on sensitive military technology, including signals encryption, in place since 1991.
Mr Bradshaw is quoted as saying the frequency-hopping option could only be installed at the company’s factory by authorised staff.
The Defence Department in Canberra backed this up. ”This could not be done in-country [by the customer]”, the department told the journal.
But an industry source familiar with Barrett radios has said the processor and software that hops messages across 500 frequencies is built into every Barrett 2050. This and other extra functions could be enabled by input of a random nine or 10-digit code generated by a computer at Barrett’s office and matched to the serial number.
”It wouldn’t be impossible for an experienced department, especially in the military, to figure out a way to bypass it,” the source said. ”If frequency hopping required an extra part or key to unlock, then it would be far more secure to send overseas. However, since it’s already built in, it’s just a matter of cracking that code.”
Jane’s writers Samuel Blythe and Desmond Ball said the Barrett 2050, costing about $3300 a set, was coming into growing use by the Burmese army for communications between its headquarters and divisional commands.
Monday, 16 August 2010, 5:44 pm
by J. Sri Raman, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
I see I hear I know
I beat I hit I touch
I kill I kill the monks are dead.
That was the chant of Than Shwe, Burma’s military dictator, as he meditated recently at Bodhgaya, the place in India where Gautam Buddha attained enlightenment. Or, so says the satirical verse doing the rounds on the Internet.
Whether the junta leader chanted these words or not, the government of India had indeed seen as well as heard and it knew what the junta led by Shwe had done to the people of Burma. None of this, however, stopped New Delhi from rolling out the red carpet to the 77-year-old general as he arrived in the country on July 26 for a five-day state visit.
Beginning his tour at Bodhgaya, in a gesture obviously aimed at Burma’s Buddhist majority (including the monks at the forefront of the pro-democracy movement), Shwe proceeded to the diplomatic part of the mission, and departed with a clutch of bilateral agreements. The pacts provided his regime millions of dollars in assistance and trade revenue and, more importantly, a shade more of political legitimacy.
Clearly, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government was not constrained by either its officially oft-cited reputation as the “largest democracy” or its past policy of support for the pro-democracy movement.
The timing of the visit was significant for both sides. Shwe was rediscovering his Buddhist roots in time for the “elections” he proposes to hold later this year. For New Delhi, the more noteworthy fact was that the visit comes just a month after China’s Prime Minister Wen Jiabao traveled to Rangoon, the Burmese capital, to sign a raft of economic deals.
The planned elections will be the first after the polls of 1990, when the junta simply set aside the voters’ landslide verdict in favor of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and its charismatic leader Aung San Suu Kyi. She has been under house arrest for most of the time since then. The NLD ceased to exist as a party in May 2010 after Suu Kyi was barred by a new Constitution from contesting polls as someone married to a foreigner.
At the place of pilgrimage, posters greeted Shwe, accusing him of “crimes against humanity.” The protesters included refugees who had fled Burma after the monks-led rebellion of 2007. They also regretted the present policy of India, which gave them asylum once and a high state honor to Suu Kyi in 1992. The criticism, however, was countered with defenses of the changed policy as what the interests of India demand. The pro-official forensics were flawed and fallacious.
“A lot of Western countries would rather India had nothing to do with Myanmar but it is a neighboring country where the Chinese have made a significant investment and there are clear security imperatives for India,” said Rukmani Gupta, of the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, known for proximity to policy-makers. She mentioned, in particular, Chinese access to naval facilities in Burma.
India’s energy needs were also advanced as an anti-democracy argument. The country had to compete with China for a share of Burma’s natural gas resources, it was asserted, and India’s image as a savior of democracy was a lesser interest in comparison.
To many apologists for India’s pro-junta policy, their strongest argument lay in the separatist insurgencies of the country’s north-east that found bases in Burma’s mountainous border areas. One of the agreements signed during Shwe’s visit, in fact, was supposed to strengthen cooperation in combating these insurgencies by denying them a Burmese asylum.
Åshild Kolås, of the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, has pointed to the absurdity of the argument. She notes that, down the decades, Burma has failed to deliver help New Delhi needs to confront the insurgent groups operating from across the Burmese border. More importantly, she adds, “Even if the Burmese military were capable of delivering, sustaining cross-border militancy is a much better bargaining chip for the regime.”
As for the China argument, Kolås stresses that Burma and China have “stronger converging interests.” Other experts recall that, for political reasons, the junta granted Beijing special privileges in 2007 for exploiting Burma’s natural resources, agreeing to sell new-found gas from the Shwe gas fields to China, despite a more attractive bid from India.
Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury, of the Calcutta Research Group, argues that India’s “all-carrot policy” towards the junta has not paid off. He compares India’s Burma stance to its decision-making on Iran policy, which he described as being “outsourced” to Washington.
The comparison is a commentary on the credibility of the policy of Washington as well as other Western capitals on their Burma policy in practice. Words, of course, differ widely from deeds.
In connection with Shwe’s India visit, Philip Crowley, a spokesperson of the US State Department, was quoted as saying, “We would encourage India and other countries to send a clear message to Burma that it needs to change its course.” The message from Washington itself has not been very clear.
It has refrained resolutely from imposing any sanctions against a giant US multinational corporation, engaged in exploiting Burma’s oil and gas resources and enriching the military rulers at the people’s cost. Chevron figured in the “dirty list” of such companies, put out by the pro-democracy movement in December 2005, and stays firmly there.
As for the UK, its Prime Minister David Cameron was in India on a state visit at the same time as Shwe. The coincidence did not seem to embarrass Cameron who, by all accounts, carefully avoided raising Burma with his hosts.
In December 2005, Britain’s former prime minister Tony Blair called on companies not to trade with Burma. A survey released then, however, showed that, since Labor came to power, imports from Burma had quadrupled, rising from 17.3 million pounds in 1998 to 74 million pounds in 2004. The situation is hardly likely to improve under Cameron.
All this meant a particularly sad August 8 for the Burmese people and their pro-democracy movement. The date marked the anniversary of the revolt of 1988, crushed brutally by the military rulers, killing about 3,000 protesters. We noted the observance of the 20th anniversary in these columns (The Games They Play in Burma, August 7, 2008).
It was a quiet August 8 in Burma this time. According to scanty and sketchy reports, the remembrance of the martyrs of the prop-democracy took the form now of subdued religious ceremonies across the country.
Shwe’s pieties in Bodhgaya have failed, predictably, to deceive Burma’s devoutly Buddhist majority.
The Korea Times – ?Democracy in Myanmar falters
By U Win Tin
In the 20 years since its last free and fair election, Myanmar (Burma) has become Southeast Asia’s poorest country, has continued the world’s longest civil war, produces the highest number of refugees per capita in the world, and is home to one of the highest numbers of child soldiers.
Yet, major powers, regional governments and international bodies seem prepared to allow the imminent elections scheduled for this year ? a hollow poll driven by the strategic needs of the military ? to go ahead and for the military to be self-legitimized as rulers of some 55 million Myanmarese (Burmese).
Without a firm plan of action, this is exactly what will occur.
July’s summit of foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Hanoi, confirms this laxity. Despite much public cajoling and strong words behind closed doors, the ASEAN organization has once again failed to offer a firm approach or a regionally approved and facilitated roadmap.
While demands first formalized by ASEAN in 2003 for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy, remain in place, suggestions from some that she should be released and allowed to participate in the elections have been quashed by the military. Also, the possibility of a special ASEAN envoy to Myanmar was not pursued.
As such, these demands remain little more than paper tigers, as they are not backed institutionally by ASEAN, nor is there any formalized process to move in any specified direction.
In the words of one senior ASEAN diplomat in Hanoi, reported in local media, “in the end, we (ASEAN) will probably end up being a big rubber stamp.”
Meanwhile, the U.S., dithers on the sidelines, unable or unwilling to embolden its position. After taking months to review its Myanmar policy, it then sought to maintain a policy status quo; a combination of engagement and sanctions.
U.S. engagement has faltered without a special Myanmar envoy and sanctions have limited effect as Myanmar’s close ties with China have tended to surmount economic barriers to trade and investment.
As such, the U.S. position on the elections has fallen in with that of ASEAN ? one characterized by stern words and lofty hopes, but lacking the foundation of a solid plan of action.
For the United Nations, it has been over a year since the special envoy for Myanmar has visited and one year since the U.N.’s secretary general spoke with us in person. Neither has been to Myanmar since Aung San Suu Kyi was detained yet again, following a sham trial last year.
The U.N. Security Council has not weighed into the Myanmar issue for almost three years.
The Myanmarese regime has been able to completely ignore and repudiate international and regional actors. The proposed 2010 elections will not lead to the reconciliation between various forces in Myanmar ? so effectively wedged apart by the military ? the international community so hopes for, and that the region so needs.
With the elections the regime is playing a zero-sum game. The goal is to completely crush all opposition parties and to completely exclude all relevant stakeholders in Myanmar’s supposed journey to democracy.
The exclusion of major political participants, from ethnic groups such as major Kachin parties, to leading political figures denied access to the elections by virtue of being imprisoned (including Aung San Suu Kyi herself), is in actuality, the ultimate in wedge politics, keeping the country on the edge of failed state status and denying any semblance of true reconciliation.
In effect, the 2010 elections will lead to more chaos in Myanmar. Tensions will rise as a result of thwarted ambitions and, the implications of poverty and the continued violations of basic human rights will possibly boil over.
Increased instability in Myanmar ? an outcome surely no-one wants, even the country’s faithful patrons in Beijing ? will be the most likely outcome.
The National League for Democracy called for a regional dialogue on Myanmar some years ago. We feel this should be driven by ASEAN, largely via the extended ASEAN Regional Forum, and that it should be conducted in Asia.
The goal of such a forum is to find ways the international community and the Myanmarese military can work together to initiate a sincere transition to democracy in Myanmar.
The bottom line is, of course, to devise a plan of action. Without such a strategy, Myanmar’s elections will lead nowhere. They do, however, present an opportunity, one which the international community has so far failed to take.
U Win Tin is co-founder of the National League for Democracy and was imprisoned by the military for 19 years.
By Jonathan Manthorpe, Vancouver Sun
August 16, 2010
Burma’s ruling generals are belt and braces guys.
The junta announced last week that multiparty elections will be held on Nov. 7 after more than a decade of trying to persuade the international community — so far unsuccessfully — that this will be a shift to a civilian administration after military rule dating back to 1962.
The generals hope this election will prompt the lifting of sanctions and other exclusions from the international community.
But they have no intention of allowing the election results to lead to the military actually losing power.
So they have constructed a charade aimed at pleasing the gullible without putting their power at risk.
It’s a caution the generals learned 20 years ago when they suffered the electoral equivalent of finding their pants around their ankles.
In that election in 1990, the junta expected the voters among the 48 million people of Burma (which the ruling junta calls Myanmar) to show respect for the then nearly 30 years of military rule, and pick the generals’ favoured candidates.
Instead, the voters marked the planned return to civilian rule by voting overwhelmingly for candidates representing the National League for Democracy, whose heroine leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, the generals had already locked up as a precaution. The NLD won 392 of the 492 seats in Parliament, and the generals were so appalled they refused to acknowledge the result.
The 12-member junta, now inaccurately called the State Peace and Development Council and led by former postal clerk Gen. Than Shwe, was shocked into several years of stunned silence.
Suu Kyi remained locked up in her crumbling lakeside villa in the then capital, Rangoon (now Yangon), selling off her furniture to buy food.
In 1995, the generals figured that despite her having been awarded such honours as the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, their persistent campaign of vilification of “the lady” must have eroded her political currency.
They were wrong. When her detention was lifted in July 1995, tens of thousands of people flocked every day to stand outside her house on University Avenue and listen to her speak at her garden gate.
By 2000, Shwe and his boys had lost patience and arranged new excuses to lock her up again.
But the regime felt increasing pressure to respond to international sanctions, which forced Burma into the often uncomfortable investment grasp of China to develop its bounteous natural resources, and the embarrassing demands for political and human rights reform from the junta’s partners in the Association of South East Asian Nations.
From the start, Suu Kyi and the NLD did not believe the generals were sincere in wanting to draw up a new constitution that would bring in genuine multiparty civilian rule.
They therefore refused to take part in years of talks that led to a referendum held in May 2008, and which to no one’s surprise endorsed the new constitution by a margin that was almost mathematically impossible.
This document ensures that the military will remain in power behind a facade of civilian rule.
The head of the armed forces, Shwe, will retain more authority than the president, and will be able to dismiss any government.
All the most important and powerful ministries will be the exclusive preserve of the armed forces, and a quarter of the seats in the 440-seat parliament are assigned to the military.
At the same time, it will require a vote of more than 75 per cent of MPs to change the constitution. So the military has a veto on any changes or reforms aimed at extending civilian rule.
As a result of this sham reform and the accompanying restrictive election rules, Suu Kyi and most of the NLD refused to register to take part in the election.
Not that they would have been allowed any role anyway.
Most of the NLD leaders are ineligible because they have criminal records as a result of the 20 years of intense persecution by the generals.
Suu Kyi is also ineligible to run because she was convicted of breaching her detention order last year after the befuddled American John Yettaw swam to her house to deliver a warning message that had been entrusted to him by angels.
There’s also a cunning little constitutional provision that says people married to foreigners can’t be candidates for parliament, and Suu Kyi is the widow of a British university professor.
Some former NLD members have broken away to form the National Democratic Front in the belief that, as flawed as they are, the new constitution and the elections are a step toward reform.
But most of the 40 parties registered for this election are ethnically or regionally based and will field limited numbers of candidates.
Only the junta’s Union Solidarity and Development Party will contest all non-military constituencies.
If the USDP does not end up with a clear majority, it will be easy to buy or rent enough other MPs to create an unassailable government.
(This page, by the way, will continue to use the name Burma. In 1989, the junta, an illegal government, ordered the name changed to Myanmar, but without any consultation with the people. Burma remains the country’s proper name in English and it is the name Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s legitimate, elected political leader, always uses.)
jmanthorpe@vancouversun.com
By Michael Mackey
Bangkok
Thailand intends to develop commercial ports on its West or Andaman coast as well as encourage the building of a deep-sea port in neighbouring Myanmar, a Cabinet statement said.
No estmate of cost was initially available suggesting this is a long-haul plan and there are doubts whether they will materialise.
The idea has been floated before but this is the first official statement on what is a very ambitious plan. The objective is to build a deep-water port at Tavoy (Dawei) in Southern Myanmar and link it by road to Thailand’s Kanchanaburi.
“There is potential to develop both physical areas of the port, which support Thailand’s industrial base in the long run, especially the petrochemical industry, iron and steel, and motor vehicles and the ability to link transport networks in the region more effectively,” said the Cabinet statement.
“It is necessary to develop transportation route links between the deep-water port Laem Chabang, and other countries in the region for Thailand to be a transport and logistics centre,” it added without elaborating.
Acccording to the plan, Pakbara deep-sea port in the southern province of Satum, will be turned into a multi-cargo port. This is to reduce dependence on shipping through neighbouring countries.
The private sector, which until now has been supportive of the idea of extra ports, especially on the west coast, will be allowed to participate in the scheme.
“We would like to have another port on the west side so we can have a direct sailing to India and Europe,” said Paiboon Ponsuwanna of the Thai National Shippers’ Council.
One of the new markets Thailand is trying to tap is India, along with neighbouring Bangladesh, where economic growth is picking up. Europe, despite the problems with the Eurozone, also remains a big market.
A west coast port makes serving them easier because it cuts out the need to go via some other country such as Singapore. It raises the issue, however, of moving goods around Thailand, with most of the manufacturing concentrated in the area around Laem Chabang, Thailand’s current eastern gateway.
“We have been talking about having more ports for 20-30 years,” Paiboon said, pointing to a more fundamental problem facing the project. “In short, there probably won’t be a lack of export business but having sufficient imports to make it all worthwhile might be a problem.”
The other reason for the generally quiet response is Thailand’s current export boom tends to look towards East Asia, especially China – destinations not needing Western sailings and already well served by Laem Chabang.
Despite Thailand’s ongoing political crisis a consensus is emerging about one thing – the need to do something about Thailand’s ports and logistics. Thailand is currently experiencing an export boom, not as strong as China, but comparable to other Southeast Asian nations.
There is enough infrastructure in terms of hardware, such as ports, said Kai Sittheeamorn, president of Thailand’s Trade Representative Office, but its weakness is its lack of connectivity and the logistics cost that in turn it creates.
“Existing ports, especially the gateway Laem Chabang, are efficient and currently have surplus capacity but going forward the lack of a strategic plan over the longer term could create challenges – it is key for the government to clarify its long-term strategy with regards to the integration of different modes of transport and the relationship between the key ports of Laem Chabang, Bangkok Port and other ports in the country,” said Alex Gordy, editorial manager of the Oxford Business Group.
One example is of Bangkok Port, which currently moves 1.3 million TEUs a year but still lacks a defined mission and context. Overshadowing this is the land bridge issue. It shows ambition and lack of clear strategic thinking in equal measure with the plan to build a deep-sea port in Pakbara and connecting it with Laem Chabang on the east coast by a road and rail network via the land bridge. The cost for building such a bridge is huge.
Gordy also said that as Thailand moves up the economic chain and into more value-adding processes there would be a need for more hard and soft infrastructure development such as integrating the different modes of transport and encouraging interoperability and intermodality.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva addressed these problems at the recent World Economic Forum on East Asia in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Abhisit said the connectivity of the Mekong region and areas within it was very much a government priority. “We want to make sure that there is a logistics network that links up the countries along the Mekong. We are very much moving ahead on this agenda very rapidly,” he said.
The government has earmarked $2.4 billion for infrastructure and logistics developmet including building a fourth bridge across the Mekong and introducing double-tracking for the railways.
Laudable though these goals are, achieving them is another matter, considering Thailand’s political instability and financial strictures.
Ismira Lutfia | August 15, 2010
Burma should take note of Indonesia’s failure to hold human rights violators accountable for their actions as the junta-led country prepares to hold its first elections in two decades, a human rights advocate has said.
Jakarta. “Burma could learn to avoid making the same mistake Indonesia did, which was its failure to bring military officials to justice for past human rights abuses,” Rafendi Djamin, the director of the Human Rights Working Group, said last week during a meeting with Tomas Ojea Quintana, a UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Burma.
Rafendi, who is also the Indonesian commissioner for the Asean Intergovernmental Human Rights Commission, said alleged human rights violators in Indonesia continued to “occupy high-ranking positions as government officials.”
Quintana was in Indonesia to consult with civil society organizations on the country’s human rights enforcement and its transformation from a military-run government to a democratic nation.
Before holding its first direct presidential election in 2004, Jakarta had been under authoritarian rule for 30 years.
Burma is now preparing to hold its first election in two decades, on Nov. 7. Critics, however, say the polls will be less than democratic.
Quintana said in a March report to the UN Human Rights Council that in order to have fair and democratic elections, Burma should first free democracy icon and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi .
“It is critical that political prisoners be released,” he said.
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 13 (APP): Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Friday called on Myanmar authorities to ensure that the upcoming general elections are free and fair, and to release all remaining political prisoners so that they can fully participate in their countrys political life.The Union Election Commission of Myanmar has announced that the polls the countrys first elections in 20 years will be held on 7 November.
The Secretary-General reiterates his call on the Myanmar authorities to honour their publicly stated commitments to hold inclusive, free and fair elections in order to advance the prospects of peace, democracy and development for Myanmar, his spokesperson said in a statement.
As essential steps for any national reconciliation and democratic transition process, the Secretary-General strongly urges the authorities to ensure that fundamental freedoms are upheld for all citizens of Myanmar and to release all remaining political prisoners without delay so that they can freely participate in the political life of their country, the statement added.
In March, Ban and the Group of Friends on Myanmar, which brings together more than one dozen nations and one regional bloc in support of greater dialogue in the country, said the Government must create the conditions to allow for free participation in the elections.
This includes the release of all political prisoners including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and respect for fundamental freedoms, he stated after meeting with the group in New York.
Ms. Suu Kyi, a pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been under house arrest for much of the past two decades, was sentenced last August to an additional 18 months of house arrest, effectively barring her from taking part in the polls.
Mr. Ban and his Special Adviser, Vijay Nambiar, remain closely engaged with the Myanmar authorities, but they feel that this process requires more cooperation from Myanmar and all concerned, UN spokesperson Martin Nesirky told reporters today.
By WAI MOE – Monday, August 16, 2010
The Rangoon weekly journal Modern Times has been banned for one week by Burma’s censorship board, the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division (PSRD) of the Ministry of Information for printing a weather news headline that says: “Will it come in September?”
Journalists in Rangoon said the front page news was about potential storms in September, which according to well-known Burmese meteorologist Tun Lwin will bring heavy rain and potential storms this rainy season.
The photo accompanying the report showed the devastation shortly after Cyclone Nargis hit the Irrawaddy Delta on May 2, 2008, causing 134,000 deaths and affecting about 2 million people. The cyclone struck the delta just eight days before the national referendum on the 2008 Constitution.
“The story was only about weather, but the censorship board [PRSD] said the word ‘September’ in the headline was noticeable on the front page and it reportedly criticized the journal for writing the story in the style of a news story,” said a journalist in Rangoon who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“The word ‘September’ is sensitive since the censorship board suspected the headline of having a second meaning as next month is the third anniversary of the mass demonstration in 2007,” he said.
Known as the Saffron Revolution after the color of the robes of the monks who led the protest, the September demonstrations were the biggest mass challenge to military rule in 20 years. The protests ended when junta troops brutally supressed protesters, killing monks and ransacking their monasteries.
Observers expect the junta to exert tighter control over the media and online activities of Burmese people ahead of the elections on Nov.7, and additional officials have been drafted to the PRSD since May, tightening surveillance on all publications.
“There used to be about three officials checking our journal before publication, but now more than a dozen officers go over every line of our publication,” said an editor with a Rangoon weekly.
About 187 private weekly journals published in Burma are registered with the Ministry of Information. Under press regulations, all publications have to submit plain copy to the PRSD before they can be sold.
Reporters Without Borders, the Paris-based media watch organization, states: “Burma is a censor’s paradise, one of the very few countries where all publications are subjected to prior censorship. After China, it is the world’s largest prison for journalists and bloggers.”
Burma holds 12 journalists and two bloggers in prison, the organization said.
By NAYEE LIN LATT – Monday, August 16, 2010
Burmese Snr-Gen Than Shwe has attended an “election victory campaign” meeting held on Friday by the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) led by Prime Minister Thein Sein, according to sources in Naypyidaw.
The meeting, which is being attended by USDP candidates including ministers, deputy ministers, director generals of government departments and businessmen close to the regime, resumes on Monday.
Than Shwe has given instructions at the meeting regarding assigning constituencies for party candidates and appointing election campaign managers, according to a Burmese military official speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Ministers talked about how they will campaign successfully,” he said.
Ministers and deputy ministers will run for seats in the Amyotha Hluttaw [Upper House]; retired director-generals and officers for seats in the Pyithu Hluttaw [Lower House]; and the businessmen in the divisional and state-level Hlutthaws.
Candidates would be allotted 10,000,000 kyat (US $10,150), the maximum amount election laws allow candidates to spend on their campaigns.
According to the military official, Yuzana Company owner U Htay Myint said at the meeting that he will run as a candidate for a constituency in Tenasserim division and spend more more than 100 million kyat ($101,500) on his campaign.
Since the regime set the candidate registration deadline for Aug. 30, government ministers and deputy ministers running in the election would be resigning soon and arrangements to fill their vacant positions are underway, according to another government official.
Last Friday, the regime set the election date on Nov. 7 and also announced that parties will have a two-week period for candidate registration from Aug. 16 to Aug. 30.
By BA KAUNG – Monday, August 16, 2010
“Let’s go to the polling station!” blares the election campaign jingle on state-run TV and radio since the regime set the general election date.
Opposition political parties contesting the election, however, aren’t getting the same degree of encouragement.
The Election Commission called on political parties last week to submit between Aug. 16 and Aug. 30 lists of the candidates they plan to field. Opposition parties complain that, due to the short period allowed for candidate registration and their lack of funding, they will be able to compete for only a limited number of the 498 seats in the national parliament.
The regime’s election laws stipulate that if there is only a single candidate in a constituency, then he or she wins the seat—meaning that the junta’s proxy parties are guaranteed victory in many constituencies.
Sai Hla Kyaw, a member of the Shan National Democratic Party (SNDP) central executive, said the party will be able to field candidates for 150 seats in 50 constituencies although it had originally planned to compete nationwide.
Sai Hlaw Kyaw said the party had lacked the time to properly check the qualifications of its candidates, nor had it been able yet to prepare its campaign.
The National Democratic Force (NDF) party led by renegade members of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) will be able to contest only in major divisions of Burma, renouncing seats in seven states.
The party has so far assembled a list of 100 candidates who will contest constituencies in Rangoon, Mandalay, Pegu and Magwe divisions, according to NDF political leader Khin Maung Swe.
“Our party is now only one month and six days old,” he said. “How on earth can we find enough money and enough candidates for the election?”
Election rules require payment of a 500,000 kyat (US $500) fee for each candidate. Parties would need to pay the equivalent of US $249,000 to the Election Commission if they want to contest all the available seats in the national parliament.
“[There's] not enough money and time, so we cannot contest the election nationwide as we had planned,” said Thein Htay, vice-chairman of the Union Democratic Party (UDP), whose leader Phyo Min Thein recently resigned from the party because he said the election would be neither free nor fair.
Following his resignation, the UDP threatened to pull out of the election if they see signs of foul play by the ruling military in the run-up to the polls.
Leaders of pro-democracy parties in Rangoon, including the NDF, recently discussed the possible formation of an informal alliance to allow them to distribute their candidates in as many constituencies as possible, thus preventing an automatic victory for the regime’s proxy parties—estimated to be at least seven—including the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) led by Prime Minister Thein Sein. But that idea has so far not materialized.
“Parties are struggling with their own problems, but I heard that the USDP candidates recently received 100,000,000 kyat (US 100,000) for election activities,” said NDF leader Khin Maung Swe.
Some other party leaders say the election difficulties were not unexpected and that they will only focus on maintaining the existence of their parties and do what they can.
“In a multi-party general election, we will make sure that our party can exist,” said Soe Maung, vice-chairman of the Rangoon-based Democracy and Peace Party, which he said would only contest 20 constituencies.
Monday, 16 August 2010 17:14 Thomas Maung Shwe
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – US-Swiss drilling company Tranoscean has admitted it is under investigation by the US Treasury over its “operations in Myanmar [Burma]”. The probe comes amid intense public scrutiny since its rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico.
Since the explosion on Tranoscean’s rig in April caused America’s worst oil spill, the company hired by BP has acknowledged in its latest regulatory 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) it had “recently received an administrative subpoena” from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) regarding its “operations in Myanmar [Burma]”. The filing was submitted on August 4.
The 10-Q form, is an SEC filing that must be submitted quarterly with the SEC and contains similar information to the annual 10-K form, however the information is generally less detailed, and the financial statements are generally unaudited.
The subpoena from the US government’s sanctions enforcement division came after Mizzima first reported in May, that Transocean’s US regulatory filings showed the firm was hired late last year to do drilling work in Burmese waters co-owned by a company controlled by Stephen Law, a junta crony businessman alleged by the US government and analysts to be a major drug-money launderer.
“OFAC’s administrative subpoena authority”, according to the US Treasury department’s website, “generally provides the basis for OFAC to require the production of whatever additional information it may require to assess its enforcement response to the apparent violation”. As a subpoena is not voluntary, failure to comply with such an administrative writ is a serious violation.
Mizzima’s report of Transocean’s ties with a blacklisted Burmese narcotics-trafficking clan was picked up in a front page story in The New York Times, which also detailed the firm’s questionable practices in Iran, Norway and Syria.
Wong Aung, an observer of Burma’s natural resource sector and international co-ordinator for the Shwe Gas Movement, a coalition of Burmese organisations opposed to offshore gas drilling in the country’s ecologically sensitive coastal regions, is pleased the US government has listened to calls to investigate Transocean’s shady dealings in Burma.
He believed it was “inconceivable that Transocean was unaware” that the oil and gas rights in the waters they were drilling in were co-owned by Burma’s infamous Law family. Stephen Law, aka Tun Myint Naing, his Singaporean wife, and his “narco warlord” father are all on OFAC blacklists, officially called the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. All three are also listed in similar European Union travel bans and sanctions lists.
Transocean International’s corporate 8-K filing with the SEC on November 2 showed that Chinese state-run energy company CNOOC hired Transocean’s semi-submersible Actinia, a Panamanian-registered drilling rig, to operate in Burma from October to December.
According to the CNOOC website, all of the firm’s stakes in Burma’s gas industry are held in partnership with China Focus Development (formerly known as Golden Aaron) and China Global Construction, with CNOOC as the operator. China Focus Development is a privately owned Singapore-registered firm whose sole shareholders are Stephen Law and his wife, Ng Sor Hong, aka Cynthia Ng. The US and EU sanctions list show Ng Sor Hong to be chief executive of the firm, which is also among more than a dozen companies controlled by Law on the OFAC blacklist of banned Burma-related entities.
Law’s Sino-Burmese father Lao Sit Han, aka Lo Hsing Han, is believed by US drug-trafficking analysts to have controlled one of Southeast Asia’s best-armed narcotics militias during the 1970’s. After coming to an understanding with the Burmese regime, Lao Sit Han moved to Rangoon where he reportedly used the profits from his drug empire to expand into other areas including operating ports through the family controlled Asia World, a US blacklisted firm over which Lao Sit Han is chairman.
Stephen Law is the managing director of Asia World and is believed to be the driving force behind what has become of one of Burma’s largest conglomerates. As well as running Burma’s largest deepwater port, the firm owns lucrative toll highways, hotels and is also involved in many construction projects, including building Rangoon’s Traders Hotel and refurbishing the Rangoon airport.
According to a Febuary 2008 statement by the US Treasury department: “In addition to their support for the Burmese regime, Steven Law and Lo Hsing Han have a history of involvement in illicit activities.”
“Lo Hsing Han, known as the ‘Godfather of Heroin’, has been one of the world’s key heroin traffickers dating back to the early 1970s. Steven Law joined his father’s drug empire in the 1990s and has since become one of the wealthiest individuals in Burma,” the Treasury statement said.
Transocean predicts any penalty would be limited
Referring to the OFAC probe into their Burmese dealings and a similar one regarding the firm’s activities relating to Iran, Transocean stated in its filing that: “We do not expect the liability, if any, resulting from these inquiries to have a material adverse effect on our consolidated statement of financial position, results of operations or cash flows.”
Wong Aung said that he hoped that Transocean was justly punished for their apparent violation of US sanctions against Burma and the Law narcotics clan. He told Mizzima: “I’m sure Transocean will fight hard to get out of this, and I hope they aren’t just given a slap on the wrist but a meaningful penalty that will send a clear message to multinational firms not to engage in business with the Burmese regime and one of Asia’s most notorious narco [narcotics-profit] laundering families.”
He said the “Transocean investigation should be a wake-up call for the US government to more stringently monitor what firms are doing in Burma and other places of concern. Both the Treasury department and the SEC must force multinational firms to be more transparent about their activities overseas. Far too often Western firms are allowed to ignore sanctions using offshore subsidiaries and secret contracts; even their large institutional shareholders don’t know what the firms are necessarily doing in Burma.”
Mizzima was unable to reach Transocean or OFAC by the time this story was completed.
Driller’s vague denial challenged
The New York Times reported on July 7 that Transocean had claimed in a statement sent to the paper that the firm had not violated US sanctions on Burma because neither Stephen Law nor his father’s names appeared in their contract with CNOOC. The statement failed to confirm or deny whether his wife, Ng Sor Hong, or the firm she heads, China Focus, appeared in Transocean’s contract.
Rights activist Wong Aung told Mizzima that Transocean’s statement was misleading. “The New York Times only reported that Transocean claims Stephen Law and his father weren’t mentioned in the CNOOC Burma contract. It’s interesting that there is no discussion of whether the contract mentions Law’s wife Ng Sor Hong and the US blacklisted company she heads that co-owns the rights to the gas block with CNOOC.
“It’s extremely unlikely that such a contract would not state who co-owns the gas rights to the area where the drilling would occur. The US and Swiss government must force Transocean to fully disclose the text of this contract,” Wong Aung said.
The company’s statement to the Times also included the cryptic claim that: “No Transocean affiliate that is subject to the US ban has ever done business in Myanmar [Burma].” As Transocean, formely based in the US, is now headquartered in landlocked Switzerland (where the Swiss press reported that it employs a mere 12 people), and the Actinia rig sent to drill for CNOOC is registered in Panama, Transocean will likely argue that is not subject to US sanctions. The fact that the OFAC has launched an investigation shows that the US government thinks otherwise.
Other Swiss firm fined for violating US sanctions on Burma, Iran
Credit Suisse, a major Swiss bank with considerable business in the US agreed last December to pay an unprecedented US$536 million fine after sanctions enforcers at the OFAC concluded the bank had violated American financial sanctions against Iran, Burma, Libya, Sudan, Cuba and the former Liberian regime of Charles Taylor. On announcing the settlement, US Attorney General Eric Holder said the bank had illegally enabled countries under sanctions to circumvent the bans by creating “a business model to allow these rogue players access to US dollars”.
Although the US government investigation found that most of the violations related to transactions with Iran, Credit Suisse, under the terms of the settlement, admitted that it had illegally sent money to Burma on 30 occasions. Credit Suisse also acknowledged that over a 20-year period it had sent illegally a total of more than US$1.6 billion in funds to the sanctions-bound countries.
Saturday, 14 August 2010 02:00 Myint Maung
New Delhi (Mizzima) – Burma’s main junta-backed political party is reportedly giving agricultural loans to farmers in Kungyangone Township, Rangoon Division at the rate of 50,000 Kyat per acre. The loan was apparently conditional upon them
signing a statement vowing to join and vote for the party.
Farmers can borrow from the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) for a maximum of five acres (two hectares) at 2 per cent interest, a farmer from Seikphyu told Mizzima.
USDP campaigners were apparently extending a policy used in other areas of Burma, tying such soft loans to votes, now to farmers in villages including Painetan, Phayalayngu, Zaphyuthan, Bantbwaygone, Tawkhayangyi, Tawkhanlay, Tawbuugyi,
Khalauksan, Khalauktayar villages in Kungyangone Township.
“They told all eligible voters of these farmers’ families to vote for the USDP,” the farmer from Seikphyu said. “Village Peace and Development Council chairmen forced some of these families to sign on papers during door-to-door visits. So some of them unwittingly the paper and filled in their names.”
The canvassers gave loans only to farmers who vowed to join the party and vote for it in the upcoming nationwide elections, Burma’s first for two decades on November 7.
“They didn’t lend money to everyone. They lent money only after getting the promise to vote for the USDP. Those who refused didn’t get the money … [But] if the entire village joined the party, the total amount of the agricultural loans would be too high”,
a farmer from Kungyangone said.
The township is the constituency reserved for Energy Minister Lun Thi in upcoming election.
The party was reported earlier to be spending public money in other townships in Rangoon Division through such means as building roads, bridges, health clinics, while other political parties face harassment from local authorities.
Union of Myanmar Federation of National Politics (UMFNP) and 88 Generation Students and Youths (Union of Myanmar) recently conducted election campaign in Hlaingtharyar Township and local authorities later questioned the people the parties’
canvassers had met.
“As soon as our party organisers left their canvassing area, USDP members and authorities including the police went to every house our canvassers had paid calls on and one by one gave the reason they were just collecting information,” UMFNP
chairman Aye Lwin told Mizzima. “But the people have been scared off [supportingus] and it has severely affected our campaign. This is happening all the time.”
Other incidences of intimidation were reported this week. On Thursday, Mizzima reported that the Union Election Commission (UEC) had
handed to Special Branch police Democratic Party (Myanmar) (DPM) member lists it had submitted to the UEC last week. Officers later visited each home of the members listed and collected their personal information, along with two passport photos.
“They shouldn’t carry on like this at all. This is a thinly veiled threat against our party members. They seem be trying to scare our would-be members to stay away from us,” DPM chairman Thu Wei said.
The party’s precursor, the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), was established in 1993 as social organisation with junta leader Senior General Than Shwe as patron. Its funds were then transferred to its political partner grouping, the USDP, after it became political party on July 6. Critics say its 17 top leaders including current prime minister, Thein Sein, resigned from top military ranks to continue a charade that Burma would have a civilian government should the party win, which looks inevitable given institutional bias and the party’s massive election war chest.
The USDA, often compared with Hitler’s Brown Shirts, was part of the junta’s “people’s war strategy” to create a “people’s militia” to protect the transition process (from military to civilian government) from “internal and external” threats. The 2008 constitution’s section 340 lays out the role of the “people’s military” under the leadership of the defence forces.
The State Law and Order Restoration Council (Slorc), the official name of the military regime of Burma that seized power in 1988, was the USDA’s original patron until it was abolished in 1997 to be reconstituted as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), the junta’s current name for itself. The USDA received direct and indirect financial and logistical support from the junta and was best known for its anti-democratic rallies and activities.
One of its most notable abuses was when at least 5,000 of its members attacked National League for Democracy members’ taking part in Aung San Suu Kyi’s roadshow convoy in Depayin, in May 2003. At least 70 people associated with the NLD were killed in a well-organised attack by the government-sponsored mob.
Reports circulated at the time were that the USDA had played a key role in what was described as a murder attempt against Suu Kyi.
In the September 2007 anti-junta protests across Burma, USDA members blocked roads and harassed and detained monks and civilians as they took to the streets.
Last December, around 20 USDA members attacked the Union of Myanmar National Political League members during an election-campaign talk show in Ahlat Chaung village, in Kyimyindine Township.
When it stood as a social organisation it had 15,421 branch offices across the country with more than 24 million members, according to official statements. Its students and civil servants had to resign their memberships when it was made transformed into a political party.
By SHWE AUNG
Published: 16 August 2010
Water levels have fallen by half in Burma’s second largest lake following a severe drought this year that affected much of the country, with temperatures hitting a record high.
Locals around Inle Lake, in Burma’s northeastern Shan state, fear that an annual 18-day pagoda festival, that includes popular boat races, may have to be cancelled this year unless the water level rises by some 1.5 metres in the next two months.
The Phaung Daw Oo festival is southern Shan state’s most important religious celebration, usually held in October each year, but with the average water level now at 1.2 metres, instead of the normal 2.7 metres, many of events may not take place.
The warning comes after a summer of intense heat and drought, in which temperatures in some parts of the country reached 47C, causing hundreds of deaths. Severe water shortages also hit major towns across the country.
Burma is also suffering the effects of intense damming of its major rivers, some of which begin in China. The Mekong River, which separates Shan state from neighbouring Laos, is a lifeline for around 60 million people in Southeast Asia, but is being heavily dammed by China.
The Mekong is at its lowest levels in nearly half a century, but China has strenuously denied any link between this and its hydropower projects along the river. The same concerns have surrounded the Salween River, which also begins in China but cuts through the centre of Shan state and forms one of Burma’s major waterways.
Environmental groups have warned that rare species could be lost if Inle Lake continues to dry up. The expanse of water is home to a number of endemic species of fish and snail, which are not found anywhere else in the world. Four urban areas also border the lake, and are home to some 70,000 people, many of whom rely on the lake for commercial fishing.
The recent drop in water levels feeds into wider concern about the health of the lake, which has lost 32 percent of its water volume over the past 80 years. The effects of this have been compounded by increasing local populations and an intensification of tourism and agriculture on and around the lake, with slash and burn farming practices causing silting of tributary rivers.
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE and DVB
Published: 16 August 2010
Burma’s announcement of the date for elections this year has been met with strong words by the international community, with the US saying there remains “no level playing field” for the polls.
The date for the country’s first elections in 20 years has been set for 7 November, after months of wild speculation and rumours, and even doubt as to whether they would be held this year.
But the UK foreign minister, Jeremy Browne, said that the polls “are set to be held under deeply oppressive conditions designed to perpetuate military rule,” adding that the opportunity for prosperity and an open society “has been missed”.
November will mark the fifth elections since Burma won independence from British rule in 1948, but only the second since a coup in 1962 heralded the start of military rule.
His comments were echoed by US state department spokesman Philip Crowley, who said that “given the oppressive political environment in Burma…[elections] cannot be inclusive or credible under these circumstances.”
The Burmese government has already allocated 166 out of 654 parliamentary seats to military officials, while the constitution stipulates that elected vice presidents must have prior military experience.
The election date, announced by state media on Friday, falls about a week before Aung San Suu Kyi’s current term of house arrest is due to expire on 13 November. Her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), has boycotted the election, while 40 parties have so far been approved to run.
Martin Nesirky, spokesperson for UN chief Ban Ki-moon, said that the secretary general had urged Burma “to release all remaining political prisoners without delay so that they can freely participate in the political life of their country”.
Burma holds some 2,150 political prisoners in jails across the country. Suu Kyi, whose party won the 1990 elections but were never handed power, has been under house arrest for 15 of the past 20 years.
Ban Ki-moon reportedly renewed his appeal to the ruling junta “to honour their publicly stated commitments to hold inclusive, free and fair elections in order to advance the prospects of peace, democracy and development for Myanmar [Burma]”.