BURMA RELATED NEWS – AUGUST 17, 2010
Aug 17th, 2010
Mon Aug 16, 12:44 pm ET
OTTAWA (AFP) – 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.
Posted : Tue, 17 Aug 2010 06:14:47 GMT
Bangkok – Myanmar’s junta is building a 361-kilometre rail link in the Shan State in order to wipe out rebel armies in the remote region, ethnic Shan human rights groups said Tuesday.
According to a report released by the Shan Women’s Action Network and the Shan Human Rights Foundation, the Myanmar army is constructing a rail link between the southern and eastern parts of the Shan State to assert military control over rebel groups in the area, rather than for development purposes as claimed. “The speed and ruthlessness with which the railway is being carved through this isolated border area reveals a much more sinister agenda,” the report said, describing the railway as “an expansion of the Burmese regime’s war apparatus in Shan State.”
Portions of the report were run on the website of Thailand’s The Nation newspaper.
It claimed that thousands of hectares of farmland had been confiscated along the railway route which cuts through territories under the control of the United Wa State Army, Myanmar’s largest rebel group, which claims up to 25,000 troops.
Although the United Wa State Army signed a ceasefire agreement in 1989 with the regime, it has refused to turn itself into a border guard force under the Myanmar’s army command this year.
The refusal could lead to fighting in the near future, as all rebel groups have been ordered to lay down their weapons and become border militias prior to a general election planned on November 7.
The Shan State Army, another rebel group in the region, has never signed a ceasefire with the ruling junta.
“The regime is telling the world that their 2010 elections will bring change to Burma, but on the ground they are digging in for war,” said Shan Human Rights Foundation researcher Puen Kham.
Construction on the Kengtung railroad has been suspended since mid-July due to heavy rains in the area, according to the Shan Herald, a rebel newspaper.
The rail link has been under construction since February. Once completed, the proposed project is expected to pass through Langkher, Mongpan, Mongton, Monghsat, Mongkok and Mongphyak.
The Huffington Post – Thailand Sets a Poor Example to Burma
Robert Amsterdam, International lawyer on emerging markets, politics of business, and rule of law
The announcement by Burma’s notoriously brutal military junta to hold elections this November left many observers scratching their heads: why even bother going through the motions? No one is fooled by this sham, least of all the supporters of political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, whose house arrest order is conspicuously set to conclude just days after the proposed election date. The junta has no intention of holding a real election, notes columnist Jonathan Manthorpe, “so they have constructed a charade aimed at pleasing the gullible without putting their power at risk.”
However, judging by the Obama administration’s silent tolerance of Thailand’s violent military-backed regime, you can’t blame the Burmese generals for thinking that these are the new rules of the game. The “gullible” in Washington are duly earning their title.
Only a decade ago, Thailand was the sole democracy in the region, surpassing every one of its closest neighbors on measures of civil and political rights, religious tolerance, and respect for minority rights. In the intervening time, while most countries in the region have made some incremental progress on economic openness, political freedoms, and adherence to the rule of law, Thailand has spent the better part of the last several years moving in the opposite direction.
Long a staunch US ally and once a reliable partner in the region, under the nose of President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Thailand has morphed into a threat to regional peace and serial human rights abuser. In many respects, Thailand is now more comparable to Burma than it is to a successful emerging democracy like Indonesia.
Since coming to power in December 2008, after a court decision that overturned the result of an election held a year earlier, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s Democrat Party-led government — in concert with its main backers among the country’s top generals, royal advisors, and exclusionary elite — has launched an all-out assault on the basic democratic rights of poorer majority.
There is quite an established record of brutality overlooked by Washington. In late 2008, just weeks after Abhisit became Prime Minister, the international media uncovered a story of gruesome human rights abuses committed by the Thai authorities against Rohingya refugees. After days of mistreatment, the Thai military towed the refugees out to the high seas, leaving them to die of hunger and thirst on barges with no engines or navigational equipment. It was estimated that as many as five hundred of them had died as a result of the Royal Thai Army’s actions. Instead of investigating the affair, the Prime Minister rushed to dismiss the well-documented allegations.
In terms of freedom of expression, Thailand is moving closer to the Burmese model every day. The government has censored virtually every source of alternative information, including the opposition’s TV station, dozens of community radios, and as many as 50,000 websites that were blocked or shut down by the authorities. There’s also been an increase in the abuse of repressive legislation such as Thailand’s draconian le?se majeste? laws and the Computer Crimes Act. The year 2009 saw a record number of prosecutions for crimes of conscience ? the courts are reported to have accepted charges of le?se majeste? for 164 cases ? as well as the conviction of activists such as Darunee Charnchoensilpakul (”Da Torpedo”), who was sentenced on August 28 to eighteen years in prison for three charges of lèse majesté (one per offending comment) stemming from a speech she gave in July 2008.
International NGOs are beginning to take notice of the repression of free speech, from the Committee to Protect Journalists to Reporters Without Borders. Owing to the ongoing campaign of persecution and harassment of political opponents, in January 2010 Human Rights Watch lamented the “serious backsliding” observed in Thailand’s human rights record over the course of Abhisit’s tenure in office. By all accounts, the hounding of political opponents is only intensifying. Juti Krai-rirk, the new Minister of Information and Communication Technology, has recently promised the continuation of the crackdown, on the grounds that “the government has given too much freedom for its citizens.”
Of an altogether more serious nature is the campaign of violence, extra-judicial executions, and illegal detentions that the Abhisit administration has unleashed against its opponents, chiefly among them the “Red Shirts” of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) — an organization that sprung up in opposition against the 2006 coup. The government’s campaign against the opposition has resulted in the death of almost a hundred unarmed protesters and the injury of approximately two thousand people.
The first major episode of repression took place in April 2009, when the Abhisit administration carried out a violent dispersal of Red Shirt demonstrations in Bangkok. The Red Shirts organized still more massive demonstrations beginning on March 14, 2010. Following a botched crackdown of April 10, which left twenty-seven people dead, the Red Shirts were finally dispersed on May 19, after a weeklong crackdown that saw the military fire thousands of live rounds on unarmed protesters, innocent by-standers, emergency medical workers, and journalists. Despite repeated accusations of “terrorism” leveled at the UDD, no security forces died during the operations in May, while none of the fifty-five additional people gunned down by the authorities proved to have been carrying weapons. As Reporters Without Borders (RSF) put it, the Thai government gave the army a “license to kill” the demonstrators, which the security forces used to “run roughshod over international law and Thai legislation protecting civilians.”
The military is once again in control of the country. Unlike in the aftermath of the 2006 coup, it governs under the cover of law – more specifically, thanks to the abuse of repressive legislation allowing the new junta to place itself beyond any form of accountability. The current government’s abuse of emergency powers in fact marks the wholesale subversion of the rule of law absent the formal declaration of a coup. The government’s pretense of legality notwithstanding, one should make no mistake about it: the imposition and subsequent indefinite extension of the Emergency Decree marks the staging of a silent (if unacceptably violent) coup on the part of the Abhisit administration and its military backers.
Earlier in the year, the highly reputable international organization Freedom House reported that Thailand could not be classified as an “electoral democracy” (much less a “liberal democracy”) owing to the constant interference of the military in the political process as well as the Abhisit’s insistence on governing the country in the absence of an electoral mandate. Freedom House ranked Thailand as “partly free,” assigning scores on Political Rights and Civil Liberties identical to Venezuela’s (and worse than troubled countries in South and Southeast Asia such as Bangladesh, Nepal, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka). While Freedom House’s rating underscores the marked deterioration of Thailand’s democracy (Thailand was considered a “Free” country as late as 2005), the 2010 figures do not reflect the giant leap into authoritarianism Thailand has made over the last six months, which have brought Thailand more in line with countries like Russia and Iran.
It is a sad irony that at the same time the Burmese junta agreed to hold an election (albeit one that is likely to be deeply flawed) the Thai junta would consider murdering a hundred people and violating its international obligations to be preferable to holding an election of its own. Moreover, whereas the prospect of regional volatility raised by the actions of the PAD and Democrat Party has greatly alarmed Thailand’s major trading partners, the country’s authoritarian reversal is guaranteed to damage the international community’s attempt to promote democracy in the region.
Thus far, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have failed to utter a single word about the destruction of democracy in Thailand, while the US House of Representatives passed a bland resolution praising the government’s fraudulent “reconciliation” plan. Having failed to do anything to stop Thailand’s transformation into a rogue regime, it is time that the US government re-assess its stance and use its leverage to persuade the authorities in Bangkok to end emergency rule, end the systematic repression of opposition voices, and eventually hold elections. While history has shown repeatedly just how important Southeast Asia is to the United States’ national interest, letting the Thai regime get away with murder further threatens to compromise regional peace and stability. What is more, a little pressure might go a long way towards promoting democratic values in a country where democracy is now in a state of complete disrepair.
Robert Amsterdam is an international lawyer retained by the former Prime Minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra to advocate on behalf of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD
Pharmaniaga Eyes Thailand, Myanmar Marts
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 17 (Bernama) — Pharmaniaga Bhd, which has a presence in Vietnam and Indonesia, plans to enter Thailand and Myanmar by the second-half of next year.
“We are now evaluating the markets and in the process of registering our products there,” said managing director, Mohamad Abdullah, at a media briefing here Tuesday.
Mohamad said the registration process would take up to two years and the company was looking at registering more products.
On its future plans, he said, the company’s main growth strategies would be to grow organically, focus on operational excellence as well as capacity enhancement.
He said the company would also continue to focus on expanding into new markets and developing new products.
Mohamad said the company expected to record higher revenue and profit.
However, he declined to elaborate.
Pharmaniaga’s pre-tax profit for the second quarter ended June 30, 2010 fell to RM20.3 million from RM24.3 million in the same quarter last year.
Its revenue, however, increased by 5.1 per cent to RM350.3 million from RM333.2 million last year, mainly due to higher sales from the government sector.
He said lower pre-tax profit was due to higher selling and distribution expenses and personnel costs.
Mohamad said the pharmaceutical industry was expected to grow by between eight and 10 per cent every year on the continuous demand for medicine and generic products.
He said the industry was a recession-proof and the demand for medicine would continue to grow.
Published on August 16, 2010
Junta takes advantage of the fact few outsiders really care, as shown by the weak response to other suspect polls
The Burmese junta has finally fixed November 7 for their much anticipated election. No other poll in a developing country could receive such global attention and scrutiny. The junta’s sole objective seems to have been trying to use this outcome for its own survival and perpetuating its oppression. The regime has already succeeded in scheduling the election date – indeed many feared it would be postponed or may not happen again. Now that the election is going to take place, the world has to decide if it is free, fair and inclusive. Indeed, the junta does not seem to care if opinions elsewhere in the world are divided.
The Burmese generals know full well the gullibility of the international community, especially Western nations, when it comes to Burma and its plight since 1988. So, they play along with the Western hypocrisy. On the surface, all of them regularly condemn the upcoming poll as a sham because it is not going to be free, fair or inclusive. Deep down, some of them continue to work with the regime for business and other interests. They have a new mantra to assist the regime by branding their assistance as humanitarian.
Obviously, this time the regime has worked out a system whereby only its own parties will win many votes. Lessons have been learnt from the previous election two decades ago. At the moment, the junta has put in place all mechanisms that will deliver an electoral triumph to its cronies. And the opposition has been annihilated. Just look at the fate of the now-defunct National League of Democracy, the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, who still languishes under house arrest. The NLD used to be the most credible political force in the country, having won the 1990 election in a landslide. Lots of complaints of electoral discriminations are being heard. As the election date draws near, there will be more.
The saddest part is that in the end, whatever the poll’s outcome, the world, and especially Asean, are likely to accept it after a period of criticism. In case of Asean, it has no other option. After all, since its admission 13 years ago, Burma is part of the Asean family. No wonder, the grouping has protected Burma, even though it has constantly tarnished the group’s overall reputation. Ironically, Asean may be the first to congratulate the regime for carrying out the poll, because its member states are fading on this issue. The group no longer wants to the Burmese mess on its annual agenda.
Since the international community has paid so much attention to the election as an important ingredient in democratic development, the Burmese regime will deliver just that. Never mind, if the poll is highly orchestrated or rigged. Who really cares? Recent elections in Sudan and Afghanistan have already provided us with very good examples concerning how the West reacts as these polls served the overall purpose. The convention wisdom still is and will remain the same: a bad election is better than no election. That remains the biggest flaw in the mind-set of the international community.
Of course, the Burmese voters could make a difference. Nobody should underestimate their judgement. Unfortunately, they are not free to speak out and pick their choices. In other Asian countries, voters are free to exercise their rights! In Burma, they are under the regime’s stringent control. Everybody knows if the election is free and held in a fair environment, there is no way the junta would win.
The Nation – Death railway in Burma’s Shan State
Published on August 17, 2010
Shan human rights organisations on Tuesday accused the Burmese government of carrying out a sinister agenda aimed at wiping out rebel armies and strengthen its grip on the country’s ethnic nationalities in the name of development.
In a report released today, the Shan Women’s Action Network (Swan) and the Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF) dismissed the claim that the construction of a new 361-kilometre railway between southern and eastern Shan State will promote development and facilitate passenger travel.
“The speed and ruthlessness with which the railway is being carved through this isolated border area reveal a much more sinister agenda,” the report said.
The group denounced the project, calling it “an expansion of the Burmese regime’s war apparatus in Shan State.”
The two organisations have documented how thousands of acres of farmlands have been confiscated along the route and that farmers have been threatened with prison should they complain about this army project.
The railway cuts strategically between the northern and southern territories of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Burma’s biggest ceasefire group, which has resisted pressure by the junta to surrender their weapons and become a Border Guard Force under the command of the country’s army.
The new line will enable rapid deployment of heavy artillery into this remote mountainous region in the event of an offensive against the UWSA or other ethnic resistance forces, according to the report. UWSA is a 25,000-strong ethnic army that entered a ceasefire agreement with the junta in 1989.
“This is not a passenger railway, it’s for the army’s tanks and howitzers,” the report quoted Ying Harn Fah of Swan as saying.
“The regime is telling the world that their 2010 elections will bring change to Burma, but on the ground they are digging in for war,” said SHRF researcher Puen Kham. “Burma’s neighbours should think twice about investing in these war zones.”
According to the report, the railway will pass through the Mong Kok coalfields, opposite Thailand’s Chiang Rai province. The field is a joint investment between Thai businessmen and Burmese authorities to excavate millions of tons of lignite and build a power plant to sell electricity to Thailand.
Swan and SHRF are urging Thai and potential investors to reconsider their business plan in this project.
Published: 15/08/2010 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News
After months of waiting the Burmese military government announced it would hold the country’s first elections since 1990 on Nov 7 this year. The announcement was made on government radio and television stations, and it gave political parties until the end of this month to submit their candidate lists.
Absolutely no one believes the election process will be free or fair, but there is still debate on whether they might advance the cause of democratisation in the country, however incrementally. The leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and other NLD leaders have, not surprisingly, taken a principled stand and called for a boycott of the election. The NLD was formally dissolved by the government after it failed to register for the electoral process on May 6.
A breakaway faction of the NLD _ the National Democratic Force _ did receive a permit to field candidates in July, however.
The leader of the NDF, Khin Maung Swe, has said the new party will continue the struggle for democracy, but he gave no policy details.
The division within the NLD reflects a wider split in opinion among pundits, political analysts and pro-democracy leaders outside Burma on whether the highly restricted elections can have any value in bringing much-needed change. It is difficult to know for certain because Burma is such a closed society, but it is likely that this question is also foremost in the minds of the Burmese general public.
As the critics claim, the framework of the electoral process has been carefully tailored to legitimise the military rule under a new guise of civilian rule.
Fully one-quarter of the 440 parliamentary seats will be reserved outright for members of the military. Many of the remaining candidates are recently ”retired” military officers, including the prime minister and 22 other ministers who left their military posts in April.
Moreover, the junta-written constitution calls for the creation of a National Defence and Security Council to be controlled by the military commander in chief, now General Than Shwe, which will have the power to overrule the ”civilian” government.
If all this isn’t enough, it is clear that newly formed parties that toe the military line are being given resources and special privileges, while those that don’t are facing severe restrictions.
This includes pro-democracy parties as well as parties formed to advance the agendas of the many ethnic groups in the country.
And then there are the election laws which bar the candidacy of Mrs Suu Kyi and some 2,000 more political prisoners.
Given all these intentional obstacles to free and fair elections in Burma, it would seem that Mrs Suu Kyi and the rest of the NLD faithful are probably correct in choosing to boycott rather than participate in the charade. That leaves the question of what, if anything, can be done to bring about progress in democratisation and, perhaps even more importantly, respect for the principles of human rights. The answer remains that until the international community acts together to put direct pressure on the Burmese military government through its primary sources of funding it will be very difficult to bring about change from within.
As a member of Asean, Thailand has lately been more vocal in urging free and fair elections in Burma. Yet the state-owned PTT Exploration and Production recently announced its plans to enter a project with Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise to develop five petroleum fields in the Gulf of Martaban off Burma. There are also plans for a Thai-Burmese initiative to build a deep-sea port at Dawei (Tavoy).
Meanwhile, successive US governments have had strong criticism for the Burmese junta and imposed broad sanctions, yet the operations of the US-based Chevron Corporation, which provide a major source of revenue for the junta, always somehow escape notice.
In late July Gen Than Shwe ended a five-day visit to India in which he signed several pacts to boost economic cooperation between the two countries. These are just a few areas where members of the international community could place principles above profitability and use their economic leverage to nudge Burma toward real change.
Last update 22:36, Tuesday, 17/08/2010 (GMT+7)
VietNamNet Bridge – The Almaz Collective will open an exhibition called On/Off, featuring Myanmar contemporary art, at Almaz Hotel’s seventh floor at 21/52 To Ngoc Van Street, Tay Ho District, Hanoi on August 19 and 20.
The exhibition will display works of nine prominent Myanmar artists: Aung Pyi Sone, Maung Day, Moe Satt, M.S.O, Nge Lay, San Min, Than hay Maung, Thu Rein,, and Wah Nu.
Meetings with curator and artist Moe Satt, and artists Nge Lay, M.S.O, Thu Rein, and Wah Nu will be held during the two-day exhibition.
The artists, whose work covers three different periods of Myanmar from 1974 until now, will display installations, videos, photography, and performance.
The name “On/Off” refers to the quick moment between the time when something is switched on and then switched off. It is that short moment that artists and audiences share together.
The Almaz Collective is an arts association dedicated to the independent and free sharing of videos, photos, sketches, paintings, and writings in Hanoi.
News Date: 17th August 2010 South Korea will talk about possible nuclear cooperation between Myanmar and North Korea when a senior diplomat visits the Southeast Asian country next week, the foreign ministry here announced Monday.
Vice Foreign Minister Shin Kak-soo is scheduled to visit Myanmar from Aug. 19-21,
where he will deliver Seoul’s message encouraging fair elections on Nov. 7, according to ministry spokesman Kim Young-son. The elections will be the country’s first in two decades.
Shin is also expected to address the suspected nuclear ties between Myanmar and North Korea.
“Our government is keeping a close eye on possible military cooperation between Myanmar and North Korea, including nuclear cooperation,” Kim said. “We’re working with the United States and other relevant states but we have not yet
confirmed anything regarding nuclear ties. But Shin will have discussions on North Korea-Myanmar relations of late during his visit.”
North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun visited his Myanmarian counterpart U Nyan Win in late July, the first trip to the Southeast Asian country by a North Korean foreign minister in 27 years, amid U.S. warnings to Myanmar against nuclear cooperation with the North.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was once quoted as saying, “We continue to be
concerned by the reports that Burma may be seeking assistance from North Korea with
regard to a nuclear program,” referring to Myanmar by its former name.
State Department spokesman Philip Crowley also said the U.S. doesn’t “see the transparency” in the Myanmar-North Korea ties and that Myanmar has
obligations to avoid engaging North Korea, which he called “a serial proliferator.”
Myanmar severed ties with North Korea in 1983 after Pyongyang’s bombing of a South
Korean presidential delegation on its visit to the Southeast Asian nation. Relations were restored in 2007.
By Julie Vorman and Laurel Adams | August 16, 2010, 4:46 pm
TransOcean Ltd., the offshore drilling company facing numerous investigations about its rig explosion and the ensuing BP oil spill, says the U.S. Treasury Department subpoenaed the company for information about its operations in Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma.
In an August 4 regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, TransOcean said it “recently received an administrative subpoena” from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). That office is responsible for enforcing U.S. economic sanctions and trade restrictions against Myanmar, Cuba and other countries.
“We are cooperating with OFAC and believe that all of our operations fully comply with applicable laws,” TransOcean said in the filing. The company also said it did not expect any material adverse effect on its financial position from the OFAC investigation, which it did not detail.
Spokesmen for OFAC and TransOcean were not immediately available for comment.
A November 2009 regulatory filing by TransOcean showed its Actinia rig was under contract to China’s CNOOC Ltd. for use in Myanmar at a rate of $206,000 per day through May 2010.
U.S. sanctions against Myanmar date back to 1997 and prohibit Americans from investing in the country or helping foreigners invest there.
TransOcean had already self-reported to OFAC a potential violation of the U.S. ban on trade with Iran. A shipment of goods bound for a TransOcean rig in Turkmenistan was shipped through Iran by a freight forwarder, according to the company, which said it hired an outside lawyer to investigate the matter.
The owner of the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon rig leased by BP in the Gulf of Mexico, TransOcean is involved in investigations by the Interior Department, the Coast Guard, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Justice Department, and the Chemical Safety Board. In its SEC filing earlier this month, TransOcean said it was subpoenaed by the Interior Department’s office of inspector general about the April explosion that triggered the massive oil spill.
UPDATE — 8/16/10: A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department’s OFAC said that it is the department’s policy not to comment on its investigations.
By KO HTWE – Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Stickers bearing the portrait of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and urging people not to vote in the November election are appearing throughout Rangoon.
The stickers, bearing the message “It is our right to vote or not to vote in the 2010 election,” are part of a boycott campaign launched by the activist movement Generation Wave. They are appearing in public places ranging from bus shelters to shopping centers.
Generation Wave launched the campaign on August 12 in various parts of Rangoon, including Dagon Myothit, Insein, Hlaing Tharyar, and Mingaladon Townships, and Bayint-Naung wholesale market, Yuzana Plaza and Dagon shopping centers.
The group’s spokesman, Pyae Sone Win, told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday: “The objective of our campaign is to give a message to people, especially the youth, that they have the right not to vote.”
Generation Wave was formed by young activists, who secretly record and distribute anti-government music albums across Burma. It claims allegiance to no political party or movement, although its members have one thing in common, a deep respect for Suu Kyi.
The election laws prohibit Suu Kyi and more than 2,000 other political prisoners from participating in the election.
Suu Kyi has said the election is “absolutely unlikely” to be free and fair, and political parties will not have enough time to campaign.
In March, her National League for Democracy, decided not to register as a political party for the election, saying it would not be free and fair.
Some registered political parties are facing chicanery by the Election Commission (EC). One, the Democratic Party, has written to the EC complaining of official intimidation after the EC passed the list of the party’s members to the police Special Branch. The Union Democratic Party chairman, Phyo Min Thein, has resigned, saying the election will not be free and fair.
By KO HTWE – Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Burma’s election will be insignificant without the participation of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, according to Htay Kywe, one of the imprisoned leaders of the 88 Generation Students group, who is currently serving a 65-year sentence in western Burma.
The message was relayed by Htay Kywe’s brother-in-law, Phyo Min Thein, who spoke to The Irrawaddy on Tuesday. Phyo Min Thein recently resigned from the Union Democratic Party and paid a family visit on Aug. 9 to Htay Kywe in remote Buthitaung Prison in Arakan State.
“There will be more confusion and disputes at an international level if the election is held without Aung San Suu Kyi,” Phyo Min Thein said on behalf of his brother-in-law. “The disdvantages outweigh the advantages.”
He said that Htay Kywe called on the army, political forces, pro-democracy parties and ethnic groups to work together toward an “all inclusive” solution to the country’s political problems.
Phyo Min Thein said that while he spoke to Htay Kywe in prison, several officers from special branch police monitored them.
Htay Kywe was first arrested in 1991 and incarcerated in Rangoon’s notorious Insein Prison for 15 years. He was transferred to Tharrawaddy Prison in 1995 and finished his jail term in July 2001. But he was continually detained by authorities under the “Protection of the State from Threat Act” (10 A), which allows the military authorities the right to detain suspects arbitrarily.
After his release, Htay Kywe co-founded the 88 Generation Students group along with Min Ko Naing, Ko Ko Gyi, Min Zeya and Pyone Cho. From 2005 to 2007, the group conducted several nonviolent activities, including group visits to political prisoners’ homes and holding Buddhist ceremonies at Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon commemorating political prisoners.
Htay Kywe, Min Ko Naing, Ko Ko Gyi, Pyone Cho (aka Htay Win Aung), Mya Aye, Htay Kywe, Hla Myo Naung, Aung Thu, Nyan Lin and Aung Naing (aka Myo Aung Naing) were each sentenced on Nov. 11, 2007, at a court session in Maubin, southwest of Rangoon, to 65 years in prison for their roles in the anti-government uprising in 2007.
Min Ko Naing and Ko Ko Gyi were transferred to Kengtung Prison in Shan State, 735 miles (1,1750 km) northeast of Rangoon; Mya Aye was transferred to Loikaw Prison in Karenni State, eastern Burma; Pyone Cho was transferred to Kawthaung Prison in Tenasserim Division in southern Burma; Hla Myo Naung was transferred to Myitkyina Prison in Kachin State, 900 miles (1,440 km) north of Rangoon; Aung Thu was transferred to Putao Prison in Kachin State; and Aung Naing was transferred to Kalaymyo Prison in Sagaing Division, 680 miles (1,088 km) north of Rangoon.
Buthitaung Prison is notorious for its harsh treatment of political prisoners and its severely cold weather.
“Htay Kywe has lost a lot of weight and his eyesight is a little poor,” said Phyo Min Thein. “He spends his time reading and meditating. He is also studying economics.”
Tuesday, 17 August 2010 21:23 Ko Wai and Khaing Suu
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – With just 13 days left for parties to submit candidate names to the junta’s electoral body, lack of funds has driven many to reduce the number of contestants to enter Burma’s first elections in 20 years on November 7, party leaders say.
The junta’s electoral watchdog, the Union Election Commission (UEC), on Friday announced the election dates, designated constituencies for parliament and called on political parties to submit their candidate lists between August 16 and August 30. The period was too short for the political parties and was causing them problems, the leaders said.
“For our party, only the rich can be candidates because of the short time period [allowed]. Most of the potential candidates don’t have money. It’s very difficult to collect funds”, Democratic Party (Myanmar) chairman Thu Wai told Mizzima.
At first, the party had aimed to find about 200 candidates to stand in the upcoming polls, but the party needed to reduce the numbers of the candidates because every candidate needed to pay 500,000 Kyat (about US$500) to the junta’s electoral commission.
The Democratic Party (Myanmar) will contest in the Irrawaddy, Mandalay, Rangoon and Tenasserim divisions and Mon and Arakan states.
Rakhine Nationals Progressive Party executive member Tha Hla Aung, who will contest the Pouktaw constituency of Arakan State, said: “I must ask for 500,000 Kyat (about US$500) from my family. And I need to spend about one million Kyat for the electoral campaign. My party cannot give that amount of money.”
Similarly, Nyo Min Lwin – the Peace and Diversity Party (PDP) chairman, who lives in Thingangyun Township in Rangoon but will contest a seat in Pyinmana Township, Mandalay – said that although he estimated he would need about 1.5-2 million Kyat ahead of the election, he lacked the 500,000 Kyat (about US$500) to register as a candidate.
In keeping with section 16 of the junta’s party registration laws, a party needs to contest in at least three constituencies for it to survive, so PDP first vice-chairman Sandar Oo will contest in Bogalay Township, Irrawaddy Division, general secretary Nay Myo Wai will stand in Mingaladon Township, Rangoon and joint general secretary Aung Myo Oo will contest in Kyeemyindaing Township, Rangoon.
Further examples of party poverty were described by 88 Generation Student Youths (Union of Myanmar) vice-chaiman Than Oo, who said that most parties were in a state of chaos because of the time constraints and that his party had also encountered financial problems. They were forced to rethink which of their 100 nominated candidates should stand.
Some candidates even have to front their own fees. National Democratic Force (NDF) candidate Khin Maung Yi, who will contest in the Ahlone constituency in Rangoon Division, would deposit 500,000 Kyat to the commission with his own money, he said.
From money limits to time, parties are also railing against the short period they will be allowed in their bids to win electorates over. Electoral rules state every party may withdraw their lists of standing candidates before September 3, and they can then start campaigning, but this leaves them only two months to conduct campaigns.
Thu Wai, the former chairman of the dissolved Democracy Party, which stood in the 1990 elections, and a former political prisoner of the ruling military junta, said the period assigned to conduct electoral campaigns was very short.
“In the 1990 election, we had enough time … We could conduct campaigning freely and did not need to rush as he had about one year to out on the hustings for the 1990 election”, he said.
People did not like the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), so the more time allowed other parties to conduct the electoral campaigns, the less votes the USDP would win, which was why the UEC had limited the time period, Thu Wai said.
PDP chief Nyo Min Lwin, who was born in Pyinmana, two miles (3.2 kilometres) east of the junta’s capital of Naypydiaw, said that his main rival in his Pyinmana constituency was from the USDP, but that he was unconcerned because he had siblings and relatives in the town. He had conducted electoral campaigns there in 1990, so he had a lot of experience, he said adding that his party had five candidates.
“I’ll visit to villages on a motorcycle to conduct electoral campaigning. I’ll circulate pamphlets about my political philosophies, biographies and future plans for our country,” he said. “Moreover, I’ll talk to them in person. But, I don’t have money to build stages to preach.”
PDP leaders will meet at Aung Myo Oo’s house next Tuesday and will then submit their lists of candidates and the required 1,000 party members and pay the fees at the UEC head office in Naypyidaw before August 29.
Tha Hla Aung said members his party’s main rival, the USDP, had received sweetheart deals on permits to run fishery and agricultural businesses so local residents in Arakan State were against them. Arakanese wanted to support Arakanese ethnic parties such as his, so he was unconcerned about success in the upcoming elections.
The UEC on Friday has set the election date for November 7. Forty of the 47 political parties were granted permission to form, the rest had either been rejected or were awaiting a decision. Just 15 political parties have submitted lists of party members.
By HTET AUNG KYAW
Published: 16 August 2010
Financial problems and time constraints mean that the opposition National Democratic Force (NDF) will no longer eye victory in Burma’s elections this year.
Instead the party will look to act as a counterweight to what appears increasingly likely to be an extension of military rule in Burma, under the guise of a civilian government.
The government announced last week that the polls would be held on 7 November this year, while boundaries for 330 constituencies have been drawn. On top of this, 110 parliamentary seats will be reserved for unelected military officials.
Thein Nyunt, deputy chair of the NDF, said that there were still a number of obstacles to navigate before being able to effectively contest the country’s first polls in two decades.
Election laws stipulate that a party must begin submitting its list of candidates today, each of whom is required to pay a 500,000 kyat (US$500) registration fee.
“To submit that list of candidates, we will have to go to a judge and obtain his confirmation to verify the list,” he said. “We will have to approach ward-level Election Commissions to verify the residency of the candidates, and so forth. The documentation process alone will take about a week. There are many challenges.”
The NDF is due to compete for seats in some 50 constituencies across Burma, out of a total of 330. Each party must have at least 1,000 members, and Thein Nyunt said that time constraints will make it difficult to fight for votes in its targeted constituencies, adding that NDF leaders may not even be able to meet with party candidates.
“Under the present circumstances, all we can do now is to tell each of our candidates to deposit 500,000 kyat with the township Election Commission to contest the election.
“Since we have to come up with the 1,000 members and also prepare to enter the elections all at the same time, we can only try to become a strong opposition force in the parliament rather than win outright.”