BURMA RELATED NEWS – AUGUST 18, 2010
Aug 18th, 2010
Wed Aug 18, 8:56 am ET
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Obama administration has decided to support the creation of a United Nations commission to look into alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Myanmar.
The White House said in a statement Wednesday that it believes the commission could advance the cause of human rights in Myanmar, also known as Burma, by “addressing issues of accountability for responsible senior members of the Burmese regime.”
By supporting the U.N. inquiry, the Obama administration is committing itself to backing an investigation of the military junta led since 1992 by Senior Gen. Than Shwe.
Than Shwe’s loyalists overturned election results in 1990 that favored the political party of Aung San Suu Kyi (ahng sahn soo chee). Suu Kyi, who was named a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, remains under house arrest.
Myanmar is holding elections Nov. 7 — the first in two decades — but critics say they are a sham designed to perpetuate the military’s commanding role in politics.
Aung Din, executive director of the Washington-based U.S. Campaign for Burma, called the Obama administration’s move “the right and timely action.”
In a statement issued Wednesday, Din said members of the junta “are expecting to delete their dirty crimes by putting a sham constitution into effect through a sham election. This is a clear message that the United States will not recognize their showcase election and will take them accountable for their horrible abuses against their own citizens.”
The administration’s decision was first reported by The Washington Post. An article on the newspaper’s website Wednesday quoted unidentified U.S. officials as saying the administration also is considering tightening financial sanctions against the Myanmar regime to perhaps force it to open its political system and free thousands of political prisoners.
The Obama administration entered office with a desire to shift course on Myanmar.
Pro-democracy and human rights groups have urged the U.N. Security Council to impose an arms embargo on Myanmar’s military regime and establish a commission of inquiry into crimes against humanity.
They fear a humanitarian crisis may develop along the border with Thailand, where the Myanmar military has been fighting ethnic Karens, pushing thousands of refugees across the border. Karen National Union fighters have been battling for half a century for greater autonomy from Myanmar’s central government.
by Jenna Lyle
Posted: Wednesday, August 18, 2010, 16:19 (BST)
Christian Solidarity Worldwide is urging the EU to give its support to a UN investigation into crimes against humanity in Burma.
The call comes after the US announced it would support the establishment of a UN Commission of Inquiry into suspected abuses being committed by Burma’s military regime against the Burmese people.
The proposal for an inquiry was made by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, following his visit to the country in February. He warned at the time that human rights violations in Burma may amount to crimes against humanity and in June called on the regime to conform to the principles set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The UK, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Australia have all expressed their support for a Commission of Inquiry.
In a letter to Foreign Secretary William Hague yesterday, CSW welcomed the UK’s support and called on the Government to press for mention of an inquiry in a UN General Assembly resolution on Burma later this year.
CSW’s East Asia Team leader, Benedict Rogers, said the backing of the US would give “significant momentum” to the international campaign to end impunity in Burma.
“The military regime in Burma has one of the worst human rights records in the world, and is accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including the widespread and systematic use of rape as a weapon of war, forced labour, the forcible recruitment of child soldiers, killings, torture and the destruction of over 3,500 villages in eastern Burma alone,” he said.
“The UN has spent twenty years urging the regime to end its violations, which it has described in numerous resolutions as violating international humanitarian law.
“It is time now for the UN to act, and for the EU, including the United Kingdom, to work closely with the United States to build support in the General Assembly for a Commission of Inquiry.”
Last week, CSW called on the international community to reject Burma’s election in November.
It warned that with democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi imprisoned and excluded, the “sham” election would constitute a “whitewash” for the ruling military junta.
Election laws and a new constitution guaranteeing 25 per cent of the seats for the military would make it “impossible” for the election to be free or fair, it added.
The human rights group wants to see an arms embargo imposed on Burma in addition to the Commission of Inquiry.
Mr Rogers called on the generals to enter into meaningful dialogue with Suu Kyi, the democracy movement and the ethnic nationalities living in Burma.
Washington | Aug 18, 2010
The United Nations is to set up a Commission of Inquiry into war crimes by the Myanmar’s military rulers, a move which is being strongly backed by the Obama administration.
The move to set up Commission of Inquiry is part of an effort to force the military junta to open its authoritarian political system and free thousands of political prisoners, The Washington Post reported.
Quoting top US officials, the paper said this indicated a toughening of stance against the military junta led by Senior General Than Shwe, who has been ruling Myanmar uninterrupted since 1992.
The Obama administration is also considering tightening financial sanctions against the regime, and these developments come just months before the November 7 general elections announced by the Myanmar government, which has been rejected by US and other western nations as flawed.
The paper said the 77-year-old dictator has been accused of leading brutal campaigns against ethnic insurgencies and Burmese dissidents, such as the 2007 crackdown on the “Saffron Revolution”, during which scores of protesters, including Buddhist monks, were killed and thousands jailed.
Than Shwe’s State Peace and Development Council also overturned election results in 1990 that favoured the political party of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest.
“What’s important here is that this is not aimed at the people of Burma but at its leadership, particularly at Than Shwe,” said a senior administration official.
The Obama administration entered office with a desire to shift course on Burma – both as part of a strategy to improve relations with all the nations of Southeast Asia and as part of a belief that Burma, also known as Myanmar, should not be allowed to become a client state of China, the Post said.
The administration decided last fall to begin to engage with the Burmese regime. It dispatched high-ranking diplomats and held out the prospect of the resumption of some aid.
It opened discussions about Burma’s upcoming elections in the hope that the regime would allow some measure of democracy.
By Marwaan Macan-Markar BANGKOK, Aug 18, 2010 (IPS) – An international campaign seeking a war crimes inquiry into the alleged systematic abuses by Burma’s military regime finally has a strong ally in U.S. President Barack Obama.
Washington revealed Tuesday that the Obama administration is throwing its weight behind the creation of a U.N. commission of inquiry into crimes against humanity and war crimes, reports the ‘Washington Post’ newspaper. “(It is) a sign of a tougher U.S. policy against a regime long accused of murdering and raping its political foes,” it commented.
“What is important here is that this is not aimed at the people of Burma but at its leadership, particularly (Senior Gen.) Than Shwe,” a senior administration official was quoted as having told the U.S. daily, referring to Burma’s 77-year-old strongman.
The regime in Burma, also known as Myanmar, is preparing to hold the country’s first general election in 20 years on Nov. 7, in an attempt to win political legitimacy and deflect criticism of its oppressive rule.
The Obama administration’s tougher stance against Burma, whose regime has targeted ethnic minorities along the borders of the South-east Asian nation, comes more than two weeks after a bipartisan group of U.S. senators made a similar case in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“While your administration continues along the path of sanctions and pragmatic engagement with Burma, we believe that such a commission will help convince Burma’s military regime that we are serious about our commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law for the people of Burma,” stated the letter signed by 32 senators from the Republican and Democratic parties.
Burmese activists welcome Washington’s stance. “This is the right and timely action by the Obama administration in response to the power-thirsty and brutal generals in Naypidaw,” says Aung Din, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, a Washington DC-based lobby. “(They) are expecting to delete their dirty crimes by putting a sham constitution into effect through a sham election.”
Naypidaw, the new capital located in central Burma, is where the new parliament is being built. The junta nullified the results of the last parliamentary election in 1990, denying the party of pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi the right to govern.
Washington’s position is expected to be backed by Australia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, which have endorsed a call by U.N. human rights investigator for Burma Tomas Ojea Qunitana for the world body to appoint an inquiry panel into war crimes in Burma. Quintana made his views known in March while presenting a scathing 30-page report on Burma to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Quintana’s push added to an appeal for a U.N. inquiry made in a 2009 report done by the International Human Rights Clinic at the law school of the U.S.-based Harvard University.
More than 3,000 villages that were home to Burma’s ethnic minorities have been burnt to the ground by the military regime, said that report by international jurists from Britain, Mongolia, South Africa, the United States and Venezuela. “The world cannot wait while the military regime continues its atrocities against the people of Burma.”
The calls for a U.N. inquiry are significant given that sanctions and international pressure, whether by Asian governments or those in Europe or the United States, have not made much headway in pushing Burma’s generals toward political reform.
Looking into the rights abuses in Burma in the context of war crimes makes these an international concern, denting the argument by the regime and its allies that they are internal matters.
It also highlights the learning curve of 10 years that it has taken activists among Burma’s ethnic minorities and the majority Burman community to hold the junta accountable for war crimes.
“This change is a significant landmark,” says Debbie Stothard, coordinator of the Alternative ASEAN Network On Burma (ALTSEAN), a human rights watchdog. “South-east Asian governments will have to acknowledge and understand that these are serious international crimes being committed. They cannot be described any more as domestic affairs not subject to international scrutiny.”
Calls for a war crimes inquiry have gathered pace only in the past three years, she told IPS. “Till then, most people among the Burmese human rights movement had not realised that the systematic nature of the violations were war crimes.”
“The Burmese and the ethnic minorities had seen the violations happening in their midst as normal part of Burmese life because they had been going on for so long,” Stothard added. “Now they are not afraid to publicly acknowledge and name the violations as war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
A 2002 report by women in the ethnic Shan minority in north-eastern Burma, where the military is locked in a separatist battle with Shan rebels, helped pave the way for this shift in describing the scale of violence in Burma.
‘Licence to Rape’, by the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN), exposed in chilling detail the Burmese military’s use of rape as a weapon of war in its operations in Shan villages.
“What matters for us is there has to be change on the ground,” Hseng Noung, a SWAN founder, told IPS. “The day-to- day life that women in the Shan state face today, the fear of abuse, is still the same as they faced when we researched ‘Licence to Rape’.”
But while Washington’s stamp on a U.N. war crimes inquiry may raise hopes, diplomats urge caution given the role that power politics plays in decisions by the world body.
“The U.S. must know that China is going to block this effort (at the United Nations),” a European diplomat who covers Burma said on condition of anonymity. “It may be counterproductive in the broader scheme of things, because it will drive the Burmese closer to the Chinese.”
Posted : Wed, 18 Aug 2010 07:23:28 GMT
Yangon – A breakaway faction of Myanmar’s main opposition party expected to field more than 100 candidates in the November 7 election, the party chief said Wednesday.
“I think we will field over 100 candidates nationwide,” National Democratic Front (NDF) chairman Khin Maung Swe said. Myanmar’s junta recently announced the creation of 330 political constituencies.
The NDF is a breakaway faction of the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, which has decided to boycott the polls this year. Khin Maung Swe is to preside Thursday over the opening of his party’s second office in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second biggest city.
“We expect to do the best in Yangon and Mandalay,” Khin Maung Swe said.
He said it was too early to say whether the polls would be “free and fair” in the military-run country although he complained of the high cost of registering candidates and of his party events being dogged by security personnel.
Each candidate must pay a 500,000-kyat (500-dollar) registration fee, deemed a huge amount in a country where minimum wage is about 30 dollars a month.
Myanmar election authorities have so far permitted 40 parties to register to contest the general election. Seven others that have applied are still under the scrutiny of the Union Election Commission, state-run media reported Wednesday.
Myanmar last held a general election in 1990, which the NLD won by a landslide. The ruling military junta, however, has blocked the NLD from power.
The party decided to boycott this year’s polls to protest election regulations that would have forced it to throw Suu Kyi out of the party to qualify as a contestant.
The regulations barred anyone currently in prison from being a member of a political party. Suu Kyi is now serving her latest sentence, an 18-month house detention period that was expected to expire on November 13 or November 27, depending on when authorities decide her term began.
Few observers expected the polls to bring drastic changes to Myanmar, which has been under military rule since 1962.
A clause in the new constitution allows the military control over any future elected government by making the upper house of the National Parliament a partially junta-appointed body with veto power over legislation.
The Straits Times – Myanmar poll date ‘welcomed’
HANOI – THE Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) on Tuesday said it welcomed Myanmar’s planned November 7 elections, which Western nations have said will occur under ‘oppressive’ conditions.
Myanmar’s junta announced the poll date, the country’s first in two decades, last Friday.
‘Asean welcomes this decision by Myanmar,’ said a statement by Vietnam, which currently chairs the 10-member bloc that includes Myanmar. ‘In this regard, Asean encourages Myanmar to further accelerate progress in the implementation of the roadmap for national reconciliation and democracy,’ it said, underscoring the importance of a free, fair and ‘inclusive’ vote.
The November 7 date falls about a week before democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s current house arrest is due to expire. Her party won the last polls in 1990 but was never allowed to take office, and she has spent much of the past 20 years in detention. As a serving prisoner, she is barred from standing in the election.
Britain, the United States, and Canada have said the November 7 vote will be held in an ‘oppressive’ political environment.
The Asean statement expressed a readiness to ‘render assistance as deemed appropriate by Myanmar.’ Asean has a principle of non-interference in its members’ affairs, but Myanmar has been a source of embarrassment for more democratic members of the bloc.
BY TAKESHI FUJITANI THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
2010/08/18
BANGKOK–Twenty-seven refugees from Myanmar (Burma) will be resettled in Japan in late September, the first to do so in a pilot program to provide a haven for persons stuck in foreign camps after being displaced by conflict or repressive regimes.
The 27 make up five families, all members of the minority Karen tribe. They will leave a refugee camp in Thailand and arrive in Japan on Sept. 28.
Japan’s new “third-country” resettlement program is designed to aid refugees housed in camps outside their home countries. About 90 refugees from Myanmar will be accepted in the three-year pilot program starting this fiscal year.
According to the Japanese Embassy in Thailand, the families were resettled in the Mera refugee camp in northwestern Thailand after fleeing Myanmar’s repressive military government.
They have studied Japanese since late July. Six families totaling 32 members were initially to come, but one family has since declined, sources said.
After arriving in Japan, the refugees will study the Japanese language and customs for six months.
“Their living conditions will greatly change. The key will be to reduce their anxieties,” Tetsuji Nakamura, parliamentary secretary of justice, said Monday in a Bangkok suburb.
Nakamura had visited with the refugee families and others at the Mera camp.
Saturday, 14 August 2010 00:00
The military regime clearly aims to continue to grip onto power and shows no real intention to build a genuine democracy, observes John Smith Thang.
After Myanmar’s military regime was closely scrutinised by the international community earlier this year, on 8 March, it finally came out with an election law and election commission for the upcoming general elections, anticipated to be held later this year.
This election will be the first in 20 years since the last one held in 1990, won by the National League for Democracy. The NLD was not allowed to form a civilian government leaving Burma under military dictatorship till today.
Similarly, Myanmar’s last civilian government lasted from 1948 and ended in 1962, when a military coup led by General Ne Win seized power. Since then, technically, Myanmar has had no civilian government – for nearly half a century!
After pressure from the international community, the military regime has made only slight progress in democratisation of the country. The UN General Assembly’s Third Committee passed a resolution on Myanmar’s human rights violations last year. This coincided with the adoption and approval of an Asean human rights body in the same year. Hopefully, this body will be able to monitor and pressure the military regime on its human rights violations within this regional bloc.
US Assistant Secretary, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Kurt M Campbell’s visits to Myanmar last year and on 9-10 May this year appear to be the only US engagement with Myanmar’s military regime under the Obama administration’s policy for the democratisation of Myanmar.
On the other hand, China also has grave concerns regarding its border with Myanmar after the conflict last year between Myanmar military troops and the Han Chinese Kokan ethnic community. Myanmar troops pushed out Han Chinese Kokan ethnics from the northern Shan state territory and intruded into Chinese territory over the border, souring China-Myanmar diplomatic relations.
No real intention
In these politically uncomfortable circumstances, the military regime has to show some progress in its flawed seven-step road-map for democratisation. As an international showcase, the junta government recently appointed hand-picked election commissioners for the upcoming general election; besides adopting a flawed constitution earlier in 2008, amidst the cyclone Nargis disaster – which killed thousands of Myanmar citizens, not helped by the government’s callous and irresponsible response. .
This hastily adopted constitution boldly states that 25 per cent of parliamentary seats must be given directly to the military.
Among the regime’s hand-picked election commissioners is Deputy Supreme Court Judge Thein Soe, Chairman of the Election Commission and who is on the EU’s sanctions blacklist. Most of the Election Commission’s executive members are very close to the junta leaders and almost none of the ethnic minority representatives are included. Again these election laws already bar Nobel Peace laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her party from participating in elections.
Although under pressure by the international community, the regime deliberately chooses to move ahead unilaterally with the upcoming general election.
Clearly the military regime aims to continue to grip onto power and shows no real intention to build a genuine democracy. Neither is it concerned about the root causes of the problems faced by the country’s ethnic minority. Nor does it want to serve the general civilian population in the country. The motive of the election is certainly not for domestic democratisation.
An ethnic leader, U Aye Tha Aung, told Kurt M. Campbell during his visit to Myanmar, that he never believed the election to be a solution to Myanmar’s problems. Similarly most Myanmar people don’t believe the regime will solve the country’s crisis.
Rather Myanmar will become a threat to the region by potentially developing a nuclear weapon. In April, a vessel from North Korea was found docked in Myanmar’s Thilawar Port near Rangoon suspected to be carrying nuclear arms cargo. If true, this will be a violation of UN Security Council Resolution No. 1874; making Myanmar deserving of international condemnation. Moreover, it is suspected that Myanmar has been importing nuclear weapons technology from North Korea overland via China, according to the South Korea news agency Chosun Ilbo.
It is a challenge to the United States to maintain the right to take independent action, as Kurt M Campbell said. At the same time, Asian nations and the international community must be staunchly supportive in this matter. The military regime is not concerned about domestic problems it largely leaves on the shoulders of the international community.
John Smith Thang is director of the Chin Democracy and Human Rights Network based in South Korea. He can be reached at cdhrn.kr@gmail.com.
16 AUG 2010
Introduction
The situation in Burma/Myanmar remains grave. With elections scheduled for 7 November 2010 international attention on the country has increased. Such attention, and any policy action taken, must focus not only on the goal of democratic transition, and concerns about the regimes nuclear collaboration with North Korea, but also on the plight of Burma’s ethnic minorities who continue to suffer atrocities at the hands of the government. These atrocities may rise to the level of crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing – crimes states committed themselves to protect populations from at the 2005 World Summit, as described in the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect policy brief dated 4 March 2010, “Applying the Responsibility to Protect to Burma/Myanmar.”
International actors have a responsibility to protect Burma’s ethnic minorities from atrocities – atrocities that are often overshadowed by the attention focused on the pro-democracy movement. This brief assesses the current risk of atrocities and identifies measures that can be used to aid in preventing and halting these atrocities. The brief argues that pressure must be placed on the Burmese government to cease the commission of crimes and avoid the resort to violence against groups with which it currently has ceasefires.
Current Risks
Acts that appear to rise to the level of war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing continue to be perpetrated against ethnic minorities – including Karen, Shan and Karenni civilians – in the name of rooting out ethnic armed groups. The upcoming elections and the junta’s desire to gain both international and domestic legitimacy have not led to a reduction in the targeting of civilians. Most recently, on 23 July, the Burmese Army, known as the Tatmadaw, reportedly shelled villages in Karen state displacing 900 people.
An additional source of concern over the past year has been related to the risk that armed conflict would break out over the government’s demand that current “ceasefire groups” (ethnic armed groups that signed ceasefire agreements with the government in exchange for some level of autonomy to govern their communities) transition into border guard forces under the control of the Tatmadaw. The majority of these ceasefire groups including those representing the Wa, Mon, Kachin and Shan ethnic groups have resisted such demands. Negotiations between the government and the ceasefire groups have largely been unsuccessful at reaching a compromise. Thus far the government has exercised restraint and appears to have placed such demands on hold until after the elections rather than resorting to an armed attack on the ceasefire groups.
However, there is no guarantee that such restraint will continue. Similarly, there is no indication that the government will halt its attacks on civilians in currently contested areas. There is also a risk that there may be an escalation of systematic attacks on the pro-democracy movement in the period surrounding the election. These attacks may include arbitrary detention, torture and extra judicial killings.
In light of the ongoing risk and the government’s manifest failure to protect, the international community must take protective and preventive action. Possible measures that can be enacted in keeping with the responsibility to protect include diplomatic engagement, a commission of inquiry, an arms embargo and economic sanctions. While there is no guarantee, there are grounds to believe that these measures may influence the junta’s calculations about the benefits of targeting civilians as well as their ability to perpetrate atrocities.
Diplomatic Engagement
Regional actors, including ASEAN and its members along with China and India, must engage with, and urge the government to exercise its responsibility to protect. China, as one of Burma’s staunchest public supporters and biggest investors, has significant leverage. The Chinese government has, as of late, been playing a constructive role behind the scenes. This includes through its efforts to mediate conversations between the Burmese government and major ceasefire groups operating along the Chinese border. China’s influence was likely a key factor in the Burmese government’s apparent decision to place the issue of the border guard forces on hold until after the election.
Thailand and India should seek to play a similar role and ASEAN itself must move beyond publicly urging “credible and transparent” elections to engaging with the government on issues relating to the prevention of mass atrocities. Such engagement may include placing pressure on the government to permit visits to the country by the Special Rapporteur.
Additionally, Thailand and other regional states must not use the election as justification for the forced repatriation of refugees likely to suffer atrocities if returned to Burma. 2
Governments outside of the region should increase their diplomatic engagement as efforts to isolate the regime have increased the government’s insularity and paranoia. Efforts to open the channels of communication are crucial in the wake of elections which, while likely to be neither free nor fair, may provide a small opening for progress. Recent diplomatic visits by the Unites States are a positive step. Additional efforts, including possibly recognizing the junta’s change of the country’s name, may help to demonstrate that states are sincere in their efforts to improve relations. Better relations may enhance states’ influence over the junta and create an opening to press the government on atrocity prevention.
Finally, the UN needs to engage more intensely using mechanisms that potentially could include the appointment of a new Special Advisor on Myanmar and seeking to brief the Security Council.
Commission of Inquiry
In recent years, there have been numerous calls for International Criminal Court (ICC) consideration of the situation. Given that Burma has not ratified the Rome Statute, ICC engagement would likely require authorization by the Security Council, which may not be forthcoming. There have also been suggestions that an international commission of inquiry should be created. In his recent report, the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar stated that human rights violations that “may entail categories of crimes against humanity or war crimes under the terms of the Rome Statute” were taking place and that, as these crimes were committed with impunity, “United Nations institutions may consider the possibility to establish a commission of inquiry with a specific fact-finding mandate to address the question of international crimes.” Such a commission could be initiated by the UN Secretary General or the General Assembly and would bring intense scrutiny to the actions of the government, and possibly those of ethnic armed groups, against ethnic minorities and political opponents. The government has shown some level of concern about its international reputation. Increased attention and pressure may cause the government and its armed forces to moderate their behavior to some extent, reducing or preventing the commission of atrocities.
Economic Sanctions
At present economic sanctions, restrictions on aid dispersed through the government, and targeted banking and travel sanctions against individual generals apply to Burma. The broad economic sanctions target the formal economy, which benefits most directly from foreign investment and is dominated by those with ties to the regime. As a result, these sanctions impact more negatively the capacities of the military, individual generals and allies of the regime, than they do civilians who primarily operate in the informal economy. Some arguments favoring the lifting of sanctions are premised on the idea that doing so would strengthen the middle class who could then challenge the junta’s power. Yet the absence of an independent business sector in Burma suggests this is unlikely to happen. Despite the fact that sanctions have not been able to halt atrocities outright, they may have some impact on the military’s ability to wage a larger scale war on ethnic minorities.
The current sanctions regime could be strengthened and made more effective by addressing two related issues. The first is that sanctions are not universally applied. Many influential regional actors, in particular, India, China and Thailand, continue to invest in and trade freely with Burma. Additionally, those countries that have enacted sanctions have not done so in a uniform manner. They have allowed numerous exemptions, notably in the energy sector, that in many cases directly benefit military leaders. Better coordination and the universalization of the sanctions regime could help improve their effectiveness. Tying conditions for the lifting of sanctions to a cessation of atrocities against ethnic minorities in Burma, instead of solely to a democratic transition, may also help advance the protection of populations from atrocities.
Arms Embargo
Many UN member states have embargoes restricting the sale of weapons to the junta and to non-state armed groups. However, as in the case of economic sanctions, the ban is not universally enforced. Implementing a global ban on the transfer of arms would contribute significantly to halting the four crimes by making it more difficult for the Tatmadaw to obtain weapons. Yet there are currently obstacles to such a comprehensive approach, in particular China and Russia export arms to Burma and may, based on past precedent, block efforts to have the UN Security Council put Burma on its agenda, and issue a resolution establishing an arms embargo.
Conclusion
The UN, ASEAN and key actors such as China and the US must, in keeping with their own responsibility to protect, place pressure on the Burmese government to take action to prevent and halt mass atrocities. Coordinated regional and international diplomatic engagement, focused on urging the government to cease the commission of atrocities against civilians and avoid a resort to violence with ceasefire groups, should be undertaken. This engagement should be in conjunction with other measures such as the creation of a comission of inquiry.
* The country was officially renamed the Union of Myanmar by the military government in 1989. The use of term Burma in this report is not intended as a political statement.
By KO HTWE – Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Prime Minister Thein Sein and 26 ministers and senior officials who formed the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) will quit their posts next month to lead the party and campaign across Burma, according to a source close to the party.
The USDP will compete for all elected parliamentary seats in the new legislative bodies which have a total of 1,187 seats: the people’s parliament (lower house) has 330 seats; the nationalities parliament (upper house) has 168 seats, and state and regional parliaments have 689 seats.
According to a Naypyidaw source, commanding officers in the Regional Operations Commands will quit their respective military positions and be listed as USDP candidates. ROC units are in charge of regional administrative, financial and judicial affairs.
Thein Sein and other ministers resigned their military commissions in April to lead the USDP, which has taken over the function and property of the government-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), the junta’s main mass organization, which reportedly has 24 million members.
When Thein Sein and other ministers quit their administrative posts, the junta will form an interim government led by Lt-Gen Myint Swe, chief of the Bureau of Special Operations (BSO)-5 which controls the Rangoon Regional Military Command and Naypyidaw Regional Military Command, according to unconfirmed reports.
BSOs are high-level field units equivalent to field army corps in Western armies and consist of two or more Regional Military Commands, usually commanded by a lieutenant-general.
The regime has scheduled the election for Nov. 7. The Election Commission called on political parties last week to submit a list of candidates between Aug. 16 and Aug. 30.
According to sources close to the USDP, various public officials will run in the election as USDP candidates, such as Rangoon Mayor Aung Thein Linn, who is expected to contest Rangoon’s South Okkalapa Township; Labor Minister and Liaison Minister Aung Kyi will reportedly contest in Rangoon’s Mingalartaungnyunt Township; Minister for Economic Planning Soe Tha will reportedly contest in Twantay Township in Rangoon Division; Minister for Energy Lun Thi will reportedly contest in Rangoon’s Kunchankong Township; Minister for Livestock and Fisheries former Brig-Gen Maung Maung Thein will reportedly will contest in Rangoon’s Kawhmu Township.
Minister for Forestry Thein Aung is expected to contest in Bogale Township in Irrawaddy Division; Foreign minister Nyan Win is expected to contest in Zigon Township in Pegu near Rangoon; Minister of Industry-1 Aung Thaung, who is close to regime chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe, is expected to contest Taungtha Township, his hometown in Mandalay Division; deputy ministers Soe Naing, Phone Swe and Dr. Mya Oo are expected to be candidates in Pyapon Township in Irrawaddy Division, Maungdaw Division in Arakan State and Natalin Township in Pegu Division, respectively.
All the ministers have reportedly started organizing USDP activities in their assigned constituencies.
By SAW YAN NAING – Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The November 7 election is likely to be ignored in areas controlled by Burma’s ceasefire groups, according to ethnic sources.
One of the largest ceasefire groups, the United Wa State Army (UWSA) is expected to ban campaiging in the region it controls, and a UWSA official told The Irrawaddy, “I don’t think the election will take place in Wa areas. Nobody here is interested in it.”
Large areas of Burma are controlled by the Wa and other groups such as the Karen, Kachin and Mon.
The UWSA controls six areas of Shan State on the Sino-Burmese border. The areas have a combined Wa population of 700,000 to 800,000 people.
Sources in Myitkyina, capital of Kachin State, northern Burma, said that if the Kachin ceasefire group, the Kachin Independence Organization(KIO), rejected the regime demand to join the planned border guard force, polling stations in the state were unlikely to open. If they did, they would probably have to contend with threats, the sources said.
The KIO controls almost the entire Kachin State and claims to have an army of more than 20,000 troops. Its strongholds include the site of its headquarters, Laiza, and Mai Jaya.
Lapai Naw Din, the editor of the Thailand-based Kachin News Group, said the likelihood of the election taking place in the KIO-controlled areas would depend on the KIO’s response to the regime’s border guard force proposal. The KIO discussed the issue in Laiza last weekend.
A newly formed Kachin party, the Kachin State Progressive Party (KSPP), has applied to the Election Commission for registration and is still waiting for a decision. KSPP head Tu Ja said the party, if registered, would participate in the election in Kachin State with the exception of areas controlled by the KIO.
Sources within the KIO said the ceasefire group felt the upcoming election was irrelevant because there were no political parties it could trust and support, and the National League for Democracy (NLD) would not be participating.
The KIO and Kachin voters largely supported NLD candidates in the 1990 election. The NLD scored a landslide victory, which was never recognized by the military regime.
Meanwhile, Saw Htee Moo, a source close to the Karen ceasefire militia, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), said intimidation would possibly mark the pre-election period because the DKBA was divided.
A large faction from the DKBA’s Brigade 5, led by Col. Saw Lah Pwe, also known as Mr. Beard, split from the DKBA in late July because it opposed the border guard force proposal. Another Karen ceasefire group, the KNU/KNLA Peace Council, is also against a border guard force.
“There are many risks,” said Saw Htee Moo. “Those who want to destroy the election will do it anyway. It is not secure.”
Nang Khin Htwe Myint, a Karen female politician who is the chairwoman of the NLD’s branch in the Karen State capital of Hpa-an, said cheating and ballot fraud would occur if the election went ahead in areas controlled by the DKBA.
Voters there were ill-informed about the election, she said, “They will just follow what they are told.”
Nang Khin Htwe Myint said members of the government proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). were actively campaigning in Karen State.
The DKBA signed a ceasefire agreement with the Burmese government in 1995. It has six brigades with an estimated 6,000 armed fighters.
In pre-election violence in the Burmese-Thai border area, a bomb exploded and two others were defused last week in southern Karen State’s Three Pagodas Pass Township.
Sources close to the ethnic Mon ceasefire militia, the New Mon State Party (NMSP), said that under current conditions there was little chance of the election being held in areas held by the NMSP.
Wednesday, 18 August 2010 23:26 Kyaw Kha
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Only two parties are considered close contestants by the biggest junta-backed party competing for seats in Burma’s first polls in 20 years on November 7, a senior leader of the Union Solidarity and Development Party said today.
The National Unity Party (NUP) and National Democratic Force (NDF) will be the party’s main rivals in the Southeast Asian country’s elections, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) senior leader said on condition of anonymity.
“The NUP is more than 20 years old and is well established so we must wait and see how effective they can be. And also the NDF is the renegade party of the NLD so that they may be our rival party too. As for other ethnic parties, they will be our rivals only in the States concerned”, the USDP told Mizzima, using NLD to refer to Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, which rejected the polls, citing unfair and unjust electoral laws after their March release that effectively barred her and hundreds of NLD members.
The USDP, led by 27 central executive committee members including serving Prime Minister Thein Sein and members of the junta’s cabinet, will contest seats throughout the country, in all of the legislatures. In Rangoon Division alone, they will stand for 82 seats in all three legislative bodies.
The divisional branch of the party held its intra-party meeting on yesterday and adopted the party’s future plan. In its organisational work, the mass base would mainly be farmers, workers and students but the leaders at party headquarters in the junta’s capital of Naypyidaw had yet to adopt the composition of the party, he said.
The total party membership will be officially released at the end of the month, a source said.
According to party meeting minutes, the signboards of former Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) will be removed from all of its offices across the country starting from Friday, to be replaced by new USDP signs.
The party believed the NUP and NDF would fail to match its nationwide campaigning in the run-up the vote, the leader said.
The critics of social organisation USDA turned USDP say it is misusing public funds to build roads, repair bridges and open health clinics for the people in their party election campaigns. USDA had chief of the ruling military junta, Senior General Than Shwe, as its patron.
A charged denied by a USDP organiser, who claimed: “We can’t use these public funds anymore after our organisation was converted to a political party. We will run our party with our own party funds,” a USDP organiser claimed.
“I don’t want to comment on this issue as the amount of expenditure being used to carry out this work is too great. We must say we have established our party so that we can stand on our own feet”, the organiser said.
Wednesday, 18 August 2010 00:21 Phanida
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Burmese main opposition force, the National League for Democracy, has recently embarked on a different kind of political campaign – one of voter education, senior party leaders said.
A group of party central executive committee members are currently touring the south of Burma, even though the military government disbanded it as a party in May after the group refused to register with the junta’s electoral watchdog.
Nyan Win, May Win Myint, Han Thar Myint, Tenasserim Division NLD branch chairman Hla Min, and secretary Aung Soe met NLD Kawthaung Township members from Chaungsalam, Tharnyonparda and Palonethone Thone villages.
“We don’t campaign for voting in the upcoming election but we told them the voters’ rights provided by the law,” lawyer Nyan Win. “The voter the right to choose whether to vote or not in the election … The law stipulates no one can intimidate the voter either to vote or not.”
This trip was neither for NLD campaigning nor to recruit new members, he said, added that it was to consolidate unity among the central leadership and the grass roots and to campaign for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, he said.
He also said he was pleased to hear that NLD members had agreed with the decision taken by the central leadership to pull out of the upcoming election when he met NLD members from six townships at the residence of Pyi Township NLD branch head Dr. Khin Maung Win last Friday.
Kawthaung Township NLD Youth wing deputy leader Ko Maung Nge from Palonethone Thone village said highlight of the senior party members’ trip was the interaction between the central leadership and grass-roots members.
“Uncle [Nyan Win] came here not to expand our party or constituting our party unit. He explained to us that they came here to re-establish contact with central leadership and to boost our morale. Uncle said to us that we could do as we wish, to vote or not to vote. No one can prosecute us for exercising our rights, he explained to us. But he didn’t say anything about voting or not voting,” he told Mizzima.
At least 40 to 50 NLD members attended the meeting held at Kawthaung Township NLD office and he was reportedly pleased to see unity and solidarity among the Kawthaung NLD members.
NLD senior members including Nyan Win had visited party members in Pegu, Pyi and Letpadan in Pegu Division and four townships in Kawthaung Township.
Though there was no harassment from authorities along their trips, the authorities took photographs of their movements from a distance of about 40 feet (12 metres), Nyan Win said.
The visits were the idea of party general secretary Aung San Suu Kyi, who had urged the senior members to visit the party’s grass roots when she met Nyan Win in early June.
Similarly, from June 12 to August 3, Win Tin, Ohn Kyaing, Nyan Win, May Win Myint and Han Thar Myint visited NLD members in Kachin, Karen, Mon, Rakhine, and Southern Shan states, Mandalay, Magway and Sagaing divisions for talks.
Party leaders led by Suu Kyi and Tin Oo went on a nationwide roadshow in 2003, but faced an assassination attempt in Depayin on May 30 when at least 5,000 junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association members attacked their convoy. At least 70 people associated with the NLD were killed in the well-organised assault.
By FRANCIS WADE
Published: 18 August 2010
South Korea has said it will raise the issue of controversial military ties between Burma and North Korea when a senior government official visits the pariah state next week.
Seoul will also encourage Burma to ensure that elections slated for 7 November this year are open, foreign ministry spokesman Kim Young-son told Yonhap news agency.
Vice foreign minister Shin Kak-soo is due to visit Burma for four days starting 19 August. He told Yonhap that South Korea was “keeping a close eye on possible military cooperation between Myanmar [Burma] and North Korea, including nuclear cooperation,” adding that the government was working with the US to investigate reports that the two countries were trading nuclear material.
His comments come days after a South Korean bank, the Korea Exchange Bank, said it would suspend its US dollar remittance service to Burma as part of an international crackdown on countries suspected of financing terror.
The bank is controlled by a US buyout fund, and therefore subject to US sanctions on Burma. It said also that it would stop accepting dollar remittances from Burma, although other foreign currencies would not be affected.
South Korea has been somewhat of a mixed bag when it comes to relations with Burma: the two countries enjoy healthy bilateral trade, and Seoul has poured billions into Burma’s energy sector, but the ruling junta’s blossoming relationship with Pyongyang has worried one half of the peninsula.
Relations between the North and South nosedived earlier this year after Seoul accused Pyongyang of torpedoing its navy vessel, the Cheonan – an allegation that the Kim Jong-il regime has strenuously denied.
North Korea’s foreign minister, Pak Ui-chun, led a delegation to Burma last month, marking the first senior governmental trip to the country since bilateral relations were normalised in 2007, after a 16-year freeze which followed North Korea’s attempted assassination in Rangoon in 1983 of South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan.
Intense scrutiny surrounded the visit, which came less than two months after DVB revealed close military collaboration between the two countries in the face of tight arms embargoes on both.
But despite Seoul’s concerns about the reports, as well as its sporadic condemnation of the human rights situation inside the country, the potential for tightening South Korea’s economic foothold in Burma is likely to also feature highly when Shin meets with government ministers in Naypyidaw. Last month the two countries signed an agreement to jointly exploit two lucrative gas blocks in Burma, while South Korean companies Korean Gas Corp (KOGAS) and Daewoo International hold sizeable stakes in the Shwe gas pipeline project.