BURMA RELATED NEWS – SEPTEMBER 01-02, 2010
Sep 2nd, 2010
By Bertil Lintner
22 September 2009
Concerns about military co-operation between North Korea and Myanmar have heightened since June when a North Korean freighter destined for Myanmar was suspected of carrying military cargo in violation of UN Security Council sanctions.
Bilateral co-operation between the two countries has increased, focusing on conventional military transfers. North Korean experts also appear to have been covertly assisting Myanmar in constructing an extensive tunnel network as emergency shelters for military personnel and equipment.
Allegations that Pyongyang is providing assistance to Myanmar’s ruling junta in installing nuclear research reactors and uranium prospecting appear far-fetched. No evidence – satellite imagery or eyewitness – has emerged of this.
Myanmar has plenty of reasons to pursue a nuclear programme and North Korea to supply one. Naypyidaw fears external military intervention, and may perceive a deliverable nuclear weapon as an ultimate security guarantee. Pyongyang continues to desire foreign currency, and the sale of nuclear technology or expertise could be one source. However, a deliverable nuclear arsenal remains far beyond what Myanmar can currently achieve and afford.
Whether or not in nuclear co-operation, North Korean-Myanmar relations are set to intensify. Conventional military transfers are set to continue, with Myanmar seeking to procure further equipment to aid its counter-insurgency campaigns near its borders.
by Rob Bryan – Wed Sep 1, 3:47 am ET
YANGON (AFP) – One of Myanmar’s self-described “pioneer bloggers” proudly opens his popular website — officially banned by the military rulers — and scrolls to his updates on the approaching election.
Tin San has been carefully researching the candidates running in Myanmar’s first polls in two decades, and for his next post he is busy reading up on the electoral regulations.
“Most people in Myanmar are not familiar with voting. We need to have resources and information to vote how we like,” says the 30-year-old. Like all those in the country aged under 38, he has never voted before.
The November 7 election has been widely criticised by activists and the West as a sham orchestrated by the ruling generals to shore up their rule. Some favour a boycott by voters, many of whom are disillusioned with the process.
But Tin San, whose name AFP has changed for his protection, is among a group of optimists who advocate participation and online debate of the polls, despite some of the world’s most repressive Internet controls.
“I have quite a lot of influence on my readers so I want them just to think about the information,” he says.
“As far as I know, most young people are not interested in the election, even though they want change. But this is the beginning of change — it’s a stepping stone.”
Judging by the busy cyber cafes across the main city Yangon, the web offers a way to tap the city’s youth, despite slow connections, frequent power cuts and huge risks over online activity that the regime deems subversive.
Google users look up South Korean celebrities — in line with the current Asia-wide craze — while other cafe-goers read world news stories on the BBC website. Several are chattering on Google Talk or browsing Facebook.
Staff are quick to help clients find proxy servers to bypass blocks on certain websites, even though they are strictly forbidden to do so on threat of closure, according to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.
The rights group describes Myanmar’s legislation on Internet use, the Electronic Act, as “one of the most liberticidal laws in the world”, with dissident netizens facing lengthy prison terms.
Tin San, who has about 2,000 Facebook friends and thousands more blog followers, says he holds informal gatherings across Yangon to discuss the Internet’s uses — and how to dodge the junta’s restrictions.
“Political websites are banned but you can still read them, for example through (web aggregator) Google Reader,” is one of his tips. He also offers advice about privacy settings on social networking sites.
During the “Saffron Revolution” monk-led protests in 2007, Myanmar’s citizens used the web to leak extensive accounts and video to the outside world, sparking a total Internet ban by the iron-fisted regime.
Connections have also been slowed down on politically significant dates such as August 8, the anniversary of a mass political uprising in 1988.
“I think the government is quite afraid of blogs and bloggers,” says Tin San, one of nearly 1,500 members of the online Myanmar Blogger Society.
Controls are expected to be tightened again during the election, but for now many are fearlessly talking politics online while they still can.
“I receive 10 to 20 emails from my friends each day about the things the government does in Myanmar,” says 28-year-old Win Oo, who lives in Yangon and whose name has also been changed.
He says a friend recently sent him a cartoon of the junta chief Than Shwe looking like a clown. Prominent blogger Nay Phone Latt was jailed in 2008 for 20 years, later reduced to 12, for allegedly storing such an image on email, among other offences.
“If I want to look at things like that, I sit in the corner of the Internet cafe, not in the middle, because we never know about the other users or the owner,” says Win Oo, who also intends to vote this year.
For those who can dodge the firewalls and take the risks, the Internet offers more freedom to discuss the election than print journals, which face rigid censorship over their reports.
Yet few political parties have taken their campaign online. Two that have attempted it — the Myanmar Democracy Congress party and the Peace and Diversity Party — have had their websites banned.
Even if their sites were allowed, the web’s reach outside the major cities of Yangon and Mandalay is severely limited.
Just one in every 455 of Myanmar’s inhabitants were Internet users in 2009, based on statistics from the International Telecommunication Union, a UN agency in Geneva.
About two thirds of the population, estimated at about 50 million, live in the countryside and have limited access to information about the election, the main parties and the issues at stake.
“It’s quite ok for urban youths who have Internet access but what about youths in rural areas, small town people and farmers? How do we help them?” asks a business editor in Yangon.
Web-savvy city dwellers still hope their online activity, however restricted, will help to spread political awareness across the country.
“The Internet can help to change the outcome of an election, maybe not this one but the next,” says a 26-year-old student of Yangon-based civil society group Myanmar Egress, which has promoted participation in the polls.
“We are already in a transition period so we have to concentrate on sharing things, updating news, doing more,” he says. “We can eat the fruit in 10 years — it will not happen immediately”.
– 40 mins ago
GENEVA (AFP) – The conservation group WWF on Thursday urged people to send in a recorded “roar of support” for wild tigers, whose numbers have plunged over the past century from 100,000 to fewer than 3,200.
The World Wide Fund for Nature asked the public to upload pictures or videos of them roaring to the site www.panda.org/roar or video hosting sites such as YouTube. They can also send in text messages of their roars.
Each roar submitted will be counted as part of a WWF petition to be presented to leaders meeting at a summit in St Petersburg in November on the conservation of wild tigers.
“We need to make noise about this campaign, this way we’re literally making noise,” said Fernando Zarur, online producer at WWF.
Countries invited to attend the tiger summit are Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.
“To encourage these powerful people to make the right decisions, and keep to their stated goal of transforming tiger conservation and doubling the number of wild tigers by 2022, we need you to stand up and roar — any which way you can,” said Michael Baltzer, head of the WWF’s tiger programme.
Sep. 02 2010 – 07:36 pm
Zin Linn Burma’s Government-appointed Union Election Commission (UEC) has called for successful holding of “free and fair election without any mistake” ahead of the multi- party general election set for Nov. 7 an official daily reported on 2 September.
In a coordination meeting with secretaries of Region/State/District Election commissions at its office in Naypyitaw, on 1 September, the UEC chairman Thein Soe stressed the need to prepare the voting roll and list of candidates and constituencies, said the New Light of Myanmar.
He urged all the officials concerned to abide by the electoral laws prescribed in carrying out the tasks. According to Thein Soe, at least five polling booths for each constituency will be set up to enable voters to cast their votes in time.
On August 30 the UEC has closed enlisting of candidates from political parties to contest in the coming election in terms of constituencies and parliaments at respective levels.
Disclosed by the UEC, the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), led by Prime Minister Thein Sein, is fielding 1,163 candidates, pro-junta National Unity Party (NUP) 994, a splinter faction from the NLD – National Democratic Force (NDF)160, Shan Nationals Democratic Party (SNDP) 157, Democratic Party Myanmar (DPM) 49, the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP) 45, Chin Progressive Party (CPP) 39 and the All Mon Region Democracy Party (AMRDP) 35 to run in the upcoming election.
The UEC has announced that registered political parties have to submit a list of candidates between September 16 and 30.
Most important criticism by the United States and the European Union is the exclusion of the key opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, 65. As a charismatic leader of the NLD, she won the last election in 1990 by a landslide. However, the generals declined handing over of power to her.
Election laws enacted by the generals earlier this year disallow people with prison or criminal records including prisoners of conscience from running for office.
Meanwhile, Burma’s incumbent Prime Minister Thein Sein who also head of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), sent a directive speech to ministries, universities and colleges, and army battalions, asking them to vote for the USDP and no-one else in the Nov. 7 voting. Thein Sein’s pressure to vote for the USDP extends far and wide government employees to their families, who are also being told to cast their vote for the regime-backed party.
It means the junta breaks its own law – Political Parties Registration Law (PPRL) – that prohibits any party from using state-owned property and funds for electioneering.
20:55, September 02, 2010
Myanmar’s top leader, Than Shwe, will pay a state visit to China from Sept. 7 to 11, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Thursday.
Than Shwe, chairman of the State Peace and Development Council, will visit China at the invitation of Chinese President Hu Jintao, Jiang told a regular press conference.
During Than Shwe’s stay in Beijing, Hu will hold talks with him, Jiang said, adding that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will also meet him.
Than Shwe will also visit the 2010 Shanghai Expo and Shenzhen in south China’s Guangdong province, Jiang said.
Jiang said China and Myanmar will review the development of bilateral ties and inform each other of their domestic situation and development strategies.
The two sides will also exchange views on boosting China-Myanmar relations and bilateral cooperation, she said.
They will also discuss international and regional issues of common concern, she added.
Jiang said she believes Than Shwe’s visit will contribute to the consolidation of the traditional friendship between the two nations and promote regional peace and development.
Myanmar’s peacefulness, stability and progress is in the interests of Myanmar’s people and conducive to regional peace and prosperity, Jiang said when asked to comment on Myanmar’s general election.
A multi-party general election in Myanmar is set to be held on Nov. 7.
“China hopes to see the election proceed smoothly and the continuous realization of democracy and development in Myanmar,” Jiang added.
21:05, September 02, 2010
Two warships of the 5th Escort Task group of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA)- Navy left Myanmar Thursday after concluding a five-day friendly call at Yangon’s Thilawa Port .
The mission of the two warships — “Guangzhou” and “Caohu”, led by Commander of the Chinese escort task group Zhang Wendan, was aimed at promoting friendly relationship between the two armed forces of the two countries and exchange between the two navies.
A grand see-off ceremony was launched for the two Chinese warships before their departure, and was attended by high ranking Myanmar naval officials, Chinese embassy officials as well as representatives of Chinese companies based in Myanmar and local Chinese residents.
During the first call of the Chinese naval warships at Myanmar port which started on Aug. 29, the Chinese PLA escort task group launched a series of exchange with the Myanmar navy.
Myanmar is the fourth country that the 5th Chinese PLA escort task group called on after completing its escort missions in the gulf of Aden and the waters off Somali coast.
Prior to Myanmar, the escort task group had called on Egypt, Italy and Greece.
13:20, September 02, 2010
Myanmar’s government-appointed Union Election Commission (UEC) has called for successful holding of “free and fair election without any mistake” ahead of the multi- party general election set for Nov. 7., an official daily reported Thursday.
At a meeting with region-, state-, district- level commissions on coordination of the electoral process on Wednesday, the UEC chairman U Thein Soe stressed the need to prepare the voting roll and list of candidates and constituencies, said the New Light of Myanmar.
He urged all the officials concerned to abide by the electoral laws prescribed in carrying out the tasks.
According to U Thein Soe, at least five polling booths for each parliament will be set up to enable voters to cast their votes in time.
The UEC has closed on Aug. 30 for enlisting of candidates from political parties to contest in the coming election in terms of constituencies and parliaments at respective levels.
Disclosed by the UEC, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), led by Prime Minister U Thein Sein, is fielding 1, 100 candidates, National Unity Party (NUP) 975, National Democratic Force (NDF), which a splinter faction from the National League for Democracy (NLD), 160 and Shan Nationals Democratic Party (SNDP) 157 to run the election.
The commission designated 330 constituencies for parliamentary house of representatives election and 12 constituencies for parliamentary house of nationalities election in each region or state across the country in running the election.
It also designated two constituencies for each township for election of parliamentary representatives in each region or state and one constituency for election of parliamentary representatives for each ethnic minority in each region or state.
The constituencies are scattered in townships in Kachin, Kayah, Kayin, Mon, Rakhine, Shan and Chin states, Sagaing, Tanintharyi, Bago, Magway, Ayeyawaddy, Yangon and Mandalay regions.
The electoral law reserves an equal number of one-third of the total number of parliamentary representatives by representatives from the military personnel nominated by the commander-in-chief of the defense services in the region or state parliamentary election.
So far, the commission has granted legal registration of a total of 42 political parties out of 47 which sought for entering the polls. The remaining five are awaiting for approval.
The 42 contesting political parties are made up of 37 new and five old parties left by the 1990 general election.
Myanmar government announced a seven-step roadmap in August 2003 which mainly include the reconvening of national convention, drafting of new state constitution, holding of national referendum on drafted constitution, sponsoring general election and formation of a new “civilian” government.
Desmond Tutu lends a hand to Aung San Suu Kyi
Posted: 27 August 2010
Tutu writes the detained Burmese leader’s name on his hand and adds his photograph to Amnesty’s campaign to free Burma’s political prisoners
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Chair of The Elders, has given his support to Amnesty International’s campaign to free Aung San Suu Kyi and the 2,200 political prisoners in Burma. He has joined the growing campaign by raising his palm with the detained opposition leader’s name on it – a symbolic act of fearlessness and defiance in Burma – and is calling on everybody who values human rights and justice to do the same.
In 2007, Nelson Mandela, with his wife Graca Machel and Archbishop Tutu convened The Elders, a group of eminent global leaders, who could contribute their wisdom and leadership to helping tackle world problems. Aung San Suu Kyi, is an honorary member and the Elders always keep an empty chair for her at their meetings. She has been under house arrest in Burma for 14 of the last 20 years.
Desmond Tutu said:
“For me, Honorary Elder, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is the living symbol of the Burmese people’s hope and courage. She is the embodiment of their determination to live in freedom, health and prosperity. That is why I have written her name on my hand.
“There are thousands of others who are also imprisoned and detained in Burma. Each of them is a person of great hope, determination and courage. Please join Amnesty, the Elders and our fellow activists by naming each of Burma’s political prisoners, by holding that person’s name up and demanding their release.”
The campaign was inspired by the work of James Mackay, a London-based documentary photographer who has photographed more than 160 former Burmese political prisoners- some in exile and some still in Burma – for his project ‘Even though I am free, I am not’.
Amnesty’s campaign has gathered momentum throughout the year and will continue in the lead up to Burma’s elections on 7 November.
Former Burmese political prisoners, Amnesty supporters from around the world, politicians and celebrities are adding their photographs to a gallery of over one thousand portraits currently on the Amnesty website. The pictures show individuals with the name of a Burmese political prisoner written on their upturned palm. To post your picture and find out more go to: www.amnesty.org.uk/hand
The photographs will be presented in Brussels at October’s Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), where Amnesty will urge leaders to demand both freedom for Burma’s political prisoners, and real human rights improvements across the country.
Desmond Tutu said:
“We condemn the ongoing detention of political prisoners. We call on Burma’s neighbours to make it clear to the military authorities that they must be released and that the people must be able to exercise their freedoms safely in the run-up to the elections on November 7.
“At every Elders meeting we always keep an empty chair for Daw Suu Kyi but she has never been able to join us. Work with us in the spirit shown by Burma’s activists, for the day when she and her fellow activists will be free.”
Hi-res photograph available upon request from the Amnesty Press Office.
BANGKOK, 2 September 2010 (IRIN) – Myanmar’s military government, with soldiers scattered throughout the country, is arbitrarily levying fees from the rural poor, pushing some into hunger and debt, experts say.
“In Burma taxation has become associated with violence and human rights abuses,” said Alison Vicary, researcher for Burma Economic Watch at Macquarie University in Australia. She has just written a report on “taxation” for the Network for Human Rights Documentation – Burma (ND-Burma).
The report, released on 1 September, says many people in rural areas are forced to relinquish property and assets at the will of soldiers who, as a matter of course, live off of locals.
Ten percent of the country is food insecure, with more than 90 percent persistently on the brink of hunger in some regions, according to the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization.
“I grew up knowing that the army has the absolute right to demand anything they want, but we didn’t realize how systematic and widespread [arbitrary taxation] really is. This report makes it clear,” Cheery Zahau, an activist campaigning for the rights of the Chin ethnic minority and ND-Burma adviser, told IRIN.
The World Bank estimates 50 percent of the population live in rural areas and ND-Burma says random demands for money, land or property – are taking a serious toll on some of the most vulnerable.
People do not know when, how much or what they will be taxed on, which creates an atmosphere of fear, Vicary said.
“In an agricultural setting, people don’t have savings or even a bank account,” she said. “When the tax is levied they can’t pay and are forced to borrow money or sell their property and assets.”
Fees disguised as “taxes” are rarely accounted for and very little of the money ends up in services such as education and health care, ND-Burma says.
Furthermore, checkpoints and road and bridge tolls restrict movement, making trade unprofitable, and at times impossible, and the requisitioning of land and labour for government projects such as roads and pipelines is also common, ND-Burma says.
Myanmar’s first national election in 20 years is scheduled for 7 November.
Sep 2nd 2010
Than Shwe: Unmasking Burma’s Tyrant. By Benedict Rogers. Silkworm Books; 256 pages; $30. Buy from Amazon.com
“PERFECTION, of a kind, was what he was after” wrote W.H. Auden in his “Epitaph on a Tyrant”. Perhaps it is this ambition that moves Than Shwe, the “senior general” in the junta which has run Myanmar into the ground. It may explain an inexplicable folly: building Naypyidaw (“Seat of Kings”), a grand new capital in a remote malaria-ridden area 320km (200 miles) from Yangon, Myanmar’s main city and former capital.
The project seems to obsess him. In this biography, Benedict Rogers recounts an anecdote from a former American military attaché in Myanmar, who approached Than Shwe at a reception to introduce himself. Before he could utter a word, Than Shwe recited: “Canberra, Sydney; Washington, DC, New York; The Hague, Amsterdam; Ottawa, Toronto. Many countries have an administrative capital separate from the major economic and population centres.” Then he sauntered away.
At least the American recognised the general. If Than Shwe were to take his place in a line-up of war criminals and tyrants, few outside his own country would know either the face or the name. Yet Than Shwe has for two decades misruled a country of more than 50m people. So Mr Rogers’s attempt to analyse his life story is a valiant bid to do what is clearly needed.
Sadly, however, his search for the truth is doomed. Even if Mr Rogers, a writer and human-rights activist, knew Burmese, he would grapple with the secrecy that surrounds the junta. As it is, he has had to rely on gossip, anecdote, dubious official reports, speculation and extrapolation. Even a detail as basic as where the general was born is carefully attributed to “a source close to a businessman reputed to be close to Than Shwe”.
Worse, Than Shwe seems to be several different people. A senior United Nations envoy thinks him “quite a vain guy”, who “dresses well, sits straight and looks good.” To a former Thai diplomat, however, he is “a stout man with glasses and teeth covered in red spots from betel nut”.
Some things were already known about him: that he outraged public opinion when leaked video footage showed his daughter’s astonishingly lavish wedding, in one of the poorest countries in the world. It is also no secret that he is superstitious. It is less known perhaps that a favourite soothsayer is “a tiny, hunched deaf-mute in her mid-forties”, widely known as “ET”. And it may not be general knowledge that one explanation for another folly—forcing farmers to plant jatropha for biofuels—was that an astrologer had advised this method to neutralise the powers of his nemesis, the detained opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
But if the book adds little to what we know for certain about Than Shwe, it is nevertheless a timely account of the awfulness of the regime he heads, whose leaders seem sure to continue to hold real power even after a stage-managed election in November. As Mr Rogers points out, Than Shwe’s predecessor, Ne Win, also gave his dictatorship a civilian mask.
But Than Shwe himself remains a mystery: not least because few people seem to think him very bright. His tactical nous and staying power have been consistently underestimated, perhaps because of the consensus characteristic that emerges from Mr Rogers’s biography: in the words of a Western diplomat whom he quotes, Than Shwe is “a bit of a thug”.
2 September 2010 – Myanmar has agreed to build two hydropower plants aimed at exporting around 575 MW of electricity to energy-starved Bangladesh, top officials said.
A high-powered Bangladesh delegation received Myanmar’s consent over cross-border electricity trade during its recent visit to the country, said a senior power ministry official.
He said a Myanmar delegation would visit Dhaka shortly to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the electricity trade between the two neighbouring countries.
Before signing the final deal, Myanmar has sought power purchase guarantee from Bangladesh, said the official, also a member of the delegation that visited Myanmar last week. The delegation included top officials from the power ministry and Power Development Board (PDB).
The power plants having the electricity generation capacity of 500 MW and 75 MW respectively have been planned to be installed at Michuang and Lemro areas under Rakhine state in Myanmar, which are close to Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar.
Shwe Taung Development Company, a Myanmar company, has already tied up with a Chinese firm to build these power plants targeting to export the output to Bangladesh. It has already got lease of land in the Rakhine state to set up the power plants.
South China Sea Storm Triggers Widespread Rainfall, Flood In Myanmar
YANGON, Sept 1 (Bernama) — Storm occurring in the South China Sea has triggered widespread heavy rainfall and flood in Myanmar last week including the central part of the country, Xinhua news agency quoted a meteorology and hydrology expert as saying Wednesday.
Due to sweeping across the country, the residue storm in the South China Sea, which lies in the east of Myanmar, resulted in torrential rainfall and flood in central part’s Wan dwin, Mahlaing and Nwathogyi townships, Dr. U Tun Lwin said.
It also created a rise of water level of the Bago River to the dangerous level over the weekend and the phenomena was also due partly to La Nila, he noted.
Although the monsoon wind in the Bay of Bengal was traditionally strong to affect Myanmar’s climate, it was in fact attributed to the momentum of the tropical storm –”Lion Rock” prevailing in the South China Sea, Tun Lwin added.
He fears that the “lion rock” could continue to bring much rainfall in Myanmar over the next few days.
The meteorology and hydrology department has warned that the La Nila could bring flash flood and landslide, calling on people to take preventive measures.
Frequent landslide and flood in the country over the last months were the early sign of the La Nila in the country which is forecast to be worse in the late-monsoon period of September, the department said.
Matrade To Promote Logistics Sector In Myanmar & France
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 1 (Bernama) — The Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE) has led a specialised marketing mission to Yangon, Myanmar, to promote Malaysia’s logistics sector for the first time.
Similar missions will be made to the port of Koper in Slovenia and to the port of Marseille, France.
The inaugural mission to Yangon was on last Sunday and Monday, Koper and Marseille from Sept 19 to 25 will promote Malaysian logistics sector to Asean, European Union and North African regions.
The missions are being carried out with the support of the Federation of Malaysian Freight Forwarders, said MATRADE in a statement Wednesday.
MATRADE’s promotion of the logistics sector was a significant step forward in facilitating Malaysia’s external trade as the sector contributed an estimated 13 per cent to the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
The missions are also in line with the Government’s emphasis on encouraging local logistics companies to venture abroad to participate in the overall global supply chain.
“It is timely the sector is now promoted in an integrated manner to capture global awareness on Malaysia s capabilities in this sector,” said MATRADE chief executive officer Datuk Noharuddin Nordin.
“We believe these inaugural missions will lead to the divergence of expertise and services that can be offered by Malaysian logistics providers to the overseas companies, key transportation and logistics markets throughout the world,” he said.
Response and participation to Myanmar’s mission by the Malaysian logistics sector have been very encouraging, with 27 companies and 40 representatives registering for the mission.
The two-day mission comprised a seminar entitled “Malaysia-Myanmar Business Opportunities”, pre-arranged business meetings between Malaysian and Myanmar companies and technical site visits to two major port terminals.
Malaysian logistics service providers have evolved along the supply chain from being single service providers to integrated logistics service providers, offering a total range of logistics services, including handling the demand from International Procurement Centres and Regional Distribution Centres as well as providing cargo consolidation services and logistics management services.
Daily Times – Delhi concerned at China’s ‘interest’ in Indian Ocean
Foreign Minister SM Krishna tells parliament India closely monitoring Chinese moves
NEW DELHI: India on Tuesday said China was demonstrating “more than normal interest” in the Indian Ocean as two Chinese warships made a rare visit to military-ruled Myanmar.
India is watchful of China’s growing presence in the region, including its major investments in ports being built in Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
The Chinese ships docked in Yangon on Sunday afternoon and were set to launch a series of exchanges with Myanmar’s navy, Xinhua news agency reported.
“India has come to realise that China has been showing more than the normal interest in the Indian Ocean affairs. So we are closely monitoring the Chinese intentions,” Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna told parliament.
He did not make direct reference to the Chinese ships, but China is a key ally and trading partner of the junta that has ruled Myanmar since 1962.
China buys teak and gems from Myanmar and has shielded it from UN sanctions over rights abuses as a veto-wielding, permanent member of the Security Council.
India also looks to Myanmar for potential oil and gas imports and was criticised by rights monitors for hosting reclusive junta leader Than Shwe on a state visit to New Delhi in June.
Despite growing trade between China and India, ties between the emerging giants are wracked by mistrust.
Border disputes in Kashmir and the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, a short war in 1962 and the presence of Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in India all contribute to an atmosphere of suspicion.
Submitted by Najiah on Thursday, September 2nd, 2010
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010 14:25:00
AMPANG: They are a band of scrap hunters who scour neighbourhoods and industrial areas here on hired three-wheel motorcycles.
At any one time, there were at least 50 of them, all Myanmar nationals, who would rummage for materials, such as plastic, metal and recyclable items like bottles and cans.
They spend seven to nine hours a day looking for scraps and had been at it for several months.
However, police nabbed 46 of them yesterday for various offences, such as riding without licences carrying excessive load on the machine and reckless riding.
Five were also tested positive for syabu.
Ampang Jaya police chief ACP Abdul Jalil Hassan said they received complaints from the public that the Myanmar nationals were not obeying the law.
“That’s why we conducted this joint-operation.”
It was staged by Ampang traffic police, Ampang Jaya Municipal Council, Road Transport Department and Immigration Department.
A total of 52 officers were involved in the four-hour operation which began about 9am.
Initial investigations found the Myanmar nationals were renting motorcycles from local owners for RM30 per day.
“There are also some who rented these three-wheel motorcycles on a weekly or monthly basis.”
A total of 257 summonses were issued. Abdul Jalil said the council would be checking if those nabbed had stolen scrap metal belonging to the council.
Police also warned owners not to rent out their motorcycles to those without valid driving licences. “Police can charge the owners.”
Ron Corben | Bangkok 01 September 2010
A new report on Burma’s tax system says it lacks transparency and accountability, and many taxes are paid to corrupt officials. Burma rights activists say arbitrary taxation adds another layer to the economic burdens and rights abuses many Burmese suffer.
The report, released in Bangkok, from a network of human-rights organizations said Burma’s military has transformed taxation “into extortion and a tool of repression.” The government and the military arbitrarily collect taxes in the form of cash, land, goods and labor, said the report, based on interviews with more than 340 people during the past two years.
In addition, people said they are charged arbitrary fees at checkpoints, and forced to pay donations for festivals, school buildings, school registration and equipment.
Economist Alison Vicary from Macquarie University’s Burma Economic Watch said Burma’s tax system is oppressive and illegitimate.
“The agencies collecting taxes are actively involved in the control and suppression of the population,” Vicary said. “That much of the taxation that actually collected at the local level is going to the incomes of local officials rather than to the central government.”
According to rights activists, military-backed organizations have been extorting funds from communities ahead of the November 7th general elections.
Vicary said the abusive tax system has contributed to Burma’s economic deterioration. And she believes little will change after the balloting.
The lack of accountability makes life in Burma harder for much of the population, said Cheery Zahau, a human rights coordinator with the Human Rights Education Institute of Burma
“It added to the problems to the basic survival, they [Burmese people] cannot save money, they cannot, in many cases, send their children to school,” Zahau said. “They do not have enough money for hospitals, for health care anymore. So it makes the whole social welfare collapse for the people; it becomes a burden for the people.”
The report also said the tax system’s denies most Burmese the right to an adequate standard of living, health care, housing, food, and education. It recommends that international donors, such as development banks, should only give Burma aid when governance standards and human-rights protections have improved.
Simon Scott Plummer on Everything is Broken by Emma Larkin, an account of the troubles under Burma’s Military Junta
By Simon Scott Plummer
Published: 3:31PM BST 02 Sep 2010
As we are discovering this summer, natural disasters can cruelly expose the shortcomings of governments. Russia has tried to divert attention from inadequate firefighting equipment by crude publicity stunts. In Pakistan, the authorities have been overwhelmed by the flooding of the River Indus under torrential monsoon rains.
If these ordeals by fire and water have confirmed failings that we suspected, no such doubt should have surrounded the way in which the Burmese junta would react to the cyclone that struck the Irrawaddy Delta on May 2 2008. Over 40 years the regime has reduced a well-endowed land to penury and crushed all resistance. In 1990 it ignored a landslide election victory by the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The odium the stolen election incited left Burma’s generals isolated and heightened their fear of being overthrown. Their first reaction when Cyclone Nargis struck was, therefore, not to lose control. That meant, initially, refusing entry to foreign aid workers and confining those already in the country to Rangoon.
The supreme leader, Senior General Than Shwe, took more than a fortnight to acknowledge publicly the catastrophe. And on May 10 he had the gall to go ahead with a referendum on a new constitution designed to entrench military rule, subsequently claiming that it had been supported by more than 90 per cent of voters. This grotesque exercise took place while Rangoon and the delta were being battered by wind and waves that could have claimed more than 500,000 lives and devastated an area responsible for 65 per cent of the nation’s rice output and 80 per cent of its fishery products. The generals’ sole concern was their political survival.
One only wishes that Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, had been able to persuade the UN Security Council to authorise the delivery of aid by force: the means were there. Many lives would have been saved, and the regime could even have been fatally undermined.
Emma Larkin is a pseudonym for an American writer based in Bangkok who has been a regular visitor to Burma, slipping in on tourist visas, since the early Nineties. As well as protecting her own name, she has given false identities to her interviewees.
Her account of the 2008 disaster is both graphic and painstaking. She also reminds us of the megalomaniac nature of the regime, seen in the building of the new capital, Naypyidaw, and of its bizarre fascination with the occult.
At the end of her book, Larkin recalls the collapse last year of the ancient Danok Pagoda near Rangoon, shortly after it had been restored and graced with a ceremonial visit by Than Shwe’s wife. “It was a fearful omen for the regime; an irreversible and supernatural declaration of dissatisfaction with Burma’s current rulers,” she writes.
But if celestial powers are angry, earthly ones are more tolerant. While Larkin leaves no doubt about the nature of the regime, she fails to mention its neighbours.
China would prefer a totalitarian entity on its south-western border, and has helped the generals with military and economic aid. Its strategic rival, India, has not wanted to be left behind. And the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Burma is a member, has regularly pulled its punches over the junta’s hideous human rights record.
Like North Korea, the generals have learned how to make the best of a poor diplomatic hand.
Everything Is Broken: the Untold Story of Disaster Under Burma’s Military Regime
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Burma’s junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe is reportedly worried about possible assassination attempts against him these days, according to military intelligent sources.
“Our higher-ups have informed us that there are concerns about the senior general being targeted by snipers and suicide bombers ahead of the election,” a junior officer in military security affairs told The Irrawaddy.
“So, we were told to increase security awareness,” he said, on condition of anonymity.
The military officer said the reports speculate that an assassination attempt might originate from the Myawaddy and Mae Sot area near the Thailand-Burma border, and security has been beefed up along the checkpoints on roads leading out of Myawaddy.
The reclusive 77-year-old dictator has never encountered an assassination attempt since he came to power in 1992. Reports say that he lives in a residence in the military headquarters in Napyidaw. He makes few public appearances, and he rarely visits the former capital, Rangoon.
Instructions have been issued to scrutinize goods and to record the identity cards of passengers entering Naypidaw, according to a bus driver.
“We have been told to cover any suspicious object with sand bags and to report to the authorities,” he said. “But no one cares about the instructions.”
In August, in an attempt to assassinate Lt-Gen Ye Myint, the regime’s former military intelligence chief, Karen National Liberation Army troops ambushed a convoy of regime troops near Kawkareik Township in Karen State, leaving at least five people dead and two wounded. All Burmese senior military officials escaped unhurt. It was later learned that Ye Myint was not in the convoy.
There have been no recent incidents of sniper or bombing attacks against the junta’s top generals, however.
Last week, there were reports of massive resignations of military officials from the army and also that Than Shwe and his deputy, Gen Maung Aye, resigned from their military posts as commander-in-chief and deputy commander-in-chief.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Hundreds of refugees including many women and children caught by flooding are still sheltering in schools and monasteries in Pegu, central Burma.
Local residents say a man died in the flooding on Tuesday.
“He went swimming for fun, but he disappeared. We searched until nightfall and eventually found his body,” a witness in Pegu said.
Local residents accuse Burmese authorities of doing too little to help, saying that the displaced people are receiving food and water from monks and private donors but very little from the government, said Aye Myint, a local resident in Pegu.
“Some areas are still flooded and the flood victims have to remain in schools and monasteries,” he said, “But they get no help from the authorities.”
He said the only help was coming from monks and volunteers.
“Monks and private donors provide packages of rice, noodles and water to the victims stranded by the deluge,” he said. “People in town still have to get around by boat.”
A refugee sheltering in a monastery in Kyauk Gyi Suu zone said, “The water flooded our wells, so we cannot drink water from them,” adding that his group would probably have to stay in the monastery a few more days.
Burma’s Department of Meteorology & Hydrology under the Ministry of Transport said on Wednesday that the water level will drop by two centimeters to 910 centimeters within the following 24 hours.
Local resident in Pegu confirmed that the water level started to subside on Wednesday evening.
The flooding began on Aug. 28 and threats of inundation forced the evacuation of 5,000 households, sources said.
Despite receding water levels on Wednesday evening, local residents remain concerned about the prospect of more rain.
Sources said apart from flooding in large ares of Pegu, Magwe Division, Shan and Mon States have also suffered from flooding and some highways are under water.
By KO HTWE – Thursday, September 2, 2010
Lt-Gen Myint Aung, the army’s adjutant general, who has reportedly been appointed as the future commander-in-chief in the recent reshuffle, supported the decision to kill 81 innocent civilians on Christie Island near Thai territorial waters, according to Aung Lynn Htut, a former military intelligence officer and Charge d’ Affaires in Washington DC.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Wednesday, Aung Lynn Htut, who was a military intelligence officer with the joint force involved in the operation, said: “After [then Commodore and later Vice Admiral] Kyi Min, received the order [to kill the villagers], he said he thought [Vice Snr Gen] Maung Aye might have given the order when he was drunk and he would confirm it the next morning.”
“When Kyi Min discussed the order with [Lt-Gen] Myint Swe and [Lt-Gen] Myint Aung, Myint Swe said nothing but Myint Aung supported the decision to kill the victims, saying it was an order and they should just obey it without bothering to confirm it,” he said.
Myint Aung was then serving as Brig Gen Commander of No (13) Military Operation Command in Bok Pyin in Tanintharyi Division.
In April 1998, after receiving reports about arms smugglers from the Indian military, a joint Burmese air, navy and army operation took place on Christie Island.
59 people from nearby villages including children, newly-born babies and a pregnant women were arrested. One month later they were killed and their bodies buried at the direct order of Snr-Gen Than Shwe.
Two days later, 22 Thai fishermen who were lost near Christie Island were also arrested, killed and their boat sunk, according to Aung Lynn Htut.
“I had to follow orders and couldn’t countermand them,” Aung Lynn Htut said, remembering the victims and wanting to do whatever he could for them.
According to a statement previously released by Aung Lynn Htut, Colonel Zaw Min, now serving as minister for the No. 1 Electric Power Department and former joint secretary general of the Union Solidarity Development Association, Lt-Col Soe Tin, Lt-Col Win Swe and Navy Lt Commander Aung Gyi were directly involved in the killings.
Lt Commander Aung Gyi was also the commander of the Burmese navy force that killed the Thai fishermen on the order of Than Shwe.
Speaking of the recent military reshuffle, Aung Lynn Htut said moving top military officials in the Burmese military leadership aimed at perpetuating Than Shwe’s power by removing officers close to his main rival, Vice-Snr Gen Maung Aye, deputy commander in chief.
Recently, the junta’s third and fourth ranking generals, Lt-Gen Shwe Mann and Lt-Gen Tin Aung Myint Oo, both quit their military positions and new officers close to Than Shwe below the age of 60 have replaced them.
Aung Lynn Htut said: “Than Shwe will remove anyone he thinks threatens him. No one can oppose him. He can do whatever he wants in both political and military spheres.”
He pointed out that two officers close to Maung Aye were replaced. Lt-Gen Ye Myint, the former Chief of Military Affairs Security and the regime’s negotiator with the cease-fire armed ethnic groups who once served as Maung Aye’s personal assistant was replaced by Maj-Gen Kyaw Swe, and Air Defense Chief Lt-Gen Myint Hlaing, who is close to Maung Aye, was replaced by Maj-Gen Sein Win.
The newly appointed officers have no information about how former officials dealt with the ethnic armed groups nor about dialogue with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, he said.
“Former dictator Gen Ne Win reshuffled his commanders in the military every 3-5 years and Than Shwe is following in his footsteps,” said Win Htein, a former captain in the Burmese armed forces and personal assistant to Suu Kyi.
“High ranking commanders who are left in their posts for too long can build up power, so they are frequently rotated,” he said.
“The reshuffle was not made out of state interests,” he said, adding that it also served as a redeployment in preparation for the election.
I don’t detect any dissent in the army. They just have to follow orders and let themselves be moved around,” he said.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Only two junta proxy parties will contest for constituencies in Naypidaw in the upcoming election as opposition parties say they cannot hope to win there because most of the voters work for the government.
The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), led by the Prime Minister Thein Sein, and the National Unity Party (NUP), a pro-regime party in the 1990 election, will contest for seats in Burma’s remote capital, according to Naypidaw sources.
With an estimated population of more than 900,000 people, Naypidaw is designated as a “union territory” and it is under the direct administration of the president, according to the Constitution.
Thein Sein will run in Zabu Thiri Township, one of the eight townships in the capital, while the regime’s No.3 Shwe Mann, who resigned from his military post as joint chief-of-staff last month, will run in Zeyar Thiri Township in the capital.
It remains unclear whether the NUP, an offshoot of former dictator Ne Win’s Burma Socialist Programme Party, will contest in the same constituencies with USDP candidates in Napyidaw. NUP’s party policies mostly reflect the current regime’s policy.
“We will run in Napyidaw. But I cannot give you details,” said Kyaw Win, an NUP official. Perhaps alluding to the recent reshuffle in the regime leadership, he said, “Things can change at anytime.”
After the deadline for candidate registration for political parties expired on Monday, the USDP has clearly emerged as the largest political party with 1,100 registered candidates while the NUP follows with 975 and the National Democratic Force (NDF) ranks third with 161 registered candidates.
“We had four candidates who planned to register for Napyidaw, but at the last minute they canceled their plans due to some difficulties,” said NDF political leader, Khin Maung Swe. “Also, it would not be easy to reach out to the population there. Many are government staff.”
Sources said the USDP has a membership of 10,000 people in Napyidaw. Local people are reportedly being forced to join the party ahead of the election, especially in villages near the capital.
Thu Wai, the chairman of the Democratic Party (Myanmar), which registered only a total of 50 candidates due to financial constraints—half the number the party had hoped to field—said, “We know that Naypidaw is an important place. But we won’t compete there.”
Detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party has boycotted the election citing unfair election laws. Suu Kyi recently advised people not to vote in the election if they have no party to support in the absence of the NLD.
On Wednesday, the authorities briefly detained an NLD organizer in Dala Township in Rangoon for distributing pamphlets which carried Suu Kyi’s statement that people have a right not to vote.
Thursday, 02 September 2010 00:43 Ko Wild
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Many Irrawaddy residents and party members have agreed to boycott Burma’s first elections in 20 years on November 7, according to National League for Democracy party vice-chairman Tin Oo.
His comments came today as he returned from his first trip to Irrawaddy Division since 1989, a year before the NLD won a landslide victory in Burma’s last polls. The NLD was conducting a voter-education campaign in the region this week.
“The people would like to boycott the election. They said they would like to cast their votes for the NLD but as the NLD had decided to boycott the election, so they also should boycott the forthcoming election. They [said they] have no option but to boycott the election”, Tin Oo said.
NLD leaders discussed electoral issues, youth culture and women’s affairs with party members, residents and villagers, he said.
“Our tour was aimed at educating and motivating people to do what they should. We helped them understand the current political conditions and advised that they need to carry out suitable actions peacefully,” he told Mizzima.
Tin Oo, 83, said that although he had not visited his hometown Pathein for a long time, he had no intention of visiting relatives, but that the objective of the tour was to reorganise NLD members and colleagues and talk to local residents.
He and his colleagues saluted the statue of national independence hero General Aung San, the father of detained NLD general secretary Aung San Suu Kyi, near Titekyi Monastery in Pathein, and vowed that they too would continue to fight for freedom.
Also on the roadshow were NLD central executive committee member Hla Pe, party members Win Myint and Kyi Win from Irrawaddy Division, and party women’s and youth leaders. They also visited Kyonpyaw, Pantanaw, Maubin, Bogalay and Dedaye townships.
A legal scholar, Tin Oo entered politics in 1988. In September that year he became the party’s vice-chairman and in December, chairman.
In 1989, he was imprisoned for seven years. Then in 2003 he was arrested again after in the “Depayin Massacre” and was sentenced to nine months in Katha Prison before being put under house arrest in 2004. He was released on February 13 this year.
The NLD have been conducting such roadshows around the country since June, visiting around 200 townships in Sagaing, Mandalay, Magway, Tenasserim, Pegu, and Irrawaddy divisions and Shan, Mon, Kachin and Arakan states.
Registrations for 42 political parties have been approved by the junta’s electoral watchdog, the Union Election Commission, and 32 have submitted lists of members to the commission according to the junta’s electoral laws, state-run newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported on Tuesday. Among the parties, the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and the National Unity Party (NUP) have the maximum numbers of candidates, which junta rules make costly to submit.
The international community including the United Nations has demanded that the election process be credible and inclusive. However, many countries including the United States, Britain, Australia and those of the European Union, have condemned the junta’s apparent stage-management ahead of the polls in favour of parties it supports and the exclusion of opposition leader Suu Kyi and her NLD party from the process as among many of the signs that the elections would be neither free nor fair.
By NAW NOREEN
Published: 1 September 2010
A man who was recruited into the Burmese army at the age of 14 and fled the following year is now being hunted by troops under orders to arrest him, his family said.
A letter was sent last week by the army to Htun Htun Aung’s family in Taungdwingyi in Burma’s central Bago division. Although now aged 22, having escaped seven years ago, the army has declared him a deserter.
“He is paranoid because he is wanted for desertion and is not staying at home now,” said his mother, Pyone Kyi. “I worry for him being in a situation like this, waiting for [the army] to come and arrest him.”
Htun Htun Aung and two friends were approached by troops as they played in the grounds of their school in Taungdwingyi in September 2002. The troops promised the boys’ families a bag of rice each and 50,000 kyat (US$50) if they agreed to go, which they did.
They were then sent to a Basic Military Training programme in Yeni, in Bago division. Htun Htun Aung was subsequently posted as a private at a Rangoon-based battalion, before escaping in late 2003.
The story is common in Burma, where battalion commanders regularly send troops out on recruitment drives to fill quotas set by the junta. The ruling generals have been aggressively expanding the Burmese army, which is now thought to number nearly 500,000 troops, one of the world’s largest standing armies relative to population.
The exact number of child soldiers serving is unknown, but a 2002 Human Rights Watch report put the figure at some 70,000, or around a fifth of the total army size at the time. It added that desertion can be punishable by three to five years in prison.
Recruitment of minors is illegal under Burmese law; under international law, boys and girls aged 15 or over had been legally able to volunteer for the army, while only adults over 18 can be forcibly recruited.
But according to an ‘optional protocol’ law established in 1992, states “shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons below the age of 18 do not take a direct part in hostilities and that they are not compulsorily recruited into their armed forces”.
The ruling junta is not the only guilty party in Burma, with some of the country’s multiple armed ethnic groups, such as the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), Democratic Karen
Buddhist Army (DKBA), Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and United Wa State Army (UWSA), known use child soldiers.
By NAW NOREEN
Published: 2 September 2010
The Burmese government’s often aggressive attempts to turn ceasefire groups into Border Guard Forces (BGF) has claimed its first victim.
Saw Jack was killed by his seniors in a corn field in eastern Burma’s Karen state on Tuesday morning, shortly after he escaped the newly formed BGF 2202 based near Myawaddy, a town on the border with western Thailand.
Reports claim he was attempting to defect to territory controlled by Na Kham Mwe, a renegade Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) commander who has refused to make the transformation into a Border Guard Force.
The 31-year-old had been part of the DKBA faction that agreed to the junta’s proposal to transform and come under the control of the Burmese army. Numbers of ethnic ceasefire groups have however refused, drawing threats of war from the ruling generals.
Pressure had been heaped on various groups, including the 30,000-strong United Wa State Army (UWSA), the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the New Mon State Army (NMSP), prior to the 1 September deadline day, with the latter two officially announcing their refusal to transform.
The KIA, led by its political wing the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), had been told by military officials to make the change as a pretext for it contesting elections slated for 7 November, but yesterday it said that its goal of a federal Burma remained its “unwavering stance”.
Burma’s intelligence chief Ye Myint had met with the Wa army last month to pressure it to transform, after which the junta would send election officials escorted by Burmese troops to the Wa region of Shan state in lieu of the polls – the Wa army, which controls sizeable areas of Shan state, has agreed to hold voting in its territory.
A UWSA member told DVB however that it was “meaningless” to send troops along with election officials, given that there had been no previous problems with government or UN staff entering the region.
The NMSP has also formally refused to transform, and has said that it is preparing for a possible offensive by the Burmese army.