The Georgia Straight – Aung San Suu Kyi Burma’s voice for democracy
Click for Original (http://www.straight.com/article-356141/vancouver/burmas-voice-democracy)
The upcoming general election and the pending release of Aung San Suu Kyi have given the Burmese people new hope.
By Travis Lupick, November 4, 2010

Vancouver resident Alan Clements won’t reveal exactly how he recovered some of the rarest multimedia footage in the world from Burma. All he’ll say is that it remained buried somewhere in the totalitarian southeast Asian nation for 15 years.

“I had attempted to get these tapes out of Burma three separate times…and each time had failed,” Clements recounted in an exclusive interview with the Georgia Straight. “In ‘97, 2003, and 2006. And then they were lost.”

He was describing a rich archive of video and audio interviews with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

For 22 years, Suu Kyi has led a struggle against tyranny in Burma (also known as Myanmar). She has been imprisoned or held under house arrest in Rangoon for roughly 15 of the past 20 years. Her supporters describe her as a light for democracy shining in a country shrouded in the darkness of a ruthless military regime.

Over a period of months in 1995, Clements, a journalist and former Buddhist monk, gained unprecedented access to Suu Kyi. The result of the time they spent together was a book detailing their conversations, the recordings of which were hidden.

At his modest home in Kitsilano, Clements described Suu Kyi’s movement as a spiritual revolution with a political front.

“She is communicating a message that the only hope that we have for our survival is through the ability to learn the power to talk to each other,” he said. “It’s not a new idea, but she is manifesting it in the worst of conditions. She is asking the generals for dialogue and asking tyrants to reconcile their differences and to move forward in what she calls a ‘hand-in-hand’ approach.”

Vancouver’s Alan Clements recovered rare footage of Aung San Suu Kyi. Travis Lupick photo.

One day in 2009, Clements said, a non-Burmese man approached him while he was on a book tour in Australia. With a new resolve to bring Suu Kyi’s voice to the world, the two got to work on an effort to retrieve the archive.

Later that year, Clements’s new partner successfully entered Burma. The dissidents there were nervous about meeting with anybody, Clements recounted. But his man was persistent and gained their trust. A meeting was eventually arranged, and while driving through the streets of Rangoon, with the government’s soldiers everywhere, Clements’s friend was instructed by his driver to reach into the glove compartment. He grabbed what was there, stepped out of the car, and ran.

After lying buried in the earth for 15 years, the archive was recovered.

Still inside Burma, Clements continued, the man stayed awake for the better part of a week, painstakingly digitizing as much of the material as he could. Then he carried the archive out of the country and back to Clements in Australia.

“Getting the material out of the country was a significant step,” Clements emphasized. “Because we have…a Nobel peace laureate who is a prisoner of conscience, who the world does not know except through iconic posters and very brief sound bites leaked by her lawyer.”

The people of Burma live in the shadow of a military junta led by a man named Than Shwe. United Nations and Amnesty International reports describe a dystopian prison state where ethnic-cleansing campaigns target villages unpredictably, forced-labour camps dot the country, and tens of thousands of conscripted child soldiers fight on both sides of ethnic insurgencies on the nation’s fringes. Rape is used as a weapon, torture is endemic, and extrajudicial killings are common. Burma is a country where even talk of human rights can result in a person’s disappearance.

And yet in the face of such terror, Suu Kyi offers these words, as heard on one of the tapes Clements retrieved: “We must try our best to see others as a whole and not just their actions. This principle asks us to be spiritually creative—to find ways to bring out the good that is inherent in our oppressor, our enemy. Nurture the best in them; seize the moment to learn, grow, and to use love to halt anger.”

Over the next few weeks, the world will be watching the regime that has silenced Suu Kyi for most of the past 20 years.

On Sunday (November 7), Burma will hold its first general election in two decades. And on November 13, Suu Kyi is scheduled to be released from her latest term of house arrest. The upcoming election has been described by the UN as “deeply flawed”, and it is far from certain that Suu Kyi will actually be granted some form of freedom. Nevertheless, top-ranking members of Burma’s opposition movement say that it is not impossible to see a revolution on the horizon, and that Suu Kyi could one day lead a democratic Burma.

At the same time, Clements is working with the archive he recovered to bring to the world the words of Suu Kyi, two of her closest mentors—Kyi Maung, now deceased, and Tin Oo—and many other advocates for a free and democratic Burma. The plan is to create an interactive multimedia edition of the 1997 book he coauthored with Suu Kyi, The Voice of Hope: Conversations With Alan Clements.

“To see it and to hear it was a whole different experience,” Clements said. “It was a spiritual experience to be with her, and I want people to have that experience.”

In researching this article, the Straight has learned that Clements’s efforts are not isolated. With the goal of informing the world about what is happening in Burma, a number of people continue to do everything they can to carry materials similar to Clements’s archive out of the country.

The military junta has ruled Burma since 1962. But cracks in the secretive regime’s seemingly unshakable hold on the country may slowly be forming.

On May 27, 1990, Suu Kyi was democratically elected the leader of Burma. Her political party, the National League for Democracy, won a landslide victory over the State Peace and Development Council (then called the State Law and Order Restoration Council). But the vote was never recognized by the military junta, which imprisoned Suu Kyi and hundreds of NLD members and supporters.

In a rare telephone interview, Tin Oo, the party’s vice chairman and a long-time mentor of Suu Kyi’s, explained to the Straight why the NLD is boycotting the 2010 general election.

“We do not believe that the coming elections will be free and fair,” he said while on a brief, government-sanctioned visit to Singapore. “We have been harassed and restricted since 1990 up to now, and our political leaders are imprisoned. So how can they stand for elections? We don’t see it as free and fair. It is a sham election.”

Released from seven years of house arrest in February this year, Oo remained defiant. He charged that Burma’s military leaders have used the country’s constitution, election laws, and emergency laws—which are expected to remain in effect for the election—to ensure the military remains in power.

“The [NLD] central committee members and our central executive members all unanimously agreed not to register for the election,” he said. “We want to say—the National League for Democracy—that we will not proceed.”

As told by Clements, Oo’s story is an example of the Burmese people’s capacity to forgive and of a human being’s ability to change.

Many years ago, Oo was a decorated general who had reached the highest ranks of the military junta. To get there, it is very likely that he did terrible things. But in 1976, and without warning, Oo was forced into retirement and later sentenced to hard labour for treason. Upon his release in 1981, Oo entered a monastery, where he studied Buddhism alongside Clements. He went on to found the NLD alongside Suu Kyi. Ever since the party’s victory in 1990, Oo has shared Suu Kyi’s fate of enduring repeated terms in prison and under house arrest.

From Singapore—where he was only allowed to travel for medical reasons—Oo pledged the NLD’s loyalty to the people of Burma. “We will not do party politics but the people’s politics,” he said. “We will do what is in their minds and hearts.”

En route to Montreal for a speaking engagement, Tin Maung Htoo, executive director of the Canadian Friends of Burma, explained how the junta’s constitution ensures that the November 7 election will only solidify the military’s dominant role in the country.

Htoo explained that the constitution reserves 25 percent of seats in both houses of parliament for military officers and requires more than 75-percent approval for constitutional amendments.

Regarding the executive branch, Htoo continued, the constitution states that several key ministerial portfolios must be controlled by the military. These include home affairs, defence, and border areas.

“The leading role of the military in Burma is not just temporary,” Htoo said. “It is forever. That is written in the constitution.”

Supporting Htoo’s remarks, a December 2008 UN analysis of the constitution states: “The denial of justice, liberty, and equality (indeed the fear of these ‘virtues’) is inscribed in virtually every principle.…The only objective that the constitution will achieve is the privileged position of the armed forces.”

Complementing the constitution’s provisions regarding the military are election laws targeting the junta’s two most significant opposition groups. As reported by BBC News, anybody with a criminal record cannot participate in the election. That rules out Suu Kyi, Oo, many other members of the NLD, and thousands of activists who have crossed the regime. In addition, a second law makes it illegal for members of religious orders to vote. In 2007, thousands of Buddhist monks led the largest public show of opposition since 1988’s 8888 Popular Uprising. (Both demonstrations were crushed with lethal force.)

After the junta refused to recognize the results of the 1990 election, many members of the opposition retreated to Burma’s border with Thailand. There, an exile government was formed. The NLD and other opposition parties elected Suu Kyi’s cousin, Sien Win, as its prime minister. Today, Win leads the Burmese diaspora from the headquarters of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma in Rockville, Maryland.

Win echoed Oo’s remarks and said that the NLD refuses to participate in the upcoming election because the junta’s constitution and electoral laws have made a fair vote impossible.

“Under these conditions, Win explained by phone, “we don’t want to give our endorsement; we don’t want to confuse the people; we don’t want to confuse the international community.”

For this story, the Straight repeatedly attempted to interview NLD spokesperson and Suu Kyi’s lawyer Nyan Win. Telephone numbers supplied to the Straight often rang briefly before disconnecting.

For many living in Burma, the junta’s continued rule is a matter of life and death. A report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in March 2010 states: “There is a pattern of gross and systematic violation of human rights which has been in place for many years and still continues. Given the extent and persistence of the problem, and the lack of accountability, there is an indication that those human rights violations are the result of a State policy.”

The report details dozens of recent atrocities, making it clear that the situation in Burma is not improving. Take just one example: in Shan state, since July 29, the military has forced the relocation of about 40 villages, making that operation the largest forced migration in the country since 1996–1998, when more than 300,000 people were displaced.

Paul Pickram, a Canadian journalist and the author of the recently published No Easy Road: A Burmese Political Prisoner’s Story, has seen the work of the junta firsthand.

“What is happening in Burma is the real dark side of humanity,” he said from Chiang Mai, Thailand. “A sea of this could very well be the undoing of human civilization.”

For the past two years, Pickram has worked for Burma News International, a collective of exiled Burmese media organizations. His job has often taken him to the Burma-Thailand border region, where an estimated 150,000 Burmese refugees live in a string of camps and where the price of opposing the junta is perhaps most evident.

“What they do is they just hammer you,” he said. “The brutality that they strike back with is so strong, so overwhelming, for even the smallest infraction in their eyes, that the people are just bludgeoned into total submission. And if they’re not, they’re just totally destroyed.”

Pickram recounted some of the stories he’s heard. “There are dark zones—they call them black zones in Burma—where people are shot on sight. Rape is regularly used as a weapon of war. They starve people; they burn villages to the ground; they have publicly executed people. They have killed thousands.”

On Suu Kyi, Hoffmann was cautiously optimistic. He said that the information he has does suggest that Suu Kyi will be released on or close to November 13. “We don’t know what that release will be,” he added. “But it will probably give her greater freedoms than she has at the moment.”

Hoffmann emphasized that Canada’s political and economic sanctions targeting Burma and the junta have long been the toughest in the world. For that to change, he continued, Canada would have to see “significant, tangible, and enduring” reforms.

The Straight filed an interview request with the Embassy of the Union of Myanmar in Ottawa. An e-mailed reply stated that the submission would be sent to “HQ”. Further inquiries received no response.

After leading the campaign against Burma’s military government for more than two decades, the NLD was dissolved on May 6, 2010. Once the party refused to register for the November election, Burma’s electoral commission—which is controlled by the military—declared the NLD illegal.

On October 14, a letter bearing Oo’s signature was sent to NLD members and other opposition groups. The letter (which was translated and supplied to the Straight by Canadian Friends of Burma) stated that the NLD is fighting the regime’s decision and that Burma’s high court has agreed to hear the case.

Tim Aye Hardy, director of outreach for the Burma Global Action Network, told the Straight that Suu Kyi will never cease to fight for a democratic Burma. Speculating on what Suu Kyi will do if the junta does grant her a degree of freedom, Hardy said that he is sure she will speak out against the junta.

“She will talk about issues of injustice and human rights and speak out for the people,” he affirmed from his office in New York City. “That is who she is; that is what she has been doing; and that is what she has devoted her life to.”

Hardy, one of the student leaders who dared to publicly oppose the regime in 1988, has long shared Suu Kyi’s dream of bringing democracy to Burma.

“She will speak out,” he repeated. “When that happens, it is guaranteed that people will rally behind her, that people will come and listen to her, and that people will support her.”

Oo and every other Burmese the Straight spoke with hold Suu Kyi in the highest regard, the tone of their voices audibly changing as they spoke of her.

“She is truly a symbol of light, of democracy, human rights, and liberty,” Oo said, despite the possibility of the regime’s reprisal. “And once she is released from custody, she will go around and talk to the people.”

Clements, finally in possession of the long-lost archive, said there is much that people of every nationality can learn from Suu Kyi.

“You’ve got this woman who is basically saying, ‘No. I am going to confront you with the power of kindness over cruelty, dialogue over destruction, and decency over death,’ ” he said. “She has a very beautiful condemnation of force.”

What Suu Kyi is doing extends far beyond the borders of Burma, Clements continued. “Aung San Suu Kyi is bringing forth this new vision, this new paradigm, for a new form of world democracy that is decidedly committed to nonviolence.”

And yet Suu Kyi remains a prisoner of the state, separated from her family but refusing to leave her people. Whether or not she is released from house arrest on November 13, one thing will not change. In 1990, Suu Kyi was democratically elected to lead the people of Burma. She has been doing so ever since.

Canadian Friends of Burma will hold a demonstration on Saturday (November 6) at 11 a.m. at Library Square. Hollyhock and Banyen Books are hosting a series of presentations by Alan Clements on Saturday and Sunday (November 6 and 7), and November 13 and 14. These sessions will explore Aung San Suu Kyi’s call for a global revolution of the spirit, which Clements described as “a form of nonviolent, feminine-based activism grounded in liberated Buddhism, love, and defiant comedy”. Tickets include a copy of the audio version of Clements’s book, The Voice of Hope, and are available at worlddharma.com.

You can follow Travis Lupick on Twitter at twitter.com/tlupick.

The international community has slowly started to turn its attention toward Burma. At the UN, efforts are under way to establish a commission of inquiry. The governments of Canada and the United States have expressed support for the initiative, but China—Burma’s biggest trade partner—and other nations are lobbying against a UN inquiry.

Ron Hoffmann, Canada’s ambassador to Thailand, who is also responsible for relations with Burma, told the Straight that the Canadian government is “deeply disappointed” by the junta’s behaviour in the run-up to elections.

“This exercise is designed and has always been designed to put this military regime back in power,” he said from his home in Bangkok. But there are events to keep an eye on.

“This so-called process of civilianization…does usher in a number of major structural changes, the implications of which are simply not clear at this point,” he explained.

For example, Hoffmann said, the new constitution establishes a national parliament and regional parliaments. And, at least on paper, it does decentralize Shwe’s power by creating a presidency, two vice-presidencies, and other key positions.

But Hoffmann was quick to add that if such developments do mark the beginning of a transition to democracy, that process will be a long and arduous one.

He noted that the junta has proven itself unpredictable, and he warned that there are indications the situation in Burma could actually get worse after the election. Shwe’s government has repeatedly oppressed ethnic minorities—such as the Muslim Rohingyas, Karen, and Chin—with violence, causing the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. With renewed confidence after an election, Hoffmann continued, the military could intensify operations against minorities in the country.

Agency: Myanmar ethnic groups align against regime
Thu Nov 4, 4:24 am ET

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) – Six armed ethnic groups in Myanmar have forged an agreement to join forces, fearing they will be attacked by the regime after Sunday’s election, an exile news agency said Thursday.

The India-based Mizzima agency, staffed by refugees from the military-ruled nation, said the “landmark deal” was struck Tuesday in the Thai-Myanmar town of Mae Hong Son and included the most powerful ethnic armies.

The reported alliance comes amid fears that civil war could break out between the government and several ethnic groups who have denounced the elections as a means to end their decades-long struggle for autonomy under a federal system.

Western governments have criticized the election, the first in 20 years, as a ploy to perpetuate the military’s grip on power.

“The Burmese army could wage wars against ethnic groups after the election. Therefore it is essential for the ethnic groups to cooperate and help each other,” the agency quoted David Tharckabaw, vice president of the Karen National Union, as saying.

The other members of the alliance include organizations from the Karenni, Chin, Kachin, Mon and Shan minorities. Some, like the Karen, have been fighting the regime for decades, but others had signed cease-fire pacts that now appear in jeopardy.

With increasing tension, the government has canceled voting in 3,400 villages in ethnic areas and has increased its military presence in the countryside. Several of the cease-fire groups are boycotting the election.

Ethnic minorities make up some 40 percent of the country’s 56 million people and could field a formidable force together. But past attempts to unify have largely failed.

“We have no real option but to unite, politically and militarily. Now is the time to be united as one,” said Lahpai Nawdin, who heads the Kachin News Group, at a meeting of ethnic minorities last week. The group is the media arm of the Kachin Independence Organization, which fields a potent army of some 8,000 fighters.

To vote or not to vote? Myanmar youth take to streets
by Dave Major – Wed Nov 3, 10:29 am ET

YANGON (AFP) – In the dead of night in army-ruled Myanmar, Aye Aung Lin and his team don their motorcycle helmets, leap on their bikes and risk their freedom to blitz four towns with their bold graffiti.

Like all of those aged under 38, these activists have never voted in a general election before, but getting the nation’s youngsters into the polling booths on Sunday is exactly what they are trying to prevent.

One of their scrawled slogans has a big 2010 crossed out. Another simply says: “No vote”.

“I believe that the election will not change anything because the political prisoners are not released and there are limitations,” said 24-year-old Aye Aung Lin, whose name has been changed to protect his safety.

It is a stance that meets with much agreement across most Western nations, where Myanmar’s rare poll has been widely criticised as a ploy to dress up military rule in civilian clothing.

But by advocating a boycott through through their subversive street art, poetry and hip hop music, the young radicals in this nationwide network, known as “Generation Wave”, risk substantial jail terms if they are caught.

Twenty out of roughly 50 of them are already locked up, along with more than 2,000 political prisoners. Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is under house arrest and has been detained for most of the past 20 years.

“We believe that we will succeed one day but we need to keep trying,” said Aye Aung Lin. “We want to reach out to people through the arts.”

He is not the only youngster trying to sabotage the controversial poll, which has been boycotted by Suu Kyi’s now disbanded National League of Democracy (NLD) after she was effectively excluded from the process.

“Our main objective is getting people not to vote,” said Ko Yin Thit, an activist with the NLD’s youth branch, who is distributing leaflets and photos of Nobel peace prize winner Suu Kyi to convince fellow citizens not to vote.

“This is to show the world that the new government won’t be elected by the majority of the people and the whole thing is a set-up,” said the 31-year-old, whose name has also been changed.

In recent days, Myanmar’s state media has stressed that citizens must vote this weekend and warned those inciting a boycott that they face jail terms or fines.

“We could die or be put in prison, but I’m prepared for that,” added Ko Yin Thit.

Suu Kyi, who has said she herself will not vote, swept her party to power in Myanmar’s last election in 1990 despite being under house arrest, but the results were never recognised by the ruling generals.

This time around the junta is taking no chances: Suu Kyi is again under house arrest, a quarter of parliamentary seats are reserved for the army, and regime-backed candidates have enjoyed hefty advantages over “pro-democracy” parties.

Yet not all of the younger generation dismiss the poll.

Some are spreading the message that, despite its many flaws, this election offers hope of gradual change in a country that has been under iron-fisted military rule for nearly five decades.

“The election is very important for our country and could lead to democracy. That is the reason why we want to give education about the voting process,” said an ethnic Kachin woman, who gave the alias of Ester.

She and her friends have been travelling to meet some of the millions who have never seen a ballot box — not to tell them to vote, but to explain the electoral process and point out that they can make a conscious choice.

“We have to participate whether it is fair or not. We will have another election — maybe (in) 2015, 2020,” said the optimistic 23-year-old in Yangon, just returned from a voter education trip in northernmost Kachin state.

The election could also help the country’s youth to realise they have a duty to pressure the authorities for democratic reforms, according to Myanmar analyst David Mathieson of Human Rights Watch.

“It’s unfortunate that their first experience of democracy is so bitter,” he said. “But something positive might come out if the kids are watching how the process works and how it is flawed.”

US fine-tunes outreach as Myanmar votes
by Shaun Tandon – Thu Nov 4, 12:01 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – As Myanmar moves ahead with a controversial election Sunday, the United States is trying to fine-tune its policy — maintaining dialogue with the military regime, but also stepping up pressure.

President Barack Obama’s administration has made engagement a signature principle of its foreign policy and last year initiated talks with the junta, hoping to nudge Myanmar out
of its isolation.

The Obama administration has openly acknowledged its disappointment. Myanmar, also known as Burma, is holding its first elections in 20 years on Sunday despite the marginalization of ethnic minorities and the opposition, including detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

The administration has insisted it will stick to its engagement policy, saying that a previous policy focused on punishment had failed and that the outside world needs contacts in the reclusive country at a critical time.

But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last month also threw US support behind a proposal to set up a UN-backed commission into alleged crimes against humanity by the regime, which rights groups say has systematically destroyed ethnic minority villages and used rape as a weapon of war.

Myanmar watchers say that the administration always kept open the option of supporting a UN probe but did not have an internal consensus, with some officials fearing it would set back the engagement policy.

“It took the administration a while to accept that they were not going to be able to influence this election very much,” said John Dale, an expert on Myanmar at George Mason University.

“This seems like a change in policy. But I think that the administration always had both in mind and worried that they might be contradictory,” he said.

Human rights activists have long pressed for the UN inquiry, which could potentially lead to an international warrant for Myanmar’s leaders, and have urged the United States to make its support for the probe more than rhetorical.

But Suzanne DiMaggio, director of policy studies at the Asia Society, said that a commission of inquiry risked backfiring.

“We really don’t know what kind of changes will take place after the election, if any. This doesn’t seem like the right time to pursue this in earnest,” said DiMaggio, who heads an Asia Society task force on US policy toward Myanmar.

DiMaggio said the United States had limited options on Myanmar and that the engagement policy “should not only move forward, but it should be stepped up.”

“One thing we know for sure is that it’s not going to be a free or fair election. But the larger question is will there be opportunities to exploit after the election and to press the new government toward better governance,” she said.

Michael Green, an adviser to former US president George W. Bush who was nominated to be the US special envoy on Myanmar, said the Obama team’s message has been muddled, particularly on the commission of inquiry.

Last year’s announcement of the engagement policy moved the United States closer to many Asian nations which had earlier bucked Western attempts to isolate the regime.

But Green said that the administration should have also prepared the groundwork for international pressure. He expected a divided response to the election as Western nations and Japan criticize it while India and China, which are competing for influence in Myanmar, offer a more positive spin.

“In fits and starts, the administration is ending up in the right place on Burma but I think the signals have been mixed,” said Green, a scholar at Georgetown University and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“They started off positioning themselves quite well to lead the international reaction to this election,” he said.

“But they’ve let the signals get confused enough that they’re now not very well positioned to deal with an election that is not going to be legitimate and that is going to end up in effect shifting the country from uniformed to un-uniformed authoritarianism,” he said.

Myanmar’s Internet ‘under attack’ ahead of election
Thu Nov 4, 8:56 am ET

YANGON (AFP) – A massive cyber attack has crippled Internet services in Myanmar ahead of Sunday’s election, IT experts and web service providers say, raising fears of a communications blackout for the vote.

Internet users in the military-ruled country have reported slow connections and sporadic outages for more than a week, and some suspect the junta may be intentionally disrupting services to block news flowing out.

Web service providers have blamed the troubles on outside attacks.

“Our technicians have been trying to prevent cyber attacks from other countries,” a technician from Yatanarpon Teleport Co. told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“We still do not know whether access will be good on the election day,” he added.

A technician from private web provider RedLink Communications Co. said there was still intermittent loss of Internet connection.

“The technicians are trying to fix it…. We cannot tell exactly when it will be back to full service,” he said. “We don’t know the source of the attack yet.”

Experts say Myanmar’s Internet system has been overwhelmed by a flood of incoming messages known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.

US-based IT security firm Arbor Networks says the main state-owned Internet provider Myanmar Post and Telecommunications “suffered a large, sustained DDoS attack disrupting most network traffic in and out of the country.”

The onslaught was “several hundred times” more than enough to overwhelm the country’s terrestrial and satellite links, it estimated.

The motives for the attack were unclear, but “large-scale geo-politically motivated attacks — especially ones targeting an entire country — remain rare,” Arbor Networks chief scientist Craig Labovitz wrote in a blog posting.

Some Internet users believe the authorities are intentionally slowing services ahead of Sunday’s vote, the first in 20 years in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma.

“Although they said the connection has been attacked, it’s hard to believe. I think they have been doing it intentionally for the election day to delay news reaching the international community,” said Kyaw Kyaw, a 25-year-old university student in the main city Yangon.

The polls have been widely criticised by pro-democracy activists and Western governments as being aimed simply at prolonging military rule under a civilian guise.

Foreign journalists and election monitors are not being allowed into the country for the election.

During monk-led protests in 2007, Myanmar’s citizens used the web to leak extensive accounts and video to the outside world, prompting the regime to block Internet access.

Connections have also been slowed down on politically significant dates, such as the August 8 anniversary of a mass political uprising in 1988.

In September of this year, the websites of Myanmar exile media organisations were temporarily crippled by DDoS attacks on the third anniversary of a crackdown on the “Saffron Revolution” monk-led protests.

Even in normal circumstances, 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.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders describes Myanmar’s legislation on Internet use, the Electronic Act, as “one of the most liberticidal laws in the world”, with online dissidents facing lengthy prison terms.

For some, Myanmar is ultimate frontier market
By Jason Szep
BANGKOK | Thu Nov 4, 2010 1:04pm IST

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Asset manager Douglas Clayton calls it the ultimate frontier market: a country rich in natural gas, timber and gemstones strategically located between China and India with enormous potential for infrastructure.

But as army-ruled Myanmar heads into its first election in two decades on Sunday, mainland Southeast Asia’s biggest country remains one of the world’s most difficult for foreign investors, restricted by Western sanctions, blighted by 48 years of oppressive military rule and starved of capital.

Some investors expect the parliamentary election to change that by introducing reforms that could slowly prise open the country of 50 million people that just over 50 years ago was one of Southeast Asia’s most promising and wealthiest, the world’s biggest rice exporter and major energy producer.

“It seems that the situation could not get much worse but has huge room to get better,” said Clayton, a former hedge fund manager who is now chief executive and managing partner of Leopard Capital, a private equity fund focused on emerging Asian markets and backed by overseas investors.

“It has more natural resources than other frontier markets. It is basically four times the size of Cambodia. So the scale is attractive to people who deal in billions of dollars instead of millions,” he added. “The election is potentially a seminal event in changing the perception about Myanmar.”

Most political analysts advise against such exuberance.

Under the army-drafted constitution, the military has a 25 percent quota of all legislative seats and most of the remainder are expected to go to recently retired generals and their proxies running against minimal opposition due to tough election laws.

The pro-army parliament would appoint a president responsible for the government.

There’s no chance the election will be a catalyst for lifting Western sanctions, which depend more on whether the government releases an estimated 2,200 detained political activists or opposition politicians including Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, whose house arrest expires on Nov. 13.

CIRCUMVENTING SANCTIONS

But some U.S. and European companies are exploring how to navigate sanctions to get in early.

“Recently we’ve seen companies mostly from Europe and the United States — not just the usual Chinese, Southeast Asian and Indian investors — looking to go in,” said a source at at a political risk consultancy who declined to be identified because he was not authorised to talk about clients.

“They are approaching this in a way where they are willing to take a big of a hit on their reputation to navigate some of the political risks to simply be there, to get in there first.

Telecommunications and construction materials companies, in particular, are interested, he said, noting the election, while widely dismissed as a sham, will create a framework for a democratic system that might yield changes in years ahead.

“The perception is that, rightly or wrongly, Burma is about to open up in a big way,” he said.

China, Thailand, India and Singapore are already big investors in Myanmar. Chinese companies poured in $8 billion from January to May, mostly in energy-related projects, according to official Myanmar statistics.

India’s dominant state-owned oil explorer has announced it wants to invest in Myanmar’s gas fields, Thailand has ramped up investments, mostly in natural gas and infrastructure.

The country’s proven gas reserves doubled in the past decade to 570 billion cubic metres, equivalent to almost a fifth of Australia’s, according to the BP Statistical Review.

Revenues from those reserves are tightly held among the ruling military elite whose cronies dominate other businesses.

“In the short term, it is not in anyone’s interest among the ruling elite to make big changes,” said Sean Turnell, an expert on Myanmar’s economy at Sydney’s Macquarie University.
“There are deep, deep vested interests. And those vested interests will be trying to protect themselves.”

CONTENDING WITH CRONIES

Turnell points to the sale of about 300 state assets — from real estate, gasoline stations and toll roads to ports, shipping companies and an airline — that have been privatised, mostly this year, in highly opaque sales.

As military brass swap fatigues for civilian clothes in the poll, the sales put major assets under their control via holding companies or through allies, turning the ex-military elite into the financial powerbrokers of a new era of civilian rule.

Myanmar has also expanded its number of private banks ahead of the election to 19 from 15, but the four businessmen opening them are among the closest allies to the top generals.

Turnell said tension among businessmen over who gets better favours could to lead to rifts and be an eventual catalyst for reforms, but he casts doubt on a theory circulating among investors that Myanmar will develop like Vietnam or Indonesia, where investment friendly policies thrived amid hardline rule.

Myanmar has few technocrats and shuns outside advice, unlike Indonesia, for instance, where former president Suharto worked closely with U.S.-educated Indonesian economists known as the “Berkeley mafia” after coming to power in 1967.

“There is the risk that companies are caught in a false dawn, but there could also be some opening up,” said Jacob Ramsay, senior Southeast Asia analyst at consultants Control Risks. “Instead of focusing on the illegitimacy of the election, it is time to start thinking about how the landscape could change, particularly if business gets involved.”

Clayton at Leopard Capital is more bullish. “Everyone knows that fortunes will be made here once the sanctions are lifted and the economy opens up,” he said.

BANGLADESH: Rohingya refugees eye Myanmar elections

COX’S BAZAR, 3 November 2010 (IRIN) – Despite restrictions on movement, marriage and education, Rohingya in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State have been given the right to vote in Myanmar’s 7 November elections, and many of the over 200,000 Rohingya refugees in neighbouring Bangladesh see in this a semblance of hope.

“We didn’t come to Bangladesh to make a life. We came here for justice,” Shira Banu, an undocumented Rohingya who arrived in Bangladesh 15 years ago when the Burmese army seized her land, said.

“If the government in Burma removes the restrictions and if the Jatishanga [UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR] comes with us, then we would like to go home,” the 50-year-old said.

“Our only hope is if Aung San Suu Kyi comes to power. Her father was a good leader so she will be too,” said Banu.

IRIN interviewed over 20 Rohingya from the Cox’s Bazar area who expressed similar opinions.

But the iconic Burmese Nobel laureate, whose party the National League for Democracy (NLD) won the last elections over two decades ago, has been under house arrest for 11 of the past 16 years, and won’t be participating in the elections.

“Despite the violation of their human rights, the Rohingya [in Myanmar and Bangladesh] see this as their only shot at freedom and they want to take it,” Chris Lewa, head of the Arakan Project, a human rights organization specializing in the Rohingya, told IRIN.

Some say the Rohingya vote is being vied for by others.

Monks

In 2007 the Rakhine Buddhist monks showed their opposition to the State Peace and Development Council (SDPC – the official name given to the junta) mainly in Sitwe, the capital of Rakhine State, and the regime is unsure whether the monks will support the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which would like to take over from the SDPC.

“The Rohingya were given the vote earlier this year by the regime to try and manipulate the ballot box by promising freedom and citizenship. However, few expect a shift in policy,” said Fayas Amed, editor of the Kaladan Press, a Bangladesh-based e-magazine covering the Burmese elections.

In 2007 the SDPC introduced a new constitution which reserves a quarter of seats in both houses of parliament for officers, and effectively bars Aung San Suu Kyi from holding office.

Under an election law passed in early 2010, the Electoral Commission is chosen solely by Myanmar’s military rulers. Those holding temporary registration cards, including the Rohingya, will be allowed to vote.

Lewa points out that the government move to give the Rohingya the vote, does not mean the community’s lot will improve.

“You have to consider the Rakhine Buddhist population in Rakhine State too, who have already protested over the possibility of Muslim Rohingya being granted citizenship. So even if the government is willing to make some concessions, you will always have opposition [to the Rohingya] from them [the Rakhine State Buddhist population],” she said.

Hostility to Rohingya in Bangladesh

Meanwhile, the Rohingya face similar hostility in Bangladesh, too. Many locals compete for jobs with the refugees, who are often willing to work for less than Bangladeshis.

Others worry that armed extremist gangs are radicalizing the youth of this marginalized, leaderless community, and are suspicions of drug smuggling and an increase in petty crime – rumours which are fuelled by the local press, resulting in anti-Rohingya sentiment.

“We were tortured in Burma, we are tortured in Bangladesh. The locals snatch our firewood and beat us. I’ve got stitches on my head to prove it. They break our water jugs on the way back from the tube well and even rape us. We thought we’d come here to Bangladesh, a Muslim country, but we suffer the same abuse here,” she said.

“If I’d known the situation was the same in Bangladesh I would never have come. Now I can’t go back or the Nasaka [Burmese military] will imprison me,” she said.

There are 28,000 documented Rohingya living in two government-run camps in the southeastern Bangladesh district of Cox’s Bazar – remnants of a mass influx of this ethnic, linguistic and religious minority when 250,000 fled Myanmar in 1991.

Hundreds of thousands of others – fleeing from state-sponsored persecution – have arrived since. They live in Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar districts, some in unofficial camps, but are undocumented and so have few rights.

Channel NewsAsia – Myanmar polls a foregone conclusion, say critics
By Anasuya Sanyal | Posted: 04 November 2010 2038 hrs

THAILAND: Myanmar’s first elections in 20 years will take place this Sunday, but critics are calling it a foregone conclusion with the military set to cement its hold on power.

Myanmar’s military government is holding what it terms “multi-party democratic” elections.

Already, It is confident its own party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party, will win.

There will also be no independent monitors during the polls. Foreign journalists have also been barred from entering the country to cover the proceedings.

The secrecy surrounding the election has some calling it a sham.

Critics say it’s a way to put a civilian facade on a revamped government that will still be run by the country’s powerful generals.

Forum for Democracy in Burma’s Foreign Affairs Committee deputy secretary Soe Aung said: “They have the powers. They have the resources.

“They have the money but what they don’t have is the recognition as a civilian government, to govern politically, constitutionally the country. So that’s why they have to do that now”.

But for the large immigrant Myanmar community in Thailand, it’s better than nothing.

Myanmar migrant Tan Mea Soe said he was excited about the upcoming election as this develop the country in many ways.

Another migrant, Johnny, said: “I believe it’s a good thing. I also heard that the government is serious about holding the elections”.

But another Myanmar migrant said: “I’m not okay with this upcoming election since they have detained Aung San Suu Kyi for over 20 years”.

The Myanmar government said it is considering her release after the elections.

But it’s hard to tell how the results will change the country’s political landscape.

Mr Soe Aung said: “There are more that 2,200 political prisoners who are not able to take part in these elections.

“They are not able to stand as candidates. They are not able to vote”.

Twenty-five per cent of parliamentary seats are reserved for the military, regardless of the vote.

For Thailand, it may mean resolving border and immigration problems between the countries.

Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya has back paddled from his earlier assertion that the Thai government plans to repatriate Myanmar asylum seekers in the post-election period after critics called it “absurd.”

According to the United Nations, economic mismanagement and natural disasters have left one third of Myanmar’s 50 million people in poverty.

It’s the main reason so many flock to Thailand to work in factories and on construction sites where they earn around US$100 a month.

The Canadian Press – UN chief Ban urges China help with Myanmar, Sudan polls, but skirts rights issue
By The Associated Press (CP) – 1 day ago

BEIJING, China — U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Security Council member China to help with contentious polls in Sudan and Myanmar, but skirted the issue of Beijing’s human rights record.

Ban said China, a close ally of Khartoum, could help ensure a peaceful outcome to Sudan’s January referendum over whether the south will secede from Africa’s largest country.

“I asked your government’s help in assisting the two sides find their way to a peaceful future, recognizing their shared interests,” Ban said in a speech Tuesday at the ruling Communist Party’s central training institute. A text of the speech was viewed on the website of the U.N. mission to China on Wednesday.

In addition to diplomatic engagement, Ban said China, which has a substantial peacekeeping mission in Sudan, could help with logistical tasks of transport and technical support in the voting.

He also asked that China use its influence with its southern neighbour Myanmar to ensure it moves in a positive direction following the military-run government’s staging of the country’s first elections in two decades on Sunday.

“I see it as an important test. Will the vote perpetuate an untenable status quo? Or will it set the country on course toward a more open, democratic and inclusive political future?” Ban said.

“As a trusted neighbour and friend, China’s role will be critical in helping the U.N. to help Myanmar find its way forward.”

Ban has been criticized by advocacy groups for failing to raise specific human rights issues either publicly or in private meetings with President Hu Jintao and other top leaders.

Rights groups have expressed particular disappointment that he did not broach the case of imprisoned dissident writer Li Xiaobo, who last month was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in a move that embarrassed and enraged the Chinese leadership.

The closest Ban came to such appeals was in a reference to the importance of recognizing that “achieving the shared goals of human rights around the world is more than an aspiration, it is a foundation of peace and harmony in our modern world.

“So too is respect for freedom of expression and the protection of its defenders,” Ban said.

ABC Radio Australia – Fears of more arrests after Burma elections
Updated November 4, 2010 21:11:58

Former political prisoners in Burma fear that this weekend’s elections will result in more members of the opposition being arrested by the military. Ron Corben reports from the Thai border town of Mae Sot, in northwestern Thailand, where he visited the offices of a support group for Burmese political prisoners.

Presenter: Ron Corben
Speakers: Khin Cho Myint, former political prisoner; Bo Kyi, joint secretary, Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Burma, Thailand

Listen:
Windows Media(http://www.abc.net.au/ra/asiapac/stories/m1936914.asx)

Italian-Thai Signs $8.6 Billion Myanmar Port Contract
November 03, 2010, 11:53 PM EDT
By Daniel Ten Kate

Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) — Italian-Thai Development Pcl, Thailand’s biggest construction company, signed an $8.6 billion contract with Myanmar’s government to build a deep-sea port and industrial estate, Vice President Anan Amarapala said.

The project will be located in Dawei, less than 300 kilometers (186 miles) west of Bangkok, offering another route for exporters to ship goods to Europe and the Middle East. Financing for the agreement is still under discussion, Anan said.

“Thailand’s government has said they want to support the project, so Italian-Thai will discuss details with them,” Anan said by phone. “There have been no official talks yet.”

The planned project would be 10 times bigger than Thailand’s main port and industrial estate, according to Tanit Sorat, vice chairman of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, who has studied the proposal. Nippon Steel Corp., Japan’s largest steel maker, and PTT Plc, Thailand’s largest energy company, are also considering an investment in the project, Tanit said last month.

The project will include a coal-fired power plant, an industrial center, oil and gas pipelines and an eight-lane highway, according to Thailand’s National Economic and Social Development Board. It may benefit automakers and petrochemical companies looking to expand in the region, it said.

Holding Company

“Many private companies from Thailand and overseas would like to be involved in the Dawei project as developers or investors,” Chompunuch Ramanvongse, an NESDB analyst, said last month. “There is a possibility that Ital-Thai will form a holding company for the purpose of co-financing with those developers.”

Investors from China, Japan and Thailand have expressed interest in the project, Porametee Vimolsiri, the NESDB’s deputy secretary-general, said last month. The concession periods for the roads, ports and industrial estate would vary from 40 years to 60 years depending on the project, he said.

Italian-Thai’s shares have risen 85 percent this year, more than double the gain in the benchmark SET Index. The company’s shares increased 0.9 percent to 5.45 baht as of 10:48 a.m. after climbing 7 percent yesterday.

Italian-Thai executives signed the contract with Myanmar’s government on Nov. 2 at a ceremony in Naypidaw, the capital, Anan said. They can start minor construction work immediately while they complete the design work, which must be submitted for approval, he said.

Myanmar has struggled to contain dozens of armed ethnic groups, including the Mon National Liberation Army, which operates in the area of the proposed highway. The United Nations maintains a camp in Thailand near the planned route that is home to 5,000 refugees from Myanmar.

Italian-Thai was founded in 1958 through a partnership from business executives from Italy and Thailand. It oversaw the construction of Bangkok’s main international airport and elevated train line and operates in about a dozen countries around the region.

GlobalPost – Inside Burma: A prison of silence
On the eve of elections, fear and mistrust pervade the streets in Burma.
By John Baynard — Special to GlobalPost
Published: November 4, 2010 07:11 ET in Worldview

Editor’s note: On Sunday, Burma, which is officially recognized as Myanmar, will hold its first general election in two decades. But with the main opposition party boycotting the vote, few political observers and human rights advocates believe the process will affect any change in the country. In this special report, GlobalPost goes inside Burma and the refugee camps along the Thai border to give voice to civilians who are often silenced under a repressive regime.

YANGON, Myanmar — “There is a mistrust in Burma. It is hard for people to tell you their real feelings because their life is in danger. They are not even loyal to themselves.”

A middle-aged Burmese man quietly told me this to explain the difficulties of reporting inside his country. “We are already in prison, a prison of silence,” he said.

Since a 1962 coup, the military-dominated government has held power in Burma, which is now called Myanmar. With the threat of imprisonment it has created a “prison of silence” by limiting freedom of expression and repressing human rights.

Before leaving for Burma, a young Burmese man now living outside the country warned me that, “there are ears in public.” He said the government is listening and watching for any hint of dissention.

Traveling on a tourist visa, I was careful what I talked about with people on the street. Conversations were about everyday life, not politics. People kept many of their thoughts and feelings private, which helps the military leaders keep the spotlight off of their brutal regime.

A young college graduate I interviewed in Burma said that human rights were among the topics that he and friends talked about. He contacted me afterward, three times, to make sure that I would not use his quotes.

People I met through an introduction from a mutual friend would feel free to talk, but only off the record if it involved any mention of the government. This was understandable given what they would face for speaking out.In 2008 Zarganar, a popular Burmese comedian was arrested and sentenced to 59 years (later reduced to 35 years). His offense was criticizing the government’s slow response to Cyclone Nargis, which devastated the Irrawaddy Delta.

The fear that is created by the regime, coupled with the severe restrictions put on journalists, make reporting inside Burma difficult. The international journalism watchdog, Reporters San Frontieres, recently listed Burma as one of the 10 worst countries in the world to work as a journalist. They stated, “Freedom is not allowed any space in Burma … and the rare attempts to provide news or information are met with imprisonment and forced labor.”

As I traveled around the country I saw a quiet resilience among the Burmese. Many were reluctantly resigned to their plight; they have learned the limits to their freedom and they have learned to work around them.

Inside Burma, life’s daily struggle is hard, so thoughts of making a change in government are secondary. It is a country that is resource rich with gas and oil reserves but where one-third of the population lives in poverty. It is estimated that the GDP per capita is less than $500, ranking it among the lowest in the world.

Ninety percent of the population is Buddhist and the influence of Buddhism is immense throughout society. Stunning Buddhist pagodas dot the cities and countryside, every morning Buddhist monks and nuns are seen on the streets seeking alms from homes and businesses. Most children at some point will spend up to a year as a novice in a Buddhist monastery.

Some people use the Buddhist doctrine of karma to explain the political situation, believing that the military leaders must have been well-behaved in their past lives, creating good karma to achieve this level of power. But one Yangon resident described the regime’s belief system this way, “They don’t believe in the rules of karma, they believe in the rules of the jungle.”

On Sunday, Burma will hold its national election. There is concern that the elections are just for show and international groups have called for election observers.

Burma election officials have announced that they will not allow foreign observers and international media into the country for the election. Thein Soe, Burma election commission chairman, said there was no need for election monitors because “our country has a lot of experience in elections. We are holding the election for this country, it’s not for other countries.”

This will be the second election held since the military-dominated government seized power in 1962. The only other election was in 1990 and the election results were ignored by the military regime when the National League for Democracy won 80 percent of the parliament’s seats.

David Scott Mathieson of Human Rights Watch said “the elections are about transforming and solidifying military rule with a civilian front-parliament. They are about as far from democracy as can be imagined. This is the Burmese military changing everything just a little in order to keep everything just the same.”

When asked how the Burmese view these elections, he said, “Most Burmese view the elections with apathy and apprehension, the elections have very little to do with them and more to do with elite games: by the military, their cronies and the handful of genuine democrats who are running and have been permitted to participate. The elections have excluded large parts of the Burmese, but not all of them. Yet if this is enough to express hope, then it’s hope based on very flimsy expectations.”

One college-age Burmese citizen recently told me, “The election is a step taken by the military government to legitimize itself as an elected body. I don’t have any personal interest in it.”

When asked who will vote he replied, “Those who are civil servants will surely have to vote for the pro-government parties and also people who are pressured. But I don’t see any public enthusiasm as in the 1990 election and many people do not look forward to real positive change.”

“What Burma needs is not an election, but a revolution by the people,” he added.

On the worn streets of the capital other residents are similarly pessimistic. They talked about “growing up in fear” and wondered what they could do after 50 years of a corrupt and repressive military regime.

“We wait for change, but everybody is waiting for someone to do something,” one Burmese woman said. Another stated that many in the country are “waiting for karma.” But waiting for karma in Burma might involve more patience than perhaps even the Buddha had.

GlobalPost – Inside Burma: Or is it Myanmar? Does it matter?
Though junta leadership changed Burma’s name in 1989, debate continues to be divisive.
By Patrick Winn – GlobalPost
Published: November 4, 2010 07:07 ET in Asia

Editor’s note: On Sunday, Burma will hold its first general election in two decades. But with the main opposition party boycotting the vote, few political observers and human rights advocates believe the process will affect any change in the country. In this special report, GlobalPost goes inside Burma and the refugee camps along the Thai border to give voice to civilians who are often silenced under a repressive regime.

BANGKOK, Thailand — Officially, the oblong country sandwiched between Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent is called the “Republic of the Union of Myanmar.”

If that sounds unfamiliar, there’s a reason: American and British media outlets, following their governments’ lead, use the name “Burma.” Many in the West still cling to this title even after the country’s leadership nixed “Burma” in 1989.

The leadership’s switch to “Myanmar” was explained as a move to shed its British colonial past, which ended in 1948 after a more than 60-year occupation.

The name was also presented as more inclusive of the country’s ethnic minorities than “Burma,” a name that suggests the majority Burman ethnic group over the nearly 100 other tribes amounting to 40 percent of the population.

Fair enough, right? Not in the eyes of Burma’s pro-democracy movement and the Western powers that back them. The name switch took place in 1989, amid an urban revolt against military rule.

One year later, the junta voided the election of Aung San Suu Kyi to the prime minister’s seat. Thousands were later imprisoned for pro-democracy activism. And the military government’s war on ethnic tribes is mired in horrid human rights abuses: torching villages, forced labor, rape as an intimidation tactic and more.

“This is a military regime that staged a coup and changed the country’s name all of a sudden,” said Khin Ohmar, head of the Thailand-based non-profit Forum for Democracy in Burma. Ohmar, 42, fled the country in 1988 during a crackdown on activists.

“I think they used anti-colonial sentiment to their advantage,” she said. “Fine, maybe there’s something to that. But what gives them the legitimacy to change it? Without consulting the people?”

So divisive is the name debate that some pro-democracy activists regard the use of “Myanmar” as outright offensive — even though the United Nations, France, Japan and all of Asia have accepted the name.

Pitched by the junta as less offensive to minorities than “Burma,” the name “Myanmar” is actually just a more formal, literary name for the Burman tribe. Ohmar, a mix of Burman and other ethnicities, remembers seeing the name in textbooks as a child.

There is also a disconnect between refugees from ethnic groups, like the Karen, who were schooled in the Burmese school system. Their tribal political leaders promote the use of “Burma” to signal junta resistance. But most born in the last two decades are apt to feel more comfortable with “Myanmar.”

Naw Khin Htay Kyi, 19, fled from her village after it fell under siege by Burma’s army. She walked for weeks with her mother, nearly dying from fever in the jungle, until they reached Mae La, Thailand’s largest refugee camp.

And though she’s against the junta in spirit, she accepts its argument for “Myanmar.”

“I think Myanmar includes all the ethnic groups in Burma. The word ‘Burma’ is just for Burman people, not Karen tribe like me,” she said. “My teachers in camp from America and Australia say Burma. But we say Myanmar at home.”

In October, the junta changed the country’s name again, albeit slightly: from the “Union of Myanmar” to the “Republic of the Union of Myanmar.” The flag was also changed without warning, as was the national anthem.

Universal adoption of “Myanmar” appears likely in the future, though the colonial name may stick around for a while. Decades passed before many in the West stopped calling Iran by “Persia,” even though the nation’s Shah asked heads of state to give up the old name in the 1930s.

The Malaysian Insider – Tension mounts as rebels rebuff Myanmar junta deal
November 04, 2010

BANGKOK, Nov 4 — An upcoming election supposed to unite a divided Myanmar could have the opposite effect and trigger a bloody conflict between ethnic rebels and the army, with serious implications for powerful neighbour China.

Deadlines for separatist guerrillas to disarm and take part in Myanmar’s political process expired long ago. Ethnic groups along the Thai and Chinese borders want Myanmar to be a federal union and aren’t interested in a November 7 election that signals the end to ceasefire agreements and decades of de facto self-rule.

The generals won’t take the snub lying down. Offensives against the rebels are expected and could destabilise border areas, triggering a refugee crisis for the country’s biggest economic and diplomatic ally, China.

Win Min, an exiled Burmese academic and expert on Myanmar’s military, said the army would wait until a new government was formed before attacking the different ethnic militias one by one to limit the damage for China, which depends on Myanmar for its growing energy needs.

“The window for negotiations is no longer open. The government has changed its rhetoric and is now calling these armies ‘insurgents’,” he said. “Their message is clear: surrender, or we’ll come after you.”

Surrender appears unlikely. While smaller rebel groups have had no choice but to accept the government’s demand that they disarm and join a state-run Border Guard Force, the bigger armies have vowed to fight on to protect their identity and territory.

High stakes

The United Wa State Army (UWSA), once backed by China, has an estimated 30,000 troops equipped with small arms and artillery. It controls towns bustling with border trade plus huge swathes of land to grow opium, which is used to make heroin.

Analysts say if the UWSA forms a united front with the Kachin Independence Army and two wings of the Shan State Army, the Myanmar military could be up against as many as 60,000 fighters and the conflict would be protracted, with heavy casualties.

Efforts by some ethnic groups to form political parties or field independents in the election have been rebuffed by the regime, and their guerrillas remain armed, showing both the government and the rebels are unwilling to compromise.

The cancellation of balloting in more than 3,000 ethnic villages has deprived as many as 1.5 million people of their chance to vote. With reports of troop build-ups in Shan and Kachin states bordering China, ethnic groups seem to be preparing for war.

“Channels for dialogue always used to be open, but that’s changed now,” added Win Min. “The military will probably wait to transfer power and get the job done, as quickly as possible.”

Kheunsai Jaiyen, editor of the Thai-based Shan Herald News Agency, which has close contact with the rebel groups, said there was still time to avert war, but only if the new government formed after the election made room for compromise.

He said China, which suffered an influx of 37,000 refugees when the army attacked Kokang rebels last year, was probably lobbying the generals to avoid a military solution and prevent any interruption to its construction of an oil and gas pipeline from the Bay of Bengal to southwest China’s Yunnan province, at an estimated cost of US$3.5 billion (US$10.7 billion).

“The government is focused on the election, its military is reorganising and the rebel groups, collectively, are not ready yet, so there’s still room for negotiations,” he said.

“I’m sure China and regional neighbours will be pressing hard for negotiations but that doesn’t mean the generals will listen to them. China’s influence is not as great as people assume.”

4 November 2010 Last updated at 05:18 ET
BBC News – Burma to build its first Special Economic Zone
By Shirong Chen and Myo Tha Htet BBC World Service

Burma has announced the setting-up of its first Special Economic Zone (SEZ), to be built in Dawei (Tavoy) township near the southern border with Thailand.

Burmese state media said the zone would be developed around a deep sea port in Dawei, covering up to 64,000 hectares.

Infrastructure development contracts were endorsed by the two governments to enable the construction of rail and road links with western Thailand.

Burma’s SEZ may be similar to that of China, which has seen rapid growth.

The Dawei SEZ will also have a hydro-electricity power plant, petrochemical and refinery plants, and upstream steel mills.

The framework concession agreement on the project, signed between Italian-Thai Development (ITD) public company and the Burmese Port Authority, is worth Bt400bn ($13.4bn; £8.2bn).

It is expected to be completed in 10 years.

ITD will seek investment partners because the project is the largest in the company’s history, according to its senior executives.

Many investors from South Korea, China and India have shown interest.

Tight political control

In September, the Burmese military leader, Gen Than Shwe, visited China’s SEZ in Shenzhen, and said his country would learn from China’s experience of economic reform and opening up.

If it works out, it would be a concrete example of adoption of China’s development model, which encourages economic growth while maintaining tight political control.

The Burmese authorities reached a deal with the Thai government in October but published the news on Wednesday, four days before a general election – perhaps as part of an effort to promote their credentials.

In the country’s last election 20 years ago, the military rulers refused to hand over power to the winning party, the National League for Democracy, led by Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is currently under house arrest.

Page last updated at 16:51 GMT, Thursday, 4 November 2010
BBC News – How democratic will Burma’s election be?
By Sue Lloyd-Roberts BBC Newsnight, Burma

The people of Burma go to the polls this weekend for the first time in 20 years.

In 1990, an overwhelming majority voted for Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD). The generals ignored the result and have imposed strict military rule ever since.

Three years ago crowds led by monks came out on to the streets to protest against arbitrary price rises and ongoing military rule, but this so-called Saffron Revolution was put down brutally by the army.

So why are the generals holding elections and what do they hope to achieve?

Journalists are not being allowed into Burma to cover the elections but I entered the country illegally as a tourist and did my best to find out.

Diplomats and Burma-watchers say that the generals are trying to get their critics off their backs.

Historically, the junta has shown indifference to complaints about their behaviour by the United Nations, the United States and the European Union.

But now the complaints are coming from closer to home, from allies and trading partners in the regional grouping Asean – more so in the wake of the 2007 protests.
Veto power

The generals reluctantly agreed a roadmap towards what they call a “disciplined democracy”. A new constitution was passed in 2008 to pave the way for elections junta-style.

The constitution reserves more than 100 seats for the army in the 450-seat lower parliament.

Dozens of senior officers have recently “retired” to stand for the government-approved Union Solidarity and Development Party – by far the strongest party.

The combined force of these two groups will likely mean that they have an effective veto over legislation.

It is because of the constitution that Ms Suu Kyi’s party, the NLD, is calling for an election boycott.

She is still under house arrest, but I met her spokesman U Win Tin, who was himself only recently released from a 19-year prison sentence, and he explained the boycott call.

“This election is like a feast which is poisoned, we cannot join the feast because poisoned fruits are served. It is just to prolong military rule. Only by boycotting the elections can we put pressure on the military rulers.”

Boycott call

But not all members of the opposition agree. One afternoon in Rangoon, I found myself taking afternoon tea in an elegant drawing room with three ladies in their 60s, all contemporaries of Ms Suu Kyi. They are all standing as candidates in these elections for the Democratic Party.

So why are they betraying their old friend? The youngest of the three, Nay Ye Ba Swe, explained that the elections are at least a step towards parliamentary democracy.

“If people like us don’t participate”, she said, “then the generals and their cronies will just stay in power for another 100 years.”

Sitting beside her, Cho Cho Kyaw Nein added, “Suu Kyi is like a sister to us. I am sure she understands.”

Funding issues

As we chatted about the rigours of campaigning, sipping tea in white porcelain cups, you could be forgiven for thinking that these Three Princesses, which is what people call them, are simply playing at politics.

That would be far from the truth. They have all been imprisoned for their pro-democracy activities.

None of the opposition candidates are getting government funding for their campaigns. The Three Princesses had to sell jewellery to fund the printing of pamphlets and transport costs.

Another candidate, Dr Phone Win, who is standing as an independent candidate, is using his savings. He told me that the government party, the Big Party as people call it, are intimidating voters.

“Some voters”, he said, “have been warned that they will lose their homes if they don’t vote for the Big Party or that they will lose their shops in the market”.

Special permission and one week’s warning are demanded for a meeting of more than five people.

And the election campaign has coincided with the rainy season. The streets of Rangoon were impassable for hours every day that I was there.

But to hire a government approved building can cost hundreds of dollars per hour, a luxury only affordable for the Big Party.

“In Burma, we cannot expect a free and fair election,” was an understatement from a weary looking Dr Win.

Rare satire

It is hard to cover an election in a country where, if you are found working as a journalist, you are likely to be arrested and deported. This has happened to me before in Burma and I tried to avoid it happening again.

Foreigners, especially those carrying cameras, are watched by plain clothes agents wherever they go. People are wary of talking about politics to strangers in public.

So it was a refreshing change to come across in Mandalay a satirical cabaret performed by the “Two Moustaches” which lambasts and ridicules the generals.

In their hour-long show, Par Par Lay and Lu Zaw offer typical Burmese folklore dance and song with scathing asides on the junta, accusing them of nepotism, cronyism, dealing in drugs and murder.

No wonder the two of them have been in and out of prison like yo-yos. Today they are only allowed to perform to tourists in English.

So what do they think of the elections?

“It is just old wine being poured into new bottles,” said Law Zaw, laughing, “Johnny Walker, Ballantines, they’re just changing the bottles.”

And will he vote? “No. We voted for the one we want, Aung San Suu Kyi, 20 years ago. That is enough. What is the point of voting again? We love her.”

It is an opinion you hear a lot in Burma. People voted for the leader and the party in the last elections and they were ignored and so, they argue, what is the point of voting again in these elections, junta-style?

I spoke to one senior monk who was a leader in the Saffron Revolution and is now in hiding in a monastery near Mandalay.

Talking in one of the monks’ dormitories where no-one would see us, he said the tightly controlled polls will give the junta the result they want.

“This election should give us democracy. But it won’t,” he said.

“The regime just included what they wanted in the constitution, and the election is now just to legalise that constitution.”

Watch Sue Lloyd-Roberts’ full report on the election in Burma on Newsnight on Thursday 4 November 2010 at 10.30pm on BBC Two, then afterwards on the BBC iPlayer and Newsnight website.

New Kerala – Election fraud complaint lodged against Myanmar junta party

Yangon, Nov 4 : The proxy party of Myanmar’s military rulers has been accused of illegally collecting advance votes for a general election to be held this weekend, sources said Thursday.

The National Unity Party (NUP) registered a complaint with the election commission against the pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), alleging that the USDP illegally collected the votes in southern Myanmar and pressured constituents to vote for it.

It was the first fraud complaint in the run-up to Sunday’s general election, the first to be held in two decades.

“Our local members informed us there was a collection of illegal advance votes favouring the USDP by their party members in four townships in the Tanintharyi region, and we have already filed the case to the Union Election Commission,” Thein Tun, an NUP leader, told DPA.

According to NUP sources in Tanintharyi, the USDP asked villagers to cast advance votes with the excuse that many were fishermen and could not afford to take election day off.

In fact, fishermen account for a small percentage of the people in the villages, who were required to vote en masse in advance of the polls.

During the voting, a man stood by the polling booths and told people to “vote lion”, which is the logo of the USDP, Thein Tun said.

Under Myanmar’s election regulations, advance voting should be limited to people unable to vote on election day and the voting should be conducted “in secret”.

Members of the Union Election Commission, a body the junta set up to monitor the election, were not immediately available to comment on the complaint.

“I heard that they were now investigating the illegal act,” Thein Tun said.

The USDP is regarded as the proxy party of the military junta while the NUP represents the old regime under former military dictator Ne Win, who ruled the country from 1962 to 1988.

Both parties have fielded about 1,000 candidates each to contest the 1,159 seats up for grabs in the upper and lower houses of the national parliament as well as the state and regional parliaments.

The leading pro-democracy party in the race, the National Democracy Front, a breakaway faction of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), has fielded 160 candidates.

Election regulations have favoured the establishment parties, setting a high entry fee for candidates, which most of the smaller parties could not afford, while also barring the participation of the NLD, which is led by detained Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and which won the 1990 polls by a landslide. It was never allowed to take power.

The county’s new military-drafted constitution also mandates that 25 percent of all legislative seats be reserved for the armed forces

People’s Daily Online – China hopes Myanmar election runs smoothly
18:35, November 04, 2010

China respected the path of development chosen by the people of Myanmar and hoped the scheduled multi-party general election in Myanmar runs well, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said here Thursday.

Hong told a regular news briefing that to maintain Myanmar’s internal social stability and hold the election successfully served the fundamental interests of Myanmar people and the regional peace and prosperity.

“We hope the election runs smoothly and that Myanmar will constantly promote democracy and development,” Hong said.

Myanmar’s multi-party general election is to be held Sunday.

Daily Mail – Democracy in action; Burmese junta claims election majority before polls have opened
By Andrew Drummond
Last updated at 4:31 PM on 4th November 2010

The Burmese military junta have won the election – three days before voters go to the polls.

They are reported to have already ‘locked up’ thirty per cent of the vote through their Union of Solidarity and Development Party.

When added to the 25 per cent of seats which by law the junta have declared they will retain for military officers, the junta has already gained a majority.

Victory: Myanmar’s military ruler General Than Shwe will remain in power after the election, even though polls are not yet open

The Irrawaddy magazine, an opposition-backed publication, based across the border in Chiang Mai, Thailand, claims it has received information from sources within the USDP saying junta leader Than Shwe been assured that 30 per cent of the vote has been locked up in advance.

But in any case the USDP would get a minimum 52 per cent of the vote.

Majority win: The result of Myanmar’s forthcoming election has already been decided

Foreign journalists are backed up on the Thai border here in the northern Thai town of Mae Sot.

They have been banned from entering Burma for the election but pro-democracy activists have sent up ways in which news leaked out of Burma can be viewed on a subscription website.

While the result of the election is a foregone conclusion most of the interest is concentrated on the shenanigans of the military junta and their attempts to control the news.

Powerful: Workers in Myanmar have been urged to vote for the prevailiing USDP, shown here in Yangon

Already the internet has been slowed down in Burma.

Under the constitution laws can only be passed in Burma with a majority of at least 75 per cent of parliament. In affect the junta can already block every move it does not like.
Held: Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for 14 years

But if the opposition can get 25 per cent of the vote, an unlikely scenario, they could veto legislation by a block vote.

The advance votes cast so far, says the Irrawaddy come from soldiers, civil servants, prisoners, hospital patients, and people living outside the country.

In the last election in 1990 Aung San Suu Gyi’s National League for Democracy won a landslide victory which was ignored by the junta and Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of the time since under house arrest in Rangoon.

‘Than Shwe wants to overturn the NLD’s 1990 election results, when they won over 80 per cent of the constituencies,’ said Win Min, a Burmese political and military researcher told Irrawaddy.

‘So he wants 84 or 85 per cent of the seats in each of the parliaments.

‘But unless they use false votes, this will be quite difficult for the USDP.’

The USDP which claims it has 16 to 18 million of Burma’s 29 million voters is noted for its thuggish tactics.

Groups of workers in such places as factories have been warned that voting others could mean a loss of jobs.

Others have been threatened with ‘relocation’ by the Burmese Tatmadaw – or army – unless they voted USDP.

The Nation – Burma’s Sunday elections ‘a meaningless exercise’
By Supalak Ganjanakhundee
Published on November 4, 2010

The general election on Sunday in Burma would neither bring change nor solutions to the basic problems and conflict in the military-ruled country, and the situation could even be worse after the poll, analysts and activists said yesterday.

It was obvious that the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) led by incumbent Prime Minister Thein Sein would win the victory, Shan intellectual Khuensai Jaiyen said.

“The only question we have now is how many seats they will get and how many will be left to the others,” he said during a panel discussion at Chulalongkorn University.

Of the 37 political parties in the race, only a few have the potential to compete with the junta-backed USDP. They are National Unity Party which is also pro-military but is a faction loyal to late dictator Ne Win, National Democratic Force and Shan National Democratic Party.

The military has done many things to help the USDP get more seats, said Khuensai, editor of Shan Herald Agency for News.

The junta has moved a number of eligible voters in areas where other parties have the potential to get votes and moved some to areas where its party has an upper hand, he said.

Some 400,000 people in Shan state are not included in the list of voters, he said. “One family I know has seven eligible voters, but only the name of one of them figures on the voters’ list,” Khuensai said.

A village in Shan state has a population of only 700 people but as many as 2,000 eligible voters have been named in the list, he said.

The first election in two decades is far from inclusive and transparent, he said. The election authority announced on Tuesday the exclusion of 12 more villages in ethnic minority dominant areas. It had already cancelled elections in 300 villages of minority dominant states in September.

The election’s credibility was also questioned as many potential opposition parties, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) and the ethnic minority Shan National League for Democracy (SNLD), have boycotted it.

Win Hlaing of NLD (Liberated Area) said his party had decided to boycott the election as they found their struggle in the parliamentary system was without hope. The NLD won a landslide victory in the previous election in 1990 but the junta refused to transfer power to the party.

The coming election will not solve the basic problem of the country, Win Hlaing said. The problems of ethnic inequality, democratisation and poverty will not be resolved after the election, he said. “We have to continue our struggle [outside the parliament] to have genuine democratic reforms as the coming election is not the solution for our future,” he said.

Khuensai said armed minorities also would not give up their struggle against Burma’s military and predicted a big offensive would come after the election.

CNN News – Opinion: Myanmar vote a facade for the junta
By Christina Fink, Special to CNN
November 4, 2010 — Updated 1354 GMT (2154 HKT)
Editor’s note: Christina Fink is a political anthropologist who has focused on Myanmar, also known as Burma, for 15 years. She is the author of “Living Silence in Burma: Surviving Under Military Rule” and has written about the country’s humanitarian crisis and ongoing militarization in Eastern Burma. She has also consulted for groups which support the strengthening of civil society and democratic reform in Burma.

(CNN) — On November 7, Burma will hold elections for the first time in 20 years. Not because the military regime wants to transfer power. Instead, the military leadership hopes that by creating a democratic facade, it can improve its image and still run the country.

Since the military’s 2007 crackdown on monks’ demonstrations, the regime has faced simmering anger inside the country and growing calls for at least some degree of political reform from abroad.

The West has been the most outspoken in its criticism of the regime, which not only represses political dissent but has also mismanaged the economy and grossly neglected its citizens’ welfare.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, comprised of both democratic and non-democratic member states, has come under great pressure from the West to take a tougher line on Burma.

China and India, which have competing security and economic interests in Burma, have generally called for non-interference in Burma’s affairs. Still, China would like to see improvements in governance in order to reduce ethnic conflict and bring about greater economic stability.

The regime has concluded that as long as it holds elections, domestic and international pressure will subside. Yet the electoral process is so far from being free, fair and inclusive that many countries have already denounced it as a sham.

Several pre-existing political parties are boycotting the 2010 elections. Together, they won more than 85 percent of the seats in the 1990 election but were not allowed to take power.

They could not accept the 2008 constitution, which institutionalizes the leading role of the military in politics, or the requirement that parties expel all members currently in prison.

In the case of the National League for Democracy, that meant their charismatic general secretary and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, who’s under detention along with several other party members.

Nevertheless, a number of people from the democratic camp, including a breakaway faction of the National League for Democracy, have decided to run in the elections.

While their expectations are low, they do not currently see any other viable means to bring about change.

They hope that through their participation in parliament, they can gradually open up some space for a civilian role in policy-making.

In the seven ethnic states, candidates have also stepped forward to try to obtain at least small gains for their communities, such as the right to teach their languages in schools and the improvement of the health care system in rural areas.

Requirements that parties pay $500 to register each candidate, a large sum in Burma, have limited the number of candidates that non-regime supported parties could field.

As a result, in many rural areas, voters will have only two choices: the regime-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party and the National Unity Party, which was the military-supported party in the 1990 elections.

In addition, the 2008 constitution reserves 25 percent of the seats for military personnel.

Even if the pro-democracy and ethnic-based parties win in all the constituencies they contest, they will capture only a minority of the seats in the national parliament and the regional assemblies.

The president, elected by the parliament, must come from a military background, and the new constitution allows the military to reassume full control whenever it sees fit.

Many voters in Burma are cynical about the elections, believing that little will change and besides, it could be dangerous to express support for parties not in favor with the regime.

However, over time, the elected representatives from all parties may come under pressure from their constituents to deliver on their campaign promises.

Given the state’s growing wealth from the sale of natural gas and other resources, expectations may rise for much more of this money to go to education, health, and electricity.

Still unknown is whether Aung San Suu Kyi will be freed after the elections and on what terms. She has been under house arrest for much of the past two decades, but her current period of detention is supposed to end in mid-November.

Will she and members of her de-registered party be able to meet and re-organize? What strategies will they adopt to continue the struggle for a better Burma?

While significant political change will not result directly from the elections, new dynamics may emerge, providing unexpected opportunities.

The regime still sees its own security as paramount, and more than 2,000 political prisoners remain behind bars. Yet the military government has tolerated the emergence of some independent humanitarian organizations as well as a private, albeit censored, media.

Perhaps it will be possible to achieve improvements in other areas, such as economic and social welfare policy.

Despite the tremendous difficulties of bringing about genuine political reform in Burma, many brave people will continue to try, both within the parliament and without. The international community should do all it can to support them.

Nov 5, 2010
Asia Times Online – Myanmar frozen in time by ethnic rift
By Stanley A Weiss

WASHINGTON – The topic of assassination lends itself to one of the recurrent parlor games of world history. If John F Kennedy had never been assassinated, would the United States have gotten out of Vietnam? If Yitzhak Rabin hadn’t met an assassin’s bullet, would the Oslo Accords have led to peace between Israelis and Palestinians? If Archduke Franz Ferdinand had survived his attacker in Sarajevo, would the world have gone to war in 1914?

There is no place on earth where the consequences of a past assassination are more acutely felt than in Myanmar, also known as Burma. The brutal slaying of General Aung San by machine-gun fire in 1947 – six months after he helped negotiate Myanmar’s independence from Britain, a short time before he was to take over as prime minister – left many dreams unrealized.

But it is one issue in particular, left unresolved to this day, that animates the conversation of national unity and progress: what to do about Myanmar’s many ethnic minorities?

Just weeks before his death, Aung San convened a tribal summit which led to an agreement committing Myanmar to a spirit of equal representation – an agreement that was frozen in time when he was killed. Whatever the outcome of this coming Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Myanmar – the first such vote in two decades – unless and until somebody picks up Aung San’s mantle and works to resolve the ethnic question, Myanmar will remain frozen in time.

“There is no question,” says a long-time Western observer who has done extensive work in country with Myanmar’s ethnic groups. “It’s all about the tribes. Ignore that fact, and you make the same mistakes we have made in Iraq and Afghanistan, where silenced minorities have wrecked havoc.”

Slightly smaller than the state of Texas and situated at the crossroads of India and China, Myanmar is home to 135 distinct ethnic groups. The largest ethnic group by far is the Burman, which comprises about 60% of Myanmar’s 50-million-plus population.

During Myanmar’s period of colonial rule, from 1886 to 1948, Great Britain preferred hiring ethnic minorities to work in its colonial administration, for fear of putting the majority Burman in positions of power. As a result, ethnic nationals were often better educated and developed strong ethnic identities.

After independence was declared in 1948, the tables were turned and Burman politicians dominated the government, with long memories of their time in exile. “Many ethnic leaders viewed the Burman leaders as hegemons whom they could not trust,” writes Myanmar observer Kyaw Yin Hlaing. “They agreed to join the union only out of respect for General Aung San.”

Convening a meeting at the town of Panglong, Aung San promised an equal power-sharing agreement, pledging to ethnic minority leaders that they could opt out of the union 10 years after independence if the benefits of cooperation failed to materialize.

The “Panglong Agreement” gave rise to a spirit of equal representation that would be short lived. After Aung San was killed, Burman leaders tried but failed to work the agreement into the new constitution. Ethnic minority groups rebelled, with a handful launching civil wars against the Burman majority.

In 1961, 200 ethnic leaders met for a constitutional review and demanded a “genuine federal union”. In response, in 1962, a convention was convened in Rangoon (now Yangon) to rewrite the constitution. It proposed to unite Myanmar as one state while assuring equal representation in its national assemblies.

It was too much for the military, which launched a coup during the convention. Different military juntas have ruled ever since. Certain armed ethnic insurgent groups have fought continuously against the junta in battles that have led to some of the worst human-rights abuses in recent history.

Since 1990, world attention has focused on Aung San’s daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi. Her National League for Democracy party won 58 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections in 1990, only to see the results annulled and Suu Kyi imprisoned or held under house arrest for 14 of the next 20 years.

So what can America do to help? First, if America’s allies at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) recognize this coming Sunday’s election results, so should the US. Says Ma Thanegi, who spent three years in prison working as Suu Kyi’s personal assistant: “If the West really wants to help the people, they should accept the new government and give it a chance.”

Second, right-size US humanitarian aid. Today, the United States Agency for International Development spends US$10 million annually in Thailand supporting 150,000 Myanmese refugees, but only $2 million in Myanmar to support an estimated 500,000 internally displaced citizens who have been driven from their homes amid armed conflict. Those numbers should be reversed.

Third, use America’s leverage with ASEAN to bring the Myanmese military, the pro-democracy movement and non-Burman Ethnic Nationalities Council together. With broad economic sanctions in place since 1997 and more targeted measures implemented against senior junta members and their close associates under the George W Bush administration, the US has little leverage with Myanmar. However, ASEAN now aims to sign a free-trade agreement with the US and the grouping’s inclusion of Myanmar stands in the way of a deal. Condition the end of economic sanctions on movement toward a three-part federation.

In preparation for the election, Myanmar’s military leaders unveiled a new flag with three horizontal stripes – green, yellow and red – and a white star in the middle. No official word has been given yet on what the stripes stand for. Here’s hope that they symbolize Aung San’s dream of genuine unity with the country’s ethnic minority groups.

Stanley A Weiss is founding chairman of Business Executives for National Security, a nonpartisan organization based in Washington.

Nov 4, 2010
Asia Times Online – The war to come in Myanmar
By Tony Cliff

LAIZA, Myanmar – With her pretty face shaded by camouflage green leaves falling from her kepi and a semi-automatic rifle rested on her shoulder, Labang Hkawng Nyoi could be a perfect poster model for a Kachin Independence Army (KIA) recruitment campaign.

The 19-year-old woman is one of 130 new recruits and volunteers who in recent days were sweating under the late afternoon heat in a KIA training camp in remote northern Myanmar, also know as Burma.

Dressed in khaki, they all wear a white number on a red patch stitched on their left pocket. At turn, they break ranks into small groups, run to a large open field, throw themselves to the ground and, while imitating the sound of a machine gun, crawl with their gun aimed at the imaginary enemy.

“I was summoned by the KIA to leave my village and attend training,” says Labang Hkawng Nyoi with a determined look. “We have not gained our freedom, it’s our responsibility to serve, to fight for our nation.”

For now, the enemy is a red flag on a bamboo post and, to conserve ammunition, the empty guns remain silent, their muzzles obstructed with pieces of wood. But soon the enemy could take the human form of Myanmar military soldiers as this area of the Kachin state braces for new hostilities after a 16-year ceasefire.

The volunteers arrived two weeks earlier in this camp set up on the road to Laiza, a town of 10,000 people in a narrow valley on the Myanmar-China border. They will train for another six weeks under the supervision of KIA officers. Some will join the 6,000-strong KIA (an official but credible number according to independent observers), while others will go back to their village as members of civil defense forces.

After a two-hour drive from Laiza on a rugged road winding along the Chinese border though the jungle and climbing the mountain up to 2,400 meters, Laisin camp, formally the Pajau KIA headquarters, emerges from a range of bare hills. On a hilltop bunker and trench network, Kachin soldiers watch a Myanmar army position dug in on an opposite hill.

Fixed in a hole, an old Chinese made anti-aircraft machine gun points at the government troops. Lahtaw Awng, a KIA Mobile Brigade captain, does not harbor any balance-of-power illusions: “With this weapon, we can target helicopters but probably not the Burmese MIG fighter jets.” He added: “We don’t want to fight, we don’t like war; we just ask for our rights. But if the government starts it, we will respond.”

Strategic documents from the KIA and its political wing, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), have reportedly been moved to safer locations and soldiers dispatched to positions all over Kachin State. Many KIA soldiers carry an unusual type of AK-47 rifle with green or brown parts made of plastic. Soldiers here refer to it as the “AK-81″, a AK-47 type gun fabricated in a secret KIA armory.

Labang Hkawng Nyoi, the young female volunteer, was hardly three years old when in 1994 the KIO/KIA signed a ceasefire with Myanmar’s ruling junta. These types of agreements were initiated by the government from 1989 onwards with the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and other ethnic insurgent groups.

They were the brainchild of General Khin Nyunt, the regime’s former head of intelligence. In exchange for ending their armed struggle, ethnic groups were allowed to keep their names, uniforms, weapons, and parts of their claimed territory and commercial interests. They were also permitted to set up ceasefire areas where armed Myanmar soldiers would not be allowed to enter without the group’s authorization.

From 1989 to 1995, about 15 groups signed ceasefire deals with the government. Some have held up, while others have dissolved back into armed hostility. For the Kachin, the agreement seemingly put an end to more than 30 years of war against government-backed forces.

Exceptional ethnic
The Kachin have always been an exception in Myanmar’s complex ethnic jigsaw. Their state, at 89,000 square kilometers, or more than twice the size of Switzerland, is one the country’s largest administrative entities. With an estimated population of just 1.36 million, according to most recent official statistics, it’s also among the least inhabited – the country’s has a population of up to 55 million people. It only takes a quick look at the map to realize that more than half of Kachin is filled with hard-to-navigate mountains.

The predominantly Christian Kachin ethnic population is estimated at 1.2 million, half of whom live in Kachin State and the other half elsewhere in the country. About 300,000 Kachin also live in neighboring China, where they are known as “Jinpo”. For historical reasons, the Kachin have managed to develop a strong social and educational system, which has made them one of the country’s most sophisticated ethnic groups.

Today, 16 years after its signing, their ceasefire agreement with the government has never looked more fragile. Major General Gam Shawng, KIA’s chief of staff, sitting in his Laiza home, says unequivocally that “these years have been totally negative. The main idea behind the ceasefire, to reach a political solution, was never achieved.”

Major Chyana Zau Awn, commander of KIA Brigade 5, says: “There was never a relation of trust with the Burmese. As soon as we talked about politics, they looked down upon us. We were enemies, we stay enemies.” Contrary to their organization’s name, the KIA, as well as other ethnic insurgent groups (ceasefire and non-ceasefire), no longer strive for total independence but rather the establishment of a federal state with genuine prerogatives for ethnic governance.

The ceasefire has certainly brought some social stability and economic development to Kachin State. “We could develop infrastructure such as roads, schools, clinics,” says Sin Wa, KIO Central Committee joint secretary 1. “About every family could create an income and sustain a livelihood, which we were never able to do during the war because people had to move all the time.”

Still, many others point to the limitations of that stability. “The Burmese did not promote life for local people,” comments Naw Ja, a 42-year old villager attending the military training as a volunteer. “For instance, they open many schools but there was not enough support for teachers. Often there were only two or three teachers for an entire school.”

The Kachin have also lost a great deal of territory and related business during the ceasefire. For instance, control over the world famous Hpakant jade mines was handed to the Myanmar government in 1994, depriving the KIO of a rich source of revenue.

Gam Awng, a jade businessman, says that “95% of the jade extracted from Hpakant is sold in Yangon through private and military auctions. The remaining 5% is smuggled through Laiza.” Out of 164 companies operating in Hpakant, only four are in the hands of Kachin businessmen; all of the others are Myanmar-China joint ventures, he says.

Forced integration

Kachin patience was tested in April 2009 when the government, ahead of elections on November 7, ordered ceasefire groups to transform into so-called Border Guard Forces (BGF), new ethnic battalions that would be under government command. The Kachin, as well as other groups along the Chinese border, such as the UWSA, the New Mon State Party (NMSP) and a faction of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) on the Thai border, rejected the order.

After a series of postponed deadlines and aborted alternative proposals, talks between the junta and the KIO/KIA came to an halt in August. This coincided with the sidelining of Lieutenant-General Ye Myint, the Myanmar army officer in charge of negotiating the BGF with the ethnic groups. To date, Ye Myint has not been replaced.

“In the BGF process, the Burmese only talk about soldiers’ salary and other details but never about development plans and other important subjects,” says Major Kumbu Din La, second in command of KIA Brigade 5. “They try to corner us, to isolate us, they want the end of the KIO,” adds Sin Wa.

Since their rejection of the BGF, the Kachin have been subjected to new restrictions and incidents of intimidation. “Some development projects in remote areas had to be stopped, some of our servicemen cannot go back to their villages, and so on,” said a young KIA officer.

The Kachin’s rejection of the BGF has widened a generation gap between young KIA officers keen to go to war and elder KIO leaders who still believe in compromise. Government authorities’ refusal to allow the registration of a Kachin political party under the leadership of Maham Tu Ja, a former KIO Vice Chairman 2, was a blow to Kachin aspirations and further weakened the more moderate political wing’s position.

“I appreciate that there are more young radicals,” said Major General Gam Shawng. “This shows a willingness to stand for justice, it’s a good sign for us – without justice there cannot be true peace.”

But the government has seemingly underestimated the Kachin’s resolve. “The BGF issue has mobilized the people for the KIO,” says a non-governmental worker with extensive experience in the Kachin State.

“These last years, the KIO had lost a lot of support, particularly because of the loss of revenue from jade. The organization had to find other business activities and gave many logging, mining and hydropower business concessions to the Chinese, causing massive forest depletion in the state, which upset a lot of people.”
KIA preparations for a potential conflict after this weekend’s national elections are visibly ramping up. Officers are well-aware that none of their soldiers has seen combat in at least 16 years. Still, they are confident about their fighting chances.

“Since 2009, after the Kokang incident [in which the Myanmar army routed the Kokang, another cease-fire group who rejected the BGF], we have increased the level of training,” says Major Chyana Zau Awn.

According to KIA officers, the Myanmar army has around 10,000 troops stationed in Kachin State and has not recently reinforced its positions. Echoing some army experts, the KIA also believes that the Myanmar army’s strength, often estimated at 500,000 foot soldiers, is overestimated.

General Gam Shawng remains realistic: “We won’t be able to defeat them but they cannot defeat us either. We can survive, so a return to the guerrilla warfare is the most likely tactic.” Besides the AK-81, the KIA will rely on a variety of homemade grenades, landmines and mortars.

Kachin leaders say that they are prepared to lose the infrastructure built during the ceasefire years, including Laiza, a booming city and the group’s main gateway to China. “These are small investments compared to the cost of a whole nation,” says Hting Nan, KIO Central Committee Secretary 2.

However, the prospect of renewed hostilities is known to worry neighboring China. Kachin leaders are cognizant of the subtle game that Chinese authorities, squeezed between their regional (Yunnan Province) and national (Beijing) interests towards Myanmar, have to play in order to maintain good political and commercial relations with all sides.

“To maintain Chinese business here, the regime must be stable and the regional people must be pleased,” says Sin Wa. “There is a balance between the business and local people’s welfare. It could help to prevent a war.”

Beyond destabilizing the area’s economy, a new war would also likely drive waves of refugees across the border into China, as happened during the Kokang incident in August 2009. According to a KIA leader who is in regular contact with Yunnan-based authorities, “the Chinese have already prepared camps for the refugees”.

It’s believed in Laiza headquarters that an attack from the Myanmar army can only occur between the elections and the formal transfer of power from the military to a new civilian administration, which must take place within three months of this Sunday’s vote. “They have to clean up the situation before a new government starts to work,” predicts one KIA officer at the group’s war ready camp.

Tony Cliff, a pseudonym, is a Bangkok-based freelance photojournalist. He may be reached at tonycliff7@gmail.com

The Irrawaddy – PM’s Opponent Injured in Suspicious Incident
Thursday, November 4, 2010

The lone candidate challenging Burma’s Prime Minister Thein Sein, the chairman of the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), for parliament in his Zabbu Thiri Township constituency in Naypyidaw was allegedly injured in a suspicious motorcycle incident on Oct. 29.

The accident, which occurred in Pyinmana Township in Mandalay Division, was deliberately meant to injure or kill 70-year-old Kyaw Aye, the candidate representing the National Unity Party (NUP), according to NUP party members. He sustained minor injuries to his legs and head after being struck from behind while riding on the rear of a motorcycle.

The motorcyclist left the scene and has not been identified, but local residents suspect that he is connected to the USDP. Because of his injuries, Kyaw Aye will not be able to continue campaigning, but has not canceled his participation in the election, said a party member.

The NUP is widely viewed to be pro-regime because it was transformed from the former ruling Burma Socialist Program Party (BSPP) led by the late dictator Gen. Ne Win. But in the absence of the National League for Democracy, which is boycotting the polls, and since other pro-democracy parties are unable to field many candidates due to financial constraints, analysts speculate that the NUP might become the opposition party to the USDP.

Top junta officials, including Thein Sein, are running for parliamentary seats as USDP candidates in five sparsely-populated townships in Naypyidaw, with their only opponents being members of the NUP. Pro-democracy parties said that they would not run in those townships since the voters there have been  heavily influenced by the regime.

“The NUP members are running there to help create an impression of opposition for the junta officials. Actually, there are not many voters in these townships in Naypyidaw, except Zabbu Thiri where the prime minister is running. So the prime minister’s opponent was harassed,” said the owner of a restaurant located in a government ministerial building in Naypyidaw.

The NUP is the second largest political party, contesting for 999  parliamentary seats in the election on Sunday. Only the USDP and NUP will be running for seats in ten Naypidaw constituencies having a population of 600,000 people, and there will be 200 voting centers for the election on Sunday in those constituencies.

The NUP suffered a strong defeat to the disbanded NLD party in the last election in 1990, winning only 10 seats.

The Irrawaddy – USDP Tries to Stir Up Election Interest
Thursday, November 4, 2010

RANGOON—Burma’s government-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) is stepping up its campaigning on the eve of Nov. 7 election, adding to the billboards that already outnumber the posters of other political parties.

The USDP posters are being dismissed by most people in Rangoon, however, as “advertisements for a transition from military rule to government by the military in civilian clothes.”
\
Many candidates report that interest in the election is low.

“When we go out campaigning people keep clear of us, saying they are busy,” said a candidate in Rangoon’s South Okkalapa constituency.  “Some even said that it doesn’t matter who wins power as long as they can eat twice a day. Many say they’re not voting because the party they trust most is not listed.”

That party, he said, is Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), which decided not to register for the election and was consequently struck from the party list by the regime.

At least two parties critical of the government, the Democratic Party (Myanmar) and the National Democratic Force (NDF) are also intensifying their campaigns as the election nears.

“We are working hard distributing leaflets,” said the Democratic Party’s General-Secretary, Nay Yee Ba Swe, who is a candidate in the San Chaung constituency. She tours the area by car personally distributing the leaflets.

The efficacy of the leaflet campaign is questioned by many residents.  A Mayoung Gone township said people were just throwing them away.

The USDP is distributing mock ballot papers listing the competing parties but with a tick printed against its own name only.

The USDP campaign is possibly proving counterproductive, however, with popular frustration reportedly increasing over the constant plugs on state-controlled radio and TV.

Smaller parties also complain about the amount of time and space allotted to the USDP and about restrictions imposed by the Election Commission (EC).

“We have had to to request permission from EC seven days ahead of any public event,” said one candidate. “It has made it difficult to organize any campaign event. We are also forbidden to criticize the regime.”

At the time of the 1990 election, said a veteran journalist, thousands turned out for campaign events.

“Everyone was active. Now look at it! It is like a disaster. There are so many dos and don’ts for the political parties.”

One election campaign appears to be scoring success, however. A youth member of the NLD said leaflets bearing the image of Suu Kyi were being snapped up.

The leaflets remind the public that they have the right not to vote and also advise people to contact the police if they experience any form of intimidation—an ironic message in view of the police surveillance that surrounds the movements of anybody handing out the Suu Kyi flyers.

Ex-USDA in election race ‘have blood on their hands’
Thursday, 04 November 2010 02:55 Thea Forbes

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Junta generals and former members of the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), now standing as civilian politicians for the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), are accused of involvement in the massacre at Depayin and the bloody crackdown on the “Saffron Revolution”.

The USDA is notorious for its bloody attacks on opposition and democratic forces, including pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her entourage in Depayin, northern Burma in 2003. At least 5,000 USDA members gathered in a co-ordinated attack, and at least 70 people associated with the National League for Democracy (NLD) were killed. USDA members also participated in the violent crackdown on the monk-led “Saffron Revolution” in 2007.

Former generals, who disrobed from their soldierly attire in June to don civilian clothing to run in the “civilian” junta-backed USDP in June, include former lieutenant colonel Aung Thaung, a candidate in Thaungtha constituency, Mandalay.

Aung Thaung is supposedly an “untouchable” junta crony with millions of US dollars in personal wealth from pipeline construction, logging and private banking, the London Sunday Telegraph reported. His family, one of the richest in Burma, runs the IGE company, a prominent energy firm. He is also supposedly involved in business tycoon and junta crony Tay Za’s Air Bagan.

He has earned the trust of junta leader Than Shwe and is now an industry minister with the junta. He is accused by media in exile and pro-democracy groups of being involved in the 2003 Depayin massacre and the violent suppression of the “Saffron Revolution” among other incidents.

Two other former USDA members and current candidates for election on Sunday are accused of instigating these brutal crimes against humanity but are expected to gain seats in the coming election. Kyaw San, a candidate for a seat in Palay, Sagaing Division and current information minister, was the leader of the USDA in the division at the time of the Depayin massacre. Soe Naing, the USDP’s candidate in Pyapon, Irrawaddy Division and current tourism minister, was chief of the Northwestern Regional Military Command in Sagaing where the massacre occurred in 2003.

All three USDP candidates were expected to win seats on Sunday but remain on US and EU blacklists that subject them to targeted sanctions, prohibit them and their kin from travelling abroad and allow their financial assets to be seized, according to the Telegraph report.

Since the USDP formed to run in the elections this year, it has carried out hundreds of fraudulent acts to manipulate, dominate and control the election arena, reports the Network for Democracy and Development (NDD), an alliance established to promote democracy and development in Burma.

The USDP was the political incarnation of the USDA (the ultra-nationalist “social welfare organisation” set up by the regime), founded by the military state to perpetuate its rule and maintain power after the elections, the NDD said. The 2008 constitution and the USDA’s link to its construction were “indicative of the regime’s efforts to control the political process, and foreshadowed the problems of the 2010 elections”, the NDD report said.

The junta cronies, who had ruled with an iron fist and had shown they were not shy of using violence to quell public uprisings if voted in, would continue to rule in a militaristic fashion in the name of democracy, the alliance said. In the years leading up to the November 7 elections, the regime’s USDA had shown that it would govern by perpetuating a culture of fear among the people in Burma.

Khin Omar from the campaign group, Burma Partnership, spoke to Mizzima about the culture of fear created by the USDA/USDP:

“They have terrorised the people and communities for so long, and they have already shown their power and what they can do to the people so the fear is already internalised. When they show up in white and green, they may be smiling, and telling the people ‘we’ll give you low-interest loans’ or ‘we’ll build schools and roads’, but that doesn’t matter because they have already identified the fear in the eyes and hearts of the people,” Khin Omar said.

Germany sides with China against UN Burma inquiry
Thursday, 04 November 2010 21:32 Thomas Maung Shwe

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The German Foreign Ministry has informed Mizzima that at this time it does not support the proposed UN commission of inquiry to investigate war crimes and human rights violations in Burma.

In an e-mailed response to Mizzima’s questions regarding Germany’s stance on the proposal, German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Theresa Schoenfeld told Mizzima that “to ensure that this new initiative [the inquiry] is successful and has positive consequences, it is important to continue to monitor the situation and crucial to find some co-operation mechanism with the [Burmese] national authorities.”

The reluctance of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right coalition government to support the UN inquiry comes amid reports by The Washington Post that China had waged a “high-octane diplomatic campaign” over the past two months to convince Asian and European nations to oppose the creation of a commission of inquiry.

The Post reported that just days after the mid-August announcement the United States supported the creation of such an inquiry, Chinese UN ambassador Li Baodong “paid a confidential visit” to Vijay Nambiar, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon’s chief of staff and the UN special envoy to Burma, to voice Beijing’s strong opposition to any inquiry.

According to Post writer Colum Lynch, three separate UN sources privy to the details of the meeting said that Baodong told Nambiar the proposed Burma inquiry was “dangerous and counterproductive, and should not be allowed to proceed”.

In response, NLD co-founder and veteran political prisoner Win Tin told Mizzima he was disappointed with Berlin’s decision not to support the inquiry, a proposal first made in March this year by UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Burma, Tomás Ojea Quintana.

Win Tin said it was “very upsetting that Germany is siding with China and not supporting a UN inquiry. The military’s repeated attacks on Burma’s ethnic nationalities are very severe and have killed many people. These crimes must be investigated by the international community.”

Although 10 European Union (EU) nations including France and Britain favour an inquiry, opposition from the EU’s largest member, would likely prevent the EU executive body, the European Commission, from taking action to support the proposal or take a stronger stance against the regime.

When informed of the German spokesman’s statement, Mark Farmaner from Burma Campaign UK took particular issue with the suggestion that there had to be a “co-operation mechanism” with the Burmese regime for the initiative to proceed.

He offered this rebuttal: “UN inquiries and the International Criminal Court were created precisely because dictatorships won’t investigate their own human rights abuses. It is ridiculous for Germany to imply that its support for establishing a UN inquiry depends on the generals’ co-operation.”

“If Germany applied this logic domestically they’d get rid of their own police force and courts and ask criminals to voluntarily go to jail,” Farmaner added.

Monk calls German stance ‘strange’

Ashin Sopaka, one of the leading figures in Burma’s exiled monk movement, told Mizzima he was not surprised to learn that Germany was not supporting the UN inquiry.  Sopaka, who speaks German and lived there for seven years after receiving asylum, said Germany’s stance on Burma was far weaker than many other western nations.

“Germany’s policy on Burma is really very strange, the government is more interested in business. It’s like the German government doesn’t want to accept that in Burma there is a horrible military that kills many people.”

Sopaka, who has travelled throughout Germany, added that the government’s position on Burma was quite out of step with the overall German public.

German firms shipped weapons plant to junta

Major Sai Thein Win, a former senior scientist in the Burmese military, defected last year with documentation revealing that the Burmese regime is using advanced equipment supplied by German firms for top-secret rocket research and a nuclear programme.

In a Democratic Voice of Burma documentary on Burma’s nuclear programme, he detailed how the firm Deckel Maho Gildemeister (DMG) sent engineers to assist with the installation of specialised imported machinery in Burmese military-owned factories.

Sai Thein Win said DMG machinery was designed to make precision metal parts in the manufacturing of rocket and missile parts. In addition to DMG, the Burmese military had also bought equipment from German firm Trumpf, including a specialised laser cutting machine designed to cut sheet metal quickly.

Officials from the German embassy in Rangoon visited two of the factories where the machinery was being used in 2007, 2008 and last year. However, despite evidence provided by Sai Thein Win that the equipment was being used for non-civilian purposes, the German government has thus far done nothing to restrict the sale of such plant.

USDP ‘bullies voters into submitting absentee ballots’
Thursday, 04 November 2010 19:50 Ko Wild

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – In the final days before Burma’s long-awaited general election, allegations continue to mount against the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) regarding violations in electoral canvassing.

The latest allegation aired by activists, political parties and independent candidates concerns the forcible collection of absentee votes. The National Unity Party (NUP), the second largest party to the USDP in the polling, is among those lodging the complaint.

Mizzima interviewed Democratic Party (Myanmar) candidate Thu Wei regarding the most recent charges levelled against the USDP.
Is the USDP collecting absentee votes in Rangoon?

Yes, it is happening in Rangoon. They take absentee votes from both private and government employees under their influence. The USDP and local Peace and Development Council (PDC) are doing this work. They then surrender these absentee votes to local election commissions. But, we have protested against this practice.

Can absentee votes be given to the USDP only?

They can be given for other parties too, but I asked some of those who voted for our party and they explained that [this was not the case]. The USDP and local PDC members can tamper with them [absentee votes] at any time after the voters leave, they said. So, they don’t want other people to go and cast absentee votes as they aren’t credible.

Can you tell me in which townships such violations have taken place?

Even in Mingala Taungnyunt [Rangoon] constituency. They told me their experiences after casting absentee votes.

We’ve heard that the NUP has lodged a complaint against the USDP collecting absentee votes from Mergui fishermen. Your party candidate is also from this constituency, isn’t he?

In Dawei (Tavoy) too. They took absentee votes even at palm oil plantations, from fishery businessmen and farmers. Soldiers and policemen also had to cast their absentee votes. Some of them are relatives of mine and some of them are my friends. They told me how they had to cast their votes in advance. A police major ordered all officers to cast their absentee votes in his presence, and an army commander ordered the same of his subordinates.

Did they have to vote for the USDP?

Yes, they informed me that they had to vote for the USDP.

What is the main complaint in the absentee vote case concerning electoral laws?

As per the electoral laws, an absentee vote means a vote cast by someone who will not be able to go to the polling booth on the polling date. This includes sick people, those who will be away from home and those who will be on duty that day. Officially, absentee votes can only be cast on the November 6. But, people have been told to cast their votes earlier by reason of being away from their homes on that day.

What instances of coercive absentee voting have occurred in your constituency, Mingala Taungnyunt?

There is an amusement park for children called Happy Land, which has two to three hundred employees. My rival candidate, Labour Minister Aung Kyi, forced the owner … to order his employees to cast their votes for his USDP under threat of having his business licence revoked. He [the owner] then related the incident to his employees; that he was under pressure by the junta minister. He told them they must vote for the USDP or they will lose their jobs.