Daily News – Lanka donates corneas to Myanmar
Wednesday, 5 January 2011

Public Relations and Public Affairs Minister Mervin Silva donated two human eye corneas to the Myanmar Government during his visit from December 29 to January 1.

Myanmar’s Health Ministry Director General Dr U Win Myint receiving the eye corneas on behalf of the Myanmar Government commended Sri Lanka.

International Eye Bank of Sri Lanka is one of the world’s largest eye banks, supplying human eyes to restore vision to people in as many as 57 countries, including Japan, Thailand, Egypt and China. Over 40,000 people have benefitted from the Sri Lanka eye bank, since 1964.

National Health Department, Director General Dr U Win Myint, Senior Officials from the Health Ministry of Myanmar, Dr Nyunt Aung, Incharge of National Eye Bank of Myanmar and Charge d’ Affairs Nirmala Paranavitana and Sri Lanka Embassy staff were also present.

Wednesday, January 05, 2011
US News Las Vegas – Myanmar’s swimming event kicks off in Yangon
By U.S. News Agency / Asian

Myanmar Swimming Federation President’s Cup kicked off at the National Swimming Pool here Monday in celebration of the country’s 63rd Anniversary Independence Day which is falling on Tuesday.

Organized by the federation, the two-day competition includes individuals’ and team-wise’ aged under 10, 12, 14 and 16 and the winners will be awarded by the Myanmar Swimming Federation when it closed on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the federation will hire foreign coaches with the assistance of the Chinese Olympic Committee for training in Myanmar, aiming at bringing out swimmers of new generations and regaining medals in 2011 SEA Games in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Myanmar swimmers won one gold and two bronze medals at 21st Kuala Lumpur SEA Games in 2001.

Phayul – SEEKING THE POWER OF THE POWERLESS
Jamyang Norbu By Email[Wednesday, January 05, 2011 15:37]

It’s almost the end of the year now, and nearly two months since Aung San Suu Kyi was released, but I haven’t quite gotten over the dopamine rush of that event. I’ve been waiting a long time to see her a free woman. Not as single-mindedly and passionately, to be sure, as her loyal Burmese followers, but waiting, nonetheless, with some anxiety but also with a conviction of sorts, that she would be able to tough it out. That she would never ever give in to the junta, and one day they would have to let her go. Just like that.

So when I saw the video of her first appearance before her followers, I expected to feel lofty and profound emotions. But all I found myself doing was worrying that she might injure herself, or at least cut her fingers on the wicked looking spikes on top of the closed gate of the compound where she had been confined. She was behind the gate but someone had put a table or something for her to stand on, so you could see her quite clearly. She was smiling but those damned spikes were getting in her way. At one point she even rested her forearms on them. Then someone from the crowd handed up a bouquet of flowers. She tied a spray to her hair, it might have been her trademark jasmine. Whatever it was, it did the trick for me. All was right with the world.

When the first signs appeared that Suu Kyi would be released, but before the experts could hold forth on the possible reasons behind the junta’s motives for freeing her, quite a few reports (The New York Times, the BBC, The Inquirer.com, etc) pressed into service the convenient phrase “the power of the powerless” to provide at least a broad, partial explanation of why Suu Kyi had prevailed over her captors. Ambiguous as the explanation was it was certainly not incorrect. When she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 (accepted by her son, Alexander) the Chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, Francis Sejested, had described Suu Kyi as “an outstanding example of the power of the powerless”.

This clever oxymoron had been thought up by the Czech playwright, dissident and political leader, Vaclav Havel, as the title for an essay, “Moc bezmocných”, in its original Czech, which appeared sometime in October 1978. It soon became one of those rare pieces of political reflection that outlive their time of birth and come to be regarded as a classic. The piece was written in a hurry, as Havel later mentioned, and was intended not as an academic or literary exercise, but as a call to action for all dissidents in Eastern Europe and the Soviet bloc. In fact after its publication in a volume of essays on freedom and power, Havel and some of the other contributors to the volume were arrested.

The essay’s impact on the frail political opposition in Eastern Europe was profoundly transformational. A Solidarity activist, Zbygniew Bujak who had for years had been trying to rally and organize workers in Polish factories explains why: “There came a moment when people thought we were crazy. Why were we doing this? Why were we taking such risks? Not seeing any immediate and tangible results we began to doubt the purpose of what we were doing… Then came the essay by Havel. Reading it gave us the theoretical underpinnings for our activity. It maintained our spirits; we did not give up…”

Havel’s plays are marvelously accessible. I saw a BBC (or ITV?) performance of Audience, an absurdist drama of an hour of Havel’s life after he was banned from the Czech theatre and forced to take a job in a brewery. It is the only thing on TV that’s ever made me deeply depressed and weak with laughter at the same time. On the other hand I have always found the dense 76 odd pages of “Power of the Powerless” heavy going. I have tried to cobble together a simple précis of Havel’s thesis, as I consider it one of the few political documents from that period that is still relevant to understanding the “theoretical underpinnings” of repressive regimes and systems in our day and age. Moreover, and more crucially, the essay provides a genuinely doable, though painful and high-sacrifice way, for the oppressed to successfully challenge their oppressors.

The first and crucial thing that Havel does in his essay is define the nature of the regime in the Eastern Europe. It was not a traditional dictatorship or a classic totalitarian regime like Stalin’s or Mao’s. Havel called this post-totalitarianism, but emphasizes that it was still totalitarian in spite of the prefix “post”. Nonetheless, this system was able to present a superficial appearance of normalcy by putting on a bland faceless facade, and very cunningly doing away with the trademark “great leader” or “Führer figure”. But Havel tells us that in spite of its ordinariness this system was in was in fact the “dictatorship of a bureaucracy.”

Havel then opens people’s eyes as to the nature of the power that held them in subjugation. He maintained that this power should not be mistaken for the instruments of that power: the military, the secret-police, the bureaucracy, the propaganda, the censors, et al. Though the regime still had its torturers and labor camps and was still capable of tremendous and arbitrary cruelty, the true source of its power lay in its ability to coerce people in a variety of ways (even with consumerism) to “live within the lie”; i.e. to accept the complex web (or for sci-fi fans, the “matrix”) of lies it had created to provide a cover of justification for its perpetual hold on power.

Because post-totalitarianism was so fundamentally based on lies, Havel maintained that truth “in the widest sense of the word” was the most dangerous enemy of the system. The primary breeding ground for what might be understood as an opposition in the post-totalitarian system was “living within the truth”. This operated initially and primarily at the existential level, but it could manifest itself in publicly visible political actions as street demonstrations, citizens associations and so on. Havel mentions the creation of Charter 77 by Czech writers and intellectuals, who demanded that the government of Czechoslovakia recognize some basic human rights. It was a far from radical document but the Communist government cracked down hard on the authors and signatories. But it inspired subsequent efforts.

Whether Havel intended it or not his essay has a very Gandhian feel to it. Havel tells us that “living within the truth” (which one might accept as a form of satyagraha) “… is clearly a moral act, not only because one must pay so dearly for it, but principally because it is not self-serving. The risk may bring rewards in the form of a general amelioration in the situation, or it may not”. Havel emphasized that by “living within the truth” he did not just mean “products of conceptual thought,” or major political action, but that it could be “… any means by which a person or a group revolts against manipulation: anything from a letter by intellectuals, to a workers strike, from a rock concert to a student demonstration.”

My last post but one, was about the student demonstrations in Tibet in October, which I think fits in nicely with Havel’s “living with the truth” and as an expression of “the power of the powerless”. The Tibetan plateau hasn’t had a major rock concert yet but a young singer from Amdo, Sherten, has released a Bollywood style music video extravaganza “The Sound of Unity” calling on all Tibetans from the three provinces of the “Land of Snows” to unite (against you know who). Even such counterrevolutionary characters from “the bad old days” as an aristocrat lord and lady from Lhasa (in full regalia) are conspicuously depicted in one segment to press home the message of Tibetan unity. Two other similar music videos (“The Telephone Rang“, and “Mentally Return“) have appeared, with similarly subversive messages calling on “ruddy face” Tibetans to unite and await the return of “The Snow Lion”. In spite of the effort by the lyricists to hide their political meaning behind euphemisms and double entendre, such compositions are not without risk. A year ago, the singer Tashi Dondrup, was arrested for his bestselling album, Torture Without Trace, and in 2008 the singer, Jamyang Kyi was incarcerated and tortured for “subversive activities”.

Havel saw the significance of such singers and musicians in social and political revolutions, and he supported the Czech rock group, The Plastic People of the Universe, which the Communist government had harassed and forced underground, and whose members were arrested and prosecuted in 1976. The Plastic People and Havel were in turn great admirers of the subversive music of the New York based Velvet Underground. Havel once told Salman Rushdie that the final non-violent revolution of 1989 that overthrew the Communist government was called the “Velvet Revolution” after the American band. Rushdie thought that Havel was joking but later found out that Havel had said exactly that, and quite seriously, to Lou Reed, the principal songwriter for the Velvet Underground.

Tibetan scholars, writers and students have, since the late nineties, effectively used the internet to communicate with each other and spread their writings around the world. They write near exclusively in Tibetan and Chinese, but the website High Peaks Pure Earth provides English translations of a representative sampling of their works. One of the most well known and outspoken bloggers has been the poet, Woeser, who recently received the “Courage in Journalism” award, but whose computer was hacked last month by the ultra-nationalist China Honker Union, and all her writing deleted. She lives in Beijing, under near constant surveillance. Chinese censors have regularly shut down many Tibetan language blogs and blog hosting services, both in Tibet and China, but Tibetan bloggers have somehow managed to keep on writing, though with ever increasing difficulty. One way many Tibetans have managed to circumvent censorship and shutdowns has been by posting on Chinese social networking sites, such as the popular renren.com.

All these activities reflect a broadening of the political and social opposition to Chinese rule in Tibet, and a growing sophistication in the way people have begun to exercise the “power of the powerless”, without it become an absolutely perilous or terminal exercise, as it had been before. Earlier, all public manifestations of opposition to Chinese rule was direct and confrontational. If we look at the Tibetan Uprising of 2008, and also those from 1987 onwards, nearly all of them have been direct clashes with Chinese central authority, with demonstrators waving the forbidden national flag of Tibet and shouting slogans calling for Tibetan independence and the return of the Dalai Lama. These demonstrations, or rather uprisings, have, on every occasion, been met with overwhelming force, shootings, beatings, imprisonment, labor camps, executions and disappearances. But this new phase of the struggle emerging in Tibet just might, because of its awkward (for Beijing) nuances, have a better chance of getting off the ground, before the authorities come up with a way to crush it.

For the first thirty years of exile the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan community practiced “living in the truth” with unwavering resolution, holding on to the goal of Rangzen or “independence”, in spite of the disheartening turn of events from the mid-seventies when Communist China became an ally of the West against the Soviet Union, and when most intellectuals and celebrities in the free world (even western visitors to Dharmshala) then, appeared to be besotted with the thoughts of Chairman Mao.

The Dalai Lama was not welcome in the West as he is now. In fact he only managed to visit the USA in 1979, although he had been in exile for twenty years before that. He wasn’t, of course, under house arrest in India, but his movements were restricted. There were practically no Tibet support groups in the West and no influential supporters or lobbies in Washington DC or Brussels. But the Dalai Lama stuck to his guns, metaphorically speaking. If you walked into a home, monastery, office, classroom or restaurant in exile Tibetan society then, you would probably have noticed a dull green poster with a quotation (in English and Tibetan) by His Holiness, that eloquently expressed his moral resolve. It had no photograph of him and design-wise was minimal, but it was effective and genuinely inspirational. “Our way may be a long and hard one but I believe that truth and justice will ultimately prevail”.

And quite unexpectedly Tibetans did prevail – up to a point. With the fall of Berlin Wall and with China’s leaders openly confessing the failure of their economic and social programs, and with the opening up of Tibet to Western tourism, the world suddenly became aware of the enormous tragedy that had befallen the roof of the world. Everywhere around the world, political leaders, celebrities and the media, began to pay attention to the issue of Tibet. There were Beastie Boys benefit concerts, Richard Gere and Harrison Ford embraced the Dalai Lama and Hollywood stepped in with two feature films on Tibet. The high-water mark of this period was the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to His Holiness. The Nobel committee recognized that the Dalai Lama “in his struggle for the liberation of Tibet has consistently opposed the use of violence.”

But this period also saw the opening up of China and, more significantly “the China trade”. Slowly and very subtly, from every quarter imaginable, pressure began to be put on the Tibetan leadership to give up its goal of independence. China was going to become a democracy soon, anyway – the argument ran – and everything could be worked out then. Even the fairly successful Tibetan campaign in the US Congress to hold trade with China conditional to improvement of human rights conditions in Tibet, was effectively derailed by the Clinton administration. The president wanted to de-link human-rights and trade and induct China into the World Trade Organization. His administration essentially “persuaded” the Tibetan lobby (The International Campaign for Tibet or ICT) to go in for “constructive engagement” with Beijing. This term now became the new mantra in Tibetan activism circles. One support group in Britain that had campaigned successfully to get Holiday Inn to leave Lhasa had its knuckles rapped publicly by the director of ICT and told, in so many words, to engage China more constructively.

It was made attractively convenient and often profitable for exile Tibetans to “live within this lie”. ICT moved into a posh office suite. The exile government which had till then operated virtually on a shoestring now began to receive funding from a number of Western nations. Tibetan organizations, especially the Dalai Lama, began to receive invitations to attend all sorts of international confabs. But behind the gestures of sympathy, the invitations, the awards, the grants, and the aid, there often appeared to be a kind of unspoken condition that this might all go away if Tibetans raised the issue (or the “core issue” as the PRC menacingly calls it) of Tibetan independence.

The growing interest in Tibet’s unique traditional culture, art and spirituality also gave Tibet a more substantial presence on the international scene than other comparable conflict areas as East Turkestan (Xinjiang). But in a bizarre way this interest and enthusiasm for Tibetan culture also seemed to provide some in the West a kind of convenient rationalization to ignore the on-going destruction of that ancient nation and the real suffering and even potential extermination of its people. The late celebrity photographer, Galen Rowell, actually justified this approach in the introduction to his book, My Tibet : “To dwell on the agony the Chinese have imposed upon his (the Dalai Lama’s) land is to lose most of the essence of his being and his message to the world.” The Dalai Lama seemed to endorse this attitude by his statement that the preservation of Tibetan spiritual culture was more important than struggling for Tibetan political freedom.

It should be emphasized that much of this new attention and assistance, especially from small nations, some organizations and even leaders as Nancy Pelosi and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was genuine, well-meant and unquestionably welcome. No doubt, the influence and reach of the “China lobby” (very broadly speaking) was widespread and effective, but it was not ubiquitous. There was a real possibility that the Tibetan leadership could have stuck to its fundamental national goal, and though encountering temporary setbacks and some cold-shoulders in Western capitals for a time, have hung on to a significant (and more genuine) segment of its support base, and eventually, as China dropped its “soft power” mask (as it is beginning to do right now) rebuilt its international support in a more real and meaningful way.

But Dharamshala chose to see the new reality as inescapable and unalterable, and used it as a part excuse, part self-fulfilling prophecy to warn the exile public that if the issue of independence were raised Tibetans would loose their support in the West, that the Dalai Lama would not be welcome anywhere anymore, and that Tibetan refugees might even be deported from the countries where they had found refuge.

As all exile Tibetans had till then considered themselves to be engaged in a life-and-death freedom struggle, some kind of “displacement activity” (as Konrad Lorenz would have put it) had to provided for them to deal with the new reality. Experts from various “conflict resolution”, “conflict management” and “conflict mediation” groups and institutions descended on Dharamshala to organize lectures, workshops and symposiums, which even members of the Tibetan cabinet were sometimes obliged to attended. The overriding thinking pushed at these gatherings was that everything depended on finding a way to accommodate China. Hence anything that might impede the process (i.e. talk of independence) had to be summarily dropped. No one seemed to have caught on that these groups were not there to deliver justice, or even begin a process to seek justice for Tibet, but, as their organizational names made abundantly clear, were there to make “conflict” go away, even if that conflict was a necessary one between survival and extermination – even between good and evil. The simplest way of doing that, especially when one side was invincible, immovable, and a valued trading partner of the West, was to make the other and weaker side give up its dispute.

Besides Tibetan officialdom, even some individual Tibetans living and studying in the free world were seduced into this new way of thinking. A Tibetan MBA made the far-reaching discovery that doing business with China was the only way to save and modernize Tibet. One PhD deployed his newly acquired academic skills to re-interpreting Havel’s actual phrase “the power of the powerless” to mean the conference hopping, resume bolstering, grant seeking and other essentially self-serving activities, that passes for “activism” in a section of the Tibetan exile world. A few previous independence activists now set up “outreach” and “bridge building” projects inside Tibet (in collaboration with Chinese authorities, of course) and on a a few occasions even spoke out publicly against Tibetan independence and those still contending for it.

The Indian novelist (The God of Small Things) and social thinker, Arundhati Roy, has commented on a similar phenomenon in India. In her talk/essay “Public Power in the Age of Empire” Roy mentions that one of the most insidious threats facing social movements in the sub-continent was, what she called, the “NGO-ization of resistance”. She points out that the political resistance of the Indian public to globalization and its terrible impact on the victims of economic liberalization, especially farmers, coincided with the NGO boom in the late 1980s. She does concede that some NGO’s did valuable work, but insists that the NGO phenomenon should be considered in a broader political context. That the impression that NGO’s gave of contributing to social alleviation, that contribution was materially inconsequential and not the main part of their actual agenda:

Their (the NGOs) real contribution is that they defuse political anger and dole out as aid or benevolence what people ought to have by right …They alter the public psyche. They turn people into dependent victims and blunt the edges of political resistance. NGOs form a sort of buffer between … Empire and its subjects. They have become the arbitrators, the interpreters, the facilitators. In the long run, NGOs are accountable to their funders not to the people they work among.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s celebrated “Freedom From Fear” speech begins: “It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.” The Tibetan exile government and certain Tibetan individuals in the free world do not have to fear the Chinese military, the PSB, slave labor camps, prisons, torture or execution, but they fear loosing access to opportunities and privileges they enjoy at present in the free world, which they have convinced themselves is conditional to their silence on the most crucial issue of Tibetan freedom and sovereignty. And that fear corrupts them and undermines the revolutionary struggle that is being carried on inside Tibet, and even outside still, in a small way, by a marginalized but committed number of Tibetans and friends.

After her release some media commentators suggested that Aung San Suu Kyi, might be sidelined in the present Burmese political scene, since she had been out of touch with the Burmese public and new leaders had emerged from within the opposition groups. But the ecstatic and universal public response to her release, even from young Burmese who had probably never actually seen her in person, demonstrated that she had lost none of her appeal. She was soft-spoken and levelheaded as always. She spoke politely of the military dictatorship and even respectfully of the army as a national institution. She made no calls for “regime change”, but on the fundamental issue of her life-long struggle for democracy there was no question that the power of the powerless would ever be relinquished.

In a telephone interview with The New York Times she made it clear that now she was free she intended to lead what she called a nonviolent revolution, rather than an incremental evolution. She said her use of the term “revolution” was justified because, “I think of evolution as imperceptible change, very, very slowly, and I think revolution as significant change. I say this because we are in need of significant change.”

The views expressed in this piece are that of the author and the publication of the piece on this website does not necessarily reflect their endorsement by the website.

The Malay Mail – Second school for Myanmar children
Submitted by shaza on Wednesday, January 5th, 2011
Nadia Fernandez

PUCHONG: The Burma Refugee Organization (BRO) yesterday opened its second school here in conjunction with the 63rd anniversary of its home country’s independence.

The new school at 19A Jalan Bandar 6/1, Pusat Bandar Puchong, also has a hostel for students aged 10 to 17.

At the opening, BRO chairman U Maung Hla said there were now 37 children enrolled in the new school. The first BRO school at 63/1A, Jalan Bandar 1, Pusat Bandar Puchong, was opened in 2007.

The children there have their breakfast at 7am and start their lessons by 9am, Mondays to Fridays.

They finish lessons at 5pm, with a lunch break at noon.

The schools are funded by donations and partly aided by the Malaysian chapter of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

David, 14, is one of the students and said there were too many children in one class and therefore, they have to share books.

“I’ve been here for the past one year. I came here walking with my elder brother through the jungles. I joined BRO since they offered education and shelter to us. I am happy in Malaysia but I don’t intend to stay here for the rest of my life.”

It is run by volunteers like Sawywarmufhal, 27, who is also a translator in the BRO. He has been here for two months and translates his mother tongue into English.

“I am happy here in Malaysia as all my friends are here. I enjoy my work as a translator. I like the environment here. The children here usually eat rice with either chicken or pork and various vegetables.”

The BRO chairman estimated there were now about 100,000 BRO members in Malaysia, most of whom are refugees.

Lokyer & Brisbane Valley Star – Magic in Myanmar
Jim Nicholls | 4th January 2011

IT’S not as though I needed another event to remind me of how much I have come to love this wondrous country, but one came to me in unexpected circumstances as I was preparing to leave Myanmar following my latest visit.

In Yangon’s international airport departure lounge a few days ago, I noticed a lady with a young man.

The country’s ostracised National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi was saying farewell to her 33-year-old son Kim Aris.

There was no ill-mannered media scrum surrounding the couple, nor were there crowds of minders and sycophantic hangers-on.

Just two people stealing a few moments together.

After politely intruding, I introduced myself and asked if I could take a few minutes of their time.

Aung San Suu Kyi is Myanmar’s pro-democracy icon.

Although she has spent many years under home detention, she has managed to keep alive her compatriots’ dreams of one day returning their country to the international fold.

The ruling military junta have kept her, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, in on-and-off detention ever since she entered the murky realm of Myanmar politics in 1989.

My brief talk with her on that morning could not be regarded as an in-depth interview, but she was quite happy to give me a moment of her time and to pose for photographs.

“I am pleased that you have come from Australia to visit my country,” she said.

“I am also delighted to know that our struggle for democracy is recognised and supported in your country.

“I was released from home arrest on November 13 in time for our first election in 20 years, even though my party was banned and couldn’t vote.

“Also, this is the first time I’ve seen my son in ten years. I’m now saying goodbye to him as he heads back to London.”

Aung San Suu Kyi’s presence and her overwhelming popularity has placed the ruling generals in a dilemma.

Her late father General Aung San is still respected throughout Myanmar as the Father of Independence, having delivered his country from the yoke of the unloved British in 1948.
In almost every town I visited there is a statue of him.

Father revered, daughter reviled: the makings of interesting times in Myanmar’s future.

I shook Kim’s hand and wished him well before saying my own goodbye to this most elegant and gracious lady, assuring her as I did so that my best wishes and thoughts were with as she continued her work.

I’m not sure just where I now stand in the world of getting that “great story”, but I would like to think that I have scooped any number of the world’s renowned journalists.

Spero News – Myanmar: Military celebrates independence, Burmese want an end to the dictatorship
The ruling junta celebrated the 63rd anniversary of the end of British colonial rule. For most Burmese, liberation day is still to come because the country is still being oppressed. Candles are lit for political prisoners at Shwedagon Pagoda. Aung San Suu Kyi is a source of hope in a future of …
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
By Asia News

Yangon – Myanmar’s military regime celebrated 63 years of independence yesterday, urging the nation to defend national sovereignty against “aggressive countries”. A military parade was held in the capital Naypyidaw, whilst Senior General Than Shwe issued a statement to the nation. For most people however, liberation day (lut-lat-ye-ne in Burmese) is still far off because the country is still under oppression. However, the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, more than the phony elections of last November, and the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s renewed commitment to the struggle have raised hope in a future of freedom.

The former Burma became independent from the United Kingdom on 4 January 1948 after a long struggle led by General Aung San, the father of the future pro-democracy leader.
In a message to the nation, the current military strongman Than Shwe warned people against “aggressive countries”, a clear reference to the United States and the Western block, “anxious to gain political control over a geographically strategic country like Myanmar”.

The new Burmese parliament voted in during the phony elections of November is expected to meet for the first time at the end of January to elect a new president. It is not yet clear what role General Than Shwe will play in the new institutional arrangement.

In the meantime, the military is preparing to intercept more that 3,000 GSM and CDMA phones belonging to politicians (including from the ruling party), businessmen, social activists, artists and media personnel.

Commenting on the celebrations, an anonymous source in Yangon told AsiaNews that the government “has never been truly independent” because the “day of liberation coincided with a new oppression”.

Members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) gathered at Yangon’s Shwedagon Pagoda (see video) to pray for the more 2,000 political prisoners held in Burmese prisons. “A beautiful and significant gesture,” said the source.

The NLD also organised a fair on 2-4 January, bringing together many young people. Typical products, photos and books were sold to fund the pro-democracy struggle.

A concert was also held in a public park in the presence of the city’s mayor. A blood donor clinic was also set up, and many young people gave the gift of life. “However, this year games and celebrations were low key,” the source said.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s release after 15 years in prison (out of the last 21 years) has given people “strength and hope”, even though “it will take time before matters change,” the source said.

“Everyone in Myanmar must be aware that they can play a crucial role in the liberation struggle,” the source added. Aung San Suu Kyi “is prudent, flexible yet strong; however, she cannot win the battle alone.” In fact, an exchange she had with an ordinary Burmese best illustrates the situation.

After her release, someone asked her “what you of the NLD will do for the country”. Her answer was “What will you do for your country” since “true democracy is everyone’s duty.”

Bangkok Post – EDITORIAL: Slow down the rush to Dawei
Published: 5/01/2011 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News

It may be too late, but the government should listen carefully to the reasonable voices warning against throwing great Thai resources at plans to build a new industrial complex in Burma. The push to back the project at Dawei has won powerful allies. For one, there is Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who returned from his first official trip to Burma three months ago, enthusiastic about the chance to build a port, virtually from scratch. For another, Thailand’s biggest and most influential companies are determined to move into Burma to work on the Indian Ocean scheme.

But there are increasing voices questioning the rush to Dawei – the regime’s name for the town of Tavoy. For one, Burma is still a despotic, brutal military dictatorship. It held elections of a sort late last year but even the United Nations saw through the sham of a vote that only sought to legitimise military rule. The regime released No.1 political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, but continues to keep thousands of others under lock and key for the “crime” of criticising the regime. As a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council, the government should question doing such big business with Burma, not enthusiastically supporting it.

But clearly, Burmese and Thai officials at lower levels have done their work carefully. Within days of Mr Abhisit’s return from Burma, the military regime awarded a huge construction contract to Italian-Thai Development Plc. Under the 10-year, 400-billion-baht agreement, Ital-Thai will virtually take up residence in Burma. From almost nothing, the Thai firm will oversee the transformation of Dawei into a thriving industrial zone and international port with all the necessary infrastructure.

This is the 21st century version of the only major government-sanctioned project of this kind in Thailand, the Eastern Seaboard. It is clear that some of the growing pains of the Rayong-centred seaboard programme are now driving some big Thai companies out of Thailand. By moving to Burma they can leave behind the environmental problems of Map Ta Phut and Rayong courts.

This is the second major reason to slow the stampede to Dawei. Environmental activists have questioned whether the Thai firms are fleeing the Eastern Seaboard exactly because they intend to make no effort to set up clean industry in Burma. Buntoon Siethasirote, director of the Good Governance for Social Development and the Environment Foundation, pointed out that Burma has no decent laws on protecting the environment. The Burmese military leaders have a history of cooperation in shady business deals. There is grave doubt whether the generals would even make an attempt to enforce any sort of acceptable standards if that interfered with profits.

And now, senior officials of the bureaucracy have questioned the government’s all-out support for an Andaman Sea project at Dawei. They note correctly that this has turned into a zero-sum contest between Dawei and a formerly planned port project further to the south at Pak Bara, in Satun province.

In short, what Dawei and Burma gain, Pak Bara and Thailand lose.

Private businesses have their own agenda, but there are legitimate and pressing questions about the Thai government’s strong backing for the Dawei port plans. The government should slow its rush to Burma, until important political and economic questions have clearer answers.

The Irrawaddy – Suu Kyi, SNLD Call for Ethnic Unity
By KO HTWE Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi met with six executive members of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) on Sunday to discuss the importance of ethnic unity in the face of the emergence of the Shan Nationalities Development Party (SNDP) and other parties formed to contest last year’s election.

The meeting with the leaders of the SNLD, which did not take part in the election but came second only to Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) when Burma went to the polls in 1990, lasted nearly an hour and a half, according to a party spokesperson.

“We said that the SNDP doesn’t represent all ethnic Shan and that if she [Suu Kyi] could guarantee ethnic equality and self-determination, we will organize people from all walks of life in Shan State,” said SNLD spokesman Sai Leik.

Ethnic parties which won seats in the Nov. 7 election have shown no interest in joining other ethnic parties and the NLD in their calls for a second Panglong conference, modeled on the historic meeting between Suu Kyi’s father, Gen Aung San, and ethnic leaders that laid the foundations for Burma’s independence from British colonial rule.

“She emphasized the need to hold a second Panglong conference because many ethnic leaders are united in their desire for such talks. However, she said that it would be difficult to move forward with this plan without the cooperation of all ethnic minority parties,” said Sai Leik.

In radio interviews, the leaders of two major ethnic parties, the SNDP and the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP), have said that they don’t want to participate in a Panglong-type conference, he added.

Under the original agreement reached in Panglong, Shan State, in 1947, ethnic nationalities were guaranteed the right to self-determination within the framework of a federal union. The agreement was later scrapped by Burma’s military when it seized power in 1962.

In the 1990 election, the SNLD won the largest number of seats in Shan State, but the party’s leaders were subsequently arrested and are now serving long prison sentences in remote prisons across Burma.

The SNDP is now Burma’s largest ethnic party. It won 57 of the 156 seats it contested in November, mostly in constituencies in Shan and Kachin states. The RNDP won in 35 of the 44 constituencies it contested in Arakan State.

The Irrawaddy – NLD Outlines Four Principles for Foreign Investment
By HTET AUNG Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Burma’s leading democratic opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), has outlined four principles for foreign investment in the country and reaffirmed its stand on the need to review existing economic sanctions for the benefit of the people, according to a party policy statement.

“Consideration of environmental and social impacts on the people, respect for labor rights, the creation of job opportunities and technically advanced investments” are the four main priorities of the party’s foreign investment policy, said the statement, which was titled “Economic Analysis” and released on Jan. 4, Burma’s  Independence Day.

The statement also highlighted the need to address rising commodity prices and increasing joblessness due to the unequal distribution of wealth in the country.

Asked whether the party has begun to consider welcoming foreign direct investment to the country based on these principles, Win Tin, the secretary of the NLD, told The Irrawaddy:

“First we want to review the impact of the sanctions on ordinary citizens. We have already said that if we find that they negatively impact the people, we will consider calling for an end to sanctions.”

He added that if the sanctions are lifted, “These four principles will be our guideline to decide whether which investments we should accept.”

He further explained that the NLD set these four principles not only to reduce the negative impacts of foreign investments on the environment of the country but also to protect the people’s social and economic life.

“An example is Chinese investment in the construction of the Myitsone dam at the confluence of the N’mai and Mali rivers, where the Irrawaddy River begins,” said Win Tin. “The Irrawaddy is our country’s main river and building such a dam could have negative environmental and social consequences for the country and the people.”

Win Tin also expressed concern that China’s investment in Burma did little to alleviate unemployment because Chinese companies often brought their own laborers to work on their projects. Another problem, he said, was that local people are often forced to relocate because of these projects, affecting their livelihoods.

The NLD’s policy statement criticized most current investment in Burma for prioritizing short-term profit and failing to consider the sustainable development of the country.

The statement pointed out that building a lot of dams, reservoirs and river bridges without considering the environment and the livelihoods of local people often did more harm than good. In many cases, cultivated lands have been damaged by these projects and farmers have lost their capital because they are forced to grow crops that are not suitable in the land and weather.

The statement also highlighted the need to establish the rule of law and transparent, accountable governance in Burma. It said that the economy must be equally open to all citizens if Burma is to develop economically.

“To build an industrialized country, there must be investments which encourage a transfer of advanced technologies, but we get nothing from China’s investments,” said Win Tin.

The Irrawaddy – Market Traders at the Mercy of the Mayor
By KHIN OO THAR Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Some 1,000 shopkeepers and market stall owners gathered at noon on Dec. 24 at the new site of Thirimingala Market in Hlaing Township. Faces etched with anxiety and anger,
they sat on the ground cross-armed in protest at the relocation of the market from its original site on Strand Road near central Rangoon.The target of their frustration was the Mayor of Rangoon, Aung Thein Linn, who was due to preside over an opening ceremony that day for the new market, and who the shopkeepers accused of accepting a bribe to have Thirimingala Market relocated.

When the mayor arrived at 3 p.m. The crowd remained sitting. They shouted their objections to the move, but the ceremony concluded without further incident.

For more than 12 years, Thirimingala Market has been Rangoon’s main wholesale market where every day and night, lorries, wagons, carts and boats from every corner of Burma arrived to unload their produce. Retailers from Rangoon relied on the market for everything from fish, meat, fruit, flowers and vegetables to clothing, agricultural tools and furniture. Five-stories high and hosting more than 2,280 shops and stalls, Thirimingala Market was a Rangoon landmark that thrived 24 hours a day and catered to an estimated 20,000 customers every day of the week.

However, without any warning, the mayor’s office ordered the site closed and the market to be moved some three or four kilometers north to Padauk Chaung in Hlaing Township, an area the shopkeepers say is too far from the hub of activity on Strand Road and disadvantageous to retailers in the city.

The shopkeepers were told that Thirimingala Market would close on Dec. 23 and were given until that date to reopen their outlets in the new one-storey location. 23.

No compensation was offered to the shopkeepers to cover the expenses involved in relocating.

After sitting for three hours in the sun, the protesters watched as the mayor took to a makeshift stage to inaugurate the new marketplace.

One protester told The Irrawaddy that she was demanding the right to move back to the old premises. She said that the market authorities had refused to address the shopkeepers’ concerns and that they were now taking the matter to the mayor.

Sources at Padauk Chaung said that many of the vendors from Thirimingala Market had been unable to secure a new outlet or space at the new location.

“We survive only on a day-to-day basis,” said one of the protesting stall owners, a woman in her 40s. “Now that we have lost our places at the market, I don’t know what we’ll do.”

Mayor Aung Thein Linn and the market authorities have been recently cited in local journals saying that the reason for the relocation of the wholesale market was due to traffic congestion and the fact that it was a fire hazard.

However, a member of the Market Development Committee, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Irrawaddy that the main reason behind the closure of Thirimingala Market was because the military-friendly AsiaWorld Company had wanted the site and made an arrangement with the mayor to have the market relocated.

“I have heard that AsiaWorld has made an agreement with the mayor that it will take over the premises,” he said.

AsiaWorld is one of the largest firms in the country and has interests in everything from construction and logging to gem-mining and exporting. The company is owned by Tun Myint Naing (aka Steven Law) who is on international sanctions blacklists and is known to be on very close personal terms with several members of the regime’s inner circle.
Several other shopkeepers said they believed that the mayor had accepted a bribe from AsiaWorld to command the move.

Rangoon’s City Development Committee recently announced it will auction the premises of the former Thirimingala Market on Strand Road. The site has a large area for parking and a number of warehouses that have been vacated.

“It is the same old story under this regime,” said the Market Development Committee member. “They care only about the money.”

“I still remember Snr-Gen Than Shwe promising that this market wouldn’t be moved for any reason.”

The price for a shop or outlet at that time was 400,000 kyat ($400), he said.

The new Thirimingala Market has been built on a 17.75-acre site on Bayintnaung Road near Padauk Chaung in Hlaing Township, according to state-run media. The new market reportedly has a capacity for 2,903 shops, nine warehouses and parking space for more than 2,000 vehicles.

“The idea for a one-storey building is to effectively prevent any accidental fires and to allow a good flow of wind,” Aung Thein Linn told Rangoon journalists.

Several deadly accidental fires have broken out in recent years at markets in Rangoon.

An official at a fire department in Rangoon said that of the more than 100 markets in the city, a majority could be deemed fire hazards and could be ordered to close or relocate at any time.

He said that other markets that could be in line for the chopping block include Thingangyun Sanpya Market, Baho Sanpya Fish Market, Dagon Township Market at the foot of Shwedagon Pagoda, and Nandawun Market in South Okkalapa.

Shopkeepers at these markets are reportedly worried about being moved.

“They [the authorities] never tell you anything before it happens,” said a textile shop owner at Baho Sanpya Market. “If you go against them, they will burn down your shop.”

According to one of the protesting shopkeepers, Aung Thein Linn left the market immediately after the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “He did not go around the market nor did he say a word,” she said. “Then he got right into his car with a very angry face and drove away.”

Rangoon-based correspondents contributed to this article.

Thirimingala Market took over as Rangoon’s premier wholesale venue from Keli Market in 1997-8.

“When Keli Market was relocated, we lost a lot of money,” recalled one shopkeeper.

The Irrawaddy – Karen New Year Celebrated Across the World
By SAW YAN NAING Wednesday, January 5, 2011

They may live in countries on the other side of world, their families may have been torn apart, they may be living in refugee camps in Thailand, but when it comes to their New Year’s Day, the ethnic Karen people join together as one in wishing each other a Happy New Year.

Thousands of Karen gathered on Wednesday in Insein Township in Rangoon to celebrate the start of the 2,750th year on the Karen calendar.

Sources in Rangoon said an estimated 10,000 Karen people in Insein dressed in traditional dress to celebrate the event with traditional dances and ceremonies. They raised the Karen national flag at 6 a.m on Wednesday.

Speakers at the ceremony called for the unity of the Karen people, said one attendee.

One of the major ethnic groups of Burma, the Karen have been indigenous to the land  for more than two millennia. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of Karen people still live in fear in their homeland, some hiding in the jungle while others are forced to flee to third countries. Decades of repression by the Burmese regime has resulted in more than 150,000 Karen living in refugee camps in Thailand. Some 60,000 Karen refugees have been resettled to Western countries.

Karen refugees in Thailand also celebrated their New Year on Jan. 5. Thousands of Karen in Mae La refugee camp gathered and held a festival, said a refugee at the camp. Mae La is the largest of nine refugee camps in Thailand with more than 40,000 Burmese refugees, most of whom are ethnic Karen.

Several Karen people told The Irrawaddy that they were praying for peace in Karen State where armed conflict has been a way of life for villagers for more than six decades.
Naw Barso Ghay, a Karen girl in India, said, “I wish for all the people in Karen State to have peaceful lives. I wish for there to be no more war, no more homelessness and no more families torn apart.”

Saw Gregory, a Karen university student who is studying in Thailand, said, “I miss Karen New Year in Rangoon. I hope to see all Karen people unified and celebrating Karen New Year together in Burma, one day.”

Straddling the mountains that separate Thailand and Burma, the people of Karen State have been victims of human rights abuses by Burmese government forces since the country gained independence from Britain in 1948. The Rangoon government’s broken promise of ethnic autonomy and true federalism resulted in a civil war that has continued to this day.
Founded in 1947, the Karen National Union has led the fight for freedom and self-determination.

In a statement to commemorate the 2,750th Karen New Year, KNU Chairman Saw Tamla Baw said it is necessary for every Karen, wherever they live in the world, to uphold the Karen people’s cultural heritage and language, and hand it down to posterity.

“I would like to urge all Karen nationals to work in a spirit of unity and in cooperation in this year of 2750 until the Karen people gain the right to live in freedom as a nationality, while resisting the enemy endangering our Karen people,” said Tamla Baw.

Zipporah Sein, the general secretary of the KNU, said, “I believe there will be a day when all Karen people gather freely together to celebrate our New Year under the Karen flag.
“Every single Karen person is responsible for this. We have to maintain the struggle for the liberation of the Karen people,” she said.

Volunteer support network for political prisoners launched
Wednesday, 05 January 2011 13:39 Phanida

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The National League for Democracy (NLD) launched a network of over 300 volunteers in support of political prisoners at an Independence Day function held yesterday at their head office in Bahan Township, Rangoon yesterday.

NLD party members and supporters matched volunteers with prisoners and their families through a lottery.  Volunteers

undertake to contact to their respective prisoner’s family and give both moral and materials support.

“This does not mean bearing all expenses for their allocated political prisoners from their own pockets. (Volunteers) can also give encouragement and support. Such support is helpful and will go some of the way in alleviating their problems”, Ohn Kyaing, the head of NLD’s Information Department told Mizzima.

“When I was in prison, I felt happy to know I had been remembered, that someone showed their love by giving even a small pouch of fish paste. I was encouraged and my morale was boosted”.

“In prison, morale and spiritual encouragement are very important”, Ohn Kyaing added.

Despite continued advocacy by international human rights groups, over 2,200 political prisoners remain in prisons across the country, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).  The group says that conditions for political prisoners are poor, many suffer ill health and at least 146 prisoners have died in custody since 1988.

In December, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the country, Tomas Ojea Quintana called for their unconditional release.

The NLD itself has over 600 of their own party members in prison. At least half of this number will today have a volunteer assigned to them, including volunteers from the party leadership.

Nobel laureate and party leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been paired with Soe Min Min from Hlaing Tharyar Township, Rangoon, while central committee member and former journalist  Win Tin will provide volunteer support for Win Mya Mya, an executive committee member of the NLD’s Mandalay Division being held in Puta-O prison.

NLD Women Affairs Committee member Le Le has been paired with 88 Generation Student leader Nilar Thein, who is being held in Thayet prison.

Nyunt Nyunt Oo, mother of imprisoned 88-Generation student leader Punneit Tun who is serving a 65-year prison term, said that NLD’s this programme was great and a ‘noble effort’.

“It’s a very good programme and I thank them”, she told Mizzima.

All political prisoners including monks, student leaders and ethnic leaders must be immediately and unconditionally released, she said.

The Independence Day celebration was attended by over 1,000 people including diplomats, ethnic leaders, veteran politicians and recent candidates from the November 7 general elections.

NLD central committee member May Win Myint said that the party had raised around four million kyat from the trade fair organised since January 2. The funds will be used to support both political prisoners and HIV patients.

A concurrent celebration for 200 young people was held at the residence of Thein Dan, branch chairman of the Mandalay division NLD.

Senior General Than Shwe’s Independence Day message reported in yesterday’s official papers, said he urged all people to ‘guard the nation’ against ‘disruptions’ to prevent Burma from falling under ‘alien influence’.

Burma achieved independence from British colonial rule in 1948, under the leadership of its first president,  Sao Shwe Thaik and prime minister U Nu. However, the country has been plagued with political and economic problems under decades of military rule.

Norwegian firm Seadrill heads back to Burma
Wednesday, 05 January 2011 22:39 Thomas Maung Shwe

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The Norwegian firm Seadrill will set up its ‘West Juno’ gas drilling rig in Burmese waters to undertake contract work for the Thai oil firm PTT Exploration & Production Company Ltd (PTTEP).

The rig will be in Burmese waters for four months.

Construction of the Seadrill’s newest rig was completed in Singapore in December 2010.

Seadrill came under fire last year from Burma activists for drilling work in Burma conducted for Twinza Oil, an Australian company.

Activists raised concerns over human rights violations linked to oil and gas developments in the country and pressed its withdrawal.

Companies working in Burma have come under fire for financing military rule.

In 2010, the Norweigan News Agency, quoted Seadrill spokesperson Hilde Waaler as saying the company had “no plans of signing any new contracts for work in the country”

However, Seadrill’s return to Burma was disclosed in late December by Braemar Falconer, a Singapore based offshore engineering consultancy firm that will be assisting Seadrill with the PTTEP contract.

Seadrill had performed drilling work for PTTEP in Burmese waters before on its ‘West Ariel’ rig.

The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs told independent news service Norwatch it encourages companies to “refrain from trading with or investing in Burma”.

The spokesperson said they didn’t want Seadrill or other Norwegian companies to “contribute to financing a military dictatorship”.

“Norway endorses the European Union’s measures against Burma, which, among other things, include a ban on investments in certain types of enterprises”.

However, Norwegian firms are not legally prevented from doing business in Burma, nor are they subject to the EU sanctions.

Norway is one of the few European nations not a member of the union.

Seadrill’s shares are traded on the both the Oslo and New York stock exchanges and while the firm is subject to United States sanctions, their activities in Burma are not affected.

Washington prohibits firms from making new investments in Burma, but there is a loophole for ‘technical services’. However, technical services must be provided to companies not blacklisted by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

Transocean, a Swiss-American drilling firm, is under investigation by OFAC because the company conducted offshore drilling work for a consortium that included a blacklisted firm owned by junta crony and alleged drug lord Stephen Law, and his father Lo Sit Han.

Seadrill and its partner Braemar Falconer could not be reached today for comment.

Japanese rig to drill off of Arakan coast

Another offshore drilling rig owned by the Japan Drilling Company (JDC), will head to Burma’s Arakan coast later this month as part of a job for Daewoo International, lead consortium partners in the Shwe gas project.

JDC- Japan’s only oil drilling firm signed a $41.34 million drilling contract that runs from January 15 to March 1 of this year.

The company’s semi-submersible rig will drill four deep sea wells in Burmese waters near Sittwe. The contract also contains an option to drill a possible fifth well.

JDC has previously drilled offshore in Burma for Malaysia’s state owned firm Petronas.

Monywa lawyers agree on NLD’s lawyers’ network
Wednesday, 05 January 2011 22:10 Phanida

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – A nine-member legal aid team in Monywa, Sagaing division held discussions today on forming a national lawyer’s network.

The two day meeting was organised by the National League for Democracy (NLD) and held at the residence of legal advocate Saw Tun.

“Lawyers in Monywa have been providing free legal aid for some time to people who cannot afford representation. We hope to expand and better coordinate our activities”, advocate Saw Tun told Mizzima.

The lawyers had been providing legal aid to political and human rights activists since 2007. While they have been able to gain acquittals for some cases, others had not been so successful, he explained.

NLD legal consultant Aung Thein travelled from Rangoon to join the discussion.

The national lawyer’s network would focus on forced land confiscation cases as well as child soldiers.

The legal aid team has now completed discussions in Rangoon, Mandalay, Pegu, Sagaing and Magwe divisions.

The NLD team met 15 young legal experts from both Mandalay division on January, advocate Khin Maung Shein told Mizzima.

“The network would not be a formal part of the NLD, even though many of our members will be involved”

“The focus will be on working with young lawyers”, he added.

This initiative comes on the back of other meetings with young people in Rangoon, where party leader Aung San Suu Kyi established a youth communications network.

Advocate Aung Thein said the network would be a way for young lawyers to be mentored and encouraged by more experienced legal experts.

DVB News – Two decades behind bars (Pt. 3)
By PAUL PICKREM
Published: 30 December 2010

Barely a year later, Thiha Yarzar listened carefully as Burmese military and police officials told him he would soon be on a flight to Rangoon, where he would be reunited with his beloved daughter and the rest of his family, nearly 20 years after he left his parent’s home as an exiled freedom fighter.

They warned him he would have to serve the rest of his 20 year sentence if he was arrested again.

“It was like a dream,” he remembers of the night he drove in a taxi to his sister’s house.

“Prisoners often dream about being released. But, we always are returned to prison before waking up,” he remembered. “I had to convince myself I was not dreaming that same old dream.”

Thiha Yarzar, the political prisoner, had dreamed that dream countless times in the 17 years, six months and 16 days he was imprisoned.

He got lost because the city streets and the neighborhood had changed so much while he was in prison. Two police cars followed the taxi as he tried to find the house he had spent so much time in as a youngster.

He didn’t wake up in his cell. Instead, he finally stood at his sister’s door.

When his sister, Daw Khin Mar Win, answered the door, they just stared at each other. They had not seen each other since she visited him in Insein prison in 1992.

“She shouted, ‘Hey! This is Thiha!’ She came running to meet me, crying.”

“Mummy is here,” she told Thiha.

Thiha stared in amazement as he watched an old woman come out of the house.

“It was my mother. But, I didn’t recognise her at first,” he said.

Daw Tin Lay Myint was now 68. He remembers her hair had turned white. She was thin, but looked healthy.

“She just stared at me, as she moved slowly toward me,” he recalled.

“This is Thiha!” his sister shouted.

“They thought I was dead,” Thiha said, explaining that they had lost track of him since tracing his whereabouts to Kalay prison.

“Mum touched me, my hair, my face, my shoulder,” he remembered vividly.

That evening, Thiha learned of his father’s death in 1996, the year before his wife died. He also learned how his father lost his rank in the army and was forced to retire.

“I’m very sorry,” Thiha told his mother and sister. “It was because of me.” But, they told him, “It’s not your fault.”

“Thiha, I’m very happy to see you alive again before I die,” his mother told him.

The next day, 27 September 2008, was the day Thiha feared might never come. He went to his wife’s parents home to meet the daughter who grew up without him.

When he finally arrived, his mother-in-law, Daw Shwe Yu, was sweeping leaves inside the family compound.

“Finally, Thiha is here!” she exclaimed when she saw him. “Come and see who is here,” she called to his daughter.

Tone Tone came and stood in the doorway.

“She asked me, ‘Are you Dad?’” he remembered vividly.

“I said nothing. I had no strength to speak. I had no words.”

His mother-in-law came to him and hugged him tightly. Then he walked to where Tone Tone was still standing in the doorway.

“I touched her hair and I touched her face, just like my mum had done to me, the night before. I remember thinking, ‘She is lovely, just a lovely young girl’.

He tried to hug her. “She was cold,” he said. “She had gotten used to not having me in her life.”

He knew then, it would take time for her to accept the fact that he was alive.

“I was disappointed. But, I also understood her reaction. I was very confused in my mind. But, I was just happy see my daughter.”

In time, Thiha tried to explain his actions in light of the political situation in Burma.

“But, she was not interested,” he said.

“Because of this I had no father during my childhood. Because of this you were imprisoned for so long. How can you understand how I feel about it all?” she asked.

“But eventually we began to understand each other’s feelings a little more,” Thiha said, looking back.

But, that struggle to understand others and be understood has become an issue in most of Thiha’s relationships since his release. He said the survival instincts that kept him alive in prison make it difficult to trust people and communicate outside.

“I felt like, and still feel like, I came from another planet. This planet is not my home,” he said, with frustration. “It’s like a different planet, now. The world, as I knew it, no longer exists.

“It’s difficult for us, my family, to understand each other. It is very difficult to communicate. I don’t know why. I ask myself, ‘Are you crazy. Are you mad?’

“There is something wrong in my relationships with other people. Nobody can understand me and I can’t understand them. I’m oversensitive. I find it hard to relax and trust people, to trust their motives. Are they making fun of me, laughing at me, being sarcastic?”

He also said he feels people distrust his motives because he is an ex­-prisoner.

Even so, since his release he has not been quiet about his strong feelings regarding the continuation of the armed struggle for freedom inside Burma.

“The armed struggle has not been successful, but we have time to change things. We can’t win against the military government because we can’t defend ourselves.

“Armed struggle, as well as political and economic pressure, will force the generals to negotiate peace. Organised armed struggle is a necessity, along with other diplomatic, political and economic means.”

After his release Thiha was continually harassed by his old enemies in the government. He knew he and his family were in danger.

On 3 December 2008, Thiha crossed the Moei river illegally by boat, at Myawaddy, Karen state, entering Thailand at Mae Sot, Tak province.

Eventually, he settled in Mae Sot, also known as the ‘City of Exiles’, where he now lives among many other 88 generation activists who still struggle for change in their homeland.

The decision made by Thiha Yarzar, the young history student at Rangoon University, to pursue and defend the cause of democracy in Burma because it is the better way, and his willingness to pay the steep price to secure it, has not wavered despite long years of imprisonment and torture and suffering by him and his family.

Just months after his release, he helped organise and was prominent in demonstrations calling for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners in Burma.

Since then, he helped found ExPP-ACT, an NGO committed to providing assistance to ex political prisoners.

“I did my duty and I will continue to do my duty. Every Burmese has a responsibility to struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma,” he said.

“I’m free, and I’m getting strength from the fact that I’m a free man. I will do whatever I can to continue my fight for democracy and human rights.”

Paul Pickrem is the Features Editor of Burma News International and author of NO EASY ROAD: A Burmese Political Prisoner’s Story. He can be contacted at pspickrem@hotmail.com.