BURMA RELATED NEWS – FEBRUARY 15, 2011
Feb 15th, 2011
Jailed Australian replaced at Burmese paper
By South East Asia correspondent Zoe Daniel
Updated Tue Feb 15, 2011 3:31pm AEDT
A new editor-in-chief has been appointed to Rangoon’s Myanmar Times, replacing the newspaper’s former boss who is being held in prison.
Australian founder of the Myanmar Times, Ross Dunkley, was arrested last Thursday and is being held on immigration charges, although it is unclear exactly what they are.
Before his arrest he had been engaged in negotiations over the management of the paper with its Burmese co-owner, Tin Htun Oo.
He was appointed to the position by the military government after the previous co-owner was jailed for 14 years for corruption offences.
Australian mining executive Bill Clough, who is also a co-owner, has now agreed to Mr Tin taking over as editor.
Mr Clough is in Burma negotiating with authorities for Mr Dunkley’s release.
By Zin Linn Feb 15, 2011 4:04PM UTC
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released a press release on February 11 stating, “Burma’s new government under Prime Minister Thein Sein must put an end to the former military junta’s despicable policy of imprisoning independent journalists. The most recent case to come to light is the 13-year sentencing of Maung Maung Zeya in a trial held within Insein Prison on February 4.”
The court’s verdict came on the same day the junta-backed president Thein Sein was sworn into office.
Photojournalist Sithu Zeya was sentenced to eight years in jail on December 23. Zeya was sentenced by the military kangaroo-court for his photos of the scene of an explosion at a traditional water festival pavilion near Rangoon’s Royal lake in April last year according to his lawyers.
Sithu Zeya’s father, Maung Maung Zeya, also a video reporter, was sentenced on February 4, 2011 to a total of 13 years in prison by an arbitrary court in Rangoon. CPJ counted 13 journalists in jail in Burma as of December 1, 2010, making it one of the five worst jailers of journalists in the world.
Journalists based in Rangoon say the detentions were part of a continued crackdown by the military authorities on those involved in the anti-junta activities, including covering news in the exile media.
Burma is trapped in a dark age where freedom of expression has totally vanished. The junta is using the domestic media as a propaganda machine.
It is sad that this country sees no sign of freedom even in this Global Information Age. The junta controls all media access now. Since the monk-led protests known as the Saffron Revolution of September 2007, all news media in Burma is tightly restricted by the military junta. All daily newspapers, radio and television stations are under the junta’s command.
All articles for publication in Burma must be approved by the notorious Press Scrutiny and Registration Division, run by military officers. The military junta has determined that the prior censorship system will be continued regardless of the parliamentarian system started on 31 January, 2011.
Paris based Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) ranks Burma 174 out of 178 countries in its 2010 press freedom index. The country is one of the few in the world to operate such a strictly censored system. Burma’s ranking was expected and well deserved. In fact, there is no press freedom at all in Burma.
Even obituaries are subject to censorship. If someone wants to put one of his or her family members’ obituaries in the newspaper, it needs to pass the censor. Obituaries of political dissidents and their relatives had been refused permission by the board.
Journalists in Burma have received draconian jail sentences for reporting information challenging to the regime. In January 2010, DVB reporter Ms. Hla Hla Win received a 20-year sentence for violating the Electronic Act, and now in jail serving 27 years; her helper, Myint Naing got seven years.
Burma was at the forefront of press freedom in Southeast Asia before the 1962 military coup. The country then enjoyed a free press; censorship was something unheard of. As many as three dozen newspapers, including English, Chinese and Hindi dailies, existed between 1948 and 1962.
On the contrary, Burma stands downgraded from a free state to a prison state. All news media in Burma is strictly censored and tightly controlled by the military – all daily newspapers, radio and television stations are under control of the junta.
Some journalists and politicians had a dream prior of the recently held November 7 election that there may be a space for them in the new parliament. But freedom of speech for fresh members of parliament in Burma has been restricted under laws made by the sitting military junta. The emergence of a new nominated pro-junta USDP government seems to follow the former regime’s stance towards the press.
There is also a two-year prison term for any complaint staged within the parliament compound. The laws, signed by junta Chief Senior-General Than Shwe, claim that parliamentarians will not be allowed freedom of expression even in their relevant chambers.
Thus, there is no space for parliamentarians as well as journalists to practice freedom of expression under the so-called civilian government.
published: 15.02.2011, 12:47 | updated: 15.02.2011 12:49:41
Prague – Former Czech president Vaclav Havel has called on the international community to step up the pressure on Burma to respect human rights, he said at a conference on Burma in Prague.
Human rights are a universal value and their respect should be demanded more strictly in the globalisation era, Havel said.
“The process of economic integration has not yet been accompanied by sufficient integration in the issue of human freedoms and fundamental human rights,” he said.
Countries still seem to prefer economic and technological affairs to human rights, Havel complained.
The recent events in the Arab world show that the longing for freedom and democracy is universal, Havel noted.
Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg supported the effort at making Burma democratic.
The Czech Republic will further demand that human rights be not violated in Burma, Schwarzenberg said.
He said the European Union should take a clear stance to the situation in Burma.
The Czech Republic criticises the military dictatorship, introduced in Burma in 1962, and it supports members of the Burmese opposition.
Schwarzenberg pointed out earlier that although Aung San Suu Kyi, a Peace Nobel Prize laureate, was released from house arrest, roughly 2,000 dissidents were still being jailed. He was also highly critical of the last year´s parliamentary elections, which most observers say were manipulated by the military junta.
The previous elections, held in 1990, were clearly won by the National League for Democracy lead by Suu Kyi but the junta refused to hand power to the winning group and it kept Suu Kyi under house arrest for 15 years.
KTRE Lufkin and Nacogdoches - How refugees came from Burma to Nacogdoches
Posted: Feb 12, 2011 5:23 PM PST
By Donna McCollum
NACOGDOCHES, TX (KTRE) – When news broke Burmese refugees would be working and living in Nacogdoches, maps were brought out.
“The country of Burma. If you would look at the You Tube, you could find all sorts of things about Burma,” suggested school superintendent Dr. Rodney Hutto, at a community meeting to discuss plans for the new arrivals.
You would find, Burma is now the South East Asian country of Myanmar. The United States still calls it Burma out of respect for democratically-elected leaders up against a repressive military government.
“The military junta retaliated by arresting, beating and even torturing demonstrators. Demonstrator leaders were given 20 years prison sentences to the country’s most notorious prison,” said a narrator on a video furnished by The Burma Connection, a non profit agency that helps refugees. (www.theburmaconnection.org)
The political unrest sent thousands to refugee camps along the Thailand-Burma border.
Beh Reh, now a Pilgrim’s Pride employee, spent his teen years in such a camp.
“I been living in a refugee camp for more than 9 years, almost 10 years before I got here,” said Reh, 23, now a liaison for arriving refugees.
The camps are overcrowded. Makeshift huts lead to unsanitary conditions. Often there’s no running water and no electricity.
“Only food over there and very, very low education. So, yeah, very hard for everybody,” shared Reh.
So, many attempt to seek a new life in America.
“I’m a welfare refugee who came here four, almost 5 years ago. Around July 26 I got here with my big family. Ten people in my families,” said Reh.
The people from Burma are the fastest growing refugee population in the United States. Last year, the U.S. Accepted almost 16,700 refugees from Burma, according to data from the U.S. State Department.
In Texas, many Burmese arrive in Houston where resettlement organizations help with the transition to living in America. Most are placed with Korean foster families. Eventually, employment is introduced.
And ‘Diversifying a Workforce With Burmese workers’ is happening now at Pilgrim’s Pride in Nacogdoches, a place on the map very far from their native homeland.
PM Flags Off ‘Silaturrahim’ Convoy To Thailand, Myanmar
PUTRAJAYA, Feb 15 (Bernama) — Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak on Tuesday flagged off a “Jelajah Silaturrahim” convoy to Thailand and Myanmar aimed at fostering better relations with Muslims and harmony with non-Muslims.
Forty participants comprising officers and staff of the Islamic Missionary Foundation of Malaysia (Yadim) as well as members of Sahabat Yadim are going on the mission in eight cars, led by Yadim president Datuk Aziz Jamaludin Mohd Tahir.
The convoy, flagged off at the Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin Mosque here in conjunction with Prophet Muhammad’s birthday celebration, will travel over five nights and six days to Thailand and then to Kawthaung in southern Myanmar on the border with Ranong.
Some 15,000 Malays live in Kawthaung and speak Malay in the slang of northern peninsular Malaysia.
The convoy participants are scheduled to carry out various religious and social activities in Kawthaung.
Also present at the flag-off were the prime minister’s wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and his wife Puan Sri Norainee Abdul Rahman and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom.
Anisur Rahman – Staff writer 17:50 HRS IST
Dhaka, Feb 15 (PTI) Bangladesh will raise 19 new battalions over the next five years to guard its porous borders with India and Myanmar, the chief of the country’s paramilitary frontier force said here today.
“We will raise the battalions in phases in next five years alongside creating four regional headquarters as a new tier in the structure of the frontier force and four new sectors under a massive reconstruction plan for Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB),” Major General Rafiqul Islam told PTI in an interview.
The paramilitary force, known as Bangladesh Rifles till last month, is now known as Border Guard Bangladesh.
The border force is undergoing a massive overhaul with its name, laws, uniform and monogram all changed to give it a new look in the aftermath of the 2009 mutiny in which 57 officers were killed.
PTI – Tue, Feb 15 6:41 PM IST Guwahati, Feb 15 (PTI) The National Investigation Agency has exposed a nexus between men of Chinese-origin and Manipur-based banned terror group United National Liberation Front (UNLF), alleging that the organisation was sourcing its arms from neighbouring countries through those people.
The agency also found during its investigation that members of UNLF were using satellite phones for extortion to avoid scrutiny of central security agencies and had expanded this business across Assam and Manipur.
“Investigation conducted by NIA has revealed that UNLF made some attempts to procure weapons with the help of some persons of Chinese origin,” an official spokesperson said here today.
In its charge sheet against self-styled Chairman R K Meghen and 18 other members of UNLF before a special court, NIA accused them of waging war against the country, extortion and illegal purchase of sophisticated weapons from neighbouring countries bordering India.
The agency accused the members of raising funds by resorting to large-scale extortion from government as well as private bodies in Manipur.
“The National Investigation Agency…has established that these accused persons used to raise funds through extortion in Manipur and then transfer them to countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, and Myanmar for purchase of sophisticated arms and ammunition to be used by UNLF,” the spokesperson alleged.
Meghen is now in judicial custody. Most of the chargesheeted persons were staying under cover in Guwahati and furthering their cause by collecting money through extortion, the agency said.
The Assam Police had arrested them in a coordinated action through simultaneous searches across Guwahati on three different occasions and recovered items like pen drives, laptops, mobile phones carrying details of their working.
“In pursuance of the said conspiracy, the accused persons extensively used Internet connection, mobile phones and in some cases satellite phones also. Further evidence has been collected pertaining to the large-scale extortion conducted by the arrested accused persons in Manipur to raise funds for UNLF,” the official said.
NIA conducted investigation of this case collecting evidence during last five months from different states like Assam, Manipur, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
Source:(AHN)Reporter: AHN Staff
Location:Yangon, Myanmar
Published:February 15, 2011 07:29 am EST
The Overseas Press Club of Cambodia, a foreign press association, has called on the Myanmar government to release Ross Dunkley, publisher of an Australian newspaper, from notorious Insein prison while awaiting trial. His trial is due to begin Feb. 24.
His business partner in Cambodia confirmed the news of Myanmar Times’ co-founder’s detention last Thursday.
The OPCC claimed that keeping Dunkley in prison was an attempt to resolve a business dispute, adding that his arrest was an abuse of the law. It added, “The OPCC is further concerned that Dunkley’s arrest is in line with a trend of increasing authoritarianism in some countries in the region and efforts to circumscribe hard-won press freedoms.”
David Armstrong, publisher of the Phnom Penh Post and Dunkley’s business partner, also linked the arrest with a power struggle between Myanmar Times’ foreign and domestic owners.
Dunkley and Sonny Swe started the Myanmar Times in 2000. Swe is the son of a member of the junta’s influential military intelligence service. Five years later, Swe was jailed for 14 years for publishing the paper without permits and his stake was handed over to Information Minister’s close aid Tin Tun Oo.
In the meantime, the Myanmar Times has appointed a new editor-in-chief.
Published: Tuesday, Feb 15, 2011, 17:39 IST
Place: New Delhi | Agency: PTI
The government is planning to build helicopter bases and enhance road connectivity along the porous Indo-Myanmar border to enable dispatching of quick reinforcements and other supplies to Border Security Force (BSF) troops who will now guard the border instead of the paramilitary Assam Rifles.
The Centre is also expected to clear a Rs8639.81 crore budget plan in the coming fiscal to raise additional 41 battalions in the BSF which will now be deployed close to that border in order to enhance vigil.
The BSF will have additional 41,000 personnel, four rontier headquarters, 11 sector headquarters after the government recently decided to replace the Assam Rifles— currently guarding the 1,640km-long frontier — by the BSF, which guards borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh.
“A security audit report jointly prepared by the BSF and Assam Rifles has been submitted to the home ministry. The proposal envisages construction of helipads and enhancement of road network along the porous and densely forested Indo-Myanmar border,” sources familiar with the development said.
“The proposal is under active consideration and advanced stage for approval, including the financialsanction for increasing the strength of the BSF, to enable it to take up he new responsibility,” they said.
Most of the posts of Assam Rifles are located well inside Indian territory and only a handful of posts are located near the zero line, which makes it easier for the insurgents camping in Myanmar to sneak into India easily.
The BSF has hence been asked to construct the posts close to the border, they said.
BSF is currently responsible for guarding the Indo-Pak and Indo-Bangla borders and about ten of its battalions are also deployed in Maoist-affected areas in central and eastern India and anti-insurgency operations in the Northeast.
Assam Rifles was entrusted with the responsibility of guarding the border with Myanmar in 2002 and at that time, the strength of the force was 30 battalions.
Gradually, the strength of the force has been increased to 46 battalions. Twenty more battalions are being raised by the force, the country’s oldest paramilitary force to take up duties related to internal scurity.
by David Scott Mathieson
Published in: Bangkok Post
February 13, 2011
If Burma’s newly formed parliament seems eerily familiar, that’s because most of its members are. As the new national and regional assemblies formed last week, many of the generals who have ruled the country for years assumed nominally civilian roles in the new power structure. All are from the Union Solidarity and Development Party, which won more than 77% of the votes in the November 2010 elections widely derided as completely rigged. The new president is former Prime Minister Thein Sein, also party leader of the USDP. His two vice-presidents are General Tin Aung Myint Oo, chosen from the quarter of parliamentary seats reserved for the military, and Dr Sai Mauk Kham, a party member from the upper house of parliament
The speaker of the Lower House is Thura Shwe Mann, a highly decorated former army chief of staff, who retired to run as a governing party candidate from the capital, Naypyidaw, whose residents largely consist of military personnel and civil servants. The speaker of the Upper House is also a retired general and former culture minister, U Khin Aung Myint, once the head of the military psychological warfare department. The governing party is essentially the avatar of the soon to be defunct State Peace and Development Council, a parliamentary puppet of the Burmese military, or Tatmadaw. Standing in reserve is the all-powerful Senior General Than Shwe, having no clear formal role in the reshuffle but widely believed to maintain total control over Burma’s authoritarian system.
Where did the USDP come from, and why did the military create it? The new party was originally formed as a mass-based organisation by Than Shwe in 1993, and called the Union Solidarity and Development Association. It was registered as a ‘’social-welfare” movement to skirt laws against civil servants being members of political parties. The membership grew to 26 million by 2008. Many civil servants, teachers, students, and local elites joined _ not all of them willingly. By the late 1990s, it was the chief organisation in a sprawling military controlled complex of ”government organised non-governmental organisations” (aka GONGOs), which also include the Myanmar Women’s Affairs Federation, the Myanmar War Veterans Association and others. Than Shwe was its official patron, though it was led by U Htay Oo, a general who also happened to be the minister of agriculture and irrigation.
The organisation amassed considerable financial power, investing in _ or in some cases, merely seizing or expropriating with local military help _ land for farming, market spaces, bus routes and other purposes. Such investments enabled it to buy legitimacy by giving local branches both income and the ability to bestow concessions and favours on local communities. The organisation has taken credit for building roads, and conducted training for journalists and bureaucrats, often thinly disguised indoctrination. In 2008, it claimed credit for disaster relief after Cyclone Nargis, when in fact it was Burmese civil society groups that did most of the difficult work.
The group’s philosophy and aims mirrored the military’s word for word. Its symbol, the temple guardian dragon, or chinthe, became the central picture on Burmese banknotes in 1995, replacing Aung San Suu Kyi’s father, the independence hero General Aung San. Members throughout Burma were corralled into surreal mass rallies, all in white-shirted uniforms, to criticise Western sanctions, denounce Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters, and raise funds for local development that the military controlled.
The movement rapidly developed a dark side: its paramilitary groups were involved in violent attacks against opposition members in 1996, and in 2003 hundreds of its cadres staged a violent assault on Mrs Suu Kyi’s motorcade in the upper Burma town of Depayin, killing about 70 of her supporters. In 2007, during the demonstrations led by Buddhist monks in Rangoon, the group’s thugs assisted military and riot police forces to quash the marches and arrest thousands of activists.
It was no surprise when the group was transformed into the new party in March 2010 as the military prepared for elections. Prime Minister Thein Sein took control, and scores of senior generals resigned to run as candidates for the party throughout Burma. The party also inherited the majority of the group’s membership, all those of voting age, and the association’s infrastructure: offices, staff, business interests and bank accounts. Military-crafted electoral laws made it almost impossible for opposition parties to run, and prohibitively expensive to register a candidate. The party was the only one to field candidates in almost all of the 1,160 electorates. It is a bespoke political wing of the military, carefully crafted to assume parliamentary control. In the unlikely scenario that the party deviates from the Tatmadaw line, the 2008 constitution grants the military the authority to take over the government _ effectively a constitutional coup d’etat _ a threat reportedly made by Than Shwe in a secret meeting of senior military commanders in late January.
The Tatmadaw have crafted a methodical fix of democratic illusion. That great chronicler of Sicilian politics, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, wrote in his classic novel The Leopard that in order for everything to stay the same, everything had to change. The Burmese military have adopted that credo wholeheartedly, and the new party is their avatar for presenting a more palatable image to Burma and the world.
David Scott Mathieson is a Senior Researcher in the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch.
The Irrawaddy – Dunkley Lands on Regime’s Wrong Side
By AUNG ZAW Monday, February 14, 2011
Ross Dunkley, the Australian editor and publisher of The Myanmar Times, has been arrested by Burmese authorities and locked up in the infamous Insein Prison.
Although he was officially detained for immigration violations, his arrest reportedly stemmed from a business conflict with his Burmese partner, Dr Tin Htun Oo, relating to the newspaper’s ownership interests and operating strategy.
Controversy around The Myanmar Times is nothing new and can be traced along with its junta bloodline back to the top generals in Burma’s intelligence service, including former spy chief Gen Khin Nyunt, who were purged by junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe in 2004.
Dunkley founded the English language newspaper in 2000 with the backing of Bill Clough, an Australian mining and oil and gas entrepreneur. In Burma, however, foreigners are only allowed to own a minority stake in media organizations, so Dunkley needed to find a local partner with enough connections to land the appropriate publishing licenses and permissions.
That person appeared in the form of Sonny Swe, the son of Brig-Gen Thein Swe, a former military attaché to the Burmese embassy in Bangkok who in 2000 was a high-ranking official in the intelligence department and one of Khin Nyunt’s right hand men. A deal was struck, and with Dunkley and his group owning 49 percent of the shares and Sonny Swe holding 51 percent, The Myanmar Times was launched and touted as Burma’s first truly independent news source.
However, the newspaper was seen by many as part of a public relations exercise by Khin Nyunt to polish the image of the military government. At the time of its inception, it even had its own censorship board consisting of Tin Win, Burma’s labor minister, and none other than Thein Swe. Although the two high-ranking junta officials carefully screened the contents of the newspaper, their involvement meant that The Myanmar Times did not need to pass through Burma’s draconian press censorship board.
In addition, the newspaper was granted special dispensation to cover sensitive domestic issues such as the status of Aung San Suu Kyi and visits to the country by UN special investigators—it was even given an exclusive interview with Khin Nyunt. Such privileges, which were never offered to the local press, gave Dunkley’s newspaper a leg up on all other independent publications in Rangoon. But in return, The Myanmar Times had to toe the official line and paint a positive picture of military-ruled Burma.
For example, after the attack on opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s convoy in Depayin, Dunkley’s paper presented the junta position that the clash was between pro-Suu Kyi and anti-Suu Kyi groups. News organizations outside Burma, however, widely reported that the attack was orchestrated by junta officials and perpetrated by hired thugs.
In 2004, the publishing landscape changed dramatically for The Myanmar Times when Than Shwe purged Khin Nyunt’s entire intelligence service and placed the spy chief under house arrest, where he remains today.
Thein Swe was also arrested and received a sentence of more than 100 years in prison. And Sonny Swe, then the majority shareholder and the deputy chief executive officer of The Myanmar Times, was arrested on the charge of committing “economic crimes,” given a 14-year sentence and sent to prison in Lashio, Shan State.
The regime then hand-picked Tin Htun Oo—who was closely associated with junta leaders such as former Information Minister Kyaw Hsan—as Dunkley’s new business partner and handed him Sonny Swe’s 51 percent interest in The Myanmar Times.
Tin Htun Oo was seen as an apologist for the regime and did not have the reputation of being an independent minded journalist, and reports soon emerged that Dunkley and Tin Htun Oo did not get along well.
In addition, with Khin Nyunt and Thein Swe out of the picture, The Myanmar Times no longer received special privileges and was required to go through the same procedures as other periodicals in Rangoon.
Despite the loss of their Thein Swe & son connection, however, the ties between The Myanmar Times’ foreign investors and the junta increased significantly in 2006, when Twinza Oil, the western Australian company owned by Bill Clough and his brother, signed a Production Sharing and Exploration Contract with the military-owned Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE).
Burma Campaign Australia estimates that Twinza Oil’s project could potentially earn MOGE US $2.5 billion through royalties, income tax and MOGE’s stake in the project. This means that the income from the Twinza Oil project alone could fund a quarter of Burma’s military for a decade.
Regardless of these new economic bonds between Dunkley’s partners and the junta, he began to receive pressure both from the regime and his new business partner and in 2008 was forced to sack senior staff members and make “comprehensive changes” in the editorial department.
The relationship between the Australian and Burmese owners reportedly went downhill from there. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Dunkley and Tin Htun Oo were also involved in disputes over whether the paper should become a daily publication, which Dunkley advocated, and over how much profit the Burmese partner could remove from the business.
So given Tin Htun Oo’s top level connections and the friction between him and Dunkley, it is not surprising that the regime clamped down on the Australian editor—what is surprising it that it took so long to do so after the removal of former poster-boy Dunkley’s patron Khin Nyunt.
It is common knowledge that the regime keeps dossiers on all foreign persons of interest who reside or do business in Burma, and can drum up charges from immigration violations to smoking ganja or worse as its needs require. So Dunkley could easily have been in the same predicament years earlier if the junta had decided he had outgrown his usefulness or they wanted to change course.
Both may be the case right now, as some reports suggest that the regime plans to launch colorful daily newspapers and may even allow local editors to run the new publications. If Tin Htun Oo, who contested for parliament but lost in the 2010 election, is the new poster-boy and man who the regime wants to run its own daily, then neither the junta leaders nor Tin Htun Oo would want Dunkley around as competition.
On the surface, all of this would suggest that Dunkley is a hero and political prisoner for standing up to the regime on behalf of journalistic independence. But that is most assuredly not the case.
Larry Jagan, a Bangkok-based British journalist who writes often on Burma, previously told The Irrawaddy that although Dunkley pretended that his newspaper was independent, it was actually controlled by the regime. “Privately, Ross always said to me that he is a businessman first and a journalist second,” said Jagan.
Dunkley’s willingness to place his business interests over his journalistic integrity was always evident to those who know Burma well. But if anyone had any doubts that this was the case, the Australian clearly displayed his willingness to appease Than Shwe’s regime in January 2008, when he wrote an editorial praising the junta’s “road map” to democracy, which was in fact a road map to keeping the generals in power.
“I believe that its [the junta’s] seven-point road map to democracy is the best way forward, and I support that,” Dunkley declared—possibly with the double-meaning that it was the best way forward for his own economic interests as well.
Sein Hla Oo, a veteran Burmese journalist based in Rangoon, once told The Irrawaddy that Dunkley’s pro-regime stand was not surprising since the paper had always been well connected to the ruling generals.
“It is semi-state-media,” he said. “Inside Burma, readers don’t care about this kind of writing by Ross Dunkley and others. People think this kind of writing is regime propaganda.”
To be fair, The Myanmar Times is better than the New Light of Myanmar. In addition, Tin Htun Oo would almost certainly be worse than Dunkley in managing the newspaper and staff members would not be happy to see him grab the reigns.
But even though The Myanmar Times has been publishing for seven years, despite claiming to have done so, Dunkley has never made a concerted attempt to use his priviledged position among the Burmese journalistic community to advance the cause of press freedom in the country. At the same time, there are still has more than 40 journalists languishing in prisons for pushing the free press envelope.
With the exception of Than Shwe and his ruthless junta colleagues, we do not wish on anyone the horror of being kept in Insein Prison. But it is not the imprisoned Australian editor who should be lauded and receive sympathetic international attention at this time. The real heros that deserve our focus and support are the journalists who, while caring nothing about personal economic profit, take risks every day to fight for a free press and the right of the Burmese people to receive accurate information about their country and government.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
RANGOON—Many Rangoon residents who spoke to The Irrawaddy as part of a recent survey said that Burma’s military regime has used the debate over economic sanctions to disunite opposition groups, while most said that the junta’s misrule was responsible for the country’s economic troubles.
The survey showed that the disagreement between Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) and other political parties over economic sanctions has grown and that people are disappointed with the regime’s attacks via state-controlled newspapers on Suu Kyi and her party regarding this issue.
The Irrawaddy interviewed 100 people from different walks of life, including 10 low-income laborers, 20 university students, 12 company employees, 10 reporters, two retired government servants, one economist, five politicians not affiliated with any political party, two retired army personnel and a senior government official, about whether the current economic sanctions imposed on Burma should be lifted. Most of the interviewees said that getting rid of the existing administrative structure dominated by former generals was more important than lifting sanctions.
“Before the election, opposition groups were split into two factions. One faction wanted to contest the election but the other didn’t. Now they are split into two factions again over the sanctions issue. We can say that the junta’s divide-and-rule policy has been successful,” said one senior journalist, who added: “I don’t think it is important now to debate whether to keep sanctions or lift them. It is time to topple the dictatorial system and get rid of a sham democracy.”
The economist who participated in The Irrawaddy survey said that while it is generally true that economic sanctions can hinder foreign investment, in Burma this is not the case. Other issues, such as the absence of rule of law, rampant cronyism and the lack of guarantees for foreign investments, are the main reasons that most foreign investors do not want to enter the country, he said.
“Economic sanctions are not the only thing blocking foreign investment. The existence of the rule of law and guarantees for those investments are important. No matter what sanctions are imposed on a country, foreign investors will still come as long as that country is stable, peaceful and has conditions conducive to doing business. From an economic point of view, it is more important to create such conditions than to remove sanctions,” said the economist.
Not everyone agrees with this point of view, however. In a joint statement issued on Feb. 12, Burma’s Union Day, 11 of the country’s political parties said that US economic sanctions on Burma were having a negative impact on both countries. According to the statement, the United States is losing US $15-19 billion annually because of the sanctions, including more than $1 billion in wages for its workers. The statement also claimed that Burma loses billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of job opportunities because of the sanctions.
The political parties that are calling for economic sanctions on Burma to be dropped include the National Democratic Front, the Democratic Party (Myanmar), the Union Democratic Party, the Union Kayin League, the Chin National Party, the Peace and Democracy Party, the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party, the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party, the Wonthanu NLD (Union of Myanmar), the Union of Myanmar Federation of National Politics and the Phalon Sawaw Democratic Party.
One respondent to The Irrawaddy’s survey—a deputy director from the regime’s Ministry of Commerce (MOC)—concurred that US and EU sanctions are having a significant impact on the country’s economy, at least from the standpoint of government planning.
“Economic sanctions have really affected the country’s economy. Whenever we discuss ways to improve the economy, we have to take sanctions into consideration. We have to think of ways to get our exports to Western markets by hiding the name of our country. We have to find ways to bypass barriers to our exports,” said the MOC deputy director.
However, an independent candidate in last year’s November election denied that economic sanctions were seriously affecting the lives of ordinary citizens.
He noted that when companies like Eddie Bauer and Pepsi left the country some years ago as a result of the sanctions, products made in Burma or Thailand soon replaced them. He said that the regime is also not seriously concerned about sanctions because it has income from selling the country’s natural resources and economic cooperation with China and India.
For the regime, he said, the sanctions issue was just something to be used to attack opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
But one former major currently working as the manager of government-owned sugar factory said that members of the military are far from indifferent to the issue of Burma’s persistent economic weakness, which he said was largely responsible for widespread corruption.
“Let’s put the issue of economic sanctions aside. If you look at how officers in active service live, you’ll find that most will do anything for their survival and their children’s health and education. To be perfectly frank, they have to steal. Family comes first and they can’t think of other things. And they are not alone—all the top-ranking officers are doing the same thing.”
Most of the students from Rangoon’s Dagon University who spoke with The Irrawaddy took the view that this corrupt, military-dominated system is itself the chief cause of the many hardships that ordinary Burmese faced in their day-to-day lives. They said that
people needed to unite to change the current system, instead of arguing over the issue of sanctions.
“I don’t think it was economic sanctions that made the country’s education and health sectors so poor. Where does the regime spend the money it earns from selling natural gas and other resources? Who are the wealthiest people even when the country is under sanctions? Everything is caused because of this military system, so we have to fight against it,” said one third-year student.
Most of those who barely subsist on their daily wages said they don’t really understand the issue of economic sanctions and are only interested in earning enough money to support their families.
One 30-year-old reporter from a Rangoon-based journal said that the Burmese regime is just using the sanctions issue as an excuse for its failure to improve the lives of ordinary Burmese.
“This regime doesn’t care about economic sanctions at all. They are satisfied with the way things are right now. They are happy as long as they are in power and their families enjoy comfortable lives. They even killed monks to cling on power. Blaming the country’s economic situation on sanctions is just an excuse,” said the reporter.
In a statement issued on Feb. 8, Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) rejected the argument that sanctions have adversely affected the lives of ordinary citizens. It noted that the regime has never paid serious attention to the health and education needs of the country’s people, despite earning billions of dollars from selling natural gas and other resources.
It is this neglect, and not the policies of Western governments towards Burma, that put the country at the bottom of the United Nations Development Program’s 2011 human development index, below Cambodia and Laos.
On Feb. 13, Burma’s state-run newspapers ran an article titled “Sanctions, Suu Kyi and the NLD,” which criticized Suu Kyi and her party for continuing to call for sanctions.
Since 1993, the US, the EU and other Western countries have imposed economic sanctions on Burma for the regime’s widespread human rights violations, including rape and the use of child soldiers.
Tuesday, 15 February 2011 15:20 Thomas Maung Shwe
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The Norwegian offshore drilling firm Seadrill has come under renewed scrutiny from activists for conducting offshore drilling activities in Burma.
According to Burma’s state owned the New Light of Myanmar, Seadrill’s new ‘jack-up’ rig, the West Juno, was set to arrive in Burmese waters in mid-January to commence drilling for PTTEP, the international exploration wing of Thailand’s state-owned oil firm which holds concession in blocks M-7 and M-3 for a 4 month period. PTTEP presently owns a 100 percent stake in both blocks.
While Norway’s government discourages Norwegian companies from doing business in Burma, Oslo has not banned firms from doing so.
Reached for comment, the Norwegian Burma Committee sent Mizzima a statement in which the organization’s director, Inger Lise Husoy, criticized Seadrill’s actions and its involvement with PTTEP in Burma.
Husoy told Mizzima: ‘It is well documented that the oil and gas sector in Burma involves grave human rights violations. If Seadrill was not aware of that before, they were certainly informed about the situation after the last time they operated in Burma. That Seadrill now chooses to enter a new contract for operations in Burma confirms the image of the company which seeks profit at the expense of people’s rights and lives’.
According to the latest figures available through Seadrill’s US regulatory filings, Norway’s public pension plan is the second largest shareholder in Seadrill.
As of March 2010, the pension fund whose shares are managed by Folketrygdfondet, controlled a 7.42 percent stake in the firm.
Matthew Smith, a researcher with the human rights organization Earth Rights International (ERI), told Mizzima, ‘Seadrill will bear responsibility for human rights impacts of the overall project, and by virtue of the Norwegian government’s holdings in Seadrill, the people of Norway have a stake in this and have reason to be concerned’.
In December, ERI issued a report critical of the Norwegian state pension plan of being ‘complicit in land confiscation’ and other abuses of the Burmese military regime
ERI has long been critical of PTTEP, Chevron and Total oil companies for paying the Burmese regime and its armed forces to provide security services in the areas where their gas pipelines run. According to ERI, the regime has forced local villagers to perform unpaid construction on infrastructure that benefits the foreign companies.
ERI sued UNOCAL, Chevron’s predecessor in Burma, on behalf of Burmese villagers for its involvement in the construction of the notorious Yadana pipeline. PTTEP has a 25.5 percent stake in the consortium that runs the Yadana project. ERI says the nearby Yetagun pipeline was built using the same practices as Yadana. PTTEP has a 19.31 percent stake in the consortium that runs the Yetagun project.
Gas from Seadrill wells expected to be sent via pipelines
ERI is also concerned that construction of PTTEP’s new Zawtika pipeline which will send gas from the M9 Block in the Andaman Sea to Thailand will lead to added human rights abuses for local villagers. According to the latest ERI report, construction of this project is already underway.
PTTEP has also indicated that gas from both the M-3 and M-7 blocks where Seadrill’s West Juno is now conducting its operations, will also be sent to Thailand via pipeline and it is expected that this will also be sent via Zawtika.
Seadrill previously drilled an exploration well in the M-7 block for PTTEP in 2008.
PTTEP’s new gas operations will give billions more in royalties to the military regime. ERI estimates that the regime earned more than US$ 5 billion from the Yadana and Yetagun projects from 1998 to 2009.
Activists say Seadrill attempted to hide Burma job from shareholders
In addition to raising concerns by working for PTTEP in Burma, Seadrill’s critics are also concerned by what they call Seadrill’s lack of transparency when it comes to working in Burma.
Wong Aung, an activists with the Shwe gas movement, said that Seadrill’s regulatory filings with the US government do not clearly state their Burmese involvement. A glance through several years of Seadrill’s regulatory filings shows that it is routine practice for Seadrill when describing the specifics of its various drilling contracts to disclose the country where such contract took place or is set to occur.
When it came to Burma, however, things were not as clear. Seadrill’s June 2010 6K filing with the US securities and exchange commission (SEC) detailed the firm’s work for Australia’s Twinza oil in the Andaman sea without mentioning what country’s territory this project took place in.
Seadrill’s work for Twinza was also described in the firm’s 2010 first quarter report available in a pdf on the Seadrill website as follows: ‘In mid-March, the jack-up rig West Triton commenced a 30-dayassignment for Twinza in the Andaman Sea’, again without mentioning that this took place in Burmese waters (neither Burma or the official name Myanmar was used in either document).
Seadrill’s practice of omitting the specific country where the Twinza contract took place is in sharp contrast to all the other contracts discussed in the report.
According to Wong Aung, “When Seadrill states in their reports that their work for Twinza was in the Andaman Sea but leaves out what county’s waters they are doing this in, this isn’t a mistake. They are trying to hide from their shareholders, the public and the Norwegian government that they are doing business in Burma, notorious for its brutal military regime and repeatedly ranked as one of the most corrupt places in the world’.
News of Seadrill’s work for Twinza only became known to Burma activists on March 21, 2010, when the Burmese junta issued a warning in state-controlled media ordering fisherman to stay at least 4 km away from the West Triton when it was doing its drilling work.
Seadrill’s spokesperson did not respond to Mizzima’s request for comment on this story.
Tuesday, 15 February 2011 21:31 Ko Wild
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – President Thein Sein on Tuesday submitted the names of seven judges to serve on the Supreme Court during a joint session of the Burmese Parliament.
The nomination will be voted on Wednesday, a lawmaker told Mizzima.
The parliamentary session lasted about ten minutes.
In other business, a seven-member Union Election Commission (UEC) plan was approved by members of Parliament on Tuesday without objection.
However, the names of the nominees have still not yet been submitted to Parliament.
A secretary of the UEC will be specifically assigned and not included in the nominee list, in was announced.
According to the Constitution, the Supreme Court can be constituted with a minimum of seven members and a maximum of 11, including the chief justice. The judges of the Supreme Court will be appointed by the president in consultation with the chief justice. The Supreme Court is the highest court of the Union.
Since the Parliament first met on January 31, it has approved the appointments of president, two vice presidents, government ministries and ministers, the number of judges in the Constitutional Court, ministries in local governments of states and regions and the Union Election Commission.
The Union Government Law stipulates the the President shall inform the Parliament of the names of union cabinet ministers who will be appointed by Parliament with their concerned ministry assigned to them.
However, many MPs have noted that the names of the potential ministers or appointees are frequently withheld rather than dealt with in a timely fashion.
‘All of this businesses can be done in a single day by announcing the names of the members of these constitutional bodies along with these bodies’, said one opposition-member MP. ‘But now they are playing tricks which suggests they have some differences among themselves’, he said.
According to the Union Government Law, there are 13 ‘Union Level’ appointees such as the chief justice and the judges of the Supreme Court, the chairman and members of UEC, and the chairman of Constitutional Court.
By FRANCIS WADE
Published: 15 February 2011
Heightened fears of foreign invasion and an obsession with saving face drove Burmese junta chief Than Shwe to block rescue efforts in the cyclone-stricken Irrawaddy delta, according to leaked US cables that shed light on the push factors behind the catastrophic death toll in 2008.
The cables, dating from May and June 2008, also reveal a split in the top ranks of the Burmese junta between hard-line generals such as Than Shwe, who were bent on refusing outside help, and the position adopted by current President Thein Sein, who quickly realised the political and humanitarian implications of the soaring fatalities.
In a cable dated 8 May 2008, six days after cyclone Nargis made landfall, the then-US Chargé d’Affaires Shari Villarosa warned Washington that “the military and bureaucracy remain paralyzed with fear”.
Titled ‘BURMA: THAN SHWE IS THE PROBLEM’, it reveals the anxiety felt by the hermetic 78-year-old as he watched events unfold in the delta. “Unpleasant pictures in the media reportedly make the Senior General retreat even further into isolation,” it said, adding that despite pleas from various ministers, “no high-level government officials have dared to frankly describe the full scope of the disaster to [him]”.
Indeed the images of the destruction that circulated on international media and on pirate VCDs inside Burma “were embarrassing the generals”, said another cable, dated 11 June 2008. “As a result, he said that Maung Aye [second-in-command] had ordered access to the Delta for international staff to be tightened” for fear of more footage leaking out.
The Burmese junta was roundly condemned for its lax response to the disaster, which eventually claimed some 140,000 lives and left 2.4 million destitute. What hadn’t been apparent in the months after the cyclone was the distance that key players in the junta went to isolate the delta area, with third-ranking General Thura Shwe Mann refusing to sanction “a four-division strong rescue team [of Burmese troops] ready to deploy to the Delta”. This was decided after a meeting with Than Shwe and Maung Aye.
The military’s initial refusal of overseas aid, which drew the sharpest rebukes from the international community, was, according to the cables, borne out of a combination of fears over a foreign invasion and perceived threats to the its reputation.
“[Than Shwe] does not want the Burma Army to be seen as needing assistance to deliver relief, and would rather let thousands of Burmese die than accept massive international assistance,” it said.
Moreover, such was the paranoia about the aid-laden US warships anchored off Burma’s southern coast and ready to supply relief that Vice-Senior General Maung Aye sought assistance from allies to remove them.
“During the meeting, Maung Aye reportedly went on a tirade regarding “American warships in the Delta” and claimed that after a Chinese appeal to the U.S. had failed to remove them, the Russians had threatened to send three of their own ships in response,” said the 11 June 2008 cable. “Only then did the U.S. agree to move its ship, Maung Aye implied.”
Exacerbating fears over the increasing outside influence was “a change in the power dynamic” in the delta that emerged after foreign aid groups were allowed in. Cash-strapped local government ministers began losing their influence over the local populace to the UN and international NGOs who could provide for them, an issue the cable says was “not lost on the Army”.
What will come as little surprise to Burma observers is the like-mindedness between Than Shwe and Maung Aye, with the latter telling an official that only “over [his] dead body” would he go public with the 300,000 death toll originally calculated by the government.
The cables are among thousands released by whistleblowing website, Wikileaks. They also reveal French concerns about business operations in Burma, US fears over Burma’s cosying relationship with North Korea and allegations that Than Shwe ordered the shooting of monks in September 2007
By JOSEPH ALLCHIN
Published: 15 February 2011
One thing apparent about the Egyptian protests and Burma’s 2007 uprising is that the men and women on the streets were not too dissimilar; it was instead the brutality of the Burmese state apparatus, the rapid appearance of guns, and the ghastly consequences therein that became the key difference. And so as Burma’s rulers sit in a comical mock-up of a parliament that is clearly not designed for adversarial discussion, what does this permit or do to the psyche of a people so hungry for reform?
Renowned thinker and enemy of historicism, Karl Popper, believed that the notion of ultimate destiny – the communist or fascist assertion that a people could have a path that could be understood from looking at history – was wrong; essentially, he said, we are too complex, our psychologies too different and unpredictable.
And he may have had a lot to say to the Burmese generals regarding their vision of the country’s destination. It is their ultimate mission to recreate a glorious domineering nation based on autocratic forefathers like King Anawratha, who acquired and spread Therevada Buddhism by the sword and eventually formed the first Burmese kingdom.
Popper had postulated that “Our fellow men have a claim to our help; no generation must be sacrificed for the sake of an ideal of happiness that may never be realised”.
And so it will be interesting to note, as Burmese economist U Myint does, that in 1986 the Burmese household spent roughly 1.3 percent of its budget on what is termed ‘Charity & Ceremonials’ – essentially, alms to monks or charity, done as a means to make merit. This made it the tenth largest non-food household expenditure. But in 2001, the last year that records are available, it had almost doubled, now eating up 3.29 percent of the household budget. More extraordinarily, it is now the third largest non-food household expenditure.
The only non-food items that the Burmese household spends more on are travel and fuel and light. This means that whilst the government spends around a dollar per person each year on health, the Burmese family is still prepared to spend more on trying to engender merit for the next life than on their own health. This is reflected in the probability of Burmese making it past their fifth birthday, for more than one in 10 fail to do so, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
And from behind the figures, U Myint ventures: “It could be that the family is performing more meritorious deeds because its members have become more interested in the next life than in the present one.”
If there is one thing more haunting than an economic report inducing emotion, it has to be the compulsion to give up on life, as this figure indicates.
It is true that Burma’s social services are bankrupt. Consequently, a lot of the slack is picked up by the monastic orders whose numbers are no doubt swelled by the poverty of families up and down the land, visible in the difference to neighbouring nations which share the same faith. Like the alternate stages of Buddha’s life, in Burma the throngs of monks and nuns are young, thin and desperate; in Thailand they look healthy and every bit the metaphor of a more laughing Buddha.
In any case, what does this do to the politics of a people? This cynicism is in evidence in the political discourse of ordinary Burmese who commonly reflect a deep despair in politics.
Let’s consider then the recent protests in Egypt and a perceptive comment from journalist Robert Fisk, who said that the job of the tyrant is to infantilise a population. In Egypt’s case, however, the ‘infants’ have just realised that the tyrants themselves are even more childish.
In Burma it could be said that rather than infantilising the population, the military has “geriatricised” a people, grinding down tens of millions of Burmese through repeated and brutal suppression of popular expression. This occurred most famously in 2007, but on an everyday basis it happens through a complete lack of accountability and transparency.
And of course it occurred again through last year’s elections that were based on a document, the 2008 constitution, described by constitutional expert Yash Ghai as “deeply cynical”. Turnout for the vote appeared low, with booths empty most of the day (but then there is no way of verifying this, given that the limited scope of one journalist’s stroll around Rangoon is probably as reliable as government statistics, which anyway indicated that the people voted overwhelmingly for a hated institution: the military). And then when people cheer a step in the “right” direction, as many did following the polls, one cannot blame a populous for both failing to agree that steps have been taken in the right direction, and moreover, for putting their faith in the teachings of a 2,500-year-old ascetic, especially those of nihilism and reincarnation.
For indeed the received wisdom from permitted civil society and some foreign journalists and diplomats (allegedly those from Germany, for example) is that the military should be seen as “partners”, and that charades undertaken to appease tyrants are “pragmatic”. Perhaps they are not exposed to the travails of those who try and challenge reality either, even if in a small way. This was the fate of blogger Nat Soe, who recently had a decade added onto his two-year prison sentence by the technophobic autocrats looking to silence those who are capable of communicating in ways the autocrats do not understand.
But indeed the same foreign interest groups are also inducted into the cynicism of the Burmese psyche by accepting a charade of elections that they know was a joke. The pernicious fact is, however, that they are not liable to the system’s torment; their “pragmatism” can be numbed by the so-called “objectivity” inherent in a foreign passport and another assignment, instead of another life.
And so it is that, as in Egypt, it is not just rights or justice that are at stake; it is the question of dignity that appeared frequently in Tahrir square. This is something that is continually neglected by Western planners, who stick pragmatically by “their” dictators who maintain stability, and in doing so their allies like Israel, and its ‘place in the sun’.
In Burma, however, the acceptance of a compromise from foreign powers like Germany or India is, in effect, tacit permission of the perpetuation of a charade democracy. In this we see “our” pragmatism translating into the death of hope for the real stakeholders, the people.
This is not an end in itself; it is moreover life with a reason: hope.
“We do not choose political freedom because it promises us this or that,” said Popper. “We choose it because it makes possible the only dignified form of human coexistence, the only form in which we can be fully responsible for ourselves. Whether we realize its possibilities depends on all kinds of things — and above all on ourselves.”
February 15th, 2011 at 8:31 pm
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