Myanmar allocates 1/4 of new budget to military
New budget for Myanmar gives nearly 24 percent to defense, 1.3 percent to health
On Tuesday March 1, 2011, 8:41 am EST

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Nearly one-quarter of Myanmar’s new national budget will go to defense, an official publication reported Tuesday, following an election that was supposed to hand power to a civilian government after decades of military rule.

A newly elected parliament met in January for the first time in two decades but apparently was not given oversight of the budget: The document was enacted before the legislature sat on Jan. 31, according to the Government Gazette.

That wasn’t the only sign that the transfer of power from the ruling junta — many of whose members resigned in order to run as “civilians” — may happen in name only.

The budget earmarked 20 billion kyat (about $22 million at free market rates of exchange) for the office of the State Peace and Development Council, the official name of the junta. It had been widely assumed the junta would be officially abolished under the new regime.

The gazette reported that 1.8 trillion kyat ($2 billion), or 23.6 percent of the budget this year, will go to defense. The health sector, meanwhile, will get 99.5 billion kyat ($110 million), or 1.3 percent.

Myanmar is one of Asia’s poorest countries, reflected in its health indicators. It had the 44th highest infant mortality rate of the 193 countries listed by the UNICEF in its 2011 State of the World’s Children report.

The budget was not been publicized in the mass media, a pattern that has held for at least a decade.

The energy sector will receive the second largest budget share, getting over 1 trillion kyat ($1.1 billion) or about 13 percent of the 7.6 trillion kyat ($8.45 billion) budget.

budget. Myanmar has vast reserves of natural gas, which is the country’s leading export commodity, and is starting large-scale development of hydropower.

The education sector will receive 314 billion kyat ($349 million), or 4.13 percent.

The budget also makes no provisions for two new ministries established by parliament last month, the Ministry of the President’s Office and the Ministry of Myanma Industrial Development.

UN: 67 million kids not in school
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press – 2 hrs 40 mins ago

UNITED NATIONS (AP) – With the 2015 U.N. target for ensuring universal primary education fast approaching, the U.N. education agency warned Tuesday that 67 million children are not attending school, including 28 million caught in armed conflicts.

UNESCO’s 2011 Global Monitoring Report concluded that the world is not on track to achieve the goal set by world leaders at a U.N. summit in 2000 “by a wide margin,” despite progress in many areas.

From 1999 to 2008, UNESCO said an additional 52 million children enrolled in primary school — but it said the number of children out school is falling too slowly, to 67 million in 2008.

“If current trends continue,” the report warned, “there could be more children out of school in 2015 than there are today.”

It singled out “the hidden crisis” of youngsters caught in armed conflict as one key reason.

Of the total number of primary school age children who are not enrolled in school, 42 percent — around 28 million — live in poor countries affected by conflict, the report said.

“Children and schools today are on the front line of armed conflicts, with classrooms, teachers and pupils seen as legitimate targets,” the UNESCO report said.

In Afghanistan, at least 613 attacks on schools were recorded in 2009, up from 347 in 2008, the report said. Insurgents in Pakistan have made numerous attacks on girls schools including one in which 95 girls were injured, it said.

In North Yemen, 220 schools were destroyed, damaged or looted during fighting in 2009 and 2010, the report said. And in Gaza, Israeli attacks in 2008 and 2009 left 350 children dead, 1,815 injured and 280 schools damaged, it said.

Children are also being used as soldiers in 24 countries including Congo, Chad, the Central African Republic, Myanmar and Sudan, the report said.

UNESCO cited evidence in reports from U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that rape and sexual violence are widely used as a weapon of war in many countries including Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo and Sudan.

“Many victims are young girls,” the report said, citing Congo where one-third of rapes involve children and 13 percent are against children under the age of 10.

UNESCO warned that armed conflict is also diverting public funds from education into military spending.

The report identified 21 of the world’s poorest developing countries that spend more on the military than on education.

“With some of the world’s worst education indicators, Chad spends four times as much on arms as on primary schools, and Pakistan spends seven times as much,” the report said.

Malaysia urged to let refugees work to meet dearth
Malaysia urged to let refugees work after it relaxes freeze on foreign labor to meet shortage
Eileen Ng, Associated Press, On Tuesday March 1, 2011, 4:23 am EST

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia’s government has relaxed a freeze on the recruitment of foreign workers in the services sector, with plans to bring in 45,000 Indians to meet a labor shortage that is undermining businesses, a Cabinet minister said Tuesday.

However, rights activists urged the government to allow more than 90,000 refugees in the country to work instead of importing more foreign workers.

Malaysia relies heavily on foreigners mainly from other Asian nations such as Indonesia, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar for low-paying menial tasks shunned by locals. It is one of Southeast Asia’s top labor markets, with foreigners making up some 2 million of its work force of 12 million. Hundreds of thousands more work illegally in the country.

Human Resources Minister S. Subramaniam said the government banned the intake of foreign workers in the services sector last year mainly to weed out illegal foreigners in the country. But the process is taking too long and the freeze is hurting businesses, especially restaurants that rely heavily on foreign workers, he said.

“We don’t want newcomers to come until the problem of illegals is sorted out, but that sorting out process is taking too long. Industries are having a lot of issues on the ground, some are on the verge of closing,” he said.

“There must be some relaxation of rules … so now for industries that are critically affected, the government is giving approval on individual merits. Last month, the Cabinet approved the recruitment of 45,000 foreign workers” to meet demand in 13 business sectors in the service industry, he said.

The 45,000 laborers will come mainly from India following a request from ethnic Indian businessmen who initially asked for 90,000 foreign workers to fill up vacancies for restaurant workers, barbers and newspaper vendors, he added.

Local rights groups Suaram, however, said the government was not wisely utilizing existing human resources, particularly 92,900 refugees registered with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

“Most of the said 13 business sectors facing manpower shortage are in the small-scale business and can be filled by refugees,” it said. “The ministry should give them opportunity and allow them to work instead of bringing in more foreign workers.”

Subramaniam said a Cabinet committee will meet mid-March to discuss how best to tackle the country’s reliance on foreign workers.

“We have told industries to make it more lucrative to attract more locals to work and at the same time, redesign their businesses so that they are less dependent on foreign workers,” he said.

Tigers, Burmese pythons rescued in Manila fire
2 hrs 53 mins ago

MANILA, Philippines (AP) – Firefighters in the Philippines were shocked to find tigers, pythons and other wild animals when they responded to a recent house fire.

Officials say five tigers, three Indian star tortoises, two Burmese pythons and several cats and dogs were rescued unhurt. The house was gutted.

Wildlife official Rey Villafuerte said Tuesday the tigers are covered by a certificate of wildlife registration, but the owners had no permit to transport them to Manila.

He says the house caretaker and one of the owners have been arrested while two others remain at large. A complaint has been filed against them for violating the country’s Wildlife Act. They face up to a year in jail and fines.

Investigators said wood may have been accidentally set on fire.

Czech foreign minister says his country still support EU sanctions against Myanmar
By The Associated Press | The Canadian Press – Mon, 28 Feb, 2011 12:52 PM EST

PRAGUE – The Czech Republic’s foreign minister says his country opposes lifting of European Union sanctions against Myanmar.

Karel Schwarzenberg told Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a phone call on Monday that his country supports her call for maintaining international sanctions against Myanmar.

Schwarzenberg called Suu Kyi “one of the biggest heroes of our time” and said she should have access to international leaders.

Mar 2, 2011
Asia Times Online – Myanmar, North Korea in missile nexus
By Bertil Lintner

BANGKOK – Military-run Myanmar’s growing weapons ambitions, including new revelations that the reclusive regime is producing long-range Scud-type missiles with North Korean assistance, threaten to destabilize the region and make the Southeast Asian country a new global weapons proliferation hotspot.

According to exclusive information received by Asia Times Online, one of two munitions factories located near the small town of Minhla on the west bank of the Ayeyarwady River, south of Minbu in Magway Division, is involved in the production of sophisticated Scud-type missiles. North Korean experts are reportedly assisting Myanmar’s own military technicians in the top-secret project.

Known as ka pa sa, shorthand for the Burmese-language initials of the the Directorate of Defense Industries, the country’s weapons factories have for decades produced basic armaments for the military. But ka pa sa 2 and 10 near Minhla are now churning out more advanced weapons, including Scud-type missiles, than the country has to date. These are more difficult to detect from the air because they are located partly underground.

A Scud-armed Myanmar would place its capabilities a significant notch above its Southeast Asian neighbors, which do not possess such long-range missiles. The revelations could spark a regional arms race, prompting neighboring countries such as Thailand to develop or procure their own missile arsenal.

The existence of the two factories was outlined in an August 27, 2004 United States embassy cable from Yangon, which was made public by WikiLeaks late last year. One of the US Embassy’s sources claimed that North Korean workers were assembling surface-to-air missiles at “a military site in Magway Division” where a “concrete-reinforced underground facility” was also under construction. The source told the embassy that “he had seen a large barge carrying a reinforced steel bar of a diameter that suggested a project larger than a factory”.

Asia Times Online has discovered that the site referred to in the embassy cable is ka pa sa 10, situated near Konegyi village in Minhla township. Construction of the site began in 1993, but has only recently been completed. The site reportedly covers 6,000 acres (2,428 hectares) and, according to a source who used to work at the facility, the aim is to produce surface-to-air, surface-to-surface and air-to-air missiles.

The same source, who requested anonymity for personal security reasons, claimed that the North Koreans working at the site first entered Myanmar discreetly by road from China. They were met at the border and then brought to Minhla by officers from Myanmar’s Defense Production Directorate, known as ka ka htone, according to the source.

On the Myanmar side, between 600 and 900 army technicians and other military personnel are currently based at ka pa sa 10. Initially Russian and Chinese technicians also took part in the facility’s construction, but they appear to have since left and been replaced with North Korean experts.

Ka pa sa 2 controls no less than 100,000 acres of land near Malun village, which is also based in Minhla township. According to the source, the somewhat older factory employs 900 engineers and other military personnel and produces 60mm, 81mm and 120mm mortars and 105mm artillery pieces.

The complex also includes a huge firing range where heavy weapons, including artillery and rockets, are tested. According to the source, Singapore, as a small island country which doesn’t have enough space for such testing, paid for the construction of the firing range. Weapons are also brought from Singapore and tested at the site.

Name games

On October 4 last year, the English-language weekly Myanmar Times reported that Myanmar authorities had inaugurated on September 19 a “25.4-mile section, or approximately 40 kilometers, of railroad between Minhla in Bago Region and Minbu in Magwe Region”. Construction of the new section, “which is part of the ongoing Kyangin-Pakokku Railroad Project along the western bank of the Ayeyarwady River”, started in April 2007, according to the same news report.

The infrastructure project’s opening was presided over by then prime minister, now President Thein Sein, underscoring the apparent importance of the short rail link. According to the Myanmar Times, Thein Sein also stated that the railroad would enable “the people to have easy access to various regions of the nation”.

The problem with the report is that Minhla in Bago Region is located several miles to the east of the Ayeyarwady, and nearly 200 miles or, more than 300 kilometers, south of Minbu. Deliberate or otherwise, the reports confused the location of the two towns that share the same name. A 40-kilometer railroad between “upper” Minhla on the western bank – the only stretch of railroad on that side of the river – and Minbu could only serve one major purpose: to transport heavy goods relevant to producing Scud-type missiles or supplying a nuclear program to and from Minbu, a major port on the Irrawaddy River.

So far, however, there are no reports to suggest that Minhla’s two ka pa sa facilities are involved in Myanmar’s nascent and clandestine nuclear program. That research is reportedly carried out at Myaing to the north of Pakokku, which is also in Magway Division but far from the Minhla facilities. The progress of Myanmar’s nuclear research is not known, but it is believed to be in its infancy and widely regarded as a pipedream that is unlikely to succeed in developing nuclear weapons.

Still, North Korean involvement in ka pa sa 2 may be cause for international concern – even for Myanmar’s traditional military partner, China.

In the 1990s, China supplied Myanmar with between US$1 billion and $2 billion worth of military hardware. The list of imported armaments included 80 Type-69II medium-battle tanks, more than 100 Type-63 light tanks, 250 Type-85 armored personnel carriers, multiple launch rocket systems, howitzers, anti-aircraft guns, HN-5 surface-to-air missiles, mortars, assault rifles, recoilless guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, JLP-50 and JLG-43 air defense radars, heavy trucks, Chengdu F-7M Airguard jet fighters, FT-7 and FT-6 jet trainers, A-5C ground attack aircraft, SACY-8D transport aircraft, Hainan class patrol boats, Houxin-class guided missile fast attack craft, minesweepers and small gunboats. In 2000, China delivered 12 Karakoram-8 trainers/ground attack aircraft, which are produced in a joint venture with Pakistan.

Since then, however, it appears that Chinese deliveries of military equipment have waned significantly. However, in November 2007, immediately after the crackdown on a widespread protest movement led by Buddhist monks, China supplied Myanmar with howitzers and bomb-detection equipment.

According to a February 18, 2011, report by the US Congressional Research Service (CRS), China followed that up with a delivery of 450 military trucks in December 2007. In January 2008, China sent another 500 military trucks to Myanmar and in August that same year supplied an additional 3,500 military trucks with spare parts. In 2009, China delivered another five large military trucks and in March last year sent an additional 400 military use vehicles.

That bilateral cooperation was reaffirmed last September when Myanmar junta leader General Than Shwe traveled to China, ostensibly to update the authorities in Beijing on his country’s upcoming elections, which were held in November. During the visit, Than Shwe also inspected Huawei Technologies, which CRS says has supplied Myanmar’s military with communications equipment. At the end of last year, Myanmar’s air force agreed to buy 50 K-8 jet trainers from China; CRS speculates that some of the assembly work for the order will be done in Myanmar.

While China remains a major player in the still ongoing expansion of Myanmar’s military forces, it is no longer Myanmar’s main military partner. The regime in Naypyidaw is increasingly turning to North Korea for assistance in clandestine military research and the production of more sophisticated weapons, which seems to be at the top of the junta’s list of strategic priorities. As the newly exposed North Korean-staffed facilities indicate, Myanmar’s generals are angling to diversify their sources of hardware and know-how.

Bertil Lintner is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic Review and the author of several books on Myanmar. He is currently a writer with Asia Pacific Media Services.

March 01, 2011 23:55 PM
79 Foreign Drug Dealers Detained For Trafficking Drugs Worth RM10.8 Million

KUALA LUMPUR, March 1 (Bernama) — Seventy-nine suspected members of 10 international drug trafficking syndicates were arrested while drugs valued at RM10.8 million were seized by Kuala Lumpur police last year.

Kuala Lumpur police chief Datuk Zulkifli Abdullah said the syndicates distributed 58.2kg of syabu, ketamine (20.3kg) and cannabis (36.5kg) in the Klang Valley.

He said 48 of them were detained under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act, 14 under Section 39A (2) of the act, and 17 under Section 39A (1) of the act.

The alleged drug traffickers are from Singapore, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Indonesia and Iran, he told reporters here Tuesday.

Zulkifli said in the first two months of this year, 39 suspected foreign drug dealers were detained for distributing heroin, cocaine, eramine 5 and Ecstasy pills, and ecstasy powder.

MYANMAR: Call to build up local NGOs

YANGON, 1 March 2011 (IRIN) – The international community should make better use of local NGOs and community-based organizations in Myanmar, while at the same time building capacity among them, aid officials say.

“Local NGOs… have local knowledge, contacts and they don’t have to worry about getting permission on planning and resources from a central head office. They also have little problem accessing different parts of the country,” said Walter Davis, programme manager for Paung Ku, a consortium of 11 international and local organizations established in 2007 to strengthen civil society in Myanmar.

But as things stand, most donors continue to funnel money through international NGOs (INGOs), which at times compete with local groups.

“INGOs need to change to do more capacity building. The rules of engagement still see local NGOs as subcontractors because their capacity is weaker,” said Aung Tun Thet, a senior adviser to the UN Resident Coordinator in Myanmar.

“INGOs need to decide whether they are in direct competition with [local organizations] or whether they are here to mentor local NGOs,” he added.

Post-Nargis growth

Cyclone Nargis in 2008 spawned hundreds of civil society organizations to cope with the humanitarian crisis that killed a reported 140,000 and affected another 2.4 million, by UN estimates.

“Nargis was a catalytic push for the mushrooming of local NGOs. There were 50 times as many NGOs as before,” said Aung Tun Thet.

“Faced with the magnitude of Cyclone Nargis, donors needed to find a way to give money and not go through the government – the elephant in the room,” he added.

Local groups were a natural funding vehicle as they reacted most quickly when the tidal surge hit.

But when the government declared an end to the tsunami’s emergency phase in 2010, many of these same NGOs collapsed or turned to development activities – often lacking basic capacity to carry out the work.

“With such rapid evolution [of NGOs activated by Cyclone Nargis], the rigor required of NGOs did not accompany this expansion. These groups have good intentions but lack basic rudimentary management skills,” said Aung Tun Thet.

Too often, local groups have been recruited and supported to serve the project needs of INGOs, but not beyond, said Ingeborg Moa, Myanmar director of Norwegian People’s Aid, which has supported dozens of local groups since 2004.

“If more funding could be [made] available for organizational development, capacity building and support for initiatives that aim to strengthen local organizations’ overall capacities, not just their capacity to ‘deliver services’ as implementing partners of international organizations, this would be a big step in the right direction,” said Moa.

Removing barriers

Focusing on so-called shortcomings in local accounting and management systems may be misguided, according to a December report by Paung Ku, which includes Save the Children, Oxfam and CARE, as well as local groups.

Receipts, for example, are often difficult to obtain in Myanmar, leaving many organizations unable by international standards to account for resources and unable to qualify for international funds, Davis said.

“Myanmar has a long history of using accountability mechanisms related to religious donations, with Buddhist monks playing a key check and balance role. Strengthening these existing frameworks may ultimately be more effective in building accountability than continuing to use imported concepts,” said Davis.

A cumbersome government NGO registration process is an additional obstacle for local groups to tap international funds.

“The government would not allow any group without a [memorandum of understanding] to accept donor funds. What is needed is a more transparent registration process,” said Aung Tun Thet.

An official at the local relief NGO, Aung Yadanar, based in the town of Pyapon in southern Myanmar, said he applied for registration soon after he co-founded the NGO in 2008 – but has yet to receive any news.

“In the meanwhile, we have to keep [a] good relationship with township authorities so that we can do our job.”

Even without being formally registered, the group still receives funding from the UK Department for International Development, which also provides technical assistance along with the Ministry of Agriculture.

There are an estimated 300 NGOs working in Myanmar, of which a maximum 10 percent are registered, according to the UN Myanmar Information Management Unit (MIMU).

Christian Science Monitor – Opinion: Libya sanctions: China’s new role at the UN
By the Monitor’s Editorial Board – Mon Feb 28, 3:17 pm ET

A swift and stern response to violence in Libya by the United Nations Security Council over the weekend could be only a warm-up exercise for the world body.

Other popular revolts against monarchs and autocrats in the Middle East are still ongoing. The UN’s governing authority will need a unity of purpose in trying to prevent more violence.

Most of all, China, as one of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Council, must join Western powers in condemning human-rights abuses in other countries – despite such abuses in its own country.

On Saturday, fortunately, China backed a British-French measure to impose an asset freeze, travel ban, and arms embargo on the Libyan regime of Muammar Qaddafi. The 15-member Security Council passed the sanctions unanimously and quickly.

In addition, the body recommended that the International Criminal Court probe any war crimes in Libya, the first time it has referred a case to the ICC.

China seems to have little choice in backing a resolution against Mr. Qaddafi for violent treatment of his people. Hundreds of Libyans have been killed in the uprising. Some 30,000
Chinese working in Libya, mainly in the oil fields, have had to rapidly flee the violence. And many of China’s allies backed the UN action.

Beijing has long been reluctant to condemn human-rights violations in other countries, such as Zimbabwe or Burma (Myanmar). But as China has become a voracious importer of raw materials to feed its giant, fast-growing economy, it may be forced to take a more practical approach to each foreign challenge.

After South Sudan voted in January to become independent, for instance, China recognized the new state, despite its long ties to the North. The reason? Most of the oil in Sudan is in the south.

In 2009, China overtook the US as the largest trading partner of the Middle East, a function of China’s rising oil imports and the export of its inexpensive consumer goods. Like the West, Beijing may now be calculating that long-term dependency on the region’s oil could require more stability than dictators and monarchs can deliver. It may be time to back Arab democracy movements.

For several years, China has backed UN sanctions against Iran – not for the crackdown on Iranian dissidents but for that country’s nuclear program. Given China’s history of suppressing its own democracy advocates with violence – such as the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square – its officials are likely now trying to balance its internal policies with these new foreign realities.

Beijing did block a proposal in the Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent aerial attacks on Qaddafi’s opposition. (Russia joined in that move). Now the US and Europe are considering such a move on their own.

Still, in 2005, China did back a UN policy called “a responsibility to protect” that calls on the international community” to protect [a state’s] population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity” if a government is unwilling or unable to protect its people.

The UN resolution on Libya invoked that “responsibility to protect” language.

President Obama, too, appears to have decided to be bolder in acting for seekers of freedom in the Middle East. He faltered during the 2009 protests in Iran and equivocated during Egypt’s recent protests. But as Libya has exploded in civil war, he is taking a firmer and more active stance against violence in the region.

If Mr. Obama and Beijing’s leaders can work closely on Libya’s tense situation, there’s hope the UN can play a constructive role in the Middle East in the days ahead.

Orillia Packet & Times – Hope for change drives letter writers
By Kelly McShane Special to Packet & Times
Posted 19 hours ago

The spirit and commitment of a female political activist is the driving force behind a local woman’s passion for social justice.

“I just feel very drawn to her. She’s so courageous,” said Mary Maltby of her role model Aung San Suu Kyi.

An honourary Canadian, Burma’s pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi has come to symbolize the struggle of Burma’s people to be free.

Following the successful election of her party, the National League for Democracy, in 1990, she was never permitted to take office and has spent more than 15 years in detention, most of it under house arrest, before being released in November 2010.

“She wants democracy, but the government is threatening that if she doesn’t stop talking about freedom for the people, they will put her back in jail… She’s so committed to the cause of the people of Burma. She really has given her life to it,” said Maltby, a member of the local branch of Amnesty International.

“She showed strength, vision and compassion… She said she would work for them and they believed her,” Maltby said.

“I don’t know if I would have the courage to do what she has done.”

Founded by British lawyer Peter Benenson in 1961, Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people dedicated to the protection and promotion of human rights. Canadian Amnesty supporters launched Amnesty International Canada in 1973.

Maltby joined the movement in 1977.

“It’s the whole issue of social justice; I became very aware of what’s happening to people around the world,” Maltby said of her commitment to the cause.

“We’re a small group. We want to do it all and we can’t,” Maltby said, noting the Orillia chapter, comprised of about a dozen members, sends out as many as 100 letters each month.

She said she would love to see more members join the effort, but it can be difficult to get people involved.

“It’s hard to convince people they can feel good when they’re writing these letters,” Maltby said.

“But if you can write a letter that might save a life, how can you not do that?” she questioned.

Maltby said people should look closely at the quality of their own lives and realize they could just as easily have been born into a lifestyle of violence, social injustice and dictatorship.

“You do have a voice, you do have power and you do have a responsibility to those who don’t,” said Maltby, who along with another group member, is organizing a letter-writing session at St. Paul’s United Church in honour of the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day.

“Women are more vulnerable in a lot of countries because that’s how the government controls the people,” Maltby said.

“They go into little villages and rape the women and young girls. In many countries, that makes them unclean to the rest of the village, so they can’t marry and are shut out of the community and their families,” she added, noting many of the victims suffer mutilation after the sexual attack.

Maltby plans to write three letters during the session focused on violence against women in Nicaragua, Columbia and Congo.

She said the group is also working to battle violence against Canada’s own Aboriginal women.

According to a government statistic presented by Amnesty International, young Indigenous women in Canada are five times more likely than other women of the same age to die as the result of violence.

Maltby said her passion for letter writing is driven by positive results, such as the release of political prisoners.

“One of the prisoners that got out said he was living without proper food or warmth and one day the guard came in and gave him a sweater. Then later they brought him good food, then a blanket and a mattress, and then one day they opened the door and told him to get out… He said the guard asked him, how come you have so many friends around the world?” Maltby recalled a story which she said has become legend within members of Amnesty International.

Maltby said the guard told a prisoner the jail had been receiving letters by the bagful from supporters all over the world calling for better living conditions and the release of the prisoner – and it worked.

Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8 each year with thousands of events held throughout the world to inspire women and celebrate achievements.

There’s no need to register for the March 18 letter-writing session, which runs from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. All are welcome.

Myanmar’s Young Artists and Activists
In the country formerly known as Burma, these free thinkers are a force in the struggle for democracy
By Joshua Hammer
Photographs by Adam Dean
Smithsonian magazine, March 2011

The New Zero Gallery and Art Studio looks out over a scruffy street of coconut palms, noodle stalls and cybercafés in Yangon (Rangoon), the capital of Myanmar, the Southeast Asian country formerly known as Burma. The two-story space is filled with easels, dripping brushes and half-finished canvases covered with swirls of paint. A framed photograph of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was released from seven years of house arrest this past November, provides the only hint of the gallery’s political sympathies.

An assistant with spiky, dyed orange hair leads me upstairs to a loft space, where half a dozen young men and women are smoking and drinking coffee. They tell me they’re planning an “underground” performance for the coming week. Yangon’s tiny avant-garde community has been putting on secret exhibitions in spaces hidden throughout this decrepit city—in violation of the censorship laws that require every piece of art to be vetted for subversive content by a panel of “experts.”

“We have to be extremely cautious,” says Zoncy, a diminutive 24-year-old woman who paints at the studio. “We are always aware of the danger of spies.”

Because their work is not considered overtly political, Zoncy and a few other New Zero artists have been allowed to travel abroad. In the past two years, she has visited Thailand, Japan and Indonesia on artistic fellowships—and come away with an exhilarating sense of freedom that has permeated her art. On a computer, she shows me videos she made for a recent government-sanctioned exhibition. One shows a young boy playing cymbals on a sidewalk beside a plastic doll’s decapitated head. “One censor said [the head] might be seen as symbolizing Aung San Suu Kyi and demanded that I blot out the image of the head,” Zoncy said. (She decided to withdraw the video.) Another video consists of a montage of dogs, cats, gerbils and other animals pacing around in cages. The symbolism is hard to miss. “They did not allow this to be presented at all,” she says.

The founder and director of the New Zero Gallery is a ponytailed man named Ay Ko, who is dressed on this day in jeans, sandals and a University of California football T-shirt. Ay Ko, 47, spent four years in a Myanmar prison following a student uprising in August 1988. After he was released, he turned to making political art—challenging the regime in subtle ways, communicating his defiance to a small group of like-minded artists, students and political progressives. “We are always walking on a tightrope here,” he told me in painstaking English. “The government is looking at us all the time. We [celebrate] the open mind, we organize the young generation, and they don’t like it.” Many of Ay Ko’s friends and colleagues, as well as two siblings, have left Myanmar. “I don’t want to live in an abroad country,” he says. “My history is here.”

Myanmar’s history has been turbulent and bloody. This tropical nation, a former British colony, has long worn two faces. Tourists encounter a land of lush jungles, golden pagodas and monasteries where nearly every Burmese is obliged to spend part of one year in serene contemplation. At the same time, the nation is one of the world’s most repressive and isolated states; since a military coup in 1962, it has been ruled by a cabal of generals who have ruthlessly stamped out dissent. Government troops, according to witnesses, shot and killed thousands of students and other protesters during the 1988 rebellion; since then, the generals have intermittently shuttered universities, imprisoned thousands of people because of their political beliefs and activity, and imposed some of the harshest censorship laws in the world.

In 1990, the regime refused to accept the results of national elections won by the National League for Democracy (NLD) Party led by Aung San Suu Kyi—the charismatic daughter of Aung San, a nationalist who negotiated Myanmar’s independence from Britain after World War II. He was killed at age 32 in 1947, by a hit squad loyal to a political rival. Anticipating the victory of Suu Kyi’s party, the junta had placed her under house arrest in 1989; she would remain in detention for 15 of the next 21 years. In response, the United States and Europe imposed economic sanctions that include freezing the regime’s assets abroad and blocking nearly all foreign investment. Cut off from the West, Myanmar—the military regime changed the name in 1989, though the U.S. State Department and others continue to call it Burma—fell into isolation and decrepitude: today, it is the second-poorest nation in Asia, after Afghanistan, with a per capita income of $469 a year. (China has partnered with the regime to exploit the country’s natural gas, teak forests and jade deposits, but the money has mostly benefited the military elite and their cronies.)

The younger generation has been particularly hard hit, what with the imprisonment and killing of students and the collapse of the education system. Then, in September 2007, soldiers shot and beat hundreds of young Buddhist monks and students marching for democracy in Yangon—quelling what was called the Saffron Revolution. Scenes of the violence were captured on cellphone video cameras and quickly beamed around the world. “The Burmese people deserve better. They deserve to be able to live in freedom, just as everyone does,” then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in late September of that year, speaking at the United Nations. “The brutality of this regime is well known.”

Now a new generation of Burmese is testing the limits of government repression, experimenting with new ways of defying the dictatorship. The pro-democracy movement has taken on many forms. Rap musicians and artists slip allusions to drugs, politics and sex past Myanmar’s censors. Last year, a subversive art network known as Generation Wave, whose 50 members are all under age 30, used street art, hip-hop music and poetry to express their dissatisfaction with the regime. Members smuggled underground-music CDs into the country and created graffiti insulting Gen. Than Shwe, the country’s 78-year-old dictator, and calling for Suu Kyi’s release. Half the Generation Wave membership was jailed as a result. Young bloggers, deep underground, are providing reportage to anti-regime publications and Web sites, such as Irrawaddy Weekly and Mizzima News, put out by Burmese exiles. The junta has banned these outlets and tries to block access to them inside the country.

Young activists have also called attention to the dictatorship’s lack of response to human suffering. According to the British-based human rights group Burma Campaign, the Burmese government abandoned victims of the devastating 2008 cyclone that killed more than 138,000 people and has allowed thousands to go untreated for HIV and AIDS. (Although more than 50 international relief organizations work in Myanmar, foreign donors tend to be chary with humanitarian aid, fearing that it will end up lining the pockets of the generals.) Activists have distributed food and supplies to cyclone victims and the destitute and opened Myanmar’s only private HIV-AIDS facility, 379 Gayha (Gayha means shelter house; the street number is 379). The government has repeatedly tried to shut the clinic down but has backed off in the face of neighborhood protests and occasional international press attention.

It’s not quite a youth revolution, as some have dubbed it—more like a sustained protest carried out by a growing number of courageous individuals. “Our country has the second-worst dictatorship in the world, after North Korea,” said Thxa Soe, 30, a London-educated Burmese rapper who has gained a large following. “We can’t sit around and silently accept things as they are.”

Some in Myanmar believe they now have the best chance for reform in decades. This past November, the country held its first election since 1990, a carefully scripted affair that grafted a civilian facade onto the military dictatorship. The regime-sponsored party captured 78 percent of the vote, thus guaranteeing itself near-absolute power for another five years. Many Western diplomats denounced the result as a farce. But six days later, The Lady, as her millions of supporters call Suu Kyi, was set free. “They presumed she was a spent force, that all of those years of being in confinement had reduced her aura,” says a Western diplomat in Yangon. Instead, Suu Kyi quickly buoyed her supporters with a pledge to resume the struggle for democracy, and exhorted the “younger generation” to lead the way. Myanmar’s youth, she told me in an interview at her party headquarters this past December, holds the key to transforming the country. “There are new openings, and people’s perceptions have changed,” she said. “People will no longer submit and accept everything the [regime says] as the truth.”

I first visited Myanmar during a post-college backpacking trip through Asia in 1980. On a hot and humid night, I took a taxi from the airport through total darkness to downtown Yangon, a slum of decaying British-colonial buildings and vintage automobiles rumbling down potholed roads. Even limited television broadcasts in Myanmar were still a year away. The country felt like a vast time warp, entirely shut off from Western influence.

Thirty years later, when I returned to the country—traveling on a tourist visa—I found that Myanmar has joined the modern world. Chinese businessmen and other Asian investors have poured money into hotels, restaurants and other real estate. Down the road from my faux-colonial hotel, the Savoy, I passed sushi bars, trattorias and a Starbucks knockoff where young Burmese fire text messages to one another over bran muffins and latte macchiatos. Despite efforts by the regime to restrict Internet use (and shut it down completely in times of crisis), young people crowd the city’s many cybercafés, trading information over Facebook, watching YouTube and reading about their country on a host of political Web sites. Satellite dishes have sprouted like mushrooms from the rooftop of nearly every apartment building; for customers unable or unwilling to pay fees, the dishes can be bought in the markets of Yangon and Mandalay and installed with a small bribe. “As long as you watch in your own home, nobody bothers you,” I was told by my translator, a 40-year-old former student activist I’ll call Win Win, an avid watcher of the Democratic Voice of Burma, a satellite TV channel produced by Burmese exiles in Norway, as well as the BBC and Voice of America. Win Win and his friends pass around pirated DVDs of documentaries such as Burma VJ, an Academy Award-nominated account of the 2007 protests, and CDs of subversive rock music recorded in secret studios in Myanmar.

After a few days in Yangon, I flew to Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, to see a live performance by J-Me, one of the country’s most popular rap musicians and the star attraction at a promotional event for Now, a fashion and culture magazine. Five hundred young Burmese, many wearing “I Love Now” T-shirts, packed a Mandalay hotel ballroom festooned with yellow bunting and illuminated by strobe lights.

Hotel employees were handing out copies of the Myanmar Times, a largely apolitical English-language weekly filled with bland headlines: “Prominent Monk Helps Upgrade Toilets at Monasteries,” “Election Turnout Higher Than in 1990.” In a sign of the slightly more liberal times, the paper did carry a photograph inside of Suu Kyi, embracing her younger son, Kim Aris, 33, at Myanmar’s Yangon International Airport in late November—their first meeting in ten years. Suu Kyi was married to British academic Michael Aris, who died of cancer in 1999; he failed to gain permission to visit his wife during his final days. The couple’s older son, Alexander Aris, 37, lives in England.

At the hotel, a dozen Burmese fashion models ambled down a catwalk before J-Me leapt onto the stage wearing sunglasses and a black leather jacket. The tousle-haired 25-year-old rapped in Burmese about love, sex and ambition. In one song, he described “a young guy in downtown Rangoon” who “wants to be somebody. He’s reading English language magazines, looking inside, pasting the photos on his wall of the heroes he wants to be.”

The son of a half-Irish mother and a Burmese father, J-Me avoids criticizing the regime directly. “I got nothing on my joint that spits against anyone,” the baby-faced rapper told me, falling into hip-hop vernacular. “I’m not lying, I’m real. I rap about self-awareness, partying, going out, spending money, the youth that’s struggling to come up and be successful in the game.” He said his songs reflect the concerns of Myanmar’s younger generation. “Maybe some kids are patriotic, saying, ‘Aung San Suu Kyi is out of jail, let’s go down and see her.’ But mostly they’re thinking about getting out of Burma, going to school abroad.”

Not every rapper treads as carefully as J-Me. Thxa Soe needles the regime from a recording studio in a dilapidated apartment block in Yangon. “I know you’re lying, I know you’re smiling, but your smile is lying,” he says in one song. In another, titled “Buddha Doesn’t Like Your Behavior,” he warns: “If you behave like that, it’s gonna come back to you one day.” When I caught up with him, he was rehearsing for a Christmas Day concert with J-Me and a dozen other musicians and preparing for another battle with the censors. “I have a history of politics, that’s why they watch me and ban so many things,” the chunky 30-year-old told me.

Thxa Soe grew up steeped in opposition politics: his father, a member of Suu Kyi’s NLD Party, has been repeatedly jailed for participating in protests and calling for political reform. One uncle fled the country in 2006; a cousin was arrested during student protests in the 1990s and was put in prison for five years. “He was tortured, he has brain damage, and he can’t work,” Thxa Soe said. His musical awakening came in the early 1990s, when a friend in Myanmar’s merchant marine smuggled him cassettes of Vanilla Ice and M.C. Hammer. Later, his father installed a satellite dish on their roof; Thxa Soe spent hours a day glued to MTV. During his four years as a student at London’s School of Audio Engineering, he says, “I got a feeling about democracy, about freedom of speech.” He cut his first album in 2000 and has tangled with censors ever since. Last year, the government banned all 12 tracks on his live-concert album and an accompanying video that took him a year to produce; officials claimed he showed contempt for “traditional Burmese music” by mixing it up with hip-hop.

During a recent trip to New York City, Thxa Soe participated in a benefit concert performed before hundreds of members of the Burmese exile community at a Queens high school. Some of the money raised there went to help HIV/AIDS sufferers in Myanmar.

Thxa Soe isn’t the only activist working for that cause. Shortly after Suu Kyi’s release from house arrest, I met the organizers of the 379 Gayha AIDS shelter at the NLD Party headquarters one weekday afternoon. Security agents with earpieces and cameras were watching from a tea shop across the street as I pulled up to the office building near the Shwedagon Pagoda, a golden stupa that towers 30 stories over central Yangon and is the most venerated Buddhist shrine in Myanmar. The large, ground-floor space was bustling with volunteers in their 20s and 30s, journalists, human-rights activists and other international visitors, and people from Myanmar’s rural countryside who had come seeking food and other donations. Posters taped on the walls depicted Suu Kyi superimposed over a map of Myanmar and images of Che Guevara and her father.

Over a lunch of rice and spicy beef delivered by pushcart, Phyu Phyu Thin, 40, the founder of the HIV/AIDS shelter, told me about its origins. In 2002, concerned by the lack of treatment facilities and retroviral drugs outside Yangon and Mandalay, Suu Kyi recruited 20 NLD neighborhood youth leaders to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS. Estimates suggest that at least a quarter million Burmese are living with HIV.

Even in Yangon, there is only one hospital with an HIV/AIDS treatment facility. Eventually, Phyu Phyu Thin established a center in the capital where rural patients could stay. She raised funds, gathered building materials and constructed a two-story wooden building next door to her house. Today, a large room, crammed wall to wall with pallets, provides shelter to 90 HIV-infected men, women and children from the countryside. Some patients receive a course of retroviral drugs provided by international aid organizations and, if they improve sufficiently, are sent home with medication and monitored by local volunteers. At 379 Gayha, says Phyu Phyu Thin, patients “get love, care and kindness.”

In trying to close the shelter, the government has used a law that requires people staying as houseguests anywhere in Myanmar to obtain permits and report their presence to local authorities. The permits must be renewed every seven days. “Even if my parents come for a visit, I have to inform,” Yar Zar, the 30-year-old deputy director of the shelter, told me. In November, a day after Suu Kyi visited the shelter, officials refused to renew the permits of the 120 patients at the facility, including some close to death, and ordered them to vacate the premises. “The authorities were jealous of Aung San Suu Kyi,” says Phyu Phyu Thin. She and other NLD youth leaders sprang into action—reaching out to foreign journalists, rallying Burmese artists, writers and neighborhood leaders. “Everybody came out to encourage the patients,” Phyu Phyu Thin told me. After a week or so, the authorities backed down. “It was a small victory for us,” she says, smiling.

Ma Ei is perhaps the most creative and daring of the avant-garde artists. To visit her in Yangon, I walked up seven dingy flights of stairs to a tiny apartment where I found a waif-like woman of 32 sorting through a dozen large canvases. Ma Ei’s unlikely journey began one day in 2008, she told me, after she was obliged to submit canvases from her first exhibit—five colorful abstract oil paintings—to the censorship board. “It made me angry,” she said in the halting English she picked up watching American movies on pirated DVDs. “This was my own work, my own feelings, so why should I need permission to show them? Then the anger just started to come out in my work.”

Since then, Ma Ei has mounted some 20 exhibitions in Yangon galleries—invariably sneaking messages about repression, environmental despoliation, gender prejudice and poverty into her work. “I am a good liar,” she boasted, laughing. “And the censors are too stupid to understand my art.” Ma Ei set out for me a series of disturbing photographic self-portraits printed on large canvases, including one that portrays her cradling her own decapitated head. Another work, part of an exhibit called “What Is My Next Life?” showed Ma Ei trapped in a giant spider’s web. The censors questioned her about it. “I told them it was about Buddhism, and about the whole world being a prison. They let it go.” Her most recent show, “Women for Sale,” consisted of a dozen large photographs showing her own body tightly swaddled in layers and layers of plastic wrap, a critique, she said, of Myanmar’s male-dominated society. “My message is, ‘I am a woman, and I am treated here like a commodity.’ Women in Burma are stuck at the second level, far below men.”

Ma Ei’s closest encounter with the government involved an artwork that, she says, had no political content whatsoever: abstract swirls of black, red and blue that, at a distance, looked vaguely like the number eight. Censors accused her of alluding to the notorious pro-democracy uprising that erupted on August 8, 1988, and went on for five weeks. “It was unintentional,” she says. “Finally they said that it was OK, but I had to argue with them.” She has come to expect confrontation, she says. “I am one of the only artists in Burma who dares to show my feelings to the people.”

Suu Kyi told me that pressure for freedom of expression is growing by the day. Sitting in her office in downtown Yangon, she expressed delight at the proliferation of Web sites such as Facebook, as well as at the bloggers, mobile phone cameras, satellite TV channels and other engines of information exchange that have multiplied since she was placed back under house arrest in 2003, after a one-year release. “With all this new information, there will be more differences of opinion, and I think more and more people are expressing these differences,” she said. “This is the kind of change that cannot be turned back, cannot be stemmed, and if you try to put up a barrier, people will go around it.”

Joshua Hammer first visited Myanmar in 1980; he now lives in Berlin. Photographer Adam Dean is based in Beijing.

Loyola University New Orleans – Visiting lecturer addresses peace and justice building in Myanmar
Loyola press release – February 28, 2011

Jayne Seminare Docherty, Ph.D., professor of leadership and public policy at Eastern Mennonite University, will visit Loyola University New Orleans to give a lecture “Good Guys and Bad Guys: Building Peace with Justice in Burma/Myanmar,” on Wednesday, March 2 at 7 p.m. The lecture takes place in Monroe Library’s Multimedia Room 2 and is free and open to the public.

Docherty will describe how to promote non-violent change in an isolated country based on her work with groups in Burma/Myanmar and surrounding countries. She has been working with civil society organizations and a variety of leaders in the region since 2008 and has conducted training sessions on effectual negotiating techniques in India, Jordan, Lebanon, Canada, Thailand, Burma/Myanmar and the United States.

According to Docherty, the region has a history of political and social repression, an unfinished post-colonial state-building process, multiple ethnic resistance groups, rich natural resources and a impoverished populace. Also, the distorted political economy is based on resource capture and patronage, drug lords and war lords, and issues of cultural assimilation/resistance.

This lecture is sponsored as part of Loyola’s Biever Lecture Series and the College of Humanities and Natural Sciences.

For more information, visit http://academicaffairs.loyno.edu/biever or contact the department of religious studies at 504-865-3943.

The Diplomat – Suu Kyi Strikes a Chord
By Luke Hunt
March 1, 2011

It was a commanding performance sprinkled with a few laughs.

Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi sounded a conciliatory note when she recently spoke with foreign correspondents in Kuala Lumpur via an audio link from Rangoon.

In drawing parallels between protests in the Middle East—censored out of the Burmese press—and the pro-democracy movement in her own country, she said an unwillingness by armies in Tunisia and Egypt to open fire on their own people was key.

It’s an incomprehensible thought in Burma, as the nation’s monks discovered in 2007 when thousands demonstrated. Some were shot, arrested and beaten, while others simply disappeared. ‘The people have stood up in Burma before as you know, and in those instances they were fired upon by the army and I think that makes a great difference,’ she said.

‘Now the situation in Libya is that the army itself appears divided in regards to how the situation should be handled. In Burma, I don’t think there was any noticeable division with regards to the policies of the military.’

Suu Kyi won democratic elections in 1988, but the military declined to accept the result, opting to physically crush and intimidate any opposition out of business. She spent most of the next two decades under arrest, but was freed after last November’s poll, which was condemned as a sham in the West.

Relations with the junta haven’t improved much since she got out. The military recently warned Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) that they’d meet a tragic end if they continued to support Western sanctions against Burma.

But Suu Kyi was unfazed, saying she’d been reviled by the junta for 20 years, so nothing has changed.

She said she was happy to promote talks aimed at ending sanctions and steering the country towards national reconciliation, while at the same time warning investors that Burma remains fraught with difficulties in terms of dealing with the junta. Critics have argued that Suu Kyi and the NLD have sent mixed signals on sanctions, prompting speculation of a split among the leadership.

During a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, Suu Kyi appeared to signal a policy change by lauding potential investment and lamenting that the Burmese people had been left behind while Burma’s neighbours did deals with the junta, exploiting the country’s natural resources.

Her tone on business in Burma was clear when she commented on the jailing of Australian Ross Dunkley, publisher of The Myanmar Times, who was jailed in Rangoon for a visa violation amid reports his local business partners were attempting to seize control of the newspaper.

‘I’m not certain exactly why Ross Dunkley has been arrested but certainly one thing I can say is that there is no freedom of the media yet in Burma and it helps if people try to expand the limits of what journalists can do in Burma,’ she said. ‘I think we all have to work towards greater freedom of information, but I don’t know whether that kind of freedom of information can be obtained by investing in Burma in the media through the authorities.’

She added that even Burma can’t escape 21st century technology that has significantly expanded the ability of people to organize without government interference, which was a major factor behind the protests in the Middle East.

‘There haven’t been reports about what’s happening across Tunisia, Egypt and Libya in the national papers, but those who know about those events are comparing what’s happening there with what happened in Burma 1988.

‘Everybody is waiting around to see with great interest what transpires because people were impressed with what happened, particularly in Egypt.’

Suu Kyi said she has also been attempting to establish Facebook and Twitter accounts, but complained the Internet connections in Burma were too slow. She added: ‘I think that I must say that I’m also reading a book on how to manage my dog.’

The Irrawaddy – Burmese MPs Complain of Detention-like Conditions
By SAI ZOM HSENG Tuesday, March 1, 2011

One month after Burma’s new Parliament was formed, opposition MPs say that restrictions on their movements in the capital, Naypyidaw, have begun to make them feel like they are being detained by the country’s military authorities.

“We were warned when we arrived here that we couldn’t move around freely. Even though we receive stipends, we feel like prisoners,” said one MP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“When we are not in session, we are only allowed to go to the dining hall or tearoom or return to our hostels,” he added.

Since it convened on Jan. 31, the new Parliament has elected a president and vice-presidents and drawn up a list of candidates for cabinet posts, but has yet to form a government. According to MPs, the main business at the moment is forming committees.

Both houses of Parliament have created 15-member draft legislative committees, with each house also having four sub-committees, while parliaments in the country’s 14 states and regions also formed legislative and ethnic affairs committees this morning, sources said.

Meanwhile, residents of Naypyidaw said that security in the city has been tightened since a bomb blast in Rangoon on Sunday.

“Security forces won’t allow anyone without an original identity card to enter the city. They won’t accept recommendation letters or student identity cards,” said one resident, adding that there are around 20 police truck patrolling the city every night.

The Irrawaddy – Maday Island Deep-Sea Port No Boon to Locals
By KHIN OO THAR Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Until recently, Maday Island on the coast of the Bay of Bengal in Burma’s western Arakan State was a virtually unknown and unspoiled island possessing both natural beauty and resources that provided a simple living for about 2,400 residents. But that changed in 2009, when Burma’s junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe and China’s Vice President Xi Jinping inked an agreement to build a deep-sea port on the island that will be used by China to import crude oil from Africa and the Middle East and natural gas from Arakan State.

China currently imports crude oil from Africa and the Middle East that meet 80 percent of its fuel needs through the Strait of Malacca. Consequently, it has faced huge transportation costs, long transportation times and potential threats from pirates launching raids in the Strait. The completion of the Maday Island deep-sea port will allow China to bypass the Strait and save time and money.

In August 2007, the Burmese regime announced that it will sell gas to China from blocks A-1 and A-3 of the offshore gas fields located off the Arakan Coast that were discovered in December 2003. In June 2008, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the regime and other partners for the sale and transport of gas to China. An export gas agreement was then signed on December 24 of that year under which Burma agreed to supply China with gas for at least 30 years.

According to the Shwe Gas Movement, which is made up of individuals and groups who are concerned about the overall impact of the extraction of natural gas in Burma, the sale of gas will provide the junta with an estimated US $1.2 billion annually.

Apart from the deep-sea port, Chinese companies and Korea’s Daewoo International Company have begun construction of oil and natural gas reservoirs and gas refinery projects on Maday Island and in Kyaukpru (also known as Kyauk Phyu), the pleasant port city known as the “Second Singapore” among Arakanese people that is located about 13 kilometers from the island.

In addition, the IGE Company, owned by Nay Aung, the son of former Industry 1 Minister Aung Thaung, has been granted a contract for the construction of gas pipelines from Maday Island to China.

According Arakan Oil Watch (AOW), an independent non-governmental organization that is an active member of the Shwe Gas Movement, the $1.5 billion oil pipeline, carrying 12 million tons of crude oil per year, will travel the 1,100 kilometers from Maday Island to China’s Kunming city through central Burma. The natural gas pipeline will run parallel to the oil pipeline and extend even further, from Kunming to Guizhou Province and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, for a total of about 1,700 kilometers. It is expected to transport 12 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China every year.

CNPC is heading up the Maday Island deep-sea port construction project, with about 10 other Chinese companies involved under its management. In addition, The Htoo Group of Companies and Asia World, owned by Burmese business tycoons Tay Za and Zaw Zaw, respectively, have reportedly been granted permission for the construction of some parts of the port.

According to Arakan Oil Watch, CNPC began construction of the deep-sea port and an oil reservoir on Maday Island in October 2010 and will finish the projects by 2013. The construction has already taken its toll on the island’s mountainous environment and about 2,400 residents living in six villages.

Locals said farm lands are being confiscated on Maday Island in order to build the port and refinery and in Kyaukpru in order to build an international airport, hotels, golf courses and hospitals. In addition, about 500 acres of farmland near Gangawtaw Pagoda in Kyaukpru were confiscated for the construction of a gas refinery.

“Five mountains on Maday Island have already been demolished and many plots of garden land have already been confiscated and cleared. The confiscation of farmland continues as necessary,” said a resident of Ywarma Village on Maday Island.

“Farming and gardening are the main businesses for country folks like us.

If we don’t have land, we will have nothing to work on,” said another Maday Island villager whose land was confiscated.

U Ohn, one of Burma’s most prominent environmentalists and the vice-chairman of the Forest Resource Environment Development and Conservation Association, told The Irrawaddy that the environment on Maday Island and in the surrounding Kyaukpru area will be severely affected by construction of the deep-sea port and related projects.

“What has been written in the book with regard to environmental conservation is really great. But there has been no implementation. We were not consulted on anything about the environmental impact of projects in Kyaukpru,” said U Ohn.

U Ohn said wastes and poisonous chemicals from gas extraction will not only affect the environment but also endanger aquatic animals as the amount of water pollution will be huge. In addition, the loss of mountains, mangrove forests and reefs along the coast will be inevitable, he said.

People on Maday Island said that apart from economic hardships they will encounter due to the confiscation of their farm and garden lands, they are anxiously worried about being left unprotected if they face another natural disaster. They said that although they were affected by Cyclone Giri in October 2010, they survived because they were protected by the surrounding mountains which have now been demolished one by one because of the deep-sea port project.

“These mountains protect us from natural disasters such as storms and floods. We can face catastrophe any time if there are no mountains around us,” said a Maday Island resident.
The regime, however, insists that despite the environmental impact and hardships faced by locals, the deep-sea port project is worthwhile because the Kyaukpru area will be developed as a result.

“I accept the fact that our area will be developed under these projects but there will be more disadvantages than benefits,” said a Kyaukpru lawyer. “China will extract natural resources from our area for about 30 years, so after the completion of those projects we will be left with nothing but empty buildings.”

The lawyer said if the regime really wants to focus on local development it should build up the skills of young people in the area and let them be involved in the projects. The opposite, however, seems to be occurring, as locals are reportedly precluded from working on the deep-sea port project.

The CNPC and its subsidiaries reportedly do not allow local people to work on their projects and have appointed Chinese to many positions. Kyaukpru residents said there are an estimated 2,000 Chinese currently working in their area.

“Our farm lands were confiscated but we can’t work on those projects. We are not even allowed to catch fish and move around freely in nearby areas,” said a Maday Island resident.
He said those who lost their farmland were compensated only 200,000-700,000 kyat [$230-805] per acre, compared to the minimum market value of at least one million kyat per acre.

“We only received about one third of the compensation given by foreign companies because local authorities took some,” confirmed a villager from Kyauk Tan Village on Maday Island.

They said that even though locals are not allowed to work on the deep-sea port construction, they can take hard-labor jobs on the gas refinery project.

“I earn 1,500 kyat [$ 1.70] for my work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.,” said a worker.

He said that although his daily wages are too small to meet the current commodity prices, people have no choice because they don’t have any other job options. Female workers are given only 1,000 kyat [$ 1.15] a day, he said.

In addition to the Chinese, people from other parts of Burma will be coming to the Kyaukpru area to work on the projects. Restaurants, entertainment businesses, bars and brothels are consequently emerging in the area to meet the needs of those employees.

“We now can see people take sex workers with cars and motorcycles. But we can’t stop them because authorities have allowed such business,” said a Kyaukpru resident.

He said Chinese companies neither follow local regulations nor pay respect to religion. Some company staff even drink alcohol inside monasteries, he said.

Among the other hardships they have to endure, Kyaukpru residents face the bitter irony of having little access to electricity even though their area is rich in natural gas and oil. Instead, they use wood and charcoal fires for heating and cooking.

“It costs 600 kyat [$ 0.7] for a unit of electricity. An average monthly electricity bill is more than 20,000 kyat per household.

For those who have businesses, they have to pay more than 100,000 kyat,” said a Kyaukpru resident.

People in Sittwe, the capital of Arakan State, said they only have access to electricity about three hours a day.

Four hydro-power plant projects are being implemented in Arakan State, but the regime has already signed deals with China, India and Bangladesh to sell them the electricity from these power plants.

With Maday Island and Kyaukpru residents apparently enduring all of the hardships related to the deep-sea port and related projects while the Burmese regime, the Chinese and other outside parties reap the benefits, legal experts and politicians in the area said they will try their best to protect locals from repression and human rights abuses.

“We will raise this issue in the national parliament if we can. Otherwise, we will discuss it in the state parliament. If the parliaments do not agree with us we will speak out against the projects,” said Ba Shin, a Kyaukpru resident and member of the Pyithu Hluttaw [People's Assembly] from the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party.

“I don’t see any significant benefit for local people following the completion of those projects. So, we will only discuss issues beneficial for our people,” he said.

The Irrawaddy – EU Official to Visit Thailand, Discuss Burmese Refugee Camps
By SIMON ROUGHNEEN Tuesday, March 1, 2011

BANGKOK—The lead European Union (EU) official on humanitarian issues will visit Thailand next week to meet government officials and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to assess the situation in Burmese refugees camps in northern Thailand.

The visit by EU Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva comes after NGOs and Burmese exile groups complained of cuts in humanitarian aid to refugees in the camps. Many of the refugee camps have been in place since the 1980s and their population is around 150,000.

Mathias Eick, the Regional Information Officer for ECHO, the European Commission’s (EC) humanitarian arm, said that the EC’s funding “has remained more or less constant over the last few years, at around 12.5 million euros per annum.”

Since 1994, “the European Commission has provided more than 140 million euros in support to refugees from Myanmar in Thailand,” Mr Eick added.

However, the EC—which functions as a sort-of cabinet within the EU’s dispersed and complex governing structures—is shifting its approach to Burmese refugees in Thailand.

According to Mr Eick, “As the camps have existed for 25 years, and also serve as a pull factor for economic migrants and third-country resettlement seekers, there is now a need to move from a humanitarian relief focus to more sustainable long term solutions for the refugees.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a spokesperson for an organization working with refugees in the camps along the border between Thailand and Burma said that cuts in direct assistance to refugees is cutting into the basic nutrition and health-care needs of the people in the camps.

EU ambitions “to promote a more development-oriented approach to Burmese refugees in Thailand” will not work, says the refugee camp worker, “unless there are changes to Thai policy regarding refugees.” This currently restricts refugees to the camps, thereby limiting the options for those refugees who would prefer not to be reliant on humanitarian relief and making it unclear how the ECHO could implement its “more sustainable long terms solutions for the refugees.”

Georgieva is set to look into reports that some of those entering the camps are not refugees, but economic migrants, or people seeking repatriation to a country outside Thailand. However Thai authorities have not run a screening program for the camps since 2005, making it impossible for camp management officials to ascertain the motives and identity of everyone entering the camps. That uncertainty is not sufficient in itself to justify funding cuts, says the camp worker.

ECHO and the EC are responsible for 30-40 percent of all humanitarian spending by the EU and member states, an average of 640 million euros per annum, according to the ECHO website. In 2008, the most recent year that records are available on the ECHO website, the biggest EU member-state donors to ECHO were the United Kingdom (343 million euros), Germany (224 million euros), Denmark (178 million euros), Italy (141 million euros) and Ireland (117million euros).

Of these, Germany and Italy are thought to be the lead players promoting closer ties with the Burmese Government, as the EU “Common Position” on Burma comes up for its annual review in April. David Mathieu, a Burma expert at Human Rights Watch, said that “there are major divisions in the EU over Burma, and the divisions have always been there but have certainly been growing over the past few years, and are more pronounced since the elections.”

Burma’s elections held on November 7, 2010 produced a landslide win amid allegations of rigging and ballot-stuffing for the junta-backed party known as the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which took 76 percent of the vote. 25 percent of seats were reserved for current army officers in any case, and the new government is comprised mostly of military men, and is nominally headed by former Gen Thein Sein, who was prime minister under the old military regime.

Mathieson says that the view held in some quarters that the elections and formation of a new government mean that there is even a small window of change opening in Burma, is “a cereal-box platitude,” and that nothing has changed in how Burma is ruled since the elections.

The EU Common Position mandates some sanctions on the Burmese government, and Burmese groups in Europe have been lobbying for these sanctions to be at least retained in the upcoming review.

The EU envoy to Burma/Myanmar, Piero Fassino, is due in Thailand next week, two days before Georgieva’s visit.

Petrol prices straining consumers in Burma
Tuesday, 01 March 2011 18:34 Te Te

New Delhi (Mizzima) – The price of petrol on the Burmese black market in Mandalay shot up from 3,300 kyat to 4,800 kyat (890 kyat to $1 US) per gallon this week, according to private fuel station owners.

At the same time, a price hike on the black market has prompted vehicles to queue in at private petrol stations where prices are fixed by authorities. Residents say some station owners routinely sell a portion of their petrol to operators on the illegal market.

In the past, a car owner could buy petrol from private stations in quantities of at most 10 gallons per a week at a price of 2,500 kyat. But, we could buy only six gallons this week’, one car owner told Mizzima. ‘If the private petrol stations sell the petrol on the illegal market, they can get at least 4,300 kyat, so they don’t want to sell the petrol at fixed prices on the legal market’.

“I saw on queue, about 3 kilometres long, outside one private  station’ he said.

The petrol price on the illegal market in Mandalay on Tuesday was 4,800 kyat for diesel and 3,600 kyat for high octane fuel. The fixed diesel price was 4,200 kyat and 2,500 kyat.

‘The state energy enterprise sells petrol to the private fuel stations at a price of 2,350 kyat per gallon. Then, the private fuel station sells the petrol back to the end users at a price of 2,500 kyat. But,  many stations set aside half their quota to sell it on the illegal market at a higher price’, a petrol trader on Thaikpan Road told Mizzima.

The price of crude oil on the world market has risen as a result of the political unrest in the Middle East and that has prompted the hike in fuel prices in Burma.

After fuel stations were privatized last June, private fuel stations operators have been negotiating with each other to fix prices, say observers.

The diesel price fixed by the authorities in Rangoon is 4,000 kyat while the fixed diesel price in Mandalay is 4,200 kyat, a higher  price than in Rangoon because of transportation costs, according to a fuel distributor.

In August 2007, a 500 percent hike in fuel prices and subsequent  increases in other commodity prices led to demonstrations in Rangoon and political instability.

Rangoon Assembly forms two committees; adjourns in five minutes
Tuesday, 01 March 2011 17:09 Mizzima News

New Delhi (Mizzima) – The Rangoon Regional Assembly convened on Tuesday to hear the Speaker nominate two committees and then adjourned after five minutes, legislators said.

Speaker Sein Tin Win nominated nine members to serve on  the Bill Affairs Committee and nine members to serve on the Ethnic Affairs Committee.

Out of the 18 nominees, 14 were members of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

Nominated to the Bill Affairs Committee were eight members from the USDP: chairman Hla Tun, secretary Win Naing aka Win Naing Oo and members Than Hlaing, Nan Nyunt Win Maw, Dr. Thein Zaw Myint, Thein Naing, Aung Than Oo and Kyi Kyi Mar. The ninth nominee was Aye Thein (National Unity Party).

Nominated to the Ethnic Affairs Committee was chairman Saw Tun Aung Myint of the Karen Nationality Development Party and secretary Maung Maung Win (USDP), and members Win Htein (National Unity Party), Zaw Aye Maung (Rakhine Nationalities Development Party), Saw Sonny Chan, Dr. Saw Hla Tun, Dr. Khin Maung Tun, Khin Maung Htoo and May Than Nwe (Union Development Party).

Lawmakers will vote on the nominees on Thursday.

DVB News – Business lobby broadens its Asian horizons
By AHUNT PHONE MYAT
Published: 1 March 2011

Burma’s leading industry federation is embarking on a reshuffle of its top staff whilst preparing to open an office in Beijing, a signal of the country’s growing economic ambitions.

The recent announcement that the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI) is to develop a tangible presence in China serves to strengthen Burma’s lucrative economic relationship with its northern neighbour, which recently became the country’s top foreign investor.

The UMFCCI, Burma’s largest business federation, represents nearly 11,000 Burmese and 770 foreign companies operating in the military-ruled country. A significant number of overseas businesses there are from China, which has been hungrily eyeing Burma’s natural energy reserves, the sector that has attracted the majority of its investments.

The mooted appointment of a new UMFCCI chairman comes as former head, Win Myint, takes a position in the new Burmese cabinet. Although his title is yet to be confirmed, rumours are circulating that he will become the Minister of Co-operatives.

Although it bills itself as an independent body tasked with “representing and safeguarding the interest of private business sector”, the UMFCCI receives significant involvement from the Burmese government.

The clout wielded by the federation has strengthened since it was upgraded in 1999 in line with Burma’s shift towards a market-oriented economy, and it now acts as a mascot for the country’s unstable yet burgeoning business environment.

Indeed despite warnings from international watchdogs such as EarthRights International that doing business in Burma carries significant reputational and material risks, investment from East Asian companies is rising. Work recently began on the $US8 billion Tavoy deep-sea port in the country’s south, led by Thai construction giant Ital-Thai, while agreements to explore and exploit Burma’s vast natural gas reserves continue to be pushed through.

But it is China that has emerged as the regional trailblazer, with Beijing backing numerous hydropower plants and the controversial Shwe dual pipeline that will transport Burmese gas and Middle Eastern oil across Burma to its energy-hungry southern provinces.

In January last year, Win Myint, who has held the UMFCCI chairmanship since 1999, stressed the importance of increased trade between the two countries, particularly in the agricultural sector which accounts for some 60 percent of the Burmese labour force’s income. Back then, border trade dominated Burma’s economic ties with China, but that is rapidly changing with the increased focus on the energy sector.