Human Rights Watch – Burma’s ‘Disciplined Democracy’ is a Mockery of UN Standards
by David Scott Mathieson
April 4, 2011

The Burmese military officially handed power to a civilian government on March 30, days after the army it celebrated its 66th Anniversary on March 27, having been in power in one incarnation or another for 51 of those past 66 years.

Though some wear rose colored glasses and would like to view the recent elections as a positive step, it is hard to see how rigged elections and a new “civilian” government led by former soldiers who exchanged a uniform for a suit is a sign of progress. Indeed, the new ‘military-parliamentary complex’ in Burma has delivered no structural improvements in the lives of Burmese.  While the military has held sham elections and rammed through a new constitution, and has convened a nominally new and elected government, the human rights situation in Burma remains dire.

In January, Burma completed its Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a Human Rights Council procedure in which the country’s human rights situation is reviewed every four years by member states of the United Nations. It was a typically obdurate performance from Burmese officials, laced with frequent absurdity. Presented by Burma’s new Attorney-General, the smooth-talking Dr. Tun Shin, the Burmese delegation gave a Monty Python-like defense whose central comedic device was total denial.

Among the highlights: the November 2010 elections were “free and fair” (all evidence to the contrary). There are no political prisoners in Burma, just criminals (there are actually more than 2,200 dissidents in prison, sentenced under laws that criminalize peaceful activities). If there are political prisoners, they are not tortured (torture is endemic in Burmese prisons). There is no media censorship, just look at all the newspapers, magazines and television stations! (censorship is longstanding and systematic, with tv and radio giving fawning coverage of the daily schedule and immense achievements of senior generals). The judiciary is impartial (only in so far as the interests of the military and their cronies are not endangered, and rarely if ever apart from that).

Perhaps the darkest of jokes was the assertion that education and health expenditure in Burma is increasing. This may technically be true – it is hard to know, given the fact that no one knows what the actual national budget is, but the government’s paltry outlay on basic services (six percent) is dwarfed by its military expenditure (a quarter of the budget) and doesn’t take into account the billions of dollars in natural gas revenues squirreled away in offshore bank accounts. Western humanitarian aid donors account for most of the assistance to Burma’s desperate health crisis, a disaster wrought largely by decades of central government neglect. Few governments do as little to address the basic needs of their people.

The most surreal segments of the review involved the country’s long running civil war, in fact the world’s most enduring internal conflict: 63 of the past 66 years the Burmese army has been fighting ethnic and communist insurgents. There are more than 17 non-state ethnic armed groups in Burma, most with tentative ceasefires that have been fighting against central government rule since independence in 1948. Yet Dr. Tun Shin had the audacity to claim that Burma “has never been in a situation of armed conflict.” In the Burmese government’s worldview, during this supposed “non-conflict,” the Burmese army apparently does not attack ethnic populations, or commit rape against women, or force civilians to be army porters.  And while Dr. Tun Shin correctly asserted that child soldier recruitment is illegal, he failed to note that the military high command has put pressure on some 500 army battalions to replenish troop recruitment throughout Burma “any way they can.”

Evidence disputing the Burmese official line is on display every day.  In a renewed offensive against ethnic Karen rebels in eastern Burma that started just days after the November 2010 elections, Burmese army units are targeting civilians in several towns with artillery and small arms fire. The army has taken dozens as forced porters to carry supplies and act as scouts, exposing them to landmines and ambush.  Thousands of people have fled for safety to neighboring Thailand. In addition, the army has press-ganged hundreds of convicts from prisons throughout Burma to act as porters and human minesweepers during the offensive. The survivors have horrific tales of torture, executions, and being caught in the crossfire of ferocious armed combat. In addition, fierce fighting has been raging in Northern Shan State against ethnic Shan rebels who keep asserting they want peaceful negotiations.

Years of reports of violations of international law led the UN special rapporteur on Burma, Argentine lawyer Tomás Ojea Quintana, to call for a UN commission of inquiry to investigate war crimes and the systemic impunity that supports them. So far 16 countries have publicly supported the call, while many in the international community have adopted a wait-and-see approach for signs of improvement after the elections.

Many governments at the UPR called on Burma to form a national human rights commission in line with international standards, and the Burmese delegation assured the Council that it was pursuing just that. Dr. Tun Shin heads Burma’s current human rights body. He claimed it is investigating over 500 reports of human rights violations, but gave few details. He played the game of saying that the government has not “exhausted local remedies” to address abuses as a shield against international measures.

Burma is trying to haggle for more time to improve its human rights record on the premise that it is building a new democracy and a civilian government is now in place. But the November 2010 elections were a farcical attempt at legitimizing and preserving future military control. The new constitution is full of provisions that appear in line with international standards-as the constitutions of dictatorships often are–but with caveats that assert the power of the military in all matters. The government cites various forms of engagement with the UN as evidence of progress on human rights. But it’s all transparently empty.

UN member states should not allow the Burmese government to make a mockery of human rights standards anymore. Public exercises like the UPR lay bare the mendacity of the Burmese leadership and also exposes the failings of the international community to defend the rights of victims and to hold Burma’s rulers accountable for their actions. The government clearly thinks it can get away with offering perfunctory cooperation on a few issues, denying the horrific human rights reality on the ground, to gain international legitimacy for its drive towards what it calls “disciplined democracy.”

Thailand as the current president of the UN Human Rights Council, and ASEAN bearing the long burden of defending its most recalcitrant member, must not be taken in by Dr Tun Shin’s chicanery. To be fooled by this only emboldens the Burmese military and helps avert stronger measures, like a UN commission of inquiry, that offer the best chance of providing justice and redress to the victims of human rights abuses inside Burma today.

David Scott Mathieson is Senior Researcher in the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch

Renewing Myanmar focus, US to name envoy
by Shaun Tandon – Sat Apr 2, 10:24 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama will soon appoint the first US special envoy on Myanmar, officials said, signaling a renewed effort to pry open the nation after its much criticized political transition.

People involved in the process said Obama would name Derek Mitchell, a veteran policymaker on Asia who now serves at the Pentagon, as the coordinator for US efforts for the country formerly known as Burma.

A US official said on condition of anonymity that the administration would announce the nomination “very soon” and likely roll out Mitchell with an appearance before Congress, a hotbed of criticism of Myanmar.

The nomination was first reported by Foreign Policy magazine’s blog The Cable.

After Obama took office in January 2009, his administration concluded that Western efforts to isolate the military-led nation had been ineffective and initiated a dialogue with the junta.

The United States has voiced disappointment over developments in Myanmar, including an election in November widely denounced as a sham, but has said that it sees no alternative to engagement at such a fluid time.

Kurt Campbell, the top State Department official for East Asia, had personally spearheaded the Obama administration’s efforts on Myanmar and traveled twice to the isolated country.

Congress approved a wide-ranging law on Myanmar in 2008 that tightened sanctions and created the special envoy position. Then-president George W. Bush named Michael Green, formerly one of his top aides, but the nomination died in the Senate due to an unrelated political dispute.

Green, now a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Georgetown University, said Mitchell’s expected appointment would give momentum to Myanmar policy — provided that the administration gives him enough space to maneuver.

“Kurt Campbell wanted to make a serious run at this. He did as well as could be expected but it yielded no positive change, so now they want to invest this with someone who has a full-time commitment,” Green told AFP.

In naming an envoy, Campbell could escape the criticism leveled against his predecessor in the Bush administration, Christopher Hill, who was accused in some quarters of neglecting most of the dynamic Asia region because he was personally engrossed in denuclearization negotiations with North Korea.

Myanmar’s ruling junta officially disbanded on Wednesday, giving the country a nominally civilian government for the first time in nearly a century. But many analysts called the move a masquerade, as top junta figures remain firmly in leadership positions, albeit without their uniforms.

In one development welcomed overseas, Myanmar authorities last year freed pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The Nobel laureate had spent most of the last two decades under house arrest after her party won previous elections.

Suu Kyi has no voice in Myanmar’s new parliament. Her National League for Democracy was disbanded after it chose to boycott the elections, which it suspected were designed to marginalize the opposition and ethnic minorities.

In an address Saturday to activists gathered in Washington, Suu Kyi appealed for sustained world attention on her country — which human rights groups say experiences some of the world’s most severe abuses.

“At this moment, Burma is at a crossroads,” Suu Kyi told the meeting of the US Campaign for Burma in a video message.

“There are those who say that we have come to a place where there is change visible, but there are those of us who believe that change has not yet come — no visible change, just superficial change, not real change.

“May I say to renew your efforts once again to make sure that the Burma cause is kept alive at all the important places where it should be kept alive — in the minds of governments, in the minds of the United Nations, in the minds of peoples all over the world,” she added.

Suu Kyi enjoys wide support in the US Congress. Four senators — Republicans Mitch McConnell and Mark Kirk and Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer — urged the administration not to lift sanctions over Myanmar’s transition.

Representative Joseph Crowley, a Democrat active on Myanmar, said separately: “One thing is certain — when it comes to Burma’s military regime, the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Than Shwe retires as Myanmar military chief
by Hla Hla Htay – Mon Apr 4, 1:36 am ET

YANGON (AFP) – Myanmar strongman Than Shwe, who ruled with an iron fist for almost two decades, has retired as head of the military after handing power to a nominally civilian government, officials said Monday.

The postman-turned-dictator last week disbanded the junta, the State Peace and Development Council, following November polls marred by the absence of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and complaints of cheating and intimidation.

“Senior General Than Shwe and Vice-Senior General Maung Aye retired on March 30 after handing over power to the new government. They are staying at their homes in Naypyidaw. We cannot say their plan for the future. So far they are taking a rest,” a Myanmar official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The army hierarchy retains a firm grip on power in the resource-rich Southeast Asian country, and many analysts believe 78-year-old Than Shwe will have a significant role behind the scenes.

“Although they are retired, they will give some advice when the government asks for it,” a second official said.

The SPDC, previously known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council, took power in 1988, but Myanmar has been under military authority since 1962 and the generals continue to dominate the impoverished nation.

Former prime minister Thein Sein, a key Than Shwe ally, was sworn in as president at the parliament in Naypyidaw on Wednesday of last week, but there was no official announcement at the time about Than Shwe’s role.

Thein Sein was one of a clutch of generals who shed their army uniforms to contest the elections last year and are now civilian members of a parliament dominated by the military and their political proxies.

Than Shwe — said to be a keen Manchester United fan — had kept the world guessing about his intentions following the country’s first election in 20 years in November.

But speculation that he was retiring grew after General Min Aung Hlaing attended last week’s presidential inauguration as army commander-in-chief, although it was unclear at the time if he had officially taken over.

Retiring is a gamble as Than Shwe knows only too well, having put his predecessor, the late dictator Ne Win, under house arrest in 2002 after his family members were convicted of plotting to overthrow the regime.

Born in 1933 in a small town near Mandalay, Than Shwe enlisted in the army aged 20 as Myanmar, also known as Burma, emerged from colonial rule.

His first combat experience came as a young second lieutenant fighting separatist rebels, before being posted to a roving psychological warfare unit and rising swiftly through the ranks.

He took the helm in 1992 after previous dictator Ne Win stepped down following a failed 1988 student-led uprising.

Than Shwe’s successor as military chief, the 54-year-old Min Aung Hlaing, is part of a younger generation of Myanmar generals.

He was head of the Defence Services Academy and a commander in the so-called Golden Triangle, a region near the country’s borders with Laos and Thailand notorious for drug trafficking.

The formation of a parliament, convened for the first time at the end of January, takes the country towards the final stage of the junta’s so-called “roadmap” to a “disciplined democracy”.

Suu Kyi has no voice in the new parliament. Her National League for Democracy party was disbanded for opting to boycott the vote because the rules seemed designed to bar her from participating.

The election, and Suu Kyi’s release from house arrest a few days later, have reignited a debate about economic sanctions enforced by the United States and European Union because of Myanmar’s human rights abuses.

Declining mangroves shield against global warming
Sun Apr 3, 1:27 pm ET

PARIS (AFP) – Mangroves, which have declined by up to half over the last 50 years, are an important bulkhead against climate change, a study released on Sunday has shown for the first time.

Destruction of these tropical coastal woodlands accounts for about 10 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from deforestation, the second largest source of CO2 after fossil fuel combustion, the study found.

Fewer trees not only mean less CO2 absorbed from the air, but also the release of carbon stocks that have been accumulating in shallow-water sediment over millennia.

Mangroves — whose twisted, exposed roots grace coastlines in more than 100 countries — confer many benefits on humans living in their midst.

The brackish tidal waters in which the trees thrive are a natural nursery for dozens of species of fish and shrimp essential to commercial fisheries around the world.

Another major “ecosystem service,” in the jargon of environmental science, is protection from hurricanes and storm surges.

Cyclone Nargis, which killed 138,000 people in Myanmar in 2008, would have been less deadly, experts say, if half the country’s mangroves had not been ripped up for wood or to make way for shrimp farms.

Daniel Donato of the US Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service in Hilo, Hawaii and an international team of researchers examined the carbon content in 25 mangroves scattered across the Indo-Pacific region.

The trees stored atmospheric CO2 just as well as land-based tropical forests, they found. Below the water line, they were even more efficient, hoarding five times more carbon over the same surface area.

“Mangroves are among the most carbon-rich forests in the tropics,” Donato and his colleagues said in the study, published in Nature Geoscience.

“Our data show that discussion of the key role of tropical wetland forests in climate change could be broadened significantly to include mangroves.”

In a companion commentary, Steven Bouillon from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium said the carbon inventory uncovered by the study “provides a strong incentive to consider mangrove ecosystems as priority areas for conservation.”

US senators urge tougher Myanmar sanctions
Thu Mar 31, 7:38 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States should reject calls to ease sanctions on Myanmar junta members and instead name a special envoy to give the measures more bite, four US senators said in a letter released Thursday.

“With the regime’s recent moves and persistent human rights abuses, conditions do not currently exist to meet the necessary criteria to consider an easing of sanctions,” they wrote to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer and Republican Senator Mark Kirk signed the letter.

The lawmakers pointed to recent comments by Myanmar’s opposition leader and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on the issue and said “we agree that sanctions should be maintained until the regime undertakes serious reforms.”

The group urged Clinton to name a “Special Representative and Policy Coordinator for Burma” to work with Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) “to ensure that sanctions are more effective and better utilized.”

“We therefore urge the administration to act swiftly to nominate an individual with the depth of expertise and the breadth of skills necessary to succeed in this important position,” they wrote.

The lawmakers also urged Clinton “to exercise the authority for additional banking sanctions against Burma’s leaders explicitly provided by Congress” in a law meant to pry Myanmar open to democratic and free-market reforms.

“We believe that exercising such authority represents one of the most powerful instruments at our disposal for pressuring Burma’s rulers to change course,” the senators said.

A rare election in November and Suu Kyi’s subsequent release from house arrest have reignited a debate about the measures, and the European Union is poised to decide in April whether to continue sanctions against the regime.

European diplomats recently held talks with Suu Kyi, 65, and other opposition members about the possibility of lifting the sanctions, which global think-tank International Crisis Group has criticized as “counterproductive.”

The NLD has no voice in a newly opened parliament dominated by the military and its proxies. It was disbanded for opting to boycott the vote because the rules seemed designed to bar Suu Kyi from participating.

Supporters of the trade and financial sanctions say they are the only way to pressure the military rulers of Myanmar, where there are about 2,200 political prisoners.

The United States said last month that calls to ease sanctions on Myanmar were premature.

700 fishermen missing in Myanmar after storms
Mon Apr 4, 6:12 am ET

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Nearly 700 fishermen from Myanmar are missing after a three-day burst of unseasonable storms that ripped apart rickety fishing boats in the Andaman Sea, news reports said Monday.

Rescued fishermen gave harrowing accounts. Some told local media they held on for days to broken bamboo rafts before being rescued by offshore oil companies, Thai fishing boats or Myanmar naval boats.

The Weekly Eleven news journal reported that 15,583 fisherman were rescued after the March 14-17 storms whipped up 70 mph (112 kph) winds, battering fishing rafts and trawlers, and sweeping thousands of fisherman into the open seas. It said 682 fisherman were missing.

The storms hit ahead of the typical rainy period and came during the shrimp fishing season, when thousands of fisherman ply the waters on bamboo rafts.

Authorities in the tightly ruled country tend to not immediately report the effects of natural disasters and have been criticized in the past for being slow to send help and humanitarian aid.

The Myanmar government has not yet announced an official death toll. The Weekly Eleven journal said three people died, while another weekly, The Voice, reported over the weekend that 14 fishermen had died in the storms. The actual number is expected to be higher.

The storms hit parts of the Irrawaddy Delta, which was devastated by Cyclone Nargis in May 2008. The cyclone left 130,000 people dead.

“At least during Nargis we had enough time, because there was a light drizzle before the strong winds,” fisherman Kyaw Lwin, 42, told The Voice news weekly. “But this time, in the middle of summer, it happened so abruptly we had no time.”

He said he was rescued by a Thai fishing boat after drifting at sea for three days.

Myanmar warns no ‘decadent’ dress for New Year’s
Sun Apr 3, 12:37 am ET

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Revelers who wear “decadent” clothing during Myanmar’s upcoming New Year’s celebrations can face up to a month in prison, a news report said Sunday.

The four-day festival begins April 13 and marks the traditional New Year on the lunisolar calendar that is also used in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. It’s one of the few times when Myanmar’s citizens can cut loose under the watchful eye of the repressive regime.

Revelers in the impoverished country splash one another with water and dance in the streets, despite annual warnings of proper etiquette from the government. Myanmar was under military rule for 50 years.

Following elections last year, the junta was officially disbanded and handed power to a nominally civilian government, but the rules for partying during the New Year’s celebration remain unchanged.

The News Watch journal, a weekly magazine, issued the government’s warning for merrymakers to “avoid wearing dress that is contrary to Myanmar culture.”

It said that a special committee will supervise what people are wearing and will use CCTV cameras to videotape crowds.

Those caught “wearing decadent attire” can face a fine and up to one month in prison, the weekly reported. It did not specify what clothing was banned, but government warnings in the past have called on women not to wear skimpy tank tops and short shorts. Past warnings have also told revelers to avoid making remarks that could hurt national unity, not to honk horns and to avoid horseplay that could injure people, like throwing bags filled with ice.

A more detailed list of this year’s rules is expected to be printed in state-run media in the coming days.

Myanmar, which has been ruled by the military since 1962 and is also known as Burma, held its first elections in 20 years in November, though there has been little indication since of real democratic changes. The elections were widely criticized as a sham.

Asian Correspondent – Burma Arrests ex-army officer who supports opposition
By Zin Linn Apr 04, 2011 10:19PM UTC

On 30 March, President Thein Sein addressed the first regular session of Union Parliament.

In his speech, he said, “To safeguard the fundamental rights of citizens in line with the provisions of the constitution in the new democratic nation is high on our government’s list of priorities. We guarantee that all citizens will enjoy equal rights in terms of law, and we will reinforce the judicial pillar.”

But, now, people are suspicious with his words. The case is that Nay Myo Zin, 36, a retired Burmese military officer who works as a volunteer of ‘Blood Donation Network’ affiliated with the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), has been arrested on Saturday by the Special Branch Police in South-Dagon in Rangoon.

According to his family, the ex-army captain did not commit any crime except helping poor patients who need emergency blood transfusion. Nay Myo Zin was taken off in the middle of a street by the police but they did not give any reason of his detention.

Zin Myo Maw, wife of the detainee, said she heard that her husband was taken to Aung Thapyay detention centre in Mayangone Township in Rangoon. She could not have a message or a call by her husband since he was taken away to detention center. She said that her husband’s mobile phone had been turn off.

Nay Myo Zin was from Intake 39 of the Defence Services Academy (DSA). In 1998, he became a platoon leader in Infantry Battalion (19) in Swar township in Pegu Division. In 2003, he served as second in command of the No. 262 Military Provost Unit (Military Police) in Taung-gyi in Shan State. In 2005, he decided to quit from the service and retired in May 2005.

In 2009, he started helping some activities of the NLD youth wing. After Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s released from house arrest in last November, he involved in the NLD’s movement to some extent. He is an active member of the youth wing’s Blood Donation Network group.

According to The Irrawaddy, Nyi Nyi, one of the core members of the NLD Youth Blood-Group, said he had earlier hoped that their group would have more opportunities since a new government had been sworn in. However, now his hopes “had quickly disappeared” following the arrest of Nay Myo Zin.

“We feel very depressed about Nay Myo Zin’s arrest,” he said. “He supported us and brought his own car to work. Without him, our group faces difficulties ahead.”

The NLD’s youth blood donors’ network was established in 2009 in Rangoon. As a result of core members’ hard works, it has already organized branches in Mandalay, Magwe and Sagaing. Now, Blood-Group Network has not less than 10,000 members, as said by Nyi Nyi.

Burmese people are eagerly watching the to-do list of the Thein Sein Government due to his rhetoric inaugural speech. People are also waiting for the release of over 2,000 political prisoners as a gesture of reconciliation. But, it seems in vain because apart from releasing the old political dissidents, it starts arresting fresh political dissenters.

President Thein Sein said in his speech, “In conclusion, respecting the people’s decision to elect our government, we will try our best for Myanmar (Burma) to be able to stand as a democratic nation in the long run with justice, freedom and equality while steadfastly shouldering the State duties. At the same time I would like to urge and invite all the people to work together with the government in the interests of the nation.”

On the contrary, a blood donor’s arrest would appear to disagree with the essence of President Thein Sein’s inaugural speech. It shows there is no freedom, justice and equality. So, the capture of ex-army captain Nay Myo Zin proves clearly that Thein Sein government will not become a democratic version.

The military faction has still jealousy toward the NLD led by Aung San Suu Kyi and even did not want to recognize the basic principle of democracy – to respect each other. They think themselves so high, while they think others of no value.

I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor
New York Times – Uninvited Visitors
By BENEDICT ROGERS
Published: April 3, 2011

I now know what it feels like for dissidents in Burma, when the authorities knock on the door late at night. In my case, I was treated civilly, but I know that if I had been Burmese it would have been far, far worse.

I had been in Burma a week, and had visited the country several times before. Having written a biography of the dictator, Than Shwe, accusing him of crimes against humanity, I was surprised to have made it back into the country, and was not surprised when the authorities caught me.

It happened at 11 p.m. on my last night in Rangoon. I had gone to the hotel bar to listen to some jazz before bed. I had been there barely five minutes when I was informed that the authorities wished to speak to me.

Six plainclothes military intelligence agents were standing outside my room.

I invited them in. I had already decided that I would answer their questions honestly, but not volunteer extra information. I would be cooperative, but not too cooperative. My top priority was to protect other people.

“Mr. Rogers, we have instructions from Naypyidaw to deport you tomorrow morning,” came the dreaded words. I had always known this was a strong possibility, but the words still make my heart sink.

I asked the reason. They told me they did not know, and were just following instructions. But during the course of the interrogation, one of them flicked through a file and I saw it contained a photocopy of the front cover of my book.

They checked my camera, and were frustrated that it only contained pictures of tourist sites. I had been scrupulously careful. They asked to copy my photos, and I asked why. “We have to show our superiors something,” one of them said.

At midnight they concluded the process, and told me to be ready at 7 a.m. They left, but five minutes later one man returned.

“I left my notebook,” he said. After searching for a while he found it in my suitcase. He must have put it in accidentally while putting my belongings back. It’s a pity he remembered — it could have been very interesting.

The following morning I was escorted to the airport by two men. They were polite. I asked again why I was being deported.

“We’ll tell you at the airport.”

At the airport I was met by a large group of officers. They photographed every step I made.

Two men sat down with me by the gate. “Mr. Rogers, after we left your hotel last night I was informed about the reason for your deportation,” one of them said. (Liar, I thought — I saw your file last night.) “I can now inform you. We know you have written several books about Myanmar, including “Than Shwe: Unmasking Burma’s Tyrant.” (At least he got the title right.) “These books, and your many articles, are misinformation about our country.”

I was determined not to go silently. I wanted them to know what I thought — but I also didn’t want to blame them personally. They were just doing their job — it was the system that was wrong.

“Is it a crime to write a book?” I asked. That flustered him. “In November, Myanmar held elections,” I continued. “So I thought Myanmar was becoming a democracy. In a democracy, it is very normal to write books freely, and very common to write books about leaders. Some books are positive, others are critical. But the fact that you are deporting me for writing a book suggests that Myanmar is not a democracy. So, can you tell me, is Myanmar becoming a democracy or not?”

He hesitated. “Myanmar will be a democracy one day, but slowly, slowly. We are in transition period.”

“I thought Myanmar was changing. But deporting a foreigner for writing a book suggests no change. So is that correct — no change?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, yes, no change, no change.”

If there is no change, surely talk of lifting sanctions is ill-judged? Now is not the time to lift sanctions, not before there is meaningful change. Rather, it’s time for the world to get tougher, to target pressure more carefully, to provide aid for the people and to investigate Than Shwe’s crimes against humanity through a United Nations inquiry.

I asked if the man deports many foreigners. He smiled. “Yes, many.” I asked if he thought my deportation was fair. He said he had not read my book, so he could not comment. “Do you have a copy of your book with you?” he asked “I would be interested to read it.”

I laughed, and said I did not, but I offered to send it to him. He did not provide his address.

I asked him if he enjoyed working for a government that treats its people so badly, and if he knew that ethnic nationalities in Burma were particularly suffering under this regime. No response.

I asked what he thought about the events in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. “I don’t like this kind of change,” he said. “I think it was created by Al Qaeda. Do you think so?”

No, I said, the movements in these countries were led by ordinary people who hate dictatorship.

“But democracy gives Al Qaeda opportunities,” he said.

I disagreed. “Democratic, open societies are a better way to challenge extremism and terrorism than dictatorship,” I said.

Then they told me I could board the plane. I reminded them that they had my passport, and they were confused over what to do. I said: “No passport, I stay in Myanmar, O.K.?” and we all laughed.

They shook my hand and said goodbye. “Thank you for treating me well,” I said. “I know that your government does not treat your own people well at all, but I am grateful that at least you treated me well.”

is the East Asia team leader at Christian Solidarity Worldwide, an international human rights organization.

I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor
New York Times – Bad Business for Burma
By MATTHEW F. SMITH
Published: April 3, 2011

The Burmese pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi recently urged Western nations to maintain economic sanctions against Myanmar, where the world’s longest-running military dictatorship is tightening its repressive ways: Over 2,000 prisoners of conscience languish behind bars in squalid conditions, while arbitrary arrests and detentions, extrajudicial killings, torture and other abuses continue to be widespread and systematic, particularly in ethnic areas.

Nevertheless, Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s message is not without controversy. It comes just weeks before the European Union will revisit its hotly debated sanctions policy, and a few disquieted Western policymakers, corporate executives and think tanks are advocating for economic engagement with the reclusive generals and their cronies. Sanctions policy is not only antiquated, ineffective, and hurtful to the Burmese people, they argue, it also gives the upper hand to China, which is sending companies to Burma with abandon, especially for big-ticket energy projects tapping natural gas reserves.

Beijing has at least 16 oil and gas companies invested in 21 onshore and offshore projects in Burma, far more than any other country. Until now, there’s been very little information available about these projects, the largest of which are dual gas and oil pipelines under construction from western Burma to the Chinese border, led by the state-controlled China National Petroleum Corporation and Korea’s Daewoo International.

Passing rugged mountains, dense jungles, arid plains, important rivers and a number of contested territories and population densities in Burma, the 500-mile-long pipelines will enable Beijing to bypass the vulnerable Strait of Malacca and supply gas and oil directly to landlocked Yunnan Province.

Leaked documents and clandestine interviews with affected populations along the project route in Burma confirm that the Burmese military is responsible for guarding the pipelines and related infrastructure, and for committing serious human rights violations in connection to the projects.

The most common violation so far is land confiscation and forced or coerced evictions. Families have been stripped of their means of subsistence — their land — with little or no compensation, making them instantly more vulnerable to the trappings of poverty and abuse in the militarized state.

“I don’t have enough rice for my family,” said one farmer who lost the land his family cultivated for generations. “I worry for my family.”

Violent abuses are also happening. “They blindfolded me and put me in a car,” an Arakanese man reported, referring to Burma’s Military Intelligence, “I’m not sure where they drove.” This man was tortured brutally for four days in a windowless room before standing trial on trumped-up charges with no defense lawyer.

Not that legal representation would have mattered. In proceedings that he says lasted five minutes, a Burmese judge sentenced him to six months in the notorious Insein Prison, where he survived appalling conditions before going into hiding. His crime: leading two community-level training sessions to raise awareness about the pipelines.

Unsurprisingly, in a multitude of interviews, not one villager expressed support for the pipelines.

Perhaps of greatest concern for Burma’s development is that the projects will generate billions of dollars annually through gas sales, taxes, fees, royalties and production bonuses. If the past is any judge, those revenues will accrue to the military rulers and serve to widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Burma already ranks as the world’s second most corrupt country, beating only Somalia, according to Transparency International, which publishes a widely cited corruption perception index.

Barring targeted action from the international community, revenues from these pipelines will likely remain outside the national budget and tucked away in offshore bank accounts held in trust for the military rulers and their closed network of political and economic elite. Despite billions of dollars in export gas sales already coming in, new schools and hospitals are few and far between in resource-rich Burma, but luxury homes and expensive cars for the ruling elite and their families abound.

As sanctions policies are revisited, Western oil and mining companies shouldn’t assume they have the answers for Burma’s development or that they can do better than China. No matter how well intentioned a company may be, no matter how responsible, constructing new energy projects in Burma’s contested ethnic territories with the backing of the Burmese Army is bound to be violent, and enormous revenue flows into military coffers will do more to perpetuate authoritarianism than to promote positive change, regardless of where those revenues come from.

Barring meaningful political changes, new energy projects in today’s Burma are simply not good business — for China, the West, or the people of Burma, regardless of any sanctions policy.

Matthew F. Smith is a senior consultant with EarthRights International, which represented Burmese plaintiffs in Doe v. Unocal Corporation.

Monsters and Critics – Thai police arrest man for impersonating cop to rape immigrants
Apr 4, 2011, 4:43 GMT

Bangkok – Thai police arrested a man for impersonating an officer to rape a female migrant labourer from Myanmar, local media reported Monday.

Parkphoom Maneerat, 29, a salesman, was arrested Sunday after a 25-year-old Myanmar woman charged him with detaining her for five nights in a hotel and raping her repeatedly after claiming he was a police officer, the Thai Rath newspaper reported.

Parkphoom reportedly stopped the woman, a construction worker, as she was walking along a road in Kathu district on Phuket Island, 692 kilometres south of Bangkok, on March 28 and demanded she get into his pickup truck.

Posing as a police office, Parkphoom demanded to see her alien identification card, and when she said she had left it at home he took her to a small hotel in nearby Krabi province where he locked her in a room until Friday, police said.

When she was released, the woman told her Thai employer and together they pressed charges against the suspect.

‘Since his arrest, six other Myanmar and Nepalese woman have come forward to claim that they were also raped by Parkphoom while he was impersonating a police officer,’ Phuket police chief Major-General Phitak Thanthipong said. ‘Personally, I think there were many more victims.’

There are an estimated 2 million migrant workers in Thailand, of whom about 600,000 have proper work papers while the rest are working in the kingdom illegally.

The Globe & Mail – Democracy party in Myanmar still a one-woman show
MARK MacKINNON
Published Sunday, Apr. 03, 2011 7:56PM EDT
Last updated Sunday, Apr. 03, 2011 8:52PM EDT

The impotence of the party that has long led Myanmar’s democracy movement was on full display last week as Myanmar’s military junta officially stepped down – and replaced itself with a “civilian” government made up of ex-generals.

“The State Peace and Development Council is officially dissolved,” state television reported on Wednesday, referring to the clutch of generals that has been in power since a 1988 coup. The dissolution was reportedly ordered by Senior General Than Shwe, who has wielded absolute power since 1992, and who will now play an unclear behind-the-scenes role.

The National League for Democracy was neither represented in the country’s new military-dominated parliament as the new government was formed, nor willing to mobilize its supporters onto the streets outside. Instead, it remains trapped in stasis, watching helplessly as the country undergoes a transition that (depending on who you ask) is either an awkward first step toward genuine reform or a cynical move by the generals to entrench their hold on power.

Twenty-one years ago, the NLD’s Rangoon headquarters was very nearly the vortex of a peaceful revolution. Today, it feels more like a museum to those thrilling times than the hub of any current threat to the generals’ plans.

On the upper floor of the two-storey shack, a clutch of men in their 70s and 80s – known as the “uncles” of the NLD – sit on wooden folding chairs and peer through eyeglasses at a pile of printed-off e-mails. There was no computer in sight when The Globe and Mail visited earlier this year, and business with the outside world was conducted via an ancient General Electric alarm clock/telephone that sat on the desk beside a stack of phone books. (A computer has apparently since been installed, albeit with an Internet connection so slow as to make even checking e-mail a time-consuming endeavour.)

The only thing that changed with the times were the pictures of the movement’s iconic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. In the photograph closest to her office, she’s captured as she was when she first won over the crowds of antigovernment protesters in 1988, her eyes glowing with idealism. Next comes a painting, perhaps done during her long years of house arrest, of her smiling gracefully from under a bamboo hat. Third, and largest, is Ms. Suu Kyi in November of last year on the day of her most recent release from house arrest, her face now lined, wisdom and wariness evident in her gaze.

There’s little question that the NLD remains a one-woman show, with all of its hope resting on the narrow shoulders of the woman who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.

Those expectations may prove too high for a 65-year-old woman – whom The Globe and Mail learned is in frail health – to meet or bear.

Four months on from the euphoria that surrounded her release, the “peaceful revolution” Ms. Suu Kyi called for seems no closer. The woman most here simply call The Lady has been left on the political sidelines as the country’s long-ruling generals instituted the new system they call “discipline-flourishing democracy,” beginning with elections last year that the NLD boycotted as a sham.

Few see the junta’s official disbanding as anything but a cosmetic change, at least in terms of its short-term implications. Thein Sein, the new president, is the junta’s former prime minister and a protégé of Gen. Than Shwe, who is expected to continue to wield wide influence over nearly every aspect of the country’s affairs.

Ms. Suu Kyi – who still insists the military should honour her party’s 1990 election win – has condemned the moves in her meetings with foreign diplomats and journalists as a “parody of democracy,” but her message primarily reaches an outside audience. On the ground in this impoverished and repressed country (which is also known as Burma), The Lady is almost as invisible now as she was while confined to her family’s crumbling lakeside mansion in Rangoon for 15 of the past 21 years.

Her lack of visibility is partly due to the generals’ efforts to marginalize her – associates say it’s not clear how much she can do or say without being rearrested – as well as Ms. Suu Kyi’s own decision to take a more cautious approach in dealing with the authorities than she did during previous periods of freedom.

She has also been hampered by a string of illnesses that left her bedridden for several weeks in late January and early February.

In a telephone interview with The Globe and Mail after she returned to work in February, Ms. Suu Kyi acknowledged the first weeks after her house arrest ended were “far too hectic” and that she needed to “keep a sensible schedule” from now on.

Ms. Suu Kyi’s illnesses have robbed her and the NLD of much of the momentum they gained from her release, which was followed by a series of enthralling speeches in Rangoon. But she has yet to test the boundaries of her new freedom by travelling beyond the city.

“We are trying to go out to the countryside, but we have to take care. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi could be assassinated at any time, ever in Rangoon. We have to think twice before she goes to the countryside,” said Win Tin, a senior leader of the NLD who spent 19 years in prison before his own release in 2008.

Mr. Win Tin said the party had taken some heart from the popular uprisings now rolling across the Middle East, “but if you ask whether we can lead such kind of activities or initiate such an uprising here, we might say no. Our leadership is rather out of touch. We spent many years in jail and so on and we have only limited contacts with the people.”

“We have had the experience of being ignored for many years, but we don’t mind because the people are with us and the international community is with us,” Mr. Win Tin said as he sat in an office that was half empty and seemingly directionless during Ms. Suu Kyi’s absence. “One day, in the very near future [the generals] will have to talk with us.”

The Australian – Aussie editor fighting still after 47 days in Burma jail
Elizabeth Hughes
April 04, 2011 12:00AM

ROSS Dunkley was greeted with cheers, applause and a shower of confetti when he arrived in the newsroom of the Myanmar Times last week.

The Australian publisher and editor had been locked up in Burma’s notorious Insein prison for nearly seven weeks, detained on sexual assault charges and flow-on immigration violations despite furiously protesting his innocence. He was finally released on bail last Tuesday, and he has been ordered to return to court in Rangoon today for yet another hearing, possibly the last. The charges laid against him could be dropped.

The woman concerned, said to be a prostitute, has tried to withdraw claims that he drugged and assaulted her. She reportedly told the court she was pregnant and would not be able to attend hearings. But the judges could again ignore her and decide to proceed with a trial.

In the newsroom, Dunkley beamed at the applauding staff members, stood on a chair and made a short speech. More than 350 people are employed by Myanmar Consolidated Media, which publishes the weekly Myanmar Times, as well as the Now! and Crime Journal titles. Published in both Burmese and English, the Myanmar Times was co-founded by Dunkley a decade ago. It is popular with both the Burmese elite and the nation’s expatriate population. Dunkley told the employees that without their support he wouldn’t have made it through 47 days in prison.

An editorial staffer on the Myanmar Times said Dunkley was an inspired leader and his release came as a relief in many ways. “People were very, very pleased to have him back in the office,” the staffer said, adding that he hadn’t really expected him to be let out of prison. “I assumed he was going to be held and eventually deported. But I suppose with him being released on bail, he has a good chance of seeing the charges dropped.”

Burma’s justice system can be inscrutable, to say the least, but the ruling State Peace and Development Council junta was formally dissolved last week and its power transferred to a nominally civilian government, so perhaps change is in the air.

Still, many of Dunkley’s supporters fear he is in for a difficult trial, which might end in a lengthy jail term. The brash newspaperman has raised a few eyebrows in the power structures of Burma (a nation also known as Myanmar); pushing for a daily licence for the Myanmar Times, commenting publicly on his position in Burma, and permitting an Australian documentary crew to make a film about him. On the other hand, his critics argue that Dunkley has played along with Burma’s oppressive military regime, agreeing to submit the newspaper to rigorous government censors and contributing to the whitewash of a nation in tatters.

After his release, Dunkley told Radio Australia that he didn’t want to comment on the case too much, adding there was “a game going on behind the scenes” and politics was an ugly business. “I’m not the type that seizes people and keeps them captive; rape, torture, all sorts of words have come up in relation to me, trying to slur my name,” he said. “And people who know me in the industry, they know very well that that’s not me and I sleep very well at night. Let the course of justice run its course here and I think it’ll be a great case. When I walk free, I can raise my hands and say that Myanmar may be taking a good step forward, as it turns a new leaf.”

Dunkley’s troubles began last year when visas for the firm’s foreign staff were delayed and his own visa was not immediately issued. Then, in January, a Burmese publication reported that Dunkley had been replaced as editor-in-chief, and Burma observers began to discuss the power struggle between Dunkley and his partner at Myanmar Consolidated Media, Tin Tun Oo.

Dunkley and his foreign backers control 49 per cent of the firm, and Dr Tin Tun Oo and other Burmese shareholders own 51 per cent. The doctor, who failed to win a seat as a candidate for the military regime’s proxy party in Burma’s national elections last year, is known to be a close friend of Burma’s hardline Information Minister, Kyaw Hsan.

When Dunkley was arrested in February, his colleague, David Armstrong, suggested in a statement that his detention “coincides with tense and protracted discussions” between Dunkley and local and foreign backers about the future of the business, including “ownership issues and senior leadership roles”.

Dr Tin Tun Oo soon took over as chief executive of Myanmar Consolidated Media and editor-in-chief of the Burmese edition of the Myanmar Times. Australian mining magnate Bill Clough, the company’s main foreign backer who has other business interests in Burma, became acting managing director and editor-in-chief of the paper’s English language edition.

Still, in his short speech to staff last week, Dunkley took time to thank Dr Tin Tun Oo. The doctor put up half the bail money for Dunkley’s release and he has vociferously denied any double-game. He was not on hand to hear the speech, but it seems the animosity between the pair has faded, at least for the time being. A visa for a foreign staffer has been granted, and there are signs that two more are on the way.

When he was released, Dunkley made it clear he would fight his corner. “I’ll be staying in the country and will continue to fight the case,” he said. “I just can’t believe there is a case. There is no witness; there is no evidence. I have no intention to let this go on.”

Sunday, April 3, 2011
The Japan Times – Burma, the broken country
By DAVID BURLEIGH

EVERYTHING IS BROKEN: The Untold Story of Disaster Under Burma’s Military Regime, by Emma Larkin. Granta, 2010, 265 pp., £12.99 (paper)

Tropical storms are given names by meteorological offices around the world. In English we generally prefer to be anthropomorphic, using male and female names alternately, but elsewhere it may be different: Nargis, the cyclone that swept through Burma (Myanmar) in 2008 was named in India and means narcissus.

In her previous book about Burma (as she prefers to call it), Emma Larkin drew a parallel, from quiet confidential conversations, between the thought-controlled world of George Orwell’s novels such as “1984″ and that country now. Larkin writes under a pseudonym, but speaks Burmese and slips in and out of the country often, gathering what information she can. She builds a believable portrait of life under the military regime.

“Everything is Broken,” which has an epigraph from Bob Dylan, is her account of the destruction wreaked by the cyclone, and how little the government did to help.

Admittedly, the path of the cyclone was not easily predictable, and the low-lying delta region where it made landfall was difficult to escape from or protect. But what was most bewildering to the outside world was the way that the Burmese government refused, and obstructed, all offers of help from other countries in the immediate aftermath of a devastating storm. Even now, it is almost impossible to get an accurate assessment of the damage and the loss of life.

Visiting Burma soon after the storm, and restricted at first to the former capital of Rangoon, the author notes: “The destruction in the city was catastrophic, but it soon became apparent that what had happened in Rangoon was nothing compared to the devastation in the Irrawaddy Delta.”

Later, she manages to travel further out: observing for herself and, more importantly, listening to what the survivors have to say.

While international relief organizations urgently prepared assistance just after the disaster, the Burmese authorities steadfastly refused all this. Even after a visit from the Secretary General of the United Nations, and appeals from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, outside help from seasoned professionals was only grudgingly allowed.

Some reasons for the generals’ reluctance were suggested later by those on the ground: that they were ashamed to accept charity greater than they could give themselves; that the supply-filled ships anchored offshore in the Andaman Sea seemed to constitute a threat. Even so, it is difficult to comprehend a government that so obviously works against the welfare and interests of its people.

The book is divided into three parts, the middle of which fills in the background, and tells us what was happening before the storm, when the soldiers quelled a desperate protest
movement by shooting Buddhist monks.

Interestingly, Larkin pays a visit to the new capital at Naypidaw, which sounds as bleak as North Korea must be. I didn’t realize that the unhealthy delta region had been settled and reclaimed in the 19th century — somewhat like the Sundarbans of India and Bangladesh — under the British colonial administration.

It is unsettling to read how the storm swept in “killing a staggering 90 percent of the population” in the most exposed areas, when Japan has just suffered a similar disaster.

The “size and ferocity” of Cyclone Nargis was of an order never experienced before — rather like the recent tsunami in Japan — and could not perhaps have been prepared for. But help could have been given when the wind and waves receded, leaving the land salty and infertile.

Whatever the mindset of the reclusive generals, there can be little excuse for their failure to provide assistance to the tens of thousands of their own people affected by this terrible event. On this point, Emma Larkin’s moving account is absolutely clear.

People’s Daily Online – Chinese top political advisor meets Myanmar official on bilateral ties
10:36, April 03, 2011

China’s top political advisor Jia Qinglin on Saturday met with the head of central Myanmar’s Mandalay region and agreed to boost regional cooperation between the two neighboring countries.

In a meeting with U Ye Myint, chief minister of Mandalay region, Jia, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, said both countries and peoples have established a brotherly friendship.

Noting that the friendship has been further deepened with joint efforts, Jia said mutual political trust is being steadily deepened and bilateral cooperation in various fields continues to achieve new progress.

Mandalay has maintained frequent exchanges with China.

Regional exchange and cooperation constitutes an important part of bilateral relations and China is ready to foster cooperation in various fields including economy, trade and tourism between Mandalay and Chinese provinces, Jia said.

China will also encourage more Chinese enterprises to invest in Mandalay, which will help further bilateral friendship between the two countries, he added.

For his part, U Ye Myint welcomed Jia’s arrival, saying that he is honored to know that Mandalay is the first stop of Jia’s four-day visit to the country.

The chief minister of Mandalay said he is determined to boost Mandalay’s cooperation with China during his tenure.

Jia arrived here early Saturday for a friendly visit to the country. He is scheduled to hold meetings with Myanmar’s newly elected leaders. Jia is also expected to announce new aid measures to the quake-stricken northeast. The two countries will sign a package of cooperation pacts.

Trade between China and Myanmar has been on a sharp rise in recent years. In 2010, bilateral trade totaled 4.444 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 53.2 percent over the year before.

Li Junhua, China’s ambassador to Myanmar, told Xinhua before the visit that Jia’s visit is of great importance to the China- Myanmar neighborly and friendly relations and economic and trade cooperation, and will serve as a new opportunity for both sides to further the already friendly bilateral ties.

Myanmar is the first stop of Jia’s three nation tour, which will also take him to Australia and Samoa.

Source: Xinhua

Gulf Times – Work begins on $255mn rail line project
Latest Update: Monday4/4/2011April, 2011, 01:44 AM Doha Time

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday opened construction work on a rail line that will connect Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh’s southeastern beach resort to neighbouring Myanmar.

The $255mn project of 2-meter gauge lines will connect Jhilongjha with Chittagong, the principal port city on one side and on the other side, it will connect Ramu with Gundum near the Myanmarese border by December 2013, Star Online, website of The Daily Star reported. The first survey for the railway line was conducted in 1890 during the British era. But due to the two World Wars the construction works could not start. The first feasibility study on the rail line was conducted in 2001 during Hasina’s previous tenure.

Bangladesh has a 300km border with Myanmar. It hopes to connect by road and rail through Myanmar with Kunmin in China.

Bangkok Post – EDITORIAL: Burma still on road to ruin
Published: 4/04/2011 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News

The military junta has ended its control of Burma. The nation is no longer a dictatorship; it is a “disciplined democracy”. Instead of a sham presidency, the nation now has a prime minister who sits in parliament. And parliament was elected. That is the image that Burma is trying to sell abroad, and to a lesser extent at home.

It is a false image, and it is a shame that the world now has collectively decided to give the ruling generals a break.

Burma remains the most authoritarian country in the region, and authorities there are open about the fact they do not intend to loosen controls in the foreseeable future.

The Burma which today is ruled by the General Administrative Department is pretty much identical to the Burma which last month was under the Orwellian State Peace and Development Council. The changes made last week are purely cosmetic. The military’s hand-picked president, Gen Thein Sein, has become the military’s hand-picked prime minister. He sits in a parliament which the constitution guarantees will have at least 25% of its members from the military.

In fact, by manipulation and intimidation, the military’s hand-picked political party swept the sham polls last November. Men in uniform and trusted allies make up 77% of the parliament.

Burma today is perfect proof that elections are no measure of democracy. Every tinpot dictatorship and tyrannical country has elections _ North Korea, Libya, Cuba, Syria and Uzbekistan among them. Like them, Burma uses the grand phrase of democracy. For such countries, free elections, political parties, campaign tours and constitutional referenda are useful slogans.

The real trappings of democracy, especially the prime duty of being accountable to the voters, do not feature in these nations.

Prime Minister Thein Sein is under no legal or public pressure to answer grievances, explain government excesses, or protect citizens from state abuse.

The best example of this is the unrelenting pressure on Burma’s best known personality, the democracy icon and freedom fighter Aung San Suu Kyi. The junta used her in their lobbying for international understanding by releasing her from her illegal arrest.

Within weeks, official state media warned that Ms Suu Kyi and her allies would “meet their tragic ends” if they continue to campaign for democracy.

There are military rulers and military regimes who take over countries and lead them to democracy. In this region, the current role model is arguably Indonesia. After the popular uprising which ousted Suharto in 1998, generals led the period of Reformasi. Ironically, Burmese leaders openly admired the Indonesian system when Suharto and the generals terrified the nation. It would be a major, admirable advance if today’s controllers continued to follow the Indonesian example. Obviously, they have no intention of doing so.

Since 1962, the army has beat Burma and its people down. Back then, Burma was a shining light of freedom aspirations, and a leading economic power in the region. For some 50 years, the generals have dragged down their country, and literally terrorised opposition figures.

The Burmese model of prisons, torture and secret arrests remains government policy; some 2,000 Burmese remain as political prisoners. This is sad, but perhaps not so sad as the way Burma’s neighbours and world opinion has bought into the fake claims that Burma is on the road to democracy. The fact is it remains on the road to ruin.

GMA News – PHL gives $50k to Myanmar disaster victims
04/04/2011 | 05:50 PM

The Philippines has donated $50,000 (P2.165 million) to Myanmar as assistance for victims of the recent natural disasters there.

Philippine Ambassador to Myanmar Hellen Barber turned over the donation to new Myanmar Foreign Minister U Wunna Maung Lwin, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said.

“After Cyclone Nargis hit the country in May 2008, Myanmar suffered heavy damages anew from Cyclone Giri that struck Rakhine State in October 2010 and from the recent 7.0-magnitude earthquake that jolted Shan State in northeastern Myanmar on March 24,” the DFA said in a news release.

A witness during the turnover of the donation was Myanmar Deputy Foreign Minister U Maung Myint, the DFA said.

The Irrawaddy – Than Shwe Acquires State Properties
By YAN PAI Monday, April 4, 2011

Burma’s State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), the military junta that ruled the country since September 1988 under different names, reportedly transferred ownership of over 1,000 acres of rubber plantations, jade mines and gold mines to junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe and his family, according to business sources in Rangoon.

The rubber plantations are located in the areas controlled by the Burmese army’s Southeast Region Command and Coastal Region Command, and the jade and gold mining sites are in the country’s northern Kachin State.

A businessman close to the regime told The Irrawaddy that the transfer had to be completed before the SPDC was dissolved on March 30 and the new government lead by former prime minister Thein Sein was sworn in. He said the rubber plantations were placed in Than Shwe’s name and the jade and gold mines, which were under care of the regime’s Ministry of Mines, were transferred to his daughters.

A source from the regime’s Ministry of Finance and Revenue (MFR) said the ownership of certain premises in Rangoon, Naypyidaw and Maymyo, as well as over 30 vehicles, were put in the names of Than Shwe’s children and grandchildren. The transfer of those premises and cars, which were provided to the junta leader by the SPDC, was done without paying any tax to the state, the source said.

The MFR source also said Nay Shwe Thway Aung, Than Shwe’s most beloved grandson, has acquired many major properties in Rangoon. One of the properties he has taken over, located on Kabaraye Pagoda Road, used to belong to the Ministry of Industry 1. Others belonged to the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Department of Atomic Energy and the Ministry of Industry 2 located in Yankin Township. He has taken over the land of the duty-free market in Yankin as well, the source said.

Since late 2009, with a pretext of privatization, the SPDC transferred the ownership of state-owned ministry buildings and enterprises in Rangoon and Mandalay to private companies run by leading military figures or regime cronies. Most of the transferred businesses were reportedly acquired by private companies such as Asia World, Max Myanmar, Htoo and IGE.

In addition to the dissolution of the SPDC, Than Shwe handed over his position as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces to Gen Min Aung Hlaing.

Than Shwe’s future role under the new government is not known, but military sources in Naypyidaw said he heads the soon-to-be officially formed State Supreme Council, the highest decision making body in the country that will directly control the armed forces.

The challenges facing Burma’s new government
Monday, 04 April 2011 19:36 Mizzima News

The final, 7th step of the Burmese junta’s so-called roadmap to democracy has been completed with the handing over of power to the newly installed government led by President Thein Sein on March 30.

The question everyone is asking is whether the new government, led by a retired general, can do any better than the previous military government or will it be more of the same?

Many people argue that whatever benefits there are will largely go to military officials and their associates.

Many challenges lie ahead for President Thein Sein, who celebrates his 66th birthday on April 20.

He faces on-going politially sensitive issues. The opposition and many world leaders are calling for the release of almost 2,100 political prisoners. The pro-democracy opposition is calling for national reconciliation. There’s the life and death issue of cease-fire groups along the border, which are still refusing to accept the junta’s offer of transforming their armies into a government-controlled Border Guard Force. Other challenges include government corruption and how to jump-start a stagnant economy which suffers from a dysfunctional banking system.

In addition, there is the issue of division of power between the central government and regional and local governments.

And on top of all that is a great overhanging question: now that the country has a parliamentary government with civilians in control, how much power, if any, will be taken away from the previously military-controlled government?

According to the President’s inaugural address, the new government will put great emphasis on building up the armed forces, citing possible threats and Burma’s need to modernise its forces.

In the military-created budget appropriation for the 2011-2012 fiscal year, just a little over 1 percent of the total budget was earmarked for health care. Likewise, education got a dismal token amount, while nearly 25 percent went to the military.

Another worry is that the new Constitution confers real sovereign power to the  National Defence and Security Council (NDSC),  which, in terms of real power, overshadows the newly installed civilian government.

The Constitution stipulates that the president must seek consent of the council on certain specified decisions, taken the decisions away from the Parliament. The NDSC is clearly dominated by hardliners and is made up of the president, two vice presidents, the speakers of both houses, the commander in chief, the deputy commander in chief, the defence minister, the foreign minister, the home minister and the border affairs minister.

Meanwhile, real work is going to be required from the new Parliament, including allocating more money for research and investment, education and health care, while also addressing the need for more electrical power and more water across the country.

President Thein Sein should be given some credit for stressing the need to protect the environment in his inaugural address, but we have to wait to see if the government follows through by enforcing existing law, passing better laws and prosecuting violators.

Surprisingly, Thein Sein didn’t say a single word about the powerful earthquake which hit eastern Shan State and killed at least 74 people just a week before he took office.

However, Thein Sein gets good marks from some observers for being a good listener and one of the least corrupt of the generals, but he must now walk the walk rather than talk the talk in his inaugural address, which was filled with a lot of  pleasing words.

Before, he could give excuses about being a general in a military government, but no more. Now he’s the highest elected civilian in a civilian government.

In recent weeks, the Burmese people have witnessed calls for democracy throughout the Middle East. Now that there is a Burmese Parliament with elected officials, the people are expecting something better than they received from the military government.

How much President Thein Sein can deliver on making the lives of the people better will determine the people’s attitudes about the new government. The jury is still out.

Shan NLD branch to donate money to families of political prisoners
Monday, 04 April 2011 23:24 Myo Thant

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The Shan State branch of the National League for Democracy says that it will give 5,000 kyat (US $5.75) a month to the families of political prisoners from Shan State to help them visit their loved ones.

There are 25 political prisoners from Shan State, according to  figure compiled by the Shan NLD branch.

One prisoner, NLD candidate Kyaw Khin, who won in the 1990 election in Taunggyi Constituency No. 1, has been arrested twice. The first time, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He is now serving a second14-year prison term in Taunglaylone Prison in southern Shan State.

He was first arrested for having a video tape showing a trip of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. After serving a 10-year prison term, he was released, and then, 52 days after his release, he was arrested in February 2005 and charged under the Emergency Provisions Act.

Khin Moe Moe, the secretary of the NLD Shan State branch, told Mizzima many families had financial problems.

‘If other states and regions know about our program and they follow our idea, the worries of some families will be eased a little’, he said. ‘Some prisoners are detained very far from their homes and travel costs are expensive.

‘If the new government offers amnesty to all political prisoners, people will love the government. They should offer it as soon as possible to remove the people’s hatred of the authorities’, Khin Moe Moe said.

Currently, the Shan NLD branch has been supporting the families of Kyaw Khin (Taunglaylone Prison); Tun Nyo (Buthidaung Prison),; Nyi Nyi Moe (Myinchan Prison); Sai Myo Win Tun (Pakokku Prison); and Aung Zaw Oo (Lashio Prison).

The program was adopted on March 17 after a meeting involving NLD and Shan State NLD leaders.

Similarly, NLD headquarters in Rangoon donates 5,000 kyat a  month to more than 600 political prisoners across the country.

In Burma, there are a total of 2,076 political prisoners including 324 ethnic members, according to figures compiled this month by a Thai-based organisation, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).

DVB News – Pentagon man tipped for Burma post
By AFP
Published: 4 April 2011

President Barack Obama will soon appoint the first US special envoy on Burma, officials said, signalling a renewed effort to pry open the nation after its much criticised political transition.

People involved in the process said Obama would name Derek Mitchell, a veteran policymaker on Asia who now serves at the Pentagon, as the coordinator for US efforts for the country.

A US official said on condition of anonymity that the administration would announce the nomination “very soon” and likely roll out Mitchell with an appearance before Congress, a hotbed of criticism of Burma.

The nomination was first reported by Foreign Policy magazine’s blog The Cable.

After Obama took office in January 2009, his administration concluded that Western efforts to isolate the military-led nation had been ineffective and initiated a dialogue with the junta.

The United States has voiced disappointment over developments in Burma, including an election in November widely denounced as a sham, but has said that it sees no alternative to engagement at such a fluid time.

Kurt Campbell, the top state department official for East Asia, had personally spearheaded the Obama administration’s efforts on Burma and travelled twice to the isolated country.

Congress approved a wide-ranging law on Burma in 2008 that tightened sanctions and created the special envoy position. Then-president George W. Bush named Michael Green, formerly one of his top aides, but the nomination died in the Senate due to an unrelated political dispute.

Green, now a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Georgetown University, said Mitchell’s expected appointment would give momentum to Burma policy – provided that the administration gives him enough space to manoeuvre.

“Kurt Campbell wanted to make a serious run at this. He did as well as could be expected but it yielded no positive change, so now they want to invest this with someone who has a full-time commitment,” Green told AFP.

In naming an envoy, Campbell could escape the criticism levelled against his predecessor in the Bush administration, Christopher Hill, who was accused in some quarters of neglecting most of the dynamic Asia region because he was personally engrossed in denuclearisation negotiations with North Korea.

Burma’s ruling junta officially disbanded on Wednesday, giving the country a nominally civilian government for the first time in nearly a century. But many analysts called the move a masquerade, as top junta figures remain firmly in leadership positions, albeit without their uniforms.

In one development welcomed overseas, Burmese authorities last year freed pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The Nobel laureate had spent most of the last two decades under house arrest after her party won previous elections.

Suu Kyi has no voice in Burma’s new parliament. Her National League for Democracy was disbanded after it chose to boycott the elections, which it suspected were designed to marginalise the opposition and ethnic minorities.

In an address Saturday to activists gathered in Washington, Suu Kyi appealed for sustained world attention on her country – which human rights groups say experiences some of the world’s most severe abuses.

“At this moment, Burma is at a crossroads,” Suu Kyi told the meeting of the US Campaign for Burma in a video message.

“There are those who say that we have come to a place where there is change visible, but there are those of us who believe that change has not yet come – no visible change, just superficial change, not real change.

“May I say to renew your efforts once again to make sure that the Burma cause is kept alive at all the important places where it should be kept alive – in the minds of governments, in the minds of the United Nations, in the minds of peoples all over the world,” she added.

Suu Kyi enjoys wide support in the US Congress. Four senators – Republicans Mitch McConnell and Mark Kirk and Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer – urged the administration not to lift sanctions over Burma’s transition.

Representative Joseph Crowley, a Democrat active on Burma, said separately: “One thing is certain – when it comes to Burma’s military regime, the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

DVB News – Life behind parliament’s stonewalls
By KYAW KYAW
Published: 4 April 2011

It has been disparagingly referred to as the “15-minute parliament”, but over the past few weeks the upper and lower houses in Naypyidaw (known as the Amyotha and Pyithu Hluttaw respectively) have been anything but.

From when the parliament began hearing questions and proposals from MPs on 9 March 2011 to when the first regular sessions concluded on 23 March, the lower house was in session for an average of almost four hours a day. In the upper house, which has fewer representatives, sessions averaged about three hours and 15 minutes each day.

No doubt these sessions were punctuated by long teashop breaks in the parliament canteen – reportedly one of just five rooms in the mammoth parliament complex that MPs are allow to enter – and much of the rest of the time has been spent listening to long-winded answers from government ministers. These have disclosed important facts such as the proportion of Chin nationals employed at the 15 Electrical Engineers’ Offices in Chin state (177 out of 197, or 89.85 percent, in case you were wondering) and the number of “local” teachers employed at Basic Education High Schools in Buthidaung township (50 out of 51, but the non-local is the wife of a “service personnel assigned to the region”, Minister for Education Dr Chan Nyein assures us).

However, this level of detail – and the discouraging presentation of the New Light of Myanmar, the only source for much of the goings on in parliament – has only served to obfuscate the fact that in the past two to three weeks we have seen a level of accountability, or at least disclosure, from the military that has probably not been present for several decades.
A broad range of topics have been discussed, with the overwhelming majority of questions and proposals submitted by the less than 20 percent of parliamentarians not from the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) or military. In all, 46 questions and 17 proposals were submitted in the lower house, while 33 questions and 16 proposals were submitted in the upper house.

Another four days of questions and proposals were heard in the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, the combined upper and lower houses, before the new government was sworn in on 30 March.
Many of these have focused on regional infrastructure but ministers have also answered questions on a possible amnesty for prisoners, the introduction of compulsory military service, prevalence of tax evasion, lack of availability of loans for small-to-medium enterprises, manipulation of commodity prices, excessive cost of mobile phones, low internet connectivity, sale of fuel onto the black market, prevalence of gambling, conducting of a national census, cost of middle and high school education and the raising of pensions and government salaries.

Most observers will instantly recognise these as issues that are not normally discussed in domestic media. Accompanying many reports are a litany of facts that, as The Diplomat noted, “have been unexpectedly useful in determining the true situation in the country”.

“The bicameral parliament may be an institution that’s manipulated by the junta, but so far it has been providing us with junta-sanctioned reports about the deteriorating conditions inside the country which the pro-democracy movement could use to push for more democratic and substantial reforms,” Mong Palatino wrote.

And so it is that we have the Minister of Electric Power 2 U Khin Aung Myint (also the speaker of the upper house) admitting publicly that Chin state – with a population in excess of 500,000 – has a total electricity generation capacity of just three megawatts. In other words, enough for less than one in 10 people in Chin state to use a 60-watt light bulb at the same time.

However, the discussion in both mainstream and exile media about the parliamentary sessions has been minimal.

One report – “15 minutes of fame for Myanmar MPs” – even went so far as to insinuate that opposition politicians were only in parliament to raise their profile and collect the modest 300,000 kyat (about $US330) a month salary.

“[M]any [opposition MPs] will pay lip service to the new era of democracy that has supposedly arrived in Myanmar [Burma] – though more for international rather than domestic consumption,” wrote Aung Din from the US Campaign for Burma.

It is regrettable that the writer didn’t put as much time into fact checking as he did slandering opposition parliamentarians. “Since its opening, parliament meetings have not been allowed to last more than 15 minutes,” he writes, before castigating MPs for not calling for an amnesty – something they did on 22 March. (The minister responded by saying it was the responsibility of the new government.)

The irony of all this is that Aung Din’s article – which also contains some valid criticisms – is almost as misleading as the government propaganda that he rails against.
Unfortunately, though, this has been par for the course. Most international media coverage of Burma has returned to the perennial issues of economic sanctions and the role of the National League for Democracy – almost as if the 2010 election never happened.

Partly this is because access to what is going on in Naypyidaw is extremely difficult. MPs face jail for revealing the contents of parliamentary discussions and no reporters are allowed into the parliament buildings. At the same time, the state media has of course only been presenting part of what’s going on in Naypyidaw. Much of the discussion has apparently been censored from media reports, and questions from MPs sometimes appear truncated. Two examples that immediately come to mind were questions about citizenship issues in northern Arakan state that failed to mention the Rohingya ethnic group.

Many questions and proposals by MPs have not even made it to the parliaments. Questions and proposals have to be submitted to the speakers’ office 10 and 15 days in advance respectively for vetting. One article, which as far as I can tell has now been removed from the exile media website on which it was recently published, quoted an opposition parliamentarian as saying that many questions and proposals – particularly on the 2011-12 national budget – had been dismissed on the grounds that they were “not relevant to the current situation”. This probably means that the speaker does not consider them relevant to the SPDC because it will no longer be in power when the 2011-12 financial year begins on 1 April.

One political analyst I know was very critical of opposition MPs for submitting questions before the new government had entered office and showing their hand too early.
“It just gives the SPDC a chance to talk about all the things they’ve been doing,” he said, “and shows the naivety of the new representatives.”

For this very reason the National Unity Party representatives have been biding their time. “We have many questions and motions ready to be discussed but we won’t submit them yet … we will hold them until the next session, after reviewing what happened in this session,” Pyithu Hluttaw MP U Mann Maung Maung Nyan told Rangoon weekly The Myanmar Times last week.

Another observation is that the public have shown little interest in the parliamentary sessions, which have generated none of the political discussion that was seen during the election campaign. Opposition parties have largely faded into the background. It is disappointing that they have failed to gain any traction with the public since the election and continue to focus on the sanctions issue rather than building their political base.

“The senior general [Than Shwe] loves sanctions, because the discussion distracts from everything else that is going on,” one journalist told me last week. “But the opposition parties need to see past that and work harder at explaining to the public exactly who they are. Most ordinary people are still confused, because they only know the government and the NLD.”

“Poverty and a lack of hope have encouraged most people not to think about either politics or the country’s long term future. They see little value in the parliamentary system because any concrete benefits are still a long way from being realised.”

Nevertheless, some opposition politicians have privately expressed optimism and even satisfaction at the proceedings over the past couple of weeks. While members of the opposition acknowledge that they have very little power, some are confident that they have at least established a rapport with certain representatives in the USDP. That most senior military or ex-military personnel from “number three” Thura Shwe Mann down are forced to regularly rub shoulders with opposition MPs – who come from a very wide variety of fields – can only be a positive step. It is a prospect that was unthinkable under the SPDC prior to the convening of parliaments on 31 January.

While Burma’s new bicameral parliament is unlikely to bring any rapid change, it is likely that the aims of the USDP and the military will diverge over time. Just as the interests of the former generals in parliament are different from the opposition MPs, they are unlikely to be the same as those who have remained behind in the military.

Senior General Than Shwe reportedly summoned “both outgoing and incoming ministers” on 26 March and “urged them to try their best not to split the party.”

“It’s interesting that he was worried about such split,” analyst Win Min told AFP.

This possibility was illustrated the previous day when Dr Myat Nyarna Soe from the National Democratic Force (NDF) submitted a proposal “urging the government to establish [a] department for migrant workers under an appropriate ministry”. When the representatives present voted on whether to discuss the proposal, it was approved 334 to 249, with 52 abstentions. As non-USDP candidates only have 105 seats, the USDP and military representatives appear to have split almost down the middle, ultimately siding with the NDF.

While it mattered little – the Minister for Labour provided a relatively reasonable response and Dr Myat Nyarna Soe agreed “his proposal should be documented and it should not go on” – it indicates that the military is allowing more room for debate on decision making, which can only be a positive step.

This article was first published on the New Mandala website, a publication of the Australia National University.