Myanmar’s Suu Kyi to test freedom, meet supporters
AP – 8 hrs ago

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi will make her first political appearance outside Myanmar’s main city on Sunday since her release from seven years of house arrest, a journey that is going ahead despite a government warning it could trigger riots.

The opposition leader’s one-day trip to meet supporters in two towns north of Yangon will test the limits of Suu Kyi’s freedom.

The last time she traveled to the countryside, in 2003, supporters of the country’s now-disbanded military junta ambushed her entourage. Suu Kyi escaped, but was detained and later placed under house arrest. She was released last November.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s spokesman, Nyan Win, told The Associated Press he expected Sunday’s trip to go smoothly.

“We are not worried about security,” Win said. “We will provide our own security and authorities will also cooperate with us.”

The brief trip will take Suu Kyi about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of the main city Yangon to the towns of Bago and Thanatpin, where she will meet party members and open two public libraries, Win said.

More trips will follow, but neither the dates nor the destinations have been decided upon, Win said.

Win Htein, a leader of Suu Kyi’s party, said the trip was crucial because it “will test the reaction of the authorities and will test the response of the people.”

He added, “This trip will be a test for everything,” Htein said.

After half a century of army rule, the country formerly known as Burma organized elections late last year and officially handed power to a civilian administration in March. But critics say the new government, led by retired military figures, is a proxy for continued military rule and little has changed since.

Some 2,000 political prisoners remain behind bars, more than 100,000 refugees live in neighboring countries and sporadic clashes have erupted in the northeast between government troops and ethnic militias who have been fighting for greater autonomy for decades.

On Friday, however, Suu Kyi held her second meeting with Labor and Social Welfare Minister Aung Kyi. The state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported Saturday that the two sides agreed to cooperate on national stability and development.

Also Friday, Information Minister Kyaw Hsan urged Suu Kyi to officially register her National League for Democracy as a party, a step that would imply its acceptance of the government’s legitimacy and also allow it to legally take part in politics.

If Suu Kyi’s group reaches an accommodation with the government, it could serve as a reason for Western nations to lift political and economic embargoes on the country that have hindered development and pushed it into dependence on neighboring China.

The previous military government ordered the party’s dissolution after it refused to register for last November’s general election, which Suu Kyi’s party called unfair and undemocratic.

Suu Kyi has traveled outside Yangon since her release from house arrest. Last month, she journeyed to the ancient city of Bagan with her son on a private pilgrimage that nevertheless drew a large crowds of supporters and scores of undercover police and intelligence agents. Suu Kyi made no speeches, and the trip ended without incident.

In June, the government warned said it would not stop Suu Kyi from traveling upcountry to meet supporters, but warned her the visits could trigger riots.

Myanmar government urges Suu Kyi to register party so it can legally take part in politics
On Friday August 12, 2011, 10:10 am EDT

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar’s government urged pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday to officially register her National League for Democracy as a party, a step that would imply its acceptance of the government’s legitimacy and also allow it to legally take part in politics.

Information Minister Kyaw Hsan’s suggestion at a rare news conference came two days before Suu Kyi plans to make her first political foray into the countryside since her release from seven years of house arrest last November.

It also came as she held a second meeting with a government minister in what appeared to be preliminary talks on establishing a dialogue.

Kyaw Hsan said the government has not cracked down on the NLD’s failure to register in the interests of national reconciliation.

If Suu Kyi’s group reaches an accommodation with the government, it could serve as a reason for Western nations to lift political and economic embargoes on the country that have hindered development and pushed it into dependence on neighboring China.

What Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi would expect in exchange for registering her party is unclear, though it could include the freedom of some of the country’s 2,000 political prisoners.

The previous military government ordered the NLD’s dissolution after it refused to register for last November’s general election, which it called unfair and undemocratic. The NLD contends its deregistration by the government was illegal, but a lawsuit seeking its reinstatement was dismissed. It nonetheless continues to carry out organized activities.

A new nominally civilian elected government took power in March. However, it is led by retired military figures, and the constitution ensures that the military retains dominance.

Suu Kyi’s last political trip to the countryside in 2003 drew huge crowds but also the wrath of the then-ruling military junta, whose supporters ambushed her entourage. She was detained and later placed under house arrest.

The state-controlled media have warned her against making political trips, saying they could trigger chaos and riots.

Also on Friday, Suu Kyi held her second meeting with Labor and Social Welfare Minister Aung Kyi. They met previously on July 25, though details of those talks were not announced.
Kyaw Hsan said both sides agreed Friday to work “toward more cooperation in implementing democracy according to the constitution,” but gave no details.

He added that future meetings were in the works.

Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the past two decades under house arrest, has repeatedly asked for a dialogue with the government. Previous such initiatives have never gotten far.

Suu Kyi’s party overwhelmingly won a 1990 general election but was barred from taking power by the army.

Myanmar vows ongoing Suu Kyi dialogue
By Hla Hla Htay | AFP News – 3 hours ago
Thu, Aug 11, 2011

Myanmar’s army-backed regime held out an olive branch to its critics Friday, pledging to continue talks with democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and to allow a visit by a UN human rights envoy.

In a rare news conference, information minister Kyaw Hsan said the nominally civilian government, which came to power after a controversial election last November, hoped to get “successful results” from cooperating with Suu Kyi.

The comments came shortly before Suu Kyi held a second round of talks with labour minister Aung Kyi in Yangon, that she later said had covered “all sectors”.

A joint statement released following the discussions said both sides would work together for “peace and stability” and the “development of the country”. It also said they would avoid views that could “lead to conflicts”.

Kyaw Hsan earlier said the government would “continue these kinds of meetings for the benefit of the people” at the first media briefing in the capital Naypyidaw since taking power.

He also said Tomas Ojea Quintana, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, who was last allowed into the country in February 2010, would return without specifying a date.

Nearly 100 reporters and around twice as many officials were invited to the media briefing.

Suu Kyi was released from seven straight years of house arrest days after the controversial election and was warned by the regime in June to stay out of politics.

But talks with the government in July, followed by an open letter offering to help broker peace in conflicts between the ever-dominant Myanmar military and ethnic minority rebels, suggested an intent to maintain a political role.

Initial discussions with Aung Kyi, who was the liaison between Suu Kyi and the military junta before she was locked up, came just days after the United States called for “concrete” progress towards democracy.

Washington has since named its first special envoy to Myanmar to pursue President Barack Obama’s policy of engaging the military-backed government.

The United States and the international community have called for a number of reforms in Myanmar, which was ruled by the military for nearly half a century, including the release of around 2,000 political prisoners.

Suu Kyi is now due to make her first overtly political trip outside Yangon since she was freed, with a one-day excursion to the Bago region, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Yangon, on August 14.

Security is a major concern as her convoy was attacked in 2003 during a previous political trip, in an ambush apparently organised by a regime frightened by her popularity.

Following the Naypyidaw press conference, Myanmar police chief Kyaw Kyaw Tun told AFP that no special arrangements have been made for the upcoming trip and that Suu Kyi had not requested any security.

“If she asks us to help we are ready to help her,” he added.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) was spoken of in unusually warm terms by Myanmar’s army-backed rulers on Friday.

“While the government is struggling for national reconciliation, it is giving assistance to the NLD as much as possible,” Kyaw Hsan said, urging the group to officially register as a party.

The NLD, which won a 1990 vote but was never allowed to take power, boycotted the latest election because of rules seemed designed to exclude Suu Kyi and was stripped of its recognition as a political party as a result.

Suu Kyi wants dam project halted
Published: Aug. 12, 2011 at 8:12 AM

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar, Aug. 12 (UPI) — Political activist Aung San Suu Kyi has appealed to the Myanmar and Chinese governments to stop construction on a major dam on the Irrawaddy River.

Suu Kyi, 64, said the Myitsone Dam would destroy natural habitat on the 1,300-mile-long river that enters Myanmar from China and exits into the Andaman Sea, the Democratic Voice of Burma reported Friday.

Most of the electricity generated by the dam, which would be the 15th largest dam in the world, would be used by China, its primary financier, the report said.

Suu Kyi said the dam would displace 15,000 people and have implications the length of Myanmar (formerly Burma). The dam is scheduled for completion in 2017 and would generate up to 6,000 megawatts of power.

The Irrawaddy River is “the most significant geographical feature of our country,” Suu Kyi said in a letter calling for an end to the project.

The Burma Rivers Network last month published a synopsis of a 2009 internal report by the China Power Investment Corp., the company behind the Myitsone Dam. It called for the dam to be scrapped, saying it was unnecessary and the damage it will cause will be too costly.

In another matter, Suu Kyi, longtime opposition leader in Myanmar, was scheduled to have a second round of talks with an official its army-backed civilian government. The BBC said a meeting last month raised the possibility of political dialogue between the government and pro-democracy groups.

Asian Correspondent – River Irrawaddy becomes political factor of Burma
By Zin Linn Aug 13, 2011 9:09PM UTC

It was notable, the Chairman of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), Lanyaw Zawng Hra sent an official letter dated May 16 to Hu Jintao, the President of the People’s Republic of China urging China to stop the controversial Myitsone dam construction on Irrawaddy River in Kachin State, Northern Burma, Kachin News Group (KNG) said on 23 May, 2011.

In the open letter the KIO warned Myitsone and six other hydroelectric power plant projects could lead to civil war between the KIA, the armed wing of the KIO, and the Burmese Army because Burmese troops have been deployed to the KIO control areas to provide security for the dam-construction projects.

According to Kachin News Group, numerous complaint letters concerning construction of the Myitsone dam have been sent to the Burmese and Chinese governments by local people, the Kachin National Consultative Assembly (KNCA) and the KIO. However, no action has been taken to tackle the worries expressed by the Kachin community.

KIO’s official letter to Hu Jintao says, “Except the Dam Project in Mali-N’mai Confluence (Myitsone dam), we have no objections against the other six Hydro Power Plant Projects. However, we have also informed the Asia World Co Ltd to make a decision only after assessing the consequences of the Dam Construction”.

The Kachin Development and Networking Group (KDNG) has warned publicly that the Myitsone dam construction is going to displace 15,000 neighboring Kachin natives and millions of people living downstream of the dam construction location because of inundation.

According to the environmentalist group, thousands of people have been forced to move from their home villages near the 6,000-megawatt dam construction project site.  The displaced villagers have to struggle finding new livelihoods, adequate healthcare services and education for their children at new villages, the watchdog group said.

In the past, Kachin people had made an official plea to the former junta’s boss Senior-General Than Shwe to stop the project due to environmental damage. But he always turned a deaf ear to the call. The junta boss regularly obeys the rules of the Chinese authorities over the dam projects.

Construction at Myitsone began December 21, 2009, led by China’s state owned China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) in cooperation with Burma’s Asia World Company (AWC) and the Burmese government’s No. 1 Ministry of Electric Power. Remarkably, AWC owner is former drug lord Lo Hsing Han.  As a result, the KIO warned CPI employees not to enter its area in the dam construction sites north of the Mali-N’mai Rivers. The reason was that KIO has stopped cooperating with the Burmese government when the government discontinued the 1994 truce on September 1, 2010.

Environmental activists and researchers say the project will force Kachin villagers to abandon their homes and could face inundation an area the size of Singapore, all caused by the government’s eagerness to satisfy China as it needs more power for its growing industrial zones.

According to Burma River Network, the Irrawaddy River provides vital nutrients to wetlands and floodplain areas downstream including the delta region which provides nearly 60% of Burma’s rice. Changes to the river’s flow and the blocking of crucial sediments will affect millions farmers throughout Burma and decrease rice production.

The watchdog network also pointed out that the dams will forever change Burma’s main river ecosystem and an important Asian river. Eighty-four percent of the Irrawaddy River’s water originates above the dam sites and will be affected by these dams. The network said that the dam is located 100 kilometers from a major fault line in an earthquake-prone area; if the dam breaks, it will flood Kachin State’s capital city of 150,000 that lies just 40 kilometers downstream of the dam.

In a statement issued on 11 August (Thursday), Burma’s Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi said the dam endangers the flow of the Irrawaddy River, which she described as “the most significant geographical feature of the country.” She warned that 12,000 people from 63 villages have been relocated, although an article in the government-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper Wednesday reported that 2,146 people had been ordered to leave their homes and relocated.

Suu Kyi has been calling on promoters of the Myitsone dam project to reassess the plan, pointing out concerns that dams on the Irrawaddy River damage the environment, decrease rice production, dislodge ethnic peoples. Besides, it would hurt livelihoods of local communities and there is a risk of possible destructive earthquakes.

“We believe that, taking into account the interests of both countries, both governments would hope to avoid consequences which might jeopardize lives and homes,” Suu Kyi emphasized. “To safeguard the Irrawaddy is to save from harm our economy and our environment, as well as to protect our cultural heritage,” she added.

One can find an environmental impact assessment on Thailand-based Burma Rivers Network web-site which was conducted by a team of Burmese and Chinese scientists.  The 945-page “environmental impact assessment,” fully funded by China’s CPI Corporation and conducted by a team of Burmese and Chinese scientists, recommends that the Irrawaddy Myitsone Dam not proceed. “There is no need for such a big dam to be constructed at the confluence of the Irrawaddy River” says the assessment.

Building of dams has become also a rising political issue in China’s relations with countries in Southeast Asia, a region increasingly dependent on the watercourse of rivers may perhaps reduce their capacity to irrigate paddy fields.

The Burmese government state media has continued saying that the Myitsone dam project will not produce negative impact on the watercourse of the Irrawaddy or on the livelihoods of the native inhabitants.

But, local ethnic populace has been displaced from their homes to make way for dams and reservoirs. Nevertheless, construction companies close to the authorities benefit from those dams. They receive millions of dollars for designing and building dams. The government officials also gain black earnings in many ways – illegal taxes, kickbacks and inducement – during building of a dam.

Anyhow, Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s most distinguished opposition figure, may heighten international reaction of the Myitsone dam project which seriously disapprove by environmental and human rights groups. The dam projects are, however, creating widespread political criticism countrywide for national interest.

CURRENCY
The Nation – Burma to cancel FECs
By Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Naypyitaw, Myanmar
Published on August 12, 2011

Myanmar’s new government is planning to withdraw foreign exchange certificates (FECs) from the market, after imposing them on foreigners for almost two decades, officials said Friday.

“In the near future there will be no more FECs, just kyat and foreign currencies,” Information Minister Kyaw Hsan told a press conference, one of the first held by Myanmar’s new elected government since it took office in April.

The FECs were first introduced in 1993 as a means of keeping foreign currency under government control.

Visiting foreign tourists were required to purchase 200 US dollars worth of FECs at the airport on arrival and foreign businessmen and aid workers were required to use the FEC for official transactions, often at an exchange rate loss.

The FEC was intended to prevent all foreign exchange from being traded on the black market, which offered rates of about 1,000 kyat to the dollar compared with the government’s official rate of 6 kyat to the dollar and 450 kyat for one FEC.

“Burma’s multiple exchange rates make conversion and repatriation of foreign exchange very complex, and ripe for corruption,” one US State Department report said of the system.

In recent months, the local kyat currency has strengthened against the dollar and FEC, apparently on account of a huge influx of dollars into the economy. Kyaw Hsan said holders of FECs should not worry, because the government will buy back the currency from them with dollars or kyat, although he did not specify at what rates.

Sin Chew Jit Poh – US says it’s pressing Myanmar to halt alleged rapes
2011-08-12 10:02

August 11, 2011 (AFP) – The United States said Thursday it has been pressuring Myanmar’s military-backed regime to stop its alleged use of rape and supports a panel to probe alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Twelve US senators, all women, on Wednesday accused the regime in Myanmar, also known as Burma, of using rape as a “weapon of war,” and sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging her to press it to halt the practice.

Clinton spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters a response to the letter was being formulated.

“We have repeatedly raised our concerns about these issues with the Burmese government, particularly regarding violence in ethnic areas, including reports of rape and forced labor,” she said.

“We have also used the annual resolution on Burma at the UN General Assembly every year to express our concern,” Nuland said.

“And we have strongly supported the role of the UN special rapporteur on the situation in Burma, and we have urged Burma to allow him access to the country,” she added.

“We are also committed to seeking accountability for human rights violations that have occurred in Burma and we are prepared to work to establish an international commission of inquiry.”

The senators wrote that “given the Burmese regime’s unabated use of rape as a weapon of war, we urge you to call on the regime to end this practice and pursue our shared goal of establishing an international commission of inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“We must not allow this regime to continue to commit such dire crimes while the people of Burma continue to suffer,” said the senators, including Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein.

Democrats Barbara Boxer, Kay Hagan, Amy Klobuchar, Mary Landrieu, Barbara Mikulski, Patty Murray and Jeanne Shaheen, and Republicans Key Bailey Hutchison, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Kelly Ayotte signed the letter.

Ex-child soldier recalls Myanmar military life
By Elizabeth Yuan, CNN
August 11, 2011 10:37 p.m. EDT

(CNN) — Hein Min Aung remembers the March day in 1999 when he was recruited as a child soldier into the Myanmar army.

Only 14 at the time, Aung said he had lived with his parents and five younger siblings and worked at the market in Prome, also known as Pyay on the Irrawaddy River north of Yangon. One night he had gone into town with two friends to make photocopies for a 10th grade exam the next day, he recalled. On their way back home, around 1 a.m., three military personnel dressed in civilian clothes confronted them, he said.

“They arrested us and charged us with violating curfew,” Aung, now 26, said in an email through a translator. The boys were forced into a jeep and taken to a military recruitment system in Da-Nyin-Gone. “They gave us a medical test, took our fingerprints and made us sign forms asserting that we were 18, despite the fact that none of us were above 14.”

There he said he joined about 100 other child soldiers, among a few hundred recruits there, and was forced into training, including cleaning weapons, shooting on the range, planting and destroying landmines and learning the names of anti-government rebel forces, he said. Mistakes led to cane-beatings; escapes led to beatings with sticks by the rest of the battalion, Aung said. The latter occurred about four to five times in as many months he had endured the training, he recalled.

“We weren’t allowed to talk to each other about our backgrounds and family members. If we wanted to share these details, we had to do so in secret,” he said. “If caught discussing our former lives, we were sent to army jail for two to three months and beaten with wooden sticks.”

According to a 2008 global report by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, thousands of children are recruited and used in Myanmar’s Tatmadaw Kyi (state army) and in armed political groups. Of the handful of governments that have used children in combat or other frontline duties in their armed forces, Myanmar’s ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) remains the “most notable offender,” according to the report.

Aung said he found himself with 100 other child soldiers from all over Myanmar at the Tha-Htone training military camp No. 9 near Ah-Lan-Ta-Yar Pagoda. He stayed there for four-and-a-half months. Mornings involved carrying water for cooking, finding wood to make fires and cooking breakfast for the entire battalion, Aung said. Afternoons involved an hour rest before evening chores, which included cooking and assuming the night watch. “All in all, we worked about 20 hours a day, sleeping for three to four hours if we were lucky. If the officers or generals were displeased with our work, we would be beaten,” he said.

In addition, he said, everyone had diarrhea because of the food, which consisted of small boiled potatoes, fish paste and lentil soup that was mostly water.

According to Aung, child soldiers served as minesweepers, porters for army supplies and front-line soldiers during battles. Aung said that as a foot soldier for the Myanmar army, he participated in kidnapping male civilians to serve as porters for the army’s supplies and clearing Karen villages of civilians.

“My battalion would enter a village, shoot everyone alive and burn all homes, he said. Some of the kinder generals and officers would enter a village and fire warning shots into the air, granting the inhabitants time to flee. Others took great pleasure in destroying villages, torturing villagers before killing them, raping the young women and girls and stealing possessions,” he said.

During his first battle — on the hills of Bayint Naung and Ka-Nae-Lay — Aung said his duties included carrying wounded soldiers from the top of the hill to the base army camp at the bottom under a hail of bullets and then taking over another hill filled with landmines. He was forced to provide security for his friend, a 15-year-old soldier, while he defused landmines along the way. All of a sudden, Aung said he heard a loud explosion and then saw his friend thrown into the air. Aung still remembers seeing medics slicing away his friend’s flesh during emergency surgery and stuffing the wound with cotton to stanch the bleeding. “I was suddenly aware that if I did not escape soon, I would not survive past my 15th birthday,” he said.

Aung’s opportunity to escape came one morning two years after being in the army. Soldiers had fallen asleep at their post. “I ran for three hours straight, without looking back,” he said. As he neared the Thai border, he stripped off his military uniform and kept just his jean shorts. At one point, he had to walk by an army barrack but was luckily mistaken for one of the many boys working as loggers and was not questioned. He then caught a ride on a farmer’s truck into Myawt, a small village on the Thai border, after filling the vehicle with 50 loads of wood — “on an empty stomach,” he added — in exchange.

In 2001 after having working for the farmer for three months, Aung went to Mae Sot where he ran into two former child soldiers who led him to a UNHCR camp, which helped him apply for refugee status. The International Committee of the Red Cross office, meanwhile, helped him reconnect with his family for the first time in six years.

Granted refugee status in 2005, Aung then moved to New Zealand where he has lived since.

This month Aung briefed U.S. lawmakers in Washington, including Congresswoman from Texas Eddie Bernice Johnson, sponsor of a Congressional resolution condemning the global use of child soldiers and seeking remedies to end the practice.

CNN contacted the Permanent Mission of the Union of Myanmar to the United Nations for comment on Aung’s account and allegations that it uses child soldiers, but there was no response to our emails. The government’s web site, however, does address the issue of child soldiers, saying “child protection is part and parcel of our culture and tradition.”

Myanmar maintains that under the country’s Defense Services and War Office Council instructions, forced conscription is banned, and enlistment barred for anyone under 18.

In its latest world report on Myanmar in January, Human Rights Watch said that despite the government’s cooperation with the International Labor Organization on demobilizing child soldiers in some cases, all parties in the country’s conflicts, including the state military, “actively recruit and use” them.

“Child soldiers had to be at the front lines of battle,” said Aung, “the most dangerous place to be.”

Guardian – Aung San Suu Kyi: China’s dam project in Burma is dangerous and divisive
The leader of Burma’s pro-democracy opposition joins chorus of alarm over China’s plan to build dams on Irrawaddy river
Jonathan Watts, Asia environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Friday 12 August 2011 11.56 BST

Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Burma’s pro-democracy opposition, has called for a halt to a massive Chinese hydropower project on the Irrawaddy river that has alarmed environmentalists and added to a long-running conflict between tribal militias and the government in Rangoon.

The Nobel laureate stepped into the fray on Thursday with a personal statement calling for greater protection for Burma’s most important river, which is threatened by logging, pollution and the construction of a cascade of at least seven dams, a project managed by China Power Investment.

The biggest of them – the 3,600MW Myitsone Dam – is already under construction on the Irrawaddy despite fierce opposition from the Kachin Independence Organisation, which recently broke a 17-year-ceasefire after warning that it would fight to block the project.

The China Gezhouba Group is building the dam on the confluence of the Mali and N’Mai rivers in Kachin state, one of the world’s most important biodiversity hotspots.

Once completed, it will flood the rainforest with a reservoir the size of New York city and displace 10,000 people, mostly Kachin people, as well as submerging cultural heritage sites central to Kachin identity, according to International Rivers.

The Burma Rivers Network, an NGO which represents communities along the river, said China’s massive hydropower investments had widened the gulf between the government – which wants to benefit from cross-border electricity sales – and Kachin independence groups, which fear the dams will bring environmental, cultural and social disruption.

The environmental group has released what it says is a leaked environmental assessment jointly commissioned by the Burmese and Chinese authorities that recommends scrapping the project because it would cause immense damage to biodiverse ecosystems as local livelihoods as well as posing great risks in the event of an earthquake.

These concerns were reiterated by Aung San Sui Kyi, who said the dam was dangerous and divisive. “Since the commencement of the Myitsone project, the perception long held by the Kachin people that successive Burmese governments have neglected their interests has deepened,” she said in her statement. “We would urge that in the interests of both national international harmony, concerned parties should reassess the scheme and cooperate to find solutions that would prevent undesirable consequences and thus allay the fears of all who are anxious to protect the Irrawaddy.”

Aug 13, 2011
Asia Times Online – A foolish consistency
By David I Steinberg

WASHINGTON – To disagree with some 30 reputable and well-intentioned human-rights organizations on policies toward a regime widely regarded as a “pariah”. such as Myanmar, can be daunting. It would tax even the most ardent of advocates. Yet challenging the orthodoxy widespread in Western policy circles is necessary, for even the most prevalent of orthodoxies does not necessarily sound policy make.

What does this orthodoxy demand? Evidently, an increase in the already extensive United States sanctions and the imposition of a United Nations Commission of Inquiry on human rights abuses. Continued isolation of the new regime that came into power in 2011 through a manipulated election as an incarnation of the older one is the plan.

Major human-rights violations and imprisonment of over two thousand prisoners for political reasons (even if titularly they were for “crimes”) are apparent. Without in any sense excusing the past or present governments, will this orthodox policy improve the conditions of the diverse Burmese peoples in that benighted country?

The object of the sanctions policy of both the Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican George W Bush administrations that came before President Barack Obama was clear and strident: regime change. This was shifted in 2009 to reform and called for improved “pragmatic engagement”, meaning higher level dialogue but continued sanctions. The goals were release of the political prisoners and dialogue between the government and diverse political and ethnic groups.

More specifically, it calls for support on both an institutional and personal level to the National League for Democracy (NLD), which had been deregistered in May 2010 and legally no longer existed, and Aung San Suu Kyi, the NLD’s iconic leader. The need for the release of political prisoners is a given. Internal dialogue with groups and individuals of diverse political persuasions is important. But the question remains: by what logic will increasing isolation of Myanmar’s government increase the chances for positive change?

The opportunity for positive change under the new administration in Naypyidaw has become apparent but may well prove ephemeral. The new president, General Thein Sein, has called for social, economic and institutional reforms, but whether and/or how they might be instituted are issues. Many highly placed individuals have vested personal and power interests – emotional, attitudinal, economic – in preventing meaningful reform and may attempt to smother them at their birth.

What would the proposed increased sanctions and the United Nations Commission of Inquiry accomplish? They would neither change the regime, the longest surviving military-led government in the world today, nor encourage reform. Rather, they would simply reinforce the argument of those in the Burmese power elite that declare that the West is opposed to the government under any circumstance and that evolutionary change is not in the West’s interests. They argue that revolutionary change is what the US and its allies in the European Union want, the elimination from effective power of the military elites who have dominated that society for a half-century.

This is unlikely to happen. Indeed, the failed sanctions policies of the past decade and a half suggest that this new emphasis is a quixotic hope. If it is apparent, as it seems to this writer, that this is a most inopportune time to introduce further confrontational policies when there is at least the possibility for reforms, when the Obama administration has called for more high-level dialogue, and when the US has just approved a new ambassadorial-level coordinator dedicated to Myanmar policy, then why propose increased confrontation at this moment?

Conspiratorial theorists might speculate that some well-intentioned people who advocate higher levels of confrontation after the Burmese president’s inaugural call for reducing corruption and reform in health and education, the economy and minority relations might not wish to see such positive changes in Burmese society. Reforms of this sort are not now needed, they might argue, exactly because these changes might increase the survival capacity of the new government while helping the people.

Rather, from this cynical perspective, it might be better to try to force Burmese society into chaos or further degradation through increased isolation from the West that might bring about revolutionary change in the streets or a split in the armed forces. Under these circumstances, the quality of Burmese life might decline for a period but with the prospect for improvement in the longer term, assuming that a new government would have the capacity to make such changes.

Yet it seems evident that the prospects for the immediate well-being of the Burmese people should take precedence over the possible and unknown long-term improvement of their lot. Revolutionary change normally brings many deaths and for those in foreign safe havens to advocate that others die for a cause they support is immoral. Well-meaning advocacy is not a sufficient rationale for policy.

All foreign approaches to policy in Myanmar require great leaps of faith, for most foreign observers have little understanding of the dynamics of Burmese leadership, the administrative capacity of government in the short term to bring significant progress to the society, and the divergent shorter-term interests of all the potential actors on the country’s fragmented stage. Policy toward Myanmar is thus highly polarized.

There may be no Cartesian answers to Burmese dilemmas, but the medical oath might well be our guide: do no harm.

David I Steinberg is Distinguished Professor of Asian Studies, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. His latest book is Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford).

Aug 13, 2011
Asia Times Online – Myanmar a gateway to Indian ‘expansionism’
By Francis Wade

CHIANG MAI – This year marks two decades since India’s P V Narasimha Rao administration first urged policymakers and businessmen to “Look East” towards the goldmine of resources and investment potential in emerging Southeast Asia.

Nowhere has that policy shift been more profoundly felt than in Myanmar, where New Delhi had previously supported the Aung San Suu Kyi-led democratic opposition but is now entrenched in the military’s camp.

While aspirations of emerging as a political and economic powerhouse were long held in New Delhi, it only became apparent in the early 1990s that the mix of market economics and access to cheap resources could propel peripheral countries outside of the Western hemisphere to prosperity.

Tied to this was a realization that stronger relations with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) would allow India to leverage into the foreign investment and thriving open markets that had fueled fast growth there without putting all its economic eggs in the United States’ basket.

The “Look East” policy gained full expression last year when Myanmar’s junta chief General Than Shwe made a high-profile visit to India. Although elections last November allowed the hermetic 77-year-old dictator to drift into the shadows of the Myanmar’s emerging new political landscape, his efforts to play competing big nations off against one another, including most notably China and India, is expected to guide new president Thein Sein’s foreign policy.

In this regard, Rao’s legacy is still relevant. As minister of external affairs prior to assuming the premiership in 1991, Rao had watched as China aggressively co-opted many of the strategic states near its borders, including Myanmar. In response, Rao as premier oversaw a policy that simultaneously aimed to counterbalance China’s rising influence and secure access to resources, including oil and gas, that would foster the country’s transition to a market-driven economy.

While Rao’s courting of Myanmar’s military generals after years of Indian support for the democratic opposition was viewed among many in New Delhi’s political elite as a pragmatic step forward, it sparked outrage among those who had taken pride in India’s post-independence status as something of a moral anomaly in a region where governments place a premium on political sovereignty and economic self-interest, often at the expense of neighboring countries.

Prior to Rao coming to office, India’s overt support for Myanmar’s pro-democracy opposition was clearly out of step with the so-called “Asian way” of non-interference in other countries domestic affairs and more in line with the Western values of human rights and democracy promoted as policy by the US and European countries. At the time, many Asian leaders found the West’s emphasis on such values as pernicious, out of place and a potential destabilizing impediment to much-needed economic growth.

While siding with the West had put India on an ostensibly higher moral ground, touted in its claim to be the world’s largest democracy, there was a feeling in New Delhi at the time that it was a somewhat archaic position, particularly as emerging economies to the east that embraced the “Asian way” sped forth to prosperity.

In 1993, the same year that China’s and Singapore’s leaders at the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna told the Bill Clinton administration to think twice about placing progress on human rights as a top foreign policy goal, India made a distinct policy u-turn and the “Look East” policy began to take shape.

The Rao administration began to make its first overtures to Myanmar’s rights-abusing military regime in March 1993 when then foreign secretary J N Dixit traveled to Yangon to meet with the junta’s prime minister Khin Nyunt.

While opposition leader Suu Kyi received that same year India’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru award, her supporters were concerned by signs of strengthening bilateral ties with the regime that five years earlier had opened fire on and killed thousands of pro-democracy protestors. (Jawaharlal Nehru and Myanmar’s first civilian leader, U Nu, had forged a close relationship as a result of shared grievances over their former colonizer)

Oil and arms
Fast-forward to the present and India has become the fourth-largest investor in Myanmar and one of only eight countries known to regularly supply its army with lethal weaponry.

Yet anger about the policy shift continues to boil among activists, many of whom gathered last month in New Delhi to protest what they claimed was India’s contribution through arms sales to the now escalating conflict between Myanmar’s army and ethnic insurgent groups. But those calls for restraint are unlikely to be heeded among India’s realpolitik hawks who over the past two decades have reshaped the country’s regional outlook.

The Indian military has also pointed to the threat of separatist groups operating along its 1,640-kilometer porous eastern border with Myanmar as reason enough to bolster its neighbor’s military capabilities. The two sides have signed various security pacts in recent years and India has embarked on a project to develop infrastructure along that remote frontier, allowing for quicker deployment of border forces and artillery to tackle the separatists who cross back and forth across the border.

Beyond security concerns, India is keen to deepen its alliance with Naypyidaw to foster access to Myanmar’s widely coveted energy resources and open the way for road and rail links to the mainland ASEAN economies. New Delhi’s regular overtures to Naypyidaw on issues like border security have been accompanied by economic sweeteners, most recently in the form of ten heavy duty rice silos designed to protect grains during natural disasters.

The package was gifted to Myanmar foreign minister Wunna Maung Lwin during a June meeting with his Indian counterpart S M Krishna, one of the first foreign dignitaries to break ground with the new elected Myanmar government.

Concerns over China’s rising influence, both in the region and over Myanmar, are not confined to India. Last month US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paid a visit to New Delhi, ostensibly to boost bilateral trade but with more significant emphasis on security cooperation.

Some analysts believe the meeting points towards a new gambit to develop a more cohesive regional front against Beijing. The US, whose influence in the region has greatly waned in recent decades, is now courting a number of Asian countries and groups whom until recently it had considered too risky to engage or superfluous to its policy objectives.

China, in turn, has been public about its concerns over strengthening US-India ties, saying that the US is attempting to draw India into its orbit as it seeks a new strategic partner in the region. By certain measures, that embrace is already evident. The US is close to pipping Russia as India’s biggest weapons supplier and recent US state visits to the country are surrounded by notable pomp and circumstance. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a rare appearance at New Delhi’s airport last year to personally greet US president Barack Obama when he touched down.

By forging a stronger alliance with India, Washington may or may not lock horns with New Delhi over its Myanmar policy. The US has long supported Suu Kyi and her political movement’s quest for democracy but a recent State Department policy review encouraged more engagement and less isolation of Myanmar’s military rulers.

Elsewhere in the region, the Obama administration has compromised its proclaimed promotion of human rights and democracy in its quest to counterbalance China. Last year it re-established ties it had earlier cut due to concerns over rights abuses with Indonesia’s controversial military outfit Kopassus. The move came after Jakarta suggested it would look to China for military assistance if Washington didn’t rethink its sanctions. Similar criticism of duplicity has followed Washington’s counter-balancing embrace of Vietnam’s rights-abusing communist regime.

By assisting India’s now aggressive military expansion, Myanmar’s pro-democracy opposition has started to question the seeming duplicity of the US touting itself as a friend while simultaneously arming a chief weapons supplier of its foe. Some in the opposition believe the US, too, has begun to “Look East” and subjugated its previous commitment to promoting rights and democracy in Myanmar to the broader strategic policy aim of counterbalancing China.

Myanmar has thus become a new testing ground for great power competition, a gambit that first opened two decades ago with Rao’s shift from principled to self-centered diplomacy.

Francis Wade is a Thailand-based journalist with the Democratic Voice of Burma.

Monsters and Critics – Myanmar’s new government vows not to harm the Irrawaddy
Aug 12, 2011, 9:10 GMT

Naypyitaw, Myanmar – Myanmar’s new government will conduct an environmental impact study of a dam on the Irrawaddy River before going ahead with the project, which has been criticized by opposition figures and environmentalists, officials said Friday.

‘We love the Irrawaddy,’ Information Minister Kyaw Hsan told a press conference in Naypyitaw, the capital. ‘We will protect the Irrawaddy just like other citizens would.’

The government spokesman said a downstream environmental impact study of Myitsone dam in the Kachin State will be carried out before the hydro-power plant is put into operation.

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi issued a statement Thursday night calling on the governments of Myanmar and China to reassess the 6,000-megawatt dam project due to safety and environmental concerns.

‘We believe that, keeping in mind the interests of both countries, both governments would wish to avoid consequences which might endanger lives and homes,’ Suu Kyi said.

The dam is planned for an upper stretch of the Irrawaddy River, the longest in Myanmar, starting in the northern Kachin State and traversing the central plains before emptying into the rice-growing Irrawaddy delta and the Indian Ocean.

Given the economic, social and environmental importance of the river, Suu Kyi appealed to the international conservationist community ‘to join us in a campaign to create a worldwide awareness of the dangers threatening one of the most important rivers in Asia.’

Construction on the estimated 3.6-billion-dollar Myitsone hydro-electric dam project began in 2009, as a joint venture between the Myanmar government and the state-owned China Power Investment.

‘Under the current proposal, the dam will displace up to 12,000 people from 63 villages and flood critical cultural heritage sites,’ said the International Rivers environmental group, adding that the project already faced ‘violent opposition from the local Kachin population.’

The Kachin are one of five ethnic minority groups that are waging insurgencies against the Myanmar army, which has ruled the country since 1962 and continues to dominate the current elected government.

The project site was reportedly hit by a series of bombs in April 2010.

Suu Kyi also questioned the geological safety of the project. ‘The presence of fault lines in the vicinity of the dams and the sheer immensity of the reservoir raises the spectre of horrendous devastation in the event of an earthquake.’

Suu Kyi is Myanmar’s chief opposition figure, who has spent 15 of the past 21 years under house arrest. She was released from a seven-year house detention sentence on November 13.

Although she has no official position, and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party has been dissolved, Suu Kyi remains a powerful political force.

‘Even though the NLD is an illegal party, the government has been dealing with the them patiently,’ Kyaw Hsan said. He said the treatment was in accordance with President Thein Sein’s inaugural speech of March 30, in which he said he would work with everyone.

The pro-military government’s chief liaison officer, Labour Minister Aung Kyi, met with Suu Kyi Friday afternoon in Yangon.

The two sides issued a joint statement to ‘avoid conflicts and to cooperate together.’

Suu Kyi is planning a ‘political tour’ to Bogo, 50 kilometres north-east of Yangon on Sunday, despite government warnings against the trip.

The Irrawaddy – Turning Over a New Maple Leaf
Friday, August 12, 2011

In a reciprocal accreditation of ambassadors between Canada and Burma a few months ago, Canadian Ambassador to Burma, Ron Hoffmann went to Naypyidaw to meet with Burmese President Thein Sein and other senior leaders of his new government. He also met with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon.

Canada has maintained the world’s toughest economic sanctions against Burma even after the nominally civilian government came into office in Naypyidaw earlier this year. It has supported the proposed UN Commission of Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma, and has also long provided humanitarian aid to Burmese refugees and internally displaced persons who have fled war zones along Burma’s borders.

The Ambassador explains Canada’s current policy toward Burma, including the issue of economic sanctions. Speaking with Aung Zaw, the founder and editor of The Irrawaddy, he also shares his views on the new government in Naypyidaw, the ongoing ethnic conflicts in the country, and Canada’s view on Burma’s bid to assume the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2014.

Hoffmann has been the Canadian Ambassador to Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos since August 2009. Previously, he was the chief of mission and ambassador of Canada in Afghanistan.

Question: You recently presented your credentials to President Thein Sein in Naypyidaw. What was your message to the president? Did you raise the issues of political prisoners, genuine democratization and ethnic struggle? Could you also share your thoughts on both the criticism and optimism that has been expressed on the president’s first 100 days in office?

Answer: I presented my credentials to President Thein Sein on July 5. In addition to my discussion with him, I met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Border Affairs respectively. It was an important opportunity to express Canadian views on the situation in Burma. I reaffirmed Canada’s call for the release of all political prisoners and for peaceful dialogue with the political opposition and ethnic groups.

I also expressed Canada’s deep concern about the human rights situation. Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird, met with his Burmese counterpart on the margins of the Asean Regional Forum in Bali last month and he raised these issues and underscored the importance that Canada attaches to the Burmese government’s responsibility to ensure Aung San Suu Kyi’s personal security and freedom of movement.

You’re right that there are varying views on the Burmese government’s track record since it was formed in March, and some call for more patience before criticizing it after some 100 days in office. We noted that President Thein Sein made some welcome commitments in his inauguration speech, and the new government has even been self-critical in discussions with the international community. This is positive, but only to a point. Canada is deeply concerned that the conflict in some ethnic areas has intensified, and that there are credible reports of increased incidents of rape by government soldiers and the continued use of forced labour.

Canada also finds it profoundly disappointing that there has been only negligible progress in releasing political prisoners. Although the new government may need time to reform and advance certain changes in their system, especially in terms of economic and social policies, there are some problems which could be addressed much more quickly to prove their commitment to reform. Minister Baird put it succinctly when he stated that we are looking for progress in Burma, not just words.

Q: Canada is actively involved in helping Burma, both through aid delivered directly to the country and through assistance to projects along the border.

Could you tell us about the humanitarian needs on the border and the support Canada has been providing there? What are your views on the recent cutback in funding to border-based groups by some countries? And what do you think about the situation along the Chinese border where NGOs have been denied permission to deliver medicine and other assistance to refugees displaced by recent conflict in northern Burma?

A: Existing Canadian policy allows for humanitarian aid inside the country, and I’m pleased that Canada has stepped up contributions in response to UN and NGO appeals in recent months, including a US $500,000 contribution to relief efforts following Cyclone Giri last fall. The core of our funding support, however, continues to be to refugees along the borders. In fact, last year Canada renewed a $15.9 million five-year support program, concentrating on much needed food aid as well as health services.

Events of recent months illustrate the continued and even growing need for such programming. I sincerely hope that other traditional donors and new partners continue to contribute to the acute needs which are still present on the border.

As for the China border, Canada calls on all parties in a position to help those displaced or harmed by conflict to help ensure that aid makes its way to victims and that refuge from violence and persecution can be found when needed.

Q: There has been little condemnation from the international community, including Burma’s neighbors and Western governments, of the Burmese army’s increasing violence in predominantly ethnic areas in Karen, Shan and Kachin states. Some Burmese say that the international community has been too quiet on these conflicts and the ongoing human rights violations inside the country. What is Canada’s response to the current conflict and human rights situation in Burma?

A:.The current situation in these regions is a matter of serious concern, and the credible reports of increased human rights violations that we have seen are deeply troubling. We need all countries that have relations with Burma to express their concern and use whatever leverage they can muster to urge greater respect for basic human rights in the country.

Asean members, and others who engage in trade and investment, should, in particular, use their influence to protest what we are hearing about. Canada will continue to be a strong voice for those who are oppressed, and we will always advocate for our core Canadian values like democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.

We continue to call on the government to promptly investigate all allegations of human rights abuses by government or military personnel. Because of our ongoing concerns about human rights in the country, we believe economic sanctions are still merited.

Q: Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird recently told Asean leaders in Jakarta that Canada has started limited engagement with the new Burmese government, with a focus on human rights. What will this new approach entail in practical terms?

A: It’s not entirely a new approach, as Canada has had long-standing diplomatic relations with Burma. In addition to enabling us to communicate our views directly and clearly to the new government, our engagement will allow us to see conditions on the ground first-hand and to establish relationships with a wide range of civil society representatives, humanitarian workers and the parliamentary and non-parliamentary opposition, including Aung San Suu Kyi.

I think Minister John Baird’s close personal involvement, including setting up a bilateral meeting with Burma’s foreign minister, is testimony to the government of Canada’s values-based foreign policy and commitment to human rights.

Canada will always advocate for freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

Q: What is Canada’s position on Burma’s bid to assume the Asean chairmanship in 2014? What benchmarks do you think should be met before Burma is allowed to take this important regional position?

A: Canada recognizes that the decision on who chairs Asean rests with Asean members themselves. However, as a close friend and formal dialogue partner with Asean since 1977, Canada recommends that Asean members consider how to capitalize on this important opportunity to achieve real improvements in Burma’s behavior.

Benchmarks could include a wide range of matters, but among them should be the release of all political prisoners and a peaceful dialogue with ethnic groups on a new political road-map for managing the country’s ethnic diversity. These are achievable goals in the short term, and Burma should know that there is a cost to not taking them seriously.

Q: Aung San Suu Kyi is planning to start her first political tours of Burma since her release from house arrest last November, and the Burmese government has warned her of the chaos and dangers that could ensue if she goes ahead with her plans.

Do you have any message to the Burmese government concerning Suu Kyi’s security and her right to travel around Burma in her capacity as leader of the National League for Democracy?

A: Aung San Suu Kyi was granted honorary Canadian citizenship by the parliament of Canada in 2007. I had the pleasure of meeting with her recently to pass on the honorary degrees she has received from Carleton and Memorial Universities, and to reiterate Canada’s support for her ongoing work in promoting democracy and human rights in Burma.

Canada has unambiguously stressed to Burmese authorities the importance of Aung San Suu Kyi’s freedom. Minister John Baird raised this issue in Bali and I did so in Naypyidaw.

We acknowledge the important assurances we were given by the government of Burma in this regard, as well as their acceptance to allow her to travel in the country and increase her public activities in Yangon. Her freedom of mobility is fundamental to Burma’s pledge to reform. And we will continue to press to ensure this is granted.

Q: There has been a major push to form a proposed UN Commission of Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma, and Canada is among those who have supported this idea. But how strong is Canada’s desire to implement this proposal together with other democratic countries? What effect do you think this will have on the regime’s willingness to undertake serious reforms?

A: Canada holds the view that there should be accountability for serious human rights abuses. We hope the prospect of a Commission of Inquiry might reinforce that our appeals for improved conduct are not empty, and that the country’s leaders, including an emerging generation of top officials, understand that their decisions may have serious consequences for them personally.

How and when a Commission of Inquiry might practically move forward is a matter of active discussion among countries of like-minded values, and there are admittedly some uncertainties. What’s key for Burmese leaders and senior officials to understand, however, is that there remains a very real prospect that their actions today may come back to haunt to them. The best way to avoid that is to take seriously the calls for better treatment of their own population.

Q: There have been increasing calls to fine-tune sanctions on Burma. Do you think that targeted sanctions will be a more effective tool for encouraging political change in Burma?

Do you think that concerns about China’s growing clout in Burma and its massive investment in the country’s energy and mining sectors justify the desire of some Western governments to modify sanctions in order to allow invest in Burma?

A: I can’t speak for other countries, but I can say that the government of Canada is committed to keeping our comprehensive economic sanctions—which are the toughest in the world—in place until there is a tangible and enduring change in the Burmese government’s actions. I prefer to see this not as a threat, but as an opportunity.

Canada is ready to acknowledge and reward meaningful progress, but much still needs to be done in concrete terms to reach that point. For the benefit of all concerned, I sincerely look forward to seeing that day. When that happens is really up to the leaders of Burma.

The Irrawaddy – Landmines: A Dangerous Way to Feel Secure
By SAI ZOM HSENG Friday, August 12, 2011

“By the time I realized there was a problem with my bomb, it was too late. I heard a terrible sound—Boom—and don’t remember anything that happened afterwards until I woke up and couldn’t see anything. I’ve lost my eyes to a landmine that I planted to give other people trouble.”

Sotay Lo, a 40-year-old former soldier for the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), recounts his story while sitting in a small village near the Karenni refugee camp in Mae Hong Son Province, Thailand. This is the first time, he says, that he has ever spoken about the incident.

“I’m not sure whether readers will cheer me or feel pity for me if they know that I was injured by a landmine that I planted,” he says, and then lowers his voice to a murmur. “But I want people to know my story.”

Sotay Lo comes from the small village of Dimawso Township, Karenni (Kayah) State. He was born into and lived a typical life for the region—his vocation was farming and hunting—but he left his home and family after deciding to join the armed resistance against the Burmese army (the Tatmadaw).

When Sotay Lo was a teenager, his township was designated a “brown-colored” area, which means that both the Tatmadaw and insurgents were operating there (a “white-colored” area is one totally controlled by the Tatmadaw, and a “black-colored area” is one totally controlled by insurgent groups).

“After I joined the KNPP, it gave basic training to new recruits. Even though I was given a wooden gun for the training, I was so happy and satisfied. I thought—now I can fight back and kill the Burmese soldiers,” Sotay Lo says, his voice rising with excitement.

“When I stayed in my village, we always had to be afraid of the Burmese soldiers and the rebels,” he continues. “Whatever they asked from us, such as working as porters or giving them money, food, and other items, we couldn’t refuse. If we didn’t have what they wanted, we had to go find it.”

After Sotay Lo finished his basic training, he was involved in a few skirmishes with Tatmadaw troops that involved a cooperative insurgent effort involving the KNPP, the Karen National Union (KNU) and the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF). Whenever he heard gunfire on the front line, Sotay Lo says, he immediately felt daring.

Sotay Lo was never given official training on how to plant a landmine—but senior soldiers taught him how to do so. Then in 1996, he was ordered to plant landmines on a path that Burmese soldiers often used in the Kao Kao area near the Thai-Burmese border.

“The name of the bomb that I used is ‘Target Men,’” he says. “I put the explosive into a soap holder, the batteries into bamboo, and connected them by wire. It is meant to injure people, not kill them. But if someone steps on the landmine while he is running, he might be killed because of the added force.”

Sotay Lo says that another KNPP soldier went along on the mission to plant the landmines, but that soldier was away on watch when the bomb exploded and so was not injured. Sotay Lo then stops speaking, and after a moment begins to sob.

“I am happy and sad at the same time,” he says. “I am happy to let somebody know about my life, but I am sad to recall the bad incident. You know, I’m living my life with regret for planting that landmine in order to make trouble for other people. But I was a soldier, how can I refuse an order from my officers?”

Later, Sotay Lo introduces another landmine victim, who is also a former KNPP soldier.

Thar Wah, 41, went to high school in the Karenni State capital of Loikaw, and was one of the organizers of the demonstrations that took place on Aug. 8, 1988 when Burma experienced a national uprising against the military regime.

When the uprising had been crushed by the military and a new regime was in place, Thar Wah came to the border area to join the armed revolution. He at first planned to join the ABSDF, but when he met some KNPP leaders he decided to become a KNPP soldier.

About a year later, he stepped on a landmine during his first battle experience.

“We captured a Burmese military outpost, the Nong Lone checkpoint on the Thai-Burmese border, with the cooperation of 50-60 ABSDF troops. Afterwards, I was ordered to secure the surrounding area, and that’s when I was hit by a mine,” Thar Wah says. “I saw the blood and lost consciousness.”

“When I woke up, I was in a hospital,” he says, “My leg was still there but I was in extreme pain, and a few minutes later some doctors and nurses brought me into an operating room. Then they gave me anesthesia, but didn’t tell me what they are doing. When I woke up once again, my leg had disappeared.”

Although both Sotay Lo and Thar Wah were badly injured by landmines, they both say it is still necessary to use them.

“The soldiers feel safe when they have planted landmines,” Sotay Lo says.Burma has not signed the Treaty on Landmines and Cluster Munitions.

The Irrawaddy – Searching for Gems Among the Rubble
By KYI WAI Friday, August 12, 2011

MOGOK—”We wouldn’t dare to take a day off, even in rainy season, or worry about mudslides either,” says Naw Aye Hla, a manual gem forager in Mogok. “We can’t survive if we don’t work.”

Wearing a cap, a muddy white shirt and traditional brown Shan pants, the 17-year-old girl piles the small pebbles that she caught with a filter pan on the clean ground, then collects brown, red, blue, dark pink and black stones and puts them in a bottle.

Known locally as Boyne people, manual gem foragers only hunt for cheap low quality gems. Naw Aye Hla says that for the last year it has been difficult to find cheap jade in Mogok, which is located in the Pyin Oo Lwin District of the Mandalay Region and is known as “Ruby Land,” because licensed private companies imposed restrictions that barred any outsider from searching for scraps of jade on their sites.

“In Mogok, we have over 600 gem mining sites, but there are less than 10 sites where we are allowed to search for cheap gems. So all the sites are packed with local jade diggers and it is difficult for all of us to survive,” she says.

Even when manual jade diggers such as Naw Aye Hla were allowed to work in some of the privately-owned sites, they only found cheap stones worth hundreds of kyat because the sites had been mined out by the big companies.

“We normally don’t find expensive stones among these leftovers, but if we’re lucky, we find a stone worth over a thousand kyat, ” said Maung Htoo, a 30-year- old jade dealer and Mogok native who has been working in the business with his parents since he was 10 years old.

“This used to be a place of abundant jade and you could possibly find gems anywhere. But after the private companies were permitted to operate mining ventures, the local manual jade diggers were not allowed to dig, and many companies didn’t even allow us to search for cheap scraps. Only local private company owners allow us to work in their sites. Big companies arrest any trespasser,” said Maung Htoo.

Generation after generation, gem mining and dealing has been a main livelihood for the local people in Mogok. About 20 varieties of gems— including ruby, sapphire and hessonite—have been produced from the approximately 600 jade mining sites belonging to private companies in the area.

When Prime Minister U Nu’s government permitted local people to operate small scale gem mining businesses beginning  in 1954, the local businesses flourished. However, since Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (MEHL) took over the gem mining sector from the State and granted licenses to private companies in 1999, local gem business owners have suffered, had less business opportunities and lost their mining sites, according to a local gem business owner in Mogok.

“Many gem companies here were granted licenses by MEHL, and the other sites were taken over by powerful companies. So small local business owners were not in a position to win. Some Mogok natives moved to Phakhant to find better work, but some chose to stay here as stone foragers,” he said.

Since then, local gem foragers take the risk of trespassing into the restricted areas at night and digging for gems, or survive by searching among the rubble discarded by private companies in hopes of finding hidden lumps of jade, he said.

According to local people, if a pilot digging site looks like a promising place for local gem diggers, a company usually comes along to occupy the site with the help of local authorities.

Low quality gems that manual gem foragers find in the rubble are sold at the gem market in Mogok, while high-quality gems the larger company sell go to the Gem show.

Mogok, Mine Shoo and Phakhant used to be the center of Burma’s gem mining business, but fortune seekers from all over the country have poured into the areas, even in the rainy season, to earn a living and search for treasure.

Phakhant has been the most fruitful site recently, but Naw Aye Hla says that her parents would not allow her to go there because she is a girl, although her 14-year old brother already went.

Here in Mogok, however, rubies remain higher quality than the gems produced in Phakhant and Mine Shoo.

They hold a unique beauty, so gem companies have remained in the area, according to gem dealers.

“This is ‘Ruby Land,’ and there are still rubies to be found in Mogok,” Naw Aye Hla says. “But not by our poor people. For manual stone foragers, there are never enough gems to survive.”

Burma’s information minister says financial details cannot be disclosed
Friday, 12 August 2011 22:05 Phanida

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Replying to a journalist’s question about why Burma did not disclose more budget and financial details after 1997, Information Minister Kyaw Hsan said on Friday “some issues cannot be disclosed” to the public.

The Union-level press conference in Naypyitaw was held in two sessions. In the first session, Kyaw Hsan talked for one hour and 40 minutes about the current armed conflict between the government and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO).  In the second session, he answered journalists’ questions.

Commenting on a question about government secrecy regarding financial details, he said, “Some issues cannot be disclosed to journalists.”

Kyaw Hsan heads a new 11-member Government Spokespersons and Information Team. Known as a hardliner, he shed tears during the press conference evoking surprise among the journalists.

In reply to a question about stopping the controversial Myitsone Dam project at the confluence of the Maykha and Malikha rivers, which will generate 6,000 megawatts, he said that there are no serious problems and the criticism was simply a reflection of diverse views.

On US sanctions against Burma, he said, “The opposition is never optimistic about the State’s action. The leaders have good intentions.” Kyaw Hsan then paused and shed tears.

A reporter at the press conference told Mizzima, “The room was completely silent.” A short while later, the news of his tears attracted widespread public comments on the Internet.

In response to the question about environmental damage caused by the Myitsone Dam project, he said that a deputy director of the Electrical Power Ministry has compiled a report about the affects on the upper river and research on the lower river is still underway. Meanwhile, Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has expressed her concerns about the Myitsone Dam’s environmental consequences and the adverse effects on residents. The project has attracted widespread opposition from environmental groups and Internet commentators.

Kyaw Hsan said that the government would continue the project with careful deliberation on the affects and the benefits to the nation.

In response to questions about the status of the National League for Democracy, Kyaw Hsan said that the government would take action in accordance with laws and regulations.

Regarding the armed conflict between the KIO and the government, Kyaw Hsan blamed the KIO for the recent outbreak of fighting.

He said that the KIO’s behavior was like “a thief calling an honest person [the government] a thief.” He said the KIO spread false news about government troops shooting at a vehicle and killing civilians, said a journalist who attended the press conference.

The minister said the KIO provide false information to foreign media regarding the case of a private vehicle traveling from the Taping Hydropower Plant in Momauk Township on August 2, in which seven people including a police officer were killed. He also said the KIO has destroyed roads and bridges, attacked cars and spread false other information to foreign-based media.

Kyaw Hsan alleged that the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) had breached the terms of  a peace agreement and had spread lies by calling local residents war refugees.

He said that there were about 4,000 refugees in Laiza, the location of KIA headquarters, and 70 percent of them are associates of the KIA.

According to the KIO, there are more than 9,000 refugees in Laiza, Winemaw and Momauk who have been affected by the fighting that started on June 9.

‘We are not working only for ourselves’: KIO
Friday, 12 August 2011 11:29 Mizzima News

(Interview) – The Burmese government and the Kachin Independence Organizations have been unable to agree on a cease-fire after weeks of negotiations. Mizzima reporter Phanida interviewed KIO Joint Secretary La Nan on what clarifications the KIO is seeking from the government and the issues that are preventing agreement.

Question: What issues are preventing the signing of a cease-fire agreement?

Answer: We have asked about President Thein Sein’s attitude toward the KIO and also his views on the Panglong Agreement obligations. Also we have asked for clarification of the level of government officials leading the government’s negotiating team, and how the government interprets the word “peace” [permanent peace].

They have told us that our demand for a nationwide cease-fire within 15 days of signing an agreement and engaging in a dialogue gives their government little room for maneuver. They proposed to change this time limit to one month or replace it with a “speedy announcement.” Then the government will form a committee for permanent peace within a month of issuing an official notification. This committee would take part in a political dialogue and would be led by USDP party leader Thein Zaw.

Q: There are rumours that the KIO has signed an agreement with the government. Is that true?

A: No, we didn’t sign. Our vice chief of staff talked about the terms that should be included in the agreement, three or four points. For instance, upon signing the agreement, there would be a halt in fighting in Kachin State and adjoining areas in order to build a permanent peace. They accepted these terms. But it’s still a long way to actually signing. We shall sign the agreement only after the government replies to our queries clearly.

Each point discussed by our vice chief of staff was accepted by them. The KIO accepts the temporary cease-fire in principle, but we demanded a nationwide cease-fire too. That is accepted in principle too, but before signing the agreement with mutually accepted terms and principles, they must answer our queries and must say clearly how they accept our demands. They have not answered these questions clearly so far, so an agreement has not yet come into force. We have not yet signed the agreement.

Q: What did the government offer the KIO? Did it offer any special privileges in return for signing the agreement?

A: We will not accept any give and take in reaching this agreement. Our organization does not enjoy special economic privileges. We just want the emergence of a prosperous country and to engage in a political dialogue about the powers of each state in the Union.

Q: How long do you think it will take it for an agreement to be reached?

A: We have not yet given our assurance in advance for signing the agreement. So it is too premature to talk about signing an agreement.

Q: Can you describe the other points on which you’ve reached agreement?

A: They still need to clarify their replies with more details. The BBC misinterpreted what we said earlier. The BBC said that we had reached a cease-fire agreement, but in fact we agreed only on some points and terms that would be included in the agreement. As I said before, there are many more points to be included.

Q: If a cease-fire agreement is signed, will it be signed only by the KIO?

A: In signing the agreement, the KIO and the government will sign first for the settlement of the current fighting in Kachin State. And then they must announce a nationwide cease-fire and schedule a political dialogue. And after that, the fighting in Karen, Shan and Karenni states will stop.

After the nationwide cease-fire is implemented, the political negotiations will include the KIO and the UNFC, which represents all ethnic forces. This political roundtable will depend on how they see the obligations of the Panglong Agreement. The UNFC will lead the political dialogue talks.

Regarding the cease-fire negotiations now, there will be only two sides, the KIO and the government. We are trying to extend it to a nationwide scale. If this is accepted, the fighting will cease in Kachin State first.

Q: The UNFC will take over the political dialogue for a nationwide cease-fire after the KIO signs a cease-fire agreement?

A: Yes, but who will represent the UNFC on the negotiation team has to be discussed thoroughly. They (UNFC) will select the delegates to represent the ethnic groups.

Q: Some observers say that the negotiations have been delegated to the state government. Does that mean the Union level itself is not handling the Kachin cease-fire issue?

A: We did not discuss this issue in detail. The state negotiating team sent by them is generally accepted as representing the central (Union) level, working in a gentlemen’s agreement style. We discussed this. Aung Thaung and Thein Zaw are issuing instructions on the working negotiations.

The negotiating team is a state-level delegation but they work under the instruction and advice given by the union- level leaders. Also, Thein Zaw and Aung Thaung have access to President Thein Sein.

However, this delegation has limited powers, but if it gives us assurances and promise that our ethnic forces can accept, we will sign the agreement and will advance to further stages. What’s lacking are more details from them to satisfy our concerns.

Q: What level of government officials will sign the agreement? State-level government officials?

A: If the state government says they can represent the central government, we shall sign at that level. We don’t say who must represent them. If they are really delegated by the central government, we don’t need to stipulate which level must come and sign. Who gives the mandate is more important. That’s why we asked them who determines what the negotiation team can say and do?

Q: If the peace issue with the KIO is deliberated in Parliament, can the KIO take part in the deliberations?

A: The MPs from Kachin State will raise this issue in the Parliament on August 22. They said that. We didn’t say anything about raising our issues in Parliament. Our political line is not the parliamentary line.

Q: Do you have any final thoughts?

A: If you carefully listen to what our vice chief of staff told the BBC, you will find there is nothing wrong about what he said. We are working for a nationwide cease-fire. We are not working only for ourselves.

Will Burma chair the Asean Summit in 2014?
Friday, 12 August 2011 18:26 Mizzima News

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Will Burma’s neighbors give the Asean chair in 2014 to a country that members of the international community are trying to have investigated for war crimes and crimes against humanity?

The issue will be decided at the 19th Asean Summit meeting in November in Bali, according to Burma’s Foreign Affairs Minister Wunna Maung Lwin, who presided at a ceremony in Naypyitaw on Monday to mark Asean Day.

Sources said that an Asean delegation led by Dr. R.M. Marty M. Natalegawa, the foreign affairs minister of Indonesia, which currently holds the Asean chair, would visit Burma soon to discuss the issue.

The 2014 Asean presidency should go to Laos, but the Burmese government successfully negotiated an arrangement with Laos, which has agreed to swap places with Burma for the chairmanship. In accordance with Asean rules, Burma’s turn officially comes up in 2016.

Officials said that because of pressure from the international community over human rights violations and concerns about an undemocratic political system in Burma, Asean is waiting to decide and observing political events in Burma. Originally, the decision was scheduled to be decided at an Asean meeting in May.

In anticipation of approval, Burma has appointed a committee to make preparations to host the Asean Summit in 2014 in Naypyitaw, the new capital.

DVB News – ‘Emotions’ get the better of Burma minister
By AHUNT PHONE MYAT
Published: 12 August 2011

Burma’s information minister Kyan Hsan was forced to leave a government press conference today after refusing to answer questions pitched by journalists which he said made him “emotional”.

Kyan Hsan, who effectively acts as Naypyidaw’s spokesperson, had led the first press conference of the new government in the capital this afternoon.

But he reportedly broke down in tears after being asked when the government would begin dialogue over the multiple conflicts raging in Burma’s border regions and issues regarding the woeful state of the country’s economy. The meeting was then suspended for several minutes.

“He began to have tears in his eyes and cried as he was answering questions [from a reporter] about how [the government’s] worked for the good of their country,” a source at the conference told DVB today.

A secret audio file obtained by DVB quoted Kyaw Hsan as saying, upon his return to the meeting, that “it [the breakdown] happened as I was speaking.

“I would like to tell [the journalists present] to keep this private as the media may think I did this because I didn’t want or wasn’t able to answer the questions. I want to tell you to understand me for feeling emotional as I was giving my answer.”

The 40-minute long conference featured questions from more than 10 journalists. It follows the recent formation of the Spokespersons and Information Team, led by Kyaw Hsan, which effectively acts as a public relations arm of the new government.

Thein Sein’s administration has gone on something of a media offensive as it has struggled to shed its reputation as a civilian extension of the military junta that ruled Burma in various guises since 1962.

Although it released opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi shortly after the November 2010 elections and appears to be opening up somewhat towards the political opposition, critics claim that the escalation of civil wars in the border regions and continued human rights abuses show that little reform has taken place.

DVB News – Australia in the dock over refugee swap
By JOSEPH ALLCHIN
Published: 12 August 2011

An Australian lawyer has won a dramatic high court injunction over a controversial deal signed by the Gillard administration that will see refugees deported to camps in Malaysia.

Lawyer David Manne from the Refugee & Immigration Legal Centre (RILC) brought an injunction late on Sunday night, thereby temporarily suspending the deportation of 16 refugees due on Monday.

The injunction was successful and will be seen by the high court today. Manne highlighted two primary issues, the first being a declaration that Australia’s immigration minister, Chris Bowen, had tried to enact which would prevent the high court from reviewing human rights issues concerned with the deal.

The second focussed on the fact that unaccompanied minors are due to be deported and that under Australia’s Migrant Act, the immigration minister is the legal guardian of refugees who are in state custody without a parent or guardian. The UN convention on child rights states that the legal guardian must act in the best interests of their dependent.

Gillard however refused to rule out the deportation of children, despite UNICEF’s Norman Gillespie telling ABC that, “We would be extremely concerned if any unaccompanied minor would indeed be deported in such a way.”

Malaysia’s camps have often been criticised as far from model facilities, with beatings allegedly endemic, and food and sanitation of a poor standard.

Manne told Australia’s Herald Sun newspaper that “Malaysia has a long-standing record of very serious mistreatment of asylum seekers and refugees including …  beatings, whippings, canings and even deportation.”

Malaysia is not signatory to either the UN’s refugee convention or torture convention, and thus is not bound by international law surrounding the treatment of refugees – something critics have said makes Australia’s policy even more concerning.

Bowen however has remained resolute on the deal. “This is an interim injunction; this is not a finding; this is not a legal outcome,” he told ABC of the injunction. “This is a decision that a case should be heard and a transfer should not occur while that case is being heard.”

“This does not indicate in any way the outcome of the case.”

Australia receives relatively small numbers of asylum claims: last year 8,250 applied, accounting for only two percent of global applications in 2010, compared to 55,530 in the US.
Of these only a small number arrive by boat, but ‘boatpeople’ have transfixed the Australian political debate, with both main parties focusing heavily on migrations they view as illegal. As a result Australia holds asylum seekers, as well as sex-offenders, indefinitely; whilst sex offenders face charges, asylum seekers do not.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, has also criticised the agreement and said that it may be in breach of international law.

The swap deal will see 4,000 mainly Burmese refugees who have been processed by the UN’s refugee agency in Malaysia sent to Australia. Thirteen men and women from the Chin minority group in northwestern Burma arrived in Australia yesterday.

While Australia is a popular destination for Burmese asylum seekers owing to its relative proximity, UN signatory status and affluence, Malaysia does not carry the same reputation.

The process of registering refugees there has been tainted by alleged corruption and even ethnic bias, with one scam seeing applicants allegedly paying “membership fees” to Burmese community groups to be recommended to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

DVB News - Suu Kyi demands action on major dam
By AHUNT PHONE MYAT
Published: 12 August 2011

Aung San Suu Kyi has made an appeal to the Burmese and Chinese governments and the international community to work towards lessening the impact of a major dam on Burma’s main river which experts claim could cause widespread ecological and social damage.

In a letter written yesterday and titled ‘Irrawaddy Appeal’, the opposition leader also called on foreign diplomats to help save what she described as “the most significant geographical feature of our country”.

The Irrawaddy River enters Burma from China in the far north and runs 2,170 kilometres south before it exits into the Andaman Sea. It is the country’s most important commercial waterway and the lifeblood of millions of Burmese.

But a major hydropower project in the upstream section in Kachin state threatens to displace 15,000 people and cause ramifications the length of the country. Upon completion in
2017, the 6000 MW Myitsone Dam, financed largely by China, will become the world’s fifteenth largest dam.

Ohn Kyaing, information officer for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, said the letter, written in both Burmese and English, was a “serious and genuine appeal” and was distributed to international media and diplomats and UN officials inside Burma.

Despite the human and environmental cost of the project, the vast majority of the dam’s output will go to the China Southern Power Grid, despite only 20 percent of the Burmese population having regular access to electricity.

Last month, Burma Rivers Network (BRN) published a synopsis of a 2009 internal report by the China Power Investment (CPI) Corporation, the company behind the Myitsone dam, that had called for the lucrative venture to be scrapped, claiming it was both unnecessary and that the damage caused by it would be too costly.

Both BRN and CPI have warned that the dam’s impact on the hydrology of the river further downstream could be highly damaging.

Suu Kyi’s letter said that the “lack of sound planning, the failure to enforce necessary conservation laws, and a poor ecological awareness have created diverse problems”.

Referring to China’s role in the project, she added that “keeping in mind the interests of both countries, both governments would wish to avoid consequences which might endanger lives and homes”.