BURMA RELATED NEWS – DECEMBER 15-18, 2011
Dec 19th, 2011
15 December 2011 – A United Nations survey launched today points to “significant” increases in opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar and Laos, and calls for greater investment to support alternative livelihoods.
The 2011 South-East Asia Opium Survey, released today in Bangkok by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), says that cultivation in the region jumped from some 42,000 hectares to almost 48,000 – a 16 per cent increase over 2010.
Yury Fedotov, UNODC’s Executive Director, noted that the high prices for opium in Laos and Thailand, as well as steep price increases in Myanmar, are making production attractive to farmers. This requires the creation of alternative livelihoods to wean farmers off opium poppy cultivation, he added.
“Although the international community has supported alternative development for many years, and with great success, there is a need for increased investment,” said Mr. Fedotov.
Opium poppy cultivation has doubled in South-East Asia since 2006, the agency noted. Myanmar accounted for 91 per cent of cultivation in the region, with Laos taking nine per cent.
Myanmar remained the second largest poppy-crop grower and opium producer in the world after Afghanistan. Cultivation in Myanmar climbed for the fifth year in a row, rising by 14 per cent this year over 2010. The rise was even steeper in Laos, at 38 per cent.
“In Myanmar, there is a need for more programmes that support alternative development for opium poppy growers,” said Mr. Fedotov. “These programmes must also take into account the issues of poverty reduction, environmental protection, food security and improved social and economic conditions as key objectives.
“Indeed, these projects are a necessity because reductions in illicit crop cultivation and opium production can bring tangible benefits to the lives of ordinary people,” he added.
(AFP) – December 16, 2011.
BANGKOK — Opium cultivation has surged in Myanmar and Laos as high prices attract impoverished farmers to grow the illicit crop, particularly in conflict areas, according to a UN report published Thursday.
The study by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), using helicopter, satellite and village surveys, saw a 16 percent increase in the amount of Southeast Asian land sown with poppies in 2011 since just last year.
While cultivation was up 37 percent in Laos since 2010, the vast majority of it takes place in military-dominated Myanmar, the second largest opium poppy grower in the world after Afghanistan.
Some 256,000 households in Myanmar — significantly more than in Afghanistan — are involved in the crop’s cultivation, which mostly takes place in northeastern Shan state, the UNODC said.
“What is driving the poppy increase is food insecurity, poverty, conflict that’s raging in that part of Myanmar and the high prices that are available for people who wish to cultivate,” said the UNODC’s regional representative Gary Lewis.
He spoke of “a swirling and often toxic mix of guns, of money and of drugs” in the area, although the UNODC’s research found the main reason for the increases in opium cultivation was the need for food.
“It’s very rare that I have seen poverty… in a rural setting to the extent that one sees in Shan,” Lewis told reporters in Bangkok.
Opium cultivation was also up 27 percent from last year in northern Kachin state, on the China border, where tens of thousands have fled ongoing conflict between the government and armed ethnic groups.
Jason Eligh, the UNODC’s Myanmar country manager, welcomed recent developments by the government that could help curb Myanmar’s drugs problems including work towards ceasefire agreements with ethnic rebels.
A deal was recently signed between the Shan State Army South and local authorities, and mediators have expressed hopes of other truces.
“We hope that this is something that leads to long-term peace,” Eligh said of such agreements.
Myanmar has surprised critics with a series of reformist steps in recent months as it attempts to shake off its international pariah status.
Lewis said it was a “particularly opportune time” in its history for the international community to help develop alternatives to poppy cultivation — “an investment for peace and security in border areas of Myanmar”.
The estimated value of opium production in Myanmar, Laos and Thailand — the countries where most of the region’s cultivation takes place — rose 48 percent in 2011 from last year to $319 million, the UNODC said.
Regional cultivation has doubled since 2006, and the report warned that the picture “grows dimmer” when combined with the fact that amphetamine-type stimulants are also a growing problem in Southeast Asia.
While Laos does not have the conflict issues of Myanmar, there are similarly many areas that have not been reached by efforts to develop alternatives to drug cultivation, said the UNODC’s Leik Boonwaat.
“In Laos the main reasons probably would be that farmers still are hungry, they still are poor and they still need a livelihood,” he said.
AFP News – Sat, Dec 17, 2011 Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said that she would meet Myanmar’s democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on a visit to the neighbouring country next week.
Yingluck will travel to Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw on Monday for a meeting of Greater Mekong country leaders before visiting Yangon — becoming the first Thai premier to meet Suu Kyi, a government spokesman said.
“I will attend the conference on Mekong energy cooperation in Myanmar and will take this opportunity to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi to exchange views and ideas,” Yingluck said in her weekly live television broadcast.
“She is a remarkable woman who fights for democracy,” she added.
Thai foreign affairs spokesman Thani Thongphakdi said it would be the first meeting between Suu Kyi and a prime minister of Thailand, which a key local partner of the military-dominated country.
Detained for most of the past two decades, Suu Kyi was released from her latest stint under house arrest a few days after a controversial election in November last year, which her opposition party boycotted.
But since coming to power in March after nearly five decades of outright military rule, Myanmar’s nominally civilian government has surprised critics with a series of reformist moves.
It has also this month given Suu Kyi’s party the go-ahead to rejoin mainstream politics and allowed her various high-profile meetings, including with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and China’s ambassador to Myanmar.
Suu Kyi has said she will take part in by-elections expected in early 2012, although no date has been set.
Yingluck took office in August after sweeping to a Thai election victory with the support of her older brother, fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a coup in 2006.
15 Dec 2011 10:28
By Fredrik Dahl VIENNA, Dec 15 (Reuters) – The United Nations nuclear watchdog is seeking to gain access to sites in Myanmar, which rejected allegations by an exile group last year it was trying to develop atomic weapons, a diplomat familiar with the issue said.
Myanmar officials signalled during talks in September that inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could come to the southeast Asian nation, which has initiated radical reforms after decades of authoritarian military rule.
The meeting on the sidelines of the IAEA’s member state conference raised hopes of progress on the issue, the diplomat added, without specifying which facilities the Vienna-based U.N. agency may want to see. There was no immediate IAEA comment.
A exile group based in Norway said in mid-2010 that Myanmar had a secret programme dedicated to developing the means to make nuclear weapons, following up on similar allegations by defectors from the then reclusive state.
The IAEA said at the time that it was looking into the report. Myanmar is a member of both the IAEA and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Myanmar’s IAEA envoy, Tin Win, said in September the country did not have “enough economic strength” to develop atomic arms. It has also previously denied the accusations.
A U.S.-based think tank this week said allegations by the exile group and defector interviews claiming that Myanmar “had or has a nuclear weapons research programme remain unsubstantiated and poorly evidenced”.
But, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) said: “The international community must remain steadfast in its calls on (Myanmar) to fully commit to nuclear non-proliferation objectives and allow full verification of those commitments.”
NORTH KOREA LINKS?
The IAEA is tasked with preventing the spread of atomic bombs in the world by seeking to make sure that any nuclear material is not diverted for military purposes.
Myanmar “should answer any questions the IAEA has about its nuclear activities and illicit procurement efforts relating to sensitive equipment potentially related to nuclear applications,” ISIS said on its website.
It should also provide information about past transfers and cooperation with North Korea and explain why it continues to send students to Russia for training in nuclear and missile applications, the think tank added.
Last year, a U.N. report suggested that North Korea might have supplied impoverished Myanmar as well as Iran and Syria with banned atomic technology.
But most analysts believe Myanmar remains well short of any goal to acquire nuclear capability, and U.S. officials have played down fears its ties with North Korea had broadened to include a nuclear programme.
During a landmark visit two weeks ago, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Myanmar to end illicit contacts with North Korea, which has been trying to build a nuclear arsenal and which is under international sanctions.
Myanmar later denied it had been cooperating with North Korea on nuclear technology, the first time it has commented on speculation that the two states might be working together to build atomic weapons.
15 Dec 2011 14:33 BANGKOK (AlertNet) – Tens of thousands of displaced ethnic Kachins in northern Myanmar are facing food shortages and health problems, a local aid group told AlertNet, as the United Nations made its first aid delivery to people seeking shelter in rebel-controlled areas.
Diarrhoea had already broke out in a makeshift camp housing some 2,000 displaced people, mainly women and the elderly, because of a lack of proper sanitation and access to clean water, killing a one-year-old baby, said Mary Tawm from local relief group Wunpawng Ninghtoi (WPN).
“The conditions are pretty bad. We are very concerned because the food they are eating is not really nutritious and they didn’t manage to get their belongings so they’re living very roughly. They also need non-food items, medicine”, she said, adding mothers and children needed nutritious food.
“It is also getting very cold here, even for those of us who live in a house, so imagine what it must be like living in huts.”
Some of the displaced crossed the border to China but now face the prospect of returning to the conflict zone after the Chinese authorities ordered them to go back to Myanmar a few days ago, Tawn told AlertNet.
The people had fled fighting between government troops and the Kachin Independency Army (KIA) in pockets of the jungle in the northern state of Kachin – which is controlled by the KIA and its political wing, the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) – after a 17-year ceasefire broke down.
Located in Mai Ja Yang, one of the main KIO bases, WPN had been working with the displaced since the decades-old conflict flared up in June.
U.N. URGES FOR FUNDING
“We have been providing rice, oil, salt, beans, a local snack, candles and bars of soap to about 20,000 people in makeshift camps around the area every 15 days. This is not
sufficient but what’s worse is we only have enough stuff for two more rounds of rations,” Tawn told AlertNet.
“We have been receiving assistance from local and overseas Kachin communities and some international aid agencies but it has been more short-term and ad hoc.”
Last week, Refugees International warned that a humanitarian crisis is brewing in Kachin state and urged international aid agencies to fund local relief groups.
After months of lobbying by the international community, Myanmar’s nominally civilian government, which came to power in March, allowed the U.N. to deliver aid into Laiza, the KIO’s administrative headquarter near the border with China.
On Monday, U.N. agencies provided household items to 800 families in Laiza, where some 12,000 people are scattered in halls and temporary camps.
“This was the first delivery made to Laiza and we hope to be able to continue delivery of humanitarian assistance as long as is needed,” said Aye Win, spokesperson for the U.N. in Myanmar.
“However, the situation of stocks (of food and non-food items) in-country is dire… More funding is therefore needed to enable continuation of assistance to all those in need.”
In total, a third of Myanmar’s population lives in poverty.
TOLD TO GO HOME
Five days ago, Chinese authorities in Yunnan province told some 2,000 people at a temporary camp in La Ying that if they don’t leave they will be returned by force to Myanmar, said Tawn.
“We were going there to give them their rations and the authorities told us to bring our rations back and said the refugees must leave. They said the orders came from Beijing,” she told AlertNet.
The authorities wanted the people to leave the next day but they managed to ask for a five-day reprieve, she said. The people are unwilling to go back or move to other areas due to safety concerns and the deadline has now passed. It is unclear what the next step is.
And despite reports of Myanmar’s president ordering the military to cease attacks against the KIA, fighting had not stopped, she added.
“We were so happy when we first heard of the president’s order,” Tawn said.
“But fighting seemed to have increased. Just three or four days ago we saw 3 planes in the air followed by an ear-splitting noise that scared everybody. We’re used to the sound of weapons but this was different,” she added.
“So we’re really concerned the offensive has not stopped. We feel like we have nowhere to go.”
She said villagers living under the planes’ path said they had been bombed.
By DAN BILEFSKY and JANE PERLEZ
Published: December 18, 2011 His assistant, Sabina Tancevova, said that Mr. Havel died at his country house in northern Bohemia.
A Czech embassy spokesman in Paris, Michal Dvorak, said in a statement that Mr. Havel, a heavy smoker for decades who almost died during surgery for lung cancer in 1996, had been suffering from severe respiratory ailments since last spring.
A shy yet resilient, unfailingly polite but dogged man who articulated the power of the powerless, Mr. Havel spent five years in and out of Communist prisons, lived for two decades under close secret-police surveillance and endured the suppression of his plays and essays. He served 14 years as president, wrote 19 plays, inspired a film and a rap song and remained one of his generation’s most seductively nonconformist writers.
All the while, he came to personify the soul of the Czech nation. His moral authority and his moving use of the Czech language cast him as the dominant figure during Prague street demonstrations in 1989 and as the chief behind-the-scenes negotiator who brought about the peaceful transfer of power known as the Velvet Revolution, a revolt so smooth that it took just weeks to complete, without a single bullet fired.
He was chosen as democratic Czechoslovakia’s first president — a role he insisted was more duty than aspiration — and after the country split in January 1993, he became president of the Czech Republic. He linked the country firmly to the west, clearing the way for the Czech Republic to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1999 and the European Union five years later.
Both as a dissident and as a national leader, Mr. Havel impressed the West as one of the most important political thinkers in Central Europe.
Political ideas, not economics, interested him. His country, widely considered to have made a smooth transition from Communism to market democracy, came in for his devastating critique in December 1997, when he attacked corruption and the sell-off of government-run industries in a thinly veiled barb at his political nemesis, the longtime prime minister — and now president — Vaclav Klaus.
Expressing disdain for what had happened to Czech society under Mr. Klaus — an ally of convenience in the days of the 1989 revolution — Mr. Havel told Parliament that a “post-Communist morass” had allowed “the most immoral people” to achieve financial success at the expense of others.
Mr. Klaus, a right-wing maverick who espouses the untrammeled capitalism Mr. Havel disliked, succeeded Mr. Havel as president in 2003. On Sunday, Mr. Klaus paid tribute to Mr. Havel, calling him “the symbol of the new era of the Czech state.”
While many in the West worshiped Mr. Havel — President Bill Clinton once compared him to Gandhi — in his native country he was regarded with deep affection but also ambivalence, and even scorn. His slogan during the revolution that truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred was mocked by foes, who accused him of naïveté.
Mr. Havel’s standing with Czechs faltered somewhat in 1997 after his surprise marriage to Dagmar Veskrnova, an actress who had once played a topless vampire in a film, only a year after the death of his much admired first wife of 31 years, Olga. In January 1998 the parliament, resentful of what was seen as Mr. Havel’s arrogant behavior with his new wife and his meddling in political affairs, elected him to a second presidential term by only one vote.
Erik Tabery, a Czech journalist and author of a book on the Czech presidency, said some Czechs resented Mr. Havel for holding up an uncomfortable mirror to their history of passivity. “While the communists ruled for 40 years, most Czechs stayed at home and did nothing,” Mr. Tabery said. “Havel did something.”
Mr. Havel had his own theory. He frequently told interviewers that he had unwittingly become a character from a fairy tale, whom he himself didn’t recognize.
His star status and personal interests drew world leaders to Prague, from the Dalai Lama, with whom Mr. Havel meditated for hours, to Mr. Clinton, who, during a state visit in 1994, joined a saxophone jam session at Mr. Havel’s favorite jazz club.
In the first months of Mr. Havel’s own presidency, visitors to Prague’s labyrinthine Castle included Frank Zappa, and the Rolling Stones. He covered the side of the building with a large neon-red heart, and pedaled the corridors with a child’s scooter.
Critics said Mr. Havel, self-professed reluctant leader, learned to like power a little too much. Many Czechs were also disappointed that he refused to outlaw the Communist Party or to put on trial the system that had allowed neighbors to send one another to labor camps.
It was as a dissident that Mr. Havel most clearly championed the ideals of a civil society. He helped found Charter 77, the longest enduring human rights movement in the former Soviet bloc, and keenly articulated the lasting humiliations that Communism imposed on the individual.
In his now iconic 1978 essay, “The Power of the Powerless,” which circulated in underground editions in Czechoslovakia and was smuggled to other Warsaw Pact countries and to the West, Mr. Havel foresaw that the opposition could eventually prevail against the totalitarian state.
Mr. Havel, a child of bourgeois privilege whose family lost its wealth when the Communists came to power in 1948, first became active in the Writers Union in Czechoslovakia in the mid-1960s, when his chief target was not Communism so much as it was the “reform Communism” that many were seeking.
During the Prague Spring of 1968, the brief period when reform Communists, led by Alexander Dubcek, believed that “Socialism with a human face” was possible, Mr. Havel argued that Communism could never be tamed.
He wrote an article, “On the Theme of an Opposition,” that advocated the end of single-party rule — a bold idea at the time. In May 1968, he was invited by the American theater producer Joseph Papp to see the New York Shakespeare Festival’s production of his second play, “The Memorandum.”
It was the last time Mr. Havel was allowed out of the country under Communist rule; the visit contributed to an abiding affection for New York.
After the Soviets sent tanks to suppress the Prague reforms in August 1968, Mr. Havel persisted in the fight for political freedom. In August 1969 he organized a petition of 10 points that repudiated the politics of “normalization” with the Soviet Union. He was accused of subversion, and in 1970 was vilified on state television and banned as a writer.
At the time, tens of thousands of Communists were expelled from the party, deemed too sympathetic to the Dubcek reforms that were being reversed by the Czechoslovak leader Gustav Husak. Mr. Havel kept writing, and in 1975, in an open letter to Mr. Husak — the leader he eventually replaced — he attacked the regime, arguing that Czechoslovakia operated under “political apartheid” that separated the rulers from the ruled.
The government, Mr. Havel wrote, had chosen “the most dangerous road for society: the path of inner decay for the sake of outward appearances; of deadening life for the sake of increasing uniformity.”
In 1977, Mr. Havel was one of three leading organizers of Charter 77, a group of 242 signers who called for the human rights guaranteed under the 1975 Helsinki accords. Mr. Havel was quickly arrested, tried and convicted of subversion and served three months in prison. He was arrested again in May 1979 on a charge of subversion and was sentenced to four and a half years.
The severity of this sentence brought protests from the Communist parties in France, Italy and Spain. Mr. Havel was eventually released in February 1983, suffering from pneumonia.
In prison, he was prohibited from writing anything but letters about “family matters” to his wife. These missives, he said, enabled him to make some sense of his incarceration. One of his themes was a warning to his persecutors that by their repression of human freedom, they were ultimately undercutting their own existence.
His release in May that year marked the beginning of the end for Czechoslovakia’s Communist government, which was badly out of step with reforms under way in neighboring Poland and Hungary and, under the leadership of Mikhail S. Gorbachev, in the Soviet Union itself.
During the 1980s, Mr. Havel refused government pressure to emigrate. Not widely known at home outside dissident and intellectual circles in Prague, he became a focus for some Western diplomats and visitors, who would tramp up to the top-floor apartment of a six-story house that his father had built and philosophize with Mr. Havel while gazing across the Vltava river at the Castle.
He earned virtually nothing from the menial job he was forced to take at a brewery, but had money from the royalties of publications overseas. He bought a Mercedes-Benz and decorated his book-crammed apartment with abstract paintings. He also owned the cottage at Hradecek where he died.
Mr. Havel’s chance at power came in November 1989, eight days after the Berlin Wall fell.
A tentative dialogue had already started when the police broke up an officially sanctioned student demonstration on Nov. 17, beating many demonstrators and arresting others.
Two days later, Mr. Havel convened a meeting in the Magic Lantern, a Prague theater, and he and other dissidents established the Civic Forum. It called for the resignation of the leading Communists, investigation of the police action and the release of all political prisoners.
The next day, an estimated 200,000 people took to the streets in Prague — the first of several demonstrations that ended Communist domination.
It was in the theater’s smoke-filled rooms that Mr. Havel mapped the strategy and proclamations that finally undermined Communist rule. “It was extraordinary the degree to which everything ultimately revolved around this one man,” wrote the historian Timothy Garton Ash, who was present.
“In almost all the Forum’s major decisions and statements,” Mr. Garton Ash added, “he was the final arbiter, the one person who could somehow balance the very different tendencies and interests in the movement.”
Once installed at the Castle, Mr. Havel gradually discarded crumpled jeans and sweaters for crisp shirts and somber suits. Yet until his marriage to Ms. Veskrnova, when he appeared in evening wear for a photograph in a book describing their first year together, he seemed more at home in the counterculture. On a l trip abroad in 1995, he ignored awaiting dignitaries and lingered on an airport tarmac for a chat with Mick Jagger.
”Initially he had difficulty changing his mentality from being a dissident to a politician,” said Jiri Pehe, who was his chief political adviser from in 1997 to 1999. But Mr. Pehe argued that Mr. Havel was a better president than many had expected.
“Because of his moral authority, he was able to stretch a weak presidency beyond what was written in the Constitution,” Mr. Pehe said.
In June 1992, as Czechoslovakia began to break up, Mr. Havel resigned as president rather than preside over the split. He spoke then of the difficult metamorphosis from philosopher to politician.
“Putting into practice the ideals to which I have adhered all my life, which guided me in the dissident years, becomes much more difficult in practical politics,” he said, before being later elected president of the new Czech Republic.
As soon as he came to power, Mr. Havel steered his country toward the West. On his first visit to the United States as president, in February 1990, Mr. Havel stressed that American financial aid was not as important as technical assistance to help his country — historically an industrial power — compete again in the international market place.
Days later, he met Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Moscow and swiftly negotiated the withdrawal of 70,000 Soviet troops stationed in Czechoslovakia.
At home, Mr. Havel’s role evolved into one of educator and moral persuader. In weekly radio talks, he often addressed human rights, touching on issues that were sensitive in Czech society. He championed, for instance, the rights of Gypsies, or Roma, despite surveys that showed that most Czechs would not want a Gypsy as a neighbor.
Early in his presidency, he also formed a commission to inquire into the expulsion of three million Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II, a move that went against popular sentiment.
Born on Oct. 5, 1936, Mr. Havel was one of two sons of Vaclav and Bozena Havel. His father, a civil engineer, was a major commercial real estate developer who acquired important property. When the Communists took power three years after World War II, the family holdings were taken over by the state. After Communist rule ended, Mr. Havel and his brother, Ivan, won back much of the property.
Mr. Havel would later write that his privileged upbringing heightened his sensitivity to inequality.
“I was different from my schoolmates whose families did not have domestics, nurses or chauffeurs,” he wrote. “But I experienced these differences as a disadvantage, I felt excluded from the company of my peers.”
He started writing, he said, to overcome his feeling of being an outsider. Because of his background, the Communists blocked him from going to university, and at age 15 he started work as a technician in a chemistry lab.
Mr. Havel was called up for military service in 1957, and wrote a satirical play while in the army. In 1960, he joined the Theater on the Balustrade as a stagehand. In 1963 he wrote his first publicly performed play, “The Garden Party,” about a person who has lost his sense of identity to such a degree that he goes to look for himself in his own apartment.
In 1956 Mr. Havel met Olga Splichalova, a lively, dashing actress, whom he married in 1964. A working- class heroine for many Czechs, she helped to inspire the collection of essays, written as letters from prison, and published as “Letters to Olga.” In dissident circles and beyond, Mr. Havel was a celebrated womanizer. Olga, who was fiercely defensive of her husband, was said by friends to have a certain reassurance when he was in prison because, “at least she knew where he was.”
When he became president, Mrs. Havel seldom took part in formal events, but used her new platform to campaign for the handicapped. She died of cancer in January 1996. They had no children.
Mr. Havel is survived by his wife, Dagmar, and his brother, Ivan.
After stepping down as president in 2003, Mr. Havel, ailing and tired, returned to writing, insisting he was happy with a peaceful life. In his memoir, “To the Castle and Back,” published in 2007, he called his political rise an accident of history. Post-Communist society disappointed him, he said.
In 2008, Mr. Havel re-emerged as a playwright with a new absurdist tragic-comedy, “Leaving,” depicting a womanizing former political leader who grudgingly confronts life outside of politics.
He never stopped preaching that the fight for political freedom needed to outlive the end of the Cold War. He lauded the United States invasion of Iraq for deposing an evil dictator, Saddam Hussein.
He continued to worry about what he called “the old European disease” — “the tendency to make compromises with evil, to close one’s eyes to dictatorship, to practice a politics of appeasement.”
By EDWARD WONG
Published: December 15, 2011 The Chinese ambassador to Myanmar has met with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the country’s main political opposition movement, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday in Beijing.
China is the biggest foreign supporter of the Burmese government, which has been ruled by army generals for years; there had been no previous reports of a Chinese ambassador meeting with Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi. The spokesman, Liu Weimin, said at a news conference that the meeting took place at Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s request.
“Madam Aung San Suu Kyi expressed her hope several times that she could meet with the Chinese ambassador to Myanmar, and the ambassador met with her in response to her request and listened to her opinions,” Mr. Liu said, according to The Associated Press. He did not say when the meeting took place. The American secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, met with Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi on a recent trip to Myanmar.
By Associated Press, Published: December 16
YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar is negotiating peace with major ethnic rebel groups and is determined to achieve a permanent peace with them in three to four years, the government’s top negotiator said.
Peace talks based on mutual respect are being held with the Shan, Mon, Karen, Kayah and Kachin groups, with the government’s only condition being that the groups not demand to secede, said Aung Thaung, who heads the government’s Peace Committee.
He told reporters Friday that President Thein Sein ordered an end to fighting with Kachin rebels in the north Dec. 10 but skirmishes continued because communicating with troops in remote areas was difficult.
For decades, Myanmar has been at odds with the ethnic groups, who seek greater autonomy, but a military junta that took power in 1988 signed cease-fire agreements with many of them. Some of those pacts were strained as the central government sought to consolidate power, and combat resumed.
However, the new military-backed but elected government has embarked on reforms to try to end its international isolation. Western governments had imposed political and economic sanctions on Myanmar because of repression under the junta.
Ending war with ethnic rebels is one of the condition set by the West for improved relations, a point emphasized by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during her visit to Myanmar earlier this month.
A prominent Kachin mediator said government troops are continuing to attack Kachin villages and called for the recent cease-fire to be enforced.
The Kachin have been fighting the government since June, when the army tried to break up some of their militia strongholds.
“If the president’s order is not immediately implemented and fighting not stopped, it could lead to distrust and further misunderstanding,” Kachin mediator Rev. Saboi Jum told The Associated Press.
He said government attacks had continued at least as late as Wednesday.
“It seems that the president’s order to stop fighting has not reached to the lower levels,” he said.
Aung Thaung, a top member of the ruling pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party, vowed that the government would try its best to achieve peace.
“It could take some three to four years to achieve peace with ethnic groups, but we are determined to achieve permanent peace during our term of office,” he told local reporters.
“There is no peace in the country for more than six decades,” Aung Thaung said. “Myanmar is the only country in the world where ethnic conflict has continued for six decades and the world looked down upon us. Thus we have vowed to try our best to achieve peace with armed ethnic groups.”
Aung Thaung led a government delegation that met for peace talks with the Kachin Independence Organization on Nov. 29 in Ruili in China’s Yunnan province.
A few days later, the Shan State Army-South rebel group reached a cease-fire agreement at the provincial level with the government. The group is one of the biggest not to previously sign a cease-fire deal with the government.
December 18, 2011 MAYINGYI VILLAGE, Myanmar, Dec 18 — Tun Aung knew there were plans for his village to be moved to make way for a multibillion-dollar industrial zone and deep-sea port, but the whole thing was hard to imagine.
Then one day last month he discovered a new road slicing through his family’s cashew tree grove, part of a network that will link to a super-highway across southern Burma to Thailand.
“I am very angry about this,” said the 56-year-old farmer, who said his village leader had agreed under pressure to have everybody relocate. “There was no compensation. This land wasn’t bought (by me), it was handed down from my father.”
The road is just one piece of a US$50 billion (RM158.8 billion) deep-water port and special economic zone that is meant to transform this wild landscape of beaches, small plantations and scrubland into Southeast Asia’s largest industrial complex.
Au Bar Tha, a 57-year-old monk, is one of thousands in the area who face relocation because of the massive project. In the Myanmar ruled by generals, who never hesitated to use brutal force to achieve their ends, that would have been that.
But Myanmar under a new and nominally civilian government has shown itself to be more responsive to the will of the people. It cancelled a US$3.6 billion Chinese-led dam project in September following weeks of public outrage.
Inspired by that, a grassroots movement has emerged here to oppose the massive development. New legislation passed last month gives them the right to peacefully assemble. “I absolutely don’t want to move,” Au Bar Tha declares. “I will stand like a stone and if they want to move me they will have to lift me up.”
Elsewhere in the country, former student activists who had eschewed politics since a 1988 democracy movement was brutally crushed, are testing the air again. Workers are beginning to organise. Exiles are being wooed to return.
As the former British colony embarks on its most dramatic changes since a 1962 military coup in what was then Burma, mega-projects such as the 250 sq km Dawei Special Economic Zone hint at a rapid acceleration in both investment and development.
With a metal ruler, Au Bar Tha points at a spot on a photocopied map where a new US$8 billion deep-sea port will be carved into the shore. He notes places where an oil refinery, a coal-fired power plant and a petrochemical factory will replace rice fields, cashew and rubber trees and jungle.
Then, he slides the ruler north to his village of Mayingyi and to the words next to it. “What is a combined cycle power plant?” he asks earnestly, hoping rare visitors from outside the area might be able to enlighten him.
Dawei’s position on the map highlights Myanmar’s geostrategic importance as it emerges from its self-imposed isolation. Road and rail routes from the industrial zone, built by Thailand’s biggest construction company, Italian-Thai Development Plc, will link Dawei’s port to China, India and Southeast Asia.
In a country where a third of its 55 million people live on less than one US dollar a day, Dawei is striking in its ambition. Super-highways, steel mills, power plants, shipyards, refineries, pulp and paper mills and a petrochemical complex are part of the plan, as are two golf courses and a holiday resort, according to Italian-Thai.
Up to 30,000 people, mostly impoverished rice, cashew and rubber farmers living in thatched-roof huts, must be moved over 10 years of construction, say local activists who are fighting for compensation for the displaced or to block construction of polluting projects.
‘WE HAVE NO GRUDGE’
The new activists take their inspiration from Myanmar’s democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a proponent of non-violent resistance. Released from years of house arrest just over a year ago, she has rejoined the political process.
Suu Kyi had opposed the Myitsone dam and helped convince the government to suspend the project. That caught the eye of former activists such as Ba Htoo Maung.
Htoo Htoo, as he is known, was arrested on December 11, 1991, a day after Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was stabbed in the leg with a bayonet and beaten before spending the next 11 years behind bars for helping organise the 1988 protests.
After his release on March 9, 2003, Htoo Htoo gave politics a wide berth. He started a family and taught English and Burmese for a living. “Most people were afraid. I didn’t even want to talk about politics.”
When Buddhist monk-led protests erupted in 2007, Htoo Htoo stayed away. “Experience taught me a lot,” he said in a quiet Yangon cafe. Those demonstrations, too, were soon crushed by the military.
This year, he noticed the tide turning.
Suu Kyi, once reviled by the military rulers and off-limits for the country’s independent media, has been courted by the government after she was freed from years of house arrest last year. Her picture is everywhere — on newspapers, posters, T-shirts and even key rings — and she said she would run in a by-election for a seat in parliament.
Htoo Htoo is also inching back towards the political arena.
On August 8, friends who had also been active in the student movement invited him out to mark the 21st anniversary of a major student protest.
He decided to go “because the situation was starting to change”. At the event, he met Suu Kyi and congratulated her on her meetings with government officials.
Htoo Htoo was encouraged but also concerned. The changes were so quick. He wondered whether the two entrenched sides in Myanmar’s long-running political battle could be so easily reconciled.
He launched a movement he calls “Metta”, a Buddhist word that roughly means goodwill or peace.
“We have no grudge. We are not interested in revenge,” he said. “What we want is the country to change.”
After Suu Kyi met President Thein Sein, Htoo Htoo was excited. The long-suppressed student activist in him resurfaced. He wanted to put together a mass public rally in Yangon Square, near city hall in the centre of town, in support of the dialogue.
He met Suu Kyi and sought her opinion.
“‘The Lady’,” he explained, referring to Su Kyi’s epithet, “said Metta is good. As for the mass movement, it is too early, she said. We cannot know who will join this mass movement with what ideas and what ambitions.”
RISE OF LABOUR
To say mass movements have struggled in Myanmar is an understatement. While other Asian countries have had military rulers, none have been so entrenched in every sector of society as in Myanmar in a bid to stamp out every whisper of dissent.
After the generals killed or jailed thousands in the 1988 demonstrations, they stepped up attacks on ethnic minority groups that have fought for autonomy since independence from Britain in 1948. The junta simply ignored a landslide election win in 1990 by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy.
Little wonder then that a labour movement never gained traction despite harsh working conditions for many in the country — until October, when unions were legalised to the shocking surprise and relief of workers such as Ma Moe.
In July last year, she posted notices in the women’s bathrooms of the garment factory where she worked on the outskirts of the former capital Yangon calling for a strike. Management responded with a small pay raise, and the strike was averted. But soon after, the harassment began.
The soft-spoken, 33-year-old was given more work than she could possibly complete, and hounded in other ways, she said. The trouble lasted more than a year before her boss gave her an ultimatum: quit or be fired.
She walked out.
“I cried,” she said. “I was worried about the future because my family mainly depended on my salary.” She said she earned between 80 cents and US$1.50 a day, depending on overtime.
One of the first bills Thein Sein signed as the new president was a Labour Organisation Law that legalised unions and, in theory, gave workers the right to strike.
As the economy advances, Myanmar may well emerge as a low-cost manufacturing hub alongside Vietnam and Bangladesh. Its once-flourishing garment industry was stifled by US and European sanctions. Some expect it to rebound if sanctions are lifted, possibly next year or in 2013.
But the law failed in several crucial respects, said Phoe Phyu, a lawyer who represents disenfranchised workers and farmers. Workers can only strike with permission from authorities and grassroots unions are not allowed to have contact with international organisations, he said.
Conditions would change slowly as the country moved towards democracy, he said, but it was a long road ahead for workers such as Ma Moe. “The new law cannot change things for people like her,” said the lawyer, who has been jailed twice for his work.
AN OLD POWER
Walking the rutted streets of Yangon with its dilapidated colonial-era buildings, Phoe Phyu’s comment rings true in other ways: it is easy to see how Myanmar will change, but how progress could be excruciatingly slow.
The city seems ill-prepared for a wave of investment that could come if sanctions are lifted. It has no skyscrapers to house banks; no modern shopping malls for a new consumer generation. Wheezing Japanese cars from the 1970s and 1980s dominate the streets.
It’s hard to believe today that Burma in the early 20th century was one of Asia’s richest nations and a shining part of the British empire. After seizing Yangon in 1852 and anglicising its name to Rangoon, Britain developed the area into its administration base, building law courts, parliament buildings, shady parks and botanical gardens. Rangoon University, founded in 1878, became one of Asia’s premier universities. Its infrastructure rivalled London’s.
Today, chronic power outages and deteriorating buildings are constant reminders of decades of mismanagement that began in 1962 with a disastrous “Burmese Way to Socialism” adopted by the then leader, General Ne Win. It led to sweeping nationalisation and global isolation for the resource-rich country.
In the centre of Yangon, at one of its hippest restaurants, however, Phyu Phyu Tin knows Myanmar’s potential.
The 38-year-old managing partner of Monsoon Restaurant and Bar, with a menu that includes dishes from all the countries of Indochina, can trace her family’s roots through the prosperous British colonial era.
Her great-grandfather owned enough property to give each of his children a house. Her grandfather worked for the British consulate and spoke better English than Burmese. Her father, Nyunt Tin, a fighter pilot-turned-diplomat, was posted to Hong Kong as Consul General and is now in parliament.
After years of living abroad, Phuy Phuy Tin felt the pull of her homeland in 2003 and opened the restaurant. Now that the country is poised for takeoff, she and her family are preparing to launch a construction company. Her little sister, Zar Chi Tin, who is living in London, plans to return and join in the business.
The Myanmar diaspora numbers in the millions, including refugees and exiles, and Thein Sein has invited them to return home to help develop the country.
“We are very happy, especially for the next generation,” she said, reflecting the optimism that has washed over the country.
“Now we have reason for them to come back. And I think many in the younger generation will come back.”
AFP Friday, Dec 16, 2011
YANGON – A monk in Myanmar has been ordered out of his monastery by Buddhist elders who said he had given an inappropriate speech at an office of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, he said Friday.
Ashin Pyinyar Thiha, who recently met US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her historic visit, said he received a letter from the State Sangha Maha Nayaka committee asking him to leave Sardu Buddhist Monastery in Yangon.
It said the action was taken because of a speech he made at a branch of Suu Kyi’s National League of Democracy in Mandalay in central Myanmar in September.
The 46-year-old said he would write to the Buddhist elders to appeal the decision.
“I will apologise… after that everything will be okay,” Ashin Pyinnyar Thiha, who has spent 27 years as a Buddhist monk, told AFP. “This is not the time to quarrel with very senior monks.”
He blamed the authorities for sending inaccurate information to the senior monks about the incident, which Suu Kyi’s party described as a “misunderstanding”.
“It was just an ordinary donation event,” spokesman Nyan Win told AFP.
Observers suggested the action might be linked to recent political activities at his monastery, as well as Ashin Pyinyar Thiha’s meeting with Clinton earlier this month at the residence of the US Charge d’Affaires in Yangon.
A Myanmar government official said Ashin Pyinnyar Thiha’s case was an “internal issue” for the monks.
A new nominally civilian government that came to power in March has surprised critics with tentative signs of reform.
A small group of monks held a rare protest in Mandalay last month but no action was taken against them, in the latest tentative sign of change.
It was thought to be the first such rally since mass protests led by clergy in 2007 were brutally quashed, with the deaths of at least 31 people and the arrests of many monks.
New Straits Times – Myanmar makes effort to achieve peace with armed groups
The Myanmar government’s central- level peace making group has vowed to make every effort to achieve peace with the country’s ethnic armed groups, according to China’s Xinhua news agency quoted local press reports on Saturday.
“In making coordination and negotiation, there are no restriction on both sides and measures are being taken in all possible ways to achieve success,” leaders of the central-level peace making group U Aung Thaung and U Thein Zaw were quoted by the New Light of Myanmar as saying.
“Steps are also being taken through the means of politics and roundtable discussions avoiding any military tactics,” the two government peace makers
said, believing that “unity and peace and stability will completely be achieved among the national races.”
In response to the August peace offer by President U Thein Sein, Kachin Independence Army (KIA), among some other ethnic armed groups, initiated peace
talks with the central government on Nov 29 in Ruili, a border town in southwest China’s Ruili linking Myanmar’s Muse as officially reported.
Myanmar delegation was represented by U Aung Thaung, U Thein Zaw and Minister of Rail Transportation U Aung Min, while KIA delegation was headed by its chairman U Zaung Hara.
Both sides agreed to continue initial peace talks for ceasefire and political dialogue.
Meanwhile, President U Thein Sein has ordered the government forces to stop offensive against Kachin ethnic armed group and observed a unilateral ceasefire
except for self-defense.
According to the government peace makers, 10 armed groups have so far responded to the president’s call for peace talks.
Six months after fighting erupted between troops and ethnic rebels, aid is finally starting to arrive.
Marwaan Macan-Marker Last Modified: 18 Dec 2011 13:31
BANGKOK – Six months after fighting erupted between troops from Myanmar (also known as Burma) and ethnic Kachin separatists, international relief is finally trickling in for over 30,000 people who fled their homes near the snow-capped mountains north of the country.
The United Nations-led relief effort began distributing ‘essential household items’ on December 13 in Laiza, a town deep in the mountainous terrain under the control of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).
The convoy, which included two truckloads of aid, travelled along a road that the government troops and the KIA agreed would serve as a humanitarian corridor.
“This is the initial delivery of UN assistance to Laiza,” Zafrin Chowdhury, spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said from Rangoon. “The UN certainly hopes that additional relief supplies will be allowed to reach the most vulnerable people displaced in and around Laiza.”
The ‘Blue Flags’ are a lifeline for local Kachin aid workers, who struggled to distribute meagre rations of food and clothing to the refugees forced to live in forests and in rickety bamboo-shelters battered by harsh winter conditions.
‘Appeals answered’
Most of the relief work is being handled by the Kachin Independence Organisation, the political wing of the KIA.
“We can now feel hopeful for more international humanitarian assistance since we have been desperate for aid in the past months,” La Rip, director of the Kachin Development Group (KDG), said during a telephone interview from Laiza. “Our appeals for international aid since June have been finally answered.”
The access three UN agencies, including UNICEF, have got to an area close to the Chinese border is unprecedented. It follows the alarm bells rung by international and regional humanitarian and human rights groups about a looming humanitarian crisis.
“It is a desperate picture out there,” Lynn Yoshikawa of the Washington DC-based Refugees International told journalists in Bangkok last Friday following a two-week mission to an area in the Kachin state close to the fighting. “There is potential for a dire humanitarian crisis with the number of displaced growing and little aid available.”
The plight of the victims was worsened by the politics of international aid after the quasi-civilian government of Myanmar, pushed through a policy of isolation to defeat the KIA.
Western governments were reluctant to channel aid directly to local relief groups like the KDG preferring UN agencies instead, according to a Rangoon-based diplomatic source.
Such cross-border assistance raised the touchy issue of sovereignty, given that relief would have to be channeled through China. “China is concerned about international assistance flowing into the Kachin state from its end,” Yoshikawa said. “China has been permitting some aid to go through, but they don’t want anything high-profile.”
Displacement and conflict
But it is not a new story in Burma. The nearly 500,000 other victims displaced by decades of conflict in ethnic areas close to the Thai-Burma border have also been deprived relief from Western governments and international humanitarian agencies if UN agencies are not present to channel funds.
The current round of fighting has undermined the reformist image being cultivated by Burmese President Thein Sein, who took power in March and has ushered in a raft of policies aimed at ending the nearly 50 years of military dictatorship. While the Thein Sein administration has sought peace deals with three other ethnic separatists in the country, it has turned its guns on the Kachins.
“The Burmese army started this fight in early June. They violated a ceasefire agreement we had with the government since February 1994,” Colonel James Lum Dau, the KIO’s deputy chief of foreign affairs, said. “They want to annihilate us, finish us by military force.”
And even though Thein Sein issued an order Monday for the Burmese military to stop fighting the KIA, the ‘tatmadaw’, as the Burmese army is known, is still on the offensive. “The fighting has not stopped. We can hear gunfire and explosions,” confirmed La Rip of KDG.
The latest battle in a protracted conflict going back to 1961 is rooted in the 2010 push by the last Burmese junta to get the four armed ethnic forces to serve under the military as border guards. The KIA refused and was subsequently described as “outlaws” by senior general Than Shwe, who preceded Thein Sein.
The last round of fighting has left in its wake a disturbing picture of human rights violations. The Burmese military is being accused by international and Kachin human rights groups of gross abuse against civilians.
“Between June and September, the Burmese troops looted food from civilians, fired indiscriminately into villages, threatened villagers with attacks and used civilians as porters and human minesweepers,” revealed the United States-based Physicians for Human Rights in a report released late November.
The Kachin Women’s Association has accused the Burmese military of unleashing a policy for soldiers to systematically rape women and girls since fighting began, according to an early December report. It echoes similar disturbing accounts of Burmese soldiers targeting women from other ethnic communities, such as the Shan and the Karen, during clashes over the past decade.
To avoid further attacks, the refugees are heading towards the Chinese border, said John Salin, a freelance Burmese video cameraman, who has just returned from the frontline. “They believe the Burmese troops will not attack them if they are near the Chinese border.”
BBC News – Burma ‘jails’ Karen rebel leader Mahn Nyein Maung One of the main ethnic Karen rebel leaders has been sentenced to 17 years in prison on a charge of “unlawful association”, reports from Burma say.
Mahn Nyein Maung, of the Karen National Union, was deported to Burma after a visa problem on a trip between Thailand and China, Burmese journalists said.
Burma has not commented on the reports.
Burma’s government says the KNU is illegal, but has recently held exploratory peace talks with it and other armed ethnic minority groups.
Mahn Nyein Maung was reportedly travelling from Thailand to China for talks about the peace process.
On his return to Bangkok, the Thai authorities allegedly found out that he had an invalid visa, sending him back to China. Beijing then deported him to Burma.
Mahn Nyein Maung was initially charged only with having false documents, reports say.
But when the Burmese authorities found out who he was, they laid the much more serious charge of unlawful association.
The KNU told the BBC it was aware of the reports of Mahn Nyein Maung’s imprisonment and would raise the issue with government representatives.
The KNU has been fighting for greater autonomy since the late 1940s.
Supalak Ganjanakhundee
December 19, 2011 1:00 am
Six countries from the Mekong basin will kick off a summit in Burma’s new capital Naypyidaw today to try to boost economic growth, narrow development gaps, strengthen regional links and integrate cooperation schemes.
Under the theme of “towards a new decade of Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) strategic development partnership”, leaders from China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam will discuss and adopt a strategic program for the next 10 years (20122022).
Sponsored by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the GMS program was established in the mid1980s to build infrastructure for development and link economic activity in the Mekong basin. As of September this year, the GMS had implemented 55 investment projects for a total project cost of $14 billion. These included subregional roads, airports and railway improvements, plus hydropower projects for crossborder power supply and tourism.
During the summit, leaders are likely to praise successes from their cooperation for boosting tourism, agriculture and the environmental sector. They are due to witness the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for joint action to reduce HIV vulnerability related to population movement, plus an MOU on cooperation to accelerate the building of an “information superhighway” and its application in the GMS. There will also be an agreement for the GMS Freight Transporters Association (Freta).
Leaders will also hear a report from the private sector on the progress of the GMS Business Forum and outcome of the GMS Business and Investment Conference, which is due to be held in parallel. The private sector from six countries under the GMS Business Forum umbrella will have an input, and a chance to share their views on the cooperation scheme, problems and challenges.
Industry reps from Thailand will propose boosting transport links, to be economic links. They hope to transform the NorthSouth route from China to Thailand and EastWest from Burma to Vietnam into economic corridors to boost business and integrate Mekong region economies. Under this plan, countries would have logistical integration, with crossborder trade through transport and transshipment, special economic zones at border towns and crossborder tourism.
A GMS economic development master plan will be implemented together with the Asean connectivity plan, as part of an integrated Asean community by 2015.
Tanit Sorat, vice chairman of the Federation of Thai Industries, who is also chairman of the GMSBusiness Forum Thailand, said the Thai private sector wants to see a new model for border economies that links Thai border towns with neighbouring countries.
Paired bordertown economies, such as Chiang KhongHuay Xai, Nakhon PhanomKhammuan, MukdahanSavannakhet, KanchanaburiDawei and Mae SotMyawaddy should be made into special economic zones with unique characteristics for special purposes, he said. KanchanaburiDawei, for example, should be model border towns for the seafood industry, rubber plantations, logistics for international sea transshipment, Tanit said.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra would tell GMS leaders at the summit tomorrow that the GMS program would be a core cooperation scheme for the Mekong region and Thailand was ready to contribute to development projects with financial support and technical assistance. As a country sitting in the middle of Mekong basin, Thailand could link to all neighbours and become a regional hub for rail links.
Yingluck would emphasis the mega project at Dawei special economic zone under bilateral cooperation, a government official familiar with the GMS strategy said. After the meeting in Naypyidaw, Yingluck would ask her Cabinet to voice full support for the Dawei project, the official said.
Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul, who accompanied Yingluck to the GMS meeting, said Dawei would be a core cooperation project between Thailand and Burma to enhance the two countries’ economic development. Surapong plans to visit Dawei early next month together with ministers of finance, industry, energy and transport in a bid to speed up development of the project, which is overseen by Thai construction firm ItalianThai.
In the GMS summit, Prime Minister Yingluck will also address issues related to the EastWest Economic Corridor to enhance economic activities along road links across the Mekong basin from Burma to Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. She will also mention environmentally friendly investment projects in the context of weather change, which drastically affected Thailand and other countries in the region this year.
With the Mekong region now getting attention from various parts of the world, notably East Asia, leaders will assign the ADB, as GMS secretariat, to coordinate with countries with joint development schemes, such as the MekongJapan and MekongSouth Korea arrangements, to avoid any overlap and efficient utilisation of resources.
The GMS has regional powerhouse China as a member. Other economic powers such as Japan and South Korea, which are not in the Mekong basin, used to have and wanted more roles in the region.
And development partners, notably from western countries, also wanted deals with the region. Leaders of the Mekong hope to facilitate business with all of them.
By Zin Linn Dec 17, 2011 12:45PM UTC
Burma’s President Thein Sein civilian government has been maneuvering war against the Kachin rebels incessantly, although there are heavy casualties on its side. Starting from 9 June, the six-month long civil war claimed more than a thousand lives of government soldiers.
Recently, President Thein Sein has issued an instruction to Burma’s Commander-in-Chief to halt the offensive against the KIO. However, the war continues and people continue to run for their lives. So, the speech of the government is not consistent with the attempt of its armed forces.
As a consequence of the warfare between Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Burma Army, local inhabitants were fleeing from Kachin State to Northern Shan State, but authorities have taken no responsibility for them, quoting locals eyewitnesses, Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N) said.
According to one Nam-Kham resident, more than 400 victims arrived at the church last week. The victims said that the Burmese soldiers had bombarded their village as well as its surroundings. Altogether 456 people, mostly Shan and Kachin from Kachin State, reached Nam-Kham, Northern Shan State, in the evening of 12 December, Shan Herald Agency for News reported.
The victims are children, women and the elderly from villages including Kat-Para, Nam-Hsar, Oo-Lampa and Kha-Shan in Mansi Township, Kachin State. They had fled because they were afraid of being mistreated by the Burmese soldiers, according to one of the displaced people.
A temporary refugee camp has been set up by the Catholic abbot at Aung Myitta and Sa Lay Tan wards and provided for their requirements, a civilian official in Aung Myitta ward said.
The abbot and the neighborhood residents provided blankets, clothes, household utensils and food for the victims but government officials provided nothing. Instead, they asked questions like whether the war refugees had their ID cards or not.
As reported by Shan Herald Agency for News, more than 10,000 victims are fleeing to Bhamo, Waing Maw and Myitkyina. There are 40,000 displaced people said to be at Kachin Independence Organization (KIO)’s Laiza area. The United Nations organizations are there to help them, according to KIO sources.
On 14 December, the state-run New Light of Myanmar claimed that the central government provided a significant amount of aid to needy refugees living in the KIO-controlled territory on Monday December 12.
But, the KIO dismissed the news of aid to refugees in the government media. According to Kachin News Group, representatives of the KIO have proved their false propaganda published in Burmese government state-media about the central government’s “humanitarian” contribution to refugees displaced by fighting in Kachin and Northern Shan state.
It was a UN convoy carrying humanitarian aid that arrived into the KIO territory on December 12, but there were no governmental “humanitarian” contribution to refugees. The state-media’s description of the aid convoy is misleading and false, the KIO said.
Last month, representatives of the President Thein Sein government and the KIO met twice for talks which have so far failed to bring about a halt to the fighting. The Burmese army continues to send in troops to the area, leading many to conclude that Naypyidaw wants to bring about a military solution to the conflict.
Local sources on the ground in the Kachin state say that during the past week the Kachin resistance has inflicted a large number of casualties on poorly trained Burmese conscript troops, as the central government’s offensive against the Kachin Independence Organization enters its seventh month.
According to a KIA source, in the outskirts of Dingga village there were more than 10 burial sites where fallen Burmese soldiers had recently been buried. One Burmese officer was among those fallen soldiers in the area, said a KIA officer to the Kachin News Group on Friday. The officer also said that the Burmese army’s arson attack on the village appeared to be in retaliation to losing so many of their comrades to the Kachin resistance.
In September, the US-based NGO ‘Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)’ conducted an investigation in Burma’s Kachin State in response to reports of grave human rights violations in the region. PHR found that between June and September 2011, the Burmese army looted food from civilians, fired indiscriminately into villages, threatened villages with attacks, and used civilians as porters and human minesweepers.
Calcutta News.Net
Saturday 17th December, 2011 Illegal influx of Myanmarese nationals into India through Bangladesh has continued, with 31 held for sneaking into Tripura, police said here Saturday. Among the arrested were nine children and seven women.
With this, 83 Myanmarese nationals, comprising Rohingya Muslim and Buddhist tribals, seeking jobs in India have crossed over to Tripura state from Bangladesh since mid last year.
‘All the 31 Myanmarese nationals were arrested by the police at Bokafa, 90 km from Agartala, late Friday night,’ sub-divisional police official Amitava Paul told reporters.
‘They told the interrogators that they are planning to leave for elsewhere in India via Guwahati in search of jobs,’ he said.
‘All the foreign nationals are Rohingya Muslims who entered Tripura illegally through Sabroom border from Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of southeast Bangladesh,’ he added.
On Saturday, the Myanmarese nationals were presented before a local court, which sent them to 14 days’ judicial custody. The illegal entrants would be sent to Bangladesh after completion of legal formalities, the police official said.
They told the police officials that authorities in Myanmar were indifferent to the problems of the people living in the hilly areas bordering India and Bangladesh.
‘Intermittently, the Myanmarese Army has unleashed atrocities on a section of nationals, especially Rohingya Muslim and Buddhist communities,’ the official said after interrogating the Myanmarese nationals.
Over 50,000 Myanmarese have been living in different parts of neighbouring Mizoram, bordering Myanmar and Bangladesh, and working at various shops and factories after obtaining work permits.
Since the mid-1990s, over 225,000 Myanmar nationals, mostly Rohingya Muslims, have been sheltering in the Teknaf region in Cox’s Bazar district of southeastern Bangladesh.
Four Indian northeastern states of Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Assam share an 1,880-km border with Bangladesh, while Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh share a 1,640-km unfenced border with Myanmar.
The mountainous terrain, dense forests and other hindrances make the unfenced borders porous and vulnerable, enabling illegal immigrants and intruders cross over without any hurdle.
Political changes and visit by Clinton are a ‘good start’ for nation
Posted: December 14, 2011
By Benjamin Cunningham – Staff Writer
After years of political stasis, there are signs that the isolated Burmese government is opening to the outside world. But the international community must take such changes with caution, warns Sabe Amthor Soe, director of the Burma Center Prague.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Burma earlier this month, which many see as the latest in a series of positive developments that began with the November 2010 release of Nobel Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, just days after the country’s first elections in 20 years.
“We of course welcome the visit of the secretary of state and the support of European nations as well,” Amthor Soe said on the sidelines of an event co-hosted by the British Council on International Human Rights Day, Dec. 10.
“Still, we have to keep in mind that we have seen similar changes by the Burmese government in the past, but these changes were not long-lasting. We need to make sure changes are long-lasting and concrete before changing policies or lifting economic sanctions.”
Indeed, Amthor Soe has reason to be cautious. One of Asia’s wealthiest countries in the mid-20th century, Burma was strangled by an eccentric and brutal military junta that ruled the country from 1962 until last year. While Southeast Asian neighbors saw meteoric economic growth over the same period, Burma, rich in natural resources, saw its economic and political prospects plummet; the country now ranks 203rd out of 228 countries in per-capita GDP, according to U.S. government statistics.
Amthor Soe, who came to Czechoslovakia in 1987 on a university scholarship, knows all too well how Burma’s military leaders can quickly crush any democratic momentum. It was a series of pro-democracy protests that led to government massacres of thousands in 1988 that triggered Amthor Soe’s now permanent stay in Prague.
“At the time, the world was quickly distracted by events elsewhere, like in Europe,” Amthor Soe said. “Now, the world cannot say, ‘We do not notice.’ ”
In more recent years, Western economic sanctions against Burma’s military regime saw the government increasingly turn to China, which craved both Burma’s natural gas and minerals as well as access to ports on the Indian Ocean.
During her early-December Burma trip, Clinton met with Burmese President Thein Sein, a former member of the military command who won the 2010 elections.
“For decades, the choices of this country’s leaders kept it apart from the global economy and the community of nations,” Clinton said, striking a tone similar to Amthor Soe’s. “While the measures already taken may be unprecedented and welcome, they’re just a beginning.”
Sein has made numerous changes since winning the November 2010 elections, a campaign run while Suu Kyi remained under house arrest. This year, unions were legalized, scores of political prisoners released from jail, and Suu Kyi was cleared to re-enter the political arena. This has led some commentators to draw comparisons between Sein and Mikhail Gorbachev.
“It’s formally a civilian government, but it is in a way a lot of the same people in civilian dress,” a still-skeptical Amthor Soe said.
A former British colony, Burma – which also goes by the name of Myanmar, though much of the West opts not to recognize the name-change instituted by the military regime – sits between India and China, two of the world’s rising economic powers. It is viewed, with its natural resources and strategic location, by many trade experts as a sleeping economic giant, and this gives rise to worries that reforms are merely a pantomime for existing elites to tap international markets.
Burma will chair the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2014, a title that signifies a growing acceptance of the new regime.
“The West is also very much aware of the Burmese market,” Amthor Soe said.
In a long-isolated country of more than 60 million people, the problems are myriad, Amthor Soe said, pointing to continued fighting between the military and minority groups, a lack of education, poor health care and much more.
“It’s complex and complicated, and democracy is not the only issue,” she added. “Burma will not have another revolution. We have to wait for evolution.”
Central News Agency
2011-12-18 08:25 PM
Bangkok, Dec. 18 (CNA) The Taipei Overseas Peace Service (TOPS), a non-profit philanthropic group, called for donations Sunday to help avoid suspension of its educational assistance to young Myanmarian refugees in Thailand.
The Taiwanese organization assists children in Mae La, Umpiem Mai and Nu Po, three of the refugee camps in Thailand where some of Myanmar’s 150,000 displaced people reside.
TOPS strives to maintain the refugee children’s right to education, provide them with lunches and subsidize the pay of teachers in the camps, on an annual budget of NT$10 million (US$329,283), said TOPS Director Kevin Lee. However, a Dutch non-governmental organization that had been contributing some NT$2.6 million annually to the fund has decided to discontinue its sponsorship in 2012, which will leave TOPS in financial straits, he said.
It might lead to the suspension of an educational training program for pre-school refugee children and even the closure of TOPS on the Thailand-Myanmar border, he said. About 4,200 Myanmarian children will be affected, he added.
The many severe natural disasters that occurred this year, including the magnitude-8.9 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the magnitude-7.2 temblor in Turkey and floods in Thailand, have drawn donations away from groups like TOPS, Lee said. TOPS sponsorship amounts to NT$5 a day per child, but with donations drying up and the prices of rice and commodities rising in Thailand, it will be difficult to maintain food supplies on the same budget, he said.
Lee hopes to attract 1,000 contributors, who will make monthly donations of NT$500 for a year. This will help for two years to make up the shortfall left by the withdrawal of the Dutch organization, he said.
Originally founded in 1980 to help Chinese-speaking people that were oppressed by communism on the Indochina peninsula, TOPS started providing humanitarian aid in the area in 1994. In 1997, it began directing its attention to refugee camps on the Thailand-Myanmar border.
The organization has been recognized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the government of Thailand for its efforts.
Dec 18, 2011 1:01am ABERDEEN, S.D. (AP) — Sixty-one Karen refugees from Myanmar are now helping Molded Fiber Glass meet its employment needs.
The Karen (pronounced ka’ ren or kuh-ren) began immigrating to the United States about 20 years ago after fleeing persecution in their native land. Most spent months and sometimes years in refugee camps in Thailand before immigrating to primary settlement sites in the U.S.
Many of those now making wind turbine blades at Molded Fiber Glass previously lived in Huron, a primary settlement city, where they worked at the Dakota Provisions turkey processing plant.
Other Karen have come to Aberdeen from St. Paul, Minn., Spokane, Wash., and other primary settlement sites, said Dave Giovannini, Molded Fiber Glass general manager.
The workers that have been hired so far have been excellent, said Giovannini said.
“They have performed exceptionally well,” said Travis Sexton, shift supervisor. “It has been an easy transition. All four of the gentlemen I work with have been quick learners and hard workers. Once they get going, it is hard to get them to stop.”
Molded Fiber Glass, which employs 390 workers, needs to hire more because there is a strong demand for wind turbine blades, Giovannini said.
“We have an immediate need for 60-70 workers, and with low unemployment in the region, there were just not enough people available,” he said. “We have not been able to meet our employment needs. So we had to look outside the box and look at the model used by Dakota Provisions.”
Saw Khu Thar, 31, was one of the first Karen hired by Molded Fiber Glass four months ago. Previously, he worked at Dakota Provisions.
“I used to work in the turkey plant, but it was very cold inside,” he said. “I wanted to work in different place.”
Thar spent time in a refugee camp in Malaysia before immigrating to Dallas. There he was able to get only part-time employment for minimum wage. He moved to Huron to get a better paying job and now has moved to Aberdeen.
“I am happy for my job here,” he said.
Baw Htoo Khet, 29, was also in the first group of Karen hired four months ago. He moved from Spokane to Aberdeen with his wife and two children. He and his family are renting an apartment, and their children attend May Overby Elementary School.
“This job gives me a better future,” he said.
In Myanmar, which most Karen refer to as Burma because of their opposition to the ruling dictatorship, life for Karen was dangerous.
“We could have been killed if we stayed there, Khet said.
His family fled the country to a refugee camp in Thailand before immigrating to the U.S.
Khet speaks English well and translates for his friends when needed.
About half of the Karen at Molded Fiber Glass can converse in English, while half have little or no English skills, Giovannini said.
The Karen are legal immigrants who receive resettlement assistance from agencies such as Lutheran Social Services and qualify for government assistance for eight months until they find employment. Debra Worth, associate director of the Lutheran Social Service South Dakota Refugee and Immigration Center in Sioux Falls, is one of those helping Karen in the area.
Molded Fiber Glass has dedicated many resources to helping the Karen, Giovannini said.
The Human Resources department including director Rebecca Duke, Dawn Vaux and Tammy Spellman work with Karen to find housing, transportation and other essentials needed for their settlement in Aberdeen.
Giovannini said the Karen have been through difficult times and are committed to making a good life for themselves in this country.
“They want to make it,” he said.
Nu Pay, 42, a Karen worker, moved to Aberdeen from Spokane, where he worked as a lay pastor with Karen in the Baptist Church. He is married and has one child. He had attended Bible school in Myanmar. Many Karen are Baptists, having first been exposed to the religion by missionaries in the 1800’s, according to Friends of the Karen of Burma website.
Pay said he would go back to his country if he could, but that is not possible as long as there is no freedom there.
Saw Aung Lwin, 40, another Karen worker, said most Karen are sad they had to leave their country.
“We hide our feelings sometimes,” he said. “But we try to do the best we can do.”
He previously worked as a foreman at the turkey plant in Huron, but he said the cold temperatures began bothering his arthritis. He prefers manufacturing wind turbine blades, he said.
“I can find more opportunities to be myself here,” he said.
Asia Times Online – Chinese gunboats on the Mekong
By Brian McCartan
China’s bid to boost security through new multilateral mechanisms and joint patrols along the Mekong River promises to change the region’s strategic dynamic. While the unprecedented move underscores China’s desire to protect its fast expanding trade links with Southeast Asia, continued banditry and violence point towards the challenge Beijing will face in bringing multilateral order to one of the region’s more lawless terrains.
Three Myanmar Army soldiers were killed in a December 11 clash about 20 kilometers north of the Golden Triangle, an area renowned for drug trafficking where the borders of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand meet. The slain soldiers were reported to be part of a new joint patrol between Lao and Myanmar security forces. The shootout is believed to have pitted members of an extortion and narcotics trafficking ring under the command of Naw Kham, an ethnic Shan militia commander cum bandit.
A similar incident recently brought China into conflict with its downstream neighbor Thailand. Cargo traffic between the two countries was halted in October after an attack on two Chinese cargo boats resulted in the deaths of 13 Chinese, with many of the crew later found floating in the river with their hands bound and gunshot wounds indicative of execution-style killings. Two months later, the circumstances surrounding the incident, where drugs and firearms were found onboard the Chinese vessel, are still murky.
Initial speculation focused on Naw Kham, whose group operates in the area by collecting extortion fees from boats on the river, looting cargo, and confiscating drug shipments to sell on for their own profit. Naw Kham, however, has since claimed the killing was not his work. While Naw Kham is not averse to violence, the massacre’s scale was not consistent with his group’s previous attacks. In a twist, nine Thai soldiers, including two officers, turned themselves in to Thai police on charges of murder and concealing evidence. The Thai soldiers have denied the charges.
Speculation has since been rife that the incident could have been meant as a lesson to a competing drug trafficking outfit contracted out to a rogue Thai military unit. Questions remain about who the drugs belonged to, who actually seized the boats and executed the crew, and who were the drugs intended for. The incident sparked outrage in China after images and stories appeared on the Internet indicating the Chinese boat’s crew had been blindfolded and restrained prior to their executions.
Chinese diplomats from the embassy in Bangkok and consulate in Chiang Mai were sent to Chiang Rai to assist the Thai police in their investigation. Presumably to make Beijing’s interest in the incident clear, Guo Shaochun, Deputy Director General of Consular Affairs in the Chinese Foreign Ministry later joined them.
The killings were only the latest in a series of incidents, most of them believed to be connected to Naw Kham, involving Chinese vessels on remote stretches of the Mekong. A government-sanctioned militia commander who was previously a supply officer for notorious Shan drug lord Khun Sa, Naw Kham was targeted in a raid by Myanmar security forces on his house in the Myanmar border town of Tachilek in January 2006. After regrouping, his group began collecting extortion fees from boats on the Mekong River in 2007.
Naw Kham’s successful extortion and banditry operations in the tri-border area are indicative of the region’s poor central governance. A charismatic figure and savvy businessman, he has been able to cultivate apparent high-level official connections in Laos, Myanmar and Thailand. Despite being on the run for almost six years from the three countries’ respective security forces, as well as being wanted by the insurgent Shan State Army (SSA) and United Wa State Army (UWSA), he has so far avoided capture.
A string of incidents in 2008 and 2009 seemed to be his undoing. His gunmen are believed to be responsible for shooting up a Chinese patrol boat in February 2008 and seriously wounding three Chinese officers. After the incident, an infuriated Beijing put pressure on the Lao, Myanmar and Thai governments to capture Naw Kham. After a February 2009 firefight between Myanmar soldiers and Naw Kam’s men that resulted in the death of one Chinese sailor and the injuring of three others, a manhunt began in earnest on both the Myanmar and Lao sides of the river that reportedly decimated his group.
However, he has since been able to reorganize and reestablish himself in the area and recently recommenced ”taxing” river traffic again. Some of his actions appeared to target the King’s Roman Casino, provoking speculation that his resurgence could be tied to Myanmar’s attempts to pressure the insurgent UWSA and National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) based along the Chinese border to come to terms with the government.
The two ethnic insurgent groups maintain control over much of the Myanmar-China border. Both groups are investors in the shadowy casino project and are believed to launder their drug trafficking revenues through it. In April 2011, Naw Kham’s men are believed to have been behind the kidnapping of 13 Chinese casino workers from a river boat in Lao waters, releasing them only after owner, Zhao Wei, paid a reported US$730,000 in ransom.
The UWSA and NDAA also operate a port at Sop Loei which is a regular stopping point for Chinese vessels. It is also the Mekong gateway to the UWSA and NDAA ceasefire area and an important transit point for narcotics into Laos and on to Thailand and Cambodia, as well as goods and weapons into the ceasefire area. Until a new ceasefire deal was agreed to with the groups in September, Myanmar Army units were steadily moving into areas along the Mekong and believed to be preparing to retake Sop Loei by force.
Joint catalysts
The October killings and recognition that a lack of central governance in the region was affecting trade flows served as joint catalysts for China’s moves to bolster security. Joint river patrols were announced by China’s Minister for Public Security, Men Jianzhu, following a meeting in Beijing on October 31.
A multinational headquarters was also created in the river port town of Guanlei in the Xishuangbanna region of Yunnan province. The four nations have agreed to share intelligence concerning possible security problems along the river and Beijing has offered to train Lao and Myanmar security forces.
The new headquarters, together with a new unit of Chinese paramilitary police, were unveiled at a ceremony on December 9. Between 200-300 police officers were selected from China’s border patrol force for the new unit. They are reportedly equipped with the latest model automatic rifles and machine guns, and will patrol the river in speed boats and converted armored river passenger and cargo vessels.
As part of the new multilateral agreement, Chinese police will carry out joint patrols together with Lao, Myanmar and Thai security forces along the stretch of the Mekong bordered by Myanmar and Laos. Thai security forces will assume sole responsibility for the stretch of the river below the Golden Triangle. The patrols began on December 10 to coincide with a nine-ship convoy of cargo ships which left Guanlei on the way to the Thai port of Chiang Saen, the first since China imposed its travel ban on October 14. Military operations are also apparently being carried out to secure the river banks.
The details of the new security arrangement, however, are so far unclear. Command arrangements, including whether officers will be able to arrest foreign nationals in waters other than their own, or whose courts and legal systems will be used to try captured offenders, have not been publicly stipulated and could lead to future diplomatic tangles.
Vice Minister of Public Security Meng Hongwei, at the opening ceremony for the new Chinese police force, stated that the four countries had reached an agreement to solve incidents based on international law and the laws of the country where an incident occurred, but gave no specifics.
While China’s security officials have plied the Mekong River before, as evidenced by the February 2008 attack, this marks the first time that Chinese security forces will carry out sustained operations in another country without a United Nations mandate. This is a significant step for China, which so far has been reluctant to play a larger role in regional security. However, there is a growing perception in Beijing that it must take measures to protect its economic interests abroad.
The joint Mekong patrols will serve to deepen Beijing’s influence in security matters across its southern borders. China has long used ties with ethnic insurgent groups in Myanmar as a buffer from that country’s political problems and as a form of leverage against Naypyidaw.
Against this backdrop, China’s strategic and economic interests are growing in the region. Myanmar has become a strategic linchpin in its policy of opening up its landlocked southwestern region to trade and establishing energy links to the Middle East that avoid the use of the easily blocked Malacca Straits.
Laos is also becoming increasingly important as the hub of a trade network that extends into Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and as far away as Singapore. Roads and rail networks are planned to link China to Southeast Asia through both Laos and Myanmar. As its regional trade networks expand, the necessity of making sure they remain open and undisturbed will make it increasingly necessary for China to take a more forward looking security stance through greater participation in regional security issues.
A stepped up security presence by China, especially one that seems to project its power south into the region, will likely augment already growing perceptions of Chinese encroachment. At the same time, China’s push may provide useful new impetus for Laos, Myanmar and Thailand to put an end to the lawlessness and poor governance that have long existed in the remote regions surrounding the Golden Triangle.
Brian McCartan is a freelance journalist. He may be reached at bpmccartan1@gmail.com.
English.news.cn 2011-12-18 12:18:30
by Zhang Yunfei
NAY PYI TAW, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) — The 4th Summit of the Greater Mekong Subregion Economic Cooperation (GMS) will adopt a “New decade GMS Strategic Framework (2012-2022)” to chart GMS development in the next decade and bring the subregional cooperation to a new stage, Chinese Ambassador to Myanmar Li Junhua told Xinhua in an exclusive interview on the eve of the summit.
The 4th GMS-Economic Cooperation Summit will be held in Myanmar’s new capital of Nay Pyi Taw on Dec.19-20 and Chinese State Councillor Dai Bingguo will attend the summit on invitation.
Ambassador Li said on the sidelines of the summit, the Chinese leader will have bilateral talks with Myanmar leader and other GMS leaders, a significantly important move to push the overall development of China-Myanmar relations under the new situation, deepen China’s neighborly and friendly ties with GMS member countries and enhance the subregional cooperation and development.
Recalling the GMS cooperation history, Li said since the establishment of the GMS in 1992 and under the joint efforts of China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam as well as the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the subregional cooperation has deepened day by day, scoring rich achievements.
China’s trade with and investment in the five other member countries has increased in scale with China becoming a key source of investment and trade partner for the five member countries and witnessing the growth of trade with them.
Citing the apparent improvement of the infrastructure such as transport in the subregion, Li said in 2008 after the opening of Lao section, the Kunming-Bangkok Highway has become an important link for economic and trade exchange between the GMS countries.
With smooth implementation, the agreement of “Facilitation of Cross-Border Goods Transportation” has reduced sharply the obstacles of the cross-border personnel and goods, bringing down the cost of flow of personnel with shortened time, boosting the volume of flow of cross-border goods, increasing the opportunity for economic development and bringing closer ties between the member countries.
Li pointed out that at the moment, European debt crisis continued to escalate and uncertainty and instability of world economic prospects will possibly exist in the long run. The critical outside environment is bound to bring disadvantageous impact to the subregion. Similarly, the GMS countries will face such challenges as spread of diseases, drug trafficking, environmental pollution and climate change, he warned, stressing the importance of strengthening mutual cooperation.
Li specially made remarks that he is delighted to see that on Dec. 10, a ceremony to mark the joint patrols along the Mekong River by China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand took place in Guanlei Port in Xishuangbanna of southwest China’s Yunnan Province. The action will strongly safeguard and guarantee the safety of international shipping services and enhance the socio-economic development in the subregion.
Speaking of the role played by China in the subregional cooperation, Li emphasized that China always remains as an active participant and driver, making important contribution to the GMS in the sectors of transport, energy, information and communication.
He said that China financially aided the North-South Economic Corridor and the first phase of the GMS Information Superhighway project and improvement of the infrastructure of the upper reaches of Mekong River.
The Chinese side attached much importance to human resources development, actively helping GMS member countries in capability establishment and training. These actions not only pushed the subregional cooperation to head for a deepened one but also contribution to the development of the GMS countries.
Under the theme of “Beyond 2012: Towards a New Decade of GMS Strategic Development Partnership”,the GMS leaders will exchange views on continued deepening of the cooperation in nine key sectors of transport, energy, information and communication, environment, agriculture, tourism , human resources development, trade facilitation and investment.
The summit will also endorse a series of important documents on achievements of cooperation including those in agriculture, environmental conservation, construction of GMS Information Superhighway and GMS cargo transport, he said believing that these documents will further enhance the subregional cooperation and development.
Ambassador Li appraised Myanmar for having done a lot in preparation for hosting the GMS summit, expressing the belief that under the leadership of President U Thein Sein, Myanmar is speeding up its pace of reform and opening of door, actively taking part in regional cooperation to boost its economy. The move also provides new opportunity for all-sided cooperation between China and Myanmar within the region.
Daily Star Online – Recalibrating Bangladesh-Myanmar relation
THE relation between Bangladesh and Myanmar officially began on January 13, 1972, the date on which Myanmar recognised Bangladesh as a sovereign state. However, the relation between these two close neighbours has never been smooth and has undergone frequent ups and downs over the last 40 years on a few issues. Both countries have not been able to build a pragmatic relationship with each other despite having a lot of potentials. Myanmar being closed to the outside world for more than 50 years shows few distinct patterns of behaviour in developing effective bilateral relations with Bangladesh. These are: Myanmar capitalised Bangladesh’s geographical vulnerability, being remained under the umbrella of China was reluctant to count her small neighbour, being always stubborn in their attitude and behavior to solve the disputes and more inclined towards India and China.
As such Bangladesh was discouraged and lost interest to charter a course to bring Myanmar into a negotiation table for developing meaningful relation with her. On the contrary, India and China have taken the full advantage of Myanmar’s isolation and developed a deep relationship with her.
The issues that dominated their relations are the influx of Rohingya refugees, demarcation of land and maritime boundary, illegal drug trafficking and alleged cross border movement of insurgents. The relation deteriorated severely in 1991 when Myanmar armed forces launched a surprised attack and ransacked the then Bangladesh Rifle’s border outpost at Rejupara in Cox’s Bazar district. Myanmar forces killed three members of Bangladesh Rifles and looted their arms and ammunition. However, a major regional conflict was averted because of exercising restrains by Bangladesh.
Before the border incident, Bangladesh had been burdened with the Rohingya refugee problems since 1978. Over 200,000, Rohingyas were forced to cross the border and came to Bangladesh, following Operation ‘Nagamin’ (’Dragon King’) launched by the Myanmar army.
During 1991-92, the second wave of over 250,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh to escape persecution. Bangladesh with the help of the international community tried to resolve that issue through diplomatic channel but due to Myanmar’s stubborn attitude the refugee problem could not be fully resolved.
The demarcation of maritime boundary was another issue that created a conflict of interest between these two states. The second round of tension erupted when Myanmar hired South Korea’s Daewoo International Corporation to carry out the exploration in the Bay of Bengal, 90 KM South West of Bangladesh in November 2008.
Diplomatic initiative to solve the problem ended without any result. Being upset with the attitude of Myanmar, Bangladesh submitted the case to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in 2009. After a series of hearing in September 2011 the court planned to convey a ruling in March 2012.
In this backdrop, our prime minister has visited Myanmar in an effort to build a relationship that will be beneficial for the people of both the countries. She has visited Myanmar immediately after the visit of US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and at a moment when there are talks within the international community about Myanmar looking for a change.
The changes were evident when the former General Thein Sein, after coming to power in March this year, halted the Chinese-funded $ 3.6 billion Myitsone dam project in the state of Kachin respecting the demand of the people of that region. Myanmar government has released more than 6,000 political prisoners and enacted laws allowing for protests and rallies; indicating commitment for democratic reforms.
During the visit, the prime minister of Bangladesh raised the issue of Myanmar refugees living in Nayapara and Kutupalong camp and the huge number of undocumented Myanmar nationals living in Bangladesh and stated that early resolution of these issues will help strengthen the bilateral relations to a great extent. The president of Myanmar expressed his desire to cooperate with Bangladesh in resolving the issue.
The prime minister expressed Bangladesh’s willingness to import energy from Myanmar and requested the president to import readymade garments, pharmaceutical products, knitwears, jute and jute goods, ceramics etc. from Bangladesh at competitive price and mentioned that Bangladesh was keen on organize a “Single Country Trade Fair” in Yangon early next year.
The two heads of governments stressed upon the establishment of direct banking arrangement under ACU (Asian Clearing Union) so that LCs can be opened directly between the two countries. They wished to launch direct air flight between Dhaka/Chittagong and Yangon and non-conventional vessels between the designated commercial routes of the two countries. The two leaders also emphasised on the increase of border trade.
Finally, Myanmar and Bangladesh signed the following Agreement/Memorandum of Understanding:
a. Agreement on the establishment of a Joint Commission for bilateral cooperation between the government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and the government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.
b. Memorandum of Understanding on establishment of Joint Business Council (JBC) between the Republic of the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI) and the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI).
A foundation for a potential beginning has been laid by both the leaders; it is the bureaucracy to do its job to take the relationship to a new height.
Let me point out a misperception that is prevailing among some of the Myanmar nationals about Bangladesh. Many in Myanmar are misinformed and have a feeling that nothing can be gained from Bangladesh, which is evident to a comment posted by Maug Kyaw Nu, a former political prisoner. He wrote, “There are refugees along the Burma’s bordering countries like Bangladesh, India, China and Thailand. These Refugees are neglected there. Every neighbour is engaged to hunt or loot Burma’s natural resources and wealth. They do not hesitate to hug the military generals for their benefit, which is a big shame for our neighbour leaders. Now the Bangladesh prime minister lands in Naypyitaw to hug Thien Sein to gain some resources and economic benefits. Instead of solving the refugees’ long lasting problem, she is very busy to gain more wealth from Burma.”
Whereas Bangladesh prime minister has indeed raised the Rohingya refugee issue and there are reports that in 2010-11 Bangladesh’s exports to Myanmar stood at $9.65 million and imports from Myanmar at $175.7 million.
The people of Myanmar must be informed that they have the potential to win more from Bangladesh as we have a big market and an increasing middle-class society. Moreover, Bangladesh planned deep-sea port at Sonadia will be a regional hub and will be of tremendous importance to Myanmar and other Asian nations. Myanmar having natural resources like abundance of farm lands, woods, gas and hydro power has the potential to be a candid economic friend. A newly elected Chairman of Asean should be well aware that the solution to Rohingya refugee problem will give an additional mileage to enhance its human rights image to international community, which the General Thein Sein government is urgently seeking. It is a matter to be seen how Bangladesh bureaucracy and diplomats capitalise such urgent needs of Myanmar.
Both Bangladesh and Myanmar should emphasise not only on connectivity through land, sea and air but should also increase people to people contact through various cultural exchanges, sports, educations, trade fairs, zand other mutually beneficial activities. Therefore, both countries should recalibrate their relation for the common good of the people of this region.
The writer is a retired Brigadier General.
//16 Dec 2011 The Myanmar Aqua Feed Association is urging members to test all bags of raw materials used to make fish feed imported from India after some bags were found to contain waste products with no nutritional value, a spokesperson said.
Dr. That Mhoo, the association’s general secretary, said six companies are importing Indian-made soy meal. “We found that some bags contain up to 10% of waste products such as bean shell or other plant stems,” he said.
“This means there is less protein and fibre in each bag and the farmers must source more protein,” he added. Each bag weighs 30 viss (48 kg),” he added.
Dr That Mhoo said domestic feed producers are unable to meet demand for the product, so imports are required to fill the gap. However, imported feed is also cheaper by about 12%.
“A wave of Indian-made fish feed – about 4,000 tonnes – was imported between October and November,” he said.
He added that the importers had hired warehouses to store their feed, without making contracts with buyers. And soon as the imported feed arrived they were able to sell it quickly, Dr That Mhoo said.
10% waste
“The samples of the feed they gave us to test were quite pure but the imported bags they have been selling has between 5 and 10% of waste product,” the manager of a feed factory in Hlaing Tharyar said.
“They [the suppliers] promised that this would not happen again,” the factory manager added. He added that the imported soy meal had been distributed before either the association of factory owners had been able to adequately test its quality.
Some factories have their own laboratories but many do not. In Yangon, only the Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Department’s laboratory at Thaketa township can provide quality control certificates. But the costs of using the laboratory are too high for most.
“The price must be lower than that to encourage all the importers to test what their goods,” he said.
By BA KAUNG Friday, December 16, 2011
The chief of Burma’s Election Commission (EC) said in a press conference on Friday that upcoming parliamentary by-election will be free and fair and the country’s existing political parties can now start their election campaigns.
During the by-election, expected to be held in March, the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development party (USDP), opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) and Burma’s other political parties will compete for 48 vacant parliamentary seats.
Ex-army general Tin Aye, the EC chairman, vowed during the press conference in Naypyidaw on Friday that the by-election will be held in a free and fair manner and that the EC will be independent and not submit to any outside influence. If his prediction comes to fruition, it would stand in contrast to the 2010 parliamentary elections, Burma’s first in 20 years, which the NLD boycotted and observers condemned as widely fraudulent.
During the 2010 election campaign, political parties had to seek advance approval from the EC prior to canvassing for votes and faced various other forms of campaign restrictions. Tin Aye said that in the by-elections, parties will not face a repeat of such conditions and they all can launch their campaigns without reporting to the election commission in advance.
“Only if you can organize the people, then (the parties) can join the Parliament and serve the people,” he said, adding that the commission will act in strict accordance with the Constitution.
He also said that the parties will be notified of the election date three months in advance.
The USDP, led by former army generals including President Thein Sein, won a majority of the seats in last year’s parliamentary elections.
There are now only a small number of vacant parliamentary seats, but the by-election is viewed as particularly significant because the NLD has decided to participate and Suu Kyi has stated her desire to compete for a seat in Parliament—a decision that was made following government overtures to the opposition.
The EC chief welcomed the fact that the NLD would compete in the election and noted that Suu Kyi will serve for the good of the public.
Although last year’s elections were marred by heavy vote rigging, the coming by-election is expected be be free and fair, particularly because the USDP has already gained a majority of seats in the parliament and also because the election will test to what extent Burma has made political progress under the new government.
By LALIT K JHA Friday, December 16, 2011
WASHINGTON — The US wants Burma to have good relations with its giant neighbors China and India, a senior US diplomat said ahead of trilateral talks with India and Japan and as the US special envoy for Burma is in Beijing to brief Chinese officials on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s trip to Burma earlier this month.
“We seek a country that has a good, strong, trustful relationship with all its neighbors, principally India and China. We will be in close consultations with both of them about the developments inside the country,” said Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell.
Washington aims to promote further reform in Burma, he said, adding that the US wants to coordinate its efforts with Japan and India during talks with diplomats from those countries to be held next week.
“We would like to compare our overall strategy,” said Campbell, citing the release of political prisoners, the greater opening of political space, an easing of ethnic tensions and progress towards national reconciliation, and the removal of military ties between Naypyidaw and Pyongyang as areas in which the three countries should “speak in one voice.”
Campbell said that the US also wants to coordinate its Burma policy with Asia’s two largest democracies in other areas, such as “capacity building, rule of law, agricultural issues and health concerns.”
The trilateral meeting, scheduled to be held in Washington next Monday, will be the first of its kind, and will cover a range of key regional and global economic, military and strategic issues.
Meanwhile, the US special envoy for Burma, Derek Mitchell, told reporters in Beijing that Burma’s greatest challenge is national reconciliation, noting that the country needs to resolve the division between the ethnic minorities and the Burman majority if it is to achieve lasting stability.
“I think that remains the biggest concern that we all must have about the stability of the country,” said Mitchell. “You can have artificial stability through force of arms, but that’s not sustainable.”
Mitchell also referred to the impact Burma’s conflicts have had on its neighbors.
“I won’t speak for China, but I know there are cross-border impacts of all of this that affect … Thailand, affect India, Bangladesh, and many of the neighbors. This is something we ought to think about and hopefully assist in the right way Burma’s development towards national reconciliation,” he said.
By WAI MOE Friday, December 16, 2011
Burma’s information minister, ex-Gen Kyaw Hsan, has agreed to air programs produced by Voice of America (VOA) on state-run radio stations, according to the head of the VOA’s Burmese-language service.
Than Lwin Tun, the chief of the Washington-based VOA Burmese Service, told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that Kyaw Hsan agreed in principle to broadcast some VOA programs
using local FM and medium-wave stations totally or partly run by the Ministry of Information.
“The minister agreed to broadcast some programs, such as international news, English education, health, science and technology programs, on MRTV and local FM stations,” said Than Lwin Tun, who visited Rangoon and Naypyidaw in the first week of December.
“We will have to send the programs in advance and then they will air them,” he said.
VOA has re-broadcasting agreements with local stations in Indonesia, Cambodia and Thailand, and Than Lwin Tun said the Burmese Information Ministry expressed interest in reaching a similar agreement with VOA.
“After I return to Washington, we will send a Memorandum of Understanding to the ministry and they will examine it. If they agree, we will make another visit with VOA’s regional marketing officer,” he said.
“This trip was just to listen to them [Burmese officials]. Now that they have agreed, the next step will be implementation. Since this step is just beginning, I can’t say exactly how long it will take,” he said.
Notably absent from the programming that will be carried by the state-run broadcasters is VOA’s reporting on Burma. “At the moment, they do not want our Burma news,” he said, adding that other foreign broadcasters Burmese-language services are also trying to broadcast inside Burma.
Besides its plan to begin rebroadcasting through local stations, VOA has also sought permission to post regular correspondents inside Burma. However, the Ministry of Information has not yet given a green light to the plan.
“At the moment, we are only about halfway to getting approval to to post VOA correspondents inside Burma. But the information minister said VOA can send its reporters anytime,” said Than Lwin Tun.
Than Lwin Tun, who was a student activist during the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, left Burma after the brutal crackdown on demonstrators following the military coup on Sept 18, 1988. The trip was his first to his homeland in 23 years.
On the trip, he visited Rangoon and Burma’s remote capital, Naypyidaw, where he met Kyaw Hsan, Railways Minister Aung Min, Deputy House Speaker Nanda Kyaw Zwa and two political advisors to President Thein Sein. In Rangoon, he met pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and journalists.
Than Lwin Tun said that during his meeting with Kyaw Hsan, he presented a copy of the VOA Charter to him because, in an earlier meeting with VOA editor Khin Soe Win, the minister referred to the slogan, “fighting the media with the media.”
“He may have the wrong idea about the media. That’s why I wanted to explain about VOA’s professional stand,” he said. “I wanted him to know that VOA is a public service, not a government mouthpiece.”
The VOA Charter was drafted in 1960 and signed into law in 1976 by then President Gerald Ford. It states that VOA news will be accurate, objective and comprehensive.
Describing the information minister as “reform-minded,” Than Lwin Tun said Kyaw Hsan asked him what he thought of state-run newspapers such as The New Light of Myanmar and Myanma Alin, and how they can be improved.
“I told him that, speaking as a journalist, the ministry’s newspapers are just government gazettes, not newspapers,” said Than Lwin Tun.
During a visit to Burma by VOA editor Khin Soe Win in September to mark a government-sponsored “democracy day,” Kyaw Hsan told the first VOA staffer to return to the country since a civilian government was sworn in on March 31 that journalists based overseas have to help develop Burma’s media.
Khin Soe Win told the minister that if that was what he wanted, the VOA chief would come and talk to him.
Friday, 16 December 2011 21:05 Min Thet (Mizzima) – The leader of Burma’s Internal Peace Building Committee says the “world looks down on us” because of the 60-year long conflict with ethnic groups and the failure to achieve peace.
Minister Aung Thaung, a secretary of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party and former Union industry minister, made his remarks at a press conference in Rangoon at 8-mile junction on Friday.
“As you know, there’s been no peace for over 60 years. These armed groups are still in our country even after 60 years. Our country is the sole such country in the world. So the world looks down on us and looks down on our entire country.
“We want our country to be freed from this situation. In other words, we want to fulfill the people’s desire,” Aung Thaung said.
He said that peace would be restored in the country during the tenure of the new government.
“We are very much taking care in choosing our words to build peace. I’d like you to know we are trying our best to change their attitudes and opinions…we shall restore peace during the tenure of this government,” he said.
Regarding the media at home and abroad, Aung Thaung said, “There are many media groups in the exile media. Many of them contribute to our country. Many welcome us. Some [have] pushed us.”
Aung Thaung’s peace negotiating team recently concluded talks with the Mong La group, giving them the right to reopen liaison offices and to work with the government in determining economic development projects in its area.
On Tuesday, The New Light of Myanmar reported that Aung Thaung’s group had also reached an informal cease-fire agreement with the small Klo Htoo Baw group, a breakaway group of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army.
He has also met with leaders of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) in the Chinese border town of Ruili in Yunnan Province.
The KIO delegation was led by its chairman, Lanyaw Zawng Hkra, and the government delegation was led by Aung Thaung and his second-in-command, Thein Zaw, both former military officers and ministers in the previous regime. No agreement was reached.
Thursday, 15 December 2011 12:07 Ko Wild
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Japan may resume funding development projects in Burma after an 8-year halt, in light of changes taking place in the country.
Foreign Affairs Minister Koichiro Gemba will arrive on a three-day visit on December 25 to talk with high-level government officials and opposition group members, including Aung San Suu Kyi.
In 2003, after the Depayin Massacre, Japan suspended development aid to Burma in response to the killings and the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi. Japan also suspended aid for the renovation of the Lawpita No. 2 hydropower plant, but it continued to provide humanitarian aid.
The foreign-based Federation of Trade Unions of Burma patron Dr. Min Nyo told Mizzima that Japan officials would be looking carefully at the health and education sectors during their visit.
“They will also look at the condition of the Lawpita hydro power plant to decide which part of the station should be repaired,” said Min Nyo, who lives in Japan. He said the FM will also meet President Thein Sein, Foreign Affairs Minister Wunna Maung Lwin and ethnic leaders.
The Japan-based “The Mainichi Daily News” reported that during Burmese Foreign Affairs Minister Wunna Maung Lwin’s visit to Japan in October, the Japanese government said it would provide aid for the renovation of Lawpita hydropower plant No. 2 in Karenni State.
Min Myo said his trade union would not object to renewed development aid because Aung San Suu Kyi and opposition groups are now involved in Burmese politics, but he urged Japan to scrutinize whether the authorities use the money effectively and to also help promote the trade of farm products.
Koichiro Gemba, an MP in Japan’s ruling Democratic Party, said that during his visit to Burma he would invite opposition group party members to visit Japan after Burma’s by-elections, according to the “The Mainichi Daily News.”
“Japan is hoping to step up the momentum of the transition to democratic governance and national reconciliation,” the newspaper said.
Members of Japan’s Upper House Commission on development aid will visit Burma in early 2012.
In other areas, the two countries are negotiating on the issue of Burma’s debt to Japan, which has provided a total of 211.9 million U.S. dollars as of November 2011, ranking 12th in Burma’s foreign investors’ line-up, according to a story by the China-based Xinhua news agency on Tuesday.
Gemba’s visit will be the first by a top Japanese official since former Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi visited in 2002.
Gemba, who is also a Democratic Party Lower House MP, was appointed Foreign Minister in September 2011. He will also visit Thailand and Cambodia.
According to information compiled by the Burma Rivers Network, the Lawpita Hydropower Project in Karenni State was initiated in 1950 with a bilateral war reparation agreement between Japan and Burma. Mobye dam was built on the Balu Chaung River to store water to supply two hydroelectric power stations. Lawpita was the first large-scale hydropower project in Burma. The project today represents 24 percent of Burma’s total hydropower capacity and is an important source of electricity for Rangoon and Mandalay.
The Lawpita Hydropower Plant No.2 was the first power station to become operational. The first phase of construction on Plant No.2 was completed in 1960, and the second phase was completed in 1974. It has a capacity of 168 megawatts with six generators.
Only a few towns in Karenni State are supplied with power, which is often unreliable. About 80 per cent of the total population in the state still has no access to electric power.
Friday, 16 December 2011 21:16 Min Thet and Phanida
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Residents of 19 villages who are being forced to relocate because of Burma’s massive Dawei (Tavoy) deep-sea port development project are protesting their eviction notices and unfair compensation.
A press conference, organized by the Dawei Development Group, an advocate for the villagers, was held on Thursday in Bahan Township in Rangoon to air the villagers’ complaints.
About 100 people showed up for the press conference including writers Maung Wun Tha and Ko Tar, Myanmar Bird and Nature Society environmentalist Soe Nyunt and local journalists.
Spokesmen said that Mayingyi and Kaloathta villages had been bulldozed for the project. The Dawei deep-sea port is 10 times larger than Laem Chabang, Thailand’s largest port.
Abbot U Awbatha of Mayingyi Monastery in Yebyu Township, Taninthayi Region, told Mizzima that many of the villagers have carefully cultivated coconut palms, which could support them and their heirs for their entire lives.
One villager said, “Even if the authorities give compensation, we cannot depend on the compensation for our whole life. We cannot give the compensation to our next generations as inheritances. We don’t want to move.”
The Italian-Thai Development Company is leading the massive port project. According to figures compiled by the Dawei Development Group, 32,279 people, 21 schools and 23 religious buildings from a total of 19 villages must be relocated because of the project, which is located near Nhapholel village in Yebyu Township, 20 miles northwest of Dawei.
“They told the villages they must move, but I want to urge the villagers who must move and the authorities to negotiate,’” said a Buddhist monk, Pyinnya Wuntha, of Kaloat village in Yebyu Township. In November, village heads conducted a survey that found that almost all the residents did not want to leave their homes.
In 2008, Burma and the Italian-Thai Development Company signed a memorandum of understanding. In 2010, the company signed a “framework” agreement to develop the project and it was granted a 75-year concession.
The project has three phases: the first stage extends from 2010 to 2014, the second stage extends from 2014 until 2017 and the third phase will be implemented from 2015 to 2019. Construction of an electric power plant, oil plant and steel plant are included in the project.
The estimated cost is a total of US $58 billion; the first phase is funded at $8 billion
The massive project includes a 170-kilometre, eight-lane highway that will link Dawei to Kanchanburi, Thailand, a railroad, gas pipelines, and the creation of a designated economic zone on the Burmese-Thai border.
Thant Zin, who has worked with local residents, told Mizzima. “To supply water for the port facilities, a reservoir will be built in Taloathta village and an area about 4-square kilometres will be flooded.” He said a two-lane road along the projected eight-lane super highway that will link up with Thailand is about 90 per cent complete.
To build the road, farmland in Ashaytaw, Kaloanhtaw and Nabu villages was bulldozed without giving compensation to the landowners, according to residents.
“Not giving compensations to the residents is bullying,” environmentalist U Ohn told the press conference period.
In October, plantation owners around Yebyu and Mindat villages were forced to sign agreements for the confiscation of 123.5 acres of plantations located in the designated zone. At that time, the official in charge of the port, Khin Maung Swe, was quoted as saying, “If you don’t agree, your plantations will be confiscated without any compensation.”
Construction plans also call for a coal-fired power plant that could generate 4,000 megawatts of power to be built to service the port and economic zone, which could damage the environment, said environmentalist Win Myo Thu.
According to the Dawei Development Group, the Italian-Thai Development Company promised to create job opportunities for local residents, but salaries are lower than ordinary rates and workers have many complaints.
“The salaries of Burmese workers and the salaries of Thai workers are different,” said Thant Zin. “Some Burmese women have become mistresses of Thai workers. The number of migrant workers is increasing, so there is more crime in the area. There are many problems.”
By SHWE AUNG
Published: 16 December 2011 Local residents in southern Burma’s Tenasserim Division who are facing possible relocation to make way for Dawei [Tavoy] deep-sea port project construction held a press conference in Rangoon yesterday.
The conference’s aim was to publicise their demands, to ensure safetyfor the natural environment, and an adequate sum of compensation if they have to abandon their homes and farmlands.
Speakers at the conference and residents in Tavoy and nearby villages who call themselves Dawei Region Development Group, told journalists their demands at Royal Rose Restaurant in Shwegondai township on December 15. They said they would like guidelines to be specified based on the local public’s opinion established through surveys, they want to ensure protection for their livelihood and cultural heritage sites, and to ensure an appropriate amount of compensation for those who face relocation.
They also demanded for an environment and health-impact survey to be conducted by an independent organisation, and its findings to be publicised. And they asked to keep a communication channel between Non-Government Organisations, authorities, United Nations groups and the locals for a sustainable and long-term development project.
Abbot monk of Mayamingyi village in Tavoy Distrct, who was among some 100 people attending the press conference, said his village is already witnessing some destruction of natural environment as the construction begins to roll in.
“They are bulldozing the hill-strip next to our village from all sides and we used to find vegetables for food up there. And our cashew nut plantations were also destroyed by a costal-road construction. The villagers did not receive any compensation for that and they are disappointed,” said the monk.
“Apparently the locals might also have to move [from the villages] but they don’t want that – they don’t want the compensation either. They just want their trees.”
Dawei deep-sea port is a multi-billion dollar project being developed by Thailand based construction company Italian-Thai Industrial Company Limited. The 10-year project looks to transform the region into a Special Economic Zone and includes development of a large, 250 square kilometre industrial zone for heavy industry and petro-chemical plants. In November 2010, Burmese government’s Myanmar Port Authority signed an 8.6 billion US dollar contract with Ital-thai, giving it green-light to go ahead with the project.
In June this year, Ital-thai said around 10,000 people would have to be relocated to make way for the development.
By FRANCIS WADE
Published: 15 December 2011
Conditions for civilians in Burma’s border regions, long beset by conflict and lack of development, have continued along the same trajectory for nearly two decades, despite elections a year ago that many hoped would prompt an improvement in livelihoods for ethnic peoples, a study of the past year warns.
The mood of the report is built on testimonies collected since November 2010 from 1,207 civilians in four states and divisions in eastern Burma– Karen, Mon, Tenasserim and Karenni. It seeks to build a retrospective of a year that many claim has dramatically altered the landscape in Burma.
But the findings appear to prove otherwise. “Some people are discussing changes since the election, and the potential for reform. But the villagers speaking and working with us are struggling to respond to the same abuses now as in the past,” said Saw Albert, field director for the Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG), which compiled the report.
“Nothing that has happened over the last 12 months has created new opportunities for them to address this abuse – let alone resolved the root causes.”
Among its findings is evidence of continued egregious human rights abuses by the army “consistent with patterns of abuse that KHRG has documented over the last twenty years”. These include “forced expropriation of labour, land and property from rural communities and the wide-scale and destructive extraction of natural resources”.
Both are cause and effect of heavy militarisation of Burma’s border regions, which began half a century ago to quell rebellions by ethnic armies, but which has ramped up over the past decade as the government looks to secure these resource-rich regions for exploitation.
In many areas conflict has intensified since the November 2010 elections, which ironically ushered in a pseudo-civilian government and cautious hope that protracted wars would end. Fighting against groups like the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in the country’s north were triggered by their refusal to become government-controlled Border Guard Forces.
The report notes that of the seven regions in eastern Burma where testimonies were taken, civilians in four had been tortured by Burmese troops over the past year. All regions had populations that had suffered as a result of landmines and indiscriminate firing of artillery, while at least one civilian in five of the seven regions had been extra-judicially executed.
Yet many assessments of Burma by international players lend somewhat myopic attention to the political reforms underway, whilst sidelining ongoing abuses of ethnic minorities, KHRG says.
“No accurate external assessment of current conditions in eastern Burma can be conducted without heeding the concerns of rural people who are gauging, on a day-to-day basis, the way abuse compromises their priorities,” notes the report.
That emphasis on local voices, which are largely left out of think tank reports and governmental statements hailing the perceived transition to democracy, “should function as a stinging critique of any attempt to assess changes since the election that excludes the voices of rural people in ethnic areas”, it adds.
By KAREN HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP
Published: 16 December 2011
Despite the current dialogue of change that is increasingly prevalent in media reports and government statements on the situation inside Burma since the November 2010 election, villagers in eastern Burma continue to document abuses and articulate concerns that are consistent with patterns identified over 20 years of human rights documentation by villagers working with our organisation.
Over the past 12 months, villagers from eastern Burma trained to monitor human rights conditions in their communities gathered more than 1,270 oral testimonies, collections of images and written documentation of abuses. This testimony details serious human rights abuses, all occurring in the past 12 months, across rural areas in four of Burma’s 14 states and regions: Karen and Mon states and Pegu and Tenasserim regions.
Any external assessment of current developments in Burma must heed this testimony, and take note of the patterns of abuse raised across a wide geographic area. Local people are best placed to understand the threats that they continue to face, and to gauge the degree to which these threats affect their own needs and priorities. Their testimony, then, should function as an indictment of any attempt to assess changes since the election that excludes the voices of rural people in ethnic areas.
Abuses documented by villagers in the last 12 months related directly to armed conflict; civilians were arbitrarily detained, violently abused and summarily executed while whole communities were attacked, placed at risk by landmines or subjected to stringent restrictions on movement, trade and access to humanitarian materials.
Abuses were not, however, only related to armed conflict, and viewing the current human rights situation in eastern Burma only through the narrow lens of the horrors of war distorts the reality of the situation and ignores the devastating effects of ingrained abusive practices. Explicit or implicit threats of violence, and past and recent experiences with violent abuse, served as potent reminders when both state and non-state actors’ attempted to secure control over, and extract, communities’ resources. Since November 2010, villagers described abuses including forced labour and arbitrary taxation, the unilateral implementation of development and natural resource extraction projects without local input or accountability, and the confiscation or destruction of land without consent and with inadequate or no compensation. These abuses, while individually less sensational, are nonetheless devastating for rural livelihoods and communities, particularly when understood in the context of their cumulative effects.
In the face of this abuse, villagers continue to employ a variety of strategies to address their human rights concerns. In some villages, community leaders engage soldiers, potentially risking their lives to negotiate even small change, such as the relaxation of movement restrictions or reductions in forced labour. In other contexts, communities feel their best option is to avoid soldiers entirely, sometimes abandoning their homes and seeking safety at hiding sites in remote upland areas.
Villagers seeking to address ongoing abuse have a limited range of options, however, and nothing that has occurred over the last 12 months has presented new ones; the obstacles for communities seeking to address human rights concerns are real, and violent. In a context where villagers have only rarely, or never, seen a soldier punished and where no legal or formal pathways exist for challenging, seeking protection from, or redress for abuse, even victims with no specific past experience of violence are likely to read a credible implicit threat into restrictive and exploitative demands. These concerns function to limit the practical options with which civilians can seek to address their human rights concerns, particularly via approaches that entail engagement with state and military authorities.
It is precisely because communities in eastern Burma continue to face these threats, and because only they can assess the probability of such threats resulting in violence, that their capacity to determine their own human rights concerns, and the ways in which these threats impact their lives and priorities, should be recognised and heeded. Any external assessments that ignore input from the most knowledgeable and engaged stakeholders – who stand to lose the most from inaccurate conclusions drawn without their participation – risk mistaking short-term signs of change for a material alteration of the dynamics of abuse, and place disproportionate emphasis on recent events, at the expense of understanding the way past and continuing abuse impacts the future for communities in eastern Burma.