BURMA RELATED NEWS – JANUARY 25, 2012
Jan 25th, 2012
By Andrew Quinn and Susan Cornwell | Reuters – 16 hrs ago WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is looking at easing sanctions on Myanmar, but needs to see more democratic progress including a smooth April by-election before it can start unwinding decades of overlapping economic and political bans on the country, U.S. lawmakers said on Tuesday.
U.S. officials have said they are encouraged by Myanmar’s reforms thus far, which have included the release of hundreds of political prisoners and spurred the European Union and Australia to begin easing their own sanctions.
But the U.S. sanctions, launched in 1988 and expanded by five laws and four presidential directives, could prove tough to unravel quickly as the Obama administration monitors whether Myanmar genuinely embraces democracy, promotes civil liberties and ends strife with ethnic groups.
“We’re looking at it. We’re reviewing right now what’s available to the president, what’s available to Congress, what makes the most sense,” said Democratic Senator John Kerry, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“I think we have to take some measures in response to what is happening over there. But I don’t think anybody’s yet decided on exactly what the sequencing is,” he said.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this month announced Washington would return an ambassador to Myanmar after an absence of two decades, a significant step in the quickening but still tentative re-engagement with the country formerly known as Burma.
RAPID CHANGE
Clinton, who visited Myanmar in December, has promised to match further reform steps with more U.S. gestures, hoping to encourage political change undertaken by the new civilian-led government after decades of military rule.
Those reforms, unveiled rapidly in recent months, have included freeing longtime pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, launching peace talks with ethnic rebels, relaxing strict media censorship, lifting bans on trade unions and protests, and pulling back from the powerful economic and political orbit of neighboring China.
But Myanmar’s generals still effectively control parliament after a deeply flawed 2010 election and the constitution, written in 2008, guarantees the military’s dominant role in politics.
U.S. sanctions on Myanmar include a ban on investment and trade, a freeze on the assets of certain Myanmar officials and a block on U.S. support for loans from international financial institutions.
“There is a whole elaborate maze of sanctions that has been built up, and to dismantle it is going to take some time and effort,” said Suzanne DiMaggio, vice president of global policy programs at the Asia Society and a Myanmar expert.
In Congress, leading lawmakers said the United States could begin loosening some sanctions soon – but probably not before the April 1 by-elections in which Suu Kyi is set to run for parliament.
“We could act fairly soon,” said Republican Senator John McCain, just back from a trip to Myanmar, adding that both political parties and the Obama administration itself were consulting on the steps forward.
“The president can act on some, Congress has to act on some,” McCain told Reuters.
U.S. officials have said they are looking for concrete progress on a number of fronts, including further prisoner releases, sustained peace initiatives with ethnic rebel groups and a halt to Myanmar’s military cooperation with North Korea.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican who since 2003 has been a co-sponsor of annual legislation placing sanctions on Myanmar’s government, said the April election would be an important test of the durability of reform.
“I recommended to them that they have international observers there. That’s not uncommon in countries that are having first-time elections,” McConnell, who this month visited the country for the first time, told reporters.
“If that (election) goes well, then we’ll continue to take a look at what additional steps they need to take in order to warrant the removal of some or all of the sanctions.”
WAIVERS AND OTHER STEPS
Analysts say the United States could take initial steps such as requesting waivers to existing sanctions, including some to permit travel by senior officials to match the move taken this week by the European Union.
Another possible step would be an administration request for a waiver to a law which requires the United States to block any full re-engagement with Myanmar by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Some sanctions might be amended, but still others would require progress on issues ranging from drug trafficking and money laundering to preventing the use of child soldiers.
DiMaggio of the Asia Society said it would be important for the United States to maintain its flexibility while encouraging further reform, particularly on the economic front.
“What is needed right now are ways and means of responding quickly,” DiMaggio said. “There is an urgency because right now a lot of important decisions are being made, a lot of reforms are being implemented, and they need assistance.”
By a Reuters Staff Reporter | Reuters – 15 hours ago YANGON (Reuters) – Business is booming at the Golden Sea employment agency in downtown Yangon, but that doesn’t mean Myanmar’s long-stagnant economy is improving. Quite the opposite.
“Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand,” said manager Kyaw Thura, listing the countries where he helps the young men crowding his one-room office find jobs as labourers and cooks. “If there were opportunities in Myanmar, they would stay here.”
Hopes of concrete economic reforms are running high among foreign business people now pouring into Myanmar, which has fanned optimism by pledging democratic reform, freeing political prisoners and setting the stage for an April by-election.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a landmark visit to the country, formerly known as Burma, two months ago and multilateral lenders such as the Asian Development Bank have taken preliminary steps toward resuming activities there.
Few argue against Myanmar’s potential.
As big as France and Britain combined, the resource-rich country sits strategically between India, China and Southeast Asia with ports on the Indian Ocean and Andaman Sea, all of which have made it a coveted energy-security asset for Beijing’s western provinces.
Bordering five countries, Myanmar offers multiple avenues of Asian engagement as U.S. President Barack Obama shifts focus from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan toward economic growth and security in the Asia-Pacific region.
But as tourists and investors knock on its door, the number of Burmese flowing in the opposite direction suggests that ordinary people don’t expect the end of half a century of isolation to improve the economy anytime soon.
The barriers to progress are formidable: U.S. sanctions, an incoherent exchange rate regime, woeful infrastructure, weak investment laws, a crippled banking system, decades of mismanagement and a shortage of skilled Burmese.
While the European Union on Monday started unwinding sanctions, punitive U.S. measures continue to cut deep into Myanmar’s economy, among Asia’s most prosperous before a 1962 military coup ushered in a disastrous “Burmese Way to Socialism” that brought sweeping nationalisation and global isolation.
U.S. sanctions could begin to come down if Myanmar’s by-elections scheduled for April 1, contested by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, are fair and open, U.S. Senator John McCain told reporters last week in Hanoi.
U.S. sanctions, imposed in response to years of human rights abuses and steadily tightened since 1988, preclude U.S. aid and rule out financial help from International Financial Institutions (IFIs) such as the World Bank, in which the United States is a big shareholder and has veto rights.
That prevents those agencies from training government staff for long-overdue work such as drawing up a national budget or writing environmental regulations.
The World Bank and Asian Development Bank ceased operations in the country in the mid-1980s and are still owed arrears, which have to be repaid before they can come back. And even when they return, their aid will require the government to respect governance standards that have eluded its leaders for decades, including budget transparency.
CURRENCY CONUNDRUM
“There’s so much to be done,” said Luc de Waegh, head of West Indochina, a Myanmar-focused consultancy.
“You need to rebuild the country, the roads, the infrastructure, the education system, and all this cannot be done with private money.”
One of Asia’s richest countries early in the 20th century, Myanmar is now one of the world’s poorest after half a century of often-brutal rule by military rulers. A third of its estimated 60 million people live on less than a dollar a day.
The International Monetary Fund estimates Myanmar’s gross domestic product at just over $50 billion. In contrast, neighbouring Thailand, with a population of about 67 million, has GDP of $348 billion.
Among its biggest problems: a currency regime that deters investment and abets kleptocracy.
Officially, one U.S. dollar buys a little over six Myanmar kyats. Unofficially, it’s more like 750 kyats.
The unofficial rate, used in most transactions, has jumped from more than 1,000 per dollar in 2009 as foreign money has flowed into the timber, energy and gem sectors. That has hurt a swathe of Burmese, from farmers and manufacturers to traders and employees of foreign firms paid in dollars.
A team of IMF advisers came in November to look at reforming the currency and unifying the rates. A two-week follow-up mission ends on Wednesday.
Myanmar is one of only 17 countries that still have dual exchange rates, and even the IMF has only three experts in the delicate task of unifying them.
The official rate is used for government revenue and for imports by some state-owned enterprises. As a result, state revenue is grossly underestimated and some critics say it is likely vast sums of that money was kept off the books and quietly smuggled out of the country into offshore banks held by cronies of the former junta.
They may also have repatriated the funds to snap up state assets that were sold off during an extremely opaque privatisation boom that took place just over a year before the army’s transfer of power to the civilian government.
In addition, many state firms effectively enjoy a hidden subsidy and could fail if they were forced to adopt a market rate. A wave of bankruptcies and resultant job losses could bring a backlash against much-needed reforms.
One solution might be to replace implicit subsidies with more transparent, official subsidies, said Jean-Pierre Verbiest, a former country director for the Asian Development Bank in Thailand and now an economic consultant at the Asian Development Bank Institute.
“The exchange rate, the budget, monetary policy, financial sector development — they are all linked, and these are typically areas where IFIs can contribute and put policies in place,” he said.
That is not going to happen until the West drops sanctions.
U.S. sanctions on Myanmar include visa bans on certain officials and business associates, restrictions on financial services, bans on Burmese imports, a ban on new investment and constraints on assistance to the country.
GETTING THE POOR ONSIDE
Another urgent problem is the need for reforms in the agricultural sector, which employs two-thirds of the population and suffers from low productivity and a lack of credit.
“Even on good assumptions, there will be a mess because it’s very difficult to handle big changes especially in a country which is very rich but at the same time very poor,” said Verbiest, meaning rich in resources and potential but also in terms of state revenue, if properly accounted for.
“So there are going to be people who will benefit much more than others,” he added.
Quick reforms in agriculture could help alleviate poverty in the countryside and win support for the reform process. They could include providing credit to farmers who have to rely on money-lenders charging crippling interest rates plus investment in village infrastructure such as roads to markets, said a veteran Myanmar aid worker who asked not to be identified.
“Villagers are still driving ox carts and taking all day to go nine miles. Isolation breeds poverty,” she said.
The country also badly needs better education and training.
“There’s a real vacuum in capacity,” the aid worker said, noting there were thousands of Burmese engineers in Singapore but engineering talent was hard to find inside Myanmar.
The brain drain has hurt the public sector, too: Myanmar lacks the technocrats that helped Indonesia, for example, move from a military dictatorship to a thriving democracy.
Much of the country’s intellectual talent fled in 1988, mostly to Europe and the United States, after the army brutally crushed a student-led revolt. The government has so far made no official move to encourage them to return.
“We need 30-somethings who have MBAs and analytical skills. You’re not going to find that in the generals, even if there’s political will,” the aid worker said.
“People have had beaten into them not to take the initiative, not to be creative, not to be innovative. In that respect I think IFIs can help. Training needs to happen on a massive scale.”
Reuters – UK Focus – 1 hour 24 minutes ago
DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 25 (Reuters) – Travellers hoping to glimpse the golden pagoda of Rangoon or hear the “tinkly temple-bells” of Kipling’s Road to Mandalay may soon be able to book into a Westin or a Marriott, thanks to Myanmar’s re-emergence from political isolation.
Starwood Hotels & Resorts (NYSE: HOT – news) – which runs chains such as Westin, Sheraton and W – and Marriott International both said during the World Economic Forum in Davos they wanted to start running hotels in Myanmar.
The former Burma, one of the most isolated countries in Asia, is being welcomed back into the international fold after years of sanctions, thanks to democratic reforms including the release of political prisoners by President Thein Sein.
“Marriott would love to be there if the conditions are right,” said Arne Sorenson, president and CEO-elect of Marriott International. “Burma has captured people’s imagination for decades.”
Long ruled by an authoritarian military dictatorship that was suspicious of outsiders, Myanmar potentially has a huge amount to offer travellers seeking an exotic destination, with coasts, rainforests and cultural sites unblemished by the rapid development elsewhere in southeast Asia.
English-speaking schoolchildren grew up with Rudyard Kipling’s wistful poem of “mist on the rice-fields”, “the old pagoda looking lazy at the sea”, and “a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land”.
The only hospitality chains that operate hotels in Myanmar now are Asian-based companies such as Shangri-la Hotels & Resorts, which runs the Traders Hotel in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon, formerly Rangoon.
About 300,000 tourists visited Myanmar in its 2011 financial year, according to government figures. That is barely 2 percent of the more than 11 million people that visited nearby Singapore during the same year.
“I think it’s time for people like us to look at Burma,” said Vasant Prabhu, vice chairman and chief financial officer of Starwood Hotels & Resorts.
“I think Burma is the interesting new opportunity – a little bit like Vietnam might have been 20 years ago. We have a decent presence in Vietnam right now.”
Myanmar could also benefit from turmoil diverting travellers from other tourist destinations, such as the Middle East.
It is still too early to talk of a flood of foreign business. Asia-focused bank Standard Chartered (Xetra: 859123 – news) – which operates in every Asian country besides North Korea and Myanmar – said it would consider opening in Myanmar if sanctions are lifted, although it is still premature to make concrete moves.
“We’re looking at the changes very closely, but it isn’t clear yet,” said StanChart’s Chief Executive Peter Sands in an interview.
U.S. and European sanctions, imposed in response to years of human rights abuses, have left much of the country in poverty. A third of its estimated 60 million people live on less than a dollar a day.
AFP – 16 hrs ago
Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari Wednesday presented Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi with an award in recognition of her long struggle for democracy as he visited the military-dominated country.
“I’m sure she will be this century’s leader to be remembered by the coming generation,” Zardari said as he bestowed on the opposition leader the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Award for Democracy, created in memory of Pakistan’s assassinated former prime minister.
Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has spent most of the past two decades under house arrest. She was released from her latest stint of detention just days after 2010 elections, following half a century of outright military rule.
“We want to stop as far as possible the suffering of families in our country,” Suu Kyi said at the award presentation in Yangon.
“I hope the day will come when our two countries will be able to cooperate very closely to ensure that the rights of families and people everywhere are safeguarded by sound, secure values.”
Suu Kyi held about 45 minutes of talks with Zardari in private.
Pakistan has been ruled by generals for around half its existence and Suu Kyi’s past has resonated strongly with democracy advocates there.
Zardari’s own relations with Pakistan’s military are increasingly tense amid allegations that a secret memo was written at his behest last May in a bid to prevent a feared military coup after US troops killed Osama bin Laden.
Zardari is under huge pressure at home with the courts trying to re-open corruption cases against him in Switzerland and a probe into allegations that his government sought US help to curb the military.
He held talks with Myanmar President Thein Sein in the capital Naypyidaw on Tuesday on upgrading relations, and promoting economic and trade cooperation.
A new nominally civilian government took power in Myanmar last year but its ranks are filled with former generals.
Even so, the regime has surprised observers with a series of reforms, including talks with Suu Kyi, who has been allowed to stand in April by-elections, and the release of hundreds of political prisoners.
By NIRMALA GEORGE | Associated Press – 4 hrs ago NEW DELHI (AP) — Myanmar’s foreign minister said Wednesday that the transition to democracy in the once-authoritarian southeast Asian country will be gradual and systematic.
“The reform process that we have started is irreversible,” Myanmar Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin said in New Delhi during a trip to meet with Indian leaders. “There will be no turning back or derailment on the road to democracy.”
Myanmar’s military-backed but elected government has eased restrictions on political activity and released hundreds of political prisoners since it took office in March 2011.
Opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is now a candidate in parliamentary elections, and President Thein Sein has even suggested that she could be considered for a Cabinet post if she wins.
Maung Lwin said future reforms will be “incremental, systematic and dynamic.”
However, he warned that the transition to democracy was not without challenges. He said Myanmar was “prepared and resolute to overcome all these challenges,” but did not elaborate on what they were.
For much of the past two decades, Myanmar was a pariah to Western democracies for holding Suu Kyi and other political prisoners and maintaining autocratic military rule.
The easing of political and economic restrictions under the new government was already yielding better relations. A host of top Western diplomats has visited Myanmar to witness the situation and encourage the reforms.
On Monday, the European Union lifted some restrictions including the removal of a visa ban on Myanmar’s leaders. Most Western sanctions are still in place as countries watch the
reforms’ progress and the fairness of an upcoming election.
Maung Lwin said Myanmar was determined to reach out to the international community and to step up its engagement as it prepared to head the ASEAN regional grouping in 2014.
India has stepped up its ties with Myanmar as New Delhi competes to assert its influence in the region. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to visit Myanmar in May.
Talks between Maung Lwin and his Indian counterpart S.M. Krishna centered on ways to combat insurgencies, drug trafficking and arms smuggling across the long and porous border shared by the two countries.
Krishna reiterated India’s support for infrastructure development and economic projects in Myanmar.
Energy-hungry India and China are competing for access to Myanmar’s large natural gas resources.
By ANI | ANI – 1 hour 54 minutes ago
New Delhi, Jan 25 (ANI): Myanmar’s Foreign Minister, Wunna Maung Lwin, on Wednesday said his country was moving ahead with democratic reforms and expected to see concrete and tangible steps from the western powers to ease its two-decade-long international isolation.
“The United States and the European Union have expressed recognition and support of the democratic reforms undertaken by the government of Myanmar,” said Lwin, while
delivering a lecture at the Indian Council for World Affairs (ICWA) on ‘Myanmar: A Country in Transition to Democracy’ here.
” Now, there are signs that they are willing to review and reconsider to lift the sanctions and restrictions that they have unilaterally imposed upon Myanmar in the last 20 years. We welcome all these positive responses and hope to see concrete and tangible results as soon as possible,” he added.
Lwin urged that international community for assisting in Myanmar’s nation building process.
“At this critical juncture of national transition, the international community can best assist Myanmar by providing encouragement and support. We are willing and ready to work hand-in-hand with the international community in our nation building endeavors, as well as for the development, peace, and stability of the world,” he said.
Lwin said that there would be no derailment in their path to democracy and the reforms being undertaken by the government were irreversible.
“Myanmar has entered into a new era. The new constitutional government is pursuing a national goal of building a modern, developed and democratic nation in accordance with the will of the people. The reform process that we have started is irreversible. There will be no turning back or derailment in the road to democracy,” he said.
Asserting that Myanmar is working hard towards maintaining good ties with both emerging global giants-India and China, Lwin said: “So, we have a very good and historical and traditional relations with both of the countries. You can choose friends, but you cannot choose neighbours. So this is the story of Myanmar. So we have to be in good relation with both India and China.”
Meanwhile, reacting to Myanmar’s role in building parts of ASEAN highway, Lwin said that the country is working closely with both India and Thailand in this regard.
“(Link to) ASEAN highway and to the highway that leads to China also, so it is a very important highway. So we are discussing and cooperating very closely with India and Thailand,” said Lwin.
The ASEAN or Asian Highway (AH) project is a cooperative project among various countries in Asia and Europe aimed at improving connectivity systems in the region.
Posted: 25 January 2012 2151 hrs
YANGON: Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari Wednesday presented Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi with an award in recognition of her long struggle for democracy as he visited the military-dominated country.
“I’m sure she will be this century’s leader to be remembered by the coming generation,” Zardari said as he bestowed on the opposition leader the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Award for Democracy, created in memory of Pakistan’s assassinated former prime minister.
Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has spent most of the past two decades under house arrest. She was released from her latest stint of detention just days after the 2010 elections, following half a century of outright military rule.
“We want to stop as far as possible the suffering of families in our country,” Suu Kyi said at the award presentation in Yangon.
“I hope the day will come when our two countries will be able to cooperate very closely to ensure that the rights of families and people everywhere are safeguarded by sound, secure values.”
Suu Kyi held about 45 minutes of talks with Zardari in private.
Pakistan has been ruled by generals for around half its existence and Suu Kyi’s past has resonated strongly with democracy advocates there.
Zardari’s own relations with Pakistan’s military are increasingly tense amid allegations that a secret memo was written at his behest last May in a bid to prevent a feared military coup after US troops killed Osama bin Laden.
Zardari is under huge pressure at home with the courts trying to re-open corruption cases against him in Switzerland and a probe into allegations that his government sought US help to curb the military.
He held talks with Myanmar President Thein Sein in the capital Naypyidaw on Tuesday on upgrading relations, and promoting economic and trade cooperation.
A new nominally civilian government took power in Myanmar last year but its ranks are filled with former generals.
Even so, the regime has surprised observers with a series of reforms, including talks with Suu Kyi, who has been allowed to stand in April by-elections, and the release of hundreds of political prisoners.
From the Newspaper
NAYPYIDAW (Myanmar): President Asif Ali Zardari has called for enhancing trade between Pakistan and Myanmar and a ‘preferential tariff arrangement’ leading to a comprehensive free trade agreement.
Talking to Myanmar President U. Thein Sein after his arrival here on Tuesday, he called for setting up a joint ministerial commission to promote economic and trade cooperation between the two countries and collaboration in the oil and gas sector.
The president offered to send the minister for petroleum and natural resources to Myanmar for exploring prospects of meaningful cooperation.
According to the president’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar, he called for consultations between the central banks of the two countries to study prospects of a currency swap arrangement for closer economic and trade cooperation.
He called for greater interaction between chambers of commerce and offered to send a delegation of businessmen. He expressed the hope that closer interaction between trade bodies would lead to the establishment of a joint business council.
Pakistan and Myanmar have modest trade relations and the volume of trade was $24 million in 2009-10.
The spokesman said the president also offered to share Pakistan’s experience in poverty alleviation and women’s empowerment.
He said the Benazir Income Support Programme had proved very successful and had been lauded by the international community.
“We would be happy to invite your ministers and officials to visit Pakistan to study this programme which aims at using the smart card technology for women’s empowerment and poverty alleviation.”
He offered educational and training facilities for Myanmar’s youths in medical, engineering and business colleges in Pakistan.
He also said that Myanmar’s diplomats could attend courses at the Foreign Service Academy.
He invited Myanmar’s president to visit Pakistan.
“Besides parliamentary exchanges we should also establish regular consultations between our foreign ministries.”
President Zardari invited Buddhists to visit ancient and archaeological sites in Pakistan.
He expressed the hope that Myanmar assuming the chairmanship of the Association of South East Asian Nations in 2014 would see the culmination of Pakistan’s quest for closer and more effective institutional relationship with the organisation.
The president also thanked Myanmar for helping the flood-affected people in Pakistan over the past two years.
President Zardari will confer the Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Award on Wednesday on Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi for her decades-long struggle for democracy.
He will also visit the mausoleum of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar.
Wednesday, 25 Jan 2012 Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre on Wednesday began a two-day visit to Myanmar, where he will have talks with the authorities, as well as the political opposition.
Earlier this month, the Government decided that it will no longer urge Norwegian companies to refrain from trade and investment in Myanmar. Visa restrictions have also been modified.
The decision was made in response to the progress being made in Myanmar.
- It is important that we recognise the positive changes we notice, and contribute towards making the irreversible, Støre said to Aftenposten before leaving.
He also made it clear that a continued positive development in Myanmar will also be recognised by Norway.
The Norwegian Foreign Minister stressed that in this connection, the way the upcoming election will be carried out would be an important factor.
Støre said that Norway is also considering following USA’s example by establishing a diplomatic presence in Myanmar.
Published: Jan. 24, 2012 at 1:17 PM
NEW YORK, Jan. 24 (UPI) — Human Rights Watch said, while reforms by the government in Myanmar are welcome, more work is needed to address serious rights concerns.
The rights group said the rhetoric of reform from the government shouldn’t give authorities a free pass on outstanding rights issues in the country.
“Releasing key political prisoners was a crucial step and Myanmar’s government has voiced promises to reform but it must also address decades of gross human rights violations,” Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
Myanmar had its first general election in 2010 in years and released opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from a lengthy house arrest.
Suu Kyi said recently she was re-entering the country’s political system.
The government this year signed a truce with rebels from the Karen ethnic community and released hundreds of political prisoners. But the rights group said the country’s military continues to violate international human rights law by enslaving and torturing ethnic minorities.
“If 2011 was the year of promises, 2012 is the year Myanmar’s government needs to end the country’s culture of impunity, release all remaining political prisoners, and demonstrate through actions that it respects human rights,” Pearson said.
AFP Wednesday, Jan 25, 2012 WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama on Tuesday hailed democratic reforms in Myanmar as offering “new hope” as he recommitted the United States to a lasting presence in the Asia-Pacific region.
In his annual State of the Union address, which was mostly focused on domestic policy, Obama said that renewed US leadership “can be felt across the globe.”
“We’ve made it clear that America is a Pacific power, and a new beginning in Burma has lit a new hope,” Obama said, referring to Myanmar by its former name.
Myanmar, long a pariah in Western eyes, has taken strides toward democracy since a nominally civilian government took over last year including opening talks with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and reaching a ceasefire with a major ethnic rebel group.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paid a landmark visit to Myanmar in December and afterwards moved to restore full diplomatic relations.
Will Southeast Asia’s last frontier economy implode before it ever takes off?
Patrick Winn January 25, 2012 01:39 As Western governments ramp up to the inevitable — removing heavy sanctions agaInst Burma, officially known as Myanmar — investing in Burma may seem attractive to those who bet on emerging markets.
An authoritarian army-run regime, the world’s longest running dictatorship, kept Burma closed off for six decades. Western sanctions have forbidden most business dealings with the Burmese, even with citizens that have no direct links to the men in charge.
The country now appears poised to open up, exposing an untapped market to the world.
Still, this Reuters report offers an equally compelling list of reasons to avoid Burma.
Ready?
1. Burma’s current currency regime “deters investment and abets kleptocracy”
2. An unimaginative populaton cowed by fear: “People have had beaten into them not to take the initiative,” an aid worker told Reuters, “not to be creative, not to be innovative.”
3. Mysterious state revenue figures: “State revenue is grossly underestimated and some critics say it is likely vast sums of that money was kept off the books and quietly smuggled out of the country into offshore banks held by cronies of the former junta.”
And, according to a Harvard development guru writing in the Democratic Voice of Burma, the coming wave of “development” could very well fail to trickle down to the massive numbers of Burmese scraping by on less than $1 a day.
Here’s Harvard’s Elliott Prasse-Freeman on Burma’s challenges:
“Development is here the sacred object, led by ‘experts’ from outside who could (perhaps unwittingly) usher in a quasi-authoritarian neoliberalism where key social and political decisions over the future of the economy and its development would be quarantined in the hands of a narrow elite.”
By EDWARD WONG
Published: January 24, 2012
Burmese soldiers continued an offensive against an ethnic Kachin army last week in northern Myanmar while cease-fire negotiations were being held, La Nan, an official of the autonomous Kachin government, said in an article posted Tuesday in The Irrawaddy, a newspaper run by Burmese exiles in Thailand. The military is waging war against the Kachin despite a Dec. 10 order from President Thein Sein to halt combat. The cease-fire talks were inconclusive.
January 24, 2012
Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar, has attracted many people over the years to admire its beauty. More than three metric tons of gilts and gold plates are attached to the surface of the 99-meter-high structure. They are far heavier than those attached to Kinkakuji Temple in Kyoto, which weigh 20 kilograms.
Moreover, 80,000 jewels, including diamonds and rubies, are embedded in the structure. The diamonds alone total 1,800 carats, including a 76-carat one at the top of the pagoda.
It is widely said that truly beautiful women are striking in the daytime and also remain stunning even in darkness. However, many parts of the gilts and gold plates that have fallen off its walls look like freckles and blotches if viewed with binoculars.
“If it’s windy, gilts and metal plates can fall off and are blown away. Fragments of gold are often blown across the mountain by cyclones,” says a 55-year-old official with the Ministry of Religious Affairs.
Therefore, monks and servicemen assigned to the pagoda patrol neighboring areas and collect loose fragments of gilts or gold plates. A total of 4,000 gilts and gold plates were replaced when the pagoda was refurbished in 2005 for the first time in five years. That means that on average two of the plates or gilts came off a day over the five-year period.
I asked the official, “If someone picked up gold fragments and stole them, would they be punished?
He replied, “I such a case, we only confiscate the fragments. Ordinary Buddhists who find such fragments usually hand them over to us.”
The gold used for the pagoda was donated by faithful Buddhists.
The transmigration of souls is the core of the concept of life and death for Theravada Buddhism that is prevalent in Myanmar. Followers are enthusiastic about extending donations, which are recognized as merit, to the pagoda and monks in an effort to have a better afterlife. Since pro-democracy movements surged in 1988, state-owned media outlets have reported every single donation that top officials in the military regime extended to monks. Needless to say, it is of a highly propaganda nature. However, the public appears to have reacted positively to such news.
“The public welcomes top officials’ devout adherence to Buddhism even though they hate the military regime,” says Toshihiro Kudo, director of Southeast Asian Studies Group II of the Institute of Developing Economies.
Is Suu Kyi poison or medicine?
It is said that “Those who conquer red, green and black can control Myanmar,” according to adventurer-writer Hideyuki Takano. Red refers to ruby and green is jade, while black means opium. Myanmar is known as one of the world’s largest producers of these items.
I visited Lashio in the eastern state of Shan to look for opium. Opium, made from opium poppies, are black balls that look like candies. They can be made into heroin if purified.
Opium is black in terms of its color but also has a dark image as it is an illegal drug traded secretly. The drug attracts many people in a way completely different from that of sacred golden pagodas.
However, morphine that is used as a painkiller can also be extracted from opium. In this area, opium has been regarded as all-purpose cure and can be both medicine and poison.
The so-called Golden Triangle, which became notorious as an area of drug production, is situated in southern Shan and close to Myanmar’s border with Thailand and Laos. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is responsible largely for making the State of Shan a major supplier of illegal drugs. The CIA supported remnants of the Chinese Nationalist Party — who fled to Sham after losing their fight against the Chinese Communist Party — as an anti-communist front. The CIA chose opium as a source of funding to support them. After the CIA pulled out of the area, ethnic minorities took over the opium concession.
Myanmar’s regime has cracked down on drug producers and traffickers in a bid to contain ethnic minorities’ militias that it fears poses a threat to the unity of the nation. In other words, it was a “fight to conquer ‘black’ to control Myanmar.”
“Growing opium poppies are effective sources of money to support the tough lives of mountain minority tribes,” says a diplomatic source. In view of such circumstances, the regime at one point allowed ethnic minorities to grow opium poppies as an interim measure while trying to enable them to grow substitute agricultural goods. At the time, the regime also gave tacit approval to ethnic minorities’ militias to operate illegal casinos, brothels and trade across national borders.
As a result of these conciliatory moves, the regime reached a cease-fire accord with a majority of armed ethnic minority groups. Seven years ago, the then prime minister who led the conciliatory policy was unseated, and the regime revived its hard-line stance to ban armed ethnic minority groups from producing drugs or operating illegal businesses.
As the confrontation between the government and the militias intensified, armed conflicts have recently occurred sporadically. The amount of opium poppies grown in Shan and opium produced there has increased.
“The rise corresponds with the intensification of the militias’ activities,” says the diplomatic source.
Security in the Golden Triangle, which has become a tourist spot, has worsened and I was unable to gain permission from authorities to enter the area during my latest visit.
I also learned that the area is called “Golden Triangle” because drugs are exchanged for gold, not cash. In fact, drugs and gold are two sides of a coin in the area.
I walked around Lashio, which is full of women dressed in colorful folk costumes, and visited drugstores to ask if they sold traditional medicine containing opium that is effective in curing backaches. However, all storekeepers showed negative reactions.
A tour guide accompanying me tried to persuade me to abandon looking for opium in Lashio “because this area is under government rule.”
Actually, asking drugstores in the area if they have medicine containing opium is just like asking bookstores in Myanmar if they have books authored by Aung San Suu Kyi. The regime regards both opium and Suu Kyi as poisonous existences in the underworld.
However, the regime has recently approached Suu Kyi in a bid to open dialogue. As for the reason for the move, a 35-year-old president of a Yangon-based mobile phone company says, “Suu Kyi, who has Gen. Aung San’s bloodline, is the only person who can persuade ethnic minorities to reconcile with the government (because the general devoted himself to efforts to build up cooperation between the government and ethnic minorities).”
Can the regime control the “poison” of militias with the “poison” of Suu Kyi, and will Suu Kyi become medicine for Myanmar? (By Takayuki Kasuga, Foreign News Department)
(This is part 5 of a series on Myanmar)
January 25, 2012 I recently went into a fresh Chinese restaurant in Lashio, an area situated in northeastern Myanmar and known as a base for international trade, after a squall eased off. I went up to the second floor where I saw more than 10 young people surrounding a roundtable. They were talking loudly as if to drown out the sound of the rain.
Cards and Myanmar banknotes were literally flying about amid the flurry of spoken Chinese. Even though gambling is strictly prohibited in Myanmar, the group was boldly and openly betting in defiance of authorities. A tour guide accompanying me winked to urge me to go downstairs, but I stayed there because I wanted to confirm the background of these people.
In Lashio, many signboards at shops bear both Burmese and Chinese. I obtained Chinese yuan at an illegal money change booth in a hotel run by a Myanmar national of Chinese descent. I handed some of the bills to a fruit vender at an open-air market to buy fruit, and the vender gave me a change in Myanmar bills as a matter of course.
At the restaurant, customers were earnestly watching a Chinese TV drama.
A female clerk at the restaurant said with a smile, “You can’t live here unless you understand Chinese.”
A road that extends from Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city, to Kunming in China’s Yunnan province via Lashio is an arterial highway. China’s economic zone is gradually but steadily spreading into Myanmar, and the central part of Mandalay is becoming a Chinatown.
The session of betting on cards at the restaurant finally came to an end, and my guide spoke to one of the youths in Burmese. However, the man brushed aside my guide. He paid no attention to me and the others also completely ignored me.
A Burmese male clerk at the restaurant who saw them off told me, “They’ve been gambling here for the past four days. They are Chinese nationals staying at a nearby hotel and are involved in a natural gas project.” The owner of the restaurant, who is also of Chinese descent, also reportedly participated in the gambling. Those of Chinese descent, who are Myanmar nationals, reportedly account for about 3 percent of Myanmar’s total population.
In the 2000s, natural gas development rapidly progressed in Myanmar, and has since become the nation’s key source of earnings from exports. As Myanmar has drawn worldwide attention as a country rich in natural resources, work to lay a natural gas pipeline to China got under way in June 2010. On my way to Lashio, I saw pipes piled up along roads in many locations and passed many oncoming trucks pulling trailers loaded with Chinese-made pipes.
A crude oil pipeline to China is also under construction alongside the natural gas pipeline.
Until now, China has transported crude oil from Africa and the Middle East by way of the Straits of Malacca. The pipeline will allow China to discharge the oil in Myanmar, and thereby reduce the transportation expenses and improve its security.
The completion of the pipelines will allow “a massive amount of foreign currency to flow into Myanmar without doing anything,” according to a diplomatic source.
The U.S. administration of Barack Obama has transformed the country’s policy toward Myanmar from the hard-line stance adopted by the government of his predecessor George W.
Bush — which branded Myanmar as an oppressive country — into one of engagement. The diplomatic source explained that this is because the United States can no longer ignore China’s influence on Myanmar as economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe have become ineffective.
I then understood why these young Chinese people were openly gambling in Lashio. Although Myanmar is a country that places particular importance on security, Chinese people who are involved in both countries’ crucial national policies are confident that Myanmar’s authorities have no business accusing them of gambling in public.
Myanmar wary of ‘comfortable’ China
The country of China, its people and residents of Chinese descent do not enjoy a good reputation among other ethnics groups in Myanmar.
This is despite the fact that people in Myanmar use many Chinese products. In Yangon, the largest city in the country, local residents mainly use low-priced, Chinese-made motorcycles. On sale at shops and open-air markets in the city are Chinese clothes and daily necessities.
“It’s true that the quality and convenience of people’s daily lives have improved (thanks to China),” my tour guide admitted.
However, the guide added, “Chinese are called ‘Tayo’ in Burmese, but we call them ‘ta yo.’ It means the worst people.”
Many wealthy people in Myanmar are of Chinese descent. They have formed a network in the business world, including underground business and nurtured a spirit of mutual assistance, thereby succeeding in their business activities in Myanmar. Other ethnic groups in Myanmar may be jealous of them.
Since the country won independence, the Burmese-led administration has constantly considered ways to break down the economic interests of residents of Chinese descent.
In the 1990s, the military regime at the time gave defense contractors special privileges to help them form conglomerates and expand their business activities. Such a practice was criticized as a way to bolster the military regime’s foundations.
The president of a Yangon-based IT company said, however, “In a way, it was the military regime’s attempt to step up its control of residents of Chinese descent who have enjoyed various privileges.”
Myanmar’s government has been annoyed by not only “internal Chinese” but also the China situated just across a long national border. It was China that provided weapons to the Burmese Communist Party, which was disbanded in 1989, after Myanmar won independence.
“Myanmar is most wary of China, and believes improving its relations with the United States and Europe and promoting omni-directional diplomacy as a counterbalance against China will serve its own national interests,” says the diplomatic source.
Others feel China is a “comfortable partner for Myanmar,” as pointed out by Toshihiro Kudo of the Institute of Developing Economies, because Beijing never intervenes in its internal affairs like the United States and European countries, which have demanded that it respect human rights and restore democracy.
To sustain its economic growth, Myanmar needs a massive amount of investments by China. However, people in Myanmar are apparently aware that such a comfortable partner could also pose a threat. (By Takayuki Kazuga, Foreign News Department)
New Delhi:
Key Shinawatra-Singh meeting today
Wednesday 25 January 2012 Keen to get more strategic toeholds in the Andaman Sea, India is likely to offer Thailand “support” in the construction of a deep sea port at Dawei in the southwestern coast of Myanmar — a country which figures prominently in Chinese policy of developing assets in the Indian Ocean region.
India’s offer of support to the Italian-Thai Development Plc, the lead player in the Dawei Special Industrial Zone, is likely to be on the agenda for discussion between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his counterpart from Thailand, Yingluck Shinawatra, on Wednesday. Singh and Shinawatra are also likely to reiterate the commitment of the two governments to the project to link India and Thailand with a 1,360 km-long highway through Myanmar.
Shinawatra will be the chief guest in the Republic Day ceremony on Thursday. She will hold bilateral talks with Singh on Wednesday.
New Delhi’s move to get involved with the Dawei project seems to be a part of its gambit to counter growing Chinese influence in littoral countries in the neighbourhood of India.
Beijing is investing heavily in setting up strategically important deep sea ports in Sittwe in Myanmar, Hambantota in Sri Lanka and Gwadar in Pakistan.
The “String of Pearls” – or Chinese footprints in the waters around India – has been a cause of serious strategic concerns for New Delhi. Singh and Shinawatra are expected to call for an early conclusion of the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement, which New Delhi and Bangkok have since long been negotiating for.
New Delhi had in 2010 and 2011 invited South Korean President Lee Myung Bak and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as chief guests for the Republic Day ceremonies. Inviting the Thai prime minister this year appears to be continuation of New Delhi’s desire to strengthen ties with countries in the Asia-Pacific, obviously a diplomatic response to the growing clout of China.
The Dawei port lies on an isthmus on the southwestern coast of Myanmar. The isthmus separates the Andaman Sea from the Gulf of Thailand. New Delhi is interested in the project as the port would help India get a quicker access to South East Asian markets. India has already inked a Free Trade Agreement with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) for goods and a shorter shipping route would help it boost trade relations with the countries in the region.
External Affairs Minister S M Krishna discussed both the Dawei port project and the trilateral highway with his Myanmar counterpart Wunna Maung Lwin on Tuesday. Lwin is on a visit to India.
25 January 2012, 18:32 CET
(BRUSSELS) – The European Union is mulling a 150-million-euro aid package to help Myanmar’s new army-backed government continue on the path of reforms, EU diplomats said Wednesday.
A possible package, focused on health, education, agriculture and institutional capacity-building, was discussed by EU foreign ministers at talks in Brussels on Monday, said a source close to the matter who asked not to be identified.
At the talks, EU ministers agreed on the immediate lifting of travel bans on Myanmar leaders as a first step towards easing sanctions against the country of 60 million people.
Welcoming “the remarkable programme of political reform” undertaken by the nominally-civilian government, the 27-nation bloc said further positive steps on the road to political change “would lead to the further easing or lifting of the restrictive measures.”
It called for the unconditional release of remaining political prisoners “within the next few months” and the “free and fair” conduct of the April 1 elections, which will see a historic bid for parliament by democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
At stake are embargos on arms deliveries, logging and mining while the assets of more than 900 firms and utilities have been frozen.
By THE IRRAWADDY Wednesday, January 25, 2012
More than two decades after their last encounter, pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and recently released leaders of the 88 Generation Students group met on Tuesday for an evening that focused on reflections on the past and plans for the future.
The gathering, which took place at Suu Kyi’s lakeside home in Rangoon, was an intimate, casual affair, bringing together a generation of leaders who had been kept apart for most of the years since they rose to prominence during the heady days of Burma’s nationwide pro-democracy uprising in 1988.
“It was like a family reunion, because we were apart for so long,” said Ko Ko Gyi, one of the 88 Generation leaders who were freed on Jan. 13 as part of an amnesty declared by Burmese President Thein Sein, speaking to The Irrawaddy on Wednesday.
In the years since their last meeting, Suu Kyi and the 88 Generation leaders have been in and out of detention repeatedly. During Suu Kyi’s intermittent periods of freedom, the former student leaders were kept behind bars; when they were out of prison for a few years until their re-arrest in 2007, she was under house arrest.
During the more than two hours that they spent together on Tuesday, Suu Kyi and her guests discussed the years they spent cut off from the outside world and their plans for the future. Suu Kyi, who at 66 is nearly two decades older than most of the former student leaders, also offered some motherly advice.
“She suggested that we should get married,” said 88 Generation leader Ant Bwe Kyaw, who like most of his colleagues is in his late forties and single.
When they weren’t reflecting on their past experiences or discussing their personal plans for the future, the newly reunited group talked about social issues, said Mya Aye, who was among the nine who were invited to Suu Kyi’s house for dinner.
“We didn’t talk about politics last night, but we agreed that we shared the same political goals and should continue to meet and work together,” said Mya Aye.
At a press conference in Rangoon last Saturday, the 88 Generation leaders said they welcomed Suu Kyi’s decision to contest the April 1 by-election and offered her their full support.
By BJ STUART / THE IRRAWADDY Wednesday, January 25, 2012
RANGOON—On the road to Mandalay, the Burmese military intelligence men and their thugs kicked him, beat him, put a hood over his head and threw him into a waiting truck.
After several weeks in hiding disguised as a layman, U Sandawbartha—the Buddhist monk more famously know as U Gambira, one of the leading figures of the 2007 Saffron Revolution—was arrested on a lawn beside a petrol station near Mandalay, the second largest city in Burma, while preparing a speech urging the Burmese people to “keep fighting the military dictatorship.”
It was on Nov. 4, 2007, more than a month after the government’s bloody crackdown on peacefully protesting Buddhist monks who staged Burma’s largest anti-regime demonstrations in nearly two decades.
“There were around 100 of them, on motorcycles and in trucks. They blocked the road and grabbed me. Hours later, I found myself in an army camp on the outskirts of Mandalay, and all hell broke loose,” said the 33-year-old Buddhist cleric, putting a betel quid into his mouth while lying on a mat at a monastery in Thingangyun Township in Rangoon.
U Gambira was one of the 302 political prisoners set free by the nominally civilian Burmese government’s latest amnesty this month, after serving more than four years of a 68-year sentence in Myaungmya Prison. He had been charged with 17 offenses, including a violation of Burma’s draconian Electronics Act.
He comes from a family with a political background—his father and brother had served long prison sentences for their involvement in the 1988 nationwide pro-democracy uprising.
He has also been a victim of crimes committed by Burma’s military. According to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, he was forcibly recruited as a child soldier at the age of 12.
But the native of Pauk, a provincial town 75 km from Pakokku—the town in Magway Division where the Saffron Revolution first began to take shape before spreading to larger urban centers—was reluctant to talk about the bitter past. “I just want to focus on present and future,” said the monk.
He was 28 years old when he was arrested in 2007 for his active involvement in the Saffron Revolution, which was organized by Buddhist monks who took to the streets to protest a sharp rise in fuel prices that deepened the economic hardships of ordinary Burmese.
“We knew how the government would react [if we protested]. They wouldn’t just lock us up in jail—they could kill us,” he explained matter-of-factly. “But we couldn’t just ignore the people’s suffering. That’s why we monks took the lead in those 2007 peaceful protests, which the people were afraid to stage.”
In Burma, where more than 90 percent of the people are Buddhists, monks are not only highly regarded as guardians of the faith, but are also involved in many aspects of everyday life, providing spiritual guidance and pivotal social mediation. In return, monks depend on community support for their day-to-day survival. During their daily alms rounds, they can see with their own eyes just how difficult life is for the average person in Burma.
“Hardship is written all over people’s faces. They are preoccupied with finding ways to make ends meet. They often apologize to us because they were unable to make offerings,” said Maggin Sayadaw, the abbot of the Maggin Monastery in Rangoon’s Thingangyun Township, who was also arrested for his role in the Saffron Revolution and released on Jan. 13.
Although people’s discontent with the government’s economic mismanagement was deepening, they had no way to express their dissatisfaction, because they feared any attempt to protest publicly would be violently crushed by the army. “That’s why we had to step in,” said Maggin Sayadaw.
This brewing collective anger finally came to a head in Pakokku on Sept. 5, 2007, when several hundred monks staged a peaceful demonstration against soaring commodity prices.
Instead of listening the the monks’ demands on behalf of the people, the authorities came down hard on the protesters, sparking outrage elsewhere in the country. All over Burma, in a dramatic act of excommunication, monks started refusing alms from anyone with military ties and walked barefoot through the streets chanting the Metta Sutta, the Buddha’s discourse on loving-kindness. The Saffron Revolution was born.
During the revolution, U Gambira was an information officer for the All-Burma Monks Alliance, a leading organization made up of eight monks’ unions. “We tried to banish the military dictatorship from Burmese soil,” he said.
But on Nov. 4, he was thrown into a 10′ x 10′ room at an army camp outside Mandalay to be interrogated for the next six days.
“I was bombarded with endless questions the whole day and the whole night on who we were or what we did.
All the while I was handcuffed to the chair I was sitting on,” he said.
His interrogators came in groups of three: The first three were followed by three more. Then three more came. And then another three… It seemed liked it would never end, he said. Deprived of sleep for six days, he was totally exhausted by the end of his ordeal. But unlike many of his laymen counterparts, he said, he was not physically tortured.
After a long wait in solitary confinement and several court hearings, the activist monk received his sentence.
“A kangaroo court gave me 68 years in prison. I never pleaded guilty,” he said.
Even though many regarded the Saffron Revolution as a failure because it fizzled out following the government’s heavy-handed response, which included firing live rounds at protesters, nighttime raids on monasteries and mass arrests, the monk had a different opinion.
“It was a success!” he boomed. “It put more international pressure on the military regime, which had to give up power because it could no longer buy time.”
But he admitted that he was disappointed that the protests were unable to force the government to apologize for mistreating the monks in Pakokku or keep soaring food prices in check. Both were among the major demands made during the Saffron Revolution. And, he added, it is a disgrace that there are still hundreds of political prisoners behind bars.
Asked if he had any message for young Burmese, he said: “Keep your political awareness alive, and don’t let fear reign you.”
“You always have to know when your rights have been abused. Try to know your rights. If you know them, practice them. That’s democracy,” he said.
While many people inside and outside the country have hailed Burmese President Thein Sein for his reforms, the monk was skeptical about recent changes in the country, noting that the new, nominally civilian government still has some characteristics of the former military dictatorship.
He cited the continued detention of political dissidents and the ongoing war in Kachin State as reasons for his doubts about the new administration.
“Why haven’t they freed the remaining political prisoners? It sounds dishonest. And why is the war with the Kachin Independence Army still raging? Why have they left it unsolved?” he said. “In my eyes, they are just generals in suits.”
Asked what he wants people to understand about him, the monk and one-time child soldier replied: “They can think as they like.”
“I’m just doing what I need to do,” he explained. “I have been fighting non-violently for our people’s rights and democracy to take root in Burma, and I will continue to try to make them flourish. If needed, I will take to the streets again.”
By THE IRRAWADDY Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Senior leaders in Naypyidaw are engaged in an increasingly intense debate over Western sanctions on Burma and Aung San Suu Kyi’s role in the process of getting sanctions eased or lifted, informed sources told The Irrawaddy.
The 11-member National Defense and Security Council (NDSC), comprised of the inner circle of Burma’s government and military leaders, reportedly discussed sanctions both in the run-up to US Senator John McCain’s visit to Burma this week and after his departure.
McCain has been a staunch supporter of sanctions, but during his second visit to Burma in less than one year he said that the country’s successful completion of a free and fair by-election in April would help secure the lifting of US sanctions.
“There is no doubt in my mind, absolutely certain that if this is a free and fair election, there will be no problem coordinating with every other country in the world to bring the sanctions to a close,” McCain said. “I have to say that I am still a bit skeptical, not a lot, a bit skeptical, but I will certainly try to keep an open mind as we go through this process.”
When McCain met Burmese President Thein Sein, he asked the president to allow international observers to monitor the by-election—in which Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party will contest for 46 seats in Parliament.
It is still unknown whether Thein Sein will agree to the request and allow international observers. In 2010, the regime did not allow such observers, but rather sealed the country off from most international press, rigged the election and appointed ex-military leaders to the new quasi-civilian government.
The US senator also asked the government to free all remaining political prisoners and allow the International Committee of the Red Cross access to Burmese prisons.
“We don’t expect miracles, but we do expect progress in the right direction,” McCain said in a press conference after he and three other US senators met with Suu Kyi.
The US first imposed sanctions against Burma in 1997 and again in 2003. The sanctions include bans on imports from Burma and the severance of financial services ties. In 2007, after the Burmese military brutally suppressed the Buddhist monk-led uprising known as the Saffron Revolution, the US sanctions were extended to include a freeze on overseas assets held by certain Burmese individuals and a ban on new investment in Burma by US individuals and entities.
Thus far, the US has maintained its tough economic sanctions but has rewarded Burmese reforms by first sending US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Naypyidaw to meet with Thein Sein, and most recently by announcing that it would restore full diplomatic relations with Burma.
In an interview with The Washington Post newspaper, Thein Sein called for the West to lift sanctions, arguing that his government had met international calls for the release of political prisoners, holding of elections and granting of greater political freedom to Suu Kyi.
“Sanctions hurt the interest of our people. For that reason, there were no job opportunities in our country. If you would like to see democracy thrive in our country, you should take the necessary actions to encourage this by easing the sanctions that were placed on our country,” said Thein Sein.
US Senator Joseph Lieberman said that Washington would be looking to Suu Kyi for guidance regarding the timing for any easing of sanctions against Burma.
“Our reaction to what happens in Myanmar [Burma] will be greatly affected by the reaction of Aung San Suu Kyi … I wouldn’t say we were giving her total veto but to the extent that
she has confidence in the process, we will have confidence in the process of change in Myanmar and as a result we will lift sanctions and grow closer to the government,” said Lieberman.
However, Suu Kyi told The Washington Post that the US will “Engage and lift sanctions when they think the time is right. The US has laid out very clearly what the conditions are for the removal of sanctions. If this government wants sanctions to be removed, they will have to try and meet those conditions.”
Sources said that Suu Kyi’s answer raised doubt and concern in Naypyidaw, with some NDSC members using the statement to insist that she hasn’t changed and isn’t trustworthy, as well as to criticize Thein Sein, who invited the opposition leader to a meeting in Naypyidaw in August.
The NDSC is comprised of 11 senior government leaders, 10 of whom were previously military generals, and holds sway over all of the country’s highest priority matters, including national security, the economy and the pace of democratic reform.
The members of the NSDC are the president, two vice-presidents, commander-in-chief and deputy commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the ministers of defense, home affairs, foreign affairs and border affairs, and the speakers of both houses of Parliament.
The EU, which has imposed sanctions on Burma that are similar to those put in place by the US but not quite as restrictive, decided on Monday to lift a visa ban on top government leaders, including Thein Sein.
Several countries in Europe, particularly Germany and France, have favored lifting sanctions, and some European diplomats in the region have said in private that Suu Kyi’s ability to single-handedly direct Western sanctions policy is undemocratic.
Government sources in Naypyidaw said that they understand the US and EU policy of gradually easing sanctions, but said that lifting the visa ban is not their top priority. They said that sanctions of greater concern are those that restrict investments in Burma and the transfer of hard currency to the country from Western financial institutions.
Wednesday, 25 January 2012 22:21 Ko Wild
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Burma’s Vice President Thiha Thura Tin Aung Myint Oo has met with residents of the Dawei (Tavoy) Special Economic Zone project who will be relocated, confirming 18 villages would be relocated.
The vice president met with a number of the homeowners and told them the giant energy project in southern Burma will create better social and economic conditions for the country, according to state-run newspapers.
Government officials said 23,120 people from 3,984 homes in 18 villages will be relocated. A total of more than 100,000 acres of agricultural land including rubber plantations, cashew plantations, coconut palm plantations and palm plantations will be lost in the relocation project.
Earlier authorities said the compensation for the owners of the plantations would depend on the type of plantation; now the authorities have agreed to give a maximum of 2 million kyat per one acre as compensation, according to Tin Maung Swe, a project official.
The state-run newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported that the vice president called for government officials to assist the relocated villagers in the process. More than 20 officials including ministers and deputy ministers, and the chairman of the Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited that is carrying out the project accompanied the vice president.
Earlier, residents said that 21 villages would be relocated. Some smaller villages were combined with larger ones, so the number is now 18, residents’ said.
During the vice president’s trip he met with monks and villagers from seven villages at the Leshaung village monastery.
“All Tin Aung Myint Oo did was tell us we had to move. He told the monks that the government will work for the villagers to achieve a better future and will make the country more developed,” a resident who attended the meeting told Mizzima.
The village heads of a number of area villages told the officials they would be ready to move.
The exact time when the villagers will be relocated is not yet known, because the government is still working on replacement homes and infrastructure, sources said.
Wednesday, 25 January 2012 20:51 Mizzima News
(Mizzima) – Burma Campaign UK (BCUK) said it has confirmed reports that a pregnant Kachin woman was shot and killed by Burmese Army soldiers on January 11.
A statement released on Wednesday said Mangshang Ying Wang was shot by Burmese Army soldiers on January 11 at 9 a.m. on Hpakan Road in Kachin State. It is believed that soldiers from Battalion 58 under the command of Lieutenant Ye Min Twi, Lieutenant Ko Ko Latt and Colonel Htun Naing were in charge of soldiers in that area, according to the BCUK statement. It did not cite a source for its information.
Mangshang Ying Wang was four months pregnant, the BCUK said, and she was taken to a hospital where she died later that day. Another woman, Gawlu Seng Hkawn, was also shot and injured in the attack, it said.
In June 2010, the Burmese government broke a cease-fire with the Kachin Independence Organization, an armed political party in Kachin State in northeast Burma.
The Burmese Army has been deliberately targeting civilians since resuming the fighting, said BCUK. “The attacks by the Burmese Army have forced up to 50,000 people to flee their homes. The military-backed government continues to block international aid from reaching these people,” it said in a press statement.
“The soldiers who carried out the attack should be arrested and put on trial”, said Zoya Phan, campaigns manager at Burma Campaign UK. “There has been good news from Burma recently, but there is still more bad news than good news. It is time the international community took a more balanced approach to what is really happening in Burma.
“For decades these kind of attacks have taken place with no action taken against the soldiers and their commanders. The scale of this indicates this is Army policy, not individual soldiers behaving badly.”
She said the breaking of the cease-fire in Kachin State was expected, but the international community took no action to try to prevent it happening, and no action to ensure aid could reach those who fled the attacks.
“Attacks like this should remind the EU that they shouldn’t get carried away by the good news and relax sanctions too soon,” she said. “Those EU members whose diplomats are privately arguing that even the arms embargo should be lifted in April, should come out publicly and explain why they think it’s a good idea to sell arms to a government that shoots unarmed women.”
Wednesday, 25 January 2012 18:58 Mizzima News
(Mizzima) – Burma ranked 169, slightly higher than China and Vietnam, in the ranking of countries with a free press in an analysis by Reporters Without Borders. Burma was in the bottom 10 in countries with the most restrictive free speech and press.
In 2010, Burma was ranked seven places lower, reflecting a slight improvement in a loosening of prior censorship laws. However, newspapers and journals are still required to have all articles approved by censors before publication.
In its assessment of Burma, the report said: “Burma showed signs of beginning to carry out reforms including partial amnesties and a reduction in prior censorship, but it remained largely under the control of an authoritarian government run by former members of the military junta reinvented as civilian politicians. Less than 10 of its journalists remain in prison at the start of 2012.”
Many arrests were made in Vietnam (172nd), the report said. In China (174th), the government responded to regional and local protests and to public impatience with scandals and acts of injustice by “feverishly reinforcing its system of controlling news and information, carrying out extrajudicial arrests and stepping up Internet censorship.”
“This year’s index sees many changes in the rankings, changes that reflect a year that was incredibly rich in developments, especially in the Arab world,” said a press release. “Control of news and information continued to tempt governments and to be a question of survival for totalitarian and repressive regimes. The past year also highlighted the leading role played by netizens in producing and disseminating news.”
“This year’s index finds the same group of countries at its head, countries such as Finland, Norway and Netherlands that respect basic freedoms,” said the report. “This serves as a reminder that media independence can only be maintained in strong democracies and that democracy needs media freedom.”
The United States (47th) also owed its fall of 27 places to the many arrests of journalist covering Occupy Wall Street protests.
Assessing China, the report said: “China, which has more journalists, bloggers and cyber-dissidents in prison than any other country, stepped up its censorship and propaganda in 2011 and tightened its control of the Internet, particularly the blogosphere. The first protest movements in Arab countries and the ensuing calls for democracy in China’s main cities set off a wave of arrests with no end yet in sight.”
Its ranking of the Philippines said: “In the Philippines (140th), which rose again in the index after falling in 2010 as a result of the massacre of 32 journalists in Ampatuan in November 2009, paramilitary groups and private militias continued to attack media workers. The judicial investigation into the Ampatuan massacre made it clear that the response of the authorities was seriously inadequate.”
For Indonesia, the report said: “In Indonesia, an army crackdown in West Papua province, where at least two journalists were killed, five kidnapped and 18 assaulted in 2011, was the main reason for the country’s fall to 146th position in the index. A corrupt judiciary that is too easily influenced by politicians and pressure groups and government attempts to control the media and Internet have prevented the development of a freer press.”
By AFP
Published: 25 January 2012
The top US Senate Republican on Tuesday said he could back easing sanctions on Burma if it advances a host of democratic reforms and breaks off any military relationship with North Korea.
“We want reassurance that they’re going to discontinue whatever military-to-military relationship they may have with North Korea,” Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters.
McConnell, newly returned from a trip to the country, said he favored sending a US ambassador to Burma, citing the new regime’s plans to release political prisoners and hold a by-election on 1 April.
“I recommended to them that they have international observers there. That’s not uncommon in countries that are having first-time elections,” said McConnell, who has long had an interest in relations between the two countries.
“If that goes well, then we’ll continue to take a look at what additional steps they need to take in order to warrant the removal of some or all of the sanctions,” a step that requires congressional approval, he said.
McConnell called the regime’s ceasefire with the Karen ethnic minority “a good step” and urged a similar effort with Kachin rebels.
Burma state media announced Friday that the government and the guerrillas have agreed to hold further negotiations in search of an end to a bloody conflict in the country’s far north.
And McConnell underscored worries in Washington about possible ties between North Korea and Burma and said he would be “looking for verification that those relationships, if they previously existed, don’t exist any longer.”
By KO HTWE
Published: 25 January 2012
Environmental activists in Burma have sought to capitalise on a recent decision by the government to suspend a massive coal-fired power plant in the country’s south by demanding a moratorium on all existing and planned coal projects.
The 4,000 MW plant in Tavoy would have produced enough power to support construction of a 200 square-kilometre industrial complex and buoy neighbouring Thailand’s energy needs. But after widespread grassroots opposition at the likely environmental and health impacts of the project, the government in early January scrapped the plan.
A joint statement from the Pa-Oh Youth Organisation (PYO) and the Shan Sapawa Environmental Organisation said that at the very least, thorough environmental impact assessments (IEAs) should be carried out prior to energy projects moving forward.
The groups pointed to the example of the Tigyit coal mine and power plant in Shan state, which despite generating only 120 MW of power, is affecting up to 12,000 people living nearby. A report compiled by PYO last year said that the plant was pumping more than 100 tonnes of toxic fly ash per day into the air and polluting nearby waterways.
The Tavoy plant however would have dwarfed Tigyit, and in keeping with other energy projects in Burma, the overwhelming bulk of output would have been sold abroad, rather than feeding energy-starved Burma.
Anti-Tavoy campaigners however are operating on risky terrain: earlier this week government officials warned the Dawei (Tavoy) Regional Development Group, which has been rallying locals to protest against the project that could displace up to 30,000 people, to keep quiet.
“They told us not to say things such as ‘there’s no need for locals to move’ or do other unnecessary things, and just to cooperate [with authorities],” a member of the group told DVB.
The future of the Tavoy plant however remains in doubt. It was initially thought that the lead company in the project, Ital-Thai, would urge the Burmese government to allow it to go ahead with a 400 MW plant that would power construction of the industrial complex, which is set to be Southeast Asia’s largest.
Some reports even suggested that the company would gauge the possibility of constructing an alternative plant, possibly natural gas or hydrocarbon. A decision on this is due to be made within three months.
The project, which will eventually run to around $US50 billion, is key to regional economies hungry for greater trade with the west. A major highway running from Kanchanaburi in
Thailand to Tavoy will connect with a deep-sea port on Burma’s Andaman Sea coastline, which is being built to accommodate around 55 vessels laden with cargo at any one time.
In addition the site will house petrochemical refineries, steel mills and plastics factories, dramatically changing the sleepy fishing town of Tavoy into a crucial hub for Burmese and Southeast Asian industry.
By HANNA HINDSTROM
Published: 25 January 2012
The conclusions adopted by the EU Council on Burma are overly optimistic and ignore the challenges ahead, a leading campaign group warned days after the bloc opted to ease sanctions in response to reforms.
In a briefing note released yesterday, Burma Campaign UK cautioned against further lifting of sanctions, including the arms embargo, before all EU benchmarks are met. Although it said the lifting of a visa ban on Burma’s president and other senior officials was “proportional”, the government still needed to release all political prisoners, end conflicts in the border regions and ensure April’s by-elections are free and fair.
The international community has been quick to embrace a series of democratic reforms instigated by President Thein Sein’s pseudo-civilian government since March last year. But critics worry that reforms are only a ploy to have sanctions removed, rather than a sign of genuine political change.
The opposition National League for Democracy, which will compete in the by-elections, is more optimistic however. Spokesperson Nyan Win told DVB that the party was confident that additional sanctions would only be in eased when the government provides concrete evidence of further progress. Moreover, he said, they could spur more gallant reform.
“We feel the relaxing of sanctions can help to encourage the current government’s reform efforts. We believe that as more [reforms] take place, sanctions will be lifted step by step and sector by sector.”
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton earlier this week described recent events as “quite extraordinary” and said the bloc’s decision had been guided by NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who will run for parliament in April.
Her maiden entrance to official politics is being hailed as a key signifier of the government’s evolving democratic credentials, but not all are confident that the April vote will usher in a new era in Burma. In the current climate, only the NLD, with its strong support based and public profile, is likely to win votes, as opposed to smaller, more marginalised parties.
“Free and fair elections under Burma’s laws are not possible,” BCUK said. “In any case, the military-backed government wants the NLD in Parliament, to give it more credibility.”
Moreover, even if the NLD wins all 48 seats up for grabs in the by-election, the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party will still maintain its majority in parliament, begging the question of how much impact the revered pro-democracy icon can have.
The EU first began its punitive policy to Burma in 1996 when it slapped a visa ban on senior members of the then-ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council. Over the years these were extended to include a freeze on assets owned by regime-aligned figures, and investment in enterprises associated with the military.
The issue of sanctions on Burma, also maintained by the US, remains a contentious one: critics argue that such a poorly targeted policy is ineffective, even that it hurts Burmese people and hinders much-needed international aid from reaching the country. But with the government dominated by former or serving military men and attacks on ethnic minorities ongoing, proponents of sanctions say they should remain, but be finely-tuned to better target hawkish government officials and business cronies.