BURMA RELATED NEWS – FEBRUARY 15, 2012
Feb 15th, 2012
By Martin Petty | Reuters – 3 hrs ago NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (Reuters) – Myanmar’s government expects to reach ceasefire deals with all of the country’s ethnic minority rebel armies within three months before starting a process of political dialogue towards “everlasting peace”, its top peace negotiator said on Wednesday.
In his first interview with a foreign news organization, Aung Min, a retired general and minister for rail transportation tasked with negotiating an end to the decades-old conflicts, said Myanmar’s 49 years of military rule had not let peace prevail but the new civilian-led government was winning the trust of the rebel armies.
Long-lasting political solutions with economic incentives for conflict areas were within reach, he said.
“This is a chronic disease that has been happening for over 60 years. Successive governments couldn’t cure the disease because the remedy didn’t fit,” Aung Min said.
“Things have changed in our country and this situation has now changed, this has allowed us to find the remedy.”
Peace with the rebels, most of whom demand autonomy under what they call a “genuine federal system”, has been set by the United States and the European Union as a condition for lifting sanctions on the former Burma, an underdeveloped but resource-rich country that has wilted under international isolation and inept army rule.
But Aung Min said the government’s motive was not the lifting of sanctions.
“I don’t consider other factors. We are all brethrens, no matter whether ethnic fighters or soldiers die, they are all our families,” he said.
Nine of 16 rebel groups had signed ceasefire agreements with the government and he expected six more deals to be reached within a few months, including with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), one of the biggest groups, which the Myanmar military is still fighting.
He said the Kayah Nationalities Progressive Party (KNPP) would sign a deal on March 1 and five smaller parties were ready to put down their arms.
He declined to comment on the conflict in Kachin State, which rages on despite an order by President Thein Sein and the armed forces commander-in-chief for troops to end offensives.
Aung Min also said Senior General Than Shwe, the former dictator who ruled Myanmar with an iron fist for 18 years, had no influence on his former prodigies now in charge of the nominally civilian government.
“U Than Shwe has retired completely. We don’t need to follow his orders or influence. There is now virtually no contact,” Aung Min said. U is a Burmese honorific.
“He has a big library next to his residence. When he was in power he had no time to read books and he’s reading now. We owe a debt of gratitude to him for his leadership during the transitional period, for the peaceful transition from military rule to a democratic society.”
“He doesn’t need to be involved. I’m very sure he’ll be pleased with the situation now, looking at it from afar.”
Many people in Myanmar suspect the reclusive and highly secretive former strongman, a psychological warfare specialist, has maintained a behind the scenes role.
Aung Min’s comments were the first by a member of the new government lauding Than Shwe for his role in the transition since he stepped aside on March 30 last year to make way for Thein Sein’s nominally civilian government.
“IT CAN TAKE TIME”
Aung Min also rejected speculation that there was conflict in the government between reformers and hardline remnants of the junta.
“This is all rumors. We are all united behind the president,” he added.
Thein Sein had laid down a three-step plan for peace with the rebel groups that involved ceasefires, political agreements and resettlement of displaced people, then a special assembly of parliament in which all of the groups would cement long-term deals, he said.
Ethnic Burmans, the country’s traditional rulers, make up about two-thirds of its estimated 60 million people.
A major issue since the country gained independence from Britain in 1948 has been the demand from ethnic minority groups for self-determination.
Aung Min would not say whether that could be possible, but said arrangements could be made under a 2008 constitution, which could be amended, and the groups would be encouraged to form political parties and join parliament.
“Dialogue may take some time and then we will have a national assembly, but the more it talks, the longer it will take. The flexibility depends on the groups, we can push this through fast, or it can take time,” he said.
It was difficult to gain the trust of the ethnic minority factions, he said, but most were sincere about peace and some leaders had stayed with him at his home in Naypyitaw, he said.
“At first they didn’t trust me, they carried out body searches on me for weapons, they weren’t brave enough to eat food I had brought, in case I poisoned them,” he said.
“They didn’t accept gifts and souvenirs in case there were bombs or booby-traps. I had to win their trust and confidence and I was humble with them.”
He said he had approached foreign firms, many of which ran factories that were damaged during neighboring Thailand’s floods last year, with a view to setting up in former conflict zones once peace deals had been reached.
Myanmar migrant workers and refugees, many of whom are in Thailand, would be encouraged to return with offers of incentives like higher wages than Thailand offers, land for farming, factory jobs and development projects in villages.
“In the past we never thought of a post-ceasefire agreement, before this, it has just been ceasefires. This is our plan for eternal peace,” he said.
NAYPYITAW, Myanmar | Wed Feb 15, 2012 8:11am EST
Feb 15 (Reuters) – Myanmar’s is in talks with foreign companies with a view to building elevated and underground train systems for the commercial capital Yangon, the country’s rail transport minister said on Wednesday
“We are now talking with international companies for the construction of both a skytrain and underground train system for the commercial capital Yangon,” the minister, Aung Min, told Reuters in an interview.
“There is no such project planned for Naypyitaw,” he said, referring to the small, newly built capital.
The former capital, Yangon, is Myanmar’s biggest city with an estimated 6 million of the country’s 60 million people living there.
Aung Min said the train systems in Bangkok and Beijing were models for the planned Yangon system.
“The (interested) companies are Singaporean, Japanese and Germany and American … We are now talking with them.”
Asked how long it might take to build the system, he said: “We will implement this on a build, operate and transfer policy, so it depends on the terms.”
Violence in the border regions have not ended, despite a reported ceasefire between the government and Karen rebels.
Francis Wade Last Modified: 15 Feb 2012 13:46 Chiang Mai, Thailand – Just weeks after news reports emerged of a historic ceasefire agreement between Myanmar’s government and the rebel Karen National Union, the crackle of gunfire once again sounded in the country’s east.
Amid jubilation that the world’s longest-running civil war could be nearing an end, a Myanmar battalion on January 24 shelled a camp in Karen state housing internally displaced persons. Already attuned to life in the volatile frontier region, the camp’s inhabitants fled, adding to the migration of civilians that have spent more than 60 years fleeing back and forth between their villages and jungle hideouts, pursued by marauding Myanmar troops.
The shelling, and other reports of clashes since January 12 when the two sides shook hands, spotlights the fragility of these ceasefires.
Further north in Shan state, a similar situation has unfolded: Opposition Shan State Army (SSA) troops attempting to withdraw last week from locations in the east of the state – one of a number of points agreed upon when a truce was signed in January – came under fire from Myanmar soldiers who had blocked their exit. The SSA’s chief, Yawd Serk, later told followers that the government had downgraded its peace efforts, and once again its frontline troops are on high alert.
While budgets and by-elections are being hotly debated in the capital, President Thein Sein’s much-vaunted reform programme is not being witnessed in the border regions. Disparate ethnic minority groups there have long been sidelined from the political process, and conflict and coercion (including a ban on schools from teaching in the native tongue) has been used to attempt to assimilate them into the Burman majority.
But there is another increasingly evident disconnect between Naypyidaw and Myanmar’s periphery: Thein Sein appears now to have little control over his army. Twice in the past two months he has ordered troops to end attacks on rebels, with little success.
Any hope for a quick solution to the civil war is naive: Mutual animosity in these border regions runs deep, and distrust of the government is entrenched throughout these ethnic groups.
The Karen war has been raging since 1948, following an insurrection aimed at securing an independent Karen state (a result of a promise to the Karen from the departing British that never materialised), and the collateral in eastern Myanmar has been huge: More than half a million people are internally displaced in the unforgiving frontier terrain, while nearly 150,000 populate camps in neighbouring Thailand. Researchers have also documented some 3,300 villages razed by the Myanmar army.
So in this context the jubilation that initially greeted the agreement is understandable - any possible end to such a drawn-out and debased conflict should be celebrated.
But time and again Naypyidaw has reneged on past deals struck with ethnic armies. The KNU themselves are highly suspicious of the motives at play within the government, and are aware that bringing a decades-old struggle for autonomy to an end before that goal is properly realised will anger those who have lost much in this fight. Even the KNU’s vice president, David Takapaw, told the New York Times this week that, “The grass roots are very much concerned that it [signing the ceasefire] went too quickly – they thought it was a sell-out. There is a feeling that we have been cheated.”
This points to a tension within the ranks of the group at a time of great flux. But it also signals a gulf in thinking between those involved in the conflict, and the outside players attempting to influence events in Myanmar.
The EU and US say an end to the civil war is a perquisite for lifting sanctions and kick-starting business, a prospect that has guided the reform efforts of the new government, which cloaks its public overtures to ethnic armies in the rhetoric of human rights. These same people steering the government towards becoming an acceptable ally, who have applauded the ceasefires, somewhat naively see the conflict itself as the main problem in Karen state, rather than the heavy militarisation of rural regions that will linger way beyond any nominal truce to ensure that genuine peace remains a distant prospect.
Despite the fanfare, these ceasefire deals do not signify a valediction to a Myanmar of old. Rather, the priorities of the government have changed. While the former junta was explicit about wishing to see ethnic groups either assimilated (”Burmanised”), pacified or wiped out, Thein Sein has been forced to adopt a different approach that nevertheless seeks to bring the majority of the country under Naypyidaw’s control. More pro-market than any past administration, he has put Myanmar through the facelift necessary to attract foreign investment and to ensure those investors can safely exploit the conflict-torn border regions where resistant armies currently hinder access to natural resources.
He first tried to do this using sheer force. In 2010 the government offered rebels one of two ultimatums: assimilate into the Myanmar army as Border Guard Forces or get crushed.
Widespread refusals to transform into border militias triggered a wave of fighting last year, and what had been lasting ceasefires between the government and three armed groups – the Kachin Independence Army, the Shan State Army (North) and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army – were broken. In Kachin state, which until June last year had enjoyed relative peace for the past 17 years, up to 55,000 people are now displaced.
Failure to rout these groups, in battles that pitched rebels knowledgeable of their terrain against teenage soldiers often deployed from urban areas, forced Thein Sein along a different path. While the finer detail of the Karen talks have not been revealed, it is highly likely that the president’s negotiating team offered the KNU sizeable business concessions along the frontier with Thailand, where cross-border trade in timber and other goods can generate significant returns. It would be a tantalising prospect for the group, which for decades has relied on small-scale logging ventures for revenue while the likes of the Kachin, who signed ceasefires in the mid-1990s, profited from lucrative exports of teak and jade to China.
But the deals will not create fully autonomous zones for the Karen, which had become the group’s key demand in recent decades. Instead it appears troops from each side will be able to pass through one another’s territory; with that, the potential for abuse of civilians by the Myanmar army remains high. Moreover, with a record that suggests heavy militarisation of regions rich in energy potential is a requirement for Myanmar, the looming investment in Karen state and elsewhere, much of which will focus on hydropower and mining, brings the threat of greater troop presence.
The Karen Human Rights Group, whose teams document abuses of civilians in the volatile state, warned in a report late last year that rosy assessments of Myanmar were being made by the international community without heeding the voices of rural people, who remain off the radar for visiting dignitaries but whose situation makes them – not outside observers – the best placed to gauge the quality of reform.
It also forewarned that nascent ceasefire deals would not necessarily mean an end to violence: “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.”
The fire fights in Karen state are the more prominent face of a litany of problems stemming from militarisation that include forced labour, land confiscation, forcible recruitment, pillage, and so on. These will remain as long as Naypyidaw feels it necessary to keep troops in areas with populations that do not want to be brought under his control, particularly within whose lands lie precious bounty for the country’s rulers.
A rushed ceasefire deal is a short-term fix for a government bent on winning plaudits, but will not solve the core problems that keep these border regions perennial areas of flight for their inhabitants.
Francis Wade is a journalist with the Democratic Voice of Burma, and has written this article in a personal capacity.
Calcutta News.Net
Wednesday 15th February, 2012 (IANS)
As Myanmar moves forward with its democratisation process, India Wednesday said the new civilian dispensation in its neighbouring country was paving the way for furthering of their bilateral relations and for increased two-way trade.
India’s Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai said the destinies of the neighbours was closely linked due to their shared land and sea borders.
“I have no doubt that as Myanmar continues on its new path charted out by its leaders, the strong ties between our two countries will only deepen and strengthen even further,” Mathai said at a seminar on “India-Myanmar Relations: Strengthening Ties and Deepening Engagements” here.
The event was organised by Global India Foundation, a diplomacy think-tank, and the Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies.
Mathai said the bilateral relations between the two nations will help in “a new identity being created” in the region as a result of the enhanced economic and cultural ties.
“We are conscious of the need for greater land, air and sea connectivity between our two countries to facilitate trade. But as investment climate in Myanmar improves and connectivity improves, Indian companies are bound to invest in a variety of sectors,” he said.
He said Indian business companies are actively assessing opportunities in Myanmar and the Indian government was happy to collaborate with Indian business for the Enterprise Indian Show held in Yangon last year.
The Indian foreign secretary said the most critical area of focus in India-Myanmar ties was the people-to-people contact.
He said the Indian government had extended support to Buddhist pilgrims from Myanmar and is also trying to encourage more tourist visits by extending visa-on-arrival scheme for them.
However, he acknowledged the need for increasing the air connectivity between the two countries.
In his remarks, Global India Foundation member-secretary Omprakash Mishra said India’s Look East policy of the last two decades will produce result as the country’s North-eastern region’s connectivity and people-to-people contact improves with its neighbours such as Myanmar.
The Economic Times – India says Myanmar’s democratic path will strengthen bilateral ties
NEW DELHI: With Myanmar taking steps to restore democracy, India today said the new path charted by it would help strengthen ties between the two countries and enable increased investment from Indian companies there.
“I have no doubt that as Myanmar continues on its new path charted out by its leaders, the strong ties between our two countries will only deepen and strengthen even further,” Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai said at a function here.
He said as the “destinies” of the two countries are closely linked both on land and on the sea, “a new identity will be created” in the region with enhanced economic and cultural ties.
“We are conscious of the need for greater land, air and sea connectivity between our two countries to facilitate trade. But as investment climate in Myanmar improves and connectivity improves, Indian companies are bound to invest in a variety of sectors,” he said.
He said Indian business companies are actively assessing opportunities in Myanmar and the Indian government was happy to collaborate with Indian business for the enterprise Indian show held in Yangon in 2011.
Stating that people-to-people contact is another area of focus with Myanmar, Mathai noted the government have extended support to Buddhist pilgrims from Myanmar and is also trying to encourage more tourist visits by extending tourist visa on arrival scheme for the nationals from the country.
“We hope to soon sign a cultural exchange programme which will systematise cultural interaction between our two countries,” he said.
By Linette Lim | Posted: 15 February 2012 1855 hrs
SINGAPORE: A business mission to Myanmar jointly led by International Enterprise Singapore (IE Singapore) and the Singapore Business Federation (SBF) has been received by President Thein Sein on Wednesday.
During the visit, the delegation met with top government officials and ministers where they outlined immediate and long-term plans for Myanmar’s growth and development.
“There is much potential for Myanmar to achieve balanced, inclusive and sustainable growth, and these useful insights on the market, with its untapped potential, have provided us with many prospects for business collaboration,” said Tony Chew, Mission Leader and SBF chairman.
“Our delegation is encouraged by the Myanmar ministers and business community to establish operations in Myanmar to tap on the competitive advantages offered.”
In a statement, SBF said the ministers also “shared steps taken to create a more business friendly environment in Myanmar, through the revision of foreign investment laws and introduction of tax incentives, amongst others”.
On Monday, the delegation had also called on U Myint Swe, Chief Minister of Yangon Region, and U Hla Myint, Mayor of Yangon City.
The Chief Minister touched on investment opportunities for Singapore companies in Myanmar, highlighting areas such as hospitality, power supply, utilities, municipal waste management sectors and industrial infrastructure.
“Myanmar officials and businessmen are very receptive of Singapore’s participation in the development of their economy,” said Tan Soon Kim, Deputy Mission Leader and Group Director for Southeast Asia Group, IE Singapore.
“A key factor that differentiates Singapore companies from others is our ability to provide a comprehensive set of solutions, as we offer a whole value chain of services. An example would be our industrial parks, where we have different companies that can build, manage the park, provide the power and utilities, process and manage the waste and also the logistics services.”
Taking place from February 12 to 18, the IE-SBF Myanmar Business Mission includes 115 participants representing 74 Singapore-based companies.
They will be involved in networking and business matching sessions, as well as seminars and site visits to find out more about the business opportunities in Myanmar.
Myanmar has been earning international praise for its fast pace of economic and political reforms since its first civilian President, ex-military man Thein Sein assumed office last March. This has also raised the possibility of the lifting of US and EU sanctions on the country.
In a widely anticipated by-election on April 1, pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party will contest more than 40 parliamentary seats.
Myanmar Establishes Diplomatic Ties With Two More Countries
YANGON, Feb 15 (Bernama) — Myanmar has established diplomatic ties with two more countries — Malawi and Bhutan at ambassadorial level in the start of 2012, according to official sources from Nay Pyi Taw Wednesday.
Two joint communiques on the establishment were respectively signed between Myanmar’s Ambassador and the High Commissioner of Malawi in New Delhi on Jan 30 and between Permanent Representative of Myanmar to the United Nations and his Bhutan counterpart in New York on Feb 1, Xinhua news agency reported.
The diplomatic establishment with Malawi and Bhutan has brought the total number of countries in the world with which Myanmar has such links to 105 and 106 since it regained independence in 1948.
According to the Foreign Ministry, Myanmar has so far set up embassies in 30 countries and two permanent missions in New York and Geneva, and four consulates-general in China’s Hong Kong, Kunming and Nanning, and India’s Calcutta, respectively.
Meanwhile, 28 countries have their embassies in Myanmar. In addition, China and India have respectively set up consulates- general in Myanmar’s Mandalay, the second largest city, while Switzerland in Yangon and Bangladesh in Sittway.
Myanmar-EU Relations Improve As Myanmar Heads For Change, Reform YANGON, Feb 15 (Bernama) — Relations between Myanmar and the European Union (EU) started to improve as Myanmar is heading for change and reform which are being gradually introduced after a new civilian government took office in March 2011, Xinhua news agency reported.
European Union Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs visited Myanmar from Feb 12 to 14. At the conclusion of his visit on Tuesday, Piebalgs voiced support and encouragement for Myanmar’ s current change and reform, saying that such measures may lead to the easing of sanctions on the country.
“The measures will be fully reviewed in April. The conduct of by-elections on April 1 and the release of political prisoners will influence the outcome”, Piebalgs said.
In constructive talks with President U Thein Sein, Speaker of the House of Representatives U Shwe Mann and four ministers including Foreign Minister U Wunna Maung Lwin in Nay Pyi Taw, Piebalgs announced a new aid package of 150 million euros (US$200 million) for the next two years, doubling EU aid since 1996.
The fund, which will beef up the current aid provided by the United Nations and non-governmental organizations since 1996, is said to finance projects in the areas of health, education and livelihood.
The EU had provided 174 millions euros to Myanmar since 1996 to help fight malaria and tuberculosis and improve infrastructures in rural areas.
He disclosed that the aid had been able to help almost 90,000 people cultivate the land and have access to food, bring 6 million children to school and treat 2 million people with malaria and 600, 000 with HIV.
He also expressed readiness to increase aid to foster Myanmar’s development in the coming years when market access is restored.
He commended the government for the significant progress in advancing the peace process, agreeing with the government “to explore support for the peace process in the ethnic states”.
He discussed with the government on cooperation on human rights, rule of law and release of political prisoners.
He encouraged the government to ensure a free and fair electoral process during the campaign and on election day.
Piebalgs hoped that after April by-elections, Myanmar and the EU could engage in a new chapter of political, economic and development cooperation.
He added that he had an open and constructive meeting with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon and visited an EU- funded project in Dala township.
He disclosed that EU will open a representative office in Yangon to manage aid programs by the end of April.
Meeting in Brussels in January, EU foreign ministers, recognizing Myanmar’s political reforms, agreed to ease travel restrictions on its senior government officials, lifting the visa ban on Myanmar’s president, vice presidents, cabinet members and parliamentary speakers.
The reforms have included the release of hundreds of political prisoners, the freeing of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from years of house arrest and allowing her and her party to participate in the April parliamentary by-elections and agreeing to pursue peace efforts with ethnic armed groups.
Further easing of restrictions will be possible as Myanmar introduces more reforms.
EU introduced sanctions on Myanmar in 1996 which was renewed annually. The sanctions also included barring EU companies and organizations from investing in Myanmar.
Piedalgs claimed that his trip to Myanmar was “to assess the ongoing reform and encourage their continuation”.
It was also the first trip to Myanmar by a top EU official after the new government took office in March 2011 and started reform.
by Anthony Kuhn, February 15, 2012
The military-backed government of Myanmar, also known as Burma, has surprised many skeptics with the pace of its political reforms — releasing political prisoners, easing censorship and making peace with ethnic insurgents.
But none of these reforms have won it as much praise as its efforts to mend fences with opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. After nearly two decades under house arrest, Suu Kyi is now aiming to work for democracy within the system by running for a seat in parliament.
Lately, she has been on the campaign trail, standing up through the sunroof of her SUV, gathering up bouquets of flowers and cheers from well-wishers. Her supporters pack the dusty roads leading to the township of Kawhmu, the rural constituency she hopes to represent.
Campaigning For Parliament
At the entrance to one village, Suu Kyi is greeted by ethnic Karen residents, chanting a traditional welcome. The farmers’ mouths are stained a rusty red from chewing betel nut. Their cheeks are smeared with a white herbal sunblock. Kawhmu is deep in the countryside, a four-hour drive from Yangon, the country’s largest city.
Suu Kyi says she chose the area for its ethnic diversity. The area was hard-hit by Cyclone Nargis in 2008, and many residents were angry at the government’s slow and feeble response to the emergency.
Suu Kyi asks the villagers for their support as they sit in a sun-baked field. She says she’s wary of making campaign pledges, warning that the road to a better Burma will not be an easy one. The recent political reforms haven’t changed much in Kawhmu. There’s not much industry and not many jobs here.
“I and a lot of folks here want to vote for Suu Kyi,” says 25-year-old farmer Sa Tun Lin. “I don’t understand politics too well, but I want to choose someone who will work hard for the benefit of the people.”
Suu Kyi is the daughter of Gen. Aung San, the Burmese national hero who negotiated independence from Great Britain in 1947. She didn’t get into politics until 1988, and she has spent much of the time since then under house arrest.
Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, boycotted the 2010 elections as unfair. It was not until last December that she announced that she had changed her mind and decided to return to electoral politics.
Skepticism Over Reforms
Some of her colleagues, including the party’s co-founder, 82-year-old Win Tin, think she is too optimistic.
“I don’t know whether you can trust, you see, this government or this president and so on,” he says. “You cannot easily trust the army. The army can take power at any time according to that constitution.”
Win Tin, a journalist who spent nearly two decades in jail for his political activism, would prefer to build up the party before competing in elections. But he says he knows that Suu Kyi is “The Lady,” and the only person with the charisma and credentials needed to lead the Burmese pro-democracy movement.
“We have some different opinions on some issues,” he concedes, “but anyhow, I stand with her, I follow her and I support her.”
If she’s elected to parliament, Suu Kyi says she wants to revise the constitution, which mandates a leading role for the army and gives it the right to invoke emergency powers that can be exercised without any accountability.
‘Joining Our Efforts’
Even if Suu Kyi and her party sweep the April 1 by-elections, the military and the ruling party will still hold an overwhelming advantage in parliament. Pushing any major revisions through will be difficult.
Speaking at party headquarters, Suu Kyi says diplomatically that she’s not trying to get the military to give up any of its power.
“I would like the military to cooperate with us in building democracy in Burma,” she insists. “It’s not a matter of relinquishing anything, but of joining in our efforts.”
Suu Kyi appears to be gambling that the new administration is serious about democratic reform. The government, meanwhile, is gambling that embracing Suu Kyi will persuade foreign powers to lift their sanctions on Myanmar.
Officials have raised the possibility that that once in parliament, Suu Kyi could go from lawmaker to Cabinet minister. Her party won a landslide electoral victory in 1990, but the ruling junta refused to stand aside. Whether Suu Kyi and the party could some day have another chance at holding power will have to wait at least until the next general election in 2015.
By Samantha Boh Wednesday, Feb 15, 2012 Singapore welcomes Myanmar’s chairmanship of Asean in 2014, Foreign Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam said yesterday.
As the face of the 10-member organisation, Myanmar will have to defend Asean’s interests as well as its own, he said.
The country will have to reassure external partners that, under its chairmanship, Asean would make progress towards a more united and connected Asean community.
“The world will be watching. Given the stakes, I am confident that Myanmar will work hard to make its Asean chairmanship a success,” said Mr Shanmugam.
Myanmar voluntarily skipped its turn as chairman in 2005 and Asean foreign ministers agreed at the time to allow it to assume the position when it was ready.
Mr Shanmugam said Singapore’s bilateral relations with Myanmar remain good, and that Singapore will continue to support the country through capacity building, economic and human-resource development, and public administration.
In response to a question as to whether Myanmar’s chairmanship would be reviewed should it regress to its previous state of affairs, Mr Shanmugam said significant developments in Myanmar should be encouraged.
If “the course changes”, further consideration will be needed, but “we will cross that bridge when we come to it”, he said.
Asia Times Online – Precarious balance for Myanmar reform
By Larry Jagan BANGKOK – The future of Myanmar’s reform process is in question as hardliners and liberals in government ramp up an increasingly bitter power struggle. Change in Myanmar remains fragile despite some encouraging reform signals and growing international goodwill towards President Thein Sein.
So far, though, President Thein Sein’s good intentions have produced only limited practical change. Now, there are growing fears that the recent political gains, including the release of political prisoners and allowances for the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) to contest upcoming by-elections, could be reversed.
The reason is that the more liberal-minded ministers who support Thein Sein and his reform agenda are being cramped by persistent pressure from hardliners led by Vice President Tin Aung Myint Oo and other ministers who seem intent to derail reforms despite publicly declaring their support for democratic change.
Analysts and activists are split on whether these signs of change are genuine or a smokescreen to hide the regime’s real intention to keep the military in power for as long as possible under the guise of civilian rule. Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has so far tentatively endorsed Thein Sein’s reforms but according to sources close to her remains cautious.
Much rides for all sides on by-elections scheduled for April 1, where 46 of parliament’s total 664 seats will be up for grabs and Suu Kyi will contest a seat on the outskirts of Yangon. The NLD overwhelmingly won polls held in 1990 but the military annulled the results and maintained its grip on power. The party failed to register and contest the 2010 elections and was banned as a result.
Both the European Union and United States have indicated they may roll back their economic and financial sanctions with more progress on reforms, including the holding of free and fair by-elections in April. The elections should also provide clarity about whether government reformers or hardliners are on the ascendency as well as the pace and extent of future reforms.
According to one government insider’s estimate, around 20% of current ministers are in the liberal camp while another 20% fall with the hardliners. The other 60% are believed to be sitting on the fence waiting to see and side with whoever wins the intensifying power struggle, according to the government insider.
Other observers believe that the apparent divisions and splits among the ruling elite, both sides with military backgrounds, are being well-orchestrated and stress that the nature of the regime has not changed. They believe that even though the old military guard – led by former junta leader Senior General Than Shwe – have retired they still pull strings from behind the political curtain.
“President Thein Sein is a puppet of the new Myanmar government’s strategy known as the eight-steps,” said Aung Lynn Htut, a former military intelligence officer who defected when stationed as a diplomat in Washington in 2005, told Asia Times Online. “Than Shwe still directs policy and controls everything from behind the door,” he said.
Others with links to top members of Thein Sein’s government disagree and argue that the new nominally civilian government is sincere in its desire to bring reform, development and peace to Myanmar after decades of devastation and destruction under heavy-handed military rule.
“Thein Sein and his supporters are motivated by a ‘gentlemen’s’ agenda,” Myanmar academic, writer and editor Nay Win Maung, who died of a heart attack on January 1, frequently said of the new government he personally advised. Old soldiers now in government and aligned with Thein Sein are now motivated by a new sense of fair play and public duty, sources close to the current Myanmar leadership told this correspondent.
Many of them now claim to have abhorred Than Shwe’s abusive rule, including its mass corruption, international isolation and the tarnished image it gave the army across the country. To reverse Than Shwe’s legacy is one of the key drivers behind Thein Sein’s reform agenda, they contend.
Thein Sein recently told Norway’s development minister that he had wanted to reform the country for a long time but was frustrated by Than Shwe’s control, according to diplomats in Yangon. Thein Sein’s wife told Suu Kyi that her husband wanted to introduce reforms for more than a decade but was powerless to do so, even when serving as prime minister under the previous Than Shwe-led military junta.
Pent up reformer
Some close to Thein Sein believe that the 2007 mass demonstrations by Buddhist monks against the previous military junta he led and the devastation and destruction caused the following year by Cyclone Nargis impressed on him the need for dramatic change, according to military sources in the capital, Naypyidaw.
Thein Sein was reportedly physically shaken by the devastation he observed when inspecting storm-hit areas and overseeing the government’s relief work after Cyclone Nargis, a close aide to the president told Asia Times Online. Nor is Thein Sein apparently alone in this view: there are also many in the bureaucracy and military who are firmly committed to his democratic reform agenda.
“There are those in the military with honorable intentions and who want to be seen as improving the sorry lot of the people,” said David Steinberg, a Myanmar expert at the US’s Georgetown University. These same soldiers have a strong sense of nationalism and strong desire to redeem the honor of the military, Steinberg said.
Reforms have so far been implemented in an ad hoc, personalized manner. For example, Railways Minister Aung Min now leads the government’s negotiations with various armed ethnic rebel groups to sign ceasefire agreements. Some of the ethnic leaders involved in the talks who spoke with this correspondent say that they trust in Aung Min’s sincerity.
“It’s personal,” an ethnic Karen leader told Asia Times Online soon after the armed Karen National Union (KNU) signed a truce last month to end hostilities and agreed to exchange liaison offices with the government. Trust with the Karen was built during relaxed drinking sessions at preliminary meetings held last November in Thailand’s northern Chiang Rai province, according to a source familiar with the situation.
During one of the toasts, Aung Min apparently endeared himself to certain Karen representatives when he pleaded personally that the KNU refrained from attacking public railways. There had been several attacks on Myanmar’s railways earlier in the year that were believed to have been carried out by the KNU.
Some observers believe that personalized approach could eventually backfire. “Everything appears to be the result of personal connections – even the relationship between Aung San Suu Kyi and the president,” said a former European diplomat who has spent more than 15 years involved in Myanmar. “That is the major flaw in this whole process – there is no overall plan so it can be thrown out overnight if circumstances change.”
“Until these changes are institutionalized, there is a danger of them being reversed in the future, especially if corruption continues and there is violence,” said Thailand-based former activist and development specialist Aung Naing Oo, who recently visited Myanmar for the first time in over 20 years.
The overriding concern of Myanmar’s ruling establishment – both liberals and hardliners alike – is to maintain peace and stability during the political transition. Fear of renewed bouts of unrest could explain why the highly anticipated release of political prisoners was delayed for several months. Those fears also likely motivated the recent arrest and questioning of Buddhist monk U Gambira, who was recently released early from a 68-year prison sentence for his role in the 2007 uprising against the government.
Than Shwe’s transitional plan clearly intended to delay reforms and pit military groups against one another in a divide and rule fashion. The 2008 constitution, which was passed in a sham referendum and embodies Than Shwe’s vision for the Myanmar’s political future, was intended to create a system of power sharing whereby no individual would become powerful enough to challenge his position and family’s wealth. Than Shwe famously detained and harassed the family members of former long time military dictator Ne Win.
Than Shwe’s new system also aims to create a structure that makes legal change difficult, including a requirement than over three-quarters of parliament must agree to make constitutional amendments. A quarter of parliament is made up of military representatives, giving the military virtual veto power over any proposed charter change.
Gentleman’s agreement
However, Than Shwe seems to have failed to foresee that new President Thein Sein, speaker of the lower house Shwe Mann and army chief General Min Aung Hlaing would reach a “gentlemen’s agenda” in ruling the country. This agreement has spurred an accelerated reform process that has gained momentum and moral authority through Suu Kyi’s public support and upcoming participation in the process.
Often overlooked in Myanmar’s evolving transition is the role parliament has played in the reform process. Analysts and activists widely believed that the upper and lower houses of the new National Assembly would rarely meet and when they did would dutifully follow a pre-arranged script – much like the Burma Socialist Program Party (BSPP) parliament in the mid-1970s did under Ne Win.
So far that has not been the case. Parliament speaker Shwe Mann was apparently devastated when Than Shwe overlooked him and chose Thein Sein as president, confining Shwe Mann instead to what was expected to be a rubber stamp parliament. To give parliament a more representative veneer, Shwe Mann has lent his support to Suu Kyi’s and the NLD’s participation in the upcoming by-elections.
He also reportedly told US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a meeting at Naypyidaw in December that he wanted to make Myanmar’s new parliament as good as the US Congress.
“We have taken the necessary measures so that the upcoming by-elections will be free, fair and credible,” Shwe Mann told European Union development commissioner Andris Piebalgs, speaking through an interpreter, earlier this week.
The manner in which the by-elections are held, even more than the actual results, may indicate the future direction of the gentlemen’s agreement. At the least, the by-election results will affect the ruling Union Solidarity Development Party (USDP), which swept the November 2010 elections in a contest foreign observers said lacked credibility but is expected to face stiffer competition, including from the NLD, at the next general elections scheduled for 2015.
Thein Sein has unofficially announced that he will only serve one term as president; Shwe Mann has made it clear he would like to one day serve as president. To win a free and fair election in 2015, however, he will need to purge the USDP of dead wood and obstacles – including hardliners like Aung Thaung, Htay Oo and Maung Maung Thein, according to Shwe Mann’s senior advisors.
The hope among Shwe Mann’s allies in government is that a lopsided by-election win for the NLD will provide him with the political excuse to clean house and purge hardliners opposed to reforms. If Suu Kyi wins a seat in parliament, Shwe Mann will be expected to allow her to become opposition leader. However, any strategy leveraging Suu Kyi to gain political ground against hardliners will be fraught with dangers and could open new divisions with those who currently support the reform process.
“What is remarkable is the way in which Thein Sein and company have reached out to her [Suu Kyi] since August last year [when they first met in Naypyidaw],” said Justin Wintle, a British academic and writer of a biography on Suu Kyi. “The signs are that this has not been a cynical move. One way of dealing with your political enemies is to co-opt them, but this is a genuine attempt to reconfigure Myanmar,” he said.
Yet even this potentially crucial move reflects the ad hoc nature of Myanmar’s still tentative reform process. If Suu Kyi is elected to parliament at the upcoming by-elections, she will quickly emerge as a challenger to Shwe Mann and the USDP’s current dominance at the 2015 polls. “I know, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Shwe Mann reportedly recently replied to his son Toe Naing Mann, according to sources close to the family.
Larry Jagan previously covered Myanmar politics for the British Broadcasting Corporation. He is currently a freelance journalist based in Bangkok.
Yasmin Lee Arpon Asia News Network
Publication Date : 15-02-2012 Burma is likely to come up within a year a comprehensive plan charting its political and economic reforms, a move that is seen boosting the confidence of the international community, a ranking European Union official said Tuesday.
Andris Piebalgs, EU commissioner for development, said the situation continues to evolve in Burma and a free and credible by-elections in April would be very crucial in sustaining the optimistic response so far to the government policy of opening up its economy and improving its political environment.
“I believe the political issues, the by-elections and the peace process are very crucial because you need political conviction (to pave the way) for a comprehensive plan.
And I believe that during the year, the government will be able to prepare some type of plan and if the political conditions will be right, I believe that donors could go through this development plan sooner than later,” Piebalgs told a press briefing.
“The government should be encouraged to continue with the reforms that are necessary for rule of law, for democratisation. But it is is an ongoing process that gives a lot of optimism,” he added.
Piebalgs concluded a three-day visit to Rangoon and Naypyitaw on Tuesday night and made a stopover in Bangkok en route to Brussels.
During his visit, Piebalgs met with Burmese President Thein Sein and de facto opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
He discussed with them awide range of issues including the peace agreement with ethnic groups, a new EU development assistance package amounting to 150 million euros for the next two years and the April by-elections.
“As the situation continues to evolve, I hope we would be more engaged,” he said.
“We are very much looking forward to developments. We believe there is a lot to be done to alleviate poverty and also to change the country but it requires that reforms the President (Thein Sein) has embarked on be continued,” Piebalgs said.
He noted that it will take time for reforms to be fully in place but that Burma is going “very clearly in one direction”, adding that he hopes this will continue.
The EU is set to conduct its annual review of the sanctions it has imposed on Burma in late April. Piebalgs reiterated the earlier position taken by the EU as well as the United States that a free and credible elections was a pre-condition to lifting the sanctions.
“I can’t predict when exactly the restrictive measures will be lifted but I understand that we need to encourage the (Thein Sein) to continue the reforms.
But that these reforms should be done on a very credible basis and on the basis that won’t jeopardize the credibility of the EU decision-makers.”
Wall Street Journal (blog) – Suu Kyi to China: Myanmar More Than Just an Investment Opportunity
Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi called on China to see the country as more than just a place for Chinese companies to do business in a magazine interview published Monday, and said Myanmar should work in the future to forge better ties with both Beijing and Washington.
“I hope the Chinese people are able to give us more understanding,” Ms. Suu Kyi said in an interview with the Guangdong-based Southern People Weekly magazine. “We hope they have in mind the future relations of the two countries’ peoples, and can bear in mind this point when investing.”
Myanmar has placed itself in the middle of a strategic tug-of-war between China and the U.S. as it has embarked on a series of political reforms aimed at getting Western sanctions against it lifted.
Those economic sanctions helped pave the way for China to become Myanmar’s most important financial and political backer in recent years. However, aggressive resource exploitation by Chinese companies has galvanized dissident groups, and prompted government concern that wider anti-China sentiment in Myanmar could spur political unrest.
Ms. Suu Kyi has campaigned aggressively for a parliamentary seat, and her interview with the popular Southern People Weekly is a signal that the country’s next parliament could take a tougher line toward Chinese investment in the future.
The Nobel Peace Laureate has signaled reservations about Chinese investment in Myanmar before. In August, she called for a reassessment of the Myitsone hydropower project, a 6000-megawatt cascade-style hydropower station being built as a joint venture by government-run China Power Investment Corp that has been criticized over concerns about environmental damage and the displacement of minority groups. Myanmar’s government later suspended construction of the project.
In a high-profile endorsement of Naypyitaw’s political reforms, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited in December, becoming the first sitting secretary of state to do so in more than 50 years. She shared a dinner with Ms. Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s most famous dissident, who spent the better part of two decades under house arrest, only to be released in late 2010.
Beijing has responded cautiously to Myanmar’s efforts to strengthen its ties with Washington. China worries deepening U.S. ties with Myanmar, Vietnam, the Philippines and others in the region will leave it encircled and susceptible to U.S. encroachment.
“We hope to be a friend of China. We also hope to be a friend of the U.S.,” Ms. Suu Kyi said in the interview.
Since taking power, Myanmar’s new government has released political prisoners and loosened press restrictions, among other measures aimed at making it a more attractive destination for foreign investors. Ms. Clinton earlier this month signed a waiver that will likely make it easier for the World Bank and other international institutions to provide aid to Myanmar. For now, however, the U.S. has left most of its sanctions in place.
Wall Street Journal (blog) – Singapore Presses Its Advantage in Myanmar
By Shibani Mahtani
When Western leaders deemed Myanmar a secretive pariah state and slapped on tough economic sanctions, many Southeast Asian investors and governments maintained good relations with the country – a policy that drew harsh criticism from human rights advocates across the world.
Now, with expectations rising that Western leaders could ease sanctions later this year, politicians and businessmen in one key Southeast Asian economy – Singapore – are celebrating.
Speaking at Singapore’s Parliament Tuesday, Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam reaffirmed his country’s “good and longstanding” bilateral relationship with Myanmar, most obviously seen during a recent visit to Singapore by Myanmar President Thein Sein late last month. At the time, the two countries signed agreements in which Singapore will provide its expertise in investment and infrastructure to help give a kick to Myanmar’s under-developed economy.
Now, a memorandum of understanding has been inked between the Singapore Business Federation, a chamber representing Singaporean companies in the region, and the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, aimed at promoting closer economic ties. The MoU was signed as part of week-long business mission this week that included more than 70 Singapore-based companies traveling to Myanmar under the auspices of the SBF and International Enterprise Singapore, a government trade development agency. The delegates included representatives from construction, finance, logistics and other companies, Singapore officials said.
Despite some uncertainty on the part of other Western investors and the U.S. government, which has yet to lift the bulk of its longstanding sanctions on the country, Singaporean businesses are already focusing on how to ensure they have first-mover advantage if Myanmar’s economy continues to open further. Controlled by a harsh military regime for five decades, Myanmar has embarked on a major reform effort over the past 12 months, freeing political prisoners and pursuing rules aimed at making the country more attractive to foreign capital. Singapore is already Myanmar’s 4th-largest trading partner, as of 2010, with bilateral trade amounting to S$1.69 billion that year.
“The large participation numbers (of the latest business mission) indicate Singapore companies’ continued interest to internationalize despite the global uncertainty,” said Mr. Teo Eng Cheong, chief executive officer of IE Singapore. “Singapore’s connections with overseas markets place our companies in a strong position to be first movers in an emerging new market like Myanmar.”
Mr. Shanmugam, continuing his comments to Singapore’s parliament, said he believes the need for “trained people” in Myanmar is likely to develop as the economy continues to benefit from the recent political and economic reforms. He said he hopes his country will continue to develop more links with Myanmar as this happens.
The emphasis on training and encouragement, rather than economic sanctions – a tactic that former Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani has called a “gradual ‘drip-drip-drip’ diplomacy” – is one that Mr. Shanmugam carried with him during his recent bilateral visit to the U.S.
The Foreign Minister said he and some of his counterparts in other Southeast Asian countries “have always believed sanctions aren’t the right way” to address the situation in Myanmar. “I have said that (sanctions should be lifted) to influential Congress members in the U.S.,” Mr. Shanmugam said.
Myanmar’s officials, who come to the city-state for everything from shopping to medical treatment, have long been welcomed in the country. In 2009, activists denounced the government’s decision to honor Mr. Thein Sein, who was prime minister at the time, by naming an orchid after him during a visit – a customary practice when dignitaries travel to Singapore.
Mr. Shanmugam also addressed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ recent decision to allow Myanmar to lead the organization in 2014 as its chair.
“Myanmar will be the external face of Asean,” said Mr. Shanmugam. “The world will be watching… I am confident it will be successful in the role.”
Myanmar was pressured into skipping its turn as the regional bloc’s chair in 2006 due to concerns about its record on human rights. During Asean’s most recent annual summit in November, Myanmar’s neighbors agreed to let the country take its turn as the bloc’s chairman, a move Mr. Shanmugam said will help the country further on its path to political reform.
The Financial Times – Myanmar agrees to hold UN donor conference
By Gwen Robinson in Naypyidaw
Senior UN officials have agreed with Myanmar’s government to work jointly on holding the first large-scale international aid conference this year, in a further sign of the dramatic changes taking place in the country.
The roundtable, to include the world’s biggest international aid organisations and government agencies, would focus on reducing poverty levels in Myanmar from 26 per cent to a government target of 16 per cent by 2015, said Ajay Chhibber, regional director of the UN Development Programme.
“In discussions with the government, we agreed on the need for more aid, more effective aid and better aid co-ordination, and agreed to start work on a process that will lead to a roundtable that will bring donors together,” he said.
There are no public estimates of the amount Myanmar would require to reach its poverty alleviation and development targets, but one local aid official said it would be in “multiple billions” of dollars.
Myanmar ranks in the bottom quarter of the UN’s global poverty rankings and average gross domestic product per capita in 2011 was just $700, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The agreement to convene the conference follows recent US moves to ease some sanctions to enable the UN and other multilateral organisations to begin laying groundwork for large-scale assistance.
It was finalised as Myanmar’s government and the UN hosted one of the largest gatherings to be held in the capital, Naypyidaw, to discuss economic policy options for the country.
The conference, attended by more than 450 people, focused on development policy challenges, especially in health and education, as well as capacity-building in the country’s civil service.
Among speakers were Myanmar cabinet ministers, economists and educators as well as international figures such as US economist Joseph Stiglitz and officials from Asian countries.
In a strong indication of the volume of aid that is likely to flow to the country should western sanctions be lifted, visits by senior western aid and government officials have reached new highs in recent weeks, said one Myanmar official.
The west has said it will lift sanctions if parliamentary by-elections in April are clean and issues related to political prisoners and conflict in ethnic zones are resolved
Reflecting intense commercial interest, large business missions of more than 100 executives including one from Singapore and one from Japan are visiting the country in the coming days.
Not all are confident that business will rush into a post-sanctions Myanmar. The EU’s development commissioner Andris Piebalgs said during a visit to Myanmar on Monday that even without sanctions, European companies may take time to invest in Myanmar until a full legal framework was in place to protect investor interests.
But on the sidelines of the Naypyidaw conference, one top Myanmar banker noted “unprecedented interest” from international business groups in attending the fifth Myanmar business conference to be hosted by local business groups in May. “And they’re not just waiting for that … Let us say that 170 Japanese and 117 Singaporean businessmen are not coming here just for tourism,” he said.
European Commission (Press Release) – Speaking points Press conference – EU Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs, Yangon, 14 February 2012
The purpose of my visit to Burma/Myanmar was to assess the ongoing reforms and encourage their continuation.
On Sunday, I met with our partners from the UN, including UN special adviser Vijay Nambiar, and international NGOs. Yesterday, in Nay Pyi Taw, I had a warm and constructive meeting with President U Thein Sein, as well as with (U Shwe Mann,) the Speaker of the Lower House, and the Ministers for Foreign Affairs (U Wunna Maung Lwin), Education, (Dr Mya Aye), of Railways, (U Aung Min), and of Health (Dr Pe Thet Khin).
I also participated in the International Conference on “Development Policy options”.
Today, I met with local civil society, and I visited one of our EU funded projects in Dala Township. I also had an open and constructive meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi, focusing on democracy, the rule of law and the need for free, fair and credible elections, including the full process
This gave me a more comprehensive picture. I am fairly optimistic for the future after this 3 day visit. I am impressed by the pace of change and the remarkable reforms undertaken under the President’s leadership.
In Europe, the 27 Ministers of Foreign Affairs already welcomed these significant changes on 23 of January and encouraged their consolidation.
This led to an easing of sanctions. The measures will be fully reviewed in April. The conduct of the by-elections on 1st April and the release of political prisoners will influence the outcome.
In my talks with President, the Speaker of the Lower House and Senior Ministers, I raised a whole range of issues.
I commended the Government for the significant progress in advancing the peace process with armed ethnic groups, the key ingredient for stability and prosperity. We discussed the respect for Human rights, the rule of law and the release of political prisoners. Regarding the latter, the authorities confirmed their readiness to cooperate with us on remaining cases. I also encouraged them to ensure a free and fair electoral process, during the campaign and on Election Day.
The EU wants to encourage support the momentum for change, in response to progress. We will step up our dialogue, with a series of high-level visits.
I understand from my meetings that there is an appetite to put the country on the track of development and prosperity. I announced a new assistance package of €150 million for the 2 next years, which almost doubles EU aid since 1996. These funds will finance projects in the areas of Health, Education and livelihoods. They will beef up the current supported provided through the UN and NGOs since 1996.
I can tell you it achieved results since we have been able to help almost 900,00 people to cultivate the land and have access to food; to bring 6 millions children to school or training, or to treat 2 million people from malaria and 600,000 from HIV.
We also discussed options for strengthening the public administration and agreed to explore support for the peace process in the ethnic States.
I am ready to increase aid to foster Burma/Myanmar’s development in the coming years. Aid is not the panacea for the country but it can act as a catalyst and prepare the ground for economic and social activities. The crucial point is to encourage foreign direct investment. This will only come when market access is restored.
However, economic development will only be successful if growth is inclusive. This means benefiting the entire population.
I hope that, after April, Burma/Myanmar and the EU can engage in a new chapter of political, economic and development cooperation. I think all the ingredients are here to make Burma/Myanmar a “success story”.
Korean Central News Agency – Floral Basket to DPRK Embassy by Myanmar Political Party
Pyongyang, February 14 (KCNA) — The Union Solidarity and Development Party, Union of Myanmar sent a floral basket to the DPRK embassy in Nay Pyi Taw on the birth anniversary of leader Kim Jong Il.
Win Maung Kyaw, executive member of the Nay Pyi Taw Regional Committee of the Party, and his party visited the DPRK embassy on Feb. 9. They laid a floral basket and bowed before the portraits of President Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.
By TODD PITMAN / AP WRITER Wednesday, February 15, 2012
TAVOY, Burma — When 200 activists in green t-shirts marched along a pristine Burma beach to protest plans for a coal plant, they expected a long, tough struggle against the powers that be. But then, something bizarre happened.
A deputy cabinet minister asked for a meeting. He listened patiently to their concerns about pollution. And then he told them the government agreed: It would halt construction of the controversial 4,000-megawatt plant on Burma’s southern panhandle.
In a long-repressed country whose people have grown accustomed to living in fear of government authority, it all seemed too good to be true. Just last year, anyone who dared even demonstrate in public would have likely have been beaten or detained by security forces.
“We were shocked,” said Aung Zaw Hein of the activist group, the Dawei Development Association, which staged the protest last month. “He asked us, ‘do you love your region?’ Then he said, ‘We love it, too. We just need to work together.’”
Aung Zaw Hein’s group takes no credit for the decision to halt the plant, though, and remains suspicious of government motives. But the fact that President Thein Sein’s administration would even sit down and listen to any protesters at all is a testament to the dramatic reforms now under way here.
It’s also a sign that Burma’s civil society is beginning to stir in ways that would have been unthinkable before.
For almost half a century, the country was ruled by a reclusive, xenophobic clique of army officers who cracked down hard on any perceived dissent. The junta finally ceded power last year to a nominally civilian government which has embarked on an unexpected wave of reforms—freeing political prisoners, allowing democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi to run for Parliament, opening the way for exiles to return.
Burma’s most vocal activist groups have traditionally been based abroad in places where they can speak freely without fear of arrest. But there are around 800 registered non-governmental organizations and some 20,000 community groups working inside the country on charity, health and development issues, said Thant Myint-U, a prominent Burmese historian and author.
These local civil society groups have quietly pushed for reform for years, and are responsible for “a big part of the changes that have taken place in Burma,” he said.
Today, they are speaking up more than ever before, because “the political environment is far more open,” the historian added.
In December, Thein Sein lifted a ban on demonstrations—allowing environmental groups like the Dawei Development Association to protest legally.
The group was formed around the same time, and shortly afterward sent an open letter to the presidency calling for the coal project to be canceled.
On Jan. 4, the activists staged a peaceful march along Maungmakan beach just outside Tavoy (also known as Dawei), a rundown town south of the commercial capital, Rangoon.
They wore T-shirts that said “No Coal” and “Only Green Development.” They took photos of themselves and posted them on the group’s nascent Facebook page. They handed out pamphlets explaining how the plant could taint Burma’s air and water.
A few days later, Deputy Railways Minister Thaung Lwin asked to meet them. The official, who is chairman of a government committee managing a mass seaport project in Tavoy that would include the coal plant, asked them “not to create a panic” by protesting the project, Aung Zaw Hein recalled. Then he took them out to eat at a local guesthouse, and paid the tab.
Despite the apparent victory, the environmentalists still wonder how it happened.
“We’re grateful the government did what they did, but … we don’t trust them 100 percent yet,” Aung Zaw Hein said.
Myo Aung, a local freelance journalist who also volunteers for the group, shared the sentiment. “There must be an ulterior motive,” he said.
While the government may have had concerns over pollution, it’s also possible a lack of funding played a part. The plant is an integral part of a behemoth US $50 billion deep-sea port project undertaken by Thailand’s Italian-Thai Development construction company, which has been slow to attract investors.
The military-backed government may also be trying to boost its popularity among a skeptical populace ahead of April 1 by-elections in which Suu Kyi will run for Parliament for the first time.
Thein Sein is eager to show democratic progress to get crippling Western sanctions lifted.
Sean Turnell, an expert on Burma’s economy at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, said there was growing national resentment over the sell-off of the country’s natural resources abroad.
Much of the electricity the coal plant would have generated was destined for neighboring Thailand, and “in this case, the efforts of such [environmental] groups nicely coincided with the interests of the government,” Turnell said.
Authorities here have made at least one similar about-face before.
In late September, Thein Sein abruptly suspended a controversial Chinese-backed hydroelectric dam in the country’s north, the $3.6 billion Myitsone dam project.
Local activists praised that decision, too, but suspected it had more to do with the government’s desire to assert independence from China or squash an issue that could unite political opponents than to curb environmental damage.
Tavoy’s environmentalists know they face plenty of challenges ahead.
A much smaller, 400-megawatt coal plant is still on the drawing board. It is needed for the seaport and a vast industrial complex which will link Burma’s Indian Ocean coast to the rest of Southeast Asia with railways, highways and oil and gas pipelines. Industrial estates will house refineries, a steel mill, a fertilizer plant and a petrochemical complex. Some 20,000 villagers will be evicted from their homes.
Aung Zaw Hein said his group’s objective was not to stop the mega-project, which could help an undeveloped region where jobs are scarce, but rather to “make sure this is done responsibly, with transparency.”
That goal will be especially crucial as international investors increasingly rush in to tap into a country widely considered one of Asia’s last unspoiled frontiers.
Tin Maung Swe, who chairs a government body helping oversee the Tavoy project, said experts were studying other ways to fuel the still-hoped-for 4,000 megawatt power plant.
He spoke of environmentally friendly possibilities like hydropower, solar power, wind power—just the kind of “green” options the Dawei Development Association would like them to explore.
But if none of that works, Swe said, “at last, we will choose coal-fire power.”
By BA KAUNG / THE IRRAWADDY Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Opposition MPs in Burma have called for a dramatic curtailing of the influence of the armed forces in civilian affairs, describing the military’s continuing role in a variety of sectors as an impediment to progress in the transition to democracy.
The issue of the military’s predominance over the economy, civil service and other key areas has been raised repeatedly over the past two days during parliamentary debates about national planning of state projects, according to the MPs.
Dr. Aye Maung, a respected politician representing Burma’s Arakanese ethnic minority, said he argued in Parliament that the Tatmadaw, or armed forces, should stop existing as a state within a state and undergo major reforms to repair its long-damaged relationship with the civilian population.
Specifically, he said that the Tatmadaw should drastically cut its wide-ranging influence over non-military matters by ending the practice of appointing retired military officials to head civilian departments—something that has been the norm since the army seized power in a bloody coup in 1988.
“I told Parliament that if the Tatmadaw continues to insist that its own members are the most qualified people in every sector of public life, it will only impede efforts to promote civilian professionals and create friction between the army personnel and civilian state employees,” he said.
“The Tatmadaw should recognize the contributions of civilian graduates of medical and engineering schools, instead of always promoting its own army-trained doctors and engineers. This will improve relations between the army and the public,” he added.
Aye Maung said that a number of military representatives in Parliament raised their eyebrows at his suggestions, as did some former military officials elected as members of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).
Thein Nyunt, another opposition MP, urged Parliament to scrap the slogan, “The Tatmadaw is both mother and father of the state,” which has been ubiquitous across Burma for decades. In its place, he said, should be a new slogan: “The people are both mother and father of the state.”
Two colonels serving as military MPs countered Aye Maung and Thein Nyunt by arguing that the Tatmadaw needs to be strong, and since its members are well-trained in various fields, they can rightfully take the leading role in civilian affairs.
“We accept the existence of the Tatmadaw, just as we need the government and the Parliament to build a democratic state. But we need a good balance between these institutions,” said Aye Maung.
By essentially calling on the Tatmadaw to return to the barracks, the two opposition MPs highlighted the fact that the army’s role has not lessened almost a full year after the former junta officially handed over power to a nominally civilian government last March.
Burmese army defector Sai Thein Win, a former major, concurred with the opposition MPs’ assessment of the oversized role of the military in public affairs.
He said that since the 1988 military coup, the army has filled almost every civilian position with a military retiree, to the extent that “there is no longer any space left in the civilian administration for more military retirees, not to speak of civilians.”
But Sai Thein Win said that the army’s poor public image was not just due to its habit of laying claim to the entire state apparatus. He said that the conduct of the army in its conflicts with ethnic armed groups has also done immense damage to its reputation.
“Due to a lack of discipline, the army extorts money from the people and abuses women. Only by stopping these kinds of acts can we have a really strong army,” he said.
Since the Tatmadaw first toppled a parliamentary democracy in 1962, every important sector of society has been dominated by military personnel, leaving little or no space for the emergence of civilian experts and technocrats. Its repeated use of brutal force against protesters has also served to blacken its reputation among ordinary Burmese.
Under the current Constitution, the army has its own military tribunals independent of civilian jurisdiction.
Final decisions on all government policies are made by the 11-member National Defense and Security Council (NDSC), a paramount body that includes the commander in chief of the armed forces, the defense minister and three other senior military officials.
With an estimated strength of 400,000 personnel, the military also controls 25 percent of the seats in both houses of Parliament and in regional assemblies, effectively giving it a veto over constitutional amendments, which require the support of more than 75 percent of Parliament.
To rebuild trust between the armed forces and Burma’s ethnic minorities, Aye Maung also suggested that the Tatmadaw should form armed ethnic regiments like the ones that existed in the 1950s and 1960s. This, he said, could help ease the antagonism between military personnel and ethnic people.
“The ethnic minorities see the current Tatmadaw as the army of the Burman majority. We must reshape it into a kind of united army composed of different nationalities,” he said, adding that he was not referring to the Border Guard Force (BGF) model enshrined in the Constitution.
The previous military regime tried to force ceasefire groups to join the BGF scheme, but key groups refused, saying it was designed to subjugate them under the Tatmadaw. The current nominally civilian government has shelved the controversial plan in its recent peace talks with armed ethnic groups.
“My point is that the army must be modern but lean—not the bloated army that it is now. Since our country has a long coast to defend, we must increase the strength of the navy and air force, which are relatively weak in comparison to the army, which has long been used for warring with ethnic minorities,” said Aye Maung.
“The Tatmadaw must change its defense policy of targeting against internal and external enemies of the state. It should no longer perceive the country’s ethnic minorities as enemies. It must focus on outside enemies and accordingly realign the budgets used for the army, navy and air force.”
Aye Maung also called for an end to the army’s practice of confiscating farmers’ land across the country, and said that the status of military-owned companies should be clarified.
Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd (MEHL), established by the army in 1990 as a public company with the stated aim of providing “economic welfare for soldiers, war veterans, and the Burmese people, as well as support [for] the economic development of the state,” has a 100 percent stake in 38 companies in a range of sectors.
According to the military analyst Andrew Seth, MEHL is 70 percent owned by high-ranking active and retired military officers, with the remaining 30 percent under the control of the Ministry of Defense.
Few observers, however, expect the military to relinquish its economic or political influence, noting that even President Thein Sein, himself a senior member of the former junta, appears to have no real control over the armed forces, which have continued attacks on the ethnic Kachin Independence Army despite his orders to end their offensive.
“We still have an army that is empowered by the Constitution to stage a coup and an army chief who can even kick out the president,” said Sai Thein Win, dismissing suggestions that the Tatmadaw might be ready to take a back seat after half a century of uninterrupted rule.
The Irrawaddy – Myanmar: On Claiming Success
By DAVID I. STEINBERG Wednesday, January 18, 2012
The world, and especially the Burmese peoples, have seen many positive changes in their society over the past year. Now, in the light of these encouraging events, the world is beating a path to Myanmar’s [Burma's] doorstep. Some of those in the past have had rigorous negative opinions, ones they did not fail to share with all those around and about, and especially with those in policy positions. They wanted regime change as they believed there was little hope of progress under any military-dominated regime.
Some felt there should be no negotiations—even contact—with a corrupt, venal Burmese military, and that sanctions should squeeze the military junta until it cried Uncle (Sam). Many are now applying for visas. We hope that they will all be granted, and that they can find hotel rooms in Yangon.
And now from all sorts of foreign sources will come the barrage of claims that it was their policies that have brought about such changes in Myanmar. If it had not been for sanctions, opprobrium, invective, UN resolutions, restrictions on trade, discouragement of investment, warnings against tourism, vilification of those advocating dialogue, and a myriad of other restrictions and negative views on what was often described as a ”pariah” or “rogue” regime, the argument goes, these changes would not have taken place. So we, the foreigners, are the heroes.
This is the height of hubris. Yes, we know well the human rights abuses in that state, its sorry economic policies and incompetent implementation, its Potemkin-village-like-system of disguising reality, its manipulation of statistics to hide mal-administration. Yet to claim that foreigners have effectively controlled change or could force improvements in that sorry state is remarkably grotesque.
We all know that organizations or individuals, public or private, that have programs or projects like to claim success for their endeavors. Such efforts are individually or institutionally satisfying, stroking the personal or collective egos, and often resulting in raising more monies for further such exploits.
To make such claims, however, is to deny the acumen and capacity of the Burmese people. Yes, they have been oppressed, and their occasional outward expressions of discontent have been brutally suppressed. They have tolerated much, and seem to have had a long fuse and have not exploded as often as they might have given their provocations, perhaps because of the karmic belief that evil rulers with get their just desserts in future incarnations. To make such claims is also to deny that however grammatically singular the word “military” may be, it is in reality plural.
There always have been those within the rigid military system who thought of the plight of the people, as there have been “thugs” interested in self-aggrandizement. As one highly placed Burmese colonel who was a cabinet minister said, “We were taught that this uniform, this gun, came from the people, but we have forgotten that.” To deny the essential humanity of all this admitted elite is singularly inept.
Openings within the pervasive power system in Myanmar have allowed those concerned with their own society to advocate change and reform. After a half-century of repression, such progress is likely to be halting and asymmetrical, and it will only take place at a pace that the society can handle, if it is allowed to do so. For the world to deny the reality of such attempted changes is, in effect, to subvert them. Yet for foreigners to attempt to control, take over, and claim credit for progress is an equally effective method to diminish their effectiveness.
Foreigners should remember how marginal they really are—in spite of their military power, economic penetration, and propinquity or distance. Those for or against sanctions, for or against dialogue, or for or against engagement are bit players in the Burmese drama, in which the past or present villains and the present heroes are Burmese of all ethnicities and persuasions. We wish them well.
David I. Steinberg is Distinguished Professor of Asian Studies, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. His latest volume (with Fan Hongwei) is “Modern China-Myanmar Relations: Dilemmas of Mutual Dependence” (March 2012).
Wednesday, 15 February 2012 14:54 Mizzima News
(Mizzima) – About 800 low-priced Chinese-made Chery QQ3 passenger cars will be imported by Burma’s Ministry of Industry to quell the appetite of new car buyers.
The Chery vehicles, small, fuel-efficient, compact models, are made by China’s state-owned auto company, and are scheduled to arrive in April, according to an article in The Myanmar Times on Monday.
“Although the ministry would like to import as many as possible, there is a limited budget that we must stick to,” an official told the English-language newspaper.
A state-owned factory in Burma makes a vehicle that is essentially a copy of the Chery QQ3 with Chinese-imported parts. However, part supplies have run out and the ministry suspended production.
In early December, 1,000 Chery QQ3s were imported and sold out at showrooms in Yangon, Mandalay, Naypyitaw and Pathein within a week, an official told The Myanmar Times.
The cost of the Chinese-made cars is US$ 5,800 but buyers have to pay an extra for customs duties and commercial tax, with another $4,102 charged by the Directorate of Road Transport as a licensing fee. The total cost of the car, including all fees, is about $13,450.
According to auto industry reports, the Chery QQ3 became the center of an industrial copyright and intellectual rights controversy, as General Motors claimed the car was a copy of the Daewoo Matiz, which is marketed outside South Korea as the Chevrolet Spark.
GM China Group indicated the two vehicles “shared remarkably identical body structure, exterior design, interior design and key components.”
MotorAuthority.com and Car and Driver called the QQ3 a “carbon copy,” and the International Herald Tribune, in a 2005 article, referred to it as “a clone.”
However, safety tests have indicated that the Chinese vehicle is far less safe in head-on auto crashes, with occupants likely to suffer serious injuries.
Wednesday, 15 February 2012 21:42 Mizzima News Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Both opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Burmese President Thein Sein are singing from the same songbook. Jobs, jobs, jobs.
The National League for Democracy (NLD) chairman said on a campaign swing on Wednesday in Mayangon Township that Burma’s main problems are poverty and the lack of jobs. Without giving specifics, she said the NLD has started working on the issue, and she has spoken with organizations and countries that want to help the Burmese people.
“Our country’s main problem is poverty,” she said. “In response to the question how I will solve the problem, I would like to say that we have already discussed this issue with the organizations and the countries that want to help Burma. We are thinking how best to approach the issue, and we will do as much as we can.”
Last week, campaigning in Myaungmya Township, she said “I want to nurture the youth, and I want to make them more educated. Getting proper healthcare for all adults and youth is the objective of the NLD. It’s very simple. We must work for better education for the people. We must work for better healthcare for the people. We must try hard to get decent employment and proper salaries.”
Similarly, in her speech during her electoral campaign trip to Kawhmu Township on Monday, she said, “The most important problem in Kawhmu Township is that people don’t have jobs. We understand that our first responsibility is to create enough jobs for people.”
Since taking office last year, President Thein Sein has spoken repeatedly about creating more jobs in the country. In a speech to Parliament, he said that Burma’s current poverty rate is 26 percent and the government will work to reduce it to 16 percent by 2015.
In May 2011, at a workshop in Naypyitaw on national development, Thein Sein said in speech that the government planned to develop the agricultural sector, rural manufacturing and cottage industries, to create micro finance projects and rural cooperative societies to alleviate poverty.
“Micro finance is a good tool to alleviate poverty,” he said. “In connection with micro finance, the majority of the poor are rural people. It is because they do not have capital, not because they are lazy.”
Suu Kyi also campaigned in Hlegu Township on Wednesday where supporters said she spoke before tens of thousands of people. She campaigned with NLD candidate Phyo Min Thein, who is seeking a seat in Parliament from that district.
Wednesday, 15 February 2012 13:05 Mizzima News
(Mizzima) – Ethnic conflict issues in Burma are off-limits to investigations by the Burmese Human Rights Commission (HRC), the commission chairman said in a press conference on Tuesday.
Win Mra told journalists in Bangkok that attempts at reconciliation were “essentially political,” and the commission had decided investigations into abuses in the conflict zones were “not appropriate at this present point in time.” Both sides in the long-going civil war have been accused of human rights violations.
“With the establishment of the peace, other problems like human rights violations and atrocities supposed to be committed against ethnic groups will also recede into the background,” he told Agence France Presse.
So far, the rights commission has heard cases involving land confiscation, prison abuse, mistreatment by officials and other issues, Win Mra said.
“You are right in saying that human rights problems continue because this is something that cannot be tackled within a short period of time,” he was quoted as saying. “It is a process, as you would know, but I think we have started to handle this problem.”
Human Rights Watch in a report in January accused the Burmese army of abuses including rape, torture and killing of civilians in ethnic minority conflict zones in 2011.
The U.N. special envoy to Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, expressed concern about the HRC’s independence in a statement he released in Rangoon on February 5.
“I am concerned that there are no indications as yet that the commission is fully independent and effective in compliance with the Paris Principles,” he said. “At present, it seems that the commission cannot fully guarantee human rights protection for all in Burma.
“I was informed that the commission’s draft rules of procedure were being examined by the judiciary, and were awaiting the approval of the Council of Ministers. This sends the wrong signal that the commission is not fully independent from the government.”
He said the commission’s prison visits were dependent on presidential authorization and that there did not seem to be clarity on its procedures, including for handling complaints and conducting prison visits.
“There is clearly a strong need to enhance the technical and substantive capacity of the commissioners and its staff on human rights issues,” he said.
Recently, the Burmese government has undertaken extensive negotiations with ethnic rebels and has successfully concluded cease-fires and peace agreements with the majority of the armed groups.
President Thein Sein, a former general who came to power last year when the Parliament was formed, has vowed to work towards an end to civil war that has gripped large parts of Burma since independence in 1948. An inclusive peace agreement is one of the demands of Western nations, which imposed sanctions on the regime.
The government has made progress on democratic reforms, but observers say that the ethnic conflict and political grievances are the country’s most difficult problem to be resolved.
By KO HTWE
Published: 15 February 2012
A man has died and three others are injured after a vehicle owned by Burma’s industrial ministry hit a landmine in northern Shan state.
Hospital reports say the men were not government officials, but had been sent to repair electrical pylons in Namhkan township.
“We received three people – one had broken bones, another one had a six-inch nail in one of his wrist bones while a smaller wrist bone was broken, and had a piece of shrapnel in the back of his knee,” said a doctor at Namkhan hospital.
“The other one took broken glass from the vehicle’s windshields – we have removed those from his wrist but there’s one still in his thigh.”
DVB has learnt the man who died was of Chinese origin, but it is unclear whether he was a Chinese national.
In December last year, a Burmese soldier was killed and five others injured when their vehicle hit a mine in the same area of Namkhan township.
By NANG MYA NADI
Published: 15 February 2012
A court hearing will be held in Burma’s capital next week into the suspected abduction of a Kachin woman by Burmese troops last year.
Twenty-eight year old Sumlut Roi Ja, who had a 14-month-old daughter has not been seen since she went missing on 28 October from Hkaibang village, in the northern state’s Momauk township. Troops from the army’s Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 321 are suspected of involvement, and several have been summoned to the 23 February hearing.
Her husband and father-in-law were also taken on 28 October, but later managed to escape. They claim that Burmese troops had accused them of links to the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which has been battling the Burmese army since June last year. They both refute the accusation.
A relative of Sumlut Roi Ja says she was last seen on the morning following her abduction standing in front of a Burmese army outpost.
“We looked at the Montbo hill through binoculars and saw her outside the [Burmese army] base – she looked jittery as the soldiers were touching her inappropriately one after another,” said the relative.
“After that, we saw her being taken inside [the base] and she hasn’t emerged since. She is assumed dead – we held a prayer for her on 20 December.”
According to her family, the commander of LIB 321 said Sumlut Roi Ja would be released by 2 November last year. Her husband filed the lawsuit in late January.
Abuse of civilians in Kachin state since fighting broke out is thought to have been rife: the Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand (KWAT) said late last year that it had documented nearly 40 cases of rape of Kachin women by Burmese troops, while reports of forced labour have been common.
But the government-backed National Human Rights Commission said yesterday that it would not be investigating reports of abuse of civilians in Burma’s ethnic regions anytime soon.
Win Mra, chairman of the body, told AFP that it is “not appropriate at this present point in time”.
“With the establishment of the peace, other problems like human rights violations and atrocities supposed to be committed against ethnic groups will also recede into the background,” he said, adding that attempts at reconciliation were “essentially political”.
By FRANCIS WADE
Published: 15 February 2012
Singapore wants to see a swift end to western sanctions on Burma, which it considers damaging to regional markets as the Southeast Asian 10-nation bloc moves toward full economic integration in 2015.
The city state has also spoken of its desire to capitalise on Burma’s reforming economy, particularly the electricity sector where an abundance of hydropower potential has made it the apple in the eye of its energy hungry neighbours.
On Monday a delegation of more than 150 Singaporean businessmen arrived in Rangoon to scope out areas where investment would be particularly lucrative, and the following day Foreign Minister Kasiviswanathan Shanmugam told Singaporean MPs that a “good and longstanding” bilateral relationship with Burma would be strengthened in the coming years to facilitate the country’s involvement in the regional marketplace.
“When we do talk about the ASEAN Community in 2015, creating a centre of 600 million people, creating physical and social connectivities, obviously sanctions against any particular member is not the most helpful,” he is also reported to have said.
Access to its wealth of resources and cheap labour, as well as capitalising on a geographical location that has made it an increasingly prized strategic asset for East Asian countries, has for decades been stymied by poor governance and a reluctance by neighbouring states to lean too heavily on Burma when the guarantee of stable investment could not be made.
But the environment is changing, and Singapore has been quick to offer its help. The two countries signed memorandums of understanding in January that included offers of investment and trade promotion for Burma, as well as a long-overdue effort at modernising its moribund banking system. It will also train Burmese workers with the skills needed for employment abroad, including English-language lessons.
Analysts have also pointed to the need for Burma to streamline its distorted foreign exchange rate system, with a huge disparity between official and black market rates. Unifying the exchange rate was considered a key area of the reforms that galvanised the economies of China, India, Laos and Vietnam in the early 1990s.
Other nearby countries are also awaiting genuine reforms in Burma with bated breath, with Malaysia looking with interest at rubber plantations and an array of agricultural products.
Japan and Korea have also lined up plentiful investment capital, but there is concern that, having been in the wilderness for so long, Burma will be unable to cope with the influx of business.
As a result it has been inviting various experts to advise on where to head from here. Renowned economist Joseph Stiglitz, who on Tuesday departed after a five-day visit, told DVB in an exclusive interview that prescriptions he had given during his first trip there in 2009 had been taken on board.
“They had actually done a number of things, like increasing the number of licenses so they’ve made a number of markets competitive that were not competitive before, which has had an effect, I gather, on prices,” he said.
Singapore’s input across a range of sectors of industry would help spur employment in Burma, he continued. “The problem in the past is that much of the investment has been in natural resources and electricity and very little has been in manufacturing, and other kinds of activities that create a lot of jobs.”
Singapore’s investments in Burma totalled $US1.70 billion, making it the fourth highest investor, although China is though to have pumped some $US20 billion into the economy in the past year alone, and remains the government’s key economic crutch.