BURMA RELATED NEWS – MAY 26, 2012.
May 26th, 2012
By GRANT PECK | Associated Press – 2 hrs 45 mins ago BANGKOK (AP) — Protests in Myanmar over persistent power shortages have provided a test of how the country’s elected but military-backed government will respond to rising expectations sparked by the past year’s democratic reforms.
Small demonstrations over the last week in Myanmar’s two largest cities and several towns could be seen as an indicator of the new openness under President Thein Sein, who has overseen the country’s emergence from decades of authoritarian rule and diplomatic isolation.
From another point of view, the peaceful protests — which have been limited to a few hundred people — serve as a reminder of the early stages of past unrest. Previous uprisings have started as small affairs sparked by complaints over the economy and then snowballed into large-scale challenges to authority.
In 2007, the former military regime used force to put down the so-called Saffron Revolution led by Buddhist monks. That rebellion began as small, localized protests over fuel price hikes.
“Protests like this in Myanmar always have the potential to escalate and lead to political unrest,” said Trevor Wilson, a former Australian envoy to Myanmar who now teaches at Australian National University. “It is hard to predict how these protests might develop.”
Thein Sein was prime minister of the previous repressive military government but shed his formal links with the army to run with its proxy political party in a 2010 general election. Those polls were boycotted by the party of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was under house arrest at the time.
Last year, Thein Sein embarked on a reform program whose main objective was to win the easing of economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union. That goal has already been largely accomplished.
Also as a result of the reforms, the government won the cooperation of Suu Kyi, the once-implacable foe of army rule and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was freed after the 2010 elections. Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party even agreed to run for parliament in last month’s by-elections, snaring 43 seats to play a small but historically significant legislative role.
Along with the revival of parliamentary politics there has been a new assertiveness in civil society, especially in lobbying on environmental issues. One campaign, opposing the Chinese-funded Myitsone hydropower dam on the Irrawaddy River, won an astonishing victory when the government announced the cancellation of the project.
Still, the potential for conflict in Myanmar — also known as Burma — lies in the space between the political reforms achieved so far and the shortfall in other fundamental changes, particularly in the economy.
Suu Kyi has endorsed the protests, which have seen demonstrators holding candlelight vigils and marching in public streets.
Speaking Tuesday at the opening of a branch office for her party, Suu Kyi said “the country suffers from power shortages because of mismanagement. I believe that the system has to be changed to get electricity or to get water or to get jobs.”
The challengers to the government are the same activists who used to struggle against military rule, but are now emboldened by the new democratic opening.
Their antagonist is the same military that smashed their dreams five years ago. Though he came to power through election, Thein Sein heads a government that serves at the sufferance of the military, which together with its civilian allies controls parliament and security affairs.
The immediate prospects for strife are hard to calculate. The protests have been peaceful and relatively unassertive so far, with the crowd in Yangon — Myanmar’s biggest city — topping out at about 300 on Friday night.
The peaceful demonstrations continued for a fifth night Saturday in Yangon, though the number of protesters dropped to about 200. Truckloads of riot police looked on but did nothing.
Out of habit, deliberation or misunderstanding, the authorities are clearly nervous. In the central city of Mandalay, Special Branch political police held several protesters briefly for questioning.
On Thursday in the central town of Pyay, police pressure on demonstrators led to a brawl and six arrests. The angered comrades of those detained gathered outside the local prison until the detainees were released, then carried on protesting.
“Police violence encountered during the protests against power cuts shows just how Burma continues to grossly neglect and violate the basic rights to human dignity and freedom of expression,” said the
Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), a group that feels reforms have fallen way short of what is desirable. “It is clear that peaceful dissent is still not tolerated.”
Others are not so pessimistic.
“The timing of these protests is interesting because the new laws about peaceful assembly are in place and the new government’s attitude is different from that of its predecessors,” said Australian National University’s Wilson. “One would expect both sides to be more reasonable and tolerant now, and early signs are that this seems to be the case.”
Thein Sein’s reforms included the passage of a bill allowing citizens to stage peaceful demonstrations — although still-existing security laws continue to put protesters at legal risk.
Myanmar has suffered from power shortages for more than a decade. It has plentiful natural gas supplies, but a poor power distribution infrastructure that has lagged even more as the economy has grown.
Sean Turnell, an economist at Australia’s Macquarie University, said he believes what is significant about the current protest movement is “how it highlights the way that economic reform, and the changes that need to be made to make life easier here for the great bulk of people, are seriously lagging.”
Up to now, much of Myanmar’s natural gas has been earmarked for neighboring Thailand and China, he noted.
“For the previous regime, domestic considerations and the lives of the citizenry (as well as domestic business) took a back seat to the desire to secure foreign exchange,” Turnell said. “The current government, I think, is hopeful of doing something better, but at the moment the legacy of the past is weighing on them.”
AP | May 26, 2012, 05.46PM IST
NEW DELHI: The visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Myanmar on Sunday is the latest sign that India now believes it needs to assert its presence in its eastern neighbor.
The visit underscores India’s quest for energy supplies to fuel its economic boom and concerns about China’s strong influence in Myanmar, where the elected but military-backed government is opening up its economy for investment and trade.
In recent years, India has nervously watched Beijing’s domination of Myanmar’s oil and gas exploration projects. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers are in Myanmar working on infrastructure and other projects.
Indian officials, however, are loath to admit that India’s Myanmar policy is being driven by China’s inroads there.
India wants to “secure a stronger and mutually beneficial relationship with a neighboring country that is integral to India’s Look East policy,” foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai told journalists on Friday.
India has adopted a “Look East” policy of engaging with southeast and east Asia, reaching out and deepening bilateral ties with Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Indonesia among others in the region.
Singh’s visit will be the first in 25 years by an Indian prime minister, although the two countries share a 1,600-kilometer (1,000-mile) land border, as well as a maritime border in the Bay of Bengal.
Myanmar, which was once known as Burma, had been an international pariah for decades under a military junta that quashed any hopes of democratic reform. A 2010 election, though, has lead to at least some reforms and a gradual opening up to the rest of the world.
The competition between India and China in Myanmar is expected to surface again when Myanmar begins auctioning new natural gas blocks, both offshore and onshore, in which Indian companies are expected to participate actively.
“It would be in Myanmar’s interest to not put all its eggs in one basket,” says Rajiv Bhatia, a former ambassador to Myanmar, referring to China’s overwhelming presence in Myanmar’s oil and gas exploration sector.
Mathai said that during Singh’s visit, the two countries are slated to start a bus link between Imphal, capital of India’s Manipur state, and Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city.
India also will announce the creation of an IT training institute, an agricultural research center and a rice research park in Myanmar, Mathai said.
Over decades of isolation by the West, China reached out to Myanmar, building billions of dollars in roads and gas pipelines in the impoverished country.
New Delhi too has offered Myanmar aid and assistance, but not on the same scale as China.
In recent years, India has offered around $800 million in credit to Myanmar to help develop infrastructure such as railways, roads and waterways. New Delhi also is helping build a port in the coastal Myanmar city of Sittwe. That port, Indian officials hope, will act as a trade gateway between India’s northeastern states and southeast Asia.
Bilateral trade between India and Myanmar was around $1.2 billion in 2011. Both sides hope to push trade to $3 billion by 2015.
Singh’s trip follows high level visits to India by Myanmar’s reformist President Thein Sein in October and visits by the foreign ministers of the two countries.
In the 1980s and early 90s, India was a strong supporter of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in her fight against the country’s military. Singh will meet with Suu Kyi on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited Myanmar in 1987, the last visit by an Indian premier. But in the mid-90s, India changed tack to engage with the country’s military junta, resisting pressures from the Western democracies that had imposed economic sanctions on Myanmar.
New Delhi insisted it had to follow a pragmatic policy, because it needed its neighbor’s help to crack down on Indian rebels who had built hideouts in the jungles along the India-Myanmar border
India also argued that Myanmar’s military leaders could be nudged toward democracy only by engaging with them – not by isolating the impoverished nation.
Mathai said India also was opposed to the sanctions because Myanmar was a neighbor.
“When you are a neighboring country, you do not have the choice of a policy and engagement,” Mathai said. “You remain engaged irrespective of the situation.”
In the past year, Myanmar’s military leaders have freed thousands of political prisoners, eased limits on the press and launched a series of economic reform measures. The military-backed regime allowed Suu Kyi’s political party to contest elections and ushered in an elected government.
In April, the European Union suspended most of its sanctions to reward Myanmar’s political reforms. Last week, the United States said it would suspend a ban on American investment in the country.
Nandita Sengupta, TNN | May 26, 2012, 09.07PM IST
NEW DELHI: Hands clasped behind his back, Nazeer Ahmad stands stiff. He’s in a lungi, kurta and skullcap at the edge of a huddle of men speaking to a reporter in the shade of a barely-there tin sheet propped up on bamboo stilts. Listless as he stands on a dusty, barren plot at southeast Delhi’s Madanpur Khadar, he doesn’t join the group. Only when the reporter moves away, he steps up.
“The UN has wronged us,” he says. “The UN has given refugee status to all other Burmese refugees but for us. It says India doesn’t allow it. Why?” His eyes redden in frustration and shoulders droop as he pulls an 8- or 9-year-old girl to stand in front of him. “Why can’t I send her to school? Are my children different from others?” Ahmad is a Rohingya Muslim, one of an estimated 4,000 now in India’s cities. The Rohingyas are from Myanmar’s Arakan region, a strip of land the size of Kerala. It has India (Manipur) to its north, Bangladesh to its northwest across the river Naf, a range of difficult hills cut it off from the rest of Myanmar on the west and the Bay of Bengal to its south.
Activists say Rohingya Muslims are among the world’s most persecuted people. Bias against this ethnic Muslim group is racial and religious, say Rohingya scholars, and is rooted in history. Their ‘Indian’ – read non-Burmese – looks and their religion have been held against them ever since the 18th century when Buddhists conquered the Muslim-ruled Arakan. The hill tracts separating them from the rest of Myanmar added to their woes. They remained “outsiders”. The attempt to depopulate the area and push Arakanese Muslims out has been a sustained campaign, says Tun Khin, London-based leader-activist of the UK’s Burmese Rohingya Organization.
Things turned ugly when the military junta came to power in 1972 and in two years, Rohingya Muslims were stripped of their nationality. Killings, confiscation of property, destruction of mosques and sexual attacks forced more than 200,000 out of the country. In 1982, a citizenship law declared the Rohingyas as “non-national” or “foreign residents”. The Burmese authorities call them “naikanzha” (non-resident without right to land, law or rights) and the region’s Buddhists “thairansa” (residents), says Ahmad, flashing his non-resident Burmese ID card. Arakan’s people are Buddhist and Muslim, and the region was renamed Rakhine in 1989 when Burma was renamed Myanmar.
Their madrassas are padlocked, they have to pay heavy fines if they want to marry, which means most cannot, says 26-year-old Omer Hamza. They can’t send their children to school and they can’t stay over in other villages. The last is the reason most of them make the transit to India via Bangladesh, not directly through Manipur. Reaching the Indian border requires them to pass through villages in Myanmar, which is disallowed so the risk of being jailed is high.
Chased out, they live in the largest numbers in Bangladesh. About 600,000 live in camps in Saudi Arabia, 200,000 in Pakistan. Arakan has about 1.2 million Muslims, says Khin and the 900,000 who remain in Arakan form Myanmar’s largest minority group.
Ahmad fled with his children, wife and mother. The 50-year-old registered himself and his family at the UN’s human rights office in 2009. They issued him a letter recording his registration and a UNHCR card was issued to him in 2011.
Ahmad’s story repeats itself, with changes in details, in each of the approximately 50 tents under the banner of Darul Hijrat of Zakat Foundation, which are now home to about 300 Rohingya Muslims. They were sheltered here by the charity after they were chased out of their Vasant Kunj camp earlier in May.
Inside a tent, Rashida carelessly cradles a weeping three-year-old boy. Both she and the child are running fever; Rashida’s eyes are drawn and she sits tight. The 37-year-old finds it difficult to hold a full bladder all day.
Ever since they were brought here on May 15, the empty plot became ‘home’, but since the bathroom is an adjoining empty plot, the women wait till night to relieve themselves and bathe. “Where to go in these barren fields? It’s all in the open. It’s scary,” says the mother of two daughters and five sons, hastily adding that she is not complaining. It’s not a matter they can discuss with the men, so Fatima simply sits tight.
She rushes to say she is grateful to the NGO for giving them ground under their feet, a cover over their heads, firewood for cooking and rice. The local MLA has promised to provide a water tanker every day.
Toilet inconveniences and health issues that the women face are, after all, no issue at all, they say, compared with the grave matter of their place in the world. Rashida says she simply can’t figure out why they aren’t granted refugee status, which would ensure “a taleem” (education) for her children – five boys and two girls.
But nations are cagey about Rashida and her fellow Rohingyas, uncertain where to fit them in a terror-wary and energy-hungry world.
Who is their leader? Are they a security risk?
About 620 Rohingya families hit the headlines in Delhi in April when they landed up unannounced in tony Vasant Vihar’s UNHCR office to demand refugee status. They first camped in Vasant Vihar, were evicted, squatted in Vasant Kunj, were thrown out, and then many dispersed while 50 families were given shelter by the charity which took pity on them. “It’s a humanitarian effort. We don’t know how long we can keep them. Let’s see,” says the NGO.
As far as organizing protests go, it was a puny affair, their fight reduced to being a “nuisance factor” in new-age Delhi, the city that’s known to make space for refugees. Yet, the coming together of a poor people, rudderless and on the face of it leaderless, raised an alarm. Who is behind them?
The Rohingya leadership is elusive. Some of the more articulate are being pushed to speak up, following the media coverage of their protest outside the UNHCR office. A file of their papers includes appeals filed by a group named Myanmar Rohingya Refugee Committee, led apparently by Delhi-based Shomshul Alam, who lives in Khajuri Khas, Jammu-based Abul Hossin and a Mohammed Salim, who is also from Delhi, says Hamza.
In their Madanpur Khadar group, Nazeer Ahmad and Zia-ur-Rahman are engaging with outsiders. A couple of ‘leaders’ are studying in Deoband too. These are faceless people. It looks more like a desperate poor community cobbling together a representation of sorts.
Tun Khin says he doesn’t know of any organized group of the Rohingya Muslims in India. “The poorer ones with very little provisions are in India.”
But many suspect a “hand” behind them. Their synchronized appearance, apparently out of thin air from across the country, led to a question in the Rajya Sabha with BJP’s Balbir Punj objecting to their remaining in the country and demanding a probe to identify the “organizer”. After a monthlong standoff from April between the Indian government, UNHCR and the protesters, they were given permission to stay in the country till 2015 pending a series of verifications by sundry agencies.
Alongside, a strident letter to the PM and all-who-matter from VHP leader Praveen Togadia has demanded the Rohingyas be thrown out as they were a “security risk”. Togadia, whose letter and a series of attachments are available online refers to a 2005 paper by security analyst B Raman. The paper says the Bangladesh wing of HUJI recruited a “number of Rohingya Muslims” and took them “to Afghanistan to fight Soviet and Afghan troops” in the 1980s. The VHP’s note on Raman’s paper names “24 Bangladeshi/ Rohingya mujahideen” who died during the Afghanistan jihad.
Raman also mentions that a Rohingya group is “projecting itself as HUJI Myanmar”.
The Burmese regimes accuse them of being Bangladeshi infiltrators. One of the main attacks is to red-flag the bogey of Islamization of Myanmar via these ‘Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators’. In Bangladesh, where lakhs have taken shelter, they are called Burmese. “Where do I go?” asks Khin.
In India, the call to throw out the Rohingyas is also based on reports of a number of such Muslims joining terror outfits. How much is the security risk from shelterless people mired in misery? B Raman says, “We don’t know their background. We don’t know who they were in contact with. One has to be cautious.” One of the reasons, says Raman, that Aung San Suu Kyi is not supporting the Rohingyas is because of certain Rohingya groups’ actions against the Burmese army. “While she is talking about some ethnic groupings, she has stayed quiet on the Rohingya,” says Raman, adding that they should simply be repatriated.
One-way ticket out of Myanmar
They look hunted at the idea of a return to Myanmar. Hamza says the very thought of repatriation terrifies; refugee is the only status they can aspire to. “Whatever happens, we can’t return. They’ve taken our houses, our land.”
“We can’t return to Myanmar and we aren’t allowed to be refugees. Where do we go?” says a shaking Ahmad, father of four sons and three daughters. “It will be double ‘zulum’. It’s not an option,” chorus the refugees.
The trip from Arakan to Delhi took him just a week, says Hamza, now the maulana among the Madanpur Khadar group. He had a tiny farm in Arakan. Hamza escaped to India in 2009 in ‘jamadil awal’ or winter. The last straw was when the Burmese army picked him up in an extortion bid. Hamza’s brother, a petty shopkeeper, paid a hefty sum for his release. “We knew that now that they had got the money, they would target me again,” he says.
The exit plan didn’t take long. “The route and arrangements are in place because people have been leaving for a long time now,” says Hamza. From his Arakan village, it was a kishti (canoe) to Chittagong. He bussed it from Chittagong to Dhaka, which ferried “only Burmese”, then a private vehicle from Dhaka to Kolkata and by train to Delhi. It took a week and cash changed hands at every checkpost from his village onwards, ranging from Rs 200 to Rs 3,000 at each point. “When a group moves, many get caught and are dumped in prisons. I was lucky,” he says.
Being cautious over security reasons is one thing, hawkish another. The UN’s denying them refugee status and being satisfied with the Indian government’s extension of their stay is a big dampener for them. “We came to India because it is the land of ‘raham-karam’ (mercy and fate/ providence),” says Hamza.
The UNHCR card that they flash will “only ensure that the police don’t harass us. But we can’t send our children to school,” says Fatima. This concern about the children is not a parrot-like drone; it seems born of watching the very many half-clothed kids running around in the dirt. “My life is finished, but I must think of the children’s future,” says Hamza, aged 26.
Fatima (27), mother of three kids, reached India several years ago, got married here and has lived in several cities for stretches of six to seven months, returning to a given town after a gap. Jalalabad, Jammu, Muzaffarnagar, “some place in Haryana”, and now in Delhi, she racks her memory. She says with a quiet smile: “We have no place to go. ‘Jaane ka koi rasta nahin’. (There are no roads leading anywhere). Wherever we go, we are chased away.”
The Rohingyas live across India from Jammu to Hyderabad, from Uttarkhand’s Bagwari to Jaipur, in pockets in Jalalabad, Baghpat and Muzaffarnagar. These are the main places from where the 620 families came to Delhi, says Hamza, each city having its own loose network of “Burmese refugees”. “We reach the country but have no fixed schedule. We move from a city when we are thrown out,” he says matter-of-factly.
World salivates over energy-rich Arakan
The Rohingya Muslims need help in two ways: with a refugee status to those who have fled the country and putting pressure on the Burmese government to restore land rights to those who remain in the country. Rehabilitation of this ethnic group seems all the more important especially because of the terror links that have surfaced. But nations seem more likely to look the other way.
It’s not as if the world hasn’t heard of Arakan in resource-rich Myanmar, the country abundant in oil, natural gas, coal, zinc, copper, precious stones, timber and hydropower with uranium deposits thrown in too.
Arakan is Myanmar’s richest oil-producing region. Arakanese locals claim they have been extracting oil for over 300 years using makeshift pulleys. Whatever the actual history, Myanmar is certainly one of the world’s oldest oil producers, its first barrel exported in the 1850s. As per CIA figures, Myanmar could have 50 million barrels of oil and 283 cubic metres of natural gas. According to experts, gas will be the main focus of the much-needed foreign investment over the coming years, though there is little data on the extent of reserves.
With the military junta giving way to a civilian government that came to power in February last, the world is eyeing Myanmar hungrily. Strategic affairs analyst Robert Kaplan wrote in Stratfor, “Geographically, Myanmar … is where the spheres of influence of China and India overlap. Think of Myanmar as another Afghanistan in terms of its potential to change a region: a key, geostrategic puzzle piece ravaged by war and ineffective government that, if only normalized, would unroll trade routes in all directions.”
He goes on to talk about the immense potential of the region. “At Ramree Island off the Arakan coast, the Chinese are constructing pipelines to take oil and natural gas from Africa, the Persian Gulf and Bay of Bengal across the heart of Myanmar to Kunming. There will also be a high-speed rail line roughly along this route by 2015.
“India too is constructing an energy terminal at Sittwe [Arakan] that will potentially carry offshore natural gas northwest through Bangladesh to West Bengal. The Indian pipeline would split into two directions, with another proposed route going to the north around Bangladesh. Commercial goods will follow along new highways to be built to India. Kolkata, Chittagong and Yangon, rather than being cities in three separate countries, will finally be part of one Indian Ocean world.”
If that weren’t euphoric enough, “The salient fact here is that by liberating Myanmar, India’s hitherto landlocked northeast, lying on the far side of Bangladesh, will also be opened up to the outside. Northeast India has suffered from bad geography and underdevelopment, and as a consequence it has experienced about a dozen insurgencies in recent decades … Myanmar’s political opening and economic development changes this geopolitical fact, because both India’s northeast and Bangladesh will benefit from Myanmar’s political and economic renewal.
“With poverty reduced somewhat in all these areas, the pressure on Kolkata and West Bengal to absorb economic refugees will be alleviated.” He signs off on an impossibly positive note, “If Myanmar can build pan-ethnic institutions … it could come close to being a midlevel power in its own right…”
The operative words being “if” and “pan-ethnic”. A look at the state of the Rohingya Muslims, one can only wonder.
The road ahead
Rohingyas saw a ray of hope when the civilian government promised to talk with the many dispossessed ethnic groups in Myanmar including the insurgent groups. But once the government announced the groups it would be talking to, their name was conspicuously missing. “While the government has engaged in talks with several other ethnic groups, not even a whisper in the wind of talking about Rohingyas,” says Khin.
Discrimination is growing, says Nurul Islam, president of the London-based Arakan Rohingya National Organization. In a March 29 interview, he said, “There is no change of attitude of the new civilian government of U Thein Sein towards Rohingya people; there is no sign of change in the human rights situation of Rohingya people. Persecution against them is actually greater than before.”
For the world, their predicament has remained a blind spot. There’s little coverage on their plight.
The UNHCR, which takes care of ‘Arakanese Muslims’ in the region, does not mention the term Rohingya in its online literature on Myanmar, choosing to refer to them as Arakanese Muslims. “The UNHCR works in Arakan with an understanding with the regime. It is on a contract. Though Rohingya is established in international community, UNHCR avoids using the term,” says Khin. Can lopping off their core identity help assimilate or mainstream this ethnic group?
The UNHCR says it supports the 800,000 Muslim residents in the northern part of the region that was renamed Rakhine state (NRS), who do not have citizenship.” Its website says, “There has been no improvement in the legal status or living conditions of the Muslim residents of NRS. With the government’s response to the proposals being a reiteration of current policies, UNHCR foresees a continuing need for programmes to assist residents without citizenship in NRS.”
Fears are strong that the coming 2014 census that the Burmese government has promised may bypass the existence of the Rohingya Muslims altogether. NGOs are stepping up their agitation in the run-up to the census, says Khin.
These fears were given credence by recent reports that senior government officials have said that there are no ’stateless people in Myanmar’ while the immigration minister reiterated the allegation that the Rohingyas are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
At Madanpur Khadar, they have no place to go. And they are praying they will not outstay their welcome. The charity has taken no decision, but has provisioned for about a month, says Dr Najaf, its secretary.
Does India have reason to fear Rashida? If you look at the plight of this young population, not today. But if we don’t take care of her and her children, who knows what these kids will be doing a few years from now? They’re sitting ducks, easy prey.
By Ashis Chakrabarti | www.telegraphindia.com – 16 hours ago New Delhi, May 25: The simple two-storeyed house in Yangon, with the leafy University Avenue in front and the picturesque Inya Lake at its back, is one place Manmohan Singh will not visit during his trip to Myanmar. Thereby hangs a diplomatic tale around an Indian Prime Minister’s first visit to that long-closed country in 25 years.
Singh obviously is no David Cameron, Hillary Clinton or UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon.
Cameron was the first British Prime Minister to visit Myanmar since the country’s independence from colonial rule in 1948. Clinton was the first US secretary of state to do so since John Foster Dulles’s visit there in 1955. Ban Ki-moon addressed Myanmar’s parliament when he visited the country in 2009 but was denied permission to meet Aung San Suu Kyi. He made it up when he followed Cameron to Nay Pai Taw last month.
They all went to that house to meet Suu Kyi, who lived there for over two decades under house arrest. Meeting Suu Kyi in that house always had its diplomatic and symbolic points that these leaders could not do without making.
For Singh, though, not meeting one of the world’s best-known pro-democracy leaders in that house apparently became a matter of much diplomatic hair-splitting. The result is a victory for, not democratic symbolism, but diplomatic “protocol”. Singh will meet Suu Kyi at a hotel.
Each country has its own ideas of diplomatic protocol, official sources here argued, suggesting that where Singh meets Suu Kyi should not be seen as a matter of great diplomatic significance.
Suu Kyi is now an elected member of Myanmar’s parliament and the Indian Prime Minister could not go to her house for a meeting. The protocol requires that she calls on Singh.
The decision cannot be faulted on diplomatic grounds, but it shows how India has tried to balance its Myanmar policy between supporting that country’s democracy movement and reaching out to the generals who have ruled the country for four decades.
The usual official argument here is: it is not so much a question of reaching out to the generals as taking a pragmatic view of India’s relations with Myanmar. And, India has to do things differently with
Myanmar because, unlike with the West, the two countries are neighbours who share over 2,000km of border between them.
The other argument is that India’s earlier policy of complete disengagement had not worked. It ended up in turning Myanmar into a client state of China. So, when the policy changed to a resumed engagement with Myanmar, India had no option but to do business with the generals.
But Suu Kyi’s people in Myanmar did not quite see the pragmatism in the shift in Indian policy. Not just the pro-democracy activists in Myanmar but even other countries were disappointed that India moved away from supporting Suu Kyi as vigorously as it did in the early years of her movement.
Among those who were disappointed was none other than US President Barack Obama. And he did not hesitate to express his disappointment during his visit to India in November 2010.
During his speech in Indian Parliament, Obama said: “When peaceful democratic movements are suppressed as they have been in Burma, for example, then the democracies of the world cannot remain silent…. Faced with such gross violations of human rights, it is the responsibility of the international community, especially leaders like the United States and India, to condemn it. And I can be frank, in
international fora, India has often shied away from some of these issues.”
Singh’s visit has enormous potential to make amends for many omissions of the past and to make India once again a significant partner in a new Myanmar’s progress to becoming a normal country. But the omission of Suu Kyi’s house from Singh’s Myanmar itinerary is something that will leave its own message.
Published May 26, 2012
Associated Press
NEW DELHI – The visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Myanmar on Sunday is the latest sign that India now believes it needs to assert its presence in its eastern neighbor.
The visit underscores India’s quest for energy supplies to fuel its economic boom and concerns about China’s strong influence in Myanmar, where the elected — but military-backed — government is opening up its economy for investment and trade.
In recent years, India has nervously watched Beijing’s domination of Myanmar’s oil and gas exploration projects. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers are in Myanmar working on infrastructure and other projects.
Indian officials, however, are loath to admit that India’s Myanmar policy is being driven by China’s inroads there.
India wants to “secure a stronger and mutually beneficial relationship with a neighboring country that is integral to India’s Look East policy,” Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai told journalists Friday.
India has adopted a “Look East” policy of engaging with southeast and east Asia, reaching out and deepening bilateral ties with Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Indonesia among others in the region.
Singh’s visit will be the first in 25 years by an Indian prime minister, although the two countries share a 1,600-kilometer (1,000-mile) land border, as well as a maritime border in the Bay of Bengal.
Myanmar, which was once known as Burma, had been an international pariah for decades under a military junta that quashed any hopes of democratic reform. A 2010 election, though, has lead to at least some reforms and a gradual opening up to the rest of the world.
The competition between India and China in Myanmar is expected to surface again when Myanmar begins auctioning new natural gas blocks, both offshore and onshore, in which Indian companies are expected to participate actively.
“It would be in Myanmar’s interest to not put all its eggs in one basket,” says Rajiv Bhatia, a former Indian ambassador to Myanmar, referring to China’s overwhelming presence in Myanmar’s oil and gas exploration sector.
Mathai said that during Singh’s visit, the two countries are slated to start a bus link between Imphal, capital of India’s Manipur state, and Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city.
India also will announce the creation of an IT training institute, an agricultural research center and a rice research park in Myanmar, Mathai said.
Over decades of isolation by the West, China reached out to Myanmar, building billions of dollars in roads and gas pipelines in the impoverished country.
New Delhi too has offered Myanmar aid and assistance, but not on the same scale as China.
In recent years, India has offered around $800 million in credit to Myanmar to help develop infrastructure such as railways, roads and waterways. New Delhi also is helping build a port in the coastal Myanmar city of Sittwe. That port, Indian officials hope, will act as a trade gateway between India’s northeastern states and southeast Asia.
Bilateral trade between India and Myanmar was around $1.2 billion in 2011. Both sides hope to push trade to $3 billion by 2015.
Singh’s trip follows high level visits to India by Myanmar’s reformist President Thein Sein in October and visits by the foreign ministers of the two countries.
In the 1980s and early 90s, India was a strong supporter of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in her fight against the country’s military. Singh will meet with Suu Kyi on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited Myanmar in 1987, the last visit by an Indian premier. But in the mid-90s, India changed tack to engage with the country’s military junta, resisting pressures from the Western democracies that had imposed economic sanctions on Myanmar.
New Delhi insisted it had to follow a pragmatic policy, because it needed its neighbor’s help to crack down on Indian rebels who had built hideouts in the jungles along the India-Myanmar border
India also argued that Myanmar’s military leaders could be nudged toward democracy only by engaging with them — not by isolating the impoverished nation.
Mathai said India also was opposed to the sanctions because Myanmar was a neighbor.
“When you are a neighboring country, you do not have the choice of a policy and engagement,” Mathai said. “You remain engaged irrespective of the situation.”
In the past year, Myanmar’s military leaders have freed thousands of political prisoners, eased limits on the press and launched a series of economic reform measures. The military-backed regime allowed Suu Kyi’s political party to contest elections and ushered in an elected government.
In April, the European Union suspended most of its sanctions to reward Myanmar’s political reforms. Last week, the United States said it would suspend a ban on American investment in the country.
Calcutta News.Net
Saturday 26th May, 2012 (IANS)
Myanmar, which Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits Sunday, was for decades isolated from the world but has begun opening up and embracing democracy.
Sandwiched between India, China, Bangladesh, Thailand and Laos, Myanmar is being wooed by both neighbours and developed countries.
Visitors from both the West and East are ‘landing there like an avalanche’, says India’s former ambassador Rajiv Bhatia.
For India, Myanmar is a gateway to the economically vibrant Southeast Asia. For Myanmar, India – with which it shares a 1,600 km border and centuries-old civilisational ties, is the bridge to the growing economy of South Asia. The prime ministerial comes after 25 years, the last being Rajiv Gandhi in 1987.
Sanctions had crippled the country that has seen nearly 50 years of military rule. Today, a nominally civilian government rules the country.
A former diplomat referred to it as a ‘controlled or managed democracy’ where political reforms still have a long way to go.
The military occupies 25 percent of the seats in the national parliament, whose prominent member now is the India-educated pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The dramatic reforms initiated by President Thein Sein since last year has earned appreciation for Myanmar. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton became Myanmar’s most high profile visitor in November last year. It was the first by a top American official in over 50 years. John Foster Dulles visited Myanmar in 1955.
Myanmar was ruled by the military junta from 1962 to 2011. The first parliamentary election in 20 years was held in 2010 but it was boycotted by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD). The NLD won a landslide victory in the previous multi-party election in 1990 but was not allowed to govern.
A nominally civilian government led by President Thein Sein – who served as a general and then prime minister – was installed in March 2011.
According to an estimate, some 30 international companies from over 10 countries, including India, are involved in Myanmar’s oil and gas sector. About 30 percent of neighbouring Thailand’s electricity is generated by natural gas from Myanmar.
Yet, the country of 54 million is among the poorest in the region. Myanmar is also well-endowed with rich hydropower resources with an estimated potential of 37,000 megawatts.
Another former Indian ambassador describes it as a land of ‘interesting possibilities’ but cautions against being ‘too optimistic’ about political changes.
A principally rural and forested country, Myanmar is the world’s largest exporter of teak and a principal source of jade, pearls, rubies and saphires. It has extremely fertile soil.
But Myanmar has also faced years of ethnic tension. The largest ethnic group are the Burman who dominate over Karen, Shan, Rakhine, Mon, Chin, Kachin and other minorities.
India shares a winding and porous border with Myanmar. For a long time, insurgents from India, particularly those from the northeast, operated openly in Myanmar. But as New Delhi’s ties improved with Yangon, the situation changed and anti-India insurgents were forced out of its jungles.
Calcutta News.Net
Saturday 26th May, 2012 (IANS) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Saturday met President Pratibha Patil and discussed the just-concluded parliament session and his visit to Myanmar, beginning Sunday.
The meeting between the two lasted 40 minutes, a communique issued by Rashtrapati Bhavan said here.
“The two leaders discussed the just concluded budget session of the parliament, the state of the economy and the political situation,” the statement said.
The prime minister also briefed Patil about his forthcoming visit to Myanmar.
Manmohan Singh will Sunday become the first Indian prime minister in 25 years to visit Myanmar on a three-day official trip to boost trade and connectivity with the gateway to Southeast Asia.
May 25, 2012 6:04 AM EDT
When Aung San Suu Kyi left her husband and children in England to visit her ailing mother in Myanmar 24 years ago, she never imagined that she’d be stuck inside the Southeast Asian country for 24 years.
Now, according to Reuters, she will leave Myanmar for the first time since returning there in 1988. Suu Kyi recently accepted an invitation to next week’s World Economic Forum on East Asia in Bangkok, Thailand. She is also scheduled to accept an honorary doctorate from Oxford University, her alma mater, on June 20. While in London, she will address the British Parliament.
Suu Kyi, who was born in Myanmar (then Burma), was the daughter of the famous General Aung San, a hero in the country’s struggle for independence from Britain. The general was assassinated when Suu Kyi was only a toddler, but her mother Khin Kyi stayed in the political sphere.
When Khin Kyi was appointed the Burmese ambassador to India in 1960, a teenage Suu Kyi went with her to New Delhi. In 1964, she was 18 and ready to attend university. She elected to study philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University.
It was there she met her husband, a fellow academic named Michael Aris. The two shared a lifelong interest in Southeast Asian politics, and eventually settled down to raise a family.
After living for over a decade in England with her husband and giving birth to two sons, Suu Kyi learned that her mother had fallen ill. She scheduled a flight to her home country, expecting to return soon to her family.
Suu Kyi was in Myanmar through December of 1988, when her mother passed away. But the young activist decided not to return to England just yet.
Face Of Oppposition Movement
Swept up in Myanmar politics, where a military junta had controlled the country since 1962, the daughter of an independence hero became the face of a growing opposition movement. She waged a campaign of peaceful resistance against the dictatorial leader General Ne Win and his oppressive junta, traveling throughout the country to organize rallies and call for fair elections. She became the leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), which swept a parliamentary vote in 1990. But the military seized power following the election, and the popular Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest.
Years went by. While she was detained in Myanmar, her two adolescent sons matured into adulthood. The elder son, Alexander, was a teenager when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on his mother’s behalf. He said at the ceremony that Aung San Suu Kyi “has come to be a worthy symbol through whom the plight of all the people of Burma may be recognized.” The younger brother, Kim, also spoke frequently about his mother, even getting a tattoo of the NLD flag on his arm.
Then, in 1997, Suu Kyi’s husband was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.
At that point, Aung San Suu Kyi had been temporarily freed from house arrest. Myanmar officials even encouraged her to visit her ailing husband, but the political activist decided to stay put.
“Regretfully, she refused the government’s offer and the discussion abruptly ended with the officers [told] to leave her residence,” said a government spokesman to the BBC in 1999. She feared that she would not be allowed to return to Myanmar, and knew that her presence there was instrumental in continuing the resistance movement.
Aris applied for a visa to visit his wife before his death, but was repeatedly refused by the Myanmar government. He died in 1999, on his 53rd birthday.
Following repeated incarcerations and prolonged periods of house arrest, Suu Kyi was finally freed for the last time in 2010.
Myanmar: Slow Liberalization Process
Myanmar is now slowly liberalizing under President Thein Sein, a process that accelerated when recent parliamentary elections resulted in a sweeping victory for the NLD. Though a military junta still holds significant power over the government, the election marked a milestone in Myanmar’s democratization.
Suu Kyi and her many supporters are still fighting for greater political transparency and market openness. Myanmar has been the subject of renewed international attention and praise in recent months — it was only a matter of time before the country’s most ardent activist would be invited to bring her message of peace beyond Myanmar’s borders.
For Suu Kyi, the decision to fight for the people of Myanmar came at a high personal cost. With her husband gone and her sons grown, there is little for her to return to in England. Justice for Myanmar has become her driving cause and ultimate passion.
Now stepping beyond those borders for the first time in so many years, Suu Kyi can look forward to a warm welcome from members of the international community. Her ultimate goal is the same one that has driven her through all those years of repression and detainment — but now, her sphere of influence is growing even wider.
By News Desk in Balik Pulau/The Star | Asia News Network – 7 hours ago Balik Pulau (The Star/ANN) – Two Myanmar nationals were killed and 44 others injured yesterday when a bus they were travelling in plunged 10 metres into a ravine in Balik Pulau.
The deceased, identified as Abdul Jatba, 47, was killed on the spot after he was flung out from the vehicle.
The other dead passenger, whose identity is still not known at press time, was believed to have succumbed to his injuries after he was extricated from the wreckage.
The impact of the crash ripped off the entire roof of the bus.
Balik Pulau officer in charge of police department Superintendent Mohd Hatta Mohd Zain said there were 46 people in the bus, including two drivers. The Myanmar nationals were on their way to attend a religious event.
He said 13 passengers were reported to be in critical condition while the rest suffered minor injuries during the 8pm incident at the winding and busy stretch of Jalan Tun Sardon.
It is learnt that the driver lost control while travelling downhill.
The police, Fire and Rescue Department and the Civil Defence rescue units scrambled to the scene but were hampered by bad weather and poor visibility.
Firemen scaled down the narrow slope on ropes to rescue the injured before rushing them to Balik Pulau Hospital, while some were later referred to Penang Hospital.
Contract worker Htai Win, 30, said he was sitting at the back of the bus and then felt it tilting.
He then heard screams and shouts.
“The next thing I knew, the bus overturned and everyone was frantically looking for an exit,” he said.
The worker suffered head injuries and bruises.
Another victim, known only as Mohd Shuib, said he caught a whiff of something burning.
“Shortly after that the bus hit a lamp post and overturned,” he said.
Penang Fire and Rescue Department director Azmi Tamat said they received a distress call at about 8:05 p.m. and the first fire engine reached the scene some 10 minutes later.
By Zin Linn May 26, 2012 8:35PM UTC
Intolerable for electricity-power shortages, demonstrators have taken the street in several towns in Burma this week, including former capital Rangoon and ancient capital Mandalay since citizens test the limit of democratic changes, warning the one-year old quasi-civilian government to take responsibilities for the incompetence management.
After standing by the protests for a few days, police cracked down a gathering in the town of Pyi in Bago Division, at least five protesters had faced temporary incarceration. In Mandalay, many member from the National League for Democracy led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi were temporarily held for questioning.
In one Reuters news, Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said it was important for Burma (Myanmar) as a ASEAN country to stay the course and resist any temptation to suppress dissent.
“If a country or society aspires to open to democracy, it has to be prepared to deal with popular participation, pressure, demand, conflicts, tension, in some cases violence,” Surin, a former foreign minister of Thailand, told Reuters in an interview.
Burmese people have been suffering power shortage for more than two decades. Although the military-dominated regime gains a large sum of hard currency by exporting the natural gas to neighbouring countries, it neglects sharing the indispensable power supplies to its citizens for twenty years.
The government has exploited building national development projects through international financial assistance with no planning of national development via from its export-incomes. Significantly the public sector (health, education, sanitation, clean water, electricity etc) has never benefitted from the country’s natural gas export earnings.
For instance, it obtained US$2.947 billion in the first 11 months of the fiscal year 2011-12, up about US$424.77 from US$2.522 billion in 2010-11. Natural gas export earning stood at US$2.926 billion in 2009-10, up from US$2.384 in 2008-09, according to the Flower News Journal. But, amazingly, these natural gas export net earnings are never transferred to the budget and never used for social and infrastructure development, especially in ethnic minority regions.
Meanwhile, news from Xinhua says that China will encourage its enterprises to discuss cooperation on upgrading Myanmar’s power grid in order to help ease power shortages in the country, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a routine press conference Thursday.
Anti-blackout Protesters accused the current government of selling energy resources to China, which, they articulate, has led to frequent power cut in the resource-rich country.
Burma’s military-backed quasi-civilian government has cautioned the protestors against power shortages to abide by the law. Remarkably, President’s political adviser Ko Ko Hlaing said in a press conference that whereas protests were accustomed to a democratic country, they are required to be authorized and nonviolent. Under new public demonstration laws, public gatherings need to get permission from authorities and they need to apply for permission at least a week ahead.
In a press statement dated 21 May 2012 by the Kachin Development Networking Group, Chinese media last week revealed that the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) is currently conducting an “independent” inspection of the Irrawaddy Myitsone dam, being built by China Power Investment Corporation (CPI), to prove that the dam is completely safe and beneficial.
Such a study would be a major boost in CPI’s bid to push ahead with the suspended project. According to Xu Zeping of the Chinese Committee on Large Dams, a member of ICOLD, the Myitsone project “is currently under third-party inspection in order to drive out people’s doubts.” – KDNG’s statement says. http://kachinlandnews.com/?p=21817
In 2011 September, President Thein Sein government has suspended a controversial $3.6 billion hydroelectric power project which has faced objections from various social strata nationwide.
The 500-foot dam has been under construction at the confluence of the Mali Hka River and N’Mai Hka River, 27 miles north of the Kachin capital of Myitkyina. Construction at Myitsone began on December 21, 2009, led by China’s state owned China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) in cooperation with Burma’s Asia World Company (AWC) and the Burmese government’s No. 1 Ministry of Electric Power.
Nevertheless, China’s lobbying for Myitsone dam project may not be agreed by the majority population of Burma since the Irrawaddy River is not only the lifeline of the country but also it is the most important reason for environmental devastation. As majority of Burmese citizens opposed the massive dam project, the current president decided to suspend it. The president’s decision seems to avoid a nationwide protest in time.
On the other hand, Burma’s Nobel laureate and opposition party leader Aung San Suu Kyi gave speeches this week at the opening ceremonies of three NLD’s Township offices in downtown Rangoon.
“I am fond of peaceful protest news I observed on the radio that Mandalay citizens launched a protest holding candles,” she said.
“They protest as they need electricity. Power shortage takes place in this country for so many years due to policy error. However, it is impossible to revise the situation within a short period. But, people have their right to protest for their need. So, I support peaceful protest,” Suu Kyi said.
Some analysts think that if the government neglected to address the issue of power cut, it could change into a mass demonstration within a few months because it directly interrelated with the large corruption cases in various power development projects run by high-ranking officials.
MYANMAR – ASIA
AsiaNews.it – Myanmar starts to open up its economy to the world with energy, advertising and money trading
With the partial lifting of US and EU sanctions, US, Japanese and South Korean energy conglomerates plan to build plants that would end Myanmar’s chronic power shortages. Advertising agency plans to hit local TV and roads. Beijing sees Myanmar as its access road to the Bay of Bengal. Yangon (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Myanmar has become a beehive of economic activities as US, Japanese and South Korean companies vie to build power plants, a foreign advertising agency sets up shop and China opens a cross-border yuan centre on the Myanmar-Chinese border. For a country that was ruled for decades by a harsh military regime that turned it into one of the most isolated countries in the world under tough international sanctions, the country formerly known as Burma is now making quite a comeback on the international stage. A new elected parliament and a quasi-civilian government, albeit still beholden to a still strong military, plus some democratic reforms and the return to active politics by opposition leader and Nobel Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi have led to the lifting of the US and EU sanctions and to the opening of a new and appetising market.
The Myanmar government plans to build a series of new power plants with US, Japanese and South Korean companies. Myanmar’s Ministry of Electric Power-2 said the power plants would be constructed by General Electric Co. and Caterpillar Co. of the United States; J Power Co. of Japan; and the BKB Co. of South Korea, state-run New Light of Myanmar wrote. However, there is no date for the construction to begin.
The matter is urgent. Street protests have occurred over power shortages, the first since the Saffron Revolution of September 2007, which the military suppressed violently.
The problem has been made more acute by low rainfall during the monsoon season.
In Mandalay and other northern regions near the border with China, residents have complained that power is being sold to China despite the fact that current output cannot meet domestic demand.
Myanmar has 18 hydropower stations, 1 coal-fired station and 10 gas-fired power stations. They generate a maximum of about 1,610 MW during the monsoon season.
The government has also decided to use the services of a worldwide ad agency in hopes of attracting the first wave of foreign investors to the country. New York-based Ogilvy & Mather, part of the global WPP group, is the first western advertising group to invest in Burma since sanctions were eased. On Monday, it said that it had agreed to buy a stake in Today Advertising, the nation’s most prominent ad agency, especially in TV since the Internet remains marginal for now.
Ogilvy & Mather, which was the first international ad agency to set up in Vietnam in 1994, now has set its eyes on Myanmar’s small (US$ 33 million in 2011) but potentially large advertising market.
For its part, Myanmar’s long-time (and assertive) partner China continues its move into country. Its latest move is a cross-border yuan centre in Ruili, in the south-west province of Yunnan on the border with Myanmar.
As China’s neighbour opens up to foreign business, a yuan centre will promote exchanging yuan with the Myanmar kyat, and guarantee China a greater place in Myanmar’s market.
Myanmar can offer China a new trading route to the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, lowering shipping costs for exporters in central China.
Lastly, India is now looking at Myanmar with renewed interest. New Delhi is bent on catching up to Beijing, its direct regional and international competitor.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit Myanmar next week, the first Indian head of government to visit the former Burma in 25 years, in order to boost trade between the two countries.
Natural resources development will take priority, but Singh’s agenda will also include border controls to contain refugees and ethnic militias.
BBC News – Burma’s ethnic conflicts see slow progress to resolution The Burmese authorities are trying to reach lasting peace agreements with the country’s many ethnic groups, but it is proving a long and complex process, as the BBC’s Jonah Fisher reports.
“Six, seven… hold on probably a few more than that,” said David Mathieson, furrowing his brow as he listed Burma’s armed groups.
“The Karen, the Karenni, the Shan, the Kachin, the Chin, the United Wa State Army, the Mon, the Mongla… have I forgotten anyone?”
Mr Mathieson, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, has been following developments in Burma closely for the last decade, but understanding its many ethnic wars is enough to give even the most seasoned observer a headache.
We travelled through Shan State to witness one small part of Burma’s multi-pronged peace process. Started by President Thein Sein last August, its aim is to bring the country’s many festering conflicts to a close.
Our invitation was to accompany the rebel Shan State Army, along with a large group of Thai and Burmese journalists and “Bob”, their smartly dressed and secretive American military adviser.
For Khuen Sae, a veteran Burmese journalist, it was a first proper trip back home for almost 45 years. When he finished school in 1969, he joined the rebel Mong Tai army.
Then, when its warlord leader, Khun Sa, surrendered in 1996, he went into exile in Thailand and started a news agency.
“I feel both excited and sad at the same time,” he said.
Whether by accident or because there were no other accommodation options, the Burmese authorities lodged the Shan delegation at a highly sensitive location.
The New Keng Tung hotel is built on the site of what the Shan see as one of the biggest acts of cultural desecration carried out by the ethnic Burmese. In 1991 a Shan royal palace was destroyed here to make way for new buildings.
“When a Burmese palace went into ruins, they rebuilt it.” Khuen Sae said. “But they destroyed this one and it was still in existence. This is an example of why the non-Burmese are fighting against the Burmese.”
‘Trust him’
But the choice of hotel did not seem to concern the Shan State Army and their leader, Yawd Serk, too much.
With a fighting force of about 5,000 men, the rebels control small pockets of land near the Thai border and are limited to guerrilla attacks against the Burmese military. For them, President Thein Sein’s offer of talks presented a way out.
“The president’s announcement of reconciliation and invitation to the armed groups is why we came here,” Yawd Serk said. “I trust him, that’s why I’m here and why we’ve stopped fighting.”
So in a large room at a military guesthouse overlooking Keng Tung, 11 Shan State Army representatives wearing traditional orange tunics sat opposite 11 representatives from the Burmese authorities.
In the past, ethnic groups had complained that agreements reached with the government negotiating team carried little weight with the Burmese military on the ground.
This time, there were plenty of men in military fatigues.
Alongside Aung Min, Burma’s Railways Minister and chief negotiator, sat Soe Win, the deputy commander in chief of the Burmese army, and three regional commanders who operate in Shan State.
The deal they reached after a day of talks was aimed at consolidating December’s ceasefire agreement. The exact boundaries of each side’s territory was committed to paper and safe areas for displaced people established.
But this was, more than anything, about building trust and paving the way for future discussions. The government’s current strategy is ambitious, some might say impossible.
“The president has adopted a three-stage roadmap. The first stage is the ceasefire agreements, the second stage political dialogue and then the third stage is a national meeting of all the ethnic groups,” Minister Aung Min said after the talks.
“We are planning to complete the process by 2015 within the tenure of this parliament.”
Communication ‘breakdown’
That national meeting has been nicknamed “Panglong II” and is due to replace the first Panglong agreement.
That treaty, signed in 1947 by – among others – Aung San San Kyi’s father, established the “full autonomy in internal administration” of what was then called Burma’s “Frontier Areas”, namely the Shan, Chin and Kachin people. For all its noble intentions, it counted for little once the military had taken over.
But while some groups have accepted the offer of talks and a ceasefire, other conflicts discovered new life. In Kachin in the far north, tens of thousands of people have been displaced by clashes in the last few weeks between rebels and government troops.
Some see that as proof that parts of the Burmese army are not following a presidential order calling for restraint, and evidence of a schism between reformers and the military.
The official word from the government delegation at the talks was that the Kachin fighting was due to a “breakdown of communication to remote areas”.
Ceasefires being signed and subsequently breaking down have become a recurring part of Burma’s post-independence history.
In part, that is because of the fundamental incompatibility of ethnic groups wanting autonomy while the Burmese military tried to impose a strong centralised system.
But with the new civilian-lead government of President Thein Sein and the fast pace of reforms has come a degree of optimism.
“It’s going to be incredibly difficult because a lot of the claims by different groups are really quite different,” said David Mathieson of Human Rights Watch.
“The size of the groups and the territories they occupy are also very different but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility.”
Yangon, May 26 : An armed group called the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) blew up a power grid post in Myanmar’s northern Shan state, state media reported Saturday.
Friday’s explosion hit the Namhkam-Muse 66-KV power grid. The bottom of a concrete post of the power grid was damaged in the attack, Xinhua reported citing the New Light of Myanmar daily.
Another mine was found at a second concrete pole.
Authorities said damage to towers can affect electricity supply and bring more problems to the people.
An explosion in a 230-KV power grid in Shan state last week affected the power supply to Yangon’s industrial zones.
Published: 26/05/2012 at 06:19 PM
Online news: Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will visit a Karen refugee camp along the Thai-Myanmar border in Tak province on Thursday during her visit to Thailand.
The visit comes at the request of the Karen National Union, which invited the Nobel Peace Prize winner to see the living conditions of Karen refugees who had fled the fighting in Myanmar.
Many Karen refugees also wanted to see the 66-year-old democracy icon, a senior KNU official said on Saturday at the KNU base opposite Mae Sot district in Tak.
Mrs Suu Kyi is preparing to make her first trip outside of Myanmar in 24 years, about 15 of which were spent under house arrest by the military junta.
She will also attend the World Economic Forum on East Asia (WEF), being held in Bangkok from Wednesday to Friday.
Myanmar President Thein Sein will also attend the forum and is scheduled to deliver a speech on the country’s future on Friday.
Thein Sein has initiated several reforms since taking office in March 2011, including opening political dialogue with Mrs Suu Kyi that has paved the away for her entry into mainstream politics.
Mrs Suu Kyi has a busy schedule in Europe later in June. On June 14 she will attend the annual meeting of the UN International Labour Organization in Geneva.
She is scheduled to give her belated Nobel Peace Prize address in Oslo two days later — 21 years after winning the award.
She will then travel to Britain to celebrate her birthday on June 19 with her two sons, who live there.
By Perry Chiaramonte, Mike Jaccarino
FoxNews.com, Published May 25, 2012
Before 9/11, Burma native Than Naing served fast food. Ever since the terror attacks, he’s served the United States.
Spurred into action in 2001 by the sight of the World Trade Center towers falling, Naing overcame daunting odds to become a Marine and has since been wounded fighting in both Iraq and Afghanistan and earned the elite fighting corps’ Marine of the Year award. He became a citizen in 2007, recently earned his college degree and is working toward his next one, all while proudly serving in the military and earning the admiration of his commanding officers.
“I’m a U.S. citizen and I felt like I needed to do something for this country,” the soft-spoken war veteran said. “That’s what being a citizen is all about.”
Naing was 23 when his mother won a green card lottery. Although she and the rest of the family stayed behind, Naing sprang at the chance to start a new life in America.
Speaking no English and knowing no one, he moved to New York City in 2000. He was working at a Queens McDonald’s when Al Qaeda terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center, and he felt the pain and anger of his fellow New Yorkers. He asked neighbors how he could fight for America, and they told him to join the Marines.
“I went to a recruiting station a week later to join,” he said. “I saw what happened on the television and I felt terrible. I had to help. I had to do something.”
The Marines weren’t ready for their newest volunteer, because he wasn’t fluent in English. But the recruiter saw something in the earnest immigrant and agreed to help him learn the language skills he needed to pass the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. Working nightly for an entire year, they got Naing through the exam. By May 2004, Naing shipped out for boot camp at Parris Island in South Carolina.
Pfc. Naing soon found himself in Iraq, patrolling the streets of Fallujah. It was there that he learned in 2006 that his mother had died. Believing he was needed on duty, he didn’t even tell his commanding officers.
In his own words
As a citizen of the United States of America, I believe that I have a responsibility to protect the country. I have freedom of choice; I have responsibility for my individual freedom and we are equal in the
All the Marines and sailors are my brothers. We all been through all the training and hardship. We protect each other and we respect each other. We came from different backgrounds and different families, but we love each other.
The United States Marine Corps gave me leadership skills, experience and the ability to make difficult decisions in stressful situations. I like to say I was “born in Burma, but made in U.S.A.”
“I felt bad, like I should go back to Burma to see my mom,” Naing remembered. “At the same time, I was in Fallujah in war with my friends, and I didn’t want to leave them behind.”
Several months later, during the height of the insurgency, Naing was shot in the left shoulder and pulled out of duty. He was sent home to Camp Lejune, where he was assigned to the Injured Support Unit at the Wounded Warrior Barracks. While there, Naing mentored junior Marines and studied for his associate degree, and received the Marine of the Year award at Wounded Warrior Battalion-East at Camp Lejeune.
“He leads by example and inspiration,” said Maj. Paul Greenberg, executive officer for Wounded Warrior Battalion-East. “The thing that most impresses me about Sgt. Naing are his genuine humility and his desire to pursue all the positive things that life has to offer.”
After two years of rehab, Naing demanded to return to duty. He was sent back to fight with his old unit, now stationed in Afghanistan. In June 2010, he was checking the perimeter near a vehicle checkpoint in Marjah when a firefight broke out. Naing was directing his squad’s fire when he was shot in the chest by a Taliban fighter.
Losing blood and drifting in and out of consciousness, Naing was flown out of the fighting zone and brought back after treatment to Camp Lejeune, where he has been rehabbing ever since.
“I thought I was going to die,” he said. “But we have training of how to act when you get shot. We’re not supposed to close our eyes, don’t give up, keep breathing normally. I focused on my training and it got me through.”
Naing has been rehabbing hard, pushing himself with weight training and swimming and is determined to serve another tour on the frontline. He is also working towards earning a bachelor’s degree, beginning with classes this summer.
Even his battle-hardened commanding officers are inspired by Naing’s determination and devotion to his country. Greenberg said the Marines are lucky to have a man like Naing.
“Sgt. Naing embodies everything that is admirable about Marines,” said Greenberg. “It is people like [him] who make me proud to wear the Marine Corps uniform.”
By CHARLIE CAMPBELL / THE IRRAWADDY| May 26, 2012
Ethnic minorities in northern Burma are suffering massive human rights abuses at the hands of government troops due to foreign-backed investment projects, according to a new report.
Catalyst for Conflict, by the Ta’ang Students and Youth Organization (TSYO), accuses Burmese government troops of being paid to protect Chinese mega projects and inflicting executions, beatings, forced labor and extortion on local people as a consequence.
Oil and gas pipelines plus hydropower dams have been the subject of a huge public outcry, and so Burmese government soldiers are apparently being employed as mercenary security guards by the companies concerned.
In March, two villagers coming back from fishing near a Chinese dam site were interrogated and killed by patrolling Burmese soldiers, claims the TSYO report.
“Foreign investors are cold-bloodedly fuelling war in Burma,” said Mai Khroue Dang of the TSYO. “All mega projects should be suspended until Burmese troops withdraw and political dialogue leads to a meaningful resolution of conflict.”
The group details how the military expansion is directly linked to securing Chinese mega projects, and how Chinese firms are paying 5,000 kyat (US $6) per day to Burmese soldiers from local battalions for security around pipelines which will carry oil and gas to China.
Control over natural resources and abuses by the government troops have been core grievances in both Kachin and Shan states where conflicts erupted last year. In July, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) was formed and has since launched several attacks against Burmese troops patrolling in Ta’ang areas.
“Fierce battles have broken out in areas that have not seen fighting for over 20 years,” said the report. “Soldiers from the Burma Army have moved from their main bases to live in villages and now regularly patrol local areas, increasing abuses against local populations including killings, beatings, forced labor, and extortion.”
Since December 2011, more than 1,000 men, women and children have become internally displaced, sheltering in Nam Kham and Mantong, while many others have also fled to China to escape the war, claims the TSYO.
A historic peace deal was signed between the Shan State Army and Burmese government last weekend which also aims to wipe out narcotics from the region by 2015, but fighting has nevertheless been reported from the area this week.
The Ta’ang, also known as Palaung, is an ethnic group numbering around one million living in the hills of Burma’s Shan State and China’s southern Yunnan Province.
By THE IRRAWADDY| May 26, 2012
As protests over power outages highlight growing dissatisfaction with the pace of reforms in Burma, a cartoon that points a satirical finger at foot-dragging bureaucrats and others with a vested interest in the old way of doing things has gone viral among Burmese Facebook users.
The cartoon, by well-know cartoonist Ngwe Kyi, shows a man whose upper body is eagerly marching along the road to reform, guided by the directives of President Thein Sein, while his lower half remains firmly planted on the ground several steps behind him.
While not specific about who it is that the bottom half represents, the cartoon has struck a chord with ordinary Burmese who increasingly see inertia among lower-level officials, rather than the threat of hardliners, as one of the major impediments to top-down reforms begun last year.
Since it was first published by The Yangon Times earlier this month, the cartoon has attracted much comment on Facebook and other social networking sites.
But even as stuck-in-their-ways officials are the obvious butt of the joke, many Burmese are reserving their harshest words for Thein Sein, the leader who has so far failed to rally the troops behind him.
“Shame on you,” remarked one Facebook user. “You are the head, but you can’t even make those beneath you move.”
“The president is afraid of the lower part,” opined another commenter.
Others thought that the cartoon was actually too generous in its suggestion that there are any real reformers in the government, which consists mostly of ex-generals who belonged to the former military junta that officially handed over power early last year.
“To be frank, I don’t think anyone has changed or reformed yet,” said one skeptical netizen.
Saturday, 26 May 2012 14:14 Daniel Schearf
Burma’s opposition said leader Aung San Suu Kyi next week will take her first trip outside the country since 1988. The National League for Democracy said she will attend the World Economic Forum in Bangkok ahead of a tour of Europe. Thailand hosts a large community of Burmese activists and exiles and they are quite excited about her trip.
NLD spokesman Nyan Win on Friday said Aung San Suu Kyi will arrive in Bangkok mid-week. He said the democracy leader will meet Tuesday morning in Burma with the visiting Indian prime minister. She will leave for Bangkok either that evening or on Wednesday.
24 years
The trip will mark the first time the democracy leader has left Burma in 24 years, when she returned to the country to visit her ailing mother and became swept up in the country’s politics.
She planned to first travel to Europe, but the change in schedule is being welcomed by the large Burma activist and exile community in Thailand.
“It is indeed a significant visit of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi because on her first visit after so many years it is one of the countries in Southeast Asia,” said Soe Aung, a spokesman of the Forum for Democracy in Burma.
Aung San Suu Kyi was locked up for challenging the military that ruled Burma for decades.
On the rare occasions she was released from custody she chose not to leave Burma because she was afraid authorities would not let her return.
She missed being with her British husband when he was dying from cancer and seeing her children grow up.
Freedom
Aung San Suu Kyi was released just days after Burma held its first election in 20 years, replacing overt military rule with a civilian face.
President Thein Sein, himself a former general, surprised critics by meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi, loosening censorship and releasing hundreds of political prisoners.
Western governments responded by easing economic and diplomatic sanctions leading to a new era of engagement with Burma.
And now, Aung San Suu Kyi trusts the government enough to travel and end her long stay inside Burma.
Mixed feelings
But Thailand-based activists worry the excitement about positive change and economic opportunity in Burma will overshadow remaining problems.
Bo Kyi, with the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Burma, regrets that the hundreds more remaining political prisoners in jail are no longer a priority.
“The release of the remaining political prisoners is [the] key issue,” said Bo. “International community or international government’s leaders should not forget the remaining political prisoners in Burma.”
Burma authorities refuse to acknowledge the existence of political prisoners.
Ethnic fighting
Activists worry ongoing fighting in ethnic minority areas is also being forgotten. Years of military abuses in fighting against ethnic rebels forced tens of thousands of minorities to flee to refugee camps in Thailand.
Soe Aung said he hopes Aung San Suu Kyi will be able to visit the camps during her visit.
“These ethnic people have long, long time suffering for so many years with many difficulties,” said Soe. “And, she should also urge the international community not just looking into the development inside the country but also continue with the assistance of these refugees, ethnic refugees, along the Thailand-Burma border and the organizations who are working to help these refugees.”
The NLD won Burma’s only previous election, in 1990, but the military refused to give up power.
It arrested NLD leaders and activists and many fled to India, Thailand and the United States where they formed a government in exile.
Zin Linn is a spokesman for the exile government in Thailand. He said they are excited about Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit but not likely able to meet her because legally they are an “unlawful association.”
“If the situation is possible, or if there may be some ‘green light’, we can say we might see her. Because, in this trip I think not only her and also President Thein Sein will attend this economic forum,” Zin Linn said. “So, we have to take care of the situation. We didn’t want her hurt because of our meeting.”
World Economic Forum
Thai media said, while in Thailand, Aung San Suu Kyi will meet with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
The NLD spokesman did not confirm the meeting, but said in Bangkok the democracy leader will attend the World Economic Forum on East Asia.
Burma’s President Thein Sein is also scheduled to speak at the forum but it is not clear if he will meet with Aung San Suu Kyi.
In June, Aung San Suu Kyi in June will travel to Europe for a series of appearances including a trip to Norway to receive the Nobel peace prize she was awarded while under house arrest.
Friday, 25 May 2012 17:50 Mizzima News The U.S. Human Rights Report 2011 included multiple sections on widespread human rights abuses in Burma, while acknowledging surprising progress in democratic reforms.
A summary of the report says significant human rights problems continue, including military attacks against ethnic minorities in border states, which resulted in civilian deaths, forced relocations, sexual violence, and other serious abuses continued, along with unlawful arrest and detention, and a host of other abuses.
However, the report said Burma made progress in moving toward a democracy achieving “greater openness, democracy and liberty.”
Though it said more needs to be done, the report expressed the hope that progress in the country would inspire change in other closed societies like Iran, North Korea, Uzbekistan, Eritrea, or Sudan.
While acknowledging progress it listed numerous areas where human rights are still regularly violated, posing a huge challenge for the country’s future.
“The government continued to detain hundreds of political prisoners. Abuses of prisoners continued, including the alleged transfer of civilian prisoners to military units,” the report said. “These units reportedly were often engaged in armed conflict in the border areas where they were forced to carry supplies, clear mines, and serve as human shields.
Government security forces were responsible for extrajudicial killings, rape, and torture.”
The government detained civic activists indefinitely and without charges, the report said, and abused some prisoners and detainees, held persons in harsh and life-threatening conditions, routinely used incommunicado detention, and imprisoned citizens arbitrarily for political motives. The government infringed on citizens’ privacy and restricted freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, religion, and movement, it said.
“The government impeded the work of many domestic human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). International NGOs continued to encounter a difficult–although somewhat improved—environment,” said he report. “Recruitment of child soldiers, discrimination against ethnic minorities, and trafficking in persons–particularly of women and girls–continued.”
It said forced labor, including that of children, persisted.
“The government generally did not take action to prosecute or punish those responsible for human rights abuses, with a few isolated exceptions,” the report said. “Abuses continued with impunity. Rampant corruption and the absence of due process undermined the rule of law.
Ethnic armed groups also committed human rights abuses, including forced labor and recruitment of child soldiers.”
Friday, 25 May 2012 16:42 Mizzima News
Amnesty International (AI) on Thursday said Burma’s military is committing crimes against humanity in ethnic conflict zones, where ongoing fighting has overshadowed sweeping political changes.
The rights group also said that authorities had blocked humanitarian aid from reaching tens of thousands of desperate refugees in conflict areas and said soldiers had sexually assaulted civilians.
“The government enacted limited political and economic reforms, but human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law in ethnic minority areas increased during the year,” AI said in its annual report.
“Some of these amounted to crimes against humanity or war crimes.”
The Burmese army had launched “indiscriminate attacks” that at times targeted ethnic minority civilians in Kachin State, Karen state and the Tanintharyi region, it said.
The following is the 2012 country report on Burma, which notes positive changes but says numerous human rights violations are continuing as the country undergoes democratic reforms.
The report:
“The government enacted limited political and economic reforms, but human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law in ethnic minority areas increased during the year. Some of these amounted to crimes against humanity or war crimes. Forced displacement reached its highest level in a decade, and reports of forced labour their highest level in several years.
“Authorities maintained restrictions on freedom of religion and belief, and perpetrators of human rights violations went unpunished. Despite releasing at least 313 political prisoners during the year, authorities continued to arrest such people, further violating their rights by subjecting them to ill-treatment and poor prison conditions.
Background
“Myanmar’s Parliament, elected in November 2010, convened on 31 January and voted in Thein Sein as President of a government formed on 30 March. It was the first civilian government in decades. In July and August, opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi travelled outside Yangon for the first time since 2003. She met with Labour Minister Aung Gyi four times during the year and with President Thein Sein in August.
“Beginning that month, the government carried out a series of limited political and economic reforms. It released at least 313 political prisoners; slightly relaxed media censorship; passed an improved labour law; and established the National Human Rights Commission. In September, the government suspended construction of the controversial, China-backed Myitsone Dam in Kachin state, citing domestic opposition to the project. It also reportedly ceased demanding that ethnic minority armed groups become official Border Guard Forces. In November, the National League for Democracy re-registered as a political party, and its leader Aung San Suu Kyi announced her intention to run for Parliament in the 2012 by-elections. Parliament also passed a law that month allowing peaceful protests under certain conditions.
Internal armed conflict
“The armed conflict in Kayin (Karen) state and Tanintharyi region that began in late 2010 escalated during the year. In March, conflict between the Myanmar army and various ethnic minority armed groups intensified in Shan state. In June, the army broke a 17-year ceasefire with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Kachin state. Smaller conflicts continued or resumed in Kayah (Karenni) and Mon states.
“In all of these conflicts, the Myanmar army launched indiscriminate attacks causing civilian casualties, at times directly attacking ethnic minority civilians. Credible accounts of the army using prison convicts as porters, human shields and mine sweepers emerged from Kayin state and adjacent areas of Bago and Tanintharyi divisions. In Kachin state, sources reported extrajudicial executions, children killed by indiscriminate shelling, forced labour, and unlawful confiscation or destruction of food and property. Shan civilians were tortured, arbitrarily detained and forcibly relocated. Soldiers reportedly sexually assaulted Kachin and Shan civilians.
“In August, ethnic armed groups, including some that had committed abuses, rejected the government’s offer of talks between individual armed groups and the relevant regional administration rather than talks between an alliance of such groups and the federal government. However, several groups agreed to ceasefires with the army during the year. In September, the army intensified fighting in Kachin and Shan states, violating human rights law and international humanitarian law. Some of these acts amounted to crimes against humanity or war crimes.
On 7 June, a seven-year-old child was killed in Mae T’lar village in Kayin state’s Kawkareik township, when the army shelled the village with mortars.
On 16 June, soldiers in Hsipaw township, Shan state, shot and killed a 35-year-old man, a 70-year-old woman and one girl, aged 13; all were civilians.
On 18 September, soldiers in Shan state’s Kyethi township forced at least 10 local monks to act as human shields during an operation to deliver supplies to other troops in the area.
On 12 October, soldiers killed a 16-month-old baby in Mansi township, Bhamo district in Kachin state, while storming a village and shooting indiscriminately.
Beginning on 28 October and lasting several days, soldiers detained and reportedly gang-raped a 28-year-old Kachin woman in Hkai Bang village in Bhamo district, Sub-Loije township, Kachin state.
On 12 November, Myanmar army soldiers extrajudicially executed four captured KIA fighters and tortured four others in Nam Sang Yang village, Waingmaw township, Kachin state.
Forced displacement and refugees
“Fighting in ethnic minority areas displaced approximately 30,000 people in Shan state and a similar number in or near Kachin state. The majority of them were forced out of their homes and land by the Myanmar army. Most individuals and families were unable or unwilling to leave Myanmar, and so became internally displaced. In addition, approximately 36,000 people had already been displaced in Kayin state. In a one-year period ending in July, 112,000 people were reportedly forced from their homes in Myanmar, the highest such figure in 10 years.
– In March, the army forced approximately 200 households in Nansang township, Shan state, to move in preparation for the construction of a new regional command base.
– In April, soldiers burned down around 70 homes in seven villages in Mong Pieng township, Shan state, accusing the residents of supporting an armed group.
– In May, 1,200 refugees from Kyain Seikgyi township in Kayin state fled to Thailand.
“In many cases, authorities prevented humanitarian agencies from entering conflict-affected areas so that they were unable to reach tens of thousands of people displaced by the fighting or the army, especially those in camps on the Myanmar-China border. In Chin state and other ethnic minority areas, the government maintained lengthy and complex administrative procedures for obtaining travel permits both for humanitarian agencies that already have a presence and for new ones seeking permission to work in the country.
“Ethnic minority Rohingyas continued to face discrimination and repression primarily in Rakhine state and remained unrecognized as citizens. As a result, many continued to leave Myanmar on their own or were smuggled out, either overland to Bangladesh or on boats during the “sailing season”, in the first and final months of the year.
Forced labour
“In June, the ILO noted that there had been “no substantive progress” towards compliance with the 1998 ILO Commission of Inquiry’s recommendations on forced labour. On 12 August, Information Minister Kyaw Hsan stated that Myanmar was “almost free from forced labour”. In November, the ILO said that forced labour complaints in Myanmar had increased to an average of 30 per month since March compared with 21 per month for the same period in 2010, 10 per month in 2009, and five per month in both 2008 and 2007.
Approximately 75 per cent of these complaints related to under-age recruitment into the army, with the remainder pertaining to trafficking for forced labour and military forced labour. Labour activists and political prisoners U Thurein Aung, U Wai Lin, U Nyi Nyi Zaw, U Kyaw Kyaw, U Kyaw Win and U Myo Min remained in prison, as reportedly did 16 others.
In October, Myanmar border security forces in Rakhine state’s Maungdaw township forced villagers to carry out construction work at a military camp.
In August and early September, a government official in Chin State reportedly ordered civil servants to carry out manual forced labour in the capital Hakha.
Freedom of religion or belief
“Violations of the right to religious freedom affected every religious group in Myanmar. Buddhist monks who participated in the 2007 anti-government demonstrations continued to be arrested, ill-treated and harassed. Muslim Rohingyas were suppressed and forced to relocate on religious as well as ethnic grounds. Christian religious sites were relocated or destroyed.
On 9 August, soldiers set fire to the Mong Khawn monastery in Mansi township, Kachin state, apparently because they suspected that the monks had provided support to the KIA.
On 10 September, authorities in Htantlang village in Htantlang township, Chin state, ordered a Chin Christian preacher not to speak at a local church and to leave the area.
On 14 October, authorities in Hpakant township, Kachin state, ordered local Christian churches to request permission at least 15 days in advance to carry out many religious activities.
On 6 November, soldiers opened fire on a Christian church in Muk Chyik village, Waingmaw township in Kachin state, injuring several worshippers.
Impunity
“Government officials and military personnel who committed human rights violations, including some on a widespread or systematic basis, remained free from prosecution. Article 445 of the 2008 Constitution codifies total impunity for past violations. In September, the President appointed a National Human Rights Commission whose mandate included receiving and investigating human rights complaints, but
“Myanmar’s justice system continued to demonstrate a lack of impartiality and independence from the government. In January, the government stated that there was “no widespread occurrence of human rights violations with impunity” in Myanmar.
Political prisoners
“In May, the Myanmar government released at least 72 political prisoners under a one-year reduction of all prison sentences in the country. In October, it released 241 more political prisoners. However, few of those freed were from ethnic minorities. More than 1,000 political prisoners, including prisoners of conscience, remained behind bars, but exact figures were uncertain due to Myanmar’s opaque prison system, differences in definitions of what constitutes a political prisoner, and ongoing arrests.
In February, a court sentenced Maung Maung Zeya, a reporter with Democratic Voice of Burma – a media outlet based outside Myanmar – to 13 years in prison for peaceful activities.
On 26 August, Nay Myo Zin, a former military officer and member of an NLD-supported blood donation group, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for peacefully exercising his rights to freedom of expression.
On 14 September, Democratic Voice of Burma reporter Sithu Zeya, already serving an eight-year prison term, was sentenced to a further 10 years under the Electronic Transactions Act.
“Political prisoners continued to be subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and very poor prison conditions.
In February, Htet Htet Oo Wei, who was suffering from a number of health problems, was placed in solitary confinement reportedly for making too much noise. She was denied family visits and parcels.
In February, authorities in Yangon’s Insein prison placed political prisoner Phyo Wei Aung in solitary confinement for a month, after he complained about fellow inmates bullying other prisoners.
In May, at least 20 political prisoners in Insein prison went on hunger strike to protest the government’s limited release of such prisoners that month and to demand better prison conditions. As punishment, seven were placed in cells designed to hold dogs.
In July, the Monywa prison authorities in Sagaing division withdrew visitation rights to Nobel Aye (aka Hnin May Aung), after she urged high-ranking officials to withdraw recent public statements that claimed there were no political prisoners in Myanmar.
In October, 15 political prisoners in Insein staged a hunger strike in protest against the denial of sentence reductions for political prisoners, in contrast to criminal convicts. Some were reportedly deprived of drinking water and were otherwise ill-treated. Eight of them were placed in “dog cells”.
In October, information emerged that U Gambira, a Buddhist monk and leader of the 2007 anti-government demonstrations, was seriously ill and being held in solitary confinement. He had been suffering from severe headaches, possibly due to torture he was subjected to in prison in 2009. Prison authorities were reported to be regularly injecting him with drugs to sedate him.
International scrutiny
“In January, Myanmar’s human rights record was assessed under the UN Universal Periodic Review. In March, Latvia and Denmark added their support for the creation of a UN Commission of Inquiry into international crimes in Myanmar, bringing the total number of supporting countries to 16. Despite a January call by ASEAN to lift economic sanctions against Myanmar, the EU and the USA extended their sanctions.
“However, in April the EU eased travel restrictions on 24 officials. In May and October, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Myanmar visited the country.
“President Thein Sein visited China in May and India in October. After being denied a visa in 2010 and earlier in the year, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar visited in August. The US Special Representative and Policy Coordinator for Burma visited in September, October, and November. In September, the ICRC was authorized for the first time since 2005 to conduct an international staff-led engineering survey in three of Myanmar’s prisons. After a year-long debate, Myanmar was named Chair of Asean for 2014 in November. In December, for the first time in over 50 years, the U.S. Secretary of State visited Myanmar.
By NANG MYA NADI
Published: 25 May 2012
A temporary exchange of gunfire broke out between the Shan State Army-South and the Burmese army on 23 May, four days after the groups signed a union-level ceasefire agreement.
SSA-S spokesperson Sai Lao Hseng said the Burmese troops from Shan state’s Mongtong-based 65th Infantry Battalion were chasing after deserters when they ran into SSA-S troops near Ponparkyin sub-township.
No one was injured during the skirmish that ended abruptly after a few minutes of fighting.
Sai Lao Hseng said the Burmese Army should have informed the SSA-S in advance before entering the group’s territory and they could have provided them with assistance in capturing the deserters.
The spokesperson added that the clash took place because the Burmese soldiers were not following their superiors’ orders.
“The government told us that clashes broke out in the past due to misunderstanding and told us that this wouldn’t happen again after the second round of union-level peace talks,” said Sai Lao Hseng.
“But we think it will continue to be like this unless soldiers at the bottom begin to comply with their official’s orders and agreements. We think [the Burmese Army] should issue orders and explanations for their soldiers [so they] understand the situation.”
On 19 May, the government’s newly formed peace committee signed a deal during the second round of talks with the SSA-S that were aimed at preventing further fighting from breaking out. Leading members of the Burmese army, including Deputy Commander-in-Chief Soe Win and three regional commanders participated in the negotiations. The talks marked the military’s first appearance in the peace process.
By HANNA HINDSTROM
Published: 25 May 2012
A growing number of Kachin women are being trafficked over the Chinese border as criminal networks target vulnerable populations uprooted by the ongoing civil conflict, humanitarian groups have warned.
Five Kachin women were discovered missing from camps near Majayang last week suspected of being abducted by Chinese trafficking gangs, a spokesperson for Wunpawng Ninghtoi (WPN) told DVB.
Another three are missing from Laying camp in China.
“One woman from the [Majayang] camp told me that she saw a group of Chinese men push a crying woman into the car and take her away,” says May Li Aung from Wunpawng Ninghtoi (WPN), an NGO providing humanitarian assistance along the border.
Many women are also lured away from their families with a false promise of marriage. A suspected female trafficking agent has been spotted scouring the camps near Majayang and visiting several families with the promise of a Y 6,000 dowry for one of their daughters.
“The agents are very intelligent. In the past they used to visit villages and just offer money to the families through an agent,” says May Li Aung. “Now they have changed strategy. They use our traditions and offer a dowry for their daughters so the parents just think they will be married. But instead they are sold and the family never gets any money.”
Most affected families are ignorant of the problem or live in denial. Sinlum Kaba handed her 22-year old daughter to a Chinese businessman in January. Five months later she is still waiting for the dowry to arrive, but continues to deny the possibility that her daughter is being exploited.
“It’s a very difficult because if we pursue this case we will have to prosecute the mother as well,” says Doi Mai from the Kachin Women’s Association (KWA).
The KWA have recorded about fifty trafficking cases since the start of the conflict, although accurate statistics are becoming harder to obtain.
“People are facing more difficulties and getting poorer so these types of cases are increasing,” says May Li Aung. “But we don’t know exactly how many because we can’t focus on trafficking anymore.
Even though we hear many cases we can’t always follow up.”
NGOs have been forced to shift their priorities to the escalating humanitarian crisis as funding shortages start to bite. The KWA recently closed the doors of its only shelter for trafficked women and can no longer afford to provide legal assistance or vocational training to victims.
Many of the thousands of displaced Kachin also cross into China in search of work, becoming even more difficult to track and protect.
“They cannot find jobs or livelihood activities here and will have to look for jobs in China which consequently can lead to them being trafficked. They’re in this difficult situation, they don’t have a regular income at home any more, they don’t have a place to find a job and so become easy prey,” says Alum, who manages the KWA’s trafficking programme.
Before fighting broke out, as many as ten cases a month would be addressed in the local courts managed by the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO). But the penalty for trafficking is just a fine of Y 3,000-5,000.
The Chinese government routinely protects their citizens from prosecution, refusing to hand over trafficking agents to the Kachin authorities. Although the KWA and the KIO have developed better relations with local authorities across the border, China’s intransigence continues to present substantial obstacles.
“Even sometimes a woman calls us saying ‘come and save me’ but the problem is that the woman doesn’t speak Chinese and she doesn’t know where she is,” explains May Li Aung. “And even if we know where a woman is then we have to ask the Chinese police to help us and they just say that if we want them to bring her back, then we have to pay for the travel costs – sometimes as much as Y20,000 – and we just can’t afford that.”
An estimated 75,000 people have been displaced by fighting between Kachin rebels and government troops since a 17-year ceasefire broke down in June last year. As many as 10,000 of the displaced are living in the shadows on the Chinese side of the border without access to any government protection.