BURMA RELATED NEWS – FEBRUARY 18, 2013
Feb 19th, 2013
Reuters – Myanmar migrant survivors tell of throwing dead overboard
UPI – Myanmar lauded for child soldiers’ release
Bangkok Post – EDITORIAL: Myanmar war on drugs vital
Bangkok Post – Laos, Myanmar begin bridge
Scoop.co.nz – MYANMAR: Savage torture in ordinary criminal cases
BruDirect.com – Minister Of Education Visits SEAMEO Centre In Myanmar
UN News Centre – Myanmar: UN welcomes release of child soldiers by national armed forces
Eleven Myanmar – Sunken ship had Myanmar crew but was not registered here, official says
Eleven Myanmar – Hackers using local ISP to attack accounts of Eleven Media staff
Eleven Myanmar – Military under fire following land-grab probe
Huffington Post – Myanmar: A Nation at War With Itself
The Irrawaddy – UN Aid Reaches Long-Isolated Kachin Town
The Irrawaddy – Army Officials Won’t Take Part in Meeting with UNFC
Mizzima News – Mitsubishi to open after-sales network in Myanmar
Mizzima News – Myanmar garment factories gear up for foreign investment
Mizzima News – Canada furthers moves toward Myanmar
DVB News – Thai couple accused of torturing young Karen girl skip bail
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Myanmar migrant survivors tell of throwing dead overboard
By Ranga Sirilal and Shihar Aneez | Reuters – 7 hrs ago
COLOMBO (Reuters) – Myanmar nationals rescued from a sinking ship by the Sri Lankan Navy have told of throwing 98 people overboard after they died of starvation and dehydration, Sri Lanka’s police said on Monday.
Sailors rescued 31 adult males and a boy on February 16 when their damaged wooden ship began to sink about 250 nautical miles off Sri Lanka’s southeastern coast, Sri Lanka’s navy said on its website (www.navy.lk).
“They said they had carried food and water for only one month and they had been in the sea for two months after the ship engine stalled,” police spokesman Prishantha Jayakody told Reuters. “Their captain and 97 others have died due to dehydration and starvation. They also said they had thrown the dead bodies into the sea.”
The survivors said they were aiming to seek asylum in Indonesia and Australia and identified themselves as Muslims from a border village between Myanmar and Bangladesh, Jayakody said, without elaborating.
Fifteen survivors are still in hospital in southern Sri Lanka while 17 of them have been discharged and detained after appearing in court, he said.
An estimated 800,000 Rohingya Muslims live in Myanmar but are officially stateless. The Myanmar government denies them citizenship, regarding them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, which does not recognise them either.
The United Nations estimates about 13,000 boat people, including many Rohingyas, fled Myanmar and neighbouring Bangladesh in 2012, a sharp increase from the previous year.
On February 2, the Sri Lankan navy rescued 127 Bangladeshis and 11 Myanmar nationals in an overcrowded wooden vessel that had begun to sink 50 nautical miles east off Sri Lanka’s eastern coast.
The members of this group of 138 people are still in a detention centre near the capital Colombo, police said.
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Myanmar lauded for child soldiers’ release
Published: Feb. 18, 2013 at 4:15 PM
YANGON, Myanmar, Feb. 18 (UPI) — The release of 24 child soldiers from Myanmar’s military should help the country reach its vow to end child rights violations sooner, the United Nations said.
The two dozen children were officially discharged Monday at a ceremony in Yangon, attended by senior officials of the armed forces, known as the Tatmadaw, and government and U.N. officials, UNICEF said in a release.
“This release of 24 children is a welcome step in the implementation of the action plan by the government and reflects its commitment that children should not — and will no longer — be recruited and used for military purposes,” U.N. Resident Coordinator in Myanmar Ashok Nigam said. “I call for the acceleration of the release of all children from the Tatmadaw and for the non-state armed groups to also do the same.”
In June, the United Nations and the Myanmar government signed an action plan establishing a timetable and measurable activities for the release and reintegration of children associated with armed forces, as well as the prevention of similar recruitment in the future.
Myanmar is one of 14 countries with armed forces or armed groups identified as committing grave child rights violations that is working with the United Nations to end grave violations against children in situations of armed conflict.
“A series of discharges just like this must accelerate in the coming months in order for the Tatmadaw to quickly achieve the double objective of zero under-age recruitment and full discharge of those that are under 18 in the armed forces,” Bertrand Bainvel, UNICEF’s representative in Myanmar, said.
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Bangkok Post – EDITORIAL: Myanmar war on drugs vital
Published: 19 Feb 2013 at 00.00
Newspaper section: News
President Thein Sein and his reform government have made important changes in Myanmar. Many political prisoners are free, real steps are under way to bring in basic freedoms of speech and gathering. The elected Myanmar parliament has engaged in open dialogue and criticism, especially since the election of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi. The president has shown a desire to engage the world community.
While the achievements of the past two years are encouraging, Myanmar is still suffering the effects of its 60-year isolation. The country’s treatment of minorities is not just outdated prejudice. It is racism and discrimination, unacceptable in 21st century Asean and the rest of the world. It is troubling that Myanmar attempts to defend its treatment of the Rohingya, Kachin, Karen and other “separate people”.
Thein Sein must reverse his stance and lead Myanmar to accept and acknowledge its minorities and the country’s diversity.
But there is arguably no policy so resistant to change in Myanmar as its approach to illicit drugs. As they did during the terrible times of the military junta, officials promise crackdowns, anti-drug campaigns and international cooperation, but end up doing little.
Despite the big talk, Myanmar is the world’s biggest centre of methamphetamine production. And not only is it the second biggest producer of opium and heroin to Afghanistan, but Myanmar’s poppy production and heroin output increased significantly last year.
Thein Sein has settled on a strange logic about these two problems. He has said, apparently sincerely, that peace pacts between his government and minorities involved in drug production would solve both civil strife and the problem of illicit drugs.
Of course, as every observant friend told him at the start, they have done neither.
Take the United Wa State Army. This often violent group signed a “peace pact” with the government in 1990. Since then, it has expanded its effective control of the ya ba market every year.
Under the military, the general acquiesced, giving the Wa a free rein to produce and export drugs so long as they refrained from war against the government.
Sad to say, the same basic policy appears to be taking place under Thein Sein. The US government declared, “The United Wa State Army is the largest and most powerful drug trafficking organisation in Southeast Asia.” That was nearly five years ago, and remains true today.
Thailand knows well that fighting drug trafficking is a long, dangerous, often dirty activity. But Myanmar has not yet begun to fight. Days ago, it revealed it has pushed back its deadline to make the Shan State a drug-free zone from 2014 to 2019.
Thein Sein has not addressed the poverty of opium farmers, as he could with crop substitution and road-building programmes.
He has more troops committed to containing the Rohingya people than to fighting drug couriers. Myanmar is long on claims that it is committed to destroying major drug cartels, but short on achievements which show it is actually doing it.
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Bangkok Post – Laos, Myanmar begin bridge
Published: 18 Feb 2013 at 20.42
Online news: Transport
Laos and Myanmar have begun the construction of the first bridge to link their countries, and expect to complete it in 2015.
The building of the Laos-Myanmar Friendship Bridge over the Mekong River between Laos’ Luang Namtha province and Shan state in Myanmar was launched after the two countries held a ground-breaking ceremony on Saturday, The Vientiane Times reported on Monday.
The construction cost is US$18 million (540 million baht) and the two governments aim to use it to boost trade and investment, and enhance cooperation.
Luang Namtha governor Phimmasone Leuangkhamma, Lao Public Works and Transport Minister Sommad Pholsena and Myanmar’s Construction Minister Kyaw Lwin presided over the ceremony.
The bridge will be 690 metres long and 10 metres wide and will have two vehicle lanes and two sidewalks. Construction of the bridge will take 30 months to complete.
Xaysongkham Manotham, director of the Laos-Myanmar Friendship Bridge Project, said the bridge will be a new symbol of cooperation, relations and solidarity between the two countries.
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Scoop.co.nz – MYANMAR: Savage torture in ordinary criminal cases
Tuesday, 19 February 2013, 11:30 am
Press Release: Asian Human Rights Commission
1. One misconception about the use of torture in Myanmar is that it has been a form of human rights abuse most commonly associated with the cases of political prisoners, and therefore in the current period we should expect the incidence of torture to diminish as political conditions change. This misconception is in part because of the heavy concentration of human rights documentation on Myanmar over the years on political detainees, to the omission of ordinary criminal detainees. However, the Asian Legal Resource Centre has long brought to the attention of the Human Rights Council and its predecessor that torture in Myanmar is not confined to any particular type of case but rather is systemic and ongoing. Furthermore, the types of torture practiced in ordinary criminal cases in Myanmar are not mere slapping and beating, which people in the country take for granted when they are detained by police or other officials, but are also extremely savage and highly professional.
2. To illustrate, the ALRC draws to the attention of the Council the details of a case that it submitted in January 2013 to a number of Special Procedures of the High Commissioner, including the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. The torture committed in this case was in April 2010; however, it has only come to light recently following detailed depositions by the two victims. The ALRC is aware that such practices as described in this case are continuing in the present time, and therefore considers this case a suitable one to describe the problems that the country is facing, and also to highlight the plight of two specific victims.
a. The facts of the case briefly are that police detained the two victims, San Win and U Thubodha (a monk), and accused them of raping and murdering an underage village girl. Their method of investigation was in the first instance to call all males aged 12 to 50 in the village to the school, where they questioned each and ordered them to strip off their shirts. By that time, the actual alleged offender, the son of the head of the village administration, had already left the village, but through this technique they could identify other persons who would make suitable accused.
b. The police who detained the two accused denied them food, water and sleep throughout the time of their interrogation, in order to weaken their ability to resist the methods of torture used. These included repeated kicking, punching, slapping and beating with fists, shoes, truncheons, sticks and various other objects, while naked or mostly naked; hanging from the ceiling with hands cuffed behind the back while also being assaulted; hitting genitalia, burning genital hair with cigarettes; hitting the accused’s forehead into the floor; forcing into stress positions, including kneeling for long periods on sharp gravel, and pretending to ride a horse; rolling a rod over the shins under heavy pressure to cause the skin to peel from the bone; and, repeated threatening to kill the accused if they did not admit to the crime. One of the accused the police also hung by his tip-toes with a noose, and forced needles through his tongue, causing him to swallow blood and have a sensation of death.
c. In addition to the above techniques, the police required both of the accused to put on the clothes of the victim, which they were keeping as evidence. When one of the accused wore the clothes the police were reportedly drunk and they gathered outside the cell and jeered at him while calling the name of the girl.
d. At various points, the police intimated to the accused or other persons that they knew the accused were not the perpetrators. Others, including a doctor and judge, were also overheard to say the same thing. Nonetheless, the police discussed among themselves that they were under pressure from above to solve the case quickly and they needed to extract confessions from the two for reasons of their own job prospects.
e. When one of the accused could not tolerate the torture any longer and agreed to confess, the police tutored him and then took him before a judge to record the confession. He then refused to cooperate, denied the crime and said that he had been tortured. Rather than responding to his statements by any attention to the rights of the accused, the judge simply told the police to take him back. After further torture when he again came to court he was brought before the same judge, who this time did not ask him anything at all but instead helped the police to record falsely that no injuries were visible on the body of the accused, and required him to sign documents that amounted to a confession.
f. When the case came to trial, both accused testified that they had been tortured throughout their custody and U Thubodha retracted the confession that he had given. Furthermore, the material evidence was inconclusive. Nonetheless, the district court sentenced the accused based on the confession and on witness testimonies against them that the police had also coerced or cajoled other villagers to give, and presently the two accused are detained in Mandalay Central Prison.
3. The features of the torture practiced in this case consistent with others that the ALRC has documented in ordinary criminal cases in Myanmar before and since the date of its occurrence, which are also consistent with practices of torture in other parts of Asia, include the following:
a. The practice of extremely brutal forms of torture is systemic. Officials at all different levels of the police hierarchy, courts, administration and hospitals are aware of its occurrence, are involved actively or are complicit and condone it. Superiors do not prohibit the use of torture by subordinate officers but delimit it by warnings not that it is illegal or a violation of human rights but that if the torturers go too far and the victim dies then the police officers will, despite their pretenses to the contrary, have trouble.
b. The police know that the victims of torture are innocent. The police may be acting to protect actual offenders or may not know who the actual offenders are but not have the means or inclination to find them within the short time required to solve cases in order to satisfy requirements for administrative efficiency coming from above. Under pressure, they find innocent persons who will not be able to resist their efforts to fabricate a case, and constantly work to convince those persons that they are actually guilty. Therefore, the purpose of torture is not to actually extract information, but merely to extract an admission of guilt.
c. The practices of torture are highly professionalized. The methods of torture used are those of people with extensive knowledge and training in these techniques. They are not made up on the spur of the moment but are passing throughout the policing institution through deliberate and meticulous attention to their use. The types of stress positions described, use of sharp gravel, dangling of the victim and other techniques described, particularly those aimed at simulating death, are used across different parts of the country in different types of cases. That the equipment of torture and rooms for its purpose are made available in ordinary police stations in rural areas also speak to its endemic character.
d. Other investigation techniques are extremely basic or non-existent. Where police resort to torture and attendant techniques, other methods for investigation of crimes are undeveloped. Police resort to methods such as gathering up dozens or hundreds of possible accused at a time, and threatening and cajoling them to winnow out those who will do for the purpose of having some accused with which to finalize the case. Not only do they not use scientific techniques, but they also resort to methods that damage or destroy evidence, such as forcing accused to wear the clothes of victims as part of their psychological games.
e. The judiciary participates in the process of torture. Judges know that people brought before them have been tortured, whether when they are brought for the purpose of giving confession or when they retract confessions in court. However, they fail in their duties to make inquiries and protect the rights of the accused, either because they are fearful of the power of the police themselves, or because they have arrangements with the police and other officials that are in their own interests. Consequently, victims of torture in Myanmar lack any effective means of recourse.
4. Obviously, these systemic forms of extreme torture, carried on with the awareness, involvement or condoning of officials at a range of levels will not be eliminated simply as a consequence of the changed political conditions at the national level. The increasing amount of domestic media reporting about such cases may push the police to be more covert in how they operate; however, these practices will continue not least of all because police are cognizant that they are unlikely to suffer anything other than disciplinary slaps on the wrist for their involvement in such acts, while on the other hand they are under pressure to “solve” cases of this sort as quickly as possible and the sanctions they face for failure to get results are likely to outweigh the risks arising from the use of torture.
5. In December 2012, staff of the ALRC and DIGNITY, the Danish organisation against torture, met with human rights defenders from Myanmar working on cases of torture. Apart from hearing of cases that speak to the continued incidence of practices of the sort described above, the meeting reached a number of conclusions concerning the requirements of a programme to address the systemic use of torture in Myanmar today, and its consequences. Among these conclusions, the Asian Legal Resource Centre commends the following to the Council, and urges that the relevant United Nations agencies communicate the same to the Government of Myanmar with a view to multilateral and bilateral programmes being established accordingly:
a. Psychological counseling and physical rehabilitation services are required for persons who have already suffered torture in Myanmar, both for their own benefit and also to address its continued incidence. Torture will only be stopped if people who have suffered torture are able to talk about it, so that the phenomenon of torture is widely known and abhorred, and can be addressed societally. Survivors of torture will be in a position to do this only if they get the services and support that they need. Therefore in any programme to eliminate the use of torture in Myanmar, the medical and rehabilitation aspect is paramount.
b. Documentation of cases must be conducted much more systematically and thoroughly. All persons who class themselves as human rights defenders should be involved in this work. At present, the extent and scale of the use of torture in Myanmar is little understood because of the lack of attention especially to the incidence of torture in ordinary criminal cases. Human rights defenders in the current period of political change especially need to reorient their work towards these types of cases, since the possibility of torture being eliminated from Myanmar is nil if it cannot be eliminated in these most common cases.
c. Analysis of institutional weaknesses in Myanmar, in particular of the judiciary, prosecution and police, must incorporate the phenomenon of torture more forcefully and consistently. At present, the analyses and critiques tend to be abstract, concerned with vague notions of judicial independence, and on topics that are commonplace but are relatively comfortable for people to discuss, such as widespread corruption. International agencies, including the Special Procedures of the High Commissioner, should do as much as they can to help break open the discussion on torture and bring critical analysis of the phenomenon into their work on institutional problems, including by narrating and building analysis from specific cases.
About the ALRC: The Asian Legal Resource Centre is an independent regional non-governmental organisation holding general consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. It is the sister organisation of the Asian Human Rights Commission. The Hong Kong-based group seeks to strengthen and encourage positive action on legal and human rights issues at the local and national levels throughout Asia.
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BruDirect.com – Minister Of Education Visits SEAMEO Centre In Myanmar
Tuesday, 19 February 2013 07:02
Borneo Bulletin
Myanmar – The Minister of Education, Pehin Orang Kaya Seri Kerna Dato Seri Setia (Dr) Haji Awang Abu Bakar bin Haji Apong, has completed a working visit to the Republic of the Union of Myanmar in his capacity as the President of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation Council (SEAMEO).
The one-day visit was part of the SEAMEO President’s two-year regional tour of the 20 existing SEAMEO centres located throughout Southeast Asia, with the SEAMEO Centre for History and Arts (SEAMEO CHAT) located in Yangon being the 20th and final centre to have received the minister, according to a press release.
On hand to receive the minister and his delegation was Myo Aung, Acting Centre Director of SEAMEO CHAT.
The minister lauded the centre’s attempt to adopt new strategies in order to remain relevant and become a centre of excellence in the field of history as well as tradition.
The minister was impressed by the centre’s Community Involvement Programme. The Community Involvement Programme is considered as a social responsibility programme which SEAMEO Units have undertaken to improve the quality of life of the teachers, students and community through each centre’s area of expertise.
Following the SEAMEO CHAT visit, the minister made a courtesy call on Prof Dr Mya Aye, the Union Minister for Education at the Department of Higher Education in Yangon.
As the President of the SEAMEO Council, the,, minister expressed his appreciation for the support the Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar has given to SEAMEO particularly in hosting the SEAMEO CHAT in Yangon.
The two ministers discussed matters of mutual interest including exploring potential collaboration in staff and student exchanges of higher education institutions.
A matter that was thoroughly discussed was the importance of developing human resource. The impetus is to develop a skilled and knowledgeable human capital that would be capable of using modern technology to generate value-added products from crude resources.
In light of this, the minister shared the initiative which is undertaken by the Ministry of Education Brunei in revamping its technical vocational education and highlighted key components of the multiple pathways of Education System for the 21st Century (SPN21).
The call concluded with both sides identifying aspects of education for immediate cooperation as well as addressed initiatives that would complement the interests of SEAMEO.
The minister also had the opportunity to visit the Yangon University of Foreign Languages prior to visiting SEAMEO CHAT, and the Yangon University in the afternoon.
In the two-year tenure as the President of the SEAMEO Council, the minister has called on all the SEAMEO Regional Centres hosted by Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
In the 47th SEAMEO Council Conference scheduled to be held next month in Hanoi, Vietnam will succeed Brunei Darussalam as the next President of the SEAMED Council.
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UN News Centre – Myanmar: UN welcomes release of child soldiers by national armed forces
18 February 2013 – The United Nations today welcomed the release of 24 children by Myanmar’s armed forces, known as the Tatmadaw, and called for the acceleration of discharges in line with the commitment made last year by the Government to end child rights violations.
Last June, the UN and the Government of Myanmar signed an action plan that sets a timetable and measurable activities for the release and reintegration of children associated with Government armed forces, as well as the prevention of further recruitment.
According to a news release issued by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the 24 children were officially discharged today at a ceremony in Yangon, attended by senior officials of the Tatmadaw and the Government, as well as the UN.
“This release of 24 children is a welcome step in the implementation of the action plan by the Government and reflects its commitment that children should not, and will no longer, be recruited and used for military purposes,” stated UN Resident Coordinator in Myanmar Ashok Nigam.
“I call for the acceleration of the release of all children from the Tatmadaw and for the non-State armed groups to also do the same,” he added.
Myanmar is one of 14 countries – with armed forces or armed groups identified by the UN Secretary-General as committing grave child rights violations – working together with the UN system to end grave violations against children in situations of armed conflict.
Under the action plan to end and prevent recruitment and use of children in the Tatmadaw, the Government has agreed to: identify all children in the Tatmadaw and ensure their unconditional release/discharge; facilitate the reintegration of released children into their families and communities; and facilitate processes that seek to end child recruitment by non-State armed groups, among other measures.
The plan was the result of years of negotiation between the Government and the UN, on behalf of a Country Task Force on Monitoring and Reporting of grave violations of child rights in armed conflict (CTFMR), with the latter made up of various UN agencies and programmes, as well as international non-governmental organizations.
Speaking at the ceremony, Bertrand Bainvel, UNICEF’s Representative in Myanmar and CTFMR co-chair, said that “a series of discharges just like this must accelerate in the coming months in order for the Tatmadaw to quickly achieve the double objective of zero under-age recruitment and full discharge of those that are under 18 in the armed forces.”
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Eleven Myanmar – Sunken ship had Myanmar crew but was not registered here, official says
Published on Monday, 18 February 2013 14:57
A cargo ship that sank yesterday off the northwestern coast of the Philippines was not registered in Myanmar though it did have a Myanmar crew, an official from the Department of Marine Administration said.
“There aren’t any registered ships in Myanmar with the name M.V. Arita Bauxite. Also, there aren’t any coal-carrying ships in Myanmar. The only registered ships in Myanmar that carry national flags are the ones from Myanmar Five Star Line,” the official said.
Thaung Kyaing, director of the Seaman Employment Control Division, said officials were still investigating whether the Myanmar crew left the country through agencies registered with it. If the seamen were recruited through registered agencies the division would identify the seamen, he said.
AFP reported that the ship was carrying 24 crewmembers when it sank after its engines failed. A Chinese vessel rescued nine crewmembers and recovered a body of a Malaysian national. Fourteen crewmembers remain missing.
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Eleven Myanmar – Hackers using local ISP to attack accounts of Eleven Media staff
Published on Monday, 18 February 2013 16:11
Hackers have been attempting to gain control of Facebook accounts belonging to Eleven Media reporters and Web administrators, according to notifications from the social-media company.
Facebook has informed Eleven Media staff via email that attempts to enter their accounts had been made from unfamiliar locations, citing the hackers’ login IP, country, email address and time zones.
According to notifications from Facebook last week someone attempted to enter the accounts of Eleven Media information technology manager Zaw Ye Naung and executive editor Nay Tun Naing using the email address sn1ff3rg0dbot@gmail.com.
Hackers used IP 203.81.72.87, which belongs to internet service provider Myanmar Posts and Telecommunication (MPT).
Hackers also attempted to enter Eleven Media Web operator Tin Htet Naing’s Gmail account earlier this month as well as the Facebook account of Web operator Naing Naing Htet using the address kyawblaze@gmail.com. Both hacking attempts used the IP address 203.81.85.30, which belongs to MPT.
MPT and Yatanarpon Teleport can investigate as notifications of the hacking attacks identify the local IPs and time zones used.
Login notifications can be enabled via Facebook’s security settings which will alert account owners by their primary email address every time an attempt is made to enter their Facebook account.
Websites of local media as well as their Facebook accounts and the Gmail accounts of reporters and other media staff have been under attack from hackers since January.
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Eleven Myanmar – Military under fire following land-grab probe
Published on Monday, 18 February 2013 13:18
Farmland appropriated for development, military bases or other projects should be returned to its owners if the projects did not go ahead, according to a draft report from the Farmland Investigation Commission.
The report is the result of several months of investigation by the commission into cases of alleged land grabs across the nation. Sources said it would be submitted to Parliament during its current session.
The draft report by the commission, which was formed by the Union Assembly last August, calls for greater controls on the military’s appropriation of land, recommending that land seized for a base should be commensurate with the size of the unit that will use it.
The draft report also calls for clearer guidelines to govern land appropriation, including compensation rates. Rates paid to farmers should be equivalent to the market price and local authorities should provide input into the setting of compensation rates, the draft report says.
It also calls for farmland seized near military compounds to be returned to farmers if it was grabbed by soldiers or their families for personal use.
Tin Htut, chair of the commission, said the report would assist those involved in land disputes and help provide legal advice to those who faced land grabs in the future.
In a sign of increasing concern over the military’s reputation for land grabbing a senior officer, Maj-General Min Naing, last month pledged that the military would compensate those whose land had been seized.
The surging price of land is fuelling land grabs, activists say. The price of farmland in Yangon Region has risen tenfold over the past three years, farmers say.
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Huffington Post – Myanmar: A Nation at War With Itself
Stanley Weiss|Founding Chairman, Business Executives for National Security
Posted: 02/18/2013 8:47 pm
YANGON — Towering high above the center of this ancient city, the Shwedagon Pagoda is one of the great wonders of the religious world. Said to be encased in more than sixty tons of gold, the Shwedagon is older than the city itself. Its earliest legend goes back 2,500 years, when two brothers from lower Burma are said to have met the Buddha shortly after his enlightenment. As proof of their friendship, the Buddha plucked eight strands of hair from his head, which they brought back and enshrined within the Shwedagon. There it remains, alongside the Buddha’s famous precepts, the first of which reads: “Avoid killing, or harming any living thing.”
In the hillsides and villages that emanate out across Myanmar from this sacred shrine have occurred some of the most heinous atrocities of the past century — carried out by some of the very people who purport to follow the teachings carved inside.
That a country that is 85 percent Buddhist — the religion of peace — is known for non-stop war is a cruel historical irony. That the Burman majority that makes up 60 percent of Myanmar’s population — and staffs its army — has been engaged since the end of World War II in an ethnic cleansing campaign against 135 other ethnic minorities here is a modern tragedy. That the cleansing campaign continues in some villages to this day — even while Myanmar shifts to democracy, opens itself to the world and is praised by foreign leaders, most recently President Barack Obama in his State of the Union Address — is an ongoing outrage that the world must bring to an end.
“This is a pre-democracy society and the predominant thinking is everyone is against each other,” a Western ambassador tells me. “People meet with each other but then foul mouth each other. There’s a lack of identity. Alliances shift and there is fighting in every region.”
As Burman historian Thant Myint-U, grandson of former United Nations Secretary-General U Thant, has written, “the geography of (Myanmar) is important in understanding its current ethnic make-up and its possible futures.”
Slightly smaller than Texas, nestled between China, Thailand and India, Myanmar’s central core is the long, flat Irrawaddy Valley, home of the Burman majority. To the east are the Shan hills, dominated by the Shan people — Buddhists who comprise the second-largest ethnic group. To the north and northwest are mountain ranges extending to the Himalayas, dominated by groups like the Chin and Kachin, who are Christians. To the mountainous west live perhaps the most persecuted minority, the Muslim Rohingya, a Muslim group. To the south and southeast are hills that run to Thailand, inhabited primarily by the Karen people, which are both Christian and Buddhist.
All told, ethnic populations cover half of its total land area and make up nearly half of Myanmar’s total population — while housing all of Myanmar’s international trade routes, most of its borders and nearly all of its natural resources: from copper and silver to expensive lumber and precious minerals. That’s where the trouble begins.
“What ails Burma is not just about politics and human rights per se, but control of the land and the fruits of the land,” says a retired American military advisor to the ethnic groups. “It is about controlling ethnic ancestral lands rich in natural resources, and not being able to jointly explore and share prosperity.” A high profile Myanmar businessman adds, “In the end, it’s about economic rights. Ethnics never feel like they have (any) and the government needs to give them some.” “And remember,” says another local businessman, “the problem here is inefficient democracy because we’ve had 49 years of a different system.”
While ethnic conflict here goes back to the Middle Ages, the modern chapter begins with the collapse of British rule after World War II. Burmans sided with the Japanese during the war while the ethnics sided with America and Great Britain. When the war ended, Britain inexplicably gave power to the Burmans while disempowering rural ethnics. As Britain pulled out, ethnic armies surrounded Burmans in this city (then called Rangoon) in what was known as “The Seven Mile Government” (or, as the military advisor calls it, “the Burmans’ Alamo.”) India came to the rescue, and the civilian-run Burmese government handed power over to the military as its savior.
Most ethnic groups declared war, and fighting has continued ever since. Military atrocities deep in the jungle displaced more than a million civilians, while ethnic groups were unable to teach or speak their own languages in government-run schools. The status of groups that have signed cease-fires with the government is still unresolved, while the military continues to subject ethnic minorities to religious persecution, forced labor, stolen land and worse.
Even while Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Myanmar last November, the Burmese army was engaged in vicious fighting with Kachin rebels in the far north, breaking a 17-year ceasefire. Rubbing salt in the wound, the army launched its worst airstrikes against the Christian Kachin on Christmas Eve. The real issue, says a European official is “jade — which the Kachin have, the army wants to take and the Chinese want to buy.” Even while Kachin troops kill Burmese troops at a rate of 100:1, the escalated military campaign, as journalist Bertil Lintner writes, “has also sent a stark signal to other ethnic armies which have entered ceasefire agreements with the government… who say they feel threatened.”
While “it might be reasonable,” as a UN official tells me, ” to say that you could have a democracy with eight civil wars going at the same time,” President Thein Sein “knows that he must make peace with the ethnics,” a Western Ambassador says. With the international spotlight increasingly on Myanmar in the run-up to its ascension to chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2014, ongoing civil war will be a distraction Myanmar doesn’t need — and other ASEAN nations might not stand for.
But there are two big roadblocks to peace.
First, the constitution rammed through in 2008 is anathema to ethnic minorities, since it mandates central government control over ethnic lands — which is tough to alter, as any change requires a 75 percent vote plus one, even while the army controls a mandated 25 percent of Parliament. One Karen official tells me bluntly, “If the Constitution isn’t changed, the Karen won’t join the 2015 (presidential) election — all (ethnic minorities) agree on this.”
While some minority groups like the Kachin want outright independence, most want a federal system like the U.S., or better yet, Switzerland — where ethnic cantons have autonomy within a federal structure. Burmans fear that the issue of control could unite minorities — and this “petrifies Burmans,” says the military advisor, “who do all they can to prevent unity, because they realize that the power of ethnic leaders lies in collective action.”
The second issue is the army. As an Asian ambassador puts it, “the president tells the military to stop fighting, but the army keeps fighting.” Under the current system, the military still answers to a murkily-defined National Security Council, not the president. Or, as a local editor tells me, “the army still runs Myanmar.” But with top Burmese officials eager to counter-act the influence of China while retiring peacefully, even military officials realize that true democracy is “the retirement policy for the last regime” and a means to avoid power struggles.
What can the U.S. do to help? A lot.
America should offer to broker peace between the Kachin, the army and the government — tying future aid to successful negotiations. It should work with the U.N. to educate minority groups and government officials about the meaning of federalism — to go slow and begin to build trust. It should offer to train young government and ethnic army officers through the military-to-military International Military Education and Training Program (IMET), where exposure to U.S. civil society was credited by some with Indonesia’s army returning to the barracks in its transition to democracy a decade ago. It should also encourage the private sector to focus all sides on economic development as a common interest, helping Myanmar become the economic powerhouse it has the potential to be if ethnic violence ever stops.
If the two sides do find a path to peace, it may be said of Myanmar what the author Somerset Maugham wrote when seeing the Shwedagon Pagoda for the first time: “it rose superb, glistening with its gold like a sudden hope in the dark night.”
Stanley Weiss is founding chairman of Business Executives for National Security (a non-partisan organization of senior executives who contribute their expertise in the best practices of business to strengthening the nation’s security). This article is a personal comment.
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The Irrawaddy – UN Aid Reaches Long-Isolated Kachin Town
By NYEIN NYEIN / THE IRRAWADDY| February 18, 2013 |
The UN said its relief workers arrived in Kachin State’s Hpakant Township on Sunday to begin addressing the needs of about 5,000 displaced Kachin civilians there. The displaced were cut off from aid until now because of fighting between the government and Kachin rebels.
“We are pleased that assistance to Hpakant went [Sunday] morning. Humanitarian assistance must flow uninterrupted as long as people are in need,” Ashok Nigam, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Burma, said in a statement.
The UN and international aid agencies will help 41 internally displaced people (IDP) camps in Hpakant Township, the UN said, adding that it was bringing food, tarpaulins, kitchen sets, blankets, mosquito nets, basic medical supplies and water purification materials.
Hpakant is under government control but the roads to the township—a regional center that is known for its lucrative jade mines—have been the target of frequent guerilla attacks by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).
Following ceasefire talks between the Kachin rebels and the governent on Feb. 4, it was agreed to let UN aid into IDP camps in both government and KIA-controlled areas. Government negotiators are due to meet the United Nationalities Federal Council—an alliance of Burma’s ethnic militias that includes the KIA—for further ceasefire talks on Wednesday.
Due to the Feb.4 talks international aid convoys can now safely reach Hpakant Township. The last aid shipment to Hpakant was a limited food delivery by the UN’s World Food Program in November.
UN National Information Officer Aye Win said the UN had held discussions with the government and the KIA since January to ensure safe passage of its aid delivery.
“Currently they are in Hpakant, we plan to go to other areas too,” he said by telephone on Monday. “But it depends on the security condition of the area and permission to travel,” he said. “The security matter on the way remains important.”
A priest in Karmine, a small town near Hpakant, said international aid workers had visited an IDP shelter there on Monday and had provided assistance to the displaced. “They came and provided clothing, kitchen sets and tarpaulins in the morning and then returned to Hpakant,” said the priest, who preferred not to be named.
An inhabitant of Hpakant said that while aid was arriving in the township, the Burmese military had also begun consolidating its positions in the area. “Even though there are peace talks more troops have begun passing through our village,” said the man, who preferred not to be named.
The KIA and the government have been fighting since June 2011 and the war has displaced at least 80,000 villagers, according to the UN. Some Kachin aid groups put the number at more than 100,000 IDPs. More than half of the displaced are in KIA-controlled areas, such as Laiza and Majayang.
Aye Win said the UN would hold further discussions with the government and the KIA to see how international aid could be delivered to IDPs in these areas. “It’s too early to say when we are going into the camps in the other [KIA-controlled] areas,” he said.
In the past, the government has blocked international aid deliveries to KIA-held areas.
Laiza, a town on the Burma-China border where the KIA has its headquarters, is home to some 20,000 residents and another 15,000 IDPs.
Local Kachin relief groups have been caring for the displaced without international aid support for many months.
Aid workers said they had not been contacted by the UN yet and were waiting to get confirmation of aid deliveries. “We heard that the UN is coming,” said Salang Kaba Doi Pi Sa, chairman of the IDP and Refugee Relief Committee (IRRC). “We are aware that KIO leaders are discussing about it.”
According to the IRRC, some 70,000 displaced Kachin are living in 40 IDP camps in KIA areas.
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The Irrawaddy – Army Officials Won’t Take Part in Meeting with UNFC
By SAW YAN NAING / THE IRRAWADDY| February 18, 2013 |
A Burmese government delegation led by President’s Office Minister Aung Min is expected to arrive in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai on Tuesday for a meeting with an umbrella group of ethnic militias from Burma, but Burmese military officials will be conspicuously absent from the gathering.
According to Khun Okkar, the joint-secretary of the ethnic alliance group the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), it is too early to predict the outcome of the one-day meeting.
“We can’t say in advance what the meeting will achieve,” he said, speaking to The Irrawaddy on Monday. “It all depends on what kind of agreement we can reach. We may at least be able to agree to continue the negotiations.”
According to sources from both the UNFC and the government delegation, the government peace team will include Aung Min, Livestock and Fisheries Minister Ohn Myint, Immigration Minister Khin Yi, Deputy Chief Attorney-General Tun Tun Oo and representatives from the government-founded Myanmar Peace Center.
Some government peace brokers from the Myanmar Peace Center have already arrived in Chiang Mai, but Aung Min and other ministers are not expected until tomorrow, according to UNFC sources.
Nyo Ohn Myint of the Myanmar Peace Center said the meeting will focus on laying the groundwork for future talks.
“The two delegations will attempt to reach an agreement over the venue, time frame and agenda of the next union-level talks. The main issue is to discuss how to move forward with the political dialogue,” he said.
The UNFC delegation will include Dr La Ja, general secretary of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), whose armed wing has been fighting Burmese government forces for the past 20 months. According to UNFC sources, no KIO officials from the group’s headquarters at Laiza, on the Sino-Burmese border, will attend the meeting on Tuesday.
Representatives from other ethnic groups, including the Mon, Karen, Karenni and Chin, will also join the UNFC delegation.
The Nippon Foundation, a Japanese non-governmental organization, will mediate the meeting. It is believed that the group’s chairman, Yohei Sasakawa, who is also the Japanese government’s goodwill ambassador for the welfare of Burma’s ethnic minorities, will also be present.
Some observers say the absence of Burmese military officials means that it is unlikely that the meeting will do anything to ease the tensions in Kachin State.
The KIO and the government last met in the Chinese city of Ruili on Feb. 4, when the government agreed to initiate a political dialogue with the UNFC before the end of the month.
The Kachin Independence Army, the KIO’s military wing, is the last major ethnic militia still actively engaged in armed conflict with Burma’s government army. It had a ceasefire agreement with the government until fighting broke out in June 2011, ending 17 years of relative peace in the country’s far north and displacing around 90,000 Kachin civilians.
Despite achieving a series of ceasefire agreements with other armed groups since assuming power in early 2011, the current quasi-civilian government of President Thein Sein has yet to propose a long-term solution to ease ethnic tensions in the country.
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Mitsubishi to open after-sales network in Myanmar
Monday, 18 February 2013 12:41 Mizzima News
Japanese auto giant Mitsubishi has announced that it has signed an agreement to open an after-sales service in Myanmar.
“Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC), Mitsubishi Corporation (MC), Yoma Strategic Holdings Ltd. (YSH) and First Myanmar Investment Company Ltd (FMI) wish to jointly announce that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) concerning the after-sales service business for Mitsubishi Motors in the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (Myanmar),” the firm said in a statement published in the Japanese media on Monday.
“Since the recent deregulation of automobile importation in Myanmar, a number of Mitsubishi Motors vehicles have been distributed through the used car market. As MMC currently does not have any official after sales service network in Myanmar, it has been a priority to establish this as soon as possible,” it said.
“Under this MOU, MMC, MC, YSH and FMI are now planning to establish an official service center firstly in Yangon, followed by Mandalay and Nay Pyi Taw. Each official service center will provide well-trained and highly qualified service technicians with genuine parts to existing Mitsubishi Motors vehicle owners,” the statement said.
Mitsubishi is one of the main investors in the Thilawa Special Economic Zone, a mammoth industrial complex planned southeast of Yangon which is largely being financed by the Japanese government.
Yoma Strategic Holdings is a Singapore-based company with stakes in Myanmar’s auto market, the agriculture sector and real estate.
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Mizzima News – Myanmar garment factories gear up for foreign investment
Monday, 18 February 2013 15:53 Khin Myo Thwe
The Myanmar Garment Entrepreneurs Association has said that some local garment enterprises are changing their business tactics to appeal to foreign investors.
Photo: Opal Int’l Co., Ltd.Dr. Aung Win, vice chairman of the association said, “Over the past month, 10 or 15 locally-run garment enterprises have been developing their business tactics to appeal to foreign investment. We should welcome this kind of thing.”
Local garment entrepreneurs have told Mizzima that hundreds of foreign garment enterprises have been attracted by Myanmar’s tax breaks.
“Depending on the type of export goods, tax will be reduced to 15 percent in accordance with the EU’s Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), so enterprises from countries such as South Korea, Japan and Thailand are coming to discuss the investment in garment enterprise sector,” said Hla Win, a garment entrepreneur.
The potential investment by these companies will offer huge job opportunities, but the success depends on the allowance of joint-ventures, said the association.
“If joint-ventures are permitted, the entrepreneurs will need to construct factories completely,” said a spokesperson from Myanmar Garment Entrepreneurs Association. “It would be beneficial for local entrepreneurs, foreign entrepreneurs and the government,” he said.
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Canada furthers moves toward Myanmar
Monday, 18 February 2013 13:25 Mizzima News
A Canadian delegation arrived in Myanmar on February 16 as part of an ongoing process of reengagement between the two countries.
The multi-party delegation, headed by the Canadian Parliamentary Secretary Deepak Obhrai, will meet with representatives from the Myanmar government during their six-day visit to the country.
On March 8, 2012, John Baird became the first Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister to visit Myanmar.
Ahead of this latest visit Baird said, “When I visited Burma [Myanmar] last March, I proposed this type of exchange so Canada could share with Burmese reform leaders our experiences and perspectives on good parliamentary practices. There is very little parliamentary tradition in Burma [Myanmar], and if a functioning legislature and multi-party electoral system are to flourish, there’s real value to this type of practical interaction.”
In 2007, Canada imposed trade sanctions on Myanmar; before then, several large Canadian companies conducted business in the country—notably, Ivanhoe whose mining interest was purchased by China North Industries Corporation, or NORINCO, in 2010.
On April 24, 2012, Canada lifted a significant amount of sanctions. Still in place are prohibitions on weapons sales and sanctions targeting specifically listed individuals and organizations.
To further encourage business between the countries, the Myanmar government announced business visas on arrival for Canadian citizens on February 1.
“We welcome this decision to offer Canadian business people visas upon their arrival in Burma [Myanmar], which will help grow our commercial presence there,” said the Canadian Minister of International Trade, Ed Fast. “I raised this issue with Burma’s leaders during my trade mission last year, and I am pleased to report today that progress has been made. This is good news for Canadian business people, and it will facilitate the continued deepening of our trading relationship with Burma, contributing to jobs, growth and long-term prosperity in both countries.”
Canadian investment in Burma amounted to about US $40 million as of June 2012, according to Myanmar Investment Commission data.
The Canadian Embassy will open in Yangon later this year in a shared embassy space at the British Embassy as part of the country’s cutting of $174 million from its Foreign Affairs departmental budget.
A reciprocal visit by Myanmar representatives to Canada is expected to take place later this year.
In March 2012, Canada made Aung San Suu Kyi an honorary citizen.
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DVB News – Thai couple accused of torturing young Karen girl skip bail
By NANG MYA NADI
Published: 18 February 2013
A Thai couple accused of kidnapping, torturing and enslaving a 12-year-old Karen girl for over five years, are on the run from authorities today after refusing to show up for police questioning, according to Thai media.
The Thai government has offered a THB 100,000 (USD$ 3,349) reward to anyone who can offer information that will help locate the fugitives. The Burmese embassy in Bangkok told DVB that it is the responsibility of the Thai government to ensure that the two are found and brought to justice.
“We have sent letters to the Thai foreign affairs urging for justified actions [against the couple]. Since they are hiding in Thailand, I believe Thai authorities should follow up with it,” said Naing Htun, Labour Ministry Director, speaking from the Burmese embassy in Bangkok.
It follows news that a young Karen girl – born to illegal migrant workers in Thailand – was brutally tortured and kept as a household slave in north-western Thailand for half a decade. Images of the young girl’s severely burned body circulating in the media have shocked the country and raised fresh questions over the mistreatment of Burmese migrants in Thailand.
The couple – identified as 35-year-old Natee Taengorn and 33-year-old Rattanakorn Piyaworatham – reportedly paid THB 700,000 (USD$ 23,441) in bail money to a local court last week, before absconding. The police learned that the couple had fled, after they took out over one million baht (USD$ 33,487) from their bank accounts.
“We will forfeit their bond and seek arrest warrants for them,” Superintendent Akkasorn Srisupat, from the Muang Kamphaengphet police station, told the Nation.
The child, known only as “Air”, told police that she was forced to work as the couple’s slave and subjected to gruesome torture, including being drenched in boiling hot water, while locked up in a dog cage. She said that her captors cut off a tip of her ear when she first tried to escape three years ago. Questions remain over why the girl was subsequently returned to her captors, who have been described as having “influential” connections.
The couple faces seven charges, including slavery, torture, forced labour and child trafficking. The pair initially denied the charges and told police that the girl “accidentally” injured herself with hot water. They were due to testify ahead of the Department of Special Investigation today.
Last week, a delegation from the Burmese embassy visited the Kamphaengphet Children and Families Shelter, where the young girl is being cared for, to present her with THB 25,000 (US$ 837) to assist with her medical expenses. They have also offered to help provide legal aid.
According to doctors at the Kamphaengphet hospital, 50 percent of the girl’s skin has been seriously burned, subsequently fusing her left arm to the side of her torso, and she required immediate surgery. But the girl is said to be receiving trauma counselling and socializing well with others, although she still shudders at the sight of hot things.
The treatment of migrant workers in Thailand has been a source of controversy for many years, drawing regular criticism from human rights groups. Up to three million migrants in Thailand, or about 80 percent, are estimated to come from Burma, and often occupy a quasi-legal existence that leaves them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.
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