To:  United Nations and international community

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We, the undersigned, are uniting against despotic Burmese military Generals’ ulterior plans to perpetuate their illegitimate strangle hold on civilian political power in Burma.

Burma is a medium-sized country in South East Asia with about 50 million people comprising of quite a number of diversities of various ethnic groups. After being ruled for more than 50 years by successive military authoritarian regimes, Burma has now become one of the poorest countries on earth, with a longest-suffering people and a longest-ruling military.

Burma has a twin struggle going on; peaceful freedom movement to get democracy and human rights for all people, and a federalist movement to get genuine federalism for ethnic national people in their traditional native regions. The ruling military elite has again and again used their troops to brutally suppress all human rights movements and ethnic uprisings, killing thousands of pro-democracy and ethnic activists, jailing tens of thousands, and displacing hundreds of thousands to millions of people of all ethnicities from their homes. Currently, even by most conservative official estimates, 2 to 3 thousands of political prisoners are detained in Burma’s notorious jails and are being tortured and ill-treated every minute of every day.

Now, the military has crafted a cunning plan to achieve a perpetual and eternal dominence on Burma’s civilian politics. In 2008, while half of the country was submerged under flood waters of cyclone Nargis, the military by using voter intimidation and vote rigging passed a new pro-military constitution. 2008 constitution allows the military to make a coup any time they like; to enjoy absolute amnesty for any thing they do during the periods of direct military rule; to hold 25% of seats in both chambers of Burma’s new parliament; to field their own presidential candidate; to insist that the President must come from military background; to manage military’s affairs by themselves independently of any civilian government administration.

In 2008 and 2009, the kangaroo courts set up by the military regime gave 65 to 105 years prison sentences to all leading opposition politicians and activists; and they also extended Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest by another 18 months, i.e., continuation of house-arrest until after new elections have been held (and dishonestly manipulated) by the military regime in 2010.

In March 2010, the military regime unlawfully made new election laws which prohibit detained political prisoners from taking part in the elections, voting in the elections or being members in election going political parties. These unfair election laws also require all election going parties to formally announce that they endorse the sham 2008 pro-military constitution. And, the regime has already given ultimatum to all political parties to either register for the 2010 elections under these unfair laws, or get disbanded.

So, we solemnly request the United Nations, international governments and global community to “Help Liberate Burma” by _

_ Denouncing 2008 sham constitution of Burma which was unlawfully passed by force by the military regime
_ Denouncing unfair election laws in Burma which were unlawfully made by the military regime
_ Denouncing the coming fake election 2010
_ Denouncing the dishonest results to be shamelessly declared unilaterally by the military regime
_ Denouncing any puppet government to be installed by the military after the fake 2010 election

Sincerely,

(Please sign in the comment box below; your name will appear on signatories page after a while)

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Signatories of “Help Liberate Burma” Petition (5D’s petition)

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_ By Prof. Kanbawza Win

The civilized international community has laugh in their sleeves after witnessing the Ne Win administration made a mockery of Socialism, in as much as the current Junta is making a mockery of Democracy. The Tatmadaw has tried relentlessly, to erase the democratic movement and humiliate the entire people of Burma. But, they have not won the people and on 29th ultimo they have spoken loud and clear. The people of Burma at this moment are stronger than they have been in the past and have let the world know that they are united and not threatened by the strength and power of the military. But the rigged Nargis Constitution and the bogus elections will go on with Soutshet-less, a new Anglo Burmese word for shamelessly. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi our noble, Nobel leader has given a clarion call when she make it known that she would not even think of the elections and the majority of the Myanmar and the non Myanmar or rather the ethnic nationalities have also declared that they are not interested and nothing would change.

It is quite imperative that the elections sponsored by the Junta and supported by its cronies, psychopaths, apologists, hypocrites and opportunists both inside and outside of Burma will be held before the new year rings in and several insignificant ethnic political parties will participate with the blessings and active help of the ENC (Ethnic Nationalities Council). Paradoxically, it clearly indicates that the funds from the international donors were being channelled via the Euro Burma Office to ENC encouraging the ethnic nationalities to participate. One could not ever contemplate that in face of ethnic cleansing of why the ENC is working hand in glove with the Junta? What is the rationale that the precious donations from international community have been wasted instead of using in more fruitful ventures?

The timidity, fickle leadership, afraid to stand for the righteous cause, couple with the lack of vision of the Diaspora Ethnic National Council has been vividly painted to the world by this action. It is time for the ethnic communities to question their self appointed leaders. These so called ethnic leaders jetting around the world, drinking beer and staying in luxury hotels only because they know where to tap the international resources, whereas the ethnic fighter after forfeiting his life in dangerous battles with an uneven fire power comes home to find that there was no rice in the pot is something to think of.

It is time for the ethnic nationalities to question their leadership and replaced these elites, with young, sincere, dedicated and patriotic persons so abundant in the ethnic communities. Since Balkanization is not accepted by the ethnic nationalities of Burma as the Manerplaw Agreement of 13th July 1992 indicates, to establish the Federal Union, in other words the Genuine Union of Burma, the ethnic nationalities should join hands with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s leadership and the genuine Myanmar nationals. Those dedicated ethnic leaders who are in touch with the grassroots level and is part and parcel of the ethnic community has made known their views and an un-mistakable message was given when Chairman of the Kachin National Organization  Bawmwang La Raw said, “There is no earthly reason to accept this election I don’t think any party which contests the elections are well intentioned,” KNU General Secretary Zipporah Sein said at a press conference in Bangkok on 19th March said that,” These elections will only compound the suffering of our ethnic people,” while the SNLD spokesperson Sai Leik commented,” I would like to say these laws are one-sided and are simply unjust and unfree. […] For that reason, we can’t accept such restrictive laws,” The New Mon State Party Secretary Nai Hang Thar on 22nd March added “The junta is holding an election because their main political goal is to supersede the 1990 election result that gave the NLD victory and legalize their military rule” even as the WA and Kachin are preparing to fight. These real leaders of the ethnic communities have made known their options, long before which has nothing to do with ENC or NRP. Several exiled political groups like Aung \moe Zaw of the DPNS (Democratic Party for New Society). Khun Myint Tun, of NCGUB (National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma) and even the defunct student leader Dr Naing Aung of NDD say it loud and clear before NLD make a decision. It is only after the NLD has made its decision known that ENC came up with a declaration of supporting the NLD decision what in Burmese call Mee-sin-kyee-ka. Why? Perhaps we will have to agree with U Aung Zaw that as far as Burma is concerned, even among the ethnic’s nationalities are also not short of hypocrites. Hence if the ethnic communities were to go forward, we should stand on our own legs and must not rely on the ethnic elites or the hook nose farang experts that unwittingly lend a helping hand to the Junta and augment the accusations that we were the lackeys of foreign countries but to throw our lot with Daw Aun San Suu Kyi.

Again to throw our lot with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s leadership, great care must be taken and the ethnic nationalities must be able to distinguish between a genuine Pyidaungsu Myanmar/Burman and Mahar Bamar. Among the NLD members and in Diaspora there are several people who harbour the Mahar Bamar chauvinist attitude. If that is the case how are we going to distinguish the Pyidaungsu Bamar and the Mahar Bamar? It is only by making friends with them and working together that one can know the real intentions of their obsession. A classic example is that if we were to look at a not so recent history of Burma

(a) The 1948 Constitution. When the ethnic nationalities realised that the 1948 Constitution not only disregard the essence of Panglong Agreement but also was substantively different from the “Draft Constitution Approved by the AFPFL National Convention”.  The non-Myanmar ethnic national leaders gathered in Taunggyi, in 1961 to discuss its defects. Over 200 non-Myanmar politicians, leaders, and scholars agreed to amend the defects of the Constitution of Union of Burma (1948) within democratic principles and approved the drafted “Federal Bill” to table at the Union Parliament. Consequently, they also urged Prime Minister U Nu to initiate Federal Seminar in Rangoon to discuss the future of Burma Union and implementation of federalism in the Union of Burma. In doing so this “Federal Bill,” the Myanmar will have equal status with non-Myanmar nationals. The Mahar Myanmar nationalists, who were the high-ranking officers in Burmese Army, realized that the only way to safeguard Myanmar domination over non-Myanmar ethnic nationals is removing the democratic regime by force. Therefore, the Burmese Army took the power on March 2, 1962.

(b) The 1974 Socialist Constitution. The raison d`étre was to prevent from disintegration of Burma Union and the Revolutionary Council arrested all participants in the Taunggyi Conference and sent them to jail without due process of law. Many prominent non-Myanmar ethnic national leaders were secretly murdered while some of them died in jail. Subsequently, the Revolutionary Council drafted a new Constitution after ten years that came to force in 1974. This new Constitution not only disregarded the essence of Panglong Agreement, but also constitutionally expanded Myanmar ethnic national domination toward non-Myanmar ethnic nationals by creating Seven Divisions out of Myanmar inhabitant area.

(c) NLD’s Interim Constitution. Although the Socialist military regime collapsed in 1988 and the NLD was voted for to restore democracy in Burma by the people, it miserably failed to carry out the peoples’ mandate due to two significantly important factors. First, NLD failed to draft the Interim Constitution of Burma based on the essence of Panglong Agreement. Second the majority of NLD’s top leaders are former military officers who were ousted by General Ne Win, so that restoration of democracy in Burma is not priority for them but toppling the present military regime is always their first priority in their head. Even though Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had expressed her willingness to form a Federal Union of Burma to solve political problems in Burma but she has not received warm responses from NLD’s top leaders.

(d)  Current Nargis Constitution, I will not comment much on it as it has been rejected by the people The Junta is so deeply one-sided, harmful to the country’s interests, as measured in terms of human security, economic development, political stability, ethnic harmony and national security. So much so that the regime’s friends and foes alike are dismayed by the repressive way it is proceeding with their electoral process.

So the real ethnic national leaders must take over the leadership and great care should be taken to weed out the Mahar Bamar from the Pyidaungsu Bamar, We will have to follow Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s leadership together with the Pyidaungsu Bamar but not necessarily the NLD dominated by the Mahar Bamar and throw our lot with the genuine leader to fight the ultimate battle with the Junta’s Tatmadaw. But the pre requisite is that we have to revamped and reorganise the leadership and a new Ethno Democratic Movement should be inaugurated that can synchronise both inside and outside the country.

]]> http://burmadigest.info/2010/04/01/the-next-step-is-for-the-ethno-democratic-movement-2/feed/ 2 http://burmadigest.info/2010/03/30/nld-calling-for-the-ultimate-fight-burmese/ http://burmadigest.info/2010/03/30/nld-calling-for-the-ultimate-fight-burmese/#comments Tue, 30 Mar 2010 18:28:17 +0000 admin http://burmadigest.info/?p=21389

Regardless of the very high hope and expectations of ICC enthusiasts, there is an intense debate going on between ICC’s opponents and proponents over its legitimacy and utility.

(Picture on front cover is courtesy of Thierry Falise.)

Buy this book on amazon.com

Proponents describe the court as the most significant new international institution created in so many years. The ICC, they claim, will be a powerful new weapon in the fight to end the prevailing “culture of impunity”, deter atrocities, promote national reconciliation in divided societies, and trigger major progress in efforts to promote the rule of law.

Critics view the ICC as an undemocratic and unaccountable institution. They also see it as a forum for politicized prosecutions which impose a threat to their national security. Making such allegations, some key actors in international affairs such as the US, Russia, China, India and Israel are refusing to become parties to the ICC.

The Court’s opponents and proponents agree at least on one main issue: the ICC has a potential to influence states’ national politics so much that it may trespass on national sovereignty.

Moreover, in addition to its potential threats to states’ national sovereignty, ICC’s standing has been scrutinized, and debated upon, on a few other important issues such as _ whether ICC will be able to maintain a strict political neutrality, who ICC will hold responsible for collective wrongs of crimes against humanity, whether or not ICC will have deterrence effect on potential human rights abusers, how ICC’s indictments and prosecutions will affect other peaceful means of national reconciliation, etc.

As soon as international human rights activists’ attempts to get ICC Prosecutor’s attention on Burma’s human rights abuses start to gain significant momentum, the Burmese military leaders and their regional allies will start challenging the ICC’s investigations on Burma; by throwing the usual criticisms at ICC, they will try to discredit, and defy, any ICC’s investigations on Burma’s human rights abuses. The main issue which the regime will raise with all vigour is that the ICC imposing its jurisdiction on Burma amounts to an encroachment on Burma’s national sovereignty.

So, the book “Challenges ahead on Burma’s Road to ICC” examines the background history and the whole regime of ICC, comparing and contrasting it with other similar parallel international or supranational institutions wherever appropriate, with a view to assess whether advances towards universal jurisdiction over human rights protection jeopardise states’ national sovereignty; and if so, what measures are available to reduce such an adverse impact, but also highlighting the fact that states may exploit any restrictive measures limiting the ICC’s jurisdiction to render it virtually powerless.

And, the ultimate aim of international human rights activists, and also the aim of this book, is to argue that the ICC, despite all its actual and potential weaknesses, is a welcoming development in international quest for a universal Rule of Law. It so would imply that Burma needs to, and can safely, embrace ICC to get justice eventually brought to her indigent people long suffering under the heels of various forms of dictatorship.

Buy the book “Challenges ahead on Burma’s Road to ICC” on amazon.com

Proceeds from the sale of this book are all to be donated to non-governmental health-care charities in Burma.

Challenges ahead on Burma’s Road to ICC

Universal Jurisdiction versus National Sovereignty & other issues

(Picture on front cover is courtesy of Thierry Falise.)

Recently, human rights activists inside and outside of Burma are calling the International Criminal Court to investigate human right crimes being committed, and have been committed, by Burma’s brutal rulers on the long suffering people of Burma.

But, as Burma is not a signatory of Rome statute of ICC, Burma’s dictators may just ignore any indictment by the ICC. To make matters worse, the ICC itself is neither perfect nor powerful. It has its own problems_ the ICC has been criticised by many statesmen and academics on quite a number of issues. And big democracies like the USA and India are refusing to sign the Rome Statute of ICC, making it look like a lame-duck.

This book tries to be of use in human rights activists’ quest to take Burma’s case to the International Criminal Court by looking at the debates and controversies surrounding the ICC from a positive point of view and arguing that the ICC is a welcoming development for the Rule of Law in the whole world including Burma.

This book is written in a way to give basic knowledge about the ICC to an ordinary casual reader while at the same time raising some important debate starting points for more serious readers, learners and activists.

All proceeds from the sale of this book will go to non-governmental healthcare charities inside Burma.

Buy this book on Amazon NOW! http://www.amazon.com/Challenges-ahead-Burmas-Road-ICC/

World is politics and politics is money. This is what majority of ignorant Burmese people have to discover lately. What are more they also have to be patient to let foreign governments and organizations come to comprehend a bit about true disposition of the military junta. Burmese dissidents are categorized as immature folks just telling and yelling how bad the generals are. So America imposed the first sanctions in 2003 after an American diplomat was allowed to examine where Aung San Suu Kyi was deliberately attacked. EU took one more year to adopt the Common Position on Burma. Australia took 3 years to terminate controversial human rights training for military officers. Canada waited till 2007 to impose some sanctions after monks were cruelly crushed. But other governments seem to be waiting forever.

Burmese pro-democracy movement was not equipped with useful tools to prove the world of 3,000 deaths during 1988 uprising. Thanks to absence of BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera and no visa for any journalist. But mobile phone cameras became useful in the monk-led movement in 2007. However media is still ineffective to influence most of the governments. Unfortunately some media cores work in line with the grand strategy and pay-off by the rich and the power.

At the highest international forum UN Security Council, it was visible when Russia and China exercised veto power on Burma resolution. However there are many other hidden powers pulling the strings.. Business interest, energy security, arms sale and drugs trade are much superior to moral stuff – democracy and human rights.

The occasional visitors who will spend less than two weeks at tourist spots like Pagan, Inlay and beaches of Burma come back and report how sweet the smiling people of Burma are and how nice the picturesque views are. Average listeners and readers quickly interpret business as usual in Burma. Those commentators have had no access to dining tables of the people living in satellite towns and the hardships of long rangers who are traveling from home towns to the remotest jails where their beloved ones are being held for the cause of democracy. No question about a glimpse of the most helpless ethnic peripheral areas.

Once the rice bowl of Asia and still has abundance of god-given natural resources, Burma is unable to come out of the least developed countries (LDC) list after two decades of so-called open market economy which captivated billions of foreign direct investment (FDI), millions of soft loans and millions of Official Development Assistance (ODA).

In effect a high share of overall FDIs went into capital-intensive sectors. There was little investment in the productive and labor-intensive sectors that can generate a positive spillover into the economy. Investment-led growth potential is thus lacking. Moreover Oil and Gas sector got massive 33.55% while Agriculture got tiny 0.44% of FDI. But Burma is a country of 59% of employment in Agriculture, 5% in construction and 1% in mining sector. So what an open market economy under this regime is all about? Evaluating that state of Economy, the 59% of Burmese population will say no thanks to foreign companies and investments.

Please watch the “Diamond Wedding” video of the first daughter (2006), look around unnecessary 5-star constructions around Naypyiday, and listen to Burmese language radios, BBC, VOA, RFA and DVB. The true story of Burma is the country desperately poor and the regime extremely rich. The military junta spends 40 cents per citizen each year on health care as health budget (3%) is the minimum and defense allotment (40%) is the maximum. Those who really need the valid first-hand news should have facility to translate the RSS feeds of Burmese language radios. Maybe your newspapers will naturally defend the policy and approach of your government and you can be half-blind.

10 years ago, Chinese and Indian security officials might have drawn an imaginary line over the map of small Burma that will divide the country for respective influence. Now two pipe lines made of steel will be running across Burma – one from Yadana field of the Gulf of Martaban to western Thailand and one from Shwe field off Arakan peninsula to Yunnan province of China.

In the battle for gas from Burma the three neighbors have been contending. As per the world natural gas proven reserves, the 15th China and the 39th Thailand are getting gas from the 40th Burma while the 24th India lost the bid. This also shows that rulers of Burma will not use gas reserve for domestic public utilization while the electricity consumption rate of Burma is only 5% of that of Thailand. In July this year the state-own Myanmar Electric Power Enterprise (MEPE) announced that electrical power will be rationed to six hours a day in Rangoon. At the same time, every day is Diwali season in Naypyidaw, the new capital.

The Shwe Gas Project is a project of the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) in partnership with the Daewoo International of South Korean (60%), the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) of India (20%), the Gas Authority of India Ltd. (GAIL) (10%) and the Korean Gas Corporation (10%).

The Yadana Gas Project is operated by Total SA of France, Chevron Corporation of the USA, PTT of Thailand and Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) of Burma. The gas projects made giant companies richer and moneyed Burmese generals to build secret projects. “Yadana”, apart from religious sense means jewels and “Shwe” means gold – jewels and gold for others but not for the people of Burma.

Lack of democracy is not a concern for the non-sanction governments because the generals are regarded as agreeable guys who can not only do business with but also can conceal the secret deals. The outcomes are drug money laundering, nuclear establishment, secret tunnels construction and billion dollars concealment.

The report recently released by the Earthrights International (ERI) about $US 4.8 billion generated for Burmese junta by Total and Chevron is a good case in point. It is understandable that the CEOs will deny at first. Multinationals like Total where public campaigns can play a role has paid compensation for forced labor and violations of labor standards. But there are more companies from other countries where neither democracy nor public opinion can help. Banks in Singapore and companies from South Korea are a few examples.

Leave alone Chinese and Indian companies because both countries ignored epidemic of forced labor practice and readily voted for Burmese junta at the International Labor Organization (ILO). It will also be wrong if Burmese people expect any face saving payment for forced relocation, forced labor and malpractices of labor standards from them because public interest in these two democracies is too low.

Daewoo International projects net profits of US$86 million every year while the junta takes in up to US$3 billion annually. But in 2006 more than 20 South Korean NGOs and trade unions, have urged the Seoul government to investigate Daewoo International Corporation for allegedly sending weaponry technology to military Burma.

In the US, there are coordinated attempts by politicians, media outlets and campaigners who are to make profits out of Burma for American companies. History tells us that the covert actions and invisible hands have being playing for business and security interests. After secrets are declassified the world comes to know that not all clandestine operations were profitable and or sensible. Forget about morality. Poor Burmese people have to wait for a couple of decades then.

Tint Swe

14-9-09

YANGON (Reuters) – Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was charged on Thursday with breaking the terms of her house arrest and faces up to five years in jail after an American intruder sneaked into her lakeside home, her party said.

Opposition activists denounced her trial, set to begin on Monday, as a ploy by the country’s junta to keep Suu Kyi, 63, sidelined ahead of elections in 2010.

Her National League for Democracy (NLD), which won a landslide election victory in 1990 only to be denied power by the military, “strongly condemned” the new charges two weeks before her latest six-year detention is due to expire on May 27.

The Nobel Peace laureate has spent 13 of the past 19 years in detention, most of it held virtually incommunicado at her home, with her telephone line cut, her mail intercepted and visitors restricted.

She was charged under the Law Safeguarding the State from the Dangers of the Subversive Elements, which imposes a three-to-five-year jail term if a detainee “violates the restrictions imposed on them.”

The charges stem from a bizarre incident involving U.S. citizen John William Yettaw, who, according to state media, claimed to have swum across Inya Lake and spent two days in Suu Kyi’s compound earlier this month.

Yettaw was charged with abetting, or “encouraging a violation of the law,” said Aung Thein, one of Suu Kyi’s lawyers.

Other reports said he had been charged with entering a restricted zone and breaking immigration laws, but Aung Thein could not confirm those charges.

Yettaw was arrested on May 6 as he swam back from Suu Kyi’s home. U.S. embassy officials were allowed to see him on Wednesday but he revealed little about his motives.

“We cannot comment. He didn’t tell us any details,” embassy spokesman Richard Mei said.

It was apparently the second time that Yettaw — described by state media as a 53-year-old psychology student and a resident of Missouri — had tried to meet Suu Kyi at her home.

Suu Kyi’s main lawyer, Kyi Win, said Yettaw was told to leave after his first attempt in late 2008. This time Yettaw refused.

“He said he was so tired and wanted to rest, but she pleaded with him. Then he slept overnight on the ground floor,” Kyi Win told the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB).

“GRAVE AND CONCERNING”

Suu Kyi’s detention in a house inside the prison will renew fears for her health after she was put on an intravenous drip last week for dehydration and low blood pressure.

Her main doctor, Tin Myo Win, was detained last week and is still being held at an undisclosed location.

The United Nations has said Suu Kyi’s continued house arrest is illegal under Myanmar law, which permits detention for five consecutive years before the accused must be freed or face trial.

Suu Kyi lodged an appeal against her detention after it was extended last year in an apparent violation of the law. The junta denied the appeal, saying they could hold her for a sixth year.

“The regime filed these charges to extend her detention beyond the six years,” said Aung Din, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, a pro-democracy group.

“It is an act of blackmailing the international community, especially the United States, demanding a ransom to get back an American citizen and better treatment for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.”

Australia’s Foreign Minister Stephen Smith called the arrest “grave and concerning” and demanded her immediate release.

The 10-nation Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), one of the few groups that allows Myanmar as a member, is “concerned” by the latest events there, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva told Reuters.

“We would like to see positive steps being taken according to the roadmap. It’s very important the political process is inclusive,” he said.

The generals have in the past ignored calls for her release as they push ahead with a seven-step “roadmap to democracy” expected to culminate in the multi-party elections in 2010.

The NLD and Western governments dismiss the “roadmap” and last year’s army-drafted constitution as a cover for the generals to cement their grip on power.

Daoud Kuttab, an award-winning Palestinian journalist, is Professor of Journalism at Princeton University.

Ramallah – As the summit between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu approaches, most of the discussion has focused on whether or not the newly elected Israeli leader will finally say that he backs a two-state solution. This is the wrong approach. Israelis should not determine the status of the Palestinian entity, nor should Palestinians have a say in what Israelis call their own state.

The only question that Obama should ask Netanyahu is, When will Israel quit the occupied Palestinian territories? Attempts at obfuscation – whether by talking about an “economic peace,” or insisting that Arabs recognize the Jewishness of the state of Israel – should not be allowed to derail the goal of ending the inadmissible occupation.

During Obama’s first meeting with a Middle East leader, a simple and courageous Arab plan was outlined. Empowered by Arab leaders, Jordan’s King Abdullah II officially presented the peace plan devised by the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic States. Despite the Israeli wars on Lebanon and Gaza, Arabs offered  normal relations with Israel once it quits the lands that it occupied in 1967.

The plan also calls for a  “fair” and “agreed upon” resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem. The fact that Israelis and Palestinians need to agree on a solution of the refugee issue neutralizes unwarranted Israeli fears about the demographic threat posed by the Palestinians’ right of return. Last summer, when he was shown a poster with 57 Arab flags representing the countries that will normalize relations with Israel, then candidate Obama told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that the Israelis would be “crazy” to reject that plan.

Obama’s impressive signals since taking office – telephoning Arab leaders before European allies, appointing special envoy George Mitchell and speaking on Al-Arabiyeh for his first interview – reflect a different approach from the staid and unimaginative past.

The US has repeatedly opposed the 1967 Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and has called for its end. It has consistently voiced disapproval of settlement activities. Leaders of both major US parties have articulated a policy that calls for a viable, contiguous Palestinian state on the lands occupied in 1967. The US has also opposed Israel’s unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem, and – along with every country on the planet – refused to recognize the application of Israeli law to residents of East Jerusalem.

Yet Israel’s actions on the ground have gone counter to American and international positions. The newly established Israeli government refuses even to pay lip service to the internationally accepted requirements for peace. On the other hand, the freely elected Palestinian leadership faces international boycott until it accepts a solution that the Netanyahu government rejects.

Among the international community’s demands of Israel has been the acceptance of the two-state solution and a total freeze on all settlement activity, including expansion and natural growth. Freezing settlement will certainly be a central focus of the robust diplomacy of Mitchell and his team. Mitchell, who was deeply involved in crafting the settlements language of the Mitchell Report of 2001, understands the capacity of the settlements to destroy the prospect for a two-state solution.

Jerusalem is another on-the-ground issue that will be a litmus test for the Obama administration. Demolition of Palestinian houses and Israeli provocations in East Jerusalem highlight the need to confront this issue without delay. The focus of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the Middle East is Jerusalem’s importance to Christians, Muslims, and Jews, so that attempts to Judaize the Holy City must stop immediately.

A third imperative for Palestinians is to reunite the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Irrespective of the outcome of the internal Palestinian dialogue taking place in Cairo, there is a need to reconnect Palestinians. There is no excuse why Palestinians living in either remaining sliver of Mandatory Palestine should be barred from traveling to the other part of the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israeli officials’ claims that barring the movement of people and goods is required for security reasons do not withstand scrutiny. Under the leadership of US General Keith Dayton (Mitchell’s security deputy), the most vigorous security checks can be made to allow such travel.

With renewed peace talks, results must be stressed over endless process. The last failed promise by President George W. Bush came at Annapolis in late 2007, when he vowed that an independent, viable, and contiguous Palestinian state would be created before the end of his term.

More than four decades after United Nations Security Council resolution 242, occupying land by force, illegal construction of exclusive Jewish settlements, and restrictions on movement continue unabated. Time is no longer on the side of those who favor two states.

The Obama administration must seize the initiative and insist that Netanyahu unequivocally support the two-state solution. Otherwise, tension looms in the Israeli-American relationship, and calls for one state with equal rights for all will begin to drown out older ideological visions, as settlement activity forecloses the prospect of two states.

………………………………………

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2009.
www.project-syndicate.org

Dani Rodrik, Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the first recipient of the Social Science Research Council’s Albert O. Hirschman Prize. His latest book is One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth.

Cambridge – It may take a few months or a couple of years, but one way or another the United States and other advanced economies will eventually recover from today’s crisis. The world economy, however, is unlikely to look the same.

Even with the worst of the crisis over, we are likely to find ourselves in a somewhat de-globalized world, one in which international trade grows at a slower pace, there is less external finance, and rich countries’ appetite for running large current-account deficits is significantly diminished. Will this spell doom for developing countries?

Not necesarily. Growth in the developing world tends to come in three distinct variants. First comes growth driven by foreign borrowing. Second is growth as a by-product of commodity booms. Third is growth led by economic restructuring and diversification into new products.

The first two models are at greater risk than the third. But we should not lose sleep over them, because they are flawed and ultimately unsustainable. What should be of greater concern is the potential plight of countries in the last group. These countries will need to undertake major changes in their policies to adjust to today’s new realities.

The first two growth models invariably come to a bad end. Foreign borrowing can enable consumers and governments to live beyond their means for a while, but reliance on foreign capital is an unwise strategy. The problem is not only that foreign capital flows can easily reverse direction, but also that they produce the wrong kind of growth, based on overvalued currencies and investments in non-traded goods and services, such as housing and construction.

Growth driven by high commodity prices is also susceptible to busts, for similar reasons.  Commodity prices tend to move in cycles. When they are high, they are apt to crowd out investments in manufactures and other, non-traditional tradables. Moreover, commodity booms frequently produce ugly politics in countries with weak institutions, leading to costly struggles for resource rents, which are rarely invested wisely.

So it is no surprise that the countries that have produced steady, long-term growth during the last six decades are those that relied on a different strategy: promoting diversification into manufactured and other “modern” goods. By capturing a growing share of world markets for manufactures and other non-primary products, these countries increased their domestic employment opportunities in high-productivity activities. Their governments pursued not just good “fundamentals” (e.g., macroeconomic stability and an outward orientation), but also what might be called “productivist” policies: undervalued currencies, industrial policies, and financial controls.

China exemplified this approach. Its growth was fueled by an extraordinarily rapid structural transformation towards an increasingly sophisticated set of industrial goods. In recent years, China also got hooked on a large trade surplus vis-à-vis the US – the counterpart of its undervalued currency.

But it wasn’t just China. Countries that had been growing rapidly in the run-up to the great crash of 2008 typically had trade surpluses (or very small deficits). These countries did not want to be recipients of capital inflows, because they realized that this would wreak havoc with their need to maintain competitive currencies.

It is now part of conventional wisdom that large external balances – typified by the bilateral US-China trade relationship – played a major contributing role in the great crash. Global macroeconomic stability requires that we avoid such large current-account imbalances in the future. But a return to high growth in developing countries requires that they resume their push into tradable goods and services. In the past, this push was accommodated by the willingness of the US and a few other developed nations to run large trade deficits. This is no longer a feasible strategy for large or middle-income developing countries.

So, are the requirements of global macroeconomic stability and of growth for developing countries at odds with each other? Will developing countries’ need to generate large increases in the supply of industrial products inevitably clash with the world’s intolerance of trade imbalances?

There is in fact no inherent conflict, once we understand that what matters for growth in developing countries is not the size of their trade surpluses, nor even the volume of their exports. What matters is their output of modern industrial goods (and services), which can expand without limit as long as domestic demand expands simultaneously. Maintaining an undervalued currency has the upside that it subsidizes the production of such goods; but it also has the downside that it taxes domestic consumption – which is why it generates a trade surplus. By encouraging industrial production directly, it is possible to have the upside without the downside.

There are many ways that this can be done, including reducing the cost of domestic inputs and services through targeted investments in infrastructure. Explicit industrial policies can be an even more potent instrument. The key point is that developing countries that are concerned about the competitiveness of their modern sectors can afford to allow their currencies to appreciate (in real terms) as long as they have access to alternative policies that promote industrial activities more directly.

So the good news is that developing countries can continue to grow rapidly even if world trade slows in and there is reduced appetite for capital flows and trade imbalances. Their growth potential need not be severely affected as long as the implications of this new world for domestic and international policies are understood.

One such implication is that developing countries will have to substitute real industrial policies for those that operate through the exchange rate. Another is that external policy actors (for example, the World Trade Organization) will have to be more tolerant of these policies as long as the effects on trade balances are neutralized through appropriate adjustments in the real exchange rate. Greater use of industrial policies is the price to be paid for a reduction of macroeconomic imbalances.

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Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2009.
www.project-syndicate.org

Pro-democracy activists in London, led by the NLD-UK branch, staged protests and demonstrations on 10.05.2009 Thursday afternoon, in front of Burmese military regime Ambassador’s Residence, to call for the regime to give better medical care for the ailing detained people’s leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma.

Please click here or on the picture above to read the whole doucment.

Please click here, or above, to read the whole article.

The 63-year-old Nobel Laureate was placed on an intravenous drip by her doctor’s assistant on Friday because she cannot eat, has low blood pressure and is dehydrated, said party spokesman Nyan Win.

But Myanmar authorities refused to grant the assistant permission to visit her again at her home on Saturday, while her physician is being detained by police on unspecified charges, he said.

“We are worried for her health situation. There should be no restrictions for medical treatment,” Nyan Win, the spokesman for her National League for Democracy (NLD) party, told AFP.

Shlomo Avineri, Director-General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry in the first cabinet of Yitzhak Rabin, is Professor of political science at Hebrew University.

JERUSALEM – As President Barack Obama’s special Middle East envoy, former US Senator George Mitchell, learned during his visit to the region, America’s efforts at Israeli-Palestinian peace-making are running up against three major obstacles. They will, no doubt, also arise in Obama’s upcoming meetings with the region’s leaders.

The first obstacle – indeed, the issue that stands front and center today – is the ongoing Palestinian civil war, with Hamas controlling the Gaza Strip in defiance of Abu Mazen’s Fatah-led Palestinian Authority. The Palestinians’ basic failure at nation-building makes any meaningful peace talks with Israel – let alone an agreement – almost impossible at the moment. With Palestinians unable to agree among themselves on a minimal national consensus, how can peace be established between them and Israel?

Second, with Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, Israel now has a government which is far less likely to be willing – or able – to make major concessions and evacuate hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers from the West Bank.

Third, and most significantly, the 1993 Israel-PLO agreement has until now failed to achieve its aim. Attempts to revive the Oslo peace process – the “Road Map” and the Annapolis process – have similarly failed to achieve more than vacuous declarations and hollow photo opportunities. The causes of these 15 years of failure should be considered, so that Mitchell’s mission does not become another stillborn effort.

Both the Palestinians and Israel can easily and rightly be blamed for the failure of the Oslo process. But there is a more fundamental cause at stake, and it should not be overlooked.

The Oslo process tried to build a Palestinian state from the top down: create a Palestinian national authority, hand over territory to it, give it increasing power, arm it and finance it, hold elections, and a Palestinian state would emerge. Instead, the consequence was a corrupt, militarized Palestinian Authority, with competing security services proved incapable of providing security. Nor could it conduct credible negotiations with Israel or deliver necessary services to ordinary Palestinians.

Two reasons for this failure stand out: the institutional weakness of Palestinian civil society, which lacks the infrastructure necessary for nation-building; and the impossibility of simultaneous nation-building and peace-making. There is no precedent anywhere in the world that suggests that such a two-tier process can succeed.

A fundamental change of paradigm is needed: the effort should shift to building a Palestinian state from the bottom up, for which there are encouraging signs, even in the midst of the failure of the top-down process.

In the last two years, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US General Keith Dayton have succeeded in effective institution-building in three West Bank districts – Jenin, Bethlehem, and Hebron – turning them into the most peaceful areas in the West Bank, with a minimal Israeli military presence. Local authorities were supplied with adequate funding and advice; independent chambers of commerce became the backbone of a local commercial middle class, which is interested in keeping the region peaceful, even absent an overall agreement; local police were trained (in Jordan), and now function effectively as police forces, not armed militias; and business relations with adjacent Israeli regions have been renewed.

This empowerment of an effective local leadership was done with much persistence – and little fanfare. But these nuts-and-bolts projects created – for the first time – the building blocks necessary for effective Palestinian nation-building.

Admittedly, this process will take time and patience. But, until now, it has been the only approach proven to succeed, while everything else has failed. As Blair recently put it, such a bottom-up process may even go hand-in-hand with Netanyahu’s goal of an “economic peace,” though it would eventually have to go beyond it. That such an approach would have to include a total halt to Israeli settlement activities goes without saying. If carefully crafted, it may even be implicitly accepted, albeit without much enthusiasm, by the Israeli government.

The Oslo process has failed; an attempt to revive it – say, by way of the Beirut Arab peace initiative – will merely bring into the open all of the existing disagreements between the two sides, and will not overcome the Palestinian failure at nation-building. After all the breakdowns in efforts to create a Palestinian state from the top down, only the old-fashioned way – from the bottom up – remains viable.

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Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2009.
www.project-syndicate.org