BURMA DIGEST

Funding a Global Health Fund

taisamyone — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:46:59 +0000

- Jeffrey D. Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs is Professor of Economics and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is also a Special Adviser to United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals.

NEW YORK – World leaders will come together at the United Nations in September in order to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Three of the eight MDGs involve bringing primary health services to the entire world’s population. A small amount of global funding, if well directed, could save millions of lives each year. The key step is to expand the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria into a Global Health Fund.

The Global Fund was created in 2002 to help the world battle those three killer diseases, and its accomplishments have been spectacular, making it arguably the most successful innovation in foreign assistance of the past decade. As a result of Global Fund programs, an estimated 2.5 million people are on antiretroviral AIDS therapy. No fewer than eight million people have been cured of TB. And more than 100 million long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets have been distributed in the fight against malaria. In total, studies suggest that Global Fund programs have saved five million lives.

The Global Fund’s remarkable successes result from its operational procedures. Disease-specific committees, called the Country Coordination Mechanism (CCM), are constituted in each developing country. Each CCM is chaired by the national government, but incorporates input from non-government organizations to formulate national-scale, disease-specific plans for submission to the Global Fund.

Once the Global Fund receives these plans, they are sent to a Technical Review Panel (TRP) to check that the plans are scientifically sound and feasible. If the TRP approves, the plan is sent to the Board of the Global Fund, which then votes to approve financing. Once the program gets underway, the Global Fund follows the implementation of the program, undertaking audits, monitoring, and evaluation. Since 2002, the Global Fund has approved around $19 billion in total funding.

There are two huge challenges now facing the Global Fund, and especially the donor countries that support it. The first is lack of financing. The Global Fund has been so successful that countries are submitting increasingly ambitious programs for consideration.

Unfortunately, the Global Fund is already in a state of fiscal crisis. It needs around $6 billion per year in the next three years to cover expansion of programs for the three diseases, but it has only around $3 billion per year from donor countries. Unless this is corrected, millions of people will die unnecessarily.

The second challenge is to broaden the Global Fund’s mandate. So far, the Global Fund has addressed MDG 6, which is focused on the control of specific killer diseases. Yet control of these three diseases inevitably involves improvement of basic health services – community health workers, local clinics, referral hospitals, emergency transport, drug logistics – that play a fundamental role in achieving MDG 4 (reduction of child mortality) and MDG 5 (reduction of maternal mortality). All three health MDGs are interconnected; all are feasible with an appropriate scaling up of primary health services.

The obvious step to address MDGs 4 and 5 is to explicitly expand the Global Fund’s financing mandate. Many programs, such as those in the Millennium Villages project, already show that a scaling up of primary health systems at the village level can play a decisive role in reducing child and maternal mortality. Expanding the Global Fund’s mandate to include financing for training and deployment of community health workers, construction and operation of local health facilities, and other components of primary health systems could ensure the development of these local systems.

Many countries – including France, Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States – have recently recognized the need to move beyond the financing of control of AIDS, TB, and malaria to financing improvements in primary health systems more generally. But they seem to view the issue of health-system financing as an either-or choice: scale up control of AIDS, TB, and malaria, or scale up financing of primary health systems. The truth, of course, is that both are needed, and both are affordable.

The annual cost of specific disease control in the next three years is perhaps $6 billion, and another $6 billion per year for health-system expansion. The total, $12 billion per year for an expanded Global Fund, might seem unrealistically large compared to the $3 billion per year spent now. But total annual funding of $12 billion is really very modest, representing around 0.033% (three cents per $100) of the donor countries’ GNP. This is a tiny sum, which could be easily mobilized if donor countries were serious.

US President Barack Obama has been outspoken in support of scaling up primary health services, yet the specific budget proposals from his administration are not yet satisfactory. The worst of it is that the Obama administration’s budget for the 2011 provides just $1 billion per year to the Global Fund. This small sum is unworthy of US leadership.

If the US would expand its annual support to the Global Fund to around $4 billion per year, it would likely induce the rest of the world’s donors to put in $8 billion per year, keeping the US share at around one-third of total funding. To raise these extra amounts, the Obama administration could levy an excess-profit tax on Wall Street to make up the budget gap. Wall Street bankers, whose poor performance did so much damage to the world economy in recent years, and who still are reaping excessive bonuses, would also begin to make amends by seeing their new tax payments contribute to saving the lives of millions in the coming years.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is Professor of Economics and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010.
www.project-syndicate.org
For a podcast of this commentary in English, please use this link: http://media.blubrry.com/ps/media.libsyn.com/media/ps/sachs164.mp3

EBO WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE NO. 83

taisamyone — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:45:57 +0000

19Mar10 EBO weeklyupdate#83

Recent Burmese News – 100319

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Burma’s Democracy And Ethnic Rights Movement To Launch Global Campaign For Genuine Democracy

Leaflets Distributed In Rangoon Condemning 2010 Polls

Shan Rebels Say Junta Troops Killed In Clash

Quote of the day

New York Times: Myanmar frees jailed American – Thomas Fuller

New York Times: Change comes to Myanmar, but only on the junta’s terms

Associated Press: Myanmar opens political party registration

New Light of Myanmar: Meeting (6/2010) of Union Election Commission takes place

Mizzima News: Burma’s garment industry struggling to survive – Kyaw Kha

Democratic Voice of Burma: Thailand denies Rohingya abuse – Francis Wade

Voice of America: Burma – 2009 Human Rights Report

Irrawaddy: Party registration regulations favor wealthy – Htet Aung

Burmese-american Freed From Jail In Burma

Junta wants KIO to come clean on BGF

Burmese Deputy Home Minister in Maungdaw for poll campaign

Burma’s election laws come under fire

AMI office shut down in Northern Arakan

Chinese officials meeting junta on Wa

Junta’s forced labour forces militia men to flee

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News on Migrants & Refugees- 19 March, 2010 (English & Burmese)

taisamyone — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:33:57 +0000

19Mar10 News on Migrants & Refugees- 19 March, 2010 (English & Burmese)

MPU & NCUB Joint Statement March 19_2010

taisamyone — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:28:00 +0000

19Mar10 MPU & NCUB Joint Statement on 19-3-10

BURMA RELATED NEWS – MARCH 19, 2010

taisamyone — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:25:52 +0000

Reuters – Rebels kill 20 Myanmar troops in Shan State ambush

AP – Myanmar guerrilla chief warns of war ahead of vote

AP – Myanmar credits US ties for freeing American

AP – Protesters smash, paint Myanmar Embassy in India

EarthTimes – Philippine activists denounce new Myanmar election laws

Sify News – Myanmar opposition party to sue junta over election laws

People’s Daily Online – Group of Friends on Myanmar to meet at UN headquarters

Spero News – ?Bangladesh: Myanmar: Dhaka: no mistreatment Rohingya. But “non registered” risk starvation

Virtue Online – Myanmar Diocese asks for Help Fighting Famine

VOA News – Burma’s Election Preparations Undemocratic, say Rights, Exile Groups

The Straits Times – Jailed for mistreating maid

Bangkok Post – BURMA:A five-prong action plan to push for regime change

The Irrawaddy – China Comes to Junta’s Rescue Again

The Irrawaddy – Opposition: International Community Must Reject Election

DVB News – US activist was denied sleep ‘for 14 days’

DVB News – Karen refugees leave Thai camp

DVB News – It is too early to condemn the elections

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Rebels kill 20 Myanmar troops in Shan State ambush
Fri Mar 19, 7:48 am ET

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Ethnic rebels killed 20 Myanmar troops in an ambush aimed at deterring the military government from launching an offensive against them ahead of elections this year, a rebel spokesman said on Friday.

The incident took place on March 13 in Nam Zam township of Shan State, a remote region bordering Thailand and China under control of armed ethnic Chinese groups for decades.

Troops were ambushed by rebels from the southern wing of the Shan State Army (SSA), spokesman Sao Lao Seng said by telephone. The firefight lasted about three hours and no rebel troops were killed, he said, adding it was the third such clash this year.

“The ambush was planned after the regime has been threatening to launch offensives against us,” he said. Eight soldiers were wounded.

The report could not be immediately verified. Myanmar’s state newspapers, mouthpieces for the media-shy junta, have made no mention of the incident.

Activists and ethnic groups say tens of thousands of troops have been mobilized in the mountainous region ahead of an impending offensive to flush out rebel armies resisting demands to disarm, transfer their fighters to a state-run Border Guard Force and join the political process.

But most groups, which have a deep distrust of Yangon and have enjoyed de facto independence for decades, have refused the junta’s “offer,” saying they have nothing to gain from polls.

Analysts say Myanmar’s government wants all groups to take part in elections, the first in two decades, to show the country is fully behind the political process.

The election, a date for which has not yet been set, has been widely derided as a sham to entrench the army’s rule over the resource-rich Southeast Asian nation.

The cooperation of ethnic groups would allow the junta to take control of the rebellious region for the first time since it took power in 1962.

It would also appease energy-hungry China, its economic lifeline, which is concerned about security along its border with Myanmar, particularly concerning a vital oil pipeline it is constructing.

Generals from the regime have repeatedly held talks with leaders of the ethnic groups, six of which have agreed to disarm. However, it is unlikely the bigger armies will follow suit.

“The negotiation process appears to be over. Both sides have refused each others’ proposals,” said an official in the SSA’s political wing, who asked not to be identified because he is not permitted to speak to the media.

“We’re preparing for an attack by the Burmese government. When this will happen, we don’t know,” he said.

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Myanmar guerrilla chief warns of war ahead of vote
By DENIS D. GRAY,Associated Press Writer – Saturday, March 20

BANGKOK (AP) – The head of Myanmar’s largest guerrilla army warned Friday that the risk of armed conflict between powerful ethnic minority groups and the military regime is at its highest level in more than two decades as contentious national elections loom on the horizon.

The junta has been in negotiations with semiautonomous minorities for months as it attempts to bring them under its control before holding elections later this year. But with talks deadlocked, most of the groups have stepped up military preparations in the event of a renewed conflict, which would likely envelop vast regions of the country and probably spark a mass refugee exodus.

“(There is the) greatest possibility of renewed conflict between large, cease-fire armed groups and (the military regime) in over two decades,” said Zipporah Sein, general secretary of the Karen National Union, which has been fighting the central government for more than 60 years.

The Karen joined more than 150 activist groups Friday in urging the international community to denounce the elections and refuse to recognize the results. They say the vote is a sham designed to perpetuate military rule.

The junta has tenuous control of many parts of the country where minority groups are strongest. It has reached cease-fire agreements with 17 ethnic minority rebel groups since 1989 _ though not the Karen _ and most have been allowed to keep their weapons and maintain some autonomy over their regions.

But in the lead-up to the election, the date of which has yet to be announced, the junta has asked the groups to turn their armed forces into a border guard force under virtual Myanmar military leadership. Most have refused.

There is concern the military could try to force the issue.

“The military is sending troops to the areas of the cease-fire groups and they are ready to fight if attacked. So the tension is rising between them,” Zipporah Sein, the first woman leader of the KNU, told a news conference in the Thai capital.

Military preparations have recently been reported among the largest of the cease-fire groups, the Wa State Army, which fields some 20,000 troops, and the Kachin Independence Army, said to have about 4,000 under arms.

“The Wa are ready,” the KNU chief said.

The Irrawaddy Magazine, a Thailand-based journal run by Myanmar exiles, said Thursday that the New Mon State Party, another cease-fire group, was moving its weapons stockpiles and some of its departments to an undisclosed location in case war breaks out.

The Karen leader said the military has been holding talks with more than half a dozen groups _ both cease-fire groups and those still fighting the junta. However, all such earlier efforts at forging an alliance have failed.

“These elections will only compound the suffering of our ethnic people,” she said.

She said the country’s new Constitution _ which passed in 2008 and insures the military will retain a controlling say in the future government _ “centralizes military control over ethnic areas and grants blanket immunities for the regime’s crimes against humanity.”

International human rights group have long documented massive human rights abuses by the Myanmar military against ethnic minorities, including killings, rape, torture, the burning of villages and forced labor. The junta has denied such charges.

The setup of the elections has been widely criticized, both by opposition groups at home and activists abroad. Recently published election laws _ such as one that would bar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from taking part in the vote _ have received international condemnation.

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Myanmar credits US ties for freeing American
Fri Mar 19, 3:42 am ET

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Myanmar’s ruling military junta decided to release a naturalized American citizen from prison because of its friendship with the U.S. government, state media said Friday.

Nyi Nyi Aung, a pro-democracy activist originally from Myanmar, was freed Thursday, a month after a court sentenced him to three years in prison with hard labor.

The New Light of Myanmar newspaper, a mouthpiece for the junta, said the government pardoned and deported Nyi Nyi Aung after giving “special consideration to bilateral friendship in accordance with the request made by the U.S. State Department” to free him.

The U.S. Embassy confirmed the release and said, “We welcome that development. ”

Ties between the two countries actually are strained and tense. In the past, Myanmar’s state media have referred to the U.S. as a “loudmouthed bully.”

The United States recently modified its strict policy of isolating the junta in the hope that increased engagement would encourage change. However, the Obama administration has said it will not lift sanctions on Myanmar unless its sees concrete progress toward democratic reform — notably the release of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and freedom for her party to participate in elections expected later this year.

Election laws recently announced by the junta effectively bar Suu Kyi from participating in the balloting and were viewed as a setback to Myanmar-U.S. relations.

Nyi Nyi Aung, 40, also known as Kyaw Zaw Lwin, was arrested when he arrived at Yangon’s international airport Sept. 3 and was accused of plotting to stir political unrest, which he denied. He was convicted in February of forging a national identity card, possessing undeclared foreign currency, and failing to renounce his Myanmar citizenship when becoming an American citizen.

He was escorted aboard a flight to Thailand accompanied by a U.S. consular official, said his aunt, Khin Khin Swe.

His fiancee, Wa Wa Kyaw, released a statement thanking the U.S. State Department and members of Congress for helping secure his release. The couple live in Maryland.

As a teenager in Myanmar, Nyi Nyi Aung helped organize students during the country’s 1988 pro-democracy uprising, which was violently suppressed by the military, and later fled to the United States. His reason for returning to Myanmar was not clear, though there has been speculation he hoped to see his mother and sister, both of whom are serving jail terms for political activities.

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Protesters smash, paint Myanmar Embassy in India
AP – Saturday, March 20

NEW DELHI (AP) – Dozens of protesters from Myanmar hurled rocks and insults at their country’s embassy in the Indian capital Friday in a show of disdain for upcoming elections called by the nation’s military rulers.

The New Delhi-based protesters sprayed anti-junta slogans on the embassy’s outer wall, smashed its nameplate, defaced posters of Myanmar’s military leader and padlocked the gate and doused it with red paint before being taken away by police.

A spokesman for the Burmese Pro-Democracy Movement in India, which organized the protest, said police had detained 68 people, though they were likely to be released later Friday.

This year’s elections in Myanmar, also known as Burma, are part of the ruling junta’s long-announced “roadmap to democracy,” which critics deride as a sham designed to cement the military’s power. A military-backed constitution was approved by a national referendum last May, but the opposition charges that the vote was unfair.

Recently released election laws prevent democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from taking part in the vote because she was convicted of violating her house arrest. Suu Kyi _ whose party won the last election in 1990 but was stopped from taking power by the military _ has been jailed or under detention for 14 of the past 20 years.

India has established deep economic and military ties with Myanmar’s generals over the past decade and has said it believes talking quietly is a better approach than sanctions.
India shifted its policy from supporting Suu Kyi to engaging the junta’s generals in the early 1990s, partly because of a desire for access to Myanmar’s large natural gas reserves.

A date for this year’s election in Myanmar has yet to be set.

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EarthTimes – Philippine activists denounce new Myanmar election laws
Posted : Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:20:57 GMT

Manila – Philippine activists marched to the Myanmar embassy in Manila Friday to denounce a new election law that disqualifies pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from running in a planned election this year.

More than 100 protestors urged the United Nations and other countries not to recognize the new law, which they described as “one of the tragic results of the junta’s sham roadmap to democracy.”

“Unless the military rulers of Burma seriously initiate tangible reforms, the 2010 elections will be widely perceived as incredible and undemocratic, ” said Egoy Bans, a spokesman for the Free Burma Coalition-Philippin es that organized the protest.

“Instead of employing an all-inclusive process, the regime opted to bypass all norms of decency by creating an election law in a very secretive and exclusive manner,” he added.

The new Myanmar election law prohibits anyone convicted of a crime from being a member of a political party or a candidate in the elections, which are not yet scheduled but expected to be held later in the year.

Under the new law, Suu Kyi – who has spend 14 of the past 21 years under house arrest – is ineligible to run, since she was recently convicted by a Myanmar court of violating the terms of her house arrest.

The new decree would also prevent Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party from contesting the elections, even with another candidate, as long as she remains on its membership rolls, according to a party spokesman.

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IANS
Sify News – Myanmar opposition party to sue junta over election laws
2010-03-19 20:50:00

Myanmar’s main opposition party decided Friday to sue the military-run government for issuing unfair election laws, opposition sources said.

An executive meeting of the National League for Democracy (NLD) – which is headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi – decided to sue the government over election laws promulgated last week, NLD Rakhine member Aye Tha Aung said.

He said the NLD found clauses that excluded the participation of Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners from the election process as unlawful.

Under the Political Party Registration Law promulgated last week, the junta has prohibited people currently serving prison terms from being members of political parties.

Suu Kyi, who is serving an 18-month house detention sentence, must be dropped form the NLD party rolls should they wish to registered to contest this year’s election, which they must do within the next 60 days.

The NLD has yet to decide whether or not to register to contest the election, a date for which has not yet been set, Aye Tha Aung said.

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People’s Daily Online – Group of Friends on Myanmar to meet at UN headquarters
11:01, March 19, 2010

UN Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has requested a meeting of the Group of Friends of Myanmar at the United Nations headquarters in New York on March 25, UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Thursday.

An emergency meeting had been requested by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was quoted in a government press release on Tuesday saying he sent a letter to Ban requesting a meeting to discuss Myanmar’s new electoral laws for the first nationwide election to be held in 20 years.

However, the secretary-general told reporters on Tuesday that he had not received the letter.

Brown was also quoted as saying that he intends “to seek international support to impose an arms embargo” against the South Asian country.

“Burma has ignored the demands of the UN Security Council, the UN secretary-general, the U.S., EU (European Union) and its neighbors by imposing restrictive and unfair terms for the elections,” Brown’s statement said, using Myanmar’s former name.” The targeting of Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD is particularly vindictive and callous. We will also seek international support to impose an arms embargo against Burma.”

The United Nations is a member of the “Group of Friends on Myanmar,” which includes the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

The ruling Myanmar State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), which has not yet set a date for nationwide elections, enacted five electoral laws, the state Myanmar Radio and Television (MRTV) reported last week.

However, the UN secretary-general told reporters after the announcement that the new electoral laws “do not measure up to our expectations of what is needed for an inclusive political process. “Source: Xinhua

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Spero News – ?Bangladesh: Myanmar: Dhaka: no mistreatment Rohingya. But “non registered” risk starvation
The government denies harassment or bullying towards the Burmese Muslim minority. Bangladesh Minister: media slander, we help them. AsiaNews sources: compared to 25 thousand with the status of refugees, “non registered” can not receive aid and risk dying of hunger.”
Friday, March 19, 2010
By Asia News

Dhaka – Food Minister Abdur Razzaque has returned to the controversy concerning the mistreatment to the Burmese Rohingya refugees arguing that “there is no” harassment or bullying, as reported by international media. AsiaNews sources in Bangladesh, who work with refugees, however, explain that “there are two different categories” and the second, non-registered, “suffers from hunger and can not receive assistance” from international organizations.

“Despite being a poor country – says the minister – Bangladesh provides aid and assistance to the Rohingya for humanitarian reasons”. Abdur Razzaque denies that there is “repression, although the international media use that despicable word.” He also adds a regularization of illegal refugees, would be an invitation to all to illegally enter the country with the illusion of receiving support from international organizations or on transit to other nations.

The Rohingya are one of several ethnic minorities that make up the Union of Myanmar. Of Muslim religion, they live in Rakhine State, north-west of the country and the military regime does not recognize their right to citizenship, ownership of land, freedom to travel or wed without a “special permit” issued by the authorities. Tens of thousands seek refuge abroad, mainly in Bangladesh and Malaysia.

Dhaka has granted approximately 28 thousand Rohingya refugee status, who live in a United Nations refugee camp in Kutupalong. However, different estimates speak of 200 thousand – or maybe 300 thousand – other members of the minority who live illegally in Bangladesh.

A local source – anonymous for security reasons – who works closely with the refugees, confirms to AsiaNews that the humanitarian emergency involves the “unregistered” . Against 28 thousand “officially registered” Rohingya who live in camps set up by the government, there are many more left on their own. “The first – says the source – may receive aid from the UN World Food Program and other organizations, with the approval of the government.” The “unregistered” by contrast, are considered “undocumented” or illegal, they do not have the status of refugees and “international agencies are not allowed to help them.”

The illegal Rohingya “do not receive food or medicine” and are likely to die of starvation, the source confirmed to AsiaNews. They also “do not have freedom of movement” even if a party “is working and has a minimum wage.” “They have very limited opportunities to receive a salary – he concludes – and this is also why they are at risk from hunger.”

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Posted by David Virtue on 2010/3/19 11:50:00 (69 reads)
Virtue Online – Myanmar Diocese asks for Help Fighting Famine
Anglican Church in North America
March 19, 2010

The Anglican Diocese of Sittwe needs help purchasing rice for more than 1,000 families in nine parishes who are facing starvation after the rats consumed both the local bamboo and their crops.

According to the Rt. Rev. James Min Dein, bishop of Sittwe, the diocese is providing rice for families affected by the famine. A family of five people needs approximately 100 kilograms of rice to survive. A thousand families need approximately 100,000 kilograms of rice each month. Currently, 100,000 kilograms of rice cost about $30,000 on the local market.

“On behalf of the hungry in our church, we do earnestly pray for your kind attention and concern… I assure you that every single dollar can make a difference in the lives of the hungry at this time,” wrote Bishop Min Dein in a recent letter about the situation.

Beginning in 2006 the constituent bodies that became the Anglican Church in North America began to cooperate with the (Anglican) Church of the Province of Myanmar in joint ministry in both their country and the United States. Archbishop Stephen Than, bishop of Yangon (Rangoon) and Primate heads a province of 70,000 communicants in six diocese that cover all of the country.

The Province of Myanmar recognized the Anglican Church in North America and is serving in North America by assisting with some 12 congregations of which Myanmar people are part. Archbishop Stephen has assigned one of his priests, Father Samuel Lynn, to work with the Anglican Church here to teach and empower Anglican Myanmar communities here.

In addition, the Anglican Church in North America has begun to partner with the Church of the Province of Myanmar to develop self-sustaining businesses for Christians and parishes in Myanmar where discrimination prevents many Anglican Christians from have jobs. We are also cooperating and providing training so that the Church there is better equipped to share the gospel message with other citizens of Myanmar.

The Anglican Relief and Development Fund provided $38,000 in 2005 to train 110 healthcare workers and provide basic health care treatment and preventions for 55,000 people in the remote dioceses of Sittwe and Toungoo. In 2009, following Cyclone Nargis, ARDF sent $25,000 to the Province to rebuild the provincial health care clinic serving the densely populated city of Yangoon, the headquarters of the Church of the Province of Myanmar.

You can help by donating easily and securely online through the Anglican Relief and Development Fund at this link:

http://anglicanaid. net/?/main/ page/23

Checks can be sent to:

The Anglican Relief and Development Fund
PO Box 3830
Pittsburgh, PA 15230-3830

…with the words “Myanmar Famine” in the memo line.

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VOA News – Burma’s Election Preparations Undemocratic, say Rights, Exile Groups
Daniel Schearf | Bangkok 19 March 2010

Members of Free Burma Coalition display posters of detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi (R) during a protest in front of Burmese embassy in Manila, 19 Mar 2010 to denounce Burma’s recently announced election law.

Burma rights and exile groups want the international community to denounce the government’s preparations for elections this year, saying they are undemocratic and are increasing ethnic tensions.

A coalition of rights groups and political exiles on Friday said election laws released last week confirm that Burma’s military government intends to use the elections to legitimize its rule.

The coalition, called Burma’s Movement for Democracy and Ethnic Rights, wants foreign governments to reject the elections.
The election laws require parties to purge political prisoners from their ranks, including detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The rules also require allegiance to the controversial 2008 constitution, which reserves a quarter of all parliamentary seats for the military.

Khin Ohmar is with the Forum for Democracy in Burma, which is part of the coalition. She says military rule would ensure continued ethnic oppression and human rights abuses.

“And, it’s not only us here on the border but also the people in the country, whose voice cannot be raised and heard freely, are saying the same thing – this is the constitution forced by the regime to adopt in 2008. And this is the constitution that has actually given a sole power, overarching power, to the military regime in all three branches of the government,” she said.

The United States has called the laws a mockery that will ensure the elections lack credibility. The U.S. and several other governments have imposed sanctions on Burma because of its poor human rights record.

But Burma’s closest neighbors have said little, preferring diplomatic engagement.

The coalition Friday also expressed concern about increased hostilities against ethnic militias, including those that have cease-fire agreements with the government.

Ahead of the elections Burma’s military has been trying to force the militias to consolidate as a border security force.

Zipporah Sein is general secretary of the Karen National Union, which has been fighting authorities in eastern Burma for decades.

“They [militias] do not accept the 2010 election, they do not accept to become the border guard force,” she said. “So, the regime also sends troops to their areas. And, for their part, it is possible when they were forced and when they were attacked, so it surely that the fighting will be broke [will break] out again,” said Sein.

Burma has yet to announce a date for the elections, the first in two decades, but says they will take place this year.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won Burma’s last elections but the military refused to hand over power and has kept her under house arrest for most of the time since.

The coalition Friday stopped short of calling for an election boycott and acknowledged that some opposition politicians, including within the NLD, want to take part in the elections.

The NLD is to announce later this month if it will participate.

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Mar 19, 2010
The Straits Times – Jailed for mistreating maid
By Khushwant Singh

SOON after Peck Choon Khim hired a maid in 2008 to help take care of her two adopted children, she started hitting the Myanmar national.

The abuse continued for the next five months and on Friday, Peck, 41, was sentenced to four months’ jail.

A district court heard she had mistreated Ms Moe Thandar Lin, on 15 occasions from November 2008. Ms Lin only complained to her agent, after Peck slammed a kettle of hot water against her left arm on March 15 last year.

The agent called the police who found the list of all the incidents listed in the maid’s diary.

At the last hearing in January, Peck’s lawyer Lim Kim Hong asked the court to be lenient to her client as the maid had been defiant and disrespectful from the very start. The maid was also no help in taking care of the children, aged 18 months and three years.

All the more reason for Peck to get a new maid, said District Judge Ronald Gwee. He added: ‘The correct thing to do is to terminate her employment but in this case, there were repeated occasions of abuse. Physical punishment is not allowed. It’s a line no employer should cross.’

The maximum sentence is a jail term of three years and a $7,500 fine on each of the four charges.

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Bangkok Post – BURMA:A five-prong action plan to push for regime change
Published: 19/03/2010 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News

I grew up in military circles in Burma and lived 25 years of my life under the first military rule of the late General Ne Win prior to going to the United States for further studies.
I myself would have been a military officer by age 20, if it weren’t for my father, who told me to keep my admission letter to the Officers Training Corps as a souvenir.

For the past two decades, I have ended up studying the institution of my childhood “career choice” professionally, while politically engaging with its members.

When the junta’s bizarre “election laws” hit recent news headlines, I heard the Burma policy mantra which is in vogue: “Neither sanctions nor engagement has worked.”

As a Burmese dissident who has embraced sanctions and engagement approaches, alternately, over the past two decades, I have grown rather tired of the “neither-nor” policy mantra.

This discourse of “policy defeatism” fails to ask the crucial question: “What type of sanctions, or engagement, under what circumstances, and for what purpose, one is talking about?”

This “neither-nor” view is not so much a sign of the absence of policy or political alternatives, as a symptom of the paralysis of strategic imagination, a typically insufficient understanding among Burma – and even Burmese – experts of the real conditions within Burma’s armed forces, and a lack of political resolve on the part of external players who purport to want reconciliation or clamour for real change in my country.

The crucial policy question is what approaches – notice the plural here – should be formulated in order to change the Burmese leadership and its overstretched system. Upon closer look, the regime in Naypyidaw has created a large-scale perpetual crisis situation whereby its orientation, decisions and policies only amplify Burma’s pre-existing problems such as armed conflicts, ethnic inequality, the absence of civil liberties, troubled foreign relations, ecological crises and ever-deepening poverty.

While most other experts on Burma see the staying power of the military regime, I see emerging possibilities for formulating more effective and strategic policies in order to induce change. Those wishing to see genuine change in Burma should remind themselves of the spectacular failures of most Sovietologists to anticipate the collapse of the “Evil Empire”. Based on my first-hand engagement with the military and my own communications with the regime insiders, I offer a five-point strategy to facilitate and
accelerate genuine change:

- First, the Western governments that have stood by Aung San Suu Kyi and her fellow dissidents need to close ranks and solidify their support for the opposition. Despite talk of a “third force” – that is political independents who claim they are neither regime proxies nor NLD supporters – there is no organisation or individual leader that can match her mass appeal, the NLD’s dormant grassroots base, mobilising power, and international support. Regardless of its legal standing, the NLD will continue to exist as a political movement.

- Second, the type of engagement with Burma will need to be strategically calibrated. Specifically, all those governments and organisations, both Asian and Western, need to shift the focus of their engagement away from the intransigent and backward leadership of the regime, towards its second and third-line leaders.

In addition to this government-to- regime engagement at lower notches, international efforts should be expanded to include various sectors of Burmese economy, cultural organisations, educational institutions and community organisations and informal networks.

- Third, pro-sanctions governments and political NGOs should intensify their campaigns for targeted financial sanctions, asset-freeze, travel bans, international legal actions, all singling out Senior General Than Shwe, his top deputies and cronies. For starters, these pressure groups should rally solidly behind UN Human Rights Special Envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana’s official call for setting up an international investigation of Than Shwe’s war crimes.

- Fourth, opposition-backing governments, such as Washington and London, need to pay attention to the ever-declining morale, material conditions, and anti-regime attitudinal changes within the rank-and-file of the armed forces which compel an ever-increasing number of new generation officers between the ages of 20-40 to desert the armed forces. Many officers are deserting out of a sense of outrage against intra-military injustices. Many of these officers as well as their comrades, who chose not to desert the institution, wish to contribute to genuine change in the country and leadership change within the armed forces. But they are finding there is little support coming from foreign governments.

- Finally, all governments that may be concerned about Burma’s balkanisation and resultant regional instability should take note of pent-up frustrations which could boil over in the near future. There is a deepening sense of injustice due to decades of repression of non-Burman ethnic communities. It would be short-sighted for regional powers to allow the junta to maintain domestic stability at gunpoint, as opposed to firmly pushing the regime for peace and reconciliation. Sixty years after a series of ethnic-driven armed revolts, all minority groups are ready to work together as ethnic equals within a union. Even the few that publicly clamour for independence are doing so as a bargaining strategy, rather than as a realisable goal. It is the junta, not the country’s ethnic diversity, that is creating regional volatility. The sooner Asian powers come to terms with this empirical reality the better for peace, stability and cross-border prosperity in the region.

The writer is Visiting Senior Fellow, Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University, and Research Fellow on Burma, London School of Economics and Political Science.

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The Irrawaddy – China Comes to Junta’s Rescue Again
By WAI MOE – Friday, March 19, 2010

Beijing has once again come to the defense of Burma’s ruling junta, using its permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to block a move by the UK to raise the issue of the regime’s recently announced electoral laws.

“A number of council members support the idea of discussing Burma and getting an update on the situation there. It’s the subject of negotiations with the Chinese at the moment, who are always reluctant on these matters,” a Western diplomat told Reuters on Friday.

Following the announcement of new electoral laws on March 8 that ban Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other dissidents from contesting this year’s planned election, Burma’s ruling generals have faced a fresh wave of international condemnation.

In an effort to apply pressure on the junta to review the laws, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose country is also a permanent member of the UNSC, sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon earlier this week requesting an emergency meeting to discuss the matter.

“Burma has ignored the demands of the UN Security Council, the UN Secretary-General, the US, EU and its neighbors by imposing restrictive and unfair terms on elections,” Brown said on Monday, adding that the UK would seek international support to impose an arms embargo against Burma.

According to The Inner City Press, a news agency focusing on UN affairs, Mark Lyall Grant, London’s Permanent Representative to the UN, walked into the UNSC meeting on Tuesday morning to talk about Brown’s letter.

Instead of agreeing to a UNSC meeting on Burma, however, Ban requested a meeting of the Group of Friends of the Secretary-General on Myanmar [Burma] on March 25.

The Group of Friends includes Australia, China, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Norway, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, the UK, the US, Vietnam and the president of the EU, a position currently occupied by Spain.

It was formed in December 2007 as part of a renewed effort to find an international consensus to deal with Burma following the junta’s crackdown on monk-led mass demonstrations in September of that year.

On Monday, Beijing also offered its support to the junta at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. China’s representative to the council, Luo Cheng, said there has been an improvement in Burma human rights situation.

He added that China appreciated the regime’s efforts to achieve political reconciliation.

China also prevented the UNSC from taking up the subject of Burma in October 2009, when the matter was raised by the US and its allies. At the time, China said the council should focus on civilian casualties in Afghanistan instead of Burma.

Despite this show of public support for the regime, however, some Chinese experts on Burma said policy makers in Beijing were also disappointed by Naypyidaw’s election laws, which rejected international calls for inclusive elections.

A Chinese scholar on Burma who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the laws were not just a source of concern for the West, but also for China.

China is also worried about ethnic issues along the Sino-Burmese border. Tensions between Naypyidaw and border-based armed ceasefire groups have been growing since last year over the regime’s demands for the groups to transform themselves into border guard forces. A return to open hostilities on the border could affect stability and impact on Chinese’s interests in Burma.

In addition to the billions of dollars invested by Chinese state-owned companies in Burma’s oil and gas and hydropower industries and Beijing’s major role in developing trade routes to South and Southeast Asia through the country, Chinese businessmen are involving in a wide array of legal and illegal businesses in Burma, from border trade and jade mining to drug smuggling and human trafficking.

This week, officials from both countries held a regular meeting of a Sino-Burmese border committee in Tangyan, near areas controlled by the United Wa State Army, the largest ethnic ceasefire group. The tension over the border guard force issue was reportedly among the subjects discussed, as part of China’s efforts to maintain stability on the border.

“Keeping the border area between China and Myanmar [Burma] stable is the most important task for the Chinese government,” the scholar said. “But what Beijing will do if instability occurs is a big secret in China.”

He added that Beijing is concerned that the Burmese regime’s handling of the election law issue, which reflects its disregard for international opinion, could also be an indication of how it intends to deal with the ethnic ceasefire groups.

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The Irrawaddy – Opposition: International Community Must Reject Election
By SIMON ROUGHNEEN – Friday, March 19, 2010

More than 150 organizations representing the Burmese opposition, ethnic minority groups and overseas supporters call for the international community to denounce the planned Burmese election and refuse to recognize the results.

The recently announced electoral laws should serve as “a wake-up call” for those who thought that the election represented a potential opening for change in Burma, according to U Thein Oo, an MP-elect for the National League for Democracy (NLD) in the 1990 election.

“Parties cannot campaign or participate when the law obliges them to kick out their leadership or many of their key members in advance,” he said. “With more than 2,100 political prisoners in Burma, many activists and politicians will be excluded, though some queries were raised as to whether the law prevents former prisoners from remaining in a political party. We are not clear on that.”

The opposition groups want to renegotiate the 2008 Constitution, which they regard as fundamentally flawed and an attempt by the junta to revamp military rule with a civilian veneer. This should be done via a “genuine and inclusive political dialogue,” they say, as called for by Australia, the UK and the US in recent months.

Other “minimum benchmarks” include the unconditional release of all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi and the end of attacks against ethnic communities and democracy activists.

Ethnic minority groups are being urged to boycott the election, as the 2008 Constitution does not recognize ethnic diversity, according Karen National Union (KNU) head Zipporah Sein.

She said that the junta’s pressure on ethnic militias to form a junta-led border guard force has worked with some of the smaller groups.

“They then adopt regime-style policies and tactics toward the local population,” she said, “committing the same atrocities as the army, such as forced displacement, rape, killing and more.”

Ma Khin Ohmar, the foreign affairs secretary at the Forum for Democracy in Burma, said that the UN Security Council should support the recent recommendation made by UN Special Rapporteur on Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, that an international commission of inquiry be set up to look into possible war crimes in Burma, adding “We call for a global arms embargo on a regime that uses its arsenal against its own people.”

Asked by The Irrawaddy about ethnic parties that are fielding candidates in the election, or have joined with junta-backed parties, Zipporah Sein and Khin Ohmar both said that people and groups can choose to join whichever groups they want, but warned, “They will not have any rights or opportunity under this system. We ask them to join with us, rather than endorse the 2008 Constitution, which they are doing by agreeing to participate in this military election.”

Asked about a possible split among ethnic voters, Zipporah Sein said, “Our message to the Karen and the other ethnic groups is that we do not accept the 2008 Constitution or the proposed 2010 elections.

The regime is using the election to cause divisions within the NLD and the ethnic groups.”

However, none of the speakers could point to any possible pan-opposition or pan-ethnic alliance, with a common position on opposing the election, as outlined in the campaign launched today.

“There is a network in place, but there is no plan for a summit to discuss a unified front,” said Zipporah Sein.

Burma watchers who remember the 1990 election recalled that although that election was not free and fair, on polling day the vote count resulted in a surprise landslide win for NLD candidates.

Asked if a similar outcome was possible in 2010, Khin Ohmar said that Burma is different now, with many of opposition leaders in jail or in exile and ethnic groups are under greater pressure from the junta, which has a vastly stronger military backed by increased oil and gas revenues.

“In 1990, the opposition was harassed, but it could carry out some work before election day,” she said. “This time the regime has done its homework, and the USDA and other groups are working ahead of time backed by massive spending resources and corrupt business cronies of the regime.”

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DVB News – US activist was denied sleep ‘for 14 days’
By AYE NAI
Published: 19 March 2010

The US rights activist released yesterday from a Burmese prison has described how he was tortured during interrogation by intelligence agents last year.

Burmese-born Kyaw Zaw Lwin, also known as Nyi Nyi Aung, arrived in Bangkok airport yesterday after being held in detention since September last year.

He told DVB that he had been taken to Rangoon’s Insein prison from another prison on the evening of 17 March and informed by prison authorities that he was going to be released the next morning.

“I began to realise I was going to be released. As my [mother and cousins] are imprisoned I was met by my relatives in Insein prison’s guest room,” he said.

A diplomat at the US embassy in Rangoon officially announced his release yesterday. Kyaw Zaw Lwin was asked to sign an agreement “vowing that I acknowledge that I will have to serve my remaining prison sentence if I get charged again in Burma”.

The activist’s aunt, Khin Khin Swe, said that he was accompanied to the plane by the US embassy counsellor.

Kyaw Zaw Lwin went on to describe how he was “mentally and physically tortured” after being arrested at Rangoon airport on 3 September, following which he was convicted on charges of fraud and forgery and sentenced to three years with hard labour.

“I was punched and had my fingers bent and also threatened with a knee to the face. I wasn’t allowed to lie down for 12 days in a row [during interrogation] and then another 14 days before I was sent to the prison,” he said.

Critics of the ruling junta in Burma said that he was being punished for his high-profile activist work, which included delivering a petition with 600,000 signatures to UN chief Ban Ki-moon calling for the release of political prisoners in Burma.

“I was arrested without a warrant as some as I came out of the plane. I believe it was politically motivated; I was detained for a reason I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t break any law – I am a person working to bring about a change for Burma and its people’s freedom.”

The reason for his early release remains unclear. His arrest and sentencing drew international condemnation, and the US has repeatedly called for his release, although there had been little inkling prior to Wednesday that this would take place.

Both his mother and two cousins remain in prison in Burma following their role in the September 2007 monk-led uprising. One cousin was given a 65-year sentence.

“In our country the administrative, the legal and the justice pillars have no independence,” he told DVB. “These are merely surviving under the rulers of the country.”

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DVB News – Karen refugees leave Thai camp
By NAW NOREEN
Published: 19 March 2010

Nearly 300 Karen refugees in a makeshift camp in western Thailand have left due to difficult living conditions, according to a camp official.

The number of people who have left the Nong Bua camp in Thailand’s Tha Song Yang district is more than half of the total camp population. The refugees arrived there after fleeing fighting between Burmese troops and the opposition Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) in June last year.

“It was too hot for them to live under the tarpaulin sheets and the water supply was insufficient,” said the official. “It is difficult for the refugees to find jobs outside [the camp] so they finally decided to leave and find work.”

He added that the remaining families in the camp are also likely to make their departure before end of this month.

The remaining families have requested for three months’ worth of food rations from the aid group Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) and will be ready to leave the camp when they get it, said one refugee.

“However, we’re not sure if many of us will be left here by the time we get the aid from TBBC,” he said.

Sally Thompson, deputy director of TBBC, said that a number of refugees had come forward to say they wished to return to Karen state in eastern Burma, and that the UN refugee agency was to interview them.

“The interview is to determine whether they are willing to return, and are not being pushed back,” she said.

In February a furore erupted after the Thai army suggested it would force a number of Karen back into Burma, although the repatriation has been suspended.

“We will only provide them with food to take back on the condition that UNHCR has access to them beforehand to conduct interviews to ensure they are willing to return,” Thompson added.

Nearly 40 British MPs on Wednesday called on the Thai government to stop pressuring the Karen refugees to return to Burma.

They alleged that any forced repatriation would be inhumane and illegal under international law, and would be effectively sending them to their death as the border area remains littered with landmines.

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DVB News – It is too early to condemn the elections
By LARRY JAGAN
Published: 18 March 2010

The Burmese junta never fully reveals its hand. And the main thrust of any announcement or policy is to keep the opposition and, to a lesser extent, the international community guessing. The junta supremo, Than Shwe is a master of psychological warfare; and he has certainly used the rolling out of the electoral laws, bit by bit, to keep the opposition on the back-foot.

Unfortunately the international community has reacted predictably by totally rejecting the laws that have been unveiled – even before all of them were published – and confidently pre-determining that the election would be neither free nor fair. The US and the UK both took a very hard line without looking carefully at the regulations. For them there is only one issue – the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi must be freed and allowed to contest the elections for the process to be credible and inclusive.

So far, few of the real nuts and bolts of the forthcoming election have actually been revealed, especially the campaign conditions. So it is a little premature to already completely condemn the election. Except for the players – those political parties and politicians inside the country who may be considering contesting the elections – it would be prudent to take a deeper look at the electoral laws.

“These laws laid down relatively fair conditions for the election,” said a senior member of a party that plans to register candidates to contest the election. The registration fee for each party – 300,000 kyat or $US300 – is comparatively cheap, and more crucially the fee for candidates to register to run in the elections is 500,000 kyat (or $US500); far below what was being predicted. Many politicians preparing for the elections believed it would be over $US2,000 and possibly as high as $US5,000.

“The most important condition is that the counting will take place at the polling stations, and the result announced there,” said a Burmese political pundit, who cannot be
identified as it is still against the law in the country to comment on the election. The count will also take place in front of local scrutinizers as representatives of all candidates will be allowed to watch the count and make sure there are no irregularities.

This means that that it will be harder for the regime to manipulate the results, like in the 2008 referendum, according to many analysts inside Burma. But the junta has made it abundantly clear that no international election monitors will be allowed in the country. Only last month, the interior minister, attorney general and the chief justice, all told the UN envoy on human rights Tomas Ojea Quintana in no uncertain terms that international observers were not needed. So doubts about the transparency of the process will remain, particularly as seems highly unlikely that foreign journalists will be allowed into the country to cover the campaign or the polls.

“Compared to many other international examples, these laws would not be judged as particularly unfair,” a Western diplomat based in Rangoon told DVB on condition of anonymity. “But it’s the context that matters – a heavily controlled constitution- drafting process, a constitution in favour of the military, a sham referendum result, and 20 years of determined deterrence to would-be political actors,” she said.

Within in this context, it is not unexpected that most analysts, diplomats and observers are reluctant to give the regime the benefit of the doubt. So much in practice may in fact depend on the group of individuals who have been selected by the junta to oversee the election – the new Election Commission.

“The election commission has, as in many democratic elections elsewhere, been given a large degree of authority,” said a Western diplomat who covers Burma. “The difference here is that the authority they have is superficial – their authority will be limited to issuing decisions made behind the scenes at a higher level.”

There is little known about the seventeen members of the electoral commission who were recently appointed, except from the president U Thein Soe. He was a vice chief justice of Burma’s supreme court and former military judge advocate general – very much a military man, though no longer actually in uniform. Among the other members are also former military officers, judges, professors and a retired ambassador. Academics, civil servants and the judiciary have not all been severely cowed under the repressive military regime so are unlikely to try to be independent and much more likely to follow the instructions of the junta leaders.

Since 1962, and particularly since 1988, no court judgement in Burma has gone against the military regime. So there is no reason to assume their behaviour will change now. The previous election commission actually dismissed Aung San Suu Kyi as the National League for Democracy’s secretary general, but the party ignored the instruction and she carried on in that role – even during her long periods of house arrest.

The fact that the 1990 election results have now been formally annulled should also come as no surprise. The fact that the regime has drawn up a new constitution, rammed through a referendum and scheduled fresh elections all in essence made the 1990 elections redundant. Of course this is a disappointment for the NLD and other opposition politicians who toiled so hard to win 20 years ago – and suffered harassment, intimidation and in many cases detention ever since.

Now if they want to contest the next elections, they will have to be vetted by the new election commissioners. “The commission shall invite and interrogate any persons and examine relevant documents of anyone wishing to stand for election before accepting or rejecting their nomination,” says the election by-laws issued by the commission on Thursday, thus giving them enormous control over who is allowed to stand for election. “They will certainly closely scrutinize anyone that the regime objects to and find ways of disqualifying them,” said a senior member of the pro-democracy movement in Thailand, Zin Linn.

There are also severe limits to the amount of money a party and candidate can use in their election campaign. Each candidate can only spend up to 10 million kyat ($US10,000), either from party funds or their own finances. All parties and candidates are strictly prohibited from receiving money from abroad – which is no different from most countries, including the United States. But election finances will certainly be meticulously examined by the EC which can outlaw candidates or political parties for electoral infringements.

Of course the biggest problem with the laws remains the fact that all political activists currently in prison, including Aung San Suu Kyi – though some observers like the former British Ambassador to Thailand and Vietnam, Derek Tonkin, now a leading commentator on Burmese affairs suggests she should actually be exempted as she is under house arrest and not in jail – not only cannot run for election, but cannot be members of a political party. This undoubtedly is unfair – as these people are in prison because they were politically active. Most also have been unfairly convicted and usually on trumped-up charges.

“This [provision] is a gratuitous flouting of the junta’s authority,” said Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty’s Bangkok-based Burma researcher. “For the election to be credible, all political prisoners must be released and allowed to participate.”

This is a crucial point that many governments and human rights groups have been making loudly all along. For if the elections are to be inclusive and transparent as representatives of the regime have been insisting, including the foreign minister Nyan Win at an Non-Aligned Movement meeting in the Philippines this week, all political prisoners must be freed.

The UN envoy for human rights told DVB that throughout his recent visit to Burma, he continued to stress the need to release all political prisoners before the elections if the process was to at all believable. “These are well-educated and capable people who could participate in the election and help make the whole process credible, I told the authorities,” he said.

While this is completely true, and the election will not be seen internationally as free and fair if they remain in detention, this does not make the election laws unacceptable. At present there are more than 2,000 political prisoners, including more than 400 NLD members. Though it is highly likely that many of them will be released in a mass amnesty once the election date is announced – it is almost certain that Aung San Suu Kyi and the imprisoned activists in the 88 group will not be among them.

But if Aung San Suu Kyi is prevented from taking part in the elections, this in itself will not make the elections unfair or unfree. They would certainly not be inclusive or credible. But what the laws reveal is that the regime is putting into place systems whereby they will can effectively control the results. The Election Commission is going to be the problem – as they can effectively determine the result and claim to be doing it on quasi-legal grounds.

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Burma’s Movement for Democracy and Ethnic Rights Launches Global Campaign on 2010 Elections

taisamyone — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:33:19 +0000

For Immediate Release : 19 March 2010

In response to the military regime’s new election laws, Burma’s movement for democracy and rights of ethnic nationalities launched a global campaign today condemning the upcoming elections as shutting the door to any prospects for genuine democracy and national reconciliation. The Global Campaign on Burma’s 2010 Military Elections calls on the international community to denounce these elections and refuse to recognize the results.

“By banning prisoners from joining political parties and running in the elections, the new laws are excluding our most important democratic leaders— including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Khun Htun Oo and other key leaders—from the elections. Without their participation, we can be sure that elections will not be inclusive, free or fair,” said U Thein Oo, MP-Elect (National League for Democracy), and Secretary, Members of Parliament Union.

The movement has consistently called on the regime to meet minimum benchmarks for the elections to be a step towards genuine democracy and national reconciliation. These benchmarks include: (1) the unconditional release of all political prisoners, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi; (2) cessation of attacks against ethnic communities and democracy activists; and (3) genuine and inclusive political dialogue, including a review of the 2008 Constitution.

“We take these undemocratic election laws as a clear signal that the regime is refusing to meet our minimum benchmarks. It is clear that these elections are the junta’s attempt to legitimize their power, and will not lead to genuine democratic progress in Burma. At this critical time, we ask the international community to stand with us by denouncing the junta’s elections and refusing to recognize the results,” said Ma Khin Ohmar, Foreign Affairs Secretary, Forum for Democracy in Burma, and member of the Foreign Affairs Coordinating Team.

Naw Zipporah Sein, General Secretary of the Karen National Union, added, “These elections will only compound the suffering of our ethnic people. The 2008 Constitution, which will be enacted through the elections, centralizes military control over ethnic areas and grants blanket immunities for the regime’s crimes against humanity. These crimes cannot be allowed to continue. We ask the UN Security Council to pass a resolution for a Commission of Inquiry into these crimes, as well as impose an arms embargo to stop their access to new weapons.”

This global campaign has been initiated by a group of major alliances representing the most broad-based and multi-ethnic cooperation of political and civil society organizations from inside and in exile working for national reconciliation, peace, and freedom in Burma. At the time of launch, the campaign has the support of 150 groups from all over the world. Please see below for list of endorsing organizations.

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For more information, please contact:

Thwin Linn Aung – Coordinator, Foreign Affairs Coordinating Team: +66 (0)878502354

Soe Aung – Deputy Coordinator, Burma Partnership: +66 (0)818399816

Jessica Stevens – Media and Communications Officer, Burma Partnership: +66 (0)851366702

Endorsing Organizations as of 19 March, 2010

National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB)

Democratic Alliance of Burma (DAB)

• Arakan Liberation Party (ALP)

• All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF)

• All Burma Muslim Union (ABMU)

• All Burma Young Monks’ Union (ABYMU)

• Chin National Front (CNF)

• Committee for Restoration of Democracy in Burma (CRDB)

• Democratic Party for a New Society (DPNS)

• Democratic Party for Arakan (DPA)

• Federation of Trade Unions – Burma (FTUB)

• Karen National Union (KNU)

• Lahu Democratic Front (LDF)

• Muslim Liberation Organization of Burma (MLOB)

• Myeik Dawei United Front (MDUF)

• Naga National League for Democracy (NNLD)

• Network for Democracy and Development (NDD)

• Palaung State Liberation Organization (PSLF)

• Pa-O People Liberation Organization (PPLO)

• Wa National Organization (WNO)

• Overseas Burmese Liberation Front (OBLF)

• Overseas Karen Organization (OKO)

• People’s Patriotic Party (PPP)

• People’s Liberation Front (PLF)

• People’s Progressive Front (PPF)

• People’s Defence Force (PDF)

National Democratic Front

• Arakan Liberation Party (ALP)

• Chin National Front (CNF)

• Lahu Democratic Front (LDF)

• Palaung State Liberation Front (PSLF)

• Pa-O People Liberation Organization (PPLO)

• Wa National organization (WNO)

• New Mon State Party (NMSP)

• Kayan New Land Party (KNLP)

• Karen National Union (KNU)

National League for Democracy – Liberated Area (NLD-LA)

Members of Parliamentary Union (MPU)

National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB)

Forum for Democracy in Burma (FDB)

• All Burma Federation of Student Unions – Foreign Affairs Committee

• All Burma Student Democratic Front

• Burmese Women’s Union

• Democratic Party for New Society

• Network for Democracy and Development

• People Defense Force

• Yaung Chi Oo Workers Association

Women’s League of Burma

• Burmese Women’s Union (BWU)

• Kachin Women’s Association – Thailand (KWAT)

• Karen Women’s Organization (KWO)

• Karenni National Women’s Organization (KNWO)

• Kuki Women’s Human Rights Organization (KWHRO)

• Lahu Women’s Organization (LWO)

• Palaung Women’s Organization (PWO)

• Pa-O Women’s Union (PWU)

• Rakhaing Women’s Union (RWU)

• Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN)

• Tavoy Women’s Union (TWU)

• Women’s League of Chinland

• Women’s Rights & Welfare Association of Burma (WRWAB)

Students and Youth Congress of Burma

• All Arakan Students’ and Youths’ Congress

• All Burma Students’ Democratic Front

• All Burma Students League

• All Kachin Students and Youth Union

• Arakan League for Democracy – Youth Wing (Exile)

• Democratic Party for a New Society – Youth

• Karen Youth Organization

• Kayan New Generation Youth

• Kuki Students Democratic Front

• Mon Youth Progressive Organization

• National League for Democracy – Liberated Area, Youth

• Naga National League for Democracy – Youth

• Pa-O Youth Organization

• Ta’ang Students and Youth Organization

• Tavoyan Youth Organization

• Zomi Students and Youth Organization

Nationalities Youth Forum

• All Arakan Students’ and Youths’ Congress

• All Kachin Students and Youth Union

• Arakan Youth Network Group

• Chin Students’ Union

• Karenni National Youth Organization

• Karenni Student Union

• Karen Youth Organisation

• Kayan New Generation Youth

• Mon Unity League

• Pa-O Youth Organization

• Ta’ang Students and Youth Organization

• United Lahu Youth Organization

• Zomi Students and Youth Organisation

Alternative Asean Network on Burma

Arakan League for Democracy (Exile-India)

Arakan Workers’ Union

Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development

Asia Pacific Solidarity Coalition

Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (Forum-Asia)

Association Suisse-Birmanie

Backpack Health Worker Team

Burma Action Ireland

Burma Campaign Australia

Burma Campaign Korea

Burma Campaign New Zealand

Burma Centre Delhi

Burma Democratic Concern

Burma Medical Association

BurmaInfo (Japan)

Burmese American Democratic Alliance

Canadian Friends of Burma

Center for People’s Dialogue (Sri Lanka)

Chin Human Rights Organization

Chin National Community – Japan

Chin Students and Youth Federation

Chin Women Organization – Japan

Chin Youth Conference

Christian Solidarity Worldwide

English PEN

Falam Chin Women Development

Federation of Workers Union of the Burmese Citizens (Japan)

Foundation for Media Alternatives (Philippines)

Free Burma Campaign Singapore

Free Burma Coalition (South Africa)

Free Burma Coalition Philippines (Philippines)

Friends of Burma (Thailand)

Friends of the Third World (Sri Lanka)

Generation Wave (Burma)

Grassroots Human Rights Education and Development

Hong Kong Coalition for a Free Burma

Human Rights Education Institute of Burma

Info Birmanie (France)

Initiative for International Dialogue (Philippines)

International Campaign for Freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma

International Women’s Partnership for Peace and Justice

Italian Confederation of Workers Trade Union

Karen Rivers Watch

Kayan National Development Foundation

Kayan Women’s Organization

Kuki Women Human Rights Organization

Lamkang Naga Students Union

Lamkang National Council

Naga Senior Citizens’ Forum

Naga Students Union Delhi

Naga Youth Organization

National Health and Education Committee (Burma)

People in Need (Czech Republic)

People in Peril (Slovakia)

People’s Forum on Burma (Japan)

Polish Burma Solidarity

Reporters Without Borders

Social and Health Development Association

Solidaritas Indonesia untuk Burma (Indonesian Solidarity for Burma)

Swedish Democratic Students Burma Project

Thai Action Committee for Democracy in Burma

Zanniat Youth Organization

Zomi Community Committee

Zomi National Congress

Zomi Reunification Organisation

Zomi Womens Union

Recent Burmese News – 100318

taisamyone — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:02:06 +0000

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http://hninyulwin. wordpress. com/books/

http://hninyulwin. wordpress. com/

http://www.livestat ion.com/channels /66-democratic_ voice_of_ burma_burmese

http://www.niknayma n-niknayman. co.cc/

http://www.myanmard aily.net/

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http://www.avaaz. org/en/jail_ the_generals/ ?cl=293661704&v=3762

Myanmar Deports Jailed Burmese-american Activist

Thai Princess Inaugurates Yangon Blood Centre

Nyi Nyi Aung Released

Burma’s Garment Industry Struggling To Survive

Election Commission Announces Party Registration Fees

Divisions Over Party Registration Surfacing In Nld

A Realistic Perspective Needed Regarding Election Laws

Change Comes To Myanmar, But Only On The Junta’s Terms

Despite Crackdown On Monks, Myanmar Pledges Tolerance

Divisions Over Party Registration Surfacing In Nld – Ba Kaung

Gov’t Ministers To Contest The Election – Kyaw Thein Kha

UK Presses U.N. Council To Take Up Myanmar – Diplomats

Us Embassy Consul Holds Consular Meeting With Nyi Nyi Aung Kyaw Zaw Lwin

Burma’s Ethnic Minority Counts Cost Of Conflict As Polls Loom – Tim Johnston

Steady Hand On The Till

Myanmarese Demand Rollback Of New Electoral Laws

No Change In Burma From 2010 Polls: Dr Sein Win – Htet Win

Asean Must Speak With One Voice On Burma’s Election – Aung Zaw

UN’s Friends On Myanmar To Meet March 25, Uk’s Letter Catches Up To Ban – Matthew Russell Lee

“We’ve Fallen For The Generals,Tricks”- Zoya Phan

Un Should Move On International Inquiry

Divisions Over Party Registration Surfacing In Nld

Technical Regulations Favor Wealthy Candidates

Indonesian Foreign Minister To Visit Myanmar+

Bid At New Political Era Faces Capacity Challenge

Myanmar Rejects Call To Rescind Law Disqualifying Suu Kyi

Opposition Urges India To Take Stand On Burmese Polls

Australia Supports Considering Un Commission Of Inquiry

Banned Wild Animal Products Openly Sold

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Myths versus Realities

taisamyone — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:19:40 +0000

19Mar10 MythsVsRealities

Alliances Constitution Leaflet

taisamyone — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:18:29 +0000

19Mar10 Constitution Leaflet

Alliances Position Paper

taisamyone — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:17:01 +0000

19Mar10 Alliances Position Paper

Our Position on Burma’s Military Election Laws

taisamyone — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:15:21 +0000

19Mar10 Alliances Stmt on Election Law 19Mar10

Global Campaign on Burma’s 2010 Military Elections

taisamyone — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:12:15 +0000

Global Campaign on Burma’s 2010 Military Elections

Endorsing Organizations as of 19 March, 2010

National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB)

Democratic Alliance of Burma (DAB)

• Arakan Liberation Party (ALP)

• All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF)

• All Burma Muslim Union (ABMU)

• All Burma Young Monks’ Union (ABYMU)

• Chin National Front (CNF)

• Committee for Restoration of Democracy in Burma (CRDB)

• Democratic Party for a New Society (DPNS)

• Democratic Party for Arakan (DPA)

• Federation of Trade Unions – Burma (FTUB)

• Karen National Union (KNU)

• Lahu Democratic Front (LDF)

• Muslim Liberation Organization of Burma (MLOB)

• Myeik Dawei United Front (MDUF)

• Naga National League for Democracy (NNLD)

• Network for Democracy and Development (NDD)

• Palaung State Liberation Organization (PSLF)

• Pa-O People Liberation Organization (PPLO)

• Wa National Organization (WNO)

• Overseas Burmese Liberation Front (OBLF)

• Overseas Karen Organization (OKO)

• People’s Patriotic Party (PPP)

• People’s Liberation Front (PLF)

• People’s Progressive Front (PPF)

• People’s Defence Force (PDF)

National Democratic Front

• Arakan Liberation Party (ALP)

• Chin National Front (CNF)

• Lahu Democratic Front (LDF)

• Palaung State Liberation Front (PSLF)

• Pa-O People Liberation Organization (PPLO)

• Wa National organization (WNO)

• New Mon State Party (NMSP)

• Kayan New Land Party (KNLP)

• Karen National Union (KNU)

National League for Democracy – Liberated Area (NLD-LA)

Members of Parliamentary Union (MPU)

National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB)

Forum for Democracy in Burma (FDB)

• All Burma Federation of Student Unions – Foreign Affairs Committee

• All Burma Students Democratic Front

• Burmese Women’s Union

• Democratic Party for New Society

• Network for Democracy and Development

• People Defense Force

• Yaung Chi Oo Workers Association

Women’s League of Burma

• Burmese Women’s Union (BWU)

• Kachin Women’s Association – Thailand (KWAT)

• Karen Women’s Organization (KWO)

• Karenni National Women’s Organization (KNWO)

• Kuki Women’s Human Rights Organization (KWHRO)

• Lahu Women’s Organization (LWO)

• Palaung Women’s Organization (PWO)

• Pa-O Women’s Union (PWU)

• Rakhaing Women’s Union (RWU)

• Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN)

• Tavoy Women’s Union (TWU)

• Women’s League of Chinland

• Women’s Rights & Welfare Association of Burma (WRWAB)

Students and Youth Congress of Burma

• All Arakan Students’ and Youths’ Congress

• All Burma Students’ Democratic Front

• All Burma Students League

• All Kachin Students and Youth Union

• Arakan League for Democracy – Youth Wing (Exile)

• Democratic Party for a New Society – Youth

• Karen Youth Organization

• Kayan New Generation Youth

• Kuki Students Democratic Front

• Mon Youth Progressive Organization

• National League for Democracy – Liberated Area, Youth

• Naga National League for Democracy – Youth

• Pa-O Youth Organization

• Ta’ang Students and Youth Organization

• Tavoyan Youth Organization

• Zomi Students and Youth Organization

Nationalities Youth Forum

• All Arakan Students’ and Youths’ Congress

• All Kachin Students and Youth Union

• Arakan Youth Network Group

• Chin Students’ Union

• Karenni National Youth Organization

• Karenni Student Union

• Karen Youth Organisation

• Kayan New Generation Youth

• Mon Unity League

• Pa-O Youth Organization

• Ta’ang Students and Youth Organization

• United Lahu Youth Organization

• Zomi Students and Youth Organisation

Alternative Asean Network on Burma

Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)

Arakan League for Democracy (Exile-India)

Arakan Workers’ Union

Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development

Asia Pacific Solidarity Coalition

Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (Forum-Asia)

Association Suisse-Birmanie

Backpack Health Workers Team

Burma Action Ireland

Burma Campaign Australia

Burma Campaign Korea

Burma Campaign New Zealand

Burma Centre Delhi

Burma Democratic Concern

Burma Medical Association

BurmaInfo (Japan)

Burmese American Democratic Alliance

Canadian Friends of Burma

Center for People’s Dialogue (Sri Lanka)

Chin Human Rights Organization

Chin National Community – Japan

Chin Students and Youth Federation

Chin Women Organization – Japan

Chin Youth Conference

Christian Solidarity Worldwide

English PEN

Falam Chin Women Development

Federation of Workers Union of the Burmese Citizens (Japan)

Foundation for Media Alternatives (Philippines)

Free Burma Campaign Singapore

Free Burma Coalition (South Africa)

Free Burma Coalition Philippines (Philippines)

Friends of Burma (Thailand)

Friends of the Third World (Sri Lanka)

Generation Wave (Burma)

Grassroots Human Rights Education and Development

Hong Kong Coalition for a Free Burma

Human Rights Education Institute of Burma

Info Birmanie (France)

Initiative for International Dialogue (Philippines)

International Campaign for Freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma

International Women’s Partnership for Peace and Justice

Italian Confederation of Workers Trade Union

Karen Rivers Watch

Kayan National Development Foundation

Kayan Women’s Organization

Kuki Women Human Rights Organization

Lamkang Naga Students Union

Lamkang National Council

Naga Senior Citizens’ Forum

Naga Students Union Delhi

Naga Youth Organization

National Health and Education Committee (Burma)

People in Need (Czech Republic)

People in Peril (Slovakia)

People’s Forum on Burma (Japan)

Polish Burma Solidarity

Reporters Without Borders

Social and Health Development Association

Solidaritas Indonesia untuk Burma (Indonesian Solidarity for Burma)

Swedish Democratic Students Burma Project

Swedish Burma Committee

Thai Action Committee for Democracy in Burma

Zanniat Youth Organization

Zomi Community Committee

Zomi National Congress

Zomi Reunification Organization

Zomi Women’s Union

Myanmar credits US ties for freeing Americcan

Thaung Nyunt — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:18:43 +0000

YANGON, Myanmar -Myanmar’s ruling military junta decided to release a naturalized American citizen from prison because of its friendship with the U.S. government, state media said Friday.
Nyi Nyi Aung, a pro-democracy activist originally from Myanmar, was freed Thursday, a month after a court sentenced him to three years in prison with hard labor.
The New Light of Myanmar newspaper, a mouthpiece for the junta, said the government pardoned and deported Nyi Nyi Aung after giving “special consideration to bilateral friendship in accordance with the request made by the U.S. State Department” to free him.
The U.S. Embassy confirmed the release and said, “We welcome that development.”
Ties between the two countries actually are strained and tense. In the past, Myanmar’s state media have referred to the U.S. as a “loudmouthed bully.”
The United States recently modified its strict policy of isolating the junta in the hope that increased engagement would encourage change. However, the Obama administration has said it will not lift sanctions on Myanmar unless its sees concrete progress toward democratic reform — notably the release of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and freedom for her party to participate in elections expected later this year.
Election laws recently announced by the junta effectively bar Suu Kyi from participating in the balloting and were viewed as a setback to Myanmar-U.S. relations.
Nyi Nyi Aung, 40, also known as Kyaw Zaw Lwin, was arrested when he arrived at Yangon’s international airport Sept. 3 and was accused of plotting to stir political unrest, which he denied. He was convicted in February of forging a national identity card, possessing undeclared foreign currency, and failing to renounce his Myanmar citizenship when becoming an American citizen.
He was escorted aboard a flight to Thailand accompanied by a U.S. consular official, said his aunt, Khin Khin Swe.
His fiancee, Wa Wa Kyaw, released a statement thanking the U.S. State Department and members of Congress for helping secure his release. The couple live in Maryland.
As a teenager in Myanmar, Nyi Nyi Aung helped organize students during the country’s 1988 pro-democracy uprising, which was violently suppressed by the military, and later fled to the United States. His reason for returning to Myanmar was not clear, though there has been speculation he hoped to see his mother and sister, both of whom are serving jail terms for political activities.

Preempting Home-Grown Terrorists

taisamyone — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:55:56 +0000

- Thomas de Maizière

Thomas de Maizière is Germany’s Interior Minister.

BERLIN – Islamist terrorism has in recent years become central to security policy in Germany and many other Western countries. The terrorists’ intention is to sow mistrust and stoke fears; their aim is to weaken the democratic rule of law and to shatter citizens’ confidence in public institutions. Governments are determined to prevent this, but the reality is that frequent terror alerts tend to increase rather than reduce insecurity among our people.

The debates across Europe on new security laws to fight terrorism have sometimes created the false image that states threaten rather than protect their citizens’ freedom. In fact, the often-assumed conflict between freedom and public security does not exist.

Freedom and public security are not irreconcilable opposites. They complement and even depend on each other. Public security is a pre-requisite for freedom, and protecting freedom is at the core of a democratic state’s responsibility for public security.

A state’s monopoly on the use of force is justified if citizens can rely on it to ensure their security. The prevention of threats, along with law enforcement that involves prosecuting offenders, are crucial responsibilities, but they do not require, as a matter of principle, ever-newer security laws.

Of course, security authorities need suitable tools to fight terrorism. As terrorists take advantage of new technologies, the legal and technical means used by security authorities must adapt accordingly. But terrorism cannot be fought by the security authorities alone.

Prevention is better than repression. We should do everything in our power to avoid radicalization, to interrupt radicalization processes early, and to guide radicalized individuals back into our society and to acceptance of our values.

Yet, in facing a worsening problem of home-grown terrorism, Western countries are often unaware of this radicalization process. To intervene effectively, we need to find answers to three questions: Where and how do people radicalize? Why are they attracted to radical ideas? What can we do to counteract it?

In Germany, radicalization takes place largely through radical mosque communities or private prayer rooms, as well as through the Internet. State surveillance is used as a counter-measure, but it is just as important to work closely with the Muslim population.

Parents, friends, and imams can spot signs of radicalization earlier than security officials can, and they act responsibly by contacting the relevant state agencies in such cases. Security authorities are responsible for monitoring the more visible signs of radicalization, and other state agencies can help potential terrorism recruits to leave extremist environments and become reintegrated into society. Nothing, though, can replace support and help within these young peoples’ immediate environment.

The second question – why are some people attracted to radical ideas? – has been explored by researchers and security practitioners, who generally agree that people are more inclined to accept radical ideologies if they feel alienated. This is especially true of young people who have experienced real or even imagined discrimination. Lacking attractive social or professional prospects, such young people often seek a new and more welcoming home within a radical group.

Society’s task is to give them a feeling of belonging. That means a new sense of commitment by civil society as a whole. Our societies need to engender greater respect and acknowledgement of others, and to acquire more knowledge about different cultures and religions. We need to create tightly knit networks of personal relations between the members of different social and religious groups.

It is equally important that citizens should consider it their duty to commit themselves to the principles of liberal democracy. It is everyone’s task to counter extremism actively and speak out about radical statements, in public and in private.

Muslims have a particular responsibility here. Within their communities, or in social frameworks, they have an opportunity that others do not. Non-Muslims rarely have much contact with Muslims who are in the process of becoming radicalized, and in any case their arguments would not be well received.

The United Kingdom and the Netherlands, in particular, have notched up a number of positive civic-engagement projects involving Muslims. In Germany, we intend to facilitate and support similar contacts with Muslim groups.

But Europe and the Western world must also cooperate more closely with key Muslim countries. We need Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Maghreb countries as partners in the fight against Islamist terrorism, and that means improved operational cooperation between security authorities.

These countries have a clear interest in maintaining their stability. They should be anxious to allow terrorist groups as little room for development as possible. At the same time, it is in our interest to obtain from them as much important information about terrorist structures and activities as we can.

Improved cooperation should not stop there. We need to establish an extended dialogue with Muslim countries, particularly those from which immigrants come, and convince them to accept that their own Islamic authorities have a special responsibility in fighting radicalization. We need each other, and in many areas we can make a difference only if we act together.
Thomas de Maizière is Germany’s Interior Minister.

FROM NYI NYI AUNG LAWYERS – AMERICAN NYI NYI AUNG RELEASED FROM PRISON IN BURMA

taisamyone — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:52:15 +0000

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Beth Schwanke

March 18, 2010 +1 (202) 617-0744 bschwanke@freedom-now.org

AMERICAN NYI NYI AUNG RELEASED FROM PRISON IN BURMA

Returning Shortly to the United States

The Burmese junta released prisoner of conscience Nyi Nyi Aung from prison on Thursday, March 18, 2010; he will be arriving in the United States late Friday afternoon.

In response to his release, Freedom Now President Jared Genser said, “We’re thrilled that Nyi Nyi is returning to the United States and will be reunited with his fiancé shortly. While we are pleased the junta has released him, he never should have been imprisoned in the first place. On this day of thanksgiving for one family, it must not be forgotten there are 2,100 other Burmese political prisoners including National League for Democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.”

Nyi Nyi Aung is a Burmese-born American democracy activist who was arrested September 3, 2009, at the Rangoon airport. Nyi Nyi was convicted on sham charges and sentenced to three years in prison and hard labor. His trial process failed to meet Burmese and international legal standards for a fair trial. While in prison, Nyi Nyi was repeatedly tortured, denied consular access, and denied access to his lawyers.

Nyi Nyi’s fiancé, Wa Wa Kyaw commented: “I’d like to express my gratitude to the State Department and especially Assistant Secretary Kurt Campbell and U.S. Ambassador to ASEAN Scot Marciel who worked intensively to secure Nyi Nyi’s release. U.S. Charge d’Affairs Larry Dinger and Consul Colin Furst also worked tirelessly on his behalf in Rangoon. I am also particularly grateful to the many Members of Congress who advocated for Nyi Nyi’s freedom. Beginning with our own Congressman Chris Van Hollen and House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman, other keys members especially engaged in securing Nyi Nyi’s release included Senators Barbara Mikulski, Richard Durbin, John Kerry, Richard Lugar, Mitch McConnell, John McCain, and Benjamin Cardin, and Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Jim McGovern, and Frank Wolf, among others.

Freedom Now, an advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., represented Nyi Nyi Aung as his international pro bono counsel. Working with Freedom Now, on December 17, 2009, a bipartisan group of 53 Members of Congress sent a letter, initiated by Reps. Howard Berman and Frank Wolf, to junta leader Than Shwe urging Nyi Nyi’s release. Freedom Now also submitted an urgent appeal to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture as well as a petition to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on Nyi Nyi’s behalf.

For further information and to access the primary documents about his case referenced above, please see: http://www.freedom-now.org/NYINYI.php

Nyi Nyi Aung Release Generals Keep Playing Their Games

taisamyone — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:51:23 +0000

Media Release From Burma Campaign UK : For Immediate Release 18th March 2010

Nyi Nyi Aung Release Generals Keep Playing Their Games

The Burma Campaign UK today welcomed the release of Nyi Nyi Aung, an American Burmese arrested last year while visiting his sick mother, but warned that the generals are once again playing games with the international community, and that the release is designed to divert attention from the recently published election laws, which have been widely condemned.

Only yesterday (17th March), Zoya Phan, International Coordinator of Burma Campaign UK, published an article on the Democratic Voice of Burma English language website, predicting the release of a high profile political prisoner as part of the game the generals play to divert international
attention from election laws.
http://www.dvb.no/analysis/weve-fallen-for-the-generals-tricks/

The announcement of Nyi Nyi Aung¹s release comes one week after the generals published election laws which blatantly ensure the elections will be rigged to ensure the generals control the whole process, and which bar Aung San Suu Kyi from taking part.

³The generals are playing the same old game, knowing the international community is likely to fall for it once again, and give the release a political significance which does not exist,² said Zoya Phan. ³The USA has recently made statements that its process of dialogue is going nowhere. The generals want to string out the process as long as possible to avoid any real pressure being applied. We have seen this kind of thing time and time again, and time and time again the international community falls for it.

They need to face the fact that the generals will never voluntarily hand over power, they will have to be forced to do so by strong pressure.²

Nyi Nyi Aung, a Burmese American citizen and former democracy activist in Burma, was arrested on 3 September 2009 after arriving in Burma to visit his sick mother. He was tortured and jailed for 3 years with hard labour. The USA has been criticised for its lack of action to secure his release.

For more information contact Zoya Phan (Thailand Time) on 66898273420

BURMA RELATED NEWS – MARCH 18, 2010

taisamyone — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:29:43 +0000

Foreign Policy Blogs - International Burma Tribunal Releases Judgment Regarding War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity

AFP – Myanmar releases jailed US activist: officials

AP – Myanmar opens political party registration

Reuters – UK presses U.N. council to take up Myanmar: diplomats

IRIN – MYANMAR: Damaged embankments threaten Nargis recovery

The New York Times – Change Comes to Myanmar, but Only on the Junta’s Terms

Epoch Times – Burma at ‘Critical Moment’ as Elections Loom

Bangladesh News 24 hours – Dhaka, Beijing sign 3 accords

The Nation – Princess presides over opening of Thaifunded hospital in Burma

The Nation – Govt bans import of fowl from birdflu affected nations

Channel NewsAsia – Golden Triangle fast becoming a tourist destination

VOA News – Burma – 2009 Human Rights Report

Mizzima News – Leaflets distributed in Rangoon condemning 2010 polls

Mizzima News – A realistic perspective needed regarding election laws

The Irrawaddy – Mon to Move Weapons to New Base

The Irrawaddy – Newly-registered Parties Face Financing Problems

DVB News – Appeal lodged for jailed DVB reporter

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********

Foreign Policy Blogs

International Burma Tribunal Releases Judgment Regarding War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity
By Brandon Henander
Wednesday, March 17 8:07 pm EST

Early this month the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women of Burma convened in New York City. At the Tribunal the testimonies of twelve women outlined atrocities committed by Burmese officials against women during the longest ongoing conflict in the world. Representatives of the witnesses recounted brutal gang rapes, torture and murder committed by Burmese soldiers for the purpose of suppressing pro-democracy and self-determination movements among Burma’s many dissident minority ethnicities. The Tribunal was sponsored by the Nobel Women’s Initiative. It was presided over by a panel of judges comprised of many of the most distinguished human rights and international law scholars currently in practice. The judges included Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Shirin Ebadi and Jody Williams, and former CEDAW co-chair and international crimes against women scholar Dr. Heisoo Shin, and human rights professor Vitit Muntarbhorn. We are privileged to have a copy of the portion of their judgment against the Burmese military junta concerning war crimes and crimes against humanity one week before the full judgment is released to the public. We extend our gratitude to the Nobel Women’s Initiative for providing this to the Foreign Policy Association:

“WAR CRIMES: The testifiers we have heard today describe their harrowing experiences in being forced to do work for the military, in being raped by military personnel both during forced labor and in other circumstances, in having their homes and villages pillaged and destroyed by the military, and in being forced to flee. These are war crimes because they are attacks directed at civilians in the context of and associated with armed conflict under customary international law as reflected in the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute which created the International Criminal Court.

Here the armed conflict is non-international in character. Ethnic groups within Burma have been fighting for the right to self government since the British took control of Burma and India. Under the current regime, these groups have been further stripped of their autonomy and continue to fight.

On the basis of the testimonies today and other documentation, we find that in areas where these hostilities are taking place, the following war crimes have been committed or tolerated by officials of the military regime: rape, sexual violence, sexualized torture and other forms of torture, violence to life and person, outrages on personal dignity, intentional attacks against the civilian populations, pillage and destruction or seizure of their property, and displacement of the civilian populations for reasons related to conflict. War crimes give rise to individual criminal responsibility.

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: Crimes against humanity refers to specific crimes committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population. We find that the ongoing, systematic attacks by the Burmese military regime against the peoples of Burma constitute crimes against humanity. The attacks are widespread and have been carried out across the country affecting untold numbers of women – and their families and communities. The fact that similar crimes have been committed against Burmese women in different parts of the country is evidence that the regime has a policy to actively commit and/or passively permit these attacks.

The brutal crimes inflicted on women as part of these attacks include: rape and sexual violence; torture, including rape and sexual violence; enslavement including forced labor; sexual slavery including trafficking; imprisonment and other severe deprivation of physical liberty; persecution directed against individuals based on their political, national, ethnic, cultural, religious and gender identities; forcible transfer of populations; and other inhumane acts.

The testimonies here and the reports available to us provide ample evidence that women as political activists, Burmese women and women of ethnic minorities, some of whose representatives have testified here today, have all been targets of crimes against humanity. Crimes against humanity give rise to individual criminal responsibility.

Despite Burma’s failure to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, we find that its definition of crimes against humanity is applicable to the crimes against women in Burma because it also represents basic customary international law applicable to all. As such, it provides the basis for individual States to exercise universal jurisdiction conferred by international law – that is to prosecute the perpetrators in their national courts.

Further, the UN Security Council, the only international body that can take binding action with regard to the regime, has the power to respond to the Burmese regime’s threat to peace and security by referring the situation in Burma to the International Criminal Court, enabling that Court to investigate and prosecute officials of the Burmese regime. Our recommendations reemphasize the importance of Security Council involvement and call upon the Council to take all appropriate measures, including those necessary to accomplish this referral with all due speed, to bring an end to the ongoing and terrible threat this regime poses to women, as well as to the human rights, peace and security of all.”

What is not clear is the basis the Tribunal uses to claim war crimes and crimes against humanity are customary international law. Certainly international conventions to which Burma is signatory can uncontroversially be claimed as customary law such as the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the CEDAW. But violation of these conventions does not merit referral to the I.C.C. as the Tribunal has recommended. The Rome Statute, establishing the I.C.C. and defining war crimes and crimes against humanity is still less than a decade old and not yet ratified by major powers such as the U.S. The case that it is current customary international law may be viable but would be daunting to make. By proposing that Rome Statute offenses are customary international law however it lends credibility to that notion. In addition to giving voice to the oppressed women of Burma the Tribunal was able to lay a brick in the foundation of what hopefully in the future will be the recognition of the Rome Statute, and referral of its violators to the I.C.C., as customary international law.

In related news, McSweeney’s Voice of Witness is working on the Burma oral history project to help share more of these womens’ stories. They need your help. Funds will go directly to interviewers and translators in Burma and in border regions, some of whom are themselves struggling to survive. You can donate at the Voice of Witness website.

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Myanmar releases jailed US activist: officials
by Hla Hla Htay – 1 hr 1 min ago

YANGON (AFP) – Military-ruled Myanmar on Thursday released a US rights activist jailed for fraud and forgery in a rare show of leniency from the junta ahead of elections this year.

Democracy advocate Kyaw Zaw Lwin was “thrilled” to be going home, his fiancee said, after he was given a three-year term in February for forging an identity card, failing to declare currency at customs and violating immigration law.

Supporters of the Myanmar-born US citizen, also known as Nyi Nyi Aung, said he had travelled to the country to visit his ailing mother, herself detained for political activities, when he was arrested on September 3.

The 40-year-old had been behind bars in Yangon’s notorious Insein prison since, despite an appeal by more than 50 US lawmakers who wrote to Myanmar’s leader, Senior General Than Shwe, for his release.

“I spoke with him and he was very strong, in high spirits and so thrilled to be free,” his fiancee Wa Wa Kyaw, a nurse in the Washington area, told AFP.

But she said Kyaw Zaw Lwin, who was spending the night in Bangkok as he awaited a flight to the United States, felt pain in one of his legs after his detention.

“His leg isn’t really good. The first thing we’ll do is have a medical check-up to indicate if he needs some treatment or some physical therapy,” she said.

Drake Weisert, a spokesman for the US embassy in Yangon, confirmed in an email to AFP that Kyaw Zaw Lwin had left Myanmar.

Officials from the southeast Asian nation, asking not to be named, earlier said authorities were deporting the US man on Thursday afternoon but gave no legal explanation.

His lawyer Nyan Win, who also represents detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was initially unaware of his release after an appeal against the sentence was rejected, but later said he was glad of the news.

“His freedom will be there as he’s an American citizen. His freedom cannot be here,” he told AFP.

The United States has changed diplomatic tack in recent months, seeking greater engagement with the Myanmar regime after years of isolation, while maintaining sanctions.

But US officials have remained vocal in their criticism of the junta, only last week slamming plans for this year’s polls as “devoid of credibility” as they prevent opposition leader Suu Kyi and other political detainees from taking part.

The United States had said Kyaw Zaw Lwin’s conviction was “unjustified” and called for his release. Despite this, the prisoner’s fiancee had said she felt betrayed by the US government and sought further efforts to secure his freedom.

The prisoner had been deprived of food, sleep, medical treatment and US consular access in his first two weeks of detention, his lawyers said.

He also staged a hunger strike, they said, to demand equal treatment for the more than 2,000 political prisoners the UN and rights groups say remain imprisoned.

In a damning report released on Monday, UN special envoy Tomas Quintana said the regime’s violations of human rights could amount to crimes against humanity and warrant a UN inquiry, following his five-day visit to Myanmar last month.

Myanmar diplomat Wunna Maung Lwin “strongly condemned” the report as violating the country’s sovereignty, in representations to the UN Human Rights Council.

The generals, who have ruled Myanmar since 1962 and refuse to recognise polls that Suu Kyi’s party won by a landslide in 1990, have kept the Nobel Peace Laureate locked up for 14 of the past 20 years.

Her house arrest was extended for 18 months in August, sparking global outrage, after a bizarre incident in which another US national, John Yettaw, swam to her lakeside home.

Democrat US Senator Jim Webb secured the release of Yettaw, an eccentric military veteran, after the junta sentenced him to seven years’ hard labour.

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Myanmar opens political party registration
AP – 2 hours 30 minutes ago

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Myanmar opened the registration period Thursday for political parties ahead of elections this year, in what the government bills as a key step toward democracy but which critics suspect will entrench the country’s military rulers.

State radio and television announced that new and existing parties could register at the Election Commission office in the administrative capital of Naypyitaw. The government also published texts of new bylaws for party registration and polling.

This year’s planned elections are part of the junta’s “roadmap to democracy,” but critics say the military shows little sign of relinquishing control and note that the government has made every effort to prevent opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from taking part in the polls.

Suu Kyi’s party has said it will decide by the end of this month whether to take part in the elections _ the first since 1990, when the party won overwhelmingly, but the government refused to recognize the results.

The government has not yet set an exact date for the polls. The newly released laws set deadlines for legal actions by parties that seem to imply the polls will be held no earlier than November.

One recently enacted electoral laws prevents Suu Kyi from running in the elections and forces the Nobel peace laureate out of the party she helped found because of her conviction on charges of violating her house arrest when an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside property.

Suu Kyi is currently serving an 18-month term of house arrest and many top members of her parties and ethnic-based parties are serving prison sentences. She has spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention.

The new bylaws tighten electoral registration rules, with a new 1,000-person minimum for parties and higher fees for parties and candidates.

Parties now must pay a registration fee 300,000 kyats (about $300) compared to the 500 kyats (about $6) fee required for the most recent previous election in 1990.

Candidates must deposit 500,000 kyats ($500), compared to 10,000 kyats ($10) before.

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UK presses U.N. council to take up Myanmar: diplomats
Wed Mar 17, 2010 8:26pm GMT
By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Britain is pushing the U.N. Security Council to discuss concerns about Myanmar’s upcoming election but is facing resistance from the southeast Asian nation’s powerful neighbour China, U.N. diplomats said on Wednesday.

Myanmar has been on the agenda of the 15-nation council for years due to what Western powers say is the military junta’s brutal suppression of human rights and crackdowns on ethnic minorities and dissidents. But China and Russia have prevented the council from imposing sanctions on the junta leaders.

The reason Britain is urging the 15-nation council to return the situation in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is the government’s recently published regulations banning political prisoners from participating in elections, or even being members of political parties, the diplomats said.

“A number of council members support the idea of discussing Burma and getting an update on the situation there,” a Western diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“It’s the subject of negotiations with the Chinese at the moment, who are always reluctant on these matters,” he said.

The United States and France, both of which are permanent veto-wielding council members like Britain, China and Russia, are among those that support the idea of a council meeting on Myanmar to discuss the upcoming election, diplomats said.

One envoy said they would like the council to agree on some kind of statement urging Myanmar’s junta to free political prisoners and allow them to take part in the poll, which has not been scheduled but is expected to take place this year.

The council has only agreed to two formal statements on Myanmar. The last, in August 2009, voiced “serious concern” about opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s conviction for letting an American intruder who swam to her house stay for two days.

TROUBLE WITH CHINA

The new regulations, which the United States and United Nations have said would strip any remaining credibility from the elections, would prevent the detained Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, from running for office.

Her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won the last election in 1990 but the junta ignored the result and officially annulled it last Thursday.

The NLD is considering whether to take part in the poll, which has been widely dismissed outside Myanmar as a sham intended to make the country appear more democratic while leaving the military in control.

Diplomats said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s so-called “Group of Friends” on Myanmar will meet on March 25 to discuss the situation there. That group includes the United States, Britain, France, China, Japan, Australia, Norway, Russia, Singapore and Thailand.

It was not clear when the Security Council would meet to discuss Myanmar, though Western diplomats said they hoped it would be as soon as possible.

Historically the council has been unable to do much about Myanmar due to resistance from China. U.S. and European officials have suggested that the United Nations should impose sanctions on the country.

But Beijing has been unwilling to allow the council to take punitive action against Myanmar, whose nearly 2,000 km (1,250 mile) coastline provides neighbouring China with easy land and sea access to lucrative South Asian markets. Russia has also opposed sanctions due to what it says are internal matters.

The United States, France and Britain have had disagreements with China on other issues, such as Iran’s nuclear program, North Korea and an unsuccessful Anglo-American attempt in 2008 to impose sanctions on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and high-ranking members of his government.

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MYANMAR: Damaged embankments threaten Nargis recovery

YANGON, 18 March 2010 (IRIN) – A failure to repair crucial flood embankments damaged by Cyclone Nargis could undo recovery efforts and lead to more loss of life if another major storm hits, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization warns.

Cyclone Nargis devastated the Ayeyarwady and Yangon divisions in May 2008, killing at least 140,000 and affecting 2.4 million. More than 780,000ha of paddy fields were submerged and 707,500MT of stored paddy and milled rice destroyed.

Efforts are under way to restore normality and livelihoods in the divisions, where agriculture is the mainstay, but the repair and upgrading of coastal embankments is being overlooked, said Shin Imai, the FAO’s representative in Myanmar.

If another major storm hits, the damaged embankments will fail to prevent floods and storm surges in low-lying areas, especially in the coastal Ayeyarwady delta, he said.

“If a cyclone comes in, it will hit the newly built infrastructure and houses. Everything will be gone. So there is a big fear now,” Imai told IRIN in an interview.

Neglected

The coastal embankments in the Ayeyarwady division were built in the 1970s and were already in a state of neglect before many were heavily damaged by Cyclone Nargis. They encompass 162,500ha of cropland, providing protection against flooding and saline intrusion during the monsoon season.

Some 1,000km of embankments need rehabilitating at a cost of US$100 million, according to government and FAO estimates. So far, only the Japanese government has put money towards them.

Near the seashore, the Burmese government is building up the embankments to about 4m above sea level, the height needed for cyclone protection.

However, a lack of funds and heavy machinery means they are attempting to temporarily shore up embankments in some areas to the height of 2.4m only, said Imai.

“They want to quickly protect as many areas as possible, so they are digging and putting soil [on them],” he said. “It’s only temporary, but it will help protect livelihoods. ”

Imai said international donors were probably skittish because of the scale of the work required, while sanctions also deterred funding for recovery efforts.

“Because of sanctions, it looks difficult to fund because this somehow looks like development assistance,” he said.

“My point is that [we talk] about humanitarian aid but what does humanitarian aid mean? Fundamentally … humanitarian aid has to save lives. If the embankments are not rehabilitated, how many people will be in trouble?”

Crop yields affected

Damaged or inadequately built-up embankments in the Ayeyarwady delta, the nation’s rice bowl, mean sea water is intruding into fields at high tide, affecting crop yields, Imai said.

“When high tide comes, the embankment and the tide area are almost at the same height,” he said.

In affected delta areas, rice production in 2009 was down by more than 50 percent compared with pre-Nargis levels, with the situation exacerbated by a rat infestation that is destroying crops, he said.

In Myanmar, productivity is measured in baskets of 20kg of rice each.

“It is happening already. That’s why productivity is very low now. It’s now 30 baskets [of rice] per hectare. It’s normally 70 or 80 baskets,” said Imai.

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The New York Times – Change Comes to Myanmar, but Only on the Junta’s Terms
Published: March 17, 2010

PYAPON, Myanmar — In the dried mud of the Irrawaddy Delta, workers are welding together the final pieces of a natural-gas pipeline that the country’s ruling generals say will keep the lights on in Yangon, Myanmar’s main city, after years of debilitating blackouts.

Residents who for years were lucky to get eight hours of power a day may soon have the luxury of refrigerators that stay cold and televisions that stay on.

But it will not make much difference for one 64-year-old Yangon resident on a lakeside road blockaded by the police: Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate and this country’s best-known dissident, who lives in a blacked-out world, barred from most communication with anyone outside her walled compound. Her telephone line was cut years ago, and she has no computer or television, her lawyer said.

These are the dueling realities of Myanmar today. After years of deadlock and stagnation, change is coming, but strictly on the junta’s terms.

There is guarded hope among business people and diplomats that Myanmar, or Burma, as many people still call the country, may be gradually moving away from years of paranoid authoritarianism and Soviet-style economic management that has left the majority of the country’s 55 million people in dire poverty.

A new constitution is expected to be introduced later this year, and the junta is planning the first elections in two decades. Analysts say that the elections are not likely to be fully competitive or fair, but that they could move the military to decentralize some of its power.

“Burma is at a critical watershed,” said Thant Myint-U, a historian and former United Nations official who has written widely on the country. “We’re clearly moving towards something other than a strict army hierarchy with just one general at the top.”

What passes for hope in Myanmar is incremental change and the prospect that the military will gradually fade from politics — allowing this country of vast resources, with land so fertile it once fed large parts of the British empire, to finally participate in the economic dynamism that surrounds it.

Signs of change abound. The military, which has been in power for close to five decades, has issued permits for private hospitals and schools, neither of which were officially allowed before. It has sold a raft of state-run factories and assets to cronies in the private sector and appears to be lifting some of the punitive restrictions on the ownership of cars and motorcycles. The country is taking steps to revive its troubled but potentially lucrative rice exports.

Visits to Myanmar by international economists, including teams from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, used to be “dialogues of the deaf,” one Western diplomat said. But that has changed. Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who visited Myanmar in December, said the ministers and military officials he met were eager for advice about stimulating growth and promoting private enterprise.

Myanmar has seen many false dawns before, and it is always possible that the generals will change their minds and roll back the nascent liberalization. But at least one crucial change is inevitable in the coming years. The reclusive leader of the junta, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, a master at keeping his opponents off balance, is 78 years old and has no obvious successor.

A common explanation for the change in direction is that General Than Shwe is dismantling his system of absolute power because he does not want another strongman to emerge who could hurt his family or threaten the wealth he seems to have built up during nearly two decades in power. The question of succession is a karmic one for the general, who put his predecessor, Ne Win, under house arrest and is said to have denied him medical treatment before his death in 2002.

Mr. Thant Myint-U, the historian and former diplomat, said the main tensions in the country today were within the military itself, not between the generals and Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi and her democracy movement.

“Outside the country, the situation is perceived as a simple one where the army is trying to perpetuate its own rule,” he said. “Inside, everyone knows that intense competition will be under way within the elite, involving not only the military, but also retired army officers, senior bureaucrats and a rising business class.”

Military officers are campaigning for the elections as if their careers depended on it, announcing dozens of projects, including the plan for 24-hour electricity in Yangon, that they hope will win the affection of a population that in many parts of the country despises them.

One crucial change has taken place in the rice industry, which has the potential to raise the income of farmers, the backbone of the country who make up two-thirds of the population. Myanmar was once the world’s largest rice exporter, a title now held by neighboring Thailand.

“Give me 10 years and we’ll be back,” said Tin Maung Thann, an adviser to a newly created rice industry association and the president of Myanmar Egress, a nonprofit development group. “Of course we can become a big rice exporter.”

A series of programs sponsored by foreign governments in the Irrawaddy Delta has helped rice-growing villages rebound from the damage of a cyclone that killed at least 130,000 people two years ago. Farmers are being trained to use fertilizers, better rice seed and more modern farming techniques.

The government has empowered the rice industry association with management of the country’s rice stocks, a crucial change from the past when generals who feared rice shortages shut down exports with the stroke of a pen, overriding any contracts that rice traders had signed with their customers.

The coming elections are seen as unlikely to transform Myanmar’s politics. The media is entirely controlled by the military, and 2,100 political activists who might otherwise take part in the elections are in jail.

The elections would be the first since 1990, when the party of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, the National League for Democracy, won a landslide victory, a result that was ignored by the generals and recently nullified.

But Sean Turnell, an expert on Myanmar at Macquarie University in Australia, said the elections had created a window for the economic changes, a situation he described as similar to Indonesia’s transition from socialist rule in the 1960s.

“I don’t see this as a coherent liberalization,” he said. “But economic changes seem to have happened almost by accident, and people are grabbing at what they can.”

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Burma at ‘Critical Moment’ as Elections Loom
By Stephen Jones
Epoch Times Staff Created: Mar 17, 2010 Last Updated: Mar 17, 2010

Burma will go to the polls this year for the first time in 20 years, however controversial election laws will mean that the country’s most prominent democracy activist will be banned from taking part.

The Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been in some form of detention for the last 14 years, will be banned from taking part in the poll.

In the last election in 1990, the country’s military junta was shocked after Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory. The win came despite the fact that Suu Kyi was under house arrest and the country was under martial law. This time, the ruling generals are taking no chances.

Last week, the country released new electoral directives that will mean that anyone declared a “criminal” under the country’s constitution will be barred from standing in the poll. Moreover, no members of political parties are allowed to stand as candidates.

On Monday, Tomas Ojea Quintana, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Burma (renamed Myanmar by the junta) said that the rules will stifle democracy. “Under these current conditions, elections in Burma cannot be considered credible,” he told a news conference after presenting a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

No formal date has been set for the elections, although the favored day for superstitious senior general Than Shwe is believed to be Oct. 10, 2010 (10/10/10). It is also a month before Suu Kyi is due to be released from house arrest. Suu Kyi’s party, allowed to re-open regional offices that have been closed for seven years, is considering whether or not to boycott the election.

Burma has 2,100 prisoners of conscience in jail, among them 11 members of the NLD. Hundreds more have been jailed since a 2007 popular uprising that was led by monks. Quintana said that there was “no indication” that Burma was intending to release these political prisoners, and submitted a report urging a full inquiry into the regime’s alleged abuses.

In his report, Quintana said, “The possibility exists that some of these human rights violations may entail categories of crimes against humanity, or war crimes under the terms of the statute of the International Criminal Court.” Speaking to the Human Rights Council on Monday, Quintana noted that with elections being held this year, “Burma is at a critical moment in its history.”

However, the country’s ambassador to the U.N. Wunna Maung Lwin, said that the report was full of inaccuracies and “violates the right of a sovereign state.” “We strongly condemn and reject these recommendations and the report as a whole,” said the ambassador.

“My government has clearly stated that there are no prisoners of conscience and that those who are serving prison terms are (those) who offended the existing laws and regulations, ” he told the council. The issue was raised again on Wednesday, by Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo in a meeting with his Burmese counterpart, Nyan Win.

Romulo told reporters afterward that he was not satisfied with the conversation and would urge the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)— to which both Burma and the Philippines belong—to call for a reversal of the election decree, at the bloc’s annual summit in Vietnam next month.

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Bangladesh News 24 hours – Dhaka, Beijing sign 3 accords
Thu, Mar 18th, 2010 7:52 pm BdSTDial 2324 from your mobile for latest news
bdnews24.com Beijing correspondent

Beijing, Mar 18 (bdnews24.com) –Bangladesh on Thursday signed three accords with China aimed at strengthening cooperation in the fields of economy, technology and infrastructure.

In addition, the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding on oil and energy cooperation.

The three accords are: Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement, Framework Agreement on Shahjalal Fertiliser Factory, and the Agreement on the 7th Bangladesh-China Friendship Bridge.

They were signed during the official talks between the visiting Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao at the Great Hall in Beijing, foreign minister Dipu Moni told journalists.

Dipu Moni, industries minister Dilip Barua and communications minister Syed Abul Hossain signed the accords and ambassador to China Munshi Faiz Ahmad signed the MoUs on behalf of Bangladesh.

Sheikh Hasina, now in the capital on a five-day visit to China, started her official talks with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao at around 6pm (local time) at the Great Hall.

Besides, the two prime ministers discussed a number of projects, including the Chittagong-Kunming railway and road links through Myanmar, second Padma Bridge, deep seaport in Chittagong, eighth Bangladesh-China Friendship Bridge, capacity-building in agriculture, telecommunications and solar energy.

Hasina sought enhanced Chinese investment in Bangladesh that might contribute to reducing the trade gap, now heavily in favour of China.

Later in the eveing, she is expected to attend a banquet hosted by Wen.

Earlier, Sheikh Hasina arrived at Beijing Wednesday midnight (local time) on a Biman Bangladesh airline flight.

Chinese assistant foreign minister for South Asia, Hu Zhengyue, received her at the airport.

The Bangladesh PM is expected to meet with Chinese president Hu Jintao and National People’s Congress Chairman Wu Bangguo on Friday.

The PM will address a meeting of Chinese and Bangladeshi businessmen people Friday morning.

She is expected to visit Kunming during the visit. The capital of Yunan province will serve as one end of the proposed trans-border road and rail link with China connecting Kunming with Chittagong through Myanmar.

Foreign minister Dipu Moni, communications minister Syed Abul Hossain, industries minister Dilip Barua and state minister for Chittagong Hill Tracts Dipankar Talukdar are accompanying the prime minister.

Besides a 16-member government delegation, another delegation of eminent citizens, businesspersons and journalists were also included in Hasina’s entourage.

Hasina is scheduled to return home on March 21.

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The Nation – Princess presides over opening of Thaifunded hospital in Burma
Published on March 19, 2010

HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn graciously presided over the Tuesday opening ceremony of a 16bed hospital constructed by the Thai Red Cross Society’s funding in Myanmar’s Pyapon City.

Following the Nargis Cyclone tragedy, HRH Princess saw to it that the Thai Red Cross Society donated USD720,000 to the Yangon City’s national blood donation centre and allocated medical supplies and a budget of USD360,000 to build a health station in Taman Village and the hospital in Doyeng Village, the latter which could cover residents in 73 surrounding villages.

The princess on Tuesday also inspected the nearlycomplete health station, which would cover residents in 26 villages and presided over another opening ceremony of “Kadonkani Cyclone Shelter” building at Kadong Kanee School, which she funded the construction. She also presided over the opening ceremony of the national blood donation centre building, whose renovation was also funded by the Thai Red Cross Society at USD400,000, and presented the 67 medical supply items worth USD348,667 to the centre.

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The Nation – Govt bans import of fowl from birdflu affected nations
Published on March 19, 2010

The authorities have banned the import of fowl, fowl carcasses as well as eggs meant for breeding purposes from countries hit by avian influenza.

Bird flu has recently been detected in India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Israel, Cambodia, Burma, Nepal and Bhutan.

The World Organisation for Animal Health also announced that 18 people had come down with bird flu in Indonesia, Egypt and Vietnam this year. Of the 18, five have succumbed to the disease.

“We are closely monitoring vehicles and people at border checkpoints, ” Apai Suttisang said Thursday in his capacity as head of the Bureau of Disease Control and Veterinary Services.

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Channel NewsAsia – Golden Triangle fast becoming a tourist destination
By Augustine Anthuvan | Posted: 19 March 2010 0042 hrs

LUANG NAMTHA PROVINCE, Laos: The heart of Asia’s Golden Triangle – where the borders of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar meet – was previously known as an illicit opium-producing area.

But it is now on track to becoming a major tourist destination, thanks to a major road network.

The Kunming-Chiang Rai highway – jointly funded by China, Laos, Thailand and the Asian Development Bank – which cuts through north western Laos is creating new opportunities for the rural communities in the landlocked country.

China’s border town of Mohan, located at the southwestern tip of Yunnan province, is an important trade port on the Sino-Laotian border.

On a typical day, truck drivers can be seen getting ready for customs inspection at the checkpoint here. Truck drivers who have been driving for about 16 hours from Kunming stop at Mohan and hand over their trucks to drivers from the Lao side, who will bring the trucks over to Laos.

One driver explained: “We transport chestnuts from Kunming to the checkpoint (near the Lao border). They (Lao drivers) will drive the truck over to their side of the checkpoint, where they will unload the goods. Then, at 3pm, they will drive the truck back to us. We will then drive it back to Kunming.”

Aside from Chinese goods, this Mohan landport is also a major gateway for tourists. Crossing the border into the Lao town of Boten, many tourists head on to Luangnamtha, after which their land journey continues onto Houayxay, eventually crossing the Mekong river to Thailand’s Chiang Khong, and as far as Chiang Rai.

One of the major developments in Boten city in Luangnamtha is the building of the new customs and immigration complex.

While queuing up to get an entry stamp on one’s passport, one can’t help but notice the simple “do’s” and “dont’s” poster on how to greet the locals and being respectful of religious shrines while in Laos.

It is a breeze at immigration – you just need to fill up a simple form and hand it in, get an immigration stamp, and you will receive your visa which allows you to stay for a month in Laos.

As you travel along the highway, you will see small, quiet, lovely and rustic villages on either side.

An evidence of entrepreneurial activity among the locals are bundles of khem – long grass used to make brooms – one of the largest non-timber forest product sectors in Laos – earning extra income for Lao villagers.

With khem and other products making their way by truck to China, the road is a vital artery, increasing trade and tourism, encouraging investments, and raising living standards for the rural communities.

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VOA News – Burma – 2009 Human Rights Report
Thursday, 18 March 2010

The Report states that in 2009, the government of Burma “continued its egregious human rights violations and abuses.”

“There were reports of unlawful and arbitrary killings by security forces.”

Burmese military address a protest in this file photo from 2007. The government continues to crack down on dissent, according to the U.S. Department of State.

“The idea of human rights begins with a fundamental commitment to the dignity that is the birthright of every man, woman and child,” said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton while introducing the annual Human Rights Report:

“Progress in advancing human rights begins with the facts. And for the last 34 years, the United States has produced the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, providing the most comprehensive record available of the condition of human rights around the world.”

The Report raised grave concerns about the human rights situation in Burma. Burma is ruled by a military regime dominated by the majority ethnic Burman group. The State Peace and Development Council, which is headed by Senior General Than Shwe [Tawn Shway], has assumed the duties of the government, and at all levels of the government, ultimate authority rests with military officers. The government also controls the security forces without civilian oversight.

The Report states that in 2009, the government of Burma “continued its egregious human rights violations and abuses. . . . including increased military attacks in ethnic minority regions, such as in the Karen and Shan state.”

The Human Rights Report also states that “the regime continued to abridge the right of citizens to change their government and committed other severe human rights abuses.”

There were reports of unlawful and arbitrary killings by security forces; of deaths of people held in government custody; of disappearances, rape and torture. The government frequently detained civic activists without charges. Citizens were imprisoned for political motives, and prisoners and detainees were held in harsh and life-threatening conditions.

In short, the government of Burma kept a tight leash on possible criticism of, or activism against, its policies by restricting its citizens’ privacy, freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, religion, and movement. At the same time, it allowed violent treatment and discrimination against women, recruitment of child soldiers, discrimination against ethnic minorities, and trafficking in persons. The government took no significant actions to prosecute or punish those responsible for human rights abuses.

“The principle that each person possesses equal moral value is a simple, self-evident truth,” said Secretary of State Clinton. ” With the facts in hand and the goals clear in our heads and our hearts, we recommit ourselves to continue the hard work of making human rights a human reality.”

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Leaflets distributed in Rangoon condemning 2010 polls
Thursday, 18 March 2010 18:31 Khai Suu

New Delhi (Mizzima) – In the first signs of blatant dissent towards the 2010 general elections, leaflets were secretly distributed condemning both the polls and the 2008 Constitution in crowded places in Rangoon.

The distribution of leaflets among the people at busy road intersections and bus stops in some townships in Rangoon has come as a surprise.

“These places usually boast advertisement leaflets for tuitions and beauty parlours. People found the portrait of Bogyoke (General) Aung San, independence architect on the top of the leaflet. Two people distributed the leaflets and vanished. Some people tore them after reading, possibly because they were afraid,” a man waiting at bus stop in Pansodan township said.

There were similar distributions in Mingala market, Yuzana Plaza and Kyaukmyaung market bus stop in Tamwe Township yesterday morning.

“Young activists have been into such kind of activities since February. Distributing triple folded leaflets cannot be done like selling newspapers and journals so they have to do it in busy places stealthily,” Thai based Forum for Democracy in Burma (FDB) General Secretary Dr. Naing Aung said.

Similar leaflet distributions were made since last month by young activists in Burma in Arakan State, Mandalay, Sagaing and Pegu Divisions besides Rangoon, he added.

FDB comprises some students, youth and political organizations.

The 9-point leaflet says the 2008 Constitution is not for a federal union but for a unitary state only. The other points highlight the 10 dangers in the constitution where it allows the army to legitimize its rule post 2010 polls.

The 10-dangers include that a military coup can take place at any time if vital issues cannot be decided by Parliament.

The junta announced its electoral laws for 2010 elections unilaterally drafted by it, since the second week of this month by issuing the ‘Union Election Commission Law’ as the first of the series.

Other electoral laws are Political Parties Registration Law, Pyithu Hluttaw (Lower House) Election Law, Amyotha Hluttaw (Upper House) Election Law, Region and State Election Law and Rule of Political Parties Registration Law.

The harsh provisions in the Political Parties Registration Law, bar “those serving prison sentence” that target detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners from contesting the election.

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A realistic perspective needed regarding election laws
Thursday, 18 March 2010 10:33 Mizzima News

(Mizzima) – A new study dealing with the announced 2010 election laws appeals to domestic and international voices often critical of Burma’s ruling military to step back and conduct a realistic assessment of the political landscape in Burma and the corresponding significance associated with the election laws.

Derek Tonkin, Chairman of Network Myanmar and a former British ambassador to Thailand, argues in the organization’s March 17th edition of Burmese Perspectives that Burma’s election laws and indeed the question of elections themselves has become muddled with an overemphasis on Burma’s primary opposition party and a failure to deal with ground realties.

“The NLD has set out a counsel of perfection in the Shwegondaing Declaration of 29 April 2009 which it would be hard to fault, but the regime has given no sign that they are interested in any of its proposals,” finds the report.

The Shwegondaing Declaration rehashes the longstanding demands of the National League for Democracy, namely the release of political prisoners, a review of the 2008 constitution, dialogue with the pro-democracy opposition and acceptance of the 1990 election results.

As for the international community, world leaders often critical of the junta, according to Tonkin, are cautioned “not to forget that hundreds of democratically inspired candidates will be taking part in the elections, despite all the flaws in the Constitution, and that their interests should not be ignored simply because of the West’s obsession with the NLD and her charismatic leader.”

Stating that the recently released set of election laws should largely have come as no surprise regarding content, Tonkin contends the only substantive item to thus far be revealed is the condition that no prisoner can serve as founder or member of a political party.

However, while many observers have latched onto the above precondition as necessarily outlawing any prospective candidacy of present National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Tonkin is willing to give Burmese authorities and institutions the final say. As such, Tonkin argues only Burma’s courts and electoral commission (whose members are hand-picked by the military junta) can make a final ruling on whether the opposition leader’s current state of detention in her lakeside villa qualifies as prison.

The former ambassador also raises issues with several assumptions commonly voiced in the international media, challenging opinions that the election laws preclude candidacy for both current and former detainees, that prohibiting monks the right to vote is a statute against both domestic and international norms, and reminding his readership that the ill-fated 1990 elections were contingent upon the drafting of a constitution.

Speaking of the 1990 elections, won by the National League for Democracy with approximately 60 percent of the vote, Tonkin is blunt in assessing that honoring the results of the election twenty years previously today stands virtually no chance.

Nonetheless, Tonkin does believe the election commission would reinstate the National League for Democracy if the party so chooses to apply, even though it would imply de facto recognition of the 2008 constitution, which the party has to date maintained holds no legal authority.

With the crisis presently facing Burma’s primary opposition party, the report asks whether the party may split, with Aung San Suu Kyi possibly emerging above formal politics but still very much able to influence the political direction of the country.

As Burma approaches relatively new political waters, Tonkin asks searching questions of those who have stood steadfastly by the side of the Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy during the better party of two decades.

“What has she [Aung San Suu Kyi] achieved for the Burmese people after 22 years of struggle,” postulates the report, “the answer is that she has given them a lot of hope for the future which has never been fulfilled.”

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The Irrawaddy – Mon to Move Weapons to New Base
By LAWI WENG – Thursday, March 18, 2010

SANGKHLABURI, Thailand—After meeting with a Burmese regime delegation, the Mon cease-fire group, the New Mon State Party (NMSP), will move some departments and its stockpile of weapons to a new undisclosed base, according to NMSP sources.

The source said that the preparations are in case war breaks out between the NMSP and the Burmese regime.

Five executive party members met with Maj-Gen Thet Naing Win, the commander of the junta’s Southeast Regional Command, on Tuesday in Moulmein, the capital of Mon State, to discuss the border guard force order.

During the meeting, the NMSP leaders were told by the Burmese delegation to give a concrete “yes or no” answer soon on the border guard force issue, sources said.

A NMSP member who requested anonymity told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that the party has ordered various departments to move to a new base including the department that stockpiles weapons.

The party’s leaders have said that they will not use their current base headquarter if they fight Burmese junta troops again, because junta officials visited the base in 2006.

The NMSP is one of the ethnic cease-fire groups that the Burmese regime is pressuring to become a border guard force. Recently, the Kachin cease-fire group, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), also move some “important documents and files” from its headquarter in Laiza to a safer location.

The NMSP is also now holding urgent meetings at its headquarters to discuss how it will respond to the Burmese junta demand. The meeting involves all local army officials, according to sources.

Tension has increased in recent months between the NMSP and the Burmese military since the Mon rejected the regime’s order to transform its army into a border guard force.

Party leaders said that they will wage a guerrilla war if war breaks out between the NMSP and the Burmese regime. The NMSP signed a cease-fire agreement with the regime in 1995, and it now has about 700 soldiers.

After 14 years of cease-fire, the junta regime has about 30 battalions in Mon State. Before the cease-fire, there were about 10 battalions.

Recently, two Burmese battalions were ordered into areas under the control of the NMSP, despite a long-standing agreement between both sides that Burmese troops would not enter 12 areas under NMSP control while the cease-fire agreement was enforce.

It was the first time in 15 years that the Burmese military has entered its area, Mon sources said.

The junta reportedly intends to declare that ethnic armed cease-fire groups are illegal organizations, if the groups continue to resist the regime’s border guard force plan, which would place ethnic armies under the control of junta commanders.

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The Irrawaddy – Newly-registered Parties Face Financing Problems
By KO HTWE Thursday, March 18, 2010

Political parties planning to participate in Burma’s general election will have to pay 300,000 kyat (US $300) to register, while 500,000 kyat ($500) will be charged for each candidate—an expense that some of them say will place heavy strains on their finances and affect their ability to contest all constituencies.

The fees were announced by the state-controlled press on Thursday. Individual candidates will be able to spend up to 10 million kyat ($10,000) on their campaigns, the press report said.

Democratic Party leader Thu Wai told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that the party planned to contest all 330 constituencies, but that now depended on the costs involved.
In the 1990 election, the Democratic Party financed its campaign through donations, Thu Wai said.

The Political Parties Registration Law (2/2010) Article 15 allows political parties to raise funds through donations, including money from companies or from party-run businesses.

Shwe Ohn, a prominent Shan leader, said: “Some want to donate but are afraid to do so.”

Although parties could raise money through business the process would take at least one year and could present parties with long-term difficulties, he said.

Cho Cho Kyaw Nyein, a leader of the Democratic Party, said he had raised money on his own property to help finance the party at the time of the 1990 election.

“Funding is a big problem for parties,” she said.

Aye Lwin, chairman of the Union of Myanmar National Political Force (UMNPF), suggested that constituencies should pay candidates’ costs.

“We cannot afford to fund each and every candidate,” he said.

Ye Htun, the chairman of the 88 Generation Students of the Union of Myanmar (GSUM), said: “Funding is nowhere to be found.”

The GSUM was relying on funding from party members and hoped to finance businesses to raise money.

Despite their financing problems, both the UMNPF and GSUM are plannign to register on Friday.

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DVB News – Appeal lodged for jailed DVB reporter
By NAN KHAM KAEW
Published: 18 March 2010

An appeal for a Democratic Voice Burma video reporter sentenced late last year to 27 years in prison will be heard next week by a Magwe divisional court.

Hla Hla Win and her companion, Myint Naing, were arrested in September 2009 after filming interviews with monks in Pakokku monastery, Magwe division, and sentenced under the Video Act and the Electronics Act. Myint Naing was given 26 years.

In the appeal, submitted on 8 March, their lawyers argued that the charges were false. The court agreed to hear the appeal and set the date for 22 March, according to defence lawyer, Myint Thwin. He added that the verdict would likely be given in April.

Hla Hla Win’s sentencing, and the subsequent imprisonment of fellow DVB reporter Ngwe Soe Linn, who co-filmed the award-winning Channel 4 documentary, Orphans of Burma’s Cyclone, drew international condemnation, and brought to 14 the total number of DVB journalists currently in prison.

The military government in Burma is expected to intensify harassment and imprisonment of opposition in the run-up to elections this year. Already, more than 2,170 activists, journalists, politician and lawyers are serving lengthy prison sentences, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma (AAPP).

Burma ranked 171 out of 175 countries in RSF’s Press Freedom Index 2009, and has been cited by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) as the world’s “worst country to be a blogger”.

Meanwhile, lawyer Myint Thwin said that 16 politically active people arrested in December last year are to submit appeal at Mandalay division’s central court on 22 March, after it was previously turned down by a divisional court.

“We have 18 case files for the 16 people,” he said. “An appeal at the Mandalay divisional court against the verdict was previously turned down. The appeal will be submitted [at the central court] on Monday or Tuesday next week.

The 16 were given sentences of up to 50 years under the Electronic Acts, the Video Acts, the Immigration Acts, the Unlawful Association Acts and the Export and Import Acts.

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