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BURMA RELATED NEWS - APRIL 19-20, 2011
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ANN - Philippines urges Burma to free all political prisoners
Reuters - China risks civil strife with support for foreign dams - activists
AlertNet - Rohingyas face ‘silent crisis’ in Bangladesh – rights group
AFP - Malaysia, Singapore to slash telecom roaming fees
Asia Times Online - False dawn on the Myanmar border
IRIN - MYANMAR: Anti-malarial drug resistance "hotspots" identified
Asian Correspondent - Burma needs to stop ethnic wars and to release political prisoners
Asian Correspondent - China warns citizens in Burma of civil war
Asian Correspondent - Is the EU endorsing Burma’s facelift?
National Jeweler - Burma ruby headlines Doyle NY auction
The Standard - Burma's hidden gem
The Nation - 60 Burmese freed in factory raid
MinnPost - Minnesota's refugees tell compelling stories of how they got here
GlobalPost - Opinion: New tactics needed in Burma
7thSpace Interactive (press release) - Emergency relief for earthquake victims in Myanmar approved
E-Pao.net - Indo-Myanmar Panel discussion held
ISRIA - Philippines : Secretary Del Rosario Meets New Myanmar Foreign Minister
The Huffington Post - The Time Is Right to Appoint a U.S. Envoy to Burma
The Irrawaddy - Plight of Burmese Child Sex Slaves Revealed
The Irrawaddy - US Pushes Asean to Reject Burma
The Irrawaddy - Election Commission Warns Burmese Parties
The Irrawaddy - EDITORIAL: Suu Kyi Must Return to Her Strength
Mizzima News - Mae Sot soon to be Thailand-Burma Special Economic Zone
Mizzima News - Stepping into the world of Aung San Suu Kyi
Mizzima News - In Burma: Big Brother controls the Internet
DVB News - MoE claims huge gas reserves
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Asia News Network - Philippines urges Burma to free all political prisoners
By News Desk in Manila/Philippine Daily Inquirer | ANN – Wed, Apr 20, 2011 5:00 PM SGT
Manila (Philippinine Daily Inquirer/ANN) - The Philippines has urged Burma to release the military-ruled nation's political prisoners, the Department of Foreign Affairs said.
Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert F. del Rosario noted Burma's roadmap to democracy, which he said is crucial in "establishing a clear path to being able to join other countries of Asean in embracing democracy."
In a meeting April 10 at the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Informal Special Foreign Ministers' Meeting on the East Asia Summit in Bangkok, Del Rosario conveyed to Burma's Foreign Minister
Lwin said Yanggoon has been making headway in implementing political reforms, citing that national elections were held, a new constitution was adopted, and the Parliament was convened.
The Asean is urging Western nations to lift sanctions against Burma, an Asean member. They have been imposed for its alleged rights abuses and suppression of democracy.
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China risks civil strife with support for foreign dams - activists
By Ben Blanchard | Reuters – Wed, Apr 20, 2011 2:15 PM IST
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese support for controversial dam-building schemes around the world risks a backlash from affected communities and even violence due to a lack transparency and the ignoring of residents' wishes, activists said on Wednesday.
Chinese companies and banks are becoming deeply involved in such projects in Africa and Asia, and despite a growing awareness they have to be more transparent and accountable, this frequently does not happen, the activists said.
"We are dismayed to see a reckless role of many companies," Peter Bosshard, policy director of California-based International Rivers, told the Foreign Correspondents Club of China.
"There is still often a complete lack of transparency and consultation, particularly with civil society groups in the host countries," he added.
Beijing says that Chinese companies operating abroad have to comply with relevant national laws and that they must respect people there and the environment.
Rights groups say this frequently does not happen.
In Myanmar, Chinese companies are building or funding some particularly divisive dam schemes, Bosshard said.
"If such huge infrastructure projects go forward, the (Myanmar) army takes over and occupies the villages," he said.
"There's no question that the indigenous populations are very unhappy with these projects which they see as an extension of military rule in Burma, and that this will lead to serious conflict."
Last year, a series of bombs exploded at a hydropower project site being jointly built by a Chinese company in northern Myanmar's Kachin state.
In neighbouring Laos, plans for the first dam across the lower Mekong River are putting it on a collision course with its neighbours and environmentalists who fear livelihoods, fish species and farmland could be destroyed.
While the $3.5 billion Xayaburi Dam is a mostly Thai-led project, another mooted scheme not too far away, the Paklay Dam, is Chinese-led, said Bosshard.
"That would be a matter of serious concern if they took that up. What has been said about Xayaburi also applies to Paklay and the other downstream dams."
KENYAN CONCERNS
There is not just a threat of unrest in the former Burma.
Ikal Angelei, director of Friends of Lake Turkana in Kenya, which is trying to stop a partly Chinese-funded dam being built upstream in Ethiopia, said she worried the dam could lead to fights for water in the arid region.
"We are pastoralist communities who are constantly struggling for resources. Any more pressure on resources, which are depleting due to climate change, would lead to increased conflict," she said.
"Pastoralist communities right now are more armed than any government. More and more old men and women are saying if it means that we have to pick up our arms and go and fight then we are willing to do it."
Policy lenders like China Exim Bank are now increasingly being joined by commercial lenders such as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world's biggest bank by market value, in financing foreign dams.
Johan Frijns, coordinator of BankTrack, said Chinese banks funding dam schemes had to ensure they did not lend when there were serious environmental or human rights concerns.
"We know that Chinese banks within mainland China make a great effort towards sustainability," he said. "We call upon Chinese banks to ... align with their European and U.S. peers who have all adopted standards for lending."
China's dam projects at home, on the upper reaches of both the Mekong and Brahmaputra, have caused concern too. Some have worried China could use these dams politically, withholding water from downstream countries as a bargaining tool.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei on Tuesday said China had "always adopted a responsible attitude" towards such projects and "fully considered the impact on downstream countries".
"Using these projects as political clout ... I think China has every reason not to do that," said Bosshard.
"But of course, once the dams are built it always has the potential and I certainly understand if downstream countries are worried."
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Rohingyas face ‘silent crisis’ in Bangladesh – rights group
20 Apr 2011 16:42
BANGKOK/DELHI (AlertNet) – Tens of thousands of stateless Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh face abuse, starvation and detention in a "silent crisis" that could lead to a humanitarian emergency if the authorities do not do more to protect them, a report by Refugees International (RI) said.
The Rohingyas are a Muslim minority from Rakhine State in the west of the predominantly Buddhist Myanmar. Rights groups say they face some of the worst discrimination in the world and accuse the Myanmar government of denying them citizenship, free movement, education and employment.
But those who have fled to Bangladesh also face discrimination - they receive limited aid and are subject to arrest, extortion and detention, the report Bangladesh: The Silent Crisis, released on Tuesday by U.S.-based rights group RI, said.
"The situation is desperate for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh," Lynn Yoshikawa, a co-author of the report who recently returned from visiting the refugee camps, said.
"They live in squalor and are forced to suffer a litany of abuses because the government doesn't recognise them as refugees."
Bangladesh's Rohingya repatriate commissioner, Firoz Salahuddin, dismissed RI's claims. He told AlertNet the report was "disappointing" and the Rohingyas were in fact being treated well.
The Bangladesh government classes the majority of Rohingyas as illegal migrants and says they should return to Myanmar. Last year the authorities forcibly evicted thousands from a makeshift camp, prompting an outcry from aid and rights groups.
Since then, Bangladesh has increased restrictions on aid agencies working with the refugees, the RI report said.
Despite worrying levels of malnutrition at the largest makeshift camp housing about 20,000 people, "the government has denied permits for aid agencies to assist unregistered refugees and host communities," RI said. "Shelters are falling apart and are unlikely to resist the upcoming monsoons."
RI is calling on donor governments, particularly Australia, Canada, the United States and Britain, to help the Rohingyas by providing humanitarian aid, a new country to live in and funding. The rights group also wants donors to encourage Bangladesh to set up a system to register vulnerable and undocumented refugees to protect them.
"The plight of the Rohingyas has been neglected for decades by the international community and Burma (Myanmar's former name) advocacy groups, despite the scale and severity of abuses they face both as stateless Burmese minorities and refugees," Yoshikawa told AlertNet.
UNREGISTERED AND UNPROTECTED
According to Bangladeshi officials, there are almost 25,000 Rohingyas who have refugee status and who receive food rations and other aid from the United Nations. They are housed in two camps in the country's southeastern Cox's Bazaar region.
Officials say there are also between 200,000 and 300,000 Rohingyas who they term as "undocumented" - with no refugee status and no legal rights - who are living outside the camps, dependent on local Bangladeshis for work and sustenance.
Of this group, the lucky ones are in local villages while others end up in unofficial settlements where mud huts covered in plastic sheets and tree branches provide poor protection from monsoon rains that cause mudslides and expose them to waterborne diseases.
Unregistered Rohingyas have for decades lacked "basic protection from violence, exploitation and arrest" in Bangladesh, Yoshikawa said.
"(They) have exhausted their coping mechanisms and are forced into begging, prostitution and trafficking to survive."
Women and girls are particularly vulnerable, and reports of sexual violence against unregistered refugees have increased in the last year.
The U.N. Refugee Agency UNHCR does not have access to these Rohingyas and few aid agencies – if any – are officially allowed to provide assistance.
"NO ONE HAS DIED"
Bangladesh's Salahuddin dismissed RI's claims of abuses and poor living conditions, saying there had been no reports of this.
"Those that are living outside the camps are surviving well because of the hospitality of our people in the area. No one has died or starved due to a shortage of food in that area," he told AlertNet by phone from Cox's Bazaar.
Salahuddin also denied claims made in the report that authorities in Dhaka were repeatedly delaying finalising a policy on the Rohingyas and intentionally preventing relief groups from aiding them.
"The government is actually very serious about dealing with the undocumented persons and we are making a policy on the better treatment of these people," he said.
"This is a transitional time - we are trying to formulate our policy which I am hopeful will be done soon. And, after all that, these issues will be settled and their lives will be better," he said.
HUMANITARIAN CRISIS INEVITABLE
Yoshikawa, however, said a humanitarian crisis is "inevitable," if the Bangladeshi government does not address the issues facing the refugees and said there are concerns even for the officially recognised Rohingyas.
The U.N.'s World Food Programme (WFP), which provides food assistance to the official camps, is facing a $2 million shortfall in funding. It only has support to cover food needs until the end of June.
Christa Rader, WFP's country director for Bangladesh, told AlertNet the situation is "critical because the people living in the camps depend 100 percent on the food we provide".
And, despite the food aid, malnutrition levels in the camps are around 15 percent and the rate of chronic undernutrition is about 60 percent - which is considered severe. This has prompted WFP to start feeding programmes for hundreds of children under two years of age.
"What is more critical is the situation in the makeshift camps," Rader said.
The malnutrition rate in these camps is twice as high, according to RI.
The numbers are a concern even in Bangladesh which has one of the highest malnutrition rates in South Asia.
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Malaysia, Singapore to slash telecom roaming fees
1 hr 26 mins ago
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Malaysia and Singapore have agreed to slash roaming charges for voice calls and text messaging over the next two years in a landmark accord, regulators said Wednesday.
The agreement is the first bilateral deal to slash telecom roaming charges in Southeast Asia and is expected to trigger similar pacts within the region, Malaysian Information Minister Rais Yatim said.
A statement issued by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) said roaming charges for voice calls will be reduced by up to 20 percent from May 1 this year, with the cut reaching a maximum of 30 percent from May 1, 2012.
Roaming charges for short messaging services (SMS), or text messaging, will come down by up to 30 percent next month, reaching 50 percent from May 1 next year, the statement said.
IDA and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission are "currently studying" roaming charges for data services, including multi-media services and video calls, and are "reviewing the appropriate actions," the statement added.
Rais described the agreement as "the first bilateral cooperation to reduce roaming charges within ASEAN and paves the way for other similar efforts among ASEAN countries," according to the statement.
ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) groups Malaysia and Singapore with Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
The statement quoted Singapore's Information Minister Lui Tuck Yew as urging regulators from both sides to "continue to identify new initiatives to enhance connectivity."
Telecom roaming allows subscribers to use their mobile phones to call when overseas using the network of the domestic operators, but charges are expensive.
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Apr 20, 2011
Asia Times Online - False dawn on the Myanmar border
By William Corliss
CHIANG MAI - Thai National Security Council Secretary General Tawin Pleansri recently announced a proposal to repatriate over 140,000 refugees living in camps along Thailand's border with Myanmar.
The apparent justification for the proposed push back is that Myanmar's general election last November and the subsequent creation of a cabinet of mostly retired military leaders has led to a legitimate transition to democratic governance after almost five decades of military rule.
Bangkok's proposal, however, is based on the still-unfounded assumption that a cosmetic makeover of Myanmar's leadership corresponds with an improvement in the human rights situation in its border areas and fails to consider several critical concerns.
Despite the establishment of a new "civilian" government, the border communities from which many of the mostly ethnic Karen refugees initially fled and may soon be forced to return remain plagued by serious threats. By any measure, Myanmar's eastern border regions are still in a state of war pitting government forces against armed ethnic insurgent groups.
Myanmar's military continues indiscriminate counter-insurgency operations against ethnic Karen insurgents and recently launched an offensive against the Shan State Army-North, an armed organization in the eastern Shan State that previously negotiated a ceasefire agreement.
Over the past two decades, Myanmar's military government had succeeded in alleviating insurgent threats and instability through a series of ceasefire deals with nearly 20 different armed resistance groups. However, three of the largest insurgent groups, the Karen National Union, the Karenni National Progressive Party and the Shan State Army-South, refused to put down their arms and continue to operate along the Myanmar-Thai border.
During the Cold War, Thai security officials quietly supported and in instances armed ethnic insurgent groups situated along its border with Myanmar to create buffer zones from perceived cross-border threats. The demise of the Communist Party of Thailand diminished the main security rationale for maintaining that strategic insulation.
Concomitant with the improvement in Thailand's security environment and growth of its economy has been increasing commercial links with Myanmar. Bilateral economic ties built initially on logging and fish concessions in the late 1980s have evolved into an increasing reliance on Myanmar natural gas imports to fuel the Thai economy. By some estimates, over 30% of Thailand's energy supplies now come from Myanmar.
Those commercial linkages will soon intensify. Thai construction firm Italian-Thai Development Pcl recently signed a reported US$8 billion contract with the Myanmar government to invest in the Dawei port project in southern Myanmar. The trade-promoting megaproject has been touted as a future growth engine for Myanmar and will create further incentives for Thailand to prioritize economic interests over humanitarian commitments.
It is significant that Myanmar's "democratic" transition has side-stepped ethnic minority groups' autonomy aspirations. Instead, the Myanmar military continues its decades old counter-insurgency operations in ethnic areas which pose serious threats to livelihoods. These include the forced relocation, conscription, illegal taxation and indiscriminate shelling of civilians, according to rights groups.
Repatriated refugees would not only face the dangers of being caught in the crossfire of an ongoing armed conflict. They would also be subjected to systematic abuses from the military ranging from forced portering to their declaration of free fire zones in civilian inhabited areas.
Returnees would also risk life and limb by returning to areas strewn with land mines by both the military and insurgent groups. A 2009 report by the non-government organization Landmine Monitor identified 721 landmine casualties in Myanmar in 2008. The report indicated that the government has not yet developed an assistance program for landmine survivors.
Given this environment of impunity, any attempt at safe and successful resettlement would amount to a fool's errand. Refugees forced to return to a war zone in Myanmar will inevitably return to Thailand as refugees again. On last November's election day, over 20,000 civilians crossed into Thailand to escape fighting around the border town of Myawaddy. Thousands more have crossed the border since.
A premature large-scale push back of refugees coupled with plans to close existing camps would undermine the sizable investment made by Thailand and international donors in establishing mechanisms for refugee assistance and regulation. Repatriation in tandem with the dismantlement of these mechanisms would be costly and counterproductive in that a new system for humanitarian assistance would need to be reestablished once the refugees returned, as they inevitably would.
At the same time, a government-led involuntary push back would elicit harsh condemnation from international rights groups and jeopardize economic and strategic relations with Western countries that put a premium on human rights issues in their annual country reviews. Last year's forced resettlement of over 4,000 Hmong refugees to Laos resulted in calls by US Congress members to consider blocking Thai military personnel from participating in the annual US-sponsored Cobra Gold joint military exercises.
A similar move against over 140,000 refugees from Myanmar would likely provoke an even stronger outcry and undermine further Thailand's standing in the international community. That would include sharp scrutiny of Thailand's current role as chair of the United Nation's Human Rights Council and raise wider questions about the country's overall democratic direction. Influential advocacy groups in the US, meanwhile, would mobilize their considerable bipartisan support in congress to call for punitive measures against forced repatriation.
For over three decades, Thailand has graciously provided a safe haven for refugees who have fled conflicts in Indochina and the ongoing civil war in Myanmar. But the current policy push for resettlement of Myanmar's refugees will prove to be a false dawn as long as pervasive insecurity exists in its border regions. While Thai leaders may reap improved relations with Myanmar, any short-term economic benefits gained from repatriation would pale in comparison to the long-term diplomatic and humanitarian costs.
William Corliss, a pseudonym, has over a decade of experience researching Myanmar-Thai relations.
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MYANMAR: Anti-malarial drug resistance "hotspots" identified
BANGKOK, 19 April 2011 (IRIN) - Health experts had barely finished one project to contain anti-malarial drug resistance along the Thai-Cambodia border when their attention was drawn to Myanmar, where early warning signs suggest a waning influence of the anti-malarial drug Artemisinin.
Malaria is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Myanmar and a leading cause of deaths in children under five, says the UN World Health Organization (WHO).
Resistance to the previous standard treatment for malaria, chloroquine, was first reported in the 1950s along the Thai-Cambodia border. By the 1980s it had spread to sub-Saharan Africa, which has the world's highest rate of malaria mortality.
Evidence of resistance emerged from Southeast Asia once again in 2007, this time to Artemisinin, one component of the combination therapies used worldwide to control malaria. Donors, starting with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, pumped US$22 million into the border from 2009.
Charles Delacollette, coordinator of the Bangkok-based Mekong Malaria Programme with WHO, said while those huge multi-country efforts have worked to bring down reports of malaria infections, "what we are seeing along the Thai-Myanmar border seems equally serious ... to what we had at the Thai-Cambodian one".
He continued: "Myanmar is still struggling to get needed funds and support to scale up malaria control operations. The situation is not good in some areas of eastern Myanmar, with hundreds of thousands of people displaced [due to ethnic conflict].
"In some areas, there is still limited access to quality co-formulated anti-malarial drugs - Artemisinin monotherapies are still in use despite efforts of the Ministry of Health and NGOs to make [more effective combination] drugs available. And you have substandard drugs floating around."
On-going security concerns and access problems to remote communities are two weaknesses in the country's fight against malaria, according to the government's most recent funding proposal to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Health facilities are poor - if not non-existent - in eastern Myanmar, said Amnat Khamsiriwatchara, a Bangkok-based deputy director of a malaria surveillance informatics project funded by Gates Foundation along the Thai-Cambodia border.
"Most - if not all - patients of not just malaria cross over into Thailand for care where they know the health facilities are far better."
Khamsiriwatchara said his project would expand in October to record health data from Burmese migrants crossing into Thailand for healthcare with funding to Myanmar from The Global Fund.
Response
The Global Fund recently committed $19 million to fight malaria in Myanmar.
The government's vector-borne disease control programme and the Department of Medical Research for upper Myanmar are expected to set up a new sentinel site close to the Chinese border to monitor drug efficacy. There are seven sites under government supervision in the divisions of Thanitharyi and Bago, and the states of Mon, Kayin, Eastern Shan, and Kachin, which border Thailand and China, as well as Rakhine, which borders Bangladesh.
The multi-donor consortium Three Diseases Fund and the Gates Foundation have pledged an additional $12 million to fund the country's recently adopted Artemisinin-resistance containment strategy.
At a meeting earlier this month in Myanmar, health experts and donors identified three tiers of "hotspots", with the highest priority being all 10 townships in Thanitharyi Division and Shwe Kyin township in Eastern Bago Division. Tier 2 includes all townships in Kayin, Kayah, Mon and Shan States and all townships in Eastern Bago Division except Shwe Kyin. Tier 3 is the rest of the country. Interventions are expected to begin in part of Tier 1 townships in April.
According to WHO, in 2008, there were 247 million cases of malaria and nearly one million deaths - mostly among children living in sub-Saharan Africa where the disease accounts for 20 percent of all childhood deaths.
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Asian Correspondent - Burma needs to stop ethnic wars and to release political prisoners
By Zin Linn Apr 20, 2011 7:58PM UTC
At least 10 Burma Army soldiers were reportedly died in action including a battalion commanding officer and 15 injured in the combat that occurred on 16-17 April. The Shan army also seized five RPG launchers and 6 backpacks from Burmese troops, quoting a civil servant from Tangyan Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N.) reported.
None of the members from Shan army were injured or killed, the source said. The two-day siege was led by Major Sai Hseng with over a hundred men from Brigade No. 36, according to the SSA.
The SSA’s First Brigade-turned Shan State Progress Party/Shan State Army (SSPP/SSA) is reportedly expanding its controlled area to Namtu, Namhsan, Mongmit and Kyaukme townships while combating against the Burma army, as said by the local residents. The clashes between the two sides are reported almost everyday since 13 March. The SSA was given an ultimatum to lay down arms by Burma Army on 1st April. But up till now the SSA is still reportedly take no notice of it.
Throughout these days, several soldiers from Burma Army troops warring with the Shan State Progress Party/ Shan State Army (SSPP/SSA) in Shan State South have reportedly been deserting from the battlefields, local sources reported via Shan Herald Agency for News.
Up to now, the identified deserters were as many as ten; all of them were from Light Infantry Battalions (LIB) 513 and 542. The two battalions have been fighting against the Shan soldiers on 16-17 April, in Tawng Hio village in Tangyan Township, a local source said.
“The soldiers deserted during the fighting. They changed into civilian clothes and passed through the village. Five soldiers came out on 17 April and another five on 19 April,” said an eye witness.
According to a source Burma army soldiers took shelter under villagers’ trenches, bunkers and monastery to avoid shooting from the Shan armed forces. The battles between the Shan army and the Burma Army have begun since 13 March up to date and had injured and killed dozens of civilians including soldiers.
Meanwhile, the Burma Army demanded the Shan army to withdraw all of its troops that had moved to the north of Mandalay-Lashio highway. However, the Shan army has yet to give any response and is still active in the areas together with the Shan State Army (SSA) “South” led by Yawd Serk.
Last week, six Burma Army soldiers from Infantry battalion (IB) 152 based in Kholam sub-township of Namzarng township, surrendered to the SSA ‘South’ along with their weapons due to discrimination, abuses of power and forced labor, according to the SSA ‘South’.
At the same time, ten villagers in Kyaukme, Shan State North, have been detained and tortured over suspicion of collaboration with the Shan State Army (SSA) ‘North’, quoting local sources Shan Herald Agency for News said. They were detained by troops from Light Infantry Battalions 501 and 502, based in Kyaukme together with troops from Mogok, Namlan and Mongmit.
On the other hand, the family members of the detained victims are expecting helps from elected Shan representatives. The SNDP leader Sai Ai Pao is a State Assembly representative for Hsenwi and state minister for Industry and Mines. Besides, Sai Naw Kham is also a State Assembly representative for Hsipaw as well as state minister for Construction.
However, this war upon ethnic populace launched by Burma Army produces not only deserters from Burmese military but also victims from Shan villages. In addition, it forces to flee political exiles, illegal migrants and refugees into neighboring countries.
Currently, political activists in Burma have been taking historic risks with a signature-campaign to release political prisoners who are behind bars for speaking out against what they say is injustice by the government.
Some political analysts believe releasing over 2,000 political prisoners and stopping the aggressive wars on ethnic people are the most important topics to address by the new ‘Thein Sein government’. Releasing political prisoners and calling peace to armed ethnic groups would prove to the international community that new government is going along political change through the real democratic values.
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Asian Correspondent - China warns citizens in Burma of civil war
By Zin Linn Apr 19, 2011 11:11PM UTC
Although new president Thein Sein has already taken the office in the last month, no visible sign of political reform have appeared so far. There are over two thousands prisoners of conscience in Burma’s remote prisons. There is also no gesture of a softening stance on political exiles and civil war victims. The worst is that Burma’s Army is still launching offensives upon the ethnic armed groups who resist only for their basic rights, especially for self-determination.
The return of a wider civil war is knocking at the country’s door. Currently, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA)’s 5th Brigade led by Col. Saw Lah Bwe is fighting against Burma Army’s troops in Karen State by using guerilla warfare.
The Burmese military announced if ceasefire groups do not respond with an agreement on the Border Guard Force (BGF) program, they will automatically be recognized as outlaw groups. But the headquarters of UWSA have said there would be no more answer from them.
The United Wa State Army (UWSA) and National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), also known as Mongla group, have repeatedly declined to follow the Border Guard Force (BGF) program. Furthermore, the SSA North, led by Maj-Gen Pangfa, has been operating along adjoining areas which held by the non-ceasefire SSA South led by Lt-Gen Yawdserk.
Recently, China cautioned its citizens who work in Burma’s Shan State, bordering the country’s southwest Yunnan province, to come back home, the Kachin News Group [KNG] said.
The urgent warning was released by Chinese authorities at Mangshi, because fighting may flare between ethnic armed groups and the Burmese Army in the province. China is anxious recent skirmishing between the Shan State Army-North (SSA-N) and Burmese troops may widen to include two more influential ethnic armed groups – the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and United Wa State Army (UWSA) – also located in the region, sources close to China-Burma border authorities said.
The SSA-N and KIA are military allies and members of the ethnic military and political alliance known as the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), which was formed on the Thai-Burma border in last February. Additionally, a breakaway faction of SSA-North Brigade 1 led by Col Pang Fa also refused to join the regime’s Border Guard Force (BGF) plan under Burmese army command. It is estimated to be the strongest of the SSA-North’s three brigades with some 3,000 troops.
According to KNG, there may be around 2,000 Chinese working in mining, timber logging and charcoal production in the main areas of Kutkai Township and Mongkoe in Kachin State. Chinese workers are busy harvesting timber and charcoal from different areas in the two townships, said witnesses in Mongkoe. The number of Chinese trucks crossing into border town of Mongkoe, from Manghai in China, has more than doubled from 30 to about 70 trucks every day, witnesses said.
Local military analysts said the Burmese government is planning to eliminate ethnic armed groups in Northern Shan State because the oil pipeline from Burma’s western coast in Arakan State to Ruili, in China, will cross the region.
At the same time, the building of Chinese military posts in Manghai, the former headquarters of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), is about to be accomplished. The posts will monitor the political volatility in Burma, referring military analysts KNG said.
News of armed clashes between the SSA and the Burma Army have become manifest steadily in these days. Burma Army soldiers based in Shan State East’s Mongton township on the Thai-Burma border were also under surprise attacks by the SSA ‘South’ during the last month.
There has been continued skirmishing between Burma Army troops and the SSA-North in Mongshu and Tangyan Townships since last month. In line with the Thailand-based Shan Herald Agency for News, the battles are severely upsetting civilians in numerous townships. Dozens of civilians in the conflict zones were reportedly killed and injured by the Burma Army’s heavy shells. The latest report says some 1,000 people, including the injured, are seeking shelter in Monghsu Township.
So far there have been five clashes between SSAs No. 801 Battalion and Burma Army patrolling units in Kehsi Township. Currently, thousands of Burma Army troops are moving around the SSA controlled area and along the Salween which serves as a shared boundary with the UWSA.
The scenario seems starting a fresh war in the Shan State as the ethnic armed groups have a strong will in favor of their self-determination or autonomy. The junta’s recent polls become visible as sham and farce.
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Asian Correspondent - Is the EU endorsing Burma’s facelift?
By Francis Wade Apr 19, 2011 11:07PM UTC
The EU’s recent decision to modify its sanctions on Burma represents an overdue acknowledgment that policy to date has been weak and ineffective – something few would disagree with. Yet how it has gone about ‘improving’ them, surely its intended aim, is highly questionable.
A statement released by the bloc last week announced that it would suspend an asset freeze and lift visa bans on a number of cabinet officials, among them Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin. The former Burmese ambassador to the EU and one-time military man is now considered an “essential interlocutor”, the statement said, a sea change from past attempts to isolate top Burmese officials.
It added that the decision signified the EU’s willingness “to encourage and respond to improvements in governance and progress” in Burma, which last month swore in a new government with “greater civilian character”.
There is little doubt about the shortcomings and hypocrisy of the selective isolationism that has dictated EU policy to date – European ministers have poured scorn on their Burmese counterparts, implemented travel restrictions and frozen valuable assets, yet all the while its most prized companies (French oil giant Total, for instance) were propping up the junta with billions in investment dollars.
So early signals that the bloc was rethinking its approach were initially welcomed – the sanctions package could be sharpened, analysts thought, to really hit the regime in its financial pressure points. This could be a combination of tightening restrictive measures on both government officials – their movement and their ability to siphon money out of the country – and EU companies that counter the stated aims of EU sanctions.
But it now appears that the European ministers who voted in favour of the change have accepted the assertions of President Thein Sein et al that Burma is transitioning to civilian rule. The fact that it isn’t is blindly obvious in all corners of the country, bar the civilian garb now worn by these “essential interlocutors” that the EU has homed in on.
New policies should, on the whole, be dictated by tangible change, not superficial facelifts. If there are signs of stagnation in punitive strategies towards regimes like Burma, then you first look to close the gaping holes in policy that allow them to continue with business as usual. Precision targeting appears not to be in the EU’s armament, however, and moreover, commentators who pussyfoot around the issue and preach an obscurely “balanced” approach do little to aid the debate.
The EU has given little credible justification for its decision (although it may also be prudent to look more closely at those advocating for the softening of sanctions), meaning that what was once a unified, albeit problematic, international approach to Burma has become disjointed, ambiguous and even weaker.
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National Jeweler - Burma ruby headlines Doyle NY auction
Apr 20, 2011
New York--A Burma ruby sold for $1.3 million at Doyle New York’s Important Estate Jewelry auction here on April 13, more than 16 times its pre-sale estimate of $80,000.
The ruby, set in a ring by Cartier, was the highlight of the jewelry collection of the late Alice Appleton Hay, who was the daughter-in-law of John Hay, President Abraham Lincoln’s secretary. John Hay also went on to serve as secretary for Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.
Overall, the auction totaled $9.1 million, with 80 percent sold by lot and 91 percent sold by value.
Also sold from the Hay Collection was a rare gold pocket watch and perfume sprinkler in the form if a miniature flintlock pistol (below), which realized $482,500, more than three times its pre-sale estimate of $150,000.
When the trigger is pulled on the circa 1805 pistol, a diminutive flower emerges from the barrel, sprinkling the target with perfume. Manufactured for the Chinese market, the piece is one of fewer than 15 examples known to exist.
A circa 1920 platinum and diamond chain necklace from the Hay Collection brought in $452,500, more than six times its pre-sale estimate of $70,000.
Dole New York will hold a Fine Jewelry auction on June 23 and an Important Estate Jewelry auction in the fall of 2011, both to be held here.
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The Standard - Burma's hidden gem
Rob Bryan
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Waves lap the vast sweep of pristine, palm-lined sands as a sprinkling of Westerners soak up the sun, their breezy peace punctuated only by the creak of a passing ox-cart. Welcome to Ngapali, a tourist paradise, in one of the world's most isolated nations.
"I've been to a lot of beaches and this is just amazing," said retired Canadian Hugh Minielly, as he and his wife Mary watched the sun set over the azure Bay of Bengal at Burma's coastal resort of Ngapali.
Just a dozen or so hotels are hidden amid the three-kilometer stretch of palms, including some offering luxury beachfront villas for hundreds of dollars a night.
Despite the allure of its picture- perfect sands, Burma's murky political landscape has kept the beach largely under the radar of most sunseekers, who have typically looked to more well- trodden Asian shores.
Those who do venture to this country rave about the friendly locals, the tasty seafood and, above all, the lack of other tourists. "I've been looking for a beach like Goa, and this is like Goa but without the backpackers. It' so authentic," Minielly, 69, said.
Secluded spots are increasingly rare, as neighboring Thailand can attest: it saw 16 million visitors in 2010, compared with 300,000 in Burma, according to the Pacific Asia Travel Association.
"Thailand is pretty well established on this circuit, especially if you go by what you can see in Phuket, Krabi or Koh Samui, where the beaches can be really crowded," said Kris Lim of PATA, referring to popular Thai resorts.
It's a pattern found across the region as beaches fall victim to their own popularity.
For years, India's most tourist- friendly shores were to be found in the coastal state of Goa, where visitors could sip cold beer and feast on fresh seafood, enjoying the laid-back atmosphere.
But overcommercialization, allegations of police-supported drug peddling by Russian gangs and high- profile cases of violence against foreigners have tainted the state's glamorous image.
Further east in the Philippines, the central island of Boracay and its crystal- clear waters are a top attraction for visitors, but green groups and the government say the white sands are losing their idyllic charm.
In contrast, the El Nido area, on the western Philippine island of Palawan, continues to enjoy an unspoiled image, protected by its remoteness, government efforts to protect its environment and the high prices of its hotels.
Tourists use a small aircraft and a boat to get to the high-class resorts, ensuring an exclusive clientele. Local residents and businesses are also careful not to ruin El Nido's main asset, its natural beauty.
In Ngapali, locals and foreigners alike are keen to preserve its rustic appeal - but Burma, too, is quickly changing and tourist numbers are up, with last year's modest figure a nearly 30 percent rise from 2009.
Democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi, who was freed from house arrest late last year after a controversial election, still stands strongly against tour groups to Burma, which often benefit the government financially. But her party "would not object to individual tourists coming to study the situation and to find out what is really happening" in Burma, she said recently, softening a previous tourism boycott.
Antonio Dappozzo, Italian manager of the luxury Sandoway resort, warned it would be tough to retain such a peaceful atmosphere at Ngapali, where the main sound from his roadside window a year ago was of ox-carts lumbering past.
"Just a year later, now there is more noise from cars," he said.
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The Nation - 60 Burmese freed in factory raid
Published on April 20, 2011
Police rescued 60 Burmese workers yesterday from a clothing factory in Bangkok's Din Daeng area and arrested a Chinese couple who allegedly ran the factory.
The suspects - identified as Darong Wu, 50, and his wife Namee Li, 26 - were detained on suspicion of human-trafficking and labour-law violations. Police claim a worker had tipped them off.
The worker said he was lured from Burma to work at the factory, adding that they were forced to work from 8am to midnight and then locked in. He said that he was only paid a monthly wage of Bt6,000 - less than he was promised.
Li said they kept the workers locked up because they had hired Burmese workers legally before and they had run away. She said the wages were low because they were deducting the Bt15,000 that each worker owed them for becoming eligible for work.
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MinnPost - Minnesota's refugees tell compelling stories of how they got here
By Cynthia Boyd | Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Imagine a 5-year-old child in a far away land running for his life.
Then read this bit from the real-life account, the childhood memory of a man in his late 20s who asks to be called Kaw Lah, a refugee from the country renamed Myanmar, now making a life for himself in the Twin Cities.
"When military troops came to attack our villages, we had to run away. During that time I was five, maybe six years old. I just knew we were not eating or playing. The old people would say, 'We have to go,' and we would go and sleep in the cliffs.''
Kaw Lah's compelling telling is one of 16 memoirs gathered from among Minnesota's newest refugees from nine countries collected in a book called "This Much I Can Tell You: Stories of Courage and Hope from Refugees in Minnesota,'' to be released June 1.
That excerpt from their website entices me to read the stories of trauma and tragedy as well as joy, hope and dreams.
The book is the brainchild of folks who work with refugees and the storytellers are all people who were assisted by the Minnesota Council of Churches Refugee Services, a local affiliate of two agencies contracted by the U.S. Department of State to resettle refugees in the U.S.
'You listen to the news differently'
You might say the stories bring the news to our doorsteps. "I think when you're aware, when you know more about refugees, you listen to the news differently,'' says Naomi Thorson, a story collector for the project, which includes the words of women and men from Somalia, Bhutan, Iraq, Cameroon, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the country formerly called Burma.
It's a book produced thanks to a Minnesota Historical and Cultural Heritage grant from the Minnesota Historical Society. (That's the funding made possible by voters' passage of the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment.)
What better time than this, when military actions and wars around the world and threats of violence force mass movements of people? Last week the U.N. reported more than 4,500 refugees arriving in northern Chad after crossing hostile desert to escape violence in neighboring Libya. The U.S. Department of State keeps a refugee tally, along with documenting U.S. efforts to reduce those numbers. Since 1979, more than 90,000 refugees and asylees have come to Minnesota.
Still, numbers only quantify the problem. It's the people behind them who are the real story, realized Rachele King, director of Refugee Services, at the Minnesota Council of Churches, and other staff.
"As Minnesotans, we know refugees as neighbors, as coworkers, as customers, or as friends. But we don't know their stories,'' King says. "We don't know about their life before they became refugees or what they went through to find the safety we enjoy.''
Featured on the website is praise for the project from U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, Bishop Brian Prior of the Episcopal Church of Minnesota and author Julia Dinsmore. She says: "Our stories are sacred, without them we forget who we are. All respect to the brave beings who survived hells of brutality…and lived to tell us.''
Looking for storytellers
Sharing those stories became a priority a couple of years ago, and staff started asking for storytellers, with their efforts bolstered by a $7,000 grant to pay for editing and for printing by Beaver's Pond Press. The $15 book is available here.(http://www.mnchurches.org/refugeestories/)
Story collecting began with Kristin Ginger, then was passed along to Thorson, an AmeriCorps Vista volunteer and 2010 Bethel University graduate who harvested their stories, most often going to their homes to share a cup of tea and a list of questions.
Sometime just a suggestion — "tell me about your childhood'' — would release a torrent of words, she says, other times these displaced persons would need more coaxing. It was up to them how personal their stories would get, up to them whether they felt comfortable or safe using their real name or wanted to choose a pseudonym.
"Yes, there were moments of sadness and grief for what had been lost, but I also laughed a lot with the storytellers as they told funny stories from their lives both before and after becoming refugees,'' says Thorson.
And they're survivors, she said, persevering against the odd and infused with hope for the future.
Telling of their life stories became a reminder how far they've come, she said.
Still, Thorson wishes there was a way to share, too, the tapes of these courageous folks telling their stories. "There is no substitute for hearing someone's voice. I just wish others could hear them too, the inflection, the energy, the emotion.''
Especially, she said, she was affected by a mother, whose face and body registered her inner turmoil as she told how she was forced to leave her children behind. "It was gripping."
"I feel very privileged in being one of the people to hear the stories first-hand,'' Thorson says.
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GlobalPost - Opinion: New tactics needed in Burma
Sanctions don't work. The time is long overdue to change these failed policies and try a new way to achieve the same goals.
Jim Della-Giacoma April 20, 2011 10:48
JAKARTA, Indonesia — The West should start to publicly recognize what decisionmakers in the capitals already privately know — sanctions against Burma have not worked to bring about political change. The time is long overdue to change these failed policies and try different tactics to achieve the same goals.
The long-standing strategy of the United States and the European Union isolates the country now formerly known as Myanmar from the West and simply harms the poor and oppressed people it is intended to help.
It persists because of the support of the National League for Democracy (NLD), and its leader Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. While Suu Kyi recognizes that greater integration into the global economy, and improved growth, are vital to Burma’s medium-term prospects, she believes it would be premature to lift sanctions without tangible political reforms.
But despite such a principled position, sanctions are a tool that will never work while Burma is being embraced by its neighbors China, India and South East Asia.
The sanctions have not stopped the regime’s implementation of its seven-step road map to “disciplined democracy” that was boycotted by the NLD. Not even Cyclone Nargis in May 2008 could halt its steady march.
“Sanctions harm the poor and oppressed people they are intended to help.”
The sham referendum to approve the new constitution was held despite the storm. In November last year, the heavily-rigged election saw a new military-dominated parliament chosen. On March 30, the new government was installed.
The NLD chose not participate in what was admittedly a straight-jacketed process, arguably making it easier for the junta to marginalize them. But other opposition and ethnic groups have worked under immense pressures to try to make the most of the limited space offered to them.
It has not been a democratic transition, but more than the influential exile groups will admit, the authoritarian country is undergoing significant generational change after half a century of autocratic rule. In this evolution are more opportunities for expression and organized activity than have been seen in recent years.
The nascent parliamentary process is revealing information and creating expectations that can be used to hold the government to account. Any advance can quickly be reversed and international support is now needed to add momentum as these changes present opportunities for new engagement that should not be ignored.
After his installation, the President Thein Sein gave a series of public speeches setting out the administration’s policies for the coming term, which is unprecedented in Burma. He made a rather frank assessment of the many areas where improvements were required and made promises that these would be "addressed."
There was also an admission that previous policies that had been shown to be ineffective need to be changed. He acknowledged there were many skeptics domestically and internationally who needed convincing that the political transition would translate into real change. He signalled areas, such as health and education, where international cooperation would be welcomed.
While many in the country had literally switched off from these political developments, preferring to tune their television sets to Korean soap operas, nascent opposition groups inside the new parliament are looking for openings, taking political risks and finding new room to maneuver.
Last year, several local aid groups banded together to send out hundreds of volunteers to monitor the elections. Last month, opposition MPs raised questions about the country’s more than 2,200 political prisoners in public. After a question was asked in the new parliament about the slow registration process for domestic non-governmental organizations, 25 groups suddenly had their applications approved. Non-political periodicals no longer need to submit copies in advance to censors, although they must continue to self-censor. These people need more allies abroad and not extra opprobrium from exiles.
In reviewing their position, the Western policymakers must first recognize that sanctions have had a significant negative impact on the population: they undermine vital economic reforms this country’s dysfunctional economy desperately needs, polarize a situation that requires reconciliation, while creating dangerous imbalances in the country’s external economic and diplomatic relations.
Western policymakers should lift restrictions on high-level visits and encourage principled engagement with the government and dialogue with the Nobel laureate Suu Kyi. Development assistance should be increased and the EU should move to restore trade privileges that have hit the manufacturing sector and cost many jobs.
The United States should lift blunt and poorly targeted restrictions on banking, imports and investment as well as stop preventing international organizations and the Bretton Woods institutions from promoting reform in the country.
Rather than rewarding the generals, making these changes would first allow the West to stop punishing the long suffering people of Burma. The crippling debate over sanctions has retarded the engagement of Washington, London and Brussels.
Instead, they should target assistance to the poor, back a broad range of reformers inside the country, and pick up some old diplomatic tools to start working towards political solutions to Burma’s problems that benefit its long suffering citizens.
Jim Della-Giacoma is the South East Asia Project Director of the International Crisis Group and its most recent report “Myanmar’s Post Election Landscape” can be found at www.crisisgroup.org
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7thSpace Interactive (press release) - Emergency relief for earthquake victims in Myanmar approved
Source: HKSAR Government
Published on: 2011-04-20
Hong Kong (HKSAR) - The Government has accepted the advice of the Disaster Relief Fund Advisory Committee and approved a grant of $2 million from the Disaster Relief Fund to World Vision Hong Kong to undertake relief projects for earthquake victims in Myanmar.
Announcing the grant today (April 20), a Government spokesman said that the Committee hoped that the grant would help provide relief to earthquake victims in Myanmar.
"To ensure that the money will be used for the designated purposes, the relief agency has been asked to submit an evaluation report and audited accounts on the use of the grant after the relief project has been completed," the spokesman said.
The Disaster Relief Fund Advisory Committee is responsible for advising the Government on policy and practices regarding the disbursement of funds for disaster relief from the Disaster Relief Fund. The Fund was established in December 1993 for emergency disaster relief in places outside Hong Kong, as well as to advise on specific amounts to specific recipients, and monitoring the use of grants.
The committee is chaired by the Chief Secretary for Administration.Members comprise Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, Mr V Nee Yeh, Mrs Sophie Leung Lau Yau-fun, Mr Wong Sing-chi, Mrs Alice Chong Yuk Tak-fun, Mr Leo Kung Lin-cheng, the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury and the Secretary for Labour and Welfare.
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E-Pao.net - Indo-Myanmar Panel discussion held
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, April 18 2011: Department of Commerce and Industries in association with Shelliac and Forest Products Exports Promotion Council (SHEFEXIL) organised a two-day Indo-Myanmar panel discussion on export opportunities through land customs at Town Hall, Moreh.
Led by Director General Foreign Trade of Department of Commerce, Government of India, K Pujari, a large number State of delegates including 14 State Government officials and Commerce and Industries Principal Secretary O Nabakishore Singh took part in the discussion.
12 Myanmarese delegates led by Union of Myanmar Border Trade Chambers president Uhla Maung took part in the panel discussion.
While taking part in the discussion, Anup Pujari observed that traders and general public are facing inconvenience due to large number of check posts dotted along NH-39 .
Various traders, businessmen and entrepreneurs representing BTCCM, AMEA, NEFIT, EXIM Manipur, IMBTU and FAMIECCI participated in the discusion.
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International Security Research and Intelligence Agency
ISRIA - Philippines - Secretary Del Rosario Meets New Myanmar Foreign Minister
Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert F. del Rosario met Myanmar's new Foreign Minister U Wunna Maung Lwin on April 10 at the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Informal Special Foreign Ministers' Meeting on the East Asia Summit (EAS) in Bangkok, Thailand.
Secretary Del Rosario congratulated Foreign Minister Lwin on his appointment and called for stronger bilateral relations, as well as regional cooperation together with the other ASEAN member states in meeting the objectives of the ASEAN Charter.
He also noted Myanmar's roadmap to democracy, which is important in establishing a clear path to being able to join other countries of ASEAN in embracing democracy, and encouraged Myanmar to consider the release of the 2,100 political prisoners.
Secretary Del Rosario further recalled the recent business matching mission in Myanmar and called for more cooperation in facilitating business, such as the waiver of the visa requirements for businessmen interested in doing business in Myanmar as a way forward in enhancing bilateral relations.
In response, Foreign Minister Lwin thanked the Philippines for its kind assistance to the victims of the recent earthquake in eastern Myanmar. He also expressed appreciation for the strong and friendly relations with the Philippines and is committed to strengthening business cooperation with the Philippines.
He further noted that in his March 30 speech, Myanmar President Thein Sein clearly stated that elections were held, a new Constitution was adopted and the Parliament has been convened as the appropriate forum to chart the future of the country. All, including those from other Parties, should take part in the elections for national reconciliation and nation building, the Foreign Minister stressed.
Foreign Minister Lwin invited Secretary Del Rosario to visit Myanmar at a mutually convenient time, and the Secretary said that he is looking forward to the visit.
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The Huffington Post - The Time Is Right to Appoint a U.S. Envoy to Burma
By Suzanne DiMaggio
Vice President of Global Policy Programs, the Asia Society
Posted: 04/20/11 02:13 PM ET
President Barack Obama recently nominated Derek Mitchell as the first U.S. Special Representative and Policy Coordinator for Burma. The appointment of an envoy to Burma, which was called for in U.S. legislation passed three years ago, is a positive step forward in the U.S.'s evolving policy of engagement toward Burma.
Mr. Mitchell is a smart choice for this new position. He currently is the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asian affairs and previously was a foreign policy advisor to the Obama campaign, so he knows his way around the administration. He also knows Burma and the dynamics of the region well. The latter is especially important as it is clear that in order to improve conditions in Burma, the United States must find ways to a better coordinate its policies with other Asian countries. The post still needs to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, but it is expected to pass without opposition.
The timing of Mr. Mitchell's appointment is a clear signal to Burmese leaders that the United States is serious about stepping up engagement. It comes on the heels of the official dissolution of Burma's ruling military junta into a quasi-civilian government. Although top military figures continue to hold on to leadership positions following the deeply flawed elections of November 2010 -- the recent swearing in of retired general Thein Sein as Burma's new president proves that -- it remains unclear to what extent new actors participating in the country's first parliament in over two decades and state legislatures will have room to maneuver.
At this moment of potential change, every effort should be made to ramp up dialogue with all facets of Burmese society and press for desperately needed reforms. Now with an envoy fully dedicated to Burma, the United States will be able to facilitate expanded engagement with a wide range of groups inside the country, including senior government officials, politicians and civil servants in the new ministries, opposition leaders, ethnic groups, as well as representatives from the private sector and nongovernmental organizations.
Through expanded outreach, the U.S. should pursue measures designed to assist the process of developing more democratic institutions, both inside and outside government, and to encourage government capacity building.
Engaging Burma's neighbors will also be a key part of the job, especially in light of growing concerns related to Burma's reported nuclear ambitions and its troubling relationship with North Korea, greater instability along the Burmese borders as a result of military efforts to rein in insurgent groups, the continuing export of disease and refugees, and the trafficking of drugs and contraband across its porous borders.
Given that an international consensus has yet to emerge regarding approaches to Burma, the new envoy should focus on engaging China and India -- Burma's key military backers and trading partners -- as well as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to encourage reforms. Indonesia and other ASEAN countries, which once refused to criticize the internal affairs of its members, have developed both politically and economically to the point that they may have the will to press for change in Burma, a fellow ASEAN member. In particular, the envoy should focus on those ASEAN members that can bring the rest of the group along.
Another important part of the job will be to ensure that U.S. sanctions against Burma are better targeted toward corrupt political actors and their cronies, and not ordinary Burmese citizens. Related to this, the new envoy should lead an assessment of U.S. sanctions policy that takes into consideration the views of ASEAN, the E.U. and other key external and internal players.
At the same time, the envoy should continue to develop means of reaching the Burmese population directly through assistance programs. In the past few years, U.S. humanitarian assistance to Burma has expanded rapidly in response to dire humanitarian needs -- particularly in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in 2008. Supporting the growth of civil society and community development as well as small holder farmers and small- to medium-sized businesses should be a priority.
To be sure, the changes in Burma so far have been more rhetorical than substantive. It may be years before the real significance of the developments underway becomes apparent. With an envoy in place, the US will be able to act quickly and flexibly to both opportunities and obstacles and take a lead in pushing the new government to move in a positive direction. As a reinforcing step, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon should follow Mr. Obama's lead and name a full time U.N. envoy to Burma.
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The Irrawaddy - Plight of Burmese Child Sex Slaves Revealed
By BA KAUNG Tuesday, April 19, 2011
RANONG, Thailand—“The latest price of 'opening a Burmese packing' here is 13,000 baht,” explained Thidar, a Burmese prostitute in Thailand's Ranong province bordering southern Burma.
Inside the brothel of No. 3 Ranongpattani Road, a group of Burmese prostitutes reveal that “opening a Burmese packing” means a Burmese virgin girl being forced to work for the first time in the brothels of this small fishing port town.
They explain that every month around 40 girls from all over Burma—some as young as 13 or 14—are sold by human traffickers to Thai brothels in Ranong. Some are even sent to the popular tourist resort of Phuket, with around 200 Burmese girls currently working as prostitutes in their brothel alone.
“She came here for 'packing opening' three months ago,” Thidar said, pointing at a Burmese teenager sitting in the corner of the dingy room where they received Thai and Burmese customers.
Thidar herself is a former vegetable seller from Rangoon's Insein Township. She was approached 10 years ago in her local market by a Burmese woman who told her that she could make good money at a restaurant in Kawthaung, the Burmese border town on the opposite side to Ranong.
“The woman said I would have a good selling job and I wanted to earn some money,” she said. So at the tender age of 15, she left her mother and stepfather and was taken from Rangoon to Kawthaung with two female companions of a similar age.
Upon arrival in Kawthaung she was kept in a restaurant sealed with curtains for two days, but ran away after being forced into sex with a Burmese man.
“I ran away in the rain onto the streets of Kawthaung market,” she said. “When I saw a police station, I asked for help. But the lady followed me and brought me back from the police saying I would be sent home to Rangoon.”
But when she was back to the brothel again, she was tied with ropes and flogged. A few days later, she was taken with some other young girls to Ranong in a small boat and sold to a Thai brothel owner in the neighborhood of Paukkhaung.
“After I arrived, I was asked to take a pill and then I fell asleep. When I woke up, I found myself naked and smeared with blood.”
The brothel owner told her that she had to pay back the amount of money which he had bought her for. Even since then, she has been working as a prostitute and now has two children fathered by a Mon fisherman who died at sea during a storm.
These prostitutes' income depends on the number of customers they receive. For a single instance of sexual intercourse the brothel owner charges a customer 350 baht, of which the worker only receives half.
“I don't know what else to do for a living except this job. I could not undo what had happened, so I kept this job,” she said.
According to Thidar and her fellow workers, poverty and lack of care by their own parents were main reasons why they were tricked by human traffickers and forced into prostitution.
Ei Ei, in her 20s, the daughter of a sea gypsy family in Kawthaung, said she hates her mother who never sent her to school and did not look after her properly. She added that she held various jobs to support the family ever since childhood.
“I used to work on a dynamite-fishing boat and also on a squid boat at sea,” she said.
She was later approached by a prostitution broker and first arrived in a Ranong brothel five years ago. As a prostitute, she has already married four times and is now addicted to various kinds of illicit drugs which she buys with her meager wages or receives from customers in exchange for oral sex.
She said that the use of drugs, particularly a drug compound called “Asean” popular among the Burmese community there, helps her forget the harsh treatment received from her customers.
“The Burmese fishermen are the worst in abusing us. They force me to perform oral sex against my will and they also refuse to use condoms,” she said.
Like most of her colleagues, she has no identification card and thus has to pay the police a license fee of 200 baht every day.
In this town of 130,000 thousand Burmese migrant workers, the local police refuse to tackle the human trafficking issue and are even collaborating with the criminals, claims Kyaw Than, a local Burmese restaurant owner who migrated from Burma 32 years ago.
“These very young Burmese girls keep streaming in. The policemen themselves are involved in these issues,” he said.
Burmese workers in Ranong face high risks of disease including malaria and HIV/AIDS, plus limited access to medical facilities and a poor educational environment for their children. These migrants—particularly Burmese sex workers—also face police and military harassment, according to a 2009 survey by the Institute of Developing Economies.
“Some of the Thai brothel owners immediately deport Burmese sex workers as soon as they are found to be HIV positive,” said Khine Pan Zon, an aid worker for the World Vision NGO who is giving health counseling to Burmese sex workers in Ranong.
She added that those HIV-positive sex workers who continue to work often no longer care about their own lives and start abusing drugs, cutting off contact with their family members back in Burma.
There are an estimated 1,000 Burmese sex workers in the town, with nearly 40 of them said to have come from Burma's Irrawaddy Delta after it was devastated by Cyclone Nargis in 2008.
“I am now sending money to my family in Burma and will go back there once I saved some money,” said a 32-year-old Burmese sex worker from Irrawaddy Division who works in a karaoke shop.
“I just came here to get a proper job, but ended up in an unexpected life. So there is no way out for now.”
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The Irrawaddy - US Pushes Asean to Reject Burma
By LALIT K JHA Wednesday, April 20, 2011
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration has said it is unwilling to work with the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) with Burma as its chair, given its poor track record on human rights and democracy.
The US government's views in this regard are being conveyed to Asean members at a time when Burma has intensified its bid to take on the chairmanship of the regional bloc in 2014.
“I mean, obviously, we would have concerns about Burma in any kind of leadership role because of their poor human rights record and domestically, I don’t have any more comment beyond that,” the State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, told reporters at his daily news conference.
Toner was responding to reports that the new civilian government in Burma has submitted a letter to the Asean Secretariat stating its readiness to take up the group's chair in 2014.
At the 11th summit meeting in Vientiane in November 2004, under pressure from colleagues and the international community, Burma missed the chance to take the chair.
Burma wants Asean leaders to make a decision at the upcoming Jakarta summit on May 7-8, so it will have sufficient time to prepare for the year-long chair in three years time.
However, US officials said the Obama administration's position is clear—that unless Burma improves on its human rights records and addresses the issue of real democracy in the country, it will be tough for the international community to work with Asean if Burma plays a leadership role.
The State Department said it hoped that the nomination of a new special US representative to Burma by the US president last week would give fresh impetus to its policy on Burma.
“Hopefully, it will add new impetus to our outreach to Burma. But also, again, this is an individual who can also underscore our deep, deep concerns about the authoritative rule there,” Toner said when asked about the special US representative to Burma.
Meeting the long pending demand of his lawmakers, Obama, last week nominated diplomat Derek Mitchell as his special US representative on Burma. A well-known South East Asia hand, Mitchell will hold an ambassadorial rank in this capacity.
Currently the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs at the Department of Defense, Mitchell still has to undergo the rigorous confirmation process of the US senate before he can take on the new position.
“Whenever you name a senior official like this to do something, to lead our efforts in Burma, it elevates the initiative,” Toner said. “But we remain committed to our two-track approach to Burma and the engagement door does remain open.”
Meanwhile Surin Pitsuwan, the Asean secretary-general, told Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun on Monday that US approval may hold the key to the bloc's decision on Burma's chairmanship.
He said the leaders of other Asean members will decide the matter, adding that the opinions of East Asia summit members will likely be respected.
Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India are among the 16 members of the East Asia Summit alongside the 10 Asean member states.
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The Irrawaddy - Election Commission Warns Burmese Parties
By SAW YAN NAING Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Burma’s Election Commission (EC) is distributing letters warning all existing political parties not to make contact with any illegal organization, according to party leaders contacted by The Irrawaddy.
Some of the party representatives said the warning was targeted at Burmese opposition groups in exile and ethnic armed groups. Others, however, said the message was also intended to caution parties against associating with the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
Thu Wai, the chairman of the Democratic Party (Myanmar), said, “It doesn’t explain clearly which the illegal organizations are. But anyway, our party does not have contact with illegal organizations.”
He said that copies of the warning letters were distributed in early April to all registered political parties, government ministries and departments. According to the letter, authorities such as intelligence units will closely monitor the political parties' activities, he added.
“The new government has made no official announcement about the dissolution of the NLD,” said Thu Wai. “So we will continue to have contact with them.”
However, on Sept. 14, 2010, the EC officially announced the dissolution of 10 political parties, including the main opposition party NLD.
Despite the EC dissolving the NLD, many leaders of existing parties meet occassionally with NLD leaders including Suu Kyi and have held talks with her and her colleagues in the post-election period.
Nyan Win, the spokesperson of the NLD, said he believed the EC letter did not target his party and said it will be business as usual at the party offices.
Some politicians, however, said they view the move as a warning to the registered political parties to cease contact with the NLD. Several said that the new government is indirectly putting a halt to the NLD's political and social activities.
Speaking with The Irrawaddy on Tuesday, Nai Ngwe Thein, the chairman of the All Mon Regions Democracy Party, said the new government likely wants to stop the NLD’s activities as it is still very relevant and influential in Burma's current political arena.
“We have already seen that the NLD’s social activities are more active,” he said. “NLD representatives meet regularly with international organizations and hold talks with foreign diplomats. The party still enjoys a lot of public support. The new government wants to stamp down on it.”
Khin Maung Swe, one of the leaders of the National Democratic Force (NDF), told The Irrawaddy that the EC letter was simply a reminder to the existing political parties. He said the rule that states that political parties must not make any contact with illegal organizations has already been written in the party registration law, and that the EC has just repeated it as a reminder to the parties.
Under Section 12(a)(3) of the Political Parties Registration Law, any party that contacts directly or indirectly with groups or individuals launching armed rebellions or which are involved with associations declared by the government as "unlawful associations" will be dissolved.
He said he assumes the “illegal organizations” mentioned in the letter refers to Burmese opposition groups in exile and the ethnic armed groups that are based around Burma's borders.
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The Irrawaddy - EDITORIAL: Suu Kyi Must Return to Her Strength
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
When Aung San Suu Kyi emerged from her home last week to greet well-wishers during Burma's New Year water festival, revelers chanted “Happy New Year Aunty Suu” and “Long live Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.” Hundreds stopped their cars and got out to shake her hand.
Despite all the attention and accolades she receives from international heavyweights, and the undeniable importance of garnering worldwide support for her cause, it is the people of Burma that form Suu Kyi's base.
Her primary strength lies not in the people she must cater to for international pressure on Snr-Gen Than Shwe (who despite having officially “retired” continues to pull the strings of the new government) and the rest of the junta leaders, but rather in the people she represents and whose hopes and aspirations she inspires.
Suu Kyi's top priority right now should be to reunite and reinvigorate the disparate groups that make up Burma's opposition movement and inspire the country's oppressed masses to once again actively participate in the cause of freedom and democracy.
The reason for this is simple: If Burma's pro-democracy and human rights movement continues to splinter and bicker, and if the people become further disillusioned with the lack of tangible progress, then all the international support in the world will be without meaning.
We all must recognize that the task she faces is daunting and probably the most difficult challenge she has faced yet—which speaks volumes given her years under house arrest and two decades battling the regime.
In 1988, when she first stood at the base of Shwedagon Pagoda and spoke to the people of Burma, she was throwing inspirational gasoline on an already raging bonfire of anger and protest. People believed and had hope that things could change. They were ready and willing to rise up, and she provided leadership and moral guidance.
Today, however, the situation is much different. Suu Kyi must bring together the branches of an opposition movement that have been broken and scattered by the political storms, and reignite the fading embers of passion in her core supporters who have become cynical about the possibility of real change in the foreseeable future.
In order to do so, there are several initial steps she can take inside Burma.
First, she must continue her calls for reconciliation at every level and do everything in her power to work towards that goal. She has already taken the bold move—in the face of heavy criticism—of meeting opposition and ethnic leaders who were once NLD party members and/or supporters but decided to defect to contest in the 2010 election.
We think this is a step in the right direction, because she is the one person who has the clout to deflect the inevitable pot shots that will be thrown from both sides at anyone who works towards unity in the opposition movement.
In addition, Suu Kyi must heed the critics who warn that “the enemy is within” her own camp, not only with the junta. The NLD is no longer the same party that faced down the military in 1988 and won the election in 1990 by a landslide. It has become an aging and sluggish organization that many observers feel is out of touch with its younger generation of supporters.
In short, while respecting the contribution and experience of the NLD's top hierarchy, Suu Kyi must take the lead in reforming her own party. Until this happens, the party will not legitimately be able to help reform the country.
To make progress in this direction, Suu Kyi must surround herself with a mostly new team of good, wise and dedicated advisors. She must inject new blood into her own party—bringing into the fold and promoting to prominence those who can advise her on issues such as foreign relations, health, education, ethnic conflicts, human rights, trade and investment and military affairs.
Only then will she be able to form a new opposition strategy that reflects the current political, economic and social environment in a way that inspires her supporters to become active in the cause.
In addition, Suu Kyi must delegate responsibility to the new members of her team in order to develop the next generation of opposition leaders that are capable of doing political battle with the generals.
Much has been said of her unwillingness to ask the aging NLD leaders to step aside, which in large part stems from Burmese culture rather than lack of will. But for these same cultural reasons, the NLD elders must themselves recognize that the party and the opposition movement need them to put personal feelings aside, move into an advisory role and let a new generation of leaders emerge from their shadow.
In addition, Suu Kyi and her team must increase their efforts to reconcile with approachable members of the newly installed military-dominated government.
While it may not be possible to change the hardened hearts and narrow minds of the top generals, there are government servants and military personnel who admire her and listen to her voice for change.
If Suu Kyi can convince those inside the new government that have some power but lie outside the upper echelon that they have much to gain in a free and democratic Burma and much to lose if the country continues on its oppressive road to ruin, then she will have taken maybe the most important step towards true national reconciliation and real change—for the first time there will be people both inside and outside government pulling on the same oar.
Last but definitely not least, despite the security concerns it is perhaps time for Suu Kyi to begin to test the waters of her supposed “freedom.”
Upon her release, Suu Kyi said she wanted to listen to the people. She has done so—meeting with many of her supporters, young pro-democracy leaders, politicians, local NGO representatives and members of civil society groups—but most of these discussions have been behind closed doors and all have been in Rangoon.
With the new government having just been sworn in and the regime wanting to maintain the facade of increased respectability it has developed with some in the international community, Suu Kyi might now be able to spend more time on the streets with her supporters and venture outside the former capital to campaign for reconciliation.
Becoming more visible inside Burma, as opposed to in the international media, could actually do more than anything to bolster Suu Kyi's international standing.
Many of the diplomats and others in the world community whom she has met since her release don’t really know Suu Kyi and Burma. They weren't around in the late 1980s when she rallied the masses at the Shwedagon Pagoda, in the early 1990s when she gave weekend speeches at the gate of her lakeside home that drew thousands of people, or later when she risked her life in places like Depayin to meet supporters throughout the country.
As a result, the opinions of Suu Kyi voiced by the myriad international visitors she has received have been mixed—she and the senior NLD are well aware that some of the behind-the-scenes comments by diplomats who spoke and posed for pictures with her have been lukewarm.
But to truly understand and appreciate both Suu Kyi and those she represents, these new international friends, as well as the skeptics, need to see her out there playing to her strength—the people of Burma.
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Mae Sot soon to be Thailand-Burma Special Economic Zone
Tuesday, 19 April 2011 19:20 Thomas Maung Shwe
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The Thai cabinet has approved a budget for hiring a team of expert planners to design a Special Economic Zone at Mae Sot on the northern Thai-Burma border, Thai media reported on Friday.
Mae Sot, in Tak Province, is home to a large Burmese refugee and migrant population many of whom work in the textile industry.
Thai Deputy Commerce Minister Alongkorn Ponlaboot confirmed to reporters last week that the Mae Sot Special Economic Zone will comprise more than 5,600 rai (about 900 hectares) of land in Tha Sai Luad and Mae Pa sub-districts. A government sub-committee focusing on legal preparations for the Mae Sot Special Economic Zone has finalized a draft royal decree that will create a special entity to run the zone.
According to Alongkorn, the new measures will attract international investment and ensure that Mae Sot becomes ‘Thailand's West Gate’, opening the kingdom to India and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation. Thai planners also aim to link the Mae Sot Special Economic Zone to a Deep Water Sea Port currently under construction by a Thai consortium on the Burmese coast at Tavoy.
Last October, the Thai cabinet approved construction plans for a second Thai-Burmese bridge which would be equipped to handle heavy truck traffic. Work on the Burmese side of the bridge has been stalled, however, by the Burmese regime, which, critics say, appears to be delaying the progress on the project in order to win concessions from Thailand.
Mae Sot is Thailand’s busiest trading center with Burma, with more than US $325 million in trade in 2010. However, cross border trade has been significantly reduced since last July when the Burmese regime arbitrarily closed the Mae Sot-Myawaddy Friendship Bridge ostensibly over a dispute regarding the border demarcation along the Moei River which divides the two nations.
While the bridge remains closed, both the movement of people and goods between Burma and Thailand in the area has been restricted to rickety boats and inner tubes.
In many respects, Mae Sot already acts as kind of special economic zone as undocumented workers from Burma can cross into the city from Burma with relative ease. Once in Mae Sot, however, undocumented Burmese seeking to head further into Thailand are prevented from leaving the city by a series of successive road blocks manned by Thai soldiers and police.
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Stepping into the world of Aung San Suu Kyi
Wednesday, 20 April 2011 18:30 Laila de Champfleury
Rangoon (Mizzima) - The Lady is not a revolutionary. The heroine of the Burmese pro-democracy movement sat calmly, hands lightly clasped together on the table, talking to her guests who had come to quizz her about her politics and Burma’s troubled road to democracy.
Aung San Suu Kyi said, surprisingly, that she thinks revolutions are ‘not very romantic’.
The Lady, as she is known, is the face of the Burma’s democratic revolution trying to kick a brutal and entrenched military out of power in Burma. But as she sits talking to us, violent revolutionary change, like in her father’s day, is not in her vocabulary.
We were an unlikely group of 11 Danish students with their two teachers who were taking our ‘gap year’ international politics course between high school and university to the limit by plunging ourselves into the land of ‘Big Brother’–– a land of contradictions, with smiling people, golden temples and a repressive army.
It was early April, and we were sitting in the offices of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in Rangoon. Aung San Suu Kyi’s time is precious. Typically, the pro-democracy leader holds meetings with members of the NLD, important visitors and occasional journalists. Everybody wants to meet her. It is normally tough to get an interview. We had heard that it took one Danish journalist two years to get to see her and even then the meeting was brief.
So we were rather surprised to find ourselves in the cramped NLD headquarters talking face to face with the icon we had read so much about. Maybe it was due to the good contacts our teachers had with influential Burmese dissidents back home in Denmark. That was our guess.
Still, right up until the last moment, we wondered whether we would actually get to meet her.
The headquarters was packed and not fancy at all. It was like stepping into another world coming in from the street. The offices were filled with pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi and stacks of papers. Stepping in felt like opening an old secret box that had never been opened before and that you didn’t know existed. We had been shown upstairs to a room, with again, this atmosphere of underground existence and work. We sat down around a long wooden table in the room, still doubting if we would really meet The Lady.
I was sitting looking out of the half closed door at the other side of the room, just hoping that she would show up. The air in the room was thick with anticpation and then suddenly I saw her, just for a second, before she went in to the room next door with her bodyguards. She was in the building. Now nothing could go wrong. Five minutes later she came into the room. We all rose immediately. But she just laughed kindly and said, ‘Sit down, sit down’.
The Lady sat up straight with folded hands at the end of the table. She appeared graceful and feminine with the flowers in her hair, as I had imagined. She seemed mild and kind but under the surface her strong and determined nature wasn’t hard to see.
Back in Denmark, we had painstakingly prepared questions for the meeting. We were studying international politics and Burma’s troubled path and it did not take long before the questions and conversation focused on democracy.
‘Democracy is a word that is so common in the West that you probably don’t take it too seriously’, Aung San Suu Kyi said. ‘I don’t think you even realize the value of it very much’.
Turning the attention on us, she asked how many of us voted at the last election in Denmark in 2007. Many of our students put up their hands but three admitted that they did not vote, though two of them had been too young to vote at the time.
The Lady touched on an issue that we had picked up from our conversations with Burmese people in Rangoon and Mandalay. An atmosphere of fear lurked under the surface of the smiles that typically greeted us on our travels in the country. If you are a tourist, you may not notice anything untoward. But from the elaborate precautions made by a journalist in meeting with us, and from what he had to say, the government had its eye on everyone and censorship allowed only what the military junta wanted to see published in the media.
‘There is no security in this country because there is no rule of law’, said Aung San Suu Kyi. This was also one of the reasons why the NLD didn’t run in the 2010 election, she said, because her party could not accept the new Constitution that makes it legal for the military regime to make a coup and take over power whenever they felt it necessary.
Also she pointed out that unequal rights were a reason for the conflicts between the ethnic groups and the government.
‘Many of the nationalities want a more federal constitution and that is why they have problems with them. All this injustice must stop, the ethnic nationalities have refugees running away all the time, who are persecuted and really live in fear all the time in their own country. All this must change and in order to change that, we must make them feel that they enjoy equal rights’.
As a school class traveling to Burma, we were interested to learn and experience with own eyes different problems and issues in the country, which we had studied in class back in Denmark. We wanted to meet people who wanted to offer their opinion about the country now, what they wished for and how, in their opinion, it should be achieved.
My special interest was in human rights and the role of law in society. Therefore the issue brought up by Aung San Suu Kyi about the non-existent rule of law in Burma was very interesting to me.
The fact that the law in a way is the last fallback to make people feel secure, to have a line that you know when you cross it and when you don't. To have somewhere to turn to if your rights are violated. This provides the basic rights of a functioning society.
I remembered a conversation I had had with a young Burmese activist in Rangoon, who asked me how I understood the meaning of the term democracy. I answered with things like freedom of speech, the freedom to choose for yourself, having access to free and fair elections, and so forth. He agreed that these were of course really important for a democracy but that in his opinion, the most important thing is the division of power, between the judiciary and the government. This was his wish and that it would someday be like that in Burma.
The Lady gave us yet an example of the way the regime has the power of decision in their hands. ‘Any member of the NLD that is brought before a court for political reasons is bound to lose the case. We know it from the beginning. We always say, before they take us to court they have always decided how long the person is going to prison for and how they will handle him, and then they take the person to court’.
But even though this is the case, NLD members still get to have a lawyer mostly for a moral protection, she said. To have somebody standing up for them, somebody who can say that they have been falsely accused and that they have committed no crime other than believing in certain ideas and living accordingly by them.
‘We only know about the law when it affects us. Otherwise, we don’t know it in detail. So these cases provide us with an opportunity to teach our people what their rights are. How their rights are being violated in the courts. Nobody can feel safe if the law cannot protect him or her’.
We had heard that The Lady was tired of being asked about sanctions, so we skipped that and asked about her own efforts for change.
‘Too often in Burma people rely on me or my party to bring about the change they want’, she said. ‘The most important thing is to give them the understanding that they are capable of bringing about change’.
She said she was still determined that the NLD should remain a political party, with the goal of bringing democracy to Burma, despite the move by the authorities to disband it.
She also made it clear that only one strong figure leading the country isn’t good for a democracy, that there should be at least a few strong figures to choose from, to make politicians take more care in their actions
As for the policy of the NLD, we found it hard to obtain a concrete answer from her about their political programme and standpoint, whether they might consider themselves Left wing or Right wing.
‘When you don’t have democracy you don’t think about Left or Right or whether it's going to be a welfare state or not’, she said.
The NLD, she said, should be a centered party with the ideal dream of giving children free basic schooling and a free health care system for the people, though she made it clear that there was a very long way to go.
One question we had been asking a number of activists who we had met on our visit was the method that should be used to bring change in Burma, whether they favoured revolution or another way. We asked Aung San Suu Kyi, the icon for change in Burma.
‘I'm not a great advocate of revolutions, because revolutions are not very romantic’, she told us. ‘Some think they are a quick answer, but the wounds run very deep, and these wounds take a long time to heal. Sometimes on the surface there has been change, but actually it's not that kind of change that anybody hoped for, because these festering sores go on for a long time. I believe that the best way for change is through political negotiations and settlement’.
Her response was both surprising and yet equally understandable. From what she had experienced, her periods of house arrest, the brutal attack on her group when they went traveling upcountry in 2003, and the deaths during the 2007 ‘Saffron Revolution’, there were clearly questions about the efficacy of revolution.
Burma is not Egypt, Tunisia or Libya. Nor is it the Burma that her father, Aung San, fought the British colonialists for just before independence, only to fall to the bullets of assassins in 1947.
‘I keep repeating the big difference between Burma and Egypt’, she said, noting that protestors in Cairo were able to demonstrate for a long period before there was a crackdown. In Burma, there was rapid ‘blood-stained repression’ … and ‘I think that people’s psyche has undergone great trauma’. It takes time, she said, to recover from such an experience.
Two hours had passed and it was time to leave. We were surprised the meeting had taken place. So many things could have gone wrong, we thought. She could have been whisked off again under house arrest. We could be denied access by a policeman standing on her doorstep or she could simply have found something more important to do that day than to waste her time on a bunch of students.
What we found interesting was how seriously she took the meeting. We were of course very excited and anxious to meet her. But the feeling seemed mutual. Every time one of our group asked a question, she would look directly at the person, nodding, really listening to the question before answering, expressing seriousness and sincerity.
To round off the meeting, we gave her some gifts including a book of fairytales by the world famous Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen, which she was happy about. She told us that when she was a little girl, her mother gave her a plate with a motive of the little mermaid on it from this book.
We sang an old South African freedom song for her from the Apartheid era. This was a song that the Africans could sing because they sang it in their own language, Zulu, which the ruling Boers could not understand.
At the end, Aung San Suu Kyi shook hands with all of us individually, and we all walked out of the office feeling ecstatic.
As we walked out onto the street, we realized that meetings like this cannot be kept a secret in Burma. Four photographers snapped photos of us. What they will do with these photos we will never know. It is a clear sign of their paranoia and the strong will of people to live in a free Burma.
Laila de Champfleury was part of a group of 11 Danish students and two teachers who spent 10 days in Burma in early April as part of their international politics course at college.
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In Burma: Big Brother controls the Internet
Wednesday, 20 April 2011 19:04 Thea Forbes
(News Analysis) – Burma’s xenophobic military-dominated government enforces a strictly Orwellian regime of politicized censorship in order to control and restrict the Burmese people’s freedom of expression and access to information via the Internet.
Freedom House, the Washington-based independent watchdog organization, ranks Burma the second worst country in the world for oppression of Internet freedom, with Iran as the most oppressive. Estonia came in as the country with the Internet most free followed by the USA, Germany, Australia and the UK.
In a recent study on Internet freedom, ‘Freedom on the Net 2011’, Freedom House said the Burmese government ‘makes aggressive attempts to regulate access to the Internet and digital media, control content, and punish citizens for any online activity that is seen as detrimental to regime security’.
It placed Burma on the list of countries that had ‘substantial censorship of political or social issues in 2009-10’ and where Websites or blogs of government opponents faced cyber attacks.
In Burma, the mere act of accessing the Internet is difficult due to a lack of infrastructure and the general widespread poverty in the country. Aside from numerous international and domestic sites being blocked, users are also subjected to surveillance in cybercafes. Cybercafe owners are also subject to strictly enforced licensing rules that require them to monitor users’ screens, keep users’ records and to cooperate with criminal investigations.
Although access to the Internet has slowly improved in recent years, Freedom House estimates that only 1 percent of the total population in Burma has access to the Internet. The study noted that of the 520 registered cybercafes, most are located in country’s main cities.
Routine Internet Manipulation
During potentially volatile and politically sensitive times, the regime controls Internet freedom in two ways: it enacts total shutdowns or it strategically caps the bandwidth of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to limit the flow of information that can go out or come into the counry, Freedom House says.
The government restructured the country’s ISP system in October 2010, creating a new Ministry of Defence ISP that separated military and civilian access to the Internet. Freedom House’s recent study claims the restructuring of Internet infrastructure could enable the government to sever civilian access to the web, whilst maintaining access for military users.
Last month, the government banned use of the Internet for ‘voice over Internet protocol’ (VOIP) overseas calls. Banning the easily accessible and relatively cheap Internet call services such as Skype and Pfingo means contacting people overseas through the Internet is made much more difficult for Burmese people inside the country, with alternatives being far too expensive.
There are more than 10, 000 blogs in Burma’s ‘blogosphere’, with blogging becoming the ‘fastest growing aspect of Burmese Internet use in 2010, registering a 25 per cent increase from 2009’, according to the Freedom House study.
Reportedly, approximately half of the number of Burmese bloggers live outside the country.’ To combat the increase in blogging power,, the junta set up a ‘Blog Supervising Committee’ in every government ministry in 2007 to counter outside bloggers and foreign or exiled media, the study claims.
Popular Burmese Internet blogger Shwe Zin U told Mizzima: “The Internet is really important, but everyone in Burma can’t use the Internet. Even though some use it, they can’t use it well because of the slow connection. It’s necessary to communicate worldwide, but that’s not as important as Burmese communicating with each other inside Burma.” Shwe Zin U said she often posts to her blog at midnight when the connection seems to be faster.
In the wake of the ‘Spring revolution’ toppling governments in Tunisia and Egypt and provoking armed conflict and political turmoil in the Middle East, the Burmese government is clearly aware of the potency and infectious power of the burgeoning popularity of online social networking. The Chinese authorities’ paranoia of a civic uprising following those in the Middle East was evident as the authorities lined central streets with police and blocked words such as ‘jasmin’and ‘revolution’ on the Internet.
Internet Laws
The regime in Burma has introduced three laws regarding Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) to try to further control Internet use: the Myanmar Computer Science Development Law, the Wide Area Network Order and the Electronic Transactions Law.
Under Section 33 of the 2004 Electronic Transactions Law, Internet users can face up to 15 years in prison and/or heavy fines for ‘receiving or sending and distributing any information’ that is considered damaging to state security, law and order, community peace and tranquility, national solidarity, the national economy or national culture.
By establishing harsh punishment for even simple acts of freedom of expression or for accessing information via the Internet, the government in Burma creates a culture of fear regarding ‘subversive’ thought and material, and perhaps most dangerously, it fosters a culture of self-censorship.
Pervasive surveillance
During the mass popular protests in 2007 led by Buddhist monks, the regime completely shut down connection to the Internet via the state-run ISP from September 27 to October 4.
Similarly, in 2008, during the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, bloggers and Internet users were arrested and thrown in jail for posting video and photo material that was deemed critical of the government’s response.
Burmese web-users also complained of slowed and sporadic access to the Internet in the run up to and during the general elections in November 2010. The regime also restricted access and slowed the bandwidth of ISPs during the politically charged atmosphere of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s release a week after the elections.
‘According to ICT (Information Communication Technologies) experts in Burma, the state-controlled ISPs occassionally apply bandwidth caps to prevent the sharing of video and image files, particularly during politically sensitive events', said Freedom House.
The study also said that the junta sometimes disables mobile phone networks in areas where protestors mobilized or where explosions have occurred in the past.
Exiled media groups also suffered distributed denial of service (DDoS) cyber-attacks, most probably sponsored by the junta, temporarily shutting down their websites during last year’s election period.
With the regime's intelligence agencies and Information Ministry implementing sometimes arbitrary, but often timely (for the regime) blocks on e-mail and social networking, the Burmese people daily experience an infringement on their freedom of access to the Internet. While the regime exploits the benefits of ICTs for business and propaganda uses, its prohibitive measures towards public use are evident.
Judging from recent events, Big Brother’s grip on the Internet will not be relaxed anytime soon.
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DVB News - MoE claims huge gas reserves
By JOSEPH ALLCHIN
Published: 19 April 2011
Burma’s ministry of energy claims that the country has reserves of some 89.722 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, domestic news reported, contrasting greatly with outside estimates that put the figure much lower.
Burma’s statistics under military rule are notorious for their lack of reliability – the recent figures from the energy ministry would mean that Burma has more natural gas reserves than the entire European Union. The US Energy Information Agency (EIA) thinks however that the proven reserves are closer to 10 trillion cubic feet.
Gas and oil reserve figures are often a highly sensitive area of state apparatus, and are kept a secret in major producer nations such as Saudi Arabia.
The latest “data”, which was reported in the Weekly Eleven news journal, comes hot on the heels of a new decree announced this month that gives Burma’s president supreme authority over natural resource exploration and mining.
Natural gas exploration and sales in particular should have a massive impact on the public purse and subsequent wealth of the nation.
The IMF has noted that gas revenue has a “small fiscal impact” in Burma as a result of the misappropriation of funds, only accounting for around one percent of earnings when in fact it could have, or indeed should have, accounted for an enormous 57 percent.
If Burma does indeed have nearly 90 trillion cubic feet of reserves, this figure would amount to a huge rise in the revenues of the country’s most valuable legal exports, particularly if the reserves are exploited by the multitude of foreign companies queuing up to do so.
The EIA estimates that Burma exported roughly 300 billion cubic feet in the years 2008 and 2009. This figure will likely double when the trans-Burma Shwe gas pipeline comes online in 2013, delivering oil and gas to southwestern China.
According to the Steel Business Briefing, the dual pipeline will have a capacity of over 400 billion cubic feet annually. If these figures are even remotely believable, then there could be a surge in interest from international buyers and a subsequent surge in exports, albeit short-lived if the figures turn out to be false.
This assertion however contrasts with statements previously made by former Burmese energy minister Lun Thi, who in 2008 reportedly stated that the country did not have enough gas to supply neighbouring Bangladesh.
President Thein Sein’s authority over the gas sector will, according to economic analyst Aung Thu Nyein, include the ploughing of gas revenues into a “fund to protect state security” which will likely be immune to public or parliamentary scrutiny.
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BURMA RELATED NEWS - APRIL 19-20, 2011
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ANN - Philippines urges Burma to free all political prisoners
Reuters - China risks civil strife with support for foreign dams - activists
AlertNet - Rohingyas face ‘silent crisis’ in Bangladesh – rights group
AFP - Malaysia, Singapore to slash telecom roaming fees
Asia Times Online - False dawn on the Myanmar border
IRIN - MYANMAR: Anti-malarial drug resistance "hotspots" identified
Asian Correspondent - Burma needs to stop ethnic wars and to release political prisoners
Asian Correspondent - China warns citizens in Burma of civil war
Asian Correspondent - Is the EU endorsing Burma’s facelift?
National Jeweler - Burma ruby headlines Doyle NY auction
The Standard - Burma's hidden gem
The Nation - 60 Burmese freed in factory raid
MinnPost - Minnesota's refugees tell compelling stories of how they got here
GlobalPost - Opinion: New tactics needed in Burma
7thSpace Interactive (press release) - Emergency relief for earthquake victims in Myanmar approved
E-Pao.net - Indo-Myanmar Panel discussion held
ISRIA - Philippines : Secretary Del Rosario Meets New Myanmar Foreign Minister
The Huffington Post - The Time Is Right to Appoint a U.S. Envoy to Burma
The Irrawaddy - Plight of Burmese Child Sex Slaves Revealed
The Irrawaddy - US Pushes Asean to Reject Burma
The Irrawaddy - Election Commission Warns Burmese Parties
The Irrawaddy - EDITORIAL: Suu Kyi Must Return to Her Strength
Mizzima News - Mae Sot soon to be Thailand-Burma Special Economic Zone
Mizzima News - Stepping into the world of Aung San Suu Kyi
Mizzima News - In Burma: Big Brother controls the Internet
DVB News - MoE claims huge gas reserves
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Asia News Network - Philippines urges Burma to free all political prisoners
By News Desk in Manila/Philippine Daily Inquirer | ANN – Wed, Apr 20, 2011 5:00 PM SGT
Manila (Philippinine Daily Inquirer/ANN) - The Philippines has urged Burma to release the military-ruled nation's political prisoners, the Department of Foreign Affairs said.
Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert F. del Rosario noted Burma's roadmap to democracy, which he said is crucial in "establishing a clear path to being able to join other countries of Asean in embracing democracy."
In a meeting April 10 at the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Informal Special Foreign Ministers' Meeting on the East Asia Summit in Bangkok, Del Rosario conveyed to Burma's Foreign Minister
Lwin said Yanggoon has been making headway in implementing political reforms, citing that national elections were held, a new constitution was adopted, and the Parliament was convened.
The Asean is urging Western nations to lift sanctions against Burma, an Asean member. They have been imposed for its alleged rights abuses and suppression of democracy.
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China risks civil strife with support for foreign dams - activists
By Ben Blanchard | Reuters – Wed, Apr 20, 2011 2:15 PM IST
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese support for controversial dam-building schemes around the world risks a backlash from affected communities and even violence due to a lack transparency and the ignoring of residents' wishes, activists said on Wednesday.
Chinese companies and banks are becoming deeply involved in such projects in Africa and Asia, and despite a growing awareness they have to be more transparent and accountable, this frequently does not happen, the activists said.
"We are dismayed to see a reckless role of many companies," Peter Bosshard, policy director of California-based International Rivers, told the Foreign Correspondents Club of China.
"There is still often a complete lack of transparency and consultation, particularly with civil society groups in the host countries," he added.
Beijing says that Chinese companies operating abroad have to comply with relevant national laws and that they must respect people there and the environment.
Rights groups say this frequently does not happen.
In Myanmar, Chinese companies are building or funding some particularly divisive dam schemes, Bosshard said.
"If such huge infrastructure projects go forward, the (Myanmar) army takes over and occupies the villages," he said.
"There's no question that the indigenous populations are very unhappy with these projects which they see as an extension of military rule in Burma, and that this will lead to serious conflict."
Last year, a series of bombs exploded at a hydropower project site being jointly built by a Chinese company in northern Myanmar's Kachin state.
In neighbouring Laos, plans for the first dam across the lower Mekong River are putting it on a collision course with its neighbours and environmentalists who fear livelihoods, fish species and farmland could be destroyed.
While the $3.5 billion Xayaburi Dam is a mostly Thai-led project, another mooted scheme not too far away, the Paklay Dam, is Chinese-led, said Bosshard.
"That would be a matter of serious concern if they took that up. What has been said about Xayaburi also applies to Paklay and the other downstream dams."
KENYAN CONCERNS
There is not just a threat of unrest in the former Burma.
Ikal Angelei, director of Friends of Lake Turkana in Kenya, which is trying to stop a partly Chinese-funded dam being built upstream in Ethiopia, said she worried the dam could lead to fights for water in the arid region.
"We are pastoralist communities who are constantly struggling for resources. Any more pressure on resources, which are depleting due to climate change, would lead to increased conflict," she said.
"Pastoralist communities right now are more armed than any government. More and more old men and women are saying if it means that we have to pick up our arms and go and fight then we are willing to do it."
Policy lenders like China Exim Bank are now increasingly being joined by commercial lenders such as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world's biggest bank by market value, in financing foreign dams.
Johan Frijns, coordinator of BankTrack, said Chinese banks funding dam schemes had to ensure they did not lend when there were serious environmental or human rights concerns.
"We know that Chinese banks within mainland China make a great effort towards sustainability," he said. "We call upon Chinese banks to ... align with their European and U.S. peers who have all adopted standards for lending."
China's dam projects at home, on the upper reaches of both the Mekong and Brahmaputra, have caused concern too. Some have worried China could use these dams politically, withholding water from downstream countries as a bargaining tool.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei on Tuesday said China had "always adopted a responsible attitude" towards such projects and "fully considered the impact on downstream countries".
"Using these projects as political clout ... I think China has every reason not to do that," said Bosshard.
"But of course, once the dams are built it always has the potential and I certainly understand if downstream countries are worried."
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Rohingyas face ‘silent crisis’ in Bangladesh – rights group
20 Apr 2011 16:42
BANGKOK/DELHI (AlertNet) – Tens of thousands of stateless Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh face abuse, starvation and detention in a "silent crisis" that could lead to a humanitarian emergency if the authorities do not do more to protect them, a report by Refugees International (RI) said.
The Rohingyas are a Muslim minority from Rakhine State in the west of the predominantly Buddhist Myanmar. Rights groups say they face some of the worst discrimination in the world and accuse the Myanmar government of denying them citizenship, free movement, education and employment.
But those who have fled to Bangladesh also face discrimination - they receive limited aid and are subject to arrest, extortion and detention, the report Bangladesh: The Silent Crisis, released on Tuesday by U.S.-based rights group RI, said.
"The situation is desperate for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh," Lynn Yoshikawa, a co-author of the report who recently returned from visiting the refugee camps, said.
"They live in squalor and are forced to suffer a litany of abuses because the government doesn't recognise them as refugees."
Bangladesh's Rohingya repatriate commissioner, Firoz Salahuddin, dismissed RI's claims. He told AlertNet the report was "disappointing" and the Rohingyas were in fact being treated well.
The Bangladesh government classes the majority of Rohingyas as illegal migrants and says they should return to Myanmar. Last year the authorities forcibly evicted thousands from a makeshift camp, prompting an outcry from aid and rights groups.
Since then, Bangladesh has increased restrictions on aid agencies working with the refugees, the RI report said.
Despite worrying levels of malnutrition at the largest makeshift camp housing about 20,000 people, "the government has denied permits for aid agencies to assist unregistered refugees and host communities," RI said. "Shelters are falling apart and are unlikely to resist the upcoming monsoons."
RI is calling on donor governments, particularly Australia, Canada, the United States and Britain, to help the Rohingyas by providing humanitarian aid, a new country to live in and funding. The rights group also wants donors to encourage Bangladesh to set up a system to register vulnerable and undocumented refugees to protect them.
"The plight of the Rohingyas has been neglected for decades by the international community and Burma (Myanmar's former name) advocacy groups, despite the scale and severity of abuses they face both as stateless Burmese minorities and refugees," Yoshikawa told AlertNet.
UNREGISTERED AND UNPROTECTED
According to Bangladeshi officials, there are almost 25,000 Rohingyas who have refugee status and who receive food rations and other aid from the United Nations. They are housed in two camps in the country's southeastern Cox's Bazaar region.
Officials say there are also between 200,000 and 300,000 Rohingyas who they term as "undocumented" - with no refugee status and no legal rights - who are living outside the camps, dependent on local Bangladeshis for work and sustenance.
Of this group, the lucky ones are in local villages while others end up in unofficial settlements where mud huts covered in plastic sheets and tree branches provide poor protection from monsoon rains that cause mudslides and expose them to waterborne diseases.
Unregistered Rohingyas have for decades lacked "basic protection from violence, exploitation and arrest" in Bangladesh, Yoshikawa said.
"(They) have exhausted their coping mechanisms and are forced into begging, prostitution and trafficking to survive."
Women and girls are particularly vulnerable, and reports of sexual violence against unregistered refugees have increased in the last year.
The U.N. Refugee Agency UNHCR does not have access to these Rohingyas and few aid agencies – if any – are officially allowed to provide assistance.
"NO ONE HAS DIED"
Bangladesh's Salahuddin dismissed RI's claims of abuses and poor living conditions, saying there had been no reports of this.
"Those that are living outside the camps are surviving well because of the hospitality of our people in the area. No one has died or starved due to a shortage of food in that area," he told AlertNet by phone from Cox's Bazaar.
Salahuddin also denied claims made in the report that authorities in Dhaka were repeatedly delaying finalising a policy on the Rohingyas and intentionally preventing relief groups from aiding them.
"The government is actually very serious about dealing with the undocumented persons and we are making a policy on the better treatment of these people," he said.
"This is a transitional time - we are trying to formulate our policy which I am hopeful will be done soon. And, after all that, these issues will be settled and their lives will be better," he said.
HUMANITARIAN CRISIS INEVITABLE
Yoshikawa, however, said a humanitarian crisis is "inevitable," if the Bangladeshi government does not address the issues facing the refugees and said there are concerns even for the officially recognised Rohingyas.
The U.N.'s World Food Programme (WFP), which provides food assistance to the official camps, is facing a $2 million shortfall in funding. It only has support to cover food needs until the end of June.
Christa Rader, WFP's country director for Bangladesh, told AlertNet the situation is "critical because the people living in the camps depend 100 percent on the food we provide".
And, despite the food aid, malnutrition levels in the camps are around 15 percent and the rate of chronic undernutrition is about 60 percent - which is considered severe. This has prompted WFP to start feeding programmes for hundreds of children under two years of age.
"What is more critical is the situation in the makeshift camps," Rader said.
The malnutrition rate in these camps is twice as high, according to RI.
The numbers are a concern even in Bangladesh which has one of the highest malnutrition rates in South Asia.
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Malaysia, Singapore to slash telecom roaming fees
1 hr 26 mins ago
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Malaysia and Singapore have agreed to slash roaming charges for voice calls and text messaging over the next two years in a landmark accord, regulators said Wednesday.
The agreement is the first bilateral deal to slash telecom roaming charges in Southeast Asia and is expected to trigger similar pacts within the region, Malaysian Information Minister Rais Yatim said.
A statement issued by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) said roaming charges for voice calls will be reduced by up to 20 percent from May 1 this year, with the cut reaching a maximum of 30 percent from May 1, 2012.
Roaming charges for short messaging services (SMS), or text messaging, will come down by up to 30 percent next month, reaching 50 percent from May 1 next year, the statement said.
IDA and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission are "currently studying" roaming charges for data services, including multi-media services and video calls, and are "reviewing the appropriate actions," the statement added.
Rais described the agreement as "the first bilateral cooperation to reduce roaming charges within ASEAN and paves the way for other similar efforts among ASEAN countries," according to the statement.
ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) groups Malaysia and Singapore with Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
The statement quoted Singapore's Information Minister Lui Tuck Yew as urging regulators from both sides to "continue to identify new initiatives to enhance connectivity."
Telecom roaming allows subscribers to use their mobile phones to call when overseas using the network of the domestic operators, but charges are expensive.
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Apr 20, 2011
Asia Times Online - False dawn on the Myanmar border
By William Corliss
CHIANG MAI - Thai National Security Council Secretary General Tawin Pleansri recently announced a proposal to repatriate over 140,000 refugees living in camps along Thailand's border with Myanmar.
The apparent justification for the proposed push back is that Myanmar's general election last November and the subsequent creation of a cabinet of mostly retired military leaders has led to a legitimate transition to democratic governance after almost five decades of military rule.
Bangkok's proposal, however, is based on the still-unfounded assumption that a cosmetic makeover of Myanmar's leadership corresponds with an improvement in the human rights situation in its border areas and fails to consider several critical concerns.
Despite the establishment of a new "civilian" government, the border communities from which many of the mostly ethnic Karen refugees initially fled and may soon be forced to return remain plagued by serious threats. By any measure, Myanmar's eastern border regions are still in a state of war pitting government forces against armed ethnic insurgent groups.
Myanmar's military continues indiscriminate counter-insurgency operations against ethnic Karen insurgents and recently launched an offensive against the Shan State Army-North, an armed organization in the eastern Shan State that previously negotiated a ceasefire agreement.
Over the past two decades, Myanmar's military government had succeeded in alleviating insurgent threats and instability through a series of ceasefire deals with nearly 20 different armed resistance groups. However, three of the largest insurgent groups, the Karen National Union, the Karenni National Progressive Party and the Shan State Army-South, refused to put down their arms and continue to operate along the Myanmar-Thai border.
During the Cold War, Thai security officials quietly supported and in instances armed ethnic insurgent groups situated along its border with Myanmar to create buffer zones from perceived cross-border threats. The demise of the Communist Party of Thailand diminished the main security rationale for maintaining that strategic insulation.
Concomitant with the improvement in Thailand's security environment and growth of its economy has been increasing commercial links with Myanmar. Bilateral economic ties built initially on logging and fish concessions in the late 1980s have evolved into an increasing reliance on Myanmar natural gas imports to fuel the Thai economy. By some estimates, over 30% of Thailand's energy supplies now come from Myanmar.
Those commercial linkages will soon intensify. Thai construction firm Italian-Thai Development Pcl recently signed a reported US$8 billion contract with the Myanmar government to invest in the Dawei port project in southern Myanmar. The trade-promoting megaproject has been touted as a future growth engine for Myanmar and will create further incentives for Thailand to prioritize economic interests over humanitarian commitments.
It is significant that Myanmar's "democratic" transition has side-stepped ethnic minority groups' autonomy aspirations. Instead, the Myanmar military continues its decades old counter-insurgency operations in ethnic areas which pose serious threats to livelihoods. These include the forced relocation, conscription, illegal taxation and indiscriminate shelling of civilians, according to rights groups.
Repatriated refugees would not only face the dangers of being caught in the crossfire of an ongoing armed conflict. They would also be subjected to systematic abuses from the military ranging from forced portering to their declaration of free fire zones in civilian inhabited areas.
Returnees would also risk life and limb by returning to areas strewn with land mines by both the military and insurgent groups. A 2009 report by the non-government organization Landmine Monitor identified 721 landmine casualties in Myanmar in 2008. The report indicated that the government has not yet developed an assistance program for landmine survivors.
Given this environment of impunity, any attempt at safe and successful resettlement would amount to a fool's errand. Refugees forced to return to a war zone in Myanmar will inevitably return to Thailand as refugees again. On last November's election day, over 20,000 civilians crossed into Thailand to escape fighting around the border town of Myawaddy. Thousands more have crossed the border since.
A premature large-scale push back of refugees coupled with plans to close existing camps would undermine the sizable investment made by Thailand and international donors in establishing mechanisms for refugee assistance and regulation. Repatriation in tandem with the dismantlement of these mechanisms would be costly and counterproductive in that a new system for humanitarian assistance would need to be reestablished once the refugees returned, as they inevitably would.
At the same time, a government-led involuntary push back would elicit harsh condemnation from international rights groups and jeopardize economic and strategic relations with Western countries that put a premium on human rights issues in their annual country reviews. Last year's forced resettlement of over 4,000 Hmong refugees to Laos resulted in calls by US Congress members to consider blocking Thai military personnel from participating in the annual US-sponsored Cobra Gold joint military exercises.
A similar move against over 140,000 refugees from Myanmar would likely provoke an even stronger outcry and undermine further Thailand's standing in the international community. That would include sharp scrutiny of Thailand's current role as chair of the United Nation's Human Rights Council and raise wider questions about the country's overall democratic direction. Influential advocacy groups in the US, meanwhile, would mobilize their considerable bipartisan support in congress to call for punitive measures against forced repatriation.
For over three decades, Thailand has graciously provided a safe haven for refugees who have fled conflicts in Indochina and the ongoing civil war in Myanmar. But the current policy push for resettlement of Myanmar's refugees will prove to be a false dawn as long as pervasive insecurity exists in its border regions. While Thai leaders may reap improved relations with Myanmar, any short-term economic benefits gained from repatriation would pale in comparison to the long-term diplomatic and humanitarian costs.
William Corliss, a pseudonym, has over a decade of experience researching Myanmar-Thai relations.
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MYANMAR: Anti-malarial drug resistance "hotspots" identified
BANGKOK, 19 April 2011 (IRIN) - Health experts had barely finished one project to contain anti-malarial drug resistance along the Thai-Cambodia border when their attention was drawn to Myanmar, where early warning signs suggest a waning influence of the anti-malarial drug Artemisinin.
Malaria is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Myanmar and a leading cause of deaths in children under five, says the UN World Health Organization (WHO).
Resistance to the previous standard treatment for malaria, chloroquine, was first reported in the 1950s along the Thai-Cambodia border. By the 1980s it had spread to sub-Saharan Africa, which has the world's highest rate of malaria mortality.
Evidence of resistance emerged from Southeast Asia once again in 2007, this time to Artemisinin, one component of the combination therapies used worldwide to control malaria. Donors, starting with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, pumped US$22 million into the border from 2009.
Charles Delacollette, coordinator of the Bangkok-based Mekong Malaria Programme with WHO, said while those huge multi-country efforts have worked to bring down reports of malaria infections, "what we are seeing along the Thai-Myanmar border seems equally serious ... to what we had at the Thai-Cambodian one".
He continued: "Myanmar is still struggling to get needed funds and support to scale up malaria control operations. The situation is not good in some areas of eastern Myanmar, with hundreds of thousands of people displaced [due to ethnic conflict].
"In some areas, there is still limited access to quality co-formulated anti-malarial drugs - Artemisinin monotherapies are still in use despite efforts of the Ministry of Health and NGOs to make [more effective combination] drugs available. And you have substandard drugs floating around."
On-going security concerns and access problems to remote communities are two weaknesses in the country's fight against malaria, according to the government's most recent funding proposal to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Health facilities are poor - if not non-existent - in eastern Myanmar, said Amnat Khamsiriwatchara, a Bangkok-based deputy director of a malaria surveillance informatics project funded by Gates Foundation along the Thai-Cambodia border.
"Most - if not all - patients of not just malaria cross over into Thailand for care where they know the health facilities are far better."
Khamsiriwatchara said his project would expand in October to record health data from Burmese migrants crossing into Thailand for healthcare with funding to Myanmar from The Global Fund.
Response
The Global Fund recently committed $19 million to fight malaria in Myanmar.
The government's vector-borne disease control programme and the Department of Medical Research for upper Myanmar are expected to set up a new sentinel site close to the Chinese border to monitor drug efficacy. There are seven sites under government supervision in the divisions of Thanitharyi and Bago, and the states of Mon, Kayin, Eastern Shan, and Kachin, which border Thailand and China, as well as Rakhine, which borders Bangladesh.
The multi-donor consortium Three Diseases Fund and the Gates Foundation have pledged an additional $12 million to fund the country's recently adopted Artemisinin-resistance containment strategy.
At a meeting earlier this month in Myanmar, health experts and donors identified three tiers of "hotspots", with the highest priority being all 10 townships in Thanitharyi Division and Shwe Kyin township in Eastern Bago Division. Tier 2 includes all townships in Kayin, Kayah, Mon and Shan States and all townships in Eastern Bago Division except Shwe Kyin. Tier 3 is the rest of the country. Interventions are expected to begin in part of Tier 1 townships in April.
According to WHO, in 2008, there were 247 million cases of malaria and nearly one million deaths - mostly among children living in sub-Saharan Africa where the disease accounts for 20 percent of all childhood deaths.
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Asian Correspondent - Burma needs to stop ethnic wars and to release political prisoners
By Zin Linn Apr 20, 2011 7:58PM UTC
At least 10 Burma Army soldiers were reportedly died in action including a battalion commanding officer and 15 injured in the combat that occurred on 16-17 April. The Shan army also seized five RPG launchers and 6 backpacks from Burmese troops, quoting a civil servant from Tangyan Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N.) reported.
None of the members from Shan army were injured or killed, the source said. The two-day siege was led by Major Sai Hseng with over a hundred men from Brigade No. 36, according to the SSA.
The SSA’s First Brigade-turned Shan State Progress Party/Shan State Army (SSPP/SSA) is reportedly expanding its controlled area to Namtu, Namhsan, Mongmit and Kyaukme townships while combating against the Burma army, as said by the local residents. The clashes between the two sides are reported almost everyday since 13 March. The SSA was given an ultimatum to lay down arms by Burma Army on 1st April. But up till now the SSA is still reportedly take no notice of it.
Throughout these days, several soldiers from Burma Army troops warring with the Shan State Progress Party/ Shan State Army (SSPP/SSA) in Shan State South have reportedly been deserting from the battlefields, local sources reported via Shan Herald Agency for News.
Up to now, the identified deserters were as many as ten; all of them were from Light Infantry Battalions (LIB) 513 and 542. The two battalions have been fighting against the Shan soldiers on 16-17 April, in Tawng Hio village in Tangyan Township, a local source said.
“The soldiers deserted during the fighting. They changed into civilian clothes and passed through the village. Five soldiers came out on 17 April and another five on 19 April,” said an eye witness.
According to a source Burma army soldiers took shelter under villagers’ trenches, bunkers and monastery to avoid shooting from the Shan armed forces. The battles between the Shan army and the Burma Army have begun since 13 March up to date and had injured and killed dozens of civilians including soldiers.
Meanwhile, the Burma Army demanded the Shan army to withdraw all of its troops that had moved to the north of Mandalay-Lashio highway. However, the Shan army has yet to give any response and is still active in the areas together with the Shan State Army (SSA) “South” led by Yawd Serk.
Last week, six Burma Army soldiers from Infantry battalion (IB) 152 based in Kholam sub-township of Namzarng township, surrendered to the SSA ‘South’ along with their weapons due to discrimination, abuses of power and forced labor, according to the SSA ‘South’.
At the same time, ten villagers in Kyaukme, Shan State North, have been detained and tortured over suspicion of collaboration with the Shan State Army (SSA) ‘North’, quoting local sources Shan Herald Agency for News said. They were detained by troops from Light Infantry Battalions 501 and 502, based in Kyaukme together with troops from Mogok, Namlan and Mongmit.
On the other hand, the family members of the detained victims are expecting helps from elected Shan representatives. The SNDP leader Sai Ai Pao is a State Assembly representative for Hsenwi and state minister for Industry and Mines. Besides, Sai Naw Kham is also a State Assembly representative for Hsipaw as well as state minister for Construction.
However, this war upon ethnic populace launched by Burma Army produces not only deserters from Burmese military but also victims from Shan villages. In addition, it forces to flee political exiles, illegal migrants and refugees into neighboring countries.
Currently, political activists in Burma have been taking historic risks with a signature-campaign to release political prisoners who are behind bars for speaking out against what they say is injustice by the government.
Some political analysts believe releasing over 2,000 political prisoners and stopping the aggressive wars on ethnic people are the most important topics to address by the new ‘Thein Sein government’. Releasing political prisoners and calling peace to armed ethnic groups would prove to the international community that new government is going along political change through the real democratic values.
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Asian Correspondent - China warns citizens in Burma of civil war
By Zin Linn Apr 19, 2011 11:11PM UTC
Although new president Thein Sein has already taken the office in the last month, no visible sign of political reform have appeared so far. There are over two thousands prisoners of conscience in Burma’s remote prisons. There is also no gesture of a softening stance on political exiles and civil war victims. The worst is that Burma’s Army is still launching offensives upon the ethnic armed groups who resist only for their basic rights, especially for self-determination.
The return of a wider civil war is knocking at the country’s door. Currently, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA)’s 5th Brigade led by Col. Saw Lah Bwe is fighting against Burma Army’s troops in Karen State by using guerilla warfare.
The Burmese military announced if ceasefire groups do not respond with an agreement on the Border Guard Force (BGF) program, they will automatically be recognized as outlaw groups. But the headquarters of UWSA have said there would be no more answer from them.
The United Wa State Army (UWSA) and National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), also known as Mongla group, have repeatedly declined to follow the Border Guard Force (BGF) program. Furthermore, the SSA North, led by Maj-Gen Pangfa, has been operating along adjoining areas which held by the non-ceasefire SSA South led by Lt-Gen Yawdserk.
Recently, China cautioned its citizens who work in Burma’s Shan State, bordering the country’s southwest Yunnan province, to come back home, the Kachin News Group [KNG] said.
The urgent warning was released by Chinese authorities at Mangshi, because fighting may flare between ethnic armed groups and the Burmese Army in the province. China is anxious recent skirmishing between the Shan State Army-North (SSA-N) and Burmese troops may widen to include two more influential ethnic armed groups – the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and United Wa State Army (UWSA) – also located in the region, sources close to China-Burma border authorities said.
The SSA-N and KIA are military allies and members of the ethnic military and political alliance known as the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), which was formed on the Thai-Burma border in last February. Additionally, a breakaway faction of SSA-North Brigade 1 led by Col Pang Fa also refused to join the regime’s Border Guard Force (BGF) plan under Burmese army command. It is estimated to be the strongest of the SSA-North’s three brigades with some 3,000 troops.
According to KNG, there may be around 2,000 Chinese working in mining, timber logging and charcoal production in the main areas of Kutkai Township and Mongkoe in Kachin State. Chinese workers are busy harvesting timber and charcoal from different areas in the two townships, said witnesses in Mongkoe. The number of Chinese trucks crossing into border town of Mongkoe, from Manghai in China, has more than doubled from 30 to about 70 trucks every day, witnesses said.
Local military analysts said the Burmese government is planning to eliminate ethnic armed groups in Northern Shan State because the oil pipeline from Burma’s western coast in Arakan State to Ruili, in China, will cross the region.
At the same time, the building of Chinese military posts in Manghai, the former headquarters of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), is about to be accomplished. The posts will monitor the political volatility in Burma, referring military analysts KNG said.
News of armed clashes between the SSA and the Burma Army have become manifest steadily in these days. Burma Army soldiers based in Shan State East’s Mongton township on the Thai-Burma border were also under surprise attacks by the SSA ‘South’ during the last month.
There has been continued skirmishing between Burma Army troops and the SSA-North in Mongshu and Tangyan Townships since last month. In line with the Thailand-based Shan Herald Agency for News, the battles are severely upsetting civilians in numerous townships. Dozens of civilians in the conflict zones were reportedly killed and injured by the Burma Army’s heavy shells. The latest report says some 1,000 people, including the injured, are seeking shelter in Monghsu Township.
So far there have been five clashes between SSAs No. 801 Battalion and Burma Army patrolling units in Kehsi Township. Currently, thousands of Burma Army troops are moving around the SSA controlled area and along the Salween which serves as a shared boundary with the UWSA.
The scenario seems starting a fresh war in the Shan State as the ethnic armed groups have a strong will in favor of their self-determination or autonomy. The junta’s recent polls become visible as sham and farce.
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Asian Correspondent - Is the EU endorsing Burma’s facelift?
By Francis Wade Apr 19, 2011 11:07PM UTC
The EU’s recent decision to modify its sanctions on Burma represents an overdue acknowledgment that policy to date has been weak and ineffective – something few would disagree with. Yet how it has gone about ‘improving’ them, surely its intended aim, is highly questionable.
A statement released by the bloc last week announced that it would suspend an asset freeze and lift visa bans on a number of cabinet officials, among them Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin. The former Burmese ambassador to the EU and one-time military man is now considered an “essential interlocutor”, the statement said, a sea change from past attempts to isolate top Burmese officials.
It added that the decision signified the EU’s willingness “to encourage and respond to improvements in governance and progress” in Burma, which last month swore in a new government with “greater civilian character”.
There is little doubt about the shortcomings and hypocrisy of the selective isolationism that has dictated EU policy to date – European ministers have poured scorn on their Burmese counterparts, implemented travel restrictions and frozen valuable assets, yet all the while its most prized companies (French oil giant Total, for instance) were propping up the junta with billions in investment dollars.
So early signals that the bloc was rethinking its approach were initially welcomed – the sanctions package could be sharpened, analysts thought, to really hit the regime in its financial pressure points. This could be a combination of tightening restrictive measures on both government officials – their movement and their ability to siphon money out of the country – and EU companies that counter the stated aims of EU sanctions.
But it now appears that the European ministers who voted in favour of the change have accepted the assertions of President Thein Sein et al that Burma is transitioning to civilian rule. The fact that it isn’t is blindly obvious in all corners of the country, bar the civilian garb now worn by these “essential interlocutors” that the EU has homed in on.
New policies should, on the whole, be dictated by tangible change, not superficial facelifts. If there are signs of stagnation in punitive strategies towards regimes like Burma, then you first look to close the gaping holes in policy that allow them to continue with business as usual. Precision targeting appears not to be in the EU’s armament, however, and moreover, commentators who pussyfoot around the issue and preach an obscurely “balanced” approach do little to aid the debate.
The EU has given little credible justification for its decision (although it may also be prudent to look more closely at those advocating for the softening of sanctions), meaning that what was once a unified, albeit problematic, international approach to Burma has become disjointed, ambiguous and even weaker.
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National Jeweler - Burma ruby headlines Doyle NY auction
Apr 20, 2011
New York--A Burma ruby sold for $1.3 million at Doyle New York’s Important Estate Jewelry auction here on April 13, more than 16 times its pre-sale estimate of $80,000.
The ruby, set in a ring by Cartier, was the highlight of the jewelry collection of the late Alice Appleton Hay, who was the daughter-in-law of John Hay, President Abraham Lincoln’s secretary. John Hay also went on to serve as secretary for Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.
Overall, the auction totaled $9.1 million, with 80 percent sold by lot and 91 percent sold by value.
Also sold from the Hay Collection was a rare gold pocket watch and perfume sprinkler in the form if a miniature flintlock pistol (below), which realized $482,500, more than three times its pre-sale estimate of $150,000.
When the trigger is pulled on the circa 1805 pistol, a diminutive flower emerges from the barrel, sprinkling the target with perfume. Manufactured for the Chinese market, the piece is one of fewer than 15 examples known to exist.
A circa 1920 platinum and diamond chain necklace from the Hay Collection brought in $452,500, more than six times its pre-sale estimate of $70,000.
Dole New York will hold a Fine Jewelry auction on June 23 and an Important Estate Jewelry auction in the fall of 2011, both to be held here.
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The Standard - Burma's hidden gem
Rob Bryan
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Waves lap the vast sweep of pristine, palm-lined sands as a sprinkling of Westerners soak up the sun, their breezy peace punctuated only by the creak of a passing ox-cart. Welcome to Ngapali, a tourist paradise, in one of the world's most isolated nations.
"I've been to a lot of beaches and this is just amazing," said retired Canadian Hugh Minielly, as he and his wife Mary watched the sun set over the azure Bay of Bengal at Burma's coastal resort of Ngapali.
Just a dozen or so hotels are hidden amid the three-kilometer stretch of palms, including some offering luxury beachfront villas for hundreds of dollars a night.
Despite the allure of its picture- perfect sands, Burma's murky political landscape has kept the beach largely under the radar of most sunseekers, who have typically looked to more well- trodden Asian shores.
Those who do venture to this country rave about the friendly locals, the tasty seafood and, above all, the lack of other tourists. "I've been looking for a beach like Goa, and this is like Goa but without the backpackers. It' so authentic," Minielly, 69, said.
Secluded spots are increasingly rare, as neighboring Thailand can attest: it saw 16 million visitors in 2010, compared with 300,000 in Burma, according to the Pacific Asia Travel Association.
"Thailand is pretty well established on this circuit, especially if you go by what you can see in Phuket, Krabi or Koh Samui, where the beaches can be really crowded," said Kris Lim of PATA, referring to popular Thai resorts.
It's a pattern found across the region as beaches fall victim to their own popularity.
For years, India's most tourist- friendly shores were to be found in the coastal state of Goa, where visitors could sip cold beer and feast on fresh seafood, enjoying the laid-back atmosphere.
But overcommercialization, allegations of police-supported drug peddling by Russian gangs and high- profile cases of violence against foreigners have tainted the state's glamorous image.
Further east in the Philippines, the central island of Boracay and its crystal- clear waters are a top attraction for visitors, but green groups and the government say the white sands are losing their idyllic charm.
In contrast, the El Nido area, on the western Philippine island of Palawan, continues to enjoy an unspoiled image, protected by its remoteness, government efforts to protect its environment and the high prices of its hotels.
Tourists use a small aircraft and a boat to get to the high-class resorts, ensuring an exclusive clientele. Local residents and businesses are also careful not to ruin El Nido's main asset, its natural beauty.
In Ngapali, locals and foreigners alike are keen to preserve its rustic appeal - but Burma, too, is quickly changing and tourist numbers are up, with last year's modest figure a nearly 30 percent rise from 2009.
Democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi, who was freed from house arrest late last year after a controversial election, still stands strongly against tour groups to Burma, which often benefit the government financially. But her party "would not object to individual tourists coming to study the situation and to find out what is really happening" in Burma, she said recently, softening a previous tourism boycott.
Antonio Dappozzo, Italian manager of the luxury Sandoway resort, warned it would be tough to retain such a peaceful atmosphere at Ngapali, where the main sound from his roadside window a year ago was of ox-carts lumbering past.
"Just a year later, now there is more noise from cars," he said.
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The Nation - 60 Burmese freed in factory raid
Published on April 20, 2011
Police rescued 60 Burmese workers yesterday from a clothing factory in Bangkok's Din Daeng area and arrested a Chinese couple who allegedly ran the factory.
The suspects - identified as Darong Wu, 50, and his wife Namee Li, 26 - were detained on suspicion of human-trafficking and labour-law violations. Police claim a worker had tipped them off.
The worker said he was lured from Burma to work at the factory, adding that they were forced to work from 8am to midnight and then locked in. He said that he was only paid a monthly wage of Bt6,000 - less than he was promised.
Li said they kept the workers locked up because they had hired Burmese workers legally before and they had run away. She said the wages were low because they were deducting the Bt15,000 that each worker owed them for becoming eligible for work.
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MinnPost - Minnesota's refugees tell compelling stories of how they got here
By Cynthia Boyd | Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Imagine a 5-year-old child in a far away land running for his life.
Then read this bit from the real-life account, the childhood memory of a man in his late 20s who asks to be called Kaw Lah, a refugee from the country renamed Myanmar, now making a life for himself in the Twin Cities.
"When military troops came to attack our villages, we had to run away. During that time I was five, maybe six years old. I just knew we were not eating or playing. The old people would say, 'We have to go,' and we would go and sleep in the cliffs.''
Kaw Lah's compelling telling is one of 16 memoirs gathered from among Minnesota's newest refugees from nine countries collected in a book called "This Much I Can Tell You: Stories of Courage and Hope from Refugees in Minnesota,'' to be released June 1.
That excerpt from their website entices me to read the stories of trauma and tragedy as well as joy, hope and dreams.
The book is the brainchild of folks who work with refugees and the storytellers are all people who were assisted by the Minnesota Council of Churches Refugee Services, a local affiliate of two agencies contracted by the U.S. Department of State to resettle refugees in the U.S.
'You listen to the news differently'
You might say the stories bring the news to our doorsteps. "I think when you're aware, when you know more about refugees, you listen to the news differently,'' says Naomi Thorson, a story collector for the project, which includes the words of women and men from Somalia, Bhutan, Iraq, Cameroon, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the country formerly called Burma.
It's a book produced thanks to a Minnesota Historical and Cultural Heritage grant from the Minnesota Historical Society. (That's the funding made possible by voters' passage of the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment.)
What better time than this, when military actions and wars around the world and threats of violence force mass movements of people? Last week the U.N. reported more than 4,500 refugees arriving in northern Chad after crossing hostile desert to escape violence in neighboring Libya. The U.S. Department of State keeps a refugee tally, along with documenting U.S. efforts to reduce those numbers. Since 1979, more than 90,000 refugees and asylees have come to Minnesota.
Still, numbers only quantify the problem. It's the people behind them who are the real story, realized Rachele King, director of Refugee Services, at the Minnesota Council of Churches, and other staff.
"As Minnesotans, we know refugees as neighbors, as coworkers, as customers, or as friends. But we don't know their stories,'' King says. "We don't know about their life before they became refugees or what they went through to find the safety we enjoy.''
Featured on the website is praise for the project from U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, Bishop Brian Prior of the Episcopal Church of Minnesota and author Julia Dinsmore. She says: "Our stories are sacred, without them we forget who we are. All respect to the brave beings who survived hells of brutality…and lived to tell us.''
Looking for storytellers
Sharing those stories became a priority a couple of years ago, and staff started asking for storytellers, with their efforts bolstered by a $7,000 grant to pay for editing and for printing by Beaver's Pond Press. The $15 book is available here.(http://www.mnchurches.org/refugeestories/)
Story collecting began with Kristin Ginger, then was passed along to Thorson, an AmeriCorps Vista volunteer and 2010 Bethel University graduate who harvested their stories, most often going to their homes to share a cup of tea and a list of questions.
Sometime just a suggestion — "tell me about your childhood'' — would release a torrent of words, she says, other times these displaced persons would need more coaxing. It was up to them how personal their stories would get, up to them whether they felt comfortable or safe using their real name or wanted to choose a pseudonym.
"Yes, there were moments of sadness and grief for what had been lost, but I also laughed a lot with the storytellers as they told funny stories from their lives both before and after becoming refugees,'' says Thorson.
And they're survivors, she said, persevering against the odd and infused with hope for the future.
Telling of their life stories became a reminder how far they've come, she said.
Still, Thorson wishes there was a way to share, too, the tapes of these courageous folks telling their stories. "There is no substitute for hearing someone's voice. I just wish others could hear them too, the inflection, the energy, the emotion.''
Especially, she said, she was affected by a mother, whose face and body registered her inner turmoil as she told how she was forced to leave her children behind. "It was gripping."
"I feel very privileged in being one of the people to hear the stories first-hand,'' Thorson says.
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GlobalPost - Opinion: New tactics needed in Burma
Sanctions don't work. The time is long overdue to change these failed policies and try a new way to achieve the same goals.
Jim Della-Giacoma April 20, 2011 10:48
JAKARTA, Indonesia — The West should start to publicly recognize what decisionmakers in the capitals already privately know — sanctions against Burma have not worked to bring about political change. The time is long overdue to change these failed policies and try different tactics to achieve the same goals.
The long-standing strategy of the United States and the European Union isolates the country now formerly known as Myanmar from the West and simply harms the poor and oppressed people it is intended to help.
It persists because of the support of the National League for Democracy (NLD), and its leader Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. While Suu Kyi recognizes that greater integration into the global economy, and improved growth, are vital to Burma’s medium-term prospects, she believes it would be premature to lift sanctions without tangible political reforms.
But despite such a principled position, sanctions are a tool that will never work while Burma is being embraced by its neighbors China, India and South East Asia.
The sanctions have not stopped the regime’s implementation of its seven-step road map to “disciplined democracy” that was boycotted by the NLD. Not even Cyclone Nargis in May 2008 could halt its steady march.
“Sanctions harm the poor and oppressed people they are intended to help.”
The sham referendum to approve the new constitution was held despite the storm. In November last year, the heavily-rigged election saw a new military-dominated parliament chosen. On March 30, the new government was installed.
The NLD chose not participate in what was admittedly a straight-jacketed process, arguably making it easier for the junta to marginalize them. But other opposition and ethnic groups have worked under immense pressures to try to make the most of the limited space offered to them.
It has not been a democratic transition, but more than the influential exile groups will admit, the authoritarian country is undergoing significant generational change after half a century of autocratic rule. In this evolution are more opportunities for expression and organized activity than have been seen in recent years.
The nascent parliamentary process is revealing information and creating expectations that can be used to hold the government to account. Any advance can quickly be reversed and international support is now needed to add momentum as these changes present opportunities for new engagement that should not be ignored.
After his installation, the President Thein Sein gave a series of public speeches setting out the administration’s policies for the coming term, which is unprecedented in Burma. He made a rather frank assessment of the many areas where improvements were required and made promises that these would be "addressed."
There was also an admission that previous policies that had been shown to be ineffective need to be changed. He acknowledged there were many skeptics domestically and internationally who needed convincing that the political transition would translate into real change. He signalled areas, such as health and education, where international cooperation would be welcomed.
While many in the country had literally switched off from these political developments, preferring to tune their television sets to Korean soap operas, nascent opposition groups inside the new parliament are looking for openings, taking political risks and finding new room to maneuver.
Last year, several local aid groups banded together to send out hundreds of volunteers to monitor the elections. Last month, opposition MPs raised questions about the country’s more than 2,200 political prisoners in public. After a question was asked in the new parliament about the slow registration process for domestic non-governmental organizations, 25 groups suddenly had their applications approved. Non-political periodicals no longer need to submit copies in advance to censors, although they must continue to self-censor. These people need more allies abroad and not extra opprobrium from exiles.
In reviewing their position, the Western policymakers must first recognize that sanctions have had a significant negative impact on the population: they undermine vital economic reforms this country’s dysfunctional economy desperately needs, polarize a situation that requires reconciliation, while creating dangerous imbalances in the country’s external economic and diplomatic relations.
Western policymakers should lift restrictions on high-level visits and encourage principled engagement with the government and dialogue with the Nobel laureate Suu Kyi. Development assistance should be increased and the EU should move to restore trade privileges that have hit the manufacturing sector and cost many jobs.
The United States should lift blunt and poorly targeted restrictions on banking, imports and investment as well as stop preventing international organizations and the Bretton Woods institutions from promoting reform in the country.
Rather than rewarding the generals, making these changes would first allow the West to stop punishing the long suffering people of Burma. The crippling debate over sanctions has retarded the engagement of Washington, London and Brussels.
Instead, they should target assistance to the poor, back a broad range of reformers inside the country, and pick up some old diplomatic tools to start working towards political solutions to Burma’s problems that benefit its long suffering citizens.
Jim Della-Giacoma is the South East Asia Project Director of the International Crisis Group and its most recent report “Myanmar’s Post Election Landscape” can be found at www.crisisgroup.org
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7thSpace Interactive (press release) - Emergency relief for earthquake victims in Myanmar approved
Source: HKSAR Government
Published on: 2011-04-20
Hong Kong (HKSAR) - The Government has accepted the advice of the Disaster Relief Fund Advisory Committee and approved a grant of $2 million from the Disaster Relief Fund to World Vision Hong Kong to undertake relief projects for earthquake victims in Myanmar.
Announcing the grant today (April 20), a Government spokesman said that the Committee hoped that the grant would help provide relief to earthquake victims in Myanmar.
"To ensure that the money will be used for the designated purposes, the relief agency has been asked to submit an evaluation report and audited accounts on the use of the grant after the relief project has been completed," the spokesman said.
The Disaster Relief Fund Advisory Committee is responsible for advising the Government on policy and practices regarding the disbursement of funds for disaster relief from the Disaster Relief Fund. The Fund was established in December 1993 for emergency disaster relief in places outside Hong Kong, as well as to advise on specific amounts to specific recipients, and monitoring the use of grants.
The committee is chaired by the Chief Secretary for Administration.Members comprise Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, Mr V Nee Yeh, Mrs Sophie Leung Lau Yau-fun, Mr Wong Sing-chi, Mrs Alice Chong Yuk Tak-fun, Mr Leo Kung Lin-cheng, the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury and the Secretary for Labour and Welfare.
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E-Pao.net - Indo-Myanmar Panel discussion held
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, April 18 2011: Department of Commerce and Industries in association with Shelliac and Forest Products Exports Promotion Council (SHEFEXIL) organised a two-day Indo-Myanmar panel discussion on export opportunities through land customs at Town Hall, Moreh.
Led by Director General Foreign Trade of Department of Commerce, Government of India, K Pujari, a large number State of delegates including 14 State Government officials and Commerce and Industries Principal Secretary O Nabakishore Singh took part in the discussion.
12 Myanmarese delegates led by Union of Myanmar Border Trade Chambers president Uhla Maung took part in the panel discussion.
While taking part in the discussion, Anup Pujari observed that traders and general public are facing inconvenience due to large number of check posts dotted along NH-39 .
Various traders, businessmen and entrepreneurs representing BTCCM, AMEA, NEFIT, EXIM Manipur, IMBTU and FAMIECCI participated in the discusion.
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International Security Research and Intelligence Agency
ISRIA - Philippines - Secretary Del Rosario Meets New Myanmar Foreign Minister
Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert F. del Rosario met Myanmar's new Foreign Minister U Wunna Maung Lwin on April 10 at the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Informal Special Foreign Ministers' Meeting on the East Asia Summit (EAS) in Bangkok, Thailand.
Secretary Del Rosario congratulated Foreign Minister Lwin on his appointment and called for stronger bilateral relations, as well as regional cooperation together with the other ASEAN member states in meeting the objectives of the ASEAN Charter.
He also noted Myanmar's roadmap to democracy, which is important in establishing a clear path to being able to join other countries of ASEAN in embracing democracy, and encouraged Myanmar to consider the release of the 2,100 political prisoners.
Secretary Del Rosario further recalled the recent business matching mission in Myanmar and called for more cooperation in facilitating business, such as the waiver of the visa requirements for businessmen interested in doing business in Myanmar as a way forward in enhancing bilateral relations.
In response, Foreign Minister Lwin thanked the Philippines for its kind assistance to the victims of the recent earthquake in eastern Myanmar. He also expressed appreciation for the strong and friendly relations with the Philippines and is committed to strengthening business cooperation with the Philippines.
He further noted that in his March 30 speech, Myanmar President Thein Sein clearly stated that elections were held, a new Constitution was adopted and the Parliament has been convened as the appropriate forum to chart the future of the country. All, including those from other Parties, should take part in the elections for national reconciliation and nation building, the Foreign Minister stressed.
Foreign Minister Lwin invited Secretary Del Rosario to visit Myanmar at a mutually convenient time, and the Secretary said that he is looking forward to the visit.
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The Huffington Post - The Time Is Right to Appoint a U.S. Envoy to Burma
By Suzanne DiMaggio
Vice President of Global Policy Programs, the Asia Society
Posted: 04/20/11 02:13 PM ET
President Barack Obama recently nominated Derek Mitchell as the first U.S. Special Representative and Policy Coordinator for Burma. The appointment of an envoy to Burma, which was called for in U.S. legislation passed three years ago, is a positive step forward in the U.S.'s evolving policy of engagement toward Burma.
Mr. Mitchell is a smart choice for this new position. He currently is the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asian affairs and previously was a foreign policy advisor to the Obama campaign, so he knows his way around the administration. He also knows Burma and the dynamics of the region well. The latter is especially important as it is clear that in order to improve conditions in Burma, the United States must find ways to a better coordinate its policies with other Asian countries. The post still needs to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, but it is expected to pass without opposition.
The timing of Mr. Mitchell's appointment is a clear signal to Burmese leaders that the United States is serious about stepping up engagement. It comes on the heels of the official dissolution of Burma's ruling military junta into a quasi-civilian government. Although top military figures continue to hold on to leadership positions following the deeply flawed elections of November 2010 -- the recent swearing in of retired general Thein Sein as Burma's new president proves that -- it remains unclear to what extent new actors participating in the country's first parliament in over two decades and state legislatures will have room to maneuver.
At this moment of potential change, every effort should be made to ramp up dialogue with all facets of Burmese society and press for desperately needed reforms. Now with an envoy fully dedicated to Burma, the United States will be able to facilitate expanded engagement with a wide range of groups inside the country, including senior government officials, politicians and civil servants in the new ministries, opposition leaders, ethnic groups, as well as representatives from the private sector and nongovernmental organizations.
Through expanded outreach, the U.S. should pursue measures designed to assist the process of developing more democratic institutions, both inside and outside government, and to encourage government capacity building.
Engaging Burma's neighbors will also be a key part of the job, especially in light of growing concerns related to Burma's reported nuclear ambitions and its troubling relationship with North Korea, greater instability along the Burmese borders as a result of military efforts to rein in insurgent groups, the continuing export of disease and refugees, and the trafficking of drugs and contraband across its porous borders.
Given that an international consensus has yet to emerge regarding approaches to Burma, the new envoy should focus on engaging China and India -- Burma's key military backers and trading partners -- as well as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to encourage reforms. Indonesia and other ASEAN countries, which once refused to criticize the internal affairs of its members, have developed both politically and economically to the point that they may have the will to press for change in Burma, a fellow ASEAN member. In particular, the envoy should focus on those ASEAN members that can bring the rest of the group along.
Another important part of the job will be to ensure that U.S. sanctions against Burma are better targeted toward corrupt political actors and their cronies, and not ordinary Burmese citizens. Related to this, the new envoy should lead an assessment of U.S. sanctions policy that takes into consideration the views of ASEAN, the E.U. and other key external and internal players.
At the same time, the envoy should continue to develop means of reaching the Burmese population directly through assistance programs. In the past few years, U.S. humanitarian assistance to Burma has expanded rapidly in response to dire humanitarian needs -- particularly in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in 2008. Supporting the growth of civil society and community development as well as small holder farmers and small- to medium-sized businesses should be a priority.
To be sure, the changes in Burma so far have been more rhetorical than substantive. It may be years before the real significance of the developments underway becomes apparent. With an envoy in place, the US will be able to act quickly and flexibly to both opportunities and obstacles and take a lead in pushing the new government to move in a positive direction. As a reinforcing step, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon should follow Mr. Obama's lead and name a full time U.N. envoy to Burma.
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The Irrawaddy - Plight of Burmese Child Sex Slaves Revealed
By BA KAUNG Tuesday, April 19, 2011
RANONG, Thailand—“The latest price of 'opening a Burmese packing' here is 13,000 baht,” explained Thidar, a Burmese prostitute in Thailand's Ranong province bordering southern Burma.
Inside the brothel of No. 3 Ranongpattani Road, a group of Burmese prostitutes reveal that “opening a Burmese packing” means a Burmese virgin girl being forced to work for the first time in the brothels of this small fishing port town.
They explain that every month around 40 girls from all over Burma—some as young as 13 or 14—are sold by human traffickers to Thai brothels in Ranong. Some are even sent to the popular tourist resort of Phuket, with around 200 Burmese girls currently working as prostitutes in their brothel alone.
“She came here for 'packing opening' three months ago,” Thidar said, pointing at a Burmese teenager sitting in the corner of the dingy room where they received Thai and Burmese customers.
Thidar herself is a former vegetable seller from Rangoon's Insein Township. She was approached 10 years ago in her local market by a Burmese woman who told her that she could make good money at a restaurant in Kawthaung, the Burmese border town on the opposite side to Ranong.
“The woman said I would have a good selling job and I wanted to earn some money,” she said. So at the tender age of 15, she left her mother and stepfather and was taken from Rangoon to Kawthaung with two female companions of a similar age.
Upon arrival in Kawthaung she was kept in a restaurant sealed with curtains for two days, but ran away after being forced into sex with a Burmese man.
“I ran away in the rain onto the streets of Kawthaung market,” she said. “When I saw a police station, I asked for help. But the lady followed me and brought me back from the police saying I would be sent home to Rangoon.”
But when she was back to the brothel again, she was tied with ropes and flogged. A few days later, she was taken with some other young girls to Ranong in a small boat and sold to a Thai brothel owner in the neighborhood of Paukkhaung.
“After I arrived, I was asked to take a pill and then I fell asleep. When I woke up, I found myself naked and smeared with blood.”
The brothel owner told her that she had to pay back the amount of money which he had bought her for. Even since then, she has been working as a prostitute and now has two children fathered by a Mon fisherman who died at sea during a storm.
These prostitutes' income depends on the number of customers they receive. For a single instance of sexual intercourse the brothel owner charges a customer 350 baht, of which the worker only receives half.
“I don't know what else to do for a living except this job. I could not undo what had happened, so I kept this job,” she said.
According to Thidar and her fellow workers, poverty and lack of care by their own parents were main reasons why they were tricked by human traffickers and forced into prostitution.
Ei Ei, in her 20s, the daughter of a sea gypsy family in Kawthaung, said she hates her mother who never sent her to school and did not look after her properly. She added that she held various jobs to support the family ever since childhood.
“I used to work on a dynamite-fishing boat and also on a squid boat at sea,” she said.
She was later approached by a prostitution broker and first arrived in a Ranong brothel five years ago. As a prostitute, she has already married four times and is now addicted to various kinds of illicit drugs which she buys with her meager wages or receives from customers in exchange for oral sex.
She said that the use of drugs, particularly a drug compound called “Asean” popular among the Burmese community there, helps her forget the harsh treatment received from her customers.
“The Burmese fishermen are the worst in abusing us. They force me to perform oral sex against my will and they also refuse to use condoms,” she said.
Like most of her colleagues, she has no identification card and thus has to pay the police a license fee of 200 baht every day.
In this town of 130,000 thousand Burmese migrant workers, the local police refuse to tackle the human trafficking issue and are even collaborating with the criminals, claims Kyaw Than, a local Burmese restaurant owner who migrated from Burma 32 years ago.
“These very young Burmese girls keep streaming in. The policemen themselves are involved in these issues,” he said.
Burmese workers in Ranong face high risks of disease including malaria and HIV/AIDS, plus limited access to medical facilities and a poor educational environment for their children. These migrants—particularly Burmese sex workers—also face police and military harassment, according to a 2009 survey by the Institute of Developing Economies.
“Some of the Thai brothel owners immediately deport Burmese sex workers as soon as they are found to be HIV positive,” said Khine Pan Zon, an aid worker for the World Vision NGO who is giving health counseling to Burmese sex workers in Ranong.
She added that those HIV-positive sex workers who continue to work often no longer care about their own lives and start abusing drugs, cutting off contact with their family members back in Burma.
There are an estimated 1,000 Burmese sex workers in the town, with nearly 40 of them said to have come from Burma's Irrawaddy Delta after it was devastated by Cyclone Nargis in 2008.
“I am now sending money to my family in Burma and will go back there once I saved some money,” said a 32-year-old Burmese sex worker from Irrawaddy Division who works in a karaoke shop.
“I just came here to get a proper job, but ended up in an unexpected life. So there is no way out for now.”
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The Irrawaddy - US Pushes Asean to Reject Burma
By LALIT K JHA Wednesday, April 20, 2011
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration has said it is unwilling to work with the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) with Burma as its chair, given its poor track record on human rights and democracy.
The US government's views in this regard are being conveyed to Asean members at a time when Burma has intensified its bid to take on the chairmanship of the regional bloc in 2014.
“I mean, obviously, we would have concerns about Burma in any kind of leadership role because of their poor human rights record and domestically, I don’t have any more comment beyond that,” the State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, told reporters at his daily news conference.
Toner was responding to reports that the new civilian government in Burma has submitted a letter to the Asean Secretariat stating its readiness to take up the group's chair in 2014.
At the 11th summit meeting in Vientiane in November 2004, under pressure from colleagues and the international community, Burma missed the chance to take the chair.
Burma wants Asean leaders to make a decision at the upcoming Jakarta summit on May 7-8, so it will have sufficient time to prepare for the year-long chair in three years time.
However, US officials said the Obama administration's position is clear—that unless Burma improves on its human rights records and addresses the issue of real democracy in the country, it will be tough for the international community to work with Asean if Burma plays a leadership role.
The State Department said it hoped that the nomination of a new special US representative to Burma by the US president last week would give fresh impetus to its policy on Burma.
“Hopefully, it will add new impetus to our outreach to Burma. But also, again, this is an individual who can also underscore our deep, deep concerns about the authoritative rule there,” Toner said when asked about the special US representative to Burma.
Meeting the long pending demand of his lawmakers, Obama, last week nominated diplomat Derek Mitchell as his special US representative on Burma. A well-known South East Asia hand, Mitchell will hold an ambassadorial rank in this capacity.
Currently the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs at the Department of Defense, Mitchell still has to undergo the rigorous confirmation process of the US senate before he can take on the new position.
“Whenever you name a senior official like this to do something, to lead our efforts in Burma, it elevates the initiative,” Toner said. “But we remain committed to our two-track approach to Burma and the engagement door does remain open.”
Meanwhile Surin Pitsuwan, the Asean secretary-general, told Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun on Monday that US approval may hold the key to the bloc's decision on Burma's chairmanship.
He said the leaders of other Asean members will decide the matter, adding that the opinions of East Asia summit members will likely be respected.
Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India are among the 16 members of the East Asia Summit alongside the 10 Asean member states.
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The Irrawaddy - Election Commission Warns Burmese Parties
By SAW YAN NAING Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Burma’s Election Commission (EC) is distributing letters warning all existing political parties not to make contact with any illegal organization, according to party leaders contacted by The Irrawaddy.
Some of the party representatives said the warning was targeted at Burmese opposition groups in exile and ethnic armed groups. Others, however, said the message was also intended to caution parties against associating with the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
Thu Wai, the chairman of the Democratic Party (Myanmar), said, “It doesn’t explain clearly which the illegal organizations are. But anyway, our party does not have contact with illegal organizations.”
He said that copies of the warning letters were distributed in early April to all registered political parties, government ministries and departments. According to the letter, authorities such as intelligence units will closely monitor the political parties' activities, he added.
“The new government has made no official announcement about the dissolution of the NLD,” said Thu Wai. “So we will continue to have contact with them.”
However, on Sept. 14, 2010, the EC officially announced the dissolution of 10 political parties, including the main opposition party NLD.
Despite the EC dissolving the NLD, many leaders of existing parties meet occassionally with NLD leaders including Suu Kyi and have held talks with her and her colleagues in the post-election period.
Nyan Win, the spokesperson of the NLD, said he believed the EC letter did not target his party and said it will be business as usual at the party offices.
Some politicians, however, said they view the move as a warning to the registered political parties to cease contact with the NLD. Several said that the new government is indirectly putting a halt to the NLD's political and social activities.
Speaking with The Irrawaddy on Tuesday, Nai Ngwe Thein, the chairman of the All Mon Regions Democracy Party, said the new government likely wants to stop the NLD’s activities as it is still very relevant and influential in Burma's current political arena.
“We have already seen that the NLD’s social activities are more active,” he said. “NLD representatives meet regularly with international organizations and hold talks with foreign diplomats. The party still enjoys a lot of public support. The new government wants to stamp down on it.”
Khin Maung Swe, one of the leaders of the National Democratic Force (NDF), told The Irrawaddy that the EC letter was simply a reminder to the existing political parties. He said the rule that states that political parties must not make any contact with illegal organizations has already been written in the party registration law, and that the EC has just repeated it as a reminder to the parties.
Under Section 12(a)(3) of the Political Parties Registration Law, any party that contacts directly or indirectly with groups or individuals launching armed rebellions or which are involved with associations declared by the government as "unlawful associations" will be dissolved.
He said he assumes the “illegal organizations” mentioned in the letter refers to Burmese opposition groups in exile and the ethnic armed groups that are based around Burma's borders.
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The Irrawaddy - EDITORIAL: Suu Kyi Must Return to Her Strength
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
When Aung San Suu Kyi emerged from her home last week to greet well-wishers during Burma's New Year water festival, revelers chanted “Happy New Year Aunty Suu” and “Long live Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.” Hundreds stopped their cars and got out to shake her hand.
Despite all the attention and accolades she receives from international heavyweights, and the undeniable importance of garnering worldwide support for her cause, it is the people of Burma that form Suu Kyi's base.
Her primary strength lies not in the people she must cater to for international pressure on Snr-Gen Than Shwe (who despite having officially “retired” continues to pull the strings of the new government) and the rest of the junta leaders, but rather in the people she represents and whose hopes and aspirations she inspires.
Suu Kyi's top priority right now should be to reunite and reinvigorate the disparate groups that make up Burma's opposition movement and inspire the country's oppressed masses to once again actively participate in the cause of freedom and democracy.
The reason for this is simple: If Burma's pro-democracy and human rights movement continues to splinter and bicker, and if the people become further disillusioned with the lack of tangible progress, then all the international support in the world will be without meaning.
We all must recognize that the task she faces is daunting and probably the most difficult challenge she has faced yet—which speaks volumes given her years under house arrest and two decades battling the regime.
In 1988, when she first stood at the base of Shwedagon Pagoda and spoke to the people of Burma, she was throwing inspirational gasoline on an already raging bonfire of anger and protest. People believed and had hope that things could change. They were ready and willing to rise up, and she provided leadership and moral guidance.
Today, however, the situation is much different. Suu Kyi must bring together the branches of an opposition movement that have been broken and scattered by the political storms, and reignite the fading embers of passion in her core supporters who have become cynical about the possibility of real change in the foreseeable future.
In order to do so, there are several initial steps she can take inside Burma.
First, she must continue her calls for reconciliation at every level and do everything in her power to work towards that goal. She has already taken the bold move—in the face of heavy criticism—of meeting opposition and ethnic leaders who were once NLD party members and/or supporters but decided to defect to contest in the 2010 election.
We think this is a step in the right direction, because she is the one person who has the clout to deflect the inevitable pot shots that will be thrown from both sides at anyone who works towards unity in the opposition movement.
In addition, Suu Kyi must heed the critics who warn that “the enemy is within” her own camp, not only with the junta. The NLD is no longer the same party that faced down the military in 1988 and won the election in 1990 by a landslide. It has become an aging and sluggish organization that many observers feel is out of touch with its younger generation of supporters.
In short, while respecting the contribution and experience of the NLD's top hierarchy, Suu Kyi must take the lead in reforming her own party. Until this happens, the party will not legitimately be able to help reform the country.
To make progress in this direction, Suu Kyi must surround herself with a mostly new team of good, wise and dedicated advisors. She must inject new blood into her own party—bringing into the fold and promoting to prominence those who can advise her on issues such as foreign relations, health, education, ethnic conflicts, human rights, trade and investment and military affairs.
Only then will she be able to form a new opposition strategy that reflects the current political, economic and social environment in a way that inspires her supporters to become active in the cause.
In addition, Suu Kyi must delegate responsibility to the new members of her team in order to develop the next generation of opposition leaders that are capable of doing political battle with the generals.
Much has been said of her unwillingness to ask the aging NLD leaders to step aside, which in large part stems from Burmese culture rather than lack of will. But for these same cultural reasons, the NLD elders must themselves recognize that the party and the opposition movement need them to put personal feelings aside, move into an advisory role and let a new generation of leaders emerge from their shadow.
In addition, Suu Kyi and her team must increase their efforts to reconcile with approachable members of the newly installed military-dominated government.
While it may not be possible to change the hardened hearts and narrow minds of the top generals, there are government servants and military personnel who admire her and listen to her voice for change.
If Suu Kyi can convince those inside the new government that have some power but lie outside the upper echelon that they have much to gain in a free and democratic Burma and much to lose if the country continues on its oppressive road to ruin, then she will have taken maybe the most important step towards true national reconciliation and real change—for the first time there will be people both inside and outside government pulling on the same oar.
Last but definitely not least, despite the security concerns it is perhaps time for Suu Kyi to begin to test the waters of her supposed “freedom.”
Upon her release, Suu Kyi said she wanted to listen to the people. She has done so—meeting with many of her supporters, young pro-democracy leaders, politicians, local NGO representatives and members of civil society groups—but most of these discussions have been behind closed doors and all have been in Rangoon.
With the new government having just been sworn in and the regime wanting to maintain the facade of increased respectability it has developed with some in the international community, Suu Kyi might now be able to spend more time on the streets with her supporters and venture outside the former capital to campaign for reconciliation.
Becoming more visible inside Burma, as opposed to in the international media, could actually do more than anything to bolster Suu Kyi's international standing.
Many of the diplomats and others in the world community whom she has met since her release don’t really know Suu Kyi and Burma. They weren't around in the late 1980s when she rallied the masses at the Shwedagon Pagoda, in the early 1990s when she gave weekend speeches at the gate of her lakeside home that drew thousands of people, or later when she risked her life in places like Depayin to meet supporters throughout the country.
As a result, the opinions of Suu Kyi voiced by the myriad international visitors she has received have been mixed—she and the senior NLD are well aware that some of the behind-the-scenes comments by diplomats who spoke and posed for pictures with her have been lukewarm.
But to truly understand and appreciate both Suu Kyi and those she represents, these new international friends, as well as the skeptics, need to see her out there playing to her strength—the people of Burma.
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Mae Sot soon to be Thailand-Burma Special Economic Zone
Tuesday, 19 April 2011 19:20 Thomas Maung Shwe
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The Thai cabinet has approved a budget for hiring a team of expert planners to design a Special Economic Zone at Mae Sot on the northern Thai-Burma border, Thai media reported on Friday.
Mae Sot, in Tak Province, is home to a large Burmese refugee and migrant population many of whom work in the textile industry.
Thai Deputy Commerce Minister Alongkorn Ponlaboot confirmed to reporters last week that the Mae Sot Special Economic Zone will comprise more than 5,600 rai (about 900 hectares) of land in Tha Sai Luad and Mae Pa sub-districts. A government sub-committee focusing on legal preparations for the Mae Sot Special Economic Zone has finalized a draft royal decree that will create a special entity to run the zone.
According to Alongkorn, the new measures will attract international investment and ensure that Mae Sot becomes ‘Thailand's West Gate’, opening the kingdom to India and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation. Thai planners also aim to link the Mae Sot Special Economic Zone to a Deep Water Sea Port currently under construction by a Thai consortium on the Burmese coast at Tavoy.
Last October, the Thai cabinet approved construction plans for a second Thai-Burmese bridge which would be equipped to handle heavy truck traffic. Work on the Burmese side of the bridge has been stalled, however, by the Burmese regime, which, critics say, appears to be delaying the progress on the project in order to win concessions from Thailand.
Mae Sot is Thailand’s busiest trading center with Burma, with more than US $325 million in trade in 2010. However, cross border trade has been significantly reduced since last July when the Burmese regime arbitrarily closed the Mae Sot-Myawaddy Friendship Bridge ostensibly over a dispute regarding the border demarcation along the Moei River which divides the two nations.
While the bridge remains closed, both the movement of people and goods between Burma and Thailand in the area has been restricted to rickety boats and inner tubes.
In many respects, Mae Sot already acts as kind of special economic zone as undocumented workers from Burma can cross into the city from Burma with relative ease. Once in Mae Sot, however, undocumented Burmese seeking to head further into Thailand are prevented from leaving the city by a series of successive road blocks manned by Thai soldiers and police.
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Stepping into the world of Aung San Suu Kyi
Wednesday, 20 April 2011 18:30 Laila de Champfleury
Rangoon (Mizzima) - The Lady is not a revolutionary. The heroine of the Burmese pro-democracy movement sat calmly, hands lightly clasped together on the table, talking to her guests who had come to quizz her about her politics and Burma’s troubled road to democracy.
Aung San Suu Kyi said, surprisingly, that she thinks revolutions are ‘not very romantic’.
The Lady, as she is known, is the face of the Burma’s democratic revolution trying to kick a brutal and entrenched military out of power in Burma. But as she sits talking to us, violent revolutionary change, like in her father’s day, is not in her vocabulary.
We were an unlikely group of 11 Danish students with their two teachers who were taking our ‘gap year’ international politics course between high school and university to the limit by plunging ourselves into the land of ‘Big Brother’–– a land of contradictions, with smiling people, golden temples and a repressive army.
It was early April, and we were sitting in the offices of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in Rangoon. Aung San Suu Kyi’s time is precious. Typically, the pro-democracy leader holds meetings with members of the NLD, important visitors and occasional journalists. Everybody wants to meet her. It is normally tough to get an interview. We had heard that it took one Danish journalist two years to get to see her and even then the meeting was brief.
So we were rather surprised to find ourselves in the cramped NLD headquarters talking face to face with the icon we had read so much about. Maybe it was due to the good contacts our teachers had with influential Burmese dissidents back home in Denmark. That was our guess.
Still, right up until the last moment, we wondered whether we would actually get to meet her.
The headquarters was packed and not fancy at all. It was like stepping into another world coming in from the street. The offices were filled with pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi and stacks of papers. Stepping in felt like opening an old secret box that had never been opened before and that you didn’t know existed. We had been shown upstairs to a room, with again, this atmosphere of underground existence and work. We sat down around a long wooden table in the room, still doubting if we would really meet The Lady.
I was sitting looking out of the half closed door at the other side of the room, just hoping that she would show up. The air in the room was thick with anticpation and then suddenly I saw her, just for a second, before she went in to the room next door with her bodyguards. She was in the building. Now nothing could go wrong. Five minutes later she came into the room. We all rose immediately. But she just laughed kindly and said, ‘Sit down, sit down’.
The Lady sat up straight with folded hands at the end of the table. She appeared graceful and feminine with the flowers in her hair, as I had imagined. She seemed mild and kind but under the surface her strong and determined nature wasn’t hard to see.
Back in Denmark, we had painstakingly prepared questions for the meeting. We were studying international politics and Burma’s troubled path and it did not take long before the questions and conversation focused on democracy.
‘Democracy is a word that is so common in the West that you probably don’t take it too seriously’, Aung San Suu Kyi said. ‘I don’t think you even realize the value of it very much’.
Turning the attention on us, she asked how many of us voted at the last election in Denmark in 2007. Many of our students put up their hands but three admitted that they did not vote, though two of them had been too young to vote at the time.
The Lady touched on an issue that we had picked up from our conversations with Burmese people in Rangoon and Mandalay. An atmosphere of fear lurked under the surface of the smiles that typically greeted us on our travels in the country. If you are a tourist, you may not notice anything untoward. But from the elaborate precautions made by a journalist in meeting with us, and from what he had to say, the government had its eye on everyone and censorship allowed only what the military junta wanted to see published in the media.
‘There is no security in this country because there is no rule of law’, said Aung San Suu Kyi. This was also one of the reasons why the NLD didn’t run in the 2010 election, she said, because her party could not accept the new Constitution that makes it legal for the military regime to make a coup and take over power whenever they felt it necessary.
Also she pointed out that unequal rights were a reason for the conflicts between the ethnic groups and the government.
‘Many of the nationalities want a more federal constitution and that is why they have problems with them. All this injustice must stop, the ethnic nationalities have refugees running away all the time, who are persecuted and really live in fear all the time in their own country. All this must change and in order to change that, we must make them feel that they enjoy equal rights’.
As a school class traveling to Burma, we were interested to learn and experience with own eyes different problems and issues in the country, which we had studied in class back in Denmark. We wanted to meet people who wanted to offer their opinion about the country now, what they wished for and how, in their opinion, it should be achieved.
My special interest was in human rights and the role of law in society. Therefore the issue brought up by Aung San Suu Kyi about the non-existent rule of law in Burma was very interesting to me.
The fact that the law in a way is the last fallback to make people feel secure, to have a line that you know when you cross it and when you don't. To have somewhere to turn to if your rights are violated. This provides the basic rights of a functioning society.
I remembered a conversation I had had with a young Burmese activist in Rangoon, who asked me how I understood the meaning of the term democracy. I answered with things like freedom of speech, the freedom to choose for yourself, having access to free and fair elections, and so forth. He agreed that these were of course really important for a democracy but that in his opinion, the most important thing is the division of power, between the judiciary and the government. This was his wish and that it would someday be like that in Burma.
The Lady gave us yet an example of the way the regime has the power of decision in their hands. ‘Any member of the NLD that is brought before a court for political reasons is bound to lose the case. We know it from the beginning. We always say, before they take us to court they have always decided how long the person is going to prison for and how they will handle him, and then they take the person to court’.
But even though this is the case, NLD members still get to have a lawyer mostly for a moral protection, she said. To have somebody standing up for them, somebody who can say that they have been falsely accused and that they have committed no crime other than believing in certain ideas and living accordingly by them.
‘We only know about the law when it affects us. Otherwise, we don’t know it in detail. So these cases provide us with an opportunity to teach our people what their rights are. How their rights are being violated in the courts. Nobody can feel safe if the law cannot protect him or her’.
We had heard that The Lady was tired of being asked about sanctions, so we skipped that and asked about her own efforts for change.
‘Too often in Burma people rely on me or my party to bring about the change they want’, she said. ‘The most important thing is to give them the understanding that they are capable of bringing about change’.
She said she was still determined that the NLD should remain a political party, with the goal of bringing democracy to Burma, despite the move by the authorities to disband it.
She also made it clear that only one strong figure leading the country isn’t good for a democracy, that there should be at least a few strong figures to choose from, to make politicians take more care in their actions
As for the policy of the NLD, we found it hard to obtain a concrete answer from her about their political programme and standpoint, whether they might consider themselves Left wing or Right wing.
‘When you don’t have democracy you don’t think about Left or Right or whether it's going to be a welfare state or not’, she said.
The NLD, she said, should be a centered party with the ideal dream of giving children free basic schooling and a free health care system for the people, though she made it clear that there was a very long way to go.
One question we had been asking a number of activists who we had met on our visit was the method that should be used to bring change in Burma, whether they favoured revolution or another way. We asked Aung San Suu Kyi, the icon for change in Burma.
‘I'm not a great advocate of revolutions, because revolutions are not very romantic’, she told us. ‘Some think they are a quick answer, but the wounds run very deep, and these wounds take a long time to heal. Sometimes on the surface there has been change, but actually it's not that kind of change that anybody hoped for, because these festering sores go on for a long time. I believe that the best way for change is through political negotiations and settlement’.
Her response was both surprising and yet equally understandable. From what she had experienced, her periods of house arrest, the brutal attack on her group when they went traveling upcountry in 2003, and the deaths during the 2007 ‘Saffron Revolution’, there were clearly questions about the efficacy of revolution.
Burma is not Egypt, Tunisia or Libya. Nor is it the Burma that her father, Aung San, fought the British colonialists for just before independence, only to fall to the bullets of assassins in 1947.
‘I keep repeating the big difference between Burma and Egypt’, she said, noting that protestors in Cairo were able to demonstrate for a long period before there was a crackdown. In Burma, there was rapid ‘blood-stained repression’ … and ‘I think that people’s psyche has undergone great trauma’. It takes time, she said, to recover from such an experience.
Two hours had passed and it was time to leave. We were surprised the meeting had taken place. So many things could have gone wrong, we thought. She could have been whisked off again under house arrest. We could be denied access by a policeman standing on her doorstep or she could simply have found something more important to do that day than to waste her time on a bunch of students.
What we found interesting was how seriously she took the meeting. We were of course very excited and anxious to meet her. But the feeling seemed mutual. Every time one of our group asked a question, she would look directly at the person, nodding, really listening to the question before answering, expressing seriousness and sincerity.
To round off the meeting, we gave her some gifts including a book of fairytales by the world famous Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen, which she was happy about. She told us that when she was a little girl, her mother gave her a plate with a motive of the little mermaid on it from this book.
We sang an old South African freedom song for her from the Apartheid era. This was a song that the Africans could sing because they sang it in their own language, Zulu, which the ruling Boers could not understand.
At the end, Aung San Suu Kyi shook hands with all of us individually, and we all walked out of the office feeling ecstatic.
As we walked out onto the street, we realized that meetings like this cannot be kept a secret in Burma. Four photographers snapped photos of us. What they will do with these photos we will never know. It is a clear sign of their paranoia and the strong will of people to live in a free Burma.
Laila de Champfleury was part of a group of 11 Danish students and two teachers who spent 10 days in Burma in early April as part of their international politics course at college.
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In Burma: Big Brother controls the Internet
Wednesday, 20 April 2011 19:04 Thea Forbes
(News Analysis) – Burma’s xenophobic military-dominated government enforces a strictly Orwellian regime of politicized censorship in order to control and restrict the Burmese people’s freedom of expression and access to information via the Internet.
Freedom House, the Washington-based independent watchdog organization, ranks Burma the second worst country in the world for oppression of Internet freedom, with Iran as the most oppressive. Estonia came in as the country with the Internet most free followed by the USA, Germany, Australia and the UK.
In a recent study on Internet freedom, ‘Freedom on the Net 2011’, Freedom House said the Burmese government ‘makes aggressive attempts to regulate access to the Internet and digital media, control content, and punish citizens for any online activity that is seen as detrimental to regime security’.
It placed Burma on the list of countries that had ‘substantial censorship of political or social issues in 2009-10’ and where Websites or blogs of government opponents faced cyber attacks.
In Burma, the mere act of accessing the Internet is difficult due to a lack of infrastructure and the general widespread poverty in the country. Aside from numerous international and domestic sites being blocked, users are also subjected to surveillance in cybercafes. Cybercafe owners are also subject to strictly enforced licensing rules that require them to monitor users’ screens, keep users’ records and to cooperate with criminal investigations.
Although access to the Internet has slowly improved in recent years, Freedom House estimates that only 1 percent of the total population in Burma has access to the Internet. The study noted that of the 520 registered cybercafes, most are located in country’s main cities.
Routine Internet Manipulation
During potentially volatile and politically sensitive times, the regime controls Internet freedom in two ways: it enacts total shutdowns or it strategically caps the bandwidth of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to limit the flow of information that can go out or come into the counry, Freedom House says.
The government restructured the country’s ISP system in October 2010, creating a new Ministry of Defence ISP that separated military and civilian access to the Internet. Freedom House’s recent study claims the restructuring of Internet infrastructure could enable the government to sever civilian access to the web, whilst maintaining access for military users.
Last month, the government banned use of the Internet for ‘voice over Internet protocol’ (VOIP) overseas calls. Banning the easily accessible and relatively cheap Internet call services such as Skype and Pfingo means contacting people overseas through the Internet is made much more difficult for Burmese people inside the country, with alternatives being far too expensive.
There are more than 10, 000 blogs in Burma’s ‘blogosphere’, with blogging becoming the ‘fastest growing aspect of Burmese Internet use in 2010, registering a 25 per cent increase from 2009’, according to the Freedom House study.
Reportedly, approximately half of the number of Burmese bloggers live outside the country.’ To combat the increase in blogging power,, the junta set up a ‘Blog Supervising Committee’ in every government ministry in 2007 to counter outside bloggers and foreign or exiled media, the study claims.
Popular Burmese Internet blogger Shwe Zin U told Mizzima: “The Internet is really important, but everyone in Burma can’t use the Internet. Even though some use it, they can’t use it well because of the slow connection. It’s necessary to communicate worldwide, but that’s not as important as Burmese communicating with each other inside Burma.” Shwe Zin U said she often posts to her blog at midnight when the connection seems to be faster.
In the wake of the ‘Spring revolution’ toppling governments in Tunisia and Egypt and provoking armed conflict and political turmoil in the Middle East, the Burmese government is clearly aware of the potency and infectious power of the burgeoning popularity of online social networking. The Chinese authorities’ paranoia of a civic uprising following those in the Middle East was evident as the authorities lined central streets with police and blocked words such as ‘jasmin’and ‘revolution’ on the Internet.
Internet Laws
The regime in Burma has introduced three laws regarding Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) to try to further control Internet use: the Myanmar Computer Science Development Law, the Wide Area Network Order and the Electronic Transactions Law.
Under Section 33 of the 2004 Electronic Transactions Law, Internet users can face up to 15 years in prison and/or heavy fines for ‘receiving or sending and distributing any information’ that is considered damaging to state security, law and order, community peace and tranquility, national solidarity, the national economy or national culture.
By establishing harsh punishment for even simple acts of freedom of expression or for accessing information via the Internet, the government in Burma creates a culture of fear regarding ‘subversive’ thought and material, and perhaps most dangerously, it fosters a culture of self-censorship.
Pervasive surveillance
During the mass popular protests in 2007 led by Buddhist monks, the regime completely shut down connection to the Internet via the state-run ISP from September 27 to October 4.
Similarly, in 2008, during the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, bloggers and Internet users were arrested and thrown in jail for posting video and photo material that was deemed critical of the government’s response.
Burmese web-users also complained of slowed and sporadic access to the Internet in the run up to and during the general elections in November 2010. The regime also restricted access and slowed the bandwidth of ISPs during the politically charged atmosphere of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s release a week after the elections.
‘According to ICT (Information Communication Technologies) experts in Burma, the state-controlled ISPs occassionally apply bandwidth caps to prevent the sharing of video and image files, particularly during politically sensitive events', said Freedom House.
The study also said that the junta sometimes disables mobile phone networks in areas where protestors mobilized or where explosions have occurred in the past.
Exiled media groups also suffered distributed denial of service (DDoS) cyber-attacks, most probably sponsored by the junta, temporarily shutting down their websites during last year’s election period.
With the regime's intelligence agencies and Information Ministry implementing sometimes arbitrary, but often timely (for the regime) blocks on e-mail and social networking, the Burmese people daily experience an infringement on their freedom of access to the Internet. While the regime exploits the benefits of ICTs for business and propaganda uses, its prohibitive measures towards public use are evident.
Judging from recent events, Big Brother’s grip on the Internet will not be relaxed anytime soon.
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DVB News - MoE claims huge gas reserves
By JOSEPH ALLCHIN
Published: 19 April 2011
Burma’s ministry of energy claims that the country has reserves of some 89.722 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, domestic news reported, contrasting greatly with outside estimates that put the figure much lower.
Burma’s statistics under military rule are notorious for their lack of reliability – the recent figures from the energy ministry would mean that Burma has more natural gas reserves than the entire European Union. The US Energy Information Agency (EIA) thinks however that the proven reserves are closer to 10 trillion cubic feet.
Gas and oil reserve figures are often a highly sensitive area of state apparatus, and are kept a secret in major producer nations such as Saudi Arabia.
The latest “data”, which was reported in the Weekly Eleven news journal, comes hot on the heels of a new decree announced this month that gives Burma’s president supreme authority over natural resource exploration and mining.
Natural gas exploration and sales in particular should have a massive impact on the public purse and subsequent wealth of the nation.
The IMF has noted that gas revenue has a “small fiscal impact” in Burma as a result of the misappropriation of funds, only accounting for around one percent of earnings when in fact it could have, or indeed should have, accounted for an enormous 57 percent.
If Burma does indeed have nearly 90 trillion cubic feet of reserves, this figure would amount to a huge rise in the revenues of the country’s most valuable legal exports, particularly if the reserves are exploited by the multitude of foreign companies queuing up to do so.
The EIA estimates that Burma exported roughly 300 billion cubic feet in the years 2008 and 2009. This figure will likely double when the trans-Burma Shwe gas pipeline comes online in 2013, delivering oil and gas to southwestern China.
According to the Steel Business Briefing, the dual pipeline will have a capacity of over 400 billion cubic feet annually. If these figures are even remotely believable, then there could be a surge in interest from international buyers and a subsequent surge in exports, albeit short-lived if the figures turn out to be false.
This assertion however contrasts with statements previously made by former Burmese energy minister Lun Thi, who in 2008 reportedly stated that the country did not have enough gas to supply neighbouring Bangladesh.
President Thein Sein’s authority over the gas sector will, according to economic analyst Aung Thu Nyein, include the ploughing of gas revenues into a “fund to protect state security” which will likely be immune to public or parliamentary scrutiny.
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