BURMA RELATED NEWS - OCTOBER 08- 09, 2011


Myanmar censorship chief 'calls for press freedom'
AFP News – Sat, Oct 8, 2011

The head of Myanmar's repressive state censorship body has called for press freedom in the army-dominated country -- even suggesting his own department should be shut down, according to a report.

Tint Swe, director of the Press Scrutiny and Registration Department set up more than four decades ago, told Radio Free Asia that censorship should cease as part of reforms under the new nominally civilian government.

"Press censorship is non-existent in most other countries as well as among our neighbours and as it is not in harmony with democratic practices, press censorship should be abolished in the near future," he said in an interview.

But he added that newspapers and other publications should accept press freedom with responsibilities.

He also said newspapers were being allowed to publish reports on pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released shortly after last November's election, without restrictions that were previously imposed.

"There are no restrictions now on coverage for Aung San Suu Kyiâs activities and more freedom is expected in the near future as the country undergoes democratic change," he told the broadcasting corporation.

Since the new administration came to power in March after controversial November elections, Myanmar has announced a slight easing of strict censorship rules for some publications, whilst keeping a tight grip on news titles.

Publishers were told in June that sports journals, entertainment magazines, fairytales and the winning lottery numbers would not need to have prior approval from the information ministry before they are printed.

But the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said last month that Myanmar's media remained among the world's most restricted, calling for an end to "draconian" reporting laws and for the freeing of jailed journalists.

The CPJ said the new regime had done little to ease restrictions, while two journalists have been given lengthy jail sentences since the election.

In September, Myanmar's Internet users were able to see banned media websites for the first time, including the BBC and exiled media organisations such as the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB).

But the move, which was not officially announced, came in the same week that a court added an extra decade to the sentence of a journalist jailed over his work for DVB. He now faces 18 years in prison.
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China paper defends Myanmar investment
By Michael Martina | Reuters – Fri, Oct 7, 2011

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese projects in Myanmar spur economic growth and guarantee environmental protection, Chinese state media said on Friday, defending infrastructure investment there from public opinion it said had been hijacked by foreign press.

Beijing has pressed for an "appropriate solution" after Myanmar shelved plans for the $3.6 billion Chinese-backed Myitsone dam, slammed by opponents for forced relocation of residents and environmental damage.

"In recent years, Chinese companies have been active in building Myanmar's economy and have provided large amounts of advanced technology and equipment," the ruling Communist Party's official newspaper, the People's Daily, said.

The paper said a network of hydroelectric dams relieved power shortages and that bridges built across the Irrawaddy River would improve transportation and promote development.

"Looking at public opinion in Myanmar, as some non-government organisations do not trust the government and have been influenced by foreign media, very few present positive information regarding Chinese investors..." it said.

Experts from the two countries, the article said, had found the environmental impact to be "rather small".

China Power Investment Corp, which had been building the Myitsone dam project, met the demands of Myanmar's government and used World Bank and Asian Development Bank
environmental impact assessment standards, the report said.

It had spent more than $25 million resettling people on the upper reaches of the Irrawaddy, creating a model for local village construction, the paper said.

"The people of Myanmar have clearly not received full and accurate information ... especially in regard to Chinese investors' fulfillment of social obligations and contributions to local society," it said.

Economic relations between China and Myanmar -- formerly known as Burma -- are booming, with trade rising by more than half last year to $4.4 billion. China's investment in Myanmar reached $12.3 billion, according to Chinese data.

Myanmar, under comprehensive sanctions by Western countries for human rights issues, also sees Beijing as an important diplomatic ally. The People's Daily report lashed out at the United States and Europe for those sanctions.

"Because of U.S. and European sanctions, Myanmar has received the least international development aid among so-called most impoverished nations," it said.
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Asian Correspondent - Can press freedom be a reality in Burma?
By Zin Linn Oct 08, 2011 6:01PM UTC

The director of Burma’s authoritarian state censorship board – the Press Scrutiny and Registration Department – gave a rare interview to the Washington DC based Radio Free Asia (Burmese Branch) Saturday. Tint Swe, a retired major and head of PSRD, said that he believes press freedom will come in accordance with democratic norms within an appropriate time in Burma, which has been ruled by a nominally civilian government since March this year.

He even expressed his personal view that his own censorship office should be shut down, RFA broadcast Saturday. Tint Swe said that the PSRD has been created since 1962 under the late Gen Ne Win’s regime.

The Printers and Publishers Registration Law was introduced shortly after the 1962 military-coup that brought Gen Ne Win and his Burma Socialist Programme Party to power forcibly. Under this law all printers and publishers are required to register and submit copies of books, magazines and periodicals to Press Scrutiny Boards (PSB) for scrutiny prior to publication or production, or in some cases after. The PSB, which was under the Ministry of Home and Religious Affairs, had general powers to veto publications and command revision in line with the junta’s policies, often at a large cost to the publisher.

In 1989, sentences under the Printers and Publishers Registration Law were increased to seven years imprisonment and fines of up to 30,000 kyats ($5,000).

Tint Swe told Radio Free Asia that censorship should come to an end as part of democratic reforms under the new civilian government.

“There is no press censorship office in most countries in the world including our neighbors and as it is not compatible with democratic norms, press restrictions should be abolished in the near future,” he said in an interview with RFA Burmese Service.

But he added that newspapers and other publications should accept press freedom with responsibilities.

In response to the question concerning democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, Tint Swe said that news journals and periodicals have been allowed to publish photos and news reports on pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi exclusive of restrictions that were previously forced.

“The coverage for Aung San Suu Kyi’s activities is not restricted now and further press freedom is predictable in the near future as the nation go through democratic change,” he told the RFA Burmese Service.

Since the new President Thein Sein’s government came to power in March after controversial November elections, Burma’s information minister has announced an insignificant moderation of inflexible censorship rules for some journals and periodicals, whereas keeping rigid limitations on political and economic news issues.

In June, sports journals, entertainment magazines, and other publications have been allowed to publish without permission in advance from the PSRD.

In September, Internet users in Burma could access banned media websites for the first time, including the BBC and exiled media organizations such as the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB).

Journalists in Burma have received draconian jail sentences for reporting information challenging the regime. In January 2010, DVB reporter Hla Hla Win received a 20-year sentence for violating the Electronic Act, and is now in jail serving 27 years; her helper, Myint Naing got seven years. There are a total of 17 DVB journalists behind bars.

Photojournalist Sithu Zeya was sentenced to eight years in jail last December. Zeya was sentenced by the military controlled court in Insein prison for his photos of the scene of an explosion at a traditional water festival pavilion in Rangoon in April 2010. Sithu Zeya’s father, Maung Maung Zeya, also a video reporter for DVB, was sentenced on February 4, 2011 to a total of 13 years in prison by an arbitrary court in Rangoon.

Paris based Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) ranks Burma 174 out of 178 countries in its 2010 press freedom index. The country is one of the few in the world to operate such a strictly censored system. Burma’s ranking was expected and well deserved. In fact, there is no press freedom at all in Burma.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also said last month that Burma’s press freedom remained among the world’s most restricted, calling for an end to “draconian” reporting laws and for the freeing of jailed journalists.

Unless the Thein Sein government guarantees human rights including the freedom of expression and freedom of association, people will not believe that the government is on the right track of reforms.
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The Nation - Burma sets scene for opposition party comeback
October 9, 2011 11:13 am


Rangoon - Burmese authorities are considering amendments to election laws that could pave the way for Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party to re-enter national politics, news reports said Sunday.

The election commission submitted the bill last week to revise the Political Party Registration Law, promulgated last year by the then-ruling junta, the Myanmar Times weekly reported.

The National League for Democracy (NLD) opposition party led by Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi, has demanded amendments to the law as a pre-condition to register as a political party and possibly contest an upcoming by-election planned in December or early next year.

The NLD refused to contest the November 7 polls, partly because the registration law banned people serving jail sentences from party membership.
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Washington Post - Burma showing signs of reforms
By a Washington Post Correspondent, Published: October 8

RANGOON, BURMA — When Eleven Media Group sent a photographer to take pictures of flooding in central Burma last year, police suspected subversion and detained the journalist for three days.

This week, the Rangoon-based publisher printed not only photos of buildings submerged by yet another round of floods but also the picture and words of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and two other veteran foes of the government.

Burma’s political “weather is changing,” said Than Htut Aung, Eleven Media’s chairman, who, like many others here, believes that for the first time in decades, one of the world’s most repressive states is serious about reforming its autocratic ways.

In recent days, Rangoon, Burma’s biggest city, has swirled with unconfirmed reports that a new government installed in March is about to release possibly hundreds of jailed political prisoners. The inmates range from dissident writers and veteran democracy campaigners to purged military insiders such as reform-minded intelligence officers ousted in 2004.

“I think the change is real, or it should be real. We have to push to make it a reality,” said Eleven Media’s chairman, a former student activist who controls four weekly journals.

Whether Burma, also known as Myanmar, really is set on new course is a question now stirring excited and also anxious debate not only here in Rangoon but also in Washington, where officials are discussing whether to add some carrots to a policy previously focused on promoting change through economic sanctions and other sticks.

When Burma got a new president, former military commander Thein Sein, in March even optimists didn’t expect much, if anything, to change. The new leader -- a longtime ally of now retired but still feared military strongman Senior Gen. Than Shwe -- took office after an election widely dismissed as a fraud designed to solidify the military’s grip.

Since then, however, overtures to Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and standard-bearer of Burma’s resistance to autocracy, a raft of new legislation and a general easing of previously harsh controls on public discourse have surprised even critics of Burma’s government and also Western diplomats.

The biggest surprise came last week when the president, in a letter to parliament, announced he was halting a hugely unpopular Chinese-financed dam project on the Irrawaddy River. The government, said the president, “is elected by the people and has to respect the people’s will” -- a novel departure in a country where, since a military coup in 1962, governments have either ignored the people or, as happened when citizens took to the street in protest in 1988 and 2007, silenced them with gunfire and mass arrests.

Eleven Media played a leading role in voicing public opposition to the dam and stoking nationalist fury at China’s growing economic clout in Burma. “Our country is in danger of becoming a satellite state of China,” said Than Htut Aung, the chairman.

The new government, or at least elements of a still largely opaque leadership, apparently agree: Official censors have allowed unusually frank discussion of deals struck with China under Than Shwe, who ruled from 1992 until this year.

The recent suspension of China’s dam venture, said Kyaw Thu, a civil society activist, marks “a watershed between two stories -- between an old story of military dictatorship and a new story of democracy.”

‘It is time’

Under U.S. and European sanctions for more than a decade, the impoverished Southeast Asian nation is now desperate for rapprochement with the West, seen as a counterweight to the influence of authoritarian China.

“It is time for the U.S. and Western countries to show support for the government,” Kyaw Thu said. Sanctions, he added, should be “reconsidered.”

Burma remains far from free. The Press Scrutiny Department, the government’s censorship agency, for example, still vets pre-publication copies of all journals that touch on politics and axes articles and images it doesn’t like with a big X in red ink. Nine of 15 cartoons in the most recent issue of a news weekly published by Eleven Media got X-ed, though most of the articles escaped unscathed.

Many topics, particularly the corruption of senior generals and their cronies, remain taboo and the modest opening hasn’t erased decades of suspicion and fear. A prominent writer who asked not to be named described the change as “landscaping.”

Win Tin, a former political prisoner and founding member of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, dismissed the new government’s shift so far as cosmetic. “There is no tangible change,” said the 80-year-old opposition stalwart. That, he said, will come only when the government frees all political prisoners.

Burma’s leaders for years denied even the existence of political prisoners. The new government has acknowledged them and made plans for a possible release.

Win Tin, who himself spent 19 years in jail, still wears a blue prison jacket and vows not to take it off until Burma’s jails are empty of political detainees, who are variously estimated to number between 600 and more than 2,000.

Buying and selling

Many of the changes initiated under President Thein Sein simply acknowledge long-established but previously outlawed facts. Thanks to the opening this month of a state-sanctioned currency exchange, for example, citizens in Rangoon, also known as Yangon, can now buy and sell U.S. dollars without fear of arrest -- instead of having to rely on technically illegal but nonetheless widespread money-changers.

The government has also stopped trying deny the central role of Suu Kyi, who was released from house arrest late last year and, since March, has held a series of meetings with senior officials. President Thein Sein received her as an honored guest in the country’s new capital, Naypyidaw, a remote, grandiose and heavily policed town hacked from the forest by the previous military junta.

In a recent interview with the BBC’s Burmese-language service, Suu Kyi said “we are beginning to see the beginning of change” but added that it is too early to judge where this will lead. “I’d like to see a few more turns before I decide whether or not the wheels are moving along,” she said.

A new law allowing trade unions was passed in September and other legislation permitting protests, albeit highly restricted ones, is due soon. The government has also set up a Human Rights Commission, though it is not yet clear what it will do.

Restrictions on the Internet meanwhile have also been relaxed, meaning that sites such You Tube, CNN and the BBC’s Burmese service are no longer blocked. Erratic, snail-speed connections still make surfing the Web difficult.

Print media censors haven’t yet given up their red felt-tip pens but, according to editors, use them more sparingly. Photographs of stalwart foes of the regime are no longer banned.
But Win Tin, the former political prisoner, said it makes no real difference that a small photo of himself appeared this week in Weekly Eleven News, along with pictures of Suu Kyi and another democracy campaigner. Authorities, he said, “want to show they are changing, but allowing my picture to be published is not real change.”
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Channel NewsAsia - Myanmar risks Chinese anger to woo the West
Posted: 09 October 2011 1112 hrs

BANGKOK: Myanmar's suspension of a controversial mega-dam project is the latest glimmer of change from a regime reaching out to the West at the expense of ties with traditional ally China, experts say.

The surprise decision to halt construction of the Chinese-backed hydropower project for several years at least -- risking the anger of Beijing -- was a rare concession to public opinion in the authoritarian nation.

It was also the latest conciliatory gesture by the new nominally civilian government towards its critics, including Western nations who impose sanctions on the regime, the suppressed pro-democracy movement and armed ethnic rebels.

"In recent years Burma has been seen as a client state of China," said Gareth Price, senior research fellow at the Chatham House think-tank in London, using the country's former name.

"Maybe they feel after this political process that they have gone through that there's a need to distance themselves from China," he added. "So they think they are going to get some new friends and sanctions will be lifted."

In March Myanmar's junta announced it was disbanding following the first election in two decades, held in November, which handed power to a new government headed by President Thein Sein, a former general and junta premier.

Initially derided by critics as a frontman for the military, Thein Sein has surprised many by promising a range of political and economic reforms, although sceptics argue nothing has yet been done that could not be easily reversed.

In announcing the suspension of the $3.6 billion Myitsone Dam hydropower project in northern Kachin state in late September in the capital Naypyidaw, Thein Sein said the government had a duty to "respect the will of the people".

The project has long been opposed by residents in the area, where fighting has flared up recently between government troops and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), one of several armed ethnic militias around the country.

Resistance to the dam had also been growing among pro-democracy and environmental activists in the main city of Yangon, with small protests testing the new government's proclaimed tolerance of freedom of expression.

The halt "is a significant signal that Naypyidaw intends to send to multiple audiences: Beijing, Washington, the KIA and the local public," said Maung Zarni, a researcher and activist at the London School of Economics.

For the people of Kachin, the Myitsone dam has come to symbolise the struggles they have faced for decades as a marginalised ethnic group in the repressed nation under almost half a century of military rule.

So the suspension of the project "holds out a hand to the Kachin people, who are very doubtful as they fear a possible renewal of the civil war," said Renaud Egreteau, a Myanmar expert at the University of Hong Kong.

It also reflects "the strength of feeling that Myitsone provokes at the heart of Myanmar's civil society," he added.

The United States praised the suspension, describing it as a "significant and positive step" that suggested the leadership was listening to its people.

President Barack Obama's administration, which has pursued both diplomatic engagement and continued sanctions against Myanmar, has welcomed signs of political change in the Southeast Asian nation.

Myanmar appears eager to engage with Washington and see sanctions lifted, even if its relations with China suffer as a result.

"There is absolutely no love lost between Naypyidaw and Beijing and many in Naypyidaw believe that it is only Western sanctions that have pushed them into an unnatural dependence on China," said Thant Myint-U, author of "Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia".

The US administration has in particular welcomed the Myanmar leadership's dialogue with democracy icon and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who met the president for the first time in August.

Suu Kyi for her part has said she believes Thein Sein genuinely wants to push through reforms, but cautioned it was too soon to say whether he would succeed.

Thein Sein is widely thought to face resistance from regime hardliners, while Western governments are calling for Myanmar to release its estimated 2,000 political prisoners to show it is genuine about wanting to reform.

Local activists have also called for the suspension of another controversial project to transport gas by pipeline from Myanmar's western coast to China, which appears to have been taken by surprise by the halting of the dam project.

China's official Xinhua news agency quoted Lu Qizhou, president of China Power Investment Corp, the energy giant behind the dam project, as saying he was "totally astonished" by the move, which he learned of through media reports.

Sean Turnell, an expert at Australia's Macquarie University, said Beijing was also likely to have been surprised by the suspension.

"They have got used to a compliant leadership in Burma that has allowed more or less unfettered Chinese access to energy and resource extraction --- regardless of the environmental and human costs of it," he said.
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Myanmar, Thailand to strengthen ties
Published: Oct. 6, 2011 at 2:05 AM

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- Thailand will seek to strengthen ties with neighbor Myanmar, visiting Thai Prime Minister Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra told her hosts.

During her one-day introductory trip to Myanmar, which currently has a civilian government, Shinawatra met with President Thein Sein and praised the country's progress in promoting democracy and reconciliation, the Thai News Agency reported.

Both Thailand and Myanmar, which was formerly called Burma, are members of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations. She invited Thein Sein to visit Thailand.

In her talks with Myanmar leaders, the Thai leader stressed her country's policy of not allowing any armed group to use its territory to launch any offensive move against the Myanmar government, the report said.

She urged Myanmar's cooperation to reopen the border checkpoint at Tak's Mae Sot-Myawaddy as a way to boost trade and other economic cooperation. The checkpoint was closed last year.

The report quoted President Thein Sein as saying the process would be speeded up once bridge repairs are completed.
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The Globe and Mail - Myanmar seeks to repair China ties
LESLIE HOOK
BEIJING— Financial Times
Published Friday, Oct. 07, 2011 4:32PM EDT

Myanmar, also known as Burma, is to send a vice-president to China in an effort to soothe tensions after the suspension of a $3.6-billion (U.S.) Chinese-backed dam in the country cast a shadow over ties between the normally close allies.

News that Tin Aung Myint Oo will visit Beijing came as Chinese state media launched a defence of Beijing’s investments in Myanmar, with The People’s Daily, a state-run newspaper, accusing foreign media of stirring up public opinion against the scheme.

China, the world’s biggest consumer of energy and commodities, has huge energy and infrastructure projects in resource-rich neighbouring countries, including Myanmar, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Laos. In several cases, neighbours’ opposition to Chinese influence has been growing, particularly in the countries that contest Beijing’s claims to territory in the South China Sea.

China’s strategic interests in Myanmar range from hydropower to mining to natural gas, and Beijing is also Myanmar's biggest lender. But last week’s surprise decision to suspend construction of the Myitsone Dam – which the Myanmarese government said was based on public opposition to the project – underscores growing anti-China sentiment in the country and could be a warning sign for other Chinese interests in Myanmar, analysts warn.

“The Burmese regime feels that we have to balance Chinese clout,” said Aung Zaw, editor of the Irrawaddy Magazine. “There is a growing fear of Chinese influence … They realize they have been heavily dependent on China for so long.”

Earlier this year, U.S. diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks revealed that Myanmarese officials secretly chafed under China’s influence and hoped that closer ties with the U.S. might serve as a buffer against Beijing.

Recent political reforms have led to louder criticism of Chinese investment in Myanmar because the space for debate has been slightly expanded, analysts say.

The suspension of the dam project by Myanmar’s authoritarian government came after rare demonstrations in the country’s biggest city, Yangon (Rangoon), and was welcomed by de facto opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and others as a sign of reform in the country.

Beijing has been a key ally for Myanmar at the United Nations Security Council, and has previously used its veto power to block resolutions against the regime. In return, China has been in prime position to tap Myanmar’s natural resources, particularly the large offshore gas fields that were the subject of a bidding war between China and India. China has poured capital into the country, investing $10-billion in Myanmar during the 2010-2011 fiscal year. New loans worth $7.4-billion have been announced during the past two years.

The suspended Myitsone Dam, which lies close to the Chinese border and was already under construction, was being developed by China Power Investment (CPI), a state-owned Chinese power group, and funded by Chinese loans. The dam was the first of seven scheduled to be built on the Irrawaddy River, and would have provided China’s Yunnan province with much-needed electricity.

Beijing’s most strategically important project in Myanmar is a set of oil and gas pipelines that will run from the Bay of Bengal into southern China, providing access to oil shipments from the Middle East without sending oil tankers through the Strait of Malacca, off Singapore, and the South China Sea. The pipelines will also ship natural gas from Myanmar’s offshore gas fields into southern China, creating a key source of revenue for the Myanmarese government.

Analysts say the pipeline project, being built by China’s largest oil producer CNPC, and other large hydropower projects in Myanmar could be next in line as anti-China sentiment grows.

The pipeline project has faced opposition from activists as well as local ethnic groups, particularly in the Shan state, where a decades-long military conflict is still going on between the Shan and the Myanmarese.

Chinese energy and infrastructure companies have been paying increasing attention to community relations and political risks in their overseas projects, following the high-profile evacuation of Chinese workers from Libya earlier this year.

CPI said the Myanmarese government decision was “very bewildering” and said a large amount of money had already been spent on construction preparation.

“If suspension means construction halt, then it will lead to a series of legal issues,” said CPI president Lu Qizhou in an interview with state media.
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International Herald Tribune - Detecting a Thaw in Myanmar, U.S. Aims to Encourage Change
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and THOMAS FULLER
Published: October 6, 2011

WASHINGTON — The United States is considering a significant shift in its long-strained relationship with the autocratic government of Myanmar, including relaxing restrictions on financial assistance and taking other steps to encourage what senior American officials describe as startling political changes in the country.

The thawing, while in its early stages, follows a political transition in Myanmar after deeply flawed elections last year that nonetheless appears to have raised the possibility that the new government will ease its restrictions on basic freedoms and cooperate with the repressed opposition movement led by the Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

The new president, U Thein Sein, a former general who was part of the military junta that ruled the country for two decades, has in six months in office signaled a sharp break from the highly centralized and erratic policies of the past. Mr. Thein Sein’s government is now rewriting laws on taxes and property ownership, loosening restrictions on the media and even discussing the release of political prisoners.

The apparent shift offers the United States the chance to improve ties with a resource-rich Southeast Asian nation that after many years of semi-isolation counts neighboring China as its main ally. Last week, Myanmar’s new leadership unexpectedly halted work on a $3.6 billion dam strongly backed by China, prompting angry criticism from the Chinese government and the state-owned Chinese company that was building it.

The Obama administration, though skeptical, has responded to this new openness with a series of small diplomatic steps of its own, hoping that a democratic transition in Myanmar could bring stability and greater economic opportunities to the region at a time of increasing American competition with China over influence in Asia.

“We’re going to meet their action with action,” the administration’s newly appointed special envoy to Myanmar, Derek Mitchell, said in an interview. “If they take steps, we will take steps to demonstrate that we are supportive of the path to reform.” Mr. Mitchell spent five days last month in Myanmar, meeting with senior leaders in the government and opposition. That visit was followed by two meetings in New York and Washington last week between senior State Department officials and Myanmar’s new foreign minister, U Wunna Maung Lwin.

Mr. Wunna Maung Lwin, whose travel in the United States is normally sharply restricted, was the first foreign minister from Myanmar invited to the State Department since the military junta took power.

The motivation for the changes has baffled American officials and others, but Myanmar appears eager to end its diplomatic isolation and rebuild a dysfunctional economy that has trapped the country’s population of 55 million people in poverty, which the government acknowledged for the first time in Mr. Thein Sein’s inaugural address in March.

Members of Mr. Thein Sein’s government have since met several times with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released from years of house arrest last November and whose name was so demonized by the previous junta that it was typically whispered in public. She, too, has expressed cautious support for what appears to be a political opening.

The government has also for the first time discussed with her and American officials the possibility of releasing hundreds of political prisoners, after years of denying there were any at all. The government has even assembled a list of those it is considering releasing. About 600 people are on it, though opposition leaders and diplomats say that there are nearly 2,000 political prisoners listed in a database compiled by an organization in Thailand. “We told the government we cannot accept their list,” said U Win Tin, a founding member of the National League for Democracy, Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party. “We gave that message to the government, but we don’t know yet whether they will change their list.”

Even so, the senior administration official said that the mere acknowledgment that Myanmar held political prisoners reflected a significant shift in the new government’s attitude.

Signals like that, even if tentative, have begun to win over skeptics who have seen false dawns before in Myanmar.

“It’s very exciting,” said Priscilla A. Clapp, who was the chief of mission at the United States Embassy in Myanmar from 1999 to 2002. “They are moving into a more pluralistic form of government. I wouldn’t call it totally democratic. But things are changing very rapidly.”

Ms. Clapp and others warned that the changes, which are exceeding expectations inside Myanmar and abroad, remained a work in progress. “Any transition this dramatic is a recipe for instability,” she said. “Anything can happen. There could be a coup, a counterrevolution.”

Senior Gen. Than Shwe, who led the junta for nearly two decades and stepped down in March, remains an uncertain factor in the tumultuous transition. It was under General Than Shwe’s leadership that the government carried out a deadly crackdown on protests led by Buddhist monks in 2007 and restricted foreign aid in the aftermath of a cyclone that killed more than 100,000 people.

The reasons that General Than Shwe ceded power to the current government have not been fully explained beyond the notion that he was ready for retirement. In leading the drive for reforms, Mr. Thein Sein appears to be siding with a younger generation of military officers who believe that maintaining the junta’s oppressive policies and hermetic attitudes toward the outside world would be a dead-end path for the country.

The decision by Mr. Thein Sein last week to suspend work on the giant hydroelectric dam on the Irrawaddy River was interpreted by many as a sign that the president was moving out from under the shadow of General Than Shwe.

Obama administration officials are now debating additional steps to support the nascent changes and encourage more, including the creation of a truly democratic political system and an end to violence against Myanmar’s ethnic minorities. The outreach is being closely coordinated with Congress, with other countries, including members of the European Union, and with Myanmar’s opposition.

“We’re not looking to move I think any faster than anyone else here,” Mr. Mitchell said. “I think we’re all looking to move step by step. We are going to test. There is no single point where we are absolutely certain that reform is going to be sustained and irreversible.”

Myanmar faces American sanctions first imposed in 1997 and expanded as recently as 2008. One hundred senior officials or businesses remain on the Department of the Treasury’s list banning any commercial trade. Lifting those sanctions would require new legislation in Congress. That is unlikely to happen unless Myanmar convinces its critics that its transformation is fundamental.

In the meantime, though, the administration is considering waiving some restrictions on trade and financial assistance and lifting prohibitions on assistance by global financial institutions, like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. An I.M.F. team is scheduled to visit this month for consultations on modernizing the country’s exchange rate system and lifting restrictions on international transactions.

Assistance like that is needed to overhaul what for years was a Soviet-style planned economy, where the military ran factories producing soap and bicycles. Ancient-looking cars still ride on potholed roads, and some buildings look as if their last coat of paint was applied during the days when Myanmar was a British colony, known as Burma.

Many in Myanmar remain unconvinced that genuine democracy has arrived.

“All these Western countries are hearing about some changes and they are very happy and keen,” said Mr. Win Tin of the opposition party. “I think that’s wrong. They should listen very carefully and wait to see whether what this government calls change is real and genuine.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton echoed that caution. She recently noted what she called “welcome gestures” but raised a series of issues. “We have serious questions and concerns across a wide range of issues — from Burma’s treatment of ethnic minorities and more than 2,000 prisoners to its relations with North Korea,” she said, using Myanmar’s colonial name, which is official American policy.

She added that the day before she spoke, a 21-year-old journalist was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Myanmar.
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The Times of India - India looks east, to Vietnam and Myanmar
Indrani Bagchi, TNN Oct 8, 2011, 03.32AM IST

NEW DELHI: India is putting its Look East policy in high gear with New Delhi preparing to welcome two important heads of state next week - Vietnamese president Truong Tan Sang and Myanmarese president Thein Sein. They will hold talks with PM Manmohan Singh and sign agreements.

The visits, which will be closely followed by China, come at a time when both countries are having their own difficulties with China. While China has been rubbing up against Vietnam on their differences on South China Sea (which Vietnam calls East Sea), Myanmar surprised everyone recently by blocking a dam being built by China in the Kachin state.

Despite their difficulties with China, though, both Vietnam and Myanmar are taking care to see that they remain deeply engaged with Beijing. Coinciding with Truong Tan Sang's visit to New Delhi, the Vietnamese government is sending the chief of the Vietnam Communist Party Nguyen Phu Trong to China to talk to the Chinese leadership about issues related to the South China Sea.

Similarly, Myanmar's vice-president, Tin Aung Myint Oo, will also travel to China next week -- ostensibly to attend the opening of a China-Asean trade event -- but in reality to explain
Myanmar's decision to block the $3.6 billion Myitsone dam, following environmental protests.

As Southeast Asia's fastest growing economy, Vietnam is an attractive partner for India, quite apart from the strategic component. However, defence and strategic issues are likely to dominate discussions between the two sides. Vietnam has allowed India the use of the Nha Trang port, which is situated very close to Cam Ranh Bay, a strategically important area, formerly used by the Americans. Vietnam only opened Cam Ranh Bay to foreign vessels earlier this year, largely to counter an assertive China.

India now has growing naval and maritime relations with Vietnam, with reports that India might, at some point, consider exporting its smaller nuclear reactors to Vietnam as well as meet Hanoi's demands for the Brahmos super-cruise missile. There is no confirmation that any of these are on offer at present.

Soon after the visit of the Vietnamese president, India will play host to Thein Sein -- this will be his second overseas visit after taking over. India's ties with Myanmar have deepened, with the neighbour playing a proactive role against Indian insurgents crossing over. India is investing in a multi-modal transport system in Myanmar, though it cannot hope to counter the huge Chinese presence in the country.

Thus, Myanmar's decision to shelve the Chinese-built dam project Myitsone in response to popular protests drew fire from Beijing. Countering Myanmarese protests, China's Communist Party publication, People's Daily, blamed "foreign media" for the protests. "In recent years, Chinese companies have been active in building Myanmar's economy and have provided large amounts of advanced technology and equipment... Looking at public opinion in Myanmar, as some non-government organisations do not trust the government and have been influenced by foreign media, very few present positive information regarding Chinese investors," it said, adding the environmental impact of the project was "rather small".
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Philippine Star - Myanmar to host ASEAN-Japan Business Meeting
(philstar.com) Updated October 09, 2011 04:30 PM

YANGON (Xinhua) - The 37th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Japan Business Meeting (AJBM) will be held in Myanmar's former city early next month, sources with AJBM holding committee said Sunday.

To make development of potential trade and economic relations between ASEAN and Japan, the three-day meeting is scheduled to take place at Sedona Hotel in Yangon from Nov. 2 to 4.

Such business meeting with ASEAN and Japan will be the first of its kind hosted by Myanmar.

A large number of entrepreneurs from all ASEAN countries and Japan will participate to discuss on the fields of economic, trading and investment cooperation, the sources said.
Some the memorandum of understanding (MoU) related with industry, hotel and tourism sectors will also be signed during the meeting, it added.

"We had tried to host such meeting four years ago, "U Khin Shwe, a Myanmar top entrepreneur, who will be also the chairman of upcoming AJBM told Xinhua.

"A total of 120 chairmen and top entrepreneurs from ASEAN countries and Japan as well as over 120 Myanmar entrepreneurs are listed to attend", he said.

"It is the best time to explore the opportunities to invest in Myanmar as the new government is making changes on economic and other sectors," he added.

Myanmar joined the ASEAN along with Laos in July 1997, ratified the ASEAN Charter in July, 2008.

Last month, Myanmar was admitted to the ASEAN Inter- Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) as a permanent member which was announced at the 32nd AIPA held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

It expects to adopt a variety of documents on political, economic, social and women affairs, rights of migrant workers, and drug fighting in order to build stronger cooperation and relations among the ASEAN member countries.

ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Japan and ASEAN share a close relationship based on a long history of friendship.
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Daily Pioneer - Myanmar-India meet to boost security, trade ties
Sunday, 09 October 2011 23:57
Sandhya Sharma | New Delhi

Risking Beijing’s ire, a high-level delegation of Myanmar Government lead by President U Thein Sein would be in New Delhi next week to boost security and trade ties with its Asian neighbour.

The visit come at a time when relationship between Beijing and Myanmar are going through a rough patch, the recent one being latter’s decision to stall a mega dam project built by Chinese companies.

Myanmar’s ex-general President U Thein Sein will be in India from October 12 to 15 with a bid to enhance security and cross border trade. New Delhi is also understood to be keen to put Myanmar in its strategic scheme of look east policy to counter Beijing’s rise.

Thein Sein will be accompanied by a ten-member Cabinet. After assuming Presidency in March, Sein undertook a journey to Beijing on his maiden State visit.

Sources in the Myanmar Embassy told The Pioneer that New Delhi is as important for Myanmar as China. “We consider both our neighbours important for our country.”

Accompanied by his Border Affairs Minister, Sein will have a crucial meeting with his counterpart, Border Minister for the north east region Paban Singh Ghatowar, sources said.

The deeper engagement between India and Myanmar is highlighted by the fact that Sein will be accompanied by Minister of Energy and Power, Industry, Science and Technology, Agriculture and Irrigation, sources said.

The move by the supposedly civilian Government to engage with New Delhi is seen a move to get out of the iron grips of China. Myanmar is looking at the Western world and India to boost its security and trade relations with other countries.

In a surprise decision that underlines the growing rift between Myanmar and China, the Sein Government recently called off a controversial Chinese backed mega dam projected. The $3.6 billion Myitsone Dam hydropower project in capital Naypyidaw was shelved in late September.

However, many believe that China is unlikely to give in easily over the project, which is part of a broader scheme to build seven dams, the majority of whose power will feed its booming economy.

India and Myanmar are also expected to sign three MoU in the area of science and technology, upgradation of hospitals in the country and expansion of cross border highway roads. The development of ambitious cross border highway project Rhi-Tidim and Rhi-Falam road projects connecting the two is also on the cards, sources said.

With the goal of countering Chinese influence in the region and to exploit the tremendous energy resources of Myanmar New Delhi is also eager to engage Sein Government despites its controversial human right record.

In June a first high level delegation comprising External affairs minister SM Krishna visited Myanmar. The visit was central to establish ties with the newly elected leadership in the country after the Military Junta won the democratic elections in the country.

Sein will be travelling to Bodh Gaya in Bihar on October 12, then head to Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh and then to Varanasi. He will land in Delhi on October 14.
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Himalayan Times - Attack on Chinese boats in Mekong River kills 11
Last Updated At: 2011-10-10 12:11 AM

Eleven Chinese were killed and two missing after their cargo boats were attacked in the golden triangle area of the Mekong River, state media said on Sunday.

The two ships, the Hua Ping and Yu Xing 8, were attacked on October 5, according to the Xinhua news agency, which said China's leaders were "paying close attention to the matter".

The foreign ministry in Beijing has asked the Chinese embassy in Thailand and consulate general in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai to investigate and do all they can to find the missing crewmen, Xinhua said.

Beijing had also asked "relevant countries" to take measures to improve the protection of Chinese ships and sailors in the Mekong River, the report said, quoting a statement on the ministry's website.

The Mekong River region comprises Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and China's Yunnan Province.
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Bangkok Post - Opinion: Yingluck snubs Suu Kyi
Published: 7/10/2011 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News

By not meeting Aung San Suu Kyi during her first official visit to Burma, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has shown her true colours. This is ironic, since the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship was instrumental in her own election victory.

Yingluck's failure to meet a fellow woman in an obvious leadership role also raises eyebrows. It contradicts her pre-election speeches supposedly advocating the elevated status of women in patriarchal societies.

Thaksin Shinawatra also previously held dubious links with the Burmese dictatorship. It seems his little sister is following suit, and doing as her big brother demands.

JULES
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The Asian Age - Insurgents planned Burma camp
Oct 08, 2011 |
AGE CORRESPONDENT With agency inputs

|The two arrested Northeast-based insurgents of the People Liberation Army (PLA) were in Delhi to plan setting up joint training camps of the PLA and CPI (Maoist) in Burma.

The code name of N. Dilip Singh was N. Wangba while self-styled lieutenant and Arun Kumar Singh Salam’s code name was Willow.

The insurgents reportedly were staying in a Delhi hotel using fake IDs. Singh had come from the Northeast while Salam came from Pune where ran a travel agency. “Salam was sent there with a specific task,” he said. Following the arrests, the Pune police raided Salam’s residence and seized a laptop and books.

Salam is a post-graduate with an interest in geopolitics. The police seized books on Maoist ideology, intelligence units and security forces, guerrilla warfare, ambush and counter-ambush, the Nepali Maoist movement and its implications, battle psychology, counter-insurgencies and proceedings of the PLA in coded language.

The police also said that in 2010 Salam met CPI (Maoist) politburo leader Kishenda and others in Jharkhand. In October 2008, the PLA and Maoists signed a joint declaration against the Indian government. It was signed by the secretary-general of the RPF (PLA’s political arm), S. Gunin, and Maoist leader “Alok”. Singh had joined the PLA’s armed wing in 1988 as a “sepoy” and was promoted to “captain” in 2009, while Singh joined the outfit in 1997 as a “sepoy” and in June 2011 became a “lieutenant”.
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The Irrawaddy - Ethnic Armed Groups Should be Treated Equally
By AUNG LYNN HTUT Friday, October 7, 2011

The Union of Burma, which was peaceful and stable for nearly 20 years, is now engaged in an internal war under the new so-called civilian government. But while the Burmese military is engaged in clashes with ethnic armed groups in Kachin, Karen and Shan States, the new government is avoiding armed conflict and negotiating with ethnic Wa and Akha militias.

Apparently, the new government is more interested in making peace with those ethnic armed groups under heavy Chinese influence.

In 2009, the Burmese army did attack the China-backed Myanmar National Democracy Alliance Army, an ethnic Kokang group, for not agreeing to its proposed Border Guard Force (BGF) plan. But Burma had to cease its operation due to strong pressure from Beijing.

Currently, although the Burmese army is engaged in serious fighting with the Kachin, Karen and Shan groups, it has never been bold enough to launch a military offensive against the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), both of which are supported by China and have grown their military strength through the drug trade. Instead, a governmental delegation led by Aung Thaung and Thein Zaw—both trusted disciples of Snr-Gen Than Shwe and both the chairman of a parliamentary sub-committee—was recently sent to the Wa and Mong Lar areas to negotiate with those groups.

During their meeting, both parties reportedly agreed to institute and keep a ceasefire, to open liaison offices in order to maintain contact, to inform each other prior to movements of arms and troops beyond the agreed boundary and to continue consultations at a time and place convenient to both.

The agreement was signed on the government side by Col Aung Thu, the minister for security and border affairs in Shan State , Lt-Col Zaw Htun Myint, the first-class general staff of the Triangle Region Command, Maung Maung, the attorney-general in Shan State, and Aung Kyaw Myint, the head of border area development in Shan State. For the UWSA, Kyauk Kwam Amm, Pao U Lian and Aung Myint signed the agreement. San Pae, Khan Haung, Aike Shen and Zin Kham Naw signed for the NDAA.

In 2009, the previous Burmese military regime threatened to take military action against the UWSA and NDAA if they did not accept the BGF plan. However, the current government signed a peace agreement with them while attacking the Kachin, Karen and Shan ethnic armed groups.

The UWSA and the NDAA had previously made an agreement with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) to help each other in case of an attack by government troops, but they broke their promise and joined hands with the new administration.

The insincerity of the President Thein Sein-led government is obvious—it is working for peace for the Wa and Akha people, most of whom live in China, while neglecting peace and stability of Burma's main ethnic nationalities such as the Kachin, Karenni (Kayah), Karen, Chin, Mon, Arakan and Shan.

Even though the new government said it now practices a free and active foreign policy, Burma has become, without willingness, a colony of China. It is heart-aching to see that the government is working in favor of the Chinese even in its internal affairs.

I want to ask army officers, who repeatedly claim that the country's real strength lies within, why they have to fight their fellow countrymen. Why do they have to bring trouble to the army, ethnic armed groups and civilians after being peaceful for nearly 20 years? If they can understand the Kokang, Wa and Akha, why can’t they give the same understanding and agreement to other ethnic groups who proclaimed Burma's independence together with the Panglong Agreement?

I served in the Burmese military for over 30 years—both in and out of uniform—for the previous governments. During my service, I particularly had to deal with ethnic affairs for a number of years. As far as my colleagues and I understood since we first joined the service, when we had to pledge our commitment, the army is to safeguard the lives of the people. It is not to torture or kill its own ethnic nationals and was not formed to be used for an individual group or any dictator.

In any armed conflict, casualties from both sides will be inevitable and innocent people will suffer. Most of those from the Army who have died were junior officers and lower ranks. It is very rare that senior officers die on the battlefield. Family members of those junior officers and soldiers have to pray for the safety of their loved ones, while the relatives and disciples of the military top brass are enjoying wealth and comfortable lives.

If you look at the current generals in the army, you will see that even the commander-in-chief has zero military ability. Most of them previously remained close to their seniors, taking positions as a personal assistant, security officer or general staff.

None of them bravely or brilliantly fought in any battle.

There will be more and more widows and fatherless children in the army should those generals follow orders without any thought and vision. The rate of disabled persons in the army will be increased. Once someone becomes disabled he will be dismissed from the army with hardly enough compensation. If no one helps him he may end up being a beggar.

I may be accused by the generals of attempting to create dissension within the army. In fact, the reality cannot be denied. Soldiers have pledged that they would sacrifice their lives for their country and race, and I am just pointing out a meaningless war between our own nationalities. I am just urging soldiers not to accept unjust war.

The army is now fighting with ethnic armed groups in Kachin, Karen and Shan States, using heavy weapons that were bought by selling off property such as jade fields, forests and mines that belonged to the people in those states now being attacked.

I used to meet and spoke friendly with Saw Bo Mya, the former leader of the Karen National Union, Zaw Mai, the former leader of the Kachin Independence Organization, and Naing Shwe Kyin, the former leader of the New Mon State Party. They said that if we were to fasten the corpses of those who died during the civil war it would reach from the south end of the country to the north. They said it was time to stop and talk to bring peace to the country.

Ethnic leaders feel that successive Burmese governments, from the time of the Panglong Agreement to the current administration, have lied to ethnic nationalities. The current situation reflects their feelings. At the time ethnic armed groups entered into ceasefire agreements with the previous military regime, they were told that they would be able to talk about politics and other affairs once a new government was sworn in. However, that promise was broken and the ethnic armed groups were pushed to transform into members of the BGF, resulting in the current tensions and armed clashes.

I want to tell members of the Burmese army and ethnic armed groups that you are not people from another country. You are ethnic brothers and sisters living on the same soil. You are just killing each other because of what military dictators have done to the country. None of your deaths look good to both sides.

Understanding is essential and the war will end if soldiers in different armies do not treat each other as enemies.

In recent months, when soldiers from a government's battalion did not follow an order to fight the KIA, the military top brass reportedly dared not take action against those soldiers and only charged the battalion commanders.

I want to ask members of the Kachin, Karen and Shan armed groups to remember that there are many ethnic people in the Burmese army. Except in unavoidable circumstances, I think you need to avoid shooting at the Burmese army and give them understanding.

What I want to ask of the dictators, who are responsible for all of the problems that Burma faces, is that they look at their own country. People are in poverty and pain from decades of civil war. You should drop your pride and vanity. You should agree with other ethnic groups the way you agreed to the Wa and Akha. You should also look at your soldiers. Their military ability has deteriorated—will they be able to compete with a foreign country?

Development of new political tactics is acceptable. But please do not apply them to the country’s ethnic nationalities. Please talk to them and not take action unilaterally. Trust is needed.

If the new government wants to attain a dignified standing in the international community, its needs trust both from within and outside the country. The previous governments lied to their own citizens and the international community, and the current one still does the same, such as claiming there are no political prisoners and child soldiers in the country.

I wish President Thein Sein would fulfill his words.

Ex-Maj Aung Lynn Htut is a former counter intelligence officer and deputy chief of mission to the US. He sought political asylum in Washington, DC, in 2005. The opinions expressed in this guest commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Irrawaddy.
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Mon State government and NMSP meet to discuss peace
Friday, 07 October 2011 21:16
Kun Chan

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Delegations from the Mon State government and New Mon State Party (NMSP) on Thursday conducted peace talks in a government military compound in Ye Township, said Nai Hong Sar Pon Khaing, a NMSP foreign affairs official.

In a one-hour meeting, the NMSP repeated its previous positions and policies, said NMSP General-Secretary Nai Hong Sar. The NMSP, with an army of about 3,000 soldiers, is based at the top of Ye Stream in Mon State in southern Burma.

“We proposed that the government announce a nationwide cease-fire and to hold a dialogue with the UNFC [United Nationalities Federal Council] to solve political problems. Our party did not demand any other things separately. They said they will pass on our messages to their superior officers,” Nai Hong Sar told Mizzima.

It was the first meeting between the two parties since the previous cease-fire was broken. Delegates from the Mon State government included the Mon State Minister for Security and Border Affairs Colonel Htay Myint Aung; Colonel Tun Tun Nyi of the Southeast Command; and Mon State municipal officials. The NMSP delegation comprised central executive Nai Tala Nyi; central committee member Nai Baya Lai; and Lieutenant Colonel Nai Hong Sar.

In 1994, the former junta, the State Law and Order Restoration Council, and the NMSP held four meetings at the government’s Southeast Command and achieved a cease-fire in mid- 1995. Recently, the former junta ordered the ethnic armed group to transform into a Border Guard Force and people’s militia group, and the 15-year cease-fire was broken.

In September, Mon State Chief Minister Ohn Myint proposed that the central government form a peace mission led by Nai Lawi Oung aka Nai Myint Swe, the Mon State minister of electric power and industry, but the proposal was rejected because most of the nominated members of the peace mission were former NMSP members, according to sources close to the Mon State government.

The Overseas Mon Coordinating Committee (OMCC) issued a statement on Monday asking the NMSP not to engage the government in peace talks without members of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) taking part.

The NMSP is a member of the UNFC, which comprises an alliance of ethnic armed groups. The UNFC has allowed its member groups to meet with relevant state and regional governments as an initial step, but all cease-fire and political discussions must involve the UNFC as a whole.

The Burmese government issued an announcement to all ethnic armed groups on August 18, saying: “As the first phase, those national race armed groups wishing to make peace through solutions to armed conflicts may contact the State or Region government concerned to launch preliminary programmes [talks].”

In late September, a delegation led by Colonel Aung Lwin, the Karen State minister for security and border affairs, met with the Karen National Union, a member-group of the UNFC, on the Thai-Burmese border to offer to hold peace talks. The KNU replied that it wanted discussions with the central government, not with the Karen State government, according to KNU sources.

Shan State Army-South (SSA-S) spokesman Major Sai Lao Hseng said that in late September, the SSA-S accepted the Shan State government’s offer to engage in peace talks, but the location and the time for the talks have not been set. SSA-S is not a member of the UNFC.

On October 1, a delegation led by Thein Zaw, the chairman of National Races and Internal Peacekeeping Committee and secretary 2 of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party, and the leaders of the United Wa State Party held a meeting, but government negotiators rejected some key demands of the Wa.

Similarly, government representatives met with the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) aka the Mong La group last week as an initial step to discuss peace. The meetings will continue within a few days.

The UNFC was formed on February 17 to work to establish a genuine federal union. It comprises both ethnic cease-fire groups and non-ceasefire groups. There are six dedicated member groups and six associate member groups. The group aims to cooperate in resisting the government’s political pressure for individual cease-fires and its military offensives.
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Kachin Women’s NGO urges UN to condemn atrocities in northern Burma
Friday, 07 October 2011 21:32
Thomas Maung Shwe

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Representatives of the Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand (Kwat) charged on Friday that Burmese troops are committing wide-scale human rights abuses including rape and torture in areas controlled by Burma’s second largest armed rebel group, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO). Fighting between the KIO and the government broke out on June 9 in northern Kachin State and neighbouring Shan State after a 1994 cease-fire between the two sides collapsed.

The Kwat spokespersons also criticized a recent report issued by UN General-Secretary Ban Ki-moon’s office which it said downplayed the war between the Burmese army and the KIO. The secretary-general’s report titled “Situation of human rights in Myanmar” was submitted to the UN General Assembly in September and covered the time period August 26, 2010, to August 4, 2011.

The report concluded that the outbreak of hostilities between the Burmese army and the KIO poses the “risk of an escalation into large-scale violence and open fighting for the first time since the signing of a cease-fire agreement in 1994.”

The Kwat representatives said that it own report “Burma’s Covered Up War: Atrocities Against the Kachin People” which they released on Friday proves that large scale violence has been going on for more than four months in the areas where the Burmese army has launched its offensive.

Kwat spokesperson Hkawng Seng Pan told Mizzima “the Burmese army is committing violent human rights abuses, including rape, murder and forced labour in places where it is fighting against the KIO. Ban Ki-moon and the UN must speak out about what is happening so the killing stops.”

Hkawng Seng Pan said that while the rhetoric and tone of the Burmese government may have changed recently, the actions of the country’s armed forces has not. She told Mizzima: “You can see clearly how the Burmese government is working; the Army is fighting and killing ethnic people while Thein Sein is speaking about human rights to a Parliament full of generals and former military officers.”

Hkawng Seng Pan said her organization had documented numerous human rights abuses committed by the Burmese army against civilians during the three-month period beginning the day after the outbreak of fighting between the KIO’s armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), and the Burmese armed forces.

The Kwat report’s details include the accusation that on August 9 in Kachin State’s Bum Tawng Village in Wai Maw Township soldiers from the Burmese army’s 37 Battalion “gang raped and then killed” a 39-year-old women and her 17-year-old daughter before torturing the girl’s 44-year-old father. According to Kwat, incidents like this are occurring frequently. Kwat says that of the 37 rape cases they documented during the first two months of the conflict, 13 of the female victims were killed. Kwat also estimated that at least 25,000 people have been displaced by the fighting so far.

The bleak picture painted in the report is somewhat of a contrast to the UN report’s description of recent events in the same area. A UN spokesperson, however, defended the report. In an e-mailed statement sent to Mizzima, Choi Soung-ah said: “The report of the secretary-general speaks for itself, including references to tensions with Karen and other armed ethnic groups; displacement of civilian population and other reported consequences of conflict; and the most serious tensions involving armed clashes, as well as potential escalation thereof, between the KIA and the Tatmadaw (para. 41).”

Choi’s statement added: “Please note that the report of the secretary-general is not intended to be factually exhaustive. It does not preclude information and assessments available from other sources such as that which you refer to. It provides a necessarily selective overview of developments which serve as a backdrop for the secretary-general's observations. In this regard, we draw your attention in particular to para. 83 of the report.”

Paragrpah 83 of report says: “Of equal concern are ongoing tensions and armed conflict with some armed ethnic groups. In line with the efforts over the years to uphold cease-fire agreements and with President Thein Sein’s commitment to keep the ‘peace door’ open, urgent efforts are needed by all sides to avoid the escalation of tensions and to negotiate durable solutions to outstanding political and security concerns as part of a broader national reconciliation process.

Failure to do so would not only affect the communities concerned, but could also hold back the process of reform, including prospects for ethnic aspirations to be legitimately addressed within the new political structures. Myanmar cannot afford for there to be impediments to the peace and unity that are needed for its stability and development.”

Various organizations including the UN High Commission for Refugees estimated that fighting in the Myawaddy area has caused more than 20,000 refugees to flee to Thailand in the days following the 2010 election.
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UNFC calls on China to mediate for peace
Sunday, 09 October 2011 13:30
Tun Tun

New Delhi (Mizzima) – Efforts to achieve peace in Burma’s long-going ethnic wars would be more successful if China mediated between the central government and the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), the UNFC said on Friday.

“The armed conflicts are getting worse. On the other hand, these armed conflicts are connected with Chinese interests and investments in these areas to some extent. If China can mediate between the warring factions, it will facilitate peace,” UNFC General-Secretary Nai Han Thar told Mizzima.

China has investments in areas controlled by the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) in Kachin State and the Shan State Progressive Party (SSPP) in Shan State including proposed dam projects and gas and oil pipeline projects.

“These [military] offensives are launched to protect China’s interests and expedite implementation of these projects. If we have problems among us, it will not be easy to resolve and it will affect our country,” Nai Han Thar said.

The UNFC alliance was formed in February 2011 with 12 ethnic armed groups that are fighting against the central government. There are six armed groups in the UNFC core group: Karen National Union (KNU), New Mon State Party (NMSP), Chin National Front (CNF), Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) and Shan Nationalities Progressive Party (SSPP). Six other armed groups are associate members.

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi appealed on July 28 to stop all ongoing wars and to observe a cease-fire immediately. She also pledged that she was ready to help in the peace process.

While the UNFC wants mediation and intervention by China, the Chinese authorities have concerns about a close relationship between the UNFC and Western countries, observers said.

The issue came up in an informal meeting with Chinese authorities held on October 1, a person who attended the meeting told Mizzima.

“They didn’t give any response on the UNFC alliance, but they asked if the UNFC had close relations with the US and Western powers,” said the source. “They hinted that if we approached them as a neigbouring country and one of the countries which is looking after the affairs of Burma, it would be more effective and workable,” he said.

General-Secretary Nai Han Thar told Mizzima that the UNFC upholds the policy of non-secession and the emergence of a federal union, and is not under the influence of any country or organization.

“We are not under any influence. We have not received specific assistance from any organization or country. No organization dominates us. We are in a revolution for freedom only,” Nai Han Thar said.
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