UN says 30,000 flee Myanmar amid fears of civil war
Fri Aug 28, 8:52 am ET
BANGKOK (AFP) – Fighting between Myanmar's isolated ruling junta and rebel ethnic armies in the remote northeast has driven up to 30,000 refugees into China, the UN said, as analysts warned of a full-scale civil war.
As thousands fled across its border, China issued a rare admonishment to its southern neighbour and close ally, urging it to resolve the conflict that has broken out in Kokang, a mainly ethnic Chinese region of Myanmar's Shan state.
A battle between the Kokang rebel group and the government's army began on Thursday in violation of a 20-year ceasefire, according to the US Campaign for Burma (USCB), which uses Myanmar's former name.
The mass exodus began after Myanmar's junta deployed troops in the region on August 8 and now "only elderly peoples are left at homes", while at least one Myanmar policeman was reportedly killed during the battle, the USCB added.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which is liaising with local Chinese authorities on the displaced people's needs, said up to 30,000 crossed into the Chinese border town of Nansan, in southwestern Yunnan province.
"We have been informed that local authorities in Yunnan province have already provided emergency shelter, food and medical care to the refugees," UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic said.
A statement from the Chinese foreign ministry said it "hopes that Myanmar can appropriately solve its relevant internal problems and safeguard the stability of the China-Myanmar border".
"We also urge Myanmar to protect the safety and legal rights of Chinese citizens in Myanmar," said spokeswoman Jiang Yu in the statement, posted on the ministry's website.
China is Myanmar's main source of military hardware and a major consumer of its vast natural resources, despite Western concerns over the military-ruled nation's rights record.
Chinese state media reported Friday that Beijing had increased its number of armed police along the Myanmar border.
The English-language Global Times, citing local officials, said that Myanmar nationals were still crossing the border into Yunnan province, without giving a specific figure.
Another ethnic group, the United Wa State Army, has now reportedly joined the Kokang forces' fight against the Myanmar junta, according to Khuensai Jaiyen, editor of the Shan Herald Agency for News.
"People say they have been hearing gunshots and explosions," he told AFP, warning that other groups currently under ceasefire agreements could join in.
"If the Burmese army is returning to a reconciliatory stance it might get better, but if not it might be blown into a full-scale civil war."
He added that the government was trying to create stability ahead of elections scheduled in 2010 but warned: "It will be the opposite."
David Mathieson, a Myanmar analyst at Human Rights Watch, agreed full-scale civil war was "a very real fear."
"This could potentially be the flashpoint that draws in several other groups to the resumption of open conflict," he said.
Myanmar, under military rule since 1962, has signed ceasefires with 17 ethnic armed groups.
The USCB said before the battle that the Kokang forces -- known as the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army -- had split, with one faction joining the government's troops occupying Laogai, capital of the Kokang region.
The other faction had refused to obey the junta's order to place its troops under army control.
Peng Jiasheng, leader of the rebel group, issued a statement via USCB late Thursday on the "urgent need of peaceful and patient discussion between all parties concerned."
Refugees began to flee three weeks ago after Myanmar sent dozens of military police to crack down on a gun-repair factory suspected of being a front for drugs production, sparking fear among locals, Chinese media said.
According to the USCB, the junta has since deployed thousands of troops to the region and announced that Peng Jiasheng and his family were fugitives wanted for narcotics production.
Fri Aug 28, 8:52 am ET
BANGKOK (AFP) – Fighting between Myanmar's isolated ruling junta and rebel ethnic armies in the remote northeast has driven up to 30,000 refugees into China, the UN said, as analysts warned of a full-scale civil war.
As thousands fled across its border, China issued a rare admonishment to its southern neighbour and close ally, urging it to resolve the conflict that has broken out in Kokang, a mainly ethnic Chinese region of Myanmar's Shan state.
A battle between the Kokang rebel group and the government's army began on Thursday in violation of a 20-year ceasefire, according to the US Campaign for Burma (USCB), which uses Myanmar's former name.
The mass exodus began after Myanmar's junta deployed troops in the region on August 8 and now "only elderly peoples are left at homes", while at least one Myanmar policeman was reportedly killed during the battle, the USCB added.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which is liaising with local Chinese authorities on the displaced people's needs, said up to 30,000 crossed into the Chinese border town of Nansan, in southwestern Yunnan province.
"We have been informed that local authorities in Yunnan province have already provided emergency shelter, food and medical care to the refugees," UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic said.
A statement from the Chinese foreign ministry said it "hopes that Myanmar can appropriately solve its relevant internal problems and safeguard the stability of the China-Myanmar border".
"We also urge Myanmar to protect the safety and legal rights of Chinese citizens in Myanmar," said spokeswoman Jiang Yu in the statement, posted on the ministry's website.
China is Myanmar's main source of military hardware and a major consumer of its vast natural resources, despite Western concerns over the military-ruled nation's rights record.
Chinese state media reported Friday that Beijing had increased its number of armed police along the Myanmar border.
The English-language Global Times, citing local officials, said that Myanmar nationals were still crossing the border into Yunnan province, without giving a specific figure.
Another ethnic group, the United Wa State Army, has now reportedly joined the Kokang forces' fight against the Myanmar junta, according to Khuensai Jaiyen, editor of the Shan Herald Agency for News.
"People say they have been hearing gunshots and explosions," he told AFP, warning that other groups currently under ceasefire agreements could join in.
"If the Burmese army is returning to a reconciliatory stance it might get better, but if not it might be blown into a full-scale civil war."
He added that the government was trying to create stability ahead of elections scheduled in 2010 but warned: "It will be the opposite."
David Mathieson, a Myanmar analyst at Human Rights Watch, agreed full-scale civil war was "a very real fear."
"This could potentially be the flashpoint that draws in several other groups to the resumption of open conflict," he said.
Myanmar, under military rule since 1962, has signed ceasefires with 17 ethnic armed groups.
The USCB said before the battle that the Kokang forces -- known as the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army -- had split, with one faction joining the government's troops occupying Laogai, capital of the Kokang region.
The other faction had refused to obey the junta's order to place its troops under army control.
Peng Jiasheng, leader of the rebel group, issued a statement via USCB late Thursday on the "urgent need of peaceful and patient discussion between all parties concerned."
Refugees began to flee three weeks ago after Myanmar sent dozens of military police to crack down on a gun-repair factory suspected of being a front for drugs production, sparking fear among locals, Chinese media said.
According to the USCB, the junta has since deployed thousands of troops to the region and announced that Peng Jiasheng and his family were fugitives wanted for narcotics production.
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Myanmar fighting raises civil war fears: analysts
Fri Aug 28, 3:36 am ET
BANGKOK, Aug 28, 2009 (AFP) – Fighting between Myanmar's junta and ethnic groups Friday raised fears of full-scale civil war and forced more refugees from the northeast across the Chinese border, media and analysts said.
A battle in Shan state between the Kogang rebel group and the government's army began Thursday, breaking a 20-year ceasefire, according to the US Campaign for Burma (USCB), which uses Myanmar's former name.
More than 10,000 refugees have crossed into the Chinese border town of Nansan in southwestern Yunnan province since August 8 and at least one Myanmar policeman was reportedly killed during the fight, the campaign group said.
"People say they have been hearing gunshots and explosions," said Khuensai Jaiyen, editor of the Shan Herald Agency for News.
He said another ethnic group, the United Wa State Army, had now reportedly joined the Kokang forces' fight against the junta and he warned that other groups currently under ceasefire agreements could join in.
"If the Burmese army is returning to a reconciliatory stance it might get better but if not it might be blown into a full-scale civil war," Khuensai Jaiyen said.
He added that the government was trying to create stability ahead of elections scheduled in 2010 but warned "it will be the opposite".
David Mathieson, a Myanmar analyst at Human Rights Watch, agreed full-scale civil war was "a very real fear".
"This could potentially be the flash point that draws in several other groups to the resumption of open conflict," he said.
Myanmar, under military rule since 1962, has signed ceasefires with 17 ethnic armed groups.
Chinese state media reported Friday, citing local officials, that Myanmar nationals were still crossing the border into Yunnan province, without giving a specific figure.
"It's difficult to get a real-time update of that number," Yu Chunyan, a spokesman for the provincial government, was quoted as saying in the English-language Global Times.
The newspaper reported that China had increased the number of armed police along the common border.
Refugees have been settled in a temporary camp, and Chinese officials were providing food and medical care, the state Xinhua news agency reported, citing unnamed provincial government sources.
Fri Aug 28, 3:36 am ET
BANGKOK, Aug 28, 2009 (AFP) – Fighting between Myanmar's junta and ethnic groups Friday raised fears of full-scale civil war and forced more refugees from the northeast across the Chinese border, media and analysts said.
A battle in Shan state between the Kogang rebel group and the government's army began Thursday, breaking a 20-year ceasefire, according to the US Campaign for Burma (USCB), which uses Myanmar's former name.
More than 10,000 refugees have crossed into the Chinese border town of Nansan in southwestern Yunnan province since August 8 and at least one Myanmar policeman was reportedly killed during the fight, the campaign group said.
"People say they have been hearing gunshots and explosions," said Khuensai Jaiyen, editor of the Shan Herald Agency for News.
He said another ethnic group, the United Wa State Army, had now reportedly joined the Kokang forces' fight against the junta and he warned that other groups currently under ceasefire agreements could join in.
"If the Burmese army is returning to a reconciliatory stance it might get better but if not it might be blown into a full-scale civil war," Khuensai Jaiyen said.
He added that the government was trying to create stability ahead of elections scheduled in 2010 but warned "it will be the opposite".
David Mathieson, a Myanmar analyst at Human Rights Watch, agreed full-scale civil war was "a very real fear".
"This could potentially be the flash point that draws in several other groups to the resumption of open conflict," he said.
Myanmar, under military rule since 1962, has signed ceasefires with 17 ethnic armed groups.
Chinese state media reported Friday, citing local officials, that Myanmar nationals were still crossing the border into Yunnan province, without giving a specific figure.
"It's difficult to get a real-time update of that number," Yu Chunyan, a spokesman for the provincial government, was quoted as saying in the English-language Global Times.
The newspaper reported that China had increased the number of armed police along the common border.
Refugees have been settled in a temporary camp, and Chinese officials were providing food and medical care, the state Xinhua news agency reported, citing unnamed provincial government sources.
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China sheltering refugees from Myanmar fighting
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN,Associated Press Writer - Friday, August 28
BEIJING (AP) – Thousands of people have fled from northern Myanmar into China to escape fighting between a local militia, government troops and a breakaway faction, and are taking shelter in an uncompleted housing complex, area residents said Friday.
Sounds of gunfire and artillery continued intermittently Friday, said an aid worker and a factory manager in the Chinese town of Nansan, about 150 feet (50 meters) from the border.
The manager, who would only give his surname, Li, estimated that more than 10,000 refugees had fled into China in recent days from Kokang, a mostly ethnic Chinese region in northern Myanmar controlled by a local militia.
Chinese authorities in Nansan are housing the refugees in unfinished buildings, many of which still lack glass in their windows, Li said.
A worker with an international medical charity, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals from the local government, said about 4,000 refugees were being cared for by local authorities. Several thousand more were staying in hotels or with friends and family on the Chinese side, he said, saying more detailed information was being gathered.
The Yunnan provincial government said in a brief statement that local authorities were settling the refugees and providing basic health and hygiene facilities, but gave no figures on the number of people involved.
The military junta that rules Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been anxious to assure stability ahead of national elections next year, the first since 1990 polls that were won by the opposition but then not honored by the military.
Tensions rose in the area earlier this month after leaders of the Kokang minority defied an order to allow its guerrillas to be incorporated into a border guard force under Myanmar army command.
On Thursday, fighters for the Kokang minority's Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army attacked a police post along the border with China near the town of Laogai, according to the U.S. Campaign for Burma.
The Washington-based lobbying group said several police officers were killed and the rebels temporarily occupied the post.
The Kachin News Group, an online news agency that covers the Kachin minority in northern Myanmar, also reported the attack as well as several other clashes.
The trigger for the confrontation was an Aug. 8 raid by government soldiers on the home of Kokang leader Peng Jiashen _ also known as Phon Kyar Shin _ ostensibly to look for illegal drugs.
Peng's troops began mobilizing, but were forced out of Laogai on Tuesday by government soldiers and members of a breakaway Kokang faction seeking to overthrow Peng.
According to the U.S. Campaign for Burma, Peng issued a statement Thursday calling for talks with the government and for newly deployed troops to withdraw from the area.
Several minorities living in Myanmar's border areas have continued their long struggles for autonomy despite cease-fires with the military regime.
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN,Associated Press Writer - Friday, August 28
BEIJING (AP) – Thousands of people have fled from northern Myanmar into China to escape fighting between a local militia, government troops and a breakaway faction, and are taking shelter in an uncompleted housing complex, area residents said Friday.
Sounds of gunfire and artillery continued intermittently Friday, said an aid worker and a factory manager in the Chinese town of Nansan, about 150 feet (50 meters) from the border.
The manager, who would only give his surname, Li, estimated that more than 10,000 refugees had fled into China in recent days from Kokang, a mostly ethnic Chinese region in northern Myanmar controlled by a local militia.
Chinese authorities in Nansan are housing the refugees in unfinished buildings, many of which still lack glass in their windows, Li said.
A worker with an international medical charity, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals from the local government, said about 4,000 refugees were being cared for by local authorities. Several thousand more were staying in hotels or with friends and family on the Chinese side, he said, saying more detailed information was being gathered.
The Yunnan provincial government said in a brief statement that local authorities were settling the refugees and providing basic health and hygiene facilities, but gave no figures on the number of people involved.
The military junta that rules Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been anxious to assure stability ahead of national elections next year, the first since 1990 polls that were won by the opposition but then not honored by the military.
Tensions rose in the area earlier this month after leaders of the Kokang minority defied an order to allow its guerrillas to be incorporated into a border guard force under Myanmar army command.
On Thursday, fighters for the Kokang minority's Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army attacked a police post along the border with China near the town of Laogai, according to the U.S. Campaign for Burma.
The Washington-based lobbying group said several police officers were killed and the rebels temporarily occupied the post.
The Kachin News Group, an online news agency that covers the Kachin minority in northern Myanmar, also reported the attack as well as several other clashes.
The trigger for the confrontation was an Aug. 8 raid by government soldiers on the home of Kokang leader Peng Jiashen _ also known as Phon Kyar Shin _ ostensibly to look for illegal drugs.
Peng's troops began mobilizing, but were forced out of Laogai on Tuesday by government soldiers and members of a breakaway Kokang faction seeking to overthrow Peng.
According to the U.S. Campaign for Burma, Peng issued a statement Thursday calling for talks with the government and for newly deployed troops to withdraw from the area.
Several minorities living in Myanmar's border areas have continued their long struggles for autonomy despite cease-fires with the military regime.
*********************************************************
China urges Myanmar to end conflict in border area
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 29 mins ago
BEIJING (AP) – Beijing has called on neighboring Myanmar to end combat operations in a border area after at least 10,000 people fled into China in recent days.
China hopes Myanmar can "properly deal with its domestic issue to safeguard the regional stability in the China-Myanmar border area," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in a statement posted on the ministry's Web site.
Jiang also demanded Myanmar ensure the safety and legal rights of Chinese citizens in that country, adding that Beijing has also conveyed its concerns through diplomatic channels.
The statement is rare for China and could indicate growing concern in Beijing that the fighting between Myanmar's military and ethnic militias might spill across the border into its southwestern province of Yunnan.
Beijing maintains close ties with Myanmar's ruling military junta and usually takes care to not entangle itself in the regime's affairs.
Militants who have long fought for autonomy for Myanmar's Kokang minority attacked a police post along the border with China near the town of Laogai on Thursday, according to the U.S. Campaign for Burma. The Washington-based lobbying group said several police officers were killed.
Myanmar's military rulers and the state-controlled press made no comment on the situation at the border.
People were still crossing from Myanmar's Kokang region late Friday, and Chinese authorities were housing them at seven separate locations along the border, the Yunnan provincial government said in a brief statement faxed to media. It said about 10,000 people had crossed the border but did not say how many had been placed at the government shelters.
Chinese authorities were providing medical services and taking measures to prevent disease, the statement said.
A spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva said the group had received reports that between 10,000 and 30,000 refugees have fled in recent weeks from Myanmar into China.
"Our information is that as many as 30,000 people may have taken shelter in Nansan County since August 8, saying they were fleeing fighting between Myanmar government troops and ethnic minority groups," said UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic. "We have been informed that local authorities in Yunnan Province have already provided emergency shelter, food and medical care to the refugees.
An aid worker and a factory manager in the Chinese town of Nansan said they could hear guns and artillery being fired over the border, some 150 feet (50 meters) away, throughout the day.
Myanmar's central government has rarely exerted control in Kokang — a mostly ethnic Chinese region in the northern Shan state — and essentially ceded control to a local militia after signing a cease-fire with them two decades ago. The region is one of several areas along Myanmar's borders where minority militias are seeking autonomy from the central government.
But tensions between the government and the Kokang people have been rising in recent months, as the junta tries to consolidate its control of the country and ensure stability ahead of national elections next year — the first since the opposition National League for Democracy won by a landslide in 1990, a result the military ignored.
The crisis has turned a spotlight on China's friendly ties with Myanmar's authoritarian rulers. Beijing has consistently offered the military regime diplomatic support based on its avowed policy of nonintervention while China's border trade and oil and gas deals have thrown an economic lifeline to the generals.
As the refugees poured in from Myanmar, Chinese authorities in Nansan housed them in unfinished buildings, some still with no windows, said the local factory manager, who would only give his surname, Li.
A worker with an international medical charity, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals from the local government, said local authorities were caring for about 4,000 refugees. Several thousand more were staying in hotels or with friends and family on the Chinese side, he said.
Tensions in Kokang rose earlier this month after militia leaders refused to allow their guerrillas to be incorporated into a border guard force under Myanmar army command.
Soldiers raided the home of militia leader Peng Jiashen on Aug. 8, and Peng's forces began mobilizing. Peng's troops were forced out of Laogai on Tuesday by government soldiers and a breakaway Kokang faction seeking to overthrow Peng.
Kokang lies 1,400 miles (2,250 kilometers) southwest of Beijing and is surrounded by lush mountains in a region notorious for the production and use of heroin and methamphetamines, cross-border smuggling, gambling and prostitution.
The region's links to China date back to the collapse of the Ming dynasty 350 years ago, when loyalists fled across the mountains into present-day Myanmar to escape Manchu invaders.
In recent years, the area has attracted a flood of businessmen from China who have opened hotels, restaurants and shops selling motorcycles, electronics and other imports that are either pricey or unavailable in other parts of the country.
Wary of the consequences of renewed conflict, many of those investors fled back across the border this month, according to Chinese reports.
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 29 mins ago
BEIJING (AP) – Beijing has called on neighboring Myanmar to end combat operations in a border area after at least 10,000 people fled into China in recent days.
China hopes Myanmar can "properly deal with its domestic issue to safeguard the regional stability in the China-Myanmar border area," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in a statement posted on the ministry's Web site.
Jiang also demanded Myanmar ensure the safety and legal rights of Chinese citizens in that country, adding that Beijing has also conveyed its concerns through diplomatic channels.
The statement is rare for China and could indicate growing concern in Beijing that the fighting between Myanmar's military and ethnic militias might spill across the border into its southwestern province of Yunnan.
Beijing maintains close ties with Myanmar's ruling military junta and usually takes care to not entangle itself in the regime's affairs.
Militants who have long fought for autonomy for Myanmar's Kokang minority attacked a police post along the border with China near the town of Laogai on Thursday, according to the U.S. Campaign for Burma. The Washington-based lobbying group said several police officers were killed.
Myanmar's military rulers and the state-controlled press made no comment on the situation at the border.
People were still crossing from Myanmar's Kokang region late Friday, and Chinese authorities were housing them at seven separate locations along the border, the Yunnan provincial government said in a brief statement faxed to media. It said about 10,000 people had crossed the border but did not say how many had been placed at the government shelters.
Chinese authorities were providing medical services and taking measures to prevent disease, the statement said.
A spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva said the group had received reports that between 10,000 and 30,000 refugees have fled in recent weeks from Myanmar into China.
"Our information is that as many as 30,000 people may have taken shelter in Nansan County since August 8, saying they were fleeing fighting between Myanmar government troops and ethnic minority groups," said UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic. "We have been informed that local authorities in Yunnan Province have already provided emergency shelter, food and medical care to the refugees.
An aid worker and a factory manager in the Chinese town of Nansan said they could hear guns and artillery being fired over the border, some 150 feet (50 meters) away, throughout the day.
Myanmar's central government has rarely exerted control in Kokang — a mostly ethnic Chinese region in the northern Shan state — and essentially ceded control to a local militia after signing a cease-fire with them two decades ago. The region is one of several areas along Myanmar's borders where minority militias are seeking autonomy from the central government.
But tensions between the government and the Kokang people have been rising in recent months, as the junta tries to consolidate its control of the country and ensure stability ahead of national elections next year — the first since the opposition National League for Democracy won by a landslide in 1990, a result the military ignored.
The crisis has turned a spotlight on China's friendly ties with Myanmar's authoritarian rulers. Beijing has consistently offered the military regime diplomatic support based on its avowed policy of nonintervention while China's border trade and oil and gas deals have thrown an economic lifeline to the generals.
As the refugees poured in from Myanmar, Chinese authorities in Nansan housed them in unfinished buildings, some still with no windows, said the local factory manager, who would only give his surname, Li.
A worker with an international medical charity, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals from the local government, said local authorities were caring for about 4,000 refugees. Several thousand more were staying in hotels or with friends and family on the Chinese side, he said.
Tensions in Kokang rose earlier this month after militia leaders refused to allow their guerrillas to be incorporated into a border guard force under Myanmar army command.
Soldiers raided the home of militia leader Peng Jiashen on Aug. 8, and Peng's forces began mobilizing. Peng's troops were forced out of Laogai on Tuesday by government soldiers and a breakaway Kokang faction seeking to overthrow Peng.
Kokang lies 1,400 miles (2,250 kilometers) southwest of Beijing and is surrounded by lush mountains in a region notorious for the production and use of heroin and methamphetamines, cross-border smuggling, gambling and prostitution.
The region's links to China date back to the collapse of the Ming dynasty 350 years ago, when loyalists fled across the mountains into present-day Myanmar to escape Manchu invaders.
In recent years, the area has attracted a flood of businessmen from China who have opened hotels, restaurants and shops selling motorcycles, electronics and other imports that are either pricey or unavailable in other parts of the country.
Wary of the consequences of renewed conflict, many of those investors fled back across the border this month, according to Chinese reports.
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Ethnic group in Myanmar said to break cease-fire
Thu Aug 27, 3:24 pm ET
BANGKOK (AP) - Fighting reportedly broke out Thursday between an ethnic militia and government security forces in northeastern Myanmar, breaching a two-decade cease-fire.
Several minorities living in military-ruled Myanmar's border areas have continued their long struggles for autonomy despite cease-fires with the military regime that seized power in 1988.
Fighters for the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army — representing the Kokang minority — on Thursday attacked a police post along the border with China near the town of Laogai, according to the U.S. Campaign for Burma.
The Washington-based lobbying group said several police officers were killed and the rebels temporarily occupied the post.
The Kachin News Group, an online news agency that covers the Kachin minority in northern Myanmar, also reported the attack as well as several other clashes.
Reports of the fighting could not be independently confirmed.
Tensions between the Kokang and the government have risen recently after the ethnic group defied an order to allow its guerrillas to be incorporated into a border guard force under army command.
The junta plans an election next year, the first since 1990's abortive polls, the result of which were ignored by the military when the National League for Democracy party won by a landslide. The military has been anxious to assure stability ahead of the vote.
On Wednesday, Myanmar ethnic groups and Chinese media reported that thousands of people fled into China this month after tensions flared between the Kokang and government.
Some 10,000 left the Kokang area in Myanmar's northeastern Shan state between Aug. 7 and Aug. 12 after a military confrontation, The Chongqing Evening Post reported.
The trigger for the confrontation was an Aug. 8 raid on the home of Kokang leader Peng Jiashen — also known as Phon Kyar Shin — ostensibly to look for illegal drugs.
Peng's troops in the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army began mobilizing, but were forced out of Laogai on Tuesday by government soldiers and members of a breakaway Kokang faction.
According to the U.S. Campaign for Burma, Peng issued a statement Thursday calling for talks with the government and for newly deployed troops to withdraw from the area.
Thu Aug 27, 3:24 pm ET
BANGKOK (AP) - Fighting reportedly broke out Thursday between an ethnic militia and government security forces in northeastern Myanmar, breaching a two-decade cease-fire.
Several minorities living in military-ruled Myanmar's border areas have continued their long struggles for autonomy despite cease-fires with the military regime that seized power in 1988.
Fighters for the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army — representing the Kokang minority — on Thursday attacked a police post along the border with China near the town of Laogai, according to the U.S. Campaign for Burma.
The Washington-based lobbying group said several police officers were killed and the rebels temporarily occupied the post.
The Kachin News Group, an online news agency that covers the Kachin minority in northern Myanmar, also reported the attack as well as several other clashes.
Reports of the fighting could not be independently confirmed.
Tensions between the Kokang and the government have risen recently after the ethnic group defied an order to allow its guerrillas to be incorporated into a border guard force under army command.
The junta plans an election next year, the first since 1990's abortive polls, the result of which were ignored by the military when the National League for Democracy party won by a landslide. The military has been anxious to assure stability ahead of the vote.
On Wednesday, Myanmar ethnic groups and Chinese media reported that thousands of people fled into China this month after tensions flared between the Kokang and government.
Some 10,000 left the Kokang area in Myanmar's northeastern Shan state between Aug. 7 and Aug. 12 after a military confrontation, The Chongqing Evening Post reported.
The trigger for the confrontation was an Aug. 8 raid on the home of Kokang leader Peng Jiashen — also known as Phon Kyar Shin — ostensibly to look for illegal drugs.
Peng's troops in the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army began mobilizing, but were forced out of Laogai on Tuesday by government soldiers and members of a breakaway Kokang faction.
According to the U.S. Campaign for Burma, Peng issued a statement Thursday calling for talks with the government and for newly deployed troops to withdraw from the area.
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Myanmar Takes Rebel-Held Town Near China Oil Projects
By Daniel Ten Kate
Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Myanmar’s army seized control of a rebel-held town on its border with China, raising concern a 20- year cease-fire could collapse, threatening planned oil and gas projects in the region.
Ethnic Kokang rebels attacked Myanmar police patrolling a border gate in northeastern Shan state, killing at least one, the Washington-based U.S. Campaign for Burma said in a statement late yesterday. The United Nations Refugee Agency said today that as many as 30,000 people may have fled to neighboring Yunnan Province in China since Aug. 8 to escape the fighting. The provincial government has described the situation as a domestic war, state-controlled Xinhua News Agency, said.
“The junta should withdraw its additional troops sent to Kokang,” Peng Jiasheng, who heads the local rebel army, said in a statement released through the U.S. Campaign for Burma. He called a new committee set up by the regime to administer the area “illegal and illegitimate.”
The Kokang are one of the ethnic groups on Myanmar’s borders that agreed to join the state in 1947 in return for autonomy.
Myanmar has Asia’s seventh-largest natural gas reserves, or 17.5 trillion cubic feet, according to BP Plc estimates, which China is keen to tap to help fuel economic growth. South Korea’s Daewoo International Corp. said this week it would invest 2.1 trillion won ($1.68 billion) in a Myanmar gas project to supply China National Petroleum Corp., that country’s largest oil company.
Myanmar has increased its foreign currency holdings fourfold since 2004 to $3.6 billion, mostly on oil and gas sales to China and Thailand. Talks continue on how construction costs for an 825-kilometer (513-mile) overland gas pipeline may be split, Daewoo International said.
Border Guards
Myanmar’s military rulers have been attempting to persuade armed ethnic groups to become border guards partially under their control. The Kokang and other minorities in the so-called cease-fire groups have resisted the junta’s request to lay down their weapons and form political parties.
“The Burmese are surrounding the cease-fire groups so they cannot move unless they fight their way out or surrender,” said Khuensai Jaiyen, director of the exiled Shan Herald Agency for News based in northern Thailand, referring to the country by its former name. “The groups fear that China will close the border and then they will have to fight to the death.”
China has asked the cease-fire groups not to start shooting at Myanmar’s army because it “doesn’t want a civil war right at its borders,” Jaiyen said. “That’s bad for business.” Chinese security forces have clashed with ethnic minorities in Tibet and western Xinjiang in recent years.
Drug Trade
Four allied cease-fire groups said in an Aug. 21 statement released by the Washington-based U.S. Campaign for Burma that the junta was threatening them under the guise of a campaign to eradicate illicit drugs. The groups, who have pledged to help each other in the case of war, encouraged peaceful dialogue with the government and pledged to “never secede and announce independence,” the statement said.
“In anticipation of a resurgence of war, tens of thousands of ethnic minorities have fled to the border,” Aung Din, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, said in the statement.
Myanmar’s constitution, passed by a referendum last year, calls for a unitary state and says “all the armed forces in the Union shall be under the command of the Defense Services,” the International Crisis Group said in an Aug. 20 report.
Cease-fire groups are reluctant to become border guards because that “would greatly reduce their autonomy and would represent a major concession in return for which they are being offered no political quid pro quo,” the Crisis Group said in the report. Myanmar officially recognizes 135 ethnic groups.
Border clashes would also jeopardize national elections planned for next year that Myanmar’s government hopes will enhance its international legitimacy. Earlier this month, a court sentenced opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to three years with hard labor for violating her detention order. The sentence was immediately commuted to 18 months of house arrest.
By Daniel Ten Kate
Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Myanmar’s army seized control of a rebel-held town on its border with China, raising concern a 20- year cease-fire could collapse, threatening planned oil and gas projects in the region.
Ethnic Kokang rebels attacked Myanmar police patrolling a border gate in northeastern Shan state, killing at least one, the Washington-based U.S. Campaign for Burma said in a statement late yesterday. The United Nations Refugee Agency said today that as many as 30,000 people may have fled to neighboring Yunnan Province in China since Aug. 8 to escape the fighting. The provincial government has described the situation as a domestic war, state-controlled Xinhua News Agency, said.
“The junta should withdraw its additional troops sent to Kokang,” Peng Jiasheng, who heads the local rebel army, said in a statement released through the U.S. Campaign for Burma. He called a new committee set up by the regime to administer the area “illegal and illegitimate.”
The Kokang are one of the ethnic groups on Myanmar’s borders that agreed to join the state in 1947 in return for autonomy.
Myanmar has Asia’s seventh-largest natural gas reserves, or 17.5 trillion cubic feet, according to BP Plc estimates, which China is keen to tap to help fuel economic growth. South Korea’s Daewoo International Corp. said this week it would invest 2.1 trillion won ($1.68 billion) in a Myanmar gas project to supply China National Petroleum Corp., that country’s largest oil company.
Myanmar has increased its foreign currency holdings fourfold since 2004 to $3.6 billion, mostly on oil and gas sales to China and Thailand. Talks continue on how construction costs for an 825-kilometer (513-mile) overland gas pipeline may be split, Daewoo International said.
Border Guards
Myanmar’s military rulers have been attempting to persuade armed ethnic groups to become border guards partially under their control. The Kokang and other minorities in the so-called cease-fire groups have resisted the junta’s request to lay down their weapons and form political parties.
“The Burmese are surrounding the cease-fire groups so they cannot move unless they fight their way out or surrender,” said Khuensai Jaiyen, director of the exiled Shan Herald Agency for News based in northern Thailand, referring to the country by its former name. “The groups fear that China will close the border and then they will have to fight to the death.”
China has asked the cease-fire groups not to start shooting at Myanmar’s army because it “doesn’t want a civil war right at its borders,” Jaiyen said. “That’s bad for business.” Chinese security forces have clashed with ethnic minorities in Tibet and western Xinjiang in recent years.
Drug Trade
Four allied cease-fire groups said in an Aug. 21 statement released by the Washington-based U.S. Campaign for Burma that the junta was threatening them under the guise of a campaign to eradicate illicit drugs. The groups, who have pledged to help each other in the case of war, encouraged peaceful dialogue with the government and pledged to “never secede and announce independence,” the statement said.
“In anticipation of a resurgence of war, tens of thousands of ethnic minorities have fled to the border,” Aung Din, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, said in the statement.
Myanmar’s constitution, passed by a referendum last year, calls for a unitary state and says “all the armed forces in the Union shall be under the command of the Defense Services,” the International Crisis Group said in an Aug. 20 report.
Cease-fire groups are reluctant to become border guards because that “would greatly reduce their autonomy and would represent a major concession in return for which they are being offered no political quid pro quo,” the Crisis Group said in the report. Myanmar officially recognizes 135 ethnic groups.
Border clashes would also jeopardize national elections planned for next year that Myanmar’s government hopes will enhance its international legitimacy. Earlier this month, a court sentenced opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to three years with hard labor for violating her detention order. The sentence was immediately commuted to 18 months of house arrest.
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Tense situation in N. Myanmar's Shan state prevails
www.chinaview.cn 2009-08-28 01:37:16
YANGON, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- The situation in Myanmar's special region-1 in northern Shan state, bordering China's southwestern Yunnan Province, has been tense in past few days, triggering influx of Myanmar border inhabitants and local Chinese merchants into the Chinese territory.
According to reliable sources on Thursday, the exodus of border inhabitants into Yunnan border areas resulted from a check by Myanmar police on a gun-repair factory on Aug. 8 in the region, also known as Kokang, on suspicion of drug production.
The standoff between the local Kokang ethnic army and the police has caused panic among local people, the sources said.
Merchants said the situation has impacted the local border trade activities and the people's daily life.
The Kokang region's Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, led by Phone Kyar Shin, returned to the legal fold on March 31, 1989, but was allowed to retain arms, establish the northern Shan state special region-1 and enjoy self-administration on condition.
Covering an area of over 10,000 square kilometers, the Kokang region is located in Myanmar's northeastern part, bordering some areas of China's Yunnan Province. It has a population of about 150,000.
So far, the Myanmar government has not made any comment on the situation.
www.chinaview.cn 2009-08-28 01:37:16
YANGON, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- The situation in Myanmar's special region-1 in northern Shan state, bordering China's southwestern Yunnan Province, has been tense in past few days, triggering influx of Myanmar border inhabitants and local Chinese merchants into the Chinese territory.
According to reliable sources on Thursday, the exodus of border inhabitants into Yunnan border areas resulted from a check by Myanmar police on a gun-repair factory on Aug. 8 in the region, also known as Kokang, on suspicion of drug production.
The standoff between the local Kokang ethnic army and the police has caused panic among local people, the sources said.
Merchants said the situation has impacted the local border trade activities and the people's daily life.
The Kokang region's Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, led by Phone Kyar Shin, returned to the legal fold on March 31, 1989, but was allowed to retain arms, establish the northern Shan state special region-1 and enjoy self-administration on condition.
Covering an area of over 10,000 square kilometers, the Kokang region is located in Myanmar's northeastern part, bordering some areas of China's Yunnan Province. It has a population of about 150,000.
So far, the Myanmar government has not made any comment on the situation.
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New York Daily News - Report: Two-decade cease-fire in Myanmar is violated
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Friday, August 28th 2009, 1:49 AM
BANGKOK - Fighting reportedly broke out Thursday between an ethnic militia and government security forces in northeastern Myanmar, breaching a two-decade cease-fire.
Several minorities living in military-ruled Myanmar's border areas have continued their long struggles for autonomy despite cease-fires with the military regime that seized power in 1988.
Fighters for the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army - representing the Kokang minority - on Thursday attacked a police post along the border with China near the town of Laogai, according to the U.S. Campaign for Burma.
The Washington-based lobbying group said several police officers were killed and the rebels temporarily occupied the post.
The Kachin News Group, an online news agency that covers the Kachin minority in northern Myanmar, also reported the attack as well as several other clashes.
Reports of the fighting could not be independently confirmed.
Tensions between the Kokang and the government have risen recently after the ethnic group defied an order to allow its guerrillas to be incorporated into a border guard force under army command.
The junta plans an election next year, the first since 1990's abortive polls, the result of which were ignored by the military when the National League for Democracy party won by a landslide. The military has been anxious to assure stability ahead of the vote.
On Wednesday, Myanmar ethnic groups and Chinese media reported that thousands of people fled into China this month after tensions flared between the Kokang and government.
Some 10,000 left the Kokang area in Myanmar's northeastern Shan state between Aug. 7 and Aug. 12 after a military confrontation, The Chongqing Evening Post reported.
The trigger for the confrontation was an Aug. 8 raid on the home of Kokang leader Peng Jiashen - also known as Phon Kyar Shin - ostensibly to look for illegal drugs.
Peng's troops in the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army began mobilizing, but were forced out of Laogai on Tuesday by government soldiers and members of a breakaway Kokang faction.
According to the U.S. Campaign for Burma, Peng issued a statement Thursday calling for talks with the government and for newly deployed troops to withdraw from the area.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Friday, August 28th 2009, 1:49 AM
BANGKOK - Fighting reportedly broke out Thursday between an ethnic militia and government security forces in northeastern Myanmar, breaching a two-decade cease-fire.
Several minorities living in military-ruled Myanmar's border areas have continued their long struggles for autonomy despite cease-fires with the military regime that seized power in 1988.
Fighters for the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army - representing the Kokang minority - on Thursday attacked a police post along the border with China near the town of Laogai, according to the U.S. Campaign for Burma.
The Washington-based lobbying group said several police officers were killed and the rebels temporarily occupied the post.
The Kachin News Group, an online news agency that covers the Kachin minority in northern Myanmar, also reported the attack as well as several other clashes.
Reports of the fighting could not be independently confirmed.
Tensions between the Kokang and the government have risen recently after the ethnic group defied an order to allow its guerrillas to be incorporated into a border guard force under army command.
The junta plans an election next year, the first since 1990's abortive polls, the result of which were ignored by the military when the National League for Democracy party won by a landslide. The military has been anxious to assure stability ahead of the vote.
On Wednesday, Myanmar ethnic groups and Chinese media reported that thousands of people fled into China this month after tensions flared between the Kokang and government.
Some 10,000 left the Kokang area in Myanmar's northeastern Shan state between Aug. 7 and Aug. 12 after a military confrontation, The Chongqing Evening Post reported.
The trigger for the confrontation was an Aug. 8 raid on the home of Kokang leader Peng Jiashen - also known as Phon Kyar Shin - ostensibly to look for illegal drugs.
Peng's troops in the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army began mobilizing, but were forced out of Laogai on Tuesday by government soldiers and members of a breakaway Kokang faction.
According to the U.S. Campaign for Burma, Peng issued a statement Thursday calling for talks with the government and for newly deployed troops to withdraw from the area.
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Monsters and Critics.com - US congressional delegation in Myanmar for foreign policy review
Asia-Pacific News
Aug 28, 2009, 12:44 GMT
Yangon - Three staff members of the US House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee met Friday with leaders of Myanmar's main opposition party.
'They wanted to know the political situation of Myanmar and also the health of the political prisoners, including the condition of Daw [Madame] Aung San Suu Kyi,' National League for Democracy (NLD) spokesman Nyan Win said after meeting with the three Americans, Lynne Weil, Jessica Lee and Dennis Halpin.
A US embassy official in Yangon denied that the trip was a follow-up to this month's visit of US Senator Jim Webb in which he secured the freedom of American national John William Yettaw.
Webb, chairman of the US Senate's East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, persuaded Myanmar's ruling military junta to free Yettaw, who had been sentenced to seven years in jail for an unauthorized swim to the Yangon lakeside home of NLD leader Suu Kyi on May 3, staying uninvited until May 5.
The bizarre adventure, supposedly to warn Suu Kyi of a vision Yettaw had had in which he had seen her assassinated, provided the junta with a pretext to charge Suu Kyi, who has spent 14 of the past 20 year under detention, with breaking the terms of her house detention.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner herself was sentenced to three years in jail over Yettaw's visit, later commuted to 18 months under house detention in her family compound, the same one Yettaw visited.
Webb, known to be close to US President Barack Obama, is an advocate of US 're-engagement' with Asia and has called for a reassessment of US policy toward Myanmar.
The United States has imposed economic sanctions on Myanmar since 1988 and forbade American companies from doing business with the pariah state as of 1991.
Asia-Pacific News
Aug 28, 2009, 12:44 GMT
Yangon - Three staff members of the US House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee met Friday with leaders of Myanmar's main opposition party.
'They wanted to know the political situation of Myanmar and also the health of the political prisoners, including the condition of Daw [Madame] Aung San Suu Kyi,' National League for Democracy (NLD) spokesman Nyan Win said after meeting with the three Americans, Lynne Weil, Jessica Lee and Dennis Halpin.
A US embassy official in Yangon denied that the trip was a follow-up to this month's visit of US Senator Jim Webb in which he secured the freedom of American national John William Yettaw.
Webb, chairman of the US Senate's East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, persuaded Myanmar's ruling military junta to free Yettaw, who had been sentenced to seven years in jail for an unauthorized swim to the Yangon lakeside home of NLD leader Suu Kyi on May 3, staying uninvited until May 5.
The bizarre adventure, supposedly to warn Suu Kyi of a vision Yettaw had had in which he had seen her assassinated, provided the junta with a pretext to charge Suu Kyi, who has spent 14 of the past 20 year under detention, with breaking the terms of her house detention.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner herself was sentenced to three years in jail over Yettaw's visit, later commuted to 18 months under house detention in her family compound, the same one Yettaw visited.
Webb, known to be close to US President Barack Obama, is an advocate of US 're-engagement' with Asia and has called for a reassessment of US policy toward Myanmar.
The United States has imposed economic sanctions on Myanmar since 1988 and forbade American companies from doing business with the pariah state as of 1991.
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Friday August 28, 2009
The Malaysian Star - Q+A-China's complex relationship with Myanmar
By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING (Reuters) - Fighting between Myanmar forces and an armed ethnic group in the remote northeast has forced 10,000 people to flee across the border to China and may raise tensions between the country's ruling junta and Beijing.
China is one of Myanmar's few diplomatic backers, often coming to the rescue when it is subjected to pressure by Western governments over issues such as the imprisonment of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Here are some questions and answers on China's complex relationship with its troublesome southern neighbour.
WHY IS CHINA UNWILLING TO CRITICISE MYANMAR?
China has a longstanding policy of non-interference in other countries' affairs, especially over human rights issues, in part because it does not want the United States and Europe criticising Beijing's own record.
Beyond that, China's overriding concern is a stable Myanmar. Drugs and HIV/AIDS pour across the border into the southwestern province of Yunnan and China is desperate to control that flow.
Any action that might place unbearable pressure on the generals and force a government collapse could have dire consequences for China. Ethnic minorities in Myanmar, which have in some cases waged long-running insurgencies, could then set up de facto states along the Chinese border and their primary income would likely come from drugs.
China also argues that Myanmar is no threat to international peace and warrants no U.N. Security Council involvement, unlike North Korea and its nuclear programme.
WHAT ABOUT CHINA'S ENERGY AND ECONOMIC TIES WITH MYANMAR?
Energy-hungry China is keen to import gas from Myanmar. A pipeline with annual capacity of 12 billion cubic metres, is expected from 2012 to ship gas to Kunming, capital of Yunnan province.
China will also start building an oil pipeline next month through Myanmar to enable it to facilitate crude imports from the Middle East and Africa.
The link would allow Chinese oil tankers to avoid a 1,200 km (750-mile) detour through the congested and strategically vulnerable Malacca Strait.
Overall, China has invested more than $1 billion in Myanmar, primarily in the mining sector, and is the country's fourth largest foreign investor, state media say. Bilateral trade grew more than one-quarter last year to around $2.63 billion.
WHAT ARE CHINA'S BROADER STRATEGIC GOALS?
China has long worried about hostile neighbours, including India, or Japan and South Korea with their U.S. military bases. Having a friendly government in Myanmar is therefore important.
Myanmar gives China important access to the Indian Ocean, not only for exports from landlocked southwestern Chinese provinces, but also potentially for military bases or listening posts.
There are no guarantees a democratically-elected civilian government would be as keen for close ties with a China which had previously supported the junta.
And China, with its own history of suppressing home-grown demands for democracy, is hardly going to push Myanmar to grant the kinds of freedoms it regularly denies its own citizens.
The sanctions already imposed on Myanmar by the United States and European Union have in any case had little effect. The government also defied expectations it would implode during violent pro-democracy protests two years ago.
ARE THERE SIGNS CHINA'S PATIENCE IS WEARING THIN?
Very small ones. At a May meeting in Hanoi, Asian and European foreign ministers urged Myanmar to free detainees and lift political restrictions, in a statement unexpected signed by China.
In 2007, China's Foreign Ministry published an unflattering account of Myanmar's new jungle capital Naypyidaw, expressing surprise that this poor country would consider such an expensive move and not even tell supposed friend Beijing first.
The Malaysian Star - Q+A-China's complex relationship with Myanmar
By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING (Reuters) - Fighting between Myanmar forces and an armed ethnic group in the remote northeast has forced 10,000 people to flee across the border to China and may raise tensions between the country's ruling junta and Beijing.
China is one of Myanmar's few diplomatic backers, often coming to the rescue when it is subjected to pressure by Western governments over issues such as the imprisonment of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Here are some questions and answers on China's complex relationship with its troublesome southern neighbour.
WHY IS CHINA UNWILLING TO CRITICISE MYANMAR?
China has a longstanding policy of non-interference in other countries' affairs, especially over human rights issues, in part because it does not want the United States and Europe criticising Beijing's own record.
Beyond that, China's overriding concern is a stable Myanmar. Drugs and HIV/AIDS pour across the border into the southwestern province of Yunnan and China is desperate to control that flow.
Any action that might place unbearable pressure on the generals and force a government collapse could have dire consequences for China. Ethnic minorities in Myanmar, which have in some cases waged long-running insurgencies, could then set up de facto states along the Chinese border and their primary income would likely come from drugs.
China also argues that Myanmar is no threat to international peace and warrants no U.N. Security Council involvement, unlike North Korea and its nuclear programme.
WHAT ABOUT CHINA'S ENERGY AND ECONOMIC TIES WITH MYANMAR?
Energy-hungry China is keen to import gas from Myanmar. A pipeline with annual capacity of 12 billion cubic metres, is expected from 2012 to ship gas to Kunming, capital of Yunnan province.
China will also start building an oil pipeline next month through Myanmar to enable it to facilitate crude imports from the Middle East and Africa.
The link would allow Chinese oil tankers to avoid a 1,200 km (750-mile) detour through the congested and strategically vulnerable Malacca Strait.
Overall, China has invested more than $1 billion in Myanmar, primarily in the mining sector, and is the country's fourth largest foreign investor, state media say. Bilateral trade grew more than one-quarter last year to around $2.63 billion.
WHAT ARE CHINA'S BROADER STRATEGIC GOALS?
China has long worried about hostile neighbours, including India, or Japan and South Korea with their U.S. military bases. Having a friendly government in Myanmar is therefore important.
Myanmar gives China important access to the Indian Ocean, not only for exports from landlocked southwestern Chinese provinces, but also potentially for military bases or listening posts.
There are no guarantees a democratically-elected civilian government would be as keen for close ties with a China which had previously supported the junta.
And China, with its own history of suppressing home-grown demands for democracy, is hardly going to push Myanmar to grant the kinds of freedoms it regularly denies its own citizens.
The sanctions already imposed on Myanmar by the United States and European Union have in any case had little effect. The government also defied expectations it would implode during violent pro-democracy protests two years ago.
ARE THERE SIGNS CHINA'S PATIENCE IS WEARING THIN?
Very small ones. At a May meeting in Hanoi, Asian and European foreign ministers urged Myanmar to free detainees and lift political restrictions, in a statement unexpected signed by China.
In 2007, China's Foreign Ministry published an unflattering account of Myanmar's new jungle capital Naypyidaw, expressing surprise that this poor country would consider such an expensive move and not even tell supposed friend Beijing first.
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VOA News - Thailand Urged to Protect Migrant Workers from Burma
By Daniel Schearf , Bangkok
28 August 2009
A Thailand-based activist group says migrant workers from Burma are significantly worse off than they were a year ago. The group is urging the Thai government to extend legal protections and social safety nets to migrant workers.
The Migrant Assistance Program Foundation, known as MAP, says the global economic downturn has hit migrants from Burma particularly hard.
According to research released by MAP Friday at the Bangkok press club, 70 percent of workers from Burma in two Thai cities say they are having more difficulty finding work. And while the cost of living has gone up, 30 percent say their wages were cut during the past year.
The report says factory workers have suffered the worst as exports have dropped with low foreign demand.
Soe Lin Aung is one of the authors of the report. He says MAP is asking the Thai government to fully integrate migrants into the social security system and to include them in economic recovery packages.
"We're also asking that they monitor and enforce relevant labor laws along the lines of working hours, minimum wage, and severance pay," he said. "The Thai government should lift travel restrictions for migrants. If we allow migrants to move more freely they can have an easier time of locating safe and secure employment, which is good for migrants and it's good for the economy frankly because then the migrant worker population can be more responsive to changing economic conditions if they can move more freely."
Soe Lin Aung says the group is also asking the Thai government to stop threatening to deport illegal migrants, which he said would help build a more inclusive society.
Most of the migrant workers in Thailand are undocumented and risk exploitation from employers.
The MAP report says women from Burma have been affected more than men. Many female migrants in Thailand work as household maids.
Deng Lungjong represents a migrant domestic worker group in Chiang Mai. She says employers have stopped paying benefits and annual wage increases and some are even withholding pay.
But, despite the worsening job situation in Thailand, she says they are not encouraging migrant workers to stay in Burma.
She says they do not discourage friends to come to Thailand because whatever the situation is like here it is worse in Burma. She says there is no work in Burma, whereas in Thailand there are still bits and pieces.
The MAP research was based on interviews, focus groups and survey results from more than four-hundred migrants from Burma working in the northern Thai cities of Mae Sot and Chiang Mai.
Some 300,000 to 400,000 migrant workers from Burma work in the two cities, mainly in agriculture, construction, and factories.
By Daniel Schearf , Bangkok
28 August 2009
A Thailand-based activist group says migrant workers from Burma are significantly worse off than they were a year ago. The group is urging the Thai government to extend legal protections and social safety nets to migrant workers.
The Migrant Assistance Program Foundation, known as MAP, says the global economic downturn has hit migrants from Burma particularly hard.
According to research released by MAP Friday at the Bangkok press club, 70 percent of workers from Burma in two Thai cities say they are having more difficulty finding work. And while the cost of living has gone up, 30 percent say their wages were cut during the past year.
The report says factory workers have suffered the worst as exports have dropped with low foreign demand.
Soe Lin Aung is one of the authors of the report. He says MAP is asking the Thai government to fully integrate migrants into the social security system and to include them in economic recovery packages.
"We're also asking that they monitor and enforce relevant labor laws along the lines of working hours, minimum wage, and severance pay," he said. "The Thai government should lift travel restrictions for migrants. If we allow migrants to move more freely they can have an easier time of locating safe and secure employment, which is good for migrants and it's good for the economy frankly because then the migrant worker population can be more responsive to changing economic conditions if they can move more freely."
Soe Lin Aung says the group is also asking the Thai government to stop threatening to deport illegal migrants, which he said would help build a more inclusive society.
Most of the migrant workers in Thailand are undocumented and risk exploitation from employers.
The MAP report says women from Burma have been affected more than men. Many female migrants in Thailand work as household maids.
Deng Lungjong represents a migrant domestic worker group in Chiang Mai. She says employers have stopped paying benefits and annual wage increases and some are even withholding pay.
But, despite the worsening job situation in Thailand, she says they are not encouraging migrant workers to stay in Burma.
She says they do not discourage friends to come to Thailand because whatever the situation is like here it is worse in Burma. She says there is no work in Burma, whereas in Thailand there are still bits and pieces.
The MAP research was based on interviews, focus groups and survey results from more than four-hundred migrants from Burma working in the northern Thai cities of Mae Sot and Chiang Mai.
Some 300,000 to 400,000 migrant workers from Burma work in the two cities, mainly in agriculture, construction, and factories.
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The Nation - New US policy is important for Burma's future
By Khin Maung Win, Oslo
Published on August 28, 2009
The visit by US Senator Jim Webb to Burma, in which he won the release of John William Yettaw, who was sentenced to 7 years' imprisonment with hard labour for swimming across Inya lake to the home of Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, draws scepticism from some stakeholders in Burmese politics.
Since the administration of President Obama stated that its Burma policy is under review, those in the camp who supported the previous US sanctions policy are concerned about the direction of the prospective new policy.
The major concern is that the policy shift would change the equation between the regime and its opponents by favouring Burma's ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), and would legitimise the regime and its controversial 2010 election. As of now the election is a critical battlefield on which the fight between the SPDC and the opposition groups will be played out.
It is a fact that both engagement policies advocated by Asean, Burma's neighbours and other Asian nations, and the sanctions and isolation policy held by the US and EU have equally failed to bring any positive change in Burma. Looking for an alternative becomes a natural reality.
Previous attempts by the US to use its power via the UN Security Council have never been realised due to vetoes from China and Russia. These two countries also intervened when the US, along with the UK and France, tried to practise "Responsibility to Protect" to save the victims of Cyclone Nargis that hit Burma in May 2008, leaving 135,000 dead and over two million homeless while the Burmese regime denied immediate humanitarian aid from outside. The US must find an alternative policy so that it can exercise its power to help 55 million Burmese people.
The US is the power the SPDC despises most, but at the same time, will listen to most if it has to. Some suggest that Senator Webb's success in meeting with Senior General Than Shwe and Aung San Suu Kyi is a result of mounting international pressure, which the regime wants to defuse following Aung San Suu Kyi's sentencing on August 11.
While the US needs to send a former president, Bill Clinton, to North Korea to secure the freedom of two Americans and to meet reclusive leader Kim Jong-il, it was politically cheaper for it to send only a senator to secure the freedom of Yettaw and meet Burma's reclusive leader. It indicates that the Burmese regime will listen to the US when it has to, even though unwillingly.
But the US cannot unilaterally exercise its power. Bringing more nations on board, along with a new policy, whilst remaining in the driving seat, would make a difference.
Some suggest the Obama administration is sending a mixed message to the regime, with the US president's recent renewal of Burma sanctions contradicting calls from some senior US officials for "affirmative engagement". Should we not see the renewal as a signal from the US that sanctions remain a possible punishment, whereas the doorway has been opened for engagement? Should it be understood as a "carrot and stick" policy which offers engagement in the first place and punishment later? This is not a new approach in dealing with Burma. Australia, for example, in the early 1990s advocated a similar concept using the name of "Benchmark Policy".
The division among the international players has allowed the regime's survival over the last two decades. Once the US develops a new policy, it must be able to bring more nations on board from both camps - those advocating engagement and those advocating sanctions and isolation.
The carrot and stick approach, offering engagement and sanctions, with proper use of both in a balanced manner, could be a bridge to bring both camps closer. It means that the new US policy must be multilateral, not unilateral.
Some Asian countries, including Asean members, India and China, may have prioritised their own interests when engaging with the regime. They are also major trading partners of the regime, and some supply weapons. A few may even wish that Burma never becomes a democracy. Some democracies, namely India and Japan, compromise universally-accepted values that are in practise in their countries, just for national interest - by giving in too much to the SPDC. This shows that countries in the engagement camp have less interest in changing Burma's status quo. Unlike these nations, the US is freer from any conflict of interest when it comes to Burma policy, whether using sanctions or engagement. It mainly sticks to the idea of sympathy for 55 million Burmese suffering under repressive military rulers for half a century.
Its democratic structure at home is unlikely to allow the US to compromise its values of human rights, freedom, justice, multi-party democracy and market economy when it comes to Burma policy. Planting such universally-accepted values in Burma can only be good.
Sympathy for the Burmese people, within the White House, State Department and both houses of Congress, as well as strong Burma advocacy groups in the country, could reduce the risk of a new US policy becoming another failed engagement.
The regime is not afraid to insult any international organisation, including Asean, the EU and UN. A recent example of how the regime blatantly fouled the international community was during UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's trip to Burma in early July. Most people assumed that pre-arrangements for his visit included securing the freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi, or at least meeting with her. The regime easily snubbed the secretary-general by denying him a meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi.
But the regime knows that it is difficult for it to insult the US the same way. Of course, it is up to the US to determine whether it will allow itself to be insulted.
Khin Maung Win is deputy executive director of the Democratic Voice of Burma, a Burmese radio and TV station based in Oslo. The views expressed in the article are his own.
By Khin Maung Win, Oslo
Published on August 28, 2009
The visit by US Senator Jim Webb to Burma, in which he won the release of John William Yettaw, who was sentenced to 7 years' imprisonment with hard labour for swimming across Inya lake to the home of Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, draws scepticism from some stakeholders in Burmese politics.
Since the administration of President Obama stated that its Burma policy is under review, those in the camp who supported the previous US sanctions policy are concerned about the direction of the prospective new policy.
The major concern is that the policy shift would change the equation between the regime and its opponents by favouring Burma's ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), and would legitimise the regime and its controversial 2010 election. As of now the election is a critical battlefield on which the fight between the SPDC and the opposition groups will be played out.
It is a fact that both engagement policies advocated by Asean, Burma's neighbours and other Asian nations, and the sanctions and isolation policy held by the US and EU have equally failed to bring any positive change in Burma. Looking for an alternative becomes a natural reality.
Previous attempts by the US to use its power via the UN Security Council have never been realised due to vetoes from China and Russia. These two countries also intervened when the US, along with the UK and France, tried to practise "Responsibility to Protect" to save the victims of Cyclone Nargis that hit Burma in May 2008, leaving 135,000 dead and over two million homeless while the Burmese regime denied immediate humanitarian aid from outside. The US must find an alternative policy so that it can exercise its power to help 55 million Burmese people.
The US is the power the SPDC despises most, but at the same time, will listen to most if it has to. Some suggest that Senator Webb's success in meeting with Senior General Than Shwe and Aung San Suu Kyi is a result of mounting international pressure, which the regime wants to defuse following Aung San Suu Kyi's sentencing on August 11.
While the US needs to send a former president, Bill Clinton, to North Korea to secure the freedom of two Americans and to meet reclusive leader Kim Jong-il, it was politically cheaper for it to send only a senator to secure the freedom of Yettaw and meet Burma's reclusive leader. It indicates that the Burmese regime will listen to the US when it has to, even though unwillingly.
But the US cannot unilaterally exercise its power. Bringing more nations on board, along with a new policy, whilst remaining in the driving seat, would make a difference.
Some suggest the Obama administration is sending a mixed message to the regime, with the US president's recent renewal of Burma sanctions contradicting calls from some senior US officials for "affirmative engagement". Should we not see the renewal as a signal from the US that sanctions remain a possible punishment, whereas the doorway has been opened for engagement? Should it be understood as a "carrot and stick" policy which offers engagement in the first place and punishment later? This is not a new approach in dealing with Burma. Australia, for example, in the early 1990s advocated a similar concept using the name of "Benchmark Policy".
The division among the international players has allowed the regime's survival over the last two decades. Once the US develops a new policy, it must be able to bring more nations on board from both camps - those advocating engagement and those advocating sanctions and isolation.
The carrot and stick approach, offering engagement and sanctions, with proper use of both in a balanced manner, could be a bridge to bring both camps closer. It means that the new US policy must be multilateral, not unilateral.
Some Asian countries, including Asean members, India and China, may have prioritised their own interests when engaging with the regime. They are also major trading partners of the regime, and some supply weapons. A few may even wish that Burma never becomes a democracy. Some democracies, namely India and Japan, compromise universally-accepted values that are in practise in their countries, just for national interest - by giving in too much to the SPDC. This shows that countries in the engagement camp have less interest in changing Burma's status quo. Unlike these nations, the US is freer from any conflict of interest when it comes to Burma policy, whether using sanctions or engagement. It mainly sticks to the idea of sympathy for 55 million Burmese suffering under repressive military rulers for half a century.
Its democratic structure at home is unlikely to allow the US to compromise its values of human rights, freedom, justice, multi-party democracy and market economy when it comes to Burma policy. Planting such universally-accepted values in Burma can only be good.
Sympathy for the Burmese people, within the White House, State Department and both houses of Congress, as well as strong Burma advocacy groups in the country, could reduce the risk of a new US policy becoming another failed engagement.
The regime is not afraid to insult any international organisation, including Asean, the EU and UN. A recent example of how the regime blatantly fouled the international community was during UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's trip to Burma in early July. Most people assumed that pre-arrangements for his visit included securing the freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi, or at least meeting with her. The regime easily snubbed the secretary-general by denying him a meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi.
But the regime knows that it is difficult for it to insult the US the same way. Of course, it is up to the US to determine whether it will allow itself to be insulted.
Khin Maung Win is deputy executive director of the Democratic Voice of Burma, a Burmese radio and TV station based in Oslo. The views expressed in the article are his own.
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The Irrawaddy - US Congress Staffers Meet NLD
Friday, August 28, 2009
Three US Congress staffers met with representatives from the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) in Rangoon for talks about political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi, and the US policy review on Burma, an NLD spokesman said.
“We met with the Congress staffers at NLD headquarters at 4 p.m. On Friday. The main reason for their trip is to discuss humanitarian issues,” NLD spokesman Nyan Win said.
“We talked about Burmese politics—the first issue they raised concerned the political prisoners.”
The US Congress staffers also asked about Suu Kyi’s detention, he said.
During the meeting, the staffers told the NLD policymakers are still discussing a US policy shift in Washington. “But they said they did not think a decision on the Burma policy review will come soon,” Nyan Win said.
After US Senator Jim Webb’s recent trip and article in the New York Times, Nyan Win said he told the Congress staffers that Suu Kyi said she did not think his trip and his writing reflected the policy of the Obama administration.
“I think the staffers came to Burma to survey the facts for the policy review or for Congress,” he said.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Three US Congress staffers met with representatives from the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) in Rangoon for talks about political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi, and the US policy review on Burma, an NLD spokesman said.
“We met with the Congress staffers at NLD headquarters at 4 p.m. On Friday. The main reason for their trip is to discuss humanitarian issues,” NLD spokesman Nyan Win said.
“We talked about Burmese politics—the first issue they raised concerned the political prisoners.”
The US Congress staffers also asked about Suu Kyi’s detention, he said.
During the meeting, the staffers told the NLD policymakers are still discussing a US policy shift in Washington. “But they said they did not think a decision on the Burma policy review will come soon,” Nyan Win said.
After US Senator Jim Webb’s recent trip and article in the New York Times, Nyan Win said he told the Congress staffers that Suu Kyi said she did not think his trip and his writing reflected the policy of the Obama administration.
“I think the staffers came to Burma to survey the facts for the policy review or for Congress,” he said.
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The Irrawaddy - Suu Kyi’s Right Hand Man
Friday, August 28, 2009
Tom Parry speaks with U Win Tin, a senior member of the National League for Democracy (NLD) who spent 19 years in prison until his release last year.
Tom Parry: What has kept you going for so long, considering all your years in prison?
Win Tin: Well, my opinion is that when you have to face a military government, you need a little bit of courage, some sort of confrontation, because if you are always timid and afraid and intimidated, they will step on you. Sometimes you have to force yourself to be courageous and outspoken.
Parry: Aren’t you worried about your own security?
Win Tin: People tell me I should keep a low profile because they are very anxious about my security. You can be snatched back to prison at any time, but you can’t help it.
Parry: You have made some difficult decisions in your life. If you could do it again differently, would you?
Win Tin: No, I wouldn’t. You see, formerly I was a journalist and I had no such difficult dilemmas. I could write and meet people and so on. But when I became a politician in 1988, things became very difficult. I was not just joining a political party, I was joining an uprising—a people’s uprising.
I was one of them. I was one of the journalists who joined them—the whole country’s uprising. Then, of course, I was dragged away from political life and sent to prison.
I am now 80 and my health is not very good, but still I don’t mind going back to prison. I don’t want to be intimidated or reverse my way of thinking.
Parry: Over the next 10 years, what would be the best thing that could happen in Burma, and what would be the worst thing?
Win Tin: The best thing that could happen would be if the junta went away and there was some form of democratic change. Of course, that is the best scenario.
The worst is that we just go into the election under the terms of the new constitution, which is more or less a prolongation of military rule. That would be the worst thing because in the next decade there will be no change in the lives of ordinary people. That’s why we are calling for a review of the constitution, at the very least.
We are the ones who have the right to draw up a constitution after the 1990 election. They forgot about us and started convening the National Convention. Then they drew up this constitution, which only the military can accept because it prolongs their rule.
Parry: If the elections do happen, how can the NLD make a difference? How can you stop the continuation of tight military control?
Win Tin: If we stand firm—because we’ve got the people’s support—in the end, we’ll get the international community’s support.
Now look at the Aung San Suu Kyi case. They tried to snatch her and send her to prison. And we are making a very loud protest all over the world and also inside the country. Now the military authorities are rethinking it.
I think we should try to convince them that if they go on, it won’t last long. Even after the elections there will be more uprisings. We have to convince them that this is not the way they should behave.
Parry: Do you think there is any scope for compromise?
Win Tin: Yes, that is possible. That is why we are asking for the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the start of a dialogue.
Parry: Do you think there is any compromise to be had regarding the constitution?
Win Tin: That is possible, of course, if they agree to the dialogue and if they agree to make some amendments to the constitution. It is possible the NLD could participate in the election. That’s the compromise.
It’s very difficult. Of course, they are determined to make the constitution legal, to ratify the constitution in parliament. They are at the point of ratification. There are going to be elections, then there will be a parliament and then the parliament will ratify the constitution.
They feel they are safe.
We don’t want to have another uprising or anything like that. People are reluctant.
For myself, I am rather hard on the army, I have to admit. But Daw Suu has a very kind attitude toward the army. They should have negotiations, enter into a dialogue. But they don’t want to talk with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, they don’t want to let her play a role in our national politics.
Parry: These aren’t the elections we all want to see, but after the elections, do you think they might be more willing to negotiate with her?
Win Tin: But the thing is, you see, after the election is over, the constitution is in force.
Parry: Forty UN envoys have visited Burma over so many years without having any effect. The trip by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was also a failure. What do you think the UN needs to do?
Win Tin: Ban Ki-Moon should say to the Security Council: “We should pick up the Burma issue. We should take the Burma issue to the Security Council.”
The last time Burma went to the Security Council was 50 years ago, in 1957/58, when the Chinese occupied Shan State. That’s the only time the Burma question was sent to the Security Council and they made a resolution.
In 2007, at the time of the Saffron Revolution, the Burma question was sent again [but there was no resolution]. What we ask the UN and Ban Ki-moon to do is put the Burma question to the Security Council again and request the Chinese and Russian not to use their vetoes.
Parry: Wouldn’t it be better to try and build a consensus on how to push for the release of political prisoners, how to help encourage a review of the constitution and help encourage dialogue?
Win Tin: Well, you see, in this situation, when Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is behind bars and there are more than 2,000 political prisoners in jail, we have to push harder. If they release all the political prisoners and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and make some amendments and make a very amicable environment, of course we can engage in dialogue and make concessions.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi can do it, because she has the charisma, so people would accept it. If I made concessions, people wouldn’t accept it.
Parry: It has been a great honor to meet you. Thank you for your time.
Win Tin: The media and those kinds of well-wishers are the only friends we have now.
Inside we can’t do anything at all and at the same time some people would like to silence us.
Tom Parry is a freelance journalist based in London. He contributed this interview to The Irrawaddy.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Tom Parry speaks with U Win Tin, a senior member of the National League for Democracy (NLD) who spent 19 years in prison until his release last year.
Tom Parry: What has kept you going for so long, considering all your years in prison?
Win Tin: Well, my opinion is that when you have to face a military government, you need a little bit of courage, some sort of confrontation, because if you are always timid and afraid and intimidated, they will step on you. Sometimes you have to force yourself to be courageous and outspoken.
Parry: Aren’t you worried about your own security?
Win Tin: People tell me I should keep a low profile because they are very anxious about my security. You can be snatched back to prison at any time, but you can’t help it.
Parry: You have made some difficult decisions in your life. If you could do it again differently, would you?
Win Tin: No, I wouldn’t. You see, formerly I was a journalist and I had no such difficult dilemmas. I could write and meet people and so on. But when I became a politician in 1988, things became very difficult. I was not just joining a political party, I was joining an uprising—a people’s uprising.
I was one of them. I was one of the journalists who joined them—the whole country’s uprising. Then, of course, I was dragged away from political life and sent to prison.
I am now 80 and my health is not very good, but still I don’t mind going back to prison. I don’t want to be intimidated or reverse my way of thinking.
Parry: Over the next 10 years, what would be the best thing that could happen in Burma, and what would be the worst thing?
Win Tin: The best thing that could happen would be if the junta went away and there was some form of democratic change. Of course, that is the best scenario.
The worst is that we just go into the election under the terms of the new constitution, which is more or less a prolongation of military rule. That would be the worst thing because in the next decade there will be no change in the lives of ordinary people. That’s why we are calling for a review of the constitution, at the very least.
We are the ones who have the right to draw up a constitution after the 1990 election. They forgot about us and started convening the National Convention. Then they drew up this constitution, which only the military can accept because it prolongs their rule.
Parry: If the elections do happen, how can the NLD make a difference? How can you stop the continuation of tight military control?
Win Tin: If we stand firm—because we’ve got the people’s support—in the end, we’ll get the international community’s support.
Now look at the Aung San Suu Kyi case. They tried to snatch her and send her to prison. And we are making a very loud protest all over the world and also inside the country. Now the military authorities are rethinking it.
I think we should try to convince them that if they go on, it won’t last long. Even after the elections there will be more uprisings. We have to convince them that this is not the way they should behave.
Parry: Do you think there is any scope for compromise?
Win Tin: Yes, that is possible. That is why we are asking for the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the start of a dialogue.
Parry: Do you think there is any compromise to be had regarding the constitution?
Win Tin: That is possible, of course, if they agree to the dialogue and if they agree to make some amendments to the constitution. It is possible the NLD could participate in the election. That’s the compromise.
It’s very difficult. Of course, they are determined to make the constitution legal, to ratify the constitution in parliament. They are at the point of ratification. There are going to be elections, then there will be a parliament and then the parliament will ratify the constitution.
They feel they are safe.
We don’t want to have another uprising or anything like that. People are reluctant.
For myself, I am rather hard on the army, I have to admit. But Daw Suu has a very kind attitude toward the army. They should have negotiations, enter into a dialogue. But they don’t want to talk with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, they don’t want to let her play a role in our national politics.
Parry: These aren’t the elections we all want to see, but after the elections, do you think they might be more willing to negotiate with her?
Win Tin: But the thing is, you see, after the election is over, the constitution is in force.
Parry: Forty UN envoys have visited Burma over so many years without having any effect. The trip by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was also a failure. What do you think the UN needs to do?
Win Tin: Ban Ki-Moon should say to the Security Council: “We should pick up the Burma issue. We should take the Burma issue to the Security Council.”
The last time Burma went to the Security Council was 50 years ago, in 1957/58, when the Chinese occupied Shan State. That’s the only time the Burma question was sent to the Security Council and they made a resolution.
In 2007, at the time of the Saffron Revolution, the Burma question was sent again [but there was no resolution]. What we ask the UN and Ban Ki-moon to do is put the Burma question to the Security Council again and request the Chinese and Russian not to use their vetoes.
Parry: Wouldn’t it be better to try and build a consensus on how to push for the release of political prisoners, how to help encourage a review of the constitution and help encourage dialogue?
Win Tin: Well, you see, in this situation, when Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is behind bars and there are more than 2,000 political prisoners in jail, we have to push harder. If they release all the political prisoners and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and make some amendments and make a very amicable environment, of course we can engage in dialogue and make concessions.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi can do it, because she has the charisma, so people would accept it. If I made concessions, people wouldn’t accept it.
Parry: It has been a great honor to meet you. Thank you for your time.
Win Tin: The media and those kinds of well-wishers are the only friends we have now.
Inside we can’t do anything at all and at the same time some people would like to silence us.
Tom Parry is a freelance journalist based in London. He contributed this interview to The Irrawaddy.
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The Irrawaddy - Junta Renews ‘Divide-and-Rule’ Tactic in Shan State
By WAI MOE, Friday, August 28, 2009
Two decades of ceasefire agreements between the Burmese junta and northern ethnic armies have collapsed as armed clashes broke out on Thursday when the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and its ethnic allies opened fire on Burmese troops around the Kokang capital of Laogai.
Government troops took over Laogai on Monday without firing a single shot.
According to informed border sources, skirmishes continued from Thursday morning into Friday. Government troops fired artillery rounds into MNDAA positions, reportedly killing one Chinese civilian. One government policeman also has died, sources said.
Border guards and the regime’s constitution
Tension between the regime and ethnic ceasefire groups in northern Shan state increased steadily over the past few months as the junta began pressuring cease-fire groups to disarm and transform into a border guard force in April, in accordance with the new 2008 constitution which calls for all ethnic armies to be under the control of the regime.
Cease-fire groups such as the Wa, Kachin, Shan State Army [North] and Kokang have all rejected the guard force proposal.
Wa and Kokang delegates who attended the military-sponsored National Convention in Rangoon spoke out against the clause in the draft constitution, saying it limited the autonomy of ethnic minorities.
Aung Moe Zaw, a secretary with the exiled umbrella opposition National Council of Union of Burma, said the recent conflict clearly grows out of the flawed approval process of the constitution in 2008.
The ethnic minorities also are uphappy about the junta’s so-called “7-steps to democracy” process leading up to the 2010 national election.
Why the Kokang?
Why did the junta’s generals choose to confront the Kokang leaders first?
The Kokang army, with about 800 troops, is weaker than other ethnic armies, and its leaders clearly opposed placing their troops under government control. The Kokang are widely known to be heavily involved in the illicit drug trade.
Compared to the 20,000 Wa soldiers in the UWSA and the 4,000 Kachin soldiers with the KIA, the Kokang army presents an easy target.
The regime first launched a public relations offensive, linking Peng Jiasheng to the illicit drug trade. Bertil Linter, a Swedish journalist, noted the irony of the charge, considering that until recently Peng Jiasheng was always wheeled out to meet foreigner visitors including UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari and presented as “a leader of the local nationals.”
The regime was also well aware of internal conflict among the Kokang leaders, and when Peng Jiasheng abandoned his headquarters in Laogai, it quickly put together a pro-regime Kokang faction to challenge the leadership of the MNDAA. It is a proven regime divide-and-rule tactic that was used successfully on Karen rebels in 1995.
“They [the junta] will replay the old game—create a proxy group then say two things: it’s a dispute over drugs and other criminal acts and it has nothing to do with the Tatamadaw [the armed forces],” said Min Zin, a US-based contributor to The Irrawaddy.
China’s role
China has repeatedly called for political stability on the northern border and for national reconciliation, and it is worried about a migration of refugees into Chinese territory.
It is difficult to gauge how China will deal with the armed clashes, but it has offered political support in the past to ethnic Wa, Kachin and Kokang along the border, while also supporting the junta.
On Thursday, the Secretary 1 of the junta, Gen Tin Aung Myint Oo, met with the visiting Chinese Deputy Commerce Minister Chen Jian in Naypyidaw.
Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan, the information minister and an important member of the junta, met with the Chinese Cultural Counselor Charge d’ Affairs, Gao Hua, in the capital on Wednesday. Chinese officials were expected to raise the issue about the conflict along the northern border opposite Yunnan Province.
It is believed that senior Chinese and Burmese officials continue to hold meetings in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, according to sources on the border.
During the meetings, Chinese officials reportedly have warned their Burmese counterparts, charging that Burmese soldiers crossed into Chinese territory this week.
According to the state-run China Daily, Song Qingrun, a senior researcher with the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said that the situation on the border will have no impact on China-Burma relations.
Song, however, added it will hurt local businesses and border trade as more than 10,000 Chinese businessmen and workers live in Kokang-controlled territory where up to 90 percent of the businesses are owned by Chinese.
By WAI MOE, Friday, August 28, 2009
Two decades of ceasefire agreements between the Burmese junta and northern ethnic armies have collapsed as armed clashes broke out on Thursday when the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and its ethnic allies opened fire on Burmese troops around the Kokang capital of Laogai.
Government troops took over Laogai on Monday without firing a single shot.
According to informed border sources, skirmishes continued from Thursday morning into Friday. Government troops fired artillery rounds into MNDAA positions, reportedly killing one Chinese civilian. One government policeman also has died, sources said.
Border guards and the regime’s constitution
Tension between the regime and ethnic ceasefire groups in northern Shan state increased steadily over the past few months as the junta began pressuring cease-fire groups to disarm and transform into a border guard force in April, in accordance with the new 2008 constitution which calls for all ethnic armies to be under the control of the regime.
Cease-fire groups such as the Wa, Kachin, Shan State Army [North] and Kokang have all rejected the guard force proposal.
Wa and Kokang delegates who attended the military-sponsored National Convention in Rangoon spoke out against the clause in the draft constitution, saying it limited the autonomy of ethnic minorities.
Aung Moe Zaw, a secretary with the exiled umbrella opposition National Council of Union of Burma, said the recent conflict clearly grows out of the flawed approval process of the constitution in 2008.
The ethnic minorities also are uphappy about the junta’s so-called “7-steps to democracy” process leading up to the 2010 national election.
Why the Kokang?
Why did the junta’s generals choose to confront the Kokang leaders first?
The Kokang army, with about 800 troops, is weaker than other ethnic armies, and its leaders clearly opposed placing their troops under government control. The Kokang are widely known to be heavily involved in the illicit drug trade.
Compared to the 20,000 Wa soldiers in the UWSA and the 4,000 Kachin soldiers with the KIA, the Kokang army presents an easy target.
The regime first launched a public relations offensive, linking Peng Jiasheng to the illicit drug trade. Bertil Linter, a Swedish journalist, noted the irony of the charge, considering that until recently Peng Jiasheng was always wheeled out to meet foreigner visitors including UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari and presented as “a leader of the local nationals.”
The regime was also well aware of internal conflict among the Kokang leaders, and when Peng Jiasheng abandoned his headquarters in Laogai, it quickly put together a pro-regime Kokang faction to challenge the leadership of the MNDAA. It is a proven regime divide-and-rule tactic that was used successfully on Karen rebels in 1995.
“They [the junta] will replay the old game—create a proxy group then say two things: it’s a dispute over drugs and other criminal acts and it has nothing to do with the Tatamadaw [the armed forces],” said Min Zin, a US-based contributor to The Irrawaddy.
China’s role
China has repeatedly called for political stability on the northern border and for national reconciliation, and it is worried about a migration of refugees into Chinese territory.
It is difficult to gauge how China will deal with the armed clashes, but it has offered political support in the past to ethnic Wa, Kachin and Kokang along the border, while also supporting the junta.
On Thursday, the Secretary 1 of the junta, Gen Tin Aung Myint Oo, met with the visiting Chinese Deputy Commerce Minister Chen Jian in Naypyidaw.
Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan, the information minister and an important member of the junta, met with the Chinese Cultural Counselor Charge d’ Affairs, Gao Hua, in the capital on Wednesday. Chinese officials were expected to raise the issue about the conflict along the northern border opposite Yunnan Province.
It is believed that senior Chinese and Burmese officials continue to hold meetings in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, according to sources on the border.
During the meetings, Chinese officials reportedly have warned their Burmese counterparts, charging that Burmese soldiers crossed into Chinese territory this week.
According to the state-run China Daily, Song Qingrun, a senior researcher with the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said that the situation on the border will have no impact on China-Burma relations.
Song, however, added it will hurt local businesses and border trade as more than 10,000 Chinese businessmen and workers live in Kokang-controlled territory where up to 90 percent of the businesses are owned by Chinese.
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Mizzima News - Monks form secret organizations
by Phanida
Friday, 28 August 2009 22:40
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The internet has revealed more and more statements relating to forming of anti-junta secret organizations by monks.
The statements issued by the All Burma Students Union said branch organizations under the aegis of the underground All Burma Monks Organization were formed in Pegu, Irrawaddy and Rangoon Division. The information is being disseminated among Burmese internet users.
The All Burma Monks Organization Foreign Affairs in-charge Sayadaw U Eithiriya said that these branches were formed with the intention of toppling the military junta through mass movements, taking to the streets unitedly and with solidarity in order to achieve victory.
"We have consolidated all monk organizations such as Sangha Samaggi (Sangha Union), Young Monks Union and Thawthuzana. But for all these organizations, it is very difficult to form a unified organization. So we have now arranged to let all these organizations conduct their movements in their own area under the unified command and instruction of a central leadership," he said.
The monks’ organization’s has demanded that the junta make a formal apology for its atrocities, killings and persecution committed against monks. The apology should come before the deadline of October 2, noon.
The monk-led demonstrations spread like wildfire across the country after the local authorities beat up monks in Pakokku in early September 2007.
The monks took to the streets and chanted Metta sutra in Rangoon, Mandalay and other major cities. The security forces retaliated by brutally cracking down on the demonstrators, killing and arresting them.
Among the instances of brutal crackdowns, is the infamous incident, where the security forces raided Ngwe Kyar Yan monastery in Rangoon on November 24, 2007 and beat up all the monks they found inside and arrested them.
The Minister of Ministry of Religion accused the arrested monks of being imposters.
The statement issued by the All Burma Monks Organization is being widely disseminated among the people of Burma. A spokesperson of the organization U Dhama Wuntha told Mizzima that the monks in Burma are facing difficulty in going about their movement.
"In fact, we are mobilizing people through this movement. We showed them what we are doing and are trying to boost their morale. We are into this movement inside Burma without almost any political space. First we launched a poster campaign as part of an awareness campaign among the people and to encourage them to join us. Now we can no longer do these," he said.
The spokesman of the underground student organization Zar Ni said that they were getting ready to join the ex-communicative boycott when the All Burma Monk Organization launches it.
"To what extent the monks launch the boycott and how much it will spread, depend on the leading monks. When this movement forges ahead, our All Burma Federation of Student Union will join them and will fight the junta at the forefront," he said.
According to a source from Naypyidaw War Office, the junta has intelligence inputs on such a monk-led movement and they are monitoring the situation closely.
by Phanida
Friday, 28 August 2009 22:40
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The internet has revealed more and more statements relating to forming of anti-junta secret organizations by monks.
The statements issued by the All Burma Students Union said branch organizations under the aegis of the underground All Burma Monks Organization were formed in Pegu, Irrawaddy and Rangoon Division. The information is being disseminated among Burmese internet users.
The All Burma Monks Organization Foreign Affairs in-charge Sayadaw U Eithiriya said that these branches were formed with the intention of toppling the military junta through mass movements, taking to the streets unitedly and with solidarity in order to achieve victory.
"We have consolidated all monk organizations such as Sangha Samaggi (Sangha Union), Young Monks Union and Thawthuzana. But for all these organizations, it is very difficult to form a unified organization. So we have now arranged to let all these organizations conduct their movements in their own area under the unified command and instruction of a central leadership," he said.
The monks’ organization’s has demanded that the junta make a formal apology for its atrocities, killings and persecution committed against monks. The apology should come before the deadline of October 2, noon.
The monk-led demonstrations spread like wildfire across the country after the local authorities beat up monks in Pakokku in early September 2007.
The monks took to the streets and chanted Metta sutra in Rangoon, Mandalay and other major cities. The security forces retaliated by brutally cracking down on the demonstrators, killing and arresting them.
Among the instances of brutal crackdowns, is the infamous incident, where the security forces raided Ngwe Kyar Yan monastery in Rangoon on November 24, 2007 and beat up all the monks they found inside and arrested them.
The Minister of Ministry of Religion accused the arrested monks of being imposters.
The statement issued by the All Burma Monks Organization is being widely disseminated among the people of Burma. A spokesperson of the organization U Dhama Wuntha told Mizzima that the monks in Burma are facing difficulty in going about their movement.
"In fact, we are mobilizing people through this movement. We showed them what we are doing and are trying to boost their morale. We are into this movement inside Burma without almost any political space. First we launched a poster campaign as part of an awareness campaign among the people and to encourage them to join us. Now we can no longer do these," he said.
The spokesman of the underground student organization Zar Ni said that they were getting ready to join the ex-communicative boycott when the All Burma Monk Organization launches it.
"To what extent the monks launch the boycott and how much it will spread, depend on the leading monks. When this movement forges ahead, our All Burma Federation of Student Union will join them and will fight the junta at the forefront," he said.
According to a source from Naypyidaw War Office, the junta has intelligence inputs on such a monk-led movement and they are monitoring the situation closely.
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Mizzima News - US set to announce new Burma policy
by Mungpi
Friday, 28 August 2009 20:25
New Delhi (Mizzima) - United States is set to announce its new policy on Burma as the Obama administration is on the verge of completing its review, visiting Congress staff members on Friday told leaders of Burma’s opposition party – the National League for Democracy.
Three staff members of the House Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Congress on Friday told leaders of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party that the new policy review is to be completed and announced soon.
“The officials said, however, that the new policy, under review, is unlikely to bring about a drastic change in the current policy,” Ohn Kyaing, a member of the NLD’s information committee, told Mizzima.
Lynne Weil, Communications Director, Jessica Lee, Professional Staff Member, Dennis Halpin, Professional Staff Member of the US Congress on Thursday arrived in Rangoon and on Friday met four Central Executive Committee members of the NLD along with the party’s information committee members.
“During the meeting, the officials mainly asked us our views on Burmese politics and we told them as we view the situation,” Ohn Kyaing said.
The three US officials, during their stay in Burma, will also meet US embassy officials, non-governmental organisations, and US aid recipients in the country. They will also travel to Cyclone Nargis-affected regions.
The meeting on Friday is the second that the NLD leaders have had with US officials in a month. Earlier this month, Senator Jim Webb visited Burma and met NLD leaders in Naypyitaw as well as Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon.
Following Webb’s visit, there has been widespread speculation among Burma watchers and observers over the possibilities of a change in Washington’s policy towards Burma.
The US State Department on Wednesday said the policy review on Burma is to be completed soon but failed to explain whether the new policy would favour economic sanctions or favour engagement.
NLD’s spokesperson Nyan Win after his meeting with the visiting US Congress officials told Mizzima that the NLD is “happy and satisfied with the meeting” but did not elaborate.
The officials, according to sources, will conclude their visit to Burma in Sunday and will also visit other regional countries with an objective of reviewing US public diplomacy and assistance programmes.
by Mungpi
Friday, 28 August 2009 20:25
New Delhi (Mizzima) - United States is set to announce its new policy on Burma as the Obama administration is on the verge of completing its review, visiting Congress staff members on Friday told leaders of Burma’s opposition party – the National League for Democracy.
Three staff members of the House Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Congress on Friday told leaders of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party that the new policy review is to be completed and announced soon.
“The officials said, however, that the new policy, under review, is unlikely to bring about a drastic change in the current policy,” Ohn Kyaing, a member of the NLD’s information committee, told Mizzima.
Lynne Weil, Communications Director, Jessica Lee, Professional Staff Member, Dennis Halpin, Professional Staff Member of the US Congress on Thursday arrived in Rangoon and on Friday met four Central Executive Committee members of the NLD along with the party’s information committee members.
“During the meeting, the officials mainly asked us our views on Burmese politics and we told them as we view the situation,” Ohn Kyaing said.
The three US officials, during their stay in Burma, will also meet US embassy officials, non-governmental organisations, and US aid recipients in the country. They will also travel to Cyclone Nargis-affected regions.
The meeting on Friday is the second that the NLD leaders have had with US officials in a month. Earlier this month, Senator Jim Webb visited Burma and met NLD leaders in Naypyitaw as well as Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon.
Following Webb’s visit, there has been widespread speculation among Burma watchers and observers over the possibilities of a change in Washington’s policy towards Burma.
The US State Department on Wednesday said the policy review on Burma is to be completed soon but failed to explain whether the new policy would favour economic sanctions or favour engagement.
NLD’s spokesperson Nyan Win after his meeting with the visiting US Congress officials told Mizzima that the NLD is “happy and satisfied with the meeting” but did not elaborate.
The officials, according to sources, will conclude their visit to Burma in Sunday and will also visit other regional countries with an objective of reviewing US public diplomacy and assistance programmes.
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Scorched earth victims ordered to rebuild houses
Aug 28, 2009 (DVB)–Villagers in Burma’s central Shan state whose houses were razed in the junta’s latest scorched earth campaign this month have been ordered by the army to rebuild their property.
Some 500 hundred houses were burnt down by the Burmese army near Laihka town in Shan state between 27 July and 1 August, uprooting around 10,000 civilians.
Sein Kyi, deputy editor of the Shan Herald Agency for News, said that army officials in the area recently ordered those who fled to return to their villages and rebuild their homes.
“They also shot video and picture footage of the villages being rebuilt to make it look like the army was actually helping the villagers.”
He said the villages were burnt down by army soldiers together with troops from a splinter group of the opposition Shan State Army, known as the Brigade 758.
“Now the army officials are telling villagers it was the Brigade 758 who burnt down their houses, despite warning [the brigade] not to,” he said.
“But actually, it was the [government] troops who burnt down the villages and the Brigade 758 was only accompanying them.”
The order to rebuild the villages follows a press conference held two weeks ago in Bangkok by Shan right groups, who reported that around 40 villages have been targeted in the campaign.
According to the groups, it is the single largest forced relocation in Shan state since a campaign from 1996 to 1998 saw the uprooting of 300,000 villagers, many of whom fled to Thailand.
Some aid materials, brought to the displaced by sympathisers in nearby towns and villages, were reportedly intercepted by the army on August 7.
Sein Kyi said that the materials were recently distributed to the villagers under the army battalion’s name.
Much of the scorched earth campaign has focused on Laikha township, where over 100 villagers, including women, have been arrested and tortured, and three have died.
Many of these were displaced by the previous campaign.
Reporting by Aye Nai
Aug 28, 2009 (DVB)–Villagers in Burma’s central Shan state whose houses were razed in the junta’s latest scorched earth campaign this month have been ordered by the army to rebuild their property.
Some 500 hundred houses were burnt down by the Burmese army near Laihka town in Shan state between 27 July and 1 August, uprooting around 10,000 civilians.
Sein Kyi, deputy editor of the Shan Herald Agency for News, said that army officials in the area recently ordered those who fled to return to their villages and rebuild their homes.
“They also shot video and picture footage of the villages being rebuilt to make it look like the army was actually helping the villagers.”
He said the villages were burnt down by army soldiers together with troops from a splinter group of the opposition Shan State Army, known as the Brigade 758.
“Now the army officials are telling villagers it was the Brigade 758 who burnt down their houses, despite warning [the brigade] not to,” he said.
“But actually, it was the [government] troops who burnt down the villages and the Brigade 758 was only accompanying them.”
The order to rebuild the villages follows a press conference held two weeks ago in Bangkok by Shan right groups, who reported that around 40 villages have been targeted in the campaign.
According to the groups, it is the single largest forced relocation in Shan state since a campaign from 1996 to 1998 saw the uprooting of 300,000 villagers, many of whom fled to Thailand.
Some aid materials, brought to the displaced by sympathisers in nearby towns and villages, were reportedly intercepted by the army on August 7.
Sein Kyi said that the materials were recently distributed to the villagers under the army battalion’s name.
Much of the scorched earth campaign has focused on Laikha township, where over 100 villagers, including women, have been arrested and tortured, and three have died.
Many of these were displaced by the previous campaign.
Reporting by Aye Nai
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