Verdicts in Myanmar's Suu Kyi trial may be delayed
Mon Aug 10, 4:59 am ET
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Verdicts in the trial of Myanmar's democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi may be postponed again because of the continued hospitalization of the American defendant who swam to her home, a lawyer and hospital sources said Monday.
A court was scheduled to deliver the verdicts Tuesday, ending the 64-year-old Nobel laureate's nearly 3-month-long trial on charges that she violated the terms of her house arrest by allowing American John Yettaw to stay at her home for two nights.
But Suu Kyi's lawyer Nyan Win said he expected the verdicts to be delayed again if Yettaw remains in the hospital because Myanmar courts do not generally make rulings in the absence of the accused.
Yettaw was still in intensive care on Monday, said a hospital staff member, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals in the military-run country. He reportedly suffers from epilepsy, diabetes and other health problems, including post traumatic stress disorder from his service in the U.S. military.
National police chief Khin Yi told the media last week that Yettaw was looked after by a team of seven medical doctors but declined to comment on his condition.
A verdict had been scheduled for last Friday, but judges said they needed more time to sort through legal issues and it was rescheduled for Tuesday.
Suu Kyi, who is widely expected to be found guilty, faces up to five years in prison. Yettaw is charged as an abettor in violating her detention and could also be imprisoned for five years.
The trial of Suu Kyi, who has been detained for nearly 14 of the last 20 years, has refocused international outrage on Myanmar, which has been ruled by its military since 1962.
The regime in recent days has beefed up security in Yangon, claiming that domestic and foreign opposition groups were planning attacks to coincide with the Suu Kyi trial.
Mon Aug 10, 4:59 am ET
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Verdicts in the trial of Myanmar's democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi may be postponed again because of the continued hospitalization of the American defendant who swam to her home, a lawyer and hospital sources said Monday.
A court was scheduled to deliver the verdicts Tuesday, ending the 64-year-old Nobel laureate's nearly 3-month-long trial on charges that she violated the terms of her house arrest by allowing American John Yettaw to stay at her home for two nights.
But Suu Kyi's lawyer Nyan Win said he expected the verdicts to be delayed again if Yettaw remains in the hospital because Myanmar courts do not generally make rulings in the absence of the accused.
Yettaw was still in intensive care on Monday, said a hospital staff member, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals in the military-run country. He reportedly suffers from epilepsy, diabetes and other health problems, including post traumatic stress disorder from his service in the U.S. military.
National police chief Khin Yi told the media last week that Yettaw was looked after by a team of seven medical doctors but declined to comment on his condition.
A verdict had been scheduled for last Friday, but judges said they needed more time to sort through legal issues and it was rescheduled for Tuesday.
Suu Kyi, who is widely expected to be found guilty, faces up to five years in prison. Yettaw is charged as an abettor in violating her detention and could also be imprisoned for five years.
The trial of Suu Kyi, who has been detained for nearly 14 of the last 20 years, has refocused international outrage on Myanmar, which has been ruled by its military since 1962.
The regime in recent days has beefed up security in Yangon, claiming that domestic and foreign opposition groups were planning attacks to coincide with the Suu Kyi trial.
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Myanmar opposition unites at UN
By RON DePASQUALE, Associated Press Writer
Friday, August 7, 2009 (08-07) 14:58 PDT
UNITED NATIONS, (AP) -- Exiled opposition leaders from Myanmar came together at the U.N. on Friday to present a plan for a democratic future in their homeland and ask the U.N. to transmit it to the country's military rulers.
The opposition leaders called for the release of Nobel Prize-winning pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, a dialogue with the regime, credible elections in 2010 and a review of the constitution adopted last year.
The alliance of political parties and ethnic groups asked the U.N. Security Council and Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to send its reconciliation plan to the military regime in Myanmar, which was previously called Burma.
Suu Kyi is on trial for violating the terms of her house arrest after an uninvited American man swam to her lakeside home without permission in May, just before her detention was to end. Opposition leaders say the junta is using the incident to extend her detention ahead of next year's elections.
The charges against 64-year-old Suu Kyi, who has been detained for 14 of the last 20 years, have refocused international outrage on Myanmar, which has been ruled by its military since 1962. Suu Kyi's opposition party won national elections in 1990, but Myanmar's generals refused to relinquish power.
Sein Win, a cousin of Suu Kyi and head of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, which describes itself as the country's government-in-exile, called her trial a "mockery of justice."
He said the regime "has made a lot of promises, but if you look at the facts, it's not getting any better" as human rights are violated, villages are destroyed and the country becomes more militarized. He condemned the regime's purported nuclear ambitions.
In Myanmar on Friday, the regime said it arrested 15 people and accused foreign-based opposition groups and terrorists of plotting explosions during Ban's visit last month and trying to disrupt Suu Kyi's trial.
U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said she had no information on this aside from press reports.
Jeremy Woodrum, co-founder of the Washington-based U.S. Campaign for Burma, said it's significant that Myanmar's diverse political and ethnic groups joined in support of the reconciliation initiative.
He said the Security Council should focus on issues it has ignored like the use of child soldiers, the rape of women from minority ethnic groups, forced labor and the destruction of villages.
An arms embargo would severely undermine the military regime, he said.
The opposition's reconciliation program says the country faces a "constitutional crisis."
Woodrum called the constitution an "air-tight" framework for ensuring the military continues to dominate all levers of power, no matter the outcome of any election. The military will appoint 25 percent of the seats in parliament and can easily remove members who act independently, he said.
By RON DePASQUALE, Associated Press Writer
Friday, August 7, 2009 (08-07) 14:58 PDT
UNITED NATIONS, (AP) -- Exiled opposition leaders from Myanmar came together at the U.N. on Friday to present a plan for a democratic future in their homeland and ask the U.N. to transmit it to the country's military rulers.
The opposition leaders called for the release of Nobel Prize-winning pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, a dialogue with the regime, credible elections in 2010 and a review of the constitution adopted last year.
The alliance of political parties and ethnic groups asked the U.N. Security Council and Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to send its reconciliation plan to the military regime in Myanmar, which was previously called Burma.
Suu Kyi is on trial for violating the terms of her house arrest after an uninvited American man swam to her lakeside home without permission in May, just before her detention was to end. Opposition leaders say the junta is using the incident to extend her detention ahead of next year's elections.
The charges against 64-year-old Suu Kyi, who has been detained for 14 of the last 20 years, have refocused international outrage on Myanmar, which has been ruled by its military since 1962. Suu Kyi's opposition party won national elections in 1990, but Myanmar's generals refused to relinquish power.
Sein Win, a cousin of Suu Kyi and head of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, which describes itself as the country's government-in-exile, called her trial a "mockery of justice."
He said the regime "has made a lot of promises, but if you look at the facts, it's not getting any better" as human rights are violated, villages are destroyed and the country becomes more militarized. He condemned the regime's purported nuclear ambitions.
In Myanmar on Friday, the regime said it arrested 15 people and accused foreign-based opposition groups and terrorists of plotting explosions during Ban's visit last month and trying to disrupt Suu Kyi's trial.
U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said she had no information on this aside from press reports.
Jeremy Woodrum, co-founder of the Washington-based U.S. Campaign for Burma, said it's significant that Myanmar's diverse political and ethnic groups joined in support of the reconciliation initiative.
He said the Security Council should focus on issues it has ignored like the use of child soldiers, the rape of women from minority ethnic groups, forced labor and the destruction of villages.
An arms embargo would severely undermine the military regime, he said.
The opposition's reconciliation program says the country faces a "constitutional crisis."
Woodrum called the constitution an "air-tight" framework for ensuring the military continues to dominate all levers of power, no matter the outcome of any election. The military will appoint 25 percent of the seats in parliament and can easily remove members who act independently, he said.
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No politics or sex: Art feels Myanmar junta's grip
Sun Aug 9, 1:00 am ET
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Hours before the performance art show was to open to the public, the censors arrived and the grilling began. Under their watchful gaze, the nine artists performed parts of their works, aware that every movement could arouse suspicion.
It is the high-stakes ritual that every public art exhibition must undergo in military-ruled Myanmar — scrutiny by the Ministry of Information's censorship board. Any politics or criticism of the government can close a show and land an artist in jail. So can sexual content.
For Myanmar's small but vibrant arts community, the risks have never been higher. Government censorship has always been a part of life under the junta, but last year, the regime cast a wider net for its critics, jailing hundreds including comedians, writers and musicians.
Saw Wei, a poet, was jailed for two years for publishing a love poem with a hidden message calling the country's top general, Than Shwe, "power crazy." Maung Thura, a comedian who goes by the name Zarganar, is serving a 35-year term for criticizing the government's slow relief effort in last year's cyclone disaster. Zeyar Thaw, a popular hip-hop musician suspected of leading an underground student movement, was sentenced to six years.
For the show's organizer, Moe Satt, the censors' visit made for a nerve-racking morning. All the money and work he had put into coordinating the show could be undone in a single decision. In the end, he grasped the government's official permit with a sense of relief.
"There are many restrictions," he said during an interview days later. "You never know what they are thinking. But I don't confront. I find ways to dialogue with them. I find other ways to do what I want."
The repressive environment is both an obstacle and a galvanizing force for a young, underdeveloped arts scene, said Min, a 46-year-old writer and art critic who wouldn't give his full name.
"Sometimes it's difficult, but difficulty is part of being an artist. To understand what we're doing, you need to understand the present condition of our people. We're not allowed to do as much as we want. But we try to express as much as we can," he said.
Moe Satt's show featured about a dozen artists, three of them Thai or Taiwanese, the rest from Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.
A female artist pressed sheets of aluminum foil to her face and to those of audience members to capture a series of facial imprints. A male artist used a huge pile of roses to create a flurry of petals and broken stems.
A woman sat on the floor and sang, her body covered with dozens of small papier-mache stick figures which she would pick up one by one, shaking them ever harder as her singing got louder until she ended with a scream and the figures fell to the floor.
None of the works appeared to touch on politics or sex.
Censorship and repression are major challenges for artists, but so are the lack of resources and limited exposure to a larger art community, said Pamela Blotner, a California-based artist and curator.
"What you have is a lot of energy, a lot of will, a tremendous amount of skill in some. In others, they're really struggling with the lack of education, a lack of perspective," she said.
In 2007 Blotner put together the Burmese-American Art Exchange which displayed works by 12 American and 24 Myanmar artists at an exhibition in Yangon, the country's biggest city, and San Francisco.
Myanmar, a country of 43 million, has only two art schools, so many aspiring artists are either self-taught or else apprentice with a master artist.
"One of the most wonderful things about Burmese artists is how tremendously supportive they are of each other... There is that sense of community. You have older artists taking younger ones under their wing," Blotner said.
That sense of responsibility drives artist Aye Ko, 46, who runs the New Zero Art Space, a gallery for contemporary art created by a collective of about 30 artists. It is among the only places of its kind in Myanmar.
"Modern artists were very isolated before but now they have a place to meet each other and talk about their work. It's easy for artists to come here. Among contemporary artists, there's a united community," he said.
Inside his studio, a spacious duplex in a high-rise, a half-dozen young artists are bent over canvases or casually chatting. A future library of hundreds of art books lies on the floor.
About 100 children and adults attend classes taught three times a week by volunteer artists. The classes, canvas and paint are provided free.
With his bushy eyebrows and long ponytail, Aye Ko cuts a distinctive figure among his students.
"In the year that we've been open, we've had no problem with the censorship board. They see all our shows. We don't want to do the political; my only focus is art," he said.
Aye Ko learned the hard way about the personal costs of crossing the line. During the 1988 pro-democracy protests, he joined in street demonstrations in Yangon and spent three years in prison. He says he emerged a changed man.
"Now my strategy is to choose another way. We need to promote new artists; we need to help the next generation," he said.
Performance artist Moe Satt, 25, regularly travels to festivals throughout Asia but always returns home because he says he too feels obliged to help develop arts in his own country.
Last year he got permission to stage Myanmar's first international performance art festival, but many foreign participants failed to show up because airports in neighboring Thailand were closed by protesters.
Still, he said such festivals are worth the effort, to show foreigners that Myanmar is more than just dictatorship and political prisoners.
"When people think of Myanmar, they only think about (pro-democracy leader) Aung San Suu Kyi and the military junta," he said. "But that's not everything. I wanted to show them the reality of life here."
Sun Aug 9, 1:00 am ET
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Hours before the performance art show was to open to the public, the censors arrived and the grilling began. Under their watchful gaze, the nine artists performed parts of their works, aware that every movement could arouse suspicion.
It is the high-stakes ritual that every public art exhibition must undergo in military-ruled Myanmar — scrutiny by the Ministry of Information's censorship board. Any politics or criticism of the government can close a show and land an artist in jail. So can sexual content.
For Myanmar's small but vibrant arts community, the risks have never been higher. Government censorship has always been a part of life under the junta, but last year, the regime cast a wider net for its critics, jailing hundreds including comedians, writers and musicians.
Saw Wei, a poet, was jailed for two years for publishing a love poem with a hidden message calling the country's top general, Than Shwe, "power crazy." Maung Thura, a comedian who goes by the name Zarganar, is serving a 35-year term for criticizing the government's slow relief effort in last year's cyclone disaster. Zeyar Thaw, a popular hip-hop musician suspected of leading an underground student movement, was sentenced to six years.
For the show's organizer, Moe Satt, the censors' visit made for a nerve-racking morning. All the money and work he had put into coordinating the show could be undone in a single decision. In the end, he grasped the government's official permit with a sense of relief.
"There are many restrictions," he said during an interview days later. "You never know what they are thinking. But I don't confront. I find ways to dialogue with them. I find other ways to do what I want."
The repressive environment is both an obstacle and a galvanizing force for a young, underdeveloped arts scene, said Min, a 46-year-old writer and art critic who wouldn't give his full name.
"Sometimes it's difficult, but difficulty is part of being an artist. To understand what we're doing, you need to understand the present condition of our people. We're not allowed to do as much as we want. But we try to express as much as we can," he said.
Moe Satt's show featured about a dozen artists, three of them Thai or Taiwanese, the rest from Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.
A female artist pressed sheets of aluminum foil to her face and to those of audience members to capture a series of facial imprints. A male artist used a huge pile of roses to create a flurry of petals and broken stems.
A woman sat on the floor and sang, her body covered with dozens of small papier-mache stick figures which she would pick up one by one, shaking them ever harder as her singing got louder until she ended with a scream and the figures fell to the floor.
None of the works appeared to touch on politics or sex.
Censorship and repression are major challenges for artists, but so are the lack of resources and limited exposure to a larger art community, said Pamela Blotner, a California-based artist and curator.
"What you have is a lot of energy, a lot of will, a tremendous amount of skill in some. In others, they're really struggling with the lack of education, a lack of perspective," she said.
In 2007 Blotner put together the Burmese-American Art Exchange which displayed works by 12 American and 24 Myanmar artists at an exhibition in Yangon, the country's biggest city, and San Francisco.
Myanmar, a country of 43 million, has only two art schools, so many aspiring artists are either self-taught or else apprentice with a master artist.
"One of the most wonderful things about Burmese artists is how tremendously supportive they are of each other... There is that sense of community. You have older artists taking younger ones under their wing," Blotner said.
That sense of responsibility drives artist Aye Ko, 46, who runs the New Zero Art Space, a gallery for contemporary art created by a collective of about 30 artists. It is among the only places of its kind in Myanmar.
"Modern artists were very isolated before but now they have a place to meet each other and talk about their work. It's easy for artists to come here. Among contemporary artists, there's a united community," he said.
Inside his studio, a spacious duplex in a high-rise, a half-dozen young artists are bent over canvases or casually chatting. A future library of hundreds of art books lies on the floor.
About 100 children and adults attend classes taught three times a week by volunteer artists. The classes, canvas and paint are provided free.
With his bushy eyebrows and long ponytail, Aye Ko cuts a distinctive figure among his students.
"In the year that we've been open, we've had no problem with the censorship board. They see all our shows. We don't want to do the political; my only focus is art," he said.
Aye Ko learned the hard way about the personal costs of crossing the line. During the 1988 pro-democracy protests, he joined in street demonstrations in Yangon and spent three years in prison. He says he emerged a changed man.
"Now my strategy is to choose another way. We need to promote new artists; we need to help the next generation," he said.
Performance artist Moe Satt, 25, regularly travels to festivals throughout Asia but always returns home because he says he too feels obliged to help develop arts in his own country.
Last year he got permission to stage Myanmar's first international performance art festival, but many foreign participants failed to show up because airports in neighboring Thailand were closed by protesters.
Still, he said such festivals are worth the effort, to show foreigners that Myanmar is more than just dictatorship and political prisoners.
"When people think of Myanmar, they only think about (pro-democracy leader) Aung San Suu Kyi and the military junta," he said. "But that's not everything. I wanted to show them the reality of life here."
*************************************************************
Security tight in Myanmar for protest anniversary
AP - Saturday, August 8
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Pro-junta supporters and truckloads of riot police patrolling Myanmar's commercial capital on Saturday kept potential demonstrators off the streets on the 21st anniversary of pro-democracy protests that triggered one of the country's bloodiest uprisings.
The anniversary comes days before a Myanmar court rules on whether democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi should be jailed for five years for violating terms of her house arrest.
The Nobel laureate came to prominence during the demonstrations and remains the country's most popular politician.
The verdict — scheduled for Tuesday — has already been delayed because judges said they needed more time to sort through legal issues. But Myanmar scholars say the real reason for the postponement were fears that pro-democracy groups would take to the streets on the anniversary if a guilty ruling was handed down.
Yangon's streets were quiet Saturday and security forces were present in much of the crumbling city.
Dozens of riot police and scores of unarmed supporters of the regime were stationed along the main roads, main junctions as well as near the major monasteries and pagodas. Dozens of barbed wire barricades — some of them freshly painted — were placed on roadsides.
Local media used the anniversary to praise the regime and warn residents not to be taken in by unidentified opponents, most likely pro-democracy groups.
Residents interviewed in Yangon said they dared not mark the anniversary, knowing they would be quickly arrested and face the prospect of long prison sentences. Most said they had other priorities.
"I have forgotten that today is the anniversary," said Hla Maung, 52-year old trishaw driver. "I wake up every morning thinking how to feed my family of three."
Outside the country, dozens of demonstrators marked the day with protests in front of the Myanmar embassies in Thailand's capital Bangkok and the Malaysia capital Kuala Lumpur. A small demonstration was also held at the Myanmar consulate in Hong Kong.
The anniversary marks the Aug. 8, 1988 demonstrations — known locally as the 8888 uprising — in which more than a million people protested following the government's sudden demonetization of the currency, which wiped out many people's savings. Suu Kyi, a political novice at the time, became the face of the movement.
The protest brought down longtime dictator Ne Win, but a new group of generals replaced him and brutally crushed the protests in September, killing an estimated 3,000 people. Elections were held in 1990, but the military refused to recognize the landslide victory of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party.
Suu Kyi, who has been detained for nearly 14 of the last 20 years, faces up to five years in prison on charges that she harbored an American who swam to her lakeside villa earlier this year — a violation of the terms of her house arrest.
Security has been increased in Yangon over the past several weeks and was stepped up Saturday in response to recent security threats, national police chief Brig. Gen. Khin Yi said at a news conference Friday.
He said "external opposition groups and terrorists had planned to carry out attacks during U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's visit last month, as well as near Insein prison, where Suu Kyi's trial is being held. The targets also included buildings of the pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Association, he said.
Khin Yi said authorities have arrested 15 people this year for planning to carry out "demolition activities" in Yangon, Mandalay and other big cities, though he did not say how many were connected to the trial.
AP - Saturday, August 8
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Pro-junta supporters and truckloads of riot police patrolling Myanmar's commercial capital on Saturday kept potential demonstrators off the streets on the 21st anniversary of pro-democracy protests that triggered one of the country's bloodiest uprisings.
The anniversary comes days before a Myanmar court rules on whether democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi should be jailed for five years for violating terms of her house arrest.
The Nobel laureate came to prominence during the demonstrations and remains the country's most popular politician.
The verdict — scheduled for Tuesday — has already been delayed because judges said they needed more time to sort through legal issues. But Myanmar scholars say the real reason for the postponement were fears that pro-democracy groups would take to the streets on the anniversary if a guilty ruling was handed down.
Yangon's streets were quiet Saturday and security forces were present in much of the crumbling city.
Dozens of riot police and scores of unarmed supporters of the regime were stationed along the main roads, main junctions as well as near the major monasteries and pagodas. Dozens of barbed wire barricades — some of them freshly painted — were placed on roadsides.
Local media used the anniversary to praise the regime and warn residents not to be taken in by unidentified opponents, most likely pro-democracy groups.
Residents interviewed in Yangon said they dared not mark the anniversary, knowing they would be quickly arrested and face the prospect of long prison sentences. Most said they had other priorities.
"I have forgotten that today is the anniversary," said Hla Maung, 52-year old trishaw driver. "I wake up every morning thinking how to feed my family of three."
Outside the country, dozens of demonstrators marked the day with protests in front of the Myanmar embassies in Thailand's capital Bangkok and the Malaysia capital Kuala Lumpur. A small demonstration was also held at the Myanmar consulate in Hong Kong.
The anniversary marks the Aug. 8, 1988 demonstrations — known locally as the 8888 uprising — in which more than a million people protested following the government's sudden demonetization of the currency, which wiped out many people's savings. Suu Kyi, a political novice at the time, became the face of the movement.
The protest brought down longtime dictator Ne Win, but a new group of generals replaced him and brutally crushed the protests in September, killing an estimated 3,000 people. Elections were held in 1990, but the military refused to recognize the landslide victory of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party.
Suu Kyi, who has been detained for nearly 14 of the last 20 years, faces up to five years in prison on charges that she harbored an American who swam to her lakeside villa earlier this year — a violation of the terms of her house arrest.
Security has been increased in Yangon over the past several weeks and was stepped up Saturday in response to recent security threats, national police chief Brig. Gen. Khin Yi said at a news conference Friday.
He said "external opposition groups and terrorists had planned to carry out attacks during U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's visit last month, as well as near Insein prison, where Suu Kyi's trial is being held. The targets also included buildings of the pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Association, he said.
Khin Yi said authorities have arrested 15 people this year for planning to carry out "demolition activities" in Yangon, Mandalay and other big cities, though he did not say how many were connected to the trial.
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Myanmar warns against riots
Sun Aug 9, 2:32 am ET
YANGON (AFP) – Myanmar's junta-controlled state media Sunday accused "power-craving" opportunists of using Aung San Suu Kyi's trial to incite riots as it condemned the uprising 21 years ago that made her a heroine.
The Nobel Laureate is in a Yangon prison awaiting the delayed verdict in her trial on charges that she breached her house arrest when an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside home in May.
"The people noticed that today, some political opportunists and power-craving elements are trying to incite riots under the pretext of Daw Suu Kyi's case," a commentary in The New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.
On Saturday, exiled Myanmar nationals in Bangkok and elsewhere marked the 21st anniversary of their country's failed student-led uprising with pro-democracy demonstrations and renewed calls for Suu Kyi to be freed.
The United States and Britain also made fresh appeals for her unconditional release, and that of more than 2,100 other political prisoners in Myanmar, although streets were quiet and security tight in Myanmar's main town Yangon.
The state newspaper said the 1988 "unrest" -- which began on August 8 and eventually saw more than 3,000 killed in a brutal army clampdown -- was extreme.
"Once the people turn violent and wild, they all discarded democratic practices and the law and put aside any forms of public interest," the English-language newspaper said.
It also warned that would-be agitators should abandon their plans "if they think they really love their country, and they should stand for election in the 2010 multi-party democracy election".
Suu Kyi has already spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention, and critics of the regime say her internationally condemned trial is a ploy to keep her locked up during the elections scheduled for next year.
The prison court is scheduled to hand down a judgment Tuesday. But diplomats and officials have said that illness besetting US national John Yettaw -- who sparked the case by swimming to her home -- could cause further delays.
Sun Aug 9, 2:32 am ET
YANGON (AFP) – Myanmar's junta-controlled state media Sunday accused "power-craving" opportunists of using Aung San Suu Kyi's trial to incite riots as it condemned the uprising 21 years ago that made her a heroine.
The Nobel Laureate is in a Yangon prison awaiting the delayed verdict in her trial on charges that she breached her house arrest when an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside home in May.
"The people noticed that today, some political opportunists and power-craving elements are trying to incite riots under the pretext of Daw Suu Kyi's case," a commentary in The New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.
On Saturday, exiled Myanmar nationals in Bangkok and elsewhere marked the 21st anniversary of their country's failed student-led uprising with pro-democracy demonstrations and renewed calls for Suu Kyi to be freed.
The United States and Britain also made fresh appeals for her unconditional release, and that of more than 2,100 other political prisoners in Myanmar, although streets were quiet and security tight in Myanmar's main town Yangon.
The state newspaper said the 1988 "unrest" -- which began on August 8 and eventually saw more than 3,000 killed in a brutal army clampdown -- was extreme.
"Once the people turn violent and wild, they all discarded democratic practices and the law and put aside any forms of public interest," the English-language newspaper said.
It also warned that would-be agitators should abandon their plans "if they think they really love their country, and they should stand for election in the 2010 multi-party democracy election".
Suu Kyi has already spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention, and critics of the regime say her internationally condemned trial is a ploy to keep her locked up during the elections scheduled for next year.
The prison court is scheduled to hand down a judgment Tuesday. But diplomats and officials have said that illness besetting US national John Yettaw -- who sparked the case by swimming to her home -- could cause further delays.
*************************************************************
Bangladesh complains of Myanmar refugee 'burden'
Mon Aug 10, 3:55 am ET
DHAKA (AFP) – Bangladesh on Monday said hundreds of thousands of persecuted Muslim Rohingyas who have illegally crossed the border from Myanmar have caused major social, economic and environmental damage.
Foreign minister Dipu Moni said the refugees put a "heavy burden" on Bangladesh, and called on Myanmar's military junta to stop the Rohingyas from fleeing from their homeland.
Buddhist-majority Myanmar denies the Rohingya people any citizenship or property rights, and they face widespread abuse and exploitation.
About 400,000 Rohingyas from Myanmar live in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, according to the Dhaka government, with 28,000 staying in refugee camps where the United Nations provides medical care.
Moni said in a statement that the "continuous flow of illegal entrants were causing huge damage to our scarce land, forest and other resources", adding that order and law issues were also a growing problem.
Officials in southeastern Bangladesh said there has been a spike in arrivals in recent months.
Moni, who on Sunday met a senior representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, urged the commission to help repatriate the Rohingya immigrants.
After visiting Myanmar in May, she said she was hopeful the junta would agree to take them back.
Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres recently accused Bangladeshi police of forcibly displacing thousands of Rohingyas by destroying their makeshift homes.
Mon Aug 10, 3:55 am ET
DHAKA (AFP) – Bangladesh on Monday said hundreds of thousands of persecuted Muslim Rohingyas who have illegally crossed the border from Myanmar have caused major social, economic and environmental damage.
Foreign minister Dipu Moni said the refugees put a "heavy burden" on Bangladesh, and called on Myanmar's military junta to stop the Rohingyas from fleeing from their homeland.
Buddhist-majority Myanmar denies the Rohingya people any citizenship or property rights, and they face widespread abuse and exploitation.
About 400,000 Rohingyas from Myanmar live in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, according to the Dhaka government, with 28,000 staying in refugee camps where the United Nations provides medical care.
Moni said in a statement that the "continuous flow of illegal entrants were causing huge damage to our scarce land, forest and other resources", adding that order and law issues were also a growing problem.
Officials in southeastern Bangladesh said there has been a spike in arrivals in recent months.
Moni, who on Sunday met a senior representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, urged the commission to help repatriate the Rohingya immigrants.
After visiting Myanmar in May, she said she was hopeful the junta would agree to take them back.
Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres recently accused Bangladeshi police of forcibly displacing thousands of Rohingyas by destroying their makeshift homes.
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Myanmar marks 21 years since student uprising
Sat Aug 8, 7:52 am ET
BANGKOK (AFP) – Exiled Myanmar nationals in Bangkok on Saturday called for democracy at home as they marked the 21st anniversary of the 1988 uprising with their leader Aung San Suu Kyi behind bars.
Some 50 activists outside the Myanmar embassy in the Thai capital donned white T-shirts and red head scarves, shouting: "We want democracy!", with similar actions planned around the world, including Japan, Canada and France.
The demonstrations mark the anniversary of the student-led uprising against Myanmar's military rulers that began on August 8, 1988, and was crushed a month later by the army, killing more than 3,000 people.
However, in Myanmar's main city Yangon, the streets were quiet amid tightened security for the anniversary, with police trucks patrolling overnight as state media denounced anti-government groups.
"The government and the people have had to work hard together for a long time to make our nation what it is today. Therefore, we can't let anyone to destroy it," an editorial in English-language newspaper the New Light of Myanmar said.
The 1988 uprising made Suu Kyi a national hero, but the Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been locked up for nearly 14 of the past 19 years. She is now awaiting a verdict in her trial on charges of breaking the rules of her house arrest.
She is being tried over an incident in May when American national John Yettaw swam to her lakeside home -- he says to inform her of a vision he had that she would be assassinated.
Yettaw is currently being treated for epileptic fits in Yangon General Hospital but is also on trial alongside her and two of her female aides. All four face up to five years in prison.
British foreign office minister Ivan Lewis on Saturday released a statement to coincide with the anniversary, calling again for Suu Kyi's release and that of more than 2,100 other political prisoners in Myanmar.
"I want to pay tribute to all Burma's political prisoners. Their courage and resilience in the face of the abuse of their fundamental human rights is humbling," Lewis said, referring to the country by its former name.
Lewis also recalled the brutal crackdown in November 2008 when monks led mass protests in Myanmar before being beaten back by security forces.
Sat Aug 8, 7:52 am ET
BANGKOK (AFP) – Exiled Myanmar nationals in Bangkok on Saturday called for democracy at home as they marked the 21st anniversary of the 1988 uprising with their leader Aung San Suu Kyi behind bars.
Some 50 activists outside the Myanmar embassy in the Thai capital donned white T-shirts and red head scarves, shouting: "We want democracy!", with similar actions planned around the world, including Japan, Canada and France.
The demonstrations mark the anniversary of the student-led uprising against Myanmar's military rulers that began on August 8, 1988, and was crushed a month later by the army, killing more than 3,000 people.
However, in Myanmar's main city Yangon, the streets were quiet amid tightened security for the anniversary, with police trucks patrolling overnight as state media denounced anti-government groups.
"The government and the people have had to work hard together for a long time to make our nation what it is today. Therefore, we can't let anyone to destroy it," an editorial in English-language newspaper the New Light of Myanmar said.
The 1988 uprising made Suu Kyi a national hero, but the Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been locked up for nearly 14 of the past 19 years. She is now awaiting a verdict in her trial on charges of breaking the rules of her house arrest.
She is being tried over an incident in May when American national John Yettaw swam to her lakeside home -- he says to inform her of a vision he had that she would be assassinated.
Yettaw is currently being treated for epileptic fits in Yangon General Hospital but is also on trial alongside her and two of her female aides. All four face up to five years in prison.
British foreign office minister Ivan Lewis on Saturday released a statement to coincide with the anniversary, calling again for Suu Kyi's release and that of more than 2,100 other political prisoners in Myanmar.
"I want to pay tribute to all Burma's political prisoners. Their courage and resilience in the face of the abuse of their fundamental human rights is humbling," Lewis said, referring to the country by its former name.
Lewis also recalled the brutal crackdown in November 2008 when monks led mass protests in Myanmar before being beaten back by security forces.
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U.N. publishes Myanmar landmine map
10 Aug 2009 13:34:00 GMT
Source: AlertNet
LONDON (AlertNet) - The United Nations has published a map showing the location of landmines in Myanmar, a country where unmarked mines kill or maim hundreds of civilians every year.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said it was an important step to highlighting the problem of landmine use in Myanmar.
"It represents a first small step by illustrating the extent of the country's landmine problem in order to be able to address it more effectively," the ICBL said in a statement.
Click here for the map
The Canada-based Landmine Monitor, a group that analyses mine use around the world, described landmine contamination in Myanmar as extensive.
It said on its Web site that Myanmar was one of a handful of countries that had not signed a treaty banning the use of landmines and its army still uses them to fight guerrillas.
"Landmines in Myanmar are concentrated on its borders with Bangladesh, India and Thailand, and in eastern parts of the country marked by decades-old struggles for autonomy by ethnic minorities," Landmine Monitor said.
In 2007, the latest figures on Landmine Monitor's Web site, landmines killed or injured over 400 people in Myanmar.
10 Aug 2009 13:34:00 GMT
Source: AlertNet
LONDON (AlertNet) - The United Nations has published a map showing the location of landmines in Myanmar, a country where unmarked mines kill or maim hundreds of civilians every year.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said it was an important step to highlighting the problem of landmine use in Myanmar.
"It represents a first small step by illustrating the extent of the country's landmine problem in order to be able to address it more effectively," the ICBL said in a statement.
Click here for the map
The Canada-based Landmine Monitor, a group that analyses mine use around the world, described landmine contamination in Myanmar as extensive.
It said on its Web site that Myanmar was one of a handful of countries that had not signed a treaty banning the use of landmines and its army still uses them to fight guerrillas.
"Landmines in Myanmar are concentrated on its borders with Bangladesh, India and Thailand, and in eastern parts of the country marked by decades-old struggles for autonomy by ethnic minorities," Landmine Monitor said.
In 2007, the latest figures on Landmine Monitor's Web site, landmines killed or injured over 400 people in Myanmar.
*************************************************************
India inspects North Korea ship for nuclear material
By Sanjib Kumar Roy – Mon Aug 10, 7:25 am ET
PORT BLAIR, India (Reuters) – Indian authorities were inspecting a North Korean ship detained in the Bay of Bengal for nuclear material or fuel, officials said on Monday, the latest sign of the international noose tightening around the North.
A preliminary investigation by a team of nuclear scientists failed to detect any radioactive presence on board the ship carrying a huge sugar consignment, Ashok Chand, a senior police officer in India's Andaman and Nicobar islands, told Reuters.
"There will be more checking today and we will open the hatch to check the entire consignment for any radioactive material," Chand said.
The MV Mu San dropped anchor off Hut Bay island in the Andaman islands on Wednesday without permission and was detained by the coastguard after a more than six-hour chase.
U.N. member states are authorized to inspect North Korean sea, air and land cargo, and seize and destroy any goods transported in violation of a Security Council resolution in June following the North's nuclear tests.
"India is strictly following the rules and has the right to ask ships to be inspected to ensure that they are in compliance with the U.N. resolution," said Uday Bhaskar, Director of the National Maritime Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank.
North Korean sales of missiles and other weapons materials to tense or unstable parts of the world have long been a major concern of the United States and its allies.
Indian officials said they were trying to find whether the MV Mu San was anywhere near Myanmar, which is suspected to be seeking help from North Korea to build a nuclear reactor.
A former Indian diplomat said New Delhi was wary of a possible North Korea-Myanmar nuclear cooperation and had therefore stepped up security near the Andaman islands, which is close to Myanmar.
"With increasing reports of North Korea helping Myanmar build a nuclear reactor, any vessel floating in Indian waters without a possible reason will be checked and India is rightly concerned," said Naresh Chandra, a former envoy to Washington.
A full interrogation of the 39-member crew can only begin after the arrival of a Korean interpreter later on Monday, officials said.
North Korea, which has walked out of six-party talks aimed at reining in its nuclear weapons program, fired a barrage of short-range missiles in launch tests in May and exploded a nuclear device on May 25, resulting in tougher U.N. sanctions that it has ignored.
Experts say North Korea are feeling the blows from U.N. sanctions and could face more international pressure.
"North Korea is realizing that the eyes of the world are on them and they are feeling the blows from U.N. sanctions," said Lee Sang-hyun, director of the security studies program at the Sejong Institute think tank, located near Seoul.
"They will have to be careful because this incident shows that they are feeling more pressure from countries around the world," Sang-hyun added.
By Sanjib Kumar Roy – Mon Aug 10, 7:25 am ET
PORT BLAIR, India (Reuters) – Indian authorities were inspecting a North Korean ship detained in the Bay of Bengal for nuclear material or fuel, officials said on Monday, the latest sign of the international noose tightening around the North.
A preliminary investigation by a team of nuclear scientists failed to detect any radioactive presence on board the ship carrying a huge sugar consignment, Ashok Chand, a senior police officer in India's Andaman and Nicobar islands, told Reuters.
"There will be more checking today and we will open the hatch to check the entire consignment for any radioactive material," Chand said.
The MV Mu San dropped anchor off Hut Bay island in the Andaman islands on Wednesday without permission and was detained by the coastguard after a more than six-hour chase.
U.N. member states are authorized to inspect North Korean sea, air and land cargo, and seize and destroy any goods transported in violation of a Security Council resolution in June following the North's nuclear tests.
"India is strictly following the rules and has the right to ask ships to be inspected to ensure that they are in compliance with the U.N. resolution," said Uday Bhaskar, Director of the National Maritime Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank.
North Korean sales of missiles and other weapons materials to tense or unstable parts of the world have long been a major concern of the United States and its allies.
Indian officials said they were trying to find whether the MV Mu San was anywhere near Myanmar, which is suspected to be seeking help from North Korea to build a nuclear reactor.
A former Indian diplomat said New Delhi was wary of a possible North Korea-Myanmar nuclear cooperation and had therefore stepped up security near the Andaman islands, which is close to Myanmar.
"With increasing reports of North Korea helping Myanmar build a nuclear reactor, any vessel floating in Indian waters without a possible reason will be checked and India is rightly concerned," said Naresh Chandra, a former envoy to Washington.
A full interrogation of the 39-member crew can only begin after the arrival of a Korean interpreter later on Monday, officials said.
North Korea, which has walked out of six-party talks aimed at reining in its nuclear weapons program, fired a barrage of short-range missiles in launch tests in May and exploded a nuclear device on May 25, resulting in tougher U.N. sanctions that it has ignored.
Experts say North Korea are feeling the blows from U.N. sanctions and could face more international pressure.
"North Korea is realizing that the eyes of the world are on them and they are feeling the blows from U.N. sanctions," said Lee Sang-hyun, director of the security studies program at the Sejong Institute think tank, located near Seoul.
"They will have to be careful because this incident shows that they are feeling more pressure from countries around the world," Sang-hyun added.
*************************************************************
Analysis: Myanmar waiting for development aid
YANGON, 10 August 2009 (IRIN) - Myanmar is one of the least-funded countries in the world but faces a number of hurdles if it wants to receive more overseas development assistance (ODA).
Donors cite the continued detention of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as a key obstacle, along with issues of access and other restrictions on the delivery of aid.
However, the relief effort that followed Cyclone Nargis in May 2008, which left some 140,000 people dead, proved that aid can be delivered directly to those in need, agencies say.
In 2007, the country received just US$4 per person in ODA, less than any of the poorest 50 countries, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Cambodia and Laos – countries with similar poverty levels – received $47 and $68 respectively for the same time period.
“I can’t speak for other donors – but I would imagine most donors do want to give more to Myanmar,” Paul Whittingham, head of the UK’s Department for International Development in Myanmar, told IRIN.
“But there are challenges to effective delivery,” he said, citing issues of restricted access, lack of reliable data, and a poor policy environment.
However, it is the issue of Aung San Suu Kyi that appears to remain centre stage.
“Clearly it is not always possible to keep politics separate from the humanitarian priorities,” Whittingham conceded.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been in detention for 14 of the past 20 years. In May she was charged with violating the terms of her house arrest and her trial has drawn international condemnation. In response, western nations, including the United States, have renewed sanctions against the country. The trial verdict is expected this month.
Aid workers in Myanmar argue that aid for the general public should not be withheld on political grounds, noting that other countries with repressive governments receive much more.
“It’s a mystery to me that Myanmar gets so little in aid, considering the needs are so great,” said an NGO worker who has worked in Myanmar for 15 years.
“[Donors] are so blinded by their opposition to the form of government that they forget the needs of the people.”
Medical workers estimate there are between five and 10 million malaria patients per year in Myanmar, but only a small proportion receive effective treatment.
The country also has the highest rate of HIV in Southeast Asia, but anti-retroviral drugs are only available to one-fifth of those who need them. The remainder, about 60,000 people, goes untreated.
And more than 30 percent of Myanmar’s children are chronically malnourished, according to the UN.
“We know we can reduce the number of people who die each year from preventable diseases,” said Dan Collison, director of emergency programmes for Save the Children in Myanmar. “But without donor support, we can’t do the work we need to do,” he said.
Cyclone recovery under-funded
More than a year after Cyclone Nargis, a multi-million dollar recovery effort remains critically under-funded, Bishow Parajuli, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Yangon, told IRIN.
Of the $691 million needed for the Post-Nargis Recovery and Preparedness Plan, only $100 million has been raised to address health, shelter, water and sanitation, and agriculture needs.
“There is also a misconception among donors that aid cannot be delivered effectively, but this is not the case and that has been proven with Nargis. This is the message that needs to get out, to be communicated to donors,” said Parajuli.
“The response to Cyclone Nargis in the delta has shown that it is possible for the international community, local organizations and the government to cooperate to save and rebuild lives,” said Whittingham of DFID, which was one of the biggest donors to the Nargis response and has just pledged an extra $32 million in assistance across Myanmar over the next two years.
“The needs are immense - so we urge others to follow us and commit more."
Donors and humanitarian workers agree that the government itself must do more to address the root causes of poverty. State investment in basic services is among the lowest in the world: for example, Myanmar spends just $0.70 per person on healthcare each year.
“Only a joint effort of government, the UN, NGOs and donors can really address the massive needs of the people of this country,” said Andrew Kirkwood, head of Save the Children in Myanmar.
YANGON, 10 August 2009 (IRIN) - Myanmar is one of the least-funded countries in the world but faces a number of hurdles if it wants to receive more overseas development assistance (ODA).
Donors cite the continued detention of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as a key obstacle, along with issues of access and other restrictions on the delivery of aid.
However, the relief effort that followed Cyclone Nargis in May 2008, which left some 140,000 people dead, proved that aid can be delivered directly to those in need, agencies say.
In 2007, the country received just US$4 per person in ODA, less than any of the poorest 50 countries, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Cambodia and Laos – countries with similar poverty levels – received $47 and $68 respectively for the same time period.
“I can’t speak for other donors – but I would imagine most donors do want to give more to Myanmar,” Paul Whittingham, head of the UK’s Department for International Development in Myanmar, told IRIN.
“But there are challenges to effective delivery,” he said, citing issues of restricted access, lack of reliable data, and a poor policy environment.
However, it is the issue of Aung San Suu Kyi that appears to remain centre stage.
“Clearly it is not always possible to keep politics separate from the humanitarian priorities,” Whittingham conceded.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been in detention for 14 of the past 20 years. In May she was charged with violating the terms of her house arrest and her trial has drawn international condemnation. In response, western nations, including the United States, have renewed sanctions against the country. The trial verdict is expected this month.
Aid workers in Myanmar argue that aid for the general public should not be withheld on political grounds, noting that other countries with repressive governments receive much more.
“It’s a mystery to me that Myanmar gets so little in aid, considering the needs are so great,” said an NGO worker who has worked in Myanmar for 15 years.
“[Donors] are so blinded by their opposition to the form of government that they forget the needs of the people.”
Medical workers estimate there are between five and 10 million malaria patients per year in Myanmar, but only a small proportion receive effective treatment.
The country also has the highest rate of HIV in Southeast Asia, but anti-retroviral drugs are only available to one-fifth of those who need them. The remainder, about 60,000 people, goes untreated.
And more than 30 percent of Myanmar’s children are chronically malnourished, according to the UN.
“We know we can reduce the number of people who die each year from preventable diseases,” said Dan Collison, director of emergency programmes for Save the Children in Myanmar. “But without donor support, we can’t do the work we need to do,” he said.
Cyclone recovery under-funded
More than a year after Cyclone Nargis, a multi-million dollar recovery effort remains critically under-funded, Bishow Parajuli, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Yangon, told IRIN.
Of the $691 million needed for the Post-Nargis Recovery and Preparedness Plan, only $100 million has been raised to address health, shelter, water and sanitation, and agriculture needs.
“There is also a misconception among donors that aid cannot be delivered effectively, but this is not the case and that has been proven with Nargis. This is the message that needs to get out, to be communicated to donors,” said Parajuli.
“The response to Cyclone Nargis in the delta has shown that it is possible for the international community, local organizations and the government to cooperate to save and rebuild lives,” said Whittingham of DFID, which was one of the biggest donors to the Nargis response and has just pledged an extra $32 million in assistance across Myanmar over the next two years.
“The needs are immense - so we urge others to follow us and commit more."
Donors and humanitarian workers agree that the government itself must do more to address the root causes of poverty. State investment in basic services is among the lowest in the world: for example, Myanmar spends just $0.70 per person on healthcare each year.
“Only a joint effort of government, the UN, NGOs and donors can really address the massive needs of the people of this country,” said Andrew Kirkwood, head of Save the Children in Myanmar.
*************************************************************
The Washington Post - In Burma, Carefully Sowing Resistance: Fragile Opposition Wary of Confrontation
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 9, 2009
RANGOON, Burma -- Dreams of revolution die hard in the silences of this city's monsoon-soaked streets.
Under cover of night, on a wet, deserted strip of jetty, a young opposition activist gazed toward the ragged lights on the opposite bank of the Rangoon River and talked into the wind that blew through a pair of coconut trees.
"I am not afraid, but I do not want to be arrested, not at this time," said the activist, 27, who had fled Rangoon days earlier, trailed by an intelligence agent.
A flickering neon bar sign caught the contours of his disguise -- a baggy anorak, a pair of glasses, a hairnet to mask his thick, dark mane. "If I'm arrested, I cannot take part in demonstrations or campaigns."
On the run or under watch, Burma's semi-clandestine opposition activists have struggled to rouse action while their leader, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, languishes in Rangoon's Insein Prison. She is being tried on charges that she broke the terms of her house arrest when a U.S. citizen swam across a lake in May to visit her in the compound where she has been confined for 14 of the past 20 years.
For an issue as emotive as the fate of the leader whom Burmese refer to in whispers simply as the Lady, the general inaction has in many ways revealed the fragility of long-cherished visions of toppling the junta from the streets, born of memories from the mass pro-democracy protests of 1988. Some, such as the young activist, have ventured from remote village hideouts back into the cities to launch protests.
In the past two months, dozens have defied barriers and a heavy police presence to hold a vigil outside Insein Prison, where Suu Kyi is being held. Others have distributed pamphlets or photos of her, and some have tried to trigger spontaneous marches with what they call "flash strikes" -- unfurling banners in crowded markets in the hope that people will follow.
But the disparate networks of the opposition have tried in vain to forge a united strategy, and their attempts to prompt a mass movement have fizzled in a society frozen by decades of oppression and poverty.
From the Shadows
Although Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, won elections in a landslide in 1990, the ruling military junta invalidated the results, imprisoned opposition leaders and solidified its grip on power.
Two decades later, faith in the NLD's ability to bring the country closer to democracy has waned under its octogenarian caretakers. A few smaller groups have emerged from among groups of Buddhist monks, students or the aging leaders of the 1988 protests, with a shared goal of bringing change through nonviolent resistance to the one of the world's most repressive governments. But with many of their leaders arrested after the failed, monk-steered uprising in September 2007, the remaining activists operate illegally and from the shadows.
"All the organizations, they should be united. Some want to make strikes, some do not," said the deputy of a leading opposition network, a former political detainee who faces retaliation from authorities if his name is published. "We need more people; 100 to 200 people is not enough to make the whole country strike."
Wearing a starched shirt and longyi, the cloth wrap that substitutes for trousers, the leader sat in a downtown coffee shop, digging into a plate of fries. "I have so many different identity cards," he said with a grin. "Sometimes I am a teacher. Sometimes I am a student. Today, I am a teacher."
In the past year, 338 dissidents have been handed multi-decade sentences and have been scattered across Burma's network of prisons and detention camps, according to the Thai-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which monitors the Burmese detention system. Many were celebrated figures in the 2007 protests.
Still, some remain undeterred. With his torn jeans, red-streaked hair and silver jewelry, Moe Thway, 28, blends easily into the crowd of young people sipping iced lattes at a Rangoon cafe. Thway is a founder of Generation Wave, one of the most shadowy of the country's underground opposition networks.
The trial of Suu Kyi prompted him to risk his first trip back to Burma from Thailand since security forces raided his house in March 2008. He stayed only a few days to meet with his members. Even his mother did not know he was in town, because he was afraid he would endanger her.
"We cannot push the people. We cannot pull. We must lead if we want success," he said.
His trip back to Rangoon in June, at the height of Suu Kyi's trial, proved disillusioning.
"I see the depression. The eyes -- they are hopeless," he said.
Since fleeing, Moe Thway has largely run the group's operations out of Mae Sot, a Thai border town. Two of his co-founders are behind bars. Another is in exile. Members still in Burma are subject to arrest at any moment. Authorities raided Thway's house in March 2008, arresting his younger brother and sentencing him to six months for charges that included illegal possession of "Rambo IV," a film that depicts Sylvester Stallone mowing down Burmese soldiers.
But working from Mae Sot allows Thway to coordinate operations in ways impossible inside Burma, also called Myanmar, where potential informers swarm, news is heavily curtailed and Internet cafes are ridden with spy software. Even with the widespread use of proxy servers to bypass censors, electricity regularly cuts out or the government shuts down the country's main Internet server as a tool of control. Land-line telephones are often tapped, and cellphones are used to track activists' movements.
Many opposition leaders say they see themselves as urban intellectuals with a duty to educate the wider population about civic engagement, particularly ahead of 2010 elections. The elections are nominally intended to implement a new constitution, but many critics have dismissed them as a sham. The opposition leader who poses as both teacher and student talked of his members melting into villages and factories, dressed as laborers and workers. "We talk to them about democracy. We talk to them about globalization, about human rights," he said.
Members of Generation Wave have encouraged friends and neighbors to head to workshops held on the Thai border that address issues such as human rights. The workshops, sponsored by foreign human rights groups or Burmese exiles, have yielded 1,000 graduates in the past five years, Moe Thway said. The challenge, he said, is getting graduates to overcome their fear and act back home on the lessons learned.
Patience Growing Thin
One night two weeks before he fled the city, the young activist on the jetty met with another activist in their usual spot -- a cubicle-size, lockable back room at a nightclub plastered with fluorescent planets.
The elder activist, 48, said he had spent the better part of 20 years posing as a fish farmer or rice-paddy laborer. All the while, he has been recruiting opposition activists, spreading ideas about political rights and, in recent months, encouraging a signature campaign against the junta.
"I go to where the people are oppressed," he said. "It is impossible for them to express themselves."
Wispy-thin, he sat stiffly in a large red anorak and railed about the need to educate the rural population.
He was back among the fish farmers when news of Suu Kyi's trial prompted him to travel 50 miles south to Rangoon. The young activist knew him from his teenage years as one of several regulars at a tea shop who would lend him books that eventually converted him into a professional activist.
The older man's patience is now growing thin. In next year's elections, he said, "we need to use an armed struggle. . . . They use violence, and they don't care about international pressure."
On another day, the young activist and three others from separate youth networks talked about sources of inspiration -- Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution, the anti-Slobodan Milosevic student movement in Serbia, South Africa's Nelson Mandela and India's Mahatma Gandhi. The conversation, which took place at a restaurant, quieted whenever a waiter hovered.
"To face a very powerful enemy, we need to be clever, we need to be peaceful and we need international support," said one, who introduced himself with a pseudonym.
Two weeks later, the activist returned to Rangoon smuggled in the cargo hold of a truck. He hoped to help coordinate the launch of a "yellow campaign," which aims to encourage Burmese to wear a color favored by Suu Kyi.
This time, he said, he was resolved.
"I won't leave," he said. "I will stay here and fight."
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 9, 2009
RANGOON, Burma -- Dreams of revolution die hard in the silences of this city's monsoon-soaked streets.
Under cover of night, on a wet, deserted strip of jetty, a young opposition activist gazed toward the ragged lights on the opposite bank of the Rangoon River and talked into the wind that blew through a pair of coconut trees.
"I am not afraid, but I do not want to be arrested, not at this time," said the activist, 27, who had fled Rangoon days earlier, trailed by an intelligence agent.
A flickering neon bar sign caught the contours of his disguise -- a baggy anorak, a pair of glasses, a hairnet to mask his thick, dark mane. "If I'm arrested, I cannot take part in demonstrations or campaigns."
On the run or under watch, Burma's semi-clandestine opposition activists have struggled to rouse action while their leader, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, languishes in Rangoon's Insein Prison. She is being tried on charges that she broke the terms of her house arrest when a U.S. citizen swam across a lake in May to visit her in the compound where she has been confined for 14 of the past 20 years.
For an issue as emotive as the fate of the leader whom Burmese refer to in whispers simply as the Lady, the general inaction has in many ways revealed the fragility of long-cherished visions of toppling the junta from the streets, born of memories from the mass pro-democracy protests of 1988. Some, such as the young activist, have ventured from remote village hideouts back into the cities to launch protests.
In the past two months, dozens have defied barriers and a heavy police presence to hold a vigil outside Insein Prison, where Suu Kyi is being held. Others have distributed pamphlets or photos of her, and some have tried to trigger spontaneous marches with what they call "flash strikes" -- unfurling banners in crowded markets in the hope that people will follow.
But the disparate networks of the opposition have tried in vain to forge a united strategy, and their attempts to prompt a mass movement have fizzled in a society frozen by decades of oppression and poverty.
From the Shadows
Although Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, won elections in a landslide in 1990, the ruling military junta invalidated the results, imprisoned opposition leaders and solidified its grip on power.
Two decades later, faith in the NLD's ability to bring the country closer to democracy has waned under its octogenarian caretakers. A few smaller groups have emerged from among groups of Buddhist monks, students or the aging leaders of the 1988 protests, with a shared goal of bringing change through nonviolent resistance to the one of the world's most repressive governments. But with many of their leaders arrested after the failed, monk-steered uprising in September 2007, the remaining activists operate illegally and from the shadows.
"All the organizations, they should be united. Some want to make strikes, some do not," said the deputy of a leading opposition network, a former political detainee who faces retaliation from authorities if his name is published. "We need more people; 100 to 200 people is not enough to make the whole country strike."
Wearing a starched shirt and longyi, the cloth wrap that substitutes for trousers, the leader sat in a downtown coffee shop, digging into a plate of fries. "I have so many different identity cards," he said with a grin. "Sometimes I am a teacher. Sometimes I am a student. Today, I am a teacher."
In the past year, 338 dissidents have been handed multi-decade sentences and have been scattered across Burma's network of prisons and detention camps, according to the Thai-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which monitors the Burmese detention system. Many were celebrated figures in the 2007 protests.
Still, some remain undeterred. With his torn jeans, red-streaked hair and silver jewelry, Moe Thway, 28, blends easily into the crowd of young people sipping iced lattes at a Rangoon cafe. Thway is a founder of Generation Wave, one of the most shadowy of the country's underground opposition networks.
The trial of Suu Kyi prompted him to risk his first trip back to Burma from Thailand since security forces raided his house in March 2008. He stayed only a few days to meet with his members. Even his mother did not know he was in town, because he was afraid he would endanger her.
"We cannot push the people. We cannot pull. We must lead if we want success," he said.
His trip back to Rangoon in June, at the height of Suu Kyi's trial, proved disillusioning.
"I see the depression. The eyes -- they are hopeless," he said.
Since fleeing, Moe Thway has largely run the group's operations out of Mae Sot, a Thai border town. Two of his co-founders are behind bars. Another is in exile. Members still in Burma are subject to arrest at any moment. Authorities raided Thway's house in March 2008, arresting his younger brother and sentencing him to six months for charges that included illegal possession of "Rambo IV," a film that depicts Sylvester Stallone mowing down Burmese soldiers.
But working from Mae Sot allows Thway to coordinate operations in ways impossible inside Burma, also called Myanmar, where potential informers swarm, news is heavily curtailed and Internet cafes are ridden with spy software. Even with the widespread use of proxy servers to bypass censors, electricity regularly cuts out or the government shuts down the country's main Internet server as a tool of control. Land-line telephones are often tapped, and cellphones are used to track activists' movements.
Many opposition leaders say they see themselves as urban intellectuals with a duty to educate the wider population about civic engagement, particularly ahead of 2010 elections. The elections are nominally intended to implement a new constitution, but many critics have dismissed them as a sham. The opposition leader who poses as both teacher and student talked of his members melting into villages and factories, dressed as laborers and workers. "We talk to them about democracy. We talk to them about globalization, about human rights," he said.
Members of Generation Wave have encouraged friends and neighbors to head to workshops held on the Thai border that address issues such as human rights. The workshops, sponsored by foreign human rights groups or Burmese exiles, have yielded 1,000 graduates in the past five years, Moe Thway said. The challenge, he said, is getting graduates to overcome their fear and act back home on the lessons learned.
Patience Growing Thin
One night two weeks before he fled the city, the young activist on the jetty met with another activist in their usual spot -- a cubicle-size, lockable back room at a nightclub plastered with fluorescent planets.
The elder activist, 48, said he had spent the better part of 20 years posing as a fish farmer or rice-paddy laborer. All the while, he has been recruiting opposition activists, spreading ideas about political rights and, in recent months, encouraging a signature campaign against the junta.
"I go to where the people are oppressed," he said. "It is impossible for them to express themselves."
Wispy-thin, he sat stiffly in a large red anorak and railed about the need to educate the rural population.
He was back among the fish farmers when news of Suu Kyi's trial prompted him to travel 50 miles south to Rangoon. The young activist knew him from his teenage years as one of several regulars at a tea shop who would lend him books that eventually converted him into a professional activist.
The older man's patience is now growing thin. In next year's elections, he said, "we need to use an armed struggle. . . . They use violence, and they don't care about international pressure."
On another day, the young activist and three others from separate youth networks talked about sources of inspiration -- Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution, the anti-Slobodan Milosevic student movement in Serbia, South Africa's Nelson Mandela and India's Mahatma Gandhi. The conversation, which took place at a restaurant, quieted whenever a waiter hovered.
"To face a very powerful enemy, we need to be clever, we need to be peaceful and we need international support," said one, who introduced himself with a pseudonym.
Two weeks later, the activist returned to Rangoon smuggled in the cargo hold of a truck. He hoped to help coordinate the launch of a "yellow campaign," which aims to encourage Burmese to wear a color favored by Suu Kyi.
This time, he said, he was resolved.
"I won't leave," he said. "I will stay here and fight."
*************************************************************
The Washington Times - Myanmar's N. Korean ties escape scrutiny
By Simon Roughneen
Originally published 04:45 a.m., August 9, 2009.
BANGKOK | Governments and international bodies have been slow to act over the possibility that two of the world's most repressive regimes - North Korea and Myanmar - are collaborating on nuclear technology.
A report earlier this month by an Australian newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, said that Myanmar, also known as Burma, is building a secret nuclear reactor and plutonium facility in caves tunneled into a mountain at Naung Laing in the northern part of the country.
The facilities are close to a civilian reactor under construction by Russia that is inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the newspaper said. It cited two Burmese defectors as the source of the information about the secret program.
While the reports have not yet been verified, a Burmese internal military report leaked to Irrawaddy newsmagazine, a Burmese exile publication, said North Korea has been helping the Myanmar junta build a network of tunnels to serve as air-raid shelters in the event of civil unrest or foreign invasion.
Burmese military officials have visited North Korea since the two countries re-established diplomatic relations in 2007. In June, the U.S. Navy trailed the North Korean freighter Kang Nam I, which appeared to be en route to Myanmar. It turned back before reaching its destination, generating speculation that its cargo included sensitive military technology.
"It's frightening to contemplate nuclear cooperation between two military dictatorships, especially when the intentions and capabilities of the recipient ... in this case are so murky," said Sharon Squassoni, senior associate in the nonproliferation program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
Asked about Myanmar, the IAEA - the U.N. nuclear watchdog - stated that "Myanmar is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and thus has concluded a safeguards agreement with the IAEA with a small-quantities protocol, which is designed for states that have little or no nuclear material and no nuclear material in facilities. Based on this agreement, it would be expected to inform the IAEA no later than six months prior to operating a nuclear facility."
Ms. Squassoni said that if Myanmar "truly has peaceful nuclear intentions, it should invite observers in for a full tour, join the Proliferation Security Initiative and sign an Additional Protocol with the IAEA, which would enhance inspections."
The security initiative groups about 100 nations that have agreed to stop and search ships and planes suspected of carrying nuclear materials or missile parts. The Additional Protocol allows the IAEA to conduct short-notice inspections of nuclear facilities.
Myanmar is unlikely to take such steps, however, which means that the issue may be headed to the U.N. Security Council.
Given that China wields a veto on the council - and that China is a major investor in Myanmar - the chances for U.N. action appear slim.
U.S. officials have been circumspect.
At a recent Asian security meeting in Thailand, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, "We worry about the transfer of nuclear technology from North Korea to Myanmar."
However, U.S. authorities have not confirmed or denied the reports in the Australian press, which speculated that the junta was trading yellowcake, a type of uranium used in the enrichment process, for North Korean military hardware and technical expertise.
State Department spokesman Robert Wood on Thursday repeated the concerns raised by Mrs. Clinton, but declined to say whether Washington was seriously looking into the Australian report.
Avner Cohen, a nonproliferation specialist and senior research scholar at the University of Maryland, said it makes sense for North Korea to be aiding efforts by other countries, including Myanmar, to develop a nuclear program, because that helps to maintain and improve Pyongyang's own expertise.
"Beyond the financial reasons, what happens to your manpower if you dismantle your own nuclear program?" he said in reference to a process the North Koreans began a couple of years ago as part of an agreement reached in six-nation talks. "You can keep your expertise alive and your people employed in projects abroad. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case with Burma."
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, agreed that it "would not be at all surprising if North Korea was in fact involved in a secret nuclear effort," but he said it makes little sense for the Burmese to be developing such a program.
"No one is threatening Burma's security for them to need a deterrent," Mr. Kimball said. "In fact, they would be inviting a threat if they were trying to acquire a nuclear-weapons capability."
Burmese exiles and political dissidents have been remarking on the junta's nuclear ambitions for some time. The Irrawaddy newsmagazine has reported that the civilian government that preceded the junta designated a site for a nuclear-research reactor in the capital, Yangon, but these plans were discarded after the 1962 military coup. Since 2000, Russia has been collaborating with Myanmar on a low-grade, civilian-use reactor, under IAEA auspices.
North Korea, meanwhile, has a track record of illicit nuclear proliferation. In 2007, Israel destroyed what appeared to be the beginnings of a North Korean-built reactor in Syria.
"We do know that North Korea is willing to sell nuclear technology under the table to countries like Syria that skirt the rules on making full declarations to the IAEA," Ms. Squassoni said. "This alone warrants a lot more attention to what the junta might be purchasing or negotiating for, and what they are saying about any future nuclear capabilities."
Andrew Selth, an Australian specialist and author of "Burma and Nuclear Proliferation: Policies and Perceptions," wrote recently on the Lowy Institute for International Policy blog that "there are many unanswered questions about Burma's nuclear aspirations and its ties with North Korea."
"The most pressing question for many analysts, however, is why no government or international organization has made any official statement on this issue," he wrote.
Tim Huxley, executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies-Asia, speculated that the U.S. was loath to publicize the dispute until the release of two American reporters jailed in North Korea. The two were freed after former President Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang last week.
Myanmar's neighbors also have been slow to react to the reports of illicit nuclear activity. Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah told The Washington Times that "the case against Myanmar must be proven, and the IAEA can assess this."
Burmese dissidents are impatient.
Aung Din, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, said: "The world should not wait until they see the solid proof of the relations between North Korea and the Burmese regime and their nuclear conspiracy."
Nicholas Kralev in Washington contributed to this report.
By Simon Roughneen
Originally published 04:45 a.m., August 9, 2009.
BANGKOK | Governments and international bodies have been slow to act over the possibility that two of the world's most repressive regimes - North Korea and Myanmar - are collaborating on nuclear technology.
A report earlier this month by an Australian newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, said that Myanmar, also known as Burma, is building a secret nuclear reactor and plutonium facility in caves tunneled into a mountain at Naung Laing in the northern part of the country.
The facilities are close to a civilian reactor under construction by Russia that is inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the newspaper said. It cited two Burmese defectors as the source of the information about the secret program.
While the reports have not yet been verified, a Burmese internal military report leaked to Irrawaddy newsmagazine, a Burmese exile publication, said North Korea has been helping the Myanmar junta build a network of tunnels to serve as air-raid shelters in the event of civil unrest or foreign invasion.
Burmese military officials have visited North Korea since the two countries re-established diplomatic relations in 2007. In June, the U.S. Navy trailed the North Korean freighter Kang Nam I, which appeared to be en route to Myanmar. It turned back before reaching its destination, generating speculation that its cargo included sensitive military technology.
"It's frightening to contemplate nuclear cooperation between two military dictatorships, especially when the intentions and capabilities of the recipient ... in this case are so murky," said Sharon Squassoni, senior associate in the nonproliferation program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
Asked about Myanmar, the IAEA - the U.N. nuclear watchdog - stated that "Myanmar is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and thus has concluded a safeguards agreement with the IAEA with a small-quantities protocol, which is designed for states that have little or no nuclear material and no nuclear material in facilities. Based on this agreement, it would be expected to inform the IAEA no later than six months prior to operating a nuclear facility."
Ms. Squassoni said that if Myanmar "truly has peaceful nuclear intentions, it should invite observers in for a full tour, join the Proliferation Security Initiative and sign an Additional Protocol with the IAEA, which would enhance inspections."
The security initiative groups about 100 nations that have agreed to stop and search ships and planes suspected of carrying nuclear materials or missile parts. The Additional Protocol allows the IAEA to conduct short-notice inspections of nuclear facilities.
Myanmar is unlikely to take such steps, however, which means that the issue may be headed to the U.N. Security Council.
Given that China wields a veto on the council - and that China is a major investor in Myanmar - the chances for U.N. action appear slim.
U.S. officials have been circumspect.
At a recent Asian security meeting in Thailand, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, "We worry about the transfer of nuclear technology from North Korea to Myanmar."
However, U.S. authorities have not confirmed or denied the reports in the Australian press, which speculated that the junta was trading yellowcake, a type of uranium used in the enrichment process, for North Korean military hardware and technical expertise.
State Department spokesman Robert Wood on Thursday repeated the concerns raised by Mrs. Clinton, but declined to say whether Washington was seriously looking into the Australian report.
Avner Cohen, a nonproliferation specialist and senior research scholar at the University of Maryland, said it makes sense for North Korea to be aiding efforts by other countries, including Myanmar, to develop a nuclear program, because that helps to maintain and improve Pyongyang's own expertise.
"Beyond the financial reasons, what happens to your manpower if you dismantle your own nuclear program?" he said in reference to a process the North Koreans began a couple of years ago as part of an agreement reached in six-nation talks. "You can keep your expertise alive and your people employed in projects abroad. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case with Burma."
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, agreed that it "would not be at all surprising if North Korea was in fact involved in a secret nuclear effort," but he said it makes little sense for the Burmese to be developing such a program.
"No one is threatening Burma's security for them to need a deterrent," Mr. Kimball said. "In fact, they would be inviting a threat if they were trying to acquire a nuclear-weapons capability."
Burmese exiles and political dissidents have been remarking on the junta's nuclear ambitions for some time. The Irrawaddy newsmagazine has reported that the civilian government that preceded the junta designated a site for a nuclear-research reactor in the capital, Yangon, but these plans were discarded after the 1962 military coup. Since 2000, Russia has been collaborating with Myanmar on a low-grade, civilian-use reactor, under IAEA auspices.
North Korea, meanwhile, has a track record of illicit nuclear proliferation. In 2007, Israel destroyed what appeared to be the beginnings of a North Korean-built reactor in Syria.
"We do know that North Korea is willing to sell nuclear technology under the table to countries like Syria that skirt the rules on making full declarations to the IAEA," Ms. Squassoni said. "This alone warrants a lot more attention to what the junta might be purchasing or negotiating for, and what they are saying about any future nuclear capabilities."
Andrew Selth, an Australian specialist and author of "Burma and Nuclear Proliferation: Policies and Perceptions," wrote recently on the Lowy Institute for International Policy blog that "there are many unanswered questions about Burma's nuclear aspirations and its ties with North Korea."
"The most pressing question for many analysts, however, is why no government or international organization has made any official statement on this issue," he wrote.
Tim Huxley, executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies-Asia, speculated that the U.S. was loath to publicize the dispute until the release of two American reporters jailed in North Korea. The two were freed after former President Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang last week.
Myanmar's neighbors also have been slow to react to the reports of illicit nuclear activity. Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah told The Washington Times that "the case against Myanmar must be proven, and the IAEA can assess this."
Burmese dissidents are impatient.
Aung Din, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, said: "The world should not wait until they see the solid proof of the relations between North Korea and the Burmese regime and their nuclear conspiracy."
Nicholas Kralev in Washington contributed to this report.
*************************************************************
Business Mirror - Burma should seize chance to thaw ties with West: Lee
Written by Mia M. Gonzalez / Reporter
Sunday, 09 August 2009 22:09
SINGAPORE—Myanmar should seize the opportunity presented by a possible shift in the position of Western governments, including the United States, in engaging with that country by making a “gesture” that would convey its willingness to improve relations.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in an interview with Asean journalists at the Istana on Friday that leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) feel that Myanmar (originally known as Burma until the junta renamed it), more than ever before, has a chance to mend ties with the West.
“From the sense of the Asean leaders when we met in the Asean leaders’ meeting, Myanmar actually has an opportunity now because the Americans have a new government since Mr. Obama with Hillary Clinton, and they are rethinking their position on Myanmar. The Europeans are also reconsidering their positions on Myanmar [are] and not so stridently insistent on do this or that, as which they used to do,” Mr. Lee said.
Mr. Lee, who was responding to questions on the issue, said this presents “an opportunity for Myanmar to make some gesture, to shift the position so you’re not completely just stuck where you are.”
The Southeast Asian country, whose human-rights record has put Asean in an awkward position when engaging its Western dialogue partners can, for instance, “show that you can understand this and you would like to improve your relations,” said Mr. Lee. “It doesn’t mean that ayou have to concede what people are demanding of you but you are prepared to engage and you would like to thaw the relationship. I think that might be an opportunity. This is an opportunity to do that, which should not be missed. And I think that’s still true.”
Foreign Minister George Yeo said in another interview with visiting Southeast Asian and Middle East journalists last week that “there’s no way that Myanmar can embark on its own road to the future whether it is socialist or capitalist or anywhere unless it is connected to the rest of the world.”
Because of that, Yeo added, “it has to take into account the views of others. It cannot ignore that, even though we recognize that [it has its] own judicial process and that judicial process must be allowed to take its course.”
Asked about the extent of Asean’s influence on Myanmar, which has ratified the Asean Charter and participated in drafting the terms of reference of the Asean intergovernmental human-rights body, Mr. Yeo said Asean exerts “some influence on” Myanmar “but we must be realistic in the influence that we are able to wield.”
He went on: “What can we do? Can we use force? It would not be wise. Can we use trade sanctions? The Europeans and the Americans have done their worst, it has not worked. Can we criticize? Yes we can. Should we engage? Some people said yes, some people said no. We decided on balance that good engagement is leverage, that we can have some influence over the process. That’s how it is.”
‘Signs of willingness to do more’
Ambassador-at-Large Ong Keng Yong, former Asean Secretary-General, said in an interview with the BusinessMirror during a break in the Asia-Middle East Media Roundtable on Thursday that Myanmar has shown signs of willingness to “do more with the rest of the Asean.”
Ong, who is also director of the Institute of Policy Studies at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said Myanmar is apparently “interested in living up to the requirements to the Asean Charter” and did not impede deliberations on the drafting of the terms of reference for the Asean human-rights body.
Ong thinks Myanmar is apparently keen on pursuing economic reforms, having committed to abide by the timelines and goals in the Asean Economic Community.
“Looking at the way they [Burmese officials] embrace the ideas and the ideals in the Charter and the way they approached the human-rights body and the way they are implementing the process for the economic community building, I’m quite optimistic that they are actually willing to do more with the rest of Asean....I think there is a desire on the part of the leadership to do more,” he said.
The adoption of Burma’s Constitution and the completion of its own national reconciliation process “signal that whatever excuses they had in the past to go forward has now been minimized.”
Ong said that having done their internal work, Myanmar authorities “just have to proceed to have the election; after that they should have the various elements come into play.”
Overall, he added, “if we are able to continue our quiet diplomacy, our firm persuasion, I think we can get some progress in the coming months,” but quickly added that “the problem is that everything is defined by Aung San Suu Kyi”, the Nobel laureate prodemocracy leader who has been under house arrest for 13 years.
He said Asean foreign ministers, among others, are trying to persuade Myanmar authorities “to show some kind of goodwill that this issue be taken a bit off from the in-your-face kind of status now.”
Ong added: “Every time we talk about anything, it has to do with Aung San Suu Kyi and it’s going to be troubling us for a long time to come if we don’t allow that to be taken out off the main item on the radar scope.”
He said he believes the Myanmar people “will also support the idea that Aung San Suu Kyi must not be the main defining issue on how to go forward,” but there are also military officials in Myanmar “who feel that she should not get away easy.”
So, Ong asked, “How do we bridge this gap? I think the Asean leadership are now trying their best to talk to the Myanmar military leaders to find some compromise in the center. I don’t know how successful they can be but I think our Asean goal is to try to minimize any further deterioration. In other words, we hope that the lady would not be jailed because of this intrusion by the American guy.”
He was referring to John Yettaw, an American who had evaded tight security and entered Suu Kyi’s home, supposedly in an attempt to rescue her. Yettaw’s act had botched the May 27 release of Suu Kyi, who faces five more years of allegedly violating the terms of her house arrest.
Ong said Asean has been quietly lobbying behind the scenes “because we know that we cannot be seen to be pushing this thing in too hard because then it would just destroy the little steps or the little confident posture which we are seeing now some of the Myanmar leaders are prepared to bank on.”
The challenge to Asean, according to him, “is to talk behind the camera, lobby off the stage and, more important, show that, look, you have so many years of doing what you’re going to do, is it really helping your country? Now you can claim that sanctions and isolation may not be effective, but you should not be crowing about this and run away feeling you have weathered the worst storm.”
With its Constitution in place and national reconciliation efforts ongoing, national consolidation would only succeed if there is economic growth that would improve the plight of the poor.
Ong added: “What we need to do is to convince Myanmar that while we are prepared to look at other comprehensive issues for our relations within Asean and within Myanmar, you should also go beyond your rigid stand. And unfortunately, whether you like it or not, the world thinks Aung San Suu Kyi’s imprisonment as the benchmark and we should try to find a way to overcome that.”
The more the junta keeps her, “the more the world is agitated against you and agitated against Asean. Now we’re trying to go this way. I think there are people in Myanmar who understand what we’re saying. We have to give them the encouragement, the solid reason to do action and hopefully by constant persuasion, cajoling and showing them the good positive side of this desired outcome, maybe we can do something more. So for the time being, we will just do that,” he said.
He expressed hope that Myanmar authorities “would become more savvy.”
If the junta does “something very basic, I think Asean countries would find the incentive to rally around strongly with Myanmar and provide them more encouragement to do more. But right now, Myanmar has not given any incentive,” Ong said.
Mr. Goh in Myanmar
Fielding questions at a luncheon conference on Asia-Middle East engagement with editors and senior journalists from Southeast Asia, the Middle East, China and India on Thursday, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said Myanmar is “one example of the world generally looking at a country over a particular issue”—Suu Kyi.
“I have been there many times, and I know that Myanmar is not just Aung San Suu Kyi, it’s a much more complex problem,” said Goh, who last met with Myanmar leaders in June.
He said it would be difficult to give in to the demands of the opposition to take full reins of Myanmar without giving a role to the military, even if the latter is part of the problem there.
Goh said Myanmar’s military is “very much a part of the problem but it’s also part of the solution,” a description he also applied to Suu Kyi.
“You cannot just take away the army and let those people run the country without a role for the armed forces. They have to worry about their own lives, the lives of their family members, their own prospects, their own career, and the insurgents can still be active and they have to therefore be part of the solution even though they are at the moment part of the problem,” Goh said.
And, while Suu Kyi is viewed by the West as the solution, he thinks the Nobel laureate is “part of the solution” and “part of the problem as well” because she has not given up her claim on leadership, which she won in 1990 but was negated by a military coup.
“She cannot be the solution, she is part of the solution. But at the same time, she is also part of the problem because she believes that her party, having won the 1990 elections which were thrown aside by the armed forces, that she is in fact the legitimate government, not the present regime,” Goh said.
He stressed that in developing countries, “once there’s a coup, you’re out, you can’t be going back and say, ‘I should be in the government.’ I mean, that’s history. That’s 19 years ago.”
In his view, therefore, Suu Kyi “should realize that if she wants to come back to be in charge of government, then she must find a way to win the next elections which should be held next year.” But he conceded the setup is “of course under rather special rules and regulations and laws; a controlled kind of democracy with 25 percent of the seats reserved for the armed forces and the rest through open elections.”
He said that if Suu Kyi “realizes that she has to be part of the solution and at the same time she’s a part of the problem, for the military government to reconcile with her, she should offer certain concessions” sought by the military government such as publicly favoring the lifting of sanctions.
“For as long as she’s in favor of sanctions, the military government will say that you are in fact using the West to put pressure on the country. How could you as a national ask for sanctions to be imposed on the people of Myanmar? So there will be no agreement. But if you say lift sanctions, then at least there’s a chance for both sides to talk,” Goh said.
Goh said he had told Myanmar leaders the importance of ensuring that their 2010 national election is “fair, free, legitimate”; must involve all political forces including Suu Kyi; and that they should be prepared to accept whatever the results may be.
“We have to encourage the present government to move along the lines which they want to move, which is to win elections next year, but please abide by the election results.
If you don’t, the second time you renounce election results, I think I’ll be in trouble with everybody else, including Asean members who have supported Myanmar’s cautious approach,” Goh said.
He said that if Myanmar does not overcome the “first hurdle of a stable government” backed by the general population, everything would be downhill from thereon; but if it does and the necessary policy reforms are implemented, it is likely to “boom” in just 10 years.
Asked what is in store for the long term in Myanmar, Goh said: “If you don’t cross the first hurdle of a stable government supported by most Myanmar people, there would be no longer-term for Myanmar. As simple as that. It’s going to go right down.”
He added: “But if you will begin to have a unity government, one which reconciles the different forces at work, and you can begin to put it into place many of the policies that we have in Singapore. Leadership is important, law and order, a probusiness environment; work out the necessary strategy for Myanmar. If it pursues the right path, the right economic policies, in 10 years, you’ll boom.”
Goh said that on a “steady path, Myanmar, with its rich resources and human talent, should be able to be like Thailand today in 20 years’ time.”
Written by Mia M. Gonzalez / Reporter
Sunday, 09 August 2009 22:09
SINGAPORE—Myanmar should seize the opportunity presented by a possible shift in the position of Western governments, including the United States, in engaging with that country by making a “gesture” that would convey its willingness to improve relations.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in an interview with Asean journalists at the Istana on Friday that leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) feel that Myanmar (originally known as Burma until the junta renamed it), more than ever before, has a chance to mend ties with the West.
“From the sense of the Asean leaders when we met in the Asean leaders’ meeting, Myanmar actually has an opportunity now because the Americans have a new government since Mr. Obama with Hillary Clinton, and they are rethinking their position on Myanmar. The Europeans are also reconsidering their positions on Myanmar [are] and not so stridently insistent on do this or that, as which they used to do,” Mr. Lee said.
Mr. Lee, who was responding to questions on the issue, said this presents “an opportunity for Myanmar to make some gesture, to shift the position so you’re not completely just stuck where you are.”
The Southeast Asian country, whose human-rights record has put Asean in an awkward position when engaging its Western dialogue partners can, for instance, “show that you can understand this and you would like to improve your relations,” said Mr. Lee. “It doesn’t mean that ayou have to concede what people are demanding of you but you are prepared to engage and you would like to thaw the relationship. I think that might be an opportunity. This is an opportunity to do that, which should not be missed. And I think that’s still true.”
Foreign Minister George Yeo said in another interview with visiting Southeast Asian and Middle East journalists last week that “there’s no way that Myanmar can embark on its own road to the future whether it is socialist or capitalist or anywhere unless it is connected to the rest of the world.”
Because of that, Yeo added, “it has to take into account the views of others. It cannot ignore that, even though we recognize that [it has its] own judicial process and that judicial process must be allowed to take its course.”
Asked about the extent of Asean’s influence on Myanmar, which has ratified the Asean Charter and participated in drafting the terms of reference of the Asean intergovernmental human-rights body, Mr. Yeo said Asean exerts “some influence on” Myanmar “but we must be realistic in the influence that we are able to wield.”
He went on: “What can we do? Can we use force? It would not be wise. Can we use trade sanctions? The Europeans and the Americans have done their worst, it has not worked. Can we criticize? Yes we can. Should we engage? Some people said yes, some people said no. We decided on balance that good engagement is leverage, that we can have some influence over the process. That’s how it is.”
‘Signs of willingness to do more’
Ambassador-at-Large Ong Keng Yong, former Asean Secretary-General, said in an interview with the BusinessMirror during a break in the Asia-Middle East Media Roundtable on Thursday that Myanmar has shown signs of willingness to “do more with the rest of the Asean.”
Ong, who is also director of the Institute of Policy Studies at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said Myanmar is apparently “interested in living up to the requirements to the Asean Charter” and did not impede deliberations on the drafting of the terms of reference for the Asean human-rights body.
Ong thinks Myanmar is apparently keen on pursuing economic reforms, having committed to abide by the timelines and goals in the Asean Economic Community.
“Looking at the way they [Burmese officials] embrace the ideas and the ideals in the Charter and the way they approached the human-rights body and the way they are implementing the process for the economic community building, I’m quite optimistic that they are actually willing to do more with the rest of Asean....I think there is a desire on the part of the leadership to do more,” he said.
The adoption of Burma’s Constitution and the completion of its own national reconciliation process “signal that whatever excuses they had in the past to go forward has now been minimized.”
Ong said that having done their internal work, Myanmar authorities “just have to proceed to have the election; after that they should have the various elements come into play.”
Overall, he added, “if we are able to continue our quiet diplomacy, our firm persuasion, I think we can get some progress in the coming months,” but quickly added that “the problem is that everything is defined by Aung San Suu Kyi”, the Nobel laureate prodemocracy leader who has been under house arrest for 13 years.
He said Asean foreign ministers, among others, are trying to persuade Myanmar authorities “to show some kind of goodwill that this issue be taken a bit off from the in-your-face kind of status now.”
Ong added: “Every time we talk about anything, it has to do with Aung San Suu Kyi and it’s going to be troubling us for a long time to come if we don’t allow that to be taken out off the main item on the radar scope.”
He said he believes the Myanmar people “will also support the idea that Aung San Suu Kyi must not be the main defining issue on how to go forward,” but there are also military officials in Myanmar “who feel that she should not get away easy.”
So, Ong asked, “How do we bridge this gap? I think the Asean leadership are now trying their best to talk to the Myanmar military leaders to find some compromise in the center. I don’t know how successful they can be but I think our Asean goal is to try to minimize any further deterioration. In other words, we hope that the lady would not be jailed because of this intrusion by the American guy.”
He was referring to John Yettaw, an American who had evaded tight security and entered Suu Kyi’s home, supposedly in an attempt to rescue her. Yettaw’s act had botched the May 27 release of Suu Kyi, who faces five more years of allegedly violating the terms of her house arrest.
Ong said Asean has been quietly lobbying behind the scenes “because we know that we cannot be seen to be pushing this thing in too hard because then it would just destroy the little steps or the little confident posture which we are seeing now some of the Myanmar leaders are prepared to bank on.”
The challenge to Asean, according to him, “is to talk behind the camera, lobby off the stage and, more important, show that, look, you have so many years of doing what you’re going to do, is it really helping your country? Now you can claim that sanctions and isolation may not be effective, but you should not be crowing about this and run away feeling you have weathered the worst storm.”
With its Constitution in place and national reconciliation efforts ongoing, national consolidation would only succeed if there is economic growth that would improve the plight of the poor.
Ong added: “What we need to do is to convince Myanmar that while we are prepared to look at other comprehensive issues for our relations within Asean and within Myanmar, you should also go beyond your rigid stand. And unfortunately, whether you like it or not, the world thinks Aung San Suu Kyi’s imprisonment as the benchmark and we should try to find a way to overcome that.”
The more the junta keeps her, “the more the world is agitated against you and agitated against Asean. Now we’re trying to go this way. I think there are people in Myanmar who understand what we’re saying. We have to give them the encouragement, the solid reason to do action and hopefully by constant persuasion, cajoling and showing them the good positive side of this desired outcome, maybe we can do something more. So for the time being, we will just do that,” he said.
He expressed hope that Myanmar authorities “would become more savvy.”
If the junta does “something very basic, I think Asean countries would find the incentive to rally around strongly with Myanmar and provide them more encouragement to do more. But right now, Myanmar has not given any incentive,” Ong said.
Mr. Goh in Myanmar
Fielding questions at a luncheon conference on Asia-Middle East engagement with editors and senior journalists from Southeast Asia, the Middle East, China and India on Thursday, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said Myanmar is “one example of the world generally looking at a country over a particular issue”—Suu Kyi.
“I have been there many times, and I know that Myanmar is not just Aung San Suu Kyi, it’s a much more complex problem,” said Goh, who last met with Myanmar leaders in June.
He said it would be difficult to give in to the demands of the opposition to take full reins of Myanmar without giving a role to the military, even if the latter is part of the problem there.
Goh said Myanmar’s military is “very much a part of the problem but it’s also part of the solution,” a description he also applied to Suu Kyi.
“You cannot just take away the army and let those people run the country without a role for the armed forces. They have to worry about their own lives, the lives of their family members, their own prospects, their own career, and the insurgents can still be active and they have to therefore be part of the solution even though they are at the moment part of the problem,” Goh said.
And, while Suu Kyi is viewed by the West as the solution, he thinks the Nobel laureate is “part of the solution” and “part of the problem as well” because she has not given up her claim on leadership, which she won in 1990 but was negated by a military coup.
“She cannot be the solution, she is part of the solution. But at the same time, she is also part of the problem because she believes that her party, having won the 1990 elections which were thrown aside by the armed forces, that she is in fact the legitimate government, not the present regime,” Goh said.
He stressed that in developing countries, “once there’s a coup, you’re out, you can’t be going back and say, ‘I should be in the government.’ I mean, that’s history. That’s 19 years ago.”
In his view, therefore, Suu Kyi “should realize that if she wants to come back to be in charge of government, then she must find a way to win the next elections which should be held next year.” But he conceded the setup is “of course under rather special rules and regulations and laws; a controlled kind of democracy with 25 percent of the seats reserved for the armed forces and the rest through open elections.”
He said that if Suu Kyi “realizes that she has to be part of the solution and at the same time she’s a part of the problem, for the military government to reconcile with her, she should offer certain concessions” sought by the military government such as publicly favoring the lifting of sanctions.
“For as long as she’s in favor of sanctions, the military government will say that you are in fact using the West to put pressure on the country. How could you as a national ask for sanctions to be imposed on the people of Myanmar? So there will be no agreement. But if you say lift sanctions, then at least there’s a chance for both sides to talk,” Goh said.
Goh said he had told Myanmar leaders the importance of ensuring that their 2010 national election is “fair, free, legitimate”; must involve all political forces including Suu Kyi; and that they should be prepared to accept whatever the results may be.
“We have to encourage the present government to move along the lines which they want to move, which is to win elections next year, but please abide by the election results.
If you don’t, the second time you renounce election results, I think I’ll be in trouble with everybody else, including Asean members who have supported Myanmar’s cautious approach,” Goh said.
He said that if Myanmar does not overcome the “first hurdle of a stable government” backed by the general population, everything would be downhill from thereon; but if it does and the necessary policy reforms are implemented, it is likely to “boom” in just 10 years.
Asked what is in store for the long term in Myanmar, Goh said: “If you don’t cross the first hurdle of a stable government supported by most Myanmar people, there would be no longer-term for Myanmar. As simple as that. It’s going to go right down.”
He added: “But if you will begin to have a unity government, one which reconciles the different forces at work, and you can begin to put it into place many of the policies that we have in Singapore. Leadership is important, law and order, a probusiness environment; work out the necessary strategy for Myanmar. If it pursues the right path, the right economic policies, in 10 years, you’ll boom.”
Goh said that on a “steady path, Myanmar, with its rich resources and human talent, should be able to be like Thailand today in 20 years’ time.”
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Myanmar reports 17 flu A/H1N1 cases
www.chinaview.cn 2009-08-10 10:41:30
YANGON, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- A total of 17 new influenza cases have so far been reported in Myanmar, according to the Health Department Monday.
The 17th patient, a 40-year-old man, arrived at Myanmar's airport on Saturday, back from Malaysia. He was brought to a special hospital the same day after he was found ill.
He was confirmed by the National Health Laboratory to have been infected with flu A/H1N1 virus.
A total of 143 passengers on the flight and 131 airport staff members are under surveillance.
Of Myanmar's 17 flu patients so far, 10 have fully recovered and been discharged from hospital, the source said.
Myanmar reported the first case of flu A/H1N1 in the country on June 27 with a 13-year-old girl who developed the symptoms after coming back home from Singapore a day earlier.
So far, the authorities have given medical check up to over 2 million people at airports, ports and border check points and examined those suspicious of the disease since the outbreak in Mexico on April 28, it said.
The authorities continue to take preventive measures against the possible spread of the global human flu pandemic, advising all private clinics in the country to report or transfer all flu-suspected patients, who returned from abroad, to local state-run hospitals or health departments for increased surveillance.
www.chinaview.cn 2009-08-10 10:41:30
YANGON, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- A total of 17 new influenza cases have so far been reported in Myanmar, according to the Health Department Monday.
The 17th patient, a 40-year-old man, arrived at Myanmar's airport on Saturday, back from Malaysia. He was brought to a special hospital the same day after he was found ill.
He was confirmed by the National Health Laboratory to have been infected with flu A/H1N1 virus.
A total of 143 passengers on the flight and 131 airport staff members are under surveillance.
Of Myanmar's 17 flu patients so far, 10 have fully recovered and been discharged from hospital, the source said.
Myanmar reported the first case of flu A/H1N1 in the country on June 27 with a 13-year-old girl who developed the symptoms after coming back home from Singapore a day earlier.
So far, the authorities have given medical check up to over 2 million people at airports, ports and border check points and examined those suspicious of the disease since the outbreak in Mexico on April 28, it said.
The authorities continue to take preventive measures against the possible spread of the global human flu pandemic, advising all private clinics in the country to report or transfer all flu-suspected patients, who returned from abroad, to local state-run hospitals or health departments for increased surveillance.
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August 10, 2009 18:27 PM
Three Detained For Human Trafficking, Two Still At Large
KOTA BAHARU, Aug 10 (Bernama) -- Three locals who smuggled in 12 Myanmar nationals, including three children, aimed at turning them into beggars in Kuala Lumpur, were detained by the Kelantan Immigration.
Kelantan Immigration Deputy Director Norazilawati Mustapha said the three, including two brothers and a woman, aged between 17 and 25 were detained at about 7pm for smuggling and locking up 12 Myanmar nationals in a house at Kampung Kubang Panjang, Pasir Mas, yesterday.
"We are looking for two more suspects, believed to be the parents of the two brothers, to assist investigations," Norazilawati told reporters here on Monday.
According to Norazilawati, all the Myanmar nationals whose ages were between two and 39, comprised of seven men, two women and three children (all girls), were given temporary shelter.
She said all the suspects are believed to be members of a family who have been involved in human trafficking for the past two years.
Initial investigations revealed that the suspects would take the Myanmar nationals to Kuala Lumpur and turn them to beggars on the streets.
Three Detained For Human Trafficking, Two Still At Large
KOTA BAHARU, Aug 10 (Bernama) -- Three locals who smuggled in 12 Myanmar nationals, including three children, aimed at turning them into beggars in Kuala Lumpur, were detained by the Kelantan Immigration.
Kelantan Immigration Deputy Director Norazilawati Mustapha said the three, including two brothers and a woman, aged between 17 and 25 were detained at about 7pm for smuggling and locking up 12 Myanmar nationals in a house at Kampung Kubang Panjang, Pasir Mas, yesterday.
"We are looking for two more suspects, believed to be the parents of the two brothers, to assist investigations," Norazilawati told reporters here on Monday.
According to Norazilawati, all the Myanmar nationals whose ages were between two and 39, comprised of seven men, two women and three children (all girls), were given temporary shelter.
She said all the suspects are believed to be members of a family who have been involved in human trafficking for the past two years.
Initial investigations revealed that the suspects would take the Myanmar nationals to Kuala Lumpur and turn them to beggars on the streets.
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Korea Herald - ASEAN Center bridges Myanmar's tourism sector
Monday, August 10, 2009
The 3rd ASEAN Tourism Human Resource Development Program was held in Yangon, Myanmar recently by the ASEAN-Korea Centre in close cooperation with the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism of Myanmar.
The program was organized to support the human resource development of the tourism sector of Myanmar through lectures on communication skills and intercultural awareness with Korean tourists among those employed in the tourism sectors.
Forty-five participants from the Myanmar tourism authority and industries participated in the program.
This training program is part of the ASEAN Tourism HRD Program series which is being organized in each ASEAN member country over the two years.
The first and second programs in the series were successfully held in Laos and Vietnam in May and June of this year.
Two more programs will be organized later this year in Cambodia and Thailand, and five more will be organized in Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, and Singapore in 2010.
During this program, the participants were given an opportunity to learn the Korean language and understand Korean culture.
The participants expressed their satisfaction with the program and requested longer and frequent programs in the future.
Monday, August 10, 2009
The 3rd ASEAN Tourism Human Resource Development Program was held in Yangon, Myanmar recently by the ASEAN-Korea Centre in close cooperation with the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism of Myanmar.
The program was organized to support the human resource development of the tourism sector of Myanmar through lectures on communication skills and intercultural awareness with Korean tourists among those employed in the tourism sectors.
Forty-five participants from the Myanmar tourism authority and industries participated in the program.
This training program is part of the ASEAN Tourism HRD Program series which is being organized in each ASEAN member country over the two years.
The first and second programs in the series were successfully held in Laos and Vietnam in May and June of this year.
Two more programs will be organized later this year in Cambodia and Thailand, and five more will be organized in Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, and Singapore in 2010.
During this program, the participants were given an opportunity to learn the Korean language and understand Korean culture.
The participants expressed their satisfaction with the program and requested longer and frequent programs in the future.
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The Irrawaddy - Regime Reportedly Divided Over Suu Kyi Sentence
By MIN LWIN, Monday, August 10, 2009
The delays in the court proceeding against Aung San Suu Kyi are caused by disagreements within the military regime over how severely to punish her, according to Burmese army sources.
Some generals—notably Gen Thiha Thura Tin Aung Myint Oo, Secretary 1 of the ruling military council—are said to want to see her imprisoned. Others are reportedly in favor of a more lenient sentence for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who was being held in house detention until the start of her trial in May.
Among those who appear to be reluctant to commit Suu Kyi to prison is Gen Thura Shwe Mann, Coordinator of Special Operations, Army, Navy and Air Force, according to the army source—who told The Irrawaddy he wanted to see Suu Kyi sentenced “within the framework of the law.”
Htay Aung, a Burmese military researcher based in Thailand, also said that some senior military generals are divided over the trial, with one faction keen to see Suu Kyi sentenced to a term of imprisonment, isolating her from the general election planned for 2010, and others wanting to apply the due process of law.
“The trial of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was postponed because some military generals wanted to consider it from a legal point of view,” said Htay Aung. He thought international pressure on the regime also played a part in the postponements.
Tin Aung Myint Oo is close to paramount leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe, who promoted the battle-hardened hardliner to the rank of four-star general in late March.
The general is also close to Aung Thaung, minister for Industry (1), an extreme nationalist believed to be one of the masterminds of the Depayin massacre in May 2003, when Suu Kyi’s motorcade was ambushed in central Burma. He is said to harbor a deep hatred of Suu Kyi.
Military sources suggest the rise of Tin Aung Myint Oo has intimidated a faction headed by the regime’s No 3, Gen Shwe Mann, who has been groomed to succeed Than Shwe. Lately, the general has been in charge of national security and the coordination of army, navy and air force.
Shwe Mann so far is loyal to Than Shwe but rivals are closely watching his relationship with business tycoons and some Burmese scholars, army sources told The Irrawaddy.
The sources also disclosed that Information Minister Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan, a close ally of Shwe Mann, has been sidelined in the power struggle with the Tin Aung Myint Oo faction. But so far Shwe Mann has saved the information minister from the sack.
Observers inside Burma say Aung Thaung and Tin Aung Myint Oo are working together with the police and ministry of interior to influence the outcome of Suu Kyi’s trial.
Police Chief Gen Khin Yi and Minister of Home Affairs Maung Oo are close to the Tin Aung Myint Oo faction, and Khin Yi had been holding press briefings on Suu Kyi. It is believed that hardliners have instructed the police chief to concoct the case against Suu Kyi.
Last Friday, Gen Khin Yi claimed in comments to reporters that John William Yettaw, the American whose intrusion into Suu Kyi’s home initiated the case against her, had connections with Burmese exiled groups.
The police chief also denied media reports that the regime had plotted with Yettaw. Speculation continues to circulate in Rangoon that Yettaw had received a large sum of money from regime leaders to intrude into Suu Kyi’s home in May. It’s also speculated that Aung Thaung collaborated with Than Shwe and Tin Aung Myint Oo to concoct the case against Suu Kyi.
By MIN LWIN, Monday, August 10, 2009
The delays in the court proceeding against Aung San Suu Kyi are caused by disagreements within the military regime over how severely to punish her, according to Burmese army sources.
Some generals—notably Gen Thiha Thura Tin Aung Myint Oo, Secretary 1 of the ruling military council—are said to want to see her imprisoned. Others are reportedly in favor of a more lenient sentence for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who was being held in house detention until the start of her trial in May.
Among those who appear to be reluctant to commit Suu Kyi to prison is Gen Thura Shwe Mann, Coordinator of Special Operations, Army, Navy and Air Force, according to the army source—who told The Irrawaddy he wanted to see Suu Kyi sentenced “within the framework of the law.”
Htay Aung, a Burmese military researcher based in Thailand, also said that some senior military generals are divided over the trial, with one faction keen to see Suu Kyi sentenced to a term of imprisonment, isolating her from the general election planned for 2010, and others wanting to apply the due process of law.
“The trial of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was postponed because some military generals wanted to consider it from a legal point of view,” said Htay Aung. He thought international pressure on the regime also played a part in the postponements.
Tin Aung Myint Oo is close to paramount leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe, who promoted the battle-hardened hardliner to the rank of four-star general in late March.
The general is also close to Aung Thaung, minister for Industry (1), an extreme nationalist believed to be one of the masterminds of the Depayin massacre in May 2003, when Suu Kyi’s motorcade was ambushed in central Burma. He is said to harbor a deep hatred of Suu Kyi.
Military sources suggest the rise of Tin Aung Myint Oo has intimidated a faction headed by the regime’s No 3, Gen Shwe Mann, who has been groomed to succeed Than Shwe. Lately, the general has been in charge of national security and the coordination of army, navy and air force.
Shwe Mann so far is loyal to Than Shwe but rivals are closely watching his relationship with business tycoons and some Burmese scholars, army sources told The Irrawaddy.
The sources also disclosed that Information Minister Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan, a close ally of Shwe Mann, has been sidelined in the power struggle with the Tin Aung Myint Oo faction. But so far Shwe Mann has saved the information minister from the sack.
Observers inside Burma say Aung Thaung and Tin Aung Myint Oo are working together with the police and ministry of interior to influence the outcome of Suu Kyi’s trial.
Police Chief Gen Khin Yi and Minister of Home Affairs Maung Oo are close to the Tin Aung Myint Oo faction, and Khin Yi had been holding press briefings on Suu Kyi. It is believed that hardliners have instructed the police chief to concoct the case against Suu Kyi.
Last Friday, Gen Khin Yi claimed in comments to reporters that John William Yettaw, the American whose intrusion into Suu Kyi’s home initiated the case against her, had connections with Burmese exiled groups.
The police chief also denied media reports that the regime had plotted with Yettaw. Speculation continues to circulate in Rangoon that Yettaw had received a large sum of money from regime leaders to intrude into Suu Kyi’s home in May. It’s also speculated that Aung Thaung collaborated with Than Shwe and Tin Aung Myint Oo to concoct the case against Suu Kyi.
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The Irrawaddy - Pro-engagement US Senator Visits Burma
By WAI MOE, Monday, August 10, 2009
Two days ahead of the scheduled verdict in the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, US Sen Jim Webb arrived for a personal visit in military-ruled Burma.
Webb, the chairman of the East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
is known to support a pro-engagement policy with the military regime. Burma is the first country he will visit on an Asian fact-finding tour.
According to the senator’s official Web site, his trip is to “explore opportunities to advance US interests in Burma and the region.”
The Democratic senator of Virginia is well-known in Washington for his pro-engagement stance on Burma. He is scheduled to meet regime officials in Naypyidaw.
The senator said in April that the US needed an “aggressive diplomatic posture” on Burma, but one that was more “constructive.”
“What I think we should be doing in Burma is trying to open up diplomatic avenues where you can have confidence builders … and through that process work toward some way where you can remove sanctions,” he told the Council on Foreign Relations.
The senator previously visited Burma in 2001. He said in a Senate hearing in June that he spent time with an American businessman in Burma who was preparing to shut down his business because of sanctions.
The street life in Burma in 2001 was less restricted than the street life in Vietnam in 1991, he said at the Senate hearing.
“We are in situation right now where I think what they have recently done with Aung San Suu Kyi has dramatically hurt their ability to reach out and perhaps see a different type of treatment from the United States,” he said.
“But the notion of engagement, of affirmatively engaging on an appropriate level, is the best way out.”
One of reasons that he supports engagement with the Burmese regime is to counter Beijing’s influence in the Southeast Asian nation.
He said at the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee in July: “As the United States continues its attempt to isolate Burma due to the human rights policies of its military regime, China's influence has grown exponentially.”
He added that a multi-billion dollar oil and gas pipelines project between China and Burma would allow “the Chinese to offload oil obtained in the Persian Gulf and pump it to Yunnan Province, without having to transit the choke point of the Strait of Malacca.”
Webb wrote a book, “A Time to Fight: Reclaiming a fair and just America.” Writing about the monks-led demonstrations in Burma in 2007, he said: “If Westerners had remained in the country this moment might never have occurred, because it is entirely possible that conditions may have improved rather than deteriorated.”
Burmese leaders have in the past forged good relationships with several US senators and congressmen who favored engagement and wanted the US to invest in resource-rich Burma. The US provided arms and ammunition for the war on drugs and provided intelligence training to Burma’s most feared intelligence spy agencies in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Obama administration is now conducting a policy review on Burma, and it is awaiting the outcome of Suu Kyi trial before releasing its policy.
Recently, the Obama administration has sent signals to Burma urging the junta leaders to open up the country.
At the Asean Regional Forum (ARF) in Phuket in July, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that if the junta released Suu Kyi, the US might invest in Burma. During the ARF meeting, the US and Burma also held a bilateral meeting on the Thai resort island.
A few days after the meeting, US President Obama renewed economic sanctions on Burma.
By WAI MOE, Monday, August 10, 2009
Two days ahead of the scheduled verdict in the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, US Sen Jim Webb arrived for a personal visit in military-ruled Burma.
Webb, the chairman of the East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
is known to support a pro-engagement policy with the military regime. Burma is the first country he will visit on an Asian fact-finding tour.
According to the senator’s official Web site, his trip is to “explore opportunities to advance US interests in Burma and the region.”
The Democratic senator of Virginia is well-known in Washington for his pro-engagement stance on Burma. He is scheduled to meet regime officials in Naypyidaw.
The senator said in April that the US needed an “aggressive diplomatic posture” on Burma, but one that was more “constructive.”
“What I think we should be doing in Burma is trying to open up diplomatic avenues where you can have confidence builders … and through that process work toward some way where you can remove sanctions,” he told the Council on Foreign Relations.
The senator previously visited Burma in 2001. He said in a Senate hearing in June that he spent time with an American businessman in Burma who was preparing to shut down his business because of sanctions.
The street life in Burma in 2001 was less restricted than the street life in Vietnam in 1991, he said at the Senate hearing.
“We are in situation right now where I think what they have recently done with Aung San Suu Kyi has dramatically hurt their ability to reach out and perhaps see a different type of treatment from the United States,” he said.
“But the notion of engagement, of affirmatively engaging on an appropriate level, is the best way out.”
One of reasons that he supports engagement with the Burmese regime is to counter Beijing’s influence in the Southeast Asian nation.
He said at the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee in July: “As the United States continues its attempt to isolate Burma due to the human rights policies of its military regime, China's influence has grown exponentially.”
He added that a multi-billion dollar oil and gas pipelines project between China and Burma would allow “the Chinese to offload oil obtained in the Persian Gulf and pump it to Yunnan Province, without having to transit the choke point of the Strait of Malacca.”
Webb wrote a book, “A Time to Fight: Reclaiming a fair and just America.” Writing about the monks-led demonstrations in Burma in 2007, he said: “If Westerners had remained in the country this moment might never have occurred, because it is entirely possible that conditions may have improved rather than deteriorated.”
Burmese leaders have in the past forged good relationships with several US senators and congressmen who favored engagement and wanted the US to invest in resource-rich Burma. The US provided arms and ammunition for the war on drugs and provided intelligence training to Burma’s most feared intelligence spy agencies in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Obama administration is now conducting a policy review on Burma, and it is awaiting the outcome of Suu Kyi trial before releasing its policy.
Recently, the Obama administration has sent signals to Burma urging the junta leaders to open up the country.
At the Asean Regional Forum (ARF) in Phuket in July, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that if the junta released Suu Kyi, the US might invest in Burma. During the ARF meeting, the US and Burma also held a bilateral meeting on the Thai resort island.
A few days after the meeting, US President Obama renewed economic sanctions on Burma.
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Mizzima News - Palpable tension between Burmese Army and Kokant rebels
by Salai Pi Pi
Monday, 10 August 2009 22:08
New Delhi (Mizzima) –Tension flared between the Burmese Army and the Kokant ethnic ceasefire group, following a stand-off for about five hours between the two sides near the Sino-Burma border on Saturday.
Aung Kyaw Zaw, an analyst based on the Sino-Burma border said, the two sides were locked in a stand-off when the Kokant soldiers met about 70 Burmese soldiers, who were on their way to a surprise raid on the residence of Peng Jiasheng, Chairman of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), in Laogai Township in Kokant Special Region in northern Shan state.
The Burmese troops, under the north-eastern regional command along with personnel of the Special Branch of the Police (Narcotic) were blocked by around 300 Kokant rebels on their way to the home of Peng Jiasheng also known as Phone Kyar Shin.
“The stand off lasted several hours but both sides held their fire. When Phone Kyar Shin threatened that his troops would open fire, the Burmese soldiers backed off,” Aung Kyaw Zaw said.
Aung Kyaw Zaw said following the incident, Maj. Gen Aung Than Htut, the north-eastern regional commander on Sunday tried to meet Phone Kyar Shin, but the MNDAA Chairman refused to meet him.
The MNDAA is one of the groups that had refused to accept the Burmese junta’s proposal of transforming their army into a Border Guard Force, which will be administered by the Burmese Army.
Reports suggest that several Kokant ethnic villagers have fled to the China border, as they feared fresh clashes between the Burmese Army and the MNDAA on Saturday.
“But now, some of them have returned home though some are still waiting for the condition to normalise,” Aung Kyaw Zaw said.
by Salai Pi Pi
Monday, 10 August 2009 22:08
New Delhi (Mizzima) –Tension flared between the Burmese Army and the Kokant ethnic ceasefire group, following a stand-off for about five hours between the two sides near the Sino-Burma border on Saturday.
Aung Kyaw Zaw, an analyst based on the Sino-Burma border said, the two sides were locked in a stand-off when the Kokant soldiers met about 70 Burmese soldiers, who were on their way to a surprise raid on the residence of Peng Jiasheng, Chairman of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), in Laogai Township in Kokant Special Region in northern Shan state.
The Burmese troops, under the north-eastern regional command along with personnel of the Special Branch of the Police (Narcotic) were blocked by around 300 Kokant rebels on their way to the home of Peng Jiasheng also known as Phone Kyar Shin.
“The stand off lasted several hours but both sides held their fire. When Phone Kyar Shin threatened that his troops would open fire, the Burmese soldiers backed off,” Aung Kyaw Zaw said.
Aung Kyaw Zaw said following the incident, Maj. Gen Aung Than Htut, the north-eastern regional commander on Sunday tried to meet Phone Kyar Shin, but the MNDAA Chairman refused to meet him.
The MNDAA is one of the groups that had refused to accept the Burmese junta’s proposal of transforming their army into a Border Guard Force, which will be administered by the Burmese Army.
Reports suggest that several Kokant ethnic villagers have fled to the China border, as they feared fresh clashes between the Burmese Army and the MNDAA on Saturday.
“But now, some of them have returned home though some are still waiting for the condition to normalise,” Aung Kyaw Zaw said.
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Mizzima News - Aung San Suu Kyi’s home to be renovated
by Myint Maung
Monday, 10 August 2009 22:01
New Delhi (Mizzima) –Aung San Suu Kyi’s home is going to be renovated even as the pro-democracy icon is facing trial for allegedly violating her house arrest term.
Her lawyer Nyan Win told Mizzima on Monday that Aung San Suu Kyi had given instructions to consult architects for the renovation of the villa located on Rangoon’s University Avenue.
“Yes, we are going to repair and renovate her [Aung San Suu Kyi] residence but it’s the architect is still working on the design. It will be approved by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi before the work starts,” Nyan Win said.
He added that the detained Nobel Peace Laureate wanted her house to be renovated but said details of which part to be repaired and renovated is still unknown.
Roof tiles of Aung San Suu Kyi’s house were replaced after the devastating Cyclone Nargis lashed Rangoon in early May 2008.
Last month, two higher grade pleaders Cho The Mei and Wei Wei Aung put up a notice in the classified column on the July 24th issue of the government owned newspaper ‘The Mirrior’, stating that a plot of land attached to Aung San Suu Kyi’s house in University Avenue, has been sold.
The notice also said, objections on the plot of land, if any, can be made within a week of the notice, failing which the sales would be considered final and no later objections or complaints can be made.
The plot of land is part of a whole estate where Aung San Suu Kyi’s house is also located and has not yet been sold off separately. Selling the plot of land would mean that the estate would be divided.
Nyan Win said, an objection letter ‘as per the instruction of the client [Daw Aung San Suu Kyi]’ was sent to the two women higher grade pleaders on July 30. But there has been no reply from them.
The plot of land was sold in the name of Khin Maung Aye, who is an adopted son of the late Thakin Than Tun and Daw Khin Gyi. Daw Khin Gyi and Aung San Suu Kyi’s mother the late Daw Khin Kyi were sisters, making Khin Maung Aye and Aung San Suu Kyi to be cousin brothers.
The estate where house number 54 in the University Avenue locates had been own by Aung San Suu Kyi’s parents and their relatives and have never been sold off separately by plots. There are several other houses on the estate along with the house number 54.
Khin Maung Aye is a retired army officer and a writer.
Earlier, Aung San Suu Kyi’s elder brother Aung San Oo filed a lawsuit against her over ownership of parts of the plot.
by Myint Maung
Monday, 10 August 2009 22:01
New Delhi (Mizzima) –Aung San Suu Kyi’s home is going to be renovated even as the pro-democracy icon is facing trial for allegedly violating her house arrest term.
Her lawyer Nyan Win told Mizzima on Monday that Aung San Suu Kyi had given instructions to consult architects for the renovation of the villa located on Rangoon’s University Avenue.
“Yes, we are going to repair and renovate her [Aung San Suu Kyi] residence but it’s the architect is still working on the design. It will be approved by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi before the work starts,” Nyan Win said.
He added that the detained Nobel Peace Laureate wanted her house to be renovated but said details of which part to be repaired and renovated is still unknown.
Roof tiles of Aung San Suu Kyi’s house were replaced after the devastating Cyclone Nargis lashed Rangoon in early May 2008.
Last month, two higher grade pleaders Cho The Mei and Wei Wei Aung put up a notice in the classified column on the July 24th issue of the government owned newspaper ‘The Mirrior’, stating that a plot of land attached to Aung San Suu Kyi’s house in University Avenue, has been sold.
The notice also said, objections on the plot of land, if any, can be made within a week of the notice, failing which the sales would be considered final and no later objections or complaints can be made.
The plot of land is part of a whole estate where Aung San Suu Kyi’s house is also located and has not yet been sold off separately. Selling the plot of land would mean that the estate would be divided.
Nyan Win said, an objection letter ‘as per the instruction of the client [Daw Aung San Suu Kyi]’ was sent to the two women higher grade pleaders on July 30. But there has been no reply from them.
The plot of land was sold in the name of Khin Maung Aye, who is an adopted son of the late Thakin Than Tun and Daw Khin Gyi. Daw Khin Gyi and Aung San Suu Kyi’s mother the late Daw Khin Kyi were sisters, making Khin Maung Aye and Aung San Suu Kyi to be cousin brothers.
The estate where house number 54 in the University Avenue locates had been own by Aung San Suu Kyi’s parents and their relatives and have never been sold off separately by plots. There are several other houses on the estate along with the house number 54.
Khin Maung Aye is a retired army officer and a writer.
Earlier, Aung San Suu Kyi’s elder brother Aung San Oo filed a lawsuit against her over ownership of parts of the plot.
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