The Washington Post - An 'Election' Burma's People Don't Need
By U Win Tin
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Much attention has been focused on Sen. James Webb's recent visit to my country and his meetings with Senior Gen. Than Shwe and incarcerated Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi. I understand Webb's desire to seek a meaningful dialogue with the Burmese ruling authorities. Unfortunately, his efforts have been damaging to our democracy movement and focus on the wrong issue -- the potential for an "election" that Webb wants us to consider participating in next year as part of a long-term political strategy. But the showcase election planned by the military regime makes a mockery of the freedom sought by our people and would make military dictatorship permanent.
In our last free election, the Burmese people rejected military rule in a landslide, awarding our National League for Democracy party more than 80 percent of the seats in parliament. Yet the military has refused to allow the NLD to form a government. In the 19 years since that election, Burmese democracy activists have faced imprisonment, intimidation, torture and death as they have peacefully voiced demands for justice, individual and ethnic rights, and a democratic form of government that is representative of all Burma's people.
While never ending our struggle for democracy, the NLD has continually sought to engage the regime and open a dialogue -- based on peace and mutual respect -- that could address Burma's critical political as well as social problems. Make no mistake -- these two issues are linked. Burma was once the rice bowl of Asia. Today, because of the regime's destructive economic policies and its use of oppression to maintain military rule, Burma is a shattered, poverty-stricken country.
The regime is seeking to place a veneer of legitimacy on itself through showcase "elections" and claiming that "disciplined democracy" will be instituted next year. Yet in May 2008, just days after a massive cyclone devastated Burma and killed more than 100,000 people, the regime used a farcical process to claim that 93 percent of voters chose to adopt a constitution that permanently enshrines military rule and prevents those with undefined "foreign ties" from holding public office -- catch-all provisions that would bar Suu Kyi and democracy activists from seeking office.
Some international observers view next year's planned elections as an opportunity. But under the circumstances imposed by the military's constitution, the election will be a sham. We will not sacrifice the democratic principles for which many millions of Burmese have marched, been arrested, been tortured and died to participate in a process that holds no hope whatsoever for bringing freedom to our country.
The demands of the NLD are reasonable. In April we issued another declaration to encourage engagement with the military that called for the release of all political prisoners, a full review of the constitution, reopening of all NLD offices and the right to freely organize. The regime's answer is the continued jailing of Suu Kyi and 2,000 other activists, massive military offensives against ethnic groups and the enforcement of rules to gag democracy.
How can the international community play a meaningful role? First, officials such as Webb should stop fear-mongering about China. His language about containing China, and working with Burma's regime to do so, is based on an outdated and unrealistic thesis. Suu Kyi rejected such notions by informing Webb that "we will not deal with anyone with fear and insecurity. We will deal with anyone, China, America, India, equally and friendly. As we can't choose our neighbors, we understand that we need to have a good relationship with China." Second, the NLD encourages other countries and international organizations to engage with Burma's military leaders to persuade them to engage with us and Burma's ethnic groups. The United States and many other nations have imposed sanctions on Burma. That is their decision and in keeping with their justified solidarity with the democratic values that we all hold so dear. If the regime genuinely engages with the NLD and ethnic representatives, releases political prisoners, ceases attacks against ethnic minorities and takes additional steps to build a true democratic state, these sanctions will be repealed at the right time.
In the meantime, let no one doubt our resolve. The NLD is a reflection of Burmese society. We will not be cowed or coerced into participating in a fatally flawed political process that robs the Burmese people of the freedom for which we struggle. We stand ready to engage, but we are more than willing to continue our struggle for the democratic values that so many have given their lives and their freedom to achieve.
U Win Tin is a member of the Central Executive Committee and a founder of Burma's National League for Democracy party. He was a political prisoner from 1989 to 2008.
By U Win Tin
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Much attention has been focused on Sen. James Webb's recent visit to my country and his meetings with Senior Gen. Than Shwe and incarcerated Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi. I understand Webb's desire to seek a meaningful dialogue with the Burmese ruling authorities. Unfortunately, his efforts have been damaging to our democracy movement and focus on the wrong issue -- the potential for an "election" that Webb wants us to consider participating in next year as part of a long-term political strategy. But the showcase election planned by the military regime makes a mockery of the freedom sought by our people and would make military dictatorship permanent.
In our last free election, the Burmese people rejected military rule in a landslide, awarding our National League for Democracy party more than 80 percent of the seats in parliament. Yet the military has refused to allow the NLD to form a government. In the 19 years since that election, Burmese democracy activists have faced imprisonment, intimidation, torture and death as they have peacefully voiced demands for justice, individual and ethnic rights, and a democratic form of government that is representative of all Burma's people.
While never ending our struggle for democracy, the NLD has continually sought to engage the regime and open a dialogue -- based on peace and mutual respect -- that could address Burma's critical political as well as social problems. Make no mistake -- these two issues are linked. Burma was once the rice bowl of Asia. Today, because of the regime's destructive economic policies and its use of oppression to maintain military rule, Burma is a shattered, poverty-stricken country.
The regime is seeking to place a veneer of legitimacy on itself through showcase "elections" and claiming that "disciplined democracy" will be instituted next year. Yet in May 2008, just days after a massive cyclone devastated Burma and killed more than 100,000 people, the regime used a farcical process to claim that 93 percent of voters chose to adopt a constitution that permanently enshrines military rule and prevents those with undefined "foreign ties" from holding public office -- catch-all provisions that would bar Suu Kyi and democracy activists from seeking office.
Some international observers view next year's planned elections as an opportunity. But under the circumstances imposed by the military's constitution, the election will be a sham. We will not sacrifice the democratic principles for which many millions of Burmese have marched, been arrested, been tortured and died to participate in a process that holds no hope whatsoever for bringing freedom to our country.
The demands of the NLD are reasonable. In April we issued another declaration to encourage engagement with the military that called for the release of all political prisoners, a full review of the constitution, reopening of all NLD offices and the right to freely organize. The regime's answer is the continued jailing of Suu Kyi and 2,000 other activists, massive military offensives against ethnic groups and the enforcement of rules to gag democracy.
How can the international community play a meaningful role? First, officials such as Webb should stop fear-mongering about China. His language about containing China, and working with Burma's regime to do so, is based on an outdated and unrealistic thesis. Suu Kyi rejected such notions by informing Webb that "we will not deal with anyone with fear and insecurity. We will deal with anyone, China, America, India, equally and friendly. As we can't choose our neighbors, we understand that we need to have a good relationship with China." Second, the NLD encourages other countries and international organizations to engage with Burma's military leaders to persuade them to engage with us and Burma's ethnic groups. The United States and many other nations have imposed sanctions on Burma. That is their decision and in keeping with their justified solidarity with the democratic values that we all hold so dear. If the regime genuinely engages with the NLD and ethnic representatives, releases political prisoners, ceases attacks against ethnic minorities and takes additional steps to build a true democratic state, these sanctions will be repealed at the right time.
In the meantime, let no one doubt our resolve. The NLD is a reflection of Burmese society. We will not be cowed or coerced into participating in a fatally flawed political process that robs the Burmese people of the freedom for which we struggle. We stand ready to engage, but we are more than willing to continue our struggle for the democratic values that so many have given their lives and their freedom to achieve.
U Win Tin is a member of the Central Executive Committee and a founder of Burma's National League for Democracy party. He was a political prisoner from 1989 to 2008.
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The Australian - For China, Burma is thorny territory
Michael Sainsbury | September 08, 2009
Article from: The Australian
THE tarred and guttered road that runs through the new part of the sleepy town of Nansan in the remote south of China's Yunnan province suddenly turns to dirt. As it continues, there's a small border post, and lo, it's the northern part of Burma's multi-ethnic Shan state.
Last week, a stream of about 30,000 refugees walked and drove across that border fleeing an attack by the Burmese government that killed as many as 500 people, mostly ethnic Han Chinese. While some returned, many have not and more are coming across at Qingshuihe, 80km down the road.
In that rugged and often impenetrable country, China just got itself a new headache to add to the freshly throbbing one in its racially riven province of Xinxiang. It's a problem that has highlighted the increasingly deep and potentially fragile ties China has with its fellow totalitarian regime across the border.
It's hard to believe that only 70 years ago, Burma was the rice bowl of Asia - a country that was for 100 years the biggest state in British India and the brightest facet in that shining jewel. Since the coup in 1962, the vast teak forests of central Burma have been stripped, denuding the land and causing its once mighty river, the Irrawaddy, to silt up; its infrastructure has collapsed; most of its universities have been shuttered; and unless they join the mercenaries, many young men end up serving in the army on subsistence wages for the junta's rapacious leaders.
These days, Burma is awash with infrastructure projects, highways are being cut through its northern jungles, a series of culturally devastating and environmentally disastrous dams are being planned on the Salween River for hydro-electricity.
Mines are being built to extract its potentially vast deposits of minerals. A giant oil and gas pipeline, thousands of kilometres long, is being laid through the country and into Yunnan. The teak forests to the north are being logged for furniture. The country's jade and rubies are being shipped to adorn the bodies and houses of the wealthy. There is even a blueprint to dredge the Irrawaddy and make it navigable all they way to the Chinese border.
And who is this for? Well, the booty is being split: China gets the goods and energy, Burma's generals get the money. Certainly, China is not alone in the rape of Burma. The Japanese were the first to prop up the regime in the 1960s and 70s, along with the South Koreans. Thailand sucks up vast quantities of its natural gas, its looming regional nemesis. And now India is also seeking out its own spoils.
But China has the cash, the proximity and less scruples. In the past 15 years, an increasingly confident and wealthy China has ramped up its offshore investment program seeking energy and food security.
Chinese business has always been a part of the fabric of the region. In every major mercantile centre, the Chinese have money and influence. Coming from a more sophisticated and aggressive culture with long and deep roots in trade and, at one time, innovation, the Chinese have understood the importance of taking control of critical institutions, such as banks, in order to make money and wield influence. The Chinese control many of the banks in Burma today. Because of this, the Chinese have been reviled in Burma and in many other countries in the region. Singapore was formed so the Chinese could create there own enclave away from the Malays.
Since its vast investment program in Burma began, Chinese nationals have flooded into Burma, particularly in the north. The country's second-largest centre, Mandalay, is conservatively believed to be at least 20 per cent Chinese. The total number of Chinese living in Burma is thought to be one million or more, but the Burmese government has not conducted a census since the early 1990s.
In Kokang two weeks ago, the Chinese were being targeted with bullets, their shops and homes looted. Many are afraid to go home.
For several decades after Burma's increasingly isolated and repressive military regime took charge of the place in 1962, battles raged between the government and a multiplicity of armed militia representing a range of ethnic minorities. One of these was the Kokang, a group of about 150,000 ethnic Han Chinese who have lived in the region for centuries. Militarily, they are the weakest of the militias and until last week they had a 20-year truce with the junta. Kokang is more Chinese than Burmese - they speak Mandarin, use the renmimbi and the Chinese mobile system.
It's the same story with many tribes close to China's borders and markets. Still, the Chinese are not particularly fond of the 50 or so casinos the Kokang run in the town of Laogai just down the road from Nansan, in exchange for promising to give up the drug trade in 2003. The Chinese are even less fond of the vast quantity of heroin and methamphetamine that cross its borders from the Wa ethnic group, now surrounded by the Burmese military and possibly its next target. There is a rapidly growing meth and ice problem raging across southern China and creeping its way north.
One theory says the attack on the ethnic groups by the junta government came at the behest of the Chinese to wipe out the drug trade, but China's reaction and a bald statement about protecting "Chinese people" would seem to counter that. China has close links to the Wa, too.
Burma is also looking elsewhere. Many in the US and Europe are urging the lifting of economic sanctions, saying they have only isolated Burma and forced it into China's arms. A change in that policy would threaten China's position in Burma. And Burma is getting closer to North Korea, which has spooked China's military. The threat of Burma getting nuclear weapons is enough to cause panic as this would leave China with the problem of two of the world's most erratic regimes with nuclear arms to its north and south - North Korea and Burma.
As China continues to have problems with its own internal ethnic tensions, some of those it faces in Burma are richly ironic, but the entire situation is becoming more complex and fraught by the day.
Michael Sainsbury | September 08, 2009
Article from: The Australian
THE tarred and guttered road that runs through the new part of the sleepy town of Nansan in the remote south of China's Yunnan province suddenly turns to dirt. As it continues, there's a small border post, and lo, it's the northern part of Burma's multi-ethnic Shan state.
Last week, a stream of about 30,000 refugees walked and drove across that border fleeing an attack by the Burmese government that killed as many as 500 people, mostly ethnic Han Chinese. While some returned, many have not and more are coming across at Qingshuihe, 80km down the road.
In that rugged and often impenetrable country, China just got itself a new headache to add to the freshly throbbing one in its racially riven province of Xinxiang. It's a problem that has highlighted the increasingly deep and potentially fragile ties China has with its fellow totalitarian regime across the border.
It's hard to believe that only 70 years ago, Burma was the rice bowl of Asia - a country that was for 100 years the biggest state in British India and the brightest facet in that shining jewel. Since the coup in 1962, the vast teak forests of central Burma have been stripped, denuding the land and causing its once mighty river, the Irrawaddy, to silt up; its infrastructure has collapsed; most of its universities have been shuttered; and unless they join the mercenaries, many young men end up serving in the army on subsistence wages for the junta's rapacious leaders.
These days, Burma is awash with infrastructure projects, highways are being cut through its northern jungles, a series of culturally devastating and environmentally disastrous dams are being planned on the Salween River for hydro-electricity.
Mines are being built to extract its potentially vast deposits of minerals. A giant oil and gas pipeline, thousands of kilometres long, is being laid through the country and into Yunnan. The teak forests to the north are being logged for furniture. The country's jade and rubies are being shipped to adorn the bodies and houses of the wealthy. There is even a blueprint to dredge the Irrawaddy and make it navigable all they way to the Chinese border.
And who is this for? Well, the booty is being split: China gets the goods and energy, Burma's generals get the money. Certainly, China is not alone in the rape of Burma. The Japanese were the first to prop up the regime in the 1960s and 70s, along with the South Koreans. Thailand sucks up vast quantities of its natural gas, its looming regional nemesis. And now India is also seeking out its own spoils.
But China has the cash, the proximity and less scruples. In the past 15 years, an increasingly confident and wealthy China has ramped up its offshore investment program seeking energy and food security.
Chinese business has always been a part of the fabric of the region. In every major mercantile centre, the Chinese have money and influence. Coming from a more sophisticated and aggressive culture with long and deep roots in trade and, at one time, innovation, the Chinese have understood the importance of taking control of critical institutions, such as banks, in order to make money and wield influence. The Chinese control many of the banks in Burma today. Because of this, the Chinese have been reviled in Burma and in many other countries in the region. Singapore was formed so the Chinese could create there own enclave away from the Malays.
Since its vast investment program in Burma began, Chinese nationals have flooded into Burma, particularly in the north. The country's second-largest centre, Mandalay, is conservatively believed to be at least 20 per cent Chinese. The total number of Chinese living in Burma is thought to be one million or more, but the Burmese government has not conducted a census since the early 1990s.
In Kokang two weeks ago, the Chinese were being targeted with bullets, their shops and homes looted. Many are afraid to go home.
For several decades after Burma's increasingly isolated and repressive military regime took charge of the place in 1962, battles raged between the government and a multiplicity of armed militia representing a range of ethnic minorities. One of these was the Kokang, a group of about 150,000 ethnic Han Chinese who have lived in the region for centuries. Militarily, they are the weakest of the militias and until last week they had a 20-year truce with the junta. Kokang is more Chinese than Burmese - they speak Mandarin, use the renmimbi and the Chinese mobile system.
It's the same story with many tribes close to China's borders and markets. Still, the Chinese are not particularly fond of the 50 or so casinos the Kokang run in the town of Laogai just down the road from Nansan, in exchange for promising to give up the drug trade in 2003. The Chinese are even less fond of the vast quantity of heroin and methamphetamine that cross its borders from the Wa ethnic group, now surrounded by the Burmese military and possibly its next target. There is a rapidly growing meth and ice problem raging across southern China and creeping its way north.
One theory says the attack on the ethnic groups by the junta government came at the behest of the Chinese to wipe out the drug trade, but China's reaction and a bald statement about protecting "Chinese people" would seem to counter that. China has close links to the Wa, too.
Burma is also looking elsewhere. Many in the US and Europe are urging the lifting of economic sanctions, saying they have only isolated Burma and forced it into China's arms. A change in that policy would threaten China's position in Burma. And Burma is getting closer to North Korea, which has spooked China's military. The threat of Burma getting nuclear weapons is enough to cause panic as this would leave China with the problem of two of the world's most erratic regimes with nuclear arms to its north and south - North Korea and Burma.
As China continues to have problems with its own internal ethnic tensions, some of those it faces in Burma are richly ironic, but the entire situation is becoming more complex and fraught by the day.
***************************************************************
Myanmar says Chinese tip-off led to border clash
1 hr 18 mins ago
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Myanmar troops were acting on a tip-off from China when they seized an illegal arms factory last month, triggering several days of clashes with an ethnic militia that sent more than 30,000 refugees fleeing across the border into China, an official said.
Myanmar's ruling military junta secured the northeastern region of Kokang late last month and thousands of refugees have since returned to their homes. On Tuesday, it held a government-organized tour of the region for diplomats and reporters.
Myanmar Deputy Home Affairs Minister Brig. Phone Swe told participants that government troops seized the weapons factory near the Chinese border on Aug. 8 after being informed about it during a ministerial meeting with China on combatting transnational crime.
Myanmar's junta earlier said the ethnic militia then raided a police checkpoint and took 39 police officers hostage. Fifteen officers were later killed, leading to full-scale fighting that state media say killed 11 soldiers and eight militia members, it said.
Phone Swe's comments appeared to be an attempt to show that relations with China — the junta's top ally — were on a steady keel, after speculation about strains following the refugee influx and a rare public request from Beijing that Myanmar calm the situation.
Myanmar's border regions have for decades been the site of clashes between ethnic armies and the ruling military that have displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
Myanmar, also known as Burma, is largely estranged from the West, but China has maintained close economic and diplomatic ties with the junta, ensuring Beijing's access to its neighbor's vast mineral wealth. Major Chinese state companies are big investors in Myanmar's oil and gas industries.
The new leader of the ethnic group, meanwhile, said it will participate in elections next year, the first in nearly two decades.
Phe Sauk Chen, who was appointed head of the newly formed Kokang Region Provisional Leading Committee after the former leaders fled, told reporters during the same trip Tuesday that his group also agreed to join the government's border security guards.
The issue of whether to take part in national elections, the first in nearly 20 years, has been a point of contention among ethnic groups, which are being asked to put down their weapons and join the border guards.
So far, the Kachin Independence Organization is the only other ethnic group that has agreed to take part in the elections. Larger ethnic groups like the Wa, which has a militia estimated at over 20,000 fighters, have so far resisted.
Critics call the elections a sham designed to cement the military's grip on power.
Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. The current junta took power in 1988 after violently crushing a pro-democracy uprising.
The Kokang were the first among 17 armed ethnic groups to reach a peace agreement with the government in March 1989.
1 hr 18 mins ago
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Myanmar troops were acting on a tip-off from China when they seized an illegal arms factory last month, triggering several days of clashes with an ethnic militia that sent more than 30,000 refugees fleeing across the border into China, an official said.
Myanmar's ruling military junta secured the northeastern region of Kokang late last month and thousands of refugees have since returned to their homes. On Tuesday, it held a government-organized tour of the region for diplomats and reporters.
Myanmar Deputy Home Affairs Minister Brig. Phone Swe told participants that government troops seized the weapons factory near the Chinese border on Aug. 8 after being informed about it during a ministerial meeting with China on combatting transnational crime.
Myanmar's junta earlier said the ethnic militia then raided a police checkpoint and took 39 police officers hostage. Fifteen officers were later killed, leading to full-scale fighting that state media say killed 11 soldiers and eight militia members, it said.
Phone Swe's comments appeared to be an attempt to show that relations with China — the junta's top ally — were on a steady keel, after speculation about strains following the refugee influx and a rare public request from Beijing that Myanmar calm the situation.
Myanmar's border regions have for decades been the site of clashes between ethnic armies and the ruling military that have displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
Myanmar, also known as Burma, is largely estranged from the West, but China has maintained close economic and diplomatic ties with the junta, ensuring Beijing's access to its neighbor's vast mineral wealth. Major Chinese state companies are big investors in Myanmar's oil and gas industries.
The new leader of the ethnic group, meanwhile, said it will participate in elections next year, the first in nearly two decades.
Phe Sauk Chen, who was appointed head of the newly formed Kokang Region Provisional Leading Committee after the former leaders fled, told reporters during the same trip Tuesday that his group also agreed to join the government's border security guards.
The issue of whether to take part in national elections, the first in nearly 20 years, has been a point of contention among ethnic groups, which are being asked to put down their weapons and join the border guards.
So far, the Kachin Independence Organization is the only other ethnic group that has agreed to take part in the elections. Larger ethnic groups like the Wa, which has a militia estimated at over 20,000 fighters, have so far resisted.
Critics call the elections a sham designed to cement the military's grip on power.
Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. The current junta took power in 1988 after violently crushing a pro-democracy uprising.
The Kokang were the first among 17 armed ethnic groups to reach a peace agreement with the government in March 1989.
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Myanmar junta asserts control over rebellious region
By Aung Hla Tun – 2 hrs 15 mins ago
LAUKKAI, Myanmar (Reuters) – Myanmar's military regime is stepping up efforts to show its neighbors that armed ethnic separatists on its border are under control after violent clashes that sent thousands of refugees pouring into China.
The normally reclusive junta invited a group of more than 50 observers to the Kokang region bordering China, an ethnic Chinese enclave the military says is now under its control after decades of rebellion to Yangon's rule.
The group comprised Western and Asian diplomats and foreign journalists, including two from China, the regime's biggest ally, which has urged the junta to restore stability in a region strategically important to its energy needs.
Rebel fighters from the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), defeated by Myanmar's "Tatmadaw" army after a recent offensive, were nowhere to be seen, but officials said around 800 had agreed to join its border patrol force.
Normally abuzz with border trade, gambling and racy nightlife, Kokang's once-thriving hotspots resemble ghost towns and many who fled the fierce fighting have yet to return.
Shops, casinos and karaoke bars remain shuttered and thousands of armed troops and security police patrol the towns and man checkpoints along deserted roads.
Local businessman said many people who returned to assess damage to their shops and homes had slipped back into China, fearing more unrest if the army launches a widely expected new offensive against the United Wa State Army (UWSA), a 20,000-strong militia run by opium warlords and drugs barons.
"They are worried about the outbreak of war. Rumor has it that there will be battles between government troops and UWSA," said a local trader. "Business has dried up almost completely. It will take a long time to return to normal."
Deputy Home Minister Brigadier General Phone Swe said an interim local government in Kokang, installed by Yangon just over a week ago, had agreed to play a part in next year's elections in return for regional autonomy after the polls.
MORE CLASHES?
Many of Myanmar's ethnic rebel groups such as the Kokang and the Wa in its remote, predominantly ethnic Chinese Shan State do not trust the regime and have long refused to disarm, join an army-run border force and take part in the polls, the first in the former British colony since 1990.
In its almost five decades of unbroken rule in the former Burma, the military has failed to establish control along its northeastern border where many ethnic groups believe the junta's political gestures are veiled attempts to neutralize their power.
Peace has been restored, but for how long is unclear.
Ethnic rebels in the Kokang region may have succumbed to the junta's demands, but it remains to be seen if bigger and better armed groups such as the Wa would be so easily defeated.
Phe Xiao Chain, chairman of the local interim administration, said Kokang's new leadership was on good terms with the powerful United Wa State Army.
"We are ready to transform into an autonomous region under the new constitution after taking part in 2010 election," he told Reuters, adding that the former rebel leader, Phon Kya Shin, was still at large and thought to be under the Wa's protection.
The junta, which has maintained the clashes were started by rebels who had held 40 policemen hostage, took the foreign diplomats on a tour of a huge weapons factory, which it said was capable of producing 1,500 assault rifles every month.
They were also shown an illicit drugs factory built in the basement of a mansion said to be the home of one of the fugitive Kokang leaders, only a stone's throw from the border with China.
By Aung Hla Tun – 2 hrs 15 mins ago
LAUKKAI, Myanmar (Reuters) – Myanmar's military regime is stepping up efforts to show its neighbors that armed ethnic separatists on its border are under control after violent clashes that sent thousands of refugees pouring into China.
The normally reclusive junta invited a group of more than 50 observers to the Kokang region bordering China, an ethnic Chinese enclave the military says is now under its control after decades of rebellion to Yangon's rule.
The group comprised Western and Asian diplomats and foreign journalists, including two from China, the regime's biggest ally, which has urged the junta to restore stability in a region strategically important to its energy needs.
Rebel fighters from the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), defeated by Myanmar's "Tatmadaw" army after a recent offensive, were nowhere to be seen, but officials said around 800 had agreed to join its border patrol force.
Normally abuzz with border trade, gambling and racy nightlife, Kokang's once-thriving hotspots resemble ghost towns and many who fled the fierce fighting have yet to return.
Shops, casinos and karaoke bars remain shuttered and thousands of armed troops and security police patrol the towns and man checkpoints along deserted roads.
Local businessman said many people who returned to assess damage to their shops and homes had slipped back into China, fearing more unrest if the army launches a widely expected new offensive against the United Wa State Army (UWSA), a 20,000-strong militia run by opium warlords and drugs barons.
"They are worried about the outbreak of war. Rumor has it that there will be battles between government troops and UWSA," said a local trader. "Business has dried up almost completely. It will take a long time to return to normal."
Deputy Home Minister Brigadier General Phone Swe said an interim local government in Kokang, installed by Yangon just over a week ago, had agreed to play a part in next year's elections in return for regional autonomy after the polls.
MORE CLASHES?
Many of Myanmar's ethnic rebel groups such as the Kokang and the Wa in its remote, predominantly ethnic Chinese Shan State do not trust the regime and have long refused to disarm, join an army-run border force and take part in the polls, the first in the former British colony since 1990.
In its almost five decades of unbroken rule in the former Burma, the military has failed to establish control along its northeastern border where many ethnic groups believe the junta's political gestures are veiled attempts to neutralize their power.
Peace has been restored, but for how long is unclear.
Ethnic rebels in the Kokang region may have succumbed to the junta's demands, but it remains to be seen if bigger and better armed groups such as the Wa would be so easily defeated.
Phe Xiao Chain, chairman of the local interim administration, said Kokang's new leadership was on good terms with the powerful United Wa State Army.
"We are ready to transform into an autonomous region under the new constitution after taking part in 2010 election," he told Reuters, adding that the former rebel leader, Phon Kya Shin, was still at large and thought to be under the Wa's protection.
The junta, which has maintained the clashes were started by rebels who had held 40 policemen hostage, took the foreign diplomats on a tour of a huge weapons factory, which it said was capable of producing 1,500 assault rifles every month.
They were also shown an illicit drugs factory built in the basement of a mansion said to be the home of one of the fugitive Kokang leaders, only a stone's throw from the border with China.
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WHO warns of winter swine flu surge in Asia
Wed Sep 9, 7:28 am ET
KATHMANDU (AFP) – The World Health Organization on Wednesday urged Asian countries to prepare for a surge in swine flu cases as the northern hemisphere's winter approaches.
Much of Asia has so far been hit relatively lightly, but the WHO said hospitals in the region should be prepared for "a surge of severe cases requiring active case management."
"A winter surge is a real possibility in the Southeast Asia region," WHO director for Southeast Asia, Samlee Plianbangchang, said in Kathmandu, where health ministers from 11 countries in the region are meeting.
The UN agency considers Southeast Asia to include Bangladesh, Bhutan, North Korea, India, Indonesia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and East Timor.
"It is important to allocate appropriate resources and maintain the overall pandemic preparedness," he said, according to a statement issued by the UN health agency.
At least 2,837 people around the world have died from the swine flu virus since it emerged in April, according to the latest WHO figures.
The UN health agency said it had given technological and financial assistance to three major vaccine manufacturers in the region, but that new vaccines may not be available before the winter sets in.
Instead, it urged more public information to slow the spread of the disease.
"The importance of public health measures such as frequent hand-washing, respiratory hygiene and cough etiquette... need to be emphasised to the public," the WHO statement said.
"Hospitals in member states need to remain prepared for a surge of severe cases requiring active case management with antiviral and other supportive measures."
Wed Sep 9, 7:28 am ET
KATHMANDU (AFP) – The World Health Organization on Wednesday urged Asian countries to prepare for a surge in swine flu cases as the northern hemisphere's winter approaches.
Much of Asia has so far been hit relatively lightly, but the WHO said hospitals in the region should be prepared for "a surge of severe cases requiring active case management."
"A winter surge is a real possibility in the Southeast Asia region," WHO director for Southeast Asia, Samlee Plianbangchang, said in Kathmandu, where health ministers from 11 countries in the region are meeting.
The UN agency considers Southeast Asia to include Bangladesh, Bhutan, North Korea, India, Indonesia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and East Timor.
"It is important to allocate appropriate resources and maintain the overall pandemic preparedness," he said, according to a statement issued by the UN health agency.
At least 2,837 people around the world have died from the swine flu virus since it emerged in April, according to the latest WHO figures.
The UN health agency said it had given technological and financial assistance to three major vaccine manufacturers in the region, but that new vaccines may not be available before the winter sets in.
Instead, it urged more public information to slow the spread of the disease.
"The importance of public health measures such as frequent hand-washing, respiratory hygiene and cough etiquette... need to be emphasised to the public," the WHO statement said.
"Hospitals in member states need to remain prepared for a surge of severe cases requiring active case management with antiviral and other supportive measures."
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Globalisation threatens indigenous foods: UN agency
Tue Sep 8, 2:22 pm ET
ROME (AFP) – The rich diversity of food in indigenous communities across the world is threatened by the spread of Western eating habits through globalisation, a United Nations agency said Tuesday.
About three-quarters of the genetic diversity once found in agricultural crops has been lost over the last century, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in a study.
While ethnic communities in far-flung parts of the world can pick from a wide range of fruits and vegetables, Western industrialised nations rely heavily on four commercial crops -- wheat, rice, corn and soy, the FAO said.
Traditional foods frequently contain very high levels of micronutrients that are good for the body, and the introduction of processed foods is causing health problems in some communities, it said.
"The shift away from traditional food resources to commercial, convenience foods is often accompanied by an increase in diet-related disorders like obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure," said Barbara Burlingame, FAO senior nutrition officer.
Globalisation threatens treasure troves that the researchers found in communities such as the Karens in Thailand, near the Myanmar border, where 661 inhabitants can choose from 387 food species, the FAO said.
Kenya's Maasai tribes enjoy 35 different species of herbs, leafy vegetables and wild fruits, while the Inuit of Baffin Bay in Canada's north eat 79 different wildlife foods including caribou meat and ringed seal, it found.
The study, titled "Indigenous People's Food Systems," was conducted with the Centre for Indigenous People's Nutrition and Environment at McGill University in Montreal.
Tue Sep 8, 2:22 pm ET
ROME (AFP) – The rich diversity of food in indigenous communities across the world is threatened by the spread of Western eating habits through globalisation, a United Nations agency said Tuesday.
About three-quarters of the genetic diversity once found in agricultural crops has been lost over the last century, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in a study.
While ethnic communities in far-flung parts of the world can pick from a wide range of fruits and vegetables, Western industrialised nations rely heavily on four commercial crops -- wheat, rice, corn and soy, the FAO said.
Traditional foods frequently contain very high levels of micronutrients that are good for the body, and the introduction of processed foods is causing health problems in some communities, it said.
"The shift away from traditional food resources to commercial, convenience foods is often accompanied by an increase in diet-related disorders like obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure," said Barbara Burlingame, FAO senior nutrition officer.
Globalisation threatens treasure troves that the researchers found in communities such as the Karens in Thailand, near the Myanmar border, where 661 inhabitants can choose from 387 food species, the FAO said.
Kenya's Maasai tribes enjoy 35 different species of herbs, leafy vegetables and wild fruits, while the Inuit of Baffin Bay in Canada's north eat 79 different wildlife foods including caribou meat and ringed seal, it found.
The study, titled "Indigenous People's Food Systems," was conducted with the Centre for Indigenous People's Nutrition and Environment at McGill University in Montreal.
***************************************************************
Myanmar says Kokang to become autonomous region after 2010 general election
www.chinaview.cn 2009-09-09 14:29:54
YANGON, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar's Kokang ethnic region in the northeast will become an autonomous region after 2010 general election in accordance with the new state constitution, Deputy Home Minister Brigadier-General Phone Swe told a diplomatic corp and Yangon-based foreign newsmen during their about 48-hour invited visit to northern Myanmar, mainly Kokang.
The combined group's visit to the Kokang region, which is also known as Shan State Special Region-1 (North), was the first organized by the government after the Kokang incident and the 48-hour exclusive trip from Monday to Wednesday mainly covered 3-hours' in Laukkai, capital of the Kokang region.
Phone Swe told the visiting group on Tuesday that starting Aug.29 at 6 p.m. (local time), the Myanmar security forces have totally controlled the Kokang region, restoring law and order and maintaining social stability there.
He briefed that a "Leading Committee for Development in Kokang Region", led by Prime Minister General Thein Sein, was formed on Sept. 1 along with the establishment of the "Working Committee for Development in Kokang Region", headed by the Deputy Home Minister.
According to earlier government announcement, a "Kokang Region Provisional Leading Committee", led by the government, was also set up in Laukkai on Aug. 30.
The above administrative machinery will work until the emergence of administrative and judicial bodies in the Kokang autonomous region after the general election, local sources said.
The Bai Xuoqian group, breaking away from the Kokang ethnic army and cooperating with the government, told foreign media in Kokang that they accepts the government leadership and will take part in the general election in 2010
The combined group, under heavy escort, also visited the sealed arms factory in Kokang's Laukkai as well as the locations where drugs were seized.
The group looked around Laukkai area witnessing that Laukkai is a developing border town but few number of shops are kept open for business and factories are closing.
According to official compiled statistics, of the Kokang local inhabitants, who fled last month-end's fightings to the Chinese Yunnan border area, a total of 15,607 had returned to their native homes as of Tuesday.
With an area of 5,200 square-kilometers, Kokang, bordering China's Zhen Kang, Geng Ma, Meng Ding and Long Ling areas, has a population of about 150,000.
www.chinaview.cn 2009-09-09 14:29:54
YANGON, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar's Kokang ethnic region in the northeast will become an autonomous region after 2010 general election in accordance with the new state constitution, Deputy Home Minister Brigadier-General Phone Swe told a diplomatic corp and Yangon-based foreign newsmen during their about 48-hour invited visit to northern Myanmar, mainly Kokang.
The combined group's visit to the Kokang region, which is also known as Shan State Special Region-1 (North), was the first organized by the government after the Kokang incident and the 48-hour exclusive trip from Monday to Wednesday mainly covered 3-hours' in Laukkai, capital of the Kokang region.
Phone Swe told the visiting group on Tuesday that starting Aug.29 at 6 p.m. (local time), the Myanmar security forces have totally controlled the Kokang region, restoring law and order and maintaining social stability there.
He briefed that a "Leading Committee for Development in Kokang Region", led by Prime Minister General Thein Sein, was formed on Sept. 1 along with the establishment of the "Working Committee for Development in Kokang Region", headed by the Deputy Home Minister.
According to earlier government announcement, a "Kokang Region Provisional Leading Committee", led by the government, was also set up in Laukkai on Aug. 30.
The above administrative machinery will work until the emergence of administrative and judicial bodies in the Kokang autonomous region after the general election, local sources said.
The Bai Xuoqian group, breaking away from the Kokang ethnic army and cooperating with the government, told foreign media in Kokang that they accepts the government leadership and will take part in the general election in 2010
The combined group, under heavy escort, also visited the sealed arms factory in Kokang's Laukkai as well as the locations where drugs were seized.
The group looked around Laukkai area witnessing that Laukkai is a developing border town but few number of shops are kept open for business and factories are closing.
According to official compiled statistics, of the Kokang local inhabitants, who fled last month-end's fightings to the Chinese Yunnan border area, a total of 15,607 had returned to their native homes as of Tuesday.
With an area of 5,200 square-kilometers, Kokang, bordering China's Zhen Kang, Geng Ma, Meng Ding and Long Ling areas, has a population of about 150,000.
***************************************************************
Sep 10, 2009
Asia Times Online - China, Myanmar border on a conflict
By Brian McCartan
BANGKOK - An ominous lull has fallen over northern Myanmar since the military government's defeat last week of Kokang ethnic insurgents. All sides appear to be preparing for the next round, which, depending on the scale of the offensive or counter-offensive, could plunge other ceasefire regions into renewed civil war.
It is unclear whether Myanmar's generals are willing to challenge the better-armed ethnic Wa and Kachin - and by proxy potentially China - or if recent moves are part of an elaborate strategic bluff. By taking out the Kokang, which in their tens of thousands fled across the border into northern China, the junta has tested both Beijing's resolve to back Myanmar-based insurgent groups and the willingness of the ceasefire groups to militarily support each other.
Many analysts believed that past Chinese support for ceasefire groups along its border would discourage the junta from carrying out its threats to force them to transform into border guard units under the government's command in advance of next year's democratic elections. That analysis was bolstered by reports that Chinese officials told their Myanmar counterparts that they would brook no instability along their shared 2,185-kilometer border in the run-up to this October's 60-year celebrations of the communist victory in China.
Myanmar's junta has demanded that the main ceasefire groups in northern Myanmar, including the United Wa State Army (UWSA), the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the National Democratic Alliance Army-Eastern Shan State (NDAA) and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) reduce the size of their forces and join a Myanmar army-administered Border Guard Force.
The transformation of autonomous militias to state-controlled border guards would require the various ethnic political organizations battling for autonomy in their regions to lose their armed wings and effectively diminish their negotiating leverage vis-a-vis the regime. All of the mentioned groups rejected the proposal. Instead they requested to continue with the current ceasefires until after elections and work out new arrangements with a democratically elected government.
China has been supportive of the ceasefire groups through calls for national reconciliation, by mediating in disputes between the groups and Myanmar's military and by putting pressure on the regime to refrain from using force to press its demands. Those overtures suit Beijing's broad aim of maintaining stability in border areas while simultaneously providing Beijing military and political proxies in case of instability inside Myanmar, as witnessed in the massive civil unrest in 1988 and 2007.
Myanmar's stability is important to China because of its hefty investments in natural resource extraction and the country's strategic geography as a conduit to the sea for trade from China's landlocked southwest Yunnan province. Construction of an oil and gas pipeline is slated to begin this month and finish in 2012 which will allow China to receive shipments of Middle Eastern fuel without having to travel through the Malacca Straits. China is known to fear the potential of a naval blockade there in any potential conflict with the United States.
The recent offensive against the Kokang resulted in China reinforcing its police and military units along the border and a rare rebuke from the Foreign Ministry. A statement released from Beijing on August 28 said China "hopes that Myanmar can appropriately solve its relevant internal problems and safeguard the stability of the China-Myanmar border". It went on to request that the government "protect the safety and legal rights of Chinese citizens in Myanmar".
Myanmar in turn apologized for any Chinese casualties that occurred during the hostilities and thanked Beijing for its assistance in caring for refugees. According to Chinese officials in Yunnan province, around 37,000 refugees streamed across the border in the wake of the recent fighting. Security analysts are now eyeing the outcome of meetings between Chinese and Myanmar officials and the impact they could have on regional security.
Dropping the gauntlet
Many were surprised by Myanmar's apparent willingness to challenge China on the ceasefire groups. Opposition sources claim that two meetings between high-level officials already took place on August 31, entailing one in Yunnan between Myanmar Deputy Home Affairs Minister Brigadier General Phone Swe and Chinese Minister for Public Security Meng Jian, and another in the northern Myanmar town of Lashio between senior officers of the Chinese People's Liberation Army and the Myanmar Army, including Lieutenant General Min Aung Hlaing, commander of all units in Shan State.
An alliance of ceasefire groups known as the Myanmar Peace and Democracy Front (MPDF) and encompassing the MNDAA, UWSA, NDAA and the KIA was established in March to show a united front against the military regime and its autonomy eroding Border Guard Force proposal. The alliance was only announced in August when tensions between the Kokang-led MNDAA and the Myanmar military began to mount. Another ceasefire group, the Shan State Army (North) located in central Shan State, is also believed to be linked to the grouping.
The MNDAA were recognized by the Myanmar military as the weakest link in the loose alliance. By exploiting a split among the Kokang leadership over its position on the Border Guard Force proposal, the regime was able to move quickly against the MNDAA on August 27 and drive them from their capital across the border into China or into the surrounding mountains in only two days.
The offensive tested the resolve of the 20,000-strong UWSA to come to the aid of their neighboring alliance partners. The alliance was previously touted as a mutual security guarantee, but that is not how it played out on the battlefield. Although a force of around 500 UWSA soldiers from its northern Namteuk-based 318 Division initially reinforced the Kokang, they pulled back the next day to Wa-controlled territory south of the Namting River.
Some Myanmar watchers saw the tactical retreat as a lack of resolve on behalf of the UWSA, an assessment the Myanmar army may now share. At the same time, Myanmar's generals now have some idea of what China's response would be to potential offensives against other ceasefire groups.
It is unclear what battlefield advantage Myanmar military's may have gained by its successful assault against the Kokang, but its reinforcement of units facing other insurgent positions, including the placement of more artillery and tanks against the NDAA and Wa troops along the China and Thai borders, suggests it believes it has won an upper hand.
At the same time, strategic analysts doubt whether the military could launch a full-scale offensive against ceasefire groups and maintain security over next year's elections. The UWSA and KIA represent stronger adversaries than the MNDAA. The UWSA has 20,000-25,000 soldiers backed by mortars, artillery and anti-aircraft weapons. The KIA has another 5,000 soldiers under arms and were previously able to hold the Myanmar army at bay for nearly two decades.
Security experts, including a Thai intelligence officer who spoke on condition of anonymity, believe it could take a decade or more of heavy fighting to finally subdue the groups. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the Wa fought bloody pitched battles with the Myanmar Army as part of the Burmese Communist Party. The Wa are even better armed now than they were then. Even without Chinese aid, the KIA, UWSA and NDAA could adopt guerrilla strategies that prolong the fighting.
The insurgent forces of the Karen, Karenni and Shan on the Thai-Myanmar border are also a thorn in the regime's side, despite losing substantial territory and largely disowned since the 1980s by Thailand. Bangkok previously supported ethnic groups along its border as a buffer against Myanmar but now commercially engages with the regime, including the import of crucial natural gas supplies.
Wider conflict
With the predictions of possible protracted warfare and by showing its hand against the MNDAA, it is unlikely that Myanmar's military will be able to exert control over the ceasefire regions in time for the 2010 elections. The large number of troops it would take to defeat the insurgents would also weaken the regime's hold over security in other parts of the country.
Myanmar's junta still clearly fears the possibility of widespread urban civil unrest, as seen in the 2007 Buddhist monk-led Saffron Revolution and which some Myanmar watchers believe is still simmering below the surface. The regime thus requires a large security presence in and around Myanmar's cities as a deterrent against future protests.
Ceasefire groups in other parts of the country are similarly peeved with the border guard proposal and provisions in the new constitution and may see renewed hostilities in the north as chance to resume their armed struggles. Such groups, analysts say, could include the New Mon State Party in the southeast, which was the first group to reject the border guard proposal, as well as groups representing smaller ethnic minorities such as the Karenni and Pa-O in eastern Myanmar.
The need for the army to shift troops to the north would also give beleaguered non-ceasefire groups such as the Karen National Union and the Shan State Army (South) breathing room and an opportunity to rebuild their beleaguered forces. A worst case scenario for the regime could see these groups joining with the northern insurgent groups in a new, wider alliance. Although these alliances have not fared well in the past and for the time being seem unlikely, it is a scenario that would quickly over-stretch the regime's ground forces.
China may eventually call Myanmar's bluff. While China has willingly accepted Kokang refugees onto its soil, Beijing would no doubt be less tolerant of the sustained disruption in trade and investment caused by large and persistent refugee flows driven by more open warfare. Ramped up Chinese support for the ethnic groups would limit the impact of Myanmar military assaults on border regions and potentially spark a protracted war that Myanmar's cash-strapped regime clearly cannot afford.
That could mean the generals allow other ethnic groups to retain their arms and ceasefire status until after the elections and then push them to negotiate a new deal with an elected government under the new constitution. That scenario, however, would require the generals to swallow their military pride, something they have shown a strong aversion to in the past.
Brian McCartan is a Bangkok-based freelance journalist. He may be reached at brianpm@comcast.net.
Asia Times Online - China, Myanmar border on a conflict
By Brian McCartan
BANGKOK - An ominous lull has fallen over northern Myanmar since the military government's defeat last week of Kokang ethnic insurgents. All sides appear to be preparing for the next round, which, depending on the scale of the offensive or counter-offensive, could plunge other ceasefire regions into renewed civil war.
It is unclear whether Myanmar's generals are willing to challenge the better-armed ethnic Wa and Kachin - and by proxy potentially China - or if recent moves are part of an elaborate strategic bluff. By taking out the Kokang, which in their tens of thousands fled across the border into northern China, the junta has tested both Beijing's resolve to back Myanmar-based insurgent groups and the willingness of the ceasefire groups to militarily support each other.
Many analysts believed that past Chinese support for ceasefire groups along its border would discourage the junta from carrying out its threats to force them to transform into border guard units under the government's command in advance of next year's democratic elections. That analysis was bolstered by reports that Chinese officials told their Myanmar counterparts that they would brook no instability along their shared 2,185-kilometer border in the run-up to this October's 60-year celebrations of the communist victory in China.
Myanmar's junta has demanded that the main ceasefire groups in northern Myanmar, including the United Wa State Army (UWSA), the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the National Democratic Alliance Army-Eastern Shan State (NDAA) and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) reduce the size of their forces and join a Myanmar army-administered Border Guard Force.
The transformation of autonomous militias to state-controlled border guards would require the various ethnic political organizations battling for autonomy in their regions to lose their armed wings and effectively diminish their negotiating leverage vis-a-vis the regime. All of the mentioned groups rejected the proposal. Instead they requested to continue with the current ceasefires until after elections and work out new arrangements with a democratically elected government.
China has been supportive of the ceasefire groups through calls for national reconciliation, by mediating in disputes between the groups and Myanmar's military and by putting pressure on the regime to refrain from using force to press its demands. Those overtures suit Beijing's broad aim of maintaining stability in border areas while simultaneously providing Beijing military and political proxies in case of instability inside Myanmar, as witnessed in the massive civil unrest in 1988 and 2007.
Myanmar's stability is important to China because of its hefty investments in natural resource extraction and the country's strategic geography as a conduit to the sea for trade from China's landlocked southwest Yunnan province. Construction of an oil and gas pipeline is slated to begin this month and finish in 2012 which will allow China to receive shipments of Middle Eastern fuel without having to travel through the Malacca Straits. China is known to fear the potential of a naval blockade there in any potential conflict with the United States.
The recent offensive against the Kokang resulted in China reinforcing its police and military units along the border and a rare rebuke from the Foreign Ministry. A statement released from Beijing on August 28 said China "hopes that Myanmar can appropriately solve its relevant internal problems and safeguard the stability of the China-Myanmar border". It went on to request that the government "protect the safety and legal rights of Chinese citizens in Myanmar".
Myanmar in turn apologized for any Chinese casualties that occurred during the hostilities and thanked Beijing for its assistance in caring for refugees. According to Chinese officials in Yunnan province, around 37,000 refugees streamed across the border in the wake of the recent fighting. Security analysts are now eyeing the outcome of meetings between Chinese and Myanmar officials and the impact they could have on regional security.
Dropping the gauntlet
Many were surprised by Myanmar's apparent willingness to challenge China on the ceasefire groups. Opposition sources claim that two meetings between high-level officials already took place on August 31, entailing one in Yunnan between Myanmar Deputy Home Affairs Minister Brigadier General Phone Swe and Chinese Minister for Public Security Meng Jian, and another in the northern Myanmar town of Lashio between senior officers of the Chinese People's Liberation Army and the Myanmar Army, including Lieutenant General Min Aung Hlaing, commander of all units in Shan State.
An alliance of ceasefire groups known as the Myanmar Peace and Democracy Front (MPDF) and encompassing the MNDAA, UWSA, NDAA and the KIA was established in March to show a united front against the military regime and its autonomy eroding Border Guard Force proposal. The alliance was only announced in August when tensions between the Kokang-led MNDAA and the Myanmar military began to mount. Another ceasefire group, the Shan State Army (North) located in central Shan State, is also believed to be linked to the grouping.
The MNDAA were recognized by the Myanmar military as the weakest link in the loose alliance. By exploiting a split among the Kokang leadership over its position on the Border Guard Force proposal, the regime was able to move quickly against the MNDAA on August 27 and drive them from their capital across the border into China or into the surrounding mountains in only two days.
The offensive tested the resolve of the 20,000-strong UWSA to come to the aid of their neighboring alliance partners. The alliance was previously touted as a mutual security guarantee, but that is not how it played out on the battlefield. Although a force of around 500 UWSA soldiers from its northern Namteuk-based 318 Division initially reinforced the Kokang, they pulled back the next day to Wa-controlled territory south of the Namting River.
Some Myanmar watchers saw the tactical retreat as a lack of resolve on behalf of the UWSA, an assessment the Myanmar army may now share. At the same time, Myanmar's generals now have some idea of what China's response would be to potential offensives against other ceasefire groups.
It is unclear what battlefield advantage Myanmar military's may have gained by its successful assault against the Kokang, but its reinforcement of units facing other insurgent positions, including the placement of more artillery and tanks against the NDAA and Wa troops along the China and Thai borders, suggests it believes it has won an upper hand.
At the same time, strategic analysts doubt whether the military could launch a full-scale offensive against ceasefire groups and maintain security over next year's elections. The UWSA and KIA represent stronger adversaries than the MNDAA. The UWSA has 20,000-25,000 soldiers backed by mortars, artillery and anti-aircraft weapons. The KIA has another 5,000 soldiers under arms and were previously able to hold the Myanmar army at bay for nearly two decades.
Security experts, including a Thai intelligence officer who spoke on condition of anonymity, believe it could take a decade or more of heavy fighting to finally subdue the groups. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the Wa fought bloody pitched battles with the Myanmar Army as part of the Burmese Communist Party. The Wa are even better armed now than they were then. Even without Chinese aid, the KIA, UWSA and NDAA could adopt guerrilla strategies that prolong the fighting.
The insurgent forces of the Karen, Karenni and Shan on the Thai-Myanmar border are also a thorn in the regime's side, despite losing substantial territory and largely disowned since the 1980s by Thailand. Bangkok previously supported ethnic groups along its border as a buffer against Myanmar but now commercially engages with the regime, including the import of crucial natural gas supplies.
Wider conflict
With the predictions of possible protracted warfare and by showing its hand against the MNDAA, it is unlikely that Myanmar's military will be able to exert control over the ceasefire regions in time for the 2010 elections. The large number of troops it would take to defeat the insurgents would also weaken the regime's hold over security in other parts of the country.
Myanmar's junta still clearly fears the possibility of widespread urban civil unrest, as seen in the 2007 Buddhist monk-led Saffron Revolution and which some Myanmar watchers believe is still simmering below the surface. The regime thus requires a large security presence in and around Myanmar's cities as a deterrent against future protests.
Ceasefire groups in other parts of the country are similarly peeved with the border guard proposal and provisions in the new constitution and may see renewed hostilities in the north as chance to resume their armed struggles. Such groups, analysts say, could include the New Mon State Party in the southeast, which was the first group to reject the border guard proposal, as well as groups representing smaller ethnic minorities such as the Karenni and Pa-O in eastern Myanmar.
The need for the army to shift troops to the north would also give beleaguered non-ceasefire groups such as the Karen National Union and the Shan State Army (South) breathing room and an opportunity to rebuild their beleaguered forces. A worst case scenario for the regime could see these groups joining with the northern insurgent groups in a new, wider alliance. Although these alliances have not fared well in the past and for the time being seem unlikely, it is a scenario that would quickly over-stretch the regime's ground forces.
China may eventually call Myanmar's bluff. While China has willingly accepted Kokang refugees onto its soil, Beijing would no doubt be less tolerant of the sustained disruption in trade and investment caused by large and persistent refugee flows driven by more open warfare. Ramped up Chinese support for the ethnic groups would limit the impact of Myanmar military assaults on border regions and potentially spark a protracted war that Myanmar's cash-strapped regime clearly cannot afford.
That could mean the generals allow other ethnic groups to retain their arms and ceasefire status until after the elections and then push them to negotiate a new deal with an elected government under the new constitution. That scenario, however, would require the generals to swallow their military pride, something they have shown a strong aversion to in the past.
Brian McCartan is a Bangkok-based freelance journalist. He may be reached at brianpm@comcast.net.
***************************************************************
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle - Refugees from Burma grow vegetables, and dreams
September 9, 2009
The woodchucks are a nuisance. Tau Tau, a young refugee from Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) is learning that he may have to rethink his crop selection next year — planting varieties less appealing to the varmints.
"In Burma, we do not have these animals," he says.
But like immigrants before him, Tau Tau loves his new home. The woodchucks are nothing compared with what he has already endured — being forced from his home to refugee camps in Thailand, where he waited two years for a chance at a new life in the United States.
Tau Tau, 24, arrived in Rochester three years ago. He was able to learn English at a school in the Thai refugee camp that was his home and now works as an interpreter at Westside Health Services on Lake Avenue. At night and on weekends, he and several family members work a small plot at Geyssens Nursery and Landscaping Inc. in Greece.
The Geyssens this spring decided to let Tau Tau and a few dozen other refugees from Burma farm 1.7 acres on their Mt. Read Boulevard property. The farm was the product of many kind people. Time, cash, material and seeds came from PAETEC Corp. United Way Day of Caring volunteers, the greenhouse at the city's Jefferson High School, the town of Penfield, Harris Seeds, Foodlink and several neighborhood volunteers.
Tau Tau, who lives in Hilton, has a car and is able to tend to his vegetables more easily than some of the others. Most of the refugees from Myanmar live in northwest Rochester and must make their way to Geyssens by bus or bicycle. Some of them have been discouraged by the heavy rains — and the heavy growth of weeds that followed — and by the woodchucks. But there is a substantial harvest coming — tomatoes, corn, eggplant, onions, leeks, hot peppers, and whatever cabbage and lettuce can be salvaged.
"It's been a learning experience," says Randy Geyssens, the owner, and that includes finding the right mix of crops, dealing with the language barriers, trying to find the right niche that would allow the newcomers to meet some of their own food needs while generating some income. Perhaps, Geyssens says, they could set aside some of the land for rare herbs and boutique vegetables that would sell at farmers markets.
For now, the farm reflects our community's willingness to reach out and welcome the generation of immigrants who have come here for all the reasons people have always come to America.
"In Burma," Tau Tau says, "everything is jungle. You cannot see. Here, you can see everything." Only a refugee would look at our flat and barely treed landscape that way. But it is a metaphor for his expectations — to move far beyond his humble beginnings.
"When my caseworker took me to Wegmans," he says, "I had never seen such a store. And I didn't know anything about American food." Nor did he like it. Now he gets Wegmans, and McDonald's, and loves both.
Tau Tau hopes to study at Monroe Community College. "I want to be a reporter and a photographer," he says.
If he tends to his dreams as he has tended his garden, his harvest will be bountiful.
September 9, 2009
The woodchucks are a nuisance. Tau Tau, a young refugee from Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) is learning that he may have to rethink his crop selection next year — planting varieties less appealing to the varmints.
"In Burma, we do not have these animals," he says.
But like immigrants before him, Tau Tau loves his new home. The woodchucks are nothing compared with what he has already endured — being forced from his home to refugee camps in Thailand, where he waited two years for a chance at a new life in the United States.
Tau Tau, 24, arrived in Rochester three years ago. He was able to learn English at a school in the Thai refugee camp that was his home and now works as an interpreter at Westside Health Services on Lake Avenue. At night and on weekends, he and several family members work a small plot at Geyssens Nursery and Landscaping Inc. in Greece.
The Geyssens this spring decided to let Tau Tau and a few dozen other refugees from Burma farm 1.7 acres on their Mt. Read Boulevard property. The farm was the product of many kind people. Time, cash, material and seeds came from PAETEC Corp. United Way Day of Caring volunteers, the greenhouse at the city's Jefferson High School, the town of Penfield, Harris Seeds, Foodlink and several neighborhood volunteers.
Tau Tau, who lives in Hilton, has a car and is able to tend to his vegetables more easily than some of the others. Most of the refugees from Myanmar live in northwest Rochester and must make their way to Geyssens by bus or bicycle. Some of them have been discouraged by the heavy rains — and the heavy growth of weeds that followed — and by the woodchucks. But there is a substantial harvest coming — tomatoes, corn, eggplant, onions, leeks, hot peppers, and whatever cabbage and lettuce can be salvaged.
"It's been a learning experience," says Randy Geyssens, the owner, and that includes finding the right mix of crops, dealing with the language barriers, trying to find the right niche that would allow the newcomers to meet some of their own food needs while generating some income. Perhaps, Geyssens says, they could set aside some of the land for rare herbs and boutique vegetables that would sell at farmers markets.
For now, the farm reflects our community's willingness to reach out and welcome the generation of immigrants who have come here for all the reasons people have always come to America.
"In Burma," Tau Tau says, "everything is jungle. You cannot see. Here, you can see everything." Only a refugee would look at our flat and barely treed landscape that way. But it is a metaphor for his expectations — to move far beyond his humble beginnings.
"When my caseworker took me to Wegmans," he says, "I had never seen such a store. And I didn't know anything about American food." Nor did he like it. Now he gets Wegmans, and McDonald's, and loves both.
Tau Tau hopes to study at Monroe Community College. "I want to be a reporter and a photographer," he says.
If he tends to his dreams as he has tended his garden, his harvest will be bountiful.
***************************************************************
Asian Tribune - Thinking of US Policy on Burma
Wed, 2009-09-09 03:22
By Kanbawza Win
The international community together with the ethno- democratic forces of Burma has been waiting for the New American policy towards Burma and after six months, the Obama administration’s does not appear to have focused on the one measure with the best chance of inducing the regime to change: a global arms embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council. In the meantime the Burmese military Junta continue to wage a war against its own people.
Recently, thousands of Burmese from the Kokang ethnic group living near Burma’s North-eastern border have fled to China to escape a new military assault by the Burma army. Not only is the regime a threat to its own people, but there are growing signs that it undermines international security and stability as well, such as the growing military relationship with North Korea including nascent nuclear program. Even China is frustrated with the Burmese General’s reckless rule for provoking refugee flows across the border into China’s Yunnan Province.
As the United States assumes the presidency of the UN Security Council this month, it should renew a diplomatic effort at the Council, coordinated with the EU and other allies, to pass a long-overdue arms embargo of Burma and see whether China and Russia still uses the veto. Of course it will not be easy. But such a push would be an effective, multilateral, and noble centerpiece for the current American administration’s policy toward Burma because both the justification for Security Council action and its chances for success have significantly increased.
Great care should be taken that Hillary Clinton and the State Department not to allow them to be distracted by the all-too-familiar delaying tactics of the Burmese generals and by circular policy debates about sanctions, levels of engagement, and humanitarian aid. The most dangerous is Senator Jim Webb’s policy of doing business, rough riding over morality and conscious including the American values as epitomised by the release of John Yettaw instead of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
Meanwhile, the situation for Burma’s people gets worse, not better. The massive human rights abuses by the Burmese Tatmadaw (military) against civilians, often women and children, in ethnic nationalities continue unabated. These abuses are so severe, pervasive, and well-documented that five prominent jurists from around the world had called for the Security Council to establish a commission of inquiry into crimes against humanity in Burma. But so far nothing has been done. We hope that U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice who had serve in the National Security Council during the Rwandan genocide would lead any push on Burma at the Security Council. Perhaps she could recollect of what she uttered “I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required.”
But lamentably the State Department’s insipid statement this week on the current military assault in Burma notes only that State is “monitoring developments carefully” and is “deeply concerned” which can be interpreted in the diplomatic language as “We are very busy doing nothing.”
China, the largest arms supplier to the Burmese regime remains a challenge at the Security Council as the Burmese saying goes, where there is China there is trouble, and has used veto to block action on Burma. But Beijing seems to be changing now that its national interests are at stake. There is every possibility that the Tatmadaw will soon launched a major offensive against the UWSA and more than a million people will seek refuge in China with the Sino-Burmese people suffering much as in the Chinese riots of the 60s. If China is slow to realizes that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is not only the best hope for democracy in Burma, but also for the border stability it prizes so highly, then Security Council action should become more palatable. And for this America should take the lead.
The world leaders has first articulated the “responsibility to protect” as official UN doctrine in 2005, but it still remains on paper. The power to intervene has always existed within the Security Council’s mandate, but this new language stipulated the conditions to prompt such intervention. The situation in Burma more than meets those conditions. With increasing public support, including across Asia, and with a coordinated diplomatic effort led by the United States to bring around China and Russia, a global arms embargo against the Junta is a possibility. At least it will bring a small light in a long dark tunnel of suffering for the people of Burma.
As the Obama administration assesses its options, it would be wise to remember it is dealing with one of the world’s most brutal tyrannies, which has held power for decades through terror and totalitarian control. Fear and force are the two things that the ruling junta most understands—and are the only two factors that have ever succeeded in altering its behaviour over the years. Any policy review must be mindful of that history. For any Burmese it is disturbing to think that important ground gained under the previous administration of bringing the issue of the tyrannical Burmese government to the Security Council for the first time will be discarded and tantamount to easing the pressure on the Junta.
Admittedly the current sanctions have not yet brought freedom, but that is no reason to abandon them. They must be intensified and coordinated multilaterally. The people of this fertile, resource rich, and once well-educated country are suffering under the economic malevolence and ignorance of their oppressors, not the effects of economic sanctions. A policy review of sanctions would be helpful only if it leads to better targeting and expanded coordination with allies in the region and beyond. But any backtracking or easing of pressure would be a huge mistake and would play right into the hands of the generals
The most important thing that the US can do is to apply more and smarter pressure on the generals and not the people of Burma to force them to the negotiating table with the legitimate leaders of their own people. Likewise, a policy review that leads to a renewed diplomatic push in Washington and at the United Nations might have a chance of overcoming the Russian and Chinese veto threat. A strong U.N. Security Council resolution, especially one with sharp multilateral teeth such as an arms embargo or targeted global sanctions, would quickly get the attention of the generals. The case for Security Council action is clear. Ongoing military offensives against civilians that include rape as a weapon of war, as well as refugee displacement, disease spreading across borders, and trafficking in drugs and people, make the situation in Burma as much a security issue as a human rights or humanitarian one.
Concern for Burma has long attracted strong bipartisan interest and support in the United States, and Secretary Clinton herself has previously made a priority of supporting female leaders such as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. If this review goes forward and new tactics are considered, U.S. policymakers should remember the nature and history of this brutal regime and pay heed to the vital voices of the Burmese ethno- democratic movement over those tired voices of Western academics, the United Nations, or aid agencies.
The West had failed the people of Burma time and again with their weak statements and short memories, and yet the people of Burma persevere with an honour and steadfastness that should put the Western world to shame. They are the ones who know what is best for their country. The world led by the super power must continue to stand beside them against tyranny and terror until freedom and prosperity are once again theirs.
Wed, 2009-09-09 03:22
By Kanbawza Win
The international community together with the ethno- democratic forces of Burma has been waiting for the New American policy towards Burma and after six months, the Obama administration’s does not appear to have focused on the one measure with the best chance of inducing the regime to change: a global arms embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council. In the meantime the Burmese military Junta continue to wage a war against its own people.
Recently, thousands of Burmese from the Kokang ethnic group living near Burma’s North-eastern border have fled to China to escape a new military assault by the Burma army. Not only is the regime a threat to its own people, but there are growing signs that it undermines international security and stability as well, such as the growing military relationship with North Korea including nascent nuclear program. Even China is frustrated with the Burmese General’s reckless rule for provoking refugee flows across the border into China’s Yunnan Province.
As the United States assumes the presidency of the UN Security Council this month, it should renew a diplomatic effort at the Council, coordinated with the EU and other allies, to pass a long-overdue arms embargo of Burma and see whether China and Russia still uses the veto. Of course it will not be easy. But such a push would be an effective, multilateral, and noble centerpiece for the current American administration’s policy toward Burma because both the justification for Security Council action and its chances for success have significantly increased.
Great care should be taken that Hillary Clinton and the State Department not to allow them to be distracted by the all-too-familiar delaying tactics of the Burmese generals and by circular policy debates about sanctions, levels of engagement, and humanitarian aid. The most dangerous is Senator Jim Webb’s policy of doing business, rough riding over morality and conscious including the American values as epitomised by the release of John Yettaw instead of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
Meanwhile, the situation for Burma’s people gets worse, not better. The massive human rights abuses by the Burmese Tatmadaw (military) against civilians, often women and children, in ethnic nationalities continue unabated. These abuses are so severe, pervasive, and well-documented that five prominent jurists from around the world had called for the Security Council to establish a commission of inquiry into crimes against humanity in Burma. But so far nothing has been done. We hope that U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice who had serve in the National Security Council during the Rwandan genocide would lead any push on Burma at the Security Council. Perhaps she could recollect of what she uttered “I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required.”
But lamentably the State Department’s insipid statement this week on the current military assault in Burma notes only that State is “monitoring developments carefully” and is “deeply concerned” which can be interpreted in the diplomatic language as “We are very busy doing nothing.”
China, the largest arms supplier to the Burmese regime remains a challenge at the Security Council as the Burmese saying goes, where there is China there is trouble, and has used veto to block action on Burma. But Beijing seems to be changing now that its national interests are at stake. There is every possibility that the Tatmadaw will soon launched a major offensive against the UWSA and more than a million people will seek refuge in China with the Sino-Burmese people suffering much as in the Chinese riots of the 60s. If China is slow to realizes that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is not only the best hope for democracy in Burma, but also for the border stability it prizes so highly, then Security Council action should become more palatable. And for this America should take the lead.
The world leaders has first articulated the “responsibility to protect” as official UN doctrine in 2005, but it still remains on paper. The power to intervene has always existed within the Security Council’s mandate, but this new language stipulated the conditions to prompt such intervention. The situation in Burma more than meets those conditions. With increasing public support, including across Asia, and with a coordinated diplomatic effort led by the United States to bring around China and Russia, a global arms embargo against the Junta is a possibility. At least it will bring a small light in a long dark tunnel of suffering for the people of Burma.
As the Obama administration assesses its options, it would be wise to remember it is dealing with one of the world’s most brutal tyrannies, which has held power for decades through terror and totalitarian control. Fear and force are the two things that the ruling junta most understands—and are the only two factors that have ever succeeded in altering its behaviour over the years. Any policy review must be mindful of that history. For any Burmese it is disturbing to think that important ground gained under the previous administration of bringing the issue of the tyrannical Burmese government to the Security Council for the first time will be discarded and tantamount to easing the pressure on the Junta.
Admittedly the current sanctions have not yet brought freedom, but that is no reason to abandon them. They must be intensified and coordinated multilaterally. The people of this fertile, resource rich, and once well-educated country are suffering under the economic malevolence and ignorance of their oppressors, not the effects of economic sanctions. A policy review of sanctions would be helpful only if it leads to better targeting and expanded coordination with allies in the region and beyond. But any backtracking or easing of pressure would be a huge mistake and would play right into the hands of the generals
The most important thing that the US can do is to apply more and smarter pressure on the generals and not the people of Burma to force them to the negotiating table with the legitimate leaders of their own people. Likewise, a policy review that leads to a renewed diplomatic push in Washington and at the United Nations might have a chance of overcoming the Russian and Chinese veto threat. A strong U.N. Security Council resolution, especially one with sharp multilateral teeth such as an arms embargo or targeted global sanctions, would quickly get the attention of the generals. The case for Security Council action is clear. Ongoing military offensives against civilians that include rape as a weapon of war, as well as refugee displacement, disease spreading across borders, and trafficking in drugs and people, make the situation in Burma as much a security issue as a human rights or humanitarian one.
Concern for Burma has long attracted strong bipartisan interest and support in the United States, and Secretary Clinton herself has previously made a priority of supporting female leaders such as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. If this review goes forward and new tactics are considered, U.S. policymakers should remember the nature and history of this brutal regime and pay heed to the vital voices of the Burmese ethno- democratic movement over those tired voices of Western academics, the United Nations, or aid agencies.
The West had failed the people of Burma time and again with their weak statements and short memories, and yet the people of Burma persevere with an honour and steadfastness that should put the Western world to shame. They are the ones who know what is best for their country. The world led by the super power must continue to stand beside them against tyranny and terror until freedom and prosperity are once again theirs.
***************************************************************
September 9, 2009 at 04:21:07
OpEdNews - Civil War Knocking At Burma's Doors
OpEdNews - Civil War Knocking At Burma's Doors
For OpEdNews: Zin Linn - Writer
Burma is on the brink of a fresh civil war. Most citizens believe that the junta's 7-step roadmap sanctioning a new 2008 constitution and ordering a general election in 2010 as a declaration of war against the people of Burma.
The junta has not yet given precise dates for the next elections nor did it release the election rules and regulations. This is surprising and indeed intriguing because the first formal announcement about multi-party elections was made on February 8, 2008. According to analysts in Rangoon, the junta wants to do everything that will put the opposition especially on the National League for Democracy (NLD) at a disadvantage.
Shortly after the Feb 8 statement, the junta's Secretary 1, Lieutenant-General Tin Aung Myint Oo, told the nation in a televised address, ‘We have managed to achieve economic and social in many sectors and also in restoring peace and stability. So it is now suitable to change the military administration to a democratic, civil administrative system, as good fundamentals have been established'.
There was utter disbelief and dismay at Tin Aung Myint Oo's claims. How dare he say the situation is peaceful and stable when there are more than 2100 political leaders and activists are languishing in jails? As the anniversary of saffron revolution near, the junta has been going on with its suppressive manhunt toward the monks, students and politicians who support democracy.
Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is still under detention. In fact her sentence has just been extended by one and a half years. The leaders of Britain, France and the United States all strongly condemned the latest sentence as a charade of justice and the trial as a cheat. United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon is distressed as well. He renewed his call for her immediate release.
Here is a question for the junta's Secretary 1. Are people of Burma able to feel secure in their daily life?
According to the Peace Way Foundation's findings, the number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) continues to grow at an alarming rate. Military operations, development projects and economic hardships are resulting in a situation that is bordering on a catastrophe. International awareness and action for the IDPs remains unmoving while millions of people face starvation, displacement, and no access to basic fundamental services like education and healthcare.
The IDPs live precarious and transient lives in the jungles of Burma's ethnic border areas and in the more urban central plains. They are denied the stability of having a home and a livelihood and are forced into a constant state of movement: never having the opportunity to maintain a home, their farms, access to education and medical facilities and peace of mind. Recent estimation of the foundation says that there are two million of IDPs in the military ruled Burma. In such a situation, no one agrees it's a peaceful country.
Very recently, armed conflict between Burmese troops and the ethnic Kokang, one of four ethnic rebel groups that signed a ceasefire deal in the 1988-89 chapters, broke out and bumped up by the end of the month of August close to the Sino-Burma boundary.
The junta's offensive against the Kokang ethnic ceased-fire group or the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) is a threat to the other ceasefire groups to obey, corresponding to the regime's procedure for the 2010 elections. Actually, it's a tactic of the junta – pressure the ethnic groups to lay down their arms for the purpose of building a union designed by the junta. But this will be a unity under the military boots that could break at any time.
Burmese junta's new constitution, approved in a May 2008 referendum, was inundated with misleading principles. It says the country must be under only the military command. To bring the country in line with this proviso, the military regime has ordered all armed ethnic rebel groups to become part of Burma's border guard forces ahead of the 2010 election.
The border guard force, which was announced in April 2009, will cut up the ethnic rebels' strength and their military autonomy. In addition, all these border-guard regiments will have to come under the supervision of a Burmese army officer. It was a tactical move to disarm the ethnic rebels. But Kokang, Wah, Kachin, Shan and Mon ceased-fire groups are unwilling to fall a prey to this ploy.
The consequences of ethnic conflicts made by Burmese authorities create challenges for a peaceful Burma. Is it really suitable to change Burma to a democratic, civil administrative system while the ethnic population is under attack? Is the interpretation of junta's Secretary that good fundamentals have been established? The average population disapproves of his analysis as duplicitous.
The regime is attempting to legalize the military dictatorship with a sham constitution. Most citizens assume the junta's new 2010 election are nothing but a declaration of war against its own people.
Ethnic minorities have been suffering through five decades of brutal military operations. Attacks on these rural civilians continue on a daily basis. There is a constant demand from Burma's ethnic groups to enjoy equal political, social and economic rights. The Constitution must guarantee the rights of self-determination and of equal representation for every ethnic group in the Parliament. It must also include provisions against racial discrimination.
During the June 2004 National Convention, 13 ceased-fire groups submitted a political proposal demanding their equal rights to the plenary session. But, the junta's National convention convening committee outright rejected the proposal by saying it was an inappropriate time and situation to be accepted at the plenary session. When the 2008 constitution came out as a text, none of the proposed political aspirations counseled by the ethnic representatives were included.
Aung San Suu Kyi supports all equal rights for the ethnic nationalities, while the military leaders are unwilling to do so. It's one of the reasons the military obstinately declines to release Aung San Suu Kyi and constantly exercises pressure to weaken the ethnic political parties and ceased-fire groups.
There is a big gap between the military junta and the NLD. To the military autocrats, allowing the ethnic minorities to enjoy equal political, social and economic rights is a hazard that could lead to ‘disintegration of the union' but to the NLD and ethnic alliance parties allowing equal rights to ethnic minorities will guarantee peace, stability and prosperity of the country.
That is why people, including ethnicities, see in Aung San Suu Kyi a promising hope for change. Her continued incarceration is therefore seen as an attempt to annihilate the political aspirations of the people of Burma who stand for political change.
Now, the junta's ‘policy of disintegration of the union' is starting a new war game with the ethnic ceased fire groups on the Sino-Burma border. Even China seems to be sandwiched between the junta and the United Wa State Army (UWSA) as both depend on its assistance. But, defeating the Kokang was a tough message to the UWSA by the Burmese junta. It might also be a warning sign to China not to intervene in UWSA's internal affairs.
To some analysts, if the junta has a plan to postpone its 2010 elections, it will declare war on UWSA. Confinement of Aung San Suu Kyi and 2100-plus political prisoners, wars on ethnic minorities, and appeasement policy towards the US through Webb mission, are the outcome of the unfolding constitutional crisis.
Without including in the 2008 constitution all stakeholders, Burma will not prevail. Innocent people have been victimized in the ongoing constitutional crisis.
***********
Zin Linn was born on February 9, 1947 in a small town in Mandalay Division. He began writing poems in1960 and received a B.A (Philosophy) in 1976.
He became an activist in the High School Union after the students' massacre on 7th July 1962. He then took on a role as an active member in the Rangoon Division Students' Union. He Participated in a poster-and-pamphlet campaign on the 4th anniversary of 7 July movement and went into hiding to keep away from the military police. He was still able to carry out underground pamphlet campaigns against the Burmese Socialist Programme Party ( BSPP). However, in 1982, he fell into the hands of MI and served two years imprisonment in the notorious Insein prison.
In 1988 he took part, together with his old students' union members, in the People's Democracy Uprising. In November of that year, he became an NLD Executive Committee Member for the Thingangyun Township and later became superintendent of the NLD Rangoon Division Office.
In 1991, he was arrested because of his connections with the exiled government, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), and sentenced to 7 years imprisonment in the notorious Insein Prison. In last week of December 1997 he was released.
Zin Linn was an editor and columnist and contributed articles to various publications, especially on international affairs, while in Burma.
He fled Burma in 2001 to escape from military intelligence and currently works as information director for the NCGUB. He is also vice president of the Burma Media Association which is affiliated with the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontiers. Zin Linn is still writing articles and commentaries in Burmese and English in various periodicals and online journals on a regular basis.
Burma is on the brink of a fresh civil war. Most citizens believe that the junta's 7-step roadmap sanctioning a new 2008 constitution and ordering a general election in 2010 as a declaration of war against the people of Burma.
The junta has not yet given precise dates for the next elections nor did it release the election rules and regulations. This is surprising and indeed intriguing because the first formal announcement about multi-party elections was made on February 8, 2008. According to analysts in Rangoon, the junta wants to do everything that will put the opposition especially on the National League for Democracy (NLD) at a disadvantage.
Shortly after the Feb 8 statement, the junta's Secretary 1, Lieutenant-General Tin Aung Myint Oo, told the nation in a televised address, ‘We have managed to achieve economic and social in many sectors and also in restoring peace and stability. So it is now suitable to change the military administration to a democratic, civil administrative system, as good fundamentals have been established'.
There was utter disbelief and dismay at Tin Aung Myint Oo's claims. How dare he say the situation is peaceful and stable when there are more than 2100 political leaders and activists are languishing in jails? As the anniversary of saffron revolution near, the junta has been going on with its suppressive manhunt toward the monks, students and politicians who support democracy.
Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is still under detention. In fact her sentence has just been extended by one and a half years. The leaders of Britain, France and the United States all strongly condemned the latest sentence as a charade of justice and the trial as a cheat. United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon is distressed as well. He renewed his call for her immediate release.
Here is a question for the junta's Secretary 1. Are people of Burma able to feel secure in their daily life?
According to the Peace Way Foundation's findings, the number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) continues to grow at an alarming rate. Military operations, development projects and economic hardships are resulting in a situation that is bordering on a catastrophe. International awareness and action for the IDPs remains unmoving while millions of people face starvation, displacement, and no access to basic fundamental services like education and healthcare.
The IDPs live precarious and transient lives in the jungles of Burma's ethnic border areas and in the more urban central plains. They are denied the stability of having a home and a livelihood and are forced into a constant state of movement: never having the opportunity to maintain a home, their farms, access to education and medical facilities and peace of mind. Recent estimation of the foundation says that there are two million of IDPs in the military ruled Burma. In such a situation, no one agrees it's a peaceful country.
Very recently, armed conflict between Burmese troops and the ethnic Kokang, one of four ethnic rebel groups that signed a ceasefire deal in the 1988-89 chapters, broke out and bumped up by the end of the month of August close to the Sino-Burma boundary.
The junta's offensive against the Kokang ethnic ceased-fire group or the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) is a threat to the other ceasefire groups to obey, corresponding to the regime's procedure for the 2010 elections. Actually, it's a tactic of the junta – pressure the ethnic groups to lay down their arms for the purpose of building a union designed by the junta. But this will be a unity under the military boots that could break at any time.
Burmese junta's new constitution, approved in a May 2008 referendum, was inundated with misleading principles. It says the country must be under only the military command. To bring the country in line with this proviso, the military regime has ordered all armed ethnic rebel groups to become part of Burma's border guard forces ahead of the 2010 election.
The border guard force, which was announced in April 2009, will cut up the ethnic rebels' strength and their military autonomy. In addition, all these border-guard regiments will have to come under the supervision of a Burmese army officer. It was a tactical move to disarm the ethnic rebels. But Kokang, Wah, Kachin, Shan and Mon ceased-fire groups are unwilling to fall a prey to this ploy.
The consequences of ethnic conflicts made by Burmese authorities create challenges for a peaceful Burma. Is it really suitable to change Burma to a democratic, civil administrative system while the ethnic population is under attack? Is the interpretation of junta's Secretary that good fundamentals have been established? The average population disapproves of his analysis as duplicitous.
The regime is attempting to legalize the military dictatorship with a sham constitution. Most citizens assume the junta's new 2010 election are nothing but a declaration of war against its own people.
Ethnic minorities have been suffering through five decades of brutal military operations. Attacks on these rural civilians continue on a daily basis. There is a constant demand from Burma's ethnic groups to enjoy equal political, social and economic rights. The Constitution must guarantee the rights of self-determination and of equal representation for every ethnic group in the Parliament. It must also include provisions against racial discrimination.
During the June 2004 National Convention, 13 ceased-fire groups submitted a political proposal demanding their equal rights to the plenary session. But, the junta's National convention convening committee outright rejected the proposal by saying it was an inappropriate time and situation to be accepted at the plenary session. When the 2008 constitution came out as a text, none of the proposed political aspirations counseled by the ethnic representatives were included.
Aung San Suu Kyi supports all equal rights for the ethnic nationalities, while the military leaders are unwilling to do so. It's one of the reasons the military obstinately declines to release Aung San Suu Kyi and constantly exercises pressure to weaken the ethnic political parties and ceased-fire groups.
There is a big gap between the military junta and the NLD. To the military autocrats, allowing the ethnic minorities to enjoy equal political, social and economic rights is a hazard that could lead to ‘disintegration of the union' but to the NLD and ethnic alliance parties allowing equal rights to ethnic minorities will guarantee peace, stability and prosperity of the country.
That is why people, including ethnicities, see in Aung San Suu Kyi a promising hope for change. Her continued incarceration is therefore seen as an attempt to annihilate the political aspirations of the people of Burma who stand for political change.
Now, the junta's ‘policy of disintegration of the union' is starting a new war game with the ethnic ceased fire groups on the Sino-Burma border. Even China seems to be sandwiched between the junta and the United Wa State Army (UWSA) as both depend on its assistance. But, defeating the Kokang was a tough message to the UWSA by the Burmese junta. It might also be a warning sign to China not to intervene in UWSA's internal affairs.
To some analysts, if the junta has a plan to postpone its 2010 elections, it will declare war on UWSA. Confinement of Aung San Suu Kyi and 2100-plus political prisoners, wars on ethnic minorities, and appeasement policy towards the US through Webb mission, are the outcome of the unfolding constitutional crisis.
Without including in the 2008 constitution all stakeholders, Burma will not prevail. Innocent people have been victimized in the ongoing constitutional crisis.
***********
Zin Linn was born on February 9, 1947 in a small town in Mandalay Division. He began writing poems in1960 and received a B.A (Philosophy) in 1976.
He became an activist in the High School Union after the students' massacre on 7th July 1962. He then took on a role as an active member in the Rangoon Division Students' Union. He Participated in a poster-and-pamphlet campaign on the 4th anniversary of 7 July movement and went into hiding to keep away from the military police. He was still able to carry out underground pamphlet campaigns against the Burmese Socialist Programme Party ( BSPP). However, in 1982, he fell into the hands of MI and served two years imprisonment in the notorious Insein prison.
In 1988 he took part, together with his old students' union members, in the People's Democracy Uprising. In November of that year, he became an NLD Executive Committee Member for the Thingangyun Township and later became superintendent of the NLD Rangoon Division Office.
In 1991, he was arrested because of his connections with the exiled government, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), and sentenced to 7 years imprisonment in the notorious Insein Prison. In last week of December 1997 he was released.
Zin Linn was an editor and columnist and contributed articles to various publications, especially on international affairs, while in Burma.
He fled Burma in 2001 to escape from military intelligence and currently works as information director for the NCGUB. He is also vice president of the Burma Media Association which is affiliated with the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontiers. Zin Linn is still writing articles and commentaries in Burmese and English in various periodicals and online journals on a regular basis.
***************************************************************
Inter Press Service News Agency
POLITICS: With Pipelines, China’s Footprint in Burma Expands
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Sep 8 (IPS) - If military-ruled Burma needed a stark symbol of China’s growing dominance in the country, then it would be poised to get one soon. The Asian giant is about to start building two pipelines – for gas and oil – that will span the breadth of the South-east Asian nation.
Little wonder why the nearly 1,000-kilometre route of the two pipelines - which will begin on Burma’s western coast, facing the Andaman Sea, and then head into China’s Yunnan province, that borders north-eastern Burma – is already being described in ways that convey an unequal relationship between the two countries.
"It is being called a ‘Colonial Pipeline’. This is what the people inside Burma are saying about this project," said Aung Zaw, editor of ‘The Irrawaddy’, a current affairs magazine and website published by Burmese journalists living in exile in Thailand. "The pipeline symbolises the relationship between the two countries."
"People in Burma believe that the Chinese influence in the economy, in politics, and on the environment is growing," Aung Zaw told IPS. "But I think both governments need each other. For Burma it is Chinese protection and investment; for China it is Burmese resources to be exploited."
Burma, which is also known as Myanmar, has seen its relationship with China improve over the past two decades. It follows the 1989 collapse of the Communist Party of Burma, which had been backed by Beijing and had been a thorn in the side of the Burmese military since it captured power in a1962 coup.
Beijing’s investments in Burma, such as the planned pipelines, have been most prominent in the strong ties between the two countries. China was a major factor behind the spike in Burma’s foreign investment during the 2007-2008 period, estimated at over 980 million U.S. dollars, according to Burma’s ministry of national planning and development.
The bulk of China’s investments has focused on tapping Burma’s oil and gas reserves, in addition to investing in hydroelectricity projects. Burma is reported to have the 10th largest natural gas reserves in the world.
Yet the planned Chinese pipelines could come to symbolise something more – human rights violations and other abuses – if the Chinese went ahead with their plans, warned the Shwe Gas Movement (SGM), a prominent environment and human rights group.
"Past experience has shown that pipeline construction and maintenance in Burma involves forced labour, forced relocation, land confiscation and a host of abuses by soldiers deployed to the project area," argued SGM in a report released this week. "Companies involved in the Shwe Gas Project and the Trans-Burma Corridor will be complicit in any abuse associated with these projects."
What is more, neither the Chinese company involved in this project nor Burmese authorities backing it have conducted environmental impact assessments (EIAs) or social impact assessments (SIAs), said Wong Aung, author of the report, ‘Corridor of Power – China’s Trans-Burma Oil and Gas Pipelines’. "They have not done EIAs or SIAs in public. No local people are aware of them nor have they participated in them."
"There are a lot of environmental and social concerns that have not been addressed," Wong Aung said in a telephone interview. "Yet the China National Petroleum Corporation has plans to start building the pipelines across Burma this month."
Similar worries are expressed by activists from the Shan ethnic community, Burma’s largest minority, which has faced long years of brutality at the hands of the Burmese military. The Shan State, along the Burma-China border, will see the pipelines cut through it along a route that locals are still not aware of.
"This will be another attempt by the Burmese army to control an ethnic group and their land," said Charm Tong, a founding member of Shan Women’s Action Network, a human rights group that has documented rapes of hundreds of Shan women and girls by Burmese soldiers. "Apart from the environmental impact, we are concerned about the human rights violations. Many will be displaced."
"And like before, the victims have no mechanism to address their concerns when the abuse begins," Charm Tong revealed in an interview. "This is not new in Burma; there was the Yadana pipeline."
The Yadana pipeline was built to tap the natural gas in the Andaman Sea and supply it through a pipeline that cut across southern Burma to neighbouring Thailand. That project, which got underway in the early 1990s, was exposed for a dismal list of human rights violations, such as forced labour, land confiscation, forced relocation, rape, torture and murder.
The perpetrators were the pipeline security forces hired by the companies involved in this Burma’s first gas pipeline, including the French energy giant Total and the U.S.-owned Unocal, which was subsequently bought by Chevron. The victims were predominantly from Burma’s Karen ethnic community.
The human rights violations linked to the Yadana gas pipeline added to Burma’s already notorious record of abuse. But it did little to change a regime that saw its foreign exchange coffers expand, earning an estimated 3.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2008 for the export of its gas, primarily to Thailand.
According to the SGM report, Burma’s regime could rake in close to 30 billion U.S. dollars over the next 30 years for the sale of natural gas to China once the new pipeline is built. The gas to be extracted for this route is close to the shores of Burma’s north-western coast.
The oil pipeline, however, will be moving fuel that will be first shipped from the Middle East to a soon-to-be-built deep sea port along Burma’s western coast, consequently saving the time and distance of the routes these oil tankers take through the busy Malacca Straits. China imports over 80 percent of its oil from the Middle East and Africa, according to reports.
Both pipelines will cut through Burma’s Arakan sate and ascend up the thickly forested Arakan Yoma mountain range – which rises to 5,000 feet above sea level at its highest. From there, they will pass through large swathes of the Magway and Mandalay Divisions, in central Burma, before snaking through the Shan State to Kunming, the capital of China’s southern province of Yunnan.
"The pipelines will pass through 22 townships along the route," said Wong Aung. "There will be 44 military battalions, or about 13,200 soldiers, assigned to guard the pipelines."
POLITICS: With Pipelines, China’s Footprint in Burma Expands
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Sep 8 (IPS) - If military-ruled Burma needed a stark symbol of China’s growing dominance in the country, then it would be poised to get one soon. The Asian giant is about to start building two pipelines – for gas and oil – that will span the breadth of the South-east Asian nation.
Little wonder why the nearly 1,000-kilometre route of the two pipelines - which will begin on Burma’s western coast, facing the Andaman Sea, and then head into China’s Yunnan province, that borders north-eastern Burma – is already being described in ways that convey an unequal relationship between the two countries.
"It is being called a ‘Colonial Pipeline’. This is what the people inside Burma are saying about this project," said Aung Zaw, editor of ‘The Irrawaddy’, a current affairs magazine and website published by Burmese journalists living in exile in Thailand. "The pipeline symbolises the relationship between the two countries."
"People in Burma believe that the Chinese influence in the economy, in politics, and on the environment is growing," Aung Zaw told IPS. "But I think both governments need each other. For Burma it is Chinese protection and investment; for China it is Burmese resources to be exploited."
Burma, which is also known as Myanmar, has seen its relationship with China improve over the past two decades. It follows the 1989 collapse of the Communist Party of Burma, which had been backed by Beijing and had been a thorn in the side of the Burmese military since it captured power in a1962 coup.
Beijing’s investments in Burma, such as the planned pipelines, have been most prominent in the strong ties between the two countries. China was a major factor behind the spike in Burma’s foreign investment during the 2007-2008 period, estimated at over 980 million U.S. dollars, according to Burma’s ministry of national planning and development.
The bulk of China’s investments has focused on tapping Burma’s oil and gas reserves, in addition to investing in hydroelectricity projects. Burma is reported to have the 10th largest natural gas reserves in the world.
Yet the planned Chinese pipelines could come to symbolise something more – human rights violations and other abuses – if the Chinese went ahead with their plans, warned the Shwe Gas Movement (SGM), a prominent environment and human rights group.
"Past experience has shown that pipeline construction and maintenance in Burma involves forced labour, forced relocation, land confiscation and a host of abuses by soldiers deployed to the project area," argued SGM in a report released this week. "Companies involved in the Shwe Gas Project and the Trans-Burma Corridor will be complicit in any abuse associated with these projects."
What is more, neither the Chinese company involved in this project nor Burmese authorities backing it have conducted environmental impact assessments (EIAs) or social impact assessments (SIAs), said Wong Aung, author of the report, ‘Corridor of Power – China’s Trans-Burma Oil and Gas Pipelines’. "They have not done EIAs or SIAs in public. No local people are aware of them nor have they participated in them."
"There are a lot of environmental and social concerns that have not been addressed," Wong Aung said in a telephone interview. "Yet the China National Petroleum Corporation has plans to start building the pipelines across Burma this month."
Similar worries are expressed by activists from the Shan ethnic community, Burma’s largest minority, which has faced long years of brutality at the hands of the Burmese military. The Shan State, along the Burma-China border, will see the pipelines cut through it along a route that locals are still not aware of.
"This will be another attempt by the Burmese army to control an ethnic group and their land," said Charm Tong, a founding member of Shan Women’s Action Network, a human rights group that has documented rapes of hundreds of Shan women and girls by Burmese soldiers. "Apart from the environmental impact, we are concerned about the human rights violations. Many will be displaced."
"And like before, the victims have no mechanism to address their concerns when the abuse begins," Charm Tong revealed in an interview. "This is not new in Burma; there was the Yadana pipeline."
The Yadana pipeline was built to tap the natural gas in the Andaman Sea and supply it through a pipeline that cut across southern Burma to neighbouring Thailand. That project, which got underway in the early 1990s, was exposed for a dismal list of human rights violations, such as forced labour, land confiscation, forced relocation, rape, torture and murder.
The perpetrators were the pipeline security forces hired by the companies involved in this Burma’s first gas pipeline, including the French energy giant Total and the U.S.-owned Unocal, which was subsequently bought by Chevron. The victims were predominantly from Burma’s Karen ethnic community.
The human rights violations linked to the Yadana gas pipeline added to Burma’s already notorious record of abuse. But it did little to change a regime that saw its foreign exchange coffers expand, earning an estimated 3.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2008 for the export of its gas, primarily to Thailand.
According to the SGM report, Burma’s regime could rake in close to 30 billion U.S. dollars over the next 30 years for the sale of natural gas to China once the new pipeline is built. The gas to be extracted for this route is close to the shores of Burma’s north-western coast.
The oil pipeline, however, will be moving fuel that will be first shipped from the Middle East to a soon-to-be-built deep sea port along Burma’s western coast, consequently saving the time and distance of the routes these oil tankers take through the busy Malacca Straits. China imports over 80 percent of its oil from the Middle East and Africa, according to reports.
Both pipelines will cut through Burma’s Arakan sate and ascend up the thickly forested Arakan Yoma mountain range – which rises to 5,000 feet above sea level at its highest. From there, they will pass through large swathes of the Magway and Mandalay Divisions, in central Burma, before snaking through the Shan State to Kunming, the capital of China’s southern province of Yunnan.
"The pipelines will pass through 22 townships along the route," said Wong Aung. "There will be 44 military battalions, or about 13,200 soldiers, assigned to guard the pipelines."
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ASEAN SUMMIT
Bangkok Post - Thailand to propose B2bn road to Tavoy
Writer: PHUSADEE ARUNMAS
Published: 9/09/2009 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: Business
Thailand will propose a 2-billion-baht, 130-kilometre road linking Kanchanaburi to the deep-sea port of Tavoy in Burma at the Asean Summit to be held next month.
Funding for the four-land highway would be sought from the US$10-billion China-Asean investment co-operation fund set up by China in April to promote infrastructure that connects it to Asean nations, said Deputy Commerce Minister Alongkorn Ponlaboot. Construction would take about three years, he said.
China has been active in building roads to develop trade from its southern border through neighbouring Burma, Laos and Vietnam.
In addition to the $10-billion co-operation fund, China has pledged to offer credit of $15 billion to Asean countries, including preferential loans of $1.7 billion for co-operation projects.
A highway from Kanchanaburi to Tavoy would benefit the entire region including China, Japan and South Korea, said Mr Alongkorn.
As Tavoy is on the Andaman Sea, the road would give Kanchanaburi access to the coast and open it up to development. The road link would also cut seven days from journeys for cargo ships navigating between Asia, the Middle East and Europe by bypassing the Malay Peninsula. This could also save more than 20% in transport costs.
Thai authorities conducted a study for a road linking landlocked Kanchanaburi with Tavoy nearly 11 years ago.
Kanchanaburi province has a 374-km border with Burma with about 30 border passes, mainly in mountainous areas.
Plans by the Thai government to upgrade the 150-km rail link to Tavoy are now pending study by relevant Thai agencies, said Mr Alongkorn.
In separate development, to boost trade between Thailand and European Union, Thailand will host the Thai-European Forum at Muang Thong Thani from Sept 17-18, he added.
The forum is aimed at stimulating trade and investment, particularly in food safety, logistics, alternative energy and the creative economy.
Bangkok Post - Thailand to propose B2bn road to Tavoy
Writer: PHUSADEE ARUNMAS
Published: 9/09/2009 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: Business
Thailand will propose a 2-billion-baht, 130-kilometre road linking Kanchanaburi to the deep-sea port of Tavoy in Burma at the Asean Summit to be held next month.
Funding for the four-land highway would be sought from the US$10-billion China-Asean investment co-operation fund set up by China in April to promote infrastructure that connects it to Asean nations, said Deputy Commerce Minister Alongkorn Ponlaboot. Construction would take about three years, he said.
China has been active in building roads to develop trade from its southern border through neighbouring Burma, Laos and Vietnam.
In addition to the $10-billion co-operation fund, China has pledged to offer credit of $15 billion to Asean countries, including preferential loans of $1.7 billion for co-operation projects.
A highway from Kanchanaburi to Tavoy would benefit the entire region including China, Japan and South Korea, said Mr Alongkorn.
As Tavoy is on the Andaman Sea, the road would give Kanchanaburi access to the coast and open it up to development. The road link would also cut seven days from journeys for cargo ships navigating between Asia, the Middle East and Europe by bypassing the Malay Peninsula. This could also save more than 20% in transport costs.
Thai authorities conducted a study for a road linking landlocked Kanchanaburi with Tavoy nearly 11 years ago.
Kanchanaburi province has a 374-km border with Burma with about 30 border passes, mainly in mountainous areas.
Plans by the Thai government to upgrade the 150-km rail link to Tavoy are now pending study by relevant Thai agencies, said Mr Alongkorn.
In separate development, to boost trade between Thailand and European Union, Thailand will host the Thai-European Forum at Muang Thong Thani from Sept 17-18, he added.
The forum is aimed at stimulating trade and investment, particularly in food safety, logistics, alternative energy and the creative economy.
***************************************************************
Mizzima News - US Embassy investigates arrest of American citizen in Burma
by Mungpi
Wednesday, 09 September 2009 18:52
New Delhi (Mizzima) – The United States Embassy in Rangoon said it is talking to the Burmese government regarding an American, arrested at the Yangon International Airport on September 3.
Burma born American citizen, Kyaw Zaw Lwin a.k.a Nyi Nyi Aung, was arrested at the Mingalardon International Airport on September 3, on arrival from Bangkok on a TG flight.
An embassy official told Mizzima on Wednesday that they are talking to Burmese authorities on Kyaw Zaw Lwin’s arrest but refused to provide further details, citing diplomatic protocol.
“We are aware of Kyaw Zaw Lwin’s arrest. We are investigating the case,” the official said adding that “Our priority is to provide assistance to American citizens, so, yes we are reaching out to the government here.”
Kyaw Zaw Lwin was a student activist during Burma’s 1988 popular uprising and fled to Thailand to escape the military crackdown on protesters. Later he was resettled in US and has been living in Washington DC, where he was neutralized as a US citizen.
According to a letter of request sent to Collin P. Furst, Consul of the US Embassy in Rangoon, by his friends, Kyaw Zaw Lwin had a valid social visit Visa obtained from the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok.
The embassy official said they do not have any information so far on the whereabouts of Kyaw Zaw Lwin.
The Burmese-born US citizen’s sister and mother are serving a jail term for their role in the ‘Saffron Revolution’, in which monks led thousands of protesters on the streets of Rangoon in September 2007.
Kyaw Zaw Lwin’s sister, Thet Thet Aung (35), was sentenced to 65 years in prison, while his mother is serving a five-year prison term.
by Mungpi
Wednesday, 09 September 2009 18:52
New Delhi (Mizzima) – The United States Embassy in Rangoon said it is talking to the Burmese government regarding an American, arrested at the Yangon International Airport on September 3.
Burma born American citizen, Kyaw Zaw Lwin a.k.a Nyi Nyi Aung, was arrested at the Mingalardon International Airport on September 3, on arrival from Bangkok on a TG flight.
An embassy official told Mizzima on Wednesday that they are talking to Burmese authorities on Kyaw Zaw Lwin’s arrest but refused to provide further details, citing diplomatic protocol.
“We are aware of Kyaw Zaw Lwin’s arrest. We are investigating the case,” the official said adding that “Our priority is to provide assistance to American citizens, so, yes we are reaching out to the government here.”
Kyaw Zaw Lwin was a student activist during Burma’s 1988 popular uprising and fled to Thailand to escape the military crackdown on protesters. Later he was resettled in US and has been living in Washington DC, where he was neutralized as a US citizen.
According to a letter of request sent to Collin P. Furst, Consul of the US Embassy in Rangoon, by his friends, Kyaw Zaw Lwin had a valid social visit Visa obtained from the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok.
The embassy official said they do not have any information so far on the whereabouts of Kyaw Zaw Lwin.
The Burmese-born US citizen’s sister and mother are serving a jail term for their role in the ‘Saffron Revolution’, in which monks led thousands of protesters on the streets of Rangoon in September 2007.
Kyaw Zaw Lwin’s sister, Thet Thet Aung (35), was sentenced to 65 years in prison, while his mother is serving a five-year prison term.
***************************************************************
Mizzima News - Feuding militias come in the way of junta’s plans
by Daniel Perderson
Wednesday, 09 September 2009 16:06
Mae Salid (Mizzima) - Feuding militia leaders have brought a halt to a damaging Burmese military advance through territory claimed by the Karen National Liberation Army.
Leaders of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, a pro-junta Karen fiction, are said to be split over the role the militia should play in a theatre of war that pitches soldiers against their brethren.
And in a bid to bolster its numbers the DKBA has begun to raid Karen villages to muster legions of child soldiers, said a senior KNLA source.
The DKBA has hit the KNLA’s Sixth and Seventh Brigades, to the south and north of the Thai town of Mae Sot, hard in the past 12 months.
But Karen National Union vice president David Thackrabaw said the DKBA and SPDC should steel itself for a fight in the north.
The KNLA’s Seventh Brigade fell in June, after a two-week offensive, but DKBA casualties were heavy.
“The DKBA suffered heavy casualties attacking the Seventh Brigade,” said Thackrabaw. The KNU is the KNLA’s political overseer.
“They had 100 dead and about 300 injured in just two weeks. “Now the SPDC (State Peace and Development Council) has a plan to launch an operation against the KNU Fifth Brigade and also the Sixth Brigade [again],” he said.
“But there is a quarrel, a lot of disagreement among the DKBA leaders.
“Some say they are just being used as cannon fodder by the SPDC, they will be just wiped out if they keep attacking the KNU.
“This is the junta’s policy and the other ceasefire organisations should draw a lesson – if they agree to become a border guard force then they will be used to attack other groups or other organisations still carrying on the resistance.
“Now they have attacked the Kokang. The Kokang is very weak comparatively [to others in the region] - it only has about 1,500 troops.
“They are saying the Kokang are producing their own weapons, they are saying they are still producing drugs, but drugs have been eradicated [in the Kokang area].
“It was in 2006 that the regime itself announced the Kokang region had become a drug-free area,” said Thackrabaw.
Asked if it was true that the Kokang had indeed stopped producing drugs, namely heroin, he said it was, and that the Kokang drug “era” had begun only in 2000 and had ended by 2006.
“They got help from the UN and substituted [drugs] for rubber and rubber is more or less a steady crop for export, so they have more trade and they don’t have to depend on drugs.
“Of course many groups [near the China border] didn’t agree to the transformation into a border guard force, including the Kokang, and so they are being attacked, the smallest, the weakest, as a warning to the others.
“But groups like the UWSA - the Wa - and the Kachin, I really don’t think the military dictatorship has the capacity to override them,” said Thackrabaw.
“The Wa is 20,000 strong and they have a number of heavy weapons also.
“Then you have the Mong La, which is a group below [to the south of] the Wa. It has about 5,000 troops,” said Thackrabaw.
“So the Wa, Mong La and the Kachin should stand firm, they don’t have to fear,” said Thackrabaw.
“They have nothing to fear because within the SPDC morale is low, they may have good weapons, but morale is low and the terrain favours the ceasefire groups.
“The SPDC does not care about any of the ethnic minorities. Their ideology is to eliminate all the ethnic peoples, by hook or by crook.
“They will employ methods of assimilation, or ethnic cleansing or genocide,” he said.
Thackrabaw said the KNLA’s Fifth Brigade was well prepared for an anticipated onslaught, perhaps at the beginning of the dry season.
“The Fifth Brigade is well prepared, they have been fighting for a long time,” he said.
“The Seventh Brigade was weak because of the actions of Htein Maung [the former brigadier-general who defected in 2006 to form the KNU/KNLA Peace Council].
“It would be fair to say it is the weakest brigade of the KNLA.”
He said the determination that saw the SPDC and the DKBA join forces and fight for more than six months in Sixth Brigade (to Mae Sot’s south) was largely to do with money.
“I think the DKBA particularly was encouraged by Thai business people who want to log and who want to mine in our areas,” he said.
“The operation in the Seventh Brigade was an SPDC test for the DKBA, in preparation for their transformation to a border guard force, to which they’ve agreed.
“They [the DKBA] have begun a campaign of recruiting, you know, forced recruiting, and if a village cannot provide troops then they have to pay 300,000 Kyat.
It’s based on a population scale. The larger villages have to provide more troops. “In some cases they have to provide one person per household, which is fairly drastic we believe,” he added.
“And they have started recruiting child-soldiers. So some people fled to Thailand to escape human rights violations.
“But the Thais have said ‘the shooting has stopped, you had better go back, you can go back now,’ but they cannot. They would be going back to human rights violations, so the Thai policy is also against humanitarian values, it’s very immoral,” he said.
Thackrabaw said the DKBA maintained no minimum age limit for its soldiers and was sending messages to the Thais that it was safe for the refugees to return.
Child soldiers would be picked from those who go back he said.
by Daniel Perderson
Wednesday, 09 September 2009 16:06
Mae Salid (Mizzima) - Feuding militia leaders have brought a halt to a damaging Burmese military advance through territory claimed by the Karen National Liberation Army.
Leaders of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, a pro-junta Karen fiction, are said to be split over the role the militia should play in a theatre of war that pitches soldiers against their brethren.
And in a bid to bolster its numbers the DKBA has begun to raid Karen villages to muster legions of child soldiers, said a senior KNLA source.
The DKBA has hit the KNLA’s Sixth and Seventh Brigades, to the south and north of the Thai town of Mae Sot, hard in the past 12 months.
But Karen National Union vice president David Thackrabaw said the DKBA and SPDC should steel itself for a fight in the north.
The KNLA’s Seventh Brigade fell in June, after a two-week offensive, but DKBA casualties were heavy.
“The DKBA suffered heavy casualties attacking the Seventh Brigade,” said Thackrabaw. The KNU is the KNLA’s political overseer.
“They had 100 dead and about 300 injured in just two weeks. “Now the SPDC (State Peace and Development Council) has a plan to launch an operation against the KNU Fifth Brigade and also the Sixth Brigade [again],” he said.
“But there is a quarrel, a lot of disagreement among the DKBA leaders.
“Some say they are just being used as cannon fodder by the SPDC, they will be just wiped out if they keep attacking the KNU.
“This is the junta’s policy and the other ceasefire organisations should draw a lesson – if they agree to become a border guard force then they will be used to attack other groups or other organisations still carrying on the resistance.
“Now they have attacked the Kokang. The Kokang is very weak comparatively [to others in the region] - it only has about 1,500 troops.
“They are saying the Kokang are producing their own weapons, they are saying they are still producing drugs, but drugs have been eradicated [in the Kokang area].
“It was in 2006 that the regime itself announced the Kokang region had become a drug-free area,” said Thackrabaw.
Asked if it was true that the Kokang had indeed stopped producing drugs, namely heroin, he said it was, and that the Kokang drug “era” had begun only in 2000 and had ended by 2006.
“They got help from the UN and substituted [drugs] for rubber and rubber is more or less a steady crop for export, so they have more trade and they don’t have to depend on drugs.
“Of course many groups [near the China border] didn’t agree to the transformation into a border guard force, including the Kokang, and so they are being attacked, the smallest, the weakest, as a warning to the others.
“But groups like the UWSA - the Wa - and the Kachin, I really don’t think the military dictatorship has the capacity to override them,” said Thackrabaw.
“The Wa is 20,000 strong and they have a number of heavy weapons also.
“Then you have the Mong La, which is a group below [to the south of] the Wa. It has about 5,000 troops,” said Thackrabaw.
“So the Wa, Mong La and the Kachin should stand firm, they don’t have to fear,” said Thackrabaw.
“They have nothing to fear because within the SPDC morale is low, they may have good weapons, but morale is low and the terrain favours the ceasefire groups.
“The SPDC does not care about any of the ethnic minorities. Their ideology is to eliminate all the ethnic peoples, by hook or by crook.
“They will employ methods of assimilation, or ethnic cleansing or genocide,” he said.
Thackrabaw said the KNLA’s Fifth Brigade was well prepared for an anticipated onslaught, perhaps at the beginning of the dry season.
“The Fifth Brigade is well prepared, they have been fighting for a long time,” he said.
“The Seventh Brigade was weak because of the actions of Htein Maung [the former brigadier-general who defected in 2006 to form the KNU/KNLA Peace Council].
“It would be fair to say it is the weakest brigade of the KNLA.”
He said the determination that saw the SPDC and the DKBA join forces and fight for more than six months in Sixth Brigade (to Mae Sot’s south) was largely to do with money.
“I think the DKBA particularly was encouraged by Thai business people who want to log and who want to mine in our areas,” he said.
“The operation in the Seventh Brigade was an SPDC test for the DKBA, in preparation for their transformation to a border guard force, to which they’ve agreed.
“They [the DKBA] have begun a campaign of recruiting, you know, forced recruiting, and if a village cannot provide troops then they have to pay 300,000 Kyat.
It’s based on a population scale. The larger villages have to provide more troops. “In some cases they have to provide one person per household, which is fairly drastic we believe,” he added.
“And they have started recruiting child-soldiers. So some people fled to Thailand to escape human rights violations.
“But the Thais have said ‘the shooting has stopped, you had better go back, you can go back now,’ but they cannot. They would be going back to human rights violations, so the Thai policy is also against humanitarian values, it’s very immoral,” he said.
Thackrabaw said the DKBA maintained no minimum age limit for its soldiers and was sending messages to the Thais that it was safe for the refugees to return.
Child soldiers would be picked from those who go back he said.
***************************************************************
The Irrawaddy - Two political outfits allowed to put up signboards
by Myint Maung
Wednesday, 09 September 2009 17:44
New Delhi (Mizzima) – With the National Political League of the Union of Myanmar and the 88 Generation Student Organization (Union of Myanmar) being allowed to put up signboards in Pakkokku, the political outfits are the first to function legally although the ‘Electoral Law’ is yet to be announced by the Burmese junta.
A signboard reading the “Democratic Transitional National Campaign 2009” was put up in Pakkokku, Magwe division in the beginning of September by two political organizations, which will contest the 2010 general elections.
“It was strung up in front of the office and has the names of our organizations. Initially the authorities had objected and we had to say that it’s just a campaign. The length of the signboard is eight feet and the width is three feet with three strips of yellow, green and red,” said Ye Htun, the Deputy Chairman of the Central Committee of the National Political League of the Union of Myanmar.
“In keeping with the flag, the words “Democratic Transitional National Campaign 2009” are written in white on a red background. There is a dancing peacock in the middle. The names of the two organizations are at both ends. The symbol of the dancing and fighting peacocks are on top,” he added.
Similar signboards of the political organizations called the ‘Third Force’ were put up in township and district branch offices of the National Political League of the Union of Myanmar and 88 Generation Student Organization (Union of Myanmar) in Rangoon, Naypyidaw, Mawlamying, Pyi, Paungtel, Taungtwingyi, Pakkokku and other townships.
But the offices of the National League for Democracy, the main opposition party in Burma, which won a landslide victory in the 1990 general elections but was denied power by the junta, are still closed.
A statement released by the NLD headquarters in Shwegontine, Rangoon yesterday said that the offices of the party allowed to register in 1988 for the election and subsequently the winning party, should be allowed to reopen.
by Myint Maung
Wednesday, 09 September 2009 17:44
New Delhi (Mizzima) – With the National Political League of the Union of Myanmar and the 88 Generation Student Organization (Union of Myanmar) being allowed to put up signboards in Pakkokku, the political outfits are the first to function legally although the ‘Electoral Law’ is yet to be announced by the Burmese junta.
A signboard reading the “Democratic Transitional National Campaign 2009” was put up in Pakkokku, Magwe division in the beginning of September by two political organizations, which will contest the 2010 general elections.
“It was strung up in front of the office and has the names of our organizations. Initially the authorities had objected and we had to say that it’s just a campaign. The length of the signboard is eight feet and the width is three feet with three strips of yellow, green and red,” said Ye Htun, the Deputy Chairman of the Central Committee of the National Political League of the Union of Myanmar.
“In keeping with the flag, the words “Democratic Transitional National Campaign 2009” are written in white on a red background. There is a dancing peacock in the middle. The names of the two organizations are at both ends. The symbol of the dancing and fighting peacocks are on top,” he added.
Similar signboards of the political organizations called the ‘Third Force’ were put up in township and district branch offices of the National Political League of the Union of Myanmar and 88 Generation Student Organization (Union of Myanmar) in Rangoon, Naypyidaw, Mawlamying, Pyi, Paungtel, Taungtwingyi, Pakkokku and other townships.
But the offices of the National League for Democracy, the main opposition party in Burma, which won a landslide victory in the 1990 general elections but was denied power by the junta, are still closed.
A statement released by the NLD headquarters in Shwegontine, Rangoon yesterday said that the offices of the party allowed to register in 1988 for the election and subsequently the winning party, should be allowed to reopen.
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COMMENTARY
The Irrawaddy - 'Wait and See' US Policy on Burma is No Help
By YENI, Wednesday, September 9, 2009
In 1988, when nation-wide demonstrations calling for political, economic and social changes broke out in authoritarian-ruled Burma, many students and pro-democracy activists gathered in front of the US embassy in Rangoon.
The demonstrations were not anti-American in nature or directed against so-called imperialism. Instead, the demonstrators affirmed their support for democracy and the establishment of all it stood for—particularly respect for human rights. They directed their appeals to the country they regarded as the world’s leading defender of democracy.
The brutal suppression of those demonstrators was followed by an unrelenting series of further human rights abuses, which has led successive US administrations, supported by both Congress and Senate, to intensify the sanctions that were first levied against Burma in 1997 by former President Bill Clinton—although Burma's neighboring countries have favored doing business as usual with the Burmese regime.
Under the administration of former President George W Bush, the US also took the lead in pressing for Burma to be brought before the UN Security Council, which is widely regarded as the world's only actor with the legal authority, political competency and international legitimacy for carrying out effective humanitarian intervention.
However, the current US administration under President Barack Obama, who favors engagement over confrontation with partners—and even with world tyrants—has embarked on a continuing review of Burma policy.
The US foreign policy chief, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said earlier this year that neither sanctions nor attempts by Burma’s neighbors in Southeast Asia to engage the regime had worked, although some observers said that US had never applied the policy fully.
State Department officials said that the trial of Burma's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi will affect the policy review. Secretary of State Clinton appealed for the release of imprisoned Suu Kyi in exchange for new US investment in Burma, a practice ended by her husband President Bill Clinton in 1997.
However, Burma's ruling generals extended Suu Kyi’s house arrest for a further 18 months, while continuing to hold around 2,100 other political activists behind bars. They are also trying to tame restive ethnic armies along Burma’s borders with China and Thailand, forcing thousands of civilians to flee to those neighboring countries.
In August, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs P J Crowley said at a State Department news conference: “One of the dimensions is their continued detention of Aung San Suu Kyi, and 2,100 other political prisoners. Our second dimension is the ethnic conflict that continues in Burma and what we could do to try to encourage a broader dialogue within Burma."
He also said, "We have an interest in seeing Burma stabilize. We have an interest in seeing Burma end its isolation. How we do that is a subject of review."
A better policy would be to reach out to China, India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to identify points of possible commonality in their respective approaches to Burma. A truly multilateral strategy on Burma would be a significant improvement over America’s current policy.
But as for a more comprehensive assessment of forward-looking US policy, it remains a waiting game. Now Washington seems to be adopting a "wait and see" attitude in the run-up to next year’s general election, which will be used by the Burmese regime as a playing card in its end-game of consolidating its position of power.
The US administration must again display strong leadership in its Burma policy. Where Washington leads by example, other global and regional friends will follow. A “wait and see” approach is no inspiration for Burma’s neighbors and is no help to the Burmese people.
The Irrawaddy - 'Wait and See' US Policy on Burma is No Help
By YENI, Wednesday, September 9, 2009
In 1988, when nation-wide demonstrations calling for political, economic and social changes broke out in authoritarian-ruled Burma, many students and pro-democracy activists gathered in front of the US embassy in Rangoon.
The demonstrations were not anti-American in nature or directed against so-called imperialism. Instead, the demonstrators affirmed their support for democracy and the establishment of all it stood for—particularly respect for human rights. They directed their appeals to the country they regarded as the world’s leading defender of democracy.
The brutal suppression of those demonstrators was followed by an unrelenting series of further human rights abuses, which has led successive US administrations, supported by both Congress and Senate, to intensify the sanctions that were first levied against Burma in 1997 by former President Bill Clinton—although Burma's neighboring countries have favored doing business as usual with the Burmese regime.
Under the administration of former President George W Bush, the US also took the lead in pressing for Burma to be brought before the UN Security Council, which is widely regarded as the world's only actor with the legal authority, political competency and international legitimacy for carrying out effective humanitarian intervention.
However, the current US administration under President Barack Obama, who favors engagement over confrontation with partners—and even with world tyrants—has embarked on a continuing review of Burma policy.
The US foreign policy chief, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said earlier this year that neither sanctions nor attempts by Burma’s neighbors in Southeast Asia to engage the regime had worked, although some observers said that US had never applied the policy fully.
State Department officials said that the trial of Burma's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi will affect the policy review. Secretary of State Clinton appealed for the release of imprisoned Suu Kyi in exchange for new US investment in Burma, a practice ended by her husband President Bill Clinton in 1997.
However, Burma's ruling generals extended Suu Kyi’s house arrest for a further 18 months, while continuing to hold around 2,100 other political activists behind bars. They are also trying to tame restive ethnic armies along Burma’s borders with China and Thailand, forcing thousands of civilians to flee to those neighboring countries.
In August, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs P J Crowley said at a State Department news conference: “One of the dimensions is their continued detention of Aung San Suu Kyi, and 2,100 other political prisoners. Our second dimension is the ethnic conflict that continues in Burma and what we could do to try to encourage a broader dialogue within Burma."
He also said, "We have an interest in seeing Burma stabilize. We have an interest in seeing Burma end its isolation. How we do that is a subject of review."
A better policy would be to reach out to China, India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to identify points of possible commonality in their respective approaches to Burma. A truly multilateral strategy on Burma would be a significant improvement over America’s current policy.
But as for a more comprehensive assessment of forward-looking US policy, it remains a waiting game. Now Washington seems to be adopting a "wait and see" attitude in the run-up to next year’s general election, which will be used by the Burmese regime as a playing card in its end-game of consolidating its position of power.
The US administration must again display strong leadership in its Burma policy. Where Washington leads by example, other global and regional friends will follow. A “wait and see” approach is no inspiration for Burma’s neighbors and is no help to the Burmese people.
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The Irrawaddy - Wa Units in Southern Shan State Build Defenses
By SAW YAN NAING, Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Wa leaders have ordered their people to be on alert and dig bunkers for protection in case fighting breaks out, according to sources on the border. Troops of the United Wa State Army (UWSA) have been building strategic outposts in the mountains.
Shan sources said UWSA units in southern Shan State will reportedly ally with the ethnic rebel Shan State Army - South in fighting government troops if necessary.
Ten thousand UWSA toops led by Wei Hsueh-Kang, who is blacklisted in the US for drug trafficking, are stationed in southern Shan State. The UWSA has a total of about 25,000 soldiers.
The US Department of State has offered a US $2 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Wei Hsueh-Kang.
Border sources said Burmese government forces will likely launch an offensive against Wa units in southern Shan State, because the junta has been beefing up its troops in the area since the fall of Kokang’s capital, Laogai, on August 24.
The Burmese military junta reportedly wrote to Wa leaders demanding that they surrender the Kokang leader, Peng Jiasheng, who is believed to have taken shelter in a UWSA-controlled area. Source said the UWSA did not respond to the junta’s request.
Troops from the Burmese regime’s light infantry divisions (LID), including LID 99, 55, 33 and 22, have been moving into Shan State since Aug 24, according to border and Burmese military sources. About 10 battalions under Military Operation Command 16, based in Theindi in northern Shan State, have also been deployed south of Laogai, military sources said.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy, one resident who asked for anonymity said he witnessed three 120mm mortar launchers and 10 armored cars going to southern Shan State, where UWSA units are based.
Government troops have blocked the route connecting UWSA units in northern Shan State with those based in southern Shan State, and junta forces have deployed along the road, sources said.
Some observers said the junta’s patience with ceasefire groups rejecting its order to transform their armed militias into Burmese-controlled border guard forces is wearing thin. They said the junta may have no option but to launch offensives against the ceasefire militias to get them to comply.
Bertil Lintner, a Swedish journalist who has written several books on Burma, said the Wa will be the main target of the present offensive.
It is estimated that more than 120,000 ethnic Wa live in southern Shan State near the border with Thailand, which has become a lucrative business area. The area has an improved infrastructure because of development projects and trade.
Thousands of Wa civilians may flee into Thailand if fighting breaks out in the region, sources said.
As the Burmese military government gears up for major conflict with ethnic groups along the Thai-Burmese border ahead of elections scheduled for 2010, more laborers and refugees will come to Thailand, the Bangkok-based English newspaper, Bangkok Post, said in its editorial on Wednesday.
By SAW YAN NAING, Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Wa leaders have ordered their people to be on alert and dig bunkers for protection in case fighting breaks out, according to sources on the border. Troops of the United Wa State Army (UWSA) have been building strategic outposts in the mountains.
Shan sources said UWSA units in southern Shan State will reportedly ally with the ethnic rebel Shan State Army - South in fighting government troops if necessary.
Ten thousand UWSA toops led by Wei Hsueh-Kang, who is blacklisted in the US for drug trafficking, are stationed in southern Shan State. The UWSA has a total of about 25,000 soldiers.
The US Department of State has offered a US $2 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Wei Hsueh-Kang.
Border sources said Burmese government forces will likely launch an offensive against Wa units in southern Shan State, because the junta has been beefing up its troops in the area since the fall of Kokang’s capital, Laogai, on August 24.
The Burmese military junta reportedly wrote to Wa leaders demanding that they surrender the Kokang leader, Peng Jiasheng, who is believed to have taken shelter in a UWSA-controlled area. Source said the UWSA did not respond to the junta’s request.
Troops from the Burmese regime’s light infantry divisions (LID), including LID 99, 55, 33 and 22, have been moving into Shan State since Aug 24, according to border and Burmese military sources. About 10 battalions under Military Operation Command 16, based in Theindi in northern Shan State, have also been deployed south of Laogai, military sources said.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy, one resident who asked for anonymity said he witnessed three 120mm mortar launchers and 10 armored cars going to southern Shan State, where UWSA units are based.
Government troops have blocked the route connecting UWSA units in northern Shan State with those based in southern Shan State, and junta forces have deployed along the road, sources said.
Some observers said the junta’s patience with ceasefire groups rejecting its order to transform their armed militias into Burmese-controlled border guard forces is wearing thin. They said the junta may have no option but to launch offensives against the ceasefire militias to get them to comply.
Bertil Lintner, a Swedish journalist who has written several books on Burma, said the Wa will be the main target of the present offensive.
It is estimated that more than 120,000 ethnic Wa live in southern Shan State near the border with Thailand, which has become a lucrative business area. The area has an improved infrastructure because of development projects and trade.
Thousands of Wa civilians may flee into Thailand if fighting breaks out in the region, sources said.
As the Burmese military government gears up for major conflict with ethnic groups along the Thai-Burmese border ahead of elections scheduled for 2010, more laborers and refugees will come to Thailand, the Bangkok-based English newspaper, Bangkok Post, said in its editorial on Wednesday.
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DVB News - Burma opposition party decry restrictions
Sept 9, 2009 (DVB)–Burma’s main political opposition party has criticised the ruling junta for restricting the group’s political activity prior to the 2010 elections, despite allowing other organisations to campaign.
The National League for Democracy (NLD) party, whose leader Aung San Suu Kyi is under house arrest, sent a letter of complaint to junta supremo Than Shwe last week.
The letter referred to the National League for Politics of the Union of Burma, an unregistered group who operate in central Burma’s Magwe division and who have been allowed to open offices and begin campaigning.
The NLD’s spokesperson, Nyan Win, said that no response has been made so far by the government.
“In the letter, we pointed out that groups that don’t have registration, thus illegitimate, are being allowed to open offices, put up signboards, campaign and hold gatherings,” he said.
“At the same time, the NLD…who won the previous elections [in 1990], is having its offices closed down and is being barred from doing political activities.”
Political organisation for the NLD is difficult, with telephone lines regularly cut and many of its members behind bars.
Next year’s elections, scheduled for March, will be the first since in 20 years.
The junta is promising a return to a civilian government, although critics say that the redrafted 2008 constitution guarantees an entrenchment of military of military rule.
The government has embarked on a campaign to pressure Burma’s multiple ceasefire groups into forming political parties to run in the elections, although heavy resistance has been met.
Growing pressure surrounding the issue sparked recent fighting between Burmese troops and an armed ethnic group in the country’s northeastern Shan state, causing around 37,000 people to flee into China.
Reporting by Htet Aung Kyaw
Sept 9, 2009 (DVB)–Burma’s main political opposition party has criticised the ruling junta for restricting the group’s political activity prior to the 2010 elections, despite allowing other organisations to campaign.
The National League for Democracy (NLD) party, whose leader Aung San Suu Kyi is under house arrest, sent a letter of complaint to junta supremo Than Shwe last week.
The letter referred to the National League for Politics of the Union of Burma, an unregistered group who operate in central Burma’s Magwe division and who have been allowed to open offices and begin campaigning.
The NLD’s spokesperson, Nyan Win, said that no response has been made so far by the government.
“In the letter, we pointed out that groups that don’t have registration, thus illegitimate, are being allowed to open offices, put up signboards, campaign and hold gatherings,” he said.
“At the same time, the NLD…who won the previous elections [in 1990], is having its offices closed down and is being barred from doing political activities.”
Political organisation for the NLD is difficult, with telephone lines regularly cut and many of its members behind bars.
Next year’s elections, scheduled for March, will be the first since in 20 years.
The junta is promising a return to a civilian government, although critics say that the redrafted 2008 constitution guarantees an entrenchment of military of military rule.
The government has embarked on a campaign to pressure Burma’s multiple ceasefire groups into forming political parties to run in the elections, although heavy resistance has been met.
Growing pressure surrounding the issue sparked recent fighting between Burmese troops and an armed ethnic group in the country’s northeastern Shan state, causing around 37,000 people to flee into China.
Reporting by Htet Aung Kyaw
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