Myanmar sentences 4 activists as UN envoy visits
Tue Feb 16, 3:52 am ET
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Military-ruled Myanmar sentenced four activists to prison terms with hard labor on the same day a U.N. envoy arrived to assess progress on human rights in the country, the opposition said Tuesday.
The four women were arrested last October after being accused of offering Buddhist monks alms that included religious literature, said Nyan Win, spokesman for the opposition party headed by detained Nobel Peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. The women used to hold prayer services at Yangon's Shwedagon pagoda for Suu Kyi's release.
They were sentenced Monday to two years imprisonment with hard labor, Nyan Win said.
The judgment came as special U.N. envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana arrived for a five-day visit to evaluate progress on reform.
"Human rights abuses in the country continue unabated even during the visit of the human rights envoy," Nyan Win said.
Amnesty International, a London-based human rights organization, on Tuesday also blasted the junta's human rights record, calling on the regime to halt repression of ethnic minority activists before forthcoming national and local elections.
A report, covering two years ending August, 2009, said authorities arrested, imprisoned, and in some cases tortured or even killed ethnic minority activists.
"Ethnic minorities play an important but seldom acknowledged role in Myanmar's political opposition," Amnesty said. "The government has responded to this activism in a heavy-handed manner, raising fears that repression will intensify before the elections."
The government has repeatedly denied such accusations, saying that it was only carrying out anti-terrorist operations against some ethnic minorities fighting the central regime.
Quintana's third visit follows the release from almost seven years of detention of the deputy leader of the pro-democracy party led by Suu Kyi. The envoy left Tuesday morning for northwestern Rakhine State and will visit a prison in northern Rakhine state on Wednesday.
During a meeting with the envoy Monday, Nyan Win briefed Quintana about the inconsistencies of the judicial system in Myanmar, arbitrary detentions and the trials of Suu Kyi and a Myanmar-born American who was recently sentenced for forging documents and undeclared foreign currency.
"I told Mr. Quintana that we inherited the judicial system from colonial times but that it has rusted," Nyan Win said.
He said judges often handed down the maximum possible sentences to political activists.
"Persecution of activists has intensified and many activists have been unjustly sentenced," he said.
Nyan Win said that Nyi Nyi Aung, the Myanmar-born American who was sentenced last week to three years imprisonment with hard labor, was moved from Yangon to a prison in Pyi, 150 miles (240 kilometers) to the north.
"Sending the activists to far away prisons caused extreme inconvenience to the families. It is like double punishment," said Nyan Win, who is also a defense lawyer for Nyi Nyi Aung.
Quintana said in a statement last week that it would be important to meet with political party leaders in the context of this year's landmark elections, which he described as "a critical time" for the people of Myanmar.
No date has yet been announced for the polls which are billed as moving the country toward civilian democracy.
The envoy also has requested a meeting with Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest. He was barred from seeing her on his previous visits.
Tue Feb 16, 3:52 am ET
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Military-ruled Myanmar sentenced four activists to prison terms with hard labor on the same day a U.N. envoy arrived to assess progress on human rights in the country, the opposition said Tuesday.
The four women were arrested last October after being accused of offering Buddhist monks alms that included religious literature, said Nyan Win, spokesman for the opposition party headed by detained Nobel Peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. The women used to hold prayer services at Yangon's Shwedagon pagoda for Suu Kyi's release.
They were sentenced Monday to two years imprisonment with hard labor, Nyan Win said.
The judgment came as special U.N. envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana arrived for a five-day visit to evaluate progress on reform.
"Human rights abuses in the country continue unabated even during the visit of the human rights envoy," Nyan Win said.
Amnesty International, a London-based human rights organization, on Tuesday also blasted the junta's human rights record, calling on the regime to halt repression of ethnic minority activists before forthcoming national and local elections.
A report, covering two years ending August, 2009, said authorities arrested, imprisoned, and in some cases tortured or even killed ethnic minority activists.
"Ethnic minorities play an important but seldom acknowledged role in Myanmar's political opposition," Amnesty said. "The government has responded to this activism in a heavy-handed manner, raising fears that repression will intensify before the elections."
The government has repeatedly denied such accusations, saying that it was only carrying out anti-terrorist operations against some ethnic minorities fighting the central regime.
Quintana's third visit follows the release from almost seven years of detention of the deputy leader of the pro-democracy party led by Suu Kyi. The envoy left Tuesday morning for northwestern Rakhine State and will visit a prison in northern Rakhine state on Wednesday.
During a meeting with the envoy Monday, Nyan Win briefed Quintana about the inconsistencies of the judicial system in Myanmar, arbitrary detentions and the trials of Suu Kyi and a Myanmar-born American who was recently sentenced for forging documents and undeclared foreign currency.
"I told Mr. Quintana that we inherited the judicial system from colonial times but that it has rusted," Nyan Win said.
He said judges often handed down the maximum possible sentences to political activists.
"Persecution of activists has intensified and many activists have been unjustly sentenced," he said.
Nyan Win said that Nyi Nyi Aung, the Myanmar-born American who was sentenced last week to three years imprisonment with hard labor, was moved from Yangon to a prison in Pyi, 150 miles (240 kilometers) to the north.
"Sending the activists to far away prisons caused extreme inconvenience to the families. It is like double punishment," said Nyan Win, who is also a defense lawyer for Nyi Nyi Aung.
Quintana said in a statement last week that it would be important to meet with political party leaders in the context of this year's landmark elections, which he described as "a critical time" for the people of Myanmar.
No date has yet been announced for the polls which are billed as moving the country toward civilian democracy.
The envoy also has requested a meeting with Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest. He was barred from seeing her on his previous visits.
*************************************************************
UN rights envoy visits Myanmar border
Mon Feb 15, 11:53 pm ET
YANGON (AFP) – A UN envoy travelled to Myanmar's western border Tuesday as part of a human rights inspection ahead of polls, as campaigners denounced the junta's treatment of ethnic groups in the area.
The trip to the region on the border with Bangladesh is part of a five-day mission to assess the military regime's progress on rights ahead of elections promised this year, the first in Myanmar for two decades.
Tomas Ojea Quintana left Yangon for Sittwe in Rakhine state on the state-run airline after a two-hour delay because of high winds at his destination, a Myanmar official said on condition of anonymity.
"Mr Quintana departed for Sittwe at 9:20am with Myanmar Airways," the official said on condition of anonymity.
Details of who he would meet in the area were not released but Rakhine is home to thousands of Rohingya, an impoverished Muslim minority group that Myanmar refuses to recognise, and to local activists.
Amnesty International released a report Tuesday detailing the repression of activists including Rakhine monks, who the group said led a 2008 uprising that was bloodily suppressed with the loss of at least 31 lives.
"Any resolution of the country's deeply troubling human rights record has to take into account the rights and aspirations of the country's large population of ethnic minorities," the London-based group's Myanmar expert Benjamin Zawacki said.
Many Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh where they are now facing mass arrests and no access to proper food and shelter, according to activists at The Arakan Project in a statement released Tuesday.
Quintana began his five-day trip on Monday, days after Myanmar authorities freed a key aide to democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi but amid criticism of the government's election plans.
Quintana met judges and opposition lawyers in the former capital Yangon on Monday but officials said there were no plans yet for him to meet either Suu Kyi or reclusive junta head Than Shwe.
Suu Kyi's party deputy, Tin Oo, 83, was freed from seven years in detention at the weekend, but he immediately called for the release of more than 2,100 other political prisoners.
Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi remains under house arrest and has said it is too early for her National League for Democracy (NLD) to decide if it will take part in polls that critics deride as a sham.
Suu Kyi's house arrest was extended last August by 18 months when she was convicted over an incident in which a US man swam to her house, effectively ruling her out of the polls and sparking global outrage.
Quintana, making his third trip to Myanmar since his appointment in 2008, is due to return to Yangon on Thursday to visit the notorious Insein prison, where many dissidents are held, and will later meet ethnic representatives.
He will go to the remote capital Naypyidaw on Friday to meet senior government officials before leaving Myanmar, which was formerly known as Burma.
Quintana has said he wants to meet Suu Kyi, who has been detained for 14 of the last 20 years since the NLD won the elections in 1990 but was prevented from taking power by the military.
In a statement last week Quintana said 2010 was "a critical time for the people of Myanmar".
Mon Feb 15, 11:53 pm ET
YANGON (AFP) – A UN envoy travelled to Myanmar's western border Tuesday as part of a human rights inspection ahead of polls, as campaigners denounced the junta's treatment of ethnic groups in the area.
The trip to the region on the border with Bangladesh is part of a five-day mission to assess the military regime's progress on rights ahead of elections promised this year, the first in Myanmar for two decades.
Tomas Ojea Quintana left Yangon for Sittwe in Rakhine state on the state-run airline after a two-hour delay because of high winds at his destination, a Myanmar official said on condition of anonymity.
"Mr Quintana departed for Sittwe at 9:20am with Myanmar Airways," the official said on condition of anonymity.
Details of who he would meet in the area were not released but Rakhine is home to thousands of Rohingya, an impoverished Muslim minority group that Myanmar refuses to recognise, and to local activists.
Amnesty International released a report Tuesday detailing the repression of activists including Rakhine monks, who the group said led a 2008 uprising that was bloodily suppressed with the loss of at least 31 lives.
"Any resolution of the country's deeply troubling human rights record has to take into account the rights and aspirations of the country's large population of ethnic minorities," the London-based group's Myanmar expert Benjamin Zawacki said.
Many Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh where they are now facing mass arrests and no access to proper food and shelter, according to activists at The Arakan Project in a statement released Tuesday.
Quintana began his five-day trip on Monday, days after Myanmar authorities freed a key aide to democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi but amid criticism of the government's election plans.
Quintana met judges and opposition lawyers in the former capital Yangon on Monday but officials said there were no plans yet for him to meet either Suu Kyi or reclusive junta head Than Shwe.
Suu Kyi's party deputy, Tin Oo, 83, was freed from seven years in detention at the weekend, but he immediately called for the release of more than 2,100 other political prisoners.
Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi remains under house arrest and has said it is too early for her National League for Democracy (NLD) to decide if it will take part in polls that critics deride as a sham.
Suu Kyi's house arrest was extended last August by 18 months when she was convicted over an incident in which a US man swam to her house, effectively ruling her out of the polls and sparking global outrage.
Quintana, making his third trip to Myanmar since his appointment in 2008, is due to return to Yangon on Thursday to visit the notorious Insein prison, where many dissidents are held, and will later meet ethnic representatives.
He will go to the remote capital Naypyidaw on Friday to meet senior government officials before leaving Myanmar, which was formerly known as Burma.
Quintana has said he wants to meet Suu Kyi, who has been detained for 14 of the last 20 years since the NLD won the elections in 1990 but was prevented from taking power by the military.
In a statement last week Quintana said 2010 was "a critical time for the people of Myanmar".
*************************************************************
Bangladesh 'cracking down on Myanmar migrants'
Tue Feb 16, 7:25 am ET
DHAKA (AFP) – A crackdown by Bangladeshi authorities has triggered a "humanitarian catastrophe" for the country's unregistered population of Rohingya refugees, according to a report released Tuesday.
The authorities launched an "unprecedented" campaign against the ethnic Muslims from Myanmar on January 2, pushing thousands into an unofficial refugee camp, a report by the Arakan Project lobby group said.
In the makeshift camp in Kutuplaong on the Myanmar border, "food insecurity and hunger is spreading rapidly and a serious humanitarian crisis is looming," the report by the Bangkok-based group said.
"A major humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding for the unprotected Rohingya in Bangladesh," the report added.
"This will deteriorate if the Bangladesh authorities do not immediately put an end to this massive crackdown and continue to deny access to food and livelihood to the unregistered Rohingya refugees."
Police round-ups, leading to arrest or illegal forced deportation, are common and the local media has launched a "xenophobic campaign" against the Rohingya, stirring up local resentment, the report added.
It also claimed instances of theft, rape and assaults against unregistered Rohingya soared last month.
Described by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities on earth, thousands of Rohingyas from Myanmar's northern Rakhaine state stream across the border every year. They are now estimated to number nearly 400,000.
Around 8,000 are believed to have fled in 2009.
There are an estimated 700,000 Rohingya in Myanmar, where they are not recognised as citizens and have no right to own land and are forbidden from marrying or travelling without permission.
Police on the border with Myanmar told AFP Tuesday that they had arrested nearly 149 Rohingas last month as they tried to enter Bangladesh and had pushed back 112. The report claims the repatriation policy is illegal.
"This month, we have arrested over 50 and pushed all of them back into Myanmar. It is an ongoing operation," said Rafiqul Islam, chief of the local police in Kutuplaong on the Myanmar border.
Islam said the crackdown, prompted by a rise in the number of Rohingya asylum seekers who were clearing forest and building shanty towns around the Kutuplaong camp, was an attempt to stop further migration.
"If we don't stop them, the floodgates will open," he said.
Tue Feb 16, 7:25 am ET
DHAKA (AFP) – A crackdown by Bangladeshi authorities has triggered a "humanitarian catastrophe" for the country's unregistered population of Rohingya refugees, according to a report released Tuesday.
The authorities launched an "unprecedented" campaign against the ethnic Muslims from Myanmar on January 2, pushing thousands into an unofficial refugee camp, a report by the Arakan Project lobby group said.
In the makeshift camp in Kutuplaong on the Myanmar border, "food insecurity and hunger is spreading rapidly and a serious humanitarian crisis is looming," the report by the Bangkok-based group said.
"A major humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding for the unprotected Rohingya in Bangladesh," the report added.
"This will deteriorate if the Bangladesh authorities do not immediately put an end to this massive crackdown and continue to deny access to food and livelihood to the unregistered Rohingya refugees."
Police round-ups, leading to arrest or illegal forced deportation, are common and the local media has launched a "xenophobic campaign" against the Rohingya, stirring up local resentment, the report added.
It also claimed instances of theft, rape and assaults against unregistered Rohingya soared last month.
Described by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities on earth, thousands of Rohingyas from Myanmar's northern Rakhaine state stream across the border every year. They are now estimated to number nearly 400,000.
Around 8,000 are believed to have fled in 2009.
There are an estimated 700,000 Rohingya in Myanmar, where they are not recognised as citizens and have no right to own land and are forbidden from marrying or travelling without permission.
Police on the border with Myanmar told AFP Tuesday that they had arrested nearly 149 Rohingas last month as they tried to enter Bangladesh and had pushed back 112. The report claims the repatriation policy is illegal.
"This month, we have arrested over 50 and pushed all of them back into Myanmar. It is an ongoing operation," said Rafiqul Islam, chief of the local police in Kutuplaong on the Myanmar border.
Islam said the crackdown, prompted by a rise in the number of Rohingya asylum seekers who were clearing forest and building shanty towns around the Kutuplaong camp, was an attempt to stop further migration.
"If we don't stop them, the floodgates will open," he said.
*************************************************************
Time Magazine - Burma's Prison Release: Reading Between the Lines
By Robert Horn / Bangkok Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2010
The release from detention of a close aide to Burmese democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi on Saturday could presage the same for the Nobel Peace Prize winner from her latest period of house arrest. It's happened before, when both were released within weeks of each other in 1995. But it does not signal any move on the part of Burma's ruling generals to reconcile with their democratic opponents before elections slated for later this year, analysts and party members said.
The freeing of 82-year-old Tin Oo, vice chairman of the National League for Democracy, from seven years of prison and then house arrest "does not in any way signal a shift in attitude on the part of the government," said Benjamin Zawacki, a Thailand-based researcher with Amnesty International. "Like all prisoners of conscience in Myanmar [Burma], he never should have been arrested in the first place."
Zawacki pointed out that more than 2,100 political prisoners remain incarcerated in Burma. Three days before Tin Oo's release the regime sentenced Burmese-born American citizen and political activist Kyaw Zaw Lwin to three years imprisonment at a time it is supposedly seeking better ties with the U.S., and on Tuesday, a Burmese court sentenced four women who held prayer services for Suu Kyi's release to prison terms with hard labor. "One step forward, one step back is the opposite of a shift," Zawacki said. A report released Tuesday by Amnesty International concurs, documenting stepped-up repression against Burma's ethnic minority groups. "Ethnic minorities play an important but seldom acknowledged role in Burma's political opposition," Zawacki said. Several ethnic minorities have formed their own political parties, or are members of the NLD. Some ethnic groups, such as the Karen, remain in armed rebellion against the government.
The political fates of Tin Oo and Suu Kyi have been closely intertwined. The co-founders of the National League for Democracy (NLD) were arrested in 2003 after their motorcade in northern Burma was attacked by a pro-government mob and dozens of their supporters were killed. Tin Oo had also been arrested the same day as Suu Kyi in 1989, and he was released two months before her in 1995. Not long before Tin Oo's release this week, a regime official suggested at a provincial town meeting that Suu Kyi, too, would be released in November of this year.
Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, is in her third period of house arrest, totaling nearly 14 of the past 20 years. The military, which has ruled Burma for nearly half a century, has promised elections this year, though no date has been set. The NLD has yet to decide whether it will participate in the elections, which are already being criticized in some quarters as a sham because Suu Kyi has been barred from taking part and her party's activities have been severely restricted. In Burma's last election in 1990, the NLD won in a landslide, only to have the military ignore the result and refuse to transfer power.
NLD members reacted to Tin Oo's release by voicing hope that Suu Kyi's second-in-command could help reinvigorate the beleaguered political party. "Tin Oo is politically experienced, a seasoned politician, which is very much important and significant for us," Win Tin, an NLD leader who was imprisoned for 18 years, told the Mizzima news agency. He said the government had done all it could to cut off contact between the NLD and the Burmese people, and that Tin Oo, who is widely respected, could help re-establish that connection.
As a former Defense Minister and Commander in Chief of the armed forces, Tin Oo has at once drawn the extreme ire of the regime for opposing military rule and supporting democracy and gaining the admiration of others. "When he was first arrested he had a wide network of friends in the military and beyond," said Josef Silverstein, a retired academic and Burma expert from Rutgers University. "He was well respected and listened to."
Zawacki cautioned, however, that Tin Oo's release could be a ploy on the part of the government. "His release may have been a kind of false incentive to the NLD. NLD participation in an election that it loses would greatly assist the government's inevitable claims that the election was legitimate," he said.
By Robert Horn / Bangkok Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2010
The release from detention of a close aide to Burmese democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi on Saturday could presage the same for the Nobel Peace Prize winner from her latest period of house arrest. It's happened before, when both were released within weeks of each other in 1995. But it does not signal any move on the part of Burma's ruling generals to reconcile with their democratic opponents before elections slated for later this year, analysts and party members said.
The freeing of 82-year-old Tin Oo, vice chairman of the National League for Democracy, from seven years of prison and then house arrest "does not in any way signal a shift in attitude on the part of the government," said Benjamin Zawacki, a Thailand-based researcher with Amnesty International. "Like all prisoners of conscience in Myanmar [Burma], he never should have been arrested in the first place."
Zawacki pointed out that more than 2,100 political prisoners remain incarcerated in Burma. Three days before Tin Oo's release the regime sentenced Burmese-born American citizen and political activist Kyaw Zaw Lwin to three years imprisonment at a time it is supposedly seeking better ties with the U.S., and on Tuesday, a Burmese court sentenced four women who held prayer services for Suu Kyi's release to prison terms with hard labor. "One step forward, one step back is the opposite of a shift," Zawacki said. A report released Tuesday by Amnesty International concurs, documenting stepped-up repression against Burma's ethnic minority groups. "Ethnic minorities play an important but seldom acknowledged role in Burma's political opposition," Zawacki said. Several ethnic minorities have formed their own political parties, or are members of the NLD. Some ethnic groups, such as the Karen, remain in armed rebellion against the government.
The political fates of Tin Oo and Suu Kyi have been closely intertwined. The co-founders of the National League for Democracy (NLD) were arrested in 2003 after their motorcade in northern Burma was attacked by a pro-government mob and dozens of their supporters were killed. Tin Oo had also been arrested the same day as Suu Kyi in 1989, and he was released two months before her in 1995. Not long before Tin Oo's release this week, a regime official suggested at a provincial town meeting that Suu Kyi, too, would be released in November of this year.
Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, is in her third period of house arrest, totaling nearly 14 of the past 20 years. The military, which has ruled Burma for nearly half a century, has promised elections this year, though no date has been set. The NLD has yet to decide whether it will participate in the elections, which are already being criticized in some quarters as a sham because Suu Kyi has been barred from taking part and her party's activities have been severely restricted. In Burma's last election in 1990, the NLD won in a landslide, only to have the military ignore the result and refuse to transfer power.
NLD members reacted to Tin Oo's release by voicing hope that Suu Kyi's second-in-command could help reinvigorate the beleaguered political party. "Tin Oo is politically experienced, a seasoned politician, which is very much important and significant for us," Win Tin, an NLD leader who was imprisoned for 18 years, told the Mizzima news agency. He said the government had done all it could to cut off contact between the NLD and the Burmese people, and that Tin Oo, who is widely respected, could help re-establish that connection.
As a former Defense Minister and Commander in Chief of the armed forces, Tin Oo has at once drawn the extreme ire of the regime for opposing military rule and supporting democracy and gaining the admiration of others. "When he was first arrested he had a wide network of friends in the military and beyond," said Josef Silverstein, a retired academic and Burma expert from Rutgers University. "He was well respected and listened to."
Zawacki cautioned, however, that Tin Oo's release could be a ploy on the part of the government. "His release may have been a kind of false incentive to the NLD. NLD participation in an election that it loses would greatly assist the government's inevitable claims that the election was legitimate," he said.
*************************************************************
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE
AI Index: PRE 01/045/2010
16 February 2010
Myanmar: End repression of ethnic minorities before elections
Myanmar's government must halt its repression of ethnic minority activists before forthcoming national and local elections, Amnesty International warned in a major report released today.
The 58-page report, The Repression of ethnic minority activists in Myanmar, draws on accounts from more than 700 activists from the seven largest ethnic minorities, including the Rakhine, Shan, Kachin, and Chin, covering a two-year period from August 2007.
The authorities have arrested, imprisoned, and in some cases tortured or even killed ethnic minority activists. Minority groups have also faced extensive surveillance, harassment and discrimination when trying to carry out their legitimate activities.
"Ethnic minorities play an important but seldom acknowledged role in Myanmar's political opposition," said Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International's Myanmar expert. "The government has responded to this activism in a heavy-handed manner, raising fears that repression will intensify before the elections."
Many activists told Amnesty International that they faced repression as part of a larger movement, as in Rakhine and Kachin States during the 2007 Buddhist monk-led ‘Saffron Revolution'. Witnesses described the killings and torture of monks and others by the security forces during its violent suppression of peaceful demonstrations in those states.
Others said they were pursued for specific actions, such as organizing an anti-dam signature campaign in Kachin State.
Even relatively simple expressions of political dissent were met with punishment as when Karenni youths were detained for floating small boats on a river with "No" (to the 2008 draft Constitution) written on them.
"Activism in Myanmar is not confined to the central regions and urban centres. Any resolution of the country's deeply troubling human rights record has to take into account the rights and aspirations of the country's large population of ethnic minorities," said Benjamin Zawacki.
More than 2,100 political prisoners, including many from ethnic minorities, languish in Myanmar's jails in deplorable conditions. Most are prisoners of conscience who have expressed their beliefs peacefully.
Amnesty International urged the government to lift restrictions on freedom of association, assembly, and religion in the run-up to the elections; to release immediately and unconditionally all prisoners of conscience; and to remove restrictions on independent media to cover the campaigning and election process.
Amnesty International called on Myanmar's neighbours in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as China, Myanmar's biggest international supporter, to push the government to ensure that the people of Myanmar will be able to freely express their opinions, gather peacefully, and participate openly in the political process.
"The government of Myanmar should use the elections as an opportunity to improve its human rights record, not as a spur to increase repression of dissenting voices, especially those from the ethnic minorities," said Benjamin Zawacki.
Background
In 2010, Myanmar will hold its first national and local elections in two decades.
In 1990, two years after mostly peaceful anti-government protests resulted in the deaths of at least 3,000 demonstrators, the National League for Democracy (NLD) and a coalition of ethnic minority parties resoundingly won national elections.
The military government ignored the results, however, and continued their long-standing campaign against the political opposition.
Myanmar's most well-known human rights defender, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the NLD, has been under some form of detention for over 15 of the last 20 years.
In 2007, monks from ethnic minority Rakhine State initiated country-wide demonstrations against the government's economic and political policies, in what has become known as the Saffron Revolution.
In May 2008, a week after Cyclone Nargis devastated the country, the government insisted on holding a referendum on the draft constitution. The official results were that 99% of the electorate had gone to the polls, 92.4% of whom had voted in favour. While the 2008 Constitution potentially allows for greater representation in local government, it ensures that the military will continue to dominate the national government.
Ethnic minorities constitute some 35-40 percent of the country's population, and form the majority in the seven ethnic minority states. Each of the country's largest seven ethnic minorities has engaged in armed insurgencies against the government, some of which continue to date.
Amnesty International has documented serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity by the government in the context of the Myanmar army's campaigns against ethnic minority insurgent groups and civilians.
PRESS RELEASE
AI Index: PRE 01/045/2010
16 February 2010
Myanmar: End repression of ethnic minorities before elections
Myanmar's government must halt its repression of ethnic minority activists before forthcoming national and local elections, Amnesty International warned in a major report released today.
The 58-page report, The Repression of ethnic minority activists in Myanmar, draws on accounts from more than 700 activists from the seven largest ethnic minorities, including the Rakhine, Shan, Kachin, and Chin, covering a two-year period from August 2007.
The authorities have arrested, imprisoned, and in some cases tortured or even killed ethnic minority activists. Minority groups have also faced extensive surveillance, harassment and discrimination when trying to carry out their legitimate activities.
"Ethnic minorities play an important but seldom acknowledged role in Myanmar's political opposition," said Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International's Myanmar expert. "The government has responded to this activism in a heavy-handed manner, raising fears that repression will intensify before the elections."
Many activists told Amnesty International that they faced repression as part of a larger movement, as in Rakhine and Kachin States during the 2007 Buddhist monk-led ‘Saffron Revolution'. Witnesses described the killings and torture of monks and others by the security forces during its violent suppression of peaceful demonstrations in those states.
Others said they were pursued for specific actions, such as organizing an anti-dam signature campaign in Kachin State.
Even relatively simple expressions of political dissent were met with punishment as when Karenni youths were detained for floating small boats on a river with "No" (to the 2008 draft Constitution) written on them.
"Activism in Myanmar is not confined to the central regions and urban centres. Any resolution of the country's deeply troubling human rights record has to take into account the rights and aspirations of the country's large population of ethnic minorities," said Benjamin Zawacki.
More than 2,100 political prisoners, including many from ethnic minorities, languish in Myanmar's jails in deplorable conditions. Most are prisoners of conscience who have expressed their beliefs peacefully.
Amnesty International urged the government to lift restrictions on freedom of association, assembly, and religion in the run-up to the elections; to release immediately and unconditionally all prisoners of conscience; and to remove restrictions on independent media to cover the campaigning and election process.
Amnesty International called on Myanmar's neighbours in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as China, Myanmar's biggest international supporter, to push the government to ensure that the people of Myanmar will be able to freely express their opinions, gather peacefully, and participate openly in the political process.
"The government of Myanmar should use the elections as an opportunity to improve its human rights record, not as a spur to increase repression of dissenting voices, especially those from the ethnic minorities," said Benjamin Zawacki.
Background
In 2010, Myanmar will hold its first national and local elections in two decades.
In 1990, two years after mostly peaceful anti-government protests resulted in the deaths of at least 3,000 demonstrators, the National League for Democracy (NLD) and a coalition of ethnic minority parties resoundingly won national elections.
The military government ignored the results, however, and continued their long-standing campaign against the political opposition.
Myanmar's most well-known human rights defender, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the NLD, has been under some form of detention for over 15 of the last 20 years.
In 2007, monks from ethnic minority Rakhine State initiated country-wide demonstrations against the government's economic and political policies, in what has become known as the Saffron Revolution.
In May 2008, a week after Cyclone Nargis devastated the country, the government insisted on holding a referendum on the draft constitution. The official results were that 99% of the electorate had gone to the polls, 92.4% of whom had voted in favour. While the 2008 Constitution potentially allows for greater representation in local government, it ensures that the military will continue to dominate the national government.
Ethnic minorities constitute some 35-40 percent of the country's population, and form the majority in the seven ethnic minority states. Each of the country's largest seven ethnic minorities has engaged in armed insurgencies against the government, some of which continue to date.
Amnesty International has documented serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity by the government in the context of the Myanmar army's campaigns against ethnic minority insurgent groups and civilians.
*************************************************************
INO News - UN Envoy Begins Tour Of Myanmar To Assess Progress On Human Rights
1 hour, 44 minutes ago
(RTTNews) - United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Tomas Ojea Quintana has begun a five-day tour of Myanmar to assess progress on human rights in that country.
Quintana, who arrived in Rangoon Tuesday morning, met with detained Opposition pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's lawyers and inquired about details of her trial.
He also met with his colleagues based in the city, diplomats and Justice Thaung Nyunt.
A UN spokesman in Rangoon said the UN envoy had sought permission to meet with the Nobel laureate.
He plans to meet the British ambassador to Myanmar before leaving for Bangkok.
Quintana is also scheduled to visit a prison in northern Rakhine state on Wednesday.
Before embarking on his third mission to the country, Quintana said he intended to review and report on progress of implementation of the four core human rights elements that he had recommended during his visit last year.
"2010 appears to be a critical time for the people of Myanmar, as the government plans to hold a national election after 20 years," he said in a press release.
Ending months of speculation and showing signs of compliance to calls by the international community, the military regime confirmed last week that it will hold a general election soon, honoring previous commitments.
It was followed by the release of Tin Oo, the veteran vice- chairman of Suu Kyi's political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), after seven years' detention without trial.
Meanwhile, NLD spokesperson Nyan Win said "Human rights abuses in the country continue unabated even during the visit of the human rights envoy."
He said four women, who were arrested last October after being accused of offering alms to Buddhist monks, were sentenced on Monday to two years imprisonment with hard labor.
1 hour, 44 minutes ago
(RTTNews) - United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Tomas Ojea Quintana has begun a five-day tour of Myanmar to assess progress on human rights in that country.
Quintana, who arrived in Rangoon Tuesday morning, met with detained Opposition pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's lawyers and inquired about details of her trial.
He also met with his colleagues based in the city, diplomats and Justice Thaung Nyunt.
A UN spokesman in Rangoon said the UN envoy had sought permission to meet with the Nobel laureate.
He plans to meet the British ambassador to Myanmar before leaving for Bangkok.
Quintana is also scheduled to visit a prison in northern Rakhine state on Wednesday.
Before embarking on his third mission to the country, Quintana said he intended to review and report on progress of implementation of the four core human rights elements that he had recommended during his visit last year.
"2010 appears to be a critical time for the people of Myanmar, as the government plans to hold a national election after 20 years," he said in a press release.
Ending months of speculation and showing signs of compliance to calls by the international community, the military regime confirmed last week that it will hold a general election soon, honoring previous commitments.
It was followed by the release of Tin Oo, the veteran vice- chairman of Suu Kyi's political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), after seven years' detention without trial.
Meanwhile, NLD spokesperson Nyan Win said "Human rights abuses in the country continue unabated even during the visit of the human rights envoy."
He said four women, who were arrested last October after being accused of offering alms to Buddhist monks, were sentenced on Monday to two years imprisonment with hard labor.
*************************************************************
New York Times - India Worries as China Builds Ports in South Asia
By VIKAS BAJAJ
Published: February 15, 2010
HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka — For years, ships from other countries, laden with oil, machinery, clothes and cargo, sped past this small town near India as part of the world’s brisk trade with China.
Ships will dock along this long wall and other similar structures nearby once the port in Hambantota is complete.
As trade in South Asia grows, China has been developing port facilities like this one in Gwadar in the southwest of Pakistan.
Now, China is investing millions to turn this fishing hamlet into a booming new port, furthering an ambitious trading strategy in South Asia that is reshaping the region and forcing India to rethink relations with its neighbors.
As trade in the region grows more lucrative, China has been developing port facilities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, and it is planning to build railroad lines in Nepal.
These projects, analysts say, are part of a concerted effort by Chinese leaders and companies to open and expand markets for their goods and services in a part of Asia that has lagged behind the rest of the continent in trade and economic development.
But these initiatives are irking India, whose government worries that China is expanding its sphere of regional influence by surrounding India with a “string of pearls” that could eventually undermine India’s pre-eminence and potentially rise to an economic and security threat.
“There is a method in the madness in terms of where they are locating their ports and staging points,” Kanwal Sibal, a former Indian foreign secretary who is now a member of the government’s National Security Advisory Board, said of China. “This kind of effort is aimed at counterbalancing and undermining India’s natural influence in these areas.”
India and China, the world’s two fastest-growing economies, have a history of tense relations. They share a contested Himalayan border over which they fought a war in 1962. India has given shelter to the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet as China exerted control over it. And China has close military ties with Pakistan, with which India has fought three wars.
But the two countries also do an increasingly booming business with each other. China recently became India’s largest trading partner, and both have worked together to advance similar positions in global trade and climate change negotiations.
Chinese officials deny ulterior motives for their projects in South Asia. And top Indian leaders have tried to play down talk of a rivalry with China, saying there is enough room in the world for both economies to rise simultaneously.
As recently as the 1990s, China’s and India’s trade with four South Asian nations — Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan — was roughly equal. But over the last decade, China has outpaced India in deepening ties.
For China, these countries provide both new markets and alternative routes to the Indian Ocean, which its ships now reach through a narrow channel between Indonesia and Malaysia known as the Strait of Malacca. India, for its part, needs to improve economic ties with its neighbors to broaden its growth and to help foster peace in the region.
Some of the shift in trade toward China comes from heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, which has hampered trade between the two countries. But China has also made inroads in nations that have been more friendly with India, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.
Moreover, protectionist sentiments have marred India’s relationships with its neighbors. South Asia has a free-trade agreement, but countries that are part of the pact get few benefits, economists say, because India and its neighbors refuse to lower tariffs on many goods and services to protect their own businesses. By contrast, the countries of Southeast Asia have minimal or no duties on most goods and services that they import from one another.
India has had some success in establishing closer ties with Sri Lanka, with which it has a strong bilateral trade agreement. But China has become a partner of choice for big projects here like the Hambantota port. China’s Export-Import Bank is financing 85 percent of the cost of the $1 billion project, and China Harbour Engineering, which is part of a state-owned company, is building it. Similar arrangements have been struck for an international airport being built nearby.
Sri Lankan officials want to turn Hambantota, which was devastated by the 2004 tsunami and is the home constituency for President Mahinda Rajapaksa, into the second-largest urban area in the country after the capital, Colombo. (It is the ninth-biggest today.) The government is also building a convention center, a government complex and a cricket stadium.
Sri Lanka needs foreign assistance to make those dreams a reality, because the government’s finances are stretched by a large debt it accumulated in paying for a 25-year civil war that ended in May. In 2009, the country borrowed $2.6 billion from the International Monetary Fund.
Mr. Rajapaksa has said he offered the Hambantota port project first to India, but officials there turned it down. In an interview, Jaliya Wickramasuriya, Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the United States, said the country looked for investors in America and around the world, but China offered the best terms. “We don’t have favorites,” he said.
Still, Sri Lankan officials have refused to disclose information that would allow analysts to compare China’s proposals with those submitted by other bidders. The country has also kept private details about other projects that are being financed and built by China, including a power plant, an arts center and a special economic zone.
The Sunday Times, a Sri Lankan newspaper, recently estimated that China was involved in projects totaling $6 billion — more than any other country, including India and Japan, which have historically been big donors and investors in Sri Lanka.
Harsha de Silva, a prominent economist in Colombo and an adviser to the country’s main opposition party, said the Sri Lankan government appeared to prefer awarding projects to China because it did not impose “conditions for reform, transparency and competitive bidding” that would be part of contracts with countries like India and the United States or organizations like the World Bank.
Other analysts say China is winning big projects here and elsewhere in the region because its companies offer lower costs. Chinese companies are also competitive because they have acquired a lot of expertise in building large infrastructure projects in China, said Jerry Lou, Morgan Stanley’s China strategist.
In 10 years, Chinese companies have become the biggest suppliers to ports of cranes used to move shipping containers, displacing South Korean and Japanese companies, he said. “They are running at very high efficiency and at the lowest costs,” Mr. Lou said. “China is a game-changer, rather than a new player in the world’s construction industry.”
India is starting to respond to China’s growing influence by becoming more aggressive in courting trade partners. India recently signed a free-trade deal with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and South Korea. Officials have even begun talking about signing a trade deal with China to bolster exports.
India’s chief trade negotiator, D. K. Mittal, acknowledged that the country’s economic ties with its neighbors were not as strong as they should be and blamed political distrust between the countries. But he said leaders were now determined to improve economic relations, something he said was highlighted in a recent agreement with Bangladesh.
In that deal, India agreed to sell electricity to Bangladesh, provide it with a $1 billion line of credit for infrastructure projects and reduce tariffs on imports. Bangladesh agreed to allow Indian ships to use a port that is being redeveloped by China. “The political leaders have to rise above and say, ‘I want this to happen,’ ” Mr. Mittal said in an interview. “That’s what the leaders are realizing.”
By VIKAS BAJAJ
Published: February 15, 2010
HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka — For years, ships from other countries, laden with oil, machinery, clothes and cargo, sped past this small town near India as part of the world’s brisk trade with China.
Ships will dock along this long wall and other similar structures nearby once the port in Hambantota is complete.
As trade in South Asia grows, China has been developing port facilities like this one in Gwadar in the southwest of Pakistan.
Now, China is investing millions to turn this fishing hamlet into a booming new port, furthering an ambitious trading strategy in South Asia that is reshaping the region and forcing India to rethink relations with its neighbors.
As trade in the region grows more lucrative, China has been developing port facilities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, and it is planning to build railroad lines in Nepal.
These projects, analysts say, are part of a concerted effort by Chinese leaders and companies to open and expand markets for their goods and services in a part of Asia that has lagged behind the rest of the continent in trade and economic development.
But these initiatives are irking India, whose government worries that China is expanding its sphere of regional influence by surrounding India with a “string of pearls” that could eventually undermine India’s pre-eminence and potentially rise to an economic and security threat.
“There is a method in the madness in terms of where they are locating their ports and staging points,” Kanwal Sibal, a former Indian foreign secretary who is now a member of the government’s National Security Advisory Board, said of China. “This kind of effort is aimed at counterbalancing and undermining India’s natural influence in these areas.”
India and China, the world’s two fastest-growing economies, have a history of tense relations. They share a contested Himalayan border over which they fought a war in 1962. India has given shelter to the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet as China exerted control over it. And China has close military ties with Pakistan, with which India has fought three wars.
But the two countries also do an increasingly booming business with each other. China recently became India’s largest trading partner, and both have worked together to advance similar positions in global trade and climate change negotiations.
Chinese officials deny ulterior motives for their projects in South Asia. And top Indian leaders have tried to play down talk of a rivalry with China, saying there is enough room in the world for both economies to rise simultaneously.
As recently as the 1990s, China’s and India’s trade with four South Asian nations — Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan — was roughly equal. But over the last decade, China has outpaced India in deepening ties.
For China, these countries provide both new markets and alternative routes to the Indian Ocean, which its ships now reach through a narrow channel between Indonesia and Malaysia known as the Strait of Malacca. India, for its part, needs to improve economic ties with its neighbors to broaden its growth and to help foster peace in the region.
Some of the shift in trade toward China comes from heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, which has hampered trade between the two countries. But China has also made inroads in nations that have been more friendly with India, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.
Moreover, protectionist sentiments have marred India’s relationships with its neighbors. South Asia has a free-trade agreement, but countries that are part of the pact get few benefits, economists say, because India and its neighbors refuse to lower tariffs on many goods and services to protect their own businesses. By contrast, the countries of Southeast Asia have minimal or no duties on most goods and services that they import from one another.
India has had some success in establishing closer ties with Sri Lanka, with which it has a strong bilateral trade agreement. But China has become a partner of choice for big projects here like the Hambantota port. China’s Export-Import Bank is financing 85 percent of the cost of the $1 billion project, and China Harbour Engineering, which is part of a state-owned company, is building it. Similar arrangements have been struck for an international airport being built nearby.
Sri Lankan officials want to turn Hambantota, which was devastated by the 2004 tsunami and is the home constituency for President Mahinda Rajapaksa, into the second-largest urban area in the country after the capital, Colombo. (It is the ninth-biggest today.) The government is also building a convention center, a government complex and a cricket stadium.
Sri Lanka needs foreign assistance to make those dreams a reality, because the government’s finances are stretched by a large debt it accumulated in paying for a 25-year civil war that ended in May. In 2009, the country borrowed $2.6 billion from the International Monetary Fund.
Mr. Rajapaksa has said he offered the Hambantota port project first to India, but officials there turned it down. In an interview, Jaliya Wickramasuriya, Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the United States, said the country looked for investors in America and around the world, but China offered the best terms. “We don’t have favorites,” he said.
Still, Sri Lankan officials have refused to disclose information that would allow analysts to compare China’s proposals with those submitted by other bidders. The country has also kept private details about other projects that are being financed and built by China, including a power plant, an arts center and a special economic zone.
The Sunday Times, a Sri Lankan newspaper, recently estimated that China was involved in projects totaling $6 billion — more than any other country, including India and Japan, which have historically been big donors and investors in Sri Lanka.
Harsha de Silva, a prominent economist in Colombo and an adviser to the country’s main opposition party, said the Sri Lankan government appeared to prefer awarding projects to China because it did not impose “conditions for reform, transparency and competitive bidding” that would be part of contracts with countries like India and the United States or organizations like the World Bank.
Other analysts say China is winning big projects here and elsewhere in the region because its companies offer lower costs. Chinese companies are also competitive because they have acquired a lot of expertise in building large infrastructure projects in China, said Jerry Lou, Morgan Stanley’s China strategist.
In 10 years, Chinese companies have become the biggest suppliers to ports of cranes used to move shipping containers, displacing South Korean and Japanese companies, he said. “They are running at very high efficiency and at the lowest costs,” Mr. Lou said. “China is a game-changer, rather than a new player in the world’s construction industry.”
India is starting to respond to China’s growing influence by becoming more aggressive in courting trade partners. India recently signed a free-trade deal with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and South Korea. Officials have even begun talking about signing a trade deal with China to bolster exports.
India’s chief trade negotiator, D. K. Mittal, acknowledged that the country’s economic ties with its neighbors were not as strong as they should be and blamed political distrust between the countries. But he said leaders were now determined to improve economic relations, something he said was highlighted in a recent agreement with Bangladesh.
In that deal, India agreed to sell electricity to Bangladesh, provide it with a $1 billion line of credit for infrastructure projects and reduce tariffs on imports. Bangladesh agreed to allow Indian ships to use a port that is being redeveloped by China. “The political leaders have to rise above and say, ‘I want this to happen,’ ” Mr. Mittal said in an interview. “That’s what the leaders are realizing.”
*************************************************************
ReliefWeb - 100,000 Cyclone-Affected Families in Myanmar Need Shelter: IOM Appeal
Source: International Organization for Migration (IOM)
Date: 16 Feb 2010
IOM is appealing for USD 17 million to meet the shelter needs of 50,000 families in Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Delta, almost two years after Cyclone Nargis devastated the area.
"There are still as many as 100,000 families without the basic shelter they need to get through the wet season, but unless we get new funding by May 2010, we will be forced to close our three offices in the Delta and end our shelter programme," says IOM Myanmar Chief of Mission Mariko Tomiyama.
Cyclone Nargis swept through Myanmar on 2-3 of May 2008, leaving nearly 140,000 people dead and 2.4 million homeless.
According to the Tripartite Core Group of the UN, ASEAN and the Government of Myanmar, which has coordinated the post-Nargis emergency response and reconstruction effort, as of mid-January, there were still over half a million Nargis-affected people without adequate shelter.
Over the past 20 months, IOM has been actively engaged in emergency and early recovery efforts in the Delta, assisting over 400,000 people in the areas of shelter, health and psychosocial programmes.
IOM's shelter programme has helped over 58,000 households through a community-oriented approach. In addition to full and partial shelter assistance packages, this provides household level livelihood assistance, through the provision of home gardening kits, cash for work schemes, carpentry training, and community livelihood lending centres.
For more information, please contact Nelson Bosch at IOM Yangon. Email: nbosch@iom.int Tel. +95.1252560 Copyright © IOM. All rights reserved.
Source: International Organization for Migration (IOM)
Date: 16 Feb 2010
IOM is appealing for USD 17 million to meet the shelter needs of 50,000 families in Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Delta, almost two years after Cyclone Nargis devastated the area.
"There are still as many as 100,000 families without the basic shelter they need to get through the wet season, but unless we get new funding by May 2010, we will be forced to close our three offices in the Delta and end our shelter programme," says IOM Myanmar Chief of Mission Mariko Tomiyama.
Cyclone Nargis swept through Myanmar on 2-3 of May 2008, leaving nearly 140,000 people dead and 2.4 million homeless.
According to the Tripartite Core Group of the UN, ASEAN and the Government of Myanmar, which has coordinated the post-Nargis emergency response and reconstruction effort, as of mid-January, there were still over half a million Nargis-affected people without adequate shelter.
Over the past 20 months, IOM has been actively engaged in emergency and early recovery efforts in the Delta, assisting over 400,000 people in the areas of shelter, health and psychosocial programmes.
IOM's shelter programme has helped over 58,000 households through a community-oriented approach. In addition to full and partial shelter assistance packages, this provides household level livelihood assistance, through the provision of home gardening kits, cash for work schemes, carpentry training, and community livelihood lending centres.
For more information, please contact Nelson Bosch at IOM Yangon. Email: nbosch@iom.int Tel. +95.1252560 Copyright © IOM. All rights reserved.
*************************************************************
February 16, 2010 23:47 PM
Myanmar National Stabbed To Death After Quarrel
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 16 (Bernama) -- A Myanmar national was stabbed to death after a quarrel with two friends in a house at a squatter area near Jalan Peel Tuesday.
Cheras deputy police chief Supt Abdul Rahim Hamzah Othman said the victim was believed to have been involved in a quarrel with two other Myanmar friends at 6.20pm.
"We found a Myanmar man lying with a stab wound in the neck and a 12 inch dagger was found in the house. The victims's identity card was also found in the house," he told reporters at the crime scene here Tuesday.
He said the victim came to the house five days ago to celebrate Chinese New Year with two friends. One of them was a tenant of the house.
"A man was seen leaving the house soon after the incident. He was not wearing a shirt, had a tattoo in the back and was wearing a sarong."
Abdul Rahim said two men aged 32 and 35 years-old had been detained to assist police investigation.
The victim from Sungai Ara, Penang was here to attend a course and took some time to meet his old friends.
The case is investigated under Section 302 of Penal Code.
Myanmar National Stabbed To Death After Quarrel
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 16 (Bernama) -- A Myanmar national was stabbed to death after a quarrel with two friends in a house at a squatter area near Jalan Peel Tuesday.
Cheras deputy police chief Supt Abdul Rahim Hamzah Othman said the victim was believed to have been involved in a quarrel with two other Myanmar friends at 6.20pm.
"We found a Myanmar man lying with a stab wound in the neck and a 12 inch dagger was found in the house. The victims's identity card was also found in the house," he told reporters at the crime scene here Tuesday.
He said the victim came to the house five days ago to celebrate Chinese New Year with two friends. One of them was a tenant of the house.
"A man was seen leaving the house soon after the incident. He was not wearing a shirt, had a tattoo in the back and was wearing a sarong."
Abdul Rahim said two men aged 32 and 35 years-old had been detained to assist police investigation.
The victim from Sungai Ara, Penang was here to attend a course and took some time to meet his old friends.
The case is investigated under Section 302 of Penal Code.
*************************************************************
Viewlondon.co.uk
Report exposes abuse of Burma's persecuted ethnic minorities
16 February 2010 17:00 GMT
Another warning note ahead of elections in Burma has been sounded, with a major report unveiling the plight of the country's oft-persecuted ethnic minority groups.
Most international criticisms of the impending elections centre on the continued detention of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, one of 2,100 prisoners of conscience in Burma.
But a new report from Amnesty International UK says ethnic minority activists are being arrested, imprisoned, tortured and killed prior to this year's elections.
The human rights group spoke to 700 activists from Burma's seven largest ethnic minorities, including Rakhine, Shan, Kachin and Chin, over two years beginning August 2007 in a period including the 2007 Saffron Revolution.
They reported a constant state of surveillance, harassment and discrimination from the country's military junta.
No date has been set for the general elections by the deeply superstitious generals, who infamously relocated the country's capital from Rangoon to the astronomically-favourable jungle hideout of Naypyidaw in 2006.
Among the crimes committed specifically against Burma's ethnic minority groups uncovered by Amnesty is an incident where troops refused to rescue a pregnant woman in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis after discovering she was Karen and a Christian.
In 2007 meanwhile four teenage Kachin girls were caned in public and imprisoned for a year after their gang rape by Burmese soldiers was covered by BBC Burmese. Their only provocation before the attack had been to sing Kachin songs at a karaoke bar.
"Ethnic minorities play an important but seldom acknowledged role in Myanmar's [Burma's] political opposition," said Amnesty International's Burma expert Benjamin Zawacki.
"The government has responded to this activism in a heavy-handed manner, raising fears that repression will intensify before the elections.
"Activism in Myanmar is not confined to the central regions and urban centres. Any resolution of the country's deeply troubling human rights record has to take into account the rights and aspirations of the country's large population of ethnic minorities."
Amnesty International is calling on the Association of South East Nations (Asean), of which Burma is a member, and the region's major power China to expert more pressure on Burma to begin recognising people's rights to freedom of association, assembly and religion.
"The government of Myanmar should use the elections as an opportunity to improve its human rights record, not as a spur to increase repression of dissenting voices, especially those from the ethnic minorities," Mr Zawacki added.
Ethnic minorities make up between 35 and 40 per cent of Burma's population, and are the majority in seven separate states, all of which have engaged in armed insurgencies against the government.
Earlier this week the UK government said securing a global arms embargo against the Burmese regime was a priority.
"A global arms embargo remains a priority for this government, and we will continue to press for progress in our bilateral contacts and in relevant multi-lateral fora," said Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis.
"The ability of Burma to continue to purchase arms from a wide range of suppliers has helped to reduce their defence and security costs and modernise an army responsible for widespread and systematic human rights abuses."
Burma Campaign UK's campaigns officer Nang Seng commented: "It is incredible that there is still no global arms embargo, especially as the United Nations has said the Burmese army is committing war crimes. Countries supplying arms to Burma are complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity."
Arriving in Burma this week was the UN's human rights representative for the start of a five-day trip.
Tomas Ojea Quintana said he was yet to receive confirmation of a planned for meeting with Daw Suu Kyi, who has spent 15 of the last 20 years under house arrest.
Last month Burma's supreme court heard a final appeal against the extension of her latest period of house arrest, with a decision expected at the end of February.
16 February 2010 17:00 GMT
Another warning note ahead of elections in Burma has been sounded, with a major report unveiling the plight of the country's oft-persecuted ethnic minority groups.
Most international criticisms of the impending elections centre on the continued detention of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, one of 2,100 prisoners of conscience in Burma.
But a new report from Amnesty International UK says ethnic minority activists are being arrested, imprisoned, tortured and killed prior to this year's elections.
The human rights group spoke to 700 activists from Burma's seven largest ethnic minorities, including Rakhine, Shan, Kachin and Chin, over two years beginning August 2007 in a period including the 2007 Saffron Revolution.
They reported a constant state of surveillance, harassment and discrimination from the country's military junta.
No date has been set for the general elections by the deeply superstitious generals, who infamously relocated the country's capital from Rangoon to the astronomically-favourable jungle hideout of Naypyidaw in 2006.
Among the crimes committed specifically against Burma's ethnic minority groups uncovered by Amnesty is an incident where troops refused to rescue a pregnant woman in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis after discovering she was Karen and a Christian.
In 2007 meanwhile four teenage Kachin girls were caned in public and imprisoned for a year after their gang rape by Burmese soldiers was covered by BBC Burmese. Their only provocation before the attack had been to sing Kachin songs at a karaoke bar.
"Ethnic minorities play an important but seldom acknowledged role in Myanmar's [Burma's] political opposition," said Amnesty International's Burma expert Benjamin Zawacki.
"The government has responded to this activism in a heavy-handed manner, raising fears that repression will intensify before the elections.
"Activism in Myanmar is not confined to the central regions and urban centres. Any resolution of the country's deeply troubling human rights record has to take into account the rights and aspirations of the country's large population of ethnic minorities."
Amnesty International is calling on the Association of South East Nations (Asean), of which Burma is a member, and the region's major power China to expert more pressure on Burma to begin recognising people's rights to freedom of association, assembly and religion.
"The government of Myanmar should use the elections as an opportunity to improve its human rights record, not as a spur to increase repression of dissenting voices, especially those from the ethnic minorities," Mr Zawacki added.
Ethnic minorities make up between 35 and 40 per cent of Burma's population, and are the majority in seven separate states, all of which have engaged in armed insurgencies against the government.
Earlier this week the UK government said securing a global arms embargo against the Burmese regime was a priority.
"A global arms embargo remains a priority for this government, and we will continue to press for progress in our bilateral contacts and in relevant multi-lateral fora," said Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis.
"The ability of Burma to continue to purchase arms from a wide range of suppliers has helped to reduce their defence and security costs and modernise an army responsible for widespread and systematic human rights abuses."
Burma Campaign UK's campaigns officer Nang Seng commented: "It is incredible that there is still no global arms embargo, especially as the United Nations has said the Burmese army is committing war crimes. Countries supplying arms to Burma are complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity."
Arriving in Burma this week was the UN's human rights representative for the start of a five-day trip.
Tomas Ojea Quintana said he was yet to receive confirmation of a planned for meeting with Daw Suu Kyi, who has spent 15 of the last 20 years under house arrest.
Last month Burma's supreme court heard a final appeal against the extension of her latest period of house arrest, with a decision expected at the end of February.
*************************************************************
FEBRUARY 16, 2010, 8:22 A.M. ET
WALL STREET JOURNAL - Myanmar Dissident's Release Spurs Questions
By A WALL STREET JOURNAL REPORTER
The release of a leading dissident in Myanmar over the weekend has intensified questions about whether the military regime will keep its promise to hold free and fair elections this year, and about what form the opposition will take.
The concerns deepened on Tuesday, amid reports that the government sentenced four women activists to prison terms with hard labor and the release of an Amnesty International study detailing cases of torture and other abuses against activists in recent years. These developments cast a shadow over a visit by United Nations envoy Tomás Ojea Quintana, who is touring Myanmar to study the country's progress on human rights. Advocacy groups have long accused Myanmar's regime of abuses including the incarceration of more than 2,000 dissidents, notably famed Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
The regime has tried to appear more conciliatory recently. On Saturday, it released a prominent dissident, Tin Oo, from house arrest, ending a period of detention that began in 2003. Mr. Tin Oo helped found the country's main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, along with Ms. Suu Kyi in 1988. The NLD easily won elections two years later, but the government ignored the results and eventually imprisoned many senior NLD leaders, including Ms. Suu Kyi and Mr. Tin Oo, the organization's vice chairman.
Ahead of the planned first national election since that 1990 one the NLD won, the regime has also allowed Ms. Suu Kyi to meet with top officials of her party. Analysts say the military wants to hold the vote to enhance its legitimacy and needs some measure of opposition participation to lend credibility to the process.
Although dissidents and exiles welcomed Mr. Tin Oo's release, they questioned whether it represented significant progress, given that the government hasn't released Ms. Suu Kyi from house arrest. Leaders in the U.S. and elsewhere say Ms. Suu Kyi's release is a precondition to holding a free and fair election.
Some dissidents said they suspect military officials released Mr. Tin Oo because they may consider him to be too old, at age 82, to stir up serious trouble.
"It is expected that the junta will launch such a charm offensive to improve its image before the elections," said Soe Aung, a spokesman for the Forum for Democracy in Burma, a Thailand-based dissident group. Still, "the junta will make sure at all costs that the opposition will be weakened if not paralyzed before the elections," he said.
Attempts to reach the Myanmar government, which rarely talks to foreign journalists, were unsuccessful. Than Shwe, the country's reclusive senior military leader, has in the past said the election will be "free and fair." The regime said the vote will take place this year, but hasn't announced a date.
It remained unclear what, if any, progress the U.N. special envoy can achieve during his visit. He is expected to meet with government officials but it remained uncertain whether he would be allowed to meet Ms. Suu Kyi. He met with opposition leaders Monday and traveled to northwestern Rakhine state Tuesday, where he was expected to visit a prison.
The Associated Press, citing an opposition spokesman, said that the four women who were sentenced to two years of prison and hard labor on Monday were arrested in October 2009 after being accused of offering to Buddhist monks alms that included religious literature. The women used to hold prayer services at Yangon's Shwedagon pagoda for Ms. Suu Kyi's release, the AP said.
The Amnesty International report, which covered two years ending in August 2009, alleged that authorities targeted ethnic minority activists and in some cases tortured or executed them. It called on the government to release political prisoners, among other steps.
The government has denied accusations of human rights abuses in the past.
Rebuilding the opposition in the face of persecution from state authorities remains a critical issue for Myanmar, a resource-rich country whose troubles have long unnerved neighbors in the region. Despite widespread concerns about the legitimacy of this year's vote, some analysts are hopeful it will at least open the door to more open political discourse, especially if more political prisoners are released in the months ahead.
Over the past 15 years, the junta has dismantled the NLD's network of regional offices across the country and subjected leaders who aren't in prison to constant surveillance, according to human-rights groups. It has also prohibited the NLD from holding major summits, though it allowed the group to keep a headquarters in Yangon. Many senior opposition figures no longer live in Myanmar, and most of the top ones who remain involved now are in their 70s and 80s.
The NLD party has looked to regroup over the past year. It has expanded its central leadership committee to bring in new blood.
But party members are still deeply divided over whether to participate in the election. Some believe nothing short of a full boycott is acceptable unless the junta frees Ms. Suu Kyi and takes other steps such as revising the country's constitution, which reserves many government posts and 25% of parliamentary seats for military officers. Younger opposition members—including some in their 40s and 50s—are more willing to participate, according to dissidents. These members are said to believe that even if the vote is rigged, they could at least gain some positions of influence, and that sitting out would only marginalize the group further.
Mr. Tin Oo told followers that he planned to resume his political activities as deputy leader of the NLD despite warnings to desist, Reuters reported.
Details of his plans remained scant. A former army general who fell out with military leaders, Mr. Tin Oo spent numerous years in prison in recent decades. Authorities last detained him—along with Ms. Suu Kyi—in 2003 after a pro-government mob attacked their convoy during a tour of northern Myanmar in which several people were killed.
Government officials argued the two represented a threat to national security.
Since then, the regime had extended Mr. Tin Oo's detention annually. His latest term of detention expired on Saturday.
WALL STREET JOURNAL - Myanmar Dissident's Release Spurs Questions
By A WALL STREET JOURNAL REPORTER
The release of a leading dissident in Myanmar over the weekend has intensified questions about whether the military regime will keep its promise to hold free and fair elections this year, and about what form the opposition will take.
The concerns deepened on Tuesday, amid reports that the government sentenced four women activists to prison terms with hard labor and the release of an Amnesty International study detailing cases of torture and other abuses against activists in recent years. These developments cast a shadow over a visit by United Nations envoy Tomás Ojea Quintana, who is touring Myanmar to study the country's progress on human rights. Advocacy groups have long accused Myanmar's regime of abuses including the incarceration of more than 2,000 dissidents, notably famed Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
The regime has tried to appear more conciliatory recently. On Saturday, it released a prominent dissident, Tin Oo, from house arrest, ending a period of detention that began in 2003. Mr. Tin Oo helped found the country's main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, along with Ms. Suu Kyi in 1988. The NLD easily won elections two years later, but the government ignored the results and eventually imprisoned many senior NLD leaders, including Ms. Suu Kyi and Mr. Tin Oo, the organization's vice chairman.
Ahead of the planned first national election since that 1990 one the NLD won, the regime has also allowed Ms. Suu Kyi to meet with top officials of her party. Analysts say the military wants to hold the vote to enhance its legitimacy and needs some measure of opposition participation to lend credibility to the process.
Although dissidents and exiles welcomed Mr. Tin Oo's release, they questioned whether it represented significant progress, given that the government hasn't released Ms. Suu Kyi from house arrest. Leaders in the U.S. and elsewhere say Ms. Suu Kyi's release is a precondition to holding a free and fair election.
Some dissidents said they suspect military officials released Mr. Tin Oo because they may consider him to be too old, at age 82, to stir up serious trouble.
"It is expected that the junta will launch such a charm offensive to improve its image before the elections," said Soe Aung, a spokesman for the Forum for Democracy in Burma, a Thailand-based dissident group. Still, "the junta will make sure at all costs that the opposition will be weakened if not paralyzed before the elections," he said.
Attempts to reach the Myanmar government, which rarely talks to foreign journalists, were unsuccessful. Than Shwe, the country's reclusive senior military leader, has in the past said the election will be "free and fair." The regime said the vote will take place this year, but hasn't announced a date.
It remained unclear what, if any, progress the U.N. special envoy can achieve during his visit. He is expected to meet with government officials but it remained uncertain whether he would be allowed to meet Ms. Suu Kyi. He met with opposition leaders Monday and traveled to northwestern Rakhine state Tuesday, where he was expected to visit a prison.
The Associated Press, citing an opposition spokesman, said that the four women who were sentenced to two years of prison and hard labor on Monday were arrested in October 2009 after being accused of offering to Buddhist monks alms that included religious literature. The women used to hold prayer services at Yangon's Shwedagon pagoda for Ms. Suu Kyi's release, the AP said.
The Amnesty International report, which covered two years ending in August 2009, alleged that authorities targeted ethnic minority activists and in some cases tortured or executed them. It called on the government to release political prisoners, among other steps.
The government has denied accusations of human rights abuses in the past.
Rebuilding the opposition in the face of persecution from state authorities remains a critical issue for Myanmar, a resource-rich country whose troubles have long unnerved neighbors in the region. Despite widespread concerns about the legitimacy of this year's vote, some analysts are hopeful it will at least open the door to more open political discourse, especially if more political prisoners are released in the months ahead.
Over the past 15 years, the junta has dismantled the NLD's network of regional offices across the country and subjected leaders who aren't in prison to constant surveillance, according to human-rights groups. It has also prohibited the NLD from holding major summits, though it allowed the group to keep a headquarters in Yangon. Many senior opposition figures no longer live in Myanmar, and most of the top ones who remain involved now are in their 70s and 80s.
The NLD party has looked to regroup over the past year. It has expanded its central leadership committee to bring in new blood.
But party members are still deeply divided over whether to participate in the election. Some believe nothing short of a full boycott is acceptable unless the junta frees Ms. Suu Kyi and takes other steps such as revising the country's constitution, which reserves many government posts and 25% of parliamentary seats for military officers. Younger opposition members—including some in their 40s and 50s—are more willing to participate, according to dissidents. These members are said to believe that even if the vote is rigged, they could at least gain some positions of influence, and that sitting out would only marginalize the group further.
Mr. Tin Oo told followers that he planned to resume his political activities as deputy leader of the NLD despite warnings to desist, Reuters reported.
Details of his plans remained scant. A former army general who fell out with military leaders, Mr. Tin Oo spent numerous years in prison in recent decades. Authorities last detained him—along with Ms. Suu Kyi—in 2003 after a pro-government mob attacked their convoy during a tour of northern Myanmar in which several people were killed.
Government officials argued the two represented a threat to national security.
Since then, the regime had extended Mr. Tin Oo's detention annually. His latest term of detention expired on Saturday.
*************************************************************
The Irrawaddy - Burma’s Election: Credibility at Stake
By HTET AUNG - Tuesday, February 16, 2010
By repeating promises to hold a free and fair election in Burma this year, Snr-Gen Than Shwe has been playing a time game by delaying the formation of an election commission in accordance to the 2008 Constitution, the promulgation of an election law and the registration of political parties.
“Now, according to the state’s seven-step roadmap, a free and fair election will take place soon,” said Snr-Gen Than Shwe in a Feb. 12 statement released on the 63rd anniversary of Union Day. But he again failed to mention the time frame for the election process.
The existing electoral law, formulated in 1989, will be canceled when the new law is promulgated, which will lead to the automatic repeal of the 1990 election results.
For the past 20 years, the 1990 election results has been a thorny political issue which gave a popular mandate to the National League for Democracy (NLD) and challenged the legitimacy of the ruling junta, but the controversy will soon end, unresolved, and remain an ugly mark on the country's history.
The NLD will soon face this reality, and the election will no doubt be held with the international community observing the credibility of the election, with a goal to ensure that it's inclusive, free and fair.
For a credible election, the new election law must embrace the following key principles.
1: The law must include and uphold the principles of impartiality, independence, non-partisanship, accountability and transparency and must be free from the influence of the ruling junta.
Theoretically, there are three models for election management bodies: the independent model, the governmental model and a mixed model (a combination of the former two models). According to the existing election commission law, Burma’s election commission is based on the governmental model.
The existing Election Commission Law No. 1/88, issued on Sept. 21, 1988, is still in effect. Article 3 of Chapter 2, titled “Formation,” reads: “The State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) [now State Peace and Development Council] can expand the number of the EC members or replace vacant EC members.”
Article 4 (b) of the Chapter 3 “Responsibility and Rights” reads: “The commission shall draw the necessary laws and regulations, and submit them to the SLORC.” Therefore, the law does not really grant the EC a legal concept and framework to uphold the principles to be free from the control of the junta.
2: The political party registration law must guarantee all ethnic nationalities the right to form political parties and to contest in elections.
The EC is responsible for registering and recognizing the formation of political parties in accord with the law. On this point, the issue of cease-fire ethnic groups becomes critical in terms of the right to form political parties that represent their interests.
The existing registration law prohibits groups that form armed forces to fight against the ruling government from forming political parties and contesting an election.
Article 3 (B) of the law reads: “The insurgent organizations which hold arms to go against the state are not allowed to apply for the formation of political party.”
The junta has removed ethnic cease-fire groups from the list of unlawful organizations, but it would be expected that, under the new law, the junta will not grant cease-fire groups the right to form political parties without first transforming their armed forces into a Border Guard Force under the regime.
Consequently, the BGF issue is likely to prevent the junta from holding elections in constituencies controlled by some ethnic cease-fire groups, which would affect the inclusiveness of the election by leaving large numbers of people out of the process.
3: The election commission must be transparent in all the procedures of collecting and issuing voter lists and the number of ballot papers printed in order to prevent from misusing or exploiting the voter list and the ballots, leading to undermining a “free and fair” election.
In the 1990 election, Burma had 492 constituencies, but the EC held elections in 485 constituencies, leaving seven constituencies in which no election was held. The EC opened 15,154 polling stations across the country. There were 20.8 million eligible voters of which 15.1 million cast votes.
In many past elections, there have been allegations of multiple registration of the same voter in different constituencies and the manipulation of ballot tabulations.
For the list of eligible voters in Burma, the EC relies on the junta’s administrative mechanism even though the electoral law grants it that responsibility.
Article 12 (A and B) of Chapter 6 titled “Collection of Eligible Voters” in the existing Pyithu Hluttaw Electoral Law issued on May 31, reads: “The Commission will collect the list of eligible voters to elect Hluttaw representatives.”
Burma has not conducted a systemic population census nationwide since 1983 and the country has no capacity to introduce a computerized voter list to prevent multiple registrations.
A number of factors can lead to manipulating a voter list, if the process is not transparent. There has been a dramatic increase in population movement in the past 20 years.
Burma is now a country with millions of emigrants, including more than 150,000 refugees in Thailand and neighboring countries.
In addition, there are perhaps a half million internally displaced persons, stateless persons, and a significant number of Royhingja in the western areas of the country without permanent homes.
Article 13 (B) of the law reads: “The Ward or Village Election Commissions must include in the voter list the armed forces personnel, Burmese diplomats and their families living outside the country, the scholars and their families studying [in foreign universities] and those who the government officially allowed to go abroad.”
Most Burmese emigrants outside the country usually maintain their name on their family registration papers and the majority are eligible voters. Therefore, there are likely to be millions of blank ballots in polling stations on the day of the election set aside for those eligible voters, but who in many cases will not be able to return and cast their votes. These ballots are vulnerable to misuse by officials.
Another issue is that election commissions around the world usually print from 2 to 5 percent more ballots than are actually needed, in order to cover emergency situations. The EC must be transparent in this area to maintain public credibility.
If the past is guide, the 2008 referendum on the current Constitution should serve as a warming to those who will monitor the election. The referendum convening commission announced that 92 percent of the 98 percent of eligible voters cast a “YES” vote, leading to widespread disbelief based on the public protests of irregularities during the referendum voting.
If the junta fails to conduct a transparent and fair election in these three key areas, the upcoming election will lack credibility in the eyes of the people and the international community.
By HTET AUNG - Tuesday, February 16, 2010
By repeating promises to hold a free and fair election in Burma this year, Snr-Gen Than Shwe has been playing a time game by delaying the formation of an election commission in accordance to the 2008 Constitution, the promulgation of an election law and the registration of political parties.
“Now, according to the state’s seven-step roadmap, a free and fair election will take place soon,” said Snr-Gen Than Shwe in a Feb. 12 statement released on the 63rd anniversary of Union Day. But he again failed to mention the time frame for the election process.
The existing electoral law, formulated in 1989, will be canceled when the new law is promulgated, which will lead to the automatic repeal of the 1990 election results.
For the past 20 years, the 1990 election results has been a thorny political issue which gave a popular mandate to the National League for Democracy (NLD) and challenged the legitimacy of the ruling junta, but the controversy will soon end, unresolved, and remain an ugly mark on the country's history.
The NLD will soon face this reality, and the election will no doubt be held with the international community observing the credibility of the election, with a goal to ensure that it's inclusive, free and fair.
For a credible election, the new election law must embrace the following key principles.
1: The law must include and uphold the principles of impartiality, independence, non-partisanship, accountability and transparency and must be free from the influence of the ruling junta.
Theoretically, there are three models for election management bodies: the independent model, the governmental model and a mixed model (a combination of the former two models). According to the existing election commission law, Burma’s election commission is based on the governmental model.
The existing Election Commission Law No. 1/88, issued on Sept. 21, 1988, is still in effect. Article 3 of Chapter 2, titled “Formation,” reads: “The State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) [now State Peace and Development Council] can expand the number of the EC members or replace vacant EC members.”
Article 4 (b) of the Chapter 3 “Responsibility and Rights” reads: “The commission shall draw the necessary laws and regulations, and submit them to the SLORC.” Therefore, the law does not really grant the EC a legal concept and framework to uphold the principles to be free from the control of the junta.
2: The political party registration law must guarantee all ethnic nationalities the right to form political parties and to contest in elections.
The EC is responsible for registering and recognizing the formation of political parties in accord with the law. On this point, the issue of cease-fire ethnic groups becomes critical in terms of the right to form political parties that represent their interests.
The existing registration law prohibits groups that form armed forces to fight against the ruling government from forming political parties and contesting an election.
Article 3 (B) of the law reads: “The insurgent organizations which hold arms to go against the state are not allowed to apply for the formation of political party.”
The junta has removed ethnic cease-fire groups from the list of unlawful organizations, but it would be expected that, under the new law, the junta will not grant cease-fire groups the right to form political parties without first transforming their armed forces into a Border Guard Force under the regime.
Consequently, the BGF issue is likely to prevent the junta from holding elections in constituencies controlled by some ethnic cease-fire groups, which would affect the inclusiveness of the election by leaving large numbers of people out of the process.
3: The election commission must be transparent in all the procedures of collecting and issuing voter lists and the number of ballot papers printed in order to prevent from misusing or exploiting the voter list and the ballots, leading to undermining a “free and fair” election.
In the 1990 election, Burma had 492 constituencies, but the EC held elections in 485 constituencies, leaving seven constituencies in which no election was held. The EC opened 15,154 polling stations across the country. There were 20.8 million eligible voters of which 15.1 million cast votes.
In many past elections, there have been allegations of multiple registration of the same voter in different constituencies and the manipulation of ballot tabulations.
For the list of eligible voters in Burma, the EC relies on the junta’s administrative mechanism even though the electoral law grants it that responsibility.
Article 12 (A and B) of Chapter 6 titled “Collection of Eligible Voters” in the existing Pyithu Hluttaw Electoral Law issued on May 31, reads: “The Commission will collect the list of eligible voters to elect Hluttaw representatives.”
Burma has not conducted a systemic population census nationwide since 1983 and the country has no capacity to introduce a computerized voter list to prevent multiple registrations.
A number of factors can lead to manipulating a voter list, if the process is not transparent. There has been a dramatic increase in population movement in the past 20 years.
Burma is now a country with millions of emigrants, including more than 150,000 refugees in Thailand and neighboring countries.
In addition, there are perhaps a half million internally displaced persons, stateless persons, and a significant number of Royhingja in the western areas of the country without permanent homes.
Article 13 (B) of the law reads: “The Ward or Village Election Commissions must include in the voter list the armed forces personnel, Burmese diplomats and their families living outside the country, the scholars and their families studying [in foreign universities] and those who the government officially allowed to go abroad.”
Most Burmese emigrants outside the country usually maintain their name on their family registration papers and the majority are eligible voters. Therefore, there are likely to be millions of blank ballots in polling stations on the day of the election set aside for those eligible voters, but who in many cases will not be able to return and cast their votes. These ballots are vulnerable to misuse by officials.
Another issue is that election commissions around the world usually print from 2 to 5 percent more ballots than are actually needed, in order to cover emergency situations. The EC must be transparent in this area to maintain public credibility.
If the past is guide, the 2008 referendum on the current Constitution should serve as a warming to those who will monitor the election. The referendum convening commission announced that 92 percent of the 98 percent of eligible voters cast a “YES” vote, leading to widespread disbelief based on the public protests of irregularities during the referendum voting.
If the junta fails to conduct a transparent and fair election in these three key areas, the upcoming election will lack credibility in the eyes of the people and the international community.
*************************************************************
The Irrawaddy - NLD Leadership Expansion Talks Begin
By BA KAUNG - Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Discussions within the leadership of Burma's opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) on selecting members for the party's central committee began in Rangoon on Tuesday. At the end of the meeting, no candidates had yet been chosen, party spokesman Khin Maung Swe announced.
In the most significant move to reorganize the party since the 1990's, the NLD is choosing about 90 members for the reconstituted central committee, which was abolished by the regime in 1991.
The discussions within the central executive committee were led by NLD vice-chairman Tin Oo, who returned to take up his duties after being released from six years of house arrest at the weekend. Representatives from all states and divisions except Kayah State took part in the discussions, party officials said.
Khin Maung Swe said discussions would continue on Wednesday.
The selection of candidates for the party's second-line leadership has come in for criticism from some members, particularly in Pegu Division.
“Party expansion is good, but what's most important is if it is democratically processed,” said Myat Hla, the party chairman of Pegu Township who is currently suspended from his post for demanding the resignation of aging NLD leaders.
Myint Myint Aye, a party organizer from Upper Burma, said that the party, even though democratic in form, has existed as a bureaucratic monolith for the past 20 years.
According to Khin Maung Swe, if the party's central executive committee found that certain candidates were not properly chosen in a democratic manner, then it would ask the respective representatives of the relevant state and division to repeat the selection procedure.
During this week's discussions, seven central committee members will be selected from each big state or division, such as Rangoon and Mandalay, and five from small states such as Mon State.
Tin Oo, who is 82, reportedly gave his approval to the expansion of the party leadership, saying it should be welcomed that the younger leaders are taking leading roles since aging leaders could no longer actively perform party duties.
Khin Maung Swe said Tin Oo will follow the detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi's line and will support the party's Shwegondaing declaration calling for a constitutional review.
Tin Oo is reportedly in good health apart from an eye problem. “U Tin Oo told us that he will continue politics until Burma gains democracy even if he loses the sight of both eyes,” Khin Maung Swe said.
Some analysts suggest that the release of Tin Oo is a junta maneuver connected to its election plan. A regime official said last month said that Suu Kyi would be also be released from house arrest in November when her current term of detention expires.
By BA KAUNG - Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Discussions within the leadership of Burma's opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) on selecting members for the party's central committee began in Rangoon on Tuesday. At the end of the meeting, no candidates had yet been chosen, party spokesman Khin Maung Swe announced.
In the most significant move to reorganize the party since the 1990's, the NLD is choosing about 90 members for the reconstituted central committee, which was abolished by the regime in 1991.
The discussions within the central executive committee were led by NLD vice-chairman Tin Oo, who returned to take up his duties after being released from six years of house arrest at the weekend. Representatives from all states and divisions except Kayah State took part in the discussions, party officials said.
Khin Maung Swe said discussions would continue on Wednesday.
The selection of candidates for the party's second-line leadership has come in for criticism from some members, particularly in Pegu Division.
“Party expansion is good, but what's most important is if it is democratically processed,” said Myat Hla, the party chairman of Pegu Township who is currently suspended from his post for demanding the resignation of aging NLD leaders.
Myint Myint Aye, a party organizer from Upper Burma, said that the party, even though democratic in form, has existed as a bureaucratic monolith for the past 20 years.
According to Khin Maung Swe, if the party's central executive committee found that certain candidates were not properly chosen in a democratic manner, then it would ask the respective representatives of the relevant state and division to repeat the selection procedure.
During this week's discussions, seven central committee members will be selected from each big state or division, such as Rangoon and Mandalay, and five from small states such as Mon State.
Tin Oo, who is 82, reportedly gave his approval to the expansion of the party leadership, saying it should be welcomed that the younger leaders are taking leading roles since aging leaders could no longer actively perform party duties.
Khin Maung Swe said Tin Oo will follow the detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi's line and will support the party's Shwegondaing declaration calling for a constitutional review.
Tin Oo is reportedly in good health apart from an eye problem. “U Tin Oo told us that he will continue politics until Burma gains democracy even if he loses the sight of both eyes,” Khin Maung Swe said.
Some analysts suggest that the release of Tin Oo is a junta maneuver connected to its election plan. A regime official said last month said that Suu Kyi would be also be released from house arrest in November when her current term of detention expires.
*************************************************************
Narinjara news - European Parliament Delegation Visits Burmese Refugee Camp in Bangladesh
2/16/2010
Dhaka: A 12-member delegation from the European parliament visited two Burmese Muslim refugee camps in southern Bangladesh on Monday to witness the current situation of refugees in the camps, said an official from UNHCR.
"A 12-member delegation from the European parliament visited Rohingya refugee camps in Cox's Bazar on Monday. It is a regular tour of the European parliament to the refugee camps in the early period every year. I do not think their visit to the refugee camps is related to Quintana's tour of Burma," he said.
Quintana, the UN Human Rights Envoy to Burma, started a five-day visit to Burma on Monday and he is now visiting Arakan State to see about the situation of the Muslim community there.
The European delegation arrived at Kutupalong refugee camp around 10 am and met many refugees in the camp.
A teacher from the camp said, "They came to our camp in the morning and asked us many questions about the situation of refugees in the camp. They promised us they would do improvements for Muslim refugees in the camp in the future."
Most of the Burmese Muslim refugees in the camps requested the delegation bring them to third countries under the European resettlement program to improve their lives.
"The refugees' situation is very bad in the refugee camps at present and we do not want to live here. We have no chance to visit outside of the camp. It is like a prison. At the same time we are unable to return to Burma. So we requested them to bring us to third countries," the teacher said.
The resettlement program for Burmese Muslims in the camps is still operating and many refugees have left for Canada, UK, Australia, and a few other European countries in the last year.
In Kutupalong and Nayapara refugee camps there are over 25,000 UN registered refugees, while nearly 40,000 unregistered refugees are living outside the camps.
According to refugee sources, one refugee named Sonshu Arlong, ID number 6610 from B Block of Kutupalong camp, was detained and beaten by Bangladesh camp authorities for revealing the situation in the camp to the delegation, after camp authorities prohibited the refugees from disclosing the issues.
2/16/2010
Dhaka: A 12-member delegation from the European parliament visited two Burmese Muslim refugee camps in southern Bangladesh on Monday to witness the current situation of refugees in the camps, said an official from UNHCR.
"A 12-member delegation from the European parliament visited Rohingya refugee camps in Cox's Bazar on Monday. It is a regular tour of the European parliament to the refugee camps in the early period every year. I do not think their visit to the refugee camps is related to Quintana's tour of Burma," he said.
Quintana, the UN Human Rights Envoy to Burma, started a five-day visit to Burma on Monday and he is now visiting Arakan State to see about the situation of the Muslim community there.
The European delegation arrived at Kutupalong refugee camp around 10 am and met many refugees in the camp.
A teacher from the camp said, "They came to our camp in the morning and asked us many questions about the situation of refugees in the camp. They promised us they would do improvements for Muslim refugees in the camp in the future."
Most of the Burmese Muslim refugees in the camps requested the delegation bring them to third countries under the European resettlement program to improve their lives.
"The refugees' situation is very bad in the refugee camps at present and we do not want to live here. We have no chance to visit outside of the camp. It is like a prison. At the same time we are unable to return to Burma. So we requested them to bring us to third countries," the teacher said.
The resettlement program for Burmese Muslims in the camps is still operating and many refugees have left for Canada, UK, Australia, and a few other European countries in the last year.
In Kutupalong and Nayapara refugee camps there are over 25,000 UN registered refugees, while nearly 40,000 unregistered refugees are living outside the camps.
According to refugee sources, one refugee named Sonshu Arlong, ID number 6610 from B Block of Kutupalong camp, was detained and beaten by Bangladesh camp authorities for revealing the situation in the camp to the delegation, after camp authorities prohibited the refugees from disclosing the issues.
*************************************************************
Narinjara News - 5 Days Remand for Burmese Detained in Spy Case
2/16/2010
Cox’sbazar: Bangladesh authorities took a five-day remand from Cox's Bazar court on Monday to interrogate eight Burmese citizens who were arrested by the Bangladesh coast guard on suspicion of espionage, said a police official from Teknaf.
The official said, "They were sent to jail in Cox's Bazar from Teknaf on Sunday. The next day police officials took five days remand from the court to interrogate them. An eight-member team of high officials have been interrogating them in Cox's Bazar."
The Burmese nationals from Manaung Island in Maungdaw Township were arrested by Bangladesh forces at Sahaporirdip Island in the mouth of the Naff River on 12 February after they came to Bangladesh to sell cattle.
"We discovered nine documents related to the Bangladesh military on them during the arrest. Among the nine documents are nine pictures, one important letter, and a mobile telephone set. We suspected they were related to the Burmese army," the official said.
Seven of the arrestees were identified as Ko Aung Htay, Ko Min Soe, Ko Soe Naing, Ko Nyi Htay, Ko Soe Maung, U Maung Soe Yin, Ko Maung Win, while the identity of the eighth man was unknown.
This is the first time a number of Burmese citizens have been arrested in Bangladesh in alleged spy case, even though many traders and businessmen come to Bangladesh illegally every day to sell smuggled goods such as rice, cattle, timber, and fish.
Even if the authority finds they are not guilty of espionage, they will still be charged under immigration law for coming to Bangladesh without passports, the police official added.
Relations between the two neighbors have improved recently after representative delegations have been sent for meetings to either country. The border situation was tense in November of 2008 after Bangladesh and Burma sent warships to a disputed stretch of the Bay of Bengal believed to contain large oil and gas reserves.
The sea territory between the two nations has not been demarcated and both claim the stretch of the Bay of Bengal as their own.
2/16/2010
Cox’sbazar: Bangladesh authorities took a five-day remand from Cox's Bazar court on Monday to interrogate eight Burmese citizens who were arrested by the Bangladesh coast guard on suspicion of espionage, said a police official from Teknaf.
The official said, "They were sent to jail in Cox's Bazar from Teknaf on Sunday. The next day police officials took five days remand from the court to interrogate them. An eight-member team of high officials have been interrogating them in Cox's Bazar."
The Burmese nationals from Manaung Island in Maungdaw Township were arrested by Bangladesh forces at Sahaporirdip Island in the mouth of the Naff River on 12 February after they came to Bangladesh to sell cattle.
"We discovered nine documents related to the Bangladesh military on them during the arrest. Among the nine documents are nine pictures, one important letter, and a mobile telephone set. We suspected they were related to the Burmese army," the official said.
Seven of the arrestees were identified as Ko Aung Htay, Ko Min Soe, Ko Soe Naing, Ko Nyi Htay, Ko Soe Maung, U Maung Soe Yin, Ko Maung Win, while the identity of the eighth man was unknown.
This is the first time a number of Burmese citizens have been arrested in Bangladesh in alleged spy case, even though many traders and businessmen come to Bangladesh illegally every day to sell smuggled goods such as rice, cattle, timber, and fish.
Even if the authority finds they are not guilty of espionage, they will still be charged under immigration law for coming to Bangladesh without passports, the police official added.
Relations between the two neighbors have improved recently after representative delegations have been sent for meetings to either country. The border situation was tense in November of 2008 after Bangladesh and Burma sent warships to a disputed stretch of the Bay of Bengal believed to contain large oil and gas reserves.
The sea territory between the two nations has not been demarcated and both claim the stretch of the Bay of Bengal as their own.
*************************************************************
Thai deportation policy under fire
Tuesday, 16 February 2010 18:33 Usa Pichai
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The Thai government’s policy to deport millions of Burmese migrants from Thailand from March 1 has come under fire from labour rights groups and triggered protests.
Human Rights and Development Foundation (HRDF) led rights organizations have complained to representatives of the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights of Migrants and on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar, as well as the Director General of the International Labour Organisation. The complaint letter noted that over two million migrants are threatened with deportation by the Royal Thai Government after 28 February if they fail to go by the nationality verification, a press statement released on Tuesday said.
“Thailand’s migration policies must be carefully planned to ensure protection of migrants’ human rights. The nationality verification process has not been well thought out and remains a serious threat to human security of over two million workers that contribute greatly to our economy and society,” said Somchai Homlaor, Secretary General of the HRDF.
The groups mentioned that most migrants from Burma left their country illegally but are still being pressurized by the government to submit their biographical information to Burma’s regime, return to Burma to complete the process and then return to work “legally” in Thailand with temporary Burmese passports.
According to the Thailand Ministry of Labour, only 10 per cent of migrant workers from Lao and Cambodia in Thailand have submitted documents to extend their work permits at of the end of January.
Thanit Chumnoi, the Director of Office Of Foreign Workers Administration said last week that the total number of registered migrant workers this year is about 140, 000 against the total 1,400,000 last year.
The rights groups said that the declining numbers is because of the nationality verification that most migrants in Thailand do not yet understand and have not yet started the process.
“The Government must extend the February 28 deadline and immediately stop threatening mass deportation. Threatening migrants to comply with the imminent deadline or face deportation disregards the challenging situation faced by migrants from Burma,” said Sawit Keawan, General Secretary of the State Enterprise Workers Relations Confederation (SERC).
“Additionaly, if mass deportations are carried out it will serve only to harm Thailand’s economy which remains heavily reliant on migrant labour, as well as Thailand’s international reputation,” he added.
On Tuesday morning, migrant workers, trade unionists and rights defenders marched to the Government House to submit an open letter of concern to the Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, signed by over 60 domestic, regional and international rights groups and trade unions. The letter demands an end to threats of mass deportation for migrants and sweeping changes in the government’s nationality verification policy.
Meanwhile in Chiang Mai, a northern province of Thailand, where ten thousands of Shan ethnic from Burma are working in several business ventures, representative from the group also submitted the letter through the Deputy Governor Pirote Saengphuwong.
Tuesday, 16 February 2010 18:33 Usa Pichai
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The Thai government’s policy to deport millions of Burmese migrants from Thailand from March 1 has come under fire from labour rights groups and triggered protests.
Human Rights and Development Foundation (HRDF) led rights organizations have complained to representatives of the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights of Migrants and on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar, as well as the Director General of the International Labour Organisation. The complaint letter noted that over two million migrants are threatened with deportation by the Royal Thai Government after 28 February if they fail to go by the nationality verification, a press statement released on Tuesday said.
“Thailand’s migration policies must be carefully planned to ensure protection of migrants’ human rights. The nationality verification process has not been well thought out and remains a serious threat to human security of over two million workers that contribute greatly to our economy and society,” said Somchai Homlaor, Secretary General of the HRDF.
The groups mentioned that most migrants from Burma left their country illegally but are still being pressurized by the government to submit their biographical information to Burma’s regime, return to Burma to complete the process and then return to work “legally” in Thailand with temporary Burmese passports.
According to the Thailand Ministry of Labour, only 10 per cent of migrant workers from Lao and Cambodia in Thailand have submitted documents to extend their work permits at of the end of January.
Thanit Chumnoi, the Director of Office Of Foreign Workers Administration said last week that the total number of registered migrant workers this year is about 140, 000 against the total 1,400,000 last year.
The rights groups said that the declining numbers is because of the nationality verification that most migrants in Thailand do not yet understand and have not yet started the process.
“The Government must extend the February 28 deadline and immediately stop threatening mass deportation. Threatening migrants to comply with the imminent deadline or face deportation disregards the challenging situation faced by migrants from Burma,” said Sawit Keawan, General Secretary of the State Enterprise Workers Relations Confederation (SERC).
“Additionaly, if mass deportations are carried out it will serve only to harm Thailand’s economy which remains heavily reliant on migrant labour, as well as Thailand’s international reputation,” he added.
On Tuesday morning, migrant workers, trade unionists and rights defenders marched to the Government House to submit an open letter of concern to the Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, signed by over 60 domestic, regional and international rights groups and trade unions. The letter demands an end to threats of mass deportation for migrants and sweeping changes in the government’s nationality verification policy.
Meanwhile in Chiang Mai, a northern province of Thailand, where ten thousands of Shan ethnic from Burma are working in several business ventures, representative from the group also submitted the letter through the Deputy Governor Pirote Saengphuwong.
*************************************************************
Rangoon sans lights, water
Tuesday, 16 February 2010 22:39 Min Thet
Rangoon (Mizzima) – Residents living in upper floors in Rangoon Division are in a quandary, facing as they are severe water shortage due to frequent power disruption and low voltage of electricity supplied.
Rotational electricity supply in Rangoon Townships stopped since late last month. But the voltage is very low even when power is restored making it difficult to operate water pumps. So, residents living on upper floors are facing water shortage.
"We are tenants on the second floor. Our water pump is 1.5 HP but we could not pump up water for four days. On previous days we pumped water at about 2 a.m. and then went to bed. Now water is not available though we are deprived of our sleep," an upset resident in Kyaikkasan Ward, Bahan Township told Mizzima.
Earlier, electricity was supplied in Rangoon in a rationed manner in rotation. Group names like A, B and C were printed on electricity bills indicating hours of power cuts. Now these group names are no longer printed on the bills. Consumers cannot fathom when power will be restored and when there will a blackout.
"Earlier, we got power at six hours interval. One day each week we got round the clock supply. The system has changed. The township Electric Power Corporation (EPC) said that the power outage is due to maintenance of electrical poles when we contacted them," a local resident in Tamwe Township said.
The Chief Engineer from Rangoon EPC said that he was not authorized to answer questions relating to power distribution in Rangoon when contacted by Mizzima.
"Power supply was disrupted in Rangoon last year for many days. They said the reason was repairing leakage in the gas pipeline rendering gas turbines in Ahlone and Thaketa power stations out of service. Supply was rationed. The City FM owned by Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC) announced this. Now we have no news from any quarter," an electrical appliance shop in Kyauktada Township said.
The power shortage has hit sales of some electrical appliances shops.
"No one will buy our goods when power failure is severe. The worst affected areas are six downtown townships in Rangoon," the sales in-charge from an electric appliance shop in Pazundaung Township said.
Internet cafes, supermarkets, beauty saloons and stores are badly affected due to frequent power outage.
An official from Latha Township electricity distribution department said that they issued a new schedule of electricity distribution last month where each group would get supplies in rotation -- power for six hours each day and no power for whole day in a week, and no power for 12 hours for two consecutive days.
"We are accustomed to noisy generators and feel uncomfortable when there's no such noise. Though they said electricity is being distributed according to the new schedule, it is not followed. We don't get power supply even between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. that they claimed were regular supply hours. At least three or four times there are power outages even during this period. In the daytime, it is terrible. We don't get power supply even for one or two hours in the daytime," a local resident from Rangoon said.
Similarly there have been total power outages in Mandalay over five days, a local resident said.
"They cut power since yesterday on the excuse of connecting the new Ye Ywa power plant to the power grid. They said it would be completed on 15 February and power would be restored that day. But till today, February 16 power is not yet available. We have never experienced such long power cuts before," a construction company owner from Mandalay said.
Internet cafes, construction works, furniture works and industrial zones in Mandalay are badly affected, he added.
Electricity is supplied in Rangoon by the hydropower plant in Lawpita, Kayah State and gas turbine power stations in Thaketa, Ywama, Hlawga and Ahlone.
The Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) blasted a pylon in Kayah State on January 23 leading to severe shortage in Rangoon, the Padaukmyay FM radio station in Naypyitaw alleged.
Tuesday, 16 February 2010 22:39 Min Thet
Rangoon (Mizzima) – Residents living in upper floors in Rangoon Division are in a quandary, facing as they are severe water shortage due to frequent power disruption and low voltage of electricity supplied.
Rotational electricity supply in Rangoon Townships stopped since late last month. But the voltage is very low even when power is restored making it difficult to operate water pumps. So, residents living on upper floors are facing water shortage.
"We are tenants on the second floor. Our water pump is 1.5 HP but we could not pump up water for four days. On previous days we pumped water at about 2 a.m. and then went to bed. Now water is not available though we are deprived of our sleep," an upset resident in Kyaikkasan Ward, Bahan Township told Mizzima.
Earlier, electricity was supplied in Rangoon in a rationed manner in rotation. Group names like A, B and C were printed on electricity bills indicating hours of power cuts. Now these group names are no longer printed on the bills. Consumers cannot fathom when power will be restored and when there will a blackout.
"Earlier, we got power at six hours interval. One day each week we got round the clock supply. The system has changed. The township Electric Power Corporation (EPC) said that the power outage is due to maintenance of electrical poles when we contacted them," a local resident in Tamwe Township said.
The Chief Engineer from Rangoon EPC said that he was not authorized to answer questions relating to power distribution in Rangoon when contacted by Mizzima.
"Power supply was disrupted in Rangoon last year for many days. They said the reason was repairing leakage in the gas pipeline rendering gas turbines in Ahlone and Thaketa power stations out of service. Supply was rationed. The City FM owned by Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC) announced this. Now we have no news from any quarter," an electrical appliance shop in Kyauktada Township said.
The power shortage has hit sales of some electrical appliances shops.
"No one will buy our goods when power failure is severe. The worst affected areas are six downtown townships in Rangoon," the sales in-charge from an electric appliance shop in Pazundaung Township said.
Internet cafes, supermarkets, beauty saloons and stores are badly affected due to frequent power outage.
An official from Latha Township electricity distribution department said that they issued a new schedule of electricity distribution last month where each group would get supplies in rotation -- power for six hours each day and no power for whole day in a week, and no power for 12 hours for two consecutive days.
"We are accustomed to noisy generators and feel uncomfortable when there's no such noise. Though they said electricity is being distributed according to the new schedule, it is not followed. We don't get power supply even between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. that they claimed were regular supply hours. At least three or four times there are power outages even during this period. In the daytime, it is terrible. We don't get power supply even for one or two hours in the daytime," a local resident from Rangoon said.
Similarly there have been total power outages in Mandalay over five days, a local resident said.
"They cut power since yesterday on the excuse of connecting the new Ye Ywa power plant to the power grid. They said it would be completed on 15 February and power would be restored that day. But till today, February 16 power is not yet available. We have never experienced such long power cuts before," a construction company owner from Mandalay said.
Internet cafes, construction works, furniture works and industrial zones in Mandalay are badly affected, he added.
Electricity is supplied in Rangoon by the hydropower plant in Lawpita, Kayah State and gas turbine power stations in Thaketa, Ywama, Hlawga and Ahlone.
The Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) blasted a pylon in Kayah State on January 23 leading to severe shortage in Rangoon, the Padaukmyay FM radio station in Naypyitaw alleged.
*************************************************************
DVB News - The house that Mahn Shah lived in
Joseph Allchin
Feb 16, 2010-In a suburb of the border town of Mae Sot one house is no longer a residence. It has, like many buildings in this town been turned into an ad hoc sweatshop.
It could not be relived in because on the morning of the 14th of February 2008 two men approached on the quiet road, out of their vehicle they carried bouquets of flowers.
They entered the gate of the two story suburban house and climbed the external stairs to the second story balcony that looks over the road and the dusty patch of grass and shrub.
On the balcony was the Karen National Union general secretary, Pado Mahn Shah. The revered leader was sitting reading the papers and would not have been particularly surprised to see people baring gifts or offerings.
He probably wasn’t surprised either when from within said offerings appeared the tools of his demise. He was shot several times in the chest. The last of many assassination attempts.
“For a long time the Burmese regime tried to kill my father” says Mahn Shah’s daughter Zoya Phan speaking to DVB from exile in London. “When I was 15 I survived three assassination attempts.”
“He had the ability to unite the Karen and also different ethnic groups”... “He was a bridge between the Karen and the democracy movement”... “they were so afraid of that”.
Perhaps the junta were afraid of the power that a people without division have against government. In particular with the Karen whose division has long been sewn by outsiders such as the Burmese and to an extent the British in their brief spell as colonial rulers.
Mahn Shah was significantly a non Christian in a Christian dominated orgainisation; the KNU. His routes were animist and this and his humanism gnawed at the junta assertion that the KNU was a sectarian organisation.
“He believed that anyone should be free to express their beliefs, he was a very open minded person” says Zoya.
And today the logger heads of the Karen’s supposedly sectarian conflict continues; the toll of this has lead to a sad epitaph in this suburb.
If the Karen conflict has a victor at the moment it seems it will be those who are tapping the riches that can be made in this region.
Riches that include the bonanza that the cheap labour of those now working in Mahn Shah’s final resting place can produce for their “work owners” as one knitter calls her employers.
Khin sits at her sewing table in the down stairs room of Mahn Shah’s old house, it is her lunch break and she is surrounded by dozens of unattended sewing machines that crowd the room. Khin is happy with the working conditions and pay, “it’s much better here than in Burma” she says. We are informed that they get one day off a month, after pay day. On Sundays they can finish at 5 p.m. and so do not have to return for the usual evening shift, which sees them work till about 10 or 11 depending on orders. They usually start at 7:30 a.m.
Khin has been in Mae Sot for a number of years and has a permit but is no longer in possession of it. She explains that; “Work owners (employers) tend to keep the original stay documents of their workers because if the [original papers] were kept with the workers, then it will be easy for them [us] to find jobs in other places as well as updating [the papers]after they get to new work places.” As she is asked about why this irregular practice takes place her boss, a Thai man appears.
Confusion reigns. The reporter’s first thought for the scared looking knitter, her face like that of an animal in the head lights of an oncoming vehicle. The boss does not know Burmese, he is pacified by being told that the only investigation is about Pado Mahn Shah; “ok, as long as you don’t film my clothes”.
Cho Cho is from Bago division and manages to leave the factory for a few minutes in her lunch break for a chat. She has heard of Mahn Shah; “I only learnt about him after I arrived here.” She says….“I heard some people who are of the same ethnicity as him arrived in a car, came up to him and shot him in the chest. They said ‘good evening atee [uncle in Karen] before they shot him. His house maid noticed what had happened so she screamed. She only saw the attackers’ back so couldn’t identify them.”
She continues; “I knew that he was a man in the revolution/resistance”.
Cho Cho concludes with a dark twist of the gossip mill that as she was working on this day last year two men turned up with bouquets as they had the previous year. “We were scared and informed them that there was no one political here”.
And in Mae Sot on the anniversary members of NGO’s gathered to remember him at a ceremony organised by the Karen Women’s Organisation (KWO) and the Back Pack Health Workers.
Mahn Mahn, head of the Back Pack Health Workers (who deliver aid to deprived communities in Karen state, as their name suggests; on the backs of daring medical teams), told DVB that; “He [Mahn Shah] believed that without democracy, equal ethnic rights cannot be achieved”…“Members of the KWO also gave speeches to honour Pado Mahn Shah’s appreciation in the role of women in achieving equal ethnic rights and democracy and his effort to point that out.”
No one to this date has been tried for the murder of Mahn Shah. The KNU are increasingly being pressurised by the Thai government. Factories and Thai-Burma trade meanwhile continue to flourish as push factors for workers see no signs of abating. For Zoya Phan; “If these people could live well at their homes back in Burma, they wouldn’t have to come to Thailand to work so hard with little pay.”
Thai authorities recognise those that can facilitate and help them the most; at the moment the KNU’s enemies and a major suspect for the killing of Mahn Shah; the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) who are considered essentially commercially driven.
The KNU are no longer able to offer the Thais so much, there are no communists for them to track for the Thai military and they can no longer stop the flourishing drug trade emanating from Burma.
If ever then there was a vision of how this could all end, it is here, from the balcony where an idealist fell to the assassin’s bullet. Drying in the sun beneath are now rows of red baby suites, the knitting of which is now an aspirational career choice for a young Burmese woman.
“Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.” - Khalil Gibran
Joseph Allchin
Feb 16, 2010-In a suburb of the border town of Mae Sot one house is no longer a residence. It has, like many buildings in this town been turned into an ad hoc sweatshop.
It could not be relived in because on the morning of the 14th of February 2008 two men approached on the quiet road, out of their vehicle they carried bouquets of flowers.
They entered the gate of the two story suburban house and climbed the external stairs to the second story balcony that looks over the road and the dusty patch of grass and shrub.
On the balcony was the Karen National Union general secretary, Pado Mahn Shah. The revered leader was sitting reading the papers and would not have been particularly surprised to see people baring gifts or offerings.
He probably wasn’t surprised either when from within said offerings appeared the tools of his demise. He was shot several times in the chest. The last of many assassination attempts.
“For a long time the Burmese regime tried to kill my father” says Mahn Shah’s daughter Zoya Phan speaking to DVB from exile in London. “When I was 15 I survived three assassination attempts.”
“He had the ability to unite the Karen and also different ethnic groups”... “He was a bridge between the Karen and the democracy movement”... “they were so afraid of that”.
Perhaps the junta were afraid of the power that a people without division have against government. In particular with the Karen whose division has long been sewn by outsiders such as the Burmese and to an extent the British in their brief spell as colonial rulers.
Mahn Shah was significantly a non Christian in a Christian dominated orgainisation; the KNU. His routes were animist and this and his humanism gnawed at the junta assertion that the KNU was a sectarian organisation.
“He believed that anyone should be free to express their beliefs, he was a very open minded person” says Zoya.
And today the logger heads of the Karen’s supposedly sectarian conflict continues; the toll of this has lead to a sad epitaph in this suburb.
If the Karen conflict has a victor at the moment it seems it will be those who are tapping the riches that can be made in this region.
Riches that include the bonanza that the cheap labour of those now working in Mahn Shah’s final resting place can produce for their “work owners” as one knitter calls her employers.
Khin sits at her sewing table in the down stairs room of Mahn Shah’s old house, it is her lunch break and she is surrounded by dozens of unattended sewing machines that crowd the room. Khin is happy with the working conditions and pay, “it’s much better here than in Burma” she says. We are informed that they get one day off a month, after pay day. On Sundays they can finish at 5 p.m. and so do not have to return for the usual evening shift, which sees them work till about 10 or 11 depending on orders. They usually start at 7:30 a.m.
Khin has been in Mae Sot for a number of years and has a permit but is no longer in possession of it. She explains that; “Work owners (employers) tend to keep the original stay documents of their workers because if the [original papers] were kept with the workers, then it will be easy for them [us] to find jobs in other places as well as updating [the papers]after they get to new work places.” As she is asked about why this irregular practice takes place her boss, a Thai man appears.
Confusion reigns. The reporter’s first thought for the scared looking knitter, her face like that of an animal in the head lights of an oncoming vehicle. The boss does not know Burmese, he is pacified by being told that the only investigation is about Pado Mahn Shah; “ok, as long as you don’t film my clothes”.
Cho Cho is from Bago division and manages to leave the factory for a few minutes in her lunch break for a chat. She has heard of Mahn Shah; “I only learnt about him after I arrived here.” She says….“I heard some people who are of the same ethnicity as him arrived in a car, came up to him and shot him in the chest. They said ‘good evening atee [uncle in Karen] before they shot him. His house maid noticed what had happened so she screamed. She only saw the attackers’ back so couldn’t identify them.”
She continues; “I knew that he was a man in the revolution/resistance”.
Cho Cho concludes with a dark twist of the gossip mill that as she was working on this day last year two men turned up with bouquets as they had the previous year. “We were scared and informed them that there was no one political here”.
And in Mae Sot on the anniversary members of NGO’s gathered to remember him at a ceremony organised by the Karen Women’s Organisation (KWO) and the Back Pack Health Workers.
Mahn Mahn, head of the Back Pack Health Workers (who deliver aid to deprived communities in Karen state, as their name suggests; on the backs of daring medical teams), told DVB that; “He [Mahn Shah] believed that without democracy, equal ethnic rights cannot be achieved”…“Members of the KWO also gave speeches to honour Pado Mahn Shah’s appreciation in the role of women in achieving equal ethnic rights and democracy and his effort to point that out.”
No one to this date has been tried for the murder of Mahn Shah. The KNU are increasingly being pressurised by the Thai government. Factories and Thai-Burma trade meanwhile continue to flourish as push factors for workers see no signs of abating. For Zoya Phan; “If these people could live well at their homes back in Burma, they wouldn’t have to come to Thailand to work so hard with little pay.”
Thai authorities recognise those that can facilitate and help them the most; at the moment the KNU’s enemies and a major suspect for the killing of Mahn Shah; the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) who are considered essentially commercially driven.
The KNU are no longer able to offer the Thais so much, there are no communists for them to track for the Thai military and they can no longer stop the flourishing drug trade emanating from Burma.
If ever then there was a vision of how this could all end, it is here, from the balcony where an idealist fell to the assassin’s bullet. Drying in the sun beneath are now rows of red baby suites, the knitting of which is now an aspirational career choice for a young Burmese woman.
“Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.” - Khalil Gibran
*************************************************************
Thai ministers hopes and fears for elections in Burma
Feb 16, 2010 (DVB)-Thai Minister for foreign affairs, Mr. Kasit Piromya has expressed desire for and pledged to support free and fair elections in Burma on an official visit to Indonesia.
“As friends and members of the ASEAN family we would like to see national reconciliation and peace in Myanmar (Burma). Holding free and fair elections will allow the country to bring peace and reconciliation back” Mr. Piromya told the Indonesian press, according to the Jakarta Post.
Both Mr. Piromya and Thai Senator and Chair of the ASEAN Inter Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC) Mr. Kraisak Choonhavan noted that the interests of Thailand would be best served by free elections in Burma.
“Those who are forced to participate will eventually have to flee to Thailand”, Mr. Choonhavan told DVB; perhaps referring to the large numbers of elected Burmese MP’s forced into exile after the last election in 1990.
“One thing is clear, that the referendum (2008 referendum on the constitution) was exclusive and the activities of the SPDC such as this has proved that this election will not be up to standard at all, in fact it will be very sub standard” he continued.
Mr. Piromya meanwhile revealed in Indonesia that Thailand would offer to send observers to Burma as well as train election officials in the country who may lack practice after 20 years; a proposal that Mr. Choonhavan speculated as “not even in their [junta] thoughts”.
He continued that; “Some ASEAN countries may accept so called Burmese ‘elections’ and call it a step forward in Burma, mainly countries like Cambodia, I worry that there will be differences in opinions in the ASEAN countries as to how to look at elections in Burma”.
“Indonesia is one country that has verbally opposed the constitution in Burma and has stood very strongly on the ASEAN charter on the abuses in Burma”, however; “Vietnam will be the chairman of ASEAN when the supposed elections take place”.
Meanwhile senior general Than Shwe stated during his Union Day address that “free and fair” elections would be held “soon” but no date has been set.
Hopes were raised recently however, when the military government released National League for Democracy (NLD) deputy 83-year old Tin Oo.
The former brigadier and defence minister has been under house arrest for the last 6-years and his military background is seen as potential bridge between junta and civilian politicians.
Feb 16, 2010 (DVB)-Thai Minister for foreign affairs, Mr. Kasit Piromya has expressed desire for and pledged to support free and fair elections in Burma on an official visit to Indonesia.
“As friends and members of the ASEAN family we would like to see national reconciliation and peace in Myanmar (Burma). Holding free and fair elections will allow the country to bring peace and reconciliation back” Mr. Piromya told the Indonesian press, according to the Jakarta Post.
Both Mr. Piromya and Thai Senator and Chair of the ASEAN Inter Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC) Mr. Kraisak Choonhavan noted that the interests of Thailand would be best served by free elections in Burma.
“Those who are forced to participate will eventually have to flee to Thailand”, Mr. Choonhavan told DVB; perhaps referring to the large numbers of elected Burmese MP’s forced into exile after the last election in 1990.
“One thing is clear, that the referendum (2008 referendum on the constitution) was exclusive and the activities of the SPDC such as this has proved that this election will not be up to standard at all, in fact it will be very sub standard” he continued.
Mr. Piromya meanwhile revealed in Indonesia that Thailand would offer to send observers to Burma as well as train election officials in the country who may lack practice after 20 years; a proposal that Mr. Choonhavan speculated as “not even in their [junta] thoughts”.
He continued that; “Some ASEAN countries may accept so called Burmese ‘elections’ and call it a step forward in Burma, mainly countries like Cambodia, I worry that there will be differences in opinions in the ASEAN countries as to how to look at elections in Burma”.
“Indonesia is one country that has verbally opposed the constitution in Burma and has stood very strongly on the ASEAN charter on the abuses in Burma”, however; “Vietnam will be the chairman of ASEAN when the supposed elections take place”.
Meanwhile senior general Than Shwe stated during his Union Day address that “free and fair” elections would be held “soon” but no date has been set.
Hopes were raised recently however, when the military government released National League for Democracy (NLD) deputy 83-year old Tin Oo.
The former brigadier and defence minister has been under house arrest for the last 6-years and his military background is seen as potential bridge between junta and civilian politicians.
No comments:
Post a Comment