Thai plan to return Karen to Myanmar draws protest
By JANE FUGAL,Associated Press Writer - Friday, February 5
BANGKOK, Thailand – A group of about 1,700 ethnic Karen refugees from military-run Myanmar will be in danger if forced back to their homeland from Thailand, rights groups said Thursday.
The Karen Women Organization said that Thailand plans to send back the Karen, mostly women and children, in the next two weeks even though the area around their village is believed to be infested with land mines due to Myanmar's war with ethnic insurgents.
The group has issued an open letter to the Thai government, which they plan to deliver Friday, calling for any repatriation plans to be suspended. The letter has been co-signed by 75 Thai and Myanmar social action groups.
According to the Karen Human Rights Group, Thai soldiers have been visiting the refugees three times a day to pressure them with threats that they must leave by Feb. 15.
In interviews with the group, the refugees said Thai soldiers told them they would be forced to leave if they do not do so on their own. One refugee interviewed by the group quoted a soldier saying: "If you do not go back, we will ask big trucks to come pick you up and throw you all into the sea."
Thailand has said the Karen will not be sent back against their will.
Col. Noppadol Watcharajitbaworn, the local military commander in the Thai province of Tak where the refugees are sheltering, said a first batch of 30 families _ more than 100 people _ had volunteered to return to their village and would be sent back Friday.
"There is no forced repatriation as it's not our policy," he said. "The commander of Thailand's Third Army has given assurances that these refugees are volunteering. We will not force them back if they don't volunteer to go."
He said the area around their village was safe and land mines were not a problem.
A London-based human rights group, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, has said the refugees could face abuses if they go back.
"There is a severe risk that if they return, the Karen refugees will be subjected to severe human rights violations, including forced labor and rape" by Myanmar government troops, Benedict Rogers, a spokesman for the group, said in an e-mailed statement.
He said the situation was an urgent one requiring immediate international attention, and called on Thailand to continue to provide the refugees with shelter and protection.
"These people must not be returned until they can do so safely, and that will only be possible when Burma is free and at peace," he said.
Myanmar has faced ethnic rebellions along its borders since the country, then called Burma, became independent in 1948. The Karen insurgent group, the Karen National Union, has been fighting for more than 60 years for greater autonomy from Myanmar's central government, but its strength has dwindled over the past decade due to army offensives and divisions within its ranks. Critics accuse the Myanmar government of abusing civilians during its insurgency campaigns.
There are about 160,000 long-term refugees staying at Thai camps along the border with Myanmar.
By JANE FUGAL,Associated Press Writer - Friday, February 5
BANGKOK, Thailand – A group of about 1,700 ethnic Karen refugees from military-run Myanmar will be in danger if forced back to their homeland from Thailand, rights groups said Thursday.
The Karen Women Organization said that Thailand plans to send back the Karen, mostly women and children, in the next two weeks even though the area around their village is believed to be infested with land mines due to Myanmar's war with ethnic insurgents.
The group has issued an open letter to the Thai government, which they plan to deliver Friday, calling for any repatriation plans to be suspended. The letter has been co-signed by 75 Thai and Myanmar social action groups.
According to the Karen Human Rights Group, Thai soldiers have been visiting the refugees three times a day to pressure them with threats that they must leave by Feb. 15.
In interviews with the group, the refugees said Thai soldiers told them they would be forced to leave if they do not do so on their own. One refugee interviewed by the group quoted a soldier saying: "If you do not go back, we will ask big trucks to come pick you up and throw you all into the sea."
Thailand has said the Karen will not be sent back against their will.
Col. Noppadol Watcharajitbaworn, the local military commander in the Thai province of Tak where the refugees are sheltering, said a first batch of 30 families _ more than 100 people _ had volunteered to return to their village and would be sent back Friday.
"There is no forced repatriation as it's not our policy," he said. "The commander of Thailand's Third Army has given assurances that these refugees are volunteering. We will not force them back if they don't volunteer to go."
He said the area around their village was safe and land mines were not a problem.
A London-based human rights group, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, has said the refugees could face abuses if they go back.
"There is a severe risk that if they return, the Karen refugees will be subjected to severe human rights violations, including forced labor and rape" by Myanmar government troops, Benedict Rogers, a spokesman for the group, said in an e-mailed statement.
He said the situation was an urgent one requiring immediate international attention, and called on Thailand to continue to provide the refugees with shelter and protection.
"These people must not be returned until they can do so safely, and that will only be possible when Burma is free and at peace," he said.
Myanmar has faced ethnic rebellions along its borders since the country, then called Burma, became independent in 1948. The Karen insurgent group, the Karen National Union, has been fighting for more than 60 years for greater autonomy from Myanmar's central government, but its strength has dwindled over the past decade due to army offensives and divisions within its ranks. Critics accuse the Myanmar government of abusing civilians during its insurgency campaigns.
There are about 160,000 long-term refugees staying at Thai camps along the border with Myanmar.
****************************************************************
Myanmar court agrees to hear dispute over Suu Kyi's home repairs
By: The Associated Press | 04 Feb 2010 | 06:56 AM ET
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Lawyers say a court next week will hear a dispute between detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her elder brother over efforts to renovate her lakeside house.
Suu Kyi was forced to suspend repairs on her house in late December after her estranged brother Aung San Oo lodged his objections. The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years, has spent most of her time in the dilapidated, two-story home.
Suu Kyi's lawyer Nyan Win said the Yangon Division Court has agreed hear from both sides on Feb. 10.
Aung San Oo, who is an American citizen, has long fought for partial ownership of the home. He sued Suu Kyi in 2000 for a share of the house and the nearly 2-acre (1-hectare) plot it sits on. The case is pending.
By: The Associated Press | 04 Feb 2010 | 06:56 AM ET
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Lawyers say a court next week will hear a dispute between detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her elder brother over efforts to renovate her lakeside house.
Suu Kyi was forced to suspend repairs on her house in late December after her estranged brother Aung San Oo lodged his objections. The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years, has spent most of her time in the dilapidated, two-story home.
Suu Kyi's lawyer Nyan Win said the Yangon Division Court has agreed hear from both sides on Feb. 10.
Aung San Oo, who is an American citizen, has long fought for partial ownership of the home. He sued Suu Kyi in 2000 for a share of the house and the nearly 2-acre (1-hectare) plot it sits on. The case is pending.
****************************************************************
ANALYSIS - China takes risky step with Myanmar pipelines
Wed Feb 3, 2010 10:39am IST
By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING (Reuters) - China will soon be burning oil and gas piped in through Myanmar, but putting some of its energy security in the hands of a pariah state beset by international sanctions and civil strife could be a risky gamble.
A gas pipeline with annual capacity of 12 billion cubic metres is due to come onstream within the next two years, carrying the fuel from military-ruled Myanmar's rich offshore deposits into southwestern China.
If all goes to plan, China at some point in the near future will start also receiving 12 million tonnes of oil a year via a separate pipeline, about as much as it imported from Sudan last year, its fifth-largest supplier. There is no exact date for its opening yet.
The former Burma is a friend of China, which has stood by the country's ruling generals, selling arms and providing diplomatic cover when needed -- with an eye firmly on Myanmar's natural resources and access to the Indian Ocean.
But the relationship is more a practical partnership than a meeting of minds, despite the parallels between the two authoritarian governments.
Myanmar's military harbours a profound mistrust of its powerful northern neighbour, while China worries instability in Myanmar could spill over into its territory.
Those fears came to the fore last August when fighting between Myanmar's military and the Kokang rebel group pushed thousands of refugees into China. Myanmar's army ended up firing across the border, provoking irritation in Beijing.
"If Beijing thinks that the pipeline in Burma is going to be relatively trouble-free then they ought to rethink," said Maung Zarni, a Myanmar expert at the London School of Economics (LSE) Centre for the Study of Global Governance.
"Even a regime that is currently in a marriage of convenience with them would fire into Chinese territory," he added.
MALACCA STRAIT PROBLEM
China, the world's second-largest oil user, sees the pipelines as a way to get around what in domestic energy strategy circles is known as the "Malacca Strait dilemma".
The fear is that during a conflict, a hostile power could choke off energy supplies that are taken on supertankers through the narrow Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia.
Some 80 percent of China's oil imports arrive this way.
The area already has a piracy problem. In 2005, the Joint War Committee of the Lloyd's Market Association added the area to its list of war risk zones.
Bringing energy supplies through Myanmar is a handy way to avoid the Strait, and expands efforts to diversify supply routes with crude and gas pipelines from Central Asia.
"One of the pipelines will be purely for oil, and that oil isn't coming from Burma. It will be offloaded from tankers coming from the Middle East and then piped to Yunnan and on. It's very important," said Ian Storey, a fellow at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
"One way of looking at the Kokang incident is the Burmese were actually just clearing the border in preparation for that pipeline. So China couldn't be too critical of that incident because it's in their own interests."
But the benefits may be more than offset by two major risks -- the many disparate rebel groups who have fought Myanmar's central government for decades, and popular mistrust at an influx of Chinese migrants and traders into Myanmar.
"Think of a population that is seething with resentment towards the Chinese that borders on hatred," said LSE's Maung Zarni. "An 800-km pipeline is too good a target if the Burmese want to harm Chinese interests."
Already, residents along the pipelines' route have attacked Chinese workers and offices, angry at the seizure of their land and property, said Wong Aung, a spokesman for the Shwe Gas Movement, which is campaigning against the project.
"We can only imagine people's anger at the Chinese," he said by telephone from Thailand. "That kind of social unrest, or attacks, could take place at any time."
Factor in India's jockeying for influence in Myanmar, driven by Delhi's fears that China is surrounding it with pro-Beijing states, and the potential for problems rises further.
"If at any time India feels they have lost Burma to China, you can easily imagine a scenario where India quietly assists disgruntled military units or dissident groups which may become radicalised to target Chinese assets," Maung Zarni said.
But Myanmar is keeping India in the game by offering stakes in the pipeline to two Indian gas companies. State-run Gail India will pick up a 4 percent stake and Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) will take another 8-8.5 percent, Indian media reported last month.
PUBLIC RELATIONS DISASTER
The project could become another international public relations disaster for China, coming hot on the heels of the opprobium Beijing attracted ahead of the 2008 Olympics for its oil investments in Sudan.
Rights groups have repeatedly expressed concern that pipeline construction will bring abuses against local peoples, mainly by Myanmar's army which will be tasked with protecting the project.
Yet desire for the oil and gas is such that the risk of another unhappy round of poor global public relations for China is one Beijing will be happy to take, said David Mathieson, Myanmar researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch.
"Potentially that pipeline project could really become a touchstone for all the other things China does in Burma, and it could be immensely embarrassing to them," he said.
"(But) I actually don't think that's enough to stop the project. They've wanted that gas for a very long time."
Wed Feb 3, 2010 10:39am IST
By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING (Reuters) - China will soon be burning oil and gas piped in through Myanmar, but putting some of its energy security in the hands of a pariah state beset by international sanctions and civil strife could be a risky gamble.
A gas pipeline with annual capacity of 12 billion cubic metres is due to come onstream within the next two years, carrying the fuel from military-ruled Myanmar's rich offshore deposits into southwestern China.
If all goes to plan, China at some point in the near future will start also receiving 12 million tonnes of oil a year via a separate pipeline, about as much as it imported from Sudan last year, its fifth-largest supplier. There is no exact date for its opening yet.
The former Burma is a friend of China, which has stood by the country's ruling generals, selling arms and providing diplomatic cover when needed -- with an eye firmly on Myanmar's natural resources and access to the Indian Ocean.
But the relationship is more a practical partnership than a meeting of minds, despite the parallels between the two authoritarian governments.
Myanmar's military harbours a profound mistrust of its powerful northern neighbour, while China worries instability in Myanmar could spill over into its territory.
Those fears came to the fore last August when fighting between Myanmar's military and the Kokang rebel group pushed thousands of refugees into China. Myanmar's army ended up firing across the border, provoking irritation in Beijing.
"If Beijing thinks that the pipeline in Burma is going to be relatively trouble-free then they ought to rethink," said Maung Zarni, a Myanmar expert at the London School of Economics (LSE) Centre for the Study of Global Governance.
"Even a regime that is currently in a marriage of convenience with them would fire into Chinese territory," he added.
MALACCA STRAIT PROBLEM
China, the world's second-largest oil user, sees the pipelines as a way to get around what in domestic energy strategy circles is known as the "Malacca Strait dilemma".
The fear is that during a conflict, a hostile power could choke off energy supplies that are taken on supertankers through the narrow Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia.
Some 80 percent of China's oil imports arrive this way.
The area already has a piracy problem. In 2005, the Joint War Committee of the Lloyd's Market Association added the area to its list of war risk zones.
Bringing energy supplies through Myanmar is a handy way to avoid the Strait, and expands efforts to diversify supply routes with crude and gas pipelines from Central Asia.
"One of the pipelines will be purely for oil, and that oil isn't coming from Burma. It will be offloaded from tankers coming from the Middle East and then piped to Yunnan and on. It's very important," said Ian Storey, a fellow at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
"One way of looking at the Kokang incident is the Burmese were actually just clearing the border in preparation for that pipeline. So China couldn't be too critical of that incident because it's in their own interests."
But the benefits may be more than offset by two major risks -- the many disparate rebel groups who have fought Myanmar's central government for decades, and popular mistrust at an influx of Chinese migrants and traders into Myanmar.
"Think of a population that is seething with resentment towards the Chinese that borders on hatred," said LSE's Maung Zarni. "An 800-km pipeline is too good a target if the Burmese want to harm Chinese interests."
Already, residents along the pipelines' route have attacked Chinese workers and offices, angry at the seizure of their land and property, said Wong Aung, a spokesman for the Shwe Gas Movement, which is campaigning against the project.
"We can only imagine people's anger at the Chinese," he said by telephone from Thailand. "That kind of social unrest, or attacks, could take place at any time."
Factor in India's jockeying for influence in Myanmar, driven by Delhi's fears that China is surrounding it with pro-Beijing states, and the potential for problems rises further.
"If at any time India feels they have lost Burma to China, you can easily imagine a scenario where India quietly assists disgruntled military units or dissident groups which may become radicalised to target Chinese assets," Maung Zarni said.
But Myanmar is keeping India in the game by offering stakes in the pipeline to two Indian gas companies. State-run Gail India will pick up a 4 percent stake and Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) will take another 8-8.5 percent, Indian media reported last month.
PUBLIC RELATIONS DISASTER
The project could become another international public relations disaster for China, coming hot on the heels of the opprobium Beijing attracted ahead of the 2008 Olympics for its oil investments in Sudan.
Rights groups have repeatedly expressed concern that pipeline construction will bring abuses against local peoples, mainly by Myanmar's army which will be tasked with protecting the project.
Yet desire for the oil and gas is such that the risk of another unhappy round of poor global public relations for China is one Beijing will be happy to take, said David Mathieson, Myanmar researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch.
"Potentially that pipeline project could really become a touchstone for all the other things China does in Burma, and it could be immensely embarrassing to them," he said.
"(But) I actually don't think that's enough to stop the project. They've wanted that gas for a very long time."
****************************************************************
Reuters and AlertNet - Thailand: Japan selecting first Myanmar refugees for resettlement
02 Feb 2010 14:02:11 GMT
Source: UNHCR
Japanese government officials are visiting Mae La refugee camp in northern Thailand today (Tuesday, 02 Feb.) to begin interviewing refugees from Myanmar who have applied for resettlement to Japan. This is the first concrete step towards making Japan Asia's first resettlement country after it announced in December, 2008, that it would accept 90 Myanmar refugees from Mae La camp over three years in a pilot resettlement project.
The refugees being interviewed this week were identified by UNHCR as being in need of resettlement primarily because they have lived in the refugee camp for long periods – in some cases 10 or 20 years – with no other solution in sight. The final decision as to whether they will be accepted for resettlement rests with Japan.
If all goes smoothly, the first family should depart in September this year, with 30 refugees scheduled to be resettled each year over three years. Some 20,000 Myanmar refugees have already been resettled from Mae La camp, part of the more than 55,000 Myanmar refugees who have been resettled from the nine camps in Thailand since large-scale resettlement began in 2005. Most have gone to the United States, Australia and Canada, with a smaller number departing for eight other countries.
We welcome the addition of Japan to the list of resettlement countries, not only for the important signal it sends to other Asian countries, but also as significant burden-sharing, helping Thailand find solutions for refugees from Myanmar who have been on its territory for more than 25 years.
02 Feb 2010 14:02:11 GMT
Source: UNHCR
Japanese government officials are visiting Mae La refugee camp in northern Thailand today (Tuesday, 02 Feb.) to begin interviewing refugees from Myanmar who have applied for resettlement to Japan. This is the first concrete step towards making Japan Asia's first resettlement country after it announced in December, 2008, that it would accept 90 Myanmar refugees from Mae La camp over three years in a pilot resettlement project.
The refugees being interviewed this week were identified by UNHCR as being in need of resettlement primarily because they have lived in the refugee camp for long periods – in some cases 10 or 20 years – with no other solution in sight. The final decision as to whether they will be accepted for resettlement rests with Japan.
If all goes smoothly, the first family should depart in September this year, with 30 refugees scheduled to be resettled each year over three years. Some 20,000 Myanmar refugees have already been resettled from Mae La camp, part of the more than 55,000 Myanmar refugees who have been resettled from the nine camps in Thailand since large-scale resettlement began in 2005. Most have gone to the United States, Australia and Canada, with a smaller number departing for eight other countries.
We welcome the addition of Japan to the list of resettlement countries, not only for the important signal it sends to other Asian countries, but also as significant burden-sharing, helping Thailand find solutions for refugees from Myanmar who have been on its territory for more than 25 years.
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MYANMAR: WHO warns of tolerance to anti-malaria drug
YANGON, 4 February 2010 (IRIN) - Tolerance to artemisinin, the most effective anti-malarial drug available, is emerging in Myanmar and could pose a major challenge to regional malaria control, says the World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO, researchers and health officials are already trying to contain the spread of resistant strains of the plasmodium falciparum parasite along the Thai-Cambodian border.
The parasite causes the most deadly form of malaria .
Preliminary studies in 2008-09 by the Mekong countries of Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, show tolerance elsewhere, with the drug proving less effective and taking longer than previously to kill the parasite.
The studies, presented late last year at a WHO regional workshop of health officials, show tolerance may have extended to areas along the Myanmar-Thailand, Myanmar-China and Cambodia-Vietnam borders.
WHO describes the Mekong countries as the epicentre of plasmodium falciparum resistance to anti-malarial drugs in the world, and the findings have prompted further studies over 2010 and 2011 to confirm increasing resistance.
“In this globalized economy, people move from one place to another, so parasite resistance can easily be spread to the rest of the world,” Leonard Ortega, WHO’s acting country representative in Myanmar, told IRIN.
“If those drugs are no longer effective, more people may die of malaria,” he said.
Artemisinin is normally used in combination therapy (ACT) with other drugs, although it can be prescribed on its own.
Ortega said the studies in Myanmar had shown that parasites were still detected in some cases after treatment, taking more than a benchmark three days to be cleared.
“This is an indication that there is resistance, but this year we will try to confirm that,” he said, adding that plans will soon be under way for containment of the parasite, which is spread by mobile populations such as migrant workers.
“We don’t need to wait until we confirm. We know from history - and there is now evidence at the Thai-Cambodia border - that there is resistance to artemisinin, so we believe it is already here,” he said.
Factors in resistance
In Myanmar, evidence of a tolerance to ACTs, with longer times for the parasite to be cleared and decreasing effectiveness, has been seen in Kawthaung town in the southeast, along the border with Thailand, and in southern Mon State, said Ortega.
As with the Thai-Cambodia situation, tolerance may be due to the use of counterfeit or substandard drugs which expose the parasite to lower doses of artemisinin, thereby enabling it to become resistant.
Malaria patients may also not be completing the full three-day ACT courses, while health service providers, such as doctors, are not following the national malaria treatment guidelines recommended by WHO, said Ortega.
“On the part of the service providers, we have evidence that they don’t give the complete treatment,” he said.
Instead of handing over a full course of drugs to patients, private general practitioners are cutting up the medicine packs to dole out drugs by the day, probably to increase their profits, he said.
This, in turn, deters patients from completing drug treatment courses, many of whom are the rural poor and lack the means to travel for repeat practitioner visits.
Containment challenges
Along with diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, malaria is a leading cause of mortality in Myanmar, according to WHO.
Despite this, resources to treat malaria and to control its spread are limited.
“People already own mosquito nets, but they are not treated with insecticide, so it’s not effective in preventing malaria,” said Ortega.
“We estimate that around nine million mosquito nets are available at the household level, but only 6 percent are treated with insecticides,” he said.
In addition, only around 500,000 ACT courses are available annually - a fraction of what is needed to treat an estimated 8.5 million malaria cases.
“There is a huge gap in terms of drugs available and prevention,” he said.
YANGON, 4 February 2010 (IRIN) - Tolerance to artemisinin, the most effective anti-malarial drug available, is emerging in Myanmar and could pose a major challenge to regional malaria control, says the World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO, researchers and health officials are already trying to contain the spread of resistant strains of the plasmodium falciparum parasite along the Thai-Cambodian border.
The parasite causes the most deadly form of malaria .
Preliminary studies in 2008-09 by the Mekong countries of Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, show tolerance elsewhere, with the drug proving less effective and taking longer than previously to kill the parasite.
The studies, presented late last year at a WHO regional workshop of health officials, show tolerance may have extended to areas along the Myanmar-Thailand, Myanmar-China and Cambodia-Vietnam borders.
WHO describes the Mekong countries as the epicentre of plasmodium falciparum resistance to anti-malarial drugs in the world, and the findings have prompted further studies over 2010 and 2011 to confirm increasing resistance.
“In this globalized economy, people move from one place to another, so parasite resistance can easily be spread to the rest of the world,” Leonard Ortega, WHO’s acting country representative in Myanmar, told IRIN.
“If those drugs are no longer effective, more people may die of malaria,” he said.
Artemisinin is normally used in combination therapy (ACT) with other drugs, although it can be prescribed on its own.
Ortega said the studies in Myanmar had shown that parasites were still detected in some cases after treatment, taking more than a benchmark three days to be cleared.
“This is an indication that there is resistance, but this year we will try to confirm that,” he said, adding that plans will soon be under way for containment of the parasite, which is spread by mobile populations such as migrant workers.
“We don’t need to wait until we confirm. We know from history - and there is now evidence at the Thai-Cambodia border - that there is resistance to artemisinin, so we believe it is already here,” he said.
Factors in resistance
In Myanmar, evidence of a tolerance to ACTs, with longer times for the parasite to be cleared and decreasing effectiveness, has been seen in Kawthaung town in the southeast, along the border with Thailand, and in southern Mon State, said Ortega.
As with the Thai-Cambodia situation, tolerance may be due to the use of counterfeit or substandard drugs which expose the parasite to lower doses of artemisinin, thereby enabling it to become resistant.
Malaria patients may also not be completing the full three-day ACT courses, while health service providers, such as doctors, are not following the national malaria treatment guidelines recommended by WHO, said Ortega.
“On the part of the service providers, we have evidence that they don’t give the complete treatment,” he said.
Instead of handing over a full course of drugs to patients, private general practitioners are cutting up the medicine packs to dole out drugs by the day, probably to increase their profits, he said.
This, in turn, deters patients from completing drug treatment courses, many of whom are the rural poor and lack the means to travel for repeat practitioner visits.
Containment challenges
Along with diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, malaria is a leading cause of mortality in Myanmar, according to WHO.
Despite this, resources to treat malaria and to control its spread are limited.
“People already own mosquito nets, but they are not treated with insecticide, so it’s not effective in preventing malaria,” said Ortega.
“We estimate that around nine million mosquito nets are available at the household level, but only 6 percent are treated with insecticides,” he said.
In addition, only around 500,000 ACT courses are available annually - a fraction of what is needed to treat an estimated 8.5 million malaria cases.
“There is a huge gap in terms of drugs available and prevention,” he said.
****************************************************************
The Independent - Aung San Suu Kyi, a leaking roof, and the brother who won't let her fix it
By Andrew Buncombe
Thursday, 4 February 2010
In the time she has spent detained in her crumbling Rangoon home, the Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has endured isolation, frustration and grief.
Jailed or detained for nearly 14 of the last 20 years, she has watched helplessly as the military regime that runs Burma has killed or incarcerated her supporters and conjured up new reasons to keep her away from ordinary people. The tireless efforts of her dedicated lawyers to free her have always been in vain.
But tomorrow her lawyers will return to court for one of their strangest cases yet, when they appeal against an injunction that has stopped Ms Suu Kyi carrying out repair work to her increasingly dilapidated two-storey house. What makes the case all the more remarkable is that the man seeking to stop the Nobel Laureate from fixing her leaking roof is her estranged brother who lives in the US.
Speaking last night from Rangoon, one of the democracy campaigner's lawyers, U Kyi Win, confirmed: "First of all her brother went to the mayor and got a temporary order to stop the repair to the roof. We have to go tomorrow [to argue against it] and we already have our objections."
Few casual followers of Ms Suu Kyi and her decades-long struggle for democracy in a country ruled by a fist of iron would even know she had a brother, let alone one who is apparently being used by the junta to try to undermine her. But the unlikely tussle between brother and sister has been going on for many years and, say analysts, is part of the broader, continuing struggle between the military junta and Ms Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD).
The dispute between Ms Suu Kyi and Aung San Oo, her elder brother and only surviving sibling, dates back to 1988 when their mother, Khin Kyi, living at the white, colonial-style building located in Rangoon's University Avenue, suffered a stroke. As the health of their mother, the wife of Burma's independence leader Aung San and a woman who served as Burma's ambassador to India and Nepal, worsened, Ms Suu Kyi returned to Burma from her home in Oxford to care for her.
Nine months later her mother suffered a second stroke and died in late December, by which time the country's fledgling democracy movement had already mounted fierce challenges to the government, in which up to 6,000 democracy activists had been killed.
Ms Suu Kyi, who had first encountered the protesting students when they brought wounded comrades for treatment at the hospital where she was caring for her mother, was swept up in the struggle. She began addressing huge crowds, and was quickly acclaimed the legitimate heir to her father as the champion of Burmese freedom.
According to her lawyer, Mr San Oo said that she could continue to live in the family home for as long as she wanted, only stipulating that if she sold it, he would receive half the proceeds. Nothing more was heard of the matter until 2000 when Ms Suu Kyi's brother, who by this time had taken US citizenship and emigrated to California with his Burmese wife, launched a legal action in the Rangoon High Court for the house to be divided. On that occasion, Ms Suu Kyi's lawyers were successful and defeated the action but the following year, her brother, who is an an engineer, filed suit again. The matter is still pending.
In the meantime, Ms Suu Kyi, whose most recent spell of house arrest has seen her confined almost completely incommunicado since 2003 after her convoy was attacked and dozens of her supporters killed, has sought to have repairs carried out to the property. Last December, the authorities granted permission, given that the house was in an increasingly dangerous state, but lawyers for her brother obtained an injunction, citing his claim on the property. "The whole house will be drenched if it rains," another of Ms Suu Kyi's lawyers told reporters after meeting with his client late last year. "But she did not grumble about her situation."
The behaviour of the 64-year-old democracy leader's brother has upset many of her supporters. In a move with great resonance in devout Burma, a group of Buddhist monks involved in the September 2007 democracy demonstrations that brought hundreds of thousands of people on to the streets of Burma's cities, this week announced that they had "ex-communicated" Mr San Oo, banning him from making the offerings that, in the view of Theravada Buddhists, allow lay people to gain the merit that leads to Nirvana.
The announcement by the Burma Monks Organisation that it is enforcing a religious sanction known as pattani kuzanakan against Mr San Oo and his wife renders them outcasts. In 2007, groups of monks enforced a similar boycott on senior members of Burma's military regime and ordered all monks to refuse to accept alms from them. The group said they had sent a message to Mr San Oo demanding that he drop his legal action by 31 January. As he had not responded they had decided to go ahead with the ex-communication.
An exiled Burmese monk now living in the US and involved in the action against the democracy leader's brother, said last night: "We think he is trying to evict Aung San Suu Kyi. He does not agree with her being there."
What is not clear is the motivation for the behaviour of Ms Suu Kyi's brother, who yesterday could not be contacted. When he brought his first case in 2000, it was widely reported that he was acting on the instructions of the Burmese junta.
Mark Farmaner, of the Burma Campaign UK, said it was rumoured that Mr San Oo benefited from bringing the cases against his sister. "He is an American citizen but the regime use him to put pressure on her," he said.
One claim is that Mr San Oo has been given special privileges by the regime, which terms itself the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). In 2005 it was reported that he was overseeing the construction of a house near the ancient Burmese city of Bagan. While Burmese law prohibits foreign citizens owning property in Burma, it was reported that Ms Suu Kyi's brother had been given permission to build by senior government officials and that he intended to spend winters in the property. When he was not there, it was reported, the house would be used by the government.
Last year, a Burmese defector, Aung Lin Htut, the former deputy chief of mission to the Burmese Embassy in the US, told the Washington Post that the ambassador of the time had received instructions from Rangoon to obtain Mr San Oo's signature in exchange for the promise of business opportunities for his wife and her family. Some reports claim that Mr San Oo's wife has political ambitions.
"When Aung San Oo returned these papers with his signature, the ambassador checked them carefully, signed his signature to confirm and sent it back to General Than Shwe through the diplomatic pouch," said the former diplomat, who now lives in Maryland.
The legal showdown between Ms Suu Kyi and her brother comes as the SPDC is preparing to hold a controversial election later this year as part of what it claims is a move towards democracy – 20 years after the last election, which the NLD won by a landslide, though the victory was never honoured. Ms Suu Kyi has been barred from standing in the new election, which is expected to further cement the army's position.
Ms Suu Kyi herself, whose house arrest was extended last year after a US citizen swam across Inya Lake to her house uninvited, has given no public hint of how she regards the legal challenges mounted by her brother. It can be assumed, given all the other extaordinary privations of her life, that it is a source of great sorrow and indignation; while this week's ex-communication will give her the comfort of knowing that Burma's second-most powerful institution after the army – the Buddhist Sangha, or church, which led 2007's revolt – is still solidly behind her.
By Andrew Buncombe
Thursday, 4 February 2010
In the time she has spent detained in her crumbling Rangoon home, the Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has endured isolation, frustration and grief.
Jailed or detained for nearly 14 of the last 20 years, she has watched helplessly as the military regime that runs Burma has killed or incarcerated her supporters and conjured up new reasons to keep her away from ordinary people. The tireless efforts of her dedicated lawyers to free her have always been in vain.
But tomorrow her lawyers will return to court for one of their strangest cases yet, when they appeal against an injunction that has stopped Ms Suu Kyi carrying out repair work to her increasingly dilapidated two-storey house. What makes the case all the more remarkable is that the man seeking to stop the Nobel Laureate from fixing her leaking roof is her estranged brother who lives in the US.
Speaking last night from Rangoon, one of the democracy campaigner's lawyers, U Kyi Win, confirmed: "First of all her brother went to the mayor and got a temporary order to stop the repair to the roof. We have to go tomorrow [to argue against it] and we already have our objections."
Few casual followers of Ms Suu Kyi and her decades-long struggle for democracy in a country ruled by a fist of iron would even know she had a brother, let alone one who is apparently being used by the junta to try to undermine her. But the unlikely tussle between brother and sister has been going on for many years and, say analysts, is part of the broader, continuing struggle between the military junta and Ms Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD).
The dispute between Ms Suu Kyi and Aung San Oo, her elder brother and only surviving sibling, dates back to 1988 when their mother, Khin Kyi, living at the white, colonial-style building located in Rangoon's University Avenue, suffered a stroke. As the health of their mother, the wife of Burma's independence leader Aung San and a woman who served as Burma's ambassador to India and Nepal, worsened, Ms Suu Kyi returned to Burma from her home in Oxford to care for her.
Nine months later her mother suffered a second stroke and died in late December, by which time the country's fledgling democracy movement had already mounted fierce challenges to the government, in which up to 6,000 democracy activists had been killed.
Ms Suu Kyi, who had first encountered the protesting students when they brought wounded comrades for treatment at the hospital where she was caring for her mother, was swept up in the struggle. She began addressing huge crowds, and was quickly acclaimed the legitimate heir to her father as the champion of Burmese freedom.
According to her lawyer, Mr San Oo said that she could continue to live in the family home for as long as she wanted, only stipulating that if she sold it, he would receive half the proceeds. Nothing more was heard of the matter until 2000 when Ms Suu Kyi's brother, who by this time had taken US citizenship and emigrated to California with his Burmese wife, launched a legal action in the Rangoon High Court for the house to be divided. On that occasion, Ms Suu Kyi's lawyers were successful and defeated the action but the following year, her brother, who is an an engineer, filed suit again. The matter is still pending.
In the meantime, Ms Suu Kyi, whose most recent spell of house arrest has seen her confined almost completely incommunicado since 2003 after her convoy was attacked and dozens of her supporters killed, has sought to have repairs carried out to the property. Last December, the authorities granted permission, given that the house was in an increasingly dangerous state, but lawyers for her brother obtained an injunction, citing his claim on the property. "The whole house will be drenched if it rains," another of Ms Suu Kyi's lawyers told reporters after meeting with his client late last year. "But she did not grumble about her situation."
The behaviour of the 64-year-old democracy leader's brother has upset many of her supporters. In a move with great resonance in devout Burma, a group of Buddhist monks involved in the September 2007 democracy demonstrations that brought hundreds of thousands of people on to the streets of Burma's cities, this week announced that they had "ex-communicated" Mr San Oo, banning him from making the offerings that, in the view of Theravada Buddhists, allow lay people to gain the merit that leads to Nirvana.
The announcement by the Burma Monks Organisation that it is enforcing a religious sanction known as pattani kuzanakan against Mr San Oo and his wife renders them outcasts. In 2007, groups of monks enforced a similar boycott on senior members of Burma's military regime and ordered all monks to refuse to accept alms from them. The group said they had sent a message to Mr San Oo demanding that he drop his legal action by 31 January. As he had not responded they had decided to go ahead with the ex-communication.
An exiled Burmese monk now living in the US and involved in the action against the democracy leader's brother, said last night: "We think he is trying to evict Aung San Suu Kyi. He does not agree with her being there."
What is not clear is the motivation for the behaviour of Ms Suu Kyi's brother, who yesterday could not be contacted. When he brought his first case in 2000, it was widely reported that he was acting on the instructions of the Burmese junta.
Mark Farmaner, of the Burma Campaign UK, said it was rumoured that Mr San Oo benefited from bringing the cases against his sister. "He is an American citizen but the regime use him to put pressure on her," he said.
One claim is that Mr San Oo has been given special privileges by the regime, which terms itself the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). In 2005 it was reported that he was overseeing the construction of a house near the ancient Burmese city of Bagan. While Burmese law prohibits foreign citizens owning property in Burma, it was reported that Ms Suu Kyi's brother had been given permission to build by senior government officials and that he intended to spend winters in the property. When he was not there, it was reported, the house would be used by the government.
Last year, a Burmese defector, Aung Lin Htut, the former deputy chief of mission to the Burmese Embassy in the US, told the Washington Post that the ambassador of the time had received instructions from Rangoon to obtain Mr San Oo's signature in exchange for the promise of business opportunities for his wife and her family. Some reports claim that Mr San Oo's wife has political ambitions.
"When Aung San Oo returned these papers with his signature, the ambassador checked them carefully, signed his signature to confirm and sent it back to General Than Shwe through the diplomatic pouch," said the former diplomat, who now lives in Maryland.
The legal showdown between Ms Suu Kyi and her brother comes as the SPDC is preparing to hold a controversial election later this year as part of what it claims is a move towards democracy – 20 years after the last election, which the NLD won by a landslide, though the victory was never honoured. Ms Suu Kyi has been barred from standing in the new election, which is expected to further cement the army's position.
Ms Suu Kyi herself, whose house arrest was extended last year after a US citizen swam across Inya Lake to her house uninvited, has given no public hint of how she regards the legal challenges mounted by her brother. It can be assumed, given all the other extaordinary privations of her life, that it is a source of great sorrow and indignation; while this week's ex-communication will give her the comfort of knowing that Burma's second-most powerful institution after the army – the Buddhist Sangha, or church, which led 2007's revolt – is still solidly behind her.
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On The Issues Magazine: 'Passion, Freedom & Women'
Press Release Source: On The Issues Magazine On Thursday February 4, 2010, 1:28 pm
NEW YORK, Feb. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- The winter edition of On The Issues Magazine, "Passion, Freedom & Women," focuses on women who have fought for freedom, even at their own peril.
Aung San Suu Kyi... Aminatou Haider... Harriett Tubman... German anti-Nazi resistance fighters... abortion providers.
Editor-in-Chief Merle Hoffman in "The Courage of No" dissects what it means to resist and ponders how that resistance is fueled. Is it by love? Compassion?
"How is it that there are those who can resist; those who doubt, question and discover the truths behind manipulated collective reality? Who turn their insights and denial into action, and have the courage to go up against the status quo, sometimes at the cost of their own lives?"
"Justice for Aung San Suu Kyi: End Male Power Structures," by Janet Benshoof, analyzes what justice and peace mean for women. Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize Winning Burmese activist, has been imprisoned or under house arrest in Burma for many years. Benshoof points out that all 12 Nobel Peace Prize winning women, with one exception, are "outsiders," unlike their male counterparts, who are often heads of state.
"The Nobel Peace Prize stands for advancing changes in the root causes of conflict, and central to this is addressing the continuing gender disparity in power. Only by restructuring embedded male power structures can we maximize our chances for enduring peace."
Miriam Schapiro, an artist known for helping to erase the line between high art and craft, is featured in a multimedia slideshow. Art Editor Linda Stein and Eleanor Flomenhaft describe how Schapiro fought for the democratization of art, and the freedom of women to participate.
"Schapiro fought courageously to pay homage to women by incorporating fragments from their every day lives--fans, floral decorations, dolls, hearts--at a time when this was considered taboo in the art world."
This edition is dedicated to the memory of two indefatigable women whose lives touched many. Dr. Mahin Hassibi, a Clinical Psychiatrist and Professor, was a longtime contributing editor at On The Issues Magazine. Hassibi was working on a piece about martyrdom before she died of cancer on January 20.
Susan Hill, founder, President and CEO of the National Women's Health Organization, died of breast cancer on January 30, little more than a week after she was interviewed for an article about her courageous work as an abortion provider.
Press Release Source: On The Issues Magazine On Thursday February 4, 2010, 1:28 pm
NEW YORK, Feb. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- The winter edition of On The Issues Magazine, "Passion, Freedom & Women," focuses on women who have fought for freedom, even at their own peril.
Aung San Suu Kyi... Aminatou Haider... Harriett Tubman... German anti-Nazi resistance fighters... abortion providers.
Editor-in-Chief Merle Hoffman in "The Courage of No" dissects what it means to resist and ponders how that resistance is fueled. Is it by love? Compassion?
"How is it that there are those who can resist; those who doubt, question and discover the truths behind manipulated collective reality? Who turn their insights and denial into action, and have the courage to go up against the status quo, sometimes at the cost of their own lives?"
"Justice for Aung San Suu Kyi: End Male Power Structures," by Janet Benshoof, analyzes what justice and peace mean for women. Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize Winning Burmese activist, has been imprisoned or under house arrest in Burma for many years. Benshoof points out that all 12 Nobel Peace Prize winning women, with one exception, are "outsiders," unlike their male counterparts, who are often heads of state.
"The Nobel Peace Prize stands for advancing changes in the root causes of conflict, and central to this is addressing the continuing gender disparity in power. Only by restructuring embedded male power structures can we maximize our chances for enduring peace."
Miriam Schapiro, an artist known for helping to erase the line between high art and craft, is featured in a multimedia slideshow. Art Editor Linda Stein and Eleanor Flomenhaft describe how Schapiro fought for the democratization of art, and the freedom of women to participate.
"Schapiro fought courageously to pay homage to women by incorporating fragments from their every day lives--fans, floral decorations, dolls, hearts--at a time when this was considered taboo in the art world."
This edition is dedicated to the memory of two indefatigable women whose lives touched many. Dr. Mahin Hassibi, a Clinical Psychiatrist and Professor, was a longtime contributing editor at On The Issues Magazine. Hassibi was working on a piece about martyrdom before she died of cancer on January 20.
Susan Hill, founder, President and CEO of the National Women's Health Organization, died of breast cancer on January 30, little more than a week after she was interviewed for an article about her courageous work as an abortion provider.
****************************************************************
Burma: Ethnic Women Expose Opium Fields in Junta Strongholds
Inter Press Service, News Report , Marwaan Macan-Markar, Posted: Feb 03, 2010
BANGKOK, Jan 31, 2010 (IPS) - A report exposing the spreading opium fields in the north-eastern corner of the military-ruled Burma has brought to light an equally revealing story. It was produced by a team of ethnic women who risked their lives to document the heroin-filled world they inhabit.
"One of the most damning points of this new report is to show the extent of opium being grown in areas under the control of the Burmese military regime," said Debbie Stothard, coordinator of ALTSEAN, a regional human rights group monitoring rights violations in Burma.
"The regime has tried to give the impression that poppy cultivation continues in areas only under the control of ethnic rebel groups," she told IPS. "But these women have seriously undermined that picture."
"What these women have done must come as a rude shock to the regime," Stothard revealed. "They were able to do so because women have been largely under the radar in how information and intelligence is gathered in the field."
Yet Stothard admitted that the women involved in the report, ‘Poisoned Hills’, released on Jan. 26, had embarked on a dangerous mission to complete their task. "They took great risks in gathering this information for they know what it means to be seen as an enemy by the junta."
Some 30 women from the Palaung ethnic community, who live close to the border that Burma shares with China, were involved in the report that took two years to produce, said Lway Aye Nang, co-author of the groundbreaking report. "They were all above 25 years. Some had basic education – middle school, high school; some had gone to university."
The Palaung are one of some 130 ethnic communities who live in Burma, also known as Myanmar. These include the Shan, the Karen and the Kachin. The majority of the South-east Asian country’s estimated 56 million people are Burmans.
There is little mystery why the Palaung women were drawn to serve as grassroots researchers for the report produced by the Palaung Women’s Organisation (PWO), based in Mae Sot, a town along the Thai-Burma border. "They were directly affected by the consequence of opium cultivation in their communities," Lway Aye Nang remarked in an IPS interview.
"We have been motivated in this research by the suffering of women in our communities whose lives are continuing to be devastated by the addiction of their husbands, sons and fathers," the report declares in its introduction.
Most disturbing, according to PWO, is the litany of abuse wives face from their heroin-addicted husbands. These women, who make a barely livable income working in the tea cultivations in that hilly terrain, are verbally and physically abused when their husbands, who are reportedly unemployed, need money for a heroin fix.
"The women have suffered more because of this," said Lway Aye Nang. "The men use violence to get money from their wives. They sometimes steal things the women own or things from the house to sell to buy drugs."
Besides domestic violence, the Palaung women endure other trials. They range from being infected with HIV by their husbands to the inability to educate their children as the household incomes are drained to pay for the male heroin addiction.
The PWO’s report goes beyond shredding the Burmese regime’s picture of the opium fields in the northern stretches of Shan state, part of the infamous drug-producing and -trafficking area spread across Thailand and Laos and dubbed the ‘Golden Triangle’. The 55-page ‘Poisoned Hills’ also questions the findings of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
"Between 2007 and 2009, PWO conducted field surveys in Namkham and Mantong townships, and found that the total area of opium cultivated increased almost fivefold over three years from 963 hectares in the 2006-7 season to 4,545 hectares in the 2008-9 season," states the report.
"The amounts are far higher than reported in the annual opium surveys of the (UNODC), and are flourishing not in ‘insurgent and ceasefire areas,’ as claimed by the U.N., but in areas controlled by Burma’s military government," adds the report.
"Namkham and Mantong are both fully under the control of the (Burmese regime). The areas have an extensive security infrastructure, including Burmese army battalions, police and pro-government village militia."
The U.N. drug agency’s findings, although more conservative, indicated that opium production was on the rise in north-eastern Burma, an area more extensive than the two townships surveyed for the PWO report.
The area under opium cultivation had expanded by 11 percent since 2008 and by "almost 50 percent since 2006, reaching a total of 31,700 hectares in 2009," the U.N. agency revealed in mid-December in a survey, ‘Opium Poppy Cultivation in South-East Asia’. "More than one million people are now involved in opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar, most of them in Shan State, where 95 percent of Myanmar’s poppy is grown."
But the current area of opium cultivation is still well below what it was in the 1990s, when the land area covered by opium fields was nearly five times the current number and earned Burma the notoriety of being the world’s leading opium producer.
Burma gave way to Afghanistan as the world’s largest supplier of heroin after the junta declared publicly in 2000 that it was committed to eradicating opium fields in the country by 2014. Some eradication efforts saw the number of opium fields dwindle till 2005, for which the Burmese regime won much needed praise and support from the UNODC and the international community.
Yet such praise by the UNODC of the junta’s efforts to end heroin production blinds it to the actual picture on the ground, said Khuensai Jaiyen, editor of the ‘Shan Herald Agency for News’, a web publication based in Thailand’s northern city of Chiang Mai. "This is what the report by the PWO also confirms."
"They (UNODC) rely too much on official information the junta gives them," said Khuensai, who has written extensively about Burma’s narcotics trade. "They need to work with the local ethnic groups to get a better picture."
The courageous women of Palaung have provided that picture.
Inter Press Service, News Report , Marwaan Macan-Markar, Posted: Feb 03, 2010
BANGKOK, Jan 31, 2010 (IPS) - A report exposing the spreading opium fields in the north-eastern corner of the military-ruled Burma has brought to light an equally revealing story. It was produced by a team of ethnic women who risked their lives to document the heroin-filled world they inhabit.
"One of the most damning points of this new report is to show the extent of opium being grown in areas under the control of the Burmese military regime," said Debbie Stothard, coordinator of ALTSEAN, a regional human rights group monitoring rights violations in Burma.
"The regime has tried to give the impression that poppy cultivation continues in areas only under the control of ethnic rebel groups," she told IPS. "But these women have seriously undermined that picture."
"What these women have done must come as a rude shock to the regime," Stothard revealed. "They were able to do so because women have been largely under the radar in how information and intelligence is gathered in the field."
Yet Stothard admitted that the women involved in the report, ‘Poisoned Hills’, released on Jan. 26, had embarked on a dangerous mission to complete their task. "They took great risks in gathering this information for they know what it means to be seen as an enemy by the junta."
Some 30 women from the Palaung ethnic community, who live close to the border that Burma shares with China, were involved in the report that took two years to produce, said Lway Aye Nang, co-author of the groundbreaking report. "They were all above 25 years. Some had basic education – middle school, high school; some had gone to university."
The Palaung are one of some 130 ethnic communities who live in Burma, also known as Myanmar. These include the Shan, the Karen and the Kachin. The majority of the South-east Asian country’s estimated 56 million people are Burmans.
There is little mystery why the Palaung women were drawn to serve as grassroots researchers for the report produced by the Palaung Women’s Organisation (PWO), based in Mae Sot, a town along the Thai-Burma border. "They were directly affected by the consequence of opium cultivation in their communities," Lway Aye Nang remarked in an IPS interview.
"We have been motivated in this research by the suffering of women in our communities whose lives are continuing to be devastated by the addiction of their husbands, sons and fathers," the report declares in its introduction.
Most disturbing, according to PWO, is the litany of abuse wives face from their heroin-addicted husbands. These women, who make a barely livable income working in the tea cultivations in that hilly terrain, are verbally and physically abused when their husbands, who are reportedly unemployed, need money for a heroin fix.
"The women have suffered more because of this," said Lway Aye Nang. "The men use violence to get money from their wives. They sometimes steal things the women own or things from the house to sell to buy drugs."
Besides domestic violence, the Palaung women endure other trials. They range from being infected with HIV by their husbands to the inability to educate their children as the household incomes are drained to pay for the male heroin addiction.
The PWO’s report goes beyond shredding the Burmese regime’s picture of the opium fields in the northern stretches of Shan state, part of the infamous drug-producing and -trafficking area spread across Thailand and Laos and dubbed the ‘Golden Triangle’. The 55-page ‘Poisoned Hills’ also questions the findings of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
"Between 2007 and 2009, PWO conducted field surveys in Namkham and Mantong townships, and found that the total area of opium cultivated increased almost fivefold over three years from 963 hectares in the 2006-7 season to 4,545 hectares in the 2008-9 season," states the report.
"The amounts are far higher than reported in the annual opium surveys of the (UNODC), and are flourishing not in ‘insurgent and ceasefire areas,’ as claimed by the U.N., but in areas controlled by Burma’s military government," adds the report.
"Namkham and Mantong are both fully under the control of the (Burmese regime). The areas have an extensive security infrastructure, including Burmese army battalions, police and pro-government village militia."
The U.N. drug agency’s findings, although more conservative, indicated that opium production was on the rise in north-eastern Burma, an area more extensive than the two townships surveyed for the PWO report.
The area under opium cultivation had expanded by 11 percent since 2008 and by "almost 50 percent since 2006, reaching a total of 31,700 hectares in 2009," the U.N. agency revealed in mid-December in a survey, ‘Opium Poppy Cultivation in South-East Asia’. "More than one million people are now involved in opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar, most of them in Shan State, where 95 percent of Myanmar’s poppy is grown."
But the current area of opium cultivation is still well below what it was in the 1990s, when the land area covered by opium fields was nearly five times the current number and earned Burma the notoriety of being the world’s leading opium producer.
Burma gave way to Afghanistan as the world’s largest supplier of heroin after the junta declared publicly in 2000 that it was committed to eradicating opium fields in the country by 2014. Some eradication efforts saw the number of opium fields dwindle till 2005, for which the Burmese regime won much needed praise and support from the UNODC and the international community.
Yet such praise by the UNODC of the junta’s efforts to end heroin production blinds it to the actual picture on the ground, said Khuensai Jaiyen, editor of the ‘Shan Herald Agency for News’, a web publication based in Thailand’s northern city of Chiang Mai. "This is what the report by the PWO also confirms."
"They (UNODC) rely too much on official information the junta gives them," said Khuensai, who has written extensively about Burma’s narcotics trade. "They need to work with the local ethnic groups to get a better picture."
The courageous women of Palaung have provided that picture.
****************************************************************
Assam Tribune - ULFA shifting camps to Myanmar forest areas
Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI, Feb 3: Apprehending a crackdown, the militants belonging to the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) started moving some of their camps in Myanmar deep into the dense forest areas. This revelation came following the surrender of hardcore militant Akash Bora.
Akash, who recently surrendered before the Inspector General of Border Security Force (BSF) in Shillong, revealed some interesting facts regarding the activities of the ULFA in Myanmar and the problems that the militants are facing in the neighbouring country.
Security sources said that from the revelations made by Akash, it was clear that the ULFA is still recruiting new boys and new recruits in small batches are still sent to the camps in Myanmar for training. The ULFA has four major camps in Myanmar where around 150 to 200 cadres are staying. Sources said that according to Akash, life is tough for the militants in Myanmar because of the terrain and the recent arrests of ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and other senior leaders created frustration among the cadres, most of whom are now demoralised. Though Akash stayed in the Myanmarcamps for years, he never met the commander in chief Paresh Baruah.
Sources said that the camps of the ULFA in Myanmar are run mainly by ULFA central committee member Jiban Moran and hardcore militant Bijoy Chinese and according to Akash, some senior ULFA men are maintaining links with some Army officials of Myanmar. However, after the crackdown in Bangladesh, they are not willing to take any chances and some of thecamps have been moved deep inside the dense forests. Interestingly, whenever any member of the ULFA falls sick in the camps in Myanmar, they are treated by local doctors, said Akash.
Akash was expert in handling of improvised explosive devices (IED) , but planting of the bombs was not part of his duty. “Normally the IEDs prepared in thecamps are brought to India by someone else and the job of planting of the bombs is entrusted to someone else. There have been instances in recent past when the ULFA engaged persons who are not members of the outfit to plant the bombs,” sources added.
Sources said that Akash joined the ULFA in 2005 and was taken for three month training in Myanmar. Though he was arrested once, he jumped bail and went back to Myanmar. Sources said that during questioning the surrendered militant also revealed some other important facts about the activities of the outfit including the names of the hardcore members who impart training to the newrecruits.
Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI, Feb 3: Apprehending a crackdown, the militants belonging to the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) started moving some of their camps in Myanmar deep into the dense forest areas. This revelation came following the surrender of hardcore militant Akash Bora.
Akash, who recently surrendered before the Inspector General of Border Security Force (BSF) in Shillong, revealed some interesting facts regarding the activities of the ULFA in Myanmar and the problems that the militants are facing in the neighbouring country.
Security sources said that from the revelations made by Akash, it was clear that the ULFA is still recruiting new boys and new recruits in small batches are still sent to the camps in Myanmar for training. The ULFA has four major camps in Myanmar where around 150 to 200 cadres are staying. Sources said that according to Akash, life is tough for the militants in Myanmar because of the terrain and the recent arrests of ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and other senior leaders created frustration among the cadres, most of whom are now demoralised. Though Akash stayed in the Myanmarcamps for years, he never met the commander in chief Paresh Baruah.
Sources said that the camps of the ULFA in Myanmar are run mainly by ULFA central committee member Jiban Moran and hardcore militant Bijoy Chinese and according to Akash, some senior ULFA men are maintaining links with some Army officials of Myanmar. However, after the crackdown in Bangladesh, they are not willing to take any chances and some of thecamps have been moved deep inside the dense forests. Interestingly, whenever any member of the ULFA falls sick in the camps in Myanmar, they are treated by local doctors, said Akash.
Akash was expert in handling of improvised explosive devices (IED) , but planting of the bombs was not part of his duty. “Normally the IEDs prepared in thecamps are brought to India by someone else and the job of planting of the bombs is entrusted to someone else. There have been instances in recent past when the ULFA engaged persons who are not members of the outfit to plant the bombs,” sources added.
Sources said that Akash joined the ULFA in 2005 and was taken for three month training in Myanmar. Though he was arrested once, he jumped bail and went back to Myanmar. Sources said that during questioning the surrendered militant also revealed some other important facts about the activities of the outfit including the names of the hardcore members who impart training to the newrecruits.
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February 03, 2010 18:13 PM
Bernama - Myanmar Airways International To Be Privatized
YANGON, Feb 3 (Xinhua) -- The Myanmar Airways International (MAI) will be privatized and the ownership will be taken over by a giant private bank group for continued operation, China's Xinhua news agency cited the local daily as reporting on Wednesday.
The Kanbawza Bank Company Group will buy up to 80 percent stake of the airline with the remainder continued to be held by the state-run domestic Myanmar Airways, the group was quoted as saying by the report.
MAI was a joint venture set up by the state-run Myanmar Airways and a Singapore-based company in 1993 for sole international service flights covering three scheduled flight destinations of Bangkok, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
In 2007, the Region Air (Hong Kong) Ltd. took over the stake from the Singapore's with 49 percent held by it, while the remainder 51 percent possessed by the state-run Myanmar Airways, according to MAI website.
Starting December last year, the airline has managed to fly Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur alternately with Air Bus-320 in addition to the existing daily and four-day-a-week flights respectively, the MAI said, adding that these services will be offered until March during the current peak season of tourist arrivals.
In November last year, the MAI launched chartered flights for the first time between Yangon and Jaddah of Saudi Arabia.
There are 13 airlines including the MAI and 12 foreign airlines operating between Yangon and nine destinations, namely Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Beijing via Kunming, Guangzhou, Calcutta, Chiang Mai, Taipei and Doha.
The 12 foreign airlines flying Yangon comprise Air China, China Southern Airline, Thai Airways International, Indian Airlines, Qatar Airways, Silk Air, Malaysian Airlines, Bangkok Airways, Mandarin, Jetstar Asia, Phuket Airline and Thai Air Asia.
Bernama - Myanmar Airways International To Be Privatized
YANGON, Feb 3 (Xinhua) -- The Myanmar Airways International (MAI) will be privatized and the ownership will be taken over by a giant private bank group for continued operation, China's Xinhua news agency cited the local daily as reporting on Wednesday.
The Kanbawza Bank Company Group will buy up to 80 percent stake of the airline with the remainder continued to be held by the state-run domestic Myanmar Airways, the group was quoted as saying by the report.
MAI was a joint venture set up by the state-run Myanmar Airways and a Singapore-based company in 1993 for sole international service flights covering three scheduled flight destinations of Bangkok, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
In 2007, the Region Air (Hong Kong) Ltd. took over the stake from the Singapore's with 49 percent held by it, while the remainder 51 percent possessed by the state-run Myanmar Airways, according to MAI website.
Starting December last year, the airline has managed to fly Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur alternately with Air Bus-320 in addition to the existing daily and four-day-a-week flights respectively, the MAI said, adding that these services will be offered until March during the current peak season of tourist arrivals.
In November last year, the MAI launched chartered flights for the first time between Yangon and Jaddah of Saudi Arabia.
There are 13 airlines including the MAI and 12 foreign airlines operating between Yangon and nine destinations, namely Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Beijing via Kunming, Guangzhou, Calcutta, Chiang Mai, Taipei and Doha.
The 12 foreign airlines flying Yangon comprise Air China, China Southern Airline, Thai Airways International, Indian Airlines, Qatar Airways, Silk Air, Malaysian Airlines, Bangkok Airways, Mandarin, Jetstar Asia, Phuket Airline and Thai Air Asia.
****************************************************************
February 04, 2010 13:11 PM
International Airlines In Myanmar Extend Flight Services For Peak Tourism Season
YANGON, Feb 4 (Bernama) -- International airlines in Myanmar have extended their flight services starting this month due to the fall of peak tourism season, China's Xinhua news agency reported Thursday, citing travel agents as saying.
As the Chinese lunar new year and Myanmar's traditional water festival are falling in mid-February and mid-April respectively, the round trip tickets for flights between Yangon and Singapore, and between Yangon and Bangkok have been fully booked, the sources said.
They added that airlines such as Bangkok Airway, Myanmar Airway International, Air Bagan and Jet Star offering the above flight services respectively have decided to extend their flight schedules.
Starting from October last year, the number of Myanmar people traveling abroad as well as that of foreign tourists arriving in Myanmar have gradually increased, showing a sign of improvement of the country's tourism sector, hoteliers commented.
According to official statistics, tourists arrivals in Myanmar hit 227,400 in 2009, up 25 percent compared with 2008.
Of the foreign tourists, 42,700 came from Thailand, 23,634 from China and 14,400 from the United States.
The number of European visitors went to 47,161, accounting for 20 percent.
Of them, French travelers stood 10,225, representing the largest number of visitors from among European countries who toured Myanmar, followed by German tourists with 8,788 ranking the second from the continent.
The sharp increase of tourist arrivals amid world economic crisis signified an encouraging sign for the revival of the industry, the Myanmar Ministry of Hotels and Tourism commented.
The Ministry also said that Myanmar will become a Southeast Asian country in the near future to which Western travelers mostly visit.
The tourist arrivals in Myanmar once fell in 2008 especially in the months after deadly cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar in early May of the year.
International Airlines In Myanmar Extend Flight Services For Peak Tourism Season
YANGON, Feb 4 (Bernama) -- International airlines in Myanmar have extended their flight services starting this month due to the fall of peak tourism season, China's Xinhua news agency reported Thursday, citing travel agents as saying.
As the Chinese lunar new year and Myanmar's traditional water festival are falling in mid-February and mid-April respectively, the round trip tickets for flights between Yangon and Singapore, and between Yangon and Bangkok have been fully booked, the sources said.
They added that airlines such as Bangkok Airway, Myanmar Airway International, Air Bagan and Jet Star offering the above flight services respectively have decided to extend their flight schedules.
Starting from October last year, the number of Myanmar people traveling abroad as well as that of foreign tourists arriving in Myanmar have gradually increased, showing a sign of improvement of the country's tourism sector, hoteliers commented.
According to official statistics, tourists arrivals in Myanmar hit 227,400 in 2009, up 25 percent compared with 2008.
Of the foreign tourists, 42,700 came from Thailand, 23,634 from China and 14,400 from the United States.
The number of European visitors went to 47,161, accounting for 20 percent.
Of them, French travelers stood 10,225, representing the largest number of visitors from among European countries who toured Myanmar, followed by German tourists with 8,788 ranking the second from the continent.
The sharp increase of tourist arrivals amid world economic crisis signified an encouraging sign for the revival of the industry, the Myanmar Ministry of Hotels and Tourism commented.
The Ministry also said that Myanmar will become a Southeast Asian country in the near future to which Western travelers mostly visit.
The tourist arrivals in Myanmar once fell in 2008 especially in the months after deadly cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar in early May of the year.
****************************************************************
The National - Myanmar election date is uncertain, but not who will win
Larry Jagan, Foreign Correspondent
Last Updated: February 04. 2010 12:31AM UAE / February 3. 2010 8:31PM GMT
BANGKOK // The rumour mill in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) is working overtime.
Increasingly October 10 is being seen as the date of the election because of the junta’s fixation on numerology: the day will be 10/10/10 in the Gregorian calendar.
In the past, the country’s military made many important decisions on the basis of what astrologers had decreed as auspicious or significant dates, including the 1990 election date and the mass move to the new capital. The former ruler, Gen Ne Win, only allowed local kyat currency notes to be printed that were denominations of nine – regarded as an exceptionally lucky number in Myanmar.
“Everyone in Burma is quietly talking about the elections even though the date is yet to be announced,” said Janelle Saffin, an Australian member of parliament associated with the Burma Lawyers Council, after a recent private visit to the country.
“Several psychologists told me that there has been a significant increase in anxiety among many average Burmese, especially in Rangoon [Yangon], because of the uncertainty surrounding the elections.”
China, Myanmar’s closest ally, believes the elections will be sometime in the last three months of this year, according to Chinese diplomats. But while the election seems certain now to be held in October or November – after this year’s rainy season – the current favourite date may just be a hoax, warned Justin Wintle, a Myanmar specialist and author a biography of the political opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Perfect Hostage.
Although the election date has not been set, campaigning, at least by supporters of the junta, is in full swing. “State-controlled media – newspapers and television – are full of reports and photographs of government ministers inaugurating community and development projects, shaking hands with local leaders and handing out financial assistance,” a Yangon-based diplomat said.
Myanmar’s top senior general, Than Shwe, told the country last year in his annual speech to mark Armed Forces Day that “democracy today is at a fledgling stage and still requires patient care and attention.” Since then he has said little on the subject, except in January, when he warned potential political parties and politicians not to be foolish and to follow the rules.
“Plans are under way to hold elections in a systematic way this year. In that regard, the entire people have to make correct choices,” he cautioned.
No electoral commission has been established and, even more importantly, the electoral and political parties laws that will control the process have not been unveiled.
In the last elections, held in May 1990, Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won convincingly, but the military rulers never allowed it to form a civilian government. This time the generals are not planning to make the same mistake and are tightly controlling everything to ensure they do not lose.
In the meantime they are deliberately keeping almost everyone in the dark.
“The election laws will be published at the last minute,” said Win Min, a Myanmarese academic at Chiang Mai University in Thailand. “They want to keep any potential opposition wrong footed and not allow them time to organise.”
The last time elections were held the electoral law was made public 20 months before the elections.
“The electoral laws are now 97 per cent complete,” Myanmar’s foreign minister, Nyan Win, recently told his Indonesian counterpart, Marty Natalegawam, at a meeting of the Association of South East Asian Nations in Hanoi. “It will take another two or three months to make it 100 per cent. So, I think the elections would be most probably in the second half of the year.”
In the meantime, government ministers and civil servants have started political campaigning.
“No decision is being taken that does not relate to the election preparation,” a senior UN official in Yangon said speaking on condition of anonymity. “We have been told by government ministers that some crucial new projects can only start after the election,” another UN aid official said.
Only 10 political parties will be allowed to run, Myanmar’s prime minister, Thein Sein, has said. But he has not said anything publicly about Ms Suu Kyi or the NLD.
The military junta plans to form a political party that will be under the control of Union Solidarity and Development Association, set up by Than Shwe nearly 15 years ago to generate popular support for the government, military sources said.
The existing National Unity Party was the main pro-military party set up to fight the last elections, but only won 10 seats.
These two parties will be expected to win the popular vote and make sure the military remains in power, even if there is a nominal shift to civilian rule. Twenty-five per cent of the seats have already been reserved for serving soldiers in the new constitution, approved by a referendum in May 2008 that was roundly criticised by the opposition and the international community as a sham.
“In 2010, it will only be an election of the dictators – as they take off their uniforms and pretend to be civilians,” said Soe Aung, a leading Myanmarese pro-democracy activist based in Thailand.
“There’s no chance that any civilian government after the elections will have real power,” the former British ambassador to Yangon, Martin Moreland, said. “Than Shwe is unlikely to retire; more likely he will copy his predecessor, Ne Win, and remain the ultimate authority behind the scenes.
“But there is just a chance that the regime may miscalculate somehow.”
Larry Jagan, Foreign Correspondent
Last Updated: February 04. 2010 12:31AM UAE / February 3. 2010 8:31PM GMT
BANGKOK // The rumour mill in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) is working overtime.
Increasingly October 10 is being seen as the date of the election because of the junta’s fixation on numerology: the day will be 10/10/10 in the Gregorian calendar.
In the past, the country’s military made many important decisions on the basis of what astrologers had decreed as auspicious or significant dates, including the 1990 election date and the mass move to the new capital. The former ruler, Gen Ne Win, only allowed local kyat currency notes to be printed that were denominations of nine – regarded as an exceptionally lucky number in Myanmar.
“Everyone in Burma is quietly talking about the elections even though the date is yet to be announced,” said Janelle Saffin, an Australian member of parliament associated with the Burma Lawyers Council, after a recent private visit to the country.
“Several psychologists told me that there has been a significant increase in anxiety among many average Burmese, especially in Rangoon [Yangon], because of the uncertainty surrounding the elections.”
China, Myanmar’s closest ally, believes the elections will be sometime in the last three months of this year, according to Chinese diplomats. But while the election seems certain now to be held in October or November – after this year’s rainy season – the current favourite date may just be a hoax, warned Justin Wintle, a Myanmar specialist and author a biography of the political opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Perfect Hostage.
Although the election date has not been set, campaigning, at least by supporters of the junta, is in full swing. “State-controlled media – newspapers and television – are full of reports and photographs of government ministers inaugurating community and development projects, shaking hands with local leaders and handing out financial assistance,” a Yangon-based diplomat said.
Myanmar’s top senior general, Than Shwe, told the country last year in his annual speech to mark Armed Forces Day that “democracy today is at a fledgling stage and still requires patient care and attention.” Since then he has said little on the subject, except in January, when he warned potential political parties and politicians not to be foolish and to follow the rules.
“Plans are under way to hold elections in a systematic way this year. In that regard, the entire people have to make correct choices,” he cautioned.
No electoral commission has been established and, even more importantly, the electoral and political parties laws that will control the process have not been unveiled.
In the last elections, held in May 1990, Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won convincingly, but the military rulers never allowed it to form a civilian government. This time the generals are not planning to make the same mistake and are tightly controlling everything to ensure they do not lose.
In the meantime they are deliberately keeping almost everyone in the dark.
“The election laws will be published at the last minute,” said Win Min, a Myanmarese academic at Chiang Mai University in Thailand. “They want to keep any potential opposition wrong footed and not allow them time to organise.”
The last time elections were held the electoral law was made public 20 months before the elections.
“The electoral laws are now 97 per cent complete,” Myanmar’s foreign minister, Nyan Win, recently told his Indonesian counterpart, Marty Natalegawam, at a meeting of the Association of South East Asian Nations in Hanoi. “It will take another two or three months to make it 100 per cent. So, I think the elections would be most probably in the second half of the year.”
In the meantime, government ministers and civil servants have started political campaigning.
“No decision is being taken that does not relate to the election preparation,” a senior UN official in Yangon said speaking on condition of anonymity. “We have been told by government ministers that some crucial new projects can only start after the election,” another UN aid official said.
Only 10 political parties will be allowed to run, Myanmar’s prime minister, Thein Sein, has said. But he has not said anything publicly about Ms Suu Kyi or the NLD.
The military junta plans to form a political party that will be under the control of Union Solidarity and Development Association, set up by Than Shwe nearly 15 years ago to generate popular support for the government, military sources said.
The existing National Unity Party was the main pro-military party set up to fight the last elections, but only won 10 seats.
These two parties will be expected to win the popular vote and make sure the military remains in power, even if there is a nominal shift to civilian rule. Twenty-five per cent of the seats have already been reserved for serving soldiers in the new constitution, approved by a referendum in May 2008 that was roundly criticised by the opposition and the international community as a sham.
“In 2010, it will only be an election of the dictators – as they take off their uniforms and pretend to be civilians,” said Soe Aung, a leading Myanmarese pro-democracy activist based in Thailand.
“There’s no chance that any civilian government after the elections will have real power,” the former British ambassador to Yangon, Martin Moreland, said. “Than Shwe is unlikely to retire; more likely he will copy his predecessor, Ne Win, and remain the ultimate authority behind the scenes.
“But there is just a chance that the regime may miscalculate somehow.”
****************************************************************
Malaysian Mirror - Myanmar blasted over jailed newsmen
Thursday, 04 February 2010 12:42
KUALA LUMPUR - The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and the World Editors Forum have condemned the sentencing of two journalists from Myanmar to long prison terms.
They called on the country's military junta to immediately release them and end its continuing attacks on the media.
"We are seriously concerned that the crackdown on sending reports, photos and videos abroad that began in 2007 is intensifying in the run-up to this year's elections," said the global press organisations in a letter to General Than Shwe, Chairman of the Burmese State Peace and Development Council, as the ruling junta is known.
Net users face prosecution
"Around 20 journalists and bloggers have been arrested since then and at least 14 are currently in jail, most of them in very harsh conditions," said the letter.
"Under current law, anyone who uses the internet to send information abroad faces prosecution."
Journalist Ngwe Soe Lin was sentenced to 13 years in prison on Jan 28 for providing reports to the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), a broadcaster based in Norway.
Ngwe' case follows the sentencing late last year of Hla Hla Win, another alleged DVB reporter, to 20 years in jail for sending reports abroad, and another seven years for using an "illegally" acquired motorcycle.
The full letter can be read at http://www.wan-press.org/article18389.html
Representatives in 120 countries
More WAN-IFRA press freedom protests can be found at http://www.wan-press.org/pfreedom/rubriques.php?id=304
WAN-IFRA, based in Paris, France, and Darmstadt, Germany, with subsidiaries in Singapore, India, Spain, France and Sweden, is a global organisation of the world¹s newspapers and news publishers.
It represents more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries.
The organisation was created by the merger of the World Association of Newspapers and IFRA, the research and service organisation for the news publishing industry.
Thursday, 04 February 2010 12:42
KUALA LUMPUR - The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and the World Editors Forum have condemned the sentencing of two journalists from Myanmar to long prison terms.
They called on the country's military junta to immediately release them and end its continuing attacks on the media.
"We are seriously concerned that the crackdown on sending reports, photos and videos abroad that began in 2007 is intensifying in the run-up to this year's elections," said the global press organisations in a letter to General Than Shwe, Chairman of the Burmese State Peace and Development Council, as the ruling junta is known.
Net users face prosecution
"Around 20 journalists and bloggers have been arrested since then and at least 14 are currently in jail, most of them in very harsh conditions," said the letter.
"Under current law, anyone who uses the internet to send information abroad faces prosecution."
Journalist Ngwe Soe Lin was sentenced to 13 years in prison on Jan 28 for providing reports to the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), a broadcaster based in Norway.
Ngwe' case follows the sentencing late last year of Hla Hla Win, another alleged DVB reporter, to 20 years in jail for sending reports abroad, and another seven years for using an "illegally" acquired motorcycle.
The full letter can be read at http://www.wan-press.org/article18389.html
Representatives in 120 countries
More WAN-IFRA press freedom protests can be found at http://www.wan-press.org/pfreedom/rubriques.php?id=304
WAN-IFRA, based in Paris, France, and Darmstadt, Germany, with subsidiaries in Singapore, India, Spain, France and Sweden, is a global organisation of the world¹s newspapers and news publishers.
It represents more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries.
The organisation was created by the merger of the World Association of Newspapers and IFRA, the research and service organisation for the news publishing industry.
****************************************************************
Hindustan Times - Indo-Myanmar operation soon to flush out NE ultras
Rahul Karmakar/HT Correspondent, Hindustan Times
Dimapur, February 04, 2010
India is drawing up a blueprint in coordination with Yangon to uproot 45-50 camps of Northeast militants from the Kachin area of Myanmar. Some 30 of these camps are major set-ups, three of them belonging to the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa) each housing 150-300 cadres.
The development follows the visit to Yangon of a high-level delegation of the Ministry of Home Affairs last month.
The Myanmar camps – a majority of them belong to Khaplang and Isak-Muivah factions of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland besides Manipuri outfits such as United National Liberation Front – are concentrated in Shwelo and Haukyat areas of Myanmar adjoining Mon district of Nagaland.
These militant groups and Ulfa are also maintaining up to 45-60 camps in Bangladesh despite Dhaka’s recent crackdown that led to the arrest of Ulfa chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and others last year. “Most of the Bangladesh camps have over the years converted into villages, but even the presence of four-five militants count as a camp for us,” said Lt Gen NK Singh, GOC of the army’s Spears or 3 Corps headquartered in Dimapur.
Singh was briefing a select group of mediapersons ahead of 3 Corps’ silver jubilee celebrations here on Wednesday. It was raised on February 4, 1985 to combat insurgency in Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Meghalaya.
“A coordinated operation should take place to remove and eliminate camps in Myanmar. Things are at the decision and planning stage following the MHA visit to that country,” said Singh, adding the forces were awaiting the green signal from Yangon.
A list of such camps was being drawn up to track down Ulfa commander-in-chief Paresh Barua and other militant leaders in Myanmar. According to Intelligence officers, Barua has been shuttling between guerrilla-controlled Myanmar and Bangladesh and Southeast Asian countries to hold the reins of a ‘fast-depleting’ Ulfa.
Assam Police officials also said the possibility of Barua spending much of his subversion-scheming time in Myanmar was strong. Apart from Ulfa general secretary Golap Barua alias Anup Chetia, who is under the court’s observation in Dhaka, Barua is the only top leader at large.
Ulfa chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and deputy commander-in-chief Raju Barua were arrested in December last year after they tried to sneak in from Bangladesh. The outfit’s foreign secretary Sashadhar Choudhury and finance secretary Chitrabon Hazarika had a similar fate the month before. Other senior leaders were either ‘neutralised’ or caught earlier.
Rahul Karmakar/HT Correspondent, Hindustan Times
Dimapur, February 04, 2010
India is drawing up a blueprint in coordination with Yangon to uproot 45-50 camps of Northeast militants from the Kachin area of Myanmar. Some 30 of these camps are major set-ups, three of them belonging to the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa) each housing 150-300 cadres.
The development follows the visit to Yangon of a high-level delegation of the Ministry of Home Affairs last month.
The Myanmar camps – a majority of them belong to Khaplang and Isak-Muivah factions of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland besides Manipuri outfits such as United National Liberation Front – are concentrated in Shwelo and Haukyat areas of Myanmar adjoining Mon district of Nagaland.
These militant groups and Ulfa are also maintaining up to 45-60 camps in Bangladesh despite Dhaka’s recent crackdown that led to the arrest of Ulfa chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and others last year. “Most of the Bangladesh camps have over the years converted into villages, but even the presence of four-five militants count as a camp for us,” said Lt Gen NK Singh, GOC of the army’s Spears or 3 Corps headquartered in Dimapur.
Singh was briefing a select group of mediapersons ahead of 3 Corps’ silver jubilee celebrations here on Wednesday. It was raised on February 4, 1985 to combat insurgency in Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Meghalaya.
“A coordinated operation should take place to remove and eliminate camps in Myanmar. Things are at the decision and planning stage following the MHA visit to that country,” said Singh, adding the forces were awaiting the green signal from Yangon.
A list of such camps was being drawn up to track down Ulfa commander-in-chief Paresh Barua and other militant leaders in Myanmar. According to Intelligence officers, Barua has been shuttling between guerrilla-controlled Myanmar and Bangladesh and Southeast Asian countries to hold the reins of a ‘fast-depleting’ Ulfa.
Assam Police officials also said the possibility of Barua spending much of his subversion-scheming time in Myanmar was strong. Apart from Ulfa general secretary Golap Barua alias Anup Chetia, who is under the court’s observation in Dhaka, Barua is the only top leader at large.
Ulfa chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and deputy commander-in-chief Raju Barua were arrested in December last year after they tried to sneak in from Bangladesh. The outfit’s foreign secretary Sashadhar Choudhury and finance secretary Chitrabon Hazarika had a similar fate the month before. Other senior leaders were either ‘neutralised’ or caught earlier.
****************************************************************
EarthTimes - Thailand expects influx of drugs from Myanmar minority groups
Posted : Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:54:11 GMT
Bangkok - Thai authorities are anticipating a massive influx of methamphetamines this month from neighbouring Myanmar, where insurgent groups are upping drug production to finance the purchase of new weaponry, media reports said Wednesday. Thai anti-narcotics police seized more than 4 million methamphetamine pills last month in raids on traffickers in what Thai authorities described as "the tip of the iceberg," the Bangkok Post reported.
Most of the illegal drugs coming out of Myanmar, also known as Burma, are produced by the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and other ethnic minority groups that control territory in Shan State in the north-east, according to the United Nations and other international agencies.
"We have obtained information that ethnic minority groups inside Burma are speeding up their drugs production so they can earn more money to buy new weapons to fight Burmese soldiers," Permpong Chaovalit, deputy director general of Thailand's Office of Narcotic Control Board, told the Bangkok Post.
The Wa, Kachin Independence Organization, Shan State Army and Karen National Union are some of the minority groups in north-eastern Myanmar who have refused to cooperate with Myanmar's ruling military junta in disbanding their armies to pave the way for a general election planned this year.
The junta wants the groups to hand over their weapons and turn themselves into "Border Guard Forces" under the military's control prior to the polls, which the minority groups are invited to contest via political parties.
The UWSA, which claims to have 30,000 soldiers and is accused of being the region's main producer of methamphetamines, poses a serious threat to the Myanmar military should the rebels attempt to force the government to disband their army, observers said.
The UWSA has been purchasing weapons from China in anticipation of a showdown with the junta, according to reports from China. For instance, it recently bought 17 armoured personnel carriers, sources said.
To finance the arms buildup, the UWSA and other groups are upping their production of methamphetamines, the Shan State's main export item with Thailand the main market, Office of Narcotic Control Board sources told the Bangkok Post.
Drug producers in Shan State, formerly the world's leading producer and exporter of heroin, switched to methamphetamines in the early 1990s because the synthetic drug proved easier to produce, more profitable and less likely to attract the attention of Western democracies as the supply was mainly funnelled to neighbouring Thailand and South-East Asian countries.
Posted : Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:54:11 GMT
Bangkok - Thai authorities are anticipating a massive influx of methamphetamines this month from neighbouring Myanmar, where insurgent groups are upping drug production to finance the purchase of new weaponry, media reports said Wednesday. Thai anti-narcotics police seized more than 4 million methamphetamine pills last month in raids on traffickers in what Thai authorities described as "the tip of the iceberg," the Bangkok Post reported.
Most of the illegal drugs coming out of Myanmar, also known as Burma, are produced by the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and other ethnic minority groups that control territory in Shan State in the north-east, according to the United Nations and other international agencies.
"We have obtained information that ethnic minority groups inside Burma are speeding up their drugs production so they can earn more money to buy new weapons to fight Burmese soldiers," Permpong Chaovalit, deputy director general of Thailand's Office of Narcotic Control Board, told the Bangkok Post.
The Wa, Kachin Independence Organization, Shan State Army and Karen National Union are some of the minority groups in north-eastern Myanmar who have refused to cooperate with Myanmar's ruling military junta in disbanding their armies to pave the way for a general election planned this year.
The junta wants the groups to hand over their weapons and turn themselves into "Border Guard Forces" under the military's control prior to the polls, which the minority groups are invited to contest via political parties.
The UWSA, which claims to have 30,000 soldiers and is accused of being the region's main producer of methamphetamines, poses a serious threat to the Myanmar military should the rebels attempt to force the government to disband their army, observers said.
The UWSA has been purchasing weapons from China in anticipation of a showdown with the junta, according to reports from China. For instance, it recently bought 17 armoured personnel carriers, sources said.
To finance the arms buildup, the UWSA and other groups are upping their production of methamphetamines, the Shan State's main export item with Thailand the main market, Office of Narcotic Control Board sources told the Bangkok Post.
Drug producers in Shan State, formerly the world's leading producer and exporter of heroin, switched to methamphetamines in the early 1990s because the synthetic drug proved easier to produce, more profitable and less likely to attract the attention of Western democracies as the supply was mainly funnelled to neighbouring Thailand and South-East Asian countries.
****************************************************************
Suu Kyi party hopes for deputy's release next week
Posted: 04 February 2010 1306 hrs
YANGON: (Channel NewsAsia) - The detained deputy leader of Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party in military-ruled Myanmar should be released next week and is set to resume political activities, a party spokesman said Thursday.
Tin Oo, 83, vice chairman of the National League for Democracy (NLD), has been detained without trial since he was arrested with Suu Kyi after an attack on their motorcade during a political tour in 2003.
"We are waiting and watching. They (the government) have to release him as the continued arrest order finishes next week," NLD spokesman Nyan Win told AFP.
"He will definitely come back to the office," he said, adding that the detention should end on February 13.
Tin Oo, a retired general, was transferred from prison to house arrest in Yangon in February 2004 under an anti-subversion law.
He has been allowed to leave his home for medical check-ups, and Nyan Win said the detainee's health was "fine" after having an eye operation at a private clinic a few days ago.
The NLD won a landslide victory in 1990 but the junta never allowed them to take office. The party leader and democracy icon Suu Kyi, 64, has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years.
Analysts have said she faces an urgent challenge to shake up the party leadership committee, as the majority are in their 80s and 90s and most are said to be in bad health.
Suu Kyi's own house arrest was extended for 18 months in August when she was convicted over an incident in which an American man swam to her house.
The sentence sparked international outrage as it is expected to keep her off the scene for elections promised by the junta some time this year, although a date has not yet been announced.
The opposition has been deeply suspicious of the planned polls, which it sees as a plot to legitimise the junta's five decade iron-fisted rule.
Home Affairs Minister Maung Oo reportedly told a meeting of local officials in central Myanmar last month that Suu Kyi would be released in November.
Suu Kyi has described the comments as "unfair" as they pre-empt a court decision on an appeal against her conviction, which is expected in the coming weeks, Nyan Win said.
Posted: 04 February 2010 1306 hrs
YANGON: (Channel NewsAsia) - The detained deputy leader of Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party in military-ruled Myanmar should be released next week and is set to resume political activities, a party spokesman said Thursday.
Tin Oo, 83, vice chairman of the National League for Democracy (NLD), has been detained without trial since he was arrested with Suu Kyi after an attack on their motorcade during a political tour in 2003.
"We are waiting and watching. They (the government) have to release him as the continued arrest order finishes next week," NLD spokesman Nyan Win told AFP.
"He will definitely come back to the office," he said, adding that the detention should end on February 13.
Tin Oo, a retired general, was transferred from prison to house arrest in Yangon in February 2004 under an anti-subversion law.
He has been allowed to leave his home for medical check-ups, and Nyan Win said the detainee's health was "fine" after having an eye operation at a private clinic a few days ago.
The NLD won a landslide victory in 1990 but the junta never allowed them to take office. The party leader and democracy icon Suu Kyi, 64, has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years.
Analysts have said she faces an urgent challenge to shake up the party leadership committee, as the majority are in their 80s and 90s and most are said to be in bad health.
Suu Kyi's own house arrest was extended for 18 months in August when she was convicted over an incident in which an American man swam to her house.
The sentence sparked international outrage as it is expected to keep her off the scene for elections promised by the junta some time this year, although a date has not yet been announced.
The opposition has been deeply suspicious of the planned polls, which it sees as a plot to legitimise the junta's five decade iron-fisted rule.
Home Affairs Minister Maung Oo reportedly told a meeting of local officials in central Myanmar last month that Suu Kyi would be released in November.
Suu Kyi has described the comments as "unfair" as they pre-empt a court decision on an appeal against her conviction, which is expected in the coming weeks, Nyan Win said.
****************************************************************
The Yomiuri Shimbun - Officials interviewing Myanmar asylum-seekers
Juichiro Wakayama / Yomiuri Shimbun General Asian Bureau Chief
MAE SOT, Thailand--Officials from Japan's Justice Ministry on Wednesday began interviewing Myanmar asylum-seekers in Mae Sot, northern Thailand, to determine if they are eligible to resettle in Japan.
Three families comprising a total of 14 people, who are living in Mae La refugee camp near Mae Sot, were interviewed.
This year marks the beginning of the government's third-country resettlement program under which it plans to accept some people who are deemed to be refugees. The program gives asylum-seekers a chance to make their case for resettlement in Japan.
Japan is the first nation in Asia to introduce a third-country resettlement program.
For a period of three years until fiscal 2012, the government plans to accept a total of 90 refugees, with the first 30 to arrive in autumn.The government aims to underscore the point that Japan does not just provide funds but also makes an international contribution on the ground.
According to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, though 200 families have been found to be suitable for resettlement under the conditions set by the government, many had no desire to go to Japan. It is believed this is due to little information being available about Japan as compared to European countries and the United States.
Juichiro Wakayama / Yomiuri Shimbun General Asian Bureau Chief
MAE SOT, Thailand--Officials from Japan's Justice Ministry on Wednesday began interviewing Myanmar asylum-seekers in Mae Sot, northern Thailand, to determine if they are eligible to resettle in Japan.
Three families comprising a total of 14 people, who are living in Mae La refugee camp near Mae Sot, were interviewed.
This year marks the beginning of the government's third-country resettlement program under which it plans to accept some people who are deemed to be refugees. The program gives asylum-seekers a chance to make their case for resettlement in Japan.
Japan is the first nation in Asia to introduce a third-country resettlement program.
For a period of three years until fiscal 2012, the government plans to accept a total of 90 refugees, with the first 30 to arrive in autumn.The government aims to underscore the point that Japan does not just provide funds but also makes an international contribution on the ground.
According to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, though 200 families have been found to be suitable for resettlement under the conditions set by the government, many had no desire to go to Japan. It is believed this is due to little information being available about Japan as compared to European countries and the United States.
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The Irrawaddy - Louisa Benson Craig Dies Aged 69
By SAW YAN NAING - Thursday, February 4, 2010
Louisa Benson Craig, an inspirational Karen community leader and former Miss Burma, passed away after a long battle with cancer in California on Feb. 2. She was 69.
Born in Rangoon in 1941 to a Portuguese and his Karen wife, Louisa became renowned for her beauty and won the Miss Burma contest twice––in 1956 and 1958. She also acted in a number of Burmese films.
After studying in Boston in the USA, she returned to Burma and in 1964 married Lin Htin, the former Brigade 5 commander of the Karen National Union (KNU's) military wing, the Karen National Liberation Army. Lin Htin was responsible for an attack in 1961 on the Thai border town of Mae Sot, but had surrendered with Saw Hunter Tha Mwe to the Burmese government in 1963.
Louisa was among the Burmese beauty queens who were once reportedly invited for a dinner with Gen Ne Win, the infamous Burmese dictator who seized power in 1962.
After her husband was killed by Burmese soldiers in 1965, she led his 5th Brigade back into revolution. In 1967, she married an American, Glen Craig, and settled in California. She was a founder member of the Burma Forum and a board member with the US Campaign for Burma. In recent years she suffered from brain cancer.
Zipporah Sein, the general secretary of the KNU, said she met with Naw Louisa three times in 2003-04, the latest meeting being in northern Karen State. She described Naw Louisa as a very active person who loved her Karen people and loved working for them.
“She encouraged us to work hard for the Karen people and was very active,” Zipporah Sein said. “I believe she worried about the Karen in Burma until the final days of her life.”
Louisa Benson Craig constantly lobbied for the Karen resistance movement, raising the profile of the plight of internally displaced Karen people in conflict zones in Karen State and encouraging unity among Burma's ethnic peoples. She was known as a staunch supporter of federalism in Burma.
A statement by the US Campaign for Burma on Wednesday read: “It has been an honor to have Louisa Benson Craig as part of the US Campaign for Burma family. Her decades of service to the Free Burma movement and plight of the Karen people has brought much needed attention, hope and inspiration to those of us who will continue the struggle for a free and democratic Burma.”
Maung Maung Hla, a Karen pastor in Rangoon who was close to Naw Louisa during her youth, remembered her aloud: “She had a little mole on her left cheek and she had a kind heart. She was also a very good singer.”
By SAW YAN NAING - Thursday, February 4, 2010
Louisa Benson Craig, an inspirational Karen community leader and former Miss Burma, passed away after a long battle with cancer in California on Feb. 2. She was 69.
Born in Rangoon in 1941 to a Portuguese and his Karen wife, Louisa became renowned for her beauty and won the Miss Burma contest twice––in 1956 and 1958. She also acted in a number of Burmese films.
After studying in Boston in the USA, she returned to Burma and in 1964 married Lin Htin, the former Brigade 5 commander of the Karen National Union (KNU's) military wing, the Karen National Liberation Army. Lin Htin was responsible for an attack in 1961 on the Thai border town of Mae Sot, but had surrendered with Saw Hunter Tha Mwe to the Burmese government in 1963.
Louisa was among the Burmese beauty queens who were once reportedly invited for a dinner with Gen Ne Win, the infamous Burmese dictator who seized power in 1962.
After her husband was killed by Burmese soldiers in 1965, she led his 5th Brigade back into revolution. In 1967, she married an American, Glen Craig, and settled in California. She was a founder member of the Burma Forum and a board member with the US Campaign for Burma. In recent years she suffered from brain cancer.
Zipporah Sein, the general secretary of the KNU, said she met with Naw Louisa three times in 2003-04, the latest meeting being in northern Karen State. She described Naw Louisa as a very active person who loved her Karen people and loved working for them.
“She encouraged us to work hard for the Karen people and was very active,” Zipporah Sein said. “I believe she worried about the Karen in Burma until the final days of her life.”
Louisa Benson Craig constantly lobbied for the Karen resistance movement, raising the profile of the plight of internally displaced Karen people in conflict zones in Karen State and encouraging unity among Burma's ethnic peoples. She was known as a staunch supporter of federalism in Burma.
A statement by the US Campaign for Burma on Wednesday read: “It has been an honor to have Louisa Benson Craig as part of the US Campaign for Burma family. Her decades of service to the Free Burma movement and plight of the Karen people has brought much needed attention, hope and inspiration to those of us who will continue the struggle for a free and democratic Burma.”
Maung Maung Hla, a Karen pastor in Rangoon who was close to Naw Louisa during her youth, remembered her aloud: “She had a little mole on her left cheek and she had a kind heart. She was also a very good singer.”
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The Irrawaddy - KIA Conducts Militia Training
By LAWI WENG - Thursday, February 4, 2010
The Kachin Independence Army (KIA), one of a number of ethnic cease-fire groups under pressure to transform itself into a border guard force under Burmese army command, is giving militia training to civilians in Mung Seng Yang, a military training center near the Sino-Burmese border, according to Kachin sources.
“The KIA plans to conduct militia training for civilians over a wide area of their territory,” said Wunpawng Mangshang, a 32-year-old ethnic Kachin living in Thailand, speaking to The Irrawaddy on Thursday.
“They conducted their first militia training in November with about 200 civilians, and the second training, with more than 100 civilians, started in the middle of December. They intend to use the people when they need them,” he added.
Another ethnic Kachin who lives on the Sino-Burmese border said: “They (the KIA) trained the people with the intention of setting up a civilian force in their controlled area to protect their villages.”
The sources said that the training lasts one month and involves military exercises and learning how to shoot and maintain a gun. The trainees are between 18 and 50 years old.
Upon completion of the training, trainees return to their home villages, where they either remain on active duty as village guards or return to civilian life.
This is the first time the KIA has conducted militia training for civilians since the group signed a cease-fire agreement with the Burmese military junta in 1994, according to the sources.
The source based on the Sino-Burmese border, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the KIA was recruiting one adult male from each local family to join the militia training.
“They are being forced to join. Some people don't want to go because there are no other men in their families to provide support,” he said.
However, Wunpawng Mangshang denied this, saying the training is voluntary, with some people coming from as far away as the state capital Myitkyina to join.
KIA will mark the 49th anniversary of Kachin Revolution Day tomorrow. A ceremony will be held in N-Gum La at KIA Brigade 1, near the Sino-Burmese border.
Since last year, the Burmese military junta has pressured the KIA and other cease-fire groups to transform themselves into border guards before the country holds an election later this year.
Burmese Military Affairs Security Chief Lt-Gen Ye Myint and leaders of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), the political wing of the KIA, met in Myitkyina last week, but failed to achieve a breakthrough in border guard force negotiations.
The Burmese authorities and KIO leaders have held 10 meetings since April 2009 to discuss the border guard force issue, according to the Thailand-based Kachin News Group.
With about 4,000 soldiers, the KIA is one of the strongest ethnic cease-fire groups that has resisted the regime's border guard force order.
By LAWI WENG - Thursday, February 4, 2010
The Kachin Independence Army (KIA), one of a number of ethnic cease-fire groups under pressure to transform itself into a border guard force under Burmese army command, is giving militia training to civilians in Mung Seng Yang, a military training center near the Sino-Burmese border, according to Kachin sources.
“The KIA plans to conduct militia training for civilians over a wide area of their territory,” said Wunpawng Mangshang, a 32-year-old ethnic Kachin living in Thailand, speaking to The Irrawaddy on Thursday.
“They conducted their first militia training in November with about 200 civilians, and the second training, with more than 100 civilians, started in the middle of December. They intend to use the people when they need them,” he added.
Another ethnic Kachin who lives on the Sino-Burmese border said: “They (the KIA) trained the people with the intention of setting up a civilian force in their controlled area to protect their villages.”
The sources said that the training lasts one month and involves military exercises and learning how to shoot and maintain a gun. The trainees are between 18 and 50 years old.
Upon completion of the training, trainees return to their home villages, where they either remain on active duty as village guards or return to civilian life.
This is the first time the KIA has conducted militia training for civilians since the group signed a cease-fire agreement with the Burmese military junta in 1994, according to the sources.
The source based on the Sino-Burmese border, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the KIA was recruiting one adult male from each local family to join the militia training.
“They are being forced to join. Some people don't want to go because there are no other men in their families to provide support,” he said.
However, Wunpawng Mangshang denied this, saying the training is voluntary, with some people coming from as far away as the state capital Myitkyina to join.
KIA will mark the 49th anniversary of Kachin Revolution Day tomorrow. A ceremony will be held in N-Gum La at KIA Brigade 1, near the Sino-Burmese border.
Since last year, the Burmese military junta has pressured the KIA and other cease-fire groups to transform themselves into border guards before the country holds an election later this year.
Burmese Military Affairs Security Chief Lt-Gen Ye Myint and leaders of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), the political wing of the KIA, met in Myitkyina last week, but failed to achieve a breakthrough in border guard force negotiations.
The Burmese authorities and KIO leaders have held 10 meetings since April 2009 to discuss the border guard force issue, according to the Thailand-based Kachin News Group.
With about 4,000 soldiers, the KIA is one of the strongest ethnic cease-fire groups that has resisted the regime's border guard force order.
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The Irrawaddy - Police Warn Karen Journalists in Mae Sot
By ALEX ELLGEE - Thursday, February 4, 2010
MAE SOT/Thailand—Thai police raided the office of Karen journalists and the home of David Takapaw, the vice chairman of the Karen Nation Union (KNU), in Mae Sot on Thursday, and issued a warning that they do not want anyone planning attacks on Burmese government forces from Thailand.
About 20 policemen were involved in the early morning raids at David Takapaw's house and the Karen Information Centre (KIC), which is run by Karen journalists in Mae Sot near the Thai-Burmese border.
Sources told The Irrawaddy that the police first entered the home of the KNU vice chairman, searching the house and taking photographs. David Takapaw, however, was not in his home at the time.
The policemen told his daughter that they were searching for drugs and weapons, and that they didn’t want anyone using Thai soil to plan military attacks, the sources said.
The Karen journalists at KIC said they now feel unsafe at their office in Mae Sot where members of the pro-Burmese junta Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) are active.
“We don’t feel safe anymore. It is very difficult for us working as media on the border. It is very easy for the DKBA and State Peace and Development Council [the Burmese military government] to come to our office,” said Nang Paw Gay, the editor and director of the KIC.
“However, we will continue our role as journalists. We never oppose Thai law. We just publish the true information for people on the border,” she said.
According to Nang Paw Gay, the Thai policemen smashed open a door during the raid and took photographs of all the equipment and hard copies of their newspaper. Staff reported that a USB stick from a laptop has gone missing.
After the raid, Thai intelligence officers arrived at the KIC office and requested an interview with Nang Paw Gay, the sources said.
Staff said they noticed an army truck parked outside taking photos of the office two days ago.
The KIC was founded 12 years ago in order to create an independent news outlet providing accurate information to Karen people along the border and inside Karen State via their online news Web site and newspaper.
The KNU is now under growing pressure from the Thai authorities. David Takapaw’s home was also searched in October. Karen leaders have said they feel unsafe living in Mae Sot and some of them stay away from their homes for their own security.
In February 2008, Mahn Sha, the former general secretary of the KNU, was shot dead by two gunmen in his home in Mae Sot, an assassination most Karen sources said was ordered by Burmese authorities.
Karen sources on the border have reported that DKBA spies are now “everywhere” in Mae Sot.
By ALEX ELLGEE - Thursday, February 4, 2010
MAE SOT/Thailand—Thai police raided the office of Karen journalists and the home of David Takapaw, the vice chairman of the Karen Nation Union (KNU), in Mae Sot on Thursday, and issued a warning that they do not want anyone planning attacks on Burmese government forces from Thailand.
About 20 policemen were involved in the early morning raids at David Takapaw's house and the Karen Information Centre (KIC), which is run by Karen journalists in Mae Sot near the Thai-Burmese border.
Sources told The Irrawaddy that the police first entered the home of the KNU vice chairman, searching the house and taking photographs. David Takapaw, however, was not in his home at the time.
The policemen told his daughter that they were searching for drugs and weapons, and that they didn’t want anyone using Thai soil to plan military attacks, the sources said.
The Karen journalists at KIC said they now feel unsafe at their office in Mae Sot where members of the pro-Burmese junta Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) are active.
“We don’t feel safe anymore. It is very difficult for us working as media on the border. It is very easy for the DKBA and State Peace and Development Council [the Burmese military government] to come to our office,” said Nang Paw Gay, the editor and director of the KIC.
“However, we will continue our role as journalists. We never oppose Thai law. We just publish the true information for people on the border,” she said.
According to Nang Paw Gay, the Thai policemen smashed open a door during the raid and took photographs of all the equipment and hard copies of their newspaper. Staff reported that a USB stick from a laptop has gone missing.
After the raid, Thai intelligence officers arrived at the KIC office and requested an interview with Nang Paw Gay, the sources said.
Staff said they noticed an army truck parked outside taking photos of the office two days ago.
The KIC was founded 12 years ago in order to create an independent news outlet providing accurate information to Karen people along the border and inside Karen State via their online news Web site and newspaper.
The KNU is now under growing pressure from the Thai authorities. David Takapaw’s home was also searched in October. Karen leaders have said they feel unsafe living in Mae Sot and some of them stay away from their homes for their own security.
In February 2008, Mahn Sha, the former general secretary of the KNU, was shot dead by two gunmen in his home in Mae Sot, an assassination most Karen sources said was ordered by Burmese authorities.
Karen sources on the border have reported that DKBA spies are now “everywhere” in Mae Sot.
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Burmese monks stopped from joining renovation of U Thant’s rest house
Thursday, 04 February 2010 19:43 Myint Maung
New Delhi (Mizzima) – Burmese Buddhist monks have been stopped from being a part of the renovation work of the U Thant’s memorial rest house in Lumbini, Nepal by the Burmese embassy in capital Kathmandu.
Though two Burmese monks were keen to be part of the renovation of U Thant’s memorial rest house into a library and museum by the trustee, the Burmese embassy prevented them.
“The building is going to collapse so we consulted Burmese monks in Lumbini. We heard that officials of the Burmese embassy in Kathmandu came yesterday and yelled at them for involving themselves in our project,” Nepali abbot Decruiser Karet Thanmar who is spearheading the renovation project told Mizzima.
The abbot, who sojourns at the U Thant memorial rest house said, “The Burmese embassy here does not want Burmese monks to be involved. In their view, U Thant was a democrat so that they have no respect for him. Besides they do not want anything related to U Thant publicised”.
One of the monks staying at the Burmese golden monastery in Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha, and run by Burma Religious Affairs Department said that the Burmese authorities also stopped them from talking about the matter to anyone.
The reason behind the ban is still not clear and the Burmese embassy was not forthcoming with its comments.
But the Nepali abbot said that they would go ahead with the renovation plan.
They plan to repair the damaged roof and build the library and an information centre in the front along with a dining hall and two guesthouses for visiting monks, it is learnt.
U Thant was UN Secretary General from 1961 to 1971. He died on 25 November 1974 in New York, USA.
The ruling Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) government at that time refused to honour him with a state funeral and planned to bury him at the Cantonment Park. Rangoon University students refused to accept this and forcibly buried his mortal remains on 8 December 1974 in the university campus, in the former Student Union building compound.
The army raided the university campus on 11 December at about 2 a.m. and killed many students and people who were guarding the tomb of U Thant and arrested many. Then they bulldozed the tomb and reburied the mortal remains of U Thant immediately at their pre-planned site in Cantonment Park.
Thursday, 04 February 2010 19:43 Myint Maung
New Delhi (Mizzima) – Burmese Buddhist monks have been stopped from being a part of the renovation work of the U Thant’s memorial rest house in Lumbini, Nepal by the Burmese embassy in capital Kathmandu.
Though two Burmese monks were keen to be part of the renovation of U Thant’s memorial rest house into a library and museum by the trustee, the Burmese embassy prevented them.
“The building is going to collapse so we consulted Burmese monks in Lumbini. We heard that officials of the Burmese embassy in Kathmandu came yesterday and yelled at them for involving themselves in our project,” Nepali abbot Decruiser Karet Thanmar who is spearheading the renovation project told Mizzima.
The abbot, who sojourns at the U Thant memorial rest house said, “The Burmese embassy here does not want Burmese monks to be involved. In their view, U Thant was a democrat so that they have no respect for him. Besides they do not want anything related to U Thant publicised”.
One of the monks staying at the Burmese golden monastery in Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha, and run by Burma Religious Affairs Department said that the Burmese authorities also stopped them from talking about the matter to anyone.
The reason behind the ban is still not clear and the Burmese embassy was not forthcoming with its comments.
But the Nepali abbot said that they would go ahead with the renovation plan.
They plan to repair the damaged roof and build the library and an information centre in the front along with a dining hall and two guesthouses for visiting monks, it is learnt.
U Thant was UN Secretary General from 1961 to 1971. He died on 25 November 1974 in New York, USA.
The ruling Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) government at that time refused to honour him with a state funeral and planned to bury him at the Cantonment Park. Rangoon University students refused to accept this and forcibly buried his mortal remains on 8 December 1974 in the university campus, in the former Student Union building compound.
The army raided the university campus on 11 December at about 2 a.m. and killed many students and people who were guarding the tomb of U Thant and arrested many. Then they bulldozed the tomb and reburied the mortal remains of U Thant immediately at their pre-planned site in Cantonment Park.
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Abducted villagers remain in captivity
Feb 4, 2010 (DVB)–Seven villagers in central Burma remain in captivity after being abducted by the Burmese troops in December last year, while a neighbour claimed they had been forced into the army.
The men, who range in age from 20 to 40-years-old, were taken by Burmese troops from Battalion 83 during a pagoda festival in Magwe division’s Sinbaungwe town on 9 December last year.
A local villager told DVB that their whereabouts has not been confirmed, but thought they had been forcibly abducted into the army.
Human rights groups have condemned the Burmese junta for ongoing use of forced labour and forced recruitment.
“The soldiers tied the men up and pulled them onto a [bullock] cart to force them into the battalion,” said the villager.
He added that influential figures from the village of Than Min Aung, one of them men abducted, who went to the battalion to ask for his release were turned down by the battalion’s commander.
“The commander said that the recruitment was nothing to do with him so he would not [approve] his release,” he said.
Last month, soldiers from the same battalion abducted two underage boys from nearby Taungdwingyi town, allegedly after plying them with alcohol.
The boys were returned home after one of their family’s paid 40,000 kyat [$US40] to the army officials. The incident subsequently made headlines in Burmese exiled media.
Officials from Battalion 83 were unavailable for comment.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) said in November last year that there had been a 50 percent rise in the number of complaints of forced labour and forced recruitment it had received since it began work in Burma in 2007.
The organization, is the only international body that has a mandate to tackle forced labour in Burma, last month extended an agreement with the Burmese government not to harass forced labour complainants.
Reporting by Aye Nai
Feb 4, 2010 (DVB)–Seven villagers in central Burma remain in captivity after being abducted by the Burmese troops in December last year, while a neighbour claimed they had been forced into the army.
The men, who range in age from 20 to 40-years-old, were taken by Burmese troops from Battalion 83 during a pagoda festival in Magwe division’s Sinbaungwe town on 9 December last year.
A local villager told DVB that their whereabouts has not been confirmed, but thought they had been forcibly abducted into the army.
Human rights groups have condemned the Burmese junta for ongoing use of forced labour and forced recruitment.
“The soldiers tied the men up and pulled them onto a [bullock] cart to force them into the battalion,” said the villager.
He added that influential figures from the village of Than Min Aung, one of them men abducted, who went to the battalion to ask for his release were turned down by the battalion’s commander.
“The commander said that the recruitment was nothing to do with him so he would not [approve] his release,” he said.
Last month, soldiers from the same battalion abducted two underage boys from nearby Taungdwingyi town, allegedly after plying them with alcohol.
The boys were returned home after one of their family’s paid 40,000 kyat [$US40] to the army officials. The incident subsequently made headlines in Burmese exiled media.
Officials from Battalion 83 were unavailable for comment.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) said in November last year that there had been a 50 percent rise in the number of complaints of forced labour and forced recruitment it had received since it began work in Burma in 2007.
The organization, is the only international body that has a mandate to tackle forced labour in Burma, last month extended an agreement with the Burmese government not to harass forced labour complainants.
Reporting by Aye Nai
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