UN envoy meets Suu Kyi party aides in Myanmar
Thu Feb 18, 7:04 am ET
YANGON (AFP) – The freed deputy of Aung San Suu Kyi's party met a UN rights envoy in military-ruled Myanmar Thursday and said the release of the Nobel Peace laureate was vital before elections, the opposition said.
UN special rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana held talks in the former capital Yangon with Tin Oo, the elderly vice chairman of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), and six other leading party members.
Myanmar's ruling junta freed 83-year-old Tin Oo from house arrest at the weekend. He was detained along with Suu Kyi in 2003 after a pro-regime mob attacked their motorcade, killing dozens of people.
"We had a free discussion with him for one hour. We discussed the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," Khin Maung Swe, one of those who attended the meeting with Quintana, told AFP. Daw is a Burmese-language term of respect.
"We also said that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi should be involved in the future politics and pointed out that (she) should participate in national reconciliation," he said.
Quintana told the NLD members that he had asked to meet Suu Kyi but had had no answer yet from the junta, Khin Maung Swe said.
"He asked us about the election and we said that there was no election law and we haven't met with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi so we haven't decided anything yet," he added.
Myanmar's generals have promised to hold elections this year but have not yet set a date, adding to international fears that the polls are a sham designed to legitimise the regime's hold on power.
The NLD won by a landslide in Myanmar's last national polls in 1990 but the military prevented them from taking power. The latest elections are part of a "roadmap to democracy" announced by the junta.
Suu Kyi has been detained for most of the last two decades and her house arrest was extended by 18 months in August after an incident in which a US man swam to her lakeside house.
Among the other NLD members who also attended the meeting with Quintana was Win Tin, a dissident journalist who was Myanmar's longest serving prisoner until his release in September 2008.
The Argentinian diplomat arrived in Yangon Thursday from the northwestern town of Sittwe and went to the notorious Insein Prison, where dozens of dissidents are held.
On Wednesday, Quintana travelled to a prison in Rakhine state on the northwestern border with Bangladesh and met several political prisoners, sources said.
They included Htay Kywe, a prominent student activist serving a 65-year jail sentence for his role in mass protests led by Buddhist monks against the regime in 2007.
Myanmar's generals have also continued a crackdown on dissent launched after the protests three years ago. The United Nations says there are around 2,100 political detainees in the country.
Quintana is set to travel to the remote new capital Naypyidaw on Friday, the final day of his five-day trip, to meet Foreign Minister Nyan Win and other officials.
The UN envoy is not, however, scheduled to meet reclusive junta leader Than Shwe.
Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962.
Thu Feb 18, 7:04 am ET
YANGON (AFP) – The freed deputy of Aung San Suu Kyi's party met a UN rights envoy in military-ruled Myanmar Thursday and said the release of the Nobel Peace laureate was vital before elections, the opposition said.
UN special rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana held talks in the former capital Yangon with Tin Oo, the elderly vice chairman of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), and six other leading party members.
Myanmar's ruling junta freed 83-year-old Tin Oo from house arrest at the weekend. He was detained along with Suu Kyi in 2003 after a pro-regime mob attacked their motorcade, killing dozens of people.
"We had a free discussion with him for one hour. We discussed the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," Khin Maung Swe, one of those who attended the meeting with Quintana, told AFP. Daw is a Burmese-language term of respect.
"We also said that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi should be involved in the future politics and pointed out that (she) should participate in national reconciliation," he said.
Quintana told the NLD members that he had asked to meet Suu Kyi but had had no answer yet from the junta, Khin Maung Swe said.
"He asked us about the election and we said that there was no election law and we haven't met with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi so we haven't decided anything yet," he added.
Myanmar's generals have promised to hold elections this year but have not yet set a date, adding to international fears that the polls are a sham designed to legitimise the regime's hold on power.
The NLD won by a landslide in Myanmar's last national polls in 1990 but the military prevented them from taking power. The latest elections are part of a "roadmap to democracy" announced by the junta.
Suu Kyi has been detained for most of the last two decades and her house arrest was extended by 18 months in August after an incident in which a US man swam to her lakeside house.
Among the other NLD members who also attended the meeting with Quintana was Win Tin, a dissident journalist who was Myanmar's longest serving prisoner until his release in September 2008.
The Argentinian diplomat arrived in Yangon Thursday from the northwestern town of Sittwe and went to the notorious Insein Prison, where dozens of dissidents are held.
On Wednesday, Quintana travelled to a prison in Rakhine state on the northwestern border with Bangladesh and met several political prisoners, sources said.
They included Htay Kywe, a prominent student activist serving a 65-year jail sentence for his role in mass protests led by Buddhist monks against the regime in 2007.
Myanmar's generals have also continued a crackdown on dissent launched after the protests three years ago. The United Nations says there are around 2,100 political detainees in the country.
Quintana is set to travel to the remote new capital Naypyidaw on Friday, the final day of his five-day trip, to meet Foreign Minister Nyan Win and other officials.
The UN envoy is not, however, scheduled to meet reclusive junta leader Than Shwe.
Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962.
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Bangladesh under fire from MSF for refugee crackdown
by Cat Barton – Thu Feb 18, 4:29 am ET
DHAKA (AFP) – Bangladesh has unleashed a crackdown of unprecedented violence against Muslim refugees from neighbouring Myanmar, a report by humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres said Thursday.
Described by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities on earth, thousands of Rohingyas from Myanmar's northern Rakhine state stream across the border into Muslim-majority Bangladesh every year.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) said the country's estimated 220,000 unregistered Rohingyas faced brutality from security forces, with many threatened by starvation because they can neither work nor claim aid.
"We are seeing what appears to be a violent crackdown which is driving the (unregistered) Rohingya out of the community," and into makeshift camps, MSF head of mission in Bangladesh Paul Critchley told AFP.
Hounded out of local towns by "unprecedented levels of violence," thousands of refugees have sought shelter in the makeshift camps which surround an official UN-run facility in Kutupalong on the Myanmar border.
MSF's report said more than 6,000 people have arrived since October, 2,000 of those in January alone.
Bangladesh recognises 28,000 Rohingya as registered refugees, who live in the official UN camp. This figure is a fraction of the estimated 220,000 unofficial refugees, MSF says.
Last week, the European Union passed a resolution calling on the Bangladeshi government to recognise unregistered Rohingya as refugees and extend them support.
An EU parliamentary delegation arrived in Bangladesh earlier this month for a fact-finding mission in the Rohingya refugee camps, while a UN special rapporteur, Tomas Ojea Quintana, is also investigating.
He visited a prison in Rakhine on the border with Bangladesh on Wednesday where many arrested Rohingyas are believed to have been sent.
One local leader in an unofficial Rohingya camp told AFP by telephone that there had been mass arrests and hundreds of deaths due to starvation.
One man, Abdul Quddos, 25, told AFP that he had discussed his plight with the EU delegation during a visit on Monday but he was then arrested. He escaped and is now in hiding.
Perceived by the local community as a burden on resources and a threat to the local job market, the Rohingya are "an easy punch ball for unscrupulous local politicians," MSF's report said.
A separate report by lobby group the Arakan Project, released Tuesday, said local media were running a "xenophobic campaign" against the Rohingya, which had stirred up local resentment.
There are an estimated 700,000 Rohingya in Myanmar, where they are not recognised as citizens and have no right to own land and are forbidden from marrying or travelling without permission.
Bangladeshi local police chief Rafiqul Islam said that a crackdown was underway, but denied reports of police brutality, saying any injuries seen by MSF were due to infighting among Rohingya refugees.
"Registered and unregistered Rohingyas often fight among themselves over getting aid," Islam said.
"Why should police torture them? We don't need to do that. When we find unregistered refugees, we do two things: push them back to Myanmar or send to jail. And that's it," he said.
Police on the border with Myanmar told AFP Tuesday that they had arrested nearly 149 Rohingyas last month as they tried to enter Bangladesh and had pushed back 112.
MSF and Arakan's reports both claim the repatriation policy is illegal.
Islam said the crackdown and repatriations were necessary to prevent further mass migration.
"If we don't stop them, the floodgates will open," he said.
by Cat Barton – Thu Feb 18, 4:29 am ET
DHAKA (AFP) – Bangladesh has unleashed a crackdown of unprecedented violence against Muslim refugees from neighbouring Myanmar, a report by humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres said Thursday.
Described by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities on earth, thousands of Rohingyas from Myanmar's northern Rakhine state stream across the border into Muslim-majority Bangladesh every year.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) said the country's estimated 220,000 unregistered Rohingyas faced brutality from security forces, with many threatened by starvation because they can neither work nor claim aid.
"We are seeing what appears to be a violent crackdown which is driving the (unregistered) Rohingya out of the community," and into makeshift camps, MSF head of mission in Bangladesh Paul Critchley told AFP.
Hounded out of local towns by "unprecedented levels of violence," thousands of refugees have sought shelter in the makeshift camps which surround an official UN-run facility in Kutupalong on the Myanmar border.
MSF's report said more than 6,000 people have arrived since October, 2,000 of those in January alone.
Bangladesh recognises 28,000 Rohingya as registered refugees, who live in the official UN camp. This figure is a fraction of the estimated 220,000 unofficial refugees, MSF says.
Last week, the European Union passed a resolution calling on the Bangladeshi government to recognise unregistered Rohingya as refugees and extend them support.
An EU parliamentary delegation arrived in Bangladesh earlier this month for a fact-finding mission in the Rohingya refugee camps, while a UN special rapporteur, Tomas Ojea Quintana, is also investigating.
He visited a prison in Rakhine on the border with Bangladesh on Wednesday where many arrested Rohingyas are believed to have been sent.
One local leader in an unofficial Rohingya camp told AFP by telephone that there had been mass arrests and hundreds of deaths due to starvation.
One man, Abdul Quddos, 25, told AFP that he had discussed his plight with the EU delegation during a visit on Monday but he was then arrested. He escaped and is now in hiding.
Perceived by the local community as a burden on resources and a threat to the local job market, the Rohingya are "an easy punch ball for unscrupulous local politicians," MSF's report said.
A separate report by lobby group the Arakan Project, released Tuesday, said local media were running a "xenophobic campaign" against the Rohingya, which had stirred up local resentment.
There are an estimated 700,000 Rohingya in Myanmar, where they are not recognised as citizens and have no right to own land and are forbidden from marrying or travelling without permission.
Bangladeshi local police chief Rafiqul Islam said that a crackdown was underway, but denied reports of police brutality, saying any injuries seen by MSF were due to infighting among Rohingya refugees.
"Registered and unregistered Rohingyas often fight among themselves over getting aid," Islam said.
"Why should police torture them? We don't need to do that. When we find unregistered refugees, we do two things: push them back to Myanmar or send to jail. And that's it," he said.
Police on the border with Myanmar told AFP Tuesday that they had arrested nearly 149 Rohingyas last month as they tried to enter Bangladesh and had pushed back 112.
MSF and Arakan's reports both claim the repatriation policy is illegal.
Islam said the crackdown and repatriations were necessary to prevent further mass migration.
"If we don't stop them, the floodgates will open," he said.
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Violence against refugees from Myanmar claimed
By THANYARAT DOKSONE,Associated Press Writer - Thursday, February 18
BANGKOK (AP) – Thousands of Muslim refugees from Myanmar face beatings and forced repatriation to their homeland by authorities in Bangladesh, an international medical group said Thursday.
About a quarter-million ethnic Rohingyas have fled from Myanmar, saying they face often brutal treatment by the ruling military regime.
"Refugees have reported to us that they have received beatings in the host community by the police," said Paul Critchley, who heads Medecins sans Frontieres in Bangladesh.
"Our patients have told us in some cases they have been handed over to the border forces of Bangladesh, beaten and forced to swim the river back toward Myanmar."
Bangladesh authorities have dismissed earlier charges of a crackdown. Sakhawat Hossain, a senior police official, said Tuesday that authorities were only conducting normal operations to detain foreigners who illegally entered the country.
Hossain said 500 Myanmar citizens had been detained between mid-November and Feb. 15.
The majority of Rohingya in Bangladesh reside in the overcrowded Cox's Bazaar area bordering Myanmar. Since October 2009, more than 6,000 people have arrived at a makeshift camp.
Medecins sans Frontieres says that 28,000 refugees live in official camps under United Nations supervision and are recognized as refugees by Bangladesh. But an estimated 220,000 others have no refugee status.
"They could be forced out at any moment, so they're basically holding their families together. You have a space of slightly larger than a bathroom that has six or seven people and attached to it is another bathroom, so you have two families living in this really crammed condition," another agency staffer, Vanessa Van Schoor, told a press conference.
A report released earlier this week from the Rohingya advocacy group The Arakan Project also said a crackdown has been under way since the beginning of January.
"Hunger is spreading rapidly among the already malnourished population in the makeshift camp and a grave humanitarian crisis is looming," project director Chris Lewa said.
The plight the Rohingyas gained international attention in January after allegations that more than 1,200 of them were detained by Thai authorities and later sent adrift at sea on boats with little food or water. Hundreds were believed to have drowned.
Many Rohingyas have taken to the seas in search of better jobs. The destination for many is Malaysia, just across the border from southern Thailand.
The Rohingyas' status in Myanmar is particularly precarious because they do not hold full citizenship.
By THANYARAT DOKSONE,Associated Press Writer - Thursday, February 18
BANGKOK (AP) – Thousands of Muslim refugees from Myanmar face beatings and forced repatriation to their homeland by authorities in Bangladesh, an international medical group said Thursday.
About a quarter-million ethnic Rohingyas have fled from Myanmar, saying they face often brutal treatment by the ruling military regime.
"Refugees have reported to us that they have received beatings in the host community by the police," said Paul Critchley, who heads Medecins sans Frontieres in Bangladesh.
"Our patients have told us in some cases they have been handed over to the border forces of Bangladesh, beaten and forced to swim the river back toward Myanmar."
Bangladesh authorities have dismissed earlier charges of a crackdown. Sakhawat Hossain, a senior police official, said Tuesday that authorities were only conducting normal operations to detain foreigners who illegally entered the country.
Hossain said 500 Myanmar citizens had been detained between mid-November and Feb. 15.
The majority of Rohingya in Bangladesh reside in the overcrowded Cox's Bazaar area bordering Myanmar. Since October 2009, more than 6,000 people have arrived at a makeshift camp.
Medecins sans Frontieres says that 28,000 refugees live in official camps under United Nations supervision and are recognized as refugees by Bangladesh. But an estimated 220,000 others have no refugee status.
"They could be forced out at any moment, so they're basically holding their families together. You have a space of slightly larger than a bathroom that has six or seven people and attached to it is another bathroom, so you have two families living in this really crammed condition," another agency staffer, Vanessa Van Schoor, told a press conference.
A report released earlier this week from the Rohingya advocacy group The Arakan Project also said a crackdown has been under way since the beginning of January.
"Hunger is spreading rapidly among the already malnourished population in the makeshift camp and a grave humanitarian crisis is looming," project director Chris Lewa said.
The plight the Rohingyas gained international attention in January after allegations that more than 1,200 of them were detained by Thai authorities and later sent adrift at sea on boats with little food or water. Hundreds were believed to have drowned.
Many Rohingyas have taken to the seas in search of better jobs. The destination for many is Malaysia, just across the border from southern Thailand.
The Rohingyas' status in Myanmar is particularly precarious because they do not hold full citizenship.
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Myanmar regime blames bomb blasts which injured 13 on ethnic minorities
Wed Feb 17, 11:48 PM
By The Associated Press
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - State media says that ethnic minority rebels in Myanmar are behind recent blasts that have wounded 13 people, including three Chinese nationals.
The Myanmar Ahlin newspaper said Thursday that the disbanded Kokang Army set off two mines that injured nine people, including the Chinese, in northeastern Myanmar on Monday. It blamed the Shan State Army (South) for explosions Tuesday that injured four people in Shan State.
Several ethnic minority groups in Myanmar field guerrilla forces seeking autonomy from the military government. The fighting, most of it in border areas, has displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Wed Feb 17, 11:48 PM
By The Associated Press
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - State media says that ethnic minority rebels in Myanmar are behind recent blasts that have wounded 13 people, including three Chinese nationals.
The Myanmar Ahlin newspaper said Thursday that the disbanded Kokang Army set off two mines that injured nine people, including the Chinese, in northeastern Myanmar on Monday. It blamed the Shan State Army (South) for explosions Tuesday that injured four people in Shan State.
Several ethnic minority groups in Myanmar field guerrilla forces seeking autonomy from the military government. The fighting, most of it in border areas, has displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians.
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Spero News - Myanmar: Burmese junta cracks down on garment industry strikes
Police and anti-riot units are deployed to stop protests. Workers want better working conditions and a higher minimum wage. Two years after Cyclone Nargis, 500,000 people are still homeless, without enough money to rebuild their homes.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
By Asia News
Yangon – A wave of strikes in Myanmar’s garment industry has forced the country’s ruling military junta to beef up security and deploy police and anti-riot troops in affected areas. The latest episode involved workers in Yangon who organised a sit-in to demand better working conditions and a higher minimum wage. The spark that set of workers’ anger was the decision by the authorities to raise salaries for public employees by 20,000 kyat (US$ 20).
The strike started on Tuesday at the Sky garment factory in the western part of Insein Township in Yangon, when about 100 factory workers stopped working, calling for an increase in basic salary, better overtime pay and days off on public holidays.
“The problem still continues in that factory,” said a senior official from the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI), adding that government officials, factory owners and workers are now negotiating over the workers' demands.
The event comes in the wake of last week's labour unrest, involving thousands of factory workers in the Hlaing Tharyar Industrial Zone, a few kilometres from central Yangon.
The government deployed hundreds of riot police to the area.
The workers were demanding an increase of 10,000 kyat (US $10) in salary and ended the strike after employers agreed to pay half the amount.
The workers still want an increase of 100 kyat ($0.10) for overtime pay and an increase of basic salary.
Riot police trucks, a police custody van and a fire engine are still deployed near the factory.
More broadly, poverty continues to affect the population. Two years after Cyclone Nargis, people are still desperate and homeless.
According to the International Organisation for Migration, 500,000 people are still without a home, unable to buy supplies to rebuild their houses because they need to spend the money on food.
Cyclone Nargis in May 2008 killed nearly 140,000 people in the South Asian nation and left 2.4 million homeless.
Police and anti-riot units are deployed to stop protests. Workers want better working conditions and a higher minimum wage. Two years after Cyclone Nargis, 500,000 people are still homeless, without enough money to rebuild their homes.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
By Asia News
Yangon – A wave of strikes in Myanmar’s garment industry has forced the country’s ruling military junta to beef up security and deploy police and anti-riot troops in affected areas. The latest episode involved workers in Yangon who organised a sit-in to demand better working conditions and a higher minimum wage. The spark that set of workers’ anger was the decision by the authorities to raise salaries for public employees by 20,000 kyat (US$ 20).
The strike started on Tuesday at the Sky garment factory in the western part of Insein Township in Yangon, when about 100 factory workers stopped working, calling for an increase in basic salary, better overtime pay and days off on public holidays.
“The problem still continues in that factory,” said a senior official from the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI), adding that government officials, factory owners and workers are now negotiating over the workers' demands.
The event comes in the wake of last week's labour unrest, involving thousands of factory workers in the Hlaing Tharyar Industrial Zone, a few kilometres from central Yangon.
The government deployed hundreds of riot police to the area.
The workers were demanding an increase of 10,000 kyat (US $10) in salary and ended the strike after employers agreed to pay half the amount.
The workers still want an increase of 100 kyat ($0.10) for overtime pay and an increase of basic salary.
Riot police trucks, a police custody van and a fire engine are still deployed near the factory.
More broadly, poverty continues to affect the population. Two years after Cyclone Nargis, people are still desperate and homeless.
According to the International Organisation for Migration, 500,000 people are still without a home, unable to buy supplies to rebuild their houses because they need to spend the money on food.
Cyclone Nargis in May 2008 killed nearly 140,000 people in the South Asian nation and left 2.4 million homeless.
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UN News Centre - Independent UN expert warns of threat of mass deportations from Thailand
18 February 2010 – A large number of migrant workers from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos face the threat of deportation from Thailand if the Government goes ahead with its nationality verification process, an independent United Nations human rights expert warned today.
In January, the Thai Cabinet passed a resolution allowing for a two-year extension of work permits for approximately 1.3 million migrants provided that they were willing to submit biographical information to their home governments prior to 28 February 2010.
However, migrants who fail to do so by this deadline risk deportation after the 28 February deadline.
Jorge A. Bustamante, the UN expert on the human rights of migrants, noted in a news release that carrying out the verification process in its current form places many documented and undocumented migrant workers at risk after 28 February.
“I am disappointed that that the Government of Thailand has not responded to my letters expressing calls for restraint,” said the expert, who reports to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council.
“I reiterate my earlier messages to the Government to reconsider its actions and decisions, and to abide by international instruments,” he added. “If pursued, the threats of mass expulsion will result in unprecedented human suffering and will definitely breach fundamental human rights obligations.”
Mr. Bustamante called on Thailand to respect the principle of ‘non-refoulement,’ noting that among the groups who may potentially be deported are some who may be in need international protection and should not be returned to the country of origin.
Like all UN human rights experts, Mr. Bustamante works in an independent and unpaid capacity.
18 February 2010 – A large number of migrant workers from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos face the threat of deportation from Thailand if the Government goes ahead with its nationality verification process, an independent United Nations human rights expert warned today.
In January, the Thai Cabinet passed a resolution allowing for a two-year extension of work permits for approximately 1.3 million migrants provided that they were willing to submit biographical information to their home governments prior to 28 February 2010.
However, migrants who fail to do so by this deadline risk deportation after the 28 February deadline.
Jorge A. Bustamante, the UN expert on the human rights of migrants, noted in a news release that carrying out the verification process in its current form places many documented and undocumented migrant workers at risk after 28 February.
“I am disappointed that that the Government of Thailand has not responded to my letters expressing calls for restraint,” said the expert, who reports to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council.
“I reiterate my earlier messages to the Government to reconsider its actions and decisions, and to abide by international instruments,” he added. “If pursued, the threats of mass expulsion will result in unprecedented human suffering and will definitely breach fundamental human rights obligations.”
Mr. Bustamante called on Thailand to respect the principle of ‘non-refoulement,’ noting that among the groups who may potentially be deported are some who may be in need international protection and should not be returned to the country of origin.
Like all UN human rights experts, Mr. Bustamante works in an independent and unpaid capacity.
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New York Times - No Refuge for Myanmar's Forgotten People
By SETH MYDANS
Published: February 18, 2010
BANGKOK — Stateless refugees from Myanmar are suffering beatings and deportation in Bangladesh, according to aid workers and rights groups who say thousands are crowding into a squalid camp where they face a “humanitarian crisis” of starvation and disease.
In a campaign that seems to have accelerated since October, the groups say, ethnic Rohingya refugees who have been living for years in Bangladesh are being seized, and beaten and forced back to Myanmar, where they had fled persecution and abuse and which also does not want them.
“Over the last few months we have treated victims of violence, people who claim to have been beaten by the police, claim to have been beaten by members of the host population, by people they’ve been living next to for many years,” said Paul Critchley, head of mission in Bangladesh for the aid group Médecins Sans Frontières.
“We have treated patients for beatings, for machete wounds and for rape,” he said, quoting a report issued Thursday. Some had escaped after being forced into a river that forms the border with Myanmar. “This is continuing today.”
Since October, he said, the unofficial Kutupalong Makeshift Camp with its dirt paths, flimsy shacks and open sewers has grown by 6,000 people to nearly 30,000, with 2,000 new arrivals in January alone.
They are among about 250,000 Rohingya in Bangladesh, a Muslim minority from neighboring Myanmar, where they do not have citizenship and are subject to abuse and forced labor, and cannot travel, marry or practice their religion freely.
Despite the hardships, people are continuing to flee repression and fear in Myanmar, and when they are deported, many return, several people said.
About 28,000 of them have been recognized by the government and documented as refugees. They receive food and other assistance in a camp administered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and have not been subject to the abuses and forced returns described by other Rohingya, said Kitty McKinsey, a spokeswoman for the agency in Bangkok.
The government has not allowed the agency to register new arrivals since 1993.
Most Rohingya in Bangladesh have no documentation and struggle to survive, evading the authorities and working mostly as day laborers, servants or pedicab drivers. They have no rights to education or other government services.
“They cannot receive general food distribution,” Mr. Critchley said. “It is illegal for them to work. All they can legally do in Bangladesh is starve to death.”
The current crackdown is the worst they have ever suffered, according to aid workers and the refugees themselves.
“Over the last month and in Cox’s Bazaar District alone, hundreds of unregistered Rohingyas have been arrested, either pushed back across the border to Burma or sent to jail under immigration charges,” said Chris Lewa, referring to Myanmar by its other name. Ms. Lewa closely follows the fate of the Rohingya as director of the Arakan Project, which also issued a report this week.
“In several areas of the district, thousands were evicted with threats of violence. Robberies, assaults and rape against Rohingyas have significantly increased,” she said.
A risky route to a better life, by sea to Thailand and then to Malaysia for work, has been cut off after the Thai Navy pushed about 1,000 Rohingya boat people out to sea last year to drift and possibly to drown.
More than a year later, more than 300 are known to be missing and more than 30 are confirmed to have died, Ms. Lewa said. No boats are reported to have landed in Thailand in the recent post-monsoon sailing season.
“The brutal push-backs and the continuous detention of the survivors seems to have stopped the Rohingya from doing it again,” Ms. Lewa said. “That horrible action has had the effect of basically stopping people from leaving.”
In Bangladesh, the situation in the unofficial camp is becoming desperate, both aid workers and refugees said.
“We cannot move around to find work,” said Hasan, 40, a day laborer who lives with his wife and three children in a dirt-floored hovel made of sticks, scrap wood and plastic sheeting. He said he had no way to feed his family.
“There is a checkpoint nearby where they’re catching people and arresting them,” he told a photographer who visited recently. Like other refugees here, he asked that his last name not be used for fear of reprisals.
“We aren’t receiving any help,” he said. “No one can borrow money from each other. Everybody’s in crisis now.” People do what they can to survive.
“When I visit the camp,” Mr. Critchley said, “I see small girls going out in the forest to collect firewood, and we have treated young girls and women who have been raped doing this.”
In the Thursday report, Médecins Sans Frontières said that a year ago 90 percent of people in the makeshift camp were already “severely food insecure,” in other words, that they were running out of food.
“Malnutrition and mortality rates were past emergency thresholds, and people had little access to safe drinking water, sanitation or medical care,” the report said.
The overcrowded camp has become an incubator for disease, Mr. Critchley said, and with the monsoon season peaking in late March and early April, medical workers fear a lethal spread of acute diarrhea.
“International standards would assume that a latrine is shared by 20 people,” Mr. Critchley said. “With the number of latrines in the camp, over 70 people share each latrine. I’ve seen small children using piles of human feces as toys.”
The Rohingya know that they live at the very bottom of human society, that they are not wanted anywhere and that they are outsiders without legal standing or protection.
Abdul, 69, who has lived in Bangladesh for more than 15 years, said that these thoughts disturb his dreams.
“When I sleep I think that if someone kills an animal in the forest they are breaking the law,” he said. “They are caught and punished. But as human beings it isn’t the same for us. So where are our rights? I think to myself that we are lower than an animal.”
By SETH MYDANS
Published: February 18, 2010
BANGKOK — Stateless refugees from Myanmar are suffering beatings and deportation in Bangladesh, according to aid workers and rights groups who say thousands are crowding into a squalid camp where they face a “humanitarian crisis” of starvation and disease.
In a campaign that seems to have accelerated since October, the groups say, ethnic Rohingya refugees who have been living for years in Bangladesh are being seized, and beaten and forced back to Myanmar, where they had fled persecution and abuse and which also does not want them.
“Over the last few months we have treated victims of violence, people who claim to have been beaten by the police, claim to have been beaten by members of the host population, by people they’ve been living next to for many years,” said Paul Critchley, head of mission in Bangladesh for the aid group Médecins Sans Frontières.
“We have treated patients for beatings, for machete wounds and for rape,” he said, quoting a report issued Thursday. Some had escaped after being forced into a river that forms the border with Myanmar. “This is continuing today.”
Since October, he said, the unofficial Kutupalong Makeshift Camp with its dirt paths, flimsy shacks and open sewers has grown by 6,000 people to nearly 30,000, with 2,000 new arrivals in January alone.
They are among about 250,000 Rohingya in Bangladesh, a Muslim minority from neighboring Myanmar, where they do not have citizenship and are subject to abuse and forced labor, and cannot travel, marry or practice their religion freely.
Despite the hardships, people are continuing to flee repression and fear in Myanmar, and when they are deported, many return, several people said.
About 28,000 of them have been recognized by the government and documented as refugees. They receive food and other assistance in a camp administered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and have not been subject to the abuses and forced returns described by other Rohingya, said Kitty McKinsey, a spokeswoman for the agency in Bangkok.
The government has not allowed the agency to register new arrivals since 1993.
Most Rohingya in Bangladesh have no documentation and struggle to survive, evading the authorities and working mostly as day laborers, servants or pedicab drivers. They have no rights to education or other government services.
“They cannot receive general food distribution,” Mr. Critchley said. “It is illegal for them to work. All they can legally do in Bangladesh is starve to death.”
The current crackdown is the worst they have ever suffered, according to aid workers and the refugees themselves.
“Over the last month and in Cox’s Bazaar District alone, hundreds of unregistered Rohingyas have been arrested, either pushed back across the border to Burma or sent to jail under immigration charges,” said Chris Lewa, referring to Myanmar by its other name. Ms. Lewa closely follows the fate of the Rohingya as director of the Arakan Project, which also issued a report this week.
“In several areas of the district, thousands were evicted with threats of violence. Robberies, assaults and rape against Rohingyas have significantly increased,” she said.
A risky route to a better life, by sea to Thailand and then to Malaysia for work, has been cut off after the Thai Navy pushed about 1,000 Rohingya boat people out to sea last year to drift and possibly to drown.
More than a year later, more than 300 are known to be missing and more than 30 are confirmed to have died, Ms. Lewa said. No boats are reported to have landed in Thailand in the recent post-monsoon sailing season.
“The brutal push-backs and the continuous detention of the survivors seems to have stopped the Rohingya from doing it again,” Ms. Lewa said. “That horrible action has had the effect of basically stopping people from leaving.”
In Bangladesh, the situation in the unofficial camp is becoming desperate, both aid workers and refugees said.
“We cannot move around to find work,” said Hasan, 40, a day laborer who lives with his wife and three children in a dirt-floored hovel made of sticks, scrap wood and plastic sheeting. He said he had no way to feed his family.
“There is a checkpoint nearby where they’re catching people and arresting them,” he told a photographer who visited recently. Like other refugees here, he asked that his last name not be used for fear of reprisals.
“We aren’t receiving any help,” he said. “No one can borrow money from each other. Everybody’s in crisis now.” People do what they can to survive.
“When I visit the camp,” Mr. Critchley said, “I see small girls going out in the forest to collect firewood, and we have treated young girls and women who have been raped doing this.”
In the Thursday report, Médecins Sans Frontières said that a year ago 90 percent of people in the makeshift camp were already “severely food insecure,” in other words, that they were running out of food.
“Malnutrition and mortality rates were past emergency thresholds, and people had little access to safe drinking water, sanitation or medical care,” the report said.
The overcrowded camp has become an incubator for disease, Mr. Critchley said, and with the monsoon season peaking in late March and early April, medical workers fear a lethal spread of acute diarrhea.
“International standards would assume that a latrine is shared by 20 people,” Mr. Critchley said. “With the number of latrines in the camp, over 70 people share each latrine. I’ve seen small children using piles of human feces as toys.”
The Rohingya know that they live at the very bottom of human society, that they are not wanted anywhere and that they are outsiders without legal standing or protection.
Abdul, 69, who has lived in Bangladesh for more than 15 years, said that these thoughts disturb his dreams.
“When I sleep I think that if someone kills an animal in the forest they are breaking the law,” he said. “They are caught and punished. But as human beings it isn’t the same for us. So where are our rights? I think to myself that we are lower than an animal.”
*************************************************************
MYANMAR: Political uncertainty pushes out ethnic minorities
BANGKOK, 18 February 2010 (IRIN) - A restive political situation in Myanmar has prompted thousands of Burmese refugees to flee to neighbouring countries, and the numbers are expected to grow as uncertainty continues, analysts and aid workers warn.
More than 30 ethnic armed groups have been involved in insurgencies against the central government since 1948, when Myanmar - previously known as Burma - gained independence from British colonial rule.
In the past 20 years, more than a dozen ethnic rebel groups have signed peace agreements with the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).
But there are fears of renewed fighting as the government tries to force the ethnic armies to surrender their weapons and form a special Border Guard Force under Burmese military control before long-awaited elections this year.
"If the political situation in Burma deteriorates further and fighting erupts, we can expect more than 200,000 new refugees, mainly Shan and Wa," the head of Thailand's National Security Council, Bhornchart Bunnag, told IRIN.
Many of the signatories have resisted this move, including the largest organizations representing the Kachin, Mon and Wa, although some smaller groups have accepted it.
Estimates are rough, but the Wa say they have 20,000 armed soldiers, while the Kachin and Mon have 6,000 and 3,500 respectively.
"At a time when we are trying to accomplish everything through politics, the SPDC wants to do something else," said James Lum Dau, a spokesman for the Kachin Independent Organization (KIO).
Aid workers and analysts say they are bracing for a further influx of thousands of Karen and Mon refugees if fighting resumes.
"The political instability in Burma - with the elections due some time [in 2010] - and pressure on the ethnic armies to disarm, will drive more refugees to seek safety across the border, especially in Thailand," said Win Min, a Burmese academic based in Chiang Mai, in Thailand's north.
Signs of conflict
In August 2009, the Burmese army attacked the ethnic Chinese Kokang, who call themselves the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), near the Chinese border.
The clashes resulted in more than 40,000 Kokang fleeing to China's southern Yunnan Province; activists say most have yet to return, even though the fighting has stopped.
Fierce fighting in eastern Karen State at the border with Thailand in June 2009 forced more than 3,000 refugees to flee across the border for safety, according to the regional office of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Bangkok.
Nearly all of these refugees are still in Thailand, said UNHCR regional spokeswoman, Kitty McKinsey.
"Right now, UNHCR does not feel conditions exist for the Karen or any other refugees in the nine camps along the Thai-Myanmar border to return to their homes in safety and dignity," she said.
Fresh Burmese army offensives are expected against the rebel Karen National Union (KNU) in eastern Myanmar. They have been fighting for autonomy from the central authorities for more than 60 years, and so far have not negotiated a truce.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) - which broke away from the KNU more than a decade ago and agreed a ceasefire pact with the Burmese army - has been forcibly conscripting civilians into its militia in preparation for the new border police force, according to KNU leaders.
"The press-ganging of Karen villagers started early this year and is continuing now the wet season is over," KNU general secretary, Zipporah Sein, told IRIN. "Every village has to provide two soldiers and money for equipment like walkie-talkie radios," she said.
Fleeing conflict
"Successive military regimes have tried to eliminate all the ethnic minorities inside Burma in an effort to purify the population," David Thakerbaw, a Karen spokesman, said.
Muslim ethnic Rohingya in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State, who are considered stateless, typify the extent of systematic persecution faced by ethnic minorities, and have fled in their hundreds of thousands to Bangladesh, rights groups say.
"They are effectively denied citizenship, they have their land confiscated, and many are regularly forced to work on government projects," Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International's Burma researcher, told IRIN.
"The regime creates conditions and circumstances that make it clear to the Rohingyas that they are not wanted or welcome in the country," he added.
Genuine political solution needed
Analysts say the plight of Myanmar's ethnic minorities will not be resolved until there is a genuine political solution, and their rights are recognized.
"The first thing that needs to be done is to allow ethnic people to be educated in their own languages," Suboi Jum, a former Kachin Baptist bishop in Myanmar, told IRIN.
A new constitution pushed through in 2008 guarantees a substantial number of seats for the military government and its allies in national and local parliaments, while marginalizing other political groups, rights organizations say.
And the 2010 national elections - the first to be held for 20 years - are not expected by observers such as the International Crisis Group to be free or fair.
The polls are unlikely to help the process of assimilation or integration of Burma's ethnic minorities, experts say.
"Burma's ethnic nationalities will find it difficult to achieve lasting peace and security without a settlement that guarantees their social and political rights," said Ashley South, a historian of the Mon and an ethnic specialist.
"Socio-political transition in Burma is likely to be a drawn-out process, rather than a one-off event."
BANGKOK, 18 February 2010 (IRIN) - A restive political situation in Myanmar has prompted thousands of Burmese refugees to flee to neighbouring countries, and the numbers are expected to grow as uncertainty continues, analysts and aid workers warn.
More than 30 ethnic armed groups have been involved in insurgencies against the central government since 1948, when Myanmar - previously known as Burma - gained independence from British colonial rule.
In the past 20 years, more than a dozen ethnic rebel groups have signed peace agreements with the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).
But there are fears of renewed fighting as the government tries to force the ethnic armies to surrender their weapons and form a special Border Guard Force under Burmese military control before long-awaited elections this year.
"If the political situation in Burma deteriorates further and fighting erupts, we can expect more than 200,000 new refugees, mainly Shan and Wa," the head of Thailand's National Security Council, Bhornchart Bunnag, told IRIN.
Many of the signatories have resisted this move, including the largest organizations representing the Kachin, Mon and Wa, although some smaller groups have accepted it.
Estimates are rough, but the Wa say they have 20,000 armed soldiers, while the Kachin and Mon have 6,000 and 3,500 respectively.
"At a time when we are trying to accomplish everything through politics, the SPDC wants to do something else," said James Lum Dau, a spokesman for the Kachin Independent Organization (KIO).
Aid workers and analysts say they are bracing for a further influx of thousands of Karen and Mon refugees if fighting resumes.
"The political instability in Burma - with the elections due some time [in 2010] - and pressure on the ethnic armies to disarm, will drive more refugees to seek safety across the border, especially in Thailand," said Win Min, a Burmese academic based in Chiang Mai, in Thailand's north.
Signs of conflict
In August 2009, the Burmese army attacked the ethnic Chinese Kokang, who call themselves the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), near the Chinese border.
The clashes resulted in more than 40,000 Kokang fleeing to China's southern Yunnan Province; activists say most have yet to return, even though the fighting has stopped.
Fierce fighting in eastern Karen State at the border with Thailand in June 2009 forced more than 3,000 refugees to flee across the border for safety, according to the regional office of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Bangkok.
Nearly all of these refugees are still in Thailand, said UNHCR regional spokeswoman, Kitty McKinsey.
"Right now, UNHCR does not feel conditions exist for the Karen or any other refugees in the nine camps along the Thai-Myanmar border to return to their homes in safety and dignity," she said.
Fresh Burmese army offensives are expected against the rebel Karen National Union (KNU) in eastern Myanmar. They have been fighting for autonomy from the central authorities for more than 60 years, and so far have not negotiated a truce.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) - which broke away from the KNU more than a decade ago and agreed a ceasefire pact with the Burmese army - has been forcibly conscripting civilians into its militia in preparation for the new border police force, according to KNU leaders.
"The press-ganging of Karen villagers started early this year and is continuing now the wet season is over," KNU general secretary, Zipporah Sein, told IRIN. "Every village has to provide two soldiers and money for equipment like walkie-talkie radios," she said.
Fleeing conflict
"Successive military regimes have tried to eliminate all the ethnic minorities inside Burma in an effort to purify the population," David Thakerbaw, a Karen spokesman, said.
Muslim ethnic Rohingya in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State, who are considered stateless, typify the extent of systematic persecution faced by ethnic minorities, and have fled in their hundreds of thousands to Bangladesh, rights groups say.
"They are effectively denied citizenship, they have their land confiscated, and many are regularly forced to work on government projects," Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International's Burma researcher, told IRIN.
"The regime creates conditions and circumstances that make it clear to the Rohingyas that they are not wanted or welcome in the country," he added.
Genuine political solution needed
Analysts say the plight of Myanmar's ethnic minorities will not be resolved until there is a genuine political solution, and their rights are recognized.
"The first thing that needs to be done is to allow ethnic people to be educated in their own languages," Suboi Jum, a former Kachin Baptist bishop in Myanmar, told IRIN.
A new constitution pushed through in 2008 guarantees a substantial number of seats for the military government and its allies in national and local parliaments, while marginalizing other political groups, rights organizations say.
And the 2010 national elections - the first to be held for 20 years - are not expected by observers such as the International Crisis Group to be free or fair.
The polls are unlikely to help the process of assimilation or integration of Burma's ethnic minorities, experts say.
"Burma's ethnic nationalities will find it difficult to achieve lasting peace and security without a settlement that guarantees their social and political rights," said Ashley South, a historian of the Mon and an ethnic specialist.
"Socio-political transition in Burma is likely to be a drawn-out process, rather than a one-off event."
*************************************************************
MYANMAR: Introduction
BANGKOK, 18 February 2010 (IRIN In-Depth) - A year ago, the world was shocked by images of boatloads of ethnic Rohingya refugees from Myanmar being pushed out to open sea off the Thailand coast to fend for themselves with little food or water.
The plight of the Muslim Rohingya boat people from Myanmar's northern Rakhine State galvanized international attention, and highlighted a refugee crisis that seemingly has become part of the region's geopolitical make-up.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Myanmar is the largest source of refugees in Southeast Asia; globally, it ranked 13th behind Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia at end-2008.
In what is described by the UN and specialists as one of the world's most intractable refugee situations, people have been fleeing Myanmar for more than a quarter of a century.
Ethnic conflicts
Analysts say the root causes of Myanmar's refugee exodus lie in the ethnic and political conflicts since independence in 1948 from the British.
Myanmar, with an estimated population of 57.6 million, is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in Southeast Asia.
About two-thirds of the population are ethnic Burmese, while the remainder are Shan, Karen, Rakhine, Chinese, Mon and Indian, as well as the Akha, Chin, Danu, Kachin, Kokang, Lahu, Naga, Palaung, Pao, Rohingya, Tavoyan and Wa peoples. There are about 135 ethnic sub-groups, according to the government.
The minorities live mostly in the hills and mountains bordering Bangladesh, China, India, Laos and Thailand, while the Burmese are found in the central alluvial plains and major towns and cities.
The military, which has ruled Myanmar since 1962, has sought a centralized, unitary state, while ethnic groups want a federal structure and greater independence and autonomy, as well as greater recognition of their cultures.
"The root problem is that the government does not recognize ethnic aspirations and appears to want total military victory. Nothing will improve if that's what they want to do," said Jack Dunford, executive director of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), which provides food and shelter in nine refugee camps in Thailand, one of 18 NGOs working in the camps.
While several armed ethnic groups have signed ceasefire agreements with the government, there are long-running insurgencies in the country's border regions by groups such as the Karen National Union (KNU).
The insurgencies, the government's counter-insurgency strategies and growing militarization have seen civilian populations increasingly bearing the brunt of the conflict and fleeing.
Forced labour by the military, the forced relocation of villages, enforced disappearances, rape and other forms of sexual violence, torture, arbitrary detentions, and discrimination against ethnic minorities are all cited as concerns in Myanmar by the UN and international rights groups.
Regional action urged
Burmese refugee populations are mainly found in Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh and India, though some Rohingya travel as far afield as Saudi Arabia.
The refugees are vulnerable to human traffickers and people smugglers. Where there are no refugee camps, they receive little support and are routinely subject to detention, discrimination, harassment and exploitative working conditions, rights groups say.
None of the main asylum countries in Asia is a signatory to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol, leaving Burmese refugees with little protection or recognition of their rights.
Kitty McKinsey, regional spokeswoman for UNHCR, said many Asian countries lacked national refugee legislation, with the result that legitimate asylum seekers and refugees are instead treated as migrants in breach of immigration laws.
Countries "feel the right place for them is in an immigration detention centre. So they quite often put people in detention who we think are asylum seekers and refugees," she said.
With few prospects for change in Myanmar's domestic politics, rights groups have long urged regional governments to exert political pressure on the military government to reform.
"Burma has been like a pressure cooker and the international community has worked [hard] over the past few decades to ease the pressure minimally," said Debbie Stothard, coordinator of the rights group, Altsean-Burma. "There hasn't been the political will to fundamentally resolve the root causes that have pushed people out of Burma."
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Myanmar, has maintained a policy of "constructive engagement" with the country and does brisk trade with it.
Myanmar, rich in natural resources such as oil, gas, and timber, also counts regional superpowers China and India among its allies, helping to buffer international criticism.
"We need to understand holistically that all of these things are connected, that working with the regime for short-term gain or trying to accommodate the regime's misbehaviour for the sake of geopolitical interests entails the cost of receiving asylum seekers and hosting them," said Stothard.
Bali process
Following the incident with the Rohingya boat people last year, ASEAN in March 2009 informally discussed the problem of Rohingya refugees, but found no solution. There were then hopes that a regional conference known as the Bali Process, which largely tackles human trafficking and people smuggling, could address the issue.
"For us it's an achievement that it even got on the agenda because we've been trying to get it on to the international and Asian agenda for years," said UNHCR's McKinsey.
At the Bali conference in April 2009, there was agreement on setting up an ad-hoc working group on the issue. However, little has been made public since about Bali Process discussions, or whether concrete actions will arise from this move.
"Though there are occasional flare-ups in relations, as was the case in the first months of 2009 over Rohingya boat people, these issues have been resolved more by pushing them back under the table than by providing real solutions that could benefit the refugee population," said Camilla Olson, an advocate for the US-based Refugees International.
"After 20 years, regional governments should acknowledge that a policy that ignores Burmese refugees will not make them go away," she said.
"Instead, it has created a new class of largely urban poor, who have few opportunities for education, healthcare, or productive futures."
Donor fatigue
The intractable nature of the emergency is vividly illustrated by nine refugee camps in Thailand along the 1,800km border with Myanmar, where some 150,000 Burmese live. Uniquely, the camps are run by the refugees themselves, with support from NGOs.
The genesis of these camps dates back to 1984, when the military government's bid to seize more control of areas in the east sent the first large influx of 10,000 mainly Karen refugees into Thailand.
The camps still exist, and with little end in sight to the flow of refugees, aid workers say the needs are greater than ever.
"We have had new refugees arriving every day for the last 25 years," said TBBC's Dunford. "We are dealing with an ongoing emergency, not something static."
Dunford said there was donor fatigue after so long, and few prospects that refugees could lead a normal life. Since anyone who ventures outside the camp is considered an illegal migrant, the ability of refugees to pursue productive lives and greater self-reliance by seeking employment or other activities is limited.
"As we go into 2010, our budgets are going up, the numbers [of refugees] are going up and we have this pressure now from donors wanting to see change," he said.
"We also want to see change, and in particular for the refugees to be more self-reliant. But change will take time, particularly when the Royal Thai Government is concerned about creating a pull factor by improving refugees' quality of life."
Dunford said that in the short term, additional funds were needed to support livelihood initiatives before basic support could be reduced.
Resettlement prospects
There are three solutions to any refugee crisis, says UNHCR: voluntary repatriation to the country of origin, integration into the asylum country, and resettlement in a third country as a final measure.
Recognizing that voluntary repatriation is not a real option, and that settling in asylum countries such as Thailand is difficult, donor countries have offered in recent years to resettle thousands of Burmese refugees.
Since 2004, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has helped to resettled more than 57,000 Burmese refugees from Thailand who belonged to the Karen and Karenni ethnic groups. They were mostly resettled in the US, as well as Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
Michiko Ito, assistant resettlement coordinator with IOM in Bangkok, said countries would continue to be interested in resettling Burmese refugees, but that there was a shift away from accepting refugees out of Thailand, which had "peaked".
"The number out of Malaysia will definitely go up. And the resettlement countries are also looking into the resettlement of Rohingyas out of Bangladesh," said Ito.
Thailand has peaked because resettlement countries look at refugees' living conditions, and the camps provide better help than in Malaysia or Bangladesh, where refugee populations have little assistance, she said.
"In Malaysia, they are living in urban settings and there is absolutely no protection mechanism available for them," said Ito.
BANGKOK, 18 February 2010 (IRIN In-Depth) - A year ago, the world was shocked by images of boatloads of ethnic Rohingya refugees from Myanmar being pushed out to open sea off the Thailand coast to fend for themselves with little food or water.
The plight of the Muslim Rohingya boat people from Myanmar's northern Rakhine State galvanized international attention, and highlighted a refugee crisis that seemingly has become part of the region's geopolitical make-up.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Myanmar is the largest source of refugees in Southeast Asia; globally, it ranked 13th behind Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia at end-2008.
In what is described by the UN and specialists as one of the world's most intractable refugee situations, people have been fleeing Myanmar for more than a quarter of a century.
Ethnic conflicts
Analysts say the root causes of Myanmar's refugee exodus lie in the ethnic and political conflicts since independence in 1948 from the British.
Myanmar, with an estimated population of 57.6 million, is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in Southeast Asia.
About two-thirds of the population are ethnic Burmese, while the remainder are Shan, Karen, Rakhine, Chinese, Mon and Indian, as well as the Akha, Chin, Danu, Kachin, Kokang, Lahu, Naga, Palaung, Pao, Rohingya, Tavoyan and Wa peoples. There are about 135 ethnic sub-groups, according to the government.
The minorities live mostly in the hills and mountains bordering Bangladesh, China, India, Laos and Thailand, while the Burmese are found in the central alluvial plains and major towns and cities.
The military, which has ruled Myanmar since 1962, has sought a centralized, unitary state, while ethnic groups want a federal structure and greater independence and autonomy, as well as greater recognition of their cultures.
"The root problem is that the government does not recognize ethnic aspirations and appears to want total military victory. Nothing will improve if that's what they want to do," said Jack Dunford, executive director of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), which provides food and shelter in nine refugee camps in Thailand, one of 18 NGOs working in the camps.
While several armed ethnic groups have signed ceasefire agreements with the government, there are long-running insurgencies in the country's border regions by groups such as the Karen National Union (KNU).
The insurgencies, the government's counter-insurgency strategies and growing militarization have seen civilian populations increasingly bearing the brunt of the conflict and fleeing.
Forced labour by the military, the forced relocation of villages, enforced disappearances, rape and other forms of sexual violence, torture, arbitrary detentions, and discrimination against ethnic minorities are all cited as concerns in Myanmar by the UN and international rights groups.
Regional action urged
Burmese refugee populations are mainly found in Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh and India, though some Rohingya travel as far afield as Saudi Arabia.
The refugees are vulnerable to human traffickers and people smugglers. Where there are no refugee camps, they receive little support and are routinely subject to detention, discrimination, harassment and exploitative working conditions, rights groups say.
None of the main asylum countries in Asia is a signatory to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol, leaving Burmese refugees with little protection or recognition of their rights.
Kitty McKinsey, regional spokeswoman for UNHCR, said many Asian countries lacked national refugee legislation, with the result that legitimate asylum seekers and refugees are instead treated as migrants in breach of immigration laws.
Countries "feel the right place for them is in an immigration detention centre. So they quite often put people in detention who we think are asylum seekers and refugees," she said.
With few prospects for change in Myanmar's domestic politics, rights groups have long urged regional governments to exert political pressure on the military government to reform.
"Burma has been like a pressure cooker and the international community has worked [hard] over the past few decades to ease the pressure minimally," said Debbie Stothard, coordinator of the rights group, Altsean-Burma. "There hasn't been the political will to fundamentally resolve the root causes that have pushed people out of Burma."
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Myanmar, has maintained a policy of "constructive engagement" with the country and does brisk trade with it.
Myanmar, rich in natural resources such as oil, gas, and timber, also counts regional superpowers China and India among its allies, helping to buffer international criticism.
"We need to understand holistically that all of these things are connected, that working with the regime for short-term gain or trying to accommodate the regime's misbehaviour for the sake of geopolitical interests entails the cost of receiving asylum seekers and hosting them," said Stothard.
Bali process
Following the incident with the Rohingya boat people last year, ASEAN in March 2009 informally discussed the problem of Rohingya refugees, but found no solution. There were then hopes that a regional conference known as the Bali Process, which largely tackles human trafficking and people smuggling, could address the issue.
"For us it's an achievement that it even got on the agenda because we've been trying to get it on to the international and Asian agenda for years," said UNHCR's McKinsey.
At the Bali conference in April 2009, there was agreement on setting up an ad-hoc working group on the issue. However, little has been made public since about Bali Process discussions, or whether concrete actions will arise from this move.
"Though there are occasional flare-ups in relations, as was the case in the first months of 2009 over Rohingya boat people, these issues have been resolved more by pushing them back under the table than by providing real solutions that could benefit the refugee population," said Camilla Olson, an advocate for the US-based Refugees International.
"After 20 years, regional governments should acknowledge that a policy that ignores Burmese refugees will not make them go away," she said.
"Instead, it has created a new class of largely urban poor, who have few opportunities for education, healthcare, or productive futures."
Donor fatigue
The intractable nature of the emergency is vividly illustrated by nine refugee camps in Thailand along the 1,800km border with Myanmar, where some 150,000 Burmese live. Uniquely, the camps are run by the refugees themselves, with support from NGOs.
The genesis of these camps dates back to 1984, when the military government's bid to seize more control of areas in the east sent the first large influx of 10,000 mainly Karen refugees into Thailand.
The camps still exist, and with little end in sight to the flow of refugees, aid workers say the needs are greater than ever.
"We have had new refugees arriving every day for the last 25 years," said TBBC's Dunford. "We are dealing with an ongoing emergency, not something static."
Dunford said there was donor fatigue after so long, and few prospects that refugees could lead a normal life. Since anyone who ventures outside the camp is considered an illegal migrant, the ability of refugees to pursue productive lives and greater self-reliance by seeking employment or other activities is limited.
"As we go into 2010, our budgets are going up, the numbers [of refugees] are going up and we have this pressure now from donors wanting to see change," he said.
"We also want to see change, and in particular for the refugees to be more self-reliant. But change will take time, particularly when the Royal Thai Government is concerned about creating a pull factor by improving refugees' quality of life."
Dunford said that in the short term, additional funds were needed to support livelihood initiatives before basic support could be reduced.
Resettlement prospects
There are three solutions to any refugee crisis, says UNHCR: voluntary repatriation to the country of origin, integration into the asylum country, and resettlement in a third country as a final measure.
Recognizing that voluntary repatriation is not a real option, and that settling in asylum countries such as Thailand is difficult, donor countries have offered in recent years to resettle thousands of Burmese refugees.
Since 2004, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has helped to resettled more than 57,000 Burmese refugees from Thailand who belonged to the Karen and Karenni ethnic groups. They were mostly resettled in the US, as well as Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
Michiko Ito, assistant resettlement coordinator with IOM in Bangkok, said countries would continue to be interested in resettling Burmese refugees, but that there was a shift away from accepting refugees out of Thailand, which had "peaked".
"The number out of Malaysia will definitely go up. And the resettlement countries are also looking into the resettlement of Rohingyas out of Bangladesh," said Ito.
Thailand has peaked because resettlement countries look at refugees' living conditions, and the camps provide better help than in Malaysia or Bangladesh, where refugee populations have little assistance, she said.
"In Malaysia, they are living in urban settings and there is absolutely no protection mechanism available for them," said Ito.
*************************************************************
The Age - Broken Promise on Burma
February 18, 2010 - 11:44AM
As the saying goes "a man who promises everything is sure to fulfil nothing".
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is coming under intense scrutiny over his failure to deliver on his many election promises.
The litany of broken promises on the domestic front runs from failing to act on petrol and grocery prices and failing to fix public hospitals by mid-2009, to failing to ensure that no worker would be worse off and no business would face higher costs under Labor’s new workplace and awards system.
What is less well publicised is the fact that Kevin Rudd, as opposition leader, also made a series of promises in the foreign policy arena to win votes but has not lived up to them.
There was his repeated promise that if elected, a Rudd Government would take Japan to the international courts to stop whaling. Three years on and there has been no sign of court action. The Rudd Government should withdraw its hollow threats against Japan if it has no intention of acting on them.
Then there was Kevin Rudd’s promise to take the President of Iran to the International Criminal Court. There is no evidence that the Rudd Government has taken any action at all against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
According to Burma Campaign Australia, Kevin Rudd also promised that, if elected, he would work to ensure that the United Nations Security Council referred the Burmese generals to the International Criminal Court. Far from continuing the tough line of the former Howard government on the repressive military regime in Burma, Kevin Rudd is sending mixed messages that risk watering down Australia’s long held foreign policy position.
The Burmese military junta is one of the most repressive regimes in the world. The International Labor Organisation estimates that more than 800,000 people have been forced into virtual slavery. The use of forced labour and the recruitment of child soldiers has been widely condemned.
Military attacks on civilian ethnic populations are causing massive internal displacements. The last election in Burma was held 20 years ago. Nobel peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi led the opposition party, the National League for Democracy, to a landslide win, with 80 per cent of the parliamentary seats.
The result was overturned by the military regime, which then crushed any dissent. Opposition members were held in detention under draconian laws. There are still more than 2000 political prisoners in Burma’s horrendous jails.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been in detention or under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years. There have been reports of increased military co-operation between Burma and North Korea and unconfirmed reports that Burma is pursuing a nuclear program.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed growing concern over the military co-operation between Burma and North Korea noting: ''It would be destabilising for the region. It would pose a direct threat to Burma’s neighbours.''
Australia has long maintained a tough sanctions regime against the Burmese military regime, including an arms embargo. Yet, inexplicably, the Australian Navy recently undertook military exercises involving the Burmese Navy.
The Rudd government has given no explanation for Australia’s participation in this exercise nor offered any assurance that this act should not be seen as giving any legitimacy to the Burmese regime.
There is deep international scepticism that the elections to be held in Burma this year will be free or fair, particularly with Aung San Suu Kyi still under house arrest. The new Burmese constitution reportedly entrenches military rule and excludes Aung San Suu Kyi from holding high office.
The Rudd government must maintain a strong stance against the Burma military in the interest of freedom and democracy for the long suffering Burmese people.
Julie Bishop is deputy leader of the federal opposition.
February 18, 2010 - 11:44AM
As the saying goes "a man who promises everything is sure to fulfil nothing".
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is coming under intense scrutiny over his failure to deliver on his many election promises.
The litany of broken promises on the domestic front runs from failing to act on petrol and grocery prices and failing to fix public hospitals by mid-2009, to failing to ensure that no worker would be worse off and no business would face higher costs under Labor’s new workplace and awards system.
What is less well publicised is the fact that Kevin Rudd, as opposition leader, also made a series of promises in the foreign policy arena to win votes but has not lived up to them.
There was his repeated promise that if elected, a Rudd Government would take Japan to the international courts to stop whaling. Three years on and there has been no sign of court action. The Rudd Government should withdraw its hollow threats against Japan if it has no intention of acting on them.
Then there was Kevin Rudd’s promise to take the President of Iran to the International Criminal Court. There is no evidence that the Rudd Government has taken any action at all against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
According to Burma Campaign Australia, Kevin Rudd also promised that, if elected, he would work to ensure that the United Nations Security Council referred the Burmese generals to the International Criminal Court. Far from continuing the tough line of the former Howard government on the repressive military regime in Burma, Kevin Rudd is sending mixed messages that risk watering down Australia’s long held foreign policy position.
The Burmese military junta is one of the most repressive regimes in the world. The International Labor Organisation estimates that more than 800,000 people have been forced into virtual slavery. The use of forced labour and the recruitment of child soldiers has been widely condemned.
Military attacks on civilian ethnic populations are causing massive internal displacements. The last election in Burma was held 20 years ago. Nobel peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi led the opposition party, the National League for Democracy, to a landslide win, with 80 per cent of the parliamentary seats.
The result was overturned by the military regime, which then crushed any dissent. Opposition members were held in detention under draconian laws. There are still more than 2000 political prisoners in Burma’s horrendous jails.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been in detention or under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years. There have been reports of increased military co-operation between Burma and North Korea and unconfirmed reports that Burma is pursuing a nuclear program.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed growing concern over the military co-operation between Burma and North Korea noting: ''It would be destabilising for the region. It would pose a direct threat to Burma’s neighbours.''
Australia has long maintained a tough sanctions regime against the Burmese military regime, including an arms embargo. Yet, inexplicably, the Australian Navy recently undertook military exercises involving the Burmese Navy.
The Rudd government has given no explanation for Australia’s participation in this exercise nor offered any assurance that this act should not be seen as giving any legitimacy to the Burmese regime.
There is deep international scepticism that the elections to be held in Burma this year will be free or fair, particularly with Aung San Suu Kyi still under house arrest. The new Burmese constitution reportedly entrenches military rule and excludes Aung San Suu Kyi from holding high office.
The Rudd government must maintain a strong stance against the Burma military in the interest of freedom and democracy for the long suffering Burmese people.
Julie Bishop is deputy leader of the federal opposition.
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Thailand May Sell 2 Million Tons of Stockpiled Rice
By Supunnabul Suwannakij
Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Thailand, the biggest rice exporter, will probably sell almost 2 million metric tons from state stockpiles over two months to take advantage of demand from buyers and lulls in competitors’ shipments, an official said.
The nation plans to open bids on Feb. 22 to sell 350,000 tons of 5 percent broken white rice and 150,000 tons of Pathumthani fragrant rice to exporters, Vichak Visetnoi, director-general of the Department of Foreign Trade, said today. Thailand also plans government-to-government sales, Vichak said.
The partial release of the Thai stockpiles, which total 5.6 million tons, may exacerbate a recent decline in rice prices, paring costs for importers. This year’s global trade in rice was forecast to total 30.85 million tons, according to an estimate from the U.S. Department of Agriculture this month.
“The timing is right to release the stockpiles as key exporters such as Vietnam and Myanmar have slowed their shipments, while demand remains strong,” said Vichak in Bangkok. “If the rice sales go as planned, we would be able to release nearly 2 million tons.”
Rough-rice futures in Chicago have lost about 18 percent since peaking at $16.27 per 100 pounds on Dec. 14, and traded today at $13.42 after dropping 1.8 percent. Thailand’s 100 percent grade B rice, an Asian benchmark, fell for a fifth week to $570 a ton yesterday.
“If the government sells 2 million tons of stockpiled rice over the next two months, Thailand’s benchmark price may weaken by $10 to $20 a ton,” said Kiattisak Kanlayasirivat, a director at Novel Commodities S.A.’s Thai office, which trades about $600 million worth of rice a year. “The global market lacks of demand.”
Potential Buyers
Thailand “soon” plans to sell as much as 700,000 tons to other Southeast Asian countries under a government-to-government program, Vichak said, without saying whether this was also part of the planned 2 million tons. Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines have expressed interest in buying, he said.
To be sure, rice prices may rise, fueled by strong demand from Africa and the Philippines and as natural disasters damage crops in producing countries, Thailand’s Department of Foreign Trade said in a statement today accompanying Vichak’s remarks.
The Philippines may open a tender in March to import more rice for 2010 supplies, while some African nations are expected to increase imports as stockpiles decrease, the statement said. The Philippines is the world’s biggest rice buyer.
Thailand canceled on Jan. 26 a plan to sell 375,000 tons from state reserves because of low offers.
By Supunnabul Suwannakij
Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Thailand, the biggest rice exporter, will probably sell almost 2 million metric tons from state stockpiles over two months to take advantage of demand from buyers and lulls in competitors’ shipments, an official said.
The nation plans to open bids on Feb. 22 to sell 350,000 tons of 5 percent broken white rice and 150,000 tons of Pathumthani fragrant rice to exporters, Vichak Visetnoi, director-general of the Department of Foreign Trade, said today. Thailand also plans government-to-government sales, Vichak said.
The partial release of the Thai stockpiles, which total 5.6 million tons, may exacerbate a recent decline in rice prices, paring costs for importers. This year’s global trade in rice was forecast to total 30.85 million tons, according to an estimate from the U.S. Department of Agriculture this month.
“The timing is right to release the stockpiles as key exporters such as Vietnam and Myanmar have slowed their shipments, while demand remains strong,” said Vichak in Bangkok. “If the rice sales go as planned, we would be able to release nearly 2 million tons.”
Rough-rice futures in Chicago have lost about 18 percent since peaking at $16.27 per 100 pounds on Dec. 14, and traded today at $13.42 after dropping 1.8 percent. Thailand’s 100 percent grade B rice, an Asian benchmark, fell for a fifth week to $570 a ton yesterday.
“If the government sells 2 million tons of stockpiled rice over the next two months, Thailand’s benchmark price may weaken by $10 to $20 a ton,” said Kiattisak Kanlayasirivat, a director at Novel Commodities S.A.’s Thai office, which trades about $600 million worth of rice a year. “The global market lacks of demand.”
Potential Buyers
Thailand “soon” plans to sell as much as 700,000 tons to other Southeast Asian countries under a government-to-government program, Vichak said, without saying whether this was also part of the planned 2 million tons. Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines have expressed interest in buying, he said.
To be sure, rice prices may rise, fueled by strong demand from Africa and the Philippines and as natural disasters damage crops in producing countries, Thailand’s Department of Foreign Trade said in a statement today accompanying Vichak’s remarks.
The Philippines may open a tender in March to import more rice for 2010 supplies, while some African nations are expected to increase imports as stockpiles decrease, the statement said. The Philippines is the world’s biggest rice buyer.
Thailand canceled on Jan. 26 a plan to sell 375,000 tons from state reserves because of low offers.
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Feb 19, 2010
Asia Times Online - India, Myanmar: Reluctant brothers in arms
By Brian McCartan
BANGKOK - Myanmar's up and down relationship with neighboring India is on the up again with a new commitment for coordinated counter-insurgency operations along their mutual border. While previous promises to tackle armed groups failed in the actual implementation, analysts suggest there could be new impetus for strategic cooperation.
India's Home Secretary G K Pillai led a delegation to Naypyidaw in January for three days of secretarial-level talks with Myanmar officials led by Brigadier General Phone Swe. The elimination of insurgent camps in Myanmar across the border from India's violence-plagued northeastern region, featured in discussions.
India also reportedly requested progress on demarcating the 1,643 kilometer shared border and a crackdown on the cross border smuggling of narcotics, Chinese-made weapons and other goods. Pillai's meetings followed a visit to Myanmar in October by Indian Army chief General Deepak Kapoor to discuss "enhanced military cooperation''.
Northeastern India has been wracked by insurgency since the 1950s with various groups demanding independence, autonomy, or a halt to migration into their areas. The Naga went underground in 1956 seeking the formation of a Greater Nagaland encompassing areas of both India and Myanmar.
In the early 1970s, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland began setting up camps in Myanmar's northwestern Sagaing Division. Links were also forged with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), then fighting the Myanmar government, through which it obtained weapons and training from China.
Other northeastern Indian groups followed suit. By the 1980s, the Assamese United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), various Manipuri rebel groups and other smaller ethnic-based groups had also set up camps in Sagaing Division as well as Kachin and Chin States.
Although China ended its assistance to the groups nearly 30 years ago, and the KIA also stopped as a result of its ceasefire with the government in 1994, by 2005 there were still at least 27 full-time camps in western Myanmar. ULFA, which is seeking an independent state for the Assamese, has by different estimates between 3,000 and 6,000 fighters and at least four major camps in Myanmar, including the headquarters of its 28th Battalion.
The Manipuri People's Liberation Front (MPLF), an umbrella organization of several Manipuri groups with a combined strength of up to 7,000 also has camps in Myanmar. Other smaller forces representing ethnic groups such as the Kukis and the Zomis, are also believed to maintain operations in Myanmar.
Despite this large number of armed insurgents on its western border, Myanmar's military has paid much less attention to this area compared to its eastern and northern borders with Thailand and China. Analysts and diplomats believe that this is because the groups represent little immediate threat to Myanmar's territorial integrity and unity.
ULFA, the Manipuris and other groups confine their attacks to targets across the border in India and use Myanmar for rest and training. Some opposition groups have alleged that local Myanmar military officers receive monthly payments from the Indian groups to ignore their cadre and camps.
Myanmar's own insurgent groups in the area are small and not viewed by the generals as posing as big a security threat as the much larger ceasefire and non-ceasefire armies in eastern and northern Myanmar. Groups such as the Arakan Liberation Army (ALA) and the Chin National Front (CNF), which operate in northern Arakan State and Chin State, each number only 100 or 200 men. Operations against these groups usually take the form of periodic sweeps and the occasional ambush.
The exception is the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) faction led by S S Khaplang in Sagaing. The group, which is linked to Naga nationalists on the Indian side of the border, may have as many as several thousand fighters, according to some estimates. The Myanmar Army has pursued the NSCN more determinedly, attacking it was recently as November 2009.
This, however, reflects the general's view that the NSCN's aim of an independent Nagaland is a direct threat to Naypyidaw's unity and national integrity rather than any determination to assist India, analysts say. India, on the other hand, has made the elimination of the insurgent camps a key component of its foreign policy with Myanmar.
Controversial exchanges
India was previously a strong supporter of the pro-democracy movement in Myanmar following the military crackdown of peaceful protestors in 1988. That changed, however, when New Delhi launched its new "Look East" foreign policy in 1991 aimed at counteracting growing Chinese influence in Southeast Asia. Military and diplomatic exchanges were stepped up and new economic and development initiatives put forward.
Considerable effort has been placed on convincing Myanmar's junta to participate in counter-insurgency campaigns along the border. India has offered the regime artillery, radar and radio systems, and Myanmar military officers have attended Indian military academies.
In 2006, apparently as part of a deal to conduct military operations, India said it was planning to transfer an unspecified number of T-55 tanks, armored personnel carriers, 105mm artillery pieces, mortars and helicopters. In October of that year, Indian Army Vice-Chief Lieutenant General S Pattabhiraman told Force magazine, an Indian defense and security monthly, that the transfer of artillery pieces had already begun.
In November 2006, J J Singh, the Indian army's chief of staff pledged to provide training in special warfare tactics to Myanmar soldiers. This was followed by an offer of a multi-million dollar military aid package by Indian Air Force head S P Tyagi during a visit to Naypyidaw that same month. Included in the deal were helicopters, avionics upgrades for Myanmar's Chinese and Russian-made fighters and naval surveillance aircraft. The extensive package may have been granted after Myanmar began limited operations against insurgents in the northwest.
The arms transfers were heavily criticized by foreign governments and human-rights organizations. The British government protested in particular the transfer of two BN-2 Islander maritime surveillance aircraft in August 2006. Heavy international pressure was also placed on India for a plan to transfer light helicopters produced by Hindustan Aeronautical Limited (HAL) that included European parts covered under a European Union arms embargo against Myanmar. By December 2007, India had quietly halted the arms transfers.
Myanmar's generals have since shown little determination to carry out military campaigns along the western border. In 1995, a joint operation known as Operation Golden Bird, aimed at flushing out ULFA, NSCN and Manipuri fighters in camps along the border, ended abruptly when Myanmar withdrew its troops after New Delhi presented the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding to pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
Since then there have been few military operations against insurgent groups based in Myanmar's western regions. Although Myanmar agreed in 2000 to conduct joint operations in exchange for military equipment, few military actions actually took place. An exception was a 2001 raid on four Manipuri camps that resulted in the capture of 192 insurgents and the seizure of 1,600 weapons. Seven insurgent leaders were arrested including UNLF chairman Rajkumar Meghen and Khaidem Hamedou, its general secretary.
All were inexplicably released the following year, much to the chagrin of the Indian government, which expected them to be handed over. Assurances from Myanmar's Senior General Than Shwe in 2004 that Myanmar would not allow Indian insurgent groups to use its territory were similarly followed with inaction. Again agreeing to joint operations with their Indian counterparts in 2007, Myanmar's army did very little on the ground.
Shrinking safe havens
The loss of northwestern Myanmar as a safe area would represent a major setback to Indian insurgents. Not only would they lose areas for training and regroupment, they would also yield an up-to-now reliable conduit for weapons. In January, Arunachal Pradesh home minister Tako Dabi voiced concerns over the smuggling of Chinese-made weapons through Myanmar into India. He accused India's Naga rebels of colluding with the KIA in moving the illicit weapons.
Chinese weapons were sent to the northeastern groups through the KIA in the 1970s, but this route was known to have dried up by the early 1980s as Beijing shifted policy away from backing insurgent movements and withdrew support for the Burmese Communist Party. Black market operators in China's southwestern Yunnan province filled the gap and began making weapons available to Indian groups in the 1990s.
Although the arms were produced by Chinese state-owned weapons factories, they are believed to have been trafficked by unscrupulous factory managers. While the KIA claims to have severed ties to Indian insurgents, they are still believed to have some relations and could be a possible conduit for weapons. A clearer source is the United Wa State Army (UWSA). The group has acted as a broker for Chinese-produced arms as well as selling weapons from their own arms factory near Panghsang on the China border. A Jane's Intelligence Review report in 2008 detailed the UWSA's involvement in trafficking weapons to Myanmar and Indian insurgent groups.
The loss of sanctuary in northwestern Myanmar would be profound considering that the groups have already lost safe havens in Bhutan and Bangladesh. A successful joint military operation in 2003 pushed the groups out of border areas in Bhutan. Last year, a firmer line against Indian insurgent groups sheltering in Bangladesh was taken by the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Insurgent bank accounts were frozen and the ULFA lost its political leader Arabinda Rajkhowa and deputy commander Raju Baruah when they were arrested by Bangladeshi authorities in Cox's Bazaar in November. The crackdown is believed to have forced the ULFA to shift its camps and cadre to Myanmar. Seizures in Bangladesh of Chinese-made weapons brought in by boat and believed destined for northeastern insurgents suggested that the country's ports had become major gateways for weapons.
Insurgent's weapons supplied from China may also be in jeopardy if the UWSA and the KIA are forced to join the junta's Border Guard Force scheme, which would place them under the direct control of Naypyidaw's War Office. India's lack of influence with China means strategic engagement with Naypyidaw is its only pressure point in putting a stop to the arms trafficking.
Encouraged by these successes, New Delhi is now pushing again for joint operations with Myanmar. Myanmar vowed after the January talks that it plans to carry out coordinated operations with the Indian army against insurgent camps along their mutual border.
As part of these operations, the Myanmar army says it will make efforts to track down and arrest insurgent leaders, especially ULFA commander Paresh Barua. Following the January talks, an Indian home ministry official announced: "Security forces of India and Myanmar will conduct coordinated operations in their respective territories in the next two to three months. The objective of the operation is that no militant can escape to the other side after facing the heat on one side."
No date has been set for the commencement of the operations and coordination between the two forces, including intelligence sharing, has not yet been worked out.
India is already beefing up its forces in the area, recently deploying a field intelligence unit of its Assam Rifles battalion. The government also said it will raise another 26 battalions of Assam Rifles, at the rate of two to three per year, to secure border areas in Nagaland and Manipur states and support counterinsurgency operations.
For its part, Naypyidaw has said it still needs to build up its forces in its remote northwestern regions. They will likely be hard-pressed to launch an offensive in the area while engaged in a war of nerves with former ceasefire groups in the north over a scheme to transform them into military-led border guard forces.
Other forces are needed to contain still-active insurgencies in the eastern part of the country. More forces will presumably be needed to ensure control of central portions of the country in the lead up to general elections planned for the later half of this year.
It would likely be an unpopular move to carry out military operations while voters are going to the polls. However the generals have used the existence of the Indian groups as leverage with New Delhi in the past, and could conceivably use them as bargaining chips to gain legitimacy for the elections from the world's largest democracy.
The junta needs all the international support it can muster for elections which most observers and analysts believe is a forgone conclusion in favor of military-backed candidates. By offering support for an outcome that will likely further consolidate the military's hold on power, New Delhi could yet move the generals towards action in tackling insurgents along the border.
Brian McCartan is a Bangkok-based freelance journalist. He may be reached at brianpm@comcast.net.
Asia Times Online - India, Myanmar: Reluctant brothers in arms
By Brian McCartan
BANGKOK - Myanmar's up and down relationship with neighboring India is on the up again with a new commitment for coordinated counter-insurgency operations along their mutual border. While previous promises to tackle armed groups failed in the actual implementation, analysts suggest there could be new impetus for strategic cooperation.
India's Home Secretary G K Pillai led a delegation to Naypyidaw in January for three days of secretarial-level talks with Myanmar officials led by Brigadier General Phone Swe. The elimination of insurgent camps in Myanmar across the border from India's violence-plagued northeastern region, featured in discussions.
India also reportedly requested progress on demarcating the 1,643 kilometer shared border and a crackdown on the cross border smuggling of narcotics, Chinese-made weapons and other goods. Pillai's meetings followed a visit to Myanmar in October by Indian Army chief General Deepak Kapoor to discuss "enhanced military cooperation''.
Northeastern India has been wracked by insurgency since the 1950s with various groups demanding independence, autonomy, or a halt to migration into their areas. The Naga went underground in 1956 seeking the formation of a Greater Nagaland encompassing areas of both India and Myanmar.
In the early 1970s, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland began setting up camps in Myanmar's northwestern Sagaing Division. Links were also forged with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), then fighting the Myanmar government, through which it obtained weapons and training from China.
Other northeastern Indian groups followed suit. By the 1980s, the Assamese United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), various Manipuri rebel groups and other smaller ethnic-based groups had also set up camps in Sagaing Division as well as Kachin and Chin States.
Although China ended its assistance to the groups nearly 30 years ago, and the KIA also stopped as a result of its ceasefire with the government in 1994, by 2005 there were still at least 27 full-time camps in western Myanmar. ULFA, which is seeking an independent state for the Assamese, has by different estimates between 3,000 and 6,000 fighters and at least four major camps in Myanmar, including the headquarters of its 28th Battalion.
The Manipuri People's Liberation Front (MPLF), an umbrella organization of several Manipuri groups with a combined strength of up to 7,000 also has camps in Myanmar. Other smaller forces representing ethnic groups such as the Kukis and the Zomis, are also believed to maintain operations in Myanmar.
Despite this large number of armed insurgents on its western border, Myanmar's military has paid much less attention to this area compared to its eastern and northern borders with Thailand and China. Analysts and diplomats believe that this is because the groups represent little immediate threat to Myanmar's territorial integrity and unity.
ULFA, the Manipuris and other groups confine their attacks to targets across the border in India and use Myanmar for rest and training. Some opposition groups have alleged that local Myanmar military officers receive monthly payments from the Indian groups to ignore their cadre and camps.
Myanmar's own insurgent groups in the area are small and not viewed by the generals as posing as big a security threat as the much larger ceasefire and non-ceasefire armies in eastern and northern Myanmar. Groups such as the Arakan Liberation Army (ALA) and the Chin National Front (CNF), which operate in northern Arakan State and Chin State, each number only 100 or 200 men. Operations against these groups usually take the form of periodic sweeps and the occasional ambush.
The exception is the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) faction led by S S Khaplang in Sagaing. The group, which is linked to Naga nationalists on the Indian side of the border, may have as many as several thousand fighters, according to some estimates. The Myanmar Army has pursued the NSCN more determinedly, attacking it was recently as November 2009.
This, however, reflects the general's view that the NSCN's aim of an independent Nagaland is a direct threat to Naypyidaw's unity and national integrity rather than any determination to assist India, analysts say. India, on the other hand, has made the elimination of the insurgent camps a key component of its foreign policy with Myanmar.
Controversial exchanges
India was previously a strong supporter of the pro-democracy movement in Myanmar following the military crackdown of peaceful protestors in 1988. That changed, however, when New Delhi launched its new "Look East" foreign policy in 1991 aimed at counteracting growing Chinese influence in Southeast Asia. Military and diplomatic exchanges were stepped up and new economic and development initiatives put forward.
Considerable effort has been placed on convincing Myanmar's junta to participate in counter-insurgency campaigns along the border. India has offered the regime artillery, radar and radio systems, and Myanmar military officers have attended Indian military academies.
In 2006, apparently as part of a deal to conduct military operations, India said it was planning to transfer an unspecified number of T-55 tanks, armored personnel carriers, 105mm artillery pieces, mortars and helicopters. In October of that year, Indian Army Vice-Chief Lieutenant General S Pattabhiraman told Force magazine, an Indian defense and security monthly, that the transfer of artillery pieces had already begun.
In November 2006, J J Singh, the Indian army's chief of staff pledged to provide training in special warfare tactics to Myanmar soldiers. This was followed by an offer of a multi-million dollar military aid package by Indian Air Force head S P Tyagi during a visit to Naypyidaw that same month. Included in the deal were helicopters, avionics upgrades for Myanmar's Chinese and Russian-made fighters and naval surveillance aircraft. The extensive package may have been granted after Myanmar began limited operations against insurgents in the northwest.
The arms transfers were heavily criticized by foreign governments and human-rights organizations. The British government protested in particular the transfer of two BN-2 Islander maritime surveillance aircraft in August 2006. Heavy international pressure was also placed on India for a plan to transfer light helicopters produced by Hindustan Aeronautical Limited (HAL) that included European parts covered under a European Union arms embargo against Myanmar. By December 2007, India had quietly halted the arms transfers.
Myanmar's generals have since shown little determination to carry out military campaigns along the western border. In 1995, a joint operation known as Operation Golden Bird, aimed at flushing out ULFA, NSCN and Manipuri fighters in camps along the border, ended abruptly when Myanmar withdrew its troops after New Delhi presented the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding to pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
Since then there have been few military operations against insurgent groups based in Myanmar's western regions. Although Myanmar agreed in 2000 to conduct joint operations in exchange for military equipment, few military actions actually took place. An exception was a 2001 raid on four Manipuri camps that resulted in the capture of 192 insurgents and the seizure of 1,600 weapons. Seven insurgent leaders were arrested including UNLF chairman Rajkumar Meghen and Khaidem Hamedou, its general secretary.
All were inexplicably released the following year, much to the chagrin of the Indian government, which expected them to be handed over. Assurances from Myanmar's Senior General Than Shwe in 2004 that Myanmar would not allow Indian insurgent groups to use its territory were similarly followed with inaction. Again agreeing to joint operations with their Indian counterparts in 2007, Myanmar's army did very little on the ground.
Shrinking safe havens
The loss of northwestern Myanmar as a safe area would represent a major setback to Indian insurgents. Not only would they lose areas for training and regroupment, they would also yield an up-to-now reliable conduit for weapons. In January, Arunachal Pradesh home minister Tako Dabi voiced concerns over the smuggling of Chinese-made weapons through Myanmar into India. He accused India's Naga rebels of colluding with the KIA in moving the illicit weapons.
Chinese weapons were sent to the northeastern groups through the KIA in the 1970s, but this route was known to have dried up by the early 1980s as Beijing shifted policy away from backing insurgent movements and withdrew support for the Burmese Communist Party. Black market operators in China's southwestern Yunnan province filled the gap and began making weapons available to Indian groups in the 1990s.
Although the arms were produced by Chinese state-owned weapons factories, they are believed to have been trafficked by unscrupulous factory managers. While the KIA claims to have severed ties to Indian insurgents, they are still believed to have some relations and could be a possible conduit for weapons. A clearer source is the United Wa State Army (UWSA). The group has acted as a broker for Chinese-produced arms as well as selling weapons from their own arms factory near Panghsang on the China border. A Jane's Intelligence Review report in 2008 detailed the UWSA's involvement in trafficking weapons to Myanmar and Indian insurgent groups.
The loss of sanctuary in northwestern Myanmar would be profound considering that the groups have already lost safe havens in Bhutan and Bangladesh. A successful joint military operation in 2003 pushed the groups out of border areas in Bhutan. Last year, a firmer line against Indian insurgent groups sheltering in Bangladesh was taken by the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Insurgent bank accounts were frozen and the ULFA lost its political leader Arabinda Rajkhowa and deputy commander Raju Baruah when they were arrested by Bangladeshi authorities in Cox's Bazaar in November. The crackdown is believed to have forced the ULFA to shift its camps and cadre to Myanmar. Seizures in Bangladesh of Chinese-made weapons brought in by boat and believed destined for northeastern insurgents suggested that the country's ports had become major gateways for weapons.
Insurgent's weapons supplied from China may also be in jeopardy if the UWSA and the KIA are forced to join the junta's Border Guard Force scheme, which would place them under the direct control of Naypyidaw's War Office. India's lack of influence with China means strategic engagement with Naypyidaw is its only pressure point in putting a stop to the arms trafficking.
Encouraged by these successes, New Delhi is now pushing again for joint operations with Myanmar. Myanmar vowed after the January talks that it plans to carry out coordinated operations with the Indian army against insurgent camps along their mutual border.
As part of these operations, the Myanmar army says it will make efforts to track down and arrest insurgent leaders, especially ULFA commander Paresh Barua. Following the January talks, an Indian home ministry official announced: "Security forces of India and Myanmar will conduct coordinated operations in their respective territories in the next two to three months. The objective of the operation is that no militant can escape to the other side after facing the heat on one side."
No date has been set for the commencement of the operations and coordination between the two forces, including intelligence sharing, has not yet been worked out.
India is already beefing up its forces in the area, recently deploying a field intelligence unit of its Assam Rifles battalion. The government also said it will raise another 26 battalions of Assam Rifles, at the rate of two to three per year, to secure border areas in Nagaland and Manipur states and support counterinsurgency operations.
For its part, Naypyidaw has said it still needs to build up its forces in its remote northwestern regions. They will likely be hard-pressed to launch an offensive in the area while engaged in a war of nerves with former ceasefire groups in the north over a scheme to transform them into military-led border guard forces.
Other forces are needed to contain still-active insurgencies in the eastern part of the country. More forces will presumably be needed to ensure control of central portions of the country in the lead up to general elections planned for the later half of this year.
It would likely be an unpopular move to carry out military operations while voters are going to the polls. However the generals have used the existence of the Indian groups as leverage with New Delhi in the past, and could conceivably use them as bargaining chips to gain legitimacy for the elections from the world's largest democracy.
The junta needs all the international support it can muster for elections which most observers and analysts believe is a forgone conclusion in favor of military-backed candidates. By offering support for an outcome that will likely further consolidate the military's hold on power, New Delhi could yet move the generals towards action in tackling insurgents along the border.
Brian McCartan is a Bangkok-based freelance journalist. He may be reached at brianpm@comcast.net.
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The New Kerala - Govt approves raise in OVL, GAIL investment in Myanmar
New Delhi, Feb 18 : The government today approved additional investment of 832.54 million dollars by OVL, the overseas arm of state-owned oil and gas explorer ONGC, and another investment of 83.88 million dollars by gas major GAIL in Myanmar projects.
The approval was granted by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), an official statement said.
OVL and GAIL had acquired 20 per cent and 10 per cent participating interest(PI) in block A-1 in January 2002 and block A-3 in March 2006 from Korea's Daewoo.
Still Daewoo as operator holds 60 per cent stake in the project and the remaining ten per cent is held by Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS) in the consortium of Indian and Korean companies.
The entire project envisages an investment of USD 1006.39 million by OVL and USD 502.06 million by GAIL.
Till October 31, 2009, OVL and GAIL had made an investment of USD 115.77 million and USD 56.79 million respectively for exploration in block A-1 and block A-3 in Myanmar.
The additional investment is expected to provide additional reserve accretion of hydrocarbons and facilitate production and marketing of natural gas from these two blocks along with participating ownership over the gas produced for the two Indian public sector oil companies, an official statement said.
China is builing 2.01 billion dollar pipeline to transport gas from offshore blocks A-1 and A-3.
OVL wants to take 8.35 per cent stake in the 870-km pipeline, while GAIL wants 4.17 per cent.
This will take total investment by OVL in the project up to 1,006.39 million dollars.
Blocks A-1 and A-3 are under development since November 1, 2009.
New Delhi, Feb 18 : The government today approved additional investment of 832.54 million dollars by OVL, the overseas arm of state-owned oil and gas explorer ONGC, and another investment of 83.88 million dollars by gas major GAIL in Myanmar projects.
The approval was granted by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), an official statement said.
OVL and GAIL had acquired 20 per cent and 10 per cent participating interest(PI) in block A-1 in January 2002 and block A-3 in March 2006 from Korea's Daewoo.
Still Daewoo as operator holds 60 per cent stake in the project and the remaining ten per cent is held by Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS) in the consortium of Indian and Korean companies.
The entire project envisages an investment of USD 1006.39 million by OVL and USD 502.06 million by GAIL.
Till October 31, 2009, OVL and GAIL had made an investment of USD 115.77 million and USD 56.79 million respectively for exploration in block A-1 and block A-3 in Myanmar.
The additional investment is expected to provide additional reserve accretion of hydrocarbons and facilitate production and marketing of natural gas from these two blocks along with participating ownership over the gas produced for the two Indian public sector oil companies, an official statement said.
China is builing 2.01 billion dollar pipeline to transport gas from offshore blocks A-1 and A-3.
OVL wants to take 8.35 per cent stake in the 870-km pipeline, while GAIL wants 4.17 per cent.
This will take total investment by OVL in the project up to 1,006.39 million dollars.
Blocks A-1 and A-3 are under development since November 1, 2009.
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Sify News - Dhaka seeks aid to build road to Myanmar
2010-02-18 15:30:00
Bangladesh has approached the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for assistance to build a road to Myanmar from its southeastern city Cox's Bazar to improve regional connectivity.
Dhaka has for some time been pursuing talks with Myanmar and China for land access to China's Kunmin province.
The issue came up during a meeting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had with Sultan Hafeez Rahman, director-general of the South Asian Department of Asian Development Bank here Wednesday, The Daily Star newspaper said.
She emphasised the need for further strengthening regional cooperation and connectivity for poverty reduction and accelerated development among the South Asian nations.
Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and other South Asian countries seek to increase bilateral and regional connectivity.
The prime minister and top bank official also discussed financial assistance in large infrastructure projects, particularly in power, energy and transport and in social sectors, while also cushioning the effects of the global crisis.
She said ADB can allocate additional finances to support Bangladesh in implementing the large infrastructure projects, United News of Bangladesh (UNB) news agency reported.
2010-02-18 15:30:00
Bangladesh has approached the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for assistance to build a road to Myanmar from its southeastern city Cox's Bazar to improve regional connectivity.
Dhaka has for some time been pursuing talks with Myanmar and China for land access to China's Kunmin province.
The issue came up during a meeting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had with Sultan Hafeez Rahman, director-general of the South Asian Department of Asian Development Bank here Wednesday, The Daily Star newspaper said.
She emphasised the need for further strengthening regional cooperation and connectivity for poverty reduction and accelerated development among the South Asian nations.
Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and other South Asian countries seek to increase bilateral and regional connectivity.
The prime minister and top bank official also discussed financial assistance in large infrastructure projects, particularly in power, energy and transport and in social sectors, while also cushioning the effects of the global crisis.
She said ADB can allocate additional finances to support Bangladesh in implementing the large infrastructure projects, United News of Bangladesh (UNB) news agency reported.
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The Economist - Repression in Myanmar
Captive nation
A token release from a growing gulag
Feb 18th 2010 | BANGKOK | From The Economist print edition
THE generals who rule Myanmar do not care much for outside scrutiny. So the country is hardly fertile ground for Tomas Ojea Quintana, a United Nations envoy for human rights, who arrived on February 15th for a five-day visit to check on political prisoners and their beleaguered colleagues on the outside.
On the eve of his trip the junta freed one prominent detainee after seven years of house arrest. Tin Oo, a former army chief and co-founder of the opposition National League for Democracy, now aged 82, was detained in 2003 along with the League’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, after a pro-junta mob attacked their convoy, ending a political thaw.
Might Miss Suu Kyi’s release be next? Much hinges on the timing and scope of Myanmar’s long-awaited election, the first since an annulled 1990 vote won by the League. The junta has promised to hold polls in 2010 and return the country to semi-civilian rule. But there is still no election date and no rules laid down for political parties who want to contest. Some observers are predicting polls by October, one month before Miss Suu Kyi’s current term of house arrest ends. Her party is divided over whether to compete in the election.
As quickly as it empties, Myanmar’s gulag fills. On February 10th Kyaw Zaw Lwin, a naturalised American citizen, was sentenced to three years in jail for fraud, a ruling that the State Department criticised as politically motivated. Indeed, the gulag may be larger than had been previously thought. Exiled activists have identified over 2,100 political prisoners in Myanmar’s jails, a number commonly cited by international agencies. But Benjamin Zawacki, a researcher for Amnesty International, a human-rights watchdog, reckons that the number is probably much higher. Ethnic minorities locked up in remote areas often go uncounted.
In a new report Amnesty found that activists in minority areas face predictably harsh retaliation from the authorities, including torture, arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killings. These violations are in addition to those meted out to civilians accused of sympathies to ethnic armed groups, such as the Karen National Union, fighting along the Thai-Myanmar border.
By focusing on the war of attrition between Miss Suu Kyi and the junta, it is easy to overlook the role of ethnic minorities in opposition politics, says Mr Zawacki. Some pay a heavy price for their activism. Amnesty found cases of minorities punished merely for talking to exiled journalists. During his visit, Mr Quintana travelled to Rakhine state in western Myanmar to investigate alleged abuses, including of Rohingya Muslims. It was there, in the town of Sittwe, that 300 Buddhist monks marched in August 2007 in protest over fuel prices. It was the first act of defiance in what became the failed Saffron Revolution.
Captive nation
A token release from a growing gulag
Feb 18th 2010 | BANGKOK | From The Economist print edition
THE generals who rule Myanmar do not care much for outside scrutiny. So the country is hardly fertile ground for Tomas Ojea Quintana, a United Nations envoy for human rights, who arrived on February 15th for a five-day visit to check on political prisoners and their beleaguered colleagues on the outside.
On the eve of his trip the junta freed one prominent detainee after seven years of house arrest. Tin Oo, a former army chief and co-founder of the opposition National League for Democracy, now aged 82, was detained in 2003 along with the League’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, after a pro-junta mob attacked their convoy, ending a political thaw.
Might Miss Suu Kyi’s release be next? Much hinges on the timing and scope of Myanmar’s long-awaited election, the first since an annulled 1990 vote won by the League. The junta has promised to hold polls in 2010 and return the country to semi-civilian rule. But there is still no election date and no rules laid down for political parties who want to contest. Some observers are predicting polls by October, one month before Miss Suu Kyi’s current term of house arrest ends. Her party is divided over whether to compete in the election.
As quickly as it empties, Myanmar’s gulag fills. On February 10th Kyaw Zaw Lwin, a naturalised American citizen, was sentenced to three years in jail for fraud, a ruling that the State Department criticised as politically motivated. Indeed, the gulag may be larger than had been previously thought. Exiled activists have identified over 2,100 political prisoners in Myanmar’s jails, a number commonly cited by international agencies. But Benjamin Zawacki, a researcher for Amnesty International, a human-rights watchdog, reckons that the number is probably much higher. Ethnic minorities locked up in remote areas often go uncounted.
In a new report Amnesty found that activists in minority areas face predictably harsh retaliation from the authorities, including torture, arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killings. These violations are in addition to those meted out to civilians accused of sympathies to ethnic armed groups, such as the Karen National Union, fighting along the Thai-Myanmar border.
By focusing on the war of attrition between Miss Suu Kyi and the junta, it is easy to overlook the role of ethnic minorities in opposition politics, says Mr Zawacki. Some pay a heavy price for their activism. Amnesty found cases of minorities punished merely for talking to exiled journalists. During his visit, Mr Quintana travelled to Rakhine state in western Myanmar to investigate alleged abuses, including of Rohingya Muslims. It was there, in the town of Sittwe, that 300 Buddhist monks marched in August 2007 in protest over fuel prices. It was the first act of defiance in what became the failed Saffron Revolution.
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The Sun Daily - We should let refugees work
Daniel Chandranayagam
Updated: 12:27AM Fri, 19 Feb 2010
I’M sure it was not only my friends and I who applauded the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) call to the government to allow refugees to work legally in our country instead of bringing in more foreign labour from our neighbours.
The MTUC’s call comes fast on the heels of the recent announcement that 100,000 new visas were approved for foreign workers in the last three months.
"It’s definitely something good," a friend said as a friendly Myanmar worker served us drinks at the stalls. The irony was not lost on me, as I looked around our surroundings, with the many refugees trying to scrape some money by doing whatever they can, however they can. Needlessly, my friend added, "Then people like the workers here can work here legally."
Again, I’m not the only one who thinks that it is truly incredible that we are importing even more foreign workers when there seems to be a glut of them in our nation, and that we have, according to Suaram statistics, 60,000 Myanmar refugees registered with UNHCR, and thousands more are unregistered. For all we know, if all of them were registered, there would be no need to bring in the 100,000 foreign workers.
MTUC secretary-general G. Rajasekaran observed that if the government allowed refugees to work legally, we would save millions of ringgit in sustaining them. I might add that in so doing, the government would be able to monitor the refugee situation in our country, as well as control the influx of legally-brought-in foreign labour. According to reports, the latest figures from the Home Ministry reveal 1.2 million legal foreign workers with an equal number of illegal or undocumented workers in Malaysia.
Interestingly, Rajasekaran added that by allowing refugees to work, Malaysia would "also gain world recognition for being a humane country."
And this is the thing – I know Malaysians are compassionate people. Then why, according to Suaram, has the following occurred?
Between 2002 and 2008, more than 4,800 Myanmars were whipped for immigration offences; in 2008, 812 Myanmar children were detained in immigration detention centres; Myanmar refugees have difficulty finding jobs, due to their status. If they do get work, they are "usually underpaid and vulnerable to abuse from unscrupulous employers"; generations of uneducated refugees are being raised in Malaysia as they do not have access to education; and due to their unrecognised status, refugees live in fear of raids, arrest and detention.
According to Amnesty International Malaysia, Malaysia does not recognise refugees and asylum seekers, and "excludes validity of documents granted by the UNHCR that accord such people with International Protection."
However, according to Amnesty, we are formally obliged to care for refugee children, as we are signatories to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the UN Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. According to Article 22 of the CRC, the government should proactively provide assistance and protection to children of asylum seekers and refugees.
And that leaves the men. Why not give some form of protection to the husbands, fathers, grandfathers, brothers and sons of the women and children? Why not let them work? After all, we have 100,000 vacancies at the moment, as evidenced by the approval of 100,000 work visas for foreigners.
It is great news that the Home Ministry intends to issue identification cards to refugees recognised by the United Nations. Why not show the world that we are in solidarity with the sufferings of our neighbours and just go the extra mile? Let’s give them the right to work.
Daniel freelances in writing and publishing, and has a deep passion for sleeping, eating and labour law. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
Daniel Chandranayagam
Updated: 12:27AM Fri, 19 Feb 2010
I’M sure it was not only my friends and I who applauded the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) call to the government to allow refugees to work legally in our country instead of bringing in more foreign labour from our neighbours.
The MTUC’s call comes fast on the heels of the recent announcement that 100,000 new visas were approved for foreign workers in the last three months.
"It’s definitely something good," a friend said as a friendly Myanmar worker served us drinks at the stalls. The irony was not lost on me, as I looked around our surroundings, with the many refugees trying to scrape some money by doing whatever they can, however they can. Needlessly, my friend added, "Then people like the workers here can work here legally."
Again, I’m not the only one who thinks that it is truly incredible that we are importing even more foreign workers when there seems to be a glut of them in our nation, and that we have, according to Suaram statistics, 60,000 Myanmar refugees registered with UNHCR, and thousands more are unregistered. For all we know, if all of them were registered, there would be no need to bring in the 100,000 foreign workers.
MTUC secretary-general G. Rajasekaran observed that if the government allowed refugees to work legally, we would save millions of ringgit in sustaining them. I might add that in so doing, the government would be able to monitor the refugee situation in our country, as well as control the influx of legally-brought-in foreign labour. According to reports, the latest figures from the Home Ministry reveal 1.2 million legal foreign workers with an equal number of illegal or undocumented workers in Malaysia.
Interestingly, Rajasekaran added that by allowing refugees to work, Malaysia would "also gain world recognition for being a humane country."
And this is the thing – I know Malaysians are compassionate people. Then why, according to Suaram, has the following occurred?
Between 2002 and 2008, more than 4,800 Myanmars were whipped for immigration offences; in 2008, 812 Myanmar children were detained in immigration detention centres; Myanmar refugees have difficulty finding jobs, due to their status. If they do get work, they are "usually underpaid and vulnerable to abuse from unscrupulous employers"; generations of uneducated refugees are being raised in Malaysia as they do not have access to education; and due to their unrecognised status, refugees live in fear of raids, arrest and detention.
According to Amnesty International Malaysia, Malaysia does not recognise refugees and asylum seekers, and "excludes validity of documents granted by the UNHCR that accord such people with International Protection."
However, according to Amnesty, we are formally obliged to care for refugee children, as we are signatories to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the UN Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. According to Article 22 of the CRC, the government should proactively provide assistance and protection to children of asylum seekers and refugees.
And that leaves the men. Why not give some form of protection to the husbands, fathers, grandfathers, brothers and sons of the women and children? Why not let them work? After all, we have 100,000 vacancies at the moment, as evidenced by the approval of 100,000 work visas for foreigners.
It is great news that the Home Ministry intends to issue identification cards to refugees recognised by the United Nations. Why not show the world that we are in solidarity with the sufferings of our neighbours and just go the extra mile? Let’s give them the right to work.
Daniel freelances in writing and publishing, and has a deep passion for sleeping, eating and labour law. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
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Asian Tribune - Burma’s junta pulls the wool over the UN's eyes
Thu, 2010-02-18 01:57 — editor
By - Zin Linn
Burma’s junta sentenced four women activists to two years imprisonment with hard labor on the same day U.N. special envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana arrived for a five-day visit to evaluate progress on human rights in the country.
The four women were arrested on 3rd October 2009, after being accused of offering Buddhist monks alms that included religious literature, said Nyan Win, spokesman for the opposition National League for Democracy headed by detained Nobel Peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. “When passing the sentence, the court could not provide strong evidence against them as there is no (reliable) witness,” their lawyer Kyaw Ho said. The women used to hold prayer services at Rangoon's Shwedagon pagoda for release of Suu Kyi.
The current visit of U.N. envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana started a day after the regime jailed an American human rights activist Kyaw Zaw Lwin, to three years in prison on fraud and forgery charges, despite demands from the United States for his release. This will be the envoy's third visit to the country after a previous mission last year was postponed.
The U.N. envoy’s visit comes two days after pro-democracy leader Tin Oo was released following seven years in prison. Tin Oo, vice-president of the NLD was released from prison on 13 February 2010, having been in prison since 30 May 2003. As he visited NLD headquarters on 15 Feb, he said he was optimistic that "things can be resolved" through Mr Quintana's visit.
Former political prisoner who spent 19 years in junta’s jail and NLD’s central executive committee member Win Tin called on Mr Quintana to "be decisive and perform his duties in the strictest manner without falling prey to the lies of the government".
Present sorrowful affairs in Burma confirm that the military junta is determinedly marching along its anti-democracy course. The junta continues to detain and incarcerate approximately 2,200 political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been confined to her residence for 14 of the last 20 years.
For instance, on 30 December 2009, 15 political promoters from three townships in Mandalay Division were given various prison sentences ranging from 2 years to 71 years by a court sitting inside the prison. The special branch of the police arrested the political activists from Myingyan, Nyaung Oo and Kyauk Padaung townships last September and October without attributing any reasons, held them incommunicado, and did not let them to meet their family members during their incarceration period. They have been given thoughtless imprisonments by an arbitrary court in jail without having a lawyer on 6 January.
Besides, a military-controlled township court in Burma has handed down a 20-year jail term to a freelance reporter Hla Hla Win, a young video journalist who worked with the Burma exile broadcaster "Democratic Voice of Burma" based in Norway, as the ruling junta continues its crackdown on the dissent. She was arrested in September after taking a video interview at a Buddhist monastery in Pakokku, a town in Magwe Division, the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres and the Burma Media Association said in a joint statement. For that she was given a seven-year prison sentence in October 2009. Burma ranks alongside nine other countries in the “worst of the worst” category in Freedom House’s ‘Freedom in the World 2010’ report, which includes Libya, Tibet, China, Eritrea, North Korea and Equatorial Guinea.
The 47-year-old musician Win Maw was convicted for “sending false news abroad”, even though it wasn’t false, and there wasn’t any evidence against him to match up with the elements of the charge.
On November 11, 2008, the Mingalar Taungnyunt Township Court sentenced, a leading Burmese musician Win Maw to 17 years in prison for sending news reports and video footage to the Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma radio station during the protests in August and September 2007. Win Maw was arrested in a Rangoon teashop on November 27, 2007 and charged under article 5 (j) of the penal code with “threatening national security”. He was held in the notorious Insein prison during trial, and was transferred to a remote Katha prison, following this year’s trial. He won the 2009 Kenji Nagai Memorial Award for his commitment as a freelance journalist in Burma.
Another Reporter of the Norway-based opposition radio station Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), Ngwe Soe Lin was sentenced to 13 years' imprisonment on 28 January 2010 by the Rangoon Western District Court sitting inside Insein prison. Sources said Ngwe Soe Lin, 28, who lives in Rangoon's South Dagon Township, was charged under section 33(a) of the Electronic Act and section 13(1) of the Immigration Emergency Provisions Act, receiving terms of 10 and 3 years imprisonment respectively.
Ngwe Soe Lin had been recently honored with the Rory Peck Award for his work in documenting orphan victims of Cyclone Nargis, which struck Burma in the first week of May 2008.
Moreover, two officials have been sentenced to death by a court in Burma for leaking information, official sources say, in a case reportedly involving secret ties between the ruling junta and North Korea. The men were arrested after details and photos about a trip to Pyongyang by the Burma regime's third-in-command, General Shwe Mann, were leaked to exiled media last year, the website of Thailand-based Irrawaddy News reported.
“Two officials received death sentence and another one was jailed for 15 years for leaking information. They were sentenced at the special court in Insein Prison on Thursday,” a source said. The two men sentenced to death were Win Naing Kyaw and Thura Kyaw, while the imprisoned third person was revealed just as Pyan Sein, with no further details of the case. Win Naing Kyaw is a former military officer and Thura Kyaw and Pyan Sein worked at the ministry of foreign affairs, Irrawaddy said.
Many leaders of the '88 Generation Students, who led a pro-democracy movement in 1988, remain imprisoned with sentences up to 65 years. Ethnic Shan political leader Hkun Htun Oo and prominent comedian Zarganar are still in prison despite their medical conditions.
Su Su Nway, a member of the National League for Democracy, has been in custody in the notorious Insein Jail since November 2007, following a peaceful demonstration. She received the 2006 Humphrey Freedom Award from the Canada-based group Rights and Democracy for her human rights activities. She was arrested in 2005 and 2007.
Many political prisoners are reportedly seriously ailing and receiving no regular healthcare. The International Committee of the Red Cross has been denied free access to conduct confidential prison visits since December 2005. Arrests and intimidation of political activists and journalists in Burma have been going on for two decades.
In 2009, there were three known political prisoner deaths. Salai Hla Moe, Saw Char Late and Tin Tin Htwe all died in prison due to lack of proper medical care. According to the AAPP’s documentation, at least 143 political prisoners have died in prison since 1988. But the list is incomplete, as the military authorities black out information from the prisons.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International warned Burma’s military regime in a major report released on 16 February 2010. The 58-page report - The Repression of ethnic minority activists in Myanmar - draws on accounts from more than 700 activists from the seven largest ethnic minorities, including the Rakhine, Shan, Kachin, and Chin, covering a two-year period from August 2007.
The military authorities have arrested, imprisoned, and in some cases tortured or even killed ethnic minority activists. Minority groups have also faced extensive surveillance, harassment and discrimination when trying to carry out their legitimate activities.
Amnesty International urged the government to lift restrictions on freedom of association, assembly, and religion in the run-up to the elections; to release immediately and unconditionally all prisoners of conscience; and to remove restrictions on independent media to cover the campaigning and election process.
Amnesty International called on Burma or Myanmar’s neighbors in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as China, Myanmar’s biggest international supporter, to push the government to ensure that the people of Myanmar will be able to freely express their opinions, gather peacefully, and participate openly in the political process.
“The government of Myanmar should use the elections as an opportunity to improve its human rights record, not as a spur to increase repression of dissenting voices, especially those from the ethnic minorities,” said Benjamin Zawacki, AI’s Burma (Myanmar) specialist.
But, the mood of the junta shows clearly that it has no plan to pay attention to international concerns, release political prisoners or commence a dialogue for reconciliation.
According to a Burmese analyst, it is baseless to believe that the military dictators are going to build a democratic country by means of the 2008 constitution.
Zin Linn is a freelance journalist in exile. He is vice president of Burma Media Association, which is affiliated with the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontiers.
Thu, 2010-02-18 01:57 — editor
By - Zin Linn
Burma’s junta sentenced four women activists to two years imprisonment with hard labor on the same day U.N. special envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana arrived for a five-day visit to evaluate progress on human rights in the country.
The four women were arrested on 3rd October 2009, after being accused of offering Buddhist monks alms that included religious literature, said Nyan Win, spokesman for the opposition National League for Democracy headed by detained Nobel Peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. “When passing the sentence, the court could not provide strong evidence against them as there is no (reliable) witness,” their lawyer Kyaw Ho said. The women used to hold prayer services at Rangoon's Shwedagon pagoda for release of Suu Kyi.
The current visit of U.N. envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana started a day after the regime jailed an American human rights activist Kyaw Zaw Lwin, to three years in prison on fraud and forgery charges, despite demands from the United States for his release. This will be the envoy's third visit to the country after a previous mission last year was postponed.
The U.N. envoy’s visit comes two days after pro-democracy leader Tin Oo was released following seven years in prison. Tin Oo, vice-president of the NLD was released from prison on 13 February 2010, having been in prison since 30 May 2003. As he visited NLD headquarters on 15 Feb, he said he was optimistic that "things can be resolved" through Mr Quintana's visit.
Former political prisoner who spent 19 years in junta’s jail and NLD’s central executive committee member Win Tin called on Mr Quintana to "be decisive and perform his duties in the strictest manner without falling prey to the lies of the government".
Present sorrowful affairs in Burma confirm that the military junta is determinedly marching along its anti-democracy course. The junta continues to detain and incarcerate approximately 2,200 political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been confined to her residence for 14 of the last 20 years.
For instance, on 30 December 2009, 15 political promoters from three townships in Mandalay Division were given various prison sentences ranging from 2 years to 71 years by a court sitting inside the prison. The special branch of the police arrested the political activists from Myingyan, Nyaung Oo and Kyauk Padaung townships last September and October without attributing any reasons, held them incommunicado, and did not let them to meet their family members during their incarceration period. They have been given thoughtless imprisonments by an arbitrary court in jail without having a lawyer on 6 January.
Besides, a military-controlled township court in Burma has handed down a 20-year jail term to a freelance reporter Hla Hla Win, a young video journalist who worked with the Burma exile broadcaster "Democratic Voice of Burma" based in Norway, as the ruling junta continues its crackdown on the dissent. She was arrested in September after taking a video interview at a Buddhist monastery in Pakokku, a town in Magwe Division, the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres and the Burma Media Association said in a joint statement. For that she was given a seven-year prison sentence in October 2009. Burma ranks alongside nine other countries in the “worst of the worst” category in Freedom House’s ‘Freedom in the World 2010’ report, which includes Libya, Tibet, China, Eritrea, North Korea and Equatorial Guinea.
The 47-year-old musician Win Maw was convicted for “sending false news abroad”, even though it wasn’t false, and there wasn’t any evidence against him to match up with the elements of the charge.
On November 11, 2008, the Mingalar Taungnyunt Township Court sentenced, a leading Burmese musician Win Maw to 17 years in prison for sending news reports and video footage to the Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma radio station during the protests in August and September 2007. Win Maw was arrested in a Rangoon teashop on November 27, 2007 and charged under article 5 (j) of the penal code with “threatening national security”. He was held in the notorious Insein prison during trial, and was transferred to a remote Katha prison, following this year’s trial. He won the 2009 Kenji Nagai Memorial Award for his commitment as a freelance journalist in Burma.
Another Reporter of the Norway-based opposition radio station Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), Ngwe Soe Lin was sentenced to 13 years' imprisonment on 28 January 2010 by the Rangoon Western District Court sitting inside Insein prison. Sources said Ngwe Soe Lin, 28, who lives in Rangoon's South Dagon Township, was charged under section 33(a) of the Electronic Act and section 13(1) of the Immigration Emergency Provisions Act, receiving terms of 10 and 3 years imprisonment respectively.
Ngwe Soe Lin had been recently honored with the Rory Peck Award for his work in documenting orphan victims of Cyclone Nargis, which struck Burma in the first week of May 2008.
Moreover, two officials have been sentenced to death by a court in Burma for leaking information, official sources say, in a case reportedly involving secret ties between the ruling junta and North Korea. The men were arrested after details and photos about a trip to Pyongyang by the Burma regime's third-in-command, General Shwe Mann, were leaked to exiled media last year, the website of Thailand-based Irrawaddy News reported.
“Two officials received death sentence and another one was jailed for 15 years for leaking information. They were sentenced at the special court in Insein Prison on Thursday,” a source said. The two men sentenced to death were Win Naing Kyaw and Thura Kyaw, while the imprisoned third person was revealed just as Pyan Sein, with no further details of the case. Win Naing Kyaw is a former military officer and Thura Kyaw and Pyan Sein worked at the ministry of foreign affairs, Irrawaddy said.
Many leaders of the '88 Generation Students, who led a pro-democracy movement in 1988, remain imprisoned with sentences up to 65 years. Ethnic Shan political leader Hkun Htun Oo and prominent comedian Zarganar are still in prison despite their medical conditions.
Su Su Nway, a member of the National League for Democracy, has been in custody in the notorious Insein Jail since November 2007, following a peaceful demonstration. She received the 2006 Humphrey Freedom Award from the Canada-based group Rights and Democracy for her human rights activities. She was arrested in 2005 and 2007.
Many political prisoners are reportedly seriously ailing and receiving no regular healthcare. The International Committee of the Red Cross has been denied free access to conduct confidential prison visits since December 2005. Arrests and intimidation of political activists and journalists in Burma have been going on for two decades.
In 2009, there were three known political prisoner deaths. Salai Hla Moe, Saw Char Late and Tin Tin Htwe all died in prison due to lack of proper medical care. According to the AAPP’s documentation, at least 143 political prisoners have died in prison since 1988. But the list is incomplete, as the military authorities black out information from the prisons.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International warned Burma’s military regime in a major report released on 16 February 2010. The 58-page report - The Repression of ethnic minority activists in Myanmar - draws on accounts from more than 700 activists from the seven largest ethnic minorities, including the Rakhine, Shan, Kachin, and Chin, covering a two-year period from August 2007.
The military authorities have arrested, imprisoned, and in some cases tortured or even killed ethnic minority activists. Minority groups have also faced extensive surveillance, harassment and discrimination when trying to carry out their legitimate activities.
Amnesty International urged the government to lift restrictions on freedom of association, assembly, and religion in the run-up to the elections; to release immediately and unconditionally all prisoners of conscience; and to remove restrictions on independent media to cover the campaigning and election process.
Amnesty International called on Burma or Myanmar’s neighbors in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as China, Myanmar’s biggest international supporter, to push the government to ensure that the people of Myanmar will be able to freely express their opinions, gather peacefully, and participate openly in the political process.
“The government of Myanmar should use the elections as an opportunity to improve its human rights record, not as a spur to increase repression of dissenting voices, especially those from the ethnic minorities,” said Benjamin Zawacki, AI’s Burma (Myanmar) specialist.
But, the mood of the junta shows clearly that it has no plan to pay attention to international concerns, release political prisoners or commence a dialogue for reconciliation.
According to a Burmese analyst, it is baseless to believe that the military dictators are going to build a democratic country by means of the 2008 constitution.
Zin Linn is a freelance journalist in exile. He is vice president of Burma Media Association, which is affiliated with the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontiers.
*************************************************************
LABOUR AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Bangkok Post - Opinion: Lost faces behind another migration deadline
Published: 18/02/2010 at 09:04 AM
Online news: Opinion
A round 2 million manual labourers from Burma, Cambodian and Laos currently work in Thailand. Many remain underground. These ``migrants'' could well be seen to contribute greatly to the economy, and remain an untapped source of cultural and spiritual vitality that could enrich and diversify Thai society.
Instead, they are seen as commodities or, worse, as one big national security threat.
Many of these workers follow the river of life wherever it takes them. From poorer to richer lands, from less to more developed countries, from war to peace, from dictatorships to democracies, from old to new experiences, and importantly, from supply to demand.
They arrive in Thailand as the economy needs them. Their life experiences often mean they need Thailand, too.
Consecutive governments have sought to manage irregular migration flows from neighbouring countries into Thailand. Policy-makers have considered primarily the short-term needs of the economy, relying on yearly cabinet decisions. So it was that work permits for over 60,000 migrants, almost all from Burma, were to expire on January 20, 2010 before the cabinet had considered what to do with them.
On Jan 19, just a day before this and just a day after over 30 domestic and international rights organisations petitioned the prime minister with concerns of impending mass deportations, the cabinet issued a resolution on migrants.
The resolution allowed this group of workers until February 28, 2010 to renew their permits for another two years. But for the first time, extended permission to stay and work in Thailand formally came with two conditions attached:
1. Migrants must enter into a nationality verification process (NV) before Feb 28, 2010; and
2. Migrants must complete NV before Feb 28, 2012.
``Agreeing'' to NV means submitting biographical information to their governments via employment offices or, as is more often the case, to brokers.
For the other 1.3 million workers (83% from Burma, the rest from Cambodia and Laos) who previously had until Feb 28, 2010 to complete an NV process, most have not even begun, and many to whom NV still means nothing, the same conditions now apply.
The Ministry of Labour was ordered to conduct effective public awareness campaigns for migrants and their employers on what NV is. Policy-makers woke up to the reality that few understand what NV is all about.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been ordered to bring foreign officials (presumably they are talking about Burmese officials) into Thailand to conduct NV, so the Minister of Labour is heading off to Bagan this week.
If any migrant still refuses to enter NV by Feb 28, 2010, the cabinet's resolution is unambiguous. They shall be rounded up, arrested and deported en masse.
The migrant workers' last opportunity to play by the rules has arrived. NV means migrants are asked to become ``legal'' to allow Thailand's new era of migration management to become reality. As they ``illegally'' entered Thailand without permission (and in the case of migrants from Burma, they ``illegally'' left Burma without permission too), biographies are established and another country agrees to acknowledge their citizens, before they are legally imported.
For migrants from Burma, many of whom are from ethnic minorities, both legally and morally it is more straightforward _ they have to become ``Burmese'' and they have to do this in Burma.
Less morally challenging, NV means migrants receive documents from their country of origin (including a ``temporary'' passport) to enter Thailand ``legally''. These documents allow them to receive more documents (visa, work permit and health insurance) to ``legally'' reside and work in Thailand for 2 years at a time, for a period not exceeding 4 years, and then they must go back home.
NV is ``formally'' about regularisation and is relatively cheap. A Burmese temporary passport is 100 baht and a Thai 2-year visa is 500 baht. A migrant becoming ``legal'' brings with it potentially higher levels of rights protection. For the first time, migrants are able to ride motorbikes, access work accident compensation and travel within Thailand without restrictions _ a marked increase in freedom of movement.
Unruly officials will apparently be hard pressed to exploit these people anymore. Many remain unsure, however, if all of this will in fact become reality.
But ``informally'', some suggest other motives for NV. Brokers are highly recommended to navigate a 13-step process, such that cheap becomes expensive. The initial fee of 600 baht becomes 6,000 baht, as no laws apparently exist to regulate them. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Burmese officials are using NV to crack down on democracy activists, extort money from migranst' relatives or confiscate land.
Some fear Burmese intelligence systems are overflowing with data on previously unmapped ethnic populations. Explanations abound why Burma will not conduct NV in Thailand, like Cambodia and Laos.
However powerless, voiceless or confused migrants currently remain, there seems a limit to their cooperation with anyone, let alone governments, in the NV process.
This ``limit'' is related to two major challenges they face in their lives _ personal and financial security. Especially for workers from Burma, and even more so for those from Burma's ethnic minorities, they have more experience than most in sensing impending danger. If you ask them to do that which they genuinely believe (for whatever reasons) is not in their security interests, they seem to manage risks or find another way out.
Filling in NV forms with false information by Feb 28 to provide some breathing space will result.
Most migrants from Burma came to Thailand to find money to survive, educate their siblings or support their parents. Ask them to expend huge sums of money on a bureaucratic process so as to live and work without the hope of being able to save such money, and they perhaps will decide their financial status is no longer secure. Why should migrants enter into NV for few benefits whilst also risking their lives?
Human rights activists are in a way like environmentalists. They are closer to nature, to people, even perhaps to anarchy. They like the thought of natural flowing rivers and seek to limit what they see as un-natural means to stifle the flow which governments consider an imperative for national security. Some activists genuinely engage governments to ensure policies that are inclusive and as human rights friendly as possible. As a migrant voice is currently unheard, some NGOs seek genuinely to provide a voice for the voiceless here, with little bias and whether they receive funding or not.
What is the best way to manage migration, as a human rights activist could not be that which any government would accept or adopt. However, a plethora of on-the-ground experience suggests that Thailand, in managing irregular migration, is seeking to manage people with a profound sense of insecurity.
If its migration policy is to genuinely bring stability and security, it will seek to manage migrants as ``people'' with a past, and not as commodities without a future.
Providing ``people'' information in a way they can understand it, on what you are requesting them to do, and supporting positive community mechanisms already in place, may well assist.
Respect migrants' opinions and needs, even nourish organising of migrant communities, and the real voice of migrants can replace at times eschewed, prejudiced and funding-orientated voices of NGOs. Make processes as simple, cheap, transparent and pain-free as possible. Then these ``people'' may well come on board.
The price of migration mismanagement to be paid by economies, societies and, importantly, ``people'' is a high one. In Thailand, some migrants are packing up and going home in the face of NV deadlines, threats of deportation and unacceptably high broker costs.
They are jumping once again on a natural river of life to take them to another place.
Some employers are crying foul as workplaces are being depleted of cheap and hard-working labour. Human rights activists are sensing random and un-justifiable deportations may soon occur and are preparing themselves. The world is already closely watching Burma 2010, and many are now watching as February 28, 2010 approaches in Thailand.
Managing migration effectively is about engaging all viewpoints, mapping the ferocious and uncontrollable torrents of a natural river to see where it bends and curves, hearing the missing voices and seeing the missing faces.
If Thailand started to think like this when enacting its future migration policies, then if a deadline for NV really has to be laid down, observers could at least give some praise for the inclusive dialogue that was undertaken in a genuine attempt to manage an unwieldy migration process in which emotional, unpredictable and insecure migrants are involved.
Thailand has duties, both according to domestic constitutional and international law.
But Thailand has moral duties, too, and as Thailand needs migrants, the economic imperative for careful reconsideration of the existing NV policy remains strong.
When senior officials suggest the Feb 28, 2010 deadline is more grey than black, and that perhaps a record of intention to fill in NV forms is enough to get work permits renewed for now, one senses civil society's campaign on NV is seeing the light.
When you see faces, hear voices, consider experiences and truly understand the millions of actors behind this tragic story, it would be heartless for any government to turn away from the truth.
Andy Hall is the director of the Human Rights and Development Foundation's Migrant Justice Programme.
Bangkok Post - Opinion: Lost faces behind another migration deadline
Published: 18/02/2010 at 09:04 AM
Online news: Opinion
A round 2 million manual labourers from Burma, Cambodian and Laos currently work in Thailand. Many remain underground. These ``migrants'' could well be seen to contribute greatly to the economy, and remain an untapped source of cultural and spiritual vitality that could enrich and diversify Thai society.
Instead, they are seen as commodities or, worse, as one big national security threat.
Many of these workers follow the river of life wherever it takes them. From poorer to richer lands, from less to more developed countries, from war to peace, from dictatorships to democracies, from old to new experiences, and importantly, from supply to demand.
They arrive in Thailand as the economy needs them. Their life experiences often mean they need Thailand, too.
Consecutive governments have sought to manage irregular migration flows from neighbouring countries into Thailand. Policy-makers have considered primarily the short-term needs of the economy, relying on yearly cabinet decisions. So it was that work permits for over 60,000 migrants, almost all from Burma, were to expire on January 20, 2010 before the cabinet had considered what to do with them.
On Jan 19, just a day before this and just a day after over 30 domestic and international rights organisations petitioned the prime minister with concerns of impending mass deportations, the cabinet issued a resolution on migrants.
The resolution allowed this group of workers until February 28, 2010 to renew their permits for another two years. But for the first time, extended permission to stay and work in Thailand formally came with two conditions attached:
1. Migrants must enter into a nationality verification process (NV) before Feb 28, 2010; and
2. Migrants must complete NV before Feb 28, 2012.
``Agreeing'' to NV means submitting biographical information to their governments via employment offices or, as is more often the case, to brokers.
For the other 1.3 million workers (83% from Burma, the rest from Cambodia and Laos) who previously had until Feb 28, 2010 to complete an NV process, most have not even begun, and many to whom NV still means nothing, the same conditions now apply.
The Ministry of Labour was ordered to conduct effective public awareness campaigns for migrants and their employers on what NV is. Policy-makers woke up to the reality that few understand what NV is all about.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been ordered to bring foreign officials (presumably they are talking about Burmese officials) into Thailand to conduct NV, so the Minister of Labour is heading off to Bagan this week.
If any migrant still refuses to enter NV by Feb 28, 2010, the cabinet's resolution is unambiguous. They shall be rounded up, arrested and deported en masse.
The migrant workers' last opportunity to play by the rules has arrived. NV means migrants are asked to become ``legal'' to allow Thailand's new era of migration management to become reality. As they ``illegally'' entered Thailand without permission (and in the case of migrants from Burma, they ``illegally'' left Burma without permission too), biographies are established and another country agrees to acknowledge their citizens, before they are legally imported.
For migrants from Burma, many of whom are from ethnic minorities, both legally and morally it is more straightforward _ they have to become ``Burmese'' and they have to do this in Burma.
Less morally challenging, NV means migrants receive documents from their country of origin (including a ``temporary'' passport) to enter Thailand ``legally''. These documents allow them to receive more documents (visa, work permit and health insurance) to ``legally'' reside and work in Thailand for 2 years at a time, for a period not exceeding 4 years, and then they must go back home.
NV is ``formally'' about regularisation and is relatively cheap. A Burmese temporary passport is 100 baht and a Thai 2-year visa is 500 baht. A migrant becoming ``legal'' brings with it potentially higher levels of rights protection. For the first time, migrants are able to ride motorbikes, access work accident compensation and travel within Thailand without restrictions _ a marked increase in freedom of movement.
Unruly officials will apparently be hard pressed to exploit these people anymore. Many remain unsure, however, if all of this will in fact become reality.
But ``informally'', some suggest other motives for NV. Brokers are highly recommended to navigate a 13-step process, such that cheap becomes expensive. The initial fee of 600 baht becomes 6,000 baht, as no laws apparently exist to regulate them. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Burmese officials are using NV to crack down on democracy activists, extort money from migranst' relatives or confiscate land.
Some fear Burmese intelligence systems are overflowing with data on previously unmapped ethnic populations. Explanations abound why Burma will not conduct NV in Thailand, like Cambodia and Laos.
However powerless, voiceless or confused migrants currently remain, there seems a limit to their cooperation with anyone, let alone governments, in the NV process.
This ``limit'' is related to two major challenges they face in their lives _ personal and financial security. Especially for workers from Burma, and even more so for those from Burma's ethnic minorities, they have more experience than most in sensing impending danger. If you ask them to do that which they genuinely believe (for whatever reasons) is not in their security interests, they seem to manage risks or find another way out.
Filling in NV forms with false information by Feb 28 to provide some breathing space will result.
Most migrants from Burma came to Thailand to find money to survive, educate their siblings or support their parents. Ask them to expend huge sums of money on a bureaucratic process so as to live and work without the hope of being able to save such money, and they perhaps will decide their financial status is no longer secure. Why should migrants enter into NV for few benefits whilst also risking their lives?
Human rights activists are in a way like environmentalists. They are closer to nature, to people, even perhaps to anarchy. They like the thought of natural flowing rivers and seek to limit what they see as un-natural means to stifle the flow which governments consider an imperative for national security. Some activists genuinely engage governments to ensure policies that are inclusive and as human rights friendly as possible. As a migrant voice is currently unheard, some NGOs seek genuinely to provide a voice for the voiceless here, with little bias and whether they receive funding or not.
What is the best way to manage migration, as a human rights activist could not be that which any government would accept or adopt. However, a plethora of on-the-ground experience suggests that Thailand, in managing irregular migration, is seeking to manage people with a profound sense of insecurity.
If its migration policy is to genuinely bring stability and security, it will seek to manage migrants as ``people'' with a past, and not as commodities without a future.
Providing ``people'' information in a way they can understand it, on what you are requesting them to do, and supporting positive community mechanisms already in place, may well assist.
Respect migrants' opinions and needs, even nourish organising of migrant communities, and the real voice of migrants can replace at times eschewed, prejudiced and funding-orientated voices of NGOs. Make processes as simple, cheap, transparent and pain-free as possible. Then these ``people'' may well come on board.
The price of migration mismanagement to be paid by economies, societies and, importantly, ``people'' is a high one. In Thailand, some migrants are packing up and going home in the face of NV deadlines, threats of deportation and unacceptably high broker costs.
They are jumping once again on a natural river of life to take them to another place.
Some employers are crying foul as workplaces are being depleted of cheap and hard-working labour. Human rights activists are sensing random and un-justifiable deportations may soon occur and are preparing themselves. The world is already closely watching Burma 2010, and many are now watching as February 28, 2010 approaches in Thailand.
Managing migration effectively is about engaging all viewpoints, mapping the ferocious and uncontrollable torrents of a natural river to see where it bends and curves, hearing the missing voices and seeing the missing faces.
If Thailand started to think like this when enacting its future migration policies, then if a deadline for NV really has to be laid down, observers could at least give some praise for the inclusive dialogue that was undertaken in a genuine attempt to manage an unwieldy migration process in which emotional, unpredictable and insecure migrants are involved.
Thailand has duties, both according to domestic constitutional and international law.
But Thailand has moral duties, too, and as Thailand needs migrants, the economic imperative for careful reconsideration of the existing NV policy remains strong.
When senior officials suggest the Feb 28, 2010 deadline is more grey than black, and that perhaps a record of intention to fill in NV forms is enough to get work permits renewed for now, one senses civil society's campaign on NV is seeing the light.
When you see faces, hear voices, consider experiences and truly understand the millions of actors behind this tragic story, it would be heartless for any government to turn away from the truth.
Andy Hall is the director of the Human Rights and Development Foundation's Migrant Justice Programme.
*************************************************************
The Irrawaddy - UN Envoy Visits Insein as Prisoners Demand Better Conditions
By BA KAUNG - Thursday, February 18, 2010
In a letter leaked ahead of a visit by the UN human rights envoy to Burma on Thursday, political prisoners at Rangoon's notorious Insein Prison demanded improved conditions, including access to reading materials and better food and health care.
The UN envoy, Tomás Ojea Quintana, went to the prison at noon on Thursday as part of a five-day visit to the country to examine the Burmese authorities' treatment of political prisoners.
According to the letter, rice given to prisoners is stale and mixed with small stones. It also said that although prisoners are allowed to receive books and newspapers from relatives, all reading material is heavily censored.
“Books and journals our families gave to us have been cut out and torn apart,” the letter reads.
Of the more than 2,000 political prisoners in Burma, nearly 400 are detained in Insein Prison, the country's largest prison. Around 300 of the political prisoners currently serving sentences at the prison were arrested in the aftermath of monk-led mass protests in September 2007.
The authenticity of the letter was confirmed by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a Thailand-based Burmese human rights group.
“We can only confirm that the letter did come from the political prisoners,” said Bo Kyi, the AAPP joint-secretary. “But we cannot tell you how it came out for security reasons.”
On Wednesday, Quintana traveled to northwestern Arakan State, where he met several political prisoners at Buthidaung Prison, including Htay Kywe, a prominent student activist serving a 65-year sentence for his role in the 2007 uprising.
After his prison visit, Quintana will meet with Tin Oo, the vice-chairman of the opposition National Leagues for Democracy, who was released from six years of house arrest last weekend.
The UN envoy has asked the ruling military junta to release all political prisoners and ensure that elections to be held later this year are fair and transparent.
By BA KAUNG - Thursday, February 18, 2010
In a letter leaked ahead of a visit by the UN human rights envoy to Burma on Thursday, political prisoners at Rangoon's notorious Insein Prison demanded improved conditions, including access to reading materials and better food and health care.
The UN envoy, Tomás Ojea Quintana, went to the prison at noon on Thursday as part of a five-day visit to the country to examine the Burmese authorities' treatment of political prisoners.
According to the letter, rice given to prisoners is stale and mixed with small stones. It also said that although prisoners are allowed to receive books and newspapers from relatives, all reading material is heavily censored.
“Books and journals our families gave to us have been cut out and torn apart,” the letter reads.
Of the more than 2,000 political prisoners in Burma, nearly 400 are detained in Insein Prison, the country's largest prison. Around 300 of the political prisoners currently serving sentences at the prison were arrested in the aftermath of monk-led mass protests in September 2007.
The authenticity of the letter was confirmed by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a Thailand-based Burmese human rights group.
“We can only confirm that the letter did come from the political prisoners,” said Bo Kyi, the AAPP joint-secretary. “But we cannot tell you how it came out for security reasons.”
On Wednesday, Quintana traveled to northwestern Arakan State, where he met several political prisoners at Buthidaung Prison, including Htay Kywe, a prominent student activist serving a 65-year sentence for his role in the 2007 uprising.
After his prison visit, Quintana will meet with Tin Oo, the vice-chairman of the opposition National Leagues for Democracy, who was released from six years of house arrest last weekend.
The UN envoy has asked the ruling military junta to release all political prisoners and ensure that elections to be held later this year are fair and transparent.
*************************************************************
The Irrawaddy - NLD Member's Store Auctioned Off
Thursday, February 18, 2010
A stall in the main market in Mandalay that belonged to National League for Democracy (NLD) Mandalay Division member Win Win Mya's family was sold in an action by local authorities on Wednesday.
Authorities sealed Win Win Mya's garment stall, located on the ground floor of Mandalay's landmark Zay Cho market, in June 2007 for displaying a small NLD flag that had been attached to an inside wall for 18 years.
Win Mya Mya, a strong supporter of Aung San Suu Kyi, was arrested soon after the stall's closure because of her activism during the Saffron Revolution led by Buddhist
monks. In 2009, she received an 8-year sentence and is currently imprisonment in Putao Prison in Kachin State.
“We submitted six requests to the authorities to return our stall,” said Ba Soe, Win Win Mya's elder brother. “We also opposed the auction. We have been under great pressure from the authorities.”
Organized by the Mandalay Municipal Committee, the stall was sold in an auction held in City Hall Bidding began at 500,000,000 kyat (about US $49,559). Businessman Tin Ko Ko made the winning bid of 510,000,000 kyat. The municipal committee advertised the auction in Mandalay Newspaper on Feb. 11.
Ba Soe also said authorities have pressured other shop owners not to lease out stalls to the family.
Since 1988, Win Mya Mya provided food and other material to political prisoners in Mandalay Prison. In return, authorities harassed her family business and arrested her several times during 20 years as a political activist.
She was injured and arrested when Suu Kyi’s supporters were brutally ambushed by thugs backed by the junta in Depayin, Sagaging Division in northern Burma in late May, 2003.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
A stall in the main market in Mandalay that belonged to National League for Democracy (NLD) Mandalay Division member Win Win Mya's family was sold in an action by local authorities on Wednesday.
Authorities sealed Win Win Mya's garment stall, located on the ground floor of Mandalay's landmark Zay Cho market, in June 2007 for displaying a small NLD flag that had been attached to an inside wall for 18 years.
Win Mya Mya, a strong supporter of Aung San Suu Kyi, was arrested soon after the stall's closure because of her activism during the Saffron Revolution led by Buddhist
monks. In 2009, she received an 8-year sentence and is currently imprisonment in Putao Prison in Kachin State.
“We submitted six requests to the authorities to return our stall,” said Ba Soe, Win Win Mya's elder brother. “We also opposed the auction. We have been under great pressure from the authorities.”
Organized by the Mandalay Municipal Committee, the stall was sold in an auction held in City Hall Bidding began at 500,000,000 kyat (about US $49,559). Businessman Tin Ko Ko made the winning bid of 510,000,000 kyat. The municipal committee advertised the auction in Mandalay Newspaper on Feb. 11.
Ba Soe also said authorities have pressured other shop owners not to lease out stalls to the family.
Since 1988, Win Mya Mya provided food and other material to political prisoners in Mandalay Prison. In return, authorities harassed her family business and arrested her several times during 20 years as a political activist.
She was injured and arrested when Suu Kyi’s supporters were brutally ambushed by thugs backed by the junta in Depayin, Sagaging Division in northern Burma in late May, 2003.
*************************************************************
The Irrawaddy - Karen Refugees Return Home
By SAW YAN NAING - Thursday, February 18, 2010
Because of pressure from Thai authorities, more than 300 Karen refugees in Thailand have returned to heavily mined village areas in Burma, sources on the Thai-Burma border said on Thursday.
Around 300 Karen refugees have returned to their homes in Karen State since early February because they did not want to remain on the Thai-Burma border while under pressure and threats by the Thai authorities, a Karen villager told The Irrawaddy.
The 300 refugees lived in Mae U Su in Tha Song Yang District in Tak Province, part of 3,000 Karen refugees who fled to Thailand in June 2009 following clashes between Karen rebels and Burmese government troops and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, an ally of the Burmese regime.
Sally Thompson, the deputy director of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), said,
“They were not forcibly returned, but there was pressure on them to go back.
“We were not there when they left,” Thompson said. “What we know is that they are no longer at the site [in Thailand]. And we believe they have gone back.”
The refugees left without any assistance, sources said.
Humanitarian workers said many villagers who have voluntarily returned said that if renewed fighting broke out they would come back to Thailand.
Human rights groups said the situation in Karen State is volatile and dangerous. The
Thai military halted a plan to repatriate all 3,000 Karen refugee in Tha Song Yang District by Feb. 15 following pleas by human rights groups and the international community.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was scheduled to meet with Karen refugees in Tha Song Yang District on Thursday, according to border sources.
By SAW YAN NAING - Thursday, February 18, 2010
Because of pressure from Thai authorities, more than 300 Karen refugees in Thailand have returned to heavily mined village areas in Burma, sources on the Thai-Burma border said on Thursday.
Around 300 Karen refugees have returned to their homes in Karen State since early February because they did not want to remain on the Thai-Burma border while under pressure and threats by the Thai authorities, a Karen villager told The Irrawaddy.
The 300 refugees lived in Mae U Su in Tha Song Yang District in Tak Province, part of 3,000 Karen refugees who fled to Thailand in June 2009 following clashes between Karen rebels and Burmese government troops and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, an ally of the Burmese regime.
Sally Thompson, the deputy director of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), said,
“They were not forcibly returned, but there was pressure on them to go back.
“We were not there when they left,” Thompson said. “What we know is that they are no longer at the site [in Thailand]. And we believe they have gone back.”
The refugees left without any assistance, sources said.
Humanitarian workers said many villagers who have voluntarily returned said that if renewed fighting broke out they would come back to Thailand.
Human rights groups said the situation in Karen State is volatile and dangerous. The
Thai military halted a plan to repatriate all 3,000 Karen refugee in Tha Song Yang District by Feb. 15 following pleas by human rights groups and the international community.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was scheduled to meet with Karen refugees in Tha Song Yang District on Thursday, according to border sources.
*************************************************************
Abbot sentenced to seven years in prison
Thursday, 18 February 2010 20:54 Myint Maung
New Delhi (Mizzima) – The Burmese military junta’s judiciary continued to hand down harsh verdicts, with an abbot, who had assisted Cyclone Nargis victims, being sentenced to seven years in prison yesterday by a special court in session inside the Insein prison precincts.
The Rangoon western district court sentenced Abbot U Gaw Thita from the Rangoon Nga Htat Gyi monastery under the Immigration Act, Foreign Exchange Regulation Act and Unlawful Associations Act.
“Deputy District Judge (3) Tin Htut and law officer (public prosecutor) Daw Khin Po pronounced the judgment from the western district court bench,” an opposition source said.
The monk was arrested from Rangoon Mingaladon airport on August 28 last year after returning from Taiwan. Seven other monks were also arrested along with him on the same day from the airport but they were released after being questioned for a day. Abbot U Gaw Thita was the only one to be prosecuted.
Rangoon based legal advisor Aung Thein told Mizzima that trying a person entering the country with a valid passport and visa under the Immigration Act and Unlawful Associations Act is not in keeping with the law.
“As for charging him under the Foreign Exchange Act, all eight monks had some foreign currency when they entered Burma. One of them testified in court and said he exchanged his foreign currency the next day after being released from a day’s detention for they could not exchange it at the airport as they were arrested. So the trial under the Foreign Exchange Act is contrary to the law as well,” he added.
Three and-a-half months after the monk was arrested, he was produced in court on December 15. The period of judicial custody is counted from that date till the date of the court verdict.
“But the period between the arrest date and the begining of the trial is not taken as judicial custody. So his three months in judicial custody was not taken into account, which is also contrary to the law,” Aung Thein said.
Meanwhile, Burmese-American citizen Aye Min Khaing is being held in Insein prison in solitary confinement for protesting against lack of treatment of prisoners, who had contracted the AIDS virus. But his case is not yet known, a source close to prison officials said.
Thursday, 18 February 2010 20:54 Myint Maung
New Delhi (Mizzima) – The Burmese military junta’s judiciary continued to hand down harsh verdicts, with an abbot, who had assisted Cyclone Nargis victims, being sentenced to seven years in prison yesterday by a special court in session inside the Insein prison precincts.
The Rangoon western district court sentenced Abbot U Gaw Thita from the Rangoon Nga Htat Gyi monastery under the Immigration Act, Foreign Exchange Regulation Act and Unlawful Associations Act.
“Deputy District Judge (3) Tin Htut and law officer (public prosecutor) Daw Khin Po pronounced the judgment from the western district court bench,” an opposition source said.
The monk was arrested from Rangoon Mingaladon airport on August 28 last year after returning from Taiwan. Seven other monks were also arrested along with him on the same day from the airport but they were released after being questioned for a day. Abbot U Gaw Thita was the only one to be prosecuted.
Rangoon based legal advisor Aung Thein told Mizzima that trying a person entering the country with a valid passport and visa under the Immigration Act and Unlawful Associations Act is not in keeping with the law.
“As for charging him under the Foreign Exchange Act, all eight monks had some foreign currency when they entered Burma. One of them testified in court and said he exchanged his foreign currency the next day after being released from a day’s detention for they could not exchange it at the airport as they were arrested. So the trial under the Foreign Exchange Act is contrary to the law as well,” he added.
Three and-a-half months after the monk was arrested, he was produced in court on December 15. The period of judicial custody is counted from that date till the date of the court verdict.
“But the period between the arrest date and the begining of the trial is not taken as judicial custody. So his three months in judicial custody was not taken into account, which is also contrary to the law,” Aung Thein said.
Meanwhile, Burmese-American citizen Aye Min Khaing is being held in Insein prison in solitary confinement for protesting against lack of treatment of prisoners, who had contracted the AIDS virus. But his case is not yet known, a source close to prison officials said.
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