Foreign Policy Blogs
International Burma Tribunal Releases Judgment Regarding War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity
By Brandon Henander
Wednesday, March 17 8:07 pm EST
Early this month the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women of Burma convened in New York City. At the Tribunal the testimonies of twelve women outlined atrocities committed by Burmese officials against women during the longest ongoing conflict in the world. Representatives of the witnesses recounted brutal gang rapes, torture and murder committed by Burmese soldiers for the purpose of suppressing pro-democracy and self-determination movements among Burma’s many dissident minority ethnicities. The Tribunal was sponsored by the Nobel Women’s Initiative. It was presided over by a panel of judges comprised of many of the most distinguished human rights and international law scholars currently in practice. The judges included Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Shirin Ebadi and Jody Williams, and former CEDAW co-chair and international crimes against women scholar Dr. Heisoo Shin, and human rights professor Vitit Muntarbhorn. We are privileged to have a copy of the portion of their judgment against the Burmese military junta concerning war crimes and crimes against humanity one week before the full judgment is released to the public. We extend our gratitude to the Nobel Women’s Initiative for providing this to the Foreign Policy Association:
“WAR CRIMES: The testifiers we have heard today describe their harrowing experiences in being forced to do work for the military, in being raped by military personnel both during forced labor and in other circumstances, in having their homes and villages pillaged and destroyed by the military, and in being forced to flee. These are war crimes because they are attacks directed at civilians in the context of and associated with armed conflict under customary international law as reflected in the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute which created the International Criminal Court.
Here the armed conflict is non-international in character. Ethnic groups within Burma have been fighting for the right to self government since the British took control of Burma and India. Under the current regime, these groups have been further stripped of their autonomy and continue to fight.
On the basis of the testimonies today and other documentation, we find that in areas where these hostilities are taking place, the following war crimes have been committed or tolerated by officials of the military regime: rape, sexual violence, sexualized torture and other forms of torture, violence to life and person, outrages on personal dignity, intentional attacks against the civilian populations, pillage and destruction or seizure of their property, and displacement of the civilian populations for reasons related to conflict. War crimes give rise to individual criminal responsibility.
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: Crimes against humanity refers to specific crimes committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population. We find that the ongoing, systematic attacks by the Burmese military regime against the peoples of Burma constitute crimes against humanity. The attacks are widespread and have been carried out across the country affecting untold numbers of women – and their families and communities. The fact that similar crimes have been committed against Burmese women in different parts of the country is evidence that the regime has a policy to actively commit and/or passively permit these attacks.
The brutal crimes inflicted on women as part of these attacks include: rape and sexual violence; torture, including rape and sexual violence; enslavement including forced labor; sexual slavery including trafficking; imprisonment and other severe deprivation of physical liberty; persecution directed against individuals based on their political, national, ethnic, cultural, religious and gender identities; forcible transfer of populations; and other inhumane acts.
The testimonies here and the reports available to us provide ample evidence that women as political activists, Burmese women and women of ethnic minorities, some of whose representatives have testified here today, have all been targets of crimes against humanity. Crimes against humanity give rise to individual criminal responsibility.
Despite Burma’s failure to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, we find that its definition of crimes against humanity is applicable to the crimes against women in Burma because it also represents basic customary international law applicable to all. As such, it provides the basis for individual States to exercise universal jurisdiction conferred by international law – that is to prosecute the perpetrators in their national courts.
Further, the UN Security Council, the only international body that can take binding action with regard to the regime, has the power to respond to the Burmese regime’s threat to peace and security by referring the situation in Burma to the International Criminal Court, enabling that Court to investigate and prosecute officials of the Burmese regime. Our recommendations reemphasize the importance of Security Council involvement and call upon the Council to take all appropriate measures, including those necessary to accomplish this referral with all due speed, to bring an end to the ongoing and terrible threat this regime poses to women, as well as to the human rights, peace and security of all.”
What is not clear is the basis the Tribunal uses to claim war crimes and crimes against humanity are customary international law. Certainly international conventions to which Burma is signatory can uncontroversially be claimed as customary law such as the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the CEDAW. But violation of these conventions does not merit referral to the I.C.C. as the Tribunal has recommended. The Rome Statute, establishing the I.C.C. and defining war crimes and crimes against humanity is still less than a decade old and not yet ratified by major powers such as the U.S. The case that it is current customary international law may be viable but would be daunting to make. By proposing that Rome Statute offenses are customary international law however it lends credibility to that notion. In addition to giving voice to the oppressed women of Burma the Tribunal was able to lay a brick in the foundation of what hopefully in the future will be the recognition of the Rome Statute, and referral of its violators to the I.C.C., as customary international law.
In related news, McSweeney’s Voice of Witness is working on the Burma oral history project to help share more of these womens’ stories. They need your help. Funds will go directly to interviewers and translators in Burma and in border regions, some of whom are themselves struggling to survive. You can donate at the Voice of Witness website.
By Brandon Henander
Wednesday, March 17 8:07 pm EST
Early this month the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women of Burma convened in New York City. At the Tribunal the testimonies of twelve women outlined atrocities committed by Burmese officials against women during the longest ongoing conflict in the world. Representatives of the witnesses recounted brutal gang rapes, torture and murder committed by Burmese soldiers for the purpose of suppressing pro-democracy and self-determination movements among Burma’s many dissident minority ethnicities. The Tribunal was sponsored by the Nobel Women’s Initiative. It was presided over by a panel of judges comprised of many of the most distinguished human rights and international law scholars currently in practice. The judges included Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Shirin Ebadi and Jody Williams, and former CEDAW co-chair and international crimes against women scholar Dr. Heisoo Shin, and human rights professor Vitit Muntarbhorn. We are privileged to have a copy of the portion of their judgment against the Burmese military junta concerning war crimes and crimes against humanity one week before the full judgment is released to the public. We extend our gratitude to the Nobel Women’s Initiative for providing this to the Foreign Policy Association:
“WAR CRIMES: The testifiers we have heard today describe their harrowing experiences in being forced to do work for the military, in being raped by military personnel both during forced labor and in other circumstances, in having their homes and villages pillaged and destroyed by the military, and in being forced to flee. These are war crimes because they are attacks directed at civilians in the context of and associated with armed conflict under customary international law as reflected in the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute which created the International Criminal Court.
Here the armed conflict is non-international in character. Ethnic groups within Burma have been fighting for the right to self government since the British took control of Burma and India. Under the current regime, these groups have been further stripped of their autonomy and continue to fight.
On the basis of the testimonies today and other documentation, we find that in areas where these hostilities are taking place, the following war crimes have been committed or tolerated by officials of the military regime: rape, sexual violence, sexualized torture and other forms of torture, violence to life and person, outrages on personal dignity, intentional attacks against the civilian populations, pillage and destruction or seizure of their property, and displacement of the civilian populations for reasons related to conflict. War crimes give rise to individual criminal responsibility.
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: Crimes against humanity refers to specific crimes committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population. We find that the ongoing, systematic attacks by the Burmese military regime against the peoples of Burma constitute crimes against humanity. The attacks are widespread and have been carried out across the country affecting untold numbers of women – and their families and communities. The fact that similar crimes have been committed against Burmese women in different parts of the country is evidence that the regime has a policy to actively commit and/or passively permit these attacks.
The brutal crimes inflicted on women as part of these attacks include: rape and sexual violence; torture, including rape and sexual violence; enslavement including forced labor; sexual slavery including trafficking; imprisonment and other severe deprivation of physical liberty; persecution directed against individuals based on their political, national, ethnic, cultural, religious and gender identities; forcible transfer of populations; and other inhumane acts.
The testimonies here and the reports available to us provide ample evidence that women as political activists, Burmese women and women of ethnic minorities, some of whose representatives have testified here today, have all been targets of crimes against humanity. Crimes against humanity give rise to individual criminal responsibility.
Despite Burma’s failure to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, we find that its definition of crimes against humanity is applicable to the crimes against women in Burma because it also represents basic customary international law applicable to all. As such, it provides the basis for individual States to exercise universal jurisdiction conferred by international law – that is to prosecute the perpetrators in their national courts.
Further, the UN Security Council, the only international body that can take binding action with regard to the regime, has the power to respond to the Burmese regime’s threat to peace and security by referring the situation in Burma to the International Criminal Court, enabling that Court to investigate and prosecute officials of the Burmese regime. Our recommendations reemphasize the importance of Security Council involvement and call upon the Council to take all appropriate measures, including those necessary to accomplish this referral with all due speed, to bring an end to the ongoing and terrible threat this regime poses to women, as well as to the human rights, peace and security of all.”
What is not clear is the basis the Tribunal uses to claim war crimes and crimes against humanity are customary international law. Certainly international conventions to which Burma is signatory can uncontroversially be claimed as customary law such as the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the CEDAW. But violation of these conventions does not merit referral to the I.C.C. as the Tribunal has recommended. The Rome Statute, establishing the I.C.C. and defining war crimes and crimes against humanity is still less than a decade old and not yet ratified by major powers such as the U.S. The case that it is current customary international law may be viable but would be daunting to make. By proposing that Rome Statute offenses are customary international law however it lends credibility to that notion. In addition to giving voice to the oppressed women of Burma the Tribunal was able to lay a brick in the foundation of what hopefully in the future will be the recognition of the Rome Statute, and referral of its violators to the I.C.C., as customary international law.
In related news, McSweeney’s Voice of Witness is working on the Burma oral history project to help share more of these womens’ stories. They need your help. Funds will go directly to interviewers and translators in Burma and in border regions, some of whom are themselves struggling to survive. You can donate at the Voice of Witness website.
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Myanmar releases jailed US activist: officials
by Hla Hla Htay – 1 hr 1 min ago
YANGON (AFP) – Military-ruled Myanmar on Thursday released a US rights activist jailed for fraud and forgery in a rare show of leniency from the junta ahead of elections this year.
Democracy advocate Kyaw Zaw Lwin was "thrilled" to be going home, his fiancee said, after he was given a three-year term in February for forging an identity card, failing to declare currency at customs and violating immigration law.
Supporters of the Myanmar-born US citizen, also known as Nyi Nyi Aung, said he had travelled to the country to visit his ailing mother, herself detained for political activities, when he was arrested on September 3.
The 40-year-old had been behind bars in Yangon's notorious Insein prison since, despite an appeal by more than 50 US lawmakers who wrote to Myanmar's leader, Senior General Than Shwe, for his release.
"I spoke with him and he was very strong, in high spirits and so thrilled to be free," his fiancee Wa Wa Kyaw, a nurse in the Washington area, told AFP.
But she said Kyaw Zaw Lwin, who was spending the night in Bangkok as he awaited a flight to the United States, felt pain in one of his legs after his detention.
"His leg isn't really good. The first thing we'll do is have a medical check-up to indicate if he needs some treatment or some physical therapy," she said.
Drake Weisert, a spokesman for the US embassy in Yangon, confirmed in an email to AFP that Kyaw Zaw Lwin had left Myanmar.
Officials from the southeast Asian nation, asking not to be named, earlier said authorities were deporting the US man on Thursday afternoon but gave no legal explanation.
His lawyer Nyan Win, who also represents detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was initially unaware of his release after an appeal against the sentence was rejected, but later said he was glad of the news.
"His freedom will be there as he's an American citizen. His freedom cannot be here," he told AFP.
The United States has changed diplomatic tack in recent months, seeking greater engagement with the Myanmar regime after years of isolation, while maintaining sanctions.
But US officials have remained vocal in their criticism of the junta, only last week slamming plans for this year's polls as "devoid of credibility" as they prevent opposition leader Suu Kyi and other political detainees from taking part.
The United States had said Kyaw Zaw Lwin's conviction was "unjustified" and called for his release. Despite this, the prisoner's fiancee had said she felt betrayed by the US government and sought further efforts to secure his freedom.
The prisoner had been deprived of food, sleep, medical treatment and US consular access in his first two weeks of detention, his lawyers said.
He also staged a hunger strike, they said, to demand equal treatment for the more than 2,000 political prisoners the UN and rights groups say remain imprisoned.
In a damning report released on Monday, UN special envoy Tomas Quintana said the regime's violations of human rights could amount to crimes against humanity and warrant a UN inquiry, following his five-day visit to Myanmar last month.
Myanmar diplomat Wunna Maung Lwin "strongly condemned" the report as violating the country's sovereignty, in representations to the UN Human Rights Council.
The generals, who have ruled Myanmar since 1962 and refuse to recognise polls that Suu Kyi's party won by a landslide in 1990, have kept the Nobel Peace Laureate locked up for 14 of the past 20 years.
Her house arrest was extended for 18 months in August, sparking global outrage, after a bizarre incident in which another US national, John Yettaw, swam to her lakeside home.
Democrat US Senator Jim Webb secured the release of Yettaw, an eccentric military veteran, after the junta sentenced him to seven years' hard labour.
by Hla Hla Htay – 1 hr 1 min ago
YANGON (AFP) – Military-ruled Myanmar on Thursday released a US rights activist jailed for fraud and forgery in a rare show of leniency from the junta ahead of elections this year.
Democracy advocate Kyaw Zaw Lwin was "thrilled" to be going home, his fiancee said, after he was given a three-year term in February for forging an identity card, failing to declare currency at customs and violating immigration law.
Supporters of the Myanmar-born US citizen, also known as Nyi Nyi Aung, said he had travelled to the country to visit his ailing mother, herself detained for political activities, when he was arrested on September 3.
The 40-year-old had been behind bars in Yangon's notorious Insein prison since, despite an appeal by more than 50 US lawmakers who wrote to Myanmar's leader, Senior General Than Shwe, for his release.
"I spoke with him and he was very strong, in high spirits and so thrilled to be free," his fiancee Wa Wa Kyaw, a nurse in the Washington area, told AFP.
But she said Kyaw Zaw Lwin, who was spending the night in Bangkok as he awaited a flight to the United States, felt pain in one of his legs after his detention.
"His leg isn't really good. The first thing we'll do is have a medical check-up to indicate if he needs some treatment or some physical therapy," she said.
Drake Weisert, a spokesman for the US embassy in Yangon, confirmed in an email to AFP that Kyaw Zaw Lwin had left Myanmar.
Officials from the southeast Asian nation, asking not to be named, earlier said authorities were deporting the US man on Thursday afternoon but gave no legal explanation.
His lawyer Nyan Win, who also represents detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was initially unaware of his release after an appeal against the sentence was rejected, but later said he was glad of the news.
"His freedom will be there as he's an American citizen. His freedom cannot be here," he told AFP.
The United States has changed diplomatic tack in recent months, seeking greater engagement with the Myanmar regime after years of isolation, while maintaining sanctions.
But US officials have remained vocal in their criticism of the junta, only last week slamming plans for this year's polls as "devoid of credibility" as they prevent opposition leader Suu Kyi and other political detainees from taking part.
The United States had said Kyaw Zaw Lwin's conviction was "unjustified" and called for his release. Despite this, the prisoner's fiancee had said she felt betrayed by the US government and sought further efforts to secure his freedom.
The prisoner had been deprived of food, sleep, medical treatment and US consular access in his first two weeks of detention, his lawyers said.
He also staged a hunger strike, they said, to demand equal treatment for the more than 2,000 political prisoners the UN and rights groups say remain imprisoned.
In a damning report released on Monday, UN special envoy Tomas Quintana said the regime's violations of human rights could amount to crimes against humanity and warrant a UN inquiry, following his five-day visit to Myanmar last month.
Myanmar diplomat Wunna Maung Lwin "strongly condemned" the report as violating the country's sovereignty, in representations to the UN Human Rights Council.
The generals, who have ruled Myanmar since 1962 and refuse to recognise polls that Suu Kyi's party won by a landslide in 1990, have kept the Nobel Peace Laureate locked up for 14 of the past 20 years.
Her house arrest was extended for 18 months in August, sparking global outrage, after a bizarre incident in which another US national, John Yettaw, swam to her lakeside home.
Democrat US Senator Jim Webb secured the release of Yettaw, an eccentric military veteran, after the junta sentenced him to seven years' hard labour.
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Myanmar opens political party registration
AP - 2 hours 30 minutes ago
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Myanmar opened the registration period Thursday for political parties ahead of elections this year, in what the government bills as a key step toward democracy but which critics suspect will entrench the country's military rulers.
State radio and television announced that new and existing parties could register at the Election Commission office in the administrative capital of Naypyitaw. The government also published texts of new bylaws for party registration and polling.
This year's planned elections are part of the junta's "roadmap to democracy," but critics say the military shows little sign of relinquishing control and note that the government has made every effort to prevent opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from taking part in the polls.
Suu Kyi's party has said it will decide by the end of this month whether to take part in the elections _ the first since 1990, when the party won overwhelmingly, but the government refused to recognize the results.
The government has not yet set an exact date for the polls. The newly released laws set deadlines for legal actions by parties that seem to imply the polls will be held no earlier than November.
One recently enacted electoral laws prevents Suu Kyi from running in the elections and forces the Nobel peace laureate out of the party she helped found because of her conviction on charges of violating her house arrest when an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside property.
Suu Kyi is currently serving an 18-month term of house arrest and many top members of her parties and ethnic-based parties are serving prison sentences. She has spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention.
The new bylaws tighten electoral registration rules, with a new 1,000-person minimum for parties and higher fees for parties and candidates.
Parties now must pay a registration fee 300,000 kyats (about $300) compared to the 500 kyats (about $6) fee required for the most recent previous election in 1990.
Candidates must deposit 500,000 kyats ($500), compared to 10,000 kyats ($10) before.
AP - 2 hours 30 minutes ago
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Myanmar opened the registration period Thursday for political parties ahead of elections this year, in what the government bills as a key step toward democracy but which critics suspect will entrench the country's military rulers.
State radio and television announced that new and existing parties could register at the Election Commission office in the administrative capital of Naypyitaw. The government also published texts of new bylaws for party registration and polling.
This year's planned elections are part of the junta's "roadmap to democracy," but critics say the military shows little sign of relinquishing control and note that the government has made every effort to prevent opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from taking part in the polls.
Suu Kyi's party has said it will decide by the end of this month whether to take part in the elections _ the first since 1990, when the party won overwhelmingly, but the government refused to recognize the results.
The government has not yet set an exact date for the polls. The newly released laws set deadlines for legal actions by parties that seem to imply the polls will be held no earlier than November.
One recently enacted electoral laws prevents Suu Kyi from running in the elections and forces the Nobel peace laureate out of the party she helped found because of her conviction on charges of violating her house arrest when an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside property.
Suu Kyi is currently serving an 18-month term of house arrest and many top members of her parties and ethnic-based parties are serving prison sentences. She has spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention.
The new bylaws tighten electoral registration rules, with a new 1,000-person minimum for parties and higher fees for parties and candidates.
Parties now must pay a registration fee 300,000 kyats (about $300) compared to the 500 kyats (about $6) fee required for the most recent previous election in 1990.
Candidates must deposit 500,000 kyats ($500), compared to 10,000 kyats ($10) before.
********************************************************
UK presses U.N. council to take up Myanmar: diplomats
Wed Mar 17, 2010 8:26pm GMT
By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Britain is pushing the U.N. Security Council to discuss concerns about Myanmar's upcoming election but is facing resistance from the southeast Asian nation's powerful neighbour China, U.N. diplomats said on Wednesday.
Myanmar has been on the agenda of the 15-nation council for years due to what Western powers say is the military junta's brutal suppression of human rights and crackdowns on ethnic minorities and dissidents. But China and Russia have prevented the council from imposing sanctions on the junta leaders.
The reason Britain is urging the 15-nation council to return the situation in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is the government's recently published regulations banning political prisoners from participating in elections, or even being members of political parties, the diplomats said.
"A number of council members support the idea of discussing Burma and getting an update on the situation there," a Western diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
"It's the subject of negotiations with the Chinese at the moment, who are always reluctant on these matters," he said.
The United States and France, both of which are permanent veto-wielding council members like Britain, China and Russia, are among those that support the idea of a council meeting on Myanmar to discuss the upcoming election, diplomats said.
One envoy said they would like the council to agree on some kind of statement urging Myanmar's junta to free political prisoners and allow them to take part in the poll, which has not been scheduled but is expected to take place this year.
The council has only agreed to two formal statements on Myanmar. The last, in August 2009, voiced "serious concern" about opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's conviction for letting an American intruder who swam to her house stay for two days.
TROUBLE WITH CHINA
The new regulations, which the United States and United Nations have said would strip any remaining credibility from the elections, would prevent the detained Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, from running for office.
Her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won the last election in 1990 but the junta ignored the result and officially annulled it last Thursday.
The NLD is considering whether to take part in the poll, which has been widely dismissed outside Myanmar as a sham intended to make the country appear more democratic while leaving the military in control.
Diplomats said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's so-called "Group of Friends" on Myanmar will meet on March 25 to discuss the situation there. That group includes the United States, Britain, France, China, Japan, Australia, Norway, Russia, Singapore and Thailand.
It was not clear when the Security Council would meet to discuss Myanmar, though Western diplomats said they hoped it would be as soon as possible.
Historically the council has been unable to do much about Myanmar due to resistance from China. U.S. and European officials have suggested that the United Nations should impose sanctions on the country.
But Beijing has been unwilling to allow the council to take punitive action against Myanmar, whose nearly 2,000 km (1,250 mile) coastline provides neighbouring China with easy land and sea access to lucrative South Asian markets. Russia has also opposed sanctions due to what it says are internal matters.
The United States, France and Britain have had disagreements with China on other issues, such as Iran's nuclear program, North Korea and an unsuccessful Anglo-American attempt in 2008 to impose sanctions on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and high-ranking members of his government.
Wed Mar 17, 2010 8:26pm GMT
By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Britain is pushing the U.N. Security Council to discuss concerns about Myanmar's upcoming election but is facing resistance from the southeast Asian nation's powerful neighbour China, U.N. diplomats said on Wednesday.
Myanmar has been on the agenda of the 15-nation council for years due to what Western powers say is the military junta's brutal suppression of human rights and crackdowns on ethnic minorities and dissidents. But China and Russia have prevented the council from imposing sanctions on the junta leaders.
The reason Britain is urging the 15-nation council to return the situation in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is the government's recently published regulations banning political prisoners from participating in elections, or even being members of political parties, the diplomats said.
"A number of council members support the idea of discussing Burma and getting an update on the situation there," a Western diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
"It's the subject of negotiations with the Chinese at the moment, who are always reluctant on these matters," he said.
The United States and France, both of which are permanent veto-wielding council members like Britain, China and Russia, are among those that support the idea of a council meeting on Myanmar to discuss the upcoming election, diplomats said.
One envoy said they would like the council to agree on some kind of statement urging Myanmar's junta to free political prisoners and allow them to take part in the poll, which has not been scheduled but is expected to take place this year.
The council has only agreed to two formal statements on Myanmar. The last, in August 2009, voiced "serious concern" about opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's conviction for letting an American intruder who swam to her house stay for two days.
TROUBLE WITH CHINA
The new regulations, which the United States and United Nations have said would strip any remaining credibility from the elections, would prevent the detained Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, from running for office.
Her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won the last election in 1990 but the junta ignored the result and officially annulled it last Thursday.
The NLD is considering whether to take part in the poll, which has been widely dismissed outside Myanmar as a sham intended to make the country appear more democratic while leaving the military in control.
Diplomats said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's so-called "Group of Friends" on Myanmar will meet on March 25 to discuss the situation there. That group includes the United States, Britain, France, China, Japan, Australia, Norway, Russia, Singapore and Thailand.
It was not clear when the Security Council would meet to discuss Myanmar, though Western diplomats said they hoped it would be as soon as possible.
Historically the council has been unable to do much about Myanmar due to resistance from China. U.S. and European officials have suggested that the United Nations should impose sanctions on the country.
But Beijing has been unwilling to allow the council to take punitive action against Myanmar, whose nearly 2,000 km (1,250 mile) coastline provides neighbouring China with easy land and sea access to lucrative South Asian markets. Russia has also opposed sanctions due to what it says are internal matters.
The United States, France and Britain have had disagreements with China on other issues, such as Iran's nuclear program, North Korea and an unsuccessful Anglo-American attempt in 2008 to impose sanctions on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and high-ranking members of his government.
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MYANMAR: Damaged embankments threaten Nargis recovery
YANGON, 18 March 2010 (IRIN) - A failure to repair crucial flood embankments damaged by Cyclone Nargis could undo recovery efforts and lead to more loss of life if another major storm hits, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization warns.
Cyclone Nargis devastated the Ayeyarwady and Yangon divisions in May 2008, killing at least 140,000 and affecting 2.4 million. More than 780,000ha of paddy fields were submerged and 707,500MT of stored paddy and milled rice destroyed.
Efforts are under way to restore normality and livelihoods in the divisions, where agriculture is the mainstay, but the repair and upgrading of coastal embankments is being overlooked, said Shin Imai, the FAO's representative in Myanmar.
If another major storm hits, the damaged embankments will fail to prevent floods and storm surges in low-lying areas, especially in the coastal Ayeyarwady delta, he said.
"If a cyclone comes in, it will hit the newly built infrastructure and houses. Everything will be gone. So there is a big fear now," Imai told IRIN in an interview.
Neglected
The coastal embankments in the Ayeyarwady division were built in the 1970s and were already in a state of neglect before many were heavily damaged by Cyclone Nargis. They encompass 162,500ha of cropland, providing protection against flooding and saline intrusion during the monsoon season.
Some 1,000km of embankments need rehabilitating at a cost of US$100 million, according to government and FAO estimates. So far, only the Japanese government has put money towards them.
Near the seashore, the Burmese government is building up the embankments to about 4m above sea level, the height needed for cyclone protection.
However, a lack of funds and heavy machinery means they are attempting to temporarily shore up embankments in some areas to the height of 2.4m only, said Imai.
"They want to quickly protect as many areas as possible, so they are digging and putting soil [on them]," he said. "It's only temporary, but it will help protect livelihoods."
Imai said international donors were probably skittish because of the scale of the work required, while sanctions also deterred funding for recovery efforts.
"Because of sanctions, it looks difficult to fund because this somehow looks like development assistance," he said.
"My point is that [we talk] about humanitarian aid but what does humanitarian aid mean? Fundamentally ... humanitarian aid has to save lives. If the embankments are not rehabilitated, how many people will be in trouble?"
Crop yields affected
Damaged or inadequately built-up embankments in the Ayeyarwady delta, the nation's rice bowl, mean sea water is intruding into fields at high tide, affecting crop yields, Imai said.
"When high tide comes, the embankment and the tide area are almost at the same height," he said.
In affected delta areas, rice production in 2009 was down by more than 50 percent compared with pre-Nargis levels, with the situation exacerbated by a rat infestation that is destroying crops, he said.
In Myanmar, productivity is measured in baskets of 20kg of rice each.
"It is happening already. That's why productivity is very low now. It's now 30 baskets [of rice] per hectare. It's normally 70 or 80 baskets," said Imai.
YANGON, 18 March 2010 (IRIN) - A failure to repair crucial flood embankments damaged by Cyclone Nargis could undo recovery efforts and lead to more loss of life if another major storm hits, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization warns.
Cyclone Nargis devastated the Ayeyarwady and Yangon divisions in May 2008, killing at least 140,000 and affecting 2.4 million. More than 780,000ha of paddy fields were submerged and 707,500MT of stored paddy and milled rice destroyed.
Efforts are under way to restore normality and livelihoods in the divisions, where agriculture is the mainstay, but the repair and upgrading of coastal embankments is being overlooked, said Shin Imai, the FAO's representative in Myanmar.
If another major storm hits, the damaged embankments will fail to prevent floods and storm surges in low-lying areas, especially in the coastal Ayeyarwady delta, he said.
"If a cyclone comes in, it will hit the newly built infrastructure and houses. Everything will be gone. So there is a big fear now," Imai told IRIN in an interview.
Neglected
The coastal embankments in the Ayeyarwady division were built in the 1970s and were already in a state of neglect before many were heavily damaged by Cyclone Nargis. They encompass 162,500ha of cropland, providing protection against flooding and saline intrusion during the monsoon season.
Some 1,000km of embankments need rehabilitating at a cost of US$100 million, according to government and FAO estimates. So far, only the Japanese government has put money towards them.
Near the seashore, the Burmese government is building up the embankments to about 4m above sea level, the height needed for cyclone protection.
However, a lack of funds and heavy machinery means they are attempting to temporarily shore up embankments in some areas to the height of 2.4m only, said Imai.
"They want to quickly protect as many areas as possible, so they are digging and putting soil [on them]," he said. "It's only temporary, but it will help protect livelihoods."
Imai said international donors were probably skittish because of the scale of the work required, while sanctions also deterred funding for recovery efforts.
"Because of sanctions, it looks difficult to fund because this somehow looks like development assistance," he said.
"My point is that [we talk] about humanitarian aid but what does humanitarian aid mean? Fundamentally ... humanitarian aid has to save lives. If the embankments are not rehabilitated, how many people will be in trouble?"
Crop yields affected
Damaged or inadequately built-up embankments in the Ayeyarwady delta, the nation's rice bowl, mean sea water is intruding into fields at high tide, affecting crop yields, Imai said.
"When high tide comes, the embankment and the tide area are almost at the same height," he said.
In affected delta areas, rice production in 2009 was down by more than 50 percent compared with pre-Nargis levels, with the situation exacerbated by a rat infestation that is destroying crops, he said.
In Myanmar, productivity is measured in baskets of 20kg of rice each.
"It is happening already. That's why productivity is very low now. It's now 30 baskets [of rice] per hectare. It's normally 70 or 80 baskets," said Imai.
********************************************************
The New York Times - Change Comes to Myanmar, but Only on the Junta’s Terms
Published: March 17, 2010
PYAPON, Myanmar — In the dried mud of the Irrawaddy Delta, workers are welding together the final pieces of a natural-gas pipeline that the country’s ruling generals say will keep the lights on in Yangon, Myanmar’s main city, after years of debilitating blackouts.
Residents who for years were lucky to get eight hours of power a day may soon have the luxury of refrigerators that stay cold and televisions that stay on.
But it will not make much difference for one 64-year-old Yangon resident on a lakeside road blockaded by the police: Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate and this country’s best-known dissident, who lives in a blacked-out world, barred from most communication with anyone outside her walled compound. Her telephone line was cut years ago, and she has no computer or television, her lawyer said.
These are the dueling realities of Myanmar today. After years of deadlock and stagnation, change is coming, but strictly on the junta’s terms.
There is guarded hope among business people and diplomats that Myanmar, or Burma, as many people still call the country, may be gradually moving away from years of paranoid authoritarianism and Soviet-style economic management that has left the majority of the country’s 55 million people in dire poverty.
A new constitution is expected to be introduced later this year, and the junta is planning the first elections in two decades. Analysts say that the elections are not likely to be fully competitive or fair, but that they could move the military to decentralize some of its power.
“Burma is at a critical watershed,” said Thant Myint-U, a historian and former United Nations official who has written widely on the country. “We’re clearly moving towards something other than a strict army hierarchy with just one general at the top.”
What passes for hope in Myanmar is incremental change and the prospect that the military will gradually fade from politics — allowing this country of vast resources, with land so fertile it once fed large parts of the British empire, to finally participate in the economic dynamism that surrounds it.
Signs of change abound. The military, which has been in power for close to five decades, has issued permits for private hospitals and schools, neither of which were officially allowed before. It has sold a raft of state-run factories and assets to cronies in the private sector and appears to be lifting some of the punitive restrictions on the ownership of cars and motorcycles. The country is taking steps to revive its troubled but potentially lucrative rice exports.
Visits to Myanmar by international economists, including teams from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, used to be “dialogues of the deaf,” one Western diplomat said. But that has changed. Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who visited Myanmar in December, said the ministers and military officials he met were eager for advice about stimulating growth and promoting private enterprise.
Myanmar has seen many false dawns before, and it is always possible that the generals will change their minds and roll back the nascent liberalization. But at least one crucial change is inevitable in the coming years. The reclusive leader of the junta, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, a master at keeping his opponents off balance, is 78 years old and has no obvious successor.
A common explanation for the change in direction is that General Than Shwe is dismantling his system of absolute power because he does not want another strongman to emerge who could hurt his family or threaten the wealth he seems to have built up during nearly two decades in power. The question of succession is a karmic one for the general, who put his predecessor, Ne Win, under house arrest and is said to have denied him medical treatment before his death in 2002.
Mr. Thant Myint-U, the historian and former diplomat, said the main tensions in the country today were within the military itself, not between the generals and Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi and her democracy movement.
“Outside the country, the situation is perceived as a simple one where the army is trying to perpetuate its own rule,” he said. “Inside, everyone knows that intense competition will be under way within the elite, involving not only the military, but also retired army officers, senior bureaucrats and a rising business class.”
Military officers are campaigning for the elections as if their careers depended on it, announcing dozens of projects, including the plan for 24-hour electricity in Yangon, that they hope will win the affection of a population that in many parts of the country despises them.
One crucial change has taken place in the rice industry, which has the potential to raise the income of farmers, the backbone of the country who make up two-thirds of the population. Myanmar was once the world’s largest rice exporter, a title now held by neighboring Thailand.
“Give me 10 years and we’ll be back,” said Tin Maung Thann, an adviser to a newly created rice industry association and the president of Myanmar Egress, a nonprofit development group. “Of course we can become a big rice exporter.”
A series of programs sponsored by foreign governments in the Irrawaddy Delta has helped rice-growing villages rebound from the damage of a cyclone that killed at least 130,000 people two years ago. Farmers are being trained to use fertilizers, better rice seed and more modern farming techniques.
The government has empowered the rice industry association with management of the country’s rice stocks, a crucial change from the past when generals who feared rice shortages shut down exports with the stroke of a pen, overriding any contracts that rice traders had signed with their customers.
The coming elections are seen as unlikely to transform Myanmar’s politics. The media is entirely controlled by the military, and 2,100 political activists who might otherwise take part in the elections are in jail.
The elections would be the first since 1990, when the party of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, the National League for Democracy, won a landslide victory, a result that was ignored by the generals and recently nullified.
But Sean Turnell, an expert on Myanmar at Macquarie University in Australia, said the elections had created a window for the economic changes, a situation he described as similar to Indonesia’s transition from socialist rule in the 1960s.
“I don’t see this as a coherent liberalization,” he said. “But economic changes seem to have happened almost by accident, and people are grabbing at what they can.”
Published: March 17, 2010
PYAPON, Myanmar — In the dried mud of the Irrawaddy Delta, workers are welding together the final pieces of a natural-gas pipeline that the country’s ruling generals say will keep the lights on in Yangon, Myanmar’s main city, after years of debilitating blackouts.
Residents who for years were lucky to get eight hours of power a day may soon have the luxury of refrigerators that stay cold and televisions that stay on.
But it will not make much difference for one 64-year-old Yangon resident on a lakeside road blockaded by the police: Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate and this country’s best-known dissident, who lives in a blacked-out world, barred from most communication with anyone outside her walled compound. Her telephone line was cut years ago, and she has no computer or television, her lawyer said.
These are the dueling realities of Myanmar today. After years of deadlock and stagnation, change is coming, but strictly on the junta’s terms.
There is guarded hope among business people and diplomats that Myanmar, or Burma, as many people still call the country, may be gradually moving away from years of paranoid authoritarianism and Soviet-style economic management that has left the majority of the country’s 55 million people in dire poverty.
A new constitution is expected to be introduced later this year, and the junta is planning the first elections in two decades. Analysts say that the elections are not likely to be fully competitive or fair, but that they could move the military to decentralize some of its power.
“Burma is at a critical watershed,” said Thant Myint-U, a historian and former United Nations official who has written widely on the country. “We’re clearly moving towards something other than a strict army hierarchy with just one general at the top.”
What passes for hope in Myanmar is incremental change and the prospect that the military will gradually fade from politics — allowing this country of vast resources, with land so fertile it once fed large parts of the British empire, to finally participate in the economic dynamism that surrounds it.
Signs of change abound. The military, which has been in power for close to five decades, has issued permits for private hospitals and schools, neither of which were officially allowed before. It has sold a raft of state-run factories and assets to cronies in the private sector and appears to be lifting some of the punitive restrictions on the ownership of cars and motorcycles. The country is taking steps to revive its troubled but potentially lucrative rice exports.
Visits to Myanmar by international economists, including teams from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, used to be “dialogues of the deaf,” one Western diplomat said. But that has changed. Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who visited Myanmar in December, said the ministers and military officials he met were eager for advice about stimulating growth and promoting private enterprise.
Myanmar has seen many false dawns before, and it is always possible that the generals will change their minds and roll back the nascent liberalization. But at least one crucial change is inevitable in the coming years. The reclusive leader of the junta, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, a master at keeping his opponents off balance, is 78 years old and has no obvious successor.
A common explanation for the change in direction is that General Than Shwe is dismantling his system of absolute power because he does not want another strongman to emerge who could hurt his family or threaten the wealth he seems to have built up during nearly two decades in power. The question of succession is a karmic one for the general, who put his predecessor, Ne Win, under house arrest and is said to have denied him medical treatment before his death in 2002.
Mr. Thant Myint-U, the historian and former diplomat, said the main tensions in the country today were within the military itself, not between the generals and Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi and her democracy movement.
“Outside the country, the situation is perceived as a simple one where the army is trying to perpetuate its own rule,” he said. “Inside, everyone knows that intense competition will be under way within the elite, involving not only the military, but also retired army officers, senior bureaucrats and a rising business class.”
Military officers are campaigning for the elections as if their careers depended on it, announcing dozens of projects, including the plan for 24-hour electricity in Yangon, that they hope will win the affection of a population that in many parts of the country despises them.
One crucial change has taken place in the rice industry, which has the potential to raise the income of farmers, the backbone of the country who make up two-thirds of the population. Myanmar was once the world’s largest rice exporter, a title now held by neighboring Thailand.
“Give me 10 years and we’ll be back,” said Tin Maung Thann, an adviser to a newly created rice industry association and the president of Myanmar Egress, a nonprofit development group. “Of course we can become a big rice exporter.”
A series of programs sponsored by foreign governments in the Irrawaddy Delta has helped rice-growing villages rebound from the damage of a cyclone that killed at least 130,000 people two years ago. Farmers are being trained to use fertilizers, better rice seed and more modern farming techniques.
The government has empowered the rice industry association with management of the country’s rice stocks, a crucial change from the past when generals who feared rice shortages shut down exports with the stroke of a pen, overriding any contracts that rice traders had signed with their customers.
The coming elections are seen as unlikely to transform Myanmar’s politics. The media is entirely controlled by the military, and 2,100 political activists who might otherwise take part in the elections are in jail.
The elections would be the first since 1990, when the party of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, the National League for Democracy, won a landslide victory, a result that was ignored by the generals and recently nullified.
But Sean Turnell, an expert on Myanmar at Macquarie University in Australia, said the elections had created a window for the economic changes, a situation he described as similar to Indonesia’s transition from socialist rule in the 1960s.
“I don’t see this as a coherent liberalization,” he said. “But economic changes seem to have happened almost by accident, and people are grabbing at what they can.”
********************************************************
Burma at 'Critical Moment' as Elections Loom
By Stephen Jones
Epoch Times Staff Created: Mar 17, 2010 Last Updated: Mar 17, 2010
Burma will go to the polls this year for the first time in 20 years, however controversial election laws will mean that the country's most prominent democracy activist will be banned from taking part.
The Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been in some form of detention for the last 14 years, will be banned from taking part in the poll.
In the last election in 1990, the country's military junta was shocked after Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory. The win came despite the fact that Suu Kyi was under house arrest and the country was under martial law. This time, the ruling generals are taking no chances.
Last week, the country released new electoral directives that will mean that anyone declared a “criminal” under the country's constitution will be barred from standing in the poll. Moreover, no members of political parties are allowed to stand as candidates.
On Monday, Tomas Ojea Quintana, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Burma (renamed Myanmar by the junta) said that the rules will stifle democracy. "Under these current conditions, elections in Burma cannot be considered credible," he told a news conference after presenting a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
No formal date has been set for the elections, although the favored day for superstitious senior general Than Shwe is believed to be Oct. 10, 2010 (10/10/10). It is also a month before Suu Kyi is due to be released from house arrest. Suu Kyi’s party, allowed to re-open regional offices that have been closed for seven years, is considering whether or not to boycott the election.
Burma has 2,100 prisoners of conscience in jail, among them 11 members of the NLD. Hundreds more have been jailed since a 2007 popular uprising that was led by monks. Quintana said that there was "no indication" that Burma was intending to release these political prisoners, and submitted a report urging a full inquiry into the regime's alleged abuses.
In his report, Quintana said, "The possibility exists that some of these human rights violations may entail categories of crimes against humanity, or war crimes under the terms of the statute of the International Criminal Court." Speaking to the Human Rights Council on Monday, Quintana noted that with elections being held this year, "Burma is at a critical moment in its history."
However, the country's ambassador to the U.N. Wunna Maung Lwin, said that the report was full of inaccuracies and "violates the right of a sovereign state." "We strongly condemn and reject these recommendations and the report as a whole," said the ambassador.
"My government has clearly stated that there are no prisoners of conscience and that those who are serving prison terms are (those) who offended the existing laws and regulations," he told the council. The issue was raised again on Wednesday, by Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo in a meeting with his Burmese counterpart, Nyan Win.
Romulo told reporters afterward that he was not satisfied with the conversation and would urge the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)— to which both Burma and the Philippines belong—to call for a reversal of the election decree, at the bloc's annual summit in Vietnam next month.
By Stephen Jones
Epoch Times Staff Created: Mar 17, 2010 Last Updated: Mar 17, 2010
Burma will go to the polls this year for the first time in 20 years, however controversial election laws will mean that the country's most prominent democracy activist will be banned from taking part.
The Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been in some form of detention for the last 14 years, will be banned from taking part in the poll.
In the last election in 1990, the country's military junta was shocked after Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory. The win came despite the fact that Suu Kyi was under house arrest and the country was under martial law. This time, the ruling generals are taking no chances.
Last week, the country released new electoral directives that will mean that anyone declared a “criminal” under the country's constitution will be barred from standing in the poll. Moreover, no members of political parties are allowed to stand as candidates.
On Monday, Tomas Ojea Quintana, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Burma (renamed Myanmar by the junta) said that the rules will stifle democracy. "Under these current conditions, elections in Burma cannot be considered credible," he told a news conference after presenting a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
No formal date has been set for the elections, although the favored day for superstitious senior general Than Shwe is believed to be Oct. 10, 2010 (10/10/10). It is also a month before Suu Kyi is due to be released from house arrest. Suu Kyi’s party, allowed to re-open regional offices that have been closed for seven years, is considering whether or not to boycott the election.
Burma has 2,100 prisoners of conscience in jail, among them 11 members of the NLD. Hundreds more have been jailed since a 2007 popular uprising that was led by monks. Quintana said that there was "no indication" that Burma was intending to release these political prisoners, and submitted a report urging a full inquiry into the regime's alleged abuses.
In his report, Quintana said, "The possibility exists that some of these human rights violations may entail categories of crimes against humanity, or war crimes under the terms of the statute of the International Criminal Court." Speaking to the Human Rights Council on Monday, Quintana noted that with elections being held this year, "Burma is at a critical moment in its history."
However, the country's ambassador to the U.N. Wunna Maung Lwin, said that the report was full of inaccuracies and "violates the right of a sovereign state." "We strongly condemn and reject these recommendations and the report as a whole," said the ambassador.
"My government has clearly stated that there are no prisoners of conscience and that those who are serving prison terms are (those) who offended the existing laws and regulations," he told the council. The issue was raised again on Wednesday, by Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo in a meeting with his Burmese counterpart, Nyan Win.
Romulo told reporters afterward that he was not satisfied with the conversation and would urge the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)— to which both Burma and the Philippines belong—to call for a reversal of the election decree, at the bloc's annual summit in Vietnam next month.
********************************************************
Bangladesh News 24 hours - Dhaka, Beijing sign 3 accords
Thu, Mar 18th, 2010 7:52 pm BdSTDial 2324 from your mobile for latest news
bdnews24.com Beijing correspondent
Beijing, Mar 18 (bdnews24.com)--Bangladesh on Thursday signed three accords with China aimed at strengthening cooperation in the fields of economy, technology and infrastructure.
In addition, the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding on oil and energy cooperation.
The three accords are: Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement, Framework Agreement on Shahjalal Fertiliser Factory, and the Agreement on the 7th Bangladesh-China Friendship Bridge.
They were signed during the official talks between the visiting Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao at the Great Hall in Beijing, foreign minister Dipu Moni told journalists.
Dipu Moni, industries minister Dilip Barua and communications minister Syed Abul Hossain signed the accords and ambassador to China Munshi Faiz Ahmad signed the MoUs on behalf of Bangladesh.
Sheikh Hasina, now in the capital on a five-day visit to China, started her official talks with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao at around 6pm (local time) at the Great Hall.
Besides, the two prime ministers discussed a number of projects, including the Chittagong-Kunming railway and road links through Myanmar, second Padma Bridge, deep seaport in Chittagong, eighth Bangladesh-China Friendship Bridge, capacity-building in agriculture, telecommunications and solar energy.
Hasina sought enhanced Chinese investment in Bangladesh that might contribute to reducing the trade gap, now heavily in favour of China.
Later in the eveing, she is expected to attend a banquet hosted by Wen.
Earlier, Sheikh Hasina arrived at Beijing Wednesday midnight (local time) on a Biman Bangladesh airline flight.
Chinese assistant foreign minister for South Asia, Hu Zhengyue, received her at the airport.
The Bangladesh PM is expected to meet with Chinese president Hu Jintao and National People's Congress Chairman Wu Bangguo on Friday.
The PM will address a meeting of Chinese and Bangladeshi businessmen people Friday morning.
She is expected to visit Kunming during the visit. The capital of Yunan province will serve as one end of the proposed trans-border road and rail link with China connecting Kunming with Chittagong through Myanmar.
Foreign minister Dipu Moni, communications minister Syed Abul Hossain, industries minister Dilip Barua and state minister for Chittagong Hill Tracts Dipankar Talukdar are accompanying the prime minister.
Besides a 16-member government delegation, another delegation of eminent citizens, businesspersons and journalists were also included in Hasina's entourage.
Hasina is scheduled to return home on March 21.
Thu, Mar 18th, 2010 7:52 pm BdSTDial 2324 from your mobile for latest news
bdnews24.com Beijing correspondent
Beijing, Mar 18 (bdnews24.com)--Bangladesh on Thursday signed three accords with China aimed at strengthening cooperation in the fields of economy, technology and infrastructure.
In addition, the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding on oil and energy cooperation.
The three accords are: Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement, Framework Agreement on Shahjalal Fertiliser Factory, and the Agreement on the 7th Bangladesh-China Friendship Bridge.
They were signed during the official talks between the visiting Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao at the Great Hall in Beijing, foreign minister Dipu Moni told journalists.
Dipu Moni, industries minister Dilip Barua and communications minister Syed Abul Hossain signed the accords and ambassador to China Munshi Faiz Ahmad signed the MoUs on behalf of Bangladesh.
Sheikh Hasina, now in the capital on a five-day visit to China, started her official talks with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao at around 6pm (local time) at the Great Hall.
Besides, the two prime ministers discussed a number of projects, including the Chittagong-Kunming railway and road links through Myanmar, second Padma Bridge, deep seaport in Chittagong, eighth Bangladesh-China Friendship Bridge, capacity-building in agriculture, telecommunications and solar energy.
Hasina sought enhanced Chinese investment in Bangladesh that might contribute to reducing the trade gap, now heavily in favour of China.
Later in the eveing, she is expected to attend a banquet hosted by Wen.
Earlier, Sheikh Hasina arrived at Beijing Wednesday midnight (local time) on a Biman Bangladesh airline flight.
Chinese assistant foreign minister for South Asia, Hu Zhengyue, received her at the airport.
The Bangladesh PM is expected to meet with Chinese president Hu Jintao and National People's Congress Chairman Wu Bangguo on Friday.
The PM will address a meeting of Chinese and Bangladeshi businessmen people Friday morning.
She is expected to visit Kunming during the visit. The capital of Yunan province will serve as one end of the proposed trans-border road and rail link with China connecting Kunming with Chittagong through Myanmar.
Foreign minister Dipu Moni, communications minister Syed Abul Hossain, industries minister Dilip Barua and state minister for Chittagong Hill Tracts Dipankar Talukdar are accompanying the prime minister.
Besides a 16-member government delegation, another delegation of eminent citizens, businesspersons and journalists were also included in Hasina's entourage.
Hasina is scheduled to return home on March 21.
********************************************************
The Nation - Princess presides over opening of Thaifunded hospital in Burma
Published on March 19, 2010
HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn graciously presided over the Tuesday opening ceremony of a 16bed hospital constructed by the Thai Red Cross Society's funding in Myanmar's Pyapon City.
Following the Nargis Cyclone tragedy, HRH Princess saw to it that the Thai Red Cross Society donated USD720,000 to the Yangon City's national blood donation centre and allocated medical supplies and a budget of USD360,000 to build a health station in Taman Village and the hospital in Doyeng Village, the latter which could cover residents in 73 surrounding villages.
The princess on Tuesday also inspected the nearlycomplete health station, which would cover residents in 26 villages and presided over another opening ceremony of "Kadonkani Cyclone Shelter" building at Kadong Kanee School, which she funded the construction. She also presided over the opening ceremony of the national blood donation centre building, whose renovation was also funded by the Thai Red Cross Society at USD400,000, and presented the 67 medical supply items worth USD348,667 to the centre.
Published on March 19, 2010
HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn graciously presided over the Tuesday opening ceremony of a 16bed hospital constructed by the Thai Red Cross Society's funding in Myanmar's Pyapon City.
Following the Nargis Cyclone tragedy, HRH Princess saw to it that the Thai Red Cross Society donated USD720,000 to the Yangon City's national blood donation centre and allocated medical supplies and a budget of USD360,000 to build a health station in Taman Village and the hospital in Doyeng Village, the latter which could cover residents in 73 surrounding villages.
The princess on Tuesday also inspected the nearlycomplete health station, which would cover residents in 26 villages and presided over another opening ceremony of "Kadonkani Cyclone Shelter" building at Kadong Kanee School, which she funded the construction. She also presided over the opening ceremony of the national blood donation centre building, whose renovation was also funded by the Thai Red Cross Society at USD400,000, and presented the 67 medical supply items worth USD348,667 to the centre.
********************************************************
The Nation - Govt bans import of fowl from birdflu affected nations
Published on March 19, 2010
The authorities have banned the import of fowl, fowl carcasses as well as eggs meant for breeding purposes from countries hit by avian influenza.
Bird flu has recently been detected in India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Israel, Cambodia, Burma, Nepal and Bhutan.
The World Organisation for Animal Health also announced that 18 people had come down with bird flu in Indonesia, Egypt and Vietnam this year. Of the 18, five have succumbed to the disease.
"We are closely monitoring vehicles and people at border checkpoints," Apai Suttisang said Thursday in his capacity as head of the Bureau of Disease Control and Veterinary Services.
Published on March 19, 2010
The authorities have banned the import of fowl, fowl carcasses as well as eggs meant for breeding purposes from countries hit by avian influenza.
Bird flu has recently been detected in India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Israel, Cambodia, Burma, Nepal and Bhutan.
The World Organisation for Animal Health also announced that 18 people had come down with bird flu in Indonesia, Egypt and Vietnam this year. Of the 18, five have succumbed to the disease.
"We are closely monitoring vehicles and people at border checkpoints," Apai Suttisang said Thursday in his capacity as head of the Bureau of Disease Control and Veterinary Services.
********************************************************
Channel NewsAsia - Golden Triangle fast becoming a tourist destination
By Augustine Anthuvan | Posted: 19 March 2010 0042 hrs
LUANG NAMTHA PROVINCE, Laos: The heart of Asia's Golden Triangle - where the borders of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar meet - was previously known as an illicit opium-producing area.
But it is now on track to becoming a major tourist destination, thanks to a major road network.
The Kunming-Chiang Rai highway - jointly funded by China, Laos, Thailand and the Asian Development Bank - which cuts through north western Laos is creating new opportunities for the rural communities in the landlocked country.
China's border town of Mohan, located at the southwestern tip of Yunnan province, is an important trade port on the Sino-Laotian border.
On a typical day, truck drivers can be seen getting ready for customs inspection at the checkpoint here. Truck drivers who have been driving for about 16 hours from Kunming stop at Mohan and hand over their trucks to drivers from the Lao side, who will bring the trucks over to Laos.
One driver explained: "We transport chestnuts from Kunming to the checkpoint (near the Lao border). They (Lao drivers) will drive the truck over to their side of the checkpoint, where they will unload the goods. Then, at 3pm, they will drive the truck back to us. We will then drive it back to Kunming."
Aside from Chinese goods, this Mohan landport is also a major gateway for tourists. Crossing the border into the Lao town of Boten, many tourists head on to Luangnamtha, after which their land journey continues onto Houayxay, eventually crossing the Mekong river to Thailand's Chiang Khong, and as far as Chiang Rai.
One of the major developments in Boten city in Luangnamtha is the building of the new customs and immigration complex.
While queuing up to get an entry stamp on one's passport, one can't help but notice the simple "do's" and "dont's" poster on how to greet the locals and being respectful of religious shrines while in Laos.
It is a breeze at immigration - you just need to fill up a simple form and hand it in, get an immigration stamp, and you will receive your visa which allows you to stay for a month in Laos.
As you travel along the highway, you will see small, quiet, lovely and rustic villages on either side.
An evidence of entrepreneurial activity among the locals are bundles of khem - long grass used to make brooms - one of the largest non-timber forest product sectors in Laos - earning extra income for Lao villagers.
With khem and other products making their way by truck to China, the road is a vital artery, increasing trade and tourism, encouraging investments, and raising living standards for the rural communities.
By Augustine Anthuvan | Posted: 19 March 2010 0042 hrs
LUANG NAMTHA PROVINCE, Laos: The heart of Asia's Golden Triangle - where the borders of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar meet - was previously known as an illicit opium-producing area.
But it is now on track to becoming a major tourist destination, thanks to a major road network.
The Kunming-Chiang Rai highway - jointly funded by China, Laos, Thailand and the Asian Development Bank - which cuts through north western Laos is creating new opportunities for the rural communities in the landlocked country.
China's border town of Mohan, located at the southwestern tip of Yunnan province, is an important trade port on the Sino-Laotian border.
On a typical day, truck drivers can be seen getting ready for customs inspection at the checkpoint here. Truck drivers who have been driving for about 16 hours from Kunming stop at Mohan and hand over their trucks to drivers from the Lao side, who will bring the trucks over to Laos.
One driver explained: "We transport chestnuts from Kunming to the checkpoint (near the Lao border). They (Lao drivers) will drive the truck over to their side of the checkpoint, where they will unload the goods. Then, at 3pm, they will drive the truck back to us. We will then drive it back to Kunming."
Aside from Chinese goods, this Mohan landport is also a major gateway for tourists. Crossing the border into the Lao town of Boten, many tourists head on to Luangnamtha, after which their land journey continues onto Houayxay, eventually crossing the Mekong river to Thailand's Chiang Khong, and as far as Chiang Rai.
One of the major developments in Boten city in Luangnamtha is the building of the new customs and immigration complex.
While queuing up to get an entry stamp on one's passport, one can't help but notice the simple "do's" and "dont's" poster on how to greet the locals and being respectful of religious shrines while in Laos.
It is a breeze at immigration - you just need to fill up a simple form and hand it in, get an immigration stamp, and you will receive your visa which allows you to stay for a month in Laos.
As you travel along the highway, you will see small, quiet, lovely and rustic villages on either side.
An evidence of entrepreneurial activity among the locals are bundles of khem - long grass used to make brooms - one of the largest non-timber forest product sectors in Laos - earning extra income for Lao villagers.
With khem and other products making their way by truck to China, the road is a vital artery, increasing trade and tourism, encouraging investments, and raising living standards for the rural communities.
********************************************************
VOA News - Burma - 2009 Human Rights Report
Thursday, 18 March 2010
The Report states that in 2009, the government of Burma "continued its egregious human rights violations and abuses."
"There were reports of unlawful and arbitrary killings by security forces."
Burmese military address a protest in this file photo from 2007. The government continues to crack down on dissent, according to the U.S. Department of State.
"The idea of human rights begins with a fundamental commitment to the dignity that is the birthright of every man, woman and child," said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton while introducing the annual Human Rights Report:
"Progress in advancing human rights begins with the facts. And for the last 34 years, the United States has produced the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, providing the most comprehensive record available of the condition of human rights around the world."
The Report raised grave concerns about the human rights situation in Burma. Burma is ruled by a military regime dominated by the majority ethnic Burman group. The State Peace and Development Council, which is headed by Senior General Than Shwe [Tawn Shway], has assumed the duties of the government, and at all levels of the government, ultimate authority rests with military officers. The government also controls the security forces without civilian oversight.
The Report states that in 2009, the government of Burma "continued its egregious human rights violations and abuses. . . . including increased military attacks in ethnic minority regions, such as in the Karen and Shan state."
The Human Rights Report also states that "the regime continued to abridge the right of citizens to change their government and committed other severe human rights abuses."
There were reports of unlawful and arbitrary killings by security forces; of deaths of people held in government custody; of disappearances, rape and torture. The government frequently detained civic activists without charges. Citizens were imprisoned for political motives, and prisoners and detainees were held in harsh and life-threatening conditions.
In short, the government of Burma kept a tight leash on possible criticism of, or activism against, its policies by restricting its citizens' privacy, freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, religion, and movement. At the same time, it allowed violent treatment and discrimination against women, recruitment of child soldiers, discrimination against ethnic minorities, and trafficking in persons. The government took no significant actions to prosecute or punish those responsible for human rights abuses.
"The principle that each person possesses equal moral value is a simple, self-evident truth," said Secretary of State Clinton. ” With the facts in hand and the goals clear in our heads and our hearts, we recommit ourselves to continue the hard work of making human rights a human reality."
Thursday, 18 March 2010
The Report states that in 2009, the government of Burma "continued its egregious human rights violations and abuses."
"There were reports of unlawful and arbitrary killings by security forces."
Burmese military address a protest in this file photo from 2007. The government continues to crack down on dissent, according to the U.S. Department of State.
"The idea of human rights begins with a fundamental commitment to the dignity that is the birthright of every man, woman and child," said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton while introducing the annual Human Rights Report:
"Progress in advancing human rights begins with the facts. And for the last 34 years, the United States has produced the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, providing the most comprehensive record available of the condition of human rights around the world."
The Report raised grave concerns about the human rights situation in Burma. Burma is ruled by a military regime dominated by the majority ethnic Burman group. The State Peace and Development Council, which is headed by Senior General Than Shwe [Tawn Shway], has assumed the duties of the government, and at all levels of the government, ultimate authority rests with military officers. The government also controls the security forces without civilian oversight.
The Report states that in 2009, the government of Burma "continued its egregious human rights violations and abuses. . . . including increased military attacks in ethnic minority regions, such as in the Karen and Shan state."
The Human Rights Report also states that "the regime continued to abridge the right of citizens to change their government and committed other severe human rights abuses."
There were reports of unlawful and arbitrary killings by security forces; of deaths of people held in government custody; of disappearances, rape and torture. The government frequently detained civic activists without charges. Citizens were imprisoned for political motives, and prisoners and detainees were held in harsh and life-threatening conditions.
In short, the government of Burma kept a tight leash on possible criticism of, or activism against, its policies by restricting its citizens' privacy, freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, religion, and movement. At the same time, it allowed violent treatment and discrimination against women, recruitment of child soldiers, discrimination against ethnic minorities, and trafficking in persons. The government took no significant actions to prosecute or punish those responsible for human rights abuses.
"The principle that each person possesses equal moral value is a simple, self-evident truth," said Secretary of State Clinton. ” With the facts in hand and the goals clear in our heads and our hearts, we recommit ourselves to continue the hard work of making human rights a human reality."
********************************************************
Leaflets distributed in Rangoon condemning 2010 polls
Thursday, 18 March 2010 18:31 Khai Suu
New Delhi (Mizzima) – In the first signs of blatant dissent towards the 2010 general elections, leaflets were secretly distributed condemning both the polls and the 2008 Constitution in crowded places in Rangoon.
The distribution of leaflets among the people at busy road intersections and bus stops in some townships in Rangoon has come as a surprise.
"These places usually boast advertisement leaflets for tuitions and beauty parlours. People found the portrait of Bogyoke (General) Aung San, independence architect on the top of the leaflet. Two people distributed the leaflets and vanished. Some people tore them after reading, possibly because they were afraid," a man waiting at bus stop in Pansodan township said.
There were similar distributions in Mingala market, Yuzana Plaza and Kyaukmyaung market bus stop in Tamwe Township yesterday morning.
"Young activists have been into such kind of activities since February. Distributing triple folded leaflets cannot be done like selling newspapers and journals so they have to do it in busy places stealthily," Thai based Forum for Democracy in Burma (FDB) General Secretary Dr. Naing Aung said.
Similar leaflet distributions were made since last month by young activists in Burma in Arakan State, Mandalay, Sagaing and Pegu Divisions besides Rangoon, he added.
FDB comprises some students, youth and political organizations.
The 9-point leaflet says the 2008 Constitution is not for a federal union but for a unitary state only. The other points highlight the 10 dangers in the constitution where it allows the army to legitimize its rule post 2010 polls.
The 10-dangers include that a military coup can take place at any time if vital issues cannot be decided by Parliament.
The junta announced its electoral laws for 2010 elections unilaterally drafted by it, since the second week of this month by issuing the 'Union Election Commission Law' as the first of the series.
Other electoral laws are Political Parties Registration Law, Pyithu Hluttaw (Lower House) Election Law, Amyotha Hluttaw (Upper House) Election Law, Region and State Election Law and Rule of Political Parties Registration Law.
The harsh provisions in the Political Parties Registration Law, bar "those serving prison sentence" that target detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners from contesting the election.
Thursday, 18 March 2010 18:31 Khai Suu
New Delhi (Mizzima) – In the first signs of blatant dissent towards the 2010 general elections, leaflets were secretly distributed condemning both the polls and the 2008 Constitution in crowded places in Rangoon.
The distribution of leaflets among the people at busy road intersections and bus stops in some townships in Rangoon has come as a surprise.
"These places usually boast advertisement leaflets for tuitions and beauty parlours. People found the portrait of Bogyoke (General) Aung San, independence architect on the top of the leaflet. Two people distributed the leaflets and vanished. Some people tore them after reading, possibly because they were afraid," a man waiting at bus stop in Pansodan township said.
There were similar distributions in Mingala market, Yuzana Plaza and Kyaukmyaung market bus stop in Tamwe Township yesterday morning.
"Young activists have been into such kind of activities since February. Distributing triple folded leaflets cannot be done like selling newspapers and journals so they have to do it in busy places stealthily," Thai based Forum for Democracy in Burma (FDB) General Secretary Dr. Naing Aung said.
Similar leaflet distributions were made since last month by young activists in Burma in Arakan State, Mandalay, Sagaing and Pegu Divisions besides Rangoon, he added.
FDB comprises some students, youth and political organizations.
The 9-point leaflet says the 2008 Constitution is not for a federal union but for a unitary state only. The other points highlight the 10 dangers in the constitution where it allows the army to legitimize its rule post 2010 polls.
The 10-dangers include that a military coup can take place at any time if vital issues cannot be decided by Parliament.
The junta announced its electoral laws for 2010 elections unilaterally drafted by it, since the second week of this month by issuing the 'Union Election Commission Law' as the first of the series.
Other electoral laws are Political Parties Registration Law, Pyithu Hluttaw (Lower House) Election Law, Amyotha Hluttaw (Upper House) Election Law, Region and State Election Law and Rule of Political Parties Registration Law.
The harsh provisions in the Political Parties Registration Law, bar "those serving prison sentence" that target detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners from contesting the election.
********************************************************
A realistic perspective needed regarding election laws
Thursday, 18 March 2010 10:33 Mizzima News
(Mizzima) - A new study dealing with the announced 2010 election laws appeals to domestic and international voices often critical of Burma’s ruling military to step back and conduct a realistic assessment of the political landscape in Burma and the corresponding significance associated with the election laws.
Derek Tonkin, Chairman of Network Myanmar and a former British ambassador to Thailand, argues in the organization’s March 17th edition of Burmese Perspectives that Burma’s election laws and indeed the question of elections themselves has become muddled with an overemphasis on Burma’s primary opposition party and a failure to deal with ground realties.
“The NLD has set out a counsel of perfection in the Shwegondaing Declaration of 29 April 2009 which it would be hard to fault, but the regime has given no sign that they are interested in any of its proposals,” finds the report.
The Shwegondaing Declaration rehashes the longstanding demands of the National League for Democracy, namely the release of political prisoners, a review of the 2008 constitution, dialogue with the pro-democracy opposition and acceptance of the 1990 election results.
As for the international community, world leaders often critical of the junta, according to Tonkin, are cautioned “not to forget that hundreds of democratically inspired candidates will be taking part in the elections, despite all the flaws in the Constitution, and that their interests should not be ignored simply because of the West's obsession with the NLD and her charismatic leader.”
Stating that the recently released set of election laws should largely have come as no surprise regarding content, Tonkin contends the only substantive item to thus far be revealed is the condition that no prisoner can serve as founder or member of a political party.
However, while many observers have latched onto the above precondition as necessarily outlawing any prospective candidacy of present National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Tonkin is willing to give Burmese authorities and institutions the final say. As such, Tonkin argues only Burma’s courts and electoral commission (whose members are hand-picked by the military junta) can make a final ruling on whether the opposition leader’s current state of detention in her lakeside villa qualifies as prison.
The former ambassador also raises issues with several assumptions commonly voiced in the international media, challenging opinions that the election laws preclude candidacy for both current and former detainees, that prohibiting monks the right to vote is a statute against both domestic and international norms, and reminding his readership that the ill-fated 1990 elections were contingent upon the drafting of a constitution.
Speaking of the 1990 elections, won by the National League for Democracy with approximately 60 percent of the vote, Tonkin is blunt in assessing that honoring the results of the election twenty years previously today stands virtually no chance.
Nonetheless, Tonkin does believe the election commission would reinstate the National League for Democracy if the party so chooses to apply, even though it would imply de facto recognition of the 2008 constitution, which the party has to date maintained holds no legal authority.
With the crisis presently facing Burma’s primary opposition party, the report asks whether the party may split, with Aung San Suu Kyi possibly emerging above formal politics but still very much able to influence the political direction of the country.
As Burma approaches relatively new political waters, Tonkin asks searching questions of those who have stood steadfastly by the side of the Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy during the better party of two decades.
“What has she [Aung San Suu Kyi] achieved for the Burmese people after 22 years of struggle,” postulates the report, “the answer is that she has given them a lot of hope for the future which has never been fulfilled.”
Thursday, 18 March 2010 10:33 Mizzima News
(Mizzima) - A new study dealing with the announced 2010 election laws appeals to domestic and international voices often critical of Burma’s ruling military to step back and conduct a realistic assessment of the political landscape in Burma and the corresponding significance associated with the election laws.
Derek Tonkin, Chairman of Network Myanmar and a former British ambassador to Thailand, argues in the organization’s March 17th edition of Burmese Perspectives that Burma’s election laws and indeed the question of elections themselves has become muddled with an overemphasis on Burma’s primary opposition party and a failure to deal with ground realties.
“The NLD has set out a counsel of perfection in the Shwegondaing Declaration of 29 April 2009 which it would be hard to fault, but the regime has given no sign that they are interested in any of its proposals,” finds the report.
The Shwegondaing Declaration rehashes the longstanding demands of the National League for Democracy, namely the release of political prisoners, a review of the 2008 constitution, dialogue with the pro-democracy opposition and acceptance of the 1990 election results.
As for the international community, world leaders often critical of the junta, according to Tonkin, are cautioned “not to forget that hundreds of democratically inspired candidates will be taking part in the elections, despite all the flaws in the Constitution, and that their interests should not be ignored simply because of the West's obsession with the NLD and her charismatic leader.”
Stating that the recently released set of election laws should largely have come as no surprise regarding content, Tonkin contends the only substantive item to thus far be revealed is the condition that no prisoner can serve as founder or member of a political party.
However, while many observers have latched onto the above precondition as necessarily outlawing any prospective candidacy of present National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Tonkin is willing to give Burmese authorities and institutions the final say. As such, Tonkin argues only Burma’s courts and electoral commission (whose members are hand-picked by the military junta) can make a final ruling on whether the opposition leader’s current state of detention in her lakeside villa qualifies as prison.
The former ambassador also raises issues with several assumptions commonly voiced in the international media, challenging opinions that the election laws preclude candidacy for both current and former detainees, that prohibiting monks the right to vote is a statute against both domestic and international norms, and reminding his readership that the ill-fated 1990 elections were contingent upon the drafting of a constitution.
Speaking of the 1990 elections, won by the National League for Democracy with approximately 60 percent of the vote, Tonkin is blunt in assessing that honoring the results of the election twenty years previously today stands virtually no chance.
Nonetheless, Tonkin does believe the election commission would reinstate the National League for Democracy if the party so chooses to apply, even though it would imply de facto recognition of the 2008 constitution, which the party has to date maintained holds no legal authority.
With the crisis presently facing Burma’s primary opposition party, the report asks whether the party may split, with Aung San Suu Kyi possibly emerging above formal politics but still very much able to influence the political direction of the country.
As Burma approaches relatively new political waters, Tonkin asks searching questions of those who have stood steadfastly by the side of the Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy during the better party of two decades.
“What has she [Aung San Suu Kyi] achieved for the Burmese people after 22 years of struggle,” postulates the report, “the answer is that she has given them a lot of hope for the future which has never been fulfilled.”
********************************************************
The Irrawaddy - Mon to Move Weapons to New Base
By LAWI WENG - Thursday, March 18, 2010
SANGKHLABURI, Thailand—After meeting with a Burmese regime delegation, the Mon cease-fire group, the New Mon State Party (NMSP), will move some departments and its stockpile of weapons to a new undisclosed base, according to NMSP sources.
The source said that the preparations are in case war breaks out between the NMSP and the Burmese regime.
Five executive party members met with Maj-Gen Thet Naing Win, the commander of the junta's Southeast Regional Command, on Tuesday in Moulmein, the capital of Mon State, to discuss the border guard force order.
During the meeting, the NMSP leaders were told by the Burmese delegation to give a concrete “yes or no” answer soon on the border guard force issue, sources said.
A NMSP member who requested anonymity told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that the party has ordered various departments to move to a new base including the department that stockpiles weapons.
The party’s leaders have said that they will not use their current base headquarter if they fight Burmese junta troops again, because junta officials visited the base in 2006.
The NMSP is one of the ethnic cease-fire groups that the Burmese regime is pressuring to become a border guard force. Recently, the Kachin cease-fire group, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), also move some “important documents and files” from its headquarter in Laiza to a safer location.
The NMSP is also now holding urgent meetings at its headquarters to discuss how it will respond to the Burmese junta demand. The meeting involves all local army officials, according to sources.
Tension has increased in recent months between the NMSP and the Burmese military since the Mon rejected the regime's order to transform its army into a border guard force.
Party leaders said that they will wage a guerrilla war if war breaks out between the NMSP and the Burmese regime. The NMSP signed a cease-fire agreement with the regime in 1995, and it now has about 700 soldiers.
After 14 years of cease-fire, the junta regime has about 30 battalions in Mon State. Before the cease-fire, there were about 10 battalions.
Recently, two Burmese battalions were ordered into areas under the control of the NMSP, despite a long-standing agreement between both sides that Burmese troops would not enter 12 areas under NMSP control while the cease-fire agreement was enforce.
It was the first time in 15 years that the Burmese military has entered its area, Mon sources said.
The junta reportedly intends to declare that ethnic armed cease-fire groups are illegal organizations, if the groups continue to resist the regime's border guard force plan, which would place ethnic armies under the control of junta commanders.
By LAWI WENG - Thursday, March 18, 2010
SANGKHLABURI, Thailand—After meeting with a Burmese regime delegation, the Mon cease-fire group, the New Mon State Party (NMSP), will move some departments and its stockpile of weapons to a new undisclosed base, according to NMSP sources.
The source said that the preparations are in case war breaks out between the NMSP and the Burmese regime.
Five executive party members met with Maj-Gen Thet Naing Win, the commander of the junta's Southeast Regional Command, on Tuesday in Moulmein, the capital of Mon State, to discuss the border guard force order.
During the meeting, the NMSP leaders were told by the Burmese delegation to give a concrete “yes or no” answer soon on the border guard force issue, sources said.
A NMSP member who requested anonymity told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that the party has ordered various departments to move to a new base including the department that stockpiles weapons.
The party’s leaders have said that they will not use their current base headquarter if they fight Burmese junta troops again, because junta officials visited the base in 2006.
The NMSP is one of the ethnic cease-fire groups that the Burmese regime is pressuring to become a border guard force. Recently, the Kachin cease-fire group, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), also move some “important documents and files” from its headquarter in Laiza to a safer location.
The NMSP is also now holding urgent meetings at its headquarters to discuss how it will respond to the Burmese junta demand. The meeting involves all local army officials, according to sources.
Tension has increased in recent months between the NMSP and the Burmese military since the Mon rejected the regime's order to transform its army into a border guard force.
Party leaders said that they will wage a guerrilla war if war breaks out between the NMSP and the Burmese regime. The NMSP signed a cease-fire agreement with the regime in 1995, and it now has about 700 soldiers.
After 14 years of cease-fire, the junta regime has about 30 battalions in Mon State. Before the cease-fire, there were about 10 battalions.
Recently, two Burmese battalions were ordered into areas under the control of the NMSP, despite a long-standing agreement between both sides that Burmese troops would not enter 12 areas under NMSP control while the cease-fire agreement was enforce.
It was the first time in 15 years that the Burmese military has entered its area, Mon sources said.
The junta reportedly intends to declare that ethnic armed cease-fire groups are illegal organizations, if the groups continue to resist the regime's border guard force plan, which would place ethnic armies under the control of junta commanders.
********************************************************
The Irrawaddy - Newly-registered Parties Face Financing Problems
By KO HTWE Thursday, March 18, 2010
Political parties planning to participate in Burma's general election will have to pay 300,000 kyat (US $300) to register, while 500,000 kyat ($500) will be charged for each candidate—an expense that some of them say will place heavy strains on their finances and affect their ability to contest all constituencies.
The fees were announced by the state-controlled press on Thursday. Individual candidates will be able to spend up to 10 million kyat ($10,000) on their campaigns, the press report said.
Democratic Party leader Thu Wai told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that the party planned to contest all 330 constituencies, but that now depended on the costs involved.
In the 1990 election, the Democratic Party financed its campaign through donations, Thu Wai said.
The Political Parties Registration Law (2/2010) Article 15 allows political parties to raise funds through donations, including money from companies or from party-run businesses.
Shwe Ohn, a prominent Shan leader, said: “Some want to donate but are afraid to do so.”
Although parties could raise money through business the process would take at least one year and could present parties with long-term difficulties, he said.
Cho Cho Kyaw Nyein, a leader of the Democratic Party, said he had raised money on his own property to help finance the party at the time of the 1990 election.
“Funding is a big problem for parties,” she said.
Aye Lwin, chairman of the Union of Myanmar National Political Force (UMNPF), suggested that constituencies should pay candidates' costs.
“We cannot afford to fund each and every candidate,” he said.
Ye Htun, the chairman of the 88 Generation Students of the Union of Myanmar (GSUM), said: “Funding is nowhere to be found.”
The GSUM was relying on funding from party members and hoped to finance businesses to raise money.
Despite their financing problems, both the UMNPF and GSUM are plannign to register on Friday.
By KO HTWE Thursday, March 18, 2010
Political parties planning to participate in Burma's general election will have to pay 300,000 kyat (US $300) to register, while 500,000 kyat ($500) will be charged for each candidate—an expense that some of them say will place heavy strains on their finances and affect their ability to contest all constituencies.
The fees were announced by the state-controlled press on Thursday. Individual candidates will be able to spend up to 10 million kyat ($10,000) on their campaigns, the press report said.
Democratic Party leader Thu Wai told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that the party planned to contest all 330 constituencies, but that now depended on the costs involved.
In the 1990 election, the Democratic Party financed its campaign through donations, Thu Wai said.
The Political Parties Registration Law (2/2010) Article 15 allows political parties to raise funds through donations, including money from companies or from party-run businesses.
Shwe Ohn, a prominent Shan leader, said: “Some want to donate but are afraid to do so.”
Although parties could raise money through business the process would take at least one year and could present parties with long-term difficulties, he said.
Cho Cho Kyaw Nyein, a leader of the Democratic Party, said he had raised money on his own property to help finance the party at the time of the 1990 election.
“Funding is a big problem for parties,” she said.
Aye Lwin, chairman of the Union of Myanmar National Political Force (UMNPF), suggested that constituencies should pay candidates' costs.
“We cannot afford to fund each and every candidate,” he said.
Ye Htun, the chairman of the 88 Generation Students of the Union of Myanmar (GSUM), said: “Funding is nowhere to be found.”
The GSUM was relying on funding from party members and hoped to finance businesses to raise money.
Despite their financing problems, both the UMNPF and GSUM are plannign to register on Friday.
********************************************************
DVB News - Appeal lodged for jailed DVB reporter
By NAN KHAM KAEW
Published: 18 March 2010
An appeal for a Democratic Voice Burma video reporter sentenced late last year to 27 years in prison will be heard next week by a Magwe divisional court.
Hla Hla Win and her companion, Myint Naing, were arrested in September 2009 after filming interviews with monks in Pakokku monastery, Magwe division, and sentenced under the Video Act and the Electronics Act. Myint Naing was given 26 years.
In the appeal, submitted on 8 March, their lawyers argued that the charges were false. The court agreed to hear the appeal and set the date for 22 March, according to defence lawyer, Myint Thwin. He added that the verdict would likely be given in April.
Hla Hla Win’s sentencing, and the subsequent imprisonment of fellow DVB reporter Ngwe Soe Linn, who co-filmed the award-winning Channel 4 documentary, Orphans of Burma’s Cyclone, drew international condemnation, and brought to 14 the total number of DVB journalists currently in prison.
The military government in Burma is expected to intensify harassment and imprisonment of opposition in the run-up to elections this year. Already, more than 2,170 activists, journalists, politician and lawyers are serving lengthy prison sentences, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma (AAPP).
Burma ranked 171 out of 175 countries in RSF’s Press Freedom Index 2009, and has been cited by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) as the world’s “worst country to be a blogger”.
Meanwhile, lawyer Myint Thwin said that 16 politically active people arrested in December last year are to submit appeal at Mandalay division’s central court on 22 March, after it was previously turned down by a divisional court.
“We have 18 case files for the 16 people,” he said. “An appeal at the Mandalay divisional court against the verdict was previously turned down. The appeal will be submitted [at the central court] on Monday or Tuesday next week.
The 16 were given sentences of up to 50 years under the Electronic Acts, the Video Acts, the Immigration Acts, the Unlawful Association Acts and the Export and Import Acts.
By NAN KHAM KAEW
Published: 18 March 2010
An appeal for a Democratic Voice Burma video reporter sentenced late last year to 27 years in prison will be heard next week by a Magwe divisional court.
Hla Hla Win and her companion, Myint Naing, were arrested in September 2009 after filming interviews with monks in Pakokku monastery, Magwe division, and sentenced under the Video Act and the Electronics Act. Myint Naing was given 26 years.
In the appeal, submitted on 8 March, their lawyers argued that the charges were false. The court agreed to hear the appeal and set the date for 22 March, according to defence lawyer, Myint Thwin. He added that the verdict would likely be given in April.
Hla Hla Win’s sentencing, and the subsequent imprisonment of fellow DVB reporter Ngwe Soe Linn, who co-filmed the award-winning Channel 4 documentary, Orphans of Burma’s Cyclone, drew international condemnation, and brought to 14 the total number of DVB journalists currently in prison.
The military government in Burma is expected to intensify harassment and imprisonment of opposition in the run-up to elections this year. Already, more than 2,170 activists, journalists, politician and lawyers are serving lengthy prison sentences, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma (AAPP).
Burma ranked 171 out of 175 countries in RSF’s Press Freedom Index 2009, and has been cited by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) as the world’s “worst country to be a blogger”.
Meanwhile, lawyer Myint Thwin said that 16 politically active people arrested in December last year are to submit appeal at Mandalay division’s central court on 22 March, after it was previously turned down by a divisional court.
“We have 18 case files for the 16 people,” he said. “An appeal at the Mandalay divisional court against the verdict was previously turned down. The appeal will be submitted [at the central court] on Monday or Tuesday next week.
The 16 were given sentences of up to 50 years under the Electronic Acts, the Video Acts, the Immigration Acts, the Unlawful Association Acts and the Export and Import Acts.
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