Myanmar's Suu Kyi 'welcomes party boycott of polls'
1 hr 45 mins ago
YANGON (AFP) – Myanmar's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi welcomes her party's decision to boycott upcoming elections in the military-ruled nation, her lawyer said Wednesday.
Senior members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) agreed last week not to register for the first polls to be held in two decades, after the ruling generals introduced a controversial new election law.
The party would have been forced to oust its iconic leader and recognise the junta's constitution if it had signed up, but now faces dissolution in less than six weeks for failing to do so under new legislation for the polls.
"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said she was very glad about the NLD's decision," said her lawyer and NLD spokesman Nyan Win after he met with the 64-year-old at her lakeside house. Daw is a term of respect in Myanmar.
Under election laws dismissed as a sham by international critics, if the party had registered for the polls, due before the end of November, it would have been forced to part with Suu Kyi because she is serving a prison term.
The Nobel peace laureate, who has been locked up for 14 of the last 20 years, had already told the party she was opposed to such a move.
Suu Kyi also supported the party's apology Tuesday for failing in its struggle for democracy and national reconciliation, Nyan Win said.
In that statement, the NLD blamed the authorities' crackdown and promised to continue peacefully in its fight for democracy.
"We will firmly stand by our decision. We have our future tasks. But we cannot reveal them at this moment because of our country's situation," Nyan Win told reporters, adding that the party would work within the law.
Myanmar's election law nullifies the result of the last polls held in 1990 that were won by the NLD by a landslide but never recognised by the junta, which has ruled the country since 1962.
The United States, which has led international criticism of the new election law, blamed the junta for the opposition's decision to boycott, saying the regime had missed an opportunity.
Amnesty International said Wednesday that Myanmar's flawed election plans and "appalling" human rights record should dominate a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) this week in Hanoi.
The London-based group said Myanmar was violating ASEAN's own charter enacted in December 2008 which commits members to ideals of democracy and human rights.
1 hr 45 mins ago
YANGON (AFP) – Myanmar's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi welcomes her party's decision to boycott upcoming elections in the military-ruled nation, her lawyer said Wednesday.
Senior members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) agreed last week not to register for the first polls to be held in two decades, after the ruling generals introduced a controversial new election law.
The party would have been forced to oust its iconic leader and recognise the junta's constitution if it had signed up, but now faces dissolution in less than six weeks for failing to do so under new legislation for the polls.
"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said she was very glad about the NLD's decision," said her lawyer and NLD spokesman Nyan Win after he met with the 64-year-old at her lakeside house. Daw is a term of respect in Myanmar.
Under election laws dismissed as a sham by international critics, if the party had registered for the polls, due before the end of November, it would have been forced to part with Suu Kyi because she is serving a prison term.
The Nobel peace laureate, who has been locked up for 14 of the last 20 years, had already told the party she was opposed to such a move.
Suu Kyi also supported the party's apology Tuesday for failing in its struggle for democracy and national reconciliation, Nyan Win said.
In that statement, the NLD blamed the authorities' crackdown and promised to continue peacefully in its fight for democracy.
"We will firmly stand by our decision. We have our future tasks. But we cannot reveal them at this moment because of our country's situation," Nyan Win told reporters, adding that the party would work within the law.
Myanmar's election law nullifies the result of the last polls held in 1990 that were won by the NLD by a landslide but never recognised by the junta, which has ruled the country since 1962.
The United States, which has led international criticism of the new election law, blamed the junta for the opposition's decision to boycott, saying the regime had missed an opportunity.
Amnesty International said Wednesday that Myanmar's flawed election plans and "appalling" human rights record should dominate a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) this week in Hanoi.
The London-based group said Myanmar was violating ASEAN's own charter enacted in December 2008 which commits members to ideals of democracy and human rights.
******************************************************
ASEAN body to address rights of women and children
by Ian Timberlake – 22 mins ago
HANOI (AFP) – Southeast Asia on Wednesday took another step towards addressing long-neglected human rights issues, with the inauguration of a commission to address the rights of women and children.
Regional campaigners welcomed the creation of the body but said it could face the same limitations as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' human rights commission founded late last year.
They expressed concern about the independence of commissioners, and whether either body can actually protect the region's most vulnerable.
Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, called the commission a step forward but said: "We're really going to have to watch very closely."
At a ceremony in Hanoi, ASEAN proclaimed that the commission on women's and children's rights marks a "turning point" for the region.
"These are the vulnerable half of the ASEAN community, the women and the children," the bloc's secretary general, Surin Pitsuwan, told reporters ahead of a summit which opens Thursday.
"So if we wish to become a compassionate community, a sharing and caring community... we have to take care of the women and the children."
ASEAN aims by 2015 to form a free-market "community" of almost 600 million people committed to democratic ideals.
Activists say they expect the new commission to examine issues including human trafficking, child labour, child soldiers, and gender discrimination.
Among its stated functions, the 20-member commission is to "promote and protect rights"; build judicial and administrative capacity; and encourage data collection, studies and research.
Yap Swee Seng, executive director of Forum-Asia, an umbrella for regional rights groups, said the commission's terms of reference lean more towards promotion of rights.
"I think it will be difficult for the commission to embark on a protection mandate," he said, a criticism also levelled at ASEAN's human rights commission.
The 10-nation ASEAN has a principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states, which activists say has restricted its ability to criticise rights abuses, particularly in military-run Myanmar.
Activists said rules and procedures for both the new commission and the existing rights body need to be further defined for them to work effectively, including with non-governmental organisations.
Robertson said both commissions are dominated by current and former civil servants, rather than independent experts, raising questions about their potential effectiveness.
"I think, before this, ASEAN was criticised for not having these kind of mechanisms. Now that we have them we are being criticised that they will not be effective enough. I think, give us a chance," Surin told AFP.
He said that, given time, the institutions can develop "into something that I think the region can be proud of."
In the past, ASEAN was focused on economic issues, but since the bloc's 2008 charter committed it to tighter links as a "community", there must be a strong social component as well, said one Asian diplomat.
Despite what critics say, the new rights mechanisms will at least "put things on the table to talk about," said the Hanoi-based diplomat.
Asia-Pacific was the only region in the world without a formal human rights body, Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office said in its latest report on global rights.
It said it welcomed ASEAN's commitment to establish a rights mechanism.
by Ian Timberlake – 22 mins ago
HANOI (AFP) – Southeast Asia on Wednesday took another step towards addressing long-neglected human rights issues, with the inauguration of a commission to address the rights of women and children.
Regional campaigners welcomed the creation of the body but said it could face the same limitations as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' human rights commission founded late last year.
They expressed concern about the independence of commissioners, and whether either body can actually protect the region's most vulnerable.
Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, called the commission a step forward but said: "We're really going to have to watch very closely."
At a ceremony in Hanoi, ASEAN proclaimed that the commission on women's and children's rights marks a "turning point" for the region.
"These are the vulnerable half of the ASEAN community, the women and the children," the bloc's secretary general, Surin Pitsuwan, told reporters ahead of a summit which opens Thursday.
"So if we wish to become a compassionate community, a sharing and caring community... we have to take care of the women and the children."
ASEAN aims by 2015 to form a free-market "community" of almost 600 million people committed to democratic ideals.
Activists say they expect the new commission to examine issues including human trafficking, child labour, child soldiers, and gender discrimination.
Among its stated functions, the 20-member commission is to "promote and protect rights"; build judicial and administrative capacity; and encourage data collection, studies and research.
Yap Swee Seng, executive director of Forum-Asia, an umbrella for regional rights groups, said the commission's terms of reference lean more towards promotion of rights.
"I think it will be difficult for the commission to embark on a protection mandate," he said, a criticism also levelled at ASEAN's human rights commission.
The 10-nation ASEAN has a principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states, which activists say has restricted its ability to criticise rights abuses, particularly in military-run Myanmar.
Activists said rules and procedures for both the new commission and the existing rights body need to be further defined for them to work effectively, including with non-governmental organisations.
Robertson said both commissions are dominated by current and former civil servants, rather than independent experts, raising questions about their potential effectiveness.
"I think, before this, ASEAN was criticised for not having these kind of mechanisms. Now that we have them we are being criticised that they will not be effective enough. I think, give us a chance," Surin told AFP.
He said that, given time, the institutions can develop "into something that I think the region can be proud of."
In the past, ASEAN was focused on economic issues, but since the bloc's 2008 charter committed it to tighter links as a "community", there must be a strong social component as well, said one Asian diplomat.
Despite what critics say, the new rights mechanisms will at least "put things on the table to talk about," said the Hanoi-based diplomat.
Asia-Pacific was the only region in the world without a formal human rights body, Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office said in its latest report on global rights.
It said it welcomed ASEAN's commitment to establish a rights mechanism.
******************************************************
Southeast Asian leaders to meet in Hanoi
Southeast Asian leaders expected to discuss climate change, economy at Hanoi summit
On Wednesday April 7, 2010, 11:11 am EDT
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- Leaders from 10 Southeast Asian nations are expected to focus on economic integration and climate change during a regional summit that opens in Hanoi on Thursday, but will likely discuss Myanmar's contentious election plans as well.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations hopes to advance its goals of forming a European-style economic community by 2015 and promoting development across the region.
Some members are likely to press privately for a statement urging Myanmar's military junta to modify new laws governing the elections, which the largest opposition group plans to boycott. But the ASEAN leaders are unlikely to make any strong public statement condemning Myanmar, observers said.
"They will probably express their displeasure in a mild way officially and strongly behind the scenes," said James Chin, a political science professor at Monash University in Malaysia.
Myanmar's junta plans to call elections sometime this year, but under the election laws, detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is forbidden from participating.
Last week, members of her party, the National League for Democracy, announced they would not participate in the polls, the first in 20 years.
Chin said democratic ASEAN members, such as Indonesia and the Philippines, feel frustrated by the political situation in Myanmar, also known as Burma.
"They feel the problems in Burma are giving ASEAN a bad name in the international arena," he said.
But ASEAN has a tradition of noninterference in its members' political affairs, so a strong public rebuke is unlikely at this 16th regional summit. Political consensus is also difficult to reach among the 10 nations, which include a military junta, communist states and democracies.
Chin said ASEAN is generally more of a forum for talk than action.
"They are very good at making statements but not very good at following up," he said. "That is the traditional ASEAN way."
The leaders are likely to issue a statement about climate change, said Carl Thayer, a Vietnam specialist at the Australian National Defence Force Academy.
They plan to discuss their national climate change plans and seek ways to mesh them into a regional action plan, Thayer said.
The focus, however, is likely to be on economics, he said.
At the last ASEAN summit, held in Thailand, the group agreed on ways to deal with the global economic crisis. With the regional outlook beginning to improve, they may decide to remove steps taken previously to stimulate the regional economy.
Last year's summit was disrupted by political protesters known as the "Red Shirts," who demanded the resignation of Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. Some visiting leaders had to be airlifted out by helicopter.
Thailand's political turmoil is still continuing, but Thayer said ASEAN is unlikely to deal with that situation this week.
The human rights group Amnesty International urged the ASEAN leaders to condemn Myanmar's "appalling" human rights record.
"It is clear that Myanmar has been seriously and systematically breaching the ASEAN charter's human rights provisions," Donna Guest, the group's regional deputy director, said in a statement.
ASEAN inaugurated a new human rights commission last month, but regional rights groups complained that the panel's members refused to meet with them.
This week's summit is being chaired by Vietnam, which has also come under frequent criticism for its human rights record.
Southeast Asian leaders expected to discuss climate change, economy at Hanoi summit
On Wednesday April 7, 2010, 11:11 am EDT
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- Leaders from 10 Southeast Asian nations are expected to focus on economic integration and climate change during a regional summit that opens in Hanoi on Thursday, but will likely discuss Myanmar's contentious election plans as well.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations hopes to advance its goals of forming a European-style economic community by 2015 and promoting development across the region.
Some members are likely to press privately for a statement urging Myanmar's military junta to modify new laws governing the elections, which the largest opposition group plans to boycott. But the ASEAN leaders are unlikely to make any strong public statement condemning Myanmar, observers said.
"They will probably express their displeasure in a mild way officially and strongly behind the scenes," said James Chin, a political science professor at Monash University in Malaysia.
Myanmar's junta plans to call elections sometime this year, but under the election laws, detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is forbidden from participating.
Last week, members of her party, the National League for Democracy, announced they would not participate in the polls, the first in 20 years.
Chin said democratic ASEAN members, such as Indonesia and the Philippines, feel frustrated by the political situation in Myanmar, also known as Burma.
"They feel the problems in Burma are giving ASEAN a bad name in the international arena," he said.
But ASEAN has a tradition of noninterference in its members' political affairs, so a strong public rebuke is unlikely at this 16th regional summit. Political consensus is also difficult to reach among the 10 nations, which include a military junta, communist states and democracies.
Chin said ASEAN is generally more of a forum for talk than action.
"They are very good at making statements but not very good at following up," he said. "That is the traditional ASEAN way."
The leaders are likely to issue a statement about climate change, said Carl Thayer, a Vietnam specialist at the Australian National Defence Force Academy.
They plan to discuss their national climate change plans and seek ways to mesh them into a regional action plan, Thayer said.
The focus, however, is likely to be on economics, he said.
At the last ASEAN summit, held in Thailand, the group agreed on ways to deal with the global economic crisis. With the regional outlook beginning to improve, they may decide to remove steps taken previously to stimulate the regional economy.
Last year's summit was disrupted by political protesters known as the "Red Shirts," who demanded the resignation of Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. Some visiting leaders had to be airlifted out by helicopter.
Thailand's political turmoil is still continuing, but Thayer said ASEAN is unlikely to deal with that situation this week.
The human rights group Amnesty International urged the ASEAN leaders to condemn Myanmar's "appalling" human rights record.
"It is clear that Myanmar has been seriously and systematically breaching the ASEAN charter's human rights provisions," Donna Guest, the group's regional deputy director, said in a statement.
ASEAN inaugurated a new human rights commission last month, but regional rights groups complained that the panel's members refused to meet with them.
This week's summit is being chaired by Vietnam, which has also come under frequent criticism for its human rights record.
******************************************************
ASEAN to question Myanmar over election laws
Wed Apr 7, 2010 6:49am EDT
By Bill Tarrant
HANOI, April 7 (Reuters) - Myanmar will be grilled about its much derided election laws when foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meet in Hanoi on Wednesday, Thailand's top diplomat said.
"This evening, I hope we will be talking about Myanmar," Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya told reporters after arriving in Hanoi for a working dinner with his ASEAN counterparts.
"Questions about elections and how it would affect ASEAN will be raised. There are still points we want to make. We want to see a free, fair and inclusive election and the big question is whether that can be achieved and how."
Indonesia and the Philippines have been highly critical of Myanmar's election laws, which ban political prisoners, such as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, from running.
Her National League for Democracy, which won the last polls in 1990 by a landslide but was kept from governing, is boycotting this one. The junta has so far kept the polling date a secret.
Vietnam, a one-party communist state that has jailed a number of dissidents recently, is not keen to see Myanmar in the spotlight over its record when it chairs the annual ASEAN leaders meeting Thursday-Friday. Like Myanmar itself, Hanoi does not believe in interfering in another country's internal affairs.
ASEAN has never censured Myanmar over its rights record and is unlikely to do so this time. But Kasit's comments are a strong indication that Myanmar will feature on the summit agenda.
"The Myanmar issue still presents a problem when we want to take ASEAN forward to negotiate and deal with other groupings and countries," Kasit said. "It presents a major limitation for us."
"Myanmar knows very well what the issues and reservations are. A few countries in ASEAN have been speaking quite directly about these issues so we hope to hear from them."
ATTRACTIVE COMMUNITY
The main item on the summit agenda is putting into action ASEAN's vision of creating an economic, political and security community over the next five years.
The ASEAN economic community would encompass a region of 580 million people with a combined gross domestic product of $1.7 trillion -- a powerful attraction to companies looking to expand market share and install supply chains.
ASEAN adopted a rules-based charter in 2007 to better negotiate bloc-to-bloc with similar entities such as the European Union. But the EU considers Myanmar a pariah state, which has slowed interaction between the two groups.
"Myanmar is a sensitive and delicate issue," said a senior ASEAN diplomat who requested anonymity.
"The leaders of the regime are very touchy and would easily shut down and snub us if we push too hard. But we cannot sit back and do nothing either if we want ASEAN to be a genuinely effective grouping with credibility."
Once part of the "East Asia miracle" of the 1990s, Southeast Asia has again become an emerging market darling, and along with China and South Korea leading the world out of financial crisis.
It is once again attracting billions of dollars in capital inflows and its stock markets are among the world's best performers this year. ASEAN finance ministers said on Tuesday growth in their economies could hit 5.6 percent in 2010.
Myanmar, on the other hand, is at the bottom of most league tables of development. But just after World War Two, Burma, as it was then known, was one of Asia's most advanced nations, rich in resources and high in literacy.
Wedged between China and India, it was once a non-aligned leader and is geo-politically significant.
That is largely why the Obama administration has changed tack and opted for U.S. engagement with the generals.
Myanmar's election has been widely dismissed as a sham aimed at prolonging five decades of iron-fisted army rule by effectively allowing the military to pull the strings in a civilian-fronted government.
ASEAN has repeatedly called for "fair and inclusive" elections, but still sees this vote as a transition to civilian rule, however flawed that may be, and as an exit ramp off a half-century of military rule, isolation and destitution.
ASEAN, which includes an absolute monarchy in Brunei, an advanced city state in Singapore, impoverished and communist Laos, as well as robust democracies such as Indonesia, is a far more diverse region than Europe. Reaching a consensus on knotty problems such as Myanmar will not be easy.
Wed Apr 7, 2010 6:49am EDT
By Bill Tarrant
HANOI, April 7 (Reuters) - Myanmar will be grilled about its much derided election laws when foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meet in Hanoi on Wednesday, Thailand's top diplomat said.
"This evening, I hope we will be talking about Myanmar," Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya told reporters after arriving in Hanoi for a working dinner with his ASEAN counterparts.
"Questions about elections and how it would affect ASEAN will be raised. There are still points we want to make. We want to see a free, fair and inclusive election and the big question is whether that can be achieved and how."
Indonesia and the Philippines have been highly critical of Myanmar's election laws, which ban political prisoners, such as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, from running.
Her National League for Democracy, which won the last polls in 1990 by a landslide but was kept from governing, is boycotting this one. The junta has so far kept the polling date a secret.
Vietnam, a one-party communist state that has jailed a number of dissidents recently, is not keen to see Myanmar in the spotlight over its record when it chairs the annual ASEAN leaders meeting Thursday-Friday. Like Myanmar itself, Hanoi does not believe in interfering in another country's internal affairs.
ASEAN has never censured Myanmar over its rights record and is unlikely to do so this time. But Kasit's comments are a strong indication that Myanmar will feature on the summit agenda.
"The Myanmar issue still presents a problem when we want to take ASEAN forward to negotiate and deal with other groupings and countries," Kasit said. "It presents a major limitation for us."
"Myanmar knows very well what the issues and reservations are. A few countries in ASEAN have been speaking quite directly about these issues so we hope to hear from them."
ATTRACTIVE COMMUNITY
The main item on the summit agenda is putting into action ASEAN's vision of creating an economic, political and security community over the next five years.
The ASEAN economic community would encompass a region of 580 million people with a combined gross domestic product of $1.7 trillion -- a powerful attraction to companies looking to expand market share and install supply chains.
ASEAN adopted a rules-based charter in 2007 to better negotiate bloc-to-bloc with similar entities such as the European Union. But the EU considers Myanmar a pariah state, which has slowed interaction between the two groups.
"Myanmar is a sensitive and delicate issue," said a senior ASEAN diplomat who requested anonymity.
"The leaders of the regime are very touchy and would easily shut down and snub us if we push too hard. But we cannot sit back and do nothing either if we want ASEAN to be a genuinely effective grouping with credibility."
Once part of the "East Asia miracle" of the 1990s, Southeast Asia has again become an emerging market darling, and along with China and South Korea leading the world out of financial crisis.
It is once again attracting billions of dollars in capital inflows and its stock markets are among the world's best performers this year. ASEAN finance ministers said on Tuesday growth in their economies could hit 5.6 percent in 2010.
Myanmar, on the other hand, is at the bottom of most league tables of development. But just after World War Two, Burma, as it was then known, was one of Asia's most advanced nations, rich in resources and high in literacy.
Wedged between China and India, it was once a non-aligned leader and is geo-politically significant.
That is largely why the Obama administration has changed tack and opted for U.S. engagement with the generals.
Myanmar's election has been widely dismissed as a sham aimed at prolonging five decades of iron-fisted army rule by effectively allowing the military to pull the strings in a civilian-fronted government.
ASEAN has repeatedly called for "fair and inclusive" elections, but still sees this vote as a transition to civilian rule, however flawed that may be, and as an exit ramp off a half-century of military rule, isolation and destitution.
ASEAN, which includes an absolute monarchy in Brunei, an advanced city state in Singapore, impoverished and communist Laos, as well as robust democracies such as Indonesia, is a far more diverse region than Europe. Reaching a consensus on knotty problems such as Myanmar will not be easy.
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Denton Record-Chronicle - Other Voices: Use leverage to reform Myanmar
08:43 AM CDT on Tuesday, April 6, 2010
In one sense, the farcical election taking shape in Myanmar, a Southeast Asian nation of 50 million people, offers good news. Myanmar’s generals would not go to such lengths to create the appearance of democracy unless they cared about global opinion.
That suggests that outside nations with an interest in promoting peace and democracy in Myanmar have more leverage than is commonly believed. On the other hand, this is good news only if those nations are willing to use that leverage in a constructive way. On that front, there’s a long way to go.
Recently, Myanmar’s National League for Democracy (NLD) formally decided not to take part in elections planned for some time this year. The decision had been almost inevitable since the ruling generals promulgated an election law that said parties could register only if they expel any members who are political prisoners.
Many of the nation’s most eminent citizens, including a sizable number of NLD leaders, are among Myanmar’s 2,000-plus political prisoners. Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who heads the party, is under house arrest.
“Without them, our party would be nothing,” party leader U Win Tin, himself recently released from prison, wrote in The Washington Post recently. “They are in prison because of their belief in democracy and the rule of law. Their immediate release and participation in Myanmar’s political process are necessary for a credible democratic process.”
The generals can be expected to go ahead with their election anyhow. After all, a cataclysmic cyclone that left much of their population underwater in 2008 didn’t stop them from holding a staged referendum on the constitution. The charter itself guarantees enough legislative seats to the military to reassure the junta that its power won’t be wrested away by something as trifling as the popular will.
And, just to make sure, the junta wrote the rules so that the NLD — which overwhelmingly won the last real election, in 1990, but was never permitted to govern — can’t take part.
So why go through the charade at all? It must be that the generals would like to shed their reputation as one of the more repressive regimes in the world. They would like to be free of the financial and trade sanctions that the United States and other nations have imposed. They would like to be treated with respect.
Other nations should make clear that Myanmar would indeed be welcomed back — but only if it frees all political prisoners and ceases its war crimes against national minorities.
Some democratic nations (Indonesia, Australia, the Czech Republic and the United States, to name a few) have been stalwart in advocating democratic reform. Others, such as India and quasi-democratic Singapore, have not.
Together, these nations could exert real influence. They could tighten financial sanctions to really pinch top leaders and the entities they control; they could push the machinery of the United Nations to investigate the regime’s crimes, such as forced labor and mass rape.
Now would be a good moment, in other words, to unite and use the leverage that is lying unused on the table.
The Washington Post
08:43 AM CDT on Tuesday, April 6, 2010
In one sense, the farcical election taking shape in Myanmar, a Southeast Asian nation of 50 million people, offers good news. Myanmar’s generals would not go to such lengths to create the appearance of democracy unless they cared about global opinion.
That suggests that outside nations with an interest in promoting peace and democracy in Myanmar have more leverage than is commonly believed. On the other hand, this is good news only if those nations are willing to use that leverage in a constructive way. On that front, there’s a long way to go.
Recently, Myanmar’s National League for Democracy (NLD) formally decided not to take part in elections planned for some time this year. The decision had been almost inevitable since the ruling generals promulgated an election law that said parties could register only if they expel any members who are political prisoners.
Many of the nation’s most eminent citizens, including a sizable number of NLD leaders, are among Myanmar’s 2,000-plus political prisoners. Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who heads the party, is under house arrest.
“Without them, our party would be nothing,” party leader U Win Tin, himself recently released from prison, wrote in The Washington Post recently. “They are in prison because of their belief in democracy and the rule of law. Their immediate release and participation in Myanmar’s political process are necessary for a credible democratic process.”
The generals can be expected to go ahead with their election anyhow. After all, a cataclysmic cyclone that left much of their population underwater in 2008 didn’t stop them from holding a staged referendum on the constitution. The charter itself guarantees enough legislative seats to the military to reassure the junta that its power won’t be wrested away by something as trifling as the popular will.
And, just to make sure, the junta wrote the rules so that the NLD — which overwhelmingly won the last real election, in 1990, but was never permitted to govern — can’t take part.
So why go through the charade at all? It must be that the generals would like to shed their reputation as one of the more repressive regimes in the world. They would like to be free of the financial and trade sanctions that the United States and other nations have imposed. They would like to be treated with respect.
Other nations should make clear that Myanmar would indeed be welcomed back — but only if it frees all political prisoners and ceases its war crimes against national minorities.
Some democratic nations (Indonesia, Australia, the Czech Republic and the United States, to name a few) have been stalwart in advocating democratic reform. Others, such as India and quasi-democratic Singapore, have not.
Together, these nations could exert real influence. They could tighten financial sanctions to really pinch top leaders and the entities they control; they could push the machinery of the United Nations to investigate the regime’s crimes, such as forced labor and mass rape.
Now would be a good moment, in other words, to unite and use the leverage that is lying unused on the table.
The Washington Post
******************************************************
Letter from America
New York Times - U.S. Waiting for China on Iran Issue
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN
Published: April 7, 2010
NEW YORK — You can almost feel the waves of wishful thinking emanating from Washington these days that China, after refusing for years, will finally agree to U.N.-approved economic sanctions against Iran for its violations of obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
China so far has only agreed to negotiations about sanctions — even as President Hu Jintao has said he would come to Washington, and the Obama administration seems ready to postpone formally naming China a currency manipulator — but that alone is being seen as a favorable sign, amid a general improvement in the bilateral mood.
If China actually agrees to sanctions against Iran, relations would get a lot better. It would also signal a major change for China, which has not only resisted sanctions against Iran, but has also rejected almost all Western-led efforts to discipline the world’s rogue dictatorships for bad domestic behavior — Myanmar, Sudan and Zimbabwe have all been protected in this sense by China.
Might China be willing to side with the United States and Europe on these kinds of questions?
Don’t count on it, says Stefan Halper, who served in the White House and the U.S. State Department under Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Mr. Halper, now a senior fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, has just published “The Beijing Consensus: How China’s Authoritarian Model Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century.” It’s a book that could well shift many of the terms of the ongoing debate about the China challenge, as it’s often called, and what to do about it.
Mr. Halper belongs to the school of thought that sees China as a threat — as opposed to the “panda huggers” who say that his school of thought exaggerates. But while most China-threat theorists worry about conventional military and economic forms of danger and confrontation, Mr. Halper sees the challenge more as one of ideas, as part of a kind of global culture war.
“Beijing does present a clear and gathering threat to Washington,” Mr. Halper writes. But what should concern us is not its military power, or that it holds $2 trillion worth of U.S. Treasury bonds, or that its health and safety standards are lacking. The China threat is that it stands for a set of values that are “corrosive to Western pre-eminence.”
China, Mr. Halper writes, “functions as the world’s largest billboard advertisement for the new alternative of ‘going capitalist and staying autocratic.”’ Moreover, the Chinese model is gaining ground on the alternative Western model, with all its fussy demands about human rights and basic freedoms, which China ignores.
“China is set to have a greater impact on the world in the next two decades than any other country,” Mr. Halper writes, and that impact will have the effect of reducing Western and American prestige and influence.
“China is shrinking the West,” Mr. Halper writes.
That’s a serious prognosis, and it arises from the notion that things haven’t worked out as most of us in the West thought they would after the fall of the Soviet Union. At the time, it seemed virtually inevitable that the only road to success for poor countries lay in following what was sometimes called “the Washington consensus” — that only countries with free markets and free institutions would compete with the Cold War’s victors.
“Economic freedom creates habits of liberty, and habits of liberty create expectations of democracy,” President George W. Bush confidently declared in 2000, speaking specifically of China.
But something perversely different seems to have happened. The idea is catching on among China experts that economic growth in China and the emergence of a large middle class has not, as expected, eroded authoritarianism, but actually bolstered it, legitimated one-party rule as the only assurance of social stability. The catch is that the Chinese one-party state is desperate to keep the growth machine running, which leads it to accept deals with other countries that would be disapproved in the wealthier and therefore more fastidious West.
That’s Mr. Halper’s argument, and he substantiates it with a compelling survey of China’s emerging relations all over the world. He offers, for example, a list of 30 African countries, almost all of them dictatorships, that have gotten substantial Chinese economic assistance.
“China extends low interest loans without the reform requirements imposed by the I.M.F. and the World Bank — sometimes to build infrastructure, sometimes to build palaces (Mugabe’s looks like a pagoda), sometimes hospitals,” Mr. Halper said in a telephone conversation. “The Chinese develop close relations with the elites of those countries — and there are often generous payoffs — and then they leverage the relationships to gain support for their positions in the U.N. and the World Trade Organization.”
Of course, no big power, and certainly not the United States, has clean hands in this regard. But in recent years, the West has turned ever more to such notions as humanitarian interventionism while China upholds a policy of absolute noninterference — largely to assure its economic access but also to forestall humanitarian interventionism when it comes to matters like Tibet or China’s treatment of its own dissidents.
This is the principle that has covered Iran. As Washington and Europe have sought to isolate Iran, China has become the largest single buyer of Iranian oil and gas, getting drilling rights for Chinese companies, and providing what Mr. Halper calls “ambiguous technical assistance: long-range missile technology, including skins, gyros, and warhead design.”
But what about China’s apparent willingness at least to talk about sanctions against Iran? Does that signal an important potential shift? Not according to Mr. Halper.
The Chinese approach is flexible and nonconfrontational. There’s what Mr. Halper calls a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde quality to it, with Dr. Jekyll appearing when the regime worries about losing face or being embarrassed.
“If they interpret the vote on Iran as an opportunity to show the Dr. Jekyll side of their personality on the world stage, then they may do it,” he said, “but I would see the decision principally as public relations management. I don’t think it changes much of anything because Mr. Hyde is coming right behind.”
New York Times - U.S. Waiting for China on Iran Issue
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN
Published: April 7, 2010
NEW YORK — You can almost feel the waves of wishful thinking emanating from Washington these days that China, after refusing for years, will finally agree to U.N.-approved economic sanctions against Iran for its violations of obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
China so far has only agreed to negotiations about sanctions — even as President Hu Jintao has said he would come to Washington, and the Obama administration seems ready to postpone formally naming China a currency manipulator — but that alone is being seen as a favorable sign, amid a general improvement in the bilateral mood.
If China actually agrees to sanctions against Iran, relations would get a lot better. It would also signal a major change for China, which has not only resisted sanctions against Iran, but has also rejected almost all Western-led efforts to discipline the world’s rogue dictatorships for bad domestic behavior — Myanmar, Sudan and Zimbabwe have all been protected in this sense by China.
Might China be willing to side with the United States and Europe on these kinds of questions?
Don’t count on it, says Stefan Halper, who served in the White House and the U.S. State Department under Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Mr. Halper, now a senior fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, has just published “The Beijing Consensus: How China’s Authoritarian Model Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century.” It’s a book that could well shift many of the terms of the ongoing debate about the China challenge, as it’s often called, and what to do about it.
Mr. Halper belongs to the school of thought that sees China as a threat — as opposed to the “panda huggers” who say that his school of thought exaggerates. But while most China-threat theorists worry about conventional military and economic forms of danger and confrontation, Mr. Halper sees the challenge more as one of ideas, as part of a kind of global culture war.
“Beijing does present a clear and gathering threat to Washington,” Mr. Halper writes. But what should concern us is not its military power, or that it holds $2 trillion worth of U.S. Treasury bonds, or that its health and safety standards are lacking. The China threat is that it stands for a set of values that are “corrosive to Western pre-eminence.”
China, Mr. Halper writes, “functions as the world’s largest billboard advertisement for the new alternative of ‘going capitalist and staying autocratic.”’ Moreover, the Chinese model is gaining ground on the alternative Western model, with all its fussy demands about human rights and basic freedoms, which China ignores.
“China is set to have a greater impact on the world in the next two decades than any other country,” Mr. Halper writes, and that impact will have the effect of reducing Western and American prestige and influence.
“China is shrinking the West,” Mr. Halper writes.
That’s a serious prognosis, and it arises from the notion that things haven’t worked out as most of us in the West thought they would after the fall of the Soviet Union. At the time, it seemed virtually inevitable that the only road to success for poor countries lay in following what was sometimes called “the Washington consensus” — that only countries with free markets and free institutions would compete with the Cold War’s victors.
“Economic freedom creates habits of liberty, and habits of liberty create expectations of democracy,” President George W. Bush confidently declared in 2000, speaking specifically of China.
But something perversely different seems to have happened. The idea is catching on among China experts that economic growth in China and the emergence of a large middle class has not, as expected, eroded authoritarianism, but actually bolstered it, legitimated one-party rule as the only assurance of social stability. The catch is that the Chinese one-party state is desperate to keep the growth machine running, which leads it to accept deals with other countries that would be disapproved in the wealthier and therefore more fastidious West.
That’s Mr. Halper’s argument, and he substantiates it with a compelling survey of China’s emerging relations all over the world. He offers, for example, a list of 30 African countries, almost all of them dictatorships, that have gotten substantial Chinese economic assistance.
“China extends low interest loans without the reform requirements imposed by the I.M.F. and the World Bank — sometimes to build infrastructure, sometimes to build palaces (Mugabe’s looks like a pagoda), sometimes hospitals,” Mr. Halper said in a telephone conversation. “The Chinese develop close relations with the elites of those countries — and there are often generous payoffs — and then they leverage the relationships to gain support for their positions in the U.N. and the World Trade Organization.”
Of course, no big power, and certainly not the United States, has clean hands in this regard. But in recent years, the West has turned ever more to such notions as humanitarian interventionism while China upholds a policy of absolute noninterference — largely to assure its economic access but also to forestall humanitarian interventionism when it comes to matters like Tibet or China’s treatment of its own dissidents.
This is the principle that has covered Iran. As Washington and Europe have sought to isolate Iran, China has become the largest single buyer of Iranian oil and gas, getting drilling rights for Chinese companies, and providing what Mr. Halper calls “ambiguous technical assistance: long-range missile technology, including skins, gyros, and warhead design.”
But what about China’s apparent willingness at least to talk about sanctions against Iran? Does that signal an important potential shift? Not according to Mr. Halper.
The Chinese approach is flexible and nonconfrontational. There’s what Mr. Halper calls a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde quality to it, with Dr. Jekyll appearing when the regime worries about losing face or being embarrassed.
“If they interpret the vote on Iran as an opportunity to show the Dr. Jekyll side of their personality on the world stage, then they may do it,” he said, “but I would see the decision principally as public relations management. I don’t think it changes much of anything because Mr. Hyde is coming right behind.”
******************************************************
Inquirer.net - Amnesty says Myanmar criticism should dominate ASEAN summit
Agence France-Presse - First Posted 22:58:00 04/07/2010
HANOI—Myanmar's "appalling" human rights record and flawed election plans should dominate talks among Southeast Asian leaders this week, Amnesty International said Wednesday.
The London-based group said that military-run Myanmar was violating the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' own charter enacted in December 2008 which commits members to ideals of democracy and human rights.
"It is now up to the summit, under its new chair Vietnam, to address this breach as a matter of urgency," said Donna Guest, Amnesty International's deputy program director for Asia.
"ASEAN's reputation as a meaningful regional forum will suffer if it does not call for Myanmar to respect freedom of expression, assembly and association in the lead-up to the election," she said in a statement.
Myanmar's junta has been widely criticized over electoral laws which have triggered a boycott by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy.
Under the laws for the ballot, the first in the country for two decades, the party would have to expel Aung San Suu Kyi if it wanted to participate because she is serving a prison term.
Despite widespread skepticism that the vote can be free and fair, criticism is unlikely from Myanmar's neighbors who meet in the Vietnamese capital Thursday and Friday, many of which have their own poor records on rights and democracy.
Amnesty joined with regional lawmakers who are also attempting to raise the profile of the issue at ASEAN's twice-yearly summit.
"Myanmar's appalling human rights record is a serious breach of the ASEAN charter and should be at the top of the agenda for Southeast Asian states attending the organization's summit," Amnesty said.
More than 100 ASEAN lawmakers on Wednesday urged regional leaders to impose sanctions on Myanmar and consider its expulsion for ignoring calls for free and fair elections.
"As Myanmar has thus far ignored ASEAN's calls to reform... a new and more decisive course of action must be undertaken," the legislators said in a petition.
Myanmar has in the past escaped collective censure by ASEAN because of the group's policy of non-interference in members' internal affairs.
Agence France-Presse - First Posted 22:58:00 04/07/2010
HANOI—Myanmar's "appalling" human rights record and flawed election plans should dominate talks among Southeast Asian leaders this week, Amnesty International said Wednesday.
The London-based group said that military-run Myanmar was violating the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' own charter enacted in December 2008 which commits members to ideals of democracy and human rights.
"It is now up to the summit, under its new chair Vietnam, to address this breach as a matter of urgency," said Donna Guest, Amnesty International's deputy program director for Asia.
"ASEAN's reputation as a meaningful regional forum will suffer if it does not call for Myanmar to respect freedom of expression, assembly and association in the lead-up to the election," she said in a statement.
Myanmar's junta has been widely criticized over electoral laws which have triggered a boycott by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy.
Under the laws for the ballot, the first in the country for two decades, the party would have to expel Aung San Suu Kyi if it wanted to participate because she is serving a prison term.
Despite widespread skepticism that the vote can be free and fair, criticism is unlikely from Myanmar's neighbors who meet in the Vietnamese capital Thursday and Friday, many of which have their own poor records on rights and democracy.
Amnesty joined with regional lawmakers who are also attempting to raise the profile of the issue at ASEAN's twice-yearly summit.
"Myanmar's appalling human rights record is a serious breach of the ASEAN charter and should be at the top of the agenda for Southeast Asian states attending the organization's summit," Amnesty said.
More than 100 ASEAN lawmakers on Wednesday urged regional leaders to impose sanctions on Myanmar and consider its expulsion for ignoring calls for free and fair elections.
"As Myanmar has thus far ignored ASEAN's calls to reform... a new and more decisive course of action must be undertaken," the legislators said in a petition.
Myanmar has in the past escaped collective censure by ASEAN because of the group's policy of non-interference in members' internal affairs.
******************************************************
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL - PRESS RELEASE:
AI Index: PRE 01/119/2010
07 April 2010
ASEAN leaders should act over Myanmar’s appalling rights record
Myanmar's appalling human rights record is a serious breach of the ASEAN charter and should be at the top of the agenda for Southeast Asian states attending the organisation's summit in Ha Noi on 8 April, Amnesty International said today.
"It is clear that Myanmar has been seriously and systematically breaching the ASEAN Charter's human rights provisions. It is now up to the summit, under its new chair Viet Nam, to address this breach as a matter of urgency," said Donna Guest, Amnesty International's Deputy Asia Programme Director.
"The 10 members of ASEAN should also continue to press Myanmar to halt the increasing repression of activists, particularly from the country's large ethnic minority community," said Donna Guest.
ASEAN (The Association of South Eastern Asian Nations) has urged Myanmar's military government to free Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners and deliver free, fair and inclusive elections in 2010.
Myanmar's government recently enacted election laws that bar hundreds of thousands of persons, including at least 2,200 political prisoners, from meaningfully participating in the election. Widespread political repression and ongoing armed conflicts continue in the run-up to the election.
"ASEAN's reputation as a meaningful regional forum will suffer if it does not call for Myanmar to respect freedom of expression, assembly and association in the lead-up to the election," said Donna Guest.
Myanmar's highly restrictive new election laws have drawn criticism from the governments of Indonesia and the Philippines, and resulted in an election boycott by the National League for Democracy, the main Myanmar opposition party headed by Aung San Suu Kyi.
"This summit is an opportunity for Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia to continue their demands for Myanmar to improve its human rights record," said Donna Guest. "The ASEAN summit's final statement should include a clear condemnation of Myanmar's human rights record."
To give weight to its statements on Myanmar, ASEAN needs to address human rights crises in member countries, including through empowering the new ASEAN Intergovernmental Human Rights Commission to address individual rights violations.
Background
Indonesia, Cambodia, Brunei, Laos, Malaysia, Viet Nam, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Myanmar are members of ASEAN, which was founded in 1967.
Article 20(4) of the ASEAN Charter states: "In the case of a serious breach of the Charter or noncompliance, the matter shall be referred to the ASEAN Summit for decision."
AI Index: PRE 01/119/2010
07 April 2010
ASEAN leaders should act over Myanmar’s appalling rights record
Myanmar's appalling human rights record is a serious breach of the ASEAN charter and should be at the top of the agenda for Southeast Asian states attending the organisation's summit in Ha Noi on 8 April, Amnesty International said today.
"It is clear that Myanmar has been seriously and systematically breaching the ASEAN Charter's human rights provisions. It is now up to the summit, under its new chair Viet Nam, to address this breach as a matter of urgency," said Donna Guest, Amnesty International's Deputy Asia Programme Director.
"The 10 members of ASEAN should also continue to press Myanmar to halt the increasing repression of activists, particularly from the country's large ethnic minority community," said Donna Guest.
ASEAN (The Association of South Eastern Asian Nations) has urged Myanmar's military government to free Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners and deliver free, fair and inclusive elections in 2010.
Myanmar's government recently enacted election laws that bar hundreds of thousands of persons, including at least 2,200 political prisoners, from meaningfully participating in the election. Widespread political repression and ongoing armed conflicts continue in the run-up to the election.
"ASEAN's reputation as a meaningful regional forum will suffer if it does not call for Myanmar to respect freedom of expression, assembly and association in the lead-up to the election," said Donna Guest.
Myanmar's highly restrictive new election laws have drawn criticism from the governments of Indonesia and the Philippines, and resulted in an election boycott by the National League for Democracy, the main Myanmar opposition party headed by Aung San Suu Kyi.
"This summit is an opportunity for Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia to continue their demands for Myanmar to improve its human rights record," said Donna Guest. "The ASEAN summit's final statement should include a clear condemnation of Myanmar's human rights record."
To give weight to its statements on Myanmar, ASEAN needs to address human rights crises in member countries, including through empowering the new ASEAN Intergovernmental Human Rights Commission to address individual rights violations.
Background
Indonesia, Cambodia, Brunei, Laos, Malaysia, Viet Nam, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Myanmar are members of ASEAN, which was founded in 1967.
Article 20(4) of the ASEAN Charter states: "In the case of a serious breach of the Charter or noncompliance, the matter shall be referred to the ASEAN Summit for decision."
******************************************************
Charter 97 - Belarusian military men go to Myanmar to share experience
7 April 2010, Wed - 12:10, — Politics
On April 5-8 a delegation headed by the first deputy chairman of the Military and Industrial committee of Belarus Raman Halouchanka visits Naypyidaw.
BelTA was informed about that by the State Military and Industrial committee of Belarus.
Talks with the leadership of the Defence Ministry of the Union of Myanmar on the issues of military and trade cooperation. At the session of the joint intergovernmental commission the sides summarized the results of implementation of agreements reached in Minsk in June 2009, and discussed prospective projects of cooperation, the order and conditions of their implementation with the aim to prepare to new contracts. "Today all-inclusive considering of the customer's wishes, an individual approach to every contract is an important aspect in providing high competitive ability of Belarusian defence industry," the committee noted.
The dictatirial Union of Myanmar is one of the countries with which Belarus established military and technical cooperation in recent years. "Though the share of currency inflow from contracts with this state is rather low still, there are certain prospects for the development of cooperation in the military and technical sphere," the Military and Industrial committee of Belarus noted.
7 April 2010, Wed - 12:10, — Politics
On April 5-8 a delegation headed by the first deputy chairman of the Military and Industrial committee of Belarus Raman Halouchanka visits Naypyidaw.
BelTA was informed about that by the State Military and Industrial committee of Belarus.
Talks with the leadership of the Defence Ministry of the Union of Myanmar on the issues of military and trade cooperation. At the session of the joint intergovernmental commission the sides summarized the results of implementation of agreements reached in Minsk in June 2009, and discussed prospective projects of cooperation, the order and conditions of their implementation with the aim to prepare to new contracts. "Today all-inclusive considering of the customer's wishes, an individual approach to every contract is an important aspect in providing high competitive ability of Belarusian defence industry," the committee noted.
The dictatirial Union of Myanmar is one of the countries with which Belarus established military and technical cooperation in recent years. "Though the share of currency inflow from contracts with this state is rather low still, there are certain prospects for the development of cooperation in the military and technical sphere," the Military and Industrial committee of Belarus noted.
******************************************************
Sin Chew Jit Poh - ASEAN MPs tell leaders to consider expelling Myanmar
2010-04-07 17:23
HANOI, April 7 (AFP) - More than 100 ASEAN lawmakers on Wednesday urged leaders meeting in Vietnam this week to impose sanctions on Myanmar and consider its expulsion for ignoring calls for free and fair elections.
The legislators said leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at their annual summit Thursday and Friday should "urgently discuss" the election due to be held in Myanmar later this year.
In a petition to the leaders, the parliamentarians condemned election laws unveiled by Myanmar's junta which have been criticised as undermining the credibility of the vote, the first to be held in the country for two decades.
Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Demoracy, has boycotted the poll over the laws, which would have forced it to exclude her from the party if it wanted to take part.
"With the promulgation of these apparently biased laws... the regime has forfeited its best opportunity to show willingness to engage in an inclusive process of national reconciliation," the petition said.
The petition, endorsed by 105 members of parliament from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore, was sent to leaders by the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC), which lobbies for democratic reforms in the former Burma.
"As Myanmar has thus far ignored ASEAN's calls to reform... a new and more decisive course of action must be undertaken," the MPs said.
"ASEAN should immediately enact strict and targetted economic sanctions against Myanmar's military government."
Myanmar should also be "immediately suspended from the grouping and its permanent expulsion earnestly considered" because it has failed to adhere to principles enshrined in the new ASEAN Charter, they said.
Myanmar has in the past escaped collective censure by ASEAN because of the group's policy of non-interference in members' internal affairs.
However, some ASEAN members have separately criticised Myanmar's military regime and called for Aung San Suu Kyi's release.
2010-04-07 17:23
HANOI, April 7 (AFP) - More than 100 ASEAN lawmakers on Wednesday urged leaders meeting in Vietnam this week to impose sanctions on Myanmar and consider its expulsion for ignoring calls for free and fair elections.
The legislators said leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at their annual summit Thursday and Friday should "urgently discuss" the election due to be held in Myanmar later this year.
In a petition to the leaders, the parliamentarians condemned election laws unveiled by Myanmar's junta which have been criticised as undermining the credibility of the vote, the first to be held in the country for two decades.
Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Demoracy, has boycotted the poll over the laws, which would have forced it to exclude her from the party if it wanted to take part.
"With the promulgation of these apparently biased laws... the regime has forfeited its best opportunity to show willingness to engage in an inclusive process of national reconciliation," the petition said.
The petition, endorsed by 105 members of parliament from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore, was sent to leaders by the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC), which lobbies for democratic reforms in the former Burma.
"As Myanmar has thus far ignored ASEAN's calls to reform... a new and more decisive course of action must be undertaken," the MPs said.
"ASEAN should immediately enact strict and targetted economic sanctions against Myanmar's military government."
Myanmar should also be "immediately suspended from the grouping and its permanent expulsion earnestly considered" because it has failed to adhere to principles enshrined in the new ASEAN Charter, they said.
Myanmar has in the past escaped collective censure by ASEAN because of the group's policy of non-interference in members' internal affairs.
However, some ASEAN members have separately criticised Myanmar's military regime and called for Aung San Suu Kyi's release.
******************************************************
Apr 8, 2010
Asia Times Online - US seeks thaw in ties with Myanmar
By Larry Jagan
BANGKOK - A senior American diplomat is expected to visit Myanmar in the near future to try to kick-start Washington's lagging engagement policy with the junta.
United States Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell is scheduled to arrive in Myanmar very soon, according to government officials in the capital, Naypyidaw. This is likely to be after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Hanoi and the visit of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, both later this week.
But senior US officials dismiss the planned trip as a "rumor".
"Neither Kurt Campbell nor I plan to visit Burma [Myanmar] next week," Scot Marciel, Campbell's deputy, told Asia Times Online. "We've said publicly that we have been working to find dates that would work for another visit, but nothing has been scheduled," he added.
"We are keen to get there and we have been talking to the Burmese about a visit, various dates have been discussed, but as of today we don't have any set dates," he said.
Nevertheless, the regime seems keen for the American diplomats to revisit Myanmar after their previous trip to the country in November. Arrangements are already being put into place for the visit - expected before the end of this month, according to Myanmar government officials.
When dates are finalized, this would be the US diplomat's second visit since US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a change in US policy towards the military regime last year - one of maintaining existing sanctions but at the same time engaging the generals in dialogue.
During Campbell's forthcoming trip he is expected to meet the detained pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, other leaders of her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), representatives of ethnic groups and key people in the junta.
Campbell failed to see the junta's top leader, General Than Shwe, on his previous visit to Myanmar but is expected to meet the senior general this time, according to senior military sources. The credibility of the forthcoming elections and the NLD's decision not to contest them will feature prominently during his talks both with the government and the opposition.
"We certainly are very concerned about the election laws and the situation facing the NLD," Marciel told Asia Times Online. "The laws put the opposition in a very difficult position."
Washington has already taken a hard line on the elections and dismissed them as neither free nor fair in advance of the polls. The process cannot be either credible or inclusive while there are more than 2,000 political prisoners still in jail, and Aung San Suu Kyi is barred from taking part, stressed successive statements by American diplomats and government officials in the past few weeks.
"Burma's new election laws are a step backwards," Campbell's deputy, Marciel, who is the US envoy to ASEAN, told an Asia-Pacific security seminar in Washington on Friday. "They are effectively preventing the main opposition party from participating. This is the opposite of the path towards national reconciliation."
The American diplomat's visit was originally scheduled for a month ago when he was due to visit Myanmar on March 11 and 12 - during his extended trip to Asia in preparation for the US president's planned visit to the region. But this was canceled at short notice - virtually on the eve of the visit - with no reasons given, according to senior Burmese government officials.
One of the main reasons seems to have been that the US diplomat wanted to avoid being caught in the same embarrassing position Senator Jim Webb found himself in when he made his ground-breaking visit to Myanmar last August. He was allowed to escort out of the country the convicted US citizen, John Yettaw, who was seriously ill. The American had swum across a lake to Aung San Suu Kyi's house and entered the premises uninvited, which resulted in the opposition leader being sentenced to a further 18 months of house arrest.
The US government in recent months has taken up the case of the American citizen and Myanmar pro-democracy activist, Nyi Nyi Aung, who was sentenced to five years in jail after being arrested at Yangon airport last September. He is an 88 Generation student leader whom American consulate officials have visited regularly. In recent weeks, the campaign for his release has picked up steam - with increasing calls for his immediate release being made by the US Congress.
"Campbell canceled his visit at the last moment because he did not want to be 'Yettawed'," a former US diplomat told Asia Times Online, but declined to be identified.
A week after the aborted trip by the US secretary, the junta released Nyi Nyi Aung and allowed him to fly back to the US. Myanmar's state-run media announced the early release was because of the country's "friendship" with the US government.
"This goodwill gesture by the generals may be a key reason that Campbell's trip is back on," said a former US diplomat. "It is being seen as a sign that the junta is prepared to take engagement with Washington more seriously, as the last trip was an absolute disaster."
Campbell's latest planned visit comes at a crucial time - just after the NLD announced that "unjust" electoral laws made it impossible to re-register and contest the elections scheduled for some time this year. Under the registration law, anyone who is serving a prison sentence cannot be a member of a political party, which would mean expelling Aung San Suu Kyi who is currently serving a prison sentence under house arrest.
Campbell's main aim will be to renew the US's concerns about the elections not being free or fair by talking directly with the regime's leaders. He will try to impress on the junta that it is in their interests to make the electoral process credible. Campbell's visit, if dates can be agreed, will come soon after the ASEAN summit where the region's leaders will also try to get the Myanmar leaders to promise to fulfill their earlier promises - at previous regional gatherings - to have an election that meets international standards.
Than Shwe is concerned about mounting opposition across the world to the elections, a process which he wants to provide some measure of legitimacy to the "civilianized" government that emerges after the polls.
Many Asian countries are also already raising their concerns, both privately and publicly, with the regime about the elections. While they are likely to do so gently, the US will be more adamant in its approach, insisting that all political prisoners be released and Aung San Suu Kyi allowed to play a role in the electoral process.
The junta's top general may listen to the US more than to the region. Any concessions that could lead to an inclusive and credible election will be hard to wring out of the regime. What Campbell's trip will do is re-emphasize Washington's commitment to engaging the junta, which may produce some tangible results.
It was never going to be easy, Marciel confided to Asia Times Online, after their visit to Myanmar last November. "We predicted it would be a long and difficult process, and unfortunately we were right," he told journalists recently.
Larry Jagan previously covered Myanmar politics for the British Broadcasting Corp. He is currently a freelance journalist based in Bangkok.
Asia Times Online - US seeks thaw in ties with Myanmar
By Larry Jagan
BANGKOK - A senior American diplomat is expected to visit Myanmar in the near future to try to kick-start Washington's lagging engagement policy with the junta.
United States Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell is scheduled to arrive in Myanmar very soon, according to government officials in the capital, Naypyidaw. This is likely to be after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Hanoi and the visit of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, both later this week.
But senior US officials dismiss the planned trip as a "rumor".
"Neither Kurt Campbell nor I plan to visit Burma [Myanmar] next week," Scot Marciel, Campbell's deputy, told Asia Times Online. "We've said publicly that we have been working to find dates that would work for another visit, but nothing has been scheduled," he added.
"We are keen to get there and we have been talking to the Burmese about a visit, various dates have been discussed, but as of today we don't have any set dates," he said.
Nevertheless, the regime seems keen for the American diplomats to revisit Myanmar after their previous trip to the country in November. Arrangements are already being put into place for the visit - expected before the end of this month, according to Myanmar government officials.
When dates are finalized, this would be the US diplomat's second visit since US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a change in US policy towards the military regime last year - one of maintaining existing sanctions but at the same time engaging the generals in dialogue.
During Campbell's forthcoming trip he is expected to meet the detained pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, other leaders of her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), representatives of ethnic groups and key people in the junta.
Campbell failed to see the junta's top leader, General Than Shwe, on his previous visit to Myanmar but is expected to meet the senior general this time, according to senior military sources. The credibility of the forthcoming elections and the NLD's decision not to contest them will feature prominently during his talks both with the government and the opposition.
"We certainly are very concerned about the election laws and the situation facing the NLD," Marciel told Asia Times Online. "The laws put the opposition in a very difficult position."
Washington has already taken a hard line on the elections and dismissed them as neither free nor fair in advance of the polls. The process cannot be either credible or inclusive while there are more than 2,000 political prisoners still in jail, and Aung San Suu Kyi is barred from taking part, stressed successive statements by American diplomats and government officials in the past few weeks.
"Burma's new election laws are a step backwards," Campbell's deputy, Marciel, who is the US envoy to ASEAN, told an Asia-Pacific security seminar in Washington on Friday. "They are effectively preventing the main opposition party from participating. This is the opposite of the path towards national reconciliation."
The American diplomat's visit was originally scheduled for a month ago when he was due to visit Myanmar on March 11 and 12 - during his extended trip to Asia in preparation for the US president's planned visit to the region. But this was canceled at short notice - virtually on the eve of the visit - with no reasons given, according to senior Burmese government officials.
One of the main reasons seems to have been that the US diplomat wanted to avoid being caught in the same embarrassing position Senator Jim Webb found himself in when he made his ground-breaking visit to Myanmar last August. He was allowed to escort out of the country the convicted US citizen, John Yettaw, who was seriously ill. The American had swum across a lake to Aung San Suu Kyi's house and entered the premises uninvited, which resulted in the opposition leader being sentenced to a further 18 months of house arrest.
The US government in recent months has taken up the case of the American citizen and Myanmar pro-democracy activist, Nyi Nyi Aung, who was sentenced to five years in jail after being arrested at Yangon airport last September. He is an 88 Generation student leader whom American consulate officials have visited regularly. In recent weeks, the campaign for his release has picked up steam - with increasing calls for his immediate release being made by the US Congress.
"Campbell canceled his visit at the last moment because he did not want to be 'Yettawed'," a former US diplomat told Asia Times Online, but declined to be identified.
A week after the aborted trip by the US secretary, the junta released Nyi Nyi Aung and allowed him to fly back to the US. Myanmar's state-run media announced the early release was because of the country's "friendship" with the US government.
"This goodwill gesture by the generals may be a key reason that Campbell's trip is back on," said a former US diplomat. "It is being seen as a sign that the junta is prepared to take engagement with Washington more seriously, as the last trip was an absolute disaster."
Campbell's latest planned visit comes at a crucial time - just after the NLD announced that "unjust" electoral laws made it impossible to re-register and contest the elections scheduled for some time this year. Under the registration law, anyone who is serving a prison sentence cannot be a member of a political party, which would mean expelling Aung San Suu Kyi who is currently serving a prison sentence under house arrest.
Campbell's main aim will be to renew the US's concerns about the elections not being free or fair by talking directly with the regime's leaders. He will try to impress on the junta that it is in their interests to make the electoral process credible. Campbell's visit, if dates can be agreed, will come soon after the ASEAN summit where the region's leaders will also try to get the Myanmar leaders to promise to fulfill their earlier promises - at previous regional gatherings - to have an election that meets international standards.
Than Shwe is concerned about mounting opposition across the world to the elections, a process which he wants to provide some measure of legitimacy to the "civilianized" government that emerges after the polls.
Many Asian countries are also already raising their concerns, both privately and publicly, with the regime about the elections. While they are likely to do so gently, the US will be more adamant in its approach, insisting that all political prisoners be released and Aung San Suu Kyi allowed to play a role in the electoral process.
The junta's top general may listen to the US more than to the region. Any concessions that could lead to an inclusive and credible election will be hard to wring out of the regime. What Campbell's trip will do is re-emphasize Washington's commitment to engaging the junta, which may produce some tangible results.
It was never going to be easy, Marciel confided to Asia Times Online, after their visit to Myanmar last November. "We predicted it would be a long and difficult process, and unfortunately we were right," he told journalists recently.
Larry Jagan previously covered Myanmar politics for the British Broadcasting Corp. He is currently a freelance journalist based in Bangkok.
******************************************************
Bangkok Post - Burma urged to live up to promises
Published: 7/04/2010 at 10:58 PM
Online news: Breakingnews
Military-ruled Burma should live up to its commitments that elections planned for later this year would be free and democratic, Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said Wednesday.
"We see this as a potentially extremely important election,'' he told reporters after a dinner with his regional counterparts on the eve of an ASEAN summit.
"We've made references to the commitment by Burma that this will be an open, free, democratic and credible elections and we would like to see those kind of commitments realised,'' he added.
Natalegawa said discussions at the dinner were private and he was commenting on Indonesia's position in general.
Burma's opposition party, the National League for Democracy which is led by Aung San Suu Kyi, said last week it would boycott the ballot _ the first in two decades _ expected to be held later this year.
Under new electoral laws, the party would have to expel Suu Kyi if it wanted to participate because she is serving a prison term. The Nobel peace laureate has been detained for 14 of the last 20 years.
Japan, Australia and Britain have said that without her, the vote cannot be free and fair. The United States blamed the ruling junta for the opposition boycott, saying the regime had missed an opportunity to move forward.
ASEAN members have become divided on how to respond to Burma _ which is under European Union and United States sanctions _ but it has always escaped formal censure by the bloc which adheres to a principle of non-interference in internal affairs of its members.
Natalegawa said Indonesia, ASEAN's largest member, has always felt that Suu Kyi should be released from detention.
ASEAN's secretary general Surin Pitsuwan said Burma was discussed at the ministers' dinner, but only to encourage it to follow through on its promised "roadmap to democracy''.
More than 100 ASEAN lawmakers on Wednesday criticised Burma's election laws and urged leaders at the Vietnam summit to impose sanctions on the country and consider expelling it from the grouping.
Published: 7/04/2010 at 10:58 PM
Online news: Breakingnews
Military-ruled Burma should live up to its commitments that elections planned for later this year would be free and democratic, Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said Wednesday.
"We see this as a potentially extremely important election,'' he told reporters after a dinner with his regional counterparts on the eve of an ASEAN summit.
"We've made references to the commitment by Burma that this will be an open, free, democratic and credible elections and we would like to see those kind of commitments realised,'' he added.
Natalegawa said discussions at the dinner were private and he was commenting on Indonesia's position in general.
Burma's opposition party, the National League for Democracy which is led by Aung San Suu Kyi, said last week it would boycott the ballot _ the first in two decades _ expected to be held later this year.
Under new electoral laws, the party would have to expel Suu Kyi if it wanted to participate because she is serving a prison term. The Nobel peace laureate has been detained for 14 of the last 20 years.
Japan, Australia and Britain have said that without her, the vote cannot be free and fair. The United States blamed the ruling junta for the opposition boycott, saying the regime had missed an opportunity to move forward.
ASEAN members have become divided on how to respond to Burma _ which is under European Union and United States sanctions _ but it has always escaped formal censure by the bloc which adheres to a principle of non-interference in internal affairs of its members.
Natalegawa said Indonesia, ASEAN's largest member, has always felt that Suu Kyi should be released from detention.
ASEAN's secretary general Surin Pitsuwan said Burma was discussed at the ministers' dinner, but only to encourage it to follow through on its promised "roadmap to democracy''.
More than 100 ASEAN lawmakers on Wednesday criticised Burma's election laws and urged leaders at the Vietnam summit to impose sanctions on the country and consider expelling it from the grouping.
******************************************************
Wednesday April 7, 2010
The Star Online - They’re begging to stay alive
Stories by ELAN PERUMAL and CHRISTINA TAN
elan@thestar.com.my
THE Myanmar community in Klang who have made begging their livelihood claim that the lack of job opportunities has forced them to resort to it.
They said that their status as refugees — under the auspices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) — only allowed them to stay on temporarily in this country.
One of them, who wished to be known as Sofinah, 34, said she entered Malaysia with six children, adding that she got married at the age of 12.
She said her eldest son, who was 18, had left the family, adding that she had to fend for the other children, including an eight-month old.
“My mother is sick. My husband and I have to feed the family and pay rental for the home.
“We are not allowed to work or do business,” she said, adding that the children were also not allowed to attend government schools.
Her husband, Salim Mohamed, 51, who walks with the help of crutches, said the family was in a dilemma.
He said he had no choice but to join his wife “to beg for survival.”
“The UNHCR status has helped us to live safely in this country since we are not accepted back home but there is nothing much we can do here,” he said.
A 28-year-old beggar, who wished to be identified as Bahorosha, said she had four children aged between five and 13.
She claimed that her children attended a private school in the morning and only joined her in the afternoon.
Bahrosha said her husband had left her and she had to resort to begging.
“I’m worried for the future of my children, especially my three daughters,” she said.
“I cannot imagine what their future will be and pray that they will not have to continue begging for the rest of their lives,” said Bahrosha, who came to Malaysia when she was only two years old.
The Star Online - They’re begging to stay alive
Stories by ELAN PERUMAL and CHRISTINA TAN
elan@thestar.com.my
THE Myanmar community in Klang who have made begging their livelihood claim that the lack of job opportunities has forced them to resort to it.
They said that their status as refugees — under the auspices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) — only allowed them to stay on temporarily in this country.
One of them, who wished to be known as Sofinah, 34, said she entered Malaysia with six children, adding that she got married at the age of 12.
She said her eldest son, who was 18, had left the family, adding that she had to fend for the other children, including an eight-month old.
“My mother is sick. My husband and I have to feed the family and pay rental for the home.
“We are not allowed to work or do business,” she said, adding that the children were also not allowed to attend government schools.
Her husband, Salim Mohamed, 51, who walks with the help of crutches, said the family was in a dilemma.
He said he had no choice but to join his wife “to beg for survival.”
“The UNHCR status has helped us to live safely in this country since we are not accepted back home but there is nothing much we can do here,” he said.
A 28-year-old beggar, who wished to be identified as Bahorosha, said she had four children aged between five and 13.
She claimed that her children attended a private school in the morning and only joined her in the afternoon.
Bahrosha said her husband had left her and she had to resort to begging.
“I’m worried for the future of my children, especially my three daughters,” she said.
“I cannot imagine what their future will be and pray that they will not have to continue begging for the rest of their lives,” said Bahrosha, who came to Malaysia when she was only two years old.
******************************************************
The Statesman - Missing border pillars point to Myanmar mischief
5 April 2010
Endangered Eden, JB Lama
REPORTS of missing pillars along the Indo-Myanmarese border (in Manipur) hardly bestir the state government and it is not often that a political party takes an interest in such an issue. So it came as something of a surprise when, last month, a BJP state unit team led by its chief rushed to Moreh — 110 km from Imphal — on hearing that border pillar No 78 no longer existed. But during its meeting with some local people, it became all too clear that the team was not so much concerned about the pillar’s disappearance as the possible loss of two temples at the time of fixing border fencing.
Myanmar has reportedly laid claim to the area where the temples stand and these were said to have been built by Tamil settlers who have made Moreh their home after being forced out of Burma in the 1960s.
Neither New Delhi nor the Manipur government took serious note of Myanmar slowly nibbling away at Indian territory. Between 1971 and 1981 alone, Myanmar is said to have “annexed” 29 sq km of Manipur territory. Just how casually New Delhi took border demarcation was clear from the fact that when, after the 1953 deal between then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his counterpart, U Nu, Rangoon sent civil and military officials to supervise the fixing of border posts but India was represented by a clerk simply because the official team could not make it in time!
There had been frequent incursions by Myanmarese troops into Indian territory since the 1970s. The story of missing pillar No. 78 reminds one of Molcham village in Manipur’s Chandel district. Myanmar has laid claim to this village and has been forcibly collecting “house tax” from its residents. In 1992, Myanmarese army personnel intruded into the village and abducted 17 residents (some were later freed) on the pretext of apprehending “deserters”. The Manipur police outpost there stands merely as a symbol of India’s authority over the land and provide little protection to life and property. Molcham’s neglect is aggravated by the lack of connectivity — it takes two days from Imphal through Myanmarese territory to reach it!
In 1961, Myanmar occupied Molcham’s twin village of Tuivang (two square kilometres and 600 residents, mainly Kukis, Hmars and Mizos) simply by removing pillar No. 66 that marked the boundary between the two countries. Molcham possibly would have been lost to Myanmar but for the close watch kept by an apolitical Manipur Cultural Intregration Conference fondly nursed by the late Maharajkumar Priyabrata Singh. Following his tour of the Molcham area in 1982 and a report on it, a Central team visited the village in 1988 but that was the last one heard of it.
Only last month, the Myanmarese authorities reportedly detained three villagers from Ukhrul on charges of intruding into their territory and collecting timber. Such incidents are bound to occur time and again, and if the villagers along the border are to live in peace the boundaries must be properly demarcated.
The Indo-Myanmarse border suddenly became active in 1988 following the alleged “repression” by the military junta regime when several pro-democracy supporters fled the country and were provided shelter by the Manipur government on humanitarian grounds. One needs to remember that Moreh today is a booming multi-ethnic town and the exit-entry points of Indo-Myanmarese trade. This alone is why peace must be made to prevail along the border.
5 April 2010
Endangered Eden, JB Lama
REPORTS of missing pillars along the Indo-Myanmarese border (in Manipur) hardly bestir the state government and it is not often that a political party takes an interest in such an issue. So it came as something of a surprise when, last month, a BJP state unit team led by its chief rushed to Moreh — 110 km from Imphal — on hearing that border pillar No 78 no longer existed. But during its meeting with some local people, it became all too clear that the team was not so much concerned about the pillar’s disappearance as the possible loss of two temples at the time of fixing border fencing.
Myanmar has reportedly laid claim to the area where the temples stand and these were said to have been built by Tamil settlers who have made Moreh their home after being forced out of Burma in the 1960s.
Neither New Delhi nor the Manipur government took serious note of Myanmar slowly nibbling away at Indian territory. Between 1971 and 1981 alone, Myanmar is said to have “annexed” 29 sq km of Manipur territory. Just how casually New Delhi took border demarcation was clear from the fact that when, after the 1953 deal between then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his counterpart, U Nu, Rangoon sent civil and military officials to supervise the fixing of border posts but India was represented by a clerk simply because the official team could not make it in time!
There had been frequent incursions by Myanmarese troops into Indian territory since the 1970s. The story of missing pillar No. 78 reminds one of Molcham village in Manipur’s Chandel district. Myanmar has laid claim to this village and has been forcibly collecting “house tax” from its residents. In 1992, Myanmarese army personnel intruded into the village and abducted 17 residents (some were later freed) on the pretext of apprehending “deserters”. The Manipur police outpost there stands merely as a symbol of India’s authority over the land and provide little protection to life and property. Molcham’s neglect is aggravated by the lack of connectivity — it takes two days from Imphal through Myanmarese territory to reach it!
In 1961, Myanmar occupied Molcham’s twin village of Tuivang (two square kilometres and 600 residents, mainly Kukis, Hmars and Mizos) simply by removing pillar No. 66 that marked the boundary between the two countries. Molcham possibly would have been lost to Myanmar but for the close watch kept by an apolitical Manipur Cultural Intregration Conference fondly nursed by the late Maharajkumar Priyabrata Singh. Following his tour of the Molcham area in 1982 and a report on it, a Central team visited the village in 1988 but that was the last one heard of it.
Only last month, the Myanmarese authorities reportedly detained three villagers from Ukhrul on charges of intruding into their territory and collecting timber. Such incidents are bound to occur time and again, and if the villagers along the border are to live in peace the boundaries must be properly demarcated.
The Indo-Myanmarse border suddenly became active in 1988 following the alleged “repression” by the military junta regime when several pro-democracy supporters fled the country and were provided shelter by the Manipur government on humanitarian grounds. One needs to remember that Moreh today is a booming multi-ethnic town and the exit-entry points of Indo-Myanmarese trade. This alone is why peace must be made to prevail along the border.
******************************************************
Indonesia shares its experience with Myanmar on road to democracy
By Channel NewsAsia's Indonesia Bureau Chief Sujadi Siswo | Posted: 08 April 2010 0134 hrs
JAKARTA: This year's election in Myanmar should not be made into a make-or-break issue in the country's road to democracy, says Indonesia's Foreign Minister.
In an exclusive interview with Channel NewsAsia, Dr Marty Natalegawa said it is impossible to expect Myanmar to hold a perfectly democratic election right away.
Although not on the main agenda, the Myanmar issue is likely to get the attention of ASEAN leaders during their 16th annual summit in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Hanoi is sparing no effort to welcome leaders of the 10 ASEAN member countries for their annual gathering.
The implementation of the grouping's landmark Charter and the roadmap for the 2015 ASEAN community will be the main agenda.
But the upcoming election in Myanmar could also dominate discussions.
And Indonesia - which went through political reform a decade ago - is expected to share its views.
Its Foreign Minister visited Yangon recently and he came away with reservations about Myanmar's first election in two decades.
Under the country's new election laws, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party will have to expel her if it wants to take part in the polls.
Dr Marty said: "We are trying very hard to ascertain as to what extent this sets of laws are consistent or inadvertently impede the holding of a multi-party election, an inclusive one and the likes. So we are yet to be fully ... informed and fully come to a good judgment, conclusion as to whether in fact the two are necessarily inconsistent with one another."
But Indonesia believes there is still hope.
Dr Marty said: "We have been trying to encourage the authorities in Myanmar and other elements in Myanmar society to see one another as being part of the solution. We think the situation in Myanmar as it was in Indonesia before. It is not ripe for a solution that is an either or zero-sum relationship as if the ascendancy of one must be at the cost of the other."
Indonesia is comparing notes with the Myanmar government, having experienced its own historic transition to democracy.
And the military leaders in Yangon could possibly take a leaf from Jakarta's political reform.
Dr Marty added: "Now from the vantage point of 2010 - we would say wow! - even at that time even in 1999 we still have members of our armed forces sitting in parliament unelected. But over time the constitution was revised and reformed, and eventually we are where we are now.
"So we don't want to be trying to be going for the perfect in one go. It's step by step. The election should be the beginning of the solution to the situation ... beginning of a progress really to the situation in Myanmar, not to be the source of new problems."
ASEAN leaders meeting in Hanoi this week would probably whisper the same message to their Myanmar counterpart.
But after all is said and done, Myanmar would have to find answers to its own challenges. ASEAN would go as far as offering their views but will abide by its policy of non-interference in its members internal affairs - even if it hurts the grouping's image.
By Channel NewsAsia's Indonesia Bureau Chief Sujadi Siswo | Posted: 08 April 2010 0134 hrs
JAKARTA: This year's election in Myanmar should not be made into a make-or-break issue in the country's road to democracy, says Indonesia's Foreign Minister.
In an exclusive interview with Channel NewsAsia, Dr Marty Natalegawa said it is impossible to expect Myanmar to hold a perfectly democratic election right away.
Although not on the main agenda, the Myanmar issue is likely to get the attention of ASEAN leaders during their 16th annual summit in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Hanoi is sparing no effort to welcome leaders of the 10 ASEAN member countries for their annual gathering.
The implementation of the grouping's landmark Charter and the roadmap for the 2015 ASEAN community will be the main agenda.
But the upcoming election in Myanmar could also dominate discussions.
And Indonesia - which went through political reform a decade ago - is expected to share its views.
Its Foreign Minister visited Yangon recently and he came away with reservations about Myanmar's first election in two decades.
Under the country's new election laws, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party will have to expel her if it wants to take part in the polls.
Dr Marty said: "We are trying very hard to ascertain as to what extent this sets of laws are consistent or inadvertently impede the holding of a multi-party election, an inclusive one and the likes. So we are yet to be fully ... informed and fully come to a good judgment, conclusion as to whether in fact the two are necessarily inconsistent with one another."
But Indonesia believes there is still hope.
Dr Marty said: "We have been trying to encourage the authorities in Myanmar and other elements in Myanmar society to see one another as being part of the solution. We think the situation in Myanmar as it was in Indonesia before. It is not ripe for a solution that is an either or zero-sum relationship as if the ascendancy of one must be at the cost of the other."
Indonesia is comparing notes with the Myanmar government, having experienced its own historic transition to democracy.
And the military leaders in Yangon could possibly take a leaf from Jakarta's political reform.
Dr Marty added: "Now from the vantage point of 2010 - we would say wow! - even at that time even in 1999 we still have members of our armed forces sitting in parliament unelected. But over time the constitution was revised and reformed, and eventually we are where we are now.
"So we don't want to be trying to be going for the perfect in one go. It's step by step. The election should be the beginning of the solution to the situation ... beginning of a progress really to the situation in Myanmar, not to be the source of new problems."
ASEAN leaders meeting in Hanoi this week would probably whisper the same message to their Myanmar counterpart.
But after all is said and done, Myanmar would have to find answers to its own challenges. ASEAN would go as far as offering their views but will abide by its policy of non-interference in its members internal affairs - even if it hurts the grouping's image.
******************************************************
Strident demand from 100 ASEAN MPs to expel Burma
Wednesday, 07 April 2010 22:42 Mizzima News
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) - On the eve of the ASEAN summit in Vietnam, there is a strident demand from over 100 ASEAN Members of Parliament to expel Burma from ASEAN and impose sanctions because the junta has clearly ignored the plea to conduct free and fair elections, with the announcement of its harsh electoral laws.
“ASEAN leaders due to attend the summit in Hanoi, Vietnam on Thursday and Friday should make a forceful demand to the junta to make the forthcoming elections in Burma free and fair,” the MPs said.
About 105 MPs from Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Cambodia and Singapore sent the statement to the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC). The statement lambasted the junta’s harsh and convoluted electoral laws, which bar Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners from participating in the elections.
The National League for Democracy, Burma’s main opposition party has decided not to re-register the party with the Election Commission. If the party wanted to contest the election, it had to expel members, who are in prison, including party leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Clearly party members, who took the decision not to re-register, unanimously, were not in favour of taking the drastic step of expelling the democracy icon.
“With the one-sided electoral laws, clearly aimed at preventing opposition parties and candidates from contesting the elections, the regime has forfeited its best opportunity to show its willingness to engage in an inclusive process of national reconciliation and the establishment of a lawful and democratic government for the Union of Myanmar,” the statement said.
“The junta has ignored ASEAN’s demands, so, ASEAN should consider a more effective strategy,” the MPs said. “ASEAN should impose tight targeted sanctions on Burma,” they added.
The statement also said that Burma has always ignored the policies in the new ASEAN Charter, so ASEAN members should consider expelling Burma from ASEAN.
ASEAN cannot take action on Burma because of its policy of non-interference.
However, some ASEAN members have separately criticised the junta’s electoral laws and called for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Wednesday, 07 April 2010 22:42 Mizzima News
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) - On the eve of the ASEAN summit in Vietnam, there is a strident demand from over 100 ASEAN Members of Parliament to expel Burma from ASEAN and impose sanctions because the junta has clearly ignored the plea to conduct free and fair elections, with the announcement of its harsh electoral laws.
“ASEAN leaders due to attend the summit in Hanoi, Vietnam on Thursday and Friday should make a forceful demand to the junta to make the forthcoming elections in Burma free and fair,” the MPs said.
About 105 MPs from Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Cambodia and Singapore sent the statement to the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC). The statement lambasted the junta’s harsh and convoluted electoral laws, which bar Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners from participating in the elections.
The National League for Democracy, Burma’s main opposition party has decided not to re-register the party with the Election Commission. If the party wanted to contest the election, it had to expel members, who are in prison, including party leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Clearly party members, who took the decision not to re-register, unanimously, were not in favour of taking the drastic step of expelling the democracy icon.
“With the one-sided electoral laws, clearly aimed at preventing opposition parties and candidates from contesting the elections, the regime has forfeited its best opportunity to show its willingness to engage in an inclusive process of national reconciliation and the establishment of a lawful and democratic government for the Union of Myanmar,” the statement said.
“The junta has ignored ASEAN’s demands, so, ASEAN should consider a more effective strategy,” the MPs said. “ASEAN should impose tight targeted sanctions on Burma,” they added.
The statement also said that Burma has always ignored the policies in the new ASEAN Charter, so ASEAN members should consider expelling Burma from ASEAN.
ASEAN cannot take action on Burma because of its policy of non-interference.
However, some ASEAN members have separately criticised the junta’s electoral laws and called for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.
******************************************************
‘This is no free election. It is a charade.’
By THE IRRAWADDY - Wednesday, April 7, 2010
In this interview with The Irrawaddy, South African Archbishop Emeritus and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu, a long-time supporter of Burma’s democracy movement, offers encouragement to the country’s imprisoned activists and oppressed citizens—and an unsparing assessment of this year’s planned election.
QUESTION: The regime will hold an election this year and has just announced the election law. Many people doubt that the election will be free, fair and inclusive. How do you view the election?
ANSWER: This is no free election. It is a charade. How can you claim to hold a free democratic election when the leader of the main opposition party, which won a landslide victory in the last truly democratic and free election, is excluded and where the election commissioners will be handpicked by the junta? How could they ever be evenhanded? We are more likely to find snow in hell than free democratic elections in Burma under the present dispensation.
Q: What is your message to Aung San Suu Kyi and the more than 2,000 other political prisoners in Burma, and to the millions of oppressed people in the country who suffer at the hands of the regime?
A: My dear sister Nobel laureate, my dear sisters and brothers in Burma, we admire your courage and determination. This is a moral universe. Right and wrong matter. We used to tell our people even in the darkest times in South Africa that the perpetrators of injustice have already lost despite their guns and their military and police might. They have already lost because they are on the side of injustice, oppression and evil.
You are on the winning side. One day we will come to Rangoon to join you in your celebrations when you, my sister, are inaugurated as the true, freely elected leader of Burma just as Nelson Mandela came out of jail and became our leader. The perpetrators of injustice and oppression will bite the dust as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
Q: Under President Obama’s administration, the US has adopted a direct engagement policy with the Burmese regime. But so far, after numerous meetings, there are no signs of progress, only more repression. What are your thoughts on the US engagement policy?
A: It is just possible that after a tough sanctions policy, a softer approach just might bring about movement. I am somewhat doubtful and it seems Secretary Campbell [Assistant US Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell] has similar doubts. What we want is positive change and we will sing ‘Alleluia’ when Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners are released and democracy is given a real chance, by whatever means. That is the goal.
Q: In 2005, you and former Czech President Václav Havel commissioned a report calling for UN Security Council action against the junta. However, Burma’s neighbors continue to trade and engage the regime. What are your recommendations to the West, the UN and neighboring countries?
A: The aim surely must be to see democracy revived and flourishing in Burma. Remember what happened in South Africa. The apartheid government was intransigent, and we called for sanctions. Many Western governments did not heed our plea, including the Reagan administration. But when the US applied those sanctions, apartheid crumbled.
Sanctions when applied consistently do work, and they are a nonviolent means to end oppression. Governments should ask themselves, on whose side are we? If the opposition calls for sanctions, then who are outsiders to say, ‘Sanctions hurt the people we want to help?’
Q: There are consistent reports of human rights violations committed by the Burmese armed forces: rape and religious persecution in ethnic war zones and minority areas and forced recruitment of child soldiers, to name a few.
Do you see any way to apply more force or pressure to halt such abuses?
A: Yes: end the rule of the brutal military junta and impress on them that they are going to be indicted before the International Criminal Court for all their gross violations of human rights and their crimes against humanity.
By THE IRRAWADDY - Wednesday, April 7, 2010
In this interview with The Irrawaddy, South African Archbishop Emeritus and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu, a long-time supporter of Burma’s democracy movement, offers encouragement to the country’s imprisoned activists and oppressed citizens—and an unsparing assessment of this year’s planned election.
QUESTION: The regime will hold an election this year and has just announced the election law. Many people doubt that the election will be free, fair and inclusive. How do you view the election?
ANSWER: This is no free election. It is a charade. How can you claim to hold a free democratic election when the leader of the main opposition party, which won a landslide victory in the last truly democratic and free election, is excluded and where the election commissioners will be handpicked by the junta? How could they ever be evenhanded? We are more likely to find snow in hell than free democratic elections in Burma under the present dispensation.
Q: What is your message to Aung San Suu Kyi and the more than 2,000 other political prisoners in Burma, and to the millions of oppressed people in the country who suffer at the hands of the regime?
A: My dear sister Nobel laureate, my dear sisters and brothers in Burma, we admire your courage and determination. This is a moral universe. Right and wrong matter. We used to tell our people even in the darkest times in South Africa that the perpetrators of injustice have already lost despite their guns and their military and police might. They have already lost because they are on the side of injustice, oppression and evil.
You are on the winning side. One day we will come to Rangoon to join you in your celebrations when you, my sister, are inaugurated as the true, freely elected leader of Burma just as Nelson Mandela came out of jail and became our leader. The perpetrators of injustice and oppression will bite the dust as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
Q: Under President Obama’s administration, the US has adopted a direct engagement policy with the Burmese regime. But so far, after numerous meetings, there are no signs of progress, only more repression. What are your thoughts on the US engagement policy?
A: It is just possible that after a tough sanctions policy, a softer approach just might bring about movement. I am somewhat doubtful and it seems Secretary Campbell [Assistant US Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell] has similar doubts. What we want is positive change and we will sing ‘Alleluia’ when Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners are released and democracy is given a real chance, by whatever means. That is the goal.
Q: In 2005, you and former Czech President Václav Havel commissioned a report calling for UN Security Council action against the junta. However, Burma’s neighbors continue to trade and engage the regime. What are your recommendations to the West, the UN and neighboring countries?
A: The aim surely must be to see democracy revived and flourishing in Burma. Remember what happened in South Africa. The apartheid government was intransigent, and we called for sanctions. Many Western governments did not heed our plea, including the Reagan administration. But when the US applied those sanctions, apartheid crumbled.
Sanctions when applied consistently do work, and they are a nonviolent means to end oppression. Governments should ask themselves, on whose side are we? If the opposition calls for sanctions, then who are outsiders to say, ‘Sanctions hurt the people we want to help?’
Q: There are consistent reports of human rights violations committed by the Burmese armed forces: rape and religious persecution in ethnic war zones and minority areas and forced recruitment of child soldiers, to name a few.
Do you see any way to apply more force or pressure to halt such abuses?
A: Yes: end the rule of the brutal military junta and impress on them that they are going to be indicted before the International Criminal Court for all their gross violations of human rights and their crimes against humanity.
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The Irrawaddy - Child Displacement in Burma Documented
By LAWI WENG - Wednesday, April 7, 2010
In the ongoing military conflict in eastern Burma, children's lives are scarred by death, destruction, loss and neglect at the hands of Burmese junta troops, according to a joint report by the Free Burma Rangers and Partners released on Wednesday.
Based on the Thai-Burmese border, the Free Burma Rangers (FBR) and Partners released its findings in a report titled “Displaced Childhoods,” which chronicles conflict areas in eastern Burma
According to the report, in 2009 alone there were about 112,000 villages in eastern Burma displaced due to direct or indirect actions by the Burmese regime. Children are particularly at risk in displacement, according to the report.
From 2002 to the end of 2009, the report said that more than 580,000 civilians including more than 190,000 children have been forcibly displaced from their homes in eastern Burma. An estimated one to three million people live as internally displaced persons (IDPs) throughout Burma. A third of these are children.
The report documents how childhood is disrupted by violence, insecurity and poverty. Children are witnesses of and subject to arbitrary and extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment, arbitrary arrest and detention, rape and sexual violence, forced labor and conscription as porters, recruitment as child soldiers and restrictions on basic and fundamental freedoms.
Richard Chilvers, a FBR spokesperson, told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday, “We want to send a strong message that Burma must observe the rights for children because children are venerable in Burma. Particularly, children who are internally displaced.”
He said that the international community must put pressure on the regime and on the United Nations to enforce international standards of human rights inside Burma.
Saw Monkey, a videographer for FBR, said, “There is no peace, freedom and development in Karen State because of oppression.” He said that two children were shot dead and their mother was wounded in March in Ler Doh Township, Nyaunglebin District, in western Karen State.
He said the woman was returning home with her two children when Burmese troops in Light Infantry Battalion 369 shot her 5-year-old daughter at her side and her 5-month-old, who she carried on her back.
“The people live with fear all the time. Their life is always uncertain. Sometimes, when the army comes to a village, they have to run away. For children, they have to abandon their classes.”
The Partners and FBR teams collected information from 200 people affected by displacement in Burma through community-based surveys and border interviews and conducted 82 in-depth interviews along the Thai-Burmese border between June and December 2009.
The interviews included parents and grandparents as well as children from Arakan, Chin, Kachin, Karen, Karenni, Mon, and Shan states while living in junta-designated relocation sites, in cease-fire areas and in hiding. The FBR team surveyed more than 93 people from ethnic Karen and Shan communities, including 38 women and 46 children between July 2009 and January 2010.
David Eubank, the FBR director, said, “The dictators have committed their lives, fortune and honor to keeping power. If we want to be a part of freedom in Burma by resisting the power of hate with love, we can do no less. We love the people of Burma and stand with them, this is our heart. We believed that oppression is morally wrong, this is our mind.”
IDPs are typically forced to leave their villages, homes, farms and livelihoods with little advanced warning. The people find themselves in precariously unstable circumstances, lacking protection from human rights violations committed by the junta troops and in danger of further displacement with little access to the most basic necessities including adequate and sustainable food sources, clean drinking water, stable shelters, schools and healthcare facilities, according to the report.
The Partners and FBR have called for a formal investigation through a UN Commission of inquiry to evaluate all allegations of international crimes committed against the civilian population in Burma, including crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The groups said in a statement that according to the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, national authorities are responsible to prevent and avoid conditions that might lead to displacement of persons.
Far from the fulfilling its obligations under international law, the actions of the Burmese regime have led to violent attacks on civilians, irresponsible development projects and widespread human rights abuses which have resulted in new instances of displacement throughout the country, according to the statement.
By LAWI WENG - Wednesday, April 7, 2010
In the ongoing military conflict in eastern Burma, children's lives are scarred by death, destruction, loss and neglect at the hands of Burmese junta troops, according to a joint report by the Free Burma Rangers and Partners released on Wednesday.
Based on the Thai-Burmese border, the Free Burma Rangers (FBR) and Partners released its findings in a report titled “Displaced Childhoods,” which chronicles conflict areas in eastern Burma
According to the report, in 2009 alone there were about 112,000 villages in eastern Burma displaced due to direct or indirect actions by the Burmese regime. Children are particularly at risk in displacement, according to the report.
From 2002 to the end of 2009, the report said that more than 580,000 civilians including more than 190,000 children have been forcibly displaced from their homes in eastern Burma. An estimated one to three million people live as internally displaced persons (IDPs) throughout Burma. A third of these are children.
The report documents how childhood is disrupted by violence, insecurity and poverty. Children are witnesses of and subject to arbitrary and extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment, arbitrary arrest and detention, rape and sexual violence, forced labor and conscription as porters, recruitment as child soldiers and restrictions on basic and fundamental freedoms.
Richard Chilvers, a FBR spokesperson, told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday, “We want to send a strong message that Burma must observe the rights for children because children are venerable in Burma. Particularly, children who are internally displaced.”
He said that the international community must put pressure on the regime and on the United Nations to enforce international standards of human rights inside Burma.
Saw Monkey, a videographer for FBR, said, “There is no peace, freedom and development in Karen State because of oppression.” He said that two children were shot dead and their mother was wounded in March in Ler Doh Township, Nyaunglebin District, in western Karen State.
He said the woman was returning home with her two children when Burmese troops in Light Infantry Battalion 369 shot her 5-year-old daughter at her side and her 5-month-old, who she carried on her back.
“The people live with fear all the time. Their life is always uncertain. Sometimes, when the army comes to a village, they have to run away. For children, they have to abandon their classes.”
The Partners and FBR teams collected information from 200 people affected by displacement in Burma through community-based surveys and border interviews and conducted 82 in-depth interviews along the Thai-Burmese border between June and December 2009.
The interviews included parents and grandparents as well as children from Arakan, Chin, Kachin, Karen, Karenni, Mon, and Shan states while living in junta-designated relocation sites, in cease-fire areas and in hiding. The FBR team surveyed more than 93 people from ethnic Karen and Shan communities, including 38 women and 46 children between July 2009 and January 2010.
David Eubank, the FBR director, said, “The dictators have committed their lives, fortune and honor to keeping power. If we want to be a part of freedom in Burma by resisting the power of hate with love, we can do no less. We love the people of Burma and stand with them, this is our heart. We believed that oppression is morally wrong, this is our mind.”
IDPs are typically forced to leave their villages, homes, farms and livelihoods with little advanced warning. The people find themselves in precariously unstable circumstances, lacking protection from human rights violations committed by the junta troops and in danger of further displacement with little access to the most basic necessities including adequate and sustainable food sources, clean drinking water, stable shelters, schools and healthcare facilities, according to the report.
The Partners and FBR have called for a formal investigation through a UN Commission of inquiry to evaluate all allegations of international crimes committed against the civilian population in Burma, including crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The groups said in a statement that according to the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, national authorities are responsible to prevent and avoid conditions that might lead to displacement of persons.
Far from the fulfilling its obligations under international law, the actions of the Burmese regime have led to violent attacks on civilians, irresponsible development projects and widespread human rights abuses which have resulted in new instances of displacement throughout the country, according to the statement.
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The Irrawaddy - Burma Not on UN Agenda for April
By LALIT K. JHA - Wednesday, April 7, 2010
WASHINGTON — Burma failed to appear on the April agenda of the UN Security Council, apparently because of a lack of consensus among its members, as its president for the month, Ambassador Yukio Takasu of Japan, released the council’s schedule.
Takasu, speaking at UN headquarters in New York, said Japan was disappointed by the electoral laws recently released by the Burmese military junta, which disqualified political prisoners and failed to provide for a free and fair election.
Takasu said the view of the Japanese government has been communicated to the junta by Japan’s Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada.
“This disappointment has been communicated very directly from Foreign Minister Okada himself, and that was conveyed to the very senior people in the Myanmar leadership,” said the Japanese ambassador.
While acknowledging that Burma once again did not find a place on the security council's agenda, he said there is broad support for the role of the UN secretary-general's good offices on Burma.
Takasu said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has been communicating with the Burmese leaders and government.
Noting that Burma has made some “progress in democratization,” the Japanese ambassador was quick to note that the general election, sometime later this year, should be fair, inclusive and credible.
“I think there is broad support for that. What has happened since the publication of the electoral law including this disqualification of certain categories of people….. it will not be a good basis for an inclusive and credible election,” he said.
“As far as Japan is concerned, we regret [it] very much, because at a very senior level we have been talking very closely, and we were hoping that this forthcoming general election would be not only free and fair but inclusive. However, because of the legal impediment...I don't think this is inclusive,” Takasu said.
By LALIT K. JHA - Wednesday, April 7, 2010
WASHINGTON — Burma failed to appear on the April agenda of the UN Security Council, apparently because of a lack of consensus among its members, as its president for the month, Ambassador Yukio Takasu of Japan, released the council’s schedule.
Takasu, speaking at UN headquarters in New York, said Japan was disappointed by the electoral laws recently released by the Burmese military junta, which disqualified political prisoners and failed to provide for a free and fair election.
Takasu said the view of the Japanese government has been communicated to the junta by Japan’s Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada.
“This disappointment has been communicated very directly from Foreign Minister Okada himself, and that was conveyed to the very senior people in the Myanmar leadership,” said the Japanese ambassador.
While acknowledging that Burma once again did not find a place on the security council's agenda, he said there is broad support for the role of the UN secretary-general's good offices on Burma.
Takasu said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has been communicating with the Burmese leaders and government.
Noting that Burma has made some “progress in democratization,” the Japanese ambassador was quick to note that the general election, sometime later this year, should be fair, inclusive and credible.
“I think there is broad support for that. What has happened since the publication of the electoral law including this disqualification of certain categories of people….. it will not be a good basis for an inclusive and credible election,” he said.
“As far as Japan is concerned, we regret [it] very much, because at a very senior level we have been talking very closely, and we were hoping that this forthcoming general election would be not only free and fair but inclusive. However, because of the legal impediment...I don't think this is inclusive,” Takasu said.
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DVB News - Sean Turnell: ‘The US is angry’
By FRANCIS WADE
Published: 7 April 2010
A massive shift in the character of Burma’s economy is currently underway, with the government in recent months selling off swathes of state-owned industry to private businessowners. Some observers have said that this is an attempt to liberalise the struggling economy, while others claim that it is sowing the seeds of a post-election ruling oligarchy.
Burma economics expert, Sean Turnell, from Australia’s Macquarie University, tells DVB however that the reasons are manifold, but all point towards a feeling that government ministers and cronies are uneasy about their place in a post-election Burma.
Industry continues to be privatised in Burma at an alarming rate. What do you think are the reasons behind this?
I think it’s a couple of things: first, I think it’s about divvying up assets – everyone knows that the regime will come back after the elections, but individual members within the regime will be less certain of their position and their family’s economic position so they’ll want to grab some sort of economic future and grabb what they can, while they can. Neither government members nor businesspeople close to the junta are certain of how they individually will fare [after the elections].
There are other reports we’re getting that the regime is short of cash at the moment – probably a short-term thing with the channelling of funds to the [pro-junta organisation] USDA and other parties – but also given that the regime keeps its gas money offshore, the domestic fiscal position is still pretty bad, regardless of the need for various election bribes. A third thing is that there is some pretence that this is part of a liberal economic reform, although we can see from the nature of it that there’s no liberalisation or any deep-seated reforms in the industry; it’s just a conversion of state monopolies into private ones.
Do you share concerns that a murky oligarchy is being formed?
Yes, absolutely. Also, however badly they mismanage the economy, members of the regime and people connected to it have been pretty clever in ensuring that they’re OK. A casual glance around the world at other regimes suggests that if you’re going to try and get hold of economic power, now [around the elections] is the time to do it, rather than a time when potential populists could emerge – why couldn’t there emerge a Burmese version of [former Thai prime minister] Thaksin Sinawatra, divvying up all the assets for the people? I’ve also heard that the privatisation was about taking liquidity from the private sector; that some people in the private sector didn’t want these assets and were just taking money out of the private sector in this election period and empowering the elites.
Given the transformation of the economy and massive overseas investments, is it time for the West to reconsider sanctions?
Well I think it’s time to toughen them up, but just the financial sanctions. With the substantial money the junta is making from gas, it’s either now wasting it or it’s keeping it in offshore accounts where various people can access it. So the financial sanctions are quite important, and I’d like to see the US and other countries if anything increase their financial sanctions, not just as a way of pressuring the regime and trying to change their incentives, but as a way of just tracking the funds. The US should appoint someone to coordinate other governments and so on so that we just get a better idea of where the money is going and putting pressure on some of the financial jurisdictions that we know the money is sitting in. So I think the investments do give the regime a bit more room to manoeuvre and fob off the West but also it lifts the opportunities of the West to ramp up the financial side of sanctions.
What is the mood like in the US having achieved little from engaging with the junta?
When I was there in September last year and all the talk was of a change in US policy that would probably entail some lessening of sanctions in exchange for concessions from the regime. This time, very different, a great deal of anger, on Capitol Hill especially, and a real feeling of having been rebuffed; that the hand had been extended and they were getting nothing. If anything, they felt that the regime had gone out of its way to make the situation that little bit more uncomfortable, such as the arrest of Nyi Nyi Aung and in particular the change in the electoral laws. The US saw Suu Kyi’s expulsion as unnecessary – going that extra distance was seen as excessive. And in that context the whole question of leveraging up financial sanctions is really on the table and that was the dominant conversation I had while I was over there.
Are you surprised that so much foreign investment is going into Burma, given the instability of the market?
I don’t doubt for a second that there will be a lot of money lost, but I never cease to be amazed at China’s appetite for energy, and this has been demonstrated time and again that they will pay over the odds for anything – it’s quite extraordinary. There’s also this desire to tie-up resources for the longer term – with China it’s more or less a constant story of giving themselves strategic options.
How do you feel the China-ASEAN free trade agreement will affect Burma?
I would only echo fears that it could scupper Burma’s development, but unless things dramatically change, the horse has bolted on that one. Burma’s consumer industries are so dominated by Chinese goods that there really is no private sector in Burma of any significance and Burmese state-owned industries are totally out-classed by Chinese imports. So really Burma doesn’t need this trade agreement. I think the biggest barrier to the flow of goods in Burma is internal: the various checkpoints along the border and extraction of informal taxes and fines are the biggest barrier.
By FRANCIS WADE
Published: 7 April 2010
A massive shift in the character of Burma’s economy is currently underway, with the government in recent months selling off swathes of state-owned industry to private businessowners. Some observers have said that this is an attempt to liberalise the struggling economy, while others claim that it is sowing the seeds of a post-election ruling oligarchy.
Burma economics expert, Sean Turnell, from Australia’s Macquarie University, tells DVB however that the reasons are manifold, but all point towards a feeling that government ministers and cronies are uneasy about their place in a post-election Burma.
Industry continues to be privatised in Burma at an alarming rate. What do you think are the reasons behind this?
I think it’s a couple of things: first, I think it’s about divvying up assets – everyone knows that the regime will come back after the elections, but individual members within the regime will be less certain of their position and their family’s economic position so they’ll want to grab some sort of economic future and grabb what they can, while they can. Neither government members nor businesspeople close to the junta are certain of how they individually will fare [after the elections].
There are other reports we’re getting that the regime is short of cash at the moment – probably a short-term thing with the channelling of funds to the [pro-junta organisation] USDA and other parties – but also given that the regime keeps its gas money offshore, the domestic fiscal position is still pretty bad, regardless of the need for various election bribes. A third thing is that there is some pretence that this is part of a liberal economic reform, although we can see from the nature of it that there’s no liberalisation or any deep-seated reforms in the industry; it’s just a conversion of state monopolies into private ones.
Do you share concerns that a murky oligarchy is being formed?
Yes, absolutely. Also, however badly they mismanage the economy, members of the regime and people connected to it have been pretty clever in ensuring that they’re OK. A casual glance around the world at other regimes suggests that if you’re going to try and get hold of economic power, now [around the elections] is the time to do it, rather than a time when potential populists could emerge – why couldn’t there emerge a Burmese version of [former Thai prime minister] Thaksin Sinawatra, divvying up all the assets for the people? I’ve also heard that the privatisation was about taking liquidity from the private sector; that some people in the private sector didn’t want these assets and were just taking money out of the private sector in this election period and empowering the elites.
Given the transformation of the economy and massive overseas investments, is it time for the West to reconsider sanctions?
Well I think it’s time to toughen them up, but just the financial sanctions. With the substantial money the junta is making from gas, it’s either now wasting it or it’s keeping it in offshore accounts where various people can access it. So the financial sanctions are quite important, and I’d like to see the US and other countries if anything increase their financial sanctions, not just as a way of pressuring the regime and trying to change their incentives, but as a way of just tracking the funds. The US should appoint someone to coordinate other governments and so on so that we just get a better idea of where the money is going and putting pressure on some of the financial jurisdictions that we know the money is sitting in. So I think the investments do give the regime a bit more room to manoeuvre and fob off the West but also it lifts the opportunities of the West to ramp up the financial side of sanctions.
What is the mood like in the US having achieved little from engaging with the junta?
When I was there in September last year and all the talk was of a change in US policy that would probably entail some lessening of sanctions in exchange for concessions from the regime. This time, very different, a great deal of anger, on Capitol Hill especially, and a real feeling of having been rebuffed; that the hand had been extended and they were getting nothing. If anything, they felt that the regime had gone out of its way to make the situation that little bit more uncomfortable, such as the arrest of Nyi Nyi Aung and in particular the change in the electoral laws. The US saw Suu Kyi’s expulsion as unnecessary – going that extra distance was seen as excessive. And in that context the whole question of leveraging up financial sanctions is really on the table and that was the dominant conversation I had while I was over there.
Are you surprised that so much foreign investment is going into Burma, given the instability of the market?
I don’t doubt for a second that there will be a lot of money lost, but I never cease to be amazed at China’s appetite for energy, and this has been demonstrated time and again that they will pay over the odds for anything – it’s quite extraordinary. There’s also this desire to tie-up resources for the longer term – with China it’s more or less a constant story of giving themselves strategic options.
How do you feel the China-ASEAN free trade agreement will affect Burma?
I would only echo fears that it could scupper Burma’s development, but unless things dramatically change, the horse has bolted on that one. Burma’s consumer industries are so dominated by Chinese goods that there really is no private sector in Burma of any significance and Burmese state-owned industries are totally out-classed by Chinese imports. So really Burma doesn’t need this trade agreement. I think the biggest barrier to the flow of goods in Burma is internal: the various checkpoints along the border and extraction of informal taxes and fines are the biggest barrier.
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US echoes Burma opposition ‘failures’
By KHIN HNIN HTET
Published: 7 April 2010
US diplomats have reportedly admitted to Burma’s main opposition party that Washington’s shift towards engagement with the ruling junta has achieved nothing.
Two officials from the US embassy in Rangoon visited the National League for Democracy (NLD) party’s headquarters yesterday where they asserted the US government’s disappointment with recently announced election laws.
“[The officials] also made a little acknowledgement that their attempt to improve the situation by making contact with the [junta] has not yet achieved anything,” said NLD vice-chairman Tin Oo.
It coincided with a statement released yesterday by the NLD in which it made a frank apology for its failure to overturn military rule in Burma. The NLD decided last month not to contest elections this year, a move that will see the party legally abolished.
The statement said that all efforts over the past 20 years to create dialogue with the junta and to convene a parliament and draft a democratic constitution had “totally failed”.
The two acknowledgments together provide a stark reminder of the intransigence of the Burmese junta, which appears set to hold onto power following the elections under the guise of a civilian government.
Sean Turnell, an Australian-based Burma economics expert who has made several trips to the US to meet with government officials in the past six months, said there had been a sea change in attitude in the US since the excitement that surrounded the policy shift in September last year.
“[Now] there is a great deal of anger, on Capitol Hill especially, and a real feeling of having been rebuffed; that the hand had been extended and they were getting nothing,” he said. “If anything, [the US felt that] the regime had gone out of its way to make the situation that little bit more uncomfortable.”
Washington announced in September that it would seek engagement with Burma following years of an isolationist policy that bore few results. A number of subsequent acts by the junta, such as the imprisonment of US citizen Nyi Nyi Aung, have however thrown sand in the faces of the US policymakers who first pushed the idea of dialogue.
The NLD’s boycott of the elections has received mixed reactions. While some observers and the majority of the international community have supported the move, others have argued that the party should have taken advantage of the looming transition, however superficial it is, to gain greater leeway in Burmese politics.
By KHIN HNIN HTET
Published: 7 April 2010
US diplomats have reportedly admitted to Burma’s main opposition party that Washington’s shift towards engagement with the ruling junta has achieved nothing.
Two officials from the US embassy in Rangoon visited the National League for Democracy (NLD) party’s headquarters yesterday where they asserted the US government’s disappointment with recently announced election laws.
“[The officials] also made a little acknowledgement that their attempt to improve the situation by making contact with the [junta] has not yet achieved anything,” said NLD vice-chairman Tin Oo.
It coincided with a statement released yesterday by the NLD in which it made a frank apology for its failure to overturn military rule in Burma. The NLD decided last month not to contest elections this year, a move that will see the party legally abolished.
The statement said that all efforts over the past 20 years to create dialogue with the junta and to convene a parliament and draft a democratic constitution had “totally failed”.
The two acknowledgments together provide a stark reminder of the intransigence of the Burmese junta, which appears set to hold onto power following the elections under the guise of a civilian government.
Sean Turnell, an Australian-based Burma economics expert who has made several trips to the US to meet with government officials in the past six months, said there had been a sea change in attitude in the US since the excitement that surrounded the policy shift in September last year.
“[Now] there is a great deal of anger, on Capitol Hill especially, and a real feeling of having been rebuffed; that the hand had been extended and they were getting nothing,” he said. “If anything, [the US felt that] the regime had gone out of its way to make the situation that little bit more uncomfortable.”
Washington announced in September that it would seek engagement with Burma following years of an isolationist policy that bore few results. A number of subsequent acts by the junta, such as the imprisonment of US citizen Nyi Nyi Aung, have however thrown sand in the faces of the US policymakers who first pushed the idea of dialogue.
The NLD’s boycott of the elections has received mixed reactions. While some observers and the majority of the international community have supported the move, others have argued that the party should have taken advantage of the looming transition, however superficial it is, to gain greater leeway in Burmese politics.
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