Suu Kyi’s house renovation approved

By Nan Kham Khew

Rangoon municipal authorities have given the go-ahead for renovations on the house-cum-prison of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Her lawyer, Nyan Win, said that Suu Kyi’s representative, Htin Kyaw, was informed by the municipal department yesterday morning that the renovation had been approved.

He said that lawyers had requested a meeting with authorities to discuss the renovation. Suu Kyi’s estranged brother, Aung San Oo, had claimed part-ownership of the house, which was handed down from their mother, Daw Khin Gyi, and tried to block the work, but courts threw out his case.

Judges argued that his status as a US citizen made it illegal for him to own property in Burma.

“We sent a letter to the police’s Special Intelligence Department calling for a meeting between Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, her lawyers and the architects regarding the house renovation,” said Nyan Win.

Work had already begun on the house last year after US citizen John Yettaw managed to enter her property after swimming across Inya lake. The work, aimed at boosting the security of the house, was temporarily delayed in December however after the intervention by Suu Kyi’s brother.

Her estranged cousin, Khin Maung Aye, had earlier last year also lodged a claim to ownership of the property. There had been speculation that the retired army officer would sell the plot of land to government cronies, although nothing came of it.

Suu Kyi has been kept under house arrest in the property along Rangoon’s University Avenue for 14 of the past 20 years. Her house arrest conditions mean that visits from anyone other than her lawyers and doctor are prohibited.

Reference:

This is from DVb (Democratic Voice of Burma) by the author Nan Kham Khwe.

My opinion:

If they do not permit the house renovation, they totally become animals without reasoning!!!!

Burmese get a whiff of UK elections

By France Wade

The furore surrounding Gordon Brown’s “bigoted woman” slip-up and Nick Clegg’s rise from the ashes to stardom are all being beamed at Burma’s young voters as part of a BBC ‘connecting’ initiative.

With Burma due this year hold its first elections since 1990, and the UK heading to the polls in a week’s time, the BBC Burmese service has said it is “specifically [targeting] Burma’s young people who have never voted”.

Although critics have derided the Burmese elections as a sham, some observers say that any window of opportunity for change in the country, however slight, should be exploited. Burma has been ruled by a military dictatorship since 1962.

“The BBC Burmese journalists report on the UK parliamentary system, the relationship between the UK government and the opposition parties, why people vote and whether they vote for the personality or for electoral platform,” it said.

Much of this however will fall flat on Burmese ears, given the ruling junta’s success in blocking any viable opposition from running for office. The National League for Democracy party, headed by imprisoned Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, was forced to boycott the elections after laws were announced which prevented Suu Kyi from participating.

The BBC is one of only three non-state television broadcasters in Burma, along with Voice of America (VOA) and DVB; around 10 million people tune into DVB’s radio and television broadcasts each day.

The 32-language BBC World Service, of which BBC Burmese is one, says that it has “mounted extensive programming, making the connection between the UK’s key political event on the one hand, and the lives of people around the world on the other”.

“The international broadcaster is placing UK election 2010 in the context of the issues relevant and important to its audience across platforms, across languages, across regions.”

The director of BBC Global News also noted that international audiences will want to “discuss and debate the impact the UK votes may have on their lives”. While the UK’s sporadic criticism of the Burmese government is often drowned out by vociferous berating from Washington, Britain maintains strict sanctions on the Burmese generals and provides funding for aid groups along the Thai-Burma border.

Many Central Asian and Arabic countries are also being targeted by the initiative, which includes “a look at how the elections work in a Western democracy, how the opposition functions, what are the forces influencing UK politics and politicians,” and more.

Burma has one of the world’s harshest media environments, and regularly imprisons journalists deemed guilty of dissent against the ruling junta. Non-state media workers are viewed as the ‘third pillar’ in the pro-democracy movement; the apparent threat they pose to the junta’s grip on power is epitomised by the 14 now serving jail sentences, some as long as 35 years.

Reference:

This is from DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) by the author France Wade.

My opinion:

Having one of the world's harshest media environments-imprisoning journalists against the ruling junta-is really terrible and disgusting.

Burmese junta ‘politicising post-Nargis aid’

By Joseph Allchin

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) today warned at the launch of a report that aid workers inside Burma were still “feeling the brunt of continued repression” by the junta, two years after cyclone Nargis.

The report was launched ahead of the two-year anniversary of the cyclone, which struck southern Burma on 2 May, leaving 140,000 people dead and severely affecting 2.4 million. The report, ‘I Want to Help My Own People’, is based on 135 interviews with survivors, aid workers and eye-witnesses.

Elaine Pearson, deputy director of HRW Asia, said that while it is clear that more aid is required for Burma, the junta remained overly restrictive towards aid workers in the cyclone-stricken Irrawaddy delta.

She further noted that Burma was an “impoverished mess” following the cyclone and that there was a serious budget shortfall when it came to aid. Moreover, the junta is spending too little on social welfare concerns, such as health and education, whilst spending 40 percent of the government budget on the military, and failing to invest the massive revenues made from natural gas into such humanitarian projects.

The military’s initial response to the cyclone was heavily criticised after they blocked foreign aid from entering the country, often citing fears of a foreign invasion.

HRW’s Burma analyst, David Mathieson, noted two years on however that: “Burmese civil society saved the day”, and he renewed calls for the release of political prisoners “in the strongest terms”, with around 20 Nargis recovery workers currently in jail.

Successes were noted however as HRW found that the agriculture sector had shown signs of recovery and that, after massive international pressure, an “unprecedented influx of humanitarian assistance”. Mathieson said however that progress and successes of the aid-coordinating Tripartite Core Group, made up of the UN, ASEAN and the Burmese government, “should not excuse the disgraceful actions of the junta”.

The scale of needs was found to be large due to years of neglect by the ruling junta. “The humanitarian needs of Burma’s people for food, clean water, and basic healthcare are immense because the military government has for so long mismanaged the economy,” said Pearson.

It was also found that the military were more concerned with their “sham political process”, as Pearson called the run-up to this year’s election, than with aid and distribution supposedly used for political ends.

Mathieson noted also that “the [pro-government] USDA had a major role in pretending to have a major role helping out” after the cyclone, “whilst food supplies were dangled as an incentive to vote yes,” in the 2008 constitution referendum. The constitution was rushed through in the days followig the cyclone, and showed “how callous the regime really is – the vote was more important than helping the people”.

These calls came after concerns emerged last month that donor agencies from Europe were having problems due to EU sanctions on the junta, which had at times allegedly prevented agencies from purchasing commodities such as timber. A press notice from the UK parliament noted that “aid efforts have stalled”.

Reference:

This is from DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) by the author Joseph Allchin.

My opinion:

It is really inhumane of the junta to ignore those who suffer from Nargis cyclone and to block aids to them from foreign countries. Only because of locals who can donate basic stuff to those cyclone sufferers and who can do as aid workers, those in some areas hit by Nargis cyclone get relief. I'm sorry for all of them.

Suicide bomber targets Burmese police

By Agence France-Press

A man being interrogated by police in Burma detonated a bomb, killing himself and wounding four officers in eastern Karenni state, residents and officials said Wednesday.

The bomb Tuesday was the latest in a series of explosions to hit the military-ruled nation in recent weeks, as the reclusive junta government prepares to hold the country’s first elections in 20 years.

“A man about 30 years old exploded the bomb and killed himself. Four police beside him were injured during the blast at the police station,” a resident of Loikaw town in Karenni state told AFP, requesting anonymity.

“We do not know how he exploded the bomb,” he said.

An official confirmed the blast and casualties in Loikaw, 400 kilometres (250 miles) from Burma’s economic hub Rangoon.

“He had been taken to the police station for questioning as a suspect. Nobody suspected he would do this,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

It was unclear exactly why he was taken for questioning and if he had intentionally committed suicide.

Also Tuesday, a series of grenade blasts hit a hydropower plant under construction in neighbouring Bago province, run by Burmese company Asia World Construction.

Another of the company’s projects, a controversial dam in Kachin state, was hit by a series of bombs blasts earlier this month, injuring one engineer.

Three other bombs on 15 April hit a water festival in Rangoon, in the city’s worst attack in five years. The official death toll from that attack has now risen to 10 people, with at least 170 wounded.

Authorities have arrested suspects in relation to the Rangoon blasts, officials said, but declined to give further details while investigations were ongoing.

Burma has been hit by several bomb blasts in recent years which the junta has blamed on armed exile groups or ethnic rebels.

The latest attacks come as the country prepares for polls, planned for the end of this year, which critics have dismissed as a sham due to the effective barring of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as she is a serving prisoner.

The military has ruled Burma since 1962, partly justifying its grip on power by the need to fend off ethnic rebellions that have plagued remote border areas for decades.

Armed minorities in Karen and Shan states continue to fight the government along the country’s eastern border, alleging they are subject to neglect and mistreatment.

Reference:

This is from DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) by the author Agence France-Press.

My opinion:

It is true that there have been successive bombings in Burma lately because of the instability of everything in Burma.

Karen army takes blame for grenade attack

By Naw Noreen

One of Burma’s biggest ethnic armies, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), has claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s grenade attack on a hydropower plant in eastern Burma’s Karenni state.

The attack on the Thaukyegat plant, run by the Asian World Corporation, injured four workers. Saw Mae Ae Sein, commander of KNLA Brigade 2, said that an elite unit was yesterday sent to the dam site to carry out the attack.

The dam, currently under construction, has typically caused controversy and led to a militarisation of the surrounding area as the army looks to secure swathes of land for the project.

“There are concerns for the local’s survival; locals have been facing threats of shootings, oppression, forced labour, torture and forced relocation,” he said.

He added that the Karen army, which has been waging a 60-year civil war against the Burmese government, “had to strike because if we didn’t, the district would not survive.”

Troops from the 10,000-strong KNLA launched rockets and heavy weapons at the dam site, while the Burmese army returned fire. The fight last for about an hour, Saw Mae Ae Sein said.

“There were no casualties on our side but there were some on the government side, as well as some damage to their buildings.”

He said that the KNLA had not intended to injure civilians, “but militarily, it was unavoidable as they were at the site working for the government. Besides, it was likely that they were just people handpicked by the government to work at the site.”

Construction on Thaukyegat hydropower project begun in 2003. Saw Mae Ae Sein said that around 30 villages and nearly 100,000 people will be impacted by the dam.

Asia World Corporation came under attack earlier this month close to the site of another controversial dam in Burma’s northernmost Kachin state. Three bombs exploded inside the company’s compound close to the Myitsone dam, 18 miles north of the Kachin state capital, Myitkyina. Four Asia World employees were killed.

Reference:

This is from DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) by the author Naw Noreen.

My opinion:

The ruling junta pretends to do something good for the civilians but in reality, he does everything for his good, hurting the locals and residents, and ignoring them. He does this by blaming others if something bad happens (He might be the one who actually does these bad things) and by praising himself, the army and his own group if something good happens.

Burmese blogger wins top US award

By France Wade

Imprisoned Burmese blogger Nay Phone Latt, whose role in disseminating news of the September 2007 uprising in Burma won him international applaud, has received the prestigious PEN/Barbara Goldsmith award.

Speaking prior the award ceremony last night in New York, PEN president Kwame Anthony Appiah said that Nay Phone Latt, who was arrested in January 2008 and sentenced to 20 years in prison, “represents a younger generation of Burmese who are longing for freedom and willing to pay the cost of speaking out in its defense”.

According to news alerts following his sentencing, the 29-year-old was arrested for posting satirical cartoons of Burmese junta chief Than Shwe on his blog. The charge of “causing public alarm” accounted for two of 20 years he is to spend in prison.

He was also a prolific writer, and posted regular articles during the so-called Saffron Revolution in 2007 that partly compensated for the media blackout enforced by the regime. Burma has one of the most draconian media environments in the world, and journalists are regularly given painfully long sentences.

Aye Aye Than, the mother of Nay Phone Latt, told DVB today that he was already aware of the honour via someone who visited him in prison, and that “he was very happy to win this literature award because that is what he is fond of.”

“He didn’t attack or criticise or denounce anyone on his blog. I have no regret about his blogging,” she said, adding that she last visited him on 1 April and “he was in good health”.

Burma ranked 171 out of 175 countries in the Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index. Appiah, a Ghanaian novelist and philosopher, also lamented the fact that internet censorship had become “one of the great threats to free expression today”.

“That Nay Phone Latt is also a poet reminds us that every society speaks with the voice of the imagination as well as through its non-fiction writers. We honor him. We thank him. We ask all who have any influence on the government of Burma to press for his release.”

The Burmese junta is expected to intensify its crackdown on journalists in the run-up to elections this year. Around 14 media workers are currently behind bars, some serving sentences of up to 35 years. Nay Phone Latt had been given no legal representation during his trial due to his lawyer being imprisoned the week before.

Fellow Burmese activist, comedian and part-journalist, Zarganar, was last year honoured with the PEN/Pinter award for ‘imprisoned writers of courage’ – Zarganar was sentenced in November 2008 to 59 years, later reduced to 35 years, after giving interviews to foreign media in which he criticized the Burmese junta’s reaction to cyclone Nargis in May 2008.

PEN, which advocates for global freedom of expression, is the world’s oldest human rights organisation and the oldest international literary organisation.

Reference:

This is from DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) by the author France Wade.

My opinion:

I am glad for him and wish that he is doing well in the prison.

US rep says China ‘stealing Burma’

By Francis Wade

Burma is becoming a “subservient province of Beijing” and risks being lost to its bigger neighbour “for generations to come”, a US congressman has said.

Speaking in fiery tones before the House of Representatives on Tuesday, California representative Dana Rohrabacher warned that the pariah Southeast Asian state was the victim of a “Chinese power grab”.

“China is literally stealing Burma from its own people, and it is accomplishing this monumental crime with the assistance of Burmese government officials whose lust for power is greater than any loyalty to their own national homeland,” he said.

He added that “the patriots and freedom-loving people of Burma will either join against tyranny and foreign domination, or their country will be lost for generations to come.”

Chinese presence is indeed growing in Burma as Beijing looks to tap the country’s vast natural gas reserves, as well as secure an overland pipeline route to Yunnan province for Middle Eastern oil being offloaded in the Bay of Bengal.

Bilateral trade between the two countries reached $US264 million in February this year alone, up 92 percent year on year, according to the Xinhua news agency. Of that, $US215 million was Chinese exports to Burma.

Last month however a leading US senator acknowledged that it was strict Western sanctions promoted by Washington that had pushed Burma closer to China.

The US has long been concerned with growing Chinese influence in Southeast Asia, a region that US presence in has waned in recent decades as efforts have been concentrated on the Middle East and Latin America. Moreover, the US has vehemently opposed the current military government in Burma, which receives its strongest backing from Beijing.

Washington has however had a shadowy relationship with Burma: in the 1950s, president Eisenhower installed and armed Chinese nationalists in Burma to carry out cross-border operations into Mao-ruled China, despite the protests of the U Nu administration in Burma, its first civilian government after British rule ended.

Several analysts, including the leading Southeast Asia scholar George Kahin, have said that the huge surplus of arms in Burma that resulted from this initiative, coupled with a need to bolster the army in lieu of possible retaliation from China, was a key factor in fomenting military rule in Burma.

But the adamantly nationalist ruling generals in Burma are also known to be concerned about over-dependence on China, and thus China’s leverage in the country. China meanwhile has expressed concern that instability in Burma, particularly along the China-Burma border, could jeopardise business interests there.

“Burma is not completely dependent on China but dependent enough; they’ve lost their economic independence,” said regional expert Bertil Lintner. “They’re in the clutches of China; there’s nothing they can do about them.”

Chinese imports, particularly in textiles and heavy machinery, dominate Burma’s domestic market, but beyond the economic ties there is also a strategic element to the close cooperation between the two countries.

“It’s more than a relationship of convenience – it’s a military relationship,” Lintner said. “There are Burmese officers who have undergone military training in Kunming [in southern China].”

Reference:

This is from DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) by the author Francis Wade.

My opinion:

China again!!! Selfish China and Burmese government!!! Disgusting!!! Terrible!!! Stupid!!!! Fucks!!!

Canadian uni ‘spied’ on Burmese students

By Joseph Allchin

Ka Hsaw Wa is a Karen refugee. In Canada, a nation with some of the most stringent sanctions on Burma’s ruling generals, it has now been revealed that he and others were spied on by a university for having a meeting about his homeland.

Ka Hsaw Wa, one of the founding members of the US-based EarthRights International (ERI), was due to speak at the University of Ottawa, along with members of the Canadian Friends of Burma (CFOB), about the French oil giant Total and its business activities in Burma, which include the Yadana pipeline project.

Rights groups have said that human rights violations have surrounded the project, accusations which landed Total in court, although the case was eventually settled out-of-court. The 5 December 2007 meeting was called ‘Burma Blood Profits: was Ottawa U’s Desmarais building paid for with cash tainted by the blood of innocent Burmese citizens?’

However the university had other ideas. In a email dated 30 November 2007 circulated to colleagues by Victor Simon, University of Ottawa vice president for resources, he cautioned that “we should prohibit the use of our facilities for this event, on the grounds that the program material includes allegations and accusations that may be libellous . . .I know that this kind of action thinking flies in the face of many principles we hold dear in the University world, but I think we have others interests at stake here.”

The university was concerned because the building Ka Hsaw Wa was going to talk in, the new $15 million Desmarais building named after the family of the same name, was bankrolled by Paul G. Desmarais, who sat on the board of Total.

The information, disclosed to CFOB through the freedom of information request, “implicates a corporate interest at the university”, according to former Ottawa University student and now-prominent human rights lawyer, Yavar Hameed.

However the release of this information was delayed for more than ten months as the university sought to prevent disclosure of their relationship and bias towards a benefactor.

“They tried everything they could to delay and prevent us from getting the documents. They said we couldn’t see the documents because of an attorney client privilege, but we eventually got that disclosed,” says Kevin McCleod, on the board of directors of CFOB.

Despite Simon’s feeling that the action “flies in the face of many principles”, the university president, Giles Patry, as a result of the ‘other interests’ that Simon speaks of, suggests in the emails that “We should monitor to see if they [Ka Hsaw Wa et al] are exposing themselves with libellous comments.”

Indeed after the event, CFOB were suspicious of a number of members of the audience who, according to McCleod, “were acting rather strange…like writing down everything that was said – they really weirded people out”.

This prompted CFOB to request the access to information and, through multiple appeals and a previous case in which a professor was sacked based on evidence from a student spy from the university’s newspaper, they realised that the activities of discussing the impacts of large corporations on Burma was, as Hameed puts it, a “sore spot for the university administration”.

On receiving, drip by drip, the transcripts of the emails that senior university staff sent between each other, some with redacted areas, CFOB also came to learn that as requested, the social networking site Facebook had been used to find out which students were attending the meeting. One message, sent on 30 November 2007 by Steve Bernique, assistant director of operations at the university, said “I love this programme [Facebook]! Now we know who is going to attend.”

A screen shot of the list was distributed amongst the higher echelons of the university as they discussed possible ways of blocking the event, including making use of university facilities out of the financial reach of groups such as ERI and CFOB.

“I think it’s quite incomprehensible; I don’t understand the actions of any academic institution spying on students and the community expressing their academic right and freedom; it’s preposterous,” says Hameed. “It wasn’t clear to me who the spies were but all the same it was quite distressing that students could be induced or paid to spy on fellow students and human rights activities.”

One member of the audience had deeper reasons for feeling distressed: octogenarian Harvey Su is the oldest Karen refugee in Canada. He was “appalled” by the surveillance, a phenomenon he thought he had fled.

“Who are these University of Ottawa presidents, vice presidents and security staff working for exactly? The people of Ontario? Or are they working for the Desmarais family, the oil companies and the Burmese military regime? This I really want to know.”

He has since forbidden his grandchildren from attending the University of Ottawa and called for the resignation of the chancellor of ‘Canada’s university’, as their slogan goes.

The University of Ottawa was unavailable for comment.

Reference:

This is from DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) by the author Joseph Allchin.

My opinion:

Well, whoever opposes those against the ruling junta might be fed by the junta or perhaps they are just without reasoning, so, they prohibit like above.

India eyes $5.6bn Burma hydropower deal

By Joseph Allchin

India’s state-owned National Hydro Power Company Limited (NHPC) will increase its investment in Burma to the tune of an extra $US5.6 billion as Burma aggressively expands its energy sector.

The head of the NHPC, S K Garg, told the Wall Street Journal the company was “inching towards Myanmar [Burma]. We have already sent our team to Myanmar for further survey and investigation for two projects.”

Little is known of the location of the projects, but the Wall Street Journal suggests that they could be two new 510-megawatt and 520-megawatt dams.

The NHPC already has a major presence in the country, primarily at the Tamanthi dam on the Chindwin river in Burma’s northern Sagaing division. The project has a capability of providing 1200 megawatts of electricity, 80 percent of which it is believed will go straight to India.

As of 2007, according to research by the Burma Rivers Network (BRN), over 380 families had been displaced by the Tamanthi dam and none had reportedly received compensation. It is estimated that the dam will eventually displace some 30,000 people in 35 different Kuki ethnic villages.

Sai Sai from BRN said that these people have absolutely no input or “right to participate” in the decision-making process for the dam, a fact that is clearly against the first recommendation of the World Commission on Dams: “Development needs and objectives should be clearly formulated through an open and participatory process, before various project options are identified,” it says.

Added to this, the Chindwin river is the only known habitat of the Burmese Roofed Turtle, a species that will be lost forever by the construction of the dam.

The Wall Street Journal further notes that within India “progress on hydroelectric power capacity addition has been slow due to environmental concerns and issues related to resettlement of people displaced because of the construction of dams”.

This would suggest a strong incentive for India investing in Burma’s hydropower sector, given BRN’s concerns about a lack of accountability in the process.

The Tamanthi dam is being constructed by the NHPC in collaboration with Swiss company Colenco Power Engineering Ltd. According to Garg, quoted in the Indian press, the NHPC is also involved in the 642-megawatt Shwezaye dam.

BRN believes that construction of the Tamanthi dam had been suspended after it began in 2007, suggesting that renewed investment of the sort mentioned by Garg may be needed to finish it, although at present details are not available.

It is believed however that consultants had been engaged by NHPC, but their findings had not yet been put to the government in Naypyidaw.

China is without doubt the leading investor in Burma’s hydropower sector, with numerous projects on rivers across the country, many of which have attracted international controversy and condemnation.

The drying of the Mekong river is partly blamed on Chinese dam construction, whilst Kachin organisations and individuals have strongly petitioned against forthcoming dam projects on the Irrawaddy river, including the Myitsone dam.

Reference:

This is from DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) by the author Joseph Allchin.

My opinion:

How inhumane they are! China and India? They just do not care other countries' residents. Instead, they know only for their welfare!

Suu Kyi triggers health concerns

By Maung Too

Detained Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been suffering from low blood pressure that required treatment from her family doctor, lawyer Kyi Win said.

According to two separate government officials quoted by AFP, however, the 64-year-old was briefly taken to hospital on Sunday over concerns about her heart, but discharged 45 minutes later.

“When I went to see her on Wednesday with U Nyan Win, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said her blood pressure has dropped and she suffers a bit of dizziness,” said Kyi Win.

“When she told us that she had a little dizziness, we went to Special Branch [SB] police to get help as soon as we came out. SB took action straight away and they informed Saya Tin Myo Win [Suu Kyi's doctor] and he went to see her the following day.”

Neither the government nor Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party has issued any official statement regarding her health.

After the 2003 Depayin massacre, in which a government-backed mob attacked and killed 70 people traveling in a convoy with Suu Kyi, she has been occasionally suffering from low blood pressure, dehydration and loss of appetite.

Reference:

This is from DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) by the author Maung Too.

My opinion:
I feel sad and sorry to hear this. Hope she gets well.

Burma ‘will remain rich, poor and controversial’

By Francis Wade

The Norwegian state secretary currently in Burma for high-level talks has said that the country remains “one of the world’s most controversial…in the eyes of the international community”.

Gry Larsen, who backs international engagement with the ruling junta, said in an article on 6 April prior to arriving in Burma that the international community should also “examine carefully” whether current policy to Burma “has in fact promoted greater openness and economic and democratic development”.

The Norwegian government has been an open supporter, both financially and vocally, of Burma’s pro-democracy movement, and is one of the leading funders for exiled media and rights groups.

It was also one of the first country’s to open its borders to Burmese asylum seekers who fled the country following the infamous 1988 uprising.

Larsen’s trip is a rare one for a representative of a country that openly supports Burmese opposition groups – the majority of foreign dignitaries that visit Burma are from the handful of countries still allied with the ruling regime.

Observers have said however that the apparent relaxing of restrictions on visits by overseas envoys, notably the two senior-level US delegations that visited Burma last year, could be an show of legitimacy by the junta in the run-up to elections this year.

During Larsen’s meetings with government officials and pro-democracy representatives, Larsen said that she “will focus on the opportunities for addressing poverty and increasing wealth”. However she echoed condemnation by world leaders of the elections this year but added that Burma would be embraced by the international community if the junta moves “in the right direction”.

“The Burmese authorities are at a crossroads. If they choose the way to democracy and growth, the international community will strengthen its political and economic cooperation with the country,” she said.

“Burma will in all likelihood continue to be rich, poor and controversial. But it is within the country that its future will be decided. And the international community cannot refrain from engaging directly with those who are in the driving seat.”

The US has recently expressed its anguish at the lack of progress made by the junta since Washington in September last year ditched its long-running isolation of Burma in favour of engagement.

Since September, the junta has locked up a US citizen on spurious charges, rejected several legal appeals to release Aung San Suu Kyi, and announced highly controversial election laws.

But it has said that it will continue dialogue with the ruling generals following two decades of disengagement that reaped few rewards.

Reference:

This is from DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) by the author Francis Wade.

My opinion:

It is really difficult to know what their real purposes are!

‘Only India has benefitted Burma’

By Francis Wade

India is the only country in Asia who’s policy of engagement with the Burmese junta “has paid dividends”, according to an Indian think tank report released yesterday.

The report, published by the Delhi-based Indian Council for Research in International Economic Relations (ICRIER), also argues that the West’s isolation of Burma is to blame for pushing the ruling regime into the hands of China.

ICRIER were commissioned to write the report by the influential New York-based Asia Society think tank, which last month released a high-profile report warning that US engagement with the Burmese junta risked legitimising the elections this year.

‘From Isolation to Engagement’ was launched yesterday in Delhi by former Indian foreign secretary Shyam Saran, who oversaw India’s switch to dialogue with the Burmese junta as part of the country’s ‘Look East’ policy.

The policy, gradually implemented throughout the 1990s, has sought to build closer trade and strategic relations with its regional neighbours, but has also attracted criticism as India’s arms exports to Burma continue to rise.

Saran was quoted by the Mail Today newspaper in Delhi as claiming that Indian policy towards Burma had been a success, with indications that “the military regime [wants] to engage with India”.

She added that both the regime and “the people of Myanmar [Burma] see the sanctions as a hindrance”, while the report contends that the West’s economic boycott has only strengthened China’s influence over Burma.

Rights groups have however slammed the apparently warming relations between Delhi and Naypyidaw, referencing in particular India’s place as one of only six countries worldwide that regularly supplies military equipment to the maligned ruling generals.

Recent reports claim that India is soon to sell patrol boats to the Burmese army, despite calls from world leaders, including British prime minister Gordon Brown, that a global arms embargo be enacted on the junta.

The two governments are currently cooperating on strategies to eliminate Indian insurgents, particularly the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), who are nestled along India’s shared border with Burma and believed to have bases in Burma’s northwestern Kachin state.

Relations between India and China have fluctuated in recent years as both countries compete for Burma’s vast gas deposits. It was largely the lure of Burmese natural resources that triggered Delhi’s switch from backing for pro-democracy groups in Burma to support for the junta.

Reference:

This is from DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) by the author Francis Wade.

My opinion:

It might be true that India benefited Burma, but I doubt it because most people are selfish, doing something which can benefit them and which might, unexpectedly, benefit others.

My children have never had a home

By JJ Kim

Across Burma, it is estimated that between one to three million men, women and children remain internally displaced as a result of conflict, human rights abuse and a long series of other coercive measures that make it impossible for them to live a stable life in their homelands. ‘Displaced Childhoods’, a report released today by Partners Relief & Development and Free Burma Rangers, says that children in these families are suffering significantly, leaving the Burmese authorities in direct violation of international law.

Without inalienable rights to life’s necessities, hundreds of thousands of minors are living without stable access to food, shelter, education and healthcare. The report claims that not only is the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) making no effort to alleviate these problems, but in many areas is actively exacerbating them as part of military offensives against ethnic minority insurgents.

For decades, the SPDC has fought with ethnic armies which demanding greater autonomy and political participation. Largely facing opponents that use guerrilla hit-and-run tactics, the Burma army has adopted what has been dubbed a ‘Four Cuts’ strategy in an effort to wipe them out. By subjugating ethnic minorities and devastating entire communities, the SPDC aims to systematically cut off the insurgents’ supplies of food, shelter, intelligence and recruits. The brutal measures taken to this end include burning entire villages, laying landmines throughout farmlands and frequented paths, extrajudicial killings in areas out of tight control, persistent torture of civilians and the much documented use of “rape as a weapon.”

Already this year thousands of people have had their homes destroyed by the army and its proxy armed forces. January and February saw at least 114 houses destroyed and over 4000 families flee to the jungle in Burma’s eastern Karen state alone.

Such practices and forced relocation for development projects are considered the main causes of displacement in Burma, along with the inability to sustain livelihoods due to economic repression and human rights violations, such as forced labour, forced conscription and violent abuse.

The exact numbers of internally displaced people (IDPs) living in Burma are impossible to obtain, but numerous studies from recent years have shown them to be critically high. Surveys carried out by the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) in 2009 conservatively estimated that there are 470,000 IDPs now living in eastern Burma, while more speculative figures reach up to three million nationwide.

Thousands of these families have remained in hiding for decades, on the run from the army, generation after generation. Naw Paw Leh, a Karen refugee now living in Thailand, is a grandmother of three and has been moving from settlement to settlement since her teens.

“My home village was destroyed when I was a girl because of local support for the Karen National Union (KNU),” she explained. “My four children and all their children were born in the jungle and have never had a home. We just moved around making new settlements in the jungle [up to] four times per year.”

When asked what problems the children in her family still in the jungle face, the list was long. “The main thing is food,” she began, lifting a skinny arm up to her mouth. “They have no education and can’t even farm. People always get sick and we have no medicine. We sometimes use herbs and chicken bones but many children die.”

‘Displaced Childhoods’ claims that one in every five IDP children in Burma dies before the age of five, while “mortality rates of displaced children in conflict areas are estimated to be three times higher than Burma’s national average”.

As the report details, the SPDC’s total refusal to acknowledge these people and take the necessary steps to provide them with humanitarian support are out of line with the United Nation’s 10 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and in direct violation of numerous international human rights laws and UN conventions. Despite this, documentation by the UN continues to understate the seriousness of the situation compared with that conducted by groups focusing on these issues.

‘Displaced Childhoods’ is the latest of many human rights reports to put on record severe abuse of children in Burma by the SPDC. But in both 2007 and 2009, a UN report on children and armed conflict in Burma gave very few cases of abuse on children and little indication that such incidents were frequent.

In particular the 2009 report gave no mention of attacks on hospitals or schools, an act considered by the UN as one of the “Six Grave Violations” of the rights of children in armed conflicts. ‘Displaced Childhoods’ documents 12 incidences of displacement nationwide in the 12 months prior to June 2009, many of which involved multiple villages. Despite dire poverty throughout these areas, many of these villages had schools and clinics, mostly administered by organisations based in Thailand.

In one recent case, not included in the report, between the 3 and 7 February this year, two villages in northern Karen state were torched by the Burmese army. During the attacks, one clinic was burnt to the ground while at least two schools were destroyed and nine more abandoned.

Speaking from a jungle hiding weeks after the incident, one teacher said: “We left before they got there so the children were not attacked. Some people have been back to the village and said that the blackboard has gone and everything is broken. We are continuing class in the forest now. It is difficult but it’s important they continue to study.”

The discrepancy between UN reports and those of organisations working along the Thai-Burma border is of great significance. While the SPDC refuses to allow the International Criminal Court jurisdiction to hear a case, these crimes will almost certainly go unpunished by the international community without UN security council intervention.

Furthermore, the politically centrist policies of most international NGOs working in Burma make it difficult for them to rely on studies carried out by organisations linked to armed or political opposition groups when allocating funds or setting up aid programmes. While documentation by international agencies such as the UN fails to portray the severity of violations of children’s rights in Burma, the issues will remain untouchable and largely unaddressed by such groups.

The report concludes with calls for the Burmese government “to end violations against children and comply with its obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law. The SPDC must prevent further displacements from taking place and make efforts to protect and assist internally displaced communities in Burma. Partners and FBR further call on the United Nations to investigate the serious and well-documented allegations of large-scale displacements in Burma that likely amount to crimes against humanity and/or war crimes. All children should be able to enjoy free and full lives.”

Reference:

This is from DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) by the author JJ Kim.

My opinion:

Though this is terrible news, it is truly what is happening in Burma. I'm really sorry for those sufferers because of inhumane and human right abuser, the ruling junta and the army.

Australia-Burma trade ‘up 160 percent’

By Francis Wade

Trade between Australia and Burma has soared more than three-fold in the past year as Canberra continues to resist calls for targeted trade sanctions against the ruling junta.

But this rise does not even factor in Australian investment in Burmese energy projects which would likely see it dramatically increase, said Zetty Blake, spokesperson for Burma Campaign Australia (BCA),

“The trade figures do not include the millions of dollars Australian companies are investing into industries in Burma, like oil and gas, that are directly funding the military regime,” she said.

Danford Equities Corporation, a subsidiary of the Australian-owned Twinza Oil, signed a contract with the Burmese state-run Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) in November 2006 to explore for oil in Burma. According to BCA, the deal will net the ruling junta around $US2.5 billion.

Australia has previously been in the firing line for its ties to the maligned Burmese government. In October last year, the flagship Australian airline Qantas rejected calls from campaigners to stop subsidiary airline Jetstar from flying to Burma, claiming that it provided an important service for aid workers.

Even proposals last year by the Rudd government to boost aid to Burma were met with scepticism, given the junta’s track record of siphoning overseas aid into so-called ‘aid agencies’ known to be run by the military generals.

But campaigners scored a victory earlier in October after Australian clothing chain, Speciality Fashion Group (SFG), announced it would stop sourcing products from Burma.

According to BCA, however, clothing still remains one of more than 10 commodities traded by the two countries. Australia reportedly also supplies the ruling junta with aircraft and telecommunications hardware, and imports textiles and photographic equipment.

Burma economics expert Sean Turnell said that targeted trade and investment sanctions on Burma were “more urgent than ever” given that it “depends to an unusual degree on the economic and financial resources it controls through its monopolisation of much of Burma’s trade”.

Australian foreign minister Stephen Smith said last month that looming elections in Burma could not be considered free or fair with the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) effectively forced to boycott them.

Reference:

This is from DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) by the author Francis Wade.

My opinion:

No one helps Burma out of their altruism. They do because there is something they want from Burma, even USA.

US echoes Burma opposition ‘failures’

By Khin Hnin Htet

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.

Reference:

This is from DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) by the author Khin Hnin Htet.

My opinion:

What do you think of the last paragraph? In my opinion, what NLD did-to boycott the election-is right. Why? If they participate in it, the junta will make more and more restrictions in order for Suu Kyi not to win the election. The junta will use coercion and propaganda on civilians to vote the army. If they don't vote, the army will kill them; so, civilians have no choice but to vote them. And of course, the polls are in their hands; they can change at any time. Even if Suu Kyi wins the election again, the junta will not acknowledge it and will use coercion with the army to kill Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi’s party calls for landmine ban

By Khin Hnin Htet

Burma’s opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party has called for an end to the use of landmines in Burma following a rise in the number of mine-related deaths.

The party’s spokesperson, Ohn Kyaing, said the call was made because innocent civilians are being killed by landmines used by the Burmese troops and ethnic armed groups. The majority of casualties occur in eastern Burma’s Karen and Shan states, where the Burmese army has been fighting decades-long conflicts with rebel groups.

“Landmines are used in war times. It is no strange thing that armed personnel involved in the fighting are being hit by landmines,” he said. “However [the NLD] is sad to hear that innocent civilians become victims and live their lives in danger because of leftover landmines.”

He added that if the NLD was given the authority to do so, it would sign an agreement like “many countries in the world…to end use of landmines”.

An International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) report in 2007 said that only Burma and Russia continue to use landmines on an ongoing basis, having not signed the global anti-landmine treaty. An earlier ICBL report in 2003 said that both Italian and US-made landmines were being used by the Burmese army.

The NLD statement was supported by the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament (CRPP) secretary, Aye Thar Aung.

“Landmines are not only being laid in military positions but also in civilian zones such as farmland, hillside cultivations and roads, and this is endangering lives,” he said.

In an effort to block supplies to insurgents, often accused of sheltering in civilian villages, the Burmese army has been known to plant mines along escape routes used by villagers and refugees.

Burma’s eastern Karen state, which borders Thailand, is littered with landmines, the byproduct of a 60-year conflict between the Burmese army and the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), both of whom systematically use landmines.

Last week a five-year-old Karen boy was killed and his brother seriously injured after accidentally triggering an unexploded grenade that had been fired close to their village.

The brothers had recently been forced back across the border from Thailand where they had fled to last year after fighting broke out in Karen state. The repatriation by the Thai army occurred despite warnings from aid groups that conditions in Karen state remained dangerous.

Another area of concern is the Burmese army’s use of civilians as minesweepers; people who are instructed to walk in front of troop patrols to detonate mines. Such practices have led to calls for the ruling junta to be investigated for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Reference:

This is from DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) by the author Khin Hnin Htet.

My opinion:

Whatever army it is called, if it is in Burma, and since they possess weapons, they think that they are heroes. They just do whatever they want, ignoring what will happen tothe civilians. That's what the junta is doing.

Burma state television goes global

By Ahunt Phone Myat

The military government in Burma has launched a new international television channel, presented by foreigners, that sources say could be a means to counter “mistrust” of Burmese reporters.

Myanmar International TV (MITV) is a product of the junta’s Ministry of Information, home to the notoriously draconian Press Scrutiny and Registration Division, the government’s censor board.

“The programmes are being presented by foreigners hired from Singapore who mainly promote travel and tourism in Burma,” said a Rangoon journalist close to the operating media group, Shwe Than Lwin.

He added that the majority of the daily two-hour programmes, which will broadcast inside Burma on the MRTV-3 channel and internationally via satellite, “are focused on culture, tradition and environment – topics that will gain interest from the international audience”.

But another source close to the group told DVB said that the reason for hiring Singaporean presenters went further than simply giving an international edge to the programmes.

“There is an argument that foreigners will only believe what other foreigners say, but not the Burmese who repeatedly praise the country,” he said.

Every television broadcast or piece of published information in Burma is required to pass through the regime’s censor board, which diligently checks for any signs of dissent against the military rulers.

Those deemed guilty can expect harsh retaliation, including lengthy spells in prison, and so self-censorship has become the norm in the pariah state. This means that journalists have little choice but to broadcast state propaganda.

Media watchdogs, such as the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, consistently rank Burma at the tail-end of media freedom indexes, largely due to the ongoing imprisonment of opposition journalists and tight restrictions on the freedom of the media to operate independently of the government.

Reference:

This is from DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) by the author Ahunt Phone Myat.

My opinion:

Even though the channel is international, it does not make any improvement in Burmese media since the programs in the channel cannot go against the military rulers.

ASEAN leaders to meet on Burma

By Francis Wade

Burma’s prime minister is likely to head to Hanoi next week for a meeting of regional ministers during which, reports suggest, the topic of Burma’s controversial elections will feature highly.

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) grouping has remained mute on the elections since Burma’s main opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party on Monday decided to boycott them.

But, according to Roshan Jason, executive director of the ASEAN Inter-parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC), ASEAN “knows it has to discuss the issue and has to be forward about it”.

“I think [ASEAN] will just advise the government and try to convince [junta chief] Than Shwe to reconsider the election laws,” he said.

ASEAN Affairs Department director-general Vitavas Srivihok told the Bangkok Post yesterday that the election discussion would likely form part of the post-summit statement delivered by ASEAN chairman Surin Pitsuwan.

The NLD had cited the “unjust” election laws as the reason for not registering. Under the laws, detained party leader Aung San Suu Kyi cannot run for office and would need to be expelled from the NLD if it is to participate.

Although the ASEAN bloc has condemned Suu Kyi’s incarceration and called for elections to be free and fair, it has resisted calls to take any substantive action against the Burmese junta, such as expelling them from the grouping.

The main reason for its soft approach to Burma lies in its policy of non-interference in the domestic affairs of member states, something that has repeatedly attracted criticism from pro-democracy campaigners.

This policy has in turn been used as a shield by the Burmese government to deflect criticism of its human rights record, particularly during the trial of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi last year.

Following the failure of the US and UN to push the generals onto a path of reform, all eyes are now focusing on the influence that ASEAN could have in the country. Jason said that there was little hope of the situation inside Burma changing unless the international community urges ASEAN to press the Burmese junta.

Reference:

This is from DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) by the author Francis Wade.

My opinion:

ASEAN sucks!!!