Burma Update

Agence France-presse, 22 March 2005

KUALA LUMPUR : Malaysia will press for Myanmar to be refused the
chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) next year
unless it carries out democratic reforms, local media said on Tuesday.

The government will table a motion in parliament calling on Myanmar's
military rulers to release opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and speed up
reforms, Minister in the Prime Minister's office, Nazri Abdul Aziz, told the
New Straits Times.

If the ruling military fails to make progress, "we will ask for Myanmar's
turn to be the chairman of ASEAN to be suspended and given to other
countries until democratic reforms are carried out," Nazri was quoted as
saying.

The chair is rotated alphabetically each year among members Brunei,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore,
Thailand and Vietnam.

Malaysia takes over the chair at a summit in Kuala Lumpur in November and
Myanmar's turn is due in 2006.

Myanmar's membership of the grouping since 1997 has been a growing irritant
in relations between ASEAN and western countries, including the United
States.

Former US ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke warned in
Bangkok on Monday that the US and other countries might boycott the 2006
summit and two major meetings immediately afterwards if they are held in
Yangon (formerly Rangoon) as scheduled.

"By holding them in Rangoon next year, ASEAN runs a very serious risk of
finding some of the most important countries that have attended regularly
for over a quarter century, including the United States, may not show,"
Holbrooke said.

Malaysia had warned Myanmar in December that its pledge to move towards
democracy could only be credible if Aung San Suu Kyi were released from
house arrest.

The international icon of democracy and Nobel peace prize winner has spent
various periods in house arrest since 1989. Her latest began in May 2003.

Her National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory in elections
in 1990 but has never been allowed to take power.

Myanmar announced a seven-step roadmap to democracy in 2003 but it has
barely got off the ground and been denounced internationally as a sham.

scmp - Monday, March 21, 2005


AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Yangon
The military regime has accused anti-junta "terrorists" of planting a bomb at a hotel in Yangon at the weekend and of other recent blasts.

The bomb, which exploded before dawn on Saturday in a bathroom of the Panorama Hotel, popular with Asian backpackers, caused no injuries.

It was claimed by one of several militant groups the junta says have infiltrated the country to conduct sabotage.

Another small bomb was detonated on a bus at the Shwemanthu terminal in eastern Yangon on Thursday, again causing no casualties, while a similar device at the terminal was found and defused the previous day, the junta reported.

The bombings were "due to subversive acts of terrorists", and security had been tightened, the junta said in the New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

A group called the Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors told a freelance Myanmar journalist in Thailand on Saturday that it was responsible for the hotel blast.

New Light of Myanmar said the attack was intended to stop a national convention under way to draw up a new constitution as part of the junta's "democracy road map", a process that has been described internationally as a sham.

"We don't want to harm foreigners, nor ordinary people. We want to stop the national convention and we want the release of all political prisoners," a member of the group said.

The group - which was behind an embassy hostage drama in Bangkok five years ago - said in a statement in December, after another blast, that more bombings would follow unless its demands were met.

The junta accused outlawed groups, including an illegal offshoot of the National League for Democracy and the All Burma Students' Democratic Front, of sponsoring attacks.

"Fugitive destructive groups ... are recruiting new members and training them, stockpiling explosives, and sending groups of newly completed trainees into the nation through various routes," it said.

SCMP - Wednesday, March 16, 2005


ASSOCIATED PRESS in Yangon
Updated at 12.22pm:
Myanmar's military government has complained bitterly about the International Labor Organisation's repeated complaints about forced labor in the hardline country, accusing the UN agency of interfering in the country's internal affairs.

The ILO has long been an ardent critic of forced labour in Myanmar, which it says is used especially by the military. For several years, the junta has sought to reconcile with the organisation.

But Myanmar's Labor Department director, General Soe Nyunt, said on Tuesday that despite his government's sincere co-operation with the ILO, the agency has continuously pressured Myanmar based on false information it receives from the junta's critics.

"The ILO has gone beyond the bounds of the UN charter and is interfering in the internal affairs of the country, and the ILO's one-sided accusations against Myanmar contravene the ILO convention," Soe Nyunt said at a news conference.

The agency's executive director, Kari Tapiola, denied the charge.

"We have not done anything in Myanmar which would not have been in line with international arrangements and the specific arrangements that we have with the government," he said in Geneva. "We have not done anything that would be against our mandate."

Soe Nyunt's remarks came two weeks after a high-level ILO delegation abruptly cut short a mission to Myanmar, saying it had been denied an expected meeting about forced labor with a top junta official.

The delegation, led by former Australian Governor General Sir Ninian Stephen, was to submit a report to the ILO governing body this month.

In 2000, the ILO took the unprecedented step of calling on its members to impose sanctions against Myanmar because of the military government's failure to curb forced labor.

In response, the junta allowed the Geneva-based organisation to open an office in Yangon in 2002. A year later, the ILO withdrew its sanctions call after agreeing on a plan of action with the government aimed "toward the complete elimination of forced labor in Myanmar".

"The sanctions imposed by the ILO were unprecedented and should be a concern to other developing countries like Myanmar," Soe Nyunt said.

Last year, the ILO said Myanmar failed to make much progress and suggested that unless the junta took swift action, the call for sanctions would be revived.

Soe Nyunt accused the ILO of ignoring the welfare of 54 million people and relying on the false reports of dissidents, including an exiled labour group, the Free Trade Union of Burma, which receives financial assistance from the US labour movement.

scmp - Tuesday, March 8, 2005


A CORRESPONDENT in Yangon
Sanctions have sent the Myanmese economy reeling, with thousands of impoverished garment workers bearing the brunt of international bans on exports.

It is estimated that over the past two years, more than three-quarters of the country's 100,000 textile workers have become unemployed with the collapse of the US$450 million garment export industry.

The collapse followed a US ban on Myanmese imports after thugs linked to the ruling junta attacked pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's motorcade in May 2003, killing several of her supporters.

"Thousands of young women are jobless as many factories have moved to Thailand, Laos or Cambodia," a business analyst said.

The collapse of garment exports came close on the heels of a banking-sector fiasco that hit almost all businesses. Last year, a food crisis triggered by the scrapping of subsidies forced the government to ban rice exports.

"The economy is completely stuck and reforms have been totally abandoned," a western official said.


Until the late '90s, Yangon had the feel of a city on the make, despite international economic sanctions.

Today, most hotel rooms are vacant, the property bubble has burst and even sales of second-hand cars have plummeted.

Yangon's usually cheerful taxi drivers complain that during the past year their takings have been halved to about US$11 a day.

"Anyone who can is leaving for jobs in Thailand, Singapore or Malaysia," a 27-year-old cabbie said. "There's no future here."

But the ruling State Peace and Development Council, led by military strongman General Than Shwe, seems unperturbed by the economic mess.

Last year, the International Monetary Fund estimated the gross domestic product of Myanmar at US$11.7 billion. It put per-capita income at US$225, making it one of the poorest countries.

"The government says GDP growth is over 13 per cent, but according to the IMF, it's barely on the positive side of zero," a diplomat said.

The World Food Programme provides aid to 600,000 people in five of the country's 14 administrative regions, while Unicef has estimated that a third of the child population is malnourished.

The deepening economic malaise has led observers to predict that Myanmar is on the brink of a popular upheaval similar to 1988, when the government of General Ne Win was overthrown.

But visitors to verdant central Myanmar soon realise the country is blessed with abundant water and a low population density, with none of the grinding rural poverty evident in Bangladesh or India.

"Mother Nature is kind to us," the business analyst said.

"Even the price of rice is stabilising. There are no signs that the people are about to revolt."

Roshan Jason
Mar 7, 05 2:01pm


Frustrated with the delay in their bid for resettlement, a group of 24 Burmese Rohingyas - including three women and seven children - held a protest outside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Kuala Lumpur today.

The adults in the group are also staging a hunger strike, which began at 8.30am.

But eight hours later - at about 4.30pm - they were 'detained' by immigration officials and sent to the Semenyih immigration detention camp.

According to the officials, the Rohingyas were being held to ascertain their legal status.

The protestors - all of whom have UNHCR refugee status - are peeved with the UN agency for failing to resettle them in a third country after years of waiting.

“Some of us have been waiting for over four years. We have been given refugee status documents by UNHCR and we return yearly to renew it. When we enquire about our resettlement status, we are constantly told that it is being processed.

“How long more do they want us to wait? Our children can’t go to school here. We don’t have jobs and homes. It is very, very frustrating. Why are other groups given resettlement and not us?” asked group spokesperson Hafiz Mohd Motul.

One protestor, who spoke to malaysiakini, flashed his refugee status tag to prove the length of time he had waited for resettlement - 14 years.

Posters brandished by the hunger strikers also accused the agency of discriminating against them, a charge which had been denied by UNHCR.

Hafiz said that many Burmese Chins and Acehnese had been resettled in other countries. "Why not us?” asked Hafiz, quoting UNHCR statistics that fewer than 100 Rohingyas had been resettled so far.

UNHCR: No discrimination

UNHCR, in a statement to malaysiakini earlier today, refuted charges of discrimination. It said that resettlement was not a decision made by them but rather by resettlement countries themselves.

“Unfortunately, resettlement is not a feasible or a realistic option for the Rohingyas, not least because resettlement countries have shown little interest in them, it is also a fact that Malaysia has de facto hosted them for over 10 years,” said UNHCR chief Volker Turk in the statement.

Nevertheless, he acknowledged the “desperation felt by the Rohingya community in Malaysia, as most of them have resided in this country over 10 years, with no hope of returning to their country of origin”.

“We estimate that there are some 10,000 Rohingyas in Malaysia living mainly in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. UNHCR documentation has given them a limited degree of protection but they are still unable to work and their children are unable to go to school.

“It is obvious that survival has been difficult for them here and UNHCR empathises with their situation,” he added.

The Rohingyas - who are ethnic Muslims from Burma’s Arakan state - began fleeing to Malaysia in the 90s fearing persecution in their homeland. They are deemed stateless by the ruling military junta.

The junta has been widely condemned for its human rights abuses of the Rohingyas by human rights organisations.

State of limbo

Late last year, the Malaysian government announced that the Rohingyas were to be given temporary resident status, which would allow them access to jobs, healthcare and education. However, this has yet to be implemented by the authorities.

Turk was initially hopeful that the move “would regularise the situation of the Rohingyas, who up until now had been tolerated but were still considered illegal migrants and subject to arrest”.

“Regretfully, we have not heard any further news on this matter, and the Rohingyas remain in a state of limbo over their status. We hope this new documentation will be issued soon to provide a measure of security for this community.”

Today’s protestors also said they were worried for their future especially after Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak remarked last week that refugees would not be spared in the ongoing crackdown on undocumented foreigners.

There have been 19 refugees with UNHCR documents arrested so far since the nationwide crackdown began on March 1.

scmp - Monday, February 28, 2005


AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Washington
As Myanmar's military junta held secretive talks at home to frame a constitution as part of its so-called road map for democracy, dissidents backed by the US met in Washington at the weekend pushing for an end to the regime.

A stirring speech by a US State Department official set the tone for the meeting at George Washington University, whose attendees included the prime minister of Myanmar's government-in-exile set up after its landslide victory in the 1990 election, which was rejected by the military.

"While the dictators in Yangon may project an image of control, those who have fought tyranny around the world and those who fight this struggle right from within Burma know just how ephemeral and weak their power really is," said Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary of state for global affairs, using the old name of Myanmar.

"It can never ever defeat the very universal desire of freedom," said Dr Dobriansky, who was a human rights advocate in the State Department when Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy scored a thumping victory in the country's last free elections but was denied power.

Ms Suu Kyi, the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient, epitomises the "indomitable spirit" of Myanmar's freedom campaigners, she said.

"When soldiers aimed rifles at her, Aung San Suu Kyi slowly and calmly walked through their ranks, ignoring the very expressed threat on her own life," she said, recalling an incident in 1989.

The Washington meeting was organised by the US Campaign for Burma, a global group of activists fighting to restore democracy in Myanmar.

It was aimed at drawing up strategies to drum up support for the democratic struggle in Myanmar from within and outside the country as well as the UN.

Non-governmental groups related tales of victimisation of ethnic minority groups allegedly by military officers, including rape, extra-judicial killings, confiscation of land and property, forced labour and poppy cultivation and conscription of child soldiers.

Sein Win, the prime minister of the exiled National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, said he wanted to build a young leadership that could take over from the junta if and when it collapses. He said his group "placed highest importance for the preparations towards post-military transition in Burma".

He called on the UN, European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to exert greater pressure on the junta, saying joint diplomatic, investment and trade sanctions on Myanmar were vital.

The United States, which has branded Myanmar an "outpost of tyranny", has imposed an investment and trade ban on it while the European nations have limited sanctions, including denial of visas to Myanmar's ruling elite.

Dr Sein Win said that to legalise their authority, Myanmar's military rulers were racing ahead with talks designed to frame a national constitution.

"The process of constitutional drafting has become an outright imposition of military privileges and special powers in the future constitution," he said.