Burma Update
News and updates on Burma13 July 2010
News on Burma - 13/7/10
Myanmar troops seize vulnerable boys for tough army life – Rachel O’Brien Agence France Presse: Mon 12 Jul 2010 Mae Sot, Thailand — The spiky-haired teenager said he clearly recalls the day when Myanmar state troops whisked him from the streets of Mandalay, accused him of stealing and forced him to become a child soldier.“They said if you don’t want to go to jail, you must join the army. I said I didn’t want to join but whenever I said it they beat me again and again. When I agreed to join they stopped beating me,” Win Sein told AFP. He said he was homeless and aged about 15 — although he doesn’t know his birthday — when he was recruited less than two years ago, joining thousands of under-18s believed to be in Myanmar’s state army and ethnic armed groups. After four months of boot camp, involving a gruelling fitness regime, weapons training and corporal punishment, the youngster said he was sent to the frontline of civil war against ethnic rebels in remote jungle regions. A year later, Win Sein fled his post and eventually escaped from the military-ruled country, arriving in the Thai border town Mae Sot in March. “The main reason was not the fighting, but because the sergeants were really, really brutal. They always insulted and beat the child soldiers,” he said. “So I decided to run away, whatever happened to me.” While it is difficult to verify former child soldiers’ backgrounds, Myanmar analyst David Mathieson of Human Rights Watch said Win Sein’s story was “sadly typical, in terms of training times, locations and the workload”. Win Sein, whose name AFP has changed to protect him and his family, is now in the care of Mae Sot-based aid group Social Action for Women (SAW), where he was initially reluctant to discuss his harrowing experience. “After he arrived, he would lose control. He broke bottles and used the glass to cut his arm,” said SAW’s director Aye Aye Mar. “He didn’t talk. He didn’t answer any questions we asked. He didn’t trust anyone.” Such psychological damage is typical in youngsters who have spent time in the army, added the director, who has looked after around 20 former child soldiers from Myanmar. Win Sein said the children at his boot camp were forced to tell the lieutenant they had signed up voluntarily, and “because they were afraid of the sergeants who recruited them, they lied about their age”. Such underage enlistment, which is banned by law in Myanmar, is a result of regimental efforts to keep numbers up in the vast army rather than a central junta directive, according to Mathieson of Human Rights Watch. “It’s basically free market recruitment,” he said. “It’s certainly not official — there’s no paper trail saying it’s coming from the war office in (the capital city) Naypyidaw.” Mathieson said there are likely to be thousands of child soldiers in the state military, which is thought to be up to 400,000 strong. And the problem is not confined to the official force in Myanmar, a nation ruled by the military since 1962 and embroiled in civil war in ethnic minority areas since gaining independence in 1948. A United Nations report released in May named nine of the country’s ethnic armed groups, as well as the government army, for recruiting and using children in conflict, noting “extremely limited access” to monitor such forces. Win Sein, who before his recruitment had run away from home to escape abuse by his step-father, said street children were a particularly easy target for state troops who get paid or rewarded for filling military personnel quotas. He said he met numerous fellow child soldiers with a similarly penurious background to his own. “Soldiers dressed in plain clothes go to children who live on the street and say, ‘Hey little brother, do you want a snack? I will get you one’. “These street children are hungry and have no food, so they are happy someone is buying something for them and they follow the men,” Win Sein said. Steve Marshall, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) liaison officer in Myanmar, agreed the children preyed upon “tend to be those in a vulnerable situation”, such as boys on their own at railway stations and markets. He said the youngest boy known to be signed up was aged just 11. With the junta’s agreement, the ILO has a process for families to complain about underage recruitment cases, which if verified are submitted to the government to get the children released and their recruiters disciplined. Since 2007 more than 100 victims have been discharged and numerous army personnel reprimanded for their part in such cases, including three who were jailed, and there has been training by the military to raise awareness of recruitment law. But “there is no firm evidence suggesting that the situation has markedly improved,” Marshall said. The youngsters roped into battle can face destroyed childhoods, uncertain futures and — for deserters such as Win Sein — a lingering fear of retribution. “I would like to see my mother and sister again but I dare not contact them because I don’t want to get them in trouble,” he said. “I also don’t want them to know what I have been through.” Thai-Myanmar cross-border operations face uncertain future – Peter Janssen Deutsche Presse-Agentur: Mon 12 Jul 2010 Mae Sot, Thailand – When Cynthia Maung stumbled across the Thai-Myanmar border into Mae Sot in 1988 after a 10-day jungle trek to flee a military crackdown in Yangon, she planned to stay a few months at most.Twenty-two years later, Dr Maung’s Mae Tao clinic is a border institution, employing a staff of 634 who provide treatment to more than 2,000 patients a day suffering from malaria to amputated limbs. Maung’s pioneering health work for Burmese refugees and migrant workers has not gone unnoticed. She has won a dozen international awards, including the Ramon Magsaysay award in 2003, and a Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 2005. The clinic, founded by Maung in 1989, has grown from a makeshift shack where she sterilized thermometers in a rice cooker to a sprawling, albeit still makeshift, community hospital with 150 beds, a laboratory, pharmacy, prosthetics centre, first-aid training programmes and a school. Nearly half the patients are migrant workers and their families living in around Mae Sot, where an estimated 200,000 Burmese survive in a semi-legal limbo. The rest of her patients come from across the border. “Every day we see more and more people seeking help,” Maung said. “Our most severe cases come from inside Burma.” Not all are fleeing fighting and landmines. Some are simply escaping Myanmar’s notoriously poor medical system. War Yar Htuu, a 15-year-old from Myawadi, across the Moei River from Mae Sot, came to get treatment for a leg infection. “I had no money to go to a Myanmar hospital,” said Htuu. “The hospitals in Myanmar are okay but they only accept you if you have money.” After 48 years of military rule, Myanmar has gone from being one of the richest countries in South-East Asia to one of the poorest, with among the worst health and education systems in the region. “The system itself does not work, not even in central Burma,” Maung said. “Only people with money can use the health service.” Because of Myanmar’s pariah status as a brutally run military state, it ranks among the world’s lowest recipients of foreign aid, receiving less than 2 dollars per person each year. Operations such as Mae Tao clinic, on the other hand, survive on foreign largesse. Maung estimates that 95 per cent of her annual operating budget of about 3 million dollars comes from foreign donors, the rest is met by a token 1-dollar registration fee per patient. With her patient load increasing 5-10 per cent annually, the clinic is facing a budget shortfall this year, which is managed by cutbacks on free food and postponing improvements. The long term, especially with an election promised by Myanmar’s junta some time this year, is more worrying. Although few expect the polls to be free or fair, the outcome is likely to increase aid going into Myanmar, and less to cross-border operations. “Definitely, most donors want to do more inside and less cross-border, and I think that trend will continue after the election,” said one Bangkok-based European diplomat. Donations to political groups in exile, based along the border, are already drying up, and are expected to end after the polls as these groups look increasingly ineffective, sources said. More worrisome is the potential impact on cross-border operations such as health services, the more than 60 schools catering to Burmese migrant children and labour protection groups. There are some 130 Myanmar-related non-governmental organizations in Mae Sot alone. “That’s the big concern,” said David Mathieson, Myanmar expert for Human Rights Watch. “Because after the election it’s not like the root problems are going to change. It’s not as if all the Burmese refugees and migrant workers are going to go home after the polls, even if that’s what the Thai government wants to happen.” Thailand has yet to clarify its post-election policy towards the estimated 2 million Burmese refugees and migrant workers on its soil. Like most governments, Bangkok is waiting to see what the polls bring, but most observers anticipate a sham election that will install a pro-military government. “After the election things will become clearer for the international community,” said Mahn Mahn, executive director of the Back Pack Health Workers Team, that works with the Mae Tao clinic totrain health workers inside Myanmar. “It will be clear what the election hasn’t achieved.” Thai businesses eyeing investments in Burma The Nation (Thailand): Mon 12 Jul 2010 Investors from many Thai sectors are looking to Burma, with its low operating costs, abundant natural resources and large market, according to the Thai-Myanmar Business Council.Representatives of Burma’s private sector visited the council in recent weeks to lobby Thai industries to establish manufacturing plants in the country, whose official name is Myanmar, said Thai-Myanmar Business Council Santi Vilassakdanont. Promising sectors in Burma include food processing, agriculture-related industries, consumer products and garments, he said. Burma will hold a general election at the end of this year. It is expected that the new Burmese government will establish investment incentives aimed at foreign businesses. “Burma has been opening its country to foreign investment since member nations agreed to implement the Asean Economic Community by 2015. Asean will become a single market under this agreement, and Burma does not want to be left behind. We’re cooperating closely with the private sector in Burma,” Santi said. Moreover, Burmese authorities want to create jobs. At present, many Burmese labourers work in Thai manufacturing plants on the countries’ border. It makes sense for the Burmese to encourage these people to work in their home country, he said. The Thai-Myanmar Business Council plans to take a delegation, including about 20 Thai businesspeople, to Burma next month, Santi said. During the visit, the two countries will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) securing the supply of certain Burmese agricultural products to the Thai food-processing industry, as well as garment exports from Thailand to Burma. Thai manufacturers will also be given opportunities to meet and establish relationships with Burmese businesspeople. Santi said he had also received expressions of interest from representatives of firms in such heavy-industry sectors such as steel and cement, as well as from the energy industry, about investing in Burma. Other countries, including China and Singapore, are also looking for investment opportunities in Burma. Santi said Thailand needs to take advantage of its geographical proximity to Burma and its historical ties with the country’s people. “Thai industries should pay more attention to investing in Burma as the operating costs in that country, such as labour and land costs, are lower than in Thailand. Besides, the investment regulations in Burma are less stringent than in our country right now. We don’t know yet when the Southern Seaboard project will be ready for new investment,” he said. The Thai-Myanmar Business Council was set up in February this year as collaboration between the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI), the Thai Chamber of Commerce and the Thai Bankers Association. Santi, who is a former chairman of the FTI, is the first chairman of the council. Refugees unlikely to return soon after election: EU – Lawi Weng Irrawaddy: Mon 12 Jul 2010 The European Union (EU) is not anticipating a quick return of Burmese refugees from Thailand following Burma’s planned election this year, said an EU official in a written response to a request by The Irrawaddy for clarification on the EU position towards Burmese refugees and migrants in Thailand.The request for clarification was sent by email following a news report by the Bangkok Post on June 24 that quoted Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya as saying: “As the Burmese government is holding elections later this year, we should help those who live outside their country to return home and resume their lives in Burma.” “The EU does not expect that the elections in Myanmar [Burma] in 2010 will create conditions conducive to an immediate return of the predominantly Karen to eastern Burma, particularly since a ceasefire between SPDC [the Burmese government] and the Karen leadership seems unlikely to materialize and armed conflict persists to this day,” the EU official said. He said the EU welcomes steps taken by the Royal Thai Government since 2005 to provide the Burmese refugees “improved access to education and training and the recognition of the right of children born in Thailand to be granted a regular birth certificate.” While noting that resettlement to third countries will only be a solution for a fraction of the Burmese refugee population in Thailand, he said: “Any forcible repatriation without a proper and transparent screening would constitute a serious violation of the principle of non-refoulement,” referring to an international refugee law concerning the protection of refugees from being returned to places where their lives or freedoms could be threatened. The EU offical noted that though the Thai government is not a member to the 1951 Refugee Convention, it has in the past “upheld high humanitarian and legal standards.” An estimated 140,000 Burmese refugees live at nine refugee camps along the Thai-Burmese border, where many of them have been confined for many years before getting a chance to resettle to third countries with the help of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Most of the refugees are ethnic Karen who fled their villages in the conflict zones of Karen State. The refugees become totally dependent on aid as they are confined in the camps, and they are in need of work opportunities and should be allowed employment opportunities outside as well as inside the camps, said Sally Thompson, the deputy director of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), an organization which works closely with Burmese refugees. “There needs to be a shift in policy on refugees so they can actually do more to contribute to the local economy here in Thailand,” she said. “It is recognized that it could be some time before they can return to Burma. They want to go back only if there is peace in their homeland following a solution to the political problems. “We hope the refugees will be able to return in the future, but we can’t predict the outcome of the election. There is ongoing conflict in eastern Burma and the election is unlikely to solve the ethnic issue. Therefore, a return in the near future is unlikely,” she said. The EU is the largest donor to the Burmese refugee camps along the Thai-Burmese border and the EU Commission’s support to the refugee camps is gradually shifting towards activities of a more developmental nature in the coming years, acording to the EU official. “We feel responsible to help addressing the protracted refugee situation and to develop a long-term strategy,” he said. “The refugees need to be enabled to support themselves and given the chance to actively contribute to Thailand’s growing economy through their skills and labour. As everybody else, they are entitled to a self-determined future and to realising their human potential.” Eric Schwartz, the US assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, visited refugee camps along Thai-Burmese border in June and raised US concerns about the plight of Burmese refugees in camps in the light of Burma’s upcoming polls, but he noted that the third-country resettlement for the majority of the refugees is unrealistic. The Burmese regime has not announced the date of the election planned to be held this year. Critics say that without the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and more than 2000 political prisoners in Burma, the election lacks credibility and legitimacy. Burma’s democrats will not cave in to dictatorship – U Win Tin Sydney Morning Herald: Mon 12 Jul 2010 Last month many pro-democracy advocates inside and outside Burma paused to commemorate the 65th birthday of our leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Many too, will take the opportunity to ponder the savage undermining of the democratic process that has occurred since she led the National League for Democracy to win the national elections in 1990.Now, Burma’s main political opposition has decided to disband rather than be co-opted into a sham electoral shadow-play being enacted by the military leaders. This decision has been based on a deep understanding of the tactics of dictators. Some of our supporters do not understand our decision. However, while we as democrats respect the right of all to hold views contrary to our own, we also expect our critics to be well appraised of the issue. It is clear many are not. Advertisement: Story continues below The first point of departure for all those analysing the planned election this year in Burma is the constitution under which it will be held. The 2008 basic law seeks to establish a range of encumbrances to the democratic process, which make it impossible to see it as anything other than a clumsy attempt to dress rotten wood with the polish and veneer of democracy and progress. Picture a fine piece of Burmese teak, smooth and presentable to the eye, but eaten away underneath. Most obviously, the constitution ensures a 25 per cent quota for members of the military in any parliament. The military is seeking an additional majority quota by fielding a disguised military political party in the election. So, at best the military is offering three-quarters of a democracy, or less, to the people of Burma. This constitution, under which the elections this year are held, carries a range of assaults on democracy. For instance, this election will not choose a government. It will select those who will fill the legislature and who will then be given the responsibility of selecting the heads of government. The constitution is unclear how this process will work in detail, only that the envisaged presidential Electoral College (the Parliament including the military) will decide upon a new president. If it can be assumed that a basic majority of the parliament be required, then the 25 per cent military representation ensures that considerably less than a majority of the elected members is required to name the new president, who will then in turn fill ministerial and other governmental posts by fiat. It is, in effect, a recipe for a rump parliament. That such a crucial component of the election process is clearly undemocratic is untenable. It sets the tone for the whole electoral process and ensures that participation by pro-democracy parties and individuals will lead nowhere in democratic terms. Other constitutional issues abound. Among them is the difficulty and unwieldy expense of registering and running a campaign. For instance, the roughly $US500 required for each candidate to run will not be refunded post-election and estimates for funding a campaign across all 498 national constituencies run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, a fortune in one of the world’s poorest countries. Moreover, some have argued that the requirement to name all party members to qualify for formal recognition is simply a means of finding where dissent may be so that a post-election purge may be carried out. Finally, significant ethnic groups are denied access to the political process. This ensures that large portions of the Burmese national constituency is denied their democratic rights. As a party of democrats, founded on the highest principles of freedom and equality, the National League for Democracy cannot participate in a system that not only denies us our due rights-as the winners of the 1990 elections, for instance – but denies fellow Burmese political forces appropriate input to the political process. Surely no self-respectable democrat could countenance such a cave-in to the forces of dictatorship. Ultimately, the NLD is a social movement as much as a political party. Our goal is to maintain our political party and our social role despite the many overtures from the ruling military to sell-out and to be a party to their ruinous dictatorial regime. Our participation in any election process remains conditional upon the four principles formulated in the NLD’s Shwegondaing Declaration of April 2009: release all political prisoners; open dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi; recognise the 1990 election results and; review the 2008 constitution. Only with these conditions can democracy find room to flourish in Burma. * U Win Tin is co-founder of Burma’s National League for Democracy and was imprisoned by the military for 19 years. Burma’s paranoid dictator plots his dignified exit Independent (UK): Mon 12 Jul 2010 Senior-General Than Shwe is giving his regime a makeover as he calculates the safest way to step down. Peter Popham reports.In the run-up to a long promised but still unscheduled general election, the first for 20 years, Burma’s military dictator, Senior-General Than Shwe, has taken a step full of peril: he has ordered his uniformed cabinet ministers to resign from the army. Those faceless generals who adorn the front page of the New Light of Myanmar, the regime’s daily paper, inspecting fish-packing factories and barrages, will still be running the country, and anything resembling democratic governance will be as far away as ever. But the look of things will have changed. The ministers will wear longyi, the traditional Burmese sarong-like garment. And crucially for them, they will no longer enjoy the status and respect which, in a country ruled with an iron fist by the military for half a century, is the army’s prerogative. Irrawaddy, the expatriate Burmese news website, predicts trouble. “Senior-General Than Shwe is facing a mutiny among his subordinates,” it claimed last week. “There are growing signs of discontent among his cabinet ministers… They have been betrayed by their boss. “Like it or not, army uniforms are a symbol of authority in Burma,” it went on. “Those who wear them always get priority over those who don’t. They are respected and can expect easy co-operation from others. Suddenly they will lose that privilege.” Leaving the army also means that those ministers will not be included in the 25 per cent quota that the army has reserved for itself in the planned new parliament. “Now they are on their own,” Irrawaddy columnist Bamargyi pointed out. “Unless Than Shwe supports them with some dirty deals from behind the scenes, they are sure to lose. Once this happens, they are down the drain.” In trying to rebrand his military dictatorship as a civilian administration, the 77-year-old soldier who has been the boss of his nation of 50 million people for the past 18 years, and who was recently named by the journal Foreign Affairs as the world’s third-worst dictator after Kim Jong-il and Robert Mugabe, thus faces a major challenge. And in trying to withdraw from the scene while remaining in control, he faces an even tougher test: how, as King Lear deludedly put it, to “shake all cares and business from our age,/ Conferring them on younger strengths, while we/ Unburden’d crawl towards death”? How to do that without getting the Goneril and Regan treatment – or much worse? How, in other words, to live out the rest of his days enjoying the billions he has plundered from the state, without ending up like his late boss Ne Win, Burma’s dictator from 1962 to 1988, who, on Than Shwe’s orders, ended his life locked in his lakeside villa in Rangoon under house arrest while his sons languished in jail under sentence of death? How to avoid the fate of Khin Nyunt, the military intelligence chief and for many years Than Shwe’s number two, who is also under house arrest with no prospect of release (while some of his underlings were tortured to death) after China hailed him as “Burma’s Deng Xiaoping”? According to Ben Rogers, author of the first-ever biography, Than Shwe: Unmasking Burma’s Tyrant, which is launched in London next week, acute anxiety about his security is behind the fact that, two years after announcing elections, the senior general has yet to say when they will be held. “He wants to make sure that everything is sewn up perfectly and that he can continue to govern from behind the scenes,” said Rogers, a human rights advocate with Christian Solidarity Worldwide. “He will hold off naming the date until he’s certain he’s got all his ducks in a row. He doesn’t want to give the candidates any room for campaigning.” A similarly secretive, paranoid approach dictated the most extraordinary decision of Than Shwe’s career, and the one which, for good or ill, will assure him immortality of a sort: the removal of Burma’s capital from Rangoon to a hot, malaria-infested, seismically sensitive wasteland in the centre of the country. The idea of moving the army’s HQ out of Rangoon had been in the air for a number of years, and may have been mentioned by Than Shwe to Aung San Suu Kyi in one of the fruitless meetings they held in 1994, while the opposition leader was under her first spell of house arrest. Rangoon is in the far south; for an army engaged in multiple counter-insurgency operations in the north and east, a base in the centre made strategic sense. But unbeknownst to the outside world, Than Shwe nursed a far more drastic plan. “At precisely 6.37 am on 6 November 2005,” writes Rogers, “hundreds of government servants left Rangoon in trucks shouting, “We are leaving! We are leaving!” … Five days later, a second convoy of 1,100 military trucks carrying 11 military battalions and 11 ministries left Rangoon. Perhaps influenced by astrologers, Than Shwe had decided to move the country’s capital. He had given government officials just two days’ notice.” So Naypyitaw, which translates as “Seat of Kings” and is dominated by oversize statues of Than Shwe’s favourite royal forerunners, will be this man’s monument. “It’s the most awful place you’ve ever been to,” said Mark Canning, a former British ambassador to Burma. “It’s a collection of buildings scattered over scrubland. But they are all just dispersed, and there are two or three kilometres between each building. One can only presume it’s so they don’t get bombed or something, to spread out the targets.” As a resident of Naypyitaw told one foreign journalist, “Although [Than Shwe] is a king, he is afraid of many things. He thinks that here he will be safe.” Naypyitaw thus incarnates what Suu Kyi once said about fear. “It is not power that corrupts, but fear,” she noted in 1990 when she was already under house arrest. “Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it, and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it… Fear slowly stifles and destroys all sense of right and wrong.” Only in a system dominated by fear could a man like Than Shwe rise to the top and stay there, because throughout his career he has given the impression of being so unimpeachably mediocre as to be without ambition or hope of success. He was a man incapable of provoking fear until suddenly he was at the top of the tree, and now he has held his nation in thrall for nearly two decades. The comments of those who have had dealings with him are uniformly unflattering. “Short and fat with not a strong voice,” says one. “Relatively boring,” says another. “No evident personality.” “Our leader is a very uneducated man.” “There were many intelligent soldiers but he was not one of them…a bit of a thug.” “You feel that he’s got there by accident…” The closest Than Shwe gets to being complimented is in the description of a former World Bank official: “He is such an old fox!” Born in 1933 in the central Burmese town of Kyaukse, Than Shwe quietly rose through the ranks despite having no striking military successes, until he was appointed deputy defence minister in July 1988 in the midst of the biggest revolt since the military takeover, the regime’s moment of greatest danger. In 1990 he was there alongside the erratic, sometimes deranged General Saw Maung, head of the new State Law and Order Restoration Council, who once drew his pistol on fellow generals during a game of golf and was eventually deposed. Then it was a contest between Than Shwe and military intelligence chief Khin Nyunt – who crucially had no experience as a commander in the field, and thus no chance of being accepted as chief by the army. Eventually Khin Nyunt, too, was flung from the battlements, a denouement waiting to happen. “Every single chief of military intelligence in Burma has been disgraced,” said a former ambassador. “It’s rather like being the drummer in Spinal Tap – you end up disappearing.” Than Shwe’s mediocrity may have had its effect on Western attitudes towards him: he is easily under- estimated. As Rogers points out, he “has demonstrated time and again his skill at offering just enough of a concession to hold the international community at bay whenever pressure intensifies…Each time the pressure eases, Than Shwe quietly abandons his promises.” Meanwhile at home he has continued on the path set by his former superior Ne Win decades back: hugely expanding the size of the army, which now includes tens of thousands of children in its ranks, and continuing the campaigns of quasi-genocidal terrorism against the Karen and other ethnic minorities. According to Sergio Pinheiro, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Burma from 2000 to 2008, writing in 2009, “Over the past 15 years the Burmese Army has destroyed over 3,300 villages in a systematic and widespread campaign to subjugate ethnic groups.” At the same time he has kept Burma’s civilian population in poverty and hopelessness. The only “reforms” he has pushed for have had the aim of perpetuating military rule under a disguise that fools nobody. It is safe to predict that sooner or later Than Shwe will get his come-uppance. It may come from his immediate subordinates, furious at being kicked out, and an army that has never held him in esteem. The civil servants of Naypyitaw, incandescent at being exiled from the civilised comforts of Rangoon, may play their part. The monks, whom he arrogantly and foolishly refused to appease in 2007, could have a role. But however certain his eventual downfall, you would have to be a very brave optimist to predict that he will be replaced by someone significantly better. The general in brief Born in 1933, Than Shwe joined the army at 20. He became Burma’s top military leader in 1992 – four years after thousands of protesters had been massacred in Rangoon. The reclusive 77-year-old is thought to be superstitious, often consulting astrologers. In 2007, his new Burmese constitution effectively barred opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from office. Some credit the general with negotiating ceasefires with ethnic rebel armies, although he has also been accused of brutally suppressing minorities. He has been linked with high-level government purges, including that of Prime Minister General Khin Nyunt in 2004. Is Burma’s junta trying to join the nuclear club? – Christopher Shay TIME: Mon 12 Jul 2010 It may seem counterintuitive, but Burma has a lot going for it. Blessed with abundant natural resources, the nation is home to the last of the world’s ancient teak forests; it produces tens of thousands of tons of jade every year; it’s at the center of the global ruby trade; and most important, it has natural gas. Lots of it. Burmese gas already powers half of Bangkok, and it will soon start flowing to China, making billions of dollars of profit. For many though, it’s how the money is being spent that’s worrying.Up until a few years ago, Burma’s military government, cut off from trade with the West, led a “hand-to-mouth existence,” says Sean Turnell, an economics professor at Macquarie University in Australia. Now, thanks in no small part to its resource-hungry neighbors, the pariah state has $6 billion in cash reserves, according to Turnell. As cash is flowing in, the military junta that has run the country since 1962 is spending lavishly. With about a third of the country in poverty, the junta could invest in health, education or job creation, but instead, new evidence suggests Burma is spending billions on outlandish military projects, including, perhaps, a secretive nuclear weapons program. Turnell says the junta is “absolutely paranoid about international interference in the country.”(See pictures of Burma’s slowly shifting landscape.) A documentary released last month by the Norway-based NGO Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) purports to detail the beginnings of a Burmese nuclear program. Though much of the documentary’s evidence comes from a single defector living in hiding, the NGO contends that hundreds of color photographs lend support to the rumors swirling for the past few years that Burma has been pursuing the bomb. The Burmese Ministry of Foreign Affairs calls DVB’s accusations “baseless,” but Robert Kelley, a former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency and weapons scientist at Los Alamos National Lab, concluded from the DVB evidence that the technology in the photos “is only for nuclear weapons and not civilian use or nuclear power.” The documentary’s primary source, a former Burmese army major named Sai Thein Win, is a Russian-trained missile expert — not a nuclear engineer —who says he was second in command at a top-secret military factory that made parts for Burma’s nuclear weapons program. The photographs that Sai Thein Win supplied to DVB dovetail with other evidence that suggests Burma is undertaking a massive nuclear project. Dictator Watch, a U.S.-based opposition watchdog group, provided TIME with a list of some 660 Burmese students studying engineering and military-related fields in Russia, more than 65 of whom are studying nuclear-related subjects. According to Roland Watson of Dictator Watch, the list is just a batch from 2009; he claims he has heard from multiple independent sources that there are more than 3,000 Burmese military researchers who have studied in Russia over the past decade. In the film, Sai Thein Win estimates that the number could be as high as 10,000. In fact, Sai Thein Win says he was in the first group of Burmese students sent to Russia, in 2001, where he studied missile technology at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, once the primary training ground for Soviet nuclear weapons experts. (See pictures of Burma’s decades-long battle for democracy.) Even if DVB is right about Burma’s nuclear ambitions, the country is likely years away from any kind of bomb. Kelley told TIME that Burma’s apparent attempt to enrich uranium using laser isotope separation — a complex and expensive method that has stumped many richer nations — was “kind of dumb.” That may be news to the junta leader Than Shwe, according to the Irrawaddy, a Burmese newsmagazine in exile based in Thailand, which reported that Than Shwe was furious at his officials after learning that Kelley’s report for the DVB said a nuclear weapon “may be beyond Burma’s reach” at this time. Meanwhile, the people in Burma continue to suffer. In a 2000 World Health Organization ranking, Burma had the second worst health system in the world, sandwiched between the Central African Republic and Sierra Leone. This shouldn’t be a surprise, given that only 1.8% of Burma’s total public expenditure is on health, also the second lowest in the world, according to the United Nations Development Program. “This is not a modern, developmentally focused government like China or Vietnam,” Turnell says, adding that the country’s irrational military spending “is the great scandal. Its poor have so many needs.” (See TIME’s special on the battle for global health.) If this sounds similar to another Asian pariah state, it should; Burma is trying to follow the North Korean model, according to Khin Maung Win. Than Shwe reportedly admires Kim Jong Il for standing up to the international community, and ever since the countries formalized relations in 2007, the two states have deepened their military connections, say DVB sources. Relations between the two countries, however, have not always been so amicable. In 1983, North Korean operatives attempted to assassinate the South Korean President in a Rangoon bomb attack that killed 21, and Burma severed official diplomatic relations for more than two decades. Recently, though, the countries seem to have bonded as joint pariah states, with the junta’s No. 3 general, Shwe Mann, visiting North Korea in 2008. Nowadays, Khin Maung Win says there are North Korean military experts who sneak into Burma through China and act as advisers to key parts of Burma’s defense industry. There is no evidence that the North Koreans are directly helping with Burma’s alleged nuclear weapons program, but analysts worry this might not always be the case. Burma has cash, and North Korea needs it — desperately. Defectors say Burma wants a bomb; U.S. intelligence says North Korea already tried helping build a nuclear reactor for Syria before Israel bombed it. “A couple years ago, I would’ve pooh-poohed the whole thing,” says Turnell of Burma’s nuclear weapons program. But now, he says, “The whole story is a perfect fit.” Myanmar democracy activists allowed to form new party Agence France Presse: Fri 9 Jul 2010 Yangon — Former members of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy have been allowed to form a new political party to run in upcoming elections, state media reported Friday.The activists have been granted permission to create the National Democratic Force (NDF) to stand in the military-ruled country’s first polls in two decades, expected sometime this year, according to state TV and radio. “It’s a victory for the people,” said Khin Maung Swe, one of the leaders of the new party. “I’m glad for the people because we can officially strive for democracy,” he told AFP by telephone. The NLD refused to meet a May 6 deadline to re-register — a move that would have forced it to expel Suu Kyi — and opted to boycott the vote, which critics say is a sham designed to legitimise the junta’s half-century grip on power. There have been signs of friction between older hardline opposition figures and younger more moderate figures who opposed the boycott decision. Under election legislation unveiled in March, anyone serving a prison term is banned from being a member of a political party and parties that fail to obey the rule will be abolished. The NLD, which was founded in 1988 after a popular uprising against the junta that left thousands dead, won a landslide victory in 1990 elections but the military rulers never allowed it to take office. Suu Kyi has spent much of the past 20 years in jail or house arrest. In another sign of a rift within the opposition, former top NLD members have accused the NDF of copying their symbol of a bamboo hat and recently lodged a complaint with the election commission about its use of the image. Khin Maung Swe said the NDF would not remove the hat from its official seal. “Our symbol is a golden bamboo hat and two stars. As we were allowed to be a registered political party, we will officially form our central committee in the coming week,” he said. So far 38 political parties out of 43 which applied to be recognised have been given permission to register ahead of the elections. Suu Kyi had her incarceration lengthened by 18 months in August last year after being convicted over a bizarre incident in which a US man swam to her lakeside home, and there are fears her detention may be extended again. Her dedication to non-violence in pressing for change earned her a Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 and placed her — along with Nelson Mandela — among the world’s foremost voices against tyranny. The woman known in Myanmar simply as “The Lady” remains the most powerful symbol of freedom in a country where the army rules with an iron fist. Last month she marked her 65th birthday under house arrest at her lakeside mansion in Yangon, where she lives with two female assistants, cut off from the outside world without telephone or Internet access. Foreign governments have urged the Myanmar military regime — which faces strict Western sanctions because of its human rights record — to take steps to ensure the vote is free, fair and credible. In April Myanmar’s prime minister and some 22 other ministers retired from their military posts Monday, in a move seen as converting the leadership to civilian form ahead of elections due this year. Myanmar’s leader is the head of the ruling junta, Senior General Than Shwe. Conscription in Burma following election? – Aung Thet Wine Irrawaddy: Fri 9 Jul 2010 Rangoon — Following the upcoming election in Burma, the new government may introduce military conscription in accordance with the 2008 Constitution, according to sources.A high court lawyer in Rangoon said a provision allowing the government to force every citizen to serve in the armed forces is already included in the 2008 Constitution, which will take effect once the new parliament is seated. Article 386 of Chapter VIII of the Constitution, titled “Citizen, Fundamental Rights and Duties of the Citizens,” states that: “Every citizen has the duty to undergo military training in accord with the provisions of the law and to serve in the Armed Forces to defend the Union.” “Based on this provision, I am pretty sure an additional act will be introduced forcing every adult citizen to serve in the armed forces,” said the high court lawyer. But a politician from a Rangoon-based political party, speaking on condition of anonymity, said any military conscription law must be approved by parliament, and if the law is oppressive then parliamentarians may not vote in favor. “No matter what kind of law is introduced, it must be adopted by a majority of parliament. If it is a very repressive military service law, as a political party we will lobby parliamentarians to vote against it,” said the general secretary of another political party, who also asked to remain anonymous. However, if conscription is promulgated as a military law by the commander-in-chief of the Defense Services, it will be difficult for parliament to oppose. “The Constitution says that the decision of the commander-in-chief of the Defense Services is final and conclusive in all military affairs, so a conscription law will not likely be revoked if he introduces it as a military law,” said a senior journalist in Rangoon. A political analyst from Rangoon said that because the upcoming election will prolong the military rule and will not bring a democratic outcome to Burma, it cannot be expected that laws promulgated by the new government will reflect the people’s desire. “The laws adopted by an undemocratic system will only be dictatorial laws. The country’s future situation will not be much different from now,” said the analyst. Many young people are also unhappy with the constitutional provision stating that every citizen has the duty to serve in the armed forces. A student from the University of West Rangoon said an army is essential for the defense of the country, but he does not want to serve in the current army in Burma because it does not contribute to the good of the people. “People hate soldiers from the bottom of their hearts. So even if I am conscripted I will have to think about it before entering the army,” said the student. In addition, some observers say that a future conscription law may involve those even younger than university students. “For a long time, the military regime has forced people to act as porters and recruited child soldiers. It may not be wrong to predict that under the future conscription act the regime can and will officially recruit more child soldiers,” said a Rangoon resident. Burma’s military junta adopted the new Constitution in a highly-criticized referendum held only one week after Cyclone Nargis devastated the country in 2008. Asian countries that currently practice military conscription are Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and North Korea. Thailand and China also practice conscription, but with exemptions. Forced labor continues unabated in army and Nasaka camps Kaladan Press Network: Fri 9 Jul 2010 Buthidaung, Arakan State: The Burmese Army and Burma’s border security force (Nasaka) continue to use forced labour from among local Roingya villagers in north Arakan, said a local businessman.Every day, at least 10 villagers have to go to one army camp or Nasaka camp in north Arakan. For instance, villagers have to provide 10 villagers everyday to army battalion No.552, of Buthidaung Township and another 10 villagers have to go to Aung Min Gala Nasaka camp of Nasaka area No.6 of Maungdaw Township. Similarly, in Buthidaung township villagers have to provide forced labor to Nga Kyin Tauk army camp, Mogh Bill army camp, Khaya Siri army camp and Military Operation Commander (MOC)-15 camp of Dabru Chaung among others. In Maungdaw Township too, villagers have to provide forced labor in every Nasaka camp including Nasaka Headquarters of Kawar Bill. They have to construct roads in the camps, bridges, military facilities, take care of camp maintenance, carrying water, cooking food, collecting fire wood, washing pots and plates, cleaning the camp including washing the clothes of officers’ wives, said a labor who once worked as a forced labor in an army camp. If anyone fails to deliver in time, he will be beaten up with a bamboo or cane. Military has long been using forced labor in everything from building roads to carrying military supplies to their outpost camps in border areas. Many people are forced to work against their will including children and elderly people. Many suffer abuse, said a local youth. The army relies on local labor and other resources as the result of the inability of the regime to deliver any form of support for their activities (the self-reliance policy). So, the military unlawfully confiscates lands, livestock, harvest and other property from villagers, while Burma has increased the number of its battalions nationwide since 1988. The implementation of self-reliance policy by the local military, has contributed to undermining the rule of law and damaging the livelihood of local communities, according to sources. The UN’s International Labor Organization (ILO) said yesterday Burma has made limited progress in curtailing the use of forced labor. Steve Marshal, the ILO’s liaison officer in Burma said, over the past three years, there have been “significant steps” toward eliminating forced labor in the country. Ethnic parties gaining support in Northern Shan State – Hseng Khio Fah Shan Herald Agency for News: Fri 9 Jul 2010 Of all the political parties that will contest the upcoming general elections, ethnic parties are reported to have gained much support and raised hopes of the people, especially in the areas where they are dominant, according to election watchers from the Sino-Burma border.At present, the Shan National Democratic Party (SNDP) and Palaung (Taang) National Party (PNP) are said to be popular among people in Shan State North’s Muse and Namkham townships, the towns located opposite China’s Yunnan province. Both townships are homelands for ethnic nationalities such as Shan, Palaung and Kachin. Currently the two are seen as running neck to neck as most populated on the hills are Palaung people and Shan are in the lower land, said a local resident in Namkham. There are four parties that are active around in the areas so far: the SNDP, PNP, the former Burma Socialist Program Party (BSPP) turned National Unity Party (NUP) and Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). But the NUP has reportedly yet to decide whether to contest in the areas or not due to having few members. The rest have been recruiting party members, he said. “But most people don’t like the USDP because it is forcing people to become its members.” Nevertheless, it is reported to have many members than others, said another source. “Some of them are already members of its parent organization [Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDA)]. On the other hand, it is still recruiting more and more using its mother organization’s influence,” he said. In May, village headmen in Namkham were forced to provide at least 5,000 members for the party. A villager in Namkham said, “We were forced not only to be its members but also were forced to pay Kyat 1,000 ($ 1) for photo fees,” However, a border watcher commented that there is still hope for the ethnic parties if it is going to be a free and fair process. “It will not be so difficult for them to obtain votes.” The SNDP has finished opening branch offices in 15 townships in Shan State North so far and have been recruiting party members since it was granted permission by EU in May, according to the True News journal reported on 29 June. (There are 23 townships in Shan State North: 4 Wa, 2 Kokang and 2 Palaung have been designated as self-administered areas. The SNDP has promised not to field its candidates there.) Another source in Namkham also said it has reportedly obtained its 1,000 members quota. The number of members in Namkham Township alone is over 800. However, the party will continue opening branch offices and will recruit more members in Shan State East and South and Kachin State as well as Mandalay and Sagaing divisions in July, according to party member quoted by the True News. But in early July, the party was reported to have faced some restrictions by EC. On 5 July, the party was said to have asked permission to hold a meeting in Nawngkhang village tract, but the request was rejected by the EC, citing the areas that the party would go was not safe and villagers are still afraid of previous incidents that took place earlier. Nawngkhang was where Sai Kyaw Myint, secretary of USDA in Namkham Township was killed by unknown gunmen while campaigning for support of junta drawn charter in 2008. In the meantime, early this month, leaflets against 2010 elections were also distributed in downtown Muse and Namkham urging people not to go and vote for anyone and not to participate, said a source. “Local people are worried there would be disturbance.” One of the EC of SNDP also said, “We are not afraid to do campaigning in the public, but we are more worried about unknown third parties.” Regime separates assets of USDA and USDP – Nayee Lin Latt Irrawaddy: Thu 8 Jul 2010 The office of the Burmese military regime’s auditor general is producing a list of properties owned by the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) to show whether they belong to the state or to the party formed by the association to run in this year’s election.A source close to the auditor general’s office told The Irrawaddy that the list was drawn up to avoid complications arising from the fact that the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) grew out of the USDA, a state-sponsored organization formed under the patronage of the ruling regime. “All the possessions of the USDA will be examined to show the division between the party and the association,” said the source. The USDA was formed by the regime as a mass civic organization in 1993. It claims to have more than 24 million members nationwide, including civil servants and members of the military. The USDA Central Panel of Patrons include Snr-Gen Than Shwe, Prime Minister Thein Sein, and other government ministers. On April 29, Thein Sein and 26 ministers and senior officials formed the USDP to contest the election later this year. The Election Commission officially recognized the USDP as a political party on June 8. A senior military officer at the Ministry of Defense in Naypyidaw said the USDA will continue to function as a social organization that uses state-owned properties, which must be clearly distinguished from the USDP’s assets. Otherwise, he said, the party will be criticized for not acting in accordance with the law. “The party will purchase buildings, vehicles and office equipment from the association. They need to do it according to the election law,” he said. At the end of this month, the USDP will reportedly put up signboards at buildings owned by the party, according to sources. Under Chapter III, Section 12 (a-5) of the Political Parties Registration Law, a party “shall not have the right to subsist as a political party if it is … found that the organization obtained and used directly or indirectly money, land, house, building, vehicle, property owned by the State.” Some observers have noted that since the USDA’s assets belong to the state, any use of the association’s property by the USDP would constitute a violation of the Political Parties Registration Law. However, a USDP official told The Irrawaddy that the party will legally acquire assets from the USDA with money donated by some of the country’s leading businessmen. It is believed that about 25 businessmen close to the regime have donated large sums of money to the USDP. Students make risky public call for right to form unions – Nyein Thu Mizzima News: Thu 8 Jul 2010 Rangoon – A group of students publicly distributed leaflets near a crowded junction in Rangoon yesterday, urging people to boycott the junta’s forthcoming elections and calling for the freedom to legally form student unions, witnesses said.At least seven students near Hledan Junction in Kamayut Township handed out the leaflets to passers-by that described the junta’s elections scheduled for this year “a fake”. The gathering also commemorated the 48th anniversary of the July 7 massacre at Rangoon University in 1962, during the dictatorship of late General Ne Win. “I saw students distributing the leaflets. I was curious to know what they said,” a young man told Mizzima. “The leaflets called for the right to organise student unions legally, boycott of the ‘fake’ election and to oppose the military dictatorship.” “I felt nervous to take it, so I dropped it”, he added. According to a man who lives in a condominium near the junction, the seven youths, who he said might be university students, gathered at around 10 a.m. He estimated their ages at more than 20. The students also handed out the leaflets to passengers waiting at bus stops, according to an official from the umbrella division of the Ministry of Industry No. 1. In 1962, students from Rangoon University staged peaceful protests on July 7 against the Ne Win government, citing anger at “unjust university rules”. Ne Win sent troops to disperse the uprising, at which they shot dozens of students dead and dynamited the historic Student Union building the next morning with students still inside. A report on the Democracy for Burma website said the army took some of the students’ bodies away, though some were still alive, and crushed them at the sewage treatment plant in Rangoon. After Ne Win’s military coup in March 1962 Rangoon University was put directly under the control of the Directorate of Higher Education, a junta agency. According to official figures, 16 students died and 70 were injured at the university in July 7 protests. “But, we learned that at least more than 100 people died. We could say because 86 people were taken to the Rangoon Hospital and 68 people were taken to the Mingladon Defence Services General Hospital, according to reliable sources,” the former secretary of 62 generation students’ All Burma Federation of Student Unions told Mizzima, adding that the fate of those taken to Mingladon hospital was unknown. The ABFSU has carried on its revolution against dictatorship underground as successive Burmese dictators have continued to ban student unions. Rangoon University has been at the centre of civil discontent throughout its history. All the nationwide strikes against British colonisers in 1920, 1936 and 1938 began there and anti-colonial leaders such as Aung San, U Nu, U Thant, and ironically Ne Win, were alumni. The tradition of protest at the university continued, also in 1974 and 1988 and more recently in 1996. Burma on new China ‘watch list’ for resources – William Boot Irrawaddy: Thu 8 Jul 2010 BANGKOK—China has put Burma on a special “watch list” for potential acquisition of urgently needed natural resources, including coal, gold and copper as well as oil and gas.All China’s land border neighbors are the subject of a resources study with a view to future acquisition, Beijing’s Ministry of Land and Resources has disclosed in the Chinese official media. The study follows a the rejection of some takeover bids made by Chinese state firms in minerals-rich Australia, where China has already spent billions of dollars acquiring coal and gas assets. State-owned Chinese companies venturing abroad are backed by huge national reserves of more than US $2 trillion, and the results of the neighbors’ resources study will be assessed by Beijing’s ministry of finance, the China Business Journal reported. The study includes Burma, Mongolia, Russia’s Siberian Far East, Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the paper reported. It comes as China prepares to become Burma’s biggest natural gas buyer, after it acquired all the gas to be produced from two blocks in the Shwe offshore field in the Bay of Bengal. But despite huge and increasing imports of gas and oil, China’s main fuel remains coal and millions of tons are being bought from Australia, Indonesia and South Africa. China is also the world’s biggest buyer of copper, iron ore and some foodstuffs. Burma has coal, copper and gold. The recent discovery of new coal reserves in Burma was highlighted by Chinese state media only this week. “Newly found coal in the Mongma area holds the highest deposit of quality coal and it is estimated to yield thousands of tons of the mineral annually,” said the People’s Daily, noting that China is among several countries vying to help develop Burma’s coal industry. Burma and Beijing signed a deal on mining among 15 cooperation agreements during a visit in early June by China’s Premier Wen Jiabao. “One of China’s big five energy firms, the Guodian Corporation, is supposedly going to build a coal-fueled electricity generating plant in Burma, but there must be doubts about that as much of Burma’s current coal output is exported to China and Thailand,” industry analyst-consultant Collin Reynolds told The Irrawaddy this week. “Burma is desperately short of electricity but Chinese know-how would be needed to revamp Burma’s power transmission infrastructure for any expansion in power capacity to be any use. “China’s Yunnan Province adjoining northern Burma is also desperately short of electricity and coal,” Reynolds said. According to unspecified “statistics” Burma has 82 “coal mining blocks” which “produced 233,983 tons of coal in the fiscal year 2009-10,” the official Chinese news agency Xinhua said this week in a report on Beijing’s new assessment of its neighbors assets. “Burma’s generals have never hesitated from selling out their country’s resources for short-term cash or political protection, and so we cannot see this latest announcement from China as anything but confirmation that the scouring of Burma will go on and on,” prominent Burma economy analyst Sean Turnell told The Irrawaddy. “In a country where nothing else can be relied on, this one is in the back of the net,” he said, referring to China’s assessment of Burma’s natural resources. Turnell is an economics professor at Macquarie University in Australia and co-editor of the Burma Economic Watch bulletin. Despite its highly polluting nature—except maybe when burned in costly plants using the latest technology—coal is being increasingly seen in Asia as the best cheapest substitute for oil and gas. To underline this trend, Thailand’s state oil and gas giant PTT announced just this week that it intends to expand its acquisition of coal resources abroad. PTT’s offshore gas fields in the Gulf of Thailand, as well as concessions held by its subsidiary PTTEP in Burma, supply about 70 percent of Thailand’s electricity generating fuel. But the Thai government has ordered diversification of power fuel to reduce dependency on gas ILO: Forced labor still widespread in Burma – Ron Corben Voice of America: Thu 8 Jul 2010 Bangkok – The United Nations’ International Labor Organization (ILO) says Burma has made limited progress in curtailing the use of forced labor.Steve Marshall, the International Labor Organization’s liaison officer in Burma, says over the past three years there have been “significant steps” toward eliminating forced labor in the country. The most progress has been in private organizations and the civil administration. “To an extent, the government has passed laws which say that forced labor is illegal, which is a very important first step of cours,” said Marshall. “The government has undertaken quite a lot of educational activity among local authorities particularly within the military as to the law and the responsibilities under the law.” Burma’s military government has long used forced labor in everything from building roads to carrying military supplies through the jungle. At its extremes, there have been reports of people being pressed to walk through mine fields as human minesweepers. Rights groups say thousands of Burmese are forced to work against their will, including children and the elderly. Many suffer abuse, including gang rape and murder. Marshall said Thursday in Bangkok the military particularly continues to use forced labor. “There are some indicators within the civilian side of the administration, which is very good,” said Marshall. “In the military side of the administration, there is no clear evidence of any change whatsoever.” One area of progress has been a new system that allows citizens to complain to the ILO. That has helped the rescue children forced to join the military. In its new report, the ILO report says the government now regularly discharges under-age soldiers if complaints are filed. Some armed ethnic groups also use child soldiers and Burma’s government has allowed the ILO to talk with them to try to end the practice. Marshall says there are moves to write new labor laws to allow trade unions once a new parliament is convened after elections later this year. Regional political analysts say Burma’s government appears to be taking a more cautious approach in dealing with labor and economic issues ahead of the elections. The vote will be the first in 20 years and is expected to place the government under the international spotlight. EU sanctions on Tay Za’s son upheld – Simon Roughneen Irrawaddy: Thu 8 Jul 2010 BANGKOK—In a May 19 court judgment that went almost unnoticed, Pye Phyo Tay Za, the son of junta-linked businessman Tay Za, lost a legal bid to have EU sanctions against him overturned and was ordered to pay the court costs for the Council of the European Union.Pye Phyo had argued that he is neither a member of Burma’s military government nor associated with it, and does not benefit from “the administration of that government.” His lawyers, London-based law firm Carter-Ruck, claimed that “neither the applicant [Pye Phyo] nor his father received any benefits from the regime.” But Tay Za is widely-regarded as having built a multifaceted, multi-billion dollar business empire based on close connections with Burma’s ruling military, including junta-chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe. And in a statement that may have undermined Pye Phyo’s own case, his lawyers also argued that, “the fact that the applicant is the son of a person whom the Council considers to have benefited from the military regime of Myanmar [Burma] does not give him the requisite connection with that regime.” Similarly, Pye Phyo claimed that his two-year shareholding in two of Tay Za’s Singapore-listed companies, “does not show that he benefited from any advantages that his father’s companies may have received from the military regime in Myanmar.” In rebutting the contention that neither Tay Za nor his son Pye Phyo benefit from the regime, the opposing lawyers said: “As regards family members of such leading business figures, it may be presumed that they benefit from the functions exercised by those businessmen, so that there is nothing to prevent the conclusion that such family members also benefit from the economic policies of the government.” In light of fears that Pye Phyo’s attempt to have EU sanctions against him lifted was a ruse to enable Tay Za to find a way around sanctions, the Council said that, “the applicant was aware of the reasons for which such restrictive measures specifically apply to him, since he states in paragraph 37 of the originating application that there may be a risk of his father circumventing the freeze on his own assets by transferring his funds to other family members.” Pye Phyo contended that he “does not frustrate the process of national reconciliation, respect for human rights or the democratization of Myanmar,” reminding the Council that he has not been involved in politics or government inside Burma. But his younger brother, Htet Tay Za, reportedly bragged in a notorious 2007 email, sent in response to new US sanctions on the junta, that even though “the US bans us, we’re still [expletive deleted] cool in Singapore. We’re sitting on the whole Burma GDP. We’ve got timber, gems and gas to be sold to other countries like Singapore, China, India and Russia.” Tay Za often flies to Singapore on business, where both Pye Pho and Htet were schooled. Two large banks in the city-state—OCBC and DBS—have denied functioning as repositories for billions of dollars of gas revenues derived from the Yadana pipeline project. According to Mark Farmaner of the Burma Campaign UK, the case and outcome “gives an indication that stronger, carefully targeted sanctions could have an impact,” but adds that carrots should be put on the table as well as an incentive toward reform. EU sanctions on Burma were renewed under the rubric of the “Common Position” recently. The measures are criticized for being weak and insufficiently-well targeted in some quarters, while elsewhere it is argued that sanctions have not pushed the junta toward reform, and so a new “engagement” approach is needed. Still others say that it is not sanctions per se that are the problem, but the role of government and business in China, India, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, all of which offer political and commercial alternatives to the junta and thereby undermine the sanctions. Burma’s nuclear ambitions could divert international focus – Mark Farnmaner Irrawaddy: Thu 8 Jul 2010 Rumors about a secret nuclear program in Burma have been circulating for years. They were so persistent it seemed likely there was something behind them, but there was no evidence to back the claims. Some individuals published exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims, which had the opposite effect they had intended, making observers more sceptical, believing the claims were politically motivated.However, in recent months there have been a series of reports from defectors claiming Burma does have nuclear ambitions. The latest, in a documentary made by the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), and broadcast on Al Jazeera, have gained international attention. The reports even led American Senator Jim Webb to cancel a visit which he had planned to use as a launchpad for persuading the US to adopt a policy of appeasement towards the war criminals ruling Burma. The documentary has detailed photographic evidence which has been verified by experts. Burma’s generals may still be a long way from developing weapons, but it appears that at the very least, the intention is there. Burmese exiles and others around the world who support Burma’s democracy movement have jumped on this news, hoping that this is what it will finally take to get the international community to take action. Here is yet more evidence, they say, that the dictatorship is a threat to international peace and security, and of how they misuse the country’s resources while the population slips deeper into poverty. Surely now the international community will finally wake up and pay attention? Can they really allow these people to remain in power? But rather than persuade the international community to finally take action against Burma’s generals, the opposite could happen. If allegations of Burma’s nuclear program are comprehensively proved, then the focus of the international community is likely to move away from human rights and democratization, and onto an agenda of nuclear disarmament that could include economic and political ‘carrots’ that will entrench the dictatorship. One example of how international focus can be diverted by a dictator’s nuclear ambitions is Iran. Human Rights Watch has described the country as a ‘human rights disaster.’ Many of the human rights abuses committed by the government will be familiar to people from Burma, even if they are not on the same scale: the detention and torture of political activists; the suppression of free speech including jailing of journalists; the use of sexual violence; and the repression of ethnic minorities. But how much attention is paid to these human rights abuses in Iran by the UN Security Council and international community? There is also evidence that Iran funds and arms groups in neighboring countries, which means the Security Council could intervene. There have been six Security Council resolutions and one Presidential Statement on Iran. None are on human rights. “While the international community has focused on Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Tehran has been methodically crushing all forms of dissent inside the country,” said Joe Stork, the deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Journalists, lawyers and civil society activists who used to speak to foreign media and human rights groups are increasingly reluctant, fearing phone and internet surveillance.” The international community’s approach to Iran fails to give much hope for those wanting action on Burma. The approach to North Korea leaves even less hope. North Korea’s record on human rights is even worse than Burma’s. There are more than 200,000 political prisoners, and in the 1990s the dictatorship allowed around 1 million people to die from famine. Like Burma, North Korea qualifies for UN Security Council attention as a non-traditional threat to the peace. There have been four UN Security Council resolutions on North Korea. None are on its human rights record. The entire focus has been on persuading North Korea to drop its weapons program. The USA and international community were even prepared to fund and build ‘proliferation proof’ nuclear reactors for North Korea, providing the dictatorship with tens of millions of dollars for this purpose. In 2007, as part of another deal to try to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear program, the US released $20 million in frozen banks accounts of North Korea’s corrupt and brutal rulers. Human rights just were not a factor. The lesson from Iran and North Korea is that human rights takes second place to stopping nuclear proliferation. Another lesson is that even when a nuclear program is involved, China and Russia are still likely to block effective economic sanctions. Doubtless, Burma’s dictators would be delighted if international attention moved away from their human rights record. Already some speculate that a factor in US engagement with Burma has been its growing relationship with North Korea, and their trade in arms and other technologies. If concrete evidence of Burma’s nuclear program was discovered, Burma might, just might, finally face the kind of effective financial sanctions we have asked for on human rights grounds for so long. But based on precedent it is also possible that they could be charmed, wooed and bribed, and significant concessions made to persuade them to abandon the program. Burma’s generals are brutal, but they are not stupid. A nuclear program could be their ticket to relaxing international pressure for democratic reform and normalising international relations. The exact opposite of what so many have been hoping will come out of recent revelations. * Mark Farmaner is Director of Burma Campaign UK. Burma’s democracy leaders hold parliamentary hearings in Kuala Lumpur; Malaysian MPs support call for national reconciliation Ten Alliances: Thu 8 Jul 2010 Representatives of the Ten Alliances of Burma’s democracy and ethnic rights movement held hearings in both the Lower and Upper houses of Parliament in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 7 and 8 July, respectively. Based on the undemocratic flaws in the 2008 Constitution and the military regime’s unjust election laws, the delegation called for the government of Malaysia to denounce this year’s elections unless the military regime changes course. “Elections in Burma cannot be free, fair or inclusive as long as political prisoners such as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi are kept behind bars, ethnic communities are being attacked by the military, and the regime refuses to engage in dialogue with key stakeholders in the country. If the regime refuses to meet these benchmarks, Malaysia and countries around the world must denounce these elections as the sham they are,” said Ma Khin Ohmar, Foreign Affairs Secretary of Forum for Democracy in Burma, and member of the Foreign Affairs Coordinating Team (FACT) of the Ten Alliances. In the Lower House of Parliament, the delegation met with Minister in Prime Minister’s Department Dato’ Seri Nazri Abdul Aziz, Opposition Parliamentary Leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim, and Senior Opposition Leader and ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC) Malaysia Chapter Chairperson YB Lim Kit Siang. Members of AIPMC expressed their support for the NLD and other democratic parties who decided not to run in the election, and endorsed the democracy movement’s call for inclusive dialogue and national reconciliation. The MPs also called on ASEAN to suspend Burma’s membership in the bloc if the military regime does not uphold the principles of democracy, abide by the ASEAN Charter, and release all political prisoners, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. “These elections will not be a step forward for Burma or the region. The new government will be built on the broken foundation of a deeply flawed constitution—written by the military, for the military. It won’t take long for this unsteady house to break apart and for the effects of another autocratic regime to be felt throughout the region.So we will boycott this elections.” said Hkun Okker, Joint General Secretary (3) of the National Council of Union of Burma (NCUB). Khin Ohmar and Hkun Okker were joined by U Win Hlaing, MP-Elect, National League for Democracy, Ma Khin San Htwe, representative from the Women’s League of Burma, and Ko Moe Zaw Oo, Coordinator of FACT. The Ten Alliances of Burma’s democracy and ethnic rights movement represent the most broad-based and multi-ethnic cooperation of political and civil society organizations from inside and in exile working for national reconciliation, peace, and freedom in Burma. Burma regime continues to target civilians, UK tells UN Security Council Burma Campaign UK: Thu 8 Jul 2010 The British government has told the United Nations Security Council that Burma’s military dictatorship continues to target civilians, particularly from ethnic minorities, during a debate on the protection of civilians in armed conflict on 7th July 2010.“The Burmese military regime continues to target civilians, particularly people from ethnic minorities. The use of rape and other forms of sexual violence remain a serious concern, as do the use of child soldiers and forced labour for military use,” said Philip Parham, Deputy Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom. Burma Campaign UK welcomed the British government bringing up Burma in the debate, and focussing on the situation of ethnic minorities, which rarely gets attention from the international community. However, although what Philip Parham described to the council are war crimes and crimes against humanity, he failed to describe them as such. In March the UN Special Rapporteur on Burma called for a UN Commission of Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma. “It is a very welcome step forward for the UK to be raising attacks against ethnic minorities at the highest level in the UN Security Council, said Zoya Phan, International Coordinator at Burma Campaign UK. “We need to see more countries doing this, and for them to be stating clearly that these are war crimes and crimes against humanity. At the present time China and Russia might veto a resolution establishing a commission of inquiry, but they can’t veto the UK and others speaking the truth about the dictatorship breaking international law.” Section of Philip Parham’s speech referring to Burma: “The United Kingdom is greatly disturbed by the continuing growth in the number of people displaced within their own country as a result of conflict – a record high of over 27 million in 2009. This is an acute problem, for example in Burma, where we remain deeply concerned about the lack of progress towards national reconciliation. The Burmese military regime continues to target civilians, particularly people from ethnic minorities. The use of rape and other forms of sexual violence remain a serious concern, as do the use of child soldiers and forced labour for military use. Protecting civilians, wherever and whoever they are, is the best way to prevent displacement and consequent deprivation.” * The full speech is available at: http://ukun.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=News&id=22500749 Burma-North Korea ties: Escalating over two decades – Wai Moe Irrawaddy: Wed 7 Jul 2010 A recent New York Times op-ed article by Aung Lynn Htut, formerly a high-ranking Burmese military intelligence officer who defected in 2005 while he served as an attaché at the Burmese embassy in Washington, shed new light on the history of the still murky relationship between Burma and North Korea, two of the world’s most isolated, secretive and oppressive regimes.Burma broke diplomatic relations with North Korea in 1983, when North Korean agents attempted to assassinate the South Korean president on Burmese soil. But according to Aung Lynn Htut, shortly after current junta-chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe assumed power in 1992, he surreptitiously moved to renew ties with Pyongyang. Gen Shwe Mann (left) and Gen Kim Gyok-sik exchange copies of a memorandum of understanding at the Defense Ministry on November, 2008. “Than Shwe secretly made contact with Pyongyang. Posing as South Korean businessmen, North Korean weapon experts began arriving in Burma. I remember these visitors. They were given special treatment at the Rangoon airport,” Aung Lynn Htut said in his June 18 article. The junta kept its renewed ties with North Korea secret for more than a decade because it was working to establish relationships with Japanese and South Korean businesses, Aung Lynn Htut said. By 2006, however, “the junta’s generals felt either desperate or confident enough to publicly resume diplomatic relations with North Korea.” In November 2008, the junta’s No 3, Gen Shwe Mann, visited North Korea and signed a memorandum of understanding, officially formalizing military cooperation between Burma and North Korea. Photographs showed him touring secret tunnel complexes built into the sides of mountains thought to store and protect jet aircraft, missiles, tanks and nuclear and chemical weapons. According to Aung Lynn Htut, Lt-Gen Tin Aye, the No.5 in the Burma armed forces and the chief of Military Ordnance, is now the main liaison in the relationship with Pyongyang. Tin Aye has often traveled to North Korea as well as attended ceremonies at the North Korean embassy in Rangoon. In September 2009, The New Light of Myanmar reported that Tin Aye went to the anniversary celebration of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), held in a hotel in Rangoon. In February, Tin Aye, along with other senior officials, attended the birthday event of the Dear Leader of North Korea at the embassy. Flights and ships from North Korea to Burma have been carrying more than just Burmese generals. Analysts, including Burma military expert Andrew Selth, say that for years Burma and North Korea have used a barter system whereby Burma exchanges primary products for North Korean military technologies. In June 2009, a North Korean ship, the Kang Nam I, was diverted from going to Burma after being trailed by the US navy. Then in April, another North Korean ship, the Chong Gen, docked in Burma carrying suspicious cargo, allegedly in violation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1874, which restricts North Korea from arms deals and from trading in technology that could be used for nuclear weapons. In May, the seven-member UN panel monitoring the implementation of sanctions against North Korea said in a report that Pyongyang is involved in banned nuclear and ballistic activities in Iran, Syria and Burma with the aid of front companies around the world. According to the UN report, a North Korean company, Namchongang Trading, which is known to be associated with illicit procurement for Burma’s nuclear and military program and is on the US sanctions list, was involved in suspicious activities in Burma. The report also noted three individuals were arrested in Japan in 2009 for attempting to illegally export a magnetometer—a dual-use instrument that can be employed in making missile control system magnets and gas centrifuge magnets—to Burma via Malaysia allegedly under the direction of another company known to be associated with illicit procurement for North Korea’s nuclear and military programs. The UN experts also said that the Korea Kwangson Banking Corporation has handled several transactions involving millions of dollars directly related to deals between Burma and the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation. With this string of events and the suspicions surrounding them as a dramatic lead in, on June 4, Al Jazeera aired a news documentary prepared by the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) which was written by Robert Kelley, a nuclear scientist and former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The DVB report claimed that the ruling military junta in Burma is “mining uranium, converting it to uranium compounds for reactors and bombs, and is trying to build a reactor and/or an enrichment plant that could only be useful for a bomb.” The IAEA wrote to Burma’s agency representative, Tin Win, on June 14 and asked whether the information provided in the DVB report was true. Burma, which is a member of the IAEA, a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a signatory to the Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, responded with a letter stating that the DVB report allegations are “groundless and unfounded.” “No activity related to uranium conversion, enrichment, reactor construction or operation has been carried out in the past, is ongoing or is planned for the future in Myanmar [Burma],” the letter said. The letter also noted that Burma is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the agency’s so-called safeguards agreement. “As stated in the safeguards agreement, Myanmar will notify the agency if it plans to carry out any nuclear activities,” the letter said. The regime, however, has not signed the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, meaning that the agency has no power to set up an inspection of Burma’s nuclear facilities under the existing mechanism known as the Small Quantities Protocol. Previously, on June 11, Burma’s state radio and television news had reported the Foreign Ministry’s denial of the allegations in the DVB report. The denial claimed that anti-government groups in collusion with the media had launched the allegations with the goal of “hindering Burma’s democratic process and to tarnish the political image of the government.” The Foreign Ministry denial also addressed Nyapyidaw’s relationship with Pyongyang. “Following the re-establishment of diplomatic relations, Myanmar [Burma] and the DPRK, as independent sovereign states, have been engaging in promoting trade and cooperation between the two countries in the same way Myanmar is dealing with others,” the ministry said in its statement. The regime did acknowledge that the Chong Gen docked at Thilawa Port near Rangoon in April. But the statement said the North Korean vessel was involved in importing cement from North Korea and exporting rice from Burma. But in an article for Asia Times online, Burma analyst Bertil Linter noted that, “if carrying only innocuous civilian goods, as the statement maintains, there would seemingly have been no reason for authorities to cut electricity around the area when the Chong Gen, a North Korean ship flying the Mongolian flag of convenience, docked on the outskirts of Yangon.” “According to intelligence sources, security was tight as military personnel offloaded heavy material, including Korean-made air defense radars. The ship left the port with a return cargo of rice and sugar, which could mean that it was, at least in part, a barter deal. On January 31 this year, another North Korean ship, the Yang M V Han A, reportedly delivered missile components also at Yangon’s Thilawa port,” Linter said. Strategypage.com, a military affairs website covering armed forces worldwide, said, “Indications are that the North Korean ship that delivered a mysterious cargo four months ago, was carrying air defense radars (which are now being placed on hills up north) and ballistic missile manufacturing equipment. Dozens of North Korean technicians have entered the country in the last few months, and have been seen working at a military facility outside Mandalay. It’s unclear what this is for. Burma has no external enemies, and ballistic missiles are of no use against internal opposition.” In his Asia Times online story, Lintner noted that on June 24, the DVB reported that a new radar and missile base had been completed near Mohnyin in Myanmar’s northern Kachin State, and he reported that work on similar radar and missile bases has been reported from Kengtung in eastern Shan State,160 kilometers north of the Thai border town of Mae Sai. “Since Myanmar is not known to have imported radars and missile components from any country other than North Korea, the installations would appear to be one of the first visible outcomes of a decade of military cooperation,” Lintner said. Lintner also reported that Western intelligence sources know that 30 to 40 North Korean missile technicians are currently working at a facility near Minhla on the Irrawaddy River in Magwe Division, and that some of the technicians may have arrived overland by bus from China to give the appearance of being Chinese tourists. North Korea has also issued adamant denials with respect to allegations regarding its relationship with Burma. According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), on June 21 Pyongyang said, “The US is now making much fuss, floating the sheer fiction that the DPRK is helping Myanmar [Burma] in its nuclear development.” The KCNA often highlights the close relationship between North Korea and Burma. On June 20, the Pyongyang news agency reported that ex-Col Than Tun, deputy chairman of the Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Ltd., sent a statement cheering Kim Jong Il’s 46th anniversary at the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea. On April 18, Korean state-run- media reported that Than Tun also issued a statement cheering the 17th anniversary of Kim Jong Il’s chairing of North Korea’s National Defense Commission. “Kim Jong Il’s field inspection of KPA [Korean People’s Army] units served as a main source that helped bolster [North Korea's] self-reliant defense capability in every way,” the statement noted. Military sources said the Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Ltd, managed by the junta, is responsible for purchasing imported weapons for Burma’s armed forces, including transferring money to overseas banks such as Korea Kwangson Banking Corporation. Meanwhile, in addition to its escalating relationship with North Korea, the Burmese military regime has recently boosted ties with Iran, which according to the UN report is also allegedly receiving nuclear and missile technologies from North Korea. In recent years, Burmese and Iranian officials visited their counterparts homeland for the purported purpose of improving economic ties. Observers, however, said Than Shwe has made a tactical decision to develop relationships with other “pariah states,” particularly enemies of the US, to relieve Western pressure on his regime. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali Fathollahi met Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win and Minister of Energy Lun Thi during his trip to Burma on June 15-17. “The two sides reiterated their desire to further expand the ties of friendship and economic cooperation and to increase cooperation in the regional international forums such as [the] United Nations and Non-Aligned Movement,” The New Light of Myanmar reported on June 18. Fathollahi’s visit came three months after Maung Myint’s visit to Iran on March 8-11, when he met Iranian Foreign Minister Manochehr Mottaki and Deputy Minister of Petroleum H. Noghrehkar Shirazi. Total, Chevron deny abuse claim in Myanmar United Press International: Wed 7 Jul 2010 Washington — Oil and gas companies working in Myanmar do so with respect to good governance and humanitarian law, a spokesman for French energy company Total said.Total and its partners at U.S. supermajor Chevron are defending themselves against allegations they are tacitly funding an oppressive government and using forced labor in the region. EarthRights International in a report published Monday blames both companies for human rights abuses in Myanmar. The group claims Total and Chevron are using soldiers linked to killings and are using forced labor to keep pipelines operating smoothly. EarthRights also accuses energy companies of supporting an oppressive military regime. Operations by Total in the country brought in about $9 billion for Myanmar over the last decade. Both of the supermajors reject the claims raised by EarthRights, saying their operations support community programs and healthcare in the country. Total Vice President Jean-Francois Lassalle told Time magazine that his company was “shocked” by the allegation, blaming the non-governmental organization of bias. “We work daily for the respect of human rights in our operations and beyond our operations for better governance,” he said. EarthRights say both companies could face legal challenge if residents of Myanmar choose to take action. Energy giants ‘fund Burma’s nuclear drive’ Agence France-Press: Tue 6 Jul 2010 Burma’s military rulers are using gas revenue from US and French energy giants Chevron and Total to fund an illegal bid to build nuclear weapons, human rights monitors said in a report on Monday. Burma’s Yadana gas pipeline, run by the two companies along with Thai firm PTTEP, made billions of dollars for the military leaders, the Paris-based group EarthRights International said, citing data from the firms. The NGO also branded the companies complicit in human rights abuses such as targeted killings and forced labour at the pipeline. It said Chevron, Total and PTTEP have generated US$9 billion dollars from Burma’s Yadana gas pipeline since 1998, more than half of which has gone straight to the ruling junta. “The companies are financing the world’s newest nuclear threat with multi-billion dollar payments,” EarthRights said in a statement. “The funds have enabled the country’s autocratic junta to maintain power and pursue an expensive, illegal nuclear weapons programme.” The US has voiced concerns about Burma’s cooperation with alleged nuclear proliferator North Korea after DVB said Burma was trying to build an atomic bomb. The Burmese government last month dismissed the claims as “baseless.” EarthRights said its investigations showed gas revenue had found its way into offshore bank accounts and alleged they were destined to buy arms and nuclear technology. Citing testimony by residents and refugees, also alleged: “The oil companies are complicit in targeted killings of two ethnic Mon villagers and in ongoing forced labour. These violent abuses were committed by Burma army soldiers providing security for the companies and the pipeline within the last year.” EarthRights demanded the companies publish details of their payments to Burma’s leaders. “Now is the time for the international community to focus on the Burmese generals’ nerve center, its gas revenues,” it said. The report included responses by Chevron and Total, which said they favoured transparency but were prevented from publishing certain details. “Chevron respects human rights in the communities and countries where we operate,” the US company’s response said. “Chevron’s subsidiary in Myanmar [Burma] conducts its business consistent with US laws and regulations,” it added, but said “contractual obligations” prevented it from publishing details of payments. EarthRights cited a statement by Total which said the company supported transparency and human rights but was bound to respect Burma’s will when it came to keeping payments confidential. “Total respects state sovereignty and refrains from intervening in the political process,” said a statement, cited in EarthRights’ report. “As a result, Total cannot disclose any financial or contractual information if the host country is opposed to such disclosure.” Burmese army targets ‘dispirited’ youths – Thurein Soe Democratic Voice of Burma: Tue 6 Jul 2010 Hundreds of children, some as young as 13, are being coerced into military training in Burma’s northeastern Shan state. One 16-year-old said that around 260 youths in the border town of Tachilek, close to Mae Sai in Thailand, were enrolled in training in mid-June. Authorities reportedly told them that they would be trained in fire-fighting. “For the first two days of the training, we were actually taught the basics on fire-fighting. But over the next days, they brought guns to the training and taught us how to assemble and dissemble them,” the boy told DVB. Locals in Tachilek speculated that the government could be attempting to persuade dispirited youths in the town who failed high school exams last year to join the army. The trainees were given an allowance of between 2000 and 3000 kyat (US$2 to US$3) allowance depending on which ward in Tachilek they came from. Sources told DVB some of the youths, after learning that the training was for military purposes, went into hiding. Burma’s child soldier issue was raised at the UN last week by the secretary general’s special representative for children in armed conflict. Radhika Coomaraswamy urged the Burmese government to allow the UN access to armed rebel groups thought to use child soldiers. But the Burmese junta is also thought to be one of the world’s leading recruiters of child soldiers. A Human Rights Watch report in 2002 claimed that there could be as many as 70,000 child soldiers within the Burmese army, despite it being illegal under domestic law. Their use is symptomatic of the government’s aggressive expansion of its army, which is now thought to number around 500,000, or nearly one soldier for every 10 people in the country. Battalion commanders are ordered to fulfil quotas of troop numbers and are rewarded with food or money when this is achieved, hence the ongoing forced recruitment of children. Economic growth ‘to accelerate’ in 2010-11 – Francis Wade Democratic Voice of Burma: Tue 6 Jul 2010 Investment in Burma’s energy sectors will speed up economic growth in the coming year although the ruling junta will continue to run wide fiscal deficits, a report states. Discounting the expansion of the gas and hydropower industries, the Burmese economy will remain weak and growth “sluggish” in 2010-11, the monthly Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report says. It warned however that natural gas production, which is rapidly becoming the cornerstone of Burma’s export sector, has plateaued and won’t record strong growth until new fields come on stream, which likely won’t be until 2013 at the earliest. Burma is currently embroiled in a dispute with Bangladesh over ownership of offshore gas blocks that isn’t likely to be resolved until 2014, while a lucrative gas deal with China won’t become functional until 2012. Burma remains one of the world’s least developed countries, and was last year ranked 138 out of 182 countries in the UN’s Human Development Index. The UN Development Programme said last month that Burma would struggle to meet any of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Its slow growth has been made starker by the accelerating economies of neighbouring China, Thailand and India, which are now pouring money into Burma’s energy sector. Regardless of new investments, however, its projected GDP growth rate for next year is less than one percent, a figure more akin to the world’s most developed countries, and nothing close to the nine percent and six percent respectively for China and India, two emerging economies. If the status quo remains in Burma, increasing foreign investment will do little to benefit the country as a whole: decades of military rule and economic mismanagement means that little wealth has reached Burmese people – the average annual wage stands at around US$220, and the government spends 1.8 percent of its budget on healthcare, compared to an average of 6.4 percent across Southeast Asia. The report also pointed a figure at the government’s myopic focus on channeling money into strengthening the military, as well as the billions of dollars that have gone into building the new capital, Naypyidaw. There was a small bit of good news for the country’s “buoyant” agriculture sector, which was hit hard by cyclone Nargis in May 2008 but “rebounded in 2009”. The report warned however that ongoing lack of government investment and access to equipment means that it will “continue to struggle to grow rapidly”. Moreover, the effects of foreign aid that contributed to its revitalisation could taper off in the coming years. The ruling junta has announced it will hold elections later this year, and analysts speculate that a new pseudo-civilian government will take the reins, with many of the old guard of the military holding onto key positions. US and EU sanctions on the country look set to remain in place in the near future in an attempt to further isolate the economy, although their impact has been dampened by ongoing trade with Southeast Asian countries. One of the few tangible impacts of sanctions has been on the country’s once-rich gem sector, which has dwindled in tandem with a tightening boycott and lacklustre global demand for precious stones. The EIU report said however that a replenished regional demand for timber and pulses will strengthen that area of the market, despite warnings from environment groups that Burma is suffering from alarming rates of deforestation. Challenge impunity in Myanmar The Jakarta Post: Tue 6 Jul 2010 Last month, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, told the United Nations that Myanmar’s ruling military junta may be committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, and that these international crimes should be investigated. I agree. The past three years have drawn the world’s attention to the humanitarian and human rights crisis in Myanmar as never before. Now Myanmar’s dictator Than Shwe is hoping the world has a short memory; he plans a façade of an election later this year, to put sheen of legitimacy on dictatorial rule. The courageous protests led by Buddhist monks in September 2007, and the regime’s shocking crackdown, including the killing of Japanese photojournalist Kenji Nagai, exposed more clearly than ever before the regime’s cruelty. Eight months later, Cyclone Nargis ripped through the country, leaving death and devastation in its wake, and the regime’s initial refusal to accept international aid workers evidenced its inhumanity. The continuing military offensives against civilians in ethnic areas, particularly in eastern Myanmar, the assassination of at least one prominent ethnic leader and attempts on the lives of others and a callous disregard for a famine in Chin State all expose once again the regime’s agenda of ethnic cleansing. As the regime prepares to hold elections this year, the world must remember the backdrop of the past three years. Last year, a report was published by Harvard Law School called Crimes in Myanmar. Commissioned by some of the world’s leading jurists, including Judge Patricia Wald (US), Hon. Ganzorig Gombosuren (Mongolia), Sir Geoffrey Nice QC (UK), Judge Richard Goldstone (South Africa), and Judge Pedro Nikken (Venezuela), the report concludes that the regime’s violations of human rights may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, and that these should be investigated by the United Nations. As a former UN special rapporteur, I agree. During my period as UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, I received incontrovertible evidence that forced labor, the forcible conscription of child soldiers; torture and rape as a weapon of war are widespread and systematic in Myanmar. Since that time, the evidence has grown stronger. It is claimed by the Thailand-Myanmar Border Consortium that as many as 3,500 villages have been destroyed in eastern Myanmar since 1996. Villagers have been used as human minesweepers, forced to walk through fields of landmines to clear them for the military, often resulting in loss of their limbs and sometimes their lives in the process. I visited prisons and heard many testimonies of cruel forms of torture. Today, over 2,100 political prisoners are believed to be in Myanmar’s jails, and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s democracy leader, remains under house arrest. She has spent over 14 of the past 20 years in detention. Religious persecution is widespread. The regime is intolerant of non-Myanmarese ethnic minorities and non-Buddhist religious minorities. The predominantly Christian Chin and Kachin peoples, as well as the partly Christian Karen and Karenni, face discrimination, restriction and persecution, including the destruction of churches and crosses. Christians have been forced to tear down crosses and built Buddhist pagodas in their place, at gunpoint. The Muslim Rohingyas face similar persecution, and are denied citizenship in the country despite living in Myanmar’s northern Arakan state for generations. As a result they face unbearable restrictions on movement and marriage, and have almost no access to education and health care. The United Nations has been documenting these crimes for many years. My fellow former rapporteur, Rajsoomah Lallah, concluded as long ago as 1996 that these abuses were “the result of policy at the highest level, entailing political and legal responsibility.” A recent General Assembly resolution urged the regime to “put an end to violations of international human rights and humanitarian law”. The UN has placed Myanmar on a monitoring list for genocide, while the Genocide Risk Index lists Myanmar as one of the two top “red alert” countries for genocide, along with Sudan. Non-Governmental Organizations have made similar assessments. Amnesty International described the violations in eastern Myanmar as crimes against humanity, while the Minority Rights Group ranks Myanmar as one of the top five countries where ethnic minorities are under threat. Freedom House describes Myanmar as “the worst of the worst”. Human Rights Watch and the International Center for Transitional Justice draw similar conclusions. With “elections” looming and an increase in crimes against humanity already prevalent in Than Shwe’s attempt to end all ethnic minority resistance to his rule, now is the time for concerted international action before more lives are lost. Impunity prevails in Myanmar and no action has been taken to bring an end to these crimes. That is why we believe the United Nations has an obligation to respond to the current rapporteur’s recommendation and establish a commission of inquiry, to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity and propose action. The UN Security Council should also impose a universal arms embargo on Myanmar’s regime. The regime has been allowed to get away with these crimes for too long. The climate of impunity should not be allowed to continue unchallenged. The writer was UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar from 1992 to 1996 and a member of the UN Sub–Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights from 2000-2009. * http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/07/06/challenge-impunity-myanmar.html House odds stacked in favor of the junta – Yeni Irrawaddy: Tue 6 Jul 2010 The people of Burma love to gamble, which leads to entertainment pleasure for the masses, a few lucky winners and many social ills. There is one game in Burma, however, that the masses will not find very entertaining, only the junta stands to win and is certain to perpetuate most of the country’s social problems: the coming election. Burma is known as “the land of gold,” which may be true for the ruling class of military generals who enrich themselves by selling off the country’s gas, timber, jade and other natural resources. But the junta’s mishandling of the economy means that people at the bottom of society struggle desperately, and one of the few escapes from their miserable daily existence is gambling. Yeni is news editor of the Irrawaddy magazine. He can be reached at yeni@irrawaddy.org. Apart from the national lottery, there are three main types of illegal gambling that are widely practiced in Burma: the two-digit lottery, in which winning numbers are based on the last two digits of the Thailand’s SET Index; the three-digit lottery, based on Thailand’s official lottery; and betting on football. A Rangoon-based economist calculated that gambling transactions in Burma through the two-digit lottery alone could be worth approximately five to ten billion kyat (US $5-10 million) a day. Currently, all gambling eyes in Burma are focused on the World Cup competition. Burma has a more permissive attitude towards sports book and sports betting than neighboring countries, so even though football gambling is illegal, people gamble publicly. According to Burmese law, anyone caught gambling or taking bets could receive a prison sentence of between three months and two years, but the ability to bribe most policemen and administrative officials has allowed illegal gambling to thrive in the world’s third most corrupt country, as ranked by Berlin-based Transparency International in 2009. The ease with which people in Burma place bets is drawing outside interest as well. It is believed that Chinese and Thai sports bookmakers are now setting up gambling operations in Burmese border towns, where they can build a network of illegal gambling inside Burma. For those who live below the poverty line, there appears to be nothing to loose by gambling, except perhaps a bamboo shelter with a tarpaulin roof. But in Burma, where the illegal gambling industry’s profits are based on a large number of addicted gamblers, including the poor who run up relatively huge debts, the often hidden social costs of gambling are incalculable. There is substantial evidence that gambling can lead to addictive and destructive behavior, much like alcohol and drugs. Ultimately, problem gamblers cause a net loss to the community that includes increased crime, lost work time, personal bankruptcy, domestic violence, child abuse and financial hardships to family members. According to a report from Integrated Regional Information Networks (commonly known as IRIN), a part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, even Burmese children can become involved in paying off gambling-related debts—parents often take their children out of school and send them to work in return for credit from the bookmakers. The tentacles of black money have affected every corner of society in Burma, making it almost impossible under current conditions to effectively curb illegal gambling businesses or even to set up a social safety net of programs such as public and private awareness campaigns, child protection services or micro-finance programs. This is one more reason why Burma needs to launch a new beginning, replacing the current unelected regime with dynamic, effective political leadership elected to national and state parliaments through free and fair democratic polls. Unfortunately, the junta’s proposed elections may be the most rigged game in town, and participation the riskiest bet. Webster’s New World Dictionary defines “gambling” as playing a game of chance for money or some other stake, or taking a risk in order to gain some advantage. In a “fair game,” the expected value is at least equal to the stake. Some argue that even with the odds stacked against the opposition, reform in Burma can begin at the margins, then move into the mainstream once a more level playing field is established in the future. In their view, a reversion to real democracy should not be expected immediately. Therefore, they say, opposition and ethnic politicians, as well as voters, should take a gamble and participate in—rather than complain about—the regime’s “road map” and so-called election, accepting for now whatever trickles down from the ruling military elite in hopes of winning a big payoff in the future. But under the junta’s house rules, the big payoff may never materialize. This means that unless the rules are changed to make the coming election free and fair, members of the opposition are destined to toss their energy, resources, credibility and even lives into the junta’s rigged political slot machine with no hope of ever winning the jackpot of real democracy. And that is not a fair game. |
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