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06 March 2008
Myanmar Monk Tells Story of Killings
A Myanmar monk called for a global weapons embargo on his country, telling a human rights conference Thursday that the junta's military leaders must not be allowed to use guns against his people again.
U Awbata said he struggles to shake memories of Myanmar soldiers opening fire on fellow monks during street protests last September, stomping on their heads and pummeling them with batons.
"It doesn't matter how many tears I shed," U Awbata said at the three-day conference in Indonesia. "I cannot erase these images from my mind."
05 March 2008
Myanmar's past key to changing its future
By Gill Murdoch
A pariah state led by generals who have oppressed their people for more than 40 years: Myanmar is a black and white story to most writers.
But understanding how history has shaped Southeast Asia's most stubborn military junta not only adds accuracy to debate about the former Burma, it is key to changing the country's future, argues historian Thant Myint-U.
In his latest book "The River of Lost Footsteps", the grandson of U.N. Secretary-General U Thant draws on history and his personal experiences to analyse the prospects for change.
He spoke to Reuters Life! while on a visit to Singapore.
Q: Many writers struggle to make sense of Myanmar. Some romanticise it as a forgotten tragedy, others characterise it as on the cusp of revolution. What do you make of these depictions?
A: An old but still current way of seeing Burma is as a sort of tyranny that can be stripped away -- that underneath there's a timeless, peaceful, Buddhist country. That was the paradigm through which the British saw it in the 1880s before their invasion. That's why they thought that the removal of the king would change everything very quickly for the better. The results were a disaster.
04 March 2008
Laughing through the junta's gag
Myanmar's famous comedy troupe, unable to publicly stage its satirical routines, still pokes fun at the ruling generals nightly at home. 'Joking shares the suffering,' says one member.
By Paul Watson, Los Angeles Times
The generals, to put it mildly, can't take a joke. But the Moustache Brothers make their living mocking fools, including those who wear military uniforms.
So they have drawn a battle line in this country's long struggle for democracy with a small stage that cuts across their cramped living room, site of the three-man comedy troupe's nightly performance.
The military regime silenced street protests last fall by arresting and, in some cases, shooting peaceful demonstrators. That has left dissidents such as comedians Lu Zaw, Lu Maw and the lead satirist of the family, Par Par Lay, to tend the embers of opposition by poking fun at the regime. In the past, the junta that rules Myanmar -- also known as Burma -- has tried to shut them up too, hoping to intimidate them with prison terms, hard labor and torture.
But the comedians are exploiting a loophole in a ban on their act by staying on the attack at home, in English, with biting humor that ridicules the junta as a bunch of bumbling thugs, thieves and spies. The Moustache Brothers, one of Myanmar's most famous comedic acts, are determined to get the last laugh. "Joking shares the suffering," said Lu Maw.
"That's what the government is afraid of because jokes are like wildfire. They want to hide deep problems under the covers, and jokes spread the word, mouth to mouth, door to door and outside the country. Then they are disgraced. They are ashamed."
28/02/2008
focus:
Birmania, la resistenza di Taunggok
Come nella Gallia di Asterix assediata dai Romani, anche la Birmania avvilita dai generali ha il suo villaggio che non si rassegna. A Taunggok (nello Stato di Arakan, Rakhine secondo la nuova denominazione, parte centro-occidentale del Paese), a cinque mesi dalle manifestazioni nazionali represse nel sangue, la resistenza al regime continua seppur in forma semiclandestina ed isolata.
Già nel settembre caldo questa località, nota per il suo attivismo politico, era stata teatro di una delle marce più imponenti al di fuori dell’ex capitale Rangoon: quarantamila civili, accompagnati da centinaia di monaci e novizie avevano sfilato chiedendo condizioni di vita più umane. Poi il silenzio imposto dalla violenza di Stato aveva avvolto anche le sue strade.
A metà gennaio, però, una nuova concentrazione popolare davanti al mercato locale (settanta le persone coinvolte) ha costretto le autorità a bloccare le strade e a chiudere le scuole per evitare che altri partecipanti – soprattutto contadini - si unissero al corteo.
Nei giorni successivi il consueto paesaggio fatto di squadre anti-sommossa a presidiare i punti nevralgici della cittadina insieme ad un numero crescente di agenti in borghese, in un clima di intimidazione già noto agli abitanti di Taunggok: molti membri della Lega nazionale per la democrazia (il partito di Aung San Suu Kyi) sono da mesi detenuti nelle prigioni locali. Ma come in un gioco di squadra preparato a tavolino, i gregari emergono quando i leader si trovano in difficoltà.
A resistance hero on the run
Somewhere in the dilapidated city of Yangon is a man on the run since August last year. He has sheltered in over 10 homes so far. But he expects to continue avoiding arrest by Myanmar's dreaded military or intelligence forces. When Tun Myint Aung shifts from one safehouse to another, he goes armed with two items that have become indispensable.
They are a mobile phone and a portable, Chinese-made radio, to listen to such anti-junta stations like the Democratic Voice of Burma, based in Oslo, Norway. "The phone and the radio are very important now. I always take them wherever I go.
They are next to me when I sleep," said Tun Myint Aung during a recent telephone interview with Inter Press Service from his current safehouse in the former capital. "Through them I stay in touch with people outside, my friends, and follow the news about events in the country."
26 February 2008
Burma's Charade
The junta's plans for a faux democracy
IF YOU haven't been paying close attention, you might think some recent announcements out of Burma denoted progress in this broken Southeast Asian state. After 14 years of promises, the junta says that it is finally introducing a constitution, with a referendum due in May. In 2010, it says, there will be full-fledged elections -- the first since those it annulled in 1990, when they were won by the democratic opposition.
Unfortunately, this supposed constitution, like the faux democracy it constructs, enshrines only the dictators who are holding the country hostage. Written by delegates cherry-picked by the government and lacking the input of the opposition party or many ethnic minorities, the constitution will reserve 25 percent of parliamentary seats for the military. Through a well-crafted technicality, it also bars Aung San Suu Kyi -- opposition leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner and house arrestee -- from holding office.
Myanmar: la road map e la posta in gioco
La giunta presieduta da Than Shwe ha improvvisamente fissato la data del referendum costituzionale al prossimo maggio, e delle elezioni politiche al 2010. La maggior parte degli attivisti politici, tra cui Aung San Suu Kyi, è ancora agli arresti in seguito alle dimostrazioni dello scorso agosto. Il Paese si trova a fare i conti tra il nuovo potenziale contesto di cooperazione con il SPDC, e le annose lacerazioni interne di natura etnica, economica, e politica. Mentre la comunità internazionale appare spaccata tra dialogo e linea dura nei riguardi della giunta, Pechino e Jakarta spiccano come attori di primo piano nella gestione della crisi, il cui esito appare permeato tanto dall’incertezza del voto, quanto dalla costante minaccia della repressione armata.
25/02/2008
Intrigue and illness in Myanmar's junta
This month's surprise announcement in Myanmar of a planned national referendum on a new constitution in May and multi-party democratic elections by 2010 are all part of Senior General Than Shwe's game plan to hold onto power and ensure his family's interests are secured.
The question now is whether or not the junta leader's health will hold out that long. Than Shwe sent a clear message to his subordinates, including for junta number two General Maung Aye, that he intends to maintain his hold on power as Myanmar makes the move from military to civilian government, and also to the United Nations and international community that his plans - rather than outside mediation efforts - will decide the country's political future.
The announcement notably came after months of inertia inside themilitary hierarchy, as the 75-year-old Than Shwe was apparently hobbled by cardiac surgery and transfixed with efforts to keep in check his deputy and rival, Maung Aye. The junta's second-ranking official woke to hear the announcement on state radio and was not informed beforehand of the timetable for implementing the supposed democratic reforms, according to government sources in the capital Naypyidaw.
The planned referendum and elections indicate Than Shwe's new determination to press forward with the country's so-called "roadmap to democracy", which will ensure a continued role for the military in governance. "Than Shwe obviously now feels he is secure enough in his position ... to push on with some measure of reform," said the Myanmar academic Win Min. "His failing health may also have prompted him to move at this time, as he may fear that time is running out for him."
22/02/2008
focus:
Burma - Annual report 2008
reporters without borders
Area: 676,580 sq. km.
Population: 51,000,000.
Language: Burmese.
Head of state: General Than Shwe.
The military junta was faced with a major protest movement for the first time since 1990 and responded by firing into the crowds. A Japanese reporter was killed, around 15 Burmese journalists were arrested for reporting on the crackdown and the Internet was cut for two weeks. Once order was restored censorship was stepped up.
Popular demonstrations, led by Buddhist monks in August and September 2007 shook the military government which has ruled the country for more than 40 years. Despite pressure from the international community, the junta’s reaction was brutal: at least 100 people were killed, thousands arrested and a climate of fear and denunciations took hold. After several weeks of hesitation during which the world enthusiastically watched the highly-mediatised “Saffron Revolution”, the military took drastic action. Japanese journalist, Kenji Nagai, who was at the centre of a crowd with his camera in his hand, was gunned down by a soldier on 27 September. The Internet was cut for two weeks, during which time around 15 Burmese journalists were arrested. Foreign correspondents who had entered the country on tourist visas found themselves very closely watched.
Many Burmese journalists covered the demonstrations, despite the fact that military censorship bans the publication of independent news. Some 15 were arrested, suspected of sending footage of the marches and the crackdown to other countries. This is what happened to Win Ko Ko Latt, reporter on Weekly Eleven Journal, Nay Linn Aung, of the 7-Days Journal, and cameraman Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi, who were imprisoned in Rangoon. Ko Thu Ya Soe, a photographer working for the European news agency EPA, had to go into hiding for several weeks after taking numbers of photos of the demonstrations. When security forces failed to find those they were looking for, they arrested members of their family instead. Khin Mar Lar, the wife of Nyein Thit, a documentary-maker and ex political prisoner who hid for several weeks, was taken into custody near Mandalay for more than ten days.
Focus:
World's conscience on Burma
THEY FLY no flag, they rule no territory, yet winners of the Nobel Peace Prize have earned the right to act, at certain times, as representatives of the world's conscience. This was never more true than in the statement on Burma issued this week by Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and signed by eight of his fellow Nobel laureates.
After the ruling military junta shot and beat saffron-robed Buddhist monks and other citizens peacefully demonstrating for democracy last fall, most governments only dithered. The United Nations sent a special envoy to Burma to beg the despotic generals for some gesture of reconciliation with a population that despises them.
Predictably, the regime of General Than Shwe went on rounding up monks and other pro-democracy activists. In a show of disdain for their own people and the rest of the world, the generals announced this week that they will hold a vote in May on a new constitution - a phony referendum on a document that their hand-picked stooges have spent 14 years drafting. And they rubbed salt in their victims' wounds by decreeing that Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi will not be allowed to participate in elections envisioned for 2010.
http://www.boston.com
A ‘human zoo’ for Burma’s giraffe girls
Women of the Kayan tribe earn tourism dollars for Thailand
At the age of five, a girl born into to the Kayan tribe of Burma is adorned with her first brass neck coil, a mark of beauty and identity. Every year thereafter, she is given a new, longer neck piece until its coils form a stack of roughly 25 rings, the weight of which pushes down her clavicle, creating the effect of an astonishly elongated neck. It’s a controversial tradition, and one that the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) says has turned the Kayan women into a tourist attraction for snap-happy Westerners.
Since the early ’90s, 520 Kayan, along with thousands of other Burmese, have fled north to Thailand to escape their country’s military regime. But where the others were placed in refugee camps and, in many cases, resettled in third-party countries, the Kayan were held separately and relocated to three remote villages in the Thai jungle, where the UNHCR says they are being held in a “human zoo.”
Smart sanctions target Myanmar tycoon
The United States Treasury Department announced earlier this month that it will expand the personal and business sanctions it imposed on individual family members of Myanmar's ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) last year.
Those included among the newly blacklisted were members and individuals associated with businessman Tay Za's state-linked commercial empire. The recent sanctions are part of Washington's new so-called "smart sanctions" regime, designed to target specific generals and their associated business interests rather than the entire population.
Before this month's announcement, the US had imposed sanctions on 30 individuals and seven businesses connected to the junta. Designed in response to the junta's continued human rights abuses and political repression, including last year’s brutal crackdown on anti-government street protests, the sanctions in effect freeze any assets of targeted individuals or companies which might have parked them in US financial institutions and prohibits any financial or commercial transactions between American individuals and Myanmar firms named in the sanctions order. The persons named are also barred from entering the US .
The latest set of sanctions specifically target Tay Za's Htoo Trading Company Limited, also known as the Htoo Group of Companies. Tay Za was described by the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as "an arms dealer and financial henchman of Burma's [Myanmar’s] repressive regime".
In announcing the latest sanctions, White House press secretary Dana Perino said on February 4 that "the actions of [junta leader] Than Shwe and his associates remain unacceptable to all those who value freedom."
19 February 2008
Burma marches to sham elections
One positive thing that can be said about Burma's military regime is that its generals don't bury their lies in the small print.
When they feel the need to tell a great big whopper they do it in big bold capital letters and right in your face.
Which is why it doesn't even take a second glance to see that the plans for a constitutional referendum in May and elections in 2010 announced by the generals are nothing more than a sham.
The result of this farce will be to make things worse by legitimizing military rule behind a facade of civilian institutions.
The referendum and elections will certainly not bring to power Burma's most popular political party, the National League for Democracy.
In 1990 elections, the NLD won 82 per cent of the vote; that appalled the generals and they have always refused to accept the result.
The junta, led by Gen. Than Shwe, has already moved to ensure that NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent 12 of the past 18 years under various forms of detention, can never become government leader.
A constitutional amendment has banned people from running for parliament if they are or were married to foreigners. Suu Kyi was married to British academic Michael Aris, who died in 1999.
The main reason for this unusually honest approach to lying is that the generals have discovered they don't need to disguise their duplicity.
www.canada.com
focus:
Burma: Sandwiched between giants
Burma lies between two emerging Asian powerhouses - China and India. Almost six months after the suppression of pro-democracy protests, a BBC correspondent reports from the country's main city, Rangoon.
"You can take my picture but please don't put it in any magazines," the old man said with alarm.
Then he paused and shook his head apologetically. "We live in fear in this country," he said. I'll call him Tin Ngwe. Printing his real name would probably land him in jail; printing mine would get me on a journalist's blacklist. I followed him as he shuffled around the Shwedagon temple complex in the shadow of the huge golden stupa which forms the spiritual centre of Rangoon.
Last September, when hundreds of Burmese monks took part in a three-week protest against the government, Shwedagon became their focal point. I asked Tin Ngwe where all the monks were now, as I had only seen a handful in what is one of Burma's most important religious sites. He led me away from the crowds to the eastern gate, and pointed to the road below, where the first demonstration by monks had begun.
"Thirty-one of them," he said, "all shot". Many other monks and protesters are, according to human rights groups, still being held in jail.
Last week the Burmese state-controlled media announced that a national referendum on a new constitution would be held in May, and general elections in 2010. No-one I met had any faith in the promise.
15 February 2008
Burma: Lessons from the Past, Problems in the Present and Thoughts about the Future
By Dr. Josef Silverstein - Professor Emeritus, Rutgers
What I’m going to talk today is about the central political problem in Burma, for centuries, where it was, where things may be heading. Why did the previous constitutions fail in uniting the ethnic groups and the country? In 1960, several assessments were made, and the Burmese University produced some of the leading world leaders in several subjects. What happened?
In World War II, Japanese liberated Burma from the British, and then the British liberated Burma from the Japanese. The country was in recovery, in many areas such as rice production. In 1960, Burma, for the first time, exported millions of tons of rice to the rest of the world—even 3 million tons at one time. How do we explain how things fell to the situation at this time of the day, as it is one of the greatest tragedies?
Now, we’ll go back to 1945, at the end of the war, and 1947, where there was a rapid move towards independence. The Burmese people know that they must recover from Independence, and they can no longer stay as a previous colonial state. The Burmese, under no condition, want to accept colonialism, and they want freedom and independence.
In 1936, there was a nationalist movement where a young man named Aung San, who was a student leader, joined Dr. Ba Maw and formed a united front. The country was not unified—at least 8 major ethnic groups were ruling their own territories. The British inherited this structure from the Burmese king, where several ethnic groups led their own areas on their own. The central political power was in the South, in the Irrawaddy valley, in Rangoon. This led to isolation of other ethnic groups in the rest of the country.
On the eve of the meeting between Aung San and Clement Atlee, they formed AFPFL—Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League. The key statement of AFPFL is: It is our policy, in regard to the frontier areas of the people (those outside of Rangoon), in our relation to the people of the frontier system, form a Federation of Burma to include and unite several people and bring them together for the first time. It is not the intention to impose anything that the ethnic groups do not want, but to give them the autonomy as they need. Their policy is to invite others to join them to this assembly, under mutual conditions, where the Burmans and the non-Burmans agree upon.
Aung San, a general at that time, was going to take off his uniform to become U Aung San, to become the leader of AFPFL. The area of concern was the concerns of the people of the frontier. The Hill People would be allowed to administer their own areas in any ways they please, without any imposition of policy from the Burmans.
There will be equality and everyone will get their equal share of resources. There will be autonomy based on the needs of the diverse groups. That was the bedrock of AFPFL, where between the two levels (the state and union governments), there will be interaction in Burmese and English, in learning about one another, slowly absorbing each others’ cultures; creating a multi-racial society.
In reality, AFPFL did not work. The reason this didn’t work was there wasn’t enough time for this idea to work out. In their meeting, Aung San and Atlee demanded independence within a year. The people in the frontier areas weren’t sure how they would work with the people in Rangoon. The Burmese Communist party, whose members were mostly Burmans, challenged this united front. It was a Socialist idea and Burma was to become a leftist country. Aung San himself was once a member of the communist party, but left the party, with the idea of AFPFL leading the country. Aung San removed Than Tun from the position of the secretary, and appointed John Yeng. This was a move towards the British way of Socialism instead of adopting the Soviet Socialism.
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14 February 2008
Rare sandpipers found in Myanmar
Eighty-four spoon-billed sandpipers have been discovered in a coastal stretch of Myanmar, offering hope for saving the endangered birds, a conservation group said Thursday.
The discovery in early February comes only months after Russian researchers reported that numbers of the tiny birds — with speckled brow feathers and a distinctive spoon-shaped bill — had dropped 70 percent in the past few years in their breeding sites in Siberia and none had been seen this year in their traditional wintering sites in Bangladesh, Britain-based conservation group BirdLife International said.
The World Conservation Union lists the bird as endangered with only 200 to 300 pairs left in the wild.
The discovery of 84 birds wintering in Myanmar — only one of which appears to have come from Siberia — raises the prospect of breeding grounds elsewhere, BirdLife said. The birds' migration route takes them from Siberia down through Japan, North Korea, South Korea, mainland China and Taiwan, to their main wintering grounds in South Asia.
"This is an important piece of the jigsaw," Simba Chan, senior conservation manager at BirdLife's Asia Division, said in a statement. "If present trends continue, the spoon-billed sandpiper faces extinction in the next few years. If we are to save the species, we need to identify and conserve not only its breeding sites, but its migration stopover sites and wintering grounds too."
Spoon-billed sandpipers face a myriad of threats because of their complicated migration routes, from expanding shrimp farms and salt pans in Bangladesh to coastal development in China and South Korea. Their eggs are often eaten by foraging dogs and foxes in Russia.
12 February 2008
A rare meeting with the last of Burma's royals
In the hills above Mandalay, the old British summer capital of Burma is a microcosm of the country's imperial past, and its Orwellian present.
Maymyo's most interesting resident lives anonymously in a mock Tudor villa that looks more Berkhamsted than Burma. He might be the king of this country if the British had not toppled his grandfather, King Thibaw, in 1885.
According to Taw Paya, 84, the old monarchy can still stir emotions in Burma, although his family abandoned any political aspirations long ago.
"It's slowly being forgotten by the educated people," he said, "but the country people still have lingering memories. Whenever one of we the royal types goes out there, everyone crowds around as if you had come down from a satellite."
Taw Paya himself rarely travels -"because of the restrictions this wretched government imposes on one's movements"- but such constraints have always been a fact of his life. "Look here," he said. "When the British were here we were not even allowed to cross the Irrawaddy River." Burma's colonial masters were afraid that King Thibaw's heir would visit the legendary "victory ground" at the town of Shwebo and stir the populace with a myth of royal invincibility.
These days all travellers in Burma have their identity number recorded at every step of their journey, unless they belong to one of the ethnic groups which is not accorded full citizenship and therefore not allowed to travel at all.
Burma's censors monitor Internet, newspapers - and poets
Saw Wai is a Burmese poet known for his love songs. His eight-line Valentine's Day ode, about a brokenhearted man in love with a fashion model, was a particularly tender one. But there was one problem.
If read vertically, the first word of each line formed the phrase: "Power Crazy Senior General Than Shwe."
The senior general himself, head of Burma's (Myanmar's) military junta, could not have been amused. The head of the censorship board was urgently called to the capital; the weekly "Love Journal" has been shut down and copies of the offending edition were yanked from newsstands.
Saw Wai is now in jail, where apparently he will spend Feb. 14 in isolation, behind bars.
Extreme government censorship is as much a part of life in today's Burma as rice and pagodas. Everything from TV programs to newspaper ads goes through a rigorous vetting board. But the junta is fighting a losing battle against a population hungry for information, armed with tools ranging from transistor radios to sneaky editors and myriad ways to bypass blocks on Internet sites.
Since last September's monk uprising, the censorship has increased. And criticism of the ruling junta is not all that is wiped out – so is most bad news, including reports on natural disasters and defeats of the national soccer team. Even good news can be cut if it's about countries out of favor with the government.
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