Forced militia training conducted in Ye Township

HURFOM (Rehmonnya): On July 3rd, the Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) No. 343 led militia training in Ye Township. The LIB forced residents to choose between participating or paying a 6,000 kyat fine.

Nai Myo, a Arutaung villager explained, “At about 9:00 AM the village headman Nai Htun Thin announced every household has to attend the militia training, which [was] lead by the LIB No. 343. He said that this announcement came from the LIB No. 343, and everyone must follow the policy. He said the LIB No. 343 needed about 50 people from our village to attend the training.”

“One of my cousins had to attend the militia training because his family couldn’t afford to pay,” Nai Myo continued. “My cousin said ‘they just taught us how to beat people, and how to control the villagers. They didn’t allow us to hold real guns; they just gave us bamboo sticks to pretend with. One sergeant and 5 soldiers trained us, and about 20 villagers attended the militia training.’”

In the instance of Aurtaung village, most residents chose to pay rather then attend the training. Nai Myo stated, “In our village, we have about 1000 households. Most people were paying money instead of attending the training. Therefore, the authorities collected a lot of money during the militia training.”

Similar incidents of forced militia training and irregular taxation have occurred in the villages of Sonnatha and Ah Phor.

A Sonnatha villager said, “In our village, the village headman Ko Myo Win collected 6,000 [kyat] from each household for the militia training. But we didn’t hear who had to attend the training – I think everyone one in the village paid. There are about 500 household in our village.”

“In our village the authorities set up a signboard for the announcement. The village headman said that the authorities needed about 200 villagers to attend the training,” an Ah Phor villager explained. “If a household didn’t have a son or father, they could pay 6,000 kyat for the training. Everyone else was forced to join the training.”

A political investigator based in Ye Township concluded, “They are preparing for the coming election and an uprising in the villages. In addition, they are preparing to prevent people from uprising if Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is kept in prison.”

(Editors Note: All names have been changed for security reasons)

READ MORE---> Forced militia training conducted in Ye Township...

Verdict on the trial of Aung San Su Kyi postponed due to pressure

IMNA - The verdict for the trial of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been postponed after increased pressure from politicians inside the country, as well as abroad in the international community, according to activists in Burmese political groups.

“The trial to imprison Daw Suu Kyi has been part of the military’s plan,” said U Aye Tha Aung, the secretary general of the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament (CRPP), he said in an interview with IMNA. “They [Burmese government] do not want her free in advance of the 2010 election. If she is released she could talk about the 2010 election and offer perspective on the [Burmese government’s] constitution. That is why it is impossible for them to release her.”

When the time came for the court to render a verdict on the previously appointed date of July 31st, the court put out a last minute extension to the judgment date, citing concerns that it needed to review the legal options. The new date for the court to read the verdict has been set for August 11th, 2009.

This is not first time the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi has been postponed. The trail was already in recess when UN secretary General Ban Ki Moon paid a recent visit to the Burmese government. The first postponement lasted until June 26th, to hear the testimony of defense witness Khin Moe Moe.

According to an article published the Burmese government state news paper, The New Light of Myanmar, two reasons have been given for the recent delay in the final stage of the trial. The first is for the court to reexamine the appropriateness of laws presiding over the trial, and the second is to address appeals that have been filed by both sides of the case.

U Aye Tha Aung explained that he believed without the release of Daw Aung San Su Kyi, the results from any election held by the military will be rejected outright. Also, that any government that comes to power in this way will also not be recognized by the international community.

The vice-chairman of the Mon National Democracy Front (MNDF), Nai Ngwe Thein, expressed his opinion, “The military court is probably planning to imprison her. The postponement of the case is due to pressure form the outside world and disagreement amongst the military groups.”

Nai Ngwe Thein believes that recent reports of a secret trip by Gen. Maung Aye to North Korea, and the construction of secret military tunnels, has led disagreement amongst the senior administration in the Burmese military government.

“But, in the case of a democratic icon [Suu Kyi], whether the outcome will be good or bad, it is still attracting the attention of the international community, who are watching closely,” he added.

U Nyan Win, a lawyer and spokesman with the NLD party who was also imprisoned 2 years ago, has been following the case in hopes of being able to provide council against illegal actions the court might try to take against Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. He explained that if the court would actually act according to the law and legal judgment, the case would be fair and she would be easily released.

A Burma watcher, and lecturer at the university of Rangoon (whose name has been withheld for security purposes), offered his opinion, “According to the court of the military government, she [Daw Aung San] can be imprisoned. But if the SPDC hops to recover any face in the international community, she will have to be released. That is, I think, what they are playing is a game of chess…If they [SPDC] continue to uphold her arrest, there will be no unification from the 2010 election. From there they will not be recognized by the ASEAN governments as well as by the world community. And right now there is no participation in the coming election.”

READ MORE---> Verdict on the trial of Aung San Su Kyi postponed due to pressure...

Security men guarding Suu Ky’s house punished

by Myo Thein

Rangoon (Mizzima) – Action has been taken against the security personnel deployed in and around Aung San Suu Kyi’s residence, who were responsible for the intrusion of an American John Yettaw, Police Chief Police Brig. Gen. Khin Yee has said.

He made the announcement at a press conference held in the Rangoon Narcotic Drug Museum on August 7 at 2 p.m. The press conference was about ‘Briefing on current activities on state security and maintaining law and order’.

“We investigated and questioned 61 security personnel from the police battalion deployed at Aung San Suu Kyi’s residence and then took action against some of them for dereliction of duty”.

In an earlier press briefing, he had said that the authorities would investigate the security lapse at Suu Kyi’s house and would take action against security personnel if they were found guilty.

“We have demoted a Police Lt. Col. and gave other personnel various prison terms ranging from three to six months,” Brig. Gen. Khin Yee said.

Police chief also said that action has been taken against over 20 personnel under the Police Disciplinary Rule.

On the health condition of Mr. Yettaw, he said that he was currently being treated in the Rangoon General Hospital. The American adheres to his religious perceptions and sometimes keeps Sabbath for about 44 days. “He had seizure earlier and had fits three times today”, the Police Chief said.

READ MORE---> Security men guarding Suu Ky’s house punished...

The Lady should be for turning

Illustration by M. Morgenstern

JEG's: I believe the sanctions were imposd on the generals pockets not the government, the government has the means to provide for the country instead they have opted to squeeze as much of the natural resources for personal gain. Do their "good governance" is shown with education? who for? Is it shown with healtchcare? Who for? What about jobs? do you have to belong and support the junta in order to be employable? The sanctions have nothing to do with the crisis the junta government has created. Suu Kyi has nothing to do with it either, she cannot be responsible for other governments decisions... Junta's greedy and well spread legal corruption has lots to do with the way the country is at present... you make up your mind, no-one forces your to follow DASSK or follow the junta, your choice...

By Banyan
The Economist

Aung San Suu Kyi is remarkable. But Myanmar’s problems are more than just those of democracy denied

JULY 20th marked the 20th anniversary of the day when military rulers first placed Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. The leader of Myanmar’s democracy movement has since spent more than 13 years detained at home or, as now, in a Yangon prison. She awaits the verdict of a sham trial in which she was charged with breaking the terms of her detention after an uninvited American, a nut, swam across to her lakeside home. Miss Suu Kyi plays a long game. But so does the military. It seized power in 1962. It has used force to put down two extraordinarily brave sets of pro-democracy protests, in 1988 and 2007. And it has ignored the result of free elections in 1990, convincingly won by Miss Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy.

Miss Suu Kyi, 64 and frail, has not wavered in her call for the junta to respect the election result and free what are now thought to be 2,100 political prisoners. She has long argued for countries to apply pressure by forbidding companies to trade with Myanmar or invest in it. The West has responded with sanctions regimes. Britain’s prime minister, Gordon Brown, recently called for even tougher financial measures against Myanmar.

There is no doubting Miss Suu Kyi’s courage. A decade ago she turned down the generals’ offer to leave the country (presumably, for good) to care for her dying husband. She never saw him again. Two sons have not seen their mother for years. Miss Suu Kyi’s moral stature puts her on a level with other imprisoned or exiled symbols of quiet resistance, the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela. She keeps democratic hopes alive in Myanmar; and around the world she inspires campaigners for freedom in the face of thuggish regimes. Elegant and dignified, she is the person any engaged liberal at Harvard or Oxford most wants to invite to dinner but can’t. This year garden parties at British embassies celebrating the Queen’s birthday were decorated with portraits of Miss Suu Kyi. At the embassy in Jakarta, a picture of her is projected onto an outside wall. She is, literally, democracy’s poster girl.

For weeks the military regime has delayed pronouncing a verdict in its trial, perhaps so as not to embarrass fellow members of the ten-country Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), meeting for its annual summit this week in Thailand. Yet few doubt but that Miss Suu Kyi will be put away for even longer. Her house, which has become a shrine to the democracy movement’s living deity, may be confiscated and razed. Myanmar’s leaders have called for elections next year, but on terms that ensure the military is the force behind civilian rule. Having Miss Suu Kyi to stand and fight is not part of the programme.

An even longer game, then, for Miss Suu Kyi and her supporters. But is it the right one? A growing body of opinion thinks not. It follows a tedious ritual. The world calls for freedom and democracy. The United Nations dispatches a representative to Yangon. He is fobbed off. The Lady continues in detention. The UN’s most recent big cheese was none other than the secretary-general. Ban Ki-moon left Yangon earlier this month without being allowed to meet Miss Suu Kyi.

This costs more than just wasted journeys. Myanmar is rich in natural gas, timber and gems. China and India, strategic rivals to east and west, chummy up to the junta. The Burmese elite has second homes and bank accounts in Thailand. Russia sells the generals arms, as does China, and both provide cover for the generals on the Security Council. So Myanmar does now in fact engage with the world—but its engagement takes the ugly form of a rapacious capitalism with amoral partners. Hillary Clinton, on her first trip to Asia as secretary of state, admitted that isolation “hasn’t influenced the junta”. An American review of Myanmar policy is under way, but official silence over Miss Suu Kyi’s trial hints at a certain confusion. Because there is no engagement, America’s soft power has no traction.

Worse, everyone from the UN down views Myanmar through the lens of democracy above all else—even development. For a desperate country with shocking rates of disease and mortality such a priority is dubious at best, shameful at worst. If nothing else, it fails to acknowledge how development can improve local governance. In the Irrawaddy delta in the wake of cyclone Nargis, which struck last year killing 140,000, deciding how humanitarian aid should be spent has increased civic participation and local autonomy in the face of an uncaring regime. Yet apart from Japan, official aid levels to Myanmar are pitiful compared even with other poor countries.

Icon or obstacle?

Lastly, depicting Myanmar as a kind of velvet revolution gone wrong, as Thant Myint-U, a historian of Burma, points out, is to ignore a big part of the picture. The paranoid regime’s inward-looking cast is conditioned by centuries of invasions, among them by the British and, after independence in 1948, by American-backed Chinese Nationalists. Since independence, the military has faced dozens of communist and ethnic insurgencies. It is true that since the 1990s, ceasefires have been signed in all but two. But independent Burma did not emerge as a unified state and, under early democratic rule, insurgencies flourished. The remaining conflicts, financed by drugs trafficking, are the longest-running wars in the world. They cannot simply be ignored.

Sanctions have helped bring about no democratic transition in Asia—on the contrary. So imagine if the West reversed policy, dropped sanctions and pursued engagement. The generals have already looked at the development paths blazed by China and Vietnam and said they want to follow. In comparison to the regimes in those two countries, Myanmar’s badly lacks legitimacy. So Mr Thant says that development could bring about swift changes to the political landscape, as eventually happened in Indonesia. Development, in other words, could be the fastest path to democracy. Will the courageous Lady admit as much? (JEG's: development could follow if the generals were genuinely interested in the country instead of filling their personal pockets, that is the difference with China and Vietnam, they had their time to prove themselves instead they wasted what is rightful to the citizens in paying thugs and decorating the army barracks with silk and diamonds)

Jul 23rd, 2009

READ MORE---> The Lady should be for turning...

Suu Kyi is ‘Part of the Problem’: Goh Chok Tong

By WAI MOE
The Irrawaddy News

Goh Chok Tong, Singapore’s former prime minister and current senior minister, said on Thursday that Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “part of the problem” facing the military-ruled country.

Goh told reporters at the Asia-Middle East Media Roundtable in Singapore that while the West sees Suu Kyi as the solution to Burma’s problems, she is also “part of problem” because she believes she is the government, according to Singapore’s Channel NewsAsia news network.

He also suggested Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), needed to seek a fresh mandate in the 2010 elections, saying that Suu Kyi should not dwell on the fact that her party’s victory in the 1990 elections was not recognized by the junta.

“That was 19 years ago, that’s history. If she realizes she has to be part of the solution, she has to offer some concessions, such as to publicly say that she would be in favor of the lifting of sanctions,” Goh was quoted as saying in The Malaysian Insider on Friday.

On Burma’s scheduled elections for next year, Goh said the junta should make sure that the elections were “fair, free and legitimate.” He added: “The process must involve parties that oppose you as well. Aung San Suu Kyi must be allowed to participate.”

The senior minister from the most developed country in Southeast Asia also said that military-ruled Burma’s economy has enormous growth potential.

“Myanmar [Burma] has the potential to boom in the next 10 years and it can be like Thailand’s today in 20 years’ time,” Goh said.

Responding to Goh’s comments, Aye Thar Aung, the secretary of the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament (CRPP), an umbrella group consisting of parties elected in 1990, rejected the idea that Suu Kyi is part of Burma’s problem.

“I disagree with Mr Goh Chok Tong because Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has openly said since 1988 that she could negotiate with the generals for the benefit of the country. She has also said that believes the military is needed to resolve the problems in Burma,” said Aye Thar Aung.

“Significantly, she also recognizes the importance of resolving ethnic issues. So she is still a key player in efforts to reach a resolution,” he added.

The argument that Suu Kyi is “part of the problem” is not new.

In early 2003, a number of Burma analysts, citing claims in the country’s state-run media that Suu Kyi was not willing to negotiate with the military, began to suggest that she had become an obstacle to political progress.

At the time, these analysts argued that Prime Minister Gen Khin Nyunt, a relative moderate among the ruling generals, should be regarded as the most important force for political change in Burma, not Suu Kyi. Khin Nyunt’s ouster in October 2004 put an end to that idea.

But the debate over Suu Kyi’s role in Burmese politics has recently been revived, with some Burma experts and international aid agencies saying that greater attention should be paid to the needs of ordinary Burmese citizens, rather than the plight of its most famous political prisoner. With the US and the European Union threatening tougher sanctions in response to Suu Kyi’s trial on charges of violating the terms of her house arrest, the debate has intensified.

In a recent interview with Asia Times online, Burmese historian Thant Myint-U, a former UN diplomat who is currently a visiting fellow with the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, called Suu Kyi’s strategy for reform “a gamble” that has not paid off.

He added that Suu Kyi’s approach has come at “the increasing cost of other roads not tested and opportunities lost as well as the enormous effect sanctions and aid cut-offs have had on ordinary people, especially the poorest and most vulnerable in the country.”

Meanwhile, Singaporean leaders, who are vocal advocates of engagement with the regime, have come under fire for being fundamentally ill-informed about Burma’s political realities.

In an interview last Sunday with The online Citizen, Singaporean Foreign Minister George Yeo incorrectly stated that Burma had been ruled by the military since its independence in 1948 and that Suu Kyi’s father, Aung San, had created the law that a Burmese citizen married to a foreign national could not take political office.

“The statements made by Singaporean leaders this week are undermining their own credibility,” said Debbie Stothard, the coordinator of Altsean, the Alternative Asean Network.

The CRPP’s Aye Thar Aung said that while regional leaders were welcome to play a role in resolving Burma’s political standoff, they should try to learn more about the country to get a better understanding of the roots of its problems.

READ MORE---> Suu Kyi is ‘Part of the Problem’: Goh Chok Tong...

Burmese Army Equipped with New Arms

By LAWI WENG
The Irrawaddy News

The 400,000-strong Burmese army is now almost fully armed with locally manufactured MA-series weapons, according to several sources within the armed forces and rebel groups.

The sources told The Irrawaddy that the Burmese army—known as the “Tatmadaw”—had equipped all frontline battalions with MA1, MA2, MA3 or MA4 automatic assault rifles.

According to a weapons Web site, securityarms.com, the MA series was manufactured with the help of arms contractor Israeli Military Industries, and was designed similar to the Israeli Galil rifle.

The weapons are expected to be used in conflicts with ethnic rebel groups, in particular the Karen National Union, as the Tatmadaw seeks to extinguish the country’s 60-year-plus insurgency. The Burmese armed forces have one of the world’s most notorious records for atrocities and human rights abuses, such as killing civilians, raping women and conscripting children.

Since the 1950s, the Tatmadaw has traditionally employed German-made G-3 weapons. However, the G-3 assault rifle was considered too heavy for use in jungle warfare and, as the Burmese generals had endured decades of conflict with ethnic groups in Burma’s mountainous border regions, they began manufacture of the MA series in 2002, presumably after signing a license agreement with Israel Military Industries.

The MA1 and MA2 assault rifles are shorter and lighter than the G3, but not as powerful, said the sources.

The MA3 is an assault carbine, basically an MA1 with a side-folding stock, and the MA4 is a grenadier weapon, essentially an MA1 equipped with a single-shot grenade launcher.

Sources told The Irrawaddy that the weapons were manufactured at several factories in Burma, but the main factory is reportedly called Ka Pa Sa No 1, and is situated near Rangoon’s Inya Lake.

Sai Sheng Murng, the deputy spokesman of the rebel Shan State Army-South (SSA), said, “The MA1 and MA2 assault rifles are not heavy, so they are good for carrying to the frontlines. But they are not powerful like the G-3.”

“The MA1s and MA2s are similar to our M16s. In fact, we can use their ammunition in our M16 rifles, but they cannot use our ammunition in their rifles,” he said.

The Burmese army is one of the most battle-hardened forces in Asia, having fought almost continuously against ethnic insurgents and communist guerillas for more than six decades.

However, following the brutal suppression of student-led demonstrations in 1988, the United States and later the European Union imposed an arms embargo on the Burmese regime.

At the time, Burmese democracy activists and international sympathizers lobbied the West German government to prevent sales of G-3 weapons from the Fritz Werner arms manufacturing company going to the Burmese junta.

The German arms manufacturers registered themselves in Burma in the 1990s as Myanmar Fritz Werner Industries Co Ltd, an electrical and electronics company.

However, the photograph of a Japanese journalist, Kenji Nagai, being shot during protests in 2007 by a Burmese soldier holding what would appear to be a G-3 rifle, raised doubts as to whether local production of the German assault rifle was ongoing.

Despite the Western arms embargo, the Burmese military regime has no shortage of arms suppliers—Israel, Russia, Ukraine and China are reportedly the main players.

Meanwhile, recent reports have indicated that Burma has purchased nuclear material from North Korea and harbors ambitions of creating a nuclear arsenal.

READ MORE---> Burmese Army Equipped with New Arms...

Gang-rape follows Four-Cuts

by Hseng Khio Fah

(Shanland) -Latest reports of the Burma Army’s four-cut campaign said that a Shan woman from Shan State South’s Laikha township was gang raped in front of her husband by the Burma Army that has been waging a four-cut campaign since late July.

The couple was identified as Sai Awta, 23, and her wife Nang Noom, 20 (not their real names), from the 31 household Wan Nawngpoke village, Tarkmawk village tract, Laikha Township, said a source.

The incident occurred only a half of mile south of the village on August 2 at 5 pm, when three privates led by Sergeant Tin Aye from Mongkeung based Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) #514 was on patrol and found the said couple while they were working in their farm. The group detained them after accusing of being members of the SSA-South.

Some soldiers separated Sai Awta from his wife, tied him with a rope to a post of the hut and beaten him while others raped her wife in front of him in turn including the Sergeant until midnight. After that, the couple was warned not to spread news of the rape, said Sai Awta’s friend who declined to be named.

“They [soldiers] threatened them not to tell anybody; otherwise their family and both of them would be killed,” he said.

On that day, a 25 strong patrol from the battalion together with 14 men of pro-junta Mongzeun militia group (formally Brigade 758 of the Shan State Army (SSA) ‘South’ that surrendered in July 2006) arrived at the village.

It was led by Lt Myint Than and the militia group was led by Sai Yoong whose leader Mongzeun was killed in an attack by the SSA on 25 May.

“Villagers were given a deadline to leave their houses, if not all houses would be burnt down,” said a local source who wishes to remain in anonymity.

A clash between LIB#515 and SSA fighters on 15 July in Laikha township has led hundreds of villagers in Laikha, Kehsi and Mongkeung townships suffer from several human rights violations.

“License to Rape,” a report by the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN), which was published in 2002, detailing 173 incidents of rape and involving 625 women and girls, had shaken the international community.

READ MORE---> Gang-rape follows Four-Cuts...

Goh says Suu Kyi ‘is part of the problem’

(DVB)–Aung San Suu Kyi “is part of the problem” in Burma’s political crisis because she still believes she is the government, said former Singaporean prime minister Goh Chok Tong yesterday.

The comment, reported yesterday in Channel NewsAsia, was made during the inaugural Asia-Middle East Media Roundtable in Singapore yesterday.

Goh Chok Tong, now a Senior Minister in Singapore, had previously urged the ruling junta in Burma to hold free and fair elections next year following a meeting with Senior General Than Shwe in June.

The comments have stirred unrest among Burma observers, with the foreign affairs coordinator of the National League for Democracy-Liberated Areas, Nyo Ohn Myint , saying he was “very upset” by it.

“She has been under house arrest for 14 years and has never had a chance for dialogue or to show her ability to reconcile with the junta,” he said.

“[Goh] should have a look at the real problem, which is not the democracy icon, but is the military junta.”

Singapore is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc, and follows the ASEAN policy of non-interference in internal matters of member states.

But, said Nyo Ohn Myint, the relationship runs deeper than straight diplomacy, with Singapore a significant investor in Burma.

“I think Singapore is protecting its business interests,” he said. “Singapore, and ASEAN countries, always try not to side with the opposition but stick with the ruling generals.”

Burmese political analyst Aung Naing Oo said however that the problem is “a conflict between idealism and pragmatic action”.

“[Singapore] wants the country to move forward, and they see Aung San Suu Kyi as the obstacle, mainly because the military is not moving,” he said.

“In a conflict that is not going anywhere, it is normal for anybody to look for alternatives. From a moral idealisitic point of view, then Goh Chok Tong is not right, but from pragmatic thinking he may be right.”

He added that the comment symbolizes the conflict between Eastern and Western countries on what action to take on Burma, with the likes of China and India refraining from condemnation while the United States and European Union hold tough sanctions on the regime.

Reporting by Francis Wade

READ MORE---> Goh says Suu Kyi ‘is part of the problem’...

Border guard pressure could ‘threaten peace’

(DVB)–Armed conflict will reignite in Burma if the ruling junta continues to force ceasefire groups to transform into border guards, a key armed ethnic group warned yesterday.

The New Mon State Party (NMSP) said in a statement that it is keen to maintain its 14-year-old ceasefire agreement with the Burmese government, but will not accept the dissolving of its armed units before self-determination is achieved.

Burma’s ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has embarked on a campaign to transform ceasefire groups into border guards in an attempt to reduce their numbers and return them to the ‘legal fold’.

Ceasefire groups have said however that agreeing to the proposals would weaken the groups and effectively make them subordinated wings of the Burmese army.

“Our Central Executive Committee has decided not to go along with the plan to transform us into a border militia as it promises no insurance for the people of Mon state and to ourselves,” said the NMSP’s Nai Hong Sa Boung Khine.

He added however that pressure from the junta had eased recently regarding border guard transformation.

The NMSP also said in its statement that existing peace in the country will be seriously threatened should the authorities resort to coercion to achieve their objective.

The public declaration by the NMSP followed a similar announcement by another influential ceasefire group, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO).

The KIO said it agreed in principle with the border guard proposal but suggested that step should be taken only when the nation is at peace and after a popularly elected democratic government is in place.

”No one likes the idea about the border guard force,” said James Lum Dau from the KIO. “When the majority is opposing it and only one party likes the idea, it is not practical to be pushing for a result.”

Reports surfaced last month of a campaign by the junta to use religious leaders and influential businessmen to convince ceasefire groups in Kachin state to become border guards.

According to a resident of Kachin state’s capital Myitkyina, government officials had been meeting with church pastors and business owners to help put pressure on the KIO.

Reporting by Aye Naing

READ MORE---> Border guard pressure could ‘threaten peace’...

Is the Lady Wrong?

By HTET AUNG
The Irrawaddy News

In a fresh attack on Burma’s pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, The Economist proclaimed that she was an obstacle to the country’s development. “Will the courageous Lady admit as much?” the international political journal challenged.

As a student of international development, I was keen to look into the argument through a comparative review of Suu Kyi’s own concept of development.

Before reading my analysis, readers should not lose sight of two fundamental factors: The system and the power.

Politically and economically, Burma has been in a transitional state to democracy, practicing a military authoritarianism and a market economy since 1988 with the military junta exercising legislative, executive and judiciary powers.

Meanwhile, the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Suu Kyi, won a landslide victory in the 1990 elections. She, however, has been a prisoner of the junta for nearly 14 of the past 20 years.

The notion that democracy can be achieved through development, as Thant Myint-U said in the article, is in fact not new. It was a popular idea in the 1980s when the world witnessed the “economic miracle” in East Asia when countries such as South Korea and Taiwan took off, accompanied close behind by Southeast Asian neighbors Singapore and Malaysia.

Economists viewed these countries’ spectacular development as a consequence of rapid economic growth. They usually reached the conclusion that East Asia had succeeded on a policy of “development first, democracy second,” on the basis that democracy is fragile without a strong middle class.

Thant Myint-U seems to be a member of this camp. Some development theorists advocated that as the East Asian countries in question—the “Asian Tigers” as they became known—were ruled by one-party-dominated governments, the task of development in an authoritarian state was easier to implement than in a democratic one. They pointed to the failure of several Latin American countries’ economies as an example.

But later, a new finding proved that the growth of an economy that over-emphasized GDP (Gross Domestic Product) didn’t reflect that country’s development.

The late former president of the Philippines, Corazon Aquino, invited Suu Kyi to a meeting of the World Commission on Culture and Development in Manila in 1994. Under house arrest, Suu Kyi was only able to send to the meeting a letter which stated her concept on development.

Referring to Francois Perroux’s “A New Concept of Development,” issued by UNESCO (United Nations Education Science and Culture Organization) in 1983, Suu Kyi was aware of the need to redefine the meanings of “development” and “growth.”

“The unsatisfactory record of development in many parts of the world and the ensuing need for a definition of development which means more than mere economic growth became a matter of vital concern to economists and international agencies more than a decade ago,” she said.

Another finding on the recent economic miracles of East and Southeast Asia is that the success of those economies is due to the efficiency of strong government institutions. Ironically, these authoritarian states embraced the core principles of accountability, transparency, a minimum level of corruption, an independent banking system, an effective check and balance system through decentralization to the private sector, and the state’s social investment in education and health.

So, is it logical that the absence of good governance in Burma is due to the economic sanctions of the American-led Western countries? Does it make sense that the junta’s failed economic policies of the past 20 years were caused by the NLD leader’s advocacy of economic sanctions?

No country wants to invest in a country without a rule-based economic environment; and the necessary rules are drawn and adopted by policymakers from the political arena.

The development of China and Vietnam today could not have been achieved without the ability to conduct a series of reforms.

Therefore, it is impossible and even wrong to consider the “development first, democracy second” principle.

The people of Burma have been living without a constitution for 20 years and badly need a functioning political system. They have showed the desire for this many times, most memorably the 1988 pro-democracy uprising and the 1990 elections.

Suu Kyi wrote a special report in the Human Development Report titled “Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented World,” [published by the UNDP in 2002]. In it she wrote:

“Human development encompasses all aspects of human existence. It is generally accepted that its scope includes political and social rights as well as economic ones, but the different rights are not always given the same weight.

“For example, some people still claim that humanitarian aid and economic assistance cannot wait for political and social progress. This insidious idea creates dissonance between complementary requirements.”

After her release from a second period of house arrest in 2003, The Irrawaddy interviewed Suu Kyi, a month before she was attacked in Depayin. She answered questions covering a range of the issues, including humanitarian aid.

“We have never said ‘no’ to humanitarian aid as such,” she said. “We have always said humanitarian aid must be given to the right people in the right way, which of course calls for accountability and transparency.

“And of course we always say that the minimum necessary requirement is independent monitoring.”

In another interview, this time for an Altsean-Burma report—“A Peace of Pie? Burma’s Humanitarian Aid Debate”—Suu Kyi said: What I would like to say is the most important aspect of humanitarian assistance or any kind of assistance is good governance. Unless there is good governance, you cannot ensure that the assistance will really benefit the country.”

The past two decades are adequate testimony to the efficiency of a government with a total lack of “good governance,” which has caused what can only be called a “gross domestic failure.”

If the readers didn’t lose sight of the two fundamental factors, as I mentioned above, they can conclude the correct answer to the question of this article’s title.

READ MORE---> Is the Lady Wrong?...

Yettaw ‘friend’ being questioned by police

here



Aug 7, 2009 (DVB)–Burma’s police chief has said a girl who traveled into Burma with John Yettaw in 2008 and tried to stop him from visiting Aung San Suu Kyi’s compound is now being questioned by police.

The incident in May in which Yettaw swam to Suu Kyi’s compound was the second time he had done so, the first being in November 2008.

Following the latest incident, a photograph emerged of Yettaw standing alongside a previously unknown Burmese girl.

The picture was taken in the Thai border town of Mae Sot whilst Yettaw was visiting the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma (AAPP) in 2008, likely shortly before he first traveled into Burma.

Speaking at a press conference today in Rangoon, Burma police chief Khin Yi said that the girl was found in the Burma border town of Myawaddy, across from Mae Sot, and that she was now being questioned but was not under detention.

According to a source who was at the press conference, Khin Yi said she had travelled into Burma with Yettaw in November 2008 and had tried to stop him from entering Suu Kyi’s compound.

It was this incident that triggered the current court case, in which Suu Kyi faces a possible five year sentence for allegedly harbouring a foreigner.

Recently, 23 security officials charged with guarding Suu Kyi’s compound were variously demoted and imprisoned for failing to stop Yettaw from entering, said Khin Yi.

He also said that Yettaw, who is currently in hospital following a fit of seizures earlier this week, fell ill because he refused to eat. He added that authorities have spent 600,000 kyat ($US600) for his hospital bills.

The press conference was attended by foreign diplomats, non-governmental workers and foreign and domestic journalists.

The police chief also touched upon an alleged foiled bomb plot during the visit of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in early July.

According to Khin Yi, authorities arrested a bomb plotter named Htay Aung on 2 July, a day before Ban Ki Moon arrived in Burma. He was allegedly trained outside of Burma by a group called the Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors.

Suu Kyi, along with her two caretakers and Yettaw, is due to hear the verdict in her case on Monday, although Yettaw’s health condition could delay it further.

Reporting by Naw Say Phaw

READ MORE---> Yettaw ‘friend’ being questioned by police...

US Senator to visit Burma

By LALIT K JHA / WASHINGTON
The Irrawaddy News

The US Democratic senator from Virginia, Jim Webb, on Thursday announced that he will visit Burma as part of a five-nation tour in Asia.

Webb, who will arrive on Sunday, will be the first US lawmaker to visit Burma in a decade. No other details about the trip were available.

Webb is chairman of the East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

In a statement, Webb said besides visiting Burma, he would visit Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. The purpose of the trip is to explore opportunities to advance US interests in Burma and the region, he said.

The statement said Webb has worked and traveled throughout Asia for nearly four decades, as a Marine Corps officer, a defense planner, a journalist, a novelist, a Department of Defense administrator and business consultant.

Meanwhile, the Burmese Prime Minister in Exile, Dr Sein Win of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, and officials of the National Council of the Union of Burma, have announced that they will present a plan to the United Nations on Friday proposing a way to unite the country.

The group will ask the UN Security Council and secretary-general to forward the plan to the military regime in Burma.

The plan, called “Proposal for National Reconciliation Towards Democracy & Development in Burma,” (PNRTDDB) is the result of an alliance of pro-democracy parties and ethnic groups, both inside and outside Burma.

The plan sets out detailed steps for a transition to democracy (T2D) in Burma, in association with members of the military regime.

Calling it a turning point in the history of Burma, Sein said: “For the first time, we have all come together to agree on a common platform for transition to democracy in Burma.”

“We are asking the United Nations and the international community to ensure that the regime engages in this dialogue, so that at last democracy and stability can be achieved in Burma,” he said.

READ MORE---> US Senator to visit Burma...

Russia taking raw Uranium from Burma since 2007

by KNG

A Russian firm has been taking raw Uranium from Hpakant areas in Burma's northern Kachin State since 2007, said reliable local sources.

Victorious Glory International Private Ltd. of Russia is taking the raw Uranium from the company's Uranium mines in Tarmakhan, Hongpa near Katai Taung, under tight security provided by the ruling junta, said eyewitnesses.

A local eyewitness told KNG today, the company's mining areas are fenced off with opaque covers and the Uranium is mined inside the mountain with sophisticated digging machines.

The raw Uranium is specially packed in sacks, which look like cement sacks. It is then transported to Hopin railway station in large trucks. Then the Uranium is transported to Rangoon sea port by trains for delivery to Russia, said sources close to the company and eyewitnesses.

According to eyewitnesses in Hpakant, the company has been excavating the raw Uranium from these areas since 2007.

The company signed an agreement with the ruling junta in Naypyitaw on February 15, 2007 for exploration of gold and associated minerals along Uru Hka River (or Uru Hka in Kachin) between Hpakant in Kachin State and Homalin in Sagaing Division.

One year before the two sides reached an agreement, Russian Uranium explorers arrived in the area, said residents of Hpakant. The movements of Russian miners are specially secured in the mines and outside by security forces of the junta, said residents of Hpakant.

The junta is constructing a nuclear plant in caves after tunneling into a mountain in Naung Laing in northern Burma, some 600 kilometres north of Rangoon. Five North Koreans worked there, according to South Korean media reports. A nuclear reactor from which plutonium can be extracted is also allegedly being built.

Two defectors from the Burmese Army testified recently that the junta has a secret nuclear weapons programme, which is being supported by North Korea and Russia.

READ MORE---> Russia taking raw Uranium from Burma since 2007...

Veteran politician refutes state’s interpretation of federalism

by Nem Davies

New Delhi (Mizzima) – A veteran politician from Shan State, Shwe Ohn, who attended the historic Panglong Conference in 1947, has strongly protested against an article appearing in the ‘New Light of Myanmar’, which says federalism means instigating for disunity among the people.

Mizzima received a copy of his protest letter, sent to the editor of the paper.

“I have not yet received a response from them. This article is wrong. It’s not true. I want this article to get corrected,” Shwe Ohn told Mizzima.

In the article, entitled ‘With care and with conscience’, written under the pseudonym ‘Ko Thar Yar’ and appearing in the 26th July issue of the ‘New Light of Myanmar’, the federal principle is assessed as a means of sowing disunity among the people.

“They are trying to reincarnate federalism with the intention of disintegrating the state, and they are sowing dissension among the ethnic people. If we start with this federal principle [according to the paper], our country will disintegrate into tiny states, all of whom will certainly become prey to the tiger,” explained Shwe Ohn.

The article goes on to argue, “The precedence of other big sates contains obvious lessons and examples which cannot be denied by anyone. So we should take care of federalism, which has seeds that can disintegrate our union.”

U Shwe Ohn, however, said the article’s premise was impossible and that author Ko Thar Yar was ignorant about federal principles. He further suspects, though it could well be the author’s own opinion, that some external influence was behind the essay.

In his letter to editor he explained federalism in its historical background, stating, “It is very clear that union means the states are integrated and constituted on an equal basis. But in 1948, in the Union of Burma, there was no Burman State and thus it must be a bogus Union.”

He also sent copies of his letter to the daily ‘The Mirror’ as well as Rangoon-based weekly news journals.

In his letter he contends that all ethnic representatives who attended the Panglong Conference seriously discussed the formation of a Federal Union on the basis of equality in politics, self-determination and the right to secession, as they did not want a unitary system.

“The problems of a union cannot be resolved as long as the problems of ethnic people, who are almost 40 percent of the total population, are not solved,” stipulates Shwe Ohn.

In his 311-page, 17 chapter book entitled ‘Let’s build an unbreakable Union’, Shwe Ohn chronicled the migration of ethnic people now living in Burma, the emergence of the Pagan kingdom, the historic Panglong Agreement and finally his views on the constitutions of Burma.

While the work was widely distributed among political activists in 2008, he has not yet received permission from the Censor Board to publish his work inside Burma.

Similarly, the 86-year old veteran politician wrote and published ‘How about a Third Union?’ in 1993 in addition to presenting his ‘8-States Federal Union principle’ to the junta sponsored National Convention, for which he was greeted with a one-year prison sentence.

He has since established the ‘Federal Democracy Alliance’ party, based on democratic and federal principles, in early 2008 in order to contest the forthcoming 2010 general election.

READ MORE---> Veteran politician refutes state’s interpretation of federalism...

Burma Army beheads woman

by Hseng Khio Fah

(Shanland) -A local woman in Mongkeung Township, southern Shan State was beheaded by the Burma Army troops that have been launching a four-cut campaign since 27 July , according to villagers who recently fled to Thailand.

In the morning of 3 August, Nang Hsoi, 29, from Wan Kart village, Ho Khai village tract was arrested in her village by soldiers from Mongkeung based Light Infantry Battalion (LIB)#514 after falsely accusing her as the wife of a Shan State Army (SSA) ‘South’ fighter and collaboration with the SSA, said a local villager who asked not to be named.
“In the evening they [soldiers] took her to a bridge nearby the village, cut her head down and threw it into the creek,” he said.

Two days before her death, over 10 villagers from Wan Kart, Wan Kawng and Wan Long village were detained on suspicion of being SSA spies at the army base.

The Burma Army that has been the four-cut campaign (cutting food, funds, intelligence and recruits to the armed resistance by local populace) had ordered villagers in Mongkeung, Kehsi and Laikha townships to leave their homes within 5 days, from 1 to 5 August.

Since then, at least 300 houses in the three townships were razed to the ground and more than 300 villagers were forcibly relocated to the town, said a source.

The campaign drive was led by the Mongnawng – based Military Operations Command (MOC) #2 command: Loilem based IB#9,
and #12,
Laikha based IB#64 and
LIB#515,
Namzang based IB#66 ,
#247 and
LIB#516,
Mongnai based IB#248 and LIB#518,
Panglong based LIB#513,
Mongkeung based LIB#514 and
Mongpawn based LIB#517.

To date, 21 villages from Panghsang village tract and 9 villages from Wan Htee village tract in Laikha township alone were forced to resettle in Marklang quarter of the town.

During the drive some were beaten and some were reportedly killed, forcing many others to hide in the jungle, said another villager who is seeking asylum on the Thai-Burma border.

“There were some people who are hiding in the jungle preparing to seek refuge in Thailand,” she said, “Many people will be coming soon.”

Currently, about 10 people are seeking asylum in areas near Thailand.

During the last engagement on 15 July, the Burma Army’s LIB 515 suffered 11 killed, 1 captured and 5 assorted weapons lost.

During the 1996-98 campaign against the SSA, 1,500 villages were destroyed and more than 300,000 in southern and eastern Shan State were forcibly relocated, a third of which had escaped into Thailand.

READ MORE---> Burma Army beheads woman...

USDA Card More Useful Than National ID When Traveling

Maungdaw (Narinjara): An USDA card is more useful than national ID cards when traveling around Arakan State, and many youths in Arakan State have joined the USDA in order to get a membership card, said one student from Maungdaw.

"In Maungdaw Township, to get a national ID card is very difficult for township people. More than 10,000 kyat has to be payed out as bribes for a national ID card, but it is no guarantee that you'll get the ID card in time. So many youths and students join the USDA for the organization's member card," she said.

In Arakan State, authorities do not allow a person to travel without a national ID card. Every traveler needs to show their identification to authorities when buying ferries and bus tickets.

There are also many checkpoints stationed along major roads around Arakan State and people can be arrested if they are unable to show their national ID cards whenever requested by the authorities.

"The national ID card is very useful in our country, but now the card is not as powerful as the USDA membership cards. In our state, anyone can travel anywhere with a USDA card," the student added.

Buthidaung and Maungdaw Township are more restrictive of travel than other places in Arakan, and most people are traveling with USDA cards.

A teacher from Maungdaw said, "If anyone has a USDA card, they can more easily get a national ID card. The immigration department issues the national ID cards to those people who are members of the USDA. Without the USDA card, a person can not apply for government jobs in Burma."

Many students at the Maungdaw government high school have joined the USDA for these benefits rather than for political reasons. However, the government still prohibits Muslim students from joining the USDA.

The USDA, or Union Solidarity and Development Association, is an organization backed by the Burmese military government and is intended to be transformed into a political party whenever the government needs it.

According to the organization, there are over twenty four million members in the USDA throughout Burma.

READ MORE---> USDA Card More Useful Than National ID When Traveling...

On the Run

Most of the refugees at Mae Usu temporary refugee camp are children.
(Photo by Yeni/The Irrawaddy News)

By YENI
The Irrawaddy News

MAE USU, Thailand — "If there is peace again, we will go back to our village," says the 60-year-old Karen woman, Bi Mae, as she holds her 4-month-old grandson in her arms in a makeshift bamboo hut.

But she knows well that she may never see some members of her family again or return to her village in Karen State, which has experienced a brutal civil war for more than 60 years.

Just two weeks ago, Bi Mae and four of her grandchildren crossed into Thailand with more than 500 other Karen refugees, as gun fire echoed in the hills and news spread that the junta’s army was rounding up villagers for forced labor.

Since the beginning of June, fierce clashes between a joint force of the junta’s army and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) engaged the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), forcing some 4,000 Karen villagers and internally displaced persons from Ler Per Her camp in Burma to flee to Tha Song Yang in Thailand’s Tak Province for safety. Many refugees are also secretly living with friends along the border, but the exact number is impossible to determine.

Refugees are living at six sites. The Irrawaddy interviewed refugees crowded into the grounds behind a Thai ecotourism site at Mae Usu cave, only a few kilometers inside the Burmese-Thai border.

"Right now 1,998 people are on the list here. Most of them are women and children,” says Chaklo, a member of the Karen Youth Organization (KYO), one of the community-based organizations helping refugees.

To help support the refugees, the Thai Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), an alliance of NGOs working for humanitarian relief, has distributed rice, beans, fish paste and salt, while the French NGO, Solidarit?s, provided water and sanitary facilities. The UNHCR has provided plastic sheets and tarpaulins for the shelter.

However, torrential rains have been falling for many days, making life even more difficult. At the camp’s makeshift clinic—supported by Dr. Cynthia Maung, and her Backpack Health Workers Team—many patients receive treatment for serious gastrointestinal problems like diarrhea and dysentery that are common ailments in the rainy season. Children in the camp are particularly at risk, according to the medics. Some children sleep in the bamboo huts while others play on the muddy ground of the green fields.

"They need to learn,” said Chaklo. “We also are ready to do that. But the Thai authorities don’t want us to set up a school here because the site is temporary."

Traditionally, the Thai policy is to start out with a short-term solution to aid new Karen refugees. While there is fighting on Burmese soil, the authorities grant the civilians permission to cross the border. But if there is no fighting, the refugees will be sent back to Burma. Presently, there have been no further reports of fighting after the withdrawal of KNLA troops from their military bases.

But there are ongoing reports of abuses by DKBA forces—forced recruitment, forced labor and money/food/livestock extortion—causing more people to flee and cross into Thailand. As a result, the refugees, for now, have been allowed to remain.

On July 9, Tassana Vichaithanapat, the director of the Foreign Affairs Division of the Operations Centre for Displaced Persons in the Ministry of Interior, visited one of the new sites, Nuh Bo.

During his visit, he met with refugee representatives, Thai district-level authorities and military officials and urged the authorities and international agencies to continue to provide humanitarian support while the Thai government tries to find a durable solution or until the displaced people are able to return to their homes, according to the TBBC.

Also, the Tha Song Yang district committee, which includes military, border police and UNHCR representatives, met on July 15 to consider possible solutions: an immediate return to Burma, relocation to Mae La refugee camp, or to open a new refugee camp at the site where the refugees are currently staying.

"Finally, they agreed that the refugees should stay where they are until the end of the rainy season. At that time, the security and humanitarian situation will be reviewed again to determine the next steps," said Angelina Sakic, a TBBC Program coordinator. "But the most likely outcome is that if the situation has not improved, they will be moved to Mae La camp."

In the meantime, most refugees hope to return to their village as soon as possible. Many are traumatized, thinking of their crops and the livestock they left behind and how it could all be destroyed or confiscated by the junta’s soldiers or DKBA troops.

Some men have left their family in the camp and crossed back to their village to determine if their possessions are intact. Their lives are at risk because Burmese soldiers and DKBA troops control the area.

"If they see them, they will shoot,” says Chaklo. “They think maybe they are KNLA men burying landmines. We hear the sound of gun fire everyday."

READ MORE---> On the Run...

Security Beefed Up on University Ave

By WAI MOE
The Irrawaddy News

The Burmese military authorities on Thursday began beefing up security around the lakeside home of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, sources in Rangoon said.

“This morning, security personnel surrounded Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s house,” said a journalist in Rangoon who spoke on condition of anonymity.

University Avenue—where the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s house stands—was open to traffic on Thursday morning, the sources said, but riot police blocked the road in the afternoon.

“At about 2 pm, the police stopped all motorists from driving down University Avenue. We had to divert to other roads,” a taxi driver in the city said.

Security forces were withdrawn from University Avenue in May after Suu Kyi was taken to Insein Prison to face trial for allegedly harboring American intruder John W Yettaw.

Thursday’s activity around University Avenue has fueled speculation that preparations are under way to bring the pro-democracy leader back safely to her home after the trial, the verdict on which is due on August 11.

Commenting on the security surrounding Suu Kyi’s house, her lawyer Kyi Win said, “In Burma, everything happens in unexpected ways.”

Meanwhile, reporters in the former capital have been notified of a press conference at the Narcotics Museum in Rangoon at 2 p.m. On Friday. The subject of the press conference is expected to be related to Suu Kyi, journalists said.

Suu Kyi’s lawyers, Kyi Win and Nyan Win, were allowed to meet with their client at Insein Prison on Thursday afternoon.

READ MORE---> Security Beefed Up on University Ave...

Burma must come clean

(Bangkok Post) -The evidence is now overwhelming of an alliance between Burma and North Korea. The vital question for Thailand is whether whatever ventures the two rogue states have started up pose a threat to our neighbourhood.

In one sense, the answer is a clear "yes", since secrecy breeds suspicion. But as this newspaper showed in three major reports last Sunday, the Burma-North Korea alliance vastly increases the stakes of international diplomacy in our backyard and in the rest of Southeast Asia.

Any project involving nuclear weapons paints a new bull's-eye over the region, not to mention that Burma would be in gross and unforgivable violation of the Asean agreements it has signed.

First, the known facts.

Burma, with experts from North Korea, has undertaken huge earthworks in areas where foreigners and most Burmese are not allowed. Truck-sized tunnels have been burrowed into the ground and hills in the general region of the heavily secured new capital, Naypyidaw, in remote central Burma.

Commercial satellite photos show more than 600 tunnel complexes. Other photographs, taken on the ground and smuggled out of the country, show that some of the tunnels are fortified with blast-proof doors.

During construction of these tunnels, which was begun by 2003, Burma renewed official relations with North Korea, cut off in 1983 after state-sponsored terrorists from Pyongyang attempted to assassinate South Korean president Chun Doo-hwan in Rangoon with three deadly bombs.

Relations resumed in April, 2007. At the time, the chief concern of Burma's neighbours and the United Nations was that the twin rogue states would collude against human rights, chiefly with Burma purchasing weapons from North Korea.

The Burmese military continues to abuse citizens at the whim or acquiescence of the ruling junta. But the tunnel projects and increasingly warm relations between Burma and North Korea raise major questions that get to the very basis of Southeast Asian diplomacy, cooperation and peace.

Burma and its dictatorship have clearly violated major tenets of Asean. Indeed, as details of the tunnel projects emerged to the public, Burmese officials were attending the Asean Regional Forum in the southern Thai resort island of Phuket. The purpose of the ARF is specifically to encourage openness among all members in order to build trust.

Even the most peaceful and innocent nuclear project requires Burma - by Asean and by United Nations law - to fully reveal the work. It must be remembered that the junta has stated that it wants a small nuclear reactor, such as the one in Bangkok. Russia announced it would help to achieve that aim; then the subject was dropped from public discussion. But even that proposal must be fully public, and conducted through the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency.

There also has been speculation that the tunnels are part of a plan to mine uranium, and again Burma would be breaking international law not to discuss that.

On general principles of regional agreement, Burma must quickly disclose what it is up to with the tunnel complexes. The generals can prove that reports of nuclear cooperation with North Korea are wrong.

But by their silence they also can encourage even more distrust and suspicion about the intentions of their violent regime.

READ MORE---> Burma must come clean...

Security tightened in Buthidaung prison

Buthidaung, Arakan State: Security has been tightened in Buthidaung prison by the Burmese Army as alleging some prisoners escaped from prison yesterday night, said an official source.

Some rocks and stones were thrown at the prisoner’s sheds number 4 and 5 yesterday at about 8:40 pm, where there are mostly political prisoners from 88 uprising groups. The prison authorities informed the military command office of Buthidaung as the political prisoners were planning to escape before the forthcoming 88 uprising anniversary with the help of outside democracy activists group, the official said.

The prison authorities moved prisoners from sheds numbers 4 and 5 to other places where the prisoners were kept in fetters and then sent to a dark room, the official added.

The military command office sent troops to the prison after receiving information from the prison and arranged for tight security outside where no one is being allowed to pass at night and early morning of today. At about 7:00 am, the troops withdrew, said an aide of the army from Buthidaung.

“It is just a plan to keep the political prisoners more secure in the prison because of the forthcoming 88 uprising anniversary,” said a local from Buthidaung.

“How did people throw rocks and stones at the sheds from outside with so many guards in the prison and how did the prisoners escape from prison,” he asked.

READ MORE---> Security tightened in Buthidaung prison...

Rakhine woman commits suicide in Paletwa

Paletwa, Chin State (KPN): A Rakhine woman committed suicide after becoming pregnant in Paletwa Township on August 3, said a village elder from Paletwa.

The woman was identified as Ma Nu Sein Oo (18) daughter of U Poe Htha of Maynigone block, Paletwa Township.

Ma Nu Sein Oo was found dead on her bed on August 3, at about 5:30 a.m. when her younger sister went to wake her up for work, said a family member of Ma Nu Sein Oo.

The younger sister found a suicide note in her hand, the family member said.

The note explained that she was in love with Sergeant Kyaw Zaw Aung from the Light infantry Battalions (LIB) 289 and a close relative of the battalion commander.

She told her lover Kyaw that she was one month pregnant. Kyaw reported to his commander and requested permission to marry. But, the commander refused the request and sent him home on a month’s vacation where his family members forced him to marry another woman, the letter stated.

By then Sein Oo was four months pregnant and she did not want her family members to know. So she took poison, the note added.

Ma Nu Sein Oo drank insecticide which used for farmland, said U Poe Htha.

READ MORE---> Rakhine woman commits suicide in Paletwa...

China edgy over Burma’s nuclear ambitions

by Brian McCartan

Bangkok (Mizzima) - Another round of revelations concerning Burma’s nuclear ambitions and its nexus with North Korea has thrown up renewed international interest. Combined with comments by the United States of its concern over the growing cooperation between its pariah neighbours, China must be growing increasingly uneasy.

The revelations came about in a report in The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday and are based on two years of research by Desmond Ball, a strategic studies expert and Burma watcher at the Australian National University and freelance journalist Phil Thornton. Much of their information comes from the testimony of two defectors, who claim to have been connected to the nuclear programme, and from radio intercepts. While reports on Burma’s nuclear programme have been circulating for some time among the opposition media and Burmese activists, Ball and Thornton claim their research indicates with some certainty that two reactors are under development and that the regime is developing a nuclear weapons capability.

According to their research a 10 megawatt reactor is being developed with Russian assistance at Myaing in Magwe Division and another “secret” 10 megawatt reactor is being developed with North Korean help at Naung Laing in Mandalay Division. In addition, North Korea facilitated the construction of a uranium refining and enrichment facility at Thabike Kyin. Although both reactors are small, security analysts have noted that North Korea developed its runaway nuclear programme from a similar reactor at Yangbyon.

Of a more sinister nature, Ball and Thornton also claim that testimony from the defectors indicates that a programme is already underway to develop a viable nuclear weapon. Should the defectors testimony prove true, they say, then the “secret” reactor could be capable of “producing one bomb a year, every year, after 2014.”

Although a weapons programme would require more external support than is currently being provided, Pyongyang has shown a willingness to export technology and know-how to other reclusive and anti-Western regimes. In Burma’s case, that know-how and technology could be traded for fissionable nuclear material to continue the development of North Korea’s own weapons.

The voyage of a North Korean cargo ship, the Kang Nam 1, last month believed to be heading to Burma, aroused suspicions of cooperation between Pyongyang and Naypyidaw on the development of ballistic missiles. Opposition sources claim the junta may have already acquired Scud-type missiles or is testing its own designs with the help of North Korean advisors. These claims have not been independently verified, but a visit by General Thura Shwe Mann, SPDC Number 3, to North Korea seemed to partially confirm the claims when he and his entourage inspected a Scud production facility.

In early July, reports emerged that Tokyo police had arrested three Japanese executives for allegedly trying to sell equipment to Burma which could be used in ballistic missile construction. The Hong Kong-based New East International Trading Ltd. which had ordered the parts has been linked to the North Korean Pyongyang Worker’s Party.

Burma’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon and the development of ballistic missiles to deliver such a device will surely raise the regional security temperature and has the potential to spark a new Southeast Asian arms race. Following Saturday’s report, Thai National Security Council head Thawil Pliensri ordered officials to look into the reports.

Such a situation would almost certainly not be favoured by Burma's main international patron. Considerable effort has been spent by China in developing Burma as a source of cheap natural resources to supply its growing industrial base, as a trade gateway to its remote and landlocked southwestern region and as a strategic conduit for oil and gas shipments from the Middle East.

Work is scheduled to begin next month on an oil and gas pipeline that will carry 20 million tons of crude oil and 12 billion cubic meters of gas every year across Burma to the southwestern city of Kunming. The proposed pipeline will allow Chinese oil rigs to bypass the narrow Malacca Straits, where over 80 per cent of its current fuel imports pass and viewed as a potential strategic chokepoint in any conflict with the US.

The last thing China wants, say analysts, is to see its new commercial arteries put at risk by US concerns over a nuclear Burma. China has to varying degrees been propping up Burma’s military regime since it withdrew support for the Burmese Communist Party in the late 1980’s Beijing’s support through massive arms shipments has been key to the generals’ ability to rapidly expand their military to an estimated 500,000 soldiers.

China’s influence has also been key to deflecting criticism of Burma in international fora, including at the United Nation's Security Council. Since the 1980s Beijing has spent considerable effort and money making economic inroads and securing lucrative concessions over Burma's rich natural resources for Chinese companies.

Subtle signs have already surfaced of China’s growing annoyance with Burma’s brinksmanship with the international community. That assumed concern would no doubt grow if Burma were to acquire ballistic missiles or a nuclear-grade weapon. Australian Burma expert Andrew Selth wrote in a 2007 paper, "Beijing is unlikely to be happy about the prospect of the SPDC acquiring a nuclear weapon, given [Burma's] proximity to China, its internal instability and the unpredictable behaviour of its leaders."

While China has so far tolerated North Korean conventional weapons shipments and links to supplying ballistic missile and nuclear technology to other regimes considered unsavoury internationally such as Syria and Iran, that goodwill may be stretched by having that same technology shared with its nearby neighbours. This would be particularly the case if it sours ties with greater Southeast Asia, where it has recently dedicated considerable diplomatic and commercial energies in a so-called "soft power" campaign.

Maintaining regional stability is a paramount Chinese concern. Burma's possession of ballistic missiles or a nuclear capability would risk the spread of weapons of mass destruction technologies in a region where no state has acquired nuclear weapons. A regional arms race would likely ensue as Burma's neighbours sought deterrence options.

As Selth wrote, "In this atmosphere of fear and suspicion, the security stakes in the region would go up, raising the prospect of other countries feeling obliged to expand their own inventories of strategic weapons. Beijing would also worry about the possible response of the US to closer [Burma]-North Korea ties." If Burma were to acquire ballistic missiles and substantive evidence was found of a nuclear programme, Washington would likely be forced to re-evaluate its Burma policy towards more direct engagement.

During a regular press briefing on Monday, US Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, Philip J Crowley, said America was concerned by “the nature of cooperation between North Korea and Burma.” Although he did not elaborate on what type of cooperation and refused to comment on questions related to any underground nuclear complex, many observers believe the US is taking a renewed interest in Burma’s nuclear designs.

According to Andrew Selth in an article on August 3 in ‘The Interpreter’, the weblog of the Lowy Institute for International Policy, the Obama administration has conducted a thorough investigation of Burma’s nuclear programme as part of its ongoing review of its Burma policy. The US has, however, so far been cautious in its statements on the matter and seems to be waiting for more solid evidence before making a formal statement.

Continued leaks of information and the resultant media attention on military links and possible nuclear cooperation between Naypyidaw and Pyongyang will only serve to maintain and even heighten US interest in Burma. The Obama administration has already shown a renewed interest in Southeast Asia, making it in China’s best interest to reign in the ambitions of its southern neighbour.

READ MORE---> China edgy over Burma’s nuclear ambitions...

UN to tackle Burma’s child soldier problem

(DVB)–A United Nations team will visit Burma to pressure the ruling junta and armed ethnic groups to end use of child soldiers, as concern remains about the prevalence of the practice in the country.

The announcement follows a report issued in June by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon which said there had been "grave violations" against children in Burma, with both the Burmese military and ethnic rebel militias guilty of recruitment.

The report accused the junta of failing to provide proof of measures it said it was taking to end use of child soldiers, and of blocking UN access to rebel groups.

Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN special representative for children and armed conflict, said on Tuesday that there had been some positive developments and that the Burmese government had been demobilising some children.

"We still are not sure how comprehensive that is and the extent of it," she told Reuters. "And so I am dispatching a team [to Burma] at the end of this month."

Human rights groups have criticised the government for not doing enough to tackle the problem, which they say is being masked over.

“The current situation seems to be pretty much the same; recruitment of child soldiers is still continuing but more underground,” said David Matheson from Human Rights Watch.

“Even though the [government] has taken some steps, it is woefully insufficient to the scale of the problem and is just not good enough.”

He went on to explain that the difficulty with the UN is that they have to work through the ruling State Peace and Development Council, which in 2004 constructed a committee ostensibly to address the problem.

But, says, Mathieson, it is a “public relations exercise to assuage the concerns of the international community that they’re actually doing anything.”

“I think any investigative mission by the UN has to see through those efforts and realise that a couple of token announcements and returns of some children which have been demobilised are way below the scale of the problem which we think there is,” he said.

Recrutiment of children under 15 into the army has been recognised as a war crime by the International Criminal Court.

Burmese law states that no child under the age of 18 shall be recruited into the army.

However, in a Human Rights Watch report, ‘Sold to be Soldiers’, it is reported that commanders rarely check documentation.

Furthermore, army generals place ambitious recruitment targets on commanders who are faced with the dilemma of either losing their job or recruiting children.

The punishment for recruiting children is small in the face of being demoted to a lower rank.

In July, one of Burma’s main rebel groups, the Shan State Army (SSA), signed a memorandum of understanding with Abolish Slavery and International Operations Centre for Children (IOCC), vowing to prevent the use of child soldiers in return for outside aid to increase their international credibility.

The United Wa State army, Burma’s largest rebel force, is reported to have the most child soldiers, second to the Burmese national army.

The Kachin Independence army is the only armed group to recruit girls, while the SSA and the Karen National Liberation Army have policies against recruiting children under 18, but do not turn away children who actively seek to join.

Yesterday, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a landmark resolution 1882 on Children and Conflict.

The council called upon the Secretary General to expand his “list of shame” beyond recruitment and use of children.

The list will now include countries that are responsible for the killing and maiming of children as well as those who perpetrate grave sexual violence against children in wartime.

Reporting by Alex Ellgee

READ MORE---> UN to tackle Burma’s child soldier problem...

Dam forcibly displaces 15,000 Burmese

(DVB)–The construction of the unfinished Tasang dam in eastern Burma has already forced around 15,000 people into refugee camps in neighbouring Thailand, according to a report released yesterday.

Upon completion, the Tasang dam on the Salween river in Shan state will be the largest in Southeast Asia, bigger than China’s Three Gorges dam.

But ‘Roots and Resilience’, a report released by the Shan Sapawa Environment Organisation which focuses on the Kheng Kham community, documents the forced relocation of 15,000 civilians living near to the dam site.

Shan state is Burma’s prime opium growing region and the site of often intense conflict, with factions of the ethnic Shan State Army fighting against the Burmese government.

“The dam is in a war zone and the Burmese military always suspect the villagers are part of an armed group,” said Sai Sai, a spokesperson from Shan Sapawa Environment Organization. “So they are arrested, tortured, and many rape cases have been reported in the area.”

The 7,110 megawatt Tasang dam is the biggest of five dams planned on the Salween river.

Last year the government announced that 28 dams were under construction, adding to the 12 that already exist. There are plans to build another 10.

Investors in the project include Thailand’s MDX Company and China’s Gezhouba Group Company.

The majority of the energy generated by the dam will be sold to Thailand, who recently reiterated its support for the project when it included it in its national Power Development Plan against the wish of human rights groups.

“We want to pressure the Thai government not to put the Taseng dam into Power development plan” said Sai Sai.

“If they are doing so then they are showing their support for the dam and for the human rights violations that are occurring as a result of the dam”.

“If they go ahead with the dam 15,000 people will lose everything because their homes will be under the water.”

According to environmental group International Rivers, between 40 and 60 million people worldwide have been displaced by hydropower projects.

Reporting by Alex Ellgee

READ MORE---> Dam forcibly displaces 15,000 Burmese...

Visitors told of Burma prisoner amnesty

(DVB)–A list of political prisoners to be released in an amnesty has already been drawn up by the Burmese government, according to family members visiting political prisoners last week.

The Burmese ambassador to the United Nations, Than Swe, said in July that the government would be releasing prisoners “with a view to enabling them to participate in the 2010 general elections”.

The pledge was greeted with widespread skepticism, with some observers claiming it was being done to avoid UN Security Council action.

But the wife of National League for Democracy (NLD) member, Ko Zaw Zaw Aung, who is in Tharawaddy prison, said that authorities there have already drawn up a list of releases.

“According to the sources, the list of people who will be released from prison had already been posted inside the prison,” she said. “They said 52 people will be released.”

Around 100 political prisoners still remain inside the prison, according to Ko Zaw Zaw Aung, who was arrested whilst demonstrating in front of the NLD headquarters in August 2007 against the hike in fuel and commodity prices which triggered the September 2007 monk-led protests.

Similarly, a list of people has reportedly been drawn up in Kale prison, Sagaing division, according to the sister of activist Su Su Nway, who heard the news when she visited the prison.

“[Su Su Nway] said she may be one of the political prisoners released; she was perhaps informed by someone inside there,” said Ma Htay Htay Kyi, adding that her sister had told her she did not have permission to talk about it.

The amnesty pledge followed a visit to Burma in early July by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, intended in part to pressure for the release of political prisoners.

Than Swe told the Security Council that the Burmese government would "implement all appropriate recommendations that [the] Secretary General had proposed".

The Burmese government has previously granted an amnesty to prisoners following a visit by UN human rights rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana. Over 6,000 prisoners were released but only around 30 had been charged on political grounds.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma (AAPP), over 2,160 prisoners remain languishing in Burma’s notorious prisons, 472 of which are members of the National League for Democracy party.

Reporting by Nang Kham Kaew

READ MORE---> Visitors told of Burma prisoner amnesty...

Nuclear watchdog urged to seek answers from Burma

By Anne Davies Herald Correspondent in Washington

(SMH) -AMERICAN non-proliferation experts have called on the international nuclear watchdog to seek clarification from the Burmese Government over its nuclear program after a Herald report that quoted defectors claiming there was a secret military nuclear program.

The report, based on interviews by Professor Desmond Ball of the Australian National University and a journalist, Phil Thornton, said the country had been developing a secret nuclear program. It revealed Burma was building a secret reactor, with North Korea’s assistance, at Nuang Laing, close to Mandalay.

The report has prompted intense interest among US security experts, particularly in the light of comments by the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in Thailand.

She said there had been ‘‘co-operation between North Korea and Burma in the past’’ and that North Korea had provided Burma with high-technology materials barred by the United Nations Security Council.

She made the remarks while praising Burma for having co-operated in the enforcement of UN resolution 1874, which is designed to prevent North Korea from shipping nuclear materials to other nations.

A North Korean ship turned back after being shadowed by the US Navy en route to Burma last month.

Daryl Kimball, of the Arms Control Association, told the Nelson Report, an influential online security report, that although there had been no evidence of a Burmese nuclear-weapons quest, whatever the North Koreans were doing must be made a priority by the International Atomic Energy Agency, of which Burma is a member.

‘‘The report is probably enough cause for the IAEA director-general [and Russia] to seek clarification from Myanmar [Burma] and request a special inspection,’’ Mr Kimball said.

Russia is said to have agreed in 2007 to provide the Burmese with a small, civilian light-water reactor, which would be subject to agency inspections, although the project’s exact status is disputed.

David Albright, the head of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, which monitors nuclear proliferation said: ‘‘There’s no hard evidence, just suspicions right now. We are watching it.’’ (JEG's: translation = it means we are waiting for something to hit and exterminate a good number of skeptics...)

He pointed out visits to Burma by executives from the North Korean firm, Namchongang Trading Corporation, which is under sanctions for its role in trading nuclear technology. Western officials say it channelled equipment and material for the nuclear reactor in Syria, which was destroyed in an Israeli air strike in September 2007.

Mr Albright also pointed to sales of technology used in ballistic missile manufacture from North Korea to Burma.

On Monday the Institute for Science and International Security posted links to photos on the YaleGlobal site, which show extensive tunnel construction in Burma overseen by North Korean engineers. They are understood to be separate to tunnelling related to the nuclear program referred to by the defectors.

READ MORE---> Nuclear watchdog urged to seek answers from Burma...

Su Su Nway Put in Solitary

By LAWI WENG
The Irrawaddy News

A prominent Burmese labor rights activist, Su Su Nway, was placed in solitary confinement for three days after participating in a ceremony to mark the 62nd anniversary of Martyrs’ Day on June 19 in Kalay Prison, in Sagaing Division, according to her sister.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Tuesday, her sister, Htay Htay Kyi, said, “She was put in solitary confinement because she stood up and sang an independence anthem composed by Min Ko Naing to mark Martyrs’ Day.”

This picture taken 19 July 2006 shows Burmese activist Su Su Nway (C) attending a Martyr Day ceremony at the headquarters of the National League for Democracy in Rangoon. (Photo: Getty Images)

Htay Htay Kyi said she visited her sister on July 21 when she delivered medicine to Su Su Nway who said she had been denied medical care by the prison authorities.

Su Su Nway, 37, suffers from hypertension and heart disease.

In 2006, she won the John Humphrey Freedom Award for promoting human rights.

She was arrested together with two colleagues after they pasted anti-government posters on a billboard in downtown Rangoon during the monk-led uprising of 2007. She was sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison.

Su Su Nway is among other 2,100 political prisoners who are currently being detained by the Burmese military authorities.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in July called on the Burmese junta to release all political prisoners before the national elections in 2010.

Burmese permanent representative at the UN, Than Swe reportedly told Ban that Burma will release prisoners before the election; however, he did not specify if political dissidents would be among the prisoners released.

READ MORE---> Su Su Nway Put in Solitary...

KNU Asks Thai Government to Pull out of Salween Dam Project

By SAW YAN NAING
The Irrawaddy News

Burma’s Karen National Union (KNU) appealed on Tuesday to the Thai government to halt its involvement in the construction of the Hat Gyi Dam on the Salween River, warning that the project would cause “huge” environmental damage and human rights abuses.

The KNU made the appeal in a letter to Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

David Takapaw, KNU vice chairman, said: “The dam will result in huge environmental impacts and human rights abuses. It will force local villagers to flee to Thailand and become refugees. So we asked him: please, don’t continue the dam construction.”

In recent months, Thai engineers have conducted a field survey at the construction site on Salween River. Many villagers in the area are reportedly opposed to the dam project.

According to the Karen River Watch, a memorandum of understanding was signed in June 2006 between Burma’s Department of Electric Power, the Thai energy authority EGAT and China’s Sinohydro Corporation to build the Hat Gyi dam.

The dam is one of a series scheduled to be built on the Salween River in a joint Thai-Burmese government program. They are expected to generate 10,000 megawatts of electricity, much of which would be delivered to Thailand.

Some reports have claimed that theen

Copies of the KNU’s letter to Abhisit were also to be presented by Karen environmental advocates at a meeting in Bangkok on Tuesday attended by Thai environmental rights groups and Burmese environmental advocates.

The meeting was to focus on human rights abuses and environment issue related to the project, according to an ethnic Shan environmental advocate, Sai Sai, who attended the meeting.

Thailand plans an energy program known as the National Power Development Plan which includes the dams on the Salween River. The plan is expected to be completed by the year 2014, according to Sai Sai.

Meanwhile, his environmental group, the Shan Sapawa Environment Organization (SSEO), released on Tuesday a new report titled “Roots and Resilience” and charging that the construction of dams on the Salween River will result in human rights abuses and environmental damage and will benefit only the Burmese regime and Thai authorities.

SSEO Spokesman Sai Sai said: “Human rights abuses will widely happen if the dam is constructed. Villagers will come to Thailand en masse as refugees.”

Local villagers would receive no benefit from the dams, which would serve only the interests of the Burmese regime and neighboring Thailand, he said.

The environmental damage would include flooding, deforestation and the disappearance of traditional and cultural heritages, Sai Sai maintained.

The SSEO report said the biggest Salween River dam, the Tasang dam, would flood more than 100 villages, forcing thousands of villagers to relocate. One community of 15,000 in Keng Kham, Shan State, had been forced to move 10 years ago because of work on the dam, and most had fled to Thailand, the report said.

Most of the electricity generated by the 7,110 MW Tasang dam will be sold to Thailand. Project investors include the Thai MDX Company and China’s Gezhouba Group Company.

READ MORE---> KNU Asks Thai Government to Pull out of Salween Dam Project...