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| ‘Wave of Arrests’ in Burma |
| Wednesday, 4 November 2009 |
The ruling junta is again rounding up critics and activists, but the reasons are unclear.
BANGKOK—Burma’s military junta has stepped up detentions of its political opponents and social activists in recent weeks, with as many as 50 people arrested in the last month, according to activists and residents.
“In recent days, they have been arresting mainly journalists and former prisoners,” said Ko Tak Naing, secretary of the rights group Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners (AAPP), which is based in the Thai-Burmese border region.
“Amongst the journalists, we are certain at least 10 have been arrested,” he said.
“They are journalists such as Ko Soe Moe, Ko Nyi Nyi Tun, and Khan Min Htet, who have been arrested in the last few days.”
Reasons unclear
While activists and local people are unsure of the reason behind the apparent crackdown, some say it is linked to stepped-up security measures around the former capital, Rangoon.
Other reported detainees included two young journalists and seven young men who were actively involved in private relief efforts in the wake of last year’s devastating Tropical Cyclone Nargis.
Journalists Ko Thant Zin Soe from The Voice weekly magazine and freelance journalist Ko Paing Soe Oo are believed to have been detained around midnight on Oct. 27, sources in Rangoon said.
Further detentions were reported at Rangoon’s Cultural University, according to a resident there.
“They all live in the Sittaung housing estate in the Yuzana Garden city,” said a woman at the university.
“They were all students attending the university.”
At first the detentions were linked to the students’ failure to register as overnight guests, but local authorities denied carrying out any inspections in the area, she said.
“We don’t know why they say this. But they did take the youths away,” she said.
Nargis links
The seven students are all believed to have been working with a social organization called Lin Let Kyair, formed two years ago after Nargis killed an estimated 140,000 people.
Villagers in the worst-hit regions said they have been unable to rebuild their lives in the wake of the storm, which left millions with no home or livelihood.
Local and overseas aid workers said Burma’s ruling military junta deliberately blocked aid to victims of Nargis, and failed to ensure that fields were ploughed in time for the harvest. It has also jailed a number of private citizens, some of them well-known, for aiding cyclone victims.
Lin Let Kyair is a nonprofit voluntary social organization that has been helping victims in poverty-stricken villages to dig wells, build schools and libraries, and provide educational assistance for children.
New checkpoints
Rangoon residents said a series of checkpoints had been springing up around Rangoon in recent weeks, with travelers and former political prisoners under close surveillance.
“In recent days the police have been stopping cars and checking them out in front of the Tamwe High School,” said the Rangoon resident who lives near the Cultural University.
“They have been asked to open their trunks. Also at the entrance to Yuzana Garden they would stop cars and inspect the belongings of the occupants,” she said.
“They are doing the same at the Central Mall, and in Rangoon at the traffic light at the front of the [opposition National League for Democracy] office,” she added.
Authorities were also keeping a close watch on the activities of 7,000 former prisoners, especially those who were political prisoners, who were released in a recent amnesty.
“Their houses have been specifically picked for search and inspection by the police,” she said.
Original reporting in Burmese by Ingjin Naing and Son Moe Wai. Burmese service director: Nancy Shwe. Translated by Soe Thinn. Written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
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| 25 percent of Shan families forcibly relocated |
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More than a quarter of families in Burma's northeastern Shan state were forcibly relocated in the past year, while nine percent of families had at least one member injured by a landmine, a US health academic said.
A further 24 percent of families had one member taken by Burmese troops for forced labour, according to Professor Chris Beyrer, from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The findings were reported to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee during a testimony on US policy to Burma last week.
While much of the rhetoric surrounding the policy shift has focused on Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's 2,100 political prisoners, Beyrer said that attacks on ethnic nationalities in the Karen and Shan states "are the second major cause for concern in Burma today".
Attacks by Burmese troops in Shan state, Burma's largest state with a population of nearly five million, had been particularly intense, with 39 villages targeted and 10,000 villagers forcibly displaced as "part of a systematic and widespread scorched earth campaign".
The findings of investigations into landmine injuries in Shan state were among the highest rates ever documented, he said.
Burma's state expenditure on healthcare is amongst the lowest in the world. Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) estimates that $US0.70 per capita per year, or 0.3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), is channeled into the health sector.
The volatile Shan state, which borders China, was the scene of heavy fighting in August and September between government troops and an armed ethnic group from the Kokang region.
The fighting, which erupted following rising tension over the government's proposals to transform ethnic armies into border guard militias, forced some 37,000 refugees into China.
Beyrer said that the attacks on ethnic groups were part of the government's preparation for the 2010 elections.
"The junta is creating new humanitarian emergencies with its current campaign for political control of ethnic areas and destabilizing its border regions with China," he said.
"Burmese refugees continue to flee not only into China, but to Thailand, India, Bangladesh and Malaysia, making this a truly regional concern."
Reporting by Francis Wade
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| Arrests of Burmese journalists on the rise |
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Around 20 journalists and entertainers have been arrested in the past month while many more have gone into hiding, a reporter at a Rangoon-based news journal said.
Burmese government authorities appear to have targeted relief workers and journalists involved with the Lin Latt Kyae ('Shining Star') relief programme for cyclone Nargis victims.
"About 20 people, including entertainers, writers and press workers, have been arrest so far," said the reporter, speaking under condition of anonymity.
He said that 12 people were arrested on Wednesday, including staff members from The Voice, Foreign News, Favourite, Pyi Myanmar and Kandarawaddy journals.
Fear of further arrests has shaken Burma's media community, which is often targeted during government crackdowns on dissent.
Now is a particular sensitive time in Burma as the ruling junta prepares for elections next year, despite pressure from the international community to release all political prisoners prior to polling.
"These people were not involved in any political activity," said the reporter.
"There are many more missing but it is not confirmed that they have been arrested. Three junior journalists from my publication are in hiding."
A wider investigation by the government into post-cyclone relief work appears to be underway, with people involved in unofficial financial brokering also being called in for interrogation.
The investigations being conducted may be linked to overseas donations and relief work in cyclone hit areas, the reporter said.
"They are trying to trace where and how the money came to the relief teams," he said. "They want to know if the money came from the opposition groups overseas."
The New York-based Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) today "strongly condemned" the arrest on Wednesday of freelance journalist and blogger Pai Soe Oo, reportedly a member of Lin Latt Kyae.
"Burma's military government claims to be moving toward democracy, yet it continues to routinely arrest and detain journalists," said Shawn W. Crispin, CPJ's senior Southeast Asia representative. "Reducing international pressure should require demonstrable improvements in press freedom."
San Moe Wei, secretary of the Burma Media Association, said that the numbers of journalists being arrested in the run-up to elections would likely increase.
"The government doesn't like its operations exposed to foreign media so I'm sure we'll see many more," he said.
Reporting by Than Win Htut and Francis Wade
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| Myanmar: The people nobody wants |
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The plight of the Burmese Rohingya made headlines in early 2009 when Thai security forces were accused of pushing migrant boats out to sea. With ASEAN establishing a new human rights body and a US delegation visiting Burma, what chance is there for improvement for a stateless people? Simon Roughneen writes for ISN Security Watch.
By Simon Roughneen for ISN Security Watch
At its 15th summit held in Thailand two weeks ago, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations inaugurated the ASEAN Intergovernmental Human Rights Commission. It is the first time that the 10-state bloc has given institutional recognition to human rights.
What that means in practice is unclear. The body will merely promote human rights, and cannot sanction offenders or protect victims. With the Burmese junta nominating a representative to the 10-member commission, along with states such as Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, which have less-than-stellar records in this area, it seems the new body is there to pay lip service rather than act decisively.
Action for sure is needed. Malaysia does not recognize refugees as a category; communist Vietnam continues to make life hard for religious groups; and the majority of Burmese struggle under a military dictatorship.
Standing out for the wrong reasons
But of all the ethnic groups in the region perhaps one stands out as suffering the most. The Rohingya are a Muslim minority in western Burma, living mainly in Rakhine State close to the border with Bangladesh. Muslims make up around 4 percent of the country's total population, and a majority of Burmese Muslims describe themselves as 'Rohingya.'
The Rohingya number about two million people. Approximately 800,000 remain in Burma and 200,000-400,000 in Bangladesh. An estimated half million live in the Middle East as migrant workers, with around 50,000 in Malaysia.
Some are thought to be descendants of migrants who came east from what is now India and Bangladesh during British colonial rule. Others believe the Rohingya descend from Arab traders who settled in Rakhine more than 1,000 years ago. It is impossible to say exactly who came from where and when, but the Burmese junta maintains that the Rohingya are not among the country's 135 recognized ethnic groups.
Since 1982, Rohingya have been denied citizenship. The Rohingya do not have an automatic right to education or work. They need permission to travel even a few miles between villages in Rakhine, much less move freely around Burma. The junta throws a cascade of red tape around marriage, requiring Rohingya to obtain a variety of authorizations before being issued a ‘marriage permit,’ which may take years.
It doesn't end there. Burma's army has targeted almost all of the ethnic groups living along the country's mountainous borderlands, from the Wa and Karen near Thailand, to the Shan on the Chinese frontier, to the Chin living close to India and Bangladesh. These groups have all established powerful militias that have carved out de facto autonomous zones for themselves, in many cases funded by smuggling and drug trafficking, and have to some extent, been able to protect their people from the army.
Defenceless and nowhere to go
However, the Rohingya have remained defenseless. Multiple accounts of torture, summary execution, arbitrary arrest and detention, rape, destruction of homes, forced relocation and eviction, confiscation of land and property and so on, have been given by refugees fleeing to Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia.
The situation for Rohingya gets worse, as the junta's resource wealth increases. Since the early 1990s, the number of battalions in western Burma has jumped from three to over 40. The soldiers often live off the land, expropriating property and implementing forced labor projects. The region is close to offshore oil and gas fields, which the junta needs to boost revenues and fund its military expansion. The junta has the biggest army in Southeast Asia, despite having only around one-fifth the population of Indonesia's estimated 250 million, by far the largest country in the region.
The most important new development is the Shwe gas field off the coast of western Rakhine. In December 2008, the Chinese energy company PetroChina signed a 30-year lease with the Burmese to buy natural gas piped from this field, in a consortium involving Indian, Thai, South Korean, Chinese and Burmese interests. Moreover, another pipeline will run from the coast, into western China, transporting crude oil from the Middle East. China wants that pipeline to avoid sending all its oil traffic from the Middle East and Africa through the Straits of Malacca, which it feels are vulnerable to pirates, and to US naval blockade, should relations between Washington and Beijing get testy.
Bangladesh hosts 28,000 Rohingya in two refugee camps supervised by the UN. An estimated 200,000 – 400,000 live outside camps without access to international protection or humanitarian assistance. Many Rohingya have been pushed back into Burma, only to return to Bangladesh.
In recent weeks, a maritime and land border dispute between Burma and Bangladesh has reopened. The Burmese junta is building a border fence between the two countries, and in a cruel twist, is coercing Rohingya into building the fence. According to Bangladeshi media, the junta is hoping to keep the Rohingya that have fled to Bangladesh from being pushed back by Dhaka.
K Mrat Kyaw, editor of Narinjara, a Bangladesh-based news service for Rohingya, told ISN Security Watch that “Bangladesh authorities would like to push back the Rohingya to Burma before the fence is completed.”
Precarious survival conditions in Bangladesh and the closure of other migration routes to the Middle East have resulted in Rohingya moving by boats toward Malaysia via Thailand. This has led to international outcry over reports that Thailand's ‘push-back’ policy involved security forces pushing boat loads of Rohingya into international waters. Indian and Indonesia naval vessels later found drifters and survivors who said they were sent to sea by Thai security officials.
Thailand believed the Rohingya to be economic migrants, rather than refugees, and many of the men were fined for illegal entry as they had no papers – which of course they could not get in the first place given that Burma does not grant them citizenship.
Malaysia is listed by the US State Department as one of the world's places of concern for human trafficking and refuses to sign any refugee conventions. However, it is the destination of choice for Rohingya fleeing Burma, and that Rohingya are willing to pay to be smuggled there says a lot.
As Shu Shi of Malaysian human rights group SUARAM put it to ISN Security Watch, “Basically, the Malaysian authorities treat all the refugees equally badly.”
Little hope
Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, which lobbies for the Rohingya, tells ISN Security Watch that she “hopes the Rohingya issue will be addressed” when a high-level US delegation visits Burma on 3 and 4 November as part of the new 'engagement' policy with the junta.
ASEAN passed the buck on this issue at its 14th summit in February 2009. With ASEAN chair Thailand in the spotlight over the ‘push-backs,’ the bloc delegated the Rohingya issue to the Bali Process, a regional forum on human trafficking and related issues. However, this grouping has not come up with any solutions so far.
The recent 15th ASEAN summit in Thailand made no mention of the Rohingya issue, which could return to the international spotlight soon. Seasonal winds make it easier to travel from Bangladesh and Burma to Thailand by boat from October onward. It is likely that more Rohingya will arrive on Thailand's shores in the coming months, given the border wrangles between Burma and Bangladesh. However, it is not clear whether neighboring states will be more welcoming of Rohingya this time around.
Despite ASEAN’s new human rights commission, member-states Thailand, Malaysia and Burma have not ratified the UN Refugee Convention nor enacted domestic refugee legislation. The same applies to Bangladesh, which is not an ASEAN member.
This means these host countries do not abide by the principle of non-refoulement – which stipulates that refugees cannot be sent back to their home country if it is clear that they face persecution.
Chris Lewa told ISN Security Watch, “I have little hope that the ASEAN human rights body will make any difference to the Rohingya, or to human rights in general in Southeast Asia – at least not for the foreseeable future.”
Simon Roughneen is an ISN Security Watch senior correspondent, currently in Southeast Asia. His website is www.simonroughneen.com.
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| Eastern Burma: another Darfur? |
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New Delhi (Mizzima) –At least 75,000 people became refugees and more than half a million were internally displaced in eastern Burma in the past year, following increased militarisation, which strongly indicates crime against humanity comparable to the situation in Darfur, said a consortium of humanitarian assistance groups.
Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), an alliance of 12 aid organizations, in a new report titled "Protracted Displacement and Militarisation in Eastern Burma" released on Thursday said, threat to human security has been mounting as Burma’s ruling junta continues militarisation in areas of ethnic minorities.
“The process of militarisation has been on in Burma for decades, and this is the continuation of the tactics of controlling the population by moving the Burmese Army into these [ethnic] areas and taking control by moving people to relocation sites,” Sally Thompson, deputy director of the TBBC told Mizzima on Friday.
Thompson said, militarisation in ethnic areas have been continuing and is likely to further increase in the run up to the junta’s elections in 2010, as the regime pressurises ethnic armed rebels to transform into the Border Guard Force (BGF).
Since 1996, the TBBC said, over 3,500 villages, including 120 communities between August 2008 and July 2009, in eastern Burma have been destroyed and forcibly relocated.
The highest rates of recent displacement were reported in northern Karen areas and southern Shan State with almost 60,000 Karen villagers hiding in the mountains of Kyaukgyi, Thandaung and Papun Townships, and a third of these civilians fleeing from artillery attacks or the threat of Burmese Army patrols during the past year, the TBBC said in a statement.
In Shan state, a similar situation prevails with nearly 20,000 civilians from 30 Shan villages forcibly relocated by the Burmese Army in retaliation against Shan State Army-South (SSA-S), an ethnic Shan armed rebel group, in operations in Laikha, Mong Kung and Keh Si Townships.
In late August, conflict between Burmese Army troops and Kokang rebels in Northern Shan State forced over 30,000 Burmese refugees to flee to China.
Thompson said in July, a joint military campaign launched by the Burmese Army and its ally the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), against the Karen National Union (KNU), an ethnic Karen armed group, forced up to 4,000 people to flee to Thailand.
“We expect to see this pattern continuing in the ethnic and border areas as we approach the [2010] elections,” Thompson said.
The TBBC, which has been helping Burmese refugees since 1984, is currently providing food and shelter to more than 150,000 Burmese refugees living in nine camps along the Thai-Burma border.
With increasing conflicts in Burma and the arrival of more refugees, Thompson said these refugees will have no place to return until Burma has national reconciliation through dialogue.
Thompson added that the junta’s planned elections is unlikely to bring stability as it will have no credibility without the release of political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi and allow their participation.
But until there is any significant political change that can ensure the return of refugees and internally displaced people, the international community, particularly neighbouring Thailand should continue providing assistance including shelter and food.
The TBBC, which currently is supported by 15 donor countries, also urged the international community to increase their support as with the number of refugees arriving on the Thai-Burma border, and increasing prices, it is facing difficulties in consistently supporting the refugees.
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| Eleven injured in explosion in Taungup, Arakan |
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New Delhi (Mizzima) – Eleven people were injured in an explosion in Sarpyin Village of Taungup Township in Burma’s western Arakan state on Sunday evening, local residents said.
A local in Sarpyin told Mizzima on Monday that a loud noise was heard at about 8 p.m. (local time) on Sunday. Eleven people were injured in the blast. Three were taken to hospital as they sustained severe injuries.
“The noise was extremely loud, but no casualties have been reported so far. The victims were taken to Taungup hospital. Eight of the 11 sustained minor injuries. Three, who had serious injuries, are hospitalised as in-ward patients,” the local added.
While it is still not clear what kind of explosives caused the blast, the local added that the police have apprehended a suspect.
“We have been ordered to investigate,” an official at the Taungup Township police station told Mizzima.
The police officer, however, declined to provide further details.
An official at the Taungup hospital did not answer a call. |
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| DKBA Extorts Money and Food Supplies from Karen State Villagers |
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HURFOM: On September 9, 2009, The Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA)’s Battalion No. 906 under Captain Ye Myint, based in Dagon Taing village in Kawkareik District, Karen State, asked the residents of nearby village Kwankataung to collectively give the battalion 57 baskets of rice. Kwankataung village is located between Kyainnseikyi Town and Dagon Taing village, east of the Winyaw river.
HUFROM’s field reporter learned that while the Kwankataung village residents were collecting the rice for the battalion, Captain Ye Myint changed his mind and asked them instead for a sum of 300,000 kyat, twice the amount the villagers were able to pay. The extortion fee was eventually settled at 150,000 kyat, as well as a smaller amount of foodstuffs.
Phoe Tar, a 35 years old Kwankataung villager, said, “The Captain did not like our rice’s bad quality and asked for money instead of us giving the rice to them. They asked for 300,000 kyat. Our villagers couldn’t afford that amount of money to give them immediately. So, we negotiated with the captain and gave them half the amount of money they asked. In addition, we also had to give them 15 baskets of rice.”
Kwankataung village contains a variety of ethnicities, but the largest group living in the village is ethnic Burmese, and the village contains about 200 households Most of families located in the village rely on farming or fishing for their survival, although this year’s heavy rains have flooded many of the village’s paddy fields. 40% of the village’s population are fisherman. During the summer, most of the villagers farm summer paddies. The amount of money demanded by the DKBA is thus a huge blow to villagers already struggling to survive this year’s torrential rains.
Kyaw Aye Doe, a 44 year old farm worker from Kwankataung village said, “Most of resident’s do not know where they will get a meal for tomorrow. Our children don’t get snacks, even though there is not even enough rice for them to eat. Our children are malnourished. The DKBA also knew about our situation but they forced our resident give them the rice and money. They just want to kill our villagers by acting like that.”
According to Saw Nay Doe, 37 years old, “I have paid 4,000 Kyat for [my portion of the] extortion money for the DKBA’s troops. At the moment, one of my wife’s relatives lent me that money. I have to work hard to get money for paying him back. Before, DKBA’s troop just collected 1 bulge of rice (0.25 Kilogram). Now, we have lost both rice and money. I feel very sad for my children because they don’t have enough food. I don’t want to live under armed force anymore. But I don’t know how we will get out from this plight.”
“The DKBA’s troops always rely on the area residents. If they don’t have money in their packages, they just point gun at resident’s heads and ask for money and food. That’s the reason the troops are increasing. It’s very nice for opportunist people in the area,” he added.
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| LIB No. 556 uses KNU activity to justify human rights violations in Palaw Township, Margue District |
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HURFOM, Palaw: According to HURFOM reporters, the Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) No. 556 has been using rumors of KNU activity in Palaw Township, Margue Distirct, to arrest, threaten, and extort money from the residents of various villages throughout Palaw Township. The majority of the reports that HURFOM received centered around the village of Pawkataw, where a string of violent arrests commenced two weeks ago during a Christian church service.
One Pawkataw villager said, “On October 18, 2009, the LIB No. 556, led by Lieutenant colonel Min Htet Kyaw, entered Pawkataw village after clashing [with the KNU] near that village. The troops arrested the people they saw in the streets and beat them, after that they called to the residents who were praying in church to come out, and they beat them too, and arrested them. At that time, the village headman lost consciousness, and preacher bled from the head. They arrested all people [from the church] and took them back to Khelmar village, and later to Palaw town.
Daw Sein Yee, 52, a Pawkataw villager and the relative of a woman who had been arrested by LIB no. 556 told HURFOM’s reporter, “On the way back to Khelmar [where the battalion is based] village, they ran across 7 people on their way – 2 of Burman-Indians and 5 Burmans. They [the troops] interrogated them and beat them. The troops released the women and children that accompanied the group of 7 men, 3 mothers and 2 children, midway back to Khelmar village. But they arrested the men and took them first back to Khelmar, and then to Palaw Township.”
Daw Sein Yee added, “When they arrived at Palaw town, they asked the residents questions about [KNU] fighting near their village [Palaw town]. Because the town residents didn’t know exactly which [KNU} group, or who the group was led by, the LIB no. 556’s Lieutenant Colonel commanded his troops to beat these people [from Palaw town] up too, but at the end of the day all of the people that had been arrested were released. A villager named Saw Kyaw Lay got a very bad injury from being beaten by the troops. He had to go to Palaw hospital for his injury.”
HURFOM’s reporters learned that the LIB no. 556 troops intimidated the Pawkataw village headman, the headman’s secretary and a villager named U Paw. The troops reportedly informed the three that if the LIB. No 556 encounters them [the headman and his cohorts] near Pawkataw a second time, they will be killed. The headman, his secretary, and U Paw have since departed from Pawkataw village.
According to HURFOM’s reporter, when LIB No. 556 entered the Pawkataw village, they also extorted money from a few villagers, aside from their arrests at the Christian church. According to interviews, the troops extorted 300,000 kyat from a villager named Daw cherry; a ring [a piece of jewelry] and 100,000 kyat from a villager named Naw Mu Sey; and food and other goods from a villager named Ma Thu Nay Chel. The troops also reportedly took roughly 150,000 kyat worth of housing materials and 100,000 kyat in cash from a villager named Naw Kar Htuu; the troops stole housing materials from a villager named Saw Phee Shwe; finally, the troops also stole 200,000 kyat worth of housing materials and 120,000 kyat in cash from a villager named Naw Dar Shi. Pawkataw villagers informed HURFOM’s reporter that after collecting the housing materials, money, and other goods they had extorted, the troops intimated that any further rumor of KNU activity near Pawkataw village would result in the villagers’ deaths.
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| Living conditions for displaced villagers and ongoing abuses in Tenasserim Division |
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Tenasserim Division is Burma's southernmost region, bordered by the Andaman Sea to the west and Thailand to the east. Fairly narrow and never more than 60 miles (97 kilometres) across, the 400 mile (644 kilometre) long division constitutes a narrow peninsula, shared with Thailand and pointing towards Malaysia. The northern end of the division, Kaw Te Hgah Township, has received extensive international coverage for abuses related to the Yadana and Yetagun gas projects,[1] both owned by international energy companies, as all well as the government-owned Kanbauk to Myaing Kalay gas pipeline.[2]
Abuses in areas of Tenasserim Division south of the pipeline area have received little coverage, however, belying the degree to which human rights continue to be consistently violated by the Burma Army. [3] In 1996, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) [4] began forcibly relocating thousands of villagers to government-controlled areas. A decade later, villagers still living in these sites, as well as villagers in previously existing villages in nearby areas, report exploitative abuses including forced labour, arbitrary 'taxation,' movement restrictions and punishment as alleged supporters of the Karen National Union (KNU). Because of abuses such as these, thousands of villagers and internally displaced people (IDPs) continue to pursue life hiding in areas not under State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) control. These villagers report that they are targeted by the Burma Army, which works to create living conditions so untenable that villagers are forced to move to villages under SPDC control.
Life for villagers evading SPDC control
Tenasserim Division is home to relatively fewer displaced villagers in hiding when compared with other Karen areas, such as the northern districts of Toungoo, Nyaunglebin and Papun. More than 3,050 people remain in hiding throughout Ler Mu Lah and Te Naw Th’ri Townships, [5] however, and villagers continue to report abuses similar to those suffered by IDPs hiding elsewhere in Karen State. SPDC Army soldiers patrol non-SPDC controlled areas for IDPs, destroying plantations, hill fields, homes and food stores. Patrols in Tenasserim Division also operate on a shoot-on-sight policy, and villagers report being shot at by the Burma Army while working at their farms and plantations, while walking and staying inside their villages. The SPDC also continues to make extensive use of unmarked landmines, as does the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA, the armed wing of the KNU), though to a lesser degree.
On September 2nd 2009, for instance, a group of 11 IDP villagers were attacked as they returned from their hill fields near Ht--- village, Ler Mu Lah Township, Tenasserim Division. At 4:00 pm, the group, along with a KNLA escort, encountered 100 soldiers from SPDC Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) #557, which opened fire upon sighting them. All but one of the villagers were able to safely flee. The 11th, Saw G---, was wounded in the leg, but was able to escape after the KNLA soldier stayed behind to fire on and delay LIB #557. Villagers told KHRG that they found the dead body of the KNLA soldier the next day.
Like IDPs elsewhere in Karen areas, villagers hiding in Tenasserim Division continue to employ a variety of strategies to resist abuse by the SPDC army, including using flight to avoid SPDC-control and advanced preparation of hiding sites and food storage to make this evasion more effective. [6] Below is an extended quote from Naw R---, who lives in N--- village, Te Naw Th'ri Township, in which she describes her experience fleeing from Burma Army patrols and the measures she and her husband have since taken to prepare for future flight. The interview took place during May 2007; it has not previously been published by KHRG:
"Because of the operation of SPDC soldiers we dare not to live in our own village. We always have to move to another new place. We're afraid of them [SPDC soldiers] because if they see us they might use us as porters or shoot us. I came to escape here at N--- village last year... We had to swim and cross the river from N--- village to Ht--- village because our boat was broken. We slept in Ht--- village for one night; we were in trouble, and there were no places to sleep... [The next day] SPDC soldiers came to this village [Ht---] and started to shoot at the villagers. We were very worried and had to [leave and] find our own safe place. I couldn't carry my children and bags. It was raining a lot so we couldn't run very far. Pa Ht--- [her neighbour] could carry just one blanket. We had to run as fast as we could. We almost lost our way. There were five families altogether. One of my neighbours lost his child because he had to carry things and his three children also. After that we became separated in groups and couldn't find each other... We ran without stopping until we reached a safe place. It was beside the stream. There was no food this time. Mosquitoes kept biting us. I felt very sad for my children. A leech bit my husband. We stayed hiding ourselves here until we knew that the SPDC soldiers had gone away from us... Regarding the issues [described above], we decided to build a secret hut for our family deep in the jungle. If the soldiers come, then we run immediately to our own hut."
In spite of the difficult conditions in which they live, villagers have also described attempts to maintain their sense of community. In the quote below, Saw B--- describes how he and other villagers from the T--- village area responded to 5 villagers being killed by landmines by holding a memorial service, in spite of danger from SPDC activity in their area. The interview took place in June 2007; it has not previously been published by KHRG:
"The situation here is very bad and unstable. SPDC soldiers put landmines around our paddy fields and betel nut plantations. Very recently, five villagers accidentally stepped on landmines and died. We did not even dare to go and carry them to the village. We were very upset by this, so we held a memorial service for them... The SPDC soldiers have lots of movement in this area. They never leave the villagers alive; they just shoot us when they see us. Even if we are not their enemies they shoot at us. Last year they came to our village many times. We had to flee and find our own safe places. But after they left we went back to our village. They [the SPDC soldiers] destroyed and burnt our paddy fields."
Life in SPDC-controlled villages and relocation sites
In September 1996, concurrent with an offensive against Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA, the armed wing of the KNU) positions in Tenasserim Division and Dooplaya District, the SLORC forcibly relocated thousands of villagers to government controlled relocation sites. Affected areas included more than 40 densely populated villages between the Andaman coast and Tenasserim River, from Palauk in northern Ler Mu Lah Township to Tenasserim Town in Te Naw Th'ri Township. Another 20 villages were forcibly located form areas south of Tenasserim Town. Villagers were ordered to relocate to sites near the north-south Tavoy-Mergui motor road, or near majority ethnic-Burman villages near the southern end of the Tenasserim River.[7]
More than ten years later, villagers in these relocation sites as well as other villages in SPDC controlled parts of Tenasserim Division report exploitative abuse and movement restrictions that make meeting livelihood needs intensely difficult. In the area around the Le Nya SPDC Army camp in Te Naw Th'ri Township, for instance, villagers report abuses including forced labour and cash payments for building army facilities. On September 5th 2009, SPDC soldiers from LIB #559 based in Le Nya under the command of officer Aung Myint Lin ordered the head of nearby M--- village to send them two porters to carry army equipment. The village head told KHRG after his village provided the porters that he had no knowledge of where they had gone.
Elsewhere in Te Naw Th'ri Township, on September 20th 2009 LIB #561 based at Tone Daw ordered villagers from T---, N--- and B--- village tracts to provide 40 porters. These village tracts are made up of a total of 20 villages, each of which was ordered to send two people. Before the porters were actually sent to Tone Daw, however, the villagers were informed that they should send cash payment for the hire of porters in lieu of sending actual people. The villages were instructed to collect a total of 1.6 million kyat (approx. US $1,516) and deliver it to the army camp at Ler Ker, Te Naw Th'ri Township. Villagers subsequently told KHRG researchers that they do not believe the money will be used for hiring porters. These villagers said that this kind of incident happens at least twice a year; they are required to both make payments allegedly for hiring porters, and work as unpaid porters themselves.
Residents of relocation sites have also complained of exploitative abuses, which weigh especially heavy because villagers at these sites live under restricted conditions that drastically limit their ability to support themselves, let alone meet SPDC demands for forced labour and arbitrary 'taxation.' At the H--- relocation site in the Le Nya area, for instance, villagers describe restrictions on their ability to access farm fields as well as conduct outside trade, regular demands for forced labour and cash payments. It has been over a decade since more than 430 households from 6 villagers were relocated to the H--- site in an SPDC-controlled area, but villagers report that they are still sometimes accused and beaten as if they are KNLA supporters. Though from June 2007, the extended quote below does a remarkable job describing the full gamut of abuses suffered by villagers in H---; in October 2009, everything described blow by Saw G--- is still accurate:
"All the villagers from L--- village area came down here [to H---]. No one is back there [at L---] because everybody left. If the SPDC sees villagers that stayed behind, they'll kill [them] all. They [the SPDC] will keep no one alive. At the upper area [near L--- village], they killed Saw P--- and Saw K---. There are still some hiding in the jungle. Some villagers from the relocation site ran away... They didn't have arrangements for us at the site [when we first arrived]. We had to build our own houses and look for our own food... If we are sick we have to buy the medicine and use it [ourselves, without a doctor]. They don't distribute medicine for us. If they [the SPDC] hear of some bad situation [activity by the KNLA], they come into the site and accuse the villagers of contacting outside people [the KNLA]. They pretend to be confident about what they say so people will be afraid of them. We have to be afraid of them. Sometimes they tortured people, but sometimes not...
We also have to pay the taxes. We have to pay for their office and for their battalion. Many things we have to pay for. I have many debts to pay. I had to pay 30,000 kyat [to the SPDC]. I couldn't collect [the money] from the villagers. I have to pay by myself [because he is the headman]. They [the SPDC] often come and collect money and we have to pay it... They've asked for so many things, I can't remember all of them... They've also often asked us to go and cut bamboo, make fences for them and dig the ground. We often have to go for loh ah pay. [8] It's not scheduled and it changes. Sometimes [the SPDC demands forced labour] once a week and sometimes twice a month. Sometimes for a whole month we don't have to go. Every time we go we have to bring our own food and equipment. They don't give us anything, but we have to give them food. We have to do their work, and give them our food... They often demand more than 15 people, 10 people has been the least that they've demanded... Even people who are seriously sick still have to pay money to be allowed not to go [and do forced labour]... We can't ask to be excused-if we do that, it's possible that they'll beat us dead...
I would like to let the world know that the SPDC demands a lot of money from the villagers and has asked villagers from L---, Hs---, and Gk--- to do forced labour. I can't say the date and year because I don't understand [calendrical] records.... They [the SPDC] restrict people trading food or other things. If they see people carrying lots of things with them, they arrest them and demand money... We can carry only 10 packets of coffee mix and some other small packets of MSG. When all of these are sold, we have to go again to get more. We have to go half an hour by boat to get these things and the cost of the petrol is more than what we can make from selling these things... Most of the prices for things are high... We want the prices to get lower. But now they're going up and up."
Conclusion"One thing that we would like to say and request to the SPDC is: 'please don't disturb us and stop killing us and using us as porters.' We don't want to stay under the control of SPDC soldiers... Now the animals here are gone because the SPDC soldiers took them as their own. We're so poor; we have nothing. Why do the SPDC soldiers keep collecting money from us, taking our properties and killing us? We don't know where to go next. We are already exhausted."
-Saw B--- (male, 38), T--- village, Te Naw Th'ri Township, Tenasserim Division (June 2007)
"The area [Te Naw Th'ri Township] is good for plantations and paddy. One big tin [12.5 kgs. / 27.6 lbs.] of paddy seed for sowing could yield 120 baskets of [harvested] paddy. It's a plain and nice place. The river is good and full of fish; [the jungle is] full of animals like elephants, deer, monkeys, buffaloes and other kinds of animals. If we look at all this, if it weren't for the SPDC abuses, life here would be plentiful."
-KHRG field researcher, Te Naw Th'ri Township, Tenasserim Division (July 2007)
Human rights conditions for villagers living in areas both inside and outside SPDC control in Tenasserim Division, particularly southern areas in Ler Mu Lah and Te Naw Th'ri townships, have received little coverage since the late 1990s. This is not an accurate reflection of the degree to which villagers in these areas suffer abuse at the hands of the Burma Army. In SPDC controlled villages and relocation sites, villagers continue to report livelihood conditions that are severely undermined by exploitative abuses such as forced labour and extortionate and arbitrary 'taxation.' At least 3,050 displaced villagers hiding in southern Tenasserim Division, meanwhile, continue to be subjected to the Burma Army's shoot-on-sight policy; villagers report that they are pursued by SPDC patrols, injured by landmines and attacked in their villages and as they work on their farms.
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05:18 |
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| Hazardous Waste Contaminates Rivers near Rangoon |
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RANGOON — Water pollution is nearing hazardous levels as waste water and chemicals from factories and industrial zones are increasingly discharged into the rivers around Burma's old capital, Rangoon.
"I would say the pollution is at its worst levels, but it is not too late if we can start containing it now,” said an environmental activist. “The main problem is waste water from the factories, which should only discharge waste water after systematic cleaning it. As it is now, the factories and distilleries just dump the waste water out as is."
The environmentalist, who asked not to be identified, monitors water pollution every three months in the Hlaing, Pegu and Nga Moe Yeik rivers, where 29 streams and watersheds are flowing into.
He said there are 14 industrial zones in Rangoon and a total of 4,388 industries and factories. Many of the industrial zones are along three main rivers, which discharge into the sea near Rangoon.
Chemicals and waste water from factories decrease the oxygen content in water and settle as sediment on the river bed.
A Rangoon-based zoologist, who also asked to remain anonymous, said pollution in the rivers endanger people who depend on the water for drinking and cooking and also fish and other aquatic life.
She said her studies found that some species of fish and prawn have disappeared from the Pan Hlaing and Hlaing rivers in recent years because of pollution.
"When I started my observation in 1990, I found 21 species of fish and three species of prawn in the Pan Hlaing River. In 2009, it was reduced to 18 species of fish and two species of prawn,” she said.
Hilsas (Hilsa ilisha) in the lower section of the Rangoon River has been declining, she said, and this year, she couldn’t find any hilsas migrating to spawn upstream in the Pegu, Hlaing and Pan Hlaing rivers during their usual mating season in February and March.
The governmental departments charged with managing water resources and rivers have said they are working to reduce water pollution and the discharge of dangerous waste and chemicals.
Meanwhile, the situation is rapidly deteriorating and poses a threat to humans and wildlife, said environmentalists.
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| Bombs Damage TV Station, Gambling Businesses in Kokang |
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At least 10 bombs exploded in the Laogai area, the Kokang capital in northern Shan State, on Saturday, an area now controlled by Burmese government troops, according to border sources.
Aung Kyaw Zaw, a former Communist rebel who observes Sino-Burma affairs from Yunnan Province in China, told The Irrawaddy on Monday that the bombs damaged a TV station, gambling casinos and other businesses.
The explosions occurred during the night. No reports of dead or injured were available.
Government authorities in Laogai said a relative of Peng Jiasheng, the former Kokang leader ousted by the junta, was believed to be responsible for the explosions.
However, Aung Kyaw Zaw said that the bombs might have been the work of a disgruntled faction of Kokang troops led by Bai Souqian and resulted from a power-sharing struggle within the group. The junta elevated Bai Souqian to the leadership position of Kokang troops following Peng Jiasheng’s ouster from power in September.
The bombings were the first in the Laogai region after the recent clashes between government troops and Kokang militia led by Peng Jiasheng, which forced thousands of refugees into China.
After his ouster, Peng Jiasheng told The Irrawaddy in an interview in September that the war between the government and his private militia will be long, and the conflict will be impossible to end soon. Sino-Burma border sources said Peng Jiasheng’s militia, led by his son, has been active in the region. The government accused Peng Jiasheng of operating an illegal drug network.
On the day the bombs went off, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was urging Burmese Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein to establish peace and stability along the Sino-Burmese border. They met at the 15th Asean Summit in Hua Hin, Thailand.
Wen told Thein Sein that Beijing “hopes that the Burmese regime will achieve stability, national reconciliation and development” in Burma, according to the China Ministry of Foreign Affairs Web site.
China pledged to provide more aid to Burma in order to strengthen its economy and trade, infrastructure, utilities, energy and other areas.
It was the highest level meeting between Chinese and Burmese officials since 37,000 Kokang Chinese refugees in Burma fled to China in September. At least two Chinese citizens were reportedly killed during the government offensive, and there was widespread looting by government troops of property owned by Chinese citizens.
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| Eastern Burma ‘Comparable’ to Darfur: TBBC |
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The growing instability in eastern Burma from ongoing military conflict is forcing thousands of ethnic people to become internally displaced persons (IDPs), according to a press release from the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) on Thursday.
The statement said at least 75,000 people in eastern Burma were forced to leave their homes during the past year, meaning the number of IDPs in the area now exceeds half a million. TBBC compared the scale of displacement to that of Darfur in eastern Sudan.
“After 25 years of responding to the consequences of conflict in eastern Burma, it is tragic to see the causes remain unaddressed and the situation is likely to further deteriorate during the next 12 months.” Jack Dunford, the executive director of TBBC said in the statement.
Bangkok-based TBBC, an umbrella group of aid agencies that supplies a high percentage of humanitarian aid to IDPs and refugees at the Thai-Burmese border, said that between August 2008 and July 2009, some 120 communities were destroyed, making a total of more than 3,500 villages and “hiding sites” in eastern Burma that have been destroyed or forcibly relocated since 1996.
The main threats to human security in eastern Burma are related to militarization, TBBC said. While military patrols and landmines are the most significant and fastest growing threats to civilian safety and security, forced labor and restrictions on movement are the most pervasive threats to livelihoods.
Duncan McArthur, a coordinator of emergency relief for the TBBC, told The Irrawaddy on Thursday: “The people don’t have any security and our survey indicates the situation is getting worse.
“We have documented the situation to highlight the ongoing problems for ethnic people in eastern Burma,” he said.
The northern Karen area and southern Shan State have the highest rates of recent displacement, according to the report. Almost 60,000 Karen villagers are in hiding in the mountains of Kyaukgyi, Thandaung and Papun townships, a third of who fled from artillery attacks or the threat of Burmese government troop patrols during the past year.
In Shan State, nearly 20,000 civilians from 30 villages were forcibly relocated by the Burmese government forces in retaliation for Shan State Army-South operations in Laikha, Mong Kung and Keh Si townships, said TBBC.
The statement said that the scale of displaced villages has been recognized as the strongest single indicator of crimes against humanity in eastern Burma
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| Suu Kyi Unhappy with Restrictions |
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RANGOON — Detained Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is unhappy about restrictions on the visitors she is allowed under house arrest, including members of her legal team and an architect needed to help repair her dilapidated lakeside home.
Nyan Win, one of her lawyers, said after meeting with her Thursday that she complained that the ruling military junta is infringing upon her rights.
Her complaint comes as the regime prepares for elections next year and seeks more recognition from the international community. The United States had isolated the junta with political and economic sanctions, but the Obama administration decided recently to step up engagement as a way of promoting reforms.
Suu Kyi "has asked us to send a letter to the authorities to allow all four lawyers to meet her at once and to meet the architect," said Nyan Win, who along with fellow lawyer Kyi Wynn met with her to discuss an appeal of her most recent sentence of house arrest.
"She said this is her personal right and authorities had no right to limit them," he said.
Suu Kyi said she would prefer to listen to the views of more lawyers and that she needs an architect to help repair the two-story house where she is confined, Nyan Win said.
The terms of Suu Kyi's current detention are less strict than her previous term of house arrest, when the only outsiders she was allowed to see were her doctor and, occasionally, visiting UN envoys.
Under an eight-point set of rules, Suu Kyi can now receive visitors with prior permission from the junta, has the right to medical treatment by doctors and nurses, and is allowed to see state-controlled newspapers and magazines and state-run television. She recently met with several foreign ambassadors stationed in Burma.
Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has spent 14 of the last 20 years in detention. In August, she was sentenced to an additional 18 months of house arrest for allowing an uninvited American to stay briefly at her home earlier this year.
The sentence, which ensured that she would not be able to participate in next year's elections, drew international condemnation.
Suu Kyi's legal team plans to appeal the sentence to the Supreme Court.
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| Karen Fear Military Offensive near Planned Dam |
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BANGKOK — With the annual monsoon rains ending, there is a growing fear among the Karen ethnic minority living along military-ruled Burma's eastern border of a dry season offensive. The most vulnerable are villagers residing in the vicinity of the controversial Hat Gyi dam.
The Burmese military will use its proxy force, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), to target the area along the Salween River that is essential to the Hat Gyi dam, environmentalists and human rights activists told IPS.
Besides driving out the unarmed Karen civilians, the offensive will also target the fifth brigade of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), currently camped along the Salween River, which flows past the border that Burma shares with Thailand, they added.
The KNLA is the armed wing of the Karen National Union (KNU), which has been waging Asia's longest separatist struggle—since 1949—to carve out an independent state for the Karen minority in Burma, also known as Myanmar. The DKBA is a breakaway group, splitting from the KNU in 1995 and joining forces with Burma's oppressive regime.
"The attacks in the fifth brigade area to defeat the KNU and clear the area for the dam will result in thousands of Karen fleeing across the Thai border as refugee," said David Thakerbaw, vice president of the KNU." It will lead to more human rights violations, adding more suffering to what the people have already endured."
"People in that area are opposed to the Hay Gyi dam for this reason," he added during a telephone interview from an undisclosed location along the Thai-Burma border. "The dam area will become more militarized; the Burmese army will bring in more troops to keep the site under their control."
Such a grim forecast stems from what happened in June, soon after the monsoon rains broke. The Tatmadaw, as Burma's over 400,000-strong military is called, launched an offensive with the DKBA, vanquishing the important seventh brigade of the KNU. The surprise attack forced over 4,000 already displaced Karens to flee into Thailand.
This onslaught and the link it had to the planned Hat Gyi dam, which the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) has agreed to partially finance, prompted the KNU to ask the Thai government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to withdraw Bangkok's support for the dam.
"There has been no proper survey to assess the environmental and social damage that the dam might cause," wrote General Tamla Baw, president of the KNU, to Abhisit in an early August letter.
"The building of the dam at this time would bring many thousands of the junta's troops who would perpetrate widespread human rights violations, such as forced labor, torture, extra-judicial executions, rape of women, looting of property (and) extortion."
"The plan of the (Burmese regime) is to control KNLA positions for providing security to the construction of the dam," revealed the letter, seen by IPS. "(This area) will become the centre for EGAT to transport construction materials to Yinbaing village, which is at the dam site."
"I would like to appeal to you and your government not to repatriate the Karen refugees in Thailand and not to initiate construction of the Hat Gyi dam," added Gen Tamla Baw.
The recent flow of Karen refugees from Burma added to the already 120,000 refugees who have been living in camps on the Thai side of the border for over two decades. Within Burma, the plight of the Karens is as dire. They are among the estimated 540,000 internally displaced people seeking refuge in forests and in the mountains after fleeing attacks by the Tatmadaw.
"The highest rates of recent displacement were reported in northern Karen areas and southern Shan Sate," the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, a humanitarian organization helping Burma's ethnic minorities fleeing into Thailand, revealed this week. "Almost 60,000 Karen villagers are hiding in the mountains of Kyaukkgi, Thandaung and Papun Township, and a third of these civilians fled from artillery attacks from Burmese army patrols during the past year."
The Karen, who make up an estimated seven million people of Burma's 56 million population, are one of the largest ethnic minorities in this South-east Asian nation. The Shan and the Kachin are among the other groups in a country that has a patchwork of some 130 ethnic communities.
Burma's military has been waging wars with nearly 20 ethnic rebel groups since it gained independence from the British colonizers in 1948.
The Karen and militants in the Shan area have refused to kowtow to the military regime—unlike the 17 other ethnic separatist movements that signed ceasefire agreements two decades ago—consequently denying the Burmese regime total control of its land area.
Burma's military regime has attracted interest from China and EGAT, Thailand's state-run power utility, to invest in a cascade of dams along the 2,800 kilometer-long Salween, the longest untouched body of water flowing through South-east Asia. Its source is the mountains of Tibet, then coursing through China's southern Yunan province, enters Burma, touches the Thai-Burma border, and then flows out into the Andaman Sea.
In June 2006, Burma's department of electricity, EGAT and China's Sinohydro Corporation, signed an agreement to build the Hat Gyi dam, which is expected to stand 33 meters tall. Much of its 1360 megawatts of power will be destined to quench Thailand's demand for energy.
"Thailand's involvement in this dam means that the roads with close and direct access to the Thai border have become important for the Burmese military. That is why the dam area was targeted in June," said Paul Seint Twa, the director of Karen River Watch, an environment group based along the Thai-Burma border. "The Burmese army needs to make the dam site more attractive to the Thai investors."
Till such attacks in June, the access road to the dam site was more circuitous—passing through central Burma—or through "areas held by the KNU, which controlled all movement," added Seint Twa during a telephone interview from the Thai-Burma border. "But even after the June attacks, the area is not completely under the Burmese army's control."
The heavy human and environment cost to build the dam is turning the heat on the Abhisit administration. "The government has not decided. It is waiting for recommendations from a committee set up to listen to the concerns," said Pianporn Deetes, the coordinator of Living River Siam, a Thai green group based in the northern city of Chiang Mai. "Activists want the government to halt this project, but EGAT wants it to be built."
The message to Bangkok from Thai environmentalists is the same as the Karen. "There is a link between the conflict and the dam," Pianporn told IPS. "Our field surveys show the area around the dam is becoming more militarized."
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| Kachins to Meet US Delegation |
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LAIZA, Kachin State—Representatives of Burma's ethnic Kachin State are en route to the capital, Naypyidaw, to attend a meeting on Wednesday with a US delegation led by Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell. The delegation marks the first meeting between Kachin ethnic leaders and US officials since World War II.
The armed cease-fire group, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), previously expressed an interest in attending the meeting, but the military government denied it the opportunity to participate.
However, in a compromise arrangement, well-known Kachin peace brokers Rev Dr. Lahtaw Saboi Jum and Dr. Manam Duga will deliver the KIO's proposal for a federal system in Burma and represent the organization's official stance.
“We want to let them know we just want a real federal system,” said KIO Vice Chief of Staff Gen Gun Maw. “We are requesting they [the two Kachin delegates] talk about this on behalf of the ethnic minorities.”
Campbell has said the Obama administration will continue to press for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and for an end to conflicts with ethnic minority groups. Campbell has said he views US delegations as a means to facilitate genuine dialogue between the Burmese government, the democratic opposition and the ethnic minorities.
The delegation will meet individually with ethnic representatives and junta officials, and has requested to meet privately with Suu Kyi. US officials have stated they will not be meeting with junta Snr-Gen Than Shwe on this visit.
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| Border Guard Deadline Passes Without Agreement |
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The Burmese regime’s deadline for 17 cease-fire militia groups to accept the transformation of their troops into junta-controlled border guard forces passed on October 31 with a few militias accepting the order and stronger ones, such as United Wa State Army (UWSA) and Kachin Independent Organization (KIO), rejecting it.
Instead of opting for a military solution, the junta will likely focus on negotiations to persuade recalcitrant militias to accept the order, observers said.
According to Kachin sources, KIO Vice Chairman Gauri Zau Seng, KIA Vice Chief of Staff Gen Gun Maw and others are expected to meet with the junta's Northern Command in Myitkyina during the first week of November to discuss the latest proposal.
Ma Grang, a Kachin source on the Sino-Burma border, said KIO leaders will meet with Burmese authorities after they sent a letter in October demanding an agreement based on the spirit of the Panglong Agreement made with the Burmese government in 1947.
The Panglong Agreement, a one-page document, states the central government will not “operate in respect to the Frontier Areas in any matter which would deprive any portion of those areas of the autonomy which it now enjoys in internal administration.”
Kachin sources also said the internal autonomy promised to outlying ethnic areas has never been fully realized.
Junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe was reportedly very angry with the KIO letter, saying Kachin leaders did not understand the spirit of the Panglong Agreement, Ma Grang said.
The KIO leaders also said they wish to discuss whether its militia will become a border guard force or a Kachin Regional Guard Force with the new government after the 2010 election, he said.
Aung Kyaw Zaw, a former Communist and expert on issues along the Sino-Burma border said the Wa will continue negotiations.
A UWSA officer in the Wa capital Panghsang said, “the deadline is over but we have not reached agreement with the Burmese regime and will continue to negotiate.”
He said Wa leaders will hold talks about the border guard force issue with Lt-Gen Ye Myint, head of the junta’s Military Affairs Security, this month.
Though pressures on the UWSA have increased, major fighting seems unlikely at present.
A Wa official said Wa leaders meeting with a Burmese delegation led by the Commander of the Lashio-based Northeastern Region Command, Maj-Gen Aung Than Htut, in October demanded autonomy.
“Aung Than Htut said he will submit the request to his superiors,” he said.
Other ceasefire militias that rejected the border guard force order or remain undecided are the Shan State Army-North, the New Mon State Party, the National Democratic Alliance Army known as the Mongla militia, and the KNU/KNLA Peace Council.
The Mongla militia reportedly said they will hold talks with its military allies the UWSA before making a final decision over the border guard force order.
Mongla delegates who met with Lt-Gen Ye Myint on Oct 28 accepted the regime’s border guard force plan in principle, but they opposed a proposal to assign 30 junta military officials to each battalion, deployment of Burmese army battalions and staff in the Mongla region or any sudden changes to the Mongla region’s administration.
However, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) and several small militias such as the New Democratic Army-Kachin, the Kachin Defense Army, the Karenni National People’s Liberation Front and the Karen Peace Force have agreed to serve as border guard forces.
A source close to the DKBA said they reportedly signed an agreement with the regime to serve as a junta dominated border guard force before the deadline.
Since then DKBA troops have been cleaning up Karen National Liberation Army bases on the Thai-Burmese border, said the source.
Recently, some 700 DKBA troops were sent to KNLA Brigade 5 in Papun district and Brigade 3 in northern Karen State. The troops have seized several KNLA outposts since the deployment, the DKBA source said.
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| US Delegation Arrives in Naypyidaw |
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US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell arrived in Naypyidaw on Tuesday morning to hold a meeting with Burmese military government officials, the US embassy in Rangoon confirmed.
An official with the embassy who spoke on condition of anonymity because of protocol told The Irrawaddy that Campbell flew straight to the remote Burmese capital with three other State Department officials and that the flight arrived at 10:20 a.m. local time.
According to diplomatic sources, Campbell is accompanied by Deputy Assistant Secretary for Southeast Asia Scot Marciel, the US State Department’s Burma Officer Laura Scheible and another State Department officer.
The embassy official said that the US delegation is scheduled to stay in Naypyidaw all day on Tuesday to engage in direct dialogue with representatives of the Burmese regime before flying to Rangoon on Wednesday to meet pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, as well as other opposition leaders and ethnic representatives.
Responding to a question as to whether Campbell will meet with junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe and Prime Minister Thein Sein, the embassy official said that he believed the delegation will meet with Thein Sein.
“But for sure, he [Campbell] is meeting with the people he met in New York during the time of the [UN] General Assembly. He will meet the same people he met then, but also with other people,” the embassy official added.
On Sept. 29 in New York, Campbell led a US delegation in talks with Burmese government officials, including a former Burmese ambassador to Washington, Minister of Science and Technology U Thaung,
To mark the arrival of Campbell in Naypyidaw, 50 civil society groups from Burma and other Asian nations urged the US to remain firm in its efforts to support genuine democratization and national reconciliation in the country.
In an open letter, the groups called for Campbell to ensure that the regime meets key benchmarks before next year’s election, including: the release of Suu Kyi and all political prisoners; an end to attacks against ethnic groups; an inclusive dialogue; and a review of the 2008 Constitution.
Speaking at the US Congress on Oct. 21 before his trip to Burma, Campbell said the US must be prepared to sustain efforts beyond the planned 2010 election. “Some day, a new generation of leaders in Burma will come to power,” he said.
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| China Oil Company Starts Work on Burmese Pipeline |
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BEIJING — State-owned China National Petroleum Corp. said Tuesday it has begun construction of a pipeline across neighboring Burma to speed delivery of Middle East oil shipped through the Indian Ocean.
Construction of the 771 kilometer (481 mile) pipeline comes as China boosts investment in Burma and tries to gain greater access to foreign oil and gas supplies to fuel its booming economy.
The pipeline will connect Burma's port of Maday Island on the Indian Ocean via Mandalay in central Burma to Ruili in China's southwestern province of Yunnan, CNPC said on its Web site. It gave no indication when the pipeline would be ready for use but said it will be capable of carrying 84 million barrels of oil per year.
The pipeline would speed delivery of Middle East oil to China and eliminate the need for tankers to pass through the crowded Malacca Strait between Malaysia and Indonesia.
China is Burma's biggest foreign investor and the closest ally of its military regime, which is shunned by the West because of its poor human rights record and failure to hand over power to a democratically elected government.
Critics complain that oil and gas projects in Burma are helping to keep the military in power and could harm the environment and local residents.
"Past experience has shown that pipeline construction and maintenance in Burma involves forced labor, forced relocation, land confiscations and a host of abuses by soldiers," said a group based in Thailand, the Shwe Gas Movement, in a report this year.
CNPC owns PetroChina Ltd, Asia's biggest oil and gas producer by volume.
CNPC and another Chinese state-owned oil producer, China National Offshore Oil Co., have exploration projects in Burma and are expected to be key customers for natural gas from a newly developed offshore field.
China also has built an oil pipeline connecting its northwest with fields in Kazakhstan in Central Asia and is constructing another pipeline to obtain crude from Russian fields in Siberia.
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| Than Shwe Visits the Delta |
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Junta Snr-Gen Than Shwe toured Bogalay and Pyapon townships on Monday, areas in the Irrawaddy delta that were devastated by Cyclone Nargis in May 2008.
Burma’s state-run media reported on Tuesday that Than Shwe and his delegation toured medical clinics, schools and government departments in Bogalay Township.
It was his second trip following the cyclone that devastated the Irrawaddy delta, killing almost 140,000 people and affecting more than 2 million, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in Burma’s history.
Than Shwe told government authorities to implement construction projects on roads, bridges and buildings, according to state-run media which ran front-page stories on Tuesday, saying the delta has almost fully recovered from the cyclone’s devastation.
Than Shwe was widely criticized in the cyclone’s wake for waiting two weeks to visit the delta and for refusing to allow foreign humanitarian aid to enter the country, seriously delaying the rescue effort. Authorities refused to let ships carrying relief supplies from the US, France and Britain to enter its territorial waters, reportedly in fear of an invasion.
NGOs in the delta say that many people still need aid and lack shelter and adequate food. A Rangoon based NGO, which provides shelters and clean water in Laputta, told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday that it has cut its services in half because of a lack of funds.
“There are many things to be done, but we can’t do it as we don’t have enough money. For people who don’t get shelters, they have to wait,” he said.
Cyclone Nargis devastated agriculture and fisheries, the two major industries in the storm-affected area, and they have yet to recover fully.
According to a Rapid Food Security Assessment released in March by the United Nations’ World Food Programme, 83 percent of sampled households reported being in debt because they had to borrow money to buy food.
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| Dissidents Expect Little from US Visit |
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Most Burmese dissidents, activists and ethnic leaders believe the visit of a US delegation to Burma is positive, but do not expect any major political concessions on the part of the Burmese military regime to come from the talks.
Several dissidents have voiced their opinions, generally saying that the visit may be beneficial to the regime, but not to Burma’s opposition groups.
The US delegation, led by Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, arrived on Tuesday morning in Burma’s capital, Naypyidaw, where it met with Burmese government officials.
According to diplomatic sources, Campbell is accompanied by Deputy Assistant Secretary for Southeast Asia Scot Marciel, the US State Department’s Burma Officer Laura Scheible and another State Department officer.
On Wednesday, the delegation will fly to Rangoon to meet representatives of various ethnic groups and leaders of the opposition National League for Democracy, including Aung San Suu Kyi.
One of the invited ethnic leaders, Aye Tha Aung, the chairman of the Arakan League for Democracy, said he hopes the US representatives learn more about the political landscape of Burma as they meet with representatives of the regime, the opposition and the ethnic groups.
“However, I am not hopeful of political improvement, because the regime refuses to hold tripartite dialogue [between the junta, the opposition political parties and the ethnic groups],” he said.
Political improvement will only come when there is a tripartite dialogue, and it doesn’t matter what the US does,” he said, adding that the Burmese regime only seeks better relations with the US as a means to lift economic sanctions.
Regional human rights activist Debbie Stothard, who is the coordinator of Altsean-Burma, said, “This trip is going to be the first real test of the new US policy … We want to see a genuine outcome.”
She said that an improvement in Burma’s political climate can only be measured by three criteria: the unconditional release of political prisoners, including Suu Kyi; an end to military conflict, war crimes and crimes against ethnic minorities; and a move toward tripartite dialogue.
Hla Ngwe, the joint secretary (1) of the Karen National Union, said, “If the US delegation is allowed by the junta to hear and discuss the demands of ethnic groups, dissidents and opposition parties, then a degree of success may be measured.
However, he said he doubted whether the talks would be productive as key government decision-maker Snr-Gen Than Shwe will miss the meeting.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Tuesday, a Wa official in Wa capital Panghsang said he does not believe the US can persuade the Burmese regime of the need for a political process. He said the political conflict in Burma is a domestic problem that can only be solved by the parties involved.
“We all want peace and that’s what we hope for,” he said. “But so much depends on the will of the Burmese junta.”
Campbell’s delegation is the first occasion for the Obama administration to negotiate with the Burmese junta since it announced in September it would engage with the regime though continue to impose economic sanctions.
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| Suu Kyi to Meet Campbell in Rangoon Hotel |
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The US delegation led by Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell is scheduled to meet pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi at Rangoon’s Inya Lake Hotel on Wednesday morning.
The meeting was confirmed by an official with the US embassy in Rangoon. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity said the embassy had been responsible for arranging the meeting at the hotel.
Following the meeting with Suu Kyi, Campbell will hold talks with opposition and ethnic leaders, the official said.
Campbell will hold a press conference on Wednesday at Rangoon International Airport before leaving Burma, the official announced. The State Department official will also report to the press on his Tuesday talks with senior regime officials in Naypyidaw.
Journalists in Rangoon report that Burma’s Ministry of Information is allowing photographers access to the US delegation and Suu Kyi when they meet on Wednesday.
“We are permitted by the authorities to take photos of the meeting between the US officials and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, but only a photo opportunity,” said one Rangoon journalist. “The authorities told us ‘no questions’.”
Ahead of Campbell’s trip to Burma, Suu Kyi told her lawyer last week that she is “keenly monitoring” the State Department officials’ two-day visit to Burma.
Some observers remain skeptical about the visit and its chances of success. “We are not that excited,” said a senior Rangoon correspondent, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We have seen this kind of cosmetic [by the junta] in the past.”
“The real question is whether they [the military regime] have genuine political will,” the journalist said. “People have given them the benefit of a doubt, but whatever they do we treat it with a pinch of salt.”
A week before Campbell’s visit, the junta arrested more a dozen relief workers who helped Cyclone Nargis victims, including eight journalists, according to human rights groups.
Campbell’s visit follows the launch of a new Burma policy by the Obama administration in Washington. US officials led by Campbell met with a Burmese delegation headed by U Thaung, the Minister of Science and Technology who is a former Burmese ambassador to the US, in New York on Sept. 29.
On Oct. 9, the Burmese junta acceded to a request by Suu Kyi for a meeting with diplomats from the US, Britain and Australia to talk about the effectiveness of sanctions.
The meeting prompted speculation that Suu Kyi had shifted her stance on sanctions.
“I think most outside observers are misjudging Suu Kyi’s stance,” said Bertil Lintner, a Swedish journalist who is author of many books on Burma. “She has not changed her minds about sanctions as such. Sanctions are not an end in themselves but they are there to achieve a goal.”
Lintner told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday that if the regime is not willing to compromise, then, of course, she would like to see sanctions remain in force until those goals are met.
“By making that statement, Suu Kyi has once again become an active player in the Burmese imbroglio,” he added. “Now, no one can ignore her. She has showed that she is flexible and reasonable.”
Along with the US efforts for democratization in Burma, a key issue in US-Burma relations is cooperation in the fight to defeat the drug trade.
“There are a number of areas in which we might be able improve cooperation to our mutual benefit, such as counter-narcotics, health, environmental protection, and the recovery of the remains of World War II-era missing Americans,” Campbell told the US Congress on Oct.21.
Shortly before Campbell’s arrival in Burma, Prime Minter Gen Thein Sein travelled to the Kokang town of Laogai in northeastern Burma on Saturday to attend the incineration of seized narcotic drugs and precursor chemicals.
“This is a kind of signal by the junta to the US,” said Aung Kyaw Zaw, a former communist fighter who observes the Burma situation from China’s Yunnan Province. “But an open secret here is that the ruling generals have been involved in and ignored drug trading in the country for at least two decades,”
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