Friday, July 12, 2013

Democratic Voice of Burma

Democratic Voice of Burma

Migrant schools face closure amid funding cuts

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 04:54 AM PDT

More than two dozen migrant schools in western Thailand face closure as international donors continue to slash funding for groups on the Thai-Burma border, a local NGO has warned.

Twenty-five schools, teaching as many as 5,000 students in Thailand's Tak province, have been left without financial assistance for the year 2013-2014, raising concerns that they will be forced to shut down, according to a local migrant group.

"Funding for migrant organisations this year has decreased as most of the donors have moved inside Burma," Naw Paw Ray, chairperson from the Burmese Migrant Workers’ Education Committee, told DVB.

"About 25 of 74 migrant schools in Tak are yet to receive any assistance and they are unable to pay the teachers, their rent, electricity and water bills. Some of the schools have lost students as they could not provide transportation for them."

Funding for border groups, including schools and health care facilities, has seen a significant decline since the start of last year. In late June, The Border Consortium (TBC) – which coordinates humanitarian assistance for Burmese refugees living on the border — announced that it would cut food rations to some 128,000 people across nine camps under its care.

Dozens of other groups, including the renowned Mae Tao clinic, which offers free medical care to Burmese migrants and refugees, have also been forced to cut back crucial services.

Burma, which is slowly emerging from nearly five decades of military rule, has become a new hotspot for aid groups and has attracted a massive influx of humanitarian funding. But NGOs working on the border say they have been short-changed in the process.

Naw Paw Ray said the Burmese government had previously pledged to donate textbooks for the underfunded migrant schools, but their offer had yet to materialise. She added that nearly 200 teachers still needed to be paid.

"If they can't pay the teachers decently, then the teachers will go and find other jobs. This makes us concerned about the schools' survival."

According to the International Labour Organization, over 200,000 Burmese children under the age of 17 live in Thailand. Less than 20 percent are estimated to attend school, mostly through specialist programmes set up by local NGOs.

Although Thai law stipulates that all children, regardless of their immigration status, are allowed to attend school, migrant children are often excluded for practical reasons, such as financial or language barriers, and forced to start working instead.

There are 74 Burmese migrant schools providing free education to some 10,000 students in Tak province in western Burma.

As monsoon hits, relief workers struggle to provide IDPs with shelter, aid

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 04:26 AM PDT

Villagers taking refuge in displacement camps in war-torn Kachin and Shan states are in desperate need of reliable shelter as the monsoon season commences in northern Burma.

According to Mary Twan, the co-founder of the relief group Wunpawng Ninghtwe, makeshift shelters at the internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in Kachin state’s Mansi and Momauk townships no longer protect the camps' residents from the seasonal rains. Camps located on inclines were also struggling to deal with soil erosion caused by the heavy downpours.

"Namhkonpar camp in Mansi was affected by erosion after a week of constant rain so we had to relocate two families to safety," said Mary Tawn, adding that the harsh weather conditions had made transportation to and from the facility difficult and seasonal flu and dengue fever was spreading in the area.

"The camps have been standing for more than two years now and, as the huts were built of plywood, they are now pretty much weathered and unable to protect inhabitants from the rain."

At a Taaung (Palaung) IDP camp in northern Shan state's Kutkai township, aid workers were struggling to provide the facility’s more than 400 inhabitants with adequate amounts of aid.

"The IDPs are in need of food and medicine, and the huts they were living in were not in a decent enough condition to protect them from the wind and rain," said an aid worker who spoke with DVB on the condition of anonymity.

Approximately 100,000 villagers in northern Burma's Kachin and Shan states have been driven out of their homes into displacement camps after a 17-year ceasefire between the Kachin Independence Army and government collapsed in June 2011.

While the KIA and government-backed peace negotiators agreed to "reduce fighting" between the two sides during a historic meeting in the Kachin state capital of Myitkyina in May, the rebel group has refused to sign another ceasefire deal with Naypyidaw until Burma's ethnic minorities are granted greater political autonomy.

In June, a ten-truck UN convoy with humanitarian assistance for more than 5,000 people reached IDP camps behind rebel lines in Kachin state for the first time in more than a year. However, the government continues to deny international agencies regular access to displacement camps located in rebel-held territory.

Telenor talks to DVB

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 04:19 AM PDT

Norwegian company Telenor and Qatari-based company Ooreedo have been awarded highly anticipated telecommunications licenses in Burma.

Both companies say they will invest billions of dollars to roll out mobile phone, SMS and Internet networks across the impoverished country.

The companies are set to change Burma's telecoms landscape – where less than 10 percent of the population have access to a phone.

At a press conference in Rangoon on Wednesday both companies presented their plans.

DVB's Khin Maung Win spoke to Telenor's vice president of communications about the challenges and rewards that come with the tender.

Burma jails more than 20 Buddhists over religious violence

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 03:10 AM PDT

Burma has sentenced more than 20 Buddhists to prison for their roles in religious riots in March, including a deadly attack on a Muslim boarding school, lawyers and police said Friday.

The convictions follow earlier concerns among rights groups that Muslims were bearing the brunt of the legal crackdown on suspects involved in the unrest, which shook the central town of Meikhtila.

The Buddhists were sentenced on Wednesday and Thursday on charges including murder, assault, theft, arson and inciting unrest, said a police official who did not want to be named.

According to state media, which did not specify the suspects’ religion, the sentences ranged from two years for minor offences such as theft to 10 years for murder, with some defendants handed several terms to be served separately.

Some of the charges related to the deaths of students at an Islamic school on the outskirts of Meikhtila, according to Ba San, a lawyer who was at the court.

“We have to say that both Buddhists and Muslims have been sentenced if found guilty,” he told AFP.

More than a dozen Muslims have been convicted in relation to the violence, with a number receiving life imprisonment for murder.

In May, seven Muslims were sentenced to between two and 28 years for their parts in the killing of a Buddhist monk during the unrest, which was apparently triggered by a quarrel in a Muslim-owned gold shop.

Before the latest convictions, only two Buddhists were known to have been sentenced for serious offences during the riots, which drove thousands of Muslims from their homes.

Officially 44 people were killed in the two days of bloodshed in Meikhtila, although some fear the toll was much higher.

According to eyewitnesses interviewed by the rights group Physicians for Human Rights, a Buddhist mob hunted down and killed some 20 students and four teachers at the Islamic school.

Witnesses recounted seeing one pupil being decapitated and several being burned alive, according to a May report by the US-based group.

Attacks against Muslims – who make up an estimated four percent of Burma’s population – have exposed deep fractures in the Buddhist-majority nation and cast a shadow over its emergence from army rule.

Buddhist-Muslim clashes in Arakan state last year left about 200 people dead, mostly Rohingya Muslims who are denied citizenship by the Burmese government.

Thai police raid brothel freeing 10 Burmese victims

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 02:57 AM PDT

During a raid conducted by Thai police accompanied by Burmese labour activists, 10 Burmese women were freed, including underage teenagers, from a brothel in southern Thailand where they had been forced to work as prostitutes.

Officials from the Royal Thai Police's Department of Special Investigation along with representatives from the Myanmar Association Thailand (MAT) and Foundation for Education and Development (FED) raided the five brothels disguised as hostels in Thailand's Ranong province on 10 July.

"We accompanied the local police's raid on the hostels around 8pm on [Wednesday]. They shut down immediately upon our arrival and told all the girls to go hide in the woods nearby, so when we surrounded the premises, but we couldn't find any of them [initially]," said MAT's director Kyaw Thaung.

The police and activists proceeded to search the surrounding area, where they found of the 10 women hiding.

"One of us found two of the girls. One was from [Tenasserim's] Tavoy and was around 22 years old and the other one was 17. We whispered to them that we weren't there to arrest them but to bring them back to their parents," said Kyaw Thaung.

"They started crying 'We are free!' and danced. We continued to search for the rest for about an hour and managed to rescue 10 women in total."

The MAT director said he estimated that around 50 women fled into the woods after the raid commenced, but the police and NGO workers were only able to find a fraction of individuals who they believed worked at the brothel.

According to an account provided during an interview after the raid, one of the victims said she arrived in Thailand after a 'job agent' had promised to find her a position at a clothing store, but was later sold to the brothel.

"I was brought to Thailand via a flight by a woman named Zin Myo – she promised to find me a job at a clothing store with monthly salary of around 100,000 kyat (US$100). I decided to come with her as my family was facing financial challenges," said the woman under the condition of anonymity.

"After being sold here, I wasn't allowed to leave the premises. Another woman who tried to escape with a customer was rumoured to have been killed – she was never found again."

The scheme is an all too familiar scam in Thailand where impoverished migrants arriving in the Kingdom are duped by human traffickers posing as job recruiters who end up selling the individuals to brothels.

According to the NGO workers, the victims, aged between 16 and 24, were primarily from Rangoon and Tenasseim divisions in Burma.  Some of the women said they had been working at the brothels for eight years. According to Kyaw Thaung, a 16-year-old teenager who was rescued said she had been sold to the brothel before reaching puberty.

Most of the women said they were sold into the prostitution ring against their will and had their food allowances cut if they refused a customer. Three of the victims reportedly sustained injuries during their time in captivity and were not allowed to visit a medical facility.

Kra Buri Police Station is seeking to prosecute the brothel's owner who they have been unable to apprehend; however, two of the facilities' managers are currently being held in custody.

The Burmese Embassy in Bangkok pledged to provide the victims with assistance to and is currently collecting donations to cover their expenses. Of the 10 rescued women, one has been reunited with her husband and two have returned to Burma, while the remaining seven are recovering at a women's shelter in Ranong province.

In the US State Department's annual trafficking report published in June, Thailand was listed on the government's tier-2 watch list for the fourth year in a row for not complying with the "minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking".

"The majority of the trafficking victims identified within Thailand are migrants from Thailand's neighboring countries who are forced, coerced, or defrauded into labor or commercial sexual exploitation or children placed in the sex trade," stated the report.

"Conservative estimates put this population numbering in the tens of thousands of victims."

A majority of the Kingdom's estimated three million migrants are believed to be from Burma.

Trading in timber

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 12:35 AM PDT

The Burmese government has announced a policy that will stop the export of raw timber starting next April.

Environmentalists say the decision could save Burma's forests.

Burma is one of the world's major exporters of teak, but over production and illegal logging has reduced the country's forests from nearly 60 percent in the 1960s to below 20 percent today.

The government says it will focus on exporting high-quality finished wood products, but those in the timber business could face losing their livelihoods.

Burma enacts new central bank law

Posted: 11 Jul 2013 11:32 PM PDT

Burma has introduced a new law to overhaul its central bank, the presidential office said Friday, in the latest reform aimed at burnishing the country’s economic credentials.

Details of the new legislation have not yet been published but officials say the central bank will have more autonomy and will no longer operate as part of the finance ministry.

“The significant thing is that the central bank will be an independent body,” a central bank official who did not want to be named told AFP earlier this week.

A presidential office spokesman said that President Thein Sein had signed the law on Thursday following parliamentary approval several days ago but was unable to give more details.

The main role of the Central Bank of Myanmar up to now, experts say, has been to print money to fund the government’s budget deficit.

Burma’s quasi-civilian government has announced a series of political and economic reforms since coming to power in 2011 after the end of nearly half a century of military rule.

Last year it revamped Burma’s complex foreign exchange system in a bid to facilitate trade and investment.

Foreign companies are flocking to the former pariah state following the lifting of most Western sanctions.

The futile and violent search for ‘authenticity’ in Burma

Posted: 11 Jul 2013 11:21 PM PDT

This is the first article in a two-part series examining the relationship between sectarian violence and resource distribution in a changing Burma.

The recent conflagrations of sectarian violence in Burma have shocked the country and the world, having left thousands displaced, scores dead, and millions of kyat of property damaged.

They have also left a series of fragmented analyses, as commentators struggle to make sense of the slaughter. On one hand, some – incapable of seeing beyond a 'big-bad Burma state' paradigm – believe that the state is behind the current violence, and/or that disgruntled generals are orchestrating attacks from behind the scenes to legitimate the military's institutional role. On the opposite end of the spectrum others argue that a deep-seated racism, fomented under the long years of the military regime, is now being ‘unleashed’ as the military relaxes controls.

Both of these perspectives draw from evidence that is partially correct – the military-state has spurred internal divisions and likely has orchestrated violence in the past; there is racism in Burma society against dark-skinned people. But neither encompasses the entire story.

The Buddhist-monk-led anti-Muslim campaign that has generated much collective hatred cannot be construed as emerging from a conspiratorial state elite. Likewise, such hatred cannot be imagined outside of the context of state institutions which insist upon eternal racial and religious differences: ID cards demand that babies at birth be given either – but not both – a "Muslim" or a "Burmese" identity; state-enforced birth-limits directed only at certain Muslim communities present them as second-class citizens and demographic threats.

Understanding the spontaneous explosions of violence requires a consideration of the socio-economic context in which these attacks are occurring. Increasing economic stratification can help explain the growth in anxieties generated by concerns over resource distribution. The exclusion of perceived foreigners can be interpreted as an inter-class attempt to construct a community of legitimate claimants to this finally-growing – but unequally distributed – pie.

But this exclusion may not stop with these particular “others”. These intensifying feelings of being left out, combined with the failures of citizens and political leaders to articulate a conception of an inclusive Burmese civil political community, creates opportunities for a violence that may be uncontainable and may continue to attach to others who may seem suddenly or irreconcilably 'foreign'. The risk is that Burma tears itself apart in its search for its 'authentic' core.

The Instability of Scapegoating

When Arakanese Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims first clashed in western Arakan state last summer, the violence was a regional issue. But it did not remain there. Discourse across Burmese society about the Rohingya soon exploded, with Buddhist monks, political leaders, and even other ethnic minority groups weighing in. They were all in agreement: the Rohingya were threats to the nation, were not part of it, and must be expelled.

A tiny ethnic minority kept in concentration camp conditions for years, periodically targeted for mass abuse and expulsions was suddenly imagined as a threat to the entire polity? How to make sense of this? Could this violence – and the violent discourse surrounding it – be interpreted as a tactic for building a collective 'in-group'? Indeed, as the long years of the military regime gave way to a new, more 'open' society, the violence seemed to work as a way of trying to establish the definitions and limits of that new society.

This was especially true given the long-standing historical animosity between the majority Burmans and Burma's other ethnic minorities. These ethnic minority groups, who scholar Michael Walton has identified as seeming "to enjoy only conditional membership in the national community… always subject to suspicion of disloyalty", were suddenly being hailed as 'indigenous races' connected to the blood and soil of the nation.

These ethnic groups played their part, quickly drawing a distinction between themselves and the Rohingya. The National Democratic Front, a coalition representing eight nationality parties, was unequivocal: "'Rohingya' is not to be recognized as a nationality."

But as “the inside” was apparently being established through the process of eradicating “the outside”, violence overflowed. From its initial scapegoat, violence began to be directed at Burma's other “others”: in the central town of Meikhtila, in environs north of Rangoon, and in the northeastern city of Lashio, respective mobs have turned on Muslim citizens, burning property and murdering scores.

Critically, these Muslim citizens have been integrated into Burma society for generations, and so it is more accurate to say that they are being turned into”others”. Muslims in central Burma — who have no connection to Bangladesh — are now being called “Bengali“. This is also the name Burmese state security agents insist Rohingya call themselves.

Similarly, a Chinese Muslim (Panthay) colleague – whose light skin means she does not 'look' like the Muslims that Burmese often derisively refer to as kalar – told me last month in Rangoon that she is afraid that the violence will spill over to them as well. Days after our conversation, Panthays had their cinema burned to the ground in Lashio.

This progression of violence suggests that scapegoating is potentially uncontainable – from Rohingya to all Muslims, from Rohingya to all dark-skinned people, and potentially beyond.

For instance, a number of propaganda pamphlets in Rangoon urging Buddhists to protect their race and religion. While the covers are adorned by fetuses (invoking Muslim population threat) and prehistoric beasts (invoking the supposed Muslim desire to consume the Burma nation), the texts implore readers to beware "the other races", or the "evil other-race husbands", which are terms eminently re-deployable to any group constructed as “other”.

But this cuts both ways: once one group is identified as "not part of" Burma, or "incompatible" with "our traditions", Burmese citizens or traditions themselves are put into question, are even potentially undermined.

From animosity to violence

All of this animosity still does not explain the move to sporadic, spontaneous violence. Looking at economic indicators as a proximate cause provides helpful insight. Stanley Tambiah, in a study close to the Burmese case, shows how as far back as 1910 Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka were justifying violent attacks against non-Buddhists through the language of economic victimisation.

Tambiah cites a tract written by a Buddhist monk that argues that "the 'merchants from Bombay and peddlers from South India'… trade in Ceylon while the 'sons of the soil' abandon agriculture and 'work like galley slaves' in urban clerical jobs."

A similar phenomenon occurred in Burma and remains relevant today. Many Burmese still reference how Chettiars – money-lenders from Tamil Nadu – expropriated hundreds of thousands of hectares of land when the Great Depression undermined the ability of Burmese borrowers to repay agricultural loans.

"Increasing economic stratification can help explain the growth in anxieties generated by concerns over resource distribution"

While Sean Turnell, author of a book on the period, tells me that these Chettiars were mostly non-Muslims (either Hindus or Christians), their South Asian physiognomy has largely been conflated with Muslim identity, especially given that today, as a 2002 Human Rights Watch report illustrates, "many Muslims are businessmen, shopkeepers and small-scale money changers."

HRW argues that this position in the economy "means that [Muslims] are often targeted during times of economic hardship." The difference now is that while the whole economy is still poor, there are signs that small swathes are improving drastically. As I've argued elsewhere, there is a palpable sense of anxiety in Burma today deriving from the speed of change and the feeling of missing out on the spoils associated with those changes.

And while there is no time-series data tracking increasing inequality in Burma over the past years, rapid growth that is concentrated in extractive industries will often accrue to narrow elites – especially when rampant land-grabs attend it, and when compensation – if given at all – considers only the market price today, not what it will become in a changing Burma.

Given all this, when political leaders such as Aung San Suu Kyi tell poor farmers in places like Latpadaung that they have to respect contracts written by the previous military regime and so must hand over their land to Chinese companies in the name of a rule of law that she has always insisted did not exist when those contracts were written, average people may begin to suspect from this utter nonsense that 'democracy' means nothing more than their freedom to continue to be exploited.

Thus abandoned, people take matters into their own hands. This does not mean that sectarian violence is inevitable (it has not occurred in Latpadaung, for instance), but rather that some in these situations lash-out at what they misperceive as their exploiters (and with the potential aim of looting the resources and appropriating the market positions of those one rung above them).

Within this logic, it is not surprising that the city of Meikhtila, long deeply-impoverished but now sporadically-growing by dint of its increasing importance in linking Rangoon with Mandalay, has become a site of sectarian strife. It is no wonder the Rohingya are being displaced and contained in an area where a Special Economic Zone is being built. Most convincing here is that the Buddhist '969 movement' is above all an economic boycott that targets Muslim businesses.

Matt Schissler's exploration of working-class Burmese Buddhist anti-Muslim sentiment shows how economic grievance fuels the legitimacy of that movement: whereas Buddhists can observe how Muslims do not always convert wives or children, that they often respect Buddhism, etc, demagogues and average people alike perceive Muslim wealth. In this context the 786 symbol that adorns Muslims shops signifies to Buddhists not only halal food but also a desire to dominate the economy.

As Maung Zarni, visiting fellow at London School of Economics, puts it, “some militant Buddhist preachers… effectively scapegoat the country's Muslims for the general economic hardships and cultural decay in society, portraying the ethnic Burmese as victims at the hands of organised Muslim commercial leeches and parasites.” Commentator Sai Latt points out that economic exclusion is not a mere pretext for physical violence and exclusion, but rather directly leads to it.

This is particularly relevant now given that the conventional wisdom in Burma today assumes that economic development will act as a panacea for Burma's internecine problems. It may do precisely the opposite.

Elliott Prasse-Freeman is Founding Research Associate Fellow of the Human Rights and Social Movements Program at Harvard Kennedy School's Carr Center for Human Rights. He is also a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Yale University

-The opinions and views expressed in this piece are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect DVB's editorial policy.
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The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

Petition for Rohingya Protection Nears 1 Million Ahead of Thein Sein’s Europe Visit

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 09:40 AM PDT

About 50 Burmese demonstrators gathered in the Norwegian capital of Oslo to protest Thein Sein's visit to the country in February.

RANGOON — A petition calling attention to the potential "genocide" of Rohingya Muslims is inching toward one million signatories as President Thein Sein prepares to visit Europe and activists urge European leaders to discuss human rights concerns when they meet the former general next week.

In a message to British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande, more than 984,000 signatories as of Friday urged the Western leaders to address the plight of Burma's 800,000 or so Rohingya people, an ethnic minority that has faced decades of discrimination and a campaign of deadly ethnic violence in the last year.

"As citizens deeply concerned about the ongoing violence in Burma, we call on you to press the Burmese President to urgently protect the Rohingya using all means necessary, and grant them citizenship and full legal rights when you meet with him this month," states the petition, put forward by the online advocacy group Avaaz.

"We urge you to insist he implement such measures and tackle the impunity of aggressors to stop the violence as a condition of improved trading relations," the petition continues, likening discrimination against Rohingya to genocide. The New York-based Human Rights Watch in April made a similar comparison, saying last year's violence amounted to "ethnic cleansing."

About 140,000 Rohingya Muslims—who are not granted citizenship rights under Burmese law—were forced from their homes during two bouts of communal violence in Arakan State last year. Nearly all of them remain in temporary camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs), where health and human rights concerns have been raised by aid organizations, advocacy groups and foreign leaders.

This week UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon joined the refrain, saying violence against the minority Muslims was "deplorable and unacceptable."

"There is a dangerous polarization taking place within Myanmar," he told the Group of Friends on Myanmar, which includes delegates from 14 nations including France and Britain, on Wednesday. "If it is not addressed urgently and firmly, underlying tensions could provoke more upheaval, undermining the reform process and triggering negative regional repercussions."

Rohingya leader Abu Tahay told The Irrawaddy that the threat of Burma's troubles spilling over the border made European leaders' attention to the matter more likely. In fellow Asean nation Indonesia, Muslim radicals have called for jihad against Burma's Buddhist majority, and Indonesian authorities earlier this year foiled a plot to bomb the Burma Embassy in Jakarta.

"The Rohingya issue is not only our local issue—it has become a regional and international issue," said Abu Tahay of the Union Nationals Development Party, who met with Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr this week in Burma to discuss the situation in Arakan State.

Asked by The Irrawaddy if concerns about the Rohingya would be on the agenda at next week's talks in Europe, the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) said human rights concerns would be among the subjects discussed.

"Human rights and ethnic issues will be at the heart of our discussions," a FCO spokesperson said. "We hope to have a frank dialogue on the situation in Rakhine [Arakan] State, following the visits of [FCO Minister] Hugo Swire in December and [Minister for International Development] Alan Duncan in June. We will emphasize the urgent need to improve humanitarian access, to address accountability for crimes, and to end discrimination against the Rohingya community."

Advocacy groups on the ground in Britain and France are gearing up for the Burmese president's visit from Sunday through Thursday, with protests and press conferences planned in conjunction with the online Avaaz petition.

"Despite the appalling human rights abuses which continue, the British and French governments no longer prioritize human rights in their dealings with Burma," said Célestine Foucher, coordinator for Paris-based Info Birmanie, which has been campaigning for human rights in Burma since 1996. "Rather than focusing on trade issues, the British and French governments should be aiming to secure concrete agreement on key human rights issues, such as an international investigation into abuses against the Rohingya minority."

Mark Farmaner, director of the Burma Campaign UK (BCUK), said his group was mailing every member of the British Parliament, as well as publishing a series of reports on what BCUK sees as the shortcomings of Thein Sein's reform agenda.

The group is also employing less conventional means of getting policy makers' attention, like encouraging supporters to buy a pair of pink glasses to be sent to British Foreign Secretary William Hague, "to highlight how the British government takes a rose-tinted view of the situation in Burma."

"Key demands will be on political prisoners, including Burma in the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative [PSVI], and international investigation into abuses in Rakhine State," Farmaner told The Irrawaddy. The PSVI is a G8 campaign to prevent rape and sexual abuse in conflict zones, but Burma is not included on a list of targeted countries.

Thein Sein has made a habit of releasing batches of political prisoners ahead of excursions abroad. More than a dozen political prisoners were freed prior to a high-profile visit in May to Washington, where the Burmese president met with US President Barack Obama. The release of more than 50 prisoners also coincided with a decision by the European Union to permanently lift economic sanctions against Burma in April.

Bo Kyi, joint-secretary of Burma's Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), spoke out against the practice.

"We have been repeating that the government has used a pattern of political prisoners' release ahead of official visits abroad," he told The Irrawaddy on Thursday. "President U Thein Sein has said that he doesn't use the political prisoners as political tools, but there were some simultaneous moves that happened in the past."

Bo Kyi, who is on a government committee that formed in February to review the status of Burma's political prisoners, said his organization estimates that there are 157 prisoners of conscience remaining behind bars, with more facing charges or on trial. He told The Irrawaddy that he had received no indication of an impending amnesty linked to next week's visit.

Additional reporting by Saw Yan Naing.

Photo of the Week 09

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 06:45 AM PDT

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Illegal Lenders Preying on Rangoon’s Poor: Lawmaker

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 05:18 AM PDT

Lower House lawmaker Thein Nyunt raised the issue of illegal money lending during a parliamentary meeting this week.

Impoverished residents of Rangoon and many other townships across the country are increasingly the victims of predatory lending practices by unauthorized loan sharks, according to a parliamentarian and sources in Burma's commercial capital.

Thuzar, a woman selling snacks from her living quarters in Rangoon's North Dagon Township, told The Irrawaddy that she once had to borrow money for a health-related emergency because she did not have any savings. Because she did not have any valuable items to put up as collateral, Thuzar said she had to pay her lender daily interest for about a year until she was able to clear the debt.

"What I can earn in a day only covers expenses for food, so I don't have any extra money," Thuzar said. "Consequently, I have to borrow money whenever someone in my family gets sick. When I do that, I have to work to both pay off the debt and cover living expenses."

Thuzar said interest rate schemes can vary, from daily or every 10 days to monthly.

"I used to borrow 20,000 kyat with daily interest and had to spend 100,000 kyat in total until I could clear my debt," she added.

On Tuesday, Lower House lawmaker Thein Nyunt raised the issue of illegal money lending during a parliamentary meeting, saying the practice had spread to many townships in Rangoon Division and across the country. He detailed predatory practices by lenders including asking borrowers to sign blank contracts, failing to provide customers with receipts for interest payments and confiscation of property.

Thein Nyunt also asked Brig-Gen Kyaw Kyaw Tun, the chief of Burma's police and deputy minister of home affairs, whether there was any plan to take action against loan sharks who lack official permission to lend.

The police chief said those people can be charged in accordance with the existing law related to small-scale monetary enterprises, which stipulates that lenders must obtain an official license in order to give loans.

Lawyer Soe Tint Ye from the Myanmar Lawyers Network confirmed that under the 1945 Money Lender Act, an official permit is required to do business in money lending.

"In any case, borrowers should never sign blank contracts," he told The Irrrawaddy.

Daw Lwin, a money lender in North Dagon, claimed that she was as much a victim of the loan business as borrowers were.

"I never ask anyone to borrow money from me," she said. "They just come and borrow it, saying that they will do so no matter how much they have to pay in interest. But when I ask them to pay the interest, some people say they don't have it. Some even ask me to take their flesh instead. Of course, I do want interest for what I have invested."

In Rangoon, people can legally borrow money from lending services under the Rangoon City Development Committee (RCDC), private pawn shops that are registered with the RCDC and cooperatives registered with the Ministry of Cooperatives.

However, borrowers are required to deposit valuable items as collateral if they want to take out loans from pawn shops, while cooperatives only lend a limited amount of money to their members.

Courts Sentence 4 to Prison Terms For Meikhtila Violence

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 05:13 AM PDT

Satellite images arranged by Human Rights Watch show the scale of destruction in one of Meikhtila's Muslim quarters where 442 homes were torched on March 20-22. (Photo: HRW)

RANGOON — Courts in Meikhtila sentenced two Muslims and two Buddhist men to five years in prison on Thursday and Friday for burning and destroying buildings during an outburst of inter-communal violence in the Mandalay Division town in March, according to lawyers involved in the cases.

Kyaw Kyaw a.k.a Harnit, and Than Lwin, a.k.a Mohamed Harnit, were each sentenced to five years imprisonment on charges of arson and destruction of public property.

"The jury said they have to serve their prison terms concurrently, so they [effectively] received only five years" in prison, said a lawyer from Meikhtila Township Court.

A Buddhist man named Nga Yae, a.k.a Yae Win Naing, was also sentenced to five years imprisonment on the same charges on Friday, said a lawyer, adding that he believed that the court's verdict had been fair.

"We can say the justice is fair enough for the defendants as they have to serve prison terms concurrently, 5 years, instead of serving a total of 15 years," said the lawyer, who declined to be named.

He added that family members and the public had not been allowed to attend the trials because of "security reasons" and to "avoid disturbances."

On Thursday evening, the court reportedly sentenced another Buddhist man, whose name could not be confirmed, to five years in prison for arson.

Lawyers said another 21 suspects were scheduled to be sentenced in coming weeks.

State-owned media have reported that more than 20 suspects involved in the Meikhtila unrest had been sentenced to lengthy prison terms earlier this week.

More than 120 suspects were reportedly apprehended following Buddhist mob attacks on Muslim areas in Meikhitla in late March. The violence killed 40 people dead, injured 60 and destroyed more than 2,000 homes.

A Meikhtila district police officer said that 15 suspects had been released in recent weeks for lack of evidence, including two Buddhist men who were set free on Friday because the court found they did not take part in the unrest.

New and Improved Airports Needed as Burma’s Tourism Grows, Officials Say

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 05:06 AM PDT

Inside the domestic terminal at Rangoon's international airport. (Photo: Simon Roughneen / The Irrawaddy)

RANGOON — With the winning bids for Burma's three major new airport projects due to be announced by the end of this month, officials say the contracts are necessary, given that the government hopes to draw over 7 million tourists to the country by 2020.

The existing international airports for Rangoon and Mandalay will be upgraded, while a new international airport—expected to rival other major Southeast Asian hubs such as Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi and Singapore's Changi in size—will be built at Hanthawaddy in Burma's central Pegu Division, about an hour's drive north of Rangoon, the country's biggest city.

"The new airport will be nine times the size of the current Yangon [Rangoon] airport," says Win Swe Tun, deputy director-general of Burma's Department of Civil Aviation (DCA), part of the country's Transport Ministry.

"The main reason to build the new airport is that the market demands," he told The Irrawaddy. "The bid requires the winner to have the airport ready by 2018 and be able to take up to 12 million passengers a year."

The Burmese government recently announced a tourism plan that envisages a possible 7.4 million visitors by 2020, up from just over 1 million last year, though the blueprint also acknowledges that visitor numbers could be as low as 2.81 million by that time.

If realized, the plans for an expanded tourism sector would be worth over US$10 billion per annum to Burma's economy, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Tourism Minister Htay Aung says the mooted new airport, which will feature a double runway, is needed to attract long-haul carriers to fly direct to Burma. "Now our flight options are very limited, so we need to open the new and bigger airport at Bago [Pegu]," he said.

While new routes from Doha, Frankfurt and Seoul to Rangoon's international airport have become available in recent years, currently most visitors to Burma from Europe and North America fly via Southeast Asia's bigger airports, including in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, which have regular long-haul intercontinental flights.

Four companies or consortia are in the final shake-up for the new Pegu airport construction project: Taisei of Japan, Vinci of France, Korea's Incheon and Yongnam from Singapore. The winning bids will be announced by the end of July, says Win Swe Tun, along with the chosen pitches to upgrade Rangoon and Mandalay's international airports. All the bids are being assessed by a selection board comprising Burma's minister and deputy minister of transport along with the director-generals from the Myanmar Investment Commission and the DCA.

The Rangoon international airport upgrade contest features seven contenders, including Burmese company Pioneer Aerodrome Services, which is linked to Steven Law, a businessman described as close to Burma's former military junta and subject to US sanctions. Another contender is the US-based ACO Investment Group, whose bid features former US government official Kurt Campbell, who visited Burma several times in his role as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and was a pivotal figure in the first Obama administration's overtures to Burma's reforming government.

Rangoon's current airport is built on a former World War II British Royal Air Force base at Mingaladon, a northern suburb, and is next to a current Burmese air force base. Featuring just a single runway, the airport was designed to handle 2.7 million passengers per year but is currently running over capacity, as it handles 94 percent of international air traffic to and from the country, says managing director Win Ko.

"Last year we had 3 million [passengers], up from 2.5 million the year before," he told The Irrawaddy. The airport last received a major upgrade in 2003, with the current international terminal built by Asia World, which is run by Law, the sanctioned businessman.

Law's father and Asia World founder, a long-time narcotics trafficker nicknamed the "Godfather of Heroin," Lo Hsing Han, died last weekend in Rangoon.

The main objective of the proposed Rangoon upgrade is to improve the somewhat run-down domestic terminal, says the DCA. Last year 1.1 of the 3 million passengers transiting the airport were on domestic flights, according to airport statistics.

Two companies, Mitsubishi and Vinci, which is also in for the Rangoon upgrade, are competing for the Mandalay airport job. The airport, about a 40-minute drive from the center of Burma's second-biggest city, will be upgraded primarily to enable the facility to function as a logistics and cargo hub for central and northern Burma, positioned between the giant Indian and Chinese markets, according to Win Swe Tun.

All told, there are 41 airports across Burma, but only three are capable of handling 747-class aircraft, including the airports at Rangoon, Mandalay and the capital Naypyidaw. Seven domestic and 23 foreign carriers offer domestic and international flights.

The airport renovation and construction plans have the support of Burma's main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), with spokesman Nyan Win saying that Rangoon's international airport was too small. “For handling international flights, we need more capacity,” he told The Irrawaddy.

Putting a New Face on Myanmar’s Military

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 04:37 AM PDT

Burma's army chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing inspects troops during a parade to mark the 67th anniversary of Armed Forces Day in Naypyidaw on March 27, 2012. (Photo: Reuters / Soe Zeya Tun)

This year's Armed Forces Day was, by all accounts, spectacular.

For the first time ever, Myanmar's Tatmadaw, or armed forces, showed off its heavy weaponry and jet fighters as the commander-in-chief, Snr-Gen Min AungHlaing, received salutes from marching troops.

The speech that followed was far less remarkable, but if one listened closely, there was more to it than just the standard reiteration of the Myanmar military's leading role in national affairs.

Although the military would, of course, continue to play a "leading political role" in accordance with Myanmar's 2008 Constitution, which reserves a quarter of parliamentary seats for military officers, it would also "keep on marching to strengthen the democratic administrative path wished by the entire people," said the Tatmadaw's supreme commander.

Giving some weight to his professed commitment to staying on the democratic path was the presence of Daw Aung San SuuKyi, who was attending the Armed Forces Day ceremony for the first time since emerging as Myanmar's pro-democracy icon during the nationwide uprising against military rule in 1988.

The reason for The Lady's surprise appearance at the event was probably related to the release of a report on the controversial Letpadaung copper mine in early March, according to political observers and members of her National League for Democracy (NLD). The report, drafted by a committee headed by Daw Aung San SuuKyi, recommended continuing with the Chinese-backed project, despite strong public opposition.

At any rate, her presence at the March 27 ceremony was less surprising than it might have been just a year or two ago. Since last year, she has repeatedly expressed her "affection" for the Tatmadaw, which was founded by her father, Gen Aung San, during Myanmar's struggle against British colonial rule.

Last year, for instance, she told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that she had no hard feelings toward the generals who kept her in detention for most of the past two decades. "I've always got on with people in the army," she said. "This is why I have a soft spot for them even though I don't like what they do—that's different from not liking them."

For his part, Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing also seems to have buried the hatchet with the woman long seen as the nemesis of Myanmar's former military leaders. According to an NLD member who attended the ceremony with her, the commander-in-chief waved to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as he departed from the ceremony in his car. She returned his wave, and also spoke with several young cadet army officers and generals who came to meet her after the ceremony.

Things have indeed changed since the days of the former junta, led by retired Snr-Gen Than Shwe. This is all the more striking considering the widely held view that the former strongman continues to wield considerable influence over military matters. It is believed that he not only handpicked Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, but also his successor: According to well-informed sources, Lt-Gen Myat Htun Oo, another staunch Than Shwe loyalist, is next in line to lead the Tatmadaw once Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing's term expires.

The question on many minds, however, is whether the current military leadership is ready to make a real break with the past. And perhaps the best way of assessing this is by looking closely at the man who, at least ostensibly, holds the reins of Myanmar's still-powerful armed forces.

Very little is known about Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, apart from the fact that he leapfrogged several four-star generals to get to his present position, including U Shwe Mann, the speaker of the Lower House of Parliament. This came as a surprise to many, given the fact that he had not spent much time in the War Office before becoming commander-in-chief. Clearly, however, it served an important purpose: to shield the former head of the junta and his family from the danger of a more powerful military leader turning against him.

Perhaps even more significantly, putting a relatively junior general in the top military post also helps to minimize the risk of the new commander-in-chief using his considerable constitutional powers against the president or Parliament. It also makes it easier to maintain harmony within the powerful National Defense Security Council (NDSC), which brings together the commander-in-chief and senior members of the government, including the president. (There are rumors, however, that the NDSC's regular meetings have been strained by tensions between President U Thein Sein and U Shwe Mann.)

Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing first came to the attention of observers in August 2009, when the then major general oversaw the military offensive against the Kokang ceasefire group known as the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, which had refused to become part of the Border Guard Force (BGF), formed in 2009 to bring ethnic ceasefire groups under Tatmadaw command.

A graduate of the 19th intake of the elite Defense Services Academy, Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing has spent most of his military career in Myanmar's border regions, particularly in Shan and Kayah states. He has served as commander of the Triangle Regional Command in eastern Shan State and the Northeast Command in northern Shan State, and later became chief of the Bureau of Special Operations 2, which controls the Northeastern, Eastern and Triangle regional military commands.

In his current role, he has also been involved in military operations in Kachin State and talks with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which has recently come closer to reaching a ceasefire agreement with the government to end a conflict that began in June 2011.

One of the toughest challenges now facing the commander-in-chief is the Tatmadaw's tense relations with the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Myanmar's largest and best-equipped ethnic armed group.

Late last year, Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing met with Wa leaders in Kengtung, eastern Shan State, to tell them to stop producing and trafficking illicit drugs by 2015. But with recent reports that China has stepped up its military support for the UWSA in an effort to increase its leverage over Naypyitaw, it will be increasingly difficult for him to exert much influence over the group.

Farther south, the commander-in-chief has had much less to worry about. In January, he met with Karen National Union leaders who came to Naypyitaw to meet President U Thein Sein. The meeting was cordial, but nothing substantive was discussed, and the senior general was dressed in civilian attire when he received the Karen leaders, signaling that meeting was intended to be seen as informal.

Although Myanmar's armed forces and quasi-civilian government appear to be on the same page on most issues, it's not always clear who is in charge. In Kachin State, for instance, the military continued its offensive despite repeated appeals from the president to avoid clashes unless necessary. The fighting continued to escalate until the end of last year and early this year, when helicopters gunships and jet fighters were deployed to attack the KIA stronghold of Laiza.

The trouble is that in this fragile transition period, there is confusion over the role and power of the commander-in-chief and indeed, the armed forces itself, which remains the most powerful institution in Myanmar.

Under the Constitution, the commander-in-chief possesses extensive power and a position equal to vice president. But some in the government have argued that the president should be the supreme commander-in-chief and call the shots when the country faces external or internal threats or any other crisis.

It is also not known whether the position of the defense minister (currently held by Lt-Gen Wai Lin, another Than Shwe loyalist who previously served as the Naypyitaw regional commander) is equal to that of commander-in-chief. As a result, some army insiders say the lines of communication and the chain of command are baffling.

It is also an open secret that the Tatmadaw controls the economy. The military-owned Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd and Myanmar Economic Corporation are two of the country's largest conglomerates, and they wield enormous influence over many key industries, including energy extraction.

Tatmadaw scholar Mary Callahan, the author of "Making Enemies: War and State Building in Burma," has noted that both corporations are completely lacking in transparency. "Though they are owned by the Defense Ministry and serve as a capital fund for the military pension system, their accounts have never come under public scrutiny," she wrote in The Journal of Democracy last year.

Since reforms began two years ago, there has been growing criticism of these military-backed business entities, particularly for their long-standing practice of confiscating land for future investment. Some sources close to Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing say that he is opposed to the practice and wants to return confiscated land to farmers. If true, he will certainly face opposition from within the armed forces and army conglomerates.

Another issue that will be of growing importance to the commander-in-chief is military relations with the West. He will likely try to develop regional cooperation with armies in the region and in the West, pulling away from Myanmar's reliance on China. He has already asked for assistance from the West, and the US has agreed to provide military training. (The volatile situation in Arakan State, where a steady flow of immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh has caused increasing tensions, could be one area where Myanmar's military might seek cooperation with the West.)

But some of Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing's plans may be overly ambitious. In his speech on Armed Forces Day, he stressed the importance of building a modern and patriotic army, quoting excerpts from a speech by Gen Aung San in 1947: "The air force should have at least 500 airplanes. The army should have a strength of one million when fighting war. It must dare to respond to even the slightest provocations."

If this is his wish list, he will have a hard time fulfilling it. If he really wants to build a professional army, however, he could begin by cleaning his own house and regaining the respect of the Myanmar people first.

This story appeared in the July 2013 print issue of The Irrawaddy magazine.

‘The Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Also Has to Pay’

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 03:23 AM PDT

A bank employee ties stacks of kyat banknotes. The government formed a committee in May to review Burma's tax system and offer suggestions for reform. (Photo: Reuters)

Tax reform is under way in Burma, with a government-backed committee now reviewing the tax system and offering suggestions in a country rampant with corruption and tax evasion. The Board of Scrutinizing and Monitoring of Tax Collection formed in May, and among its members is Maw Than, an economics scholar and a patron of President Thein Sein's National Economic and Social Advisory Council. In an exclusive interview with The Irrawaddy, Maw Than, who was once a rector at the Institute of Economics in Rangoon, discusses how Burma's tax system is set for some major changes—with military-backed companies now paying taxes for the first time in decades. 

Question: What is the role of the Board of Scrutinizing and Monitoring of Tax Collection?

Answer: The board scrutinizes whether taxes are collected properly. It also scrutinizes tax collection in terms of service, trade and production in the country. It reports its findings on tax collection to the union minister for finance and revenue, and offers suggestions to ensure that the current tax system meets international standards. These are the main functions of the board.

Announcements have to be made to let people know they are also subject to paying taxes. Burma [the government] currently receives only 4 percent of the taxes that it should receive. Taxpayers don't declare their true assets so they can avoid paying a lot of taxes. Now everyone needs to declare their income and pay taxes. The taxation system is going to change, starting this year. It's a long-term project. If someone's income is suspiciously small, it will be checked by the department of tax administration. If irregularities are found, he or she will be subject to punishment.

Q: What kind of punishment will be imposed on someone who lies about their taxable income?

A: If someone is found guilty of tax evasion for a large amount of taxes, he or she will be prosecuted.

Q: How will you investigate to know clearly that someone is trying to evade taxes?

A: It's easy. I told the union minister about it when I met him at a meeting. The taxes collected from vendors are small—we don't target them. We target big businesses. Most of them are either in Rangoon or Mandalay. We can know any kind of business located in Rangoon and Mandalay easily by looking at the Yellow Pages.  There aren't Yellow Pages for other towns. For them, we will work closely with the department of tax administration. By doing so, tax evasion is not possible any more.

Q: During the former military regime, military-owned businesses such as the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (UMEHL) were exempt from taxes. How about now?

A: Taxes have been collected ever since the present government was in power. Formerly, businesses related with state-owned businesses were exempt from taxes. For example, the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited—now it also has to pay taxes. Since the end of last March [the end of the last fiscal year], taxes are being collected from UMEHL. State-owned businesses are subject to taxes, too.

Q: Is the tax board being pragmatic? Will you succeed in your goals?

A: It will succeed. It must succeed because the situation of our country is not like the past any more. The state can have money to use only if it succeeds. Yes, it is certain to succeed. We collect taxes by order of the government and the state. We're not robbing people. We'll try to achieve our aims. I presume it will take three years [to make the board function well]. I can say so because the amount of taxes collected has jumped three or four times [compared to the past] since the board formed.

Q: By paying taxes properly, what advantages can the public and businesspeople enjoy?

A: Some say, 'Look! The roads are always in a really bad condition, no matter how much we pay in taxes.' I would like them to know that we have to use the money from taxes to pay the police, who are responsible for the security of the public. … So if people pay taxes, it means the public can live peacefully. … Taxes will also help improve roads and bridges. It's just like a family that has good income can take care of its family member in a nice way.

Q: There have been some demands to reduce taxes on domestic products. If taxes for domestic products are reduced, they can compete with products from other countries. What do you think of this? What will the government arrange to do in this regard?

A: The taxes for some products are quite low. As a result, people can buy them for cheap prices. However, products like cigarettes and alcohol are hazardous to health. So taxes are not going to be reduced for these kinds of products. … For some products that don't bring any bad effect to the public, we should reduce the taxes for them.

Prominent Democracy Activist Urges Rethink on Interfaith Marriage Proposal

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 02:50 AM PDT

Ko Ko Gyi, a prominent member of the 88 Generation Students group, speaks with The Irrawaddy on Thursday. (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy)

A draft law proposed by Buddhist monks that would restrict interreligious marriage threatens to divide the Buddhist community in Burma, according to a prominent 88 Generation Students group member.

Ko Ko Gyi, a senior leader from the pro-democracy group, said a more inclusive dialogue should be held before any law is submitted to Parliament.

"The law is a sensitive one," he said. "We need to think about it very carefully and thoroughly, such as what potential negative effects it might have politically and socially. This is why I told the monks to have one more workshop to let all people be included to discuss it."

The workshop would potentially be held within the next two weeks in Rangoon, according to Ko Ko Gyi.

The Daily Eleven newspaper reported on Thursday that senior Buddhist monk U Aggha Nyana urged monks at an event in Bahan Township, Rangoon, to respect others' faiths when discussing ethnic and religious issues.

"All of us need to act according to the laws of Dhamma. Whenever we talk, we should not hurt or disturb other religions," U Aggha Nyana said.

Last month, a gathering of Buddhist monks approved draft legislation that would put restrictions on marriages between Buddhist women and Muslim men. The monks, who are working actively to promote the proposal, argue that the restrictions would help improve inter-communal relations in Burma.

However, Ko Ko Gyi said he was worried about perceptions of Buddhism among the international community if the plan goes forward.

"Our religion is a peaceful one. I told them [the monks] to have one more workshop in order to present a good image of the Buddhist religion," he said.

The 88 Generation Students group has primarily advocated for human rights and democratic change in Burma over the last 20 years, and its leadership worries that religious violence in the country may bog down the ongoing political reform process.

"I respect Buddhist monks as I am a Buddhist man. But if someone is to hijack this religious law and politicize it, I will not accept this. It will sow disunity among the Burmese people and all people should avoid this," Ko Ko Gyi said.

The proposed religious law comes at a time of growing tensions between Burma's majority Buddhists and Muslims, who are estimated to make up some 5 percent of the country's total population.

Violence between the two religious communities broke out in Arakan State, western Burma, in June last year. The unrest has since spread to dozens of towns in other parts of the country. Hundreds of people have been killed and more than 150,000 people—mostly Muslims—have been forced to flee their homes.

Nationalist Buddhist monks have been accused of openly supporting the violence by calling for the removal Muslims from towns and villages in order to establish Buddhist dominance. In some cases, monks were reportedly observed participating in and organizing the street violence, which has included the razing of mosques, and Muslim-owned homes and businesses.

"After destroying one building, another new building will rise again," Ko Ko Gyi said. "So I wanted to say those who create violence: You are the losers, not the winners."

A State of Anxiety in Burma

Posted: 11 Jul 2013 11:37 PM PDT

I visited Burma for the first time in 16 years last December. Back then I felt relative optimism about our country’s political transition — despite its deepening poverty, the ongoing war against the Kachin ethnic group, and sectarian violence between Buddhists and Muslims. The release of hundreds of political prisoners, the emergence of a free press, and Aung San Suu Kyi’s electoral victory in the 2012 by-elections gave people reason to hope that the country would soon be free and developed.

Now I’ve come back, and this time I see a totally different country. The winds of change are carrying a bad smell rather than fresh air. Anti-Muslim hate speech and riots have spread to major cities, and Buddhist monks are aggressively interfering in our multi-ethnic polity by pushing a draft law that restricts inter-faith marriages. The monks are even threatening politicians who refuse to endorse their bill with retaliation when the country holds its next general election three years from now.

There’s no doubt that elements within both the ruling elite and the political opposition are taking advantage of rising ultra-nationalism by either jumping on the bandwagon or dodging responsibility for tackling the problem. Horrible as this is, it’s not just ethnic and religious minority groups that are being attacked. Women, too, are increasingly becoming victims of ideological extremism and political opportunism, as manifested by the draft law on inter-faith marriage.

But perhaps the most worrisome trend in Burma these days is a widening split between the president and the powerful speaker of the Lower House of Parliament. Worst of all, part of the responsibility for the resulting anxiety lies with Aung San Suu Kyi, since she has decided to side with speaker Shwe Mann against the government.

Since the start of the political opening and the initial negotiations between Aung San Suu Kyi and President Thein Sein in 2011, observers have noted that a stable relationship among the three leading figures in the country — the president, the speaker of the house, and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi — is critical to the success of Burma’s reform. There has been a constant personal (and to some extent institutional) rivalry between the president and the speaker almost from the beginning of the current transition. But despite everything the two men’s relationship has never been as ugly as it is right now.

Most recently, the speaker has challenged the government’s approach to peace talks with the ethnic rebel groups, demanding parliament’s direct involvement in ceasefire negotiations with the Kachin. “I’ve been informed by some lawmakers and through public opinion that the peace talks have failed to achieve peace,” Shwe Mann told Parliament.

He has even called for a meeting of National Defense and Security Council (NDSC), the military-dominated eleven-member body that holds wide-ranging powers, in order to discuss the executive’s handling of the peace issue. This unusual attempt to activate the NDSC, which has not met for some time, raised the eyebrows of several observers who once viewed the speaker of the house as a champion of reform.

It is now clear that Shwe Mann’s move was intended to weaken President Thein Sein and his reformist aides from the government think tank, the Myanmar Peace Center (MPC). The president is reportedly being strongly considered as a candidate to win the Nobel Peace Prize later this year for his reforms, and any major fallout from the intensifying power struggle within the troika could damage his credibility and even put proposed reforms off track.

But even before Shwe Mann began his public criticism of the government’s peace initiative, Aung San Suu Kyi said in late May that the government’s reform measures in recent years “have produced no tangible changes” for the rule of law and peace in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi’s unofficial alliance with Shwe Mann against the government, therefore, has become the biggest constraint on Thein Sein’s power.

Many people in intellectual circles and the business community worry that Aung San Suu Kyi is in the wrong political camp. Civil society activists are dismayed by her political maneuvering within the elite and her neglect of the population’s more immediate problems, ranging from ethno-religious conflicts to dire poverty. It seems that all stakeholders, including the ethnic groups, will be forced to take sides in this escalating power struggle as the 2015 elections approach.

All observers, in any case, tend to agree that the political situation in Burma this year is becoming a serious cause for anxiety. One last thing that could compound these concerns is the lack of clarity about the military’s preferences. No one knows whether the head of the armed forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, will choose to take sides in this power struggle, or whether he entertains political ambitions of his own.

If the latter is the case, it would almost certainly complicate Burma’s political transition and perhaps disrupt the reform process. Given the recent events in Egypt, there seems good reason to be worried about the possibility of a fresh military coup in Burma as well.

Min Zin is the Burma blogger for Foreign Policy's Transitions, where this article first appeared on July 10, 2013.

Thein Sein Approves Burma Law on Central Bank

Posted: 11 Jul 2013 11:26 PM PDT

People exchange Burmese kyat banknotes at a local bank in Rangoon. (Photo: Reuters)

RANGOON — Burma's president has signed a law giving the central bank more autonomy from the Finance Ministry and opening the way for development of the fledgling banking sector.

State-owned MRTV television reported the enactment by President Thein Sein late on Thursday and said details would be published in newspapers on Friday.

But there was nothing in any of Friday's papers, including the New Light of Myanmar, a state daily that carries official announcements.

The law is part of a series of economic and political reforms pushed through by the quasi-civilian government of Thein Sein, in office since nearly half a century of military rule ended in March 2011.

Rules governing the central bank have to be adopted within three months of the law coming into force.

"In fact, rules and regulations have already been drawn up. So we can expect them to emerge very soon," Win Hteik, a senior central bank official, told Reuters.

He said the governor and three deputy-governors would in future be nominated by the president and approved by parliament.

He also said the regulations could include details of how joint-venture banks could be set up with foreign lenders.

Foreign banks are not allowed to operate in Burma at present, and when they are allowed in, they will initially only be able to run joint ventures with local banks.

The date for their entry has not been set, although more than 30 foreign banks already have representative offices.

The website of the existing Central Bank of Myanmar, which is part of the Finance Ministry, says its aim is "to preserve the internal and external value of the Myanmar currency."

Helped by the International Monetary Fund, the central bank introduced a managed float of the kyat in April 2012 as part of the unification of the exchange rate system.

It first floated at 818 per dollar, a level in line with the black market at the time but which the IMF and economists said was overvalued. Since then, the kyat has fallen and the central bank’s daily reference rate was set at 980 on Thursday.

China, Taiwan Brace for Typhoon as Flood Toll Exceeds 200

Posted: 11 Jul 2013 10:43 PM PDT

An excavator moves villagers away from a flooded area during heavy rainfall in Yingxiu, Wenchuan county, Sichuan province, on July 10, 2013. (Photo: Reuters)

BEIJING/TAIPEI — China and Taiwan braced on Friday for the impact of Typhoon Soulik as the toll of dead and missing from torrential rain across a broad swathe of China climbed beyond 200.

Soulik is expected to hit northern Taiwan later in the day, before crossing the narrow Taiwan Strait and slamming into China's provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang on Saturday.

"Government departments must place saving people's lives as their top priority," Chinese state media quoted Premier Li Keqiang as saying, as officials scrambled to tackle the floods.

The Taipei city government has ordered companies and schools to send staff and pupils home early, although the financial markets will operate normally.

Taiwan's China Airlines and Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd both warned of significant cancellations and disruption of flights to and from Taiwan on their websites.

The storm will also pass close to the far southern Japanese islands of Ishigaki and Miyako.

China has ordered fishing boats to return to port and suspended ferry links to Taiwan, official news agency Xinhua said.

The typhoon approaches as large parts of China are already being lashed by torrential rain.

At least 36 people have died in flooding in the southwestern province of Sichuan since the weekend, and 166 people are missing, the China News Service said.

State television has broadcast dramatic pictures of bridges and houses being washed away around Beichuan and Dujiangyan in Sichuan, a region that is still recovering from a massive earthquake in 2008 that killed nearly 70,000 people.

China's Ministry of Civil Affairs said flooding had also hit Xinjiang in the far west as well as Tibet and Beijing, the capital. In Inner Mongolia at least five people have died, it added.

Additional reporting by Elaine Lies in Tokyo.

China May Further Limit Car Purchases to Curb Smog

Posted: 11 Jul 2013 10:19 PM PDT

Lines of cars are pictured during a rush hour traffic jam on Guomao Bridge in Beijing on July 11, 2013. (Photo: Reuters / Jason Lee)

BEIJING — More Chinese cities may restrict vehicle purchases in a bid to fight air pollution and traffic congestion, state media reported.

With more than 13 million cars sold in China last year, motor vehicles and their emissions have emerged as the chief culprit for the air pollution in large cities.

Beijing, Shanghai and two other cities already curb the purchase of vehicles for private use, through lotteries and auctions of a limited number of license plates.

Shi Jianhua, the deputy secretary general of the government-backed China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, was quoted Thursday as saying that eight more cities are likely to announce similar policies. The eight include the port city Tianjin, near Beijing, the metropolis Chongqing in the southwest and industrial powerhouse Shenzhen, not far from Hong Kong.

Such restrictions might cut vehicle sales by 400,000 units, or 2 percent of total domestic sales, and have a "certain impact" on the country's economic growth, the China Daily newspaper quoted Shi as saying.

The automakers' group, which consults with local governments and makes recommendations on vehicle policies, declined to offer details when called.

China's increasingly informed and vocal citizens have successfully pushed the government to be more transparent about how bad the air in their cities is, but, as they get richer, their desire for cleaner air conflicts with their growing dependence on cars. While China is the biggest car market in the world by number of vehicles sold, there is still plenty of room for growth as the country still lags far behind developed markets in terms of the ratio of cars to people.

The number of vehicles in Beijing has increased to 5.18 million from 3.13 million in early 2008, Xinhua reported earlier this year. Since the beginning of last year, prospective buyers have had to enter a monthly draw to win a license plate. Each month, 20,000 lucky winners are chosen. The number of people in the draw had reached almost 1.53 million by last month.

Zhao Jian, a transport expert at Beijing's Jiaotong University's School of Economics and Management, said extending restriction-on-ownership policies to other cities was unlikely to have much effect on pollution because there were already too many cars on the roads.

"The restrictions on car ownership in Beijing failed to achieve what the government wanted to see because the restrictions only slowed the growth in the number of cars. They didn't reduce the numbers of cars," Zhao said.

"Even with proper enforcement, the policy still won't solve the air pollution problem, neither will similar measures in other cities," Zhao said.

Vehicle emissions are compounded by a lack of effective public transportation, low emission standards and the slow development of energy-saving and clean automobile technologies, the Asian Development Bank said in its 2012 environmental analysis of China.

AP researcher Yu Bing contributed to this report.

Inmates Riot, Escape, Set Fire to Indonesia Prison

Posted: 11 Jul 2013 10:08 PM PDT

Firefighters and police officers stand outside Tanjung Gusta prison, which was set ablaze by inmates after a riot broke out, in Medan in North Sumatra province on July 11, 2013. (Photo: Reuters)

MEDAN, Indonesia — Authorities were searching for scores of inmates, including terrorists, who escaped a crowded Indonesian prison that was still burning Friday after prisoners set fires and started a deadly riot at the facility in the nation's third-largest city.

Thousands of policemen and soldiers are deployed around Tanjung Gusta prison to blockade roads linking Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, to other provinces, while fire brigades were battling the fires.

About 200 prisoners escaped following the riot late Thursday in which three prison employees and two inmates were killed.

Officers deployed to hunt the escaped inmates have re-arrested 55 of them and are still searching for remaining inmates who are still at large, said local police chief in Lt. Col. Nico Afinta. Three of 22 convicted terrorists have been recaptured.

He said the prison employees who died, including a woman, were trapped and killed in an office building that was burned by prisoners during late Thursday's riot.

The riot appeared to have been triggered by a power blackout that knocked out water pumps, leaving inmates without water since Thursday morning.

Inmates forced their way out from the prison while others set offices on fire and held about 15 officers captive inside the prison, prison directorate spokesman Akbar Hadi said. None of the hostages was still being held Friday morning.

The facility holds nearly 2,600 prisoners, while its normal capacity is 1,500, Hadi said.

Witnesses said gunshots were heard from inside the prison, and television footage showed security forces carrying a white body bag into an ambulance from the burning prison. The fire sent raging orange flames jumping several meters into the air and a huge column of black smoke billowing over the jail.

Hadi estimated about 500 inmates were resisting calls to stop the riot and said an evacuation was planned for the safety of inmates who could become hostages as tensions showed no signs of easing.

Deputy Justice Minister Denny Indrayana, who is in Medan overseeing the operation, has requested evacuation of all inmates and appealed those remaining escapees to give themselves to the authorities.

"Legal action will be taken to chase them, and tougher action will be applied to those who refuse to surrender," Indrayana said.

No further information was available on injuries.
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