The Irrawaddy Magazine |
- Burma’s Sin City Retains It’s ‘Special’ Features
- A View of Life in Chin State
- Man, Elephant ‘Face-Off for Food’ in Irrawaddy Delta
- Irrawaddy Business Roundup (January 18, 2014)
| Burma’s Sin City Retains It’s ‘Special’ Features Posted: 17 Jan 2014 07:41 PM PST  A new hotel under construction in Mong La, capital of the NDAA's Shan State Special Region No. 4. (Photo: Seamus Martov / The Irrawaddy) MONG LA — This de facto capital of the National Democratic Alliance Army's (NDAA) autonomous fiefdom in the far northeastern corner of Shan State has experienced quite a few ups and downs since 1989, when the group's current leadership, who at the time were disgruntled mid level officers in the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), turned their backs on revolution and signed a ceasefire with Burma's military junta. Following the complete collapse of Burma's strongest armed rebel group, what was once a small village in the northeast corner of CPB Zone 815 was quickly transformed into a mini Las Vegas, complete with casinos, hotels and a golf course, drawing thousands of Chinese punters from across the border on a daily basis. At its peak in the early 2000s, Mong La was infamous for its lady boy cabaret shows, Russian prostitutes and a human zoo that featured local women "bathing" semi-clothed beside a fake stream—just some of the exciting attractions that drew in the hordes from neighboring Yunnan Province. The NDAA's cash cow nearly came to end in 2003 after Chinese authorities took the unprecedented step of crossing into Mong La and raiding the casino. A scandal involving the daughter of a senior Chinese Communist Party official blowing more than $160,000 of government funds in Mong La casinos was reportedly the final straw for Chinese authorities, angered that millions in stolen public funds were being pocketed by the casino operators. The Chinese intervention made Mong La a ghost town almost overnight, drastically reducing the number of visitors for a few years. The NDAA's response was to the move the casinos further inside their territory to Wan Hsieo, some 16 miles south of Mong La, where several casinos continue to operate. Some of the casinos at Wan Hsieo are also equipped with high-speed internet connections and video cameras so chronic gamblers can place bets from the comfort of their homes in China. It is a lucrative innovation that is interrupted from time to time by Chinese authorities' repeated attempts to block wireless internet signals. Today, more than 10 years after the Chinese crackdown, the casino business appears, on the surface at least, to be raking in huge sums of money for NDAA and their Chinese friends, though reliable figures and statistics are difficult, if not impossible, to come by. On a recent trip to Mong La, this correspondent found nearly every one of the town's dozen or so hotels fully booked. The hotel room shortage will soon be solved, I was informed. There are currently two large hotels under construction—one opposite Mong La's standing Buddha—the larger of which, according to locals, will have hundreds of rooms. Chinese visitors appear very much at home in Mong La, the town operates on Beijing Standard Time, 90 minutes ahead of Burma. The currency of choice is the yuan, with many stores and hotels flat-out refusing Burmese kyat. Burmese language speakers are clearly a minority in Mong La. In addition to speaking their own dialects, most of the NDAA area's indigenous Shan and Akha inhabitants speak Chinese, the lingua franca for Mong La and the neighboring special region controlled by the United Wa State Army (UWSA). Gambling isn't the only draw for Chinese tourists coming to the NDAA's 4,950-square-kilometer zone of control, officially known as Shan State Special Region No. 4. Mong La's also has a thriving sex trade involving hundreds of imported Chinese prostitutes. Sex workers from across Burma's ethnic groups can also be found working in the town's Karaoke bars and massage parlors, though their numbers are said to be dwarfed by their Chinese colleagues.  Undercover researchers from TRAFFIC and Oxford Brookes University found thousands of ivory pieces openly for sale in Mong La. (Photo: Vincent Nijman) Tacky-looking Chinese-language flyers advertising prostitutes' rates and services can be found everywhere, inserted under hotel room doors at regular intervals. But some things have changed—the Russian girls and the bathing zoo are a thing of the past, explains a Burmese repeat visitor well immersed in the town's underbelly. "If you want a girl, don't get one from the street. They have disease," he warns, urging instead that one should go to a brothel, where many of the women walking the streets were previously employed until they failed blood tests conducted by management. In Mong La's bustling market, conveniently located next to the red light district, animal parts of various Burmese endangered species, including tiger and leopard skins, are sold openly on the street and in Chinese-operated stores. For those interested in buying bear bile, tiger bone wine and seemingly any other aphrodisiacs made from near extinct animals, Mong La has it all. This week, the international conservation alliance TRAFFIC announced that an undercover team of its researchers recently found more than 3,300 pieces of ivory and nearly 50 raw ivory elephant tusks for sale in Mong La. The investigators, who partnered with researchers from Britain's Oxford Brookes University, were following up on the group's previous research begun in 2006 monitoring Mong La's ivory trade, which according to TRAFFIC is bigger now than it has ever been. "Our observations suggest Mong La may be one of the biggest unregulated ivory markets in Asia, and it is doubtless one of those where ivory is most openly displayed," explains the university's Professor Vincent Nijman in the TRAFFIC press release. While some of the ivory likely comes from Burma and elsewhere in Asia, it appears that most of it originates from further afield. "My educated guess is that at least part of it, and perhaps even the majority comes from Africa," Vincent told The Irrawaddy. Chris R. Shepherd, TRAFFIC's director for Southeast Asia was also quoted in the press release calling on Naypyidaw to do something about Mong La's ivory trade, "as the market is situated in Myanmar, it is the responsibility of Myanmar's authorities to take swift action and close down this illicit trade." This seems to be a tall order, even if the Burmese authorities were serious about shutting down Mong La's thriving trade in endangered species, it's unclear how they could do this. The central government has little if any control over Mong La and no presence along the NDAA region's lengthy border with China, from where TRAFFIC research indicates much of the ivory is smuggled. Mong La's Special Ruler The head of the NDAA is the 60-something-year-old Lin Mingxian (also known as Sai Lin or Sai Leun), a Sino-Shan CPB veteran and one-time member of China's Red Guards. Lin commands a militia estimated by Jane's Intelligence Review as consisting of 5,000 troops, largely ethnic Shan and Akha. In the 1990's, Lin was regularly described in the US State Department's annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports, as being heavily involved in the drug trade. With great fanfare in 1997 he declared his territory opium free. Although many observers were skeptical of this declaration, three years later, the State Department described Lin as having "successfully rid his area of opium cultivation." Despite the fact he was no longer appearing in the annual narcotics reports, internal US diplomatic cables continued to describe Lin as a "drug trafficker" who oversaw what one embassy official referred to in 2005 as "James Bondian private police force." Lin, who during his old ally Khin Nyunt's heyday hosted a series of visits from the US politicians including congressmen Charles Rangel and Tom Campbell, and former House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert, is rarely seen in public these days, reportedly for health reasons. He may also have other reasons for keeping a low profile. In January 2010, his colleague NDAA General Secretary Min Ein (a.k.a. Lin Hongshen) was gunned down in broad daylight in Mong La, a killing that remains unexplained. Lin's father in law, Pheung Kya-shin, the deposed chief of the Kokang-based Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), another faction that came out of the CPB's self implosion, has been on the run since 2009, when his area was invaded by the Burma Army. Whether the same fate will happen to Lin and the NDAA remains to be seen, but Lin's other former comrades in the United Wa State Army (UWSA)—currently Burma's largest armed group—are said to be shoring up the NDAA's forces to prevent this from happening. "My understanding is that there's still a close alliance between the UWSA and the NDAA, with Wa troops stationed at various places inside the NDAA's territory," said veteran journalist Bertil Lintner, co-author of a book on the UWSA. The UWSA's support for the NDAA is almost certainly more than a simple case of solidarity for old comrades. In addition to acting as a buffer between the Burmese military and the UWSA, the NDAA's special region occupies what Jane's calls a "strategically important belt of territory that provides the Wa Special Region 2 with overland access to the Mekong River communications and trade artery." Like the UWSA, the NDAA successfully resisted the government's push in 2010 to transform itself into a Border Guard Force (BGF), this despite significant pressure from Naypyidaw to do so. A report by the International Crisis Group (ICG), citing Mong La business leaders connected to the NDAA, claimed that in the run up to the government's deadline for armed groups to form a BGF, UWSA had "pressed" the NDAA "to refrain from negotiating or compromising with the military government on the BGF proposal." According to the ICG's sources, the "UWSA told NDAA that if they were to surrender to [the Burmese government], they may as well just surrender to UWSA." In October 2011, when the NDAA formally renewed its ceasefire agreement with Burma's central government, it did so one day after the UWSA reached a similar agreement. Under the agreement the NDAA agreed not to "secede from the State at all and to devote all the capacities of Special Region (4) to perpetuation of the sovereignty of the State." More than two years on, there remains scant evidence that the central government's has much, if any, sovereignty over Lin's "Special" kingdom. The status quo appears to suit Mong La's casino operators, brothel owners and ivory sellers just fine. The post Burma's Sin City Retains It's 'Special' Features appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Posted: 17 Jan 2014 07:28 PM PST  The river valley in Chin State known to locals know as Timit, seen from the road from Hakha to Thantlang. (Photo: Sam Stubblefield) Chin State is often described as Burma's most impoverished and isolated state. Chin people are keen for development with can improve their standard of living—namely better roads, an expanded electricity grid, increased agricultural production and higher-quality education—while at the same time remaining cautious about possible detrimental impacts from development. It is clear that things are changing in the state. The Chin National Front has negotiated three ceasefire agreements with the government since January 2012. Previously unpaved and seasonally impassable roads are being widened and paved. The requirement for tourists to hold special permits before traveling in the state was dropped in early 2013. Foreign investors are coming to the state looking for business opportunities.
Yet many problems persist. The vast majority of the people in Chin State are Christian, and complaints of religious-based discrimination are still common. Refugees and migrants continue to flow out of the state into neighboring countries including India and Malaysia. High unemployment, especially among the youth, persists. Concerns over environmental degradation are being raised where foreign investment projects have been started—for example the Mwe Tuang nickel mining project in the north and the Kaladan Multi Modal Transit and Transport Project in the south. Photography of Chin State usually features K’Cho women with facial tattoos, and while this type of tattooing is undoubtedly a unique (and quickly vanishing) cultural practice, it is far from representative of the state as a whole. These photographs—taken in December 2013—provide a snapshot of daily life in Chin State. The post A View of Life in Chin State appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Man, Elephant ‘Face-Off for Food’ in Irrawaddy Delta Posted: 17 Jan 2014 07:11 PM PST  A family stands beneath its lookout post in Irrawaddy Division's Thabaung Township. (Photo: Salai Thant Sin / The Irrawaddy) THABAUNG TOWNSHIP, Irrawaddy Division — Upon waking in the middle of the night, George Nay Htoo grabs his flashlight and directs its illuminating beam onto a rice paddy below. Seeing no sign of intruders, he breathes a sigh of relief and lies down again, but as is often the case, restful sleep does not easily return for a mind on heightened alert. For more than a month, he has kept up this night watch, sacrificing sleep to keep an eye on his ripening rice crop. But it is not food-strapped local residents or thieving rice traders that he is guarding against. The problem is much bigger than that. "I face this kind of situation every year," said George Nay Htoo, a farmer from the village of O-Bo in Irrawaddy Division's Thabaung Township. "Last year, they ate almost everything, so I could collect only about 25 tins [525 kilograms] of rice from five acres of paddy. I had to try very hard to get that much." "They" are wild elephants, and they are increasingly encroaching on the lands—and threatening the livelihoods—of farmers in the Irrawaddy Delta, locals here say. Some 100,000 acres of farmland in Irrawaddy Division's Pathein, Thabaung and Nagpudaw townships were at risk of being destroyed by wild elephants during the latest paddy growing season, which winds down this month. According to local farmers, intrusions by the pachyderms are getting worse with each passing year. "Gradually, elephants have become more daring and we almost can't scare and drive them out now," said Saw Poe Lu, a farmer from the village of Kongyankon in Thabaung Township. "Once they have eaten paddy, they just want to continue having it in the future, so they will go for it by hook or by crook." To protect their crops, farmers have built lookouts near the rice paddies and many, like George Nay Htoo, sleep overnight in the posts, positioning themselves to scare off elephants that make forays onto their land once the sun sets. However, farmers say elephants no longer fear their screams, nor the other means they have employed to try to drive them away, such as banging pots and pans, or hitting drums made from hollowed-out logs. The intruders, they say, leave the fields only after they have eaten their fill. With laws in place to protect the elephants, the hapless farmers say they are at a loss for how to deal with the problem. "We will be charged in accordance with the law if we kill them," said Nay Lin Aung, another farmer from O-Bo. "We can neither drive them out nor kill them so, we have to sit and watch them as they eat the paddy that we are growing." Adding insult to injury, farmers here say their families are forced to clamber up into the look-out posts, raised 20-30 feet off the ground, after dusk, when darkness emboldens the elephants—tusk-wielding behemoths that are more than capable of goring a human. "We have been sleeping in our lookout for more than a month because we dare not spend the nights in our hut on the ground," said George Nay Htoo, who is a father of four. "My whole family has to go up when the darkness comes. We can't easily climb up and down from our lookout, so we have to use bowls as a toilet. We also have to take along drinking water, clothes, blankets, mosquito nets, mosquito repellent, et cetera." During the second week of November, two wild elephants defied George Nay Htoo's efforts to protect his rice paddies. "We were in our lookout when they came. We tried to bang plates and other things, and shouted at them with the hope that they would leave. They didn't. I used a catapult to shoot at them but it didn't work either. They basically ate my paddy the whole night, starting at about 9pm and leaving after 5am the next morning. They were quite big, so four paddy plots were gone," recalled George Nay Htoo. Many farmers in Pathein, Thabaung and Nagpudaw townships have experienced similarly devastating incursions, and even rice that makes it to harvest is not always safe from the elephants, villagers claim. "Once they come into a village, they look for barns," Myint Kyi, a villager from the village of Chay Htauk Kwin in Pathein Township, told The Irrawaddy. "One day, an elephant came into my village and when he saw his target he just banged it with his head to open it. He wasn't full after eating one sack of rice. … He went back to the jungle only after he felt satiated." According to Win Thein, a member of the Irrawaddy Division Assembly from Thabaung Township, overexploitation of forests in the region, and widespread deforestation, were contributing to the problem. "Humans seize elephant's food, the latter ravages the formers' [crops]," said Win Thein, who represents the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in the regional assembly. Win Thein said he had asked the government's Forestry Department to step in and assist the region's farmers. "Elephants enter paddy fields every day and farmers try as best they can to protect their crops, so it seems like the two sides are facing off for food," said the regional lawmaker from Thabaung. "People can die from elephant attacks, so I asked the Forestry Department to protect them by driving out elephants from paddy fields before people's lives become at risk. However, no action has been taken to safeguard the needs of citizens." Soe Myint, the minister for forestry and mining in Irrawaddy Division, however, told The Irrawaddy that there was only one team—made up of trained elephants—in the region that could drive away wild elephants and that his ministry had found it difficult to deal with the current problems. "Matters related to elephants are under the care of the Myanma Timber Enterprise [MTE], so I already informed the MTE since I received the report about the wild beasts," said Soe Myint. "There is only one team for driving away elephants in Irrawaddy Division, which comprises only four trained elephants, so we are in trouble dealing with this matter." Myint Aung, the head of an environmental conservation group based in Irrawaddy Division, said setting aside land devoted to the kind of plants preferred by elephants—such as banana trees and bamboo—would help to reduce the temptation for elephants to stray into areas inhabited by humans. "We need to create pastures for wild elephants. If they have enough food, they won't risk their lives and come to where humans are living," he said, adding that stricter regulations to prevent illegal logging and systematic forestry conservation practices could also help to tackle the current problems. Those suggestions may go some way toward resolving future conflict between elephants and locals, but for now hard numbers are a source of anxiety for George Nay Htoo, who has borrowed 100,000 kyats (US$100) for each acre of paddy planted. Last year, he struggled to find the money to pay back a 500,000 kyats loan from the government after elephants decimated his crop, and as this season's harvest approached in December, he told The Irrawaddy that he feared similar hardship was in the offing. "I will try as much I can to drive them away," George Nay Htoo said in a low voice. "If I can't, I don't know what else to do but let them eat my paddy." The post Man, Elephant 'Face-Off for Food' in Irrawaddy Delta appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Irrawaddy Business Roundup (January 18, 2014) Posted: 17 Jan 2014 06:55 PM PST Secret Deal to Build Hydro Dams in Kachin State Revealed Details have emerged of plans by a Chinese construction company and a Burmese firm to build four hydro dams on a river in Kachin State that would generate a combined 1,200 megawatts of electricity, according to local media reports. An agreement exists between YPIC International Energy Cooperation & Development Limited of Yunnan and a Burmese firm called International Group of Entrepreneurs, said Eleven Media. The agreement was first made with the military regime in 2010 and has recently been amended and made current, the report said, quoting sources in Burma's Ministry of Electric Power. International Group of Entrepreneurs is owned by the sons of former Minister of Industry Aung Thaung, who is still a member of Parliament, said the Kachin News Group. The plans, not previously made public, involve developing dams on the Nawchankha River at Laungdin, GawLan, Htonshin Chaung and Kankan, said Eleven Media. There have not been any consultations with communities likely to be dislocated by the dams. The electricity planned to be generated by these projects is equal to one third of Burma's entire present power capacity. It's not clear from the reports whether the electricity would be distributed inside Burma or transmitted to China. Thai Firm 'to Build Second Gas Electricity Plant in Rangoon' Gunkul Engineering of Thailand is building a second small gas-fueled electricity plant in Rangoon, and is reportedly planning to develop more power stations elsewhere in Burma. The firm said it will develop a mixture of natural gas, solar and wind power projects with an electricity generating capacity of 150 megawatts by 2016, The Nation newspaper in Bangkok reported. Gunkul has completed one 25-megawatt gas plant in Rangoon and is planning a second with an unnamed Burmese partner and via its subsidiary Gunkul Myanmar Power (Hlawga) Pte registered in Singapore, the paper quoted executives saying. Investment in other projects amounting to about 100 megawatts, using gas or wind turbines is being studied, chief executive Sopacha Dhumrongpiyawut told The Nation. Surveys of potential development sites are planned in Mon, Karen and Shan states and the Taninthayi region, it said. Japan's Marubeni Corp Eyes Building a Fertilizer Factory in Burma Major Japanese conglomerate Marubeni Corporation is considering building a factory in Burma to produce agricultural fertilizers, a report said. Senior managers of Marubeni have held talks on the factory with various government officials in Naypyidaw, including the Minister for Environmental Conservation and Forestry Win Tun, said Eleven Media citing unnamed government sources. No details of possible locations for the factory or the investment and timeframe are available. Marubeni is one of three large Japanese companies investing in the Thilawa Special Economic Zone on the outskirts of Rangoon. The other two are Mitsubishi Corporation and Sumitomo Corporation. They are working on establishing infrastructure such as roads, sewage, drainage and electricity to cater for factories and warehouses. The first phase of Thilawa is due for completion in 2015. Indian Businesses Look for Partners at Trade Show in Rangoon Dozens of Indian companies are taking part in a trade promotion show in Rangoon. The show, featuring Indian products and services, is being supported by New Delhi's Ministry of Commerce and Industry. "The show will bring together leading Indian brands and small and medium size entrepreneurs on one platform, effectively presenting the India business perspective and leverage business partnerships with Myanmar Industry," said an Indian Embassy statement quoted by Eleven Media. It will focus on agricultural equipment, vehicle components, construction machinery, education and training, energy transmission, financial services, irrigation, metals and minerals, and waste management. Denmark Cancels Multimillion Dollar Debt to 'Aid Burma's Growth' European Union member country Denmark has cancelled debts of US$54 million owed by Burma. The debt is old loans advanced by Denmark years ago to pay for fishery protection vessels, said the Copenhagen Post. "When we forgive debt, it opens up resources that can be invested in a population's health, schools and roads, which they are in desperate need of," said Danish Development Minister Rasmus Helveg Petersen during a visit to Naypyidaw. "[Burma] should no longer be weighed down by old debt while they continue their path towards development and political reforms that will benefit the poor population," he said at a meeting with Burma's President Thein Sein, the paper reported. Burma's Newest Airline Starts Mandalay-Chiang Mai Route Another air service between regional districts of Burma and Thailand is set to start at the end of January. Burma's newest airline, Asian Wings Airways, will fly a weekly service on Wednesdays from Mandalay to Chiang Mai and return from January 29, said Bangkok travel newspaper TTR Weekly. Up to now, Asian Wings has flown only on domestic Burma routes, linking Rangoon with 16 other destinations in the country, said the paper. The Mandalay-Chiang Mai route is to serve "travel demand between the two cities," TTR Weekly said. It will operate until April 30. A number of other small airlines, mostly Thai, already fly between the two cities, including Nok Air the budget line owned by state-owned operator Thai Airways. Nok Air also links Chiang Mai with Bagan and the Thai border town of Mae Sot with Moulmein in Mon State. The post Irrawaddy Business Roundup (January 18, 2014) appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. |
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