The Irrawaddy Magazine |
- Burma Army Chief Meets Armed Group Leaders in Shan State
- DVB Reporter Jailed for 1 Year
- More than a Wedding Gift
- Army Demands Complicate Ceasefire Talks
- Burmese Public Views Govt Reforms, Military Favorably: Poll
- ‘We Need to Change Challenges Into Opportunities’
- Smartphone-Wielding Indonesians Tasked With Ensuring Fair Elections
- Night Vision
- Rare Burmese Ecosystems Protected Only on Paper
- Ships Race to Investigate Signals in MH370 Jet Search
- US Defense Chief, in First, to Visit China’s Aircraft Carrier
- India Kicks Off World’s Biggest Election in Remote Northeast
| Burma Army Chief Meets Armed Group Leaders in Shan State Posted: 07 Apr 2014 05:29 AM PDT  Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing meets with leaders of the United Wa State Army in Lashio, Shan State, on Sunday. (Photo: Senior General Min Aung Hlaing / Facebook) The Burmese military's commander in chief, Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, met with ethnic armed groups in Shan State on Sunday, calling for rebels to lay down their arms, according to ethnic leaders. While a meeting between leaders representing most of Burma's ethnic armed groups and the government's peace negotiating team is ongoing in Rangoon, the commander in chief traveled to the Burma's Army's Northeastern Command in Lashio and held separate meetings with the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and the Shan State Progressive Party (SSPP), the political wing of the Shan State Army-North. The talks at the Myanmar Peace Center in Rangoon, which started Saturday and continued into Monday, are an attempt for the two sides to agree a single text for a nationwide ceasefire agreement—the signing of which has been repeatedly delayed. According to the state-run New Light of Myanmar, Min Aung Hlaing told the two armed groups in Shan State that the army, known as the Tatmadaw, wants peace with Burma's insurgents. The newspaper reported Monday that the army chief met a delegation of the UWSA's leadership, headed by Secretary Pauk Yuri, and an SSPP delegation led by the group's Vice-Chairman Khe Tai. "The Snr-Gen expressed he wishes to cooperate with the ethnic armed groups for the sake of the country, saying all national people are required to safeguard national security in unity," the report said. Maj. Sai La, spokesman for the SSPP confirmed to The Irrawaddy that the army chief assured the group that "the army backs the current peace and democratization process." However, Sai La said, "He [Min Aung Hlaing] said the armed groups should lay down their guns as there should only be a single army for the country." The issue of whether ethnic armed groups should completely disarm or be included in some form of federal army has been highly contentious in the ongoing peace talks. Sai La added that there was no special reason for the SSPP leadership's meeting with the commander in chief. "We did not discuss any issues related to military affairs, nor the [peace] process," said Sai La. Min Aung Hlaing holds regular meetings with those ethnic armed groups, like the SSPP and UWSA, with whom the government has individual ceasefires in place. However, the SSPP did tell Min Aung Hlaing that they disagree with half of the principles in a "six point statement" the army has put forward, setting out its demands of rebel groups in the peace process, Sai La said. The six points demand that ethnic armed groups: have a "genuine wish" for peace; keep any promises they make in the peace process; refrain from exploiting peace agreements; must not be a burden on the people; follow the rule of law in Burma; and respect the Burmese military-drafted 2008 Constitution. Officials with the UWSA, which is Burma's strongest ethnic army, could not be reached to discuss the details of their meeting with Min Aung Hlaing. Min Aung Hlaing also met with 27 militia groups operating in Shan State, according to the New Light of Myanmar. The post Burma Army Chief Meets Armed Group Leaders in Shan State appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| DVB Reporter Jailed for 1 Year Posted: 07 Apr 2014 05:22 AM PDT  Zaw Pe, a video reporter for the Democratic Voice of Burma, with his wife and child. (Photo: DVB) MANDALAY — A court in Magwe Division, central Burma, sentenced a broadcast journalist on Monday to one year in prison for trespassing at an education department office and disrupting the duties of a civil servant there. Zaw Pe, a video reporter for the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), has faced a lawsuit since 2012 after taking footage at the Magwe Division Education Department and attempting to conduct an interview for a report about Japanese-funded scholarships for local students. "He was taking the video recording during office hours. It's outrageous that he is being sentenced for trespassing," said Toe Zaw Latt, bureau chief of DVB. "We have to question the degree of press freedom in the country." The lawsuit was filed by a Magwe township education officer against Zaw Pe as well as Win Myint Hlaing, the father of a student who brought the reporter to the department's compound. DVB, which makes video broadcasts and produces print articles in Burmese and English, on Monday condemned the sentencing of its reporter. "We believe the legal action against Zaw Pe and Win Myint Hlaing is a restriction to media freedom in the country, despite the government officials' pledges of press freedom. We demand their unconditional release," DVB said in a statement. Toe Zaw Latt, the DVB's bureau chief in Rangoon, told The Irrawaddy that his news agency would try to submit an appeal for the review of the sentencing, in light of a recently enacted media law that gives journalists the right to report at government offices during office hours. He said recent legal action against journalists could be a sign of a downturn in press freedom in the country. Four journalists and the chief executive of Rangoon-based Unity journal are now on trial for allegedly violating the Official Secrets Act after reporting on an alleged chemical weapons factory in the country, while a reporter at Eleven Media Group was sentenced to three months in jail in December for defamation and trespass after writing a story about corruption in the judicial system. "These are not good signs for press freedom, if journalists have to face a lawsuit for covering news during office hours. We are worried that these actions might be a sign of restrictions in press freedom again, as it was in the past," said Toe Zaw Latt. The post DVB Reporter Jailed for 1 Year appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Posted: 07 Apr 2014 05:05 AM PDT  Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi sits beside her doctor, Tin Myo Win, at the wedding reception for activist Ko Ko Gyi (pictured behind Tin Myo Win) on Sunday in Rangoon. (Photo: Sai Zaw / The Irrawaddy) Burmese politics these days are increasingly reconciliatory—or at least would appear to be, if you happened to attend a high-profile wedding reception here over the weekend. Renowned Burmese activist Ko Ko Gyi would have never been offered a wedding present from ex-dictator Than Shwe had he married during the days of the former regime, but in a sign of changing times, he received a gift from President Thein Sein after officially marrying his wife a few weeks back. Under the former regime, Ko Ko Gyi did not even have a chance to search for his soul mate, let alone consider wedding gifts, after he was locked up for nearly 20 years for helping to lead the 1988 pro-democracy movement. Soon after his release in January 2012, he lamented the years wasted behind bars. "I am single," he told AFP. "I have never married because there was no time to find a suitable partner or to get married. I lost my youth." The newly wed Ko Ko Gyi, now in his early 50s, survived bitter experiences in prison, as his beloved parents died one after the other while he was still behind bars. In retrospect, his tragic story was typical for thousands of young students who lost their youth inside the regime's notorious prisons. From 1988 to 2011, countless politicians and activists suffered through long separations from their lovers and families. The regime's leaders saw no reason for sympathy. In their eyes, anyone who opposed the government deserved to suffer, physically and emotionally. Due to his dedication to the democracy movement, his eloquent articulation of ideology and his political shrewdness, Ko Ko Gyi has been praised by both sides of the struggle. Many opposition politicians, high-ranking officials of the current government, ethnic leaders and members of civil society groups attended his wedding reception in Rangoon on Sunday, as did diplomats, scholars and celebrities. Among the guests were opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, ethnic Shan leader Hkun Htun Oo and Minister Aung Min from the President's Office.  Kyaw Zwa Moe is editor (English Edition) of Ko Ko Gyi deserves this kind of attention and respect. In fact, people like him who paid such a high price while fighting against the dictatorship deserve more. And it's no wonder why he happily received such a mixture of guests, including government officials, at the reception. Politically speaking, signs of support from Thein Sein and Aung Min indicate just how far the government has come from its once antagonistic attitude toward pro-democracy activists. Such shows of support are not new anymore. Over the past three years, the reformist government has frequently reached out to activists as a sort of PR strategy. When the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society, led by Ko Ko Gyi as well as activist Min Ko Naing, held an event in 2012 to commemorate the 24th anniversary of the pro-democracy movement, senior ministers Soe Thein and Aung Min visited and donated 1 million kyats ($1,000) to the group. But it remains to be seen whether government leaders have genuinely transformed their mentalities for the good of the country, or if they are simply going through the motions to promote their image. Many Burmese people are no longer fooled or satisfied with a PR strategy. Wedding gifts are nice, but what they want is real change. To that end, leading members of the pro-democracy movement continue to play important roles in Burmese politics today. After his release in early 2012, Ko Ko Gyi told me that he saw himself and his colleagues as "catalysts" of reform who could help keep the political transition process on the right track. "We have to admit that the country is going through the motions of reform. But we need to try harder to achieve the essence of reform," he told me during a roundtable discussion last year. "The 2008 Constitution and the 2010 elections were one sided, controlled by the former military regime. Certainly the current political situation is not what we expected. On those grounds, we are trying to make this process inclusive." Ko Ko Gyi said that to truly promote reform, those who took part in the 1988 movement should collaborate and contribute to the rebuilding of the nation from each of their respective fields. "To attain national reconciliation, we need capable men and women who can narrow the gap between the military and civil society and also reduce ethnic conflicts," he added. It is believed that Ko Ko Gyi will contest the 2015 general elections, if not the upcoming by-elections, for a seat in Parliament. Many observers have said that beyond Suu Kyi, who is getting older and lacks a second line of leaders in her National League for Democracy (NLD) party, he and his colleagues are best suited to steer the country's political landscape. In an interview with The Irrawaddy while Ko Ko Gyi was still in jail, NLD patron Tin Oo said, "In light of their personal sacrifices and political history, there is every possibility that student leaders like Ko Ko Gyi will become the country's national leaders." The post More than a Wedding Gift appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Army Demands Complicate Ceasefire Talks Posted: 07 Apr 2014 04:39 AM PDT  Government and military leaders (right) shake hands with ethnic leaders at the start of nationwide ceasefire talks in Rangoon this weekend. (Photo: Hein Htet / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Since Saturday, senior government officials, military commanders and ethnic leaders have held the first discussions on jointly drafting a single text for a nationwide ceasefire accord, which would draw from ethnic groups' ceasefire proposal and from the government's proposal. But as discussions entered into a third day on Monday, it became clear that the initial plan to merge these two different proposals has been complicated by demands by the Burma Army for the incorporation of its own six-point statement into any future nationwide ceasefire deal, ethnic leaders said. The statement repeats demands the army has made earlier, such as that all ethnic armed groups come under central command of the military and that all parties respect the 2008 Constitution—a military-drafted charter that is viewed as undemocratic and puts ethnic regions under centralized authority of the government in Naypyidaw. Nai Hong Sar, who heads the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT) which represents 16 rebel armed groups, said the ethnic groups found that the initial plan to draft a single ceasefire text from the NCCT's proposal and the proposal of Minister Aung Min's peace negotiation team had become more difficult due to the military's demands. Nai Hong Sar said he believed that President Thein Sein's team, led by Aung Min, was carrying out a joint strategy with Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing's military officers towards the ethnic groups. "They brought two drafts. I found that they have a strategy by doing this. One strategy from President Thein Sein is to engage as much as they can with ethnic armed groups, while the side of Min Aung Hlaing uses his troops and threatens our ethnic groups to sign this ceasefire agreement," he said. "[But] we cannot accept that our armies will come under their command," Nai Hong Sar added. About 200 delegation members joined the discussions at the government-affiliated Myanmar Peace Center (MPC) in Rangoon, which will carry on for a fourth day on Tuesday. Previously, NCCT members had said they were optimistic about the new plan to draw a single ceasefire text from the alliance's 30-page proposal and that of Minister Aung Min. A leading NCCT member said top military commanders were becoming directly involved in the talks and had indicated willingness to sign a nationwide ceasefire agreement before August 1. The government advisors at the MPC have said they were confident a ceasefire could be signed before the start of the Water Festival on April 13. On Saturday evening, more than a dozen Burma Army generals, including Lt-Gen Myint Soe who heads the Bureau of Special Operations that oversees military operations in conflict-torn Kachin State, attended the negotiations. Lt-Gen Thein Htay, who has been placed on a United States government blacklist for allegations of arms dealing with North Korea, was also at the meeting. There are about six ethnic armed groups that are not represented in the NCCT, most important among them, the Shan State Army-South, the heavily-armed United Wa State Party (UWSA) and its smaller ally, the National Democratic Alliance Army. UWSA members were in attendance as observers during the talks at the MPC. In breaks in the negotiations, ethnic leaders spoke to reporters, but military commanders shunned the assembled media. Ethnic leaders said despite complications with the ongoing ceasefire talks at the MPC, they remained optimistic that some progress could be made towards drafting a nationwide ceasefire during this round of talks. "President Thein Sein and Gen Min Aung Hlaing have said that they will change policy if that is required for reaching a peace agreement. I do not think the army will keep its stand on these six points [position]. They will change some points through negotiation. From our side, we will try to negotiate about this," said Gen Gun Maw, the deputy army chief of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). The KIA and the Ta'aung National Liberation Army (TNLA) are members of the NCCT, but have not signed a bilateral ceasefire agreement with Naypyidaw—unlike the other 14 members of the ethnic alliance. "There are more things to be discussed because they brought their army six-point position," said Mai Aie Phone, a senior leader with the TNLA. Gun Maw said much of the current discussions focused on how the conflict areas could be managed after a nationwide ceasefire is signed. A ceasefire would be followed by the start of a political dialogue between the government, army and ethnic groups. This dialogue is expected to take years and as the sides try to resolve complicated political issues such as the ethnics' long-standing demands for cultural rights, political autonomy under a federal union and control over natural resources in ethnic areas. Ethnic representatives have said they want guarantees that they can administer their own areas while this dialogue is carried out. "We are discussing at meeting mainly about [the period] after we have a ceasefire agreement," said Gun Maw. "We do not think just after signing a ceasefire agreement, our area will have peace. There are many things to do in order to have peace in our area. If we could reach an agreement soon, that will be great. If not, this will take more time," the KIA deputy leader said. The post Army Demands Complicate Ceasefire Talks appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Burmese Public Views Govt Reforms, Military Favorably: Poll Posted: 07 Apr 2014 04:13 AM PDT  Supporters of the National League for Democracy (NLD) party attend a public talk on amending the Constitution, in Rangoon on Nov. 10, 2013. (Photo: Reuters / Soe Zeya Tun) RANGOON — An opinion poll by a US government-backed pro-democracy institute has found that members of the Burmese public largely believe their country is "heading in the right direction" three years after President Thein Sein undertook an ambitious reform program. Eighty-eight percent of respondents indicated that they thought the country was on the right track, while 6 percent thought Burma was headed in the wrong direction, according to a poll of 3,000 people conducted by the International Republican Institute (IRI), a Washington-based organization that receives funding from the US government. The IRI results seem to indicate that public sentiment runs counter to views voiced by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who last year criticized the government for providing "no tangible changes" in Burma, which was ruled for five decades by a military dictatorship that ceded power in 2011. That military, condemned for decades by the West for a long history of human rights abuses perpetrated against its own people, scored higher in a favorability assessment than any other institution in Burma, according to the poll released late last week. Eighty-four percent of respondents said they viewed the military favorably or very favorably, beating out the ruling coalition (74%), the opposition (70%) and the courts (62%), among others. Respondents said the country had made progress on democratization and women's rights, but lost ground in dealing with ethnic and sectarian tensions. Fifty-seven percent of survey takers said ethnic violence in Burma had increased from a year ago. The poll also shed light on where the public stands ahead of elections slated for next year that will largely pit the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) against Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD). Many anticipate that the opposition NLD will win big—an expectation based in part on the party's trouncing of the USDP in 2012 by-elections—but the IRI poll indicated that on most governance matters, the USDP is considered the slightly more competent party. The USDP was seen as more capable of ending ethnic conflict, improving the economy, strengthening the nation and improving security. The country's main opposition party was only viewed as more adept at improving education, by 41 percent of respondents compared with 37 percent for the USDP. The NLD fared better in questions related to which party was seen as representing the interests of women, poor people and democratic principles. Regarding constitutional reform, which many democracy advocates both inside Burma and outside the country see as a critical litmus test for the reformist government, 64 percent of respondents said they supported a change to Article 59(f), a controversial provision that bars Suu Kyi from running for president because she married a foreigner and has two foreign passport-holding sons. Twenty-one percent said they opposed such a change. As ethnic groups continue to call for a federal political system that devolves power to state and divisional governments, the survey finds that Burmese people on the whole are divided on the issue. Asked whether the country should decentralize its governance structure, 57 percent said they preferred a centralized system, while 35 percent supported more autonomy for states and divisions. Burma's current economic situation received favorable assessments, with 85 percent of respondents gauging the economy as good or very good. Growing 6.5 percent last year, and predicted by the government to expand 9.1 percent in 2014, Burma's economy is one of the region's fastest growing, but the country is also one of Southeast Asia's most impoverished. Despite the overall economic optimism, 96 percent of respondents said low income was a very or somewhat serious issue, and nearly as many people cited unemployment as similarly problematic. Poverty reduction received the worst marks among a list of performance areas that the public was asked to evaluate the government on. A section of the poll on media usage reflects the significant work yet to be done in providing the country with modern telecommunications access. Nearly 60 percent of respondents said their household did not own a mobile phone, and 73 percent said they "never" used the Internet, compared with only 2 percent who said they were online every day. Two foreign telecommunications companies, Ooredoo and Telenor, have said they intend to make significant inroads in connecting the populace by the end of this year, after receiving licenses in January to set up mobile networks in Burma. The survey was taken from late December to early February of this year, across all 14 of Burma's states and divisions. The IRI said the poll included the views of "a national representative sample of voting age adults," roughly in proportion to the estimated ethnic, religious and socioeconomic makeup of the country. But at least one political analyst in Burma cast doubts on the validity of the poll, saying the results were "rubbish" and represented a form of "indirect lobbying" by the IRI for the Burmese government. "The IRI is funded by the United States government, and the United States government would like to show that their engagement with the Burmese government is very successful, that they are gaining positive momentum," said Yan Myo Thein, a political commentator based in Rangoon. "All these figures and the data are only rubbish." For its part, the IRI states that the opinion research was "compiled in accordance with international standards for market and social research methodologies." "At the midrange the survey has a confidence interval of plus and minus two percent with a confidence level of 95 percent," according to the report, which is based on field work conducted by the Myanmar Survey Research group under the supervision of the IRI. The post Burmese Public Views Govt Reforms, Military Favorably: Poll appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| ‘We Need to Change Challenges Into Opportunities’ Posted: 07 Apr 2014 03:03 AM PDT  Karen State Chief Zaw Min speaks to The Irrawaddy in Myawaddy, Karen State, last week. (Photo: Kyw Hsu Mon / The Irrawaddy) MYAWADDY, Karen State — This border town, opposite Mae Sot in Thailand, was opened up to tourists in November and trade coming across the border is ramping up. The town is the busiest crossing on the Burmese-Thai border, and is expected to become a major gateway when the new Asian Highway is completed and trade tariffs are dropped across the region under the Asean Economic Community—which is expected to come into force at the end of 2015. Last week, the Karen State government hosted a forum on the challenges posed by the regional trade community—which also guarantees the free movement of skilled labor. The Irrawaddy's Kyaw Hsu Mon spoke with Karen State Chief Minister Zaw Min about the region's future. Question: Would you say the Myawaddy trading zone is ready to face the changes that the AEC will bring? Answer: Nothing is complete yet, so we need to do a lot of things for the AEC next year. Q: Can you go into more detail about what challenges the AEC will bring to Karen State? A: Knowledge about AEC is weak here. Actually opportunities are starting now in the Asean free trade area. But we still don't know what the opportunities are and how to take them. Challenges should not be something to worry about—we need to change challenges into opportunities. That's why we organized an AEC forum [last week] for local people. If we know about the latest technology, knowledge and processes, we can change them from challenges to opportunities. If you ask me are we ready or not: we can say it's a no. We still need to prepare many things. But we are not that late, we can do it like other countries. Q: What kind of support does the Karen State government give to local businesspeople to help them with these challenges? A: As government support to local people ahead of the AEC, we are decreasing taxes for them and easing the limits on exporting and importing products. We provide training to businesspeople to understand the trading process here. To improve transportation, we have road construction funded by Japanese ODA [official development assistance]. The Asian Highway is being constructed along the old roads, and will be an important route in the AEC through Karen State. It's an Asean-standard highway. Also, for education, we are connecting with a higher education group. The Karen State government is also opening vocational training for local residents. It will include tourism training, industrial training and training in traditional culture industries such as Gyatkhoke [traditional tailoring] to promote the state's culture. Q: Have there been any problems since the Myawaddy border crossing was opened to tourists? There are a lot of visitors coming across the border now. A: Yes you are right. There are some problems in border areas for tourists. In the past, we only allowed a one-day pass for tourists. Now, we are allowing them to visit any place across the border, and they can leave from any crossing. Although there is a computerized system at the border gate, the system is incomplete. Trade is also similar to that. We need a better computerized system. Now, we're just preparing for this. If we can upgrade system, trading will be easier. Then to investigate trucks, we need X-ray machines. But we do not have enough X-ray machines at the border crossings. So we need to take a lot of time to check products. Now we're preparing to set up X-ray machines at the crossings. The post 'We Need to Change Challenges Into Opportunities' appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Smartphone-Wielding Indonesians Tasked With Ensuring Fair Elections Posted: 07 Apr 2014 02:54 AM PDT  vendor sells balloons outside Gelora Bung Karno Stadium in Jakarta, where political activists gathered on April 5 for the last day of campaigning ahead of Indonesian elections slated for April 9. (Photo: Saw Yan Naing / The Irrawaddy) JAKARTA — Polling watchdogs in Indonesia have deployed an electronic application called Mata Massa that allows ordinary citizens to report election-related violations through their smartphones, with organizers having received more than 1,500 complaints ahead of elections due to take place on Wednesday. Ratna Ariyanti, board member of the Mata Massa steering committee, told The Irrawaddy that the aim of the app was to help in monitoring election-related violations in Indonesia, such as vote-buying or other deviations from accepted practice during the election. "Mata Massa means 'eyes of the people.' We deployed 200 key persons to monitor the election campaigns and report about election-related violations. We so far have received 1,509 reports and 1,390 of them are verified," she told The Irrawaddy. Introduced by the Jakarta-based Aliansi Jurnalis Independen (AJI), also known as the Alliance of Independent Journalists, Mata Massa was first conceived to monitor journalists in November 2013. "We first launched the application to monitor reports of whether they received bribes or were being biased in reporting. But, as the election is approaching, we thought it might be good to also monitor the election using this technology," said Ariyanti, who is also a member of the AJI. "We got positive responses from tech-savvy citizens. The online application is easy. You can download it through your smartphones and report from anywhere if you see violations. And we also encourage people to send election violation reports by phone text messages if they find difficulties," she added. Mata Massa would seem particularly well-suited to Indonesia, a country whose citizens are wired to their mobile phones. Some Indonesians carry two to three handheld devices, and the number of mobile phones in use reportedly exceeds the country's population count. "Most people here have more than one phone each. We estimate that more than 270 million mobile phones are being used. It is higher than the total population [240 million] in the country," said Zulfiani Lubis, chief editor of the Jakarta-based TV station ANTV. Members of the AJI say they have been receiving election violation repots since January of this year, with reports submitted via BlackBerrys, iPhones and other smartphones. The 200 election observers deployed by the AJI are university students, journalists and NGO workers. According to the AJI, tech-savvy average citizens are also sending election-related violations to the alliance. Umar Idris, chairman of the AJI, told the Jakarta Post, an English-language newspaper in the Indonesian capital, that most complaints his organization has received were related to administrative violations, such as campaign materials posted in inappropriate places. Vote-buying allegations have also been reported. Indonesia's legislative elections will be held on Wednesday, followed by a presidential election in July. An estimate 200,000 candidates will contest more than 19,000 open slots in the April 9 legislative elections. The hot presidential candidate at the moment is Joko Widodo, the governor of Jakarta. Popular among the grassroots for his everyman image and better known as "Jokowi," the governor is expected to compete to succeed Indonesia's current president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in a poll slated for July 9. Yudhoyono's term in office will officially end in October. The Irrawaddy reporter Saw Yan Naing is a fellow of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), and this article is published under a SEAPA-sponsored program covering the 2014 Indonesian elections. The post Smartphone-Wielding Indonesians Tasked With Ensuring Fair Elections appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Posted: 06 Apr 2014 10:01 PM PDT  The artist Kyee Myinnt Saw at his Yangon home. YANGON — Kyee Myintt Saw can still remember the moment his eyes first opened to the beauty of the night. It was a late December evening 16 years ago, and as he was walking down the busy streets of Yangon's Chinatown, he was bewitched by the lights illuminating the area, especially from the roadside shops and neon signs. That's when he realized: The night can be painted. "I instantly fell in love with those lights with the dark background and felt inspired to make this my subject. How strange it is that I hadn't been aware of it for 59 years," said the now 75-year-old artist. As a result of that experience, he soon started putting the night on canvas. In 1999, after 26 years of painting, he held his first solo show, "Yangon Nights," which was well-received by both the gallery-going public and fellow painters. Ever since, his name has been virtually synonymous with night scenes. "So far, I have painted nearly 200 canvases on the night, but I'm still not tired of it," he said recently at his studio in Yangon. On an easel nearby, his latest night painting had just received its final touches. Also famous for his paintings of marketplaces and nudes, Kyee Myintt Saw is admired by art lovers both at home and abroad for the sensitivity of his style and his mastery of the painting knife, which he uses to produce distinctive impasto artworks.
"We take our hats off to him for his efforts to bring a fresh perspective to familiar scenes," said Pe Nyunt Wai, another prominent contemporary Myanmar painter who is also a friend of Kyee Myintt Saw. "He has a unique style that gives his paintings a very distinctive quality." MyintSoe of the Summit Art Gallery, who has shown Kyee Myintt Saw's paintings at exhibitions in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea, said the veteran painter's work seems to hold a special attraction for international collectors. "Few artists paint night scenes, but he does it perfectly. He can catch reflections as well as the vibrancy of the scene he portrays with his thick paint strokes," said the gallery owner, who is also a painter. For Kyee Myintt Saw, who fell in love with painting when he was still a primary school student, success hasn't come easy. Trained as a mathematician, he is entirely self-taught as a painter, learning from books and discussions with fellow artists. "I feel very small whenever I meet well-trained painters, as I don't have any formal training myself," said the retired Yangon Institute of Economics lecturer, who started painting seriously when he was a tutor in 1970s. He said he admires the French colorist Henri Matisse and the post-impressionist painter Paul Cezanne for their composition, color relations and brushstrokes. As a low-paid university teacher and struggling artist, times were often hard. Sometimes, he said, he had to whitewash his older paintings so he could paint over them, because he couldn't afford to buy a new canvas. In his first two decades as a painter, he joined nearly 60 art exhibitions but sold only a handful of paintings. "At that time I had no ambition to become successful someday. I did it simply because I wanted to. When I painted, all my worries were gone. Getting famous is another matter altogether," he explained. "But if you are devoted to doing something, someday your efforts will be rewarded. That's what I learned after all these years," said the artist, who first started making a name for himself with some of his market paintings that were exhibited shortly before his retirement as a lecturer in 1998. Although he is best known for his night scenes and markets, he insists that they are not the main subjects of his work. "Light is my true subject. Light, both artificial and natural, and the resulting shadows constantly inspire my imagination. All the rest are just supporting elements." Regarding his technique, he admits that he sometimes applies paint almost half an inch thick to enhance the highlights of his paintings. "Sometimes they're so vivid that viewers might find them a bit dazzling," he said with a laugh. Why is he so obsessed with light? "One thing I'm sure of is that I paint light very affectionately. But I don't know whether I've found it or if am still searching for it," he said Currently, Kyee Myintt Saw is busy with preparations for his seventh solo show in Yangon to celebrate his 75th birthday in April. Titled "I'm the night, I'm the light," the forthcoming exhibition will feature 11 new paintings that he worked on from 2012 until this year, despite his poor health caused by decades of smoking. "My doctor has ordered me to switch from oil to acrylic, as the smell of oil paint is not good for my health," said the artist, who has used oil as his medium of choice for most of his life, but now uses acrylic because, he says, he simply can't stop painting. "No one asks me to do this. It is the delight I feel when I'm doing my work that keeps me going," he said. But this delight goes deeper than simple worldly pleasure. "After all these years of devotion, I have come to realize that it is my destiny to be an artist," he said, adding that painting has brought him greater peace of mind than anything else in his life. "There's no better companion than art. Not my wife, not my children and not my possessions," he said. "It's art that enables me to survive the hardships of life." Kyee Myintt Saw's "I'm the night, I'm the light" will be open to the public at Lokanat Art Gallery in Yangon from April 23 to 27. This article first appeared in the April 2014 print edition of The Irrawaddy magazine. The post Night Vision appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Rare Burmese Ecosystems Protected Only on Paper Posted: 06 Apr 2014 10:56 PM PDT  An elephant pulls a teak log in a logging camp in Pinlebu Township, Sagaing Divison. Logging and other damaging practices are rampant in Burma's protected areas. (Photo: Reuters) LAMPI ISLAND, Tenasserim Division — Off a remote, glimmering beach backed by a lush tropical forest, Julia Tedesco skims the crystalline waters with mask and fins, looking for coral and fish life. "There is almost nothing left down there," the environmental project manager says, wading toward a sign planted on the shore reading "Lampi National Park." Some 50 meters behind it, secreted among the tangled growth, lies the trunk of an illegally felled tree. Nearby, a trap has been set to snare mouse deer. And just across the island, within park boundaries, the beach and sea are strewn with plastic, bottles and other human waste from villagers. The perilous state of Lampi, Burma's only marine park, is not unique. Though the country's 43 protected areas are among Asia's greatest bastions of biodiversity, encompassing snow-capped Himalayan peaks, dense jungles and mangrove swamps, they are to a large degree protected in name alone. Park land has been logged, poached, dammed and converted to plantations as Burma revs up its economic engines and opens up to foreign investment after decades of isolation. Of the protected areas, only half have even partial biodiversity surveys and management plans. At least 17 are described as "paper parks"—officially gazetted but basically uncared for—in a comprehensive survey funded by the European Union. So rangers rarely see a tiger in the 21,891-square-kilometer (8,452-square-mile) Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve. It's the world's largest protected area for the big cats, but has been overrun by poachers supplying animal parts for traditional medicines in nearby China. And Burma's first nature reserve, the Pidaung Wildlife Sanctuary set up in 1918, has been "totally poached out and should be degazetted," says Tony Lynam, a field biologist for the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society. Inaugurated in 1996, Lampi fit squarely into the paper park category until possibly last year, when six rangers from the Forestry Department were finally assigned to protect this 79-square mile (204-square-kilometer) marine gem. It had been, and still largely remains, a do-as-you-please place. Local residents and staffers with Italian Instituto Oikos, the group Tedesco works for, say dynamite fishing persists even within earshot of the ranger station. They say Thai and Burmese trawlers encroach into no-fishing areas, and that natural forest on one park island, Bocho, is being converted to rubber, encouraged by government policy. Without any management plan in place, four settlements in the park and a fifth within a proposed buffer zone have grown dramatically and now total about 3,000 people, many of them Burmese migrants from the mainland. Blast fishing has become so intense that the Burma navy sent four vessels to the area in January in an attempt to curb it. Despite the ongoing depredations, the park retains an incredible variety of natural life, according to a report by Oikos and the Burmese non-government group BANCA. Its evergreen forests harbor 195 plant species, including trees soaring as high as 30 meters (98 feet), and many of the park's 228 bird species. Sea life ranges from dugongs—large mammals similar to manatees—to 73 different kinds of seaweed. Nineteen mammal species, seven of them globally threatened, are at home here, including macaques seen on rocky headlands hunting for some of the 42 crab species. There's even a wild elephant, lone survivor from a herd earlier transported from the mainland. These wonders have sparked a recent push by tourism developers into the once isolated Mergui Archipelago where Lampi is embedded amid some 800 stunning, mostly uninhabited islands. Tedesco says that a Singapore company has already been granted permission to build a hotel within the park "even before a management plan is in place." She says the onset of possible mass tourism carries risk, but also potential benefits. Pressure from scuba diving outfits and divers was largely responsible for halting blast fishing in many marine areas of neighboring Thailand, where some parks have curbed illegal activities by providing tourist-related income to the local culprits who once carried them out. Tedesco says the Moken, the sea nomads who have inhabited the Mergui Archipelago for centuries, would make ideal nature guides. "We need community participation to preserve the parks," says Naing Thaw, director of Burma's Forestry Department. He says the government intends to expand the protected areas from 5.6 percent of the country to 10 percent by 2020, adding eight more reserves. But he says authorities face "material, human resources and financial constraints" in turning demarcated areas into viable havens for wildlife and natural habitat. Plans are underway for a major infusion of funds from foreign donors to focus on upgrading more than half a dozen parks. Inland wetlands, estuaries and marine areas, which contain Southeast Asia's largest remaining coral reefs and some of the world's most important biodiversity, and underrepresented in Burma 's parks, and environmentalists are pushing more of them to be protected. Before the civilian government took over, foreign conservation funding amounted to roughly US$1 million a year. It is expected to reach up to $3 million in 2014 and jump to more than $20 million with major players like Norway and the UN Development Program coming in. "The most critical intervention is to expand the marine protected area to protect it not only from tourism but more serious impacts such as bottom trawling and blast fishing before emerging vested interests render the designation of marine protected areas impossible," says Frank Momberg, based in the country for Flora and Fauna International. Last month, the group said it hoped the formation of a new park in Kachin State would help save a primate species discovered by scientists just four years ago. At most, 330 snub-nosed monkeys survive in the northern frontier area, and they are threatened by illegal logging. Foreign experts working with Burmese are impressed by the high level of dedication and professionalism by some in the government, especially given the powerful forces they must challenge to guard depredation—generals, government cronies, Thai and Chinese dam builders. Lynam, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, works with elephant protection in several parks and says patrols he has accompanied have caught villagers hauling timber out of parks who confessed to working for the local police and forest rangers. Even some Buddhist monks are involved, he says, with logs "donated" by illegal loggers who split the profits with log-laundering monasteries. He sees the accelerating infusion of foreign funding for the parks, and the general environment, as a two-edged sword. "As the resources are made available, I think you are going to see some very good parks emerging in five to 10 years. There's lots of hope," he says. "But foreign money can also help empower the powerful guys who abet corruption. I've seen it in other countries." Lynam says a lot of foreign money intended for conservation will be "going through the system and into somebody's handbag, but even if a fraction of it is used it will be a great help." A number of international environmental groups have already set up operations and more are eager to come in. "We know the experiences of other countries that have so-called opened up, like Vietnam, where most of the mangrove swamps were lost in a decade. We can see the dangers of what could also be lost in Myanmar in the next 10 years or so," says Robert Mather, Southeast Asian head of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. "It's a moment in time with golden opportunities to save something that is still out there." Associated Press writer Aye Aye Win contributed to this report from Rangoon. The post Rare Burmese Ecosystems Protected Only on Paper appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Ships Race to Investigate Signals in MH370 Jet Search Posted: 06 Apr 2014 10:45 PM PDT  A Royal Australian Air Force Orion aircraft, back, prepares to take off from a base near Perth on April 6, 2014. (Photo: Reuters / Richard Polden) PERTH, Australia — A British navy ship with sophisticated sound-locating equipment arrived Monday in a patch of the southern Indian Ocean to determine whether underwater sounds picked up by a Chinese ship crew using a hand-held device came from the missing Malaysia Airlines black boxes. Britain reported the HMS Echo had arrived in the new area. It will be in a race against time to determine what the noises are, because the battery-powered pingers that emit sounds from the black boxes are on the verge of dying out. Meanwhile, the Australian navy ship Ocean Shield, which is carrying high-tech sound detectors from the US Navy, was investigating a sound it picked up in another area about 555 kilometers (345 miles) away. Australian authorities said once it had finished that investigation, it would head the new area to help the HMS Echo. Searchers on Monday were anticipating good weather, with nine military planes, three civilian planes and a total of 14 ships expected to search for Flight 370, which vanished a month ago. Hopes of finding the plane were given a boost after a Chinese ship picked up an electronic pulsing signal on Friday and again Saturday. The Ocean Shield detected a third signal in the different area Sunday, the head of the multinational search said. The two black boxes contain flight data and cockpit voice recordings that could solve one of the most baffling mysteries in modern aviation: who or what caused Flight 370 to veer radically off course and vanish March 8 while traveling from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing with 239 people on board. But there were questions about whether any of the sounds were the breakthrough that searchers are desperately seeking or just another dead end in a hunt seemingly full of them, with experts expressing doubt that the equipment aboard the Chinese ship was capable of picking up signals from the black boxes. "This is an important and encouraging lead, but one which I urge you to treat carefully," said retired Australian Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who is coordinating the search out of Perth, Australia. He warned that the sounds were "fleeting, fleeting acoustic events," not the more extended transmissions that would be expected. "We are dealing with very deep water. We are dealing with an environment where sometimes you can get false indications," Houston said. "There are lots of noises in the ocean, and sometimes the acoustic equipment can rebound, echo if you like." But time is running out to find the voice and data recorders. The devices emit "pings" so they can be more easily found, but the batteries last only about a month. China's official Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday that the patrol vessel Haixun 01 detected a "pulse signal" Friday at 37.5 kilohertz—the same frequency used by the airliner's black boxes. Houston confirmed the report and said the Haixun 01 detected a signal again on Saturday within 2 kilometers (1.4 miles) of the original signal, for 90 seconds. He said China also reported seeing floating white objects in the area. The crew of the Chinese ship reportedly picked up the signals using a sonar device called a hydrophone dangled over the side of a small boat—something experts said was technically possible but extremely unlikely. The equipment aboard the British and Australian ships is dragged slowly behind each vessel over long distances and is considered far more sophisticated. Footage on China's state-run CCTV showed crew members poking into the water a device shaped like a large soup can attached to a pole. It was connected by cords to electronic equipment in a padded suitcase. "If the Chinese have discovered this, they have found a new way of finding a needle in a haystack," said aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas, editor in chief of AirlineRatings.com. "Because this is amazing. And if it proves to be correct, it's an extraordinarily lucky break." There are many clicks, buzzes and other sounds in the ocean from animals, but the 37.5 kHz pulse was selected for underwater locator beacons because there is nothing else in the sea that naturally makes that sound, said William Waldock, an expert on search and rescue who teaches accident investigation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona. A senior Malaysian government official said Sunday that investigators have determined that Flight 370 skirted Indonesian airspace as it flew to the southern Indian Ocean. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said Indonesian authorities confirmed that the plane did not show up on their military radar. The plane could have deliberately flown around Indonesian airspace to avoid detection, or may have coincidentally traveled out of radar range, he said. Houston, the search coordinator, said there had been a correction to satellite data that investigators have been using to calculate the plane's flight path. As a result, starting on Monday, the southern section of the current search zone will be given higher priority than the northern part. The signals detected by the Chinese ship were in the southern section, Houston said. The post Ships Race to Investigate Signals in MH370 Jet Search appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| US Defense Chief, in First, to Visit China’s Aircraft Carrier Posted: 06 Apr 2014 10:40 PM PDT  Hagel speaks to service members and civilian employees on his first day in his new post at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo: Reuters) TOKYO — U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will visit China’s sole aircraft carrier when he arrives in the country on Monday, a U.S. official said, in an unprecedented opening by Beijing to a potent symbol of its military buildup. The official believed Hagel would be the first official visitor from outside China to be allowed on board the Liaoning, although that could not be immediately confirmed. China’s Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment although Chinese state television noted Hagel would visit the ship. Chinese security experts said Beijing could be trying to quell U.S. criticism that it was not transparent about its military modernization. Hagel’s planned carrier visit, which will come at the start of his three-day trip to China, was quietly approved by Beijing at Washington’s request, the U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The 60,000-tonne Liaoning, a Soviet-era vessel bought from Ukraine in 1998 and re-fitted in a Chinese shipyard, is seen as a symbol of Beijing’s growing naval power and ambition for greater global influence. The carrier has yet to become fully operational, however, and military experts say it could be decades before China catches up to the far superior and larger U.S. carriers – if ever. Hagel will fly to China’s port city of Qingdao after a trip to Japan, and then head to a Chinese naval base. While there, he will visit the Liaoning, the U.S. official said. Reporters traveling with Hagel were not expected to accompany him on the vessel, in what would also be a rare visit to a sensitive Chinese military site. "It’s a sign of openness, of sincerity, that China has nothing to hide and wants to improve military relations with the United States," said Ni Lexiong, a naval expert at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law. "It will also be a good opportunity for the Americans to see the difference between the Liaoning and their aircraft carriers," Ni said, referring to the technological gulf between the two countries. China Gets Regular Access Chinese military brass are no strangers to U.S. warships, including aircraft carriers. Officers from the People’s Liberation Army are routinely flown to U.S. aircraft carriers en route to occasional port stops in Hong Kong, according to U.S. military officials. Their U.S. counterparts provide tours of the ship and flight deck during operations – efforts U.S. diplomats say are geared to nudging China towards greater transparency about its own capabilities. Ian Storey, a Singapore-based regional security expert, said Hagel’s visit would be "long on symbolism but short on actual operational capabilities". "By showing him a vessel that was built in Ukraine in the 1980s and remains only a training platform that is still not fully operational, the Chinese will be keeping him away from their more sensitive capabilities, such as their missile programs or submarine fleets," said Storey, of Singapore’s Institute of South East Asian Studies. China is building new submarines, surface ships and anti-ship ballistic missiles, and has tested emerging technology aimed at destroying missiles in mid-air. The disclosure of the carrier visit came a day after Hagel said he would use his first trip to China as defense secretary to press Beijing to use its "great power" wisely and respect its neighbors, who have been put on edge by the country’s growing assertiveness in Asia’s disputed waters. "Coercion, intimidation is a very deadly thing that leads only to conflict," he said at a news conference on Sunday at Japan’s defense ministry. China claims 90 percent of the 3.5 million sq km (1.35 million sq mile) South China Sea, which is believed to be rich in oil and gas. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan all claim parts of those waters. Beijing has a separate dispute with Tokyo in the East China Sea over uninhabited islets that are administered by Japan. China’s decision in November to declare an air defense identification zone in the area that includes those islands sparked protests from the United States, Japan and South Korea. Risk of a Mishap Hagel, in his talks in Japan over the weekend and last week at a gathering of Southeast Asian defense chiefs in Hawaii, has sought to reassure allies of the U.S. security commitment to the region and has promised frank discussions in Beijing. China, in turn, has repeatedly urged the United States not to take sides in any of these disputes, and has watched warily as Washington moves to strengthen its military alliances in the region, especially with Tokyo and Manila, as part of its strategic "pivot" toward Asia. "Both sides are aware of the potential for military clashes, and the need to increase understanding and manage and reduce the risks, so this visit is a positive sign," said Zhu Feng, director of the International Security Program at Peking University. The risks of a mishap were highlighted in December when the American guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens had to take evasive action in the South China Sea to avoid hitting a Chinese warship operating in support of the Liaoning. The Chinese carrier is the first step in what state media and some military experts believe will be China’s deployment of several locally built carriers by 2020. While President Xi Jinping recently urged China’s military leadership to work faster to get the carrier combat-ready, some Chinese analysts and parts of the state media appear keen to dampen expectations about the Liaoning, which went on its first training mission into the South China Sea late last year. The Liaoning would serve as a training platform rather than a fighting weapon, some Chinese experts have said. Considerable doubt also remains over when it will be fully operational. Earlier estimates of two or three years had grown rubbery, with some hints internally that it could stretch to a decade, some experts say. The post US Defense Chief, in First, to Visit China’s Aircraft Carrier appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| India Kicks Off World’s Biggest Election in Remote Northeast Posted: 06 Apr 2014 10:28 PM PDT  A security personnel stands guard as people line up to cast their vote outside a polling station in Nakhrai village in Tinsukia district in the northeastern Indian state of Assam April 7, 2014. (Photo: Reuters) DIBRUGARGH, India — The first Indians cast their votes in the world's biggest election on Monday with Hindu nationalist opposition candidate Narendra Modi seen holding a strong lead on promises of economic revival and jobs but likely to fall short of a majority. Some 815 million people are registered to vote over the next five weeks as the election spreads out in stages from two small states near Burma to include northern Himalayan plateaus, western deserts and the tropical south, before ending in the densely-populated northern plains. Results are due on May 16. Elderly women in saris and young men in jeans and polo shirts lined up outside a dilapidated sports centre before voting started on a cool morning in Debrugarh, a river town in the tea growing Assam, one of two states to vote on Monday. "We need a change, someone who will come and change the whole scenario," said handbag shop manager Ashim Sarkar, 35, lining up soon after voting started at 7 am. During high-octane campaigning at well attended rallies the length and breadth of India, Modi has been promising just that change—to jumpstart a flagging economy and sweep out the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has ruled India for most of the period since independence in 1947. Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and allies are forecast to win the biggest chunk of the 543 parliamentary seats up for grabs, but fall shy of a majority, according to a survey released this week by respected Indian pollsters CSDS. In such a situation, a coalition government led by the BJP is seen as the most likely outcome. An efficient administrator, Modi is loved by big business in a country tangled in red tape. But he is tainted by accusations that he failed to stop or even encouraged anti-Muslim riots in 2002 in the state of Gujarat, where he is chief minister. At least 1,000 people died in the violence, most of them Muslims. Modi has denied the charges and a Supreme Court inquiry found no evidence to prosecute him. Defeat for Congress Surveys show a resounding defeat awaits the ruling Congress party, led by Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul, after the longest economic slowdown since the 1980s put the brakes on development and job creation in a country where half of the population is under 25 years of age. India's remote northeast, a lush but underdeveloped border region of eight states home to just 27.4 million voters, is a test case for the appeal of Modi's promises to fill India with new highways and fast trains and to take a tough line on frontier disputes with neighbors. China claims sections of the region. "Young people can't find good work here – the jobs available are just about picking tea leaves," said Jyotirmoy Sharma, a manager at a tea factory who lives in Lahoal village near Dibrugarh. He voted for the ruling Congress party in India's last two national elections in 2004 and 2009 but will switch to Modi this time. Northeastern India is one of the few remaining strongholds for Congress. The CSDS poll found that almost half of voters in Assam, who have one of the country's lowest per capita incomes and often still rely on the centre-left Congress' welfare schemes, are set to support the party. Among residents working as casual tea pickers on plantations around Dibrugarh, many had not heard of Modi. The debate in New Delhi is focused on whether Modi can win enough seats to secure a stable coalition with India's increasingly powerful regional parties and push through promised reforms. India's diverse electorate and parliamentary system mean that local leaders – and local issues such as their caste or ethnic group – still hold great sway. In some constituencies this could stymie the BJP, which has run a presidential-style campaign focused wholly on Modi. "I vote for the local candidate – that is who affects my life," said Shanti Naik, a woman selling biscuits and shampoo sachets at a stall in Lahoal who said she planned to vote for Congress. "Whoever is in Delhi, it doesn't bother me." The post India Kicks Off World's Biggest Election in Remote Northeast appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. |
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