The Irrawaddy Magazine |
- ‘Heated’ Debate Again Stymies New Mining Law
- Burma Says Persecution Not the Cause of Migrant Crisis
- 51 Child Soldiers Discharged By Burma Army
- Shwe Mann: ‘Parliament Ban on Media Came from the Military’
- NLD Says Many Errors on Initial Voter Lists
- Farmers Protest Against Daewoo in Kyaukphyu
- UN Envoy Meets Arakan Leaders to Discuss Migrant Crisis
- Bangladesh to Take Some Rescued Boat People: Foreign Ministry
- Disquiet on the Western Front
- Haunted by the Past
- Pyongyang Bling: The Rise of North Korea’s Consumer Comrades
- Letter from Overseas Chinese Breaks Silence on Tiananmen
- Jailed Writer is Courageous, Should Be Freed: UN
- Alarm Spreads as South Korea Reports More MERS Cases
| ‘Heated’ Debate Again Stymies New Mining Law Posted: 04 Jun 2015 06:14 AM PDT  Farmers harvest grain while mining operations are carried out in the background at the Letpadaung copper mine in Sagaing Division. (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy) Efforts to pass a controversial bill updating Burma's 1994 Mining Law have been postponed once again, after debate on the legislation turned "heated" this week amid rumors that a fight between two lawmakers took place on the floor of Parliament. Deliberations on the Mining Law amendment bill, which aims to boost the industry's appeal to both local private enterprises and foreign investors, were also suspended in November 2014, after lawmakers could not settle disputes at the time. Hla Swe, an Upper House lawmaker and chairman of that chamber's Mining and Resources Affairs Committee, said the decision to postpone discussion of the bill was made by the Union Parliament speaker, Shwe Mann. According to lawmakers, the speaker said the bill would be debated again after Parliament discusses amending Schedule Two of the Constitution's General Provisions chapter, which relates to resource- and power-sharing between the Union government and regional legislatures. Phone Myint Aung, an independent lawmaker from the Upper House, told The Irrawaddy that "the speaker warned that the lawmakers have been discussing the issue without discipline." The amendment bill on mining has languished in Parliament since a version of the legislation was submitted in October 2013 by the Ministry of Mining. The Union Parliament's Joint Bill Committee had drafted its own amendment bill, and Shwe Mann instructed lawmakers to merge the two pieces of legislation. Disagreements emerged, according to Hla Swe, pitting Lower House lawmakers and their militarily appointed counterparts against Upper House parliamentarians. Upper House lawmakers say the amended bill would benefit small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) by allowing them to enter into joint ventures with foreign firms. When the legislation was brought before the Union Parliament this week, however, opposition to that provision, Article 7(c), from Lower House lawmakers and military MPs made clear that the bill did not have the support needed for passage. Lawmakers against this change want to stick with the framework of the existing Mining Law, which only allows foreign firms to enter into joint ventures with large local companies. "The Upper House's move is to enhance the private SME sector," said Phone Myint Aung, highlighting the fact that the industry has been dominated for decades by cronies and companies with ties to the military. Hla Swe told The Irrawaddy that progress had been made in bridging differences over the bill, but not enough to bring it to a vote. "We had discussed some of the 21 disputed points the other day, but did not continue yesterday [Wednesday]," he said. "If we have to agree on every article, it would be no different to the current Mining Law of 1994. It could not be called an amendment bill. We have agreed on two-thirds of the changes [about 60 articles] that we had in the previous drafts." Another important clause in the amendment bill is Article 6, which suggests the formation of a Regional Mining Site Scrutinizing Team for each of Burma's states and divisions—a proposal endorsed by the Union government—that would have authority to decide which companies receive mining concessions. "It would help a lot both in terms of taxation and the local businesses' development," said Hla Swe. The current law requires a company to apply with an official from the Department of Mines, under the Ministry of Mining. Hla Swe said Parliament's Joint Bill Committee was almost evenly split over the changes, with its members split seven and seven on whether to support them and the chairman tipping the balance in favor. The suspension of parliamentary debate came as rumors swirled on social media that a physical altercation on Tuesday between two lawmakers, one from each legislative chamber, may have been the "lack of discipline" referenced by the speaker. Lawmakers who The Irrawaddy spoke to on Thursday declined to discuss the rumors, and a recent ban on media in the parliamentary chamber made the claims difficult to verify. Hla Swe would say only that the debate was "heated." The mining amendment bill has faced criticism because Upper House lawmaker Nay Win Tun, who serves as a member of the Mining and Resources Affairs Committee, is also the chairman of Ruby Dragon Mining, but Hla Swe rebuffed suggestions that a conflict of interest might exist. "Even though he is from a powerful company, he considers how to help the small- and medium-scale workers," he said. The post 'Heated' Debate Again Stymies New Mining Law appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Burma Says Persecution Not the Cause of Migrant Crisis Posted: 04 Jun 2015 05:58 AM PDT  Migrants, who were found at sea on a boat, carry their belongings as they are moved to Taung Pyo sub-township in northern Arakan State on June 3, 2015. (Photo: Reuters) RANGOON/MAUNGDAW — Burma said on Thursday that persecution of its Rohingya Muslim population was not the cause of Southeast Asia's migrant crisis, a day after the United States called on the country to give full rights to the minority to help end the exodus. President Barack Obama said this week that Burma needed to end discrimination against the Rohingya if it was to succeed in its transition to a democracy, as Washington upped the pressure on the country to tackle what it sees as one of the root causes of a migration that the region has struggled to cope with. Burma does not recognize its 1.1 million Rohingya as citizens, rendering them effectively stateless. Almost 140,000 were displaced in deadly clashes with Buddhists in the country's western Arakan State, also known as Rakhine, in 2012. "It has been portrayed that discrimination and persecution are causing people to leave Rakhine state, but that is not true," Burma's Minister of Foreign Affairs Wunna Maung Lwin told diplomats and international agencies in Rangoon. He pointed to the number of Bangladeshis on board a migrant boat that landed in May as proof that the influx of "boat people" was a regional problem linked to human trafficking. "This incident… has shown to the region as well as the international community this is not the root cause," he said. The boat he referred to was intercepted by Burma's navy last month. Burma has said 200 of the 208 people aboard were economic migrants from Bangladesh. But a Reuters investigation found that 150-200 Rohingya had also been aboard that boat, but were spirited away by people smugglers in the week before the navy brought it to shore. Tareque Muhammad, deputy chief of mission at the Bangladesh embassy in Rangoon, told Reuters that only 150 people from that boat had been identified and documented as Bangladeshis. Zaw Aye Maung, the Rangoon Region Ethnic Rakhine Affairs Minister, said at the same briefing that if genocide was taking place in Arakan State then it was against ethnic Arakanese Buddhists. "We are now in danger of being overrun by these Bangladeshis," said Zaw Aye Maung, in comments that visibly angered the ambassador from Bangladesh, Mohammad Sufiur Rahman. Sufiur Rahman declined to talk to reporters after the briefing. The powerful speaker of Burma's Parliament, Shwe Mann, wrote an open letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appealing for international organizations to "avoid creating misconceptions about our country and aggravating communal tensions and conflict." The letter, dated June 3 and published in Burmese state media on Thursday, came after the UN Security Council held its first closed-door briefing on human rights in Burmalast week. A council diplomat inside that briefing said UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein described the Rohingya as facing institutional discrimination. Dumped at Sea The current crisis blew up last month after a Thai crackdown on trafficking camps along its border with Malaysia made it too risky for people smugglers to land their human cargo. Smugglers abandoned boats full of migrants at sea. Burma was in the process of verifying the place of origin of 734 migrants the navy brought ashore on Wednesday, Wunna Maung Lwin said. They were found drifting in the Andaman Sea on Friday in an overloaded fishing boat that was taking on water. Several migrants said that smugglers had loaded them from three smaller boats onto the larger vessel. "The traffickers told us 'we can't go to Thailand, so you have to go alone'," Marmod Toyo, who said he was a Rohingya, told Reuters. He said he was at sea for two months after being offered 50,000 kyat ($45.25) by an agent to get on a boat to Malaysia. Marmod, who has a wife and four children, said he knew it was a trick but that his family needed the money. "There's not enough food back home and no work," he said. "The human trafficker came and gave me money. I knew he might sell me, but I needed it." Another migrant said his uncle, who was also on the boat, was beaten to death by one of the crew before the body was dumped overboard. "My uncle was eating rice and asked for some water, so they killed him," said Siszul Islam, from the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka. There was no way of independently corroborating the migrants' accounts. Some 4,000 migrants from Bangladesh and Burma have landed in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Burma in the past month. The United Nations estimates around 2,000 migrants may still be adrift. Indonesia would repatriate economic migrants from Bangladesh as soon as it could, but how to handle Rohingya migrants was more complex, said Andi Rachmianto, the international security and disarmament director at the foreign ministry. "We need to differentiate between Rohingya migrants and migrants from Bangladesh because their motivations are different," Rachmianto said. The post Burma Says Persecution Not the Cause of Migrant Crisis appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| 51 Child Soldiers Discharged By Burma Army Posted: 04 Jun 2015 05:32 AM PDT  Young soldiers are discharged from military duty in September 2014. (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — The Burma Army has discharged an additional 51 young soldiers who were recruited as minors, the United Nations children's agency, Unicef, announced on Thursday. This second batch of discharges brought the total number of freed underage recruits to 93 since the start of this year. Unicef, which co-chairs a UN country task force for eliminating child soldiers and ending underage recruitment, welcomed the discharge in a statement on Thursday. "Unicef and its partners supports [sic] the Myanmar [Burma] government's commitment to ensuring its children are protected and have access to their basic rights," Bertrand Bainvel, the agency's representative in Burma, said in a press release. UN humanitarian coordinator in Burma and the other co-chair of the task force, Renata Lok-Dessallien, mirrored his remarks, commending the decision to discharge and not punish the children. Some of the children had previously been accused of desertion, and the fact that they were officially released from duty demonstrated the military's acknowledgement "that they should not have been in the army in the first place." The UN Country Task Force on Monitoring and Reporting (CTFMR) on Grave Violations against Children was established in Burma in 2007. The government of Burma signed a joint action plan with the United Nations in 2012, and since that time 646 children have been released by the Burma Army. All of those released were under 18 at the time of signing the joint action plan. Activist Aung Myo Min, who has for years advocated for children's rights in Burma, welcomed the discharge but urged the government and the CTFMR to establish a more expedient solution. "There might still be many more children remaining in the army, and there shouldn't be," Aung Myo Min said, arguing that streamlining the identification system could help to speed up the process and release all underage recruits at once. "If they had a specific system, they could discharge all of them at the same time," he said. The United Nations said that the Burma Army and seven other non-state armed groups have been listed as "persistent perpetrators" of underage recruitment and use. Those seven were identified as: the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA); Kachin Independence Army (KIA); Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA); Karen National Liberation Army Peace Council; Karenni Army (KA); Shan State Army South (SSA-S); and United Wa State Army (UWSA). The post 51 Child Soldiers Discharged By Burma Army appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Shwe Mann: ‘Parliament Ban on Media Came from the Military’ Posted: 04 Jun 2015 05:25 AM PDT  This photo appears to show a military lawmaker voting on behalf of his absent neighbor. (Photo: Hein Htet / Myanmar Post) RANGOON — In the Union Parliament in Naypyidaw on Wednesday, Speaker Shwe Mann told reporters that banning journalists from parliamentary chambers came at the request of the military. Journalists have been prohibited from observing Union Parliament sessions since last week, ostensibly because of photographs published by the Myanmar Post Global that appeared to show a military lawmaker voting on behalf of his absent colleagues. Media access to an interpreter's booth above the Lower House chamber ended on May 26, and this week the ban was extended to the Upper House of Parliament. Speaker Shwe Mann said that Brig-Gen Tint San—a Lower House lawmaker for the military—had sent him a letter on behalf of the Lower House military contingent in response to the damning front page report. Tint San explained that the two military representatives absent in the photographs were attending a joint bill committee meeting and had instructed their colleagues to cast votes for them, adding that it would not happen again. "[They] acted with honest intentions which the media should take into consideration," Tint San wrote in the letter, which was read aloud by the Speaker. "In accordance with media ethics, [the Speaker] should limit the occurrence of such incidents." Speaker Shwe Mann said Tint San's request for a media ban was "suitable and fair to the Parliament, the MPs and the media," and issued the order to close up the booth. Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Thursday, Myint Kyaw, secretary of the Myanmar Journalists Network (MJN), said journalists were within their right to record whatever they see from the booth. By bowing to the military's request, he said, the Speaker has shown that the legislature will not tolerate the press if it exposes any wrongdoing. "It goes to show that if the media is present, [lawmakers] are afraid their violations of the rules and laws will be publicized," said Myint Kyaw. "To me, this is a sign that the Parliament doesn't want to snub the military." MJN wrote to Shwe Mann last week to request a meeting about the ban, but has not received a response. Journalists who regularly cover parliamentary sessions said they now watch the proceedings on a television monitor outside the chambers, broadcast exclusively by state-run media. The post Shwe Mann: 'Parliament Ban on Media Came from the Military' appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| NLD Says Many Errors on Initial Voter Lists Posted: 04 Jun 2015 05:15 AM PDT  A man examines voter lists posted in Rangoon on March 30. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — The National League for Democracy (NLD) claims that 30-80 percent of eligible voter data are inaccurate as initial batches of voter lists have been released in Rangoon and Naypyidaw, with Burma's largest opposition party submitting an open letter of complaint to the Union Election Commission (UEC). The NLD said in the letter, made public on Thursday, that a party "voter list reviewing committee" had examined the rosters released in 24 townships in Rangoon and eight in Naypyidaw, with errors ranging from incorrect dates of birth to the erroneous listing of people who lack identity documents. The open letter from the NLD was sent to the UEC on Wednesday, when party representatives also met with the commission's chairman Tin Aye to discuss the matter. In the letter, the party also urged the UEC and its subcommissions to more effectively collaborate with the nation's political parties to correct voter lists, with a concrete timetable for resolving the issue. Tun Tun Hein, the leader of the NLD's voter list reviewing committee, said Tin Aye acknowledged that the voter lists contained "many errors." Voters seeking to correct inaccuracies on the lists are asked to fill out one of three forms, depending on the nature of the error. The NLD said Burma's political parties had faced obstacles in attempting to obtain copies of the voter lists, with some election subcommissions not allowing them to duplicate the rosters. Tun Tun Hein, who is also a member of the opposition party's central committee, said Tin Aye assured the NLD that parties would be allowed to copy the lists using any method as long as the rosters were not removed from the boards on which they are displayed. The NLD said it had come to the 30-80 percent estimate by copying the voter lists and undertaking a door-to-door verification process. The party plans to follow the same procedure nationwide. The UEC also agreed to consider ways in which to make the voter lists more accessible to the public, according to Tun Tun Hein, after the NLD complained that some voter lists were found to have been posted in administrative offices several floors above ground level or were displayed during inconvenient hours. The NLD also urged the UEC to more closely monitor members of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which it claimed had violated the Political Parties Registration Law when some USDP members tried to discredit Aung San Suu Kyi by spreading this misleading photo of the NLD chairwoman during her trip to Mon State last month. The opposition party claimed that signs in villages implying a kind of ownership or sponsorship by the USDP's predecessor were also still posted in some states and divisions, despite a government official telling Parliament in February that any remaining signs would be removed. The latest round of voter lists, 14 in Rangoon and eight in Naypyidaw, were posted on May 25 and will be displayed through June 7. On June 8, a third batch of voter rolls will be released in several states and divisions, with a final batch of the preliminary lists due for display on June 22. The UEC says voters will have one last opportunity to check the lists before the election, when they will be displayed for seven days nationwide. The post NLD Says Many Errors on Initial Voter Lists appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Farmers Protest Against Daewoo in Kyaukphyu Posted: 04 Jun 2015 01:50 AM PDT  Farmers march in Kyaukphyu in protest of what they describe as unfair compensation for their land, damaged by the waste from the Shwe gas project, June 3, 2015. (Photo: Wong Aung / Shwe Gas Movement) RANGOON — About 150 farmers assembled in Kyaukphyu, Arakan State, on Wednesday to protest against South Korean Daewoo International for its role in an ongoing land dispute concerning more than 60 acres of ruined paddy fields near the site of the Shwe gas project. The protesters said Daewoo neglected to speak directly with farmers about compensation for damaged crops and fields, claiming the company outsourced the responsibility to sub-contractors who are not meeting locals' demands. One of the organizers, local activist Wai Khin, said the demonstrators received permission from the regional government to walk from Malakyun village to Kan Kotaw Pagoda and then on to Daewoo's local headquarters. Police in Kyaukphyu confirmed to The Irrawaddy that the protest was permitted and that police provided security at the rally. Villagers said that earlier this year, Daewoo met with local farmers and proposed compensation of 1.5 million kyats per acre of damaged land. Soon after the meeting, protesters said, Daewoo hired Parami Energy Group of Companies as a sub-contractor, offering affected farmers a similar deal, which they accepted. But the demonstrators said Parami later changed course, offering only10 percent of the land value if farmers could prove that at least 30 percent of their property had been independently restored. Farmers rejected the deal, calling the amount "unacceptable." Protestor Khin Nu said Daewoo's compensation scheme did not adequately repay farmers whose land had been ruined by waste. Villagers said that up to three feet of detritus had been dumped on farmland by the company since the project commenced, causing long term damage to the soil. "We only got compensation for damaged crops," she said, explaining that the income lost due to damaged lands was irrecoverable. Parami Group was not immediately available for comment, though a representative of Daewoo told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday that the demonstration was organized by agitators who are "against" the company. "The Parami company and villagers had already reached an agreement," said Khin Than, a spokesman for Daewoo. "But one of the villagers who is against us led the protest." A community-based organization called the Kyaukphyu Social Network said it was the third such protest in the last four years. Solidarity protests had been held against the Shwe gas project in other parts of the world, but public opposition to the project was all but unthinkable just a few years ago. In late May, Kyaukphyu villagers participated in a similar demonstration against a Daewoo-backed coal-fired power plant in the underdeveloped port town. The Shwe gas project is one of Burma's biggest and most controversial developments, comprising parallel gas and oil pipelines that connect the Bay of Bengal with Yunnan, China. Daewoo owns a 51 percent share in offshore gas extraction and sales for the project, as per a 2000 agreement with state-owned Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). The post Farmers Protest Against Daewoo in Kyaukphyu appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| UN Envoy Meets Arakan Leaders to Discuss Migrant Crisis Posted: 04 Jun 2015 01:45 AM PDT  The meeting between the United Nations and Arakan leaders on Wednesday. (Photo: Hein Htet / The Irrawaddy) LAW KHEE LAR, Karen State — Vijay Nambiar, the United Nations Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Burma, met with Arakan ethnic leaders to discuss the Bay of Bengal migration crisis, according to those present on Wednesday. Nambiar spoke to 10 leaders from the Arakan Army, Arakan Liberation Party (ALP) and the Arakan National Council (ANC), at the sidelines of an ethnic summit currently underway in Karen State to discuss the draft text of the nationwide ceasefire agreement. "He came to talk with Arakan leaders about the boat people issue, and the Rohingya problem," said Saw Mya Razar Lin, the secretary of the ALP, who was present at the hour-long discussion. "We found that UN is facing big pressure from the international community, for a situation they say is ethnic cleansing," said ANC leader Htun Zaw. "He tried to determine how the problem could be solved, so he met us for an informal talk and asked us for our ideas." The Arakan leaders in turn asked Nambiar at the meeting to let armed group leaders participate in efforts to solve conflicts in the state, saying they were hampered by the lack of official recognition afforded to their organizations. Nambiar declined to talk to the media, saying he was not able to discuss the details of what he also characterized as an informal meeting. Arakan State was the site of renewed unrest in 2012 between Arakanese Buddhists and the minority Muslim Rohingya community, with 140,000 refugees forced to abandon their homes. Many have since undertaken the perilous journey across the Andaman Sea, with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimating as many as 25,000 Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants embarking from the area in the first three months of 2015. The post UN Envoy Meets Arakan Leaders to Discuss Migrant Crisis appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Bangladesh to Take Some Rescued Boat People: Foreign Ministry Posted: 04 Jun 2015 12:33 AM PDT  Migrants sit on a bus as wait to be moved to Taung Pyo on Wednesday. (Photo: Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters) RANGOON — Bangladesh will take some of the more than 900 boat people rescued by the Burma Navy last month, according to Burma's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Burma's Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin met with Ambassador Sufiur Rahman in Naypyidaw to begin repatriation for some of the 942 Bangladeshi and Rohingya boat people currently being provided temporary shelter in Burma. According to the statement, Rahman said on Wednesday that the Bangladeshi government considered the matter a priority and a repatriation process would begin on Sunday. Information Minister Ye Htut told The Irrawaddy that he was unable to confirm how many people will be sent over the border to Burma's western neighbor, as the number of people verified by that country's authorities. "After they verify the list we have provided, they will take back the people [found to be from Bangladesh]," he said, adding that the exact number to be taken across the border would likely be known on Friday. The Foreign Ministry's statement was similarly unclear on how many of the boat people would be sent to Bangladesh. The United Nations announced last week that 200 of the 208 rescued off the coast on May 21 were believed to be from Bangladesh. That figure was accepted by a Bangladeshi consular team in Sittwe, according to the ministry. Another 734 boat people rescued on Friday are now at temporary shelters in Taung Pyo Let Wal, near the Bangladesh border in Arakan State. Bangladeshi consular officials will begin visiting the group from Thursday. There has been no official confirmation from the Foreign Ministry of the second group's country of origin, although on Tuesday Ye Htut appeared to claim that most were from Bangladesh. Also on Thursday, Union Parliament Speaker Shwe Mann sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, urging international organizations at home and abroad to avoid creating misconceptions about Burma and aggravating the fraught situation on the ground with regard to the issues of human trafficking and boat people. "In addressing the issues of human trafficking and boat people, we would request that national and international organizations exercise great care to avoid creating misconceptions about our country and aggravating communal tensions and conflict," said the letter, according to an English translation published in Thursday's edition of the Global New Light of Myanmar. The post Bangladesh to Take Some Rescued Boat People: Foreign Ministry appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Posted: 04 Jun 2015 12:00 AM PDT  A boat is framed by the ruins of a destroyed mosque in a part of Rakhine State's Pauktaw Township in October 2012. (Photo: Reuters) Amid an ongoing crisis involving thousands of so-called "boat people" arriving on the shores of Asean nations or otherwise adrift in the seas of Southeast Asia, Myanmar and Bangladesh are in the spotlight as the two countries from which most of the migrants originate. With regard to Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, questions are again being asked about what is driving these men, women and children to undertake the dangerous journey by boat. For many, the answer lies in 2012 unrest between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine State, where more than 100 people were killed and some 140,000 others displaced in two bouts of violence. Most of those killed or displaced were Rohingya, and Muslims living in Rakhine State have since seen their living conditions deteriorate in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs), movement restricted and other rights stripped. The boat people from Myanmar, the commonly held belief holds, are fleeing the state-sponsored persecution that in recent years has simply made life in Rakhine State unbearable for Rohingya. There is little doubt that this is the major immediate cause of the exodus, but as this December 2012 story from The Irrawaddy reveals, tensions between the Buddhist and Muslim communities in Rakhine State long predated the 2012 violence, stoked by a complex legacy dating back to British colonial rule. The communal violence in Rakhine State has drawn the attention of the international community, including the countries of the Middle East, as media outside of Myanmar has exposed the plight of Rohingya Muslims in the north of the state near Bangladesh. The violence subsequently became an anti-Muslim campaign that received condemnation from governments around the world. The Myanmar government, which has been widely applauded for its ongoing reform efforts, is once again on the defensive, as foreign observers warn that its handling of the Rakhine crisis could deal a serious blow to those efforts. In response, government officials have vowed to arrest and punish the culprits behind the unrest—although some still suspect that pro-government elements were among those directly involved.  Aung Zaw is the founding editor-in-chief of The Irrawaddy. Indeed, the violence in Rakhine has wider implications. Surin Pitsuwan, the former secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, has rightly pointed out that there is a risk that the Rohingya will be radicalized by this latest effort to force them out of the country. "This would not be good for anyone," he told The Bangkok Post. He also warned that any intensification of the communal strife in Rakhine State would have wider strategic and security implications for the region. This is true, as the unrest would force refugees to flee across the border, and so entail serious humanitarian and security concerns. The Brussels-based think tank the International Crisis Group has also said in a new report that the sectarian violence in Rakhine State threatens national stability and could spread into a wider religious conflict unless tackled through decisive moral leadership. Critics, including human rights groups, have accused the government of mishandling the crisis, noting that some government officials made extensive use of social media to foment anti-Rohingya sentiment. This resurgence of racism at a time when Myanmar is supposed to be restoring democracy and human rights is sad, indeed. Many native Rakhine regard the Rohingya as foreign interlopers who have taken advantage of Myanmar's porous border with Bangladesh to illegally enter the country. President U Thein Sein, who has been hailed as a reformist leader, seems to agree with this assessment. At a meeting with officials from the UN refugee agency UNHCR in June, he pointedly said that Myanmar would take responsibility for its ethnic nationalities, "but it is not at all possible to recognize the illegal border-crossing Rohingyas." In this regard, the president's attitude is not far removed from that of his predecessor, former dictator Snr-Gen Than Shwe. According to noted Myanmar scholar Prof. David Steinberg, the military junta leader who handed over power to U Thein Sein in 2011 strongly believed that Myanmar's most dangerous frontier region is that shared with Bangladesh. But this preoccupation with the perceived threat of a "Bengali invasion" is not limited to military men. Many native Rakhines, who considered themselves to be devout Buddhists, are convinced that the only defense against a twin tide of illegal immigrants and Islamists is to push back hard, with violence if necessary. Such a mindset creates the ideal conditions for an even more ominous threat—hardliners within the military seeking to roll back reforms under the cover of restoring security. Locally, some Rakhine politicians also appear to be trying to take advantage of the current turmoil to advance their own interests. But this is not just an issue for the Rakhine alone: It is also affecting the political climate of the rest of the country, with many siding with the president, and more moderate voices sidelined or silenced by intimidation. Even Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, admired around the world for her courage in standing up to Myanmar's military, has been reluctant to speak out on this issue, earning her some rare criticism from her international admirers. When pressed, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate told the BBC World Service in November: "I am urging tolerance but I do not think one should use one's moral leadership, if you want to call it that, to promote a particular cause without really looking at the sources of the problems." Neither she nor her National League for Democracy (NLD) have visited Rakhine State since the violence began in June. During her trip to India in November, she appeared to move closer to the president's position. Calling the Rohingya issue a "huge international tragedy," she implied that Bangladesh should also bear some responsibility. "Is there a lot of illegal crossing of the border [with Bangladesh] still going on? We have got to put a stop to it otherwise there will never be an end to the problem," she said. U Ko Ko Gyi, a prominent student leader and former political prisoner, has said that the 88 Generation Students group, of which he is a leading member, does not recognize the Rohingya as one of the ethnic nationalities of Myanmar. If necessary, he said, speaking to local media soon after the deadly riots between the Rakhine and Rohingya communities began, he would join the armed forces to drive out the "Bengalis." Coming from someone regarded as a champion of human rights, these words came as a real shock to many domestic and international colleagues, as well as diplomats and campaign groups. To put it simply, he was advocating human rights for all in Myanmar—except the Rohingya. Since making these remarks, Ko Ko Gyi has been named a member of a government-appointed commission to investigate the unrest in Rakhine State. After visiting the state, he said his impression was that the government had handled the crisis poorly, and that the country's citizenship law must be properly settled before peace can return. However, the commission itself has recently come under criticism for lacking credibility, after two Muslim members were sacked. Many of the problems facing the Rohingya in Myanmar today date back to the 1982 citizenship Law introduced by then dictator Ne Win, whose xenophobic socialist regime decided to exclude this Muslim minority from the country's list of 135 recognized ethnic groups. From that time on, the Rohingya have been officially regarded as migrants from Bangladesh with no status in Myanmar. As is generally the case when two countries or cultures meet—and sometimes collide—the reality is far more complex than the official stance acknowledges. The Rohingya people settled in the Mayu Frontier Area—the area now known as Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships in northern Rakhine State, close to Bangladesh—generations ago. The seeds of the current conflict were sown during the Second World War, when the British allowed many migrants from what was then part of India to come settle in Myanmar. At the time, these Bengali-speaking migrants were called "Chittagonians." "Tensions between Muslim and Buddhist communities were high during the British rule and communal riots broke out under the Japanese occupation," wrote Moshe Yegar, an Israeli diplomat posted in Myanmar in the 1960s, in a thesis titled "The Muslims of Burma." Long before the war began, resentment was growing among ethnic Rakhines over the Zamindari system, under which Bengali migrants were permitted to hold 90-year leases on the land, effectively making them landowners who came to dominate agriculture in the region. Adding to their sense of dispossession, the devoutly Buddhist Rakhine were also appalled to see the new settlers eagerly establishing mosques and Islamic schools in their homeland and marrying local women, who were converted to Islam. In 1942, when Japanese troops were advancing on Myanmar, the Rakhines' pent-up hostility toward the settlers came to a head. "Gangs of Arakanese [Rakhine] Buddhists in southern Arakan where the Buddhists were in the majority attacked Muslims villages and massacred inhabitants. Whole villages were sacked and their inhabitants all murdered," writes Yegar in his thesis. Later, it was the turn of the Muslims to take revenge and mete out similar punishment to Buddhists living in the north, forcing the Buddhist Rakhine to flee south. Serious communal violence and massacres took place in 1942 and 1943, leaving a legacy of bitterness that still lingers. "It was in this manner that Arakan became divided into two separate areas, one Buddhist and the other Muslim," according to Yegar. The British, who planned to re-enter Burma from India, armed the Chittagonians in the Mayu Frontier Area to counter the Japanese forces. This newly armed group was called simply the "Volunteer Force" or "V Force." Its members were to collect information about the movements of the Japanese and to launch guerrilla attacks against them. Instability, lawlessness and terror were the order of the day in Rakhine State at that time. Ethnic Rakhines alleged that members of the V Force committed attacks against Rakhine villages and destroyed Buddhist temples. Then, after the war, and after Myanmar regained its independence from Britain, Rakhine faced a new threat—the Mujahid rebellion. Although this was an Islamist movement, some communists and Rakhine rebels joined forces with the Mujahids, after reaching an agreement with them to split Rakhine once the government of Prime Minister U Nu had been defeated. Under U Nu, several military campaigns (most famously, "Operation Monsoon") were launched to push out the Mujahids. The final assault, led by then Brig-Gen Aung Gyi, who recently passed away in Yangon, came in 1961. According to Rakhine academics, the goal of the rebellion had been to create a separate Muslim state to be known as "Arakistan." Throughout the 1950s, there was also a campaign by the Rohingya to have the northern part of Rakhine State declared an autonomous region, directly administered by the central government in Yangon and without any involvement with Rakhine officials or any Rakhine influence whatsoever. There was also a corresponding campaign to deny Rakhine statehood. According to Yegar: "In July 1961, the Rohinga [sic] Youth Association held a meeting in Rangoon [to call on] the government of U Nu not to grant the status of state to Arakan because community tensions still existed between Muslims and Buddhists since the 1942 riots." The government subsequently set up the Mayu Frontier Association (MFA), which was administered by army officers, but not granted autonomy. Since it was not placed under Rakhine jurisdiction, however, the arrangement was accepted by Rohingya leaders. However, the issue of the status of the Rohingya and demands for Muslim autonomy did not die down. This did not go down well with the Rakhine, who suspected that the Bengalis—as they continue to call the Rohingya—wanted to annex the MFA to then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. Rakhine scholars have long argued that the term "Rohingya" only entered mainstream Myanmar political discourse in the 1950s. However, Western scholars and early foreign travelers to Myanmar have said that the name has existed at least since the 19th century. In any case, by the 1960s, it was, in one form or another, generally accepted as the designation for the Muslims of northern Rakhine State. Yegar cites this passage from the May 1960 issue of the Yangon-based Guardian Monthly as evidence of its entry into common parlance: "Today, the Arakanese Muslims call themselves Rohinga or Roewengyah." The Rohingya issue and conflict in Rakhine State will not go away easily. It is a well-known fact that Myanmar's Muslims suffer discrimination, and that the Rohingya are particularly persecuted. Since there has been no real effort to integrate the Muslim population, including the Rohingya or Bengalis, into mainstream Myanmar society, it seems almost certain that sectarian violence will continue to plague the country's western gate. Critics of the government say that it needs to revisit Myanmar's citizenship laws and immigration policies to deter an influx of migrants from neighboring countries. It could begin by studying the refugee and asylum policies of other nations. But above all, it must rely on rule of law, rather than force, to restore order along Myanmar's western frontier. Failure to address this issue properly could deal a devastating blow to this country's hard-won progress in opening to the outside world. This story first appeared in the December 2012 print issue of The Irrawaddy magazine. The post Disquiet on the Western Front appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Posted: 03 Jun 2015 10:13 PM PDT
The post Haunted by the Past appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Pyongyang Bling: The Rise of North Korea’s Consumer Comrades Posted: 03 Jun 2015 10:03 PM PDT  A limousine carrying a portrait of late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il leads his funeral procession past crowds on a street in Pyongyang in this still image taken from video December 28, 2011. (Photo: Reuters) SEOUL — Nail salons, massage parlors, cafes and other signs of consumerism were unheard of in rigidly controlled North Korea just a few years ago, but they are slowly emerging in one of the world's last bastions of Cold War socialism. North Korea operates a centrally-planned economy modeled on the former Soviet Union where Western-style conspicuous consumption is anathema. But as a growing middle class of North Koreans earns more money in the unofficial economy, the demand for products such as cosmetics, smart phones, imported fruit juices and foreign clothes is on the rise, according to residents and visitors. There are now 2.5 million North Korean mobile phone subscribers in a country of 24 million people. Even some state-owned factories are diversifying product lines from rationed daily necessities to meet the demand for non-essential goods. "Nobody needs to drink coffee, and nobody needs to spend money on it, but people do. This is what's happening in Pyongyang, and it's a change," said Nils Weisensee, a coffee roaster from Germany who works with the Singapore-based Choson Exchange NGO to train North Koreans in business skills. While the repressive and impoverished country is still years away from becoming a consumer paradise, it is now home to a rising class of rich North Koreans known as "Donju," meaning "masters of money," thanks to the growing unofficial economy. Some Donju spend their cash on private English tuition for their children, or on South Korean or Japanese clothes, according to research by the South Korean government-run Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), in Seoul. "People can choose between toothpaste that uses crystals or nanotechnology to make it more effective than normal toothpaste, or a special one flavored for children," said Weisensee. Many of the Donju have made money trading in informal markets, or by setting up small businesses. Some businesses operate as a form of public-private partnership, where staff of state enterprises are given permission to start quasi-autonomous profit-making enterprises. Around 70 percent of that profit goes to the state, with the rest going to individuals, according to defectors from the country, including Choi Song-min, who ran a shipping service before fleeing to the South in 2011. "For example, at a Chongjin city branch of the transport ministry, they might say to their bosses 'how about we sell coffee to the people waiting for our buses'" said Choi, who now writes for the Daily NK, a Seoul-based website, and has regular contact with sources inside the North. At the food section of the Kwangbok Department Store in central Pyongyang, moneyed shoppers can choose between a wide variety of consumer foods like fruit juices, chocolates and soda, according to Troy Collings of Young Pioneer Tours. "People weren't just buying basic foods. They were considering factors other than price, by buying the imported orange juice instead of the local one, for example," said Collings, who leads regular tourist trips to North Korea. Even leader Kim Jong Un was quoted as saying North Korean-made cosmetics should compete in quality with foreign luxury brands like Chanel and Christian Dior, according to the Choson Sinbo, a pro-North Korean newspaper in Japan. "These nouveau-riche who make money in the markets need a channel for consumption," said Ahn Chan-il, 63, a North Korean defector and former South Korean intelligence official who receives information from contacts inside North Korea. "Things like cars, massages, raffles, pet dogs. North Korean people are already riding on the back of the tiger that is the market economy, not the regime," said Ahn. Pyonghattan North Korean consumer capitalism is very much in its early days, residents of Pyongyang said. A chronic energy shortage, brutally repressive government and deeply ingrained corruption ensure that the pace of change is sluggish, and limited. "What use are these new, kitschily-decorated places that mostly imitate Chinese nouveau-riche life if there is no electricity to cook the food?" a diplomatic source in Pyongyang told Reuters. One area of downtown Pyongyang, jokingly known by foreign residents as "Pyonghattan" or "Dubai", is home to expensive department stores, a sushi restaurant and a 24-hour coffee shop. "Oftentimes you will be turned away, not because you are a foreigner, but because there is just no energy to operate the kitchen. Good luck trying to get a proper meal in Pyongyang after 10 p.m.," said the source. Defectors said the consumer boom extends to cities beyond Pyongyang, where bustling markets or train stations are now home to small coffee stalls, and wearing jewelry is an outward and accepted sign of status. Ahn said the nearby city of Pyongsong is where many well-off North Koreans live, thanks to wholesale businesses importing products from China. Choi said the coffee drinking trend for moneyed North Koreans began to appear last year: "To look cool, the Donju, party officials and young people like college students go to coffee shops to meet people." The post Pyongyang Bling: The Rise of North Korea's Consumer Comrades appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Letter from Overseas Chinese Breaks Silence on Tiananmen Posted: 03 Jun 2015 09:57 PM PDT  A group of journalists supports the pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square, Beijing on May 17, 1989. (Photo: Carl Ho / REUTERS) ING — They were born too late to remember the night 26 years ago when Chinese troops slaughtered hundreds of pro-democracy student activists in the heart of Beijing. Many grew up hearing only government accounts of the event, which paint the massacre as the unfortunate conclusion to some vague political intrigue. Nonetheless, this June 4, 11 Chinese university students living overseas are trying to break through the official silence with a widely circulated, passionately worded letter that encourages their compatriots to learn more about the Tiananmen massacre—a watershed event that has defined China ever since. Written by University of Georgia graduate student Gu Yi, and co-signed by 10 other overseas Chinese students, the letter has become one of the few flashpoints as this year’s anniversary arrives, with Chinese authorities on guard against even the tiniest of commemorations. The letter remembers the government crackdown that killed hundreds and possibly thousands of unarmed protesters and onlookers. It demands that the Chinese leaders who gave the orders late on June 3 and in the early morning hours of June 4, 1989, be held responsible. “We do not ask the (Chinese Communist Party) to redress the events of that spring as killers are not the ones we turn to to clear the names of the dead, but killers must be tried,” the letter reads. “We do not forget, nor forgive, until justice is done and the ongoing persecution is halted.” An online copy of the document has reached readers in China with the help of software that let PDFs get past Chinese censors, Gu said. The document has already drawn a strong rebuke from the Communist Party-run Global Times, which said in an editorial that the students “harshly attacked the current Chinese regime, twisting the facts of 26 years ago with narratives of some overseas hostile forces.” Gu said he was addressing Chinese students who had not seen the troves of photos, film footage and eyewitness accounts about the massacre that he came across only after he left China to study. “All they need to know is actually very simple,” Gu said. “Some people died, and some people killed them. If you understand that, you don’t have to understand a lot more.” In what’s become an annual ritual, Chinese police were stepping up their vigilance in the capital Thursday to prevent any remembrance of the event. References to the massacre are nowhere to be found in Chinese media, and censors scrub social media posts that mention the event or its date. In the only major act of commemoration in China, thousands of people in the semi-autonomous Chinese city of Hong Kong are scheduled to hold their annual candlelight vigil Thursday. Gu said he was not worried how the letter would affect his chances of returning to his home country free from official harassment. He said his family had not run into any trouble yet from the authorities, although police had contacted the relatives of some of the co-signers. “I can’t do something always thinking about how this will affect me,” Gu said. “Sometimes, it’s just the right thing to do.” The students’ letter was not the only one to mark the anniversary. A group of relatives of those killed in the massacre also issued a statement demanding that Chinese leaders be brought to justice and that the victims’ families win compensation. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying responded Tuesday to the relatives by arguing that the country’s rapid economic growth over the past 26 years justified the crackdown. “As for the political turmoil that happened in the late 1980s, the Chinese government and party have already made a clear conclusion,” Hua said. “The great achievements China made during the past 30 years in the practice of reform and opening-up have shown that China’s development path is absolutely correct, and wins resolute supports from 1.3 billion Chinese people.” So far, such acts of dissent haven’t penetrated what’s been a remarkably successful campaign by Chinese authorities to erase Tiananmen from the collective memory, said Willy Lam, a political analyst at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “It is still important to the extent that it shows that the generation of Chinese who were born after Tiananmen Square are still eager to find the truth and defend the truth,” Lam said of the students’ letter. “Still, it’s difficult to see what kind of impact it would have, whether it would make a dent in this so far quite effective strategy by the authorities to impose amnesia on June 4th.” The post Letter from Overseas Chinese Breaks Silence on Tiananmen appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Jailed Writer is Courageous, Should Be Freed: UN Posted: 03 Jun 2015 09:51 PM PDT  Htin Lin Oo in custody outside the Chaung-U Township Court. (Photo: Teza Hlaing / The Irrawaddy) GENEVA — Burma should unconditionally release a writer jailed for insulting Buddhism or risk creating a new generation of political prisoners, the UN human rights office said in a statement on Wednesday. Htin Lin Oo, a former official with Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, was sentenced to two years of jail and hard labor on Tuesday for comments made in a speech he said was meant to discourage Buddhist extremism. The UN statement said Htin Lin Oo had courageously spoken out against the use of Buddhism as a tool for extremism, which it said was in stark contrast to the treatment of those inciting violence against Burma's minority Rohingya population. "Rather than prosecuting individuals, who brazenly call for the Rohingya to be killed, for hate speech and incitement to violence, the authorities have jailed a peaceful advocate who dared to question the misuse and manipulation of religion for extremist ends," the UN statement said. "U Htin Lin Oo courageously spoke out against the use of Buddhism as a tool for extremism." Burma's government should send a clear message against hate speech and incitement to violence, it added. The transition to democracy four years ago by Burma has seen the emergence of a kind of Buddhist nationalism rarely encountered under the military's five decades of strict rule. Long simmering tension between the Buddhist majority and its minority Muslims has surfaced with the lifting of bans on protests and easing of censorship and has at times spiraled into rioting and deadly religious violence. Muslims have been worst hit and many Rohingya—not recognized by Burma's government as a minority group or as citizens—have fled the country in desperation. Since 2014, more than 88,000 have made the dangerous sea voyage in search of a better life, often entrusting themselves to smugglers. The UN refugee agency UNHCR said last month that almost 1,000 were thought to have died at sea and a similar number at the hands of unscrupulous and abusive traffickers. Malaysia says it has taken 120,000 illegal immigrants from Burma and Thailand has said it is sheltering 100,000 more. The post Jailed Writer is Courageous, Should Be Freed: UN appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Alarm Spreads as South Korea Reports More MERS Cases Posted: 03 Jun 2015 09:24 PM PDT  Passengers wearing masks to prevent contracting Middle East Respiratory Syndrome walk past a thermal imaging camera at the airport in Incheon, South Korea, on June 2, 2015. (Photo: Reuters) SEOUL — Alarm over an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in South Korea spread on Thursday with North Korea calling for border checks while hundreds more schools closed in the South and authorities reported five new cases. South Korean President Park Geun-hye has demanded that everything to be done to halt the outbreak, which began two weeks ago, brought into the country by a South Korean man returning from a business trip to the Middle East. Two people have died in South Korea. With 35 cases, South Korea has the most infections outside the Middle East where the disease first appeared in 2012, and where most of the 440 fatalities have been. About 1,600 people have been quarantined in South Korea, most of them at home or in medical institutions, a health ministry official said. Among the five new South Korean cases were two more health workers who treated infected patients. "We are in a war," said an official at a health center in Seoul's wealthy Gangnam district, where panic spread early on Thursday when medical workers in protection suits were spotted near a hotel. The official said a Middle Eastern guest at the hotel fell ill and was later confined in quarantine at a hospital. "I saw some people dressed in scary white spacesuits on the street," said a 30-year-old woman resident of Gangnam. MERS infection is caused by a coronavirus from the same family as the one that caused SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which emerged in 2002-03 and killed around 800 people worldwide. MERS has a much higher death rate—38 percent, according to WHO figures—but also spreads far less swiftly than SARS from person to person, making it less of a threat for now. North Korea had asked the South to provide heat-detecting cameras to monitor temperatures of South Korean workers traveling to the inter-Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex, just north of the border, a South Korean government official said. South Korea lent North Korea three cameras to use at the complex during the recent scare over Ebola, the official said. South Korean authorities have been criticized for being slow to respond to the initial spread of MERS. It took several days for the 68-year-old man returning from the Middle East to be diagnosed with MERS and in the meantime, he infected people at health facilities where he went for treatment of a fever and cough. All of South Korea's cases have been traced to the man who visited Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the countries with the most MERS cases. China last week reported its first case, that of a South Korean man who tested positive after breaking a voluntary house quarantine and traveling to Hong Kong and on to mainland China. More than 700 schools in South Korea were closed or had classes cancelled as of Thursday, the Ministry of Education said. While there has been no sustained human-to-human transmission, the worst-case scenario would be for the virus to change and spread rapidly. South Korea's new cases bring the total number globally to about 1,180, based on World Health Organization (WHO) data, with at least 442 related deaths. The post Alarm Spreads as South Korea Reports More MERS Cases appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
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