The Irrawaddy Magazine

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• KIO Denies Allegations of Forced Recruitment in Shan State
• Suu Kyi Says Peace Process Will Be Government’s Priority
• Renewed Fighting Between Govt, TNLA in Shan State
• Indian Troops Still Fighting 2 Gunmen at Pathankot Air Base
• Quake Strikes Northeast India; Toll Reaches Four Dead, Nearly 100 Injured
• Vietnam Protests after China Lands Plane on Disputed Spratlys
• China Challenge: Getting Poor Migrant Workers to Buy Vacant Homes

KIO Denies Allegations of Forced Recruitment in Shan State Posted: 04 Jan 2016 02:10 AM PST Kachin Independence Army soldiers in 2013. (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy) The Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) has refuted allegations from a Shan political party that it forcibly recruited villagers in Kutkai and Muse townships in northern Shan State. The Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) made the allegation against the KIO's armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), in a statement on Saturday, warning the armed group that it risked raising tensions during a period of political transition. "We condemn such acts against civilians and ask for the immediate release of those arrested," the statement read. "The public's safety and tranquility should be a priority at this time, when everyone is putting their efforts primarily into national reconciliation." Dau Hka, a member of the KIO's technical advisory team based in the Kachin State capital Myitkyina, told The Irrawaddy on Monday that the matter was "not related to the KIO/KIA." "I have checked with the headquarters and they have no knowledge about it," he said, adding that there were many small armed groups and factions in northern Shan State, and the issue may have been one of mistaken identity. Civilians in Muse and Kutkai townships were allegedly forcibly recruited into the KIA's ranks last month, when many ethnic Shan were preparing for New Year festivities, according to Sai Nyunt Lwin, secretary of the SNLD. "We have to respond to the public's demands as over a dozen ethnic Shan and Palaung [Ta'ang] from four to five villages disappeared," Sai Nyunt Lwin said. Villagers received a letter from the KIA requesting that they contribute seven civilians from each village to the armed group, the SNLD secretary said, adding that such recruitment drives of ethnic nationalities were not uncommon. Dau Hka said the KIO had stopped actively recruiting civilians since clashes with the Burma Army in Kachin State's Mohnyin Township in November. He said the group had been running a two-year service program in which recruits join voluntarily. The SNLD said they have been trying to contact representatives of the Shan State Progressive Party / Shan State Army-North, which has good relations with the KIO, to negotiate on the issue. Renewed clashes broke out in northern Shan State on Sunday, including in Muse Township, between government troops and the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA). The post KIO Denies Allegations of Forced Recruitment in Shan State appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Suu Kyi Says Peace Process Will Be Government’s Priority Posted: 04 Jan 2016 01:19 AM PST Aung San Suu Kyi gives a speech to mark Burma's Independence Day at the National League for Democracy (NLD) party head office in Rangoon, January 4, 2016. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi said on Monday the country's peace process will be the first priority of her new government that will take power later this year, following a landslide victory in a November election. The country has struggled for decades to reach lasting peace agreements with a multitude of ethnic minority guerrilla groups that have fought against the government for greater autonomy and recognition. The government signed a ceasefire in October, but the deal fell short of its nationwide billing, with seven of 15 groups invited declining to sign, including some of the most powerful. Fighting has since flared in eastern parts of the country between the military, non-signatories and groups that did not take part in the negotiations. "The peace process is the first thing the new government will work on. We will try for the all-inclusive ceasefire agreement," Suu Kyi said in a speech to mark Independence Day at the headquarters of her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), in Rangoon. "We can do nothing without peace in our country." Suu Kyi spurned the government-lead peace talks that President Thein Sein touted as a major achievement of his semi-civilian administration, which took power in 2011, ending 49 years of direct military rule. She did not attend a signing ceremony in October. The next step in the peace process, a political dialogue with the eight groups that signed, is set to begin on Jan. 12. The NLD-led government will take power in March following a presidential election expected to take place in February, but the military will remain a powerful political force. A quarter of seats in parliament are reserved for unelected military officials. Three important cabinet ministers—home affairs, defense and border affairs—are also chosen by the commander-in-chief. Suu Kyi remains barred from becoming president under the military-drafted constitution. Suu Kyi's speech was one of her first since winning the election and marked 68 years of Burma's independence. The Nobel laureate's father, Aung San, is greatly revered in Burma for leading the country's fight for independence from the British and founding the military. He was assassinated in 1947, six months before his dream of an independent nation was realized when Suu Kyi was just two years old. The post Suu Kyi Says Peace Process Will Be Government's Priority appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Renewed Fighting Between Govt, TNLA in Shan State Posted: 04 Jan 2016 01:06 AM PST A Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) soldier in Mantong Township, northern Shan state, January 15, 2014. (Photo: Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters) Renewed fighting between Burma's Armed Forces and the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) broke out in northern Shan State on Sunday, with the ethnic armed group claiming government troops called in aerial firepower to back ground forces. Mai Aie Kyaw, a spokesperson for the TNLA, told The Irrawaddy on Monday that hostilities broke out in two separate locations in northern Shan State on Sunday. "Fighting broke out twice yesterday. One of our men was injured. We found the dead bodies of four government soldiers. They came to fire at us with helicopters for about 30 minutes in the evening," Mai Aie Kyaw said. According to a Facebook post by the TNLA's Information Department, fighting occurred in Nam Loi Lai village of Muse Township involving TNLA Battalion 571 and Burma Army Light Infantry Division 99, lasting from around 10.40 am until after 5 pm. Separate fighting occurred in Namkham Township involving the TNLA's Battalion 478 and the Burma Army's Light Infantry Division 77, lasting from around noon until 4 pm, according to the Facebook post. The armed group's information unit also posted photos of what it claimed were helicopter gunships used by government forces on Sunday. The two helicopters attacked the TNLA's Brigade 1 base in Muse Township from 4.40 pm, according to the TNLA. The Palaung armed group similarly claimed that the government used helicopter gunships on Dec. 14-15 during fighting in Namhsan Township. The early-January fighting came a few days after Burma Army Commander-in-Chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing pledged to work for peace and stability in 2016 in a new year's message posted to social media. "The Tatmadaw [Burma Army] is cooperating with the government, focusing mainly on ensuring peace and stability, unity and progress, which are in fact essential requirements for the country," Min Aung Hlaing wrote. "I solemnly promise that the Tatmadaw will work together with national people in harmony and in unison for further enhancing peace and stability and the prosperity of the country in 2016." The TNLA was not among armed groups that the government deemed eligible to sign a so-called nationwide ceasefire agreement in mid-October. Only eight armed groups signed the deal, with political dialogue, set to be attended by 700 delegates, to begin on Jan. 12. The post Renewed Fighting Between Govt, TNLA in Shan State appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Indian Troops Still Fighting 2 Gunmen at Pathankot Air Base Posted: 03 Jan 2016 09:18 PM PST An Indian security personnel asks people to move away from the area outside the Indian Air Force (IAF) base at Pathankot in Punjab, India, January 3, 2016. (Photo: Mukesh Gupta / Reuters) PATHANKOT, India — Indian troops were still battling at least two gunmen Sunday night at an air force base near the border with Pakistan, more than a day and a half after the compound came under attack, a top government official said. At least seven troops and four gunmen have been killed in the fighting so far. The two suspected militants were discovered shortly after noon Sunday and hours later appeared to have been cornered, Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi told reporters, adding that he expected the gunmen to be "neutralized" soon. The attack on the Pathankot air force base started before dawn Saturday and is seen as an attempt to undo recent improvements in the relationship between archrivals India and Pakistan. It comes a week after Narendra Modi became the first Indian prime minister in 12 years to visit Pakistan. Mehrishi said Indian authorities were alerted Friday afternoon about a potential terror attack in Pathankot, and that aerial surveillance at the base spotted the suspected militants as they entered the compound. He said they were quickly engaged by Indian troops and "were unable to move toward their likely intended target" of the area where the base's aircraft and military equipment are kept. Since Saturday morning, the base has been swarming with air force commandos, troops from India's elite National Security Guard and local police. The number of troops killed in the attack rose to seven on Sunday, with four succumbing to their injuries overnight and an elite commando killed in a morning blast that occurred while he was handling explosives, officials said. The attack at one of India's major air force bases started a few hours before dawn Saturday when a group of militants entered the area of the base where the living quarters are located, the Defense Ministry said. The first gunbattle with the militants lasted about 14 hours, after which the air force said it had begun operations to secure the base. Mehrishi said that troops were not certain of the presence of additional gunmen until they were discovered Sunday afternoon, and that the two men were cornered in a wooded area of the base by the evening. "They are limited to an area and we are very hopeful that by this evening these two terrorists will be neutralized," he said. A senior air force officer, Air Marshal Anil Khosla, told reporters in New Delhi that the base will not be declared fully secured until the entire area is thoroughly checked by troops. The sprawling Pathankot air force base is spread over several kilometers (miles), including some forested sections. It houses a fleet of India's Russian-origin MiG-21 fighter jets and Mi-25 and Mi-35 attack helicopters, along with other military hardware. The Defense Ministry said no aircraft or military equipment had been damaged in the fighting. The base is on the highway that connects India's insurgency-plagued Jammu and Kashmir state with the rest of the country. It's also very close to India's border with Pakistan. The Himalayan region of Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, but is claimed in its entirety by both. Rebels in India's portion of Kashmir have been fighting since 1989 for independence or merger with Pakistan. India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the insurgents, a charge Islamabad denies, and the attack at the base is being viewed as a possible attempt to unravel recent progress in the relationship between the two nations. Police have said they're investigating whether the gunmen came from the Indian portion of Kashmir, where rebels routinely stage attacks, or from Pakistan. The violence follows Indian Prime Minister Modi's surprise Dec. 25 visit to Pakistan, where he met with his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif—a trip that marked a significant thaw in the mostly tense relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors. The two leaders also held an unscheduled meeting at the Paris climate change talks last month. Ahead of Modi's visit to Pakistan, the national security advisers of both countries met in Thailand. The foreign secretaries of both nations are scheduled to meet in Islamabad later this month. The responses to the weekend attack from both countries have been muted so far, with neither New Delhi nor Islamabad giving any indication that the planned talks are under any threat. In Pakistan, Sharif's foreign affairs adviser, Sartaj Aziz, said in a radio interview Saturday, as the attack was unfolding, that Pakistan wants to consolidate its improved relations with India. Pakistan's foreign ministry condemned the attack. The reaction in India has also been quiet so far. While all political parties condemned the attack, there was no immediate demand that the government call off talks with Pakistan. In the past, when it was in opposition, Modi's own right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party has been the most vocal critic of engagement with Pakistan, saying that talks and terror should not go together. But with Modi's own diplomatic engagement with Islamabad at stake, the BJP has given no indication yet that the planned talks have been threatened by the attack. The post Indian Troops Still Fighting 2 Gunmen at Pathankot Air Base appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Quake Strikes Northeast India; Toll Reaches Four Dead, Nearly 100 Injured Posted: 03 Jan 2016 09:12 PM PST An aerial view of the northeastern Indian city of Imphal, February 2, 2012. (Photo: Rupak De Chowdhuri / Reuters) GUWAHATI, India — A powerful earthquake struck northeastern India before dawn on Monday, killing at least four people and injuring nearly 100, though the toll was expected to rise, with rescue efforts hampered by severed power supplies and telecommunication links. The US Geological Survey said the quake of magnitude 6.8 was 57 km (35 miles) deep and struck 29 km (18 miles) west of Imphal, the capital of the Indian state of Manipur bordering Burma. The quake struck while many residents were asleep, and roofs and staircases of some buildings collapsed in the city of about 270,000 people. "It was the biggest earthquake we've felt in Imphal," disaster response worker Kanarjit Kangujam told Reuters by telephone. Police and hospitals in Imphal said the casualty toll had reached four dead and nearly 100 injured. Disaster rescue workers battled to find workers believed to have been buried beneath the rubble of a building that had been under construction. They were unsure how many might be trapped. Residents of Imphal said people fled their homes and power and telecoms links were down in the remote region. Some lashed out at what they called the authorities' slow response, saying that although the army had begun to clear some debris, it appeared to be short on heavy equipment. "We haven't seen any help from the government side until now," said Kangujam, the disaster response volunteer in Manipur. "The government has not given us any information." Government officials leading the rescue effort could not immediately be reached for comment. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was in touch with authorities in the northeast. Rescue teams from Guwahati, in neighboring Assam, were scrambling to reach Imphal. People in Bangladesh and the Himalayan nation of Nepal ran from their homes, and the quake was also felt as far away as the Burmese city of Rangoon, about 1,176 km (730 miles) to the south, residents said. An official at Burma's meteorological department in Naypyidaw, the capital, said there were no reports of damage or casualties on the Burmese side of the border. The post Quake Strikes Northeast India; Toll Reaches Four Dead, Nearly 100 Injured appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Vietnam Protests after China Lands Plane on Disputed Spratlys Posted: 03 Jan 2016 08:46 PM PST Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang points out a reporter to receive a question at a regular news conference in Beijing, October 27, 2015. (Photo: Kim Kyung-Hoon / Reuters) HANOI — Vietnam formally accused China of violating its sovereignty and a recent confidence-building pact on Saturday by landing a plane on an airstrip Beijing has built on an artificial island in a contested part of the South China Sea. Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said the airfield had been "built illegally" on Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly archipelago, in territory that was "part of Vietnam's Spratlys". China's Foreign Ministry rejected the complaint, saying that what was a test flight to the newly built airfield on the reef, which China calls Yongshu Jiao, was a matter "completely within China's sovereignty," the Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported. The United States said it was concerned that the flight had exacerbated tensions. Washington has criticized China's construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea and worries that Beijing plans to use them for military purposes, even though China says it has no hostile intent. Pooja Jhunjhunwala, a spokeswoman for the US State Department, said there was "a pressing need for claimants to publicly commit to a reciprocal halt to further land reclamation, construction of new facilities, and militarization of disputed features." "We encourage all claimants to actively reduce tensions by refraining from unilateral actions that undermine regional stability, and taking steps to create space for meaningful diplomatic solutions to emerge," she said. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China used a civil aircraft to conduct the flight to test whether the airfield facilities meet civil-aviation standards. "China has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and their adjacent waters. China will not accept the unfounded accusation from the Vietnamese side," she said, referring to the Spratlys by their Chinese name. Hua added that China hoped Vietnam could work to achieve "sustainable, healthy and stable" development of bilateral ties. Hanoi's Foreign Ministry said Vietnam handed a protest note to China's embassy and asked China not to repeat the action. It called the flight "a serious infringement of the sovereignty of Vietnam on the Spratly archipelago." China claims almost all the South China Sea, which is believed to have huge deposits of oil and gas, and through which about US$5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year, and has been building up facilities on the islands it controls. It completed an airfield on Fiery Cross Reef that security experts say could accommodate most Chinese military aircraft late last year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan also have rival claims in the South China Sea. The post Vietnam Protests after China Lands Plane on Disputed Spratlys appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

China Challenge: Getting Poor Migrant Workers to Buy Vacant Homes Posted: 03 Jan 2016 08:31 PM PST New apartment buildings are seen under construction in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, December 18, 2015. (Photo: Reuters) BEIJING / HONG KONG — Rattled by the potential economic fallout from millions of unsold homes, China wants migrant workers to buy properties in smaller cities and ease the burden on a real estate sector that makes up about 15 percent of the country's economic growth. The move underscores Beijing's concerns over a stock of some 1 billion square meters of vacant housing—around 13 million homes or enough to house the population of Australia—and the broader knock-on effect of any defaults by struggling property developers as the world's second-largest economy grows at its slowest pace in a quarter of a century. While encouraging migrants to buy homes in lower-tier cities seems like a remedy to boost demand, making money available to them will prove tougher. Many of China's more than 270 million migrants earn below 3,000 yuan (US$462) a month, less than half the cost per square meter needed for a home in a lower-tier city such as Changzhou, in eastern Jiangsu province. With low incomes and few assets, migrant laborers are not obviously attractive loan candidates, and the authorities will need to find property developers willing to sell homes at a discount and local governments ready to subsidize purchases. "Conditions are not mature for migrant workers to buy unsold homes. You can't count on a certificate for housing ownership to resolve everything," said Jason Hu, head of research at Chinese property consultant Holdways in Beijing. "Everyone wants to settle in the city, but where's the money?" said Hu, adding other issues need to be resolved such as giving migrant workers equal access to social security and public services. Distant Dream Senior leaders have said China will step up efforts to tackle property inventories this year, including helping migrant workers buy or rent homes in cities, and encouraging developers to cut prices. Authorities aim to get 100 million migrants to settle in cities by 2020, and officials in small-and medium-sized cities have pledged to give permanent resident status, or hukou, to more rural people, although access to welfare remains a concern. Another potential obstacle is that more than 70 percent of migrant workers already living in cities prefer to rent, according to National Health and Family Planning Commission data. "If I can earn enough I'd go back to the city near my hometown and buy a home there," said a restaurant worker in Beijing who gave just his surname of Long. "Prices here are too high, it's impossible for me to settle here," added the 26-year-old who left his village in central Hunan province five years ago. With home ownership still a distant dream for most low-income migrant workers, the challenge is to make homes more affordable. "The hurdle is very clear: how to encourage the low income group to purchase property—to improve affordability," said Zhou Hao, economist at Commerzbank in Singapore. In a bid to prevent struggling developers from defaulting if they have to cut prices—and the impact this could have on the underground financial system that funds many of them—local authorities have launched a plan to pilot rural land collateral loans in 291 selected counties. Urbanization It is not yet clear whether property developers and local governments—which earn much of their revenue through land sales—will be willing to support Beijing's attempts to clear bloated housing inventory. "I'm not sure what the government could do to 'encourage price cuts' unless it's going to subsidize them," said Yin Chin Cheong, a Singapore-based analyst at CreditSights. Some developers welcomed the move, saying the proposal is part and parcel of China's urbanization process. "It would stimulate demand for housing. But these are not temporary measures to run down inventory, they are part of a long-term urbanization," said Fan Xiaochong, vice president of Sunshine 100, a developer focused on second- and third-tier cities. Beijing also wants low-income city residents and those living in dilapidated housing to buy cheaper unsold homes. While parallels have been drawn with the US subprime crisis, which was also preceded by excess housing inventory, risky mortgages and aggressive lending, some experts shrugged off such a scenario. "Mortgage penetration levels are lower and down-payments are higher compared with the US, and household debt is much lower. So it's unlikely to snowball into a sub-prime like situation," said Christopher Yip, Hong Kong-based analyst at Standard & Poor's. The post China Challenge: Getting Poor Migrant Workers to Buy Vacant Homes appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

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