Democratic Voice of Burma

Mob targets reporters during Lashio riots Posted: 29 May 2013 05:04 AM PDT Two freelance reporters covering the ongoing violence in Shan state's Lashio for DVB were injured and had their SIM cards stolen after being assaulted by rioters on Wednesday. While watching a mob loot a restaurant in the Lashio's ward-7 on Wednesday afternoon, the two reporters were attacked by unidentified assailants who arrived at the scene on motorbikes. "I got beat up and left with a bleeding head and my colleague also took a hit on the back – we were just watching the situation with cameras around our shoulders when a large group of people arrived on motorbikes and started attacking us," said one of the reporters, who is not being named for security purposes. According to the reporter, the rioters, who asked if they had been documenting the incident, then snatched their cameras. "We answered no, but they were going to take the cameras – in the end we convinced them to only take the memory cards," said the reporter, adding that the situation in Lashio was still chaotic even after authorities issued a curfew order last night. "The mobs are roaming around the town on motorbikes, cars and Tuk-Tuks – they are playing cat and mouse with security forces, popping up here and there." As of today, the mobs were continuing to burn down buildings – including a cinema and several restaurants. Rights groups condemned the attacks on Wednesday and said authorities were responsible for prosecuting the individuals behind the assault on the journalists. "Too often forgotten in all the discussions about liberalising media laws and ending censorship is the ground reality that reporters must be protected to report what they see, without fear of violence or retaliation," said Phil Robertson from Human Rights Watch. "The fact that these reporters were targeted by the mob fearing independent documentation of their crimes is profoundly disturbing.  The police need to urgently investigate and get to the bottom of this incident, and arrest and prosecute those responsible for this attack."

Displaced Kachin keep wary eye on peace talks Posted: 29 May 2013 04:30 AM PDT As the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) and the government sit down for talks this week, refugees living in displacement camps in northern Burma are hoping the two sides will address their concerns after two years of fighting. During an interview with DVB on Tuesday, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA)'s Deputy Commander-in-chief Guan Maw said the plight of Internally Displaced Persons’ (IDPs) plight would be discussed as a separate issue during the latest round of talks. After a 17-year ceasefire between the KIO and the government collapsed in 2011, more than 80,000 people have been displaced due to the fighting. "The [IDPs] are hopeful that it's going to be different this time but some are still sceptical – they see it is just yet another meeting," said Mary Aung, an activist who works with the IDP camps, adding the two sides have discussed the issue in the past but have yet to hammer out any firm results. Others said that an end to fighting would be welcome, but extensive damage to local villages needs to be addressed before they can return to their villages. "Even if they say in the meeting we can go back home, we actually don't have a home anymore to go back to – there is probably just a jungle where our villages stood," said Roi Hseng, a teacher in one of the camps. According to a report published by humanitarian organisation the Free Burma Rangers this week, IDP camps have been chronically underfunded and difficult to access as fighting continues between the military and KIA. "Relief is far below the international humanitarian standard (which mandates that all persons should be provided with provisions such as a safe environment, adequate food and water, and acces to healthcare) due to ongoing attacks by the Burma Army, insufficient funding and limited access for aid organisations in the remote locations of the IDP camps," reported FBR. Rights groups have continually criticised the military for blocking the shipments of humanitarian aid to IDPs in Kachin state, while the government has fired back with accusations that rebel forces have consistently struck convoys driving on the roads and supply routes in the state. While the latest rounds of talks have been heralded as historic due to the presence of the UN's special envoy to Burma and promises of a political dialogue with the country’s armed ethnic groups, others remain doubtful that the military is acting entirely out of honest intentions. "We really want to go back to our villages, but we still have doubts whether the government would really engage in the talks with genuine goodwill," said Pastor Zao Nan in Pakahtaung IDP camp. "We would like to urge them to bury the hatchet with the KIA, in consideration for the people, and to make things the best." While the government has continually pushed for a ceasefire with the Kachin, the KIO has refused to sign a new agreement with Naypyidaw until Burma's ethnic groups are guaranteed greater political rights.

Shan state officials object to establishment of inter-faith group Posted: 29 May 2013 02:56 AM PDT Shan state's regional government late last week slammed the establishment of an inter-faith organisation in Taunggyi. Buddhists, Christians, Hindus and Muslims formed the group on 8 May while attending a workshop sponsored by the Yadanar Myay Social Development Association and Norwegian People's Aid. On Saturday, Shan state's regional government posted a statement on its website publicly objecting to the establishment of the group, claiming authorities had given the green light to the workshop but had not provided the attendees with permission to form an organisation in the event's wake. The group's patron Buddhist monk Khema Nanda said authorities had not contacted him to express their disapproval. "I knew that a statement was posted online, but I never received an official notice," said Khema Nanda. The controversy around the formation of the inter-faith group comes as tensions between Buddhists and Muslims continues to flare up across the country. On Tuesday, religious violence spilled over into Shan state's Lashio after a Muslim resident allegedly doused a Buddhist woman with petrol and set her ablaze. According to a National League for Democracy Central Executive Committee member in Lashio, police said the man behind the attack was apprehended and later found to be carrying drugs. "They apparently found two pills on him – he bought some petrol from a roadside vendor, then splashed her with it and tried to set her on fire. She ran and in the end was caught on fire," said Sai Myint Maung. "He was apprehended by residents in the neighbourhood and sent to the police station-1." Once he was taken to Lashio's police station-1, a crowd of approximately 150 people gathered outside the building demanding the suspect be handed over to the mob. "We went to the police station to clarify that it was actually we the Buddhists being terrorised and not the other way around," said Buddhist monk Ashin Inkura who was at the scene. "We wouldn't want fingers pointed at our religion." After authorities refused to comply with the crowds' demands, the mob went on a rampage across the city targeting mosques, an Islamic school and Muslim-owned businesses, including teashops and a restaurant. Authorities responded by installing a curfew in the town at 9pm, and according to photographs taken at the scene, military troops were deployed to the municipality to maintain order. The riots in Lashio are the latest episode of ongoing religious violence to erupt since fighting broke out a year ago between Muslim Rohingya and Buddhists Arakanese in western Burma's Arakan state. Similar bouts of rioting have spread across central Burma and now appears to be spilling over into the country's northern borderlands. While Burma's transition from military junta to quasi-civilian government has resulted in the removal of targeted sanctions by western governments, Thein Sein's inability to quell religious rioting and the rising tide of Buddhist nationalism in the country has tarnished the leader's reformist image. During a meeting in Rangoon on Monday, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi spoke out against a ban imposed by Arakan state officials that prevents Rohingya in multiple towns from having more than two children. According to a report in AFP, Suu Kyi described the policy as discriminatory and said the ban was "not in line with human rights". -Nang Mya Nadi provided additional reporting.

Riots erupt in Lashio Posted: 28 May 2013 11:05 PM PDT Religious riots have erupted in Shan state’s Lashio, after a Buddhist woman was allegedly ‘torched’ by a Muslim man.

Religious riots erupt in Shan state Posted: 28 May 2013 09:13 PM PDT Houses and mosques were set ablaze by mobs in a town in eastern Burma after a Buddhist woman was allegedly “torched” by a Muslim man, said authorities on Tuesday, in a fresh bout of religious violence. An ethnic Shan-Muslim man was arrested after he “torched” a woman selling petrol, a police officer in the Shan state capital of Lashio told AFP under the condition of anonymity. A town official confirmed the arrest of the Muslim man who he said had “torched a woman with petrol”. A curfew was imposed late Tuesday to disperse angry mobs of local people – including Buddhist monks – who had “destroyed some houses and mosques”, the official added, also declining to be named. “Fires have been put out at some places in the town… the situation is under control now,” the official said, adding soldiers have been deployed to enforce the curfew. The woman, an ethnic Shan-Buddhist, was taken to hospital, but neither official could give details of her condition. Residents in Lashio, around 200 kilometres (120 miles) northeast of Mandalay, said Muslim shops and even a school had been set alight as furious mobs demanded the police hand the suspect over to them. “I can still see smoke and flames coming out from a Muslim school… it appears the school has been burnt down,” one resident told AFP by telephone, confirming the curfew. “We do not know exactly what is going on.” The mainly Buddhist Shan are the country’s second-largest ethnic group, accounting for about nine percent of the population. Attacks against Muslims – who officially make up an estimated four percent of Myanmar’s Buddhist-majority population – have exposed deep rifts in the formerly junta-run country and cast a shadow over widely praised political reforms. The government says at least 44 people were killed and thousands left homeless after a flare-up of religious violence in March, which was apparently triggered by a quarrel in a gold shop. Tensions have simmered since, with hardline Buddhists – including monks – urging a boycott of Muslim shops and deploying fierce anti-Muslim rhetoric. Three Muslims, including the gold shop owner, were jailed for 14 years in April for assaulting a Buddhist customer, while this month seven more received sentences of up to 28 years in connection with the violence. So far no Buddhists have been convicted over the unrest, which began in the central town of Meikhtila, but officials have insisted both sides are being treated equally. Last year up to 140,000 people – mainly Rohingya Muslims – were displaced in two waves of sectarian unrest between Buddhists and Muslims in western Arakan state. Human Rights Watch has accused Burma’s authorities of being a party to ethnic cleansing over the violence, which killed some 200 people and saw mobs set fire to whole villages. Burma’s reformist President Thein Sein this month vowed to uphold Rohingya rights, while opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday made a rare intervention in the incendiary issue to condemn a ban on Rohingya having more than two children in strife-t