Monday, July 15, 2013

Democratic Voice of Burma

Democratic Voice of Burma

Poverty alleviation scheme falls short

Posted: 15 Jul 2013 05:29 AM PDT

In May the government granted over 10 million Kyat [USD$10,000] to Kamarmat village-tract in Rangoon as part of a nationwide poverty alleviation scheme.

Impoverished households were due to get 30,000 Kyat [USD$30] each in micro-finance loans.

The aim of the programme was to prioritise the poorer residents, but so far no villagers in South Kamarmat village have received the loans.

 

Burma disbands notorious NaSaKa border guard force

Posted: 15 Jul 2013 05:24 AM PDT

President Thein Sein announced on Sunday that Burma has abolished the notorious Arakan security force, the NaSaKa, which guards the border with neighbouring Bangladesh and has been implicated in serious human rights violations against the stateless Rohingya minority.

A brief statement on the president's office website said the Nasaka was disbanded on Friday 12 July, but offered no further explanation. A spokesperson for the Arakan state government told DVB that he only learned about the decision through the media, but added that the NaSaKa's functions would be absorbed by other departments, including police and immigration.

According to local reports, a Sittwe-based police colonel has been dispatched to northern Arakan state to take charge of the NaSaKa's primary duties, which are focused on migration control near the Bangladeshi border.

The NaSaKa was established in 1992 by the military junta and tasked with controlling the movements and population growth of the stateless Rohingya, who are viewed as illegal Bangladeshi immigrants by the government and denied citizenship. It has been accused of serious rights abuses against the minority, including extortion, forced labour, rapes and killings.

"The NaSaKa was especially formed to control the Rohingya people in Maungdaw and Buthidaung," explained Sittwe local Aung Win, referring to two Rohingya-majority townships near the border. "The Nasaka didn't do anything for the benefit of the country."

Human rights activists have cautiously welcomed the move, but insisted that it is too early to see whether it will effect genuine change in the volatile state. Both the NaSaKa and police forces were accused of siding with the Buddhist Arakanese during two bouts of clashes with Muslim Rohingya last year.

"If they are all replaced by Rakhine police it could become even worse, because at least [the NaSaKa's] higher ranks were Burmese," said Chris Lewa, Director of the Arakan Project, an NGO that lobbies for the rights of the Rohingya. "But the police are mostly, or only, Rakhine."

News emerged today that local police in Sittwe arrested a prominent Rohingya lawyer and activist. Kyaw Hla Aung, 74, was detained by police around midday on Monday for unknown reasons. It is the second time he has been detained since last year.

Meanwhile, local sources say that Rohingya traders in Maungdaw, who need daily travel permits to cross the border, are still obliged to pay "arbitrary taxes" to the police and immigration officers, who have taken over from the NaSaKa. Aung Win warned that the police were likely "copy the activities" of the NaSaKa.

"It won't make a big difference, but if the government continues the democratisation policy for Myanmar (Burma) then I think it will be a bit better for the border people," said Aung Win.

But some have suggested that the government is planning to replace the NaSaKa with a more potent security force.

"Border security should be the responsibility of the Ministry of Home Affairs," Dr Aye Maung from the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party told DVB. "We assume this could be the motive for disbanding the [NaSaKa]. We suppose there is another [border security] force ready [to assume responsibility]."

Allegations of corruption also run high up the abolished border guard force. In August 2012, a senior commander was sentenced to 40 years in prison for allegedly "taking money from Muslims" to help them carry out attacks on Buddhists in Maungdaw during the first wave of sectarian violence.

Lewa added that there could be a feeling among the government that the NaSaKa was "too soft". According to a report in Eleven Media on Sunday, the NaSaKa has also been accused of letting "illegal immigrants" into Burma in exchange for bribes.

"The state is organising a better system for border security," Htoo Hlaing, former deputy head of the NaSaKa, told the news group.

The Burmese government has come under growing international pressure to address the rights of the Rohingya, whose persecution has been cast under the spotlight since last year's violence. But in May, the government re-affirmed a controversial two-child limit for Rohingya families in a bid to stem their "population growth".

"It's going to be interesting to see what happens, because a lot of things such as marriage permissions used to be issued by the NaSaKa," said Lewa. "But right now it's too early to say what's going to happen."

Some 140,000, mostly Rohingya Muslims, were displaced in last year's violence, leaving them trapped in dismal camps or ghettos, without access to proper healthcare, food or sanitation.

-Additional reporting by Shwe Aung and Ye Thu

The wrong Hague

Posted: 15 Jul 2013 05:17 AM PDT

President Thein Sein of Burma is meeting the wrong Hague as he makes his historic first visit to London this week. Instead of visiting Foreign Secretary William Hague, Thein Sein should be visiting the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The visit marks a dramatic U-turn in British policy towards Burma. Only two years ago William Hague supported an international investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma. Eighteen months ago he said Thein Sein should be judged on his actions not his words.Where once David Cameron and William Hague spoke of ending impunity in Burma, now there are just token platitudes on human rights.

Human rights won't be at the top of the agenda in meetings with Thein Sein. Instead economic issues and trade will dominate. This is despite appalling human rights abuses that have continued since Thein Sein began his "reform" process more than two years ago.

The British government's particular obsequiousness towards Thein Sein may be due in part to the fact that they are not simply trying to increase trade and investment, but also win contracts from the Burmese government to rebuild infrastructure.

Ongoing human rights abuses are not simply a legacy left over from the past dictatorship, in which it is worth noting Thein Sein was the third most senior general. Many of the most serious abuses, such as rape, torture, executions, forced labour, use of child soldiers, and deliberate targeting of civilians by the Burmese army since the government broke the ceasefire in Kachin State, began after Thein Sein became president.

"Many of the abuses that have taken place in the past two years violate international law"

Others, such as ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in Arakan state, also began on Thein Sein's watch. Hundreds of people are being arrested under a new law that was supposed to give the right to protest, and hundreds more remain in jail more than two years after Thein Sein became president.

Many of the abuses that have taken place in the past two years violate international law.

They could be classified as war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. The British government has not denied this. Yet they no longer support an international inquiry into these abuses, and instead ask Thein Sein to hold investigations. In the UK, the British government does not ask murderers to investigate their own crimes.

The British government knows full well no such investigation will happen. For the past two decades the UN General Assembly resolutions have made more than 20 such requests, every one of which was ignored. Why is the British government's only response to multiple violations of international law simply to ask Thein Sein to do something which they know he never will?

Facing growing domestic criticism over their Burma policy, the British government is clutching at straws to try to demonstrate their commitment to human rights, albeit without upsetting Thein Sein. Platitudes have descended into farce with the announcement that the British government will provide human rights training to the Burmese military. They might as well try to teach sharks not to eat fish. A few sessions in a classroom are not going to address human rights abuses by the Burmese army.

The most obvious way to address human rights abuses by the military is to put an end to impunity. Abuses are much more likely to be reduced if there is justice and accountability, and soldiers who commit abuses are put on trial and sent to jail. Not only is Thein Sein not doing this, he refuses to admit human rights abuses are even taking place.

The refusal of Thein Sein to acknowledge abuses, including the multiple cases of rape against ethnic Kachin women by the Burmese Army in the past two years, is another reason why human rights training won't work.

The political and military masters leading the country today were also in charge during the previous military dictatorship. As a new briefing published by Burma Campaign UK details, Thein Sein has been personally involved in human rights abuses for decades.

He has even been named personally by the UN for ordering human rights abuses. Thein Sein was in charge of drafting Burma's current constitution, which grants immunity for past crimes.

As a Karen person still living in a camp for the internally displaced told Burma Campaign UK: "There must be justice, but it will only happen if the international community do it."

The British government says it has changed policy because of the dramatic changes taking place in Burma. But it has given 100 percent endorsement to a process which has given people just 10 percent freedom. When people try to expand the political space in Burma they get arrested and jailed. Cameron and Hague would not accept this in the UK, so why do they think its good enough for people from Burma?

-Mark Farmaner is the director of Burma Campaign UK. Follow him on Twitter: @MarkFarmaner

Rights group to sue police for ‘sexually assaulting’ trans-women

Posted: 15 Jul 2013 01:31 AM PDT

LGBT activists are planning to take legal action against Mandalay's police force following reports that the department's officers sexually humiliated and physically assaulted a group of transgender women last week.

According to Equality Myanmar's director Aung Myo Min, his group is in the process of seeking legal advice and will file an official complaint against Mandalay's police station-3 if they find ample evidence to present.

"We learnt the police sexually harassed them by pulling off their wigs and taking topless photos of them and also verbally abused them and forced them to do a 'catwalk' – this is completely inappropriate and a human rights violation," said Aung Myo Min.

"We are looking to consult with legal experts to determine whether the police had acted above the law and if that is the case [we will] file a report to the National Human Rights Commission as well as the regional government."

In a report published on the Irrawaddy's English language website last week, the victims of the assault said police arrested the group of twelve during a crackdown on an area frequented by sex workers in Mandalay.

While in detention, the police reportedly sexually and physically abused the inmates, while shouting profanities.

"The police forcibly pulled off our clothes, kicked us and beat us. Our breasts were squeezed, scratched and beaten with police batons," said one of the victims, Myat Noe, during an interview with the Irrawaddy.

"And they forced us to do frog jumps, without clothes, and shout that we are not women but men. I've never experienced terror like this."

According to an official at the Mandalay police station-3 who spoke with DVB, police arrested the transgender women on suspicion of plotting crimes because they were found “in disguise as women” near Mandalay's famed moat.

"The Achauks [sexual slur for transgender women] disguising as Achauks by the moat, who were seemingly ready to commit a crime, were reported by residents in the area," said the official who spoke on the condition of anynomity.

"We pressed charges on five of them for masquerading on 7 and 8 of July."

The official added that police would continue arresting members of the group if authorities suspected that they were participating in "criminal activities".

Under section 377 of Burma's penal code, citizens are liable to fines and up to 10 years imprisonment if they are caught participating in "carnal intercourse against the order of nature".

The ties that bind in Burma

Posted: 14 Jul 2013 11:15 PM PDT

This is the second article in a two-part series examining sectarian violence and exploring strategies that can help unite Burma's diverse populace. The first part can be read here. 

Four weeks ago, I spent the latter part of an evening with the local commander of an Irrawaddy-delta town chatting with him and other friends. He ultimately asked me – and effectively the group – to define this "open society" that was meant to be coming to Burma, and to explain how the country is supposed to manage it?

He indexed the recent violence as a gaping question mark, providing it as an example of people losing discipline. A rambunctious party fell silent and debate ensued for the next hour.

That these kinds of discussions are occurring is remarkable and positive, and it is important to highlight them as examples of Burmese Buddhists (in this case) struggling with these issues.  It also illustrates that people are not merely seeing the "other" as a threat, but are trying to figure out how to navigate – and even embrace – difference.

Indeed, these conversations can be interpreted as nascent attempts to confront scapegoating violence with a positive politics, with citizens articulating inclusive conceptions of community that base inclusion not on the violence of the colonial encounter of all things.

This positive politics must include elaborations of economic justice and inclusive political membership. The first can be achieved through a combination of legislation, advocacy and pedagogy around the importance of directing support to the 70 percent of Burmese citizens who toil in or around the rural agriculture sector.

A team of Harvard professors has highlighted the economic sense in supporting small-holder plots, something that is a far cry from Aung San Suu Kyi telling farmers that they will be fine without their land.

Luckily there are signs that such pro-poor orientation is emerging from the National League for Democracy as well. The NLD's new in-house research team is focusing on the agricultural sector, working to synthesize research and data from constituents so as to develop policies that allow growth to come from the bottom.

A missing piece is Suu Kyi using her immense social capital to infuse her empty rule of law rhetoric with these kinds of meanings. Indeed, it is not enough to say “rule of law” without telling people how these ideas will actually affect their lives in positive ways.

A "rule of law" that guarantees that the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor is one that is not only unjust but which breeds potential conflict, as those who feel excluded – at any level – can find scapegoats to target or victims to violate. A "rule of law" that ensures that some are citizens and some are not puts the lie to the NLD’s plea for universal human rights and justice for which the party has putatively advocated for so long now.

Second, political leaders must articulate policies and political narratives that elaborate a more capacious understanding of political membership. Here, changing the exclusionary 1982 citizenship law and developing a federalist system that devolves power to ethnic states will certainly be necessary.

Moreover, there are positive voices which can be magnified: a collection of inter-faith youth organisations in particular have made courageous statements against racial violence and a group of moderate monks have repudiated the claims made by the bigoted ones.

But neither policies nor rejections will be sufficient because they do not positively articulate why people like the Rohingya, Muslims, ethnic minorities, Christians, etc belong. This will require pedagogy about how all of these peoples have shared collective struggle (living through the military regime), often share bonds of family and culture, and most importantly, share a desire to be part of the nation’s future.

If Burma examines its society, they will see that denizens of all stripes – ethnic minorities, Muslims, even Rohingya – can make and have made those kinds of commitments. Fortunately, there is a model for this – Suu Kyi's father and namesake Aung San, Burma's founder.

Anthropologist Gustaaf Houtman has analyzed Aung San's speeches, and finds Aung San continually searching for a political liberation that applies to all of Burma's peoples and which is expressed through the idiom of socio-economic justice: "[Aung San] described 'new democracy' as 'although not entirely free of capitalism, is not capitalistic', is 'somewhere betwixt and between' … If the old democracies had succumbed to underhand manipulation by 'capitalists and big business discreetly assuming power' the constitution of this 'new democracy' would 'place power in the hands of the masses through their elected representative from top to bottom.'"

Drawing on Aung San, who is still seen as a multi-ethnic unifier, and his historical demands for equality may address the lingering and ever-displaced issues of multi-ethnic belonging in a majority-Burman state.

This can be done by imagining a 'politics of the daily' and basing policies and narratives on the struggle of everyday life in a changing Burma. When such a politics is imagined, it must conjure – in the minds of policymakers, activists, and citizens alike – not only the stylised 'average Burmese' (who undoubtedly is Burman and lives in central Burma), but rather expand to consider the experiences of the various classes, ethnicities, and religions in Burma.

This takes unique experiences seriously without flattening difference into a narrative about simple socio-economic concerns, and without insisting that all non-Burmans – or Burmans for that matter – have the exact same experiences.

Such a politics can re-orient the futile search for the timeless 'authentic' Burma subject. It can help develop a sense of a new authentic subject: anyone who has struggled through the long years of the regime and who is now willing to work for a better collective future.

Elliott Prasse-Freeman is Founding Research Associate Fellow of the Human Rights and Social Movements Program at Harvard Kennedy School's Carr Center for Human Rights. He is also a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Yale University

-The opinions and views expressed in this piece are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect DVB's editorial policy.
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