Friday, July 5, 2013

Democratic Voice of Burma

Democratic Voice of Burma

Burma begins exporting rice to Japan

Posted: 05 Jul 2013 06:14 AM PDT

For the first time in 45 years, Burma has exported 5000 tonnes of rice to Japan.

Japan is also set to begin investing in Burmese processing plants –which are due to have an annual intake of 400,00 tonnes of rice.

It's the latest sign that Burma is opening up after decades of isolation and willing to kick start it's economy.

 

Social media fuels police crackdown on Shan migrants in Thailand

Posted: 05 Jul 2013 05:53 AM PDT

Shan migrants in northern Thailand have become the targets of an online hate campaign and systematic police crackdown, after news spread of a series of gang-related attacks in the Lanna capital.

Over 200 migrants have been arrested and detained by police in the northern city of Chiang Mai in the wake of two vicious knife attacks on Thai citizens, which have been pinned on a group of ethnic Shan youths, known as the "TaiYai Samurai Gang".

The attacks have prompted ire among the local Thai population and fuelled a xenophobic social media campaign against the city's tens of thousands of ethnic Shan migrants. A Facebook group called "Kill TaiYai" has gathered nearly 11,000 likes and hundreds of mocking comments – predominantly from young men in the Chiang Mai area – calling for the expulsion of Shan migrants from Thailand.

On Saturday night, a group of 12 suspected Shan youths were apprehended carrying a one metre long sword. Police have since set up checkpoints around the city and conduct daily sweeps of ethnic Shan neighbourhoods and migrant workplaces.

A local police sergeant told DVB that a special operation to crack down on Burmese migrants had been ordered to restore calm in the city.

"There have been lawless acts such as brawls, where people get beaten up or murdered with swords and other weapons, causing panics in the public and recklessly driving around motorbikes," said Sergeant Khun Wichit from Chang Phuak Police Station.

He insisted that they were not targeting the Shan people "but everyone who acts lawlessly" including Thai nationals. "The arrests will continue as long as the delinquency does," he said.

But rights activists say it has turned into a witch-hunt against migrant workers, who had nothing to do with the violence. Shan "looking" migrants travelling on motorbikes are being routinely stopped by police and interrogated about their ethnicity.

"The first thing they ask you is: are you Shan?" Toom Mawk Harn from the Migrant Assistance Programme (MAP Foundation) told DVB. "If you say yes they will arrest you."

Two DVB reporters were stopped and searched by the authorities on Thursday night, and only released once they showed their press cards.

Campaigners say that both registered and unregistered migrant workers have been targeted, with the latter only released once their employers come to collect them. Many say they have been exhorted for money in the process.

"[Shan] people are now very scared to go out at night or day time," Toom Mawk Harn said. "They have difficulty in their daily lives – they cannot go out to work, or to the temple."

Police have raided local markets and construction sites, where hundreds of Shan migrants earn a living, forcing many to stay in their homes. Daily raids have also been reported in Shan neighbourhoods.

A Shan youth, who asked not to be named, told DVB that plain clothed policemen first turned up near his home last week and began rounding up youths. "I could see my friend sitting and waiting in the car surrounded by police."

"There were three raids in my neighbourhood within one day," said another.

Migrants in Thailand make up about five percent of the county's workforce, and provide a crucial pool of labour for low-skilled, often dangerous, industries. Up to three million people, or about 80 percent, are estimated to come from Burma, and often occupy a quasi-legal existence, which leaves them vulnerable to abuse by the authorities.

"People without ID cards run away when they see the police," explained a second-generation Shan local. He added that the "TaiYai Samurai Gang" mainly consists of disaffected youths – some with ID cards, and some without. "But most of the leaders have already left town."

According to Toom Mawk Harn, local community groups are working with the police to restore calm in the city. In the meanwhile, the MAP Foundation is issuing warnings via radio to the local communities, instructing them to avoid travelling at night.

In 2009, the gang-rape of a local student, allegedly by three Shan men, sparked a similar crackdown.

-Ko Htwe provided additional reporting

Stateless Rohingya face legal limbo in Indonesia

Posted: 04 Jul 2013 11:06 PM PDT

A group of Rohingya asylum-seekers from Burma prayed peacefully alongside Indonesians at a mosque in Sumatra, a sign of the solidarity they have found in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation after fleeing sectarian bloodshed.

The members of the persecuted Muslim minority were still shaken after a gruelling, 25-day journey at sea, but were grateful to find themselves in a country where they felt at least a little at home, despite there being no chance of a normal life for them there.

“Indonesia, Muslim country, good,” said Muhammad Yunus, 25, in halting English, after praying at the immigration detention centre in the town of Lhokseumawe.

But while the population at large is accepting of the increasing number of Rohingya washing up in Indonesia, authorities have not extended the same warm welcome.

Although president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has publicly expressed backing for the stateless minority, Rohingya who make it to Indonesia can end up living in legal limbo for years.

Burma's Buddhist-majority views its population of roughly 800,000 Rohingya as illegal "Bengali" immigrants, and as sectarian violence has escalated in the past year they have fled in increasing numbers.

As other countries in Asia struggle to deal with them, the flow of Rohingya arrivals in Indonesia is increasing.

After several incidents where Thailand was accused of pushing them back out to sea, 2,000 Rohingya landed earlier this year and have been detained in refugee camps. Bangkok has said it is unable to accept more, while Malaysia says it is reaching capacity.

Most Rohingya do not initially view Indonesia as their final destination and hope to use it as a stopping point en route to Australia, where more than 220 have arrived on asylum seeker boats over the past year.

Once in Indonesia, many Rohingya are held in prison-like detention centres for long periods while their cases are processed.

Those granted refugee status by the United Nations are considered the lucky ones but enjoy few rights as Indonesia has not signed a key UN convention on refugees. It will not accept them as permanent citizens and they cannot work or study as they wait to be resettled.

“We can’t do anything here”

At a refugee-housing complex in Medan, on Sumatra, Rohana Fetikileh looks haunted as she contemplates the turmoil that has rocked Burma's Arakan state, from where she fled in 2010.

Arakan state was the site of two outbreaks of deadly sectarian unrest between Rohingya and Buddhists in Burma last year. Since then, several further episodes of communal unrest across Burma have tempered international optimism about the country’s dramatic political reforms as it emerges from decades of military rule.

“If Indonesia accepted us, then we’d stay,” Fetikileh told AFP, clutching her 11-month-old son in her arms as other refugee children played nearby.

“As long as we can work and there is a future for our kids,” added the 28-year-old mother of four.

Those given “Refugee” status are given some help from the UN: basic housing, schooling for their children and a 1.25 million rupiah ($128) monthly allowance per person.

But most refugees spend their days cooped up in basic community housing, with little to do.

“We can’t do anything here,” said Zahid Husein, 26, who has been been waiting for resettlement more than 11 years, having passed through Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia.

“We can’t study, if we want to go shopping we can’t…without being detained again,” he said.

With only 1.0 per cent of refugees globally ever resettled, according to UN data, prospects for Rohingya are bleak. Australia had said it aimed to take around 600 refugees who are in Indonesia in the 12 months to June as part of the expansion of its humanitarian refugee programme, but that number does not include those who had come from Burma.

Many make it to Australia by boarding rickety, wooden boats in Indonesia.

Critics argue that Indonesia has failed to change its policies despite supportive rhetoric and the increasingly desperate state that the Rohingya are arriving in.

Authorities have publicly backed the Rohingya on many occasions – Jakarta pledged US$1 million to help those displaced in violence in Arakan last year and president Yudhoyono raised the issue on a recent visit to Burma.

There have also been growing signs of public anger about the Rohingya’s plight.

In April, a plot to bomb the Burmese embassy in Jakarta was uncovered, and the same day Islamic hardliners marched on the mission urging “jihad in Myanmar” to avenge Muslim deaths.

So far this year, the United Nations has registered 360 arrivals of Rohingya in Indonesia, up from just 30 for the whole of 2010.

While developing countries rarely settle refugees, Jakarta Legal Aid director Febi Yonesta said Indonesia should consider doing so anyway, especially in the case of stateless Rohingya.

“We have the space, the economy is booming, why not?” he said.

Indonesia has long promised to sign the UN convention, but missed its own deadline in 2009 and observers believe there is little chance it will make a new deadline of 2014.

However, Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said the failure to sign the convention was simply down to a “backlog of priorities”.

“We have welcomed the Rohingya – we are not in the practise of pushing them back,” he told AFP.

But warm words may not be enough to help a minority denied citizenship in Burma and desperately searching for a home.

At the Lhokseumawe centre, Mohammad Zuhar bin Sayed Alam explained how he fled Sittwe, in Arakan, after Buddhists sealed off his mosque and he became too scared to walk down the street.

The 30-year-old broke down in tears as he showed two tiny photos of the sister and wife he had been forced to leave behind.
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