Thursday, August 8, 2013

Democratic Voice of Burma

Democratic Voice of Burma

Civil society groups call for creation of a ‘federal state’ during 8888 anniversary

Posted: 08 Aug 2013 05:41 AM PDT

Civil society groups convening in Rangoon to mark the 25th year anniversary of the 8888 uprisings released a declaration on Thursday calling for the establishment of a "democratic federal state".

At the conclusion of the "Silver Jubilee for Four Eights Democracy Movement" conference at the Myanmar Convention Centre in Rangoon, the event's organisers released a statement demanding the establishment of a federal state with "self-determination and equality".

"The objective of the 8888 commemoration is to bring about peace and national reconciliation," said 88 Generation Peace and Open Society's Ko Ko Gyi, a famed student leader who helped organise the conference.

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"For the past two days, we held workshop discussions with representatives from ethnic groups, political parties and academics and reached a decision agreed by all and today, we've concluded with a political framework for the future."

To achieve this end, the civil society groups behind the silver jubilee event said the 2008 constitution should be amended or even redrafted in order to allow for the creation of a federal system of governance.

"The 2008 constitution does not guarantee such a democratic federal state," read the statement published by the Convening Committee of the 8888 Silver Jubilee.

"We strongly believe there is a need to convene a convention that involves all national forces with the goal to achieve peace and national reconciliation."

The demands follow similar calls made last week in Chiang Mai by a federation of eleven of Burma's major armed groups who demanded that a new constitution be drafted to end decades of civil war.

The United Nationalities Federal Council, along with representatives from more than 40 ethnic organisations, political parties and civil society groups said they opposed amending the current constitution and said new a document should be drafted in order to allow for the creation of "a federal union of national states and nationalities states".

While Thein Sein's quasi-civilian government has been widely lauded for ushering in a wave of reforms that has brought the former pariah into the international fold, analysts warn that such changes remain fragile until the state's problematic legal framework is addressed.

The current constitution was drafted by the military during a controversial convention in 2008. The document reserves 25 percent of parliamentary seats for the country's armed forces and allocates a majority of the state's power to a the central government.

Analysts have argued that while Thein Sein has succeeded in signing truces with a majority of the country's rebel groups, sustainable peace will remain elusive until the government grants Burma's ethnic minorities with more political rights.

Burma's ethnic groups make up approximately 40 percent of the population and armed factions have fought the government for greater autonomy in one of the longest running civil conflicts in the world.

Burma army continues to persecute former child soldiers

Posted: 08 Aug 2013 04:05 AM PDT

 

At the age of 13, Wai Yan Naing went missing.

As the days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months, the family finally began to piece together what had happened. Their young son had been forcefully recruited into the Burmese military and was sent to the army's training school in Hmawbi.

“He served as a child soldier at the frontline”, Wai Ya Naing’s mother told DVB. “I cannot forgive the government for its unjust treatment of my son. They have tormented him since he was 13, and now he is 20-years-old.”

Wai Yan Naing’s story is a stark reminder that despite promises of openness and democracy, Burma's transition to democracy is fraught with difficulties.

After completing his military training, Wai Yan Naing was forced to serve in the 285th Infantry Batallion – supporting the Tatmadaw in its fight against ethnic insurgencies. He deserted from the army three years later. He was sixteen years old at the time.

'I cannot forgive the government for its unjust treatment of my son'

In April, Wai Yan Naing was arrested in his home and taken to court, where he was charged with desertion and sentenced to one year in prison by the very same battalion that had kidnapped him as a child.

“I was not informed about the jail sentence,” Wai Yan Naing’s mother told DVB.

“I went to see the commander, but they would not let me in. The army officers and military police threw me out, because they knew I had been in touch with the International Labour Organisation.”

Wai Yan Naing's story is tragically common in Burma, where military commanders are ordered to fulfil quotas of troop numbers and are rewarded with food or money when this is achieved, hence the ongoing forced recruitment of children.

Despite signing an action plan with the UN last year and releasing dozens of child soldiers from time to time, as the Tatmadaw did yesterday, experts assert that the military continues to recruit and use children in its armed forces.

The ILO's representative in Rangoon Steve Marshall confirmed that he was aware of Wai Yan Naing’s case and has initiated contact with the Burmese government in order to attain the former child soldier's release.

“This case demonstrates the ongoing need to raise awareness of the issue of people’s rights,” said Mr. Marshall.

“There are lots of kids who have run away [from the army]. They think they’re safe, but the fact is that you are never free from the army until you have an official discharge paper. Until then, you are considered to be AWOL or to have deserted.”

According to Mr. Marshall, if Wai Yan Naing had come to the ILO after his desertion, then the agency would have been able to help him attain a formal discharge from the military, which would have freed him from the risk of arrest.

However, the ILO representative admitted that while attitudes towards child soldiers at the higher levels of the military may have changed, at the lower levels “the message has still not been understood that different rules apply requiring different behaviours”.

-Aleksander Solum contributed additional reporting

Thousands gather in Rangoon to mark anniversary of 8888 uprising

Posted: 08 Aug 2013 03:18 AM PDT

Thousands massed in Rangoon on Thursday to mark the anniversary of a bloody crackdown on massive pro-democracy rallies 25 years ago, in a historic commemoration urging further democratic reform.

Some five thousand people crammed into a convention centre and thousands more watched large television screens outside to witness a landmark ceremony recalling the huge 1988 student protests that were brutally crushed by the then-junta.

The event, attended by members of the opposition and ruling parties, diplomats and Buddhist monks, comes amid sweeping changes in Burma since the end of outright military dictatorship two years ago.

Activists expressed jubilation at the scale of the event, but urged even more people to join in.

“8888 (as the anniversary is known) is the biggest milestone in our history. It’s unforgettable,” Aye Myint, who joined in the protests in 1988, told AFP.

“Many more people should join the event. It’s just a few if you compare with the people who participated in the democracy uprising 25 years ago.”

A vicious military assault on student-led demonstrations against Burma’s military rulers on August 8, 1988 sparked a huge popular uprising against the junta.

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Hundreds of thousands took to the streets across the country calling for democracy, in protests that came to a brutal end the following month with an army crackdown that killed more than 3,000.

Burma has undergone sweeping political changes since a quasi-civilian regime replaced junta rule in 2011.

Reforms have included the freeing of hundreds of political prisoners – many of whom were jailed for their roles in the 1988 rallies – and the welcoming of democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi and her party into parliament.

The Nobel laureate, who was taking part in Thursday’s commemorations, rose to prominence during the protests.

She had been living in London but returned to Rangoon in 1988 to nurse her sick mother, and was quick to take a leading role in the pro-democracy movement, delivering speeches to the masses at Rangoon’s Shwedagon Pagoda.

Ko Ko Gyi, a key figure in the 1988 protests and a leader of the 88 Generation activist group, said campaigns to push Burma further on the path to democracy should maintain “the spirit” of the student rallies.

“We cannot erase history. The situation of the country today is a result of the 1988 people’s movement. Although we have not reached the situation we want, we are at the beginning of the road,” he told AFP.

Earlier, hundreds of people watched some 50 campaigners march through downtown Rangoon in an unauthorised procession that irked local law enforcers.

Marchers refused to halt when the head of police in the area asked them to stop. Police allowed them to continue, standing aside but taking pictures of those involved.

“I don’t think we need to get permission… we do not want to protest, we just want to express our respect. We are just walking,” said Tun Tun Oo, a 49-year-old businessman who was a student protester in 1988.

Activists also laid wreaths at Sule Pagoda in the centre of Rangoon, which was at the heart of the August 8 crackdown.

Win Min, a former student protester, said the scene in the area 25 years ago was “the worst and most unforgettable of my life”.

“We want to show our sorrow for the dead today and to show them we are moving forward to the goal of democracy… we promised them we would continue,” he told AFP.

Remembering the uprising

Posted: 08 Aug 2013 12:54 AM PDT

Thousands of people across Rangoon spent the week commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 8888 general uprising. Art exhibitions, conventions and moments of silence have been held to honour the hundreds of thousands of people who rose up against Ne Win's dictatorship in 1988 along with the more than 3,000 people who were killed during a series of military engineered crackdowns that crushed the popular uprising.

US extends Burma gem ban

Posted: 07 Aug 2013 11:19 PM PDT

The US on Wednesday renewed a ban on the import of gems from Burma, hoping to choke off a funding source for the powerful military after broader sanctions ended.

President Barack Obama, who has otherwise normalised relations with Burma to reward its democratic reforms, issued an executive order to maintain a ban on rubies and jadeite.

“The administration is maintaining restrictions on specific activities and actors that contribute to human rights abuses or undermine Burma’s democratic reform process,” deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said.

Obama “is taking this step to advance our policy of promoting responsible economic engagement and encouraging reform that directly benefits the Burmese people,” Rhodes said in a statement.

Obama in November suspended a ban on imports from Burma except gems. The sanctions formally lapsed last month after Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, said it would be counterproductive to renew sanctions legislationRhodes said that Obama “fully supported” the end of the broader ban.

But US lawmakers pressed to keep the decade-old ban on imports of gems, which often come from Kachin state and other conflict-torn areas.

Human rights advocates say that the lucrative trade has helped fuel the violence, with ethnic minorities seeing little of the profit from gems in their regions despite working under harsh conditions.

A US official said that despite changes in Burma, little was known about the gem trade but the military appeared to be in charge.

“There is virtually zero transparency on where that money is going,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

Burma produces some 90 percent of the world’s rubies and much of the trade is controlled by the military, which ruled the country from 1962 to 2011.

A US law passed in 2008, which cracked down on Burmese-origin gems exported via third countries, estimated that $100 million in Burma’s precious stones were coming into the United States annually at the time.

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But the renewed US ban will not deprive Burma of other customers. The European Union in April ended all sanctions targeting the country except weapons sales.

Neighbors China and Thailand have been major buyers of Burma’s gems. A US official told Congress in 2011 that, despite western bans, Burma was exporting more rubies and jade due to high demand in China.

President Thein Sein, a former general, has surprised even critics by embracing democratic reforms including allowing long-detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to enter parliament.

Burma has also eased restrictions on the media, freed political prisoners and reached out to ethnic rebels to end myriad conflicts.

But a key test will come in 2015 when the country is scheduled to hold elections, meaning the military stands to lose real power for the first time.

Alarm has also grown overseas over violence against the Muslim minority, with at least 44 people killed in strife in March and thousands of people left homeless.

Representative Joe Crowley, a Democrat who spearheaded sanctions bills, said he supported the ban on gem imports.

He called for Burma to “release all remaining political prisoners, stop violence against minorities and undertake genuine constitutional reform.”

“All the people of Burma deserve to carry out their lives in genuine freedom,” Crowley said.

Obama paid a landmark visit to Burma in November, heralding what he sees as a signature international success story under his watch.
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