The Irrawaddy Magazine

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• Managing Naypyidaw: Ensuring the Success of Transition
• Thousands to March for Termination of Burma’s Myitsone Dam
• Malaysian Firms Eye Construction Prospects in Burma
• Question of ‘Federal Army’ Looms Over Burma’s Peace Process
• Burma Begins Passport Scheme for Migrant Workers in Thailand
• One Dead in Kachin IDP Camp Fire
• Thai Court Declares February General Election Void
• Burmese Surrealist Sticks to His Guns
• Burma’s Log Export Ban to Hurt Businessmen But Help Forests
• Burma Rebels, Villagers Destroy Poppy Crops
• Australia Resumes Ocean Search for Missing Malaysia Jet
• Jet Mystery Unfolds as Asian Air Travel Booms

Managing Naypyidaw: Ensuring the Success of Transition Posted: 21 Mar 2014 07:11 AM PDT President Thein Sein walks with ministers and other high-ranking civil servants in Naypyidaw. (Photo: The Irrawaddy) The Burma government's critics and supporters tend to agree on one thing at least: that in the three years since Thein Sein became president in March 2011, his administration has seen plenty of highs and lows on the reform path he has undertaken. Although he may not be up to a "level-5 leader" standard, which American business consultant James Collins describes as the peak of a five-tier hierarchy of leadership ability, Thein Sein does appear embody a "paradoxical mix of personal humility and professional will"—the ingredients for great leadership, according to Collins. Aung San Suu Kyi, after her first meeting with Thein Sein in 2011, called him "an honest, open kind of person" with a genuine desire to reform the country. That judgment alone does not ensure success, however, for the head of a government in transition. The power structure in Naypyidaw was dramatically in flux three years ago, transition from sorely authoritarian rule to a nominally elected government comprised of reform-minded soldiers-turned-politicians. The president's honesty and professional have been tested from the outset in managing Naypyidaw. The new power structure enshrined in the controversial 2008 Constitution provided a perfect opportunity for a freshly inaugurated government to execute the reform agenda Thein Sein set in an attempt to bring the failed-state-to-be back from the brink. Burma faced daunting challenges in 2011, many of which persist to this day—widespread poverty, an underdeveloped economy burdened by US and EU sanctions, a lack of administrative and institutional, rampant corruption and intensifying ethnic armed movements for self-determination. While many of them can be rightly described as challenges inherited from the old regime, in which Thein Sein was No. 4 in the heirarchy, the president also faces threats that have cropped up since his inauguration. Escalation of religious violence between Muslims and Buddhists, for example, and competition for influence in Burma between the world's major powers, China and the United States. Under these challenging circumstances, there was never really any way for the president to prepare for the job of running Naypyidaw. It was always going to be a "learn by doing" experience, combined with a constant search for competent assistance and sound advice. In the latter pursuit, like many other modern executives, he has used the available resources and management tools at his disposal to tackle various issues that have come across his desk. This has included the appointment of Aung Min and Soe Thane to his inner circle of ministers, and occasional cabinet reshuffles as he has seen fit. He has also reached across the aisle. In order to mitigate his political risks, he managed to leverage opposition leader Suu Kyi to lead the parliamentary commission charged with investigating a brutal police crackdown on peaceful protestors near the controversial Letpadaung copper mine in Sagaing Division. Thein Sein has also taken calculated risks of his own, most notably in deciding to suspend the Myitsone dam, a multi-billion-dollar energy project deal inked by the powerful generals from the former regime and a Chinese state-owned company. Throughout the changes of the last three years, Thein Sein has shown himself to be a communicator to a much greater extent than any of the country's previous leaders, and he is the most media-friendly president in Burma's history. The president holds a monthly public radio address, and invites local journalists to his office for interviews and press conferences. Following an interview with the BBC's HARDtalk in New York in October 2012, he reportedly told his ministers not to be afraid of the press. The achievements of Thein Sein's government have been matched by shortcomings. His administration has not done a good job of managing the budget, acknowledging the dire condition of Burma's health and education sectors but failing to allocate the necessary additional funds to markedly improve the situation. Progress in health and education will be essential to sustain the reforms that he has initiated. With high growth rates projected for the coming years, and international aid flooding in after decades as an international pariah, there will be money for these tasks, but it is not clear that the government will demonstrate the fiscal acumen to manage it well. The goals and objectives he has set are largely short-term, "quick-win" reforms. While short-terms goals are necessary, introducing medium- and long-term projects will sustain the transition. Burma's undemocratic Constitution has proven stubbornly resistant to easy fixes, and is an issue that will weigh heavily on Thein Sein's presidency. His initial courting of the National League for Democracy (NLD), which brought the party into the reform process and added legitimacy to his governance, can be considered a "quick win" that has since brought long-term implications. If his government fails to accommodate Suu Kyi's calls for constitutional amendments, he faces political gridlock and likely public backlash on an issue that is considered critical for a successful transition to genuine democracy. Thein Sein's ongoing push for a "protection of race and religion" law is short-sighted too. While this effort may help him in the upcoming 2015 elections, the enactment of the controversial legislation could nurture already growing racism and Buddhist fundamentalism, to the detriment of Burma's national reconciliation process. In the end, the fate of the transition depends primarily on how Naypyidaw governs, introduces changes, implements those reforms and manages its government agencies and resources. To succeed, Thein Sein needs to take the lead on constitutional reform, improve his administration's handling of the budget and ensure an inclusive peace process. In short, he must wholeheartedly pursue genuine, fundamental changes, as any Level 5 leader in his shoes would do. Zawtuseng Nanggaw is a Burma observer currently enrolled in the Executive M.P.A. program at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). He can be contacted at zawtuseng@icloud.com. The post Managing Naypyidaw: Ensuring the Success of Transition appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Thousands to March for Termination of Burma’s Myitsone Dam Posted: 21 Mar 2014 06:03 AM PDT Burmese living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, shout slogans at a protest against the Myitsone hydropower dam in 2011, shortly before the project was halted by President Thein Sein. (Photo: Reuters) RANGOON — Thousands of protesters are expected to join a march from Rangoon to the site of the proposed Myitsone dam in Kachin State, calling for the Burma government to permanently cancel the project. The highly controversial Chinese-backed hydropower development was in 2011 suspended by President Thein Sein, who pledged that work would not resume during his time in office. But with his administration coming to an end next year, and with pressure from China to resume the widely opposed project, activists want it scrapped completely. "We have seen moves by Chinese investors to restart the project, so we arrange a public march at this time," said Ye Htut Khaung, spokesperson of the League of Former Political Prisoners, the group organizing the march. The state-owned developer, China Power Investment, has publicly called for the project—from which the vast majority of power produced will go the China—to be resumed. The march will leave from Rangoon on Sunday and conclude at the dam site in Tan Phae village, Kachin State—the confluence of the Maykha and Malikha rivers—said Ye Htut Khaung. He said former political prisoners, activists from civil society organizations and locals along the way would join the march. It is expected to take about 60 days to walk the 1,500 mile journey, a trip that would take three days by car. "This will be the biggest march against the Myitsone dam," he said, adding that around 5,000 people in total would join some part of the march. The marchers will stop at towns and villages along the Irrawaddy River and give public talks to raise public awareness about the environmental and social impacts that the dam would cause, he said. Maung Maung Oo, a member of the Mandalay-based environmental group Green Activities, told to The Irrawaddy that whether the dam is constructed or not, environmental damage to areas along the river had already begun. He cited recent deforestation, erosion of the riverbed and reduced fish stocks due to industrial development on the river. "Even though the dam is still not there, the destruction of the river is terrible. If there's a dam, the situation would be a lot worse than now, because the dam would reduce the flow of the water," he said. "The Myitsone project must be totally stopped. If the project resumes, the environment in the Myitsone area and along the Irrawaddy River would be at risk" said U Ohn, vice president of the Rangoon-based Forest Resource Environment Development and Conservation Association. The post Thousands to March for Termination of Burma's Myitsone Dam appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Malaysian Firms Eye Construction Prospects in Burma Posted: 21 Mar 2014 05:59 AM PDT A worker stands at a construction site in Rangoon. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — With its companies doing over US$1.6 billion worth of business in Burma, Malaysia was ranked as the seventh-biggest source of foreign investment into the country by the end of January 2014. And with Burma's government touting big plans for upgrading infrastructure such as roads and railways, as well as building more houses for an urbanizing population, Malaysia's corporate presence in its Southeast Asian neighbor could be set to jump some more, with construction companies eyeing up more than $100 million worth of deals. "Since the reforms began in Myanmar in 2011, there has been an upsurge in interest from Malaysian companies, which can be seen in the increase in trade figures," said Sadat Foster, assistant trade commissioner at Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (Matrade), the state trade agency. Burma received $3.6 billion in total foreign investment for the first 11 months of the 2013-14 fiscal year, almost double the previous year. A recently-published OECD Investment Policy Review of Burma said that "Myanmar has many attributes that are likely to appeal to foreign investors: its endowment of natural resources, large and relatively young population, rich cultural heritage and strategic location." And among the better-known Malaysian brands already present in Burma are fast-food chain Marrybrown, as well as Petronas, the state gas and oil behemoth whose joint venture in Burma's offshore Yetagun gas field is part of a global portfolio that sees the company fund around one-third of the Malaysian budget. Malaysia's pitch is not the first concerted government-business national front to try to play up its worth to Burma. Since 2012, Japan has made a high-profile effort to increase its involvement in the much-touted "frontier" economy, writing off billions of dollars of Burmese debt, arranging for high-powered business delegations to visit Burma and backing the Thilawa Special Economic Zone outside Rangoon. But Malaysia outranks Japan as an investment source—for now, at least—and with some of the country's bigger-name builders in Rangoon over the past week as part of a Putrajaya-backed trade mission, Malaysia's government is touting Malaysian companies as sound partners for Burmese firms aiming to build or upgrade roads, or put up new hotels and shopping centers in Rangoon. Some of the more notable Malaysian-built or -backed foreign construction work in recent years includes the airport at Siem Reap in Cambodia, the F1 circuits in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain, and what for now is the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. All of these marquee projects were name-dropped during the Malaysia-backed investment conference in Rangoon this week, where nine Malaysian construction companies were represented among the delegates. Burma's Deputy Construction Minister Win Myint addressed the gathering, and after his speech, delegates queued outside an ante-room in Rangoon's Traders Hotel—itself a Malaysian-linked establishment—for a few minutes of face time with the minister. "Myanmar is now counting on other sources of finance such as foreign aid, loans and private investments from both domestic and foreign resources," Win Myint said, explaining on Tuesday how Burma aims to finance infrastructure rehabilitation after a military era when such work was usually carried out by businesses with close links to the ruling junta and often paid for by granting the contractor lucrative concessions in Burma's natural resource economy. With donor governments and agencies such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank being tapped for loans and other funding for Burma's road and railway revamps, investors and partners might be forgiven for being concerned about particular projects getting off the ground. A proposed upgrade to the rail link between Mandalay and Myitkyina in Kachin State is awaiting a funding green light from South Korea's Exim Bank, and officials from Burma's Ministry of Rail Transportation were unwilling to discuss the status of the funding application when asked during the Malaysian investment conference earlier this week. "It is slightly a hindrance and maybe can slow things down," said Sadat Foster, discussing the often time-consuming sourcing of project financing from outside. "But it is also reassuring to know that the money will be there too." That mix of promise and uncertainty seems to color companies' thinking about Burma, where the 2012 Foreign Investment Law and related rules are likely to be revised as early as this year. Jason Kon, the Myanmar country manager for Muhibbah Engineering—which was among the companies shortlisted for the proposed Hanthawaddy International Airport in Burma's Pegu Division—said "opportunities in Myanmar are plenty, mainly in high-rise buildings and infrastructure. But what is lacking here are funds to spur the projects. Most of the projects relay on foreign investment." Muhibbah is currently assessing whether or not it will submit a new bid for the Hanthawaddy tender, an airport slated to handle 12 million passengers a year, which was initially awarded to South Korea's Incheon but has since been reopened. The post Malaysian Firms Eye Construction Prospects in Burma appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Question of ‘Federal Army’ Looms Over Burma’s Peace Process Posted: 21 Mar 2014 04:55 AM PDT Burmese armed forces soldier on parade. (Photo: The Irrawaddy) RANGOON/HONOLULU — Since last year, Burma's government and 16 ethnic armed groups have negotiated over a nationwide ceasefire. Substantial progress is being made, all parties say, but looming large over the discussions is a key issue that will be difficult to address: how to merge the various enemy units into a single army. The issue of a "federal army", as it is being called by some ethnic leaders, is so sensitive that it has been left out of the ceasefire discussions and will have to be resolved during the political dialogue that will follow after a ceasefire is signed. During this dialogue, Burma's ethnic minorities, entangled in a six-decade long conflict with the Burman majority's powerful military, would also like to see their demands for political autonomy addressed through the formation of a federal union comprising ethnic states. "What we want is simply is power sharing and no centralized system. And our demand is neither an idea of secession nor separation," Col Sai Hla, spokesperson of the Shan State Army–South, said. Some ethnic leaders say they would like to see their armies, totaling a combined number of more than 100,000 soldiers, control security in their areas, manage the border and have a degree of autonomy from the central command of Burma Army, which totals about 400,000 men. Yet, the units would have to be part of the same army. Lt-Gen Baw Kyaw Heh, who controls Brigade 5 of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and functions as the KNLA's deputy commander-in-chief, is an example of a powerful local commander who prefers this approach. "There should be state guards [comprising ethnic soldiers] and a union army. We can cooperate with the government army, but state guards must not be centralized under the union army," he said. "It will be difficult to structure all ethnic troops and the government army into one armed force because all ethnic minorities want to govern their states," Baw Kyaw Heh said. The Burma Army is obliged by the Constitution to prevent the disintegration of the union and is likely to reject areas of the country falling outside of central command control. Bertil Lintner, a veteran journalist who was written numerous books sabout Burma and its ethnic conflict, dismissed the ethnics' demands for a federal army as "unrealistic." He has said there are few federal unions in the world that could form a model for a country as ethnically diverse as Burma, with only India offering a possible example. The regional states in Burma's large neighbor have an elected legislative assembly, their own official language and an independent police force. However, "defense is the responsibility of the central government. India has ethnic units in its armed forces, but … all under central command," Lintner wrote in a recent article. In an interview at an ethnic armed groups' conference in KNLA-controlled area, Law Khee Lar in January, Saw Kwe Htoo Win, general secretary of the Karen National Union said discussions on a future army would take time, but added that United States military might be a good example to study. During a study tour to Hawaii this reporter visited the US Pacific Command in Honolulu and asked officers and academics their opinion on the challenges of forming a unified Burma Army of the disparate ethnic groups, an issue that the US army has had to face within its ranks. "It took the US military about 200 years to completely integrate and to finally abolish the discrimination based on race and ethnicity," said Miemie Winn Byrd, an associate professor of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies with a specialization in the US-Burma relations. "In Myanmar we must first change the social norms and values of the majority Burmans towards the other ethnic groups before such change will transcend into the military organizations," said Byrd, who is also a lieutenant-colonel in the US army. Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, Commander of the US Pacific Command in Honolulu, United States, said in an interview that the US army rewarded merit, regardless of their ethnic background. "Everyone has equal rights as positions in the military are based on people's performance and skills," he said. The US is, however, a very different case to Burma as is has no ethnic army units, and its varied ethnic populations do not have home states within the country. Discrimination in the Burma Army is another challenge that the future military would need to address. Ethnic minorities living in the central region who have joined the Burma Army said they have faced discrimination from the Burman majority and officer corps. An ethnic Karen from Rangoon who rose to a senior officer rank within the Burma Army said that he had decided to leave after many years of service as he felt discriminated against by his superiors. Ethnic minority soldiers "are targeted, especially the ethnic Karen who are Christian. We can’t get a higher position no matter how skillful, smart and good soldiers we are," said the ex-officer, who declined to be named. "I quit the Tatmadaw after I realized that I can’t rise to a higher rank and I don’t see my future in the Tatmadaw," said the man, who has since gone into business. Saw Yan Naing is an East-West Center’s 2014 Jefferson Fellow and this story is published under the Fellowship program with the theme "Challenges in Democratic Transition." The post Question of 'Federal Army' Looms Over Burma's Peace Process appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Burma Begins Passport Scheme for Migrant Workers in Thailand Posted: 21 Mar 2014 03:08 AM PDT Burmese migrant workers stand in line on the Mae Sot-Myawaddy Friendship Bridge. (Photo: The Irrawaddy) Burma this month began a scheme to issue regular passports to migrant workers in Thailand, an embassy official in Bangkok said. The process is highly complex and rules out many who do not have the right documentation, however, and is unlikely to supplant the many brokers trading in unofficial documents. Many of the estimated 3 million Burmese in Thailand have stayed beyond the four-year limit of temporary travel documents, leaving them vulnerable to deportation or abuse at the hands of Thai authorities. Burmese state-run media reported Thursday that a team of 24 officials arrived in Thailand in early March and had begun processing applications on March 10 from migrant workers. Under the new scheme, processing for a new passport can take up to six months, according to an announcement from Burma's Ministry of Labor, Welfare and Employment dated March 5 but shared with labor rights groups only this week. The announcement said workers must first submit numerous documents to Thailand's Department of Employment. The required documents are: a labor demand letter from their Thai employer, a copy of their employment contract, a referral letter, a worker application, copies of their previous work permit and temporary passport, as well as their Burmese ID card and household registration. Applications will then be transferred to the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok for further scrutiny. If the new passport is authorized, the worker must collect it at a branch of the Homes Affairs Ministry in Burma, and only then can they apply for a working visa at special service centers in the Thai border towns of Mae Sai, Mae Sot and Ranong. Kyaw Kyaw Lwin, the labor attaché at the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok, told The Irrawaddy that migrant workers must not use unofficial brokers in the process. "The employers and employees can come together with those documents to apply for it, but if they use a broker we cannot help," he said, adding that those whose temporary passports have expired were still permitted to apply for a permanent passport. However, he said, anyone without the required identification documents from Burma would not be eligible. "If they don't have a Burmese ID and the household registration, they will have to go back to Myanmar," Kyaw Kyaw Lwin said. The Labor Ministry also said in its announcement that workers should "beware of brokers" and warned that "those who apply with fake information will not be provided with the regular passport." Exchanging a temporary passport for a permanent one costs 1,600 baht, or about US$50, but extra charges also apply, the ministry said. Migrant rights activists say the scheme is overly complicated, and demands documentation that many migrants simply don't have. "The current plan they announced is more complex than ever. Some workers do not have all the documents as they have been working in Thailand for about 20 years," Htoo Chit, the director of Foundation for Education Development told The Irrawaddy. "These workers used to be refugees of war, having fled their homes, and they hold neither household registration nor ID cards. “I think the government's new scheme will result in more illegal migrant workers." Similar complicated and costly processes for obtaining documentation to work in Thailand have fueled a thriving market for brokers. A broker in Mae Sot, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Irrawaddy that the market would be unaffected by the new scheme, under which people would have to wait at least 45 days for documentation. Passports can still be obtained through brokers more quickly and conveniently for about 12,000 baht, or $370, he explained. The post Burma Begins Passport Scheme for Migrant Workers in Thailand appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

One Dead in Kachin IDP Camp Fire Posted: 21 Mar 2014 02:54 AM PDT Residents of the Bum Tsit Pa IDP camp in Kachin State stand around the scorched earth where a tent once stood. (Photo: Facebook / Wunpawng Ningtoi) RANGOON — An accidental fire at one of the camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Kachin State claimed the life of a 13-year-old girl on Thursday, according to a local aid group that oversees the camp. The tent that caught fire was sheltering a family of six, and was completely destroyed by the blaze early on Thursday, the humanitarian NGO Wunpawng Ningtoi (WPN), which administers the camp, said in a posting on the Facebook page of a well-known Kachin activist. Neighboring residents of the camp were able to prevent the fire from spreading to other tents in the vicinity. The mother, a widow, and her youngest son, a 3-year-old, suffered serious burn injuries and were referred to the nearest hospital in China. "Recently, the weather situation is bad in here very windy, dusty and they should not stay on the emergency tent for long term," Mary Tawm, head of the humanitarian NGO Wunpawng Ningtoi (WPN) that administers the camp, wrote on Facebook. The Bum Tsit Pa camp No. 2 is located about two hours' drive from the town of Mai Ja Yang along the China-Burma border. The camp residents' tent-dwelling existence stands in contrast to other IDP camps in northern Burma, whose inhabitants live in more permanent structures made of plywood and sheet metal. The UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, provides the tarpaulin tents to the displaced population, which does not have more permanent shelter because it moved from a different IDP camp last year amid clashes between Kachin rebels and government troops in the Mai Ja Yang region. Fighting between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the central government has plagued the region since June 2011, when a 17-year ceasefire agreement between the two sides broke down. About 100,000 people have been displaced as a result of the conflict. "The camp has been getting hot because summer has arrived. We have no idea what the rainy season will bring," said Pan Htoi Awng, a secretary of the Kachin Independence Organization's IDPs and Refugees Relief Committee (IRRC), who was helping to take care of the camp when The Irrawaddy visited earlier this month. Though a separate, stand-alone kitchen was built for the IDPs, some families have set up small kitchen facilities next to their tents. Pan Htoi Awng told The Irrawaddy that obtaining potable water, adequate shelter and lighting for the IDPs were the biggest concerns at the camp. "We still need 150 solar panels, though we have had some donations," he said. A solar panel costs 30,000 kyats (US$30), and the photovoltaic power sources provide an essential source of lighting for the camp, where candles and fires are not permitted inside the highly flammable tents. The IRRC has already set up a new tent for the affected family and essential supplies are being provided by WPN. The post One Dead in Kachin IDP Camp Fire appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Thai Court Declares February General Election Void Posted: 21 Mar 2014 02:33 AM PDT People hold placards during a rally demanding their votes to be respected, while protesting against the court’s ruling in central of Bangkok March 21, 2014. (Photo: Reuters) BANGKOK — Thailand’s Constitutional Court on Friday nullified February’s election that was disrupted by protesters, further delaying the formation of a new government after months of street protests aimed at bringing down Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. In a 6 to 3 vote, the court ruled that the election violated the constitution, as voting had not taken place in 28 districts in southern Thailand where candidates were unable to register due to blockades by the anti-government protesters. "The Feb. 2 election could not take place across the kingdom on the same day," the court said in a statement. It was unclear when a new election would take place. Somchai Srisutthiyakorn, an Election Commission member, said the country had two options to organise a new vote. "The commission could discuss with the government about issuing a new royal decree for a new date or we could ask the heads of all political parties to decide together when best to set the new election date," he told reporters. If a new election is organised, the protesters say they will disrupt it again. "If the court rules the election void, don’t even dream that there will be another election. If a new election date is declared, then we’ll take care of every province and the election won’t be successful again," protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban told supporters late on Thursday. The protests are the latest chapter in an eight-year crisis that pits Bangkok’s middle class and royalist establishment against supporters of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her brother, ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled by the army in 2006 and lives in exile to avoid a jail term for graft. Now in their fifth month, the protesters have shut government offices and at times blocked major thoroughfares in Bangkok to try to force Yingluck out. Twenty-three people have died and hundreds have been injured in the violence. Risk of More Violence Yingluck called the election in December to try to defuse the protests and since then has headed a caretaker government with limited powers. The violence and political paralysis has dented confidence, prompting cuts to economic growth forecasts. Yingluck’s Puea Thai Party had been expected to win but the main opposition Democrat Party threw in its lot with the protesters and has demanded electoral changes before any vote, seeking to reduce the influence of Thaksin. Parties led by or allied to him have won every election since 2001. The protesters retreated this month to a Bangkok park and the battleground has moved from the streets to the courts. Yingluck faces a spate of legal challenges that could bring down her government, including a charge of dereliction of duty related to a disastrous rice-buying scheme. Thaksin’s "red shirt" supporters, who are strong in the north and northeast, are beginning to make militant noises, raising the prospect of more violence if Yingluck is forced out by the courts, the anti-corruption commission or by other means. "Independent agencies are being quite obvious that they want to remove her and her entire cabinet to create a power vacuum, claim that elections can’t be held and then nominate a prime minister of their choice," said Kan Yuenyong, a political analyst at the Siam Intelligence Unit. "If they run with this plan, then the government’s supporters will fight back and the next half of the year will be much worse than what we saw in the first half," he said. The streets have been relatively calm since several big protest sites were shut at the start of March and a state of emergency was lifted on Wednesday. However, police reported that three grenades exploded just before midnight on Thursday near the home of one of the Constitutional Court judges. One person was slightly injured. The post Thai Court Declares February General Election Void appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Burmese Surrealist Sticks to His Guns Posted: 21 Mar 2014 01:04 AM PDT 'Once Upon a Time in Rangoon University II' by San Minn. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Having poured out his feelings on canvases for nearly 50 years, Burma's famous surreal artist San Minn has saved enough paintings for his third "Gun Series" solo show this week. With previous solo shows in 2008 and 2009 in Rangoon and Chiang Mai, respectively, the 63-year-old painter is back to Burma's former capital for the showing of his latest "Gun Series III." As the title of the show suggests, nearly all of the paintings and installation artwork at his 11th solo show vividly depict guns, but with underlying meanings subject to interpretation. Government censorship came to an end in 2012 and San Minn—whose artwork was once particularly prone to the red marker—is clearly enjoying the lack of scrutiny, with his latest solo show offering a more pointblank and critical body of work, especially toward the current government. As an example: In a painting titled "Top Gun," a man in Burmese traditional dress is silhouetted in white, standing against a background of commando fatigue patterning. "The people who are now ruling our country are somewhat related to the military," San Min offers. In another painting, titled "Fear of Fear," San Minn foregrounds a silhouetted white revolver against characters from horror movies he has seen. "If you watch a horror movie, you feel terrified during the time that you're watching it, but if you are ruled with a gun, the fear you feel is difficult to vanquish," he explains. With private collectors of his artwork from the United States, Europe and Asia as well as an exhibition at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, San Minn has been practicing surrealism for the last 20 years, after dabbling in the early years of his career in various other art trends. The reason for his two-decade commitment to the strange? "I have been sticking to it as it helps me depict what I see in my mind's eye," he says. San Minn's "Gun Series III" is open to the public at Lokanat Gallery until March 22. The post Burmese Surrealist Sticks to His Guns appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Burma’s Log Export Ban to Hurt Businessmen But Help Forests Posted: 21 Mar 2014 12:30 AM PDT Boys play on teak logs piled at a port in Rangoon. (Photo: Reuters) RANGOON — Burma will ban the export of raw timber logs from April 1, choking off profits in a sector that provided critical funding to the country's former military rulers for decades, as a new reformist government steps up efforts to save forests. Burma has some of Asia's largest remaining expanses of forests, from the slopes of Himalayan foothills in the north to steamy rainforest in the south. But it has been disappearing fast. Forest cover shrank almost a fifth, to 47 percent of land area in 2010, from 58 percent in 1990, Forestry Ministry data shows. Total timber exports of 1.24 million cubic tonnes in the fiscal year to March 2013 brought in more than $1 billion in revenue, government figures show. While timber remains an important income stream for Burma's rulers after a quasi-civilian government took over from the military in 2011, it is not as critical as before. To recognize Burma's economic and political reforms, the European Union, the United States and other countries have eased or lifted sanctions, allowing foreign investment in sectors such as telecommunications. The reforms are now reaching into the forestry sector, with the government ready to put conservation above profit. The ban is likely to hurt the forestry industry, which generates about 90 percent of export earnings from raw logs and not finished products, said Barber Cho, head of the Myanmar Timber Merchants' Association. "Myanmar industry might suffer, some people might suffer," said Barber Cho, whose group represents about 900 companies. "It's a difficult and complicated juncture for us." Under the new rule, revenues could plummet, forcing forestry firms to invest in new sawmills to stay competitive. But the action was necessary, as the former junta had practiced "legal overproduction" that decimated Burma's forests for decades, Barber Cho said. Crippled by sanctions, chronic economic mismanagement and starved for hard currency, the generals gave logging concessions to their cronies to export raw logs in exchange for the cash needed to prop up their rule. Forest products were the military junta's second most important source of legal foreign exchange and exports earned $428 million in the fiscal year to March 2005, natural resources watchdog group Global Witness said. Among the big companies involved in the business are Asia World, the Htoo Group, and Yuzana Co. Htoo Group and Yuzana are the two biggest palm oil companies in the environmentally sensitive southern region of Tanintharyi. Yuzana also runs a 200,000-acre (81,000-hectare) biofuel concession in the world's largest tiger reserve in northern Kachin state, where the military has contracted with Asia World to build roads and dams, conservation group Forest Trends says. "All these renowned companies were granted associated rights over timber extraction in their project area," the Washington-based group said in a recent report. Challenging the Cronies The ban, covering all kinds of trees, will end Burma's status as the only country to export raw teak logs from natural forests rather than plantations. Exports of teak wood alone earned $359 million last year. "Of course, this ban should have been imposed a long time ago, but it's better late than never," a forestry ministry official told Reuters. "We believe it will help encourage wood-based industry and increase job opportunities," added the official, who declined to be identified as he was not authorized to talk to media. From next year, the government also plans to slash by 80 percent the amount of teak it allows to be taken from the forests, Barber Cho said. How the cronies will fare is an open question, but it's clear that Burma's notoriously opaque timber industry has long been a key source of wealth for many prominent businessmen. Tycoon Tay Za said his Htoo Group, engaged in businesses ranging from mining to tourism, grew from a humble start, based on a loan from his mother-in-law to set up a sawmill. Tay Za said he did not exploit connections to win concessions, which were allotted through a bidding process, but he did say his father served with top figures in the military, including Than Shwe, who ruled Burma from 1992 to 2011, while Tay Za was building his business empire. "It was a fair competition," Tay Za said in a December interview. "No need to know the minister, only open competition." Groups such as Forest Trends and others familiar with the way the junta worked say tenders were for show. The real concessions were shared out in backroom deals. "It was not a tender system, it was a negotiation system," said Barber Cho. Data shows one of Tay Za's firms received a 668,000-acre (270,000-hectare) tract of rainforest in a proposed national park in Tanintharyi, one of Burma's most biodiverse regions. Tay Za logged almost two-thirds of another 162,000 acres (65,000 hectares) of nearby palm oil concessions awarded to him during the five years to fiscal 2007/8, data shows. Tay Za, as well as representatives of Yuzana and Asia World, did not respond to requests for comment. The log export ban will force dominant forestry companies to invest in new processes and diversify, said Aung Thura, of the Yangon-based research and consulting firm Thura Swiss. "It will have an impact on them, but it won't destroy them," he said. "It's in their interest to diversify, not just export raw logs." The post Burma's Log Export Ban to Hurt Businessmen But Help Forests appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Burma Rebels, Villagers Destroy Poppy Crops Posted: 20 Mar 2014 11:14 PM PDT A poppy field above the village of Ho Hwayt in the mountains of Shan State. (Photo: Reuters) LOI CHYARAM VILLAGE, Burma — The rebel soldiers climbing this mountain, rifles at their shoulders, are going into battle not with government forces, but against opium crops that are destroying communities in eastern Burma as they succumb to drug addiction. Captain Glang Dang of the Ta'ang National Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Palaung ethnic minority, claims his men are making progress, thanks in part to local villagers, who are helping knock down and burn waves of poppies now in full bloom. It's unclear, though, whether the rebel troops, who rely on the drug trade as their main source of income, can or will do more than just wipe out a few fields here and there to placate villagers desperate over the toll drugs are taking. Burma was the world's No. 1 producer of opium, the main ingredient in heroin, until 2003, when it was surpassed by Afghanistan. After a few years of decline, regional and local demand has revived poppy production in recent years. In 2013, Burma produced 870 tons of opium, up 26 percent from 2012 and the highest figure in a decade. In some of the communities along the rugged frontier of Shan State, half the residents are addicts of opium and heroin, even children as young as 13. Deaths by overdose are common. "Drugs are destroying the lives of both adults and young people. That's why we are doing this," says Glang, who blames the army and ethnic Chinese groups for cat-and-mouse resistance to efforts to eradicate poppy fields and replace them with rice paddies and tea plantations. "They open one side and close one side, close one side and open another," he said. "They went up to the mountains and destroyed some and let some grow." Overall drug eradication efforts have waned. President Thein Sein's spokesman, Ye Htut, indicated the decrease was linked to efforts to forge peace with dozens of ethnic rebel insurgencies that control the vast majority of the poppy-growing territory. The post Burma Rebels, Villagers Destroy Poppy Crops appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Australia Resumes Ocean Search for Missing Malaysia Jet Posted: 20 Mar 2014 11:00 PM PDT John Young, general manager of the emergency response division of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, answers a question in front of a diagram showing the search area for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 on March 20, 2014. (Photo: Reuters / Sean Davey) PERTH, Western Australia / KUALA LUMPUR — An international search force resumed the hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the remote southern Indian Ocean on Friday as authorities pored over satellite data to try and confirm a potential debris field. The Australian-led mission said it was sending five aircraft back to a storm-lashed area some 2,500 km (1,500 miles) southwest of Perth. The search began on Thursday after analysis of satellite images identified two large objects floating in the ocean there that may have come from the Boeing 777 which went missing 13 days ago with 239 people aboard. Investigators have said it is a credible lead but nothing beyond that. The search for the plane continues in other regions, including a wide arc sweeping northward from Laos to Kazakhstan. The investigators suspect Flight MH370, which took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing shortly after midnight on March 8, was deliberately diverted thousands of miles from its scheduled path. They say they are focusing on hijacking or sabotage but have not ruled out technical problems. A source close to the investigation said it might take "several days" to establish whether the objects spotted by satellite in the Indian Ocean came from the missing airliner. A former senior crash investigator said there had been false leads in many investigations, especially in waters containing stray containers or dumped and lost cargo. Three Australian P3 Orions would be joined by a high-tech US Navy P8 Poseidon aircraft and a civilian Gulfstream jet to search the 23,000 square km zone on Friday, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said. A Norwegian merchant ship that had been diverted to the area on Thursday was still searching there and another vessel would arrive later on Friday. China's icebreaker for Antarctic research, Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, will set off from Perth to search the area, Chinese state news agency Xinhua cited maritime authorities as saying. About two-thirds of the missing plane's passengers were Chinese nationals. Australia's acting Prime Minister Warren Truss said Australia continued to examine satellite footage to pinpoint the location of the suspected debris, which included a piece estimated from the satellite imagery to be 24 meters (79 feet) long. "Clearly, there's a lot of resources being put into that particular area. It's broadly consistent with the flight plans that were talked about ever since the satellites and their work has been added to the information bank," Truss told ABC radio. "That work will continue, trying to get more pictures, stronger resolution so that we can be more confident about where the items are, how far they have moved and therefore what efforts should be put into the search effort." Strong winds, cloud and rain had made searching on Thursday difficult, said Kevin Short, an air vice marshal in New Zealand's Defense Forces, which sent a P-3K2 Orion to search the area. "The crew never found any object of significance," he told Radio New Zealand. "Visibility wasn't very good, which makes it harder to search the surface of the water," he said. A nearby desolate group of French-administered sub-Antarctic islands including St. Paul and Amsterdam and Kerguelen had been asked to look for debris, but none had been spotted, said Sebastien Mourot, chief of staff for the French prefect of La Reunion. There have been many false leads and no confirmed wreckage found from Flight MH370 since it vanished off Malaysia's east coast, less than an hour after taking off. There has also been criticism of the search operation and investigation, as more than two dozen countries scramble to overcome logistical and diplomatic hurdles to solve the mystery. Investigators piecing together patchy data from military radar and satellites believe that, minutes after its identifying transponder was switched off as it crossed the Gulf of Thailand, the plane turned sharply west, re-crossing the Malay Peninsula and following an established route toward India. What happened next is unclear, but faint electronic "pings" picked up by one commercial satellite suggest the aircraft flew on for at least six hours. A source with direct knowledge of the situation said that information gleaned from the pings had been passed to investigators within a few days, but it took Malaysia more than a week to narrow the search area to two large arcs—one reaching south to near where the potential debris was spotted, and a second crossing to the north into China and central Asia. The four-day delay in identifying satellite images that may show debris was due to the vast amount of data that needed to be analyzed by various agencies, Australian authorities and the US company that collected the images said. The satellite images, provided by US company DigitalGlobe, were taken on March 16, meaning that the possible debris could by now have drifted far from the original site. The relatively large size of the objects would suggest that if they do come from the missing aircraft, it was largely intact when it went into the water. Still, finding any debris, let alone the "black boxes" that could shed light on what happened, remains incredibly challenging in the remote, deep-sea region known as the Roaring 40s for its huge seas and frequent storm-force winds. Additional reporting by Jane Wardell in Sydney, Naomi Tajitsu in Wellington, A. Ananthalakshmi, Anuradha Raghu and Niluksi Koswanage in Kuala Lumpur, Neil Darby in Perth, Byron Kaye in Canberra, Mark Hosenball and Andrea Shalal in Washington, Nicholas Vinocur and Paul Sandle. The post Australia Resumes Ocean Search for Missing Malaysia Jet appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Jet Mystery Unfolds as Asian Air Travel Booms Posted: 20 Mar 2014 10:52 PM PDT A Lion Air plane taxis on the runway next to a Jetstar airplane at Singapore's Changi Airport June 20, 2013. (Photo: Reuters) HONG KONG — The transfixing mystery of the Malaysia Airlines jet that went missing with 239 people on board has unfolded in a region where air travel is undergoing supercharged growth after decades of being beyond the reach of most people. The still unknown fate of Flight 370, which vanished from civilian radar on a nighttime flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, has riveted the flying public and baffled experts. The backdrop is also compelling even if far removed from the headlines. Air travel in Asia is surging as the middle class gets bigger, discount airlines proliferate and business ties with the rest of the world deepen. Airports are scrambling to expand as they bulge with passengers and an upstart Indonesian carrier has given Boeing and Airbus their biggest jet orders ever. The region's economic boom, seeded in the early 1990s by China's embrace of market style reforms, is the underlying reason. "When you're poor you can't afford to fly," said Andrew Herdman, director general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines. "The big development of the demographics of Asia in the past 20 years has been the sheer number of people who have been lifted out of poverty into that middle income segment" of $10-$100 of disposable income a day. The International Air Transport Association has forecast airline passengers to grow by 31 percent worldwide between 2012 and 2017. For Asia, that will mean the number of passengers increases an average of 6.3 percent each year, nearly three times as fast at the US. Routes within or connected to China will be the single largest driver of growth, accounting for nearly a quarter of the additional 300 million passengers during those six years. Whether the Malaysia Airlines jet succumbed to a sudden catastrophe, hijacking or malicious pilot action, it is unlikely to change a two decade trend of ever more travelers, routes and planes. "People become cautious about a particular airline for a while but you don't see travel patterns change," said Herdman. Asian demand is a big reason why airlines are on the largest jet-buying spree in aviation history, ordering more than 8,200 new planes from Airbus and Boeing in the past five years. There are now 24 planes rolling off assembly lines each week, up from 11 a decade ago. And that rate is expected to keep climbing. The bulk of the planes are going to new or quickly-growing airlines that serve the expanding middle class in China, India and Southeast Asia. In Asia alone, Airbus has 1,375 unfilled airplane orders or about a quarter of its worldwide order book. The low cost carriers are the hungriest buyers. Malaysia-based AirAsia and its affiliate AirAsia X together have orders for 385 new planes. Those new planes alone have enough seats to put an additional 60,000 passengers in the sky at the same time. Many of those planes will make multiple flights a day, sending that figure even higher. Indonesia's Lion Air has an order for 234 jets from Airbus and another 301 from Boeing. That's in additional to the 107 Boeing jets it currently flies. They're just two of the numerous low budget airlines that have opened up in the past decade, mostly in Southeast Asia, to service the growing demand for affordable air travel. Even China, which for years has enforced restrictive policies aimed at supporting the three dominant state-owned carriers, is starting to give budget airlines a chance. Last month, China's aviation regulator, the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said it would lower barriers for setting up a low cost airline, simplify approval procedures, cut charges for airports in lower-tier cities and encourage older airports to revamp terminals for budget carriers. "The reins are loosened," said Will Horton, an analyst at CAPA The Center for Aviation. To keep up, Asian governments are scrambling to build new terminals and runways. Singapore, a wealthy city-state off the southern tip of peninsular Malaysia, expects additions to its airport will within a decade more than double the number of passengers it can handle yearly to 135 million. Airport construction is most rampant in China, with authorities in the world's second-biggest economy authorizing the construction of dozens of new airports and the expansion of others. "It is clear that airport infrastructure must be expanded to accommodate demand," said Campbell Wilson, CEO of Singapore-based budget carrier Scoot. He said several airports in the region are already operating near or at capacity including Hong Kong, Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi, Manila, Jakarta and Beijing. "Many more airports will soon reach their limits," said Wilson. The post Jet Mystery Unfolds as Asian Air Travel Booms appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

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