Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Democratic Voice of Burma

Democratic Voice of Burma

Displaced villagers in transit to DKBA territory held by Karen State officials

Posted: 02 Apr 2014 05:17 AM PDT

More than 200 villagers displaced from Rangoon's Hlegu Township in February are stuck in limbo at the border between Karen and Mon states as of Wednesday afternoon.

After accepting an offer to resettle on lands controlled by the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA), trucks carrying the homeless villagers were intercepted by Hpa-an district authorities and subsequently held near the Karen State capital.

"We were stopped on the Donthami Bridge at the border between Karen and Mon states by officials insisting we must talk with them for bringing in the villagers without negotiation with the local authorities beforehand," said Colonel San Aung of the DKBA.

Speaking by phone from the scene, San Aung told DVB  the authorities recommended leaving the villagers at the border while their DKBA escorts negotiated their access with Karen State's Border and Security Affairs Minister at a different location.

"The villagers pleaded with us not to leave them behind – we are still with them at the moment," he said on Wednesday afternoon.

Trucks carrying the villagers were en route from Pegu Division's Aung Theikdi monastery to Kyeikkhet village in Myawaddy, near the Thailand-Burma border. Hundreds sought shelter in the monastery after being evicted from five villages in Rangoon Division.

The villages in question were evacuated and demolished by government forces in early February, after deeming the lands to be illegally occupied. The origins of the villages are disputed, but displaced villagers claim that the military-owned land has been occupied since 1998.

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A lower house representative for Hlegu Township, Phyo Min Thein, told DVB that much of the land was in fact privately owned, and was distributed to settlers in 2012.

The government identified the residents as squatters, and ordered their eviction – under threat of imprisonment – on 4 February 2014. Hundreds of displaced fled to neighbouring Pegu Division for temporary shelter, and many set up camp in Aung Theikdi monastery where they have faced multiple eviction threats.

On Tuesday DVB received reports that Pegu Division's Irrigation Department issued an order to relocate the monastery, under the pretext that the four-acre compound is located within the premises of the Alaini Reservoir.

The DKBA offered land and assistance to the displaced shortly after their arrival in Pegu, which they initially refused. Some have expressed a belief that the DKBA's resettlement plan was an attempt to conscript the villagers into military service.

DKBA Captain Saw Win Zaw adamantly denied allegation that his organisation had ulterior motives. "Word has been spreading around that we plan to recruit them to fight for us, but we have no intention to do that. Our help is purely on humanitarian grounds," he said.

As hope began to fade that the government would provide an acceptable solution to those left homeless, 202 people agreed to accept the DKBA's offer. "It's not that we're happy to go there, but there's no other choice," said Myo Min Tun, from Thameelay village. "We would like to have our homes back, but the authorities haven't given us a clear answer to date. The monsoon is drawing near, so we decided to accept the help we could get."

At time of writing, the villagers are still being held in transit.

Protest leaders sentenced to 3 months in prison

Posted: 02 Apr 2014 03:37 AM PDT

Two prominent activists who organised a protest calling for farmers' rights were sentenced to three months imprisonment by the western Rangoon District Court on Tuesday.

On January 18, Nay Myo Zin and Win Cho were charged under Article 18 of the Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law for staging the demonstration without obtaining prior permission from the authorities. The protest, which occurred the day before at Maha Bandoola Park in front of Rangoon's city hall, brought out hundreds of farmers from more than 30 townships across Burma, who called for the release of jailed activists, constitutional reform, and the establishment of a farmers' union.

Speaking before the sentencing, Win Cho said officials were more worried about following orders from above than serving their communities.

"Officials working in government administrations on regional, district, township and ward levels, instead of serving their official mandate with respect to the law, are still prioritising following orders from superior authorities," he said.

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"I see this as the main cause of the circumstances we are witnessing now."

Nay Myo Zin, a former army captain-turned activist who now works for the Myanmar Social Development Network, a civil society organisation, said they were denied permission because there were no farmers in downtown Rangoon.

"We did seek official permission for the protest seven days in advance but the police and authorities rejected it," he said. "Their reason was that there was no existence of a farmer population or issues affecting farmers in Kyauktada township."

Following the sentencing, the pair were sent to Insein Prison, where they will serve their three-month terms.

Both activists have served jail terms for political activism in the past. Last May, Nay Myo Zin earned the dubious distinction of being the first activist arrested on political grounds since Thein Sein's reformist government assumed power in 2011. He had previously served six months of a ten-year politically motivated sentence, and was released as part of a general prisoner amnesty in January 2012.

Will Burma’s timber ban curb or entrench corruption?

Posted: 02 Apr 2014 12:05 AM PDT

A ban on all raw timber exports from Burma came into effect on Tuesday, in an attempt to rein in one of the country's highly lucrative and notoriously corrupt extractives. The new regulation, which criminalises cross-border trade of unrefined wood products, is meant to stop the flow of raw resources and encourage development of value-added processing industries, though many are sceptical of the government's ability to accomplish that outcome.

"The main issue with the log export ban at this stage is the lack of state and private-sector support in establishing a more robust wood processing sector in the country," said Kevin Woods, a researcher for the environmental rights group Forest Trends. Woods is one of many resource experts concerned that the ban could reinforce corruption in one of the country's most opaque industries while doing nothing to moderate exploitation.

The government has not put forth any plans to increase processing industries, which according to researchers opens two possibilities: if in-country processing remains unsupported and undeveloped, illegal trade could actually increase in richly forested border areas; if the industry is concertedly developed, what is already known to be a state-owned monopoly could simply expand into even more businesses.

"No one has seen any official paperwork outlining the ban," said Faith Doherty, Forest Team Leader at Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a UK-based environmental rights group that accused the government last week of complicity in illegal trade of timber.

"The Government's official data on forestry and timber exports reveals endemic illegal logging and timber smuggling – crimes only possible through institutional corruption on a huge scale," read a statement accompanying a report that examined government export records against imports documented by other nations. The data indicated a fiscal "black hole" amounting to US$6 billion worth of wood.

"Burma has absolutely no transparency within the sector," said Doherty, upon DVB's inquiry as to where the money could possibly be. "With US$6 billion unaccounted for, your question should be addressed to the government. We don't know."

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The inquiry had, in fact, been initially directed to both Burma's Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry (MOECAF) and the managing director of the Myanma Timber Enterprise (MTE), neither of whom offered any explanation. The Ministry of Commerce also declined to comment.

The extent of corruption in Burma is "really quite stunning", said Sam Zarifi, regional director of the International Commission of Jurists. Literally every sector, he said, is and will for some time remain dominated by government cronies, especially in the booming extractive sector, where profit margins are high.

Figures reported by EIA dealt only with recorded materials; much of the massive count of illicit timber was traded under the supervision of the MTE, which is a state-owned company established in 1989 to oversee all logging concessions and manage trade.

This means that much of the unauthorised trade occurred in areas controlled by the central government, and the numbers don't even begin to account for logs traded in Burma's many ethnically manned border regions, which frequently act as a conduit for illicit cross-border movement to China. In Kachin State, for instance, the illegal export of logs via the Burma-China land border has been estimated to bring in more than US$200 million per year, much of which is thought to fund rebel army operations. A recent visitor to the Sino-Burmese border said he observed a "constant stream of trucks" carrying logs from Sagaing Division to China via Kachin State, noting that “there’s very little old growth left in the Kachin hills thanks to the massive levels of logging that took place over the past decade”.

Deforestation is an added complexity to Burma's logging problem; the new rules target commerce, but they don't directly curb the rapid decline in forested lands. Estimates vary, but most environmentalists agree that during British colonial times some 80 percent of the country was wooded, diving to 60 percent in the 1960s. Deforestation accelerated under military rule, and government figures put Burma's current forested area at around 47 percent, though some officials have offered lower estimates.

"The log export ban doesn't mean much for actual logging, but rather what you do with the logs after you have them," said Woods, explaining that while the ban could lead to decreased demand — if implementation stalls deliveries, for example — it is not, as some think, going to preserve Burma's forests. The Burmese government has, however, committed to lowering its annual allowable cut (AAC) for teak and other hardwoods, which could bring some wins for preservationists.

Those successes could be very meaningful in Burma, where many still rely on the forest for basic needs like food, shelter and safety. Moreover, Woods suggested that the disappearance of both trees and vital non-timber forest products (NTFPs) can lead to all manner of consequences, for instance, scarcity of firewood and coal means that women travel longer distances to collect. In Burma's extreme but real circumstances, "there is increased chance of rape, especially in conflict-prone areas."

While the raw timber export ban is one step towards avoiding a regrettable transformation in one of Burma's major industries, it may only work in tandem with additional reforms meant to tackle the country's deep-seated corruption. The Burmese government has, at least, acknowledged the problem by committing to measures like the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and forthcoming preparations to join the EU's Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative, but has not yet proved the ability or the will to enforce violations.

"That's, of course, the billion dollar question," said Zarifi, emphasising that new media freedoms offer Burma's strongest anti-corruption tool. Monitoring the logging and timber industries will largely be a task for journalists, activists and citizens, because information that incriminates cronies is unlikely to come from the government.

"Right now, that judicial capacity and that political will is quite low."

Palaung rebels forcibly recruit villagers, kill those who refuse, say Lisu locals

Posted: 01 Apr 2014 08:35 PM PDT

According to villagers in Shan State's Namhsan township, The Ta'ang (Palaung) National Liberation Army (TNLA) are forcefully recruiting people into their ranks and are executing those who refuse.

Namhsan township lies in the Palaung Self-Administered Zone in northern Shan State and is under the control of the TNLA. Ethnic Lisu people said they fled their villages to escape the recruitment.

One Lisu villager said TNLA soldiers were demanding one recruit from each household.

"We were forced to come here as the TNLA have been on a recruitment drive, demanding one compulsory recruit from each household," the villager said.

"U Maung Sein, our village leader, had gone to plead with them explaining that we, the Lisu, are just a minority and do not have the courage for that."

When the village leader went to reason with the soldiers, he was allegedly killed.

"For saying that, they took U Maung Sein and executed him. They also spread the word that there will be more executions so we decided to come here – our whole village," said the Lisu villager.

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Over 50 families who fled from the TNLA are now sheltering in villages in neighbouring Lashio district. But they have left their jobs and livelihoods and they are not receiving aid.

"We came here to escape the recruitment drive by the Palaung rebels," said another villager with a young son. "There are over 50 families of us. No one is providing us homes or aid to settle here."

Similar recruitment drives were reported in Kutkai township in northeastern Shan State, where the TNLA and other ethnic militia groups are active.

The TNLA, armed wing of the Palaung State Liberation Front, was formed in 2005 and is active in northern Shan state's Mongtong, Kutkai, Namhkam and Namhsan townships.

In February the TNLA reported continued clashes with the Burmese army, and said they had seen 16 offensives on TNLA positions this year.

Forced conscription is a common strategy in many ethnic militias to gain new recruits when fighting breaks out.

 
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