The Irrawaddy Magazine

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• Nationalist Monk Criticized After Inflammatory Speech
• Suu Kyi, Ethnic Alliance Agree to Push 3-Point Agenda
• Protests Continue Against Letpadaung Copper Mine
• Civil Society Organizations Call for Halt to Salween Dam Projects
• Upper House to Debate ‘Protection Bills’
• Kyaukphyu SEZ Winners to be Announced in February
• Talks Ongoing Over Police Officers’ Release in Kachin State
• Forum Calls for Prioritizing Rangoon’s Heritage
• Hundreds of Chinese Nationals Trapped in Northern Burma: Report
• Indonesia Rejects Foreign Appeals, Executes 6 Drug Convicts
• Indian Spy’s Role Alleged in Sri Lankan President’s Election Defeat
• Loosening Beijing Embrace, Sri Lanka Reviews China Projects
• Myth and Meaning in Tibet

Nationalist Monk Criticized After Inflammatory Speech Posted: 19 Jan 2015 06:04 AM PST Nationalist monk U Wirathu speaking on Friday. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — A spokesman for President Thein Sein has said he will raise with the Religious Affairs Ministry an inflammatory speech delivered by U Wirathu, a prominent member of the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, in which he referred to a United Nations envoy as a "whore". Speaking on Friday at a rally in Rangoon, held to denounce a recent vote of the UN General Assembly calling for the granting of citizenship to the Rohingya Muslim minority in Arakan State, U Wirathu singled out UN Special Rapporteur for Burma Yanghee Lee for criticism. A 10-minute excerpt of the monk's speech, cheered on enthusiastically by his supporters, has been shared widely on social media, and a short translation of his incendiary comments was published on Monday morning by Democratic Voice of Burma. Referring to legislative proposals sponsored by the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, U Wirathu launched into a tirade against Ms. Lee's public statements on the bills. "We have already made public the Race Protection Law, but this bitch, without studying it, kept on complaining about how it is against our human rights, just because some loud-mouthed women say so," he told his audience. "Can this bitch really be from a respectable background? Don't assume you are a respectable person, just because you have a position in the UN. In our country, you are just a whore." The speech was delivered on the same day as Ms. Lee concluded her second visit to Burma with a press conference at the Sedona Hotel in Rangoon, during which she discussed her visit to Arakan State and warned that the government's reform program was at risk of stalling. Ye Htut, the presidential spokesperson and the Minister of Information told The Irrawaddy on Monday that he would ask the Ministry of Religious Affairs to investigate the speech. "I would not make any criticism against the monks," the minister said, "but I am sure that the Ministry of Religious Affairs always urges the religious leaders to act in accordance with their religious code of ethics. Personally, I believe that Buddhist monks and any other religious leaders should recite speeches reflecting compassion, love, empathy and good ethics." U Pandavunsa, a leading figure in the Saffron Revolution and presiding monk of the Shwe Taung monastery, told The Irrawaddy that U Wirathu's speech was contrary to the code of ethics for Buddhist monks. "Insulting remarks is unacceptable in Buddhism, which teach about love and compassion," he told The Irrawaddy. "According to our code of ethics, a member of our clergy cannot use his hands to bring other people to harm, not to mention curse or badmouth or insult them. Everybody understands that a monk should be a man of loving kindness. The International community will look down on Buddhism for what he said." U Wirathu could not be reached for comment on Monday. The post Nationalist Monk Criticized After Inflammatory Speech appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Suu Kyi, Ethnic Alliance Agree to Push 3-Point Agenda Posted: 19 Jan 2015 05:59 AM PST Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi attends a rally for constitutional reform in Loikaw, Karenni State, on Nov. 8, 2014. (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — An umbrella group of ethnic political parties known as the United Nationalities Alliance (UNA) met with Aung San Su Kyi on Sunday and agreed to work with the opposition leader to push a three-point agenda for Burma's political future. The two sides agreed that amending the 2008 Constitution, ensuring free and fair elections later this year and the convening of "genuine" political dialogue among Burma's political stakeholders should be centerpieces of a reform program that began in 2011 but, critics including Suu Kyi say, has stalled of late. The discussion was held on Sunday at the Naypyidaw residence of Suu Kyi, who serves as chairwoman of the National League for Democracy (NLD) party. Gin Kan Lian, secretary of the Zomi Congress for Democracy Party, attended the meeting and said the joint three-point position would be formally announced within weeks. "We didn't discuss in detail and we agreed to discuss these three matters in the future. Both of us will discuss with our respective groups and will issue a joint agreement." Suu Kyi and UNA representatives last met to discuss constitutional reform in September 2013, and this weekend's meeting comes less than a week after President Thein Sein convened a 48-party dialogue that was criticized by some as ineffectual window-dressing. Gin Kan Lian called the 48-party meeting "chatter dialogue," with participants only afforded three to five minutes to state their positions and attendees failing to engage in substantive discussion or reach significant agreement. He did not take a position on whether the UNA would back the six-party talks that Suu Kyi has endorsed, saying only that the alliance supported "genuine political dialogue." The UNA has separately called for a tripartite dialogue that would include the Burmese government, ethnic armed groups and political parties, and the NLD. Thus far, however, Thein Sein has ignored those calls, as well as endorsements by Suu Kyi and Parliament for six-party talks. The president's convening of the 48-party talks earlier this month was preceded by a 14-party dialogue in November that was also criticized as a largely substanceless affair. Sai Nyunt Lwin of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy told The Irrawaddy: "We will discuss these three agreements with our partner groups and will return to meet NLD soon." Dr. Min Soe Linn, from the Mon Democracy Party, told The Irrawaddy that in February the UNA would hold a meeting that would be more inclusive than a gathering it held in December, which saw only 22 groups attend out of an invitation list of 33 organizations with close ties to the UNA. The UNA says the same 33 organizations will be invited to the February meeting, at which the proposed three-point agenda will be discussed. "We wanted to find common ground among political parties in order to have future political dialogue. We wanted to get out from the current impasse. We will cooperate with the public on our movement. The government has to pay attention to our movement if the public supports us." The UNA is an umbrella group of eight ethnic political parties that was formed following the 1990 elections, when the ruling junta refused to cede power following a landslide NLD victory. Originally it was comprised of 12 different political parties. UNA members refused to participate in the 2010 national elections on the grounds that they opposed the military-drafted 2008 Constitution. Some UNA leaders have indicated, however, that they intend to participate in national elections slated for late this year. The post Suu Kyi, Ethnic Alliance Agree to Push 3-Point Agenda appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Protests Continue Against Letpadaung Copper Mine Posted: 19 Jan 2015 05:54 AM PST Farmers from the area surrounding the Letpadaung copper mining project gathered in Monywa on Jan. 19, 2014. (Photo: Han Win Aung / Facebook) MANDALAY — Farmers who claim to have lost their land to the controversial Letpadaung copper mining project in Sagaing Division took to the streets once again in the latest of an escalating round of protests against the development. About 150 farmers from Hse Tae, Moegyopyin, Tone, Zeetaw and other surrounding villages marched to the nearby town of Monywa on Monday to demand that the project be immediately halted and action be taken against police involved in the fatal Dec. 22 shooting of 56-year-old land rights protester Khin Win. "We just want the copper mining project to be abolished," said New New Win, one of the farmers present at the demonstration. "Since the project began, we can't work on our lands and we face many difficulties. The authorities and security forces commit violence, treat us like rebels and even shoot us. We don't want this project in our region anymore." The protesters said that they want to see action taken against police who shot into a crowd in late December, ultimately killing Khin Win and injuring several others. The incident happened during a standoff between police, company security and protesters attempting to stop company personnel from fencing off disputed lands. Locals said that police had not responded adequately to their demands for justice; a case submitted by to police by Khin Win's family requesting a criminal investigation had been ignored, villagers said. "The officers told us that they will not handle this case, and they returned the papers to us. We will submit it to a higher court," said Khin Mar Aye, a farmer from Moegyopyin village. While no individuals have yet been held responsible for the incident, an investigation carried out by the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission concluded on Jan. 15 that police had made mistakes while trying to control the crowd, stating that officers had "skipped some steps." The shooting was only the latest in a string of controversies surrounding the project, which is a joint venture between state-owned Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings and China's Wanbao, a subsidiary of a government-run weapons manufacturer, Norinco. The project gained international notoriety in November 2012, when police fired incendiary devices on demonstrators. The early morning raid injured scores of people, many of them Buddhist monks, leaving them with burns that have been attributed to white phosphorous. The project was temporarily suspended, but later resumed after opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi told affected communities that the project should resume under certain conditions. The post Protests Continue Against Letpadaung Copper Mine appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Civil Society Organizations Call for Halt to Salween Dam Projects Posted: 19 Jan 2015 03:27 AM PST A view from the Thai side of the Salween River. (Photo: Saw Yan Naing / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Over 61,000 people and 131 civil society organizations, including political parties representing ethnic communities in Burma's eastern states, have signeda petition calling for an unconditional halt to plans for the construction of dams on the Salween River and its tributaries. Locals say that building the six dams planned for locations in Shan, Karenni and Karen States will displace locals and destroy rural livelihoods. "Some big cities like Pa-an, Moulmein and Bilu Kyun will suffer," said Saw Thar Poe, coordinator of Karen River Watch. "When the river is dammed, sea water will come into the basin and farmers will not be able to get fresh water for agriculture." Copies of the petition, organized by the Burma River Network, will be delivered to the Ministry of Electric Power and the Chinese and Thai embassies in Rangoon. China and Thailand will be the main beneficiaries of the electricity generated by the dams, and state-owned power generation companies from those countries—including EGAT International, China Three Gorges Corporation, Hanergy, Hydrochina and China Datang—will build the projects in partnership with local companies Shwe Taung, Asia World and International Group of Entrepreneurs. "The planned Salween dams will produce over 15,000 megawatts of electricity, most of which will be exported to China and Thailand, while millions living along the river in Burma will bear the environmental and social costs of the projects," said the Burma River Network in a press press statement released today. Ah Nan, the Burma River Network coordinator, said that a lack of transparency meant that many people around the Salween delta were unaware of the impact of the dam projects. "The locals have no idea that they will be displaced," he said. "The public is not being consulted about the dam construction, and then they are forced to move." Soe Doh, a member of Karen River Network, said his organization has requested that the government and participating companies inform affected communities about the social and environmental impact of the dams, make contingency plans for possible earthquakes, and assess the potential of future conflict between government forces and ethnic armed groups at the dam sites. The Burma River Network also met with ethnic parliamentarians on Monday in order to discuss their concerns about the dam projects. The post Civil Society Organizations Call for Halt to Salween Dam Projects appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Upper House to Debate ‘Protection Bills’ Posted: 19 Jan 2015 03:22 AM PST Buddhist nuns at a Ma Ba Tha rally in Mandalay on Thursday, Oct. 30, 2014. (Photo: The Irrawaddy) Burma's Upper House of Parliament accepted a proposal to debate two controversial bills geared toward protecting race and religion in the Buddhist-majority country as the 12th parliamentary session began on Monday. The Religious Conversion Bill and the Population Bill are part of a legislative package commonly referred to as the "Protection of Race and Religion Bills," consisting of four bills that would create new rules regarding interfaith marriage, choice of faith and other elements of family life. Initially proposed by a Buddhist nationalist group known as the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, known in Burmese as the Ma Ba Tha, the bills have met with waves of criticism from domestic and international rights advocates who claim the legislation would violate religious freedoms and undermine women's rights. Debate of the Conversion Bill was approved by a majority of lawmakers, though six objected to the proposal to discuss the bill. Upper House lawmaker Phone Myint Aung told The Irrawaddy that, "it is necessary to discuss these bills in Parliament," adding that he supports the enactment of laws restricting religious conversion, particularly for Buddhists. The proposed Population Bill proved less divisive, with all lawmakers agreeing to the debate without objection. Banyar Aung Moe, an ethnic Mon lawmaker, told The Irrawaddy that while he has mixed views on the entire package of bills, he agrees that they should have a place in parliamentary discussions. "From a health perspective, we think controlling the population is necessary, so there were no objections to that discussion," he said. The Population Bill does not restrict birth nationwide, but grants power to state and regional governments to create regulations based on the needs of their respective communities, according to Phone Myint Aung. Some critics have argued that this could empower local governments to unfairly restrict minorities' rights, while others defended the law on the grounds that it could prevent "rapidly booming" populations from "threatening" ethnic minority populations. The majority of Burma's population practices Buddhism, though the country is host to several other religions including Animism, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. A movement to preserve Buddhist identity has gained momentum in recent years as Burma has grappled with ethnic and religious tension. The issue has become a fixture of political discourse as inter-communal violence between Buddhists and Muslims broke out in several parts of the country in mid-2012. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and more than 200 have died during riots that overwhelmingly uprooted Muslim communities. The Ma Ba Tha rose to prominence in the wake of the conflict, premised on preserving Burma's dominant Buddhist identity. The legislation was first proposed in mid-2013, and has since met a barrage of criticism from a wide range of stakeholders. Most recently, the top US rights official, Tom Malinowski, said the United States registered their concern about the legislation during a recent meeting with Union ministers. The official said the United States presented the Burmese government with a legal analysis of the four bills, which "raised serious questions about their conformity with international human rights standards." The post Upper House to Debate 'Protection Bills' appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Kyaukphyu SEZ Winners to be Announced in February Posted: 19 Jan 2015 03:16 AM PST Some development is already underway at Kyaukphyu in Arakan State, the site of a planned special economic zone. (Photo: Ko Soe / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Announcement of winning tenders for the development of a special economic zone in western Burma will be delayed until late February, the project's oversight committee has announced, claiming that they need to retrieve additional information about the bidders amid accusations of an opaque and unfair selection process. "We've seen that we need to ask for more detail while we interview bidders, that's why we need to take some more time," said Aung Kya Than, secretary of the Kyaukphyu SEZ Bid Evaluation and Awarding Committee. "We will announce the winning bids in late February… We can't say how many international and local firms are included in the final stage," he added. The Kyaukphyu SEZ is one of three special economic zones planned for Burma's ports, and will serve as the terminus for parallel gas and oil pipelines reaching from the Arakan State coast on the Bay of Bengal to Yunnan, China. Both pipelines—which have been a source of controversy since plans were approved in 2007—were completed within the past two years. The zone is expected to envelop an already built deep sea port, a petrochemical processing plant, an energy facility and a variety of industrial factories. The Burmese government called for infrastructure tenders in September 2014, after awarding a US$2.5 million consulting contract to Singaporean CPG Corporation in March. Bidding for infrastructure contracts closed on Nov. 24. A total of 12 companies submitted bids; 11 foreign and one local firm. Three of those 12 will be awarded contracts, the tender selection board told The Irrawaddy. Those three winners were initially expected to be announced in January 2015, a deadline that had to be pushed back to carry out additional probes into potential investors, the committee said. The committee's reluctance to disclose the names of shortlisted bidders, however, has led to claims that the process lacks transparency and favors Chinese clients, who accounted for the bulk of bids and are the primary beneficiaries of the gas and oil corridor. Pyi Wa Tun, Chairman of the Parami Energy Group of Companies, said the lack of domestic bidders is suspicious, as his was the sole bid on the development submitted by a Burmese firm. "I expected that there would be many local companies vying to work with international firms, but that didn't happen," he said. "If the best international firms will work with us, it can be built fast and we will get more benefit. It shouldn't be only for Chinese companies." Pyi Wa Tun said that China's CITIC Group is expected to be among the winning bidders, but the committee could not confirm this projection. CITIC has been a known contender for the project, having produced a feasibility study in May 2011 that estimated project costs at $14 billion and a land planning area of about 350 square kilometers (217 square miles). "From what I understand," Secretary Aung Kyaw Than countered, "people are criticizing us for favoring Chinese companies. There might be something driving those allegations, or some political motivation. But for us, we are only looking out for the country's interests." The Kyaukphyu SEZ is a key feature of the gas and oil corridor, which transfers gas sourced from the Bay of Bengal and oil shipped from the Middle East and Africa into China's isolated southwestern provinces. The overland shipments of crude could eventually save China millions by avoiding long and costly tanker routes through the Malacca Strait. The corridor, which cuts through Burma diagonally passing through Mandalay and parts of conflict-affected northern Shan State before entering China through Muse, also creates convenient shipping hubs for India and Bangladesh, as they will be linked to Mandalay via a proposed tri-lateral highway connecting northeast India to Thailand. The project has faced opposition from villagers in Burma and China, primarily because of the amount of land required for related developments. The Kyaukphyu SEZ is expected to take up an initial 1,000 acres of land and later swell to about 4,000, according to comments made last year by the tender selection committee Chairman Myint Thein. The post Kyaukphyu SEZ Winners to be Announced in February appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Talks Ongoing Over Police Officers’ Release in Kachin State Posted: 19 Jan 2015 03:09 AM PST Kachin Independence Army soldiers wear gas masks near Laiza in Kachin State in 2011. (Photo: The Irrawaddy) Negotiations are ongoing in Kachin State over the detention of three police officers there last week, an incident that is believed to have spawned the latest fighting in the region between government troops and ethnic Kachin armed rebels. The three officers were detained, along with the Kachin State transportation minister, by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) on Wednesday. The minister, Kaman Du Naw, was released later the same day, but the three police personnel remain in KIA hands. The following day, fighting between the Burma Army and KIA troops broke out near two villages in Hpakant Township, forcing more than 1,000 people from their homes and shuttering mining operations in the jade-rich region northwest of Myitkyina, the Kachin State capital. On Sunday, a delegation from the Kachin Peace Creation Group, a Kachin organization mediating peace talks between the KIA's political wing, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), and the government, went to Hpakant town to discuss the release of the three detained police officers. Speaking from Hpakant on Monday, Lamai Gum Ja, a spokesperson for the Kachin Peace Creation Group, said the KIA would release the three detainees later today. "They [KIA] will release them without condition. They will tell us where to receive the hostages. We are now waiting for their call," Lamai Gum Ja told The Irrawaddy. He said that because hostilities continued between the government and the KIA intermittently through the weekend, mining operations Hpakant Township had been suspended. Sutdu Yup Zau Hkawng, a member of the Kachin Peace Creation Group and head of the Jade Land Company, a leading mining firm in Hpakant, confirmed the mines' temporary closure. "Because the fighting continues, mining operations are now being shut down. This normally happens when there is fighting anytime [in Hpakant]." Local residents in the town of Hpakant said fighting also took place around the village of Lone Kin over the weekend, with an unknown number of casualties on the KIA side. U Cho, a local resident in Hpakant, said the situation has been further complicated by some angry small-scale miners in the area who have taken to setting fire to oil tanks that belong to Burmese mining companies operating jade mines in the area. The displaced villagers and, according to Reuters, hundreds of Chinese miners and traders are taking shelter in local churches in Hpakant Township's Aung Bar Lay and Tagaungs villages. Residents are questioned and searched by local authorities when going out at night. Lamai Gum Ja said the Kachin Peace Creation Group planned to meet with the displaced populations on Tuesday. "We have already asked the head of the Burma Army's unit in Hpakant for permission," he said. According to local sources, more than 1,000 residents were affected by the fighting in Kachin State's Hpakant Township. If conditions condition to deteriorate, martial law is likely to be declared, U Cho said. The latest Kachin State violence comes as ethnic leaders and government negotiators continue to target the signing of a nationwide ceasefire accord on Feb. 12. The KIA is one of two major ethnic armed groups that have not signed a bilateral agreement with the government. Fighting has taken place sporadically since a 17-year ceasefire between the KIA and government broke down in 2011. Prior to last week, the latest violence came in November, when the Burma Army shelled a rebel training academy outside of Myitkyina, killing 22 cadets in the deadliest attack on an ethnic armed group in years. Responding to media inquiries over the fighting in Kachin, presidential spokesman and Minister of Information Ye Htut claimed that a faction within the KIO that does not want a nationwide ceasefire agreement to be signed next month was behind the three police officers' detention last week. "We are led to believe that a group that wants to destroy the peace process and create obstacles on the path to reaching a nationwide ceasefire agreement intentionally committed the move," Ye Htut wrote on his Facebook page. The post Talks Ongoing Over Police Officers' Release in Kachin State appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Forum Calls for Prioritizing Rangoon’s Heritage Posted: 19 Jan 2015 12:08 AM PST Thant Myint-U, founder of the Yangon Heritage Trust, speaks during a forum on the future of Rangoon on Friday. (Photo: Facebook / Yangon Heritage Trust) RANGOON — An international conference to provide policy recommendations on the future of Rangoon has called for government coordination to realize the economic, social and physical benefits from heritage conservation in Burma's largest city. Calling the social diversity of Rangoon "a rich basic for high-quality tourism products that incorporate more than a major site," international and local participants at the conference in Rangoon said Burma's business hub has a window of opportunity to capitalize on international interest, adding that the city's sustainable revitalization could attract visitors and investors. "Given all these opportunities, Yangon [Rangoon] could serve as a model not only for Myanmar but cities around the region and across the globe," said Erica Avrami of the World Monuments Fund, which co-hosted "Building the Future: The Role of Heritage in the Sustainable Development of Yangon Forum," along with the Yangon Heritage Trust. While summarizing the issues discussed during the three-day conference, Avrami said on Saturday that there was also a limited institutional framework to facilitate heritage research and activities, with only a handful of NGOs, universities and other organizations doing the work, as well as limited government mandates. "This interest in heritage has not yet translated into government policy, and there is a lack of coordination among the relevant government agencies and urban heritage-related issues," said Avrami, an assistant professor of historic preservation at Columbia University in New York and former director of research and education at the World Monuments Fund who continues to work with the organization. "There is a lack of enforcement in environmental regulations, an absence of guidelines for building safety, zoning, land use and heritage conservation, and other key elements like urban design and planning," she added. The forum released five priority areas intended to protect heritage, manage heritage processes and promote heritage investment in the short term, including official recognition of a downtown conservation area and zoning plan, and facilitation of conservation and heritage investment as well as development of downtown infrastructure, especially projects aimed at enhancing walkability, the city's waterfront and open spaces. Soe Thane, a Union minister from the President's Office, said at the forum's closing session that he would urge the Rangoon divisional government and the city's mayor to finalize a conservation area and zoning plan, which has been in the draft stage and awaiting official approval for more than one year. "Regarding the legal aspects, this is the purview of professional people—YCDC [Yangon City Development Committee] and the Yangon government should be the task force. There is no need to involve the central government," he said. "I will talk to Yangon's Chief Minister U Myint Swe and Mayor U Hla Myint to finalize it [the zoning plan]," the senior minister added. "You need to legalize it for the future, for the next government of Yangon. This I will explain to them. I also care about Yangon. I know this city. I know its problem." Last year, Rangoon's historical city center—an eclectic mix of moldering British colonial architecture, bustling street life and shrines to all the world's major religions—was included on the World Monuments Fund's "Watch" list, indicating that its heritage was "at risk from the forces of nature and the impact of social, political, and economic change." The listing called attention to the city's unique cultural inheritance, which the organization said was under threat as development has proceeded at a breakneck pace with Burma's opening up to the wider world in 2011. "A weak regulatory framework, limited professional planning expertise, and mounting pressures for development render historic Yangon vulnerable to hasty decisions with potentially permanent effects," said a statement from the forum's cohosts ahead of the event. Thant Myint-U, the founder of the Yangon Heritage Trust, told The Irrawaddy that international and Burmese experts attending the forum all agreed on the urgent need to integrate conservation into Rangoon's urban planning. "What we need now is to reach out both to the general public, the government and especially to the business community, and find a way forward that is acceptable to everyone," he said. "It's critical to understand that what we want is not for Yangon to stay the way it is, or to hold back development, but to integrate the best of what we have, our heritage, into a vision of a modern 21st century city." The post Forum Calls for Prioritizing Rangoon's Heritage appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Hundreds of Chinese Nationals Trapped in Northern Burma: Report Posted: 19 Jan 2015 12:03 AM PST A Kachin rebel at Hka Ya Bhum, an outpost of the Kachin Independence Army in Lajayang. (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy) BEIJING — Hundreds of Chinese citizens, including miners and jade traders, are among 2,000 civilians trapped by fighting between government troops and insurgents in northern Burma, China's state-backed Global Times reported on Monday. The Chinese nationals and local civilians are trapped in the northern state of Kachin, which borders southern China, where the Burma Army has been battling the rebel Kachin Independence Army (KIA) for years, the newspaper said. It cited an unidentified intelligence official for a Burma rebel group, although the group also was not specified. The Chinese nationals included jade dealers, gold miners and lumberjacks, the report said. There is an open pit mine in the Kachin town of Hpakant, the largest source of Burmese jade. The rebel intelligence official told the Global Times that those trapped have limited food and water and no medical supplies. A Chinese consular official said the Foreign Ministry was in the process of confirming the report and that no Chinese nationals had requested assistance, according to a state television report. Officials from ethnic armed groups told the Global Times they would allow the Chinese to go home "if conditions allow." The report said that Burma has beefed up its military presence at the Kambaiti Pass, which sits on the border with China, in a bid to curb illegal cross-border traffic. That could cut off passage for Chinese nationals lacking documentation to return home, the Global Times said, quoting unidentified sources. It said some of them had gone into hiding in homes and forests in the area. The area is renowned for the flourishing illegal jade trade, much of it smuggled over the border into China. In Burma, peace talks between rebel groups and the quasi-civilian government that took over in 2011 after nearly 50 years of military rule have thus far failed to yield a peace agreement. The KIA took up arms in 1961 and is the second-largest ethnic armed group in Burma. The post Hundreds of Chinese Nationals Trapped in Northern Burma: Report appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Indonesia Rejects Foreign Appeals, Executes 6 Drug Convicts Posted: 18 Jan 2015 08:54 PM PST A convoy of ambulances carrying the bodies of executed drug traffickers travels from Nusa Kambangan prison on Saturday. (Photo: Idhad Zakaria / Antara Foto & Reuters) JAKARTA — Indonesia brushed aside last-minute appeals by foreign leaders and executed by firing squad six people convicted of drug trafficking, including five foreigners, sending a message that the new government will not compromise its tough approach to narcotics. Four men from Brazil, Malawi, Nigeria and the Netherlands and an Indonesian woman were shot to death simultaneously in pairs just after midnight Saturday, several kilometers from a high-security prison on Nusakambangan island. The other, a woman from Vietnam, was executed in Boyolali, according to Attorney General Office’s spokesman Tony Spontana. Both areas are in Central Java province. Their bodies were brought from the island by ambulances early Sunday either for burial or cremation, as requested by relatives and representatives of their embassies. Indonesian President Joko Widodo in December rejected their clemency requests. He also refused a last-minute appeal by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and the Dutch government to spare their countrymen—Brazilian Marco Archer Cardoso Moreira, 53, and Ang Kiem Soe, 52, who was born in Papua but whose nationality is Dutch. Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said in a statement late Saturday that he had temporarily recalled the country’s ambassador to Indonesia and summoned Indonesia’s representative in The Hague to protest Ang’s execution. He said it was carried out despite King Willem-Alexander and Prime Minister Mark Rutte personally contacting Widodo. Koenders called the execution "a cruel and inhumane punishment … an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity." Rousseff said she was outraged and appalled by the execution, according to a government statement. The execution "creates a stain, a shadow in the bilateral relationship," said Marco Aurelio Garcia, the Brazilian president’s foreign affairs special adviser. "There was no sensitivity on the part of the Indonesian government." Amnesty International said the first executions under Indonesia’s new president, who took office in November, were "a retrograde step" for human rights. Indonesian Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo has said there is no excuse for drug dealers and that "hopefully, this will have a deterrent effect." Prasetyo said the new government had a firm commitment to fight against drugs. Widodo has said he will not grant clemency to the dozens of drug convicts on death row. "What we do is merely aimed at protecting our nation from the danger of drugs," Prasetyo told reporters Thursday. He said figures from the National Anti-Narcotic Agency showed 40 to 50 people die each day from drugs in Indonesia. He said that drug trafficking rings have spread to many places, including remote villages where most victims are youngsters of productive age. Indonesia has become the largest drug market in Southeast Asia, with 45 percent of the region’s drugs in circulation. A second batch of executions will be held later this year and also target drug smugglers, Prasetyo said. Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago nation of 250 million people, has extremely strict drug laws and often executes smugglers. More than 138 people are on death row, mostly for drug crimes. About a third of them are foreigners. Moreira, the Brazilian, was arrested in 2003 after police at Jakarta’s airport found 13.4 kilograms (29.5 pounds) of cocaine hidden in his hang glider. A second Brazilian national, Rodrigo Muxfeldt Gularte, remains on death row in Indonesia, also convicted of drug trafficking. Ang was arrested near Jakarta in 2003 after police found equipment that they estimated had been producing 15,000 ecstasy pills a day for three years. Police confiscated 8,000 pills and thousands of dollars. The others who were executed were Namaona Denis, 48, from Malawi; Daniel Enemuo, 38, from Nigeria; and Indonesian Rani Andriani. Tran Bich Hanh of Vietnam asked authorities to let her face the firing squad uncuffed as one of her last wishes, said Spontana, the Attorney General Office’s spokesman. The post Indonesia Rejects Foreign Appeals, Executes 6 Drug Convicts appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Indian Spy’s Role Alleged in Sri Lankan President’s Election Defeat Posted: 18 Jan 2015 08:43 PM PST Mahinda Rajapaksa, former president of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, addresses the 69th United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York on Sept. 24, 2014. (Photo: Reuters) COLOMBO/NEW DELHI — Sri Lanka expelled the Colombo station chief of India's spy agency in the run-up to this month's presidential election, political and intelligence sources said, accusing him of helping the opposition oust President Mahinda Rajapaksa. An Indian foreign ministry spokesman denied any expulsion and said that transfers were routine decisions. Rajapaksa, voted out of office in the Jan. 8 election, told Reuters he did not know all the facts while the new government in Colombo has said it is aware of the reports but cannot confirm them. But several sources in both Colombo and New Delhi said India was asked to recall the agent in December for helping gather support for joint opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena after persuading him to ditch Rajapaksa's cabinet. A sketchy report in Sri Lanka's Sunday Times newspaper on Dec. 28 said that "links with the common opposition" had cost India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) station chief his job in Colombo. India has often been involved in the internal politics of the small island nation off its southern coast—it sent troops there in 1987 in a botched effort to broker peace between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels. Rajapaksa's unexpected defeat after two terms in office coincided with growing concern in India that it was losing influence in Sri Lanka because of the former president's tilt toward regional rival China. The concern turned to alarm late last year when Rajapaksa allowed two Chinese submarines to dock in Sri Lanka without warning New Delhi as he should have under a standing agreement, the sources said. Sirisena, the new president, has said he will visit New Delhi on his first foreign trip next month and has said India is the "first, main concern" of his foreign policy. An Indian official said the RAW agent was recalled after complaints that he had worked with Sri Lanka's usually fractious opposition parties to agree on a joint contender for the election. Then, he was accused of facilitating meetings to encourage several lawmakers, among them Sirisena, to defect from Rajapaksa's party, the official said. The agent was accused of playing a role in convincing the main leader of the opposition and former prime minister Ranil Wickremasinghe not to contest against Rajapaksa in the election and stand aside for someone who could be sure of winning, said the officer and a Sri Lankan lawmaker who also maintains close contacts with India. The agent was also in touch with former president Chandrika Kumaratunga, who was a key player in convincing Sirisena to stand, said the officer and the lawmaker, who also confirmed that the agent had been asked to leave. "They actively were involved, talking to Ranil, getting those things organized, talking to Chandrika," the lawmaker told Reuters. 'Certain Things You Don't Talk About' Wickremasinghe, who is now prime minister again in Sirisena's government, met "two or three times" with the man identified as the agent in the months before the vote, as well as with the Indian high commissioner, or ambassador, the prime minister's spokesman said. "They discussed the current political situation," Wickremasinghe's spokesman said, but he denied that the Indians had advised him. "He does not know if he advised other politicians." It was not clear if Wickremasinghe was aware at the time that he was meeting with an intelligence official. India's RAW officers are usually given diplomatic posts when assigned to foreign missions. Former president Kumaratunga did not respond to requests for comment. Rajapaksa declined to confirm the involvement of India in the campaign against him. "I don't know, I won't suspect anybody until I get my real facts," he said at his party headquarters. "There are certain things you don't talk about," a close associate of the Rajapaksa family said, but added that "there were clear signs of a deep campaign by foreign elements." Sri Lanka's then defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa—a brother of the former president—complained about the agent's activities to Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval in November when Doval was visiting the island nation for a defense seminar, the Indian official said. Another Indian official, who monitors the region for security threats, said New Delhi had been watching Beijing's growing influence and heavy investments in Sri Lanka under Rajapaksa, who visited China seven times since becoming president in 2005. But India was stunned and angry last year when the Chinese submarines docked in Sri Lanka on two separate occasions, a step New Delhi saw as part of Beijing's "string of pearls" strategy to secure a foothold in South Asia and maritime access through the Indian Ocean. "The turning point in the relationship was the submarines. There was real anger," the Indian security official said. Indian military officials said that New Delhi reminded Sri Lanka it was obliged to inform its neighbors about such port calls under a maritime pact, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the issue with Rajapaksa at a meeting in New York. In a possible sign of shifting allegiances, India's top envoy in Colombo, High Commissioner Y.K. Sinha, presented Sirisena with a large bouquet of flowers just hours after the results were announced on Jan. 9. China's ambassador was only able to meet the new president six days later. The post Indian Spy's Role Alleged in Sri Lankan President's Election Defeat appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Loosening Beijing Embrace, Sri Lanka Reviews China Projects Posted: 18 Jan 2015 08:32 PM PST Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, drinks water next to Sri Lanka's former President Mahinda Rajapaksa during a meeting in Colombo on Sept. 16, 2014. (Photo: Reuters) COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka's new government will review Chinese infrastructure projects awarded under the previous administration, a junior minister said, a move bound to please Indian and Western powers concerned about Beijing's access in the island state. On Friday, the government said it would review a US$1.5 billion port deal with China Communication Construction Co. Ltd. over concerns about the Chinese company getting land on a freehold basis in a high-security zone. That port project had been of particular concern for India, the destination for the majority of the transshipment cargo through Colombo. India was furious with the last government after it allowed a Chinese submarine to dock there twice. Harsha De Silva, deputy minister for Policy Planning and Economic Affairs, said on Saturday that President Maithripala Sirisena's government would look at benchmarks for Chinese infrastructure costs using independent audit firms. "We will certainly do that because we want to show the people the true cost of these projects as well as what they are paying for these projects," De Silva told reporters. He said the government would consider legal action against people involved in over-priced projects. Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was unseated on Jan. 8, heavily depended on China for infrastructure in the wake of a devastating civil war. He has borrowed over $6 billion for mega projects since the end of a 26-year conflict in May 2009. Sri Lanka has a $76 billion economy. Opponents during the election campaign last month said many of the projects financed with Chinese loans were over-priced, an allegation that helped Sirisena to victory. De Silva said China had already started to discuss the issues "at the highest level of the government" and the new government would work on a project by project basis. A Chinese embassy official in Colombo, however, said all the projects implemented had parliament approvals. "The new government can review the projects, but it has no right to stop any project already implemented. If it goes before international law, the government will have to lose and pay all the debts," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Rajapaksa's opponents and some independent economists have said some of the projects have given very low returns on investment, including a $277 million airport in Rajapaksa's home constituency of Hambantota. State-run Sri Lankan Airlines will stop flight operations to the airport from Feb. 9 to "improve its bottom line by $18 million annually," the firm said in a statement. The post Loosening Beijing Embrace, Sri Lanka Reviews China Projects appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Myth and Meaning in Tibet Posted: 18 Jan 2015 04:00 PM PST Tibet: An Unfinished Story," by Lezlee Brown Halper& Stefan Halper, is published by Hurst & Company. He must have been the most unlikely person to gain the dubious distinction of being the world's first hippie. Lt-Col Francis Younghusband, who led the 1904 military expedition to Tibet—and during the course of that colonial adventure, massacred scores of Tibetans—was so mesmerized by the spiritualism and mysticism he encountered there that he founded numerous outlandish societies after his return to London a few years later. One of those preached free love while another believed in the existence of celestials with translucent flesh on a planet called Altair. The Russian occultist Helena Blavatsky claimed to have lived in Tibet where she had met spiritual masters with whom she remained in contact through telepathy, visions, and dreams. All that, however, turned out to be bogus. She was just capitalizing on the mystery engulfing the region on the roof of the world. In the 1930s, the rulers of Nazi Germany sent an expedition to Tibet to find the roots of the "Aryan master race." On the other side of the political spectrum, Franklin D. Roosevelt, US president from 1933 to 1945, named his personal retreat in the Catoctin Mountains in Maryland "Shangri-La" after the fictitious Tibetan monastery in James Hilton's novel "The Lost Horizon." Roosevelt's hideaway is now the site of Camp David, a mountain retreat for successive presidents of the United States. Tibet, and almost anything even remotely associated with it, continues to evoke eccentric, mystical pursuits, especially among Westerners. But following China's occupation of Tibet in the early 1950s, there was a much more down-to-earth reason for the West to pay special attention to the territory once ruled by a God King called the Dalai Lama: to contain the spread of Chinese hegemony in Asia. Tibet scholars Lezlee Brown Halper and Stefan Halper spent more than a decade researching Tibet's struggle and putting it into perspective in their excellent book "Tibet: An Unfinished Story." "It is an ignoble saga with few, if any, heroes, other than ordinary Tibetans," the authors conclude wryly. The Chinese, according to the authors, "sought nothing less than to deconstruct traditional Tibet, unseat the Dalai Lama and 'absorb' this vast region into the People's Republic." Tibet, previously closer to India than China, ceased to exist as a de facto independent entity. The US tried to counter the Chinese, but it became a mess. Drawing on declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Chinese documents, the authors reveal the collusion between China's Mao Zedong and the Soviet leader Josef Stalin to subdue Tibet; double-dealing by India's prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru who wanted to improve relations with China; and how the United States see-sawed between the China lobby in Washington and Presidents Harry Truman and later Dwight Eisenhower, who initiated a covert CIA program to support the Dalai Lama and resist Chinese occupation. The United States' clandestine support for the Tibetan resistance, which included dropping weapons from airplanes that took off from military bases in Taiwan and Thailand, was severed in the early 1970s when Washington began to seek rapprochement with China in order to isolate their shared enemy the Soviet Union. In 1971, then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger went to China for talks with Premier Zhou Enlai, paving the way for President Richard Nixon's historic visit to Beijing, Hangzhou and Shanghai in February 1972. Although it has never been formally admitted, it is widely believed that China agreed to normalize relations with the United States, provided it, among other things, agreed to stop all assistance to the Tibetan freedom fighters. At the same time, Nepal's king Birendra wanted to improve relations with China. The Tibetan resistance forces were driven out of their camps in Mustang near Nepal's border with China. Even the Dalai Lama, in exile in India since a failed uprising against the Chinese overlords in 1959, sent a taped message to Mustang, urging his men there to surrender. Some of them were so distraught they committed suicide by throwing themselves into the cold, swift waters of the nearest river. Today the Dalai Lama's government in exile remains in McLeod Ganj near the northern Indian town of Dharamshala. A seemingly never-ending stream of foreign admirers has made pilgrimages to the town, including Hollywood celebrities Richard Gere, Pierce Brosnan and Steven Seagal. The latter even donated a large sum of money to be recognized as the reincarnation of a 17th century Tibetan sage. The Dalai Lama's presence in India has long been a thorny issue in relations between India and China. When I interviewed the Dalai Lama at McLeod Ganj on March 6, 1984, 25 years since the 1959 uprising and his flight to India, he made the stunning revelation that he had actually intended to go into exile in Myanmar—a point that is not mentioned in the book. We had been allotted only half an hour with the Dalai Lama, but when he discovered that my wife came from Myanmar, they immediately began comparing the Tibetan and Myanmar languages, which belong to the same language family (Tibeto-Burman). We ended up spending an hour and a half with him. The Dalai Lama said that to avoid creating a problem in India's relations with China, he had wanted to settle in one of the Tibetan villages north of Putao in Kachin State. He wanted to be among his own people and thought Myanmar, being a Buddhist country—and with a neutral stance in regional power games—would respond positively. Feelers were sent out to Myanmar's leaders who, according to the Dalai Lama, replied that they would like to welcome him but were involved in sensitive talks with China about their common border. The time, they said, was not appropriate. That was in 1959. On Oct. 1, 1960 Prime Minister U Nu ratified the Myanmar-China border treaty at a grand ceremony in Beijing. The entire length of the 2,185-km border was demarcated. But sitting in McLeod Ganj in 1984, the Dalai Lama was no doubt content with his chosen place of exile. After the military takeover in Myanmar in 1962, no political freedoms of any kind would have been tolerated. "Tibet: An Unfinished Story" is written in a lively and accessible style. As Hans van de Ven, professor of Modern Chinese History at the University of Cambridge, writes in his endorsement, "it is also the story of the emergence of a Tibetan myth that has become fundamental to its unique position in the world today." This is mainly so in a spiritual sense. We should not forget that if the Dalai Lama had settled in the mountains north of Putao in 1959, Myanmar would no doubt have felt the wrath of Beijing in a way that could have been even more devastating than Chinese support for the Communist Party of Burma in the 1960s and 1970s. For those in Myanmar who may have thought that the West, led by the US, would come to the rescue and help them win their freedom, it is worth remembering the Tibetan experience. Geopolitical self-interest, not human rights and democracy, is the guiding principle of most states foreign policy, including the United States. "Tibet: An Unfinished Story," by Lezlee Brown Halper& Stefan Halper, is published by Hurst & Company. This article first appeared in the January 2015 issue of The Irrawaddy magazine. The post Myth and Meaning in Tibet appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

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