The Irrawaddy Magazine

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• Photo of the week (10.4.2015)
• At High-Level Dialogue, Six Parties Agree to More Talks
• Suu Kyi’s Political Skills Tested in Pre-Election Showdown
• New Rangoon Parking Permit Policy Said to Be Fueling Corruption
• Thingyan Satirists in Rangoon Set to Defy Govt Censorship Order
• During Water Festival, Burma’s Minorities Celebrate With Diverse Traditions
• Photojournalists in Burma Weigh Duty Against Dangers
• Government, Kokang Insurgents Dispute Casualties in Latest Skirmish
• Suu Kyi Hopes High-Level Meeting Leads to Fair Elections
• Number of Slaves Found on Indonesian Island at Almost 550
• Obama Says Concerned China Bullying Others in South China Sea
• Ambassador: US Handed Cambodia to ‘Butcher’ 40 Years Ago
• Ethnic Chin Activist Cheery Zahau to Contest 2015 Election

Photo of the week (10.4.2015) Posted: 10 Apr 2015 06:45 AM PDT The post Photo of the week (10.4.2015) appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

At High-Level Dialogue, Six Parties Agree to More Talks Posted: 10 Apr 2015 06:27 AM PDT Shwe Man, center, speaker of Burma's Lower House of Parliament, Burma Army commander in chief Snr-Gen Ming Aung Hlaing, left, and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi arrive for six-party talks at the Presidential Palace in Naypyidaw on April 10, 2015. (Photo: Reuters) NAYPYIDAW / RANGOON — A six-party dialogue on constitutional reform and upcoming national elections, involving some of Burma's biggest political players, concluded on Friday with the government calling the meeting "a success" and an ethnic leader included in the talks saying more discussions would come. The meeting, involving President Thein Sein, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, parliamentary leaders, an ethnic representative and the Burma Army commander in chief Min Aung Hlaing, was convened in Naypyidaw on Friday. The President's Office, quoting presidential spokesman Ye Htut, said a timetable for the next meeting had been agreed, though no date was provided. Ye Htut said the talks would resume sometime after Parliament reconvenes. The legislature is on break until after the Buddhist New Year, which officially concludes on April 21. At Friday's meeting, "all participants freely and openly discussed in a brotherly way and reached agreement," the President's Office quoted Ye Htut as saying, though the specifics of that agreement were not immediately clear. Aye Maung, the chairman of the Arakan National Party who was designated to represent ethnic minorities' interests at the talks, said amendments to the country's controversial military-drafted Constitution and elections due late this year were the primary topics addressed on Friday. "But [discussion was] not thorough on constitutional fixes as we will discuss during the next round of meetings. We met today because Parliament requested it. Parliament has to submit details on constitutional amendments before we discuss it at the next meeting." Upper House Speaker Khin Aung Myint and his Lower House counterpart Shwe Mann were the designated representatives of Parliament, which first endorsed the six-party talks in November. Suu Kyi, who has long-called for four-party talks but on Thursday told media she was satisfied with the six-party format, did not offer immediate comment following the meeting. She has been campaigning for changes to the Constitution, including the removal of a clause that currently bars her from presidential eligibility and another that grants the military an effective veto over amendments to most of the charter. The opposition leader originally pitched a four-party dialogue that did not include the Upper House speaker or an ethnic representative. Like Suu Kyi, ethnic minorities have major objections to the Constitution, and are pushing for changes that would introduce a federal system in Burma, giving them greater control over regional governance and natural resources. Friday's high-level meeting followed talks earlier this week involving dozens of ethnic leaders and several of the six-party dialogue's participants. It comes one week after Suu Kyi told Reuters that her National League for Democracy (NLD) party had not ruled out a boycott of the 2015 election, and called Thein Sein's government a "hardline regime," reflecting the feeling of many observers that Burma's once-vaunted democratic reform program has stalled. The post At High-Level Dialogue, Six Parties Agree to More Talks appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Suu Kyi’s Political Skills Tested in Pre-Election Showdown Posted: 10 Apr 2015 06:21 AM PDT Burma Army commander in chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing looks to opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi during six-party talks at the Presidential palace in Naypyidaw on April 10, 2015. (Photo: Reuters) NAYPYIDAW — With an historic general election just seven months away, Burma's opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is locked in a high-stakes showdown with a military-backed government that she says isn't interested in reform. Some of her supporters within Burma's pro-democracy movement have begun to question whether the country's most popular politician has the political ability to prevail. They say she has already been outmaneuvered. "At a grassroots level, she is hugely popular. But people worry about her political maneuvering and strategy," said Aung Zaw, a former political exile and 1980s student activist who now edits Burma's leading independent news agency. Aung Zaw and others, including some current student activists, say Suu Kyi made a critical mistake when she stood for Parliament three years ago in a by-election, becoming a lawmaker in a system that remains far from fully democratic. "She lent a whole undeserved legitimacy to the regime," Aung Zaw said. Critics say Suu Kyi has received little in return for that move, which contributed to the United States and the European Union's suspending sanctions and burnished President Thein Sein's reformist image as "Myanmar's Gorbachev." "She has been outsmarted to some extent," said Maung Moccy, a student activist, former political prisoner and a leader in the All Burma Federation of Student Unions. "… She hasn't got back in return anything that is worth what she gave," he added. Others, though, express support. Arakan National Party (ANP) leader Aye Maung, who represents the nation's ethnic groups at reform talks between Burma's most powerful politicians, says Suu Kyi was pushing hard for the military-drafted Constitution to be changed so that she could become eligible for the presidency after the election. The charter effectively bars her from the top office. "I think she's playing her game very smartly," he said, pointing to a round of talks due to take place on the constitution on Friday. Those talks include Suu Kyi, the president and the head of the armed forces. "That's why today's talks came up very quickly. I wouldn't agree if someone said she's outmaneuvered," he added. Suu Kyi shrugged off the criticism in an interview with Reuters on April 3. When asked if contesting the 2012 by-election was a half measure that ultimately stymied reform, Suu Kyi replied, "No, I don't think so. It was a very good idea because we were able to move and operate as a political party." Suu Kyi and 43 other members of the NLD entered Parliament after winning the by-election by a landslide. Despite being a small opposition, they had been "quite effective" in forcing constitutional change onto the political agenda, she said. Previously, talking about charter change "was regarded as a criminal offense," she said. The Constitution was written by the military, which ran the country for 49 years, and bars presidential candidates with a foreign spouse or child, a clause apparently written to exclude Suu Kyi, whose two sons are British. The charter also reserves a quarter of parliamentary seats for military delegates and guarantees the ministries of defense, home affairs and border affairs are headed by serving officers. The military block has an effective veto over constitutional change, which requires more than 75 percent approval in Parliament before being sent to a referendum. Changing the charter would require the cooperation of both the military and Thein Sein, himself a former general whose quasi-civilian government replaced the military rule in 2011. Suu Kyi said in the interview she no longer thought Thein Sein was sincere about reform and that his government was "not interested" in amending the Constitution. While there was still time for charter change, the NLD has not ruled out boycotting the election expected to take place in November, she said. Zaw Htay, a senior official from the President's Office, said he was surprised Suu Kyi was considering a boycott. "I wonder if she just said so to pressure the government into amending the Constitution," he said. "Personally, I don't think they will cancel or postpone [the election] no matter whether the NLD boycotts it or not." The military was unavailable for comment. A full disclosure from The Irrawaddy editorial team: Aung Zaw is founding editor of The Irrawaddy, a monthly magazine and online news site. The post Suu Kyi's Political Skills Tested in Pre-Election Showdown appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

New Rangoon Parking Permit Policy Said to Be Fueling Corruption Posted: 10 Apr 2015 03:25 AM PDT A traffic jam on downtown Rangoon's Strand Road. (Photo: Steve Tickner) RANGOON — A new policy that requires car buyers from central Rangoon to arrange a parking permit in advance of their purchase is fueling corruption, as permits are so coveted that buyers are willing to make under-the-table payments to officials, car dealers and buyers have said. Introduced in January, the Rangoon Division policy was devised as a way of reducing traffic congestion by requiring all would-be car owners from central Rangoon to first get a parking permit from township parking inspection teams, which comprise township administrators, officials of the Yangon City Development Committee and the division's road transport department. Traffic jams have drastically worsened in the center of Burma biggest city, which is home to more than 5 million people, after car imports soared following the lifting of junta-era restrictions on imports in late 2011. A lack of parking spaces has consequently also become a serious issue. Ko Oak Soe, a Rangoon-based car dealer, said most dealers were forced to sort out the advance parking permits for car buyers from central Rangoon in order to facilitate sales. He said the high demand for permits was leading to a thriving black market trade and a willingness to make unofficial payments to go-betweens, who were demanding between US$300 to $600 for their services in expediting the issuance of permits. Under normal procedures obtaining a permit could take several weeks and would be free of charge, but chances of obtaining a permit in central Rangoon these days are small. "The payment to the township parking inspection officials are all done under the table," said Ko Oak Soe, adding that the bureaucratic application procedures are lengthy and require approval from five or six different department officials. Several car dealers in Rangoon contacted by The Irrawaddy confirmed that they resorted to unofficial payments in order to secure parking permits for buyers. Ko Win, a resident of central Rangoon's Mayangone Township, said he recently bought a car, but was forced to pay an additional $350 in costs involved in obtaining a parking permit from Mayangone Township Parking Inspection Team. "We have to pay tea money to the township inspection officials," he said, using a local reference to bribes, adding, "The new policy causes us more troubles and consumes a lot of time." After paying bribes to township-level officers, prospective buyers say that their application must be forwarded to the provincial office for final approval—along with a signed statement affirming that no money changed hands during the application. "When we went to take the permit at the provincial office, we had to sign the paper that states that we did not have to pay any cost for this permit," said Ko Kyaw, another recent buyer. Repeated attempts by The Irrawaddy on Friday to contact the Rangoon Division Transport Ministry about the allegations were unsuccessful. The post New Rangoon Parking Permit Policy Said to Be Fueling Corruption appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Thingyan Satirists in Rangoon Set to Defy Govt Censorship Order Posted: 10 Apr 2015 01:51 AM PDT Thangyat performers put on a show during 2013's Thingyan festivities in Yangon. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Ahead of Burma's weeklong Thingyan celebrations, performers in Rangoon have expressed dismay at what they say is heavy-handed censorship at the hands of divisional authorities, with at least one group set to defy government orders to tone down their act. Thangyat, a traditional performance which mocks authority through satirical song, poetry and dance, was banned in 1989 after the former military government seized power. The practice was permitted to return in 2013, on the condition that Thangyat groups submitted the lyrics to their performances to state and regional governments ahead of time. In Rangoon, the divisional government announced in March that all performances could only be conducted with permission from its Thingyan Songs and Thangyat Scrutiny Committee, with all performances to be submitted for review by Mar. 25. Performers this year said that authorities had been overly restrictive in its decisions compared to the previous two years. "Our group had been heavily censored this year," said Khant Min Htet, the leader of the 40-strong Red of Blue Thangyat group, which returned to the public eye in 2013. "They mainly removed lyrics about the education system, in which we put forward some criticism of education reforms." He said that they had also composed songs about the peace process, recent student protests and the suspended Myitsone Dam project, the last of which the committee had ordered to be removed from the final act. Nearly two dozen Thangyat groups have been granted permission to perform during Thingyan festivities this month. Than Myint, the chairman of the Thingyan Songs and Thangyat Scrutiny Committee, told The Irrawaddy that they would allow songs performed with "constructive intentions" but had rejected chants that could "disgrace the dignity of the government." "The main thing is not to bad-mouth the main objectives of the state, not to include usage that can offend individuals, groups, the state and religion, and we also rejected chants about ethnic minorities," he said. Hla Shwe, a leader of the Pyit Tine Htaung performance group, told The Irrawaddy that songs they had composed land confiscations, the army, violent crackdowns on student protesters by plainclothes thugs in Rangoon had all been removed by the committee—along with the use of the perjoratives "tayote" and "kalar" to respectively refer to Chinese and Muslim people. "It proves that they don't have transparency," he said. "If they did, they wouldn't need to scrutinize us. We Thangyat performers are highlighting the mistakes made in this country and the wishes of the people, along with spreading awareness among the public." Khant Min Htet said that his group intends to perform their original songs, despite the censorship order. "How can we trust that the current government is democratic while they are censoring Thangyat songs?" he asked. "We will put the parts they removed back in the song and if they take action against us, we are ready for that." One of the oldest examples of Burmese folk art, Thangyat is frequently used to express public grievances. Even during the years that performances were banned, it was common for young revelers at Thingyan festivities to recite humorous Thangyat lyrics, which freely criticize everything from politics to social conventions. Additional reporting by Tin Htet Paing. The post Thingyan Satirists in Rangoon Set to Defy Govt Censorship Order appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

During Water Festival, Burma’s Minorities Celebrate With Diverse Traditions Posted: 10 Apr 2015 12:10 AM PDT Girls in traditional Arakanese dress are seen dancing during Water Festival celebrations in Rangoon in 2014. (Photo: Sai Zaw / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — A festive mood has gradually taken hold across Burma this week as preparations for the Water Festival, known locally as Thingyan, get underway ahead of its official start on Monday. In Rangoon, huge wooden pandals and water installations are being erected where festival revelers can dance and cars loaded with party goers can pass by. But Thingyan, which marks the start of the Buddhist New Year, is about more than just water-throwing, partying and holidays, it's also about food traditions and religious ceremonies. In some of the country's regions that are home to the Buddhist ethnic peoples of Mon, Shan and Arakan states a number of specific Thingyan traditions are celebrated each year. Monastery ceremonies and food are an important part of the local Thingyan traditions. In Mon State, most people will eat at the monastery in the morning and fast in the afternoon. A traditional Water Festival rice dish called Thingyan htamin is prepared for the monks and the community, which is served with mango and prawn and fish salad. "Throwing water, going to the monastery to fast and observing the eight Buddhist precepts are part of the same tradition. Our Mon essence is that we do good deeds in the New Year and throw water politely to mark the change to the New Year," said Nai Soe Aung, secretary of the Mon Literature and Culture Association in Rangoon. On the last day of Thingyan, Mon youths will go to the monastery to cut nails and wash hair of the elderly, and to clean all Buddha statues, while monks are invited to chant in many places to drive evils away ahead of the start of the New Year. In Arakan State, water-throwing can only begin after Buddha statues at the monasteries are washed with scented water, a tradition that has led to a competition to produce scented water with the best fragrance. "We will hold a fragrance contest on April 12 and will use the fragrance and offer it to Buddha statues at Arakan Dhamma Hall" in Rangoon, said Zaw Aye Maung, Rangoon Division's Arakan affairs minister. Food traditions in western Burma's Arakan State include preparing an Arakanese glass noodle salad for the monks and the community. Further north, in Shan State, the Shan communities make banana leaf-wrapped sweet sticky rice, a snack that is offered at monasteries and to the elderly at their homes. "During Thingyan, we pay respect to the grandparents. We donate water to Buddha. We make devotional offerings to the village guardian spirits, and we have monks chant on the streets," said Sai Leng Harn from the Shan Literature and Culture Association in Rangoon. The post During Water Festival, Burma's Minorities Celebrate With Diverse Traditions appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Photojournalists in Burma Weigh Duty Against Dangers Posted: 10 Apr 2015 12:03 AM PDT Burmese photojournalists walk down a street in conflict-wracked Sittwe, Arakan State, in 2012. (Photo: boothee / astrophoto) RANGOON — When riot police began bludgeoning about 200 student protestors in Burma last month, the violence sent nearly all of those present fleeing for the surrounding jungle or a nearby monastery. Amid the chaos, however, one group was notable for its instinctive—but hardly self-preservative—decision to move closer to the threat: photojournalists. Photographer Sai Zaw of The Irrawaddy immediately jumped to the ground from the brick wall that he had been perched on and ran toward an ambulance where a melee was unfolding, even as his colleagues urged him to retreat. The resulting photos showed the degree of police brutality—at one point victims of the crackdown were beaten inside the ambulance on scene—but also made clear the substantial potential danger that comes with being near the action in such circumstances: A baton blow to the head was, fortunately, blunted by the helmet Sai Zaw was wearing. Were it not for one level-headed police commander who arrived and ordered his officers to exercise restraint, the situation could easily have turned out much worse. "I didn't even think about how dangerous it was; at that time the only thing on my mind was to expose those unjust things," Sai Zaw said. The 33-year-old is one of a cohort of local photojournalists trying to tell the story of Burma in transition. Going behind the lens openly to capture moments like the crackdown would have been unthinkable five years ago, when Burma's former junta ensured that any journalist intending to speaking truth to power did so at great personal risk. But as the police's behavior in Letpadan, Pegu Division, showed, the extent to which authorities are willing to tolerate greater press scrutiny is unclear, and a much-improved media environment still holds potential perils for those who push the envelope. An Opportunity to Expose In 2011, the newly installed government of President Thein Sein kicked off an ambitious reform program that included a dramatic opening of Burma's previously censorship-heavy media environment. Private newspapers, banned since shortly after the 1962 Ne Win coup, were granted publishing licenses once again. For international wire agencies, it offered a chance to open up Rangoon bureaus, and attendant improved access to cover an unfolding story of global interest. For local photojournalists, it meant the chance to sharpen their skills. When private daily newspapers were permitted for the first time in 50 years on April 1, 2013, there were pages to be filled not just with text, but images to accompany the news du jour. And with international interest in the former pariah state still high, major news outlets are offering local photographers an unprecedented degree of international exposure. One of the world's most well-known dailies, The International New York Times, published a front-page photo of civilians fleeing conflict in northeast Burma last month that was captured by photographer Ye Aung Thu. "I have had many fantasies that one day my news photos would be published [on the front-page of international news media]," said Ye Aung Thu, a photojournalists for Agence-France Press (AFP) who started working for the agency in 2012. "You could say that dreams do come true." But the pathway to that dream has hardly been a smooth one. "In the past decades, photojournalists were not welcomed by either side—the government or the public," said Khin Maung Win, who has been a photojournalist for about 20 years and currently works for The Associated Press. While Burma's repressive military rulers considered photographers a threat, members of the public would avoid their cameras, considering such photos to be an unnecessary risk under a regime known to arbitrarily imprison on lesser "offenses." Helping fuel that fear was the Electronic Transactions Law, legislation enacted in 2004 and still on the books today, which criminalizes the sending or receiving of "detrimental" emails. Since 2004, several journalists have been jailed under the law, though there have been no known cases since Burma's reform process began in 2011. When a bomb rocked Rangoon's Buddhist New Year festivities in 2010, The Irrawaddy's photographer JPaing admits that he decided to self-censor for his own safety. "I arrived before the bomb blast, so I got many newsworthy photos of the scene, but I didn't send my photos to any media and also didn't let others know I was there," said JPaing, who was working at the time for the People's Age weekly. About 10 people were killed in the incident, at one of the many so-called water pandals spread across Rangoon annually, and the government subsequently sentenced two journalists from the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) for filming the attack's aftermath. One, Maung Maung Zeya, was charged under the Electronic Transactions Law. Fearing a similar fate might befall him, JPaing hid his camera's memory card in the bottom of a pot filled with rice. It remained there for two years. The Photographing Few While there are certainly more jobs for photojournalists today than there were in 2011, the number of positions available is still modest. Most local media are too cash-strapped to dedicate resources to photographers, while other editorial teams believe the role is unnecessary in Burma, where lax intellectual property protections make ripping content from other sources viable. Some give their reporters cameras, expecting them to serve dual roles when covering stories. The number of dedicated photojournalists in Burma is not more than a couple dozen. Perhaps that's all the more reason that the group has felt the need to cooperate with each other, often arranging to travel to conflict zones together, at a fast-changing and volatile time in the country's history. A lack of formal training options has also hindered development of the profession. Thanks to Internet connections that have improved since 2010 (while still sometimes agonizingly slow), online resources have filled the void to an extent, offering a wealth of photography techniques and advice in forums and Facebook groups. "I learned on the Internet, Facebook pages, and would wake up at 6 am and walk around shooting the whole town till evening," Ye Aung Thu said. "At that time, photography training was very expensive and was only taught for modelling and landscapes, which were money-makers." Burma's transformation from military dictatorship to quasi-civilian governance has been a bumpy one, perhaps disheartening for democracy advocates but undeniably an opportunity for those interested in conflict reporting. Kaung Htet, the 31-year-old director of photography for the Myanmar Times, has worked in conflict zones in Kachin and Arakan states, and covered last July's rioting in Mandalay, during which two people were killed. While he said he always tried his best not to shy away from covering sensitive material, he described one instance surrounded by a mob during the Mandalay violence where self-preservation trumped his journalistic duty. "At that time I had to decide whether to take photos of that scene or not," he told The Irrawaddy. "If they saw that I was taking photos, I would be torn to pieces." During the recent fighting between the government and ethnic rebels in northeast Burma's Kokang Special Region, a Red Cross convoy carrying displaced civilians and a handful of journalists was ambushed by unknown assailants. Two people sustained gunshot wounds, including a Red Cross worker who later died of his injuries. Among the journalists riding with the convoy was JPaing, who was not wearing a bullet-proof vest or any other protective gear. "This trip, I relied only on my luck," he said. Such vests, helmets, life insurance and even basic training in conflict reporting are occupational luxuries that most local journalists are not able to enjoy. While foreign photojournalists are often paid several-fold what a local might make, it is often in the most dangerous places—from which foreigners would be barred—that local photojournalists are the only ones able to get the story out. As in conflict reporting the world over, ethical dilemmas inevitably arise. JPaing's photos were some of the only visual documentation to come out of the Kokang ambush, but a shot of four people carrying an injured fifth man to safety drew criticism online, with some social media users questioning why he too had not help the man. "At first I felt sorry when I saw the comments, but if I hadn't shot that scene, it might not be known to anyone. I took care of the injured person throughout the drive to the hospital." Though these local photojournalists are eager to cover conflict areas and document an important period in Burma's history, family members are not always of the same mind, viewing the job as a low-paid and unnecessarily risky occupation. "The younger generations of photojournalists have been trying very hard since they saw a little greater opportunity for media. They compete with each other and I very much appreciate their courage," Khin Maung Win said. The potentially deadly nature of the job hit home for Burma's press corps in October, when the Burma Army announced that it had shot dead a freelance reporter in Mon State. The military said the man, Par Gyi, was working for ethnic armed rebels active in the area, and that he was shot and killed after he reached for a soldier's gun. Critics, including the journalist's widow, have said his death was a reminder of the impunity with which the Burma Army continues to operate. Other journalists have also run afoul of the government, but less dramatically so. At least 20 journalists have been arrested in Burma since 2013, and 12 members of the media are currently serving prison sentences, some for up to seven years. While competitive, the small but growing clique of photojournalists in Burma share their knowledge on social media and in meet-ups. The Irrawaddy's JPaing said there are plans afoot to start a "Burma Bang Bang Club," a reference to a group of photojournalists in apartheid South Africa who risked their lives for the story during that country's tumultuous transition toward universal suffrage in the 1990s. "International photographers win Pulitzer prizes and World Press Photo awards with news happening in my country, so we have a dream to get these prizes with our own photos," he said. The post Photojournalists in Burma Weigh Duty Against Dangers appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Government, Kokang Insurgents Dispute Casualties in Latest Skirmish Posted: 09 Apr 2015 11:57 PM PDT A photo published on a Kokang news website, purported to be munitions and supplies taken from Burma Army troops in the aftermath of the Apr. 8 fighting. The red and blue flag of the Burma Army's Northeastern Command is among the munitions. (Photo: Kachin Jade / Facebook) RANGOON — State media has reported that another round of skirmishes in Laukkai on Apr. 8 has claimed the lives of 10 Burma Army soldiers and wounded a further 62, figures disputed by Kokang insurgents in the area. The report, originating from the Ministry of Information, also claimed that the military had seized a total of 20 mountain outposts used as staging areas by Kokang rebels in one day, with tanks and artillery deployed in the battle. Htun Myat Lin, general-secretary and spokesman for the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), disputed reports of the government's territorial gains and claimed the ministry had undercounted Burma Army casualties. “They always report in their media that they have seized our mountain posts," he said. "If they could seize our posts, there wouldn't be any more battles. They have been reporting this since we began fighting with them." The MNDAA spokesman offered his own casualty figures from the Apr. 8 skirmishes, claiming that around 300 Burma Army soldiers had been killed or wounded. “We could not count exactly how many of the Tatmadaw's dead lay on the ground," he said. "It is sad to see their bodies. We do not want to kill them anymore." The Burmese government has issued an arrest warrant for Htun Myat Lin in the meantime, accusing him of fabricating information about the Burma Army soldiers fighting on the frontline around Laukkai. "I am a bit scared about the arrest warrant," he said. "But I am working for my people. All my words are true." The MNDAA has not been recognized as a party to the ongoing peace process by the Burmese government, despite its membership of the ethnic armies' National Ceasefire Coordination Team. The government has vowed to continue the fight against the Kokang, which has been raging since the beginning of February. The post Government, Kokang Insurgents Dispute Casualties in Latest Skirmish appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Suu Kyi Hopes High-Level Meeting Leads to Fair Elections Posted: 09 Apr 2015 09:47 PM PDT Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, center, walks with her staff during a break in a session of Parliament in Naypyidaw on April 3, 2015. (Photo: Reuters) NAYPYIDAW — Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is meeting Friday with the country's top political and military leaders, but she says the landmark talks will be meaningful only if they lead to free and fair elections scheduled for later this year. At stake is Burma's Constitution, written by the military in 2008, which does not allow Suu Kyi to run for president because her sons are foreign citizens. With the elections months away, time is running out for Suu Kyi and ethnic minorities, who feel the Constitution and electoral law put them at a disadvantage. The unprecedented talks later Friday at the presidential house in Naypyidaw bring together President Thein Sein, Suu Kyi, top military commander Sen-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, the speaker and the president of both houses of Parliament and a representative of ethnic minorities, Aye Maung. Aye Maung was skeptical about progress, but said the talks could "open the way for greater understanding and help reach some agreement on constitutional amendments." Lawmakers and Suu Kyi had called last year for the meeting, but the president and the army chief avoided it. "What is important is that these talks continue and this should lead to the kind of agreements that will smooth the way to free, fair, inclusive elections," Suu Kyi told reporters Thursday. Myanmar was under military rule from 1962 until 2010, when the generals allowed polls leading to an elected government, but under rules critics said were unfair and allowed the defense forces to continue to hold power behind the scenes. At the same time, Thein Sein has started a process of political and economic liberalization after the decades of repressive rule. Asked if the government might find a pretext to delay the elections, Suu Kyi said: "You can't rule anything out in politics." No exact date has been fixed for the polls, supposed to be held later this year. She declined to say if her party would boycott the elections if she finds conditions unacceptable, as she has suggested in the past. "We keep our cards close to our chests until such time as we need to show them," she said. Her National League for Democracy party is considered to have a strong chance of defeating Thein Sein's military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party. Suu Kyi's party boycotted the 2010 polls because it believed the legal conditions were unacceptable. It participated in 2012 by-elections after some rules were amended, and won 43 of the 44 seats it contested. Suu Kyi said the upcoming elections were more important than the 2010 polls "because the second election will decide whether the reform process really is a genuine one and whether it is going in a way in which we all hope it should go." The post Suu Kyi Hopes High-Level Meeting Leads to Fair Elections appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Number of Slaves Found on Indonesian Island at Almost 550 Posted: 09 Apr 2015 09:41 PM PDT Migrant fishermen from Burma clean equipment after returning from the ocean to a village in Thailand on Dec. 14, 2014. (Photo: Reuters) JAKARTA — The number of enslaved fishermen found on a remote Indonesian island has now reached nearly 550, after a fact-finding team returned for a single day to make sure no one had been left behind nearly a week after more than half of the men were removed in a dramatic rescue. Many of the 210 identified Thursday were Burmese who wanted to leave, but there were a few holdouts—men who claimed they were owed years of back pay from their bosses, said Steve Hamilton, deputy chief of mission at the International Organization for Migration in Jakarta. An in-depth investigation by The Associated Press published last month led to the discovery of massive rights abuses in the island village of Benjina and surrounding waters. The report traced slave-caught seafood from there to Thailand where it can then enter the supply chains of some of America's biggest supermarket chains and retailers. Many of the men interviewed said they were tricked or even kidnapped before being put on boats in Thailand and taken to Indonesia. They were forced to work almost non-stop under horrendous conditions, some brutally beaten by their Thai captains when they were sick or caught resting. Last week, Indonesian authorities rescued around 330 migrants from Benjina, bringing them to the island of Tual, where they are now being sheltered by the government. Those found Thursday by a team, which included officials from Burma, remain in Benjina. It's unclear who will pay for the mass repatriation. A former slave now in Tual said conditions were relatively good there. He said the men are getting medical care and enough to eat, but their living quarters are cramped and many do not have a change of clothes since they left quickly with only what they were wearing. Meanwhile, Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi told reporters Thursday in her country's capital, Naypyidaw, it was up to governments "to protect the rights of the citizens and to bring them back out of bondage." "That is the most obvious and very simple solution and unavoidable duty of any responsible government," she told reporters. While most fisherman found in Benjina were Burmese, there also were scores of Cambodians. The toll of 550 did not include men—many of whom also were enslaved—from poor parts of Thailand. The post Number of Slaves Found on Indonesian Island at Almost 550 appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Obama Says Concerned China Bullying Others in South China Sea Posted: 09 Apr 2015 09:37 PM PDT A Chinese Coast Guard vessel maneuvers to block a Philippine government supply ship with members of the media aboard at the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, part of the Spratly Islands, in the South China Sea on March 29, 2014. (Photo: Reuters) KINGSTON / BEIJING — US President Barack Obama said Washington is concerned China is using its "sheer size and muscle" to push around smaller nations in the South China Sea, just hours after Beijing gave a detailed defense of its creation of artificial islands in the contested waterway. China's rapid reclamation around seven reefs in the Spratly archipelago of the South China Sea has alarmed other claimants, such as the Philippines and Vietnam, and drawn growing criticism from US government officials and the military. While the new islands will not overturn US military superiority in the region, workers are building ports and fuel storage depots and possibly two airstrips that experts have said would allow Beijing to project power deep into the maritime heart of Southeast Asia. "Where we get concerned with China is where it is not necessarily abiding by international norms and rules and is using its sheer size and muscle to force countries into subordinate positions," Obama told a town-hall event in Jamaica on Thursday ahead of a Caribbean summit in Panama. "We think this can be solved diplomatically, but just because the Philippines or Vietnam are not as large as China doesn't mean that they can just be elbowed aside," he said. China claims most of the potentially energy rich South China Sea, through which US$5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have overlapping claims. China, which has asked Washington not to take sides in the row, says it is willing to discuss the issue with individual countries directly involved in the dispute. However, it has refused to participate in an international arbitration case filed by the Philippines in The Hague over the contested waterway. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying earlier sketched out plans for the islands in the Spratlys, saying they would be used for military defense as well as to provide civilian services that would benefit other countries. While she gave no details on their defensive use, Hua told a news briefing that the reclamation and building work was needed partly because of the risk of typhoons in an area with a lot of shipping that is far from land. "We are building shelters, aids for navigation, search and rescue as well as marine meteorological forecasting services, fishery services and other administrative services" for China and neighboring countries, Hua said. It is rare for China to give such detail about its plans for the artificial islands. "The relevant construction is a matter that is entirely within the scope of China's sovereignty. It is fair, reasonable, lawful, it does not affect and is not targeted against any country. It is beyond reproach," Hua said. All but Brunei have fortified bases in the Spratlys, which lie roughly 1,300 km (810 miles) from the Chinese mainland but much closer to the Southeast Asian claimants. Asked about Hua's comments, US State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke called the land reclamation "destabilizing" and said it was "fueling greater anxiety within the region about China's intentions amid concerns that they might militarize outposts on disputed land features in the South China Sea." "We very much hope that China would recalibrate in the interests of stability and good relations in the region," he told reporters in Washington. Western and Asian naval officials privately say China could feel emboldened to try to limit air and sea navigation once the reclaimed islands are fully established. The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea does not legally allow for reclaimed land to be used to demarcate 12-nautical-mile territorial zones, but some officials fear China will not feel limited by that document and will seek to keep foreign navies from passing close by. The post Obama Says Concerned China Bullying Others in South China Sea appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Ambassador: US Handed Cambodia to ‘Butcher’ 40 Years Ago Posted: 09 Apr 2015 09:32 PM PDT A photograph hangs on the wall in a room once used as a torture chamber by the Khmer Rouge at what was the notorious Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh. (Photo: Damir Sagolj / Reuters) PARIS — Twelve helicopters, bristling with guns and US Marines, breached the morning horizon and began a daring descent toward Cambodia’s besieged capital. The Americans were rushing in to save them, residents watching the aerial armada believed. But at the US Embassy, in a bleeding city about to die, the ambassador wept. Forty years later and 6,000 miles away, John Gunther Dean recalls what he describes as one of the most tragic days of his life—Apr. 12, 1975, the day the United States "abandoned Cambodia and handed it over to the butcher." Time has not blunted the former ambassador’s anger, crushing shame and feelings of guilt over what also proved a milestone in modern American history—the first of several US interventions in foreign countries climaxed by withdrawals before goals were accomplished and followed by often disastrous consequences. "We’d accepted responsibility for Cambodia and then walked out without fulfilling our promise. That’s the worst thing a country can do," he says in an interview in Paris. "And I cried because I knew what was going to happen." Five days after Operation Eagle Pull, the dramatic evacuation of Americans, the US-backed government fell as communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas stormed into Phnom Penh. They drove its 2 million inhabitants into the countryside at gunpoint, launching one of the bloodiest revolutions of modern times. Nearly 2 million Cambodians—one in every four—would die from executions, starvation and hideous torture. Many foreigners present during the final months—diplomats, aid workers, journalists—remain haunted to this day by Phnom Penh’s death throes, by the heartbreaking loyalty of Cambodians who refused evacuation and by what Dean calls Washington’s "indecent act." I count myself among those foreigners, a reporter who covered the Cambodian War for The Associated Press and was whisked away along with Dean and 287 other Americans, Cambodians and third-country nationals. I left behind more than a dozen Cambodian reporters and photographers—about the bravest, may I say the finest, colleagues I’ve ever known. Almost all would die. For the general public, the pullout is largely forgotten, overshadowed by the mass, hysteric flight from Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War three weeks later. But for historians and political analysts, the withdrawal from Cambodia signifies the first of what then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger termed "bug-outs." "It was the first time Americans came anywhere close to losing a war. What worries me and many of us old guys who were there is that we are still seeing it happen," says Frank Snepp, a senior CIA officer in Saigon and author of "Decent Interval," which depicts the final years of the Vietnam War. After Cambodia and Vietnam came Laos; there would be other conflicts with messy endings, like Central America in the 1980s, Iraq and—potentially—Afghanistan. Today, at 89, Dean and his French wife reside in a patrician quarter of Paris, in an elegant apartment graced by statues of Cambodian kings from the glory days of the Angkor Empire. A folded American flag lies across his knees, the same one that he clutched under his arm in a plastic bag as he sped to the evacuation site. Captured by a photographer, it became one of the most memorable images of the Vietnam War era. In the apartment’s vestibule hangs a framed letter signed by President Gerald R. Ford and dated Aug. 14, 1975. It highlights that Dean was "given one of the most difficult assignments in the history of the Foreign Service and carried it out with distinction." But Dean says: "I failed." "I tried so hard," he adds. "I took as many people as I could, hundreds of them, I took them out, but I couldn’t take the whole nation out." The former ambassador to four other countries expresses more than guilt. He is highly critical of America’s violation of Cambodian neutrality by armed incursions from neighboring Vietnam and a secret bombing campaign in the early 1970s which killed thousands of civilians and radicalized, he believes, the Khmer Rouge. Once-peaceful Cambodia, he says, was drawn into war for America’s interests, a "sideshow" to Vietnam. The US bombed communist Vietnamese sanctuaries and supply lines along the Vietnam-Cambodia border, keeping Cambodia propped up as an anti-communist enclave, but it provided World War II aircraft and few artillery pieces to Phnom Penh forces fighting the Khmer Rouge. "The US wasn’t that concerned about what happened one way or the other in Cambodia but only concerned about it to the extent that it impacted positively or negatively on their situation in Vietnam," says Stephen Heder, a Cambodia expert at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Opinion on what went wrong in Cambodia remains split to this day. One view is that the country was destabilized by the American incursions and bombings; another is that Washington failed to provide the US-propped Lon Nol government with adequate military and other support. In his memoirs, Kissinger says the US had no choice but to expand its efforts into the neighboring country, which the North Vietnamese were using as a staging area and armory for attacks on US troops in South Vietnam. And as Cambodia crumbled, he writes, anti-war elements, the media and Congress combined to tie the administration’s hands, preventing further assistance. Dean is bitter that Kissinger and other power brokers in Washington did not support his quest to persuade ousted Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk to return from exile and forge a coalition between the Khmer Rouge and Lon Nol. It was Dean’s "controlled solution." "We were also on the telephone with Washington shouting, 'Help us. We are going under. We are going to leave this country unprotected,'" Dean said in earlier oral testimony. But Washington seemed unmoved. "Ambassador Dean never had (President Richard) Nixon’s or Kissinger’s support because both of them wanted out of Indochina," Snepp says. By early 1975, the embassy’s cables, most of them declassified in 2006, were becoming increasingly frantic. Meeting me one day, a haggard Dean, who had lost 15 pounds, asked rhetorically: "Isn’t there any sense of human decency left in us?" "Phnom Penh was surrounded by explosions and a night sky of blossoming flares and streaks of tracer bullets," I wrote in one of my stories at that time. "Children were dying of hunger, the hospitals looked more like abattoirs and the Cambodian army lost as many men in three months as the US did in a decade of war in South Vietnam." The Khmer Rouge were tightening their stranglehold on the capital, shutting down the airport from which the embassy had flown out several hundred Cambodians. An Apr. 6 cable from Dean said the Cambodian government and army "seem to be expecting us to produce some miracle to save them. You and I know there will be no such miracle." Congress was cutting the aid lifeline to Phnom Penh. The American public had had enough of the war. Among Cambodians in the know, some anti-American feeling was growing. "The Americans give temporary aid but ultimately they think only of themselves. We in Cambodia have been seduced and abandoned," Chhang Song, a former information minister, said one night in early 1975. But among Phnom Penh residents I found only smiles—"Americans are our fathers," one vegetable vendor told me—along with a never-never-land mindset that things would turn out to be all right. Somehow. "I honestly believe we did not do enough. There was something better that could have come out other than a genocide of 1.7 million people," Dean says, explaining in part why he, a Jew, felt so strongly. "Now you must understand, I was born in Germany and suffered under Nazi oppression, so how could I turn over a people to the butcher?" Dean’s abiding emotions are shared by others of his former staff. Alan Armstrong, the assistant defense attache, is still trying to complete a novel to exorcise what he went through. It is called "La Chute," "The Fall." "I was paid by my government to smile, break bread (with Cambodians) and then betray my friends and colleagues. That’s a heavy burden to bear no matter how many years roll by," says the retired US Army colonel. "The downfall of the Khmer Republic not only resulted in the deaths of countless Cambodians, it has also crept into our souls." Historians, distant from the passions of the actors, differ over Dean’s efforts and American culpability. Benedict Kiernan, a Yale University professor who has written extensively on Cambodia, says that given rifts within the Khmer Rouge leadership a political compromise earlier in the war might have been possible, resulting in a left-wing dominated coalition and not a fanatical revolution. "Anything was worth trying to stop the Khmer Rouge before they got to Phnom Penh," says Heder, the academic, who reported in Cambodia during the war and was among those evacuated from the capital. Milton Osborne, an Australian historian and diplomat who served in Cambodia, describes Dean’s "controlled solution" as a "forlorn hope," with the Khmer Rouge determined to win totally and execute Phnom Penh’s leaders. "By 1974, it was not a question of if, but when," he says. Snepp believes that Dean, desperately grasping at straws, was "living in fantasy land." Washington may have abandoned its ally, but the Cambodian elite also bears responsibility for its own demise. Snepp views President Lon Nol—corrupt, inept, superstitious and half-paralyzed—as one in a long line of similar leaders the United States would back in the following decades. "What we have seen in all cases is that unless the US has a politically viable domestic partner, neither limited nor massive military intervention is going to succeed," says Heder. Timothy Carney, the embassy’s political officer, drawing on his record as ambassador to several countries, says that "tolerating corruption saps the legitimacy and support for whatever authority we are trying to prop up in a country." In the final days, Carney’s task was to persuade, unsuccessfully, Cambodian leaders to flee the country. The night before the evacuation, Dean and his deputy drank some of the ambassador’s fine French wine so it wouldn’t fall into Khmer Rouge hands. The next morning, sitting in his office for the last time, he read a letter from Prince Sirik Matak in which the respected former deputy prime minister declined evacuation and thus sealed his own death. It read: "I never believed for a moment that you have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. I have only committed this mistake of believing in you the Americans." Dean today describes it as the "greatest accusation ever made by foreigners. It is wrenching, no? And put yourself in the role of the American representative." His embassy closed down at 9:45am, the evacuees driven 10 blocks to a soccer field shielded by a row of apartment buildings from Khmer Rouge gunners about a mile away. The Sikorsky "Jolly Green Giant" helicopters were setting down. The Marines fanned out to form a security cordon around the landing zone. But fears of possible reprisals by Cambodians proved unfounded. Children and mothers scrambled over fences to watch. They cheered, clapped and waved to the 360 beefy, armed Marines. A Cambodian military policeman saluted Armstrong smartly. Disgusted and ashamed, he dropped his helmet and rifle, leaving them behind. I tried to avoid looking into faces of the crowd. Always with me will be the children’s little hands aflutter and their singsong "OK, Bye-bye, bye-bye." By 12:15 the last helicopters landed on the deck of the USS Okinawa waiting off the Cambodian coast. Tactically, the 2-and-a-half-hour operation had been flawless. In Phnom Penh, Douglas Sapper, an ex-Green Beret who stayed behind to save his company’s employees, recalled the reaction of Cambodians who realized what had happened: "It was like telling a kid that Santa Claus was dead." Five days later we received a cable from Mean Leang, an ever-jovial, baby-faced AP reporter who had refused to seek safety. Instead he wrote about the brutal entry of the Khmer Rouge into the city, its surrender and gunpoint evacuation. "I alone in office, losing contact with our guys. I feel rather trembling," he messaged. "Do not know how to file our stories now…maybe last cable today and forever." Barry Broman, then a young diplomat, remembers a Cambodian woman who worked upcountry monitoring the war for the embassy who had also refused evacuation. "One day she said, 'They are in the city,' and her contact said 'OK, time to go.' She refused. Later she reported, 'They are in the building,' and again refused to leave her post. Her last transmission was, 'They are in the room. Good-bye.' The line went dead." AP reporter Denis Gray, who covered the Cambodian War, was evacuated from Phnom Penh 40 years ago. The post Ambassador: US Handed Cambodia to ‘Butcher’ 40 Years Ago appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Ethnic Chin Activist Cheery Zahau to Contest 2015 Election Posted: 09 Apr 2015 05:00 PM PDT Cheery Zahau in Rangoon on Thursday. (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Ethnic Chin activist and human rights educator Cheery Zahau has announced plans to contest the general election slated for later this year. A member since 2012 of the Chin Progressive Party (CPP), for which she currently serves as one of three secretaries, the 33-year-old told The Irrawaddy that young and female voices were relatively absent from public life in Chin State. "There is a gap there, and we need to raise the needs of young people and the women," she said. Cheery Zahau has yet to decide whether to contest the election at a state or union level, but looks set to secure the endorsement of her party either way. Of particular concern to the activist is the paucity of resources being allocated to Chin State, the poorest state in the country. At a state government level, services such as health, education and social welfare are all are being provided by one ministry, which she said has led to a lack of detailed understanding about the needs of the community. Born in Sagaing Division, Cheery Zahau has spent most of her life in Falam Township, a sparsely populated area of the Chin hills near the Indian border. Her political beliefs were nurtured during a childhood spent in the company of a large extended family, including her grandfather, who served as a village chief. If elected, she will aim to improve local job opportunities for local women and youth, along with negotiating improvements to road and telecommunications infrastructure in Chin State. In the course of her travels across the state, Cheery Zahau said she learned there was a widespread perception that infrastructure projects in the area were an expression of the government's goodwill towards the people, rather than a service provision to which the local population were entitled. "Our people must be continuously informed about their basic rights and civic rights," she said. "It is in fact the government's responsibility to ensure that they meet the need to provide basic human rights to their citizens." In the past, Cheery Zahau said it was difficult for her to be taken seriously in an overwhelmingly male-dominated society. Many of the initiatives she proposed were not taken seriously because a woman was proposing them—a situation she says has changed as her community "learned that my aims were for our own people". No stranger to vicious personal attacks, the aspiring politician said that the invective hurled against her on social media, focusing on her lack of a husband, has steeled her for similar incidents on the campaign trail. "My pictures were Photoshopped by anonymous Facebook users trying to defame me, saying I was pregnant and had an abortion," she recalled. As per CPP policy, Cheery Zahau has called for greater devolution of powers from Naypyidaw to state governments. Along with other ethnic parties, the CPP is pushing for constitutional reform for a federal system of governance. "For ethnic minorities, we cannot just rely on a parliament where majority votes decide every issue," she said. "There is no mechanism to adequately address the concerns of minorities in the [Union] Parliament." The CPP won five state government seats out of 18 constituencies in the 2010 elections —a further six seats are filled by military appointees, who currently hold a slim majority alongside the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). At the next election, the CPP will likely face three-cornered contests with the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), which presently has no representation in the Chin Parliament, and the Chin Nationalities Party, which holds five seats. The post Ethnic Chin Activist Cheery Zahau to Contest 2015 Election appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

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