The Irrawaddy Magazine

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• Lower House Passes Election Laws Nixing ‘White Card’ Suffrage
• Funeral Held for Farmer After Land Seizure Protest
• Limit Set as First Pseudo-Credit Cards Are Issued
• Shwe Mann Urges Kokang to Disarm During Visit to Army Hospital
• Portraits of the People at ‘The Broken Rhymes’ in Rangoon
• Over 2,000 Govt Staffers Implicated in Illegal Logging
• Malaysia Finds 139 Graves Around Suspected Trafficking Camps
• Women’s Walk Across Koreas’ DMZ Denied; They Cross by Bus
• Kids on Their Own Among Migrants Who Arrived in Indonesia
• China Readies National Carbon Market to Fight Climate Change
• Indonesia’s Military Creeps Back into Civilian Affairs

Lower House Passes Election Laws Nixing ‘White Card’ Suffrage Posted: 25 May 2015 08:05 AM PDT   Protestors in Rangoon demonstrate against granting suffrage to temporary identity card holders, also known as 'white card holders.' (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Burma's Lower House of Parliament has approved an amended trio of election laws revoking the right of temporary identity card holders to vote in a general election due late this year. The laws cover elections to the Union Parliament's Upper House, its Lower House and regional legislatures, and the amendments strip the term "temporary identity card holders"—also known as "white card holders"—from the list of those eligible to cast a ballot. Khin Htay Kywe, a Lower House parliamentarian from the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party, confirmed that the laws were approved on Monday without deliberation. Parliamentarians had been told to submit any suggested changes to the laws, which were drafted by the Union Election Commission (UEC) and put before the Lower House last week. The practical necessity of removing the election laws' provision on temporary identity card holders was unclear, since a ruling from President Thein Sein earlier this year declared that the cards would be invalid as of March 31. Former white card holders are from a diverse mix of ethnic groups and were issued the document over the years as a form of identification for people living in Burma who lacked full citizenship. Muslim Rohingya in Arakan State are believed to constitute the largest bloc of white card holders, and critics have said the revocation of their white cards constitutes just the latest disenfranchisement of the persecuted minority. The revocations have a measure of popular support, however, with hundreds of people demonstrating against suffrage for temporary identity card holders in February. White card holders were allowed to vote in Burma's last general election, in 2010. Pe Than, a Lower House lawmaker with the Arakan National Party (ANP), said the move to amend the laws came after a constitutional tribunal ruled in February that white card holders were ineligible to vote in a referendum on amending Burma's Constitution. "The constitutional tribunal has decided that voting rights for white card holders are not in accordance with the law. And the president has already revoked the white cards. Parliament has to make changes in accordance with that," Pe Than said. The verdict of the tribunal had seemingly become a moot point after Thein Sein in February decided to backtrack on the implications of the Referendum Law he had sent to Parliament by issuing a directive that let all temporary identification cards expire per March 31. Tin Chit, director of the Ministry of Immigration and Population's Immigration and National Registration Department, said more than 400,000 white cards had already been returned, 90 percent of them coming from Arakan State. He added that government records indicated that more than 760,000 white cards had been issued, though some estimates put the number of people holding the temporary ID as high as 1.5 million. "We have a review and advising committee to handle this," Tin Chit told The Irrawaddy, referring to efforts to bestow an alternative form of identification on former white card holders. "We have to give them a certain type of card according to the law. The group has already thought of a certain type of card they will issue. But they haven't released any information yet." Mohamed Salim, a spokesperson for the Rohingya advocacy group National Reconciliation and Peace Association, said the decision to rescind the voting rights of temporary identity card holders was "wrong" because most were Muslims living in Arakan State with legitimate claims to citizenship. He welcomed the theoretical path to citizenship that the government has said it will offer former white card holders. "There will be no problems when citizen cards are issued after national identification process is completed," he said. Three identical draft laws have been submitted to the Upper House by the UEC, but have not yet been discussed, according to Ning Kam Pong, a lawmaker in that chamber with the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). The post Lower House Passes Election Laws Nixing 'White Card' Suffrage appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Funeral Held for Farmer After Land Seizure Protest Posted: 25 May 2015 05:22 AM PDT   The funeral procession for Myint Aung on Saturday. (Photo: Tin Maung Toe) RANGOON — A funeral has been held in Shan State for a farmer who last week immolated himself to protest the confiscation of his land by the military. Myint Aung, 63, was on Saturday laid to rest in Ye Pu village, on the outskirts of Taunggyi. Nearly 600 people attended the funeral service, including other land confiscation victims from outlying towns and local political party representatives. "I didn't want him to sacrifice himself," said Maw Maw Oo, his niece. She said her uncle's actions had been motivated by his desire for justice for all villagers who had been evicted from their lands at the hands of military and government officials. Myint Aung and his family owned about 14 acres of land that was seized by the military's Eastern Command in 2004, as part of a 1,000-acre land confiscation which buttressed 5,000 acres appropriated by the command in 1994. Myint Aung and others were allowed to continue cultivating their fields for 10,000 kyats (US$9) per type of crop grown, per harvest, until a state government edict put a stop to the tenancy payments last year. Myint Aung's funeral pyre on Saturday. (Photo: Tin Maung Toe) Last Wednesday, Myint Aung was told that the military were preparing to construct a barracks on his land, leading to a physical confrontation that drew in other local farmers. Tin Maung Toe, the Taunggyi chairman of the National League for Democracy, said that Myint Aung was concerned for his family, with rumors circulating that one of his nieces had been detained in the aftermath of the incident "On May 20 his family members slept on their fields, afraid the military would begin construction if they left for home," he said. Early the next morning, Myint Aung returned home to draft a letter, criticizing the village authorities and urging the return of all land confiscated by the military. He then walked onto the street, poured gasoline over his body and set himself alight. Tin Maung Toe said that the farmer suffered horrific burns to nearly 90 percent of his body and was taken to hospital before passing away on Friday. Myint Aung in hospital. (Photo: Tin Maung Toe) Most of the mourners at Saturday's funeral were farmers drawn from villages around Nyaung Shwe, Hopong, Heho and Taunggyi, who had similarly been victims of military land seizures in the area. "Myint Aung set himself on fire without telling anyone about his plans," Tin Maung Toe told The Irrawaddy. "He suffered so much before he died." The post Funeral Held for Farmer After Land Seizure Protest appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Limit Set as First Pseudo-Credit Cards Are Issued Posted: 25 May 2015 04:07 AM PDT A Cooperative Bank ATM in downtown Rangoon. (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — After giving its approval for local lenders to issue quasi-credit cards, the Central Bank of Myanmar has set a maximum withdrawal limit of 5 million kyats (US$4,500), according to Win Thaw, the bank's deputy director general. The Central Bank on May 8 allowed domestic banks to issue so-called "secure credit cards," a financial product that in fact acts more like a debit card, as a bridge to eventually permitting full-fledged credit cards in Burma. "We won't fix the minimum amount, but the maximum amount is 5 million kyats, because this is an amount that the Central Bank can manage if something happens in the market," Win Thaw told The Irrawaddy on Monday. "This is the beginning, and local banks can decide who should be allowed to use credit cards and who shouldn't, that is their decision, but the [withdrawal] amount can't be over the fixed amount," he said. Unlike a true credit card, users of the "secure credit card" must have the funds they charge or withdraw from an ATM in their bank account, as is the case for debit card use. The secure credit card distinguishes itself in that users continue to benefit from interest payments on the money—in the case of savings accounts, 8 percent—as long as they repay the amount deducted within 45 days. Late repayment will be penalized with a 13 percent interest charge on the outstanding amount. Since early May, local banks have been preparing to issue the pseudo-credit cards. Among them, Kanbawza (KBZ) Bank introduced its secure credit card to users on Monday, the lender's spokesperson said. "It's a so-called secure credit card; users will have to have money first," said Thet Ko Ko Myo, general manager of KBZ Bank's sales and service department. "We will allow credit card users to withdraw money from 500,000 kyats to 5 million kyats," he said, adding that KBZ Bank would wait for the establishment of a credit bureau before considering issuance of full-fledged credit cards. A credit bureau, which Burma currently lacks, collects information to provide consumer credit information on individuals, which is used for a variety of purposes including determining loan eligibility. Credit information, such as a person's previous loan performance and bill-paying habits, is used to predict future behavior and gauge credit worthiness. "We dare not issue real, unsecure credit cards without a credit bureau here," Thet Ko Ko Myo said. In the absence of a credit bureau in 2003, credit cards were invalidated by Burma's former military regime, which pinned a portion of the blame on credit card users for a financial crisis that saw the collapse of the country's largest lender at the time, Asia Wealth Bank. "The Central Bank said this is the beginning stage, that we don't have the experience to use real credit cards. After this stage, I hope that we can issue real credit cards to users," the KBZ Bank spokesman said. Similar to KBZ Bank, Cooperative Bank plans to issue its own "secure credit cards." "Since three months ago, we've proposed issuing a new product called secure credit cards. It is not like credit cards that are used in other countries, it is safe and good for users too," said Pe Myint, managing director of Cooperative Bank. "We've been planning, but we will issue in the next one or two months, not now," he said. According to banking industry sources, other large domestic banks are also preparing to issue credit cards within two or three months. The former military regime stopped the local issuance of credit cards in response to a surge in bad debts after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Burma's banking system still lacks a credit bureau to gauge the suitability of loan applicants, leading bank managers and the Central Bank to take a cautious approach to financial reforms, including making credit available to consumers and businesses. Efforts to set up a credit bureau are reportedly ongoing. The post Limit Set as First Pseudo-Credit Cards Are Issued appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Shwe Mann Urges Kokang to Disarm During Visit to Army Hospital Posted: 25 May 2015 03:58 AM PDT   Parliamentary Speaker Shwe Mann visits Burma Army Soldiers at a military hospital in Lashio, Shan State, on May 23, 2015. (Photo: Global New Light of Myanmar) RANGOON — Parliamentary Speaker Shwe Mann addressed wounded soldiers in Shan State's Lashio on Saturday, making a public appeal for rebels in northeastern Burma to immediately disarm. The Speaker warned that the fighting in Kokang Special Region—a small ethnically Chinese area along the Sino-Burmese border—was costing lives and government funds, claiming it could only be stopped if rebel soldiers stood down. Though the Speaker was addressing wounded Burma Army soldiers in a military hospital, he appealed to the Kokang armed forces, known as the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), to avoid more government casualties. "If fighting continues, there will be more lives sacrificed for the protection of our country, and more finances that we will have to spend on it," Shwe Mann said. "We want to ask the [MNDAA] armed group to disarm and make peace, because our country is going to have an election soon." The speaker urged Burma Army soldiers to uphold their support for the war, adding that "the current fight in Kokang is a fight for justice, and the people in Burma support the Tatmadaw [Burma's Armed Forces] in this fight." Conflict between the Burma Army and the MNDAA broke out on Feb. 9 in Kokang's administrative capital Laukkai, the former rebel headquarters until the group's aging leader, Peng Jiasheng, was ousted by the Burmese government in 2009. The ensuing conflict—during which the MNDAA attempted to reclaim its former headquarters and surrounding hilltops—was the fiercest seen in Burma for years. Some independent reports claim that it has been the deadliest and most expensive conflict in the country since its independence in 1948. Government figures account for at least 200 deaths—which include Burmese and rebel soldiers—though independent figures have offered much higher estimates. A government-issued media gag order on rebel-affiliated sources has made casualties impossible to independently verify, though military journal Jane's Defense Weekly recently claimed that as many as 800 Burmese soldiers may have died in the conflict since early February. Tens of thousands of civilians were also displaced by the conflict, though small groups of civil servants have since begun to return to Laukkai. The ongoing conflict disrupted efforts to reach a nationwide ceasefire accord, which negotiators from the government and the country's myriad ethnic armed groups had been working toward over the past three years. Cross-border blasts also aggravated tensions with Burma's giant neighbor; five people died when artillery shells landed in a Chinese village near the border in March, and a similar incident left five others injured earlier this month. The Burma Army has denied responsibility for both incidents. The post Shwe Mann Urges Kokang to Disarm During Visit to Army Hospital appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Portraits of the People at ‘The Broken Rhymes’ in Rangoon Posted: 25 May 2015 02:25 AM PDT   Click to view slideshow. RANGOON— A new exhibition at Rangoon's Lokanat Gallery captures the simple elegance of Burma's rural poor. Artist Nan Da has traveled throughout Burma since 2014 in search of moments of authenticity found in the faces of the country's beggars and poor rural youths. "The Broken Rhymes" features 11 such images; high-contrast oil and acrylic portraits against stark blank backdrops of flags and skies. Nan Da said his subjects were found in villages surrounding Rangoon, Monywa and Pyin Oo Lwin. "I drew compassionately to capture how these people are living," he said, "to express how they are feeling and what their situation is like, on the canvas." Works will be on view until May 27, and are priced between US$250 and $1,000. Lokanat Gallery is located on the first floor of No. 62 Pansodan Road in Kyauktada Township, and is open daily from 9 am to 5 pm. The post Portraits of the People at 'The Broken Rhymes' in Rangoon appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Over 2,000 Govt Staffers Implicated in Illegal Logging Posted: 25 May 2015 02:07 AM PDT   Friday's press conference at the Environmental Conservation and Forestry Ministry in Naypyidaw. (Photo: Nang Seng Nom / The Irrawaddy) NAYPYIDAW — Disciplinary and legal action has been taken against more than 2,000 employees of the Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry for collusion in illegal logging, ministry officials claimed on Friday. The ministry's deputy director-general, Zaw Min, told a press conference on Friday that the figures included more than 770 senior officials. "We suspended or expelled them according to related by-laws," he said. "We even prosecuted some in connection with illegal logging." Around 160,000 tons worth of timber was illegally logged between April 2010 and March 2015, according to Zaw Min. He added that while police and the military were cooperating to combat the trade, there was a lack of effective enforcement mechanisms available to authorities. Observers have warned that an inadequate legal framework had left Burma's forests vulnerable to exploitation. Earlier this year, Forest Trends reported that forest reserves had been de-gazetted to award large-scale agricultural land concessions. According to the Washington-based non-profit, government data suggested the agricultural concessions were being exploited to bypass the more difficult task of obtaining a logging concession, and the allocation of land concessions was "highly susceptible to corruption and patronage politics." A 2014 report from the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency concluded that 72 percent of Burma's timber exports between 2000 and 2013 were unauthorized and unrecorded, at an estimated total value of US$5.7 billion. "Illegal exploitation of forest resources incurs great losses," Khin Maung Yi, the Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry's permanent secretary, at Friday's press conference. "The ministry has adopted a special plan, formed taskforces and occasionally mounts crackdowns on this practice." The ministry's most recent seizure of illegally harvested timber was in Sagaing Division's Katha District on May 8. The following day, state-run newspapers reported the arrest of seven people and the seizure of 31 teak logs weighing 600 tons. Additional reporting by Sean Gleeson in Rangoon. The post Over 2,000 Govt Staffers Implicated in Illegal Logging appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Malaysia Finds 139 Graves Around Suspected Trafficking Camps Posted: 24 May 2015 11:40 PM PDT   A policeman takes pictures of bodies retrieved from a similar mass grave at an abandoned camp in a jungle in Thailand's southern Songkhla province, on May 2, 2015. (Photo: Reuters) WANG KELIAN, Malaysia — Malaysia has uncovered 139 graves thought to contain the remains of migrants from Burma and Bangladesh scattered around more than two dozen suspected human trafficking camps near the border with Thailand, the country's police chief said on Monday. The grisly find follows the discovery of similar shallow graves on the Thai side of the border earlier this month, which helped trigger a regional crisis. After a crackdown on the camps by Thai authorities, traffickers abandoned thousands of migrants in rickety boats in the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea. The jungles of southern Thailand and northern Malaysia have been a major route for smugglers bringing people to Southeast Asia by boat from Burma, most of them Rohingya Muslims who say they are fleeing persecution, and Bangladesh. "It's a very sad scene… To us even one is serious and we have found 139," Malaysia's Inspector General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar told reporters at a news conference in the northern state of Perlis. "We are working closely with our counterparts in Thailand. We will find the people who did this." The graves, some of which contained more than one body, were found at 28 abandoned camps located within about 500 metres (550 yards) of the Thai border in an operation that began on May 11, Khalid said. The border area is rugged and desolate and there are few roads. "The first team of our officers has arrived in the area this morning to exhume the bodies," Khalid added. He said one of the grave sites was just 100 meters or so from the site where twenty-six bodies were exhumed from a grave in Thailand's Songkhla province in early May. Smuggling Crackdown Thailand, under pressure from the United States to do more to combat people smuggling, launched a crackdown after finding that mass grave, since when more than 3,000 migrants have landed on boats in Malaysia and Indonesia. The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR estimated on Friday that some 3,500 migrants were still stranded on overloaded boats with dwindling supplies, and repeated its appeal for the region's governments to rescue them. On Sunday, Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency said that starting next week it would begin the repatriation of 720 Bangladeshi migrants over the next month. The cost of the repatriation would be met by the UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman at Indonesia's disaster agency. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Thursday pledged assistance and ordered the navy to rescue people adrift at sea. Indonesia's navy spokesman Manahan Simorangkir said it had deployed six ships and an aircraft last Wednesday to search for migrant boats. "They came back on Saturday and did not find any Rohingyas," he said. "The ships and aircraft are back out again." The scale of the discoveries along the Thai-Malaysia border will raise questions about any official complicity in the camps, where past reporting by Reuters has found migrants were typically held by traffickers until a ransom was paid. Malaysian police said in a statement that two police officers were among 10 people arrested so far this year in investigations into human trafficking, without giving details. Thailand said earlier this month that more than 50 police officers had been transferred as a result of investigations into human trafficking networks in the south. Malaysia's Najib said in a post on his official account that he was "deeply, deeply concerned with graves found on Malaysian soil purportedly connected to people smuggling. "We will find those responsible," Najib posted in English. The post Malaysia Finds 139 Graves Around Suspected Trafficking Camps appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Women’s Walk Across Koreas’ DMZ Denied; They Cross by Bus Posted: 24 May 2015 11:30 PM PDT Members of the WomanCrossDMZ group hold a banner with South Korean peace activists nearby a military check point in Paju on May 24, 2015. (Photo: Reuters) DORASAN STATION, South Korea — Female activists including Gloria Steinem and two Nobel Peace laureates were denied an attempt to walk across the Demilitarized Zone dividing North and South Korea on Sunday, but were allowed to cross by bus and complete what one of them called a landmark event. The group of 30 women from 15 countries made a final appeal to authorities on both sides to allow them to walk across the demarcation line, but were turned down. The North allowed a South Korean bus to cross the demarcation line to pick them up on the North side of the DMZ and transport them over the border to South Korea. United Nations Command officials met the group inside the DMZ after they crossed the demarcation line, and allowed them to march again after the final checkpoint on the southern side. "We were able to be citizen diplomats," said Steinem, the 81-year-old feminism pioneer and author. "We are feeling very, very positive. We have received an enormous amount of support," she said after passing through South Korean immigration. The group included Nobel Peace laureates Mairead Maguire, from Northern Ireland, and Leymah Gbowee, from Liberia. The women walked, carried banners and sang on the North Korean side of the first checkpoint leading into the DMZ. They were then met by a large contingent of media on the South side. The Koreas have remained divided since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. The DMZ that divides them is one of the most heavily fortified borders in the world. Authorities on both sides said they could not guarantee the safety of the women had they walked across. Organizer Christine Ahn, a Korean-American peace activist, said the group initially wanted to walk through the symbolic truce village of Panmunjom, where the armistice was signed. Still, she said the crossing itself was a success and a "historic event" despite "governments setting boundaries." Some members of the group expressed disappointment that the walk inside the DMZ was denied. But Ahn said she was satisfied that they were able to meet with North Korean women during their several-day stay in Pyongyang, the North's capital, and to cross through the DMZ, which is rarely allowed in any form to civilians. The women will also meet with South Korean counterparts. Ahn said the group went to the two Koreas to call for an end to hostilities on the Korean Peninsula, push for a reunification of families divided by the war and promote dialogue between the two enemies. The post Women's Walk Across Koreas' DMZ Denied; They Cross by Bus appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Kids on Their Own Among Migrants Who Arrived in Indonesia Posted: 24 May 2015 10:18 PM PDT A Rohingya child who recently arrived by boat has his picture taken for identification purposes at a shelter in Kuala Langsa, in Indonesia's Aceh Province on May 18, 2015. (Photo: Reuters) KUALA CANGKOI, Indonesia — It was just the two of them, brother and sister, out on the open ocean with hundreds of other desperate migrants, mostly Rohingya Muslims fleeing their homes in Burma. For nearly three months, the siblings comforted each other when rolling waves thrashed their boat, when their empty bellies ached and when they were beaten for trying to stand up to stretch their legs. As the oldest, Mohammad Aesop—just 10 years old—knew it was his job to keep his 8-year-old sister safe. But with the Thai crew wielding guns and threatening to throw troublemakers overboard, he felt helpless. Theirs was the first boat to wash ashore in Indonesia two weeks ago, followed by a number of other wooden trawlers crammed with hungry, dehydrated people. Many were abandoned at sea by their captains following a regional crackdown on human trafficking networks. So far, nearly 3,100 Rohingya and Bangladeshis have landed in three Southeast Asian countries, according to the International Organization for Migration. More than half of them wound up in Indonesia, where nearly 170 children who traveled alone—some after being tricked or kidnapped—wait to learn what will happen next. Stacked Like Human Dominos Labeled one of the world's most persecuted minorities, the Rohingya have been fleeing predominantly Buddhist Burma for decades. But it was only after the country started moving from dictatorship to democracy in 2011 that the numbers really spiraled, with newfound freedoms of expression lifting the lid off deep-rooted hatred felt by many toward the ethnic Muslims. Hundreds were killed, and thousands more were placed in internment camps where they cannot work and medical care is scarce. In recent months, however, flight from the area has been triggered less by fear than by desperation and greed. Rohingya brokers, eager to fill boats with human cargo that fetch $100 each, roam villages and displacement camps touting stories of jobs waiting overseas. Bored, frustrated and naive, youngsters are the easiest to trick. Once on board the ships, they are also the most vulnerable. At the Indonesian seaside camp in Aceh province's Kuala Cangkoi where Mohammad and his sister now stay, nearly a third of the migrants are children. Some of the smallest Rohingya suck on lollipops and munch on potato chips passed out by local residents and students who come to snap photos of the group. Other exhausted little ones, who went three days without food on the boat, lie face down asleep on the cool white tile of a pavilion where fish is normally hawked. "The vulnerability of these children can never be overstated," said Steve Hamilton, deputy chief of mission at the International Organization for Migration in Indonesia, adding that the government has said special care will be provided to ensure the safety of unaccompanied minors. "The hardships they have endured at such young ages are heartbreaking." Mohammad and his sister, Untas Begum, lost their mother three years ago, when sectarian violence in Myanmar's troubled Arakan State reached its peak. She was killed by a machete during an attack at a market in the state capital, Sittwe. Her children were taken in by a relative, who struggled to care for them with little money for food. Their father has been living in Muslim-majority Malaysia, one of the few places where Rohingya can find menial jobs and a semblance of acceptance. He decided it was time for his children to join him, and paid a broker in March to put them on a boat in the Bay of Bengal. The siblings were forced to sit with their knees bent so that another person could be seated in between their legs—like human dominos stacked together as closely as possible to ensure the biggest payoff from ransoms of around $2,000 per person demanded from the migrants' families after they left Burma's territorial waters. To sleep, they simply leaned back into the chest of the person behind them. When their legs shook and ached from being locked in one position for so long, they were beaten for moving or trying to stand. The heat on the boat was oppressive, and the stench of sweat and soured vomit was nauseating. They were given only a few spoonfuls of rice gruel twice a day. Fever, diarrhea and dehydration were common among the children and adults, but no medicine was provided. Untas said she once shivered while burning hot and freezing at the same time. "We were given a little food and water, and we were on the sea for a long time," she said, sipping water casually though a straw, a precious commodity that such a short time ago was rationed to keep her alive during the journey. "We didn't have our mom or dad on the boat, so we were scared." Fear and desperation have driven smugglers to flee their vessels following recent arrests and the discovery of dozens of mass graves in Thailand and Malaysia where migrants were held in the jungle before the floating camps were set up offshore. Mohammad said one night a smaller boat approached, and as the captain and crew left, they pointed guns at the people on the larger vessel and told them that anyone who tried to follow would be killed. "He shot twice into the air. Everyone started screaming and crying," Mohammad said, adding that he threw his sister across his lap to try to shield her with his tiny body. "I thought they would kill all of us." World's Most Unwanted The Associated Press spoke to numerous children in Myanmar who managed to escape their boats, along with those who made it to shore in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. Some said they ended up at sea after brokers in Arakan State told them that if they left immediately without telling their parents, they could earn big money in Thailand and Malaysia and send it home to their impoverished families. People continued to be loaded even after the crisis began unfolding earlier this month, with abandoned boats being pushed back to sea like pin-balls by the region's navies. Others, like Atau Rahman, 12, of Sittwe, reported being outright kidnapped. He said he and nine other boys were grabbed by a "weird man" and shoved onto a boat where they simply disappeared. They were held for weeks offshore until the boat was finally crammed full of enough bodies to leave. "I don't know what happened," he said at a camp in the Acehnese town of Langsa, where the most recent vessel landed last week. "We were put on the boat and tied up, and gags were put in our mouths so we couldn't talk." In a tent just behind him, a little girl with diarrhea lay listless on a plastic tarp with an IV drip strapped to her arm. Skinny women sat nearby on the ground nursing fussy babies, while some children with every rib showing ran naked through the grounds. Indonesian medical workers scurried to conduct basic health screenings and provide vaccinations—likely the first medical care many Rohingya kids have ever received. Meanwhile, a 3-year-old girl died from tetanus after arriving at the local hospital last week, and a few other kids were receiving treatment there. "This human tragedy was too cruel for the children to bear. I'm so sad to see their blank gaze when they describe their emotional wounds," said Rudi Purnomo, from the Indonesian nonprofit group Act for Humanity. "The condition of these children in the refugee shelters makes me hug my own kids tighter than usual and feel grateful." Denied citizenship, the estimated 1.1 million Rohingya living in Burma are effectively stateless, wanted not at home nor by any other country. Governments fear that by letting in even a few poor, uneducated migrants, they will open the floodgates for many. In recent days, Indonesia and Malaysia relented, saying they would provide temporary shelter to 7,000 people—the number who have already landed combined with those believed still stranded at sea. But they did so only on condition that the international community would resettle them in third countries within a year. So far, the United States and the tiny African nation of Gambia are the only countries to raise their hands. Hussein Ahmed, a 12-year-old Rohingya boy, has stopped trying to imagine a future for himself. He left a camp in Sittwe by himself when a broker convinced his mother he could earn money abroad to support the family since his father was killed three years ago in the violence. After months at sea, he now feels his people may be the most unwanted on earth. "I was born in Myanmar [Burma], but they don't want me. I tried to go to Thailand or Malaysia, but I can't go anywhere because they don't want me," he said at the Langsa camp. "I was a kid back home, but now I have to be a man. I am in a different country alone. It's up to God—whatever will happen next." The post Kids on Their Own Among Migrants Who Arrived in Indonesia appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

China Readies National Carbon Market to Fight Climate Change Posted: 24 May 2015 10:14 PM PDT   A man exercises in the morning as he faces factory chimneys emitting smoke across the Songhua river in China's Jilin province on Feb. 24, 2013. (Photo: Reuters) BEIJING — At first, the numbers and company names flashing on a big board in Beijing's financial district suggest a booming market. A closer look indicates otherwise: The scrolling list rotates the same dozen or so trades, all from last year. The lights from the Beijing Environment Exchange—one of seven pilot markets in China for trading carbon—raises questions for the country as it prepares for next year's roll-out of a nationwide system that could help the world's biggest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide rein in its emissions. A successful carbon offset, or "cap-and-trade," market could play a big part in cutting China's emissions—and help the world tackle global warming. Already launched in Europe, California and a few other spots, such carbon offset markets limit how much carbon can be emitted per year by factories and businesses. They then let those businesses that release less carbon than the cap sell to other companies permissions to emit whatever's left. So far, the pilots have failed to make a noticeable dent in carbon emissions, with about 978 million yuan, or US$158 million, traded since their launch in 2013, compared to the 7.2 billion euros, or about $8 billion, of carbon offsets that were traded in the European market in its first year of operation, 2006. Many companies required to buy carbon credits have waited until the last minute of compliance periods to make their trades, which has raised concerns about low liquidity in the market. Some observers question the reliability of data recording how much companies are emitting. Chinese officials, however, say the pilot markets aren't meant to significantly cut the country's carbon profile yet. Instead, they say they are learning important lessons from their experiments and will use them in what will soon become the world's biggest carbon offset market. "China is taking this step to accept its responsibility in stopping climate change," said Zhou Cheng, the Beijing exchange's vice president. "This affects industry in a legal, scientific way, and it lets them form their business plans while looking at carbon emissions too." If anything, the national plan heralds a strategy change for a country that's so far used its one-party system to order everything from factory closures to barbecue bans by giving companies a money-making incentive to cut their carbon emissions, said Jeff Swartz, international policy director at the Geneva-based nonprofit group the International Emissions Trading Association. For some Chinese companies, selling excess carbon offset credits could bring in millions of dollars a year. "China is using a number of different policies, both command-and-control but also market policies," Swartz said. "[Emissions trading] will provide a fundamental solution to allow China to peak its emissions." The past decade, however, has been a spotty one for carbon credit experiments in China. Five years ago, European Union officials ended a carbon offset plan that paid Chinese companies to destroy the greenhouse gas HFC-23 after learning that the companies were producing the gas only to be paid to destroy it. Kathy Kong, CEO of Beijing-based trading firm Timing Carbon, said the pilot markets still have a lot of room to grow. For example, the markets still offer only spot trading with no futures markets, which greatly limits the potential market size. Regulators must also step in to prop up falling carbon offset prices and keep prices at other times from reaching unsustainable highs. "This is still a market created by policy," Kong said. "The policy needs to follow the market at some time." Starting in 2013, China set up the seven pilot markets in the country's largest cities—Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing and Shenzhen—as well as the industrial provinces of Guangdong and Hubei. Since mid-April, the seven markets have traded a total of 31.2 million tons of carbon. The European market in its first year traded more than 10 times that amount of carbon. By design, each market has set up its own rules, with an eye for testing approaches for a national market. In Beijing, any company that emits more than 10,000 tons of carbon a year—equal to the household and vehicle emissions of more than 400 American households—must join the offset market, which means it receives a yearly cap on its emissions and must buy carbon credits if it wants to emit more carbon. Credit prices have generally run from $55 to $75 per ton, and the penalty for exceeding the limit can cost three-to-five times the usual credit price. Around 550 companies in Beijing now take part in the exchange. Other markets use different methods to set emission targets and determine who has to participate. Five of the seven markets give away carbon credits every year and then let companies auction off their excess credits. Hubei is the country's biggest market by volume of carbon traded. For state-owned firms such as the Chinese capital's largest power utility, Beijing's pilot market has forced business plans to factor in carbon emissions, said Jeremy Guo, executive vice president of the utility's energy investment arm. One result is a higher investment in renewable energy such as solar and the capture and reuse of heat emitted during some industrial processes, he said. "We want to make our role of carbon asset management a new standard for the group company, not just to buy and sell to get some profit," Guo said. What comes next year will depend on how the seven pilot markets shape up. They could link up so that a company in Beijing in the north could trade with another in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. Chen said another idea would be to create separate offset markets around specific industries such as steel, cement, energy or construction, rather than connect the separate pilots operating according to different rules. Antung Anthony Liu, an economics professor at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing, said that if done right, the markets could turn China's epic climate change fight into an international investment opportunity. "China goes through a process where it tries to experiment with a policy before rolling it out," Liu said. "To my mind, the markets haven't had the intended hopeful effect yet but capacity has been built. These markets clearly exist. And hopefully one of them will be chosen as the best one and the nation will go forward from that." The post China Readies National Carbon Market to Fight Climate Change appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Indonesia’s Military Creeps Back into Civilian Affairs Posted: 24 May 2015 10:09 PM PDT   Indonesia’s military chief Commander General Moeldoko and National Police Chief General Badrodin Haiti pose with members of the military and police after a briefing in the Indonesian city of Kupang. (Photo: Kornelis Kaha / Reuters) JAKARTA — Nearly two decades after Indonesia’s military was squeezed out of civilian affairs with the downfall of strongman leader Suharto, President Joko Widodo is drawing the army more closely into his wars on drugs, terrorism, and corruption. Palace and military officials say Widodo’s move is partly designed to counterbalance senior police officers who have crossed swords with him and who, critics say, are trying to undermine the agency leading the campaign against graft. The police acknowledges “problems” in its relationship with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), but says it is working with the agency to tackle graft. The prospect of a greater role for the military in civilian matters does not presage a return to the authoritarianism of army General Suharto, when it oversaw government policy as well as providing national security, the officials said. Indeed, military chief Moeldoko has sought to quell such concerns. “As long as the military is needed by the country to safeguard the national development carried out by ministries, then go ahead,” Moeldoko, who retires in July, told reporters this month. “But nobody should try to drag the military into politics.” Nevertheless, critics of Widodo’s move fear it sets a dangerous precedent in a country where the military has a long tradition of involvement in politics and which directly elected a president for the first time only 11 years ago. “While symbolic engagement with the military is important to get things done and to send a signal of stability, we’re treading a dangerous line here,” said Tobias Basuki, political analyst at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a local think-tank. “In the long term it will create a new Goliath within Indonesian politics if the military doesn’t steer clear of civilian life.” A senior government official with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters that Widodo, the first president from outside the country’s political elite or armed forces, has struggled to assert himself over the police force and its political patrons, who include senior figures in his own party. He trusts the military more than the police, the official said, and sees it as a potentially counterbalancing force. The army’s expansion into civilian affairs began last month, with the first major counter-terrorism operation since the response to a spate of hotel bombings in Jakarta in 2009. Anti-terrorism efforts are traditionally the domain of the police. Approved by Widodo, who came to power in October, the military launched the six-month exercise to crack down on militants with suspected links to Islamic State. Then, this month, the armed forces signed a memorandum of understanding to help the country’s main anti-narcotics agency with its war on drugs, a top priority for Widodo. Government officials said they are now considering legislative changes that would allow serving military officers to work in state ministries and agencies. The ministries of transportation and fisheries, which handle projects and industries steeped in corruption, have asked that military personnel join their staff. “If these requests are to be fulfilled, they should not violate any law,” Cabinet Secretary Andi Widjajanto told reporters recently. The KPK has taken the unprecedented step of seeking the military’s assistance after being severely weakened by a tit-for-tat dispute with the police. General Moeldoko said he already had two officers in mind to join the KPK after they retired from service in a few months. The agency, popular with ordinary citizens for going after Indonesia’s moneyed elites, hopes the military’s inclusion will protect it from police intervention. KPK officials were not immediately available for comment. Since the KPK declared a prominent police general a corruption suspect in January, the police has launched a series of investigations against the agency that have led to the suspension of two of its commissioners. The KPK has since dropped its case against police general Budi Gunawan, who was subsequently named deputy police chief. The police do not see the expansion of the military’s powers as a threat. “We don’t at all think the military is a threat to us or our role in society. We don’t think there is any sort of balancing going on,” said Agus Rianto, national police spokesman. He also said the police would investigate complaints of corruption made against it, and added: “To say there is a public perception that the police is corrupt is not accurate.” Activists say allowing the military to help fight corruption may be an effective stop-gap measure to shore up the KPK, but it threatens to leave the military immune to graft investigations itself. The military has a history of acquiring strategic assets, especially in the resources sector. Suharto was reported to have a sprawling business empire worth $15 billion when he resigned in 1998. “The consequence is that the military will be untouchable in corruption investigations,” said Adnan Topan Husodo of Indonesia Corruption Watch. The post Indonesia’s Military Creeps Back into Civilian Affairs appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

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