Friday, May 29, 2015

The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

Burma Navy Finds Boat With 727 Boatpeople off Southern Coast: Govt

Posted: 29 May 2015 04:54 AM PDT

boatpeople

RANGOON — Burma's navy seized a boat packed with 727 people off the country's coast on Friday, the government said, about a week after it found a similar boat it said carried around 200 Bangladeshi migrants.

The nationality of the people on the boat was unclear. Burma's Ministry of Information described them as "Bengalis," using the term the government uses to describe the country's persecuted Rohingya minority as well as immigrants from Bangladesh.

A senior official at the ministry could not be immediately reached for comment.

More than 3,000 migrants have landed in Indonesia and Malaysia since Thailand launched a crackdown on human trafficking gangs this month. About 2,600 are believed to be still adrift in boats, relief agencies have said.

According to the Facebook page of President's Office director Zaw Htay, who goes by Hmuu Zaw online, a Burma Navy boat spotted the people-laden fishing trawler off the coast of the Irrawaddy Delta village of Dhamin Sate in Pyopon Township at 6:30am on Friday.

The boat was overwhelming packed with men, along with 45 children and 74 women, Zaw Htay said, adding that the Burma Navy had towed the trawler to Hi Gyi island.

Last week, a Burmese naval patrol found a boat with more than 200 migrants off the Arakan State coast. The Burmese government has said that 200 of those on board were Bangladeshi nationals who will be repatriated. It identified the eight others as Bengali.

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Naypyidaw Gives the Nod on Dala Bridge Funding

Posted: 29 May 2015 04:45 AM PDT

Dala Bridge

Dala residents board a ferry on their way to Rangoon. (Photo: Hein Htet / The Irrawaddy)

RANGOON — The Union Parliament has approved a loan of more than US$100 million from South Korea to build a bridge connecting Dala to downtown Rangoon.

Under the terms of the deal, signed off in Naypyidaw on Thursday, the Ministry of Construction will be given a 40-year, 0.01 percent interest, $138 million loan from South Korea's Economic Development Cooperation Fund for a 1.9-kilometer (1.16-mile) suspension bridge connecting Lanmadaw Township's Phone Gyi Street to Bo Min Yaung village in Dala.

Hla Tun Oo, the Union Solidarity and Development Party lawmaker representing Dala in Naypyidaw, said he was delighted that the proposal was unanimously accepted on the parliament floor. He told The Irrawaddy he hoped that the bridge would herald future development in Dala's village communities.

"We have suggested that when the bridge is designed, it includes water pipelines from Rangoon for distribution in Dala. If we can solve the area's transportation and water problems, more development will follow," he said.

Sitting on the other side of the Rangoon River, Dala is a relative backwater compared to the commercial capital, lacking a water supply, electricity infrastructure and employment opportunities. Tens of thousands of Dala villagers work in Rangoon, and rely on daily ferry or sampan commutes across the river.

Hla Tun Oo said that consultations have been held with the local community to explain the project, including the contentious issue of land that will be appropriated during the bridge's construction.

"The road approaching the bridge will be 130 feet, while the current road is 100 feet, so an extension is needed for 15 feet on either side of the road," he said. "We promised locals that we will help them claim the compensation they deserve from the authorities."

Soe Tint, Deputy Minister for Construction, told parliament on Thursday that the government would contribute an additional $30 million to the project, slated for completion in 2020.

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Final Census Results Released, Sans Ethnic and Religious Data

Posted: 29 May 2015 04:36 AM PDT

census data

A volunteer collects census data in Arakan State. (Photo: Reuters)

RANGOON — Most of Burma's finalized census data were released on Friday, with the country's population clocking in at 51,486,253 people, a number that includes an estimated 1.2 million heads that were not counted in Arakan, Kachin and Karen states.

The non-enumerated total breaks down to 46,600 people in Kachin State, 69,753 in Karen State, and 1,090,000 in Arakan State. In Kachin and Karen states, conflict between the government and ethnic armed groups prevented enumerators from entering rebel-controlled areas, while in Arakan State the vast majority of those uncounted were Rohingya, a Muslim minority group that the government does not recognize.

A controversial last-minute policy change saw the government refuse to tally individuals self-identifying as Rohingya, contravening UN census guidelines and earning international criticism.

The census was conducted in March and April of 2014, and marked the first attempt to carry out a nationwide population count in more than three decades. The massive data set includes demographic characteristics and living conditions, detailing population size and growth, age and sex, marital status, migration, births and deaths, education, employment, disability, and housing conditions and amenities in each of Burma's 330 townships.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which supported the Burmese government in conducting the census, said in a press release on Friday that additional information on the population's ethnic and religious makeup, occupational profile and maternal mortality rate are due to be released next year, requiring more time for analysis and consultation.

Vijay Nambiar, special adviser to the secretary-general on Burma, congratulated the government on a "monumental achievement" at a ceremony marking the census results' release, while noting shortcomings in the process, specifically the controversy over self-identifying Rohingya and disagreements over how to categorize the country's ethnic diversity.

"The official list of ethnic groups used in the census was also a source of disagreement and misgivings. The Government has wisely decided to convene a consultative process to revise the categorization to represent Myanmar's ethnic diversity more accurately before it releases ethnic data," Nambiar said.

In May 2014, the International Crisis Group released a report warning of potential risks surrounding the timing of the census and publication of its results. It warned that disagreements over how to categorize ethnic identities and the possibility that "the total number of Muslims in the country may be much higher than expected," could potentially stoke tensions at a time when Burma is preparing to hold a landmark general election, which is due in early November.

On Friday, there was no explicit indication from the United Nations that the election was a factor in delaying the release of ethnic and religious data, but a UNFPA official told The Irrawaddy early this month that the government had made the decision "in consideration of the sensitivities of this data."

Reflecting just how politicized the census in Burma has become since the United Nations first offered its assistance in 2012, the executive director of the UNFPA waded into another domestic source of recent controversy in remarks on Friday. Indirectly referencing a recently passed Population Control Law that has been criticized by women's rights advocates, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin joined the legislation's detractors in voicing concern over its restrictions.

"Every woman and couple has the right to freely determine the number, timing and spacing of their children, free of discrimination, violence and coercion," he said. "Coercive laws regulating the number or spacing of children violate human rights, and contradict the Government's national commitments and international obligations."

After Decades of Guesswork, Hard Numbers

Burma has an annual population growth rate of 0.89 percent, one of the lowest in the region, and saw its birth rate fall to an average of 2.3 children per family, down from 4.7 in 1983.

Sixty-two out of every 1,000 children born die before the age of 1, with the infant mortality rate almost 40 percent higher in rural areas.

Half of the population is under the age of 27.

Average life expectancy is 67 years, one of the lowest in Southeast Asia, while women live six years longer than men.

Urban dwellers account for less than 30 percent of the population, with Rangoon Division and neighboring Irrawaddy Division the two most populace administrative territories, home to 7.36 million and 6.18 million people, respectively.

With additional reporting by Andrew D. Kaspar.

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Heritage Trust Celebrates Iconic Post Office Building

Posted: 29 May 2015 03:29 AM PDT

Click to view slideshow.

RANGOON — A ceremony to honor the heritage of Rangoon's General Post Office was held on Friday morning, inside the iconic Strand Road building.

The event, part of a larger project initiated by the Yangon Heritage Trust (YHT) with the blessing of the Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC), fit the four floor redbrick building with a bilingual plaque to explain the historical significance of the post office to future visitors.

Originally erected in 1908 as the offices of Bulloch Brothers & Company, a Scottish shipping and insurance agency which also owned rice mills across the country, the building was vacated in 1933 after the business dissolved during the Great Depression. The post office was relocated there by the British government in 1936, six years after its original location at the corner of Strand Road and 32nd Street was badly damaged in a 7.3 magnitude earthquake.

"The old post office was a symbol of Yangon and Myanmar's connection to the outside world, the place where people came to send and receive information from every corner of the globe," said Thant Myint-U, the founding chairman of the YHT, in a press release today.

The General Post Office building is the fifth of a planned 100 buildings to be fitted with the plaques, set for installation on heritage sites across the city. Previous buildings include the Rangoon City Hall, the former Rowe & Co Department Store, the Armenian Church and the Central Fire Station.

A rich collection of 19th and early 20th century buildings of South Asian and European architecture still remain standing in Rangoon, highlighting the history of Burma's bygone colonial past.

The YHT is lobbying for the preservation of colonial buildings amidst a development boom and a massive increase in the value of land in Rangoon. In the past, many colonial buildings were destroyed as a consequence of unregulated development.

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Palaung Ethnic Conference Postponed Amid ‘Govt Pressure’

Posted: 29 May 2015 02:39 AM PDT

TNLA

Ta'ang National Liberation Army soldiers on patrol. (Photo: J Paing/The Irrawaddy)

RANGOON — Organizers of the inaugural Palaung Ethnic Conference, which was scheduled to begin on Friday in Shan State, have said they made a decision to postpone the event after the government objected to the planned presence of the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA).

Representatives of the government's Union Peacemaking Working Committee (UPWC), who were also slated to attend, asked the conference organizing committee to revoke the Palaung ethnic army's invitation to the three-day meeting in Namhsan, according to committee secretary Mai Myo Aung.

"The UPWC said that the TNLA can't attend the conference now, as it's still clashing with the military, and asked us to wait," he told The Irrawaddy.

Conference organizers had invited around 800 Palaung delegates from across 21 Shan State townships to discuss recent political developments, the ongoing negotiations over a nationwide ceasefire agreement, and the language, literature and culture of the Palaung people.

The TNLA does not currently have a bilateral ceasefire agreement with the government and has been involved in isolated skirmishes with the Burma Armed Forces since the beginning of the year. The armed group has also reported its soldiers had been fighting in Kokang territory, alongside ethnic Kokang rebels from the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and the Arakan Army, since hostilities between the MNDAA and the military resumed in February.

No discussions for a bilateral ceasefire between the TNLA and the government have eventuated. Though the TNLA is a government-recognized member of the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT), an alliance holding peace talks with government peace negotiators, the group was reportedly unhappy with the draft nationwide ceasefire agreement text discussed by the NCCT in Panghsang earlier in May, and threatened to resign from the organization.

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Irrawaddy Photographer Honored for Letpadan Coverage

Posted: 29 May 2015 02:32 AM PDT

Allard Prize

A photo from Letpadan on Mar. 10, announced as a winner of the Allard Prize Photography Competition on Friday, capturing the police assault of a student during the crackdown on a student demonstration. (Photo: Sai Zaw / The Irrawaddy)

RANGOON — Irrawaddy photographer Sai Zaw has been announced as a winner of the Allard Photography Prize for his coverage of a crackdown on student protesters in March.

Sai Zaw, 32, was present in the Pegu Division town of Letpadan on March 10, where hundreds of demonstrators calling for reform to the National Education Law had been barricaded into a monastery by police forces for several days. Despite being promised passage from the monastery that morning, tensions soon escalated between the two sides, and officers eventually launched a violent attack on demonstrators.

One of the photojournalist's images of the crackdown—a student cowering from the assault of four baton-wielding police officers—was announced as a winner of the semi-annual Allard Prize Photography Competition on Friday. Awarded by the University of British Columbia's Faculty of Law, the competition is held to recognize "exceptional courage and leadership in combating corruption, especially through promoting transparency, accountability and the rule of law."

"I hope this award highlights the abuse of rights in Burma, and how people in Burma are losing their rights," said Sai Zaw. "I hope the photo can show what is happening here to an international audience."

Nearly 70 Letpadan demonstrators remain in nearby Thayawady Prison, awaiting trial on a raft of unlawful assembly charges.

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Central Bank to Issue New 10,000 Kyat Notes

Posted: 29 May 2015 02:25 AM PDT

The Central Bank of Myanmar (CBM)

Burma's new 10,000 kyat bank notes will have additional security features. (Photo: Ministry of Information)

RANGOON — The Central Bank of Myanmar (CBM) announced on Thursday that a modified 10,000 kyat note will be issued next month to prolong circulation life and prevent forgery.

The new note will not affect any legal tender status of existing notes issued in June 2012, according to a CBM press statement.

The size, basic design and color of the note remains unchanged, but the new bills will have reflective numerals, protective varnish and a watermark picturing a lotus visible upon holding the bill against light.

The new bill will retain security features of the old version, such as a holographic thread that changes from magenta to green when viewed from different angles.

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Blast from the Past a Window to the Present

Posted: 29 May 2015 02:15 AM PDT

Ne Win

Gen. Ne Win and his wife Khin May Than are welcomed by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai during a state visit to the China in 1960. Tensions between the Ne Win regime and Zhou's de facto successor, Deng Xiaoping, are a recurring feature of the diplomatic cables sent from the US Embassy in Rangoon in 1978, published by Wikileaks this week. (Photo: Public Domain)

RANGOON — An insurgency in Burma's northeast, a mass exodus from Arakan State, fears of Chinese regional domination and students in prison. The year was 1978.

A review of the latest release of US diplomatic cables, published by Wikileaks on Wednesday, is a reminder that many of Burma's dominant political problems have their provenance in the years of the Burma Socialist Programme Party, led by Gen. Ne Win.

The 904 cables from the US Embassy in Rangoon, of which 176 remain classified, cover approximately half the tenure of Ambassador Maurice Darrow Bean, a career diplomat appointed to the post in September 1977 by President Jimmy Carter.

Lacking access to the reclusive dictator, much of Bean's perspective was gleaned from fellow ambassadors and regular meetings with Gen. Sein Lwin, at the time the Religious and Home Affairs Minister and later dubbed the "Butcher of Rangoon" after briefly succeeding Ne Win and instigating the bloody crackdown on demonstrators during the 1988 pro-democracy uprising.

War on Drugs

The ambassador was tasked by the Carter administration to assist with drug eradication programs in the Golden Triangle, at the time home to 80-90 percent of the world's opium cultivation, and Sein Lwin became an important liaison to the US Embassy on the military's drug eradication efforts.

The US government, in keeping with its attempts to stem the global drug supply, offered logistical help from the Drug Enforcement Agency and helped to broker a meeting between Burmese and Thai leaders, hoping to kick start a regional response to trafficking in the region. A state visit by Thai Prime Minister Gen. Kriangsak Chamanan in June, who had seized power the previous year in a coup, failed to improve relations between the two countries, and leaders could not come to an understanding over the presence of Shan, Kachin and Karen ethnic rebel armies on Thai territory. Bean reported that Ne Win was "irked by the visit."

"As we have seen so often in the past, Burmese actions are not so much determined by logic as by the whims of U Ne Win," the ambassador wrote of the meeting.

China and the Rebels

The Burmese government was eager to curb heroin production at the time in order to cut off finances to the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) insurgency raging in northeastern Shan State. At the same time, the regime was hamstrung by the remote location of opium fields and the military's lack of capacity to fight the rebel army.

With the downfall of the Gang of Four in China, the Ne Win government believed that Deng Xiaoping and the Chinese leadership could be persuaded to end its support of Communist insurgencies abroad. A five-day visit by Deng in January was occasioned by what Bean reported was considerable fanfare but little detectable substance, and was followed by fresh battles three weeks later.

Bean reported that 1978 saw "fighting of a scale and intensity so far this dry season that clearly exceeds that of previous years" in the northeast. The CPB at one point made a successful assault on Lashio, at that time home to what was the military's Northeastern Regional Command. The ambassador said that this incident was conspicuously absent from state-run newspapers, which had also consistently underreported the military casualties that he was told numbered close to 1,000 soldiers.

In April, the Israeli ambassador relayed a conversation with Gen. San Yu, then the de facto deputy of Ne Win, in which the general expressed his distress that China was continuing to refuse a modification of its stance in support of the Communist insurgents. It would be another decade before the CPB disintegrated into rival ethnic factions, amid the tumultuous events of Tiananmen Square and the collapse of Eastern European communist states in 1989. The military is currently engaged in a conflict with the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), one of the successor armies of the CPB, near the Chinese border.

Operation Dragon King

By May of 1978, much of the ambassador's efforts come to be devoted to Operation Naga Min (Dragon King). Characterized by Human Rights Watch as an "ethnic cleansing" campaign, Operation Naga Min was an attempt by the regime to document the Arakanese Muslim population that eventually drove around 200,000 people into Bangladesh.

Despite receiving permission to send a US Embassy officer to Sittwe and the border townships of Maungdaw and Buthidaung, Bean found it difficult to report reliable information about the operation. Both Burma and Bangladesh traded accusations over the affair, with the former denying a massive increase of its troop presence in Arakan State and Bangladesh denying it was inflaming political tensions in the border area.

Several of the cables at key points in the operation remain classified, along with seemingly innocuous dispatches relating to agricultural output, Burmese foreign policy and cables detailing the history of various ethnic armed groups. As tensions eased in Arakan State, Bean helped to facilitate efforts to repatriate the refugees along with his counterpart in Dakah and the United Nations.

This American Life

The cables published by Wikileaks on Wednesday, numbering more than half a million, capture a region in flux after the US withdrawal from Vietnam and the seismic shifts in the Chinese politburo following the death of Chairman Mao Zedong.

Lacking consular representation in Vietnam and Cambodia, the United States watched from the sidelines as the Vietnamese Army prepared to topple the Khmer Rouge. The embassy in Delhi reported on the re-election and subsequent arrest of Indira Gandhi. American diplomats noted with approval the Australian government's decision to formally recognize Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor, inflaming a lingering sore in domestic politics that would polarize public opinion for the next two decades.

Locally, the Rangoon Embassy cables provide an insight into the deteriorating political and economic conditions inside Burma, at a time when doctrinaire socialism and four-year plans were the official instruments of governance. As a snapshot of the government's intolerance for dissent, Bean reported that prior to the 1978 water festival, the government announced the amnesty of around 200 students, convicted in military courts for participating in student protests in 1975 and 1976. Around 2,000 students were believed to remain behind bars at the time.

The Rangoon cables are also a revealing insight into their author, who spent most of his career as a servant of US diplomacy in Asia, during his first and last ambassadorial posting. According to the online encyclopedia Black Past, Bean was born to a blue-collar African-American family in Gary, Indiana and attended a racially segregated school in the area before entering the US Foreign Service in Indonesia in 1951. He became a proud and devoted employee of the newly formed Peace Corps in 1961, rising to the position of Philippines Operations Director before rejoining the State Department in 1966.

During his tenure as ambassador, Bean was an advocate of increased US aid to Burma. He sent a cable in January mourning the death of Hubert Humphrey—the controversial former Democratic Party Vice President, lead author of the Civil Rights Act and cofounder of the Peace Corps, who Bean mourned in a condolence message as "among my greatest inspirations". The following month, the ambassador spearheaded an attempt to introduce a Peace Corps volunteer group in the country, at a time when foreign access to Burma was strictly controlled by the Ne Win regime.

Sadly, Bean died in 2009 at the age of 81, before his ambitions were realized. Burma will accept a Peace Corps volunteer contingent for the first time next year.

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Govt Ministers Meet Ethnic Leaders in Lead-Up to Ceasefire Summit

Posted: 29 May 2015 01:56 AM PDT

Kokang Arakan

Government and ethnic peace negotiators meet in Chiang Mai, Thailand, on May 28, 2015. (Photo: Nyein Nyein / The Irrawaddy)

CHIANG MAI, Thailand — A high-level meeting of government ministers and ethnic representatives convened in northern Thailand on Thursday to prepare for upcoming ceasefire talks, boding well for what has recently been viewed as a turbulent path to peace.

Members of the Union Peace-making Work Committee (UPWC) and the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT), the government and ethnic negotiating blocs, met for one and a half hours in Chiang Mai to discuss preparations for political dialogue meant to follow the eventual signing of a peace accord.

The meeting was held in advance of an NCCT summit that will take place in Law Khee Lar, Karen State, on June 2, when ethnic are leaders are expected to make their final assessment of a draft nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA). Political dialogue will commence within 60 days of signing the agreement, which has been in the works for about three years.

NCCT member Khun Okkar said the preliminary meeting was a success, noting that both the government and ethnic peace teams were "preparing in advance for the political framework process." Negotiators discussed the formation of committees for ceasefire monitoring and implementation of the framework for political dialogue, representatives of both sides said.

The government delegation included chief peace negotiator and President's Office Minister Aung Min, Border Affairs Minister Lt-Gen Thet Naing Win, Electrical Power Minister Khin Maung Soe and Energy Minister Than Htay.

NCCT chairmen Nai Hong Sar and Padoh Kwe Htoo Win led the ethnic delegation.

Aung Min met briefly with reporters after the meeting, expressing the government's satisfaction.

"Today's meeting was the best of all the meetings. I am happy as we came to encourage [the peace process] and we did not have to discuss many issues," Aung Min said, adding that the government urged the NCCT to come to a definitive consensus on any further changes to the draft NCA during talks at Law Khee Lar next week.

The minister reiterated the government's position that the UPWC is satisfied with the current draft and does not wish to make any amendments to the version agreed upon by both sides on March 30.

Khun Okkar said the NCCT is more concerned with ensuring that the current agreement can be implemented, instead of making further changes to the document.

While the NCA is intended to serve as a comprehensive peace accord, some ethnic leaders have expressed apprehension due to the exclusion of three ethnic armed groups that are still in active conflict with government forces: the Kokang Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA); the Arakan Army (AA); and the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA).

Aung Min said that the government aims to achieve a bilateral ceasefire with the Ta'ang, also known as Palaung, but did not address the MNDAA or the AA, which are both considered unlawful organizations by the government.

The refusal to acknowledge and make peace with the two groups could become an obstacle, Khun Okkar said, as a recent ethnic leadership conference in eastern Burma's Wa Special Region culminated with a pledge of solidarity among the nations array of minority rebels.

"We ethnics do not want to leave any group behind, so we told the government delegation to guarantee that these two minority ethnic armed groups, which are currently fighting with the government army, not be destroyed by military operations," Khun Okkar said.

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Land Dispute Resolution Plagued by Graft: Lawmakers

Posted: 29 May 2015 01:47 AM PDT

land-grabs

Farmers tend to a paddy field in Irrawaddy Division. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy)

RANGOON — Lawmakers have expressed concern that some low-level bureaucrats are misappropriating lands confiscated by the government that are supposed to be returned to their former owners—and in the process lining their own pockets.

The 2012 Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Lands Management Law requires local land use management committees, which are under the Union-level Central Land Use Management Committee, to handle the returning of confiscated lands to their claimants.

Under the law, government departments that have made land-grabs must return the lands through the respective land use management committees, which are formed with local officials of concerned General Administration Departments, and departmental personnel and lawmakers.

The misappropriation, explained lawmaker Ye Htun from Hsipaw Township, occurs when land claimants do not have land ownership certificates and have only receipts for the taxes they have paid to the government for using the land. Land use management committees do not recognize those receipts, rendering those lands legally ownerless and allowing corrupt bureaucrats to instead grant ownership to other interested parties who pay them for a land title, he said.

"I have never heard of such corrupt staff members being punished, and in some cases [they] can cheat in line with law," said Ye Htun.

During a parliamentary session this week, 27 lawmakers discussed actions taken by the Central Land Use management Committee in response to reports of a parliamentary Land Acquisition Investigation Commission.

The discussion called for providing fair compensation to those who do not get back their lands and the drafting of a law that ensures original landowners get back their lands and tackles corruption of low-level bureaucrats.

"Returned lands should really get back into the hands of their original land owners. Though the government [land use] committee said that they are returning [the lands], the situation is totally different on the ground. The government [land use] committee does not report that how much lands were confiscated from farmers," said Lower House lawmaker Min Thu from Ottarathiri Township.

Lawmakers said that the report of the government's central land use committee does not provide the name list of recipients of returned lands. They suggested holding a tripartite meeting between the Central Land Use management Committee, Parliament and farmers whose lands have been grabbed. They added that the report fails to mention the prosecuting and imprisonment of farmers who have been jailed in recent years for staging land-grab protests.

The parliamentary Central Land Use management Committee received 14,499 complaints of land-grabs between Nov. 11, 2013, and May 15, 2015. The Central Land Use management Committee has handled 7,697 of them and 6,802 remain unresolved, according to lawmakers.

Brig-Gen Kyaw Zan Myint, secretary of the Central Land Use management Committee and deputy minister for home affairs, acknowledged during a parliamentary session on Monday that land policy in Burma has proved fertile grounds for corruption.

"We'll continue investigating the remaining cases. We have to be very careful because of ownership disputes. It is very complicated. … It is everyone's knowledge that some are taking advantage of this [complicated situation]."

In Rangoon alone, there were 1,738 complaints about land-grabs between 2012 and March 2015, with 925 cases yet to be resolved.

"Farmers [in Rangoon] who filed complaints said that authorities have come to their places three or four times to investigate, but still they do not receive a response," said Aung Thein Lin, a Lower House lawmaker from South Okkalapa Township.

"If [the committee] made public which complaints have been handled and how many acres have been returned, we'd be able to respond to victims," he said.

On May 21, a 62-year-old man self-immolated in protest against the Burma Army's confiscation of large areas of land in a village in Taunggyi, Shan State.

Land confiscations by the government have dogged Burma for decades but only in recent years, with the greater freedoms afforded by the quasi-civilian government, has the issue been brought to the fore.

Parliament's Farmland Investigation Commission was established in 2012 to probe the issue and allow victims of land-grabs to lodge claims with the government.

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Dalai Lama Urges Suu Kyi to Help Rohingya Muslims

Posted: 29 May 2015 01:41 AM PDT

Dalai Lama Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi and the Dalai Lama pose for a photo in Prague, Czek Republic, on Sept. 16, 2013. (Photo: The Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama)

NEW DELHI — The Dalai Lama has urged Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's pro-democracy icon and a fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate, to speak out to protect her country's persecuted Rohingya Muslims amid a human trafficking crisis, a newspaper reported Thursday.

The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, told The Australian newspaper that the world cannot ignore the plight of the more than 3,000 desperate migrants who have landed on the shores of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand in recent weeks, often abandoned by human traffickers or freed after their families paid ransoms.

"It's not sufficient to say: 'How to help these people?'" the newspaper quoted him as saying in an interview in the Indian hill town where he lives in exile. "This is not sufficient. There's something wrong with humanity's way of thinking. Ultimately we are lacking concern for others' lives, others' wellbeing."

The refugees are a mixture of poor Bangladeshis in search of work and Rohingya Muslims fleeing widespread persecution from Burma's Buddhist majority. The Dalai Lama said he had discussed the Rohingya in earlier meetings with Suu Kyi.

"I mentioned about this problem and she told me she found some difficulties, that things were not simple but very complicated," he was quoted as saying. "But in spite of that I feel she can do something."

Suu Kyi became an international hero during her years of house arrest for speaking out against the generals who long ruled Burma. She entered politics after her 2010 release, when the junta handed over power to a nominally civilian government.

In a predominantly Buddhist country where there is much animosity toward the Rohingya Muslims, she has remained silent about their persecution.

She now says she never sought to be a human rights champion. Critics say that defending the Rohingya could cost her support if she runs for president.

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UN Council Has First-Ever Briefing on Rights in Burma

Posted: 29 May 2015 01:39 AM PDT

UN human rights Rohingya

Burmese government officials and UN officials stand on a boat used for human trafficking at a jetty outside Sittwe in Arakan State on May 23, 2015. (Photo: Reuters)

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations Security Council on Thursday held its first closed-door briefing on the human rights situation in Burma, focusing on the dire situation of the country's Rohingya Muslim minority, council diplomats said.

UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein briefed the council via video link in a meeting that US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power welcomed on her Twitter feed as a "historic first" for the 15-nation body.

"Zeid gave a powerful briefing on the dire situation and 'institutional discrimination' faced by the Rohingya in Myanmar," a council diplomat present at the meeting told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"They are often violently abused by smugglers, hundreds recently dying at sea," the diplomat said, summarizing Zeid's remarks about the country. "This demands a comprehensive response. Must look at root causes."

Another diplomat confirmed the readout, adding that no immediate council action was expected.

Council members responded to Zeid by calling for the problem to be tackled at its root causes and welcoming a crisis meeting in Bangkok aimed at addressing Southeast Asia's migrant crisis.

According to participants, that meeting of 17 countries from across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and elsewhere in Asia is unlikely to produce a binding agreement or plan of action to save thousands of people believed stranded at sea.

A delegate from Russia said the Security Council was not the appropriate forum for discussing human rights, suggesting it should be handled by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, a diplomat said.

China, Burma's traditional ally, said it was an internal matter for the country's authorities but expressed concern about the situation.

More than 3,000 migrants from Burma and Bangladesh have landed in Indonesia and Malaysia in recent weeks since Thailand launched a crackdown on human trafficking gangs earlier this month. About 2,600 are believed to be still adrift on abandoned boats, relief agencies have said.

Many of those who have made it to shore are members of Burma's 1.1 million-member Rohingya Muslim minority who live in apartheid-like conditions in Burma's Arakan State.

Recently Zeid said the Rohingyas' situation was "one of the principal motivators of these desperate maritime movements."

The Burmese government regards most Rohingyas as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. They enjoy few rights and have suffered violence at the hands of members of the Buddhist majority over the past few years.

The post UN Council Has First-Ever Briefing on Rights in Burma appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

US Hopes Chinese Island-Building Will Spur Asian Response

Posted: 29 May 2015 01:38 AM PDT

South China Sea reclamation

A US Navy crewman aboard a surveillance aircraft views a screen purportedly showing Chinese construction on reclaimed land in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. (Photo: US Navy / Handout via Reuters)

WASHINGTON — By releasing video of Beijing's island reclamation work and considering more assertive maritime actions, the United States is signaling a tougher stance over the South China Sea and trying to spur Asian partners to more action.

The release last week of the surveillance plane footage—showing dredgers and other ships busily turning remote outcrops into islands with runways and harbors—helps ensure the issue will dominate an Asian security forum starting on Friday attended by US Defense Secretary Ash Carter as well as senior Chinese military officials.

As it pushes ahead with a military "pivot" to Asia partly aimed at countering China, Washington wants Southeast Asian nations to take a more united stance against China's rapid acceleration this year of construction on disputed reefs.

The meeting, the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, will be overshadowed by the tensions in the South China Sea, where Beijing has added 1,500 acres to five outposts in the resource-rich Spratly islands since the start of this year.

"These countries need to own it [the issue]," one US defense official said on condition of anonymity, adding that it was counterproductive for the United States to take the lead in challenging China over the issue.

More unified action by the partners, including the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), needed to happen soon because "if you wait four years, it's done," the official said.

While some Asean members, including US ally the Philippines and fellow claimant Vietnam, have been vocal critics of Chinese maritime actions, the group as a whole has been divided on the issue and reluctant to intervene.

But in a sign of growing alarm, the group's leaders last month jointly expressed concern that reclamation activity had eroded trust and could undermine peace in the region.

Experts dismiss the idea of Asean-level joint action any time soon in the South China Sea. "It's absolute fantasy," said Ian Storey of Singapore's Institute on South East Asian Studies.

But stepped-up coordination between some states is possible. Japan's military is considering joining the United States in maritime air patrols over the sea. Japan and the Philippines are expected to start talks next week on a framework for the transfer of defense equipment and technology and to discuss a possible pact on the status of Japanese military personnel visiting the Philippines.

Carter, speaking in Honolulu en route to Singapore, repeated Washington's demand that the island-building stop, saying China was violating the principles of the region's "security architecture" and the consensus for "non-coercive approaches."

China claims 90 percent of the South China Sea, which is believed to be rich in oil and gas, with overlapping claims from Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan.

As part of Washington's drive to energize its allies, a US Navy P-8 reconnaissance plane allowed CNN and Navy camera crews to film Chinese land reclamation activity in the Spratly islands last week and release the footage.

"No one wants to wake up one morning and discover that China has built numerous outposts and, even worse, equipped them with military systems," Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel said.

Ernest Bower, a Southeast Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, said the US goal was to convince China to buy into the international system for dispute resolution rather than impose its sweeping territorial claims on the region.

But in the near term, he added: "I think the Americans are going to have to show China some resolve."

US officials have said Navy ships may be sent within 12 miles (19 kms) of the Chinese-built islands to show that Washington does not recognize Beijing's insistence that it has territorial rights there.

Washington is also pressing ahead with its rebalancing towards Asia, four years after President Barack Obama announced the strategic shift, even as some countries say it is slow to take shape.

The United States has updated its security agreements with treaty allies Japan and the Philippines and is bolstering missile defenses in Japan with an eye on North Korea.

US Marines are training in Australia on a rotational basis, littoral combat ships are operating out of Singapore and new P-8 reconnaissance planes stationed in Japan have flown missions across the region.

Overall, defense officials said, the Navy will increase its footprint by 18 percent between 2014 and 2020. The aim is to have 60 percent of Navy ships oriented toward the Pacific by 2020, compared to 57 percent currently.

Military officials in the Philippines say the US shift has been noticeable, including military exercises, training and ship and aircraft visits. The emphasis has shifted from anti-terrorism to maritime security, one official said.

China has not shown any sign of being deterred. On Tuesday it held a groundbreaking ceremony for two lighthouses in the South China Sea, vowed to increase its "open seas protection," and criticized neighbors who take "provocative actions" on its reefs and islands.

The post US Hopes Chinese Island-Building Will Spur Asian Response appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Indians Scramble for Relief in Heat Wave

Posted: 29 May 2015 01:27 AM PDT

Indians heat wave

Boys sit in a plastic container filled with water as they cool themselves next to a borewell at a farmland on a hot summer day on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. (Photo: Amit Dave / Reuters)

HYDERABAD, India — Eating onions, lying in the shade and splashing into rivers, Indians were doing whatever they could Thursday to stay cool during a brutal heat wave that has killed more than 1,400 in the past month.

But some had no choice but to venture into the heat.

“Either we have to work, putting our lives under threat, or we go without food,” farmer Narasimha said in the badly hit Nalgonda district of southern Andhra Pradesh state.

Meteorological officials have said the heat would likely last several more days—scorching crops, killing wildlife and endangering anyone laboring outdoors. Officials warned people to stay out of the sun, cover their heads and drink plenty of water. Still, poverty forced many to work despite the risks.

“If I don’t work due to the heat, how will my family survive?” said construction worker Mahalakshmi, who earns a daily wage of about $3.10 in Nizamabad, a city about 150 kilometers (93 miles) north of the state capital of Hyderabad.

Most of the 1,412 heat-related deaths so far have occurred in Andhra Pradesh and neighboring Telangana, where temperatures have soared to 47 degrees Celsius (117 degrees Fahrenheit), according to government figures.

“The rains which have eluded us for the last couple of years have created serious drought conditions,” said state minister K.T. Rama Rao in Telangana, which was carved out of Andhra Pradesh as a separate state just last year.

“This is unprecedented…so there is a little bit of panic,” he said. “Hopefully the monsoon will be on time. Hopefully we will receive rain very, very soon.”

Among the most vulnerable were the elderly and the poor, many of whom live in slums or farm huts with no access to air conditioners or sometimes even shade-giving trees.

Those who were able avoided the outdoors, leaving many streets in normally busy cities nearly deserted.

“With so many people dying due to the heat, we are locking the children inside,” teacher Satyamurthy said in Khammam, which registered its highest temperature in 67 years on Saturday when the thermometer hit 48 degrees Celsius (more than 118 Fahrenheit).

Cooling monsoon rains were expected to arrive next week in the southern state of Kerala and gradually advance north in coming weeks.

Until then, volunteers were passing out pouches of salted buttermilk or raw onions—both thought to be hydrating. People used handkerchiefs and scarves to block searing winds and stifling air from their faces.

Across the country, teenagers flocked to water basins and rivers to cool off. Many adults took refuge atop woven cots in the shade.

Newspapers devoted full pages to covering the heat wave and its effects, with headlines saying “Homeless bake in tin shelters” and “birds & animals drop dead.”

In cities like New Delhi, crowds of office workers gathered around stalls selling fruit drinks and iced water, while police officers wearing sweat-soaked shirts squinted into the sun while directing road traffic.

At the zoo, leopards and tigers lay panting in the shade until zoo keepers came by every two hours with hoses. One white tiger rolled around in obvious delight while being sprayed with water. Elephants drank thirstily and lolled in a pond.

“We are even spraying the reptiles,” Delhi Zoo curator Riyaz Khan said, noting fans were also set up to keep enclosures cooler, while the animals were also receiving glucose in their drinking water.

In the northern Indian states of Punjab and Haryana, Sikhs distributed free glasses of rose-scented milk to the public. Brief spurts of rain brought temporary relief to pockets of the nation, including the southern city of Chennai and the eastern city of Jharkhand.

Forecasting service AccuWeather described this as the most intense heat wave in India in recent years. The death toll for Andhra Pradesh alone, at 1,360, was higher than during a 2003 heat wave when 1,300 died in what was then a unified state including both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

Doctors were on alert for heat-related illness like sun stroke, and were telling people venturing outdoors to cover their heads and wear light, loose clothing, said health officer Sarojini in the city of Vishakapatnam who goes by one name, as is common in the region.

Telangana’s school board postponed the start date for colleges for a week from Monday. The state also opened centers where cold water was being served, and changed the working hours for rural employment schemes, disaster management official Sada Bhargavi said.

Hyderabad resident Rajaiah, who goes by one name, was doing his newspaper delivery route at dawn to avoid peak temperatures.

“It is difficult to do this work in this harsh weather, but I have a family to take care of.”

The post Indians Scramble for Relief in Heat Wave appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Burma Warns Against ‘Finger Pointing’ at Migrant Meeting

Posted: 28 May 2015 10:17 PM PDT

Rohingya, boat people

About 74 Rohingya refugees from Burma sit on a wooden boat as they wait for transportation to a temporary shelter in Aceh Besar after arriving at Lampulo harbor, Indonesia, in April 2013. (Photo: Reuters)

BANGKOK — A regional meeting called to address the swelling tide of boat people in Southeast Asia began Friday with a defensive Burmese official criticizing those who blame his country for causing the crisis, saying "finger pointing" would not help.

Htin Linn, the acting director of Burma's Foreign Affairs Ministry, spoke after several officials urged delegates to address the root causes of the problem—a reference to minority Rohingya Muslim refugees who have fled persecution in predominantly Buddhist Burma for years.

Asian nations have been struggling in the face of growing waves of desperate migrants who are landing on the shores of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand in growing numbers. In the last few weeks alone, at least 3,000 people have washed ashore or been rescued by fishermen, and several thousand more are believed to still be at sea after human smugglers abandoned boats amid a regional crackdown.

Some are Bangladeshis who left their impoverished homeland in hope of finding jobs abroad. But many are Rohingya who have fled persecution in Burma, which has denied them basic rights, confined more than 100,000 to camps and denies them citizenship. There are more than 1 million Rohingya living in the country formerly known as Burma.

Volker Turk, the UN's Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees, said there could be no solution if root causes were not addressed.

"This will require full assumption of responsibility by Myanmar [Burma] toward all its people. Granting citizenship is the ultimate goal," he said. "In the interim… recognizing that Myanmar is their own country is urgently required [as well as] access to identity documents and the removal of restrictions on basic freedoms."

Htin Linn shot back in a speech afterward, saying Turk should "be more informed" and casting doubt on whether "the spirit of cooperation is prevailing in the room."

"Finger pointing will not serve any purpose. It will take us nowhere," he said.

Friday's meeting includes representatives from 17 countries directly and indirectly affected by crisis, as well as the United States and Japan, and officials from international organizations such as the UN refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration.

The word "Rohingya" did not appear on the invitation, after Burma threatened to boycott the talks if it did, and most people who spoke at the beginning of Friday's meeting avoided saying it. Burma's government does not recognize Rohingya as an ethnic group, arguing instead they are really Bangladeshis. Bangladesh also does not recognize the Rohingya as citizens.

Southeast Asian governments have largely ignored the issue for years. The problem has recently attracted international attention amid increased media scrutiny in recent months as more migrants and refugees pour out of the Bay of Bengal. In many cases, they pay human smugglers thousands of dollars for passage to another country, but are instead held for weeks or months, while traffickers extort more money from families back home. Rights groups say some migrants have been beaten to death.

Human rights groups have urged those involved in the talks to find a better way of saving the people still stranded at sea, and to put pressure on Burma to end its repressive policies that drive Rohingya to flee.

The director-general of the IOM, William Lacy Swing, said on Thursday that a long-term, comprehensive policy has to be put together, and that no single element is going to solve the issue. He added, "I think Myanmar has to be engaged in any solution involving any of the groups, absolutely."

Speaking at the start of Friday's conference, Thai Foreign Minister Thanasak Patimaprakorn said that "no country can solve this problem alone."

"The influx of irregular migrants in the Indian Ocean has reached an alarming level," Thanasak said. But "while we are trying to help those in need, we must stop the outflow of irregular migrants and combat transnational crime and destroy their networks."

Thailand launched a crackdown on human trafficking last month, prompting smugglers to abandon their boats. Survivors, including women and children, came ashore with first-hand accounts of beatings, ransom kidnappings by traffickers and near-starvation.

Anne C. Richard, the US assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, said "we strongly believe we have to save lives urgently. We have to develop better ways of discussing and meeting on these issues and taking action when people are setting to sea in boats."

Malaysia and Indonesia agreed last week to provide Rohingya with shelter for one year. It is unclear what happens after a year, though both countries have called on the international community to help with resettlement.

Thailand has offered humanitarian help but not shelter. More than 100,000 refugees, mostly of other ethnic groups from Burma, have been living in Thai border camps for decades, and Thailand says it cannot afford any more.

The United States has flown five surveillance flights in the region so far, trying to find migrants at sea. But Pentagon spokeswoman Henrietta Levin said only one possible vessel carrying migrants had been spotted so far— a boat with about 11 people visible on deck on Monday. It was not immediately clear what happened to the boat.

US Navy flights are operating daily out of Subang, Malaysia. Richards said the United States had put in a request to Thailand to allow aircraft to fly out of there, but "we have yet to get the approval we seek."

The post Burma Warns Against 'Finger Pointing' at Migrant Meeting appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Prehistoric Paintings Identified in Central Burma

Posted: 28 May 2015 05:10 PM PDT

Click to view slideshow.

MANDALAY — A rock formation etched with prehistoric drawings and what is believed to have been an animist worship altar has been identified deep in the forests of Pae Dwe mountain, located between Ywa Ngan Township in Shan State and Wun Dwin Township of neighboring Mandalay Division.

The prehistoric art is the first finding of its kind in more than a half century, with the last known discovery inside central Burma's Padah-Lin caves.

Amateur adventurer Win Bo stumbled upon the images on Saturday at an area known locally as Mya Kha Nauk, about eight miles southwest of the famous Padah-Lin caves

A group led by veteran historian Win Maung (Tampawaddy), amateur archaeologists, historians from Mandalay, researchers and Aung Aung Kyaw, the deputy director of the Ministry of Culture's research department, reached the rock shelter on Wednesday and carried out preliminary research at the site.

Handprints in a fading reddish brown color and animal figures resembling tortoises and deer were found on the ceiling of the massive mushroom-like rock, which appears to have been used in more recent times as a shelter and is partially stained by smoke from campfires.

The base of the rock shelter is covered with numerous names, believed to have been etched into the stone using charcoal by more contemporary inhabitants.

One façade of the rock shelter stands about 22 feet high and 20 feet wide and features an ocher elephant figure engraved on its surface. In front of the stone curtain, a rock slab is believed to have been used as a plinth for worship.

"People of prehistoric times used to worship huge animals like elephants as their god. Here, we found the plinth in front of the rock curtain, and it can be said that the area served as the altar where they came and worshipped for safe journeys during hunting and traveling," said Win Maung, the historian.

The elephant figure is about 9 feet height and 14 feet wide. Broken pieces of arrowheads were also discovered at the site.

"The weapons are from the Paleolithic era, and we can assume that the people who lived in Padah-Lin cave reached this area, hunted in this area, took shelter here and created an altar to worship," said Win Maung, possibly making the artifacts 10,000 years older or older.

Piles of stones and rocks leading away from the shelter form what is believed to have been a pathway marking the route to the site.

"In prehistoric times, people used to mark the route by piling up stones. … From all of these findings, we can say that the paintings are from the same period as the paintings from Padah-Lin cave," Win Maung said.

The Padah-Lin caves' walls are also covered in prehistoric paintings and were discovered in 1960. Research and excavation of the Padah-Lin caves was carried out the following year and archeologists discovered tools dating to the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras.

Aung Aung Kyaw of the Ministry of Culture said the ministry is planning to conserve the site of the new discovery and carry out research and excavation work.

"The elephant figure from the rock curtain alone is distinctly visible because its outlines are engraved. Most of the figures from the rock shelter are fading away due to weather and the smoke, requiring urgent care," said Aung Aung Kyaw.

"We are planning to do excavation and research on the paintings very soon, and also need to educate the locals about protecting the heritage," he added.

The post Prehistoric Paintings Identified in Central Burma appeared first on The Irrawaddy.
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