The Irrawaddy Magazine |
- Colorful Campaigns Set to Expand Against Ministry ‘Militarization’
- Memories of an Arms Smuggler in Burma’s Far Northwest
- North Korea Warns it has Restarted all Nuclear Bomb Fuel Plants
- Thai Junta Frees Journalist, Politicians Critical of Regime
- China Continued South China Sea Reclamation Despite Halt Claim — Expert
| Colorful Campaigns Set to Expand Against Ministry ‘Militarization’ Posted: 16 Sep 2015 05:53 AM PDT  Military officers in the foyer of Burma's Parliament in July 2012. (Photo: Kyaw Zwa Moe / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — One month after medical staff across Burma launched a "black ribbon" campaign to protest the appointment of military officers to the Ministry of Health, similar movements have taken root involving professionals of all stripes, concerned over a spate of army appointments to civilian positions. On August 10, doctors, nurses and other medical personnel based in Mandalay launched a campaign calling on medics and supporters to don black ribbons in opposition to the appointment in July of up to 14 army officers to serve in the health ministry. Following the public backlash, Health Minister Than Aung made a verbal pledge to halt the further appointment of military staff. In early September, lawyers based in Naypyidaw launched their own "yellow ribbon" campaign in protest at the appointment of up to 20 military officers to the Supreme Court in Naypyidaw. Lawyer and leader of the campaign, Khin Maung Zaw, told The Irrawaddy the movement had quickly found traction in other urban centers, including Rangoon, Mandalay and Moulmein. "In August, army officers were appointed to the [Naypyidaw] supreme court office in the director and deputy director-general posts. We don't accept this, that's why we started this movement," he said. "The government is now appointing these army officers to ministries intentionally. These men will control the ministries." In a country subjected to nearly five decades of direct military rule, army appointees across various key government departments and ministries have long stifled the influence of civilian staff. Some fear the trend of military appointments to key positions within the bureaucracy will accelerate ahead of the country's coming general election on Nov. 8. "We don't want this militarization until the next government [takes office] beyond the election. If the new government [appears to be] against the military, these army officers will make life difficult," Khin Maung Zaw said. The lawyer said the campaign would expand as other government employees harbored similar frustrations over the militarization of their departments. "Many civilian government officials contacted us and said they wanted to campaign. We will work with other color ribbon campaigners soon," he said. A growing movement of likeminded campaigners is emerging around the country. A group of geologists working in the Ministry of Energy began their own red ribbon campaign on Tuesday after Vice President Nyan Tun's personal assistant, a Lt-Col, was appointed to a senior post. In Mandalay, a group of electrical engineers began a blue ribbon movement in early September and in Naypyidaw, educational professionals, as well as authors and poets, will wear green and purple ribbons respectively for the cause, according to Khin Maung Zaw. "The purple campaign is in support of all color ribbon campaigns around the country," said Thein Khin, a poet based in Naypyidaw's Pyinmana Township in Naypyidaw. "It means we don't like militarization." Kyi Myint, a member of the Myanmar Lawyers' Network in Rangoon, said the multicolored ribbon campaign would spread across the country. "Army officers do as they are ordered and work for their chief. They don't serve the people, that's why we are campaigning. I believe these campaigns will win," he said. The post Colorful Campaigns Set to Expand Against Ministry 'Militarization' appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Memories of an Arms Smuggler in Burma’s Far Northwest Posted: 16 Sep 2015 03:52 AM PDT  A UWSA soldier in Panghsang. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Zo Win thought he was about to strike it rich when he agreed to venture beyond northwestern Burma to retrieve automatic rifles for insurgents in northeast India, but that's not quite how things turned out. The outcome could have been a whole lot worse, to be sure. Today Zo Win is out of the business, and spends his time doing relief work in Chin State, his hearth and home, which was devastated by flooding and landslides related to Cyclone Komen in late July and early August. After years skirting the authorities, he has returned to the quiet mountain life he left during his days in university. It was 2007 when he and three of his close friends, all ethnic Chin, were recruited by arms dealers with an enticing proposal: fly to Shan State, bring back some guns, make a whole lot of cash. Zo Win recalls the dreams that spun around in his head at the time. He could open up a shop. He could start his own business and turn it into a family trade. "But my dreams did not come true," he said as we sat in a flood-affected village in northern Chin State, where I was reporting on relief efforts when I happened upon the unexpected trove of militant tales. The first time he set out on the dangerous trek was in 2007, he said. He and his friends were instructed to go to Wa, a small special administrative region on the border with China. Headquartered in Panghsang, the Wa region has the biggest and strongest ethnic armed group in Burma, outfitted with state-of-the-art hardware, much of it locally manufactured. His work later took him to several other arms smuggling routes over the next three years; to Thailand and adjacent Karen State, a part of southeastern Burma partially under the control of ethnic armed groups. The weapons were destined for rebels in Northeast India, fighting a gruesome civil war for an independent Nagaland. Getting to Panghsang wasn't easy, he recalled. The region is couched in a hilly corner of Shan State, and the roads along the way are well protected by armed guards at checkpoints. They started out in Kale, a town in Sagaing Division on the border with Chin State, from which they drove to Mandalay. Then they caught a plane, planting them in Tachilek, a Shan State trade town near the Thai border. From there everything was out of their control. The group was intercepted at the airport by a carful of soldiers for the United Wa State Army (UWSA), who became their escorts for the next few days on a whirlwind tour of one of Burma's most mysterious regions. "They took us to visit many places," Zo Win said, "poppy farms and arms factories, once we arrived in Panghsan." They were put up in a hotel, where they had to pretend to be members of the UWSA so as not to alarm the locals. It was and remains rare for strangers to come to the reclusive region, and they certainly did not want to arouse suspicion that they were weapons smugglers. The day after their arrival, the group was taken to two arms showrooms, displaying a full spread of hardware ranging from semi-automatic rifles modeled after the AK-47 and M16, small pistols, mounted heavy-caliber machine guns, even rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). "They even had sniper rifles, but they were too long to fit in our bags so we didn't buy them," he said. Before they made any binding purchases, they were taken up to hilltop to try out the merchandise. After testing to their satisfaction, Zo Win said, "we bought about 350 guns from them." Several years down the road, he no longer remembers how much the weapons cost, but he said the current price for a semi-automatic runs about 2.5 million kyat, just shy of US$2,000. The team traveled with an enormous stash of crisp US currency, he said. Once they got the goods, the team was returned to Tachilek, where they bribed some civil servants who worked at the airport to hide the weapons in the plane's cargo chamber. Reclaiming them in Mandalay—he didn't quite explain the intricacies of this encounter—they made it smoothly back to the border between Chin State and northeast India, where they met the Naga arms brokers. That's when the disappointment set in. Zo Win had been given the impression that the profit margin for such dangerous work would be much, much higher than the 3 million kyats he was paid. The disillusion didn't dissuade him, however, and he agreed to do the job a few more times in the years that followed. "I was a young person at the time," he said. "I expected to be a rich person… but my dream did not come true."
The post Memories of an Arms Smuggler in Burma's Far Northwest appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| North Korea Warns it has Restarted all Nuclear Bomb Fuel Plants Posted: 15 Sep 2015 11:15 PM PDT  A North Korean soldier looks south through field glasses at the truce village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone dividing the two Koreas, in Paju, about 55 km north of Seoul, April 23, 2013. (Photo: Lee Jae-Won / Reuters) PYONGYANG, North Korea — With a big anniversary drawing near, North Korea declared Tuesday it has upgraded and restarted all of its atomic fuel plants—meaning it could possibly make more, and more sophisticated, nuclear weapons. The statement, coming just a day after it said it is ready to conduct more rocket launches any time it sees fit, has heightened concerns the North may soon either conduct a launch—which Washington and its allies see as a pretext for testing missile technology—or hold another test of nuclear weapons that it could conceivably place on such a rocket. Either would be sure to get world attention and be milked by North Korea's state media as major achievements by Kim Jong Un and his ruling regime. But North Korea's recent statements also fit a pattern of using claimed improvements in its nuclear and missile programs—many of which don't lead to launches or nuclear tests—to push for talks with the United States that could eventually provide the impoverished country with concessions and eased sanctions, or backfire and deepen its standoff with the US and its allies. North Korea has spent decades trying to develop operational nuclear weapons. It is thought to have a small arsenal of atomic bombs and an impressive array of short- and medium-range missiles. But it has yet to demonstrate that it can produce nuclear bombs small enough to place on a missile, or missiles that can reliably deliver their bombs to faraway targets. Still, it has conducted three nuclear tests and a series of steadily improving long-range rocket launches, and some analysts see the announcements as foreshadowing another launch ahead of the anniversary celebration or a fourth nuclear test, which would push North Korea further along in its nuclear aims. North Korea said Tuesday in its state media that, as it pledged to do in 2013, the plutonium and highly enriched uranium facilities at its main Nyongbyon nuclear complex have finally been "rearranged, changed or readjusted and they started normal operation." It said its scientists had improved "the levels of nuclear weapons with various missions in quality and quantity." North Korea agreed to shut down the Nyongbyon reactor in 2007 in return for emergency energy assistance and steps toward the normalization of relations with the US and Japan in a deal resulting from six-party talks involving the US, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas. In 2009, North Korea pulled out of the denuclearization talks and expelled international inspectors after the UN Security Council condemned Pyongyang for a failed satellite launch that was considered a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile. The North later pledged to resume its nuclear enrichment program at Nyongbyon. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the United States and other nations around the world will not accept North Korea as a nuclear state. "That's why we urge North Korea to refrain from actions and rhetoric that threaten regional peace and security and focus instead on fulfilling its international obligations and commitments," Earnest said. "We will work with our partners in the context of the six-party talks to try to return North Korea to a posture of fulfilling those commitments that they have made." Earnest said the United States is aware of actions North Korea has taken. "We will repeat our call that North Korea should refrain from the irresponsible provocations that aggravate regional tension and should focus instead on fulfilling its international obligations and commitments," Earnest said. North Korea, an autocracy run by the same family since 1948, closely controls information about its nuclear program. As a result, just what is happening at Nyongbyon is unclear. North Korea booted out international inspectors in 2009, and independent assessments by outside experts since then have been spotty. At various points in the decades-long standoff over its nuclear ambitions, North Korea has said it has shut down or restarted its atomic fuel production. In 2013, it said it would restart a plutonium reactor that had been shuttered under a 2007 disarmament agreement. Satellite imagery earlier this year showed signs it still wasn't operating fully. A uranium enrichment facility unveiled to a visiting American scientist in 2010 presumably gives North Korea a second way to make fissile material for bombs. On Monday, the North's aerospace agency said it is ready to launch new satellites aboard long-range rockets. Many analysts abroad have expected North Korea would launch a rocket as part of celebrations of the Oct. 10 ruling Workers' Party founding anniversary. The world will "clearly see a series of satellites soaring into the sky at times and locations determined" by the Workers' Party, an unidentified director at the North's National Aerospace Development Administration director was quoted as saying by state media. North Korea has said its satellite launches are peaceful and meant for weather observation. The United States and its allies consider them covers for banned tests of long-range missiles. Ballistic missiles and rockets used in satellite launches share similar bodies, engines and other technology. South Korea's Defense Ministry said Tuesday that it had not detected any sign indicating North Korea is preparing a rocket launch. Analysts in Seoul, meanwhile, said North Korea's announcements suggest an imminent nuclear test, although that is far from clear at this point. After several failures, North Korea put its first satellite into space with a long-range rocket launched in late 2012. The UN said it was a banned test of ballistic missile technology and imposed sanctions. North Korea conducted its third nuclear test in February 2013, inviting further international condemnation and sanctions. Later that year it threatened Seoul and Washington with nuclear strikes. Despite the domestic propaganda gains and value to the North's military, a rocket launch or especially a nuclear test could come at a heavy cost for its regime. China, North Korea's last major ally and aid benefactor, made it clear that it doesn't want to see a rocket launch by North Korea. "As a sovereign country, North Korea has the right to the peaceful use of outer space, but it's restricted by relevant resolutions by the UN Security Council," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a regular news briefing Tuesday. "The resolutions by the UN Security Council should be fully implemented." North Korea's latest announcements also raise doubts about recent signs of easing animosities between the rival Koreas, which agreed to hold reunions next month of families separated by the Korean War. Before a thaw, the two Koreas had threatened each other with war in August in the wake of mine explosions blamed on the North that maimed two South Korean soldiers earlier that month. The Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. About 28,500 US troops are stationed in South Korea. Washington and Seoul say the troops must remain as deterrence against potential aggression from North Korea, but the North says they must be removed if there is to be peace on the peninsula. The post North Korea Warns it has Restarted all Nuclear Bomb Fuel Plants appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Thai Junta Frees Journalist, Politicians Critical of Regime Posted: 15 Sep 2015 11:03 PM PDT  Thai journalist Pravit Rojanaphruk, right, poses with a man he says was detained by Thailand's military junta for reading a copy of George Orwell's "1984" in public. (Photo: Facebook / Pravit Rojanaphruk) BANGKOK — Thailand's military government on Tuesday freed a journalist and two politicians who were detained for defying orders against criticizing its rule. Junta spokesman Col. Winthai Suvaree confirmed the releases of Pravit Rojanaphruk of The Nation newspaper and two politicians associated with the elected government that was toppled by the army in May 2014. One of the freed politicians, former Energy Minister Pichai Naripthaphan, announced his release in a Facebook post, and Pravit did the same on Twitter. "Released by Thai junta already. Thanks to friends, colleagues & supporters. My ideology is intact. Will talk more later. #Thailand," Pravit said in his post Tuesday evening. His last tweet on Sunday before being detained said, "Freedom can't be maintained if we're not willing to defend it." The Nation reported that Pravit signed an agreement not to participate in activities opposing last year's coup. The junta says such detentions, normally for up to a week, are for "attitude adjustment." The detentions drew sharp criticism from international human rights and media groups. "Amnesty International was appalled by the detention of these prisoners of conscience and disappointed that their release was accompanied with tight restrictions," Josef Benedict, deputy director of its Southeast Asia and Pacific regional office, said in a statement. "This is release but no freedom. Release restrictions that tightly muzzle hundreds who have been arbitrarily detained, and military powers of detention violate Thailand's international human rights obligations on the right to liberty, movement, freedom of association and expression." It was the second time Pravit had been detained by the junta, which called in large numbers of politicians and potential dissidents in the months after the coup, and recently appears to have resumed a crackdown on dissent. The junta's position is that criticism could destabilize the nation, which it says needs unity after almost a decade of sometimes violent political conflict. In his Facebook post, Pichai thanked the media for reporting his situation and his friends and rights groups for seeking his release. The former energy minister, who had been publicly critical of the junta's economic policies, said that because of the unusual political situation, he would refrain from giving further interviews on the economy or the effects of politics on it. He added, however, that he believed time would prove everything he had already stated, while saying he wished to support the government's efforts to solve the country's problems. Pichai and the other released politician, Karun Hosakul, are members of the Pheu Thai party of former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who was forced out of office by a controversial court decision shortly before last year's coup. A 2006 military coup ousted the government of her brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The post Thai Junta Frees Journalist, Politicians Critical of Regime appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| China Continued South China Sea Reclamation Despite Halt Claim — Expert Posted: 15 Sep 2015 10:40 PM PDT  Chinese dredging vessels are purportedly seen in the waters around Mischief Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea in this still image from video taken by a P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft provided by the United States Navy May 21, 2015. (Reuters) WASHINGTON — China was carrying out land reclamation in contested waters of the South China Sea this month, more than four weeks after saying it had stopped such activity, a US expert said on Tuesday, citing recent satellite images. The evidence of continued dredging in the Spratly archipelago could complicate a visit to the United States by Chinese President Xi Jinping next week, when US concerns about China's assertive pursuit of territorial claims in Asia are expected to be high on the agenda. Bonnie Glaser, of Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said images taken in early September showed dredging activity at both Subi Reef and Mischief Reef in Spratlys. The dredgers at Subi could be seen pumping sediment on to areas bordered by recently built sea walls and widening the channel for ships to enter waters enclosed by the reef. At Mischief Reef, a dredger was expanding a channel to enable easier access for ships, possibly for future use as a naval base, Glaser said. On Aug. 5, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing had halted land reclamation in the South China Sea. Glaser said China's activity appeared to be focused on construction for military use. Images of Fiery Cross Reef showed a completed and freshly painted 3,000 meter runway, helipads, a radar dome, a surveillance tower and possible satellite communication facilities, she said. Security experts say a 3,000 meter strip would be able to accommodate most Chinese military aircraft. Glaser said China's apparent preparations to build similar airstrips on Subi and Mischief Reefs raised questions about whether it would challenge freedom of navigation in the air and sea in the future. "The persistence of dredging, along with construction and militarization on China's artificial islands, underscore Beijing's unwillingness to exercise self-restraint and look for diplomatic paths to reduce tensions," she said. "On the eve of President Xi Jinping's visit to the United States, Beijing appears to be sending a message to President Barack Obama that China is determined to advance its interests in the South China Sea even if doing so results in heightened tensions with the United States." On Monday, Greg Poling, director of CSIS's Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), which obtained the images, said three airstrips in the Spratlys would allow China to threaten all air traffic over features it has reclaimed there. China's Foreign Ministry maintains China has "indisputable sovereignty" over the Spratly Islands and has a right to establish military facilities there. The post China Continued South China Sea Reclamation Despite Halt Claim — Expert appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
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