The Irrawaddy Magazine

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• Govt to Select Final Telecoms Partners in September
• Australia’s Secretive Refugee Camps Run into New hurdle: Ethical Investors
• Rioters Rampage Against Residence Law in Northeast India
• Sri Lanka Leader Calls for Reforms to Promote Ethnic Harmony
• Post-Coup Ties Firm across the Burma-Thai Divide

Govt to Select Final Telecoms Partners in September Posted: 02 Sep 2015 03:46 AM PDT A year after two foreign operators revolutionized Burma's mobile market, the government is seeking a local company to spearhead the fourth and final telco license. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Burma's communications ministry will announce this month which local firms will comprise a consortium that will become the country's fourth and final telecoms operator, according to a ministry official. Chit Wai, deputy permanent secretary of Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday that the winning bidders will be announced by the end of September. Last July, a year after two foreign operators revolutionized Burma's mobile market, the government called on local companies to bid for the country's remaining telecom spot. Seventeen local firms have entered the bid to become part of a newly formed public company, Chit Wai said,, and the government is now looking into which have met the prerequisites set by the ministry. Those approved for inclusion in the public company will partner with an overseas firm selected by the ministry. "I can't say how many local companies will be rejected. That's why we're checking details. The committee expects to announce winners at end of the month," he said. He declined to say which companies applied, however. The ministry requires that firms demonstrate possession of adequate financial capabilities –at least 3 billion kyats (US$2.3 million—as well as enough capital reserves to form a new public telecommunications company. "There's no limit for how many companies can apply. As long as they're following the rules and meet the criteria, we will select them," Chit Wai said. Interested companies do not have the opportunity to choose their overseas counterpart. The successful bidder is expected to accept the selection committee's decision regarding a foreign partner. The winner is also responsible for providing technical services, market strategies, and a share of both the licensing fees and consulting fees to help in the selection of a foreign partner. In the local telecom market, two foreign operators—Telenor and Ooredoo—and state-owned Myanmar Post and Telecommunication (MPT) have  been providing fierce competition by offering various services to users in Burma. Among these services are reduced competitive call rates and attempts to build more towers across the country. Thiri Kyar Nyo, a communication officer for Ooredoo, welcomed the competition, remarking that "it's good for the country, too, since all operators will try to attract users with new services." "Moreover, building more towers will bring additional improved services," she said. In late January, MPT claimed to have reached 11 million subscribers, well ahead of Telenor's 3.4 million and Ooredoo's 2.2 million at the end of last year. All three firms are concentrating on expanding telecommunications infrastructure into the country's northern hinterlands and border areas, with combined funding commitments currently totaling around US$4 billion.     The post Govt to Select Final Telecoms Partners in September appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Australia’s Secretive Refugee Camps Run into New hurdle: Ethical Investors Posted: 01 Sep 2015 09:51 PM PDT A woman holds a poster during a 2013 rally in support of asylum seekers in central Sydney. (Photo: Daniel Munoz / Reuters) SYDNEY — Investors in the company that runs Australia’s secretive refugee camps are starting to flex their muscles in a way that may achieve what refugee advocates and politicians have failed to for years—greater transparency and oversight. Australia’s offshore immigration detention system, which involves intercepting refugee boat arrivals and processing applications for protection visas on islands outside the migration zone, has earned the criticism of the United Nations because of near-nonexistent access for outside observers. Transfield Services Ltd, which operates the camps, told local media it would consider taking fund managers to its centres on the Pacific island nation of Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island—an offer that activist groups say they have been denied since 2012. “Sure, we can go, we will go,” Simon Mawhinney, managing director of Australian fund manager Allan Gray Australia Pty Ltd, told Reuters on Monday. “But it’s important for other people to go and for us to seek their advice and counsel upon their return, because they’re the ones who know more.” Mawhinney told Reuters his firm plans to use its position as Transfield’s biggest shareholder to fight for better access for human rights groups. Transfield has faced an especially harsh backlash since taking the contract to run the Manus centre in 2014, including being forced to cancel its sponsorship of the Sydney Biennale when artists refused to participate because of its involvement. Allegations of detainee abuse prompted Australian health industry-focused HESTA Super Fund to dump its 5 percent Transfield stake last month. HESTA Super Fund said it sold its stake because the “mandatory, prolonged, indefinite, and non-reviewable nature of detention at asylum seeker processing centres breaches the fundamental principles of international human rights law”. Australian teacher pension fund NGS Super said it was selling its Transfield shares on “moral grounds”. Transfield said on Monday it expects the immigration department to renew its AU$1.2 billion (US$849.48 million) detention centre deal for five years. Its current 20-month contract expires on Oct 31. A Transfield spokesman said while the company is the preferred contractor, it hasn’t signed a new contract, and it would be inappropriate to comment on future plans. An Australian Senate committee meanwhile recommended speeding up the removal of asylum seeker children and their families from the Nauru detention centre, saying it was “not adequate, appropriate or safe”, and demanding an audit of allegations of sexual abuse. It also recommended more access for journalists and rights groups. Next Battlefront Shares in Transfield have fallen 34 percent so far this year. They closed more than 7 percent lower on Tuesday. The pressure on Transfield suggests refugee treatment will be the next battlefront in the conflict between companies in ethically ambivalent industries and shareholder activists. Allegations of detainee abuse have also generated talk of possible legal retribution, though any legal backlash will not directly affect shareholders. “It’s one of the basic principles of corporate law that the company’s liabilities don’t become the shareholder’s liabilities,” said Professor Stephen Bottomley, dean of law at Australian National University in Canberra. “Shareholders are liable only to pay any money they owe on their shares. The only impact they feel from the company’s wrongdoing is through a drop in share value.” Australian Shareholders’ Association Chair Diana D’Ambra said she expects Allan Gray’s pressure on Transfield to force the company to disclose better information at least. “It may well be that this sort of thing will become more front of mind for fund managers, and that’s a good thing,” she added. Transfield Services was previously part of privately held Transfield Holdings, founded by two Italian immigrants. Transfield Holdings said in September last year it had sold its entire stake in the services company.   The post Australia’s Secretive Refugee Camps Run into New hurdle: Ethical Investors appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Rioters Rampage Against Residence Law in Northeast India Posted: 01 Sep 2015 09:44 PM PDT The Indo-Burmese bridge at the border town of Moreh, in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur. (Photo: Rupak De Chowdhuri / Reuters) GAUHATI — Rioters set fire to the homes of seven lawmakers during a rampage to protest new legislation defining who can claim to be from the northeastern Indian state of Manipur, police said Tuesday. One person died while trapped in a burning house on Monday night, and two died when police fired to disperse the arsonists. On Tuesday, hundreds of people angry about the deaths circled the town’s police station and protested. The police, outnumbered, opened fire again. Two people were killed and another three were hospitalized with critical injuries. Police imposed a curfew Tuesday night and deployed paramilitary forces amid heavy tension in Churachandpur town 70 kilometers (42 miles) southwest of the state capital of Imphal. Lawmaker N. Biren Singh said the law demanding people provide proof that their families lived in Manipur before 1951 is aimed at keeping “outsiders” including migrants from settling in the state bordering Burma. But Singh said authorities had no plans to begin checking documents soon. “Those who are protesting may be harboring fears the authorities might now start looking at relevant documents to see if anyone has settled down in the state after 1951,” Singh said. The protesters said that setting such a limit excludes many who arrived legitimately after that date or who don’t have proper documents. India’s remote northeastern region comprises a patchwork of ethnic and tribal communities who are distributed unevenly across seven states and spilling over into neighboring Burma. Tensions have erupted in recent years as those in India worry about refugees from Burma taking jobs and land.   The post Rioters Rampage Against Residence Law in Northeast India appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Sri Lanka Leader Calls for Reforms to Promote Ethnic Harmony Posted: 01 Sep 2015 09:35 PM PDT President Maithripala Sirisena, front, stands for the national anthem during a ceremony to swear in Sri Lanka’s new prime minister in Colombo, Aug. 21. (Photo: Dinuka Liyanawatte / Reuters) COLOMBO — Sri Lanka’s president asked the country’s newly elected lawmakers on Tuesday to draft political reforms to promote ethnic reconciliation and economic development in the post-war era. President Maithripala Sirisena said the new parliament’s responsibilities are to make the political decisions that had been delayed and to draft reforms. He has previously acknowledged that Sri Lanka has failed to heal its deep ethnic divide since the civil war ended six years ago. The speech was Sirisena’s inaugural address to the 225-member parliament at its first meeting since the election on Aug. 17. The island’s two main political parties have agreed to form a government of consensus with view to address national reconciliation and overcoming economic hardships borne from the conflict. Sirisena said he would give his leadership and support to the lawmakers to build ethnic and religious harmony. His speech came nearly a week after the United States, in a major shift of their policy, said that it wants to sponsor a resolution at next month’s UN human rights session that is supportive of Sri Lanka’s intent to conduct its own investigation into alleged war crimes. Relations between the US and Sri Lanka were strained under previous President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who oversaw a military campaign that defeated separatist Tamil Tiger rebels and ended a decades-long civil war. Both sides were accused of serious human rights violations amounting to war crimes, and an earlier UN report said some 40,000 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed in just the last few months of the fighting, largely as a result of the government’s shelling. US-Sri Lanka bilateral relations have improved since Sirisena broke away from Rajapaksa’s government and won the Jan. 8 presidential election, defeating Rajapaksa with support from the opposition political parties. To promote national reconciliation, Sirisena has started releasing private lands occupied by the military during the civil war in the northern region where civil raged.   The post Sri Lanka Leader Calls for Reforms to Promote Ethnic Harmony appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Post-Coup Ties Firm across the Burma-Thai Divide Posted: 01 Sep 2015 06:59 PM PDT Thailand's Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha toasts during a business luncheon in Tokyo, Japan, February 9, 2015. (Photo: Toru Hanai / Reuters) In June last year, Chiang Mai-based fortuneteller Warin Buawiratlert—the Thai military establishment's soothsayer of choice over many years—proffered his take on the rise of Thailand's then newly installed coup leader Prayuth Chan-ocha. Prayuth was a trusted soldier for King Naresuan the Great in a past life, Warin advised, citing the revered warrior-king and bane of the Burmese who ruled Siam from 1590 to 1605. The following week, the fifth installment of a film biopic on King Naresuan—played by Wanchana Sawatdee, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Thai army—opened in cinemas across the country. The junta, in power for less than a month following the May 22 coup, gave away free tickets. The film franchise plays to a familiar trope of Thai popular culture and nationalist readings of Thai history: of the heroic Siamese defending or reclaiming the Kingdom from the invading Burmese hordes. "This is part of how the nation state has been created in Thailand… the process of national identity building. We need to have an enemy," Thai academic Pavin Chachavalpongpun told The Irrawaddy. But while this time-honored casting of Thai heroes and Burmese villains remains a feature of some nationalistic films and school history textbooks, it is a narrative far removed from the present state of bilateral relations.  Relationship at its 'Strongest' Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Monday, Burma's Ambassador to Thailand Win Maung, a former major in the Burmese army, echoed what officials on both sides have been at pains to point out in recent months. That today, "the relationship between Thailand and Myanmar has reached its strongest point." Burma's army chief, Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, did little to dispel this view during a visit to Bangkok last week when he praised "progress" in Thailand under the junta during a meeting with Prayuth and talked up cooperation between both nations' armed forces. Win Maung said the current state of relations was the product of years of diplomacy spanning various Thai administrations. "It has been five years of building up. I have been here for seven years. We have been in a good relationship with Thailand since ex-prime minister Abhisit [Vejjajiva] and Yingluck [Shinawatra] until the current government," he said. But behind the cozy rhetoric, perennial issues such as the registration process for hundreds of thousands of undocumented Burmese migrant workers, appear no closer to resolution. Indeed, the Thai junta has shown an aptitude more for brief, periodic crackdowns on the issue of the moment, rather than addressing problems at their core. "Essentially Thai-Burma relations have always been erratic. There's mutual distrust over issues like ethnic insurgencies, the drug trade, border demarcation, the Rohingya leaving Burma for Thailand… there are so many questions and obstacles in this bilateral relationship," Pavin recently told The Irrawaddy. "They still have to work out which issues they want to tackle and which issues they want to put aside, for the sake of good relations." Clear Priorities Relations have centered primarily on the economic realm, where the pledges and agreements—many aspirational—have flowed liberally in recent months. In July, the two countries inked a visa exemption deal, Burma opened a new consulate in Chiang Mai and a tripartite pact involving Japan was signed in Tokyo on developing the long-stalled Dawei special economic zone—an ambitious and controversial undertaking that would include a deep sea port, power plants and an industrial estate in the coastal capital of Burma's Tenasserim Division. Both countries have vowed to boost two-way trade, worth US$8.15 billion in 2014 according to the Thai commerce ministry, to US$10-12 billion by 2017. While bilateral meetings continue to feature vague pledges of cooperation on cross-border issues including trafficking, illegal migration and the narcotics trade, border affairs are increasingly viewed through the lens of economic development. Among the junta's first decrees was to revive a decade-old initiative to establish a series of special economic zones in border areas, including in Mae Sot, Tak province, as well as Chiang Rai and Kanchanaburi provinces, to encourage investment from Thai firms backed by incentives such as low-cost migrant labor. A ceremony inaugurating construction of a second "Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge" connecting Mae Sot to Karen State's Myawaddy was held on Sunday. Political Sympathies The economic imperatives around which both nations have found cause for collaboration are also buttressed at present by, as Thai scholar Thongchai Winichakul put it to The Irrawaddy, "mutual political sympathies." Both countries' militaries have long wielded significant political clout—a status quo that appears unlikely to change in the short term. Burma's 2008 Constitution enshrines the army's influential role in the legislature and executive and mandates the commander-in-chief's "right to take over and exercise State sovereign power" in a state of emergency. The Thai junta now appears to be following the Burmese example. A new constitution currently being drafted by a handpicked National Reform Council provides for a partially unelected senate, permits a non-lawmaker to be appointed prime minister and would allow for a special committee stacked with military officers to intervene in case of national crisis. As Thai legal scholar Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang recently wrote in an article for New Mandala, under the new junta-drafted charter, "the military does not have to carry out a coup d'état because the coup has already been written in to law." If the charter is a window into Prayuth's vision of "Thai-style democracy," it appears eerily similar to Burma's own "disciplined" variety. The Irrawaddy's Nyein Nyein contributed reporting. The post Post-Coup Ties Firm across the Burma-Thai Divide appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

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