The Irrawaddy Magazine |
- Parliament Rejects USDP Lawmaker’s Proposal to Challenge US Sanctions
- Schools Closed and Civilians Displaced as Fighting Between Burma Army and KIA Intensifies
- Myanmar Citizens Bank to Begin Trading on Yangon Stock Exchange
- Confronting Land Confiscation Allegations, Arakan State Chief Minister Orders Halt to Renewed Construction in Industrial Ward
- Eight NCA Signatories Call For Second Meeting With State Counselor
- US-Based Burmese Muslim Group Calls on NLD Govt to End Rohingya Persecution, Restore Rights
- ‘Burma is Already a Game-Changer for Asean’: Kavi Chongkittavorn
- Peace Process, Myitsone Dam on Agenda for Suu Kyi’s China Trip
| Parliament Rejects USDP Lawmaker’s Proposal to Challenge US Sanctions Posted: 15 Aug 2016 08:53 AM PDT  Members of Parliament attend a meeting in the Lower House in Naypyidaw in March 2016. (Photo: Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters) RANGOON — In a vote in the Lower House of Parliament on Monday, MPs opted out of discussing a Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) member's proposal related to a review of US sanctions. Mandalay Division's Thazi Township lawmaker Than Soe of the USDP had proposed that the government attempt to pressure the US to lift sanctions; the request comes three months after the United States Department of the Treasury again expanded its annual sanction term for Burma in May. "There is no change to the US sanctions on Myanmar even though the country is now changing. That's why I urged the government to address this issue," he said in Parliament. American sanctions on Burma were initiated in 1997. In 2012, the US restored diplomatic ties with Burma; one year after ex-President Thein Sein's quasi-civilian government came to power. Than Soe repeatedly emphasized that the US sanctions' aim was to place pressure on the country to adopt a more democratic political system; it was right to do so when Burma was under military rule, he argued, but he said the country is currently changing and if sanctions remain, they could harm Burma's development. "US sanctions could delay the country's development. That's why the government should try to get sanctions lifted," he said. After Than Soe put forward his proposal, Lower House Speaker Win Myint called on lawmakers to vote whether a further discussion should be held on the issue. The proposal was rejected after 219 lawmakers voted it down, and a minority of 151 lawmakers supported it. Mi Kon Chan, a National League for Democracy (NLD) Lower House lawmaker representing Paung Township in Mon State, said that parliamentarians will only agree to discuss issues which support the people's and the country's interests. "We won't agree to a proposal if it only focuses on a minority of people. This means the US sanctions only impact a few people here," she said. Many businesspeople in Burma—particularly those with connections to the ex-miltiary elite—remain on the US treasury department's Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list of people with whom American citizens are barred from doing business. In February, at a meeting of Southeast Asian leaders in California, Burma's former vice president Nyan Tun requested that US sanctions on Burma be lifted, arguing that, due to sanctions, Burma had received comparatively less developmental assistance from the US than other Asean countries. The post Parliament Rejects USDP Lawmaker's Proposal to Challenge US Sanctions appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Schools Closed and Civilians Displaced as Fighting Between Burma Army and KIA Intensifies Posted: 15 Aug 2016 08:49 AM PDT  Kachin Independence Army soldiers are pictured in northern Burma. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) Fighting has been ongoing for nearly a week between members of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Burma Army, leading to school closures and civilians fleeing their villages along the highway connecting Kachin State's Tanai and Hpakant townships. Clashes have increased in the Shahtu Zup village area in Tanai Township between members of the KIA Battalion 14 and government troops. Tang Sen, a KIA lieutenant colonel, spoke to The Irrawaddy from the front line on Monday. "We just returned from the fighting area on foot; there was just one hour of fighting today," he said. Tang Sen is also the commander of the KIA's Battalion 6, based nearby in Tanai Township. Fighting has often broken out in that area as well, he added, from August 4-7. "Our troops have had a lot of movement. We went up and down the highway, and fighting broke out as our troops met their troops," he said. He added that there have been two clashes between members of KIA's Battalion 14 and the Burma Army; one occurred between the two villages of Nan Yar Nar and Tamadawsu, and another happened near the site of a local bridge, named Datha Nyi Noung. "The first clash took one-and-a-half hours of fighting," Tang Sen said. The Kachin News Group reported on August 13 that all schools in the KIA-controlled area near Shahtu Zup had been closed. Miners in the area and around 1,000 villagers sought refuge in a safe area as fighting in the area intensified. The military-owned Myawady Daily reported on Sunday that one villager in Shahtu Zup was wounded by a landmine on August 10, and accused the KIA of planting the mine so that it would maim the villager. According to another report from the Myawady Daily, Burma Army troops found the bodies of two members of the KIA after fighting broke out near the town of Kamaing in Hpakant Township on August 8. The Irrawaddy previously reported that on August 8, KIA soldiers from Battalion 6 ambushed a convoy of Burma Army trucks using the road highway the highway connecting Mogaung and Hpakant townships, destroying two vehicles—one near the village of Nam Sheng, and one near Gauri, where some police were also wounded. The post Schools Closed and Civilians Displaced as Fighting Between Burma Army and KIA Intensifies appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Myanmar Citizens Bank to Begin Trading on Yangon Stock Exchange Posted: 15 Aug 2016 07:15 AM PDT  People wait at Yangon Stock Exchange (YSE) in Yangon, Myanmar March 25, 2016. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun RANGOON — Myanmar Citizens Bank (MCB), in which the Ministry of Commerce holds a minority stake, is scheduled to begin trading on the Yangon Stock Exchange (YSX) on Aug. 26, after approval was issued on Aug. 12, Thet Tun Oo, senior executive officer of the YSX, told the Irrawaddy. MCB has been listed since December, when the YSX opened. Its base share price will be announced on the YSX website the day before trading begins. The bank was founded in 1991, initially to process foreign exchange for exporters, at a time when this service was limited to two state banks in Burma. The Ministry of Commerce held a 55 percent share till 2011 —when the foreign exchange market was liberalize. Thereafter, its share lessened year by year. The ministry's stake in MCB now stands at only 10 percent, although Toe Aung Myint, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Commerce, chairs the bank. Maung Aung, senior economist and independent director at MCB, said that, although the base price has yet to be decided, he expected it would be less than other listed companies' prices. "I expect that the base price would be less than 20,000 kyats per share (US$17)—potentially 18,000 kyats ($15)—but we still need to discuss it with the YSX," he said. "Because MCB has been semi-government owned, it is strong for investors," he said. He mentioned that shares were sold for 5,000 kyats when the MCB was founded in 1991. At that time, its capital was 1 billion kyats. MCB's authorized share capital is now 75 billion kyats ($63 million), with 52 billion kyats ($43.7 million) in paid-up capital: 5.12 billion kyats ($4.3 million) from the Ministry of Commerce and 46.88 billion kyats ($39.4 million) from the public, according to MCB's website. Five companies have been listed on the YSX since December: First Myanmar Investment (FMI), Myanmar Citizens Bank, Myanmar Thilawa SEZ Holdings Public Limited (MTSH), First Private Bank and Great Hor Kham. However, only FMI and MTSH have traded since then. As of August 15, the YSX has a shares volume of 4,099, with a total value of 116 million kyats ($97,522). YSX's market capitalization is now at 633,102 million kyats ($532.3 million), according to its website. The post Myanmar Citizens Bank to Begin Trading on Yangon Stock Exchange appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Posted: 15 Aug 2016 06:00 AM PDT  Land—reportedly confiscated from local farmers—is fenced off for an industrial ward outside of the Arakan State capital of Sittwe, and pictured on Sunday, August 14, 2016. (Photo: Min Aung Khine / Sittwe-based Journalist) RANGOON – After meeting with local farmers on Saturday, Arakan State Chief Minister Nyi Pu has ordered a halt to fencing around the perimeter of an industrial ward located outside Set Yoe Kya village near the state capital of Sittwe. According to a post from Nyi Pu's official Facebook page, farmers told the Chief Minister that their lands had been confiscated 15 years earlier, and that they had been informed the area was under the ownership of senior and former government officials. Nyi Pu said that the National League for Democracy-led (NLD) government would investigate the allegations of land grabbing, and uncover whether land could have been taken legally in the interest of development, or seized for personal gain. "If they confiscated land for personal benefit, we will take action against them according to the existing laws. If the land was grabbed in the public [interest] we will address the farmers' losses in line with current laws," Nyi Pu stated. According to Nyi Pu, since 2001, the Industrial Land Committee has designed 466 estates and sold just over 400 yards of land at the price of 250,000 kyats (US$210) in 2015. Another 65 estates were used as camps for displaced communities in the region. Arakan National Party lawmaker Kyaw Zaw Oo submitted a question to the regional parliament last Wednesday, inquiring whether the Arakan State government's quick allocation of the land to develop an industrial zone near Set Yoe Kya's creek was enacted legally. He told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that the previous Arakan State chief minister, Mya Aung, the Border and Security Affairs Minister Htein Lin, as well as around 50 high-ranking bureaucrats were implicated in the alleged confiscation of 515 acres of land in Sittwe District. Minister Kyaw Lwin, the NLD appointee for mining, agriculture and livestock within the Arakan State cabinet, explained that the shift in land ownership was carried out legally by the previous government. When he spoke with The Irrawaddy by phone last week, he described the problem as "complicated" and not easy to solve, as people had constructed houses on the farmland. He declined to comment on whether action has been taken against those involved in the reported land grabbing, or if the land is required to be returned to the original owners or if compensation will be allocated. In a letter to parliamentarian Kyaw Zaw Oo, Minister Kyaw Lin explained that before former president Thein Sein transferred administrative power to NLD, in March he ordered the transformation of the contested land into residence quarters in Sittwe, specifying the names of owners. According to articles 29, 30 and 31 of 2012's farmland laws enacted by Thein Sein, confiscated land for a project must be developed within six months of the proposal's specifications. If it fails to be carried out during the project's timeframe, the applicants must return the land to the original owners. In the case of the contested land in Arakan State, it has been 15 years since the land was reportedly taken and it still lacks any basic infrastructure, said MP Kyaw Zaw Oo. He pointed out that since there had been no fence around the land, the farmers from Set Yoe Kya had continued cultivating their rice paddies there until 2015, and regularly registered with the government's land department until 2012. Kyaw Zaw Oo suggested that since the new government is planning to construct a bridge connecting Set Yoe Kya and Sittwe, the land price had risen; thus, he alleged that the previous Arakan State government had exploited the unused land confiscation order to avoid returning it to farmers before the administrative handover to the civilian-led government earlier this year. When The Irrawaddy spoke with MP Kyaw Zaw Oo, he said that some influential figures in Sittwe had been named in the list of beneficiaries of the confiscated land, including known Arakanese nationalists, former members of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party and a former Sittwe District administrator now serving in the office of the state government. Maung Htun Thein, a farmer from Set Yoe Kya village who has had 12 acres of his land confiscated since the early 1990s, confirmed that he and up to 16 other villagers and some from the surrounding area had not received any compensation from the government. He recalled that one acre was valued at approximately 150 kyats—or $0.13—and now each acre is priced at up to 15 million kyats ($12,600). "I want my land back if they continue to construct an industrial zone," he said, demanding that the government should "compensate in line with the local real estate market price." The post Confronting Land Confiscation Allegations, Arakan State Chief Minister Orders Halt to Renewed Construction in Industrial Ward appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Eight NCA Signatories Call For Second Meeting With State Counselor Posted: 15 Aug 2016 05:38 AM PDT  Leaders of eight NCA signatory groups met in Chiang Mai, Thailand on August 10, 2016. (Photo: Nyein Nyein / The Irrawaddy) The Peace Process Steering Team (PPST) has called for a second meeting with State Counselor and chair of the National Reconciliation and Peace Center Aung San Suu Kyi to negotiate its terms for the peace process, especially regarding the joint implementation of a nationwide ceasefire pact. The PPST provides leadership during peace talks to the eight non-state armed groups that signed the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA) with the former administration in 2015. The group met in Chiang Mai Thailand for two days last week and drafted a letter to Suu Kyi. The letter was sent to Suu Kyi—who is also the chairwoman of the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC)—on August 11 and requested another meeting prior to the Union Peace Conference, scheduled to commence on August 31. The letter stated that the team would like to "discuss coordination based on mutual respect in accordance with the NCA," which was signed last October. Since the announcement of the Union Peace Conference in May, the government, Burma Army and ethnic armed organizations have all held a series of talks in order to include their voices in the dialogue framework. Hla Maung Shwe, secretary of the UPDJC, told The Irrawaddy on Monday that Suu Kyi had replied verbally to the PPST and would meet with the group prior to the conference but a date for a meeting had not yet been set. Suu Kyi's schedule is tough to pin down with a visit planned to China this week and the United States next month. She led a UPDJC meeting on Monday to review the framework for political dialogue, which will provide a structure for the peace conference. In January, a peace conference held under a framework set by former President Thein Sein allowed NCA signatories full participation [regarding discussion and decision-making] while non-signatories were only invited as observers. It is unclear whether all ethnic armed oganizations, both NCA signatories and non-signatories, will be granted equal status in the national level talks, and all groups have yet to pledge their participation. Many ethnic leaders have expressed concern at the rush to hold the conference later this month, without clarity regarding the number of delegates or the role of ethnic minority representatives in the national dialogue. De-facto leader of the new National League for Democracy (NLD) government, Suu Kyi—who heads the peace talks—has already held closed door meetings with the Burma Army and ethnic armed organizations. She met with leaders of the eight NCA signatories in June and the UNFC non-signatories, Wa and Mongla groups in July, respectively. Little is known to the public regarding these meetings and whether key issues for the individual stakeholders have been addressed. Some meetings have reportedly focused on the principles of federalism and all-inclusion in the peace process, while others have centered on regional security, livelihood development and economic opportunity. The post Eight NCA Signatories Call For Second Meeting With State Counselor appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| US-Based Burmese Muslim Group Calls on NLD Govt to End Rohingya Persecution, Restore Rights Posted: 15 Aug 2016 04:36 AM PDT  A screengrab from the Myanmar Muslims Genocide Awareness Convention 2016 on August 13 in Los Angeles, featuring Shwe Maung, former MP from Buthidaung Township in Arakan State, who spoke at the event. (Photo: Burmese American Muslims Association / YouTube) In a conference held in Los Angeles on Saturday by the Burmese American Muslims Association (BAMA), an international panel of speakers condemned the ongoing persecution of Burma's Rohingya minority, placing it within the framework of genocide, and calling on the country's current government to restore the marginalized group's rights. The event, entitled Myanmar Muslims Genocide Awareness Convention 2016, was broadcast live online and featured speeches by Shwe Maung, a former Rohingya member of Burma's Parliament, civil rights activist Htay Lwin Oo, and Maung Zarni, a scholar and non-resident research fellow with Cambodia's Sleuk Rith Institute. Former United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Burma, Tomás Ojea Quintana, and president of Genocide Watch, Gregory Stanton, delivered pre-recorded talks. "Many scholars and experts believe that the conditions and elements of a genocide in process have been present in Myanmar against the Rohingya, especially during the military government," said Quintana, who served as rapporteur from 2008-2014. "But they're also saying that those conditions are not changing with this civilian government." "The situation needs to urgently be addressed by the Myanmar government," he continued, citing limitations to an estimated 140,000 displaced Rohingyas' freedom of movement, a lack of food and access to healthcare, and episodes of violence against the community.  A screengrab from the live webcast of the Myanmar Muslims Genocide Awareness Convention 2016 on August 13, featuring Tomás Ojea Quintana, former UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Burma, who delivered a pre-recorded statement. "It has already been 100 days since the new government took over and we haven't seen clear and concrete measures to reverse the trend against the Rohingya," Quintana said, referring to the National League for Democracy (NLD) administration headed by state counselor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Talks at the conference were marked by heavy criticism of Burma's 1982 Citizenship Law, which defines citizen status along ethnic lines, and does not recognize the Rohingya as one of the country's ethnic groups. In order to be granted even subordinate forms of citizenship, those belonging to "unrecognized" groups are instead forced to prove their family's presence in Burma dating back multiple generations—a near-impossible task since such residency often predates the use of the documentation required for such verification. "The Rohingya are victims of a classification system in Myanmar that literally classifies them out of citizenship," said Gregory Stanton in his talk. In 1996, he created a model for the US State Department identifying eight—and later, ten—stages of genocide, the first of which is "classification" of "us versus them" along ethnic, national, racial or religious lines. "If you stop using the name that the people have chosen, you are trying to classify them out of the system," Stanton added, referring to the widespread use of the term "Bengali," over "Rohingya," which implies that the group—which has an estimated population of 1.3 million in Burma—are migrants from neighboring Bangladesh. The insinuation that Rohingya are Bengali "is absolutely not true," said Shwe Maung, a Rohingya who served as a member of parliament representing Arakan State's Buthidaung Township from 2011 until 2016. He was barred from running for re-election in 2015 after authorities alleged that his parents were not Burmese citizens, a claim which, in a 2015 op-ed for the New York Times, he dismissed as "laughable," considering he had been eligible to represent his constituency in the previous election. "A lot of Myanmar Muslims and Rohingya Muslims have sacrificed for the NLD," Shwe Maung said. "[We] expected a little relief from the NLD…[but] not a single Rohingya was able to vote because they were disenfranchised." The organizers of the convention made public a resolution demanding that the NLD government restore the citizenship rights of the Rohingya, guarantee the security of non-governmental organizations working in Arakan State, facilitate unrestricted access for international investigators to conflict areas, return property to the displaced, and allow the Rohingya the right to self-identify as such. While calling for public support for Yanghee Lee, his successor as the special rapporteur for Burma, Tomás Ojea Quintana pointed out that the most recent UN report on the Rohingya "does not refer to the risk of genocide even one time," saying that this was "something we need to consider." The term "genocide" has been contested in Burma; Reuters reported in March that the US State Department had released a report to Congress stating that while the US government remained "concerned" about the persecution of the Rohingya, they "did not determine that it was on the level of genocide." They did, however, call for "comprehensive and just solutions" to abuses against the group, including improved access for aid agencies and the restoration of citizenship rights to stateless populations. A report published in October of last year by the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School for the NGO Fortify Rights concluded that both action and inaction from the Burmese government towards the Rohingya satisfied the criteria of genocide as defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention. In his talk at the conference, delivered via video, Stanton drew parallels between the Holocaust—in which 6 million European Jews were killed under Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime during World War II—and the persecution of the Rohingya in Burma. "The Jews were classified out of their citizenship, their businesses were taken away, their homes were confiscated, their property was confiscated—they were eventually sent to concentration camps. All of these parallels are like what is happening to the Rohingya," Stanton said. "We must make the world pay attention." BAMA was founded in 2013, and has since held annual conventions addressing violence against the Rohingya. Many of this year's speakers also participated in a conference at the University of Oxford in May to address the persecution of the Rohingya in the context of democratization in Burma. A year earlier, in May of 2015, the "Oslo Conference to End Myanmar's Persecution of the Rohingya" was hosted by the Norwegian Nobel Institute; there, the oppression was also described as genocide. The post US-Based Burmese Muslim Group Calls on NLD Govt to End Rohingya Persecution, Restore Rights appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| ‘Burma is Already a Game-Changer for Asean’: Kavi Chongkittavorn Posted: 15 Aug 2016 04:21 AM PDT  Kavi Chongkittavorn, a senior fellow at the Institute of Security and International Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. (Photo: Flickr) A new sense of pragmatism on all sides bodes well for the visit of Aung San Suu Kyi—Burma's state counselor and foreign affairs minister—to China later this week, says Bangkok-based expert on Asean affairs Kavi Chongkittavorn, in an interview with The Irrawaddy's founding editor Aung Zaw. Aung San Suu Kyi is visiting China again. This time she will visit Beijing as the de facto leader of the new NLD government. What can we expect from it? It will be the most important foreign visit of her government, which will directly impact the future of Myanmar, especially with regards to the peace process and economic development. Suu Kyi knows how to engage China in ways that would not undermine her longstanding relations and personal ties with the West. It will be a win-win situation for her as she has displayed diplomatic finesse and pragmatism with China throughout. It seems China was unprepared for the dramatic political changes in Burma. Now, China is adjusting to the new political environment in Burma and is actively engaging with key figures including Suu Kyi and old regime leaders. How could Asean benefit from this new engagement? Political stability in Myanmar, and good relations with China, would be a big boost to Asean-China relations. With Suu Kyi, Myanmar's relations with China would serve as a standard bearer because her government is an elected one and is widely accepted internally. This is the first time since the U Nu government [deposed by the 1962 military coup] that Myanmar and China can develop relations in good faith, with all options open. As such, future Myanmar-China relations will develop from the calculated strategic interests of both nations. That kind of realism would benefit Asean-China ties, which are on the mend. Burmese leaders, whether civilian or military, have chosen to visit China before going to the West. Suu Kyi does the same. Is it a smart move? Suu Kyi's visit to China is a smart move. No other major power has such a direct impact on her country. Issues related to border trade, security and people-to-people interaction are dependent on good relations. Most importantly, Suu Kyi has given special attention to Xi Jingping's leadership. The motive is simple—to rein in regional authorities, which have a great deal of influence in policy directions and implementation. The National League for Democracy (NLD) government and Aung San Suu Kyi have begun to engage Asean. As Burma's foreign minister, her first trip was to Laos, which is soon playing host to an Asean Summit. Her second official visit was to Thailand. Her visits to both countries were well received and showcased her diplomatic skills. But you have written "dos and don'ts" for Suu Kyi prior to her visit. Do you have doubts about her? Suu Kyi has displayed her diplomatic skills during her trips to Asean capitals. She knows how to carry herself well—she was humble and assumed a low profile in all Asean meetings. She spoke little, and only on important issues, such as respect for human rights, democracy and international rule of law. She learned fast and was adaptive to the Asean environment. During discussions, her English was polished and her points well argued. Many in the region have praised the speed of political change in Burma. But some countries in the region are making U-turns, and one can also see a decline in Asean's influence. At the same time, one sees powerful countries including the US, China and Japan exercising influence in the region. What role will Burma play in the future? Myanmar is already a game changer for ASEAN, with its ongoing political and economic transformation. No other Asean country has undertaken such radical steps to open up. Politically, Myanmar ranks high in Asean as a democracy with a brand-name leader. Her moral authority ranks as the highest in Asean, despite some criticism of her engagement in the communal conflict in Rakhine State. Kavi Chongkittavorn is a senior fellow at the Institute of Security and International Studies, Chulalongkorn University. The post 'Burma is Already a Game-Changer for Asean': Kavi Chongkittavorn appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
| Peace Process, Myitsone Dam on Agenda for Suu Kyi’s China Trip Posted: 15 Aug 2016 01:35 AM PDT  Suu Kyi meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in June 2015. (Photo: Reuters) NAYPYIDAW — Burma's peace process and the controversial Myitsone Dam will be on the agenda when Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's foreign affairs minister, visits China this week and meets with Chinese leaders, according to ministry spokesman Kyaw Zeya. At a Friday press conference in Naypyidaw on the ministry's "100-day plan," Kyaw Zeya, who is also director-general of the Political Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirmed that these issues would be discussed. He responded vaguely to further questions from reporters about the Myitsone Dam in Kachin State, whose fate remains uncertain after a suspension order from former President Thein Sein in 2011 expired at the end of his term in March this year: "We have been holding seminars to look for possible solutions. We will try our best for a productive discussion." Kyaw Zeya also commented on China's growing interest in Burma's internal peace negotiations, evident in public statements and closer involvement with key actors in the process. Analysts have considered China's roll to be a potential game changer—for better or for worse—given their close relationships with powerful ethnic armed groups based along the border. "A special representative of China's foreign affairs ministry is involved in the peace process of our country. We are prepared to discuss it if further with our Chinese counterparts," said Kyaw Zeya. Burma's President Htin Kyaw on Friday formed a new 20-member commission, chaired by Deputy Lower House Speaker T Khun Myat, to evaluate all proposed hydropower projects on the Irrawaddy River—including the Myitsone Dam. The commission will assess the potential environmental and social effects of proposed projects, their possible impact on foreign investment and the wider economy, and potential losses in water resources set alongside public access to electricity. In early April, Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi was the first foreign dignitary to visit Burma after the installation of the National League for Democracy (NLD) government. However, the press was told afterwards that the Myitsone Dam and other controversial investments in China were not discussed. Suu Kyi made her first official trip to China in June 2015, as head of the opposition NLD, at the invitation of the Communist Party of China. She held talks with Chinese President Xi Jingping, among others; Chinese media described the trip as having deepened "mutual understanding." Suu Kyi intends to visit the US and meet with President Obama on the sidelines of a session of the UN General Assembly in New York in September. "President Obama's term is ending soon. So, he invited her to visit before then," said Kyaw Zeya. Despite an intention to prioritize Asean countries—trips to Laos and Thailand have taken place in recent months—Kyaw Zeya said that Suu Kyi had no current plans to visit Malaysia, which hosts some 100,000 registered (and many more unregistered) Burmese migrant workers. On August 2, The Straits Times reported that Suu Kyi was on a purported Islamic State hit list, along with Malaysian national leaders, that was sent to police in Malaysia. In response, the Burmese government announced that they would be increasing Suu Kyi's personal security. The post Peace Process, Myitsone Dam on Agenda for Suu Kyi's China Trip appeared first on The Irrawaddy. |
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