Tuesday, May 16, 2017

The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

Farmers Plan to Sue Govt Departments Over Event Cancellation

Posted: 16 May 2017 06:05 AM PDT

MANDALAY — Farmers set to discuss land rights at Pyin Oo Lwin City Hall today are planning to sue the township and divisional departments for what organizers said was canceling permission to use the city hall the night before the event.

About 1,000 farmers from Mandalay and Pyin Oo Lwin District were due to discuss issues including land grabs with Mandalay Divisional Farmers' affairs negotiation committee this morning at the hall.

But U Hla Myo, the general administration officer for Pyin Oo Lwin's municipal department, told the organizers last night they needed to apply for a permit for the gathering to go ahead.

"We feel that our rights have been abused," said U Sai Kyaw Aye, one of the organizers. "Since they've cancelled us in the last minutes, we've lost about 10 million kyats, which we deposited for food, accommodation and transportation.

"We do not want the money back; we just want our rights respected," he added.

The organizers said they would file lawsuits against the Mandalay City Development Committee (MCDC) and Pyin Oo Lwin Township municipal department.

"Since Pyin Oo Lwin City Hall is under the administration of the MCDC, we believe they are responsible, so we will sue them, too," added U Sai Kyaw Aye.

The organizers said they were briefly shown the cancellation letter at the township's municipal office. The general administration officer of Pyin Oo Lwin had signed the letter, they added.

As citizens, the farmers did not need to apply for a permit to use the city hall, argued the organizers. They planned to discuss land rights issues, which farmers in the area have endured for decades.

The township's general administration officer U Hla Myo said: "I just sent a notice saying they needed to apply for a permit in accordance with the law and not canceling the event. I do not have the authority to cancel such an event."

The post Farmers Plan to Sue Govt Departments Over Event Cancellation appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Arakan Commission Calls Meeting With Burma Army ‘Highly Productive’

Posted: 16 May 2017 05:57 AM PDT

RANGOON – Arakan State Advisory Commission member Al Haj U Aye Lwin said a meeting between Burma Army Chief of General Staff Lt-Gen Mya Tun Oo and the commission was "highly productive."

''The army promised that it would help in whatever the advisory commission needed. There were no objections or negative comments during the meeting," said U Aye Lwin.

Earlier this week, it was reported that the commission would meet with Burma Army chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, but the meeting was instead held with Lt-Gen Mya Tun Oo in Naypyidaw on Monday.

Commission member Dr. Tha Hla Shwe said the army gave its comments on the interim report, which was launched in March.

Al Haj U Aye Lwin told The Irrawaddy over the phone on Tuesday that the meeting took place in line with government protocol, but that the leaders of both sides have been in direct contact throughout the process.

Before the meeting with army generals, the commission also met with the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) on Sunday. But the party refused to make recommendations to the commission, still objecting to its formation and international involvement in internal affairs.

U Aye Lwin said the rejection was overstated and that despite a lack of official party response, the USDP chairman and central executive committee members shared their experience regarding the issues in Arakan State.

He added that the USDP has rejected the overall formation of the commission so was choosing not to release official party stances regarding a commission they do not recognize.

Al Haj U Aye Lwin said the army reiterated that the current ground situation in Arakan State was still unsafe, in reference to the continued limited access to humanitarian assistance groups and media.

The army general also claimed during the meeting that the army had halted counterinsurgency operations and handed security matters in Arakan State over to the home affairs ministry and local law enforcement.

According to commission members, he also discussed the controversial citizenship application process, which has left the Rohingya Muslims in the region stateless and in apartheid-like conditions.

The commission will submit a final report to the government in August.

The post Arakan Commission Calls Meeting With Burma Army 'Highly Productive' appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Sources: UNFC to be Invited to Panglong as Observers

Posted: 16 May 2017 05:41 AM PDT

RANGOON — Ethnic armed groups forming the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) will only be invited to the upcoming Union Peace Conference as observers, two sources from within the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC) told The Irrawaddy.

The sources, who wished to remain anonymous, also confirmed that the government would not invite international observers to attend the conference, also known as the 21st Century Panglong peace conference, later this month.

The issue of invitations was discussed at a meeting of the Daw Aung San Suu Kyi-led UPDJC, which includes representatives from the Burma Army and eight ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), at a meeting in Naypyidaw last week.

Vice chairman of the UNFC Nai Hong Sar told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday that the bloc's position had not changed and "if we are only to listen to the talks, we will not attend."

Nai Hong Sar said the UNFC—a group of six EAOs who laid out eight points agreed to by the government and military to signing the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA)—was yet to receive an invitation to the conference.

He said even if the government did invite UNFC members as delegates there was not ample time to conduct national-level consultations with civil society and other stakeholders within the EAOs' areas.

The upcoming Union Peace Conference, scheduled to begin on May 24, will differ from the previous edition in August and September last year as many EAOs have said they will not attend—including the Northern Alliance comprised of NCA non-signatories the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Arakan Army (AA).

The TNLA's Brig-Gen Tarr Jode Jarr told the Irrawaddy that the Northern Alliance members would not attend if they were invited as observers.

A spokesperson for the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), the political wing of the Shan State Army-South (SSA-S), Col Sai Hla said the RCSS and fellow NCA-signatory the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP) were unhappy that they could not conduct consultations with local stakeholders—known as national level political dialogues—prior to the conference.

The dialogue collects public opinion on issues such as political rights, land disputes, and the environment. The dialogues—based on region, ethnicity and theme—are a mandatory step in the process laid out by the NCA.

The government, however, has not allowed the ALP to hold public consultations, citing the instability due to ongoing conflict in Arakan State and the Burma Army's reluctance to allow the RCSS to gather the public in the Shan State capital Taunggyi has delayed the group's attempt for ethnic-based dialogue.

In an interview with Shan Herald Agency for News, Col Sai Hla said he told UPDJC members at the meeting in Naypyidaw last week that he will only be able to bring views from the RCSS, not all of the Shan people.

Delegates to the Panglong conference will discuss issues relating to federalism based regional national level political dialogues conducted by the government, Karen National Union (KNU), the Pa-O National Liberation Organization (PNLO), the Chin National Front (CNF), and the All Burma Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF).

"[The conference] will not reflect the country if it is only based on limited regional talks," said Col Sai Hla.

Nai Hong Sar said the conference was useless if not all EAOs were invited to attend. He suggested the government had planned for a limited number of attendees to make it easier to agree on federal principals.

The post Sources: UNFC to be Invited to Panglong as Observers appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

China’s Xi Offers Help for Burma Peace Process

Posted: 16 May 2017 04:52 AM PDT

BEIJING, China — Chinese President Xi Jinping told Burma leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday that China would continue to help the country achieve peace, and called for both sides to maintain stability on their shared border, state media said.

Fighting in March in Burma pushed thousands of people into China to seek refuge, prompting Beijing to call for a ceasefire between ethnic militias and the security forces there and carry out military drills along the border.

Xi met Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi—who serves as Burma's foreign minister while also being de facto head of its civilian government—following China's Belt and Road Forum on Sunday and Monday.

"China is willing to continue to provide necessary assistance for Burma's internal peace process," China's official Xinhua news agency cited Xi as saying.

"The two sides must jointly work to safeguard China-Burma border security and stability," Xi said.

The news agency did not elaborate on what assistance China would provide.

China has repeatedly expressed concern about fighting along the border that has occasionally spilled into its territory, for instance in 2015, when five people died in China.

Xi also said China would work to enhance cooperation with Burma on his Belt and Road development plan, which aims to bolster China's global leadership by expanding infrastructure between Asia, Africa, Europe and beyond.

The president promised $124 billion on Sunday to expand the reach of the initiative during the two day summit of world leaders in Beijing.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi told Xi that Burma was grateful for Chinese help and that it would work with China to safeguard stability in the border region, Xinhua said.

Beijing last month offered to mediate a diplomatic row over the flight of around 69,000 minority Rohingya Muslims to Bangladesh to escape violence in Buddhist-majority Burma, according to officials from Bangladesh.

Burma has been sharply criticized in the West over violence against the Rohingya.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is barred from the presidency under Burma's army-drafted constitution, but effectively leads the government through the specially created post of "state counselor".

The post China's Xi Offers Help for Burma Peace Process appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Taking Advantage of Open Data to Foster Innovation, Transparency and Civic Participation

Posted: 16 May 2017 03:02 AM PDT

In May 2015, I attended a talk given by a group of Indonesian technologists. They told the story of how President Joko Widodo won the 2014 elections with the help of hundreds of volunteers who, armed with mobile phones, fought against voter fraud. It was a crowdsourcing campaign that enabled anyone with an Internet connection to upload election results directly from polling stations. In a close election in which both Jokowi and his rival were declaring victory, citizens equipped with technology and data made a real difference. I was incredibly moved by that story, and thought about how amazing it would be if the same thing could happen in Myanmar. I quickly dismissed those thoughts as wishful thinking, only to find myself a few months later in the midst of a similar project that would help voters in Myanmar, through technology and data, as they took to the polls for the most important election the country has seen in decades.

Things move very quickly in today's Myanmar. Out of the many changes that are shifting the country's political, economic and social fabric, two particular transformations are important to highlight: First, the unprecedented pace of mobile phone and smartphone adoption that followed the liberalization of the telecoms market. Second, the reforms in the media sector that have significantly reduced the draconian limitations on press freedoms. In 2010, we were a country that read newspapers only for the obituaries because everything else in them was propaganda. Two years later, in 2012, truthful and honest journalism was suddenly no longer followed by a prison sentence (most of the time), and dozens of new, independent media outlets were established. Three years after that, in 2015, everyone was getting their news (both real and fake) on their smartphones from whatever was trending on Facebook. A public sphere, one that had not existed since our grandparents' time, seemed to have appeared overnight – and just as suddenly, it had leapfrogged into the Internet era.

What will it take to build resilient democratic institutions in this rapidly changing space? I believe that a citizenry equipped with technology and data is a crucial part of that answer. My work at Phandeeyar, an innovation lab in downtown Yangon, has given me the chance to observe some of these changes quite closely. The organization was founded in 2014, specifically to use information and communications technology to accelerate the change-agents that were driving the country forward – the entrepreneurs, technologists, civil society organizations, and independent media. The elections in 2015 were a great test case for using technology to foster social impact.

Alongside The Asia Foundation and many other groups, Phandeeyar was involved in organizing the Mae Pay Soh voter education project. It was an effort to collect, digitize and open up data about candidates and parties to the public, in conjunction with a competition for local technologists to develop apps and other digital tools to use that data to educate voters on issues ranging from voting procedures to profiles of candidates. About 137 participants formed 30 different teams to take part in the two-week competition. The winning team's mobile app, mVoter, was built by a team of young software developers who were in their early twenties. Their app was widely publicized prior to the elections and was downloaded more than a quarter of a million times. It provided valuable information for voters who accessed the database millions of times in the lead up to the elections. The Myanmar public was incredibly proud of the young technologists who took part in the competition and it demonstrated that there was plenty of homegrown talent who were eager to do their part in the country's transformation.

This was all possible, of course, because the government agreed to open up this data to the public. Even though the Union Election Commission had been very supportive of the project from the get go, it was still an arduous task to take what had been a thoroughly analog process and digitize it. The process illustrated the extent to which simple things that are taken for granted in other countries can be significant hurdles in Myanmar. Six thousand candidates registered for the elections, and did so by filling out paper registration forms in various towns across the country. They were then all faxed to the Election Commission's headquarters in Naypyitaw. These forms then needed to be sorted and categorized. Enter the Ministry of Education's "alphabetization experts," who were tasked with the esoteric job of sorting the forms of the candidates in alphabetical order. Sorting in Burmese is not something that a normal Burmese speaker can easily do since the script has 33 consonants, 11 medials, 32 finals, 4 tones, and many other nuances. On top of that, older dictionaries use a different sorting method from the more modern ones—hence the need for alphabetization experts. After the experts had sorted all the candidate registration forms, a cadre of typists painstakingly entered the information from the forms into a computer, where they encountered another choice between competing standards, between the infamous local Zawgyi encoding system and global standard Unicode encoding system (in addition to the other older Burmese fonts that the Union Election Commission continued to use). It took weeks of work to finally produce a database that had all the candidates' information and was accessible online by the public.

Open data is data that anyone can access, use or share. The simple definition belies the immense value that it can provide. Globally, it is estimated that business opportunities made possible through open data can create a market value of US$3 to 5 trillion a year. In terms of intangible benefits, it is one of the main pillars for ensuring transparency and accountability from governments and other institutions in today's complex world. In order to fully reap these benefits, opening up the data is only the first step. Technologists need to have civic values that induce them to use their skills for positive social impact, as well as have an understanding of the needs of users to create tools that make the data usable and understandable. Civil society and media also have to become skilled in using technology and data. Last but not least, governments must also commit to releasing data, and also to incorporate insights from data into their decision-making. On all these fronts, Myanmar has a long way to go. But, as the example above demonstrates, there are small, positive signs amid the drastic changes taking place in the country.

There are now a handful of organizations in Myanmar dedicated to promoting the use of open data. Phandeeyar's own open data portal called Open Development Myanmar, the Myanmar Information Management Unit, the Enlightened Myanmar Research Foundation, and the One Map Myanmar Project are all working towards greater accessibility of open data and also working to promote data literacy in civil society, government and media. Some civil society organizations specialize in collecting data related to a specific topic. For example, the Open Myanmar Initiative collects all available public data about the Myanmar parliament, such as questions, motions, and the passage of bills. Philanthropic and development assistance funds are also increasingly being directed at promoting the use of open data as a crucial part of improving transparency and accountability, and also at improving data driven decision-making within government.

Until recently, it was almost impossible to get formal training as a journalist in Myanmar. With the media landscape opening up over the past few years, many are now eager to join the profession. Formerly exiled media such as The Irrawaddy, DVB, and Mizzima have started operating within the country once again. New dailies and weeklies have emerged, joining the competition for readership and advertising. However, paid readership has decreased every year as the tradition of buying newspapers has rapidly been replaced by the consumption of free news via social media. The advertising market is still not a large enough revenue source in an emerging market like Myanmar. Amateur journalists, tough competition, and dwindling revenues do not make for a healthy market for independent media, and the alarming number of journalists recently being prosecuted under the much despised Article 66(d) defamation clause has not helped. And yet, despite all these difficulties, I believe it is crucial that journalists in Myanmar pick up some data literacy skills.

All over the world, in both developed and developing countries, independent media is facing similar sets of challenges to the ones described above (although Myanmar's challenges do seem more intractable than others'). Many newsrooms have taken on the task of reinventing themselves to innovate their way through the challenges. La Nación from Argentina and Indiaspend from India are examples of media that have focused on data journalism in order to set themselves apart from the competition, and this has made them leading news outlets in data journalism in South America and South Asia respectively. Small, dedicated teams of journalists can have a big impact if they have the skills to analyze government budgets, election results, census and municipal data to inform the public with evidence based reporting on issues such as corruption and effectiveness of policies. Journalists from La Nación, for example, worked together with technologists to create a database of leaked documents from 26,000 emails to report on corruption, and a similar tool to sieve through 90,000 poll worker reports to check for election irregularities.

But perhaps most importantly, the success of open data in Myanmar hinges on the government's attitude towards it. Open-washing is a phrase used to describe situations where institutions pay lip service to open data as a public relations move. This might involve releasing some datasets while restricting access to other crucial datasets that might be politically sensitive, or releasing data that is incomplete, inaccurate, too aggregated (i.e. summarized very broadly, without being broken down into finer details) or otherwise not useful; for example, when the 2014 Myanmar census data on religion was finally released in 2016 after being delayed for a year, it turned out that the data was only disaggregated to the state or region level, unlike the rest of the census data, which was available down to the level of townships, and in the case of population figures, even down to the village tract level. Without commitment from the highest levels of government and a true belief that transparency is beneficial for all, open-washing is a trap that many governments and organizations can easily step into.

On the bright side, there have been some high profile cases of various government organizations in Myanmar opening up their data. Releasing the data from most of the 2014 census, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative for 2013-2014, the 2015 Myanmar Business Survey, the 2015 Myanmar Demographic and Health Survey, and the Yangon Region government's release of information for all the routes of the Yangon Bus Service in 2017 are recent examples of positive developments. This move to open bus route data has already yielded considerable benefits. Local developers have volunteered their time and skills to create a wide range of route finder apps, route maps, chat bots and an online complaint collection system that has been officially adopted by the Region Government. All of these products would have cost considerable amounts of money to develop if they were contracted out to private companies. On the other hand, Myanmar has yet to adopt a Freedom of Information law that mandates that all but the most sensitive data has to be provided to the public on request. If such a law could come about, it would be an invaluable tool for the opening up of government data.

Professor Mary Callahan wrote in a recent article that State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi's vision for civic engagement in Myanmar bears similarity to one of John F Kennedy's much quoted lines. She is noted to often say, "Think of what you can contribute for the development of your country, not what benefits you can have from your country." I believe that line underpins what is already happening in Myanmar, and resonates with the convictions of many passionate and dedicated individuals that I have had the pleasure and honor of meeting over the past few years: the civic minded software developer in Yangon, the budding journalist in Mandalay, the civil society leader in Tanintharyi, and the civil servant in Naypyitaw. They are already contributing much to the development of the country, and with access to more open data, they can contribute even more.

Yan Naung Oak is a Senior Advisor at Phandeeyar, an innovation lab in Yangon. He is a School of Data fellow for 2017 and also a freelance data visualization designer.

This article originally appeared in Tea Circle, a forum hosted at Oxford University for emerging research and perspectives on Burma/Myanmar.

The post Taking Advantage of Open Data to Foster Innovation, Transparency and Civic Participation appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Cash and Chemicals: for Laos, Chinese Banana Boom a Blessing and Curse

Posted: 16 May 2017 01:19 AM PDT

BOKEO, Laos — Kongkaew Vonusak smiles when he recalls the arrival of Chinese investors in his tranquil village in northern Laos in 2014. With them came easy money, he said.

The Chinese offered villagers up to US$720 per hectare to rent their land, much of it fallow for years, said Kongkaew, 59, the village chief. They wanted to grow bananas on it.

In impoverished Laos, the offer was generous. "They told us the price and asked us if we were happy. We said okay."

Kongkaew Vonusak, who rents his land to a Chinese banana company stands outside his house in the province of Bokeo in Laos on April 26, 2017. (Jorge Silva/ Reuters)

Elsewhere, riverside land with good access roads fetched at least double that sum.

Three years later, the Chinese-driven banana boom has left few locals untouched, but not everyone is smiling.

Experts say the Chinese have brought jobs and higher wages to northern Laos, but have also drenched plantations with pesticides and other chemicals.

Last year, the Lao government banned the opening of new banana plantations after a state-backed institute reported that the intensive use of chemicals had sickened workers and polluted water sources.

China has extolled the benefits of its vision of a modern-day "Silk Road" linking it to the rest of the world—it held a major summit in Beijing on May 14-15 to promote it.

The banana boom pre-dated the concept, which was announced in 2013, although China now regards agricultural developments in Laos as among the initiative's projects.

Under the "Belt and Road" plan, China has sought to persuade neighbors to open their markets to Chinese investors. For villagers like Kongkaew, that meant a trade-off.

"Chinese investment has given us a better quality of life. We eat better, we live better," Kongkaew said.

But neither he nor his neighbors will work on the plantations, or venture near them during spraying. They have stopped fishing in the nearby river, fearing it is polluted by chemical run-off from the nearby banana plantation.

Chinese Frustration

Several Chinese plantation owners and managers expressed frustration at the government ban, which forbids them from growing bananas after their leases expire.

They said the use of chemicals was necessary, and disagreed that workers were falling ill because of them.

"If you want to farm, you have to use fertilizers and pesticides," said Wu Yaqiang, a site manager at a plantation owned by Jiangong Agriculture, one of the largest Chinese banana growers in Laos.

"If we don't come here to develop, this place would just be bare mountains," he added, as he watched workers carrying 30-kilogram bunches of bananas up steep hillsides to a rudimentary packing station.

Zhang Jianjun, 40, co-owner of the Lei Lin banana plantation sits outside his house at a plantation in the province of Bokeo in Laos on April 24, 2017. (Jorge Silva/ Reuters)

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said he was not aware of the specific issues surrounding Chinese banana growers in Laos, and did not believe they should be linked directly to the Belt and Road initiative.

"In principle we always require Chinese companies, when investing and operating abroad, to comply with local laws and regulations, fulfill their social responsibility and protect the local environment," he told a regular briefing on Thursday.

Laos' Ministry of Agriculture did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment for this article.

China is the biggest foreign investor in Laos, a landlocked country of 6.5 million people, with over 760 projects valued at about $6.7 billion, according to Chinese state-run media.

This influence is not only keenly felt in the capital Vientiane, where Chinese build shopping complexes and run some of the city's fanciest hotels. It also extends deep into rural areas that have remained largely unchanged for decades.

Banana Rush

Lao people say Chinese banana investors began streaming across the border around 2010, driven by land shortages at home. Many headed to Bokeo, the country's smallest and least populous province.

In the ensuing years, Lao banana exports jumped ten-fold to become the country's largest export earner. Nearly all of the fruit is sent to China.

For ethnic Lao like Kongkaew, Chinese planters paid them more for the land than they could earn from farming it.

For impoverished, hill-dwelling minorities such as the Hmong or Khmu, the banana rush meant better wages.

On Keo Wa, 25, carries her 9-month-old baby while working at a banana plantation operated by a Chinese company in the province of Bokeo in Laos on April 24, 2017. (Photo: Jorge Silva/ Reuters)

At harvest time, they can earn the equivalent of at least $10 a day and sometimes double that, a princely sum in a country where the average annual income was $1,740 in 2015, according to the World Bank. They are also most exposed to the chemicals.

Most Chinese planters grow the Cavendish variety of banana, which is favored by consumers but susceptible to disease.

Hmong and Khmu workers douse the growing plants with pesticides and kill weeds with herbicides such as paraquat. Paraquat is banned by the European Union and other countries including Laos, and it has been phased out in China.

The bananas are also dunked in fungicides to preserve them for their journey to China.

Switching Crops

Some banana workers grow weak and thin or develop rashes, said Phonesai Manivongxai, director of the Community Association for Mobilizing Knowledge in Development (CAMKID), a non-profit group based in northern Laos.

Part of CAMKID's work includes educating workers about the dangers of chemical use. "All we can do is make them more aware," she said.

This is an uphill struggle. Most pesticides come from China or Thailand and bear instructions and warnings in those countries' languages, Reuters learned. Even if the labeling was Lao, some Hmong and Khmu are illiterate and can't understand it.

Another problem, said Phonesai, was that workers lived in close proximity to the chemicals, which contaminated the water they wash in or drink.

In a Lao market, Reuters found Thai-made paraquat openly on sale.

However, some workers Reuters spoke to said they accepted the trade-off. While they were concerned about chemicals, higher wages allowed them to send children to school or afford better food.

There is no guarantee the government's crackdown on pesticide use in banana production will lead to potentially harmful chemicals being phased out altogether.

As banana prices fell following a surge in output, some Chinese investors began to plant other crops on the land, including chemically intensive ones like watermelon.

Zhang Jianjun, 46, co-owner of the Lei Lin banana plantation, estimated that as much as 20 percent of Bokeo's banana plantations had been cleared, and said some of his competitors had decamped to Burma and Cambodia.

But he has no plans to leave. The environmental impact on Laos was a "road that every underdeveloped country must walk" and local people should thank the Chinese, he said.

"They don’t think, ‘Why have our lives improved?' They think it's something that heaven has given them, that life just naturally gets better.”

A worker pauses while harvesting bananas at a banana plantation operated by a Chinese company in the province of Bokeo in Laos on April 25, 2017. (Jorge Silva/ Reuters)

The post Cash and Chemicals: for Laos, Chinese Banana Boom a Blessing and Curse appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Rangoon School Bus System to Launch in June

Posted: 16 May 2017 01:06 AM PDT

RANGOON —Yangon Region Transport Authority (YRTA) announced plans to introduce school buses for basic education schools in downtown Rangoon, in an effort to ease traffic in the commercial capital.

School buses will serve 22 of 26 government-run schools in the downtown area, according to lawmaker U Kyaw Kyaw Tun representing Hlaing Constituency (1) in Rangoon divisional parliament.

"[The school bus system] will be launched when the academic year starts [in June], but not for all schools," he said, adding they will first be introduced in places where traffic congestion is worst.

According to the city's traffic police, congestion is worst around Kamayut Township, TTC Yangon on Pyay Road, and Basic Education High School No. 1 in Dagon Township, where many parents use private cars to take their children to school.

Rangoon divisional government signed a deal to purchase 200 new school buses from Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) and Posco Daewoo Corporation on May 10, according to state media.

"It is not compulsory for school bus operators to buy those buses, it is up to them. But they are not allowed to operate with light trucks and Dyna trucks. We'll only allow buses and mini-buses," said the lawmaker.

The school bus system will be introduced in three phases—to cover 30 percent of students in June, another 30 percent in October, and the remainder in December.

Most of the vehicles now engaged in the school run are privately operated light trucks. But under the new system, they will be managed by concerned school authorities and YRTA.

The new school buses will be sold through a hire-purchase system and will be exempt from taxes, according to YRTA.

School buses were first suggested during a Nov. 2014 workshop on public transport in Rangoon and were initially implemented under the now-defunct Rangoon Motor Vehicles Supervisory Committee—known by its Burmese acronym Ma Hta Tha—in 2016 without success.

In late April, the divisional government and officials of 26 downtown schools met to discuss a standardized system of school buses for students.

"It is not compulsory for students to take school buses. But we want them to take school buses because they have a higher safety now. Maybe it will become compulsory next year," said U Kyaw Kyaw Tun.

YRTA said the move was to ensure the safety of children as well as reduce traffic congestion. But parents are still concerned about children's safety.

"I learned that there will be gathering points for students to take the buses. But some families don't even use the school ferries that come to the front door of their houses over safety concerns," said a mother from Hlaing Township.

"I don't think Rangoon is a safe place to just put children on a school bus," she said.

U Chit Zaw Hein, a school shuttle conductor, said: "We bring and drop the children in front of their houses. But, their parents still repeatedly ask us to take care of their children. Under the new system, we'll bring and drop students at a stop. And I'm afraid many parents will not accept it."

This article was translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

The post Rangoon School Bus System to Launch in June appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Two More Buddhist Nationalists Arrested for Muslim Neighborhood Raid

Posted: 16 May 2017 12:56 AM PDT

RANGOON — Two people involved in last week's confrontation between Buddhist nationalists and Muslims in Rangoon's Mingalar Taung Nyunt Township handed themselves over to the township's police station on Monday.

Tin Lin Htike and Tin Htay Aung, who are among the seven nationalists and Buddhist monks charged with incitement to commit violence, were the second pair arrested for involvement in the incident.

Buddhist monks led nationalists into the Muslim neighborhood before midnight on May 9, claiming ethnic Muslim Rohingya were there "illegally," according to police and residents.

According to witnesses, the nationalists turned hostile toward the Muslim residents when police found no Rohingya in the area.

Police arrested Ko Latt, also known as Tin Htut Zaw, who was involved in the confrontation, and his wife near Kandawgyi Lake on Thursday.

Two Buddhist monks—U Pyinnya Wuntha and U Thuseitta of the Patriotic Monks Union—and another layperson—Myat Phone Moh—are still at large.

The post Two More Buddhist Nationalists Arrested for Muslim Neighborhood Raid appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Locals Flee, Fearing Conscription in Southern Shan State

Posted: 16 May 2017 12:49 AM PDT

More than 170 locals from two villages in Mawkmai Township, southern Shan State have fled their homes, fearing conscription by an ethnic armed group.

Locals from Pone Sote and Me Ta Se villages are currently taking shelter at a monastery in the village of Na Hi, director Khun Nay Htoo of the Pa-Oh Health Working Committee (PHWC), which is providing healthcare to them, told The Irrawaddy.

"There are 104 villagers from Me Ta Se, and 74 from Pone Sote. Most of them are Pa-O or Karenni. They fled respectively on May 9 and 12," Khun Nay Htoo told The Irrawaddy.

According to Khun Nay Htoo, people who claimed to be commanders of the Shan State Restoration Council/Shan State Army-South (RCSS/SSA-S) arrived at the two villages during the first week of May and told locals in Shan language to enlist or they would be forced out of their villages.

Villagers told Khun Nay Htoo that they were unsuccessful in dissuading the commanders, so they fled with their families.

Lt-Col Sai Meung, an RCSS spokesperson, denied the conscription.

"This must be a misunderstanding. We have not conscripted anyone since we signed the NCA [nationwide ceasefire agreement]. I'm afraid this was someone else's handiwork," said Lt-Col Sai Meung.

The RCSS signed the NCA with former President U Thein Sein's administration in Oct. 2015. According to the NCA, signatories are not allowed to recruit new members.

"Villagers said they have faced conscription in the past. They fled this time because they were threatened," said Khun Nay Htoo.

Currently, only the monastery in Na Hi Village is providing them with food and shelter.

The Irrawaddy phoned a number of civil society organizations engaged in providing relief for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Shan State and all of them replied that they were unaware of the situation.

U Nay Lin, a volunteer helping IDPs said: "Villagers who live near armed groups always face this [conscription]. This news is not new in both northern and southern Shan State."

Last February, more than 100 locals fled their homes in Mongyang Township in eastern Shan State after rumors circulated that the United Wa State Army (UWSA) would conscript new members.

The UWSA also denied planned conscription and told The Irrawaddy that its troops were not stationed in that area.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

The post Locals Flee, Fearing Conscription in Southern Shan State appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Ten Things to Do in Rangoon This Week

Posted: 15 May 2017 11:47 PM PDT

Zumba Festival for Charity | May 21

This charity festival features local and international Zumba instructors. Visitors can make donations at the event, which will be donated directly to internally displaced persons in Kachin State.

May 21, 5-7 p.m. People's Park. Free Entry. 

Ninja Show  | May 21

Real Ninjas from Japan will come to Rangoon for the first time to show their traditional Japanese Ninjutsu skills. Visitors can participate in a Ninja workshop.

May 21, 10:30 a.m. MICT Park, Universities Hlaing Campus, Thamine College St, Hlaing Tsp. Free Entry.

Jazz under the Stars | March 17

One of Rangoon's favorite blues and jazz groups—the Bamboo Trio—performs at Atlas Rooftop Bar. Reservations can be made by emailing info@atlas-myanmar.com.

March 17, 7 p.m. Atlas Rooftop Bar & Lounge, No. 84 Pan Hlaing Road, Sanchaung Tsp. Free admission.

Thitsarni Solo Poetry Day | May 20

Writer and poet Thitsarni has named his solo poetry event "Publicly Hiding." Ticket includes a cup of coffee, a poetry pamphlet and lucky draw for his three paintings.

May 20, 2 p.m. Yangon Book Plaza, 5th Floor, Thanzay Market, Lanmadaw Tsp. Tickets 5,000 kyats (limited seats).

Minn Lu Evening  | May 18

This event is for devoted fans of the late writer Minn Lu with special discount on his books. Some of his unpublished poems will also be recited.

May 18, 4 p.m. Yangon Book Plaza, 5th Floor, Thanzay Market, Lanmadaw Tsp.

Burmese Classical Music | May 19

More than a dozen classical singers will perform along with various Burmese traditional orchestral musicians in a ceremony to unveil the bronze statue of renowned orchestral musician Sein Bo Tint.

May 19, evening. Thakya Muni Pagoda, Kyaung Kyi Street, Kyimyindaing Tsp. 

Charity Auction | May 21

First-edition books, manuscripts and personal items of famous writers will be put up for auction. Proceeds will be donated to charities.

May 21, 1 p.m . Yangon Book Plaza, 5th Floor, Thanzay Market, Lanmadaw Tsp.

With You | May 17-19

This group art exhibition of a Japanese artist and four Myanmar artists will showcase over 50 paintings.

May 17-19. Yangon Gallery, People's Park, Dagon Tsp. Tel: 09-51370178

Dream Dimension | Ongoing

Artist Ko Thee will showcase over 10 acrylic works in his solo show.

May Nawady Tharlar Art Gallery, Room 304, Building 20B, 3rd Floor, Yaw Myin Gyi Road Dagon Tsp.

8 Watercolor | May 20-23

A group art exhibition of eight artists will feature 40 watercolor paintings.

May 20-23. 43 Art Gallery, 43rd Street, Botahtaung Tsp.

 

The post Ten Things to Do in Rangoon This Week appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Facebook Still Accessible in Thailand as Govt Deadline Passes

Posted: 15 May 2017 09:47 PM PDT

BANGKOK, Thailand — The Facebook social media site was still available in Thailand on Tuesday after concerns arose that authorities would shut it down if Facebook did not take down content deemed threatening to national security.

Thailand's telecoms regulator said last week it would give Facebook Thailand until Tuesday to take down 131 web addresses with content deemed threatening to security or which violated strict lese majeste laws.

The threat prompted a flurry of concern in the Southeast Asian country—one of the most Facebook-active countries in Asia—that Facebook would be blocked.

Morakot Kulthamyothin, president of the Thai Internet Service Provider Association (TISPA), which includes 19 landline and mobile ISPs, as well as major international internet gateway operators covering 90% of the country, said there was no plan to block access to Facebook in Thailand yet.

"We haven't discussed that action to shutdown Facebook," Morakot told reporters.

On Tuesday, Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of the telecoms commission, went to the TISPA head office to inspect whether all 131 sites authorities had asked Facebook to remove had been taken down.

He is expected to speak to reporters later on Tuesday.

Days after a May 2014 coup by the military, Thailand's Information Communications Technology Ministry temporarily blocked access to Facebook saying it had received orders to do so by the military in order to suspend content critical of the military.

The junta denied it had ordered the action.

Thailand's military government has ramped up online censorship, particularly perceived insults to the monarchy, since seizing power in a 2014 coup.

Last month Thailand also banned its citizens from making any online contact with three vocal critics of the monarchy.

Last week the secretary-general of The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission of Thailand said the Ministry of Digital Economy would file a complaint with police this week to press charges against Facebook Thailand under the Computer Crime Act and commerce ministry regulations.

The post Facebook Still Accessible in Thailand as Govt Deadline Passes appeared first on The Irrawaddy.
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