Wednesday, June 7, 2017

The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

Parliament to Discuss Policy Reform Affecting Public Health Workers

Posted: 07 Jun 2017 05:28 AM PDT

RANGOON — Burma's Lower House of Parliament agreed on Wednesday to discuss a proposal urging the Union government to reform policies affecting nurses and midwives serving in public hospitals.

The proposal was submitted by lawmaker Daw Yin Min Hlaing of Magwe Division's Gangaw Township. She took the floor of the Parliament, highlighting how the role of nursing remains crucial to public health and that re-examining the policies that directly affect nurses would thereby improve the country's health sector.

She pointed to low salaries, long hours, and a challenging work environment as factors contributing to nurses and midwives leaving the government health service and the resulting shortage of such staff in these medical facilities.

A nurse employed at a public hospital earns a base salary of 165,000 kyats ($121) per month, according to the Nursing University Students' Union (NUSU). The health ministry estimated that one in every four graduate nurses pays a fine in order to get out of required public service duties. They often then go on to work at private hospitals.

"With limited resources of nurses [at government hospitals], existing ones could not provide patients with sufficient care and are facing complaints and accusations of service failure," Daw Yin Min Hlaing said.

Stressing that nurses are being under-appreciated, she said, "No matter how qualified a nurse is, he or she cannot get promoted to higher position without completing specified years of service," suggesting that promotion should only be considered upon one's qualification.

Dr. Myint Han, a director-general at the Ministry of Health and Sport's department of medical services, said in March that the required workforce for more than 1,000 public hospitals across the country is a minimum of 37,000 nurses. Yet nearly 43 percent of the required workforce is vacant, with only about 20,000 nurses serving in government facilities.

According to the statistics Daw Yin Min Hlaing presented to the Parliament, the general hospital in Rangoon—the country's most populous city—has only around 650 nurses; the required workforce is estimated to be 1,200.

The parliamentary proposal came three months after students from Rangoon's University of Nursing held a protest in March, demanding reforms to policies that they said were unfair to nurses and midwives.

The primary goal of the protest was to stand against the ministry's practice of delayed licensing—issuing nursing and midwifery licenses to graduates only after the completion of three years of public service at government hospitals. Students had later reached an agreement with the ministry regarding licensing matter.

Students also demanded that the ministry to carry out professional surveys to identify the root causes of nurses' dissatisfaction and explore pragmatic solutions to the shortage of nurses in public hospitals.

Lawmakers are expected to discuss the proposal next week.

The post Parliament to Discuss Policy Reform Affecting Public Health Workers appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Burma Army Searches for Missing Military Plane Carrying 104 Passengers

Posted: 07 Jun 2017 05:16 AM PDT

RANGOON — The Burma Army searched for a missing military aircraft carrying 14 crew and 90 military staff members and their families flying between Tanintharyi Division's Myeik and Rangoon on Wednesday afternoon, according to a Burma Army Commander-in-Chief’s office Facebook post.

Four military boats and two aircraft began searching for the Y-8 military transport plane after contact was lost 32 kilometers west of Tanintharyi Division’s Dawei at 1:35 p.m.

The Chinese-made plane was acquired in March 2016 and had a total of 809 flying hours. It was also carrying 2.4 tons of supplies, according to the military statement.

Kyaw Kyaw Htey, a civil aviation official at Myeik airport, said the weather had been “normal” with good visibility when the plane took off.

A map of the plane's last location. (Photo: Commander-in-Chief's Office / Facebook)

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Authorities Block Civilians Fleeing Clashes in Kachin State

Posted: 07 Jun 2017 05:03 AM PDT

Authorities tried to prevent hundreds of residents from villages in Kachin State's Tanai Township fleeing their homes this week after fighting erupted between the Burma Army and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), according to local civil society groups.

Relief workers said between 500 and 700 villagers fled their homes on Wednesday alone, but were deterred from traveling by boat to the safety of Tanai town (also known as Danai and Tanaing) by authorities.

"The villagers, including children, are waiting at the jetty as local administrators backed by police do not allow them to leave," said Daw Doi Bu, a former lower house parliamentarian now in Tanai providing public-parliament relations training.

She said some 405 residents—mostly young children, women, and elderly—from N'Ga Ga and Nam Byu villages in Tanai Township used waterways to travel to Tanai, as clashes occurred on the road, and were currently taking refuge in the town's churches and monasteries.

The Burma Army attacked KIA Battalion 14's Maisa outpost near Nam Byu on Saturday, according to KIA spokesperson Lt-Col Naw Bu. "Defensive action occurred from Saturday until Monday," he said, adding that separate clashes near N'Ga Ga continued until 3 p.m. on Tuesday.

Lt-Col Naw Bu said no casualties were reported and the Burma Army outnumbered the five men at the Maisa outpost by tenfold.

Four artillery shells had fallen on a home in Kawng Ra Village—10 miles from Tanai town—injuring a woman and her two daughters, according to local residents.

U Naw Tar, from the Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC) in Tanai, told The Irrawaddy that the KBC met with township officials on Wednesday but was unsuccessful in securing freedom of movement.

"We have asked for help from the state chief minister and parliamentarians," he said.

Among the displaced were Burman and Shan migrant workers employed in local amber and gold mines, according to Daw Doi Bu. Most had already returned to their homes, she added.

The recent Tatmadaw offensive appeared to be an attempt to cut a KIA source of income, said spokesperson Lt-Col Naw Bu, as the Tanai area is home to a number of gold and amber mines. A 17-year bilateral ceasefire between the KIA and Burma Army broke down in 2011.

On Monday, villages in Tanai Township—including N'Ga Ga and Nam Byu—received Burma Army instructions to leave mining operations in the area by June 15, according to residents, who said that the letters, delivered by helicopter, had neither date nor signature so were largely ignored.

The mines include Htan Palar, Wan Palar, Aung Lut, Tone Mani, Choungzone, Nambyu, Ja Awng Bar, Zeephyu Kone, Nyaung Pin Kone and Namt Kun mines, according to the leaflet widely shared on social media.

The official population of Tanai town, according to the 2014 census, is nearly 50,000, but the number of workers in nearby mines could be well over 100,000, according to relief workers.

Khin Oo Tha and Nang Lwin Hnin Pwint contributed to this report.

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Rights-Themed Film Festival Gets Bumper Line-Up, With One Movie Banned

Posted: 07 Jun 2017 04:25 AM PDT

RANGOON — The line-up for an upcoming festival showcasing more than 60 local and international films related to human rights was completed today, with one film failing to gain screening approval from the government's film classification board.

"Sittwe," an 18-minute documentary about young people affected by the conflicts in troubled Arakan State was "culturally and religiously inappropriate and should not be shown," according to the Films and Video Censorship Board in a letter to the event's organizers.

The Human Rights Human Dignity International Film Festival is due to start on Wednesday June 14 and to run for six days at Rangoon's Waziya Cinema and Junction City.

Expressing disappointment over the board's decision, "Sittwe" director Jeanne Hallacy said, "Documentary films open public discourse on human rights issues, particularly on highly sensitive subjects that may not be addressed in depth in traditional media."

Hallacy's previous films include a documentary on human rights activist U Aung Myo Min, which was shown at the 2015 edition of the festival.

The US filmmaker added, "Banning films on human rights subjects prevents dialogue which perpetuates conflict, while sharing human rights stories contributes to considering solutions."

The human rights film festival was started in 2013 by founder U Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi and others with the goal to present a wide range of films dealing with broad themes that had previously been suppressed in Burma for decades.

No films were banned during the first three years of the annual event. In 2016, soon after the inauguration of the new National League for Democracy-led government, the planned festival opener for that year was controversially pulled at the last minute.

"Twilight Over Burma: My Life as a Shan Princess" is a love story set against a backdrop of political events in Shan State and Burma in the 1950s and early 1960s.

The Films and Video Censorship Board, then under a different name, said the film could pose a threat to "ethnic unity." It was also held by the board to potentially harm "the image of the military."

The board is made up of some 15 representatives, mainly from the Ministry of Information's Myanmar Motion Picture Development Department, along with members of other groups such as the Myanmar Motion Picture Organization, the Myanmar Music Association and the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture. The home affairs ministry is also represented.

This year's festival is set to open with "Burma Storybook," a film about the ideas of former political prisoner and poet U Maung Aung Pwint by Dutch directors Peter Lom and Carinne Van Egeraat.

A total of 66 films are due to be shown, U Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi said.

The line-up includes 52 films on a wide variety of subjects by local directors, including notable names such Shin Daewe, M. Noe, Moore Thit Sett Htoon, Bo Thet Htun Soe, San Htike and Yamin Oo.

An 85-minute omnibus movie by 14 different local directors, and an hour-long film in the Chin language are also in the line-up. The festival program includes 14 international productions, some relating to Burmese themes.

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One year Under Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Press Freedom Lags Behind Democratic Progress

Posted: 07 Jun 2017 03:03 AM PDT

BANGKOK, Thailand — When Nobel Peace Prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her long-persecuted National League for Democracy party won elected office in November 2015, bringing an end to nearly five decades of authoritarian military rule, many local journalists saw the democratic result as a de facto win for press freedom.

Burma's previous military regimes imposed strict restrictions on the media, including a pre-publication censorship system that left any news or commentary even remotely critical of the junta or its commanding officers on news publications' cutting room floors.

For decades, Burma was home to one of Asia's most repressive media environments, where scores of journalists who dared to shirk the regime's censorship orders—either under pseudonyms or by filing secretly to exile-run independent media—were sentenced to jail terms in abysmal and often brutal prison conditions.

While those restrictions started to lift under previous President Thein Sein, including an end in August 2012 to pre-publication censorship and the release in November 2012 of political prisoners, including many journalists, in a mass presidential amnesty, self-censorship endured because laws used to stifle free expression and punish dissent remained on the books. In 2013, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)'s report "Burma falters, backtracks on press freedom," found Thein Sein's military-backed, quasi-civilian government lacked a genuine commitment to a more open press environment.

Now, one year into State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's de facto leadership, and despite hopes that the former political prisoner and pro-democracy icon would leverage her resounding mandate to roll back military power and strike down draconian laws, the situation for journalists has not materially improved, according to Burma-based journalists who spoke with the CPJ.

"Press freedom in our country is not really improving," said Kyaw Zwa Moe, editor of the The Irrawaddy, a news group established by exiles that began operating from inside the country during Thein Sein's term. "There is still limited space for independent media due to restrictive laws, [media] market monopoly, no clear policy for access to information, and media-unfriendly establishments and authorities."

Presidential spokesperson Zaw Htay, who served the same role under Thein Sein, did not immediately respond to CPJ's request for comment.

A woman takes a selfie with State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma in May. (Photo: Reuters/Soe Zeya Tun)

Kyaw Zwa says while Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD-led government has not imposed new restrictions on reporters, it has also not done enough to amend or abolish laws from the military era, including bans on reporting that could be deemed as threatening to national harmony and security. "The government has still failed to create an environment where independent media can practice their professions freely and ethically," said Kyaw Zwa.

Chief among those laws is section 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law, a broad provision that carries potential three-year prison terms for cases of defamation over communications networks. While the law was used only occasionally against journalists under military rule, politicians, military officials, and even Buddhist monks are increasingly using it now to stifle online and social media criticism.

Journalists who endured the military regime's pre-publication censorship say there is still a wide range of topics, including cases of high-level corruption, religious criticism, communal violence, and the military's operations, activities and business dealings that are still largely taboo under Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's democratic government.

They say the rising use of 66(d) has hamstrung them from reporting into alleged past corruption and abuses committed under the former junta. Burma PEN, a free expression group, estimates 55 Article 66(d)-related cases have been filed since the NLD took power, including charges filed against social media users who posted material critical of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Ko Swe Win, chief reporter at the local Myanmar Now newspaper, was charged under 66(d) on March 7 for his critical reporting on a prominent radical Buddhist monk, U Wirathu, who in a Facebook post thanked the assassins who shot and killed a Muslim NLD legal adviser at Rangoon's international airport in January. A week later, the reporter was stopped in the street by three men who had photos of him on their mobile phones and who acted in a threatening manner, according to reports.

The monk's defamation case against Swe Win, filed by supporters of one of the radical Ma Ba Tha groups that he leads, has since been dropped. However, the Buddhist fundamentalist group the Patriotic Monks Union of Burma pressured the Ministry of Religious Affairs to pursue legal action against the reporter for allegedly defaming Buddhism, according to reports. It is an incendiary charge in the Buddhist-majority nation. Human rights activists have accused Ma Ba Tha of inciting communal violence against groups or individuals it views as a threat to Buddhism, according to media reports and rights groups. Wirathu has denied any role in the violence.

Politicians have also used the act to stifle media criticism. Eleven Media Group chief executive Than Htut Aung and chief editor Wai Phyo were detained on Nov. 11 under 66(d) over an editorial that alleged Rangoon's chief minister might have been involved in corruption, according to reports. The journalists were held in pre-trial detention for nearly two months before they were released on bail. The results of the pending case will set an important precedent on the law's use against the press.

"Section 66(d) is hugely problematic," said Thomas Kean, editor-in-chief of Frontier, a local weekly English-language news magazine that he says has faced threats of legal action but no cases under the law. "It is so broad that anything we report could result in a complaint to police. We don't actually spend too much time thinking about it because if you tried to avoid potential cases by self-censoring you would have little left over that you actually wanted to publish," he said.

A woman takes a selfie with State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma in May. (Photo: Reuters/Soe Zeya Tun)

Other reporters and editors told CPJ that critical reporting on the military, completely banned under the junta, is still fraught under Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. That's in large part because Burma's transition to democracy remains incomplete, with the military maintaining autonomous control over the defense, home, and border affairs ministries and having a 25 percent appointed bloc in parliament.

The military has leveraged those residual powers to block reporters' access to conflict zones, including a news blackout of a military operation in western Arakan State—imposed since October—that rights groups claim gave cover for rights abuses of ethnic Rohingya civilians. The government denies abuses were committed during the lock-down operation, which is now the subject of a United Nations human rights inquiry.

Authorities have blocked access to the region to enforce the blackout and threatened legal action against reporters who violate the ban. Reporters have been allowed access to certain areas in recent weeks, but only via two tightly controlled tours run by the government, Kean said.

"Reporters are not wholly free to report on military and security matters deemed as sensitive," said Aye Aye Win, a recently retired Associated Press bureau chief who reported for decades under Burma's military rule. "The fact that the NLD government has no control over the military and [lacks] political will to promote press freedom are the reasons [the] situation in Burma has not significantly improved."

Reporters who question the official narrative also come under pressure. Presidential spokesman Zaw Htay singled out Myanmar Times investigations editor Fiona MacGregor on social media, including on the President Office's official Facebook page, as "biased" against the government for a story she reported citing information provided by a local rights group that alleged around 30 Rohingya women had been raped by soldiers in a Arakan State village on Oct. 19, 2016.

MacGregor said she was fired by the privately owned English-language newspaper's management days later for breaking company policy against "damaging national reconciliation and the paper's reputation." MacGregor told CPJ at the time that she felt Zaw Htay's comments aimed to stifle local and foreign reporting on the alleged sexual violence and carried a tacit threat of possible criminal defamation charges.

Zaw Htay did not immediately respond to CPJ's request for comment about her claims. Kavi Chongkittavorn, a senior editor at Myanmar Times, acknowledged CPJ's emailed request for comment but the paper's managers did not immediately respond.

The rape accusations have since been widely reported, including in a Reuters investigation published April 25 that interviewed several Rohingya women in refugee camps in Bangladesh who claimed they were sexually abused and raped by Burma security forces. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi told the United Nations in February she would investigate the allegations, according to news reports.

Still, local groups are pushing for positive change. On May 3, Burma PEN and 13 local media and rights groups released a one-year "scorecard" report assessing free expression conditions that found a "significant shortfall" in relevant reforms under Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's watch. "The government has the power to promote media freedom and freedom of expression, but it hasn't made it a priority," the report concluded.

The report noted that the NLD-dominated parliament amended 19 and enacted 23 laws during its first year in power, including a new personal privacy and security law that aims to curb physical, though not online, state surveillance. Lawmakers also abolished the 1950 Emergency Provisions Act, the ex-military regime's security law of choice for targeting dissidents and journalists, which had allowances for life in prison or even death for violations.

But with other repressive laws still on the books, including the 2013 Telecommunications Law, 2004 Electronics Transactions Law, and the 1923 Official Secrets Act, among others, that carry prison terms, Burma's media is still susceptible to vague and arbitrary threats. "The NLD government is trying to reform laws, but based primarily on its own perceptions, not on international human rights standards," the PEN report said.

This article was originally published by CPJ.

Shawn W. Crispin is Senior Southeast Asia Representative of CPJ based in Bangkok, Thailand, where he has worked as a journalist for more than 15 years. He has led CPJ missions throughout the region and is the author of several CPJ special reports.

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Muslim Asia Caught in the Middle as Diplomatic Row Rocks Middle East

Posted: 07 Jun 2017 02:43 AM PDT

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Non-Arab nations in Asia, such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan, are getting caught in the middle after Saudi Arabia led a clampdown on Qatar, accusing the tiny emirate of supporting pro-Iranian Islamist militants.

Malaysia had rolled out the red carpet for Saudi Arabia's King Salman at the end of February, the first by a Saudi king to Malaysia in more than a decade. Then, the following month, Kuala Lumpur signed a defense cooperation agreement with Qatar.

A source close to the Malaysian government said that the recent efforts to strengthen ties with Qatar, including a visit by the foreign minister last month, will probably now be put on the backburner.

"We have more to lose by siding with Qatar," said the source, who requested anonymity.

On Monday, a half-dozen countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Bahrain, cut diplomatic ties with the energy-rich emirate, accusing it of backing Tehran and Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

Qatar has said it does not support terrorism and the rupture was founded on "baseless fabricated claims."

Doha now faces an acute economic plight as it relies on Gulf neighbors for 80 percent of its food imports.

The diplomatic clamp down on Qatar is seen as an indirect jab at Iran, and leaves non-Arab Muslims countries in an "uncomfortable position," according to James Dorsey, a senior fellow at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS).

"The Saudis view Iran as the foremost terrorist threat rather than the Islamic State and a lot of non-Arab Muslims countries … would probably not agree with that," Dorsey told Reuters.

Pakistan's Official Silence

Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan are predominantly Sunni-Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia. Jakarta has sometimes tried to play a mediating role when inter-Arab tensions have flared, particularly between Saudi Arabia and predominantly Shi'ite Muslim Iran.

Jakarta's Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi received a phone call from Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday who wanted to discuss the rift, Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir said.

Indonesia has called for reconciliation and dialogue in the latest diplomatic clash.

The dilemmas are particularly acute for nuclear-armed Pakistan, which has the world's sixth-largest army and the largest military in the Muslim world.

Sunni-majority Pakistan maintains deep links with the establishment in Riyadh, which provided Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with political asylum after he was ousted in a 1999 military coup.

But with a large Shi'ite minority and a shared western border with Iran, Pakistan has a lot to lose from rising sectarian tensions. In 2015, Pakistan declined a Saudi call to join a Riyadh-led military intervention in Yemen to fight Iranian-allied insurgents.

Pakistan has maintained official silence about the latest rift in the Arab world, loathe to be seen taking sides between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Pakistan also has close ties with Qatar itself, including a 15-year agreement signed last year to import up to 3.75 million tons of liquefied natural gas a year from the emirate, a major step in filling Pakistan's energy shortfall.

"Pakistan has to act very carefully. In my opinion, there is only one option for Pakistan: to stay neutral," said retired army Brigadier Shaukat Qadir, now an independent risk and security analyst.

Islamic Military Alliance

Pakistan's recently retired army chief, General Raheel Sharif, traveled to Riyadh in April to lead the Saudi-led Islamic Military Alliance. The stated mission of the multinational alliance is to fight terrorism but it is increasingly seen as anti-Iran.

"There are rumors flying around that Raheel Sharif is pulling out of the Saudi-led military alliance. I hope they are true and he comes back soon," said Qadir.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in January 2016 visited both Riyadh and Tehran along with Shariff, who was then the army chief, in an attempt to bridge the deepening chasm.

Relations between Malaysia and Saudi Arabia have been in the spotlight over the last two years after Saudi Arabia was dragged into a multi-billion dollar corruption scandal at Malaysian state fund lMDB, founded by Najib.

Najib has denied any wrongdoing in the money-laundering case which is now being investigated by several countries including the US, Switzerland and Singapore.

During King Salman's visit to Malaysia, Saudi oil giant Aramco agreed to buy a US$7 billion equity stake in Malaysian state energy firm Petronas' major refining and petrochemical project.

But Qatar has also invested between $12 billion and $15 billion in Malaysia, according to media reports.

RSIS' Dorsey said non-Arab Muslim countries like Malaysia would be "put on the spot" if the Saudis demand that its trade partners pick a side.

"They (Malaysia) can say either I do business with you, or say I’m not going to make that choice. Then the question would be how would the Saudis or the UAE respond to that," Dorsey said. "But we’re not there yet, and there's no certainty that it will get there."

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Demand for Elephant Skin Driving up Poaching in Burma

Posted: 06 Jun 2017 08:47 PM PDT

A new elephant poaching "crisis" is emerging in Burma, WWF announced yesterday.

In addition to targeting wild elephants for their tusks, poachers are now killing elephants for their skin. The hide is reportedly being used for traditional medicine or is being turned into jewelry.

Since 2013, more than 100 elephants have been killed for their skin, WWF said. In the first few months of this year alone poachers have killed at least 20 elephants, surpassing the yearly average elephant poaching rate for Burma. Each animal, killed with poisoned darts, was skinned or close to being skinned, Rohit Singh, Global Wildlife Law Enforcement Specialist at WWF, told Mongabay.

"Elephant skins have been in the market for the past few years, but we recently noticed a sudden increase in demand," Singh said. "While reasons behind this surge in demand remain unknown, we are seeing this reflected in the numbers of wild elephants found killed and skinned."

Fewer than 2,000 wild elephants are estimated to survive in the country now. And this recent elephant skin fad could cause their populations to collapse, conservationists warn.

Ivory poaching in Asian countries typically targets tusked male elephants since females usually lack tusks. In Burma, this has resulted in a skewed sex ratio of the wild elephant populations. But now, with an increase in demand for elephant skin and teeth, mothers and calves are also being killed.

"This additional pressure on young ones and breeding females will have serious amplifications on the future survival of this species in Burma," Singh said. "This is why it is so important to put a stop to this crisis now, before Burma's wild elephant populations become biologically unviable."

The recent surge in poaching for elephant skin is being exacerbated by weak law enforcement. For example, when AFP reporters visited Golden Rock, a popular Buddhist pilgrimage site in Burma, they found several shops openly selling slices of elephant skin for just a few dollars per square inch of skin.

Shutting down these markets, and increasing protection for the elephants is key to combatting the illegal wildlife trade, WWF said.

"We urgently need to deploy ranger squads into key priority areas where the elephants are being poached from—Bago Yoma and Irrawaddy Delta," Singh said. "These ranger squads will be well-trained and equipped to defend the remaining elephants. In the mid- to long-term, more can be done to put a stop to illegal trade of wildlife in Burma and the region. In Burma, we want to work with the government to close down the key markets where illegal wildlife products are sold."

To help put a stop to elephant poaching, WWF has launched a #SaveTheirSkins campaign.

"We are witnessing the perfect storm for wild elephants in Burma," Christy Williams, Country Director of WWF-Burma, said in a statement. "We urge people and governments across this region to come together to support increased protection for the last remaining wild Asian elephants in Burma and beyond."

Shreya Dasgupta is a science and environmental writer based in India. A former wildlife researcher, she writes about animals, conservation, biology, people and places. This article was originally published in Mongabay.

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China and Burma: Not Only Pauk-Phaw

Posted: 06 Jun 2017 07:30 PM PDT

Part 3 of a 5-part series

1978 to 1988: Rapprochement and Stalemate

This decade was a period of gradual rapprochement between Burma and China—and a virtual standstill in the previously extremely heavy fighting between Burmese government forces and the CPB. Following Ne Win's trips to China and Cambodia in 1977, Deng Xiaoping paid a politically important visit to Rangoon on January 26-31, 1978. Diplomatic relations on the ambassadorial level between China and Rangoon had been restored in 1970, but it was not until Deng's visit that the hitherto strained relationship between the two countries could be described as reasonably normal. Aid to the CPB was downgraded, but not completely cut off. The official Chinese policy from 1979-88 was also characterized by the rather contradictory Chinese concept of differentiating between "party-to- party" relations and "government-to government" ties—a meaningless distinction in the Chinese context since the party in any case formed the government in Beijing.

Relations between Rangoon and Beijing were nevertheless improving noticeably. On July 9-13, 1979, Burmese Prime Minister Maung Maung Kha visited China and signed an agreement on economic and technical cooperation. Ne Win returned to China in October 1980 and again in May 1985. China's President Li Xiannian visited Rangoon in March 1985. Meanwhile, the CPB forces in Burma's northeast were becoming increasingly irrelevant and anachronistic. They neither advanced, nor were they defeated by the Burmese army.

A new facet of the CPB was also becoming important for the group. In their base area, a lucrative, cross-border contraband trade was beginning to become economically significant. When the Chinese in 1978-79 decided that the CPB had to become "self-sufficient," illicit cross-border trade became its main source of income and the orthodox Burmese Maoists suddenly became freewheeling capitalists. Chinese consumer goods—textiles, plastic products, cigarettes, beer, bicycles, petrol and household utensils—were exchanged for Burmese timber, minerals, precious stones, and jade. The CPB survived by taxing this increasingly lucrative, but still illegal, cross-border trade. This became the foundation for an entirely new kind of relationship between China and Burma, both at the central level and along the border.

1988 to 2011: Pauk-Phaw or Patron-Client?

A seemingly insignificant event in the midst of the political turmoil that engulfed Burma during the summer of 1988 turned out to be an extremely important watershed in Sino-Burmese relations. On August 6, 1988, as mass demonstrations shook Rangoon almost daily and only two days before a general strike crippled the entire country, most observers were probably amused to read in the official media in Rangoon that China and Burma had signed an agreement, allowing official cross-border trade to take place between the two countries. While the rest of the world was watching what they thought were the last days of the old regime, Beijing was betting on its continued ability to play a double game that leveraged both its historic and cultural ties to cross-border ethnic rebels and its neutral approach to engagement with whatever government was in power in Rangoon.

The Chinese had expressed their intentions, almost unnoticed, in an article in the "Beijing Review" as early as September 2, 1985. Titled "Opening to the Southwest: An Expert Opinion," this article by the former Vice Minister of Communications Pan Qi outlined the possibilities of finding an outlet for trade from China, through Burma, to the Indian Ocean. Pan mentioned the Burmese railheads of Myitkyina and Lashio in northeastern Burma as possible conduits for the export of Chinese goods but refrained from mentioning that all relevant border areas were not under central Burmese government control.

At that time, nearly the entire, 1,357-mile Sino-Burmese frontier was actually controlled by the CPB and other non-state armed groups who had ties—political, ethnic or both—to China. Following the 1960 border agreement, a joint Sino-Burmese team had marked the frontier with border stones that literally covered the full length of the common border. When these had crumbled more than two decades later, new stones were erected in 1985 in accordance with a new agreement. But this time, the Burmese border stones, the location of which the Chinese had decided, were conveniently located in open paddy fields and glades in the jungle, far from major rebel bases along the frontier.

By early 1987, the Burmese government had managed to recapture a few CPB strongholds along the frontier, including the booming border town of Panghsai, where the fabled Burma Road crosses into China. At the same time, the Chinese, whose policies had changed dramatically since the Cultural Revolution, began to penetrate the Burmese market through an extensive economic intelligence reporting system within Burma. This network monitored the availability of domestically manufactured Burmese products, as well as the nature and volume of illegal trade from other neighboring countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and India. China could then respond to the market conditions by producing goods in its state sector factories. More than 2,000 carefully selected items were reported to be flooding the Burmese market. Chinese-made consumer goods were not only made deliberately cheaper than those from other neighboring countries, but were also less expensive than local Burmese products.

In March-April 1989, to the surprise of many, the hill tribe rank and file of the CPB's army mutinied and drove the party's Maoist leadership into exile in China.

The mutiny came after years of simmering discontent between the hill tribe cannon fodder, who had been forcibly recruited into the CPB's army, and the ageing Burman intellectuals who were still clinging to their old ideals. The government in Rangoon quickly and shrewdly exploited the mutiny: the leaders of the new forces who emerged from the ashes of the old CPB were promised that they could engage in any kind of business, if they agreed to a ceasefire with the government and refrained from sharing their vast quantity of weaponry (acquired from the Chinese from 1968 to 1978) with other rebel groups. The most potent military threat to Rangoon was neutralized, at a time when the military government was facing a serious threat within the Burman heartlands. As a result the cross-border trade flourished.

However, diminution of the importance of the CPB would not irrevocably damage China's influence in Burma. In the wake of the Rangoon massacre of 1988, and the Tiananmen Square massacre the following year, it was hardly surprising that the two isolated, internationally condemned neighbors would move closer to each other in the following years. This new, very special relationship between Burma and China was first articulated by Burma's powerful intelligence chief, Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt, a leading member of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), in an address to a group of Chinese engineers working on a project in Rangoon: "We sympathize with the People's Republic of China as disturbances similar to those in Burma last year [i.e. 1988] broke out in the People's Republic of China [in May-June 1989]."

A Beijing citizen stands in front of tanks on the Avenue of Eternal Peace on June 5, 1989 during the crushing of the Tiananmen Square uprising. (Photo: Arthur Tsang/ Reuters)

The importance of relations between these two bloodstained authoritarian regimes increased following a twelve-day visit to China in October 1989 by a twenty-four member military team from Burma. Gen. Than Shwe led the team, which also included Lt-Gen. Khin Nyunt, the director of procurement Brigadier Gen. David Abel, and the chiefs of the air force and navy. The visit resulted in a massive arms deal: China pledged to deliver US$1.4 billion worth of military hardware to Burma, including a squadron of F-7 jet fighters (the Chinese version of the Soviet MiG-21), at least four Hainan-class naval patrol boats, about 100 light tanks and armored personnel carriers, antiaircraft guns, rockets, a substantial quantity of small arms and ammunition, and radio equipment for military use.

By 1990, Burma had become China's principal political and military ally in Southeast Asia. Chinese arms pouring across the border into Burma were crucial to the survival of the extremely unpopular military regime in Rangoon. After the signing of the border-trade agreement in August 1988, Burma became China's chief foreign market for cheap consumer goods, and China became the major importer of Burmese timber, forestry products, minerals, seafood and agricultural produce. At the time, World Bank analysts estimated that nearly $1.5 billion worth of goods were exchanged along the Burma-China frontier, not including a flourishing trade in narcotics from the Burmese sector of the Golden Triangle.

In addition to trade, China soon became involved with upgrading Burma's badly maintained roads and railways. By late 1991, Chinese experts were working on a series of infrastructure projects in Burma. That same year, Chinese military advisers arrived and were the first foreign military personnel to be stationed in Burma since the fifties. Burma, in effect, became a Chinese client state. What the CPB failed to achieve for the Chinese on the battlefield was accomplished by shrewd diplomacy and flourishing bilateral trade amidst a politically weak government.

Though there was Chinese interest and acquisition of Burmese resources, the real resource play came later, and in spades. In April 2007, China's National Development and Resource Commission approved a plan to build oil and gas pipelines connecting China's interior to Burma's vast untapped on- and offshore petroleum resources. In November 2008, China and Burma agreed to build a $1.5 billion oil pipeline and $1.04 billion natural gas pipeline. In March 2009, China and Burma finally signed an agreement to build that natural gas pipeline, and in June 2009 an agreement to build the crude oil pipeline. The inauguration ceremony marking the start of construction was held on October 31, 2009, on Maday Island on Burma's western coast. The gas pipeline from the Bay of Bengal to Kunming, in China's Yunnan province, would be supplemented by an oil pipeline with a terminus in Kyaukphyu in Arakan State, designed to allow Chinese ships carrying fuel imports from the Middle East to skirt the congested Malacca Strait. And in September 2010, China agreed to provide Burma with $4.2 billion worth of interest-free loans over a 30-year period to help fund hydropower projects, road and railway construction, and information technology development.

This growing cooperation masked a deeper sense of unease within Burma's nationalistic senior officer corps, many of who had fresh memories of fighting CPB troops armed by Beijing. These tensions often came to the surface in ways that looked like internal power struggles but in reality were often spurred by disputes over China's influence. The first blow against China came in October 2004, when the then-prime minister and former intelligence chief Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt was ousted in an internal putsch. The Chinese at first refused to believe that their man in Burma had been pushed out—how dare Than Shwe and the other generals move against a figure so key to the relationship?

Nevertheless, both sides managed to smooth over the incident, and bilateral relations appeared to return to normal. Then, in 2009 without advanced warning to Beijing, Burmese troops moved against a non-state armed group in the Kokang area in the northeast, dislocating more than 30,000 people on both sides of the border, all of whom ended up seeking temporary shelter in China. Beijing expressed its unhappiness with the Burmese military's tactics, but ultimately took no steps beyond demarches. China's leaders were again unpleasantly surprised when the new Thein Sein government announced on September 30, 2011, that a China-sponsored, hydroelectric power mega-project at Myitsone, in the far north of the country, had been suspended. By this time, there were other signals that Beijing could no longer ignore regarding its loss of influence, including a budding relationship between Burma and the United States.

Read Part 2 of the series here. Tomorrow: Part 4. Burma-US Relations, It's Complicated

This article was originally published here by The Project 2049 Institute, a policy group based in the US.

The post China and Burma: Not Only Pauk-Phaw appeared first on The Irrawaddy.
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