Monday, January 29, 2018

The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

Deputy Minister Tells Tycoon to Finish Yangon Road Project by May or Lose Concession

Posted: 29 Jan 2018 05:26 AM PST

YANGON — Myanmar tycoon U Khin Shwe's Zaykabar company will have its contract terminated if it fails to complete the Kawhmu-Kungyangon-Dedaye road project by May, Deputy Construction Minister U Kyaw Tin warned on Friday. The road connects townships on Yangon's outskirts.

Speaking in the Upper House, the deputy minister said the ministry has already warned the company that it must complete the section of road by the end of May, before the rainy season starts. He was replying to a question from Upper House lawmaker U Kyaw Htwe regarding the non-compliance provision in the company's agreement with the ministry.

"If the company is unable to complete the work in time, it will face termination of its contract," the deputy minister said.

Zaykabar has been building the Hlaingtharyar-Dala-Twante-Kawhmu-Kungyangon-Dedaye road connecting the rural outskirts of Yangon since the early 2010s.

U Khin Shwe was himself once a member of the Upper House representing Kawhmu Township for the former ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). The construction tycoon used to tell his constituents that he spent his own funds on infrastructure development for the constituency.

Kawhmu is the constituency in which State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was elected to the Lower House in the 2012 by-election and the 2015 general election. In 2015, U Khin Shwe lost his Upper House seat to a National League for Democracy candidate.

The deputy minister said the company had been granted a contract to construct nearly 55 miles of road on the Hlaingtharyar-Dala-Twante-Kawhmu-Kungyangon-Dedaye route by the Ministry of Construction's Department of Roads under the previous government.

He said an agreement was signed on Oct. 8, 2013. Of the 55-mile stretch, the company has completed about 41.5 miles, with the nearly 13.5-mile Kawhmu-Kungyangon-Dedaye section still to be built.

The company still has to lay down a 24-foot-wide asphalt-concrete stretch along the 5.5-mile Kawhmu-Kungyangon section, widen seven bridges and lay an 18-foot-wide additional layer of asphalt along the 8-mile-long Kungyangon-Dedaye section.

U Khin Shwe told The Irrawaddy that the work had been delayed because the Ministry of Construction had yet to permit the collection of road tolls on that section.

He claimed he had already spent over 15 billion kyats on the project, and the remaining section would require another 4 billion kyats.

He said that he and the ministry had agreed that he would finish by December 2018, and that the ministry would issue the company a permit to collect road tolls.

Responding to the minister's warning, he said: "It's not official. I never heard that, and they cannot enforce that," he said.

He said he had not received any notice from the Ministry of Construction that the company would have its concession terminated if the work was not complete by May.

He said he had also sent a letter to the Parliament speaker asking him to withdraw lawmaker U Kyaw Htwe's question from the parliamentary record, saying it defamed him and his company.

The post Deputy Minister Tells Tycoon to Finish Yangon Road Project by May or Lose Concession appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Uniformed Peace Performers Upset Military

Posted: 29 Jan 2018 04:52 AM PST

The Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, strongly criticized the use of generic military uniforms at a performance held to support peace-building activities, as well as an accompanying speech by former student leader U Min Ko Naing in Yangon on Jan. 27.

The activities, which included a dramatic performance, singing and a football match, were organized by the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society, and intended to foster support for the government-sponsored 21st Panglong Peace Conference. Union parliamentary speaker U Win Myint and Yangon Region Chief Minister U Phyo Min Thein attended the event while U Win Myint relayed a peace message from State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

U Min Ko Naing, a leader of the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society, urged all military groups, including the Tatmadaw and the ethnic armed organizations, to boost their efforts to achieve peace quickly during his address to the crowd on Saturday.

At a performance illustrating the lack of peace in the country, the uniforms worn by the participants bore no insignia belonging to either the Tatmadaw or the rebel armed groups. The actors pointed guns at the civilians and children begged the soldiers for peace. The performance ended with both sides laying down their arms.

The Tatmadaw's True News Information Team said in a statement on Sunday that such performances "undermined the Tatmadaw's dignity" among the public as well as the international community at a time when its efforts are focused on implementing peace through the nationwide ceasefire agreement. In a post on the Commander-in-Chief's Office's Facebook account, it said the organizers did not seek permission from the Tatmadaw to impersonate soldiers and the uniforms did not conform to military regulations, while the arms were sub-standard.

U Jimmy, another leader of the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society, told The Irrawaddy on Monday that the aim of the performance was to encourage "stakeholders in the country to work in unison toward a successful peace-building process."

"We believe peace can be achieved faster with meaningful public involvement as peace-building is directly related to the people," he said.

The uniforms at the performance were just dark green military fatigues that showed neither ranks nor insignia, so the organizers believed they did not need to seek permission as the message was a general one about stopping fighting between the different armed groups.

"It is universal that armies wear such colored uniforms; as we did not refer to any specific armed forces, whom should we ask for permission?" U Jimmy said.

The Tatmadaw said U Min Ko Naing's speech, in which he claimed every armed force uses child soldiers, neglected the Tatmadaw's efforts to eradicate the use of child soldiers in its ranks since 2012. It said U Min Ko Naing's use of the phrase "every armed force" could imply that the Tatmadaw was also guilty of conscripting child soldiers.

U Min Ko Naing said the key message of the performance was about soldiers laying down their arms to end the fighting and create peace, as he explained to DVB TV on Monday.

The 88 Generation Peace and Open Society has been doing public demonstrations in support of the government's peace-building campaign for several years. It held such gatherings in Yangon and Tanintharyi last year, and plans to conduct more public performances around the country.

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Rakhine Politician, Author Charged with Defamation, Unlawful Association

Posted: 29 Jan 2018 04:45 AM PST

YANGON — Prominent Arakanese politician U Aye Maung and author Wai Han Aung were charged with defamation and unlawful association during their appearance at the Rathedaung Township court in Rakhine State on Monday, according to the author's defense lawyer.

The two were arrested two weeks ago in Sittwe, the state capital, for remarks at a public lecture expressing support for the ethnic armed group the Arakan Army in Rathedaung earlier this month. Authorities had scheduled their first hearing for Jan. 31 but moved it up by two days.

"We have heard that authorities are planning to file additional charges against Dr. Aye Maung at the Sittwe court," Daw Aye Nu Sein, Wai Han Aung's lawyer, told The Irrawaddy.

More serious charges such as high treason can only be tried by a district court, such as the one in Sittwe.

Daw Aye Nu Sein said she did not know if U Aye Maung, a lawmaker in Rakhine State's Lower House, had secured his own lawyer.

She said U Ba Than, who organized the lecture in Rathedaung that sparked the court case, was charged with the same articles as the author and politician but did not appear during Monday's 15-minute hearing.

Wai Han Aung's brother Ko Thein Win said nearly 100 armed Sittwe police accompanied the two defendants on their short drive from Sittwe prison, where they are being held, to the local jetty early Monday morning for the boat trip to Rathedaung. They arrived at court at about 10:20 a.m.

Dozens of police were also deployed in Rathedaung for their arrival. Local authorities temporarily blocked off roads around the court, while passenger boats and schooners arriving on their daily supply runs were barred from docking at the jetties until 11:00 a.m.

Ko Thein Win said relatives of the defendants and journalists alike were not allowed to see the suspects and were informed that the next hearing was scheduled for Feb. 9.

"They should have allowed us to meet with my brother. It's really unfair and unacceptable to me," he said. "The security deployment was quite similar to a military operation; residents were scared of their behavior."

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On Anniversary of NLD Lawyer’s Assassination, Colleagues Recall His Last Days

Posted: 29 Jan 2018 03:22 AM PST

YANGON — As he was hailing a taxi outside the international arrivals hall at Yangon International Airport, U Min Aung heard a "pop". Then he saw a man running, brandishing a gun. "Someone got hit!" people cried. U Min Aung turned to see U Ko Ni, a legal adviser for Myanmar's ruling National League for Democracy party, lying in a pool of blood on the pavement.

"I rushed to the scene and saw blood oozing from U Ko Ni's head. A man who said he was a doctor was performing CPR," the NLD lawmaker recalled.

He took the lawyer's hand to feel for a pulse. There was none.

The incident took place at around 5 p.m. on Jan. 29 last year. U Min Aung, the lawmaker and then municipal minister for Rakhine State, had arrived via Singapore on a Silk Air flight from Indonesia, where he had accompanied U Ko Ni on a weeklong study tour to learn about democratic transition and peaceful coexistence among different communities. They were part of a Myanmar government delegation made up of Information Minister U Pe Myint, the deputy ministers for home affairs and border affairs, and Rakhine and Muslim community members. All had returned on the same flight.

Today marks the first anniversary of the assassination. The motive for U Ko Ni's murder is still unclear despite four men, including the gunman, having been on trial for 10 months. Another main suspect is still at large.

Many have speculated that the lawyer's agitation for constitutional change was the reason he was killed. U Ko Ni was a constitutional expert who had long lobbied for the drafting of a new national Constitution to replace the current, military-drafted charter, which has been criticized as undemocratic. While the motive for the murder has never been satisfactorily explained, according to the minister for home affairs, it was a "personal grudge" on the part of the arrested suspects, who he said were "resentful" of U Ko Ni's political activities. However, many suspect the involvement of more powerful people eager to put an end to the reform efforts of the prominent NLD lawyer.

Recalling the events of that day, U Min Aung said he was deeply touched by what he saw.

"It was really shocking," he said on the eve of the anniversary of the assassination.

U Ko Ni gives a talk on polling station agents ahead of the 2012 by-election in Kawmu Township, where Daw Aung San Suu Kyi contested a seat. (Photo: U Ko Ni / Facebook)

Destined for Tragic Death

For Ko Mya Aye, another member of the delegation, the lawyer's death proves the old saying, "If a bullet has your name on it, nothing else can take you away."

"It might not have happened if our flight had been delayed as was initially announced," said Ko Mya Aye, who joined the delegation as a former student activist and a Muslim representative.

The former 88 Generation Students leader, now a leading member of the Democratic Federal Force group, told The Irrawaddy that the nearly-two-dozen-member delegation arrived at Jakarta International Airport on Jan. 29 to learn that their Silk Air flight had been delayed. They were told to take a TG flight instead.

"If we had flown TG, we would have arrived at night and things would have been different, I think," he said.

But it later turned out that the Silk Air flight would be taking off as scheduled, so the delegation remained on the flight. They landed in Yangon at 4:40 p.m. The group cleared passport control and Ko Mya Aye jumped into a family car after saying goodbye to his travel companions, including U Ko Ni, who was talking to his daughter on the phone.

Minutes later, on his way home, his cell phone rang. "U Ko Ni was just gunned down at the airport!" one of the delegation members informed him.

"I was in total shock, as I had never heard of something like this happening in these times. I rushed back to the airport," Ko Mya Aye said, recalling his memories of the tragic evening a few day before its anniversary.

U Ko Ni (center) at the Union Peace Conference in Naypyitaw in September 2016. (Photo: U Ko Ni / Facebook)

A Moderate Muslim

Describing U Ko Ni as a "progressive Muslim" who wanted to see positive change among Myanmar's Muslims, the former student leader said he had known the lawyer since 2012 when Ko Mya Aye was released from prison after serving a sentence for political activism. He got to know U Ko Ni better while lobbying for constitutional change on behalf of his former organization, 88 Generation Students.

During the Indonesian trip, Ko Mya Aye said, they had a chance to learn about military involvement in the country's democratic transition, as well as terrorism and how the government and civil society groups managed to restore peaceful coexistence between Muslim and Christians on Maluku Island after sectarian conflict there in 1999-2002. International Crisis Group estimates that the conflict claimed at least 5,000 lives.

During the trip, inspired by what they had seen and learned, the delegation members discussed what should be done for Rakhine State, an area torn by communal strife between Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya in western Myanmar.

Ko Mya Aye and U Ko Ni organized two group discussions between Rakhine and Muslim representatives from conflict-torn Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships.

The outcomes were pretty good, Ko Mya Aye said, with participants finding common ground to settle their differences. During the trip, they learned that solutions could only come through dialogue, and that violence was never the answer, he added.

"We agreed to hold more discussions on how to overcome controversial issues like the term 'Rohingya' when we got back to Yangon. Ministers were eager to support us. But with the death of U Ko Ni, everything has stalled," he said.

U Min Aung and Ko Mya Aye agreed that U Ko Ni had been very active throughout the tour, showing particular interest in the Indonesian military's participation in the country's democratic transition and the restoration of peaceful coexistence on Maluku island.

"He asked many good questions relating to those issues during our meetings with officials there," U Min Aung remembered, before adding, "With his death, the plan to have more meetings in Yangon has fizzled out."

The cover of 'How to Fix the Constitution' by U Ko Ni, published in 2013. (Photo: U Ko Ni / Facebook)

A Big Loss

Ko Mya Aye said he admired U Ko Ni for his impartial vision, based not on race or religion but on what was best for the country.

He said they shared similar ideas on citizenship rights for Myanmar's Muslim community, adding that he relied on U Ko Ni for legal advice in this area.

"We don't seek privileges. Just citizenship rights. We don't care about ethnicity either, frankly. I liked him for that flexibility and progressiveness. His death is a great loss for us," he said.

U Min Aung said he did not know U Ko Ni prior to the trip but was impressed by his legal knowledge and burning desire for constitutional change.

"I have to say his death is a big blow for the country's legal sector and to the effort to reform the charter," the lawmaker said.

Asked about the ongoing trial of those involved in the killing, Ko Mya Aye expressed disappointment that the mastermind was still at large and that the motive remained unclear.

He worried that delays could prompt people to speculate about the case. "It's bad for the government," he said.

"What I want in this case is justice. But I don't dare to hope it will be done," he added.

Why?

"Because there is no rule of law in the country," he said.

The post On Anniversary of NLD Lawyer's Assassination, Colleagues Recall His Last Days appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Government Orders Cut in Teak Production, Bans Private Timber Operations

Posted: 29 Jan 2018 02:39 AM PST

YANGON — The government has ordered timber production be reduced by 40 percent in the 2017-18 fiscal year, while banning private timber operations altogether, according to the Naypyitaw Forestry Department.

The department will oversee the production of only 15,000 tons of teak and 350,000 tons of hardwood from forests across the country.

According to the department, the state-owned Myanma Timber Enterprise has a quota to cut down 19,200 teak trees and 592,330 timber trees annually, but this fiscal year it will harvest only 10,620 teak trees and 193,412 other timber trees.

Moreover, the government has placed a ban on private logging in order to control the loss of forest cover, said U Aung Chein, director of the Forestry Department.

"We no longer grant permits to private loggers. Only Myanma Timber Enterprise is producing timber and teak now," he said.

The government has imposed a 10-year ban on the logging of teak and timber covering the entire Bago Mountain Range, the major source of Myanmar's world-famous strain of teak, from 2017 to 2027.

At present, forest covers 29.31 percent of the Bago Mountain Range, according to the Bago Region Forestry Department.

Besides reining in timber production, over 350,000 acres of forest will be established from 2017 to 2027, in order to compensate for deforestation, according to the Forestry Department.

The afforestation project includes establishing government-owned and privately owned forests, community forests, as well as conservation initiatives.

U Tin Aye, secretary of the Myanmar Forest Association, also stressed the importance of conserving existing forests.

"While afforesting, the government should also engage in conservation. It should have specific plans to prevent illegal logging," he said.

According to a 2015 survey by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Myanmar had experienced the third-worst deforestation in the world in recent years, with the country losing at least 1.34 million acres of forest from 2010-2015.

In April 2013, the U Thein Sein government banned the export of raw timber in order to limit deforestation.

The export value of timber and forestry products averaged over $500 million annually before the 2013 ban on raw timber production. Still in the 2013-14 fiscal year, the export value reached nearly $1 billion, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

In the following fiscal year, the export value dropped to only $93 million, while in the 2015-16 fiscal year it was $212.9 million in, and in the 2016-17 fiscal year $247 million.

According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation, forests still cover 47 percent of the country.

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Teachers’ Federation Condemns Dismissal of Student Protesters from University

Posted: 29 Jan 2018 01:26 AM PST

MANDALAY — The Myanmar Teachers' Federation condemned the Ministry of Education on Sunday for the dismissal of student protesters from their respective universities and called for reconsideration.

The statement issued by the MTF on Sunday said that the number of student protesters dismissed from their universities following a brief detainment is up to 36 and that more are on a list for dismissal.

"Dismissal of the students who protested for an increase in the education budget could scare students into not exercising freedom of expression in the future," said Dr. Sai Khaing Myo Tun, president of the MTF.

"The students can be given a warning to start, according to the rules and regulations at each university.

We condemned the dismissal and urge the ministry to reconsider it," he added.

When asked by journalists at an event in Mandalay, the chief minister of Mandalay said the student protesters were handled in line with the law.

However, the MTF said the actions of the authorities go against democratic ways.

"Authorities should not be so harsh. The immediate dismissal will jeopardize freedom of expression," he added.

The MTF said it would concentrate on negotiations with the ministry to ease the situation.

According to the expelled students, the number of students dismissed from their universities reached 40 on Monday.

"We think all 72 students who were detained will be expelled," said Ye Myo Swe, a law student from Yadanabon University.

The students said they would have to submit an appeal in order to continue their studies, which they do not accept.

"We will not return to class until the dismissals are abolished. We will not appeal our dismissals," the students said.

They added that they would continue to press for an increased education budget, as well as other requests that benefit student welfare.

"No matter what punishment is on the way, we will do what we have to do. If I am arrested, there will be another person who will carry on," said Ye Myo Swe.

For the first time under the current government, students from Mandalay, Meiktila, Sagaing, Monywa, Kyaukse, Mohnyin and Pathein gathered at Mandalay's Yadanabon University and set up a protest camp for an increase in the education budget on Jan. 22.

Seventy-two protesters, including 13 female students, were briefly detained on Jan. 25, and then escorted home.

The student union from Yangon University held a press conference on Monday and stated that it would march in protest if the expelled students were not readmitted.

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Developers Ask Govt to Help Spur Construction Sector

Posted: 29 Jan 2018 01:10 AM PST

YANGON — The Myanmar Construction Entrepreneurs Association (MCEA) has called for government intervention to help the construction industry, said the association's vice chairman, U Shein Win.

The association met in Mandalay on Friday to address the challenges facing the construction industry and submitted a list of proposals to the government through Mandalay Region Chief Minister U Zaw Myint Maung.

"The construction industry is one of the major sources of tax revenue for the country. If this industry collapses, the country would have no way to develop," said U Shein Win.

The association offered six proposals, including a reduction in the tax rate on property transactions from 30 percent to 5 percent for two years, bank loans for construction projects with repayment periods of three to 10 years, and a reduction of the interest rate on bank loans from 13 percent to 9 percent.

It also called on the government to provide home mortgages with 15- to 20-year terms.

The construction industry requires long-term investment and has had to rely mainly on bank loans because business has been slow for the past few years, said developer U Maung Weik.

But the Central Bank of Myanmar has restricted loan repayment periods to three years, which has put most developers on the brink of collapse.

In 2016 the government introduced a 30 percent tax rate on property transactions based on the price of the property, a move that developers said has increased tax evasion and proved a challenge for the construction industry.

"If the tax is not at a proper rate, people don't want to pay it. This is usually followed by bribery, and the government also loses tax revenue," said U Myo Myint, chairman of the Young Developers Association.

U Zaw Myint Maung reportedly accepted the association's proposals and promised to share them with State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The chief minister reportedly also urged developers to lobby lawmakers for government assistance for the construction industry.

U Shein Win said the association was set to meet with regional authorities in Yangon and Naypyitaw.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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Senior NLD Member is Noticeably Absent from Monthly Meeting

Posted: 28 Jan 2018 11:31 PM PST

NAYPYITAW — U Win Htein, who is on a vacation in Australia, remains a central executive committee member of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD), said U Nyan Win, chairman of the NLD information team after the NLD CEC monthly meeting in Naypyitaw on Sunday.

"U Win Htein remains a CEC member. He did not report to us about his travel. I don't know if he reported to someone else. Only he knows what role he is in. We don't know. Today, as you see, he is absent, and we didn't discuss him," U Nyan Win told reporters.

U Win Htein traveled to Australia on Jan. 14 for a vacation following the lavish wedding celebration of his son, Hsan Win Htein, in early January, which was negatively compared by some netizens with the famously opulent 2006 marriage of the daughter of then military dictator Than Shwe.

Rumors circulated on social media that the party had suspended him from his duties, and even that he had resigned.

"We didn't discuss U Win Htein. It was not on the agenda. He remains a CEC member," said U Tun Tun Hein, a CEC member of the NLD.

Except for former Irrawaddy Region chief minister U Mahn Johnny, who applied for leave, all of the CEC members including U Win Myint, U Nyan Win, U Phyo Min Thein, Dr. Aung Moe Nyo, U Hantha Myint, U Ohn Kyaing, Dr. Myo Nyunt, Daw May Win Myint, Dr. Zaw Myint, U Nyi Pu and U Aung Soe were present at the meeting.

The major decision reached at the meeting was "to work harder" within the party, said U Nyan Win.

"We have received complaints against more than 100 party members. We discussed whether we need to investigate those complaints or not, and if so, how we should proceed," said U Nyan Win.

There are complaints against state and region chief ministers, ministers, and lawmakers, but not Union-level ministers, he said, adding that a further cabinet reshuffle is unlikely in the immediate future.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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Shivering in the Tropics: Southeast Asia Faces ‘Cooling Crisis’

Posted: 28 Jan 2018 07:46 PM PST

KUALA LUMPUR — Southeast Asia faces a "cooling crisis" as more and more people crank up inefficient air-conditioning to cope with rising temperatures and worsening air pollution, researchers said.

More than 420 managers and experts from government agencies and multinational companies in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam took part in a survey on cooling systems and energy efficiency, conducted by Eco-Business and released at a Bangkok conference on Monday.

Energy demand from members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) climbed 70 percent from 2000 to 2016, with air-conditioning accounting for a large part of household electricity demand, the report said.

The trend is likely to continue as populations grow, cities expand and wealth levels increase.

"The domestic aspect of electricity consumption has grown massively – more so than industry and the service sector in ASEAN – and as a result the air-conditioning bill is going through the roof," said Tim Hill, research director at Eco-Business, a media organization covering sustainability in Asia.

Electricity for the region’s air-conditioning units is largely provided by coal-fired power stations.

The report urged governments and businesses to adopt new policies and rules to help countries meet global targets to cut planet-warming emissions.

"Governments need to drive this by putting in regulations that enforce more efficient forms of air-conditioning – making sure they're not dumping grounds for old-fashioned products," Hill told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The survey's respondents said manufacturers and suppliers of air-conditioning should focus on producing more energy-efficient systems and educating customers better.

Excessive cooling in public buildings – like offices, shopping centers and cinemas – must also be tackled, while public awareness campaigns would help promote energy efficiency.

Cinema-goers in some Southeast Asian cities bring socks to keep warm, while officer workers wear woolly hats and shoppers in malls can be seen wearing winter jackets to stop the shivers. At street level, air-conditioned shops often keep their doors open to entice buyers.

"Air-con is designed to make people feel more comfortable but it's actually doing completely the reverse – it's making people feel more uncomfortable and making them more unproductive by freezing them," Hill said.

Stricter government regulations that promote or enforce energy-efficient cooling systems, and financial incentives to install such systems in homes would help, the report said.

Consumers, businesses and governments must also work together to manage electricity demand better, reduce emissions and pollutants, and move away from a reliance on coal-fired power stations, said Mark Radka, head of energy, climate and technology at UN Environment in Paris, who also worked on the report.

"The ASEAN countries as a whole should try to up their game," he added.

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No Justice for Slain Myanmar Lawyer Ko Ni

Posted: 28 Jan 2018 07:40 PM PST

This story originally ran in Asia Times in June 2017.

Four months since Ko Ni, one of Myanmar's most prominent and talented lawyers, was assassinated in broad daylight outside Yangon's airport and local authorities are not any closer to solving the case. The gunman, Kyi Lin, was apprehended only because furious taxi drivers parked outside the airport chased and apprehended him.

An antique smuggler from Mandalay, Kyi Lin had obviously been hired to kill on the fateful day of January 29. But the person who has been named as the possible mastermind of the plot, a former army officer known as Aung Win Khaing, vanished without a trace in the capital Naypyitaw after the killing — quite a feat given the military-built city's vast, almost empty streets and scattered building complexes.

The ineptitude of the investigation has been matched only by misleading reports in the Western media. Nearly all major Western publications, including the Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Times and the Washington Post, dwelled on Ko Ni's religion, Islam, as a probable motive.

The Economist called Ko Ni a "prominent defender of religious minorities," while the Financial Times described him as "one of Myanmar's most prominent Muslim voices." The BBC even linked their account of the killing to its previous reports on the persecution of minority Muslim Rohingyas in western Rakhine State.

As an old friend and colleague, I was distraught to read those reports. I recalled John F. Kennedy, a Catholic of Irish descent, who famously said before he was elected president of the United States in 1960 that "I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party candidate for president who also happens to be a Catholic."

Likewise, Ko Ni was first and foremost a constitutional and human rights lawyer who also happened to be a Muslim. In our many wide-ranging discussions, he never mixed his personal faith with his wider role as a legal defender of the human rights of all Myanmar's citizens, regardless of their race or religion.

Portrayals of Ko Ni as a "Muslim activist" have only played into the hands of those who would want people to believe his assassination was part of the Buddhist-Muslim communal violence that has wracked the country in recent years. Those misreadings of the situation have given the apparent military culprits an alibi for their widely suspected role in his killing.

Ko Ni was a partner in the investigative journalism program I have led in Myanmar for the past two and a half years. He spoke at the workshops about legal matters affecting the media, providing sage advice to young, aspiring journalists on how to protect themselves against threats in the country's new, less-censored semi-democratic context.

"The 2008 constitution guarantees press freedom and freedom of speech," he would often say during his presentations, "But…" Then he would enumerate the long list of those exceptions — defamation, libel, trespassing, unlawful association, exposing official secrets — and proceed to explain how reporters could best protect themselves against such legal threats.

As a long-time friend, we also shared numerous discussions in private on a wide range of topics, including the country's delicate political situation with the military still lying in the wings. In those many talks, I don't ever recall him touching on any subject relating to religion, other than the broad notion that there should be religious freedom in a democratic nation.

So then why was Ko Ni assassinated? People familiar with his work knew that he was drafting a new, more democratic constitution to replace the current charter, which was adopted after a fraudulent referendum in 2008 and bestows ultimate political power on the military, not elected bodies.

The current charter gives the military a 25 percent appointed block in parliament and control over the government's three most powerful ministries, namely defense, home and border affairs. Ko Ni's main concern was the General Administration Department, a body under the Ministry of Home Affairs that staffs all local governments, from the state and region levels down to districts and townships.

While the ministers who were appointed after the 2015 election won by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) serve as nominal heads of their respective government departments, the bureaucracy underneath is still populated by military-appointed officials who dutifully served the previous rights-abusing, authoritarian regime.

Before the landmark 2015 election, the previous quasi-civilian, military-controlled government even appointed the permanent secretaries who run the ministries, likely as an administrative buffer against if and when a truly democratically elected government rose to power.

Ko Ni wanted to change all that to firmly consolidate democratic rule, but he also knew that amending the 2008 constitution would be nearly impossible under the current political configuration. Because any amendment of the charter requires agreement of more than 75 percent of all MPs, the military maintains de facto veto power through its 25 percent appointed bloc.

But Ko Ni was a master at finding loopholes in the military's constitution, a skill that may have cost him his life. When Suu Kyi and the NLD won a landslide at the 2015 election, she was prevented from assuming the presidency because her two sons are not Myanmar citizens – a clause the military imposed specifically to keep her from becoming national leader.

But Ko Ni devised a legal solution to the problem: an entirely new, overarching government position was created — State Counselor —that allowed Suu Kyi to become de facto head of state. She is now widely viewed as the country's undisputed leader, even though scholar and Suu Kyi loyalist Htin Kyaw officially holds the presidency.

In the same vein, Ko Ni told me in one of our discussions that there was no point in trying to amend the 2008 constitution, but that none of its military-promoting clauses said that parliament couldn't abolish the charter outright with a majority vote that opened the way for the adoption of a new, more democratic charter.

Many people knew that Ko Ni was drafting just such a new constitution at the time of his murder, a point that was raised at a press conference organized by the police in Yangon on February 26, a month after his killing. At the event, a local reporter bravely asked whether Ko Ni's assassination had anything to do with his work on a new charter.

The police chief, Major General Zaw Win, gave a typically evasive answer, saying only that his officials were investigating various possible motives for his murder. While police allegedly continue their search and the military mastermind suspect is supposedly missing, one thing is clear: Ko Ni was killed in cold blood not because he was a Muslim, but because he was a democrat.

The post No Justice for Slain Myanmar Lawyer Ko Ni appeared first on The Irrawaddy.
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