Monday, January 21, 2019

The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

Three Kachin State Ministers Told to Quit ‘on Suu Kyi’s Orders’

Posted: 21 Jan 2019 03:51 AM PST

YANGON—The Kachin chief minister has ordered three ministers to resign their positions without giving a reason other than to say that the instruction came from State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, according to one of the ministers.

U Mya Thein, who was the Kachin State Minister for Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation, told The Irrawaddy he and the other two ministers were forced to resign on Friday.

"The Kachin chief minister said the instruction came from State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. He forced me to write a resignation letter as quickly as possible," U Mya Thein said.

According to Kachin Chief Minister Khet Aung, State Environment and Natural Resources Minister U H La Aung and Minister for Social Affairs Dr. Thin Lwin were the other two forced to resign.

Last week, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi visited the state capital, Myitkyina, to mark Kachin State Day. All three ministers said they met her during the visit, adding that she had not made any complaint about the ministers' performance or mentioned complaints from the public.

U Mya Thein said the chief minister suggested he put "personal health condition" as the reason for the resignation in his letter.

U Mya Thein also serves as chairman of the National League for Democracy in Kachin State. He said there had been no complaints or reports of corruption from the public prior to his receiving the order to resign. He said he had sent a complaint letter to the NLD headquarters, as he believed his performance was good and that he had not committed any corruption.

The Kachin chief minister refused to provide any details, but told the media on Monday that he was "exercising the chain of command", indicating the order had come from above.

NLD spokesperson U Myo Nyunt told The Irrawaddy he could not make any comment, as he had yet to receive any details regarding the resignations of the Kachin ministers. He could not confirm that the decision had come from Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. But he acknowledged the party had received a complaint letter from U Mya Thein.

The outgoing minister for environment and natural resources, U H La Aung, told The Irrawaddy he had been trying to meet Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in person in Naypyitaw since the chief minister ordered his resignation. He said that he too had not been the subject of any complaint letters or corruption reports from the public. U H La Aung is recognized as a hard-working minister for his efforts to enforce laws governing the jade mines in Hpakant, which have damaged the environment due to overexploitation for many years.

Dr. Thin Lwin told The Irrawaddy the chief minister called him into his office on Monday morning but he refused to meet him, saying he had unfinished business to attend to, implementing plans for orphans and IDPs in Kachin State.

"I don't believe the order came from Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. I am trying to confirm it. If it is true, I will resign," Dr. Thin Lwin said.

Upper House Lawmaker for Kachin State U Khin Maung Myint said the Lisu ethnic affairs minister and lawmakers from the upper and lower houses signed a complaint letter and sent it to the President's Office three months ago asking that action be taken against Dr. Thin Lwin after he made racially discriminatory comments about Kachin IDPs.

"More than 100 Kachin people sent a complaint letter to the President's Office," U Khin Maung Myint said.

However, he said, "U H La Aung is as hard-working a person as I have met in the Kachin State cabinet. I am sure people are very satisfied with his work. I have no idea why he is on the list."

Kachin Peace Network coordinator Khon Ja said U H La Aung's resignation was a loss to the Kachin government, as his performance had been approved by the public.

According to the 2008 Constitution's Article 263, the chief minister of a region or state, or any minister, may be impeached for one of the following reasons: high treason, breach of any of the provisions of the Constitution, misconduct, disqualification of the chief minister or minister of the region or state as prescribed in the Constitution, or inefficient discharge of their duties as assigned by law.

The Constitution states that if there is a need to impeach, a charge signed by not less than one fourth of the total number of representatives in Parliament shall be submitted to the House speaker. Then, the speaker shall form a team to investigate the charge. If the investigation finds that the minister is unfit to continue in office, the speaker shall submit the resolution to the president. Upon receipt of the report, the president "shall remove the impeached minister".

U Mya Thein said the Kachin chief minister's action was totally against the Constitution, as an investigation should precede any decision by the state counselor regarding his removal.

"I have no guilt. I did not do anything wrong. I will continue to seek the reason," U Mya Thein said.

The post Three Kachin State Ministers Told to Quit 'on Suu Kyi's Orders' appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Obituary: David Abel, Economics Czar Under Myanmar’s Military Regime, Dies

Posted: 21 Jan 2019 03:29 AM PST

David Oliver Abel, a former brigadier general and the economics czar of Myanmar’s military regime in the 1990s, died of heart failure in Yangon on Sunday. He was 84.

Of Anglo-Burman, Indian and Jewish Catholic descent, he was one of only a few non-Buddhists in the military government. Born in Yangon, David Abel was selected to attend the Royal Military Academy, Sand Hurst, in the United Kingdom from 1953 to 1956 and graduated with a degree in economics.

He served in the Myanmar Army in various positions, fought against the Mujahedeen in Rakhine State and against local communist insurgents in northern Shan State. When the military staged a coup in 1988 and formed the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), he was one of its members and the only non-Buddhist. He retired from the Army with the rank of brigadier general while serving as director general of procurement in 1991.

David Abel was at various times minister of commerce, minister of finance and revenue, minister of national planning and economic development and minister of the chairman’s affairs at the State Peace and Development Council. In 1990 he founded Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings, one of two major conglomerates run by Myanmar’s military to promote the country's major industrial sectors and stabilize the national economy. Under his guidance, the country significantly liberalized its international trading relationships from 1989 to 1994.

However, David Abel was said to have displeased the generals by questioning the economic strategies they implemented after the 1997 financial crisis in Asia. Senior General Than Shwe and his deputy, Vice Senior General Maung Aye, disapproved of his statements about opening up Myanmar’s economy. He was disappointed when they blocked his reform efforts at the holding company.

He retired from the government in 2003. But even afterward he was banned from traveling abroad by the military, which worried that the former economic advisor would continue to speak out, possibly about the country’s economic woes or alleged ties between local drug lords and foreign companies.

David Abel’s obituary notice on Monday described him as a brigadier general and ex-minister. He might have risen higher, possibly to lieutenant general, as did some of his SLORC colleagues. Were his bosses displease with his efforts to improve the economy? Did they disapprove of his Christian faith? Only they know.

The post Obituary: David Abel, Economics Czar Under Myanmar’s Military Regime, Dies appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Gov’t Silent on Army’s Claim that Suu Kyi Wants AA ‘Crushed’

Posted: 21 Jan 2019 02:31 AM PST

NAYPYITAW—The President's Office has declined to comment on military leaders' claim that State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi instructed the Myanmar Army to crush the Arakan Army (AA).

At a press conference in Naypyitaw on Friday, Major-General Tun Tun Nyi of the Myanmar Army (or Tatmadaw) said, "State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said the AA is an insurgent group at a meeting on Jan. 7 at the Presidential House. She instructed us to effectively crush the AA and if not, there will be finger-pointing over why [the Tatmadaw] has not crushed the AA, [whose members are from a recognized] ethnic group, but crushed the ARSA, [whose members] practice a different religion." ARSA refers to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.

The President's Office declined to comment, saying discussions of top-level meetings are confidential.

At an informal reception with journalists in Naypyitaw on Saturday, President's Office Director-General U Zaw Htay referred to a document he said was prepared with the approval of the upper echelons of the administration.

Reading from the document, he said: "This is privileged information. No comment."

"Privileged information is highly confidential information. In other words, it is only meant for those with privileged access. It is special-level information," lawyer U Khin Maung Zaw told The Irrawaddy.

The Irrawaddy was not able to contact a Tatmadaw spokesperson for comment about the remarks from the President's Office.

According to Yangon-based journalist U Thiha Thwe, the Tatmadaw wants to demonstrate that it is working in collaboration with the civilian government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and that the state counselor is taking the lead role.

"This could widen the gap between Arakanese forces and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Though [the Myanmar Army] wants to talk about the cooperation between the government and the Tatmadaw—the impact is that huge," he said.

The National League for Democracy-led government, which came to power in the 2015 general election, takes considerable caution in its relations with the Myanmar Army, which has a great degree of power under the 2008 Constitution.

U Zaw Htay said Saturday the government had instructed the Tatmadaw to conduct effective counter-insurgency operations against the AA, which he said threatened the lives and property of the people, and the peace and tranquility of the community.

The post Gov't Silent on Army's Claim that Suu Kyi Wants AA 'Crushed' appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Mandalay Govt to Receive 3rd Repayment of Development Funds

Posted: 20 Jan 2019 10:50 PM PST

MANDALAY — The previous Mandalay Region government will make its third and penultimate repayment of suspect development funds to the current administration by the end of the month, regional Planning and Finance Minister U Myat Thu told The Irrawaddy.

"They said they would pay back 500 million kyats [$327,000] next week. This will be their third repayment, and all the money will have been repaid by next month," he said.

Mandalay Region Chief Minister U Zaw Myint Maung said in June that a 2017 audit found discrepancies and incomplete reports relating to the use of regional development funds amounting to more than 2 billion kyats ($1.3 million) between 2012 and 2016, before the current administration took office.

"Since this money belongs to the nation and its citizens, it should not be neglected or misused. Those responsible must take care of this and explain how these funds were used," said U Zaw Myint Maung. "A debt that they owe to the public can't be written off. They must repay.”

Officials of the previous administration held a press conference in July at which the former regional chief minister, U Ye Myint, said the administration could not pay back the money because it had been provided by private donors for the purpose of developing the region. The former officials sent a letter to the President's Office asking it to review the case.

The former officials later agreed to pay back the money by installments, according to U Myat Thu.

"In fact, they should give back all the money at once. But the chief minister, at their request, agreed to accept installments," he said.

They paid the first 500 million kyats installment in November. The minister said the fourth and final installment, which will come to more than 500 million kyats, will be made by the end of February.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

The post Mandalay Govt to Receive 3rd Repayment of Development Funds appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Ghosn May Have Had Questionable Ethics, Co-Chair of External Nissan Probe Says

Posted: 20 Jan 2019 09:04 PM PST

TOKYO — The co-chair of a committee set up by Japanese automaker Nissan Motor Co to examine the root cause of alleged financial misconduct by ousted chairman Carlos Ghosn said he believed Ghosn may have had questionable ethical standards.

Ghosn, charged with three counts of financial misconduct, has been detained in Tokyo since his arrest on Nov. 19. Ghosn denies the charges against him, which include understating his salary for eight years and temporarily transferring personal financial losses to Nissan’s books.

“Having read the report on the internal investigation, my initial impression was that the head of the company may have had questionable ethical standards,” committee co-chair Seiichiro Nishioka told a briefing late on Sunday after the panel held its first meeting.

Ghosn said on Sunday he would follow restrictions by authorities in Japan in exchange for his release from jail in the latest effort to persuade a court to grant him bail while he awaits trial.

Ghosn, in a statement released in New York, also said he looked forward to defending his reputation in court.

“Nothing is more important to me or to my family,” he said.

Nishioka, a former judge, added that he also saw problems with Nissan’s governance, including the process of determining compensation for directors.

The panel, comprising three Nissan external directors and four third-party members, expects to meet three or four times before making recommendations to Nissan’s board in March on how to tighten lax governance and approval processes for matters including director compensation and chairman selection.

All seven members attended the first meeting in Tokyo, including Jean-Baptiste Duzan, an external director based in France.

For four hours, they discussed issues with two people involved with Nissan including how power had been heavily concentrated with Ghosn for years, Nishioka said, and possible ways to avoid such focus in the future.

Nishioka added that such a concentration of authority in one person was “questionable.”

Mounting allegations

Nissan and partner Mitsubishi Motors, in which Nissan owns a controlling 34 percent stake, have been conducting their own internal investigations into alleged wrongdoing by Ghosn.

On Friday both accused him of improperly receiving $9 million in compensation from a joint venture between the two automakers, raising the possibility that the former boss of the Nissan-Renault alliance could face a fresh charge of embezzlement.

Separate internal investigations have found evidence that a small group of people at both companies helped to carry out or approve transactions including secret compensation and payments on Ghosn’s handful of residences, people with knowledge of the matter have told Reuters.

The arrest of Ghosn, who spearheaded Nissan’s turnaround two decades ago, and the charges against him have jolted the auto industry, while muddying the outlook for Nissan’s three-way alliance with France’s Renault SA and Mitsubishi Motors.

Renault, which dominates the partnership through its 43.4 percent stake in Nissan, is expected to meet within days to consider potential candidates to replace Ghosn as CEO and chairman, sources have told Reuters.

Despite repeated requests by Renault that Nissan hold an extraordinary shareholders meeting as soon as possible to select a new chairman, Nissan plans to wait for the committee’s recommendations before making its nomination. Nissan’s annual shareholders meeting is scheduled for June.

Nishioka said the committee had yet to discuss possible procedures for chairman selection or governance issues related to the Nissan-Renault partnership including its capital structure. He did not rule out such discussions in the future.

France’s government, which holds a 15 percent stake in Renault and has long pushed for a closer tie-up between Renault and Nissan, has told Tokyo that it will seek an integration of the two companies, most likely under a single holding company, the Nikkei business newspaper reported on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Ghosn’s wife, Carole Ghosn, has written to French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss her husband’s situation, her public relations representative said.

The representative, Devon Spurgeon, confirmed a report in French paper Journal du Dimanche that a letter had been sent to Macron this month, but declined to provide details.

Before his arrest, Ghosn had been working towards making the alliance “irreversible” and told Reuters in October that potential changes to the partnership’s structure would come by June 2020.

Nissan owns a 15 percent non-voting stake in Renault.

The post Ghosn May Have Had Questionable Ethics, Co-Chair of External Nissan Probe Says appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

From Pariah to Demi-God: Transgender Leader a Star at Massive Indian Festival

Posted: 20 Jan 2019 08:36 PM PST

PRAYAGRAJ, India — In a desert tent guarded by armed police and a thick-set bouncer, Laxmi Narayan Tripathi is blessing a constant stream of pilgrims, who garland her with marigolds and kneel to touch her feet.

Tripathi, a tattooed transgender leader and a former reality TV star, has become an unlikely icon at India’s Kumbh Mela, a huge religious festival being held on the banks of the Ganges River in the city of Prayagraj. Up to 150 million people are expected to attend by the time the festival ends in March.

On Tuesday, her religious movement, called the Kinnar Akhada, became the first transgender group to bathe at the confluence of the holy Ganges and the Yamuna rivers on the first day of the ancient festival, traditionally reserved for reclusive Hindu priests, almost all of whom are men.

“After centuries down the line, it was when the community finally got its due,” Tripathi told Reuters, seated on a pedestal next to her Michael Kors bag, juggling calls on an iPhone.

Many at the festival cheer Tripathi for reclaiming the lost place in Hinduism for India’s “third gender,” known as the hijras, worshipped as demi-gods for thousands of years but ridiculed and sidelined during British colonial rule.

A law passed in 1871 classed the hijras as “criminals.”

Little changed after independence and hijras were pariahs, living in tribes, begging or soliciting for sustenance and harassed by police.

It was only in 2014 that the Supreme Court officially recognized transgender people as a third gender.

Tripathi is one of the best known. But her support for building a controversial Hindu temple on the site of a demolished mosque has angered some in the LGBT community, who allege she is courting support from India’s powerful religious right to further her own influence.

Fall and rise

The place of hijras in Indian culture dates back to the Ramayana, a more-than 2,000-year-old Hindu epic poem venerated and performed across India.

In the text, the god-king Ram is exiled from the holy city of Ayodhya, with the entire kingdom following him into the forest. He orders them to turn back, but returning after 14 years, finds the hijras waiting for him in the same spot. Impressed by their devotion, he grants them the power to invoke blessings and curses on people.

For centuries, though their lives were far from easy, hijras held a special role in India’s royal courts, tasked with guarding harems and rising to influential positions.

Today, despite their legal recognition, many still face prejudice in what is a conservative country, forced into sex work or seeking alms at weddings and births, a long-held practice among hijras. Hate crimes against them are common and HIV prevalence within the community is many times higher than the general population.

“The ritual seeking of alms is now seen as begging,” said Anindya Hajra, a transgender activist at the Pratyay Gender Trust. “It criminalizes and pushes an already vulnerable community to its very brink.”

Colorful life

Born in 1979 in Thane, a suburb of India’s financial capital, Mumbai, Tripathi says she had a difficult childhood scarred with abuse by a close relative. A sickly child who was bullied at school for being feminine, she grew in confidence after learning Bharatanatyam, a classical Indian dance.

“I chose not to remember the prejudice,” she said. “Rather, I think [about] the good things that have happened to me, and be a flamboyant rainbow.”

Long recognized as one of the most influential figures in the LGBT community in India, she became famous across the country when she appeared on reality TV show “Bigg Boss” in 2011. She was a petitioner in the landmark court ruling that recognized transgender people.

In 2015 she founded her Akhara and began a campaign to have hijras represented at the first “Shahi Snan,” or royal bath, of the Kumbh Mela.

“It all started to reclaim the lost position in the dharma,” Tripathi said, referring to the Hindu cosmic law underlying correct behavior and social order. “I was not very religious until 2015 — life changed.”

Ancient tradition

Devout Hindus believe bathing in the waters of the Ganges absolves people of sins and doing so at the time of the Kumbh Mela, or the “festival of the pot,” brings salvation from the cycle of life and death.

At the festival, 13 religious orders, or Akhara, set up camp on the banks of the Ganges.

The umbrella body overseeing the Akharas initially refused to recognize the Kinnar Akhara as the 14th order.

But Tripathi has forged close bonds with the largest of the other holy orders at the Kumbh Mela, the Juna Akhara. They agreed to bathe together.

On the first royal bathing day on Tuesday, Tripathi rose at 4 a.m., dressed in a saffron sari and applied her makeup. She and her dozens of disciples then began the long procession to the river on a fleet of elaborately decorated trucks.

At the banks of the Ganges, they waited for their turn to bathe. Tripathi met with Hari Giri, the leader of Juna Akhara.

Her Kinnar Akhara “was there, is there, and will always be there,” Giri told Tripathi.

Shortly after sunrise, she plunged into the waters, to the cheers of the crowds who gathered to watch.

Divisive figure

Tripathi has courted controversy with support for the building of a temple dedicated to Ram on the site of a former mosque in Ayodhya which was demolished by hardline Hindus in 1992, leading to riots in which thousands died.

Many Hindus claim the mosque was built over an ancient temple that marked the birthplace of Ram, and the row is expected to be a major issue in a general election due to be held in the country by May. Many activists of India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have been agitating for the construction of a temple at the site, alarming the country’s sizeable Muslim minority.

“There has been an attempt by the right to co-opt trans voices to suit a certain version of history,” said Hajra, the activist. “Our apprehension is also that some are trying to further [their] own personal career moves.”

A letter signed in November by hundreds of transgender people and rights groups accused Tripathi of fuelling “the right-wing politics of communal hatred.”

She is unrepentant.

“Where my Lord Ram was born, there the temple has to come,” she said. The Mughals “brought [the temple] down and then they enslaved us all,” she said, referring to the Muslim emperors who ruled India in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Tripathi plans to spend the rest of the Kumbh festival at her Akhara, receiving visitors among her colorful band of followers, who have little in common with the holy men living monastic lives in the other camps.

“We are not celibate,” she said. “We are demi-gods, not saints. We have our own rules.”

The post From Pariah to Demi-God: Transgender Leader a Star at Massive Indian Festival appeared first on The Irrawaddy.
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