The Irrawaddy Magazine |
- 5th BarCamp Attracts Thousands of Technology Lovers
- Face to Face With the Tattooed Women of Chin
- Thein Sein: Constitution Must Reflect Deals With Ethnic Groups
- With Election Disrupted, Thai Protestors Regroup and Refocus
- Seattle Crushes Denver to Win Super Bowl
- Obama’s Asia Policy Set Back by Democrat
- US refugees From Burma Worry About US changes in Policy
- Confident of Asean Relations, China Denounces Japan’s Air Defense Zone ‘Hype’
- Thai Elections Peaceful, But Crisis Far From Over
| 5th BarCamp Attracts Thousands of Technology Lovers Posted: 03 Feb 2014 04:49 AM PST  Ko Ko Gyi and Min Ko Naing, 88 Generation Student leaders, look at items in an technology exhibition at BarCamp Yangon 2014 this weekend. (Photo: Facebook/BarCampYangon) RANGOON — The fifth BarCamp Yangon, a forum about technology and the Internet that encourages participant involvement, was held this weekend at Myanmar ICT Park on the campus of Hlaing University and attracted about 5,000 participants, the event's organizer said. Zaw Zaw Myo Lwin, a member of the BarCamp 2014 organizing team, said 4,442 participants had been registered, adding that if unregistered visitors are included the number of estimated visitors would rise above 5,000. "We broke the world record for largest BarCamp again because we had the biggest numbers of participants this year, like the previous four versions of the event," he said. "BarCamps in other countries normally have over 1,000 visitors at most." BarCamp is an international network of so-called "unconferences" that began as a meeting mainly of web developers in California's Palo Alto. The user-generated events are primarily focused around technology and web, but take on other topics too. Min Oo, a member of the BarCamp organizing team and joint secretary of Myanmar Computer Professionals Association, said about 160 topics were discussed in the fields such as technology, creativity and entrepreneurship. "We had the BarCamp Fellowship Program for the first time in this year," he said, adding that the fellowship taught 22 participants from different parts of the country how they can set up similar events in their hometowns. Technicians from local and foreign countries, students, youths and around 15 international participants joined in this year's BarCamp, he said. BarCamps normally have between 100 and 800 attendees, but the first such event in Rangoon in 2010 drew about 3,000 people. The numbers have increased every year since, and the 2013 BarCamp in Burma's former capital was attended by more than 6,300 people. Nanj Nyi from Myanmar ICT for Development Organization (Mido), who volunteered in BarCamp Yangon organizing teams since 2010 said that this year most discussions were focused on IT and social networking. "I discussed the topic ‘Facebook Security’ in this year's BarCamp to share how to use Facebook safely and around 20 people, including Facebook users and some which are interested to use Facebook, joined in my discussion," she said. The post 5th BarCamp Attracts Thousands of Technology Lovers appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Face to Face With the Tattooed Women of Chin Posted: 03 Feb 2014 04:36 AM PST  Htang Shen, 30, from the Muun tribe in Mindat. She was tattooed at 15 years old, in 1999, nearly 40 years after the Burmese government banned the practice. Htang Shen said she did it 'to respect my traditions.' (Photo: Jacques Maudy) KANPETLET/MINDAT, Chin State — I was told, before setting off for Chin State, that it was one of the poorest and most isolated regions in Burma. I thought I was prepared. But as is often the case in life, facile descriptions failed to do justice to the reality on the ground. My purpose was to document the tattoo-faced women of Chin. The women we met belonged to six tribes in the southeast of the state, concentrated around the townships of Mindat and Kanpetlet. There are some 12 Chin tribes that once practiced facial tattooing, spread between the north of Arakan State and southeastern Chin State. The tattooing survived long after the Burmese government officially forbade it in 1960. Traditional tattooists were still active until the mid-1990s, and I met one 30-year-old Muun mother whose face was inked at 15 years of age, which would have been circa 1999. I am fascinated by cultural expressions that speak to the diversity of human life. What better antidote to the widespread fear of others—and the racism that this can engender—than to shed light on the beauty and diversity of these traditions? This was my thinking as I travelled east from Mandalay Division.
Burma is an ideal field for cultural exploration, with generations-old traditions often surviving intact due to the isolation of many of its regions, I, . The coexistence of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam, sprinkled with occasionally resilient animist beliefs, makes this country a fascinating case study in human variety. Access to Mindat from Bagan, Mandalay Division, is easier than reaching Kanpetlet. For either destination, four-wheel driving is compulsory. Expect hours of bumpy dirt tracks, river crossings and a lot of dust, especially if your vehicle is an open-air Jeep. Not far into the journey, you get the sense that Chin State has been forgotten by the central government. Others say it is a voluntary isolation, until recently at least. Chin State is predominantly Christian but also strongly animist, and many here complain of religious discrimination from Naypyidaw and its largely Burman Buddhist leaders. A road is under construction from Mount Victoria and nearby Kanpetlet to Seikphyu on the Irrawaddy River, but expect at least three years before you can cruise with ease up to Mount Victoria (Nat Ma Taung) National Park, which hosts Chin State's tallest mountain. Today it is a harrowing four hours along a dusty and rock-strewn route that hardly qualifies as a road. But at least, many locals say, things appear to be moving in the right direction. The absence of roads is the most immediate complaint from locals, along with a lack of medical assistance. Muun, Daai and Makaan tribeswomen are easily spotted in Mindat and the villages around it. Muun women display a distinctive P-shaped pattern on their cheeks and a Y symbol on their foreheads that mirrors an animist totem carved and planted in their villages. Faithful to their animist traditions, the Muun must celebrate at least one week-long sacrificial ceremony during their lifetimes in order to appease the spirits and secure their place in the afterlife. During that week, they will successively sacrifice a chicken, a goat, a pig, a buffalo and a wild buffalo captured from the wild. They will invite the shaman and fellow villagers to feast on the meat and will collect flat stones from the riverbed to build their own "House of Spirits" at the edge of the village. If this ritual is repeated in the course of any one villager's lifetime, the observer gains the privilege of building his House of Spirits next to his home. Though strongly committed to animism, most Muun are simultaneously Christian. One of the more jarring examples of how this mixed religious tradition manifests itself is in the burial practices of the Muun. After the deceased is buried in accordance with Christian tradition, his body will the next day be dug up by friends and cremated, with the bones and ashes laid to rest under the stone stool of his or her House of Spirits. Chin State is perhaps the only place in the world where the cemeteries are empty. Makaan tribeswomen sport a spotted tattoo pattern forming lines on their forehead and chin while Daai women display a face covered with dots that are mixed with vertical and horizontal lines on the forehead and cheeks. Ngagah, Daai, Muun, Yin Duu Daai and Uppriu tribes all live in the villages surrounding Kanpetlet. Yin Duu Daai tattoos consist of vertical lines, including on their eyelids, Uppriu women's faces are completely covered with dark ink, and Ngagah tattoos are a mix of vertical lines and dots. Local lore has it that that these tribes first began to ink their faces as a way of disfiguring their beauty and, in doing so, avoid being kidnapped by the Burman king. A second legend states that they were tattooed distinctively to allow for identification with their tribe of origin in the event that they were kidnapped by another tribe. The latter seems more plausible, as the king of Burma made just a single visit to this region, centuries ago. In any case, these women have bravely withstood several hours-long sessions of pain under a citrus thorn used to imbed the ink into their skin. While I was walking the three-hour stroll from Mindat to the village of Kyar Do with Naing Htang, the son of a wealthy Mindat farmer, I noticed that huge chunks of the native forest had been cut down and sometimes replaced by bean or corn crops. Naing Htang explained that local farmers clear the forest to plant—and not long after exhaust—the newly made arable land. The fields' soil stays fertile for just three years, after which the farmers are forced to move and plant their seeds on a new plot. In this way, some 70 percent of the forest has been already cleared. After a cycle of nine years, farmers often return to the original block to re-plant, but the harvest's yield is much lower. The monsoon season's heavy rains wash the top soil down the land's steep slopes, making that which is already unsuitable for farming even poorer. A high fertility rate of five children on average per couple adds demographic pressures on the land. Naing Htang added that the area's climate was becoming more arid as a direct result of the deforestation. He suggested that a solution would be to cultivate using terraced planting techniques, which would help retain nutrients and top soil, and in turn eliminate the need for rotational farming. But for this they need better road access and machinery, and neither is so far forthcoming. In Naing Htang's opinion, the farmers were aware that they were destroying their own environment but did it "for survival," as he put it, rubbing his belly. I reflected on this, and couldn't help but think that this "survival" mentality meant the population would soon be unable to make a living off these mountains. As we reached Kyar Do village, we heard hymns coming from a timber church up the slope. It was Sunday, and a perfect opportunity for my chase of tattooed Chin women. All the women of the village would be gathered there for the weekly service. We joined the mass and witnessed the Christian fervor of the also-animist villagers. After the service I sat down with the priest, Law Aung, who had been preaching passionately a few minutes earlier. I asked him why the Chin people cling to livelihoods on these inhospitable slopes. He responded that it was to protect themselves from their enemies. When I asked him what could be done to improve the lives of his people, he went silent, and remained that way for so long that I repeated the question, thinking he hadn't understood the query. "If you could ask for one thing to improve the lives of the villagers, what would it be?" "Too many things to ask," he finally replied. "A road and flatter land." I asked what he envisioned for the future of the village. "No future. The land will go down to the river one day and we will have to move elsewhere," he gloomily predicted, affirming my earlier thoughts. A community development team from Naypyidaw that I met in Kanpetlet was startled at the sight of my photos of the tattooed Chin women. They didn't seem to know of these women's existence. We told them about the situation in Kyar Do, preparing them for what they could expect to see in the surrounding villages. Since last year, the villagers have been using a few 300,00 kyats (US$300), Chinese-built motorbikes to link the surrounding villages to Mindat. Small solar panels are providing some electricity to the largely off-grid people, and the villages have acquired a few mobile phones. But these changes, and the road the government is building a few hours' walk away, may be too little, too late for the faces in this remote corner of Chin State. The post Face to Face With the Tattooed Women of Chin appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Thein Sein: Constitution Must Reflect Deals With Ethnic Groups Posted: 03 Feb 2014 03:37 AM PST  President Thein Sein, left, speaks with Saw Mutu Say Poe, chairman of the Karen National Union (KNU), in Naypyidaw last month. (Photo: President's Office) RANGOON — President Thein Sein has urged lawmakers to ensure that any future constitutional amendments take into account the demands of ethnic rebel groups. Speaking in his monthly radio address on Saturday, Thein Sein said the government's negotiation team would soon begin political dialogue with ethnic groups as part of efforts to address grievances and end armed conflicts after decades of civil war. "When considering changes to the 2008 Constitution, I urge you not to overlook the outcome of this dialogue," he said. "Since the main demand of the ethnic groups is a union based on federalist principles, including equality, self-determination, ethnic rights and preservation of their cultures and languages, political dialogue of these and other wide-ranging issues will necessarily result in some amendments to the Constitution." He added, "Therefore, I urge those primarily responsible for constitutional amendments, namely, Parliament, political parties and political groups, to take the above factors into consideration when making amendments." Thein Sein praised the results of a meeting of ethnic groups last month in Law Khee Lar, Karen State, which is territory held by the Karen National Union (KNU). Nearly all of Burma's major ethnic armed groups attended the meeting and pledged to later move forward with a nationwide ceasefire agreement so long as it is accompanied by political dialogue. Thein Sein's administration has inked individual ceasefire deals with all but two of the country's major ethnic rebel groups, and hopes to consolidate those deals into a nationwide agreement. "Building on the positive results achieved at the meeting, the necessary negotiations will take place to hold a peace conference in Hpa-an, Kayin [Karen] State to discuss the signing date and other details of the nationwide ceasefire agreement," the president said. His speech came one day after Parliament's Constitutional Review Joint Committee released a report about proposals for amendments to the 2008 charter, which was written by the former military regime. The committee's report reflected recommendations by members of the public, political parties and the military, and showed support for changes that would allow greater power sharing between the government and ethnic groups. Thein Sein also spoke about continuing land conflicts in the country, as farmers and other civilians put more pressure on lawmakers to address new and old cases of property being seized by the military, private companies or the state over the last half century. The president said his administration was addressing the issue "systematically, with emphasis on taking correct and practical action." "The government is also working with state governments to ensure data concerning landless families is collected and families are resettled according to township development plans," he said. "However, I would like to add that we will take appropriate action against those that illegally enter and occupy land." Over the past year, farmers and activists have been imprisoned for returning to plow their old fields as an act of protest against land seizures. Last month lawmakers accused the government of ignoring a majority of land-grab complaints filed to Parliament, after a cabinet official said the total complaints numbered less than 800 and that the government had resolved over half those cases. The parliamentary land investigation committee says it has received more than 6,000 land-grab complaints since it began collecting data from all 14 states and divisions in 2012. In his speech, the president also briefly addressed education and health care reform. He said the Ministry of Health was working with the World Bank Group to adopt short- and long-term plans for health care reform, after the bank last month announced it would give the country US$200 million to work toward universal health coverage. Burma's health care budget has increased since Thein Sein's government came to power in 2011, but it still accounts for only about 3 percent of the national budget, while hospitals remain understaffed and under supplied. The post Thein Sein: Constitution Must Reflect Deals With Ethnic Groups appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| With Election Disrupted, Thai Protestors Regroup and Refocus Posted: 03 Feb 2014 01:24 AM PST  Thai protesters demonstrate outside a government building in Bangkok in early December. (Photo Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy) BANGKOK — After blocking voting across parts of Bangkok and much of the anti-Government south of Thailand, the opposition-backed protest movement is marching again across the Thai capital. The protestors are dismantling two stages set up for their January 13 “shutdown” of the capital, relocating to a park close to Bangkok’s main banking and finance district and saying they will target private residences of members of Thailand’s caretaker government. With a 26 per cent turnout in Bangkok and with voting not taking place due to a boycott and blockade in the opposition-dominated south, the election, called in late 2013 by a Government under pressure from sometimes-violent street demonstrations, looks unlikely to do much to heal Thailand’s political divide. Overall turnout was 46 per cent out of the 44.6 million eligible voters in 68 of 77 provinces, while voting was disrupted in 18% of constituencies, amid scenes of anger and disappointment among some would-be voters. "I want to vote, what they do is too much," said Supawan Hachawee, standing behind a line of police keeping would-be voters and anti-government protestors apart in Bangkok’s Din Daeng area on Sunday. The protestors stopped voters from entering the district office polling center, leading to an angry stand-off, before the protestors left and the would-be voters broke into the voting area, which had been locked by police. Elsewhere, frustrated voters set up impromptu polling stations, fashioning ballot boxes out of cardboard boxes and creating ad-hoc lists of the disenfranchised voters to be handed to the country’s election commission. Thaksin was removed from office in a 2006 coup and subsequently fled Thailand after 2008 corruption charges. An attempt by Yingluck last year to pass a wide-ranging amnesty, which would have allowed Thaksin return to Thailand, is seen as the spark that galvanized the latest anti-Thaksin protests. The protestors are led by Suthep Thaugsuban, a former Deputy Prime Minister in the 2008-2011 Democrat Party-led government, which sees any election an unwinnable due to strong support for the governing party in the northeast, which has twice the population of the Democrat Party strongholds in the south. It remains unclear whether enough seats will be filled to enable a new government to be formed, while the opposition Democrat Party, which boycotted Sunday’s voting, said it will seek a ruling from the Constitution Court on whether the election is invalid – another legal challenge to the government headed by Yingluck Shinawatra, the brother of ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinwatra, who protestors see as the puppetmaster behind the current government. Yingluck, whose authority as caretaker Prime Minister is unlikely to be bolstered by yesterday’s vote, is also facing investigations over a rice subsidy program, which was intended to benefit her supporters in the northeast – and over an attempt to make Thailand’s Senate a fully-elected body. The protestors see government subsidies for the northeast region as electoral bribery, and say the election system, as well as institutions such as the police, seen as pro-Thaksin, need to be reformed first. Critics of the opposition say that the Democrat Party ducked out of competing in an election it knew it would lose, though dissatisfaction with the government in rice-growing areas to the north, due to unpaid rice subsidies, could have afforded the Democrat Party some room to campaign. However, the Democrat Party seems set an trying to retake power through a combination of protests, legal activism, and now, it seems, alleging that the government is intent on sedition. Speaking on February 1, the night before the vote, Suthep made what seemed a tactical swerve, telling protestors that Thaksin was plotting the downfall of Thailand’s monarchy, and sought to turn the kingdom into a republic. "The intention was to transform Thailand into a republic," Suthep said. While the Suthep-led protestors are mainly southerners from Thailand’s rubber-growing regions, as well as well-off Bangkok residents, many speakers at the protest rallies are stalwarts of Thailand’s previous mass anti-Thaksin protests of 2006 and 2008, which had a strong royalist element. Allegations about Thaksin’s alleged republicanism – which Thaksin has always denied – are not new, but to date this latest incarnation of anti-Thaksinism had toned down claims that Thaksin wanted to undermine Thailand’s monarchy, with Thailand’s mainstream party opposition, the Democrat Party, taking a central role as protest leaders. "The past protestors made a mistake by talking too much about the King, without evidence against Thaksin," said Anusorn Unno, an anthropologist at Bangkok’s Thammasat University. "Therefore Suthep mostly talked about the nation so far, and the Thai national colors are everywhere at the protests," said Anusorn Unno. But it seems that protestors’ royalist leanings are coming to the fore, backed by social media postings by some of Thailand’s royal family clad in protestor garb. These anti-government protests come as Thaksin-backed parties look unassailable at the polls, having won successive elections since the early 2000s, and as thoughts in Thailand turn to a royal succession, with King Bhumibol Adulyadej now aged 86 and frail after spending 4 years in hospital. Thailand’s King is the world’s longest-reigning monarch and is shielded from criticism by the world’s strictest lese-majeste laws. However, despite such legal buffers, which the Yingluck Government has maintained, some protestors portray Thaksin’s electoral popularity as a threat to the monarchy. To loud cheers from a crowd gathered before the election at an anti-government rally held near one of Bangkok’s biggest shopping malls, Pamela Bunnag, a speaker at the rally, warned the Shinawatra family to "leave us alone, leave Thailand alone, and leave our king alone." The post With Election Disrupted, Thai Protestors Regroup and Refocus appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Seattle Crushes Denver to Win Super Bowl Posted: 02 Feb 2014 11:37 PM PST  Seattle Seahawks Malcom Smith makes an angel in the confetti after his team defeated the Denver Broncos in the NFL Super Bowl XLVIII football game in East Rutherford, New Jersey, Feb. 2, 2014. EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey — The Seattle Seahawks showed defense still rules in the Super Bowl as they embarrassed the usually high-scoring Denver Broncos 43-8 on Sunday to win their first NFL championship in franchise history. The top-ranked Seattle defense shut down the top-rated offense of the Broncos and record-setting quarterback Peyton Manning, creating four turnovers and turning what was expected to be a nail biter into a Super Bowl 48 rout. Five previous times the NFL's top-rated defense had faced the league's number one offense, and the defenders were 4-1 in those encounters. Seattle, and their "Legion of Boom" defensive secondary, fast-covering linebackers and determined pass rushers, upheld the tradition on an unseasonably mild night in the first outdoor venue in a winter-weather site. "This is an amazing team," said Seahawks coach Pete Carroll at the Lombardi Trophy presentation to the champions on the MetLife Stadium field. "These guys would not take anything but winning this ball game." Seattle turned two interceptions into second-quarter touchdowns for a 22-0 lead at intermission, the second coming on a 69-yard interception return by linebacker Malcolm Smith, who received the Most Valuable Player award. "It's just a tremendous feeling," said Smith, who also secured Seattle's NFC title clinching victory over San Francisco by intercepting a last-gasp pass that was tipped by his teammate Richard Sherman. Defensive end Cliff Avril jarred Manning as he was throwing on the play and Smith corralled the floating pass in the middle of the field and took off for the end zone. "Man, it's incredible," said Smith. "It's the way our defense is set up. We just run to the ball. I'm just the one today. It happens all the time like this. It feels great." The Seahawks, who led the NFL in creating turnovers, also recovered two fumbles in the lopsided contest that gave them their first Super Bowl crown in their 37 seasons. Ominous Beginning The comprehensive victory began 12 seconds into the contest with a two-point safety on a bad snap over Manning's head into the end zone on Denver's first play for the quickest Super Bowl tally ever. After Denver's second half kickoff, Percy Harvin also took 12 seconds to score, racing 87 yards into the end zone to confirm the romp was on in taking Seattle's lead to 29-0. Second-year quarterback Russell Wilson, leading the second youngest team ever to play in a Super Bowl, took the spotlight from five-time NFL Most Valuable Player Manning by completing 18 of 25 passes for 206 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. "We believed that we could get here," said Wilson. "At the beginning of the season I told our guys, 'Hey, why not us?' "We had the talent. We had the coaching. We have the best fans in the National Football League. We wanted to win it all." Manning, who set NFL records for most touchdown passes and yards passing in a single season, was throttled in the first quarter as Seattle put their stamp on the game by playing Denver receivers tight and registering crunching hits when they did catch the ball. "We knew they were fast. It was still a matter of us doing our jobs better and we didn't do that tonight," said Manning, who failed in his attempt to win a second Super Bowl ring and who fell to 11-12 in his career postseason record. "I think we played a great football team. We needed to play really well in order to win and we didn't come anywhere close to that." Seattle outgained Denver 148 yards to 11 in the first quarter but only led 8-0. When they stepped up their pass-rushing pressure on Manning, the Seahawks harassed him into the interceptions that helped them break the game open. With the Broncos desperately far behind, Manning took to the air in a futile attempt to make it a contest, and in the end set a Super Bowl record with 34 completions, while receiver Demaryius Thomas set a record for most receptions with 13. "It was a combination of coverage and pressure as it always is in pass defense," Denver coach John Fox said about the Broncos' difficulty in getting their pass attack going. "There is a reason why they were the number one team in defense during the season. Give them credit." The post Seattle Crushes Denver to Win Super Bowl appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Obama’s Asia Policy Set Back by Democrat Posted: 02 Feb 2014 10:47 PM PST  US President Barack Obama at a town hall style meeting with students and faculty at Binghamton University in New York on Aug. 23, 2013. (Photo: Reuters / Jason Reed) WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's Asia policy took a hit last week, and it came from a member of his own party. The top Democratic senator, Harry Reid, announced that he opposes legislation that's key for a trans-Pacific trade pact that is arguably the most important part of Obama's effort to strengthen American engagement in Asia. Since Obama rolled out the policy, most attention has been on the military aspect, largely because it was described as a rebalance in US priorities after a decade of costly war in Afghanistan and Iraq. But officials have increasingly stressed that Obama's foreign policy "pivot" to Asia is about more than cementing America's stature as the pre-eminent power in the Asia-Pacific as China grows in strength. It's about capitalizing on the region's rapid economic growth. That's the importance of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, an ambitious free trade agreement being negotiated by 12 nations, including Japan, that account for some 40 percent of global gross domestic product. "The pivot is the TPP right now," Victor Cha, director of Asian studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, told a conference at a Washington think tank this week on US policy and the outlook for Asia in 2014. The Obama administration's Asia policy has been welcomed by countries wary of China's rise and expansive territorial claims. During the president's first term, the United States made progress in strengthening old alliances with nations like the Philippines, forging deeper ties with Indonesia and Vietnam and befriending former pariah state Burma. There were missteps. Angry politics at home forced Obama to withdraw from the East Asia Summit last fall, raising some questions about his commitment to the region. New military deployments in the Asia-Pacific—a few hundred Marines in Australia, new warships rotated through Singapore—have fueled Chinese accusations of a US policy of containment while making little impact on regional security. Asia got little mention in Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday, adding to perceptions in some quarters that the pivot has dropped in the administration's policy agenda in the president's second term. But he did urge both parties in Congress to approve so-called fast-track legislation needed to make the TPP and a trade deal under negotiation with Europe a reality, saying it would open new markets and create American jobs. The problem for Obama is that many of his fellow Democrats are against fast-track authority, which would require Congress to act on the trade deals negotiated by the administration by a yes-or-no vote, without the ability to make any changes. Reid, the Senate majority leader, said Wednesday that he opposed fast-track authority and that lawmakers should not push for it now—a comment suggesting that legislation introduced three weeks ago will go nowhere soon. While that legislation is co-sponsored by a senior Democrat—Obama's nominee to become the next ambassador to China, Sen. Max Baucus—many in the party join with labor unions in opposing lowered trade barriers, which they worry will cost jobs due to increased competition. So in a bitterly divided Washington, Obama's in the rare position of having more support for a key policy among his political rivals, the Republicans, than from his own party. But top Republicans who want fast-track authority accuse the administration of failing to do its part to mobilize support for it among Democrats in Congress—a task that will be complicated by the midterm elections in November. Lawmakers will be careful to avoid measures that could hurt their prospects of re-election. In an e-mailed comment Friday, US Trade Representative Michael Froman remained upbeat about the TPP, saying that momentum developed to advance the TPP talks in 2013 is carrying over to 2014. He said the administration is working closely with Congress and is committed to bringing home a deal "worthy of broad support from the American people and their representatives in Congress." Ambassadors of Japan and Vietnam both say they want TPP negotiations to be completed before Obama visits Asia in April. Japan's Kenichiro Sasae told the Center for Strategic and International Studies last week that fast-track authority is needed because there are worries the United States would seek changes to the agreement. He also acknowledged challenges remain on auto and agricultural products between the biggest players in the TPP, Japan and the United States. The good news for Washington was that the Japanese and Vietnamese envoys remained strongly supportive of the US role in Asia, viewing it as a stabilizing influence in a region beset by territorial disputes. Those tensions have heightened fears of a conflict, as China stakes its claims to contested islands in the East and South China Seas. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters that from the president on down, the United States "could not be more committed to our relationship with Asia." Despite US Secretary of State John Kerry's deep involvement in high-stakes Mideast diplomacy, this month he will make his fifth trip to the region since taking office a year ago. The post Obama's Asia Policy Set Back by Democrat appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| US refugees From Burma Worry About US changes in Policy Posted: 02 Feb 2014 09:58 PM PST  Mae Lae camp in Thailand is home to Burmese refugees, including many from Karen State. (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy) FORT WAYNE — An advocate for Burma refugees in Fort Wayne says she's worried that a change in U.S. policy will hurt efforts to reunite them with relatives living in the city. Fort Wayne is home to more than 4,000 refugees from Burma making it host to one of the largest such communities in the country. Burmese Advocacy Center leader Minn Myint Nan Tin said she's concerned about the State Department's decision to stop accepting resettlement applications from Burma refugees living in nine camps in Thailand. "I wish that there is still a hope for ongoing family reunification process," she told The Journal Gazette. She said two people recently asked the center for help in bringing relatives to the United States, including a woman with three sons who've spent six years in refugee camps. State Department spokeswoman Christine Getzler Vaughan said resettlements won't stop just because applications have been halted. Burma refugees began coming to Fort Wayne in 1993 to escape military rule in the Southeast Asian country. The biggest waves came in 2007 and 2008, when Catholic Charities of the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese resettled more than 1,400 refugees in the city. The Jan. 24 end to the applications came after the State Department began issuing deadlines a year ago for refugees to decide whether they wanted to leave the Thai camps for the United States as part of a resettlement program that began in 2005. "The resettlement program will continue until we have completed the processing of every application received by the deadline for each camp, and we expect that to happen over the next two years," Vaughan said. The State Department also will consider resettling people from Burma "with specific protection needs" who are referred by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, she said. The State Department has approved relocating as many as 170 refugees to the Fort Wayne area during the 2014 fiscal year, the same number as the previous year, she said. The U.N. estimates that 120,000 Burma refugees remain in camps along the Thai-Burma border. The U.N. reported this week that nearly 6,500 expressed interest in the past year in resettling to the U.S. The post US refugees From Burma Worry About US changes in Policy appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Confident of Asean Relations, China Denounces Japan’s Air Defense Zone ‘Hype’ Posted: 02 Feb 2014 09:40 PM PST  A navy officer waves as China's hospital ship 'Peace Ark' leaves a military port for the Philippines to assist to the victims of Typhoon Haiyan on Nov. 21, 2013. (Photo: Reuters) BEIJING — China does not feel threatened by countries in Southeast Asia and is optimistic about the situation in the disputed South China Sea, the Foreign Ministry said, warning Japan not to "spread rumors" it plans a new air defense identification zone. China alarmed Japan, South Korea and the United States last year when it announced an air defense identification zone for the East China Sea, covering a group of uninhabited islands at the center of a bitter ownership spat between China and Japan. Last week, Japanese newspaper the Asahi Shimbun said China was considering setting up a similar zone—where foreign aircraft are supposed to report their movements to China—in the South China Sea, prompting the US State Department to warn against such a move. In a statement released late on Saturday, China's Foreign Ministry implied there was no need for such a zone in the South China Sea, where China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan all have competing claims. "Generally speaking, China does not feel there is an air security threat from Asean countries," the ministry said, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. "China feels optimistic about relations with countries surrounding the South China Sea and the general situation in the South China Sea," the ministry said, adding it believed prospects for ties with Asean were "bright." While the ministry said China had a right to set up air defense identification zones that nobody should criticize, it criticized Japan for attempting to distract attention from Japan's own military plans. "Right wing forces in Japan have again been hyping up so-called plans that China will shortly set up an air defense identification zone in the South China Sea, which is purely to try and distract international attention, to cover up their conspiracy to … expand their military," the ministry said. "We warn these forces not to delude people with rumors for their own selfish interests and play up tensions, and hope the relevant party talks and acts cautiously," it added. Ties have been strained by a recent visit by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to a controversial shrine for war dead, China's East China Sea air defense zone and the long-running dispute over a string of islets both countries claim, known as the Diaoyu in Chinese and the Senkaku in Japanese. China, which is swiftly ramping up military spending, has regularly dispatched patrols to the East China Sea since it established the defense zone. China has repeatedly denied Japanese accusations of being a threat to peace, saying it is Japan which is the threat, warning that Tokyo is trying to rearm and has failed to learn the lessons from its brutal behavior during World War II. The post Confident of Asean Relations, China Denounces Japan's Air Defense Zone 'Hype' appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Thai Elections Peaceful, But Crisis Far From Over Posted: 02 Feb 2014 09:33 PM PST  Protesters demanding the right to vote cry as they argue with security and election officials at a district office where voting was called off in Bangkok Feb. 2, 2014. (Photo: Reuters) BANGKOK — Thailand held nationwide elections without bloodshed Sunday despite widespread fears of violence. But the country's bitter political crisis is far from over, and one of the next flash points is likely to be an effort to nullify the vote. Although balloting was largely peaceful, protesters forced thousands of polling booths to close in Bangkok and the south, disenfranchising millions of registered voters. Not all Parliament seats will be filled as a result, meaning the nation could stay mired in political limbo for months with the winning party unable to form a new government. The struggle to hold the vote was part of a 3-month-old conflict that has split the country between supporters of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and protesters who allege her government is too corrupt to rule. The crisis, in which demonstrators have occupied major intersections across Bangkok and forced government ministries to shut down and work elsewhere, overshadowed the poll's run-up to such an extent that campaigning and stump speeches laying out party platforms were virtually non-existent. Rather than "a contest among candidates, it was about whether the election itself could happen," said Sunai Phasuk of Human Rights Watch. "That in itself says a lot about the fate of democracy in Thailand—it's hanging by a thread." Television stations, which normally broadcast electoral results, were reduced to projecting graphics not of party victories and losses, but of which constituencies were open or closed. Official results cannot be announced until a series of by-elections are held and all districts have voted. The first will take place Feb. 23. In Bangkok, protesters surrounded government offices housing ballot papers, preventing them from being delivered. They also pressured electoral officials not to report for duty, and in some cases physically preventing people from voting. Infuriated voters cut the chains off polling stations that had been locked, futilely demanding that they be allowed to cast ballots. In one downtown district, they hurled bottles at each other and one demonstrator fired a gunshot after several people tried to push past a blockade. After authorities called off voting there, angry crowds stormed into the district office. "We want an election. We are Thais," said Narong Meephol, a 63-year-old Bangkok resident who was waving his voter identification card. "We are here to exercise our rights." Ampai Pittajit, 65, a retired civil servant who helped block ballot boxes in Bangkok, said she did it "because I want reforms before an election." "I understand those who are saying this is violating their rights," he said. "But what about our right to be heard?" The Election Commission said poll closures affected about 18 percent of the country's 48 million registered voters, although many of them may not have cast ballots anyway following a boycott by the opposition Democrat party, which is calling for political and economic reform first. The protesters want to suspend democracy and are demanding the government be replaced by an unelected council that would rewrite political and electoral laws to combat deep-seated problems of corruption and money politics. Yingluck has refused to step down, arguing she is open to reform and such a council would be unconstitutional. Yingluck called Sunday's vote after dissolving Parliament in December in a failed bid to defuse the crisis. Protests intensified, and Yingluck—now a caretaker premier with limited power—has found herself increasingly cornered. Courts have begun fast-tracking cases that could see her party removed from power, while the army has warned it could intervene if the crisis is not resolved peacefully. Fears of violence Sunday rose after a dramatic gunbattle erupted in broad daylight Saturday at a major Bangkok intersection between government supporters and protesters who were trying to block delivery of ballots. Seven people were wounded. Late Sunday, gunmen opened fire on several vehicles that mistakenly drove onto an empty overpass in the city center controlled by demonstrators who have blocked the road off with a large sand-bagged bunker. The shooting, which shattered one vehicle's windshield and left bullet holes in another, wounded a man and a woman, according to the city's emergency services. The protesters are a minority that cannot win through elections, but they comprise a formidable alliance of opposition leaders, royalists, and powerful businessmen who have set their sights on ousting the government. They have waged that fight successfully before—by ousting Yingluck's brother, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, in a 2006 army coup, and by forcing two Thaksin-allied prime ministers who followed to step down through controversial legal rulings. Most now believe another so-called "judicial coup" will bring the government down. Analysts say the courts and the country's independent oversight agencies all tilt against the Shinawatra family, and Yingluck's opponents are already studying legal justifications to invalidate Sunday's vote. Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban publically assured followers the ballot will be nullified, and Verapat Pariyawong, an independent Harvard-educated lawyer, said there was "no doubt" the Constitutional Court will end up hearing a case to annul it. But he said it would be "absurd" to expect judges to "to stay strictly within the limits of the law…[because] history has shown that this court is willing to play politics from the bench." If the ballot is nullified, Verapat said there will be "more blood on the streets," a reference to the expectation that government supporters in the north are unlikely to sit idle. Before Thaksin was deposed in 2006, the Constitutional Court nullified a similar vote won by his party about one month after it had taken place. The ruling was based partly on the argument that the positioning of ballot booths had compromised voter privacy. Chuvit Kamolvisit, an independent candidate who served as a lawmaker until Parliament was dissolved two months ago, called the crisis gripping Thailand "a game of power" and accused Suthep and his supporters of falsely characterizing their struggle as an anti-corruption fight. Graft "has been a part of Thai society for a long time," said Chuvit, who made a fortune operating massage parlors that doubled as brothels before turning to politics. "It's a real problem, but now it's being used an excuse for politicians to take power." Suthep was a lawmaker for more than three decades, he said, "and what did he do to end corruption in all that time?" The burly, outspoken Chuvit was one of many in the capital who were unable to cast ballots Sunday. He was physically assaulted by a group of protesters in confrontation that devolved into a knock-down brawl. "I have to protect my rights," Chuvit said. "Thai society has to learn that to get rights, freedom, liberty, you need to fight. But the fight should take place within the democratic system, not on the street." The post Thai Elections Peaceful, But Crisis Far From Over appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. |
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