Wednesday, March 14, 2018

The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

March 1988: A Month of Revolt

Posted: 14 Mar 2018 07:22 AM PDT

The bloody events of March 1988 set the stage for the uprising in August of that year and, ultimately, for Myanmar's political course over the next three decades. Here is a detailed timeline of how that pivotal month unfolded.

March 12, 1988 — Students from the Rangoon Institute of Technology and youths from west Gyogone Ward, Insein Township, had a brawl at the Sandaw Win Teashop. The Insein Police Force opened a case against the youths from west Gyogone Ward.

March 13 — While police held two youths — Zaw Zaw, also known as Nyi Nyi Lwin, and Khin Maung Myint — in detention, other youths from west Gyogone Ward started a brawl with students from the Rangoon Institute of Technology.

Ko Phone Maw, a fifth-year student at the Rangoon Institute of Technology studying chemical engineering, was killed by riot police on the school campus. Five others were injured. One of the five, Ko Soe Naing, died of gunshot wounds 23 days later. The other four were kept shackled at a hospital.

The Rangoon Institute of Technology Students Union was formed with 70 members to oppose the Burma Socialist Program Party.

(In 2012, democracy advocates including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi designated March 13 as Myanmar Human Rights Day.)

March 14 — Students of the Rangoon Institute of Technology painted a star on the ground where Ko Phone Maw was shot and killed. They staged a protest march to demand student rights.

March 15 — Following further protests, the military raided the Rangoon Institute of Technology and arrested hundreds of students. They closed the country’s universities and said students were free to go back to their home towns.

March 16 — Students from Rangoon University took to the streets in response to the military's raid on the Rangoon Institute of Technology. Soldiers and riot police used force to disperse the students at Tada Phyu (which means White Bridge in Burmese) on Pyay Road. Dozens of students were killed and injured and hundreds of them were detained. This event later came to be known as the Red Bridge incident by activists, as the area had been turned red with the blood of students.

March 17 — Following the government’s brutal crackdown, the State Council formed an investigation commission led by U Ba Maw, a member of the Council of People's Justice, and invited those wishing to give their account of events to come forward.

(The commission’s report would claim that the riots were triggered when civilian youths beat students from the Rangoon Institute of Technology, that appropriate actions were taken against those who exacerbated the brawl and instigated the riots, and that the majority of students at the Rangoon Institute of Technology were peaceful by nature.)

Members of the public joined the students in their protests against the government in downtown Yangon.

March 18 — Soldiers and riot police cracked down on demonstrators in downtown Yangon and sent those they detained to Insein Prison. Forty-one of them died inside a prisoner transport vehicle on their way to the prison.

March 19 — It was found that they died after inhaling tear gas and because of poor ventilation inside the transport vehicle. The minister for home affairs and religious affairs, U Min Khaung, a former army major general, subsequently resigned.

March 21 — Twenty-three of 27 detained female students were released.

March 30 — 1,233 of 1,723 detainees were released.

The post March 1988: A Month of Revolt appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Karen Villagers Protest Hatgyi Dam, Other Projects on Salween River

Posted: 14 Mar 2018 06:15 AM PDT

CHIANG MAI, Thailand – More than 1,700 people living near the site of the planned Hatgyi Dam on the Salween River in Karen State's Hpapun district gathered to show their objections to the project and mark International Day of Action for Rivers on Wednesday.

Saw Tha Poe, spokesman for Karen River Watch, one of the campaign groups opposing dam construction on the river, said the group opposes dam construction on Myanmar's biggest rivers, the Salween and the Irrawaddy, as well as on other rivers in the state.

In a statement released on Wednesday, KRW called for "a moratorium on all large infrastructure, energy, and extractive projects in Karen areas until genuine peace is established through political dialogue, leading to the implementation of a participatory federal system throughout [Myanmar]."

Although the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, signed a bilateral ceasefire in 2012 and the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement in 2015, clashes between Tatmadaw troops and the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the KNU, have been reported as recently as March 4 in Mutraw (Hpapun) district, northern Karen State.

Following the latest round of clashes, the Tatmadaw deployed more than 600 soldiers across the ceasefire line in Hpapun, forcing 1,500 people from 14 villages to flee their homes, according to KRW.

In 2015 and 2016, it said, the Tatmadaw's troop deployments in Karen State have "steadily increased", leading to "intensified armed conflict". There were over 40 clashes involving, on one side, the various forces of the Tatmadaw, including its paramilitary Border Guard Force, and, on the other, the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army, its splinter group the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, and the KNLA.

Saw Tha Poe added that the refugees displaced after the conflicts broke out near the proposed Hatgyi Dam site in 2016 have not been able to return to their homes. The conflict erupted after the National League for Democracy-led government declared its support in September 2016 for the damming of the Salween River. The fighting has forced some 5,000 Karen from their villages and many refugees remain in IDP camps in Myaing Gyi Ngu.

Despite continual protests by environmentalists and locals against the damming of the Salween, construction on the Hatgyi Dam project has proceeded, said Saw Tha Poe, with a new road having nearly reached the dam. Construction on the dam is scheduled to be complete in 2020-21.

"If it continues, over 2,000 people from 30 villages could be affected," he told The Irrawaddy.

KRW said that proceeding with these hydropower projects would not only dispossess already marginalized ethnic communities who have survived the world's longest civil war, but also result in "permanent militarization of these fragile regions."

Karen River Watch (Supplied)

Ultimately, KRW said, the energy projects along the Salween River, on which 14 large dams are planned or currently under construction, "will export electricity, but import social problems and environmental destruction to river systems that support the lives of millions of people in Karen, Karenni, Mon, and Shan states."

On Wednesday morning in Shan State's Hsipaw Township, the villagers of Talong urged a halt to the Upper Ye Ywar hydropower plant on the Namtu River, according to Action for Shan State Rivers.

In Karenni state, some 300 locals and members of the Burma Rivers Network (BRN) came together to show their opposition to the dams being built "within the conflict zones" at Ba He Hta village in Hpa Sawng Township in Karenni (Kayah) State, according to Mi Ah Chai, the organization's spokeswoman.

She told The Irrawaddy that the BRN welcomed some of the recommendations made by the International Financial Cooperation (IFC) at a stakeholder discussion in Yangon in February. In particular it agreed with the IFC's recommendation against building mainstream dams on the major rivers, including the Salween and Irrawaddy, "due to concerns over environmental impacts."

However, it disagreed with the IFC's recommendation to build dams on tributaries instead, including the Nam Teng and Pawn tributaries of the Salween, which lie in conflict-affected areas of Shan and Karenni states, she said.

"We, BRN, welcome the report of the World Bank and the IFC, but strongly oppose their recommendations to build dams on tributaries, because the tributaries are also important in preserving the ecological health of the river basin and in sustaining the livelihoods of countless ethnic communities," said Mi Ah Chai.

"This is not development for us, as the prolonged war and suffering there are due to the dam projects, which are in conflict zones," she added.

BRN also urged the government to review existing hydropower projects to determine whether they are actually benefiting the local communities, and to stop any new planned projects until there is genuine peace and a federal system in place.

"When we discuss peace, people talk about the NCA, but we have not achieved peaceful livelihoods in many places yet," Mi Ah Chai said.

The post Karen Villagers Protest Hatgyi Dam, Other Projects on Salween River appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Workshop Promotes Gender Equality in a Federal System

Posted: 14 Mar 2018 06:06 AM PDT

YANGON — Civil society representatives discussed how to improve gender equality and empower women, girls and sexual minorities in a federal system during a two-day workshop in Yangon that wrapped up on Wednesday.

The Gender and Federalism workshop was organized by the Forum of Federations (FoF), a global network on federalism and devolved governance, and drew some 70 representatives from local non-government groups working on gender equality, governance and peace.

FoF gender officer Ma Phyo Nay Chi said the forum aimed to promote the idea that gender issues be taken into account in the formation of a federal system.

"Gender equality is important under all systems. Gender issues needs to be taken into consideration along with the creation of federalism," she said.

A pilot workshop on gender and federalism was held in Yangon in September, followed by the first official workshop in Mandalay in January.

Ma Phyo Nay Chi said the FoF also planned to conduct similar workshops in other states and regions.

Establishing a federal state was one of the ruling National League for Democracy party's 2015 election promises. In its election manifesto, it pledged to work for a genuine federal union built on the principles of equal rights.

"In building a federal union, we need to consider addressing gender inequalities and ensure women's rights within the system," Ma Phyo Nay Chi said.

She said a decentralized system would allow for greater recognition of different cultures but cautioned that in such a system some of those cultures might encourage inequality between genders.

Professor Sandeep Shastri from India, one of the speakers at the workshop, stressed that empowering women and ending gender discrimination within a federal framework required the uniform application of policy across the country at all levels of government.

Ma Aye Mya Hnin Phyu, from the Alliance for Gender Inclusion in the Peace Process, said it was also important to increase women’s participation in the peace process while at the same time building up the capacity of those women taking part.

"There are similarities between federalism and gender equality — both prioritize equity and justice. But we need to be patient with both processes," she told The Irrawaddy.

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Group to Launch T-Shirt Campaign Against Sexual Violence

Posted: 14 Mar 2018 02:55 AM PDT

YANGON — Activists are calling for harsher penalties for sex offenders amid a significant increase in the number of reported rapes of women and children across the country.

Stop Sexual Violence, a group of activists lobbying for severe punishment as a deterrent against rape, held a press conference in Yangon on Tuesday to introduce a T-shirt campaign to raise public awareness about sexual violence.

The campaign, the group’s second since 2016, calls for increasing penalties for sex offenders, imposing punishments besides prison, and denying sex offenders pardon or amnesty.

"We want lengthy prison sentences imposed on sex offenders, child rapists and those who rape and murder, for example, 70 or 80 years in prison without amnesty," Ko Zeyar Tun, a member of the campaign group, told The Irrawaddy.

The group also plans to present its demands to Parliament, he said.

Ko Zeyar Tun cited dozens of cases in which sex offenders were released from prison after serving less than 10 years thanks to amnesties and good behavior credits despite receiving sentences of 20 years to life.

The campaign has been joined by the artist Smile.

"I have joined this group as an artist and as a mother,” she said. “We expect to see some changes if we push together."

She and other celebrities, lawyers, lawmakers and politicians will attend the launch of the campaign, to be held Sunday from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Kandawgyi Hmaw Sin Kyun.

"We oppose any form of sexual violence. Anyone can join us to show their opposition to it. We hope that this event will make the government take some action to stop sexual violence," said Ko Aung Chantha, another member of the campaign group.

The Home Affairs Ministry recorded 305 more rape cases in 2017 than the year before, 226 of them against children under 16 years old. Most child rape cases were reported in Yangon, Irrawaddy, Mandalay, Bago and Sagaing regions.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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Hundreds Displaced by Latest Fighting Between Rival Armed Groups in Shan State

Posted: 13 Mar 2018 11:55 PM PDT

YANGON — More than 800 residents of Namtu, Kyaukme and Namhsan townships in northern Shan State have been displaced by recent fighting between the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) and the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA).

Nang Sen Nom, a Shan State lawmaker representing Namtu Township, said more than 330 residents from several villages in her constituency had fled the latest fighting, which started Saturday, and were taking shelter at monasteries in the area.

"More than 100 are taking shelter at the Manhong Monastery in Mansan Village and another 200 are at the Poppa Yon Monastery," she said.

On Monday, nearly 500 residents of Na Sai and Pan Law villages fled to another village after RCSS and TNLA soldiers clashed nearby.

Seventy more villagers from the Na Sai village tract were forced to leave their homes on Tuesday as the clashes continued, Nang Sen Nom said.

Fighting was taking place near the village of Bein Tun, in Namtu Township, and along the border between Kyaukme and Namhsan townships, TNLA information officer Mai Ai Kyaw told the Irrawaddy on Tuesday.

"There were skirmishes on March 13, but I don't know the details," Mai Ai Kyaw said.

RCSS Lieutenant Colonel Sai Oo declined to comment on the fighting.

Mai Ai Kyaw said the TNLA and RCSS had previously agreed to hold talks but were yet to set a date.

"We sent them [the RCSS] a letter to hold talks some time last week, but they haven't replied yet," said Mai Ai Kyaw.

Nang Sen Nom said the displaced people were in need of food, clothes and shelter.

The RCSS is one of the original eight signatories to the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement. The TNLA has not signed the agreement and is considered an insurgent group by the Myanmar army.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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Govt Seeks International Cooperation to Combat Terrorism

Posted: 13 Mar 2018 11:16 PM PDT

NAYPYITAW — The Union Parliament on Monday approved the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that aims to strengthen the ASEAN-Australia Joint Declaration for Cooperation to Combat International Terrorism.

Five lawmakers discussed in favor of President U Htin Kyaw's proposal to sign the MoU, which called for increased collaboration between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Australia against shared challenges of terrorism and violent extremism.

Union Minister for Home Affairs Lt-Gen Kyaw Swe said the signing of the MoU will allow for the exchange of information on terrorists and help Myanmar acquire technical support from Australia in tracking the activities of terrorist organizations and their background history.

"Myanmar will therefore be able to take a more active role in counter-terrorism activates not only in the region but also on the international front," said Lt-Gen Kyaw Swe.

"I recommend the signing of the MOU because it is in line with the new government's policy," said U Zarni Min, a lawmaker from Kachin State's Shwegu Township.

Daw Htoot May of Rakhine Constituency (11) said, "Foreign extremist organizations are funding and supporting the perpetuation of violence in Rakhine State. There is a need for Myanmar to cooperate with the international community to address this as well as the potential threat of terrorism in the future."

The declaration aims to formulate a framework for cooperation to prevent, disrupt and combat international terrorism through the exchange and flow of information and intelligence, as well as capacity building.

Meanwhile, State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi will pay an official to visit Australia in days at the invitation of Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. She will also attend the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit to be held in Sydney on March 17-18.

A business summit and counter-terrorism conference will also be held on the sidelines of the special summit. Minister for the Office of the Union Government and National Security Adviser U Thaung Tun will lead Myanmar's delegation to the counter-terrorism conference.

Myanmar enacted laws and rules on anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) in 2014 and 2015 and is a signatory to 13 United Nations conventions on terrorism, according to state-run newspapers.

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Physicist Stephen Hawking, Who Conquered the Stars, Dies at 76

Posted: 13 Mar 2018 11:00 PM PDT

Stephen Hawking, who sought to explain some of the most complicated questions of life while himself working under the shadow of a likely premature death, has died at 76.

The UK’s Press Association reported his death, citing a spokesman for the family.

Hawking’s formidable mind probed the very limits of human understanding both in the vastness of space and in the bizarre sub-molecular world of quantum theory, which he said could predict what happens at the beginning and end of time.

His work ranged from the origins of the universe itself, through the tantalizing prospect of time travel to the mysteries of space’s all-consuming black holes.

But the power of his intellect contrasted cruelly with the weakness of his body, ravaged by the wasting motor neuron disease he contracted at the age of 21.

Hawking was confined for most of his life to a wheelchair. As his condition worsened, he had to resort to speaking through a voice synthesizer and communicating by moving his eyebrows.

The disease spurred him to work harder but also contributed to the collapse of his two marriages, he wrote in a 2013 memoir “My Brief History.”

In the book he related how he was first diagnosed: “I felt it was very unfair — why should this happen to me,” he wrote.

“At the time, I thought my life was over and that I would never realize the potential I felt I had. But now, 50 years later, I can be quietly satisfied with my life.”

Hawking shot to international fame after the 1988 publication of “A Brief History of Time,” one of the most complex books ever to achieve mass appeal, which stayed on the Sunday Times bestsellers list for no fewer than 237 weeks.

He said he wrote the book to convey his own excitement over recent discoveries about the universe.

“My original aim was to write a book that would sell on airport bookstalls,” he told reporters at the time. “In order to make sure it was understandable I tried the book out on my nurses. I think they understood most of it.”

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Australia to Stress International Law in South China Sea Dispute

Posted: 13 Mar 2018 09:56 PM PDT

SYDNEY — Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop will on Tuesday hail the role of international law in settling regional conflicts, comments apparently aimed at bolstering Australian efforts to build a coalition against Chinese assertiveness.

Bishop, in a speech ahead of a special meeting of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Sydney, will not name China but will argue that international law will stabilize a region strained by rival claims in the South China Sea.

“The rules-based order is designed to regulate behavior and rivalries of and between states, and ensure countries compete fairly and in a way that does not threaten others or destabilize their region or the world,” Bishop will say in Sydney, according to a leaked draft of the speech seen by the Australian Financial Review.

“It places limitations on the extent to which countries use their economic or military power to impose unfair agreements on less powerful nations.”

China claims most of the South China Sea, an important trade route that is believed to contain large quantities of oil and natural gas, and has been building artificial islands on reefs, some with ports and airstrips.

Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, all of which are members of ASEAN, and Taiwan also have claims in the sea.

Australia, a staunch US ally with no claim to the South China Sea, has long maintained its neutrality on the dispute to protect economic relationship with China.

But with Australia’s relations with China souring in recent months, Bishop’s comments underscore a new Australian tactic.

“Australia is trying to get ASEAN on side with the notion that China is a rule-breaker that everyone would be better served by abiding by,” said Nick Bisley, professor of international relations at Melbourne's La Trobe University.

“If it can get ASEAN to use that language, it will strengthen Australia’s position considerably.”

ASEAN and China in August begun talks to develop a code of conduct for the South China Sea, though a deal is unlikely before 2019, Singapore’s Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen said in February.

The issue of the South China Sea is set to dominate the unofficial agenda of a special three-day meeting of ASEAN countries and Australia beginning on Friday.

Officially, the summit will focus on fostering closer economic ties among the 10 members ASEAN and Australia, and countering the threat of Islamist militants returning to the region from the Middle East.

Myanmar leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to travel to Sydney where she will hold bilateral talks with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who is under pressure to publicly condemn the deaths and expulsion of thousands of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar’s Rakhine State over recent months.

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Trump’s Pick for New CIA Chief Dogged by Secret Prisons

Posted: 13 Mar 2018 09:40 PM PDT

WASHINGTON — Gina Haspel, the veteran CIA undercover officer President Donald Trump picked on Tuesday to head the agency, is supported by many in the US intelligence community but has faced criticism for overseeing a secret CIA prison in Thailand where detainees were tortured.

Intelligence officers who served with her, and congressional officials said that in 2002, during Republican President George W. Bush’s administration, she was responsible for the secret prison code-named “Cat’s Eye.” Two suspected members of the al Qaeda militant group were subjected to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques at the facility.

Three years later, still during Bush’s presidency, she carried out an order to destroy videotapes of the waterboarding, which simulates drowning and is considered a form of torture, according to those people.

Haspel is generally held in high regard at the CIA, working as deputy director under Mike Pompeo, whom Trump nominated to be the next secretary of state on Tuesday after firing Rex Tillerson from the post.

If confirmed by the Senate, Haspel would become the first woman to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. But she could face close scrutiny in her confirmation hearings over her involvement in “black site” facilities, so called because their existence is unacknowledged by the US government.

Her nomination faces an uncertain fate in the Senate, which Trump’s fellow Republicans control 51-49. She could be opposed by all the Democrats, and some Republicans may also oppose her, including Senator Rand Paul, who has called a news conference on Wednesday to discuss the nomination.

“The torture of detainees in US custody during the last decade was one of the darkest chapters in American history,” said Republican Senator John McCain, who was himself tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. “Ms. Haspel needs to explain the nature and extent of her involvement in the CIA’s interrogation program during the confirmation process.”

In 2009, days after taking office, Democratic President Barack Obama banned “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding, and ordered the closure of the secret detention sites.

Trump defended the torture of detainees during the 2016 presidential race, saying it “works.” He has not taken any action to reverse Obama’s policy, but Haspel’s nomination will fan concerns.

‘Reopen Wounds'

“This is going to reopen wounds from a decade and more ago, and also invite more oversight of both our analyses and our activities, especially if Gina is confirmed,” said one US official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

On Tuesday, some US intelligence officials said reports of her alleged involvement in interrogations involving torture were false. But they did not immediately provide details.

They did not dispute her involvement in drafting orders to destroy videotapes of harsh interrogation techniques, which was reported in the book “Hard Measures,” by Jose Rodriguez, her boss in the agency at the time, and former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow.

A CIA spokesman had no immediate comment.

Democrats voiced opposition, including their top person on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, who said senators had “a lot of questions” about Haspel and they “deserved to have those questions answered, in an open hearing setting.”

Committee Chairman Richard Burr, a Republican, promised to support her nomination and said he was “proud” of her work.

If confirmed, Haspel would face immediate tests on policy, said three current intelligence officials. One is whether she and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis can prepare Trump adequately for his planned meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A second, they said, is if she can help persuade Trump that Russian President Vladimir Putin is an increasingly aggressive adversary, and that failing to confront him would weaken US relations with its closest allies and with the CIA’s most valuable partners.

“She may face the same tough choice that Tillerson and others have faced: Stick to your convictions or knuckle under to keep your job,” a fourth official said.

Iran is a third test, those officials said. The US intelligence assessment is that the 2015 deal to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons program is on balance a good one, and that Trump’s criticism of it threatens efforts to constrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions and ties with the other nations that negotiated the pact, China, France, Germany, Britain and Russia.

Some current and former CIA officials said they saw some benefit to naming an insider to head the agency.

“There is no question that a director leaving after a year is very turbulent for the agency,” said former CIA Director Michael Hayden. “That said, leaving Gina and making her the actual director will have a very positive calming influence.”

Trump told reporters he had worked closely with Haspel and considered her “an outstanding person.”

Haspel has served in a number of undercover overseas posts, including as chief of the CIA’s station in London and its base in New York. Then-CIA Director John Brennan in 2013 named her deputy director of National Clandestine Service, but she was denied a permanent promotion in the face of congressional opposition.

Daniel Hoffman, a former three-time station chief for the CIA, praised Haspel and said her nomination sent a powerful message inside the agency because she came up from the lower ranks.

“She's somebody who tries to bring disparate elements together,” the kind of collaboration that is important in intelligence work, said Hoffman. “She's got the highest level of intellectual integrity and honesty.”

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Philippine Leader Demands Review of Dropped Cases vs Alleged Drug Kingpins

Posted: 13 Mar 2018 09:38 PM PDT

MANILA — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered a review of a decision by state prosecutors to dismiss complaints against several suspected drugs kingpins, amid outrage among the public and some of his allies about them walking free.

A Department of Justice panel, citing weak evidence, cleared 22 suspects in a decision they made in December but was made public only on Monday in a document leaked to media. A self-confessed drug dealer was among those cleared.

Duterte has publicly named and shamed several provincial politicians and businessmen as “drug lords” controlling the narcotics trade in the Southeast Asian nation. Some have been killed in what police said were shootouts.

“I will invoke my power of supervision and control and will review [the] dismissal,” Duterte’s spokesman, Harry Roque, quoted the president as saying during a joint command conference with police and military officials on Tuesday evening.

Police insisted on Wednesday they had strong cases against the suspects.

Among those cleared were businessman Peter Go Lim and Kerwin Espinosa, who was arrested by Abu Dhabi police in October 2016.

Espinosa’s father, Rolando, a mayor in central Leyte province, was killed in what police said was a gunfight in his prison cell three months after he surrendered in August 2016 to answer drugs charges.

Kerwin Espinosa is a self-confessed drug dealer who revealed his suppliers at a Senate hearing in 2016.

Duterte has warned he would put Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre in jail if both Lim and Espinosa go free, Roque said.

Aguirre said in a radio interview the panel’s decision was not final and still subject to an appeal and an automatic review by his office.

However, he said a new panel of prosecutors would be created to review and strengthen the case against the suspects.

More than 4,000 people have been killed under Duterte’s 19-month anti-narcotics campaign in what police call legitimate operations against “drug personalities” they say violently resisted arrest.

Police have blamed mysterious vigilantes for about 2,300 drug-related homicides.

Duterte’s critics have said many of those killed were small-time drug dealers and users from poor communities, while the so-called big fish, or main suppliers, remained at large.

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Tuesday, March 13, 2018

The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

Remembering Two Deaths that Changed the Course of Myanmar’s History

Posted: 13 Mar 2018 07:52 AM PDT

YANGON — She used to wake her younger brother every day; for Daw Mar Mar Ei, it had become a morning ritual. But this pleasant routine came to an abrupt end one sultry summer day when she found herself staring at the young man's dead body lying on a trolley in the bleak old concrete morgue of Yangon General Hospital.

"He looked as if we were sleeping," she said. "And peaceful."

Standing there in the morgue, she was sandwiched between two plainclothes police officers, who held her tightly by the arms. One of them told her: "You should cry."

"I shouted back at them: 'I can't! How can I cry when my brother was unjustly killed!'" the 55-year-old recalled of that fateful day 30 years ago when she first saw the dead body of her younger brother Ko Phone Maw, who was shot dead by riot police on the night of March 13, 1988 on the campus of the Rangoon Institute of Technology (now Yangon Technological University).

On Tuesday, the YTU Student Union commemorated the 30th anniversary of the deaths of Ko Phone Maw and Ko Soe Naing, who were also shot that night but died 23 days later of injuries sustained on the scene. Three other university students who were wounded survived.

A commemoration for the 30th anniversary of the deaths of Ko Phone Maw and Ko Soe Naing is held at YTU's assembly hall on Tuesday. ( Photo: Myo Min Soe/The Irrawaddy)

On the evening of March 12, 1988, a group of RIT students got into a brawl with another group of young people from the neighborhood near the campus. The students were not pleased with the authorities' handling of the case, and more clashes with local people erupted the next evening. A cordon of riot police wielding Remington shotguns raided the campus and opened fire on the students, who were also tear-gassed. Ko Phone Maw, a fifth-year Chemical Specialization student, was shot dead on the spot.

The killing and the way the security forces handled the case sparked anger; another student rally at RIT the next day soon spread to other campuses. Along with calls for justice in the shootings, they demanded the ouster of the Ne Win regime, which had been long despised by the people for its oppressive rule and economic mismanagement.

The regime responded to the demands with more brutality. On March 16, riot police cracked down violently on hundreds of students marching along the southern flank of Inya Lake, near the White Bridge bus stop, named after a small bridge spanning a culvert. A number of students — it is still unclear how many — were beaten to death. The site of the massacre was left so bloodied that it came to be known as "Red Bridge".

Over the next five months, Myanmar witnessed a series of follow-up student protests sparked by the March 13 shooting, mostly in Yangon. These ultimately led to a nationwide popular uprising in August, known as the Four Eights Uprising, as it occurred on Aug. 8, 1988. The uprising saw thousands of deaths and arrests, but ended Ne Win's 26-year-long single party rule and eventually paved the way for the political changes which allowed a democratically elected government to take power three decades later.

Dr. Maung Maung, Myanmar's president at the time, remarked that 1988 was a year of upheaval, and one that that will long be marked as a turning point in the country's history.

"The unfulfilled expectations of the people over the decades since the nation's gaining back her freedom poured out on the streets in loud and angry outcry for change," he writes in his book "The 1988 Uprising in Myanmar".

"It was a storm of huge size and fierceness, and storms don't just come; they build up and gather from different directions and then burst upon the scene."

For Ko Ko Gyi, one of the prominent student leaders who took part in the uprising, the deaths of Ko Phone Maw and Ko Soe Naing formed a "spark that brought a huge change" to the country as well as for him personally.

"Were it not for their deaths and the '88 Uprising, I wouldn't have been a politician as I am today; probably a government official or trader," he said. Thirty years ago today, he was a final-year student majoring in International Relations at Yangon University. He would be imprisoned on and off for his political activism until his most recent release in early 2012.

To honor the deaths of Ko Phone Maw and Ko Soe Naing, political activists in 2012 nominated March 13, the day the students were shot, as Myanmar Human Rights Day.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who was Myanmar's main opposition leader at the time, agreed with the proposal while commenting that "their deaths were caused by the lack of human rights in Myanmar."

This year, the State Counsellor did not send a message in time for Wednesday's commemoration, but last year she urged her fellow citizens to honor Ko Phone Maw and Ko Soe Naing along with other young people who sacrificed for the country, by making good efforts on behalf of Myanmar.

Daw Mar Mar Win, center, lays a wreath for her brother Ko Phone Maw on Tuesday. ( Photo: Myo Min Soe/The Irrawaddy)

Daw Mar Mar Win, another sister of Ko Phone Maw, said at Tuesday's commemoration that she was happy to see that people still remembered her brother.

Both sisters, who have for many years now spent much of their time at a meditation center, remembered their brother as a smart young man who hated violence and quarreling.

His death left their family traumatized, they said.

The authorities forced them to keep the funeral as low profile as possible. As the cause of death, the official death certificate says only: "Puncture wound (chest)", and makes no reference to a gunshot.

Initially they were even forbidden from placing an obituary in the newspaper, though authorities eventually relented on this point after the family insisted.

They weren't even left alone to conduct the funeral as they wished. The family was only allowed to see the body on the day before the cremation, for identification purposes. On the day of the funeral, March 17, the authorities secretly cremated the body at 8 AM at another cemetery, in an effort to avoid drawing public attention to the ceremony. At Tamwe Cemetery (which is no longer extant; the site later made way for a development project), the family members were not allowed to get out of their car or to say a final goodbye to their brother and son. All they could do was watch in tears through the front windscreen of their car as the unmarked coffin was swallowed by the flames.

Daw Mar Mar Win believes in the law of Karma, and that those who were responsible for her brother's death will reap what they have sown. Likewise, the family believes that in death their brother and son was paying for his past sins and misdeeds; something from which nobody can escape.

"But we miss him. He is a good boy," she said.

The post Remembering Two Deaths that Changed the Course of Myanmar's History appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Tatmadaw Refuses to Hand Back Land in Shan’s Kyethi Township

Posted: 13 Mar 2018 05:50 AM PDT

NAYPYITAW — The Tatmadaw will not hand over to farmers land it confiscated in Shan State's Kyethi Township in the 1990s, Deputy Defense Minister Maj-Gen Myint Nwe told Parliament on Tuesday after a lawmaker urged the Tatmadaw to return some 200 acres of land in the township.

The Tatmadaw will not return the land, because farmers cannot show ownership documents and the Home Affairs Ministry has issued land permits to the Tatmadaw for the areas in question, the deputy minister said.

During the Lower House session on Monday, lawmaker Sai Aung Kyaw of Kyethi Township asked if the Tatmadaw would return 31 acres in Nam Gon watershed area and 165 acres of farmers' land confiscated by No. 131 Light Infantry Battalion in Kyethi Township.

"The 165 acres were used as rotating farmland, a graveyard or left vacant before the battalion confiscated it. As the graveyard had been moved to a new site, the military confiscated the land," Maj-Gen Myint Nwe said.

Contradicting the lawmaker's claim, the deputy defense minister said the areas confiscated by the battalion comprised 15 acres of rotating farmland, a 3.5-acre graveyard and 561.5 acres of vacant land. The military would not return it, he said.

Small-landholders who rely on the land for farming will face hardship as a result, said lawmaker Sai Aung Kyaw, adding that the farmers, being rural people, were not aware that the land needed to be registered for farming.

"The battalion confiscated the land a long time ago. They have done nothing with it — just fenced it off. I don't know about their security point of view. I brought the case to the Parliament at the request of the farmers," Sai Aung Kyaw told reporters.

However, Maj-Gen Myint Nwe said the Defense Ministry would return 31 acres of watershed area including Nam Gon Lake to the public.

The lake was renovated this year at a cost of 18.7 million kyats from the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation. The lake supplies drinking water, hydropower as well as irrigation water for Kyethi residents.

Under U Thein Sein's administration, the Defense Ministry told Parliament that it would return more than 150,000 acres of confiscated land.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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High-profile Military Families Linked to Unlicensed Resorts on Ngapali Beach

Posted: 13 Mar 2018 05:38 AM PDT

YANGON – An official from the local branch of the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism Department (MOHT) in Thandwe district in southern Rakhine State confirmed that close relatives of several high-profile former army generals owned high-end but unlicensed resorts in prime locations on Ngapali Beach in Thandwe Township.

During a visit to Ngapali and Thandwe Township over the weekend, this reporter obtained an official document listing the hotels and resorts that had been registered with the MOHT.

Pristine Mermaid Resort, situated in Mya Pyin village, owned by Daw Nanda Aye, daughter of former military dictator Maung Aye and the wife of Pyi Aung, son of former general U Aung Thaung, had not received a hotel business license from the MOHT as of March but has been operating the property since early this year.

A cyclist passes by the front gate of the Pristine Mermaid Resort on Ngapali Beach on Sunday. / Moe Myint/ The Irrawaddy)

BT Bay Hotel, also known as Bawga Theidhi, located in Lin Thar village, is owned by a family member of former sports and tourism minister U Tint San and also does not have a hotel license. Bawga Theidhi is a division of the Hotel ACE group, owned by Phyo Ko Ko Tint San, who was arrested for possession of assault rifles at Yangon airport in 2017.

Another resort, The Lodge Blue Ocean, belongs to U Myint San, who also owns the Lin Thar Oo lodge in Lin Thar village on the Ngapali shore.

According to the Thandwe branch of the MOHT, Ngapali has 35 licensed hotels and guesthouses providing at least 1,300 rooms to tourists. Meanwhile, about 20 unlicensed guesthouses along the Mazin-Gyeiktaw Road are illegally operating tourism businesses.

It's unclear whether these unlicensed properties are paying tax to the government even though they openly advertise on international travel websites such as Agoda, TripAdvisor and Lonely Planet. According to a senior Thandwe Revenue Department official, taxation was handled by the Yangon division office.

The Irrawaddy tried to reach the hotel owners or their senior business executives by phone on Tuesday but they declined to comment on the matter.

The three hotels and guesthouse owners mentioned above were granted construction permits or guesthouse licenses by the local municipality. However, MOHT regulations state that local guesthouses that do not have a license from the ministry are prohibited from receiving foreign guests.

A local drives passed the BT Bay Hotel in Lin Thar Village. / Moe Myint/ The Irrawaddy

U Than Tun, chairperson of the Thandwe Township municipality, said that BT Bay and The Lodge Blue Ocean had applied for hotel construction permits several years ago. Pristine Mermaid Hotel was granted permit for construction on nearly three acres of land and it is now waiting to embark on a new phase of construction on an adjacent three acres of land.

The township municipality determined that the new proposed construction violates local laws and decided to withhold permission for the building.

"We have found that Pristine Mermaid breached municipal law and they have promised to fix the height of a brick wall by May," the official said.

U Than Tun revealed that even the Civil Aviation Department's joint venture project, Ngapali Paradise Hotel, which is located next to Thandwe airport, had failed to follow the laws. Moreover, several hotel projects are currently being constructed in the village without the proper permits.

According to MOHT statistics, tourist arrivals to Ngapali have been growing robustly, increasing 14 percent to 50,496 in 2017 from 43,440 in 2016.

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Mon Party Balks at Political Dialogue Meetings on Military’s Terms

Posted: 13 Mar 2018 05:20 AM PDT

YANGON — The New Mon State Party (NMSP) says it cancelled local political dialogue meetings for ethnic Mon over the weekend after the Myanmar army, or Tatmadaw, refused to allow more than 30 people join the events.

The party planned to host some 200 people at each of five meetings across Mon State on Saturday in preparation for a national-level political dialogue next month, all part of its preparations for the 21st Century Panglong Union Peace Conference scheduled for May in Naypyitaw. But is says the Tatmadaw’s Southeast Region Command, based in Mon State’s Moulmein Township, ordered it to restrict Saturday’s meetings to no more than 30 guests each.

"We were supposed to hold public meetings in five places. We planned to do it today. But we cancelled them," NMSP central committee member Nai Win Hla told Mon news agency Men 3 on Saturday.

In recent months the Tatmadaw blocked efforts by the Restoration Council of Shan State to hold similar meetings for ethnic Shan as well.

The NMSP says it still plans to hold its national-level dialogue on April 6-9 in Mon State’s Ye Township and is asking the union government for permission to hold the smaller preliminary meetings with as many guests as it wants.

"The government side of the Peace Commission will help the NMSP do it," party spokesman Nai Ong Ma-Nge told The Irrawaddy on Monday.

The NMSP signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement with the government and Tatmadaw in February and plans to join the 21st Century Panglong as a full member.

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Tatmadaw, KNLA in Standoff After Fighting Over Road Rebuilding

Posted: 13 Mar 2018 04:57 AM PDT

Clashes broke out at least eight times from March 4 to 8 between the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and the Myanmar Army (Tatmadaw) in Papun Township, Karen State, forcing hundreds of Karen villagers to flee, according to local sources.

The KNLA is the armed wing of the Karen National Union.

"Clashes were occurring at least once or twice a day. But troop movements were halted recently, so there has been no fighting from the 9th to the 13th. They have stopped fighting to build bunkers," said Colonel Saw Kler Doh from the KNLA's Brigade 5.

"On our side, we sustained no causalities. We don't know about casualties on their side," he said.

The Tatmadaw last week brought two bulldozers to rebuild a road in an area under the control of the KNLA's Brigade 5. The Tatmadaw personnel arrived from Htee Hsee Kee village and arrived at Kay Bu, where clashes first broke out on March 4.

"They deployed guards on the road, which they tried to rebuild with their bulldozers. But, they have not moved troops into other areas yet," Col Saw Kler Doh said.

At least 800 Tatmadaw soldiers have been deployed to the KNLA Brigade 5 area, according to the KNLA. The Tatmadaw has a base in Kay Bu, a Karen village.

The Tatmadaw's troops in the area are from the Southern Military Region, according to the KNLA.

KNLA Brigade 5 has not held any meetings with the Tatmadaw, though the KNLA has reported to its leaders about fighting on the ground.

"We have reported it to our top officers, but they have not said anything yet about peace negotiations involving both sides," Col Saw Kler Doh said.

The Myanmar Army first sent the KNLA a statement telling them they were going to rebuild a road. But, the KNLA replied they would only let them do so once the peace process had improved.

"They arrived on the ground first. Then, they issued a statement saying they sought to rebuild the road," he said.

"Their main aim is to control our areas. Therefore, they tried to build a road for their military strategy," he said.

The area has some natural resources, including mining and logging, but the KNLA believes that the rebuilding of the road is part of preparations for a future attack on the KNLA. The road is old and not used by locals, he said. It has been abandoned for a long time, but the Tatmadaw wants to rebuild it.

The KNLA believes that building the road would allow the Tatmadaw to reach areas under the control of KNLA Brigade 2, which would help them achieve future military objectives.

The KNLA has accused the Myanmar Army of violating the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement in the areas the KNLA controls, and of rebuilding roads to facilitate troop movements. The KNLA even said that the Tatmadaw does not respect the NCA.

"They just do what they want. But this will damage the NCA agreement in the future between the KNLA and the Myanmar Army," Col Saw Kler Doh said.

The road will run for over 10 miles from Kay Bu to Ler Mu Plaw, where the KNLA believes the Tatmadaw wants to attack it.

Meanwhile, troops from KNLA and the Tatmadaw are currently in positions where they can see each other.

The Karen Peace Support Network and Karen News reported that a total of about 2,000 Karen people from 15 villages have fled areas under the control of Brigade 5.

The KNU signed the NCA in 2015, but the Tatmadaw has based 16 new battalions in Papun since the NCA signing.

The KNU has been among the most active organizations participating in the peace process with the Myanmar government and Army. But, when the Tatmadaw did not respect the NCA, some ethnic Karen asked the KNU to take a strong stand and fight back against the Army.

The post Tatmadaw, KNLA in Standoff After Fighting Over Road Rebuilding appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Rock Star Paints to Escape Reality

Posted: 13 Mar 2018 04:35 AM PDT

"We don't need to be intelligent all the time; what I draw is the opposite of intelligence. It's called outelligence," said local rock star Kyar Pauk, 35, at his solo exhibition 'Outelligence.'

The three-day exhibition was his first solo show. It was held at A Hla Thit Gallery on Old University Avenue Road from March 9 to 11.

"I painted to escape reality, whenever anything came to mind. I placed painting tools all over my house," said Kyar Pauk, adding that this was just another way to connect with people.

In recent years, he published a cartoon book called 'Not Funny' with Nga Dto Sar Pay publishing house and the publisher asked him to paint on canvas. That was just the beginning.

"At that time, I was just drawing cartoons and doodles. I hadn't thought about using canvas. When the publisher mentioned it, I realized I could show my emotions through painting as well as music. Then, I started," he said.

The publisher, San Mon Aung, said he urged Kyar Pauk to paint because he knew his paintings would be different.

"Kyaw Pauk didn't have the basics down when it came to painting, and that's why he called his show Outelligence," San Mon Aung said, adding that the rock star didn't go to art school but learned to paint from books and the Internet.

A painting called ‘Myo Pya 5’ from the hi-fi room. / Chan Son

"At the beginning, I was frustrated and preferred doodles. In painting, if your brushwork is wrong, your painting is ruined," Kyar Pauk said.

So he painted without judgment, anything that came to his mind.

Thirty-one paintings were displayed at the exhibition, including one by his wife.

Canvas for visitors to draw something for Kyar Pauk. / Chan Son

The exhibition had three rooms – hi-fi, lo-fi and no-fi. The hi-fi room felt suffocating. The lo-fi room featured objects related to human existence and the no-fi room was filled with sharp color combinations, which had a relaxing effect.

"Kyar Pauk has made music for decades. Anyone can buy his songs and listen to them repeatedly. But this is different. If you own one of his paintings, there will never be another copy. That feeling and these paintings are special," said San Mon Aung.

A visitor at the exhibition. / Chan Son

Paintings were sold for a few hundred dollars each. The painting 'Undred 1' was sold as an auction to donate money to a shelter. That garnered 310,000 kyats. (US$230)

Kyar Pauk, also known as Han Htue Lwin, is a record producer, as well as the lead singer and guitarist of Big Bag and Big Bag's side project Blood Sugar Politik bands. Big Bag has released nine albums. Their latest album 'Anger Management' was released in last May 2017. He is also an author and songwriter.

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Regional Govt Says Weekly Journal Violated Media Ethics With Satirical Piece

Posted: 13 Mar 2018 03:49 AM PDT

YANGON — The Tanintharyi regional government has sued the Tanintharyi Journal, a weekly journal published in the region, for violating media ethics, said deputy director of the regional government office U Aye Lu, who filed the complaint.

The complaint was filed in December over a satirical piece deemed to satirize the regional chief minister Daw Lei Lei Maw and her family.

The article headlined "Electioneering Smile," which appeared under the byline "Mu Say Ooh" in the journal's Nov. 20 issue, referred to an incumbent female administrator who planned to contest the election for ward and village administrators.

It mocked orders made by the woman in her capacity as a local administrator, as well as her promises and efforts to get re-elected, while Daw Lei Lei Maw had made similar remarks and gave similar instructions.

"We sued the journal because it didn't follow media ethics. And we presented evidence at the court," U Aye Lu told The Irrawaddy after the cross-examination on Monday.

U Aye Lu filed a complaint with the Dawei Township Court on Nov. 23, saying that the satirical piece had created a negative impact on the image of the chief minister as well as the regional government.

On Dec. 21, the court ruled that the journal be sued under Article 25 (b) of the Media Law, which carries a minimum fine of 300,000 kyats to a maximum 1,000,000 kyats for news stories that deliberately affect the reputation of a specific person or an organization, if not concerned with public interests and human rights.

The claim that the satirical piece affected the reputation of the regional government, regional chief minister and her family is just an accusation, said lawyer U Aung Thein, one of the patrons of the Myanmar Lawyers Network and the defense lawyer for the executive editor of the Tanintharyi Journal.

"Satire is about making people laugh. So, I asked at the trial why they [the regional government] were so serious and if the lawsuit implied suppression of the media," he said.

"We'll wait for the court's verdict according to the Media Law," said deputy director U Aye Lu.

The next trial, the tenth since December, is set to take place on March 22 and witnesses will be questioned.

In another case about published satirical pieces, the Myanmar Army (Tatmadaw) sued The Voice Daily chief editor U Kyaw Min Swe and satirist Ko Kyaw Zwa Naing (known by his pen name, "British Ko Ko Maung") for a satirical piece about clashes between the Tatmadaw and armed ethnic groups in June 2017. The Myanmar Army later dropped the charges three months into a trial during which the pair were detained by authorities.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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Man Files Sexual Abuse Complaint Against Employer

Posted: 13 Mar 2018 02:59 AM PDT

YANGON — A waiter revealed sexual abuses carried out by his employer – the owner of the Mae Laint Lon restaurant in South Okkalapa Township in Yangon – who allegedly has HIV.

The victim filed a complaint against the owner with the South Okkalapa Township police on March 8. The victim is from Irrawaddy Region. He started working at the restaurant on Feb. 27, for a salary of 80,000 kyats per month.

The victim, who is 22 years old, told The Irrawaddy that he was abused three times last week and he asked for help from the manager after the third time, on March 7.

Ma Hanna, the manager of the restaurant, said: "He was only here for few days and we don't know each other well. He dared not to say what had happened at first. I asked him to speak openly what happened, and then he told me."

"He said there was no use of a condom. I could not believe that when I heard it, because we knew that the owner was on medication for HIV," she added.

The victim said he was forced to have oral sex with his employer twice and that he was paid 5,000 kyats each time as hush money. He told of another instance when he was forced to have anal sex with his employer.

The victim is now on HIV preventative medication.

"After I learned from Ma Hanna that he had HIV, I was so scared. I didn't know what to do. I was ashamed. I don't want others to suffer like me. I want him to confess his crimes," he said.

A friend of the victim who also previously worked at the restaurant confided in his friend about similar abuses. Ma Hanna also said others have shared stories of abuse but that they were all afraid to report them.

In Myanmar, women and girls who have faced sexual abuse have sought legal action. But this is the first publicized case brought by a man.

"This is a violation of morals. How could he do that?" asked Daw Swe Swe Nyunt, a community member who is helping with the case.

She told The Irrawaddy that it was a positive sign that the police took immediate action and arrested the owner after the complaint was filed.

The South Okkalapa Township police declined to comment other than to say that they had received the complaint, stating that were not allowed to talk about the case.

The Irrawaddy's interview with the victim, his friend and those who are helping with his case can be found in Myanmar language here.

Nyein Nyein contributed to this report. 

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As India Offers Up Cash and Advice, Sunny Nations Form a Solar Alliance

Posted: 12 Mar 2018 10:38 PM PDT

NEW DELHI — Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has moved to quickly scale up its use of renewable power.

In 2014, the year Modi took office, India had 3 gigawatts of solar power. By the end of 2017, it had nearly 7 times that, or 20 GW, according to industry tracker Bridge to India, a renewable energy consultancy.

Now India wants to quintuple that total by 2022 — a goal once seen as hugely ambitious but now considered within reach by energy experts.

Progress is clearly happening quickly: During 2017 alone, India doubled its installed solar capacity from 10 GW to 20 GW.

"India is going to maintain and accelerate the momentum. It will move to be the number two player in the next year or two," said Tim Buckley, director of energy finance studies at the Australia-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), a think tank.

In 2017, India added the third largest amount of national solar capacity, just behind the US and China, and was overtaking Japan, according to IEEFA research.

Now, in partnership with France, India wants to take its growing resources and knowledge on solar power and use it to help other sunny countries jumpstart their solar ambitions as well.

Solar Alliance

On Sunday in New Delhi, Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron hosted the launch of a solar energy partnership that aims to build a network to help tropical countries around the world boost their use of solar power.

“In the Vedas (ancient Hindu texts), the sun was thought to be the world’s soul. In India, the sun was thought of as the nurturer of all life," Modi said at the launch of the International Solar Alliance (ISA).

“These days, when we are looking for a way to combat climate change, we must look to this ancient perspective," he said.

As part of the alliance, India will offer financial support to help with 27 solar projects in other countries, the prime minister said.

Macron said France also will commit 700 million euros to the alliance.

Upendra Tripathy, the director general of the new alliance, said it aims to scale up solar power in many more countries.

"Everyone has access to [the sun], but in terms of ability to exploit solar energy, [that] is not equal," he said in a telephone interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"Credit is a challenge. Skillset is a challenge. The fundamental issue is: Do all member countries have equal ability to exploit solar energy?"

ISA plans to address that issue in part by creating a larger, global market for solar technology that would benefit smaller countries by aggregating the risk and the demand, Tripathy said.

The alliance, an effort to advance the 2015 Paris climate agreement, aims to become a network of 121 countries, he said. Currently 32 countries are full members and another 61 are on their way to full membership. Many are developing nations.

India’s Challenges

India's solar push is in part boosted by steadily dropping costs of providing solar energy.

To produce a unit of solar power now costs 2.5 rupees — a cost similar to that of more traditional energy sources, said Kanika Chawla, the senior program lead at the Delhi-based Council on Energy, Environment and Water, a partner organization of the ISA.

India's transition to renewable energy — without shutting down its coal-fired power plants — represents a new model for developing countries going forward, Chawla said in a telephone interview.

But India still gets about three-quarters of its power from coal, although that is expected to fall to below 50 percent by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency.

India's power providers, largely state-run public companies, are heavily in debt and as a result many companies generating solar power are not being paid on time, Chawla said.

India's government also is considering a 70 percent tariff on solar imports to protect India's solar manufacturers — something that is causing a lot of uncertainty as investors try to bring new solar projects into the country, Buckley said.

Other issues for the nation’s solar scale-up include the tricky business of figuring out how to integrate renewables into the existing electricity grid and the lack of a business model for such utilities — a problem other countries using solar energy also face, Chawla said.

All of these issues have contributed to a slowdown in the pace at which solar projects are being commissioned in India, she said.

But what the renewable energy future holds for the South Asian giant will be critical for the world, climate change experts say.

As China's economic growth slows, India's is heating up, along with its energy demand. India is today the top contributor to growth in energy demand, according to the International Energy Agency.

"It's worth acknowledging the Indian market and economy is still significantly smaller than China and it will be for some time to come," Buckley said.

However, "India is very much wedded to the energy transformation. It's coming straight from the prime minister, and the energy minister and the coal minister are very much onboard," he said.

And "especially with the US leaving the Paris agreement, there's a perceived void that some country needs to fill — and the International Solar Alliance is a clever way of signaling climate leadership," Chawla said. "It is India's offering to the world."

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UN Investigators Cite Facebook Role in Myanmar Crisis

Posted: 12 Mar 2018 10:22 PM PDT

GENEVA — UN human rights experts investigating a possible genocide in Myanmar said on Monday that Facebook had played a role in spreading hate speech there.

Facebook had no immediate comment on the criticism on Monday, although in the past the company has said that it was working to remove hate speech in Myanmar and kick off people who shared such content consistently.

More than 650,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar’s Rakhine State to Bangladesh since insurgent attacks sparked a security crackdown last August. Many have provided harrowing testimonies of executions and rapes by Myanmar security forces.

The UN human rights chief said last week he strongly suspected acts of genocide had taken place. Myanmar’s national security adviser demanded “clear evidence.”

Marzuki Darusman, chairman of the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, told reporters that social media had played a “determining role” in Myanmar.

“It has … substantively contributed to the level of acrimony and dissention and conflict, if you will, within the public. Hate speech is certainly of course a part of that. As far as the Myanmar situation is concerned, social media is Facebook, and Facebook is social media,” he said.

UN Myanmar investigator Yanghee Lee said Facebook was a huge part of public, civil and private life, and the government used it to disseminate information to the public.

“Everything is done through Facebook in Myanmar,” she told reporters, adding that Facebook had helped the impoverished country but had also been used to spread hate speech.

“It was used to convey public messages, but we know that the ultra-nationalist Buddhists have their own Facebooks and are really inciting a lot of violence and a lot of hatred against the Rohingya or other ethnic minorities,” she said.

“I'm afraid that Facebook has now turned into a beast, and not what it originally intended.”

The most prominent of Myanmar's hardline nationalist monks, U Wirathu, emerged from a one-year preaching ban on Saturday and said his anti-Muslim rhetoric had nothing to do with violence in Rakhine State.

Facebook suspends and sometimes removes anyone that "consistently shares content promoting hate," the company said last month in response to a question about U Wirathu's account.

“If a person consistently shares content promoting hate, we may take a range of actions such as temporarily suspending their ability to post and, ultimately, removal of their account."

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China Says New Agency Will Improve Foreign Aid Coordination

Posted: 12 Mar 2018 09:18 PM PDT

BEIJING — China plans to set up an international development cooperation agency, according to a Parliament document released on Tuesday, to better coordinate its foreign aid program.

The new agency will be responsible for forming policies on foreign aid, as well as granting aid and overseeing its implementation, according to the document.

“The move is to give full play to foreign aid as a key means of major-country diplomacy, enhance strategic planning and coordination of foreign aid, and better serve the country’s overall diplomatic layout and the Belt and Road Initiative,” state news agency Xinhua said.

The Belt and Road initiative refers to President Xi Jinping’s landmark scheme to build a new Silk Road, connecting China to Asia, Africa, Europe and beyond.

The new agency will be formed as part of a broad reshuffle of government departments that China’s largely rubber-stamp parliament will formally approve on Saturday.

A new state immigration administration agency responsible for border control, repatriating illegal immigrants and managing foreigners and refugees would also be set up under China’s Ministry of Public Security, Xinhua reported.

China has only occasionally provided details of its foreign aid program in recent years.

The last time it did, in a policy paper released in 2014, it said more than half of China’s foreign aid of more than $14 billion between 2010 and 2012 went to Africa, underscoring Beijing’s interest in the resource-rich continent to fuel its economy.

It provided no breakdown of aid recipients or any yearly figures. In 2011, China put its total foreign aid over the past six decades at 256.29 billion yuan ($40.51 billion).

An analysis by AidData, a research lab at William Mary University in the US state of Virginia, found that official Chinese development assistance from 2000 to 2014 totaled $81 billion, with Cuba receiving the most aid.

Overseas aid provided by the United States over the same period was $366 billion, AidData said.

Much of China’s overseas finance is made in the form of loans or export credits, which allow infrastructure-for-resource deals.

This approach gives China an advantage over the United States in Africa, the official China Daily said on Tuesday in an editorial on US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit to the continent.

“China has been working for years to try to meet Africa’s needs, helping African countries build railways, bridges and ports,” the newspaper said.

“That is why most African countries have sought to forge a partnership with China,” it said.

Some Chinese projects have attracted attention for China’s support of governments with poor human rights records and lack of transparency, such as Zimbabwe, Sudan and Angola.

China will host a once-every-three-years summit with African leaders in Beijing in September.

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Bangladeshi Plane Crashes in Nepal, Killing at Least 49

Posted: 12 Mar 2018 09:11 PM PDT

KATHMANDU — At least 49 people were killed on Monday when a Bangladeshi airliner crashed in cloudy weather as it came in to land at the Nepalese capital’s hill-ringed airport, officials said.

The chief executive officer of US-Bangla Airlines, Imran Asif, accused Kathmandu’s air traffic control for giving wrong signals.

But airport general manager Raj Kumar Chettri said the pilot disregarded their messages and came in from the wrong direction.

Seventy-one people were on board the plane arriving from Dhaka when it clipped the fence at Kathmandu and burst into flames, Chettri said.

There were 33 Nepali passengers, 32 from Bangladesh, one from China and one from the Maldives.

“All of a sudden the plane shook violently and there was a loud bang,” one of the survivors, Basanta Bohora, told the Kathmandu Post daily. “I was seated near a window and was able to break out of the window.”

The accident was the latest to hit mountainous Nepal, which has a poor record of air safety. Small aircraft ply an extensive domestic network and often run into trouble at remote airstrips.

“So far 49 people are dead and 22 are undergoing treatment at different hospitals,” Sanjiv Gautam, executive director of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), told reporters.

Several people were rescued from the burning wreckage of the Bombardier Q400 series aircraft and are undergoing treatment at hospitals, army spokesman Gokul Bhandari said.

Chettri said that moments after the plane received permission to land, the pilot said he wanted to go in a northern direction. Asked by the control tower if there was a problem, he replied in the negative.

The plane was then seen making two rounds in a northeast direction, Chettri said. Traffic controllers again asked the pilot if things were OK, and he replied, "Yes."

The tower then told the pilot his alignment was not correct, but there was no reply, Chettri added.

“The plane should have come from the right direction,” Chettri said, adding that it hit the airport fence, touched the ground and then caught fire.

It was not immediately clear if the pilot had issued a “Mayday” call, or distress signal.

US-Bangla Airlines’ Asif, however, said that wrong signals might have led to the crash.

“A three-minute conversation between the pilot and the air traffic control before the landing indicated that they sent wrong signal to the pilot,” he told reporters in Dhaka.

Series of Accidents

Many of the bodies that lay on the tarmac, covered with cloth, were charred, witnesses said. Thick plumes of smoke could be seen from the aircraft at the Tribhuvan International Airport.

Those on board include 12 Nepali tour agents who were returning after an annual sales conference in Bangladesh, an official said.

The aircraft that went down on Monday was 17 years old, data from tracking website Flightradar24.com showed. It descended to an airport altitude of 4,400 feet (1,341 m) and then climbed to 6,600 feet (2,012 m) before crashing about two minutes later, the website said.

Bombardier said on Twitter it was saddened by the accident.

“Our thoughts are with those injured, and their families,” it said.

There have been a series of accidents at Kathmandu in the past.

In March 2014, a flock of birds shattered the windshield of a Malaysia Airlines jet as it landed in Kathmandu.

The same month, a rear wheel of an Airbus A320 operated by an Indian budget airline caught fire after landing.

In 2012, a plane carrying trekkers to Mount Everest region hit a bird and crashed in Kathmandu, killing all on board.

In 1992, all 113 people aboard were killed when a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok crashed while trying to land in Kathmandu.

US-Bangla Airlines is a unit of the US-Bangla Group, a US Bangladeshi joint venture company.

The two pilots and two cabin crew were Bangladeshi nationals, airline spokesman Kamrul Islam said in Dhaka.

“Our team will fly to Nepal as soon as the airport is open,” he added. “We are in touch with Nepali authorities.”

The Bangladeshi carrier, which launched operations in July 2014 with a slogan – "Fly Fast-Fly Safe," operates Bombardier and Boeing aircraft.

The post Bangladeshi Plane Crashes in Nepal, Killing at Least 49 appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Ten Things to Do in Yangon This Week

Posted: 12 Mar 2018 01:10 PM PDT

 

Yangon Zay | March 18

This farmer's market features organic fruits, flowers, food, entertainment and activities for kids.

March 18, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The Tea Factory, Kan Yeik Tha Street, Kabar Aye Pagoda Road. Free Admission

Exo Festival Night Market | March 16-18

This night market showcases Korean, Thai, and Myanmar foods, fashion, accessories, entertainment and more.

March 16-18, 1 p.m. till late night. People's Park. Free Admission.

Hay Public Morning Exercise | March 17-18

Everyone is free to join this morning exercise group.

March 17-18, 6 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. Maha Bandula Park.

Home Loan Expo | March 16-18

Low-cost and luxury apartments from more than 30 housing projects across Yangon are up for grabs with bank loans available.

March 16-18, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tatmadaw Hall.

Thingyan Boat Party | March 17

Water guns will be available on deck. And DJs will be rocking house, gypsy, hip-hop and electronic music.

March 17, 4:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Botahtaung Jetty. The Royal Irrawaddy Boat, Tickets 15,000 kyats to 20,000 kyats at Union Bar and Grill or here.

Mad in Italy Orchestra Concert | March 16

Mad in Italy is performed by five acappella voices performing a vast repertoire of Italian music sung in many styles. The five singers use their voices to reproduce the sounds of different instruments.

March 16, 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Lotte Hotels and Serviced Apartments, Sin Phyu Shin Avenue, Pyay Road. Free Admission.

Yangon Book Street | Every weekend

Theinbyu Street turns out piles of books for sale.

Every weekend. Theinbyu Street.

NESCAFÉ Urban Movement | March 18

This event is for those who love skateboarding and MBA track bikes.

March 18, Junction Square Promotion Area.

A Personal Myanmar Art Collection | March 17-18

This is an initiative to bring together like-minded collectors and enthusiasts to appreciate the talent and skill of Myanmar artists past and present.

March 17-18, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Nawaday Tharlar Gallery, Room 304, 3rd Floor, 20B Yaw Min Gyi Road, Dagon Tsp.

Artist Min Kyi Retrospective Exhibition | March 17-30

Works of artist Min Kyi will be on display.

March 17-30, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. National Museum. Free Admission.

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