BI Weekly No. 359
October 7th - October 13th, 2008
The BI Weekly archive is available on our website: www.burmaissues.org
Inside Burma
Over a dozen youths missing in Sittwe
NLD seek to negotiate with junta
USDA to campaigns for 2010 election
Underground youth group distribute leaflets around Rangoon
Appeal against Suu Kyi’s detention handed in at Naypyidaw
Border
Chin refugees approach to Thai-Burma border
1000 motorcycles smuggled into Burma each day
International
Dhaka to lease 50,000 acres of farmland in Arakan state
UN outline “core human rights elements” for Burma
Rice urges ASEAN to do more on Burma
Over a dozen youths have gone missing in the last three months in Sittwe. It is believed they were conscripted by the Burmese Army, said an elder from Sittwe.
“My friend Maung Lon’s son went missing in August. He has not been able to find him yet. The family members believe he has been recruited by the army,” he said.
According to a family source, the 14-year-old Aung Myin Naing went missing one day when he had gone out of his house. Family members have not received any information about his whereabouts.
In Sittwe, over a dozen youths have gone missing, some of them students.
Ko Maung Than, a teacher from Maw Late Ward, confirmed that a few youths have been missing in Sittwe recently and that they were most likely recruited by the army.
“Youths missing in Sittwe” Narinjara News, October 8, 2008
NLD seek to negotiate with junta
The National League for Democracy (NLD) is seeking to negotiate “democratic reform” with the Burmese generals if they will establish a constitution review committee, a NLD spokesperson said.
“If we get those chances, we will hold bilateral negotiations and go on based on our agreement,” said Nyan Win, an NLD spokesperson. “Our idea is for ‘democratic reform.’ We willingly want to negotiate with them [authorities].”
Other NLD members said that if the military government is willing to review the constitution, the opposition NLD party may be willing to take part in the national elections in 2010.
On September 22, the NLD released a statement calling for a review of the constitutional process, calling the draft constitution “one-sided” and lacking the participation of the 1990-elected members of parliament.
Nyan Win did not discuss any details it might propose regarding the constitution. The Burmese authorities have not responded to the request
Some observers said they were pessimistic the junta would review its own constitution.
“NLD seeking to negotiate ‘democratic reforms’”, Irrawaddy, October 7, 2008.
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USDA to campaigns for 2010 election
Brig-Gen Thein Zaw, the minister for communications posts and telegraphs, was scheduled to arrive in Myitkyina, the capital of the Kachin State in northern Burma, on Friday (Oct 10) to launch a campaign for the 2010 general election.
Ma Grang, a resident of Myitkyina, told that during his visit Thein Zaw would urge residents to vote for the junta-backed political parties in the multi-party election in 2010.
Thein Zaw is in charge of the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) in Kachin State. The USDA, a regime-backed civic association, is expected to form two political parties—the National Prosperity Party and the National Security and Development Party—to contest the 2010 elections, according to USDA sources.
Ma Grang said that USDA members have been organizing local residents and encouraging them to show their support for the 2010 elections. Some people who demonstrate strong support will be presented with telephones, he said.
The general election is the fifth step of the junta’s “seven-step road map” to democracy.
“Top general to campaign for 2010 election” Irrawaddy, October 10, 2008
Underground youth group distribute leaflets around Rangoon
Underground youth activist group Generation Wave distributed leaflets around Rangoon to mark the one-year anniversary of the group’s founding, witnesses said.
A resident of Rangoon said he had seen the leaflets around the former capital. “The leaflets contained a logo with a thumbs-up sign and a message that said ‘Be free from poverty’.”
“Municipal workers who were nearby immediately took away the leaflets they saw but the leaflets were spread out all over the place so they couldn’t remove all of them straight away,” the witness said.
Generation Wave spokesperson Moe Thway said the group had planned to distribute over 100,000 leaflets in cities all across Burma.
Moe Thway said the group aimed to mark its one-year anniversary and to remind the people of Burma and the SPDC government that there was a group actively fighting against the dictatorship in the country.
Generation Wave was formed with about 30 members on 9 October 2007 following the monk-led demonstrations in September last year.
Moe Thway said the group now has about 100 members operating in different places across Burma while about 10 have been detained.
Famous hip-hop singer Zayar Thaw, a prominent member of the group, was arrested by government authorities on 12 March this year and remains in detention.
“Generation Wave distributes leaflets in Rangoon” Democratic Voice of Burma, October 10, 2008
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Appeal against Suu Kyi’s detention handed in at Naypyidaw
A legal representative of Burma’s detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi handed in to the military government in Naypyidaw on Wednesday (Oct 8) a formal appeal against the latest extension of her house arrest.
Suu Kyi’s lawyer, Kyi Win, told that the appeal had been handed in personally by his assistant, Hla Myo Myint.
The government had given no indication when the appeal would be heard in court, Kyi Win said. “But we are hoping for a positive outcome.”
Suu Kyi’s latest five-year term of house arrest was extended in May for a further year—illegally, according to Kyi Win, because article 10 (b) of the Burmese State Protection Law 1975 stipulates that a person judged to be a “threat to the sovereignty and security of the State and the peace of the people” can only be detained for up to five years.
Suu Kyi has spent more than 13 years of the past 19 years confined to her Rangoon home.
“Appeal against Suu Kyi’s detention handed in at Naypyidaw”, Irrawaddy, October 9, 2008
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Chin refugees approach to Thai-Burma border
Famine in Chin State is causing people to abandon their native homeland, says an ethnic Chin man interviewed as he approached Three Pagodas Pass, on the Thai-Burma border.
The twenty-seven-year old man was traveling with forty-one other people from Chin State, including fifteen children. Many of the refugees in the group are from Haka, the capital of Chin State, located 705 kilometers from Rangoon. Others in the group were from Tamu Township, to the north of Haka in Sagaing Division. The man said it had taken the group about a week to arrive in Karen State.
“We can barely survive because everyone’s crops and farms were eaten by rats,” the man told IMNA. “People are leaving their land because they have nothing to eat.”
Many of the refugees from Chin state are trying to get to Malaysia, says a source close to a Chin leader in the Ethnic Nationalities Council (ENC), in Chiang Mai. Travel from Chin State to Malaysia will cost each person in the group 1.5 million kyat, added the man. The Chin Church of Malaysia, as well as other Chin organizations, is offering support, including help paying for the cost of the trip, said the Chin man interviewed near the border.
According to an ENC statement made on September 30th, more than a hundred thousand people face starvation. The Chin man interviewed near the Three Pagodas Pass confirmed this: “Life was hard for us before the famine. The rats made it even more difficult. We have no way to defeat them.”
“Chin people fleeing famine after plague of rats destroys crops” Independent Mon News Agency,October 10, 2008
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1000 motorcycles smuggled into Burma each day
Since the military government announced in July that it will issue licenses to unregistered motorcycles, sources say about 1,000 motorcycles are being smuggled into Burma each day from Thailand and China.
The military government will stop issuing new licenses at the end of October. Authorities are registering about 300 motorcycles a day, sources say. A license, which cost about 270,000 kyat (US $223), is valid for two years.
The current price for a smuggled Honda Dream is around 2 million kyat ($1,700), say sources. A Chinese Kembo motorcycle goes for around 500,000 kyat ($420).
A motorcycle broker in Myawaddy, a Burmese border town opposite the Thai town of Mae Sot, said about 700 motorcycle are driven across the border daily to Moulmein, the capital of Mon State.
The broker, who asked to remain anonymous, said a dealer must pay a total of about 10,000 kyat ($8) in bribes to various authorities in Burma.
In Mae Sai, the Thai border town opposite Tachilek in Shan State, local sources said perhaps a score of motorcycles are smuggled into Burma daily.
About 200 hundred motorcycles are smuggled daily into Burma from China, sources estimated. A resident of Ruili, a Chinese border town, said that before the Olympics in August, about 500 motorbikes were smuggled into Burma daily, but in the run up to the Olympics, border security was tighten and smuggling dropped off.
“Motorcycle smuggling big business on Burma border” Irrawaddy, October 10, 2008
The Burma junta’s second-in-command, vice senior general Maung Aye, has signed a contract in Dhaka leasing 50,000 acres of paddy fields in Arakan state to the Bangladeshi government.
The majority of the paddy fields are in Myauk Oo and on Man Aung island.
Although the paddy fields are said to be owned by the military, farmers in Arakan state say that some of this land has been seized from local farmers without compensation and they are worried that more land will be seized to make up the 50,000 acres.
Than Hlaing, joint secretary of the Arakan National League for Democracy, said land confiscation could have serious repercussions for local food supplies.
“Despite this, they are confiscating paddy fields and turning the people into tenant farmers,” he said.
“If they lease out 50,000 acres of paddy fields, I am certain that the people of Arakan will starve.”
According to online newspapers from Bangladesh, the two countries have discussed taxation issues and the demarcation of sea boundaries between Burma and Bangladesh.
The repatriation of Rohingya refugees is also due to be discussed.
“Junta leases 50,000 acres of farmland to Bangladesh” Democratic Voice of Burma, October 10, 2008
Tomás Ojea Quintana, the UN special reporteur on human rights in Burma, outlined “core human rights elements” that should be put in place before the 2010 general election, in a statement released on Wednesday.
The elements include: 1) Amend domestic laws that limit freedom of expression, opinion and peaceful assembly, 2) Release of political prisoners, 3) Repeal discriminatory laws, 4) Stop the recruitment of child soldiers.
“Respect for international human rights standards is indispensable” for the regime’s proposed “roadmap to democracy” to gain international acceptance, Quintana said.
He said full enjoyment of human rights does not exist in Burma, according to “reliable reports on the extension of detentions and/or new arrests of political activists.”
The release of political prisoner would reduce tension and inspire political participation among stakeholders in Burma, he said.
The transition to a multi-party democratic and civil government, as planned under the new constitution, will require “an intensive process of incorporating democratic values,” Quintana said.
He suggested a number of changes in the country’s judiciary, which currently “is not independent and is under the direct control of the government and the military.”
Proposed changes include guaranteeing the due process of law, establishing a fully independent and impartial judiciary and setting up a mechanism to investigate human rights abuses.
“UN outlines steps to improve Burma’s human rights” Irrawaddy, October 9, 2008
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) should do more to help move Burma’s military dictatorship toward democracy.
“The democracies in places like Asean have to do more on Burma,” Rice said in Washington in a speech delivered before a State Department advisory committee on the promotion of democracy.
Her remarks were one of the rare times a top US official has directly criticized the way Asean-member countries have handled the issue of Burma when it comes to promoting restoration of democracy and protection of human rights.
Pro-democracy advocates say Asean is in a position to do more for the people of Burma to help in reaching the objectives set by the international community—restoration of a true democracy in a peaceful transition.
Critics of Asean say several members of the regional grouping take the side of the military junta and are instrumental in supporting the regime.
In her speech, Rice said the task of promoting democracy in the world is not that of the US alone, and it should be shared by other responsible countries as well.
“Asean must do more on Burma: Rice” Irrawaddy, October 9, 2008
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