By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
The government will build a refugee-only detention center next year to accommodate the soaring number of asylum seekers during their applications are processed. Those who obtain refugee status will be given a six-month education course there designed to help them settle in Korea.
It is the first facility to be constructed exclusively for asylum applicants and refugees.
``We plan to build the center in Paju, Gyeonggi Province,'' a source told The Korea Times. ``The Ministry of Justice is in talks with the Ministry of Strategy and Finance to secure budget.''
Those applying for the status with their visa remaining valid and refugee status achievers will get priority to stay in the center, while asylum seekers who have overstayed their visa will be only allowed to move in if there is room for them, the source said.
The facility will provide inmates with food, medical treatment, and other welfare services for free since Korean law prohibits refugee seekers from working. Many have had no choice but to work illegally at small-scale factories, risking deportation, or seeking financial support from civic groups until the government gives a final decision.
Residents in the new center will be allowed to stay outside the facility after getting approved status.
According to the Ministry of Justice, the number of asylum seekers has reached 1,951 since 1994. Of them, 77 people have been granted refugee status. The Korean government signed the U.N. Convention on the Status of Refugees in 1992.
The number of refugee applicants jumped from 37 in 2001 to 84 in 2003, 410 in 2005 and 717 in 2007.
By nationality, Nepal topped the list of applicants with 374, followed by China with 302, Myanmar with 192, Nigeria with 151 and Uganda with 132.
Of the total applicants, 701 or 35.9 percent applied for political reasons, while 255 or 13.1 percent applied because of possible persecution in their home countries.
pss@koreatimes.co.kr
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Center for Refugees to Be Built Next Year-koreatimes
Angry Reaction to Samak’s 'Suu Kyi is a Tool' Remark
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By SAW YAN NAING Tuesday, August 26, 2008
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Burmese opposition politicians and some political observers and commentators have strongly rejected Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej’s description of Aung San Suu Kyi as a “political tool” of the West.
Samak made the controversial comment to UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari when the two met in Bangkok as the Nigerian diplomat was returning from his latest failed mission to Burma.
“Europe uses Aung San Suu Kyi as a political tool,” Samak told Gambari. “If it's not related to Aung San Suu Kyi, you can have deeper discussions with Myanmar [Burma].”
Samak also told reporters after meeting Gambari: “Efforts to engage the military regime would be more productive if Aung San Suu Kyi was left off the agenda.”
Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) rejected the Thai premier’s comments as inappropriate.
“As the leader of a country, he should not give such comments about the political affairs of other countries,” said NLD Spokesman Nyan Win.
Nyan Win accused Samak of favoring the Burmese regime and ignoring the Burmese people.
Kavi Chongkittavorn, senior editor of the Bangkok English-language daily newspaper The Nation said, “I think Samak’s comment is ridiculous. And he has tarnished Thailand’s reputation as the chairman of the Asean (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations).
“He [Samak] doesn’t even understand the situation in Burma. He has a very sadistic attitude in attacking whoever disagrees with him. Look at the manner he attacks the Thai media everyday.”
A Burmese ethnic leader, Cin Sian Thang, chairman of the Zomi National Congress in Rangoon, accused Samak of “insulting Burmese people.”
Cin Sian Thang charged that Samak “doesn’t support the formation of democracy in Burma.”
A well-known Burmese politician and former ambassador to China in the 1970s, Thakin Chan Htun, said in Rangoon that Samak’s remarks were based on Thailand’s business interests in Burma, which were more important to him than democratic reform.
Although Gambari failed to meet any top Burmese leader or Aung San Suu Kyi on his latest visit, the UN denied the mission was a failure.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s deputy spokeswoman,
Marie Okabe, said in New York on Monday: “One should not make a judgment on the process based on each individual visit.”
During his Bangkok stopover, Gambari urged Samak to continue his support for the UN mission to break the political deadlock in Burma.
Gambari is scheduled to visit Indonesia before returning to New York, where Okabe said he would report to Ban Ki-moon on his latest visit to Burma.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
Japanese government to accept Myanmar nationals living in third countries as refugees - Mainichi Daily News
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/archive/news/2008/08/25/20080825p2a00m0na018000c.html
Gov't to accept Myanmar nationals living in third countries as refugees
The Japanese government has decided to accept refugees who have fled from their own countries and reside in other countries, and will receive about 30 Myanmar nationals living in Thailand as early as fiscal 2010, it has been learned.
The government is also considering increasing the number of Myanmarese refugees it accepts in the future, and expanding its measure to cover refugees from other countries.
Up until now, Japan has refused to accept refugees living outside their own countries other than those accepted under special measures covering Indochinese refugees. Accordingly, the new decision could be regarded as a change in Japan's policy regarding refugees.
Under the current Immigration-Control and Refugee-Recognition Act, screening for refugee recognition is carried out in Japan, and there are no presupposed conditions for accepting refugees living overseas. But with the new measure on refugees living in third countries they can apply in the places where they are living.
In 2007, 816 people applied for recognition as refugees in Japan. Five hundred of them (about 60 percent) were Myanmarese living under the military junta. It appears that the government singled out Myanmarese refugees in its latest decision because there were many wanting to immigrate to Japan. The government is reportedly considering accepting groups of families. If Japan does accept them it will be the first country in Asia to do so.
Click here for the original Japanese story
(Mainichi Japan) August 25, 2008
UN Denies Its Envoy's Visit to Myanmar Was Worthless (Update1)
Bloomberg.com: U.K. & Ireland
By Paul Tighe and Daniel Ten Kate
Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The United Nations rejected criticism by Myanmar's opposition party that last week's visit by envoy Ibrahim Gambari was worthless, saying it was part of the UN's objective of holding regular talks with the junta.
The visits are a ``process, not an event,'' Marie Okabe, deputy spokeswoman for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said in New York yesterday. ``One should not make a judgment on the process based on each individual visit.''
Gambari didn't meet with Myanmar's military leader Senior General Than Shwe or Aung San Suu Kyi, the head of the opposition National League for Democracy. The envoy should be more effective and negotiate with the junta and the opposition, Nyan Win, the NLD's spokesman, said by phone from Myanmar yesterday.
Gambari was making his fourth visit since the junta deployed soldiers last September to end the most serious pro- democracy demonstrations in 20 years in the country formerly known as Burma. The U.S. says the military government has failed to meet pledges made after the unrest to pursue national reconciliation and open talks with Suu Kyi.
``Mr. Gambari has told us he has had extensive and open discussions with the government and other interlocutors, which in itself is necessary in order to broaden and deepen the process as expected by the secretary-general,'' Okabe said, according to a UN transcript. Ban intends to return to Myanmar for a visit ``when conditions are right,'' she said.
Political Body
Gambari met with the Union Solidarity and Development Association, a political body set up by the junta that will probably represent the military's interests in elections scheduled for 2010.
``We told Mr. Gambari to do his work, his job and that meeting with other bodies is useless,'' Nyan Win said yesterday. Opposition parties may not support more visits by Gambari in the future, he said.
Suu Kyi, 63, who has been under house arrest for 12 of the 18 years since the NLD won elections that weren't recognized by the military, didn't show up for a meeting with Gambari on Aug. 20. Nyan Win said he didn't know why she didn't attend.
Other opposition members said Suu Kyi was either ill or sending a message she was unhappy with the UN's efforts to promote talks with the regime.
``Suu Kyi didn't show up because Mr. Gambari is going around with the military's agenda and he's being exploited by the military,'' said Zin Linn, a spokesman for the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, a government-in- exile formed by winners of the 1990 election, said yesterday.
State of Health
Myanmar's government made the arrangements for the meeting with Gambari, Okabe said at her briefing.
``To his regret, the meeting did not take place,'' she said. ``We are not going to speculate as to why she was not able to attend.''
The junta denied that Suu Kyi is on hunger strike, Agence France-Presse reported from the former capital, Yangon, today. The reports are rumors that aren't true, the news agency cited an unidentified government official as saying.
The NLD is ``very concerned'' about Suu Kyi's health ``because we have no access to her,'' Nyan Win said last week by phone from Myanmar.
Suu Kyi, who underwent gynecological surgery in 2003 and needed treatment in the hospital in 2006, was suffering from low blood pressure and was unable to leave her bed, Japan's Nikkei news agency reported at the time, citing an unidentified person close to the military regime.
The military has ruled the nation of 47 million people since 1962.
To contact the reporters on this story: Paul Tighe in Sydney at ptighe@bloomberg.net; Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok at dtenkate@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: August 26, 2008 02:33 EDT
Suu Kyi fails to pick up food delivery in Myanmar - International Herald Tribune
International Herald Tribune
Suu Kyi fails to pick up food delivery in Myanmar
The Associated PressPublished: August 26, 2008
YANGON, Myanmar: Myanmar's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi rejected food delivered to her home amid speculation that she launched a hunger strike to protest the government's refusal to hold talks on democratic reforms.
Nyan Win, spokesman for the National League for Democracy, said Tuesday he could not confirm whether Suu Kyi was refusing to eat, but said bags of food delivered Monday to a checkpoint outside her heavily guarded house were not picked up.
Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years, and she relies on the NLD's food deliveries for survival. It remains unclear whether Suu Kyi has launched a hunger strike — since her supporters are barred from meeting her.
Nyo Ohn Myint, head of foreign affairs for the National League for Democracy (Liberated Area), which is based in neighboring Thailand, said Suu Kyi has refused the food deliveries since Aug. 15 and will continue doing so until her demands are met.
But he could not say whether that constitutes a hunger strike, since his group has no direct contact with the 63-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Today in Asia - Pacific
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Suu Kyi told the regime that she wants a resumption of talks with the government on national reconciliation, the installation of a satellite dish in her house and the freedom for her personal assistant, Khin Win, to leave whenever she wants.
It is unclear how Suu Kyi communicated her demands to the regime or passed messages to her party.
"If Daw Aung San Suu Kyi continues to refuse food from her comrades, her health will be of serious concern," the National League for Democracy (Liberated Area), said in a statement.
"Two people living with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi are also refusing food. The international community's immediate action is necessary," it said.
The news comes after Suu Kyi repeatedly canceled meetings with U.N. Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari during his six-day visit to Myanmar that ended Saturday. He left without seeing her.
Since refusing to see Gambari, supporters have speculated that the Nobel Peace Prize laureate has grown more frustrated with the United Nations' failure to bring about change in the military-ruled nation.
On Sunday, Nyan Win said Gambari had wasted his time in Myanmar. He also criticized the U.N. envoy for failing to meet the country's leader, Gen. Than Shwe, and for being unable to get any commitment from the junta to start talks with the opposition on national reconciliation.
Nyan Win also castigated Gambari for offering to help the junta prepare for planned 2010 elections.
Suu Kyi's party has criticized the planned polls, which follow a constitutional referendum earlier this year that critics say was neither free nor fair. The new constitution guarantees 25 percent of parliamentary seats to the military, and allows the president to hand over all power to the military in a state of emergency.
Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been in a political deadlock since 1990, when Suu Kyi's party overwhelmingly won general elections but was not allowed to take power by the military junta.
The United Nations has tried with little success to nudge the regime toward talks with the opposition, hoping the top generals would respond to international pressure to embrace national reconciliation following its violent suppression of massive, anti-government protests in Yangon last year.
In October, the regime did appoint retired Maj. Gen. Aung Kyi, the labor minister, as the government liaison to Suu Kyi. The two held five meetings but have not met since January.
China to deepen defence ties with Myanmar
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China to deepen defence ties with Myanmar
Press Trust Of India / Beijing August 25, 2008, 17:22 IST
http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?tp=on&autono=45289
China today expressed keen interest to deepen its military cooperation with Myanmar so as to "safeguard regional stability".
Stating this, Chinese Defence Minister General Liang Guanglie said China and Myanmar, as close and friendly neighbours, have increased cooperation in political, economic, cultural and military affairs in recent years.
The Chinese defence ministry is ready to work with Myanmar to further expand bilateral cooperation, so as to help the two nations' military building and to safeguard regional peace and stability, Liang told Tin Aye, chief of Defence Industries of Myanmar.
The Chinese Defence Minister also praised Myanmar's adherence to the one-China policy regarding on the Taiwan issue.
Liang also expressed his sympathy toward the Myanmar people in the cyclone-hit region, Xinhua news agency reported.
Tin Aye said Myanmar values its relations with China, hoping that the two nations would further enhance friendly cooperation.
Myanmar would continue to support the one-China policy, he reiterated.
SFFB Burmese immigrant invests in his neighbors
Aug 25, 2008 (The News-Sentinel (Fort Wayne - McClatchy-Tribune News Service via COMTEX) -- SFFB | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- The market is still modest, but when a man can make a living selling financial services to his fellow Burmese immigrants, it counts as a milestone on the journey from refugees to settled residents.
That's what Thiha Kyi, 53, has been doing since February as a sales agent for Western & Southern Financial Services in Fort Wayne.
"As new agents, we get to go to our personal markets. My Burmese community is my personal market," said Kyi, who is more widely known as "Ty." Most of the 4,000 to 5,000 Burmese immigrants in Fort Wayne, even those who were professionals or had college educations before leaving their native country, earn modest incomes. Kyi said many work in factories or slaughterhouses. Hundreds of women who sewed for Vera Bradley suppliers lost their jobs recently. Some women find work as cooks or servers.
Another obstacle is the absence of many traditional financial services in Burma. Most Burmese know little or nothing about retirement savings, insurance, home mortgages or interest rates.
So when Kyi makes sales, they are most often small term-life insurance policies, among the least expensive products Western & Southern offers. But Tom Strain, sales manager for the company's Fort Wayne office, said he couldn't be happier with Kyi's progress.
"He's a sales rep, but he's so much more than that," Strain said. "Ty is like an elder in the community. ... When he's not working, he's at the temple or raising money for flood victims." Cyclone Nargis hit Burma, also known as Myanmar, in May _ killing up to 130,000.
Employing a well-respected, well-educated member of an immigrant community gives the company unparalleled access to thousands of people who are beginning to have a little more money to invest.
That's why when Kyi arranges a visit to a Burmese household, it's not the usual meet-the-insurance-agent sales call. Instead, neighbors crowd in to hear him speak, so much so that eight or 10 pack a small room to hear him explain how Western & Southern can help them retire or save money to send children to college.
Those are common-enough goals for investors, but some Burmese have motives for purchasing insurance that would seem unusual to most customers. Strain said he's been surprised at how many single Burmese, without any dependents, purchase life insurance. Should they die, they don't want to create a financial burden for Burmese who would pool money to pay for funeral arrangements.
"They're protecting their community," Strain said.
That's a motivation Kyi can understand. For most of the last 30 years, he's worked to help Burmese people _ first as a dentist in Burma who became an opponent of the ruling military government, then as an early arrival in the wave of Burmese immigration to Fort Wayne.
Because both his parents were on the faculty of a Burmese university, and because he was well-educated (and could speak English), he was better equipped to move into higher-paying jobs than most new arrivals from his country. Soon after he came to Fort Wayne, he enrolled in a dental-technology program at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, but reflecting on his country's history led him on a different course.
"My country became poor because of economic mismanagement," Kyi said. "What is management? If I go back to my country to rebuild, I need to know how to manage," he said.
He earned a master of business administration degree in 2000 and moved up through the ranks of supervisory jobs in various restaurants. But those hours were unpredictable. He began to see how much those wildly shifting work hours cut into time he could devote to helping other Burmese and protesting the actions of Burma's totalitarian government. Working against that government became a freshly urgent necessity after military leaders suppressed a nonviolent protest movement organized around Buddhist monks.
That's when he shifted to financial planning.
Since then, he's found satisfaction in showing fellow Burmese how they can improve their lives with financial planning.
"I've been going house to house," Kyi said. "I tell them, 'You don't have to buy something from me, but you have to learn about this."'
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(c) 2008, The News-Sentinel (Fort Wayne, Ind.).
Visit the News-Sentinel, at http://www.news-sentinel.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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ဧရာ၀တီ | ၾသဂုတ္ ၂၅၊ ၂၀၀၈အလင္းေရာင္ လက္ျဖာည … သို႔မဟုတ္ … ေလးျဖဴနဲ႔ IC ရဲ႕ နာဂစ္ရန္ပုံေငြပြဲ … The Irrawaddy (Burmese Version)
ညေန ၄ း ၄၀ နာရီ။
မိုးရြာျပီးစ ေကာင္းကင္က ခပ္မႈိင္းမိႈင္းေဖ်ာ့ေတာ့ေနခ်ိန္ သဃၤန္းကၽြန္းျမိဳ႕နယ္ ေ၀ဇယႏၱာလမ္းမၾကီးေဘးမွာရွိတဲ့ သု၀ဏၰၰ မိုးလုံေလလုံ အားကစားရုံၾကီး ေရွ႕မွာေတာ့ သစ္လြင္ေတာက္ပတဲ့ အ၀တ္အစားေတြနဲ႔ လူငယ္ ေထာင္ ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာ စုရုံး ေရာက္ရွိေနၾကတယ္။ သူတို႔မ်က္ႏွာေတြက တက္ၾကြလန္းဆန္းေနတယ္။ သူတို႔တေတြကို လုံထိန္း ရဲကားေတြ၊ အခ်ဴပ္ကား ေတြနဲ႔ ရာေပါင္းမ်ားေသာ လုံထိန္း ရဲတပ္ဖြဲ႕၀င္ေတြက ေစာင့္ၾကည့္ေနတယ္။
ဒါေပမယ့္ ဒီလူငယ္ေတြက လုံထိန္းရဲေတြကိုသတိမမူအား အခ်င္းခ်င္းစၾကေနာက္ၾကနဲ႔ ေပ်ာ္ရႊင္လို႔ေနၾကတယ္။ သူတို႔ေတြ ဟာ နာဂစ္ဒုကၡသည္ေတြကိုကူညီဖို႔ ရန္ပုံေငြရွာတဲ့ နာမည္ေက်ာ္ IRON CROSS ေတးဂီတအဖြဲ႕နဲ႔အတူ သီဆိုေဖ်ာ္ေျဖမယ့္ ေလးျဖဴ၊ အငဲ၊ မ်ဳိးၾကီး၊ ၀ိုင္၀ိုင္းတို႔ရဲ႕ စတိတ္ရႈိးပြဲလာေရာက္ၾကတဲ့လူငယ္ေတြပါ။
“လက္မွတ္ေတြ ၁၃၀၀၀ ေနာ္၊ ကုန္ေတာ့မွာ”ဆိုတဲ့လက္မွတ္ေရာင္းတဲ့သူေတြရဲ႕အသံေတြကလည္း ဆူညံ ေနတယ္။ ျမန္မာ ျပည္မွာ ေစ်းအၾကီးဆုံးလို႔ဆိုႏုိင္မယ့္ စတိတ္ရႈိးလက္မွတ္ တေစာင္ က်ပ္ ၁၅၀၀၀ ၊ ၁၀၀၀၀ ၊ ၉၀၀၀ ေစ်းႏႈန္းေတြဟာ မ်ားျပားလြန္းလွတဲ့ ေစ်းႏႈန္းျဖစ္ေပမယ့္စတိတ္ရႈိးငတ္ေနတဲ့ လူငယ္ေတြကေတာ့ ေစ်းႏႈန္းကို ဂရုမထား၊ အံ့ၾသဖြယ္ေကာင္း ေလာက္ေအာင္ ရုံျပည့္ရုံလွ်ံ၀ယ္ယူအားေပးၾကလို႔ ရက္ပုိင္းအတြင္း လက္မွတ္ေတြေရာင္းကုန္သြားတယ္။ မူလ က ၂၄ ရက္ တရက္တည္းက်င္းပဖို႔ စီစဥ္ထားေပမယ့္ လက္မွတ္ မရလိုက္တဲ့ သူေတြအမ်ားအျပားရွိတာမုိ႔ ၂၅ ရက္ကိုပါထပ္ျပီး ပြဲက်င္းပ ဖို႔စီစဥ္ခဲ့တာလို႔ရႈိးပြဲ စီစဥ္သူ ALPINE ေသာက္ေရသန္႔ ကုမဏီက တာ၀န္ရွိသူ တဦးကဆိုပါတယ္။
သု၀ဏၰအားကစားရုံၾကီးေရွ႕မွာ လူေတြ၊ ကားေတြ၊ ေစ်းသည္ေတြ၊ ရဲေတြ ရႈပ္ယွက္ခတ္ေနတယ္။ ရႈိးပြဲက်င္းပမယ့္ အားကစားရုံထဲ၀င္ဖို႔ တန္းစီေနတဲ့ လူတန္းၾကီးကလည္း ရထားတန္းၾကီးပမာ ရွည္လ်ားလြန္းလွတယ္။
ညေန ၅ နာရီ။
သု၀ဏၰမိုးလုံေလလုံ အားကစားရုံၾကီးထဲမွာ ဂီတကို ခ်စ္ျမတ္ႏုိးၾကတဲ့ လူၾကီးလူငယ္ အရြယ္မ်ဳိးစုံ မိမိတို႔လက္မွတ္ ၀ယ္ယူ ထားရာေနရာအသီးသီးကို ေရာက္ရွိေနရာယူၾကတယ္။ တခ်ဳိ႕က ထုိင္ခုံေတြမွာေနရာယူေနၾကသလို တခ်ဳိ႕ ကေတာ့ မတ္တတ္ရပ္ အားေပးဖို႔ ဟန္ျပင္ေနၾကတယ္။
ALPINE ေသာက္ေရသန္႔နဲ႔ ျမန္မာဘီယာဆိုတဲ့ ဆိုင္းဘုတ္ေတြက ရုံအတြင္းမွာ ျပည့္ႏွက္ေနရာယူထားတယ္။ ေတးဂီတ ေဖ်ာ္ေျဖမႈေပးမယ့္ စင္ၾကီးကေတာ့ သံတုိင္ေတြနဲ႔တည္ေဆာက္ထားျပီး ခန္႔ညားလြန္းလွတယ္။ ေတး ဂီတစင္ကို ပရုိဂ်က္ တာေတြနဲ႔တန္ဆာဆင္ထားျပီး အနီေရာင္ i နဲ႔ c ဆိုတဲ့ စာလုံးၾကီးႏွစ္ခုကလည္း စတိတ္ရႈိး စင္ကို ပိုျပီးထင္ရွား ေပၚလြင္ေစ တယ္။ ပရုိဂ်က္တာေပၚမွာကေတာ့ ေလးျဖဴ၊ အငဲ၊ ၀ိုင္၀ုိင္းနဲ႔မ်ဳိးၾကီး တို႔ရဲ႕ ပုံရိပ္ ေလးခု နဲ႔ IRON CROSS ဆိုတဲ့ စာတန္းၾကီး ထုိးထားျပီး ေနာက္ခံ ေရာ့ခ္ ေတးဂီတအသံေတြ က်ယ္က်ယ္ ေလာင္ေလာင္ ထြက္ေပၚေနတယ္။
ညေန ၅ နာရီ ၁၁ မိနစ္။
ပရုိဂ်က္တာေပၚမွာ ျမစ္ျပင္က်ယ္ေတြ၊ ငါးဖမ္းလုပ္ငန္းလုပ္ကိုင္ေနတဲ့ တံငါေတြ၊ ေဆာ့ကစားေျပးလႊားေနတဲ့ ကေလးငယ္ပုံ ရိပ္ေတြက လႈပ္ရွားသက္၀င္ျပသတယ္။ အဲဒီေနာက္မွာေတာ့ လွ်ပ္စီးလွ်ပ္လက္ေရာင္ေတြထျပီး မုန္တုိင္းဒီေရေတြတက္လာ တဲ႔ ပုံေတြ တခုတခုျပီး ျပသတယ္။ ျပီးေတာ့ ငုိေၾကြးေနတဲ့ကေလးငယ္ေတြ၊ ဒုကၡေရာက္ေနတဲ့ လူၾကီးလူငယ္ေတြရဲ႕ပုံေတြက ဆက္တိုက္ဆိုသလိုေပၚထြက္လာတယ္။
“အားလုံးရဲ႕ မ်က္ရည္ကိုယ္စီဆုေတာင္းျခင္းမ်ားနဲ႔…..ဒီကမၻာမွာက်ခဲ့ရ ၊ မိဘမဲ့ကေလးမ်ား အေမေရ ေခၚတဲ့ အသံမ်ားလား …”ဆိုတဲ့“ေနေရာင္ေအာက္က အသက္ရႈသံမ်ား”သီခ်င္းကို မ်ဳိးၾကီး၊ ေလးျဖဴ၊ အငဲ နဲ႔ ၀ိုင္၀ိုင္းတို႔ သံျပဳိင္စတင္သီဆိုလိုက္ခ်ိန္ မွာေတာ့ ပရိသတ္ရဲ႕ လက္ခုပ္သံေတြ၊ သီခ်င္းကို သံျပဳိင္လိုက္လံသီဆိုတဲ့ အသံေတြ က အားကစားရုံတခုလုံးလွ်ံထြက္ ဖုံးလႊမ္းသြားတယ္။
အဲဒီသီခ်င္းျပီးတဲ့ ေနာက္မွာေတာ့ အဆိုေတာ္ အငဲက “အခ်စ္ကခါး” သီခ်င္းဆိုပါတယ္။ ပရိသတ္ေတြက ခုန္ေပါက္ကၾက သလို တခ်ဳိ႕ဆယ္ေက်ာ္သက္ အရြယ္အမ်ဳိးသမီးငယ္ေလးေတြက အငဲ လို႔ေအာ္ျပီး မ်က္ရည္ေတြ က်ၾကတယ္။ တခ်ဳိ႕ ဆယ္ေက်ာ္သက္ အမ်ဳိးသားလူငယ္ေတြကလည္း အက်ႌေတြခၽြတ္လို႔ ကခုန္ၾကတယ္။
နာမည္ေက်ာ္အဆိုေတာ္ေတြျဖစ္တာနဲ႔အညီ ပရိသတ္ရဲ႕အားေပးမႈကလည္း ေၾကာက္ခမန္းလိလိ။ ပရိသတ္ၾကိဳက္ ႏွစ္သက္ ျပီးသား နာမည္ၾကီး ေရာ့ခ္ေတးသီးခ်င္းေတြ၊ အခ်စ္သီခ်င္း ေအးေအးေလးေတြကို အငဲနဲ႔ ၀ိုင္၀ိုင္းတို႔က ဆက္တုိက္ သီဆိုၾကပါတယ္။
ညေန ၅ နာရီ ၃၈ မိနစ္ မွာေတာ့ ...
ဘယ္ေတာ့မွ စတိတ္ရႈိးမဆိုေတာ့ပါဘူးလို႔ ေၾကညာထားတဲ့ အဆိုေတာ္ၾကီး ေလးျဖဴ တကိုယ္ေတာ္ေဖ်ာ္ေျဖသီဆို ဖို႕ျပင္ဆင္ ခ်ိန္မွာ ေတာ႕ ပရိတ္သတ္ေတြက “ေလးျဖဴ” “ေလးျဖဴ”ဆိုျပီး ညာသံေပးေအာ္ဟစ္သံေတြက သု၀ဏၰ အားကစားရုံ ျပင္ပ ထိေအာင္ ဟိန္းထြက္သြားတယ္။
“ခင္ဗ်ားတို႔နဲ႔အတူ နာဂစ္ေလေဘးဒုကၡသည္ေတြအတြက္ ကုသိုလ္ျပဳရတာ အရမ္းေပ်ာ္ရႊင္ပါတယ္။ အားလုံး မဂၤလာပါ”လို႔ ေလးျဖဴႏႈတ္ခြန္းဆက္ျပီးခ်ိန္မွာေတာ့ ပရိသတ္ရဲ႕ လႈပ္ရွားမႈေတြက ေလးျဖဴ သီဆိုတဲ့ ေရာ့ခ္ သီခ်င္းေတြမွာ နစ္ေမ်ာခုန္ ေပါက္ၾကတယ္။ ပြဲစခ်ိန္ကတည္းက ရုံျပည့္ရုံလွ်ံေနတဲ့ လူအုပ္က ပြဲစျပီး ၄၅ မိနစ္ ေလာက္အၾကာမွာ ပို၍ပုိ၍ မ်ားျပား လာပါတယ္။
“ဒီပြဲေလာက္ပရိတ္သတ္မ်ားတာ တခါမွ မျမင္ဖူးဘူး။ အေတာ္ကို အားရစရာေကာင္းတယ္”လို႔ ရုပ္ရွင္ဗီဒီယို သရုပ္ေဆာင္ တဦးက မွတ္ခ်က္ျပဳတယ္။
နာမည္ေက်ာ္ ဟစ္ေဟာ့ အဆိုေတာ္စိုင္းစိုင္းခမ္းလႈိင္ကေတာ့ “အၾကီးက်ယ္ဆုံးနဲ႔ အေအာင္ျမင္ဆုံးပြဲပါပဲ။ အားက်မိပါတယ္” လို႔ စတိတ္ရႈိးပြဲကို ခုန္ေပါက္ အားေပးကခုန္ရင္း မွတ္ခ်က္ေပးတယ္။
ေရာ့ခ္သီခ်င္းေတြသီဆို နာမည္ၾကီးတဲ့ အမ်ဳိးသမီးအဆိုေတာ္ ေကာ္နီကလည္း “ပရိသတ္မ်ားနဲ႔အတူတူ ေပ်ာ္ရႊင္ရပါတယ္။ ဂုဏ္ယူပါတယ္”လို႔ ရယ္ေမာစြာနဲ႔ တုံ႔ျပန္မွတ္ခ်က္ျပဳတယ္။ စူးရွတဲ့ အသံနဲ႔အခ်စ္သီခ်င္းေတြေရာ၊ ေရာ့ခ္သီခ်င္းေတြပါ သီဆို ႏုိ္င္တဲ့ ပရိသတ္အခ်စ္ေတာ္ ေခ်ာစုခင္ကလည္း “ဘာျဖစ္ျဖစ္ အခုလို ကုိေလးျဖဴစတိတ္ရႈိးျပန္ဆိုတဲ့အတြက္ ပရိသတ္ အတြက္ေရာ ေခ်ာစုကပါ အရမ္းေပ်ာ္တယ္။ ဒီေန႔ ၂၄ ရက္နဲ႔မနက္ျဖန္ ၂၅ ရက္ပါ ၂ ရက္စလုံး ကုိေလးကို အားေပးမယ္။ မၾကည့္ရတာၾကာျပီျဖစ္တဲ့ ကိုေလး ရဲ႕ ေဖ်ာ္ေျဖတာ ျပန္ၾကည္႕ရတဲ့အတြက္ အရမ္းမိုက္ပါတယ္”လို႔ သူမရဲ႕ခံစားခ်က္ကို ထုတ္ေဖာ္ေျပာပါတယ္။
စတိတ္ရႈိးပြဲကိုလာၾကည့္တဲ့ ပရိသတ္အေရအတြက္က ခန္႔မွန္းဖို႔ခက္ေလာက္ေအာင္ မ်ားျပားလြန္းလွတယ္။ ပြဲလုံျခဳံေရး တာ၀န္ယူထားတဲ့ လုံျခဳံေရး၀န္ထမ္းတဦးကေတာ့ အနည္းဆုံး ငါးေသာင္းေက်ာ္ရွိမယ္လို႔ ခန္႔မွန္း တယ္။ ပရိသတ္ေတြထဲမွာ ႏုိင္ငံျခားသားေတြ ေတာ္ေတာ္မ်ားမ်ားကိုလည္း ေတြ႕ရတယ္။
ပရိသတ္အခ်စ္ေတာ္ ေလးျဖဴ၊ ၀ိုင္၀ိုင္း၊ အငဲနဲ႔မ်ဳိးၾကီးတို႔ဟာ သီဆိုေဖ်ာ္ေျဖခိ်န္မွာ ပရိသတ္ဘက္ကို မိုက္ကရုိဖုန္း ကို ထိုးေပးျပီး ပရိသတ္ရဲ႕သံျပိဳင္သီခ်င္းလုိက္လံသီဆိုမႈကို အသိအမွတ္ျပဳရင္း ပရိသတ္ကိုလည္း အရႊန္းေဖာက္ ပါတယ္။
“ပရိသတ္ၾကီး မ်ဳိးၾကီးေျမွာက္ေပးတုိင္း အက်ႌေတြခၽြတ္မေနၾကနဲ႔ အေအးပတ္ကုန္လိမ့္မယ္”လို႔ အဆိုေတာ္အငဲက ေျပာေတာ့ ပရိသတ္ေတြကလည္း ရယ္ၾကတယ္။
ေလးျဖဴကလည္း “ေရာမီေသာေဖာ (တရုတ္ကားထဲကပုံစံအတိုင္းလုပ္ျပ)”ဆိုျပီး ပရိသတ္ကို ေနာက္တယ္။
တျဖည္းျဖည္း အခ်ိန္ၾကာလာတာနဲ႔အမွ် ပရိသတ္နဲ႔ အဆိုေတာ္ေတြ အေပးအယူ မွ်မွ် အတုိင္အေဖာက္ ညီလာ ၾကတယ္။ အဆိုေတာ္ေတြက ပရိသတ္ကို အစြမ္းကုန္ေဖ်ာ္ေျဖ ၾကသလို ပရိသတ္ေတြကလည္း ပြဲကို စည္းကမ္း ရွိရွိ ရန္ပြဲမရွိအား ေပးေနၾကတယ္။
ည ၉ နာရီ မိနစ္၂၀ အခိ်န္က်ေတာ့ …
အဆိုေတာ္ေလးျဖဴက “ဒီညေလးကိုေတာ့ ဘယ္လိုမွေမ့လို႔ရေတာ့မွာမဟုတ္ပါဘူး” လို႔ေျပာျပီး ပြဲကို နိဂုံးခ်ဴပ္ဖို႔ ျပင္ေတာ့ ပရိသတ္ေတြက ေအာ္ဟစ္ျပီး သီခ်င္းေတာင္းၾကတယ္။
ပရိသတ္ ေတာင္းဆိုမႈေၾကာင့္ ေလးျဖဴက ေနာက္ထပ္သီခ်င္းႏွစ္ပုဒ္ ထပ္ဆိုေပးမယ္။ မနက္ျဖန္က်ရင္လည္း က်ေနာ္ဆြဲရ ဦးမယ္ (သီခ်င္းထပ္ဆိုရဦးမယ္)။ အဲဒီေတာ့ ႏွစ္ပုဒ္ျပီးရင္ ပြဲနားၾကပါစို႔လို႔ ေတာင္းပန္ပါတယ္။
ည ၉နာရီ ၃၀ မိနစ္အခ်ိန္ မွာေတာ့ …
အဆိုေတာ္ ေလးျဖဴက ေနာက္ဆုံးပြဲသိမ္းသီခ်င္းအေနနဲ႔ သူ႔ရဲ႕ပထမဆုံးေသာ နာမည္ၾကီး သီခ်င္းျဖစ္တဲ့ “အလင္းေရာင္” သီခ်င္းကို ေဖ်ာ္ေျဖေတာ့ ပရိသတ္ကလည္း သီခ်င္းကို သံျပိဳင္ေအာ္ဟစ္သီဆိုၾကတယ္။ တခ်ဳိ႕ပရိသတ္ေတြက မီးျခစ္ ကိုျခစ္ျပီး မီးေတာက္ေလးေတြကို ေ၀ွ႔ယမ္းျပီး လြမ္းလြမ္းေဆြးေဆြးအားေပးၾကတယ္။
ပဲြကို လာေရာက္အားေပးတဲ့ အသက္၂၀ ေက်ာ္အရြယ္ ျပင္သစ္ႏုိင္ငံသူေလးတဦးရဲ႕မ်က္ႏွာမွာ မ်က္ရည္ေတြ က်ေနတာကို ေတြ႕လိုက္ရတယ္။ ဘာျဖစ္လုိ႔လဲ လို႔ ေမးလိုက္ေတာ့ နာဂစ္မုန္တုိင္း ဒုကၡသည္ေတြအတြက္ သီဆိုၾကတဲ့ အဆိုေတာ္ေတြနဲ႔ အားေပးၾကတဲ့ ပရိသတ္ကို ျမင္ေတြ႕ရတာ သူမအဖို႔၀မ္းသာလြန္းလို႔ မ်က္ရည္က်တာပါလို႔ ေျပာတယ္။
ည ၉ နာရီ ၄၀ မိနစ္ အခ်ိန္မွာပဲ …
နာဂစ္မုန္တုိင္း ဒုကၡသည္မ်ားအတြက္ ေဖ်ာ္ေျဖတဲ့ရန္ပုံေငြ စတိတ္ရႈိးပြဲက ေအာင္ျမင္ေအးခ်မ္းစြာနဲ႔ အဆုံးသတ္သြား ပါေတာ့တယ္။ ။
National League for Democracy (Liberated Area) News Release
Date: August 25, 2008
1. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has not accepted any food or visitors for 9 days. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s daily food supply is delivered to her house each day, but the last day Daw Aung San Suu Kyi accepted the food was 15 August 2008. If Daw Aung San Suu Kyi continues to refuse food from her comrades, her health will be of serious concern. Two people living with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi are also refusing food. The international community’s immediate action is necessary.
2. During UN Special Envoy Mr. Ibrahim Gambari’s recent six day visit to Burma, Mr. Gambari met with authorities from the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), diplomats, personnel from SPDC-crony organizations, and leaders from the National League for Democracy (NLD). However, Mr. Gambari did not meet with any top officials from the SPDC or with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
3. Over the past 20 years, consecutive General Secretaries of the United Nations have made efforts to solve Burma's crisis; however, these efforts have not resulted in tangible improvements for Burma. This demonstrates that the UN's strategy for solving the crisis in Burma is flawed.
4. During the Saffron Revolution in 2007, Mr. Gambari was successfully lured into the SPDC's political trap: attempting dialogue between Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and SPDC officials that supported the SPDC's “seven-step road map to democracy.” Daw Aung San Suu Kyi found it very difficult to solve the national crisis using peaceful means as a result of this one-sided dialogue.
5. According to reliable sources, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi informed people that there should be limitations, especially time limitations, for tolerating the SPDC's one-sided approaches. She further informed people that we must sacrifice our lives like martyrs for the people of Burma so as to successfully support Burma’s freedom.
6. Therefore, the National League for Democracy (Liberate Area) appeals to the international community to support Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and solve the crisis in Burma using any necessary means. Specifically, we appeal to the Secretary General of the United Nations to go to Burma as soon as possible to solve the crisis.
Central Committee
National League for Democracy (Liberated Area)
Contact: U Nyo Ohn Myint
Mobile Phone No. (66) 897003432
Email address: nyomyint@hotmail.com
The Cutting Edge News,Reign of Terror in Burma Requires Genuine U.N. Action - Not Just Official Visits
The Times - Have you met our new friends?(MORE)
"LET us now be proud of our friends. Let us be proud to stand tall, side by side with them and acknowledge them as our friends.
The late Zambian president, Levy Mwanawasa, was not our friend. He dared to condemn the despot Robert Mugabe. Let us not honour Mwanawasa.
Instead, let us now be proud of the democratic states of China and Russia, who stood by us like good friends at the UN when we refused to impose sanctions on Mugabe and his top cronies a month ago.
The UN Security Council did not propose much: a travel ban and asset freeze on Mugabe and his cronies plus a ban on arms sales to the country. South Africa voted against the adoption of the resolution and lobbied hard until Russia and China vetoed the resolution."
Taipei Times - archives(MORE)
Taipei Times - archives: "McDonald’s, Ma and Hu awarded ‘Olympic’ golds
ONE OF A KIND: Human rights groups gave a unique gold medal to Uni-President for being the only local business to sponsor the ‘Bloody Olympics’ in Beijing
By Loa Iok-Sin
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, Aug 25, 2008, Page 2
Activists portraying, right to left, President Ma Ying-jeou, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Ronald McDonald hold up their gold medals and certificates after being named winners for human rights abuses at a mock Olympic closing ceremony in Taipei yesterday.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Ronald McDonald were among the gold medal winners for human rights abuses at an unofficial Olympic closing ceremony in Taipei yesterday.
Ahead of the official Beijing Olympic closing ceremony yesterday evening, groups including the Taiwan Friends of Tibet (TFOT), the Taiwan Association for Human Rights and the Taiwan Free Burma Network organized a “closing ceremony for the Bloody Olympics” yesterday morning."
Al Jazeera English - PEOPLE AND POWER - Myanmar's Future
Al Jazeera English - PEOPLE AND POWER - Myanmar's Future: "Myanmar's Future"
Gambari Burma Mission Not Accomplished, UNSC should intervene more directly | Asian Tribune
http://www.asiantribune.com/?q=node/12900
Mon, 2008-08-25 03:34
By Zin Linn, Burmese Journalist in exile
Bangkok, 245 August, (Asiantribune.com): UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari's latest shuttle diplomacy ended in disappointment. He could not meet senior leaders of the ruling Junta. And also the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. When Gambari flew in, expectations ran very high.
The visit came at a time optimism was waning about talks between the Nobel Laureate and the Generals who had unveiled a new statute after staging a referendum in May. The international community hoped that he would succeed in persuading the military to open a genuine political dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi and ethnic groups to create a national reconciliation process that could lead to a genuine democracy.
Gambari failed to have meetings with the senior general. The Nobel laureate was to meet him on Aug20. But she did not 'show up'. The meeting was organised by the Junta. Obviously, Suu Kyi did not want Gambari to overstate that his mission was going well.
This was Gambari's fourth trip to Burma since the deadly crackdown on anti-government demonstrators led by Buddhist-monks last September.
Burma came under military rule in 1962. The regime has earned the dubious reputation of being one of the world's worst human rights violators. It brutally suppressed pro-democracy movements in 1988, May 30, 2003, Depayin conspiracy and Saffron Revolution in Sept 2007. There were many more sporadic crackdowns. The junta has arrested over two thousands political dissidents including Suu Kyi, who has been confined to her residence for most of the last 19 years.
The regime has held a unilateral referendum at gun point on May 10 and 24 this year and pronounced mandate for the statute which made the military the final arbiter of the destiny of the Burmese people. The new elections planned in 2010 will legalize military rule. Needless to say, the processes will not be free and fair. Just like the referendum held at gun-point. The socio-economic atmosphere is deteriorating. The junta will not be able to manage the socio-economic situation, which is deteriorating fast. It will soon come face-to-face with a "desolate" future if it continues to reject the national reconciliation process being urged by the opposition the National League for Democracy (NLD) and the United Nationalities Alliance (UNA).
NLD and UNA point out that the 'ratification' of the constitution staged by the Junta is invalid. Both assert that the ratification was carried out against the will of the people and without observing internationally known norms for referendums. The junta does not show respect the statement issued by President of the UN Security Council issued in October, 2007. The regime also has also negated successive resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) calling for return of democracy in Burma through a tripartite dialogue between the Junta led by Senior General Than Shwe, democratic forces led by Aung San Suu Kyi and representatives of ethnic nationalities. From turn of events it is clear that Yangoon has no plan to heed the UN call and to release political prisoners, which is a pre-condition to facilitate the tripartite dialogue.
These realities and Junta's adherence to the Seven-step road map towards 2010 elections make the Gambari mission almost nonsensical. Also bring upfront the question: Is Ibrahim Gambari the right person for the delicate job in Yangon.
Pro-changer's reply is a resounding no. "No he's disqualified."
Gambari cannot hope to achieve a breakthrough when he obeys regime's to-do list and spends most of the time with pro-junta groups or their puppets. He should demand to meet the representatives of the group of 92 MP-elect, who had sent letters to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Security Council. And he should, at least, urge the junta to release two of the group- U Nyi Pu and Dr. Tin Min Htut, who were arrested on 12 August. At least three prominent members of these MPs who are denied their rightful place in Parliament, U Pu Chin Sian Thang, U Thein Pe and Dr. Myint Naing, are accessible in Yangoon but the UN Special Envoy did not try to contact them.
Instead, Gambari met with the leaders of the ruling junta which has identifies itself as the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA). It is a gang similar to Hitler's 'Brown Shirts', which carried out an assassination attempt on Nobel laureate Suu Kyi on May 30, 2003. Scores of her supporters were slaughtered during that pre-meditated attack.
What was more, when UN envoy met with the NLDs, he told them the 2010 elections would be free and fair. But when asked for his 'opinion' on the 1990 elections, he ducked for cover. Furthermore, he even did not recognize the purpose of his current mission was to facilitate resumption of a political dialogue that was postponed in the wake of a cyclone.
Hopefully, Ibrahim Gambari will re-evaluate the purpose and direction of his mission as the Secretary-General's Special Envoy. He should not consider advocating or supporting the military dictators' sham constitution and sham 2010 elections. It will damage not only his mission but also the dignity of the world body.
Is it too much for the democratic forces in Burma to expect that the United Nations will quickly come to grips with the Yangon crisis in a more direct manner?
Zin Linn: The author, a freelance Burmese journalist, lives in exile. He is vice-president of Burma Media Association, which is affiliated with the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontiers.
-Asian Tribune -
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