http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN23295737
Myanmar law
* U.N. Secretary-General Ban urged to visit country
WASHINGTON, March 23 (Reuters) - A United Nations body has ruled the detention of Myanmar democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi is illegal under the domestic laws of her own country, the former Burma, her lawyer said on Monday.
It was the first time the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that the confinement of Suu Kyi, who has spent more than 13 of the last 19 years under house arrest, illegal under Myanmar law, said her lead attorney, Jared Genser.
"The Working Group requests the government to immediately release, without any condition, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi from her continued placement under house arrest," said the ruling, issued in November but made public only this week.
The latest decision was the fifth time since 1992 that Suu Kyi's detention was declared arbitrary and illegal under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, said Genser, president of Freedom Now, an advocacy group for political prisoners.
Genser said it was unlikely the military junta that has ruled Myanmar since 1962 and has refused to recognize a 1990 landslide election victory of the Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy would release her.
"At the same time, there has been increasing pressure being placed not only on the junta from the international community but also on the U.N. to deliver," he told Reuters.
"I would call on U.N. Secretary-General (Ban Ki-moon) to go to Burma and directly engage with the junta."
It is not clear whether Ban has plans to visit the Southeast Asian country.
Last week, Tomas Ojea Quintana, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, called on the junta to release more than 2,100 political prisoners. (Reporting by Paul Eckert; Editing by John O'Callaghan)
Monday, March 30, 2009
Suu Kyi detention breaks Myanmar law - UN body
Burma's generals are afraid of telephones and the internet
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/03/24/opinion/opinion_30098633.php
By HTET AUNG KYAW
Published on March 24, 2009
LAST WEEKEND, the Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published a report entitled "Enemies of the Internet", which named Burma as one of 12 countries that actively practices censorship and restricts freedom of speech on the Internet.
"The 12 enemies of the Internet … have all transformed their internet into an intranet in order to prevent their populations from accessing 'undesirable' online information," the RSF report said.
As I work for a daily news service, this report is nothing surprising for me. But I was surprised when I learned that a group of hackers from the jungle capital of the low-speed intranet country attacked high-speed websites in the world's richest country.
"Yes, this cyber attack was made by Russian technicians. However, they are not in Moscow but in Burma's West Point cyber city", claimed Aung Lin Htut, the former deputy ambassador to Washington and a former spy for ousted Burmese prime minister Gen Khin Nyunt. (Many Burmese observers compare the country's Maymyo Academy of Defence Services to the US Army's West Pont academy).
Last September, which was the anniversary of the "saffron revolution" led by Buddhist monks, the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) website and two others leading websites (of the Chiang Mai-based Irrawaddy magazine and Delhi-based Mizzima) were attacked by unknown hackers.
"We can easily say that the Burmese government is behind this attack," said a DVB statement. They used DdoS, or distributed denial-of-service, which overloads websites with an unmanageable amount of traffic."
But the DVB technicians doubt that the attackers are government-backed hackers who are based in Russia. "Technically, it is of course difficult to say who is behind the attack," the statement said.
According to Aung Lin Htut, thousands of Burmese army officers are studying Defence Electronic Technology at the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI), and hundreds of them return to Burma each year to work in Maymyo after they receive the four-year Masters Degrees. The subjects for Burmese officers studying there are computer software programs, nuclear technology, short range and long range missiles, and aeronautics and engineering.
"There is full-scale electricity supply and hi-speed Internet connections at Napyidaw (the country's official capital city) and the West Point cyber city. The cyber attack is just the beginning of their plan to attack the democracy movement," the former spy told this correspondent in an electronic conversation from Washington.
I asked how these officers would be able to apply their knowledge in Burma, where the electricity supply is intermittent.
Although the two VIP locations are very advanced in IT, the rest of the country is still in the dark. There is not enough electricity, telephone lines, or hi-speed Internet connections for the general population.
"Our office telephone line has been cut for over two years. There is no response from the authority whenever we ask the reason," said Nyan Win, a spokesman for the opposition National League for Democracy.
"To open an e-mail address for the NLD may lead me to Insein (prison)" he added.
The junta recently arrested dozens of students and activists, including Min Ko Naing's 88 Generation students' group, which took part in the September 2007 uprising and who were involved in distributing relief after Cyclone Nargis ripped through the country last year. A number of the students and activists were sentenced to 65 years in prison for violations of the electronic law, meaning that they had used cellphones, cameras, e-mail and the internet without permission from the authorities.
"I'm very interested in IT and so I learned something about it on the Internet. This is only my guilt that will send me to Insein," said one activist named Zagana as a judge sentenced him to jail.
A recent UN report says that 6 out of every 10 people in the world use a mobile phone.
"But I think the NLD is the only political party in the world that has no telephone, no Internet or website in the 21st century," Nyan Win lamented to me during a cellphone (which he rents from friends) conversation from Rangoon. The NLD members and activists have no permission to buy a cellphone, and are not permitted to own or even use an Internet line or a laptop computer in Burma. If you live in Burma, you need permission from the authorities to buy a cell or land phone, a fax machine, an Internet line, computer, camera, satellite TV, or short-wave radio.
"This is an unacceptable condition for the party that won the 1990 election, while the junta allows everything for the USDA - the pro-government Union Solidarity Development Association - for the 2010 election campaign," said Soe Aung, a spokesman for exiled 88 Generation students and the Forum for Democracy in Burma.
"Cellphones and the Internet are daily basic necessities for politicians and the party," he said to this correspondent in a text message from his Blackberry. "This is very useful and you will see how US President Obama does his daily job using this phone," he added from Bangkok.
But in Burma, the ageing NLD leadership in Rangoon and the army generals in Napyidaw have no Blackberry or cellphone. The generals have banned cellphones in the capital for security reasons, while the NLD leaders have not been able to get either a land phone, a cellphone or an e-mail account.
"This is not just the nature of a generation gap between Obama and Than Shwe. Burma's politics is wrong indeed," Soe Aung added.
Htet Aung Kyaw is a senior journalist for the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma.
A victim who escaped sexual abuse says Burmese migrant women should not work as domestic workers in Thailand
http://www.ghre.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=193:a-victim-who-escaped-sexual-abuse-says-burmese-migrant-women-should-not-work-as-domestic-workers-in-thailand&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=70
Monday, 23 March 2009 10:06
A Burmese domestic worker who ran away from sexual abuse by her employer said Burmese Migrant Women should not work as domestic workers in Thailand.
The girl, who is 20 years old and from the Pago Division of Burma, was working as a domestic worker in Thailand when she finally escaped from her employers who had been making many sexual advances towards her. She arrived at the Burmese Association in Thailand yesterday.
“I had been about 3 months in Bangkok. My employer’s wife is bisexual and she showed me sex movies all the time. When I took a bath she touched my body and sometimes they had sex in front of me. That made me really embarrassed and I was ashamed. They asked me to make another wife of him. I wanted to make money from my work, I did not want to be someone else’s wife” said the girl.
The employer is over 60 years old and his wife is about 30 years old. The girl had to stay in the same room as them so she was not safe. She was waiting to find the right opportunity to run away from the house. Now she and another Burmese maid have managed to run away from the house.
“I heard that he has since called the broker who sent me to Bangkok and asked him to send me back to him again. The two brokers who are Karen women are looking for me everywhere in Bangkok. I’m so sad that Burmese brokers are making profit from Burmese workers. Especially as I was not even happy for one day at that house. I had to work day and night, the food was not good and we did not have enough to eat” said the girl.
Daw Thet Thet Oo who is an organizer and women’s program coordinator said “We have come across many cases like this. However we try to help them in any way we can, even though we are also migrant workers. They can live and eat with us together. Our organization has no money to help the workers. For their health needs we have had to ask other organizations. We explained to the workers that what we have is knowledge. In Bangkok we need effective organization to help migrant workers. This is a very large area and many of the factory and house owners do not even allow the workers to go outside. I would like to urge the women not to work as domestic workers as it gives them no security, they could endanger their lives.
If victims of exploitation have no work permit or legal status in Thailand they are still held in detention or “safe houses” to be deported back to Burma, even if those migrant workers have been abused by their employer. Moreover, during the court case the female victims must stay at the government-run women’s shelter for about a year without any income. It also takes a long time for even NGOs and other labor agencies to help get justice for the victim.
House Of Peace
Summer Camps
Cyclone Nargis Report
InSIGHT Out!
Save The Migrants
Migrant News
[ANM/MMN Open Letter] THAILAND: CALL FOR AN OPEN INDEPENDENT INQUIRY INTO ALLEGATIONS OF ABUSE AND KILLING OF ROHINGYA BY THAI AUTHORITIES
January 20, 2009
Locked Outside The System
January 11, 2009
Road Safety Project
December 18, 2008
Link to the pictures the kids took
September 08, 2008
(from MAP Foundation)
DOE opens for national verification of migrant workers from Lao PDR and Myanmar from 1 September 2008 – 28 February 2009
Grassroots HREDC
P.O Box 13, Takuapa Office, Takuapa, Phang Nga 82110, Tel (076) 420-351
Thinking Big in Crisis Time-JAPAN
http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/1162
Op-Ed by John Feffer.
Published March 12, 2009 12:00AM
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Japan has entered a season of grand strategising. Government commissions, business associations, leading foundations, and academic working groups are all developing blueprints for a new, 21st-century Japanese role in the world.
It might seem like the worst possible time for Tokyo to think big. The global economic crisis is hitting Japan hard. The current government of Taro Aso is scraping the bottom of public opinion polls.
And with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party poised to suffer a game-changing defeat in the upcoming elections, the domestic political environment is chaotic to say the least.
Michael Green, the Japan chair at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, counter-intuitively believes the time is ripe for such grand strategising on Tokyo’s part.
Citing Thucydides, Machiavelli, and Nixon — who all produced grand strategy in the midst of political turmoil — Green told a panel organised by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in Washington, DC on Tuesday: "I am encouraged by Japanese domestic crisis. I think that a good grand strategy will come out of it."
One of Japan’s leading grand strategists of the liberal internationalist variety is Takashi Inoguchi, a professor at Chuo University in Tokyo who also believes that in crisis lies the opportunity for governments to craft grand strategies.
"I like to argue that at a time of great uncertainty and prevailing chaos, you have to have a certain strategy to solidify your strengths and alleviate your weaknesses," Inoguchi says. "Japan has many strengths but has not taken advantage of them. Japan also has many weaknesses, but these are getting worse."
To guide the Japanese government in its strategising, Inoguchi has issued six commandments.
Because of China’s rise, the potential for a modest decline in U.S. capabilities, and unpredictability on the Korean peninsula, he argues that "it is essential to enhance Japan’s self-defense capabilities."
This enhancement, Inoguchi hastens to add, should take place within a strengthened U.S.-Japan alliance and according to Japan’s constitution, but it should also include support of U.N.-sanctioned military operations.
Further, Tokyo should focus on bolstering its peaceful engagement with the world through participation in peacekeeping operations, humanitarian missions, and development programs.
This active engagement should be accompanied, Inoguchi argues, by an "aggressive legalism" in which Japan plays a strong role in the development and promulgation of rules in multilateral settings.
Finally, Inoguchi maintains, Japan should be an idea leader in the world. And, as a non-member of the nuclear club, it should work toward the abolition of nuclear weapons.
Tsuyoshi Kawasaki, an associate professor at Canada’s Simon Fraser University, offers a realist counterpoint to Inoguchi’s six commandments. Instead of focusing on how to supply international public goods, Japan should instead evaluate its position according to the global distribution of power.
Looking toward 2025, Kawasaki imagines a multipolar system divided into two major blocs. In the status quo bloc are the United States, the European Union, and Japan. In the bloc of rising powers are China, Russia, and India.
"Japan’s overall objective," Kawasaki argues, "is to help maintain the global balance of power in favor of the status quo and avoid war with rising powers like China." In this context, Japan should resist any divisions in the status quo camp, particularly in the alliance with the United States, and simultaneously cultivate better relations with India and Russia.
Finding merit in both camps, Green endorses Japan’s quest for greater soft power. Japan routinely tops the surveys of countries most respected in the world - for its global engagement on diplomacy and development as well as for its commitment to multilateralism.
"Japan is a leading nation on environmental technology and improving energy efficiency, and it can leverage that technology," Green said citing as example cutting-edge soft power.
However, Green adds, "Japan is most influential when it has money and good people behind its ideas. Japan was influential in the Cambodian peace process because it put money behind it and deployed people to implement policy."
At the same time, Green urges Japan to strengthen its security policy. But instead of focusing on new military capacities, such as a unilateral counterstrike capability, he prefers that Tokyo team up with neighbors such as Australia to address China’s rising military power.
Green was uncomfortable with Japan resigning itself to middle-power status. "I want an ambitious Japan internationally," he says. Japan’s grand strategy should be a "marriage of an external balance-of-power view with progressive social policy at home."
Such progressive social policy — more liberal immigration laws, greater empowerment of women — would begin to address Japan’s significant demographic problems. Japan’s population is expected to drop by 20 percent by 2050.
Not everyone puts a strengthened alliance with the U.S. at the heart of Japan’s grand strategy. Gavan McCormack, emeritus professor at Australian National University and author of ‘Client State: Japan in the American Embrace’, believes that Japan should respond to the current economic and environmental crisis in a fundamentally different way.
"I am convinced that the door to serious grappling with these issues will not be opened till Japan gains independence, grows out of its dependent subservience on the United States, renegotiates that relationship, and attains ‘popular sovereignty’ (shuken zaimin, as the constitution puts it)," McCormack says. "Only then will Japan be able to look seriously at its past, its neighbors, and the world."
Japan’s grand strategy depends a great deal on leadership. "The leadership doesn’t worry about the long term. They worry about corruption and making mishaps in their statements," Inoguchi observes. "It is very hard to raise the standard of leadership."
Many Japanese await the next Junichiro Koizumi, the charismatic prime minister from 2001 to 2006. "In terms of leadership styles, Japan has had strong leaders who haven’t talked at all," Green notes. "There are many younger politicians on both sides of the aisle who are impressive. Their time will come. But no one will be able to do anything without a mandate and more time in office than one year."
"It won’t necessarily be a Koizumi," Green concluded. "And remember, Koizumi in the 1990s was not considered a very serious candidate."
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In Russia, criminal ties to government fuel impunity
http://cpj.org/blog/2009/03/in-russia-criminal-ties-to-government-fuel-impunit.php
By Sergei Sokolov/Deputy Editor, Novaya Gazeta
In Russia, even official statistics present a depressing picture: Contract-style murders of journalists, more often than not, remain unsolved. Even the rare investigations that result in trials do not answer the main question: Who ordered the killing?
Such was the case of Larisa Yudina, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Sovetskaya Kalmykiya Segondnya who was killed in 1998; such, too, was the case of Igor Domnikov, the slain Novaya Gazeta editor.
One can draw several conclusions from this. The main one criminals can draw themselves: Killing journalists is allowed, no one will be punished for it, and no one will seriously investigate the crime. Journalists in Russia can be beaten, they can be threatened, and none of the law enforcement structures will look into their appeals or follow up on their reports. All this creates an atmosphere of impunity, which nourishes only one thing--the continued growth of crimes against journalists.
Why are we in this predicament? How is it that journalists who investigate corruption and wrongdoing by government officials are being killed or beaten? Why is it so dangerous for those who study the criminal underworld, which is fully controlled by Russian law enforcement agencies and secret services? It is so because "servants of the law" represent the main criminal powers in our society and country. And they won't ever capture themselves.
The investigation of any crime or corruption charge can expose the entire pyramid of the criminal underworld--of which officials of various levels and law enforcement agents from various structures constitute an integral part. Journalists are the main enemies of the criminal state in Russia. And this criminal state not only does not want to guarantee journalists their right to press freedom. And it does not want to guarantee them their right to life.
Editor's note: Four Novaya Gazeta journalists have been murdered since 2000.
Wrong man for the wrong flower
http://www.mizzima.com/edop/letters/1876-wrong-man-for-the-wrong-flower.html
by John Moe
Monday, 23 March 2009 11:24
Dear Editor
Burmese and Singaporean pro-democracy activists should be outraged over the Singaporean government’s latest act of adulation shown toward Burma’s military rulers, the christening of a new orchid at the National Orchid Garden named after Burma’s unelected Prime Minister, General Thein Sein.
Singapore’s People’s Action Party (PAP) leaders have failed to contemplate whether the hypocritical Burmese general deserves to have an orchid, the "Dendrobium Thein Sein", named after him. Instead, the government of Singapore continues to direct its relations with Burma’s military junta according to the principle of economic self-interest – utterly ignoring the desires of ordinary Burmese.
Singapore's bilateral trade with Burma reached 1.2 billion dollars in fiscal year 2007-08, with Singapore standing as Burma's third largest trading partner. The total amount of Singaporean exports to Burma accounted for 816.3 million dollars, while imports from Burma amounted to 401.8 million dollars.
Yet, amidst a vibrant trade relation, leaders of the Lion City seldom have a critical word for Burma’s men in green. The Singaporean government rarely mentions the situation of either the democratic process or human rights in Burma. Nonetheless, true-hearted Singaporean activists continue to show their concern for Burma and detained Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Recently, Singaporean activists dedicated a bouquet of eight orchids in honor of the 8-8-88 uprising of August 8, 1988. On that day, student protests spread throughout Burma. Hundreds of thousands of people from all walks of life – monks, children, university students, housewives and professionals – demonstrated against the then government. However, the military violently suppressed the aspirations of the people. Do PAP leaders know of the role of Prime Minister General Thein Sein during the 8-8-88 uprising and subsequent crackdown?
Actually, as opposed to their naming of a flower after a general of the Burmese junta, leaders of a first world country – such as Singapore – should honor a world class democracy icon such as Aung San Suu Kyi with a garden and street dedicated to her.
It should be remembered that just as Singapore has a founding father in Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Burma has its own in Aung San, the father of the now embattled opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
In fact, Singapore government is well aware of the corruption within Burma’s military and their mismanagement of the economy. Commenting on the extravagant nature of the wedding of Senior General Than Shwe’s daughter, Lee Kuan Yew said, "Flaunting these excesses must push a hungry and impoverished people to revolt," and that the ruler's daughter looked "like a Christmas tree" in the video.
Lee further once commented that Burma's ruling generals “are rather dumb generals when it comes to the economy. How could they so mismanage the economy and reach this stage when the country has so many natural resources?"
Current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong should be aware that according to the 1990 general election result, Aung San Suu Kyi earned the right to be Prime Minister, as leader of the National League for Democracy, but that the military to this day continues to deny her this right.
As a matter of fact, the PAP government very much hesitates to appreciate a democracy icon such as Aung San Suu Kyi. Instead, thousands of Burmese nationals who are working in Singapore find a flower-naming ceremony in recognition of Burma’s current military Prime Minister hugely demoralizing.
While Burmese are overwhelmed with the solidarity and support they receive from Singaporean activists, such as the gift of the eight orchids, these actions should not be misunderstood as in any way coming from PAP – which instead insists on standing alongside Burma’s military leaders.
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