http://thejakartaglobe.com/national/asean-body-calls-for-burma-to-be-kicked-out/278163
May 29, 2009
Nurfika Osman
Indonesia and other Southeast Asian nations want Burma suspended from Asean for repeatedly failing to ignore requests to reform its appalling human rights record.
Marzuki Darusman, an Indonesian delegate from the Asean Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus, or AIPMC, an organization of parliamentarians from Asean countries, said Asean had been pressing Burma to reform since 2004 but it had failed to make any progress, citing political prisoners, the Rohingyas issue and its human rights record.
He said the recommendations to suspend Burma would be brought to the Asean Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) meeting in Bangkok this August, where a decision would be made.
Since its inaugural meeting in Kuala Lumpur from Nov. 26-28 2004, the AIPMC has been calling on the military government in Burma to bring about changes and democratic reforms.
The group consists of legislators from Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. One of AIPMC’s initial campaigns was to urge Asean to deny Burma its turn at chairing the regional bloc in 2006.
“We now further call on Asean and the UN via the UN Security Council to take concrete and binding actions on the military regime of Burma as it continues to show a lack of regard for human rights and fails to adopt concrete democratic reforms in the country,” he said. “Our heart is with Burma.”
Khin Ohmar, an activist from Burma Partnership, applauded AIPMC’s recommendation to suspend Burma from Asean.
“We really support this sanction as this is the only way to fight this regime,” Khin said. “We have to cut off the financial flow to the regime, so they will come to the table with us, talk, release [Burma’s 2,100 political] prisoners and create democracy.”
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Asean Body Calls for Burma to be Kicked Out
Obama setting up better security for computers
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Slideshow:President Barack Obama Play Video Video:Obama's Interior Secretary Visits Everglades CBS4 Miami Play Video Video:Obama presses Abbas, Israel to move toward peace AP AP – President Barack Obama returns a salute as arrives on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, … By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press Writer – 14 mins ago
WASHINGTON – America has for too long failed to adequately protect the security of its computer networks, President Barack Obama said Friday, announcing he will name a new cyber czar to take on the job.
Surrounded by a host of government officials, aides and corporate executives, Obama said this is a "transformational moment" for the country, where computer networks are probed and attacked millions of times a day.
"We're not as prepared as we should be, as a government or as a country," he said, calling cyber threats one of the most serious economic and military dangers the nation faces.
He said he will soon pick the person he wants to head up a new White House office of cyber security, and that person will report to the National Security Council as well as to the National Economic Council, in a nod to the importance of computers to the economy.
While the newly interconnected world offers great promise, Obama said it also presents significant peril as well. The president declared: "Cyberspace is real, and so is the risk that comes with it."
Laying out a broad five-point plan, the president said the U.S. needs to provide the education required to keep pace with technology and attract and retain a cyber-savvy work force. He called for a new education campaign to raise public awareness of the challenges and threats related to cyber security.
He assured the business community, however, that the government will not dictate how private industry should tighten digital defenses.
Government officials have grown increasingly alarmed as U.S. computer networks are constantly assailed by attacks and scams, ranging from nuisance hacking to more nefarious probes and attacks, including suspicions of cyber espionage by other nations, such as China.
Obama noted that his own computer system for the presidential campaign at one point last year was compromised by hackers, but said the security of the names and financial information on contributors was intact.
Emotional funeral for South Korea's Roh Moo-hyun
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090529/ap_on_re_as/as_skorea_roh_funeral;_ylt=AmJr4L4FKxAc712vQyRE1qKs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTJtZDE4NnM3BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwNTI5L2FzX3Nrb3JlYV9yb2hfZnVuZXJhbARjcG9zAzIEcG9zAzcEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDZW1vdGlvbmFsZnVu
Kwang-tae Kim And Jean H. Lee, Associated Press Writers – Fri May 29, 7:21 am ET
SEOUL, South Korea – A sea of wailing mourners filled the streets of Seoul for the funeral Friday of former President Roh Moo-hyun, whose suicide six days earlier amid a deepening corruption probe plunged South Korea into grief and anger.
Heads bowed, thousands took part in a solemn ceremony in the courtyard of the 14th-century Gyeongbok Palace before the hearse carrying Roh's body headed to a grassy plaza outside City Hall for emotional public rites attended by a reported 500,000 people. Riot police later moved in as the crush of mourners delayed the hearse from leaving the capital.
Police dispatched some 21,000 officers to quell any protests by Roh supporters who accuse conservative political opponents led by President Lee Myung-bak of driving the liberal former leader to his death with the bribery investigation.
The criticism comes as Lee faces an increasingly belligerent North Korea, which just two days after Roh's death carried out a nuclear test in a move widely condemned as a violation of U.N. resolutions.
Roh, 62, died May 23 after throwing himself off a cliff behind his home in the southern village of Bongha. Roh, president from 2003 to 2008, recently had been questioned about allegations he and his family accepted $6 million in bribes during his presidency.
He denied the bribery accusations, but they weighed heavily on a man who prided himself on his record as a "clean" politician in a country struggling to shake a deeply rooted culture of corruption.
The suicide stunned the nation of 49 million, where the outspoken Roh — a self-taught former human rights lawyer who swept into office on a populist tide — was celebrated as a leader for the people and was a favorite among young South Koreans for standing up to Washington.
Though many were critical of his antiestablishment ways, others rallied around his efforts to promote democracy, fight corruption and facilitate rapprochement with North Korea.
Roh "lived a life dedicated entirely to human rights, democracy and fight against authoritarianism," Prime Minister Han Seung-soo said at the palace funeral. "Our people won't forget what you accomplished for the country and the people despite a number of hardships."
Last weekend, Roh supporters refused to let Han and others from the ruling Grand National Party pay their respects in Bongha, with some dousing politicians with water and pelting them with eggs.
Roh supporters have called the probe against him "political revenge," and posters accusing Lee of driving Roh to his death plastered the walls of one Seoul subway station.
"I've never been so ashamed of being a citizen of this country — a country that kills its own president," said Won Seung-tae, 52, of Seoul. "It feels like we've lost all respect in pushing each other to extremes."
Opposition lawmakers jeered Lee as he and his wife approached the altar Friday to pay their respects.
"President Lee Myung-bak, apologize!" opposition lawmaker Baek Won-woo yelled, jumping to his feet and cursing Lee before security guards hauled him away. "This is political revenge, a political murder!"
A somber Lee looked back momentarily and hesitated before laying a white chrysanthemum on the altar and bowing before Roh's portrait. Lee had called Roh's death "tragic" upon learning of the suicide Saturday.
Roh's death triggered a wave of grief across South Korea, overshadowing the nuclear threat from North Korea's test blast Monday.
At City Hall, sobbing mourners wore yellow paper hats with images of Roh and waved yellow handkerchiefs as they watched the funeral on large monitors. The plaza was awash in yellow, Roh's campaign color.
"I respected him. He was a person who never compromised with injustice," said Chang Min-ki, 30, a yellow scarf tied around his neck. "I feel like I've lost everything."
The funeral procession began at dawn in Roh's hometown. Villagers lined Bongha's streets as the hearse blanketed with white chrysanthemums departed for the capital.
More than 2,500 were invited to a formal ceremony in the courtyard of the stately palace in the heart of ancient Seoul, where Roh's portrait sat on a bed of 1 million chrysanthemums laid in the shape of a Rose of Sharon, South Korea's national flower.
Roh's suicide note, in which he begs his wife and two children, "Don't be too sad" and describes his suffering as "unbearable," was read aloud.
Buddhist monks and Catholic nuns chanted prayers as part of the multifaith ceremony reflective of South Korea's changing modern history, where Confucian mourning traditions mix with Christian, shamanistic and Buddhist rites.
Roh's prime minister, Han Myung-sook, apologized for "not protecting" the late leader.
"We are sorry, we love you and we were happy with you," said Han, South Korea's first female prime minister, her voice trembling with emotion. "Please rest in peace."
At the plaza outside the City Hall that Lee built, performers in hemp mourning outfits carried out traditional Confucian rites designed to send Roh's spirit to heaven and to comfort his soul. As his hearse moved through the crowd, mourners showered it with airplanes and cranes made of yellow origami.
As some screamed "Down with Lee Myung-bak," riot police began moving in to break up the crowd before the hearse was able to depart.
Roh's ashes were to return to his village to be buried with a small gravestone as he wished.
TV showed the funeral live, as well as footage of Roh in more lighthearted moments: serenading his wife with a guitar, feeding ducklings and taking his granddaughter for a bike ride.
South Koreans mourned online, too, with some portals carrying live broadcasts of the funeral and users flooding bulletin boards and Roh's own Web site with hundreds of thousands of condolence messages.
"You didn't bow to any other country but you bowed to us citizens. You'll always be the father of the nation," wrote one user, Choi Jae-chul. "Rest in peace and please protect South Korea from heaven."
___
Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang, Ji-ah Kim and ShinWoo Kang contributed to this report.
Movement to Suspend Burma from Asean Grows
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=15782
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Friday, May 29, 2009
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The Irrawaddy has conducted a random, unscientific opinion poll on its magazine Web site, asking readers if they would vote “Yes” or “No” to the question: Should Burma be suspended from Asean?
More than 90 percent of the respondents answered “Yes,” based on the results at 6:30 pm on Friday. Ten percent voted “No.” The vote is on-going and the results are immediately displayed.
Meanwhile, a number of Southeast Asian politicians have urged the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to suspend Burma's membership in the regional grouping if the military government does not release pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
Asean diplomatic sources told The Irrawaddy on Friday that leading members of the regional bloc such as Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines are considering suspending Burma’s membership if the junta extends Suu Kyi’s detention or sentences her to prison on trumped-up charges.
The Asean Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC), a watchdog group based in Malaysia, this week called for tough action against Burma, including suspending its membership in the regional organization. Only three Asean member countries—Brunei, Vietnam and Laos—have yet to join the caucus.
Charles Chong, a Singaporean lawmaker, said, "More and more parliamentarians within Asean are beginning to lose their patience with Burma. And, we are calling upon our governments to do more than just expressions of dismay, regret, grave concern and so on, and seriously look at suspending Burma's membership in Asean."
Kavi Chongkittavorn, an editorial columnist on The Nation in Bangkok, said some Cambodian lawmakers have joined AIPMC, increasing the pressure on Burma to open up. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has been a strong supporter of the Burmese junta, told AIPMC delegates that Burma needs to implement political reforms.
Kavi Chongkittavorn wrote that Asean's experience with Burma allows pro-reform members to argue strongly in favor of greater flexibility in exercising its non-interference principle.
Debbie Stothard, coordinator of the Alternative Asean Network (Altsean), said, “It is pretty clear that SPDC has been consistently undermining Asean.”
“Asean should consider some type of action against the regime. AIPMC demands that Asean should suspend Burma. It is quite reasonable,” she said.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
"We are Facing a Crisis of Constitution,” Suu Kyi Tells Lawyer
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=15786
Burmese citizens living in Japan hold portraits of Aung San Suu Kyi as they shout slogans during a rally in Tokyo on May 27, 2009. Some 200 protesters held a rally to demand the immediate release of the country's democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from detention in Yangon. (Photo: Getty Images)
"We are Facing a Crisis of Constitution,” Suu Kyi Tells Lawyer
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By MIN LWIN Friday, May 29, 2009
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Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Thursday, defense lawyer Nyan Win said that Burmese pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi privately told him that the charges against her are invalid as she was charged under the 1975 State Security law, which was annulled by the 2008 constitution.
“We are facing a crisis of constitution, not a constitutional crisis,” she reportedly told him on Thursday.
The lawyer said that Suu Kyi was referring to a 1975 law enacted under the 1974 constitution, which became invalidated when the military seized power in 1988. In addition, under the junta’s “seven-step road map,” the country approved a new constitution in May 2008 by national referendum, which would also invalidate the 1975 act.
Defense witness Kyi Win (no relation to Suu Kyi’s lawyer Kyi Win) echoed Suu Kyi’s sentiments in the courtroom on Thursday, testifying that if the 1974 constitution was still in effect, then the existing constitution was “null and void,” according to a report in the state-run The New Light of Myanmar on Friday.
Kyi Win testified on the ninth day of Suu Kyi’s trial on Thursday. He was the sole witness that the defense team was allowed to call; however, three other defense witnesses were denied the opportunity to testify, although the court gave no reason for their disqualification.
Kyi Win also questioned the junta’s claims that Suu Kyi was responsible for the intruder in her compound on May 3-5, according to The New Light of Myanmar.
Although misleading, it is believed the state-run newspaper was attempting to translate Kyi Win’s testimony to read that if the State employed guards around Suu Kyi’s property, then the security of the house was its responsibility, not Suu Kyi’s.
Although the official version of Kyi Win’s statement reads otherwise, it is believed he said that the Law to Safeguard the State against the Dangers of Those Desiring to Cause Subversive Acts has already been invalidated.
Meanwhile, on Thursday afternoon after court proceedings, Rangoon Northern District Court authorities escorted defendant John William Yettaw to Suu Kyi’s lakeside residence to describe how he had entered and left the compound on May 3-5, Burma’s state-run media reported on Friday.
On the ninth day of the trial, Yettaw reportedly testified to the court that he entered Suu Kyi’s compound in the morning on May 4 and he left just before midnight on May 5, and that he had undertaken to go to the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s house of his own accord.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Friday, Nyan Win said Suu Kyi’s defense team had not been informed that court authorities intended to take the American intruder to the lakeside compound.
“The government has just done whatever they wanted,” he said. “In fact, if they want to do something regarding the trial, they must inform us.”
Yettaw reportedly confessed to the court that he accepted that he had broken Burmese immigration law and the law of Rangoon City Development Committee by secretly entering Suu Kyi’s residence at night without asking permission, even though he knew that the house was guarded by security members, the New Light of Myanmar reported.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
Asean Parliamentarians Turn Heat on Burma
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=15759
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By MARWAAN MACAN-MARKAR / IPS WRITER Thursday, May 28, 2009
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BANGKOK — In a move reflecting growing anger towards Burma, parliamentarians from across Southeast Asia want the military-ruled country suspended from a 10-member regional bloc for the unjust treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s pro-democracy leader.
The comments made in Singapore’s legislature during the current parliamentary session offers a window onto the growing pressure that Burma is up against from the countries that belong to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
"There have been calls in Singapore’s parliament for Myanmar’s [Burma's] membership [in Asean] to be suspended," says Charles Chong, who has been a legislator for 21 years in the ruling People’s Action Party. "This reflects a growing frustration with Myanmar."
Chong personally feels that the 42-year-old regional bloc, which has just transformed itself into a rules-based entity, should even consider more punitive measures. "Asean should also consider doing more. We should not rule out targeted sanctions," he said during a press conference this week in the Thai capital.
A fellow legislator from neighbouring Malaysia echoes Chong’s sentiments. "Asean should seriously consider the issue of sanctions," says Lim Kit Siang, of Malaysia’s opposition Democratic Action Party.
Both lawmakers are members of a regional caucus of parliamentarians created in 2004 to lobby for political reform and democracy in military-ruled Burma. And the Asean Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC) has not shied away from strong language as a means of applying pressure on the region’s governments to achieve concrete change within the pariah in their midst.
"AIPMC parliamentarians strongly call on Asean to stop protecting Myanmar’s regime and instead remove them from the grouping until and unless Aung San Suu Kyi is free and genuine efforts to begin national reconciliation are underway," the caucus declared this week in a statement.
"The AIPMC further urges Asean member states to consider imposing targeted sanctions on the military regime generals, and its administration, should they still fail to respect the Asean Charter and continue to oppress its people," it added.
AIPMC’s members come from parliaments in six Asean countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The other countries in the regional bloc are Brunei, under an absolute monarchy; Laos and Vietnam, ruled by communist regimes; and Burma.
The parliamentarians’ call to suspend Burma from Asean stems from the on-going trial that Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi has been subject to since May 18 in Rangoon’s notorious Insein prison.
The regime has accused the 63-year-old opposition leader of violating the terms of her house arrest - now in its 13th year. If found guilty in this largely secret trial, Suu Kyi could be sentenced to a further five-year jail term.
The junta’s charge followed revelations of a bizarre tale involving a U.S. citizen who had entered Suu Kyi’s house on the banks of a lake in Burma’s former capital and stayed there for a few days as an uninvited guest earlier this month. John William Yettaw, the 53-year-old former Vietnam War veteran, had crept in by swimming across the lake.
Yettaw, a Mormon who had gone on this mission reportedly out of religious zeal, is also facing charges in the on-going trial. So are two female housekeepers of Suu Kyi.
The junta’s latest effort to oppress Suu Kyi is viewed by Burma watchers as an attempt to keep the widely popular pro-democracy icon from playing a pivotal role in a planned general election in 2010.
The junta has billed next year’s poll as a part of its "roadmap to democracy," even though restrictive measures have already been put into place through a new constitution approved last year under questionable circumstances, including blatant reports of fraud.
It is of little wonder why such an attempt at political reform has failed to convince a growing number of concerned countries in the international community. Foreign ministers from Asia and Europe gathered Tuesday in Hanoi for the Asia-Europe Meeting (Asem) issued a statement that gave the Burmese junta little room to maneuver.
A joint press statement by Asem members - which happen to include Burma - appealed to the junta to lift all restrictions placed on political parties, free Suu Kyi, and release the over 2,100 political prisoners languishing in the many jails that dot the country.
For its part, the US government announced that it would extend the harsh economic sanctions Washington has imposed on Burma for another year. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has also stepped into the fray, announcing plans to visit Burma, which has been under successive military regimes since a 1962 coup.
"The military regime is aware of the growing pressure and it is feeling the heat," says Soe Aung, spokesman for the Forum for Democracy in Burma, a group of Burmese political activists living in exile. "And it is pressure of the regime’s own making, nobody else."
"[This] has happened when the US government was talking of reviewing its sanctions policy towards Burma," Soe Aung added during an interview. "There is also a debate in the European Union about the sanctions… the European Union may strengthen its sanctions on Burma."
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