The Irrawaddy - A Child of Rubbish
By SOE LWIN, Thursday, September 3, 2009
RANGOON—Twelve-year- old Maung Chan Thar has only known poverty despite having a name that means “master of wealth.”
His parents gave him the name in the belief that it would bring good fortune to their eldest son.
With a meager household income, Maung Chan Thar's family of eight has to struggle to put enough food on the table each day, let alone buy clothes or things needed for school by his three younger brothers and two younger sisters.
Four years ago, when Maung Chan Thar was just eight, his parents sent him onto the streets to earn money because they could no longer afford to keep him at school.
Carrying a sack on his back, he has been working in the streets ever since, looking through the piles of rubbish on the streets, roaming the railway tracks, collecting empty water bottles, plastic bags—whatever he can resell.
The piles of rubbish at the markets and railway stations are his sources of income. On a good day, he can make the equivalent of more than US $1, but normally Maung Chan Thar only earns about 70 or 80 cents.
“I am so happy to see my mother smile when I put cash in her hands,” he said.
Maung Chan Thar is the second income earner in his family after his father, who makes about $1.50 a day pedaling a trishaw.
Though he is an important source of income for his family, his parents cannot take care of him.
Like tens of thousands of other street children in big cities such as Rangoon and Mandalay, Maung Chan Thar’s clothes are filthy and in tatters. His hair has not been washed for months, and his nails are long and dirty.
Maung Chan Thar thinks things are alright, however. He knows that in his job what matters is collecting as much recyclable material as possible.
"I hate seeing my younger brothers and sisters crying in hunger, so I work hard," he said, sifting through a pile of garbage near Kyimyindaing Railway Station. “I don’t want them to ever do work like this. I want them to keep going to school.”
When he started on the street, he was often bullied by stronger street children, who would sometimes steal what he made.
"I will never forget when three larger boys beat me up and took all my money,” Maung Chan Thar said. “When I got back home, my father beat me up again for being so weak."
Maung Chan Thar has learned how to avoid such incidents, and he has many friends who will come to his help him if someone picks on him.
His worries are far from over, however. The municipal police and staff from the Yangon [Rangoon] City Development Committee are constantly making arrests.
The risk of arrest is higher when he sleeps at railway stations or bus stops in the downtown area, he said. Since his home is located in Shwepyithar in the outskirts of Rangoon, he often sleeps downtown with his friends if it is too late to go back.
“I’ve never been arrested,” he said. “I’m good at avoiding the police.
“People look down on street children like us, thinking we are thieves,” he said. “When we go around below large buildings picking up plastic bags, residents sometimes threaten us. We have to switch collecting sites quickly when that happens.
“I don’t understand why they look down on us like that,” Maung Chan Thar said, adding that he always followed his mother’s advice.
“My mother always told me never to steal or beg, but to work hard and be honest,” he said.
Though Maung Chan Thar seems destined to keep doing his lowly job, he firmly believes he will be rich one day.
“Every night my mother has this dream in which I am a rich man,” he said, squatting on the rubbish.
“Perhaps I will find something very precious in this rubbish one
Friday, September 4, 2009
The Irrawaddy - A Child of Rubbish
The Japan Times - Sanctions don't impoverish Burma
The Japan Times - Sanctions don't impoverish Burma
By DONALD M. SEEKINS
Motobu, Okinawa
In his Aug. 29 article, "U.S. should engage Burma," Brahma Chellaney makes some good points concerning U.S. sanctions against the military regime in Burma: that these sanctions have failed in their stated purpose to promote democracy and human rights; that they have increased China's already large influence inside the country; and that they reflect a double standard — why trade with China, but not with Burma?
But he is mistaken to assume that it is "U.S.-led sanctions" that have made Burma's people among the poorest in Asia. Responsibility for that rests squarely with Than Shwe and his fellow generals, who have squandered funds on new weapons purchased abroad and on the costly new capital city at Naypyidaw, rather than investing in health, education and other improvements in the people's standard of living. Their management of the economy has been grossly incompetent, including a complex and counterproductive system of multiple currency exchange rates and a complete lack of the rule of law in business as well as in other spheres of life.
By contrast, after it adopted liberalization policies in 1986, communist Vietnam did very well for itself despite a U.S. embargo that wasn't lifted until 1994. Washington should take modest first steps in opening up to the regime: perhaps appointing an ambassador to its embassy, still in Rangoon — there hasn't been one since the early 1990s — cutting back on often hypocritical rhetoric about human rights, and continuing to pursue dialogue with Burma's leaders.
Humanitarian aid should be dramatically increased. Washington should adopt a "wait and see" attitude concerning the general election next year. But it is premature to drop all economic sanctions as long as the junta persecutes ethnic minorities like the Karens and Shans and holds more than 2,000 political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.
Bangkok Post - Opinion: Junta's war on ethnic rebels alarms China
Bangkok Post - Opinion: Junta's war on ethnic rebels alarms China
Writer: LARRY JAGAN
Published: 2/09/2009 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News
Military operations by the Burmese junta along its border with China in the past few weeks have sent tensions soaring, after thousands of ethnic minorities from Burma fled for their lives.
The Burmese army's recent offensive against the ethnic rebel group Kokang, who call themselves the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (or MNDAA), has also shocked Beijing and rocked their normally very close relations.
Fears that the fighting could spread and explode into renewed civil war has led to a flurry of urgent diplomatic actvity by Beijing, as the Chinese government tries to stabilise the situation before it gets out of hand.
Senior Chinese security officials, including Meng Jian, the powerful minister for public security, have just toured the border area to assess the situation and plot the Chinese reaction.
But the whole affair casts a long shadow over what has been taken by many to be a rock-hard relationsip. It is now increasingly evident that a significant rift exits between the two countries that could have crucial implications for other countries in the region, and for any approach which the international community may take to encourage the Burmese military regime to introduce real political change.
The implications of this growing divergence could have a significant effect on the border region, as the most powerful of the ethnic groups - especially the Kachin, Kokang and Wa - in this area have ceasefire agreements with the Burmese junta, but also have traditionally close ties with the Chinese authorities.
Economically and culturally the area is closer to China than to the Burmese regime. Thousands of Chinese businessmen and workers have migrated into northern Shan State over the last decade, seeking employment and economic opportunities. Many of these ethnic leaders go to Chinese hospital across the border for medical treatent and send their children to school in China. The Chinese language and even the Chinese currency, the renminbi, are used throughout the Kokang and Wa areas in Burma's northern Shan State.
Anything which forces Beijing to choose between their ethnic brothers inside Burma - the Kokang and Wa are ethnically Chinese - and the central government in Naypidaw will cause the superpower immense problems. And in the end will bring into sharp focus the real nature of the Burma-China axis.
Alarmed and surprised by the Burmese military offensive, Beijing has already sent hundreds of extra troops and armed policemen to the area to quell any potential violence. The Chinese central authorities are very upset by the effect of the Burmese military action along the border, and are furious that they were not informed before-hand, according to a senior Chinese government official who requested anonymity.
A senior diplomat flew last week to Naypidaw, the Burmese junta's headquarters and the country's new capital, to convey Beijing's displeasure. Burma has apologised for the instability caused across the Chinese border region, according to Burmese foreign ministry officials. But the Chinese authorities remain anxious about further fallout from the offensive against the Kokang.
The operations were aimed at capturing a Kokang arms factory, the Burmese leaders told their Chinese envoys. But analysts remain sceptical and believe this was, at best, a pretext.
"The junta knows it must move to disarm these ethnic rebel groups, and the Kokang are the weakest militarily," said Win Min, the Burmese academic and military specialist at Chiang Mai University in Thailand.
The Kokang are ethnically Chinese and speak a Mandarin dialect, but have lived for many decades inside Burma. They have their own armed militia and had been fighting the Burmese army for several decades demanding autonomy until they agreed to a truce with the Burmese military regime in 1989.
Tensions have been rising in Burma's border areas for months, as the military junta pressurred the ethnic cease-fire groups - particularly the Kachin, Kokang and Wa - to surrender their arms before the planned elections next year. The Burmese government wants to integrate them into a Border Police guard but these key ethnic groups along the Chinese border have been resisting the move.
At the weekend, international NGOs reported more than 30,000 refugees had fled to China in the part week to escape the fighting. Since then the fighting seems to have subsided and refugees have begun to trickle back to the Kokang capital of Lougai which is on the border and which is firmly under the control of the Burmese army. Once a bustling border town full of bars, discos, karaoke clubs, massage parlours and gambling dens, the town centre is still virtually deserted and many buildings have been damaged.
"More confrontation and military encounters are expected in the following days and thousands of villagers are fleeing across the border [into China] to avoid the war, and subsequent human rights abuses," said a statement from the Kokang group, sent to the Bangkok Post. The 23-year-old cease-fire agreement between the Burmese junta and the Kokang seems to be effectively ended, according to Burmese dissidents based in the Chinese town of Ruili not far from where the Kokang refugees crossed the border.
"This does not augur well for the other ceasefire groups like the Kachin and Wa," said Mr Win Min. "This may be a preview of what is to come."
If the Burmese try the same tactics against the Wa, they will inevitably fight back, Mr Win Min believes. There is a very strong risk of a return to armed conflict along the Chinese-Burmese border, according to a Chinese government official who closely follows events in Burma. "The problem is that the Wa are very close to the Chinese government, and it would be very hard for Beijing to desert them at this crucial point in time," he added.
Beijing now has a major quandry to deal with. They want to stabilise the border area as soon as possible and restore peace to the region. They have advised the Burmese to stop the fighting, or risk a rift between the two governments. They have suggested that the only option is to negotiate a new peace settlement with the Kokang, and offered their support as intermediaries, according to Chinese government sources.
Beijing wants the refugees to return to Burma as soon as possible, but have no intention of pushing them back, said the government official. For the time being they are taking care of them, but are making sure they do not travel further inland.
The latest move by the Burmese only strengthens suggestions that there has been a growing disenchanment within the Burmese regime towards China. Over these past few months the Burmese junta has become disillusioned with Beijing, largely because of the latter's failure to enthusiastically back the Burmese authorities' attempts to disarm the rebel groups, especially those which enjoy a special relationship with China.
The enthusiastic reception for the US senator Jim Webb last week - usually only reserved for heads of state, and only the most important at that - was a clear sign of the winds of change in Naypidaw.
In another indication of the Burmese rift with Beijing, this week's Myanmar Times ran a short agency news story on Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama visiting Taiwan, after it was approved by the censors, according to diplomats in Rangoon. This is the first time the media in Burma has mentioned the Dalai Lama's name in more than 20 years: anything to do with the Tibetan leader makes Beijing bristle.
So China is currently wondering to what to do. Diplomats in both countries are running round like headless chickens, according to Western diplomats in both capitals. In the meantime the fear is that the situation on the border could explode into renewed civil war at any moment.
"The majority of the Kokang troops have surrendered to China," said US-based Burmese activist Aung Din.
Once the situation calms, the Burmese junta is expected to turn its attention to other ethnic minorities along the border, Aung Din said.
"There will be more fighting, more tension and more conflict because the regime will continue to try to force these groups to surrender their arms ahead of the elections."
Much now depends on how much infleuence Beijing still has with its ally and whether China will try to pressure the Kokang and Wa to come to some accommodation with the Burmese government.
The Nation - The false and dangerous Allure of Nuclear Weapons
The Nation - The false and dangerous Allure of Nuclear Weapons
By Bernard F. W. Loo
Published on September 3, 2009
If Burma intends to acquire nuclear weapons, as reports suggest, this reflects a widely-held and terrible attraction that nuclear weapons maintain over military planners. This fascination stems from a misunderstanding about what nuclear weapons can do for a country's national security.
The recent allegations that Burma has started to develop a nuclear weapons programme appear to have surprised no one; in a similar vein, no one was surprised when the first news of a nuclear weapons programme in North Korea emerged. If a country is led by a paranoid government eternally suspicious of just about every other state in the international system, then nuclear weapons must surely be the ultimate guarantor of that country's national security.
Two arguments have traditionally been made in favour of nuclear weapons. First, the eminent nuclear strategist Bernard Brodie in 1946 called them the "ultimate weapon". There is something viscerally certain, even iconic, about the nuclear mushroom cloud. More recently, there was the 21st century re-imagining of the classic 1970s television series "Battlestar Galactica", which revolved around a simple premise: Two civilisations, both capable of faster-than- light travel (which Einsteinian physics maintains is impossible) seeking to destroy the other with nuclear weapons. This premise reflects the emotive power that nuclear weapons exercise over the human imagination.
Second, nuclear weapons offer an apparent cost-effective alternative to the otherwise expensive business of acquiring and maintaining armed forces. Defence budgets typically go mostly to manpower costs. A nuclear weapons programme offers the prospect of significant downsizing of the armed forces and, consequently, significant cuts in defence spending; it can also have civilian energy spin-offs. For states with nuclear ambitions - the so-called nuclear wannabes - these arguments appear to be very persuasive.
There are two key arguments that relate nuclear weapons to national security. The first posits a scenario in which a nuclear state faces potential aggression from a non-nuclear state. In this scenario, it is possible to argue that the mere possession of a nuclear weapon should be sufficient to act as a deterrent against external aggression. It would be tempting to ascribe this state of affairs to the case of Israel - long suspected of having an opaque nuclear weapons programme - in its relations with its Arab neighbours.
This scenario is, however, problematic. Any nuclear retaliation against a conventional military offensive crosses a threshold that has remained intact since 1945. This renders the nuclear state as a pariah, likely to then face a variety of very severe sanctions imposed by the international community.
The second argument involves threats to the nuclear wannabe's existence from an existing nuclear state. The argument is that for the nuclear wannabe, the possession of nuclear weapons will deter any aggression from other nuclear states, and therefore provide the country with a measure of national security. After all, as one Indian general was alleged to have remarked, the signal lesson of Operation Iraqi Freedom is that if one wishes to go up against the United States, make sure you already have a nuclear weapon.
What deters aggression between two nuclear powers, what keeps the nuclear peace, in other words, is not the fact that both are nuclear powers. If that were the case, all nuclear powers should only need to maintain only one nuclear weapon in each arsenal. The fact that this is not the case suggests that nuclear deterrence and nuclear peace may be rather more complicated.
If a nuclear wannabe genuinely believes that nuclear weapons will enhance its security, it needs to keep in mind two considerations. One is retaliation. What maintains the peace between two adversarial nuclear states is the fear that one may attack first. But the victim will still have nuclear weapons that survive this first attack. The nuclear weapons that have survived will then be sufficient for the victim to launch a retaliatory attack against the aggressor, and inflict on the aggressor levels of damage that are politically unacceptable.
This means the nuclear wannabe will need either a very extensive nuclear arsenal, or it will need to ensure that its nuclear arsenal is survivable, either by hardening nuclear silos or by deploying their nuclear weapons on mobile, difficult-to- detect platforms such as missile submarines. Neither option is cheap; both subvert the myth of nuclear weapons as a low-cost solution to national security challenges.
The second critical element in nuclear deterrence is that of sufficient warning. This typically - but not exclusively - applies in the case of states with very small nuclear arsenals that are not likely to survive a nuclear first strike. In this instance, one state has the capacity to react quickly enough in the event of a nuclear attack, to launch its own nuclear weapons against the aggressor before its arsenal is destroyed. In this instance, because both adversaries know the other has sufficient early warning of impending nuclear attack, any nuclear aggression by one will almost certainly be counter-productive, inasmuch as it will lead to the state's own nuclear demise.
The nuclear wannabe will have to undertake serious investments in geo-stationary satellites that can monitor the nuclear weapons facilities of its putative adversaries, and advanced command and control facilities that allow for quick launch of its nuclear weapons. Again, this is not a cheap option, and it demands of such states very high levels of technological expertise that most will in fact lack.
It therefore means that if any state, genuinely worried about its survival and security, seeks to acquire nuclear weapons, the mere possession of even a handful of nuclear weapons - assuming the country then has the systems that can deliver these weapons against its putative adversary - is not enough. Secondly, nuclear weapons will not constitute a cheap, cost-effective security for the country. The great irony is that if any state genuinely desires to acquire nuclear weapons, it has made itself more vulnerable to external attack than ever before.
Bernard F. W. Loo, educated at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth, is associate professor of war and military strategy at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.
BURMA: Junta Targets Ethnic Rebels to Forge Unity Ahead of Polls
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Sep 3 (IPS) - Burma’s military regime is turning to a familiar strategy – sending in troops – to impose its will on the north-eastern corner of the country that shares a border with China’s Yunnan province in the east. The move shatters a 20-year peace deal with an armed ethnic rebel group that controls part of that mountainous terrain.
This eruption of hostilities has much to do with a promised general election next year that the oppressive rulers of Burma, also known as Myanmar, are marching towards. The junta wants a "discipline- flourishing democracy" to take root with the 2010 polls, the first such election after the results of the last one, in 1990, were annulled.
Clashes between Burmese troops and the Kokang, one of four ethnic rebel groups that signed a ceasefire deal in the 1988-89 period, began in early August and escalated by the end of the month in an area close to the Chinese border. Casualty figures are still uncertain.
"About 7,000 troops with tanks, armoured vehicles and heavy cannons are trying to control the region," says the U.S. Campaign for Burma, a Washington D.C.-based group of Burmese political exiles. "The junta is sending 3,000 more troops from other parts of Burma to the region."
By Thursday, an uneasy calm had returned to Laogai, the Kokang capital, now in the hands of the Burmese troops, according to an aid worker in Burma, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Some of the 37,000 people who fled across the border to China after the fight broke out have begun to return," she says.
Sporadic sounds of gunfire were heard, she reveals, adding that the locals were not sure if the defeated Kokang rebels will resort to "guerrilla attacks" on the Burmese troops who have poured into Laogai. This capital has a substantial presence of Chinese businessmen, involved in the border economy of logging, mining and casinos for gambling.
The fighting resulted in an abrupt halt of the agriculture programmes being run by the World Food Programme (WFP), the only United Nations (UN) agency that has a permanent presence in a region known for being a poppy-growing area and having a booming narcotics trade.
"Our operations have been suspended," Chris Kaye, the head of the WFP’s operations in Burma, confirmed during a telephone interview from Rangoon, the former capital. "The people in that area are inherently poor and depend on our programmes as an alternative to growing poppy."
The U.N. agency’s work involves assisting the ethnic Kokang to grow tea, paddy and maize as an alternative source of income and to help the locals overcome food insecurity. It followed an announcement by leaders of the ethnic groups to end poppy cultivation by 2005 in the terrain that had been part of this region’s infamous ‘Golden Triangle,’ one of Asia’s largest opium-producing areas.
There are concerns, however, that the attack on the Kokang may not be a limited strike, but part of the junta’s broader plan to go after other armed ethnic groups along the country’s north-eastern border. Among those are the Wa, the most armed of the ethnic rebels, with a force of some 25,000, and the smaller Kachin.
They are concerns shaped by the political developments in the ethnic areas of Burma, which has never been able to control all of its borders since gaining independence from the British over six decades ago. The country has 135 registered ethnic groups, of which the Burmans are the largest. Scores of ethnic rebels began separatist battles with the Burmese army to create independent countries.
Peace returned to Burma’s north-eastern border in the late 1980s after the Wa, Kachin and Kokang joined 14 other ethnic rebel movements to sign ceasefire agreements in exchange for greater political autonomy, freedom for their ethnic communities and more economic independence.
"The attack against the Kokang is an attempt to intimidate the other ceasefire groups to fall in line with the regime’s plans for the elections next year," says Win Min, a Burmese national security expert at Payap University in Chiang Mai, located in northern Thailand. "They are going to deal with them one by one to impose what the junta thinks will be unity in the country. But this is only a military-imposed unity."
"It will not be easy for the Burmese army," Win Min added during a telephone interview. "Going after the Wa will result in many casualties because it is the strongest armed ethnic group in the country."
It is a view echoed by others familiar with this region of Burma, which is part of the Shan state and home to the large Shan ethnic community. "If the Burmese regime thinks they will be able to subdue the ethnic rebel groups before next year’s election, they are dreaming," Khuensai Jaiyen, editor of the Shan Herald Agency for News, told IPS. "The fighting on the border is bound to escalate."
Already the attacks against the Kokang have left the ethnic Kachin worried that they may be next in the firing line. "The attacks are a violation of the ceasefire and we are worried about who will be targeted next," says Col James Lum Dau, deputy chief of foreign affairs for the Kachin Independence Organisation. "They want us to change militarily and be under complete Burmese control before the elections. We are against this kind of thing."
"It may be good for them but not for us. This is a military solution and not a political solution," he said in a telephone interview. "We are ready to support the elections that will ensure freedom for us."
Under Burma’s new constitution, approved in a May 2008 referendum plagued with fraud, the country can only have one armed group – the military. And to bring the country’s many armed ethnic groups in line with this provision, the military regime has ordered all rebel groups to become part of a border guard force ahead of the 2010 poll.
The border guard force, which was announced in April, will strip the ethnic rebels of their troop strength and their military independence, since each of these border battalions will come under the wing of a Burmese officer. It was a disarmament plan that the Kokang rejected as did the Wa and Kachin fighters, among others.
"It is unthinkable to expect the Wa to conform to the border guard plan," says a European diplomat who regularly visits Burma. "They have a hatred towards the Burmese; it is deeply rooted."
"There is also opposition to this new force because none of these ethnic groups know what political concessions they will get after the elections," the diplomat, who requested anonymity, told IPS. "The next weeks will reveal if the attacks on the Kokang will force the Wa and others back to the negotiating table about the border guard force."
Burmese Army might be targeting UWSA: Observer
Burmese Army might be targeting UWSA: Observer
by Mungpi
Thursday, 03 September 2009 23:03
New Delhi (Mizzima) - After having overrun and occupied the Kokang area in north-eastern Shan State and driving away its leader, the Burmese military junta might have initiated its move against one of the largest ceasefire groups, the United Wa State Army, an observer said..
Khuensai Jaiyen, editor of the Thailand-based Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN), who is close to UWSA, said Wa leaders in Panghsang in eastern Shan state have received a letter from the Burmese Army demanding the extradition of Kokang leader Peng Jiasheng and three others. The junta had issued arrest warrants against them.
“Nobody is sure where Peng and his group are staying right now. It is absurd that the Burmese Army has demanded that the Wa hand over Peng. It seems to me that the junta is starting to pick on the Wa,” Khuensai said.
The letter dated September 1, 2009 was received by Wa leaders in Panghsang on September 2. Worried over the issue, the Wa leaders sat at a meeting on Thursday morning and decided not to respond to the letter, he added.
“The Wa leaders believe that the demand could be a point to pick by the junta and so decided to remain silent without replying to it,” said Khuensai.
He said, whichever way the Wa replies, the junta could find fault. Even by remaining silent, the junta could still find fault and find reasons to launch an attack.
Peng Jiasheng, the once supreme leader of the Myanmar Nationalities Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), also known as the Kokang Army, was forced to flee Loa Kai, capital of Kokang region, after the Burmese junta issued an arrest warrant for him along with three others including his brother on charges of running an arms and ammunition factory and trafficking.
Peng’s flight left his deputy Bai Suoqing and a few other MNDAA soldiers, who support the junta. The MNDAA was later reformed with the help of the Burmese Army and Bai was appointed the new leader.
“When I asked Wa leaders about the whereabouts of Peng, they told me that he would most probably be with his son-in-law but did not deny or agree that Peng might be in Wa controlled area,” Khuensai said.
According to the Wa leader’s response, Peng and his troops are most likely to be with the Nationalities Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) or Mongla, whose leader Sai Leun is Peng’s son-in-law.
While the information on the junta’s demand to the Wa to extradite Peng cannot be independently verified, a Sino-Burma border based military analyst Aung Kyaw Zaw said, he does not believe any such demand has been made..
“I have not heard of the demand but I think it is unlikely and Brig Gen Win Maung commander of the Regional Operations Command (ROC) in Lao Kai has no such power to make the demand as the case is to be handled by the Ministry of Home Affairs,” he added.
But he said, in connection with the conflicts last week in Kokang region, Burmese Deputy Home Minister Phone Shwe and a team of delegates, earlier this week, visited Kun Ming, capital of China’s North-western province of Yunnan, and met regional Chinese officials.
Aung Kyaw Zaw said, while the junta is determined to neutralise ethnic armed groups, particularly the ceasefire groups, in eastern Shan State, the UWSA might not be the first target to choose.
Observers agreed that the junta is unlikely to declare war on the UWSA, which is believed to have up to 20,000 soldiers, but use different tactics including ‘divide and conquer’ by exploiting the differences between the leaders, Wei Hsueh-kang and Bao You-Xiang.
Junta Continues its Campaign against Burmese Diversity
ANALYSIS
Junta Continues its Campaign against Burmese Diversity
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By SIMON ROUGHNEEN Thursday, September 3, 2009
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Recent fighting in northern Shan state, between the junta’s army and the ethnic Kokang militia known as the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, has fuelled speculation that the regime intends to coerce Burma’s 17 ceasefire groups into accepting a plan to incorporate them into the state security apparatus as border guards.
The ceasefire groups are ethnic militias—most notably the United Wa State Army (UWSA), the Kachin Independence Army and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army—that have fought on and off, in various guises, against central rule since Burma became independent in 1948. They are part of Burma’s remarkably diverse ethnic, religious and cultural demography—40 percent of the country’s population is comprised of non-Burman minorities. In total, the state recognizes 135 different ethnicities.
However, the Burmese regime’s army has fought brutal campaigns against these groups, with long-documented human rights abuses, including mass displacement, forced labor and conscription, as well as countless cases of rape and murder targeting civilians. Some analysts believe that the level of abuses ranks alongside or even exceeds that of Darfur in western Sudan.
In some cases, the junta has successfully co-opted proxy or splinter movements from ethnic insurgent groups as part of its ongoing strategy of “divide and rule” to weaken ethnically based opposition. But far from bringing peace to the country, this approach has served only to perpetuate ethnic tensions.
Indeed, some observers believe that the regime has little interest in resolving a problem that has long been its raison d’etre. “Burma’s ethnic diversity has been one of the main justifications for continued military rule,” said Win Min, an analyst of Burmese affairs based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, adding that the army has long seen civilian government as too weak to prevent potential secession by ethnic minorities.
Going back to the 1947 constitution, the military has always believed that civilian solutions to the problems posed by Burma’s ethnic divisions, such as local autonomy or federalism, with the option of secession in some cases, threaten national unity and foment instability.
The army goes by the maxim that diversity equals disunity, something seen in military-civilian political vehicles such as the National Unity Party, the junta-backed party that ran against the National League for Democracy in the 1990 elections, and the Union Solidarity and Development Association, a mass organization established in 1993 that is expected to be transformed into a pro-junta political party in time for elections in 2010.
The regime’s efforts to undermine ethnically based expressions of identity in Burma are also evident in the 2008 constitution, which circumscribes ethnic autonomy and is a digression away from the establishment of anything resembling a federal union—a demand of many ethnic groups.
“The constitution/election process is driving this policy to marginalize the ethnic groups,” said Sean Turnell, an economist at Australia’s Macquarie University whose research focuses on Burma. “This may come back to haunt the junta, as it has with previous governments,” he added.
If the junta proceeds with its military build-up in Shan State, close to the well-armed UWSA, it may be revisited by the ghosts of insurgencies past very soon. The prospect of renewed ethnic civil war in Burma’s borderlands has caused concern in neighboring countries, particularly China, which remains a key ally of the regime.
The Burmese generals issued an apology to Beijing after being reprimanded over the fighting in Kokang, which saw an estimated 30,000 refugees from this ethnically Chinese region cross into China’s Yunnan Province. The junta risks undermining its relationship with Beijing, as instability is perceived to be contrary to China’s interests.
As K. Yhome, an analyst at the Observer Research Foundation in India, put it: “Political stability in Myanmar [Burma] is a major concern for Beijing, particularly in the border regions.”
China’s port and pipeline plan linking the Burmese coast with Yunnan is due to get underway this month, and Beijing doubtless does not want the timeframe jeopardized by the junta’s domestic concerns. The pipeline will extend 1,200 km and allow Beijing to bypass the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea when bringing oil imports from Africa and the Middle East into China.
Given that China has “run interference for the junta at the UN Security Council”—in the words of Walter Lohman, an Asia expert at the Heritage Foundation—sending refugees streaming into China seems a bitter payback. Only three weeks ago, Beijing told critics that the August 11 decision to return Aung San Suu Kyi to house arrest was an internal Burmese matter.
Ironically, the junta’s offensive along the Sino-Burmese border may have been intended to send the same message—that the regime manages its internal affairs autonomously—to Beijing. It could also be a hint that there are other options available, should the junta want to diversify its networks of foreign partners.
The regime certainly has reason to believe that Beijing is not its only friend. While China’s tally of oil blocks in Burma is 16, India has seven and Thailand five. Meanwhile, India, South Korea and half of Burma’s fellow members in the Association of Southeast Nations are investing in the country’s vast natural resources and competing with China for trade links with the generals.
According to Turnell, the regime may even be paying China back for entering into a series of gas contracts with Bangladesh over offshore fields in disputed seas between Burma and Bangladesh.
However, it remains to be seen how far the junta could push this attempt to needle China, or to diversify its foreign trade and investment relations. “Myanmar needs to remain focused on Chinese concerns,” said Jian Junbo, an assistant professor of international studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.
If the regime seeks to pick a fight with the UWSA or any of the other larger ethnic militias, it could be stirring a hornet’s nest. This type of political instability could threaten Chinese investments in Burma, and Beijing’s growing economy cannot afford that.
Just as it does not want an unstable Burma, Beijing is almost certainly on the alert for any rapprochement between the US and the junta. It is not clear whether the Kokang offensive is linked to the recent visit by Senator Jim Webb to Burma, but the growing military presence in Shan State has taken place while international attention has been focused on Webb’s visit, and the Suu Kyi trial circus that preceded it.
“In the long term, if the US improves its ties with Myanmar, it will have strategic implications for Beijing, which wants to reach the Indian Ocean through Myanmar and the oil and gas pipeline projects that it plans through Myanmar,” said K. Yhome.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
Kokang Conflict Highlights Tatmadaw Xenophobia
Kokang Conflict Highlights Tatmadaw Xenophobia
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By WAI MOE Thursday, September 3, 2009
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The Tatmadaw of Burma, one of the most nationalistic armies in the world, demonstrated its xenophobia during the past two weeks following its capture of Kokang-Chinese territory.
According to reports from the region on the northeastern frontier of Burma, following the seizure of Laogai, the Kokang capital, on August 24, government soldiers questioned civilians about whether they were Burma-born Chinese or immigrants from China.
“After answering, Chinese from mainland China were beaten by soldiers,” said a source in Laogai.
Refugees who fled to China told reporters that shops, stores and other properties owned by Chinese had been looted in various towns in the Kokang region where an estimate 90 percent of businesses are owned by Chinese businessmen.
Anti-Chinese elements among government soldiers are not new. In 1967, an anti-Chinese riot in Rangoon and other cities led to dozens of deaths. Observers said late dictator Ne Win’s Burmese Socialist Programme Party used the Chinese as a scapegoat to deflect public anger at the government over a rice shortage in the country.
Anti-Chinese sentiment among Burmese has increased after the Chinese and Burmese governments signed border trading agreements in 1988, and the military junta signed ceasefire agreements with ethnic militias on the Sino-Burmese border in 1989.
After the opening of border trade and the ceasefire agreements, Chinese business interests and immigrants moved into Burma in large numbers, observers said. From the northern Shan State capital of Lashio to Madalay, the second largest city, to Rangoon, Chinese migrants and businesses along with the ethnic ceasefire groups, such as the Kokang and Wa, have taken on a higher profile among Burmese.
“They say they are Wa or Kokang, but we know they are actually Chinese,” said a businessman in Mandalay, citing his experience.
During two decades, Chinese have taken over businesses owned by Burmese in northern Shan State and Mandalay. Signs on many department stores, restaurants and shops in Mandalay and Lashio are printed in the Chinese language.
Intentionally or unintentionally, the special favors granted ethnic groups by Gen Khin Nyunt, the former Burma spy chief, produced a backlash against Kokang-Chinese and other ceasefire groups among the Tatmadaw’s soldiers.
From 1989 to 2004— before Khin Nyunt’s downfall—the Kokang and Wa were allowed to take their weapons to Rangoon and Mandalay. Kokang and Wa soldiers were untouchable under Khin Nyunt’s instructions even though they committed crimes.
When vehicles from Wa and Kokang groups passed army and police checkpoints, they were not searched.
In one incident in 1999, a member of the Wa army killed a businessman in downtown Rangoon after a business conflict. The police arrested the man but he was not charged, and later Wa officials took the man from police custody.
According to Mandalay residents, members of ceasefire groups such as the Wa and Kokang were known to use pistols in personal conflicts with local people in the early 2000s.
Chan Tun, a former Burmese ambassador to China, said that after ceasefire agreements were signed, the Wa and Kokang caused many problems in cities such as Rangoon and Mandalay, and many officers and soldiers in the regime’s army have developed a negative image of the two groups as a result.
The recent military conflict between the government and ethnic groups has divided public opinion in Rangoon and Mandalay, according to journalists.
“Some people here say it is the government bullying the Kokang-Chinese. But most people support the government,” said an editor of a Rangoon-based private journal.
Naypyitaw’s negotiator postpones meeting with KIO leaders
Naypyitaw’s negotiator postpones meeting with KIO leaders
Written by KNG
Thursday, 03 September 2009 21:40
Naypyitaw’s chief negotiator and Chief of Military Affairs Security (MAS) Lt-Gen Ye Myint today postponed a meeting with the leaders of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO). The meeting was meant to be held in the group's Laiza headquarters in northern Burma, said KIO sources.
The meeting was originally slated for September 5 but it was rescheduled for September 6 (Sunday). This was because on September 5 a meeting was scheduled between KIO leaders and invited regional Kachin community leaders, according to KIO officials in Laiza.
KIO officials added, the urgent meeting was initiated by Lt-Gen Ye Myint, the ruling junta's chief Naypyitaw negotiator to all ethnic ceasefire groups in the country but it was again postponed for several days by Lt-Gen Ye Myint himself. A fresh date for the meeting is yet to be announced.
Lt-Gen Ye Myint (center with green uniform) visited to KIO's HQ Laiza in last year.
If Lt-Gen Ye Myint meets KIO leaders, he will be the first senior military officer to meet them in the midst of escalating military tension between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the armed-wing of KIO and the Burmese Army, according to KIO sources.
Regarding the visit of Lt-Gen Ye Myint to Laiza, the KIO leaders do not expect a positive outcome. However, the KIO will welcome the junta's negotiator from Naypyitaw, said a KIO officer in Laiza.
Col. Thet Pung, a special messenger of Naypyitaw and Commander Maj-Gen Soe Win of Northern Regional Command (Ma-Pa-Kha) based in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, met KIO leaders in Laiza headquarters on August 29 over the clashes with Kokang ceasefire group in northeast Shan State.
KIO officers in Laiza said, the KIO was informed by Col. Thet Pung not to get involved in the Kokang conflict and that it was not the concern of the KIO. He also suggested to KIO leaders not to pay heed to Burmese media in exile.
The junta keeps pressurizing the KIO to convert its armed-wing the KIA to a battalion of the Border Guard Force (BGF) controlled by the Burmese Army ignoring the KIO's demands for changing KIA to a brigade level Kachin Regional Guard Force (KRGF) and direct participation of the KIO in the new Kachin State government formed after next year’s elections, said KIO officials.
The KIO had twice sent a group of civilian peace negotiators led by Rev. Dr. Lahtaw Saboi Jum, former general secretary of Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC) and current director of Shalom Foundation (also called Nyein Foundation) to Naypyitaw to meet the junta supremo Snr-Gen Than Shwe to explain the KIO's demands but the peace group could not meet Snr-Gen Than Shwe, according to KIO officials.
At the moment, ethnic Kachin people inside and outside Burma are increasingly demanding that the KIO breaks the 15-year-old ceasefire agreement with the junta and resumes civil war, according to Kachin media in exile.
From early this week, Kachin civilians in Lweje (Loie in Kachin), Laja Yang village in the controlled areas of the junta and the two KIO controlled areas of Laiza and Mai Ja Yang have sent their important family belongings to Chinese territories by crossing the border in fear of hostilities between the KIO and the junta, said civilians in those areas.
http://www.kachinne ws.com/index. php/news/ 1075-naypyitaws- negotiator- postpones- meeting-with- kio-leaders. html
Burmese junta issues a warning to China
EDITORIAL
Burmese junta issues a warning to China
The Nation - Published on September 4, 2009
The recent attack on a ethinc Chinese rebel force raises tensions in the Golden Triangle
When it comes to the Burmese sector of the Golden Triangle, it is difficult to say who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. This is partly because they are all equally bad. As long as anybody can recall, the triangle has never been for the faint of heart. Wa headhunters, communist insurgents, opium warlords, heroin traffickers, Chinese crime syndicates and the Burmese military government - one of the most condemned regimes in the world - all play for keeps.
And so when fighting broke out last week between the Burmese junta and one of the ceasefire groups, namely the Kokang outfit - who two decades ago gave themselves the fancy but misleading name of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) - unwanted attention was placed on China, a quiet stakeholder in this rugged region. China, of course, prefers to stay out of the spotlight when it comes to such matters.
It was not so much because tens of thousands of Kokang Chinese and others fled into China; it was because China's influence in this highly contested region is being weakened. This is not to mention the possibility of further exposing the hush-hush relations between the communist giant and the ethnic armies who were once, and to some extent continue to be, their proxies. During the height of the communist insurgency, the Communist Party of China funded and armed many of the insurgent groups in Burma. Red Guards crossed the border to preach Marxism and succeeded in getting groups like the Wa to give up headhunting in exchange for Kalashnikovs and military fatigues. Burmese and Shan leftists also joined forces to be part of a movement that promised to bring equality and justice to a land where the ideas of law and order and the Western notion of the nation-state are still very much alien concepts.
For various reasons, the movement didn't last. And in 1989 the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) splintered along ethnic lines. Factions like the Wa transformed, quickly becoming a new force for the Burmese government to reckon with. Why not? They had enough weapons from the Chinese to last for another decade or so.
Among the remnants of the CPB were the Kokang, the Yunnanese Chinese whose territory fell on the Burmese side when the official Sino-Burma political border was drawn. To neutralise the remnants of the CPB, Rangoon had to move quickly. The then-security chief, Lt-General Khin Nyunt, was dispatched to the Wa capital of Panghsang to sign a ceasefire deal with the newly established United Wa State Army (UWSA).
Similar agreements were signed with other groups, including the Shan State Army-North and the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), a Mong La-based outfit that even had Thai ladyboys performing for Chinese day-trippers to the border casinos.
Part of the 1989 ceasefire deal was that these newly created ethnic armies were permitted to administer their so-called Special Regions and were free to carry out any business activities of their choice. Besides casinos there were clandestine heroin factories.
Just a decade ago, methamphetamines came into the picture. The market for these drugs is no longer just streets in Europe and the United States but also Bangkok and other cities in Southeast Asia. China is not immune to the drug problem, however. In terms of damage, one can argue that the Chinese in Yunnan were the most affected when one takes into consideration the number of heroin addicts and HIV-infected drug users, largely due to the use of unclean needles.
But unlike leaders in Southeast Asia, Chinese leaders don't demonise these drug armies that operate freely on the Burmese side of the border. This is partly because of historical ties. Thai and foreign security analysts think the Chinese are using these ethnic armies as pawns for a later day, and a possible entry point into Burma. Why just court the Burmese junta when you can court them all?
Beside the cost of having to look after the Kokang and other refugees fleeing from the Burmese assault, China is also concerned that an unwanted spotlight will be focused on cross-border activities that they would rather keep off everyone's radar screen. These activities include the laundering of drug money in businesses and real estate in China by the leaders of these ethnic armies, many of whom rank high on the US's wanted list, mainly for heroin trafficking.
The shooting in Kokang's Special Region 1 has now stopped and the 1,000-strong MNDAA force appears to be a thing of the past. The 20,000-strong UWSA could very well be next on the Burmese junta's hit list.
Taking on the Kokang was a stern warning to the UWSA by the Burmese. It was also a stern warning to the Chinese, and a blow to the long-standing illusion that Beijing has the Burmese junta in the palm of its hand.
September 4, 2009 04:00 pm (Thai local time)
http://www.nationmu ltimedia. com/2009/ 09/04/opinion/ opinion_30111426 .php
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今週のビルマのニュース Eメール版
2009年9月4日【0934号】
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【コーカン地区の戦闘が終結 難民の帰国も始まる】
・ビルマ北東部コーカン地区で8月末に起きたビルマ国軍と
コーカン軍との戦闘は一応終結した。死者数は軍政発表に
よれば双方で34人。中国側に数万人の難民が逃れていたが、
帰国も始まった（2日AFPほか）。軍政は国営紙にほぼ連日
「コーカン地区には平和が戻り、行政機能も回復した」とする
記事を出し、同地区の安定を強調している。
・国軍兵士が同地区に住む中国人住民に暴力をふるい、
店の商品等を略奪したという報告もある（3日イラワディほか）。
中国は以前から国境地帯での紛争発生を望まないことを軍政側
に伝えており（4日NYタイムズ）、戦闘開始後の8月28日には
「国境地帯の安定維持を期待する」と珍しく軍政を非難した。
【軍政、次はワ州連合軍を狙う？ 住民が避難】
・コーカン軍の司令官が、同盟しているワ州連合軍（UWSA）の
支配地域（シャン州北東部）に逃げたとの情報もある。ビルマ軍
は同地域へ増派し、司令官の身柄引き渡しをUWSAに求めたが、
UWSAは回答していない。国軍とUWSAとの戦闘を恐れて住民
数百人が中国やシャン州の他地域に逃げている
（2日DVB、3日シャン・ヘラルドほか）。
【背景】軍政は来年予定の総選挙を前に、停戦協定を結んだ
武装組織に対しそれぞれの軍部を国境警備隊に再編し、
国軍の指揮下に入れるよう要求しているが、UWSAを含む
ほとんどの組織は拒否している。
【アウンサンスーチー氏が控訴 自宅の改修も検討】
・民主化運動指導者アウンサンスーチー氏の弁護団は3日、
氏が宣告された有罪判決を不服としてヤンゴン地裁で控訴
手続きを行い、4日に受理された。弁護団は「裁判は失効した
はずの法律に基づいて行われ、有罪判決は違法」などと主張
している。控訴審は18日からの予定（3日DVB・BBC、4日AP）。
【背景】アウンサンスーチー氏は5月に国家防御法の下で起訴され、
8月に禁固3年の有罪判決を宣告された。現在は減刑措置を
受けて自宅軟禁中。裁判は、軍政が来年予定の総選挙を前に、
国民の支持を集める氏の拘束を続けるために仕掛けたとの見方が大勢。
・アウンサンスーチー氏は、警備強化のため自宅の部分的な
改修工事を検討中で、弁護士を通じて建築家に相談している
（1日DVB）。
【「無国籍」シャン少年、日本への渡航を許可される】
・タイ政府は3日、紙飛行機の滞空時間を競う大会のタイ予選で
優勝したシャン民族の少年（12）に、本大会が開かれる日本へ
の渡航許可を特別に出した。少年の両親は移民労働者として
タイで働くビルマ出身のシャン民族。少年はタイでは「無国籍」
扱いでパスポートの発給を受けられないため、タイ政府は当初、
渡航を認めていなかった（4日毎日新聞）。
【ビルマへの政府開発援助（ODA）約束状況など】
新たな発表はなし
【イベント情報】
・在日ビルマ人共同行動実行委員会ほか
ビルマ軍政に対しアウンサンスーチーさんと全ての政治囚の
釈放と民主化勢力との対話を要請するアピール行動
（在日ビルマ大使館前、31～4日15～16時）
・宇田有三 ビルマ プチ写真展
13点展示、写真など販売あり。
（京都市中京区堺町御池下ル丸木材木町675
フォルムズ烏丸御池102「森の小枝」、
8月25日～9月13日11時～19時）（月曜除く）
・ビルマの僧侶に連帯する仏教徒の会
連続講座 「仏教と現代」2009
第3回「ビルマの声が聞こえていますか」
講師ココラット氏（ビルマ政治難民）
(広島 、5日17時半～）
・日本ビルマ救援センター月例ビルマ問題学習会
特別講演会 梶藍子さん「メータオ・クリニック現地活動報告」
（阪南大学サテライト（中小企業ベンチャーセンタ－）、9月6日16時～）
・第13回ビルマ市民フォーラム総会
最新のビルマ情勢報告（仮題）
報告者 根本敬氏・秋元由紀氏
（池袋・ECOとしま8階、9月12日18時～）
・日本ビルマ救援センター「2009年夏 国境訪問報告会」
（クレオ大阪東 研修室2F、9月20日18時～）
報告内容：訪問地、各難民キャンプの現状、
メータオ・クリニックの活動、BRCJ支援状況、他
【もっと詳しい情報は】
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ビルマ情報ネットワーク 秋元由紀
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今週のビルマのニュース Eメール版
2009年9月4日【0934号】
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