COMMENTARY
Privatization? What Privatization?
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By YENI Saturday, February 27, 2010
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Residents of Mogok, the center of Burma's gems industry, have been in a panic recently. Since last week, earth-movers and other heavy equipment have begun appearing in the town's residential neighborhoods.
This follows an earlier survey of the area carried out by local officials, the Ministry of Mines and two private companies—Htoo Trading Co, Ltd, owned by junta crony Tay Za, and Ruby Dragon Jade & Gems Co, Ltd, which counts a number of high-ranking generals among its shareholders.
“We are very worried now that our houses and land will be confiscated,” said one man living in Mogok, located some 200 km northeast of Mandalay in the “Valley of Rubies”—a land famous since ancient times for its gemstones, especially its rare pigeon's blood rubies and blue sapphires.
This is “privatization,” Burmese-stye, in action. And it is going on all over the country these days, as the ruling junta counts down to the election that will, at least nominally, end their total control of one of the world's most resource-rich yet woefully underdeveloped economies.
What is happening in Mogok—where the generals and their close associates are laying claim to anything worth owning—is also taking place everywhere else. From gas stations to hydropower plants, cinemas to telecommunications companies, factories and warehouses to airlines—everything is up for grabs.
This would be welcome news if it were a sign that the regime is finally getting around to the economic reforms it has been promising for the past two decades. Unfortunately, however, that isn't the case. What we are actually witnessing is the formal transfer of the nation's wealth into the hands of an entrenched elite who, until now, have been able to simply take whatever they want without having to worry about rival claims.
After the election, things won't be quite that simple. Although the ruling generals and their “business partners” will continue to hold a commanding position in the economy, when the new Constitution comes into effect, it will mean that, at least in theory, others will also have the right to possess property. That is why they are preemptively buying up everything in sight, before they find themselves actually having to pay a fair price for properties and concessions that they can now get virtually for nothing.
In its recent round of sell-offs, the regime has not invited public tendering or released information about the proceeds from the sales or how non-state ownership will work. Whereas privatization that takes place under more transparent circumstances usually benefits the public, resulting in lower prices, improved quality, more choices, less corruption, less red tape and quicker delivery, in the case of Burma, the country's people will once again be the biggest losers.
Since 1989, the ruling junta has periodically sold off state-owned properties as part of its so-called “open-door” economic policy. But instead of undoing the damage done by former dictator Ne Win's “Burmese way of socialism,” the regime has merely replaced it with crony capitalism.
Of course, Burma is not alone in practicing this particularly pernicious approach to economic development; nor are well-connected Burmese tycoons the only ones bargain hunting in the country.
While Surin Pitsuwan, the secretary-general of the the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and former foreign minister of Thailand, was defending the 10-member regional bloc's position on Burma's upcoming election on BBC's Hardtalk recently, a group of Thailand-based investors were visiting the country. A few weeks earlier, a similar delegation from Vietnam was also looking at investment opportunities in Burma.
But even if the Burmese regime's disregard for economic transparency and accountability is hardly unique, there's no denying that the country's standards are among the worst in the world.
According to the “2010 Index of Economic Freedom,” a report prepared by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, Burma ranks 174th out of 179 countries in the world in terms of economic freedom.
The report identifies a number of factors contributing to Burma's low ranking, including government interference in economic activities; structural problems such as fiscal deficits; continuing losses by state-owned enterprises; and underdeveloped legal and regulatory frameworks and poor government service. On property rights in Burma, the report states succinctly: “Private real property and intellectual property are not protected.”
What Burma needs now is not self-serving “reforms” by the country's current rulers, but a return to the rule of law under a democratically elected government. But since the coming election is not likely to deliver real change, the people of Mogok—like the rest of the country's population—can do no more than stand back and watch as the generals take away what little they have left.
Yeni is news editor of the Irrawaddy magazine. He can be reached at yeni@irrawaddy.org.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Privatization? What Privatization? -BY IRRAWADDY
Anger greets Suu Kyi conviction
Supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi reacted angrily to her conviction
World leaders have reacted with anger and disappointment to the conviction of Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi for violating security laws.
The UN called for her immediate release after she was sentenced to a further 18 months of house arrest - where she has spent 14 of the past 20 years.
The US, the European Union, Britain and France were among those who condemned the verdict.
But trading partners China and India have made no public comment.
The UN Security Council adjourned an emergency session without agreeing a response to the sentencing, and will resume deliberations on Wednesday.
Keeping Aung San Suu Kyi under arrest... does not serve the proclaimed national interest
Ton van Lierop
EU spokesman
Profile: Aung San Suu Kyi
Burmese reaction
International sanctions
Putting pressure on Burma
Britain's ambassador to the UN, John Sawers, who is head of the Security Council this month, said some countries, including China and Russia, had asked for more time to consider a draft statement condemning the verdict.
Ms Suu Kyi was on trial for allowing a US national, John Yettaw, into her lakeside home after he swam there uninvited. Mr Yettaw was jailed for seven years, including four years of hard labour.
Critics of Burma's military regime say the verdict is designed to prevent Ms Suu Kyi from taking part in elections scheduled for 2010.
'Sham trial'
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he "strongly deplores" the verdict and called for Ms Suu Kyi to be freed.
"Unless she and all other political prisoners in Myanmar [Burma] are released and allowed to participate in free and fair elections, the credibility of the political process will remain in doubt," he said.
The UN special envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, said Ms Suu Kyi was "absolutely indispensable to the resumption of a political process that can lead to national reconciliation".
US President Barack Obama called for her "immediate unconditional release", describing the extension of house arrest as unjust.
ANALYSIS
Tin Htar Swe, BBC Burmese Service editor
This verdict was unexpected. Aung San Suu Kyi herself was expecting a more severe sentence when she recently told visiting diplomats that her punishment "was obviously going to be painful".
It seems that the ruling party's real intention is to make sure she cannot influence the forthcoming elections in any way.
No one will have access to her without the authorities' approval.
A spokesman for the European Union, Ton van Lierop, said the further detention of the 64-year-old was unacceptable.
"Keeping Aung San Suu Kyi under arrest under fabricated reasons violates her fundamental freedoms, and does not serve the proclaimed national interest either," he told the BBC.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was "saddened and angry" by the verdict in what he called a "sham" trial.
In a strongly-worded statement, he condemned the "purely political sentence".
A statement from the office of Nicolas Sarkozy said the French president was calling on the European Union to impose new sanctions on Burma.
Asian response
Human rights organisations and political parties have been swift to criticise the sentence
Ms Suu Kyi's previous period of house arrest expired on 27 May. This new term will mean she is still in detention during the polls, which are expected to take place in about May 2010.
Her party, the National League for Democracy, won the last elections in 1990 but was never allowed to take power.
In Asia, the governments of Indonesia and the Philippines have been outspoken in condemning the sentence.
But, says the BBC's Jill McGivering, it is notable that two of Burma's biggest trading partners and allies - India and China - have avoided public comment on the trial.
India and China, with Thailand, have been accused by critics of propping up the military government, especially in recent years as growing economic sanctions have strangled its trade relationship with the West.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
ေနအိမ္ အက်ယ္ခ်ဳပ္မွ လြတ္ေျမာက္လာသူ ဦးတင္ဦးက ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္၏ လမ္းညႊန္ခ်က္အတိုင္း ဒီမိုကေရစီေရး ဆက္လက္ေဆာင္ရြက္ သြားမည္ဟုေျပာ
http://saffrontoward.blogspot.com/2010/02/blog-post_13.html
ရန္ကုန္ ၊ ေဖေဖၚဝါရီ ၁၃။
ျမန္မာ့တပ္မေတာ္၏ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီးေဟာင္းႏွင့္ NLD ၏ ဒုဥကၠဌ ျဖစ္သူ ဦးတင္ဦးသည္ ယေန႔ ညေနပိုင္းက ေနအိမ္ အက်ယ္ခ်ဳပ္ က်ခံေနရရာမွ ျပန္လည္ လြတ္ေျမာက္လာခဲ့ၿပီးေနာက္ သတင္းေထာက္မ်ား၏ ေမးျမန္း ခ်က္မ်ားကို ေျဖၾကားရာတြင္ ဒီမိုကေရစီအေရးအတြက္ ဆက္လက္ ေဆာင္ရြက္သြားမည္ဟု ေျပာၾကားခဲ့ေၾကာင္း သိရပါသည္။
ေနအိမ္အက်ယ္ခ်ဳပ္ႏွင့္ အက်ဥ္းေထာင္တို႔တြင္ ခုႏွစ္နီးပါးခန္႔ ေနခဲ့ရသူ ယခု အသက္ ၈၃ႏွစ္ ရွိၿပီ ျဖစ္သူ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီးေဟာင္းႏွင့္ NLD ၏ ဒုဥကၠဌ ျဖစ္သူ သူရ ဦးတင္ဦးသည္ ယေန႔ည ၈နာရီ ၃၀ က ေနအိမ္ အက်ယ္ ခ်ဳပ္မွ ျပန္လည္ လြတ္ေျမာက္လာၿပီ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။
၁၉၆၄ခုႏွစ္မွ ၁၉၆၆ ခုႏွစ္အထိ တပ္မေတာ္၏ ကာကြယ္ေရး ဦးစီးခ်ဳပ္အျဖစ္ တာဝန္ ထမ္းေဆာင္ခဲ့ဘူးသူ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီးေဟာင္း သူရ ဦးတင္ဦးက လြတ္ေျမာက္လာၿပီးသည့္ေနာက္ NLD ၏ ဒုဥကၠဌ တာဝန္ကို ဆက္လက္ ထမ္းေဆာင္သြားမည္ဟု ေျပာဆိုခဲ့သလို လက္ရွိေနအိမ္ အက်ယ္ခ်ဳပ္ က်ခံေနရဆဲျဖစ္ေသာ ျမန္မာ့ အတိုက္အခံ ဒီမိုကေရစီ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္၏ ဦးေဆာင္မႈ အတိုင္း ဆက္လက္ေဆာင္ရြက္ သြားမည္ဟု ထုတ္ေဖၚေျပာၾကားခဲ့ပါသည္။
၂၀၁၀ ခုႏွစ္အတြင္း က်င္းပမည္ဟု နအဖက ေၾကျငာထားခဲ့ေသာ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲႏွင့္ ပါတ္သက္ေသာ သေဘာ ထားကို သတင္းေထာက္မ်ား၏ ေမးျမန္းခ်က္ကို ေျဖၾကားခဲ့ရာတြင္ ဦးတင္ဦးက NLD ပါတီေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ႏွင့္ NLD ပါတီ ၏ အဆံုးအျဖတ္အတိုင္း ဆက္လက္ ေဆာင္ရြက္သြားမည္ဟု ေျပာၾကား သြား ခဲ့ပါသည္။
ဦးတင္ဦးသည္ ၂၀၀၃ ခုႏွစ္ ေမလ၃၀ရက္ေန႔က က စစ္ကိုင္းတိုင္း ဒီပဲယင္းတြင္ ျဖစ္ပြားခဲ့ေသာ လုပ္ႀကံခံရမႈတြင္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ႏွင့္ အတူ ပါဝင္ခဲ့ၿပီး ေနာက္ပိုင္းတြင္ ကေလးေထာင္တြင္ ဖမ္းဆီး ခ်ဳပ္ေႏွာင္ျခင္း ခံခဲ့ ရပါသည္။
၂၀၀၄ခုႏွစ္ ေဖေဖၚဝါရီလ ၁၄ ရက္ေန႔တြင္ ဦးတင္ဦးအား စစ္အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္သူမ်ားက ရန္ကုန္သို႔ ေလယာဥ္ျဖင့္ ျပန္ပို႔ ခဲ့ၿပီး ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ကို အႏၱရယ္ျပဳမည့္ သူမ်ားေဘးရန္မွ ကာကြယ္ေစာင့္ေရွာက္ေရး ဥပေဒျဖင့္ ေနအိမ္ အက်ယ္ ခ်ဳပ္က်ခံျခင္း ခံခဲ့ရသည္မွာ လြတ္ေျမာက္လာေသာ ယေန႔ အထိ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။
ဦးတင္ဦးသည္ ကေလးေထာင္တြင္ ၈ႏွစ္ႏွင့္ ၁၆ရက္ ေနခဲ့ရသည္သည့္ အျပင္ အထက္ပါ ဥပေဒအရ ေနအိမ္ အက်ယ္ခ်ဳပ္ ျဖင့္ ၆ႏွစ္နီးပါးခန္႔ ေနထိုင္ခဲ့ရပါသည္။
ဦးတင္ဦးက သတင္းေထာက္မ်ားကို ဆက္လက္ ေျပာဆိုရာတြင္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ ဒီမိုကေရစီ ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲေရး အတြက္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္၏ ဦးေဆာင္မႈ အတိုင္း ဆက္လက္ ေဆာင္ရြက္သြားမည္ဟု ေျပာျပသြားခဲ့ပါ သည္။
ျပည္တြင္း သတင္းေထာက္(ေရႊဝါေရာင္ သတင္းလႊာ)
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
မိန္းမသားေပမယ့္ ႏုိင္ငံေရးမွာ အားမငယ္
http://laminkhinkhin.blogspot.com/2010/02/blog-post_04.html
မအိေရႊစင္ညႊန္ ့ဘေလာက္က ကူးယူ တင္ျပပါသည္။
ေလးစားစြာျဖင့္-
ဘုန္းလိႈင္
မိန္းမသားေပမယ့္ ႏုိင္ငံေရးမွာ အားမငယ္
Thursday, February 4, 2010
နန္းခင္ေထြးျမင့္
အန္တီ နန္းခင္ေထြးျမင့္ ရဲ့ပံု နဲ ့သူ ့သေဘာတရားေတြ ေရးထားတာကို ကိုမိုးသီးဘေလာ့မွာ
ဒီေန ့ေတြ ့လိုက္ရေတာ့ က်မတို ့ေခါင္းေဆာင္ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုႀကည္ အာရွေတာ္၀င္ေဆးရံုတက္စဥ္က သူမ
ရန္ကုန္ကိုအေျပးေရာက္လာျပီးအာရွေတာ္၀င္ေဆးရံုရဲ့အ၀င္အထြက္ေလွခါးထစ္ေလးမွာအမ်ိဳးသားဒီမိုကေရ
စီအဖြဲ ့ခ်ဳပ္၀င္ေတြနဲ ့အတူအန္တီ့က်မ္းမာေရးကို လာေရာက္ပူပင္ေစာင့္ႀကည့္ေနခဲံတာေလးက်မသတိရမိတယ္
တကယ္ပါပဲ အန္တီနန္းခင္ေထြးျမင့္ဟာ သူ့ရပ္တည္ခ်က္ကိုခုထိခိုင္ခိုင္မာမာျပတ္ျပတ္သားသားရပ္တည္ေန
သလို အမ်ိဳးသမီးနိုင္ငံေရးသမားမ်ားအားလံုးအတုယူေလာက္တဲ ့သတၱိနဲ ့ေပးဆပ္ေနမွဳေတြသူ့မွာအျပည့္ရွိေန
ဆဲပါ။ က်မအထင္ႀကီးေလးစားတဲ့အမ်ိဳးသမီးေတြထဲမွာေဒၚနန္းခင္ေထြးျမင့္လည္းအ၀င္အပါမို ့အခ်ိန္အခါန့ဲ ့ကိုက္ညီစြာ ခြန္အားေပးတဲ့ သူမရဲ့စာသားေလးေတြ ကို ထပ္ဆင့္ေဖၚျပလိုက္ပါတယ္ ။။
ေမအိခင္(လယ္ေ၀း) ္
က်မတုိ႔ရဲ႕ အမ်ဳိးသား ဒီမုိကေရစီ အဖဲြ႔ခ်ဳပ္ (NLD) မွာ အမ်ဳိးသမီးေတြ အင္နဲ႔အားနဲ႔ ပူးေပါင္းခ့ဲၾကတာ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ေၾကာင့္ပဲ။ အမ်ဳိးသမီး အဖဲြ႔၀င္ေတြကုိ သူက လမ္းဖြင့္ေပး၊ ျပဳစု ပ်ဳိးေထာင္ ေပးတ့ဲအတြက္ အျမင္က်ယ္လာ ၾကတယ္။ သူ႔ရဲ႕ေခါင္း ေဆာင္မႈ ေနာက္ကုိ ယုံၾကည္မႈအျပည့္နဲ႔ လုိက္ၾကတယ္။
က်မတုိ႔က အမ်ဳိးသား ေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေတြကုိလည္း ေလးစား ၾကပါတယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္း စုၾကည္ကုိေတာ့ ေလးစားမႈအျပင္ အားက်ၾကတာကုိ ေတြ႔ရတယ္။
က်မ ပါ၀င္လႈပ္ရွားေနတ့ဲ NLD က တရား၀င္ ႏုိင္ငံေရး အဖဲြ႔ပဲ။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ရုံးေတြ ပိတ္ထားရတယ္။ ဟုိတုန္းက ရုံးေတြ မပိတ္ရ ေသးခင္ကလည္း အာဏာပုိင္ေတြက တခ်ိန္လုံး ေစာင့္ၾကည့္ေနတယ္ ဆုိေတာ့ က်မတုိ႔က ေျမေအာက္ လႈပ္ရွားမႈထဲမွာ ပါ၀င္ ေနရသလုိပဲ ပုန္းလွ်ဳိး ကြယ္လွ်ဳိး လုပ္ေနရတယ္။
တခ်ဳိ႕လည္း တက္ၾကြေပမယ့္ ၿငိမ္ေနရတယ္။ ဥပမာ က်မတုိ႔ ကရင္ျပည္နယ္မွာ ထုိင္းႏုိင္ငံဘက္ကုိ သြားၿပီး အလုပ္လုပ္တ့ဲသူေတြ အမ်ားႀကီး ရိွတယ္။ ကုိယ့္မိသားစုထဲက တေယာက္ ေယာက္က ထုိင္းႏုိင္ငံမွာ သြားၿပီး အလုပ္ လုပ္ေနတယ္ ဆုိတာ ဒီေဒသမွာ အဆန္းမဟုတ္ေတာ့ဘူး။ ဒါဟာ ဥပေဒနဲ႔ မကင္းဘူး၊ တရားမ၀င္ နယ္စပ္ျဖတ္ေက်ာ္မႈ ျဖစ္တယ္၊ ဖမ္းလုိ႔ရတယ္ ဆုိၿပီး ၿခိမ္းေျခာက္တယ္။ တျခားနည္းနဲ႔ ေျခာက္လွန္႔ ထားတာေတြလည္း ရိွတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ ၿငိမ္ေနရတယ္။ တျခား ေဒသေတြမွာဆုိရင္လည္း အေၾကာင္းအမ်ဳိးမ်ဳိးေၾကာင့္ ဥပမာ စား၀တ္ေနေရးေၾကာင့္ ဒီမုိကေရစီေရး လႈပ္ရွားမႈနဲ႔ ကင္းကြာေနသူေတြ ရိွတယ္။
က်မကုိ လာၿပီး စည္းရုံးတာ ရိွပါတယ္။ ႏုိင္ငံေရးလႈပ္ရွားမႈကေန ကင္းကင္းေနဖုိ႔၊ စီးပြားေရးကုိပဲ လုပ္ဖုိ႔ စည္းရုံးတယ္။ က်မက စား၀တ္ေနေရး အခက္အခဲ မရိွေတာ့ ဖိအားေတြကုိ တင္းခံႏုိင္တယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ လူတုိင္းက ကုိယ္နဲ႔ အေျခအေန မတူဘူး။ သားသမီးေတြ မ်ားမယ္၊ စား၀တ္ေနေရး ခက္ခဲမယ္ဆုိရင္ သူတုိ႔က တက္ၾကြေပမယ့္လည္း စိတ္ေလွ်ာ့လုိက္ရတာေတြ ရိွတယ္။
ဘယ္သူကမွ ကုိယ့္သားသမီးကုိ၊ ကုိယ့္မိသားစုကုိ၊ ကုိယ့္မိဘကုိ အငတ္မထားခ်င္ဘူး။ ဒီလုိ မိသားစု စား၀တ္ေနေရးအတြက္ ရုန္းကန္ေနရတာေၾကာင့္ လႈပ္ရွားမႈနဲ႔ ကင္းကြာသြားၾကတယ္။ နင္တုိ႔က မလုပ္ႏုိင္ဘူးလားဆုိၿပီး ဒီလုိ သြားေျပာလုိ႔လည္း မသင့္ေတာ္ဘူး။ ဒီမုိကေရစီေရး လႈပ္ရွားမႈက ၂၁ ႏွစ္ေက်ာ္လာၿပီ ဆုိေတာ့ စား၀တ္ေနေရး ပူပင္စရာမလုိတ့ဲသူ၊ တင္းခံႏုိင္တ့ဲသူ ေတြပဲ ဆက္ၿပီး လႈပ္ရွားေနတာ ေတြ႔ရတယ္။
၂၁ ႏွစ္အတြင္း လႈပ္ရွားမႈမွာ ေငြေၾကး၊ အခြင့္အေရး စသျဖင့္ ဘာအက်ဳိးအျမတ္မွ မရိွဘဲ လုပ္ခ့ဲၾက လုပ္ေနၾကတ့ဲသူေတြ အင္မတန္ ေလးစားဖုိ႔ ေကာင္းပါတယ္။ ဒီလုိ လႈပ္ရွားတ့ဲေနရာမွာ ေဆးကုသခြင့္ လုိင္စင္၊ ေရွ႕ေနလုိက္ခြင့္ လုိင္စင္ အသိမ္းခံရတ့ဲ သူေတြ ရိွတယ္။ လုပ္ငန္းေတြ သိမ္းတယ္။ ဥပမာဆုိရင္ မႏၱေလးတုိင္းက ေဒၚ၀င္းျမျမ ဆုိရင္ လုပ္ငန္းေတြ အမ်ားႀကီး အသိမ္းခံရ တယ္။ သိမ္းရုံတင္ မဟုတ္ဘူး၊ ေထာင္ထဲပါ ထည့္ပစ္တယ္။ ေထာင္ထဲေရာက္ေနတ့ဲသူေတြကုိလည္း က်မတုိ႔ ေမ့ထားလုိ႔ မရဘူး။ သူတုိ႔လည္း ဒီ၂၁ ႏွစ္တာ လႈပ္ရွားမႈအတြင္းမွာ နည္းမ်ဳိးစုံနဲ႔ အဆက္မျပတ္ ဟန္႔တားတာကုိ ရင္ဆုိင္ၿပီး အနစ္နာခံ လုပ္ေနသူ ေတြပါပဲ။
၂၁ ႏွစ္ေက်ာ္ေတာင္ လုပ္ခ့ဲၿပီးၿပီ မေအာင္ျမင္ေသးဘူး။ ဒါကုိေတာင္ စိတ္ဓာတ္မက်ေသးဘူးလား၊ ဆက္လုပ္ဦးမွာလား ဆုိၿပီး ေမးလာရင္ေတာ့ မက်ဘူးလုိ႔ ေျဖရမယ္။ က်မတုိ႔ ၂၁ ႏွစ္ ရုန္းကန္ခ့ဲရတာ အလဟႆ မဟုတ္ဘူး။ ၂၁ ႏွစ္ ကုန္ခ့ဲတာဟာ ဒီမုိကေရစီရဖုိ႔ ၂၁ ႏွစ္ နီးလာတာေပါ့။
ေသခ်ာ စဥ္းစားၾကည့္ရင္ ဒီမုိကေရစီေရး လႈပ္ရွားမႈမွာ ပါမွ မဟုတ္ပါဘူး၊ ကင္းကြာေနရင္လည္း က်မတုိ႔ဟာ လုံၿခဳံစိတ္ခ်ၿပီလုိ႔ ဘယ္သူမွ အာမ မခံႏုိင္ပါဘူး၊ ၿမိဳ႕ထဲမွာ၊ ရပ္ကြက္ထဲမွာ၊ ရုပ္ရွင္ရုံေတြမွာ ဖမ္းတယ္ ဆုိတာေတြသတင္းေတြမွာ ၾကားမွာေပါ့ ။ အဖမ္းခံရသူေတြဟာ ဘာျပစ္မႈမွက်ဴးလြန္တ့ဲသူေတြမဟုတ္ဘူး။ လူေကာင္းေတြ။ ကရင္ျပည္နယ္မွာ ေပၚတာဆဲြတာကအရင္တုန္း ကေတာ့ အမ်ဳိးသားေတြကုိပဲ ဆဲြတယ္။ အမ်ဳိးသားေတြကုိမေတြ႔ရင္ အမ်ဳိးသမီးေတြကုိလည္း ဆဲြတယ္။ အခုေနာက္ပုိင္း အမ်ဳိးသမီး ေတြကုိ ေပၚတာဆဲြတာကုိ အာဏာပုိင္ေတြ ပုိၿပီးစိတ္၀င္စားလာပုံရတယ္။ အၿမဲေတြ႔ေနရတာကေတာ့ လုပ္အားေပးခုိင္းတာပဲ။
ဒီ ၂၁ ႏွစ္အတြင္း အားရစရာ၊ အေကာင္းျမင္စရာ ဘာရိွသလဲ ဆုိရင္ တခုပဲ ရိွတယ္၊ အဲဒါကေတာ့ လူေတြဟာ ဒီဒုကၡေတြကုိ ခါးစည္းခံႏုိင္တယ္ ဆုိတာပဲ။ ဘယ္ေလာက္ပဲ ေသေသ၊ ဘယ္ေလာက္ပဲ ေပၚတာေတြ ေခၚေခၚ၊ လုပ္အားေပး ဘယ္ေတာ့ပဲ ေခၚေခၚ သြားရတာပဲ။ အလုပ္ပ်က္ အကုိင္ပ်က္ သြားရတာပဲ။ အာဏာပုိင္ေတြ ရာဘာစုိက္တယ္၊ စပါးစုိက္တယ္ ဆုိရင္လည္း ရြာကလူေတြ သြားစုိက္ေပးရတယ္၊ သူတုိ႔စီမံကိန္းေတြမွာ အစစ အရာရာ သြားလုပ္ေပးရတယ္။ ရြာကလူေတြဟာ ၿမိဳ႕ကလူေတြထက္ ပုိၿပီး အႏုိင္က်င့္ခံရတယ္။ သိပ္သနားစရာေကာင္းတယ္။
ျမန္မာျပည္မွာ အက်ဥ္းေထာင္ထဲက ျဖစ္ရပ္ေတြကေန တုိင္းရင္းသား အေရးအထိ အနာဂတ္ကာလမွာ အခ်ိန္အမ်ားႀကီး ယူၿပီး ေျဖရွင္းရမွာပါ။ တခ်ိန္ခ်ိန္ အေျခအေန ေပးလာတ့ဲအခါ အေရးတႀကီး ျပဳျပင္ရမယ့္အထဲမွာ ပညာေရးက႑ဟာ ထိပ္ဆုံးမွာ ရိွပါလိမ့္မယ္။ ေလာေလာဆယ္ေတာ့ ျပဳျပင္ဖုိ႔ ေနေနသာသာ ဒီမုိကေရစီက ဘယ္နားေနမွန္း မသိေသးဘူး။
၁၉၉၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြမွာ အေရြးေကာက္ခံရတ့ဲ လူထုကုိယ္စားလွယ္ ၄၀၀ ေက်ာ္မွာ အမ်ဳိးသမီးအေရအတြက္က ၁၅ ေယာက္ပဲ ပါတယ္ ဆုိေပမယ့္ နည္းတယ္ဆုိၿပီး ေျပာလုိ႔မရဘူး။ အဲဒီကာလတုန္းက ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြ ဆုိတ့ဲ စကားလုံးကုိ သိတာ မဟုတ္ဘူး။ က်မက အဲဒီတုန္းက အသက္ ၃၀ ေက်ာ္ပဲ ရိွေသးတယ္ ဆုိေပမယ့္ မိသားစုကလည္း ႏုိင္ငံေရး အသုိင္းအဝုိင္းက ျဖစ္တ့ဲအတြက္ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြ ဆုိတ့ဲ စကားလုံးကုိ ၾကားဖူးနားဝ ရိွတယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြ ဆုိတာကုိ လူတုိင္းက သိတာ မဟုတ္ဘူး။ ဘာေၾကာင့္လဲ ဆုိေတာ့ အႏွစ္ ၃၀ နီးပါး တပါတီ စနစ္နဲ႔ ႀကီးျပင္းလာရတာေလ။
ဒီႏွစ္ထဲမွာ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြလုပ္မယ္၊ ဒီမုိကေရစီအလင္းေရာင္ ေတြ႔ေနရၿပီလုိ႔ ေျပာတာေတြေတာ့ ၾကားရမွာေပါ့။ ၿပီးေတာ့ ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြဟာ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံ အတြက္ေရာ၊ ႏုိင္ငံသားေတြအတြက္ပါ ေကာင္းက်ဳိး ေပးမယ္လုိ႔ မစားရ ၀ခမန္း ေျပာတာေတြ ၾကားရမွာေပါ့။ အေျခခံ ဥပေဒလည္း ေပၚလာၿပီလုိ႔ ေျပာၾကတယ္။ တကယ္ေတာ့ ေရွ႕မွာ ဘာမွ မရိွဘူး။ အေမွာင္ႀကီးပဲ။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ဘယ္ေလာက္ပဲ ေမွာင္ေနပါေစ က်မတုိ႔က ယုံၾကည္ခ်က္ ျပင္းထန္လုိ႔ လုပ္ေနၾကတာပဲ။
က်မတေယာက္တည္းရဲ႕ သေဘာ ေျပာရရင္ လာမယ့္ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြမွာ NLD ကုိ မဝင္ေစခ်င္ဘူး။ အာဏာပုိင္ေတြ ေရးဆဲြထားတ့ဲ အေျခခံ ဥပေဒက တဖက္သတ္ ဆန္လြန္းတယ္။ ဒီအေျခခံဥပေဒကုိ ျပန္သုံးသပ္၊ ျပင္ဆင္ၿပီးမွပဲ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြ၀င္ေရး မ၀င္ေရးကုိ စဥ္းစားသင့္ပါတယ္။
၂၀၁၀ မွာေတာ့ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြကုိ စိတ္၀င္စားတ့ဲ အမ်ဳိးသမီးအေရအတြက္ ပုိမ်ားလိမ့္မယ္၊ အမ်ဳိးသမီးေတြရဲ႕ ႏုိင္ငံေရးအသိ ပုိၿပီး ႏုိးၾကားလာမယ္၊ တက္ၾကြလာမယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ အမ်ဳိးသမီးေတြအတြက္ အခြင့္အေရးကေတာ့ ၁၉၉၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြထက္ ပုိၿပီး နည္းလိမ့္မယ္။
ဘာျဖစ္လုိ႔လဲ ဆုိေတာ့ ၂၀၀၈ ခုႏွစ္မွာအာဏာပုိင္တုိ႔ ျပဌာန္းလုိက္တ့ဲ ဖဲြ႔စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပုံ အေျခခံ ဥပေဒအရဆုိရင္ တပ္မေတာ္သား ကုိယ္စားလွယ္ေတြက ၀င္မၿပိဳင္ဘဲနဲ႔ လႊတ္ေတာ္မွာ ကုိယ္စားလွယ္၂၅ ရာခုိင္ႏႈန္း အလုိအေလ်ာက္ ရရိွပါလိမ့္မယ္။ ဒီလုိရသြား ေအာင္ စီစဥ္ထား၊ ျပဌာန္းထားတာပါ။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ က်န္တ့ဲ ကုိယ္စားလွယ္ ၇၅ ရာခုိင္ႏႈန္းအတြက္ပဲ အမ်ဳိးသမီးေတြ က ပါ၀င္ အေရြးခ်ယ္ခံႏုိင္တယ္ ဆုိေတာ့ အခြင့္အလမ္း အမ်ားႀကီး နည္းသြားၿပီ။
အမ်ဳိးသမီးေတြအတြက္ ထိခုိက္ နစ္နာေစတ့ဲ အခ်က္တခုကလည္း ဒီ အေျခခံ ဥပေဒမွာ သတ္မွတ္ထားေသးတယ္။ အဲဒါက ႏုိင္ငံေတာ္သမၼတ ဆုိတ့ဲ အခန္းမွာပါ။ ႏုိင္ငံေတာ္ သမၼတဟာ အမ်ဳိးသမီးမျဖစ္ရဘူးလုိ႔ မျပဌာန္းထားပါဘူး။ အဲဒီလုိ မျပဌာန္း ထားေပမယ့္ သမၼတဟာ စစ္ေရးအေတြ႔အႀကဳံရိွရမယ္လုိ႔ ဆုိထားတယ္။ ဒီေတာ့ ရွင္းေနတာပဲ၊ အေျခခံဥပေဒအရ အမ်ဳိးသမီးေတြ ဟာ သမၼတ မျဖစ္ႏုိင္ေတာ့ဘူး။
၁၉၉၀ အေျခအေနနဲ႔ ၂၀၁၀ အေျခအေနနဲ႔က ဘာမွ မဆုိင္ဘူး။ ၁၉၉၀ ျပည့္ႏွစ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြက လြတ္လပ္တယ္၊ တရားမွ်တ တယ္လုိ႔ ဆုိႏုိင္တယ္။ လူထုကလည္း လုိလုိလားလား မဲေပးၾကတယ္။ ၿခိမ္းေျခာက္ၿပီး မဲထည့္ခုိင္းတာမ်ဳိး မရိွခ့ဲဘူး။
အခုက အေျခအေနက ဘာမွ လြတ္လပ္မႈ မရိွဘူး။ ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြဟာ လြတ္လပ္မယ္လုိ႔လည္း ဘယ္သူကမွ အာမ မခံဘူး။ ၀င္ၿပိဳင္မယ့္သူကလည္း ယုံၾကည္မႈ အျပည့္အ၀ ရိွမွာ မဟုတ္ဘူး။
က်မတုိ႔ရဲ႕ အဆုံးအစြန္ေသာ ရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္ကလည္း ဒီမုိကေရစီ ရရိွဖုိ႔ပဲ။ က်မတုိ႔ရဲ႕ ရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္က ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြ တခု ေပၚေပါက္ေရး မဟုတ္ဘူး။ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြဆုိတာ ဒီလမ္းမွာ ရိွတ့ဲ ေလွခါးထစ္တခုပဲ ဆုိတာ မွန္ပါတယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ေလာေလာ ဆယ္ စီစဥ္ေနတယ္ ဆုိတ့ဲ ဒီေရြးေကာက္ပဲြက ဒီမုိကေရစီစနစ္ဆီ သြားဖုိ႔ အေထာက္အကူျပဳသလား၊ မျပဳသလား ဆုိတာကေတာ့ အမ်ားႀကီး ေမးစရာ ရိွတယ္။
နန္းခင္ေထြးျမင့္သည္ အမ်ဳိးသား ဒီမုိကေရစီ အဖဲြ႔ခ်ဳပ္ အဖဲြ႔၀င္တဦး ျဖစ္သည္။ ၁၉၉၀ ျပည့္ႏွစ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြတြင္ ဘားအံၿမိဳ႕နယ္ မဲဆႏၵနယ္ အမွတ္ ၃ မွ ေရြးေကာက္ခံရသည့္ ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ကုိယ္စားလွယ္ျဖစ္သည္။
http://laminkhinkhin.blogspot.com/2010/02/blog-post_04.html
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Bangkok Post - EDITORIAL:Junta thumbs nose at world
Bangkok Post - EDITORIAL:Junta thumbs nose at world
Published: 1/02/2010 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News
Burma has responded clearly to an attempt at engagement by the United States, a hopeful statement from Asean partners and a pass from any sort of criticism for a year by Europe. The response is not just a dismissal of neighbours and others, but another violent, more horrendous crackdown on its people. In recent weeks, Burmese authorities have made things worse than ever inside the country and, by extension, shrugged off world opinion with a dismissive wave of the hand. It is clear now that there is no real chance that a scheduled election this year will improve the nation or move it towards democracy.
The first sign that Burma intended to stay undemocratic came at a trial in early January. An army major and a foreign ministry official were sentenced to death for revealing so-called ''state secrets''. They had allegedly passed photos and information to Burmese in exile about relations with North Korea, including a tunnel network being constructed with the help of Pyongyang. Whether the secrets were really secrets is questionable, since photos of the tunnels were published on the internet. Clearly, the trial of Major Win Naing Kyaw and bureaucrat Thura Kyaw had two purposes. The first was to intimidate all Burmese into avoiding contact with foreigners or Burmese dissidents. The second was to make it clear the military junta will not be questioned, and will never be accountable.
The case of Kyaw Zaw Lwin was yet another sign of the regime's iron fist. He was one of the organisers of the 1988 pro-democracy uprising. He was forced into exile in the US,where he became a citizen. He received a visa late last year in order to visit his ailing mother _ who is serving a prison sentence for political crimes. When he arrived at Rangoon airport, he was immediately arrested on charges of possessing a forged Burmese ID card, and for failure to declare foreign currency. He has reportedly been tortured, and confirmed to have been confined in a dog pen.
His treatment recalls the cruelty of the Burmese regime in the case of Aung San Suu Kyi, the winner of the last election in Burma, 20 years ago. When her husband was dying, the regime refused to allow her to visit him on his deathbed. The requests of her own children to visit her have repeatedly been turned down. She has constantly been tarred and humiliated for having a foreign husband at all.
And, of course, in its latest campaign to show its power, the regime chose to pick on Mrs Suu Kyi. Through sheer determination ''The Lady'' has become a world symbol of peaceful insistence that people must be free and governments must be accountable. To punish her for these ideals, the regime has locked her up for most of the past 20 years. Last week, the government mocked even its own thin veneer of justice.
With a Supreme Court verdict due on the legality of her house arrest, Home Minister Maj Gen Maung Oo said in effect it really didn't matter. Mrs Suu Kyi will likely be freed in November, as the ruling generals _ including Maj Gen Maung Oo _ have already decided.
Conveniently, this decision means that the country's leading proponent of democracy and its only prominent opposition leader will be confined and silenced for the new election.
The timing of that vote, by the way, is still a state secret. But whenever it is, probably late this year, Mrs Suu Kyi will be locked down throughout the campaign and the vote. With this decision, Burma has forfeited all right to claim its election is legitimate, let alone democratic.
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The Global Post - Proposed dam to flood Burma, while powering China
The Global Post - Proposed dam to flood Burma, while powering China
A large dam being planned in Kachin state will flood an area the size of New York City and displace thousands of local people.
By Ryan Libre — Special to GlobalPost
Published: January 31, 2010 09:18 ET
MYITKYINA, Burma — On the first morning of each New Year, hundreds of people come to pray on the banks of the Irrawaddy River in northern Burma.
This year, they prayed that their villages, farms and churches would not be drowned.
A large dam will flood an area the size of New York City and displace thousands of local people over the next two to three years. The Myitsone dam, constructed by the Burmese military government and the China Power Investment Co., calls for a 500-foot-wide by 500-foot-high dam face, and is projected to produce between 3,600 to 6,000 megawatts of electricity by 2017.
The dam will inundate 300 square miles in Kachin state, flooding 47 villages, including the Mother of Peace shrine where the traditional New Year's prayers are held.
But the capital of Kachin state, Myitkyina, already has affordable power 24 hours a day. So, why displace thousands of people in Burma when they already have power?
Because when the Myitsone dam is complete, the hydroelectric power will go to Yunnan, China. In addition, the water reserves will irrigate a mega-plantation inside the protected Hukawng Valley in Burma, now home to the world's largest tiger reserve, furthering the displacement of people and destruction of the environment.
The dam will generate an estimated $500 million in gross annual revenue for the Burmese government, which has long been criticized for its gross human rights abuses — including but not limited to the recent trial, conviction and sentencing of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and the brutal crackdown of Buddhist monks in September 2007.
Kachin is extremely rich in natural resources. Jade, gold, teakwood and silicone are exported in large quantities, and the mountainous, fertile terrain offers many hydropower sites. But because the Burmese government tightly controls resources and politics, the Kachin people have little say in their land and little benefit from its exploitation.
Construction jobs are earmarked for Chinese migrants, not the local people of Kachin. The opening ceremony for the Myitsone dam was held with high-powered officials from both the Burmese and Chinese government. The few local villagers who were present had been
instructed to attend. Chinese work camps already have been built near the Mother of Prayer shrine, and the first truckloads of workers are gearing up for construction.
Caravans of Burmese soldiers have arrived to secure both the dam site and the Chinese labor camps. The signs pointing the way to the dam site are up, not in the local language, Jinghpaw, but in Chinese.
Burmese gold miners and loggers from the south also have come north with help from military contacts to start extraction, industrial and commercial enterprises. Like many Kachins, the local villagers facing displacement are poor and pious.
The Burmese government and China are also collaborating on a pipeline to bring oil from the Bay of Bengal through lowland Burma and the Shan state to Yunan, bypassing the long maritime route through the bottle-necked Strait of Malacca, according to the China Daily.
Bilateral investment, trade and arms deals with China bankroll the Burmese military government, despite sanctions by many of the world's largest economies, according to the BBC.
Lacking the basic rights to express their opposition, people in Burma have been unable to protest the dam and pipeline projects. The Burmese military is bankrolled by the vast
Burmese resources it extracts and sells, and it maintains power despite widespread popular opposition and international condemnation, according to the Burma River’s Network, which represents communities in Burma affected by dam projects.
Twenty-five large dams are planned or are under construction in Burma, the Burma River Network said, and Kachin locals say they worry about the dams' safety. In 2006, two dams in Kachin state broke under stress after heavy rains. One of these dams failed and destroyed hundreds of patty fields and farms. The other, the 2.5 megawatt Chying Hkrang dam, relatively small in comparison to the 3600-megawatt Myitsone dam, collapsed killing five people.
Kachin people have voiced worries about the Myitsone dam's planned location 24 miles above the state capital and 62 miles from Burma’s earthquake prone Sagaing fault line.
"If I have to move, I will not move downstream to the capital," said a local pastor. "I could never get a good night sleep because I think this dam will also break."
The Mother of Peace shrine sits on an island where the Mali and Mai rivers converge to create the great Irrawaddy River. The New Year's prayer ceremony is deeply religious and apolitical. Villagers ask for forgiveness for their sins, and they pray for health, safety and peace.
"I will pray silently and directly to God for a miracle, to stop the dam project," said one villager. "I will not voice this prayer out of concern for my safety. I have no illusions that the government cares what I think."
Foreign Policy Magazine - Rumble in the Junta
JUST FOR THE INFORMATION
(I do not agree everything with this article)
Phone Hlaing
Foreign Policy Magazine - Rumble in the Junta
This year's elections in Myanmar won't be free and fair -- but they will be more significant than you think.
BY DREW THOMPSON | JANUARY 28, 2010
Walking through the streets of Yangon this January, I saw the futility of U.S. sanctions on every corner. Commerce thrives on steamy streets and markets, and billboards advertising Japanese, South Korean, and European brands are everywhere. Meanwhile, junta leaders targeted by sanctions that prevent their families' travel have contented themselves with retirement in splendid homes, while their grandchildren, denied visas to visit the United States, simply go to college in Europe and Australia. Sanctions have only served to isolate the United States. This is especially unfortunate at a time when the United States should be carefully watching, and even influencing, what might be the most important political year in Myanmar's recent history.
The date is not set, but the tiny handful of generals who have a monopoly on political power have declared elections will take place in 2010, and no one doubts they will happen before the year's end. Most Burmese citizens are nonplussed, and no one can blame them for assuming that the military junta that runs the country from the isolated capital of Naypyidaw has rigged the process.
But the truth is that the elections will bring change: perhaps not a sudden end to the military junta, but important and underappreciated change nonetheless. And the United States should be fully engaged.
This year's elections will be hotly contested by opposition politicians eager to gain a parliamentary seat. Although far from being a free and fair process, they might represent the start of a long and possibly tortuous road toward a relatively more democratic system. A new government is certain to emerge in Myanmar once the voting is over, one that is expected to include directly elected politicians representing a broader cross section of society than ever before. Rather than dismissing these elections out of hand and calling them a sham, the United States should carefully consider its options and assess this potentially historic opportunity to shape Myanmar's future.
The reason elections are expected soon is the ill health of the detested general known as "Number One," Than Shwe. A leader of the 1988 coup, Than Shwe became the chairman of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) in 1992 (in 1997, the SLORC changed its name to the State Peace and Development Council) and has maintained a firm grip on power to this day. He and his family have amassed a fortune, and at nearly age 77 his health is failing and he is ready to retire. Like many dictators before him, however, he realizes that retiring in safety can be more complicated than maintaining an iron grip on power. As the saying goes, "Riding a tiger is easy; getting off is more difficult."
To ensure that he and his family do not face trial or a firing squad once he relinquishes power, Than Shwe has crafted an elaborate retirement plan that replaces his junta with a new government, made up of military personnel and civilians, that will not be powerful enough to exact retribution from him, his family, or his cronies. The only outcome that preserves his wealth and freedom is a relatively weak, inclusive civil-military government that self-balances and checks the power of any one faction or branch.
Establishing a durable civil-military government requires elections that confer enough legitimacy to sustain it and bolster the authority of civilians vis-à-vis the more powerful military. Learning from the experiences of many other military dictators, Than Shwe fears an authoritarian successor might bend to populist sentiment and obliterate him.
This plan was expedited following the 1990 elections, in which Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) won in a landslide victory, prompting the army to ignore the elections' results and throw her in jail. Than Shwe has since then clawed his way back to the top, eliminating rivals and successors alike, all the while plotting to enact a "road map" to democracy that has been broadly dismissed by all but his closest followers.
At the center of Than Shwe's plan is the 2008 Constitution. Superficially, Myanmar's Constitution is broadly based on the U.S. Constitution, with three branches of government forming a system of checks and balances. But the Constitution is flawed, just as the parliamentary elections and selection of the next head of state will be. The military is guaranteed 25 percent of seats in the legislature, and the president will be selected from three candidates picked by the government, with the two other candidates becoming vice presidents.
Although this might sound bleak, the optimist would recognize that 75 percent of the parliamentary seats will be chosen by popular vote, and it is quite likely that many of those seats will be won by opposition candidates. The government is already working hard to recruit candidates who are well regarded in their communities and not antagonistic to the military -- such as teachers and successful farmers -- ensuring that parliament includes independent MPs who are respected by the population. With the military guaranteed 25 percent of seats and the rest shared between pro-government, independent, and opposition parliamentarians, it is unlikely that an outright majority will control the legislature, necessitating the need for compromise and coalition-forming.
However, there are two things that might stand in the way of this grand plan -- the next generation of military leaders and "the lady." There is no guarantee that the next generation of officers will be willing to share power with civilians, especially elected ones. They might not respect the limits on power as they have been set out on flimsy paper.
Aung San Suu Kyi presents the other potential problem for the generals. Should she be released from detention and allowed to campaign freely for her NLD candidates, they would easily win a majority of seats, just as they did in the 1990 elections when they won 392 of 485 seats, even with Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. An overwhelming NLD victory in 2010 will be almost certainly unacceptable to the retiring generals who do not want to find themselves at the mercy of the long-persecuted and exiled NLD. Another coup would likely result, ending any hope for representational government in Myanmar emerging for decades to come.
To prevent this, the generals will likely seek to prevent Aung San Suu Kyi from campaigning, keeping her under house arrest until the elections are concluded. Although the election law and polling dates have not been announced yet, some analysts are guessing that the election law will be issued in early spring and the elections possibly held on the numerologically auspicious October 10 (10-10-10). However, Aung San Suu Kyi has indicated that she is pragmatic, expressing to the government that she is willing to compromise and discuss anything, though up to now she has not committed the NLD to either participate or boycott the process. There is a pervasive air of uncertainty. But should an accommodation be reached between the generals and Aung San Suu Kyi and elections held, it potentially represents the first step in Myanmar's evolution from a military dictatorship to a form of representational government familiar to many of Myanmar's Asian neighbors.
Consider one historical precedent. South Korea's presidential and National Assembly elections in the 1970s and particularly in 1987 and 1988, though hardly considered free and fair, gave opposition parties and candidates, including Nobel laureate and future president Kim Dae-jung (who ran for president three times before being elected in 1997), a legitimate platform from which to develop their voices, attract supporters, learn the political process, and oppose the ruling party. Few might have predicted it at the time of South Korea's first elections, but today the country has an entrenched and mature democratic process, with conservative and liberal parties exchanging power peacefully.
Despite the stacked deck, some political candidates in Myanmar are optimistic about the prospects for this year's elections. One opposition leader who has spent years in jail said the government had encouraged him to field candidates to contest the elections. Admitting that they were a small step, he said, "One thing I like about the Constitution is that we can get elected to parliament; I can speak freely in parliament and not on the side of the road on a soapbox. Why don't we as a people take this opportunity to help [Than Shwe] make a graceful exit and gain democracy in the process?"
In addition to enthusiastic political candidates, civil society is growing and provides a tenuous base to support democracy. Grassroots organizations pepper the countryside, and Yangon-based NGOs look increasingly like their counterparts in Bangkok and Seoul implementing social and environmental programs supported by international funding, particularly in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. The official media is still a ham-fisted propaganda arm of the government, but small publications are emerging and the Internet is an increasingly important source of balanced information. The Voice of America's Burmese service's three hours of daily shortwave broadcasts will be particularly important during election campaigning as one of the few nongovernment- controlled sources of information available nationwide.
Of course, the government still has many tools at its disposal to fight the opposition, such as the election law and outright intimidation. For instance, officials and their families will be told who to vote for, while watchful cadres will likely maintain a highly visible presence at polling stations. The election law will also possibly exclude particular candidates -- such as former political prisoners or members of ethnic groups that remain in armed opposition to the government -- in addition to giving very little time for opposition candidates to raise support, publish materials, and campaign. In addition to ballot box-stuffing, the government is also reportedly planning elaborate dirty tricks, such as creating new political parties that sound like the opposition parties in an effort to confuse voters.
Nonetheless, opposition leaders are optimistic that this year's elections will give them a foot in the political door, a few seats in parliament, and a platform from which to gain valuable experience and contest the next elections in 2015. That year, the president will likely start a second term, setting the stage for a really experienced cadre of politicians to campaign their hearts out in 2020.
As part of its new engagement formula, the United States should consider supporting a peaceful political process in Myanmar that provides an opportunity for the opposition to participate in government. Continued support for human rights is essential, as is relentless pressure on the Burmese government to release political prisoners and reach a peaceful détente with the opposition and ethnic groups. Although it might seem like a choice of pragmatism over human rights policy, engaging in the Burmese elections is actually a decision that benefits both.
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Tuesday, February 2, 2010
BURMA: Ethnic Women Expose Opium Fields in Junta Strongholds
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50170
BURMA: Ethnic Women Expose Opium Fields in Junta Strongholds
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Jan 31, 2010 (IPS) - A report exposing the spreading opium fields in the north-eastern corner of the military-ruled Burma has brought to light an equally revealing story. It was produced by a team of ethnic women who risked their lives to document the heroin-filled world they inhabit.
"One of the most damning points of this new report is to show the extent of opium being grown in areas under the control of the Burmese military regime," said Debbie Stothard, coordinator of ALTSEAN, a regional human rights group monitoring rights violations in Burma.
"The regime has tried to give the impression that poppy cultivation continues in areas only under the control of ethnic rebel groups," she told IPS. "But these women have seriously undermined that picture."
"What these women have done must come as a rude shock to the regime," Stothard revealed. "They were able to do so because women have been largely under the radar in how information and intelligence is gathered in the field."
Yet Stothard admitted that the women involved in the report, ‘Poisoned Hills’, released on Jan. 26, had embarked on a dangerous mission to complete their task. "They took great risks in gathering this information for they know what it means to be seen as an enemy by the junta."
Some 30 women from the Palaung ethnic community, who live close to the border that Burma shares with China, were involved in the report that took two years to produce, said Lway Aye Nang, co-author of the groundbreaking report. "They were all above 25 years. Some had basic education – middle school, high school; some had gone to university."
The Palaung are one of some 130 ethnic communities who live in Burma, also known as Myanmar. These include the Shan, the Karen and the Kachin. The majority of the South-east Asian country’s estimated 56 million people are Burmans.
There is little mystery why the Palaung women were drawn to serve as grassroots researchers for the report produced by the Palaung Women’s Organisation (PWO), based in Mae Sot, a town along the Thai-Burma border. "They were directly affected by the consequence of opium cultivation in their communities," Lway Aye Nang remarked in an IPS interview.
"We have been motivated in this research by the suffering of women in our communities whose lives are continuing to be devastated by the addiction of their husbands, sons and fathers," the report declares in its introduction.
Most disturbing, according to PWO, is the litany of abuse wives face from their heroin-addicted husbands. These women, who make a barely livable income working in the tea cultivations in that hilly terrain, are verbally and physically abused when their husbands, who are reportedly unemployed, need money for a heroin fix.
"The women have suffered more because of this," said Lway Aye Nang. "The men use violence to get money from their wives. They sometimes steal things the women own or things from the house to sell to buy drugs."
Besides domestic violence, the Palaung women endure other trials. They range from being infected with HIV by their husbands to the inability to educate their children as the household incomes are drained to pay for the male heroin addiction.
The PWO’s report goes beyond shredding the Burmese regime’s picture of the opium fields in the northern stretches of Shan state, part of the infamous drug-producing and -trafficking area spread across Thailand and Laos and dubbed the ‘Golden Triangle’. The 55-page ‘Poisoned Hills’ also questions the findings of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
"Between 2007 and 2009, PWO conducted field surveys in Namkham and Mantong townships, and found that the total area of opium cultivated increased almost fivefold over three years from 963 hectares in the 2006-7 season to 4,545 hectares in the 2008-9 season," states the report.
"The amounts are far higher than reported in the annual opium surveys of the (UNODC), and are flourishing not in ‘insurgent and ceasefire areas,’ as claimed by the U.N., but in areas controlled by Burma’s military government," adds the report.
"Namkham and Mantong are both fully under the control of the (Burmese regime). The areas have an extensive security infrastructure, including Burmese army battalions, police and pro-government village militia."
The U.N. drug agency’s findings, although more conservative, indicated that opium production was on the rise in north-eastern Burma, an area more extensive than the two townships surveyed for the PWO report.
The area under opium cultivation had expanded by 11 percent since 2008 and by "almost 50 percent since 2006, reaching a total of 31,700 hectares in 2009," the U.N. agency revealed in mid-December in a survey, ‘Opium Poppy Cultivation in South-East Asia’. "More than one million people are now involved in opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar, most of them in Shan State, where 95 percent of Myanmar’s poppy is grown."
But the current area of opium cultivation is still well below what it was in the 1990s, when the land area covered by opium fields was nearly five times the current number and earned Burma the notoriety of being the world’s leading opium producer.
Burma gave way to Afghanistan as the world’s largest supplier of heroin after the junta declared publicly in 2000 that it was committed to eradicating opium fields in the country by 2014. Some eradication efforts saw the number of opium fields dwindle till 2005, for which the Burmese regime won much needed praise and support from the UNODC and the international community.
Yet such praise by the UNODC of the junta’s efforts to end heroin production blinds it to the actual picture on the ground, said Khuensai Jaiyen, editor of the ‘Shan Herald Agency for News’, a web publication based in Thailand’s northern city of Chiang Mai. "This is what the report by the PWO also confirms."
"They (UNODC) rely too much on official information the junta gives them," said Khuensai, who has written extensively about Burma’s narcotics trade. "They need to work with the local ethnic groups to get a better picture."
The courageous women of Palaung have provided that picture.
(END)
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