http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/2010/05/31/opinion/ASEANS-NEW-DILEMMA-Burmas-nuclear-ambitions-30130505.html
By Kavi Chongkittavorn
The Nation
Published on May 31, 2010
THE US ACTION was swift following confirmation of a North Korean ship with suspicious arms cargoes docking in Burma last month in violation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1874. A few days later, in the third week of April, the US State Department dispatched an urgent message to the Asean capitals recommending the scheduled Asean-US Economic Ministers' roadshow in Seattle and Washington DC, from May 3-5, proceed without the Burmese representation at "all levels." The drastic move surprised the Asean leaders.
The American ultimatum was not a bluff but a genuine show of frustration. This time Washington wanted to send a strong signal to Burma and the rest of Asean that unless something was done about Burma's compliance with the relevant UN resolutions on North Korean sanctions, there would be dire consequences. Political issues aside, Burma's nuclear ambition can further dampen Asean-US relations in the future. Already, there was the first casualty when the US downgraded the high-powered economic roadshow which was meticulously planned months ahead between the Office of US Trade Representatives and Asean economic ministers through the US-Asean Business Council.
Since nearly all Asean countries, except Singapore, decided to dispatch their trade or industry ministers to join the campaign, they agreed the roadshow should continue without the Burmese delegation as requested by the US. After some bargaining, the US softened its position agreeing to accept a representation at the charge d'affaires level from the Burmese Embassy in Washington DC. But Rangoon chose to opt out as it wanted diplomats directly dispatched from Rangoon. Without a consensus in Asean, a new name - absurd as it seemed - was in place, as the Southeast Asia Economic Community Road Show. It would be a one-time only designation.
When Kurt Campbell, Assistant State Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs returned to Burma for the second time recently, he was blunt telling the junta leaders to abide and fully comply with the UN Security Council Resolution 1874. That has been Washington's serious concern due to the growing link between North Korea and Burma and their existing transfer of nuclear-related technology. Last June, a North Korean ship, Kang Nam, was diverted from going to Burma after being trailed by the US navy.
Since 2000, Western intelligence sources have been gathering evidence of North Korea providing assistance to Burma to build a nuclear reactor that can produce graded plutonium used in assembling future weapons of mass destruction. Last year, reports were released using data collected from two defecting Burmese military officers, intercepted calls and messages as well as human intelligence along Thai-Burmese border, all finger-pointing to Burma's nuclear ambitions.
When they came out last fall, scepticism was high among military experts and strategists on the junta's nuclear intentions. Most said there was insufficient evidence. Some viewed them as attempts to further discredit the regime's international standing. As additional interviews were conducted, especially with a former major in the Burmese Army, Sai Thein Win, who was directly involved with the recent secret nuclear programme, it has become clearer that Burma is investigating nuclear technology. This week, a special report on a huge new body of information, with expert comment from a former official working for the International Atomic Energy Agency, will be released.
As such, it will have far-reaching implications on Asean and its members, who signed the 1995 Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (SEANWFZ) and Non-proliferation Treaty. Asean is currently working hard to persuade all major nuclear powers to sign the protocol to the SEANWFZ. The grouping has even delayed China's eagerness to accede to the protocol.
Further complicating the issue, Asean has not reached a consensus on how its members would move forward with a common approach on nuclear energy and security. In general, Asean backs nuclear disarmament, which the Philippines has played a leading role as chair of the just concluded Review Conference of State Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation on Nuclear Weapons. Asean also backs the ongoing efforts of US and Russia over non-proliferation.
One sticky problem is that Thailand, Brunei Darussalam, Burma, and Indonesia have yet to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. In the case of Indonesia, it is on the Annex 2 list of the treaty which, to enter into force, must be reatified by all 44 states on this list. At the upcoming Asean summit in Hanoi (October), Asean leaders will study a matrix of common positions that have been or could be taken up by Asean. It remains to be seen how Asean would approach some of the sensitive issues such as the South China Sea, climate change and issues related to nuclear technology.
At the recent Nuclear Summit in Washington DC, leaders from Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand were invited by US President Barack Obama to share their views on non-proliferation and peaceful use of nuclear energy. They supported the summit's plan of action to prevent nuclear terrorism. All these Asean members have long-term plans to build nuclear power plants for peaceful use as energy sources. Vietnam has long decided on building two, while Thailand is planning one in the next ten years. Indonesia has serious parliamentary support to explore a nuclear option. Even the Singapore Economic Strategies Committee has recommended nuclear energy should be considered as a possible long-term solution to the island's energy security. Obama will certainly raise the issue again when he visits Indonesia in the second week of this month.
What is most intriguing has been the lack of serious attention from the Thai security apparatus regarding the nuclearisation of Burma. Apart from the two informal meetings convened by the Defence Council at the end of last year, the topic has been discussed only among a handful of military intelligence officials who have worked closely with their Australian counterparts. The National Security Council still does not believe Burma has that kind of ambition, not to mention the overall nuclear capacity to embark on the controversial programme. Concerned officials argued that domestic problems still have precedence.
Monday, May 31, 2010
ASEAN'S NEW DILEMMA: Burma's nuclear ambitions
Armed ethnic groups put junta's election in doubt
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/politics/37986/armed-ethnic-groups-put-junta-election-in-doubt
Armed ethnic groups put junta's election in doubt
Plans by the military to hold elections and take control of border areas have been derailed
Published: 30/05/2010 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: Spectrum
The Burmese military's grand plan to hold an election later this year has been thrown into doubt as armed ethnic groups along the Thai border threaten to form an alliance and fight the junta's army, which is trying to take control of their areas.
DETERMINED: Brig Gen Hsar Gay, the KNU’s deputy minister for foreign affairs and a central committee member.
PHOTO: PORNPROM SARTTARBHAYA
If armed conflict breaks out in Burma, the alliance of ethnic groups, both ceasefire and non-ceasefire groups, would pose a significant threat to the Burmese military. The combines strength of the ethnic groups to fight the Burmese army would be about 65,000 soldiers if they joined together.
The Burmese military has been trying to bring the armed ethnic groups along Burma's borders under their control by forcing them to join the Border Guard Force (BGF), a body the junta is desperate to set up so it can gain control of the lucrative trade along the borders.
But the ethnic groups are not keen on the idea and fear losing their independence, along with the all the trade and business they do along the borders.
David Tharckabaw, vice-president and head of the Foreign Affairs Department for the Karen National Union (KNU), and Brig Gen Hsar Gay, the KNU's deputy minister for foreign affairs and a central committee member, recently spoke to Spectrum about the latest developments in Burma and their group, which was formed in 1949.
"If fighting erupts and all the opposition ethnic and ceasefire groups join together, we would control about 25% of the whole country. About 57% of the land in Burma is ethnic areas," said Brig Gen Hsar Gay.
"We could match the Burmese military. Of course, they have artillery - something we don't have - but we could match them by employing mobile warfare tactics. This includes the use of booby traps and claymore mines - we call it above the ground warfare behind the lines."
With the majority of the armed ethnic groups trained for guerrilla warfare, they would be a match for the much better equipped Burmese military, which is estimated to have a maximum of 180,000 men, including the army, navy and air force.
Claims by the Burmese that their armed forces number about 400,000 is an exaggeration designed to scare their enemy, the senior KNU officials say.
When the military regime started trying to form its border guard with the ethnic groups, it sent shock waves through the border areas, and groups that had fought with each other in the past started talking and formed and alliance.
"We get intelligence information about movements of the Burmese soldiers from our sources and also from the non-ceasefire armed groups allied with us. We share information," said Brig Gen Hsar Gay.
"As for ceasefire groups, we also share some intelligence about movements etc, but not with all those groups.
"There were several deadlines set by the military for the ethnic ceasefire groups to join the BGF, with the last one expiring on April 28.
"The Burmese, instead of giving a new deadline, asked the KIO [Kachin Independence Organistaton] and Wa [United Wa State Army] to submit a counter-proposal or suggestions about the BGF plan.
"The Burmese military are desperate to stage an election some time later this year to legitimise a civilian government, but the election, the constitution and the BGF have all been dismissed by many of the ethnic groups."
"Other ethnic groups in opposition think along the same lines as the KNU about the parliamentary elections. They want a nation-wide ceasefire and the release of all political prisoners first.
"They can't accept either the constitution which, first of all, is illegal, and secondly, has not enough provisions for the ethnic nationalities," said the KNU's David Tharckabaw.
"The KNU is completely against the election. We don't participate because firstly, we haven't had any national ceasefire agreement yet. Secondly, we want the right of association and lastly, we cannot accept the election under the present constitution.
"Actually, we are in the line with the National League for Democracy (NLD) which also refused to take part for other reasons. We think that there are not enough provisions for ethnic nationalities to set up a genuine federal union.
"If the Kachin, Wa, Karen and Karenni states don't give support, and with the NLD out, then the elections will be meaningless."
"The SPDC will try to save face and postpone it by making some excuse. However, if the elections are held - maybe in September or October - the opposition will continue its political struggle and there will also be military resistance," said Brig Gen Hsar Gay.
However, he offered an olive branch to the ruling Burmese State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).
"We are always looking for a peaceful resolution to the conflict from the very beginning," he said. "All the Burmese regimes in power always said that the KNU started the fighting. Actually, this is not true. It was started by General Ne Win in 1948 when he was Vice-Chief of Staff of the Burmese armed forces.
"An armed struggle is essentially self defence. But we always look for a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
"To achieve that we met five times with various Burmese governments, but every time they didn't talk about the problems of the Karen or our grievances. They only wanted us to give up our arms and talk later. How can we do that? We would have no more bargaining chips."
If negotiations and talks fail and fighting does break out between the military and the ethnic groups, the biggest armed ethnic group, the KNU, is ready for full scale war.
"Our fighters have been using mobile warfare techniques for many years, making a lot of weapons to be used in ambushes like claymore mines, which is very important, one of our main weapons. Claymore mines and booby traps are weapons that we are using regularly, but the claymore is only one of our resources," said Brig Gen Hsar Gay.
"The mines have also been introduced to all opposition ethnic groups. The mine was extensively used by the Americans during the Vietnam war, but we modify it and we have the technology to produce it. Also, we use some Burmese and American claymore from old times.
"Claymore mines have steel balls inside that will disperse in one designated direction after it explodes. It is similar to a road-side bomb. This ambush weapon can be planted along the road or in places where we think the enemy will come. It is an ambush weapon, designed not to confront the person but ambush them while they are walking or travelling in a vehicle.
"We can use one at a time or three or four or up to 10 or 20, depending on how many enemy will come.
"It can be operated by one or two persons and it causes a lot of damage to the enemy. Three or four men can detonate 10 claymore at one time and wipe out an enemy company of 30-40 men in one second."
The KNU leaders say they don't want a war with the Burmese military, and would prefer talks and a meaningful dialogue.
"The peace talks must be meaningful. They must talk about our suffering, our grievances, why we go on resisting, why we don't want to come under their control, etc.
"They have to talk about that first. They might talk about their problems and their understanding. Maybe they are also suffering. Then it is a meaningful dialogue," said David Tharckabaw.
"We are not saying that everyone in the SPDC is bad. They are changing. Because of the elections there will be more changes. The majority of the SPDC - at least the lower ranking officers - also want democracy.
"They want to see a real democratic government in power. Now is the right time for a change of thinking by the SPDC.
"If we cannot settle the problem before the election, maybe we can do it peacefully after that. This is our hope. We are peaceful. We don't say the SPDC is peaceful, but we want to find a reasonable peaceful solution.
"We have been fighting different regimes for the past 61 years, making us the world's longest resistance movement.
"However, there are three equally important tasks that the KNU must follow: The armed struggle, the internal political front and the international diplomatic offensive. Only a political settlement will bring peace and stability to the region.
"Among the non-ceasefire armies, we are the largest military force outside the ceasefire groups followed by the Shan State Army-South [SSA-S]. We also control the second largest liberated territory after the SSA-S."
Sunday, May 30, 2010
ေမ(၃၀)ဒီပဲယင္း ႏိူင္ငံေတာ္ လုပ္ႀကံမႈႀကီး (၇)ႏွစ္ျပည့္ ၀မ္းနည္းျခင္း အထိမ္းအမွတ္ အခမ္းအနား(တိုက်ိဳ)။
၂၀၁၀ ခုႏွစ္ ေမလ(၃၀)ရက္။
ေမ(၃၀)ဒီပဲယင္း ႏိူင္ငံေတာ္ လုပ္ႀကံမႈႀကီး (၇)ႏွစ္ျပည့္ ၀မ္းနည္းျခင္း အထိမ္းအမွတ္ႏွင့္ ဘာသာေပါင္းစုံ ဆုေတာင္းပြဲ အခမ္းအနားကို တိုက်ိဳၿမိဳ ့ ရွီနာဂါ၀ါ အရပ္ရွိ ျမန္မာစစ္အခြန္ရုံး(သံရုံး)ေရွ ့တြင္ ေန ့လည္ ၃း၀၀ နာရီမွ ၄း၄၀ရီ အထိ ဂ်ပန္ႏိူင္ငံေရာက္ ျမန္မာ့ဒီမိုကေရစီ အင္အားစုမ်ားတို႕မွ ပူးေပါင္း က်င္းပျပဳလုပ္ခဲ့ပါသည္။
အခမ္းအနားမွဴးအျဖစ္ အမ်ိဳးသားဒီမိုကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္(လြတ္ေျမာက္နယ္ေျမ) ဂ်ပန္႒ာနခြဲ႕ အေထြေထြ အတြင္းေရးမွဴး ဦးေဇာ္မင္းထြန္း မွ တာ၀န္ယူေဆာင္ရြက္ၿပီး ဒီပဲယင္းလုပ္ႀကံမႈႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ ရွင္းလင္းေျပာၾကားရာမွာ လူထုေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ႏွင့္ သူရဦးတင္ဦးတို႔၏ ျမန္မာျပည္ အထက္ပိုင္း စည္းရုံးေရးခရီးစဥ္တေလွ်ာက္တြင္ လူထုေထာက္ခံအားေပးမႈ အထူးရရွိခဲ့သည့္အတြက္ နအဖ စစ္အုပ္စုမွ အလြန္စိုးရိမ္လာသည္အတြက္ ဒီပဲယင္းၿမိဳ႕နယ္ က်ည္ရြာအနီးတြင္ စနစ္တက် ခ်ဳံခိုတိုက္ခိုက္သည့္ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ လုပ္ႀကံမႈႀကီးကို က်ဳးလြန္ခဲ့ၾကပါသည္။
လူထုေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ႏွင့္ သူရဦးတင္ဦးတို႔၏ အသက္ကို ကာကြယ္ရင္း အသက္ေပး စြန္႔လႈခဲ့ၾကသည့္ သူမ်ားအတြက္ ၀မ္းနည္းျခင္းအထိမ္းအမွတ္အျဖစ္ ဘာသာေပါင္းစုံ ဆုေတာင္းပြဲ အစီအစဥ္ က်င္းပျပဳလုပ္ရျခင္းျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ေျပာၾကားသြားပါသည္။ တက္ေရာက္လာၾကသည့္ အဖြဲ႔အစည္းအသီးသီးမွ တာ၀န္ရွိသူမ်ား ေျပာၾကားသြာရာမွာ ေမ(၃၀)ဒီပဲယင္း လုပ္ႀကံမႈတြင္ ပါ၀င္ခဲ့ၾကသည့္ သူမ်ားကိုလည္း ယေန႔အထိ တစုံတရာ အေရးယူ ေျဖရွင္းေျပးသည္ကိုလည္း မေတြ႔ရသည့္အတြက္ အေရးယူ ေျဖရွင္းေပးရန္တိုက္တြန္း ေတာင္းဆိုသြားခဲ့ၾကပါသည္။
ဆုေတာင္းပြဲ အစီအစဥ္မွာ ဗုဒၶဘာသာ ဆရာေတာ္ ဦးဓမၼေဇာတိ မွလည္ေကာင္း၊ ခရစ္ယာန္ဘာသာဆရာ ဆရာက်ဲဆန္းကုန္း ႏွင့္ အစၥလာမ္ဘာသာ၀င္ ဦးသက္လင္းတို႔မွ မိမိတို႔ ဘာသာအလိုက္ ဆုေတာင္း ေမတၱာပို႔သေပးခဲ့ၾကၿပီးသည္ေနာက္ လြတ္သူ ့ပန္းေခြခ်ျခင္း အစီအစဥ္ျပဳလုပ္ကာ အခမ္းအနားကို ၿပီးဆုံးခဲ့ပါသည္။
ယေန ့အခမ္းအနားတြင္ ဂ်ပန္ႏိူင္ငံေရာက္ ျမန္မာ့ဒီမိုကေရစီ တက္ၾကြစြာ လႈပ္ရွားခဲ့ၾကသည့္ ျမန္မာႏိူင္ငံသားမ်ား စုစုေပါင္း (၅၀၀) ခန္႔ တက္ေရာက္ပူးေပါင္း ပါ၀င္ခဲ့ၾကပါသည္။
သတင္းမွတ္တမ္း။ Mai Kyaw Oo
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Message from the Prime Minister-"Security of Japan and East Asia"
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Hatoyama Cabinet E-mail Magazine No. 32 (May 28, 2010)
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Yukio Hatoyama's "Yu-Ai"
-- Message from the Prime Minister (provisional translation of the
Japanese version, which is delivered on Thursdays)
"Security of Japan and East Asia"
Regarding the sinking of the ROK Naval patrol vessel "Cheonan,"
I express my heartfelt condolences and sympathies to the 46 victims
of the incident, the members of their bereaved families, and the
people of the Republic of Korea (ROK). On May 20, as a result of
the joint investigation with experts from the United States, United
Kingdom, Sweden, and Australia, the ROK government announced that
it had concluded that the incident had been caused by a torpedo
fired by North Korea.
On May 24, President Lee Myung-bak of the ROK gave an extremely
passionate and powerful speech toward the people of the ROK saying,
"I will continue to take stern measures to hold the North
accountable," and announced the ROK's intent to refer this matter
to the United Nations (UN) Security Council, among other measures.
I immediately spoke with President Lee by telephone, expressing my
respect for the resolute and calm manner in which the ROK
government has responded to the incident. I also reaffirmed Japan's
position to strongly support the ROK.
In the afternoon of May 24, I convened a Security Council meeting.
North Korea's action cannot be condoned by any means, and Japan
strongly condemns it together with the international community. As
a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, Japan firmly
supports the ROK, and will strengthen coordination with the
international community, especially with the ROK and the United
States, both bilaterally and trilaterally, including response by
the UN Security Council. We will urgently consider anew our own
measures against North Korea and make the utmost effort for the
early enactment of the bill to establish a special measures law for
cargo inspections. Moreover, given this unpredictable situation, we
will enhance intelligence gathering and take all possible measures
to secure the safety and sense of security of the people of Japan.
This weekend, on Jeju Island in the ROK, a Japan-China-ROK
Trilateral Summit Meeting will be held. I would like to strongly
emphasize the need for Japan, China, and the ROK to coordinate and
cooperate even more closely for the peace and stability of East
Asia.
The government will make concerted efforts to further consolidate
the security of Japan and East Asia.
Friday, May 28, 2010
UN experts say NKorea is exporting nuke technology
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press Writer – Fri May 28, 2:38 am ET
UNITED NATIONS – North Korea is exporting nuclear and ballistic missile technology and using multiple intermediaries, shell companies and overseas criminal networks to circumvent U.N. sanctions, U.N. experts said in a report obtained by The Associated Press.
The seven-member panel monitoring the implementation of sanctions against North Korea said its research indicates that Pyongyang is involved in banned nuclear and ballistic activities in Iran, Syria and Myanmar. It called for further study of these suspected activities and urged all countries to try to prevent them.
The 47-page report, obtained late Thursday by AP, and a lengthy annex document sanctions violations reported by U.N. member states, including four cases involving arms exports and two seizures of luxury goods by Italy — two yachts and high-end recording and video equipment. The report also details the broad range of techniques that North Korea is using to try to evade sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council after its two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.
Council diplomats discussed the report by the experts from Britain, Japan, the United States, France, South Korea, Russia and China at a closed-door meeting on Thursday.
Its release happened to coincide with heightened tensions between North Korea and South Korea over the March sinking of a South Korean navy ship which killed 46 sailors. The council is waiting for South Korea to decide what action it wants the U.N.'s most powerful body to take in response to the sinking, which a multinational investigation determined was caused by a North Korean torpedo.
The panel of experts said there is general agreement that the U.N. embargoes on nuclear and ballistic missile related items and technology, on arms exports and imports except light weapons, and on luxury goods, are having an impact.
But it said the list of eight entities and five individuals currently subject to an asset freeze and travel ban seriously understates those known to be engaged in banned activities and called for additional names to be added. It noted that North Korea moved quickly to have other companies take over activities of the eight banned entities.
The experts said an analysis of the four North Korean attempts to illegally export arms revealed that Pyongyang used "a number of masking techniques" to avoid sanctions. They include providing false descriptions and mislabeling of the contents of shipping containers, falsifying the manifest and information about the origin and destination of the goods, "and use of multiple layers of intermediaries, shell companies, and financial institutions," the panel said.
It noted that a chartered jet intercepted in Thailand in December carrying 35 tons of conventional weapons including surface-to-air missiles from North Korea was owned by a company in the United Arab Emirates, registered in Georgia, leased to a shell company registered in New Zealand and then chartered to another shell company registered in Hong Kong — which may have been an attempt to mask its destination.
North Korea is also concealing arms exports by shipping components in kits for assembly overseas, the experts said.
As one example, the panel said it learned after North Korean military equipment was seized at Durban harbor in South Africa that scores of technicians from the North had gone to the Republic of Congo, where the equipment was to have been assembled.
The experts called for "extra vigilance" at the first overseas port handling North Korean cargo and close monitoring of airplanes flying from the North, saying Pyongyang is believed to use air cargo "to handle high valued and sensitive arms exports."
While North Korea maintains a wide network of trade offices which do legitimate business as well as most of the country's illicit trade and covert acquisitions, the panel said Pyongyang "has also established links with overseas criminal networks to carry out these activities, including the transportation and distribution of illicit and smuggled cargoes."
This may also include goods related to weapons of mass destruction and arms, it added.
Under council resolutions, all countries are required to submit reports on what they are doing to implement sanctions but as of April 30 the panel said it had still not heard from 112 of the 192 U.N. member states — including 51 in Africa, 28 in Asia, and 25 in Latin America and the Caribbean.
While no country reported on nuclear or ballistic missile-related imports or exports from North Korea since the second sanctions resolution was adopted last June, the panel said it reviewed several U.S. and French government assessments, reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency, research papers and media reports indicating Pyongyang's continuing involvement in such activities.
These reports indicate North Korea "has continued to provide missiles, components, and technology to certain countries including Iran and Syria ... (and) has provided assistance for a nuclear program in Syria, including the design and construction of a thermal reactor at Dair Alzour," the panel said.
Syria denied the allegations in a letter to the IAEA, but the U.N. nuclear agency is still trying to obtain reports on the site and its activities, the panel said.
The experts said they are also looking into "suspicious activity in Myanmar," including activities of Namchongang Trading, one of the companies subject to U.N. sanctions, and reports that Japan in June 2009 arrested three individuals for attempting to illegally export a magnetometer — which measures magnetic fields — to Myanmar via Malaysia allegedly under the direction of a company known to be associated with illicit procurement for North Korea's nuclear and military programs. The company was not identified.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
The 20th Anniversary of 1990 Election Commemoration
The 20th Anniversary of 1990 Election Commemoration
Special Formal Message
Date: 24-05-10
(1) On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of 1990 election, we would like to send
good wishes to the people of Burma for the sake of both their physical and mental
health and wealth to free from all calamities and dangers.
(2) As the representatives of the people parliament, we left for Thai-Burma border
and overseas for the implementation of duties, given mandate by the people via
election and we tried our best as possible as we could, by joining hands with the
ethnic forces and democracy forces, by all ways and means in the previous twenty
years.
(3) We are sorry for the lack of fulfillment of people wishes, revealed by the 1990
election until twenty years and we also apologize people for our unsatisfactory
performances, given mandate by our people.
(4) However, we never forget the democracy duties, given mandate by the people
via 1990 election. Until we achieve the genuine democracy with equal rights and
self-determination of the ethnic nationalities, we would continue to endeavour utmost
people wishes keeping always at top of our head.
(5) Today, Burmese politic is forwarding to the turning point alternatively and so
uncertain future and challenges are opportune. This is the time of military regime,
striving systematically to resurrect their life by one-sided drawn 2008 spurious
constitution and sham 2010 election for their eternal governance of military
dictatorship.
(6) We decisively oppose and eradicate the spurious 2008 constitution and sham
2010 election and its results of SPDC military dictatorship by all possible ways and
means.
(7) We attentively honour and recommend the decision of no-party registration and
no-competition in the 2010 election as well and we believe that Burmese political
problems would be only solved by mean of attitudes arising from Shwegonetine
declarations.
(8) Today, at current period, to achieve the same vision upon anti-military
dictatorship is very much important. We should value the stand and prize of today
political parties by accepting or not accepting the 2008 constitution which would
resurrect the vicious life circle of military dictatorship. At that moment, we clearly
regard that there are two types of political parties, one is supporting for long-live
military dictatorship and second one is bluntly and totally against and eradicating the
military dictatorship.
(9) We firmly adopt that 1990 election result is still legal up to now. These 1990
election results would not be nullified by only describing in the unfair election laws of
military regime.
(10) MPU has more responsibilities for the maintenance and defense of 1990
election result and continuing to raise the winning 1990 election flag till 1990 election
result is recognized by anyway and implemented.
(11) In this current occasion, we urge specially to the international governments not
to recognize the 2010 election results that may exist the long-term military
dictatorship.
(12) In conclusion, we send this special formal message, describing that inside and
outside Burmese democracy forces and ethnic forces join hands by hands unitedly,
would make great effort persistently to implement the wishes, revealed by 1990.
Standing Committee
MPU, Burma
To contact: U Maung Maung Aye ( 61 431 482 326 )
Daw San San ( 66 848 217 486 )
US Sanctions on Burma Extended
US Sanctions on Burma Extended
By Nehginpao Kipgen
Epoch Times Staff
Created: May 17, 2010 Last Updated: May 18, 2010
The U.S. foreign policy toward the State Peace and Development Council of Burma is closely watched by both the Burmese people and the international community, in case any positive developments might emerge.
Despite the U.S. government’s ongoing high-level engagement, President Barack Obama, on May 14, extended the national emergency with its accompanying sanctions in executive order beyond the original expiration date of May 20, 2010.
In a message sent to the U.S. congress, Obama said, “These actions and policies are hostile to U.S. interests and pose a continuing unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”
The initial declaration was a consequence of actions and policies of the Burmese junta, including repression of the democratic opposition.
The order, first declared on May 20, 1997, has been modified and extended with additional steps in executive order 13310 of July 28, 2003, executive order 13448 of October 18, 2007, and executive order 13464 of April 30, 2008.
The sanctions prohibit American firms from investing in Burma and ban Burma’s exports to the United States. It also targets individuals associated with the military junta.
A two-day visit to Nay Pyi Taw and Rangoon from May 9 to 10 by Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, was an indication of the Obama administration’s continued efforts to create a political environment where the military rulers and the opposition groups can participate.
Not only the Burmese people themselves are frustrated with the continued political imbroglio, but we could also sense the disappointment of the U.S. government. At the end of his two-day visit to the country, Campbell said, “The key objective of my trip to Burma was to underscore the purposes and principles of our engagement, and to lay out the reasons for our profound disappointment in what we have witnessed to date.”
Given the intransigent nature of the junta, it is highly unlikely that the military leaders will be deterred by words of disappointment and pressure. The U.S. sanctions are no match for the generals to swap with the absolute powers and privileges they currently enjoy.
The U.S. sanctions are ineffective largely because of the investments and economic cooperation from countries such as China, India, and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
It is vital to build a coordinated international approach. It is recommended that the Obama administration consider the model of the North Korean six-party talk. The six-party negotiations should involve the United States, the European Union, ASEAN, China, India, and Burma.
The White House is not likely to succeed in Burma by acting alone. The military junta will heed pressures: (1) if the United States unilaterally decides to use military force if negotiations fail; (2) if the United States can convince the U.N. Security Council members to intervene by passing a binding resolution under chapter VII of the U.N. Charter; (3) if the Burmese military generals can be tried at the International Criminal Court.
However, the chances of success for any of these options are very slim, at least in the foreseeable future.
Though any concrete positive outcome is yet to be seen, the U.S. policy of engagement is welcome. The policy is largely supported by the peoples of Burma—both the military junta and the democratic opposition representing different ethnic nationalities.
Faced with criticism and pressure for years, the military junta is planning to hold the upcoming general election in an attempt to garner legitimacy, if not endorsement, from the international community.
With a lesson learned in the 1990 general election, the military is prepared not to make history repeat itself. To ensure that its power remains intact, the junta drafted a constitution that has reserved 25 percent of the parliament seats for the military.
The junta passed election laws that effectively bar Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, and therefore, resulted in the dissolution of a number of political parties, including the National League for Democracy and the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, which respectively won the first and second largest seats in the 1990 general election.
As these democratic parties will no longer contest in the upcoming election, the military junta is equally pleased and nervous as well. The absence of these parties mean that the election is a win-win plan for the military.
If the United States, together with its international partners such as the European Union, decides not to recognize the election results if held under the existing restrictive laws, the military will lack the international legitimacy it yearns for.
It is encouraging that the U.S. engagement is focused on the diverse ethnic nationalities, and not only the junta. It must be noted that the decades-old problems of Burma are ethno-political in nature, and therefore, without addressing ethnic minority problems, the problems will not be solved.
Nehginpao Kipgen is a researcher on the rise of political conflicts in modern Burma (1947-2004) and general secretary of the U.S.-based Kuki International Forum (www.kukiforum.com).
Monday, May 17, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010-ဂ်ပန္နိုင္ငံရိွ ျမန္မာ့ဒီမိုကေရစီေရး လႈပ္ရွားေသာအဖဲြ ့အစည္းမ်ားအၾကား ထိေရာက္စြာပူးေပါင္းဆာင္ရြက္ႏိူင္သြားရန္ ညိုႏိႈင္းစည္းေ၀း။
ယေန ့(၁၆-၀၅-၂၀၁၀)ေန ့တြင္ ဂ်ပန္နိုင္ငံတိုက်ိဳျမိဳ ့ရိွ ညီညြတ္ေသာ တိုင္းရင္းသားမ်ားအဖဲြ ့အစည္း(AUN-Japan)ရုံးခန္းတြင္ ဂ်ပန္နိုင္ငံရိွ ျမန္မာ့ဒီမိုကေရစီေရးကို ေဆာင္ရြက္ေနေသာအဖဲြ ့အစည္းမ်ားအႀကား ပူးေပါင္းေဆာင္ရြက္ရန္ အထူးအစည္းအေဝး တစ္ခုကို က်င္းပခဲ့ရာ ေအာက္ပါ အခမ္းအနား(၂)ခုကို အားလုံးလက္တဲြ က်င္းပသြားရန္ သေဘာတူ ဆုံးျဖတ္ခဲ့ပါသည္။
(၁) (၇)နွစ္ေျမာက္ ဒီပဲယင္းနွစ္ပတ္လည္အခမ္းအနား။
(၂)၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြနွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ ဂ်ပန္ေရာက္ျမန္မာနိုင္ငံသားမ်ား၏ ဆႏၵေဖာ္ထုတ္ပဲြ။
(၁) (၇)နွစ္ေျမာက္ ဒီပဲယင္းနွစ္ပတ္လည္ အခမ္းအနားကို လာမည့္(၃၀-၀၅-၂၀၁၀)ေန ့တြင္ ဂ်ပန္နိုင္ငံ တိုက်ိဳျမိဳ ့ရိွ နအဖ အခြန္ရုံးေရွ ့တြင္ ညေန(၃)နာရီမွ (၅)နာရီ အထိအဖဲြ ့အစည္းအားလုံးပူးေပါင္း ေဆာင္ရြက္က်င္းပသြားရန္ သေဘာတူညီခဲ့ျပီး အမ်ိဳးသားဒီမိုကေရစီအဖဲြ ့ခ်ဳပ္လြတ္ေျမာက္နယ္ေျမ(ဂ်ပန္ဌာနခဲြ) NLD-LA-JAPAN မွအခမ္းအနားမႉးတာဝန္ကို တာဝန္ယူရန္အမ်ား သေဘာတူ ဆုံးျဖတ္ခဲ့သည္။
(၂) ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြ နွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ ဂ်ပန္ေရာက္ ျမန္မာနိုင္ငံသားမ်ား၏ ဆႏၵေဖာ္ထုတ္ပဲြ အဆိုပါ အခမ္းအနားကို BURMA PARTNERSHIP ၏ GLOBAL CAMPAIGN အေနျဖင့္ ဂ်ပန္နိုင္ငံရိွ ျမန္မာ့နိုင္ငံေရးအဖဲြ ့အစည္းအားလုံး ပူးေပါင္းေဆာင္ရြက္ျခင္း ျဖစ္ျပီး ၊ ယခင္ကတည္းက ဂ်ပန္နိုင္ငံတြင္ ျပဳလုပ္သြားရန္ ဂ်ပန္နိုင္ငံရိွ နိုင္ငံေရး အဖဲြ ့အစည္းမ်ားက စီစဥ္ေနခဲ့ေသာ အစီအစဥ္ျဖစ္သည္။ အခမ္းအနားကို
အိခဲဘုခုရို ု ရိွ ခင္းခိုးပလာဇာ(7-F)တြင္ လာမည့္(၁၃-၀၆-၂၀၁၀)ေန ့၌ မြန္းလဲြ (၁) နာရီမွ (၅)နာရီအထိ ျပဳလုပ္မည္ျဖစ္ျပီး အခမ္းအနားမႉးတာဝန္ကို ျမန္မာ့ဒီမိုကေရစီေရး ပူးေပါင္းေဆာင္ရြက္မႈေကာ္မတီ(JAC) မွတာဝန္ယူရန္ အမ်ားသေဘာတူ ဆုံးျဖတ္ခဲ့ႀကသည္။
သတင္းမွတ္တမ္း။ ကိုဘုန္းလိႈင္
မွတ္တမ္းဓါတ္ပုံ။ Lian Khan Sum(CNC-Japan)
Friday, May 14, 2010
ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ႏွင့္ မစၥတာကမ့္ပ္ဘဲလ္တို႔ ေတြ႕ဆံု -VOA
10 May 2010
ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ႏွင့္ အေမရိကန္ လက္ေထာက္ ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရး၀န္ႀကီး မစၥတာ ကာ့တ္ကမ့္ပ္ဘဲလ္(ယာ) တို႔ ေတြ႕ဆုံေနစဥ္။
ေမ ၁၀၊ ၂၀၁၀။ (ဓာတ္ပုံ-ေအပီ)
အမ်ဳိးသား ဒီမုိကေရစီ အဖြဲ႕ခ်ဳပ္ အပါအ၀င္ ျမန္မာျပည္သူေတြကို ဆက္ၿပီး ေထာက္ခံသြားမယ္လို႔ မစၥတာ ကာ့တ္ ကမ့္ပ္ဘဲလ္ (Mr. Kurt Campbell) က သူ႔ရဲ႕ ခရီးစဥ္ အဆုံးမသတ္ခင္ ရန္ကုန္မွာ ေၾကညာခ်က္ထုတ္ျပန္ ေျပာၾကားလိုက္ပါတယ္။ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံကို တရက္ၾကာ သြားၿပီး အစုိးရ တာ၀န္ရွိသူေတြ၊ NLD ေခါင္းေဆာင္ေတြ အျပင္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ၀င္ၾကဖုိ႔ ျပင္ဆင္ေနၾကတဲ့ အဖြဲ႕ေတြနဲ႔ ေတြ႕ဆုံခဲ့တဲ့ ခရီးစဥ္ အေၾကာင္းနဲ႔ ရန္ကုန္မွာ ထုတ္ျပန္ခဲ့တဲ့ ခရီးစဥ္ဆုိင္ရာ ေၾကညာခ်က္ အေၾကာင္းေတြကို ဦးေရာ္နီညိမ္းက စုစည္းတင္ျပေပးထားပါတယ္။
ဒီႏွစ္ကုန္ေလာက္မွာ ျပဳလုပ္မယ္လုိ႔ ယူဆရတဲ့ ႏွစ္ေပါင္း ၂၀ အတြင္း ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံရဲ႕ ပထမဆုံးေသာ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲကိစၥကုိ အဓိကထားၿပီး ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္နဲ႔ အေမရိကန္ လက္ေထာက္ ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရး၀န္ႀကီး ကာ့တ္ ကမ့္ပ္ဘဲလ္တုိ႔ ဒီေန႔ ေတြ႕ဆုံေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ၾကတာ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။
မတ္လ ၈ ရက္ေန႔က ထုတ္ျပန္ခဲ့တဲ့ စစ္အစိုးရရဲ႕ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ဥပေဒအရ တရား၀င္ မွတ္ပုံတင္ျခင္း မျပဳလုပ္ဖို႔ ဆုံးျဖတ္ခဲ့တဲ့ အမ်ဳိးသား ဒီမုိကေရစီ အဖြဲ႕ခ်ဳပ္ရဲ႕ ႏုိင္ငံေရး လုပ္ငန္းေတြကုိ ရပ္ဆုိင္းမယ္လို႔ ေၾကညာၿပီး ရက္အနည္းငယ္ အၾကာမွာပဲ အခုလို ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံကို ေရာက္ရွိလာတဲ့ မစၥတာ ကမ့္ပ္ဘဲလ္နဲ႔ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္တုိ႔ ေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ၾကတာ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။
ရန္ကုန္ၿမိဳ႕ အေမရိကန္သံ႐ုံးက ထုတ္ျပန္လုိက္တဲ့ မစၥတာ ကမ့္ပ္ဘဲလ္ ကုိယ္တိုင္ ဖတ္ျပသြားတဲ့ ေၾကညာခ်က္ထဲမွာ စစ္အစုိးရ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ေတြ၊ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ အပါအ၀င္ အမ်ဳိးသား ဒီမုိကေရစီ အဖြဲ႕ခ်ဳပ္ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ေတြ၊ တျခား ႏုိင္ငံေရး အဖြဲ႕အစည္းနဲ႔ တိုင္းရင္းသား အဖြဲ႕အစည္းေတြရဲ႕ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ေတြ၊ သံတမန္ေတြ၊ NGO ေတြနဲ႔ သူ႕ရဲ႕ ေတြ႕ဆုံေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့မႈေတြကုိ မစၥတာ ကမ့္ပ္ဘဲလ္က အေသးစိတ္ ထုတ္ေဖာ္ ေျပာၾကားျခင္း မရွိေပမဲ့ ျမန္မာစစ္အစိုးရနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္ၿပီးေတာ့ အခုလို ေျပာဆုိသြားခဲ့ပါတယ္။
“ျမန္မာစစ္အစိုးရ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ေတြနဲ႔ ေဆြးေႏြးမႈ အမ်ဳိးမ်ဳိးေတြ အတြင္း က်ေနာ္တုိ႔ဘက္က ကမ္းလွမ္းခဲ့တာ တခုကေတာ့ စစ္အစုိးရ အေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာ့ႏုိင္ငံေရးမွာ အဘက္ဘက္က အေရးပါသူေတြ အားလုံး ပါ၀င္ခြင့္ ျပဳထားတဲ့ ဂုဏ္သိကၡာရွိရွိ ေတြ႕ဆုံေဆြးေႏြးမႈေတြ လုပ္သြားဖုိ႔ပါပဲ။ ဒီႏွစ္ထဲလုပ္မယ့္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲေတြကုိ ကံမေကာင္း အေၾကာင္းမလွစြာနဲ႔ဘဲ စစ္အစိုးရကေတာ့ အေရးပါသူေတြနဲ႔ ေဆြးေႏြးတုိင္ပင္ျခင္း မရွိဘဲ တဖက္သတ္ လုပ္ေဆာင္ဖို႔ ေရြးခ်ယ္သြားခဲ့ပါၿပီ။
“မသြယ္မ၀ုိက္ဘဲ ေျပာရမယ္ဆုိရင္ အဲဒီေရြးေကာက္ပြဲေတြဟာ ႏုိင္ငံတကာရဲ႕ တရား၀င္ အသိအမွတ္ျပဳမႈ ရမွာ မဟုတ္ဘူးလုိ႔ ယုံၾကည္စရာ အေၾကာင္းအခ်က္ေတြ က်ေနာ္တို႔ ေတြ႕ျမင္ထားခဲ့ပါတယ္။ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲေတြ မလုပ္ခင္ က်န္ေနေသးတဲ့ အခ်ိန္မွာ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲမွာ အားလုံး ပါ၀င္ႏုိင္တဲ့ လုပ္ငန္းစဥ္ကုိ ခ်မွတ္တဲ့ လုပ္ရပ္ေတြ ခ်က္ခ်င္းလုပ္ပါလို႔ စစ္အစိုးရကို က်ေနာ္တုိ႔ တုိက္တြန္းပါတယ္။”
ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံက ႏုိင္ငံေရးပါတီေတြဟာ တခ်ဳိ႕က ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ၀င္ဖို႔၊ တခ်ဳိ႕က ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ မ၀င္ဖုိ႔ အခက္အခဲေတြ အမ်ဳိးမ်ဳိးၾကားက ဆုံးျဖတ္ခ်က္ ခ်ခဲ့ၾကတာကုိ အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စုက နားလည္ၿပီး သူတုိ႔ရဲ႕ ဆုံးျဖတ္ခ်က္ေတြကို ေလးစားပါတယ္လို႔ မစၥတာ ကမ့္ပ္ဘဲလ္က ေျပာဆုိခဲ့ပါတယ္။
အမ်ဳိးသား ဒီမုိကေရစီ အဖြဲ႕ခ်ဳပ္နဲ႔ ပတ္သက္ၿပီး သူေျပာတာကေတာ့…
“ျမန္မာျပည္သူလူထုေတြရဲ႕ ဘ၀ကို ျမႇင့္တင္ေပးဖို႔ ႏွစ္ေပါင္း ၂၀ ေက်ာ္ ႐ုန္းကန္ လႈပ္ရွားခဲ့တဲ့ ႏုိင္ငံေရးပါတီ အမ်ဳိးသား ဒီမုိကေရစီ အဖြဲ႕ခ်ဳပ္ရဲ႕ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ေတြ၊ က်ေနာ္နဲ႔ အခ်ိန္ၾကာၾကာ ေတြ႕ဆုံ ေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ရတဲ့ ဒီေခါင္းေဆာင္ေတြကို က်ေနာ္ ဒီအခ်ိန္မွာ ခ်ီးက်ဴး ဂုဏ္ျပဳပါရေစ။ စစ္အစိုးရရဲ႕ အျပစ္ အနာအဆာေတြနဲ႔ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရး စည္းမ်ဥ္း စည္းကမ္းေတြထဲမွာ တရား၀င္ ၀င္ေရာက္ပါ၀င္ လုပ္ေဆာင္မယ့္ အစိတ္အပုိင္းတခု ျဖစ္ေရး ပယ္ခ်ခံရေပမဲ့လည္း ဒီ NLD ေခါင္းေဆာင္ေတြဟာ ျမန္မာျပည္သူ လူထုအတြက္ လူထုကို ကုိယ္စားျပဳၿပီး ဆက္လက္လုပ္ကိုင္ ေဆာင္ရြက္သြားၾကဖို႔ အခုိင္အမာ ဆုံးျဖတ္ထားၾကသူေတြပါ။
“NLD ဟာ အနာဂတ္မွာ ဘယ္လိုပုံစံမ်ဳိးနဲ႔ပဲ ရပ္တည္သြားသည္ ျဖစ္ေစ၊ NLD အပါအ၀င္ ျမန္မာျပည္သူလူထုကို ေထာက္ခံသူေတြရဲ႕ ေနာက္မွာ အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စုက ဆက္ၿပီး ရပ္တည္သြားမွာပါ။”
ဒါ့အျပင္ မစၥတာ ကမ့္ပ္ဘဲလ္က ျမန္မာ့ဒီမုိကေရစီ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္နဲ႔ ပတ္သက္လို႔လည္း သူ႔ရဲ႕ ႐ႈျမင္သုံးသပ္ခ်က္ကုိ ေၾကညာခ်က္ရဲ႕ နိဂုံးပိုင္းမွာ အခုလို ဖတ္ၾကားသြားပါတယ္။
“ေနာက္ဆုံးအေနနဲ႔ ေျပာခ်င္တာကေတာ့ အဆက္မျပတ္ ဂုဏ္သိကၡာမဲ့တဲ့ လုပ္ရပ္ေတြနဲ႔ သူ႔ကို ဖမ္းဆီး ထိန္းသိမ္းထားသူေတြ အေပၚမွာ စိတ္ရွည္သည္းခံၿပီး ေမတၱာတရား ထားေနတာကို ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္က ျပသေနတယ္ ဆုိတာပါ။ ပုိၿပီး သာယာ၀ေျပာတဲ့ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံရဲ႕ အနာဂတ္အတြက္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းစြာ ေျဖရွင္းမႈတရပ္ ရွာေဖြေရး အတူတကြ အလုပ္လုပ္သြားၾကဖို႔ မေရမတြက္ႏုိင္တဲ့ အႀကိမ္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာ သူ႔ရဲ႕ ေမတၱာရပ္ခံမႈေတြကို အေလးဂ႐ုမျပဳတဲ့ ျမန္မာစစ္ဗုိလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီးေတြရဲ႕ လုပ္ရပ္ကေတာ့ အင္မတန္ ၀မ္းနည္းစရာ ေကာင္းလွပါတယ္။”
မစၥတာ ကာ့တ္ ကမ့္ပ္ဘဲလ္က အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စု အေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာစစ္အစိုးရ အေပၚ ပိတ္ဆုိ႔ ဒဏ္ခတ္ထားမႈကို ႐ုပ္သိမ္းမွာ မဟုတ္သလုိ တဘက္မွာလည္း စိတ္ပ်က္စရာေကာင္းတဲ့ အေျခအေနေတြကို ေတြ႕ႀကဳံေနရေပမဲ့လည္း ျမန္မာစစ္အစုိးရနဲ႔ ဆက္ၿပီးေတာ့ ထိေတြ႕ ဆက္ဆံသြားမယ့္ မူ၀ါဒကို က်င့္သုံးသြားမယ္၊ ေလာေလာဆယ္မွာလည္း အႀကိမ္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာ ျမန္မာစစ္အစုိးရ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ေတြနဲ႔ အေမရိကန္ အစုိးရ အဆင့္ျမင့္ ပုဂၢိဳလ္ေတြရဲ႕ ေဆြးေႏြးပြဲေတြ ျပဳလုပ္ခဲ့ၿပီး ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ ေျပာၾကားသြားခဲ့ပါတယ္။
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
BURMA - Democracy and ethnic rights activists welcome economic sanctions on military regime
BURMA - Democracy and ethnic rights activists welcome economic sanctions on military regime
The Ten Alliances of Burma's democracy and ethnic rights movement expressed support for the European Union's renewal of its Common Position on Burma for another year, which also extended economic sanctions on the military regime. "With their planned sham elections, the regime is hoping that the EU and other countries will fall for the thinly veiled attempt to legitimize continued military rule.
By maintaining sanctions, the EU is sending a strong signal that the regime must change course for these elections to have any legitimacy whatsoever," said U Maung Maung, General Secretary of the National Council of the Union of Burma.
In reference to Burma's planned elections for later this year, the EU Council expressed "serious concerns" that new election laws "do not provide for free and fair elections," and called on the military regime to take further steps.
The EU statement adopted in Luxembourg on 26 April also called for the release of political prisoners, an end to human rights violations, and political dialogue between all stakeholders. These points reaffirm the key benchmarks long advocated by the Ten Alliances of Burma's movement for democracy and ethnic rights.
The alliances insist that the regime must meet these benchmarks to ensure truly democratic progress in Burma, and that without them elections will not be a step towards genuine democracy. They include:
1. The unconditional release of all political prisoners, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi;
2. Cessation of hostilities against ethnic groups and pro-democracy forces; and,
3. Inclusive dialogue with key stakeholders from democracy groups and ethnic nationalities, including a review of the 2008 Constitution.
"Burma is becoming increasingly unstable under the military regime. Tensions in northeastern Burma are rising as the junta continues to press armed ethnic groups into joining their Border Guard Force.
The National League for Democracy and other opposition groups will also come under increased pressure from the junta after the political party registration deadline. The EU and international community must increase pressure on the junta to stop these hostilities immediately," said Mai Phone Kyaw, General Secretary of the National Democratic Front.
"In terms of the upcoming EU delegation to Burma, we ask EU Envoy Fassino to reiterate the EU's support of these minimum benchmarks, and focus his efforts on facilitating dialogue between all stakeholders before the elections," said U Moe Zaw Oo, Joint General Secretary of the National League for Democracy - Liberated Area (NLD-LA), in reference to the "exploratory mission" mentioned in the EU's statement yesterday.
The Ten Alliances also emphasized that any delegation to Burma should insist on meeting with representatives of opposition groups, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the NLD, and ethnic leaders
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