News & Articles on Burma-Sunday, 05 December, 2010

News & Articles on Burma
Sunday, 05 December, 2010
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Burma's pro-junta party thanks voters
Day I met Aung San Suu Kyi
Myanmar election losers attract new supporters
Burma undergoing political change - UN envoy
Burmese Army despatching more arms to Kachin State
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Burma's pro-junta party thanks voters

05 December 2010 | 07:31:03 PM | Source: AAP

Burma's main military-backed political party has thanked citizens for voting overwhelmingly in its favour in last month's elections, the first in two decades.

The Union Solidarity and Development Party, in a half-page advertisement carried on Sunday in the state-run Myanma Ahlin newspaper, said it had won 882 of a total 1154 seats at stake in the November 7 polls. Official final results have yet to be released.

Opponents as well as outside critics of the junta, such as the US government, said the vote was neither free nor fair, and instead manipulated to ensure that the military's allies would win.

The advertisement said the party pledged to work hand-in-hand with the people for security, food and shelter needs and human rights and other democratic rights.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1433241/Burma
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Day I met Aung San Suu Kyi
Kate Dennehy
December 5, 2010 - 1:09PM

Meeting Burma's pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi was a humbling experience for former Queensland politician Ronan Lee.

He travelled to Rangoon to witness Burma's historic elections last month but never expected Ms Suu Kyi would be released from the two-storey house where the country's military had detained her since 2003.

On November 13, they released Ms Suu Kyi, 65, a winner of the Nobel Peace prize, who had either been imprisoned or held under house arrest for 15 of the past 21 years.
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“I never in a million years thought the junta would let her out,” he said by telephone last week.

“Actually meeting her was a surreal and humbling experience. I've met the Dalai Lama but she was even more impressive, so serene after all she and her family have been through, but incredibly confident and determined.”

Workers at her National League for Democracy (NLD) party headquarters introduced him to "The Lady", as she is known, a few days after her release.

“We just chatted and she told me she'd spent the morning at a monastery praying for the country many political prisoners,” he said. The office was more like a half-way house full of volunteers who cook, clean and quietly spread her message of democracy.

Mr Lee held the Queensland state seat of Indooroopilly for the ALP from 2001 but defected to the Australian Greens in 2008 and lost the seat at the election last year.

He then moved to Tasmania to work as head of office for Australia's first Greens Minister, Nick McKim, and run an environmental communications business but he said he left this year “utterly exhausted” to regain his health and “gain some work-life balance”.

Watching history unfold in Burma with about 20 locals was “confronting", he said.

“We heard about her release watching a television in a roadhouse along the bus route to Mandalay,” he said. “The room was completely silent except for the noise of the television report that had more pictures than commentary. It was clear she was free but there was no cheering, no noise at all; just people staring at the television, looks were exchanged but no words spoken. Dissenting opinions are not safe to share in public so are kept for small conversations with trusted friends.”

After he met Ms Suu Kyi last week he became aware he was being followed. “A couple of guys dressed in civilian clothes would pretend their car had broken down every time we got out of our car. When we got back in, they'd close the bonnet and jump in again.”

He said Ms Suu Kyi has a security team that follows her everywhere for fear she will be assassinated like her father, Aung San, the independence general who was murdered by a political rival.

Ms Suu Kyi joined the NLD as its secretary-general in 1988 and pushed for political reforms including freedom and democracy. Despite her being under house arrest in 1990, the NLD won 82 per cent of the seats in parliament but the military regime refused to recognise the results.

During her detention her husband died in Britain, her two children have grown into adults and she has become a grandmother of children she has never seen. The junta would have allowed her to visit her husband but it was unlikely she'd ever be granted entry back into Burma so she stayed to fight for democracy and the release of more than 2000 political prisoners.

One of her sons, Kim Aris, 33, who lives in Britain, visited her after her release.

Her supporters fear Suu Kyi might be rearrested at any time but the outpouring of good wishes from world leaders could prevent that for now.

kdennehy@fairfaxmedia.com.au http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/day-i-met-aung-san-suu-kyi-20101205-18l3s.html
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Myanmar election losers attract new supporters

Dec 5, 2010, 8:05 GMT

Yangon - Although they won few seats in last month's parliamentary elections, Myanmar opposition parties were heartened by an upsurge in applications for party membership, a newspaper said Sunday.

The Myanmar Times quoted opposition party leaders as saying new supporters were seeking them out because they want to participate in electoral politics.

Military-ruled Myanmar held its first election in two decades on November 7 in a vote widely seen as rigged to ensure the armed forces retain their dominant position.

'The last election has made people realize that politics is not a dangerous issue and that it is relevant for every single person in the country,' U Nay Myo Wai, general secretary of the Peace and Diversity Party, was quoted as saying. 'They have to participate if they want a change. As a result, our party is getting more new members.'

'When we were registering our party, we needed to have 1,000 members, and at that time, it was very hard for us to convince people to join, but now here they are, coming to us without any encouragement,' U Nay Myo Wai said.

The Peace and Diversity Party fielded seven candidates on November 7, none of whom were successful.

Parties representing Myanmar's ethnic minorities, which tended to do better in the election, were also reported to be gaining support.

U Zaw Aye Maung from the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party, which won 35 of the 44 seats it contested, said he was surprised at the number of new members the party had attracted after the election.

'Many Rakhine people have come and joined up at our offices in Rakhine region,' he said. 'It is such a big improvement.'

Myanmar's best-known opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, refused to participate in the election because of harsh restrictions imposed by the ruling junta.

Suu Kyi was released from house arrest after the election and has appeared at several public gatherings, attracting large crowds of enthusiastic supporters. http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1603496.php/Myanmar-election-losers-attract-new-supporters
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4 December 2010 Last updated at 17:08 GMT
Burma undergoing political change - UN envoy
Vijay Nambiar and Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon. Photo: 27 November 2010 Vijay Nambiar met Aung San Suu Kyi during his last week's visit to Burma

The UN envoy to Burma has said it is clear that political change is taking place in the country, despite UN criticism of last month's poll there.

The UN envoy to Burma has said it is clear that political change is taking place in the country, despite UN criticism of last month's poll there.

Vijay Nambiar told the BBC that parliamentary by-elections could now open up "opportunities" for broadening the political spectrum.

The party of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi boycotted the election, won by the biggest military-backed party.

She was not released from house arrest until after the poll.

"Government formation is taking place (in Burma). I think there will be new spaces, new slots in the parliament which will open up for by-elections," Mr Nambiar, who visited Burma last week, told the BBC Burmese Service.

He described the by-elections as "small opportunities for increasing the political space for a broader, inclusive involvement".

Mr Nambiar's comments come despite strong criticism of Burma's poll by the UN, which said they were neither free nor fair.

The elections on 7 November - the first to be held in Burma in 20 years - were won by the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

Six days later, Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest. Her now-disbanded National League for Democracy (NLD) won the last election in 1990, but was never allowed to take power.

She has urged her followers not to give up hoping for change and has also said she is willing to talk to Western nations about lifting sanctions on Burma, which she previously supported.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11919892
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Burmese Army despatching more arms to Kachin State
Friday, 03 December 2010 22:22 KNG

The threat to the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) has increased manifold with the Burmese military junta despatching significant quantity of arms to Kachin State, northern Burma.

The end of November has seen the regime stepping up the despatch of various kinds of weapons and military equipment made in China in more than 12 trucks from Mandalay the second largest city in Burma to Bhamo (Manmaw in Kachin) Township the second biggest city in Kachin State said, local eye witnesses.
manmaw_kachin_stateThe trucks carting the weapons are continuing to head towards Laiza the headquarters of KIO, said residents of Bhamo.

“There were 10 trucks carrying an assortment of machine guns and heavy weaponry. Four or five soldiers were guarding each truck,” said residents.

Yesterday evening, at least five trucks transporting heavy weapons entered the city and more weapons are coming in ships from Mandalay, said residents of Bhamo.

People, who saw the weapons being transported, are in a state of panic. They fear war breaking out between the Burmese Army and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the armed wing of KIO, said a local.

“In the past they (junta) have resorted to threatening civilians by showing off their weapons. These arms were not from lower Burma but from the military camps based in the state,” said a resident.

The junta has gone about reinforcing its troops and increasing arms supply in its army camps close to the KIO/KIA headquarters. Earlier the regime ordered the closure of all KIO liaison offices across the country.

The junta has also prohibited all trade on the China-Burma border areas controlled by the KIO, including at the trade point near Laiza over the last two weeks.

After the border trade ban the Kachin ethnic armed group KIO has been told to shift all businessmen living in Laiza. http://www.kachinnews.com/news/1815-burmese-army-despatching-more-arms-to-kachin-state.html