20,000 Myanmar refugees start heading home
Buzz up!1 vote ShareretweetEmailPrint AP – Young Myanmar Buddhist monks wait for food at a Thai border police base where Myanmar refugees have taken …
Slideshow:Myanmar refugees flee post-election fighting Play Video Video:Myanmar refugees start heading home AP Play Video Video:Thousands flee Myanmar seeking refuge in Thailand AFP – 1 hr 51 mins ago
YANGON, Myanmar – About 20,000 refugees from Myanmar headed home Tuesday after fleeing to Thailand because of violence in the wake of a general election that is certain to keep Myanmar's military and its allies in power.
The incident underlined Myanmar's vulnerability to unrest following the country's first election in two decades on Sunday, which was billed by the ruling junta as a key stage in its self-proclaimed road to democracy.
Its political opponents and Western nations have decried the vote as unfair and repressive.
Thai authorities said Tuesday that Myanmar officials assured them the situation had stabilized in Myawaddy, a border town that came under attack by ethnic Karen guerrillas Sunday. The refugees who fled to Mae Sot, in Thailand's Tak province, were all expected to be sent home by late Tuesday, said provincial governor Samard Loyfar.
However, fighting continued at Three Pagoda Pass, another Myanmar border town 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Myawaddy, said Thai officials.
"The heavy shooting in Myanmar stopped a few hours ago but sporadic gunshots still can be heard," said Chamras Kungnoi, a district chief on the Thai side.
About 3,000 refugees were still in Thailand. "We want them to return at some point, but if the fighting continues, they might have to stay here another night," Chamras said.
A 9-year-old girl from Myanmar died of shrapnel wounds, Chamras said. Five people were wounded by stray gunfire in Mae Sot on Monday, and another five were hurt in Myawaddy.
Myanmar has been ruled by the military near-continuously since 1962, and rebellions by its ethnic minorities predate its independence from Britain in 1948. Ethnic guerrilla armies chafe at the prospect of further tightening of control by the army.
Anti-government parties claim the polls were blatantly rigged. Khin Maung Swe, chief of the anti-government National Democratic Force, accused the junta's proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party, of using every possible method to steal the vote, and said it was "sure to win 90 percent if they continue to cheat in such manner."
Though most election results had not yet been released, there was little doubt the junta-backed USDP would emerge with an enormous share of the seats, despite widespread popular opposition to 48 years of military rule. It fielded 1,112 candidates for the 1,159 seats in the two-house national parliament and 14 regional parliaments. The largest anti-government party, the NDF, contested just 164 spots.
A coalition of dozens of Myanmar media and human rights organizations that set up a poll-monitoring website said the vote was rigged.
"The reports that we have gathered demonstrate that these elections are deeply flawed, and are fundamentally illegitimate ... unfair and undemocratic," the groups said.
President Barack Obama said Monday it was unacceptable for Myanmar's government to "steal an election" and hold the people's aspirations hostage to the regime's greed and paranoia. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Kimono said the voting was not inclusive enough and lacked transparency.
The West and the U.N. have long been critical of Myanmar's military regime, especially for its poor human rights record.
But not everyone was so critical of the election.
"This is a critical step for Myanmar in implementing the seven step roadmap to transitioning to an elected government and thus is welcome and affirmed," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Tuesday. Beijing is the junta's staunchest ally.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Myanmar belongs, welcomed the vote as a "significant step forward," Vietnamese Foreign Minister Ham Gina Khi said in a statement as the group's chair.
Sunday's election was the first in Myanmar, also known as Burma, since a 1990 vote won by pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party, which was barred from taking power and boycotted the new polls.
Suu Kyi's term of house arrest is supposed to expire Saturday, though the junta has kept silent over whether it will grant her freedom.
Several human rights groups warned of possible civil war as ethnic groups are pressured by the government to accept a new constitution that offers them little autonomy. Several groups that field potent guerrilla armies refused to take part in the election.
"If the dictatorship goes ahead with plans to attack all armed groups refusing to surrender, today's fighting will be the equivalent of a first small skirmish," the group Burma Campaign UK said Monday in a statement.
The U.N. and human rights groups have detailed killings, rape, torture, forced labor and burning of villages in Myanmar as the regime campaigns to deny the rebels support from the civilian population. Thailand already shelters a quarter-million ethnic minority refugees from brutal campaigns by the Myanmar army.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
20,000 Myanmar refugees start heading home
Myanmar army-backed party sweeps election(by vote rigging)
Myanmar army-backed party sweeps election
Buzz up!2 votes ShareretweetEmailPrint Play Video AP – Rebels clash with Myanmar troops after election
Play Video Video:Clashes on Thai-Myanmar border Reuters Play Video Video:Asia protests Myanmar election Reuters Reuters – Election officials work at a vote counting centre in Yangon November 7, 2010. Myanmar's main pro-democracy … By Aung Hla Tun Aung Hla Tun – 2 hrs 48 mins ago
YANGON (Reuters) – Myanmar's biggest military-backed party won the country's first election in 20 years by a landslide on Tuesday after a carefully choreographed vote denounced by pro-democracy parties as rigged to preserve authoritarian rule.
Opposition parties conceded defeat but accused the military junta of fraud and said many state workers had been forced to support the army-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in advance balloting ahead of Sunday's vote.
A day after U.S. President Barack Obama dismissed it as stolen, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs lauded the election as "peaceful and successful," illustrating strengthening ties between energy-hungry China and its resource-rich neighbor.
As the votes were counted, government soldiers cleared ethnic minority rebels from an eastern border town after two days of sporadic clashes that killed at least 10 people and sent about 17,000 civilians fleeing into neighboring Thailand.
By afternoon, many refugees had returned to Myanmar as the military pushed back the ethnic minority Karen rebels who have passed their war against the government down the generations since what was then Burma won independence in 1948 from Britain.
The fighters say the election and the military's continued dominance threaten any chance of achieving a degree of autonomy.
Stacked with recently retired generals and closely aligned with 77-year-old paramount leader Senior General Than Shwe, the USDP took as many as 80 percent of the available seats for parliament, a senior USDP official told Reuters.
But Khin Maung Swe, leader of the National Democratic Force, the largest opposition party, told Reuters: "We took the lead at the beginning but the USDP later came up with so-called advance votes and that changed the results completely, so we lost."
The second-largest pro-democracy party, the Democratic Party (Myanmar), also conceded defeat.
"I admit defeat but it was not fair play. It was full of malpractice and fraud and we will try to expose them and tell the people," said Democratic Party leader Thu Wai.
At least six parties have lodged complaints with the election commission, accusing the USDP of fraud -- a charge that is unlikely to gain traction in a country where more than 2,100 political activists are behind bars.
FOCUS ON SUU KYI
The vote was held with Nobel laureate and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in detention and her party disbanded for refusing to take part in an election it said was unfair. She had urged supporters to boycott the poll.
With the election over, the spotlight will return to Suu Kyi, who has spent 15 of the past 21 years in detention but is due to be freed when her latest house arrest term expires on Saturday.
The United States, Britain, the European Union and Japan repeated calls this week to free the 65-year-old pro-democracy leader whose National League for Democracy beat an army-backed party by a landslide in 1990, a result ignored by the junta.
Myanmar's neighbors and partners in ASEAN have been hoping the election would end Myanmar's isolation and remove hurdles it poses to greater cooperation with the West.
China has built up close political and business links with Myanmar while the West has for years shunned its leaders and imposed sanctions over the suppression of democracy and a poor human rights record.
Russia also welcomed the vote.
"We see the elections as a step in the democratization of Myanmar society in accordance with the political reforms taken by the country's leadership," Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
(Additional reporting by Vorasit Satienlerk, Panarat Thepgumpanant and Sonjit Rungjumratrussamee; Writing by Robert Birsel and Jason Szep; Editing by Alan Raybould)
15,000 refugees flee Myanmar post-vote fighting
15,000 refugees flee Myanmar post-vote fighting
Reuters – A group of Myanmar refugees, who crossed over from Myanmar to Thailand when a battle erupted between …
YANGON, Myanmar – Mothers carrying babies and grown men hoisting elders on their backs fled Myanmar with 15,000 countrymen Monday as ethnic rebels clashed with government troops a day after an election widely considered a sham to cement military power.
Fighting raged at key points on the Thai border, wounding at least 10 people on both sides of the frontier as stray shots fell into Thai territory.The clashes underlined Myanmar's vulnerability to unrest even as it passes through a key stage of the ruling junta's self-proclaimed "road map to democracy." The country has been ruled by the military near-continuously since 1962, and rebellions by its ethnic minorities predate its independence from Britain in 1948.
In the heaviest clashes, Karen rebels reportedly seized a police station and post office Sunday in the Myanmar border town of Myawaddy. Sporadic gun and mortar fire continued into Monday afternoon. More fighting broke out further south for one hour Monday at the Three Pagodas Pass, said local Thai official Chamras Jungnoi, but there was no word on any casualties.
Thai officials said late Monday that fighting had quieted and government troops had regained control of Myawaddy.
Groups representing ethnic minorities who make up some 40 percent of Myanmar's population had warned in recent days that civil war could erupt if the military tried to impose its highly centralized constitution and deprive them of rights.
Refugee camps in Thailand already house tens of thousands of ethnic Karen who have fled decades of fighting in the border regions, but Monday marked the biggest one-day tide of refugees to flee into Thailand in recent years.
Refugees marched, shepherded by Thai security personnel, through the streets of the Thai town of Mae Sot, which is just across a river from Myawaddy. Those few carrying belongings toted them on top of their heads, while several lucky ones got rides on pickup trucks.
"At least 15,000 refugees have crossed from eastern Myanmar into northern Thailand since this morning," said Andrej Mahecic, spokesman for the U.N.'s refugee agency, which was providing tents and other materials to shelter the refugees. Non-governmental groups also were offering aid, he said from the agency's headquarters in Geneva.
Refugees continued to arrive into the evening, and some independent estimates put their number closer to 20,000.
They were being sheltered near the Mae Sot airport at a location that was becoming overcrowded, Mahecic said.
Col. Wannatip Wongwai, commander of Thailand's Third Army Region responsible for security in the area, said Myanmar government troops appeared to have retaken control of Myawaddy, and the Karen rebels held just a few positions on the town's outskirts.
"As soon as the situation is under control, we will start sending the refugees back to Myawaddy," he told The Associated Press.
The fighting threatened to overshadow electoral developments, which include mounting chagrin on the part of anti-government parties over what they charge was blatant cheating on behalf of the military's chosen candidates.
Visiting New Delhi, President Barack Obama said it was unacceptable for Myanmar's government to "steal an election" and hold its people's aspirations hostage to the regime's greed and paranoia.
Obama says leaders in countries like the U.S. and India have a responsibility to condemn such gross violations of human rights. He was speaking before India's parliament.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said "the voting was held in conditions that were insufficiently inclusive, participatory and transparent," and expressed concern about the reports of fighting, urging all sides to refrain from actions that could raise tensions further, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said Monday from the United Nations.
State media and the Election Commission reported Monday that 40 junta-backed candidates won their races, but a day after the polls closed, virtually no other official results — even on voter turnout — were available, and there was no timetable for releasing them. The junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party was certain to win an overwhelming number of seats. It fielded 1,112 candidates for the 1,159 seats in the two-house national parliament and 14 regional parliaments. The largest anti-government party, the National Democratic Force, contested just 164 spots.
And the constitution sets aside 25 percent of parliamentary seats for military appointees.
The NDF said provisional returns it had collected showed it winning 15 seats.
NDF chief Khin Maung Swe accused the USDP of using every possible method to steal the vote, and said it was "sure to win 90 percent if they continue to cheat in such manner."
He described a case in the central city of Mandalay, where one NDF candidate ran against Health Minister Kyaw Myint, the USDP candidate. An initial count at polling booths Sunday evening showed the NDF candidate in front, but later that night, a bag of 3,376 ballots from advance voting arrived, which included 2,500 in favor of the USDP, enough to make it the winner.
Khin Maung Swe said there were many cases where lagging USDP candidates received a boost from the arrival of such ballots. Exile Myanmar media had reported that people casting advance ballots were often pressured to vote for the pro-government party.
The NDF is led by breakaway members of the former National League for Democracy of detained Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party won a landslide victory in the last elections in 1990 but was barred from taking office. It was disbanded this year after declining to register.
Suu Kyi's term of house arrest is supposed to expire Saturday, and her lawyer Nyan Win said Monday he was certain she would be released. "We are making plans for a welcoming ceremony," he said.
Ban's statement from U.N. headquarters repeated a call for lifting restrictions on Suu Kyi, who has been locked up in her Yangon villa on and off since 1989 and is one of some 2,200 political prisoners in Myanmar.
One of her two sons, 33-year-old Kim Aris, applied for a visa Monday in Bangkok in hopes of seeing his mother for the first time in 10 years. He lives in Britain and repeatedly has been denied visas to enter Myanmar.
Asked if he was optimistic, Aris told reporters he had "not too much hope. But there's always a little bit of hope. We'll see." He called the elections "a load of rubbish."
Associated Press photographer Apichart Weerawong in Mae Sot, Thailand, and writers Thanyarat Doksone in Bangkok, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed to this report.
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