News & Articles on Burma-Wednesday, 16 March, 2011

News & Articles on Burma
Wednesday, 16 March, 2011
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Home News Burmese troops forced out by Kachin army in north
FIFA President holds press conference in Yangon
UN in Myanmar identifies strategic priorities for the future
Can aid bring the west's influence to bear on Burma?
Clamp tightened on MPs questions
Karens Flee Fighting in Burma, But Live in Limbo in Thailand
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Home News Burmese troops forced out by Kachin army in north
Burmese troops forced out by Kachin army in north
Tuesday, 15 March 2011 00:00 KNG

Burmese troops were forced out of the territory of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Waingmaw Township in Kachin State on Saturday, March 12, said sources from both sides.

Eighteen Burmese soldiers, who entered the area of the KIA’s Ngwa Lay post, in Lahpai Village, on the Stilwell Road, also Ledo Road between Sadung-Kambaiti, finally withdrew from the area after they were repeatedly warned that the KIA troops would open fire, said a local resident.
kachin-army

More KIA troops are deploying in Sadung, Waingmaw township in eastern Kachin State, where the Burmese troops are increasingly operating.
KIA sources said the KIA refused the Burmese military’s request for permission to go to Kambaiti through Ngwa Lay post, after being asked many times.

The Burmese troops were from the battalion under command of the Burmese Army’s Regional Operation Command (ROC) based in Danai (Tanai) in Hukawng Valley, western Kachin State, according to residents of Lahpai.

The KIA official said it has informed the Burmese junta that it will stop Burmese troops when they enter KIA territories in Kachin State and Northern Shan State.

James Lum Dau, of KIO foreign affairs in Bangkok, Thailand, told the Kachin News Group, “We are still keeping the policy that we will not start war with the Burmese junta. We are seeking ways to establish a genuine political dialogue with the Burmese military leaders.”

Since December last year, several separate Burmese troops, with around 100 soldiers or over 10 soldiers, have operated near other controlled areas of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), the political-wing of KIA, in Sadung area, in Waingmaw Township, according to the KIA officials.

Some parts of Sadung, where over 20,000 acres of opium are currently grown, are jointly controlled by the Burmese junta and it’s Border Guard Force, formerly known as the New Democratic Army-Kachin (NDA-K), according to the KIA Drug Eradication Committee.

Villagers and the KIA Drug Eradication Committee said the Burmese Opium Eradication Campaign in the area not only demands money from opium field owners but also interferes with the current KIA drug eradication campaign.

Two-days of fighting took place between Burmese troops and the Shan State Army-North (SSA-N) at Mong Awd village tract, in Monghsu, Shan State on March 13 and 14.

Both the KIO and SSA-N are members of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), an alliance of 11 ethnic organizations, which formed last month.

The UNFC aims to restore a genuine federal union in Burma by pressuring the ruling Burmese military junta politically and militarily. However, the alliance is now in “wait and see” mode, while observing the new military-backed civilian government being formed by the Burmese junta.

James Lum Dau said the junta’s recent attempts to intimidate the KIO and other ethnic armed groups are typical and are nothing to worry about. http://www.kachinnews.com/news/1870-burmese-troops-forced-out-by-kachin-army-in-north.html
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FIFA President holds press conference in Yangon
08:48, March 16, 2011

The International Federation of Association Football(FIFA) president Joseph Sepp Blatter held a press conference in Myanmar's Yangon Tuesday.

Blatter, who headed a 7-member delegation, arrived in Yangon Tuesday at the invitation of the President of Myanmar Football Federation (MFF) U Zaw Zaw who is a famous business tycoon of Myanmar during the World Cup in South Africa last June.

"This is my first visit to Myanmar. I will meet with Myanmar's Prime Minister U Thein Sein in the new capital of Nay Pyi Taw tomorrow. I am very glad to meet with him," Blatter said. "I have a very good impression on Myanmar and people in the country are very nice".

He visited Yangon and Mandalay, observing facilities constructed under the arrangement of FIFA Goal Project during his 2-day visit in Myanmar.

The facilities include Goal Hotel where MFF office is located in Yangon, Youth Football Academy in Mandalay and International Standard audience-stand at Thuwunna Sport Ground in Yangon.

He attended the opening ceremony of Youth Football Academy in Mandalay Tuesday afternoon.

He will visit Nay Pyi Taw on Wednesday and observe new sports grounds and stadium which is an construction for coming South East Asian Games to be hosted in Myanmar in 2013 .

While in Myanmar he will seek ways for the Myanmar Football Federation(MFF) to strengthen the local professional leagues.

Blatter, a Swiss citizen, was elected as the 8th FIFA President in June, 1998.

The 75-year-old is one of the most talented and experienced persons of international sports diplomacy and is totally committed to serving football, FIFA and the youth of the world.

Source: Xinhua http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90779/90871/7321134.html
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UN in Myanmar identifies strategic priorities for the future
Source: United Nations Country Team in Myanmar
Date: 15 Mar 2011

Yangon, 15 March 2011 ---- Four strategic priorities and key elements of the new Strategic Framework for the United Nations in Myanmar were presented today at the monthly Humanitarian Partnership Group meeting, attended by over 80 experts, heads of missions and UN agencies, diplomats and aid workers.

The priorities, which are the result of extensive analysis of humanitarian and development challenges in the country, will guide UN engagement and programming and form the basis of a new Strategic Framework for the period 2012-2015. "The UN Strategic Framework aims to be a collective, coherent and integrated programming and monitoring framework for UN contributions in Myanmar, based on the UN's comparative advantages.

The UN Strategic Framework is based on the analyses of the country's situation, development challenges that it faces and opportunities ahead of it," said Bishow Parajuli, UN Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator, who chaired the meeting.

The UN Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator explained that consultations had been held with focal points from all relevant government ministries, the latest in February. Based on these consultations it had been agreed that UN engagement would focus on four Strategic Priorities, namely:

1. Encourage inclusive growth (both rural and urban), including agricultural development and enhancement of employment opportunities

2. Increase equitable access to quality social services

3. Reduce vulnerability to natural disasters and climate change

4. Promote good governance and strengthen democratic institutions and rights.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/KKAA-8EZ7LQ?OpenDocument&RSS20&RSS20=FS&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ReliefwebClimateChange+%28ReliefWeb+-+Climate+Change%29
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Can aid bring the west's influence to bear on Burma?

The UK is to become Burma's biggest foreign aid donor, but the country's oppressive regime and its opaque political arena mean bringing change won't be easy

MDG : Myanmar : A girl fetches water from a pond on the outskirts of Yangon A girl fetches water from a pond on the outskirts of Rangoon. Photograph: Nyein Chan Naing/EPA

"We do not have a normal aid relationship here," says Paul Whittingham, head of the Burma section of the Department for International Development (DfID). And it isn't, not only does Burma receive some of the lowest levels of development assistance in the world but aid giving is also extremely politicised.

So it was a brave move for Britain's coalition government to increase aid to the country in its aid reviews last week: the UK is to become Burma's largest foreign donor. The government has pledged to spend £185m over the next four years. This reflects a "strong commitment" by the development secretary, Andrew Mitchell.

The world came to know most about Burma's donor situation in the wake of perhaps its darkest hour, when it was hit by Cyclone Nargis, the country's worst cyclone on record.

The surprising aspect of this disaster was how the military were prepared to make a dark situation that much darker. In the days and weeks after the tragedy aid was blocked by the government, which ignored the massive loss of life and the suffering.

DfID's new funding will be more per year than the Burmese government spends on health. The government of Burma is "not committed to poverty reduction", says Whittingham. Such a record leads to the abnormal situation Whittingham refers to, asserting that: "It is not an easy country in which to do business."

Perhaps the most controversial area is the funding of civil society organisations (CSOs), the most opaque and political area of aid giving. Mark Farmaner, director of the Burma Campaign UK, notes that there are around 300 such groups in the country and only 10% are registered – registration for some equates to approval from the regime.

But these registered groups nonetheless receive foreign money. Farmaner believes there is a "preference" among donors to work with groups that have an understanding with the country's repressive regime. However, even those registered are keen not to reveal foreign funding links, and ask donors and the press not to reveal the connections.

Donor preference reflects a cultural difference between many in Rangoon and elected representatives in donor nations and exiled Burmese. The latter would seemingly prefer much of the funding to be channelled to exiled groups linked to the largest democratic entity, Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD). Both camps allege that the other is out of touch.

This cultural difference was evidenced by the US mission to Burma in a leaked cable from 2008, sent by the chargé d'affaires, Shari Villarosa. While lambasting the NLD, describing its leadership as "sclerotic", she suggested: "We should seek every opportunity to support and increase the capacity of Burma's nascent civil society", in order, "to reform their political and economic systems in a manner that best promotes US economic and strategic interests".

Civil society then, should be funded as a way of effecting political change. We cannot know which organisations are being funded because they face repression from the military. The military may well argue its case for blocking foreign money, saying it is likely to create imbalances in a poor country. The danger is that western representatives will be free to act with as little scrutiny as the government.

Dr Maung Zarni, a fellow at the London School of Economics, says: "The words 'civil society' include only organisations and individuals on the ground which are free-market-friendly and amenable to dominant western views."

Whittingham, however asserts: "I have absolute confidence that we can support a range of civil society groups inside the country, and I don't want to comment on individual examples."

What appeared in last year's election was the National Democratic Force (NDF), an NLD splinter. It participated in the fraudulent "poll", seeing co-operation with the military as pragmatic – and preferable to principled objection – and was the toast of diplomatic Rangoon.

CSO's made in the west's image are seemingly favoured by diplomats and made up of an elite who will subsequently favour Washington over Beijing. They hope to slowly seduce the military to create an investment friendly Burma without the "idealist" Suu Kyi and her NLD.

A prime example is Myanmar Egress, a CSO tolerated by the military and connected to the NDF. It is uniquely capable of lobbying, and boasts about that fact to journalists.

The NLD's vice-chair, Tin Oo, asked in a letter to the top European commission diplomat to Burma, Andreas List: "Is 'Myanmar Egress', the organisation founded by Mr Nay Win Maung, independent from the junta's influence or is it a broker between the government's cronies and the NDF, which it is touting as a substitute for NLD?"

Meanwhile, the NLD is under severe pressure, with its members jailed, exiled or swamped by military intelligence. It is not allowed to act as a political party.

For many, the west has "lost" Burma – its soft-power washed away by its principled sanctions and relegated by China's permanence in the region. This renewed commitment by DfID suggests a need to wrestle it back, using one of the most important soft-power tools: development aid.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/mar/16/burma-uk-international-aid-dfid
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Clamp tightened on MPs questions
By DVB
Published: 16 March 2011


MPs in Burma have been given what appears to be a veiled warning about the submission of questions to parliament, in a move that could further stifle political debate in the military-ruled country.

Parliament began accepting questions for the first time on 10 March, six weeks after it first opened following the November elections last year.

Shwe Mann, speaker of the People’s Parliament and former top-ranking junta chief, told representatives yesterday that only questions with direct relevance to current affairs could be asked in the chamber, although little clarification was given to define the boundaries of discussion.

According to National Democratic Force (NDF) representative Kyi Myint, the powerful speaker was making reference to queries submitted by MPs regarding the controversial allocation of national budgets, some of which Shwe Mann claimed had “no relevance with the country’s situation”.

The announcement of a new government budget has drawn sharp rebukes from opposition parties in Burma, with nearly a quarter allocated to the military and the creation of a Special Funds Law that gives the commander-in-chief, currently Than Shwe, supreme authority to allocate unlimited additional money to the army without any notice, and without parliamentary consent.

The healthcare sector is meanwhile set to receive only 9.5 billion kyat ($US110 million), or 1.3 percent of the total budget. This equates to around $US2 per person per year.

Neighbouring Thailand meanwhile spends more than 10 percent of its annual budget on healthcare; among Shwe Mann’s instructions, Kyi Myint said, was that MPs in Burma shouldn’t make comparisons with neighbouring countries.

Five queries were raised by MPs in the People’s Parliament session yesterday, including the one directed to the education minister regarding the maintenance of basic education schools in Arakan state.

Hpone Myint Aung, the NDF’s representative in the National Parliament, said meanwhile that many queries submitted by MPs were turned down by the government under the ‘no relevancy’ pretext.

He said that MPs were stonewalled on topics related to finance, particularly when mooting the prospect of infrastructural projects such as roads and bridges which would require significant amounts of money.

Burma’s three parliaments are dominated by the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), of which Shwe Mann is a member and which swept 80 percent of the vote in the elections.
http://www.dvb.no/news/clamp-tightened-on-mps-questions/14784
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Karens Flee Fighting in Burma, But Live in Limbo in Thailand

Danielle Bernstein | Mae Sot March 16, 2011

The European Commission visited Burmese refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border this week to evaluate a shift in priorities from basic relief services to longer-term sustainable assistance. But as aid workers on the border scramble to cope with the newest wave of ethnic Karen refugees fleeing war at home, questions remain about whether sustainable assistance is possible in such an unstable region.

More than 10,000 refugees from eastern Burma have crossed into Thailand since fighting erupted between government troops and the opposition Democratic Karen Buddhist Army in November after the country’s first national elections in two decades.

Thailand considers them to be illegal migrants, so they are not allowed in the refugee camps, and have little access to humanitarian aid. Instead, they seek shelter in the jungle or in squatter camps.

Four months of continuous fighting in border areas of Burma’s Karen State shows no signs of letting up. Sally Thompson, of the Thai/Burma Border Consortium says the election has made Thai authorities more reluctant to offer aid to refugees.

"The fact that the elections have been held is seen as the start of a new phase which is not more refugees,” Thompson said. “The hope from the Thai government and others is that the new phase is that the refugees will be able to gradually return back to Burma so there is not a willingness at this stage to put new mechanisms in place that are likely to attract more refugees to Thailand it would be seen from the Thai government’s perspective if they were to establish more official sites they consider that would be a pull factor."

Thompson’s organization estimates more than 140,000 people from Burma live in 10 refugee camps along the border. Thousands more reside in nine camps inside Burma that the consortium monitors.

The lack of health care at home or in Thailand remains a critical issue for the refugees.

"Basically there’s no effective health system in eastern Burma and so people are coming to places like Mae Tao clinic because it’s the only place they can get any health care,” Thompson added. “There’s no health system that’s been put in place from the government’s side what people have access to is what the ethnic groups themselves have established."

The Mae Tao clinic, founded by Dr. Cynthia Maung in Mae Sot, provides free health services to refugees. Lok Gwa, a trainee surgeon at the clinic, says since the border was closed in September, they have been seeing fewer patients. Hospital records confirm patient numbers have held at around 10,500 a month, about 2,000 less than usual.

The clinic’s staff says this indicates not that fewer people are sick, but that fewer can reach the clinic and either go without, or must have health care come to them.

Naw Paw Hser Mu Lar has spent the past 10 years as a member of the Backpack Health Worker Team, a network of more than 300 mobile health care providers who care for those living in conflict areas in Burma.

She says the fighting has led to a rise in malaria, diarrhea, maternal and child illnesses, and land mine injuries since November.

"Policy has not changed,” said Mu Lar. “I think more fighting than last year. More patients. More fighting means more patients, more serious cases."

Mahn Mahn, the president of the Backpack Health Worker Team, has similar fears.

"In terms of before the election in Burma we expected there would be more conflict but nobody in the international community believed us,” Mahn Mahn said. “But anyway, before the election in Burma we started to prepare for after the election, and fighting started in Myawady and then we started to form the seven emergency backpack teams."

Human rights activists and refugees say the conflict escalated after the election, as the Burmese army tries to gain control over more Karen territory.

Burma’s military government has signed peace agreements with several of the country’s ethnic militias, including the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army. But none of the ethnic groups agreed with a government demand that they become part of a national border guard, and as a result, fighting has flared in many parts of the country.

A European Union delegation plans to visit the border refugee camps this week. The team aims to evaluate new sustainable options for helping the Burmese, even as Thai officials look to repatriate them. Thompson sees the resolution to Burma’s refugee crisis as primarily a political one.

"Until the ethnic issue is resolved in Burma the conflict will be ongoing,” Thompson said. “It’s very unlikely in the short-term that the ethnic issue will be resolved so it’s very likely that we will see low intensity ongoing conflict in the ethnic areas which will continue to generate more arrivals into Thailand."

Karen refugees began fleeing into Thailand 26 years ago, and aid workers say what originally was seen as temporary situation has become permanent. The EU says its delegation hopes to come up with ways to help the refugees rebuild their lives, and bring them health care, education and livelihoods. http://www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/southeast/Karens-Flee-Fighting-in-Burma-But-Live-in-Limbo-in-Thailand-118072334.html

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