News & Articles on Burma-Tuesday 14 June, 2011

News & Articles on Burma
Tuesday 14 June, 2011
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Three Pagodas Pass Under Attack
Chinese Dam Workers Allowed to Return
More Burma Army troops deployed to SSA HQ
Myanmar government battles rebels near Chinese border
Myanmar Soldiers, Ethnic Karen Forces Clash Near Thai Border
Can We Believe Burma?
Refugees flee Myanmar clashes near Chinese border
Report: U.S. Navy intercepted North Korean ship
Myanmar army, militia fight in strategic region
A Grim Trade: Trafficking Palaung Women to China
As Dollar Falls, FECs Plummet
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Three Pagodas Pass Under Attack
By LAWI WENG Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Undisclosed or unknown militants launched an attack on the Burmese border town of Three Pagodas Pass on Tuesday amid rising ethnic tensions between Karen armed groups and government forces in the area.

According to sources at the Thai-Burmese border town, armed men entered the town and fired into the air shortly after 12 noon following the expiry of a Karen rebel deadline on Monday for government troops to withdraw from its base nearby.

The Burmese army engaged the militants, and gunfire was exchanged in the town center and near the market where a local store was burned down by the armed men, witnesses said.

“They set Ma Nyo's shop on fire because she allowed the Burmese authorities to have a meeting there yesterday [Monday],” said Lawi Mon, a Three Pagodas resident.

Local residents said at least seven mortars exploded during Tuesday's hostilities.

Meanwhile, a joint force of rebels from the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) reportedly surrounded Three Pagodas Pass even before the Monday deadline for government troops to withdraw from their base at the village of Mae Ka Thar.

“The authorities in Three Pagodas Pass told the Karens on June 11 to await an answer from Regional Southeast Command with regard to a withdrawal from the base,” said a source close to the Burmese authorities in the town. “But they did not issue an official response.”

Thai border authorities negotiated between Burmese government troops and the joint Karen force last week, but talks broke down after the Karen rebels told government officers to withdrawal from their base in Mae Ka Thar.

Several residents in Three Pagodas Pass expressed safety concerns. Since the weekend, more than 200 villagers have fled to Thailand to escape the fighting in the town.

Tuesdays' attack was the first clash in Three Pagodas since June 5 when a military intelligence officer and a young girl were killed, and four soldiers and civilians were wounded.

However, the town had enjoyed a period of relative peace since hostilities flared on Nov. 7 to 8 when the DKBA launched an attack on government troops causing as many as 30,000 refugees to flee to Thailand. http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21484
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Chinese Dam Workers Allowed to Return
By THE IRRAWADDY Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The Burmese Army has allowed the final 30 Chinese engineers at Tapai hydropower station to return home as fighting with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) intensifies.

Seventy Chinese workers and engineers fled the area as soon as hostilities commenced, but the last 30 have only just received permission to return to China on Tuesday as KIA troops surround the site.

The return was negotiated between Kachin leaders, the Burmese government and Chinese authorities as the route over the Sino-Burmese border passes through KIA-held territory.

The Burmese government has brought in additional troops to Bhamo District in Kachin State, northern Burma, as serious fighting continues with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), claim local sources.

More than 20 government trucks have arrived in the area carrying soldiers and prisoners—the latter to be used as forced labour porters or human minesweepers in the battlefield, according KIA spokesperson La Na.

He added that the Burmese government has also reinforced its troop placements along another route near Laiza—headquarters of the KIA—by the Sino-Burmese border.

Residents including government staff in Lwaigyai, also on the same frontier, have fled into China fearing a major armed conflict. Government troops have set up camp in the area complete with artillery launchers.

The KIA has also strengthened its frontline positions after the government ignored demands to withdraw troops from ethnic Kachin-controlled areas, said La Na.

All KIA troops have been ordered on alert and to prepare the battleground with the destruction of Nam Hpak Hka Bridge a possible tactic, he added.

To hinder government reinforcements, KIA soldiers destroyed a strategic bridge at around 3a.m. On Tuesday. The bridge was located over Nam Hpak Hka river and was used by government supply trucks.

“Our troops destroyed it because they [government troops] carry ammunition and weapons over this bridge. It stopped them from coming to reinforce their troops,” explained La Na.

The bridge leads to Taping River where Burmese and Chinese engineers are constructing the hydropower dam. All Chinese engineers except the current hostages have been sent home for their own safety.

KIA soldiers also destroyed a government weapon store in Momauk, Bhamo District, while shelling also decimated a Burmese Army battalion in the area.

Residents in Bhamo report than dozens of injured Burmese soldiers are being treated at the town hospital. Around 30 doctors from Myitkyina, capital of Kachin State, were reportedly asked to transfer to Bhamo, according to KIA sources.

“We heard this morning that some 16 Burmese government soldiers were injured during Monday's fighting in Momauk,” said La Na. He added that two KIA soldiers have been killed and one injured since June 10.

Fighting first erupted on Thursday after negotiations broke down over a hostage situation. The clashes then escalated on June 11 after government troops returned the dead body of the hostage, a captured KIA soldier, to the Kachin army, said La Na.

Seng Aung, a Kachin living in Laiza, headquarters of the KIA, said the tensions finally turned into violence because that the government wants to gain full control of areas near Tapai hydropower dam for security reasons.

The KIA in turn demanded that the government ceased attacking Kachin forces, stopped its military operations and withdraws its troops from KIA-controlled areas. However, there has so far been no response from Naypyidaw, said La Na.

“If they offer us an alternative, we will cooperate with them in order to achieve peace. We always keep the door open for peace,” he said.

The KIA signed a ceasefire agreement with the Burmese government in 1994. However, the agreement informally broke down last year after sporadic fighting broke out. The KIA also refused to transform its battalions into a state militia “border guard force” under Burmese Army command. http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21485
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More Burma Army troops deployed to SSA HQ
Tuesday, 14 June 2011 17:39 Hseng Khio Fah

Latest information today says about 5 battalions of Burma Army troops were sent to Wanhai, new headquarters of Shan State Army (SSA), the armed wing of Shan State Progress Party that refused to transform into Naypyitaw’s Border Guard Force (BGF) program and returned to the armed struggle after being attacked in March.

Hundreds of soldiers were reported to have deployed from every side, said local eye witnesses. Some were seen coming from Shan State South’s Kehsi Township and some from battalions under Northeastern Region Command (NERC) based in Lashio, Shan State North.

“Many Burma Army patrols are seen heading to Wanhai this morning from Monghsu. Villagers from Mong Awt village tract, Monghsu township are ordered to go for portering whenever the soldiers arrived. Every 20 villager are assigned to take in turn for the service,” said a local source from Monghsu.

Regarding to the immediate reinforcement of the Burma Army, sources close to Hsengkaew militia comment that the action is likely to be related to an emergency meeting held in Lashio HQ by Maj-Gen Aung Than Htut who oversees operations in Shan State on 13 June.

“It was about 16:30 local time; Aung Than Htut arrived at the HQ and called a meeting with commanders in the NERC. No details are known. But most of the people speculate that it may partly concern the SSA issue,” said a source.

Today, Maj-Gen Aung Than Htut and Brig-Gen Aung Kyaw Zaw, Commander of NERC, are reported to have headed to Hoparng and Kunlong, west of United Wa State Army (UWSA) controlled area. They are expected to inspect the area as well.

Although speculations are that the Burma Army is planning to raid the SSA HQ, the SSA said there has been no significant sign yet.

The Burma Army troops are active just 2 miles away from Wanhai HQ.

Yesterday fighting between the two groups [Burma Army and SSA] were reported in Ho Nga village tract and Loi Khio Mountain, both in Monghsu township. The SSA side was reported to have launched a swift attack, leaving five Burma army soldier dead.

“A dozen Burma Army soldiers were brought to Monghsu hospital in the morning from Ho Nga fighting field. And more were carried in again in the evening. But they were said to be from Loi Khio fighting,” a source said.

Burma Army troops are now believed to have around 25 battalions including 20 battalions deployed earlier.

The Burma Army, besides attacking the SSA, has also been launching operations against the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Bhamo district, Kachin State on the Sino-Burma border since 9 June forcing hundreds of civilians seeking asylum in neighboring townships. http://www.shanland.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3771:more-burma-army-troops-deployed-to-ssa-hq&catid=86:war&Itemid=284
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Jun 14, 2011
Myanmar government battles rebels near Chinese border

BANGKOK - GOVERNMENT troops in Myanmar have attacked one of the country's powerful northern militias with artillery in a bid to force rebel fighters from a strategic region where China is constructing major hydropower plants.

The fighting has killed at least four people and forced 2,000 more to flee since it started on Thursday, according to the US Campaign for Burma.

The violence is some of the most serious in Myanmar since the country's military junta handed power to a civilian government in March, a move critics say is a simply a proxy for continued military rule. The new government has said it wants to improve ties with ethnic minorities that have waged rebellions along the border, but the latest fighting underscores the deep tension that remains.

The rebels involved in the most recent clashes belong to the Kachin, one of Myanmar's sizable ethnic minorities. Those groups have struggled for decades to win more autonomy, but their efforts have routinely been met by military suppression.

Kachin military commander Gwan Maw told US-funded Radio Free Asia on Monday that the fighting in northern Myanmar's Momauk region, near the Chinese border, could spread and possibly escalate into civil war if the government refused to negotiate an end to it with the Kachin Independence Organisation.

Though the fighting could worsen, it is unlikely to engulf the repressive nation. -- AP http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/SEAsia/Story/STIStory_679729.html
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June 14, 2011 20:14 PM
Myanmar Soldiers, Ethnic Karen Forces Clash Near Thai Border

KANCHANABURI, June 14 (Bernama) -- The Myanmar government soldiers and ethnic Karen forces clashed in Phaya Tongsu town opposite Sangkhla Buri District of Thailand's western Kanchanaburi Province Tuesday, injuring a Myanmar villager and causing damage to the market of Phaya Tongsu town.

Sangkhla Buri district chief Jamras Kangnoi said that the clash started at around 12:30pm, using pistols and M79 grenade launchers at times, according to Thai News Agency.

Jamras affirmed that about 200 Thai soldiers, police and defence volunteers have conducted border patrols to prevent any trespass and Thai authorities from all concerned agencies have called a meeting to discuss the situation.

The Thai authorities have prepared, as a precaution, the compound of Baan Phra Jedi School as a refugee camp.

The school is about 200 meters away from Kanchanaburi's Three Pagodas Pass.

So far, Myanmar people and ethnic karens have not been allowed to enter Thailand and the Thai authorities are monitoring the border situation closely.

-- BERNAMA http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsworld.php?id=593907
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Can We Believe Burma?
By Luke Hunt
June 14, 2011

The Burmese and North Koreans are getting a little tongue-tied over their nuclear ambitions.

As I’ve mentioned recently, Burma's government insists it can’t afford the atomic ambitions that officials in the West fear Naypyidaw harbours, despite the enormous personal wealth generated by circles around the junta in recent decades.

Their wealth, combined with their unique relations with countries like North Korea and China, would be more than enough to at least kick-start the early stages of such a programme, and the noises out of Pyongyang have done nothing to dispel such suggestions.

This was highlighted by revelations in the United States of a stand-off between a North Korean ship suspected of containing banned weapons, and en-route to Burma, and a US Navy destroyer.

US officials sought and received approval from the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and maritime authorities in Belize to engage the M/V Light, a Belize-flagged vessel known to have been previously used for weapons exports to Burma and the Middle East.

The ship was intercepted by the USS McCampbell in late May, however, the North Korean crew refused to let the M/V Light be boarded, insisting the boat was carrying industrial chemicals destined for Bangladesh.

The United States didn’t force the issue, nor did it want to risk a military confrontation as officials couldn’t be completely sure what cargo the ship contained. The standoff continued for several days before the vessel turned back and sailed for home.

Ties between Burma and North Korea have improved dramatically in recent years, a far cry from 1983, when North Korean agents detonated a bomb in Rangoon, killing several South Korean cabinet ministers and resulting in a severing of diplomatic relations.

The warming of ties is timely. Concerns persist over nuclear proliferation among questionable states like Iran, Pakistan, North Korea and Burma, and the issue is consistently at the top of the international diplomatic agenda.

Two weeks ago, the junta, which has run Burma for almost 50 years, told US Sen. John McCain that their country isn’t wealthy enough to acquire nuclear weapons. Burma would certainly like to convince the world it’s evolving from a military run junta to a government controlled by civilians. At the same time, about 2,000 political prisoners remain behind bars, and there has been no shift in international opinion, which widely regards last year’s elections as a sham.

If proven, Burma’s suspected trading links with North Korea would be in breach of UN Security Council resolution 1874 and 1718 barring Pyongyang from engaging in the arms trade. Resolution 1874 followed North Korea’s second nuclear test.

Burma deserves full marks for trying, but its attempts at persuading the wider world of its emergence as a regular country worthy of normal relations with everyone else are falling a little flat.
http://the-diplomat.com/asean-beat/2011/06/14/can-we-believe-burma/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+the-diplomat+%28The+Diplomat+RSS%29
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Refugees flee Myanmar clashes near Chinese border
By REUTERS 06/14/2011 12:43

BEIJING - Myanmar's military has clashed for several days with a militia controlled by the country's ethnic Kachin minority in a remote but strategic region where China is building hydropower plants, various sources said on Tuesday.

The fighting, which began last Thursday, has killed at least four people and forced hundreds, if not thousands, to flee toward the Myanmar-China border, the sources, including a Washington-based advocacy group and Chinese media, said.
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Report: U.S. Navy intercepted North Korean ship
REUTERS
2011/06/14

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Navy intercepted a North Korean ship suspected of carrying an illegal shipment of missile parts to Myanmar two weeks ago, the New York Times reported on late on June 12, citing senior American officials.

The North Korean cargo ship was forced to return home after a standoff at sea and several days of diplomatic pressure from Washington and Asian nations, the newspaper reported.

Officials for the U.S. Navy and the State Department were not immediately available for comment late on June 12.

U.N. sanctions imposed on North Korea after it conducted nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 include a ban on trade in nuclear and missile technology with North Korea. A U.N. resolution adopted last year authorized U.N. member states to inspect North Korean sea, air and land cargo.

According to the Times, the destroyer USS McCampbell caught up with the cargo ship M/V Light south of Shanghai on May 26 after American officials began tracking the vessel, which was believed to have been involved in previous illegal shipments.

The destroyer asked to board the vessel under authority given by Belize, but the North Koreans refused, the Times said.

An American official told the newspaper the ship was North Korean but flagged in Belize. Authorities in Belize gave the United States permission to inspect the ship, the newspaper said, citing American officials.
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201106130058.html
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Myanmar army, militia fight in strategic region
AFP – Tue Jun 14, 3:28 am ET

BANGKOK (AFP) – Clashes have broken out between the Myanmar army and northern ethnic rebels in a strategic region near the Chinese border, with at least seven people killed, a militia spokesman said Tuesday.

Myanmar troops pushed Kachin Independence Army (KIA) fighters from a key mountain position during fighting which has left three rebels and four state soldiers dead, according to KIA spokesman James Lum Dau in Thailand.

"This will spread to many areas," he said, accusing the government of moving into regions held by the armed ethnic group. He said the casualties included one KIA soldier allegedly tortured to death.

It was not possible to verify the claims and there was no information from the Myanmar authorities about the reported fighting.

The KIA, thought to have at least several thousand fighters, used to be one of the most powerful armed rebel groups and continues to hold large areas of northern Kachin state despite signing a ceasefire with the junta in 1994.

Hydropower projects to provide energy for China in the north of the state have raised the stakes in the struggle for control of the area, according to Aung Din of the US Campaign for Burma, which uses Myanmar's former name.

He said the KIA had refused to remove fighters from the Taping river where two dams are being built by China Datang Corporation, prompting tensions to escalate into an attack by government troops.

Hundreds of government soldiers opened fire on a KIA outpost last Thursday sparking several hours of fighting.

The rebel group has now "issued an order to all of its forces to launch full-scale resistance war against the attack made by the Burmese military regime's troops" after a deadline for negotiations passed, Aung Din said, quoting another senior KIA figure.

The predominantly Baptist and Catholic Kachin account for about seven percent of the country's population and are one of many ethnic minorities that have conducted armed insurgencies.

After Myanmar gained independence in 1948, civil war broke out between the regime and ethnic rebels seeking more autonomy and rights, including an uprising in Kachin that gathered momentum from the early 1960s.

Decades of violence, entailing alleged grave human rights abuses and the displacement of tens of thousands of people, ended with fragile ceasefires.

But government attempts to make former rebel groups give up their weapons or come under state control ahead of a November 2010 election increased fears over renewed conflict last year. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110614/wl_sthasia_afp/myanmarchinaethnicunrest
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A Grim Trade: Trafficking Palaung Women to China
By SIMON ROUGHNEEN Tuesday, June 14, 2011

BANGKOK­Unscrupulous traffickers, Burma's economic decline and militarization, and a shortage of males caused by China's “One Child Policy” have all combined to contribute to the trafficking of women from the Palaung region of Burma into China, says a locally based activist group.

“Since 2007, we have documented 72 cases of actual and suspected trafficking involving 110 people,” said Lway Moe Kam of the Palaung Women's Organisation (PWO). The caseload includes 11 children under 10 years of age.

Twenty-five percent of the women trafficked were forced to marry Chinese men and 10 percent of the caseload were coerced into the sex trade, according to the PWO, which grimly concluded that nine out of 10 trafficking victims do not escape.

According to a particularly gruesome account given by one victim of trafficking, she was taken to a building in Shandong, eastern China, where people were kept as live feed for leeches, used in Chinese medicine. “I saw some people in that room lying in pools of water. They were all fat, but looked lifeless and were not moving. Then I saw that there were leeches sucking those people's blood,” said the unnamed woman.

The PWO concedes that the number of trafficking victims is likely to be higher than reported, with real figures difficult to determine due to local cultural constraints, further hampered by the logistical and security challenges confronting researchers working in the area. In 60 percent of the cases analysed, it remained unclear exactly what kind of situation the victim was trafficked into.

“Traffickers work in secret, and the presence of the army means that we have to be careful when doing research and talking to people,” said Lway Aye Nang, another PWO representative.

Palaung culture frowns upon extramarital sex, meaning that trafficked women who suffer sexual crimes “are often reluctant to admit they have been trafficked,” said Lway Moe Kah, the lead author of the PWO report, “Stolen Lives­Human Trafficking from Palaung Areas of Burma into China.”

In perhaps a surprising finding, 65 percent of the trafficking perpetrators were female, a factor that Lway Moe Kam puts down to the greater trust placed in women by the eventual victim of trafficking. "It sounds better if the job offer is made by a woman," she said, though Khin Ohmar, a Burmese exile activist based in Chiang Mai, cautioned that the female perpetrators might themselves be coerced into recruitment by other traffickers, likely male, who dominate the trade.

The investigation focused on the townships of Namkahn, Namhsan and Mantong in the Palaung region of Shan State, which sits on the Burma-China frontier. In the absence of recent census date, the Palaung are thought to number around one million people, mostly mountain-dwellers in an area laden with gold, silver, zinc and aluminum.

China's one Child Policy has contributed to a relative scarcity of women in the country, with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences recently predicting that 24 million Chinese men of marrying age could be unable to find a wife by 2020. While the laws are not as aggressively imposed in rural areas close to Burma as they are in China's eastern seaboard cities, they contribute to a growing gender imbalance, with sex selection abortions “extremely common,” according to the Academy.

With families restricted by law to one, or perhaps two children, a cultural preference for male offspring has been exacerbated, said the Chinese researchers, resulting in 119 boys born for every 100 girls, a disparity that rises to 130-100 in some rural areas.

According to US government in its 2010 report on global human trafficking trends, Burma's government has been working to combat some aspects of trafficking, such as the international sex trade. Burma prohibits sex and labor trafficking through its 2005 Anti-Trafficking in Persons Law, in which traffickers are classed in the same category as rapists.
However the US report said that Burma's internal trafficking situation had worsened, mentioning the use of child soldiers and forced labor by the army, abuses that are particularly common in ethnic minority areas.

However, the law is not applied on the ground, according to Palaung and Kachin researchers, and Burma's policy in other areas directly or indirectly contributes to the trafficking of women and children, they say, with conflict and economic decline forcing people to migrate, making them vulnerable to traffickers and criminal gangs.

Within Burma, the Palaung are perhaps best known for the local tea industry, which in recent years has been commandeered by the Burmese army, a factor that the PWO say has contributed to the human trafficking problem in the region.

The PWO accuses the Burmese army of monopolising the tea industry, and of “forcing local people to sell their tea to military-supported companies at very low prices.” The ensuing income drop contributes to increased economic migration within Shan State and across the border to China, which renders local women vulnerable to traffickers.

Describing a similar scenario in Burma's now conflict-wracked Kachin State, Khaung Seng Pan of the Kachin Women's Association–Thailand (KWAT) says that “a lack of jobs and the army's presence has pushed people out.”
Her organisation says that it is aware of 130 cases of human trafficking into China from Burma since 2010, involving women and children from Kachin State.

Kachin State sits north of the Palaung region in Shan State, similarly sharing a border with China. Since June 9, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Burmese army have fought on-off battles, with the KIA accusing the government of breaching a long-standing ceasefire agreement and of encroaching into KIA-held areas.

Naypyidaw is demanding that the KIA and other ethnic militias become part of the country's border guard, a proposal which most of the militias have rejected.

Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21486
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As Dollar Falls, FECs Plummet
By THE IRRAWADDY Tuesday, June 14, 2011

RANGOON — The US dollar has been falling steadily in Burma's unofficial foreign exchange market since the beginning of this year, but its decline has been outpaced by that of another currency that is technically its equal—the Foreign Exchange Certificate, or FEC.

While the dollar's drop has been attributed to a variety of factors—from an influx of aid money and a flood of drug profits to surges in domestic and foreign investment—the fate of the FEC has been tied to just one: the fact that nobody wants it.

“Many travel agencies, airline offices and hotels simply refuse to accept FECs now,” said a Rangoon-based tour guide, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It's illegal, but that hasn't stopped businesses from saying they won't take them. At most, they will accept only half payment in FECs, and the other half has to be paid in dollars.”

Initially introduced to ensure that tourist dollars flowed into government hands (in the past, foreigners were required to buy a fixed number of FECs on arrival in the country), the FEC continues to serve as mechanism of government control over international transactions, from trade to aid.

In the wake of Cyclone Nargis, for instance, there was a controversy over how much of the money intended for victims of that disaster was actually being siphoned off by the ruling regime, which required that aid dollars be deposited in a state-run bank and withdrawn in FECs—effectively imposing a “tax” of several percentage points on all aid money that came into the country.

Since then, the gap between the dollar and the FEC has continued to widen. At present, the FEC is worth just 680 kyat on the unofficial market, while the dollar is at a multi-year low of 755 kyat.

The fact that the FEC is now worth a full 10 percent less than the dollar means that more and more companies are reluctant to accept them, putting further pressure on the unloved unit.

Rangoon’s well-known Park Royal Hotel confirmed that it is now accepting only US dollars. Traders Hotel, a Rangoon landmark, said that it is still accepting FECs—for now.

“Today we accept FECs, but we are not so sure if we will continue to do so if the value of the FEC continues to drop,” said a hotel employee.

Among those most affected by the fall of the FEC are employees of foreign-owned businesses or international nongovernmental organizations. Many are paid in FECs, resulting in a dramatic loss of income at a time when consumer prices continue to rise.

“Last year, someone making 250 FEC a month took home about 250,000 kyat. Now they're only getting about 160,000 kyat,” said a worker at the Chatrium Hotel in Rangoon. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21487