News & Articles on Burma -Sunday, 04 September, 2011-UZL

News & Articles on Burma
Sunday, 04 September, 2011
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Myanmar pledges fair payments for railroad land
Burma: Government drives wedge between Karen Party and Karen armed groups
Amnesty urges Europe to back Burma crimes inquiry
Burma's barmy army cry freedom
Burma's women forced to be Chinese brides
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Myanmar pledges fair payments for railroad land
Sep 4, 2011, 6:31 GMT

Yangon - Myanmar's government has pledged to adequately compensate landowners along a 800-kilometre route for a rail link from China to the Bay of Bengal, reports said Sunday.

Minister for Railways Aung Min said the government was determined to ensure that citizens 'are not cheated' by the 20-billion-dollar project. The railroad would link a deep seaport in Rakhine State on the Bay of Bengal with Muse on the Chinese border, the Myanmar Times reported.

'We are negotiating in detail with the Chinese side on all issues, including compensation for the land needed to construct the line,' Aung Min said last week. 'We are doing everything to protect our people so they are not cheated.'

Human rights groups have raised concerns about the rail link, noting that mega-projects in Myanmar have led to land expropriation, forced labour and other abuses in the past.

'If the land is privately owned, we will evaluate the value with the local authorities and the Chinese company will pay that price to the owners,' Aung Min said.

He said the government was negotiating s contract with state-owned China Railways Engineering Corporation. Construction could begin in December.

Aung Min is a member of the cabinet that started work on April 1, following the November 7 general election.

Construction of the Kyaukpyu-Muse railroad is expected to take five years to complete under a build, operate and transfer contract.

'It will cost about 20 billion dollars,' Aung Min said. 'We might give China Railways Engineering Corporation the right to operate the line for 50 years.'

The single-track line would operate with electric trains capable of travelling at about 200 kilometres per hour, with a capacity for 4,000 tons of cargo plus passengers.

The railroad will follow the same route as oil and natural gas pipelines from the Bay of Bengal to the Myanmar-China border, which is being built by another state-owned Chinese company.

Both projects are designed to cut transportation costs for China.

'With this railroad China can get access to the sea and transport their goods without having to pass through the Malacca Strait,' Aung Min said.

The government is also considering a plan to build a railroad linking Dawei on the Bay of Martaban to Kanchanaburi in Thailand.

In November 2010, Ital-Thai Development Corp of Thailand signed an agreement to develop a deep seaport and special economic zone near Dawei.
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1660788.php/Myanmar-pledges-fair-payments-for-railroad-land
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Burma: Government drives wedge between Karen Party and Karen armed groups
By Zin Linn Sep 04, 2011 12:20AM UTC

Karen State Democracy and Development Party (KSDDP) based in Hpa-an in Karen State announced its attitude towards DKBA on Saturday, according to the state-media.

The government invited armed groups to hold peace talks for building national unity for national development by issuing Announcement No. 1/2011 dated 18-8-2011, state-run media declared Saturday. A news agency broadcast that with regard to the announcement, the Democratic Kayin Buddhist Army met leaders of Shan State Army and held discussions on cooperation and providing military assistance to each other; and DKBA showed its stance to hold discussion representing the combined forces, but not as a separate group.

The New Light of Myanmar reported that as of 18-8-2011, DKBA has been formed as Border Guard Force with 12 battalions in accord with the constitution.

Moreover, the paper says, Kayin State Democracy and Development Party (KSDDP) has officially been formed with officers and servicemen of above-50 years old to be able to participate in nation-building tasks. Units of Border Guard Force are discharging State duties.

Thus, there is no more DKBA any longer, KSDDP’s statement says. Consequently, the KSDDP affirmed that it does not recognize the organization under the name of DKBA undermining peace and stability of the State.

Although the statement was made under the name of KSDDP, people understood the work as government propaganda to deceive the people.

On 20 August, motor vehicle convoy carrying the Karen State Minister, Major General Zaw Min and Director of the People’s Militias and Border Forces Directorate Major General Maung Maung Ohn were ambushed on their way back from a Border Guard Force (BGF) one year anniversary celebration in Myawaddy Township, DVB News said.

Three Burmese soldiers were killed in the ambush by the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA). However both senior government officials were capable of fleeing with their lives. DKBA ambushed the Karen State Minister’s convoy with some explosive mines and small-arms attack.

Captain Saw Two Three of the DKBA Brigade-5 intelligence unit told DVB that one of the trucks in the convoy was hit by a mine in the attack that took place at Wesha Maepleh village in Myawaddy township.

Last year, a division of the DKBA fighters determined not in favor of signing the government’s border guard force (BGF) program, which was an attempt to weaken ethnic armed groups and put them under the Burmese military command.

The current conflict started when Brigade 5 led by Saw Lha Pwe, who opposed the junta’s plan to change his troops into the Burma Army’s border guard force, raided for a short period government’s key positions in Myawaddy Township on controversial Election Day, 7 November 2010.

Brig-Gen Saw Lah Pwe, the commander of DKBA Brigade 5 said that the government is still reinforcing its troops in Karen State and does not seem to be seeking ceasefire talks. The previous ceasefire between the military regime and DKBA Brigade 5 broke down after the group refused to join the junta’s border guard force (BGF) under Burmese army control.

Hence, today statement by the KSDDP seems to be released under the guideline of the current President Thein Sein government. It also indicates that the government does not recognize the organization under the name of DKBA and will not seek peace talks with the ethnic armed group.

Some analysts believe the regime exercises a divide-and-rule strategy in an attempt to defeat the vigorous ethic armed groups that have rejected the BGF.

So, regarding ethnic Karen armed groups such as DKBA Brigade 5 and the Karen National Union (KNU), the observers consider the regime will only use military means in its attempt to totally defeat the ethnic armed troops. KNU sources said that the junta is sending troops, ammunition and food supplies to the KNU’s stronghold area in Papun District in northern Karen State.

Then, the move is totally inconsistent with President Thein Sein’s policy speech delivered at 1/2011-Meeting held at the President Office in Naypyitaw on 23 April. At that time he emphasized that without national unity, the country with more than 100 races cannot have peace and stability. So, his government will prioritize the national unity, he said.

But, according to recent moves in Kachin, Shan and Karen states, his government seems to tackle the ethnic issues by means of aggressive strategy. http://asiancorrespondent.com/64077/burma-government-drives-wedge-between-karen-party-and-karen-armed-groups/
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THE BANGKOK POST
Amnesty urges Europe to back Burma crimes inquiry

Published: 4/09/2011 at 03:32 AM
Online news: Asia

Europe's "wait and see" approach to army-dominated Burma is "irresponsible", Amnesty International has said, urging the EU to back an inquiry into crimes against humanity in the country.

Military members of Myanmar's upper house of parliament attend a house session in Naypyidaw in August 2011. The Myanmar government "has continued to violate human rights on a massive scale", four years after the brutal suppression of a monk-led protest, known as the Saffron Revolution, said Amnesty's Myanmar researcher Benjamin Zawacki.

The Burma government "has continued to violate human rights on a massive scale", four years after the brutal suppression of a monk-led protest, known as the Saffron Revolution, said Amnesty's Burma researcher Benjamin Zawacki.

He said reports from ethnic minority areas suggest 50,000 people may be internally displaced by conflict, while abuses have continued under a new regime, which came to power after controversial November elections.

In an article on Friday for the online exile news magazine Irrawaddy, Amnesty urged the European Union and its member states to lend their support to the establishment of a UN commission of inquiry into crimes against humanity.

"'Wait and see' -- what the government will do before the elections, how the elections will be conducted, whether the new government will make any changes -- has been the prevailing and irresponsible approach," he said of the international community, including the EU.

"We have waited for years, even decades, and seen quite enough: these violations call for accountability."

Hostilities between the military and armed ethnic rebels in Kachin State in the north and Karen and Shan states near the Thai border in the east, have been "accelerated or renewed" since the election, Zawacki said.

There have been recent accounts of the army using prisoners as porters, human shields and minesweepers and of rape and other forms of sexual violence, he said. The number of displaced people was thought to be 30,000 in Shan State and 20,000 in Kachin State as of the end of July.

The UN special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, is to present a report to the UN in October and Zawacki said an EU-led resolution on Burma is likely to follow.

Amnesty welcomed the public support of 12 EU nations for a commission of inquiry, but "regrets" that the EU as a bloc and influential members Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden have not openly backed the move.

On a recent rare visit to the country Quintana, who angered Burma's ruling generals last year by suggesting that rights violations could warrant a UN inquiry, said serious concerns remained, particularly the plight of more than 2,000 political prisoners.

Burma's government has appeared keen to improve its image recently, holding the first talks between democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and President Thein Sein, a former general.

The regime has also called for peace in minority areas, but its overtures have so far been met with distrust by rebel groups.

A report on Friday's parliamentary session in the state-run New Light of Burma said rebels wanting an end to the conflicts should get in touch with the government, which plans to set up a "team for peace talks".

Minister for Information Kyaw Hsan said the regime would "conduct peace negotiations with armed groups in accordance with the 2008 constitution to make peace with them, maintaining balance of the both sides", the paper reported on Saturday. http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/254871/amnesty-urges-europe-to-back-burma-crimes-inquiry
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Burma's barmy army cry freedom
Published Date: 04 September 2011
By Lewis Pierce in Rangoon

THE hardships and oppression of living in an authoritarian country like Burma, or Myanmar as its military rulers style it, all but vanish at the gates of its football stadiums.
Or so say the fans, who swarm in for a carnival of drunken revelry that would never be tolerated off the terraces.

"I don't come here to support any particular team," said schoolboy Kyaw Lin, 15, standing in a particularly rowdy section at a recent match. "I come for the freedom to shout anything I want."

Sport provides an escape in much of the world. But in Burma, with secret police and jail terms of up to 100 years for dissent, a football match offers even more cause for raucous merriment in a sea of grinding poverty and fear. It offers 90 minutes of liberation, even though lorryloads of riot police ring stadiums during games, mostly near the exits.

A World Cup qualifier in July between "Myanmar" and Oman was called off before half-time by a Japanese referee after fans threw stones, bottles and shoes onto the pitch, and an Oman coach was reportedly hit on the head.

The episode, however, has done little to diminish the excitement in the stands. "I'm going to break your legs!" shouted a fan as a striker moved down field in a recent match. This was one of the more polite contributions. The stand reeked of cheap booze, and the occasional pool of vomit, from barechested fans sporting a variety of crude tattoos.

Burma is one of Asia's most impoverished countries and also one of its most expensive. Opening a cellphone account costs £400. A new car can run in excess of £124,000 because of taxes and permits. But two things are cheap here: rice (about 10p a small bucket) and a ticket to football matches (40p a go). Deliberately or not, the government is taking a page out of Imperial Roman, with football standing in for bread and circuses.

The Myanmar National League was formed with government encouragement in 2008, a time of anger at the military's handling of a deadly cyclone and fresh memories of large-scale protests led by Buddhist monks the year before. The government prodded business bosses to help bankroll the league and its 12 teams.

Now in its third season, the league has proved successful, a local complement to a longstanding obsession with the English Premiership. In Burma, sports newspapers outsell all the rest. "When someone faces a lot of hardship and burdens in his daily life, he wants to forget them," said U Ko Htut, a well-known football writer. "There are not many people who obtain success in our country. We want to imagine we are football stars. We want to put ourselves in their shoes."
Ko Htut was imprisoned for 13 years and tortured for being a student activist during a major uprising in 1988. Writing about sports is the closest thing to freedom of expression in Burma. The censors rarely bother him, he said, unlike political journalists whose work is excised and redacted.

Burma has suffered under various shades of military rule since a 1962 coup d'etat, a political legacy that has engendered a distrust for authority among its 55 million people.

So it comes as little surprise that referees - the symbol of authority during matches - are the target of generous doses of invective.

Entering a soccer stadium, the Burmese, generally polite, leave civility at the gate. U Min Aung, 29, owns a business and has a three-year-old daughter. Once in the stands, though, he strips off his shirt and paces drunkenly through the crowd, berating the opposition team.

Occasionally he throws bottles, or anything else he can get hold of, on the pitch. During a recent match he tried, unsuccessfully, to rip out the concrete seating. Min Aung said that in July he had joined the near riot during the international against Oman. He showed no signs of remorse. "The referee was unfair," he said. "Everyone was throwing bottles. I did, too."

A statement by Fifa, the World Cup governing body, said the referee stopped the match after "local supporters repeatedly hurled objects onto the field. The matter will be referred to the Fifa disciplinary committee."

The rowdiness also involves fights between rival fans. But tension is often defused because many fans are too drunk to land a punch.

Nor is bad behaviour necessarily restricted to the fans. In 2004, three players on the national team were red-carded in a game against Singapore: one for persistent fouling; another for kicking mud at the ref; and another for hitting a Singapore player with a water bottle then gesturing his contempt as he strolled to the dugout.

The incident even embarrassed some fans, already frustrated with the team's poor showing. Burma's glory years came in the 1950s and 1960s, when the team won pan-Asian tournaments and regularly defeated its neighbours.

Now Fifa ranks "Myanmar" 165th out of 203 national teams, that's 110 places behind Scotland. http://news.scotsman.com/news/Burma39s-barmy-army-cry-freedom.6830471.jp?articlepage=2
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The Telegraph
Burma's women forced to be Chinese brides
Burma, an eccentric military dictatorship ruled by golf-playing, Buddhist-worshipping generals, is now the main source of forced brides in China. David Eimer hears their story.
By David Eimer, Ruili
7:00AM BST 04 Sep 2011

Aba was just 12-years-old when she left her hometown of Muse in Burma to visit Yunnan Province in China's far southwest. When she crossed the border, she was expecting to spend only a few hours away from home.

But it would be three long years before Aba saw her family again. Like thousands of other young girls and women from Burma, she had been duped into coming to China so she could be sold into a forced marriage to one of the growing number of Chinese men who – because there are not enough girl babies born in China – cannot find wives any other way.

During her time in China, Aba endured routine beatings, while never being able to communicate with her family or even go outside on her own. Above all, she lived with the knowledge that she was destined to be married to the son of the family that had bought her – as if she was one of the pigs or chickens that ran around their farm.

"I was sold for 20,000 Yuan (£1,880)," said Aba. "I was too young to get married when they bought me. It was later that they told me I had to get married to their son. I was lucky in a way. If I had been two or three years older when I was taken, I'd be married to him now."

Most people wouldn't consider it fortunate to be kidnapped as a child and sold into virtual slavery. But Aba is one of the lucky ones. Not only did she escape a forced marriage, but she was rescued and was able to return home.

For most of the women from Burma who are sold as unwilling brides in China, there are no happy endings. Instead, they face at best lives of misery and drudgery. At worst, they are driven to suicide.

No one knows how many thousands of women are trafficked into China each year to be the wives of the men known as guang gun, or bare branches, the bachelors in rural areas who cannot find brides by conventional means. What is certain is that it is a number increasing all the time. Thirty years of China's one-child policy has combined with the traditional Chinese preference for male children to create a devastating gender imbalance.

It is estimated that 120 boys are now born in China for every 100 girls. According to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, that means by 2020 some 24 million men will be unable to find wives.

"The one-child policy has had a considerable impact. Where you have a demographic imbalance, you have a situation where women are in demand. Sometimes, that demand is met through legitimate marriage brokers. Other times it is met by non-legitimate means," said David Feingold, the International Coordinator for HIV/Aids and Trafficking in Unesco's Bangkok office, and the writer and director of the 2003 documentary Trading Women.

Burma, an eccentric military dictatorship ruled by golf-playing, Buddhist-worshipping generals, is now the main source of forced brides in China.

Not only is it one of the most repressive countries in the world, but desperate poverty and frequent food shortages make it very easy for the traffickers to trick women into leaving for China and jobs that will never materialise. Instead, the women are sold as wives.

"The majority of women being trafficked from Burma into China end up as forced brides or in marriages where there's exploitation," said Mr Feingold.

Prices for the women range from 6,000 to 40,000 Yuan (£560-£3750), depending on their age and appearance. According to the Kachin Women's Association of Thailand (Kwat), a Thai-based NGO that helps trafficked Burmese women, around 25 per cent of the women sold in China are under 18. "The men always want healthy, young women who can produce babies. The women are really just regarded as baby-making machines," said Julia Marip, the head of Kwat's anti-trafficking programme in Yunnan Province.

Once Aba arrived in Ruili, a scruffy border town in Yunnan that is the main transit point for trafficked women from Burma, she was sold to a family who owned a cotton farm in the northeast of China. Now almost 16 and pretty with a shy smile, Aba is one of three children of a casual labourer and an unemployed mother.

At first glance, she looks like a normal teenager in her jeans and white T-shirt. It is only when she speaks in a quiet voice that it becomes clear what a horrific experience she endured, and how she remains deeply traumatised by it. "I still don't like going out on my own, especially in the evening," she said.

Thankfully, Aba escaped being paraded in public in front of potential buyers, which is the fate of many trafficked women. It is a brutal and dehumanising experience.

"Sometimes they'll be sold in markets that are held in parks. The traffickers will put the women in nice dresses and make-up. It's very cruel, because the women are happy to be wearing nice clothes, which they've never had before, and then they are sold like vegetables," said Miss Marip.

Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine the terror Aba must have felt, thousands of miles away from home with strangers who treated her as a possession they could abuse.

"I couldn't speak Chinese at first, so I couldn't understand what chores I had to do, so I would make mistakes. Then the mother would beat and slap me," said Aba. "I was afraid a lot of the time and very lonely because I had no friends to talk to. I cried a lot. In the beginning, they told me gently to stop crying. Later on, they would shout at me when I cried."

Escaping was not an option; she had no money and no idea where she was in China, while the family made sure she couldn't slip away. "They watched me all the time. I wasn't allowed to go out on my own."

One day, she discovered why she was being guarded so closely. She was told that she was to be married to the 20 year-old son of the family. "I had no idea that was why they had taken me until then. I refused but they told me I had to marry him," said Aba.

Virtually all women sold as forced brides find themselves trapped in what is essentially a marital prison. "Most trafficked women don't escape. We can't help them," said Miss Marip.

Faced with the hopelessness of their situations, some choose to end their lives by swallowing the fatal chemical pesticides used on farms, the most common way to commit suicide in the Chinese countryside.

But Aba did avoid a forced marriage. During a routine identity card check in her area, the police discovered that she was a foreigner and she was taken away, just weeks before she was due to be wed. "I explained what had happened to me and the police went to see the family. They told them, 'You can't buy people, they're not animals'. They asked me if I wanted to prosecute them but I said, 'no'. I just wanted to forget it and go home," said Aba.

Three years after she had disappeared from her parents' lives, Aba walked alone across the Chinese/Burmese border and returned to her home. "My parents were very shocked to see me. They started crying and so did I. I was so happy to see them," said Aba. Her mother and father had tried to find their daughter. "They went to the Muse police and told them I had been kidnapped and taken to China. But the police asked for 6,000 Yuan (£560) to investigate and my parents couldn't afford to pay," said Aba.

According to Kwat, that is the standard response of the Burmese authorities to cases of trafficked women. On the other side of the border, the Chinese police devote more energy to combating the domestic trafficking of children than they do to investigating the gangs who bring in women from overseas.

Until last year, the tiny minority of trafficked women who do escape were treated as illegal immigrants and imprisoned until they could be repatriated.

For Unesco's David Feingold, there is only so much the authorities can do anyway. "The idea that police enforcement can stop trafficking is ludicrous. The US hasn't been able to do it and they have almost unlimited resources. You have to address the underlying economic and social issues that prompt migration across borders," he said.

Aba knows as well as anyone what they are. Four months ago, the high unemployment in Burma saw her return to Ruili illegally in search of a job.

Now, she earns 650 Yuan (£60) a month working as a waitress in a restaurant.

Her time as a trafficked teenager has left her speaking fluent Mandarin, which enables her to blend in with the locals. Learning Chinese, though, is scant compensation for the three years of her life that was stolen from her.

"I still hate the family for what they did to me," said Aba. "I think I always will." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/burmamyanmar/8739403/Burmas-women-forced-to-be-Chinese-brides.html