News & Articles on Burma-Wednesday 22 June, 2011

News & Articles on Burma
Wednesday 22 June, 2011
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Aung San Suu Kyi speaks
KIA Launches Targeted Urban Attacks
New Delhi Raises Security Issue with Naypyidaw
Rao meets Suu Kyi in first high-level Indian contact with her
Kachin Women slam Burma Army for using rape as a weapon of war
18 women gang-raped in Kachin state
Burmese Army Accused of Raping Kachin Civilians
Mass defections hit govt border forces
Burma pledges to rout Indian separatists
Burma chamber of commerce members have ‘dialogue’ in Sweden
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Aung San Suu Kyi speaks

Editorial Desk
The Statesman
Publication Date : 22-06-2011

There are two facets of Aung San Suu Kyi’s BBC lectures that have been smuggled out of Burma, coinciding with her 66th birthday. Quite the most critical, decidedly a deviation from her hitherto non-violent struggle for democracy, is the hint that ‘it’s possible’ to change her commitment to non-violence. She has spoken as a free citizen in a country that uses a spurious brand of democracy to serve as a shambolic facade to the rule of the junta.

The icon of democracy has referred to Mahatma Gandhi, who in her reckoning is the father of non-violence, to say, “between cowardice and violence he would choose violence any time”. Indeed, Suu Kyi has drawn a fine distinction while dwelling on the rationale of non-violence.

“I do not hold to non-violence for moral reasons but practical and political reasons.” Clearly, after two decades of detention and denial of power, she is now in a position to reflect, and with a remarkable degree of mental freedom. Implicitly does she realise that the non-violent struggle for democracy has led Burma nowhere. On the contrary, it has reinforced the repression of the junta, borne out by her extended detention and the ruthless suppression of the peaceful movement by the Buddhist clergy some years ago.

Is it possible that Suu Kyi has been influenced by the Arab Spring? Notably, she has been impressed by the internet technology that has lent an impetus to the movements in the Arab world. Hence perhaps her touching faith in a violent struggle should the need arise. It is significant too that she has compared Burma’s 23-year-old movement for democracy with the jasmine revolution in Egypt and Tunisia. She has been emphatic in her assertion that “the similarities between Tunisia and Burma are the similarities that bind people all over the world who yearn for freedom.” Yet the jasmine whiff is unlikely to stir her country just yet given the divisions within the National League for Democracy.

One section has played into the junta’s hands by participating in the elections. No less crucially, the military remains firmly entrenched unlike the occupants of the rusted thrones. Nonetheless, it is the change in perception that the world must take note of. Non-violence may have reached its sell-by date in Burma. As a free citizen, Aung San Suu Kyi has spoken the language of an intrepid crusader. She has exercised what she calls her ‘right of freedom of communication’. http://www.asianewsnet.net/home/news.php?id=19555&sec=3
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KIA Launches Targeted Urban Attacks
By SAW YAN NAING Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Although fighting between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and Burmese government troops in Kachin State has diminished in recent days, tension remains and the KIA continues to launch targeted attacks in urban areas, according to local sources.

On Tuesday night, two bombs went off at government’s buildings—a police station and an immigration office—in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State in northern Burma.

A police official at Police Station No. 1 in Myitkyina confirmed the explosion, but said there were no casualties. He said he believed the KIA was behind the plot.

La Nan, the joint-secretary of the KIA’s political wing, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), said that the bomb attacks were launched by the KIA in accordance with its policy of choosing targets where civilians would not be injured.

“The bombs went off at an immigration office and at Police Station No. 1, and no civilian was hurt. We attacked in places where we should attack. We only target the government’s important sectors,” said La Nan.

Seng Aung, a Kachin youth living in Laiza, the KIA’s headquarters on the Sino-Burma border, said that there was also an explosion last night at a bridge near Baw Hpum Yan, which is located on the route from Bhamo to Myitkyina.

In addition, the Thailand-based Kachin News Group reported that on Tuesday at midnight the KIA used mines to blow up a strategic railway bridge located on the Namkoi River between Myitkyina and Mandalay. The KIA targeted the railway because it is the main route used by the government to send reinforcements and supplies to Kachin State.

The KIA said it has not had any contact with the government following their last talks on June 19, and despite the fact that skirmishes between government troops and the KIA have died down for now, the KIA has not called a cease fire.

“We haven’t ordered our troops at the frontline to cease fire with the government troops,” said La Nan.

Meanwhile, on June 18-19, the KIA released 18 government soldiers that it arrested and detained during fighting with the government troops.

Some villagers in Maijayang Village, Momauk Township who fled home recently returned home two days ago and recommenced farming, said La Aung, a resident of Maijayang.

He said the situation has become more stable, but many villagers are still seeking refuge in Laiza.

Some 10,000 Kachin people previously fled their homes and sought refuge in Laiza and other locations on the Sino-Burma border due to the hostilities that first broke out between the government and the KIA troops in northern Burma on June 9. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21543
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New Delhi Raises Security Issue with Naypyidaw
By SAI ZOM HSENG Wednesday, June 22, 2011

During an official three-day visit to Burma, India's Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna raised the issue of border security in bilateral talks with his Burmese counterpart, Wunna Maung Lwin, on Tuesday in Naypyidaw.

According to news agency Press Trust of India, Burma reiterated its firm assurance that it will not allow its territory to be used as a base for any anti-India activities. Security cooperation has been a major part of India-Burma relations because of the long border—1,463 km—that the countries share.

One of the members of the Indian delegation was quoted by the Indian news agency as saying that “the talks were excellent, positive, constructive and forward looking.”

The delegation also reportedly congratulated Burma on holding successful elections that saw the formation of its first civilian government in decades.

Tint Swe, a New Delhi-based Burma observer, said that India is concerned Burma's growing dependence on China.

Burma's new president, Thein Sein, visited Beijing on his first overseas trip as president last month when he discussed with the Chinese government conditions for the Chinese navy to dock in Burmese ports and secure direct access to the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean.

London-based The Economist reported on June 9 that China is now the country with the greatest influence on Burma, and is the biggest investor in the Southeast Asian nation's energy, dams, mines and other natural resources.

“As its economic interests have grown, China has pressed for more access to Burma’s harbours and territorial waters, to monitor the security of the new port and pipelines and to keep an eye out for pirates. But this is a neuralgic issue for a country with a deep-seated suspicion of its powerful northern neighbor,” the report said.

Tint Swe said that the Indian government is also concerned about the ongoing armed conflicts in northern Burma, and the recent outbreak of hostilities between Burmese government forces and the Kachin Independence Army.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Wednesday, Tint Swe said, “Kachin State borders Sagaing Division in Burma, and it is in Sagaing that the Naga insurgents who fight against the Indian army are based. The Indian government wants to apply pressure on the Naga insurgents via its military cooperation with Naypyidaw.”

Earlier this month, the Burmese army reinforced its troop strength in the Ta-nai region of Sagaing Division ahead of clashes in Kachin State. Military observers speculated that the maneuver was directed toward the Naga insurgents, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland.

Prior to his visit to Burma, the Indian foreign minister launched a press release saying that he would discuss 110 million-dollar Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project. “We also propose to initiate a few new projects,” he said in the statement.

Several political observers have said that since India lost the opportunity to invest in the Lido highway project and the Tamanthi dam project, the Kaladan project is its last hope in Burma.

Burma’s government singed an MoU with India’s National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) in 2004 for the development of the Tamanthi Dam on the Chindwin River in western Sagaing Division. However, Naypyidaw reneged on the deal in May with economic observers saying that the contract would soon be issued to China instead.

The 1,079-km Lido highway, or “Stillwell Road,” was built during World War II by American general Joe "Vinegar" Stillwell to supply Kuomintang forces against Japan. It passes through the towns of Shingbwiyang, Myitkyina and Bhamo in Kachin State.

However, India abandoned plans in 2009 to reopen the road that could have connected its remote northeastern states to China's Yunnan province via Burma.

According to Aung Linn Htut, a former Burmese military intelligence officer, relations between the two countries are largely based on the countries' intelligence services. In 1992, India proposed to Burma's new military junta that the two countries agree to cooperate militarily—channeling military equipment and supplies, exchanging intelligence, and initiating training programs for Burmese military officers in India.

According to Burma's state-run The New Light of Myanmar, the Indian delegation also handed over the paperwork on a 500-ton capacity food security shelter, which was built in the Irrawaddy delta under a Burma-India friendship program. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21546
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Rao meets Suu Kyi in first high-level Indian contact with her
Yangon, Jun 22 (PTI)

In the first high-level Indian contact with Myanmar's pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao met the Nobel laureate here and both expressed a desire for the bilateral relationship to ''blossom and grow''.

Rao, who was here as part of the delegation of External Affairs Minister S M Krishna during his three-day visit to Myanmar that ended today, called on Suu Kyi on Monday at her residence, official sources said.

The meeting, which was not part of Rao's schedule here, lasted for an hour, during which she "felicitated" Suu Kyi on her 66th birthday which was on Sunday, they said.

"Both expressed a desire for this relationship to blossom and grow," a source said.
Asked why Krishna, who headed the Indian delegation, did not meet Suu Kyi, the sources said he had a tight schedule and that the Indian Ambassador to Myanmar, V S Seshadri, had met her earlier.

Rao's meeting with Suu Kyi was, however, kept under wraps till the Indian delegation left the country.

The sources privy to the conversation that took place between the two said that Suu Kyi recalled her days in India, including the time she spent with her Indian friends.

Suu Kyi, who was recently freed from several years of house arrest, had done her Bachelors in Political Science from Lady Sri Ram College in New Delhi from where she graduated in 1964. She also lived in Shimla prior to her return to Myanmar in 1988.The sources said Rao spoke to Suu Kyi about India's relationship with Myanmar, which recently got its first civilian government in years, and New Delhi's help to this country in various fields.

Suu Kyi, welcoming India's role as a partner in economic development of Myanmar, spoke about the need for greater people-to-people contacts, the sources said.

She also spoke about the emotional and religious ties between the two countries.
As a prisoner in her own country, locked in her lakeside home in Yangon, Suu Kyi spent 15 of the past 21 years under house arrest. She was freed in November last year.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/170725/rao-meets-suu-kyi-first.html
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Kachin Women slam Burma Army for using rape as a weapon of war
By Zin Linn Jun 22, 2011 7:48PM UTC

The Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT) released a press statement on Tuesday (21 June) denouncing Burmese government’s armed forces for using use of rape as a weapon of war in northern Burma offensive. Moreover, KWAT also demands an immediate end to the Burmese military regime’s widespread use of sexual violence in their offensive against the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). Burma.

According to the press release, at least 18 women and girls have been gang-raped by government soldiers. It happened between June 10 and 18, last week, during Burma Army assaults on KIA positions along the Sino-Burma border. Four of these women were killed after being raped. One incident was so inhumane that the victim was raped in front of her husband, who was tied up and forced to watch. Another woman died from her injuries due to gang-rape.

KWAT also said in its statement that soldiers from five Burma Army’s battalions (Light Infantry Battalion 437 and Infantry Battalions 237, 141, 142, 139 and 437) had committed rapes, in four townships in Bhamo District. Two particularly brutal incidents took place on June 18, in Dum Bung village, Mo Mauk township of Bhamo. Government soldiers from LIB 437 caught three families who had not managed to flee in time. Six women and girls were gang- raped, and 7 kids were killed cruelly. In Je Sawn village, Man Si township of Bhamo, soldiers from LIB 139 gang-raped a 7-year-old girl and her grandmother and Killed them.

According to Kachin News Group [KNG], a local source said that Burmese troops raped women and small girls and also killed small children in Dum Bung village on Ledo road in western Kachin State. They took away men from three families to use as porters as they could not escape from government troops.

On June 17 in Sinbo, where 17 Burmese soldiers from Light Infantry 141were killed in action by Kachin Independence Army (KIA) battalion 5, a woman with four children and three other girls under 20 years of age were raped by Burmese troops. Although the three girls were not killed the woman died after the incident, the source said.

Another source said a couple was tortured and the wife died after being raped in Dawhpumyang village near Myitkyina the capital of Kachin State. In addition, a KIA officer on the front line informed KNG that Burmese troops deployed in Manje (Mansi) township in southern Kachin State are arresting and killing civilians. Three Kachin residents from these areas have been killed by the soldiers.

These incidents are not random acts of violence, said KWAT spokesperson Shirley Seng, according to Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N.). The Burma Army is committing gang-rape and killing on a wide scale. It is clear they are acting under orders, Shirley Seng said.

KWAT demands that the regime immediately stops using rape as a weapon of war, ends the offensive against Kachin and other ethnic groups, and withdraws from the ethnic areas.

KWAT is also urging China to provide safe haven and humanitarian aid to those fled for their security, and to act as a go-between in the conflict.

The regime is committing atrocities on China doorstep, and destabilizing the border area, said Shirley Seng. She also said that it will be beneficial to China mediating the root causes of the political conflict of the nation en route for a genuine resolution. http://asiancorrespondent.com/58046/kachin-women-slam-burma-army-for-using-rape-as-a-weapon-of-war/
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18 women gang-raped in Kachin state
By NAW NOREEN
Published: 22 June 2011
18 women gang-raped in Kachin state thumbnail
Burmese troops sit by the side of a street in Rangoon. Use of rape as a weapon of war by the Burmese army is well-documented (Reuters)

Eighteen cases of gang-rape of Kachin women by Burmese troops have been confirmed by a Thailand-based rights group in the past three weeks, but it says the total could be nearer to 30.

A statement released today by the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT), which on Monday reported the rape of seven women, four of whom were then murdered, said that the 18 gang-rapes happened in an eight-day period between 10 and 18 June.

“Soldiers from five different battalions … committed the rapes, in four townships of Bhamo District,” the statement said. Bhamo has been the epicentre of fighting since 9 June between Burmese forces and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).

It added that two particularly horrific incidents had occurred in two villages in Bhamo. In the first case, in Dum Bung village, Burmese troops “caught three families who had not managed to flee in time. Six women and girls were gang-raped, and seven small children killed”.

In Je Sawn village, soldiers “killed a 7-year-old girl and then gang-raped and killed her grandmother”.

While the allegations cannot be independently verified by DVB, there has been extensive historical documentation of rape by Burmese troops during military offensives in ethnic regions.

Opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi told a summit of Nobel prize winners in May that rape in Burma is a “very real problem” and “is used as a weapon by armed forces to intimidate the ethnic nationalities and to divide our country”.

Shirley Seing from KWAT said that reports of rape had come from five locations along the route being used by the Burmese army to mobilise columns as they continue their offensive against the KIA, which has launched several counterattacks in recent weeks.

“We only reported the 18 cases we could confirm, based on accounts from refugees and porters – we learnt there were about 30 cases,” said Shirley Seng.

The fighting is estimated to have displaced around 10,000 people, some of whom have crossed into China and some of whom have travelled to the KIA headquarters in Laiza, north of Bhamo.

The KWAT statement urged China to provide aid to the refugees and mediate in the conflict.

“The regime is committing atrocities on China doorstep, and destabilizing the border area … We believe it is in China’s interest to mediate towards a genuine resolution of the political root causes of the conflict.”
http://www.dvb.no/news/18-women-gang-raped-in-kachin-state/16265
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Burmese Army Accused of Raping Kachin Civilians
By KO HTWE Wednesday, June 22, 2011

A Kachin human rights group has accused Burmese government troops of multiple cases of rape during the recent armed conflict with the Kachin Independence Army in Kachin State, northern Burma.

In the statement released on Tuesday, Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT) claims that at least 18 female Kachins—aged between 15 and 50 years old—were gang-raped by five different Burmese Army battalions in four different townships of Bhamo District from June 10-18.

Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 437 and Infantry Battalions (IB) 237, 141, 142, 139 and 437 committed the rapes in Momauk, Monyin, Mansi and Bhamo townships, KWAT alleges.

The statement also highlights evidence that IB 437 soldiers detained three families in Dum Bung Village of Momauk Township, gang-raped six women and girls and killed seven small children. The group also accuses soldiers from IB 139 of murdering a seven-year-old girl in Je Sawn Village of Man Si Township before gang-raping and killing her grandmother.

“I received this evidence from residents, porters and members of our group who are helping refugees in the area. We heard nearly 25 women have been raped in the war zone but 18 of them have been confirmed,” said KWAT spokesperson Shirley Seng to The Irrawaddy on Wednesday.

La Nan, joint-secretary of the Kachin Independence Organization, said that cases of rape in the area are difficult to investigate as it is currently under government control.

“The number of victims is likely to be higher than that mentioned by KWAT because there are villages that we cannot reach. We are trying to collect evidence regarding these matters,” explained La Nan.

While The Irrawaddy cannot independently verify any of these cases, the Burmese government has not yet responded to these allegations.

Roi Htoi, a young resident of Liaza, said that villagers far from the town are victims of gang rape. A local Kachin youth group, Education Economics Development for Youth, also distributed a statement on June 16 advising local residents, especially women, to move to safer places.

Another ethnic women’s group, the Shan Women’s Action Network, based in Thailand, released a report entitled License to Rape in 2002, which documented over 600 rapes and sexual assaults committed by Burmese government troops in Shan State.

In 2007, Thailand-based Karen Women’s Organization also released a report called State of Terror which documented more than 4,000 cases of abuse, rape, murder, torture and forced labor by the Burmese regime’s forces in recent years in around 200 Karen villages.

“Gang-rape has been one of the regular tactics of the military regime,” said Tin Tin Nyo, general secretary of Thailand-based NGO Women’s League of Burma (WLB), comprised of 12 Burmese women’s ethnic groups.

“Women don't create the war, but negative consequences of the conflict directly affect them with gang-rape taking place whenever there is a clash. That is why I was worried that the fighting is occurring again,” she said.

“They [military regime] say that a civilian government has now been sworn into power, but the rape cases that still take place demonstrate that nothing is different. Although the government has apparently changed, I'm sure that women are still victims of rape,” added Tin Tin Nyo.

Women's rights groups have long accused Burmese government soldiers of using systematic rape against ethnic women as a weapon and strategy to terrorize the ethnic population.

Since 1997, the Burmese regime has destroyed more than 3,000 villages and displaced over half-a-million civilians in eastern Burma, according to the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, an umbrella organization responsible for the distribution of aid at the Thai-Burmese border.

Recently, international and regional human rights groups —including the International Federation for Human Rights, Altsean-Burma and Burma Lawyers’ Council—urged the European Union to support the establishment of a UN Security Council Commission of Inquiry into crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Burma. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21544
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Mass defections hit govt border forces
By NAW NOREEN
Published: 22 June 2011

Troops from four Border Guard Force units in a Karen state region have mutinied as Burmese army battalions are deployed in preparation for a retaliatory offensive.

The majority of the defectors have joined the ranks of the opposition Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), according to DKBA Colonel Kyaw Thu, while some have returned to their original Burmese army brigades.

Kyaw Thu said that the DKBA, which steadfastly refused to transform into a government-controlled border force, has been bolstered by as many as 1000 soldiers since the series of defections on 12 June.

Two Light Infantry Divisions (LID) of the Burmese army are now mobilising in the Myainggyingu region of Karen state where the renegade units are based. The Border Guard Force (BGF) 1012 was the first to break rank last month when around 500 soldiers joined the DKBA.

Reports are circulating that two more LIDs have been sent but are yet to reach the Myainggyingu, which lies around 35km from the Thai border. Each LID is made up of 10 Light Infantry Brigades which are specially trained in counter-insurgency and jungle warfare.

Kyaw Thu, who belongs to the DKBA unit led by Brigadier General Na Kham Mwe, said that the “situation was getting worse” in Myainggyingu as more Burmese army units arrive. He added that the DKBA had “special plans” for a counterattack, and would be joined by the KNLA.

Last year the government threatened force against ethnic armies that refused to transform into BGFs. Only a handful agreed, while decades-old ceasefires between the government and some of Burma’s most prominent insurgent groups have collapsed.

The recent manoeuvres by government troops mark a further escalation of hostilities in Burma’s border regions, where several groups have refused to transform into government-controlled BGFs. Fighting has raged in Kachin state over the past fortnight, while Burmese troops have also launched assaults on the Shan State Army.
http://www.dvb.no/news/mass-defections-hit-govt-border-forces/16259
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Burma pledges to rout Indian separatists
By FRANCIS WADE
Published: 22 June 2011

An Indian paramilitary searches for ULFA troops in Assam state in northeast India, close to the border with Burma (Reuters)

Indian separatists sheltering in northwest Burma will be purged and the shared border tightened to prevent arms and insurgents from crossing between the two countries, the Burmese government has told a visiting Indian minister.

Several rebel groups, notably the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), are believed to have bases inside Kachin state in Burma from which they can exploit the porous border. The two countries have signed counter-terror pacts aimed at stemming cross-border movement of rebels and weapons, and Delhi has bolstered security on its side of the border, but so far little has been done by Burma.

Indian external affairs minister, S M Krishna, who is in Naypyidaw for talks with the Burmese government, was given “firm assurances” that the mountainous frontier region will not be used as a launch pad by groups like the ULFA for attacks against the Indian government, according to the Press Trust of India (PTI).

Krishna met with both the Burmese Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin and Vice President Tin Aung Myint Oo. He is the first high-level Indian official to visit Burma since the new government came to power in March.

India has long been attempting to court the Burmese government, both due to the country’s sizeable energy reserves and its strategic position as a gateway to ASEAN economies. Burma is the only country in ASEAN that shares a border with India.

A gesture of closer economic relations came from Krishna in the form of 10 heavy duty rice silos designed to protect grains during natural disasters, such as the powerful cyclone that destroyed southern Burma in 2008.

According to the Kolkata-based The Statesman newspaper, bilateral trade between the two countries reached $US1.2 billion in the last fiscal year, doubling from the 12 months prior. Although India is Burma’s fourth largest trade partner, the volume still falls well behind China, which invested up to US$12 billion in the same period.

India’s campaign to build closer economic ties with Naypyidaw is seen as a wider attempt by Delhi to counter China’s growing influence in the Asia region, which will grow considerably once the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement starts bearing fruit. Burma is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and has opened its doors to substantial Chinese investment.

But Burma is also known for its ability to play competing countries off against one another, and may be looking to economic investment from India as a countervailing force to its dependence on China, which is behind the vast majority of energy projects in its southern neighbour.

India has made moves towards developing its northeast region where four states border Burma, both to facilitate increased cross-border trade and to help boost security. The plans include the construction of a 1,500km road along the borderline, as well as 50 helipads that will allow quicker deployment of border forces to separatist territory.

The Indian government has also looked to expand on its transport routes along the border with China, also as means to more effectively deploy troops in the event of unrest. That frontier is undermanned as India’s 4.5 million-strong military focuses its efforts on the volatile Pakistan border, as well as tackling several insurgent groups.
http://www.dvb.no/news/burma-pledges-to-rout-indian-separatists/16252
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Burma chamber of commerce members have ‘dialogue’ in Sweden
Wednesday, 22 June 2011 14:42 Thomas Maung Shwe

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) - The Swedish government has confirmed that several members of the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI) traveled to Sweden in May as part of Swedish initiative to promote sustainable development and corporate social responsibility.

Myanmar Egress founder and Burmese newspaper and magazine publisher Dr. Nay Win Maung, one of the members of the delegation to Sweden.

Myanmar Egress founder and Burmese newspaper and magazine publisher Dr. Nay Win Maung, one of the members of the delegation to Sweden.
The delegates were visiting at the invitation of the International Council of Swedish Industry (NIR), which is funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).

According to a statement issued by SIDA in response to the controversy created in Sweden by the visit, the Burmese delegates were invited as part of a SIDA-funded program that NIR has embarked on that involves promoting the ‘objective to create a dialogue with industry and commerce representatives on issues such as market principles in several countries, including Burma’.

Burma continues to face trade sanctions despite elections in November 2010 that brought in a democratically elected government, one that critics claim is run behind the scenes by the military.

According to the Swedish media, Jytte Guteland, the head of the youth wing of the opposition Social Democrats, issued a press release demanding that the Swedish government explain the delegation’s visit and answer whether the visit meant that Swedish policy towards Burma had changed.

The SIDA statement indicated that the delegates were brought to Sweden to have a dialogue with NIR that ‘focused on corporate social responsibility, transparency and sustainable development’.

According to SIDA, to carry out this programme NIR has 'been in contact with reform-minded individuals in business organizations. The invitees were individual representatives of Burmese industry and commerce, known for wanting to pursue economic reforms’.

The Swedish news site Omvärlden first reported that the delegation included members of the Myanmar Chamber of Commerce. Both Omvärlden and Mizzima receive financial support from SIDA.

SIDA spokesperson Tove Silveira Wennergren told Mizzima that although representatives of the Myanmar Chamber of Commerce were included in the delegation they ‘were not invited as representatives of the Chamber, and there has been no direct contact with the Chamber as an institution’.

The Myanmar Chamber of Commerce was until recently headed by the EU blacklisted Burmese businessman Win Myint, Burma’s new commerce minister. While the chamber itself was never blacklisted by the EU, it does appear on the American sanctions list of entities that are identified and targeted for being close to the Burmese military regime.

SIDA spokesperson Silveira Wennergren declined to tell Mizzima what other organizations or businesses the rest of the delegation came from. ‘Unfortunately, due to the nature of this visit and in consideration of the security of the participants, SIDA cannot disclose detailed information about the participants and their respective affinities’, she said.

Last month, NIR director of operations Sofia Svingby told Omvärlden that the delegation included members of Myanmar Egress, a self-declared civil society organization that is a registered business in Burma and charges tuition for students to take ‘civil society’ classes at the organization’s head office located in a Rangoon hotel.

Photos of the delegation posted on the Omvärlden Web site show that Myanmar Egress founder, Burmese newspaper and magazine publisher Dr. Nay Win Maung, was part of the delegation. Nay Win Maung, who started his first magazine with the help of Ye Naing Win, son of then SPDC Prime Minister and Military Intelligence Chief Khin Nyunt, remains a controversial figure in Burmese opposition circles.
http://www.mizzima.com/news/world/5466-burma-chamber-of-commerce-members-have-dialogue-in-sweden.html

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