News & Articles on Burma-Thursday, 11 August, 2011

News & Articles on Burma
Thursday, 11 August, 2011
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Suu Kyi to meet Myanmar minister again: Spokesman
Myanmar's Suu Kyi urges reassessment of dam
Myanmar Forms Government Spokespersons, Information Team
The Long Wait for a Ceasefire
Remembering a Karen Leader
Clinton Urged to Push for End of Use of Rape as a Weapon in Burma
Mon Leader Says Govt Wants Peace Talks
Shan State Fighting Displaces 30,000 People This Year
The Military Ties That Bind
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Published: Thursday August 11, 2011 MYT 9:33:00 PM
Myanmar's Suu Kyi urges reassessment of dam

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi joined forces with environmentalists and minority groups with an appeal Thursday for the reassessment of a large dam project on the country's main river.

Suu Kyi urged the Myanmar and Chinese governments to re-examine the project on the Irrawaddy River in the interest of national and international harmony.

She called the waterway "the most significant geographical feature of our country."

Environmental groups, members of the Kachin ethnic minority and other people living along the river say the Myanmar-China Myitsone Hydroelectric Project in northern Kachin state will displace villagers and upset the ecology of the important food source.

The $3.6 billion dam being built by China in the Kachin heartland is expected to flood an area the size of Singapore. The Myanmar government has not said how much of the energy will be sold to China.

In her appeal, Suu Kyi said some 12,000 people from 63 villages have been relocated and it is not clear whether they will be fairly compensated. A commentary Wednesday in the government-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper, however, said only 2,146 people from five villages had been relocated.

"Since the commencement of the Myitsone project, the perception, long held by the Kachin people, that successive Burmese governments have neglected their interests has deepened," Suu Kyi wrote. Burma is another name for Myanmar.

"We therefore appeal to environmental experts, to conservationists and to lovers of nature, peace and harmony everywhere to join us in a campaign to create a worldwide awareness of the dangers threatening one of the most important rivers of Asia," the appeal said.

For decades, several ethnic groups have waged guerrilla wars for greater autonomy, including more control over resources in their regions. In March, fighting broke out between the 8,000-strong Kachin militia and the government.

That fighting was related to dams and other large projects being built by China, the Environmental Working Group, a coalition of 10 exile groups, said in a report last month.

Two months before the fighting erupted, the Kachin Independence Organization issued a strong protest against the Myitsone dam. http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/8/11/apworld/20110811214523&sec=apworld
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Suu Kyi to meet Myanmar minister again: Spokesman
Published on Aug 11, 2011

Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi (left) is to hold a second round of talks with the country's nominally-civilian government, her spokesman said on Thursday, amid tentative signs of a thaw in relations. -- PHOTO: AFP

YANGON (AFP) - MYANMAR'S democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi is to hold a second round of talks with the country's nominally-civilian government, her spokesman said on Thursday, amid tentative signs of a thaw in relations.

Friday's meeting with labour minister Aung Kyi will come two days before Ms Suu Kyi is due to make her first overtly political trip outside Yangon since she was freed from house arrest in November.

'We do not know more details yet,' Nyan Win, a spokesman for the Nobel Peace Prize winner and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party, told AFP.

Ms Suu Kyi's talks with the same minister last month raised hopes for an ongoing dialogue between the two sides. http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/SEAsia/Story/STIStory_700988.html
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August 11, 2011 11:09 AM

Myanmar Forms Government Spokespersons, Information Team

YANGON, Aug 11 (Bernama) -- Myanmar has formed an 11-member Government Spokespersons and Information Team, led by Union Minister of Information U Kyaw Hsan, all official media reported quoting a notification issued by the President's Office Thursday.

With Managing Director of the News and Periodicals Enterprise U Zaw Min Oo as secretary, the team was set up to undertake news and information release, holding of press conference occasionally regarding the country's political, economic, security, military and natural disaster affairs,Xinhua news agency reported.

The team also includes some deputy ministers of home affairs, foreign affairs, information and labour as well as Police Chief Kyaw Kyaw Tun, the notification said.

The formation of the team was done along with a minor reshuffle of two union ministers, reassigning Union Minister of Industry-1 U Kyaw Swa Khaing as Union Minister at the President's Office and appointing Union Minister of Industry-2 U Soe Thein concurrently as Union Minister of Industry-1.

-- BERNAMA http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsworld.php?id=607441
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The Long Wait for a Ceasefire
By WAI MOE Thursday, August 11, 2011

Despite three meetings over the last two months between Burmese army representatives and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), no agreement has been hatched that would end hostilities and bring about a ceasefire.

The government’s negotiation team is led by Col. Than Aung, a Burman national who is Minister for Security and Border Affairs in the Kachin State assembly. On the other side of the table Brig-Gen Sumlut Gun Maw, the vice-chief of staff in the KIO's military wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).

Both sides agreed on the town of Lajayang—some two hours drive from state capital Myitkyina—as a venue for negotiations, strategically situated as it is at the invisible border where government territory meets the KIO-controlled zone.

The first meeting was held on June 30. Constructive talks were held, and both delegations retired from the two-hour meeting with an agenda to consider, and they pledged to sit around the negotiation table again in the near future.

Then, on July 28, just a few days before the second round of talks, the KIO presented the government negotiators with their draft of a ceasefire.

However, by the time the follow-up meetings concluded on Aug. 1 and Aug. 2, it was clear that the chasm of mistrust and doubt was too wide to bridge.

An apparent hurdle was the questionable choice of Than Aung as a government negotiator.

A KIO video of the Aug. 2 meeting was released to The Irrawaddy. Sitting morosely at the table, Than Aung is seen to read a prepared statement from a notebook. He drones monotonously, and when discussions begin, appears at a loss for words. He repeats the line that he will pass on suggestions to his superiors.

The Kachins despaired, believing that their counterpart had no authority to make meaningful decisions.

At one point, he referred to ex Brig-Gen Thein Zaw, a MP from Myitkyina and a secretary of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) as ahba, meaning “father,” a common title that juniors use for senior officers in the Burmese military.

Than Aung then called for Thein Zaw and another senior USDP member, Aung Thaung, to act as third party witnesses for the “Gentlemen's Agreement” that was proposed. KIO officials thought this was a joke, as both men were staunchly pro-government.

Than Aung left the Kachin delegation with the impression that Naypyidaw were insincere in their negotiations, and were offended that the government would send someone so unqualified to deal with them.

“We also argued repeatedly on the definition of the government’s words “Forever Peace.” said Gun Maw. “In 2009, Lt-Gen Ye Myint [ former Chief of Military Affairs Security] also used that expression when he came to announce the government proposal for a BGF [Border Guard Force].”

The KIO and other ethnic armed groups believed the BGF proposal was no more than a thinly veiled plan to disarm them.

At the Aug. 2 meeting, Than Aung also told his Kachin counterparts that the parliament might form a committee headed by Thein Zaw to deal with the issue of ethnic conflicts during the upcoming sessions on August 22.

“We will wait for tomorrow with the best of hopes,” Than Aung told the Kachin delegation, leaving them with the impression that a ceasefire could be signed the following day.

But, for the KIO leaders, it's a case of “Tomorrow Never Comes” as the government negotiating team has still failed to respond to the KIO's draft.

Another question is the new alliance of ethnic armed groups, the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), founded in February, which includes the KIO, the Karen National Union, the Shan State Army, the Karenni National Progressive Party and the New Mon State Party.

The KIO negotiation team asked the government team what the common stance would be toward a national ceasefire as they [the KIO] were but one of several members of the UNFC, said Gun Maw, adding that after breaking 16 years of ceasefire, the alliance would require a common stance regarding peace talks.

“Despite numerous differences between the ethnic-minority groups, and a failure to act together in the past, the formation of the UNFC in February 2011 marks a new attempt by these organizations to show a united front, supporting each other in an effort to gain greater autonomy and bring an end to human-rights abuses by the military,” the Economist Intelligence Unit said in its August report on Burma.

“As part of this strategy, the UNFC has called on the government to negotiate ceasefires with all armed groups, rather than on a case-by-case basis,” the Economist Intelligence Unit reported. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21885
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Remembering a Karen Leader
By SAW YAN NAING Thursday, August 11, 2011

“Our president who we love so much, our precious leader—sadly, he has left us.

At Hto Kaw Koe, in a bamboo hut in paddy field, he withstood the enemy's attacks until the very end.

Oh, our beloved president.

He speaks to us in spirit, even though he's dead. He did his duty for his people, and now he rests forever.”

This is a song that describes the death of Saw Ba U Gyi, the father of the Karen resistance, who was killed along with eight of his comrades in a remote village Karen village on Aug 12, 1950—a event commemorated every year as Karen Martyrs' Day.

As the song recounts, the death of Saw Ba U Gyi and his fellow Karen freedom fighters occurred in a bamboo hut in the middle of a paddy field in the village of Hto Kaw Koe in Kawkareik Township, Karen State.

It happened just before dawn: the gunfire of automatic rifle blasted away at the hut, instantly killing the nine men inside.

It was a carefully planned assassination by the Burmese army against the founder of the Karen National Union, Burma's longest-running ethnic resistance group, formed in 1947. To this day it is remembered by Karen people around the world as one of the key events in their long struggle for autonomy.

But Karen Martyrs' Day doesn't just mark a single incident. According to Gen Mutu Say Poe, the military chief of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the KNU's armed wing, it also honors all of the Karen leaders, soldiers and civilians who have lost their lives because of their resistance to Burmese rule.

“This is a day that we have to commemorate because it was the day our leaders sacrificed their lives for our liberation,” said Mutu Say Poe.

The KNU first took up arms against Burma's government in 1949, when the KNLA was founded because of the government's refusal to recognize the equality of ethnic minorities in the newly independent country.

Saw Tamla Baw, the current chairman of the KNU, noted that even after more than six decades of armed resistance, the original goals of the group's founders remain beyond reach.

“Though we have struggled for liberation from the oppressive rule of the military dictatorships, we still haven't reached our goal, up to this day,” said Saw Tamla Baw in a statement. “Like martyr Saw Ba U Gyi, many leaders, comrades and common people have sacrificed their lives. We must continue to walk on our path of revolutionary resistance, which is paved with the blood and sweat of the martyrs.”

Born in 1905 in a village in Irrawaddy Division, Saw Ba U Gyi studied and practiced law in England for several years before returning to Burma and becoming involved in the Karen Central Organization in 1942. He also became a cabinet minister in the Burmese government, led by the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League, in 1946.

He was later involved in the Battle of Insein—a major outbreak of hostilities between Karen rebels and the Burmese government that lasted more than 100 days.

Tamla Baw said that despite the many difficulties the KNU has faced, including oppression and internal divisions created by the Burmese government, it still stands firmly because it upholds the “Four Principles of Saw Ba U Gyi,” the pillars of the KNU revolutionary movement.

The four principles are: surrender is out of the question; the recognition of the Karen State must be completed; we shall retain our arms; we shall decide our own political destiny.

These four principles guide not only the KNU, but also the breakaway Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), which split from the KNU in 1995.

The DKBA's decision to go its own way and sign a ceasefire with the Burmese regime was a major blow to the KNU. However, in November 2010, DKBA Brigade 5 rejoined the KNU under the leadership of Brig-Gen Saw Lah Pwe, ending a 16-year-old ceasefire agreement with the government.
“We will uphold the four principles of our Karen resistance leader Saw Ba U Gyi until we win,” said Saw Lah Pwe, whose troops will also celebrate Karen Martyrs’ Day in their bases in the countryside.
The KNU chairman said that as the new government elected in the 2010 election governs according to the Constitution written under the direction of the military dictatorship, there is not a single benefit for the ethnic nationalities.
Even after more than 60 years without reaching its stated goals, the KNU remains convinced that it will eventually achieve victory.
Brig-Gen Saw Johnny, the commander of the KNLA Brigade 7, said the KNU armed resistance will never collapse if it doesn’t give up.
Quoting the words of Saw Ba U Gyi, he said: “If we don’t go to Rangoon and let our heads get chopped off by the Burmese army, we will never lose.”
“Due to [Saw Ba U Gyi’s] great sacrifices, we have to commemorate him and all Karen revolutionaries who have died during the past 61 years of the Karen resistance,” said Johnny.
Although Saw Ba U Gyi enjoys a larger than life stature among Karen today, in his lifetime he was known as a humble man dedicated to advancing the interests of his people.
“Even when he was a lawyer in England and a cabinet minister in the Burmese government, he was not proud of his position and wealth. He sacrificed all of it and fought for his people until he died,” said Johnny.
“He didn’t think of his own interest, but only about the interests of his Karen people. He died for our Karen people to liberate them from slavery,” added Johnny.
Although it has taken part in peace talks with the Burmese junta on several occasions, the KNU has never signed a ceasefire agreement.

“We want equality, peace and freedom. We don’t want hostilities and racist riots. We don’t go to Burma cities and kill Burmans. Our armed struggle is a right one. We will win one day,” said Johnny.
If the government keeps its troops in Karen State in eastern Burma and conducts armed attacks against the Karen people, the KNLA will keep practicing its guerrilla warfare against the government troops, said Mutu Say Poe.
“If the oppression continues, our armed resistance will not end. If there is no oppression, there is no need for armed resistance. Our aim is to get our own independent state and equality,” said Mutu Say Poe. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21882
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Clinton Urged to Push for End of Use of Rape as a Weapon in Burma
By LALIT K JHA Thursday, August 11, 2011

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of more than a dozen powerful women senators has urged US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to call on the new Burmese regime to end the practice of using rape as a weapon of war.

In a letter to Clinton released to the press on Wednesday, the senators also urged her to pursue the establishment of an international Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma.

Led by Senators Diane Feinstein and Key Bailey Hutchison, these powerful women lawmakers expressed their concern about recent reports of the use of rape as a weapon of war in the renewed armed conflict between the Burmese military and ethnic armed groups.

“Given the Burmese regime’s unabated use of rape as a weapon of war, we urge you to call on the regime to end this practice and pursue our shared goal of establishing an international Commission of Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity,” the senators wrote.

“We must not allow this regime to continue to commit such dire crimes while the people of Burma continue to suffer. As members of the Senate Women’s Caucus on Burma, we express our solidarity with our friend and sister, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and express our deep commitment to the struggle for freedom and justice in Burma,” the letter said.

Other signatories to the letter include Patty Murray, Barbara Boxer, Kay Hagan, Mary Landrieu, Jeanne Shaheen, Kelly Ayotte, Amy Klobuchar, Lisa Murkowski, Barbara Mikulski, Olympia J. Snowe, Susan Collins and Patty Murray. There was no immediate reaction from the State Department.

The senators said that according to the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand, 18 Kachin women and girls were gang-raped by Burmese soldiers during the first eight days of renewed fighting between the Burmese army and the Kachin Independence Army after the end of a 17-year ceasefire. Four of these victims were also killed.

Similar reports have also emerged from northern Shan State, where the Burmese army has attacked the Shan State Army-North, ending a 22-year ceasefire. The Shan Women’s Action Network continues to document the ongoing sexual violence against civilians, including a recent horrific account of four women being raped in one village in a single day, the senators noted.

The senators also referred to the recent speeches of Suu Kyi, in which she says that rape is used in her country as a weapon against those who only want to live in peace and assert their basic human rights, especially in the areas of the ethnic nationalities.

Last month in her testimony before the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, Suu Kyi called upon the US government to do everything it can to aid in the establishment of a CoI, the senators said.

Meanwhile, Senator Jim Webb, chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, announced he will visit Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam from Aug 12 to 25.

Besides regional and bilateral issues and the increasing influence of China in the region, Burma would be a major topic of discussion when Webb holds meetings with the heads of state of each country on his itinerary, as well as top officials responsible for foreign affairs, commerce and defense and US diplomats, leading academics and businesspeople.

In Thailand, Webb will become one of the first American officials to meet with the leadership of the newly elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra. He is also slated to meet former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva for discussions about the outcome of last month’s national elections and the status of US-Thai relations.

In Singapore, Webb will discuss US-Singapore relations, maritime sovereignty issues and regional efforts to combat human trafficking. Last month, he introduced legislation to address major inconsistencies in the annual US State Department Trafficking-in-Persons Report which threaten to undermine the anti-trafficking efforts of countries such as Singapore. He will also meet with Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew.

In Indonesia and Vietnam, Webb will discuss the advancement of economic relations between the US and these two nations, as well as territorial disputes in the South China Sea and other regional security issues.

He was the original sponsor of a resolution, unanimously approved by the Senate in June, deploring the use of force by China in the South China Sea and calling for a peaceful, multilateral resolution to maritime territorial disputes in Southeast Asia. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21878
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Mon Leader Says Govt Wants Peace Talks
By LAWI WENG Thursday, August 11, 2011

The chairman of the New Mon State Party (NMSP), Nai Htaw Mon, has claimed that Mon State Chief Minister Ohn Myint has requested peace talks with his party, according to Mon sources.

“Nai Htaw Mon told us that Ohn Myint sent ethnic Mon Buddhist monks as peace brokers to negotiate the offer,” said a source who attended a meeting at the weekend near the Thai-Burmese border where the MNSP chairman reportedly made the remark.

However, sources say, Nai Htaw Mon believes the offer of peace talks is an attempt by Ohn Myint to divide his party as the latter has tried to lure the MNSP—an ethnic armed group that rejected the government's border guard force proposal in 2009—into negotiations several times before.

This time, they say, Ohn Myint used his supporters, two monks from Kamarwet village in Mudon Township, which is also the native village of the NMSP chairman.

Chairman of the Thailand-based Mon Unity League Nai Sunthorn, a participant at the meeting, said, “I advised Nai Htaw Mon not to accept the offer of peace talks from Ohn Myint. Let the UNFC [United Nationalities Federal Council] lead the peace talks.”

The UNFC is an umbrella group representing 12 of the largest ethnic parties in Burma.

“If only the NMSP are invited, they should not go alone to any peace talks,” he said.

According to Nai Ngwe Thein, the chairman of the All Mon Regions Democracy Party, (AMRDP), Ohn Myint has also told some members of his party that he wished to engage in peace talks with the NMSP leaders.

“Why they are staying in the jungle? Tell them to come back and stay in the city. I will provide them properties if they come,”Ohn Myint is alleged to have told the AMRDP members.

The NMSP leaders said last week that they will not attend peace talks alone, and that they would only consider attending as a member of the UNFC.

Several ethnic leaders have said they would like Burma’s pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi to act as lead peace broker in any negotiations between the Burmese government and the ethnic armed groups.

The NMSP leadership has stated its intention to make contact with Suu Kyi, saying they wish to discuss with her ways to solve the political crisis in Burma.

However, they say that the previous ruling military junta did not allow them to contact Suu Kyi or her party, the National League for Democracy, during the years they maintained a ceasefire agreement with the government.

“This could be a great opportunity for the ethnic leaders to get in contact with Suu Kyi and build a pact,” said Nai Wona, a member of the Mon Literature and Culture Committee in Moulmein.

Meanwhile, Burma's Vice-President Tin Aung Myint Oo claimed while he visited Mon State last weekend that his government always welcomes peace talks with ethnic minorities. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21879
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Shan State Fighting Displaces 30,000 People This Year
By TODD PITMAN / AP WRITER Thursday, August 11, 2011

BANGKOK — More than 30,000 people have been displaced by fighting in eastern Burma this year despite the army handing power over to a nominally civilian government, activist groups said Wednesday.

Civilians traumatized by atrocities by troops including rape and mutilation now face "a dire humanitarian crisis" as many have fled into forests near their villages in Shan state, according to the Shan Human Rights Foundation and the Shan Women's Action Network.

The groups called for international donors to help with aid, saying many were enduring chronic shortages of food, water, shelter and medicine, and noting 24 people had died of diarrhea and malaria in the past month.

"With the regime keeping tight control on all aid in Burma, cross-border aid is the only way to reach war-affected populations," said Shan Women's Action Network coordinator Nang Hseng Moon. "We urge international donors to respond to this humanitarian crisis before further lives are lost."

The skirmishes—which broke a 22-year cease-fire—began in March just weeks before the new civilian-led administration took over after years of rule by a military junta.

The change was supposed to herald a new democratic era in the repressive nation, but critics say little has changed and the new government has become a proxy for continued army rule.

More than 100,000 refugees remain outside the country, and hundreds of thousands more are displaced within Burma from past violence.

Fighting intensified in July, when 4,000 government troops backed by fighter jets moved to seize the northern Shan rebel group's headquarters in Wan Hai, the groups' statement said.

"Advancing through surrounding villages, troops have been scaling up atrocities against civilians, including killing, rape and mutilation," the statement said. "One dead villager was found with his leg and hand cut off."

Similar fighting further north in Kachin state has displaced 20,000 people since June. In Shan state, the groups say 31,700 people have been displaced since March. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21876
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CONTRIBUTOR
The Military Ties That Bind
By MAHN AUNG LWIN Thursday, August 11, 2011

Geisenheim is a small town in the State of Hessen of the Federal Republic of Germany that hosts a plush old spa of sumptuous beauty, where since Roman times people have bathed amidst lush forests beneath the Taunus Mountains. To the surprise of all visitors, in the middle of a vineyard near the town is a grand, Burmese style house.

The Myitta Paungku Beikman (Love Connection Monument), was built by former Burmese dictator Gen Ne Win and donated to the Fritz Werner GmbH Company (FWG) on Jan. 1, 1971 as a sign of appreciation for the company's assistance in preserving him and his much-hated military regime in power.

FWG is a Berlin-based company which since 1896 has specialized in machinery for the production of small arms and ammunition. The company, which played a vital role in Germany's WW I efforts, has cultivated a unique relationship with the Burmese ruling elite over the years. There is a great deal of mutual trust between FWG and the Burmese regime, whose military-minded leaders look for characteristics such as reliability and discretion in a business partner.

After WW II, FWG was wholly-owned by the West German government, falling under the jurisdiction of the government’s Ministry of Economy. The company was bought with money from the Marshall Fund which was meant to rebuild industries that were destroyed during WW II, a war which FWG helped fuel with its machinery for the production of weapons and ammunition.

In 1948, Burma gained independence from Great Britain, and FWG struck up its partnership with the new Burmese government in 1953. The German company's first project was the production of the BA52 submachine gun—aka the Ne Win sten.

Beginning at the time of this original contract, Ne Win cultivated friendly relations with FWG, both diplomatically and personally. Fritz Werner technical advisors posted in Rangoon had continuous access to the dictator, a rare privilege not extended to the representatives of other foreign firms. The fact that FWG was owed by the West German government itself created a close personal relationship between the two governments, causing some to say that Burma was the friendliest nation toward West Germany in Asia.

FWG’s secretive Burmese operations, which have often been shrouded under a veil of mystery, got into full swing in 1960 when the West German Ministry of Defence gave the company permission to produce G3 rifles in Burma and it later established its first weapons factory on the outskirts of Rangoon with the assistance of the West Germany arms company Heckler & Koch.

The factory was supervised by German engineers from the German Technical Corporation Agency (GTZ). Until the production of that plant started, the Burmese regime used FWG as the middleman to purchase G3 rifles through Düsseldorf based arms producer Rheinmetall, which shared production with Heckler & Koch.

In 1961, West Germany’s Foreign Office in Bonn granted permission to export 10.000 G3 rifles as well as four million rounds of ammunition manufactured by Metallwerk Elisenhütte Nassau (MEN), an FWG subsidiary, to Burma. The West German government had “no reservations” about authorizing further transfers, even when Ne Win toppled the democratic government of U Nu in 1962—Rheinmetall received permission from Bonn to sell 12.000 G3 rifles and 800 MG42 machine guns, and MEN received permission to export 18 million rounds of ammunition. Then in 1969, the West German Foreign Office permitted FWG to export machinery for the production of explosives, as well as a complete rolling mill for sheet brass.

With the assistance from West Germany, the self-sufficiency of the Burmese armed forces increased continuously, and the Burmese military often used German-produced weapons to oppress the Burmese people and various ethnic minority groups, especially after Ne Win and the military seized power in 1962.

For example, on July 7, 1962, just three days after the military’s Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) was formed, the students of Rangoon University organized a peaceful demonstration inside the Campus. The Burmese military— equipped with G3 automatic rifles—fired into the crowd of thousands of students, killing over 100 and injuring many more. The next morning, the military blew up the Rangoon University Student Union building, which was a treasured historical monument of the Burmese struggle to gain independence from Great Britain. The building was blasted to pieces by heavy explosives, and every trace of it removed.

During the 1988 democratic uprising, over 3,000 people were once again killed by Burmese troops using German-produced weapons. Despite this, the West German government welcomed Ne Win as a guest of FWG in March 1988.
In addition, after the military coup by Burmese Gen Saw Maung in Sept. 1988, the West German Federal Ministry of Economics gave permission for FWG to export machinery for the production of ammunition.
Not only did FWG set up three plants in Rangoon and Prome to produce the vast majority of armaments required by the Burmese military, they also served as a conduit for all importation of raw materials, machine parts and chemicals used in explosives production.
The cozy relationship between the West Germans and the Burmese military was something of a closely kept secret until 1988, when the democracy uprising and surrounding political crisis blew the lid off the Burmese situation and drew the attention of the whole world. Due to international pressure brought upon the West German government by the horror of the Sept. 1988 coup, it suddenly became one of the outspoken critics of the Burmese regime, as if it didn’t know before how many Burmese had died at the hands of Burmese troops firing West German weapons.
The German government did, however, suspend development co-operation activities with Burma, including negotiations regarding Burmese debt cancellation, and ceased authorization of arms shipments to Burma. But regardless of assertions made by the Germans that FWG was no longer participating in the production of weapons and explosives inside Burma, and that technical co-operation had been reduced to a minimum, the manufacture of explosives and weapons continues to date, and German employees of GTZ remain in the country, disguising their true field of expertise.

Despite Germany’s hasty withdrawal of economic support from Burma after the 1988 crackdown, it didn’t take long before FWG found an opportunity for renewed investment. In 1990, FWG formed a joint venture with the Burmese military, a partnership that was made possible thanks to an old US $500 million loan that the West German government had made to Burma in the 1960’s.

FWG stands by itself in Burma, and the joint venture grew out of a very personal relationship between the company and the Burmese generals. This personal relationship has helped preserve the Burmese military regime in power, despite the various insurgencies and unrest in the country.
Following the uprising in 1988, the European Community and the US began imposing economic sanctions on Burma, identifying the high incidence of human rights abuses by the military regime as the primary reason for imposing sanctions. However, the annual reports of the German Federal Office for Export and Trade proves that licences for the export of dual-use-goods were authorized-nearly every year, despite an EU arms embargo established in 1991.
In 1999, Germany even allowed the Burmese regime to renovate the notorious “Myitta Paungku Beitman” in Geisenheim.

On May4, 2011, during a Burma Conference in Berlin, Dr. Markus Löning, Germany’s Federal Government commissioner for human rights policy and humanitarian aid, pushed for more engagement with the Burmese military regime and for the modification of sanctions on Burma.

For many Burmese activists, Germany is just paying a lip service to the human rights situation in Burma. A cable revealed in a 2009 Wikileaks report indicated that Germany exported sophisticated equipment to Burma, which was followed by a visit of German diplomats to the factories where the machinery was installed. In 2009-10, Germany was the biggest trade partner of Burma in the European Union.

The suffering of the Burmese people at the hands of their military rulers is undeniable. The irresponsible investments by foreign firms and others are not benefitting the people of Burma, but only contributing to the torture, persecution and killing of the many ethnic nationals, monks, students and activists who are struggling for democracy inside Burma.

For the Burmese people, FWG’s cooperation and partnership with the Burmese regime has been extremely discouraging. It is time for Germany to start listening to the cry of the Burmese people for democracy, and start building a real, people to people, Myitta friendship that will live forever.
The author is a former student activist and chairman of Camp Thaybawboe run by the ABSDF. At present, he is a member of the KNU Foreign Affairs Relations efforts. http://www.irrawaddy.org/opinion_story.php?art_id=21877
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