By Associated Press June 17 at 11:33 AM WASHINGTON — The United States says Myanmar should reform its constitution to allow its citizens a free choice over who should be its next president, but Myanmar’s government said Tuesday that’s none of Washington’s business. A Myanmar parliamentary committee last week voted against changing a constitutional clause that bars opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming president. National elections are due in 2015. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that enabling the Myanmar people to freely choose who they want to lead them in the next phase of its democratic transition will help to ensure stability. “We believe constitutional reform should pave the way for the Burmese to freely choose their president in a free and fair 2015 election,” Psaki said in a written response to a question posed at a news briefing Monday. Reform should also address ethnic minority rights and decrease the role of active-duty military in political structures, she said. In response, Myanmar presidential spokesman Ye Htut said Tuesday it’s the responsibility of Myanmar’s parliament and people to decide how the constitution should be amended. “It is not the concern of the United States. It is inappropriate for us to tell how the U.S. should amend their constitution and likewise the U.S should not dictate how it should be amended,” he told The Associated Press by email. That testy response reflects signs of fraying in U.S.-Myanmar relationship. Over the past two years, the Obama administration has been a staunch supporter of President Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government as he steers the Southeast Asian nation from decades of oppressive military rule. The U.S. has restored full diplomatic relations and rolled back sanctions, helping Myanmar to shake off its pariah status. But the U.S. has also been critical of the government’s response to bouts of anti-Muslim violence in the predominantly Buddhist nation. Last week the State Department voiced serious concerns about proposals to criminalize interfaith marriage. The current constitution gives the military an effective veto over constitutional amendments, and includes a clause that bars anyone whose spouse or children are loyal to foreign countries from becoming president or vice president. Suu Kyi’s late husband and her two sons are British citizens. If the parliamentary committee’s recommendation is endorsed by the full parliament, it is likely to have a significant impact on the 2015 election. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party is expected to mount a strong challenge, with a good possibility of winning, but without Suu Kyi as a prospective president, its backers may flag in their support. Suu Kyi is widely respected in Washington because of her long and peaceful struggle against military rule. She spent years under house arrest before her release in 2010 and election to parliament in 2012. ____ Aye Aye Win reported from Yangon, Myanmar. Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Japan may set 2-stage approval by Cabinet over collective self-defense
Japan may set a two-stage approval process for the Cabinet before lifting the self-imposed ban on exercising the right to collective self-defense, ruling party sources said Thursday, as the outlook remains uncertain for the ruling bloc to reach an early agreement over the controversial issue. The New Komeito party has proposed to the Liberal Democratic Party of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that the Cabinet first approve a roadmap of legal challenges that need to be tackled, and then what steps Japan will take, including reinterpreting the Constitution to allow the exercise of the right to collective self-defense, the sources added. The two-stage process would enable the government to make necessary preparations to draft legislation after the first stage, while New Komeito can buy time and put off what could be the most contentious issue of deciding whether Japan should defend allies under armed attack in collective self-defense. The plan has been floated as a compromise for the ruling parties to avoid a rift and some LDP lawmakers have expressed their support, although the government has yet to give the nod, according to the sources. Tokyo is seeking early approval in time for the planned revision to Japan-U.S. defense cooperation guidelines by the end of the year, and hopes to revise relevant laws from an extraordinary Diet session in the fall. In the first round of approval, the Cabinet would recognize a set of domestic legal challenges in three major areas -- how to handle "gray zone" incidents that are not considered full-fledged military attacks on Japan, U.N. peacekeeping and collective security operations, and whether to exercise the right to collective self-defense, the sources said. The LDP and the junior coalition partner New Komeito started their debate earlier this week on reworking Japan's legal framework amid security threats from an assertive China and North Korea's nuclear and missile development programs. The parties have already decided to focus on "gray zone" incidents first, rather than tackling the controversial issue of collective self-defense from the start. Some New Komeito lawmakers have suggested the ruling bloc should not wait until they can agree on all of the three areas to start drafting legislation, but the LDP has insisted that the three should be a package. Prime Minister Abe is seeking to secure the support of the ruling parties for lifting the self-imposed ban by a Cabinet decision, but New Komeito remains cautious about reinterpreting the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution that has never been amended since 1947. Japan has maintained it has the right to collective self-defense but cannot exercise it due to the constraints of Article 9. In a report submitted to Abe last week, a panel of security experts argued that collective self-defense falls under "the minimum" level of defense allowed under the supreme law and called for changing the current interpretation. ==Kyodo Copyright 2014 Kyodo News International. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/kyodo-news-international/140522/japan-may-set-2-stage-approval-cabinet-over-collective
Monday, June 7, 2010
၂၀၀၈ ဖြဲ႕႔စည္းပံု အေျခခံဥပေဒႏွင့္ အနာဂတ္-ဘီဘီစီ-ဇြန္ ၅၊ ၂၀၁၀
5th June 2010 - MoeMaKa Daily
၂၀၀၈ ဖြဲ႕႔စည္းပံု အေျခခံဥပေဒႏွင့္ အနာဂတ္
ဘီဘီစီ
ဇြန္ ၅၊ ၂၀၁၀
“ဟုတ္ကဲ့ … က်မတို႔ အဲဒါေတြ နားမလည္ဘူး။ ဖြဲ႔စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္မႈဆိုတာကို မသိဘူး။ အင္း … အေရးေတာ့ ပါတာေပါ့၊ ဘယ္လိုမ်ဳိး အေရးပါလဲဆိုေတာ့ အဲလိုက်ေတာ့ ဘယ္လိုေျပာရမွန္းကို မသိဘူး၊ နားမလည္ဘူး”
“စိတ္မဝင္စားၾကဘူး၊ လူေတာ္ေတာ္မ်ားမ်ားက အဲဒါကို၊ အဲဒါက်ေတာ့ မသိဘူးဗ်၊ အခုမွ မဖတ္ၾကတာ မဟုတ္ဘူး။ ေတာ္႐ံုတန္႐ံု ဘယ္သူမွ သတင္းစာကို ဖတ္ကို မဖတ္ၾကည့္ေတာ့တာ”
“အဲ … ဆႏၵခံယူပြဲအတြက္ ဟိုဟာလုပ္ထားတာေတြ က်မတို႔ဘာမွ နားမလည္ေသးဘူး လို႔”
“မသိဘူးဗ်၊ စာေတြလည္း သိပ္မဖတ္ရေတာ့က် မသိဘူး”
“သိသလားဆိုေတာ့ မသိကိုမသိတာ။ ဖတ္လည္း မဖတ္ဘူး၊ သြားလည္း မသြားဘူး၊ လူတိုင္း ခံယူခ်က္ေပါ့ေနာ္”
ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံုအေျခခံဥပေဒဆိုတာဘာလဲလို႔ လက္လွမ္းမီသေလာက္ ေမးၾကည့္ခဲ့တဲ့ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံထဲက လူႀကီးလူငယ္ အိမ္ရွင္မေတြရဲ႕အေျဖကို ၾကားခဲ့ၾကရတာ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံုအေျခခံဥပေဒဆိုတာကို ဘယ္လိုအဓိပၸာယ္ ဖြဲ႔ဆိုႏိုင္ပါသလဲ။ BLC လို႔ေခၚတဲ့ ျပည္ပအေျခစိုက္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေရွ႕ေနမ်ားေကာင္စီရဲ႕ အေထြေထြအတြင္းေရးမွဴး ဥပေဒပညာရွင္ ဦးေအာင္ထူးက အခုလို အဓိပၸာယ္ဖြင့္ဆိုပါတယ္။
“ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံုအေျခခံဥပေဒဆိုတာ ႏိုင္ငံသားေတြရဲ႕ အေျခခံအခြင့္အေရးေတြကို အားေကာင္းေကာင္းနဲ႔ အာမခံ ျပ႒ာန္းထားတာျဖစ္ပါတယ္၊ ေနာက္တခ်က္ကေတာ့ ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံုအေျခခံဥပေဒဆိုတာ တိုင္းျပည္ရဲ႕ပင္မဥပေဒ ျဖစ္တယ္၊ အဲဒီ ဥပေဒကေနၿပီးေတာ့ ဥပေဒစိုးမိုးေရးအျခခံကို တည္ေဆာက္ႏိုင္ဖို႔ တန္းတူညီမွ်မႈကို အာမခံရပါတယ္။
အဲေတာ့ ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံု အေျခခံဥပေဒဆိုတာက ႏိုင္ငံသားေတြရဲ႕အခြင့္အေရးကို ျပ႒ာန္း႐ံုနဲ႔မရဘဲနဲ႔ အဲဒီအခြင့္အေရးကို ကာကြယ္ႏိုင္ဖို႔အတြက္ ယႏၱယားေတြ တပ္ဆင္ထားေပးရတယ္။ အနည္းဆံုးအားျဖင့္ေတာ့ ႏိုင္ငံသားေတြရဲ႕ အခြင့္အေရးကို ထိပါးလာရင္ ကာကြယ္ေစာင့္ေရွာက္ႏိုင္မယ့္ လြတ္လပ္တဲ့ တရားစီရင္ေရးလိုဟာမ်ဳိးေတြကို အားေကာင္းေကာင္းနဲ႔ ျပ႒ာန္းေပးထားတယ္၊ ဒီလို အေျခခံမ်ဳိးနဲ႔ ျပင္ဆင္ျပ႒ာန္းေပးထားတဲ့ အရာမ်ဳိးကိုမွသာလွ်င္ ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံုအေျခခံဥပေဒလို႔ ေခၚပါတယ္”
ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံုဆိုင္ရာ အေျခခံဥပေဒကိုၾကည့္ရင္ ၂ မ်ဳိး ၂ စားေတြ႔ရတယ္လို႔ ဂ်ပန္ႏိုင္ငံ ကန္ဒ တကၠသိုလ္က သမိုင္းပညာရွင္ ေဒါက္တာေအးခ်မ္းက အခုလို သမိုင္းေနာက္ခံနဲ႔ ေျပာျပပါတယ္။
“Constitutionalism လို႔ ေခၚတဲ့ စည္းမ်ဥ္းခံအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရးစနစ္ရဲ႕သမိုင္းကို ျပန္ၾကည့္ရင္ေပါ့ေလ၊ ဖြဲ႔စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပံု အေျခခံဥပေဒဆိုတာ ၂ မ်ဳိး ၂ စား ေတြ႔ရပါလိမ့္မယ္။ တမ်ဳိးကေတာ့ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ခံျပည္သူေပါ့၊ ေအာက္ေျခထုက အထက္လႊာ သက္ဦးဆံပိုင္ အာဏာရွင္ေတြ (သို႔တည္းမဟုတ္) ႏိုင္ငံတခုကိုထူေထာင္ဖို႔အတြက္ ႀကိဳးစားေနတဲ့သူေတြကို ေအာက္ကေန တင္ျပၿပီးေတာ့ အတည္ျဖစ္လာတဲ့ ေအာက္ကေန အထက္ကိုဆန္တဲ့ ပံုစံေပါ့၊
ဒီပံုစံကို အဂၤလန္တို႔၊ အေမရိကားတို႔၊ ျပင္သစ္တို႔ စတဲ့ႏိုင္ငံေတြမွာ ေတြ႔ရပါလိမ့္မယ္။ ေနာက္တမ်ဳိးကေတာ့ အေပၚကအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္တဲ့ အာဏာပိုင္ေတြက ေအာက္က အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ခံျပည္သူေတြကို ခ်ျပတဲ့ပံုစံပါ။ ဒီဟာကို သေဘာတူသလား၊ မတူသလား ဆိုၿပီးေတာ့ ခ်ျပတဲ့ပံုစံေပါ့ေလ။ ဒါကေတာ့ အေပၚက ေအာက္ကို စုန္တဲ့ပံုလို႔ ေခၚႏိုင္တာေပါ့။ ဒါကို အာဏာရွင္ တိုင္းျပည္ေတြမွာ အမ်ားဆံုး ေတြ႔ရပါတယ္။ အခု ဗမာျပည္မွာ အမ်ဳိးသားညီလာခံက ေရးဆြဲလိုက္တဲ့ အေျခခံဥပေဒဟာ ဒုတိယပံုစံသေဘာ သက္ဝင္ေနတယ္ခင္ဗ်”
ဒီလို ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံုအေျခခံဥပေဒပံုစံ ၂ မ်ဳိးရွိတဲ့အနက္ ေအာင္ျမင္တိုးတက္တဲ့ႏိုင္ငံေတြမွာ ေအာက္ေျခကေန အထက္ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္သူေတြကိုတင္ျပၿပီး အျပန္အလွန္ ေဆြးေႏြးေရးဆြဲထားတဲ့ ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံုအေျခခံဥပေဒမ်ဳိး က်င့္သံုးၾကတာ ေတြ႔ရတယ္လို႔ ေဒါက္တာ ေအးခ်မ္းက ေျပာပါတယ္။
“ေအာက္ကေန အေပၚကိုဆန္တဲ့ ဖြဲ႔စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပံု အေျခခံဥပေဒဆိုတာဟာ ျပည္သူအမ်ားစုရဲ႕ဆႏၵကို ထင္ဟပ္ေပၚလြင္ ေစတဲ့အတြက္ ဒီႏိုင္ငံေတြဟာ တိုးတက္တာပါပဲ။ လက္ေတြ႔ၾကည့္လိုက္ပါ။ အဂၤလန္၊ အေမရိကန္ျပည္ေထာင္စု၊ ျပင္သစ္ ဒီႏိုင္ငံေတြပါပဲ။ ဂ်ာမဏီ။ တကယ္ေတာ့ အေပၚကေနခ်လိုက္တဲ့ ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံုအေျခခံဥပေဒဟာ ဒုတိယကမၻာစစ္ ႐ႈံးသြားတဲ့ အခ်ိန္မွာ ပ်က္စီးသြားပါတယ္။ အခုက ေအာက္ကေန အေပၚကိုဆန္တဲ့ ဖြဲ႔စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပံုအေျခခံဥပေဒ ျဖစ္လာတဲ့အခါမွာ တိုးတက္လာတာပါပဲ။ ဒါဟာ ဘယ္လိုမွ ျငင္းလို႔မရတဲ့အခ်က္ပါ”
တခါ အထက္ကေန ေအာက္ကိုခ်ျပတဲ့ ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံုမ်ဳိးက်င့္သံုးတဲ့ ႏိုင္ငံေတြမွာ ဘယ္လိုျဖစ္ရပ္ေတြနဲ႔ ေတြ႔ဆံုရတယ္ဆိုတာကို ေဒါက္တာေအးခ်မ္းက အခုလိုေျပာပါတယ္။
“ဘယ္လိုေတြ႔ရမလဲဆိုလို႔ရွိရင္ေတာ့ ရွင္းရွင္ေလးပဲေလ။ ၁၉၇၄ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ ဖြဲ႔စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပံုအေျခခံဥပေဒကို ၾကည့္လိုက္ရင္ပဲ သိတာေပါ့။ ၁၄ ႏွစ္ပဲ ခံတာပဲ။ ၁၉၈၈ မွာ ျပည္သူက အံုႂကြတာပဲ။ ဒီအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရးစနစ္ကို မႀကိဳက္ဘူးဆိုတာကို ျပတာပဲ။ ဒီလိုပဲ ဆိုဗီယက္ျပည္ေထာင္စုရဲ႕ ဖြဲ႔စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပံုအေျခခံဥပေဒကလည္း ဒီအတိုင္းပဲေလ။ ျပည္သူေတြက အံုႂကြေတာ္လွန္တာပဲ။ ဒီေန႔ တ႐ုတ္ျပည္သူ႔သမတႏိုင္ငံမွာ လူထုႀကီးတခုလံုးက အံုႂကြမႈမရွိေသာ္လည္းပဲ ဒီဟာကို သေဘာမတူဘူးဆိုတာ ဆန္႔က်င္တဲ့ အယူအဆေတြကို ေဖာ္ထုတ္ တင္ျပေနၾကတာပဲ။ ဒါကို ေတြ႔ရမွာပဲ။ က်ေနာ္ ဒီလိုပဲ ျမင္ပါတယ္”
အဲဒီလိုအေျခခံေတြနဲ႔ ေရးဆြဲခဲ့ၾကတဲ့ ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံုအေျခခံဥပေဒဟာ ႏိုင္ငံတႏိုင္ငံနဲ႔ အဲဒီႏိုင္ငံေန ျပည္သူလူထုအတြက္ ဘယ္ေလာက္ထိေအာင္ အေရးပါတယ္ဆိုတာကိုေတာ့ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေရွ႕ေနမ်ားေကာင္စီ အေထြေထြအတြင္းေရးမွဴး ဥပေဒပညာရွင္ ဦးေအာင္ထူးကပဲ ဆက္ၿပီးေတာ့ ရွင္းျပပါတယ္။
“စစ္မွန္တဲ့ ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံုအေျခခံတရပ္ ေပၚလာၿပီဆိုရင္ တိုင္းျပည္မွာ လက္ရွိတည္ဆဲဥပေဒေတြ ရွိတယ္။ အဲဒီ တည္ဆဲဥပေဒေတြဟာ ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံုအေျခခံဥပေဒမွာ ထည့္သြင္းျပ႒ာန္းထားတဲ့ ႏိုင္ငံသားေတြရဲ႕အခြင့္အေရးကို ဆန္႔က်င္တဲ့ဥပေဒဆိုရင္ ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံုအေျခခံဥပေဒ ေပၚလာတဲ့အခ်ိန္မွာ အဲဒီ ဥပေဒေတြအားလံုးကို ရပ္ဆိုင္း ဖ်က္သိမ္းပစ္လို႔ ရတယ္၊ ပယ္ဖ်က္ပစ္ရတာ ျဖစ္တယ္။
တခ်ိန္တည္းမွာ ေနာက္ထပ္ဥပေဒသစ္ေတြ ျပ႒ာန္းေတာ့မယ္ဆိုရင္လည္းပဲ ဒီ ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံု အေျခခံဥပေဒနဲ႔အညီ အာမခံျပ႒ာန္းေပးထားတဲ့ ႏိုင္ငံသားေတြရဲ႕အခြင့္အေရးကို ေဖာ္ေဆာင္တဲ့ဥပေဒမ်ဳိးကိုသာလွ်င္ ဆက္လက္ ျပ႒ာန္းေပးထားတာ ျဖစ္တယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံုအေျခခံဥပေဒဟာ ဥပေဒအားလံုးရဲ႕ ပင္မအသက္ေသြးေၾကာ အျဖစ္နဲ႔ ႏိုင္ငံသားေတြရဲ႕အေျခခံအခြင့္အေရးေတြကို ေတာက္ေလ်ာက္ ေနာက္ထပ္ေပၚလာတဲ့ဥပေဒေတြက ကာကြယ္ ေစာင့္ေရွာက္ေပးေရး အေျခခံကေနၿပီးေတာ့ အင္မတန္ကို အေရးႀကီးတာျဖစ္ပါတယ္”
ဒီေတာ့ကာ ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံုအေျခခံဥပေဒဆိုတာ ကိုယ့္ကိုယ္ဘယ္သူေတြက ဘယ္လိုပံုစံမ်ဳိးနဲ႔ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္မယ္၊ ကိုယ့္ႏိုင္ငံရဲ႕ အနာဂတ္ ကိုယ္ကိုယ္တိုင္နဲ႔ ကိုယ့္ရဲ႕ သားစဥ္ေျမးဆက္အနာဂတ္ကို ပံုေဖာ္မယ့္ စည္းမ်ဥ္းစည္းကမ္းနဲ႔ လုပ္ငန္းစဥ္ေတြကို ေဖာ္ျပေရးဆြဲထားတာျဖစ္တာမို႔ အထူးပဲ အေရးႀကီးလွပါတယ္။ ဒီေတာ့ကာ ျမန္မာျပည္သူလူထုအေနနဲ႔ ကိုယ့္ရဲ႕ ဆႏၵသေဘာထားေတြ မေဖာ္ထုတ္ခင္ ဒီအေျခခံဖြဲ႔စည္းပံု ဥပေဒမွာ ဘယ္လိုေရးဆြဲထားတယ္။ ဘာေတြပါတယ္ဆိုတာကို အေသအခ်ာ ေလ့လာသင့္ပါေၾကာင္း တင္ျပလိုက္ရပါတယ္ ခင္ဗ်ာ။
ဦးဘေမာ္ စုစည္းတင္ျပခ်က္ကို ေကာက္ႏုတ္ေဖာ္ျပပါတယ္။
ဆက္လက္ေဖာ္ျပပါမည္။
Friday, October 30, 2009
Include NLD, Ethnic Minorities in Dialogue: US Sen
Include NLD, Ethnic Minorities in Dialogue: US Sen
By LALIT K JHA Friday, October 30, 2009
WASHINGTON — A key US senator has called for the National League for Democracy (NLD) and ethnic minority groups to be included in the US-Burma talks.
"I believe that this interaction should not be limited to talks merely with the SPDC but should also include discussions with the National League for Democracy and representatives from Burma's ethnic minorities," Sen. Mitch McConnell said on the floor of the Senate.
Sen. Mitch McConnell
He said he is "not sanguine" about the prospects for engagement with the Burmese regime, because the military junta has not shown any ability to compromise on any issues that might jeopardize its hold on power.
"According to news reports, in July of this year, just weeks before the unveiling of the new Burma policy, the state department at the highest levels offered to drop the US investment ban against Burma if the regime released Aung San Suu Kyi," he said.
"This was a major test of how the regime would respond to diplomatic engagement, providing a golden opportunity for the SPDC to demonstrate that it had indeed changed its spots. Instead of accepting this offer and freeing Suu Kyi, the regime promptly sentenced her to an additional 18 months of imprisonment. That does not augur well for diplomatic engagement," he said.
He said there are three significant tests of whether or not the junta's relationship with the US has improved to the degree that it should consider moving away from a sanction policy: first, the release of all political prisoners, including Suu Kyi; second, a free and fair 2010 elections; and third, Burma's compliance with its international obligations to end any prohibited relationships with North Korea.
"Short of tangible and concrete progress in these areas, the removal of sanctions seems to make little sense,” said Sen. McConnell. “It is after all the most significant leverage our government has over the SPDC. Sanctions make clear that the military junta has not achieved legitimacy in the eyes of the West."
He said the 2010 Burmese elections are fraught with problems. As a preliminary matter, for the elections to be meaningful, the new Constitution should be amended to provide for a truly open electoral competition and democratic governance, he said.
"As it stands now under the junta's charter, if Suu Kyi's party, the NLD, won 100 percent of the contestable parliamentary seats in next year's election, it would still not control the key government ministries: defense and home affairs. No matter what, they will remain firmly under military control. Moreover, the NLD cannot amend the Constitution to improve the charter because the military is guaranteed a quarter of the parliament's seats," he said.
"That means the junta can block any Constitutional change. Finally, Suu Kyi may not even hold a position in the government. She is excluded from office by the charter. I would say to my Senate colleagues, this is hardly a prescription for democratic governance," McConnell said.
He said there would need to be a profound change in the political environment in Burma for the 2010 election to be meaningful.
"With respect to next year's balloting, the NLD, the clear winner of the 1990 elections which the regime abrogated, faces a Hobson's choice,” he said. “It can either participate in the elections which are almost certain to be unfair and thereby legitimize the flawed Constitution or boycott the elections and be treated as a member of an unlawful organization," he said.
"Participation means casting aside its 1990 victory. Nonparticipation means becoming outlaws. I am likely to support the NLD in whatever decision the party makes in this regard though I am not blind to the profound dilemma it faces," McConnell said.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy. org
http://www.irrawadd y.org/article. php?art_id= 17100
Thursday, October 29, 2009
NLD Elder Holds Out for Constitutional Review
NLD Elder Holds Out for Constitutional Review
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
U Win Tin is a founding member of the National League for Democracy (NLD), which was formed in 1988. He is also a well-known journalist in Burma. He was detained in 1989 and served 19 years in prison. He was released in September 2008. He spoke to The Irrawaddy on the issues of international economic sanctions, the 2010 election, the regime’s 2008 Constitution and the current position of the NLD.
Question: How much does the lifting of Western economic sanctions on Burma relate to national reconciliation?
Answer: In our politics, these two factors are related. If there is a US dialogue, the military regime is involved in the process. The sanctions now control them somewhat. Even if the sanctions can’t be said to strengthen us [the NLD], it is at least a rein on the junta. It’s something like tying down a brutal giant with many ropes so that we can survive.
I think there are three kinds of sanctions. First, there are sanctions that can affect ordinary people. For example, the US sanction [on the importation of Burmese textile products] caused unemployment in the garment factories. Second, there are sanctions that can directly affect the military generals and their cronies. Third, there are many countries that imposed arms embargos on Burma. Among these three kinds, we don’t have anything to say about the sanctions affecting the military and its generals, but we will step in to talk about easing the sanctions that affect the people.
I think if there is an ease in sanctions, it can probably lead to national reconciliation. The new US policy will be carried out while maintaining the existing sanctions. It is a drama which will include a variety of scripts, such as sadness, pleasure, and Nhit Par Thwar [a dance with a main actor and actress]. The last script of the drama, we expect, will be Zat Paung Khan [a peaceful end]. Therefore, we can’t predict now the role of sanctions in political dialogue and reconciliation. Things will unfold more before the 2010 election.
Q: What is your opinion on the announcement of the regime to hold the election as scheduled, and their preparations?
A: on March 27, Snr-Gen Than Shwe said he will not review the Constitution. Recently, he again declared that the Constitution has already been approved by the people and the elections will be held systematically. He said that political parties must respect the Constitution, and parties that work responsibly will be protected by the government. It means that if they believe some political parties are not responsible in their work, they will take action against the parties. These two facts are significant.
His words can be translated into these points: Political parties must keep quiet. All the principles have been set out for the pre-election campaigns: don’t talk about the demands from [the NLD’s] Shwegondine Declaration. I think he also warned other politicians, including from the National Unity Party (NUP) [transformed from the former ruling Burma Socialist Programme Party], who said the Constitution can be amended in the future. It looks like the parties must follow their way.
Q: What do you think the democratic forces and ethnic organizations should do in regard to the election?
A: There is still a way out. Although they denied a review of the Constitution, I still have hope for a political dialogue. If we demand it with a united stand, I think we have a way left. I think Snr-Gen Than Shwe’s words are related to the new US Burma policy. He bluntly responded to the US demands on the election and its relations with the opposition groups. But politics is an unending process no matter how decisive the general is in his words. The situation is changing. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi also asked the US to engage with both sides. Whatever Snr-Gen Than Shwe says, I expect the US policy will open a way for relations with the regime.
Q: What are your views on some politicians who want to take part in the election?
A: Regarding this election, my stand is even a bit different from the NLD. I accept the NLD’s stand on the Shwegondine Declaration. The statement demands a release of all political prisoners, a review of the Constitution and to hold a free and fair election under international supervision. What we mainly want is political dialogue.
U Thu Wai and U Khin Maung Gyi of the NUP said that the situation will change in the next 10 to 15 years. They will take part in the election. They didn’t consult with us. I don’t agree that we should take part in the election.
We must create a situation conducive to the participation of all parties. We believe that all the parties should demand a more flexible Constitution at the outset. If the Constitution is amended, we can have a democratic space to some extend and can talk and work in parliament. If we accept the current situation, no amendments can be made, and there will be no rights for democratic forces or ethnic nationalities.
Yes, the Constitution offers a parliament where we can have a political platform from which to talk. But we must understand that under this Constitution, we can’t make any decision or move forward. That’s why I say we must demand a review of the Constitution before the election.
Q: What do you want to amend in the 2008 constitution?
A: There are about a dozen things that should be amended. What I can say now is we can’t accept the sixth basic principle of the Constitution: “the national political leadership role” of the military. The fact that more than 75 percent of the parliamentary vote is needed to amend the Constitution should be amended. Regarding the rights of ethnic nationalities, the fact that the President will appoint the chairmen of the Hluttaws (Parliament) in the Regions and States should be amended. That is important for the ethnic nationalities.
Q: What are your thoughts on the debate inside the NLD over whether the party should take part in the election?
A: Our leaders have their roots in the democratic struggle. I led a Burmese media union and spent about 20 years in jail. Therefore, I have evaluated the situation in terms of the goals of our democratic struggle. I think and talk in this way.
A central issue is the results of the 1990 election [a landslide win for the NLD]. We can’t throw away the results like a piece of paper or a leaf. In the NLD, there are people who have safeguarded the party for the past 20 years. For me, I do things based on the spirit I had during the democratic struggle in 1988. Some party leaders base their thinking on rationality. There are differences in our ways of thinking and working.
Some in the party think the regime can change its attitude, but I don’t think so. We have different views in this respect. They think the regime can become flexible and take positive steps and make some compromises. But the regime is stubborn, and it tries to do all that it can to hold on to power.
The youth organizations, monks, democratic forces and ethnic nationalities outside the country are all talking about a boycott of the election. Inside the country, there are some political groups that talk about contesting the election, but they are not a strong force even though they have important leaders.
Democratic and ethnic forces inside and outside the country are decisively saying “No” to the election. On the other hand, some so-called third forces and a few cease-fire armed ethnic groups are willing to take part.
The NLD won the election in 1990, but to date the party hasn’t been allowed to carry out the election results. At this point, if we turn our back on the 1990 election results and talk about taking part in the new election, the NLD will be shamed. In the future, the political scenario will be clearer, after the NLD finally decides whether to contest the election or not.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy. org
http://www.irrawadd y.org/article. php?art_id= 17083
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Burma's ploy to escape sanctions
Burma's ploy to escape sanctions
By Zin Linn
Column: Burma Question
Published: October 15, 2009
Bangkok, Thailand —
Last week Burmese leader Than Shwe allowed detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to meet Western diplomats, at her request, to talk about the sanctions imposed on the military regime.
The Nobel Prize winner, who remains under house arrest, was driven to a government guesthouse on Oct. 9 to meet acting U.S. Charge d'Affaires Thomas Vajda, British Ambassador Andrew Heyn, who represented the European Union, and Australian Deputy Head of Mission Simon Christopher Starr for an hour to discuss the possible lifting of sanctions on Burma.
It was no surprise that the junta agreed to Suu Kyi’s request, as the sanctions are hurting the regime, said a Burmese journalist on condition of anonymity. Senior General Than Shwe would like to improve relations with Western countries, both to improve the country’s economic condition and increase his legitimacy, he said.
“However, people do not believe the affair is an honest move,” he said, pointing out that the junta’s supreme commander wanted to get the international community to support his so-called “discipline-flourish ing democracy.”
The surprise meeting with diplomats followed two consultation sessions this month between Suu Kyi and the junta's liaison and Labor Minister Aung Kyi, to discuss her Sept. 25 proposal to help end sanctions against the regime.
On the same day, Oct. 9, Than Shwe spoke at military headquarters in the capital, Naypyitaw, confirming the launch of general elections as scheduled in 2010. He said he would not yield to demands from domestic and international critics who say that the country’s military-sponsored Constitution should be revised ahead of next year’s elections.
The 2008 Constitution, the junta said, was “approved” by more than 90 percent of eligible voters during a referendum in May 2008, just a few days after Cyclone Nargis devastated the country. The outcome of the referendum was widely dismissed as a sham, but the regime has ignored calls from the international community and Burma’s main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, to review the Constitution.
Although there are 10 registered political parties in Burma, most are inactive. An electoral law should be put in place to allow new parties to form and register to contest the elections. The international community, led by the United Nations, has constantly urged that the election be all-inclusive, free and fair.
In April the NLD set forth the conditions for its participation in the 2010 elections. It requested that all provisions in the Constitution that are not in accord with democratic principles be amended, and that the poll be all-inclusive, free and fair under international supervision.
Rights groups have also said that the regime must release all 2,100 political prisoners, including NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, if it wants the elections to be regarded as legitimate.
The elections, which promise to be neither free nor fair in a country long condemned for human rights abuses, were planned following the 2008 Constitution, which in effect reinforces military control over any democratically elected administration.
The Western democracies and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have warned that the world community would not recognize the election results unless the NLD participates in the polls and Aung San Suu Kyi is freed from house arrest, where she has been kept for 14 of the past 20 years.
International sanctions have been imposed on Burma since 1988, when the military mercilessly cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrations, leaving an estimated 3,000 people dead. The United States and the European Union increased their sanctions after the junta refused to acknowledge the NLD's victory in 1990 elections and then arrested opponents and suppressed every type of opposition. Most of the sanctions target the top generals in particular.
In addition to the U.S. and EU sanctions, the regime is presently suffering assorted sanctions from Australia, Canada and Japan. The regime has been left without development assistance from international financial institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Asia Development Bank.
Than Shwe hinted this year that he would be willing to open a political dialogue with Suu Kyi if she agreed to cooperate on the sanctions issue. However, in his speech to the War Veterans Organization, Than Shwe said that some powerful nations were trying to force and influence Burma under various pretexts.
“However, the military government of Myanmar does not get scared whenever intimidated and will continue to work relentlessly for a better future of the state and the people by overcoming any difficulties,” Than Shwe said.
There is a contradiction between allowing the Lady to meet with Western diplomats and the heartless tone of Than Shwe’s speech at the meeting with war veterans. People are concerned that the Lady is being exploited by the crooked military chief. The purpose of allowing her to meet with the diplomats seems to be to get the sanctions eased and to persuade the world to support Burma’s version of democracy.
According to some analysts, there has been no improvement at all in the junta’s treatment of its citizens. In 2009 there have been more acts of aggression, more restrictions toward media and civil society, more control over Internet users, more arrests, more political prisoners and more military attacks in ethnic minority areas.
Sanctions are not likely to be lifted until the junta takes positive steps such as ending aggression against the NLD and ethnic parties and allowing freedom of assembly and freedom of expression.
The best option would be for the junta’s supreme commander to agree to dialogue with Suu Kyi in pursuit of national reconciliation. The 2008 Constitution and the junta's unyielding adherence to its seven-step roadmap toward the 2010 elections will create a highly unstable political climate. Without an agreement of national reconciliation, the elections will achieve nothing.
A sugarcoated concept like “discipline-flourish ing democracy” cannot be sold in this information age. Citizens have enough knowledge to differentiate between sham and genuine freedom. http://www.upiasia. com/Politics/ 2009/10/12/ burmas_ploy_ to_escape_ sanctions/ 4736/
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Burma constitution 'provides impunity' for abuses
Burma constitution 'provides impunity' for abuses
Oct 9, 2009 (DVB)-Burma 's redrafted 2008 constitution provides impunity for human rights abuses and should not be the bedrock for elections next year, a damning report has claimed.
Many of the provisions of the constitution suggest that "instead of being a true catalyst for lasting change, it further entrenches the military within the government and the associated culture of impunity," the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) said.
Its report, Impunity Prolonged: Burma and its Constitution, says that within the constitution, the regime has granted itself impunity for sexual violence, forced labor and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Burma, it says, is "one of the most difficult challenges in the world in relation to making progress toward combating impunity."
Khin Omar, coordinator of the Thailand-based Burma Partnership, said the constitution will "force military rule on Burma forever".
"[It is] the most problematic element as to whether we move further toward being a failed state or whether we move towards national reconciliation," she said.
The report says that "officers and troops systematically use rape and other forms of sexual abuse as a strategy of war."
It then cites a clause within the constitution stating that: "No proceeding shall be instituted against the said Councils (the military) or any member thereof or any member of the Government, in respect to any act done in the execution of their respective duties. "
Burma expert Robert H Taylor told DVB however that "No one has proven that [rape] is public policy," adding that "we don't know how the military deals with instances of rape".
He cited anonymous sources that claim the government has action against people accused of assault and rape, but added that the constitution "has its problems, but which doesn't?"
In a sign that the regime responds to international pressure, the report cited an agreement between the junta and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to address forced labour and child soldiers.
The 2008 constitution was ratified in the weeks following cyclone Nargis last May, in which 140,000 people were killed and millions of acres of land destroyed. Despite the cyclone, the government claimed a 99 percent turnout, with 92.4 percent voting in favour.
A report released last year by Hong Kong-based constitutional expert, Professor Yash Ghai, said that "the cynicism with which the regime held the referendum and manipulated the results was on a par with the cynicism and coercion by which the draft was prepared".
The ICTJ have called on the international community to withhold support for elections in Burma next year. Khin Omar echoed the calls, and said that a constitutional review must take place before the elections do.
Reporting by Joseph Allchin http://english. dvb.no / news. php? id = 2940
Thursday, October 1, 2009
[8888peoplepower] ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲဝင္ဖို႔ ျပင္တဲ့သူေတြ၊ အမွန္တရားကို ျမတ္ႏိုးၾကပါေစ (ေမာင္ဂဒိုး)
ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲဝင္ဖို႔ ျပင္တဲ့သူေတြ၊ အမွန္တရားကို ျမတ္ႏိုးၾကပါေစ
ေမာင္ဂဒိုး
နအဖ မေကာင္းဘူးဆိုတာ တကမၻာလုံးမဟုတ္ဘူး၊ စၾကာဝဠာတခုလုံးသိတယ္လို႔ ေျပာရမွာပါ။ ေရးတဲ့သူေတြ လည္း ေရးေနၾကဆဲပါပဲ။ ဘယ္လို ဘယ္ေလာက္ မေကာင္းဘူးဆိုတာဟာလည္း ေရးလို႔ကုန္ႏိုင္စရာကို မရွိပါ ဘူး။ အဲဒီေတာ့ နအဖ မေကာင္းဘူးဆိုတာ လက္ခံရင္ မေပါင္းဖို႔နဲ႔ သူတို႔နဲ႔ ဆန္႔က်င္ရာလမ္းကို သြားဖို႔သာပဲရွိ ပါတယ္။ နအဖနဲ႔ တူ႐ူရာအရပ္ကို သြားတယ္ဆိုတာ သူ႔ရဲ႕ခရီးသြားေဖၚအျဖစ္ အေဆြခင္ပြန္းဖြဲ႔တာပါ။ ေဖးမကူ ညီၿပီး သူသက္ဆိုးရွည္ဖို႔အတြက္ အင္အားကို ျဖစ္ေစတာပါ။ ျမတ္စြာဘုရား ေဟာၾကားေတာ္မူတဲ့ မဂၤလသုတ္ တရားေတာ္မွာေတာ့ “အာေသဝဏာစဗာလာနံ” လူမိုက္ကို မမွီဝဲ၊ မဆည္းကပ္၊ မေပါင္းေဖာ္အပ္ဘူးလို႔ ေဟာ ေတာ္မူပါတယ္။
ဆည္းကပ္ေပါင္းေဖာ္မိလို႔ ပ်က္စီးရတဲ့ ဇာတ္လမ္းေတြလည္း ဇာတ္ေတာ္ေတြထဲမွာေရာ ေခတ္သစ္ဇာတ္လမ္း ေတြထဲမွာပါ ေတြ႔ရတဲ့အျပင္ လူမႈအသိုင္းအဝိုင္းေတြထဲမွာလည္း ေတြ႔ေနရတာပါ။ ေမတၱာတရားကို ေရွ႕ရႈဖို႔ ေဟာေပမယ့္လည္း လူမိုက္ကို စည္႐ုံးသိမ္းသြင္းၿပီး လိုရာေရာက္ေအာင္ ဆဲြေဆာင္ယူျခင္းအားျဖင့္ ေအာင္ျမင္ ရာ၏လို႔ မေဟာပါဘူး။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ အျမင္တူသူခ်င္း၊ နအဖကိုဆန္႔က်င္တဲ့ အဖြဲ႔အစည္းခ်င္းသာ စည္းလုံးရမွာပါ။ ျပည္သူလူထုအတြင္း ညီၫႊတ္မႈရွိရမွာပါ။ ဒါမွ မတရားတဲ့ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္မႈကို တြန္းလွန္ၿဖိဳဖ်က္ႏိုင္မွာျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ တ ကယ္ေတာ့ ျပည္သူလူထုက အာဏာအပ္ႏွင္းထားတဲ့ NLD အဖြဲ႔လည္းရွိၿပီးသားပါ။ အျမင္မတူ၊ သဘာထားကြဲ လြဲမႈ အနည္းငယ္ရွိႏႈိင္ေပမယ့္ NLD နဲ႔ပဲ လက္တြဲၿပီးတုိက္ပြဲဝင္တာက တရားနည္းလမ္းအက်ဆုံးနဲ႔ ေအာင္ျမင္ ဖို႔အလြယ္ဆုံးလို႔ ယူဆပါတယ္။
တဖြဲ႔နဲ႔တဖြဲ႔ အျမင္မတူ ကြဲျပားျခားနားတာကို ညိႇႏႈိင္းတိုင္ပင္ၿပီး ဆန္႔က်င္တိုက္ပြဲဝင္ရမွာျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ NLD ဟာ အေျခအေနအရ လိုအပ္ခ်က္ေတြ ရွိႏိုင္ေပမယ့္ အခုခ်ိန္ထိ ျပည္သူအေပၚသစၥာမေဖါက္ဘဲ ယုံၾကည္ခ်က္နဲ႔ ေဆာင္ရြက္ေနဆဲပါ။ NLD သာမက ေက်ာင္းသားေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ား၊ သံဃာေတာ္မ်ားနဲ႔ ဒီမိုကေရစီေရး တက္ ႂကြလႈပ္ရွားသူမ်ားဟာလည္း သူ႔အတိုင္းအတာနဲ႔သူ တုိင္းျပည္အတြက္ စြန္႔စြန္႔စားစားေဆာင္ရြက္ေနၾကတာပါ။ ဒီေတာ့ ျပည္သူလူထုအေပၚ ေစတနာထားရင္ တိုင္းျပည္တိုးတက္ ထြန္းကားေစခ်င္ရင္ ဒီမိုကေရစလိုလားသူ ခ်င္း စည္းလုံးညီညြတ္စြာနဲ႔ နအဖကို တြန္းလွန္တိုက္ဖ်က္ဖို႔ပဲျဖစ္ပါတယ္။
ဒါေပမယ့္ တခ်ဳိ႕က်လည္း “ဆိုး” မွႀကိဳက္တယ္လို႔ေျပာရမလိုပါ။ ကိုယ္ေလွ်ာက္လွမ္းေနတဲ့ ဒီမိုကေရစီပန္းတိုင္ ဟာ နအဖနဲ႔ ပူးေပါင္းၾကံစည္မွပဲ ေရာက္ႏိုင္ေတာ့မလိုယူဆၿပီး ၂၀၁၀မွာ ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲဝင္ဖို႔ ျပင္ေနၾကတယ္။ ျပည္သူေတြအတြက္ လိုအပ္ခ်က္ကို နအဖနဲ႔ သေဘာတူညီမႈယူၿပီး ေဖာ္ေဆာင္ႏိုင္လိမ့္မယ္လို႔ ယုံၾကည္ေနၾက တယ္။ တခ်ိဳ႕ကေတာ့ “၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲမွာ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရးအာဏာရဲ႕ (၄၀) ရာခိုင္ႏႈန္းကို ဒီမိုကေရစီအင္ အားစုေတြကို ခြဲေဝေပးပါ” ဆိုၿပီး အာဏာကို နအဖထံမွာ လက္ဝါးျဖန္႔ေတာင္းေနတယ္။ နအဖ က ဘယ္လို လိုက္ေလ်ာမႈမ်ဳိးေတြမ်ား ေပးခဲ့တဲ့သာဓကရွိခဲ့ဖူးလို႔ ဒီမိုကေရစီအင္အားစုေတြနဲ႔မတူဘဲ ဒီလိုေတာင္းဆိုမႈ ၾကံစီ မႈေတြ ျပဳၾကသလဲ မေျပာတတ္ပါ။
ကိုယ့္ရဲ႕လိုအင္ဆႏၵတခုအတြက္ နအဖရဲ႕လမ္းစဥ္အတိုင္းသြားတာ မသင့္ေတာ္သလို ျပည္သူလူထုအက်ိဳးအ တြက္ နအဖကို လိုရာေရာက္ေအာင္ ဆြဲေဆာင္ယူႏုိင္မယ္လို႔ ယုံၾကည္တာဟာလည္း စိတ္ကူးယဥ္မႈ၊ မိုက္မဲမႈ သာျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ျဖစ္သင့္တဲ့လမ္း၊ ျဖစ္ႏိုင္တဲ့လမ္းကို မေလွ်ာက္ဘဲ လြယ္လြယ္နဲ႔ ေနရာရႏုိင္မယ့္လမ္းကို ေရြး ေနၾကျခင္းသာျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ ဆိုခ်င္ပါတယ္။ ကိုယ္က်ဳိးစြန္႔အနစ္နာခံေဆာင္ရြက္ေနသူေတြက ေရဆန္ေလဆန္ ေလွာ္ခတ္ေနခ်ိန္မွာ “ေရေပၚလွ်ပ္ေျပး၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရး” လုပ္ဖို႔ ႀကိဳးစားၿပီး လွ်ပ္ေပၚေလာ္လီေနၾကတယ္။ တကယ္ ေတာ့ NLD အပါအဝင္ နယ္စပ္အပစ္ရပ္အဖြဲ႔မ်ား၊ ဒီမိုကေရစီအင္အားစုမ်ားနဲ႔ တသီးပုဂၢလအားလုံးဟာ နအဖ ျပဳလုပ္မယ့္ ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲကို ဖုတ္ေလတဲ့ငပိ၊ ရွိေလတယ္လို႔ မေအာက္ေမ့ရင္ သူတို႔အၾကံအစည္ပ်က္ သြားၿပီး ေရွ႕ေလွ်ာက္လွမ္းဖို႔ ခက္သြားမွာပါ။
တကယ္လို႔ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲျဖစ္လာခဲ႔ရင္ ျပည္သူလူထုဟာ နအဖရဲ႕ဖိအားေပးခံရလို႔ ၂၀၀၈ ဆႏၵခံယူပြဲလိုမ်ား ျဖစ္သြားခဲ့ရင္ ေရွ႕ေရးဟာ စိတ္မေအးစရာပါ။ NLD အပါအဝင္ ဒီမိုကေရစီအင္အားစုမ်ား၊ ကုလသမဂၢနဲ႔ ႏုိင္ငံ တကာရဲ႕ ေတာင္းဆိုမႈေတြကို ဘာတခုမွ လိုက္ေလ်ာေသးတာ မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ ျမန္မာျပည္အေရးဟာ ႏိုင္ငံတ ကာရဲ႕ ပူေပါင္းပါဝင္ပတ္သက္မႈ လိုအပ္တာမွန္ပါတယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ အေမရိကန္ရဲ႕အလားအလာ EU ရဲ႕သ ေဘာထား အစရွိသျဖင့္ ႏိုင္ငံတကာရဲ႕ ႏိုင္ငံေရးေရခ်ိန္နဲ႔တိုက္ၿပီး လုပ္ကိုင္ေနရင္ မူလလမ္းေၾကာင္း ေပ်ာက္ သြားဖို႔ပဲ ရွိပါတယ္။
ဘယ္ႏိုင္ငံတကာကမွ ျမန္မာနိုင္ငံကို ဒီမိုကေရစီလမ္းေၾကာင္းေပၚေရာက္ေအာင္ ခ်ေပးသြားမွာ မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ ျပည္သူတသိန္းေက်ာ္ (၁၃၈၀၀၀ ဦး) ေသသြားရတဲ့ နာဂစ္မုန္တိုင္းအေရးမွာတုန္းက လူအမ်ား အားထားေမွ်ာ္ လင့္ေနတဲ့ အေမရိကန္နဲ႔ ၿဗိတိန္၊ ျပင္သစ္တို႔ရဲ႕ အဆင့္ျမင့္ေရယာဥ္ေတြဟာ ျမန္မာ့ေရပိုင္နက္အနီး ရွိေနၿပီး သားေတာင္ မုန္တိုင္းသင့္ျပည္သူေတြကို ဝင္လာၿပီး မကယ္တင္ဘဲ နအဖ သေဘာမတူလို႔ ေနာက္ေၾကာင္းျပန္ လွည့္သြားၾကတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင္႔ နိုင္ငံတကာကို ယုံစားအားထားေနလို႔မရပါဘူး။ သူတို႔လည္း သူတို႔အေၾကာင္းနဲ႔ သူတို႔ပါ။ ကိုယ္႔အားကိုယ္ကိုးၿပီးေတာ႔သာ လုပ္ကိုင္ေဆာင္ရြက္ရမွာပါ။
တေယာက္နဲ႔တေယာက္၊ တဖြဲ႔နဲ႔တဖြ႔ဲ အျမင္အယူအဆ၊ သေဘာတရား၊ လုပ္ကိုင္ပံုကြာျခားႏိုင္ပါတယ္။ ဒါေပ မယ့္ ကိုယ္ယုံၾကည္ရာ လမ္းေလွ်ာက္လွမ္းဖို႔အတြက္ ခိုင္လုံတဲ့အေၾကာင္းျပခ်က္ေတာ့ ရွိရပါမယ္။ ဆင္ေသကို ဆိတ္ေရနဲ႔ဖံုးတဲ့ ဆင္ေျခမ်ဳိး၊ အေၾကာင္းျပခ်က္မ်ဳိးကေတာ့ ျပည္သူကို လွည့္စားတာတမ်ိဳးမို႔ လမ္းလြဲကိုသာ ေရာက္ေစမွာျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ “ဒီလိုပဲႀကိဳးစားလာခဲ့တာ ႏွစ္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာၾကာခဲ့ၿပီ၊ ဘာမွလည္းမေျပာင္းလဲဘူး” ဆို ၿပီး စိတ္ပ်က္ခ်င္ပ်က္ၾကပါလိမ့္မယ္။ ပန္းတိုင္မေရာက္ေသးသမွ်ေတာ့ ၾကာတယ္လို႔ထင္ေနဦးမွာပါ။ ယုံၾကည္ ခ်က္ရွိဖို႔၊ ဇြဲရွိဖို႔လိုပါတယ္။
အခုပဲ ခရီးအေတာ္ေရာက္လွပါၿပီ။ ညီညီၫြတ္ၫြတ္ ဆက္ၿပီးႀကိဳးစားရင္ ေအာင္ပြဲခံဖို႔ပဲရွိပါေတာ႔တယ္။ နအဖ ဟာ “အ႐ူးမီးဝိုင္း” ျဖစ္ေနတဲ့အခ်ိန္ပါ။ တကယ္ေတာ့ ကိုယ္ကိုယ္တိုင္ ဘာမွ ထိထိေရာက္ေရာက္ မေဆာင္ ရြက္လွဘဲ ၾကန္႔ၾကာတယ္ထင္ေနတာကိုက အားႀကိဳးမာန္တက္ စြန္႔စြန္႔စားစား အနစ္နာခံေဆာင္ရြက္ေနသူ ေတြကို ေစာ္ကားေနသလိုပါပဲ။ ေထာင္၊ ေနအိမ္အက်ယ္ခ်ဳပ္က်ခံေနရသူေတြ၊ ႏွစ္ရွည္ေထာင္ဒဏ္ က်ခံေနရ သူေတြဆီက စိတ္ပ်က္တဲ့ စကားမ်ဳိး ၾကန္႔ၾကာၿပီထင္တဲ့ စကားမ်ဳိး မၾကားရပါဘူး။
“ပရိယာယ္မႂကြယ္ဘူး၊ ဘာမွမေျပာင္းလဲတဲ့နည္းကို တရားေသဆုပ္ကိုင္ထားတယ္၊ နည္းဗ်ဴဟာလိုေသးတယ္၊ ေရွ႕ေရးကို မသုံးသပ္တတ္ဘူး၊ အျမင္မက်ယ္ဘူး” အစရွိသျဖင့္ အပစ္ဆိုခ်င္ရင္လည္း ဆိုၾကပါလိမ့္မယ္။ အ ျမင္က်ယ္က်ယ္နဲ႔၊ တိုင္းျပည္ေရွ႕ေရးကို ေမွ်ာ္ေတြးလို႔႔သာ အေျပာင္းအလဲျဖစ္ေအာင္ “ေတြ႔ဆုံေဆြးေႏြးေရး” ကို NLD က တစိုက္မတ္မတ္ ေတာင္းဆိုေနတာပါ။ ကလီကမာနဲ႔ ဉာဏ္မ်ားၿပီး ေတြ႔ဆုံေဆြးေႏြးေရးကို ပယ္ခ် ထားတာ နအဖပါ။ Constructive Engagement ဆိုတဲ့နည္းနဲ႔ ခ်ဥ္းကပ္ခဲ့တဲ့ အာဆီယံလည္း လက္လန္ပါၿပီ။ အျမဲတမ္းေခ်ာ့ေမာ့၊ ေဖ်ာင္းဖ်၊ ပူးေပါင္းခဲ့လို႔ ၾသဇာရွိတယ္လို႔ထင္ရတဲ့ တ႐ုတ္ကိုလည္း အခုေတာ့ လိုလားဟန္ မျပေတာ့ဘူး။ အမွန္တကယ္ ေျပာင္းလဲလိုစိတ္၊ ပူးေပါင္းလိုစိတ္ ရွိတာမဟုတ္လို႔ နအဖနဲ႔ ပူးေပါင္းေဆာင္ရြက္ တဲ့ နည္းရဲ႕အက်ိဳးရလဒ္၊ ေရွ႕ေရးအလားအလာဆိုတာလည္း ဘာမွထင္ရွားရွိတာ မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ ပူးေပါင္းလို စိတ္ရွိမွသာ အရာထင္လာႏိုင္တာပါ။
ေလာေလာဆယ္ အျဖစ္အပ်က္ကိုပဲၾကည့္ပါ၊ ၆၄ ႀကိမ္ေျမာက္ ကုလသမဂၢအေထြေထြညီလာခံ မတိုင္ခင္၊ ႏိုင္ ငံတကာရဲ႕ေထာက္ခံမႈကို လွည့္စားရယူနိုင္ဖို႔အတြက္္ အက်ဥ္းသား (၇၁၁၄) ဦးကို လြတ္ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းသာခြင့္ေပးခဲ့ တယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးအက်ဥ္းသား (၂၀၀၀) ေက်ာ္အနက္ (၁၂၈) ဦးသာပါတယ္။ ကုလသမဂၢ၊ NLD နဲ႔ ႏိုင္ငံတကာက ေတာင္းဆိုထားတာက ႏိုင္ငံေရးအက်ဥ္းသားအားလုံးကို ျပန္လႊတ္ေပးဖို႔႔ပါ။ သူတို႔အာဏာတည္ ျမဲမႈကို ၿခိမ္းေျခာက္ႏိုင္တဲ့ အဓိကပုဂၢဳိလ္ေတြကို လႊတ္ေပးဖို႔ဆိုတာေတာ့ အိပ္မက္ေတာင္မက္မွာမဟုတ္ဘူး။ အႀကိမ္ႀကိမ္လိမ္ညာလွည့္ျဖားၿပီး ျဖစ္ေပၚလာတဲ့ အေျခအေနေပၚမွာ သူတို႔တည္ျမဲဖို႔အတြက္သာ အျမဲတမ္းအ ျမတ္ထုတ္သြားေလ႔ရွိတာပါ။
နအဖရဲ႕ လုပ္ရပ္အားလုံးကို ျခံဳၾကည့္ရင္ ၁၉၉၀ ျပည့္ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲရလဒ္ကို အေကာင္အထည္ေဖာ္မေပးဘူး။ ျပည္သူကိုေစာ္ကားတယ္။ ကုလသမဂၢနဲ႔ ႏိုင္ငံတကာရဲ႕ေတာင္းဆိုမႈအားလုံးကို အေလးမထား၊ မလိုက္နာဘူး။ ႏိုင္ငံတြင္းမွာ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးကို ျပင္းထန္စြာခ်ဳိးေဖာက္၊ ရက္စက္ယုတ္မာတယ္။ ျပည္သူလူထုက အာဏာအပ္ ႏွင္းထားတဲ့ NLD ရဲ႕ေတာင္းဆိုခ်က္မွန္သမွ်ကုိ မသိက်ဳိးက်င္ျပဳတယ္။ တိုင္းျပည္အတြက္ ဘယ္ဘက္ကမွ တိုး တက္ေအာင္ မလုပ္ႏိုင္ဘူး။ သယံဇာတေတြကို ကိုယ္က်ိဳးအတြက္ သံုးပစ္တယ္။ NLD နဲ႔ ပါတီအသီးသီးကို ႐ုံး ဖြင့္ခြင့္၊ စည္း႐ုံးခြင့္ ပိတ္ပင္ထားေပမယ့္ နအဖကိုယ္တိုင္ကေတာ့ ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲအတြက္ အစစလက္ဦး မႈရေအာင္ အရွက္မရွိႀကိဳးစားေနၿပီ။
ဒါေတြကိုၾကည့္ရင္ နအဖဟာ အာဏာလက္မလႊတ္ေရးကလြဲလို႔ ဘာလမ္းစဥ္မွမရွိဘူး၊ ဘယ္သူ႔ကိုမွလည္း အာ ဏာခြဲေဝမေပးလိုဘူးဆိုတာ ထင္ရွားတယ္။ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲဟာ အလိမ္အညာပဲ။ နအဖရဲ႕လုပ္ရပ္ဟာ အမွန္တ ရားလား၊ ဒါမွမဟုတ္ ျပည္သူတရပ္လုံး၊ NLD၊ ေက်ာင္းသား၊ သံဃာေတာ္မ်ားနဲ႔ ဒီမိုကေရစီအင္အားစုမ်ားရဲ႕ ရည္မွန္းခ်က္နဲ႔ ႀကိဳးပမ္းအားထုတ္မႈဟာ အမွန္တရားလား။ အမွန္တရားကို ျမင္ၿပီဆိုရင္ေတာ့ .. ျမတ္စြာဘုရား ပရိနိဗၺာန္ျပဳခါနီးမွာ ဆုံးမစကားႁမြက္ၾကားသြားတာကေတာ့ “အမွန္တရားကို မီးရႈးတန္ေဆာင္အျဖစ္ လက္ကိုင္ ထားၿပီး မိမိကိုယ္ကိုယ္အားကိုးၾကပါ” လို႔ပဲျဖစ္ပါတယ္။
ေမာင္ဂဒိုး
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Opposition-backed Constitutional Amendments will be Difficult
Opposition-backed Constitutional Amendments will be Difficult
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By KAY LATT Monday, September 14, 2009
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"If a girl is short, she just needs to wear high heels." Those are the well-known words of Kyi Maung, the late leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in a press conference just after the elections in 1990 responding the needs of constitution for transfer of power proclaimed by the military junta.
The NLD prepared a temporary constitution to be used during the transitory period to take over power from the ruling military government, but the military government then led by Snr-Gen Saw Maung did not accept the temporary constitution.
In the absence of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Kyi Maung, a de facto NLD leader, said that the constitution could be amended in response to the military leaders' claim for the necessity of a new constitution before the transfer of power.
Any efforts to amending the constitution would be a challenge since ethnic nationalities wanted to change the form of the Union to that of a federation.
The late dictator Ne Win made a coup d'état in March 1962 while contending that he was saving the Union from disintegrating, when ethnic nationalities, various political parties and U Nu, then the prime minister, agreed to amend the 1947 Constitution.
In the 1947 constitution, any provision could be amended, whether by way of variation, addition or repeal. After an amendment bill had been passed by each of the chambers of Parliament, the bill had to be considered by both chambers in joint sessions. And then the bill could be passed by both chambers in joint sittings with votes in favor of not less than two-thirds required by members of both chambers.
Therefore, the constitutional problems of the 1947 constitution could be solved within the framework of negotiations among stakeholders.
In the 1974 constitution, some provisions could be amended with the prior approval of 75 percent of all the members of the Pyithu Hluttaw (People’s Parliament) in a nation-wide referendum with a majority vote of more than half of eligible voters. The rest of the provisions could be amended only with a majority vote of 75 percent of all the members of the Pyithu Hluttaw. No major amendment had been made to the 1974 constitution.
Before Kyi Maung made his quip, Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States, said in a letter to Samuel Kercheval, written in July, 1816, "I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind."
He continued, "We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors," clearly reflecting the need to interpret a constitution in light of changing circumstances.
Constitutions can generally be classified as “rigid” or “flexible.” A rigid constitution provides difficult procedures to modify at least some part of the constitution. A flexible constitution allows simple procedures to amend its provisions.
The US constitution is rigid. It requires a supermajority in the amendment process. The most common method of amendment is for a bill to pass both houses of the legislature by a two-thirds majority in each body followed by ratification by three-fourth of the states.
This is the method used for all current amendments. Nevertheless, 27 amendments have been made to the U.S constitution over a 200-year period. An interesting point is that the president has no role in the formal amendment process.
In Switzerland, it requires a majority vote in a national referendum to approve an amendment of the federal constitution proposed by the legislature or by a petition of 100,000 citizens. Then it requires ratification by a majority of voters in each of a majority of the cantons. The Swiss constitution has been amended significantly over the years.
The United Kingdom’s constitution is flexible. Its constitutional institutions and rules can be modified by an act of Parliament.
The great majority of countries have rigid constitutions. Nevertheless, a rigid constitution does not by itself guarantee the stability and continuity of a country’s constitutional law.
The constitution of South Africa is also flexible and can be amended by an act of Parliament by introducing a bill amending the constitution in the National Assembly. Most amendments must be passed by an absolute two-thirds supermajority in the National Assembly. However, amendments of some important provisions must be passed by the National Council of Province with a supermajority of at least six of the nine provinces.
Although the amending process in the United States is difficult, it is easier than the process in other countries with rigid constitutions. Provisions of a rigid constitution are over time subject to interpretation by the courts or by the legislature or the executive.
Pro-election groups in Burma are advocating a process of embracing the constitutional system and proposing gradual change by amendments to unfavorable provisions in the constitution.
“The military presumably wants to use the elections to ensure its continued dominance, but this is the most wide-ranging shake-up in a generation,” said Jim Della-Giacoma, Southeast Asia project director of the International Crisis. “The government, opposition, neighboring countries and the wider international community must all prepare for the possibility of change they may not be able to control.”
The 2008 constitution requires careful study of the process of amendment to assess whether it is rigid or flexible, and whether there are any loopholes in the constitution that could result in positive or negative consequences.
According to constitution, it requires 20 percent of the members of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, (Union Parliament or the two houses combined) to submit a bill of amendment with approval requiring a vote of more than 75 percent in favor.
For important provisions such as basic principles, state structure, qualifications for the presidential and vice presidential candidates and the National Defense and Security Council and a state of emergency, it further requires a nationwide referendum with more than half of eligible voters in favor.
It is clear that the 2008 constitution is rigid requiring difficult procedures to amend its provisions.
In the present constitution of Indonesia, the country which the Burmese military once looked to as a model for the dominance of the military, it requires only a simple majority for any proposed amendment in the People's Consultative Assembly with two-thirds of its members in support.
Suharto, who officially became president in 1968, did not allow any changes to the constitution. Under the rule of Suharto, it required a nationwide referendum with a 90 per cent turnout and approval of 90 percent of the voters to change the constitution.
With the fall of Suharto and the New Order regime in 1998, the amendment process was simplified in order to make it more democratic. The People's Consultative Assembly made constitutional amendments a flexible procedure and as a result, only 11 percent of the original articles remain unchanged from the earlier constitution.
In the 2008 Burmese constitution, the military is given 25 percent of the seats in every state legislature and both national assemblies. The constitution requires more than 75 percent of all the representatives of Union Parliament to amend the constitution important provisions.
To amend the constitution would require the support of all civilian representatives plus the support of at least one military representative in the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw.
Because of the rigidity of the constitution, there appears to be little chance for opposition members of parliament to look to the amendment process as a way to influence the future course of government. As a result, a theory of gradual change through the constitution also appears unrealistic.
Kay Latt can be reached at kaylatt@gmail.com
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Burma: denial of fundamental rights
Burma: denial of fundamental rights
Wednesday, 2 September 2009, 2:55 pm
Press Release: Asian Human Rights Commission
BURMA: Institutionalized denial of fundamental rights and the 2008 Constitution of Myanmar
1. The case decided against democracy party leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and co-accused this August 2009 brought to global attention the institutionalizing of fundamental human rights abuse through what the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) has characterized as Myanmar’s “injustice system”. Although global outrage was expressed at the politically contrived manner in which the proceedings reached their inevitable conclusion, the trial was in many respects typical of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of others in recent years, many of which the ALRC has studied and documented in detail. These features included the following:
a. Inapplicability of charges: Leaving aside questions over whether or not the house arrest of the accused in this case was legal at all, the charges against the defendants were inapplicable as the order against Aung San Suu Kyi did not include anything to prohibit her from communicating with someone already in her house. Many other cases heard against opponents of the government in Myanmar also rest on inapplicable and baseless charges. The police, who may receive interrogation files from military personnel and be ordered to frame charges without ever having had contact with an accused, often appear at a loss to identify an offence. For instance, in the case of Aung Aung Oo and three others (Bahan Township Court, Felony No. 442/09, under trial, Judge U Khin Maung Htay presiding), the accused were charged with an arms offence but during the preliminary trial process the charge was instead changed to intent to cause public fear or alarm: an offence used when the police can fin d no other. In the case o
b. Violations of basic criminal procedure: Judges from two districts heard the case against Aung San Suu Kyi and her co-accused. This is a fundamental breach of criminal procedure, which requires that a judge of a jurisdiction hear a case against an accused in the jurisdiction where the alleged offence occurred. There is no provision of law for mixing judges of different jurisdictions. The case also was heard in a closed court which only select persons were allowed to attend: again, there is no basis in law for trying someone in this manner; however, the trying of opponents to the present government in this way is the norm, not the exception. The ALRC is not aware of any such case in recent years that has been conducted in an open courtroom. In fact, in the case of Aung San Suu Kyi and her co-accused there was more openness than in many such cases. Very often family members and also lawyers are denied access to courtrooms. For instance, in the case of human rights defender U Myint Aye and two co-accu
c. Problems with witnesses: The court in the case of Aung San Suu Kyi initially allowed only one defence witness and thereafter on request to a higher court, a second witness. By contrast, the prosecution presented some 17 witnesses, of whom 11 were police and the others were immigration and council officials. Defendants in trials of this sort in Myanmar are routinely unable to present witnesses. It is also common to find that the only witnesses for the prosecution are police and other officials; and ordinary civilian witnesses, where present, are not genuinely independent but appear for the police as professional witnesses. For instance, in the case against U Tin Min Htut and another, who were accused of writing a letter to the United Nations Secretary General in which they criticized the government and the manner in which the international community has treated the situation in Myanmar (Yangon West District Court, Felony Nos. 138 & 140/09, decided 13 February 2009, Judg e U Tin Htut presiding),
2. Together these points speak to the first of two fundamental problems with the judicial system in Myanmar with which the international community must come to terms if it is going to say or do anything useful about the human rights situation there, rather than simply decry the unfair trials of a few prominent individuals. The judiciary is in its present form an appendage of executive authority. Unless its structurally and functionally subordinate position is addressed, it will continue to act as an instrument for the violation of rights rather than their defence. Under these circumstances, calls for the courts to decide cases fairly and in accordance with international standards are completely meaningless. In such cases, the courts in Myanmar are not even capable of complying with domestic standards, and nor should they be expected to be, because they are performing an executive function, not a judicial one: i.e. their role is to imprison government opponents rather than uphold the law.
3. The second point that the international community has so far failed to grasp concerning criminal injustice and its relevance to debate on human rights in Myanmar is that the patterns of bad behaviour developed through the types of cases given above have a flow-on effect into the system as a whole. In ordinary criminal cases the ALRC has observed the same sorts of incorrectly applied charges, consistently broken procedure, lack of evidence and forced confessions. These types of behaviour persist in ordinary cases in part because they are learned in the course of the sorts of politically directed cases described above. But in ordinary cases the concern is not with correct application of executive directions in lieu of law, but instead with obtaining the best price from the highest bidder. Among persons working in and familiar with the legal system in Myanmar it is known as a justice-trading system. However, some persons working for international agencies in Myanmar either misunders tand or pretend to misund
4. These features of institutionalized abuse, and the need for more effective study and critique rather than simple condemnation of specific acts of wrongdoing are of special relevance in the current period, when the government of Myanmar has indicated that it plans to hold an election, perhaps in 2010, after which the 2008 Constitution of Myanmar will come into effect. The response of many in the international community on learning of the re-confinement of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi this August was to condemn the expected election as a farce, for reason of her non-involvement. But the problems associated with the electoral process need to be studied in terms of the institutional contradictions to which her case points rather than in terms of its personalities. The deeply flawed 2008 Constitution further entrenches arrangements for abuses of the sorts outlined above, and any serious attempts from the international community to take up issues of concern to the people of Myanmar in the lead up to and after the anti
a. Un-separation of powers: The constitution in section 11(a) separates the branches of government only “to the extent possible”. This absurd clause effectively un-separates powers and makes a mockery out of claims to judicial independence. The constitution must guarantee full separation of the judiciary from other parts of state before the courts can be considered anything other than subordinates of the executive.
b. Army as constitutional defender: Section 20(f) assigns main responsibility to the Defence Services, rather than the judiciary, for defence of the constitution. This is despite the establishing under the charter of a constitutional tribunal. How the army is supposed to perform the task is not explained. This nonsense provision must be removed and responsibility for the constitution must be placed in the hands of the courts before the constitution can be described as a supreme law at all.
c. Rule of law as a function of the executive: Under Schedule One the rule of law and the police force are both placed under the Union Defence and Security Sector. In other words, both maintenance of law and policing are assigned to the armed forces. This is another blanket provision that ensures the continued militarization of the state and subordination of the judiciary to military interests.
d. Presidential power over judges: The power to appoint, promote and remove senior judges ultimately lies with an executive president who in turn, the constitution ensures, must be someone approved by the armed forces. The sections of the constitution pertaining to this power must be amended to remove this authority and instead an independent judicial services commission or equivalent must be established for this purpose.
e. Qualified rights: Apart from the arrangements in the constitution identified above that serve to negate statements of rights in the constitution, the formal statements themselves are consistently qualified and undermined. For instance, the right to be brought before a magistrate within 24 hours, which already exists under ordinary criminal procedure, is defeated through a lengthy opaque clause in section 376 exempting cases concerning national security, the rule of law, peace and tranquility and the interest of the public. Other sections are similarly imprecise and repeatedly allow only for qualified, not guaranteed rights “in accordance with the law”.
5. The above observations and recommendations are made with awareness that the Government of Myanmar will anyhow override provisions of the constitution in the same way that it has consistently overridden those of the ordinary law to the extent necessary to achieve its objectives, but are made on the basis that the constitution as a normative document should provide some bases for commitments to protect human rights, against which it is possible to measure a government’s actual record of respect, protection and fulfillment. The present document provides no such bases. The international community needs to use cases and issues arising in the present day, like that of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, to probe, critique and explore the institutional features of abuse and how they will be reconfigured under the planned new arrangements for government after an election of some sort, rather than simply criticize the individual cases of prominent persons as if they are somehow isolated from the structure and functions o
About the ALRC: The Asian Legal Resource Centre is an independent regional non-governmental organisation holding general consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. It is the sister organisation of the Asian Human Rights Commission. The Hong Kong-based group seeks to strengthen and encourage positive action on legal and human rights issues at the local and national levels throughout Asia. http://www.scoop. co.nz/stories/ WO0909/S00031. htm
Saturday, May 30, 2009
"We are Facing a Crisis of Constitution,” Suu Kyi Tells Lawyer
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=15786
Burmese citizens living in Japan hold portraits of Aung San Suu Kyi as they shout slogans during a rally in Tokyo on May 27, 2009. Some 200 protesters held a rally to demand the immediate release of the country's democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from detention in Yangon. (Photo: Getty Images)
"We are Facing a Crisis of Constitution,” Suu Kyi Tells Lawyer
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By MIN LWIN Friday, May 29, 2009
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Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Thursday, defense lawyer Nyan Win said that Burmese pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi privately told him that the charges against her are invalid as she was charged under the 1975 State Security law, which was annulled by the 2008 constitution.
“We are facing a crisis of constitution, not a constitutional crisis,” she reportedly told him on Thursday.
The lawyer said that Suu Kyi was referring to a 1975 law enacted under the 1974 constitution, which became invalidated when the military seized power in 1988. In addition, under the junta’s “seven-step road map,” the country approved a new constitution in May 2008 by national referendum, which would also invalidate the 1975 act.
Defense witness Kyi Win (no relation to Suu Kyi’s lawyer Kyi Win) echoed Suu Kyi’s sentiments in the courtroom on Thursday, testifying that if the 1974 constitution was still in effect, then the existing constitution was “null and void,” according to a report in the state-run The New Light of Myanmar on Friday.
Kyi Win testified on the ninth day of Suu Kyi’s trial on Thursday. He was the sole witness that the defense team was allowed to call; however, three other defense witnesses were denied the opportunity to testify, although the court gave no reason for their disqualification.
Kyi Win also questioned the junta’s claims that Suu Kyi was responsible for the intruder in her compound on May 3-5, according to The New Light of Myanmar.
Although misleading, it is believed the state-run newspaper was attempting to translate Kyi Win’s testimony to read that if the State employed guards around Suu Kyi’s property, then the security of the house was its responsibility, not Suu Kyi’s.
Although the official version of Kyi Win’s statement reads otherwise, it is believed he said that the Law to Safeguard the State against the Dangers of Those Desiring to Cause Subversive Acts has already been invalidated.
Meanwhile, on Thursday afternoon after court proceedings, Rangoon Northern District Court authorities escorted defendant John William Yettaw to Suu Kyi’s lakeside residence to describe how he had entered and left the compound on May 3-5, Burma’s state-run media reported on Friday.
On the ninth day of the trial, Yettaw reportedly testified to the court that he entered Suu Kyi’s compound in the morning on May 4 and he left just before midnight on May 5, and that he had undertaken to go to the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s house of his own accord.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Friday, Nyan Win said Suu Kyi’s defense team had not been informed that court authorities intended to take the American intruder to the lakeside compound.
“The government has just done whatever they wanted,” he said. “In fact, if they want to do something regarding the trial, they must inform us.”
Yettaw reportedly confessed to the court that he accepted that he had broken Burmese immigration law and the law of Rangoon City Development Committee by secretly entering Suu Kyi’s residence at night without asking permission, even though he knew that the house was guarded by security members, the New Light of Myanmar reported.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Coalition group will not contest 2010 election
http://democracyforburma.wordpress.com/2009/03/24/burmese-political-coalition-group-the-forum-for-democracy-in-burma-has-stated-that-it-opposes-the-planned-2010-elections-and-will-educate-burmese-people-about-the-problems-with-the-election/
Burmese political coalition group the Forum for Democracy in Burma has stated that it opposes the planned 2010 elections and will educate Burmese people about the problems with the election.
2009 March 24
tags: 2010 Election, Burma, Human Rights, Junta, world focus on Burmaby peacerunningCoalition group will not contest 2010 election
Mar 24, 2009 (DVB)–Burmese political coalition group the Forum for Democracy in Burma has stated that it opposes the planned 2010 elections and will educate Burmese people about the problems with the election.
The statement was made at the end of a five-day seminar, which took place from 18 to 22 March, held at an unspecified place along the Thai-Burma border.
The FDB is a coalition of exiled organisations and activists. The seminar was attended by 32 coalition group members and five observers.
Dr Naing Aung, leader of the FDB, said the coalition had chosen to stand strong against the ruling State Peace and Development Council’s plan to hold elections in 2010, and vowed that the group would cooperate with the public for their campaign.
“We will be educating our people more about the election,” he said.
“The aim of the election is to bring the 2008 constitution to life which would lead us to remain as slaves of the military the same as 20 years ago,” said Naing Aung.
The 1990 elections were won by the opposition National League for Democracy in a landslide victory but the military government ignored the results and has continued to rule.
“We will be looking for various methods to fight for our rights,” he added.
“It is unlikely that we would be on safe ground when calling for our rights since Burma is ruled by an oppressive government.”
Friday, March 20, 2009
Pro-democracy committee tells UN to stay away from 2010 elections
http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=2328
Mar 13, 2009 (DVB)–A committee comprised of representatives of parties that won the 1990 elections has said that international observers should attend the proposed 2010 elections only when all parties are allowed to contest.
The comment was made by the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament secretary, Aye Thar Aung, at a meeting on 12 March in Rangoon.
CRPP members discussed how the UN would regard an election which doesn't include parties that won the 1990 election.
"We discussed whether there is a situation where the State Peace and Development Council would amend the constitution,” said Aye Thar Aung.
“If not, what will the consequences of the 2010 election be, especially when the UN and international community have urged that all political parties, ethnic national groups and pro-democracy groups should be included in the 2010 election?”
The CRPP had already decided not to contest the election unless the 2008 constitution is amended.
UN special envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, has however urged the sending of observers to Burma next year.
Prime Minister General Thein Sein hinted at the ASEAN summit that the SPDC would accept them, throwing into question whether the UN is accepting the legitimacy of the elections given the presence of observers.
"When it comes to that, it is not about whether the 2010 election is free and fair,” said Aye Thar Aung. “The 2010 election depends on the amendment of 2008 constitution.”
“Therefore, it won’t matter whether the election is observed by the UN or EU or not if the 2008 constitution is not amended.”
Furthermore, the SPDC has been encouraging business owners to set up parties and contest the election, as well as carrying out surveillance activities on some NLD township offices, Aye Thar Aung said.
Reporting by Htet Aung Kyaw
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