http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/07/06/challenge-impunity-myanmar.html
Challenge impunity in Myanmar
Yozo Yokota, Tokyo | Tue, 07/06/2010 9:07 AM | Opinion A | A | A |
Last month, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, told the United Nations that Myanmar’s ruling military junta may be committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, and that these international crimes should be investigated. I agree.
The past three years have drawn the world’s attention to the humanitarian and human rights crisis in Myanmar as never before. Now Myanmar’s dictator Than Shwe is hoping the world has a short memory; he plans a façade of an election later this year, to put sheen of legitimacy on dictatorial rule.
The courageous protests led by Buddhist monks in September 2007, and the regime’s shocking crackdown, including the killing of Japanese photojournalist Kenji Nagai, exposed more clearly than ever before the regime’s cruelty.
Eight months later, Cyclone Nargis ripped through the country, leaving death and devastation in its wake, and the regime’s initial refusal to accept international aid workers evidenced its inhumanity.
The continuing military offensives against civilians in ethnic areas, particularly in eastern Myanmar, the assassination of at least one prominent ethnic leader and attempts on the lives of others and a callous disregard for a famine in Chin State all expose once again the regime’s agenda of ethnic cleansing.
As the regime prepares to hold elections this year, the world must remember the backdrop of the past three years. Last year, a report was published by Harvard Law School called Crimes in Myanmar.
Commissioned by some of the world’s leading jurists, including Judge Patricia Wald (US), Hon. Ganzorig Gombosuren (Mongolia), Sir Geoffrey Nice QC (UK), Judge Richard Goldstone (South Africa), and Judge Pedro Nikken (Venezuela), the report concludes that the regime’s violations of human rights may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, and that these should be investigated by the United Nations. As a former UN special rapporteur, I agree.
During my period as UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, I received incontrovertible evidence that forced labor, the forcible conscription of child soldiers; torture and rape as a weapon of war are widespread and systematic in Myanmar. Since that time, the evidence has grown stronger. It is claimed by the Thailand-Myanmar Border Consortium that as many as 3,500 villages have been destroyed in eastern Myanmar since 1996. Villagers have been used as human minesweepers, forced to walk through fields of landmines to clear them for the military, often resulting in loss of their limbs and sometimes their lives in the process.
I visited prisons and heard many testimonies of cruel forms of torture. Today, over 2,100 political prisoners are believed to be in Myanmar’s jails, and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s democracy leader, remains under house arrest. She has spent over 14 of the past 20 years in detention.
Religious persecution is widespread. The regime is intolerant of non-Myanmarese ethnic minorities and non-Buddhist religious minorities. The predominantly Christian Chin and Kachin peoples, as well as the partly Christian Karen and Karenni, face discrimination, restriction and persecution, including the destruction of churches and crosses. Christians have been forced to tear down crosses and built Buddhist pagodas in their place, at gunpoint. The Muslim Rohingyas face similar persecution, and are denied citizenship in the country despite living in Myanmar’s northern Arakan state for generations. As a result they face unbearable restrictions on movement and marriage, and have almost no access to education and health care.
The United Nations has been documenting these crimes for many years. My fellow former rapporteur, Rajsoomah Lallah, concluded as long ago as 1996 that these abuses were “the result of policy at the highest level, entailing political and legal responsibility.” A recent General Assembly resolution urged the regime to “put an end to violations of international human rights and humanitarian law”. The UN has placed Myanmar on a monitoring list for genocide, while the Genocide Risk Index lists Myanmar as one of the two top “red alert” countries for genocide, along with Sudan.
Non-Governmental Organizations have made similar assessments. Amnesty International described the violations in eastern Myanmar as crimes against humanity, while the Minority Rights Group ranks Myanmar as one of the top five countries where ethnic minorities are under threat. Freedom House describes Myanmar as “the worst of the worst”.
Human Rights Watch and the International Center for Transitional Justice draw similar conclusions. With “elections” looming and an increase in crimes against humanity already prevalent in Than Shwe’s attempt to end all ethnic minority resistance to his rule, now is the time for concerted international action before more lives are lost.
Impunity prevails in Myanmar and no action has been taken to bring an end to these crimes. That is why we believe the United Nations has an obligation to respond to the current rapporteur’s recommendation and establish a commission of inquiry, to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity and propose action. The UN Security Council should also impose a universal arms embargo on Myanmar’s regime. The regime has been allowed to get away with these crimes for too long. The climate of impunity should not be allowed to continue unchallenged.
The writer was UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar from 1992 to 1996 and a member of the UN Sub–Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights from 2000-2009.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Challenge impunity in Myanmar
Friday, June 18, 2010
CSW RENEWS CALLS FOR UN INQUIRY INTO BURMA’S CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY ON AUNG SAN SUU KYI’S 65th BIRTHDAY
17 June 2010
CSW RENEWS CALLS FOR UN INQUIRY INTO BURMA’S CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY ON AUNG SAN SUU KYI’S 65th BIRTHDAY
Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) is marking the 65th birthday of Burma’s democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi by renewing its call for the establishment of a United Nations Commission of Inquiry, to investigate crimes against humanity and war crimes in Burma. CSW is also calling for a universal arms embargo on the regime.
In March, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Burma, Tomás Ojea Quintana, recommended a Commission of Inquiry. The recommendation followed his report to the UN Human Rights Council which concluded that the human rights violations perpetrated by the military regime against Burma's ethnic nationalities may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. The United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Australia and Slovakia have expressed support for the initiative. CSW urges other countries to publicly support the idea.
Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient who will celebrate her birthday on 19 June, has been held under house arrest for almost 15 years. The latest judgment by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention is that her ongoing detention is in violation of international law. Her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won 82% of the parliamentary seats in the election in 1990, but the regime rejected the results, imprisoned the victors and intensified its grip on power with a campaign of violence. The NLD is boycotting the regime’s upcoming elections, planned for later this year, following the introduction of new electoral laws.
CSW’s East Asia Team Leader, Benedict Rogers, author of Than Shwe: Unmasking Burma’s Tyrant, said: “CSW calls for the immediate release of all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, an end to military offensives against civilians, and an end to violations of religious freedom. In addition to a commission of inquiry, CSW urges the UN Security Council to introduce a universal arms embargo on the regime. CSW calls on the international community to reject the regime's sham elections, and to increase pressure on the regime to engage in a meaningful tripartite dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi, the democracy movement and the ethnic nationalities.”
For further information or to arrange interviews please contact Kiri Kankhwende, Press Officer at Christian Solidarity Worldwide, email kiri@csw.org. uk or visit www.csw.org. uk.
CSW is a human rights organisation which specialises in religious freedom, works on behalf of those persecuted for their Christian beliefs and promotes religious liberty for all.
Notes to Editors:
New election laws introduced in Burma by the regime this year effectively barred Aung San Suu Kyi and other prisoners from taking part in the elections, and as a result her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), refused to register as a political party and thus became a banned organization. The law, based on a constitution imposed after a sham referendum in 2008, introduced conditions that left the NLD little alternative but to boycott the elections.
The human rights situation in Burma is among the worst in the world. Over 2100 political prisoners remain in jail subjected to torture, denial of medical treatment, and dire living conditions. In eastern Burma, over 3,500 villages have been destroyed and at least half a million people internally displaced. Civilians in Karen, Karenni and Shan states are sometimes killed at point-blank range. Forced labour and rape as a weapon of war are widespread and systematic, and the use of child soldiers and human minesweepers is common. In western and northern Burma, the predominantly Christian Chin and Kachin peoples, and the Muslim Rohingyas, are subjected to severe religious discrimination and persecution. Christians and Muslims in urban areas also face serious restrictions and discrimination. Buddhist monks who led peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations in 2007 have been beaten, tortured and sentenced to long prison terms.
CSW’s Change For Burma! Campaign, with Partners Relief and Development, is calling for a UN Commission of Inquiry into Burma’s crimes against humanity. Further details can be found on http://www.changefo rburma.org
Benedict Rogers has written the first ever biography of Burma’s dictator, Senior General Than Shwe, titled Than Shwe: Unmasking Burma’s Tyrant, and published in 2010 by Silkworm Books. The book will be launched on 1July at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand, and on 14 July at the House of Commons in London.
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
Monday, May 11, 2009
ICC campaign (English version)(please click to sign)
To/
Mr. Fredrik Reinfeldt
Prime Minister
Royal Government of Sweden
Subject: :Request to lead Swedish government and European Union in order to
seek justice and criminal accountability for victims of heinous crimes in
Burma/ Myanmar
Dear Your Excellency,
I would like to request your kind attention in regard to heinous crimes being committed by the ruling military regime in Burma, SPDC, against its own people, particularly for those offenses, which constitute international crimes such as crime against humanity, genocide and war crimes, since the emergence of the International Criminal Court, July 1, 2002, inter alias, as follows:
1. The regime used about 5,000 members of its lackey organization, namely Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) and crashed down Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, democracy icon in Burma, and members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) while making organizing trip at Depayin in upper Burma on May 30, 2003. Since that time, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been victim of crime and she has been under detention for almost six years. In recent month, UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention made a ruling that detention of Daw Aung Sun Suu Kyi is against the national laws as well as international laws.
2. The International Committee of the Red Cross issued a global alert on Burma, on June
29, 2007, verifying the regime's criminal violations of the Geneva Conventions, stating that such violations were personally observed by ICRC delegates, that all confidential bilateral negotiations had broken down, and that the crimes by the government were likely to be ongoing. The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Jakob Kellenberger, stated as follows:
"…I urge the government of Myanmar to put a stop to all violations of international humanitarian law and to ensure that they do not recur. ... I would also like to remind all States party to the Geneva Conventions of their obligation, under Article 1, to respect and to ensurerespect for the Conventions."
3. In September 2007, the military regime brutally suppressed peaceful demonstration of
several thousands of monks, and killed and tortured them. Without paying any regard to the effective Criminal Procedural Code in Burma, the military security forces of the SPDC raided the monasteries, searched the campuses, ruined the properties of Buddhist religion, and seriously tortured the monks.
4. In June 2008, the Amnesty International reported that for 2½ years a human rights
emergency has been occurring in the form of a military offensive by the SPDC army waged against ethnic Karen civilians in Kayin (Karen) State and Bago (Pagu) Division. Accordingly, an estimate of 147,800 people have been and remain internally displaced in Kayin State and Bago Division and many of these people have been subject to widespread and systematic human rights violations including unlawful killings, torture and other ill-treatment, enforced disappearances and arbitrary arrests, the imposition of forced labour including portering, the destruction of homes and villages, and the destruction or confiscation of crops and food stocks and other forms of collective punishment. The research undertaken by AI raises grave concerns that the violations of international human right and humanitarian law against the Karen have been part of a widespread and systematic pattern of crimes which may constitute a crime against humanity.
5. In the wake of the SPDC's criminal negligence after Cyclone Nargis occurred in delta
area of Burma, on May 22, 2008, European Parliament made a resolution on the tragic
situation in Burma, as follows:
Takes the view that, if the Burmese authorities continue to prevent aid from reaching those in danger, they should be held accountable for crimes against humanity and calls on EU Member States to press for a UN Security Council resolution referring the case to the ICC for investigation and prosecution.
6. On 27 February 2009, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the United
States and Emergency Assistance Team (Burma) jointly released a report entitled "After
the Storm; Voices from the Delta" and mention that the SPDC obstructed relief to victims
of the cyclone, arrested aid workers and severely restrained accurate information in the
wake of the worst natural disaster to befall modern Burma. The report charges these
abuses may constitute crimes against humanity through the creation of condition whereby
the basic survival needs of victims cannot be adequately met, "intentionally causing great
suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health" violating Article
7(1)(k) of the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court.
7. Rape reports published by ethnic women in Burma including the Shan, Mon, Karen,
Palaung, and Chin (Shan Women’s Action Network, Shan Human Rights Foundation,
Human Rights Foundation of Mon land, Karen Women’s Organization, Palaung’s
Women Organization, Women League of Chin Land and Women’s League of Burma as
well as by Refugees International, document sexual and other forms of violence against
women systematically perpetrated by the junta and even identify perpetrators, give
relevant dates and the battalion numbers of the rapists. Despite that the military regime committed heinous crimes one period after another consistently, the judiciary inside Burma has been keeping silent and no legal action has been taken on the perpetrators for those heinous crimes. The military regime and its lackey perpetrators have been enjoying impunity endlessly and people in Burma lack any protection.
The Responsibility to Protect Doctrine or R2P is a catalyst in transforming the meaning of UN membership and participation in the international community by affirming that with state sovereignty comes the “obligation of a State to protect the welfare of its own people.” It makes clear that in exceptional cases where a State cannot or will not protect civilians the international community has a right to act, and a responsibility to do so. The legal import of UNSCR 1325 to Security Council Actions is that when the council is confronted with evidence of systematic crimes including rape in the context of conflict there should exist a presumption of a threat to international peace and security. In this case such presumption should require a UN Charter Chapter VII referral to the ICC.
In conclusion, I would like to request your Excellency to lead Swedish government and, if possible, European Union to press for a UN Security Council resolution referring the situation of Burma/Myanmar to the ICC for investigation and prosecution in order to seek justice and criminal accountability for victims of heinous crimes there. Only then, repeated crimes will be prevented; the rule of law will be restored; a genuine stability will be established; and a peaceful democratization process will also be facilitated in Burma.
Respectfully,
Download here ( Letter to Prime Minister | English | Burmese language )
Petition to Swedish Prime Minister
Sign the Petition Here:
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SBHRA intends to send the petition before July 1, when Sweden assumes the leadership of the European Union. So, we would be glad to have your signature by June 15, 2009.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
World's inaction in Burma a crime
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/worlds-inaction-in-burma-a-crime-1688594.html
Friday March 27 2009
A recent report into the humanitarian effort following last May's Cyclone Nargis, which killed 140,000 people and left many hundreds of thousands homeless, accuses the Burmese government of blocking aid to the victims.
While we should not be surprised that the Burmese authorities, notoriously one of the most repressive regimes in the world, abused their position, what's truly shocking is that the international community allowed it to happen.
This is yet another example of the utter inability of the UN Security Council in its current guise to serve the needs of those who need them most.
The UN has a responsibility to protect those who are being mistreated by their government, yet not one single UN soldier set foot on Burmese soil to ensure that the aid reached those who needed it.
The report calls for the Burmese to be brought before the International Criminal Court for their actions.
But what is truly criminal is the international community's inaction -- sitting on its hands while the world's most vulnerable were left to fend for themselves as their government so cruelly ignored their suffering.
John O'Shea
Goal, PO Box 19 Dun Laoghaire
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Two Burmese Settlers Raped and Killed
http://www.narinjara.com/details.asp?id=2091
3/16/2009
Buthidaung: Two young female settlers from Burma proper were raped and killed by a group of miscreants in a model village in Buthidaung Township 80 miles north of the Arakan State capital, Sittwe, said a police official on the condition of anonymity.
The two young women, ages 23 and 19, were the daughters of 48-year-old U Maung Maung Than from Tha Rafi model village near Taung Bazar in northern Buthidaung Township.
According to the police report, the incident occurred at a vegetable garden being cultivated by the two young women two kilometers from their model village, when they visited the garden to sell vegetables to a local Muslim man.
On the evening of 1 March, a local Muslim man told the women he wished to buy vegetables from their garden, so the women went to the garden with him.
When they arrived at the vegetable garden, five men who were hiding inside the garden seized the women and restrained them. They later raped them one by one and then killed them, throwing their bodies into nearby Taung Bazar Creek.
Family members and local police found the bodies of the two women near the creek at midnight on the day of the incident and sent the bodies to Taung Bazar hospital for autopsy.
The police official said they know the identity of the perpetrators but have been unable to arrest anyone so far because they have fled across the Burmese border.
A local resident said the older woman was a mother of two children but the younger woman was single. The Tha Rafi model village was established by the Burmese military authority and settled with ethnic Burmese in order to increase the number of Buddhist communities in the region.
Friday, March 20, 2009
RSF lists Burma among 12 “Internet Enemies”
http://www.mizzima.com/news/world/1839-rsf-lists-burma-among-12-internet-enemies.html
by Mungpi
Friday, 13 March 2009 18:16
New Delhi (Mizzima) - Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters Without Border (RSF), has listed military-ruled Burma among 12 countries, which it has called “Internet Enemies” for censoring online freedom of expression.
In a report published on Thursday, entitled “Enemies of the Internet”, the RSF identified 12 nations, that it said had systematically restricted the flow of information to the people by denying them access to the internet and banning sites that it deemed “undesirable”.
The list of such nations included, Burma, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Cuba and Tunisia.
According to the report, Burma’s military rulers have displayed their high-handedness on the few internet users in Burma, by arresting and sentencing at least 14 journalists and two bloggers to long prison terms.
Out of an approximate nearly 50 million people, only about 40,000, mostly urban dwellers, have the privilege of access to the internet, the report said.
In 1996, Burma had introduced a law on television, and video along with the Electronic Act, which banned the import, possession and use of a modem, without official permission. The offense was punishable with up to 15-years of imprisonment, for damaging state security, national unity, culture, the national economy and law and order.
Burma has two government-controlled Internet Service Providers, namely the Myanmar Post and Telecommunication (MPT) and the Bagan Cybertech, which was later renamed as Myanmar Teleport.
Besides monitoring public cyber cafes by conducting surprise checks on internet users and asking the café managers to keep track records of users, the prohibitive prices of getting a connection at home, also restricts the population from accessing the internet.
The report said, the Burmese military junta due to its fear of losing control over the internet, had made laws relating to electronic communications and the dissemination of news online, the most dissuasive in the world, exposing internet-users to very harsh prison sentences.
Internet users in Burma could be simply arrested and sentenced to long prison terms, if they were found surfing or browsing dissident websites, international news sites, and exiled Burmese Media sites, including Mizzima News.
Nay Phone Latt, a 28 year old, owner of two cyber cafes in Rangoon, was arrested in January 2008, and sentenced to over 12 years of imprisonment, under the Electronic Act for possessing a film, which the junta said was “subversive”.
Similarly, popular comedian Zargarnar was also sentenced to 35 years under the Electronic Act, for posting pictures and information on the impact of Cyclone Nargis, which revealed the government’s failure to adequately assist the victims.
The report said, “All of these countries mark themselves out not just for their capacity to censor news and information online, but also for their almost systematic repression of internet users.”
The report, which made a study of 22 countries, also said there were “at least 69 people behind bars, for having expressed themselves freely online.”
The RSF also puts 10 other countries including Australia and South Korea, “Under Surveillance” for adopting worrying measures that could be the beginning of abuses on internet users and imposition of censorship on freedom of expression online.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Burmese junta should answer for crimes against humanity concerning cyclone victims
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=14630
This is the charge of an NGO, which accuses the military junta of exploiting labor - including that of minors - confiscating humanitarian aid, and forced evictions. The report is based on interviews with volunteers and victims involved in cyclone Nargis. In Laputta, there is a shortage of drinking water and the risk of disease is high.
Yangon (AsiaNews/Agencies) - The Burmese government should appear before the International Criminal Court to face human rights charges; the dictatorship committed abuses and crimes in the months following the tragedy of Nargis. This is the harsh condemnation from a humanitarian association that has documented the violations committed by the military toward victims of the cyclone.
"The charge of crimes against humanity is a very grave and serious one," says Chris Beyrer, director of the U.S.-based Center for Public Health and Human Rights, an NGO. "But in the context of a relief effort like this, where you have evidence of forced labour, forced relocation and confiscation of relief aid, these are documented violations that need to be taken seriously."
"After the Storm: Voices from the Delta" is the first independent report - free from censorship by the Burmese military dictatorship - recounting the drama of cyclone victims. It is based on material collected in 90 interviews with volunteers and survivors. It details obstacles and threats directed against volunteers, cases of the disappearance of humanitarian aid that was later resold, and the use of forced labor for reconstruction, including the exploitation of child labor.
For 20 villages in the area of Laputta, in the Irrawaddy delta, there is also the risk of a shortage of drinking water, because of contamination of collection basins and sources. The NGO Emergency Assistance Team says that many people are forced to use drinking water mixed with sea water. Families in the villages are allowed two bottles of drinking water a day - at fifty cents each - and about 4 liters of non-potable water for personal hygiene and laundry purposes. The arrival of summer and the lack of desalination facilities could lead to the deterioration of the situation; cases of diarrhea have emerged among children, and there are fears of widespread disease.
A recent report drafted by the UN and ASEAN - the association that unites 10 countries of Southeast Asia - estimates that 700 million dollars will be needed over the next three years to guarantee reconstruction work in the areas hit by Nargis. The cyclone caused the death of about 140,000 people, but it is estimated that more than 2.4 million Burmese suffered damages of various kinds, and the devastating effects of the cy
From (& To) Russia, With Love-ONLINE HACKERS
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/03/from_to_russia_with_love.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter
If you ask security experts why more cyber criminals aren't brought to justice, the answer you will probably hear is that U.S. authorities simply aren't getting the cooperation they need from law enforcement officials in Russia and other Eastern European nations, where some of the world's most active cyber criminal gangs are thought to operate with impunity.
But I wonder whether authorities in those countries would be any more willing to pursue cyber crooks in their own countries if they were forced to confront just how deeply those groups have penetrated key government and private computer networks in those regions?
As Security Fix documented in When Cyber Criminals Eat Their Own, a common misconception about hacker groups in Russia and the former Soviet nations is that they avoid targeting their own people. On the contrary, aggregate statistics from recent attacks and outbreaks strongly suggest that perception no longer matches reality.
One gradual but notable shift on this front has been the increasing willingness of Russian and Eastern European cyber gangs to target companies in their home countries in virtual shakedowns known as distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, according to exclusive data provided by cyber security research firm Team Cymru (pronounced kum-ree).
In DDoS assaults, cyber gangsters demand tens of thousands of dollars in protection money from businesses. If the businesses refuse to pay, the criminals order hundreds or thousands of compromised computers that they control to flood the Web sites with meaningless traffic, crippling the businesses and preventing legitimate visitors from transacting with the sites.
This video animation, provided by Team Cymru, depicts the targets of DDoS attacks between Jan. 1 and Mar. 1, 2009.
While it's difficult to tell from the video, over the 60-day period depicted here, Team Cymru counted some 45 distinct DDoS incidents in which Russian Internet addresses were the target of the attack (an enlargeable version of this movie can be seen here).
Team Cymru's Steve Santorelli said firms in China and Russia are no more insulated from DDoS attacks than their Western counterparts.
"It's clear from our monitoring that Chinese and Russian victims are much more common now than they were a few years ago," Santorelli said. "There are several possible reasons for that but it's a definite trend that many other in the security community have also noticed."
There also is evidence that cyber crooks have deeply compromised some key Russian and Eastern European government agencies and corporations, as well as top officials at those entities.
Some of the more granular data to support that comes from TrustedSource, which is McAfee's global intelligence system that assigns reputation to networks based on activity it sees coming from them. The following data sets show that TrustedSource recently has observed virus e-mail and spam originating from a variety of government agencies and banking institutions in Russia.
According to McAfee, compromised Russian banks include:
Rusfinance Bank
OGO Bank
Tusarbank
Link Capital Investment Bank
The Maritime Bank
Vladivostok Alfa Bank
Bank Eurotreid
Bank Voronezh
Bashcreditbank
Enisey's United Bank
Inter-Svayz Bank
McAfee's data suggests that computer systems in the following Russian government offices also are controlled by cyber gangs:
Ministry of Taxation, Nazran region
Russian State Internet Network
Regional Finance & Economy Institute
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research
Medical Center of Russian Federation President's Department
Pension Fund of the Russian Federation
Personal Network for the Russian Federation Justice
JSC Chechen Cellular Communication
Dmitri Alperovitch, McAfee's vice president of threat research, said online criminals are largely indiscriminate about their targets and will attack any organization of financial or other interest to them.
"This data disputes the prevalent myth that's been popular in the cyber security community that online criminals, of which a significant number are believed to reside in Eastern Europe, prefer to focus on targets in Western countries and tend to shy away from attacking people or companies in their local jurisdiction," Alperovitch said. "Clearly, the Internet knows no geographical boundaries and it is now apparent that cyber criminals will attack any target of opportunity presented to them."
As Security Fix showed in January, some of the largest collections of victims with data-stealing malicious software installed on their PCs are in Russia. This too, may be a factor of the indiscriminate malware economy: Many of the most common data-stealing keylogger programs - such as Zeus and Limbo - are sold as plug-and-play kits that will just as happily infect an American PC as they will Russian computers.
Just a few minutes of digging through more than 30 gigabytes of keylogged data intercepted by security researchers yielded some interesting results, and more than a few important victims in Russia and Eastern Europe had their corporate Microsoft Outlook e-mail credentials stolen, along with other user names and passwords. Among them was Vladimir Novikov, head of the corporate management department for Gazprom Neft, one of the largest oil-producing companies in Russia. Mr. Novikov did not return e-mails seeking comment.
By Brian Krebs | March 3, 2009; 2:40 PM ET Cyber Justice , Fraud , From the Bunker , Misc.
Previous: "Koobface" Worm Resurfaces on Facebook, MySpace | Next: Fanning the Flames of the Browser Security Wars
CommentsPlease email us to report offensive comments.
Brian, In the animation there is one spot in North America near the great lakes that appears as being attacked about 90% of the time. I watched a few times, and that one spot appears to be attacked considerably more than any other spot shown. Any ideas where this place is and why it would be such a consistent target?
Posted by: lostinthemiddle | March 3, 2009 6:51 PM
@lostinthemiddle -- I have no idea. But I will ask. Looks sort of like the target may be in Canada.
Posted by: BTKrebs | March 3, 2009 7:35 PM
I continue to be impressed with the depth and originality of your reporting, Brian. I hope The Post appreciates your work.
Posted by: Dawny_Chambers | March 4, 2009 6:56 AM
I second that and raise you a 'I truly value the ability to ask you a question in the comments knowing you will read and respond if appropriate'. It makes a big difference.
Posted by: lostinthemiddle | March 4, 2009 9:25 AM
This development is actually most welcome. As an unintended consequence, perhaps the governments being attacked will finally take notice and do something. Of course, the dismaying news is that some government agencies are themselves complicit, whether by design or otherwise.
Too bad we can't invent an electronic analogy to counter-artillery weaponry that instantly targets the source of incoming shells, computes a solution, and fires back destroying the source.
Posted by: peterpallesen | March 4, 2009 11:21 AM
@lostinthemiddle -- so I asked the Team Cymru guys about the target you mentioned. their response:
Yep, that's an attack taking place on an IP located in Ontario -
Toronto, in Canada. It was initiated by an HTTP based botnet in China
and the attack command stayed there for a long time, hence the impact on
the video.
Posted by: BTKrebs | March 4, 2009 2:17 PM
Excellent piece.
Not even the lesser cyber transgressions such as the pfishing expeditions launched from who knows where get resolved by the FBI. Having tried to get the Baltimore office of the FBI to go after those sending pfishing messages my total net response or even a email back from them is exactly 0. Corporations who have had their corporate names and identities purloined by the pfishers also seem unwilling to aggressively go after the pfishers.
Citizens need protection that only governments can provide. If we cannot get resolution of pfishing expeditions how can we expect the government to successfully resolve the greater cyber invasions described in Kreb's good work?
Posted by: absiebert2 | March 4, 2009 3:54 PM
absiebert2 has a point:
A couple of years ago, I received 2 phishing Emails that appeared to be from a well-known very large bank. I had once had an account there, so I did not automatically delete them. The Emails were artfully crafted with graphics copied from the bank's website. But one or 2 sentences were tell-tale that the writer did not usually speak English, so I examined the "click here" to see where it was really going - overseas!
I printed them out each time and took them to the bank branch. No one there had any idea what to do, as if they had never seen such a thing. Worse, they did not perceive it as damaging to their image.
I suggested to the branch manager that he probably would not be able to interest law enforcement in this, but it would be wise to send it up the line to his bosses, to get a warning printed on the next month's statements that the bank would never ask for info by Email. The larger the bank, the more likely phishers would broadcast in their name, hoping to snare a customer.
Not being a customer, I never found out if he took my suggestion seriously.
Eirík Þorvaldsson
Posted by: EirikThorvaldsson | March 5, 2009 1:03 AM
@BTKrebs
Thank you for the follow up.
Posted by: lostinthemiddle | March 5, 2009 1:15 PM
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Monday, March 2, 2009
Burmese regime blocked international aid to cyclone victims, report says
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/27/regime-blocked-aid-to-burma-cyclone-victims
• First independent research into disaster details host of abuses
• Study urges junta be referred to international criminal court
Ian MacKinnon, South-east Asia correspondent guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 February 2009 12.43 GMT Article history
Burmese people beg for food in the rain as aid begins to arrive following cyclone Nargis. Photograph: Getty Images
International aid for cyclone victims in Burma was deliberately blocked by the military regime, the first independent report into the disaster has found.
The junta's wilful disregard for the welfare of the 3.4 million survivors of cyclone Nargis – which struck the Irrawaddy delta last May, killing 140,000 people – and a host of other abuses detailed by the research may amount to crimes against humanity under international law.
The teams of Burmese volunteers and experts from a US university that conducted the research urged the UN security council to refer the regime to the international criminal court.
The report After the Storm: Voices from the Delta outlined how the Burmese authorities failed to provide adequate food, shelter or water for the survivors.
The storm surge coupled with intense winds swept away homes, fields, livestock and rice stores, leaving little or nothing for survivors.
But the military regime, which was at the time preparing for a national referendum on its plans to hold elections in 2010, insisted it could cope with the disaster despite its scale and shunned most international relief for weeks.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in the US and Burmese volunteers from the Emergency Assistance Team (Eat-Burma) spent months interviewing survivors and relief workers about the cyclone's aftermath.
Their study found that the Burmese army obstructed private cyclone relief efforts even among its own concerned citizens, setting up checkpoints and arresting some of those trying to provide help.
Supplies of overseas relief materials that were eventually allowed into Burma were confiscated by the military and sold in markets, the packaging easily identifiable.
"I went to some of the markets run by the military and authorities and saw supplies that had been donated being sold there," a former Burmese soldier who fled to Mae Sot across the border in Thailand told the researchers. "The materials were supposed to go to the victims. I could recognise them in the market."
The researchers were repeatedly told that surviving men, women and even children were used as forced labour on reconstruction projects for the military.
"[The army] did not help us, they threatened us," said one survivor from the town of Labutta. "Everyone in the village was required to work for five days, morning and evening without compensation. Children were required to work too. A boy got injured on his leg and got a fever. After two or three days he was taken to [Rangoon], but after a few days he died."
Professor Chris Beyrer, director of the centre for public health and human rights at Johns Hopkins, said the Burmese regime's response to the disaster violated humanitarian relief norms and legal frameworks for relief efforts.
The systematic abuses may amount to crimes against humanity under international law through the creation of conditions where basic survival needs of people are not met, "intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health", he said.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Burma cyclone response was 'crime against humanity'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/burmamyanmar/4839404/Burma-cyclone-response-was-crime-against-humanity.html
Burma's regime deliberately blocked international aid getting to victims of last year's cyclone, a report has claimed.
By Thomas Bell, South East Asia Correspondent
Last Updated: 11:33PM GMT 26 Feb 2009
Survivors of Cyclone Nargis in Burma did not receive donor money they were promised to rebuild their lives Photo: AFP/Getty
The first independent inquiry into the aftermath of the disaster has said the authorities should be referred to the International Criminal Court for stopping help getting through and persecuting survivors.
It found the Burmese leadership failed to provide adequate food, shelter and medical care in the wake of Cyclone Nargis which struck the Irrawaddy Delta on May 2 last year, killing at least 140 000 people.
Around 3.4 million people were effected by the disaster, which swept away homes, farms, granaries, livestock and wells.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in America and an organisation of Burmese volunteers called the Emergency Assistance Team – Burma (EAT) have documented what happened in the following weeks.
Military checkpoints were set up across the delta as the regime treated the disaster not as a humanitarian emergency but as a security crisis.
The report claims some people who attempted to distribute private aid were arrested. It details allegations of aid being stolen and resold by the military authorities.
The researchers also claim the army used forced labour, including of children, in the aftermath of the disaster.
According to one survivor: "[The army] did not help us, they threatened us. Everyone in the village was required to work for five days, morning and evening, without compensation. Children were required to work too.
"A boy got injured in his leg and he got fever. After two or three days he was taken to Rangoon, but in a few [days] he died."
There were also anecdotal accounts of people dying in the aftermath of the cyclone due to the actions of the army.
But restrictions in the country mean no one has been able to estimate how many died in a supposed "second wave" of deaths in the period after the cyclone.
Under international law, creating conditions where the basic survival needs of civilians cannot be adequately met, "intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health," is considered a crime against humanity.
The report concludes that the United Nations Security Council should refer the junta for investigation by the International Criminal Court.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
UDP Leader Involved in Drugs, Money Laundering, Says Ex-agent
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=15174
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By WAI MOE Monday, February 23, 2009
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The leader of a Burmese political party has again been tied to drug dealing and money laundering by a former official in Burma’s military intelligence, in a Voice of America (VOA) Burmese program on Sunday.
Maj Aung Linn Htut, a former intelligence officer who currently lives in the United States, said during a VOA interview that Kyaw Myint, also known as Michael Hua Hu, the executive vice chairman of the United Democratic Party of Myanmar (UDP), that the allegations took place when Kyaw Myint was a leader of the United Wa State Army’s (UWSA) treasury department in the 1990s. Kyaw Myint now lives in Canada.
He said Kyaw Myint ran a company, Myanmar Kyone Yeom, which was involved in money laundering in the 1990s. The former agent said the Wa political faction backed at least four commercial banks in Burma at the time.
Asiaweek magazine reported in January 1998 that Myanmar Kyone Yeom was accused of acting as a “money-washing machine” for the UWSA.
The company was blacklisted by the Burmese regime because “Michael Hua Hu (a.k.a. Col Kyaw Myint), who claimed to be a deputy minister of finance for the UWSA, openly and brazenly flouted Burmese business laws and regulations,” Jane’s Intelligence Review reported in November 1998.
After the ouster of Burmese intelligence chief Gen Khin Nyunt in October 2004, Aung Linn Htut sought political asylum in the US while he served at the Burmese embassy in Washington DC.
The former agent said complaints leveled by Brig-Gen Maung Maung, the secretary of the Myanmar Investment Commission, led to a 10-year prison sentence in Burma against Kyaw Myint.
“Actually, he is a fugitive [in Burma] because he broke jail when he was serving his prison term at a labor camp and escaped to Thailand,” Aung Linn Htut said in the radio interview.
Kyaw Myint came into the spotlight in Canada recently when trading in Future Canada China Environment Inc. was halted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission in late January, when the value of the company’s stock rose rapidly to more than US $1 billion.
The price jumped on the strength of a proposed merger with a company that appears to be connected to Michael Hua Hu [Kyaw Myint], according to a report in The Vancouver Sun newspaper.
“The commission temporarily suspended trading in the securities of Future Canada China Environment Inc. because questions have arisen concerning recent trading activities in the company’s stock during which its share price increased from US $ 0.92 to US $ 28.50,” the US Securities and Exchange Commission announced on January 28.
The commission cautioned brokers, dealers, shareholders and prospective purchasers that they should carefully consider the foregoing information along with all other currently available information and any information subsequently issued by the company.
“The company has negligible assets and no operating business. Its stock price ostensibly jumped on strength of a proposed merger with a company that appears to be connected to Michael Hua Hu, a former Burmese businessman now living in Vancouver,” The Vancouver Sun reported on February 4.
It said that with 38 million shares outstanding, the company had a total stock market value of US $1.1 billion.
“That's quite a premium to the company's book value, which was negative $55,000 at last count,” the newspaper said.
According to The Vancouver Sun, Kyaw Myint is also involved in NAH Development Group Inc., a company based in Canada.
Kyaw Myint denied allegations of drug dealing and money laundering in a statement responding to an article published in The Irrawaddy in late December. “I, U Kyaw Myint, have never conducted or been involved in the illegal drug business or money laundering business in my life,” said the statement, published on his Web site.
Kyaw Myint said in the statement, “All my businesses in North America and Asia are legal.”
Recently, Kyaw Myint has sought to play a role in the 2010 Burmese elections by forming the UDP in Burma.
In late January, a party statement said that Thu Wai, a veteran politician, and Ye Tun, a well-known businessman, in Rangoon, were named chairman and vice chairman.
Burmese exiles say Kyaw Myint is the financial backer of the party, and he wants to attract prominent politicians to the party.
The UDP stirred up a minor controversy when Cho Cho Kyaw Nyein, the daughter of former minister Kyaw Nyein, publicly denied she had any role in the party.
Htun Aung Gyaw, a former Burmese student leader, also denied reports he was involved in the party.
Aung Linn Htut told VOA that he believed Kyaw Myint wanted to play a significant role in politics in the 2010 election and perhaps gain an amnesty from the Burmese military government.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Seamy border casino town closed down
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2009/200902/20090211/article_390679.htm
By Li Xinran | 2009-2-11 | ONLINE EDITION
MORE than 5,000 Chinese citizens left Maijayang yesterday after the Chinese and Myanmar governments cracked down on casinos in the border city.
Several Chinese teenagers have been abducted recently in Maijayang.
To stop gambling Myanmar has shut down the casinos in Maijayang and China has cut off power, water, telecommunications and even paths to the town which sits on the Sino-Burma border, Beijing News reported.
Maijayang authorities have declared gambling illegal and local police raided dozens of casinos on January 28.
Cao Chuan, a Chinese employee at a local casino, told the newspaper he lost his job because of the raids.
The frontier inspection authority from the neighboring Yunnan Province of China said Myanmar closed casinos in Maijayang after Chinese media reported teenagers from Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province, had been kidnapped in the city by casino operators or loan sharks and held for ransom.
China switched off some of its transmission towers from January 28 in Yunnan's Dehong Prefecture, which borders Maijayang. Authorities in Dehong said they would introduce measures to block finance, power and telecommunication services to casinos in Myanmar.
Chinese frontier troops are patroling more frequently than before and have closed 11 passages to Maijayang to ban illegal crossings, the report said.
At least 50 youngsters from Shanxi in northern China have been kidnapped and reportedly tortured by gangs in Myanmar since August to extort ransoms.
All of them returned home at the end of last month after their parents had paid ransoms or they were rescued by the police.
Most of those kidnapped were between 16 and 22 years old, police said.
The kidnappers tricked their victims into going to Myanmar for work. After arriving there the teens were imprisoned and the kidnappers phoned their families demanding ransoms.
Most of the boys were freed after their families paid ransoms that ranged between 20,000 and 100,000 yuan.
They were told by the kidnappers in Myanmar to gamble so they could run up debts that could be used to extort money from their worried parents.
Families later received phone calls from Myanmar demanding ransoms for their children who were heard crying and saying they had been tortured.
The callers told the parents to pay the ransom into designated bank accounts otherwise their boys would be skinned or the parents would be sent their fingers.
One victim told his mother on October 8 that he would be beaten to death if she could not transfer money that day.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Chuo professor dies in campus stabbing-(JAPAN)
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20090115a1.html
Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009
University shuts gates, cancels day's classes
Kyodo News
A Chuo University electronics professor died of stab wounds Wednesday after he was attacked by a man in a building on the Korakuen campus in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, police and other sources said.
The culprit, dressed in black clothing and a black knit cap, fled the scene, according to the student who found the professor. The man appeared to be in his 30s, the police said.
Hajime Takakubo, 45, of the Faculty of Science and Engineering, was found bleeding from multiple wounds in a bathroom on the fourth floor of the university's No. 1 building. He was stabbed at least 10 times in the chest, back and hands.
A security guard called authorities at around 10:30 a.m., but Takakubo died an hour later, the police said.
The attacker was seen fleeing the building. No weapon has been found so far, the police said.
Takakubo, whose office is on the same floor as the attack, was scheduled to give a lecture at 10:40 a.m. He was an expert on electronic circuits for TVs and mobile phones.
"He was a gentle person and not the kind who has arguments with others," an acquaintance said.
A sophomore in one of Takakubo's classes said the slaying was a complete shock.
"He was always smiling and I have never heard that he was involved in trouble," the student said.
The university closed all three of its gates after the stabbing, and students appeared worried. A school official later announced to a crowd of more than 200 students that afternoon classes were canceled and the campus would temporarily close.
The Metropolitan Police Department set up an investigation headquarters at Tomisaka Police Station.
Takakubo was a member of the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, and the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. He leaves behind a wife, who is also a university professor, and a son and two daughters. His late father, Toshikazu, was a legal scholar, according to a source close to the family.
In July 1991, Hitoshi Igarashi, an associate professor at Tsukuba University in Ibaraki Prefecture who translated "The Satanic Verses," the controversial book by Salman Rushdie, was murdered on campus.
In November 2000, an economics professor at Meiji University was attacked by four men on a street. He suffered a broken bone but survived.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Where bribery was just a line item
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2008/12/24/2003431915
Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq, Myanmar and Somalia are the five countries where corporate bribery is most common, according to Transparency International.
Three decades after Congress passed a law barring US companies from paying bribes to secure foreign business, law enforcement agencies around the world are bearing down on major enterprises
By Siri Schubert and T. Christian Miller
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, MUNICH, GERMANY
Wednesday, Dec 24, 2008, Page 9
ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
Reinhard Siekaczek was half asleep in bed when his doorbell rang early one morning two years ago.
Still in his pajamas, he peeked out his bedroom window, hurried downstairs and flung open the front door. Standing before him in the cool, crisp dark were six German police officers and a prosecutor. They held a warrant for his arrest.
At that moment, Siekaczek, a stout, graying former accountant for Siemens AG, the German engineering giant, knew that his secret life had ended.
“I know what this is about,” Siekaczek told the officers crowded around his door. “I have been expecting you.”
To understand how Siemens, one of the world’s biggest companies, last week ended up paying US$1.6 billion in the largest fine for bribery in modern corporate history, it’s worth delving into Siekaczek’s unusual journey.
A former midlevel executive at Siemens, he was one of several people who arranged a torrent of payments that eventually streamed to well-placed officials around the globe, from Vietnam to Venezuela and from Italy to Israel, according to interviews with Siekaczek and court records in Germany and the US.
‘The SEC complaint said Siemens paid its heftiest bribes in China, Russia, Argentina, Israel and Venezuela.’
What is striking about Siekaczek’s and prosecutors’ accounts of those dealings, which flowed through a web of secret bank accounts and shadowy consultants, is how entrenched corruption had become at a sprawling, sophisticated corporation that externally embraced the nostrums of a transparent global marketplace built on legitimate transactions.
Siekaczek says that from 2002 to 2006 he oversaw an annual bribery budget of about US$40 million to US$50 million at Siemens. Company managers and sales staff used the slush fund to cozy up to corrupt government officials worldwide.
The payments, he says, were vital to maintaining the competitiveness of Siemens overseas, particularly in his subsidiary, which sold telecommunications equipment. “It was about keeping the business unit alive and not jeopardizing thousands of jobs overnight,” he said in an interview.
Siemens is hardly the only corporate giant caught in prosecutors’ cross hairs.
Three decades after Congress passed a law barring US companies from paying bribes to secure foreign business, law enforcement authorities around the world are bearing down on major enterprises like Daimler and Johnson & Johnson, with scores of cases now under investigation. Both companies declined comment, citing continuing investigations.
Albert Stanley, a legendary figure in the oil patch and the former chief executive of the KBR subsidiary of Halliburton, recently pleaded guilty to charges of paying bribes and skimming millions for himself. More charges are coming in that case, officials say.
But the Siemens case is notable for its breadth, the sums of money involved, and the raw organizational zeal with which the company deployed bribes to secure contracts. It is also a model of something that was once extremely rare: cross-border cooperation among law enforcement officials.
German prosecutors initially opened the Siemens case in 2005. US authorities became involved in 2006 because the company’s shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange. In its settlement last week with the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Siemens pleaded guilty to violating accounting provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which outlaws bribery abroad.
Although court documents are salted throughout with the word “bribes,” the Justice Department allowed Siemens to plead to accounting violations because it cooperated with the investigation and because pleading to bribery violations would have barred Siemens from bidding on government contracts in the US. Siemens doesn’t dispute the government’s account of its actions.
Matthew Friedrich, the acting chief of the Justice Department’s criminal division, called corruption at Siemens “systematic and widespread.”
Linda Thomsen, the SEC’s enforcement director, said it was “egregious and brazen.”
Joseph Persichini, the director of the FBI’s Washington field office, which led the investigation, called it “massive, willful and carefully orchestrated.”
Siekaczek’s telecommunications unit was awash in easy money. It paid US$5 million in bribes to win a mobile phone contract in Bangladesh, to the son of the prime minister at the time and other senior officials, according to court documents. Siekaczek’s group also made US$12.7 million in payments to senior officials in Nigeria for government contracts.
In Argentina, a different Siemens subsidiary paid at least US$40 million in bribes to win a US$1 billion contract to produce national identity cards. In Israel, the company provided US$20 million to senior government officials to build power plants. In Venezuela, it was US$16 million for urban rail lines. In China, US$14 million for medical equipment. And in Iraq, US$1.7 million to Saddam Hussein and his cronies.
The bribes left behind angry competitors who were shut out of contracts and local residents in poor countries who, because of rigged deals, paid too much for necessities like roads, power plants and hospitals, prosecutors said.
Because government contracting is an opaque process and losers don’t typically file formal protests, it’s difficult to know the identity of competitors who lost out to Siemens. Companies in the US have long complained, however, that they face an uneven playing field competing overseas.
Ben Heineman, a former general counsel at General Electric and a member of the American chapter of Transparency International, a nonprofit group that tracks corruption, says the enforcement of some anti-bribery conventions still remains scattershot.
“Until you have energetic enforcement by the developed-world nations, you won’t get strong anti-bribery programs or high-integrity corporate culture,” he said.
Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq, Myanmar and Somalia are the five countries where corporate bribery is most common, according to Transparency International. The SEC complaint said Siemens paid its heftiest bribes in China, Russia, Argentina, Israel and Venezuela.
“Crimes of official corruption threaten the integrity of the global marketplace and undermine the rule of law in the host countries,” said Lori Weinstein, the Justice Department prosecutor who oversaw the Siemens case.
All told, Siemens will pay more than US$2.6 billion to clear its name: US$1.6 billion in fines and fees in Germany and the US and more than US$1 billion for internal investigations and reforms.
Siemens’ general counsel, Peter Solmssen, in an interview outside a marble-lined courtroom in Washington, said the company acknowledged that bribes were at the heart of the case.
“This is the end of a difficult chapter in the company’s history,” he said. “We’re glad to get it behind us.”
Siekaczek, who cooperated with German authorities after his arrest in 2006, has already been sentenced in Germany to two years’ probation and a US$150,000 fine. During a lengthy interview in Munich, a few blocks from the Siemens world headquarters, he provided an insider’s account of corruption at the company. The interview was his first with English-language news outlets.
“I would never have thought I’d go to jail for my company,” Siekaczek said. “Sure, we joked about it, but we thought if our actions ever came to light, we’d all go together and there would be enough people to play a game of cards.”
Siekaczek isn’t a stereotype of a white-collar villain. There are no Ferraris in his driveway, or villas in Monaco. He dresses in jeans, loafers and leather jackets. With white hair and gold-rimmed glasses, he passes for a kindly grandfather — albeit one who can discuss the advantages of offshore bank accounts as easily as last night’s soccer match.
Siemens began bribing long before Siekaczek applied his accounting skills to the task of organizing the payments.
World War II left the company shattered, its factories bombed and its trademark patents confiscated, according to American prosecutors. The company turned to markets in less developed countries to compete, and bribery became a reliable and ubiquitous sales technique.
“Bribery was Siemens’ business model,” said Uwe Dolata, the spokesman for the association of federal criminal investigators in Germany. “Siemens had institutionalized corruption.”
Before 1999, bribes were deductible as business expenses under the German tax code, and paying off a foreign official was not a criminal offense. In such an environment, Siemens officials subscribed to a straightforward rule in pursuing business abroad, according to one former executive. They played by local rules.
Inside Siemens, bribes were referred to as “NA” — a German abbreviation for the phrase “nuetzliche Aufwendungen” which means “useful money.” Siemens bribed wherever executives felt the money was needed, paying off officials not only in countries known for government corruption, like Nigeria, but also in countries with reputations for transparency, like Norway, according to court records.
In February 1999, Germany joined the international convention banning foreign bribery, a pact signed by most of the world’s industrial nations. By 2000, authorities in Austria and Switzerland were suspicious of millions of dollars of Siemens payments flowing to offshore bank accounts, according to court records.
Rather than comply with the law, Siemens managers created a “paper program,” a toothless internal system that did little to punish wrongdoers, according to court documents.
Siekaczek’s business unit was one of the most egregious offenders. Court documents show that the telecommunications unit paid more than US$800 million of the US$1.4 billion in illegal payments that Siemens made from 2001 to last year. Managers in the telecommunications group decided to deal with the possibility of a crackdown by making its bribery procedures more difficult to detect.
So, on one winter evening in late 2002, five executives from the telecommunications group met for dinner at a traditional Bavarian restaurant in a Munich suburb. Surrounded by dark wood panels and posters celebrating German engineering, the group discussed how to better disguise its payments, while making sure that employees didn’t pocket the money, Siekaczek said.
To handle the business side of bribery, the executives turned to Siekaczek, a man renowned within the company for his personal honesty, his deep company loyalty — and his experiences in the shadowy world of illegal bribery.
“It had nothing to do with being law-abiding, because we all knew what we did was unlawful,” Siekaczek said. “What mattered here was that the person put in charge was stable and wouldn’t go astray.”
Although Siekaczek was reluctant to take the job offered that night, he justified it as economic necessity. If Siemens didn’t pay bribes, it would lose contracts and its employees might lose their jobs.
“We thought we had to do it,” Siekaczek said. “Otherwise, we’d ruin the company.”
Indeed, he considers his personal probity a point of honor. He describes himself as “the man in the middle,” “the banker” or, with tongue in cheek, “the master of disaster.” But, he said, he never set up a bribe. Nor did he directly hand over money to a corrupt official.
NO EVIDENCE
German prosecutors say they have no evidence that he personally enriched himself, though German documents show that Siekaczek oversaw the transfer of some US$65 million through hard-to-trace offshore bank accounts.
“I was not the man responsible for bribery,” he said. “I organized the cash.”
Siekaczek set things in motion by moving money out of accounts in Austria to Liechtenstein and Switzerland, where bank secrecy laws provided greater cover and anonymity. He said he also reached out to a trustee in Switzerland who set up front companies to conceal money trails from Siemens to offshore bank accounts in Dubai and the British Virgin Islands.
Each year, Siekaczek said, managers in his unit set aside a budget of about US$40 million to US$50 million for the payment of bribes. For Greece alone, Siemens budgeted US$10 million to US$15 million a year. Bribes were as high as 40 percent of the contract cost in especially corrupt countries. Typically, amounts ranged from 5 percent to 6 percent of a contract’s value.
The most common method of bribery involved hiring an outside consultant to help “win” a contract. This was typically a local resident with ties to ruling leaders. Siemens paid a fee to the consultant, who in turn delivered the cash to the ultimate recipient.
Siemens has acknowledged having more than 2,700 business consultant agreements, so-called BCAs, worldwide. Those consultants were at the heart of the bribery scheme, sending millions to government officials.
Siekaczek was painfully aware that he was acting illegally. To protect evidence that he didn’t act alone, he and a colleague began copying documents stored in a basement at Siemens’ headquarters in Munich that detailed the payments. He eventually stashed about three dozen folders in a secret hiding spot.
In 2004, Siemens executives told him that he had to sign a document stating he had followed the company’s compliance rules. Reluctantly, he signed, but he quit soon after. He continued to work for Siemens as a consultant before finally resigning in 2006. As legal pressure mounted, he heard rumors that Siemens was setting him up for a fall.
“On the inside, I was deeply disappointed. But I told myself that people were going to be surprised when their plan failed,” Siekaczek recalled. “It wasn’t going to be possible to make me the only one guilty because dozens of people in the business unit were involved. Nobody was going to believe that one person did this on his own.”
The Siemens scheme began to collapse when investigators in several countries began examining suspicious transactions. Prosecutors in Italy, Liechtenstein and Switzerland sent requests for help to counterparts in Germany, providing lists of suspect Siemens employees. German officials then decided to act in one simultaneous raid.
The police knocked on Siekaczek’s door on the morning of Nov. 15, 2006. Some 200 other officers were also sweeping across Germany, into Siemens’ headquarters in Munich and the homes of several executives.
In addition to Siekaczek’s detailed payment records, investigators secured five terabytes of data from Siemens’ offices — a mother lode of information equivalent to 5 million books. Siekaczek turned out to be one of the biggest prizes. After calling his lawyer, he immediately announced that he would cooperate.
Officials in the US began investigating the case shortly after the raids became public. Knowing that it faced steep fines unless it cooperated, Siemens hired a US law firm, Debevoise & Plimpton, to conduct an internal investigation and to work with federal investigators.
As German and American investigators worked together to develop leads, Debevoise and its partners dedicated more than 300 lawyers, forensic analysts and staff members to untangle thousands of payments across the globe, according to the court records.
1,700 INTERVIEWS
US investigators and the Debevoise lawyers conducted more than 1,700 interviews in 34 countries. They collected more than 100 million documents, creating special facilities in China and Germany to house records from that single investigation. Debevoise and an outside auditor racked up 1.5 million billable hours, according to court documents. Siemens has said that the internal inquiry and related restructurings have cost it more than US$1 billion.
Siemens officials “made it crystal clear that they wanted us to get to the bottom of this and follow it wherever the evidence led,” said Bruce Yannett, a Debevoise partner.
At the same time, Siemens worked hard to purge the company of some senior managers and to reform company policies. Several senior managers have been arrested. Klaus Kleinfeld, the company’s CEO, resigned in April last year. He has denied wrongdoing and is now head of Alcoa, the aluminum giant. Alcoa said that the company fully supports Kleinfeld and declined to comment further.
Last year, Siemens said in SEC filings that it had discovered evidence that former officials had misappropriated funds and abused their authority. In August, Siemens said it seeks to recover monetary damages from 11 former board members for activities related to the bribery scheme. Negotiations on that matter are continuing.
Earlier this year, Siemens’ current chief executive, Peter Loescher, vowed to make Siemens “state of the art” in anti-corruption measures.
“Operational excellence and ethical behavior are not a contradiction of terms,” the company said in a statement. “We must get the best business — and the clean business.”
Siemens still faces legal uncertainties. The Justice Department and German officials said that investigations were continuing and that current and former company officials might face prosecution.
Legal experts say Siemens is the latest in a string of high-profile cases that are changing attitudes about corruption. Still, they said, much work remains.
“I am not saying the fight against bribing foreign public officials is a fight full of roses and victories,” said Nicola Bonucci, the director of legal affairs for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which is based in Paris and monitors the global economy. “But I am convinced that it is something more and more people are taking seriously.”
For his part, Siekaczek is uncertain about the impact of the Siemens case. After all, he said, bribery and corruption are still widespread.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Child trafficking continues between Burma and Thailand
http://www.humanrights-geneva.info/Child-trafficking-continues,3909
12 December 08 - When Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar in May, leaving close to 140,000 people dead or missing, aid workers feared an increase in child trafficking from the region.
IRIN, Mae Sot - Burmese children have long been trafficked into Bangkok and other urban areas of Thailand where they are forced to sell flowers, beg or work in domestic service, according to World Vision. Others work in agriculture, fishing, construction and the sex industry, the NGO said.
Today they make up the largest proportion of foreign child labour, Thailand’s immigration detention centres report.
However, despite the risks, no increases have been reported, although specialists caution that accurate figures are not available. "We’ve had no reports of an increase in trafficking numbers," Mark Thomas, chief of communications for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Thailand, told IRIN.
"If there were such report[s] I would be cautious about using [them] since there are no accurate figures on the numbers of people who are trafficked on a regular basis prior to the cyclone," he said – a sentiment echoed by aid workers in the Thai border town of Mae Sot, from where so many Burmese enter the country.
"Trafficking happens here every day," said Aye Aye Mar, founder of Social Action for Women, a local NGO providing shelter and training for Burmese women and children.
"We saw one group of about 100 women from the cyclone region brought to Mae Sot by smugglers, but we haven’t seen any cases involving children," said Aye Aye Mar.
While most evidence of Nargis-related trafficking has been anecdotal, one NGO working in Myanmar intervened in seven trafficking cases in June, some involving children.
"Children are at increased risk of being trafficked when they’re separated from their parents or primary caregivers, as was the case with some children during Cyclone Nargis," said one field officer, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Those risks are exacerbated when families are impoverished and children are forced to undertake more exploitative work to contribute to family livelihood, the aid worker said.
Job seekers
Mae Sot lies on the principal land route into Myanmar through the border town of Myawaddy. It is also a key point on migration and trafficking routes between the two countries, with many Burmese coming to work in the town’s factories and farms.
It has Thailand’s largest Burmese population, estimated at 80,000-plus, nine refugee camps, and probably the largest concentration of Myanmar-focused international and local NGOs in the country.
Aid workers say trafficking works in several ways. Some involves highly visible activities where job brokers in Myanmar distribute posters, fliers and T-shirts advertising overseas work with free flights and high salaries – the average Burmese annual wage is about US$240.
A more usual story is people wanting work contact the brokers.
But with child trafficking, brokers approach poor families directly - offering cash to take their child to a city such as Bangkok to earn money by selling flowers or begging.
Children vulnerable
Many economic migrants fall into the trafficking trap upon arrival in Mae Sot, according to one local NGO.
"Once migrant families arrive here [Mae Sot], their children become increasingly vulnerable to trafficking," a local aid worker, who did not want to be named, said.
"This happens for a couple of reasons. First, their parents work all day and can’t look after them, so they become more visible to the traffickers. Second, the family needs money," she said.
"In poor families it is normal for children to work. So when a broker offers them 1,500 baht [$42.80] per month to take the child to Bangkok to sell flowers, they don’t see it as human trafficking."
But many families see only the first one or two payments from the traffickers, who quickly break off contact. Many never see their children again.
"The children who are trafficked are very young," explained Aye Aye Mar. "They often can’t remember where they come from, and don’t know how to contact their family or village if they manage to run away from the brokers."
Educating migrant families and vulnerable communities within Myanmar about the risk of trafficking, and the tricks and promises employed by brokers, is key to fighting the trade.
This needs to be backed up with capacity-building at an institutional level, noted Ashley Clements, an advocacy officer with World Vision Myanmar.
"Some of the most effective ways that World Vision has been working on trafficking has been the capacity-building of government officials, upgrading their skills to make them more aware of the associated issues and how to address them," he said.
"But if we don’t find solutions to help vulnerable people rebuild their livelihoods and start earning a living, then they will remain much more vulnerable to trafficking," he warned.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
2 men arrested for smuggling 5 women from Myanmar into Japan
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20081210p2a00m0na010000c.html
Two men have been arrested for smuggling five women from Myanmar into Japan and putting them to work in restaurants, Tokyo police announced Wednesday.
Arrested under the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law were 69-year-old Hideo Kobune, president of NPO Wellness Network 21, and notary public Izumi Omori, 58. Their accomplice, a 27-year-old Myanmarese woman who worked as a broker, is already under arrest.
Police say that Kobune forged graduation certificates from a Japanese language school in Myanmar, as well as fake certificates of employment from his trading and software companies, and used them to obtain residence status certificates for five Myanmarese women. They each paid him around 1.5 million yen.
The pair are believed to have made around 160 million yen from smuggling since February 2006. Kobune is also believed to have used his NPO to lean on the Japanese consulate in Guangzhou, China, to expedite visa applications for Chinese immigrants, who formed the majority of the 135 people he illegally brought into Japan.
"I admit making them work in the restaurants, but Omori actually brought them into the country," Kobune told investigators. Omori has denied the charges, saying: "I don't see it as mass smuggling."
Set up in 2003, the NPO had links to a Tokyo-based criminal organization, according to police.
集団密航：助長容疑でＮＰＯ理事長ら逮捕 謝礼は１億円超
ミャンマー国籍の女性を集団密航させて飲食店で働かせていたとして、警視庁組織犯罪対策１課は１０日、ＮＰＯ法人「ウエルネス・ネットワーク２１」（東京都中央区）理事長、小舟日出雄（６９）＝江東区亀戸＝、行政書士の大森泉（５８）＝葛飾区四つ木＝の両容疑者を入管法違反（集団密航助長）容疑で逮捕したと発表した。０６年２月以降、中国やミャンマー国籍の男女計約１３５人を集団密航させるなどして、謝礼として計約１億６０００万円を受け取っていたとみられる。
調べでは、小舟容疑者らは、ミャンマー国籍のブローカーの女（２７）＝同法違反容疑で既に逮捕＝と共謀。０７年４月、いずれも同国籍の女（３３）ら５人を都内の飲食店で働かせる目的で不法に入国させた疑い。
小舟容疑者らは、ブローカーの女の親族女性（４４）を通じ、ミャンマーの日本語学校の卒業証明書を偽造。さらに自分が経営する中央区の貿易会社やソフトウエア開発会社などとうその雇用契約書を作成し、東京入国管理局に提出し、在留資格証明書を得ていた。５人はそれぞれ約１５０万円を小舟容疑者らに謝礼として支払っていた。
また、１３５人のうち約９割が中国籍の男女で、小舟容疑者は９月、中国・広州の日本総領事館でＮＰＯの名前を出したうえで「在留資格証明書が出ているのに、なぜ早くビザを発行しないのか」と抗議したこともあったという。
小舟容疑者は「飲食店などで働かせたことは認めるが、集団密航は大森容疑者の依頼でやった」と供述し、大森容疑者は「集団密航させたという認識はない」と容疑を否認しているという。
ＮＰＯ法人は０３年設立。ホームページによると、福祉の充実などを目的とした情報収集や調査研究が主な事業。組対１課によれば、活動実態はほとんどなく在京の指定暴力団とも関係があったという。【武内亮】
英訳
毎日新聞 2008年12月10日 11時45分（最終更新 12月10日 12時46分）
Criminals are winning when it comes to combating cybercrime
http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/200850/2593/Criminals-are-winning-when-it-comes-to-combating-cybercrime
The criminals are winning the game of cybercrime vs. cyberlaw.(IMG:J.Anderson)
In the new Virtual Criminology Report (VCR) from McAfee, there is a comment in the Foreword that paints a grim reality for practitioners of the security art. Despite all that has been done to combat cybercrime, the criminals have the upper hand. While you would expect this outlook from a security vendor, looking back on 2008, there is a lot of truth to that statement.
In the past three installments, the McAfee VCR has mostly been a trending report on cyber threats. This year痴 report instead looks at how cybercrime is winning the battle over cyberlaw. To back that train of thought, the McAfee report lists three findings that came to light.
The first was that cybercrime is simply not a top priority for many governments. Political attention is diverted to other matters when you consider the economy and the other risks such as terrorism (i.e. kidnappings, hostage taking, and massive amounts of destruction -- not the let's take away your shoelaces and bottle of water kind).
Mary Kirwan, international lawyer and former cybercrime prosecutor in Canada, sums it up by saying: "The bad guys will inherit the earth, and we will be left swinging in the wind."
"The Achilles heel of the technology sector is the same vulnerability that has the financial services sector currently on its knees: a wealth of arrogance. Complexity is worshipped as an end in itself, and simplicity is scorned. There痴 no understanding of critical interdependencies, through lack of communication," she added.
"We致e a poor grasp of what glues the Frankenstein monster we致e created together, and what can just as equally tear it all apart. But the bad guys are in the know, and they are ready to exploit the demonstrable lack of big picture thinking in the sector."
Another finding is that there is little to no cross-border law enforcement against criminals who commit crimes online. No international efforts mean that criminals in China will continue to victimize people in Europe or America with little done to catch them.
Eugene Spafford, Professor of Computer Sciences at Purdue University and Executive Director of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS) in the U.S., explains:
"Criminal behavior is still receiving political cover. For example, in the case of the Myanmar denial of service attacks, they took place with local Eastern European and Russian support. Russia and China are especially reluctant to cooperate with foreign law enforcement bodies for reputation and intelligence reasons."
Finally, the report says that, on every level, law enforcement is ad hoc and ill-equipped to cope with cybercrime. "While there has been progress, there is still a significant lack of training and understanding in digital forensics and evidence collection as well as in the law courts around the world," the report says.
"There are mountains of digital evidence out there; the problem is that there aren稚 enough well-trained investigators, prosecutors and judges to use it effectively. With PC and broadband penetration increasingly high, direct, and indirect evidence is easy to find from machines. Few criminals have the technical ability to avoid leaving or wiping digital traces," commented Peter Sommer, Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics・Information Systems Integrity Group and Visiting Reader at the Open University.
Clearly the resolution for the problems listed in the McAfee report is information and training. The problem is that since most law enforcement offices and investigators are trapped by political red tape, information is a rare commodity.
The criminals instantly share information on a global scale, and laws mean nothing to them. With that in mind at this stage of the game, none of the major players in the cybercrime arena are taking steps to move the scales back to center, leaving law enforcement out in the cold.
Training, on the other hand, is readily available yet rarely taken advantage of. Add the economy into the mix, and more political hurdles, and law enforcement is second or even third rate when it comes to investigating crimes.
From the report, a comment that demonstrates this point came from a reformed criminal called Matthew Bevan.
"I don稚 think law enforcement is equipped to deal with cybercrime, and this has always been the case as people that love IT and have the right skills go into IT jobs, not a law enforcement role," he offered.
"It is extremely rare that an IT specialist would join the police. Therefore, law enforcers lack the right skills to interpret cybercrime and know what to look for. A simple example could be a new USB stick that looks like a torn cable but actually holds 4GB worth of data -- the police wouldn稚 recognize this."
McAfee痴 report centering on cybercrime couldn稚 come at a better time. Also released this week is a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies that urges President-elect Obama to create a White House department aimed at protecting U.S. cyber interests from attack by foreign agents.
Titled Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency, the CSIS report says: "The United States must treat cybersecurity as one of the most important national security challenges it faces."
Maybe with a new political climate on the U.S., and the growth of Internet-related crimes, there will be a shift in power and cyberlaw will move to match, if not beat, cybercrime during 2009.
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