Thursday, 28 July 2011 20:03 Tun Tun
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) - Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday made her first open entreaty, urging Burmese government troops and ethnic armed groups to stop fighting as soon as possible and to solve problems by using peaceful ways.
Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi speaks at the National League for Democracy headquarters in Rangoon. Photo: Mizzima
The open letter, signed by Suu Kyi and addressed to President Thein Sein, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), the Karen National Union (KNU), the New Mon State Party (NMSP) and the Shan State Army (SSA), said, “With the sole purpose of promoting the well-being of all nationalities in the land, I call for immediate cease-fires and the peaceful resolution of the conflicts.
“These conflicts are resulting in tragic outcomes such as loss of life, destruction of costly physical infrastructures and economic projects and a condition of general deterioration. Besides causing enormous suffering among local communities, these conflicts come with a potential risk of spilling over and spreading across Burma’s immediate neighbourhoods,” the statement continued.
“The (post-independence) Union of Burma was co-founded by different nationalities. Like siblings from a single family, all these nationalities had cohabited this land since time immemorial. Therefore, forging peaceful ties and unity among the nationalities is of paramount importance.”
A day after the general elections in November 2010, fighting began in Karen State followed by fighting in Kachin, Shan and Mon states.
Among the issues was an order by the former junta forcing ethnic cease-fire groups to transform their armies into a Union Border Guard Force under the control of the central government. Most ethnic groups opposed the order.
Meanwhile, the Naypyitaw government has pursued a policy that calls for the country to have only one army. So far, senior government officials in Naypyitaw have not publicly discussed the recent fighting in ethnic areas, according to sources close to officials. Political parties have had little success in trying to discuss the issue in Parliament.
Some political parties, such as Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, have repeatedly called for dialogue and national reconciliation.
In her letter, Suu Kyi said, “On my part I am prepared, and pledge, to do everything in my power towards the cessation of armed conflicts and building peace in the Union. ”
Win Tin, a NLD central executive committee member, said, “Now, the country is in the horrors of a civil war. Discussions and negotiations with regard to these affairs are always essential.”
Major Sai Lao Hseng of the Shan State Army (SSA) said, “On behalf of all ethnic people, if Aung San Suu Kyi calls for a nationwide cease-fire from the government and mediates, we will welcome it. We hope for that too.”
Fighting has continued in Shan and Kachin states until Tuesday. Many schools have been closed. Earlier, the SSA said Burmese government military aircraft dropped bombs on its troops. The reports could not be confirmed by outside sources.
Despite negotiations to reach a cease-fire agreement between the KIO and the Burmese government, often via mail or e-mail, there has been no significant let up in the fighting. More than 16,000 war refugees are in need of aid and medicine, according to a KIO health department official.
Similarly, in Karen State, continuing clashes have taken place until this week, with both sides firing heavy artillery. Government troops ordered villagers in Myawaddy Township not to go outside the village after it learned that DKBA Major General Bo Moustache’s troops were active near Myawaddy.
The All Mon Region Democracy Party chairman, Nai Ngwe Thein, said, “We want peace via any means. We don’t want fighting against each other…”
On Thursday, in a meeting between the Union Election Commission and 37 political parties, the Mon, Arakanese, Phalon-Sawaw, Shan and Chin ethnic parties all urged the authorities to set up a peace-making commission. In response to their call, the EU commission chairman Tin Aye said the parties should introduce the issue in Parliament.
Saw Bi Kyin Oo, the secretary of the Phalon-Sawaw Democratic Party, said, “Peace has not been established in Karen State. Fighting has broken out frequently. People cannot live peacefully. The fighting enters the villages. Under the circumstances, the most important thing we need is peace.”
Aung San Suu Kyi’s ‘Open Letter’ to President Thein Sein
The following is an unofficial translation of a letter Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi sent to the president of Burma and others on Thursday.
To:
1) U Thein Sein, President, Union of Myanmar
2) Kachin Independence Organization (KIO)
3) Karen National Union (KNU)
4) New Mon State Party (NMSP)
5) Shan State Army (SSA)
28 July 2011
The (post-independence) Union of Burma was cofounded by different nationalities. Like siblings from a single family, all these nationalities had cohabited this land since time immemorial. Therefore, forging peaceful ties and unity among the nationalities is of paramount importance.
Of late, there have been news stories about military conflicts between the country’s Armed Forces and the armed nationalities groups in various regions such as the Kachin, the Shan, the Karen, the Mon and so on. These conflicts are resulting in tragic outcomes such as loss of life, destruction of costly physical infrastructures and economic projects and a condition of general deterioration. Besides causing enormous suffering among local communities, these conflicts come with a potential risk of spilling over and spreading across Burma’s immediate neighbourhoods.
The use of force to resolve the conflicts is only going to be mutually harmful to all parties concerned. National reconciliation and unity cannot be built on might. It can only be pursued through political negotiations. Only through political negotiations can genuine national unity be established. Only such unity among nationalities can guarantee the country’s (peaceful) future. In the absence of genuine peace and reconciliation the potential spread of civil war always lurks beneath.
Conflicts among nationalities can surely be resolved on the basis of mutual respect and mutual understanding, leading ultimately to the Union’s peace and stability. Only when the Union is genuinely peaceful and stable can nation-building programmes be implemented successfully. Therefore, with the sole purpose of promoting the well being of all nationalities in the land I call for immediate cease-fires and the peaceful resolution of the conflicts.
On my part, I am prepared, and pledge, to do everything in my power towards the cessation of armed conflicts and building peace in the Union.
Signed
Aung San Suu Kyi
54/56 University Avenue, Rangoon
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 28 July 2011 21:34 )
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http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/5691-suu-kyis-open-letter-calls-for-immediate-cease-fire-in-ethnic-areas.html
Friday, July 29, 2011
Suu Kyi’s ‘Open Letter’ calls for immediate cease-fire in ethnic areas
Friday, February 25, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Statement by the Press Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, on Convening of Myanmar’s National Assembly
http://www.mofa.go.jp/announce/announce/2011/1/0131_01.html
Statement by the Press Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, on Convening of Myanmar’s National Assembly
January 31, 2011
Japanese
1.. Today, the National Assembly was convened in Myanmar for the first time in 23 years since 1988 in light of the result of the general elections held on November 7th, 2010. The Government of Japan will closely observe the future direction of the National Assembly, including its administration, debates to be taken as well as activities of pro-democracy movement and ethnic minority parties.
2.. We call on the new government of Myanmar, which will be established through processes such as Presidential election in the National Assembly, to take positive measures to ensure more inclusive phase by implementing measures such as release of political prisoners, advancement of substantive dialogue with relevant parties as well as deepening of relationship with international community, including Japan.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Letter to His Excellency Mr. Seiji Maehara on the Eve of Burmese military junta’s sham parliament From Network for Democracy in Burma
Letter to His Excellency Mr. Seiji Maehara on the Eve of Burmese military junta’s sham parliament
From Network for Democracy in Burma
His Excellency Mr. Seiji Maehara,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Date January (25), 2011
Dear H.E Mr. Seiji Maehara,
On 31st January, the Burmese military junta will convene their sham parliament to cement their rule. The unequivocal denial of Senior General Than Shwe to review the Constitution before the election, as demanded by the NLD, has finally ended the NLD’s long quest to achieve a political dialogue between the junta leader and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the party which won a landslide victory in the 1990 election but the results of which were never recognized by the junta.
There is no doubt that the Nov. 7 elections were not only flawed, but also rigged and thoroughly fraudulent and the military’s grip on Burma is as iron-fisted as ever. This election is a means to institutionalize the military’s grip on power under the 2008 Constitution, rather than establishing a democratic system in the country.
U.S. President Barack Obama had accused Burma’s military rulers of “stealing” the country’s first election in 20 years as part of a ploy to remain in power and also U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Burma held the vote in conditions that were “insufficiently inclusive, participatory and transparent.”
We have to understand that the recent election and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s release were not the beginning of the end of repression, or the first, tangible step toward national reconciliation.
It is essential to remember that the recent elections will only produce yet another military government under a different guise, which has also happened before. In 1962, a Revolutionary Council seized power, organized a “referendum” on a new constitution in 1973, then in 1974 the military-controlled Burma Socialist Programme Party formed a “civilian” government made up of “retired army officers.”
For those reasons mentioned above, we, the member organizations of newly founded “Network for Democracy in Burma” like to appeal to Your Excellency not to acknowledge or recognize the sham parliament and the so-called constitutional government that in actual fact is the new wine in the old bottle.
We would also like to urge Your Excellency to pressure the military junta to release all the political prisoners unconditionally and immediately and start the dialogue process with democratic leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
Moreover, we would like to appeal to Your Excellency to give unwavering support both politically and materially to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi even well beyond her political party National League for Democracy was eventually disbanded by the military junta.
Sincerely yours,
Network for Democracy in Burma (in Japan),
軍事政権による偽りのビルマ国会開会にあたっての要請
軍事政権による偽りのビルマ国会開会にあたっての要請
前原誠司外務大臣閣下
2011年1月25日
親愛なる前原誠司閣下
ビルマ軍事政権はその支配を強固なものにすべく、今年1月31日、偽りの国会を開会するとしています。国民民主連盟(NLD)の求めていた、総選挙前に制定された憲法の見直しを、タン・シュエ上将が全面否定したことにより、NLDが長く追求してきた、軍事政権指導者とアウン・サン・スー・チー女史、および、軍事政権は決して認めませんでしたが、1990年の総選挙で地滑り的勝利を収めた政党指導者との政治対話の実現に終止符が打たれました。
昨年11月7日に実施された総選挙は、欠陥があっただけでなく、全面的に不正に操作されたことに疑問の余地はなく、ビルマにおける軍事支配の冷酷さはこれまでと変わりありません。今回の総選挙は、ビルマにおける民主的システムを確立するよりもむしろ、2008年憲法の下、軍による政権掌握を制度化する手段として実施されまた。
バラク・オバマ米大統領は、ビルマ軍支配者が政権の座にとどまるための策略として、20年ぶりに実施された総選挙を「盗んでいる」と非難しました。また、潘基文国連事務総長は、「包括性、人々の参加、透明性のいずれも不十分」という状況下で投票が行われたと述べました。
私たちは、過日の総選挙とアウン・サン・スー・チー女史の解放が、抑圧の終わりのはじまり、あるいは、国民和解に向けた具体的な第一歩ではなかったということを理解する必要があります。過日の総選挙は、かつて起きたように、別の装いをした、もう１つの軍事政府をさらにつくりだすだけであろうということを思い出すことが重要です。1962年、革命評議会が政権を握り、1973年には新憲法に関する「国民投票」を組織しました。そして、1974年、軍事支配的な社会主義計画党が、「退役将校」からなる「文民」政府を樹立したのです。
これらの理由から、私たち、新たに結成された「ビルマ民主化ネットワーク」の構成組織は、閣下に、偽りの国会、および、実態は古い革袋に入れた新しいワインである、いわゆる立憲政府を承認あるいは理解されることのないよう要請します。
加えて、軍事政権に対し、すべての政治犯を即時に無条件解放し、民主化指導者アウン・サン・スー・チー女史との対話プロセスを開始するよう、強く働きかけていただくようお願いいたします。
さらに、政治および物資の両面から揺るぎないご支援を、軍事政権によって解散を余儀なくされた国民民主連盟以上に、アウン・サン・スー・チー女史に賜りますようお願い申し上げます。
ビルマ民主化ネットワーク日本
Saturday, January 1, 2011
လူထုေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္၏ ႏွစ္သစ္ကူး ႏွစ္သစ္ကူး ႏွဳတ္ခြန္းဆက္ သဝဏ္လႊာ
(ဒီမိုေဝယံထံမွ ကူးယူတင္ျပပါသည္)
ႏွစ္သစ္ကူး ႏွဳတ္ခြန္းဆက္ သဝဏ္လႊာ
ႏွစ္ေဟာင္းလြန္ေျမာက္ ႏွစ္သစ္ေရာက္ခ်ိန္တြင္ ကၽြန္မ၏ ႏိုင္ငံေရးဘဝ ျဖတ္သန္းမွဳကို ျပန္လည္ သံုးသပ္ၾကည္႔ေသာအခါ.. ျပည္သူလူထု၏ ဒီမိုကေရစီႏွင့္ လူအခြင့္အေရးအတြက္ ၾကိဳးပမ္းသည္႔ကာလ၊ ေနအိမ္အက်ယ္ခ်ဳပ္ က်ခံသည္႔ကာလ၊ ျပန္လည္ လြတ္ေျမာက္လာသည္႔ကာလ ဟူ၍ ကာလသံုးပါးကို ေတြ႔ျမင္ရပါသည္.။
ယင္းကာလသံုးပါးစလံုးတြင္ ကၽြန္မအတြက္လည္းေကာင္း၊ ကၽြန္မ၏ ရည္မွန္းခ်က္အတြက္ လည္းေကာင္း.၊ က်မ၏ ၾကိဳးပမ္း ေဆာင္ရြက္မွဳမ်ား အတြက္လည္းေကာင္း၊ ေထာက္ခံသူ အားေပးသူ ကူညီသူ အေျမာက္အမ်ားရွိပါသည္။ ႏိုင္င့ံေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ား၊ ဘာသာေရးေခါင္းေဆာင္ၾကီးမ်ား၊ ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး ႏိုဘယ္ ဆုရွင္မ်ား အပါအဝင္..ပုဂၢိဳလ္မ်ား၊ ကုလသမဂၢ၊ ဥေရာပသမဂၢ၊ အျပည္ျပည္ဆိုင္ရာ လြတ္ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းသာခြင့္ အဖြဲ႕ စသည္စသည္ပါဝင္ေသာ အဖြဲ႔အစည္းမ်ား၊ အေမရိကန္ႏွင့္ ဥေရာပႏိုင္ငံအမ်ားအျပားမွ ႏိုင္ငံသူ ႏိုင္ငံသားမ်ား၊ ျပည္တြင္းျပည္ပမွ ကၽြန္မတို႔ တိုင္းရင္းသား ျပည္သူမ်ား ပါဝင္ၾကပါတယ္..။
ထိုသူမ်ား၏ ကာယကံအားျဖင့္၊ ဝစီကံအားျဖင့္၊ မေနာကံအားျဖင့္ ရိုင္းပင္း ကူညီခဲ့သူမ်ားအတြက္ ကၽြန္မက အထူးတလည္ ေက်းဇူးဥပကာရ တင္ရွိပါေၾကာင္း အထူးတလည္ ေဖာ္ျပအပ္ပါတယ္..။
အထူးသျဖင့္ ယခုတစ္ၾကိမ္ ျပန္လြတ္ရာတြင္ ပိုမို တက္ၾကြေနေသာ လူငယ္မ်ားအပါအဝင္ ျပည္သူမ်ားမွ အင္တိုက္အားတိုက္ ေထာက္ခံ အားေပးမွဳေၾကာင့္ ကၽြန္မအလြန္ ဝမ္းေျမာက္ ၾကည္ႏွဴးရပါသည္။ အမ်ိဳးသားျပန္လည္ သင့္ျမတ္မွဳရရွိေရး စစ္မွန္ေသာ ျပည္ေထာင္စုစိတ္ဓာတ္ တဖန္ႏိုးထ ရွင္သန္လာေရးတို႔ အတြက္ ျပည္သူ႔ႏိုင္ငံေရး လူမွဳကြန္ယက္ၾကီး တစ္ရပ္ ထူေထာင္ျခင္းျဖင့္ ကၽြန္မတို႔ မျဖစ္မေန ၾကိဳးပမ္းရပါဦးမယ္။ မဂၤလာႏွစ္သစ္တြင္ ခြန္သစ္အားသစ္ လုပ္ငန္းပံုစံသစ္ျဖင့္ တိုင္းရင္းသားျပည္သူအားလံုး လက္တြဲၾကိဳးပမ္းၾကပါစို႔ဟု ႏွဳိးေဆာ္ရင္း ႏွဳတ္ခြန္း ဆက္သလိုက္ပါသည္.။
ရက္စြဲ ၁-၁-၂၀၁၁
မိုကေရစီေရး မုခ်ေအာင္ရမည္.
ေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္
Monday, November 22, 2010
ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ မိန္ ့ခြန္း ေကာက္နုတ္ခ်က္မ်ား
http://www.baymyanmar.com/2010/11/blog-post_14.html
Sunday, November 14, 2010
ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ မိန္ ့ခြန္း ေကာက္နုတ္ခ်က္မ်ား
ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္က ျပည္သူလူထု၏ ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ခ်က္ႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ ျပည္သူလူထုက ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ခ်က္ႏွင့္ အားေပးေနသည္ကို သိေၾကာင္း၊ ျပည္သူလူထု စိတ္ထဲတြင္ရွိသည့္ ဆႏၵကို ထုတ္ေဖာ္ေျပာေစလိုေၾကာင္း၊ တာဝန္ကို မေၾကာက္၊ တာဝန္မေက်မွာကိုသာ ေၾကာက္ေၾကာင္း၊ သူတဦးတေယာက္တည္း မဟုတ္ဘဲ ျပည္သူလူထုႏွင့္ လက္တြဲ၍ လုပ္ေဆာင္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ေျပာသည္။
ႏိုင္ငံေရးဆိုသည္ႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္က ေဟာေျပာသည့္ေနရာတြင္ လာေထာက္ခံမွသာ ႏိုင္ငံေရးမဟုတ္ေၾကာင္း၊ အိမ္မွ ထမင္းခ်က္ေပးျခင္းသည္လည္း ႏိုင္ငံေရး၊ သားသမီး ေက်ာင္းပို႔ျခင္းသည္လည္း ႏိုင္ငံေရး ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရးတြင္ မပါခ်င္ဟု ေျပာသူမ်ားသည္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးကို နားမလည္၍သာ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ေျပာသည္။
အစိုးရႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္က လူနည္းစုျဖစ္ေသာ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္သူမ်ားကို ျပည္သူက ထိန္းသိမ္းႏိုင္ရမည္ဟု ေျပာသြားသည္။ သူအက်ယ္ခ်ဳပ္က်ေနစဥ္ လံုၿခံဳေရး ဝန္ထမ္းမ်ားက ေကာင္းမြန္စြာ ဆက္ဆံသလို ျပည္သူကို ေကာင္းမြန္စြာ ဆက္ဆံေစလိုေၾကာင္း၊ သို႔ေသာ္ သူ႔ကဲ့သို႔ ျပည္သူကို အက်ယ္ခ်ဳပ္ မက်ေစလိုေၾကာင္း ေျပာသြားသည္။
ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္က အမ်ိဳးသားရင္ၾကားေစ့ေရးကို ဆက္လက္လုပ္ေဆာင္မည္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း၊ အလုပ္တြဲလုပ္၍ မရဟု မရွိေစရေၾကာင္း ေျပာသည္။ ဒီမိုကေရစီ အစုအဖြဲ႔မ်ား အားလံုးႏွင့္လည္း လက္တြဲေဆာင္ရြက္မည္ဟု ေျပာဆိုသြားသည္။
ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ မိန္ ့ခြန္း ေကာက္နုတ္ခ်က္မ်ား ၂
လူထု၏ ဆႏၵသေဘာထားကို အရင္နားေထာင္မည္
ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္က ျပည္သူလူထု၏ ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ခ်က္ႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ ျပည္သူလူထုက ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ခ်က္ႏွင့္ အားေပးေနသည္ကို သိေၾကာင္း၊ ျပည္သူလူထု စိတ္ထဲတြင္ရွိသည့္ ဆႏၵကို ထုတ္ေဖာ္ေျပာေစလိုေၾကာင္း၊ တာဝန္ကို မေၾကာက္၊ တာဝန္မေက်မွာကိုသာ ေၾကာက္ေၾကာင္း၊ သူတဦးတေယာက္တည္း မဟုတ္ဘဲ ျပည္သူလူထုႏွင့္ လက္တြဲ၍ လုပ္ေဆာင္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ေျပာသည္။
အားလံုးသည္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးဟု ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ေျပာ
ႏိုင္ငံေရးဆိုသည္ႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္က ေဟာေျပာသည့္ေနရာတြင္ လာေထာက္ခံမွသာ ႏိုင္ငံေရးမဟုတ္ေၾကာင္း၊ အိမ္မွ ထမင္းခ်က္ေပးျခင္းသည္လည္း ႏိုင္ငံေရး၊ သားသမီး ေက်ာင္းပို႔ျခင္းသည္လည္း ႏိုင္ငံေရး ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရးတြင္ မပါခ်င္ဟု ေျပာသူမ်ားသည္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးကို နားမလည္၍သာ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ေျပာသည္။
ျပည္သူက အစိုးရကို ထိန္းရမည္
အစိုးရႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္က လူနည္းစုျဖစ္ေသာ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္သူမ်ားကို ျပည္သူက ထိန္းသိမ္းႏိုင္ရမည္ဟု ေျပာသြားသည္။ သူအက်ယ္ခ်ဳပ္က်ေနစဥ္ လံုၿခံဳေရး ဝန္ထမ္းမ်ားက ေကာင္းမြန္စြာ ဆက္ဆံသလို ျပည္သူကို ေကာင္းမြန္စြာ ဆက္ဆံေစလိုေၾကာင္း၊ သို႔ေသာ္ သူ႔ကဲ့သို႔ ျပည္သူကို အက်ယ္ခ်ဳပ္ မက်ေစလိုေၾကာင္း ေျပာသြားသည္။
ဒီမိုကေရစီ အင္အားစုမ်ားႏွင့္ လက္တြဲမည္
ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္က အမ်ိဳးသားရင္ၾကားေစ့ေရးကို ဆက္လက္လုပ္ေဆာင္မည္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း၊ အလုပ္တြဲလုပ္၍ မရဟု မရွိေစရေၾကာင္း ေျပာသည္။ ဒီမိုကေရစီ အစုအဖြဲ႔မ်ား အားလံုးႏွင့္လည္း လက္တြဲေဆာင္ရြက္မည္ဟု ေျပာဆိုသြားသည္။
Posted by Moe Thu
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Myanmar's collision course with human rights
Myanmar is about to hold its first elections in more than 20 years, but more than 2,100 political prisoners are behind bars and any threat of opposition is repressed.
Don't let Myanmar silence political dissent around elections!
Dear Phone ,
The last time an election took place in Myanmar (also known as Burma), the results were ignored and the winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, was locked up.
Twenty years later – on November 7 – the country will hold another much-anticipated and highly controversial election. However Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party won the elections 20 years ago by a landslide, will likely not be released from prison until after the election has concluded – if she is released at all.
Aung San Suu Kyi is one of more than 2,100 political prisoners detained in Myanmar today.
Silencing opposition voices violates three fundamental freedoms that all member countries of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – including Myanmar – must adhere to: freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.
Demand that ASEAN call for the immediate and unconditional release of all prisoners of conscience in Myanmar.
When the countries forming ASEAN speak with one voice, then even repressive and guarded countries like Myanmar are hard-pressed not to respond.
We've seen it before when Myanmar's security forces violently beat back peaceful protestors during the 2007 Saffron Revolution. ASEAN certainly didn’t sit quietly then1. And as Myanmar sets itself on another collision course with human rights and basic freedoms, ASEAN can't afford to sit quietly now.
Over the past few months, the foreign ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand – all ASEAN member countries – have gone on the record, stressing the need for credible elections.
But without the full weight of ASEAN backing this message, these words will not be transformed into action.
The pressure's already been building around the world. Fellow Amnesty International activists have rallied to send an overwhelming 50,000 messages to the foreign ministers of ASEAN nations. Now it's our turn!
Call on ASEAN to reign in its member state Myanmar before the election in November.
Don't allow political dissent in Myanmar to be silenced for another 20 years.
In Solidarity,
Michael O'Reilly
Senior Director, Campaign for Individuals at Risk
Amnesty International USA
P.S. Thanks to the 1,675 supporters who already 'Stand with Suu Kyi'! Help us reach our goal of gathering 2,100 images on behalf of the political prisoners in Myanmar by adding your picture to the 'Stand with Suu Kyi' photo action. We'll share the photos with key officials and other likely advocates to help build support for human rights in Myanmar.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Former UN Rights Officials Call for Burma Inquiry
Former UN Rights Officials Call for Burma Inquiry
Source: The Irrawaddy
Date: 06 Oct 2010
By LALIT K JHA
WASHINGTON — Two top former human rights officials of the United Nations on Tuesday urged the European Union to support the establishment of a UN Commission of Inquiry to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma, as recommended by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Burma.
The request was made by Paulo Sergio Pinheiro of Brazil and Yozo Yokota of Japan, who served as the special rapporteurs on the Situation of Human Rights in Burma in (2000-2008) and (1992-1996), respectively, in a letter to Catherine Ashton, the high representative of the EU.
"As former UN special rapporteurs on human rights in Myanmar [Burma], it is our firm conclusion that the pattern of human rights violations perpetrated by the military regime in Burma/Myanmar is severe, widespread and systematic, and directed at civilians, and may therefore violate international human rights and humanitarian laws," Pinheiro and Yokota said.
"As the current special rapporteur has concluded, the abuses are a matter of state policy and there is more than sufficient evidence to justify the creation of such a Commission of Inquiry," the letter said.
Pinheiro and Yokota also urged that the EU should propose the commission in a forthcoming UN General Assembly resolution. "It is essential to send a strong message to the regime ahead of the elections that the international community will not continue to tolerate its violations of international humanitarian law and that impunity must end," they wrote.
The letter noted that evidence of the widespread and systematic use of forced labor, rape as a weapon of war, the forcible conscription of child soldiers, religious persecution, torture and killings is well documented and has been presented by many respected human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), among others.
Copies of the letter were sent to the government of Belgium, the current president of the Council of the European Union, foreign ministers of EU member states and permanent representatives of EU member states to the United Nations in New York and Geneva.
"Since 1996, over 3,500 villages in eastern Burma alone have been destroyed, and at least half a million people internally displaced. Hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee to the borders of neighboring countries, and beyond. These violations of international humanitarian law have been documented by the UN in numerous resolutions by the General Assembly and Human Rights Council, and in our own and other reports of Special Rapporteurs," the letter said.
The two former UN officials said the new Constitution, which will come into force after the regime's elections in November, contains a clause providing blanket immunity for all crimes, past, present and future, committed by the military, and guarantees the military a quarter of the parliamentary seats.
"The election laws issued earlier this year, the recent de-registration of Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, and the regime's decision to exclude many ethnic populations and parties from participating, mean that the forthcoming elections offer little hope of meaningful change in Burma. The elections, in our opinion, will perpetuate military rule and result in continuing human rights violations," they said.
So far, 13 nations have expressed their support for the establishment of the UN Commission of Inquiry in Burma, including the United States, United Kingdom, France, Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Estonia, which became the 13th supporter on Saturday.
Aung Din of the US Campaign for Burma said the European Union is the major author of the Burma draft resolution at the UN General Assembly and it has been working on a draft in Brussels since September.
Pro-democracy activists including the US Campaign for Burma are pushing the EU to include the language, "calling for the secretary-general to establish a Commission of Inquiry to investigate human rights violations in Burma" in the draft resolution, which will be submitted to the UN General Assembly soon.
So far, the EU hasn't agreed to the proposal.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
The Statement on Commemoration of 62th Anniversary on International Human Rights Day
The Statement on Commemoration of 62th Anniversary on
International Human Rights Day
December 10, 2010
On this auspicious of the 62th anniversary of International Human Rights day, we, the Burmese pro-democracy activists in Japan express our strong believe in freedom and human rights as a basic foundation for peace and stability of the whole world.
The current military regime in Burma (Myanmar) has violated the human rights systematically so that the people of Burma have faced political, social, educational, health and economic crisis for more than two decades.
Although the article 19 of Universal Human Rights Declaration clearly stated that everyone has right to freedom of expression and seek, receive and impart information, the people of Burma cannot benefit this right. For example, when 1991 Nobel Peace laureate and democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest on November 13, 2010, local weekly journals posted that news extensively. So, the several journals have been suspended by the military authorities a couple of weeks ago.
Restrictions on communication and losing the right to get information hinder the development of individual and society. Burma will become a stable society and developed one when the freedom prevail and human rights were guaranteed.
So, we, Burmese pro-democracy activists in Japan declare that we shall try restoration of freedom and human rights in our country, furthermost.
Burmese Pro-democracy Activist in Japan
၆၂ ႏွစ္ေျမာက္ အျပည္ျပည္ဆိုင္ရာလူ႕အခြင့္အေရးေန႕အထိမ္းအမွတ္ ထုတ္ျပန္ေၾကညာခ်က္
ဒီဇင္ဘာ ၁၀ ၊ ၂၀၁၀ ခုႏွစ္
၆၂ ႏွစ္ေျမာက္ ႏိုင္ငံတကာလူ႕အခြင့္အေရးေန႕တြင္ ဂ်ပန္ေရာက္ျမန္မာ့ဒီမိုကေရစီအင္အားစုမ်ားအေနျဖင့္ ထုတ္ေဖာ္ ေျပာဆိုလိုသည္မွာ လြတ္လပ္မႈႏွင့္ လူ႕အခြင့္အေရးသည္ ကမာၻႀကီးၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးႏွင့္တည္ၿငိမ္ေရးအတြက္ အေျခခံ အက်ဆံုးေသာအုတ္ျမစ္ျဖစ္သည္ဟု ခိုင္မာစြာယံုၾကည္ထားသည္ ဆိုသည့္အခ်က္ျဖစ္သည္။
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံကို အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေနေသာလက္ရွိစစ္အစိုးရသည္ လူ႕အခြင့္အေရးခ်ဳိးေဖာက္မႈမ်ားကို စနစ္တက်ျဖင့္က်ဴးလြန္ေန ေသာေၾကာင့္ ျမန္မာျပည္သူျပည္သားမ်ားသည္ ႏိုင္ငံေရး၊ လူမႈေရး၊ ပညာေရး၊ က်န္းမာေရး၊ စီးပြားေရး စသည့္ အက်ပ္ အတည္းမ်ားစြာျဖင့္ ရင္ဆိုင္ေနရသည္။
အထူးသျဖင့္ အျပည္ျပည္ဆိုင္ရာလူ႕အခြင့္အေရးေၾကညာစာတမ္း၏ အပိုဒ္ ၁၉ တြင္ေဖာ္ျပထားသည့္ လြတ္လပ္စြာ သေဘာဆႏၵထုတ္ေဖာ္ျပသခြင့္ႏွင့္ သတင္းအခ်က္အလက္ရယူပိုင္ခြင့္မ်ားခ်ဳိးေဖာက္ခံေနရေပသည္။ ထင္ရွားသည့္ သာဓကတခုမွာ ၁၉၉၁ ခုႏွစ္ ႏိုဘဲလ္ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးဆုရွင္ ျမန္မာ့ဒီမိုကေရစီေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ႏိုင္ငံ၀င္ ၁၃ ရက္တြင္ ေနအိမ္အက်ယ္ခ်ဳပ္မွလြတ္ေျမာက္လာခဲ့သည့္သတင္းအား ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္းအပတ္စဥ္ထုတ္ ဂ်ာနယ္မ်ား တြင္ က်ယ္က်ယ္ျပန္႔ျပန္႔ေဖာ္ျပခဲ့သည့္အတြက္ ဂ်ာနယ္အခ်ဳိ႕ ထုတ္ေ၀ခြင့္ယာယီရပ္ဆိုင္းခံခဲ့ရျခင္းျဖစ္သည္။
ဆက္သြယ္ေရးႏွင့္ သတင္းအခ်က္အလက္သိရယူပိုင္ခြင့္တားျမစ္ခံရျခင္း ဆံုး႐ႈံးေနရျခင္းမ်ားသည္ လူတဦးခ်င္းစီႏွင့္ လူ႔အဖြဲ႕အစည္းတိုးတက္ဖြံ႕ၿဖိဳးေရးကိုထိခိုက္နစ္ေစေပသည္။
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္ လြတ္လပ္မႈထြန္းကားၿပီး လူ႕အခြင့္အေရးအတြက္ အာမခံခ်က္မ်ားရွိပါက တည္ၿငိမ္ေသာလူမႈအသိုင္း အ၀ိုင္းတည္ေဆာက္ႏိုင္မည္ျဖစ္ၿပီး ဖြံ႕ၿဖိဳးတိုးတက္မ်ားရရွိလာႏိုင္မည္ျဖစ္သည္။ ထိုသုိ႕ေသာအေျခအေနမ်ား ရွိမွသာ အာရွေဒသတြင္းၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးႏွင့္တည္ၿငိမ္ေရးကို အေထာက္အပံ့ျပဳရာေရာက္ေပမည္။
ထို႕ေၾကာင့္ ဂ်ပန္ေရာက္ျမန္မာ့ဒီမုိကေရစီအင္အားစုမ်ားအေနျဖင့္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္ လြတ္လပ္မႈႏွင့္ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးမ်ား ထြန္းကားေရးအတြက္ အစြမ္းကုန္ဆက္လက္ႀကိဳးပမ္းသြားမည္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ထုတ္ျပန္ေၾကညာလိုက္သည္။
ျမန္မာ့ဒီမိုကေရစီအင္အားစုမ်ား
ဂ်ပန္ႏိုင္ငံ
Saturday, August 7, 2010
An Open Letter to His Excellency Ban Ki-moon
1
An Open Letter to His Excellency Ban Ki-moon,
Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Date 6th August, 2010.
His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General of the United Nations
United Nations
3 United Nations Plaza
New York, NY 10017
Dear your Excellency,
First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Tin Win and I am a Burmese democratic
and human right activist living in Japan.
I would like to welcome you to Japan as, first ever UN General Secretary who attend
the Peace Memorial Ceremony in Hiroshima and the first to visit Nagasaki. I also
enthusiastically welcome Your Excellency’s words on intensifying efforts toward nuclear
abolishment. I share Your Excellency’s view that the need to work together toward the
day when governments no longer have a choice but to respond to the will of the people
for a nuclear-free world, by way of Your Excellency have termed in the message to the
Hiroshima Conference for the Total Abolition of Nuclear Weapons by 2020.
As a democratic activist living in Japan I had seen first-hand the drastic reality caused
by the nuclear war. Furthermore, I have been working very closely with the Japanese
Unionists and other Japanese people to send the same massages as Your Excellency
had mentioned in your letter.
I would like to inform Your Excellency that these generals have banned basic human
rights, but spent tens of millions of dollars building the bases with the reported help of
nuclear experts from Russia and North Korea. The first indications of its nuclear
ambitions came last February when army Major Sai Thein Win defected with a dossier
on the secret sites. The several hundred photographs of the plants that Major Win
brought with him have aroused huge interest among defense chiefs in neighboring
Asian countries and western governments.
2
The Directorate of Defense Services, Science and Technology Research Centre in Pyin
Oo Lwin city at the Defense Services Technological Academy manage the country’s
nuclear effort. Evidence has also emerged of a “nuclear battalion” is working at a place
called Thabeikkyin where there are also extensive mining and ore concentrations.
There are suggestions that they are trying to produce yellowcake, a kind of uranium
concentrate powder, for possible use in processing uranium.
Moreover, Burma has obsoleted agreements with the Geneva-based International
Atomic Energy Agency but has not signed protocols that would allow detailed
inspections of the factories. The generals have ignored requests to improve the
agreements that mean the country is virtually exempt from inspections. Nevertheless,
with the generals’ current freedom from sanctions and relative economic prosperity, it is
highly likely that the junta may be able to outsource the technical expertise and tools to
reach its goals far sooner than expected.
In addition to that, Professor Yozo Yokota who was the UN Special Rapporteur on the
Situation of Human Rights in Burma had recently wrote in the Jakarta Post that impunity
prevails in Burma and no action has been taken to bring an end to the war crimes and
crimes against humanity committed by the generals of Burma. That is why he said that
he believe the United Nations has an obligation to respond to the current rapporteur’s
recommendation, establish a commission of inquiry, and propose action.
Given the Balkan-like nature of Burma's domestic situation and its strategic position
between India and China, a nuclear Burma will probably present the single greatest
threat to regional security and will in the long run be very bad for ASEAN countries. The
US and other Asia-Pacific countries have expressed concern that North Korean may
help Burma to become the first nuclear-armed nation in the Southeast Asia, saying the
military ties with North Korea are breaking UN Security Council Resolution 1874.
3
For those reason mentioned above, I would like to appeal Your Excellency to make
every effort, using your good office, to investigate the above mentioned information and
take appropriate actions to halt the doomsday scenario of our future.
Please kindly be warned that rogue nation as North Korea has developed the nuclear
capability by the failure on part of UN to make a concerted actions appropriately and
timely. Please do not allow the generals of Burma to create a new rogue state with
nuclear armaments and with Weapon of Mass Destruction. If Your Excellency fail to
take a timely action, the words you had pronounced in your message will never
materialized.
Respectfully,
Tin Win,
Gunma Prefecture, Ota City,
Ushizawa Chou 1000-1, Ushizawa Shiei Jutaku 3-13,
373-0833 Japan.
Phone/Fax: 0(81)276-38-1036
Mobile 0(81)80-3443-2447
E mail: mtinwin@pc5.so-net.ne.jp
END
4
Thursday, July 15, 2010
ဆရာႀကီးနန္းညႊန္ ့ေဆြအတြက္ဝမ္းနဲျခင္း
မိတ္ေဆြအေပါင္းတို ့..
..ယေန ့ ၁၄.၇.၂၀၁၀ ရက္ေန ့(ဗုဒၵဟူးေန ့)ညေန (၅း၀၀)နာရီမွာ..ကြ်န္ေတာ္တို ့ရဲ ့ရဲေဖာ္ရဲဖက္၊သူငယ္ခ်င္း ဇာဂနာ ရဲ ့ဖခင္ဦးေအာင္သိန္း(ေခၚ)
ကဗ်ာဆရာၾကီး နန္းညြန့္ေဆြ (အသက္-၈၇ နွစ္)ကြယ္လြန္သြားရွာျပီဗ်ာ....
.......။
ေလးစားဦးညြတ္လ်က္....ေက်ာ္သူ
(မနက္ျဖန္...၁၅.၇.၂၀၁၀ရက္ေန ့နံနက္၁၁း၀၀နာရီမွာေရေ၀းသုသ၁န္မွာသျဂိဳလ္ရန္စီစဥ္ေနပါေၾကာင္း....။)
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Friday, April 30, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
GLOBAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE 2010 MILITARY ELECTIONS IN BURMA
GLOBAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE 2010 MILITARY ELECTIONS IN BURMA
APPEAL
To the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hon. Franco Frattini
To the Chairs of the Foreign Affairs Committees of the Italian Chamber of Deputies and Senate
To the EU Special Envoy for Burma, Hon. Piero Fassino
I strongly condemn the Burmese military junta, the sham Constitution and the unacceptable election laws which prevent the Burmese heroine, Aung San Suu Kyi, and the other over 2,100 political prisoners to stand in and cast their ballot at the upcoming elections, while the political parties – in order to continue to exist – must expel Aung San Suu Kyi and the other political prisoners and swear to protect and respect the “sham Constitution”.
These laws are the tragic confirmation of the total non-credibility of the elections and reveal the absolute lack of will, by the junta, to undertake a fast and effective transition to democracy.
These laws follow the imposition of a sham Constitution that will perpetuate the power of the military junta and which prevents freedom of political and trade union organisation, provides for the possibility of continuing to exploit forced labour and the continued violation of the fundamental human rights and guarantees the impunity of the members of the military who are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Alongside the Burmese FTUB trade union and democratic organisations, I denounce these elections as a further attempt by the military junta to keep a firm hold on power, albeit in civilian clothing, in an authoritarian and repressive manner, while the rule of law will remain a fiction used by those governments that are set on continuing to deplete the country of its natural, social and human resources.
I denounce the dramatic increase in repression of the people’s fundamental human rights, in murders, rapes, arbitrary arrest, forced labour, the use of child soldiers, and the tremendous worsening of the living and working conditions of people that has sparked large-scale strikes in the industrial areas of Rangoon, forcing thousands of workers to risk their freedom.
I support the requests of the clandestine trade union movement and all of the Burmese democratic organisations calling on the international community to subject the recognition of the upcoming elections to the following conditions:
1. the immediate and unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all the other political prisoners, and the protection of their right to take part and stand in the elections;
2. the ceasing of all attacks against the ethnic communities and democratic activists;
3. the immediate launching of a genuine and inclusive dialogue between the junta, the democratic organisations and ethnic nationalities, including a reform of the Constitution.
I call on:
• the Italian Government, Parliament and the EU Special Envoy for Burma to support the three conditions detailed above and to subject the recognition of the elections to their application, launching urgent consultations with the Burmese trade unions and democratic organisations;
• the Italian Government to commit itself to ensuring that the EU decides to further strengthen the targeted economic sanctions by including the financial and insurance sectors as well, with the prohibition to make new investments and implementing certain and effective control procedures. The sanctions should be applied flexibly, according to the positive or negative developments in the political process;
• the EU to promote these legitimate requests in its negotiations with the other Asian countries;
• the EU to actively call on the UN Security Council to approve a total arms embargo on Burma;
• the EU to support the recommendations by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Burma to set up a UN Commission of Inquiry on the war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the junta.
Italy must no longer remain silent.
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