From: "moehninaye08"
ေနျခဴး
ဇန္န၀ါရီ ၂၃၊ ၂၀၀၉
ဆရာႀကီးက အမတို႕သိပ္ခ်စ္ရတဲ႕အေဖပါ။ ဒီလိုဘဲ။ က်ေနာ္႕ရဲ႕အေဖဆိုလည္း မမွားပါဘူး။ ဆရာႀကီးဆုံးသြားလို႕ အမတို႕ညီအမေတြ ေၾကကြဲထိခိုက္ၾကရသလို က်ေနာ္လည္း ဘယ္ေလာက္ေၾကကြဲထိခိုက္ရသလဲဆိုတာ ခုက်ေနာ္ပို႕လိုက္တဲ႕စာအုပ္ကို စ … ဆုံး ဖတ္ၾကည္႕ရင္ ေတြ႕ရပါလိမ္႕မယ္။
အမွာစာ
အေဖ ကဗ်ာဆရာဦးတင္မိုး ဆုံးၿပီး လအနည္းၾကာတဲ႔ တေန႔မွာ ကိုယ္႔လက္ထဲကို စာအုပ္ေလး တအုပ္ ေရာက္လာပါတယ္။ အေဖ႔ သားအရင္းတေယာက္လို ခ်စ္ခင္တဲ႔ ေက်ာင္းသားေလး တေယာက္ရဲ႔ အေဖ႔အေၾကာင္းေရးထားတဲ႔ စာမူပါ။ မလြတ္လပ္တဲ႔ ေနရာ၊ အက်ဥ္းေထာင္ထဲကေန ႏွလုံးေသြးနဲ႔ ေရးလိုက္တဲ႔ စာမူေလးပါ။
အေဖ႔အေၾကာင္းကို လူေတြ သူတို႔ျမင္တဲ႔ေထာင္႔ကေန အမ်ိဳးမ်ိဳးေရးၾကတာ ဖတ္ဖူး မွတ္ဖူးပါတယ္။ ဒါေပမဲ႔ အမွန္တရားအတြက္ အေဖ မတရားအဖမ္းဆီးခံရစဥ္ အင္းစိန္ေထာင္ထဲမွာ ေနခဲ႔ရတဲ႔ အခ်ိန္ေတြကိုေတာ႔ မသိခဲ႔ရပါဘူး။ လြတ္လပ္မွဳကို ျမတ္ႏိုးလြန္းတဲ႔ အေဖ အက်ဥ္းေထာင္ထဲမွာ ဘယ္လိုမ်ား ေနထိုင္ခဲ႔သလဲ ကိုယ္ေတြးၾကည္႔မိဖူးတယ္။
အခု ေဖာ္ျပမဲ႔ ဒီစာေလးဟာ အဲဒီကြက္လပ္ေလးကို ျဖည္႔လိုက္တာပါပဲ။ ဒီစာထဲမွာ အက်ဥ္းစံေတြ ျဖစ္တဲ႔၊ အာဏာရွင္စနစ္ကို မရွိခိုးႏိုင္ၾကတဲ႔ ေက်ာင္းသားေလးတေယာက္နဲ႔ ေက်ာင္းဆရာ ကဗ်ာဆရာတေယာက္ရဲ႔ မျမင္ရတဲ႔ သံေယာဇဥ္ေတြကို ေတြ႔ရမွာပါ။ အက်ဥ္းက်သူေတြရဲ႔ ရင္ဆိုင္ ရုန္းကန္ေနရတဲ႔ ဘဝေတြကို နားလည္ခံစားလို႔ရမယ္၊ သူတို႔ရဲ႔ ေမွ်ာ္လင္႔ခ်က္၊ ယုံၾကည္ခ်က္၊ ခံစားခ်က္ေတြကို ဖတ္ရင္း စာနာနားလည္ႏိုင္ေစဖို႔ ေဖာ္ျပလိုက္ပါတယ္။
စာမူကို အပိုင္းခြဲၿပီး တင္သြားပါမယ္။ ဖတ္ၾကည္႔ၾကပါအုံးရွင္။
မိုးခ်ိဳသင္း
စာေရးသူရဲ႔ မိတ္ဆက္စာ
အမတို႔ခင္ဗ်ား
လူတစ္ေယာက္ ဆုံးပါးသြားတဲ႕အခါ သူ႕ကို ခ်စ္ခင္တန္ဖိုးထား ေလးစားတဲ႕သူေတြက လူကိုယ္တိုင္ စ်ာပနအခမ္းအနားကို တက္ေရာက္ၾကတယ္။ အေၾကာင္းတစ္ခုခုေၾကာင္႕ မတက္ေရာက္ႏိုင္ၾကရင္ ဝမ္းနည္းေၾကာင္းသဝဏ္လႊာ ၊ လြမ္းသူ႕ပန္းေခြ ပန္းစည္းေတြပို႕ၿပီး မိသားစုနဲ႕အတူထပ္တူ ေၾကကြဲဝမ္းနည္းရေၾကာင္း သူတို႕ရဲ႕စာနာမွဳေတြကို ျပသေလ႕ရွိၾကတယ္။ ဒါဟာယဥ္ေက်းတဲ႕သူေတြရဲ႕ ဓေလ႕ထုံးတမ္းအစဥ္အလာတစ္ခုပါဘဲ။ က်ေနာ္က လူကိုယ္တိုင္လည္းတက္လို႕မရ ပန္းေခြပန္းစည္း သဝဏ္လႊာလည္း ပို႕လို႕ မရ ဆိုေတာ႕ က်ေနာ္က မယဥ္ေက်းတဲ႕သူမ်ားျဖစ္ေနမလားပဲ။
ဆရာႀကီးက အမတို႕သိပ္ခ်စ္ရတဲ႕အေဖပါ။ ဒီလိုဘဲ။ က်ေနာ္႕ရဲ႕အေဖဆိုလည္း မမွားပါဘူး။ ဆရာႀကီးဆုံးသြားလို႕ အမတို႕ညီအမေတြ ေၾကကြဲထိခိုက္ၾကရသလို က်ေနာ္လည္း ဘယ္ေလာက္ေၾကကြဲထိခိုက္ရသလဲဆိုတာ ခုက်ေနာ္ပို႕လိုက္တဲ႕စာအုပ္ကို စ … ဆုံး ဖတ္ၾကည္႕ရင္ ေတြ႕ရပါလိမ္႕မယ္။
တိုင္းသိျပည္သိဆရာႀကီးရဲ႕ အမ်ားသိၿပီးသားအေၾကာင္းေတြကို ထည္႕မေရးေတာ႕ဘဲ တကယ္ျဖစ္ခဲ႕ၿပီး လူသိပ္မသိတဲ႕ အေၾကာင္းေတြကိုပဲ ေရးထားတာပါ။ အထူးသျဖင္႕ ဘာမွမဟုတ္တဲ႕ ခပ္ရိုင္းရိုင္း ေကာင္ေလးတစ္ေယာက္ကို ယဥ္ေက်းတဲ႕ လူသားတစ္ေယာက္ျဖစ္ေအာင္ သူ ဘယ္လို ထုဆစ္ခဲ႕တယ္ ဆိုတာ လူသိရွင္ၾကားသိေစခ်င္တာပါ။
လူသူမျမင္ႏိုင္တဲ႕ေနရာမ်ိဳးေတြမွာေတာင္ ဆရာႀကီးဟာ အရိုးခံသက္သက္ ျပဳမူေနထိိုင္ခဲ႕တာေတြ၊ ဟန္ေဆာင္မွဳကင္းၿပီး မာန္မာန မရွိတာေတြ၊ ျဖဴစင္ရိုးသားၿပီး စာနာတရား ႀကီးမားတာေတြ ကဗ်ာ၊ စာေပနဲ႕ ပညာကို ခ်စ္မက္ တန္ဖိုးထားတာေတြ သိေစခ်င္လို႕၊ အထူးသျဖင္႕ က်ေနာ္႕လို အရိုင္းကို အယဥ္ျဖစ္ေအာင္ လုပ္ႏိုင္စြမ္းတဲ႕ ေမတၲာတရား ႀကီးမားတာကို အမတို႕ သိေစခ်င္လို႕ ''ေကာင္းကင္စိတ္နဲ႕ ေျမလိုက်င့္တဲ့ ဧည့္သည္ႀကီး'' ျဖစ္လာရတာပါပဲ။
အေရးႀကီးဆုံးကေတာ့ ဆရာႀကီးရဲ႕ အရိုးျပာအိုး ျမန္မာျပည္ကို မုခ် ျပန္ေရာက္ရမယ္လို႕ လူသိရွင္ၾကား ဟစ္ေႄကြးလိုက္တာပါပဲ။
အမတို႔ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းပါေစ..
ေနျခဴး
Tue, Feb 6 , 2007
10:05 PM
ေကာင္းကင္စိတ္နဲ႔ ေျမလိုက်င့္တဲ့ ဧည့္သည္ႀကီး
ေနျခဴး
ဇန္န၀ါရီ ၂၃၊ ၂၀၀၉
၂ဝဝ၇၊ ဇန္နဝါရီ ၂၂ ၊ ညေန ၄ နာရီ၊ အေမရိကန္၊ ေလာ့အိန္ဂ်လိစ္မွာ ဆရာႀကီးဆံုးၿပီတဲ့။ က်င္စက္နဲ႔ တို႔ခံလိုက္ရသလို တကိုယ္လံုး ေတာင့္ေတာင့္ႀကီးျဖစ္သြားရတဲ့အထိ။ ကိုယ့္နားေတာင္ ကိုယ္မယံုခ်င္ဘူး။ "မဟုတ္ပါေစနဲ႔ … မဟုတ္ပါေစနဲ႔ …" လို႔ တကုိယ္တည္း နတ္ပူးသလို ေရ႐ြတ္ေနမိတယ္။ အျမင္၊ အၾကားအာ႐ံုေတြ ဆြံ႕အသြားသလို ပတ္ဝန္းက်င္တခုလံုး လင္းလိုက္ ေမွာင္လိုက္နဲ႔။ ေဆာင္း ေခါင္ေခါင္ႀကီး မိုးၿခိမ္းသံေတြ တဂ်ဳန္းဂ်ဳန္း၊ တဂ်ိမ္းဂ်ိမ္း။ ဘုရား ... ဘုရား ... အိပ္မက္ မဟုတ္ဘူးပဲ။ တကယ္ ဆရာႀကီး ဆံုးၿပီတဲ့..။
တမာနံ႕သင္းသင္း၊ ေနျပင္းျပင္း အညာေဒသမွာ ေမြးဖြားခဲ့တဲ့ အညာသားစစ္စစ္ႀကီး ဦးဘဂ်မ္း
ျမန္မာ့ ယဥ္ေက်းမႈ ေက်းလက္စ႐ိုက္ကို ႏွစ္ႏွစ္ကာကာ ခ်စ္ျမတ္ႏိုးတဲ့ မ်ိဳးခ်စ္ကဗ်ာစာဆိုႀကီး တင္မိုး
'ဖန္မီးအိမ္' 'ဧည့္သည္ႀကီး' ကဗ်ာေတြနဲ႔ ကဗ်ာတေခတ္ ေမာ္ကြန္းထိုးခဲ့တဲ့ ကဗ်ာသူရဲေကာင္းႀကီး
ဒီမိုကေရစီေရးနဲ႔ လြတ္လပ္ခြင့္ကို ခ်စ္ျမတ္ႏိုးလြန္းလို႔ ေထာင္သြင္းအက်ဥ္းက်ခံရတဲ့ ျပည္သူ႕ဘက္ေတာ္သားႀကီး
အမ်ားက ''သခင္ကိုယ္ေတာ္မိုး''လို႔ မွည့္ေခၚရေလာက္ေအာင္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးစိတ္ ျပင္းျပလြန္းတဲ့ တိုင္းခ်စ္ျပည္ခ်စ္ ဆရာႀကီး …
ခုေတာ့ သူသိပ္ခ်စ္တဲ့ သူ႕ေမြးရပ္တုိင္းျပည္မွာ ေခါင္းခ်ခြင့္ မရ႐ွာတာ ဘယ္ေလာက္ ေၾကကြဲ ထိခိုက္ဖို႔ ေကာင္းလိုက္သလဲလို႔ …
သူ႕ကို က်ေနာ္ စေတြ႕ခဲ့တာ … ဟိုး လြန္ခဲ့တဲ့ ၁၅ ႏွစ္ ေလာက္က ခုလို ႏွစ္တႏွစ္ရဲ႕ ႏွစ္ဦးကာလ ႏွင္းေတြေဝေနတဲ့ မနက္ခင္းေလး။ အင္းစိန္ေက်ာင္းေတာ္ႀကီးရဲ႕ အမွတ္ ၁ အိပ္ေဆာင္မွာပါ။
က်ေနာ္နဲ႔ သက္ဝင္းေအာင္က အမႈတြဲ၊ အေပၚ (၁ - ခ) မွာ အတူတူေန ေနရတဲ့အခ်ိန္။ ၁၉၉၁၊ ဇြန္လ ထဲက ႐ံုးထြက္ ႐ံုးျပန္နဲ႔ ဒီအေဆာင္မွာ ေန ေနရတာ။ ၁၉၉၂ ဇန္နဝါရီ လကုန္ပိုင္းေလာက္ တညေနခင္းမွာ ႐ံုးျပန္တစ္ေယာက္ က်ေနာ္တို႔ဆီေရာက္လာၿပီး ''ကဗ်ာဆရာတင္မိုး'' ဆိုတာ ဒီေန႔ အခ်ဳပ္သစ္နဲ႔ ပါလာတယ္လို႔ သတင္းလာေပးတယ္။
က်ေနာ္က ''ကဗ်ာဆရာတင္မိုး''ဆိုတာကို မသိဘူး။ မသိဆို ၾကားေတာင္ မၾကား ဖူးဘူး။ သက္ဝင္းေအာင္က လူကိုသာ မသိတာ။ သူ႕နာမည္ ၾကားဖူးတယ္။ ထင္႐ွားတဲ့ ကဗ်ာဆရာႀကီးဆိုတာ သိေနတယ္။ က်ေနာ္တို႔က အရင္ေရာက္ႏွင့္ေနတဲ့ လူေဟာင္းေတြဆိုေတာ့ လိုအပ္တာေတြကူညီဖို႔ ႏွစ္ေယာက္သား တိုင္ပင္ျဖစ္ၾကတယ္။
သူက ဒီေန႔မွ စေရာက္တာဆိုေတာ့ ပံုစံခန္းဝင္ရဦးမယ္။ ပံုစံခန္းဆိုတာ က်ေနာ္တို႔ေနတဲ့ အခန္းရဲ႕ ေအာက္တည့္တည့္ အခန္းနံပါတ္ (၁-က)။ ေရာက္လာခဲ့သူမွန္သမွ် ဒီအခန္းကိုဝင္ၾကရတာ ထံုးစံပဲ။
ပံုစံခန္း ဆိုတဲ့အတိုင္း ေရာက္လာတဲ့အခ်ဳပ္သစ္ေတြကို သံမံတလင္းမွာ ဖင္ခ်ထိုင္ခိုင္းထားၿပီး ပံုစံျပ တစ္ေယာက္က ေ႐ွ႕မွာ ပံုစံျပမယ္။ ''စည္းကမ္းထိန္း'' ဆိုတဲ့သူေတြက တုတ္ေတြ၊ သားေရပတ္ေတြကိုင္ထားၿပီး ေတြ႕ကရာလူကို ေလွ်ာက္႐ိုက္မယ္။ "ပံုစံ" လို႔ ေအာ္လိုက္ရင္ လက္မကို လက္ဖဝါးထဲ ထည့္ဆုတ္ၿပီး တင္ပလႅင္ခ်ိတ္ ထိုင္ထားတဲ့ ဒူးႏွစ္ဖက္ေပၚ တင္တား၊ ခါးဆန္႔ၿပီး ေခါင္းငံု႔ထားရတယ္။ ''ေအးေစ'' လို႔ ေအာ္မွ ေခါင္းေမာ့ရတယ္။ ''ပံုစံရပ္''နဲ႔ ''အေရးေပၚပံုစံ''ဆိုတာ ႐ွိေသးတယ္။ ကိုလိုနီစ႐ိုက္နဲ႔ အာဏာ႐ွင္ဝါဒ သားစပ္က်ထားတဲ့ "ေမာ္ဖူးေစ" ပံုစံ တခုပါပဲ။
ပံုစံ ျပေနတုန္း အေယာင္ေယာင္အမွားမွားျဖစ္တဲ့သူကို စည္းကမ္းထိန္းေတြက တအံုးအံုး၊ တဒိုင္းဒိုင္းနဲ႔ ႐ိုက္ႏွက္ ကန္ေက်ာက္ၾကေတာ့တာပဲ။ ပံုစံခန္း ဆိုတာ ငရဲခန္း အေသးစားေလးဆိုရင္ မမွားဘူး။ အခ်ဳပ္သစ္နဲ႔ ေရာက္လာသူမွန္သမွ် ဒီအခန္းထဲကို ဝင္ရတယ္။ ၂ ရက္ေလာက္ေနၿပီးမွ တျခားအခန္းကို ခြဲပို႔တယ္။
က်ေနာ္နဲ႔ သက္ဝင္းေအာင္လည္း ဒီအခန္းမွာ ၂ ရက္ေလာက္ေနၿပီးမွ အခုေနတဲ့ ( အခန္း ၁-ခ ) ကို ေရာက္ေနၾကရတာ။
ညေနဖက္ သူ ေရာက္တယ္ၾကားၿပီး ေနာက္တေန႔မနက္ တန္း ဖြင့္ေတာ့ က်ေနာ္နဲ႔ သက္ဝင္းေအာင္တို႔ ပံုစံ ခန္းသြားၿပီး သူ႕ကို႐ွာၾကတယ္။ အခုမွ ေရာက္တာဆိုေတာ့ သူမွာ ဘာမွ ပါမွာ မဟုတ္ဘူးဆိုတာ အေတြ႕အႀကံဳအရ သိႏွင့္ၿပီးသား။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ သြားတိုက္တံအသစ္ တစ္ေခ်ာင္း႐ွာၿပီး သြားတိုက္ေဆးပါ ယူသြားၾကတယ္။ သူ႔ကို လူမျမင္ဖူးေတာ့ ''ဦးတင္မိုး'' ဘယ္သူလဲဆိုတာ လိုက္ေမးၾကရတာ။ အခန္းဝရပ္ေနတဲ့ လူ တစ္ေယာက္က လက္ၫႇိဳးထိုးျပလို႔ ၾကည့္လိုက္ေတာ့ - အသက္ႀကီးႀကီး ဝဝဖိုင့္ဖိုင့္ အဖိုးႀကီးတစ္ေယာက္ကို ေတြ႕လိုက္ရတယ္။ ေခါင္းရင္းဘက္ျပတင္းေပါက္ သံတိုင္ေတြကိုကိုင္ၿပီး အျပင္ကို ေငးၾကည့္ေနတယ္။
က်ေနာ္တို႔ႏွစ္ေယာက္ သူ႕ဆီသြားၿပီး
''အဘက ဦးတင္မိုးလား''
လို႔ ေမးလိုက္ေတာ့ သူက ေက်ာခိုင္းလ်က္ က်ေနာ္တို႔ဘက္ လွည့္ၿပီး
''ဟုတ္ပါတယ္။ က်ေနာ္တင္မိုးပါ''
လို႔ ျပန္ေျဖတယ္။
မ်က္လံုးကဝိုင္းဝိုင္း၊ ပါးက ေဖာင္းေဖာင္းႀကီးနဲ႔ အံ့ၾသတဲ့ အမူအရာနဲ႔ က်ေနာ္တို႔ ႏွစ္ေယာက္ကို တစ္လွည့္စီ ၾကည့္ေနတယ္။
က်ေနာ္တို႔ ေက်ာင္းသားေတြပါ။ နာမည္ ဘယ္သူ ဘယ္ဝါပါ ဆိုၿပီး က်ေနာ္တို႔အေၾကာင္း အက်ဥ္းခ်ဳံး မိတ္ဆက္လိုက္ေတာ့ သူ႕မ်က္ႏွာဝင္းသြားၿပီး ဖက္လွဲတကင္း ျပန္ႏႈတ္ဆက္ပါတယ္။ သူ႕ျဖစ္စဥ္အေၾကာင္းလည္း အက်ဥ္းခ်ဳံး ေျပာျပပါတယ္။
က်ေနာ္တို႔က
"အဘ … မ်က္ႏွာမသစ္ရေသးဘူး မဟုတ္လား။ လာ..ေရကန္သြားမယ္"
ဆိုၿပီး ေခၚသြားပါတယ္။ ေရကန္ေရာက္ေတာ့ သြားတိုက္တံေပၚ သြားတိုက္ေဆးၫႇစ္ထည့္ၿပီး သူ႔ကိုေပးလိုက္ေတာ့ သူက သြားတိုက္တံေပၚက သြားတိုက္ေဆးကို လက္ၫႇိဳးေလးနဲ႔ေကာ္ၿပီး သြားတိုက္တံကို ျပန္ေပးတယ္။
က်ေနာ္က
''အဘ ႐ြံတတ္လို႔လား။ ဒါ သြားတိုက္တံအသစ္ပါ …"
လို႔ ေျပာလိုက္ေတာ့ သူက
''ဟာ … မဟုတ္ဘူး။ မဟုတ္ဘူး။ ကိုယ္ မ႐ြံတတ္ပါဘူး။ သြားတိုက္တံနဲ႔ တိုက္လို႔ မရလို႔ပါ''
လို႔ ပ်ာပ်ာသလဲ ျပန္ေျဖၿပီး သူ႕ပါးစပ္ကို ''ဟ'' ျပပါတယ္။ ၾကည့္လိုက္ေတာ့ ပါးစပ္ကေဟာင္းေလာင္းႀကီး၊ သြားေတြ တေခ်ာင္းမွ မ႐ွိဘူး။ ဟုတ္တာေပါ့။ သြားဖံုးခ်ည္း သက္သက္ကို သြားတိုက္တံနဲ႔ တိုက္လို႔ ဘယ္ရပါ့မလဲ။
က်ေနာ္နဲ႔ သက္ဝင္းေအာင္ တစ္ေယာက္ မ်က္ႏွာ တစ္ေယာက္ၾကည့္ၿပီး ၿပံဳးစိစိေလးျဖစ္သြားေတာ့ သူက အားရပါးရ ရယ္ေမာလိုက္ပါေတာ့တယ္။
အဲဒါ သူနဲ႔က်ေနာ္ ပထမဆံုး စေတြ႔ေတြ႔ခ်င္း အမွတ္ရစရာ ေလးပါ။
၁၉၉၂ ႏွစ္ဦးပိုင္း ႏွင္းေတြေဝေနတဲ့ ေဆာင္းနံနက္ခင္းေလးက အစျပဳလို႔ ေအးျမတဲ့ ေႏြးေထြးတဲ့ ေမတၱာရိပ္ေတြ က်ေနာ့္ႏွလံုးသားကို သိုင္းၿခံဳ ရစ္ပတ္ေတာ့မယ္ဆုိတာ က်ေနာ္မသိခဲ့ဘူးေလ။
သူ ပံုစံခန္းက ထြက္ေတာ့ က်ေနာ္ေနတဲ့ အေပၚ (၁-ခ) မွာ လာေနရတယ္။ က်ေနာ္နဲ႔ ေဘးခ်င္းယွဥ္ အိပ္ရတာပါ။ သက္ဝင္းေအာင္က ကပ္လ်က္အခန္းက အေပၚ (၁-က) မွာ။
အဲဒီတုန္းက က်ေနာ္နဲ႔ သက္ဝင္းေအာင္က အသက္ ၁၉ ႏွစ္အ႐ြယ္၊ ၉ တန္း ေက်ာင္းသားေလးေတြ၊ သူက ေက်ာင္းဆရာ၊ ကဗ်ာဆရာ ၊ ပညာနဲ႔ ေမြ႕ေလ်ာ္သူဆိုေတာ့ က်ေနာ္တို႔ ၂ ေယာက္ကို ၉ တန္း ျပန္ေျဖၿပီး ဘြဲ႕ရေအာင္ယူဖို႔ တိုက္တြန္းတယ္။ ကတိလည္း ေတာင္းတယ္။ သက္ဝင္းေအာင္က ျပန္ေျဖဖို႔ ကတိေပးလိုက္ေပမဲ့ က်ေနာ္က မေပးဘူး။ မေသခ်ာဘဲနဲ႔ ဘာ ကတိမွ မေပးခ်င္ဘူး လို႔ ျပန္ေျပာလိုက္ေတာ့ သူ က်ေနာ့္ကို စိုက္ၾကည့္ေနတယ္။ ဘာမွေတာ့ မေျပာဘူး။ ဒါေပမဲ့ သူ႕မ်က္ႏွာမွာ ခပ္မႈိင္းမႈိင္း အရိပ္ေလးေတြ ေတြ႕လိုက္ရတယ္။
အဲဒီတုန္းက က်ေနာ္က ခပ္ထန္ထန္၊ ခပ္႐ိုင္း႐ိုင္း။ ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္ ေတာေတာင္ေတြထဲ ၂ ႏွစ္ခြဲေလာက္ လက္နက္ကိုင္ တိုက္ခိုက္ေနရာကေန၊ ေလာေလာလတ္လတ္ အခ်ဳပ္က်ေနတဲ့ ကာလ။ ေျပာရရင္ အ႐ွင္လတ္လတ္ ေလွာင္ခ်ိဳင့္ထဲ ထည့္ပိတ္ခံထားရလို႔ ႐ွဴး႐ွဴး႐ွား႐ွားျဖစ္ေနတဲ့ ေတာ႐ိုင္းတိရိစၧာန္ တေကာင္လိုမ်ိဳး။ အစြယ္ တျပျပ၊ လက္သည္း တျပင္ျပင္နဲ႔။ ပိုဆိုးတာက ဘာ ဘာသာေရးမွ မ႐ွိတာ။ အ႐ိုင္းတံုးႀကီး။ အေဖက ဗုဒၶဘာသာ ျမန္မာလူမ်ိဳး၊ အေမက ခရစ္ယာန္ ကရင္လူမ်ိဳးဆိုေတာ့ ဘာသာက ဖက္စပ္၊ လူမ်ိဳးက ကျပား။ ၾသကာသ မသိ၊ သခင္ေယ႐ႈ မသိ၊ ကိုယ္ထင္ရာ ကိုယ္ စိုင္းေနတဲ့ စိတ္အခံမ်ိဳး။
အဲဒီလို ဘာသာမဲ့၊ ေတာျပန္၊ အခ်ဳပ္က်၊ ႐ိုင္းခ်င္တိုင္း ႐ိုင္းေနတဲ့ က်ေနာ့္ကို သူက က်ေနာ္ႀကံဳရေလ့႐ွိတဲ့ တျခားလူႀကီးေတြလိုမ်ိဳး ေ႐ွာင္ဖယ္ဖယ္ ေနတာမ်ိဳး မလုပ္ဘူး။ ေဖးေဖးမမနဲ႔ တရင္းတႏွီး ဆက္ဆံတယ္။ က်ေနာ့္ေနာက္ခံ ဘဝဇာတ္ေၾကာင္းကို ခေရေစ့တြင္းက် ေမးတယ္။ အေဖအေၾကာင္း၊ အေမအေၾကာင္း၊ မိသားစုေနထိုင္မႈပံုေတြ အေၾကာင္း၊ က်ေနာ္တက္ခဲ့တဲ့ ေက်ာင္းက အစ၊ ေတာထဲ ေနခဲ့ရတဲ့ တိုက္ပြဲေတြအဆံုး အကုန္ေမးတယ္။ တိုက္ဆိုင္ခ်င္ေတာ့ က်ေနာ္ရဲ႕အတန္းေဖာ္ ခိုင္ဝတ္မႈန္ဆိုတာ သူ႕ရဲ႕ ရဲေဘာ္ႀကီး ဦးတင္ေမာင္ဝင္းရဲ႕ သမီး၊ သူ႕တပည့္မ ျဖစ္ေနတယ္။ အဲဒီလိုေလွ်ာက္ေမးေနေတာ့ က်ေနာ္က ေျပာျပရတယ္။
အံ့ၾသဖို႔ေကာင္းတာက က်ေနာ္ေျပာသမွ်ကို သူက ေသေသခ်ာခ်ာကို အာ႐ံုစိုက္ၿပီး နားေထာင္တာ။ တစ္ခါတစ္ခါေတာ့ သူေမးတာကို က်ေနာ္က ''ဘု'' ျပန္ေတာမိတာလည္း ႐ွိတယ္။ အဲဒီလုိအခါမ်ိဳးမွာ ဘယ္ေတာ့မွ စိတ္ဆိုးဟန္ မျပဘူး။
''ေအး … ေအး … ခု မေျပာခ်င္လည္း ေန၊ ေနာက္မွ ေျပာေပါ့။ လာ … အခု လမ္းေလွ်ာက္ၾကရေအာင္''
ဆိုၿပီး က်ေနာ္႔လက္ကို ဆြဲၿပီး ထ လမ္းေလွ်ာက္ေတာ့တာပဲ။
ဒီအေၾကာင္း အခု ျပန္ေတြးေတာ့ သူ႕မ်က္ႏွာ ျမင္ေယာင္ၿပီး ရင္ထဲ ဆစ္ကနဲ နာက်င္မိတာ အမွန္ပဲ။
အဲဒီလို တရင္းတႏွီးေနၾကရင္း က်ေနာ္ သူ႔ကို ''အဘ'' လို႔ ေခၚရာကေန ''ဆရာႀကီး''လို႔ ေျပာင္းေခၚမိတယ္။ ဘယ္လို ဘယ္လို အဲဒီလို ေခၚမိတယ္မသိဘူး။ စာသင္တဲ့ ဆရာ၊ အသက္ႀကီးလို႔ ေခၚမိတာလား၊ ကဗ်ာဆရာႀကီးမို႔လို႔ ေခၚမိတာလားလည္း မသိဘူး။ ေနာက္ပိုင္း က်ေနာ္ေရာ၊ သက္ဝင္းေအာင္ေရာ ဆရာႀကီးလို႔ ေခၚျဖစ္ၾကေတာ့တယ္။
သူက ပထမ သူ႕ကိုယ္သူ 'က်ေနာ္' လို႔ ေျပာတယ္။ ေနာက္ေတာ့ 'ကိုယ္' 'ေမာင္ရင္' လို႔ ေျပာရာကေန 'မင္း' 'ငါ' ဆိုၿပီး တရင္းတႏွီး ျဖစ္လာတယ္။ တခါတေလ
"ေဟ့ေကာင္၊ ေခြးေကာင္ ... ေခြးမသား ... လာ ..."
ဆိုၿပီး အာလုတ္သံႀကီးနဲ႔ တလံုးတခဲ ေျပာၿပီး က်ေနာ္ေခါင္းကို သူ႔ရင္ဘတ္မွာ ဖိထားတာမ်ိဳး လုပ္တတ္တယ္။ ပထမေတာ့ အဲဒီလိုေခၚတာကို က်ေနာ္မႀကိဳက္ဘူး။ စိတ္ဆိုးမိတယ္။
"ဆရာႀကီး က်ေနာ့္ကို ဘာျဖစ္လို႔ ေခြးေကာင္လို႔ ေခၚတာလဲ"
လို႔ ျပန္ေမးေတာ့ သူ စိတ္မေကာင္း ျဖစ္သြားပံုရတယ္။
''မဟုတ္ပါဘူးကြာ၊ ငါ ဘယ္သူ႔ ျဖစ္ျဖစ္၊ ဘယ္ေလာက္ ငယ္ငယ္ 'မင္း' 'ငါ' ဆိုတာမ်ိဳးေတာင္ မသံုးပါဘူး။ မင္းကိုေတာ့ ငါ ခ်စ္လို႔ ဒီလို ရင္းရင္းႏွီးႏွီး ေျပာတာပါ။ စိတ္မဆိုးပါနဲ႔ကြာ။ ဆရာႀကီး သခင္ကိုယ္ေတာ္မႈိင္းဆိုရင္လည္း သခင္ႏုတို႔၊ သခင္ေအာင္ဆန္းတို႔ကို အဲဒီလို ရင္းရင္းႏီွးႏွီး ေျပာဆိုတာပဲ''
လို႔ ျပန္ေျပာတယ္။
အဲဒီက စလို႔ သူနဲ႔ က်ေနာ္ၾကား ဘယ္အခါ ေတြ႕ေတြ႕
''ေဟ့ေကာင္ ... ေခြးေကာင္ ... ေခြးမသား ... လာ''
ဆိုၿပီး က်ေနာ့္ ေခါင္းကို အတင္းဆြဲ သူ႕ရင္ဘက္နဲ႔ အတင္း ဖိကပ္ထားေတာ့တာပဲ။ အဲဒီ သူ က်ေနာ္႔ကို ႏႈတ္ဆက္ေနက် ပံုရိပ္ေလး တခုအျဖစ္ က်ေနာ့္ရင္ထဲ စြဲက်န္ေနမိတယ္။
အဲဒီလို သူနဲ႔ က်ေနာ္တို႔ ၄ လေလာက္ အတူေနရာကေန တေန႔ သူ႕ကို စစ္ခံု႐ံုးကေနေခၚၿပီး အမိန္႔ခ်မွတ္လိုက္တယ္။ ၄ ႏွစ္ တဲ့။
စစ္ခံု႐ံုး အမိန္႔ခ်ၿပီးတာနဲ႔ "အက်"ေဆာင္ ၅ ကို တန္း ပို႔လိုက္ေတာ့ က်ေနာ္တို႔ခ်င္း မေတြ႕ၾကရေတာ့ဘူး။ ေနာင္ သူနဲ႔ အက်ေဆာင္မွာ ျပန္ေတြ႕ေတာ့မွ စစ္ခံု႐ံုးအေတြ႕အႀကံဳကို ဖလွယ္ရင္း သူ႕ကို ဘယ္လို စီရင္ခ်က္ စြဲတယ္ဆိုတာ သူ ျပန္ေျပာလို႔သိရတယ္။
စစ္ခံု႐ံုးက သူ႕ကဗ်ာေလး ဖတ္ျပၿပီး စီရင္ခ်က္ခ်လိုက္တာ … တဲ့။
ခုံ႐ံုး တရားသူႀကီးက သူ႔ ကဗ်ာကို ဖတ္ေတာ့ ယူနီေဖာင္းအျပည့္အစံုနဲ႔တဲ့။
''လမ္းေဘး ေသြးအိုင္ထဲ လဲေနတဲ့ ေက်ာင္းသားေလး ... သား ျပန္အလာကို ေမွ်ာ္ေနတဲ့ အေမ တေယာက္ရဲ႕ အျဖစ္ ...'' စတဲ့ ကဗ်ာေလးပါ။
''ဒီ တခုနဲ႔တင္ တန္ သြားၿပီကြာ'' တဲ့။
ဆရာႀကီး အမိန္႔ခ်ခံရၿပီး တလေလာက္ ထပ္ေနၿပီးေတာ့ သက္ဝင္းေအာင္ အခ်ဳပ္ဘဝကေန လြတ္ေျမာက္ သြားတယ္။ ေနာက္ထပ္ တစ္လေလာက္ ထပ္ေနၿပီးေတာ့ က်ေနာ့္ကို စစ္ခံု႐ံုးက ၇ ႏွစ္ အမိန္႔ခ်လိုက္တယ္။ ဒီေတာ့ ဆရာႀကီး ႐ွိတဲ့ ၅ ေဆာင္ကို ေရာက္ၿပီး သူနဲ႔ ျပန္ဆံုရတယ္။
က်ေနာ့္ကို စစ္ခုံ႐ံုး အမိန္႔ခ်လုိက္တာ မွတ္မွတ္ရရ ၁၉၉၂၊ ဇူလိုင္ ၂၃ ရက္ေန႔။
ထံုးစံအတိုင္း အက်ေဆာင္ေရာက္ေတာ့ အခ်ဳပ္ေဆာင္တုန္းကလိုပဲ ပံုစံခန္းဆိုတာ ဝင္ရေသးတယ္။ က်ေနာ္ အမိန္႔က်ၿပီး ၅ ေဆာင္ ေရာက္တယ္ ဆိုတာ ညတြင္းခ်င္း ဆရာႀကီး သိတယ္။ ေနာက္တစ္ေန႔ တန္းဖြင့္ဖြင့္ခ်င္း သူ က်ေနာ့္ဆီ ေရာက္လာတယ္။
မ်က္ႏွာသုတ္ပုဝါ ပုခံုးေပၚ တင္၊ ဆပ္ျပာခြက္၊ သြားတိုက္ေဆး၊ သြားတိုက္တံ လက္ထဲ ကိုင္လို႔။ က်ေနာ့္ဆီ လာေတြ႕မယ္ဆိုတာ သိေနရက္နဲ႔ ျဗဳန္းကနဲ အျဖဴေရာင္ ထက္ေအာက္ 'ေထာင္ဝတ္စံု'နဲ႔ ေတြ႕လိုက္ရေတာ့ ရင္ထဲ တစ္မ်ိဳးႀကီး ျဖစ္သြားတယ္။ အခ်ဳပ္ေဆာင္တုန္းက အရပ္ဝတ္ အရပ္စားနဲ႔ ေတြ႕ေနၾကေလ။ ခုေတာ့ ေထာင္ဝတ္စံုႀကီးနဲ႔ ေခါင္းကလည္း ေဖြးေဖြးျဖဴလို႔။ ေတြ႕ရတာ တစ္မ်ိဳးႀကီးပဲ။
ေတြ႕ေတြ႕ခ်င္း သူကေတာ့ ထံုးစံအတိုင္း
''ေဟ့ … ေခြးေကာင္ ... လာ''
ဆိုၿပီး က်ေနာ့္ ေခါင္းကိုဆြဲၿပီး သူ႔ရင္ဘတ္နဲ႔ ထိထားတယ္။ ၿပီးမွ မ်က္ႏွာ သြားသစ္ရေအာင္လို႔ ေျပာတယ္။ က်ေနာ္က သူ႕လက္ထဲက သြားတိုက္ေဆး၊ သြားတိုက္တံကို တလွည့္၊ သူ႕ကို တလွည့္ ၾကည့္ေနေတာ့၊ သူက …
"ဘာလဲ၊ မင္း ႐ြံ႕တတ္လို႔လား။ သြားတိုက္တံက အသစ္ပါ ကြ။ သြားတိုက္ေဆးကို လက္ၫႇိဳးနဲ႔ေကာ္ၿပီး တိုက္စရာ မလိုပါဘူး။ မင္းသြားေတြက အေကာင္းေတြခ်ည္းပဲ'' တဲ့။
က်ေနာ္တို႔ အခ်ဳပ္ေဆာင္မွာ ပထမဆံုးေတြ႕ခဲ့ၾကတဲ့ ျမင္ကြင္းေလးကို အမွတ္ရလို႔ ျပန္ေျပာတာနဲ႔ တူပါရဲ႕။
က်ေနာ္လည္း စေတြ႕ၾကတုန္းက သူေျပာခဲ့တဲ့ပံုကို ျပန္ေျပာၿပီး ႏွစ္ေယာက္သား အားပါးတရ ရယ္ေမာမိၾကတယ္။ အခ်ဳပ္ေဆာင္မွာတုန္းက က်ေနာ္က သြားတိုက္ေဆး လာေပးသူ၊ ဒီအက်ေဆာင္မွာေတာ့ သူက လာေပးရတဲ့သူ။ ဟိုမွာတုန္းက သူက လူသစ္၊ က်ေနာ္က လူေဟာင္း။ ဒီက်ေတာ့ သူက လူေဟာင္း၊ က်ေနာ္က လူသစ္။ အဲဒီတုန္းက ဇန္နဝါရ နံနက္ခင္း၊ ႏွင္းေတြ ေဝလို႔။ ခုေတာ့ ဇူလိုင္ နံနက္ခင္း မိုးေတြ ႐ြာ လို႔။
ဒီလိုနဲ႔ က်ေနာ္တို႔ ၅ ေဆာင္မွာ အတူ ေနၾကရျပန္တယ္။ အခန္းကေတာ့ မတူဘူး။ သူက ၃၊ က်ေနာ္က ၄။ မနက္ခင္းေတြမွာ က်ေနာ္က ေတာင္ယာထဲ ဆင္း၊ သူက လမ္းေလွ်ာက္ေပါ့။ ညေနခင္းေတြဆို က်ေနာ္တို႔ႏွစ္ေယာက္ အတူတူ လမ္းေလွ်ာက္ၾက၊ စကားေတြ ေျပာၾကနဲ႔။ ေန႔ခင္းေတြဆို သူက ထံုးစံ အတိုင္း ေမးခြန္းေတြ ေမး၊ က်ေနာ္က ေျဖေပါ့ေလ။ သူက စာေတြ၊ ကဗ်ာေတြအေၾကာင္း ေျပာျပတယ္။ ႀကံဳရင္ ႀကံဳသလို ကဗ်ာေလးေတြ ၫႇပ္ၿပီး ႐ြတ္ျပေသးတယ္။ ထူးဆန္းတာက သူ႐ြတ္တဲ့ကဗ်ာေတြထဲ သူ႕ ကဗ်ာတစ္ပုဒ္မွ မပါတာဘဲ။
''ဧည့္သည္ႀကီး'' ကဗ်ာအေၾကာင္းေတာ့ တခုတ္တရ ေျပာျပတယ္။ မႏၲေလးမွာ သူနဲ႔ ေမာင္စြမ္းရည္၊ ေမာင္ၾကည္ေအာင္တို႔ ကဗ်ာေတြ စုေရးၾကပံုေတြလည္း ပါတယ္။ မ်ားေသာအားျဖင့္ သူ ႐ြတ္ျပတဲ့ကဗ်ာေတြဟာ ဆရာႀကီးမင္းသုဝဏ္နဲ႕ ဆရာႀကီးေဇာ္ဂ်ီ ကဗ်ာေတြပါပဲ။
သူ ေျပာျပတဲ့အထဲမွာ ဆရာႀကီးေဖေမာင္တင္အေၾကာင္း ၊ ဆရာႀကီးဒဂုန္တာရာ၊ ေဒါက္တာသန္းထြန္း၊ လူထုဦးလွ နဲ႔ အေမမာအေၾကာင္း၊ ေမာင္သာႏိုး၊ ေမာင္စြမ္းရည္၊ ေမာင္ၾကည္ေအာင္စတဲ့ သူနဲ႔ ေခတ္ၿပိဳင္ ကဗ်ာဆရာႀကီးေတြအေၾကာင္း ... အစံုပါပဲ။
ခက္တာက သူ ေျပာတဲ့ လူေတြအေၾကာင္း တေယာက္မွ က်ေနာ္ မသိတာပဲ။ နာမည္ေတာင္ ၾကားဖူးတာ မဟုတ္ဘူး။ ကဗ်ာဆိုတာ ဘာမွန္းလည္း မသိ။ ခံစားရေကာင္းမွန္း၊ ဖတ္ရေကာင္းမွန္းေတာင္ သိတာမဟုတ္ဘူး။ အားနာလို႔သာ နားေထာင္ေနရတာ၊ ပ်င္းလည္းပ်င္း၊ စိတ္ကလည္းညစ္ေပါ့။ ဒါကို သူ ရိပ္မိတယ္နဲ႔ တူပါတယ္။ တေန႔ က်ေနာ့္ကို ကဗ်ာနဲ႔ ပတ္သတ္ၿပီး ဘယ္လို သေဘာထားလဲ ဆိုၿပီး ေမးခြန္း ေမးလာတယ္။
က်ေနာ္ကလည္း သိတဲ့အတိုင္း ဘုဆတ္ဆတ္၊ ဂ်စ္ကန္ကန္နဲ႔ ဆိုေတာ့
''ဟာ ... ကဗ်ာဆိုတာ လူေဘာ္ေၾကာ့ေတြ၊ အလုပ္အကိုင္မ႐ွိ၊ လူပ်င္းေတြ လုပ္တဲ့ အလုပ္ပါ။ ဘာမွန္းလည္း မသိဘူး။ ခံစားလို႔လည္း မရဘူး …"
လို႔ ျပန္ေျပာလိုက္ေတာ့ သူ ခဏ ေတြသြားတယ္။ ၿပီးမွ က်ေနာ့္ပခံုးေပၚ လက္တင္ၿပီး
"အဲလို မဟုတ္ပါဘူးကြာ။ ကဗ်ာဆိုတာ အင္မတန္ သိမ္ေမြ႕ႏူးညံ့တဲ့ ပစၥည္းပါ။ လူ႔ႏွလံုးသား ႏူးညံ့ေပ်ာ့ေပ်ာင္းဖို႔ ကဗ်ာဖတ္ဖို႔ လိုတယ္။ ႏွလံုးသားၾကမ္းတမ္းတဲ့သူေတြဟာ ေလာကကို အပ်က္ ျမင္တတ္ၾကတယ္ …"
ဆိုၿပီး ကဗ်ာနဲ႔ပတ္သတ္တဲ့ သေဘာ သဘာဝေတြ တသီတတန္းႀကီး ေျပာေနပါေတာ့တယ္။
ဥပမာေတြလည္း အမ်ားႀကီးပဲ။ က်ေနာ္ အေသးစိတ္ မမွတ္မိေတာ့ဘူး။ အဲဒီတုန္းက က်ေနာ္ ေျပာခဲ့တဲ့စကားေတြအတြက္ အခု ဆရာႀကီးကို လက္အုပ္ခ်ီေတာင္းပန္မိတယ္။
တကယ္ေတာ့ ဆရာႀကီးဟာ စိတ္ႏွလံုး ႏူးညံ့ေပ်ာ့ေျပာင္းသူပါ။ မေတာင္းပန္ခင္က ခြင့္လႊတ္ၿပီးသား ဆိုတာ က်ေနာ္ အေသအခ်ာ ယံုတယ္။ ကဗ်ာကို ႐ႈတ္႐ႈတ္ခ်ခ်ေျပာခဲ့တဲ့ က်ေနာ္၊ ခုေတာ့ ကဗ်ာကို ခံစား ဖတ္႐ႈႏိုင္႐ံုမက ကိုယ္တိုင္ ကဗ်ာဖန္တီးသူတစ္ေယာက္ ျဖစ္ခဲ့ရၿပီ ။ ဒီအေၾကာင္းေတြ ဆရာႀကီး သိမွသိသြားပါေလစ။
က်ေနာ့္စိတ္ကူးထဲ ေထာင္ကလြတ္လို႔ ဆရာႀကီးနဲ႔ျပန္ဆံုရင္ ေျပာမယ့္စကားေတြ ရင္ထဲအျပည့္။ ရင္ဘတ္ႀကီးထဲ အကန္႔လိုက္ ခြဲခြဲ သိမ္းထားခဲ့ရတာေတြ။ ခုေတာ့ ဆရာႀကီး ဆံုးၿပီတဲ့။
ဆရာပြင့္ကို က်ေနာ္ တခါက ဒီလို ေျပာဖူးတယ္။
"ဆရာပြင့္ထက္ အရင္ က်ေနာ္ ေစာလြတ္ရင္ ဘာလုပ္ေပးရမလဲ" လို႔။
ဆရာပြင့္ကလည္း က်ေနာ့္ကို ဒီလို ျပန္ေမးတယ္။
''ခင္ဗ်ားထက္ က်ေနာ္ ေစာလြတ္ရင္ေကာ'' တဲ့။
ဒီေတာ့ က်ေနာ္က
"ဆရာႀကီးနဲ႔ ထိေတြ႔ခဲ့ၿပီးတဲ့ေနာက္ က်ေနာ့္ႏွလံုးသားထဲ ဆိုက္ဆိုက္ၿမိဳက္ၿမိဳက္ ဝင္လာသူဟာ ဆရာပြင့္ပါပဲ လို႔။ အခု က်ေနာ္ အထဲမွာ ဘာေတြ လုပ္ေနတယ္၊ ဘယ္လို က်င့္ႀကံေနတယ္ ဆိုတာေတြ ဆရာပြင့္ အသိဆံုးပါပဲ။ က်ေနာ့္စိတ္ကူး၊ က်ေနာ့္အိပ္မက္ေတြ၊ ခံစားမႈေတြကို ေကာင္းေကာင္း သိတဲ့သူဟာလည္း ဆရာပြင့္ပါပဲ။ က်ေနာ္ ဆရာႀကီးအေပၚ ဘယ္လို သေဘာထားတယ္ ဆိုတာလည္း အသိဆံုးပါ။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ ဆရာပြင့္ က်ေနာ့္ထက္ ေစာလြတ္ရင္ ဆရာႀကီးနဲ႔ ဆက္သြယ္ၿပီး အဲဒါေတြ ေျပာျပေပးပါ"
လို႔ ဆရာပြင့္ကို က်ေနာ္ ေသေသခ်ာခ်ာ မွာခဲ့ဖူးတယ္။
ဒါေတြသာ သိရင္ ဆရာႀကီး ဘယ္ေလာက္မ်ား ဝမ္းသာပီတိ ျဖစ္ေနလိုက္မလဲ ဆိုတာ စိတ္ကူးနဲ႔ က်ေနာ္ ျမင္ေယာင္မိပါေသးေတာ့တယ္။
အခုေတာ့ ဆရာႀကီးမ႐ွိေတာ့ပါဘူး။ က်ေနာ္ သိေစခ်င္တဲ့ က်ေနာ့္ရင္ထဲက စကားေတြ သိမွ သိသြားပါ့မလား။ ဆရာႀကီး မဆံုးခင္ တႏွစ္ခြဲေလာက္ ႀကိဳ ၿပီး ဆရာပြင့္ လြတ္သြားပါရဲ႕။
ဒါေပမယ့္ သူ ေျပာမွ ေျပာျဖစ္ပါ့မလား...။ ေျပာခ်င္အံုးေတာ့ ေျပာခြင့္မွ သာရဲ႕လား။ က်ေနာ့္ ရင္ဘတ္ထဲ တဆစ္ဆစ္ ကိုက္ေနလိုက္တာ။
ဆရာႀကီးနဲ႔ က်ေနာ္ ၅ ေဆာင္မွာ ၅ လေလာက္ပဲ အတူေနရေသးတယ္။ ၁၉၉၂၊ ဒီဇင္ဘာ ၇ ရက္ ညမွာ ေထာင္ဝန္ထမ္းေတြ အံုလိုက္က်င္းလိုက္ဝင္လာၿပီး က်ေနာ္အပါအဝင္ ၁၅ ေယာက္ေလာက္ကို နာမည္ေခၚ၊ ေခါင္းစြပ္ စြပ္ၿပီး သီးသန္႔ေထာင္ကို ပို႔လိုက္တယ္။ မၾကာခင္ က်င္းပေတာ့မယ့္ အမ်ိဳးသားညီလာခံနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္ၿပီး အထဲမွာ လႈပ္လႈပ္႐ြ႐ြျဖစ္ေနတယ္လို႔ ယူဆတယ္နဲ႔ တူပါရဲ႕။ က်ေနာ္တို႔ကို လူစု ခြဲလိုက္တဲ့သေဘာပါ။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ ဆရာႀကီးနဲ႔ တခါ ထပ္ခြဲရျပန္တယ္။ သူက ၅ ေဆာင္မွာပဲ က်န္ခဲ့တာ။
သီးသန္႔ေရာက္လို႔ ဆရာႀကီးနဲ႔ ေဝးရေတာ့မွ က်ေနာ္ ဆရာႀကီးကို သတိရ ရေကာင္းမွန္း သိလာတယ္။ ညေနခင္း လမ္းေလွ်ာက္ခဲ့ပံုေတြ၊ က်ေနာ့္ကို ေမးခြန္းေတြ ေမးခဲ့ပံုေတြ၊ ... အစံုပါပဲ။ ဆရာႀကီးကို က်ေနာ္ လြမ္းေနၿပီေလ။
၅ ေဆာင္ကေန က်ေနာ္နဲ႔အတူ ေျပာင္းေ႐ႊ႕ခဲရတဲ့ သူေတြထဲမွာ ကိုေက်ာ္ေက်ာ္ဝင္းလည္း ပါတယ္။ သူက ပညာကို ခ်စ္ျမတ္ႏိုးသူ။ ေအးေအးေဆးေဆး ေနတတ္ၿပီး ကဗ်ာဖြဲ႕ဖို႔ ႀကိဳးစား အားထုတ္ေနတဲ့သူ။ သီးသန္႔မွာ ေနၾကတုန္း သူဖြဲ႕ျဖစ္တဲ့ ကဗ်ာေလးေတြ လမ္းေလွ်ာက္ရင္း က်ေနာ့္ကို ႐ြတ္ျပေလ့႐ွိ တယ္။ ဘယ္လုိ သေဘာလဲ မသိပါဘူး။ အဲဒီ ကဗ်ာဆိုတာႀကီးနဲ႔ က်ေနာ့္ကို လာ လာ ပတ္သတ္ေနတာ ေျပာပါတယ္။ ကဗ်ာဆရာႀကီးရဲ႕ ကဗ်ာေဗဒ ကြန္ယက္ကေန လြတ္ၿပီ၊ ကြၽတ္ၿပီ မွတ္တယ္။ ခု ကဗ်ာဆရာ ေလးရဲ႕ေထာင္ေခ်ာက္မွာ ယက္ကန္၊ ယက္ကန္နဲ႔ လာၿငိေနျပန္ေရာ။
ဒီလိုနဲ႔ေနၾကရင္း တေန႔မွာ က်ေနာ္နဲ႔ ကိုေက်ာ္ေက်ာ္ဝင္း လမး္ေလွ်ာက္ေနၾကတုန္း ေလအေဝွ႕မွာ လြင့္လာတဲ့ စာ႐ြက္တ႐ြက္ က်ေနာ္တို႔ ေ႐ွ႕တည့္တည့္ လာက်တယ္။ ကိုေက်ာ္ေက်ာ္ဝင္းက လွမ္းေကာက္ၿပီး ဖတ္ၾကည့္ကာ ဖတ္ရင္း သူ အံ့ၾသသြားပံုက ပါးစပ္ကေတာင္ အသံထြက္လာတယ္။
"ေဟ့လူ၊ ဒီမွာ ၾကည့္စမ္း။ ဆရာႀကီးရဲ႕ ကဗ်ာေလးဗ်" တဲ့။
က်ေနာ္လည္း ဆြဲယူ ဖတ္ၾကည့္ေတာ့ … အဟုတ္ပဲ ကဗ်ာေခါင္းစဥ္ အပိုင္းေတာ့ စုတ္ၿပဲေနလို႔ မပါေတာ့ဘူး။ ကဗ်ာေအာက္ေျခမွာေတာ့ 'တင္မိုး' ဆိုၿပီး ထင္ထင္႐ွား႐ွား ပါေနေသးတယ္။
'ဆရာႀကီးမႈိင္းကို ဖြဲ႕ထားတဲ့ ျပ႒ာန္းစာအုပ္မွာပါတဲ့ ကဗ်ာေလးပါ။ 'ကြမ္းအစ္ တလံုး၊ ေယာင္တထံုးနဲ႔ အစခ်ီၿပီး ... ေသာင္းျမန္ျပည္တန္ခိုး ေဒါင္းအလံ လႊင့္ထိုး' … ဆိုၿပီး အဆံုးသတ္ထားတဲ့ ကဗ်ာေလး။
ဘာေျပာေျပာ က်ေနာ္ေရာ၊ ကိုေက်ာ္ေက်ာ္ဝင္းပါ ဝမ္းသာသြားၾကတယ္။
"ဒါ ဆရာႀကီး က်ေနာ္တို႔ကို ပို႔လိုက္တဲ့ ေမတၱာလက္ေဆာင္ေလးပဲ။ က်ေနာ္တို႔ မၾကာခင္ ဆရာႀကီးနဲ႔ ျပန္ဆုံရမယ့္သေဘာပဲ"
လုိ႔ ကိုေက်ာ္ေက်ာ္ဝင္းက ေျပာတယ္။
က်ေနာ္လည္း ဒီအတိုင္းခံစားရတယ္ေလ။
ဒါေၾကာင့္ က်ေနာ္တို႔ ႏွစ္ေယာက္ ဒီကဗ်ာေလးကို အလြတ္က်က္ထားၿပီး ဆရာႀကီးနဲ႔ ျပန္ဆံုရင္ ႐ြတ္ျပရေအာင္လို႔ သေဘာတူၿပီး က်က္ထားလိုက္ၾကတယ္။
ကိုေက်ာ္ေက်ာ္ဝင္းကေတာ့ အထဲမွာ ဆရာႀကီးနဲ႔ ျပန္မဆံုျဖစ္ေတာ့ပါဘူး။ ဘာေၾကာင့္ဆို အဲဒီစာ႐ြက္ရၿပီး မၾကာခင္မွာပဲ လြတ္ရက္ေစ့လို႔ သူ လြတ္ေျမာက္သြားတယ္ေလ။
သူ႔ကို လႊတ္ဖို႔ လာေခၚတဲ့အခ်ိန္မွာ က်ေနာ့္အခန္းေ႐ွ႕ ေျပးလာၿပီး
"ခင္ဗ်ား ဆရာႀကီးနဲ႔ ျပန္ဆံုရင္ ဒီကဗ်ာေလးရပံု ေျပာၿပီး အလြတ္ ႐ြတ္ျပလိုက္ဗ်ာ။ က်ေနာ့္ကိုယ္စားပါ ၂ ေခါက္ ႐ြက္ျပလိုက္''
လို႔ အမွတ္တရ လာ ေျပာသြားပါေသးတယ္။
သီးသန္႔မွာ ၈ လ ေလာက္ ေနရၿပီး က်ေနာ္တို႔ကို ေထာင္မႀကီးထဲ ျပန္ေျပာင္းလိုက္ပါတယ္။
ေထာင္မႀကီး ေရာက္လို႔ မိန္းေဂ်လ္းမွာ ထိုင္ခိုင္းထားၿပီး အေဆာင္ခြဲပို႔ဖို႔ လူစစ္ၾကတယ္။ ထံုးစံအရ ကိုယ္ ထြက္သြားတဲ့ အေဆာင္ကို ျပန္ပို႔ေလ့မ႐ွိဘူး။ က်ေနာ္က ၅ ေဆာင္က ထြက္သြားရတာဆိုေတာ့ ၃ နဲ႔ ၄ ေဆာင္ တခုခုေရာက္ရမယ္။ ျဖစ္ခ်င္ေတာ့ ဘယ္က ဘယ္လိုခြဲလိုက္တယ္မသိဘူး။ က်ေနာ္က ၅ ေဆာင္ ျပန္ေရာက္မယ့္ စာရင္းထဲပါေနတယ္။ ေနာင္မွ ျပန္သိရတာက က်ေနာ္ ထြက္သြားခဲ့တဲ့ အေဆာင္စာရင္းမွာ ၅ ေဆာင္အစား ၃ ေဆာင္လို႔ ေရးထားတယ္လို႔ဆိုတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ ၃ ေဆာင္ကို မေရာက္ေတာ့ဘဲ ဆရာႀကီး ႐ွိရာ ၅ ေဆာင္ကို ဆိုက္ဆိုက္ၿမိဳက္ၿမိဳက္ ျပန္ေရာက္ပါေလေရာ။
က်ေနာ္တို႔အေဆာင္ထဲကို ဝင္တဲ့အခ်ိန္က ေန႔ခင္းႀကီး ဆိုေတာ့ က်န္တဲ့ ရဲေဘာ္ေတြက ထြက္ၿပီး ႀကိဳေနၾကတယ္။ က်ေနာ္လည္း အိပ္ယာလိပ္က တစ္ဖက္၊ က်န္တဲ့ပစၥည္းေတြက တစ္ဖက္နဲ႔ ၅ ေဆာင္ထဲ ဝင္႐ံု႐ွိ ေသးတယ္။ လူအုပ္ၾကားထဲက ဆရာႀကီး ထြက္လာၿပီး
''ေဟ့ေကာင္ ... ေခြးေကာင္ ... လာ''
ဆိုၿပီး က်ေနာ့္ေခါင္းကို ဆြဲ၊ သူ႕ရင္ဘတ္ထဲ ဖိထားေတာ့တာပဲ။
က်ေနာ္လည္း အိပ္ယာလိပ္နဲ႔ ပစၥည္းေတြ ပစ္ခ်လိုက္ၿပီး ဆရာႀကီးကို ဖက္ထားလိုက္တယ္။
တေအာင့္ေနလို႔ လူခ်င္းခြာၿပီး ဆရာႀကီးမ်က္ႏွာ ေမာ့ၾကည့္လိုက္ေတာ့ သူ႕မ်က္ဝန္းမွာ မ်က္ရည္ၾကည္ေတြ ရစ္ဝိုင္းေနတာ ေတြ႕လိုက္ရတယ္။ ႐ုတ္တရက္ က်ေနာ္ ေၾကာင္အမ္းအမ္းျဖစ္သြားတယ္။ ဟုတ္မွာပါ။ ဆရာႀကီးက ''ေဟ့ … ေခြးေကာင္ … လာ'' ဆိုၿပီး ရင္ခြင္ထဲ အတင္းဖိကပ္ထားတဲ့အခ်ိန္တိုင္း က်ေနာ္ သူ႕ကို ျပန္ဖက္ေလ့ မ႐ွိခဲ့ဘူးေလ။ သူ က်ေနာ့္ေခါင္းကို အတင္း ဖိကပ္ထားလို႔1သာ ဒီအတိုင္း ေန ေနရတာပဲ ႐ွိတယ္။ ခုမွ က်ေနာ္က ပထမဆံုးအႀကိမ္ ျပန္ ဖက္ထားလိုက္မိတာကိုး။ ဖက္ထားတာမွ တအားကို ဖက္ထားတာ။ နဲနဲလည္း ၾကာသြားတယ္ထင္ပါရဲ႕။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ ဆရာႀကီး မ်က္ရည္ဝဲ သြားတာျဖစ္မွာ။
ဒါနဲ႔ က်ေနာ္က
"ဆရာႀကီး … ခဏေလး။ ဒီ အိပ္ရာလိပ္ေတြ သြား ထားလိုက္ဦးမယ္။ ၿပီးရင္ ခ်က္ျခင္း ျပန္လာခဲ့မယ္။ ေျပာစရာ ႐ွိတယ္ …"
လို႔ ေျပာၿပီး ပစၥည္းေတြ သြားထားလိုက္တယ္။ ၿပီးတာနဲ႔ ခ်က္ျခင္း ျပန္လာၿပီး ဆရာႀကီးေနတဲ့ ၃ ခန္းမွာ ႏွစ္ေယာက္သား ထိုင္လိုက္ၾကတယ္။ က်ေနာ္လည္း လႈပ္လႈပ္ ႐ွား႐ွားသြားလာခဲ့ရေတာ့ နဲနဲ ေမာေနတာနဲ႔ အေမာေျဖ ထိုင္ေနတုန္း ဆရာႀကီးက
"ကဲ၊ ေျပာစရာ႐ွိတယ္ဆို ... ေျပာ ... ဘာေျပာမွာလဲ''
ဆိုတဲ့သေဘာနဲ႔ က်ေနာ့္ကို ၿပံဳးၿပီး ၾကည့္ေနတယ္။
က်ေနာ္က …
''တျခားမဟုတ္ဘူး ဆရာႀကီး။ ကဗ်ာ တပုဒ္ ႐ြတ္ျပမလို႔"
လို႔ ေျပာၿပီး ''ကြမ္းအစ္တလံုး ေယာင္တထံုးနဲ႔ …" အစခ်ီၿပီး ေတာက္ေလွ်ာက္ ႐ြတ္ျပလိုက္တယ္။ ႐ြတ္ရင္း သူ႕မ်က္ႏွာကို ၾကည့္ေနေတာ့ သူ အေတာ္ အံ့ၾသ သြားပံုရတယ္။ ကဗ်ာအေၾကာင္းေျပာရင္ အၿမဲဲ ညစ္ေနတတ္တဲ့ က်ေနာ္က အခု သူ႕ကဗ်ာကို အလြတ္္႐ြတ္ ျပေနေတာ့ သူ မအ့ံၾသဘဲ ဘယ္ေနပါ့မလဲ။
" မင္း … ဒီ ကဗ်ာ ဘယ္လို ရေနတာလဲ။ အရင္က မရပါဘူး …"
လို႔ တအံ့တၾသ ေမးပါတယ္။
က်ေနာ္က
"ဆရာႀကီးပဲ က်ေနာ္တို႔ကို ေမတၱာလက္ေဆာင္ ပို႔ေပးလိုက္တာေလ။ အဲဒီက ရတာေပါ့ …"
လို႔ အတည္ေပါက္ ဟဲ လိုက္ေတာ့ သူ မ်က္ေမွာက္ၾကဳတ္သြားတယ္။ သူလည္း မေပးရပါလား၊ ဘယ္လိုပါလိမ့္ ဆိုတဲ့ သေဘာေပါ့။ အဲဒီေတာ့မွ က်ေနာ္က ကဗ်ာ ရပံု ထူးထူးဆန္းဆန္းအေၾကာင္းေလး ေျပာၿပီး ကိုေက်ာ္ေက်ာ္ဝင္းမွာတဲ့အတုိင္း ေနာက္တႀကိမ္ေတာင္ ႐ြတ္ျပလိုက္ပါေသးတယ္။
ဆရာႀကီး အဲဒီအခ်ိန္တုန္းက က်ေနာ့္ကို ၾကည့္တဲ့ အၾကည့္က တမ်ိဳးေလးပဲ။ က်ေနာ္ပါးစပ္က ကဗ်ာ ႐ြတ္ေနတာကို သူ အေတာ္ ပီတိ ျဖစ္ေနတဲ့ပံုပါ။
ၿပီးေတာ့မွ က်ေနာ့္ကို သူ႔ထံုးစံအတိုုင္း ျဖည္းျဖည္း တိုးတိုးေလး ေျပာပါေတာ့တယ္။
''မင္းတို႔ ကဗ်ာရပံုေလး ဆန္းတယ္။ ေက်ာ္ေက်ာ္ဝင္း လြတ္သြားတာ ဝမ္းသာတယ္။ မင္း ကဗ်ာ႐ြတ္တာ ပိုလို႔ေတာင္ ဝမ္းသာေသးတယ္။ ငါလည္း မင္းကို သတိရေနတာ။ ကဗ်ာ ဆိုတာ ႏွလံုးသားနဲ႔ ထိေတြ႕ရတဲ့ အရာပါ။ မင္း ႏွလံုးသားက ခက္ထန္ မာေၾကာလြန္းတယ္ကြာ။ မင္းမွာ ေျဖာင့္မတ္မႈ၊ သစၥာ႐ွိမႈေတြ ႐ွိတယ္။ သတၱိလည္း အရမ္းေကာင္းတဲ့ ေကာင္။ ဒါေပမဲ့ မင္း ႏွလံုးသား ေပ်ာ့ေျပာင္းဖို႔ လိုေနတယ္။ အဲဒီလို ေပ်ာ့ေျပာင္းလာတာနဲ႔ မင္းဟာ အရမ္းကို ျပည့္စံုသြားမယ့္သူပဲ။ တိုင္းျပည္အတြက္ အားကိုးရမယ္။ ငါတို႔က အသက္ႀကီးလာၿပီ ဆိုေတာ့ ေနာင္အနာဂတ္အတြက္ မင္းတို႔လို လူငယ္ေတြကိုပဲ အားကိုးရမွာ။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ မင္းကဗ်ာဖတ္ဖို႔ လိုတယ္။ စာေတြ အမ်ားႀကီး ဖတ္ဖို႔ လိုတယ္။ ငါက ေက်ာင္းဆရာဆိုေတာ့ ေက်ာင္းသူ၊ ေက်ာင္းသားေပါင္း မ်ားစြာကို စာသင္ေပးခဲ့ရတယ္။ မင္းက ထူးဆန္းတယ္။ ၿပီးေတာ့ မင္းကို သားတစ္ေယာက္လို ခ်စ္တာပါကြာ..''
လို႔ တသီတတန္းႀကီး ေျပာလိုက္ပါတယ္။
က်ေနာ္ သူ႕စကားနားေထာင္းရင္း ၾကက္သီးေမႊးညင္း ထ သြားတယ္။ ေဖာ္ျပလို႔မရတဲ့ ထူးဆန္းတဲ့ ခံစားမႈေလး ခံစားလိုက္ရတာ။ ဘာမွ မေျပာမိဘဲ သူ႕ေ႐ွ႕ ဒီအတိုင္း ငူငူႀကီး ထိုင္ေနမိတယ္။ က်ေနာ့္ရင္ထဲ အသည္းထဲကေန သိလိုက္ပါၿပီ။ က်ေနာ့္ကို ခ်ည္ေႏွာင္ထားတဲ့ သူရဲ႕ေမတၱာႀကိဳးဟာ ဘယ္ေလာက္ခိုင္မာ သလဲဆိုတာေလ..။
(ဆက္ပါအုံးမည္..)
(မိုးခ်ဳိသင္း ဘေလာ့က ယူပါတယ္)
Sunday, January 25, 2009
ေကာင္းကင္စိတ္နဲ႔ ေျမလိုက်င့္တဲ့ ဧည့္သည္ႀကီး-U TIN MOE
Myanmar junta congratulates Obama: state media
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C01%5C24%5Cstory_24-1-2009_pg20_7
YANGON: Myanmar’s top junta leader has congratulated new US President Barack Obama on his inauguration, state media reported on Friday in the first official reaction to him assuming office.
The official New Light of Myanmar newspaper said Senior General Than Shwe “has sent a message of congratulations to the Honourable Barack Hussein Obama, on the occasion of his inauguration” as president.
The front page message comes after a senior Myanmar official told AFP that Myanmar hopes Obama will change Washington’s tough policy toward its military regime and end the “misunderstandings” of the past.
Former US president George W Bush’s administration strengthened decade-old sanctions against Myanmar while his wife Laura was an outspoken critic of its ruling junta.
The New Light also carried congratulations from the junta’s deputy leader General Maung Aye and foreign minister Nyan Win to US Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The messages, three days after the inauguration, are a rare communication between the two countries.
Myanmar’s opposition National League of Democracy party has also cautiously welcomed Obama’s presidency, but said time would tell if he could help open up the military-run country. afp
H
Soaring Kyat Slows Remittances from Abroad
http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=14986
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, January 23, 2009
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The black market value of Burma's currency, the kyat, hit a three-year high of nearly 1,000 to the US dollar on Friday, putting a brake on the unofficial cash transfers from abroad known as hundi.
The kyat had been skyrocketing all week, reaching new highs against not only the dollar but also, on Wednesday, the Thai baht (25 kyat), Singapore dollar (714 kyat) and the Chinese yuan (1,639.34), according to hundi services in Bangkok, Singapore and at the Sino-Burmese border.
"We are surprised and shocked,” said one businessman running a hundi service in Bangkok. “Now our service has been halted, and we can’t say when we will restart it. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
The hundi is an underground banking system that uses a network of unofficial currency exchangers and money transmitters in Burma.
The lack of an active and efficient money transaction service run by international and local private financial institutions and untrustworthy government exchange rates cause Burmese expatriates and migrant workers to use the informal services.
Burmese expatriates contacted by The Irrawaddy said they didn’t want to transfer money home at the current rate. Experts said that a fall in remittances from abroad, together with rising unemployment among migrant workers, could have a dire effect on Burma’s rural economy, in which millions of people rely on hundi transfers.
Black market currency dealers, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the illicit nature of their work, said the soaring value of the kyat could not be ascribed to any single reason. The black market rate is linked not only to China's yuan, the US dollar and the price of gold, but also to the volume of border trade.
One observer in Rangoon said the global recession could be a factor because it had resulted in a halt to cross-border trade.
The price of gold in the country is meanwhile falling because of declining demand, according to gold shops in Rangoon. So far this month, the price for a tical of 24 carat gold has dropped from 525,000 kyat to 468,000 kyat. One tical is equal to 0.525 troy ounces.
"Consumers are not buying like before,” said one gold shop owner. “There are more sellers than buyers.”
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
UN envoy to test waters in Burma's political quagmire
http://www.mizzima.com/edop/anslysis/1591-un-envoy-to-test-waters-in-burmas-political-quagmire.html
by Larry Jagan
Friday, 23 January 2009 14:58
Bangkok (Mizzima) - The United Nation's special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari will make another visit to Burma at the end of the month on what may be his final effort to broker talks between the military regime and the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The trip to Burma will start on January 31 and is scheduled to end on the February 3, Mr. Gambari told Mizzma.
But he declined to give any further details. "We are still working on the modalities of the visit," he said.
During this trip he expects to meet senior members of the military government, opposition leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi's who is currently under house-arrest in Rangoon, and representatives of the country's ethnic minorities, according to senior UN officials who declined to be identified.
"Although it's only a four-day working trip, he will extend his stay if it seems progress can be made on his top priorities," a UN official close to Mr. Gambari said.
"Meeting Aung San Suu Kyi and hearing her views is obviously a crucial part of this visit," he added. On his last trip, the envoy made two unsuccessful attempts to see the pro-democracy leader.
The Nigerian envoy will tour the region after his talks with the Burmese military leaders, according to UN sources in New York. While all the stops have yet to be finalised, he is certainly expected to visit Bangkok, Beijing, Jakarta, Singapore and Tokyo for discussions on how best to proceed. But he is expected to return to New York to brief the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
This visit signals the UN's renewed efforts to directly engage the hard-line Burmese military government after months of debate about how best to encourage the junta to introduce genuine democratic reforms and include all the country's political players, especially detained Aung San Suu Kyi. A planned visit by the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon in late December was cancelled because the UN boss felt his visit would not produce any concrete results.
Some countries, notably the United Kingdom, pressed hard for the visit go ahead, even though it was not likely to achieve any real break-through in Burma's political deadlock. The UN chief though has been very active behind the scenes since, holding a series of senior level meetings with the countries most concerned about Burma and the five permanent members of the Security Council.
Mr. Gambari's latest visit – his first in five months, and his seventh since he took up the job in early 2006 – is something of a stock-taking mission, according to diplomats based in Rangoon. The regime has been sending mixed messages about their attitude to international mediation. Whereas they eventually welcomed international cooperation to tackle the aftermath of the devastating Cyclone Nargis, they persist on resisting international pressure in the political arena.
"Mr. Gambari will be testing the waters – seeing where the regime might be willing to, at least tolerate, international support and assistance, while at the same time reiterating the international community's message: national reconciliation must be genuine and truly inclusive," said a western Rangoon-based diplomat. But most analysts remain pessimistic that Mr. Gambari will be able to achieve much.
The main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi is hopeful that the visit will at least break the ice, and may lead to renewed contact between them and the junta, and the possible start of tentative talks – at least at a lower level within the regime.
"I believe the special envoy's visit this time will be beneficial as the envoy and the NLD share the same principles on achieving political reform in the country," the NLD spokesman Nyan Win, told Mizzima.
But many analysts are cautious about raising expectations for this visit – as this has led to massive resentment inside Burma when Mr. Gambari's efforts failed miserably to produce results. "Don't expect anything," a western diplomat who has been close to the international mediation efforts told Mizzima. "The visit has very low objectives and expectations," he said.
The envoy is expected to meet the opposition leader on this trip, although she refused to see him last time even though she had on his previous visits.
The real test of whether the envoy's forthcoming trip is going to be more successful than usual will be whether he is able to meet the junta supremo, Than Shwe. The Senior General had refused to meet him on his last few visits.
"He is likely only to be allowed to meet the largely ceremonial Prime Minister Thein Sein," said Win Min, a Burmese academic, based at Chiang Mai in Thailand. "The top general obviously has no regard for him and believes it isn't necessary to talk directly to him."
The UN visit also comes in the wake of a massive crackdown on dissidents. In the past few months the government has handed down harsh prison sentences to more than a hundred pro-democracy activists.
The NLD told Mizzima they would be discussing the arrests and sentencing of more than 300 NLD members and other political prisoners with Mr. Gambari during his stay in Rangoon.
While the UN envoy will certainly repeat the international community's main concern – the immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi, there is very little likelihood that the regime will budge. The opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate has been under house arrest for more than 13 of the last 20 years. Her detention order runs out in late May. But it is expected to be renewed for a further year at that time.
The junta for its part is anxious to show that it is not them who are blocking the visit of the UN chief, Ban Ki-moon. Some diplomats believe that Mr. Gambari's top objective, is to sound out the situation in readiness for a rescheduled visit by the UN boss.
Ban Ki-moon maybe planning visit Burma in the first part of this year, either after the ASEAN Summit next month, or more likely the ASEAN-UN summit scheduled to be held in Thailand in April.
China says teens freed from Myanmar kidnap
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=1207553
Reuters
Published: Thursday, January 22, 2009
BEIJING - Chinese police said 18 nationals kidnapped in Myanmar have been freed after families paid ransoms to captors who forced the mostly teenage victims to gamble themselves into deep debt, official media reported.
The Xinhua News Agency reported late on Thursday that at least 19 people from Yuncheng, a small coal city in north Shanxi province, were lured to southwest China's Yunnan province in search of work. They were then taken to neighbouring Myanmar and forced to gamble.
China's long border with Myanmar is porous, and there are many casinos on the Myanmar side that cater to visiting Chinese.
"The kidnappers forced them to call home asking for ransom money," the report said, citing Yuncheng police.
One of the captives, 16-year-old Wang Jian, told police they "were all starving, thirsty and frequently beaten". And Wang "was even forced to eat excrement and threatened with being thrown into a cage with a bear".
In most of the cases, families or police paid ransoms from 20,000 yuan ($6,800) to 100,000 yuan ($14,600), the report said. One of the 19 people confirmed kidnapped was still being held.
Zhou Xin, a police officer in Yuncheng, said there had been a spate of abductions of young people there since August last year, but he said there were unlikely to be many more than the 19 already reported.
China is one of the few nations that stands by the military junta running Myanmar, also called by its former name Burma. But Chinese officials have also been worried by the gambling, drug-running and crime that spills over from hilly and isolated northern Myanmar.
The report did not explain why locals of Yuncheng were targeted by kidnappers. But the Shanxi province's abundant coal has brought wealth to families there.
Police arrested two men from Shanxi on suspicion of involvement in the case, Xinhua reported. Other suspects are being pursued.
"Most of the suspects were friends or schoolmates of the victims," Xinhua said.
© Reuters 2009
Myanmar builds more fertilizer plant to meet domestic demand
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/6579919.html
Myanmar is building one more fertilizer plant in Pathein, Ayeyawaddy division, in a bid to meet its domestic demand, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation Thursday.
The plant, which will become the fifth state-owned one, will produce 500 tons of fertilizer a day as the four existing ones do on completion, the sources said.
According to earlier report, Myanmar imported 400,000 tons of fertilizer in the fiscal year 2007-08 for cultivation of 44 million acres (17.82 million hectares) of agricultural crops.
Myanmar also imported 125,000 tons of fertilizer through border trade in the first half (April-September) of the fiscal year 2008-09.
The increased fertilizer import was attributed to the pressing demand for resumption of agriculture work in cyclone-hit regions.
Fertilizer is among major import goods of Myanmar. The others are machinery, medicines and consumers goods.
According to official statistics, Myanmar's fertilizer import was registered 9.8 million dollars in 2007-08.
Fertilizer plants in Myanmar are scattered in Salay, Kyunchaungand Kyaw Swa, producing annually a total of 100,000 tons of urea and meeting only 6.6 percent of the total demand of about 1.5 million tons normally.
To promote the development of agriculture, Myanmar has in one way exempted the import duty of fertilizer along with agricultural machinery, pesticide and improved variety.
Source:Xinhua
Myanmar, Thailand cooperate in weather forecasting
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/6580163.html
Myanmar and Thailand are cooperating technically in promoting Myanmar's weather forecasting and rehabilitation work in cyclone-hit areas, the official newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported on Friday.
The cooperation is being carried out between Myanmar's Department of Meteorology and Hydrology (DMH) and Thailand's International Development Cooperation Agency, National Institute of Emergency Medicine Service System and Weather Forecast Bureau.
Promotion of capacity building of Myanmar's DMH, national multi-hazard early warning system and the rehabilitation work on cyclone-affected areas related to agriculture, health, social and education sectors, disaster preparedness plan and joint work procedure are covered by the cooperation project, the report said.
In July last year, two months after cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar, Thailand started to seek ways of establishing in Myanmar an early warning network system against cyclone.
A Thai delegation, led by Minister of Information, Communication and Technology Mun Patanotai, visited the country then, meeting with its Myanmar counterpart and the ASEAN-Myanmar-United Nations Tripartite Core Group.
Meanwhile, the United Nations has set up an emergency telecommunication center (ETC) in Yangon to help for quick communication access in disaster relief and restoration works.
Deadly cyclone Nargis hit five divisions and states -- Ayeyawaddy, Yangon, Bago, Mon and Kayin on May 2 and 3 last year, of which Ayeyawaddy and Yangon inflicted the heaviest casualties and massive infrastructure damage.
The storm has killed 84,537 people and left 53,836 missing and 19,359 injured according to the official announcement.
Source:Xinhua
Myanmar media call for extensive extraction of bio-gas for electricity supply
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/6580205.html
January 23, 2009
Myanmar official media Friday called on rural people to extensively extract bio-gas from animal waste to get sufficient electricity supply at low cost, replacing firewood.
Bio-gas can be produced from animal waste such as cow dung, pig-dung, chicken and goat dropping, the New Light of Myanmar said in its editorial, adding that the dung of five to seven cattle or pigs, buffaloes and goats is enough to produce electricity through bio-gas for a household.
Apart from small-scale bio-gas digesters for houses, large bio-gas digesters can be built to supply electric power to the whole village, the paper outlined.
According to the paper, innovation has been carried out in Myanmar to build bio-gas digesters for supply of electric power in rural areas.
The paper underlined that such move has proved successful in some of the areas.
Meanwhile, Myanmar has also introduced cultivation of Jatrophaphysic nut plants to produce bio-diesel.
Myanmar has set a target to grow 3.23 million hectares of bio-diesel plants in 2008 in a bid to increase the bio-diesel output in the year to substitute diesel.
Output from Jatropha plantations is being projected as up to 20million tons a year, according to the agriculture authorities.
The Jatropha nuts were initially planted on 648,000 hectares mainly in three dry zones of Mandalay, Sagaing and Magway divisions.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, Myanmar has about 6.41 million hectares of land suitable for growing Jetropha plants.
There are two physic nut species in Myanmar -- Castor and Jatropha.
Source:Xinhua
Jailed Myanmar monk goes on hunger strike
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090123/wl_asia_afp/myanmarpoliticsprisonrights_20090123070007/print
Fri Jan 23, 1:58 am ET
BANGKOK (AFP) – A Buddhist monk imprisoned in Myanmar for leading street protests against the junta has gone on hunger strike to demand access to his family, according to an exiled group of former political prisoners.
Monk Gambira began to refuse food ten days ago, said Bo Kyi of the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma.
Burma is the country's previous name.
"He was at Mandalay prison when his family visited him. He was not allowed to see his family, therefore he demanded a meeting with (them). Then he set on hunger strike," Bo Kyi said.
Gambira was transferred from Mandalay prison to the remote Hkamti prison three or four days later, Bo Kyi told AFP, citing his family members and prison sources.
The reports could not be confirmed by official sources.
Gambira was sentenced to 68 years in prison last November, for his involvement in monk-led protests against the regime in 2007.
The protests began sporadically against fuel-price hikes in the August, but subsequently involved tens of thousands of people, led by the monks.
At least 31 people were killed and 74 went missing in the brutal crackdown that followed the demonstrations, according to the United Nations.
In recent weeks about 270 activists including monks, student leaders and NLD members have been handed long jail terms for their roles in the 2007 protests and for helping victims of Cyclone Nargis last May.
In mid-January a Myanmar court also jailed a student activist for 104 years, while the junta freed six people who had campaigned for the release of pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, officials said.
Myanmar's military rulers have kept 63-year-old Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest in Yangon for most of the past 19 years. She currently has an appeal pending against her detention.
Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962.
Aung San Suu Kyi's party won a landslide victory in 1990 elections but the junta never allowed them to take office.
Copyright © 2009 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.Questions or CommentsPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceCopyright/IP Policy
A Thai Democrat?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123264907613206837.html
Prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva isn't practicing what he preaches.
By COLUM MURPHY | From today's Wall Street Journal Asia
BANGKOK
"If we can get the economy rolling again, if we achieve a more stable environment . . . then I will look for the appropriate time to return power to the people."
It's a hedged pledge from Thailand's third prime minister in four months, Abhisit Vejjajiva. In the wake of the September 2006 military coup, the 44-year-old Eton- and Oxford-educated economist seems the best hope so far for Thailand to finally embrace full democracy. Mr. Abhisit enjoys a reputation as a liberal, clean and reform-minded leader. Yet even he wasn't elected to his current position by the Thai people; he took office in December 2008 after the last government fell amid street protests.
Tim FoleyThat puts the British-born Mr. Abhisit in an awkward position to get Thailand back on the democratic track. It's important to his people, Thailand's neighbors and its biggest ally -- the United States -- that he succeeds. Thailand is one of Southeast Asia's biggest economies and a major gateway to the region. It's an increasingly important strategic ally for the West as China expands its influence and Burma's generals drive that country deeper into chaos. A politically stable Bangkok could also help fight transnational issues such as human trafficking and trade in illegal narcotics.
"Obviously, I would have preferred to come to power under different circumstances," the prime minister tells me in an interview earlier this month at Government House. "But I think what matters to the people now is whether the government can make sure that the country gets through both the economic and political crises."
The two are, in fact, related. Political crises have discouraged one of the country's main sources of income -- tourists -- from coming to the Land of Smiles. Thailand's export-driven economy has slumped in the face of recessions in its big trading partners. The Ministry of Finance estimates that the country will grow between zero and 2% this year. Unemployment, a key concern, is expected to jump to 900,000 this year from the current half a million.
More
Read the complete interview and listen to the podcast at FEER.com.
Mr. Abhisit has reacted fast. He announced an $8 billion "Plan of Action" three weeks ago, which includes low-interest loans to farmers, aid to the elderly and urban poor, job creation and expanded free education. The plan is also a way for an unelected leader to gain popularity among Thailand's poor in the north and northeast provinces -- who historically supported Mr. Abhisit's political rival, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Mr. Abhisit insists that his economic blueprint isn't meant to mimic Mr. Thaksin's spending. While in the past he pledged that any government led by him would not "go down the populist route," today he justifies his actions: "I think it is a standard stimulus package in the Keynesian tradition."
Regardless of the impetus, pouring out cash seems to have been a successful political gambit. Thailand held parliamentary by-elections earlier this month, and Mr. Abhisit's Democrat Party-led coalition came out on top, winning 20 of 29 seats, plus the governorship of the capital, Bangkok. "They say politics is the art of the possible," he says. "We have put together a coalition . . . the country is already seeing a difference."
One big difference, of course, is the lack of political challenge from Mr. Thaksin's now-defunct Thai Rak Thai party, which was disbanded by a tribunal set up in the coup's aftermath. Mr. Thaksin then backed the newly formed People's Power Party from exile abroad. Yet that party, too, was disbanded by judges in the face of street protests late last year. Mr. Abhisit doesn't seem concerned about the fate of Mr. Thaksin and his proxies at the hands of the courts.
"On one side there are people who attach great importance to electoral politics and majority rule -- and rightly so," the prime minister says. "But the other side looks at the other aspect -- the essential aspect -- of democracy, which is accountability, and what has led the country into this situation is that the majority in the past abused power, pretty much broke all the rules."
Certainly, the multibillionaire CEO-turned-politician Mr. Thaksin was no angel. Yet his main "mistake" was to win over the loyalty of the bulk of Thai voters through the one-man-one-vote parliamentary system. His power base threatened the cozy status quo enjoyed by Thailand's army, urban elites and favored entrenched business concerns. Mr. Abhisit, a member of the Bangkok elite, ran against Mr. Thaksin's proxies in December 2007 and lost.
Mr. Abhisit likes to emphasize accountability and the rule of law. But so far he hasn't practiced what he preaches. His government has watched as the angry mobs that felled the last, elected government get off largely scot-free. Mr. Abhisit responds: "I think it is up to the police, the attorney-general and the courts." Mr. Abhisit has appointed one of the protest leaders, Kasit Piromya, as foreign minister. He is also emphasizing his loyalty to the monarchy by cracking down on Web sites suspected of slandering Thailand's king.
Yet the confident Mr. Abhisit thinks he can forge a new kind of democracy for Thailand. "I think that each country could have a unique set of rules, but not contrary to the fundamental principles," he says. "The army should be professional armed forces and they shouldn't be dragged back into politics." Let's hope not, for his sake -- and for Thailand's.
Mr. Murphy is deputy editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review.
A New Government for Burma-by Sein Win
http://www.feer.com/politics/2009/january/A-New-Government-for-Burma
January 2009
A New Government for Burma
by Sein Win
Posted January 23, 2009
(This commentary first appeared in The Wall Street Journal Asia, our sister publication, on January 22, 2009.)
DUBLIN—The Burmese junta’s disgraceful nonresponse to Cyclone Nargis last year called international attention to the direct human consequences of repressive rule in the Southeast Asian country. Since then, Burma’s economic plight has only worsened. It is time for the political opposition abroad to present a broader, more coherent alternative for the Burmese people.
To this end, the legitimately elected representatives of the people of Burma—the Members of Parliament from the 1990 elections—are meeting in Dublin over the next few days to elect a new government-in-exile. The convention delegates are motivated by a sense that change in the culture of Burma’s exiled opposition is needed. All are aware that the plight of Burma’s people can no longer be tolerated; the status quo cannot be continued.
This move is a huge step forward for the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Burmese people, who have never enjoyed a government that gave all groups an equal voice. A new government-in-exile should also provide comfort to Burma’s neighbors, who worry about civil unrest when the junta falls.
We sketched out our core beliefs in this month’s edition of the Far Eastern Economic Review, a sister publication of this newspaper (see FEER essay here). In Dublin, we call for an inclusive process that will lead to an interim constitution, taking into account the interests of all stakeholders in Burma. We also call for the release of all political prisoners; for the lifting of restrictions on liberties such as free speech and free association; and for an agreement on a realistic timetable for free and fair elections in Burma.
We have a vision of a nation-building process for Burma that will create a federal union with an appropriate relationship between the central government and the states and regions, ensuring, for example, the equitable distribution of revenue from natural resources. We support free trade.
We will also be good regional and global citizens. Our Asian partners need to become involved in solving Burma’s myriad problems by urgently and effectively pushing for increased dialogue and national reconciliation. We look to the United Nations to forge a path by which such a dialogue can take place.
We call on the U.N. Secretary-General to conduct a goals-oriented tour of Burma as soon as the Burmese generals are prepared to compromise. We suggest enacting a regional strategy to democratize Burma perhaps through the Association of South East Asian Nations, overseen by the United Nations.
Burma desperately needs a liberal, open regime. Even before the global economic crisis landed, the Burmese economy was being run into the ground by the current regime’s mismanagement and corruption.
Now, the global financial crisis is making a bad situation even worse. Natural gas revenues—which account for around 40% of Burma’s total export income—fell 28.5% in the first nine months of 2008, compared to the same period last year. Tourism has slowed to a trickle. Unemployment is spiking.
This isn’t just a problem for our country, but for our neighbors, too. Burma is Asia’s second largest opium producer—behind Afghanistan—and a major exporter of synthetic drugs such as amphetamines. Our refugees—who are fleeing in droves—are carrying HIV, drug-resistant tuberculosis and malaria abroad. Today, over 3.5 million Burmese are displaced with some 10% of the population currently living overseas, one of the highest proportions in the world.
Our country needs major economic and social reforms that only a government with popular support can deliver. Yet the national elections scheduled for 2010 will be a parody of democracy. The tricks and thuggery of the military were instrumental in the passage of the 2008 constitution that legitimizes military rule in Burma. The same constitution, which mandates that 75% of the parliament will be civilian—with the remainder reserved for the military—will also ensure a rigged outcome of the elections in 2010.
The nominally civilian Union Solidarity and Development Association and the Swan-ah-Shin—pseudo-independent political groups backed by the government—are already working behind the scenes to fill the civilian seats with military lackeys. The resulting government will have little inclination to address the political or economic concerns of the Burmese people.
The Burmese government-in-exile has already initiated steps to enable clusters of Burmese, as well as foreign experts in political, economic, and other fields, to work on a blueprint for a transition to democracy in Burma. This presents better, clearer, options for the Burmese people. The interests of the military are included in this blueprint as well. We do not want the military to be what stands in the way of Burma’s progress.
We look forward to working together in an inclusive new government to show that Burma can have a better future for its people. And when we return home, we’ll show the international community what Burma should be: engaged abroad, prosperous and free.
Sein Win is prime minister of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, based in Washington D.C., and a delegate to the Dublin convention. This commentary first appeared in The Wall Street Journal Asia, our sister publication, on January 22, 2009.
Can the ILO Be Saved from Itself?
http://www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/hl1106.cfm
January 22, 2009
by Charlotte M. Ponticelli
Heritage Lecture #1106
For the better part of the past two years, I have had the great privilege of heading the Department of Labor's Bureau of International Affairs. Simply put, it's the agency that carries out the international responsibilities of the Department of Labor.
One of my major responsibilities has been representing the Department of Labor--and, indeed, the United States government--in international organizations that deal with labor and employment issues. And, of course, the major international organization I have worked with is the International Labor Organization.
My bureau works closely with the ILO on a number of projects.
We oversee labor programs funded by the State Department and implemented by the ILO in the Middle East and Latin America.
We oversee numerous projects that are implemented by the ILO's International Program for the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC). Over the past decade, the U.S. has funded nearly $370 million worth of programs in over 75 countries. As a result of these programs, we have rescued more than a million children from exploitive child labor.
On a regular, ongoing basis, we also represent the United States government at the ILO's annual conference and at its Governing Body meetings. We do this along with the AFL-CIO, which represents American workers, and the U.S. Council for International Business, which represents U.S. employers. Both of these partners, I should add, have been helpful and dedicated to making the ILO a strong and effective voice for democracy and rights.
I think this is an opportune time, with the current economic challenges, to talk about the ILO itself: to give you my perspective on what it does well, what concerns the U.S. government has had, and what we at my Bureau see as the road ahead.
The Mission of the ILO
When I worked here at The Heritage Foundation, I would look up every day at the words in gold letters on the wall in the foyer that read: "The Heritage Foundation is committed to building an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity and civil society flourish." Those words certainly have guided my work at the State Department and the Labor Department over these past seven years.
I recall once, shortly before leaving Heritage to move over to State, that I had suggested at a strategy meeting on foreign policy priorities that we needed to change just two words so that the vision would be, "Building a world where freedom, opportunity, prosperity and civil society flourish." So it's appropriate for me to ask: How does the ILO fit into that vision?
The International Labor Organization was created in 1919, in the wake of World War I, with the purpose of creating an international institution that could bring governments, employers, and workers together to improve living and working conditions and help preserve social stability in the new post- World War I order. As the sole remaining component of the League of Nations, and as a member of the present-day U.N. system, the ILO has been a strong voice for worker rights, for helping to build democracy in Poland and South Africa, and building strong, open-market systems in Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The ILO continues to be a beacon in promoting freedom in some critical places across the globe. For example:
In Burma, the ILO is the sole U.N. agency that plays a useful role on the ground. It has been directly responsible for enabling victims of forced labor to report on their treatment without fear of reprisal. The ILO's special adviser in Burma has helped people get out of jail, has helped rescue child soldiers, and has actually engaged the military in dialogue on forced labor.
In Belarus, the ILO's Governing Body has been in perfect sync with the Bush Administration's goal of pushing for democracy, both by condemning Belarus for its lack of freedom of association and by at the same time offering to work with the government to move forward.
In Zimbabwe, thanks to the workers and employers--and with no thanks to countries like South Africa or China--the ILO has been in the forefront of criticizing the atrocities of the Mugabe regime. In the labor area, this includes the systematic arrest, detention, and harassment of trade unionists. At its last session, the Governing Body decided to send to Zimbabwe a Commission of Inquiry, one of the highest-level investigatory missions available.
In regard to Iran, the ILO has regularly condemned the Iranian government for arresting and imprisoning independent trade union leaders and for its record on discrimination in the workplace.
And in Colombia, the ILO--largely at the behest of the United States--has established an office on the ground to help address key labor issues, including violence against trade union officials. The Colombian government, the business community, and the labor unions themselves supported the establishment of the office.
In addition to the tremendous work on child labor, forced labor, and trafficking, the ILO also supports U.S. efforts to bring about democratic reform in the Middle East, assisting the Department of Labor with State/Middle East Partnership Initiative-funded projects in Bahrain, Oman, Morocco, and Egypt, and work mandated by Congress that supports the CAFTA-DR[1] trade agreement. And in collaboration with the ILO, we've recently launched new projects in Tanzania and Haiti.
The Other Side of the Story
There's also another side to this story. Go to the ILO Web site or look at the Director-General's speeches over the past few years. You won't find very many references to all of the good work I've just described. What you will find are articles and speeches that deal with the ILO's role in:
Climate change and energy policy,
Reforming the international monetary system,
Changing the rules of the international trade system,
Addressing international investment issues,
Addressing the global food crisis,
Mandating social policy for individual countries, and
Suggesting that the ILO take the lead in addressing global social policy in the current economic crisis.
Here's an example: Speaking at the Vatican on Human Rights Day in December, ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said, "We have a multilateral system that is underperforming. It is not delivering the type of policy coherence we need today. There is a profound need...for a new form of global governance...a global community of multiple actors including, but going beyond governments."[2]
Here's another example: In November, the officers of the Governing Body issued a statement calling for six steps to be taken to address the financial crisis. I won't enumerate them, but among them were:
Ensuring the flow of credit to consumption, trade, and investment;
Supporting productive, profitable, and sustainable enterprises, together with a strong social economy and a viable public sector, so as to maximize employment and decent work;
Maintaining development aid as a minimum at current levels and providing additional credit lines and support to enable low-income countries to cushion the crisis.
I would note that in the discussion of the crisis at that Governing Body in Geneva, only one party noted the importance of the ILO working to ensure that basic workers' rights would not be lost in the shuffle: It wasn't the workers' group or the European Union--it was the United States.
In short, the key problem is that the ILO is seeking to become the world's lead institution in addressing the social consequences of globalization. This is not a conspiracy theory; rather, it's a point made regularly by the Director-General. The world of work, a challenging field unto itself, suddenly loses importance and instead becomes a platform for launching all sorts of social projects.
That's why we have been very concerned about a new instrument that was adopted by the organization's conference just this past June, called the ILO Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization.[3] The title alone suggests exactly what is wrong with the ILO at this time. What is worrisome is that it opens the door to efforts to attribute universal applicability to conventions that heretofore would be relevant only if a country formally ratified them. That means, for example, that select conventions on employment and social protection could conceivably take on the status of agreed international principles without our consent.
Now we, of course, would not honor this. Suffice it to say, it would be appalling, both morally and in terms of economic efficiency, if an international organization were to determine the "right" balance between employment and social protection.
Management
How well are these resources managed? In short, not well. The ILO fails to ensure adequate impact analysis of its programs. We receive reports from them on what they did and how they managed programs, but we can't get answers to questions like, "What do we get for the $10 million spent on Project X?"
When our Secretary of Labor raised this with the Director-General, he replied, "You have to realize that it's sometimes very difficult for the ILO to measure the impact of what we do. After all, we don't sell shoes. We hold seminars. We give advice. And how do you measure the impact of advice?"
Perhaps there is something to be said for that question, but for an organization that spends almost one-half billion dollars per year, that's not enough.
Tripartism
The ILO is the only tripartite organization in the U.N. system--that is, the only organization in which each country is represented three ways: by representatives of the government, employers, and workers. In my view, this tripartite nature is both the strength and the weakness of the organization. The good part is that it includes the private sector and civil society. But there are two difficult issues.
First, the ILO is disproportionately run by workers--and, to be exact, by trade unions. Workers see the ILO as their organization, but if its outputs are going to be useful, governments and employers have to see it as their organization too. This drove the International Organization of Employers earlier this year to stand up and demand that the ILO ensure "that employer priorities, objectives and resources are treated on an equal basis with those of the workers." This might not be easy: Just a year ago, during a discussion on "sustainable enterprise," the representatives of workers objected to any inclusion of the word "entrepreneur."
Second, governments are being marginalized. If workers and employers agree on an issue, the views of the governments--the funders of the Organization--become irrelevant because the worker-plus-employer majority is declared to be "consensus." Something must be done to address this issue.
At some point, the ILO's tripartite structure must be evaluated. Is it right that the 10 percent of workers in this country who are unionized should be allowed to speak for the entire American workforce? The same holds true for many other countries.
There are many times when the interests of organized labor and the interests of other employees may differ significantly. Perhaps thought should be given to including other worker groups--maybe professional associations or entrepreneurs or non-governmental organizations--to better represent the real workforce. I don't have an easy answer to this, but it's something we will surely have to deal with in the future.
What Should the ILO Be Doing?
What should the ILO be doing? Here's what I would suggest. It may not be glamorous, but we think the ILO could--and should--focus its activities on helping countries improve their capabilities in these areas:
Labor Law and Implementation. The United States strongly supports the principles underlying the ILO's core conventions in the areas of freedom of association, collective bargaining, forced labor, child labor, and discrimination. These principles are included in our trade laws and are regularly taken into account in making many important foreign policy decisions. I believe that the ILO can and should promote worker rights and democratic labor policies.
But the balance between drafting standards and implementing laws and policies must be redressed on a very large scale. Much attention is given to the adoption of new instruments, but implementation, which is what affects most people, receives much less attention. Syria and Iran have ratified numerous ILO conventions, but it is the United States that is taken to task by the workers for its low record of ratification of ILO conventions. The ILO should shift its focus away from endless legislating toward more real-life implementation.
Building Capacity. Open-market systems work well when there is an infrastructure that supports well-operating workplaces and well-trained workers. The ILO runs quality programs that promote training, skills development, and entrepreneurship development. It helps developing countries build their labor administrations, including their programs for addressing working conditions, inspection systems, and the oversight of occupational safety and health. Unfortunately, none of this is of much interest currently to the leadership in Geneva.
Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Trafficking. The U.S. funds most of the ILO's efforts in these areas. They do a great job. The ILO gave a lot of publicity to these programs when they started but very little now. These are core ILO issues and should receive the appropriate attention.
Fewer International Meetings, More Work in the Field. The ILO tends to view international meetings as the ultimate step in addressing issues. They divert tens of millions of dollars that could be better spent on country programs. Conferences are glamorous and field work is not, but focusing on the delivery of services and programs brings about real results for real people.
Corporate Social Responsibility. One other area the ILO might focus more on is corporate social responsibility (CSR). Public-private partnerships are increasingly becoming the way of the future. The ILO should do more in this area--not by becoming a rule-making operation (i.e., corporate codes of conduct), but by more directly furnishing advice, information, and guidance to enterprises that are genuinely committed to strengthening compliance with appropriate international standards. Many companies already do this, but the ILO could be of great help to those that need assistance.
Conclusion
As we look at the problems and the potential of the ILO, it's worth asking the question, "If the ILO disappeared tomorrow, would we need to replace it?" Or, as I said in the blurb for this meeting, "Can the ILO be saved from itself?"
The short answer is yes; the ILO could be a very useful tool in addressing many of the issues the world faces in the era of globalization. Both the United States worker and employer representatives agree on this.
Unfortunately, the ILO is veering further from, rather than closer to, being in a useful position. I hope that the new Administration, which has given much attention to labor issues, will use its influence to push the ILO to do its real job: to create better opportunities and better workplaces for working people, to promote job creation, to help provide businesses with the skilled workers they need, and to help boost economic development and prosperity around the world.
Charlotte M. Ponticelli, at the time of this lecture, served as Deputy Under Secretary for International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Labor. She has also served in the U.S. Department of State as Senior Coordinator for International Women's Issues and Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees and Migration, and on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1]The Central America-Dominican Republic-United States Free Trade Agreement, signed on August 5, 2004; text available at http://www.ustr.gov/Trade_Agreements/Bilateral/CAFTA/CAFTA-
DR_Final_Texts/Section_Index.html.
[2]See International Labor Organization, "ILO Director-General calls on G20 to Address the Social Implications of the Global Economic Crisis," press release, December 10, 2008, at http://www.ilo.org/global/About_the_ILO/Media_and_public_
information/I-News/lang--en/WCMS_101001/index.htm.
[3]Adopted June 10, 2008; text available at http://www.ilo.org/public/e
nglish/bureau/dgo/download/dg_announce_en.pdf.
Fw: [burmainfo] 書籍の案内アラン・クレメンツ著「ダルマ・ライフ―日々の生活に"自由"を見つける方法」
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ビルマ市民フォーラム メールマガジン 2009/1/23
People's Forum on Burma
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ビルマ情報ネットワーク（BurmaInfo）からのメールを転送させていただき
ます。
（重複の際は何卒ご容赦ください。）
ＰＦＢ事務局
http://www1.jca.apc.org/pfb/
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
春秋社から、アラン・クレメンツ著、三木直子訳『ダルマ・ライフ――日々の生活に
"自由"を見つける方法』の案内をいただきました。
以下、春秋社の案内の一部をご紹介します。
ビルマ情報ネットワーク（http://www.burmainfo.org）
秋元由紀
========================================
『ダルマ・ライフ――日々の生活に“自由”を見つける方法』
A・クレメンツ著／三木直子（みき・なおこ）訳
四六判／372頁／定価（本体2500円＋税）
アメリカ人としてはじめてビルマで得度して僧になったクレメンツがヴィパッサナー
瞑想をどのように修行し、日々を過ごしたか、またビルマの民主化運動家がどのよう
にして軍事政権と闘い、何を得ようとしていたのかが克明に綴られている。国際的な
注目を集めるビルマの状況に対して、新たな角度から光をあてる一冊。
【著者略歴】
クレメンツ：
ジャーナリストであり、執筆家であり、仏教と人権、そして精神的・社会的行動主義
の統合について世界各地で講演活動を行う。
ビルマで得度した最初のアメリカ人であり、70年代、80年代の大半を、うち５年近く
は僧侶として、ビルマで過ごした。1984年、ビルマの独裁政権により何の理由もなく
国外撤去を強いられるが、以後も何度もビルマに戻り、ビルマ国内で人権が侵害され
る様子を目撃し、記録し続ける。アウンサンスーチーへのインタビュー『希望の声』
（増補版、岩波書店）でも注目されている。ビルマでテーラヴァーダ（上座部）仏教
の修行を重ねたのち、世界のさまざまな紛争地帯に赴き活動。アムネスティ・イン
ターナショナル創立30周年記念講演では基調演説を行った。
三木直子 ：
翻訳家。ブレンダ・デーヴィス『魂からの癒し』、『過去世ソウルヒーリング』、ガ
ンガジ『ポケットの中のダイヤモンド』（徳間書店）など訳書多数。
========================================
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
配布元: BurmaInfo（ビルマ情報ネットワーク）
http://www.burmainfo.org
連絡先: listmaster@burmainfo.org
バックナンバー: http://groups.yahoo.co.jp/group/burmainfo/
※BurmaInfoでは、ビルマ（ミャンマー）に関する最新ニュースやイベント情報、
参考資料を週に数本配信しています。
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Fw: [burmainfo] 今週のビルマのニュース（0903号） ロヒンギャ難民問題ほか
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ビルマ市民フォーラム メールマガジン 2009/1/23
People's Forum on Burma
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ビルマ情報ネットワーク（BurmaInfo）からのメールを転送させていただき
ます。
（重複の際は何卒ご容赦ください。）
ＰＦＢ事務局
http://www1.jca.apc.org/pfb/
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ビルマ情報ネットワークの「今週のビルマのニュース」をお送りします。
「今週のビルマのニュース」バックナンバー
http://www.burmainfo.org/weekly.html
きょうのビルマのニュース（平日毎日更新）もご利用ください。
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/burmainfo/
ビルマ情報ネットワーク （www.burmainfo.org）
秋元由紀
========================================
今週のビルマのニュース Eメール版
2009年1月23日号【0903号】
========================================
【今週の主なニュース】
ロヒンギャ難民問題ほか
・ビルマから船で逃れてきたロヒンギャ民族数百人をタイ当局が
洋上に放置などしたとされる問題で、タイのアピシット首相は21日、
国際機関と協力すると述べた。国連難民高等弁務官事務所
（UNHCR）はタイが拘束している難民と会う許可を求めており
回答を待っているが、首相は許可を出すかどうかには
言及しなかった（22日付APほか）。
・14万人が犠牲になったサイクロン襲来から8か月がたった。
国連のミャンマー常駐調整官は、被災地域が完全に回復
するには「資金状況によっては3、4年かかるだろう」と
述べた（16日付IRIN）。
・EUは今年ビルマに向けて約5240万ドルの人道援助を
出すことを決めた。半分以上がサイクロン被災地域の
住民に、残りはタイのキャンプに住むビルマ難民や
アラカン州北部に住むロヒンギャ民族などに向けられる
（21日付イラワディ誌）。
・ブッシュ前米大統領は退任を数日後に控えた15日、
ビルマに対する制裁の一部を取り消した。制裁では
軍政に資金提供を行う個人や企業の資産が凍結される
ことになっていたが、今回の取り消し措置により、
米財務省が指名しない個人や法人については資産が
凍結されないことになった。なぜこのような措置を
取ったのかは不明。米議会のバーマン下院議員
（外交委員会委員長）は取消措置を非難した
（17日付ワシントン・インディペンデント）。
・米国務副長官候補のジェームズ・スタインバーグ氏は、
北朝鮮とビルマの関係について米議会上院外交委員会
からの質問に答え、「北朝鮮の協力によってビルマで
核開発事業が始まることがあれば非常な懸念事項と
なるだろう」と述べた。
・19日、アウンサンスーチー氏が「良心のトランペット」
賞を受賞した。同賞は故マーティン・ルーサー・キング
牧師の息子が設立した団体が毎年キング牧師の生誕
記念日に授与するもの。アウンサンスーチー氏の代理
として米国ビルマ・キャンペーンの事務局長で元政治囚
のアウンディン氏が受け取った。
【ビルマへの政府開発援助（ODA）約束状況など】
〔日メコン交流年2009イベントカレンダーより〕
1月11～24日 ジェトロヤンゴン主催
ミャンマー縫製産業生産管理技術人材育成支援事業
【イベントなど】
・在日ビルマ人共同行動実行委員会アクション－
国連事務総長に対し、一刻も早くビルマを訪問し、
スーチーさんを含むすべての政治囚の釈放と対話
の促進を軍政に働きかけるよう要請するアピール行動
（国連大学前、19～23日15～16時）
・SEEDS Asia モルディブ・ミャンマー活動報告会
～沿岸侵食・サイクロン被害からコミュニティを守る
（西宮市国際交流協会、29日18時半）＊要申込
・難民の認定をしない処分取消等請求事件
ロヒンギャ難民（複数）
（大阪地裁1007号法廷、2月4日13時15分～）
・難民の第三国定住に関するシンポジウム
外務省主催、国際移住機関（IOM）共催
（三田共用会議所、2月5日13時半～）
＊要申込
・ミャンマーの伝統糸あやつり「ヨウッテー・ポエー」～
シリーズアジアの人形芝居part14～
王族から庶民にまで広く愛されたミャンマーの華麗なる伝統芸能
7年ぶりの来日公演
現代人形劇センター主催
（ラゾーナ川崎プラザソル2月7日15時、18時半。
カスケードホールいきいきプラザ一番町 B1階2月10日15時、19時。
レクチャーデモンストレーション 東京ミッドタウン
富士ゼロックス501会議室、2月11日14時、16時）
＊チケット発売中
・ビルマ市民フォーラム例会
外国人労働者は今…在日ビルマ人・外国人労働者の
おかれている状況について
（池袋・ECOとしま8階、2月21日18時～）
☆春秋社より新刊のお知らせ～
アラン・クレメンツ著「ダルマ・ライフ－日々の生活に"自由"を見つける方法」。
著者はビルマで得度して僧になった初めての米国人。
国際的な注目を集めるビルマの状況に対して、
新たな角度から光をあてる一冊。
四六判／372頁／定価（本体2500円＋税）
★ジェーン・バーキン最新アルバム『冬の子供たち』が
発売中。アウンサンスーチー氏に捧げる楽曲「アウンサンスーチー」を収録。
☆特定非営利活動法人メコン・ウォッチの
季刊誌「フォーラムMekong」、最新号はビルマ特集。
－ビルマ～サイクロン後の人々、軍政－
http://www.mekongwatch.org/resource/forum/FM_vol9_2_01.html
【もっと詳しい情報は】
きょうのビルマのニュース（平日毎日更新）
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/burmainfo/
ビルマ情報ネットワーク
http://www.burmainfo.org/
【お問い合わせ】
ビルマ情報ネットワーク 秋元由紀
====================================
今週のビルマのニュース Eメール版
2009年1月23日号【0903号】
作成： ビルマ情報ネットワーク
協力： ビルマ市民フォーラム
====================================
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
配布元: BurmaInfo（ビルマ情報ネットワーク）
http://www.burmainfo.org
連絡先: listmaster@burmainfo.org
バックナンバー: http://groups.yahoo.co.jp/group/burmainfo/
※BurmaInfoでは、ビルマ（ミャンマー）に関する最新ニュースやイベント情報、
参考資料を週に数本配信しています。
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Remembering U Thant and His Achievements
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=14975
Remembering U Thant and His Achievements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By SAW YAN NAING Thursday, January 22, 2009
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The 100th birthday of the late UN Secretary General U Thant is being observed on Thursday—and nowhere with more reverence than in his native country, Burma.
Family members, friends, former colleagues and foreign diplomats were gathering for a commemoration ceremony at the Inya Lake Hotel on Thursday evening, said his son-in-law, Dr Tin Myint Oo.
U Thant, the third general secretary to run the UN since its post-war foundation, served from 1961 to 1971 and won lasting respect for his many achievements.
Multimedia (View)
He succeeded Dag Hammarskjöld when the Swedish diplomat died in an air crash in the Congo while on a mission to help end the civil war there.
U Thant was credited for completing Hammarskjöld’s work in the Congo and for helping to defuse the Cuban missile crisis shortly afterwards.
In the 10 years U Thant was in office, the UN faced many other world crises, including the Vietnam War and the 1965 conflict between India and Pakistan.
Colleagues who traveled with him to crisis zones recalled that o¬n many occasions he made bold and single-minded attempts to restore peace.
At home at the UN, U Thant established many of the world body’s development and environmental agencies, funds and programs, including the UN Development Programme, the UN University, the UN Institute for Training and Research and the UN Environmental Programme.
Veteran Burmese journalist Win Tin said in Rangoon that U Thant was a successful UN head and “different.”
“We should keep him in our memory,” Win Tin said. “We have to be proud of him.”
Veteran Burmese politician Thakin Chan Htun agreed, and said in Rangoon: “We have to be proud of him. We should not forget him and we should honor him.”
In a speech in New York in 2003, the then UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, hailed U Thant’s significant contributions in development programs, poverty alleviation, education, environmental protection and health.
Kofi Annan also praised U Thant’s treatment of the media. “It was U Thant who more than anyone before him opened up the United Nations to the media, because he understood that for the organization to earn the support of the world’s people, they must be kept fully informed and aware of its work.”
U Thant’s press secretary, Rames Nassif, once recalled: “For U Thant, the press conference was a pleasant experience. He had natural warmth towards journalists and was comfortable with them. He enjoyed thinking of himself as a former journalist, and often mentioned this.”
In his earlier years as a journalist in Burma, U Thant regularly contributed to magazines and newspapers under several pen names, including Thilawa, and translated a number of books, including one on the League of Nations.
U Thant served as secretary for Burma’s first Prime Minister U Nu, a close friend, from 1951 to 1957. He wrote speeches for U Nu, organized his overseas travel and meetings with foreign guests.
San San Nu, a daughter of U Nu, said of U Thant: “He was very clever and he was very generous, too. That’s why our father called on him to work with him.”
U Thant was born on January 22, 1909, in Pantanaw, in lower Burma’s Irrawaddy division. He was educated at the National High School in Pantanaw and at Rangoon University.
He died of lung cancer in New York on November 25, 1974, and his body was returned to Burma—but became the center of a political row.
Burma’s ruling dictator, Gen Ne Win, refused to hold a state ceremony for U Thant and also ignored his family’s request to have him interred near Rangoon’s Shwedagon Pagoda.
A group of students seized U Thant’s coffin from the airport and kept it at Rangoon University campus. Troops stormed the campus, killing at least 13 students and injuring 70 others. Around 3,000 students were arrested.
Finally, U Thant was laid to rest in a tomb near Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon. The currently UN General Secretary, Ban Ki-moon, visited the tomb during a visit to Burma in May last year.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
Centennial birthday of Myanmar's former UN chief marked - Summary
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/251955,centennial-birthday-of-myanmars-former-un-chief-marked--summary.html
Yangon - Relatives of Myanmar's former United Nations secretary general U Thant commemorated the centennial birthday of the controversial Burmese national hero on Thursday, amid reports that UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari will visit the country soon. The birthday anniversary celebration was organized by the U Thant Institute and Aye Aye Thant, daughter of U Thant, who is also the president of the institute.
UN representatives, foreign diplomats, a Myanmar foreign ministry representative attended the event, sources said.
Bishow Parajuli, the resident UN humanitarian coordinator, read out a message from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at the ceremony.
Such events require official permission in Myanmar, which is ruled by a military junta. The permission to hold a party commemorating U Thant's centennial anniversary came amid reports that UN special envoy to Myanmar Ibrahim Gambari has planning a four-day visit to the country starting January 31.
Western diplomats at the U Thant ceremony confirmed the visit.
Gambari's last visit in August, 2008, proved a diplomatic disappointment, as he was denied meetings with both junta chief Senior General Than Shwe and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest since May, 2003.
The UN has made little progress in pushing the junta towards freeing Suu Kyi and over 2,000 political prisoners and introducing democratic reforms.
U Thant, one of the few Burmese to reach international stature, remains a controversial figure in military-controlled Myanmar, also known as Burma.
U Thant served as the third secretary general of the United Nations, from 1961 to 1971. He was widely credited for his successful efforts for defusing Cuba's Missile Crisis and ending Congo's civil war during his term.
Born in Pantanaw town, in the Irrawaddy delta region, on January 22, 1909, U Thant died on November 25, 1974, while living abroad in self-imposed exile.
When his body was brought back to Yangon, then called Rangoon, for burial former military dictator General Ne Win refused it national honours.
University students snatched U Thant's coffin as it was heading for an ordinary burial on December 5, 1974, and took it to the Rangoon University Student Union grounds, turning the funeral into an anti-Ne Win uprising.
On December 11, 1974, troops stormed the university campus, dug out U Thant's coffin and reburied it at the current mausoleum at the foot of famous Shwedagon pagoda. Many students were killed in the incident, marking one of the first serious uprisings against Ne Win.
The current military regime remains loyal to the memory of Ne Win, whose coup in 1962 overthrew the country's first elected prime minister U Nu and put the country under the military's grip, where it remains today.
Copyright, respective author or news agency
Myanmar strives for development of cross-border fiber links with neighbors
http://en.ce.cn/National/Politics/200901/21/t20090121_18026625.shtml
Last Updated(Beijing Time):2009-01-21 15:15
Two cross-border fiber optic link projects, Myanmar-Thai's and Myanmar-India's, in addition to the already-established Myanmar-China's to boost information link between Myanmar and the two neighbors will be operational in the next two months as work on the two projects has almost been completed, according to the state-run Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) Wednesday.
The project has been implemented as part of the information superhighway network (ISN) project of the six-country Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS)-Economic Cooperation.
With the Myawaddy-Maesot cross-border network link as the final phase completed in last November, the Myanmar-Thai fiber optic link will be put into service in February, the MPT told media persons.
According to the MPT, the Myanmar-Thai fiber optic link, which is of 10 gigabyte and set up in cooperation with its Thai counterpart, will bring the country's total gigabyte to 20 after that with China.
The MPT also estimated that the cross-border optical fiber link between Myanmar and India will be completed and operational by March.
Under the Indian government loan, the project, which worths 7 million U.S. dollars, started in 2006 December.
The 640-kilometer-long Myanmar-India optical fiber link, which connects Indian's northeastern border town of Moreh and Myanmar's second largest city of Mandalay, passes through 6 cities of Tamu, Kampatwa, Kyi Gone, Shwebo, Monywa and Sagaing.
Along the fiber link, ADSL+2 system with 7,000 lines are being installed in 80 locations including Yangon, Mandalay and Nay Pyi Taw.
The project was signed between the MPT and the Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL) during Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam's state visit to Myanmar in March 2006.
According to the contract, MPT and TCIL agree to implement SDH/STM 4 optical fiber link between the two cities and the ADSL system.
Earlier in March last year, fiber link between Myanmar and China, built since April 2007 and involving China Telecom and Yunnan Telecom, was set up in Myanmar's border town of Muse also as part of the regional ISN project.
The Myanmar-China fiber optic link was built across China's Kunming and Myanmar's Muse with its link further extended to reach the commercial city of Yangon.
The establishment of the fiber optic links between Myanmar and the three neighbors would not only improve the country's domestic information link system but also boost the country's information link with other GMS member countries, experts said, adding that the move would also improve Myanmar's international telephone service, internet usage and video-conferencing utilization.
There are 12 ISN fiber optic links being built across the GMS to boost information links.
With regard to the building of the fiber optic link across GMS, a memorandum of understanding was signed at the ministerial meeting of the GMS in Laos in 2004.
The ISN project covers building of a commercialized information and communication platform in order to launch basic business of chatting, data, connection of internet as well as distant education, medical treatment, e-government and e-commerce which will sharply raise the capacity of the internet to promote the socio-economic development of the sub-region.
Source:Xinhuanet
Related articles
America's Future Is Tied to Asia's Print Mail
http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.29233/pub_detail.asp
By Michael Auslin
Posted: Wednesday, January 21, 2009
ARTICLES
Far Eastern Economic Review (January 2009)
Publication Date: January 21, 2009
To mitigate consequences of an economic downturn well underway and security threats that are ever-present on the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Straits, and beyond, Obama and his team should boldly engage Asia by promoting free trade and reassessing the security environment, especially surrounding the Six Party Talks.
Resident Scholar
Michael Auslin
It's no surprise that U.S. President Barack Obama has said little about Asia since being elected last November. Compared to America's economic disaster and the ongoing Middle East crises, Asia may seem a veritable sea of tranquility. Yet turbulent currents are running under the surface, and the costs of either economic or political disruption in Asia could well dwarf anything else America faces. For this reason alone, the new president and his team need a bold engagement with Asia in his first days in office.
Even in this economic collapse, Asia continues to produce nearly two-thirds of global output, the majority of which is exported to the West. Yet Japan, China, and other major producers are facing a severe downturn in exports, and Japan, where manufacturing output dropped by nearly 8% in November, has already slipped into an official recession. Chinese consumer goods factories are laying off workers or shutting down, and numerous experts warn of potential social unrest if economic conditions worsen in China's less prosperous interior regions. Even recent mini-tigers, like Vietnam, are revising their growth predictions downward.
The danger in the coming years is that fragile Asian economies might look to exclusive trading arrangements or move to protect domestic markets, partly as a result of citizen demands. This would turn back decades of growth that have pulled millions in Asia out of poverty and have benefited Western business and consumers, as well. President Obama should therefore throw his support behind ratification of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and use its passage as a stepping stone to a renewed round of free trade negotiations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and Japan. Having the U.S. play a major role early on will make more likely the prospect of region-wide free-trade talks, and increase the chance that Japan and China will have confidence to work together, and not in competition, in a multilateral setting.
President Obama and his team must recognize that America's future is tied to Asia's, and that their success will in part will be viewed through an Asian prism.
Similarly, the Obama administration should consider high-level, public discussions between the U.S. and Asian nations on paths forward in the economic crisis. Pulling together Japan, Korea, China, India, Indonesia, and others for a "lessons learned" summit from the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 1990s failed pump-priming policies of the Japanese may result in a series of initiatives that have more common agreement behind them than the irrelevant G-20 summit convened by former U.S. President George W. Bush in November.
Economics are not the only landmine facing President Obama's Asian policy. Security and political issues in Asia present a mixed bag that will require a nuanced U.S. approach. The failure of the Six Party Talks means that Secretary of State Hilary Clinton will have to work from a de facto U.S. acceptance of a nuclear North Korea that appears interested only in an endless diplomatic rondeau. President Obama and Secretary Clinton must determine if there is any utility in sending U.S. officials back for another round of talks when other parties to the talks appear satisfied with the status quo.
Beyond Korea, both Washington and Beijing have an enormous stake in good Sino-American ties. However, outstanding differences over policy toward Burma and Tibet, along with the continued Chinese military buildup, may make managing relations more difficult, especially if the economic slowdown leads to nervousness among China's leaders. One way to ensure the continued development of positive relations with Beijing is for the U.S. to work as closely as possible with its allies and other friendly nations in Asia to craft common agendas for security issues, trade relations, environmental problems, and the like, thus encouraging China to play a supportive role in such innovative regional initiatives. This should be accompanied by continued high-level Sino-American discussions, but the Obama Administration should resist the temptation to place U.S.-China relations above those of our allies or Asia as a whole.
There is also the specter of democratic instability throughout Asia, from Thailand to Japan. No president wants to see democracy wobble on his watch, and a key part of Obama's Asia policy should be to support democratic governance among our allies and friends, through grass-roots and official dialogues. Finally, no U.S. role in Asia will be credible without a continued commitment to maintaining the U.S. military capability that has ensured regional stability for decades; any hint that the U.S. is wavering in its promise to defend Asia's commons or its friends could lead to unforeseen results.
President Obama faces challenges unlike any other U.S. president in recent history. It will be tempting to let U.S. policy in Asia slide, or to hope that things there stay peaceful. Regardless of the effort involved, President Obama and his team must recognize that America's future is tied to Asia's, and that their success will in part will be viewed through an Asian prism.
Michael Auslin is a resident scholar at AEI.
China Censors Obama's Speech
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=14962
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By ANITA CHANG / AP WRITER Wednesday, January 21, 2009
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BEIJING — The official Chinese translation of President Barack Obama's inauguration speech was missing his references to communism and dissent, while a live broadcast on state television Wednesday quickly cut away to the anchor when the topic was mentioned.
The comments by the newly installed US president veered into politically sensitive territory for China's ruling Communist Party, which maintains a tight grip over the Internet and the entirely state-run media. Beijing tolerates little dissent and frequently decries foreign interference in its internal affairs.
At one point, Obama said earlier generations "faced down communism and fascism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions." He later addressed "those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent—know that you are on the wrong side of history."
The Chinese translation of the speech, credited to the Web site of the official China Daily newspaper, was missing the word "communism" in the first sentence. The paragraph with the sentence on dissent had been removed entirely.
The censored version was carried by the state-run Xinhua News Agency and posted on popular online portals Sina and Sohu. Another portal, Netease, used a version without the paragraph mentioning communism, but retaining the part about dissent.
The news channel of state broadcaster China Central Television broadcast the speech live early Wednesday local time, but appeared caught off-guard by the statement about facing down communism.
The translator had no sooner said "fascism and communism" when the audio faded out from Obama's speech and cameras cut back to the studio anchor, who seemed flustered for a second before turning to ask an expert what challenges the president faces in turning around the US economy.
Wang Jianhong, deputy director of the CCTV general editing department, said he did not stay up to watch the inauguration broadcast but suggested the transition was a normal part of the program.
"There are breakaways even when broadcasting China's own meetings," he said. "Americans might care a lot about the presidential inauguration, but Chinese may not be very interested."
No one in the editing department of the China Daily Web site was immediately available to answer questions.
The full translation of Obama's speech could be viewed on the Web site of Hong Kong-based broadcaster Phoenix Satellite Television, which has a reputation as a more independent news source. The China Daily Web site posted Obama's full remarks in English only.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
Burmese refugees protest in front of UN office in Malaysia
http://www.mizzima.com/news/regional/1585-burmese-refugees-protest-in-front-of-un-office-in-malaysia.html
Burmese refugees protest in front of UN office in Malaysia
by Myint Maung
Wednesday, 21 January 2009 23:06
New Delhi (Mizzima) - Nearly three hundred Burmese refugees on Wednesday demonstrated in front of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Malaysia's capital of Kuala Lumpur, demanding recognition of refugee status and equal treatment among refugees.
The protestors, mainly Rohingyas from Burma's western Arakan state, said they were being treated differently and were not being granted equal status by the UN agency.
Nyi Nyi, a leader of the protestors, said they held a brief demonstration and submitted their demands in writing to an official from the agency.
"We are demanding recognition as refugees, equal treatment by the office and a cessation to official corruption in granting refugee recognition," Nyi Nyi said.
Nyi Nyi added that they were met by a protection officer from the UNHCR office, to whom they handed their demands.
The UNHCR, however, denied the allegation, saying they treat all refugees equally.
Yante Ismail, the UNHCR Kuala Lumpur office spokesperson, was quoted by the AFP as saying, "UNHCR's policies towards all refugee groups are nondiscriminatory. We do our utmost to assist and protect all refugees."
"The UNHCR will continue to engage different refugee communities to address their problems," she stipulated.
According to the UNHCR there are some 45,400 refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia, of whom approximately 40,000 are from Burma – with the majority of the Burmese refugees reportedly Rohingya Muslims from Burma's Arakan state.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Welcomes Burma Parliamentary Congress to Ireland
http://foreignaffairs.gov.ie/home/index.aspx?id=80905
20/01/2009
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin, TD, today welcomed Members of the Parliamentary Union (MPU) of Burma, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB) and its Prime Minister, Dr Sein Win, who are in Ireland to hold a Congress and consultations with other representatives of Burmese civil society and ethnic groups.
The MPU Congress will elect a new government-in-exile for the next four-year period. The Department of Foreign Affairs has provided financial support to enable this four-yearly Congress and associated meetings to be held in Ireland. Similar support was provided for a Congress here in 2000.
The Minister said: “This year’s MPU Congress is taking place against the backdrop of a country ravaged by more than 18 years of brutal military dictatorship; the detention and suppression of Aung San Suu Kyi and all those seeking justice and democracy; decades-long sentences on political opponents; flagrant infringements of human rights and fundamental freedoms; wars against the country’s many ethnic groups; the plundering of the country’s wealth and natural resources to fund their brutal regime and for their personal gain; and a deeply flawed Road Map political process, which is to culminate in elections scheduled for next year.”
Minister Martin also paid tribute to Burma Action Ireland for its long-standing support for the cause of the Burmese people and its role in preparations for the Congress.
Ends+++
20th January 2009
Press Office
http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=14968
Obama’s Inauguration Attracts Big Interest in Burma
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By SAW YAN NAING Wednesday, January 21, 2009
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Rangoon monk who watched the entire US presidential inauguration on TV summed up the feelings of countless Burmese when he said afterwards: “We’d like to see that happen in Burma, but we don’t know when.”
A young Rangoon journalist said: “We want to freely elect our leader like that, but that’s just a dream.”
Tuesday’s inauguration of Barak Obama as the 44th president of the US attracted huge interest in Burma.
The unnamed journalist said Obama’s path to the White House had been followed especially keenly by the Burmese media and intellectuals.
Burmese from all walks of life, however, watched the inauguration on satellite TV or tuned in to Burmese radios broadcasting from abroad.
Hla Oo, a resident of Mogok in upper Burma, said he believed Obama would offer more help to Burma’s democracy movement than did his predecessor, George W Bush.
A businessman in Bogalay in the Irrawaddy delta said he thought Obama was capable of solving all the problems he faced.
The popular desire for change that swept Obama to power was shared by the people of Burma, the businessman said.
“We want change,” he said. “Change from a system of military rule to democratic rule.
“We are fed up with the military regime. We have lived in fear for a long time. We also want change and liberation.”
Most Burmese opposition leaders expect US support for the pro-democracy movement to remain strong under Obama’s administration.
Nyan Win, spokesman for the National League for Democracy (NLD), told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday: “We believe that the US will keep up its support for human rights and the democracy movement in Burma.”
Some dissidents, however, believe the Burmese people themselves remain the most potent force for political change.
Aye Tha Aung, chairman of the Arakan League for Democracy, said he didn’t expect greater support from the US for political change in Burma.
“The most important forces for change in Burma are the Burmese people, opposition groups and ethnic leaders,” he said.
Ludu Sein Win, a veteran Burmese journalist in Rangoon, said nothing more than condemnation of the regime could be expected from the Obama administration.
“I want to urge the Burmese people: Don’t rely on Obama and [UN Secretary-General] Ban Ki-moon,” Sein Win said. “We must rely on ourselves.”
Burmese astrologers also watched the inauguration with interest—one of the best known, San Zarni Bo, predicted that the new US president could face assassination attempts in 2009, 2010 and 2013. All attempts would fail, he said.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
Chinese teenagers kidnapped by Burma militants
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/4305315/Chinese-teenagers-kidnapped-by-Burma-militants.html
At least 50 teenagers from the northern Chinese province of Shanxi have been kidnapped by Burmese militants.
By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai
Last Updated: 3:46PM GMT 21 Jan 2009
According to Chinese state media, the parents of the children have reportedly been told that their children will be tortured if the ransom demands are not met.
Zhang Yunbao, a police captain from Yuncheng, told the state-run China Daily newspaper that the police had received "at least 50 reports" of kidnapped children but that the actual number could be much higher.
The teenagers are allegedly being held in the lawless Burmese city of Myitkyina after being lured south with the promise of jobs.
The first kidnapping case in Shanxi occurred last September, when 16-year-old Zhou Dawei told his parents he was travelling to the southern province of Yunnan, which borders Burma - also known as Myanmar - to take a job.
At the beginning of October, he called his father, Zhou Runsheng, to say that he had been arrested for drug-dealing and that he would be executed if a fine of 80,000 yuan (£8,000) was not paid.
Similar demands were made to the parents of other missing children over the following days. One teenager, who was released after the ransom was met, said he had been invited to a birthday party by a friend, and introduced to a man who offered him the chance to make money working for Burmese militants.
After crossing the border, however, he was thrown into a cell where several other boys were being held. Captain Zhang said the Chinese police know where the boys are being held but that it is outside their jurisdiction.
"The Myitkyina area is controlled by militants who don't even listen to the Burmese government," he said.
【訂正／再送】第55回ビルマ市民フォーラム例会のご案内：外国人労働者は今・・在日ビルマ人・外国人労働者のおかれている状況について
先ほどご案内した内容に誤りがありました。
訂正し、再送いたします。
大変申し訳ありませんでした。
ビルマ市民フォーラム事務局
【転送・転載大歓迎】
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
■第55回ビルマ市民フォーラム例会のご案内
<2月21日（土） 18時～/ 東京・池袋>
￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
外国人労働者は今・・・
在日ビルマ人・外国人労働者のおかれている状況について
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◆日時＝2009年2月21日（土）午後6時～午後8時30分
＊午後5時45分開場
◆会場＝ 池袋・ECOとしま（豊島区立生活産業プラザ）
８階 多目的ホール
*所在： 豊島区東池袋1-20-15、Tel 03-5992-7011
*交通： 池袋駅東口徒歩5分
地図：http://www.city.toshima.lg.jp/shisetsu/shisetsu_community/005133.html
◆資料代＝ 200円（会員）・500円（非会員）
◆定 員＝ 80名 （事前申込み不要／先着順）
￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
次回、ＰＦＢ例会では、以下、２つをテーマに実施いたします。
参加申込は不要です。ぜひお越しください。
①「在日ビルマ人や外国人労働者のおかれている状況について」
…ティンウィン（在日ビルマ市民労働組合会長／PFB運営委員）
昨今の経済危機により、日本人のみならず多くの在日ビルマ人や在日
外国人も厳しい状況におかれています。昨年末には日本人の雇用など
に関する報道が大きくなされましたが、その影で、多くの在日外国人
労働者もまた、日本人よりもさらに厳しい状況におかれています。
こうした状況や在日外国人労働者の思いを多くの方に知っていただくため、
ビルマ人の労働組合の会長として日々様々な相談や対応に追われている
在日ビルマ難民ティンウィンさんに、ビルマ人のみならず、群馬県を
中心にした外国人労働者の状況について、お話ししていただきます。
②「在日ビルマ難民のおかれている現状と展望（仮題）」
…渡辺 彰悟（弁護士／ビルマ弁護団事務局長／PFB事務局長）」
2008年のビルマ人難民認定申請者の状況について報告します。
また、日本政府は昨年、紛争や弾圧を逃れて他国に避難している難民を
受け入れる「第三国定住プログラム」の開始を正式に決定し、2010年
にはタイの難民キャンプで暮らすビルマ難民30人程を日本に受け入れ
るわけですが、そういった新しい動きも含め、日本の難民認定制度に
おける今後の課題や展望を話します。
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
★PFBでは、日本人と在日ビルマ人を対象に、時々のビルマ情勢や
在日ビルマ難民の抱える問題などをテーマに、隔月で例会を実施して
おります。会員・非会員を問わず、どたなでもご参加いただけます。
初めての方でもぜひお気軽にご参加ください。
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
以上
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◇ ビルマ市民フォーラム事務局 ◇
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
〒160-0004
東京都新宿区四谷一丁目18番地6 四谷1丁目ウエストビル4階
いずみ橋法律事務所内
電話０３－５３１２－４８１７（直）／ FAX:０３―５３１２－４５４３
E-mail： pfb@xsj.biglobe.ne.jp
ホームページ： http://www1.jca.apc.org/pfb/index.htm
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Is North Korea helping Burma build a secret underground weapon?
http://www.shaneabrahams.com/2009/01/is-north-korea-helping-burma-build-a-secret-underground-weapon/
Burma’s military is reportedly building a network of underground tunnels between Naypyidaw, the country’s administrative capital and the town of Pin Laung in Shan State. According to the Democratic Voice of Burma, local residents speculate the tunnels are part of a secret weapons project, while workers report the project is being constructed with the assistance of North Korean scientists.
Work on the site has been going on for about three months, with three teams of workers from different parts of Burma. One worker said they were digging a very large tunnel with four main entrances to it. Inside the tunnel there were a lot of different sectors with maze-like paths scattered all around and also some parking lots.
He also reported often seeing North Koreans there, about every five days.
Visitors to the site from Naypyidaw have to pass through five military checkpoints, while troops and anti-aircraft batteries have been deployed on surrounding hilltops.
However, workers, who are forced to live on the site, complain they have not been paid for two months. DVB quotes one worker as saying, “They promised us 30,000 kyat a month for our labour
but they haven’t paid us since November last year and they also kept our ID cards so we can’t leave the site.”
Several years ago, I met a Burmese exile, who claimed the military were trying to acquire nuclear weapon technology from the Russians and that work had begun on a secret site inside Burma.
The junta moved the country’s capital from Rangoon to remote Naypyidaw in 2005. And many analysts speculate the move was due to the junta’s paranoia over a possible attack by the US.
Given President George W. Bush’s willingness to invade Iraq based on flimsier evidence than this, one wonders how the incoming Obama administration will view this latest news.
Posts
