EU warns may tighten Myanmar sanctions

BRUSSELS - EUROPEAN Union leaders said they were ready to tighten sanctions on Myanmar if its military rulers did not ease repression.

The statement, agreed at a summit in Brussels on Friday, said: 'The European Council reaffirms that the EU stands ready to review, amend or further reinforce restrictive measures against the government of Burma/Myanmar in the light of developments on the ground.'

It said the EU remained seriously concerned by the situation after the authorities staged a bloody crackdown in September on peaceful pro-democracy protests led by Buddhist monks.

The 27-nation bloc adopted sanctions on Nov 19 against 1,207 firms in Myanmar and expanded visa bans and asset freezes on the country's military rulers.

The sanctions target the key timber, metals and gemstone sectors. They include an investment ban on companies controlled by the regime or by people linked to it.

The EU also prohibited exports on equipment to sectors involving timber, metals, minerals, semi-precious and precious stones, as well as imports from these sectors.

The official death toll in the suppression of the most serious protests in 20 years is 31, but Western diplomats say the figure was much higher.

The EU has stressed that its trade - and therefore economic leverage - with Myanmar is limited, though it has so far steered clear of the energy sector, in which French oil giant Total is a big investor.

International sanctions against Myanmar hurt only ordinary people and have caused a rise in human trafficking, a senior Myanmar government minister and general said on Friday.

Interior Minister Major General Maung Oo, in rare comments to the foreign press made on the sidelines of an anti-human trafficking conference in Beijing, said: 'Because of economic sanctions on us, some factories have had to be closed.

'The women who work there are now jobless. This is one of the push factors in making them becoming trafficking victims.'

Rights groups say poverty has fuelled a rise in Myanmar nationals being trafficked or simply sold, some as prostitutes in neighbouring Thailand and China.

The former Burma has been under military control since 1962.

The army held elections in 1990, but refused to hand over power after being outvoted by Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi has spent 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest or in jail. -- REUTERS

Repression unrelenting in Myanmar

10 December 2007

When the Elders meet in South Africa on Monday to begin marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, one of their number will not be in attendance.

The international trouble-shooting team of world-renowned figures - including Nelson Mandela and Mary Robinson - will use its substantial collective experience to tackle global crises. Yet one figure - who has campaigned tirelessly for human rights - will be unable to add her expertise.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest in Myanmar (formerly Burma), where she has been for 12 of the past 18 years.

Aung San Suu Kyi is one of a over 1,850 people detained in Myanmar for their peaceful activities, a number that increased just a few months ago in the most recent crackdown on protests in the country.

Thousands of people are believed to have been arrested during the crackdown and currently Amnesty International estimates that around 700 remain in detention. This is in stark contrast to claims by the Myanmar authorities that only 80 people—against whom legal action will be taken—remain behind bars. Detainees have been poorly treated, and in some cases tortured.

At least 20 people are believed to have been sentenced to up to nine and a half years imprisonment in connection with the demonstrations, in proceedings that were closed and grossly flawed.

While the number of arrests has declined since 29 September, state security personnel have continued to search for and detain individuals suspected of involvement in the pro-democracy protests, primarily through night raids on homes. Such actions go against the government's assurances in early November to the UN Special Representative Ibrahim Gambari that no more arrests would be carried out.

Amnesty International is urgently calling on the government of Myanmar to stop making further arrests and to release all those detained or imprisoned merely for the peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association, including both long-term and recent prisoners of conscience.

UN Council backs new probe of Myanmar

Geneva, Dec 15: The UN Human Rights Council told Myanmar on Friday to prosecute those who committed abuses during a crackdown on peaceful monk-led protests and free Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners.

In a resolution adopted by consensus, the United Nations forum called on the ruling junta "to lift all restraints on the peaceful political activity of all persons" and "to release without delay those arrested and detained as a result of the repression of recent peaceful protests."

It also urged Myanmar "to ensure full respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and to investigate and bring to justice perpetrators of human rights violations, including for the recent violations of the rights of peaceful protesters."

The 47-member-state Council said its special envoy for Myanmar, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, should revisit the country and report back in March on the fall-out from the September suppression that captured international attention.

Myanmar criticized the resolution, backed by 41 countries including Britain, Germany, Canada and Korea, as "politicized."

"This clearly shows that Myanmar has been put under pressure by influential and powerful countries who have their own political agenda," Wunna Maung Lwin, Myanmar's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, told the Friday session.

Human rights groups welcomed the censure by the Council.

"This is a very positive thing," Juliette de Rivero of Human Rights Watch told a news briefing in Geneva. She said it was important for Pinheiro to return to the country "to do a more in-depth investigation of violations he has already identified."

Amnesty International said a second and longer visit to Myanmar could help Pinheiro carry out a full investigation of the circumstances before and during the crackdown, as well as reported abuses against ethnic minorities there.

EXCESSIVE FORCE

In a report presented to the Council this week, denounced by Myanmar as "intrusive" and "misleading," Pinheiro said excessive force was used to quell the demonstrations, triggered by a 500 percent oil price rise in the former Burma.

The Brazilian professor, who visited Myanmar in November, said at least 31 people died and up to 4,000 were arrested in the clashes in which troops and riot police used tear gas, live ammunition, rubber bullets, smoke grenades and slingshots.

Pinheiro also reported accounts of bodies -- including those apparently of monks -- burned in suspicious circumstances during the crackdown, possibly in order to hide the total death toll.

Lwin said the independent envoy's report was based on unreliable sources, and flatly denied Pinheiro's suggestion that 1,000 people arrested during and after the clashes were still being detained, some in extremely difficult circumstances.

"We have been able to restore peace and stability and the situation is back to normalcy all over the country," he said.

Myanmar has repeatedly ignored calls for the release of Suu Kyi, whose opposition party won an election in 1990 by a landslide but was denied power by the military, which has ruled Myanmar since a 1962 coup. She has been detained for 12 of the last 18 years and many of her supporters have also been jailed.

Bureau Report

Canada enforces sanctions on Myanmar

(AFP)

15 December 2007

OTTAWA - Canada bolstered its sanctions against Myamnar Friday to punish its military regime for failing to make reforms after its violent crackdown on pro-democracy protestors drew worldwide condemnation.

“Despite repeated calls by the international community to return democracy to Burma, the Burmese regime has been completely unwilling to undertake genuine reform,” said Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier, referring to Myanmar by its old name.

“With the new sanctions now in effect, we have the toughest sanctions in the world,” he added, in a statement announcing that the measures, drafted last month, had come into force.

“The regime continues to show a complete disregard for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the people of Burma,” he added. ”We believe that sanctions are the means by which we can best exert pressure on the military junta.”

In September, Myanmar’s security forces violently repressed peaceful protests by the country’s Buddhist monks, leading to at least 13 deaths and thousands of arrests.

Canada responded by unveiling in November what it said were “the toughest sanctions in the world.”

The measures include bans on exports from Canada to Myanmar except humanitarian goods, and on Canadians investing and providing financial services there, and a freeze on assets in Canada of Myanmar nationals linked to the rulers.

It also bans Burmese ships and planes from docking or landing in Canada.

“Our sanctions show Canada’s commitment to promoting freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law, as well as our solidarity with the Burmese people,” said Bernier.

“Canada urges others to undertake the strongest possible measures against Burma until the Burmese authorities implement genuine reform.”

Aung Way’s Review - “The way to win the power within one year”

Original post in Burmese
Translated by Burmese Bloggers w/o Borders (with the help of MMM & TL)

INTRODUCTION

This review is from a poet for Burma Democracy Revolution. The poet has tried to mention his personal point of view on the Democracy Revolution. Hence it is named Aung Way’s Review. The main objective of this review is to win back the power within one year.

WHY DO WE NEED TO WIN THE POWER WITHIN ONE YEAR?

The Burmese people demonstrated in 1988 as the first time after 26 years of army regime. It was led by students. And then military junta took advantage on that demonstration and seized the power from the people and declared martial law under SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council). It has been 19 years since then. Hence, in September, the Burmese people again demonstrated against the military regime which has ruled the country for almost 20 years. The Monks took the lead in this peaceful demonstration. This time, (State Peace and Development Council) SPDC is trying to take advantage of the situation in Burma to tighten their power.


HOW ARE THEY TAKING ADVANTAGE?

It is very clear. SPDC can no longer ignore the people’s peaceful protests. They end up having to arrange for a dialogue with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Actually this dialogue is what all monks, students and people have been requesting through the peaceful protests. The fact that SPDC had to start talking about dialogue that they previously did not give serious consideration about, is the greatest achievement of this 2007 September movment. However, as usual SPDC is very tricky and they will try to hold on to the power as long as possible by pretending to make dialogue with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. We, Burmese People, need to be aware of their trick , which plays an important role in successfully destroying the dictatorship forever on our land.

Therefore our Burmese people should not wait and expect much from this pretentious dialogue. We need to speed up our revolution to be able to win back the power within a short period of time.

HOW CAN WE FIGHT AND WIN THE POWER?

We, Burmese People, need to arrange The Third and The Last Democracy Revolution. There are some do’s and don’ts in such revolution to be able to win.

There are two facts to avoid. These are policies of non-violence and compromise.

Everyone knows that the military junta (SPDC) brutally cracked down on the monks-led peaceful protest. If the burmese people wanted to continue in the same peaceful way, the junta would surely carry out the same kind of brutal suppression against them. It would be as if we are sacrificing our lives unncessarily. We don’t want that to happen again.

Each and every protestor for democracy has their own right to defend for themselves. These people who are demonstrating peacefully must be protected under the law. But there is no such law in Burma.

Therefore, the protestors have to defend themselves from the brutal crackdown without affecting the main aim of the revolution.

The second one is the policy of compromise. This is akin to surrendering to the enemy and we must avoid this strategy. There were numerous records in Burma’s history that once the enemy gave in just a little bit, some politicians and activists would end up combining forces with the enemy and betrayed the public.

These are two factors that everyone, who is fighting for democracy, must avoid at all cost regardless of whether they are leaders or supporters.

The revolution that the Burmese people are conducting is not merely a protest just to reduce the prices. We all must bear in mind that this revolution has been going on for the last 45 years with the aim of ending the entire dictatorship and must prepare to continue our fight till we win.

DO IT LIKE A REVOLUTION

Important facts to keep in mind during this struggle

1) "Three sons" (meaning monks, students and soldiers) have to be united
2) In order to increase the momentum of the current protest, connection has to be made between struggles within and those outside Burma.

Students played the leading role during the protest for Democracy in 1988 while monks were the leaders in 2007. For coming 2008, during the third and final protest, soldiers will be persuaded to join with the civilians and fight against the brutal military generals. Then, we will definitely have an ideal movement of "three sons" joining hand in hand, with the soldiers leading the movement. It is indeed of utmost importance for activists fighting for democracy to cleverly pave the way for such ideal movement to happen.

The second fact, increasing the momentum of civilian participation, will need to be done as follows.

First of all, all the organizations (be it “undergroud” or “non-underground”) should come together to form a united front. The organizations include the National League for Democracy (NLD, which won nationwide landslide election in 1991 but was denied to take office by the military regime), All-Burma Monks Association, students' organizations, nonviolence, triple-colored and CNG youths, political activists, professionals, elected officials, workers, farmers, etc. All these non-underground forces need to form Mass's Alliances for Democracy.

As for the underground forces,there are also seventeen armed groups who signed cease fire agreement with the military government and student leaders, political activists and religious leaders, who have gone into hiding. These underground forces need to be linked with those non-underground forces.

As for the forces outside Burma, there are two different groups: armed and unarmed. The armed groups are mainly made up of KNU with its force (KNLA), and KNPP (including ABSDF, Karen Ni, Rhakhine, Shan, Chin, etc). Organizations, unarmed but outside Burma, consist of international organizations such as NLD (LA), NCUB, NCGUB, DAB, FDB, etc.

As civilian protests within Burma increase their intensity of protests, political activists along the borders, abroad and from the international community will have to work towards having more attention from the international community on the progress of Burma so that they can place more pressure on the military government for reforms. At the same time, armed groups also need to increase their pace in their fights against the military junta.

There are 17 armed ethnic groups who have Gentleman's agreement with the government to cease fire. They cannot go out and protest with the civilians. And they also cannot go back to the arm struggle against the government. Our democratic forces need to use this situation very carefully. The important thing is that these ethnic armed groups should be in synchrony with the aim of the civilians’ movement. Therefore, a good strategy is neded for every battle.

GOALS AND FORM OF THE BATTLE

First of all, it is important to analyze the situation between the enemy and ourselves. There are 3 types of situations in every battle.

1) Having a defensive strategy on our side
2) Having an equivalent situation for strategy on either sides
3) Having an offensive strategy on our side

Currently, in Burma, the civilians can be considered as being in the offensive mode. The fact that the military government generals are restlessly negotiating with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, indicates the junta having to adopt a defensive mode.

Now that we are in the offensive front, what strategy should we uphold to finish the battle? In other words, what are the goals of the final battle? The following 3 demands should be our goals.

1) All political prisoners including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi should be set free.
2) There should be immediate triangle-meeting among opposition political parties (NLD, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, etc), military government representatives and ethnic armed groups.
3) The short-term government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi should be organized immediately.

In short, all political prisoners should be freed, the triangle-meeting should be held and the short-term government should be organized. These 3 statements should be carried out within a year and they are the basic of the battle.

What tactics should be used in this battle? How should the battle formation be shaped up? The form of the civilian protest is clear. For example, Mass's Alliances for Democracy, can lead and open an uprising centre at the Shwedagon Pagoda. Then, the peaceful demonstrations on the streets should follow, chanting the slogans to take over the military government's center "Napyidaw". Discipline shapes up the battle. Burmese and foreign bloggers and media, burmese people outside Burma, and buddhist monks can make up the other forms of the battle.

OTHER FORMS OF THE BATTLE

The Burmese people should also threaten the followers of SPDC by confronting and obstructing their actions so that they will not dare to remain in their assigned townships. The Burmese people in Burma should be united in carrying out whatever possible offensive action against the SPDC followers.

CONCLUSION

Without the belief for revolution, there will never be a revolution. Likewise, without a good leader, the revolution will not be successful.

The three demands mentioned above should be the goals of our revolution.
Mass’s Alliances for Democracy should take lead in this revolution.

In addition, I would like to add the following firmly:

- Do not blindly hold on to the policy of non-violence.
- Never compromise with the enemy.
- Must form a united, disciplined front who stands up for the truth.
- Never betray Daw Aung San Su Kyi and the revolution.
- Must win the revolution within a year.

Aung Way
[ From a temporary hiding place ]

Rage against the machine

by The Guardian

Three months after crushing pro-democracy demonstrations, Burma's military junta are in confident mood. Last week Senior General Than Shwe expelled Charles Petrie, the head of the United Nations' Development Programme in Burma, after he accused the government of failing to meet the basic human needs of its people.

The UNDP said the average household was forced to spend three quarters of its budget on food. One in three children under five suffered from malnutrition and fewer than half of all children were able to complete their primary education. Up to 700,000 people were suffering from malaria and 130,000 from tuberculosis, while 60,000 HIV sufferers were denied access to anti-retroviral drugs. This was not what the junta wanted to hear, intent as they are on rewriting the history of September's demonstrations as the work of foreign plotters. Last week the government summoned diplomats to its new capital Naypyidaw, claiming to have uncovered a plot to bring down the regime, involving bogus monks, a little known exile group and George Soros's Open Society.

But as the Guardian reports today from Mandalay, the grievances which fuelled the mass protest are still bubbling away below the surface. And the purges of the monastries are still continuing. Just before World Aids Day on December 1, Maggan monastery in Yangon which serves as a hospice for HIV/Aids patients was sealed by the military and all the monks were expelled. Most of the monks who have been arrested and released have returned to the villages, fearful that their families will suffer retribution. If the regime has scared the opposition into silence, it has done so at a cost. The 81-year-old former guerilla fighter Thet Pyin claims the conflict has changed. It is no longer between the government and its people, but between the religion and the government. As 80% of the population and all of the army are Buddhist, that will be its downfall.

No one can predict the next crisis. It could well be an internal one, if significant sections of the army do indeed support an increased role for Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD). She is Burma's Nelson Mandela, the only figure with the moral authority to reunite the nation when the junta falls. But this will have to happen with the army's support and officers reluctant to carry out orders against the monks have been purged. The generals are skilled in terrorising a nation into submission. Many of their victims draw consolation from the prospect that they will face the Buddhist equivalent of divine retribution. One opposition leader in hiding told us the junta are in for a nasty surprise in their afterlife.

PRESS RELEASE - North American Campaign for Free Burma Road Trip

Photo: Si Thu at Atlanta GA, 6 Dec’07

Kyaw Sithu, a Burmese political refugee forced to flee his motherland after 1988 democracy uprising, will be in Los Angeles on December 16 as part of his North America Campaign for Free Burma Road Trip. We will be welcoming and joining him in LA as we drive around in strategic places of LA to raise awareness of horrific situation in Burma. We encourage everyone to join our caravan on Sunday December 16 at LaPuente Temple at 9.30 a.m . To quote SiThu, “Free Burma is definitely possible, only when people do their part to set her free”.

The “Driving for Burma” initiative was aimed to raise awareness of humanitarian crisis and brutality going on in military-ruled Burma. His solo driving journey started out on December 1, 2007 at Toronto, Canada where he lives. His car, emblazoned with the word “Free Burma”, pictures of Burma’s elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi among others, turns many heads as he drives through major cities in the U.S as part of a 15,436 kilometre drive across America stopping off at key cities to address politicians, dignitaries, campaigners and Burmese exiles.

His first stop was at Washington D.C where he met and received encouragement from Dr. Sein Win, Prime Minister of the National Coalition Government Union of Burma (NCGUB) and he stopped to demonstrate outside the Burmese Embassy. From there, he drove west across the country to LA, making his return from LA to Canada along the Pacific coast through Vancouver and finally arriving in Toronto.

No one in the Burmese community has ever done this and SiThu finds the campaign challenging with his limited finances and yet rewarding at the same time as the driving campaign has picked up media attention on Burma’s ongoing human rights abuses. The most challenging part is he only has one month to do the whole trip which will end on January 1, 2008.

Meanwhile his internet blog, updated daily and detailing the progress of the journey is proving extremely popular with over 5131 hits (3878 International visitors) and over 200s well wishers leaving messages of support.

“This is amazing!” wrote Jason from UK “talk about drive and enthusiasm! This guy really is going the extra mile to stand up for what he believes in”, and Poeziwa said, “Following the Buddhist Monks protest in September and their subsequent brutal suppression it is vital that the international community maintains the pressure on the Military junta, who have ruled Burma since 1962 to finally embrace democracy and respect human rights.” Said Jeg for the Burma Global Action Network who are supporting the drive.

Si Thu is available for interviews along the route of the journey.

Contact:

Si Thu

drivingforburma@gmail.com

Cell: (240) 750-9591 [US]

Web blog: http://drivingforburma.blogspot.com/

(OR)

JEG

Yangon Hostel shut down and two Warden Monks kicked out

Yangon Hostel in the State Pariyatti Sasana University has been shut down and Ven. Tejobhasa and Ven. Khemasiri, Hostel Wardens, were kicked out.
Reportedly Ven. Tejobhasa has already left since October after the September Revolution due to the pressure of the authorities. He was the former Yangon Hostel Warden and he gave an interview to the media regarding the Poster Campaign occurred in the Yangon Sasana University. Soon after he left, Ven. Khemasiri became a warden of Yangon Hostel. He is the one under the suspicion of the SPDC in connection with 88 Generation Students.
The two monks will be M.A Degree Holders ,coming December 24th Convocation ,though, they are likely to be rejected accoding to the rules of Yangon Sasana University.

အာလံုးကို တိုက္တြန္းလိုက္ပါတယ္

ကမၻာအရပ္ရပ္မွာေရာက္ရွိေနၾကတဲ့ ၿမန္မာမ်ားအေနၿဖင့္ ေအာက္ေဖာ္ျပပါ Pamphlet ပံုအား ေလဆိပ္ေတြ၊ ေလေယာဥ္ေတြေပၚမွာ အၿပင္ တစ္ၿခားလူစည္ကားတဲ့ေနရာေတြမွာ လုိက္ၿဖန္႔သြားၾကဖို႔ သီရိလကၤာေရာက္ၿမန္မာရဟန္းေတာ္မ်ား ကိုယ္စားတိုက္တြန္းလိုက္ပါရေစ။ အရွက္တရားေတြ အေၾကာက္တရားေတြကို ခဏထားၿပီး လြတ္လပ္ခ်င္တယ္ဆိုရင္ ကမၻာကိုပုိသိေအာင္လုပ္ၿပရမယ္။ ဒီဇင္ဘာ ၃၁ အတြက္ ထို Pamphlet အားျဖန္႔ရန္ သီရိလကၤာေရာက္ၿမန္မာရဟန္းေတာ္မ်ား က မိန္႔ေတာ္မူထားပါသည္။