Written by Webmaster
Kaladan Press Org
Saturday, 19 January 2008
Buthidaung, Burma: Troops from Burma’s navy who on Thursday seized a cargo boat which then sank before reaching shore, are now selling the meat from the more than three dozen cows which drowned in the accident, says a close aide to Burma’s border security forces.
On January 17, cattle traders from Rambree Township of Kyauk Pru Island were carrying 38 cows on a boat to neighboring Bangladesh through Bay of Bengal. The traders had acquired the necessary documents and paid required taxes to the Daya Waddi naval base of Kyauk Pru Township.
On the way to Bangladesh, however, the forces of another naval base at the mouth of the Dabbo Chaung river, near the southern side of Rathedaung Township, seized the boat and forced it towards to Buthidaung town.
But the boat sank on January 18, at about 11:00 pm, in the Mayu River before it reached Buthidaung, and all 38 cows died.
Then, the naval forces brought the dead cows to Buthidaung. Forced labor from nearby villages then spent the whole night preparing the dead cows to bring to the local butcher shops. The meat is on sale at the Buthidaung market today.
One Buthidaung resident said that the naval forces of Dabbo Chaung forcibly diverted the direction of the boat as they want to extort money from cattle traders. Many cows from Burma are exported to Bangladesh under the border trade agreement between the two countries.
A Viss of the beef from the drowned cows is being sold at kyat 3,000 to 4,000, compared to kyat 5,000 per Viss (1 Viss=1.63 kg) for regular beef. Because the meat was not prepared according to Muslim custom, only Buddhists are allowed to eat this beef, according to a meat seller in the Buthidaung market.
Another trader at the market said that it is unsure if the money made from the beef will go to the pockets of the naval forces or the cattle traders.
Sunday 20 January 2008
Eight Bangladeshi prisoner released by Burma’s authority
Written by Webmaster
Kaladan Press Org
Saturday, 19 January 2008
Teknaf, Bangladesh: Eight Bangladeshi prisoners who were arrested in November when their fishing boat ran aground in Burmese waters returned home on Thursday after their release by Burma’s authorities.
On January 17, around noon, Burma’s border security forces, or Nasaka, turned the prisoners over to Bangladesh Rifles, the country’s border security forces, at the transit point of Teknaf. Bangladesh Rifles, or BDR, received them and handed them over again to Teknaf police station, according to a Bangladesh police official.
The police then sent them home after asking some questions. All returnees are from the village of Shefali Para of Mushkhali union, Cox’s Bazar district.
They eight men were caught by Burma’s naval forces while they were stranded at the Beach of Kyauk Pru Island of Arakan State, Burma. On November 11, 2007, they were fishing in the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh waters, but the engine of the fishing boat had troubles after meeting a storm on November 15, and they were stranded at Kyauk Pru Island.
They were first detained on Kyauk Pru before being transferred to Sittwe jail, in the capital of Arakan State.
The returnees were identified as Abdul Karim (25), Nur Hussain (25), Md. Salay (37), Md. Issaque (30), Shaffi Alam (32), Mokbul Ahmed Majee (45), Shabbir Ahmed (35), Kamal Sakhidar ( 40), and Abul Hashim (45), according to our correspondent.
Kaladan Press Org
Saturday, 19 January 2008
Teknaf, Bangladesh: Eight Bangladeshi prisoners who were arrested in November when their fishing boat ran aground in Burmese waters returned home on Thursday after their release by Burma’s authorities.
On January 17, around noon, Burma’s border security forces, or Nasaka, turned the prisoners over to Bangladesh Rifles, the country’s border security forces, at the transit point of Teknaf. Bangladesh Rifles, or BDR, received them and handed them over again to Teknaf police station, according to a Bangladesh police official.
The police then sent them home after asking some questions. All returnees are from the village of Shefali Para of Mushkhali union, Cox’s Bazar district.
They eight men were caught by Burma’s naval forces while they were stranded at the Beach of Kyauk Pru Island of Arakan State, Burma. On November 11, 2007, they were fishing in the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh waters, but the engine of the fishing boat had troubles after meeting a storm on November 15, and they were stranded at Kyauk Pru Island.
They were first detained on Kyauk Pru before being transferred to Sittwe jail, in the capital of Arakan State.
The returnees were identified as Abdul Karim (25), Nur Hussain (25), Md. Salay (37), Md. Issaque (30), Shaffi Alam (32), Mokbul Ahmed Majee (45), Shabbir Ahmed (35), Kamal Sakhidar ( 40), and Abul Hashim (45), according to our correspondent.
Illegal Chinese phones seized on Sino-Burma border
KNG - January 19, 2008
The Burmese military junta has turned on its security forces with vengeance to seize illegal Chinese phones. Joint operations by security personnel to track down illegal Chinese phone users are underway in Muse, Burma's main Sino-Burma trade town, a source said.
House to house operations in the town began on January 17 by the ruling junta's Muse-base police and troops, a resident told KNG.
The authorities also issued orders totally prohibiting anybody from using the illegal Chinese phones. It will take severe action against illegal Chinese phone users, according to locals.
However, a trader in Muse explained to KNG today that "The authorities can't stop the use of illegal Chinese phones totally in Muse because the residents have to do their business with the help of Chinese phones."
The Burmese military junta has turned on its security forces with vengeance to seize illegal Chinese phones. Joint operations by security personnel to track down illegal Chinese phone users are underway in Muse, Burma's main Sino-Burma trade town, a source said.
House to house operations in the town began on January 17 by the ruling junta's Muse-base police and troops, a resident told KNG.
The authorities also issued orders totally prohibiting anybody from using the illegal Chinese phones. It will take severe action against illegal Chinese phone users, according to locals.
However, a trader in Muse explained to KNG today that "The authorities can't stop the use of illegal Chinese phones totally in Muse because the residents have to do their business with the help of Chinese phones."
The China Factor
Min Zin
The Irrawaddy News
www.irrawaddy.org
January 19, 2008
A few weeks after the September protests last year in Burma, a Chinese diplomat approached an influential Burmese advocate in New York and asked why the Burmese dubbed their protest the "Saffron Revolution."
"The diplomat was quite uncomfortable with this particular saffron name while he whispered to me," said the Burmese advocate, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Chinese are very sensitive to the 'color revolutions'," she said.
In the wake of successful "color revolutions," meaning the victories of nonviolent democracy struggles in post-communist countries, such as Georgia's 2003 Rose Revolution and Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution, Beijing is anxious to prevent similar movements at home or among its neighbors.
Then, a country in its backyard triggered the "saffron revolution," and the military's subsequent crack down captured the world’s attention. Along with Burma's crisis, China was drawn into the spotlight in unflattering coverage in international media and diplomatic pressure increased against its support of one of the world's most odious regimes.
Public outcries have called on China to assume larger role in helping to resolve Burma's crisis.
However, contrary to common perceptions, China has a limited sway with the junta’s generals. China is not a patron that pulls the strings and the self-isolated, delusive Burmese regime is not a puppet. The relationship runs in both directions. This is what complicates Burma's problems and their resolution.
Of course, China has more power and influence on the generals than any other country. It also intends to use that leverage to its own benefit.
According to Chinese diplomats, Beijing has been gradually changing its Burma policy since the removal of former Prime Minister Khin Nyut in 2004 and the recent deadly crackdown in Burma. However, they warn that the policy shift should not be expected to be quick or dramatic. It will be slow and well-calculated.
"Than Shwe and Maung Aye are more intransigent than former dictator Ne Win, and they often do incredibly silly things," said a Chinese official during a meeting with a Burmese opposition activist. "China knows that Burma will not prosper under their leadership."
China’s special envoy, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi, was sent to Burma in November. He met with the junta's top leader, Snr-General Than Shwe, and asked the military "to resolve the pending issues through consultations so as to speed up the democratization process."
However, the regime responded that it will go with its own pace for unilateral implementation of its "Seven-Step Road Map," according to a Western diplomat.
"The Chinese keep telling us that the international community is overstating their influence over Burmese generals," said a European diplomat. "Beijing said they don't have ability to tell the regime what to do."
Aung Kyaw Zaw, a Burmese analyst living on the China-Burma border, disagrees with that interpretation.
"Persuasion, without power backup, will not work. The soft-soft approach should be changed. China must show the ‘stick’ part of its diplomacy," said Aung Kyaw Zaw.
However, Beijing is clearly not ready to go that far. It still believes that working to resolve Burma's problems is secondary to its principal economic and strategic interests in its relationship with the junta.
But simultaneously, China would like to maintain its international role as "a responsible stakeholder."
The time has come for concerted international diplomatic pressure on China to tip the balance toward the “responsible” direction. China must take up Thucydides’ advice: an amoral foreign policy is neither practical nor prudent.
At the same time, the United States and the European Union cannot outsource Burma's democracy reform to China, which itself lacks democracy.
The West’s most powerful countries should coordinate with China to facilitate a real transition in conflict-ridden Burma.
However, diplomacy alone is not enough to compel China to play an effective role.
Public action is needed.
"China was very annoyed to see the wave of protests taking place outside its embassies in major cities of the world in the wake of the September protests," said Aung Kyaw Zaw. "More importantly, they were really worried when demonstrators linked Burma's cause with a 2008 Olympic boycott."
The vice mayor of Beijing warned in October 2007 that any move to link China's role in Burma to a boycott of the 2008 Olympics would be "inappropriate and unpopular." China is very much anxious to prevent any negative effect on the Olympic Games. They might even accommodate their Burma policy and give more support to the UN's Burma mediation role if they sensed a real damage to the much-hyped gala this summer, even though it might be a tactical and temporal accommodation.
However, the Burmese opposition has so far failed to seize and exploit this opportunity effectively. During the peak of Burma's "Saffron Revolution" in late September, The Washington Post labeled one of its editorials the "Saffron Olympic," highlighting the dynamics of an international campaign against Beijing's summer gala. But that effort has run out of steam.
"The Burmese opposition in exile cannot accelerate the campaign in a consistent manner,” said Nyo Ohn Myint, the head of the Foreign Affairs Office of the National League for Democracy (Liberated Area). “Our campaigners are going after ad hoc protests without a focus. We fail to form a wider coalition with other Olympic detractors. Unless we can launch a coordinated international grassroots action, China would not be swayed to our direction."
Beijing plans to start its Olympic gala on 8/8/08, a date that is surprisingly similar to the 20th anniversary of Burma's "Four Eight (8/8/88) Democracy Movement."
Whether or not Burma can make the best out of this coincidence remains to be seen.
The Irrawaddy News
www.irrawaddy.org
January 19, 2008
A few weeks after the September protests last year in Burma, a Chinese diplomat approached an influential Burmese advocate in New York and asked why the Burmese dubbed their protest the "Saffron Revolution."
"The diplomat was quite uncomfortable with this particular saffron name while he whispered to me," said the Burmese advocate, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Chinese are very sensitive to the 'color revolutions'," she said.
In the wake of successful "color revolutions," meaning the victories of nonviolent democracy struggles in post-communist countries, such as Georgia's 2003 Rose Revolution and Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution, Beijing is anxious to prevent similar movements at home or among its neighbors.
Then, a country in its backyard triggered the "saffron revolution," and the military's subsequent crack down captured the world’s attention. Along with Burma's crisis, China was drawn into the spotlight in unflattering coverage in international media and diplomatic pressure increased against its support of one of the world's most odious regimes.
Public outcries have called on China to assume larger role in helping to resolve Burma's crisis.
However, contrary to common perceptions, China has a limited sway with the junta’s generals. China is not a patron that pulls the strings and the self-isolated, delusive Burmese regime is not a puppet. The relationship runs in both directions. This is what complicates Burma's problems and their resolution.
Of course, China has more power and influence on the generals than any other country. It also intends to use that leverage to its own benefit.
According to Chinese diplomats, Beijing has been gradually changing its Burma policy since the removal of former Prime Minister Khin Nyut in 2004 and the recent deadly crackdown in Burma. However, they warn that the policy shift should not be expected to be quick or dramatic. It will be slow and well-calculated.
"Than Shwe and Maung Aye are more intransigent than former dictator Ne Win, and they often do incredibly silly things," said a Chinese official during a meeting with a Burmese opposition activist. "China knows that Burma will not prosper under their leadership."
China’s special envoy, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi, was sent to Burma in November. He met with the junta's top leader, Snr-General Than Shwe, and asked the military "to resolve the pending issues through consultations so as to speed up the democratization process."
However, the regime responded that it will go with its own pace for unilateral implementation of its "Seven-Step Road Map," according to a Western diplomat.
"The Chinese keep telling us that the international community is overstating their influence over Burmese generals," said a European diplomat. "Beijing said they don't have ability to tell the regime what to do."
Aung Kyaw Zaw, a Burmese analyst living on the China-Burma border, disagrees with that interpretation.
"Persuasion, without power backup, will not work. The soft-soft approach should be changed. China must show the ‘stick’ part of its diplomacy," said Aung Kyaw Zaw.
However, Beijing is clearly not ready to go that far. It still believes that working to resolve Burma's problems is secondary to its principal economic and strategic interests in its relationship with the junta.
But simultaneously, China would like to maintain its international role as "a responsible stakeholder."
The time has come for concerted international diplomatic pressure on China to tip the balance toward the “responsible” direction. China must take up Thucydides’ advice: an amoral foreign policy is neither practical nor prudent.
At the same time, the United States and the European Union cannot outsource Burma's democracy reform to China, which itself lacks democracy.
The West’s most powerful countries should coordinate with China to facilitate a real transition in conflict-ridden Burma.
However, diplomacy alone is not enough to compel China to play an effective role.
Public action is needed.
"China was very annoyed to see the wave of protests taking place outside its embassies in major cities of the world in the wake of the September protests," said Aung Kyaw Zaw. "More importantly, they were really worried when demonstrators linked Burma's cause with a 2008 Olympic boycott."
The vice mayor of Beijing warned in October 2007 that any move to link China's role in Burma to a boycott of the 2008 Olympics would be "inappropriate and unpopular." China is very much anxious to prevent any negative effect on the Olympic Games. They might even accommodate their Burma policy and give more support to the UN's Burma mediation role if they sensed a real damage to the much-hyped gala this summer, even though it might be a tactical and temporal accommodation.
However, the Burmese opposition has so far failed to seize and exploit this opportunity effectively. During the peak of Burma's "Saffron Revolution" in late September, The Washington Post labeled one of its editorials the "Saffron Olympic," highlighting the dynamics of an international campaign against Beijing's summer gala. But that effort has run out of steam.
"The Burmese opposition in exile cannot accelerate the campaign in a consistent manner,” said Nyo Ohn Myint, the head of the Foreign Affairs Office of the National League for Democracy (Liberated Area). “Our campaigners are going after ad hoc protests without a focus. We fail to form a wider coalition with other Olympic detractors. Unless we can launch a coordinated international grassroots action, China would not be swayed to our direction."
Beijing plans to start its Olympic gala on 8/8/08, a date that is surprisingly similar to the 20th anniversary of Burma's "Four Eight (8/8/88) Democracy Movement."
Whether or not Burma can make the best out of this coincidence remains to be seen.
Snap ties with Myanmar, India urged
AIZAWL
Outlook India
January 18, 2008
A public meeting for restoration of democracy and human rights in Myanmar here today appealed to the Centre to snap all ties with the military rulers of the country as economic cooperation with it would never benefit the people unless democracy was restored.
"The Indian government should work with the UN to find amicable solution to the Myanmar imbroglio," said the resolution passed at the meeting organized jointly by Mizoram Committee for Democracy in Burma and Campaign for Democratic Movement in Burma.
Mizoram is the worst sufferer of political instability and turmoil in the neighbouring country, participants of the meeting said and asked the people of Mizoram to take active role in supporting the pro-democratic groups to ensure restoration of democracy and human rights in Myanmar.
The participants also urged the state government to take up the issue with the Centre as ethnic Mizos in Myanmar were being persecuted in that country and also that Mizo people faced serious problems due to refugees flooding the state due to persecution by the military junta.
Dr Tint Swe, member of Parliament of Burma and leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who spoke at the meeting on the need for new strategy in dealing with Myanmar by India said that even the Look East Policy would only have a meaning after restoration of democracy.
Other speakers included Rozathang and Hla Htun who stressed the need for increasing pressure on the political mandarins in New Delhi to change the country's policy towards the military regime in Myanmar.
Outlook India
January 18, 2008
A public meeting for restoration of democracy and human rights in Myanmar here today appealed to the Centre to snap all ties with the military rulers of the country as economic cooperation with it would never benefit the people unless democracy was restored.
"The Indian government should work with the UN to find amicable solution to the Myanmar imbroglio," said the resolution passed at the meeting organized jointly by Mizoram Committee for Democracy in Burma and Campaign for Democratic Movement in Burma.
Mizoram is the worst sufferer of political instability and turmoil in the neighbouring country, participants of the meeting said and asked the people of Mizoram to take active role in supporting the pro-democratic groups to ensure restoration of democracy and human rights in Myanmar.
The participants also urged the state government to take up the issue with the Centre as ethnic Mizos in Myanmar were being persecuted in that country and also that Mizo people faced serious problems due to refugees flooding the state due to persecution by the military junta.
Dr Tint Swe, member of Parliament of Burma and leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who spoke at the meeting on the need for new strategy in dealing with Myanmar by India said that even the Look East Policy would only have a meaning after restoration of democracy.
Other speakers included Rozathang and Hla Htun who stressed the need for increasing pressure on the political mandarins in New Delhi to change the country's policy towards the military regime in Myanmar.
Army of the Faithful: A Buddhist monk walks a fine line to protest crackdown in Myanmar
Winston-Salem Journal
January 19, 2008
SAGAING, Myanmar - In one of his most talked-about lectures, Buddhist monk Ashin Nyanissara tells the legend of a king who ruled more than 2,500 years ago. The king believed that spitting on a hermit brought him good fortune.
At first, it worked like a charm, but before long his realm was annihilated under a rain of fire, spears and knives.
Today’s audiences easily find the hidden message: The assault by Myanmar’s military government on monks leading protests in the fall looks like a modern version of the ancient monarch’s abuse. And they hope that the ruling generals will suffer the same fate.
In the recent crackdown, many monks were beaten and defrocked in prison. Human-rights activists say that several monks were among the 31 people the United Nations says were killed by the government.
It was a traumatic wound to a mainly Buddhist society, one that forced a lot of soul searching among people who practice one of the oldest forms of the religion, which emphasizes critical thought and reasoning over blind faith.
The stern-faced Nyanissara, a 70-year-old monk in owlish glasses and a maroon robe, is able to stare down generals with chests full of medals by stepping carefully through the minefield that makes free speech lethal here.
Shielding himself with allegory, he crisscrosses the country giving lectures that draw on history and legend to remind people that rotten regimes have fallen before. As the generals try to crush the last remnants of resistance, he is cautiously keeping the fire alive.
But he knows it isn’t the first time in 45 years of military rule that the government has attacked monks who challenged its absolute authority. In at least four previous crackdowns, dating to 1965, the military rounded up thousands of monks, killing some, defrocking others, while closing monasteries and seizing property.
Each time, the brutal repression outraged many people, but in the end they felt powerless to do anything about it, the crises passed and the generals continued to oppress with an iron fist.
It’s the nature of any government’s leaders to “strongly test their political power. They don’t want to lose it,” he said in a recent interview at the International Buddhist Academy, which he founded in this riverside town with forested hills that the faithful believe Buddha walked on his path to enlightenment. “But in any faith, when politics and religion come into competition, religious leaders always defeat anything. Religion is the leader. Jesus Christ was killed, but which was more powerful? Religion or politics?”
The institute sits in a valley beneath the Sagaing Hills, where hundreds of golden spires, called “stupas,” rise like spiritual beacons from monasteries and pagodas that dot the hillsides, 12 miles southwest of Mandalay.
The first monks to demonstrate against the government last year took to the streets in Pakokku, 60 miles southwest of Sagaing.
Still trapped in the latest cycle of political turmoil, many of Myanmar’s people are looking to Nyanissara for more than spiritual guidance.
At midday recently, he had just returned from speaking to hundreds of the faithful in a village pagoda and was hurrying to leave for an afternoon lecture, a daily routine that keeps him on the move to meet the demand for his wisdom.
Barefoot in a corridor of the university where student monks and nuns are trained for missionary work, Nyanissara ran a disposable razor over his tonsured head and down across his face and neck, removing the faintest midday stubble as he spoke.
Then, flanked by young aides and walking as straight and sure-footed as a man half his age, Nyanissara got into his black sport utility vehicle, which sped on a 110-mile journey to his next stop.
He draws large, rapt audiences wherever he goes, whether they are poor villagers crowded into small monasteries or city residents sitting in orderly rows on a side street.
On a recent night, a few thousand people filled a street in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, sitting quietly as they waited for Nyanissara to arrive.
When he emerged from his SUV, people bowed their heads to the ground as he made his way to a stage, where he sat cross-legged on a gilded chair as big as a throne.
In large public gatherings such as these, when the generals’ spies lurk in the audience and listen for any hint of trouble, his lectures often are built around the same lesson: Cruel rulers create bad karma. And they will suffer for what they have done.
That’s a moral not easily shrugged off by a government whose leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, is intensely superstitious: He consults astrologers to make important decisions.
The ruling generals also churn out propaganda images portraying themselves as devoted Buddhists, receiving the blessing of sympathetic monks. If their faith is true, they know their actions will determine their next life in reincarnation’s endless cycle of death and rebirth.
“They have to be afraid they’ll be coming back as cockroaches,” wisecracked one Western envoy.
Several of Nyanissara’s lectures have been burned onto DVDs, with titles including “Last Days of Empire.” The generals have arrested people caught selling them, but they are still widely available across Myanmar, also known as Burma.
To most people here, the pain of seeing monks beaten up in the streets is more than just an insult to religious faith. To many, it’s as if the military had harmed their own family, and the anger does not ease quickly.
Almost any Buddhist with a son has watched with pride as his head is shaved to make him a novice monk in an initiation ceremony called shin-pyu, a moment as life-defining as a baptism, christening or bar mitzvah.
It is a religious duty for Buddhist boys to become novice monks from 7, and most in Myanmar answer the calling, Nyanissara said.
Nyanissara said that the region surrounding Sagaing is now home to one out of every 10 of Myanmar’s 400,000 monks, robed legions that listen carefully to his lectures to see the right path ahead.
“It’s a very big army,” Nyanissara said, and he laughed a little. But he wasn’t smiling.
January 19, 2008
SAGAING, Myanmar - In one of his most talked-about lectures, Buddhist monk Ashin Nyanissara tells the legend of a king who ruled more than 2,500 years ago. The king believed that spitting on a hermit brought him good fortune.
At first, it worked like a charm, but before long his realm was annihilated under a rain of fire, spears and knives.
Today’s audiences easily find the hidden message: The assault by Myanmar’s military government on monks leading protests in the fall looks like a modern version of the ancient monarch’s abuse. And they hope that the ruling generals will suffer the same fate.
In the recent crackdown, many monks were beaten and defrocked in prison. Human-rights activists say that several monks were among the 31 people the United Nations says were killed by the government.
It was a traumatic wound to a mainly Buddhist society, one that forced a lot of soul searching among people who practice one of the oldest forms of the religion, which emphasizes critical thought and reasoning over blind faith.
The stern-faced Nyanissara, a 70-year-old monk in owlish glasses and a maroon robe, is able to stare down generals with chests full of medals by stepping carefully through the minefield that makes free speech lethal here.
Shielding himself with allegory, he crisscrosses the country giving lectures that draw on history and legend to remind people that rotten regimes have fallen before. As the generals try to crush the last remnants of resistance, he is cautiously keeping the fire alive.
But he knows it isn’t the first time in 45 years of military rule that the government has attacked monks who challenged its absolute authority. In at least four previous crackdowns, dating to 1965, the military rounded up thousands of monks, killing some, defrocking others, while closing monasteries and seizing property.
Each time, the brutal repression outraged many people, but in the end they felt powerless to do anything about it, the crises passed and the generals continued to oppress with an iron fist.
It’s the nature of any government’s leaders to “strongly test their political power. They don’t want to lose it,” he said in a recent interview at the International Buddhist Academy, which he founded in this riverside town with forested hills that the faithful believe Buddha walked on his path to enlightenment. “But in any faith, when politics and religion come into competition, religious leaders always defeat anything. Religion is the leader. Jesus Christ was killed, but which was more powerful? Religion or politics?”
The institute sits in a valley beneath the Sagaing Hills, where hundreds of golden spires, called “stupas,” rise like spiritual beacons from monasteries and pagodas that dot the hillsides, 12 miles southwest of Mandalay.
The first monks to demonstrate against the government last year took to the streets in Pakokku, 60 miles southwest of Sagaing.
Still trapped in the latest cycle of political turmoil, many of Myanmar’s people are looking to Nyanissara for more than spiritual guidance.
At midday recently, he had just returned from speaking to hundreds of the faithful in a village pagoda and was hurrying to leave for an afternoon lecture, a daily routine that keeps him on the move to meet the demand for his wisdom.
Barefoot in a corridor of the university where student monks and nuns are trained for missionary work, Nyanissara ran a disposable razor over his tonsured head and down across his face and neck, removing the faintest midday stubble as he spoke.
Then, flanked by young aides and walking as straight and sure-footed as a man half his age, Nyanissara got into his black sport utility vehicle, which sped on a 110-mile journey to his next stop.
He draws large, rapt audiences wherever he goes, whether they are poor villagers crowded into small monasteries or city residents sitting in orderly rows on a side street.
On a recent night, a few thousand people filled a street in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, sitting quietly as they waited for Nyanissara to arrive.
When he emerged from his SUV, people bowed their heads to the ground as he made his way to a stage, where he sat cross-legged on a gilded chair as big as a throne.
In large public gatherings such as these, when the generals’ spies lurk in the audience and listen for any hint of trouble, his lectures often are built around the same lesson: Cruel rulers create bad karma. And they will suffer for what they have done.
That’s a moral not easily shrugged off by a government whose leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, is intensely superstitious: He consults astrologers to make important decisions.
The ruling generals also churn out propaganda images portraying themselves as devoted Buddhists, receiving the blessing of sympathetic monks. If their faith is true, they know their actions will determine their next life in reincarnation’s endless cycle of death and rebirth.
“They have to be afraid they’ll be coming back as cockroaches,” wisecracked one Western envoy.
Several of Nyanissara’s lectures have been burned onto DVDs, with titles including “Last Days of Empire.” The generals have arrested people caught selling them, but they are still widely available across Myanmar, also known as Burma.
To most people here, the pain of seeing monks beaten up in the streets is more than just an insult to religious faith. To many, it’s as if the military had harmed their own family, and the anger does not ease quickly.
Almost any Buddhist with a son has watched with pride as his head is shaved to make him a novice monk in an initiation ceremony called shin-pyu, a moment as life-defining as a baptism, christening or bar mitzvah.
It is a religious duty for Buddhist boys to become novice monks from 7, and most in Myanmar answer the calling, Nyanissara said.
Nyanissara said that the region surrounding Sagaing is now home to one out of every 10 of Myanmar’s 400,000 monks, robed legions that listen carefully to his lectures to see the right path ahead.
“It’s a very big army,” Nyanissara said, and he laughed a little. But he wasn’t smiling.
EU: UN Envoy Should Return to Burma to Seek Aung San Suu Kyi's Freedom
VOA News
19 January 2008
The European Union says Burma should allow U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari to revisit the country as soon as possible.
The EU's special envoy for Burma says Gambari should focus on achieving concrete results, such as the release of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The EU official, Piero Fassino, says the European alliance will re-evaluate its policy on Burma - including sanctions - after it sees what Gambari's visit can achieve.
Fassino says sanctions against Burma are part of a strategy to open dialogue between the military government and its opponents, and not a goal in themselves.
The EU and United States tightened sanctions against Burma's leaders and its exports after the military government's bloody crackdown last year on pro-democracy demonstrators.
Many neighbor states that also condemned the crackdown in Burma oppose sanctions and other stronger measures.
The U.N. Security Council says Burma's military government has moved too slowly on enacting democratic reforms.
Following discussions with Gambari, the Security Council deplored Burma's inaction on Thursday. A council resolution in October called for democratic reforms, full respect for human rights, an end to forced labor and an end to the repression of ethnic minorities.
The Security Council urged Burma to grant Gambari permission to make another visit soon. The U.N. envoy was last in Burma in November. He says authorities there have said he should wait until mid-April before returning to Burma.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
19 January 2008
The European Union says Burma should allow U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari to revisit the country as soon as possible.
The EU's special envoy for Burma says Gambari should focus on achieving concrete results, such as the release of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The EU official, Piero Fassino, says the European alliance will re-evaluate its policy on Burma - including sanctions - after it sees what Gambari's visit can achieve.
Fassino says sanctions against Burma are part of a strategy to open dialogue between the military government and its opponents, and not a goal in themselves.
The EU and United States tightened sanctions against Burma's leaders and its exports after the military government's bloody crackdown last year on pro-democracy demonstrators.
Many neighbor states that also condemned the crackdown in Burma oppose sanctions and other stronger measures.
The U.N. Security Council says Burma's military government has moved too slowly on enacting democratic reforms.
Following discussions with Gambari, the Security Council deplored Burma's inaction on Thursday. A council resolution in October called for democratic reforms, full respect for human rights, an end to forced labor and an end to the repression of ethnic minorities.
The Security Council urged Burma to grant Gambari permission to make another visit soon. The U.N. envoy was last in Burma in November. He says authorities there have said he should wait until mid-April before returning to Burma.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
A stable Myanmar to benefit India, China
John Feffer
Dawn/IPS News Service
January 19, 2008
WASHINGTON: When the world’s two most populous countries held a summit this month in Beijing, their agenda was brimful with collaboration. India and China, once adversaries that fought a war in 1962, are now leading trading partners.
But, while they see eye to eye on several key geopolitical issues such as Iran and have even conducted a joint military exercise, there is an item on the bilateral agenda that elicits somewhat less cooperation the country that borders them both, Myanmar.
Myanmar is not as significant a thorn in the side of the emerging alliance as Tibet or territorial claims. India’s provision of safe haven to the Tibetan resistance movement and China’s territorial claims over parts of India both figure more prominently in cross-border tensions. But the different approaches that the two Asian powers have taken toward the resource-rich but poor and isolated Myanmar reflect important differences in tactics and philosophy.
“After 1988, India with missionary zeal cut off all contact with the junta in Myanmar and gave the Nehru Award to Aung Sang Suu Kyi,” explains Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi who was the keynote speaker at a Jan 16 seminar in Washington, DC sponsored by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. “By the time India reversed that policy, it realised that it had lost Myanmar to China. China had built reconnaissance facilities on the Coco Islands. So, this shift from a moral, value-based foreign policy to realpolitik on Myanmar came after India burned its hands and feet and didn’t have much to show for it.”
China, on the other hand, has for some time hewed close to realpolitik in its support of Myanmar’s military government. “China always wants to have neighbours that are friendly,” explains Minxin Pei, director of the China Programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Myanmar is like a client state. If China can’t have Myanmar, it will deny it to another power. “Although the level of trade between the two countries remains rather modest, China provides the military junta with arms, directs considerable investment into the country, and eyes Myanmar’s energy resources.
In addition, China wants to stabilise several cross-border problems, including Aids and refugees, argues Derek Mitchell, the director for Asia in the International Security Programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Also there is opportunism,” he continues. “China sees strategic opportunity to have access since the United States is ignoring Myanmar.”
This strategic opportunity hinges a great deal on Myanmar’s location. “For China, Myanmar is the entryway to the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean, and it oversees vital communication lanes in the Strait of Malacca,” Chellaney points out. “China is busy completing the Irrawaddy Corridor involving road, river, rail, and energy-transport links between Burmese ports and Yunnan province.”
China’s economic growth depends on increased imports of energy. Myanmar is one potential source. “Myanmar sits on vast gas reserves which are coveted by its neighbours,” Chellaney adds. “But Myanmar, because it is hit by sanctions and is an isolated state, hasn’t reaped those dividends. Foreign investments in Myanmar’s gas exploration and production have not been too significant. Sanctions have prevented Myanmar from accessing liquefaction technology to become a liquid natural gas exporter. Its only choice is to sell natural gas by pipeline to its immediate neighbours to Thailand or to China once a pipeline is complete.” Chellaney predicts that the pipeline to China could be operational within a year.
The relationship between China and Myanmar, which might look cozy from the outside, is not without tension. Most of the energy and transportation plans are only at the agreement stage. “Work may have started on the pipeline,” argues Priscilla Clapp, former US charge in Myanmar from 1999 to 2002. “I cannot believe that it will happen in a year. Nothing happens in a year in Myanmar.” Indian reports of a major Chinese military facility in Myanmar’s Coco Islands, she continues, are exaggerated. “They have some antennas down there. A few years ago India claimed that it was a major Chinese naval base, but that’s bunk. The Burmese won’t allow that. The Burmese are ferociously neutral. They’re not going to allow any other power to establish a military base or significant military presence in their country.”
“China is a partner of last resort,” explains Derek Mitchell. “The isolation strategy means that the Burmese junta has to turn to China. They don’t like it, but it helps them stay in power.”
The competition between India and China for influence in Myanmar reflects a larger jockeying for power between the two Asian giants. Although the recent summit accentuated the positive, a certain unease lurks just beneath the surface. History, for instance, continues to dog the relationship. “The shadow of the 1962 war bedevils the China-India relationship,” notes Chellaney. “It not only weighs heavily on the Indian psyche, but the wounds of war are kept alive by China’s assertive claims to additional Indian territory.”
The different systems of political economy in China and India might also pull the two countries in divergent directions. Instead of India and China helping their fellow Asian countries to identify common norms and values which undergird other regional formations such as the European Union the two countries might part strategic ways. Chellaney speculates that two blocs could well emerge: “a China-led coalition that values centralised domestic control and whose favourite institution is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation versus a constellation of democracies loosely tied together by a web of strategic partnerships.”
Another potential source of tension is water. All the major rivers of Asia, with the exception of the Ganges, originate in the Tibetan plateau. China’s control of the headwaters of the Indus, Mekong, Yangtze, Brahmaputra, and other rivers, which together serve nearly half the world’s population, may prove an increasing challenge to the region, particularly as Beijing dams these major rivers for hydropower and irrigation. “If water geopolitics were to spur interstate tensions,” Chellaney warns, “the Asian renaissance would definitely stall”.
Minxin Pei remains somewhat more optimistic. He notes that both countries have exercised strategic restraint in recent years. In part, this restraint can be explained by the strategic priorities of the countries, with China looking east toward Taiwan and Japan and India primarily focusing on South Asia. The leaders in the respective countries also “understand that gains from seizing the strategic opportunity available are far more important than possible gains from strategic competition,” Pei points out. “Globalisation means that India and China, with their cheap labour, will benefit from this opportunity. If they throw away this opportunity and engage in competition with each other, it is a lose-lose proposition.”
With bilateral trade booming and sources of tension largely under the surface, India and China are not at risk of going head to head over their differing approaches to Myanmar any time soon.
India’s realpolitik engagement with the military junta is balanced by its unofficial but close links to the democracy movement. China has real economic and security interests in Myanmar but is sensitive to international criticisms of its positions. When he raised the Myanmar issue in discussions with Chinese officials, Derek Mitchell was told that Myanmar “wasn’t on the radar screen. Chinese policy wasn’t going to change, there were too many other things going on. ‘What if others isolate China’s position?’ I asked. ‘Well, then we might think about it,’ they said. That’s the thing that China hates the most: being isolated”.
Perhaps because it is not a priority issue for the two countries, Myanmar might evolve from a point of contention to an opportunity for even greater cooperation. A stable Myanmar that is part of the international community could benefit both China and India. China has demonstrated its ability in the North Korea crisis to serve as a catalyst for compromise in a regional negotiating framework. India might take a page from this book.
“India failed to persuade the junta to engage Aung San Suu Kyi more effectively and stem the growth of Chinese influence,” Brahma Chellaney concludes. “Should India give up? No, it can play the role of facilitator of a final political reconciliation in Myanmar.”
Dawn/IPS News Service
January 19, 2008
WASHINGTON: When the world’s two most populous countries held a summit this month in Beijing, their agenda was brimful with collaboration. India and China, once adversaries that fought a war in 1962, are now leading trading partners.
But, while they see eye to eye on several key geopolitical issues such as Iran and have even conducted a joint military exercise, there is an item on the bilateral agenda that elicits somewhat less cooperation the country that borders them both, Myanmar.
Myanmar is not as significant a thorn in the side of the emerging alliance as Tibet or territorial claims. India’s provision of safe haven to the Tibetan resistance movement and China’s territorial claims over parts of India both figure more prominently in cross-border tensions. But the different approaches that the two Asian powers have taken toward the resource-rich but poor and isolated Myanmar reflect important differences in tactics and philosophy.
“After 1988, India with missionary zeal cut off all contact with the junta in Myanmar and gave the Nehru Award to Aung Sang Suu Kyi,” explains Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi who was the keynote speaker at a Jan 16 seminar in Washington, DC sponsored by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. “By the time India reversed that policy, it realised that it had lost Myanmar to China. China had built reconnaissance facilities on the Coco Islands. So, this shift from a moral, value-based foreign policy to realpolitik on Myanmar came after India burned its hands and feet and didn’t have much to show for it.”
China, on the other hand, has for some time hewed close to realpolitik in its support of Myanmar’s military government. “China always wants to have neighbours that are friendly,” explains Minxin Pei, director of the China Programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Myanmar is like a client state. If China can’t have Myanmar, it will deny it to another power. “Although the level of trade between the two countries remains rather modest, China provides the military junta with arms, directs considerable investment into the country, and eyes Myanmar’s energy resources.
In addition, China wants to stabilise several cross-border problems, including Aids and refugees, argues Derek Mitchell, the director for Asia in the International Security Programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Also there is opportunism,” he continues. “China sees strategic opportunity to have access since the United States is ignoring Myanmar.”
This strategic opportunity hinges a great deal on Myanmar’s location. “For China, Myanmar is the entryway to the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean, and it oversees vital communication lanes in the Strait of Malacca,” Chellaney points out. “China is busy completing the Irrawaddy Corridor involving road, river, rail, and energy-transport links between Burmese ports and Yunnan province.”
China’s economic growth depends on increased imports of energy. Myanmar is one potential source. “Myanmar sits on vast gas reserves which are coveted by its neighbours,” Chellaney adds. “But Myanmar, because it is hit by sanctions and is an isolated state, hasn’t reaped those dividends. Foreign investments in Myanmar’s gas exploration and production have not been too significant. Sanctions have prevented Myanmar from accessing liquefaction technology to become a liquid natural gas exporter. Its only choice is to sell natural gas by pipeline to its immediate neighbours to Thailand or to China once a pipeline is complete.” Chellaney predicts that the pipeline to China could be operational within a year.
The relationship between China and Myanmar, which might look cozy from the outside, is not without tension. Most of the energy and transportation plans are only at the agreement stage. “Work may have started on the pipeline,” argues Priscilla Clapp, former US charge in Myanmar from 1999 to 2002. “I cannot believe that it will happen in a year. Nothing happens in a year in Myanmar.” Indian reports of a major Chinese military facility in Myanmar’s Coco Islands, she continues, are exaggerated. “They have some antennas down there. A few years ago India claimed that it was a major Chinese naval base, but that’s bunk. The Burmese won’t allow that. The Burmese are ferociously neutral. They’re not going to allow any other power to establish a military base or significant military presence in their country.”
“China is a partner of last resort,” explains Derek Mitchell. “The isolation strategy means that the Burmese junta has to turn to China. They don’t like it, but it helps them stay in power.”
The competition between India and China for influence in Myanmar reflects a larger jockeying for power between the two Asian giants. Although the recent summit accentuated the positive, a certain unease lurks just beneath the surface. History, for instance, continues to dog the relationship. “The shadow of the 1962 war bedevils the China-India relationship,” notes Chellaney. “It not only weighs heavily on the Indian psyche, but the wounds of war are kept alive by China’s assertive claims to additional Indian territory.”
The different systems of political economy in China and India might also pull the two countries in divergent directions. Instead of India and China helping their fellow Asian countries to identify common norms and values which undergird other regional formations such as the European Union the two countries might part strategic ways. Chellaney speculates that two blocs could well emerge: “a China-led coalition that values centralised domestic control and whose favourite institution is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation versus a constellation of democracies loosely tied together by a web of strategic partnerships.”
Another potential source of tension is water. All the major rivers of Asia, with the exception of the Ganges, originate in the Tibetan plateau. China’s control of the headwaters of the Indus, Mekong, Yangtze, Brahmaputra, and other rivers, which together serve nearly half the world’s population, may prove an increasing challenge to the region, particularly as Beijing dams these major rivers for hydropower and irrigation. “If water geopolitics were to spur interstate tensions,” Chellaney warns, “the Asian renaissance would definitely stall”.
Minxin Pei remains somewhat more optimistic. He notes that both countries have exercised strategic restraint in recent years. In part, this restraint can be explained by the strategic priorities of the countries, with China looking east toward Taiwan and Japan and India primarily focusing on South Asia. The leaders in the respective countries also “understand that gains from seizing the strategic opportunity available are far more important than possible gains from strategic competition,” Pei points out. “Globalisation means that India and China, with their cheap labour, will benefit from this opportunity. If they throw away this opportunity and engage in competition with each other, it is a lose-lose proposition.”
With bilateral trade booming and sources of tension largely under the surface, India and China are not at risk of going head to head over their differing approaches to Myanmar any time soon.
India’s realpolitik engagement with the military junta is balanced by its unofficial but close links to the democracy movement. China has real economic and security interests in Myanmar but is sensitive to international criticisms of its positions. When he raised the Myanmar issue in discussions with Chinese officials, Derek Mitchell was told that Myanmar “wasn’t on the radar screen. Chinese policy wasn’t going to change, there were too many other things going on. ‘What if others isolate China’s position?’ I asked. ‘Well, then we might think about it,’ they said. That’s the thing that China hates the most: being isolated”.
Perhaps because it is not a priority issue for the two countries, Myanmar might evolve from a point of contention to an opportunity for even greater cooperation. A stable Myanmar that is part of the international community could benefit both China and India. China has demonstrated its ability in the North Korea crisis to serve as a catalyst for compromise in a regional negotiating framework. India might take a page from this book.
“India failed to persuade the junta to engage Aung San Suu Kyi more effectively and stem the growth of Chinese influence,” Brahma Chellaney concludes. “Should India give up? No, it can play the role of facilitator of a final political reconciliation in Myanmar.”
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