By SAW YAN NAING
The Irrawaddy News
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Fourteen leading activists, including five women, from the 88 Generation Students group were each given 65-year sentences on Tuesday morning for their political activities during the monk-led uprising in Burma last year, according to sources close to their families.
The lengthy imprisonments were seen as an indication the Burmese military government was invoking harsher punishments on dissidents.
The 14 activists— Min Zeya, Jimmy (aka Kyaw Min Yu), Arnt Bwe Kyaw, Kyaw Kyaw Htwe (aka Ma Kee), Panneik Tun, Zaw Zaw Min, Than Tin, Zeya, Thet Zaw, Mee Mee, Nilar Thein, Mar Mar Oo, Sandar Min and Thet Thet Aung—were sentenced at a court inside Insein Prison, said the sources.
The 88 Generation Students group were seen to be involved in the mass protests against the increased fuel prices enforced by the Burmese government in August 2007.
Meanwhile, a prominent labor rights activist, Su Su Nway, was sentenced to 12 and a half years, said a source who visited Insein Prison on Tuesday.
In late October, nine leaders of the 88 Generation Students group, including Min Ko Naing, Ko Ko Gyi and Htay Kyew, were sentenced to six months imprisonment under Section 228 of the penal code—for contempt of court—by the Northern District Court inside Insein Prison in the northwestern suburbs of Rangoon.
Showing posts with label corruption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corruption. Show all posts
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
Military Accused of Crimes Against Humanity
By MARWAAN MACAN-MARKAR / IPS WRITER
The Irrawaddy News
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
BANGKOK — An onslaught by Burmese troops in the eastern part of the military-ruled country, running for three years now, is laying the junta open to charge of ‘crimes against humanity’.
This new charge adds to a growing list of human rights violations that the Southeast Asian nation’s ruling military regime is being slammed for, including the use of rape as a weapon of war in military campaigns in areas that are home to the country’s ethnic minorities. The country has been under the grip of successive juntas since a 1962 military coup.
Eyewitness accounts from civilians fleeing the territory under attack reveal a grim picture of the ‘Tatmadaw’, as the Burmese military is called, targeting unarmed men, women and children in a "widespread and systematic way," say human rights and humanitarian groups.
An increasing number of refugees have been crossing over to northern Thailand from among the Karen ethnic community, the second largest ethnic group in Burma, or Myanmar. Many of them live in the mountainous Karen State, the territory where Southeast Asia’s longest—and largely ignored—separatist conflict is being waged between Burmese troops and the armed wing of the Karen National Union (KNU).
"Myanmar’s troops are overtly targeting civilians; they are actively avoiding KNU military installations. That is why we are describing the attacks as ‘crimes against humanity’," says Benjamin Zawacki, Southeast Asia researcher for Amnesty International (AI), the global rights lobby. "The violations are widespread and systematic."
"This campaign started in November 2005 and has escalated. They did not even stop during the annual monsoon period (from May to October), which was not the case before," he explained during an IPS interview. "There has been a shift in strategy and intensity. It is no more a dry season offensive."
The military campaign is the largest and the longest sustained drive in a decade. "The Burmese army is rotating soldiers every six months and they have penetrated areas deep in the Karen area," David Tharckabaw, vice president of the KNU, said in a telephone interview from an undisclosed location. "Nothing is being spared. They are even destroying fruit plantations like mangosteen."
The list of abuse document by AI, and corroborated by other humanitarian groups, include villagers being beaten and stabbed to death, being shot by the ‘Tatmadaw’ "without any warning" and being tortured and subsequently killed. Karen civilians have also reportedly been subjected to forced labour, disappearances and their rice harvest being burned down.
"Before the soldiers left the village, they planted landmines, one of them in front of the church. An old man, maybe 70 years-old, stepped on a landmine and was killed," a female rice farmer told an AI researcher of an incident in early 2006, when the ‘Tatmadaw’ burned 20 of the 30 houses in her village.
"I lost everything—kitchen, furniture, rice stocks—not a single piece of paper was left," she added. "The same happened to the other 19 families whose houses were burned."
The unrelenting campaign, which has included the Burmese infantry and heavy use of 120 mm and 81mm mortar shells, has shrunk an already limited space for Karen civilians and internally displaced people (IDPs) to escape to. "The more the Burmese military occupies areas in a worsening situation, the less space there is for civilians to escape to," says Duncan McArthur, emergency relief coordinator of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), an alliance of 11 humanitarian groups helping refugees from Burma along the Thai-Burmese border.
"Nearly 66,000 people from 38 townships have been forced to flee their homes due to the armed conflict and human rights abuses," he told IPS. "They had to because the violations are being committed in a climate of impunity."
Some of the victims have poured into north-west Thailand, where there are already nine camps that house 120,000 refugees who fled intense phases of the conflict going back over a decade. "There are about 20,000 unregistered new arrivals and the natural growth in the camps," added McArthur. "There is no avenue for redress if they were to stay back."
That is reflected in Burma’s over half a million IDPs, nearly 451,000 of which live in the rural ethnic areas, according to TBBC. It places Burma in the same league as countries such as Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, which have internally displaced running into the hundreds of thousands.
But what sets Burma apart is the lack of any international agencies to help the victims and serve as neutral observers in the conflict zone.
Even the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which was helping to provide artificial limbs for landmine victims, was hampered by new restrictions to its operations in 2006. In mid-2007, the Geneva-based humanitarian agency broke its famed silence in an unprecedented attack on the junta to explain why it had to end its operations in Burma, including the Karen areas.
The ICRC’s denunciation of major and repeated violations in the conflict zones in eastern Burma confirmed what many analysts had said of a region that is cut away from international scrutiny and media exposure. "The repeated abuses committed against men, women and children living along the Thai-Myanmar border violate many provisions of international humanitarian law," the organization said.
The Karens, who account for nearly seven million of Burma’s 57 million people, have their own distinctive culture and language and have Buddhists, Christians and animists among them. The Burmans, who are the majority, are predominantly Buddhist by faith, speak Burmese, and have a culture and history shaped by kings before being subjugated by British colonization.
The Karen fight for independence began in 1949, a year after Burma got independence. And the KNU has refused to sign peace deals with the Burmese regime unlike some of the other separatist rebels from ethnic groups. The latter settled for ceasefire deals over the past two decades, only to learn, subsequently, that the junta’s promises of more political autonomy were hollow.
"The Burmese military’s latest strategy is to keep attacking the KNU and Karen civilians in order to drive them to the Thai-Burma border," says Tharekabaw, of the KNU. "Their goal is to control all the land and all the people, which has never been the case before."
"If they cannot control, they have to kill the people or to wipe them out," he added. "The regime is a fascist regime. Their ideology is extremism, racism and militarism."
The Irrawaddy News
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
BANGKOK — An onslaught by Burmese troops in the eastern part of the military-ruled country, running for three years now, is laying the junta open to charge of ‘crimes against humanity’.
This new charge adds to a growing list of human rights violations that the Southeast Asian nation’s ruling military regime is being slammed for, including the use of rape as a weapon of war in military campaigns in areas that are home to the country’s ethnic minorities. The country has been under the grip of successive juntas since a 1962 military coup.
Eyewitness accounts from civilians fleeing the territory under attack reveal a grim picture of the ‘Tatmadaw’, as the Burmese military is called, targeting unarmed men, women and children in a "widespread and systematic way," say human rights and humanitarian groups.
An increasing number of refugees have been crossing over to northern Thailand from among the Karen ethnic community, the second largest ethnic group in Burma, or Myanmar. Many of them live in the mountainous Karen State, the territory where Southeast Asia’s longest—and largely ignored—separatist conflict is being waged between Burmese troops and the armed wing of the Karen National Union (KNU).
"Myanmar’s troops are overtly targeting civilians; they are actively avoiding KNU military installations. That is why we are describing the attacks as ‘crimes against humanity’," says Benjamin Zawacki, Southeast Asia researcher for Amnesty International (AI), the global rights lobby. "The violations are widespread and systematic."
"This campaign started in November 2005 and has escalated. They did not even stop during the annual monsoon period (from May to October), which was not the case before," he explained during an IPS interview. "There has been a shift in strategy and intensity. It is no more a dry season offensive."
The military campaign is the largest and the longest sustained drive in a decade. "The Burmese army is rotating soldiers every six months and they have penetrated areas deep in the Karen area," David Tharckabaw, vice president of the KNU, said in a telephone interview from an undisclosed location. "Nothing is being spared. They are even destroying fruit plantations like mangosteen."
The list of abuse document by AI, and corroborated by other humanitarian groups, include villagers being beaten and stabbed to death, being shot by the ‘Tatmadaw’ "without any warning" and being tortured and subsequently killed. Karen civilians have also reportedly been subjected to forced labour, disappearances and their rice harvest being burned down.
"Before the soldiers left the village, they planted landmines, one of them in front of the church. An old man, maybe 70 years-old, stepped on a landmine and was killed," a female rice farmer told an AI researcher of an incident in early 2006, when the ‘Tatmadaw’ burned 20 of the 30 houses in her village.
"I lost everything—kitchen, furniture, rice stocks—not a single piece of paper was left," she added. "The same happened to the other 19 families whose houses were burned."
The unrelenting campaign, which has included the Burmese infantry and heavy use of 120 mm and 81mm mortar shells, has shrunk an already limited space for Karen civilians and internally displaced people (IDPs) to escape to. "The more the Burmese military occupies areas in a worsening situation, the less space there is for civilians to escape to," says Duncan McArthur, emergency relief coordinator of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), an alliance of 11 humanitarian groups helping refugees from Burma along the Thai-Burmese border.
"Nearly 66,000 people from 38 townships have been forced to flee their homes due to the armed conflict and human rights abuses," he told IPS. "They had to because the violations are being committed in a climate of impunity."
Some of the victims have poured into north-west Thailand, where there are already nine camps that house 120,000 refugees who fled intense phases of the conflict going back over a decade. "There are about 20,000 unregistered new arrivals and the natural growth in the camps," added McArthur. "There is no avenue for redress if they were to stay back."
That is reflected in Burma’s over half a million IDPs, nearly 451,000 of which live in the rural ethnic areas, according to TBBC. It places Burma in the same league as countries such as Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, which have internally displaced running into the hundreds of thousands.
But what sets Burma apart is the lack of any international agencies to help the victims and serve as neutral observers in the conflict zone.
Even the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which was helping to provide artificial limbs for landmine victims, was hampered by new restrictions to its operations in 2006. In mid-2007, the Geneva-based humanitarian agency broke its famed silence in an unprecedented attack on the junta to explain why it had to end its operations in Burma, including the Karen areas.
The ICRC’s denunciation of major and repeated violations in the conflict zones in eastern Burma confirmed what many analysts had said of a region that is cut away from international scrutiny and media exposure. "The repeated abuses committed against men, women and children living along the Thai-Myanmar border violate many provisions of international humanitarian law," the organization said.
The Karens, who account for nearly seven million of Burma’s 57 million people, have their own distinctive culture and language and have Buddhists, Christians and animists among them. The Burmans, who are the majority, are predominantly Buddhist by faith, speak Burmese, and have a culture and history shaped by kings before being subjugated by British colonization.
The Karen fight for independence began in 1949, a year after Burma got independence. And the KNU has refused to sign peace deals with the Burmese regime unlike some of the other separatist rebels from ethnic groups. The latter settled for ceasefire deals over the past two decades, only to learn, subsequently, that the junta’s promises of more political autonomy were hollow.
"The Burmese military’s latest strategy is to keep attacking the KNU and Karen civilians in order to drive them to the Thai-Burma border," says Tharekabaw, of the KNU. "Their goal is to control all the land and all the people, which has never been the case before."
"If they cannot control, they have to kill the people or to wipe them out," he added. "The regime is a fascist regime. Their ideology is extremism, racism and militarism."
Court sentenced blogger for over 20 years, poet for two years - Nay Phone Latt
by Than Htike Oo
Mizzima News
Monday, 10 November 2008 23:37
Chiang Mai – A court in Rangoon's notorious Insein prison on Monday has sentenced a popular Blogger Nay Phone Latt to over 20 years in prison.
Nay Phone Latt, who was arrested on 29 January, on Monday was sentenced by the Insein prison court on three counts including charges under section 505 (b) of the Penal Code - crime against public tranquillity.
The Blogger's mother Aye Aye Than, told Mizzima that her son was sentenced to two years under section 505(b) of the Penal Code, three and half years under sections 32(b)/36 of the Video Law and 15 years under section 33(a)/38 of the Electronic Law.
"We were waiting outside during the court proceedings and after the court session we asked the judge about the quantum of punishment. The judge and prosecutor informed us regarding the judgement," she said.
The 28-years-old, Nay Phone Latt, a famous blogger, is also a youth member of Burma's main opposition party - National League for Democracy. He runs internet cafés in several townships in Rangoon including "The Explorer" in Pabedan Township, and "Heaven" in Thingangyun Township.
His mother Aye Aye Than said that she had no idea why they had sentenced her son to such a long term in prison.
(JEG's: someone ought to tell her...)
"He is the first ever blogger to be arrested in Burma. I have no idea why they punished my son with such a harsh judgement. Blogging is perhaps a very serious crime in the opinion of the authorities," his mother said.
Meanwhile, Nay Phone Latt's defense counsel, Aung Thein, was also sentenced to four months prison-term in absentia on November 7, for a charge of contempt of the court.
Similarly, poet Saw Wei was also sentenced to two years in prison on Monday with charges of 'inducing crime against public tranquillity'.
He was arrested in February, after his poem entitled 'February 14' was published in the Weekly 'Ah Chit' (love) Journal. In his Burmese poem, putting together of the first words of all the lines spells out 'Power Crazy Snr. Gen.Than Shwe', which provokes the authorities and he was immediately arrested.
"I am worried about his health. I want to arrange proper medical treatment outside the prison for him, where X-ray facility would be available in order to diagnose his back and waist pain. Currently, he cannot get these treatments inside the prison. He has to cover his body with a towel all the time. This morning too at the court, he could not sit for a long time and had to stand up frequently to ease his pain when speaking," Saw Wai's wife told Mizzima.
Soe Maung, the defense counsel of Saw Wai said, despite of the court's verdict, he will continue filing appeals for revision, as he thinks the trial were not free and fair enough.
"We will file an appeal against this judgment at all levels of the courts including an appeal for a revision case. We intend to do as much as the law and judicial proceedings permit us to, within the legal framework, until we reach the last stage. I am preparing for an appeal on my client's instruction," Soe Maung said.
Meanwhile, media watchdogs the Reporters Without Frontiers (RSF) and Burma Media Association (BMA) has slam the junta for its unfair trials on the two writers – Nay Phone Latt and Saw Wai – and the verdict to sentenced them.
The two organisations said, they are appalled by the combined sentence of 20 years and six months in prison that a special court in Insein prison passed on Nay Phone Latt and two years to poet Saw Wai.
"This shocking sentence is meant to terrify those who go online in an attempt to elude the dictatorship's ubiquitous control of news and information, and we call for his immediate release. Saw Wai, for his part, is being made to pay for his impertinence and courage as a committed poet," the two organisations said in a press statement.
The two media watchdogs also call on all bloggers and poets around the world to show their solidarity towards Nay Phone Latt and Saw Wai.
"There is an urgent need now for bloggers all over the world to demonstrate their solidarity with Nay Phone Latt by posing his photo on their blogs and by writing to Burmese embassies worldwide to request his release. Similarly, we call on poets to defend their fellow-poet, Saw Wai, who has been jailed just because of one poem," said the two organisations.
---And---
Young Burmese Blogger Sentenced to more than 20 Years in Jail
By SAW YAN NAING
The Irrawaddy News
A young Burmese blogger who was a major source of information for the outside world on the brutal regime crackdown on the September 2007 uprising was sentenced to 20 years and six months imprisonment on Monday.Nay Phone Latt, 28, was sentenced by a court in Rangoon’s Insein Prison, according to his mother, Aye Than. He was convicted of contravening Public Offense Act 505 B by posting a cartoon depicting junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe on his blog site.
Nay Phone Latt’s colleague Thin July Kyaw was sentenced to two years imprisonment, Aye Than reported.
Another dissident who ridiculed the regime, Saw Wai, was sentenced to two years imprisonment for publishing a poem mocking Than Shwe in the weekly Love Journal, according to Rangoon sources. The first words of each line of the Burmese language poem spelled out the message “Senior General Than Shwe is foolish with power.”
Nay Phone Latt’s blogs during the September 2007 uprising provided invaluable information about events within the locked-down country.
Two Rangoon journalists, Htun Htun Thein and Khin Maung Aye, of the privately-owned weekly News Watch, were arrested on November 5 and are being detained in Insein Prison. The media rights organizations Reporters without Borders and Burma Media Association have demanded their immediate release.
The current regime crackdown is also aimed at silencing legal attempts to ensure fair trials for dissidents now appearing before judges in closed court sessions.
Two weeks ago, three defense lawyers, Nyi Nyi Htwe, Aung Thein and Khin Maung Shein were imprisoned for between four and six months for contempt of court after complaining of unfair treatment.
Four other defense lawyers, Kyaw Hoe, Maung Maung Latt, Myint Thaung and Khin Htay Kyew have been barred from representing their clients since November 5, according to Kyaw Hoe. The lawyers are representing several dissidents, including members of the 88 Generation Students group.
“I asked a prison authority why I was not allowed to appear in court,” said Kyaw Hoe. “He said there was no reason and that the order had come from higher officials.”
Members of the 88 Generation Students group were now appearing daily in court without their defense lawyers, Kyaw Hoe said.
Two lawyers, Myint Thaung and Khin Htay Kyi, who represent the prominent labor activist Su Su Nway, withdrew from court proceedings at the weekend, citing unfair treatment, according to the accused’s sister, Htay Htay Kyi.
Htay Htay Kyi said Su Su Nway would be sentenced on Tuesday. The winner of the 2006 John Humphrey Freedom Award was originally charged with “threatening the stability of the government,” under articles 124, 130 and 505 of the penal code, but new charges have now been added.
In a statement in Washington, the US State Department criticized the imprisonment of the four defense lawyers and urged the Burmese regime to drop all charges and release them.
Deputy Spokesman Robert Wood called on the junta to stop harassing and arresting citizens for peacefully practicing their internationally recognized human rights, to release all political prisoners, and to start a genuine dialogue with democratic forces and ethnic minority groups for democratic reform in Burma.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Thursday, 30 October 2008
Than Shwe’s Daughter Goes Shopping for Gold
By MIN LWIN
The Irrawaddy News
A BBC radio report that a daughter of Burmese junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe went shopping for gold worth more than US $80,000 is a hot topic of discussion these days at teashop tables in Mandalay.
The London-based BBC’s Burmese service reported that an unnamed daughter of Than Shwe visited the Aung Tharmarde gold shop on Mandalay’s 22nd Street and bought gold worth 100 million kyat ($80,645).
“People were shocked to hear about the extravagance,” said a Mandalay gold dealer. “I’d like to ask her where the money came from when most Burmese people are poor and some are starving.”
The report reignited anger over the extravagance of the marriage in July 2006 of one of Than Shwe’s daughters, Thandar, who draped herself in the precious metal when she married Maj Zaw Phyo Win. The bridal pair were showered with expensive gifts estimated to have cost the equivalent of $50 million.
One Rangoon gold dealer suggested that Than Shwe’s family wanted to invest in the precious metal at a time when the price of bullion had dropped.
The Irrawaddy News
A BBC radio report that a daughter of Burmese junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe went shopping for gold worth more than US $80,000 is a hot topic of discussion these days at teashop tables in Mandalay.
The London-based BBC’s Burmese service reported that an unnamed daughter of Than Shwe visited the Aung Tharmarde gold shop on Mandalay’s 22nd Street and bought gold worth 100 million kyat ($80,645).
“People were shocked to hear about the extravagance,” said a Mandalay gold dealer. “I’d like to ask her where the money came from when most Burmese people are poor and some are starving.”
The report reignited anger over the extravagance of the marriage in July 2006 of one of Than Shwe’s daughters, Thandar, who draped herself in the precious metal when she married Maj Zaw Phyo Win. The bridal pair were showered with expensive gifts estimated to have cost the equivalent of $50 million.
One Rangoon gold dealer suggested that Than Shwe’s family wanted to invest in the precious metal at a time when the price of bullion had dropped.
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Burmese opposition demonstrate against visiting Burmese General
Dhaka, Bangladesh (Kaladan): Around 30 people belonging to the Burmese opposition in exile staged a demonstration in front of Eidga gate near the National Press Club and high court against the visiting Vice-Senior General Maung Aye, the Vice-Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council of Myanmar today morning.
The demonstration lasted only 30 minutes as the Bangladesh police intervened. There was palpable tension between the police and demonstrators for a while as the police seized posters from the protesters, said Naing Naing, who participated in the demonstration.
"We distributed leaflets written in English and Bengali to the local people on the streets near the press club, high court and Eidga gate before we started the demonstration, he added.
Vice-senior general Maung Aye arrived in Bangladesh today on a three-day official visit, at the invitation of the chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed.
The Burmese general led a 55 member delegation including the Burma Foreign Minister, Nyan Win and some leading businessmen to discuss a host of outstanding issues between the two nations.
Maung Aye is scheduled to meet the chief of Bangladesh's interim administration, Fakhruddin Ahmed, to discuss bilateral issues today afternoon, said the official.
"We have a number of projects lined up with Burma. I'm positive the visit will boost our cooperation in all these areas," Foreign Adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury told the media yesterday.
"Our discussions would focus on construction of a road, which would hopefully link Bangladesh to China, leasing land for agriculture and completion of the all-important maritime boundary talks. Repatriation of Rohingya refugees may come up in the discussion," said the foreign adviser.
"At the meeting, Burmese authorities would be asked to expedite the repatriation process which remains stalled since 2005," said a home ministry official.
The visit is taking place after Bangladesh and Burma signed an agreement in Dhaka in July 2007 to construct a 25-kilometre direct road link between the two neighbouring countries at a cost of $ 20million. The road will link Gundhum in Cox's Bazaar to Bawlibazaar (Kyein Chang) in Burma. It will also connect China's Kunming under a tri-nation road connectivity which will give further access to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore and to the Asian Highway.
According to his itinerary, Maung Aye, the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the defense services and Commander-in-Chief of the Burmese Army will call on the President, Iajuddin Ahmed, at Bangabhaban on October 8.
The next day, the Myanmar general will begin his day by paying tribute to the war of independence martyrs at the National Martyrs' Memorial at Savar. He will then hold a meeting with the Chief of Army Staff, General Moeen U Ahmed, in the army headquarters and visit the Military Institute of Science and Technology in Mirpur.
On October 9, Maung Aye, the second highest-ranking member of the Burmese military regime, will go to Rangamati and stay there until his departure for Rangoon from Chittagong in the afternoon. General Moeen U Ahmed will see the Burmese leader off at Chittagong Shah Amanat International Airport.
Maung Aye was scheduled to visit Bangladesh in 2007, but it was cancelled because of unrest in Burma after the monks staged nationwide demonstrations against the regime.
After 2002, this will be the third official visit between the two countries. Burma SPDC chairman senior general Than Shwe visited Dhaka in December 2002 and in 2003, then Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia went to Rangoon.
See photos at: Kaladan Press
The demonstration lasted only 30 minutes as the Bangladesh police intervened. There was palpable tension between the police and demonstrators for a while as the police seized posters from the protesters, said Naing Naing, who participated in the demonstration.
"We distributed leaflets written in English and Bengali to the local people on the streets near the press club, high court and Eidga gate before we started the demonstration, he added.
Vice-senior general Maung Aye arrived in Bangladesh today on a three-day official visit, at the invitation of the chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed.
The Burmese general led a 55 member delegation including the Burma Foreign Minister, Nyan Win and some leading businessmen to discuss a host of outstanding issues between the two nations.
Maung Aye is scheduled to meet the chief of Bangladesh's interim administration, Fakhruddin Ahmed, to discuss bilateral issues today afternoon, said the official.
"We have a number of projects lined up with Burma. I'm positive the visit will boost our cooperation in all these areas," Foreign Adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury told the media yesterday.
"Our discussions would focus on construction of a road, which would hopefully link Bangladesh to China, leasing land for agriculture and completion of the all-important maritime boundary talks. Repatriation of Rohingya refugees may come up in the discussion," said the foreign adviser.
"At the meeting, Burmese authorities would be asked to expedite the repatriation process which remains stalled since 2005," said a home ministry official.
The visit is taking place after Bangladesh and Burma signed an agreement in Dhaka in July 2007 to construct a 25-kilometre direct road link between the two neighbouring countries at a cost of $ 20million. The road will link Gundhum in Cox's Bazaar to Bawlibazaar (Kyein Chang) in Burma. It will also connect China's Kunming under a tri-nation road connectivity which will give further access to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore and to the Asian Highway.
According to his itinerary, Maung Aye, the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the defense services and Commander-in-Chief of the Burmese Army will call on the President, Iajuddin Ahmed, at Bangabhaban on October 8.
The next day, the Myanmar general will begin his day by paying tribute to the war of independence martyrs at the National Martyrs' Memorial at Savar. He will then hold a meeting with the Chief of Army Staff, General Moeen U Ahmed, in the army headquarters and visit the Military Institute of Science and Technology in Mirpur.
On October 9, Maung Aye, the second highest-ranking member of the Burmese military regime, will go to Rangamati and stay there until his departure for Rangoon from Chittagong in the afternoon. General Moeen U Ahmed will see the Burmese leader off at Chittagong Shah Amanat International Airport.
Maung Aye was scheduled to visit Bangladesh in 2007, but it was cancelled because of unrest in Burma after the monks staged nationwide demonstrations against the regime.
After 2002, this will be the third official visit between the two countries. Burma SPDC chairman senior general Than Shwe visited Dhaka in December 2002 and in 2003, then Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia went to Rangoon.
See photos at: Kaladan Press
Friday, 3 October 2008
Burma's economy: Does sanctions hinder development?
by Mungpi
02 October 2008
New Delhi (Mizzima)- Poverty and the slow-pace of economic development in Burma, which was once known as the 'Rice Bowl' of Southeast Asia, is not the result of the current economic sanctions imposed by western nations but because of the ruling junta's mismanagement and inept economic decision making, said an economic expert.
Sean Turnell, Associate Professor and member of the Burma Economic Watch, at the Economics Department of Macquarie University in Sydney said he disagrees with the Burmese Foreign Minister's statement that sanctions have hindered economic development in Burma.
Nyan Win, in his address to the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday, called for an end to what he described as 'immoral sanctions' against his country, saying sanctions hamper economic development and harm the people.
Nyan Win, in his speech, said sanctions are "unwarranted," and "They are not only unfair but immoral. They are counter-productive and deprive countries of their right to development."
But Sean, a long time observer of Burmese economy, said Burma's economy is hardest hit by the junta's mismanagement and its self-imposed isolation.
"Burma's poverty is not a result of sanctions, but 45 years of extraordinarily inept economic decision making by Burma's military regimes," Sean said in an email to Mizzima.
He added that the regime has self-imposed sanctions by creating an economic environment that makes international investment, in true productive industry, utterly impossible.
The United States and the European Union have recently stepped up sanctions against Burma's military government for its suppression of pro-democracy groups and its refusal to improve the situation of human rights including the release of political prisoners.
However, the Burmese Foreign Minister, in his speech said, for Burma to be able to implement economic development, it needs "unfettered access" to markets, modern technology and investment, which according to him has been deprived to Burma due to the imposition of sanctions.
"The sooner the unjust sanctions are revoked and the barriers removed, the sooner will the country be in a position to become the rice bowl of the region and a reliable source of energy," he added.
Economic development without sanctions?
Aung Naing Oo, a Burmese analyst based in Thailand, said while lifting economic sanctions cannot improve Burma's economy over-night, it will, however, allow space for development in the long-run.
According to him, Burma, which has been isolated for nearly half a century and suffered nearly two decades of economic sanctions, a 'command economy' is prevailing, whereby the ruling generals dictate the economy and provide opportunities only to their cronies.
He said, therefore, lifting sanctions and allowing free flow of direct foreign investments, in the long run, would help open up new space for development as well as create new political space.
He added that economic sanctions, which the opposition group led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi have called for and was imposed by the US and EU, does not encourage political reconciliation in Burma.
The Burmese junta is annoyed with the west because of the sanctions but are even more so on the opposition led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi for urging the west to impose sanctions, he said.
"[T]here has been a sore relationship between the junta and the opposition. So, international sanctions are an obstacle to reconciliation," Aung Naing Oo said.
However, he said, unless the junta drops its 'Command Economy', cronyism, and corruption, lifting sanctions will not help in developing the economy.
But Nyo Ohn Myint, the foreign affairs in-charge of the National League for Democracy – Liberated Area (NLD-LA), said sanctions have its causes and effects, but the deteriorating economic situation in Burma is mainly caused by the junta's corruption, nepotism and cronyism.
Nyo Ohn Myint, who closely monitors Burmese economy, said western sanctions does not put on hold the possibility of foreign investment, which mostly are from neighbouring countries including members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
But he said, Burma failed to attract foreign investors due to the lack of political stability, and transparency, which investors see as an unhealthy atmosphere for business deals.
"Despite the sanctions, we see that Burma's bilateral trade with neighbouring countries like India and China are increasing," Nyo Ohn Myint said.
Even with sanctions imposed by US and EU, there are several companies still operating in Burma, Nyo Ohn Myint said, but he added that the junta's failure to demonstrate stability and mismanagement of the economy has slowed down Burma's economic development.
According to Sean, sanctions by any means are "not a full solution" they are, however, useful in an array of strategies.
"Often overlooked is that sanctions can be an avenue, through their progressive lifting, for sponsoring genuine reforms," he added.
Despite the sanctions Burma has several opportunities to implement economic development, Sean said, adding that Burma can still "bring about wholesale reform - especially in the areas of property rights and rational decision-making."
But under the current circumstance corporates and companies are "hardly going to invest in a place where expropriation is a real possibility, where poverty is such that a viable market is barely achievable, and where corruption imposes such high a 'tax' on genuine activity," Sean said.
02 October 2008
New Delhi (Mizzima)- Poverty and the slow-pace of economic development in Burma, which was once known as the 'Rice Bowl' of Southeast Asia, is not the result of the current economic sanctions imposed by western nations but because of the ruling junta's mismanagement and inept economic decision making, said an economic expert.
Sean Turnell, Associate Professor and member of the Burma Economic Watch, at the Economics Department of Macquarie University in Sydney said he disagrees with the Burmese Foreign Minister's statement that sanctions have hindered economic development in Burma.
Nyan Win, in his address to the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday, called for an end to what he described as 'immoral sanctions' against his country, saying sanctions hamper economic development and harm the people.
Nyan Win, in his speech, said sanctions are "unwarranted," and "They are not only unfair but immoral. They are counter-productive and deprive countries of their right to development."
But Sean, a long time observer of Burmese economy, said Burma's economy is hardest hit by the junta's mismanagement and its self-imposed isolation.
"Burma's poverty is not a result of sanctions, but 45 years of extraordinarily inept economic decision making by Burma's military regimes," Sean said in an email to Mizzima.
He added that the regime has self-imposed sanctions by creating an economic environment that makes international investment, in true productive industry, utterly impossible.
The United States and the European Union have recently stepped up sanctions against Burma's military government for its suppression of pro-democracy groups and its refusal to improve the situation of human rights including the release of political prisoners.
However, the Burmese Foreign Minister, in his speech said, for Burma to be able to implement economic development, it needs "unfettered access" to markets, modern technology and investment, which according to him has been deprived to Burma due to the imposition of sanctions.
"The sooner the unjust sanctions are revoked and the barriers removed, the sooner will the country be in a position to become the rice bowl of the region and a reliable source of energy," he added.
Economic development without sanctions?
Aung Naing Oo, a Burmese analyst based in Thailand, said while lifting economic sanctions cannot improve Burma's economy over-night, it will, however, allow space for development in the long-run.
According to him, Burma, which has been isolated for nearly half a century and suffered nearly two decades of economic sanctions, a 'command economy' is prevailing, whereby the ruling generals dictate the economy and provide opportunities only to their cronies.
He said, therefore, lifting sanctions and allowing free flow of direct foreign investments, in the long run, would help open up new space for development as well as create new political space.
He added that economic sanctions, which the opposition group led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi have called for and was imposed by the US and EU, does not encourage political reconciliation in Burma.
The Burmese junta is annoyed with the west because of the sanctions but are even more so on the opposition led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi for urging the west to impose sanctions, he said.
"[T]here has been a sore relationship between the junta and the opposition. So, international sanctions are an obstacle to reconciliation," Aung Naing Oo said.
However, he said, unless the junta drops its 'Command Economy', cronyism, and corruption, lifting sanctions will not help in developing the economy.
But Nyo Ohn Myint, the foreign affairs in-charge of the National League for Democracy – Liberated Area (NLD-LA), said sanctions have its causes and effects, but the deteriorating economic situation in Burma is mainly caused by the junta's corruption, nepotism and cronyism.
Nyo Ohn Myint, who closely monitors Burmese economy, said western sanctions does not put on hold the possibility of foreign investment, which mostly are from neighbouring countries including members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
But he said, Burma failed to attract foreign investors due to the lack of political stability, and transparency, which investors see as an unhealthy atmosphere for business deals.
"Despite the sanctions, we see that Burma's bilateral trade with neighbouring countries like India and China are increasing," Nyo Ohn Myint said.
Even with sanctions imposed by US and EU, there are several companies still operating in Burma, Nyo Ohn Myint said, but he added that the junta's failure to demonstrate stability and mismanagement of the economy has slowed down Burma's economic development.
According to Sean, sanctions by any means are "not a full solution" they are, however, useful in an array of strategies.
"Often overlooked is that sanctions can be an avenue, through their progressive lifting, for sponsoring genuine reforms," he added.
Despite the sanctions Burma has several opportunities to implement economic development, Sean said, adding that Burma can still "bring about wholesale reform - especially in the areas of property rights and rational decision-making."
But under the current circumstance corporates and companies are "hardly going to invest in a place where expropriation is a real possibility, where poverty is such that a viable market is barely achievable, and where corruption imposes such high a 'tax' on genuine activity," Sean said.
The Spring before Khin Nyunt’s Fall
OCTOBER, 2008 - VOLUME 16 NO.10
By AUNG ZAW
The Irrawaddy News
For a while, the Burmese junta looked like it might be ready to meet the West halfway. The ouster of the regime’s spy chief ended all that
IN early 2000, Maj Aung Lynn Htut began his new assignment as the deputy chief of the Burmese embassy in Washington, DC, with a mission to improve ties with the incoming administration of President George W Bush.
It was not his first time in the US capital. In 1987, the graduate of the elite Defense Services Academy spent three months in Washington receiving training from the CIA.
Then Prime Minister Gen Khin Nyunt waves to the media while heading to a summit in Pagan in 2003. (Photo: AFP)
When he returned to the US in 2000, Aung Lynn Htut served as an officer in the counterintelligence department of the Office of the Chief of Military Intelligence (OCMI). His boss was Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt, secretary 1 of the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and head of the junta’s powerful intelligence apparatus.
Khin Nyunt was also the architect of a series of ceasefire agreements with domestic insurgent groups that had strengthened the regime’s hold on power over the course of the preceding decade.
By the time Bush took office, Khin Nyunt appeared to believe that a détente with the junta’s staunchest international critic was also possible, according to Aung Lynn Htut.
“We waited until Bush came to power and then we started lobbying in DC,” said the former major.
In an extensive interview with The Irrawaddy, Aung Lynn Htut provided an inside look at this pivotal time in recent Burmese history, when the ruling regime seemed to be ready to turn a new page in its relations with the West.
As he revealed, however, it was also a period of intensifying rivalries within the junta.
Before Khin Nyunt could begin his experiment in reshaping ties with the US and other Western countries, he had to get a green light from the SPDC’s top leader, Snr-Gen Than Shwe.
As the strongman who called all the shots, Than Shwe was an inveterate hardliner who did not always take kindly to Khin Nyunt’s conciliatory overtures. But the intelligence chief’s success in sidelining former insurgents had allowed the regime to focus on its war of attrition against democratic forces; so, in a nod to Khin Nyunt’s proven ability to neutralize opponents through guile, Than Shwe gave him the go-ahead to work his magic on Washington.
Aung Lynn Htut’s assignment to Washington was one of the first tentative steps towards ending the regime’s isolation from governments it had long regarded as hostile.
Another part of the charm offensive was the launch of a colorful English-language newspaper, The Myanmar Times, which would present a more sophisticated image of the regime than the stodgy, Stalinistic fare offered by the state-run press.
As a further step, the regime hired DCI Group, a Washington-based lobbying firm, in 2002. The firm was paid US $348,000 to represent the junta, which had been strongly condemned by the US State Department for its human rights record. US Justice Department lobbying records show that DCI worked to “begin a dialogue of political reconciliation” with the regime.
The firm led a PR campaign to burnish the junta’s image, drafting releases praising Burma’s efforts to curb the drug trade and denouncing claims that the regime had used rape as a weapon in its military campaigns against ethnic insurgents.
By this time, the regime was becoming genuinely concerned that Bush’s policy on Burma was getting tougher. “We thought we had to counter it,” said Aung Lynn Htut.
He and his senior officers gathered information about who they could approach to ask for help. Khin Nyunt’s office started to reach out to Burma scholars who were sympathetic to the regime and who disagreed with the US government’s sanctions policy. Disgruntled prominent dissidents were also approached in a bid to persuade them to switch sides.
The regime also invited senior UN officials to come to Burma.
Joseph Verner Reed, the UN undersecretary and special adviser to former UN chief Kofi Annan and now to Ban Ki-moon, arrived in Rangoon to attend an event marking United Nations Day in 2002.
The high-ranking UN official was known to be close to some senior officers of the Burmese regime. Interestingly, he was listed on the board of the U Thant Institute in New York. U Thant, a Burmese, was the UN secretary-general from 1961 to 1971.
In a speech to commemorate the founding of the UN, Khin Nyunt said that Burma had always considered the world body to be of fundamental importance for the preservation of international peace and security and for the promotion of the economic and social development of mankind.
Former intelligence officer Maj Aung Lynn Htut (Photo)
“I wish to express our sincere appreciation and thanks to the United Nations and to the Honorable Under Secretary General Mr Joseph Verner Reed in particular for making this possible,” Khin Nyunt said in his speech, praising his special guest for attending.
But why did Khin Nyunt approach Reed in the first place?
“We gathered information that he didn’t like Aung San Suu Kyi,” Aung Lynn Htut, who acted as a liaison officer between Reed’s office and Khin Nyunt’s, said with a laugh.
In Washington, Burmese intelligence officers knew that it wouldn’t be so easy to find a sympathetic ear. They were up against US-based campaign groups and exiled Burmese activists who had considerable influence in forming US policy on Burma. They realized that it would not be easy to convince State Department officials, let alone Congress and the White House, that the regime was not as reprehensible as it had been portrayed.
Reports of forced labor, child soldiers and systematic rape committed by Burmese troops were thorny issues, and Khin Nyunt and his senior officers who handled foreign affairs realized that it would be an uphill battle.
Nevertheless, Khin Nyunt’s intelligence unit managed to reach a few US State Department officials with its message, including Matthew Daley, then head of the Southeast Asia Department. Daley once said that the US sanctions policy on Burma had failed and was not moving the country in the right direction.
Then, in May 2002, the regime took a bold step by releasing Suu Kyi. The Nobel Peace Prize winner was allowed to go on political organizing trips to the countryside. In return, she agreed to inspect the regime’s development projects.
That same month, despite a visa ban and active US sanctions, senior intelligence officer Maj-Gen Kyaw Thein was given a visa to enter the US to brief some senior government officials on the Burmese regime’s efforts to eradicate illicit opium production.
Meanwhile, as Suu Kyi began to travel around the countryside meeting her supporters, intelligence officers were engaging in behind-the-scenes negotiations with the opposition leader. Maj-Gen Kyaw Win, deputy head of OCMI, his deputy, Brig-Gen Than Htun, and Minister of Home Affairs Col Tin Hlaing were involved in the talks with Suu Kyi.
News of this “secret dialogue” was leaked to then UN Special Envoy Razali Ismail by Foreign Minister Win Aung, a loyal follower of Khin Nyunt. Razali, who played no part in facilitating this dialogue, released this information to the world, which welcomed the first signs of political progress to come out of the country in many years.
The “kinder and gentler” image of the junta was further enhanced by The Myanmar Times, which faithfully propagated the regime’s agenda. The newspaper gave extensive coverage to the regime’s fight against HIV/AIDS and its increased cooperation with the UN, and even highlighted a visit to Burma by the family of U Thant as evidence of a changing political climate.
As all of these developments were unfolding, Khin Nyunt gave briefings to Than Shwe to attempt to persuade the junta’s supreme commander to open up more space for international agencies such as the International Labor Organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
In his efforts to convince Than Shwe of the need for greater openness, Khin Nyunt often turned to the senior leader’s deputy, Kyaw Win, for help.
Kyaw Win was a specialist in psychological warfare who had served under Than Shwe since he was a junior officer in the army. It was known that he could freely enter Than Shwe’s office at any time. He often came late at night, offering tea or a massage, to talk about the need to allow more international agencies to operate in Burma and to tackle sensitive issues such as forced labor and the recruitment of child soldiers.
But it wasn’t easy. Than Shwe was stubborn and completely indifferent to the opinions of his foreign critics, said Aung Lynn Htut, who had met the top general on a number of occasions.
“He was a bulldog,” recalled the former major. “He didn’t really care about international pressure.”
On the child soldier issue, for instance, Than Shwe completely dismissed criticism, telling his subordinates, “Don’t worry. In two or three years, these kids will be adults.”
“He didn’t understand that this was a serious issue which we had to deal with at the UN,” said Aung Lynn Htut.
Burmese junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe reviews a guard of honor on Armed Forces Day in Naypyidaw in March 2008. (Photo: AFP)
People who have worked with Than Shwe said that he is slow to make up his mind and rarely gives clear yes or no answers to questions, forcing officers to carefully decode his vague replies.
But if Than Shwe often seemed indecisive, he also had very definite ideas about what really mattered as far as world opinion was concerned. To his mind, the regime had no reason to worry about international pressure as long as Burma could maintain good relations with China, India and Russia.
What about the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)? Aung Lynn Htut said that the senior general didn’t even take the regional grouping into consideration.
Even Thailand—the largest source of foreign investment in the Burmese economy—was powerless to influence the regime. Indeed, Than Shwe always insisted that Thailand’s dependence on Burmese gas and border trade gave the junta significant sway over Thai politicians.
But Than Shwe was not as complacent about other potential challenges to his hold on power. While the intelligence camp was making real headway with its overseas PR offensive, hardliners close to Than Shwe were growing increasingly wary of the influence of two people at home—Suu Kyi and Khin Nyunt.
Suu Kyi was considered the greater immediate threat. Her travels around the country had attracted huge crowds of supporters. The hardliners decided to strike back with a vicious attack on the pro-democracy leader’s entourage as they traveled near Depayin in May 2003. Suu Kyi was arrested and detained soon after the massacre, which claimed the lives of dozens of her followers.
According to Aung Lynn Htut, the intelligence unit, which had been tailing Suu Kyi’s motorcade around the country, had no forewarning of the attack.
“We knew they were planning something, but we didn’t know the real plan,” he said.
Suddenly, all of the regime’s PR gains were erased. The Bush administration stepped up its pressure on the junta and imposed tough new sanctions.
But Than Shwe wasn’t finished. Next he turned his attention to Khin Nyunt.
The senior leader was not alone in his mistrust of the intelligence chief. Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye, the army chief, also saw a need to contain Khin Nyunt.
Than Shwe didn’t confront Khin Nyunt directly, but made some surprise moves at the Defense Ministry to undermine his influence. Most importantly, he brought in a few new faces: Gen Shwe Mann, Gen Soe Win, Gen Myint Swe and Gen Ye Myint.
Shwe Mann was being groomed to take over the commander in chief position and Soe Win was to take charge of the intelligence department. Khin Nyunt suddenly felt the heat. He was now accused of underestimating the potential threat of “the enemy”—Aung San Suu Kyi.
For the first time since 2001, when Than Shwe placed Khin Nyunt’s mentor, former dictator Ne Win, under house arrest after his daughter and grandson were accused of plotting a coup, Khin Nyunt found himself precariously close to becoming yesterday’s man.
Than Shwe’s next move was to name Khin Nyunt prime minister. According to former military intelligence officers, both Than Shwe and Maung Aye then urged Khin Nyunt to hand over control of the OCMI to either Myint Swe or Ye Myint. Khin Nyunt refused.
News of the SPDC’s internal conflict began to leak to the foreign press through senior military intelligence officers. Foreign Minister Win Aung hinted to his Asean counterparts that there was a bitter power struggle among the top leadership.
According to Aung Lynn Htut, strong business and personal rivalries added to the political tensions. Khin Nyunt’s wife and her circle of friends used to refer to Than Shwe’s wife, Kyaing Kyaing, and her closest friends as the “uneducated wives club,” he said.
Corruption was another key issue. Cases were being built targeting the spy chief. Several of his subordinates were arrested in northern Burma on corruption charges. Khin Nyunt’s name was also implicated when the authorities seized a fishing boat in Mergui with 500 kg of heroin on board.
After returning from a trip to Singapore in September 2003, Khin Nyunt had a heated argument with Than Shwe at the Defense Ministry and offered to resign. But Than Shwe told him he had a new assignment to offer him.
In October, Khin Nyunt called a secret meeting with his top intelligence officers and ordered them to provide documents as evidence of corruption against Than Shwe and top army leaders. Shwe Mann heard about the meeting and immediately informed Than Shwe.
On his way back from a trip to Mandalay, Khin Nyunt was arrested and charged with corruption and insubordination.
The regional commanders and army officers who believed that Khin Nyunt was building a state within a state hailed the purge. In fact, Than Shwe succeeded not only in consolidating his power base but also in gaining even more support within the armed forces.
“The army all hated us [the intelligence unit] because we had information about them, and even I, as a major, could reprimand a regional commander,” said Aung Lynn Htut.
The mission to win hearts and minds was over. Asean, China and Khin Nyunt’s allies in the West and the UN were disappointed to see the “moderate force” arrested and locked up.
Than Shwe did not want to release Suu Kyi, although secret negotiations between her and the regime were resumed just before the government revived its National Convention in December 2004. Suu Kyi, in a spirit of compromise, even sent a letter to Than Shwe to show that she bore no grudges over the Depayin ambush.
During these meetings, Suu Kyi and her party leaders agreed to return to the convention if the regime released her.
Aung Lynn Htut, who was still in Washington at this time, received daily phone calls from Rangoon. He was told that it was almost 95 percent certain that the NLD was going back to the convention. At the last minute, however, the deal fell through. Than Shwe did not keep his promise to free the iconic pro-democracy leader.
Ironically, it was Khin Nyunt who had announced, in August 2003, that the National Convention would be resumed as part of a seven-step “road map” to “disciplined democracy.” Now, however, he and his family were under house arrest, and most of his closest subordinates—with the notable exceptions of Kyaw Win and Kyaw Thein—were serving long prison sentences.
Four years after the removal of Khin Nyunt and his entire secret police department, many in the armed forces still believe that he had a plan to stage a coup against Than Shwe and wanted to become commander in chief of the armed forces.
For Aung Lynn Htut, his former boss’s downfall spelled the end of his career in military intelligence. In March 2005, he sought asylum in the US.
Since then, he has been an outspoken critic of Than Shwe. Through overseas Burmese radio stations, he has called on the junta leader to step down and urged soldiers to remove him from power.
Aung Lynn Htut said he believed that many senior intelligence officers who are now in prison felt the same way.
Referring to the pro-democracy movement, he said, “We wanted to see the revolution succeed.”
By AUNG ZAW
The Irrawaddy News
For a while, the Burmese junta looked like it might be ready to meet the West halfway. The ouster of the regime’s spy chief ended all that
IN early 2000, Maj Aung Lynn Htut began his new assignment as the deputy chief of the Burmese embassy in Washington, DC, with a mission to improve ties with the incoming administration of President George W Bush.
It was not his first time in the US capital. In 1987, the graduate of the elite Defense Services Academy spent three months in Washington receiving training from the CIA.
Then Prime Minister Gen Khin Nyunt waves to the media while heading to a summit in Pagan in 2003. (Photo: AFP)When he returned to the US in 2000, Aung Lynn Htut served as an officer in the counterintelligence department of the Office of the Chief of Military Intelligence (OCMI). His boss was Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt, secretary 1 of the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and head of the junta’s powerful intelligence apparatus.
Khin Nyunt was also the architect of a series of ceasefire agreements with domestic insurgent groups that had strengthened the regime’s hold on power over the course of the preceding decade.
By the time Bush took office, Khin Nyunt appeared to believe that a détente with the junta’s staunchest international critic was also possible, according to Aung Lynn Htut.
“We waited until Bush came to power and then we started lobbying in DC,” said the former major.
In an extensive interview with The Irrawaddy, Aung Lynn Htut provided an inside look at this pivotal time in recent Burmese history, when the ruling regime seemed to be ready to turn a new page in its relations with the West.
As he revealed, however, it was also a period of intensifying rivalries within the junta.
Before Khin Nyunt could begin his experiment in reshaping ties with the US and other Western countries, he had to get a green light from the SPDC’s top leader, Snr-Gen Than Shwe.
As the strongman who called all the shots, Than Shwe was an inveterate hardliner who did not always take kindly to Khin Nyunt’s conciliatory overtures. But the intelligence chief’s success in sidelining former insurgents had allowed the regime to focus on its war of attrition against democratic forces; so, in a nod to Khin Nyunt’s proven ability to neutralize opponents through guile, Than Shwe gave him the go-ahead to work his magic on Washington.
Aung Lynn Htut’s assignment to Washington was one of the first tentative steps towards ending the regime’s isolation from governments it had long regarded as hostile.
Another part of the charm offensive was the launch of a colorful English-language newspaper, The Myanmar Times, which would present a more sophisticated image of the regime than the stodgy, Stalinistic fare offered by the state-run press.
As a further step, the regime hired DCI Group, a Washington-based lobbying firm, in 2002. The firm was paid US $348,000 to represent the junta, which had been strongly condemned by the US State Department for its human rights record. US Justice Department lobbying records show that DCI worked to “begin a dialogue of political reconciliation” with the regime.
The firm led a PR campaign to burnish the junta’s image, drafting releases praising Burma’s efforts to curb the drug trade and denouncing claims that the regime had used rape as a weapon in its military campaigns against ethnic insurgents.
By this time, the regime was becoming genuinely concerned that Bush’s policy on Burma was getting tougher. “We thought we had to counter it,” said Aung Lynn Htut.
He and his senior officers gathered information about who they could approach to ask for help. Khin Nyunt’s office started to reach out to Burma scholars who were sympathetic to the regime and who disagreed with the US government’s sanctions policy. Disgruntled prominent dissidents were also approached in a bid to persuade them to switch sides.
The regime also invited senior UN officials to come to Burma.
Joseph Verner Reed, the UN undersecretary and special adviser to former UN chief Kofi Annan and now to Ban Ki-moon, arrived in Rangoon to attend an event marking United Nations Day in 2002.
The high-ranking UN official was known to be close to some senior officers of the Burmese regime. Interestingly, he was listed on the board of the U Thant Institute in New York. U Thant, a Burmese, was the UN secretary-general from 1961 to 1971.
In a speech to commemorate the founding of the UN, Khin Nyunt said that Burma had always considered the world body to be of fundamental importance for the preservation of international peace and security and for the promotion of the economic and social development of mankind.
Former intelligence officer Maj Aung Lynn Htut (Photo)“I wish to express our sincere appreciation and thanks to the United Nations and to the Honorable Under Secretary General Mr Joseph Verner Reed in particular for making this possible,” Khin Nyunt said in his speech, praising his special guest for attending.
But why did Khin Nyunt approach Reed in the first place?
“We gathered information that he didn’t like Aung San Suu Kyi,” Aung Lynn Htut, who acted as a liaison officer between Reed’s office and Khin Nyunt’s, said with a laugh.
In Washington, Burmese intelligence officers knew that it wouldn’t be so easy to find a sympathetic ear. They were up against US-based campaign groups and exiled Burmese activists who had considerable influence in forming US policy on Burma. They realized that it would not be easy to convince State Department officials, let alone Congress and the White House, that the regime was not as reprehensible as it had been portrayed.
Reports of forced labor, child soldiers and systematic rape committed by Burmese troops were thorny issues, and Khin Nyunt and his senior officers who handled foreign affairs realized that it would be an uphill battle.
Nevertheless, Khin Nyunt’s intelligence unit managed to reach a few US State Department officials with its message, including Matthew Daley, then head of the Southeast Asia Department. Daley once said that the US sanctions policy on Burma had failed and was not moving the country in the right direction.
Then, in May 2002, the regime took a bold step by releasing Suu Kyi. The Nobel Peace Prize winner was allowed to go on political organizing trips to the countryside. In return, she agreed to inspect the regime’s development projects.
That same month, despite a visa ban and active US sanctions, senior intelligence officer Maj-Gen Kyaw Thein was given a visa to enter the US to brief some senior government officials on the Burmese regime’s efforts to eradicate illicit opium production.
Meanwhile, as Suu Kyi began to travel around the countryside meeting her supporters, intelligence officers were engaging in behind-the-scenes negotiations with the opposition leader. Maj-Gen Kyaw Win, deputy head of OCMI, his deputy, Brig-Gen Than Htun, and Minister of Home Affairs Col Tin Hlaing were involved in the talks with Suu Kyi.
News of this “secret dialogue” was leaked to then UN Special Envoy Razali Ismail by Foreign Minister Win Aung, a loyal follower of Khin Nyunt. Razali, who played no part in facilitating this dialogue, released this information to the world, which welcomed the first signs of political progress to come out of the country in many years.
The “kinder and gentler” image of the junta was further enhanced by The Myanmar Times, which faithfully propagated the regime’s agenda. The newspaper gave extensive coverage to the regime’s fight against HIV/AIDS and its increased cooperation with the UN, and even highlighted a visit to Burma by the family of U Thant as evidence of a changing political climate.
As all of these developments were unfolding, Khin Nyunt gave briefings to Than Shwe to attempt to persuade the junta’s supreme commander to open up more space for international agencies such as the International Labor Organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
In his efforts to convince Than Shwe of the need for greater openness, Khin Nyunt often turned to the senior leader’s deputy, Kyaw Win, for help.
Kyaw Win was a specialist in psychological warfare who had served under Than Shwe since he was a junior officer in the army. It was known that he could freely enter Than Shwe’s office at any time. He often came late at night, offering tea or a massage, to talk about the need to allow more international agencies to operate in Burma and to tackle sensitive issues such as forced labor and the recruitment of child soldiers.
But it wasn’t easy. Than Shwe was stubborn and completely indifferent to the opinions of his foreign critics, said Aung Lynn Htut, who had met the top general on a number of occasions.
“He was a bulldog,” recalled the former major. “He didn’t really care about international pressure.”
On the child soldier issue, for instance, Than Shwe completely dismissed criticism, telling his subordinates, “Don’t worry. In two or three years, these kids will be adults.”
“He didn’t understand that this was a serious issue which we had to deal with at the UN,” said Aung Lynn Htut.
Burmese junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe reviews a guard of honor on Armed Forces Day in Naypyidaw in March 2008. (Photo: AFP)People who have worked with Than Shwe said that he is slow to make up his mind and rarely gives clear yes or no answers to questions, forcing officers to carefully decode his vague replies.
But if Than Shwe often seemed indecisive, he also had very definite ideas about what really mattered as far as world opinion was concerned. To his mind, the regime had no reason to worry about international pressure as long as Burma could maintain good relations with China, India and Russia.
What about the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)? Aung Lynn Htut said that the senior general didn’t even take the regional grouping into consideration.
Even Thailand—the largest source of foreign investment in the Burmese economy—was powerless to influence the regime. Indeed, Than Shwe always insisted that Thailand’s dependence on Burmese gas and border trade gave the junta significant sway over Thai politicians.
But Than Shwe was not as complacent about other potential challenges to his hold on power. While the intelligence camp was making real headway with its overseas PR offensive, hardliners close to Than Shwe were growing increasingly wary of the influence of two people at home—Suu Kyi and Khin Nyunt.
Suu Kyi was considered the greater immediate threat. Her travels around the country had attracted huge crowds of supporters. The hardliners decided to strike back with a vicious attack on the pro-democracy leader’s entourage as they traveled near Depayin in May 2003. Suu Kyi was arrested and detained soon after the massacre, which claimed the lives of dozens of her followers.
According to Aung Lynn Htut, the intelligence unit, which had been tailing Suu Kyi’s motorcade around the country, had no forewarning of the attack.
“We knew they were planning something, but we didn’t know the real plan,” he said.
Suddenly, all of the regime’s PR gains were erased. The Bush administration stepped up its pressure on the junta and imposed tough new sanctions.
But Than Shwe wasn’t finished. Next he turned his attention to Khin Nyunt.
The senior leader was not alone in his mistrust of the intelligence chief. Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye, the army chief, also saw a need to contain Khin Nyunt.
Than Shwe didn’t confront Khin Nyunt directly, but made some surprise moves at the Defense Ministry to undermine his influence. Most importantly, he brought in a few new faces: Gen Shwe Mann, Gen Soe Win, Gen Myint Swe and Gen Ye Myint.
Shwe Mann was being groomed to take over the commander in chief position and Soe Win was to take charge of the intelligence department. Khin Nyunt suddenly felt the heat. He was now accused of underestimating the potential threat of “the enemy”—Aung San Suu Kyi.
For the first time since 2001, when Than Shwe placed Khin Nyunt’s mentor, former dictator Ne Win, under house arrest after his daughter and grandson were accused of plotting a coup, Khin Nyunt found himself precariously close to becoming yesterday’s man.
Than Shwe’s next move was to name Khin Nyunt prime minister. According to former military intelligence officers, both Than Shwe and Maung Aye then urged Khin Nyunt to hand over control of the OCMI to either Myint Swe or Ye Myint. Khin Nyunt refused.
News of the SPDC’s internal conflict began to leak to the foreign press through senior military intelligence officers. Foreign Minister Win Aung hinted to his Asean counterparts that there was a bitter power struggle among the top leadership.
According to Aung Lynn Htut, strong business and personal rivalries added to the political tensions. Khin Nyunt’s wife and her circle of friends used to refer to Than Shwe’s wife, Kyaing Kyaing, and her closest friends as the “uneducated wives club,” he said.
Corruption was another key issue. Cases were being built targeting the spy chief. Several of his subordinates were arrested in northern Burma on corruption charges. Khin Nyunt’s name was also implicated when the authorities seized a fishing boat in Mergui with 500 kg of heroin on board.
After returning from a trip to Singapore in September 2003, Khin Nyunt had a heated argument with Than Shwe at the Defense Ministry and offered to resign. But Than Shwe told him he had a new assignment to offer him.
In October, Khin Nyunt called a secret meeting with his top intelligence officers and ordered them to provide documents as evidence of corruption against Than Shwe and top army leaders. Shwe Mann heard about the meeting and immediately informed Than Shwe.
On his way back from a trip to Mandalay, Khin Nyunt was arrested and charged with corruption and insubordination.
The regional commanders and army officers who believed that Khin Nyunt was building a state within a state hailed the purge. In fact, Than Shwe succeeded not only in consolidating his power base but also in gaining even more support within the armed forces.
“The army all hated us [the intelligence unit] because we had information about them, and even I, as a major, could reprimand a regional commander,” said Aung Lynn Htut.
The mission to win hearts and minds was over. Asean, China and Khin Nyunt’s allies in the West and the UN were disappointed to see the “moderate force” arrested and locked up.
Than Shwe did not want to release Suu Kyi, although secret negotiations between her and the regime were resumed just before the government revived its National Convention in December 2004. Suu Kyi, in a spirit of compromise, even sent a letter to Than Shwe to show that she bore no grudges over the Depayin ambush.
During these meetings, Suu Kyi and her party leaders agreed to return to the convention if the regime released her.
Aung Lynn Htut, who was still in Washington at this time, received daily phone calls from Rangoon. He was told that it was almost 95 percent certain that the NLD was going back to the convention. At the last minute, however, the deal fell through. Than Shwe did not keep his promise to free the iconic pro-democracy leader.
Ironically, it was Khin Nyunt who had announced, in August 2003, that the National Convention would be resumed as part of a seven-step “road map” to “disciplined democracy.” Now, however, he and his family were under house arrest, and most of his closest subordinates—with the notable exceptions of Kyaw Win and Kyaw Thein—were serving long prison sentences.
Four years after the removal of Khin Nyunt and his entire secret police department, many in the armed forces still believe that he had a plan to stage a coup against Than Shwe and wanted to become commander in chief of the armed forces.
For Aung Lynn Htut, his former boss’s downfall spelled the end of his career in military intelligence. In March 2005, he sought asylum in the US.
Since then, he has been an outspoken critic of Than Shwe. Through overseas Burmese radio stations, he has called on the junta leader to step down and urged soldiers to remove him from power.
Aung Lynn Htut said he believed that many senior intelligence officers who are now in prison felt the same way.
Referring to the pro-democracy movement, he said, “We wanted to see the revolution succeed.”
For Greener Pastures
OCTOBER, 2008 - VOLUME 16 NO.10
The Irrawaddy News
With few opportunities at home, many young Burmese look overseas for work. But before migrants can earn a dollar abroad they have to face queues, fees, bribes and sometimes danger
RANGOON — EARLY each morning a crowd of young men and women gathers in front of an imposing building on Pansodan Street in central Rangoon.
They look nervous, and they sweat in the heat as they huddle together waiting for the door to open. Security guards scold them for pushing and shout at them to be patient.
This could be a scene outside a charity foundation, with hapless refugees struggling to get their hands on food rations.
In fact, the building is Burma’s passport office. And the teeming crowd is made up of people who have come to Rangoon from across the country to try to get a passport so they can go abroad and work.
“About 1,000 people swarm outside our building every morning from Monday to Friday,” an officer at the Myanmar Passport Issuing Office told The Irrawaddy.
Most of the applicants are between 18 and 38—about two-thirds are male. Currently, the passport office is issuing some 8,000 to 10,000 Burmese passports per month, with an average waiting time of 40 days.
The anxious crowd at the passport office is yet another reminder of the dire socio-economic crisis in Burma.
With unemployment rife, the cost of living rising and few doors of opportunity open, Burmese have been leaving the country in droves over the past few years. A migrant labor organization based in Thailand estimates that as much as 10 percent of Burma’s 55 million population is now working abroad.
Burma was already an economic basket case before August 2007 when a 100 to 500 percent hike in the retail price of fuel pushed inflation even higher. The cost of basic household commodities and staple foods leapt in price and sparked last year’s anti-government uprising with Buddhist monks leading the calls for political and economic change.
But their pleas fell on deaf ears.
Then, on May 2-3, Cyclone Nargis wrought havoc on the rice-producing Irrawaddy delta, killing thousands, uprooting families and causing widespread food shortages. An exodus to work overseas followed.
“Most of the young people in my village have gone to Malaysia,” 32-year-old Hla Soe told The Irrawaddy. He said that he and 10 others from the village of Kone Gyi in Magwe Division had come to Rangoon to apply for passports. They planned to join their fellow villagers working in a factory in Malaysia.
Hla Soe said that their village was rich in groundnuts, sesame, beans and pulses, but without farm hands to work the fields much arable land had gone fallow.
Almost every laborer had left the area—the average daily wage of 1,500 to 2,000 kyat (US $1.20-1.60) being insufficient for survival, even in the fertile plains of central Burma.
“I will sell my house to finance a trip to Malaysia,” Hla Soe said. “I think most of the people who go there earn good money. Some of them can send home as much as 100,000 kyat ($80) a month!”
As the family breadwinner, Hla Soe said he is ready to go abroad as soon as he gets a passport. However, that process is fraught with exorbitant fees and frustrations.
“We’ll each have to pay at least 1.15 million kyat ($920) to an employment agency for arranging jobs and the trip to Malaysia,” said one of Hla Soe’s friends from Kone Gyi.
“My mother sold her farm to pay for my expenses,” he added. “I’ve already spent almost 100,000 kyat ($80) in the past 12 days.”
Kone Gyi is not the only village that has lost much of its workforce. Hundred of thousands of workers, from rural areas as well as urban districts, are now leaving the country—not with dreams of adventure and wealth, but just to earn enough to help their families survive.
The employment agencies in Rangoon welcome them with open arms.
According to several sources, the overseas employment agencies charge applicants 1.2 million kyat ($960) to arrange jobs and flights to Malaysia; 3.2 million kyat ($2,560) to Singapore; 1.2 million kyat ($960) to the United Arab Emirates; and as much as $11,000 to Japan—the fees reflect the amount of money migrants can expect to earn in each country.
In fact, because the export of Burmese labor is so lucrative, more than 100 private employment agencies have sprouted up in Rangoon alone.
However, even the entrepreneurs who run these employment agencies say they, in turn, are subjected to inflated fees and bureaucracy.
An agent in Kyauktada Township in central Rangoon, who spoke to The Irrawaddy on condition of anonymity, said: “If you want to set up an employment agency, you must first submit an application to the National Planning and Economic Development Ministry. If you get a license, you must then apply for another permit, this time from the Ministry of Labor.
“If you are granted a license to operate an agency, you have to pay an initial fee of 5 million kyat ($4,000) to the Labor Ministry. In total, you must spend about 20 to 25 million kyat ($16-$20,000) in office costs and bureaucratic expenses, including bribes to officials, to get started.”
All the licenses must be extended annually and hundreds of thousands of kyat in taxes have to paid to secure extensions, the agent said.
According to the manager of an employment agency in Tamwe Township, the only way to run a profitable business is to manipulate the accounts.
“The agency gets taxed for each worker it sends abroad,” he said. “If we subcontract 100 people, we write down seven in our books.”
Never far behind in the ways of manipulation and fraud, the Labor Ministry issued an order on June 6, 2008, stating that each overseas employment agency must account for no fewer than 300 workers per year. If not, its licenses would be revoked.
The Burmese junta benefits not only from charging these agencies fees and taxes, but has also set up its own overseas employment centers to take advantage of the mass migration.
Sources in Burma’s former capital said that two prominent government-run agencies, Shwe Innwa and Myanma Mahn, have been given monopolies to supply labor to markets in certain countries.
“If a worker wants to go to South Korea to work, he or she must register with the Shwe Innwa agency,” the executive director of a private agency said. “Shwe Innwa has an agreement with the South Korean Labor Ministry guaranteeing 2,000 Burmese workers a year.”
Not only are employment agencies taxed by the regime, but the workers themselves may have to pay tax into the Burmese government’s coffers, even though they are working for foreign employers and may be subject to pay tax in the host country too.
“If someone goes to Malaysia, they have to pay 50,000 kyat ($40) tax per month to the Burmese Labor Ministry,” a businessman close to the department said, adding that the tax was substantially higher for workers going to Japan and Singapore.
Burmese workers who cannot afford these costs often cross into neighboring countries illegally. An estimated 300 Burmese migrant workers are smuggled into Thailand every day.
Burma’s economic woes have been a boon to human traffickers, according to sources at the Thai-Burmese border.
Many travel to Thailand independently, simply walking through border crossings at Three Pagodas Pass, Mae Sai or Ranong. The most popular crossing point is the bridge to the Thai black market haven of Mae Sot, which is separated from the neighboring Burmese town of Myawaddy by the Moei River.
Migrants have easy access to Mae Sot because so many Burmese and Thais routinely cross the bridge to buy and sell goods on either side of the border. It costs 1,000 kyat ($0.80) to enter Thailand.
Nevertheless, many Burmese migrants wade through the river or paddle across on inflated inner tubes to avoid paying the fee.
Burma watchers estimate that many more migrants have gone to Thailand this year because of the destruction wrought by Cyclone Nargis.
“Normally, very few Burmese come to Thailand during the rainy season,” said Nai Lawi Mon, an ethnic Mon living in Sangkhlaburi. “But this year we are seeing a lot of people coming.”
It is estimated that there are more than one million Burmese migrants now living and working in Thailand, around half of whom are registered with the Thai Ministry of Labor.
The perils of illegal migration were highlighted in April when 54 Burmese migrants suffocated to death while being transported in a container truck from Ranong, near the southern Burmese border town of Kawthaung, to the Thai resort island of Phuket.
Although the tragedy prompted officials to step up efforts to stem the flow of illegal migrants into Thailand, Burmese laborers continue to make the trip, desperate to find jobs to support themselves and their families.
Those who travel through Thailand to find work in Malaysia or Singapore do so at great personal risk. There are numerous checkpoints along the way and migrants who get caught are often subjected to harassment, imprisonment and deportation.
While Thai officials appear to be doing little to prevent illegal immigration, the Burmese authorities have been carrying out a crackdown on their side of the border. A few months ago, a human trafficking ring was busted in Kawthaung.
Nevertheless, despite knowing the risks and hardships, more and more young Burmese are looking overseas for work.
A 23-year-old graduate of Dagon University in Rangoon found that his bachelor’s degree offered him few opportunities in his homeland. Eventually, he swallowed his pride and went to Malaysia to work in a factory.
“If I relied on my bachelor’s degree, I could starve,” he said. “At least I can feed myself here, working as a slave.”
Overseas jobs are not limited to men—recently more women have resorted to seeking work in foreign countries. Most head for Thailand and Malaysia and find themselves working in garment factories, assembling cell phones or sewing. In Malaysia, migrants can expect to earn 18 ringgit ($5.30) for a full day’s work.
Thandar Aung works in Singapore. She is one of an estimated 170,000 foreign maids in the country. A graduate of Rangoon University, Thandar said that maids in Singapore have to work seven days a week.
“My first employers didn’t even allow me to make a phone call,” she said. “They treated me like a slave. I worked 14 hours a day for $139 a month.” (JEG's: generous SP pays maids $0.33/hr - that is being fair and morally honest)
Inevitably, Burmese workers will continue to be exploited in foreign countries. However, as long as people are unable to earn a living in their own country, a percentage—mostly younger workers—will be drawn abroad. The subsequent brain drain and lack of labor at home will only add to Burma’s economic woes.
Additional reporting by Lawi Weng, Min Lwin and Yeni.
The Irrawaddy News
With few opportunities at home, many young Burmese look overseas for work. But before migrants can earn a dollar abroad they have to face queues, fees, bribes and sometimes danger
RANGOON — EARLY each morning a crowd of young men and women gathers in front of an imposing building on Pansodan Street in central Rangoon.
They look nervous, and they sweat in the heat as they huddle together waiting for the door to open. Security guards scold them for pushing and shout at them to be patient.
This could be a scene outside a charity foundation, with hapless refugees struggling to get their hands on food rations.
In fact, the building is Burma’s passport office. And the teeming crowd is made up of people who have come to Rangoon from across the country to try to get a passport so they can go abroad and work.
“About 1,000 people swarm outside our building every morning from Monday to Friday,” an officer at the Myanmar Passport Issuing Office told The Irrawaddy.
Most of the applicants are between 18 and 38—about two-thirds are male. Currently, the passport office is issuing some 8,000 to 10,000 Burmese passports per month, with an average waiting time of 40 days.
The anxious crowd at the passport office is yet another reminder of the dire socio-economic crisis in Burma.
With unemployment rife, the cost of living rising and few doors of opportunity open, Burmese have been leaving the country in droves over the past few years. A migrant labor organization based in Thailand estimates that as much as 10 percent of Burma’s 55 million population is now working abroad.
Burma was already an economic basket case before August 2007 when a 100 to 500 percent hike in the retail price of fuel pushed inflation even higher. The cost of basic household commodities and staple foods leapt in price and sparked last year’s anti-government uprising with Buddhist monks leading the calls for political and economic change.
But their pleas fell on deaf ears.
Then, on May 2-3, Cyclone Nargis wrought havoc on the rice-producing Irrawaddy delta, killing thousands, uprooting families and causing widespread food shortages. An exodus to work overseas followed.
“Most of the young people in my village have gone to Malaysia,” 32-year-old Hla Soe told The Irrawaddy. He said that he and 10 others from the village of Kone Gyi in Magwe Division had come to Rangoon to apply for passports. They planned to join their fellow villagers working in a factory in Malaysia.
Hla Soe said that their village was rich in groundnuts, sesame, beans and pulses, but without farm hands to work the fields much arable land had gone fallow.
Almost every laborer had left the area—the average daily wage of 1,500 to 2,000 kyat (US $1.20-1.60) being insufficient for survival, even in the fertile plains of central Burma.
“I will sell my house to finance a trip to Malaysia,” Hla Soe said. “I think most of the people who go there earn good money. Some of them can send home as much as 100,000 kyat ($80) a month!”
As the family breadwinner, Hla Soe said he is ready to go abroad as soon as he gets a passport. However, that process is fraught with exorbitant fees and frustrations.
“We’ll each have to pay at least 1.15 million kyat ($920) to an employment agency for arranging jobs and the trip to Malaysia,” said one of Hla Soe’s friends from Kone Gyi.
“My mother sold her farm to pay for my expenses,” he added. “I’ve already spent almost 100,000 kyat ($80) in the past 12 days.”
Kone Gyi is not the only village that has lost much of its workforce. Hundred of thousands of workers, from rural areas as well as urban districts, are now leaving the country—not with dreams of adventure and wealth, but just to earn enough to help their families survive.
The employment agencies in Rangoon welcome them with open arms.
According to several sources, the overseas employment agencies charge applicants 1.2 million kyat ($960) to arrange jobs and flights to Malaysia; 3.2 million kyat ($2,560) to Singapore; 1.2 million kyat ($960) to the United Arab Emirates; and as much as $11,000 to Japan—the fees reflect the amount of money migrants can expect to earn in each country.
In fact, because the export of Burmese labor is so lucrative, more than 100 private employment agencies have sprouted up in Rangoon alone.
However, even the entrepreneurs who run these employment agencies say they, in turn, are subjected to inflated fees and bureaucracy.
An agent in Kyauktada Township in central Rangoon, who spoke to The Irrawaddy on condition of anonymity, said: “If you want to set up an employment agency, you must first submit an application to the National Planning and Economic Development Ministry. If you get a license, you must then apply for another permit, this time from the Ministry of Labor.
“If you are granted a license to operate an agency, you have to pay an initial fee of 5 million kyat ($4,000) to the Labor Ministry. In total, you must spend about 20 to 25 million kyat ($16-$20,000) in office costs and bureaucratic expenses, including bribes to officials, to get started.”
All the licenses must be extended annually and hundreds of thousands of kyat in taxes have to paid to secure extensions, the agent said.
According to the manager of an employment agency in Tamwe Township, the only way to run a profitable business is to manipulate the accounts.
“The agency gets taxed for each worker it sends abroad,” he said. “If we subcontract 100 people, we write down seven in our books.”
Never far behind in the ways of manipulation and fraud, the Labor Ministry issued an order on June 6, 2008, stating that each overseas employment agency must account for no fewer than 300 workers per year. If not, its licenses would be revoked.
The Burmese junta benefits not only from charging these agencies fees and taxes, but has also set up its own overseas employment centers to take advantage of the mass migration.
Sources in Burma’s former capital said that two prominent government-run agencies, Shwe Innwa and Myanma Mahn, have been given monopolies to supply labor to markets in certain countries.
“If a worker wants to go to South Korea to work, he or she must register with the Shwe Innwa agency,” the executive director of a private agency said. “Shwe Innwa has an agreement with the South Korean Labor Ministry guaranteeing 2,000 Burmese workers a year.”
Not only are employment agencies taxed by the regime, but the workers themselves may have to pay tax into the Burmese government’s coffers, even though they are working for foreign employers and may be subject to pay tax in the host country too.
“If someone goes to Malaysia, they have to pay 50,000 kyat ($40) tax per month to the Burmese Labor Ministry,” a businessman close to the department said, adding that the tax was substantially higher for workers going to Japan and Singapore.
Burmese workers who cannot afford these costs often cross into neighboring countries illegally. An estimated 300 Burmese migrant workers are smuggled into Thailand every day.
Burma’s economic woes have been a boon to human traffickers, according to sources at the Thai-Burmese border.
Many travel to Thailand independently, simply walking through border crossings at Three Pagodas Pass, Mae Sai or Ranong. The most popular crossing point is the bridge to the Thai black market haven of Mae Sot, which is separated from the neighboring Burmese town of Myawaddy by the Moei River.
Migrants have easy access to Mae Sot because so many Burmese and Thais routinely cross the bridge to buy and sell goods on either side of the border. It costs 1,000 kyat ($0.80) to enter Thailand.
Nevertheless, many Burmese migrants wade through the river or paddle across on inflated inner tubes to avoid paying the fee.
Burma watchers estimate that many more migrants have gone to Thailand this year because of the destruction wrought by Cyclone Nargis.
“Normally, very few Burmese come to Thailand during the rainy season,” said Nai Lawi Mon, an ethnic Mon living in Sangkhlaburi. “But this year we are seeing a lot of people coming.”
It is estimated that there are more than one million Burmese migrants now living and working in Thailand, around half of whom are registered with the Thai Ministry of Labor.
The perils of illegal migration were highlighted in April when 54 Burmese migrants suffocated to death while being transported in a container truck from Ranong, near the southern Burmese border town of Kawthaung, to the Thai resort island of Phuket.
Although the tragedy prompted officials to step up efforts to stem the flow of illegal migrants into Thailand, Burmese laborers continue to make the trip, desperate to find jobs to support themselves and their families.
Those who travel through Thailand to find work in Malaysia or Singapore do so at great personal risk. There are numerous checkpoints along the way and migrants who get caught are often subjected to harassment, imprisonment and deportation.
While Thai officials appear to be doing little to prevent illegal immigration, the Burmese authorities have been carrying out a crackdown on their side of the border. A few months ago, a human trafficking ring was busted in Kawthaung.
Nevertheless, despite knowing the risks and hardships, more and more young Burmese are looking overseas for work.
A 23-year-old graduate of Dagon University in Rangoon found that his bachelor’s degree offered him few opportunities in his homeland. Eventually, he swallowed his pride and went to Malaysia to work in a factory.
“If I relied on my bachelor’s degree, I could starve,” he said. “At least I can feed myself here, working as a slave.”
Overseas jobs are not limited to men—recently more women have resorted to seeking work in foreign countries. Most head for Thailand and Malaysia and find themselves working in garment factories, assembling cell phones or sewing. In Malaysia, migrants can expect to earn 18 ringgit ($5.30) for a full day’s work.
Thandar Aung works in Singapore. She is one of an estimated 170,000 foreign maids in the country. A graduate of Rangoon University, Thandar said that maids in Singapore have to work seven days a week.
“My first employers didn’t even allow me to make a phone call,” she said. “They treated me like a slave. I worked 14 hours a day for $139 a month.” (JEG's: generous SP pays maids $0.33/hr - that is being fair and morally honest)
Inevitably, Burmese workers will continue to be exploited in foreign countries. However, as long as people are unable to earn a living in their own country, a percentage—mostly younger workers—will be drawn abroad. The subsequent brain drain and lack of labor at home will only add to Burma’s economic woes.
Additional reporting by Lawi Weng, Min Lwin and Yeni.
Time to Embrace the Truth
OCTOBER, 2008 - VOLUME 16 NO.10
The Irrawaddy News
The release last month of Burma’s longest-serving political prisoner, 79-year-old journalist Win Tin, must have briefly brightened up the restricted life of Aung San Suu Kyi, confined to her home for more than 13 of the past 19 years.
But, while more than 2,000 political prisoners remain behind bars, Win Tin’s newly won freedom is unlikely to have given her much hope that her ordeal would also soon be over.
Suu Kyi has described Win Tin as a “man of courage and integrity”—qualities these two champions of democracy share in equal measure.
In the eyes of Burma’s military regime, Win Tin was Suu Kyi’s “puppet master,” although he has rejected any suggestion that he was her mentor or the chief strategist of her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD).
His wholehearted engagement in the pro-democracy struggle, however, earned him 19 years of incarceration in Rangoon’s infamous Insein Prison, which ended on September 23 when he was freed along with at least seven other political detainees in an amnesty cynically described by the state media as an act of “loving kindness.”
The regime said the amnesty—which also gave freedom to nearly 9,000 convicted criminals—was part of its plan for a “peaceful modern discipline-flourishing democratic nation.” Its true purpose, however, was clearly to deflect international criticism at a critical time, as the country marked the first anniversary of the September 2007 uprising and as the spotlight again fell on Burma at a UN General Assembly session.
The UN record on Burma also came under scrutiny, as the UN’s “Group of Friends of Burma,” which includes the US, the EU, China and Southeast Asian countries, again called on the junta to release all its political prisoners and open talks with the opposition. There was talk of a return to Burma by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, whose missions so far have achieved virtually nothing.
For all his ineffectiveness, Gambari is the victim of a capricious regime, which has treated him like a whipping boy because of its outrage at what it sees as UN bias and international pressure.
Apart from this pressure, the impact of Cyclone Nargis has led many Burmese government officials to realize that change is long overdue.
It’s still far from clear, however, whether relief efforts being conducted by the Tripartite Core Group, consisting of representatives of the UN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Burmese junta, are making any significant headway.
The group’s so-called experts, handling aid money from international donors, have naively come to believe that a “humanitarian space” has opened up in the country—with some international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), UN agencies and regime apologists claiming that this presents a window of opportunity for the 2010 election.
The regime view of this is contained in the minutes of a briefing Home Affairs Minister Maung Oo received from Than Shwe in July, in which the UN and INGOs were described as “puppets” of the US and the CIA.
Maung Oo accused the relief organizations of providing aid to the victims “just for show,” alleging that they spent humanitarian aid money on themselves and not, through regime channels, on the cyclone victims.
The US, the UN and INGOs were also accused by the minister of pushing Burma to the top of their agendas.
If a “humanitarian space” has been opened up in the Irrawaddy delta it can be closed at any time because the regime retains the sole power to do so, at any time it chooses.
It’s the same power that enables the regime to suppress the truth and imprison those who venture to speak out. Under the brutal totalitarianism of Burma, telling the truth requires great courage and brings fearful consequences.
Win Tin and Suu Kyi are victims of this perverse power. So is the activist Nilar Thein, who was hunted for more than a year, separated from her infant daughter, before being found and jailed, like her husband, for her role in the September 2007 uprising.
The release of Win Tin and a handful of other political prisoners is welcome news, but it isn’t going to change the image of the Burmese regime while Suu Kyi, Nilar Thein and more than 2,000 other pro-democracy activists remain confined.
If Burma’s generals want to show the world that they are sincerely interested in improving the country’s repressive political climate, they should set a timeframe for the release of all these prisoners. They should also make their seven-step political “road map” more inclusive, giving freedom to all political stakeholders to participate in the process and sharing power with opposition forces who were elected in the 1990 election.
No one expects that to happen anytime soon.
But there is a general belief that it’s time for the UN and the international community to push the generals to accept the words of Win Tin: “We have always believed in solving problems through democratic dialogue.”
The Irrawaddy News
The release last month of Burma’s longest-serving political prisoner, 79-year-old journalist Win Tin, must have briefly brightened up the restricted life of Aung San Suu Kyi, confined to her home for more than 13 of the past 19 years.
But, while more than 2,000 political prisoners remain behind bars, Win Tin’s newly won freedom is unlikely to have given her much hope that her ordeal would also soon be over.
Suu Kyi has described Win Tin as a “man of courage and integrity”—qualities these two champions of democracy share in equal measure.
In the eyes of Burma’s military regime, Win Tin was Suu Kyi’s “puppet master,” although he has rejected any suggestion that he was her mentor or the chief strategist of her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD).
His wholehearted engagement in the pro-democracy struggle, however, earned him 19 years of incarceration in Rangoon’s infamous Insein Prison, which ended on September 23 when he was freed along with at least seven other political detainees in an amnesty cynically described by the state media as an act of “loving kindness.”
The regime said the amnesty—which also gave freedom to nearly 9,000 convicted criminals—was part of its plan for a “peaceful modern discipline-flourishing democratic nation.” Its true purpose, however, was clearly to deflect international criticism at a critical time, as the country marked the first anniversary of the September 2007 uprising and as the spotlight again fell on Burma at a UN General Assembly session.
The UN record on Burma also came under scrutiny, as the UN’s “Group of Friends of Burma,” which includes the US, the EU, China and Southeast Asian countries, again called on the junta to release all its political prisoners and open talks with the opposition. There was talk of a return to Burma by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, whose missions so far have achieved virtually nothing.
For all his ineffectiveness, Gambari is the victim of a capricious regime, which has treated him like a whipping boy because of its outrage at what it sees as UN bias and international pressure.
Apart from this pressure, the impact of Cyclone Nargis has led many Burmese government officials to realize that change is long overdue.
It’s still far from clear, however, whether relief efforts being conducted by the Tripartite Core Group, consisting of representatives of the UN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Burmese junta, are making any significant headway.
The group’s so-called experts, handling aid money from international donors, have naively come to believe that a “humanitarian space” has opened up in the country—with some international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), UN agencies and regime apologists claiming that this presents a window of opportunity for the 2010 election.
The regime view of this is contained in the minutes of a briefing Home Affairs Minister Maung Oo received from Than Shwe in July, in which the UN and INGOs were described as “puppets” of the US and the CIA.
Maung Oo accused the relief organizations of providing aid to the victims “just for show,” alleging that they spent humanitarian aid money on themselves and not, through regime channels, on the cyclone victims.
The US, the UN and INGOs were also accused by the minister of pushing Burma to the top of their agendas.
If a “humanitarian space” has been opened up in the Irrawaddy delta it can be closed at any time because the regime retains the sole power to do so, at any time it chooses.
It’s the same power that enables the regime to suppress the truth and imprison those who venture to speak out. Under the brutal totalitarianism of Burma, telling the truth requires great courage and brings fearful consequences.
Win Tin and Suu Kyi are victims of this perverse power. So is the activist Nilar Thein, who was hunted for more than a year, separated from her infant daughter, before being found and jailed, like her husband, for her role in the September 2007 uprising.
The release of Win Tin and a handful of other political prisoners is welcome news, but it isn’t going to change the image of the Burmese regime while Suu Kyi, Nilar Thein and more than 2,000 other pro-democracy activists remain confined.
If Burma’s generals want to show the world that they are sincerely interested in improving the country’s repressive political climate, they should set a timeframe for the release of all these prisoners. They should also make their seven-step political “road map” more inclusive, giving freedom to all political stakeholders to participate in the process and sharing power with opposition forces who were elected in the 1990 election.
No one expects that to happen anytime soon.
But there is a general belief that it’s time for the UN and the international community to push the generals to accept the words of Win Tin: “We have always believed in solving problems through democratic dialogue.”
Thursday, 2 October 2008
Living under duress in Kachin State
by Shyamal Sarkar - KNG
30 September 2008
The Burmese military junta seems to have singled out Kachin State for some harsh treatment, one reason for which could be the daring level of dissidence among the student community, which has been repeatedly troubling the regime through poster campaigns, right under the very noses of junta officials.
The dissident students owing allegiance to the All Kachin Students Union (AKSU) have on a number of occasions in the past year put up posters demanding the ouster of the military dictators, freeing political prisoners, demanding a tripartite dialogue, putting a halt to environment unfriendly projects in the state, self determination rights among other demands, which are not new. Not just posters, activists are known to take to the streets either early in the morning or late at night and spray paint walls of government buildings, schools, colleges, markets and other key places making the same demands. The posters were put up despite the high alert in the township sounded by the junta since August.
The periodic movement carried out with precision has had junta officials including the police running from pillar to post trying to tear down the posters or white washing the spray painted walls, lest residents start getting ideas and join the angry students in their campaign against the junta.
The posting of a new Commander in the Northern Command, Maj-Gen Soe Win, who has taken charge of Kachin State, seems to have been done with a brief from the junta brass to come down on dissident activity with a heavy hand and keep people of the state on a leash.
He has gone about his mission with gusto, not uncommon among enthusiastic military officers of the regime. In the wake of students pasting anti-regime posters to denounce the 20th anniversary of the coup in the country on September 18, the Commander imposed night curfew in Myitkyina the capital of Kachin State from 10 p.m. to teach people a lesson. Then the harassment followed.
The police began rounding up people on the streets even before 10 p.m. before the curfew came into force. The idea was to create panic among people. To further hurt residents, the arrested began to be fined heavily to the tune of Kyat 10,000, equivalent to US $ 8. Shops were ordered to down shutters by 9 p.m. The police was taken to task by the Commander because they were unable to prevent activists from putting up posters.
In an effort to nab dissidents and check their activities the Military Affairs Security Unit (Sa-Ya-Pha) was told by the Commander to offer a reward of 100,000 Kyat equivalent to US $ 84 to anyone providing information about activists.
The form of harassment since the new Commander took over has been varied, but all are intent to keep people in the state under the thumb of the junta.
For instance, of a sudden junta officials began searching guest houses and hotels and started making arbitrary arrests of people they suspected. The police in Myitkyina began checking hotels which did not report overnight guests to the authorities. The hotels which allow prostitutes to operate came especially under the scanner. Prostitutes and guests were hauled away to police stations charged and detained. The prostitutes were released later. Even couples dating in parks or on roadsides were not spared.
People in Kachin state as such have been living on the edge. Suddenly the junta authorities decided that subscribers would have to shell out the costs of changing numbers of landline telephones in Myitkyina. The order issued stated that telephones starting with the code number 25 would be changed to 20 and subscribers would have to pay over 550,000 Kyat equivalent to US $ 464 each by September 30 to the State Telecommunication Office in the township.
The reason behind the change in number had to do with disruptions on landline telephones starting with the code number 25 being operated with China-made Telephone Service Operating Machines. These had to be replaced with a new Israel manufactured Telephone Service Operating Machines. Normally, the expense ought to be borne by the telephone department but here subscribers were fleeced, in all probability to save on government revenue or pocket the funds meant for the change.
From whichever angle one views the activities of the junta in Kachin State it is apparent that the people are at the receiving end and left holding the wrong end of the stick.
The Township Municipal Office in Myitkyina has been collecting increasing municipal taxes from residents but they are not getting the desired services whereas army officials do. While residents and shops and establishment owners pay enhanced tax for garbage collection, the civic body accords priority to the junta's Northern Command military headquarters in the township. Despite increased taxes the municipality has done nothing to enhance its fleet of garbage trucks. Only three trucks are in working condition.
Laws are flexible and used to suit the needs of the junta authorities. Without notice traffic police began seizing Chinese manufactured motorcycle rickshaws (three wheelers) called the Tong-bee-car in Myitkyina. All this while the traffic police have been levying a charge of 3,000 Kyat equivalent to US $ 2.5 on drivers operating unlicensed three wheelers. In a town where all three wheelers are unlicensed the very act of seizing them becomes meaningless because there are no provisions to provide a license.
It is such repression that has students up in arms and recently led to an instance where a traffic policeman was thrashed by irate people when the police was seizing unlicensed motorcycles in Myitkyina. The Township Land Transportation Department (Ka-Nya-Na) announced it would issue license for motorcycles till the end of October. But most unlicensed motorcycle owners are not even remotely interested because of the high fees pegged by the junta.
The high handedness of the junta continues in Kachin State despite the areas being under the control of the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), which boasts an armed wing. The KIO, which has a ceasefire agreement with the junta, has always appeased the regime given the business ventures it operates courtesy the regime and the wealth it enjoys. Of late, after supporting the junta's referendum on the draft constitution, the KIO seems to be toeing the regime's line even more vehemently.
30 September 2008
The Burmese military junta seems to have singled out Kachin State for some harsh treatment, one reason for which could be the daring level of dissidence among the student community, which has been repeatedly troubling the regime through poster campaigns, right under the very noses of junta officials.
The dissident students owing allegiance to the All Kachin Students Union (AKSU) have on a number of occasions in the past year put up posters demanding the ouster of the military dictators, freeing political prisoners, demanding a tripartite dialogue, putting a halt to environment unfriendly projects in the state, self determination rights among other demands, which are not new. Not just posters, activists are known to take to the streets either early in the morning or late at night and spray paint walls of government buildings, schools, colleges, markets and other key places making the same demands. The posters were put up despite the high alert in the township sounded by the junta since August.
The periodic movement carried out with precision has had junta officials including the police running from pillar to post trying to tear down the posters or white washing the spray painted walls, lest residents start getting ideas and join the angry students in their campaign against the junta.
The posting of a new Commander in the Northern Command, Maj-Gen Soe Win, who has taken charge of Kachin State, seems to have been done with a brief from the junta brass to come down on dissident activity with a heavy hand and keep people of the state on a leash.
He has gone about his mission with gusto, not uncommon among enthusiastic military officers of the regime. In the wake of students pasting anti-regime posters to denounce the 20th anniversary of the coup in the country on September 18, the Commander imposed night curfew in Myitkyina the capital of Kachin State from 10 p.m. to teach people a lesson. Then the harassment followed.
The police began rounding up people on the streets even before 10 p.m. before the curfew came into force. The idea was to create panic among people. To further hurt residents, the arrested began to be fined heavily to the tune of Kyat 10,000, equivalent to US $ 8. Shops were ordered to down shutters by 9 p.m. The police was taken to task by the Commander because they were unable to prevent activists from putting up posters.
In an effort to nab dissidents and check their activities the Military Affairs Security Unit (Sa-Ya-Pha) was told by the Commander to offer a reward of 100,000 Kyat equivalent to US $ 84 to anyone providing information about activists.
The form of harassment since the new Commander took over has been varied, but all are intent to keep people in the state under the thumb of the junta.
For instance, of a sudden junta officials began searching guest houses and hotels and started making arbitrary arrests of people they suspected. The police in Myitkyina began checking hotels which did not report overnight guests to the authorities. The hotels which allow prostitutes to operate came especially under the scanner. Prostitutes and guests were hauled away to police stations charged and detained. The prostitutes were released later. Even couples dating in parks or on roadsides were not spared.
People in Kachin state as such have been living on the edge. Suddenly the junta authorities decided that subscribers would have to shell out the costs of changing numbers of landline telephones in Myitkyina. The order issued stated that telephones starting with the code number 25 would be changed to 20 and subscribers would have to pay over 550,000 Kyat equivalent to US $ 464 each by September 30 to the State Telecommunication Office in the township.
The reason behind the change in number had to do with disruptions on landline telephones starting with the code number 25 being operated with China-made Telephone Service Operating Machines. These had to be replaced with a new Israel manufactured Telephone Service Operating Machines. Normally, the expense ought to be borne by the telephone department but here subscribers were fleeced, in all probability to save on government revenue or pocket the funds meant for the change.
From whichever angle one views the activities of the junta in Kachin State it is apparent that the people are at the receiving end and left holding the wrong end of the stick.
The Township Municipal Office in Myitkyina has been collecting increasing municipal taxes from residents but they are not getting the desired services whereas army officials do. While residents and shops and establishment owners pay enhanced tax for garbage collection, the civic body accords priority to the junta's Northern Command military headquarters in the township. Despite increased taxes the municipality has done nothing to enhance its fleet of garbage trucks. Only three trucks are in working condition.
Laws are flexible and used to suit the needs of the junta authorities. Without notice traffic police began seizing Chinese manufactured motorcycle rickshaws (three wheelers) called the Tong-bee-car in Myitkyina. All this while the traffic police have been levying a charge of 3,000 Kyat equivalent to US $ 2.5 on drivers operating unlicensed three wheelers. In a town where all three wheelers are unlicensed the very act of seizing them becomes meaningless because there are no provisions to provide a license.
It is such repression that has students up in arms and recently led to an instance where a traffic policeman was thrashed by irate people when the police was seizing unlicensed motorcycles in Myitkyina. The Township Land Transportation Department (Ka-Nya-Na) announced it would issue license for motorcycles till the end of October. But most unlicensed motorcycle owners are not even remotely interested because of the high fees pegged by the junta.
The high handedness of the junta continues in Kachin State despite the areas being under the control of the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), which boasts an armed wing. The KIO, which has a ceasefire agreement with the junta, has always appeased the regime given the business ventures it operates courtesy the regime and the wealth it enjoys. Of late, after supporting the junta's referendum on the draft constitution, the KIO seems to be toeing the regime's line even more vehemently.
Generals Authorized to Buy Land Cruisers
By LAWI WENG
The Irrawaddy News
The latest perk for Burma’s senior military officials is a Toyota Land Cruiser, according to a source close to the military government.
"Nowadays the talk in the army is the news that all high ranking military officers above major general have permission to buy Land Cruisers," the source told The Irrawaddy.
Low-ranking officials are unhappy about the news, said the source, griping that the vehicles could end up being sold on the black market.
"The permit allows buying a vehicle for 140,000,000 kyat (US $112,450). But a vehicle that’s bought could be sold on the black market for 500,000,000 kyat ($401,606)," according to the source. The price for a 2009 Toyota Land Cruiser in the United States is around $65,000.
About 50 high ranking officers above major general work in the Ministry of Defense.
Abuse of power and corruption are common in the military government. According to the Global Corruption Report 2008, recently released by Transparency International, Burma is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, ranking just ahead of Somalia and tied with Iraq at the second-lowest ranking.
Meanwhile, about 1,000 vehicles that were seized in southern Burma for not having legal registration papers were auctioned this week by Southeast Command in Moulmein, according to a source with the Mon ceasefire group.
Sources at the New Mon State Party said the vehicles, seized in the past few years, have been re-registered with new titles and licenses. The number of vehicles to be sold is not known. In the past, such vehicles were usually sold to businessmen favored by the regime.
The source said about 50 vehicles were sold or traded last week at the Southeast Command in Moulmein.
A Toyota Mighty 8 Hilux brought from 10,000,000 kyat ($8,032) to 30,000,000 kyats ($ 24,096), depending on the model’s year.
Most vehicles were seized from local residents or members of the Mon ceasefire group. In 2003, the regime passed a law allowing seizure of vehicles without legal registration papers and imprisonment of the owner for up to three years.
The Irrawaddy News
The latest perk for Burma’s senior military officials is a Toyota Land Cruiser, according to a source close to the military government.
"Nowadays the talk in the army is the news that all high ranking military officers above major general have permission to buy Land Cruisers," the source told The Irrawaddy.
Low-ranking officials are unhappy about the news, said the source, griping that the vehicles could end up being sold on the black market.
"The permit allows buying a vehicle for 140,000,000 kyat (US $112,450). But a vehicle that’s bought could be sold on the black market for 500,000,000 kyat ($401,606)," according to the source. The price for a 2009 Toyota Land Cruiser in the United States is around $65,000.
About 50 high ranking officers above major general work in the Ministry of Defense.
Abuse of power and corruption are common in the military government. According to the Global Corruption Report 2008, recently released by Transparency International, Burma is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, ranking just ahead of Somalia and tied with Iraq at the second-lowest ranking.
Meanwhile, about 1,000 vehicles that were seized in southern Burma for not having legal registration papers were auctioned this week by Southeast Command in Moulmein, according to a source with the Mon ceasefire group.
Sources at the New Mon State Party said the vehicles, seized in the past few years, have been re-registered with new titles and licenses. The number of vehicles to be sold is not known. In the past, such vehicles were usually sold to businessmen favored by the regime.
The source said about 50 vehicles were sold or traded last week at the Southeast Command in Moulmein.
A Toyota Mighty 8 Hilux brought from 10,000,000 kyat ($8,032) to 30,000,000 kyats ($ 24,096), depending on the model’s year.
Most vehicles were seized from local residents or members of the Mon ceasefire group. In 2003, the regime passed a law allowing seizure of vehicles without legal registration papers and imprisonment of the owner for up to three years.
Reports of Rape Surface in Cyclone-devastated Delta
By KYI WAI
The Irrawaddy News
LAPUTTA — Reports of rape and other abuses of women are surfacing as communities in Burma’s Irrawaddy delta continue to recover from May’s Cyclone Nargis.
Women were particularly vulnerable in the cyclone and its aftermath, when social order broke down. Many complain their plight was ignored by local authorities and the military.
One 20-year-old woman from a village in Laputta District said three men who responded to her cries for help the day after the cyclone raped and tried to rob her.
One villager reported seeing two men armed with knives rape a 15-year-old girl before drowning her. “I was afraid to try and help the girl and I pretended to be dead,” he confessed.
The rapes and killing continued weeks after the cyclone, as devastated communities tried to restore normal life, according to villagers.
A resident of Gyin Yah village in Laputta District said that a month after the cyclone he had discovered the body of a teenage girl who had been raped and killed, then dumped in a rice paddy.
Some villagers accused military authorities of trying to prevent news of rape and pillage becoming public. Villages allowing news of the abuses to escape were threatened with destruction, sources said.
One man from Kyane Gone village in Laputta District said a soldier had tried to drag away his daughter as they waited for aid at a military base. He had complained to an officer, who had angrily sent him away.
A woman survivor from Sate Gyi village in Laputta Township said: “I don’t dare return to my home. I’m the only woman survivor and would be the only woman among eight men.”
The Irrawaddy News
LAPUTTA — Reports of rape and other abuses of women are surfacing as communities in Burma’s Irrawaddy delta continue to recover from May’s Cyclone Nargis.
Women were particularly vulnerable in the cyclone and its aftermath, when social order broke down. Many complain their plight was ignored by local authorities and the military.
One 20-year-old woman from a village in Laputta District said three men who responded to her cries for help the day after the cyclone raped and tried to rob her.
One villager reported seeing two men armed with knives rape a 15-year-old girl before drowning her. “I was afraid to try and help the girl and I pretended to be dead,” he confessed.
The rapes and killing continued weeks after the cyclone, as devastated communities tried to restore normal life, according to villagers.
A resident of Gyin Yah village in Laputta District said that a month after the cyclone he had discovered the body of a teenage girl who had been raped and killed, then dumped in a rice paddy.
Some villagers accused military authorities of trying to prevent news of rape and pillage becoming public. Villages allowing news of the abuses to escape were threatened with destruction, sources said.
One man from Kyane Gone village in Laputta District said a soldier had tried to drag away his daughter as they waited for aid at a military base. He had complained to an officer, who had angrily sent him away.
A woman survivor from Sate Gyi village in Laputta Township said: “I don’t dare return to my home. I’m the only woman survivor and would be the only woman among eight men.”
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
Naypyidaw auctions seized vehicles in southern Burma
Tue 30 Sep 2008, IMNA
The Burmese military establishment in Mon State has been auctioning vehicles seized from residents in southern Burma on the orders of Naypyidaw.
The vehicles are kept in Moulmein Stadium and the Southeast Command has been urging ethnic cease-fire groups and business establishments to buy it.
According to New Mon State Party (NMSP) sources, the order to auction vehicles came from Naypyidaw, "But I am not sure when the order came."
Sources in NMSP, which reached a cease-fire with the Burmese government in 1995, said Naypyidaw drew up the prices depending on the make of the vehicles.
The organization which pays the auction price will get the vehicles from the Southeast Command.
The auction began early this month, following which local car prices fell.
According to car traders, prices of old Toyota and Hilux cars dropped from 17 million Kyat (13,386 US$) to 12 million Kyat (9,449 US$).
"We are facing losses for over a month. Many stopped buying these cars, even though the cars have license," a car dealer told IMNA.
More than a thousand illegal vehicles which were seized in 2003-2004 have been stored at the Southeast Command base.
Most vehicles were seized from local residents and the cease-fire group. In 2003 the Burmese regime made a new law where those who owned illegal cars and things imported from neighbouring countries would face three years in prison and started seizing the cars.
The NMSP, Karen Peace Front (KPF) and Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) had their vehicles seized. The junta only gave back the seized cars to DKBA.
NMSP lost dozens of cars in 2003 and does not dare to buy it back afraid that regime's law is not consistent.
Some businessmen from Moulmein industrial zone are interested and most of them are close to military officers.
The Southeast Command sold vehicles at low prices in 2004 after they seized it. The colours of the seized vehicles were changed.
The Burmese military establishment in Mon State has been auctioning vehicles seized from residents in southern Burma on the orders of Naypyidaw.
The vehicles are kept in Moulmein Stadium and the Southeast Command has been urging ethnic cease-fire groups and business establishments to buy it.
According to New Mon State Party (NMSP) sources, the order to auction vehicles came from Naypyidaw, "But I am not sure when the order came."
Sources in NMSP, which reached a cease-fire with the Burmese government in 1995, said Naypyidaw drew up the prices depending on the make of the vehicles.
The organization which pays the auction price will get the vehicles from the Southeast Command.
The auction began early this month, following which local car prices fell.
According to car traders, prices of old Toyota and Hilux cars dropped from 17 million Kyat (13,386 US$) to 12 million Kyat (9,449 US$).
"We are facing losses for over a month. Many stopped buying these cars, even though the cars have license," a car dealer told IMNA.
More than a thousand illegal vehicles which were seized in 2003-2004 have been stored at the Southeast Command base.
Most vehicles were seized from local residents and the cease-fire group. In 2003 the Burmese regime made a new law where those who owned illegal cars and things imported from neighbouring countries would face three years in prison and started seizing the cars.
The NMSP, Karen Peace Front (KPF) and Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) had their vehicles seized. The junta only gave back the seized cars to DKBA.
NMSP lost dozens of cars in 2003 and does not dare to buy it back afraid that regime's law is not consistent.
Some businessmen from Moulmein industrial zone are interested and most of them are close to military officers.
The Southeast Command sold vehicles at low prices in 2004 after they seized it. The colours of the seized vehicles were changed.
ENC calls on the international community to help starving people in Chin State after crops are destroyed
Wed 01 Oct 2008, IMNA
More than a hundred thousand people in Chin State, in northwest Burma, face starvation after a plague of rats destroyed crops in the area. Burma’s military government is offering no help, says the Ethnic Nationalities Council (ENC).
According to an ENC statement made on September 30th, people from more than twenty villages – one fourth of Chin State’s population – face food shortages and disease. More than two thousand ethnic Chin people have fled to India in search of food. At least thirty children have died from lack of food, though the number is thought to be higher.
The ENC, a Thailand-based exile group comprised of representatives from Burma’s many ethnic groups, called upon the international community for support. “We call on UN agencies such as the World Food Programme, UN OCHA [United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs], UNDP [UN Development Program] and other international aid organization to provide food and assistance to people who have faced food shortages since 2006, while the military government ignores the case,” ENC General Secretary Duwa Mahkaw Hkun Sa told IMNA.
“The food crisis in Chin State has reached a point where immediate action is warranted in order to prevent a human tragedy of great proportions. The international community should now act immediately on this crisis to avert a Nargis-like situation,” says Dr. Salai Lian Hmung Sakhong, ENC Vice Chairman, in an official statement by the group. ENC also called upon the government of India and Mizoram to extend assistance to avert a humanitarian tragedy in Chin State.
The junta, on the other hand, has disregarded the situation and is providing no help to Chin State. It has even prevented international NGOs from providing aid to the region, says Duwa Mahkaw Hkun Sa. The ENC statement addressed the junta’s restrictions, demanding the junta “immediately to allow complete and unfettered access to the affected area in Chin state and cooperate fully with aid organizations and provide them a conductive environment for a meaningful and effective relief efforts in Chin State.”
The situation is likely to get worse, as the rats have destroyed rice paddies and other farmland. The crop destruction comes at a time when Burma is already struggling to recover from the loss of twenty percent of its rice paddies, which were destroyed by Cyclone Nargis in May. The boom in the rat population, and the attendant impact on agriculture of the region, is being caused by the life cycle of “Melocanna Baccifera,” a type of bamboo that flowers once every fifty years and, according to a report by the Chin Human Rights organization, covers one fifth of Chin State. After flowering in 2006, the bamboo produced a fruit with a large nutrient-rich seed. Rats fed on the seeds, their population skyrocketed and the animals eventually descended upon farms looking for food.
More than a hundred thousand people in Chin State, in northwest Burma, face starvation after a plague of rats destroyed crops in the area. Burma’s military government is offering no help, says the Ethnic Nationalities Council (ENC).
According to an ENC statement made on September 30th, people from more than twenty villages – one fourth of Chin State’s population – face food shortages and disease. More than two thousand ethnic Chin people have fled to India in search of food. At least thirty children have died from lack of food, though the number is thought to be higher.
The ENC, a Thailand-based exile group comprised of representatives from Burma’s many ethnic groups, called upon the international community for support. “We call on UN agencies such as the World Food Programme, UN OCHA [United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs], UNDP [UN Development Program] and other international aid organization to provide food and assistance to people who have faced food shortages since 2006, while the military government ignores the case,” ENC General Secretary Duwa Mahkaw Hkun Sa told IMNA.
“The food crisis in Chin State has reached a point where immediate action is warranted in order to prevent a human tragedy of great proportions. The international community should now act immediately on this crisis to avert a Nargis-like situation,” says Dr. Salai Lian Hmung Sakhong, ENC Vice Chairman, in an official statement by the group. ENC also called upon the government of India and Mizoram to extend assistance to avert a humanitarian tragedy in Chin State.
The junta, on the other hand, has disregarded the situation and is providing no help to Chin State. It has even prevented international NGOs from providing aid to the region, says Duwa Mahkaw Hkun Sa. The ENC statement addressed the junta’s restrictions, demanding the junta “immediately to allow complete and unfettered access to the affected area in Chin state and cooperate fully with aid organizations and provide them a conductive environment for a meaningful and effective relief efforts in Chin State.”
The situation is likely to get worse, as the rats have destroyed rice paddies and other farmland. The crop destruction comes at a time when Burma is already struggling to recover from the loss of twenty percent of its rice paddies, which were destroyed by Cyclone Nargis in May. The boom in the rat population, and the attendant impact on agriculture of the region, is being caused by the life cycle of “Melocanna Baccifera,” a type of bamboo that flowers once every fifty years and, according to a report by the Chin Human Rights organization, covers one fifth of Chin State. After flowering in 2006, the bamboo produced a fruit with a large nutrient-rich seed. Rats fed on the seeds, their population skyrocketed and the animals eventually descended upon farms looking for food.
Myanmar on the cyber-offensive
By Brian McCartan
MAE SOT, Thailand (ATimes)- The distributed denial of service attacks, or DDoS, that hit and disabled several exile media websites between September 17 to 19, are widely held to be the latest attempt by Myanmar's military regime to silence its legion of critics.
The cyber-attacks, which flood a website with information requests which block regular traffic and eventually overload and crash it, coincided with the run-up to last year's "Saffron" revolution, in which soldiers opened fire and killed Buddhist monks and anti-government demonstrators. But the junta's cyber-warfare specialists appear to have wider designs than just censoring an uncomfortable anniversary and they are receiving plenty of foreign assistance in upgrading their political dissent-quashing capabilities.
The Defense Services Computer Directorate (DSCD) was set up by the War Office in around 1990, originally with the aim of modernizing the military's communications and administration systems. By the mid-1990s, however, the center had become much more focused on Information Warfare operations, according to a signals intelligence expert who spoke with Asia Times Online.
The center became responsible for monitoring telephone calls, faxes, e-mails and other forms of electronic data exchange. Another computer center was later set up at the Directorate of Defense Services Intelligence (DDSI), Myanmar's main military intelligence service. The DSCD is aimed more at military communications, while the intelligence service's computer center is more politically focused, including monitoring opposition groups both within and outside Myanmar.
The service was disbanded in 2004 after the arrest of former prime minister and intelligence chief General Khin Nyunt. It was later reformed as the Military Affairs Security (MAS), which has also presumably taken over cyber-warfare functions, and its capabilities have reportedly substantially improved in recent years.
Singapore has been the military's main partner in bolstering those capabilities. The DSCD was originally set up with computers from Singapore and the city-state has been heavily involved in the cyber-units technological evolution, including upgrades to the regime's computerized information systems hardware and training, says the signals intelligence expert. The intelligence service's center was also set up with Singapore-provided assistance.
Several opposition media sources, including The Irrawaddy magazine and Democratic Voice of Burma satellite television station, have said they received information that the most recent attacks on their Websites may have been conducted by Myanmar military officers trained or undergoing training in Russia and China. A longtime analyst of Myanmar's signals intelligence capabilities noted that many of the officers who have undergone training in Russia and China have taken courses in computing and information technology.
While China has been heavily involved in improvements to the Myanmar military's radio communications and, together with Singapore, connecting major military commands with fiber-optic cable, it apparently has been less involved in developing the regime's cyber-warfare capabilities, experts say.
The opposition movement has become noted for its extensive usage of the Internet to send and receive information, reports and news the regime has tried to suppress. As activists and underground journalists have become more tech-savvy, the intelligence service has become more determined to counter the outflow of information. Much of this has taken the form of harassment and more recently DDoS attacks.
Long-running media list server, BurmaNet News, has been a target of Myanmar's junta, which is known to have posted misleading and often inaccurate information to discredit the pro-democracy movement. In 2000, a wave of e-mail messages were received by activists with attachments containing a virus that many suspected came from the regime.
Exile-run political groups, human-rights groups and non-governmental organizations have all repeatedly accused the regime of launching viruses, and Trojan horses, defacing websites, sending waves of spam e-mail and even purchasing domain names with political significance. Although it is difficult to prove who exactly is behind the waves of cyber-harassment, the sheer volume of the attacks points to the regime's trained cyber-specialists, experts say.
Last year, the day after the regime's violent crackdown on street protesters, the Thailand-based Burmese media organization The Irrawaddy was hit by a virus that also infected visitors to their site. The timing of the attack raised suspicions of the junta's involvement.
In July 2008, the websites of the exile-run, Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and New Delhi-based Mizzima News were hit by DDoS attacks that shut down their websites for several days. The attacks followed both news organizations' extensive reporting on the junta's inept and some say corrupt response to the Cyclone Nargis disaster.
On September 17, another wave of DDoS attacks was launched, this time against The Irrawaddy, DVB and the Bangkok-based New Era Journal. Two community forums, Mystery Zillion and Planet Myanmar, were disabled and shut down by similar attacks in August. Although not political in nature, both websites provided information and instruction on how to circumvent the regime's tough Internet controls and firewalls, which include blocks on internationally hosted e-mail services gmail and Yahoo!.
Strategic attacks
Analysts say the cyber-attacks have notably ramped up during the anniversaries of the August 1988 pro-democracy uprising and military repression, and the September 2007 crackdown. Servers involved in the most recent attacks have apparently been situated in Russia and China - however, experts say this may have been done by hackers trying to cover their tracks.
According to communications security expert and Australian National University Professor Desmond Ball, DDoS attacks are relatively simple and can be engineered without the aid of powerful computers or an advanced computer science degree. Similar attacks, he says, have been carried out against Taiwan and Japan for years by young nationalistic Chinese hackers.
DDoS attacks, redirection and defacing of websites are all overt forms of cyber-harassment, but the real essence of cyber-warfare, says Ball, lies in the ability to penetrate a computer or a network, cover your tracks to avoid detection on the way in and out and steal information or disrupt systems without the target knowing that they have been hacked.
The military regime's capabilities in this regard may be where the real danger lies, he says. So far there is little known about the ability of Myanmar's government cyber-warriors to carry out these attacks, partly because the nature of these kinds of attacks is to remain undetected.
Internet security among computer users worldwide is notoriously lax and this includes Burmese exile political and media organizations. Without firewalls and anti-virus programs configured properly and IT specialists monitoring computer systems - an expensive proposition for most exile groups - they are at a distinct disadvantage against the junta.
Domestically, the regime has spent considerable effort to block the flow of information into the country through the use of filtering software that block certain media, human rights and political sites, as well as gambling, pornography and other sites deemed socially unacceptable. Through the use of proxy servers and encrypted webmail services, many of Myanmar's citizens have been able to circumvent some of these controls.
Their tech savvy was shown to the world in September 2007, when graphic images and video of the military's brutal crackdown on protesters were broadcast from an instant army of citizen reporters, who sent their files to outside news organizations over the Internet. In Myanmar's heavily controlled communications environment, there are only a handful of Internet service providers (ISPs), all of them either state-owned or with strong government ties, and thus easy for the regime to disconnect.
Exile groups and much of the media pointed to the three-day period between the beginning of the crackdown in late September 2007 and the shutdown of the Internet as evidence of the junta's lack of technical expertise. Ball, however, contends that the opposite is true.
The generals were willing to endure some international criticism in order to monitor who was communicating with whom before shutting the system down altogether. This information would likely have fueled their post-demonstration manhunts, where thousands were put behind bars, he says.
Myanmar's original ISP is the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, which was later joined by Bagan Cybertech, a private communications company established by the son of former intelligence chief Khin Nyunt. Following his arrest, the company was partially taken over by the government and renamed BaganNet/Myanmar Teleport.
A third ISP was reportedly set up by the government-supported mass organization the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) in 2007 and is known as Information Technology Central Services. In July 2008, a fourth ISP was launched called Hanthawaddy National Gateway.
Established with technical assistance from China's Alcatel Shanghai Bell, the service is currently only available to military officers, but is expected to eventually expand throughout the country. Alcatel Shanghai Bell is represented locally by Myanmar tycoon Tay Za, a close associate to the country's leader Senior General Than Shwe and other senior officers.
Speculation as to the extent of the regime's cyber-warfare capabilities comes during a fast expansion of Internet access across the country. In addition to two new ISP providers, the generals are pushing local and foreign investment in its Yadanabon Cyber City project, located east of Mandalay.
Over one-fifth of the 4,500 hectare city is slated for computer hardware and software factories and is expected to have modern Internet services available through ADSL, CATV, Triple Play and Wi Max. In July, 12 local and foreign companies, including CBOSS of Russia, agreed to invest US$22 million in the development of the city.
Although ostensibly a civilian initiative, much of the technology to be developed, built and used there would have dual use capabilities, experts say.
Brian McCartan is a Chiang Mai-based freelance journalist. He may be reached at brianpm@comcast.net.
MAE SOT, Thailand (ATimes)- The distributed denial of service attacks, or DDoS, that hit and disabled several exile media websites between September 17 to 19, are widely held to be the latest attempt by Myanmar's military regime to silence its legion of critics.
The cyber-attacks, which flood a website with information requests which block regular traffic and eventually overload and crash it, coincided with the run-up to last year's "Saffron" revolution, in which soldiers opened fire and killed Buddhist monks and anti-government demonstrators. But the junta's cyber-warfare specialists appear to have wider designs than just censoring an uncomfortable anniversary and they are receiving plenty of foreign assistance in upgrading their political dissent-quashing capabilities.
The Defense Services Computer Directorate (DSCD) was set up by the War Office in around 1990, originally with the aim of modernizing the military's communications and administration systems. By the mid-1990s, however, the center had become much more focused on Information Warfare operations, according to a signals intelligence expert who spoke with Asia Times Online.
The center became responsible for monitoring telephone calls, faxes, e-mails and other forms of electronic data exchange. Another computer center was later set up at the Directorate of Defense Services Intelligence (DDSI), Myanmar's main military intelligence service. The DSCD is aimed more at military communications, while the intelligence service's computer center is more politically focused, including monitoring opposition groups both within and outside Myanmar.
The service was disbanded in 2004 after the arrest of former prime minister and intelligence chief General Khin Nyunt. It was later reformed as the Military Affairs Security (MAS), which has also presumably taken over cyber-warfare functions, and its capabilities have reportedly substantially improved in recent years.
Singapore has been the military's main partner in bolstering those capabilities. The DSCD was originally set up with computers from Singapore and the city-state has been heavily involved in the cyber-units technological evolution, including upgrades to the regime's computerized information systems hardware and training, says the signals intelligence expert. The intelligence service's center was also set up with Singapore-provided assistance.
Several opposition media sources, including The Irrawaddy magazine and Democratic Voice of Burma satellite television station, have said they received information that the most recent attacks on their Websites may have been conducted by Myanmar military officers trained or undergoing training in Russia and China. A longtime analyst of Myanmar's signals intelligence capabilities noted that many of the officers who have undergone training in Russia and China have taken courses in computing and information technology.
While China has been heavily involved in improvements to the Myanmar military's radio communications and, together with Singapore, connecting major military commands with fiber-optic cable, it apparently has been less involved in developing the regime's cyber-warfare capabilities, experts say.
The opposition movement has become noted for its extensive usage of the Internet to send and receive information, reports and news the regime has tried to suppress. As activists and underground journalists have become more tech-savvy, the intelligence service has become more determined to counter the outflow of information. Much of this has taken the form of harassment and more recently DDoS attacks.
Long-running media list server, BurmaNet News, has been a target of Myanmar's junta, which is known to have posted misleading and often inaccurate information to discredit the pro-democracy movement. In 2000, a wave of e-mail messages were received by activists with attachments containing a virus that many suspected came from the regime.
Exile-run political groups, human-rights groups and non-governmental organizations have all repeatedly accused the regime of launching viruses, and Trojan horses, defacing websites, sending waves of spam e-mail and even purchasing domain names with political significance. Although it is difficult to prove who exactly is behind the waves of cyber-harassment, the sheer volume of the attacks points to the regime's trained cyber-specialists, experts say.
Last year, the day after the regime's violent crackdown on street protesters, the Thailand-based Burmese media organization The Irrawaddy was hit by a virus that also infected visitors to their site. The timing of the attack raised suspicions of the junta's involvement.
In July 2008, the websites of the exile-run, Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and New Delhi-based Mizzima News were hit by DDoS attacks that shut down their websites for several days. The attacks followed both news organizations' extensive reporting on the junta's inept and some say corrupt response to the Cyclone Nargis disaster.
On September 17, another wave of DDoS attacks was launched, this time against The Irrawaddy, DVB and the Bangkok-based New Era Journal. Two community forums, Mystery Zillion and Planet Myanmar, were disabled and shut down by similar attacks in August. Although not political in nature, both websites provided information and instruction on how to circumvent the regime's tough Internet controls and firewalls, which include blocks on internationally hosted e-mail services gmail and Yahoo!.
Strategic attacks
Analysts say the cyber-attacks have notably ramped up during the anniversaries of the August 1988 pro-democracy uprising and military repression, and the September 2007 crackdown. Servers involved in the most recent attacks have apparently been situated in Russia and China - however, experts say this may have been done by hackers trying to cover their tracks.
According to communications security expert and Australian National University Professor Desmond Ball, DDoS attacks are relatively simple and can be engineered without the aid of powerful computers or an advanced computer science degree. Similar attacks, he says, have been carried out against Taiwan and Japan for years by young nationalistic Chinese hackers.
DDoS attacks, redirection and defacing of websites are all overt forms of cyber-harassment, but the real essence of cyber-warfare, says Ball, lies in the ability to penetrate a computer or a network, cover your tracks to avoid detection on the way in and out and steal information or disrupt systems without the target knowing that they have been hacked.
The military regime's capabilities in this regard may be where the real danger lies, he says. So far there is little known about the ability of Myanmar's government cyber-warriors to carry out these attacks, partly because the nature of these kinds of attacks is to remain undetected.
Internet security among computer users worldwide is notoriously lax and this includes Burmese exile political and media organizations. Without firewalls and anti-virus programs configured properly and IT specialists monitoring computer systems - an expensive proposition for most exile groups - they are at a distinct disadvantage against the junta.
Domestically, the regime has spent considerable effort to block the flow of information into the country through the use of filtering software that block certain media, human rights and political sites, as well as gambling, pornography and other sites deemed socially unacceptable. Through the use of proxy servers and encrypted webmail services, many of Myanmar's citizens have been able to circumvent some of these controls.
Their tech savvy was shown to the world in September 2007, when graphic images and video of the military's brutal crackdown on protesters were broadcast from an instant army of citizen reporters, who sent their files to outside news organizations over the Internet. In Myanmar's heavily controlled communications environment, there are only a handful of Internet service providers (ISPs), all of them either state-owned or with strong government ties, and thus easy for the regime to disconnect.
Exile groups and much of the media pointed to the three-day period between the beginning of the crackdown in late September 2007 and the shutdown of the Internet as evidence of the junta's lack of technical expertise. Ball, however, contends that the opposite is true.
The generals were willing to endure some international criticism in order to monitor who was communicating with whom before shutting the system down altogether. This information would likely have fueled their post-demonstration manhunts, where thousands were put behind bars, he says.
Myanmar's original ISP is the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, which was later joined by Bagan Cybertech, a private communications company established by the son of former intelligence chief Khin Nyunt. Following his arrest, the company was partially taken over by the government and renamed BaganNet/Myanmar Teleport.
A third ISP was reportedly set up by the government-supported mass organization the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) in 2007 and is known as Information Technology Central Services. In July 2008, a fourth ISP was launched called Hanthawaddy National Gateway.
Established with technical assistance from China's Alcatel Shanghai Bell, the service is currently only available to military officers, but is expected to eventually expand throughout the country. Alcatel Shanghai Bell is represented locally by Myanmar tycoon Tay Za, a close associate to the country's leader Senior General Than Shwe and other senior officers.
Speculation as to the extent of the regime's cyber-warfare capabilities comes during a fast expansion of Internet access across the country. In addition to two new ISP providers, the generals are pushing local and foreign investment in its Yadanabon Cyber City project, located east of Mandalay.
Over one-fifth of the 4,500 hectare city is slated for computer hardware and software factories and is expected to have modern Internet services available through ADSL, CATV, Triple Play and Wi Max. In July, 12 local and foreign companies, including CBOSS of Russia, agreed to invest US$22 million in the development of the city.
Although ostensibly a civilian initiative, much of the technology to be developed, built and used there would have dual use capabilities, experts say.
Brian McCartan is a Chiang Mai-based freelance journalist. He may be reached at brianpm@comcast.net.
Saturday, 27 September 2008
Win Htein remains in Katha prison
Sep 26, 2008 (DVB)–Political prisoner Win Htein, who was released on Tuesday and re-arrested the following day, remains in Katha prison but has been given no explanation for his detention.
National League for Democracy members and former army captain Win Htein was one of seven political detainees who were among the 9002 prisoners released as part of a government amnesty on 23 September.
He was released from Katha prison on the orders of the Internal Affairs Ministry, but was taken back into custody at 10am on 24 September, a prison officer confirmed today.
Win Htein’s wife had been waiting to meet him in Mandalay but was told to come to the prison where she was able to see him for an hour.
Win Htein was not told why he was being returned to prison, and prison staff, including a prison governor, could not give a reason for his arrest.
The prison official said Win Htein seemed to be in good health and was keeping his spirits up.
The Internal Affairs Ministry, deputy minister’s officer and special branch refused to comment on the case.
During their monthly meeting yesterday, Meikhtila NLD leaders in Mandalay denounced the military regime for releasing fewer than 10 political prisoners in the recent amnesty.
Meikhtila township NLD secretary Daw Myint Myint Aye criticised the releases as a token gesture.
“The SPDC has always given innocent people heavy prison terms and whenever it faces political problems it releases one or two token prisoners,” she said.
“It is very difficult for us to say we are pleased with prisoners being released for show; Meikhtila township [NLD] decided to denounce it.”
Reporting by Moe Aye
National League for Democracy members and former army captain Win Htein was one of seven political detainees who were among the 9002 prisoners released as part of a government amnesty on 23 September.
He was released from Katha prison on the orders of the Internal Affairs Ministry, but was taken back into custody at 10am on 24 September, a prison officer confirmed today.
Win Htein’s wife had been waiting to meet him in Mandalay but was told to come to the prison where she was able to see him for an hour.
Win Htein was not told why he was being returned to prison, and prison staff, including a prison governor, could not give a reason for his arrest.
The prison official said Win Htein seemed to be in good health and was keeping his spirits up.
The Internal Affairs Ministry, deputy minister’s officer and special branch refused to comment on the case.
During their monthly meeting yesterday, Meikhtila NLD leaders in Mandalay denounced the military regime for releasing fewer than 10 political prisoners in the recent amnesty.
Meikhtila township NLD secretary Daw Myint Myint Aye criticised the releases as a token gesture.
“The SPDC has always given innocent people heavy prison terms and whenever it faces political problems it releases one or two token prisoners,” she said.
“It is very difficult for us to say we are pleased with prisoners being released for show; Meikhtila township [NLD] decided to denounce it.”
Reporting by Moe Aye
Freed political prisoner tells of prison abuses
Sep 24, 2008 (DVB)–National League for Democracy member U Aye Thein, who was released at noon yesterday from Kalaymyo prison, has spoken out about the mistreatment of prisoners he witnessed while in detention.
U Aye Thein, 38, the Thabeikkyeen township NLD organising committee secretary, was one of a small number of political prisoners among the 9002 inmates released as part of a government amnesty.
Although Aye Thein was arrested on criminal charges, he was placed among political prisoners in the jail and said he suffered mistreatment by the authorities.
He said that he and other prisoners were kept in isolation in dark cells up until the time of his release.
Pakokku township MP-elect U Hlaing Aye, who was transferred to Kalaymyo jail on 22 September, was also sent directly to an isolation cell.
Aye Thein said he had also witnessed harsh treatment of other prisoners during his time behind bars.
U Michael Win Kyaw from Kalaymyo, who was imprisoned for his role in the Saffron Revolution, was beaten up by prisoners serving criminal sentences on the orders of the prison authorities, Aye Thein said.
On 5 September, Maung Win Cho from Kalaymyo township's Kokeko village, who had been imprisoned for two months on drug charges, was beaten to death in front of inmates to set an example, drawing protest from political prisoners.
Aye Thein said he intended to report the incidents he had witnessed in prison to the authorities, NLD headquarters and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Several political prisoners including solo protester U Ohn Than, U Sai Nyunt Lwin of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, Ko Aye Aung, U Nyo Mya, U Aye Ko of Pyawbwe, U Kyaw Swe of Madaya and U Min Aung from Arakan State, U Ba Min and U Ba Thin from Kalaymyo are currently languishing in Kalaymyo prison.
Reporting by Khin Maung Soe Min
U Aye Thein, 38, the Thabeikkyeen township NLD organising committee secretary, was one of a small number of political prisoners among the 9002 inmates released as part of a government amnesty.
Although Aye Thein was arrested on criminal charges, he was placed among political prisoners in the jail and said he suffered mistreatment by the authorities.
He said that he and other prisoners were kept in isolation in dark cells up until the time of his release.
Pakokku township MP-elect U Hlaing Aye, who was transferred to Kalaymyo jail on 22 September, was also sent directly to an isolation cell.
Aye Thein said he had also witnessed harsh treatment of other prisoners during his time behind bars.
U Michael Win Kyaw from Kalaymyo, who was imprisoned for his role in the Saffron Revolution, was beaten up by prisoners serving criminal sentences on the orders of the prison authorities, Aye Thein said.
On 5 September, Maung Win Cho from Kalaymyo township's Kokeko village, who had been imprisoned for two months on drug charges, was beaten to death in front of inmates to set an example, drawing protest from political prisoners.
Aye Thein said he intended to report the incidents he had witnessed in prison to the authorities, NLD headquarters and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Several political prisoners including solo protester U Ohn Than, U Sai Nyunt Lwin of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, Ko Aye Aung, U Nyo Mya, U Aye Ko of Pyawbwe, U Kyaw Swe of Madaya and U Min Aung from Arakan State, U Ba Min and U Ba Thin from Kalaymyo are currently languishing in Kalaymyo prison.
Reporting by Khin Maung Soe Min
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