Spare the Child

Street kids in Rangoon are often employed as laborers. (Photo: Aung Thet Wine/The Irrawaddy)

By AUNG THET WINE - The Irrawaddy News - V16-9

Burma’s military government pays lip service to the rights of children,
but still allows child labor and recruits underage soldiers

RANGOON — ABOUT 6:30 p.m., a sudden, heavy rain poured down on the Thirimingala vegetable market, sending crowds of shoppers, traders and laborers running for cover.

A group of children in ragged clothes paid no attention to the drenching rain. They continued picking through wilted and soiled vegetables and fruit that had been dumped in piles of garbage behind the market.

Bits of vegetables and fruit that appeared edible were quickly stuffed into their bags. Next to the children, a few adult men and women also sifted through putrid piles of foodstuff.

The children, about 30 in total, outnumbered the adults. They were part of a small army of child laborers in Rangoon who struggle for survival, forsaking school for odd jobs, begging and scavenging.

“I come from Hlaing Tharyar,” said Ywun Ei San, a 10-year-old girl who was collecting discarded foodstuff to sell to market vendors in her hometown on the outskirts of Rangoon.

“Usually, the trucks and vegetable wholesalers throw away their damaged vegetables around 4 a.m., and at about 6:30 in the evening. We collect the good pieces. We can earn a thousand kyat a day (US $0.85).

Ywun Ei San has survived by collecting garbage for more than a year. Usually, a child, if asked what they would most like to have, says something about toys, games or candy. However, Ywun Ei San, in a resigned voice, said she wanted “vegetables that I can sell.”

Nobody knows the number of child laborers in Burma, but they number perhaps in the hundreds of thousands, working in markets, teashops, restaurants, small industry and on construction sites. Some children also end up as domestic servants, while others are exploited in the sex trade.

At 4 o’clock one morning, eight children in their teens had already started their jobs at the Win teashop in Mayangone Township on the Rangoon-Insein road. With sleep still in their eyes, some washed cups and plates, while others prepared a fire to boil water, cooked snacks and arranged tables and stools.

“We get up at 3:30 in the morning. The shop opens at 5:30. About 6:30, the customers start coming in and we start serving them. The shop owner feeds us at 8,” said Maung Thaw Kaung, a skinny 12-year-old boy. His bones pressed against his skin, and his hands were rough and worn.

“We have to serve the customers all day until the shop closes at 10:30 at night,” he said. “We have to clean and get the things in order after the shop closes, and then we go to bed about midnight. I have worked here for more than three years now, and I earn 8,000 kyat ($7) a month. Phoe Lone and Wae Htoo [two child co-workers] have just started their work here. Each of them earns 4,500 kyat ($3.70) a month. The shop feeds us two meals a day. We put these stools together with a blanket, and they are our beds.”

Burmese labor laws officially allow 8-hour working days for adults, but the children at Win teashop put in more than 17 hours a day.

“When I started running this shop, I hired five adult waiters and two children for menial jobs,” said the teashop’s owner. “Later, I learned the adults were not good at the work. Children don’t complain as much, and they do whatever I ask them to do, so I gave all the work to children.”

Many employers say the same thing about child workers, and they have little to fear because of the loose enforcement of child labor laws by authorities.

An elected representative of the National League for Democracy (NLD) said child workers were among the “silent voices” of Burma. “Nowadays, we can see child workers everywhere, from maid services to big construction sites, and it is rare to see work sites in Burma with no children. That shows our country’s future is in trouble,” he said.

An officer with an NGO that works to protect children’s rights said, “Burma signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1991, but the government performance in this regard is inadequate and unsatisfactory.”

“Children here don’t enjoy the rights which were accepted in the CRC,” he said. “We have laws, but it is very difficult to implement them.”

According to the CRC, every child is entitled to a standard of living with adequate physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development. This essentially means all children should have basic shelter, nutritious food, clean water, basic health care, the right to an education, the right to be protected from all forms of exploitation, violence and neglect and the right to express their views freely in accordance with age and maturity.

The Burmese military government, however, fails in guaranteeing such protection and is itself a major violator through its conscription and use of child soldiers in the Burmese military. Residents in Kyeemyindaing Township in Rangoon have reported that military recruiters approach street children in the areas of Central San Pya fish market and the Thirimingala market.

A resident living near the central fish market of Kyeemyindaing Township said, “There are many street children hanging around Thirimingala market. Some children have parents, but they are so poor, they can’t raise their children, and they put them on the streets. Other children are orphans. They survive by odd jobs, living on the street. Many of these street children are rounded up and forced to serve in the military.”

Similar reports are common throughout Burma even as the military government has consistently claimed to support child labor laws and denied allegations of forced child recruitment in the military.

A lawyer from Mayangone Township in Rangoon who has studied the child labor issue said, “Burma has promulgated the ‘1993 National Child Labor Law’ and the ‘2001 Rules Related to Child Labor Laws,’ but actually, these laws are only on paper and are not enforced.”

Stories of child laborers, child soldiers and abandoned street children almost never appear in the state-run media or privately owned press. When such accounts are written by journalists or concerned activists, the junta’s censorship board red flags the stories and they are discarded, said a senior journalist in Rangoon.

“I see many examples of child laborers and child soldiers while going around the city,” he said. “The censorship board is sensitive about that kind of news.”

The NLD representative is left to wonder why the military government refuses to fulfill its responsibility to protect children from neglect and exploitation.

“To stop the use of child laborers and child soldiers, we need to overhaul the whole administration system,” he said. “Until we have a system where the law is respected and actually enforced, we will continue to see more child laborers, child soldiers and child abuse,” he said.

Burma's children still forced into army

by Ring Aung & Htoo Htoo San

KNG, 30 Jul'08 - He said that he came from a very poor family and at the age of seven or nine, he started working. While he was on the way to sell garden produce in Rangoon, he was recruited.

“I lost my travel pass from the ward leader, and at Bago railway station and some soldiers came on board and asked everyone for ID cards. I realized I'd lost my recommendation letter, and they took me in. The same day they sent me to the Mingaladon Su Saun Yay in handcuffs”.

The Burmese government claims that its army is an all-volunteer force and the minimum age for recruitment is 18. However the New York based HRW testified in the report that the majority of new recruits are conscripts, and that a large number of them are children.

The HRW report findings are confirmed by the Human Rights Education Institute of Burma (HREIB) deputy Director Mike Paller who says “Thousands of children throughout Burma continue to be recruited into the Burmese Army. They are recruited while going to school or the market, while waiting for the buses or trains, or simply while hanging out with friends”.

Mike Paller says “Children are attractive recruits because they have long-term investment potential and they are susceptible to intimidation”.

Despite international pressure on the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) to stop recruiting and using child soldiers, the SPDC has been continuously violating child rights to recruit or use child soldiers in its army, says Mike Paller.

“Although there is a lot of pressure on the SPDC to stop recruiting and using child soldiers, evidence suggests that children are still being recruited and used in Burma's armed forces”.

Unfortunately, the military regime has not made enough progress with regard to putting an end to this grave violation of child rights.

The SPDC said in a letter sent to the HRW on September 2007 that they have formed a committee for the Prevention of Recruiting Child Soldiers and preventing forced recruitment of under-age children as soldiers and ensuring adherence to orders and instructions issued for the protection of under-age children.

In spite of the SPDC letter the recruitment of child soldiers continue.

HRW's World Report in 2008 found “The recruitment of children into the armed forces continues as a result of high desertion rates and chronic understaffing. Recruiters and civilian brokers used coercion, threats, and physical force to recruit children as young as 10”.

Several ethnic armed groups are still fighting against the SPDC, and some have alliance with them. And they have continually recruited and used child soldiers although the numbers were much lower than the Burmese Army, according to the HRW's world report and Child Soldiers Global Report 2008 by the Southeast Asia Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers (SEACSUCS).

Most ethnic armed groups denied recruiting of children into the army and use of child soldiers.

David Taw, a spokesperson for the Karen National Union (KNU) says, “We have a policy not to recruit children into the army and we take action against soldiers who flout the order”.

He continued that the KNU has an agreement with the international community not to use child soldiers in the army and the KNU invites them to investigate whether the KNU uses child soldiers.

The Shan State Army says they also have a policy against recruitment of child soldiers.

“We don't have a policy to recruit children into the army,” says Sai Hseng Merng, a spokesperson for Shan State Army (SSA). “We even let orphans attend school and open schools for them”.

The SSA says it recruits soldiers between the ages of 18 and 45. The SSA has also invited the international community to investigate their army regarding the use of child soldiers. The SSA-South is fighting against the SPDC to achieve autonomy for Shan State.

Khu Oo Re, a spokesperson of the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) says “We are sure that there are no child soldiers in our army and we don't have a policy to recruit children into the army. Even adults join the army voluntarily”.

“We have already released a statement thrice regarding the use of child soldiers in the army and we invite the international community to investigate if we are using child soldiers,” added Khu Oo Re.

The KNPP, based along the Thai-Burma border, was founded in 1955 to secure independence from the Burmese state.

While most ethnic groups denied the use of child soldiers in its armies, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) has been quoted in the HRW report, “Sold to be Soldiers” as saying that the KIA and its political arm the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) have no formal policy on child soldiers.

“We have child soldiers but not intentionally. We do not purposely mobilize children. In many cases child soldiers come and ask to join the KIA because they are from poor families. There is no minimum age in the KIA,” said a senior KIA officer.

According to Child Soldiers Global Report 2008 by SEACSUCS, “an unknown number of former child soldiers continue to flee to Thailand after deserting from the Burmese Army. But as fast as the children desert, agents and brokers working for the army recruit replacements”.

Former child soldier re-arrested for desertion - Maung Htut San Oo

Aug 15, 2008 (DVB)–A former child soldier who escaped from a hard labour camp after being jailed for desertion has been re-arrested while trying to compile a case to submit to the International Labour Organisation, his uncle said.

Maung Htut San Oo’s uncle Ye Tun Zaw claimed his nephew was recruited into Burma’s armed forces at the age of 11 and tried to escape on several occasions.

“Maung Htut San Oo was born on 10 October 1987 and lived with his mother Daw Ni Ni Lwin in Hlaing township's ward 1, his father having passed away when he was very young,” Ye Tun Zaw said.

"In early May 1999, when he was 11, he went swimming at Insein swimming pool and was abducted by a soldier on his way back home – he was later taken to a soldier recruitment center where he was enlisted as a soldier," he went on.

"The soldier first took him to Insein railway station's police station and asked him to choose whether he wanted to go into jail or to go with him," he said.

"Htut San Oo was scared and he decided to go with the soldier who took him to Mingalardon soldier recruitment centre."

Ye Tun Zaw said that at first, Htut San Oo was given menial tasks to do, but shortly after his recruitment he was sent on a military training course.

"For a first few days they only let him work as a servant in military officials' houses – on 24 May, they sent him on a four-month soldier training programme in Pyinmana," Ye Tun Zaw said.

"After the training, he was posted to air defence artillery battalion 13."

Htut San Oo made two attempts to escape from the military, the second of which was successful, but when he turned 16, he reenlisted at South Dagon's soldier recruitment centre after learning that the government hunted down military deserters.

Ye Tun Zaw said officials at the South Dagon recruitment centre changed his date of birth on his registration papers to say that he was 21, the minimum legal age for enlistment being 18.

After reenlisting, Htut San Oo was sent to Hle Gu officer training camp outside Rangoon, and was then signed up for an advanced training program which lasted for two and a half months.

“He came home for a visit when he was given leave but he never went back to the army,” Ye Tun Zaw said.

“About two years later, when he was 18, he was arrested for deserting the army and was sentenced to two years in prison,” he said.

“He was assigned to hard labour on a private rubber plantation. The prisoners were given no holiday or benefits and were beaten when they couldn’t work.”

Ye Tun Zaw said Htut San Oo managed to escape from the work camp when Cyclone Nargis hit Burma in early May, and began to assemble documents to report his case to the ILO.

He was arrested at his local ward Peace and Development Council office where he went to get a copy of his householder list.

He is now being detained in Insein prison's ward 4, cell 8, where he is being kept in shackles.

Reporting by Aye Nai

20th Anniversary of 8.8.88 – Two decades of ASEAN failing the people of Burma

(2008-08-08), Kuala Lumpur, 08 August, (Asiantribune.com): The ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC) in solidarity with the people of Myanmar / Burma reminded all ASEAN leaders that the bloody events of the 1988 uprising in Burma has yet to be addressed by ASEAN till this day.

ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus in a statement said, "ASEAN has further ignored the plight of the Burmese people who again in 2007, demonstrated against the injustices perpetrated against them.

The statement continued to add : “The ‘Saffron Revolution’ of 2007 was also brutally suppressed and ASEAN has yet to hold the Burmese junta accountable for its actions.

“Conditions have since worsened in Burma as a result of the devastation left by Cyclone Nargis and the poor management of this crisis, by the present military junta, leaves the people of Burma living in deplorable conditions.

“AIPMC disappointingly notes that to date the measures taken by ASEAN leaders to address the humanitarian and political crisis in Burma have been insufficient and unsatisfactory.

AIPMC President Kraisak Choonhavan said, “Burma continues to face rampant inflation, poor healthcare, the unceasing use of child soldiers and the continued imprisonment of political prisoners. ASEAN leaders have failed to ensure that, with the inclusion of Burma into ASEAN, the junta are compelled to respect the rights of its people.

AIPMC strongly urged ASEAN to compel Burma’s junta to engage in genuine political, economic and social reforms. Failing which, ASEAN should no longer protect the junta from international action. Without these comprehensive reforms, especially politically, regional lawmakers fear that Burma will continue to plunge in a downward spiral that would be especially damaging to countries in Southeast Asia.

“We want ASEAN leaders to ensure that the military junta is held accountable for all the Injustices perpetrated by establishing an ASEAN Human Rights mechanism to look into this matter. This must be done in accordance to international human rights standards and principles found in the ASEAN Charter,” added AIPMC senior adviser Loretta Rosales.

As stated in the preamble of the ASEAN Charter, AIPMC again reminds ASEAN leaders that they have agreed to adhere to the principles of democracy, the rule of law and good governance, respect for and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. There is no reason for ASEAN to delay the implementation of their promises.

Junta Steps Up Crackdown on Private Relief Efforts

Burma Partnership
appartnership@gmail.com partnership@loxinfo.com
http://apppb.blogspot.com

Briefer 16th – 22nd June

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

The patience of the international community appears to be wearing thin as the delivery of aid continues to face undue obstacles, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi celebrates another birthday under illegitimate detention and the usual human rights abuses carry on unchecked in Burma. As the humanitarian effort struggles on in the face of a potentially terminating funding crisis, the focus of the international community seems to have shifted to the wider political and human rights crises in Burma. The National League for Democracy has once again urged the military regime to convene parliament in order to solve the political and humanitarian crises the country is facing (http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/4-inside-burma/686-nld-calls-for-parliament-to-be-convened).

Cyclone Nargis:
Senator John Kerry has formally urged US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to investigate whether the junta’s restriction of foreign aid may constitute a crime against humanity under international law. He has requested a legal opinion from the State Department
(http://kerry.senate.gov/cfm/record.cfm?id=299259, and
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=12840).

The World Bank has donated US$850,000 to ASEAN for disaster assessment and recovery activities in the wake of the cyclone. The grant is further intended to support ASEAN’s leadership role in the humanitarian efforts and to strengthen its capacity in the coordination of international response and senior-level dialogue on recovery planning (http://www.aseansec.org/21645.htm). Burmese groups in exile have issued a statement expressing concern that the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) may view the current humanitarian crisis as an opportunity to increase engagement with the SPDC. The Ethnic Community Development Forum and other groups have urged the World Bank and ADB to focus only on facilitating relief efforts and to include community-based organisations advocating real political reform in any decision-making process regarding their activities in Burma (http://appartnership.googlepages.com/ECDF-June17-08.doc).

The World Food Program has made a plea for additional funding for the humanitarian aid effort being carried out in the wake of Cyclone Nargis. Chris Kaye, WFP country director in Burma, warned that the distribution of supplies to distressed communities by boat, truck and air ‘will all grind to a halt by the end of this month unless we get additional funding now’ (http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/213818,lack-of-funding-threatens-myanmar-helicopter-relief-operation.html). The executive secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Noeleen Hayzer, called on the international community o donate 1 million gallons of diesel fuel that the regime says is needed to operate the mechanical tillers donated by other countries (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1434).

Farmers in Labutta township, Irawaddy division, went to collect hand tractors donated as part of the cyclone relief effort but found that local authorities were demanding payment (of between 1.09 and 2.2 million kyat). Even the down payment far exceeded the means of most farmers. Reports suggest that so far none of the farmers in the delta region has been provided with any financial or material assistance to enable them to get back to work (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1432). An absurdist bureaucracy charging farmers from the cyclone-stricken regions administration fees for defunct contracts has further hindered the distribution of machines in this critical planting season (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1445).

Private donors continue to face harassment and obstruction despite the junta’s promises (http://www.kachinnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=247:junta-continues-to-restrict-aid-workers-from-helping-cyclone-victims&catid=38:environment&Itemid=61). Thai-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners states that ten donors have been arrested since the beginning of June (http://www.irrawaddy.org/article1.php?art_id=12822). The Burmese authorities detained three senior members of the pro-democracy group 88 Generation Students on 12th June. The group has formed a team called Myitta Paung Ku to distribute aid to cyclone survivors. Myet Thu, Yin Yin Wyne and Tin Tin Cho were waiting to discuss further aid distribution with monks when they were taken away. Their whereabouts are unknown (http://www.mizzima.com/nargis-impact/18-nargis-impact/675-student-activists-helping-nargis-victims-arrested,
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article2.php?art_id=12776, http://www.mizzima.com/nargis-impact/18-nargis-impact/679-volunteers-for-cyclone-relief-work-arrested-yet-again). Sports writer and former editor of weekly journal First Eleven Zaw Thet Htway was arrested on 13th June (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1431).

One of the many civil groups to have formed since the strike of Cyclone Nargis has undertaken the grim task of disposing of the many corpses still lying in the rivers and fields of the Irrawaddy delta. They have given bodies a simple cremation and burial rites. Seven members of the group were arrested on June 14th (http://www.irrawaddy.org/article2.php?art_id=12846).

Donated food stored in a monastery in Phyar Pon was left to rot instead of being given to desperate cyclone victims because soldiers didn’t receive orders to distribute it (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1433). Meanwhile, increasing numbers of children in Rangoon and other cyclone-afflicted areas have been reduced to stealing food in order to stave off starvation (http://www.irrawaddy.org/article1.php?art_id=12778).

The junta has warned against the exploitation of children orphaned by the cyclone. Anyone found guilty of trafficking children will be sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in prison. The authorities have also announced that they will take sole responsibility for the care of orphans, banning all individuals and organisations from doing so (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/16/content_8381219.htm). This move threatens the plans of the Free Funeral Service Society to build an orphanage.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) decided at its International Labour Conference on 13th June that it would take an active role in the post-cyclone reconstruction efforts. The ILO’s current priority will be to prevent the use of forced labour in the reconstruction effort, but it will continue to investigate complaints in other contexts, noting that the forced labour situation in Burma is a cause for ‘profound concern’ (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1428).

The UN launched a massive anti-dengue operation in the cyclone-hit areas of Burma this week (http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=12767). The climate and lack of shelter in the Irrawaddy delta has left cyclone survivors at greater risk of succumbing to this disease. Other diseases are on the rise in Labutta, although not at the rate expected (http://www.irrawaddy.org/article3.php?art_id=12775).

The 250 member Post-Nargis Joint Assessment (PONJA) team returned to Rangoon on 20th June after completing its data collection in 30 affected townships across the cyclone-afflicted region. Preliminary findings and a progress report will be presented at the ASEAN meeting on 24th June (http://yangon.unic.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=244&Itemid=73).

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi:
Influential US Congressman Joe Pitts, speaking to the House of Representatives, issued a powerful rejoinder to the junta: “Madam Speaker, I rise today over the comments made by the brutal generals, military dictators in Burma, saying that Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winner and rightful leader elected by the people, deserves to be flogged. Come again?” (http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=12763).

US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has accused the regime of ‘backtracking’ on even its most modest pledges to engage in dialogue with Burma’s elected leader. Rice criticised the Burmese authorities for holding a ‘rigged referendum… on a sham constitution’ and for the continued denial of the liberty and fundamental political and civil rights of political prisoners (http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=12841).

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicholas Sarkozy have released an open letter to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on the event of her birthday praising her courage and dedication to the people of Burma (http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page15807.asp, http://www.irrawaddy.org/article4.php?art_id=12843).

Celebrations for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s birthday took place all across the globe this week. In Washington, an event was held at the Capitol Building, home of the US Congress. Politicians from the US government and the Burmese government in exile, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, along with activists and journalists from the exiled-Burmese and international media attended. U Tin Maung Thaw, board member of US Campaign for Burma, cited the occasion as an opportunity to persuade the US government to take the regime to the International Court of Justice (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1429, http://www.irrawaddy.org/article2.php?art_id=12886).

Celebrations held in Burma were marred by beatings and arrests. An event held at the National League for Democracy headquarters was disrupted by members of the USDA and Swan Arr Shin. Members of the crowd were beaten and five activists were arrested (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1451, http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1449).

Other News:
The UN Human Rights Council has called on the military authorities to cease politically motivated arrests and condemned what it termed ‘the ongoing systematic violations of human rights’. The resolution, introduced by the European Union, calls for the immediate cessation of the recruitment of child soldiers by both the regime and by non-state armed groups and the release of all political prisoners. The resolution condemns the recent referendum as held in ‘complete disregard’ of freedom of expression and assembly and urges the authorities to ensure that any returns of cyclone refugees are ‘voluntary, safe and carried out with dignity’ (http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27076&Cr=myanmar&Cr1=).

The All Burma Monks’ Alliance called for the UN Security Council to safeguard the people of Burma. Citing the raping of ethnic women with impunity, the detention of political prisoners and the handling of Cyclone Nargis, the statement argues that ‘long-standing tolerance by the international community of human rights violations in Burma made the Burmese military junta believe that they have a license to kill and they have nothing to fear’ (http://www.asiantribune.com/?q=node/11856).

On 19th June, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for the immediate release of political prisoners in Burma, and denounced the ‘prospect of flogging Aung San Suu Kyi as a crime against humanity’ (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2008-0312+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN). In addition, MPs from eight European countries have come together to form a new Parliamentary caucus on Burma. The caucus aims to raise awareness of the situation in Burma in Europe and pressure European governments to do more to bring about democratic transition in Burma (http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/pm/weblog.php?id=P371).

The Free Burma Rangers have published reports documenting the ongoing attacks on the Karen people. The reports detail the destruction of villages, the laying of land mines and the displacement of the Karen (http://www.freeburmarangers.org/Reports/2008/20080620.html).

The regime has announced a reshuffle of two cabinet positions and the appointment of the navy’s commander in chief to a ministerial post. The move comes in the wake of Cyclone Nargis and will allow the minister for social welfare, relief and resettlement to concentrate on this role by relinquishing his post as the minister for immigration and population. Rangoon-based military sources claim that the move is unusual and could signal further changes (http://www.irrawaddy.org/article1.php?art_id=12870, http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/4-inside-burma/696-change-of-guard-in-burmese-junta).

The junta has questioned village heads told to monitor polling stations in remote areas of Chin State, where the majority of voters rejected the constitution (http://www.khonumthung.com/kng-news/2008-news-archive/june-2008/more-village-heads-questioned-after-referendum/).

A major from the Burma Army and a lawyer were arrested after raping two teenage Chin girls. One of the girls was hospitalised as a result of the injuries she incurred (http://www.khonumthung.com/kng-news/2008-news-archive/june-2008/two-chin-teenaged-girls-raped-in-burma-rapists-arrested/). According to the junta’s law, only the military court can investigate and punish members of the armed forces (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1439). Three army officers who raped four ethnic Kachin schoolgirls in February 2007 have yet to be punished (http://www.kachinnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=250:junta-yet-to-punish-army-officers-for-raping-kachin-schoolgirls&catid=37:human-rights&Itemid=60).

Well-known actor Kyaw Thu, leader of the Free Funeral Service charity group, has been taken ill while distributing aid in the Irrawaddy delta. His wife has attributed his illness to stress, compounded by smoking and an unhealthy diet (http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/4-inside-burma/674-actor-kyaw-thu-hospitalised-).

The Burma Army has issued a ban on villagers working outside their villages. The ostensible reason for this move is cited as being to prevent armed Mon groups form contacting the villagers (http://www.monnews-imna.com/newsupdate.php?ID=1042).

Blogger Nay Phone Latt is being reinvestigated by the regime. He has been held and interrogated at Insein prison for the past five months for publishing his blog (http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/4-inside-burma/673-blogger-nay-phone-latt-being-reinvestigated).

Eleven people were killed in a landslide in Moegok township, Mandalay division, on 11th June (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1430).

Thailand hosts an estimated 2 million migrant workers, most of whom are believed to be Burmese. Thai and Burmese rights groups are urging the Thai government to repeal a controversial law rewarding informers and imposing harsh penalties on migrants that was passed in March (http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=12798).

Salween Watch, the Chiang Mai-based coalition of environmental organisations and NGOs, has published a report describing the current and projected impacts of the Upper Paunglaung Dam on the Kayan people. The dam is being built to supply energy for Nay Pyi Daw, but the Kayan are already suffering displacement, increased abuses by the Burma Army and the loss of their livelihoods (http://www.salweenwatch.org/index.html).

Reports suggest that rumours of a national uprising on 8th August are flying in Burma. Flyers being distributed in the country appeal to the dispossessed and poorly paid soldiers of the Burma Army to turn on their overseers on the twentieth anniversary of the massacre of students across Burma and on the day that the Olympics open in Beijing (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23895645-401,00.html). The idea of military coups has lost popularity in today’s global-political climate, but it may be the only form of justice the leaders of the Burmese military regime can understand (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/19/AR2008061901429.html).

In Solidarity,

Burma Partnership Secretariat

Myanmar: UN Human Rights Council condemns ‘ongoing systematic violations’

18 June 2008 – The United Nations Human Rights Council today condemned “ongoing systematic violations of human rights” in Myanmar and called on the Government to stop making politically motivated arrests and to release all political prisoners immediately.

In a resolution adopted without a vote, the Council also called on the Government of Myanmar to fully implement commitments it made to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that it would grant relief workers “immediate, full and unhindered access” to people in need in the wake of last month’s catastrophic Cyclone Nargis.

It called on the Government to refrain from sending victims of the disaster back to areas where they would not have access to emergency relief, and to ensure that any returns are voluntary, safe and carried out with dignity.

The resolution, introduced before the Geneva-based Council by the European Union, also condemned the recruitment of child soldiers by both Government forces and non-State armed groups and urged “an absolute an immediate stop of this appalling activity.”

In addition, it called for an independent investigation into reports of human rights violations, including enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, acts of torture and forced labour, and called for those responsible for such crimes to be brought to justice.

The resolution also called on the Government “to engage in a real process of dialogue and national reconciliation with the full and genuine participation of representatives of all political parties and ethnic groups who have been excluded from the political process.”

Introducing the resolution on behalf of the EU, Slovenian representative Andrej Logar said previous resolutions had not been implemented by Myanmar and many political prisoners remained in detention.

The recent constitutional referendum was conducted in complete disregard of basic standards on such issues as freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, he said.

Myanmar’s representative U Wunna Maung Lwin described the resolution as politically motivated and lopsided and said powerful States were trying to influence matters through political interference.

The representative said Myanmar was working with the international community in the response effort to Cyclone Nargis, which struck the country on 2-3 May, and was also making efforts on the political front, such as with the recent holding of the constitutional referendum.

Meanwhile, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon briefed the General Assembly today on his recent trip to Myanmar, saying that overall the relief effort there is continuing to improve and to be scaled up.

More than 134,000 people are dead or missing as a result of Cyclone Nargis and the subsequent tidal wave, and as many as 2.4 million people were affected and now need humanitarian assistance.

In his address to Assembly members, Mr. Ban stressed that the humanitarian tragedy wrought by the cyclone should not be politicized, and he plans to remain focused on the issue, drawing on the efforts of his Special Adviser, Ibrahim Gambari.

The Secretary-General also covered other issues in his remarks to the Assembly, including his latest travels, the most recent developments in the global food crisis and the situation in Zimbabwe.

UNHRC

The International Criminal Court: success or failure?

By Nick Grono

The global court intended to hold war-crimes perpetrators to account is five years old. Nick Grono of the International Crisis Group assesses its record.

June 9, 2008 - The well-executed international-security operation could have been taken straight from the script of a Hollywood thriller. In the late evening of Saturday 24 May 2008, Jean-Pierre Bemba, former vice-president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), was seized by Belgian police in a Brussels suburb under a secret arrest-warrant issued by the International Criminal Court the previous day. Bemba has been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity resulting from a campaign of terror and brutality by his troops in neighbouring Central African Republic (CAR), there at the invitation of then CAR president, Ange-Félix Patassé, to aid the latter's (ultimately failed) resistance to a coup attempt in 2002-03. Once the formalities are complete, Bemba will be transferred to a prison in The Hague to await trial.

The ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, was triumphant: "With the Rome Statute, nobody is beyond the reach of international justice. Nobody can side with the criminals and against the victims. ... International justice is in motion."

But is it? June 2008 marks five years since the International Criminal Court became fully operational, following Moreno-Ocampo's appointment in 2003 as the court's first prosecutor. How has the court performed in meeting its founders' hopes that it would put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of atrocity crimes and contribute to the prevention of such crimes?

Long road, first steps

The short answer is that the court is still finding its feet, and without far better support from the international community, and without a clearer strategic approach, the court may well fail in its mission to end the impunity of the world's worst abusers.

There is good news. The prosecutor now has formal investigations underway in Darfur, the DR Congo's Ituri district, northern Uganda and the CAR - targeting some of the world's worst atrocities in recent years. He has issued arrest warrants in each of these cases, and has suspects in custody in the DR Congo and CAR cases on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He's targeted the gamut of atrocities, ranging from sexual slavery to recruitment of child soldiers, and from torture to mass murder. After a slow start in the Darfur investigation, he's now zealously pursuing those responsible for the atrocities there, and has threatened to move higher up the chain of command and to broaden his investigations into more recent crimes, including by anti-Khartoum rebels.

These are real achievements for what is still a fledgling organisation that lacks its own police force and generally must rely on the assistance - willing or coerced - of the governments in whose countries it is operating. It is also dependent on international support if it is to succeed: for funding, for intelligence and evidence, for the arrest of suspects, and for pressure on recalcitrant governments. All too often that support is not forthcoming, making an already challenging job even more difficult.

There is also less good news. The ICC has yet to hold its first trial. All of the formal investigations are in Africa, even though atrocities within the ICC's jurisdiction have been, and continue to be, committed on other continents as well. Why is this? For a start, Africa is home to many of the most violent and deadly conflicts within the court's remit, so it is natural the prosecutor has started there. Moreover, the governments of the DR Congo, Uganda and the CAR have invited the prosecutor to conduct investigations, requests he has willingly accepted. This has advantages - the prosecutor is likely to get the support of those governments while he conducts his inquiries.

But it also has drawbacks, as that support is implicitly conditional on his not going after those in power - which is perhaps why in these three countries only rebels, warlords and opposition leaders have been indicted so far. Even Jean-Pierre Bemba was arrested for his role as a leader of a rebel group responsible for offences in the CAR rather than for his role in the DR Congo itself (see Gérard Prunier, "Chad, the CAR and Darfur: dynamics of conflict", 18 April 2007)

Sudan is different. The Darfur situation was sent to the court by the Security Council in March 2005, following a United Nations commission of inquiry which found that crimes against humanity and war crimes had been committed by government forces. This gave the prosecutor a strong incentive to carry out an investigation into atrocities there. This he has done, more aggressively as time has passed. Initially the prosecutor adopted a low-key and fairly conciliatory approach to the Sudanese government, with the hope that the regime would be cooperative in response. When it became clear that Khartoum had no intention of cooperating with what it perceived as a serious threat to its power, he became more prosecutorial. In the early months of 2008 he has assailed the regime for its repudiation of the Security Council's directive for it to cooperate with the ICC, and taken the international community to task for its abject failure to respond to Sudan's non-compliance.

The way ahead

But the ICC, and particularly the prosecutor, could make four moves to enable the court better to tackle impunity.

First, the court needs to expand its focus beyond Africa. The prosecutor is already conducting preliminary analyses of atrocities in Colombia and Afghanistan. If the evidence warrants it, he should launch proper investigations in these countries, particularly in Afghanistan where warlords, commanders and insurgents have continued to commit systematic abuses in recent years.

Second, and perhaps most importantly, the prosecutor must start pursuing perpetrators in positions of power in those countries that invite him in or in which he chooses to investigate. Government leaders shouldn't think that by calling in the ICC they can use it as a tool against their opponents, and avoid rigorous scrutiny themselves. If the court is to have the impact its founders hoped of it, it needs convictions of government leaders who abuse human rights. Such convictions give deterrence and delegitimisation a force that prosecutions of rebels do not. Just look at how the Slobodan Milosevic and Charles Taylor prosecutions have resonated around the world.

Third, the prosecutor needs to be clearer about his strategic objectives in countries in which he operates. Is he just focused on his own cases, or is he also committed to building domestic prosecution capacities and supporting overall efforts to end impunity and encourage stability? The latter are critical and often lacking, as the Ituri case in particular demonstrates - though three suspects are in custody, and the arrests have not destabilised the government, a strategy that combines further prosecutions with effective outreach and support is still needed.

Fourth, the prosecutor must continue to shame the international community, and particularly the European states who were cheerleaders for the court's creation, into turning their high-flown rhetoric into concrete action. The west has stood by while Sudan has defied the court (see Nick Grono & David Mozersky, "Sudan and the ICC: a question of accountability", 31 January 2007). And it is all too ready to pressure the court to defer to the uncertain benefits of fledgling peace processes, when it should instead recognise that the prosecutor has a job to do, and his mandate is to pursue justice.

Although the ICC is in motion, it still needs to pick up the pace. For the court truly to serve a deterrent effect for those who may contemplate atrocities in the future, it needs to expand its horizons, and do more to pursue high-level abusers in power. And the court's founding states must begin to provide real political support to the court if it is to ever hope to end the impunity of those responsible for conscience-shocking crimes.

Open Democracy Net

Burma Continues to Recruit Child Soldiers

By LALIT K JHA / UNITED NATIONS
The Irrawaddy News

Burma remains the most persistent government offender in the world when it comes to the recruitment of child soldiers, says a global report released on Tuesday. The report estimates that thousands of children are recruited into the armed forces.

"The most notable offender remains Myanmar [Burma], whose armed forces, engaged in a long-running counter insurgency operation against a range of ethnic armed groups, are believed to contain thousands of children," said the 2008 Child Soldiers Global Report.

The report, by Coalition to Stop Use of Child Soldiers, studied the issue of child soldiers from 2004 to 2007 and was released at the UN headquarters in New York by its director Dr. Victoria Forbes Adam.

"Thousands of children continued to be recruited and used in the Tatmadaw Kyi (Burmese Army) and in armed political groups, as the army continued its expansion drive and internal armed conflict persisted in some areas of the country," the report said.

"The situation is not getting better," Joe Becker of Human Rights Watch told The Irrawaddy after the report was released.

"As the government plans to expand its army, it is looking for more and more child soldiers," she said.

Burma, the report noted, has officially established age 18 as a minimum age requirement to enlist in the armed forces. "However, in practice, the Tatmadaw forcibly recruited both adults and children through intimidation, coercion and violence," the study said.

While it is difficult to get information from inside Burma, the report said the Defense Services (Army) Officers' Training School in Bahtoo and the tri-services Defense Services Academy (DSA) in Maymyo were the two main officer training schools. The latter accepts high-school dropouts between 16 and 19 years of age for a four-year course, according to the study.

"Recruits underwent physical and combat training, which reportedly proved particularly difficult for the younger children. They also had to work on farms or at other business ventures of officers," it said.

The report said that after training, these children are used as guards at checkpoints, porters, cleaners and spies, and in active combat. Once deployed, they are at risk of attack, malnutrition and disease.

"The younger boys were sometimes kept at the base and acted as officers' servants, sentries or clerks. Child soldiers witnessed or participated in counter-insurgency activities such as the destruction of villages and crops," said the report.

According to the study, several ceasefire groups and armed groups allied to the Burmese junta were also reported to recruit and use child soldiers. Prominent among them are the Karen National Union-Karen National Liberation Army Peace Council (KNU-KNLA PC); the United Wa State Army (UWSA); the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA); the Kachin Independence Army (KIA); and the Karenni Nationalities People's Liberation Front (KNPLF).

Organize now against oppression in Burma

We never hear much about Burma, officially known today as Myanmar, until it's too late. Take, for example, last fall. Crimson-robed monks marched peacefully in the streets of Rangoon, making the case for democratic reforms and human rights.

The monks' nonviolent approach and well-argued appeals were met by beatings, imprisonment and even death -- not all that surprising from a country whose military dictatorship has ruled with an iron fist. Burma -- a country roughly the size of Texas and with a population of some 50 million people -- manages to put some of the better-known human rights violators to shame.

But when those powerful images dropped off the front pages of newspapers and news sites, they also seemed to drop from our consciousness.

That is unconscionable. Under the current junta, the regime has perpetrated a coordinated program of ethnic cleansing that relies on rape as a weapon of terror, while destroying more than 3,200 villages (displacing far more than 1 million people) and conscripting more than 70,000 child soldiers (putting it literally at the top of the list for any country).

In the meantime, Aung San Suu Kyi, the rightfully elected leader of Burma, whose party won 82 percent of the seats in Parliament, has spent roughly 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest. Rather than transforming her nation through her vision and a commitment to nonviolent change, she has been unjustly imprisoned.

So why am I writing this now, when the world's attention is on issues like the tragedy unfolding in Darfur or the fight for political independence in Tibet? The simple answer is that as important as those two issues are -- and they both are of the utmost importance and are deserving of a great deal of our support and attention -- there is something so simple about the issues in Burma.

Among other things, there is fact that the Suu Kyi has the distinction of being the only Nobel Peace Prize recipient who was prevented from ever accepting her prize. She earned another honor on April 24, when she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award given by the U.S. Congress.

What can we do? About a month ago, my friend Jack Healey, a former Franciscan priest, told me about his idea to create a new kind of celebrity-based public service announcement to take the case for Burma to the public. Healey is no beginner when it comes to mobilizing big names. I met him nearly 20 years ago when he was executive director of Amnesty International in the United States. At the time, he had pulled together some of the biggest artists of the decade -- Bruce Springsteen, U2, The Police, Peter Gabriel -- to embark on a world tour intended to raise the issue of human rights and to put Amnesty International in the public consciousness.

Healey and Jeremy Woodrum, who runs the U.S. Campaign for Burma, have devoted their lives to fighting for the people of Burma, trying to rescue the country from the overbearing grip of a military junta and a violent dictator.

I volunteered to help. In the last month, we've managed to put together a campaign of 30 television and Internet spots, shot by and starring some of Hollywood's biggest names, with the hope that their messages will reach not only millions of Americans but also the rank-and-file soldiers in Burma, who may not even realize how closely the world is looking at the atrocities many of them are carrying out on everyday citizens and, especially, monks.

Our campaign relies on internationally recognized athletes, actors, directors, writers and musicians to address what is happening today in Burma. We are running the spots on our Web site (www.fanista.com), as well as a host of other online distribution sites, trying to drive a million people to sign a virtual petition at www.burmaitcantwait.org.

We have just finished marking Passover, a holiday that demands of us to both celebrate our freedom and fight for the oppressed. It is incumbent on all of us who live in this great country, who have been blessed with the freedoms of democracy, religious tolerance and equal rights for all, to do anything we can to ensure that others -- be they within our own communities or on the other side of the world -- enjoy those same freedoms.

We are, as I heard Rabbi Elazar Muskin say over Pesach, a "people of hope." That sense of hope not only allows us to dream of a better and more just world but also obligates us to do what we can to make those conditions a reality. May all of our efforts help achieve those goals for Suu Kyi and the people of Burma and for all oppressed people, wherever they may be.

____________________
Dan Adler is the Founder and CEO of Fanista, which is co-producing and sponsoring the entire "Burma: It Can't Wait" campaign, in partnership with the Human Rights Action Center (www.humanrightsactioncenter.org) and the U.S. Campaign for Burma (www.uscampaignforburma.org).

Jewish Journal

Every trick in the book

By Benedict Rogers

Burma's new constitution will be put to a referendum next month.
A more blatant sham is hard to imagine

April 13, 2008 - Next month, the people of Burma will vote in a referendum on a new constitution - the first opportunity to go to the polls since Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy overwhelmingly won elections 18 years ago. But in 1990 Burma's military regime was shocked that despite all its efforts to undermine the opposition and intimidate the voters, it still lost the election. This time, the junta is determined to get its way - and is using every trick in the book and more.

A more blatant sham is hard to imagine. When the regime rejected the UN's request for international monitors during the referendum, it abandoned any iota of credibility. What kind of referendum is it where those who campaign against the process can be jailed for at least three years?

Millions of Burmese are disfranchised. Buddhist monks and nuns, who number 500,000, are denied the vote - a price for their courageous demonstrations last September which were brutally crushed. Religious leaders from other faiths are also excluded. More than 500,000 internally-displaced people on the run in the jungles of eastern Burma, as well as the 700,000 Muslim Rohingyas, treated as non-citizens and therefore stateless, are banned from participating. Millions living in conflict zones in the ethnic states, as well as refugees who have fled to neighbouring countries and exiles further afield, will also be excluded.

The junta's game-plan is clearly to rubber-stamp its new constitution which, in turn, will enshrine military rule. The constitution drafting process completely excluded Aung San Suu Kyi, the NLD and major representatives of the ethnic groups. Most of the members of parliament elected in 1990 are in prison or exile, and Suu Kyi is in her 12th year of house arrest. The National Convention, which drafted the guidelines for the constitution, involved no debate among the handpicked delegates, and none of the proposals made by the few ethnic representatives who did participate were adopted. Law 5/96 imposed prison terms of up to 20 years for discussing the constitution process.

The end product is a constitution which offers no improvement in human rights and democracy - and simply enshrines military rule. The commander-in-chief of the army will appoint 25% of the national legislators. He will also appoint the defence minister, who will report to him. The army chief can seize power at any point if he happens to believe that national security is threatened. There will be no independent judiciary, and the constitution cannot be amended for 10 years.

Political prisoners will be barred from contesting elections, and the president must be a person with military experience who has not married a foreigner. Suu Kyi, therefore, is by definition ruled out.

The junta hopes this charade will lull the international community into a false sense that it is reforming, and so pressure for change will ease. The international community, including Burma's neighbours, must not fall for this. If the regime continues to ignore calls from the UN for dialogue with the democracy movement, tough action should follow. The UN secretary-general himself should take charge of Burma policy. Burma's best friends - China, India, Russia, Thailand and Singapore - should end their policies of appeasement. A universal arms embargo should be imposed. And the UN security council should refer the generals to the International Court for investigation into crimes against humanity.

This is a regime guilty of every possible human rights violation, including a campaign of ethnic cleansing involving the widespread, systematic use of rape as a weapon of war, forced labour, the use of human minesweepers and the destruction of more than 3,200 villages in eastern Burma since 1996. More than 70,000 children have been taken off the streets and forced to join the Burma Army - the highest proportion of child soldiers in the world. More than 1,800 political prisoners are in jail, subjected to horrific torture. It is time to bring this catalogue of horrors - under-reported and overlooked for too long - to an end.

Comment is Free - Guardian

Off the radar

By Steve Crawshaw
Comment is Free

Since the end of the September 2007 protests, the world has taken its eyes off Burma. As a result the generals are able to carry on regardless

March 18, 2008 - None of this should have been a surprise. The Burmese generals sent Ibrahim Gambari away empty-handed. The military rulers treated Gambari, special envoy to Burma and under secretary general of the UN, with unconcealed contempt.

Gambari - who is due to report back to the security council in the next few days - was not allowed to meet General Than Shwe or other senior leaders when he visited Burma this month. He met with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in a (presumably bugged) government guest house. But the regime refused to make any of the concessions that Gambari asked for, including international observers and technical support for the May referendum on the generals' draft constitution aimed at cementing their hold on power. Instead, they described the ultra-cautious Gambari as "biased".

The question now is: will the world finally wake up to the dangerous games which the Burmese generals like to play? Right now, there is depressingly little sign of that.

For a few brief moments, while gunfire echoed around Rangoon last September, world leaders sat up and took notice - just as the lethal violence in Lhasa in recent days has forced politicians partly to acknowledge the human rights nightmare of Tibet for the first time in many years. In response to the Burmese crackdown, there was outspoken criticism of a government which was (again) murdering its citizens on its streets. Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, declared his abhorrence, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations expressed "revulsion", and even the UN security council, after much grinding of diplomatic teeth, agreed to "strongly deplore" the killing.

Once the immediate violence was off the television screens, however, things went back to business as usual. Than Shwe and his fellow generals made a few symbolic concessions - including perfunctory meetings with Aung San Suu Kyi and allowing Gambari into the country. Key governments, such as China and India, began to insist that things were now on the right track, and that further pressure would be inappropriate. Little has happened since, as Burma quickly faded from the international agenda.

Burma is a country which yearns for things to be different. In the past 30 years, I have lived and worked in many countries where the secret police hold sway. Never, however, have I seen the combined fear and astonishing defiance that one encounters in Burma. The mass protests led by monks last year gave voice to that defiance. The courage of ordinary Burmese people deserves support and pressure on the regime - including, for example, targeted measures such as banking sanctions and travel bans on the leadership.

Now Burma's ruling generals are hoping to divert attention by laying out an alleged roadmap to democracy, including the announcement of a referendum on a draft constitution in May followed by elections in 2010. But what meaning can a referendum have when public debate is prohibited and a casual word of criticism can land you a long prison sentence?

How can the will of the people be known when much of the political opposition, including Aung San Suu Kyi, the charismatic, Nobel prize-winning leader of the National League for Democracy, is in prison or under house arrest? How can a vote be held on a constitution for all of Burma's people when members of many ethnic groups are excluded from the process? How can a vote take place without an electoral roll, a census, or an independent election commission?

The generals also want to make people forget how little regard they have for human life. Burma remains among the worst violators of the international prohibition against child soldiers. In the border areas where armed conflict with ethnic groups continues, the army commits widespread summary executions and rapes and uses forced labour.

Outside armed conflict areas, the situation also remains bleak. An unknown number remain in detention following the brutal suppression of last year's pro-democracy protests. Torture is widespread. Last month two more journalists were arrested and held without charge for collecting information about the international response to last year's crackdown. The sad irony is that the international response of late has been: not much.

The Beijing Olympics begin on August 8 2008, 20 years to the day after mass demonstrations in Burma led to the slaughter of thousands. China has enormous commercial and political clout in Burma, but is determined not to use that influence to benefit the Burmese people. China helped Gambari gain a visa to get back into Burma, but, as we saw again in recent days, that tiny step changes little or nothing on the ground.

China seems determined to allow the generals a free pass, even though the underlying instability caused by the continuing repression does China little good. Anti-Chinese sentiment inside Burma is running high, partly because of a perception that China is turning a blind eye to the generals' crimes.

South Africa, a current security council member, lards its speeches on Burma with implausible words like "optimistic", "progress", "encouraging" and "significant impact." Meanwhile, the 14-government "group of friends", which Ban Ki-moon set up, has met just twice to "review developments" to little obvious effect.

The way forward is not a sham referendum, but a substantive dialogue with the political opposition and ethnic groups, the release of an estimated 1,800 political prisoners, a free press, and room for ordinary people to meet and talk freely. The population needs an end to fear and violence.

Burma stands at a turning point: 2008 could be the year of change for the better. But that will not happen unless powerful players - at the security council and in the region - make clear that the time for waiting is over. After decades of repressive rule, the Burmese people deserve no less.

Back to Child Recruitments

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Mar 18, 2008 (IPS) - Till last September, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) office in military-ruled Burma had received few complaints about children being forced to join the army. But that is no longer the case.

In a new report, the ILO makes a pointed reference to the shift noticed since September 2007, the month when the Burmese junta launched a brutal crackdown on peaceful street protests led by thousands of Buddhist monks chanting a prayer for ''loving kindness.''

Prior to that month, the majority of complaints received about forced labour ''concerned public works under local administration with only a few military-related complaints and cases of underage recruitment,'' reveals a report submitted to the ILO's governing body, which is currently meeting at the labour rights agency's headquarters, in Geneva.

''Since September that pattern has been reversed with majority of complaints now being military-related and underage recruitment cases,'' adds the report prepared by the ILO's Rangoon office of the 15 ''child soldier/forced recruitment cases'' between Feb. 26, 2007 and Feb. 25, 2008.

What happened to an ILO account of a 14-year-old Burmese boy in late October may be typical. He had gone to a market in Rangoon, the former capital, to lend a hand at a stall run by his elder brother. But he was stopped by soldiers and taken in a truck to an army recruiting office.

In fact, the ILO admits that its record of young boys forced to swell the ranks of the 'Tatmadaw', the Burmese name for the armed forces, is not an accurate picture. ''We believe that the number of complaints we have received does not reflect the size of the problem. It is the tip of the iceberg,'' Steve Marshall, the ILO's liaison officer in Rangoon, said in an IPS interview.

''We understand there are some people who operate as brokers. They use force or trickery to take children to recruiting officers,'' he added. ''We have lodged complaints with the government and it has responded quickly, discharging the recruit and disciplining the recruiting officer.''

But human rights groups warn the international community not to be fooled by the junta's claims that it is trying to end the scourge of forced conscription. The London-based Burma Campaign UK has ''dismissed as total nonsense'' claims by a state-run newspaper that ''hundreds of children have been returned to their families in recent years''.

In 2004, the military leaders in Burma, also called Myanmar, responded to growing international criticism about the recruitment of child soldiers by setting up a high-powered group to deal with the problem. But the record of the Committee for Prevention of Military Recruitment of Underage Children has proved wanting, with its regular statements tending to denounce reports of child soldiers in the country than helping to curb this on-going violation of labour and children's rights.

A November 2007 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) confirms the failure of the junta's special committee to save children from the Tatmadaw. ''Children as young as 10 are being targeted by Burmese military recruiters and threatened with arrest or beaten if they refuse to join,'' revealed the report by the New York-based global rights lobby.

''Child soldiers are sometimes forced to participate in human rights abuses, such as burning villages and using civilians for forced labour,'' adds the report, 'Sold to be soldiers: The recruitment and use of child soldiers in Burma'. ''Those who attempt to escape or desert are beaten, forcibly re-recruited or imprisoned.''

The dismal tone of this report echoed a similar tone of a 2002 report by HRW dealing with the growing number of child soldiers in Burma. That report, 'My gun was as tall as me', estimated that ''70,000 or more of the Burma army's estimated 350,000 soldiers may be children.''

And the hunting ground for the army's recruiters to grab children has changed little over the last five years. Soldiers and civilians assigned the job target markets, railway stations, bus stations, ferry terminals, streets and festivals. The rewards for such forced conscription missions have varied, though, with some being paid in cash of up to 25 US dollars per child or given a bag of rice.

The gap between the junta's rhetoric and the reality in the South-east Asian country is stark, says David Scott Mathieson, HRW's Burma consultant. ''There is a massive disconnect between the laws and regulations the Burmese regime has made and the reality on the ground.''

''There is widespread forced recruitment of children into the army,'' he told IPS. ''It is part of a mercantile system. The battalions have to meet their quotas of recruits, and if they do so they are rewarded.''

The junta's hunger for young Burmese boys to fatten the ranks of the Tatmadaw is rooted in a shift in military policy after 1988. That year saw a pro-democracy uprising, drawing tens of thousands of civilians to the streets, to challenge a military dictatorship that had been in power since a 1962 coup. And the army responded with bullets, killing some 3,000 unarmed demonstrators.

Soon after, the Tatmadaw, which was a much leaner and smaller and had no record of child soldiers, was ordered to expand to strengthen the junta's grip on power. It went from being a force of some 180,000 to its current number of nearly 400,000 -- at least on paper.

Yet, as a Burmese military analyst notes, the Tatmadaw has been hit with a high desertion rate, adding to the number of soldiers it keeps losing in the on-going conflict in the border areas with ethnic rebel groups. ''A northern commander reported that during a four-month period in 2006 the army had lost an entire brigade of soldiers due to desertion,'' Win Min, who lectures at Payap University in northern Thailand, said in an interview. ''That is over 3,000 soldiers based on the strength of a battalion in Burma.''

It was worse during the previous year, when internal military records reveal that during a four-month period in 2005 the Tatmadaw was hit with 4,701 deserters across the country, adds Win Min. ''My estimate is that by the end of last year the situation may have got worse. The army may have been hit with nearly 15,000 deserters in 2007.''

But how many soldiers fled the Tatmadaw after being ordered to fire on the highly revered Buddhist monks who led last September's protest still remains unknown, he revealed. ''This may come out when the commanders have their next quarterly meeting, which has not been held since May last year.''

Crackdown Fallout Hits Burma Tourism Hard

By ED CROPLEY /REUTERS WRITER / PAGAN
The Irrawaddy News
www.irrawaddy.org

It may be awash with cultural splendors, topped off by the 1,000-year-old temples of Pagan, but a reviled military government has ensured Burma has never been flooded with foreign tourists.

Six months after September's bloody crackdown on monk-led protests, that trickle of visitors—350,000 in 2006 compared to 13 million in neighboring Thailand—has all but dried up.

The former Burma's rigidly controlled domestic newspapers admit tourism almost halved in the three months after the crackdown, in which the United Nations says at least 31 people were killed.

But in Pagan, a mystical plain studded with more than 4,000 temples and stupas on the banks of the mighty Irrawaddy River, hotel and restaurant operators say occupancy rates and takings are just 20-30 percent of the same time last year.

Given that the unrest, and the shocking images of soldiers attacking monks and unarmed demonstrators, fell on the eve of the "cool season"—the traditional peak time for tourism—the decline is threatening many with ruin.

"There are so few visitors at the moment," said tour guide Aung Myint with a shake of the head. "Many people are wondering how they will support their families during the low season. Now is when we're meant to be making all our money."

Although it only took a few days for the junta to crush the biggest democracy protests in 19 years, pictures, including the shooting of a Japanese journalist, reinforced the image of the former British colony as an unstable, hostile place.

Besides a growing number of Russian tour groups, the only visitors who appear to have shrugged off scruples or the perception of risk are German.

"I don't know why but most of the tourists now are Germans," said Aung Thein Myint, owner of a swish open-air restaurant on the banks of the Irrawaddy, where takings in October and November were down by 80 percent.

"They seem to think that until they start shooting Germans, it's still safe to visit," he said.

BLAME IT ON THE MEDIA

In typically uncompromising tone, the junta—the latest face of 46 years of unbroken military rule—blames the decline on the foreign media and dissidents who smuggled out pictures and reports of atrocities on the Internet.

"Some foreigners attempted to tarnish the image of Burma by posting in the Web sites the photos of the protest walks," Deputy Tourism Minister Aye Myint Kyu, a brigadier-general, wrote in state-run papers in January under a widely known pseudonym.

However, in one sense he is right: coverage of the crisis put the oft-forgotten southeast Asian nation firmly in the world spotlight and bolstered the cries of many anti-government organizations telling potential visitors to stay away.

Under the slogan "The cost of a holiday could be someone's life", groups such as the Burma Campaign UK argue that every tourist dollar props up a regime that uses forced labor, child soldiers and systematic rape of ethnic minority women—allegations the junta denies.

Boycott campaigners also say that the jobs of people working in tourism are an unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of the wider effort to overthrow the generals.

"The tourism industry in Burma is tiny. The vast majority of people will never see a tourist in their life," said Anna Roberts of the Burma Campaign UK.

SHOULD I STAY, SHOULD I GO?

Even though the call for a boycott came from detained Nobel peace laureate and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, it is not without its critics.

In particular, detractors argue it is an empty gesture since the cash gleaned directly and indirectly from tourism is a tiny fraction of that from gems and natural gas, which made the generals more than $2 billion in sales to Thailand alone in 2007.

They also say it pushes them further into the isolation on which they appear to thrive.

"The boycott is totally pointless," said Ton Schoonderwoerd, an independent Dutch tourist watching the sun rise above Pagan's temples, the product of 230 years of building by Buddhist kings that came to an abrupt end with a Mongol invasion in 1287.

"It may seem good to politicians in the US and Europe, but out here it just means that people struggle even more to make ends meet," he said.

Rather than coming down on either side of what is a passionate debate, backpacker bible Lonely Planet chooses simply to outline the pros and cons of visiting, and urges those who do to avoid government-run hotels and airlines.

Burmese child soldier shot dead in ambush

By Loa Htaw

March 14, 2008 (IMNA) - A Burmese child soldier was shot dead and two were injured in an ambush yesterday morning in Three Pagoda Pass (TPP) township area, said Htat Nay the captain of Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) brigade No. 6.

The child soldier, Myint Kyaw (20) was killed when four KNLA soldiers from battalion No. 16 ambushed troops of the Burmese Infantry Battalion (IB) No. 534 near Myain Thar Yar village (TPP) Township, said captain Htat Nay.

The Human Rights Watch stated in 2007, that the Burmese military junta is forcibly recruiting many children, some as young as 10 years of age, into its armed forces.

"In the ambush four soldiers of the KNLA took on the IB No. 534 with over 60 soldiers," said the captain.

During this year about seven fire fights have occurred between KNLA and the Burmese Army, he said. "The Burmese Army has been launching offensives and we usually ambush them as the regime has much more soldiers," he added.

KNLA is the military wing of the Karen National Union (KNU) one of the stronger ethnic armed groups which has been fighting the Burmese junta for over half a century for independence of Karen state in Burma.

Last month four Burmese soldiers defected to KNU together with their guns and in uniforms to fight the Burmese military.

Independent Mon News Agency

UN expert says unlawful arrests in Myanmar accelerating

March 12, 2008, GENEVA (AFP) - Some 1,850 political prisoners are behind bars as of January in Myanmar, as the government "accelerated" rather than stopped unlawful arrests, a United Nations report said Wednesday.

"Rather than stop unlawful arrests, the government had accelerated them," according to the report by UN expert Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, which said that initial indications by Myanmar's military junta of a willingness to address human rights abuses has "disappeared."

In the study to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday, Pinheiro said he continues to get reports of arrests made in relation to massive anti-government demonstrations last year -- even as a culture of impunity reigns in Myanmar.

According to information received, at least 70 individuals were arrested, with some 62 still detained since his last visit to Myanmar in November, said Pinheiro, who is ending a seven-year mandate as special rapporteur.

He also received allegations of abuse relating to the arrests, including death in custody and arrests without warrants, the study said.

The government crackdown on last year's August-September demonstrations, combined with increased military deployment in some ethnic areas have helped open "new fronts in the patterns of human rights abuses," the report said.

In economic and social sectors as well, there have been "marked signs of deterioration," said the study which also denounced "serious violations of medical neutrality."

Moreover violations of ethnic minorities, including extrajudicial killings, attacks on civilians and forced displacement continue to be reported in the eastern Myanmar state of Kayin, it said.

The report also described a culture of impunity as a key obstacle, with those perpetrating torture, forced labour, sexual violence and the recruitment of child soldiers often going unpunished.

Pinheiro's report is based on information from independent sources, since he has not been able to return to Myanmar for a follow-up mission since his five-day November visit.

The rapporteur urged Myanmar's junta to rapidly release all physically vulnerable political prisoners, saying it would be seen "as a good-faith gesture that would help to pave the way to democratization and reconciliation."

A separate report published by the US State Department Tuesday ranked Myanmar along with North Korea among the world's worst human rights violators.

Weekend Beat/ LIFESTYLE & MORE: Documentary filmmaker aims to alert audiences to the plight of the Burmese

BY BECKY PALMSTROM

March 1, 2008 - The death of Japanese journalist Kenji Nagai five months ago in Myanmar (Burma) put the country right in the center of Japan's radar. Irene Marty, a Swiss journalist, hopes the release of her documentary "In the Shadows of the Pagodas" in Tokyo on March 15 will offer residents further opportunity to understand a country that has lived under a military regime for the past 46 years.

The government is accused of atrocities that range from the persecution of ethnic minorities to, according to a 2002 Human Rights Watch report, having the highest number of child soldiers in the world. Myanmar ranked 164th out of 168 countries on the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index in 2006.

Marty, 49, expresses fear for all those who marched last year in the first uprising against the regime since 1988.

Saying the regime uses torture and slave labor as weapons of choice against dissenters, Marty is disappointed by the international community's failure to make a significant effort to determine the whereabouts of the monks and civilians who were arrested in September's clampdown. "What still shocks me nowadays is that there is still so little wondering or questioning about where these monks are now," she says. "Some monasteries are empty--they have been closed down--they are guarded by the military. But where did all these monks go?"

It is this same concern and energy that courses through her documentary, and that over four years helped her gain the trust of those living in the inhospitable rain forest between Thailand and Myanmar.

The freelance filmmaker worked for German and Swiss television networks before setting up her own company, Kairos Film, in 1991.

But of all of her work, Marty says this film is particularly personal. "I have made films of American Indians. I have made films in Africa, in Russia--always covering hot issues, but nothing ever before caught my heart so much."

During her first visit to Myanmar in 1981, she had no idea of the regime's brutality. On her second visit in 1998, she re-encountered a family who now trusted her enough to tell her about the dark shadows that dominated the "land of a thousand pagodas." She says: "I was ashamed that as a journalist and a documentary filmmaker I didn't know what was happening there. I returned to Switzerland and began to do research."

Marty's studies convinced her that as "no one was speaking about the ordinary farmers" in Myanmar, the film shooting, set to take place from 2001-2003, would focus on ordinary people's lives.

The film also moves from the colors and bustle of the country's "tourist corridor" to a more sinister reality. Along the way the narration gives way to intimate testimonies from residents of camps just kilometers from the front line of the world's longest running civil war. It charts the regime's impact on the Karen, Shan and other ethnic groups, who eke out a day-to-day existence of fear and struggle on the edge of the world's attention.

The film is shot in locations so remote that exiled Burmese communities have been shocked to discover the persecution documented by the film. Since it was made, it has been used by the United Nations as evidence of abuse in the region.

Children face the camera and talk about watching their parents' murders and of their dreams to one day become soldiers so they can fight the military. Students talk about their decision to become freedom fighters.

Marty posed as part of a tourist promotion team to get past the ban on foreign journalists, and later undertook frequent illegal visits in the border regions. The film also coincided with her own struggle against cancer, but her determination never faltered, she says.

"When it comes to Burma, the brutality is so huge I found that many times people would not believe me. This gave me strength to go on. The gasoline (that drove me) was my promise to the people and I had to keep my promise to bring it to the world."

If silence and suppression are the tools of this regime, then listening to the oppressed and amplifying their voices just might be the beginning of the cure.

* * *

The film opens March 15 at Uplink X in Tokyo's Shibuya.
For more information, visit <>
(IHT/Asahi: March 1,2008)

KNPP Challenges Child Soldiers Report

By VIOLET CHO
The Irrawaddy News
www.irrawaddy.org

February 12, 2008 - Burma’s Karen National Progressive Party (KNPP) on Tuesday challenged a UN report claiming its armed wing, the Karenni Army, is recruiting child soldiers.

The Karenni Army was among nine non-state groups named in a special report by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon deploring “grave violations” of children’s rights in Burma.

The KNNP issued a press statement claiming the report lacked credibility and calling on Ban Ki-moon to remove the Karenni Army from the list. The statement charged that the UN had failed to ascertain the situation on the ground before writing the report.

The KNPP said it had invited representatives from UNICEF and other UN agencies to visit areas controlled by the Karenni Army and assess the situation on the ground, but had received no response.

The KNPP declared that it had a commitment to adhere to international conventions against the use of child soldiers. It said it had worked hard to eliminate the recruitment of young people into its forces.

KNNP Vice-Secretary Khu Oo Reh said the UN report was biased and lacked “fairness.” There was no justification for the inclusion of the Karenni Army, he said.

The UN report listed nine non-state groups accused of recruiting child soldiers: the United Wa State Army, the Karen National Liberation Army, the Karenni Army, the Kachin Independence Army, the Karenni National Liberation Front, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, the Shan State Army-South, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance and the Karen National Liberation Army Peace Council. The Burmese Army was also accused of recruiting child soldiers.

A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report issued in October 2007 said the Karenni Army had indeed stopped recruiting children, and recommended its removal from the UN list. The HRW report also noted that the Karen National Liberation Arm had taken steps to end the recruitment of children.

However, the HRW report said that children were still serving in other ethnic armies and in the Burmese army. Children as young as 10 were recruited by force into Burma’s army, it charged, quoting former soldiers who said that in many military training camps, children made up more than 30 percent of new recruits.

Burmese Resistance and the Starling Theory

By: Goldie Shwe and Terry Evans
Opinion by: Terry Evans
Scoop NZ
February 4th, 2008

In Burma, where the gun-toting junta is the only authority, it is hardly surprising that most people just keep their heads down and get on with the daily struggle of putting enough food on the table. Making yourself conspicuous in the eyes of the military or their plain-clothes thugs could result in imprisonment on the slightest pretext.

So how on earth have the people of Taunggok, located about 50 miles north of Thandwe, a major seaport in Southern Burma, managed to taunt the all-powerful junta in a defiant display of resistance?

These days most Burmese civilians are too frightened even to look a son or daughter of a military officer straight in the eye when they are out shopping in a big super store. However, in Taunggok, people openly express their displeasure at the corrupt officials who are ruining their country. While the majority of Burmese in towns and cities were still nursing the wounds inflicted by the generals during last September’s protests, the people of Taunggok regrouped and planned a fresh round of demonstrations. When forced to abandon this idea by an increased military presence in the town, they started a poster war against the junta instead.

Where do they get their courage? How do they manage to display these never-say-die attitudes? The answer is quite simple: they just stick to basics, and use their animal instincts to take on the predatory military. The repressed residents of Taunggok have worked out that, when you are so far from the top of the food chain, you must be united to survive against the increasingly violent junta.

Recently, researchers have discovered how vast flocks of starlings manage to stay together when under attack by predators, never leaving any of their number isolated and vulnerable. Each starling constantly tracks seven others as they fly, in order to respond instantly to changes of direction. Cohesion may be threatened under attack, but the flock can regroup very quickly, ready to deal with the next threat.

Similarly, the residents of Taunggok have discovered that unity is strength. Just like starlings, they are vigilant and stick closely together. It is no easy task to paste up a poster in the middle of a town infested by security patrols without friends to watch your back.

No one hesitates to stand up and be counted, either in print or on the streets. When a petition goes around, everyone wants to sign it; a call to rally once more inspired 200 people to assemble in the town centre. Even two lone youths, shouting democracy slogans on the streets, attracted an anxious and protective crowd, ready to regroup as quickly as a flock of starlings once threatened.

These simple starling-like tactics have confused the junta. They cannot understand why the residents of Taunggok will not submit to their military might, as citizens of larger towns and cities have done. The people of Taunggok know that winning democratic freedom is the only way to improve their lives. To achieve their goal, they understand they must be united, a close-knit community, in order to counter intimidation by corrupt local authorities. Just as starlings are aware of potential predators, the brave people of Taunggok know their enemy is the junta and its corrupt minions, who can snatch them at any time. Like the starlings, the Taunggok residents will not leave a member of their flock isolated and vulnerable.

Taunggok was overwhelmed by the government troops on 17 January, but the people still plan further demonstrations. Such a show of solidarity would force the junta to deploy even more troops, potentially outnumbering the population of the town and putting pressure on military resources. The Burmese army is the second largest army in Asia (and the largest, if you include all the newly recruited child soldiers), but in Burma there are at least 50 people to every thug in a uniform.

Adopting the starling theory – taking care of your own and protecting one another from harm – could have a powerful effect on the rest of the country. Imagine the benefits to the people of Burma if the residents of every town were to follow the courageous example set by the Taunggok citizens.

Ordinary Burmese would begin to feel the strength that comes with unity. Knowing that their lives were more secure with the support of their comrades would increase the resolve of the people to fight back against the junta. The swaggering soldiers, who have gained military honours for the abuse, violation and murder of their own citizens, would be revealed for the vicious criminals that they are and be subjected to increased public contempt.

The courageous citizens of Taunggok have proved that strength flows from unity. They have also shown the importance of responding to a threat without delay. These crucial yet simple lessons learnt from the starlings appear to be gaining traction for the people of Taunggok; the rest of Burma may soon follow their courageous example.