By Htet Aung Kyaw
Jul 18, 2008 (DVB)–Although the National League for Democracy and main ethnic parties didn't recognise the results of the constitutional referendum in May, the ruling junta is now gearing up to drag the opposition into a new election.
So is there any chance of a compromise before the 2010 election?
Many activists, including leading members of the NLD, were upset when the state media urged them to prepare for the forthcoming elections instead of clinging to the 1990 election results.
In fact, this is not first time in the last 18 years that the junta's propaganda machine has told them to forget the 1990 result. But it is the first direct challenge to the NLD since the junta adopted its new constitution last month.
"This has been forced through at gunpoint" said Thein Nyunt, constitutional affairs spokesperson for the NLD. "We don't recognize their announcement and so we won’t prepare for a new election."
He claimed the NLD would pursue all avenues to challenge the SPDC on the fairness and legitimacy of the constitutional referendum.
However, the situation on the ground is not the same as it was in 1990. "We are preparing to form a political party for the 2010 election. This is an opportunity for us," says Za Khun Ting Ring, chairman of the New Democratic Army-Kachin, a ceasefire group based on the China-Burma border.
"If we oppose the seven-step road map, there is no way to move ahead. So we must follow it to bring about a civilian government," the 62-year-old former rebel leader told this correspondent in a telephone interview.
The NDA-K and dozens of former rebel armies who signed ceasefire agreements with the junta in the 1990s attended the government-backed National Convention in 2004 to draw up the guidelines for the constitution which the junta adopted last month.
Apart from the opposition and ethnic groups, the notorious pro-junta Union Solidarity Development Association is systematically preparing for the election. "Their latest move was to select two candidates to stand as MPs in each township who are well-educated, rich and respected in their communities," said Htay Aung, author of a book on the USDA called "Whiteshirts" which compares the organisation to Hitler's Nazi "Brownshirts".
Founded in 1993 and the darling of general Than Shwe, the USDA civilian wing is now 27 million strong in a country of 55 million people. The USDA has played key roles in attacking Aung San Suu Kyi's motorcade in 2003, organising the mass rallies in support of the National Convention in 2006 and forcing people to vote “Yes" in the constitutional referendum in May.
Major Aung Lin Htut, a key member of former prime minister Gen Khin Nyunt's spy network, said that most of the USDA’s leading members were opportunists who were trying to win the favour of general Than Shwe. "But they not yet getting any support from army chief general Maung Aye and front line troops." the former spy says.
Another challenge for the USDA and Than Shwe will be to gain support from former rebel armies, he pointed out. "Many know well how general Than Shwe broke his promise on the 1990 election result but very few know how he ignored his promises to ceasefire groups," major Aung Lin Htut said.
This view is shared by the New Mon State Party, one of 17 former ethnic rebel groups. "We walked out of the National Convention when they rejected our proposals. That was broken promise which they agreed in 1995 ceasefire agreement" said Nai Aung Ma-nge, a spokesperson for the Thai-Burma border-based Mon rebel group.
"So we do not accept the referendum, constitution or election. The SPDC should seriously consider how to guarantee the futures of 100,000 strong troops from former rebel groups before the election," the outspoken rebel leader said.
In this scenario, can there be any opportunity left to reconsider the SPDC-led seven-step road map before the 2010 election?
Yes, if the UN-led international community works seriously for Burma this time.
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon and other world leaders well knew how badly the SPDC had dealt with the aid operation to support millions of survivors after Cyclone Nargis struck on 2-3 May leaving 135,000 people dead and missing.
But Ban did not say a word about politics when he meet Than Shwe in Naypyidaw and focused only on humanitarian mission. However, Than Shwe didn't listen to the UN chief’s warnings but went ahead with all his political plans; the constitutional referendum in May, the adoption of the constitution in June and now the preparations for an election.
As Than Shwe's seven-step road map draws near completion, the UN special envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, was invited to visit Naypyidaw in mid-August. Although there was no tangible outcome from his last visit in March, the door is still open for dialogue. Aung Kyi who was appointed minister for relations with Aung San Suu Kyi after last September's Saffron Revolution is still in post but has been left twiddling his thumbs at the moment.
Former UN special envoy to Burma Razali Ismail supports keeping the way clear for dialogue but warns that the Burmese themselves must do more. "The ability to talk to the regime must be maintained in all aspects, including the political," he told this correspondent in a telephone conversation.
"I don't think the people of Myanmar should lose hope in the UN. The UN is doing the best it can," he went on. "When I was working there, I was doing the best I could, but finally it is up to the government and the people of Myanmar to make all the necessary changes."
Htet Aung Kyaw is a journalist for the Oslo-Based Democratic Voice of Burma.
Showing posts with label spy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spy. Show all posts
Friday, 18 July 2008
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
Villages deserted as residents flee to border to escape military persecution
By Hseng Khio Fah
Shan Herald Agency for News
Long Keng village in Mong Pan township, southern Shan State, became deserted when villagers fled to border after some of them were detained and tortured and some disappeared as the military accused them of killing their members one month ago, reported SHAN correspondent from southern Shan State.
On the following day of the May 10 referendum at 22:00, a sergeant and two soldiers from Mong Pan-based Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 385, which is under the command of Lt-Col Kyaw Han, were shot at the vegetable garden of a Hophai villager while taking the vegetables without telling its owner. The sergeant was shot at his chest twice and died instantly while the other two escaped unscathed, according to Long Keng village secretary, who escaped to the border.
“The three were on duty to provide security of the farm owned by Sai Ni.”
At the end of April, Mong Pan Area Commander , Lt. Col. Kyaw Than, and Chairman of Mong Pan Township Peace and Development Council, Sai Zam Win, confiscated some 12 acres of farm owned by 12 farmers in Mong Pan and planted summer paddy seeds for the LIB 520, LIB 332 and LIB 385. Three soldiers from each battalion had been assigned to provide security for the paddy field.
The dead body was taken to Mong Pan hospital. The checkup found that he was shot by handmade bullets made of lead.
As soon as the authorities learned the news, they went to arrest the farm owner Sai Ni,45, his wife Nang Poi, 30, and his son Sai Kham ,18, on 12 May at 10:00. They were accused of planning to kill its members and of being spies of Shan State Army (SSA). The family was beaten during the interrogation, the source said. But the family just answered they did not know who the gunmen were.
Nang Poi and son were released on 14 May except for Sai Ni. In the evening of 16 May the authorities went to arrest all the farmers whose land they had seized and took them to the LIB 520 command post but some were able to escape. Those detained were Long Keng village headman Zarm Hsa, Sai Nu, Sai Kham (Sai Ni’s son), Ai Di, Ai Kya and Zingna. They all were beaten and tortured everyday and later were moved to the LIB 332.
Again on 19 May, the authorities went to detain Ai Mart and Kungna from Long Keng. Also detained were the Kong Kieng tract headman, the village headman and the secretary. All were taken to the LIB 332 command post. Since then the families have to send the meals day and night.
Sai Ni, Sai Kham and Ai Di, 46, reportedly were not seen on 7 June when the family went to send the meal and asked to see them. But the authorities would not show them. They [authorities] just told to the family that “the three are already full. We feed them very well. But they did mistakes that were unforgiveable, so we will keep them with us,” according to a relative of the victims. “It means they [authorities] have already killed them if they can’t show us.”
The remaining 8 detainees were taken on the truck to move to the police station west of the town. However, Kung Na ran away on the way and was able to escape from the fire of the authorities. The rest were detained at the police station.
Until now, there has been no information about them whether they will be released or not. Likewise, no information of the three people who had disappeared has been no reported.
“Whenever we went to ask about the disappeared people, they [authorities] just always tell us they are alive and well but they never let us see them,” said a relative of the victims. “When we asked other soldiers, they said they had not seen the three.”
Since the event had taken place, the authorities went to take properties from the villagers and always cause trouble for the villagers in many ways. The villagers were afraid to stay in the village and some moved to the town. Others fled to the Thai-Burma border on 15 June by motorbikes and some by cars, according to the Long Keng village secretary.
There are 45 households in Long Keng village but it seems to be empty, said the secretary.
22 villagers from Long Keng fled to Fang district where the Thai authorities recently raided and 19 people were detained.
The new arrivals are now forced to stay in hiding because they have no official documents allowing them to stay in Thailand and have no paying jobs to feed themselves, according to a local villager of Fang.
“More are still on their way to the border,” said a villager who is currently seeking asylum at Fang on the Thai-Burma border. “We were not happy staying there anymore, so we decided to come here.”
Shan Herald Agency for News
Long Keng village in Mong Pan township, southern Shan State, became deserted when villagers fled to border after some of them were detained and tortured and some disappeared as the military accused them of killing their members one month ago, reported SHAN correspondent from southern Shan State.
On the following day of the May 10 referendum at 22:00, a sergeant and two soldiers from Mong Pan-based Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 385, which is under the command of Lt-Col Kyaw Han, were shot at the vegetable garden of a Hophai villager while taking the vegetables without telling its owner. The sergeant was shot at his chest twice and died instantly while the other two escaped unscathed, according to Long Keng village secretary, who escaped to the border.
“The three were on duty to provide security of the farm owned by Sai Ni.”
At the end of April, Mong Pan Area Commander , Lt. Col. Kyaw Than, and Chairman of Mong Pan Township Peace and Development Council, Sai Zam Win, confiscated some 12 acres of farm owned by 12 farmers in Mong Pan and planted summer paddy seeds for the LIB 520, LIB 332 and LIB 385. Three soldiers from each battalion had been assigned to provide security for the paddy field.
The dead body was taken to Mong Pan hospital. The checkup found that he was shot by handmade bullets made of lead.
As soon as the authorities learned the news, they went to arrest the farm owner Sai Ni,45, his wife Nang Poi, 30, and his son Sai Kham ,18, on 12 May at 10:00. They were accused of planning to kill its members and of being spies of Shan State Army (SSA). The family was beaten during the interrogation, the source said. But the family just answered they did not know who the gunmen were.
Nang Poi and son were released on 14 May except for Sai Ni. In the evening of 16 May the authorities went to arrest all the farmers whose land they had seized and took them to the LIB 520 command post but some were able to escape. Those detained were Long Keng village headman Zarm Hsa, Sai Nu, Sai Kham (Sai Ni’s son), Ai Di, Ai Kya and Zingna. They all were beaten and tortured everyday and later were moved to the LIB 332.
Again on 19 May, the authorities went to detain Ai Mart and Kungna from Long Keng. Also detained were the Kong Kieng tract headman, the village headman and the secretary. All were taken to the LIB 332 command post. Since then the families have to send the meals day and night.
Sai Ni, Sai Kham and Ai Di, 46, reportedly were not seen on 7 June when the family went to send the meal and asked to see them. But the authorities would not show them. They [authorities] just told to the family that “the three are already full. We feed them very well. But they did mistakes that were unforgiveable, so we will keep them with us,” according to a relative of the victims. “It means they [authorities] have already killed them if they can’t show us.”
The remaining 8 detainees were taken on the truck to move to the police station west of the town. However, Kung Na ran away on the way and was able to escape from the fire of the authorities. The rest were detained at the police station.
Until now, there has been no information about them whether they will be released or not. Likewise, no information of the three people who had disappeared has been no reported.
“Whenever we went to ask about the disappeared people, they [authorities] just always tell us they are alive and well but they never let us see them,” said a relative of the victims. “When we asked other soldiers, they said they had not seen the three.”
Since the event had taken place, the authorities went to take properties from the villagers and always cause trouble for the villagers in many ways. The villagers were afraid to stay in the village and some moved to the town. Others fled to the Thai-Burma border on 15 June by motorbikes and some by cars, according to the Long Keng village secretary.
There are 45 households in Long Keng village but it seems to be empty, said the secretary.
22 villagers from Long Keng fled to Fang district where the Thai authorities recently raided and 19 people were detained.
The new arrivals are now forced to stay in hiding because they have no official documents allowing them to stay in Thailand and have no paying jobs to feed themselves, according to a local villager of Fang.
“More are still on their way to the border,” said a villager who is currently seeking asylum at Fang on the Thai-Burma border. “We were not happy staying there anymore, so we decided to come here.”
Thursday, 26 June 2008
Behind the military shake-up - Commentary
By Htet Aung Kyaw
Jun 25, 2008 (DVB)–While most of Burma is busy trying to help survivors of the deadly Cyclone Nargis in the delta region, military rulers in Naypyidaw are busy with their own agenda.
Are they celebrating their new constitution and planning for the 2010 election rather than helping survivors?
Last weekend, state media announced a small cabinet reshuffle with the navy chief moved to become a minister. But there was also an unannounced major reshuffle in the army as five powerful warlords were dismissed or designated for new government posts in 2010, according to former army officials and military observers.
Those dismissed belonged to a group of Bureau of Special Operations commanders who are the key players between the War Office and regional commanders, including lieutenant general Ye Myint, Kyaw Win, Aung Htwe, Maung Bo, and Khin Maung Than.
"Changes in the military are never announced to the public but only made known through an internal circular distributed within the military" said Aung Kyaw Zaw, a defence analyst based on the China-Burma border.
After those top five off, seven regional commanders are ready to replace while more reshuffle in the lower levels. "Although it seems they were force to retire but I think they will become high officials in USDA when the new election is held in 2010," he adds.
Many believe that the Union Solidarity and Development Association will become a powerful political party in the 2010 election, while detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy is being threatened by these military-backed thugs.
Before the reshuffle, the junta announced the adoption of the new constitution which they forced people to approve while the NLD urged people to vote No in May.
"This was not only laying the groundwork for the USDA but was also part of the power struggle between senior general Than Shwe and general Maung Aye," said major Aung Lin Htut, a key member of former prime minister general Khin Nyunt's spy network who served as deputy ambassador in Washington before he sought asylum in the US in 2005.
He seems to think that the reshuffle was just a way of shoring up power for Than Shwe and the USDA. He cites the cancellation of the first US C-130 flight to Burma on 8 May as an example.
"The green light for the flight had already been given by general Maung Aye to the Burmese embassy in Bangkok. But [Than Shwe’s right-hand man] U Aung Thaung of the USDA postponed this order" claimed Aung Lin Htut.
That showed clearly that power did not rest with Maung Aye and the army but with Than Shwe and the USDA, he added.
Moreover, Aung Lin Htut says that the reshuffle was connected with Nargis.
"Vice Admiral Soe Thein was studying at the US naval academy in the 1980s. That is why he had such a good rapport with admiral Timothy Keating from the US Navy when they meet in Rangoon airport. That is why he was dismissed," the former spy official told this correspondent.
The former major put the dismissal of major-general Maung Maung Swe down to the fact that he is Maung Aye’s son-in-law, while the dismissed major-general Saw Lwin is a close friend of Maung Aye.
Power struggles and election preparations aside, is there any hope for dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi? Both the former spy official and the military observer say no.
Aung Lin Htut and Aung Kyaw Zaw agreed that there was no hope for dialogue or any change of direction as long as Than Shwe in power.
But the former spy and diplomat still hopes for the day when the army will return to the barracks. "I don’t think general Maung Aye is as bad as general Than Shwe. As a professional solider, general Maung Aye would not be as involved with the USDA or civil affairs as general Than Shwe is today," Aung Lin Htut said.
Aung Kyaw Zaw agreed but asked, "Who will remove Than Shwe from power and how? I don't think Maung Aye or any soldier will fight against him anytime soon," he said.
However, they are both agreed that Than Shwe's age and lack of moral power could present a chance for change.
"He is now 75 years old and his memory is failing. So he may face similar karma to general Saw Maung who was forced to retire for medical reasons in 1992," the analyst said.
But they warned that Than Shwe will not retire or be dismissed before the 2010 election if there is no strong action from the NLD-led people’s movement and international pressure from the United Nations.
Htet Aung Kyaw is a journalist for the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma
Jun 25, 2008 (DVB)–While most of Burma is busy trying to help survivors of the deadly Cyclone Nargis in the delta region, military rulers in Naypyidaw are busy with their own agenda.
Are they celebrating their new constitution and planning for the 2010 election rather than helping survivors?
Last weekend, state media announced a small cabinet reshuffle with the navy chief moved to become a minister. But there was also an unannounced major reshuffle in the army as five powerful warlords were dismissed or designated for new government posts in 2010, according to former army officials and military observers.
Those dismissed belonged to a group of Bureau of Special Operations commanders who are the key players between the War Office and regional commanders, including lieutenant general Ye Myint, Kyaw Win, Aung Htwe, Maung Bo, and Khin Maung Than.
"Changes in the military are never announced to the public but only made known through an internal circular distributed within the military" said Aung Kyaw Zaw, a defence analyst based on the China-Burma border.
After those top five off, seven regional commanders are ready to replace while more reshuffle in the lower levels. "Although it seems they were force to retire but I think they will become high officials in USDA when the new election is held in 2010," he adds.
Many believe that the Union Solidarity and Development Association will become a powerful political party in the 2010 election, while detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy is being threatened by these military-backed thugs.
Before the reshuffle, the junta announced the adoption of the new constitution which they forced people to approve while the NLD urged people to vote No in May.
"This was not only laying the groundwork for the USDA but was also part of the power struggle between senior general Than Shwe and general Maung Aye," said major Aung Lin Htut, a key member of former prime minister general Khin Nyunt's spy network who served as deputy ambassador in Washington before he sought asylum in the US in 2005.
He seems to think that the reshuffle was just a way of shoring up power for Than Shwe and the USDA. He cites the cancellation of the first US C-130 flight to Burma on 8 May as an example.
"The green light for the flight had already been given by general Maung Aye to the Burmese embassy in Bangkok. But [Than Shwe’s right-hand man] U Aung Thaung of the USDA postponed this order" claimed Aung Lin Htut.
That showed clearly that power did not rest with Maung Aye and the army but with Than Shwe and the USDA, he added.
Moreover, Aung Lin Htut says that the reshuffle was connected with Nargis.
"Vice Admiral Soe Thein was studying at the US naval academy in the 1980s. That is why he had such a good rapport with admiral Timothy Keating from the US Navy when they meet in Rangoon airport. That is why he was dismissed," the former spy official told this correspondent.
The former major put the dismissal of major-general Maung Maung Swe down to the fact that he is Maung Aye’s son-in-law, while the dismissed major-general Saw Lwin is a close friend of Maung Aye.
Power struggles and election preparations aside, is there any hope for dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi? Both the former spy official and the military observer say no.
Aung Lin Htut and Aung Kyaw Zaw agreed that there was no hope for dialogue or any change of direction as long as Than Shwe in power.
But the former spy and diplomat still hopes for the day when the army will return to the barracks. "I don’t think general Maung Aye is as bad as general Than Shwe. As a professional solider, general Maung Aye would not be as involved with the USDA or civil affairs as general Than Shwe is today," Aung Lin Htut said.
Aung Kyaw Zaw agreed but asked, "Who will remove Than Shwe from power and how? I don't think Maung Aye or any soldier will fight against him anytime soon," he said.
However, they are both agreed that Than Shwe's age and lack of moral power could present a chance for change.
"He is now 75 years old and his memory is failing. So he may face similar karma to general Saw Maung who was forced to retire for medical reasons in 1992," the analyst said.
But they warned that Than Shwe will not retire or be dismissed before the 2010 election if there is no strong action from the NLD-led people’s movement and international pressure from the United Nations.
Htet Aung Kyaw is a journalist for the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma
Friday, 13 June 2008
In Myanmar, a Times reporter worked in secret to cover the story
Aided by boatmen who risked arrest, the journalist saw what the government didn't want seen in the wake of Cyclone Nargis.
From La Times Staff Writer
June 13, 2008, KONG TAN PAAK, MYANMAR — From the far side of a murky brown river, the only moving thing visible on the ravaged landscape was a tattered maroon cloth, fluttering listlessly atop a tree stripped of its branches.
Two Buddhist monks had torn it from the only material they had, one of their own coarse robes. Its message was just as plain: "Alive! Please help."
Tropical Cyclone Nargis killed 300 people in this village, wiping away almost every trace of the people, their homes and a monastery. Surviving monks went to a relief camp, but after nearly three weeks, they figured that what they had fled couldn't be much worse.
So they took some of the meager rice rations they received from the military, came back and made themselves a tent by stretching tarps over a frame of fallen trees.
In the two days they had been living in it, our riverboat was the first to stop. My interpreter went ashore first.
When he confirmed that no soldiers or government officials were there, I crawled out of my hiding place.
Over the last 16 years, I have reported on famine, massive earthquakes and a tsunami. Cyclone Nargis is the first natural disaster that required working undercover to write about the hungry, sick and homeless.
Myanmar's military regime is suspicious of outsiders, fearing they are spies or that their presence could expose the fallacy of the government's claim to be an all-powerful provider of development and stability.
The May 2-3 storm killed at least 78,000 people. And 56,000 are missing.
More than a month after the cyclone, the government continues to deny unhindered access to the disaster zone for foreign experts, such as medical and water-purification teams, threatening thousands of lives, especially those of children, pregnant women and the elderly, the United Nations and other agencies say.
In the cyclone's aftermath, the regime was so determined to keep prying eyes from a landscape littered with corpses and people begging for help that it set up checkpoints on the main roads into the Irrawaddy River delta, which took the brunt of the storm.
The names and passport details of those caught were recorded before the vehicles were turned back. Local people accompanying them were interrogated.
But it's much harder to police the boats that ply the delta's labyrinth of rivers and canals.
The younger of the two monks, U Nya Tui Ka, 53, approached our boat, one of four I hired to take me to the delta during a month of visits, and was shocked to see a foreigner poking his head from the hold.
He assumed that help had arrived. His despair gave way to a broad smile, and then to disappointment as the interpreter explained that I was a reporter.
There was an unsettling silence. Not a birdsong, a dog's bark or a crying child could be heard -- only the wind and a few buzzing flies.
Standing in the blazing sun, chewing on a mouthful of betel, the senior monk, U Pyinar Wata, patiently answered our questions. The monks could make do with the little food they had, he said. After all, Buddha had taught that without craving, there is no suffering.
But the monks were worried about a few homeless children in their care. Together, the monks and boys were the only people on their side of the river for miles. Without fresh water, the monks feared, the boys might not last long.
What they all needed most, said Pyinar Wata, 60, was a pump and some diesel fuel to run it, so they could empty a 150-square-foot reservoir of seawater and corpses and let it fill with clean rainwater.
He might as well have been asking for a rocket to Mars.
We had traveled with some boxes of antibiotics, bottled water, packages of cookies and instant noodles to hand out. But those had run out early on the trip. All I had left was a camera, a tape recorder -- and sympathy.
We were eager to leave to stay out of the military's sight. But the monks wanted us to take pictures of the reservoir, see where they slept and cooked on a mud floor.
Most cyclone survivors were the same. They talked for as long as we would stay, pouring out their souls along with the tea, coconut juice or water they offered from their meager reserves.
When it was time to move on, the kindest of them said we had lifted a great weight just by caring enough to stop and listen.
The 30-foot boats I hired normally haul sugar cane, bananas or rice. No crew was willing to chance two trips, so after each four-night journey, we returned to Yangon, also known as Rangoon, switched boats and set out again.
The boats are not built for comfort.
The holds are open to leave room for cargo, which meant my only hiding place was the cramped space beneath the top deck.
About 15 feet across and 8 feet deep, with a wooden ceiling and peeling turquoise paint, it was a dark, sweltering cell barely big enough to sit upright in.
The pilots sat on the roof above me. One, to keep his hands free for frequent bottles of cheap cane liquor, pinched a steel pipe between his toes, deftly working the Chinese-made 18-horsepower diesel engine that spun a long-tail propeller sluggishly churning the water.
The machine pounded like a jackhammer. And since the four-man crew felt safer staying away from land, it thumped day and night, stopping only when we slipped into storm-ravaged villages.
Their courage braced by the cane liquor, the crewmen felt their way through the night. They poked at shallow channels with a bamboo sounding pole, comparing what they could see of the ruined landscape with foggy memories of trees that once pointed the way.
Sunset was also the signal for the boats' full-time occupants to come crawling out of the cracks. Cockroaches the size of mice and spiders with legs as long as crabs' feasted on the crumbs of our food. At times, so many bugs skittered around that it sounded like a gentle rain.
A green vine snake dropped in one night from an overhanging branch. The long, thin snakes are agile and only mildly venomous. A bite would be very painful but not fatal. Just the same, it would have blown my cover pretty quickly.
A crew member who usually worked the hand pump to clear the constant flow of bilge water beat the serpent to death. Carefully keeping it at arm's length, he tossed it overboard with a stick.
The bigger danger was that we'd be found out, which the crew feared would mean jail time. It almost happened twice.
While we were docked at the delta town of Mawlamyine Gyun, two policemen on foot patrol questioned the crew. The pilot said he was a rice trader, which apparently made sense to the officers even though the hold was empty and the cyclone had wiped out the rice crop.
They didn't bother to look into my hiding place, where I was cringing under a rough blanket.
Another day, we nearly pulled into a destroyed village to ask directions as two army officers were ordering people around.
Just yards from shore, the pilot throttled up and made a sudden U-turn as I ducked back into my cell. No one followed.
Otherwise, authorities were usually nowhere to be seen in the remote villages where the suffering was most severe.
Largely left to fend for themselves through weeks of living with decomposing bodies, scant aid and evictions from relief camps, many of the survivors began to lose something: their fear of speaking out.
Most are no longer afraid to openly criticize the military, to express anger that they once hid beneath a veneer of loyalty and obedience learned during 46 years of military rule.
Volunteers asserted new authority. An American aid worker, also working under cover, told of a local volunteer deliberately stepping on a military officer's toes to deliver rice directly to villagers instead of following orders and taking it to the township council.
Tens of thousands of volunteers collected donations in the cities, loaded supplies into vehicles and boats and headed for destroyed villages. They came back with photos and stories of what they'd seen, short-circuiting the junta's propaganda machine.
The regime's English- language newspaper, the New Light of Myanmar, praised the country's leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, for staying away from damaged areas for two weeks after the storm hit. It said his "farsightedness and genuine goodwill" let relief efforts proceed faster without him.
When he did go, his "warm words of encouragement . . . made downhearted victims happy," according to the report. "While watching the news and scenes of the Senior General cordially greeting the victims on TV, we, all the people, were pleased with the efforts of the government."
But in the cities, millions have heard from foreign radio broadcasts and Internet news sites that weren't yet blocked by the regime that the generals had refused to allow tons of aid on U.S., French and British warships to be brought ashore.
And they know that soldiers have forced people into trucks and dumped them back in ruined villages, and that despite promises to ease restrictions on entry to the country, their rulers are delaying the arrival of foreign experts and life-saving equipment.
Villagers are listening too.
One night, when several suggested we would be safer tying up to a tree in their creek than risking the busier river route, a man heard the crackling Voice of America and British Broadcasting Corp. on the interpreter's shortwave radio. He joined him on the roof of my hiding place and listened for several hours.
At dawn, when the pilot was cranking up the engine to a sputtering start, the man returned to ask a favor.
He didn't want food, medicine or water. He needed the radio so the whole village could hear.
So we donated it.
The writer, who recently completed an assignment in Myanmar, is unidentified to protect those who worked with him.
From La Times Staff Writer
June 13, 2008, KONG TAN PAAK, MYANMAR — From the far side of a murky brown river, the only moving thing visible on the ravaged landscape was a tattered maroon cloth, fluttering listlessly atop a tree stripped of its branches.
Two Buddhist monks had torn it from the only material they had, one of their own coarse robes. Its message was just as plain: "Alive! Please help."
Tropical Cyclone Nargis killed 300 people in this village, wiping away almost every trace of the people, their homes and a monastery. Surviving monks went to a relief camp, but after nearly three weeks, they figured that what they had fled couldn't be much worse.
So they took some of the meager rice rations they received from the military, came back and made themselves a tent by stretching tarps over a frame of fallen trees.
In the two days they had been living in it, our riverboat was the first to stop. My interpreter went ashore first.
When he confirmed that no soldiers or government officials were there, I crawled out of my hiding place.
Over the last 16 years, I have reported on famine, massive earthquakes and a tsunami. Cyclone Nargis is the first natural disaster that required working undercover to write about the hungry, sick and homeless.
Myanmar's military regime is suspicious of outsiders, fearing they are spies or that their presence could expose the fallacy of the government's claim to be an all-powerful provider of development and stability.
The May 2-3 storm killed at least 78,000 people. And 56,000 are missing.
More than a month after the cyclone, the government continues to deny unhindered access to the disaster zone for foreign experts, such as medical and water-purification teams, threatening thousands of lives, especially those of children, pregnant women and the elderly, the United Nations and other agencies say.
In the cyclone's aftermath, the regime was so determined to keep prying eyes from a landscape littered with corpses and people begging for help that it set up checkpoints on the main roads into the Irrawaddy River delta, which took the brunt of the storm.
The names and passport details of those caught were recorded before the vehicles were turned back. Local people accompanying them were interrogated.
But it's much harder to police the boats that ply the delta's labyrinth of rivers and canals.
The younger of the two monks, U Nya Tui Ka, 53, approached our boat, one of four I hired to take me to the delta during a month of visits, and was shocked to see a foreigner poking his head from the hold.
He assumed that help had arrived. His despair gave way to a broad smile, and then to disappointment as the interpreter explained that I was a reporter.
There was an unsettling silence. Not a birdsong, a dog's bark or a crying child could be heard -- only the wind and a few buzzing flies.
Standing in the blazing sun, chewing on a mouthful of betel, the senior monk, U Pyinar Wata, patiently answered our questions. The monks could make do with the little food they had, he said. After all, Buddha had taught that without craving, there is no suffering.
But the monks were worried about a few homeless children in their care. Together, the monks and boys were the only people on their side of the river for miles. Without fresh water, the monks feared, the boys might not last long.
What they all needed most, said Pyinar Wata, 60, was a pump and some diesel fuel to run it, so they could empty a 150-square-foot reservoir of seawater and corpses and let it fill with clean rainwater.
He might as well have been asking for a rocket to Mars.
We had traveled with some boxes of antibiotics, bottled water, packages of cookies and instant noodles to hand out. But those had run out early on the trip. All I had left was a camera, a tape recorder -- and sympathy.
We were eager to leave to stay out of the military's sight. But the monks wanted us to take pictures of the reservoir, see where they slept and cooked on a mud floor.
Most cyclone survivors were the same. They talked for as long as we would stay, pouring out their souls along with the tea, coconut juice or water they offered from their meager reserves.
When it was time to move on, the kindest of them said we had lifted a great weight just by caring enough to stop and listen.
The 30-foot boats I hired normally haul sugar cane, bananas or rice. No crew was willing to chance two trips, so after each four-night journey, we returned to Yangon, also known as Rangoon, switched boats and set out again.
The boats are not built for comfort.
The holds are open to leave room for cargo, which meant my only hiding place was the cramped space beneath the top deck.
About 15 feet across and 8 feet deep, with a wooden ceiling and peeling turquoise paint, it was a dark, sweltering cell barely big enough to sit upright in.
The pilots sat on the roof above me. One, to keep his hands free for frequent bottles of cheap cane liquor, pinched a steel pipe between his toes, deftly working the Chinese-made 18-horsepower diesel engine that spun a long-tail propeller sluggishly churning the water.
The machine pounded like a jackhammer. And since the four-man crew felt safer staying away from land, it thumped day and night, stopping only when we slipped into storm-ravaged villages.
Their courage braced by the cane liquor, the crewmen felt their way through the night. They poked at shallow channels with a bamboo sounding pole, comparing what they could see of the ruined landscape with foggy memories of trees that once pointed the way.
Sunset was also the signal for the boats' full-time occupants to come crawling out of the cracks. Cockroaches the size of mice and spiders with legs as long as crabs' feasted on the crumbs of our food. At times, so many bugs skittered around that it sounded like a gentle rain.
A green vine snake dropped in one night from an overhanging branch. The long, thin snakes are agile and only mildly venomous. A bite would be very painful but not fatal. Just the same, it would have blown my cover pretty quickly.
A crew member who usually worked the hand pump to clear the constant flow of bilge water beat the serpent to death. Carefully keeping it at arm's length, he tossed it overboard with a stick.
The bigger danger was that we'd be found out, which the crew feared would mean jail time. It almost happened twice.
While we were docked at the delta town of Mawlamyine Gyun, two policemen on foot patrol questioned the crew. The pilot said he was a rice trader, which apparently made sense to the officers even though the hold was empty and the cyclone had wiped out the rice crop.
They didn't bother to look into my hiding place, where I was cringing under a rough blanket.
Another day, we nearly pulled into a destroyed village to ask directions as two army officers were ordering people around.
Just yards from shore, the pilot throttled up and made a sudden U-turn as I ducked back into my cell. No one followed.
Otherwise, authorities were usually nowhere to be seen in the remote villages where the suffering was most severe.
Largely left to fend for themselves through weeks of living with decomposing bodies, scant aid and evictions from relief camps, many of the survivors began to lose something: their fear of speaking out.
Most are no longer afraid to openly criticize the military, to express anger that they once hid beneath a veneer of loyalty and obedience learned during 46 years of military rule.
Volunteers asserted new authority. An American aid worker, also working under cover, told of a local volunteer deliberately stepping on a military officer's toes to deliver rice directly to villagers instead of following orders and taking it to the township council.
Tens of thousands of volunteers collected donations in the cities, loaded supplies into vehicles and boats and headed for destroyed villages. They came back with photos and stories of what they'd seen, short-circuiting the junta's propaganda machine.
The regime's English- language newspaper, the New Light of Myanmar, praised the country's leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, for staying away from damaged areas for two weeks after the storm hit. It said his "farsightedness and genuine goodwill" let relief efforts proceed faster without him.
When he did go, his "warm words of encouragement . . . made downhearted victims happy," according to the report. "While watching the news and scenes of the Senior General cordially greeting the victims on TV, we, all the people, were pleased with the efforts of the government."
But in the cities, millions have heard from foreign radio broadcasts and Internet news sites that weren't yet blocked by the regime that the generals had refused to allow tons of aid on U.S., French and British warships to be brought ashore.
And they know that soldiers have forced people into trucks and dumped them back in ruined villages, and that despite promises to ease restrictions on entry to the country, their rulers are delaying the arrival of foreign experts and life-saving equipment.
Villagers are listening too.
One night, when several suggested we would be safer tying up to a tree in their creek than risking the busier river route, a man heard the crackling Voice of America and British Broadcasting Corp. on the interpreter's shortwave radio. He joined him on the roof of my hiding place and listened for several hours.
At dawn, when the pilot was cranking up the engine to a sputtering start, the man returned to ask a favor.
He didn't want food, medicine or water. He needed the radio so the whole village could hear.
So we donated it.
The writer, who recently completed an assignment in Myanmar, is unidentified to protect those who worked with him.
Thursday, 22 May 2008
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).
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).
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Monks Help Cyclone Victims Despite Military Pressure
Burmese monks remove a tree blown down by the cyclone. (Photo: AP)The Irrawaddy News
The saffron-robed monks who spearheaded an uprising last fall against Burma's military rulers are back on the front lines, this time providing food, shelter and spiritual solace to cyclone victims.
The military regime has moved to curb the Buddhist clerics' efforts, even as it fails to deliver adequate aid itself. Authorities have given some monasteries deadlines to clear out refugees, many of whom have no homes to return to, monks and survivors say.
"There is no aid. We haven't seen anyone from the government," said U Pinyatale, the 45-year-old abbot of the Kyi Bui Kha monastery, where almost depleted rice stocks and precious rainwater are shared with some 100 homeless villagers huddled within its battered compound.
Similar scenes are being repeated in other areas of the Irrawaddy delta and Rangoon, the country's largest city, where monasteries became safe havens after Cyclone Nargis struck on May 3—and the regime did little.
Monks and homeless villagers gather at the monastery of Kyi Bui Kha village, in Pyapon, a town in Burma’s Irrawaddy delta, a week after cyclone Nagris slammed into the low-lying region and Rangoon. (Photo: AP)"In the past I used to give donations to the monks. But now it's the other way around. It's the monks helping us," said Aung Khaw, a 38-year-old construction worker who took his wife and young daughter to a monastery in the Rangoon suburb of Hlaingtharyar after the roof of his flimsy house was blown away and its bamboo walls collapsed.
One of the monastery's senior monks said he tried to argue with military officials who ordered the more than 100 refugees to leave.
"I don't know where they will go. But that was the order," he said, asking for anonymity for fear of reprisals.
The government has not announced such an order, which appeared to be applied selectively. Other monasteries in Rangoon have been told to clear out cyclone victims in coming days, the monk said, but in the delta, refugees were being allowed to remain or told they could come to monasteries for supplies but not shelter.
"They don't want too many people gathering in small towns," said Hla Khay, a delta boat operator. The regime "is concerned about security. With lots of frustrated people together, there may be another uprising."
Larger monasteries were being closely watched by troops and plainclothes security men—"invisible spies," as one monk called them.
Such diversion of manpower at a time when some 1.5 million people are at risk from disease and starvation reflects the regime's fear of a replay of last September, when monks led pro-democracy demonstrations that were brutally suppressed, with troops firing on and killing protestors.
Monks were also shot, beaten and imprisoned, igniting anger among ordinary citizens in this devoutly Buddhist country. An unknown number remain behind bars, and others have yet to return to their monasteries after fleeing for fear of arrest. At least 30 people are reported to have been killed although pro-democracy groups say the death toll was much higher.
"I think after the September protests, the government is afraid that if people live with the monks in the monasteries, the monks might persuade them to participate in demonstrations again," said a dentist in Rangoon, who also asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisals.
Newspapers have been ordered not to publish stories about monks aiding the people, and at least one monastery and one nunnery in Rangoon were prohibited from accepting any supplies from relief organizations.
"The government is very controlling," said U Pinyatale, the abbot at the Kyi Bui Kha monastery. "Those who want to give directly to the victims get into trouble. They have to give to the government or do it secretly. [The military] follows international aid trucks everywhere. They don't want others to take credit."
It appears unlikely that foreign aid organizations seeking to enter Burma will be allowed to use monks as conduits for relief supplies as many had hoped.
"One of the best networks already in place in the country are the monks," said Gary Walker of PLAN, a British-based international children's group, speaking in Bangkok. "So we'll be exploring ways in which we can see whether the monks can start distributing supplies throughout the country."
At the Kyi Bui Kha monastery, located on the banks of the Pyapon River deep in the delta, U Pinyatale glanced anxiously at the remaining 10 bags of rice.
"At most, we have enough for the week. We will have to find a way to get more food," he said as monks and villagers worked together to try to dry the sodden rice, even as rain clouds gathered above the largely roofless monastery.
In Rangoon, monks have been able to go out on their traditional morning rounds to accept food donations from the faithful and then share these with refugees at their monasteries. But in devastated areas of the delta that is not an option.
About 90 of the 120 houses in Kyi Bui Kha have been totally destroyed. Gaps in the monastery's storm-riddled wooden walls revealed a 360-degree view of ravaged rice fields.
U Pinyatale said the sanctuary's two dozen monks and nuns were also trying to offer spiritual comfort to the traumatized villagers.
"We pray with them. We pray for the dead to go to the peaceful land of the dead and for the living to rebuild their lives," he said.
"When the cyclone came, all of us hid in the rice warehouse. I saw one person holding tightly onto a tree but he did not make it," the abbot added. "After the storm, there were dead bodies floating everywhere. Some people get nightmares. Some hear voices at night that their dead children are calling for help. Some haven't spoken since."
Media work in "spy state" Myanmar proves challenging
Yangon (TopNews) - They allegedly can be recognized by their sophisticated cellphones.
Myanmar, a country ruled by the military for the past 46 years, is a spy state. Government agents lurk in every corner, and also in the hotels of the country's largest city and main port, Yangon, formerly known as Rangoon, where now many foreign journalists have gathered in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.
Reporters who attract too much attention are immediately taken to the airport and deported. Myanmar's rulers have little regard for the concept of a free press.
Journalists making their way into the disaster area, which is closed off to foreigners, must anticipate considerable trouble. However, a few have managed to get in.
Myanmar's citizens only can dream of unrestricted Internet access or web blogs, and foreign journalists have to recognise how difficult it is to conduct research in a country without modern communications technology.
To "google" some information on a whim simply is impossible. Wikipedia's entry on opposition leader and Nobel Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is still under house arrest, is blocked just like the CNN homepage, for example.
To take out a satellite phone or even a notebook raises suspicion. Webmail pages from providers like Yahoo or AOL also are blocked.
Local news media are not a reliable source to find out what really is going on in the country as they're controlled by the state.
The state-run daily newspaper New Light of Myanmar - reminiscent of the party organ New Germany in former East Germany - only reports on a daily basis that the country is fully capable of dealing with the disaster.
A recent caricature depicted Cyclone Nargis and "saboteurs from within and abroad" as dark, shadowy figures.
The main headline last weekend was that junta leader General Than Shwe and his wife had dutifully cast their votes for the referendum on the new constitution.
This week, the newspaper published out-of-focus, black and white photos of junta members supervising the distribution of relief goods to survivors of the disaster.
How far the spying really goes is difficult to estimate, but journalists trade advice to research only very discreetly in order not to endanger local informants among the civilian population.
If they're observed talking to foreigners they run the risk of being interrogated by government agents.
Taxi drivers often open up to inquiries if they're alone in the car with a foreign journalist, and then start lambasting the government.
They express their admiration for Suu Kyi, who they simply refer to as "the lady."
The non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders lists Myanmar as one of the most dangerous countries for journalists.
During last year's monk-led protests 15 local journalists were arrested because they dared to stray off the official standpoint in their reporting.
One of them was arrested under suspicion of having given an interview to the dissident radio station Democratic Voice of Burma.
Japanese press photographer Kenji Nagai was shot dead while filming the demonstrations in Yangon last September.
But some journalists apparently experience runaway imaginations upon realising that they've ended up in an absurd, total surveillance state.
A CNN reporter advised his crew to follow him with shaky camera while he was racing down a dark staircase because he believed he was being pursued by some obscure individuals.
He had to move to a new hotel virtually every day, he claimed.
Another reporter breathlessly said into the camera he had under greatest danger fought his way into the disaster area, which he had eventually reached "with only two chocolate bars in [his] pockets." (dpa)
Myanmar, a country ruled by the military for the past 46 years, is a spy state. Government agents lurk in every corner, and also in the hotels of the country's largest city and main port, Yangon, formerly known as Rangoon, where now many foreign journalists have gathered in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.
Reporters who attract too much attention are immediately taken to the airport and deported. Myanmar's rulers have little regard for the concept of a free press.
Journalists making their way into the disaster area, which is closed off to foreigners, must anticipate considerable trouble. However, a few have managed to get in.
Myanmar's citizens only can dream of unrestricted Internet access or web blogs, and foreign journalists have to recognise how difficult it is to conduct research in a country without modern communications technology.
To "google" some information on a whim simply is impossible. Wikipedia's entry on opposition leader and Nobel Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is still under house arrest, is blocked just like the CNN homepage, for example.
To take out a satellite phone or even a notebook raises suspicion. Webmail pages from providers like Yahoo or AOL also are blocked.
Local news media are not a reliable source to find out what really is going on in the country as they're controlled by the state.
The state-run daily newspaper New Light of Myanmar - reminiscent of the party organ New Germany in former East Germany - only reports on a daily basis that the country is fully capable of dealing with the disaster.
A recent caricature depicted Cyclone Nargis and "saboteurs from within and abroad" as dark, shadowy figures.
The main headline last weekend was that junta leader General Than Shwe and his wife had dutifully cast their votes for the referendum on the new constitution.
This week, the newspaper published out-of-focus, black and white photos of junta members supervising the distribution of relief goods to survivors of the disaster.
How far the spying really goes is difficult to estimate, but journalists trade advice to research only very discreetly in order not to endanger local informants among the civilian population.
If they're observed talking to foreigners they run the risk of being interrogated by government agents.
Taxi drivers often open up to inquiries if they're alone in the car with a foreign journalist, and then start lambasting the government.
They express their admiration for Suu Kyi, who they simply refer to as "the lady."
The non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders lists Myanmar as one of the most dangerous countries for journalists.
During last year's monk-led protests 15 local journalists were arrested because they dared to stray off the official standpoint in their reporting.
One of them was arrested under suspicion of having given an interview to the dissident radio station Democratic Voice of Burma.
Japanese press photographer Kenji Nagai was shot dead while filming the demonstrations in Yangon last September.
But some journalists apparently experience runaway imaginations upon realising that they've ended up in an absurd, total surveillance state.
A CNN reporter advised his crew to follow him with shaky camera while he was racing down a dark staircase because he believed he was being pursued by some obscure individuals.
He had to move to a new hotel virtually every day, he claimed.
Another reporter breathlessly said into the camera he had under greatest danger fought his way into the disaster area, which he had eventually reached "with only two chocolate bars in [his] pockets." (dpa)
Wednesday, 7 May 2008
Brutal Burma's spy games
THE WASHINGTON TIMES EDITORIAL
The reply of Burma's corrupt military junta to international aid workers as they sought entry to the country was nothing short of shocking.
So is the regime's refusal of a State Department disaster-assistance team. Sixty-thousand are feared dead in the wake of a devastating tropical cyclone. Some fear the final death toll could rival that of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, which killed more than 225,000. Now is no time for spy games.
Sadly, the Burmese junta — Myanmar, as its illegitimate rulers call the country — has long engaged in just that, sacrificing the interests of its people when expedient. Recall the last time that Burma made headlines. In August, authorities cracked down on thousands of saffron-robed Buddhist monks protesting in the streets against skyrocketing fuel prices. The "Saffron Revolution," the closest this repressed country came to freedom, was not to be. The government sent police and military forces into the streets to arrest, beat and "disappear" monks, reaffirming willingness to flout international will.
This time, the horror is more passive. Last week, warnings of the severity of Cyclone Nargis were widespread. The regime had ample time to prepare. A more normal and legitimate government would have allowed foreign aid workers early entry and at least attempted to evacuate the at-risk population. But, alas, this is neither a normal nor legitimate government. After seizing power in 1989, it has built Southeast Asia's most repressive regime, one that rivals North Korea in some respects for its brand of kleptocratic, autocratic misrule.
By late yesterday, the regime began to open the border to aid workers in earnest, but word had not reached downward. British aid workers were denied entry on visa grounds. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino put it so gingerly: "People who are willing to help and provide humanitarian assistance are not being received yet in Burma, and we really hope that they would change their mind."
Who could stand by such a regime as it fails its own people so miserably? The People's Republic of China, of course. It sponsors horrific governments on three continents. But, more surprisingly, the same can be said of Burma's neighbor and trading partner Thailand, as well as India. Nearly half of Burma's foreign trade is conducted with Thailand and about an eighth of it with India. No one begrudges these nations their right to engage a neighbor. But with economic relations comes political responsibility. Hopefully this week's tragedy demonstrates the folly of turning a blind eye to a trading partner's brutal abdication of basic responsibilities.
"Give us money, we'll distribute it"
So is the regime's refusal of a State Department disaster-assistance team. Sixty-thousand are feared dead in the wake of a devastating tropical cyclone. Some fear the final death toll could rival that of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, which killed more than 225,000. Now is no time for spy games.
Sadly, the Burmese junta — Myanmar, as its illegitimate rulers call the country — has long engaged in just that, sacrificing the interests of its people when expedient. Recall the last time that Burma made headlines. In August, authorities cracked down on thousands of saffron-robed Buddhist monks protesting in the streets against skyrocketing fuel prices. The "Saffron Revolution," the closest this repressed country came to freedom, was not to be. The government sent police and military forces into the streets to arrest, beat and "disappear" monks, reaffirming willingness to flout international will.
This time, the horror is more passive. Last week, warnings of the severity of Cyclone Nargis were widespread. The regime had ample time to prepare. A more normal and legitimate government would have allowed foreign aid workers early entry and at least attempted to evacuate the at-risk population. But, alas, this is neither a normal nor legitimate government. After seizing power in 1989, it has built Southeast Asia's most repressive regime, one that rivals North Korea in some respects for its brand of kleptocratic, autocratic misrule.
By late yesterday, the regime began to open the border to aid workers in earnest, but word had not reached downward. British aid workers were denied entry on visa grounds. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino put it so gingerly: "People who are willing to help and provide humanitarian assistance are not being received yet in Burma, and we really hope that they would change their mind."
Who could stand by such a regime as it fails its own people so miserably? The People's Republic of China, of course. It sponsors horrific governments on three continents. But, more surprisingly, the same can be said of Burma's neighbor and trading partner Thailand, as well as India. Nearly half of Burma's foreign trade is conducted with Thailand and about an eighth of it with India. No one begrudges these nations their right to engage a neighbor. But with economic relations comes political responsibility. Hopefully this week's tragedy demonstrates the folly of turning a blind eye to a trading partner's brutal abdication of basic responsibilities.
Friday, 2 May 2008
'Burma Referendum A Shame'
Special Correspondent
Guwahati, Northeast India: The May 10 referendum on a new constitution in Burma has been termed as a shame process aimed at entrenching the military by the Human Rights Watch. The New York based rights body in a statement on May 1 asserted that the conditions for a free and fair referendum do not exist in Burma because of widespread repression, including arrests of opposition activists, media censorship, bans on political meetings and gatherings, the lack of an independent referendum commission and courts to supervise the vote, and a pervasive climate of fear created by the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) in the run-up to the referendum.
"The Burmese generals are showing their true colors by continuing to arrest anyone opposed to their sham referendum, and denying the population the right to a public discussion of the merits of the draft constitution," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "International acceptance of this process will be a big step backward."
The 61-page report, "Vote to Nowhere: The May 2008 Constitutional Referendum in Burma," shows that the referendum is being carried out in an environment of severe restrictions on access to information, repressive media restrictions, an almost total ban on freedom of expression, assembly, and association, and the continuing widespread detention of political activists. It highlights recent government arrests, harassment and attacks on activists opposed to the draft constitution.
Since the announcement of the referendum in February 2008, the Burmese military government has stepped up its repression, detaining those expressing opposition to the draft constitution. For example, on March 30 and April 1, security forces detained a total of seven opposition activists who had held a peaceful protest wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the word "No" in Rangoon. Throughout Burma, similarly peaceful protests are immediately broken up by the authorities. The Thailand-based Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners in Burma reported that over 70 Burmese activists have been arrested trying to stage demonstrations in Burma between April 25-28.
The SPDC's wide use of spies and informants severely limits the ability of people to speak freely even when talking with friends in teahouses or private homes. Any gathering of more than five people is banned in Burma, and even solitary peaceful protesters face imprisonment.
SPDC-backed groups routinely threaten violence against members of the leading opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). In April 2008, such groups allegedly were responsible for physical attacks on NLD officials and human rights activists.
The draft constitution, a 194-page document only available in Burmese and English, was released just a month before the referendum. Many Burmese citizens are ethnic minorities who do not speak Burmese or English, and so have no ability to read the draft.
"You can't hold a free and fair referendum when you deny every basic right to your people," Adams said. "The generals expect the Burmese people to just shut up, follow their orders, and approve the draft constitution without any discussion or debate. That's not exactly how democracies are born."
The referendum is taking place just months after the Burmese junta violently crushed massive nationwide pro-democracy protests in September 2007, documented in the Human Rights Watch report, "Crackdown: Repression of the 2007 Popular Protests in Burma." The brutal crackdown drew international condemnation and renewed pressure on the government to end its repression and bring about real democratic reform. Apparently in response, the SPDC accelerated its "seven-step path to democracy" and announced the referendum.
The draft constitution emerged from the 14-year-long National Convention. The National Convention was a tightly controlled, repressive, and undemocratic process that excluded the vast majority of the representatives elected in the annulled 1990 parliamentary elections. Any statement to be made at the National Convention had to be pre-approved and censored by the military-controlled Convening Commission. Criticism of the National Convention was punishable by prison sentences of up to 20 years. Two delegates were sentenced to 15- and 20-year prison terms respectively, simply for disseminating speeches delivered at the convention.
The new report analyzes key elements of the draft constitution, demonstrating that it seeks to entrench military rule and limit the role of independent political parties. Under the draft constitution, the commander-in-chief will appoint military officers for a quarter of all seats in both houses of parliament, and the military has even broader representation in the selection of the president and two vice-presidents.
The draft constitution treats political parties with open hostility: draconian restrictions exclude many opposition politicians from running for office, and a custom-drafted clause prevents NLD opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from holding any elected office because she is the widow of a foreigner. The draft constitution makes it virtually impossible to amend these clauses, because more than three-quarters of the members of both houses of parliament need to approve any amendment. Given that the military holds at least one quarter of the seats – they can also run for any "open seats," so their representation will be significantly higher – it holds an effective veto.
Human Rights Watch called on the international community not to give any credibility to the referendum process, and to firmly insist on real reform from Burma's military rulers. The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his special envoy on Burma have a particular responsibility to speak out clearly and forcefully and make it clear that only a referendum that meets international standards will be recognized.
"This referendum and the draft constitution it seeks to impose on the Burmese people are designed to forever entrench more of the same abusive rule that Burma has endured for nearly half a century already," said Adams. "The Burmese junta's friends, including China, India, and Thailand, should not give any credibility to this process. If they do, it will simply expose them to ridicule for having said they were committed to democratic change in Burma."
Supporting: Narinjara News
Guwahati, Northeast India: The May 10 referendum on a new constitution in Burma has been termed as a shame process aimed at entrenching the military by the Human Rights Watch. The New York based rights body in a statement on May 1 asserted that the conditions for a free and fair referendum do not exist in Burma because of widespread repression, including arrests of opposition activists, media censorship, bans on political meetings and gatherings, the lack of an independent referendum commission and courts to supervise the vote, and a pervasive climate of fear created by the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) in the run-up to the referendum.
"The Burmese generals are showing their true colors by continuing to arrest anyone opposed to their sham referendum, and denying the population the right to a public discussion of the merits of the draft constitution," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "International acceptance of this process will be a big step backward."
The 61-page report, "Vote to Nowhere: The May 2008 Constitutional Referendum in Burma," shows that the referendum is being carried out in an environment of severe restrictions on access to information, repressive media restrictions, an almost total ban on freedom of expression, assembly, and association, and the continuing widespread detention of political activists. It highlights recent government arrests, harassment and attacks on activists opposed to the draft constitution.
Since the announcement of the referendum in February 2008, the Burmese military government has stepped up its repression, detaining those expressing opposition to the draft constitution. For example, on March 30 and April 1, security forces detained a total of seven opposition activists who had held a peaceful protest wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the word "No" in Rangoon. Throughout Burma, similarly peaceful protests are immediately broken up by the authorities. The Thailand-based Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners in Burma reported that over 70 Burmese activists have been arrested trying to stage demonstrations in Burma between April 25-28.
The SPDC's wide use of spies and informants severely limits the ability of people to speak freely even when talking with friends in teahouses or private homes. Any gathering of more than five people is banned in Burma, and even solitary peaceful protesters face imprisonment.
SPDC-backed groups routinely threaten violence against members of the leading opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). In April 2008, such groups allegedly were responsible for physical attacks on NLD officials and human rights activists.
The draft constitution, a 194-page document only available in Burmese and English, was released just a month before the referendum. Many Burmese citizens are ethnic minorities who do not speak Burmese or English, and so have no ability to read the draft.
"You can't hold a free and fair referendum when you deny every basic right to your people," Adams said. "The generals expect the Burmese people to just shut up, follow their orders, and approve the draft constitution without any discussion or debate. That's not exactly how democracies are born."
The referendum is taking place just months after the Burmese junta violently crushed massive nationwide pro-democracy protests in September 2007, documented in the Human Rights Watch report, "Crackdown: Repression of the 2007 Popular Protests in Burma." The brutal crackdown drew international condemnation and renewed pressure on the government to end its repression and bring about real democratic reform. Apparently in response, the SPDC accelerated its "seven-step path to democracy" and announced the referendum.
The draft constitution emerged from the 14-year-long National Convention. The National Convention was a tightly controlled, repressive, and undemocratic process that excluded the vast majority of the representatives elected in the annulled 1990 parliamentary elections. Any statement to be made at the National Convention had to be pre-approved and censored by the military-controlled Convening Commission. Criticism of the National Convention was punishable by prison sentences of up to 20 years. Two delegates were sentenced to 15- and 20-year prison terms respectively, simply for disseminating speeches delivered at the convention.
The new report analyzes key elements of the draft constitution, demonstrating that it seeks to entrench military rule and limit the role of independent political parties. Under the draft constitution, the commander-in-chief will appoint military officers for a quarter of all seats in both houses of parliament, and the military has even broader representation in the selection of the president and two vice-presidents.
The draft constitution treats political parties with open hostility: draconian restrictions exclude many opposition politicians from running for office, and a custom-drafted clause prevents NLD opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from holding any elected office because she is the widow of a foreigner. The draft constitution makes it virtually impossible to amend these clauses, because more than three-quarters of the members of both houses of parliament need to approve any amendment. Given that the military holds at least one quarter of the seats – they can also run for any "open seats," so their representation will be significantly higher – it holds an effective veto.
Human Rights Watch called on the international community not to give any credibility to the referendum process, and to firmly insist on real reform from Burma's military rulers. The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his special envoy on Burma have a particular responsibility to speak out clearly and forcefully and make it clear that only a referendum that meets international standards will be recognized.
"This referendum and the draft constitution it seeks to impose on the Burmese people are designed to forever entrench more of the same abusive rule that Burma has endured for nearly half a century already," said Adams. "The Burmese junta's friends, including China, India, and Thailand, should not give any credibility to this process. If they do, it will simply expose them to ridicule for having said they were committed to democratic change in Burma."
Supporting: Narinjara News
Tuesday, 8 April 2008
Burmese spy reveals MI’s dirty deeds
Old Article from the Irrawaddy
Sourced: Burma IT Net
April 24, 2006: A Burmese spy, now in hiding in a secret location, spoke exclusively to The Irrawaddy about how Burma’s newly formed military intelligence service struggles to reach the sinister standards set by jailed intelligence chief Gen Khin Nyunt.
Kyaw Myint Myo, aka Myo Myint, said a major failing of the new intelligence service has been its recruitment of inexperienced officials with no idea how intelligence structures work to head departments.
New recruits, according to Kyaw Myint Myo, have received intensive training, but it takes time to build and effectively run an intensive intelligence network, especially the Military Affairs Security. Previously, Burma’s military leaders depended heavily on its secret police units to monitor and intimidate the movement of its civilian population, dissidents at home and abroad, foreign missions, and its own government officials and cabinet ministers.
As MAS has lost some of its clout with the regime, said Kyaw Myint Myo, power and authority now reside with Special Branch officers working for the Ministry of Home Affairs. He says Special Branch officers have more experience handling security and political affairs than the new intelligence officers.
Kyaw Myint Myo was assigned to infiltrate the offices of some powerful government ministers working for the Burmese regime.
Kyaw Myint Myo, 33, has insider knowledge of how the regime’s spy network operated-since 1993, he worked for the counter-intelligence department’s special unit # 1. He told The Irrawaddy that he reported directly to Lt-Col Ne Lin, his boss. His previous commanders were Col Khin Aung and Col San Pwint, both now in prison serving long sentences.
Ranked as an army sergeant, Kyaw Myint Myo admitted his latest spy missions included monitoring Karen rebels and the armed student group All Burma Students’ Democratic Front, based along the Thai-Burmese border.
Speaking from a secret location, Kyaw Myint Myo expressed fear for his safety and his need to resettle in a third country. When asked if he was afraid of being captured by Burmese dissident groups, he said: “No, but I am worried about Burmese officials (who can come and take me back).”
The former secret agent said his personal experience with the regime was not good, as his parents and family members were once interrogated and briefly detained by officials when he had “disappeared” during “a secret mission.” “I was afraid to make contact after the purge [in 2004],” he said.
In October 2004, the Burmese military government arrested military intelligence chief Gen Khin Nyunt and dismantled the once all-powerful National Intelligence Bureau and Office of the Chief of Military Intelligence, or OCMI. Analysts believed the purge was a result of a power struggle between Khin Nyunt and army hardliners.
Following the purge, Khin Nyunt and several of his high ranking officials were arrested and put on trial. Only two senior officials, Maj-Gen Kyaw Win, deputy head of OCMI, and Brig-Gen Kyaw Thein, escaped the crackdown, but quickly retired.
The purge not only sent shockwaves throughout the civilian population in Burma, but had a huge effect among army officers and soldiers, who previously had believed the armed forces were united and in harmony. In early 2006, Major Aung Lin Htut, an intelligence officer who worked at the Burmese embassy in Washington, sought political asylum out of fear for his safety if he or his family returned home.
Kyaw Myint Myo claims he was lucky to escape punishment for his intelligence work under the disposed Khin Nyunt.
Gen Myint Swe, former Rangoon Division Commander with little intelligence background but a close ally of Snr-Gen Than Shwe, heads up the newly formed MAS. Kyaw Myint Myo says Myint Swe is ignorant about what is happening in Burma.
“The government has no idea who is behind the bombing in May [2004].” Three major explosions rocked Rangoon shopping malls last year, killing several people, and the regime wasted little time in pointing the finger at exiled opposition groups.
Kyaw Myint Myo says many bomb explosions in Rangoon were planted by army and intelligence groups. “It’s just to scare civilians and to alert the army.” He added that when he was with the OCMI, he and his colleagues sometimes received information that army factions were behind the bombings. He said it is impossible for insurgents to enter downtown Rangoon. “We have large security networks involving police, army, intelligence groups and township-level ruling officials and informants [to secure Rangoon].”
Kyaw Myint Myo was assigned to infiltrate the offices of some powerful government ministers working for the Burmese regime, and said he gathered information on some ministers and high ranking officials known to be corrupt and involved in several illegal activities, including having several mistresses. “We have files on ministers, officials and businessmen,” he boasted.
As an undercover agent, Kyaw Myint Myo was once ordered to work at the Ministry of Agriculture. His mission was to collect data on possible scandals involving Lt-Gen Myint Aung, former minister for agriculture and irrigation. The minister was later sacked.
It is widely believed that Khin Nyunt’s intelligence service had collected information on numerous cabinet ministers and officials who were involved in sex scandals and corruption.
The former spy said that MAS has hired foreign computer technicians and hackers to monitor e-mail messages, telephone conversations at home and in neighboring countries, where the regime’s critics and activists take refuge. “They are [the technicians and hackers] North Korean, Singaporeans and Russians.”
Kyaw Myint Myo warned exiled opposition groups to be careful of using cell phones and internet, as all sensitive information, messages and phone conversations are carefully monitored.
He said exiled opposition groups not only had to be worried about Burmese informants and spies, but governments in the region with close ties to the regime that regularly provided intelligence information. “We have photos of [exile group] offices and houses where opposition leaders are staying.”
Kyaw Myint Myo also revealed that his counter-intelligence department had a plan to launch the “data thief project,” in which operatives would steal data from opposition groups inside and outside of Burma.
He warned that although Khin Nyunt was purged, informants were still active and capable of penetrating foreign missions in Rangoon. He said keeping a watchful eye on Burma’s main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, was also part of MAS’s work. He says an informant at NLD headquarters received 200,000 kyat each month. “We also collect information on who visits NLD headquarters and from which embassy.”
Although he refused to tell the names of informants and spies who are currently working for the military government, he did say: “You would be quite surprised if I disclosed the names of informants at foreign missions and opposition groups.”
It is well known among activists and army intelligence specialists that the Burmese government keeps spies in neighboring countries to collect information about military build-ups and activities of exiled groups.
Under Khin Nyunt, the Burmese embassy in Bangkok was highly active and believed to have a large intelligence network inside Thailand. Kyaw Myint Myo claims that “active cells” in India and Thailand are still working for MAS. - Irrawaddy
Sourced: Burma IT Net
April 24, 2006: A Burmese spy, now in hiding in a secret location, spoke exclusively to The Irrawaddy about how Burma’s newly formed military intelligence service struggles to reach the sinister standards set by jailed intelligence chief Gen Khin Nyunt.
Kyaw Myint Myo, aka Myo Myint, said a major failing of the new intelligence service has been its recruitment of inexperienced officials with no idea how intelligence structures work to head departments.
New recruits, according to Kyaw Myint Myo, have received intensive training, but it takes time to build and effectively run an intensive intelligence network, especially the Military Affairs Security. Previously, Burma’s military leaders depended heavily on its secret police units to monitor and intimidate the movement of its civilian population, dissidents at home and abroad, foreign missions, and its own government officials and cabinet ministers.
As MAS has lost some of its clout with the regime, said Kyaw Myint Myo, power and authority now reside with Special Branch officers working for the Ministry of Home Affairs. He says Special Branch officers have more experience handling security and political affairs than the new intelligence officers.
Kyaw Myint Myo was assigned to infiltrate the offices of some powerful government ministers working for the Burmese regime.
Kyaw Myint Myo, 33, has insider knowledge of how the regime’s spy network operated-since 1993, he worked for the counter-intelligence department’s special unit # 1. He told The Irrawaddy that he reported directly to Lt-Col Ne Lin, his boss. His previous commanders were Col Khin Aung and Col San Pwint, both now in prison serving long sentences.
Ranked as an army sergeant, Kyaw Myint Myo admitted his latest spy missions included monitoring Karen rebels and the armed student group All Burma Students’ Democratic Front, based along the Thai-Burmese border.
Speaking from a secret location, Kyaw Myint Myo expressed fear for his safety and his need to resettle in a third country. When asked if he was afraid of being captured by Burmese dissident groups, he said: “No, but I am worried about Burmese officials (who can come and take me back).”
The former secret agent said his personal experience with the regime was not good, as his parents and family members were once interrogated and briefly detained by officials when he had “disappeared” during “a secret mission.” “I was afraid to make contact after the purge [in 2004],” he said.
In October 2004, the Burmese military government arrested military intelligence chief Gen Khin Nyunt and dismantled the once all-powerful National Intelligence Bureau and Office of the Chief of Military Intelligence, or OCMI. Analysts believed the purge was a result of a power struggle between Khin Nyunt and army hardliners.
Following the purge, Khin Nyunt and several of his high ranking officials were arrested and put on trial. Only two senior officials, Maj-Gen Kyaw Win, deputy head of OCMI, and Brig-Gen Kyaw Thein, escaped the crackdown, but quickly retired.
The purge not only sent shockwaves throughout the civilian population in Burma, but had a huge effect among army officers and soldiers, who previously had believed the armed forces were united and in harmony. In early 2006, Major Aung Lin Htut, an intelligence officer who worked at the Burmese embassy in Washington, sought political asylum out of fear for his safety if he or his family returned home.
Kyaw Myint Myo claims he was lucky to escape punishment for his intelligence work under the disposed Khin Nyunt.
Gen Myint Swe, former Rangoon Division Commander with little intelligence background but a close ally of Snr-Gen Than Shwe, heads up the newly formed MAS. Kyaw Myint Myo says Myint Swe is ignorant about what is happening in Burma.
“The government has no idea who is behind the bombing in May [2004].” Three major explosions rocked Rangoon shopping malls last year, killing several people, and the regime wasted little time in pointing the finger at exiled opposition groups.
Kyaw Myint Myo says many bomb explosions in Rangoon were planted by army and intelligence groups. “It’s just to scare civilians and to alert the army.” He added that when he was with the OCMI, he and his colleagues sometimes received information that army factions were behind the bombings. He said it is impossible for insurgents to enter downtown Rangoon. “We have large security networks involving police, army, intelligence groups and township-level ruling officials and informants [to secure Rangoon].”
Kyaw Myint Myo was assigned to infiltrate the offices of some powerful government ministers working for the Burmese regime, and said he gathered information on some ministers and high ranking officials known to be corrupt and involved in several illegal activities, including having several mistresses. “We have files on ministers, officials and businessmen,” he boasted.
As an undercover agent, Kyaw Myint Myo was once ordered to work at the Ministry of Agriculture. His mission was to collect data on possible scandals involving Lt-Gen Myint Aung, former minister for agriculture and irrigation. The minister was later sacked.
It is widely believed that Khin Nyunt’s intelligence service had collected information on numerous cabinet ministers and officials who were involved in sex scandals and corruption.
The former spy said that MAS has hired foreign computer technicians and hackers to monitor e-mail messages, telephone conversations at home and in neighboring countries, where the regime’s critics and activists take refuge. “They are [the technicians and hackers] North Korean, Singaporeans and Russians.”
Kyaw Myint Myo warned exiled opposition groups to be careful of using cell phones and internet, as all sensitive information, messages and phone conversations are carefully monitored.
He said exiled opposition groups not only had to be worried about Burmese informants and spies, but governments in the region with close ties to the regime that regularly provided intelligence information. “We have photos of [exile group] offices and houses where opposition leaders are staying.”
Kyaw Myint Myo also revealed that his counter-intelligence department had a plan to launch the “data thief project,” in which operatives would steal data from opposition groups inside and outside of Burma.
He warned that although Khin Nyunt was purged, informants were still active and capable of penetrating foreign missions in Rangoon. He said keeping a watchful eye on Burma’s main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, was also part of MAS’s work. He says an informant at NLD headquarters received 200,000 kyat each month. “We also collect information on who visits NLD headquarters and from which embassy.”
Although he refused to tell the names of informants and spies who are currently working for the military government, he did say: “You would be quite surprised if I disclosed the names of informants at foreign missions and opposition groups.”
It is well known among activists and army intelligence specialists that the Burmese government keeps spies in neighboring countries to collect information about military build-ups and activities of exiled groups.
Under Khin Nyunt, the Burmese embassy in Bangkok was highly active and believed to have a large intelligence network inside Thailand. Kyaw Myint Myo claims that “active cells” in India and Thailand are still working for MAS. - Irrawaddy
Sunday, 17 February 2008
KNU: More Leaders Targeted for Assassination
By SAW YAN NAING - The Irrawaddy News
February 16, 2008 - Two more senior military leaders of the Karen National Union (KNU) are on Karen splinter groups’ hit lists, according to KNU sources.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy by phone on Friday and Saturday, a KNU senior officer said that Gen Mu Tu, commander in chief of the KNU’s military wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), and Brig-Gen Jonny, commander of KNLA Brigade 7, were targets for assassination by both the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) and the KNU/KNLA Peace Council.
The claims follow the assassination of Mahn Sha, general secretary of the KNU, on Thursday.
“Ever since Htain Maung defected, he has always planned to kill the KNU’s top leaders,” said a KNU source who works closely with the KNU leadership.
Maj-Gen Htain Maung led some 300 soldiers from Brigade 7 in defecting to the Burmese army in February 2007. His splinter group is now known as KNU/KNLA Peace Council.
Another KNU source said that speculation had been rife that Mahn Sha was assassinated by the DKBA, which who split from the rebel coalition in 1995.
Mahn Sha was secretary general of the KNU, an ethnic rebel group that has been fighting for independence since 1949.
The source said that two days ago before Mahn Sha’s assassination, a DKBA member named Soe Myint, also known as San Pyote, called a friend of hers who was living in the same house as Mahn Sha and asked for the address of his home. San Pyote said that he was interested in buying Mahn Sha's car.
San Pyote belongs to the DKBA Battalion 999.
However, a DKBA source has denied the accusation.
He said, “It is not possible—the DKBA split from the KNU more than 10 years ago. After Mahn Sha was killed, even some of the DKBA’s leadership called me and asked me what happened.”
Mahn Sha had received phone threats before his assassination, said Blooming Night Zar, an acting contact person regarding the death of Mahn Sha.
She said, “On Karen Revolution Day, an unknown man phoned Mahn Sha and said to him, ‘I will come and shoot you!’”
KNU sources claim that prior to Thursday’s assassination, about 20 spies from the DKBA were assigned and deployed in the Mae Sot area for purposes of assassination. Sources believe the plot to kill Mahn Sha was well planned weeks in advance.
Assassinations among the KNU, the DKBA and the KNU/KNLA Peace Council have increased since the defection of Htain Maung’s faction.
After the assassinations of Lt-Col Kyi Linn, a commander of the KNLA, in August 2007, who met secretly with Lt-Col Min Chit Oo of the Burmese Southeast Military Affairs Security department, and Col Ler Moo, the son-in-law of Htain Maung, who was killed last month, Mahn Sha and Jonny were blamed for masterminding the plots and were targeted for assassination, a KNU source said.
Meanwhile, opposition groups in exile have accused the Burmese military regime of being responsible for Mahn Sha’s assassination.
In November 2007, San Pyote tried to kill Brig-Gen Jonny, a KNU official from Brigade 7.
“All this is enough to make the Burmese government very happy,” Brig-Gen Jonny told The Irrawaddy. “We Karen people should be unified. If we are divided, we will never achieve self-determination and the rights we demand.”
February 16, 2008 - Two more senior military leaders of the Karen National Union (KNU) are on Karen splinter groups’ hit lists, according to KNU sources.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy by phone on Friday and Saturday, a KNU senior officer said that Gen Mu Tu, commander in chief of the KNU’s military wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), and Brig-Gen Jonny, commander of KNLA Brigade 7, were targets for assassination by both the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) and the KNU/KNLA Peace Council.
The claims follow the assassination of Mahn Sha, general secretary of the KNU, on Thursday.
“Ever since Htain Maung defected, he has always planned to kill the KNU’s top leaders,” said a KNU source who works closely with the KNU leadership.
Maj-Gen Htain Maung led some 300 soldiers from Brigade 7 in defecting to the Burmese army in February 2007. His splinter group is now known as KNU/KNLA Peace Council.
Another KNU source said that speculation had been rife that Mahn Sha was assassinated by the DKBA, which who split from the rebel coalition in 1995.
Mahn Sha was secretary general of the KNU, an ethnic rebel group that has been fighting for independence since 1949.
The source said that two days ago before Mahn Sha’s assassination, a DKBA member named Soe Myint, also known as San Pyote, called a friend of hers who was living in the same house as Mahn Sha and asked for the address of his home. San Pyote said that he was interested in buying Mahn Sha's car.
San Pyote belongs to the DKBA Battalion 999.
However, a DKBA source has denied the accusation.
He said, “It is not possible—the DKBA split from the KNU more than 10 years ago. After Mahn Sha was killed, even some of the DKBA’s leadership called me and asked me what happened.”
Mahn Sha had received phone threats before his assassination, said Blooming Night Zar, an acting contact person regarding the death of Mahn Sha.
She said, “On Karen Revolution Day, an unknown man phoned Mahn Sha and said to him, ‘I will come and shoot you!’”
KNU sources claim that prior to Thursday’s assassination, about 20 spies from the DKBA were assigned and deployed in the Mae Sot area for purposes of assassination. Sources believe the plot to kill Mahn Sha was well planned weeks in advance.
Assassinations among the KNU, the DKBA and the KNU/KNLA Peace Council have increased since the defection of Htain Maung’s faction.
After the assassinations of Lt-Col Kyi Linn, a commander of the KNLA, in August 2007, who met secretly with Lt-Col Min Chit Oo of the Burmese Southeast Military Affairs Security department, and Col Ler Moo, the son-in-law of Htain Maung, who was killed last month, Mahn Sha and Jonny were blamed for masterminding the plots and were targeted for assassination, a KNU source said.
Meanwhile, opposition groups in exile have accused the Burmese military regime of being responsible for Mahn Sha’s assassination.
In November 2007, San Pyote tried to kill Brig-Gen Jonny, a KNU official from Brigade 7.
“All this is enough to make the Burmese government very happy,” Brig-Gen Jonny told The Irrawaddy. “We Karen people should be unified. If we are divided, we will never achieve self-determination and the rights we demand.”
Sunday, 3 February 2008
The Born-again Spy
Intelligence Feb'08 The Irrawaddy News
www.irrawaddy.org
February 1, 2008
Former Deputy Chief of Military Intelligence Maj-Gen Kyaw Win
Maj-Gen Kyaw Win, 63, a former deputy chief of military intelligence and once Burma’s No 2 spymaster, is now a consultant in the day-to-day operations of Burma’s security affairs and spying activities, say informed sources in Rangoon.
Sources say that the soft-spoken intellectual, a protégé of Snr-Gen Than Shwe, is believed to have been brought back into the fold for his vast experience and networking abilities, as well as to help transform the ailing intelligence services.
Kyaw Win joined military intelligence in the early 1990s and was actively involved in ceasefire negotiations with ethnic insurgents. He was also known to be one of the chief negotiators between opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the government leaders. He was sacked along with former Prime Minister Khin Nyunt in 2004. However, he has enjoyed close and cordial relations with Than Shwe and escaped the purge that removed Khin Nyunt and his supporters.
However, at the same time, Kyaw Win has been denied a passport. Analysts believe junta leader Than Shwe and senior government officers suspect that Kyaw Win would seek political asylum if he left the country. Recently, however, the Ministry of Home Affairs allowed his wife to travel to Bangkok for medical treatment.
Kyaw Win has written several essays and articles under different pseudonyms and has published a book of his photographic work. Informed sources say he owns local businesses, including the manufacture of jeeps and operates an upmarket restaurant, “Signature Kandawgyi,” in Rangoon.
Saturday, 2 February 2008
Burma's Most Wanted
LESLIE HOOK
Wall Street Journal
February 2, 2008
Mae Sot, Thailand
'We did not reach final victory. We were defeated in the middle of our struggle," says the young Burmese monk sitting in front of me. "It will be very hard to have another demonstration."
He should know. Ashin Kovida chaired the impromptu committee that organized last year's democracy protests in Rangoon, Burma. The marches, sparked by an economic crisis, brought more than 100,000 people to the streets to demand democracy and the release of political prisoners, including opposition leader and Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. The ensuing crackdown left at least 31 civilians dead, and thousands more beaten or jailed.
The protest leaders -- Mr. Ashin included -- fled for their lives. Exchanging his monks' robes for civilian clothes and a crucifix necklace, Mr. Ashin hid in a shack outside Rangoon for several weeks. After he made it over the border into Mae Sot, Mr. Ashin holed up in a safe house, leaving only to be shuttled to occasional meetings or interviews. Finding a safe venue for our meeting proved a challenge. We agreed I'd wait in my hotel for a phone call from a "friend," who would tell me how to proceed. "There are many different kinds of people at your hotel," Mr. Ashin said. "Maybe not safe."
[Burma's Most Wanted]
When our agreed interview time passed, I worried if he'd been snagged by the Burmese spies trawling this town. An hour later, there was a soft knock on my door. When I opened it two men scuttled inside: Mr. Ashin, a skinny 24-year-old in flame-colored robes, and Kyaw Lin, a friend and interpreter. The monk looked horrified when I shook his hand, averting his gaze. It's only afterward that I realized this violated his vows to touch a woman.
Mr. Ashin had no special preparation to become a freedom fighter; if anything, he had a typical, impoverished Burmese childhood. Born in 1983 in a village near Ann, a town in the eastern state of Arakan, he joined a monastery at age 12. His parents were farmers, and they sent him, their second son, to become a monk at the nearest monastery so that he could get an education. He lived there until 2003, then moved to Nan Oo monastery in Rangoon to pursue further monastic studies.
Meanwhile, his country was falling into grave disrepair. Since the junta took power in 1962, the generals have stripped the country for their own personal gain through a combination of brutal oppression, continuing ethnic wars, and a massive standing army of more than 400,000 soldiers. Today it is difficult for most citizens to obtain basic food and clothing. Per capita GDP is around $300, in league with the world's poorest countries.
Political activism in this environment is difficult, at best. But monks in Burma have a tradition of being involved. Their daily alms rounds keep them in touch with citizens' lives, and their vows require them to act for the well-being of their community. In 1988, when students and citizens took to the streets to protest for democracy, the monks marched alongside them. Those demonstrations ended with the massacre of several thousand demonstrators.
But the way he tells it, Mr. Ashin's activism wasn't originally part of a national movement; rather, it evolved from a grass-roots level, organically. After several monks were beaten during a Sept. 5 protest in Pakokku, a city in central Burma, Mr. Ashin and his fellow monks were so outraged that they printed and distributed pamphlets demanding an apology from the government. Mr. Ashin says he spent Sept. 10-13 wandering the streets of Rangoon with a bag full of pamphlets, distributing them to major monasteries.
"We demanded that the government apologize [for what happened in Pakokku]," Mr. Ashin explains. "If there was no apology by Sept. 18, then the monks would take to the streets. On Sept. 18 there was no response. On Sept. 19, my colleagues and I thought we needed an organization to organize the protests and keep them on the right track."
Thus the Sangha (Monks) Representative Committee -- an organization that would soon become the nexus of the demonstrations in Rangoon -- was born. The committee was composed of 15 volunteer monks, aged 24-28, who had met each other during earlier protests in August and September. "Everyone was invited," Mr. Ashin says. "I did not even know the names of the others -- most of them used nicknames for their security."
Mr. Ashin was elected chairman, and the committee agreed to meet every morning at 9 a.m. at the East gate of the Shwedagon Pagoda -- Burma's holiest shrine and the temple from which Aung San Suu Kyi addressed her followers during the protests of 1988. Its purpose?
"The committee was there to control the demonstrations and make sure they were peaceful," he tells me. They wanted "just to help the people, and to show how much people are suffering. The monks did not have any political objectives. We want for people to have a right to fight for power . . . the monks just paved the way for them."
Unlike 1988, the monks had new tools available to help their cause. Cell phones and the Internet played a crucial role in enabling the protests, and in alerting the outside world. All of the recent arrivals I met in Mae Sot, including Mr. Ashin, said they used Gmail chat ("gtalk," they call it) to keep in touch with their friends and family inside Burma. Yahoo! is blocked inside Burma.
To avoid confrontation with the government, the organizing committee asked people not to display any signs or flags other than the "sasana," a Buddhist flag used in religious ceremonies. The committee also had a practical function: to ensure that monks, who gather alms in the morning for food, could forego that duty to walk into the city center and join the marches (some walked for hours to get there). "All classes of people joined together to prepare food," he says, adding that famous Burmese actors and models pitched in, too.
It was a grass-roots political movement from the start. Mr. Ashin says none of his colleagues were members of any political groups. No one on the committee had contact with Ms. Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy until the party asked the committee for permission to display its flag, he says.
A few days after the committee formed, representatives from the NLD and some student political groups did ask. And so the yellow phoenix -- a sign of NLD unity during 1988 -- was displayed on the streets of Rangoon once again. The committee also allowed public speeches on Sept. 25.
For the military junta, that was a step too far. That night, the first of a series of brutal midnight raids on monasteries began.
The next morning, only seven of the 15 committee members showed up at their meeting place, Mr. Ashin says. As people came out to march, they found that the military had cordoned off the areas around Shwedagon Pagoda where they usually met. Disjointed groups began to coalesce, and Mr. Ashin said he found himself in the midst of about 300 people surrounded by walls and riot police. The police tried at first to persuade the protesters to let them "take them home" -- which the protesters understood to mean arrest -- and then began forcibly arresting protesters.
Mr. Ashin remembers that as a dark afternoon. He himself received several blows to the stomach before he scaled a wall to safety. "The monks and students started throwing stones at the security forces. There was a violent mood. [People from the committee] tried to convince people to stop and not be violent."
Across the rest of Rangoon similar scenes played out. In some places soldiers opened fire on the demonstrators, and day's end saw dozens dead or wounded.
On Sept. 27, the committee couldn't meet at all. Some people tried to continue the protests, but a massive security presence resulted in further violent clashes. That night, Mr. Ashin took off his robes and went into hiding.
The government didn't forget about him, though. State-run newspapers carried his photograph and labeled him a "fake monk." The junta's English mouthpiece, the New Light of Myanmar, accused him of being responsible for 48 cartridges of TNT found buried near a residence in Rangoon. While he was in hiding in a suburb, police canvassed nearby streets, searching for him.
Contrary to the propaganda the regime conjures up, Mr. Ashin says he was completely unconnected to the Burmese governments-in-exile that has sprung up in Thailand. He left Rangoon without a backup plan, and arrived in Mae Sot with a single phone number of a man he had never met.
Mr. Ashin is clearly devastated by what he perceives as the "failure" and the "defeat" of the protests. But most of his disappointment is directed not at the lackluster efforts of the United Nations -- "people outside seem to forget about Burma," he says -- but at his fellow Burmese.
"If the MPs had been actively involved, then our demonstrations could have changed something," he says. "It is a great loss for our struggle. But they were just watching and waiting." It's also evidence of how well the junta has done its cruel job that the massive street protests did not result in mass defections from the civil service or army, and saw almost no support from politicians in power.
Four months after the demonstrations Burma has largely fallen off of the world's radar screen. The U.S. and the EU were quick to implement tighter economic sanctions on the regime after the protests, but for Burma's major trading partners, it's been business as usual. Neighboring China, Thailand and India were all reluctant to comment on the events inside Burma, and have avoided putting pressure on the regime. The U.N. Security Council issued a statement "strongly deploring" the use of violence.
The situation on the ground in Burma is every bit as dire now as it was in September, and many say it is getting even worse, as fuel and food shortages continue.
Mr. Ashin's group, the Monks' Representative Committee, reorganized in several cities inside Burma earlier this year with 50 new members. They've issued a statement pledging to protest again this month if the government doesn't take action for political reconciliation. But with leaders like Mr. Ashin out of the picture and the junta on the lookout, it's difficult for them even to meet.
Mr. Ashin says he will be relocated to the U.S. soon, where he has been granted political asylum. He wants to continue working to bring change to Burma, but isn't sure how he will do so from a distant shore. Step one will be improving his English, so that he can tell the world what is going on.
Ms. Hook is an editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal Asia.
Wall Street Journal
February 2, 2008
Mae Sot, Thailand
'We did not reach final victory. We were defeated in the middle of our struggle," says the young Burmese monk sitting in front of me. "It will be very hard to have another demonstration."
He should know. Ashin Kovida chaired the impromptu committee that organized last year's democracy protests in Rangoon, Burma. The marches, sparked by an economic crisis, brought more than 100,000 people to the streets to demand democracy and the release of political prisoners, including opposition leader and Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. The ensuing crackdown left at least 31 civilians dead, and thousands more beaten or jailed.
The protest leaders -- Mr. Ashin included -- fled for their lives. Exchanging his monks' robes for civilian clothes and a crucifix necklace, Mr. Ashin hid in a shack outside Rangoon for several weeks. After he made it over the border into Mae Sot, Mr. Ashin holed up in a safe house, leaving only to be shuttled to occasional meetings or interviews. Finding a safe venue for our meeting proved a challenge. We agreed I'd wait in my hotel for a phone call from a "friend," who would tell me how to proceed. "There are many different kinds of people at your hotel," Mr. Ashin said. "Maybe not safe."
[Burma's Most Wanted]
When our agreed interview time passed, I worried if he'd been snagged by the Burmese spies trawling this town. An hour later, there was a soft knock on my door. When I opened it two men scuttled inside: Mr. Ashin, a skinny 24-year-old in flame-colored robes, and Kyaw Lin, a friend and interpreter. The monk looked horrified when I shook his hand, averting his gaze. It's only afterward that I realized this violated his vows to touch a woman.
Mr. Ashin had no special preparation to become a freedom fighter; if anything, he had a typical, impoverished Burmese childhood. Born in 1983 in a village near Ann, a town in the eastern state of Arakan, he joined a monastery at age 12. His parents were farmers, and they sent him, their second son, to become a monk at the nearest monastery so that he could get an education. He lived there until 2003, then moved to Nan Oo monastery in Rangoon to pursue further monastic studies.
Meanwhile, his country was falling into grave disrepair. Since the junta took power in 1962, the generals have stripped the country for their own personal gain through a combination of brutal oppression, continuing ethnic wars, and a massive standing army of more than 400,000 soldiers. Today it is difficult for most citizens to obtain basic food and clothing. Per capita GDP is around $300, in league with the world's poorest countries.
Political activism in this environment is difficult, at best. But monks in Burma have a tradition of being involved. Their daily alms rounds keep them in touch with citizens' lives, and their vows require them to act for the well-being of their community. In 1988, when students and citizens took to the streets to protest for democracy, the monks marched alongside them. Those demonstrations ended with the massacre of several thousand demonstrators.
But the way he tells it, Mr. Ashin's activism wasn't originally part of a national movement; rather, it evolved from a grass-roots level, organically. After several monks were beaten during a Sept. 5 protest in Pakokku, a city in central Burma, Mr. Ashin and his fellow monks were so outraged that they printed and distributed pamphlets demanding an apology from the government. Mr. Ashin says he spent Sept. 10-13 wandering the streets of Rangoon with a bag full of pamphlets, distributing them to major monasteries.
"We demanded that the government apologize [for what happened in Pakokku]," Mr. Ashin explains. "If there was no apology by Sept. 18, then the monks would take to the streets. On Sept. 18 there was no response. On Sept. 19, my colleagues and I thought we needed an organization to organize the protests and keep them on the right track."
Thus the Sangha (Monks) Representative Committee -- an organization that would soon become the nexus of the demonstrations in Rangoon -- was born. The committee was composed of 15 volunteer monks, aged 24-28, who had met each other during earlier protests in August and September. "Everyone was invited," Mr. Ashin says. "I did not even know the names of the others -- most of them used nicknames for their security."
Mr. Ashin was elected chairman, and the committee agreed to meet every morning at 9 a.m. at the East gate of the Shwedagon Pagoda -- Burma's holiest shrine and the temple from which Aung San Suu Kyi addressed her followers during the protests of 1988. Its purpose?
"The committee was there to control the demonstrations and make sure they were peaceful," he tells me. They wanted "just to help the people, and to show how much people are suffering. The monks did not have any political objectives. We want for people to have a right to fight for power . . . the monks just paved the way for them."
Unlike 1988, the monks had new tools available to help their cause. Cell phones and the Internet played a crucial role in enabling the protests, and in alerting the outside world. All of the recent arrivals I met in Mae Sot, including Mr. Ashin, said they used Gmail chat ("gtalk," they call it) to keep in touch with their friends and family inside Burma. Yahoo! is blocked inside Burma.
To avoid confrontation with the government, the organizing committee asked people not to display any signs or flags other than the "sasana," a Buddhist flag used in religious ceremonies. The committee also had a practical function: to ensure that monks, who gather alms in the morning for food, could forego that duty to walk into the city center and join the marches (some walked for hours to get there). "All classes of people joined together to prepare food," he says, adding that famous Burmese actors and models pitched in, too.
It was a grass-roots political movement from the start. Mr. Ashin says none of his colleagues were members of any political groups. No one on the committee had contact with Ms. Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy until the party asked the committee for permission to display its flag, he says.
A few days after the committee formed, representatives from the NLD and some student political groups did ask. And so the yellow phoenix -- a sign of NLD unity during 1988 -- was displayed on the streets of Rangoon once again. The committee also allowed public speeches on Sept. 25.
For the military junta, that was a step too far. That night, the first of a series of brutal midnight raids on monasteries began.
The next morning, only seven of the 15 committee members showed up at their meeting place, Mr. Ashin says. As people came out to march, they found that the military had cordoned off the areas around Shwedagon Pagoda where they usually met. Disjointed groups began to coalesce, and Mr. Ashin said he found himself in the midst of about 300 people surrounded by walls and riot police. The police tried at first to persuade the protesters to let them "take them home" -- which the protesters understood to mean arrest -- and then began forcibly arresting protesters.
Mr. Ashin remembers that as a dark afternoon. He himself received several blows to the stomach before he scaled a wall to safety. "The monks and students started throwing stones at the security forces. There was a violent mood. [People from the committee] tried to convince people to stop and not be violent."
Across the rest of Rangoon similar scenes played out. In some places soldiers opened fire on the demonstrators, and day's end saw dozens dead or wounded.
On Sept. 27, the committee couldn't meet at all. Some people tried to continue the protests, but a massive security presence resulted in further violent clashes. That night, Mr. Ashin took off his robes and went into hiding.
The government didn't forget about him, though. State-run newspapers carried his photograph and labeled him a "fake monk." The junta's English mouthpiece, the New Light of Myanmar, accused him of being responsible for 48 cartridges of TNT found buried near a residence in Rangoon. While he was in hiding in a suburb, police canvassed nearby streets, searching for him.
Contrary to the propaganda the regime conjures up, Mr. Ashin says he was completely unconnected to the Burmese governments-in-exile that has sprung up in Thailand. He left Rangoon without a backup plan, and arrived in Mae Sot with a single phone number of a man he had never met.
Mr. Ashin is clearly devastated by what he perceives as the "failure" and the "defeat" of the protests. But most of his disappointment is directed not at the lackluster efforts of the United Nations -- "people outside seem to forget about Burma," he says -- but at his fellow Burmese.
"If the MPs had been actively involved, then our demonstrations could have changed something," he says. "It is a great loss for our struggle. But they were just watching and waiting." It's also evidence of how well the junta has done its cruel job that the massive street protests did not result in mass defections from the civil service or army, and saw almost no support from politicians in power.
Four months after the demonstrations Burma has largely fallen off of the world's radar screen. The U.S. and the EU were quick to implement tighter economic sanctions on the regime after the protests, but for Burma's major trading partners, it's been business as usual. Neighboring China, Thailand and India were all reluctant to comment on the events inside Burma, and have avoided putting pressure on the regime. The U.N. Security Council issued a statement "strongly deploring" the use of violence.
The situation on the ground in Burma is every bit as dire now as it was in September, and many say it is getting even worse, as fuel and food shortages continue.
Mr. Ashin's group, the Monks' Representative Committee, reorganized in several cities inside Burma earlier this year with 50 new members. They've issued a statement pledging to protest again this month if the government doesn't take action for political reconciliation. But with leaders like Mr. Ashin out of the picture and the junta on the lookout, it's difficult for them even to meet.
Mr. Ashin says he will be relocated to the U.S. soon, where he has been granted political asylum. He wants to continue working to bring change to Burma, but isn't sure how he will do so from a distant shore. Step one will be improving his English, so that he can tell the world what is going on.
Ms. Hook is an editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal Asia.
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Singing while under suspicion in Myanmar
Paul Watson
Los Angeles Times
January 30, 2008
A Yangon music school steers clear of politics, but attracts government snoops because of its support from U.S. and other foreign donors.
YANGON, MYANMAR -- The military government's tightening grip doesn't give people here much to sing about, and when they do feel the urge to make music, even that can be risky.
The generals who rule Myanmar have spies snooping around for subversives in the most unlikely places, such as a small music school in a rented house sandwiched between a Hindu temple and a broomstick factory.
A tenuous harmony
A tenuous harmony
click to enlarge
It isn't a renegade hip-hop crib, or a blue-hazed den of protesting folkies, just a small rehearsal hall of plywood and particleboard where children peck away at piano keys and a chorus of university students sings with enough heart to raise the low roof.
What riles the government is that the music school depends on foreign support, especially from a group of Yale University students and other American donors. Some of the generals' enforcers suspect a dangerous plot.
After 45 years of military rule, that isn't as weird as it sounds. Xenophobic propaganda is one of the ways the generals rally support and scare off dissent, so Myanmar's people are bombarded with it. A billboard on a busy downtown street corner in Yangon, also known as Rangoon, declares: "Oppose those who rely on America, act as their stooges and hold negative views."
This month, poet Saw Wai was arrested on suspicion of writing a coded anti-government message in a Valentine's verse published in a popular entertainment weekly. In Burmese, the first character of each word spells out: "Power crazy Senior General Than Shwe," referring to the military government's leader.
The students at the Gitameit, or "Music Friends," school take their direction from the more universal language of music. They studiously avoid politics, but that isn't always enough to escape the probing eyes of the government.
Founded four years ago, the school is one of the few places, outside of a temple or church, where people can go to learn how to play a Western musical instrument or read music in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma.
Its students' struggle is a lesson in the often bizarre lengths to which the generals will go to maintain their hold on power. But they're not strong enough to stop music bringing people together, and giving them hope.
You can feel it walking up the front path, in the breeze of notes from four upright pianos, a baby grand, guitars and traditional instruments that drifts from the rehearsal rooms, where jazz legends such as Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie look down from photocopied portraits taped to the walls.
When the school opened, neighbors told the students they wouldn't last long. They were still going strong last year, and a few foreign visitors began dropping by, so intelligence agents started showing up. They reminded the students that Myanmar's security laws hold them responsible for anything their foreign guests do, and if the outsiders strayed into politics, the locals would go to jail.
"Some people are using you for propaganda purposes," the agents warned. "We're going to watch your every move."
There wasn't all that much to see. A 9-year-old girl, with pudgy cheeks and an infectious smile, comes regularly for piano lessons. Young men and women, Buddhists, Christians and Muslims among them, spend hours each day focused on sheet music, coaxing melodies from the strings of guitars, violins and pianos.
Choir director U Moe Naing, 40, explained that the group members wanted to be good enough to perform for the public. They were working with foreign musicians and getting some experience by showing their talents to foreign music lovers, he told the agents.
Naing, a pianist who once studied to be a geologist, didn't want trouble with the law. So he followed orders and reported weekly to the neighborhood intelligence agency office on any visitors and the school's activities.
Yet the spies kept the heat on. They put a tail on Naing, showed his picture to people, interrogated his friends. They got especially pesky last May, when Naing's choir held a concert with the Spizzwinks(?), an all-male a cappella group from Yale University. Twenty Yale singers were on a three-week tour of Southeast Asia, with a five-day stop in Myanmar, where a Yale graduate had been teaching at Gitameit.
An Ivy League glee club that hangs with the singing Whiffenpoofs wouldn't have made it onto any watch list in most other countries. But 15 minutes before the performance, a captain from the dreaded Special Branch police came backstage to poke around, while 250 people sat in the audience. The singers' butterflies morphed into terror that their show was about to be shut down as an anti-state activity.
"He threatened me, saying, 'Maybe I'll come back to take you away,' " Naing said. "I was really afraid."
The captain demanded to know where the foreign singers were from, and when Naing replied they were U.S. university students, the cop asked whether that meant they were American.
Every answer only brought on another question, and it was getting uncomfortably close to curtain time, so Naing says he told the officer testily: " 'If you'd like to arrest us, OK. But please do it after the concert.' He didn't show up. Fortunately."
And the show did go on, and the spies have kept their distance in recent months, but the music still doesn't come easily. The students have too much to worry about -- like getting a job after graduating from college.
Since 1988, when troops massacred hundreds of demonstrators to crush student-led protests, the government has treated universities not as sources of higher education crucial to the country's development, but as potential threats to its rule.
So the generals have reduced college campuses to facades. A typical university student in Myanmar takes classes by correspondence, never enters a library and attends class only for 10 days of cramming before exams.
Many of the Gitameit's students were living life in a demoralized daze before they began making music for several hours each day.
Kit Young, an American volunteer who teaches at the music school, has asked university students what they do with themselves on an ordinary day, and usually the reply is: "Sleep," she said. "Or they go out to tea shops with friends. They may go for some private tuition. There are exams only once a year -- and no classes."
It's frustrating for young people desperate to get ahead in a stagnating economy dominated by the generals and their cronies. And that's the way the government likes things -- it doesn't need intelligent people asking too many questions.
The government's iron walls and harassment are very effective at keeping the country in the dark. To the surprise of Nathaniel Ganor, a 21-year-old Yale computer science major who sings with the Spizzwinks(?), the Myanmar students were so isolated they knew little about the United States. And they didn't seem very curious to find out more.
"One evening, sitting around the dinner table at a restaurant, I asked the students at my table, 'If you could visit America, what would you want to see?' " Ganor recalled. "One student looked at me strangely and said: 'That's ridiculous. I could never visit America. Besides, I have no idea what's there.' "
Ganor decided he had to find a way to bring some of the Gitameit's singers to the U.S., and his group is trying to raise $60,000 to fly 16 of them on a two-week tour, with stops in San Francisco; New Haven, Conn.; New York and Washington.
Naing often tells his singers that he plans to take them on tour. They laugh at him.
But the students gain strength from making music. Their choir is in constant demand in entertainment-starved Yangon, where they perform for diplomats, and at weddings and concerts. They refuse to be silenced by skeptics or thugs.
"For the country, I can't do anything -- only this little thing," Naing said. "The students arrive with little confidence, but I see a lot of leadership coming out. It's really good to see."
paul.watson@latimes.com
Los Angeles Times
January 30, 2008
A Yangon music school steers clear of politics, but attracts government snoops because of its support from U.S. and other foreign donors.
SUBVERSIVE? Honnay Lwin Loin practices at a Yangon music school whose U.S. funding lures the government snoops. Photo: Paul Watson / Los Angeles Times
YANGON, MYANMAR -- The military government's tightening grip doesn't give people here much to sing about, and when they do feel the urge to make music, even that can be risky.
The generals who rule Myanmar have spies snooping around for subversives in the most unlikely places, such as a small music school in a rented house sandwiched between a Hindu temple and a broomstick factory.
A tenuous harmony
A tenuous harmony
click to enlarge
It isn't a renegade hip-hop crib, or a blue-hazed den of protesting folkies, just a small rehearsal hall of plywood and particleboard where children peck away at piano keys and a chorus of university students sings with enough heart to raise the low roof.
What riles the government is that the music school depends on foreign support, especially from a group of Yale University students and other American donors. Some of the generals' enforcers suspect a dangerous plot.
After 45 years of military rule, that isn't as weird as it sounds. Xenophobic propaganda is one of the ways the generals rally support and scare off dissent, so Myanmar's people are bombarded with it. A billboard on a busy downtown street corner in Yangon, also known as Rangoon, declares: "Oppose those who rely on America, act as their stooges and hold negative views."
This month, poet Saw Wai was arrested on suspicion of writing a coded anti-government message in a Valentine's verse published in a popular entertainment weekly. In Burmese, the first character of each word spells out: "Power crazy Senior General Than Shwe," referring to the military government's leader.
The students at the Gitameit, or "Music Friends," school take their direction from the more universal language of music. They studiously avoid politics, but that isn't always enough to escape the probing eyes of the government.
Founded four years ago, the school is one of the few places, outside of a temple or church, where people can go to learn how to play a Western musical instrument or read music in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma.
Its students' struggle is a lesson in the often bizarre lengths to which the generals will go to maintain their hold on power. But they're not strong enough to stop music bringing people together, and giving them hope.
You can feel it walking up the front path, in the breeze of notes from four upright pianos, a baby grand, guitars and traditional instruments that drifts from the rehearsal rooms, where jazz legends such as Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie look down from photocopied portraits taped to the walls.
When the school opened, neighbors told the students they wouldn't last long. They were still going strong last year, and a few foreign visitors began dropping by, so intelligence agents started showing up. They reminded the students that Myanmar's security laws hold them responsible for anything their foreign guests do, and if the outsiders strayed into politics, the locals would go to jail.
"Some people are using you for propaganda purposes," the agents warned. "We're going to watch your every move."
There wasn't all that much to see. A 9-year-old girl, with pudgy cheeks and an infectious smile, comes regularly for piano lessons. Young men and women, Buddhists, Christians and Muslims among them, spend hours each day focused on sheet music, coaxing melodies from the strings of guitars, violins and pianos.
Choir director U Moe Naing, 40, explained that the group members wanted to be good enough to perform for the public. They were working with foreign musicians and getting some experience by showing their talents to foreign music lovers, he told the agents.
Naing, a pianist who once studied to be a geologist, didn't want trouble with the law. So he followed orders and reported weekly to the neighborhood intelligence agency office on any visitors and the school's activities.
Yet the spies kept the heat on. They put a tail on Naing, showed his picture to people, interrogated his friends. They got especially pesky last May, when Naing's choir held a concert with the Spizzwinks(?), an all-male a cappella group from Yale University. Twenty Yale singers were on a three-week tour of Southeast Asia, with a five-day stop in Myanmar, where a Yale graduate had been teaching at Gitameit.
An Ivy League glee club that hangs with the singing Whiffenpoofs wouldn't have made it onto any watch list in most other countries. But 15 minutes before the performance, a captain from the dreaded Special Branch police came backstage to poke around, while 250 people sat in the audience. The singers' butterflies morphed into terror that their show was about to be shut down as an anti-state activity.
"He threatened me, saying, 'Maybe I'll come back to take you away,' " Naing said. "I was really afraid."
The captain demanded to know where the foreign singers were from, and when Naing replied they were U.S. university students, the cop asked whether that meant they were American.
Every answer only brought on another question, and it was getting uncomfortably close to curtain time, so Naing says he told the officer testily: " 'If you'd like to arrest us, OK. But please do it after the concert.' He didn't show up. Fortunately."
And the show did go on, and the spies have kept their distance in recent months, but the music still doesn't come easily. The students have too much to worry about -- like getting a job after graduating from college.
Since 1988, when troops massacred hundreds of demonstrators to crush student-led protests, the government has treated universities not as sources of higher education crucial to the country's development, but as potential threats to its rule.
So the generals have reduced college campuses to facades. A typical university student in Myanmar takes classes by correspondence, never enters a library and attends class only for 10 days of cramming before exams.
Many of the Gitameit's students were living life in a demoralized daze before they began making music for several hours each day.
Kit Young, an American volunteer who teaches at the music school, has asked university students what they do with themselves on an ordinary day, and usually the reply is: "Sleep," she said. "Or they go out to tea shops with friends. They may go for some private tuition. There are exams only once a year -- and no classes."
It's frustrating for young people desperate to get ahead in a stagnating economy dominated by the generals and their cronies. And that's the way the government likes things -- it doesn't need intelligent people asking too many questions.
The government's iron walls and harassment are very effective at keeping the country in the dark. To the surprise of Nathaniel Ganor, a 21-year-old Yale computer science major who sings with the Spizzwinks(?), the Myanmar students were so isolated they knew little about the United States. And they didn't seem very curious to find out more.
"One evening, sitting around the dinner table at a restaurant, I asked the students at my table, 'If you could visit America, what would you want to see?' " Ganor recalled. "One student looked at me strangely and said: 'That's ridiculous. I could never visit America. Besides, I have no idea what's there.' "
Ganor decided he had to find a way to bring some of the Gitameit's singers to the U.S., and his group is trying to raise $60,000 to fly 16 of them on a two-week tour, with stops in San Francisco; New Haven, Conn.; New York and Washington.
Naing often tells his singers that he plans to take them on tour. They laugh at him.
But the students gain strength from making music. Their choir is in constant demand in entertainment-starved Yangon, where they perform for diplomats, and at weddings and concerts. They refuse to be silenced by skeptics or thugs.
"For the country, I can't do anything -- only this little thing," Naing said. "The students arrive with little confidence, but I see a lot of leadership coming out. It's really good to see."
paul.watson@latimes.com
Sunday, 20 January 2008
Army of the Faithful: A Buddhist monk walks a fine line to protest crackdown in Myanmar
Winston-Salem Journal
January 19, 2008
SAGAING, Myanmar - In one of his most talked-about lectures, Buddhist monk Ashin Nyanissara tells the legend of a king who ruled more than 2,500 years ago. The king believed that spitting on a hermit brought him good fortune.
At first, it worked like a charm, but before long his realm was annihilated under a rain of fire, spears and knives.
Today’s audiences easily find the hidden message: The assault by Myanmar’s military government on monks leading protests in the fall looks like a modern version of the ancient monarch’s abuse. And they hope that the ruling generals will suffer the same fate.
In the recent crackdown, many monks were beaten and defrocked in prison. Human-rights activists say that several monks were among the 31 people the United Nations says were killed by the government.
It was a traumatic wound to a mainly Buddhist society, one that forced a lot of soul searching among people who practice one of the oldest forms of the religion, which emphasizes critical thought and reasoning over blind faith.
The stern-faced Nyanissara, a 70-year-old monk in owlish glasses and a maroon robe, is able to stare down generals with chests full of medals by stepping carefully through the minefield that makes free speech lethal here.
Shielding himself with allegory, he crisscrosses the country giving lectures that draw on history and legend to remind people that rotten regimes have fallen before. As the generals try to crush the last remnants of resistance, he is cautiously keeping the fire alive.
But he knows it isn’t the first time in 45 years of military rule that the government has attacked monks who challenged its absolute authority. In at least four previous crackdowns, dating to 1965, the military rounded up thousands of monks, killing some, defrocking others, while closing monasteries and seizing property.
Each time, the brutal repression outraged many people, but in the end they felt powerless to do anything about it, the crises passed and the generals continued to oppress with an iron fist.
It’s the nature of any government’s leaders to “strongly test their political power. They don’t want to lose it,” he said in a recent interview at the International Buddhist Academy, which he founded in this riverside town with forested hills that the faithful believe Buddha walked on his path to enlightenment. “But in any faith, when politics and religion come into competition, religious leaders always defeat anything. Religion is the leader. Jesus Christ was killed, but which was more powerful? Religion or politics?”
The institute sits in a valley beneath the Sagaing Hills, where hundreds of golden spires, called “stupas,” rise like spiritual beacons from monasteries and pagodas that dot the hillsides, 12 miles southwest of Mandalay.
The first monks to demonstrate against the government last year took to the streets in Pakokku, 60 miles southwest of Sagaing.
Still trapped in the latest cycle of political turmoil, many of Myanmar’s people are looking to Nyanissara for more than spiritual guidance.
At midday recently, he had just returned from speaking to hundreds of the faithful in a village pagoda and was hurrying to leave for an afternoon lecture, a daily routine that keeps him on the move to meet the demand for his wisdom.
Barefoot in a corridor of the university where student monks and nuns are trained for missionary work, Nyanissara ran a disposable razor over his tonsured head and down across his face and neck, removing the faintest midday stubble as he spoke.
Then, flanked by young aides and walking as straight and sure-footed as a man half his age, Nyanissara got into his black sport utility vehicle, which sped on a 110-mile journey to his next stop.
He draws large, rapt audiences wherever he goes, whether they are poor villagers crowded into small monasteries or city residents sitting in orderly rows on a side street.
On a recent night, a few thousand people filled a street in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, sitting quietly as they waited for Nyanissara to arrive.
When he emerged from his SUV, people bowed their heads to the ground as he made his way to a stage, where he sat cross-legged on a gilded chair as big as a throne.
In large public gatherings such as these, when the generals’ spies lurk in the audience and listen for any hint of trouble, his lectures often are built around the same lesson: Cruel rulers create bad karma. And they will suffer for what they have done.
That’s a moral not easily shrugged off by a government whose leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, is intensely superstitious: He consults astrologers to make important decisions.
The ruling generals also churn out propaganda images portraying themselves as devoted Buddhists, receiving the blessing of sympathetic monks. If their faith is true, they know their actions will determine their next life in reincarnation’s endless cycle of death and rebirth.
“They have to be afraid they’ll be coming back as cockroaches,” wisecracked one Western envoy.
Several of Nyanissara’s lectures have been burned onto DVDs, with titles including “Last Days of Empire.” The generals have arrested people caught selling them, but they are still widely available across Myanmar, also known as Burma.
To most people here, the pain of seeing monks beaten up in the streets is more than just an insult to religious faith. To many, it’s as if the military had harmed their own family, and the anger does not ease quickly.
Almost any Buddhist with a son has watched with pride as his head is shaved to make him a novice monk in an initiation ceremony called shin-pyu, a moment as life-defining as a baptism, christening or bar mitzvah.
It is a religious duty for Buddhist boys to become novice monks from 7, and most in Myanmar answer the calling, Nyanissara said.
Nyanissara said that the region surrounding Sagaing is now home to one out of every 10 of Myanmar’s 400,000 monks, robed legions that listen carefully to his lectures to see the right path ahead.
“It’s a very big army,” Nyanissara said, and he laughed a little. But he wasn’t smiling.
January 19, 2008
SAGAING, Myanmar - In one of his most talked-about lectures, Buddhist monk Ashin Nyanissara tells the legend of a king who ruled more than 2,500 years ago. The king believed that spitting on a hermit brought him good fortune.
At first, it worked like a charm, but before long his realm was annihilated under a rain of fire, spears and knives.
Today’s audiences easily find the hidden message: The assault by Myanmar’s military government on monks leading protests in the fall looks like a modern version of the ancient monarch’s abuse. And they hope that the ruling generals will suffer the same fate.
In the recent crackdown, many monks were beaten and defrocked in prison. Human-rights activists say that several monks were among the 31 people the United Nations says were killed by the government.
It was a traumatic wound to a mainly Buddhist society, one that forced a lot of soul searching among people who practice one of the oldest forms of the religion, which emphasizes critical thought and reasoning over blind faith.
The stern-faced Nyanissara, a 70-year-old monk in owlish glasses and a maroon robe, is able to stare down generals with chests full of medals by stepping carefully through the minefield that makes free speech lethal here.
Shielding himself with allegory, he crisscrosses the country giving lectures that draw on history and legend to remind people that rotten regimes have fallen before. As the generals try to crush the last remnants of resistance, he is cautiously keeping the fire alive.
But he knows it isn’t the first time in 45 years of military rule that the government has attacked monks who challenged its absolute authority. In at least four previous crackdowns, dating to 1965, the military rounded up thousands of monks, killing some, defrocking others, while closing monasteries and seizing property.
Each time, the brutal repression outraged many people, but in the end they felt powerless to do anything about it, the crises passed and the generals continued to oppress with an iron fist.
It’s the nature of any government’s leaders to “strongly test their political power. They don’t want to lose it,” he said in a recent interview at the International Buddhist Academy, which he founded in this riverside town with forested hills that the faithful believe Buddha walked on his path to enlightenment. “But in any faith, when politics and religion come into competition, religious leaders always defeat anything. Religion is the leader. Jesus Christ was killed, but which was more powerful? Religion or politics?”
The institute sits in a valley beneath the Sagaing Hills, where hundreds of golden spires, called “stupas,” rise like spiritual beacons from monasteries and pagodas that dot the hillsides, 12 miles southwest of Mandalay.
The first monks to demonstrate against the government last year took to the streets in Pakokku, 60 miles southwest of Sagaing.
Still trapped in the latest cycle of political turmoil, many of Myanmar’s people are looking to Nyanissara for more than spiritual guidance.
At midday recently, he had just returned from speaking to hundreds of the faithful in a village pagoda and was hurrying to leave for an afternoon lecture, a daily routine that keeps him on the move to meet the demand for his wisdom.
Barefoot in a corridor of the university where student monks and nuns are trained for missionary work, Nyanissara ran a disposable razor over his tonsured head and down across his face and neck, removing the faintest midday stubble as he spoke.
Then, flanked by young aides and walking as straight and sure-footed as a man half his age, Nyanissara got into his black sport utility vehicle, which sped on a 110-mile journey to his next stop.
He draws large, rapt audiences wherever he goes, whether they are poor villagers crowded into small monasteries or city residents sitting in orderly rows on a side street.
On a recent night, a few thousand people filled a street in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, sitting quietly as they waited for Nyanissara to arrive.
When he emerged from his SUV, people bowed their heads to the ground as he made his way to a stage, where he sat cross-legged on a gilded chair as big as a throne.
In large public gatherings such as these, when the generals’ spies lurk in the audience and listen for any hint of trouble, his lectures often are built around the same lesson: Cruel rulers create bad karma. And they will suffer for what they have done.
That’s a moral not easily shrugged off by a government whose leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, is intensely superstitious: He consults astrologers to make important decisions.
The ruling generals also churn out propaganda images portraying themselves as devoted Buddhists, receiving the blessing of sympathetic monks. If their faith is true, they know their actions will determine their next life in reincarnation’s endless cycle of death and rebirth.
“They have to be afraid they’ll be coming back as cockroaches,” wisecracked one Western envoy.
Several of Nyanissara’s lectures have been burned onto DVDs, with titles including “Last Days of Empire.” The generals have arrested people caught selling them, but they are still widely available across Myanmar, also known as Burma.
To most people here, the pain of seeing monks beaten up in the streets is more than just an insult to religious faith. To many, it’s as if the military had harmed their own family, and the anger does not ease quickly.
Almost any Buddhist with a son has watched with pride as his head is shaved to make him a novice monk in an initiation ceremony called shin-pyu, a moment as life-defining as a baptism, christening or bar mitzvah.
It is a religious duty for Buddhist boys to become novice monks from 7, and most in Myanmar answer the calling, Nyanissara said.
Nyanissara said that the region surrounding Sagaing is now home to one out of every 10 of Myanmar’s 400,000 monks, robed legions that listen carefully to his lectures to see the right path ahead.
“It’s a very big army,” Nyanissara said, and he laughed a little. But he wasn’t smiling.
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