BurmaNet News, March 5, 2010

[Editor]

March 5, 2010, Issue #3910


INSIDE BURMA
DVB: Opposition party central committee announced
Kaladan Press: Rohingya jailed for trying to talk to UN envoy

ON THE BORDER
Irrawaddy: Regime may outlaw UWSA

BUSINESS/TRADE
Irrawaddy: Burma buys new planes
Xinhua: Japan to inject investment in Myanmar IT

REGIONAL
Bangkok Post: Exim Bank reassesses loan to Burma

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: Burmese embassies to suspend passport extension services
CNSNews: Geneva Summit will focus on countries ignored by UN HRC

OPINION / OTHER
The Nation (Thailand): American policy on Burma needs sharper teeth
Huffington Post (US): Between a crocodile and a snake – Kristy Crabtree
PIA: Burma women join Manila march
OpenDemocracy: This is my witness


____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

March 5, Democratic Voice of Burma
Opposition party central committee announced – Nan Kham Kaew

Burma’s main opposition party has announced the formation of its new
Central Committee, now under the leadership of party chairman Aung Shwe.

The group is made up 108 members, 20 of whom belong to the senior Central
Executive Committee (CEC) of the National League for Democracy (NLD). The
group had originally comprised only 100 people.

“We have announced that these people have been appointed as Central
Committee members with the aim of more effectively carrying out future
working procedures to strengthen the party,” said spokesperson Khin Maung
Shwe.

“The list included all 20 CEC members and the party's regional members
from divisions and states.”

The new committee incorporates NLD members from across Burma 14 divisions
and states. Lower-ranking party officials had accused the NLD of not
giving equal representation to divisional members.

“A condition is that the chairperson of the NLD shall also be chairperson
of the group's Central Committee,” Khin Maung Shwe said.

The eight additional members are however currently imprisoned, along with
420 other NLD members.

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who herself is under house arrest,
said last month that imprisoned members must be included in the party’s
senior command. It comes as part of a wider reformation of the party,
including the addition of younger members in the CEC.

It is the first major shakeup in the party’s 20-year history, and one that
analysts have said is long overdue.

Khin Maung Swe added that the group still has no answer regarding whether
it will participate in Burma’s elections this year as the government is
yet to announce the political party registration law.

____________________________________

March 5, Kaladan Press
Rohingya jailed for trying to talk to UN envoy

Buthidaung, Arakan State - A Rohingya was fined and sentenced to six
months in jail because he tried to talk to UN envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana
when he visited Buthidaung Town on February 17 to oversee Burma’s progress
on human rights, said a relative of the victim on condition of anonymity.

The victim was identified as Kyaw Maung (alias) Nurul Haque (48) from Ward
# 2 of Buthidaung Town, Arakan State, Burma.  He is also a co-worker of
Nasaka and Milittary Intelligence ( Sarapa) and did many things for the
sake of authorities concerned.

He was arrested by police of Buthidaung Town on March 1, at about 9:00 pm
from his house on suspicion that he was trying to talk to United Nations
human rights envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana while he visited northern Arakan on
February 17.

After the arrest, he was brought to police station and tortured there
severely. However, later, he was charged with going to Bangladesh without
permission from the authorities. A case was filed against him for border
crossing and he was sentenced to six months in jail yesterday by
Buthidaung court.  He was also fined Kyat 300,000, said a close friend of
the victim.

When Quintana visited Buthidaung, he only went to Buthidaung jail and
hospital. Four Rohingyas from Buthidaung and four Rohingyas from Maungdaw
Township were allowed to meet the UN envoy in the office of the Buthidaung
Township Peace and Development Council (TPDC). In the office, the TPDC
Chairman of Buthidaung Township and District PDC Chairmen of Maungdaw
district and intelligence officers were present. The Rohingya people did
not dare reveal the real situation in Arakan for fear of the authorities.
But, the UN envoy tactfully asked questions to the Rohingya people.

“It was not easy for the UN envoy to ask anything to Rohingya people
because he was surrounded by Burmese intelligence officers,” said a trader
from Buthidaung.

However, the Rohingya people in the team were staying at their homes
afraid of arrest after the envoy left Buthidaung as if they had made
anti-state remarks by mistake to the envoy, though they were yes men of
the military regime, said another businessman.

A day before the UN envoy’s visit to Buthidaung, a Sarapa and a policeman
from Buthidaung town were sent to Buthidaung jail in the guise of
prisoners to observe the situation of the jail and to monitor, who talked
to the envoy against the country when the UN envoy visited the jail,
Nasaka aide from the town said.

Quintana's third visit to military-ruled Burma follows the release from
almost seven years' detention of Tin Oo, the deputy leader of the
pro-democracy party led by Daw  Aung San Suu Kyi.

Quintana met several key officials in the country’s capital, Naypyitaw and
members of the opposition. He also visited Rangoon’s notorious Insein
prison during his five-day trip.

The UN envoy arrived in Burma on February 15 ahead of the country’s
general elections. He came to Burma to oversee the Burma’s progress on
human rights.

During his tour, he was barred from meeting Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Junta
supremo Senior General Than Shwe did not meet him.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

March 5, Irrawaddy
Regime may outlaw UWSA

The Burmese military junta is reportedly considering the option of
outlawing the country's largest ethnic armed group, the United Wa State
Army (UWSA) and its political wing the United Wa State Party (UWSP), if
they fail soon to agree to the regime's demand to join the planned Border
Guard Force (BGF).

Sources close to ethnic groups and Chinese officials who have contacts
with Naypyidaw say Burmese military officials recently told their Chinese
counterparts that they will try to hold another meeting with the UWSA
leadership before March 10, in a bid to resolve the BGF issue.


The United Wa State Army is the strongest ethnic army in Burma.
If the UWSA continues to reject the BGF plan, the junta could declare the
group and its political wing “illegal organizations,”  the regime has
reportedly told Beijing.

Burmese officials are said to have appealed to China to help persuade the
Wa to accept the BGF plan.

If the Wa are officially outlawed the way is open to military action
against the UWSA, which has an estimated 30,000 men under arms in Shan
State.

In the face of rising tension along the Sino-Burmese border, the Chinese
People’s Liberation Army has alerted its troops to monitor the situation
closely, according to official sources.

When Burmese government forces recently attacked the Kokang's Myanmar
National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) in the border region, the
Naypyidaw regime first of all declared the armed group an  unlawful
organization.

The offensive shook the Kokang region, disrupting business and sending
thousands of refugees into China.

A new flood of refugees into China is to be expected if Burmese government
forces launch an offensive against the UWSA. Experts say it would be no
short confrontation, but a war prolonged by guerrilla tactics.

One important consideration in the current standoff is the approaching end
of the dry season. The annual monsoons, when heavy rain makes military
action especially difficult, are less than two months away.

UWSA officials were not available for comment on Friday.

____________________________________
BUSINESS/TRADE

March 5, Irrawaddy
Burma buys new planes – Ba Kaung

Both Russia and China will sell aircraft to Burma in 2010, news agencies
reported on Thursday.

Burma will buy two Antonov-148 passenger planes from Russia's United
Aircraft Corporation and three MA-60 transport aircraft from the China
National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation (CATIC) this year,
according to Russia's Itar-Tass news agency and the Flightglobal Website.

According to Itar-Tass, the An-148 is a short-haul plane designed to
transport 7-90 passengers. Its maximum flying range is 5,000 kilometres at
a cruising speed of 820-870 kilometers per hour. The estimated value of
An-148 is around US $20 million.

Flightglobal said the planes, which will be used for “passenger and VIP”
transport, will be delivered  no later than 2011.

Burma will receive the transports from CATIC in September with help from a
Chinese government preferred loan scheme, according to a Xian Aircraft
official quoted by Flightglobal.

Flightglobal also said Burma is depending on aging Fokker F27s and is
unable to source military equipment from the West due to trade sanctions.

In 2009, Russia and Burma signed a contract for the purchase of 20 MiG-29
jet fighters at a cost of nearly 400 million euros (US $570 million).

____________________________________


March 4, Xinhua
Japan to inject investment in Myanmar IT, economic sectors

Yangon - Japanese businessmen are planning to inject investment in
Myanmar's information and technology (IT) sector and some economic-related
sectors this year, the local weekly Yangon Time reported Thursday.

Meeting with its counterparts from the Union of Myanmar Federation of
Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI) recently, businessmen of
Japan's Shizouka proposed to invest in such sectors as IT, advertisement,
human resource development, super markets, pig breeding and sausage making
businesses, the report said.

Meanwhile, the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) will also inject
investment in Myanmar's industrial sector as the first Japan-Mekong
investment business mission, earlier report said.

The Japanese organization's investment in Myanmar will cover motor car
spare parts manufacturing, food, garment and agricultural production.

According to official statistics, total foreign contracted investment in
Myanmar hit 15.788 billion dollars in 22 years up to the end of November
last year since the country opened to such investment in late 1988.

Of which, Japan's investment in the country so far amounted to 216.76
million U.S. dollars in 23 projects, accounting for 1.37 percent of the
total foreign investment in Myanmar and ranking the 12th.

The bilateral trade between Myanmar and Japan stood at 341.8 million
dollars in the 2008-09 fiscal year, of which Myanmar's export to Japan
amounted to 179.6 million dollars with Japan ranking the 6th in Myanmar's
exporting countries line-up. Myanmar' s import from Japan took 162.2
million dollars.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

March 5, Bangkok Post
Exim Bank reassesses loan to Burma - Wichai Chantanusornsiri and Pornnalat
Prachyakorn

The Export-Import Bank of Thailand will open talks with the government on
whether its four billion baht low inteerst loan to the Burmese government
should be reviewed, Deputy Finance Minister Pruektichai Damrongrut says.

Mr Pruektichai would consult Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij and Exim
Bank's legal team this week.

The Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions
on Friday ruled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra had abused his authority
with the Exim Bank loan to Burma.

Mr Pruektichai did not say how the bank would review the contract.

Exim Bank president Apichai Boontherawara said the bank would also assess
the possible damage resulting from the contract before forwarding it to
the finance minister. But he insisted the Burmese government was a good
client which made regular repayments.
Exim Bank's soft loan to the Burmese government was one of five cases in
which the Supreme Court ruled Thaksin abused his authority as prime
minister.

The bank lent 4 billion baht to the Burmese government for 12 years at 3%
interest, which is below its operating costs.

The Supreme Court said lending at an interest rate which was below the
bank's operating cost was not an objective of the bank's establishment.
The court estimated that lending at 3% over 12 years would cost the bank
670 million baht in damages.

Mr Apichai insisted the bank did not lose money from the lending, but said
it would have to study the ruling thoroughly.

The court also ruled that Shin Satellite, a company in which members of
the Shinawatra family were majority shareholders, benefited from the loan.

Burma spent it on buying telecommunications equipment and satellite
services from Shin Satellite, better known now as Thaicom.

The court found the bank approved the 4 billion baht loan to Burma
following an instruction by the Thaksin government.

Initially, it had opened a credit line of 3 billion baht for Burma, but
Thaksin asked the bank to increase the credit line by one billion baht.
After that, the interest rate on the loan was cut from 5.5% to 3%.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

March 5, Irrawaddy
Burmese embassies to suspend passport extension services – Kyaw Thein Kha

Burmese embassies around the world will suspend passport extension
services for one month in April as the Ministry of Home Affairs has given
them instructions to introduce passports using the  international bar-code
OCRB system.

“The Ministry of Home Affairs has instructed us to temporarily suspend
passport extension services for the whole month of April. Passports that
will expire in April are to be extended before then. The ministry hasn't
explained the bar-code system passports to us,” an official at the Burmese
Embassy in Bangkok told The Irrawaddy on Friday.

According to a Xinhua report, the International Civil Aviation
Organization, a UN agency that promotes understanding and security through
cooperative aviation regulation, has called on the Burmese government to
stop issuing hand-written passports.

Passport offices inside Burma will begin issuing machine-readable
passports on April 1, according to Burmese media reports. As part of the
switch to the new passports and to facilitate international OCRB passport
holders, OCRB machines will be installed at Rangoon International Airport,
the reports said.

Meanwhile, there are concerns that Burmese expatriates could face
difficulties in extending their passports under the new regulations due to
a lack of information about the move.

“I went to the embassy yesterday to pay my taxes and I noticed that they
had posted the new rules on the wall. My passport will expire in April, so
it was lucky that I found out about this early enough to extend it before
next month,” said one Burmese passport holder in Bangkok, speaking on
condition of anonymity.

Another Burmese national living in Bangkok also said that she had no idea
about the suspension of passport extension services until she went to the
embassy.

“Anyone who has not been to the embassy recently would not know that they
need to extend their passports before April,” she said.

Burma has diplomatic ties with 92 countries around the world, with
embassies set up in 30 countries.

____________________________________


March 5, CNSNews.com
Geneva Summit Will Focus on Countries Ignored by U.N. Human Rights Council
- Patrick Goodenough

When the U.N. Human Rights Council continues its month-long session in
Geneva on Monday, a coalition of human rights groups will hold a parallel
event focusing on some of the items kept off the HRC agenda by its
powerful members.

The human rights of Iranians, Cubans, Tibetans, Uighurs and Burmese will
be the focus of the two-day Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance and
Democracy.

The summit is co-sponsored by several dozen rights-oriented
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from developed and developing
countries. Its honorary committee is being chaired by the former
presidents of Poland and the Czech Republic, Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel,
both leading anti-communist dissidents during the Cold War.

Organizers say the summit offers a global platform and forum for
dissidents and human rights advocates to discuss their struggles and
visions for bringing about change.

“Regrettably, the chief international body charged with protecting human
rights is failing to live up to its mission to stop 
 abuses,” they said
in a statement, in reference to the 47-member HRC.

“Strong politicization of the council, driven by bloc-based voting
patterns, has led to inaction in face of atrocity and abuse.”

Critics note that in the almost four years of the HRC’s existence, the
only condemnatory resolutions passed relating to the world’s worst rights
abusers have been those relating to North Korea and Burma.

With support from developing world allies, countries like China, Cuba,
Iran and Saudi Arabia have managed to avoid censure, while Israel
continues to draw disproportionate scrutiny.

In a recently-released scorecard on the HRC’s performance over the past
year, the Geneva-based NGO U.N. Watch said 18 out of 30 key resolutions
passed were “actually counterproductive to human rights.” They included
resolutions on Sri Lanka, Sudan, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and
religious “defamation.”

The scorecard also found that only 13 of the council’s 47 members had
voted in a way deemed positive in upholding human rights – European
countries plus Canada, Japan and South Korea (The U.S. was not a member
for the whole year under review.)

The worst scoring nations in this regard were Islamic states, plus Russia,
China, Cuba, South Africa and the Philippines.

‘World’s worst’

“The UNHRC failed to adopt any resolution, special session or
investigative mandate for Belarus, China, Cuba, Chad, Equatorial Guinea,
Eritrea, Laos, Libya, Morocco, North Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan or Zimbabwe – all on Freedom House’s list of the
20 world’s worst abusers,” U.N. Watch said in the report. “The same holds
true for Iran, despite ongoing show trials and executions.”

It is not by coincidence that some of those countries will feature most
prominently at the Geneva Summit on Monday and Tuesday.

The program of speakers includes Caspian Makan, the fiance of Neda Agha
Soltan, the young Iranian woman who became a symbol of the post-election
protests after her death by gunfire last June was captured on amateur
video and the clip posted on the Internet. Makan was subsequently detained
and escaped from Iran late last year.

Also speaking are exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, Burmese dissident Bo
Kyi, Dong-hyuk Shin, a survivor of North Korea’s notorious prison camps,
and Phuntsok Nyidron, a Tibetan Buddhist nun who was accused of spreading
“counter-revolutionary propaganda” and jailed by the Chinese government
from 1989 to 2004.

Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina, the president of the Cuban Youth for Democracy
Movement and a former prisoner of conscience, was also on the program but
the organizers say the Cuban government has barred him from leaving the
country to attend.

This week 30 NGOs submitted an appeal to the U.N.’s top rights official,
High Commissioner on Human Rights Navi Pillay, asking her to urge Havana
to let Lobaina travel.

During an interactive session at the HRC on Thursday, U.N. Watch director
Hillel Neuer asked Pillay about Lobaina, but Cuba’s envoy interrupted the
session, objecting to the raising of an issue which he said was not on the
meeting’s agenda.

Lobaina was imprisoned from 2000 to 2005 for the offenses of “public
disorder,” “disrespect” and “damage.”

The Geneva Summit also plans to explore ways of using the Internet more
effectively to advance human rights.

The summit is the second of its kind. The inaugural one was held on the
eve of the controversial HRC-hosted “Durban II” racism conference last
April.


____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

March 5, The Nation (Thailand)
American policy on Burma needs sharper teeth

Apart from urging the junta to hold free, fair elections, the world should
also keep it away from North Korea

After the initial four high-level contacts with the Burmese junta since
last August, the US administration has been trying hard to engage the
junta for two major reasons.

The first is to convince Burma that it would be in the country's as well
as the regime's interest to hold an all-inclusive, free and fair election
this year. The second, and an equally important, reason is to create a
distance between the Burmese and North Korean regimes in terms of the sale
of weapons and nuclear arms proliferation.

Washington believed its enthusiastic, softer approach would convince the
junta that the planned elections should be carried out in a manner that is
internationally acceptable and one that would help the regime join the
global community.

So far, the regime has not yet set a date for the elections or given the
world a peek at any electoral laws. It is clear that the enthusiasm for
the elections is quickly evaporating, if not disappearing, within the
administration. The junta has its own roadmap to follow and will certainly
not pay attention to the guidelines being suggested by well-wishers in
other capitals.

The irony of it all is that the junta is managing to successfully buy time
to maximise on the outcome of its grand political strategy - staying in
power at all costs without ever giving in. Most importantly, the junta
leaders want to keep opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi away from all
political activities prior to the elections. Her party won the elections
in May 1990 by a landslide, but the regime annulled the victory and took
over.

Therefore, it is commendable that women like Nobel Peace laureates Shirin
Ebadi and Jody Williams, along with other well-known human rights
activists, are working to highlight the extreme violence being inflicted
on women living in Burma. Their call to refer the matter to the
International Criminal Court should be supported because in the past two
decades, the Burmese junta has committed lots of crimes against humanity,
not to mention innocent people being raped and tortured. In fact, the
junta is known for using rape as a weapon of war against minorities. Thus,
the international community should join hands and work towards the noble
aim of ensuring safety and freedom for all people.

As for the second objective, Washington also has so far been unable to
distance the two rogue states that have not only normalised their
relations, but have over the past few years intensified their cooperation
on military hardware.

The Burmese junta wants the kind of lethal weapons from North Korea that
will allow it to project its military might on neighbouring countries. The
reports on Rangoon's efforts to become nuclear capable should be taken
seriously, though at this moment it would be very difficult, if not
impossible, for Burma to develop such capacity.

However, in say 10 to 15 years, Burma can very easily build up its nuclear
capacity with assistance from other rogue states that are willing to sell
their technology and know-how. Like many other new, nuclear-ready states,
such as Iran, the governments in power know exactly how to hide their
burgeoning nuclear facilities. The world, especially Thailand, should
watch out and not be fooled by the junta.

US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs Kurt Campbell will
be in Thailand next week, and might drop by in Burma if his planned
itinerary is approved. If given the go-ahead, perhaps he will use this
visit as an opportunity to tell the junta that time is running out and
that it should stop dragging its feet in opening the door to democracy.

____________________________________

March 5, Huffington Post (US)
Between a crocodile and a snake – Kristy Crabtree

For Riya, life in the refugee camps in Bangladesh isn't much better than
Burma. Her shelter rests on the side of a hill pieced together with scraps
of tarp and chunks of mud, and she only has access to water for one hour a
day. Since being born, her son has been inflicted with numerous illnesses.
He suffers from continuous bouts of diarrhea, his belly is distended from
malnourishment, his scrotum enlarged, and his thighs and lower belly
covered in red pustules. Riya scrounges for food from relatives, collects
and sells firewood from the local forest, and begs for money outside the
camp just to avoid hunger. Under these conditions, she cannot seek medical
care for her son because of the constant need to find food to avoid
starvation. Riya shares the common sentiment in the refugee camp that the
choice between living in Burma or fleeing to refugee camps in Bangladesh,
is "like a choice between a crocodile and a snake."

For many Rohingya refugees, like Riya, they sought sanctuary in Bangladesh
after being subject to state-sponsored persecution in Burma. Many have
experienced property seizures, forced labor, military conscription, and
have been prohibited from practicing their faith, or freely traveling,
marrying or having children without permission from Burmese authorities.
The Rohingya are an ethnic, Muslim minority from Burma who have no legal
recourse and no protection from human rights violations. This is because
of a 1982 law denying the Rohingya citizenship in their country of origin.
This lack of nationality is the root of their persecution in Burma and the
reason why the Rohingya cannot return home.

With no prospects for change in Burma, and a deplorable reception in
Bangladesh, the Rohingya refugees are essentially being "warehoused." As
defined by the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, this means they
are kept in a "protracted situation of restricted mobility, enforced
idleness, and dependency." They are denied basic human rights such as the
right to wage-earning employment, freedom of movement, access to courts,
and public education. Although many Rohingya have been languishing in
Bangladesh refugee camps for 19 years, this group is little known outside
of Southern Asia. Yet, the Rohingya are a population deserving of
international attention and advocacy on their behalf.

As a stateless group, the Rohingya are stuck in between a country that
denies them citizenship and a country that denies them refugee status. To
ensure their humane treatment, the conditions and outlook facing the
Rohingya must be changed. First and foremost, their forcible repatriation
to Burma must stop. Protection from forced return to a county of
persecution is a widely practiced custom known as non-refoulement. Yet
despite being accepted by some as customary international law, the
principal of non-refoulement goes unrecognized in Bangladesh. Rohingya
refugees have recently come under threat from an unprecedented campaign by
Bangladesh authorities to forcibly return them to Burma. Because
persecution of Rohingya persists in Burma, their repatriation must stop.

Second, international humanitarian organizations must be permitted to
enter the camps and offer basic needs services to the Rohingya to ensure
their survival. This is especially important in light of the inadequate
levels of aid. In the past, the government of Bangladesh has tacitly
allowed a few non-governmental organizations to provide services to the
Rohingya, but recently rescinded their approval for some. Now,
organizations like Islamic Relief are forced to end their operations in
Bangladesh due to lack of government approval. Islamic Relief had provided
primary support for 13,000 Rohingya refugees in a makeshift camp. Their
exit increases the already overwhelming need for basic survival services.

Riya's experience is just one example that illustrates the need for
durable solutions for refugees in the midst of protracted conflict.
Unfortunately, Riya's story is not uncommon. There are 39,000 other
Rohingya refugees living in refugee camps and an estimated 200,000
undocumented Rohingya living in Bangladesh.

As we approach March 17th, there is special occasion to raise awareness
about the Rohingya and advocate on their behalf. This date marks the
thirtieth anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Refugee Act by President
Carter. The Refugee Act demonstrates U.S. recognition of the ongoing
refugee phenomenon, and the need to provide a haven and overseas
assistance for the persecuted.

On this anniversary, the law that demonstrates our desire to provide
refuge should be commemorated, but this anniversary should also draw
policymakers' attention to the continuing need to provide assistance to
those fleeing persecution. There needs to be recognition of the continued
displacement of the Rohingya and progress on policies that ensure their
humane treatment. As Americans, we need to recognize our ability to act on
behalf of those we have not met, our responsibility to choose empathy over
apathy, and our power to affect change by placing pressure on our
government. This is a population that cannot wait 19 more years for a
solution to their displacement.

____________________________________

March 5, Philippine News Agency
Press Release

Burma women join Manila march

Manila  -  An 80-women delegation of Free Burma Coalition - Philippines
(FBC-Phils) will join the 5,000-strong march of women traversing the major
road leading to the historic Mendiola bridge in Manila, Philippines on
Monday, March 8, 2010.

They will be clad in white bandanas (head scarves) bearing the calls of
the World March of Women and slogans of support to the women of Burma.
World March of Women (WMW 2010) will be celebrated with simultaneous
marches and rallies around the globe on that day.

Among the calls of the women are: End militarism in Asia-Pacific! End all
forms of violence against the women of Burma Stop militarism in
Asia-Pacific! Stop violence against women in Burma !Stop SPDC crimes
against humanity! Stop the rape of women in Burma !Free our sisters! Free
all women political prisoners in Burma.

The delegation will also carry photographs of know women political
prisoners of Burma like Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Aye Thida, Nilar Thein, Thin
Thin Aye, Noble Aye, Hanni Oo, Daw Khaing Mar Soe, among others. FBC-Phils
calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all women political
prisoners in Burma ; especially ethnic women.

The Bandana solidarity aims to link the issues of women of the world with
that of the women of Burma - stressing the common struggles and the need
for solidarity among women and men to realise the global covenants
protecting the rights of women against discrimination and violence; and,
promoting human rights, justice and peace for all women and men.

The FBC-Phils Women's Committee dedicates this action to the women of
Burma, particularly the Women's League of Burma, in their (WLB) campaign
to bring the SPDC to the International Criminal Court for its crimes
committed against the women of Burma. The delegation to WMW 2010 is
organized in line with the FBC-Phils' Burma Women's Solidarity Campaign.

Last February, Philippines women's organizations from the WMW 2010 network
joined the FBC-Phils Women's Committee and other southeast Asian groups in
signing a petition letter to ASEAN in support of the women workers in
Burma who are on strike for higher wages and better working conditions.

Confirmed participants on March 8 are coming from Alliance of Progressive
Labor – Women (APL), Bagong Kamalayan Collective Inc. (BKCI), Bukluran ng
Manggagawang Pilipino – Women (BMP- Solidarity of Philippine Workers),
Pagkakaisa ng mga Kababaihan para sa Kalayaan (KAISAKA – Unity of Women
for Freedom), Partido ng Manggagawa – Women (PM- Workers' Party), Samahan
ng Demokratikong Kabataan – Women (SDK-Union of Democratic Youth), and
other individuals. Men members of the FBC-Phils will also be present at
the tail-end of the march in solidarity with all the women marchers and in
support of all the calls of WMW.

March 5, OpenDemocracy.net
This is my witness - Emily Stokes

The human voice has a way of piercing through you. Emily Stokes listened
to the testimony of the women of Burma.

Until 1988, Saw Mar was a housewife in her home country of Burma. Born
into a well-educated, middle-class family in Rangoon, she spent her time
looking after her two daughters, cleaning the house, and cooking for her
husband. She had never worked for a living. But on a rainy morning in
August, she witnessed a massacre by army troopers, and decided to join the
fight to replace the military government. She became the Organizer for the
National League for Democracy, working closely with the party’s leader
Aung San Suu Kyi. One year later, Saw Mar was arrested, interrogated and
sentenced to three years in prison with hard labour. In prison, she
witnessed disturbing abuses of power, and was herself tortured by prison
guards.

On Tuesday, Saw Mar – who has lived in the US for the past decade – was
one of twelve Burmese women to testify at the International Tribunal on
Crimes against Women of Burma held in New York, a event organised by the
Nobel Women’s Initiative and the Women’s League of Burma. The twelve
testimonies were heard by an audience of 150, and by a panel of four
judges: human rights experts Heisoo Shin and Vitit Muntarbhorn, and Nobel
Laureates Jody Williams and Shirin Ebadi. The logos of the Nobel Women’s
Initiative in the tribunal hall acted as a reminder to those watching the
tribunal of the ongoing struggle to free a sister Nobel laureate, Aung San
Suu Kyi, from house arrest in Burma, where she has been kept almost
continually since she won the election in 1990.

The first four harrowing testimonies heard on Tuesday dealt with women’s
experiences of violence, rape, sexual violence and trafficking. Dr. Heisoo
Shin – who recently founded a new NGO, the National Movement against Sex
Trafficking – told me after the tribunal that, despite having worked with
“conflict women” for the past 30 years, she had rarely heard such “cruel
and brutal” narratives. Dr. Shin was particularly disturbed, she said, by
the way that Burmese authority figures – community leaders and teachers,
for instance – punished, rather than protected, the female victims of the
militia. She cited one of the testimonies, in which a schoolgirls were
gang-raped by a group of SPDC soldiers – an atrocity that the BBC had
reported in the international media. Rather than being protected by their
communities, the girls were expelled from school for bringing dishonour to
the Burmese government and accused of prostitution. Dr. Shin, who has
worked on campaigns to protect the sex slaves of Japanese soldiers,
suggests that – while men in Korea have come to understand that Korean
women are not to blame for being abused – the same shift of awareness has
yet to happen in Burma.

Saw Mar’s testimony, which was heard in a group of narratives about
torture, imprisonment and persecution, similarly spoke of the social
isolation experienced by female victims of torture and violence. “Even
after I was released from Inseim prison,” she told the audience, “the
regime still checked on me. I lost all of my friends; they would not come
to visit because of the military’s intimidation.” When Aung San Suu Kyi
was freed briefly from house arrest in 1990, Saw Mar and her family leapt
to her assistance – but were harassed by the government for doing so. In
1997, Saw Mar and her husband were wrongly accused of bombing the relic of
the Buddha’s tooth in Rangoon; the government even provided faked video
footage. Finally, in 1999, Saw Mar became so distressed by threats to her
safety that she left Burma – and her husband and children – to seek asylum
in the United States.

As Jody Williams told the tribunal’s audience, the testimonials
represented the voices of thousands of women in Burma; they were, Williams
said, “common – but we should remember that they are not normal; this
should never be normal.” Similarly, Dr. Shin believes that the violations
of human rights in Burma are “systematic”. Since the SLORC (now the SPDC)
refused to allow the winning NLD to form a new government in 1990, the
military’s power has been almost impossible to resist by individuals in
Burma. “If you are the military, you can do anything,” Dr. Shin told me.
“You kill, kidnap, rape. There’s no rule of law. It’s an embedded system
within the regime that allows the military to do anything.”

However, Dr. Shin is hopeful about the impact that this tribunal will
have, citing the positive effects of the 1993 Vienna and 1995 Beijing
tribunals. Professor Muntabhorn similarly believes in the tribunal as a
practical tool for change: “This is a civil society tribunal, it’s not a
court of law,” he explains, “but it is important from the perspective of
global awareness – mobilizing people in terms of advocating the rights of
Burmese women.” On Thursday, Jody Williams and Shirin Ebaldi presented
their findings to US Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon; more meetings are to
follow. The tribunal proves, says Muntabhorn, that the violations of human
rights in Burma constitute both war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Burma has ratified treaties concerning human rights including the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW), The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the
International Labour Organization (ILO) Forced Labour Convention of 1929 –
and has consistently failed to take action to prevent violations of these
treaties. Individuals must be held responsible by the state – and, most
importantly, the state must be held responsible by the international
community.

Professor Muntabhorn, who has read thousands of testimonials over the
course of his career, told me how the spoken word has a different power
from words on a page; the human voice, he says, has a way of “piercing
through you”. Despite the fact that several of the testifiers were unable
to enter the US for the tribunal, requiring that their testimonies be read
by others, the emotional effect of the words were not lost; as Jody
Williams echoed, “This is my witness . . . this is not something that has
been told to me . . . this is my witness”. The tribunal was symbolic in
giving women a chance to be heard and supported as they faced up to their
own painful experiences. As Saw Mar summarized when I spoke to her after
the tribunal: “We are Asian women. We have no voice in Burma. We dare not
speak about these things because of the shame. Because of that, the
government is taking advantage.”

For Saw Mar, who spoke passionately in her testimonial, occasionally
breaking into English as if to make sure that her message reached the
audience, the tribunal was the opportunity she has been waiting for. Since
seeking asylum in the United States in 1999, she has lived in the Bay
Ridge area of San Jose; her husband and two daughters joined her in 2004.
After the tribunal, she explained to me how she sometimes feels as if she
is living two lives; when she isn’t working for an electrics company in
the Bay Area, she spends as much time as she can working with
organizations such as the Burmese Democratic American Alliance BADA and
the Burmese American Women's Alliance BAWA. “When people are interested in
my name and ask where I am from,” she says, “that’s a great opportunity. I
take their hand, and I tell them my story. I speak, speak, speak
” She
tries to tell her story whenever she can, to spread awareness of the
political situation in Burma – but she often feels that her words are not
being heard.

Speaking at the tribunal wasn’t easy. “My knees were shaking,” she tells
me. But, she says, once she started, she didn’t see the audience at all:
“I just saw the 1988 crisis happen; I saw the story I was telling in front
of my eyes, and how I suffered in jail, and the horrible night, and the
way the wardens treated us...”

Saw Mar’s messages to the international community, to the SPDC, and to
civil society are loud and clear. “In Burma, the women are very quiet
because they are afraid of the military government. I would like to tell
them: You are not alone. Don’t be afraid. We are fighting for you –
wherever we are – to get freedom.” For the United Nations and all the
international governments, she says: “Please, go inside Burma and give us
protection. Give Burma a chance to develop like other countries.” Her
final message is the most heartfelt, and the most urgent. In 2010,
elections will take place in Burma, but Aung San Suu Kyi – along with many
other politicians who are also imprisoned – is currently unable to fulfil
her potential to bring democracy to Burma. Like the judges at the
tribunal, Saw Mar urges that Aung San Suu Kyi be released: “Let her talk,
let her meet with the people.” When I ask Saw Mar when she last saw her
friend, she sighs. “The last time I saw Aung San Suu Kyi was in 1997,” she
says, sadly. And then she looks more hopeful: “But I always listen to her
voice.”