BurmaNet News, March 11, 2010

[Editor]

March 11, 2010, Issue #3914


INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Myanmar's Suu Kyi calls for united response to 'unjust' law
Reuters: Myanmar junta annuls election held 20 years ago
Mizzima News: Burma’s election laws amorphous on Diaspora

REGIONAL
Mizzima News: Burma's electoral laws undemocratic: Indian experts
Business Mirror (Philippines): New Burma election law ‘a farce’

INTERNATIONAL
Reuters: U.N. rights envoy seeks Myanmar war crimes inquiry
AFP: UN urges Burma to let Aung San Suu Kyi contest polls
AFP: Election law deals blow to US engagement with Myanmar

OPINION / OTHER
Economist: Belt, braces and army boots
Guardian (UK): Business as usual in Burma – Simon Tisdall
IPS: Burma:  Despite loss at Oscars, film a testament to courage – Marwaan
Macan-Markar
Irrawaddy: Regime looks to the law to deal with the NLD – Ko Ko Thet
New Light of Myanmar: People reminded not to believe
destructionist-generated rumours

PRESS RELEASE
HRW: Burma: Election laws may shut down opposition parties





____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

March 11, Agence France Presse
Myanmar's Suu Kyi calls for united response to 'unjust' law

Yangon – Myanmar's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi Thursday
called on her people to respond to an "unjust" election law issued by the
junta that bars her from the vote, her lawyer said.

Under the laws enacted Monday, which have sparked international anger, Suu
Kyi faces exclusion from her own National League for Democracy (NLD) and
is prevented from standing in the elections expected in October or
November.

"The people and political forces have to respond united to such an unjust
law," Suu Kyi said according to her lawyer and NLD spokesman Nyan Win,
after he visited the democracy icon, who has been locked up for 14 of the
last 20 years.

"She didn't think such a repressive law would come out," he told AFP,
adding that her disposition was "more cheerful" than expected during the
meeting.

Under the legislation -- slammed as a "mockery" by the United States --
the Nobel Peace Laureate is not allowed to run in the election on the
grounds that she is a serving prisoner.

On Thursday Myanmar's ruling junta also unveiled on state television its
handpicked election commission to oversee the polls, leading to criticism
from rights groups that the body would not be impartial.

It cited an order signed by General Tin Aung Myint Oo, the number five in
the junta hierarchy, and named the chairman of the new commission as Thein
Soe, without giving further details.

The new laws also officially annul the result of Myanmar's last elections
in 1990, which the NLD won by a landslide. The junta never allowed the
party to take power.

But in a surprise move, authorities permitted the reopening of around 300
NLD offices which were shut after an attack by a pro-junta mob on Suu
Kyi's motorcade in May 2003 which left dozens of people dead.

"They have not yet informed our party headquarters but the authorities
have informed regional and divisional offices that they can reopen," Nyan
Win said.

The new laws give parties just 60 days from Monday to decide whether to
register, but the NLD has not yet said if it will do so.

Suu Kyi's house arrest was extended by 18 months in August after she was
convicted over an incident in which a US man swam to her home.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon Wednesday renewed his appeal to the junta to free the
64-year-old and let her take part in the elections and Britain expressed
"regret" over Suu Kyi's exclusion.

The United States, which has imposed heavy sanctions on Myanmar but
recently launched a policy of increased engagement with the regime,
reacted angrily to the new laws.

"The political party registration law makes a mockery of the democratic
process and ensures the upcoming election will be devoid of credibility,"
US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said Wednesday.

The Philippines on Thursday described the law affecting Suu Kyi as a
"farce", becoming the first member of the 10-member Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to publicly comment. The group includes
Myanmar.

But China, which has huge investments in neighbouring Myanmar, said the
laws were a matter for Myanmar alone.

"These are the internal affairs of Myanmar, which need to be properly
resolved by the government and people of Myanmar," said Chinese foreign
ministry spokesman Qin Gang.

Analysts said the laws proved that the elections were mainly aimed at
legitimising and entrenching the generals' grip on power and were a
"survival strategy".

"Accordingly, it is almost sure that the 2010 elections will not achieve
genuine democracy in Myanmar," Toshihiro Kudo, from the Institute of
Developing Economies in China, Japan, said in emailed comments.

____________________________________

March 11, Reuters
Myanmar junta annuls election held 20 years ago

Yangon – Myanmar's military government on Thursday officially annulled the
results of the country's 1990 general election, a poll it chose to ignore
at the time when the main opposition party won by a landslide.

The 1990 polls were declared null and void because they did not comply
with a new parliamentary election law enacted this week, the junta said in
a statement published in Thursday's official newspapers.

"It must be deemed that the results of the multiparty democracy elections
held under that annulled law have also been annulled automatically since
they are not consistent with this new law," it said in the announcement in
state media.

The National League for Democracy (NLD) party, led by Nobel Peace Prize
winner Aung San Suu Kyi, won the 1990 election, taking 392 of the 485
seats in parliament, but it was never allowed to rule.

The junta, then known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council, said
it would honor the result but refused to allow the NLD to take office
until a new constitution was drafted and an investigation conducted into
the polls.

Myanmar plans to hold an election this year, the first since the 1990
vote, but the process has already been derided by critics as a sham to
entrench nearly five decades of military rule in the former British
colony.

(Reporting by Aung Hla Tun; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Alan
Raybould and Sugita Katyal)

____________________________________

March 11, Mizzima News
Burma’s election laws amorphous on Diaspora

The Burmese military junta’s election laws have conveniently failed to
address the fundamental issues of millions of Burmese in Diaspora,
residing outside the country for years due to political and economic
upheaval.

“Many migrant workers are concerned about the political situation in their
country because that is one of the reasons that they came out as migrant
workers,” said Debbie Stothard, Coordinator for Altsean-Burma. “It is very
clear that there is not going to be any change to get jobs
so all the
economic management and the systematic human rights abuses that forced
people to leave Burma are still likely to continue.”

The law vaguely mentions that the Foreign Ministry is directed to organize
advanced voting for those who live outside the country.

Millions of Burmese citizens are living in neighbouring countries such as
Thailand, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Singapore. In Thailand alone, it
is estimated that at least two million Burmese live and work as migrant
workers. This is in addition to some 150,000 refugees in camps along the
Thai-Burma border region, who have fled Burma due to the ongoing civil
war.

In India there are an estimated 50,000 odd Burmese in Mizoram State alone
living as illegal migrant workers; while Malaysia has more than 150,000
Burmese workers staying legally, with the illegal number of Burmese
residents in Malaysia estimated to easily match the legal figure.

According to the Parliamentary Election Law (for House of Representatives)
announced today, an eligible candidate has to live in the country for a
minimum of at least 10 consecutive years in the run-up to the election.

Thousands of Burmese pro-democracy activists left Burma in the years
following the 1988 popular uprising.

The new law also says that the military will hold 25 per cent of
parliamentary seats, 110 out of a total 440 in the House of
Representatives. Further, the country's Commander-in-Chief will select and
nominate the 110 members to represent the military. And in the
Nationalities Parliament, the military is to have 56 out of a total 224
representatives encompassing the 14 States and Divisions of the country.

At the same time, the government is prepared to crack down on any
anti-election and anti-voting activities under the guise of a clause
detailing that anyone who speaks, writes or rallies against voting can be
sentenced to a maximum of one year in jail or Kyat 100,000 or both.

“I think it is very clear from the election law that the polls are not
going to improve the situation in Burma,” Stothard said and added “so the
international community has to understand that it is actually unsafe to
force refugees and migrant workers back to Burma under such conditions.”

Since 1962, when the military took over power by a coup, at least five
million Burmese are believed to have sought a better living throughout the
world. According to official statistics of 2008, there are nearly 28
million eligible voters in the country of around 55 million people.

Estimates from human rights groups working along the border and inside
Burma say there are about two million internally displaced persons in
Burma, especially in Karen and Shan States.

Despite repeated calls by the National League for Democracy to recognize
the results of the 1990 elections, Burma’s military regime has now
officially annulled the 1990 results through its new election laws. The
law for the Parliamentary Election clearly states that the results of the
1990 elections have been canceled as of March 8 this year.

Reports circulating inside Burma and abroad say that the regime will hold
the 2010 elections on October 10, although the government is yet to
announce the official date.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

March 11, Mizzima News
Burma's electoral laws undemocratic: Indian experts

Indian constitutional experts and election observers have said that
Burma’s electoral laws that the junta has started announcing since March 8
through the state controlled media do not follow democratic norms.

The laws promulgated by the Burmese government for the elections in 2010,
goes against democratic norms and it will not pave the way for democracy.

Subash Kashyap, a constitution expert and former Secretary General in the
Indian Parliament said: “what is going on in Burma is really a serious
matter.  What the junta is doing over the last two decades is totally
against democratic laws”.

Election laws announced by the junta have barred pro-democracy leader Aung
San Suu Kyi from being a member of a party, from forming a party or 
contesting  the elections. The new law states that anyone serving a prison
term cannot be a member of a political party. Aung San Suu Kyi is
presently under 18 months house arrest. She was convicted for flouting the
terms of her house arrest in August last year after an uninvited American
man John Yettaw swam to her house and stayed there for two days.

“It is wrong to keep the opposition leader under house arrest. She must be
freed to contest elections. Under democratic laws every individual has the
right to contest elections. There can be no election if there is no
opposition party,” Sanjay Kumar at Centre for the Study of Developing
Societies (CSDS) in New Delhi told Mizzima.

Sabya Sachi, a professor and an election observer in Kolkata told Mizzima,
“If such laws are made then there will never be peace and democracy in the
country.”

“Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi must be set free and should be allowed
to campaign. She must be allowed to speak in public, free to meet people
and must be allowed to hear public demands,” he added.

The junta is implementing its ‘Seven Points Road Map to Democracy’ with
the fifth step being the elections this year, after 20 years. In 1990 Aung
San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy swept to victory but was
refused power.

The 2010 elections laws also bar the over 2100 political prisoners to take
part in the elections. It reserves 25 per cent of parliamentary seats for
the country's military.

“Unless and until Aung San Suu Kyi is released, there will not be free and
fair elections, said Subash Kashyap.

The 64-year-old Suu Kyi has been in detention for the last 20 years. The
new law also gives the NLD just 60 days from March 8 to register as a
party if it wants to take part in the elections. With the new laws, NLD
will either have to expel its leader Suu Kyi and more than 400 members of
the party, who are in jails or face de-registration.

Human rights groups have condemned the junta's electoral laws as "designed
to exclude the main opposition party and ensure a victory for the ruling
military".

“The new law’s assault on opposition parties is sadly predictable,” said
Brad Adams, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch. “It continues the sham
political process that is aimed at creating the appearance of civilian
rule with a military spine.”

Meanwhile, the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon has
made a statement in New York that the laws "so far suggest that they do
not measure up to the international community’s expectations of what is
needed for an inclusive political process."

He has called on the Burmese government to ensure a fair, transparent and
credible elections and allow Aung San Suu Kyi to freely participate in the
polls.

____________________________________

March 11, Business Mirror (Philippines)
New Burma election law ‘a farce’ – Estrella Torres

FOREIGN Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo called the new election law
passed by Burma’s military junta as a “farce” as it fails to facilitate
the release and participation in the elections of Nobel laureate and peace
icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Philippines’ chief diplomat said Burma’s military junta had committed
to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in 2007 to fulfill
its own road map to democracy, which includes the holding of its first
inclusive democratic elections and the release of Suu Kyi and the rest of
the political prisoners.

The Philippines and Burma, renamed by junta leaders as Myanmar, are
members of Asean, along with Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore,
Vietnam, Brunei, Cambodia and Laos.

“Unless they [referring to Burma’s junta] release Suu Kyi and allow her
and her party to participate in the
elections, it’s [new election law] a farce and, therefore, contrary to
their Road map to Democracy,” said Romulo in a statement on Thursday.

Burma’s junta leaders passed the Political Parties Registration Law on
March 8. It bans people convicted by a court of law from party
membership—which may force Suu Kyi’s expulsion from the National League
for Democracy (NLD).

Suu Kyi has spent 14 of the past 20 years in self-exile. In August last
year, the democracy icon and Nobel Peace laureate was convicted of
violating the terms of her house arrest when she sheltered an American who
swam to her lakeside residence. Her term of house arrest expires in
November.

Burma Partnership, a network of rights groups in the Asia-Pacific region
pushing for democracy in the military-ruled nation, said the passage of
the new election law painted a “dire image” of the elections. The group
said the junta has not even announced a date for holding elections that
was supposed to be held in May this year.

The rights group has identified crucial loopholes in the new election law,
which it viewed would still fail to democratize the nation.

Burma Partnership pointed out that the election commission formed by the
junta to implement the new law will have the authority to convene the
election and will exercise “final decision-making power throughout and
administer and direct political parties.”

“This means that the elections will unfold according to the junta’s
wishes,” said Burma Partnership.

The group added that most of the key political figures, including Suu Kyi
and ethnic leaders, were barred from forming political parties and
participating in the elections.

The new election law also requires political parties participating in the
elections to abide by and protect the 2008 Constitution, which was
criticized as undemocratic and fundamentally flawed.

The rights network said such provision shows that the regime does not
envision the elections and the ensuing government to be a transformative
step toward true democracy, but rather a means to maintain power.

Burma Partnership believes that Suu Kyi and her colleagues in the NLD may
not be able to participate in the elections because most of them have been
convicted and are still in detention. The new election law only allows
party leaders to register for the upcoming elections within 60 days.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

March 11, Reuters
U.N. rights envoy seeks Myanmar war crimes inquiry – Stephanie Nebehay

Geneva – The United Nations human rights investigator for Myanmar called
on Thursday for an international inquiry into possible war crimes and
crimes against humanity committed by the ruling junta.

Tomas Ojea Quintana, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar,
said a pattern of gross and systematic violations of fundamental freedoms
continued in the country formerly known as Burma which has promised
elections this year.

"According to consistent reports, the possibility exists that some of
these human rights violations may entail categories of crimes against
humanity or war crimes under the terms of the statute of the International
Criminal Court," Ojea Quintana said in a 30-page report to the U.N. Human
Rights Council in Geneva.

Activist groups welcomed his recommendation, calling it unprecedented
since the United Nations established a mandate to look into human rights
violations in Myanmar in 1992.

Violations included mass arrests of dissidents, deaths and torture of
detainees, lack of freedom of assembly, religion and expression, and
forced labour, according to the Argentine lawyer who made his third trip
to Myanmar last month.

As Myanmar had failed to investigate the abuses, "U.N. institutions may
consider the possibility to establish a commission of inquiry with a
specific fact-finding mandate to address the question of international
crimes," he said.

There were indications that the violations were "the result of a state
policy that involves authorities in the executive, military and judiciary
at all levels," he said.

POLITICAL PRISONERS DOUBLE

Ojea Quintana called for the release of 2,100 political prisoners --
including monks, students, lawyers, journalists and dissidents -- that he
said were being detained in Myanmar. They had nearly doubled in number in
the past two years.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been detained for 15 of
the past 21 years and was sentenced to a further 18 months of house arrest
last August, is among them.

He called for the end of her house arrest, saying it violated both
international and domestic law, and voiced regret that he was not allowed
to visit her on his latest mission.

Myanmar's military government has allowed her National League for
Democracy party to reopen regional branch offices that have been closed
since May 2003, a party spokesman said in Yangon on Thursday.

"The elections cannot be free, fair, transparent and inclusive, in
accordance with international standards, without the freedom of
expression, opinion, association and assembly," Ojea Quintana declared.

Noting there was still no election date, he said that the delay raised
serious doubts about the possibility of providing adequate time for all
parties to fairly contest the elections.

Dissenting voices are not tolerated in Myanmar and there are at least 12
journalists and many more bloggers in prison, according to the independent
investigator.

Ojea Quintana voiced concern at reports about an "alarmingly high number
of deaths in prison". Deprivation of food and water, as well as denial of
medical care, are used as punishment. Up to 130 political prisoners are
said to be in poor health, he said.

(Editing by Jonathan Lynn and Ralph Boulton)

____________________________________

March 11, Agence France Presse
UN urges Burma to let Aung San Suu Kyi contest polls

United Nations – UN chief Ban Ki-moon overnight renewed his appeal to
Myanmar rulers to let detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi take
part in upcoming polls after new election laws disqualified her.

"The Secretary General reiterates his call for the Myanmar authorities to
ensure an inclusive political process leading to fair, transparent and
credible elections in which all citizens of Myanmar, including Daw Aung
San Suu Kyi, can freely participate," his office said in a statement.

In a law printed for the first time overnight in state newspapers,
Myanmar's military junta said that anyone serving a prison term cannot be
a member of a political party.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) - which won Myanmar's last
elections in 1990 but was stopped from taking power by the junta -- would
in turn be abolished if it failed to obey the rules.

The United Nations said it was carefully studying the new laws, adding:
"the indications available so far suggest that they do not measure up to
our expectations of what is needed for an inclusive political process."

Myanmar's Political Parties Registration Act also gives the NLD just 60
days from Monday, when the law was enacted, to register as a party if it
wants to take part in the elections, or else face dissolution.

The NLD has yet to announce whether it will take part in the polls
promised by the junta, which are expected in October or November although
the Government has still not set a date.

The 64-year-old Suu Kyi has been in detention for 14 of the last 20 years
since the previous elections.

She was already barred from standing as a candidate under a new
constitution approved in a 2008 referendum that stipulates that those
married to foreigners are ineligible. Her husband, British academic
Michael Aris, died in 1999.

The Nobel Peace laureate was sentenced to three years' jail last August
over an incident in which a US man swam to her lakeside home. Suu Kyi's
sentence was commuted by junta supremo Than Shwe to 18 months under house
arrest.

____________________________________

March 11, Agence France Presse
Election law deals blow to US engagement with Myanmar

Washington – The Obama administration on Wednesday slammed election laws
imposed by the Myanmar junta as a "mockery" of democracy as the new US
policy of engagement with the military-run state suffered a blow.

Under new election laws unveiled Wednesday, Myanmar opposition icon Aung
San Suu Kyi faces exclusion from her own party and is barred from standing
in polls later this year, along with other political prisoners.

"The political party registration law makes a mockery of the democratic
process and ensures the upcoming election will be devoid of credibility,"
US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said.

"This is not what we had suggested to the Burmese government," Crowley
told reporters when asked where US President Barack Obama's engagement
policy stands.

"Our engagement with Burma will have to continue until we can make clear
that... the results thus far are not what we had expected and that they're
going to have to do better," he added, using the country's former name.

Obama raised guarded hopes among Myanmar's opposition last November when
he brought up Suu Kyi's case directly with the junta during the first
meeting between a US president and a Myanmar leader since 1966.

The meeting took place during a summit in Singapore with leaders of the
10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes
Myanmar, and followed a rare visit to Myanmar by US Asia envoy Kurt
Campbell.

The summit was a dramatic symbol of Obama's new approach of engaging Myanmar.

Under the former administration of George W. Bush it was unthinkable that
any senior US official -- let alone the president himself -- would meet
with the military regime.

The White House said Obama asked Prime Minister Thein Sein to free all
political prisoners including Suu Kyi, who has mostly been under house
arrest since her party swept 1990 elections and was prevented from taking
power.

But the US and ASEAN leaders made no mention at the time of Suu Kyi and
only called for Myanmar to hold a free election -- which the opposition
has called a sham aimed at legitimizing the junta.

Crowley said the United States was "deeply disappointed" with the election
law which "excludes all of Burma's 2,000 political prisoners from
political participation.

"If Burma is to advance, it is going to have to change its political
process, make it more inclusive," he said, but added it "doesn't appear
that Burma is prepared right now to open up its political process."

He also said the junta is "going to have to find peace with the other
ethnic movements inside Burma."

The United States Campaign for Burma, an advocacy group, denounced the
junta over both the election law and its repression of ethnic minorities.

The group urged the UN Security Council to press the junta to "stop its
intimidation and threats against ethnic ceasefire groups and start a
genuine negotiation with democracy forces and ethnic representatives to
avoid mass protest, instability, and civil war."

It expressed hope that Obama and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
would lead such an initiative.

Ahead of the election, the junta has stepped up its decades-long campaign
against minority groups, with offensives against ethnic Chinese Kokang
rebels in the northeast in August and the Christian Karen insurgents in
June.

The Obama administration, sketching out a new policy toward Myanmar last
September, pledged to engage diplomatically with the country's military
rulers in a bid to promote democratic reform there.

Speaking at the UN General Assembly in New York, Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton raised the possibility of an eventual easing or lifting of
sanctions if US engagement produced political changes in Myanmar.

The United States and European Union have imposed sanctions on Myanmar due
to its refusal to recognize the last elections in 1990 and the prolonged
detention of Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) has yet to announce whether
it will take part in the polls promised by the junta, which are expected
in October or November although an official date has still been not set.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

March 11, Economist
Belt, braces and army boots

THE junta ruling Myanmar has had 20 years to digest the lessons from the
country’s most recent election. It was trounced by the National League for
Democracy, even though the opposition’s charismatic leader, Aung San Suu
Kyi, was already under house arrest. This year on an unnamed date (perhaps
its astrologers cannot agree) the junta will hold another election. It
will not lose this one.

Election laws published this week do not quite spell out the result. But a
“political-parties registration law” bars Miss Suu Kyi and other political
prisoners, of whom there are more than 2,000, from belonging to a party
because of their criminal convictions. Cut off from politics by her house
arrest, Miss Suu Kyi is anyway barred from office as the widow of a
foreigner. Her party now has to expel her and other detainees. The law
also bans civil servants from joining parties, along with monks, who led
anti-government protests in 2007.

The dilemma the opposition faces has become sharper. It has long had to
worry about whether to add legitimacy to a sham electoral process by
taking part, or risk further marginalisation by boycotting it. Now the
League has been allowed to reopen branch offices closed since 2003. But it
has 60 days to decide, in effect, between taking part in the election and
abolition as a legal party. In 1995 it pulled out of a farcical “national
convention” drafting a new constitution. The constitution that emerged in
2008 duly enshrines the role of the army. This time the League may feel
compelled to take part, but find that just as ineffectual.

The election, nonetheless, does come at a time of some sort of change, if
only generational. Than Shwe, the “senior general” (pictured), is 77. He
and his comrades are preparing to pass on the baton. Western diplomats
hope that, having cut their teeth fighting a Chinese-backed communist
insurgency, they are uneasy with Myanmar’s isolation from the West and
loth to bequeath their successors a regime so reliant on China. The
election, one stop on a “road map” to democracy, in this analysis, is one
way of opening up.

In another change the junta has started a remarkable if stealthy process
of selling state assets: ports, buildings in Yangon vacated by its shift
of capital in 2005, petrol stations, telecoms firms and a share in the
national airline. This is hardly a gesture to economic reform—the sales
are cooked-up deals benefiting junta cronies. But nor does it seem just
the desperation of a cash-strapped regime. Rather, in the analysis of
Yeni, of Irrawaddy, a magazine published by émigrés in Thailand, it is the
“formal transfer of the nation’s wealth into the hands of an entrenched
elite”, ahead of an election and the implementation of a new constitution
which, in theory, should allow greater competition for assets. This elite
is “pre-emptively buying up everything in sight”. It has a similar
attitude to competition of the democratic kind.

____________________________________

March 11, Guardian (UK)
Business as usual in Burma – Simon Tisdall

The Burmese junta's new electoral laws are designed to give the regime a
veneer of democratic respectability.

A call by a senior UN official for Burma's military rulers to be
investigated for "international crimes", including crimes against humanity
and war crimes perpetrated against Burmese civilians, has ratcheted up
pressure on the junta as it finalises much-criticised plans for the
country's first elections in 20 years. The development also casts further
doubts on flailing US attempts to engage the regime diplomatically after
years of ostracism and sanctions.

In a draft report to the UN human rights council published last week,
Tomás Ojea Quintana, special rapporteur on human rights in Burma,
describes:

    "A pattern of gross and systematic violation of human rights which has
been in place for many years and still continues
 There is an
indication that those violations are the result of a state policy that
involves authorities in the executive, military and judiciary at all
levels."

Quintana goes on: "The possibility exists that some of these (violations)
may entail categories of crimes against humanity or war crimes under the
terms of the statute of the international criminal court." For this
reason, he suggests the UN security council should set up a "commission of
inquiry with a specific, fact-finding mandate to address the question of
international crimes".

The report, which has yet to be considered by the human rights council,
says the forthcoming elections, expected in October, provide an
opportunity for positive change. But it is pessimistic the junta will
allow the chance to be seized.

    "During his last mission (in February), the special rapporteur
received no indication that all prisoners of conscience will be
released, that freedom of opinion and association will be guaranteed
in the context of these elections, and that ethnic communities will be
able to fully participate."

The pressure group Burma Campaign UK today welcomed what it said was an
unprecedented UN call for an inquiry, calling it a "major step forward"
that would increase pressure on the US, British and regional governments
to adopt a tougher line. Burma's main opposition party, the National
League for Democracy (NLD), led by the jailed Nobel peace prizewinner Aung
San Suu Kyi, has repeatedly drawn attention to widespread, ongoing human
rights abuses, including the incarceration of 2,000 political prisoners.
It also suggests the planned elections will be very far from free or fair.

The junta's unveiling of electoral laws this week has served to strengthen
the impression that the polls will be a closely controlled charade
designed to give the regime a veneer of democratic respectability. The new
rules effectively prevent Suu Kyi and her jailed supporters from standing
for election. They establish a government-controlled election oversight
body with the power to prevent or annul voting in any part of the country
for "security reasons". And just to be on the safe side, the junta has
formally declared the 1990 elections, which the NLD won in a landslide, to
be invalid.

By allowing the NLD to reopen 100 regional offices offices closed since
2003, the regime is clearly hoping that, despite the restrictions, a
decapitated opposition will participate in the poll, thereby boosting its
credibility. This has created a dilemma for those NLD leaders who are not
in jail. "I think they want us to take part in the election but we still
haven't made up our minds about this," said spokesman Nyan Win. He
described some of the new electoral provisions, such as a requirement that
parties uphold the generals' gerrymandered 2008 constitution, as
"completely unacceptable".

External reaction to the junta's latest machinations has been fierce. The
new rules "make a mockery of the democratic process
 There's no hope this
election will be credible," a US state department spokesman said. Ban
Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, said he had written to the junta,
urging the release of all political prisoners, including Suu Kyi, so they
can take part in the polls. Britain has endorsed the demand.

But the UN rapporteur's call for investigations into crimes against
humanity and war crimes allegedly perpetrated by junta members potentially
raises the long-running Burmese drama to a new level. Having pursued
diplomatic contacts with the regime since taking office, the Obama
administration came close to admitting this week that its policy of
engagement was not working. But what to do? The White House is currently
setting human rights and democracy concerns against a top security
priority – persuading the generals to curb their military ties with North
Korea.

The over-riding fear in Washington is that Burma could become another
nuclear-armed rogue state. The fear among Burmese activists and thwarted
democrats is that they will again be abandoned to their fate, cast as
helpless stooges in a cruel election travesty.

____________________________________

March 11, Inter Press Service
BURMA:  Despite loss at Oscars, film a testament to courage – Marwaan
Macan-Markar

Bangkok – It may have not won an Oscar, but its having been a final
contender for the prestigious statue at the U.S. Academy Awards on Mar. 7
has taken ‘Burma VJ’ to heights never achieved by previous films depicting
the oppression and courage in military-ruled Burma.

‘Burma VJ’ was beaten by ‘The Cove’, a film about the brutal hunting of
dolphins in a Japanese fishing town, for Best Documentary Feature of 2009
at the U.S. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards held at the
Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, and watched by millions of television
viewers across the world.

Yet Sunday’s disappointment for ‘Burma VJ’ comes on the back of the
remarkable story behind a documentary that was released in May 2009 in a
single theatre in the United States to little applause and few earnings.

It then blazed its way through the international film festival circuit,
winning 40 awards by the night of the Oscars, including for a prize for
documentary film editing at the Sundance Film Festival and the Vaclav
Havel prize at the Czech Republic’s One World Festival.

"This film made the world aware of the brutality inside Burma," Aung Zaw,
editor of ‘The Irrawaddy’, a magazine on Burma produced by exiled
journalists, says of the pulsating, edgy work of cinematography that
captures the violent crackdown of anti-government protests led by unarmed
Buddhist monks three years ago.

It is a film "about courage," he told IPS, of not just the thousands of
saffron- robed monks who rose up against the oppressive South-east Asian
junta in September 2007 but also "the courage of the citizen journalists
who were on the streets, filming this uprising to show the world about
military oppression."

The documentary by Danish filmmaker Anders Ostergaard tells the story
through the voice of Joshua, one of the many video journalists (or VJs, as
appearing in the film’s title) who have been working clandestinely for the
Oslo-based broadcaster Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) in the country.

Joshua’s soft-voiced narrative draws the viewers into the brazen acts of
defiance, as does the raw, in-your-face footage in ‘Burma VJ’. The
unfolding scenes show chanting monks march through the city of Rangoon,
the former capital, cheered on by hundreds of people, some marching behind
them, some clapping from the sides of the streets, and many more
encouraging them from balconies and windows of buildings.

The palpable anger toward the military dictatorship is understandable. The
September 2007 show of public outrage came nearly 20 years after a pro-
democracy uprising in August 1988 in Burma, also known as Myanmar, where
over 3,000 protesters were killed in a brutal military crackdown.

A repeat was inevitable, and the tension mounts as the cameras pan to
capture troops appearing on the streets. Then the final assault begins; no
monks are spared.

Yet ‘Burma VJ’ also achieves its dramatic tension through another creative
means of filmmaking. Based in Thailand after fleeing the crackdown at
home, Joshua is constantly online with his DVB team on the ground, talking
to them via mobile phones or chatting through the Internet, to discuss and
direct coverage tactics.

Such moments, intended to get the best images for DVB’s audiences in the
country and the world, reveal the bravery of the ‘undercover’ or citizen
journalists who dared to expose themselves by holding out their small,
hand- held cameras in pursuit of documenting the truth.

"Never underestimate the power of the handycam," says one of the DVB’s
video journalists, who goes by the name of Aung Htun. "It is the little
eye of the oppressed people."

"Our job was to capture this historic event," he continues of his
dangerous assignment during the ‘Saffron Revolution’, the footage of which
was used in ‘Burma VJ’. "I never thought about risks, danger, as I
worked."

"Taking pictures in public has only been done by the military intelligence
and the authorities. What we did raised suspicion, but we had to do it and
win the trust of the public and the monks," the slightly built
30-year-old, now in Bangkok, told IPS. "We knew something was happening in
the mood of the people and some monks before September. And we knew we had
to record it."

While the footage of Aung Htun and four other DVB VJs were used in the
film, the nearly 60 VJs in the country were making waves elsewhere during
the 2008 protests. Their images broke through the cloak of secrecy imposed
on the country by the junta.

Little wonder why a ranking police officer does not mince his words in the
final scenes of ‘Burma VJ’. "DVB are the worst," rages a visibly angry Maj
Gen Khin Yi, Rangoon’s police chief, who then goes on to accuse the
non-profit media outlet of being "the ones who broadcast most of the false
news about us."

Until the insight into Burma provided by ‘Burma VJ’, the only
documentaries that had offered a window to the country’s suffering had
been a British Broadcasting Corp production after the 1988 crackdown
called ‘Inside Burma Land of Fear’, done by Australian journalist John
Pilger, and the more recent ‘Orphans of the Storm’ about the children who
survived the powerful Cyclone Nargis in 2008.

"There is no doubt that ‘Burma VJ’ has had the most impact of any
documentary made on Burma," says David Scott Mathieson, Burma researcher
for Human Rights Watch, the New York-based global rights lobby. "It
captured the bravery and the ingenuity of the Burmese journalists working
under trying conditions to get their story out."

"The September 2007 protests were a defining moment of the undercover
journalists, who have been working for years building up their networks,"
he told IPS. "They continue to do so knowing the risks, a jail term from
two to 20 years."

DVB, in fact, has paid such a price. At least two of its known undercover
reporters are languishing in Burmese jails, where at least 13 journalists
and bloggers are imprisoned. Among them is 25-year-old Hla Hla Win, who
was given a 20-year prison sentence at the end of 2009.

____________________________________

March 11, Irrawaddy
Regime looks to the law to deal with the NLD – Ko Ko Thet

If there is one thing all authoritarian systems have in common it's their
desire to eliminate all forms of dissent. The State Peace and Development
Council (SPDC) of Burma is no exception.

Having the will as well as the means to crush the organized urban
opposition—the most popular of which is the National League for Democracy
(NLD)—it is a wonder why the Burmese regime has not done just that. It may
be that the SPDC has been weighing its actions against possible reactions.
If their actions went out of proportion, there would be perverse
consequences.

A more viable answer lies in the nature of the conflict that is going on
between the two parties. It is well-known that, when faced with clear and
present danger such as a mass uprising, the regime spares no effort to
crush dissent. But the NLD presents a special case.

The war of attrition that is going on between the NLD and the SPDC is
mostly of a legalistic nature. The NLD, being a legitimate entity, bent on
claiming power via an electoral process, has never gone out of its way.
The NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi also appears to be an ardent proponent of
civil disobedience of the type that aims to prove the injustice of an
authoritarian system by suffering from its unjust laws.

As much as the NLD wishes to undermine the SPDC within the legal
framework, the SPDC wishes to do likewise to the NLD. This explains why
the NLD leadership controversially opted to remain out of the picture of
the Saffron Revolution.

This also explains why the SPDC has not outlawed the NLD even though  it
has often accused the organization of having been directly linked to
exiled political groups it consider as enemies.

Since the NLD walked out of the constitution-drafting process at the
regime-led National Convention in 1993, there has hardly been any
indication that the regime would want the NLD back. In fact, there is
every indication that the SPDC has been systematically pushing the NLD out
of its tolerance limit—out of the legal framework. Being expert at Fabian
tactics, the regime found it most expedient to wear the NLD out in a
legalistic way.

First of all, the SPDC has made a point of making the life of NLD members
intolerable. Targeted repression and intimidation of select but grassroots
NLD members and their families by the authorities all over the country in
the past two decades have been well-documented.

Many NLD members simply ceased to become members as they could not sustain
their livelihood as long as they are associated with the opposition party.

Then came public humiliation and denunciation of the NLD leaders by the
SPDC’s mass organization, the Union Solidarity and Development Association
(USDA).  A series of such measures in the late 1990s was followed by the
forced closure of NLD offices in the provinces that aimed to cut the local
NLD support for its Rangoon headquarters.

Around the same time, the resignation of some of the NLD members who had
been forced out of the struggle under duress became regular news in the
SPDC papers. It should be noted that, whatever it does to the NLD or
others, the SPDC has always managed to find a “legal reason” to justify
its actions.

More recently, the release of the NLD senior leader Win Tin in September
2008 and Tin Oo in February this year, while keeping key leader Suu Kyi in
continued detention incommunicado, is seen as carefully calculated moves
to cause a divide in the NLD leadership.

Today, what remains of the NLD are tried and tested members, the few but
the most formidable. Very few of the groups that are now set to be part of
the electoral process can match the NLD when it comes to the sacrifice and
political integrity of individual members. So why would the regime want
the NLD to be part of its future?

The irony of the Burmese regime, which is widely considered to be above
the law, is its obsession with law. The election law now provides it with
a “lawful reason” to outlaw the NLD or remove Suu Kyi from it. It is
definitely easier for the regime to handle Suu Kyi if her party is
disbanded or if she lacks legitimate organizational backing.

Now the ball is back in the NLD’s court. The party has less than 60 days
to decide its future. Whatever the NLD chooses, the change in the nature
of the struggle between the SPDC and the NLD will alter the conflict as
well as the individuals involved in it.

Ko Ko Thett is a Burma analyst, based in Helsinki.

____________________________________

March 11, New Light of Myanmar
People reminded not to believe destructionist-generated rumours

Nay Pyi Taw – To disrupt the stability of the State, to cause a state of
panic among the public and unrest in the country, destructionists have
stepped up sabotage acts and spread rumours in the country.

On 25 February, a motorcyclist spread rumour in Shantegyi Village and
Laydaukkan Village in Dagon Myothit (South) Township that employees of
Yangon Pan Pacific garment factory in Thingangyun Township were taken to
hospital due to food poisoning at the garment factory. Around 100
relatives of the factory workers went to Thingangyun Sanpya Hospital to
make enquiry about the news. When they knew that there was no food
poisoned patients, they proceeded to the garment factory. They went back
as responsible personnel of the factory explained that there was no
problems including food poisoning in the factory and the personnel also
allowed the relatives to meet the employees. Because of widespread
rumours, relatives of other workers gathered at the garment factory and
the responsible personnel explained the true situation of the factory.

Similarly, on 26 February, a trishaw man spread rumour in Myaungdaga
Village that some employees of Daewoo Garment Factory in Mingaladon
Township were injured and some were taken to hospital as the ferry they
were riding overturned. Due to the rumour, the garment factory received
calls from relatives of the employees and some gathered at the factory to
make enquiry about the rumour.

There was no accident of any ferry and employees were working peacefully
there.

The same day, a motorcyclist spread rumour in Nyaungtachan and
Thayetpinchaung villages in Hlegu Township that the Daewoo garment factory
was experiencing a problem from contaminated water at the factory.
Responsible personnel of the factory denied the rumour when some relatives
of the employees made enquiries at the factory and explained the true
situation.

Authorities concerned have urged people not to allow themselves to be
swayed by rumours as destructionists have stepped up spreading rumours to
cause unrest, instability and panic among the people, especially among the
mass of workers, and to give information to the authorities when they see
those who spread rumours among the people. - MNA

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

March 11, Human Rights Watch
Burma: Election laws may shut down opposition parties

New York – Newly issued laws in preparation for 2010 elections in Burma
are designed to exclude the main opposition party and ensure a victory for
the ruling military, Human Rights Watch said today.

The ruling State Peace and Development Council today released the
Political Party Registration Law, which includes provisions barring
prisoners from being members of political parties. The law effectively
excludes more than 2,100 political activists currently imprisoned on
politically motivated charges, including Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of
the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD). Provisions included in
the law instruct any party wishing to register to expel members currently
serving prison terms. A party that fails to do so will lose its
registration and be unable to contest the elections.

"The new law's assault on opposition parties is sadly predictable," said
Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "It continues the sham
political process that is aimed at creating the appearance of civilian
rule with a military spine."

Yesterday the military government released the first of five laws in
preparation for long promised polls in 2010, whose official date has yet
to be announced. The Political Party Registration Law states that, "A
prisoner may not be a member of a political party." The law also requires
existing political parties, such as the NLD, which won the 1990 elections,
re-register within 60 days of March 10.

Human Rights Watch believes that there are 429 members of the NLD
currently imprisoned, including 12 members elected to parliament in 1990.
Aung San Suu Kyi will be effectively barred because she is currently
serving a term of house arrest following her conviction in 2009 on
politically motivated charges of permitting an intruder into her house in
Rangoon while she was under house arrest imposed since 2003. Human Rights
Watch is calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all
political prisoners in Burma through its 2,100 in 2010: Free Burma's
Political Prisoners campaign.

"The law requires the NLD to choose between participating in the elections
and keeping its leader and hundreds of its unjustly imprisoned members,"
said Adams. "This is a choice that no political party should have to make
and is a transparent attempt to knock the main opposition party out of the
running."

Other laws reportedly to be released this week include provisions for the
upper and lower houses of parliament and the 14 regional parliaments as
outlined in the 2008 constitution.

The release of the laws is the penultimate step in the military
government's long drawn out "Road Map to Disciplined Democracy," a
repressive process that has seen political parties deregistered and in
some cases outlawed, and thousands of activists sent to prison.

The NLD overwhelmingly won the last elections held in Burma in 1990 with
more than 80 percent of the seats and 60 percent of the popular vote. The
ruling junta ignored the result and announced plans to write a new
constitution, which began in 1993 and only concluded in September 2007.
The new constitution, released in 2008 and endorsed by an implausible 92
percent of the population in an orchestrated referendum in May 2008,
grants sweeping powers to the military. These include one-quarter of lower
house seats and one-third of upper house seats in the parliament reserved
for serving military officers, as well as immunity for military personnel
from civilian prosecution and the reservation of key ministerial
portfolios to serving military officers.

The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called for "the
release of all political prisoners, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and
their free participation in the political life of their country; the
commencement of dialogue between the Government and opposition and ethnic
stakeholders as a necessary part of any national reconciliation process;
and the creation of conditions conducive to credible and legitimate
elections." Close allies of Burma, including China, have called for an
inclusive political process.

"Any optimism that these elections will usher in a period of change in
Burma is cynically misplaced," Adams said. "The Burmese government is
demonstrating contempt for the democratic process, the people of Burma,
and international opinion, including its friends in China, India, and
ASEAN, who have asked for an inclusive political process."




Ed, BurmaNet News