BurmaNet News, March 12, 2010

[Editor]

March 12, 2010, Issue #3915

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"I deplore the decision of Burma/Myanmar authorities on the new election
laws.  These laws clearly target pro-democracy campaigners such as Aung
San Suu Kyi.  They are politically motivated and restrictive. This is a
move in the wrong direction." – Jerzy Buzek, President of the European
Parliament


INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Message from Suu Kyi

ON THE BORDER
AP: Myanmar refugees face grim future in Bangladesh
Wall Street Journal: Myanmar moves troops to borders

DRUGS
DVB: Burma fuelling China’s heroin crisis

REGIONAL
AP: Campbell says engagement with Burma failing
AP: Malaysia detains 93 Rohingya boat people who have been at sea for 30 days

INTERNATIONAL
VOA: US criticizes China, Burma, North Korean rights records

OPINION / OTHER
Independent (UK): Burma's sham elections
Financial Times (UK): Burma, a land frozen in tyranny
Guardian (UK): Burmese army's violence against civilians
Washington Post: Burma shunned U.S. diplomacy with new election law. Now
what? – Editorial




____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

March 12, Irrawaddy
Message from Suu Kyi – Ba Kaung

Detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi instructed members of the
National League for Democracy (NLD) to discuss the party's Shwegondaing
declaration and why the 2008 Constitution is unnacceptable, said her
lawyer, Nyan Win, after a two-hour meeting with Suu Kyi on Thursday.

“She wants the party members to discuss why the 2008 Constitution is
unacceptable because she wants everyone to understand the laws, and she
wants everyone to have a thorough understanding of the Shwegondaing
declaration,” said Nyan Win, who is also a senior NLD party official.

The meeting took place two days after the Burmese military regime
promulgated the election laws that bar Suu Kyi as leader of Burma's main
opposition party from organizing and being a member of a political party
if she is not released before the polls expected to be held in October.

According to Nyan Win, Suu Kyi said the election laws gave her the
impression that they targeted an individual. “She said the laws both
demeans the dignity of the laws and tarnish the prestige of the country,”
he said.

“Daw Suu wants to urge everyone, whether NLD members, non-members or
ethnic people, to take concerted action against these unjust laws,” Nyan
Win said. “She also said all the people should speak up for their own
rights with understanding of the laws.”

The Shwegoindaing Declaration, released by the National League for
Democracy (NLD) in April 2009, calls for a review of the military-drafted
Constitution, political dialogue and the unconditional release of all
political prisoners, including its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

The regime has ignored the party's repeated call for the review of the
Constitution and enacted the election laws which analysts said have put
the party in a corner.

According to the election laws, the party not only needs to forgo its call
for a review of the Constitution, which it would do at the risk of losing
grace with the Burmese public, but also needs to expel Suu Kyi if she is
not released before May 7, the deadline for the registration of all
political parties.

Suu Kyi is serving an 18-month term of house arrrest. With her sentence
due to expire in November, Suu Kyi cannot be a member of any political
party if she is not released before May 7, according to the election law
that bans prisoners from being members of political parties.

If the party fails to register, on the other hand, it will cease to exist
as a legal party.

Asked how Suu Kyi viewed the prospect of her party's dissolution if it
decides not to expel her, Nyan Win said, “she has not decided on this
issue.”

Meanwhile, Suu Kyi has sent instructions to NLD leaders to pursue judicial
action against these unjust election laws, according to Nyan Win, who
declined to disclose the details.

“I cannot say what these instructions are now. Party leaders will make
decisions based on her instructions,” Nyan Win said, adding that the party
leaders' actions would be “nationwide.”

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

March 12, Associated Press
Myanmar refugees face grim future in Bangladesh – Julhas Alam

Kutupalong, Bangladesh — Dildar Begum has no country, no job, no food and
she is fast running out of hope.

Her husband is imprisoned in a Bangladeshi jail while she lives in a slum
with her five children, reduced to begging for rice from her impoverished
neighbors. Her family is starving, she said.

"I can't live this way. It's better if my kids and I die suddenly," the
25-year-old woman said.

Begum is one of the hundreds of thousands of members of the Rohingya
ethnic group who have fled to Bangladesh to escape persecution in
neighboring Myanmar — only to find themselves languishing in filthy slums
or open-air camps where food and water are scarce and medical care,
nonexistent.

As Muslims, they were unwanted in Buddhist Myanmar. As foreigners, they
are unwanted in Muslim Bangladesh.

In recent months, Bangladesh has cracked down on the group, arresting and
repatriating many and stepping up security along the porous border to
prevent more from arriving. At the same time, the government discouraged
aid groups from giving most of those here food, fearing it would attract a
huge new influx of refugees, said a government official who spoke to The
Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of
the issue.

International rights groups have decried their fate and Bangladesh's
refusal to grant the vast majority of them refugee status, which would
give them access to nearby camps where they could receive a full aid
package of food, shelter and education provided by international agencies.

Without that aid, the Rohingya face widespread starvation, activists said.

"A grave humanitarian crisis is looming," Chris Lewa of the Rohingya
advocacy group The Arakan Project said last month.

Bangladesh has also been accused of carrying out arbitrary arrests of the
Rohingya and forcing many back into Myanmar.

In Kutupalong, 185 miles (296 kilometers) south of the capital, Dhaka, the
undocumented Rohingya live in a squalid shantytown, where malnourished,
barefoot children defecate outside.

With no right to work, many survive by bribing forestry officials to turn
the other way as they illegally cut down trees for sale as firewood in the
market, men in the village said.

"The forest is being destroyed by them," A.F.M. Fazle Rabbi, a government
official in charge of the area, told The Associated Press. "I am sure over
next few years, you will find no trees here."

The 800,000 strong Rohingya are believed descended from 7th century Arab
settlers whose state along what is now the Bangladesh-Myanmar border was
conquered by the Burmese in 1784.

The Myanmar junta refuses to recognize them as citizens, and the group
faces extortion, land confiscation, forced evictions, and restricted
access to medical care and food, according to Human Rights Watch.

Thousands have fled to Malaysia and Thailand, which depend on migrant
labor, or braved the sea to go as far as the Middle East for work.

Last year, the Thai navy intercepted boats carrying 1,000 Rohingya,
detained and beat them and then forced them back to sea in vessels with no
engines and little food or water, according to reports from human rights
groups.

On Friday, Malaysian authorities said they picked up 93 Rohingya who said
they have been at sea for 30 days in a crowded wooden boat after
apparently being chased out of Thai waters.

"They said they were sailing aimlessly in the hope of finding a country
that will accept them," said Zainuddin Mohamad Suki, an officer with the
Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency. The passengers were likely to be
sent to a detention center, he said.

Most of the refugees, however, have fled on foot and by boat over the
border to the nearby Cox's Bazar area in Bangladesh, where 28,000 of them
are registered as refugees and restricted to official camps in Kutupalong
and Naya Para.

The Kutupalong refugee camp is well-equipped with medical facilities, a
computer learning center, volleyball courts and generators.

However, at least 200,000 other Rohingya here have not been given refugee
status by Bangladesh and live under constant threat of being arrested or
sent back home. Some work as day laborers or rickshaw pullers at Cox's
Bazar.

Authorities fear that if they grant full rights to everyone, it will
encourage even more Rohingya to come to Bangladesh, which is already
overwhelmed with its own impoverished and malnourished population.

"We are a poor country, we cannot afford this for long," said Gias Uddin
Ahmed, the chief administrator of the district.

Begum and her family fled with about 2,500 others seven months ago amid
unrelenting attacks by their Buddhist neighbors, who eventually took their
land in Myanmar's northwestern Rakhine state. They left at night and
bribed Bangladeshi border guards to let them enter and travel to the
shantytown near the refugee camp in Kutupalong.

Her husband, 35-year-old Jamir Hossain, found work as a day laborer in the
shantytowns that have sprung up near the Kutupalong camp, but police
arrested him last month in a roundup of undocumented Rohingya.

With no money, Begum begs for rice from nearby villages to feed her four
sons and her daughter.

"It's now afternoon, but I haven't been able to give any food to my kids,"
she said.

M. Sakhawat Hossain, the police chief in Cox's Bazar, said Bangladeshi
villagers have accused the Rohingya of a wave of robberies across the
coastal region and pressured the government to take action.

In the ensuing crackdown, 136 undocumented Rohingya were in custody on
charges of illegally entering Bangladesh or engaging in criminal
activities, he said.

"What we did is for maintaining law and order over reported crimes," he
said. "Should not we do that?"

____________________________________

March 12, Wall Street Journal
Myanmar moves troops to borders

Yangon—Myanmar's military is moving large numbers of soldiers to border
areas near China and Thailand in anticipation of possible conflicts with
ethnic rebels in those areas before elections this year, according to
diplomats, intelligence experts and residents who are tracking the
activities.

Details about the buildup, including the total number of troops involved,
are unclear. Myanmar is one of the world's most secretive countries, and
its government rarely speaks publicly about activities it deems sensitive,
especially military movements. Attempts to reach the Myanmar government
were unsuccessful.

But analysts and dissidents say the deployments—which are believed to
include tens of thousands of soldiers—are designed to ratchet up pressure
on Myanmar's numerous armed ethnic groups before the regime holds
elections later this year. Several of the groups—including the Wa, an
ethnic minority with a private army that includes as many as 20,000
soldiers—have yet to indicate whether they will participate and continue
to resist any move that would reduce their autonomy.

Myanmar's military is trying to "turn up the pressure" on rebels through
the troop deployments, said Bertil Lintner, a Thailand-based military
expert who has followed the issue. If tensions continue to build, he said,
"I think there will be military action." The generals "could decide they
have to solve" the border problem now because of the election, said one
Yangon diplomat.

Some analysts believe Myanmar authorities will stop short of launching a
full assault to avoid condemnation from neighbors at a time when the
regime is trying to boost its international image by holding elections.
Thai officials couldn't be reached Thursday. Previously, Chinese
authorities have expressed concern about Myanmar border-area unrest.

The buildup comes at a time when the junta is trying to assert tighter
control over how its election—the first since 1990—is conducted. On
Thursday, it released the latest in a series of new rules for the vote,
including provisions that officially invalidated the 1990 election, which
was easily won by Myanmar's main opposition party but ignored by the
regime.

The government also appointed a former high-ranking army officer to head
the commission overseeing the vote, the Associated Press reported. Myanmar
has yet to announce a date for the election.

Reining in the more than a dozen ethnic rebel groups within Myanmar's
borders remains a priority for the regime. The junta has struggled for
decades to subdue the groups, which control large areas along Myanmar's
borders, and it has repeatedly cited that struggle as one of the main
reasons to justify its harsh rule over the country, also known as Burma.

To ensure the rebels are pacified in time for the vote, regime officials
have ordered ethnic groups to convert their soldiers into "border guards"
under the leadership of the Myanmar army, sharply limiting their autonomy.
In return, the groups would be allowed to organize political groups and
participate in the vote. Several groups, including the Wa, have so far
declined.

In August, the Myanmar military targeted a relatively weak ethnic group,
the Kokang, in an offensive that drove some 30,000 or more refugees into
China and left more than 30 people dead. Most of the refugees returned
when it was clear the Kokang had been overwhelmed.

A spokeswoman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs last year expressed
"deep concern" over the Kokang episode, a rare public rebuke from its
northern neighbor.

A conflict with the Wa or other large ethnic groups would likely be worse,
analysts say. The Wa are believed to be far better-armed and
better-organized, thanks in part to revenue from drug trafficking,
according to U.S. government and international antinarcotics officials.
Intelligence experts say ethnic groups have been building up their arms
stockpiles, meaning they could present a bigger challenge if the military
doesn't act now.

According to Irrawaddy, a Myanmar-focused news organization based in
Thailand, the government is moving as many as 70,000 troops into Shan
state, a part of northeastern Myanmar occupied in part by Wa and other
ethnic minorities. It cited unnamed sources close to military officials
working in Myanmar border areas.

Residents in some of the areas have reported seeing large numbers of
troops on the move, including in a city southeast of Mandalay in central
Myanmar with military bases nearby and roads heading east into Wa areas.
One resident, a former schoolteacher who lives near the main highway in
the region, said trucks of soldiers began moving out at night in late
February and continued to leave military installations each night for
several days. After that, he said, a new round of convoys began carrying
rations eastward.

He said he believed the trucks were heading to Kengtung, a town in far
eastern Myanmar that's close to areas populated by the Wa. It was
impossible to independently verify his account.

Residents in areas further north around Muse, a border crossing with
China, report a similar buildup since late February.

"More security forces are visible along the Sino-Burmese trade route" from
central Myanmar to Muse, said a businessman who imports computers from
China. Other businessmen and brokers have said that getting imported items
from China into Myanmar cities has become more difficult because of
increased military checkpoints.

____________________________________
DRUGS

March 12, Democratic Voice of Burma
Burma fuelling China’s heroin crisis – Francis Wade

China has seen a rapid rise in drug addiction this year, particularly in
its southern Yunnan province where opium from Burma’s volatile Shan state
is pouring across the border.

More than 60,000 people registered as heroin addicts in Yunnan province
last year, a leap from 50,000 the year before, according to Bangyuan Wang
from Health Unlimited, which provides treatment for drug users along the
China-Burma border.

“[Heroin addiction] has been one of the big problems in Yunnan over the
past 20 years, and the government is trying really hard to crack down on
drug traffickers and drug users,” he said.

He added that most of the drug traffickers were being arrested as they
transported drugs from Burma into China, while a recent Al Jazeera report
found that around 80 percent of heroin addicts in the Chinese border town
of Nabang were from Burma.

In Yunnan, the Chinese government has opened more than 50 methadone
treatment clinics which are being accessed by “thousands of users”, Wang
said.

Burma is the world’s second largest source of opium, after Afghanistan,
and the findings will do little to support the Burmese government’s
repeated guarantees that it is stamping out the country’s drug trade.

The majority of its opium market is allegedly controlled by the United Wa
State Army in Shan state, which is made up of ethnic Chinese and which
holds a tenuous ceasefire with the Burmese government. A UN report
released in June last year found that Burma accounted for 28,500 hectares
of opium poppy of a global total of 189,000.

The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) says that China’s growing role as a
transhipment centre “can be attributed to an increase in ethnic Chinese
influence in the heroin trafficking trade”.

One of the key areas of concern is the spread of HIV in Yunnan, which
already has China’s highest rates for the disease. Its first wave of HIV
infections in 1989 was among injecting drug users along the Burma border,
and the province is now thought to have around 80,000 diagnosed.

Wang said however that the alarm over the spread of HIV in Yunnan had
forced the Chinese government into “a more open policy” regarding drug
use, compared to heavily punitive measures that had previously been its
approach.

Despite the burgeoning of the cross-border heroin trade, however, a
serious problem remains within Burma.

A report in January by the Thailand-based Palaung Women’s Organisation
(PWO) said that opium abuse was “devastating” Shan communities. The
Palaung are an ethnic group from Burma’s northeastern Shan state, which
accounts for 95 percent of the country’s opium output.

The report pointed the finger at the Burmese government’s acquiescence in
the production of opium by drug lords “in exchange for policing against
resistance activity and sharing drug profits”.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

March 12, Associated Press
Campbell says engagement with Burma failing

Rangoon — Washington's new policy of engagement with Burma's military
government appears to be failing, a senior US official indicated Friday,
noting the junta's decision to bar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from
upcoming elections.

This week the government unveiled election laws that prevent the detained
Nobel Peace Prize laureate from running for office or even voting in the
polls and greatly weaken her National League for Democracy. The date of
the elections has not been announced.

The United States recently modified its strict policy of isolating the
junta in the hope that increased engagement would encourage change.
However, the Obama administration has said it will not lift sanctions on
Burma unless its sees concrete progress toward democratic reform—notably
freeing Suu Kyi and letting her party participate in elections.

"The US approach was to try to encourage domestic dialogue between the key
stakeholders, and the recent promulgation of the election criteria doesn't
leave much room for such a dialogue," said U.S. Assistant Secretary of
State Kurt Campbell.

Campbell, speaking to reporters in Bangkok, said the US would continue to
talk with all parties inside Burma, including the government.

But he added: "We're very disappointed, and we are concerned. It's very
regrettable. This is not what we had hoped for, and it is a setback."
Campbell is on a 10-country Asian trip.

On Friday, the junta unveiled the last of its election laws, which Suu Kyi
has described as unjust and repressive.

The fifth and last law, carried in state-owned newspapers, governs
elections for 14 regional parliaments. Details of the five laws have
trickled out over the course of the week.

"Aung San Suu Kyi said she never expected such repressive laws would come
out but said she's not disappointed," her party spokesman Nyan Win told
reporters after meeting the 64-year-old democracy leader at her home
Thursday.

"She said such challenges call for resolute responses and calls on the
people and democratic forces to take unanimous action against such unfair
laws," he said.

The party has yet to decide whether it will participate in the elections.
Political parties have 60 days from Monday to register.

It will be the first poll since 1990, when Suu Kyi's party won a landslide
victory. The junta ignored the results of that vote and has kept Suu Kyi
jailed or under detention for 14 of the past 20 years.

This year's elections are part of the junta's "roadmap to democracy,"
which critics deride as a sham designed to cement the military's power. A
military-backed constitution was approved by a national referendum last
May, but the opposition charges that the vote was unfair.

An election law announced Wednesday prohibits anyone convicted of a crime
from being a member of a political party, making Suu Kyi ineligible to
become a candidate in the elections — or even a member of the party she
co-founded and heads.

In August, Suu Kyi was convicted of violating the terms of her house
arrest by briefly sheltering an American who swam uninvited to her
lakeside residence, and was sentenced to 18 more months of detention.

Election laws announced Thursday take away her right to vote, saying those
convicted of crimes are barred from the polls. Thursday's two laws also
formally invalidated the 1990 election results, saying the 1989 election
law under which those polls were held was repealed by the new legislation.

"They have been slowly trying to decimate the party and now they are doing
it with utmost force. But the NLD will never collapse," said the party's
deputy chairman, Tin Oo.

US-based Human Rights Watch says it believes 429 members of the league are
currently imprisoned, including 12 who won parliamentary seats in the 1990
elections.

The United States and human rights groups have warned that the junta is
running out of chances to make the elections appear credible. Clauses in
the constitution already ensure that the military will retain a
controlling say in government and bar Suu Kyi from holding office.

____________________________________

March 12, Associated Press
Malaysia detains 93 Rohingya boat people who have been at sea for 30 days

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — Malaysian authorities have picked up 93 Muslims
fleeing persecution in Myanmar who said they spent 30 days at sea in a
crowded wooden boat, an official said Friday.

The Rohingya men, an ethnic group not recognized by Myanmar's military
regime, had apparently been chased out of Thai waters before they were
detained Wednesday off Malaysia's northern resort island of Langkawi, said
Zainuddin Mohamad Suki, an officer with the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement
Agency.

The Thais denied they chased the boat away.

A fishing boat had earlier reported to the agency that the men were asking
for food and water from passing vessels after their open boat experienced
engine failure, he said.

Initial investigations showed they had been at sea for 30 days after
fleeing their homeland, he said.

"Some of the men said they were chased out of Thai waters earlier before
they made their way to Langkawi. They said they were sailing aimlessly in
the hope of finding a country that will accept them," Zainuddin told The
Associated Press.

Vimon Kidchob, spokeswoman for the Thai Foreign Ministry, however, said
troops gave the men food and water, suggesting the men left Thai waters of
their own accord.

"The Rohingyas were not chased out of the Thai waters. Thai troops on the
Andaman Coast found a group of non-Thai people in boats, so they gave the
people food and water and let them continue their journey," she said.

Thailand has acknowledged in the past towing away boats of Rohingyas,
hoping they will land in other countries.

The Muslim Rohingyas number about 800,000 in Myanmar where they are denied
full citizenship and face widespread abuses including forced labour, land
seizures and rape, rights groups say.

Hundreds of thousands have fled to Bangladesh, Malaysia and the Middle
East, and rights groups have expressed concern they will be tortured or
killed if forced to return to Myanmar.

Zainuddin said some of the men detained suffered minor injuries and have
been given medical treatment.

All 93 have been handed over to the immigration department in northern
Kedah state and are likely to be sent to a detention centre, he added.

Kedah immigration officers could not be immediately reached for comment.

Malaysia has the biggest number of Rohingya refugees in the region, more
than 14,000, many of whom have stayed for years in the country, working
illegally in plantations or factories, officials said.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

March 12, Voice of America
US criticizes China, Burma, North Korean rights records

The United States criticized China's human rights record Thursday, raising
concerns about restrictions that Beijing has imposed on citizens who
question its policies.

The 2009 Human Rights Reportissued by the U.S. State Department Thursday
said the detention and harassment of human rights activists in China
increased last year, and that public interest lawyers faced harassment and
disbarment.

This annual rights review detailed reports of Tibetans suffering torture
and forced labor after being repatriated from Nepal.  It also noted the
severe cultural and religious repression of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang
region.

The State Department called North Korea's human rights record
"deplorable," noting cases of extra-judicial killings, disappearances and
arbitrary detention.

It raised similar concerns about extra-judicial killings in Burma, where
the State Department said government forces also allowed disappearances,
rape and torture.

The report criticized Cambodia's human rights record, accusing its
security forces of acting with impunity.

On Laos, the report said the government infringed on citizens' right to
privacy, and violated people's right to free speech, assembly and press.

Corruption among Thailand's police force came under attack in the report. 
The State Department also criticized Thailand's security personnel for
using excessive force against criminal suspects.

The report said Vietnam's rights record remains problematic, as opposition
movements were prohibited and press freedoms restricted.

The State Department gave rare praise to Indonesia's government, which it
said generally respected citizens' human rights last year.  The report
said some problems persist, however, including killings by security
forces, harsh prison conditions and corruption in the judicial system.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

March 12, Independent (UK)
Burma's sham elections

For those harbouring any hopes that the military regime in Burma was
moving towards some kind of real democracy, this week's announcement of
the laws for the forthcoming elections must have come as a rude shock.
Under the new rules, no one who is a member of religious order or anyone
with a criminal conviction can stand.

In other words out goes any chance of the pro-democracy leader Aung San
Suu Kyi - still under house arrest - or any member of the democracy
parties now languishing in prison on political charges or any monk,
whether they have been involved in past demonstrations or not, from taking
part.

And if that was not clear enough, the Burmese junta yesterday introduced a
law annulling the election of 1990 which Ms Suu Kyi overwhelmingly won and
announced a 17-member election commission to oversee the polls headed by a
former military officer and stuffed with government cronies.

Little wonder that a US official has declared the laws, setting out the
principles of an election whose date has still to be announced, a mockery
of the democratic process. The clampdown must be particularly galling to
the US administration, which has bent over backwards to try and encourage
dialogue with the regime and, indeed, for Aung San Suu Kyi herself, who
had been let out to meet some members of the regime and had made
encouraging noises about the future.

The simple reality, however, is that this regime, like any other
authoritarian ruler, is unwilling to give up power voluntarily. It will
make gestures to get the international community, and Burma's chief
backers in Beijing, off their backs by holding elections and allowing some
participation by the National League for Democracy. But it won't permit
anything that truly threatens its own position.

Which leaves the rest of the world in a quandary as to how to react.
Sanctions haven't worked. Some sort of dialogue is probably better than
total isolation. But what the UN and the international commun ty must not
do is to accept these elections as anything other than what they are,
namely a total sham.
____________________________________

March 12, Financial Times (UK)
Burma, a land frozen in tyranny – Gideon Rachman

Amid the rash of commemorations celebrating the 20th anniversary of the
fall of the Berlin Wall last year, it was easy to feel that 1989 was a
year in which freedom advanced everywhere. The Soviet empire collapsed.
Two years later the Soviet Union itself disintegrated. A few months after
the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nelson Mandela was released. The end of the
cold war unfroze deadlocked political situations all over the world.

But political freedom did not advance everywhere in 1989. Most obviously
that was the year that the Chinese government sent the tanks into
Tiananmen Square. And 1989 was also the year that Aung San Suu Kyi was
placed under house arrest in Burma. Who would have believed that 21 years
later, this heroic woman would still be a political prisoner? At least, 21
years after Tiananmen, China has changed unrecognisably. But Burma is
still frozen in time and in tyranny. The depressing sense that nothing at
all has changed is reinforced by the latest news that the Burmese military
junta has banned Suu Kyi from participating in national elections later
this year.

So is there any hope of change? Optimists will seize on the fact that
Burma is, at least, attempting to hold national elections, the first since
the elections of 1990, the results of which were ignored, when it became
clear that Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy had won. But this
latest poll will not mean much, without the participation of the NLD and
its banned leader.

The outside world has tried many different approaches. The west has pushed
for the isolation of the Burmese government, following the wishes of the
democratic opposition. Burma's Asian neighbours have gone for a policy of
engagement, even admitting Burma to the south-east Asian club, Asean. But
nothing seems to have worked. Burma remains an anomalous, backward
dictatorship inside Asean - more repressive, poorer and more isolated,
even than Cambodia or Vietnam. Now, because of the country's strategic
position and mineral resources, Burma is being wooed by China and, more
discreetly, by India.

At some point, surely, the Burmese military regime will have to crack. But
what will it take?

____________________________________

March 12, Guardian (UK)
Burmese army's violence against civilians

Since 1996, military abuses have forced 1m villagers to flee their homes,
according to UN draft report.

• Since 1996, up to 1 million people have been displaced. Entire
communities have been forced to relocate and their houses and food
supplies burned to prevent their return. Those who refuse forced
relocations and choose to hide risk military attack.

• More than 184,000 refugees in neigbouring countries originate from
Burma. An estimated 2 million migrants are in Thailand. Thousands of
ethnic Chin have crossed the border to the Indian state of Mizoram.
Muslimresidents of northern Rakhine state continue to seek asylum in
neighbouring countries.

• The presence and conduct of the military are central to the plight of
these civilians. Military operations have placed a particularly heavy
burden on rural populations affecting their ability to sustain
livelihoods.

• There have been numerous and frequent reports of civilians being forced
to serve as porters and guides for the military, to build and maintain
roads, to construct military camps, and to labour for infrastructure
projects.

• Cases of rape and sexual violence committed by military personnel, many
of them against young girls and adolescents, have been reported by human
rights organisations.

• In Shan state the military has burned down over 500 houses and scores of
granaries since July 2009, and forcibly relocated almost 40 villages,
mostly in Laikha township. Reports say more than 100 villagers, both men
and women, have been arrested and tortured. At least three villagers have
been killed. This would be the largest forced relocation since 1996-1998,
when more than 300,000 villagers in southern and central Shan State were
displaced.@ Battles between government forces and ethnic groups in Shan
State in August 2009 and along the Thai border region in June 2009 have
raised serious concerns about security both inside Burma and its spillover
effects in neighbouring countries.

• There is serious concern about the continuing armed conflict in Kayin
state, which severely affects the civilian population. It has been
reported that in Hsaw Law Kho village, three villagers were killed and
over a dozen more tortured by Infantry Battalion No 48 on 5 November 2009.

• The UN urges the government and all armed groups to ensure the
protection of civilians, in particular children and women, during armed
conflict. Recruitment of child soldiers, displacement of villagers, the
use of anti-personnel landmines, and the forced labour of civilians should
stop without any delay.

____________________________________

March 12, Washington Post
Burma shunned U.S. diplomacy with new election law. Now what? – Editorial

PRESIDENT OBAMA took office hoping that constructive diplomacy could yield
progress on some of the thorniest foreign-policy challenges facing the
United States. Among these was Burma, a Southeast Asian nation of 50
million people that has been misruled into poverty, decline and perpetual
warfare by a benighted military dictatorship. Mr. Obama did not abandon
economic sanctions against the regime, but he did hold out the prospect of
warmer relations if Burma's regime would show some sign of easing up on
its people.

This week the regime delivered its answer: Get lost. The government
promulgated rules that make clear that an election planned for this year
will be worse than meaningless. That had always been the fear, given laws
that guaranteed the military a decisive role in parliament, no matter who
won the election. But the new rules make it official: Burma's leading
democratic party and its leader, Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi,
will not be permitted to take part.

Burma (called Myanmar by its rulers) is a unique case, because the
opposition has legitimacy that cannot be denied. Aung San Suu Kyi,
daughter of the country's independence hero, led the National League for
Democracy to a landslide victory the only time reasonably fair elections
have been permitted, in 1990, even though she was under house arrest. No
transition to civilian rule is plausible unless she and other legitimate
stakeholders are allowed to play a role.

A State Department spokesman said that the new law "makes a mockery of the
democratic process and ensures that the upcoming elections will be devoid
of credibility." The question now is how the administration will respond.
It needs to pursue financial sanctions that target Burma's ruling generals
and their corruptly amassed wealth. It needs to rally the European Union
and Burma's enablers, such as Singapore, to take similar actions. And it
needs to take more seriously the security challenge posed by the regime's
intensifying wars against minority nationalities and the resulting refugee
crises.

A senior U.N. official, in a draft report that became public this week,
said that Burma is guilty of "a pattern of gross and systematic violation
of human rights" that has continued for years, that reflects state policy
and that may constitute "crimes against humanity, or war crimes." The
official, Tomás Ojea Quintana, special rapporteur on human rights in
Burma, will recommend the establishment of a commission of inquiry to
investigate these crimes, which include ethnic cleansing and the
widespread use of rape as a weapon of war.

Mr. Obama was right to offer, cautiously, an open hand. It has been spat
upon. Now is the time for something new.