BurmaNet News, December 10, 2010

[Editor]

December 10, 2010 Issue #4101


INSIDE BURMA
AFP: US envoy discusses sanctions with Myanmar's Suu Kyi

ON THE BORDER
Mizzima: Aid bloc broadcasts plea over Burmese refugees in Thailand
Australian: Burma activists hope junta will end torture

BUSINESS / TRADE
DVB: Burma buys bulk Chinese weaponry

INTERNATIONAL
AFP: Human rights essential for Myanmar: Suu Kyi
New York Times: On Myanmar, U.S. and China worked closely, cables show
Guardian (UK): WikiLeaks cables suggest Burma is building secret nuclear
sites

OPINION / OTHER
DVB: Multi-ethnic Burma and the junta will collide – Maung Zarni

PRESS RELEASE
ICTJ: Burma: International Commission needed to address impunity





____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

December 10, Agence France Presse
US envoy discusses sanctions with Myanmar's Suu Kyi – Hla Hla Htay

YANGON — A senior US diplomat discussed economic sanctions with Myanmar
democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi Friday during the first high-level visit
by a Washington envoy since her release last month.

Joseph Yun, the deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and
Pacific affairs, described his more than two hours of talks with the Nobel
Peace Prize winner at her Yangon home as "very productive".

"We had a very useful exchange. I learned a lot," he told reporters,
noting that it was his first visit to the military-ruled country.

Suu Kyi, who was freed by Myanmar's military rulers from her most recent
seven-year stretch of detention on November 13, confirmed the talks had
included the issue of sanctions, among others, but declined to elaborate.

"We talked openly and I believe that the relationship between the US and
ourselves will be warm," she said.

The United States bans trade with companies tied to the junta in Myanmar,
also known as Burma. It also freezes such firms' assets and blocks
international loans for the state.

US President Barack Obama's administration launched a dialogue with
Myanmar's military rulers last year after concluding that Western attempts
to isolate the regime had yielded little success.

But it has said it will only lift sanctions in return for progress on
democracy and other concerns.

After years of espousing punitive steps against the ruling generals Suu
Kyi has shown signs of softening her stance on the measures, although she
has said little about the issue since her release.

In September of last year she wrote to junta chief Than Shwe offering
suggestions about how to get Western sanctions against the country lifted.

The democracy icon was sidelined during a rare election last month that
was widely criticised by democracy activists and Western governments as
anything but free and fair.

Obama said Myanmar's "bankrupt regime" had stolen the vote, which handed
an overwhelming majority to the military's political proxy and was marred
by allegations of intimidation and vote rigging.

Suu Kyi, who spent 15 of the last 21 years locked up, has welcomed the
renewed US engagement with Myanmar but warned against "rose-coloured
glasses", saying greater human rights and economic progress were still
needed.

Her party won a 1990 election but was never allowed to take power.

It boycotted the November 7 vote -- the first in two decades -- because of
rules that appeared to exclude Suu Kyi from participating. The party was
subsequently disbanded by the junta.

Yun arrived in the military-ruled country on Tuesday and also met with
representatives of 10 political parties that won seats in last month's
election, as well as government officials including Foreign Minister Nyan
Win.

During his meetings with the Myanmar authorities, Yun said Washington
"remains open to direct dialogue to make meaningful progress on our core
concerns including improving human rights and release of political
prisoners," according to a statement released by the US embassy in Yangon.

In his talks with the opposition, he "underscored our overarching goal of
a peaceful, prosperous, and democratic Burma and discussed ideas on
promoting reconciliation and dialogue," it added.

He was the highest-ranking US official to visit since May, when Assistant
Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell met with Suu
Kyi and said Washington was "profoundly disappointed" by the vote
preparations.

Yun's visit coincided with the release of leaked diplomatic cables showing
that Washington has been concerned for years about a suspected secret
nuclear programme in Myanmar with the possible involvement of North Korea.

One cable from the US embassy in Yangon, dated August 2004 and released
Thursday by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, quoted an unidentified
witness who reported seeing 300 North Koreans working at a secret
construction site.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

December 10, Mizzima News
Aid bloc broadcasts plea over Burmese refugees in Thailand

Chiang Mai – On the heels of the largest influx of Burmese refugees to
Thailand in a decade, assistance organisations are calling for a global
response in ensuring a holistic system of aid is in place for those
displaced.

The Forum of Burma’s Community-Based Organisations (FCOB), a consortium of
more than 20 like-minded assistance groups based along the Thai-Burmese
border, has written to supporters to pressure governments and aid
organisations to work together in designing a concrete plan to deal with
expected increased numbers of Burmese refugees fleeing to Thailand.

“In order to ensure the safety of such civilians [those fleeing Burma],
there needs to be a concrete plan in place for Thai authorities and
non-governmental organisations to provide the necessary protection and
assistance to civilians until they feel safe for them to return home,”
stipulates the appeal missive.

In meeting with international government and non-governmental leaders, the
FCOB urges advocates to push for an end to hostilities; commencement of a
tripartite dialogue among Burmese authorities, ethnic and political
opposition leaders; involvement of the UN refugee body, the UNHCR; and,
acceptance of the Royal Thai government in facilitating both
time-sensitive assistance and repatriation.

On November 8 alone, one day after Burma’s general election, around 30,000
Burmese were estimated to have fled to Thailand in the face of fresh
hostilities between the Burmese Army and an armed ethnic opposition group.
In the vicinity of the Burmese border town of Myawaddy, 25,000 were
believed to have crossed into Thailand.

Though most of those who initially fled are judged to have since returned,
FCOB estimates 3,600 continue to receive assistance along the Thai border,
with a few thousand more stranded on the Burmese side and an unknown
number of refugees in hiding on the Thai side of the frontier.

FCOB, buttressing its appeal, cautions that in the wake of the troubled
November election along with the continued rejection of the central
government’s Border Guard Force proposal by several armed ethnic groups,
“further escalations in conflict and insecurity are likely in the ethnic
areas bordering Thailand, India and China”.

The appeal was signed by FCOB co-ordinator Dr. Cynthia Maung, the highly
respected founder of the Mao Tao Clinic on the outskirts of Mae Sot, a
short distance from Myawaddy.

The FCOB also encouraged supporters to protest outside Burmese embassies
around the world on December 10, UN International Human Rights Day.

____________________________________

December 10, The Australian
Burma activists hope junta will end torture – Sian Powell

Bangkok - The nation's political prisoners are holding out for an amnesty.

SHE'S just 26, but barring a miracle, she's destined to spend the next 26
years of her life in one of Burma's notorious jails.

Since her arrest late last year, journalist Hla Hla Win has been tortured
and been on a hunger strike. Like so many in Burma's prisons, her life is
an unfolding disaster. Her crime? She interviewed some monks, and rode an
improperly registered motor-scooter.

She is one of at least 2200 political prisoners in Burma; locked up for
reporting the news, for calling for democracy, for writing a book or other
ephemeral infractions. Their best hope now is for an amnesty - perhaps
when Burma's new government is formed in a month or so. The first national
elections in 20 years, held last month, were riddled with fraud, but the
military regime may decide to mark the change to democracy with some
seemingly magnanimous action.

Burma's best-known political prisoner, democracy campaigner Aung San Suu
Kyi, has taken every chance to raise the pressure for an amnesty since her
release. "If my people are not free, how can I say I am free?" she said.
"Either we are all free together or we are not free together."

But Ms Suu Kyi can't work miracles, says Bo Kyi, joint secretary of the
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). "There must be
domestic and international pressure too," the activist says. "The UN
issuing a statement is not enough. They need to take action."

It's a battle against an implacable force. Burma's UN ambassador, Thant
Kyaw, in October flatly denied the existence of political prisoners in the
nation officially named Myanmar.

So where to slot in Zarganar, or "Tweezers", a famous comedian and
satirist who was arrested in 2008 for criticising the junta's tardy and
reluctant response to Cyclone Nargis - a disaster that killed at least
140,000? Zarganar was originally sentenced to 59 years in prison for
public order offences, but his term has since been reduced to 35 years.

Or U Khun Tun Oo, a political representative of the Shan people, a
minority ethnic group in Burma. He met other leaders in 2005 to discuss
the regime's long-touted transition to democracy. He was convicted of
treason and defamation and jailed for 93 years. "They might grant an
amnesty," Bo Kyi says, "but until now we haven't heard anything."

Hla Hla Win turned to activism after the saffron uprising in 2007, when
Burma's monks took to the streets and the world watched and waited for the
final bloody crackdown. Her imagination was fired by the bravery of the
undercover video journalists who dodged the military and sent film clips
out to the world.

In September last year, Hla Hla Win and a companion went to a monastery in
Pakokku, the crucible of the revolt, to interview the leading monks there.
The pair were seen and arrested.

Bo Kyi says Hla Hla Win has been tortured. From his own grim experience he
knows it could be savage beatings, food and water deprivation, or being
made to stand for hours. Still he holds out hope. "She was on a hunger
strike, but there wasn't very much damage for her. She is tough."

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

December 10, Democratic Voice of Burma
Burma buys bulk Chinese weaponry – Min Lwin

Hundreds of military tanks equipped with rocket launching systems
developed by China have been offloaded at a Rangoon port owned by a crony
of the Burmese junta, eye-witnesses claim.

Several ships were seen delivering the cargo, which included 112 tanks, at
the Ahlone port in Rangoon over five days between 4 and 8 December. The
port is run by Asia World Company whose owner, Stephen Law, is close to
the junta.

“The supplies were unloaded from the ship during the day but they did it
by surrounding the area with stacks of containers, six or seven of them,”
an eye-witnesses at the port told DVB. “At night, vehicles would arrive at
the area to load the cargo and they left in a convoy with a police car
leading.”

He said that armoured personnel carriers were also seen being offloaded
“which were armed with machine guns or recoilless guns”. Both security
guards from Asia World and Burmese army troops were manning the port.

China is Burma’s biggest weapons supplier, followed closely by India and
Russia. Leaked US cables claim that Ukraine, also once a key source of
weapons for the ruling junta, has ceased selling arms.

Burma has a standing army of close to 500,000, while some 40 percent of
the government budget is channelled to the military. Despite widespread
consensus that Burma is run by one of the world’s most repressive regimes,
calls for the UN to implement an arms embargo on Burma have so far gone
unheeded

According to Amnesty International, “China has not regularly reported its
arms transfers [to Burma] to the United Nations”. It says these sales have
included fighter jets.

As part of a mass transformation of Burmese industry earlier this year,
six ports were sold to private businesses, adding to the two that Asia
World already owned. The conutry’s only shipping line, the Myanma Five
Star Line (MFSL), owns the 12,000-ton Magwe freighter that delivered the
Chinese weaponry last week.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

December 10, Agence France Presse
Human rights essential for Myanmar: Suu Kyi

Geneva — Myanmar's newly-released democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said
on Friday that genuine democratic institutions in the country could not
exist without respect for human rights.

"Human rights are the very stuff of everyday living. Without freedom and
security our lives cannot be meaningful," she said in a video message
delivered at the United Nations in Geneva to mark World Human Rights Day.

"I like to think that those of us who are working for democracy in Burma
are defenders of human rights because we believe that without human rights
there can be no such thing as genuine democratic institutions," she added.

Her comments came after the first election in two decades last month that
was criticised by human rights activists and Western governments as
anything but free and fair, handing an overwhelming majority to the
military regime's supporters.

Suu Kyi was freed by Myanmar's military rulers from her most recent
seven-year stretch of house detention on November 13.

Suu Kyi's party, which won a 1990 election but was never allowed to take
power, boycotted the November 7 vote because of rules that appeared to
exclude her from participating. It was subsequently disbanded by the
junta.

"It is an attempt to make our lives meaningful, the lives of all those
around us meaningful that we are acting as human rights defenders," she
said in the video message.

She warned that discrimination against human rights defenders was one of
the "more subtle forms of discrimination."

"Let us all stand together not only to defend human rights but to defend
each other in our struggle for human rights," she added in a broader
message to the world gathering organised by the UN.

____________________________________

December 10, New York Times
On Myanmar, U.S. and China worked closely, cables show – Thomas Fuller

Bangkok — As the United States searches for new ways to nudge Myanmar
toward democratic change, it may find an unexpected ally in China,
according to secret diplomatic cables.

Internal State Department correspondence shows a much less adversarial
relationship between the United States and China over Myanmar than the
language of official statements or years of posturing at the United
Nations might suggest.

Chinese officials acknowledge their differences with the United States but
appear to share American frustrations at the junta’s handling of the
country’s economy and at times show impatience at the slow pace of
political change.

“The Chinese clearly are fed up with the footdragging [sic] by the Than
Shwe regime,” Shari Villarosa, the head of the United States mission in
Myanmar, said in a confidential cable in January 2008 that referred to the
country’s aging dictator, Sen. Gen. Than Shwe.

“The Chinese share our desire to get them to the negotiating table,” Ms.
Villarosa said in a note to Washington after hosting the Chinese
ambassador, Guan Mu, for lunch.

China and the United States both want the same thing in Myanmar, said an
official from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Yang Jian,
according to a separate January 2008 cable: “stability, democracy and
development.”

“Therefore, China and the United States should show unity, particularly in
the U.N., in addressing the situation in Burma,” she is quoted as saying.

Over the past two decades politics in Myanmar have unfolded with a
good-and-evil storyline fit for Hollywood: a brutal military government
has persecuted a democratic opposition movement led by a pretty and
charming freedom fighter, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the winner of the 1991
Nobel Peace Prize who until last month was under house arrest. When a
landslide victory by Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi in 1990 was ignored by the
generals, Western nations lined up behind her. China and other neighboring
countries, by contrast, lined up to invest in natural gas ventures and buy
timber and gems.

But what comes across in nearly 400 cables relating to Myanmar and sent by
American diplomats over the past three years is a more nuanced picture.
The diplomats report the tyrannical tendencies of the junta but also point
out many problems with the “sclerotic” leadership of a democratic
opposition and its undemocratic ways. Some American diplomats are
privately convinced by the argument put forward by many Asian countries
that sanctions do more harm than good, a view that runs contrary to
official American policy.

One cable from 2008 describes the party of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi as very
poorly managed — “not the last great hope for democracy and Burma,” the
cable says — and domninated by its “Uncles,” the party elders.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi remains “popular and beloved,” the cable says, but
her party is “strictly hierarchical, new ideas are not solicited or
encouraged from younger members and the Uncles regularly expel members
they believe are ‘too active,’” said the cable’s author, Leslie Hayden,
who was the head of the political and economic section in 2008. The same
cable, which was described as a “candid” assessment on American policy
after two years in the country, described sanctions as doing little good.

“While our economic sanctions give us the moral high-ground, they are
largely ineffective because they are not comprehensive. Burma’s biggest
client states refuse to participate in them,” Ms. Hayden wrote.

The cables show Washington’s determined support for pro-democracy groups
and dissidents opposing the military government. Ms. Villarosa reported
that the embassy made a point of inviting dissidents and democracy
activists to its diplomatic functions as a way of demonstrating its
“commitment to promoting freedom and democracy.”

But diplomats also reported a deep skepticism toward some elements of the
Burmese pro-democracy movement. A detailed cable from the embassy in
Thailand in May 2008 sharply criticized some Burmese exile groups that
were described as out of touch with reality in Myanmar and that had “lost
credibility.” Thailand is home to a large number of Burmese pro-democracy
activists.

“At present, it is unclear whether the principal leaders of the exile
community in Thailand can act as credible agents for change in Burma,”
said Eric G. John, whose tour as the ambassador to Thailand ends this
month.

The attitudes in the cables toward the Burmese government are predictably
skeptical. But the tone of the cables appears to change according to the
personality of the diplomats.

Ms. Villarosa is energetic and opinionated in her cables. “Than Shwe is
mad with power,” she thundered in one note to Washington. “The senior
generals are terrified of losing control over Burma and determined to
crush any sign of dissent.”

Larry Dinger, the current head of mission, who replaced her, sends more
measured missives.

“These are career military men, most with combat experience in Burma’s
past internal conflicts, who value the unity and stability of the state as
a top priority,” he said in a secret memo last year describing the
leadership. “The senior generals assert, and seem genuinely to believe,
that the military is the only guarantor of that unity and stability.” He
also called the generals “xenophobic” and “craving respect.”

It emerges clearly in the cables that the United States and China do not
agree on all issues related to Myanmar. They disagreed on the usefulness
of visits by a United Nations envoy, and the Chinese repeatedly tell the
Americans that the economic sanctions are counter-productive. A cable in
February of this year, accuses Chinese diplomats in Myanmar of being
“reclusive.”

“The Chinese Embassy regularly rebuffs requests for meetings and
information from the Rangoon-based diplomatic community,” says the cable.
The same cable described China’s economic dominance in Myanmar: “China’s
economic presence in Burma has increased dramatically over the last 10
years.”

The cables yielded a number of other items:

¶The United States sought to remove the United Nations special envoy for
Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, in October 2008, calling him “unrealistically
upbeat” and increasingly unable to obtain access to the country’s top
leaders. ¶The Myanmar government appears to have initiated the
re-engagement with the United States pursued by the Obama administration.
In a February 2009 cable Mr. Dinger wrote of “repeated recent signals” by
the government to restart a dialogue with the United States. But Mr.
Dinger writes that the offer for closer ties appears “symbolic rather than
substantive.”

¶Another cable recounts the ultimately unsuccessful but determined efforts
of Mr. Gambari to meet Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi during a visit in August
2008. Mr. Gambari sends two assistants to the gates of Mrs. Aung San Suu
Kyi’s villa. She snubs him, as does most of the senior Burmese leadership
during that particular visit, according to the cable.

¶ Several cables in 2004 report possible but unconfirmed signs of the
junta developing a nuclear program with help from North Korea. But in a
cable classified secret from November 2009 Mr. Dinger describes the
possibility of a nuclear program as a “very open question.”

____________________________________

December 10, The Guardian (UK)
WikiLeaks cables suggest Burma is building secret nuclear sites - Ewen
MacAskill

Fears of bomb plan as witnesses tell US embassy that North Koreans are
involved with underground facility in jungle

Wahsington – Burmese troops on parade Burma's military regime has said it
wants a nuclear power plant but denied any plans for atomic weapons.
Photograph: Khin Maung Win/AFP/Getty Images

Witnesses in Burma claim to have seen evidence of secret nuclear and
missile sites being built in remote jungle, according to secret US
diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, heightening concerns that the
military regime is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

A Burmese officer quoted in a cable from the US embassy in Burma said he
had witnessed North Korean technicians helping to construct an underground
facility in foothills more than 300 miles (480km) north-west of Rangoon.

"The North Koreans, aided by Burmese workers, are constructing a
concrete-reinforced underground facility that is '500ft from the top of
the cave to the top of the hill above'," according to the cable. The man
is quoted as saying the North Koreans were "blowing concrete" into the
excavation.

An expatriate businessman told the embassy in Rangoon he had seen a large
barge carrying reinforced steel bar of a diameter that suggested a project
larger than a factory. Other informants included dockworkers, who reported
suspicious cargo.

The reports add rare detail to rumours that have circulated since 2002,
most recently from a military defector this year, that Burma is covertly
seeking a nuclear bomb with the help of North Korea. Both countries have
strenuously denied this in the past and Burma insists there are no North
Koreans in the country.

The cables will compound existing international concern over Iranian and
North Korean nuclear programmes, and show why Barack Obama has made
nuclear non-proliferation one of the central planks of his foreign policy.

According to the witness accounts, pieced together by US embassy staff,
the work is at an early stage and haphazard. But they regard it as a
troubling development, with the risk that Burma could join Pakistan, North
Korea and possibly Iran in having a nuclear bomb.

In a cable dated August 2004 titled "Alleged North Korean involvement in
missile assembly and underground facility construction in Burma", one of
the embassy staff wheedled information from an officer during a visit to
Rangoon. The officer was in an engineering unit working at the site, where
surface-to-air missiles were allegedly being assembled. The site is the
Irrawaddy river town of Minbu in Magwe division, west-central Burma.

The officer said 300 North Koreans were working at the site, though the
embassy, in its cable back to Washington, described this as improbably
high. The officer "claims he has personally seen some of them, although he
also reported they are forbidden from leaving the construction site and
that he and other 'outsiders' are prohibited from entering".

Burma has made no secret of wanting a civilian nuclear reactor, in part
because of severe electricity shortages, and has signed a deal with Russia
to build one. The project has so far failed to start because of lack of
funds. A secret deal with North Korea would be in breach of international
rules on nuclear proliferation.

According to a 2009 cable, a well-placed source within the Burmese
government last year made an apparently indiscreet remark to the
Australian ambassador that the agreement with Russia was just for
"software, training" and the North Korea agreement was for "hardware".

The source said General Thura Shwe Mann, who had overall command of
military activity, visited North Korea in 2008. The source backtracked six
months later, insisting that the talks with North Korea were only
exploratory.

In February 2009 the Burmese deputy foreign minister, Khin Maung Win,
called a US diplomat to deny there was collusion between his country and
North Korea over missiles, missile technology or nuclear technology.

Alarmingly, there is a report of a businessman offering uranium to the US
embassy in Rangoon. The embassy bought it.

"The individual provided a small bottle half-filled with metallic powder
and a photocopied certificate of testing from a Chinese university dated
1992 as verification of the radioactive nature of the powder." He said
that "if the US was not interested in purchasing the uranium, he and his
associates would try to sell it to other countries, beginning with
Thailand".

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

December 10, Democratic Voice of Burma
Multi-ethnic Burma and the junta will collide – Maung Zarni

No matter how carefully they tread on the issue of reviving the Union
spirit among different ethnic communities, Aung San Suu Kyi and
non-violent ethnic minority leaders – not to mention the armed ethnic
resistance organisations – are heading for an inevitable collision course
with Burma’s military junta. Here is why.

Their respective politics, as well as concerns and interests, are
irreconcilable. For Suu Kyi and the multi-ethnic opposition, politics is a
means towards peace, reconciliation, representative government and
improved public well-being; for the ruling generals, however, it is an
expression of entitlement to rule and a means of control, domination, and
self-aggrandizement. The fact that Senior General Than Shwe even thought
of buying out Manchester United football club while several million
cyclone Nargis victims struggled for clean drinking water and dry shelter
speaks volumes about the deeply callous nature of the generals that rule
the country.

While the world knows plenty about Aung San Suu Kyi and what she
represents, it knows almost nothing about the generals beyond their
international pariah status.

As far as the generals are concerned, there is no need for reconciliation
along ethnic or political lines with any person, organization or
community. In short, they have done nothing wrong, for they perceive
themselves as the country’s sole national guardian, untainted by partisan
politics. They are committed to the abstract idea of a multi-ethnic nation
and an absolutist notion of sovereignty. They love the country, but they
can’t stand the people, especially the kind who refuse to go along with
their design for the rest of the country.

The generals’ politics is all about resuming and completing the process of
reconsolidation of the power of the ethnic Burmese majority, most
specifically the soldiering class, over the rest of the ethnic minorities
– a process only interrupted by the old kingdom’s 19th century defeat by
Great Britain. Sixty years after independence the military has built its
own version of local colonial rule wherein it serves as the
constitutionally-mandated ruling class and the rest of the civilian
society, both ethnic majority and minorities, as second class citizens.

In this new colonial rule, anything and anyone that doesn’t bend to the
generals’ will is to be controlled, subjugated or crushed. Aung San Suu
Kyi and 2,200-plus jailed multi-ethnic dissidents or politically defiant
ethnic minority groups that are subject to rape, pillage, summary
executions and other atrocities attest to this. And this time round the
regime is likely to get really nasty, with disturbing signals of the
brewing troubles ahead already emerging.

The world just witnessed 20,000 Burmese refugees fleeing the renewed,
post-election fighting between the regime and a faction of Karen ethnic
minority ceasefire groups into Thailand. Furthermore, the Burmese military
has recently deployed massive numbers of combat-ready troops along vast
stretches of the porous Thai-Burmese border and purchased and assembled 50
Russian-made Mi-24 gunship helicopters in preparation for
“counterinsurgency” operations to subjugate the country’s minorities.

Burma has been engulfed in conflict, violent and non-violent, since 90
days after independence from Britain.  Everyone is tired of war and
conflict – that is, everyone except the top generals and those who profit
from the continuation of war and conflict.

The military’s rose-tinted perception of itself as the ‘guardian of the
nation’ is one thing, but the vested class and personal interests that
have resulted from 50 years of successive military dictatorships are
another. War may not be peace as Orwellian double-speak suggests, but it
is highly profitable for the strong and the victorious.

Perpetuating domestic conflicts enables the regime to expand its military
control over resource-rich and strategic minority regions which border
Asia’s rising economies such as India, China and Thailand.  The
economically vibrant neighbours have signed multi-billion dollar
commercial deals, including trans-border gas pipelines, two deep seaports,
‘development corridors’ and ‘special economic zones’, natural gas
production, hydropower projects and mining, all over different minority
lands along Burma’s national borders.

The regime’s opponents are incomparably weaker, outnumbered and outgunned.
The regime discards such modern normative inconveniences as governmental
accountability, citizens’ voice, and ecological and livelihood concerns,
as it grabs natural resources and land from both ethnic majority and
minority communities, while their Asian business partners look the other
way. The troops are allowed to scavenge among local populations,
confiscating anything of value with impunity from the top leadership. In
fact, it is the senior and junior generals in Naypyidaw who push their
regional, battalion and local commanders towards local economic
self-sufficiency – at any cost to local communities and economies.

Ideologically, the war against minorities reinforces the Burmese
military’s self-justificatory perception that its primacy and monopoly
control over minority regions are necessary, lest these autonomy-seeking
ethnic people break up the Union.  However these days the Burmese public,
weary of the governmental brutality and with greater exposure to global
free media, is no longer susceptible to the regime’s ethno-nationalist
propaganda. The glue that used to bind the Burmese majority with the
militarist generals has come off.

Precisely because this ethno-nationalist bond has been irreparably broken
down, Aung San Suu Kyi and minority leaders’ recent moves towards dialogue
and reconciliation poses the greatest threat to the ruling junta.  Only 20
years ago the regime, challenged by the majority Burmese public in Burma’s
‘people power’ uprising, opted for disparate ceasefire deals with nearly
20 armed minority organizations, not out of genuine desire for peace and
reconciliation, but as a strategy to pre-empt the inter-ethnic solidarity
between the Aung San Suu Kyi-led majority and rebellious minorities. Now
that some of the most crucial ceasefires are likely to unravel, the
highest strategic priority of the regime has become preventing
inter-ethnic unity.

There is little wonder then that the generals’ greatest threat is Aung San
Suu Kyi’s enduring popularity across ethnic lines and her politics of
reconciliation. Her politics by no means induces the country’s
balkanization as the generals and their supporters have implied. If
anything, the military’s zero-sum politics will pave the way for national
disintegration.

If one listens carefully to Burma’s disparate ethnic resistance groups,
everyone is prepared to live within a single union. They are simply asking
that fair political representation and ethnic equality be made central
organizing principles of the Union – something the majority Burmese as
represented by Aung San Suu Kyi and her opposition movement have endorsed.

Foreign governments and advocates generally view the military as the only
cohesive national organization capable of keeping territorial Burma
together, but they conveniently ignore the realities on the ground:
Burma’s military has categorically failed at nation-building – its record
of 50 years in power speaks for itself.

What the generals want and pursue is power and profit while their
multi-ethnic opponents can only offer peace and reconciliation. Their
respective missions are bound to collide, and it’s just a matter of time
before the world witnesses a new round of confrontation, conflicts and
crack down.

For the foreign governments and international organisations which fear
Burma’s ethnic balkanization or political instability, the best way to
prevent this eventuality is to start recognizing that the generals, this
generation and the next, are not going to be the ones who will bring about
lasting peace, reconciliation and stability. Instead of placing misguided
confidence in gradual military-led transition, these external players
should invest in long-term initiatives designed to help empower
multi-ethnic dissidents and their organizations, as well as ordinary
citizens and their communities in order that the people may succeed in
their attempts at what Aung San Suu Kyi calls a ‘peaceful revolution’, a
process of change that brings about meaningful, positive and radical
changes in policy, leadership and institutions.

Maung Zarni is research fellow on Burma at the London School of Economics
and Political Science.

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

December 10, International Center for Transitional Justice
Burma: International Commission needed to address impunity

Chiang Mai/New York—A transition in Burma should entail a genuine effort
to end impunity for human rights violations, including an international
commission of inquiry into allegations of these crimes, said the
International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) on the 62nd
anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“Reconciliation in Burma must include an acknowledgement that people have
suffered,” said Patrick Pierce, head of ICTJ’s Burma Program. “A
commission of inquiry is a necessary first step. The military regime
denies that any crimes are occurring, so it falls to the international
community to help gather and review information about the allegations,” he
said.

The recommendation for a commission of inquiry is included in the new ICTJ
briefing, “Impunity or Reconciliation in Burma’s Transition
<http://www.ictj.org/static/Publications/ICTJ_MMR_transition_pb2010.pdf>
.” The briefing discusses Burma’s recent elections, the outbreak of armed
conflict and Aung San Suu Kyi’s November release from house arrest.

It concludes that the elections and upsurge in violence mark a step
backward on the road to a genuine democratic transition, but Aung San Suu
Kyi’s emergence from house arrest may offer an alternative to the
military’s roadmap for transition.

The briefing’s key recommendations include:

Through the General Assembly, the United Nations should establish a
commission of inquiry into allegations of gross violations of human
rights, following the recommendation of the special rapporteur on the
situation of human rights in Myanmar.

The UN Secretary-General should continue to use his good offices, as well
as strengthen the role of his special adviser to mediate the conflicts in
Burma by bringing all key stakeholders to the negotiating table to foster
national reconciliation and address impunity.

The ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) should allow Aung
San Suu Kyi to travel freely throughout the country, should not impose
restrictions on her freedom of speech or assembly and should guarantee her
safety.

The SPDC should release all of the remaining political prisoners to
demonstrate the government’s willingness to include all parties in the
process of national reconciliation.

The SPDC should conduct a review of the 2008 Constitution through an
inclusive process involving all political parties, and remove the
provisions that maintain impunity for human rights violations,
particularly Article 445.

The SPDC should engage in a genuine dialogue with the NLD and other
winners of the 1990 elections, as well as ethnic leaders and all
stakeholders who could play important roles in fostering national
reconciliation.


Background

Burma, now renamed Myanmar, has been under military rule since a 1962 coup
d’état. The current regime, the SPDC, has led a process of political
transition designed to protect its leading role in the political life of
the country.

A new constitution—drafted in 2008 and approved by referendum in 2009—set
the course for the November 2010 elections, the country’s first elections
in 20 years.

The November 2010 elections marked a major effort by the military regime
to gain legitimacy, both domestically and with the international
community. A highly flawed election process excluded several hundred
villages and numerous political parties from participating and entrenched
military rule under the guise of a democratically-elected government.

Burma’s prisons currently hold over 2,000 political prisoners. Civil
society organizations that focus on human rights education, documentation
and advocacy are severely restricted inside the country and members risk
imprisonment for their work.

In his 2010 report to the Human Rights Council, Tomás Ojea Quintana, the
special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, called on
the UN to consider implementing a commission of inquiry into crimes
against humanity and war crimes in Burma. This call is being backed by an
increasing number of countries, all previous human rights special
rapporteurs for Burma and a range of international human rights
organizations.

Download the full briefing here (pdf)
<http://www.ictj.org/static/Publications/ICTJ_MMR_transition_pb2010.pdf> .
For more information on ICTJ’s work in Burma, click here
<http://ictj.org/en/where/region3/511.html> .

ICTJ gratefully acknowledges its funder, Not On Our Watch, whose support
made this briefing paper possible.

About ICTJ

The International Center for Transitional Justice works to redress and
prevent the most severe violations of human rights by confronting legacies
of mass abuse. ICTJ seeks holistic solutions to promote accountability and
create just and peaceful societies. For more information, visit
www.ictj.org <http://www.ictj.org/>.

Contact:
Patrick Pierce (Thailand)
Burma Program Head
Tel +66 (0)84-203-1920
ppierce at ictj.org <mailto:ppierce at ictj.org>