BurmaNet News, January 21, 2011

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January 21, 2011 Issue #4124

INSIDE BURMA
BBC: Burma names military figures to sit in new parliament
Irrawaddy: Suu Kyi meets Thai FM
Mizzima: Three-and-half year prison term given to child soldier
DVB: Major coal mine ‘poisoning rivers’

ON THE BORDER
Mizzima: Eight Burmese monks reportedly deported from Mae Sot
Nation (Thailand): Burma closes borders in Tak province

BUSINESS / TRADE
DVB: Energy minister ‘unhappy’ with privatization
Irrawaddy: Gold and dollar values up in Burma

INTERNATIONAL
New York Times: Documentary shows rare look at dissent in Myanmar military

OPINION / OTHER
Asian Tribune: An up to date puppet show in Burma’s upcoming parliament
opening – Zin Linn

PRESS RELEASE
Burma Forum on the Universal Periodic Review (BF-UPR): Burma’s grave human
rights situation stands before the UN’s Review





____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

January 21, BBC News
Burma names military figures to sit in new parliament

65th Armed Forces Day parade, Naypyidaw, Burma, March 27, 2010 Burma's
military is expected to have a dominant role in the new parliament.

Burmese state media has published lists of military officials who will
take up seats in parliament when it opens on 31 January for the first time
in 22 years.

Under the junta-drafted constitution, the military is allocated 25% of
seats in both houses of parliament and the state assemblies.

Most of the 388 officers appointed hold relatively junior ranks.

Military-backed parties won by far the largest number of seats in the
November polls, Burma's first in 20 years.

Opposition groups and Western nations have criticised laws under which the
polls were held and condemned the elections a sham.

The official first sitting of parliament in Naypyidaw will mark the
implementation of the new constitution and see the transfer of power from
the military government to a parliament and president.

Representatives of military-linked parties - many of them former officers
who stood down to stand in the polls - are expected the dominate the
chambers.

The setting of a quota for the military in parliament has been interpreted
by some observers as intended to prevent any surprises. More than 75%
approval is required for any constitutional change.

The state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported that 110 military
officers had been chosen for the lower house, 56 for the upper house, and
222 for regional and state parliaments.

The most senior appointees were a brigadier general and 19 colonels
alongside a majority of majors and captains.

Under the new constitution, parliament will elect a president. It is not
yet clear whether senior leader Than Shwe is eyeing this role.

The party that won Burma's last elections in 1990 - the Aung San Suu
Kyi-led National League for Democracy - is not represented in parliament.

But there will also be a small number of lawmakers representing Burma's
ethnic parties and its pro-democracy opposition.

____________________________________

January 21, Irrawaddy
Suu Kyi meets Thai FM

Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi had an one-hour talk with
Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya at the Thai embassy in Rangoon on
Friday morning, said officials of her party, the National League for
Democracy. “The discussion was quite frank, but we still have no details
from it,” said a party official. The personal meeting was the first
between Suu Kyi and another country's foreign minister since her release
from house arrest in November.

____________________________________

January 21, Mizzima News
Three-and-half year prison term given to child soldier – Myo Thein

A man, now 22 years old, has been arrested for desertion from the Burmese
military when he was a 14-year-old child soldier and sentenced to three
years in prison.

His parents in Taungsun village in Waw Township in Pegu Division say their
son, Zin Aung, joined the army when he was 14 and returned back to his
home after about seven months in the army to be with his parents.

His parents, Thaung Kyi and Kyi Win, said he was arrested in October 2010,
about eight years after his desertion and is now in the Pegu jail.

His mother told Mizzima: “He told me that he worked at a poultry farm
owned by an adjutant officer when I asked him what he did in the army. He
came back home and lived with us for eight years. Then local Ward Peace
and Development Council (WPDC) chairman Than Lwin came to our home with a
police team and took my son away in handcuffs’.

Zin Aung’s grandfather Aung Pe, 78 died of a heart attack on October 5,
2010, when the police came to the home and arrested his grandson, she
said.

The young man was sentenced to three and half year imprisonment for
desertion on December 4, 2010.

‘He left home when he was 14 along with two friends. We couldn’t locate
him. Then he came back home after about seven months. He told me that he
left the army when I asked him where he had been’, said his mother.

When Zin Aung and his two friends visited Light Infantry Division 77 at
Pegu, the army accepted Zin Aung because he was tall and sent him to
Taungdwingyi in Magwe Division for basic army training.

He was reportedly sent back from training camp because he was underage and
placed under the supervision of Captain Thurein of Light Infantry
Battalion 105 in Indagaw in Pegu, where he began work on the poultry farm.

His parents informed the Pegu branch of the National League for Democracy
(NLD) about their son’s imprisonment and asked for help.

NLD member Kyaw Win told Mizzima that they informed the battalion
concerned and the International Labour Organization on December 20.

‘I wish he could come back to me’, his mother told Mizzima. ‘My health has
grown worse because of this. I ask the authorities to release him.’

____________________________________

January 21, Democratic Voice of Burma
Major coal mine ‘poisoning rivers’ – Francis Wade

Burma’s biggest open-cast coal mine is polluting waterways and causing
displacement of communities on an alarming scale, a new report warns.

The Tigyit mine close to Shan state’s Inle Lake produces some 2000 tonnes
of lignite, often referred to as brown coal, each day. The Poison Clouds
report by the Pa’O Youth Organisation (PYO) claims that it is damaging the
health of locals there.

Problems with transporting lignite mean that it is often burned in power
plants close to its source which produce much higher carbon dioxide
emissions than black coal.

Images released by PYO show hazardous coal dumps forming veritable
mountain ranges close to inhabited areas. The run-off from these can work
its way into rivers that feed into Inle Lake, Burma’s second-largest, with
knock-on effects for farmers and fisherman palpable.

“Dump piles from the mine are now towering above the homes of 3,000
people, blocking streams and contaminating fields,” a statement released
with the report reads. “Dust and emissions, including from poisonous waste
scattered on local roadways, is seriously degrading air quality. To date
50 percent of the local population is suffering from skin rashes.”

It adds that nearly 12,000 people living within a five-mile radius of
Tigyit may be driven from their homes by pollution and expansion of the
mine, which currently covers 500 acres.

Two nearby villages have already been relocated. The 321 inhabitants were
paid compensation that amounted in total to $US6,280 – less than $US20
each.

Instead of the electricity being produced by the nearby plant going to
local populations, the report claims it is channeled to another mining
project run by Russian and Italian companies. “This follows the trend in
Burma’s energy sector of exploiting natural resources not for the
development of the country’s people but for sale to the highest bidders,”
it says.

Burma currently has seven operational coal mines, although an additional
10 have been discovered. Only one coal plant processes the output at
present, but six more are either planned or under construction.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

January 21, Mizzima News
Eight Burmese monks reportedly deported from Mae Sot – Aung Myat Soe

Bangkok – Police in Mae Sot, Thailand, and immigration officers reportedly
arrested eight Burmese monks while they were on alms rounds in Mae Sot on
Thursday and immediately disrobed and deported them back to Burma.

Police in Mae Sot could not confirm the arrest or deportation of the monks.

The eight monks were identified by friends as Ashin Nandiya, 21, who was
visiting Mae Sot from the Omphyan refugee camp, Gurkha, 60, a monk from
Taw Yat Monastery, Ashin Wimala, 56, Ashin Thu Seikta, 60, from Kyaunggyi
Monastery, Ashin Pyinnya Thiha, 26, Nandita, 13, a novice from Wat Ahlan
Monastery, Ashin Thumingla, 56, and Ashin Thumingla, 60.

The Tak Province chief administrative officer reportedly had them arrested
and deported because they had no valid documents with them, according to
sources.

‘They were arrested at the Mae Sot market while they were begging alms at
about 6 in the morning. When they reached the police station, they were
first sent to Wat Kyone Phon Monastery where the township monk abbot
stayed. The abbot disrobed all of them’, said Ashin Nandiya, one of the
monks who was arrested.

He told Mizzima that when the monks claimed they were from the refugee
camp, they were asked to produce UN documents. When they could not produce
the documents, they were disrobed and taken to jail.

Ashin Nandiya said that the monks were physically abused by the police.

When Mizzima contacted the Mae Sot police station on Thursday to inquire
about the incident, a police officer on duty said that there were no such
monks in their custody but there had been a few people making similar
inquires.

____________________________________

January 21, The Nation (Thailand)
Burma closes borders in Tak province

Burma has closed the Tha Khi Lek border checkpoint in Tak province and
sealed off another border crossing in Phop Phra district citing security
reasons involving clashes with minority groups.

The 18 gates at Tha Khi Lek border checkpoint were closed reportedly after
gunfights between Burmese troops and two Karenaffiliated armed resistance
groups around 45 km away.
Thai vendors have piled up goods at the Tha Khi Lek gates awaiting
transport as soon as the border reopens.

The four Thai nationals arrested by Burmese soldiers in Phop Phra district
for trespassing, and local residents have been barred from entering Burma
until further notice.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

January 21, Democratic Voice of Burma
Energy minister ‘unhappy’ with privatisation – Joseph Allchin

Burma’s energy minister Brig. General Lun Thi is unhappy with the recent
privatisation of petrol retailing in the country, business sources in
Rangoon have told DVB.

His alleged dissatisfaction echoes critical analysts who state that the
scheme is economically unsound and leading to problems with distribution.
This has resulted in long queues and a thriving black market that the
privatisation drive was designed to solve.

Lun Thi is now reportedly willingly waiting for the privatisation
experiment with fuel retailing to fail, a Rangoon-based businessman close
to the ruling junta has said. Failure would mean his Ministry of Energy
(MOE) will have to intervene and reinstate its management of fuel
retailing.

The main problem is seen as the strict controls on the price at which
retailers can sell petrol. This only allows for a small profit margin and
thus limits the incentive to distribute fuel widely throughout new
stations in more remote areas of Burma.

As a result black marketeering has been occurring whereby third parties
would hoard cheap fuel in order to sell it for profit in areas where there
was no licensed retailer. The discrepancy in price, reportedly almost
double in some areas, was meanwhile responsible for long queues at
official retailers who resultantly placed a quota on the number of litres
for sale per person, per visit.

The low prices are for domestically-refined petrol, which is of a lower
quality than imported fuel.

Why Lun Thi is seemingly willing the project to fail is not fully known
but some analysts, including Burma economics expert Sean Turnell, believe
it is political; that the minister will be smarting from the loss of
control over this vital area of the economy.

“This is why Burma is not a normal developing Southeast Asian nation”
Turnell told DVB. “It’s why I think the whole notion of privatisation in
Burma is highly questionable.”

The situation was being compared to a similar occurrence in the 1990s when
the MOE transferred control over petrol pumps to the Union of Myanmar
Economic Holdings (UMEH), a military “company” run by the quartermaster
general, only for their management of operations to fail. They were
subsequently transferred back to the MOE.

Petrol retailing has now been transferred to a number of crony-run
conglomerates, such as Htoo Trading and Max Myanmar. Some have alleged
that the conglomerates themselves were involved in the black market in
order to turn a profit from the operations.

With the privatisation drive in full swing, it was recently reported that
as much as 90 percent of state-owned enterprises would be sold off.

The move to fix fuel prices however was also seen as an effort to prevent
social unrest linked to fuel price rises, as was witnessed in September
2007 with the so-called Saffron Revolution and prior to the 1988 uprising.
Turnell notes that “petrol prices are always very politically sensitive”.

____________________________________

January 21, Irrawaddy
Gold and dollar values up in Burma

Rangoon — The price of gold and the value of the US dollar both took a
sudden leap in recent days in Burma following the military junta's
announcement to hold the opening sessions of the new parliaments at the
end of this month, according to business sources in Rangoon.

With fears high of political and economic instability ahead, Rangoon
businessmen and traders reportedly invested in gold and dollars, the
sources said, resulting in the hike in values.

“Gold and dollar buyers have increased since Jan. 18,” said a
Rangoon-based day trader. “The number of buyers has increased on a daily
basis.”

Among the investors are family members of the military generals, elected
cabinet ministers, senior government officials and high-ranking police
officers, the sources said.

Due to this increase in demand, the price of gold has increased by more
than 10,000 kyat (US $11.65) per kyat-thar (0.035 ounce), and the black
market exchange rate for dollars has gone up by 30 kyat ($0.03) for every
dollar.

“The demand for gold has increased unexpectedly,” said a gold shop owner.
“We are even getting requests from buyers living in remote areas.”

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Friday, a foreign currency speculator said,
“Several buyers demanded large quantities of dollars—some over $100,000
and $200,000. The value immediately followed, jumping from 830 kyat on
Jan. 17 to 858 kyat per dollar on Jan. 20.”

Burma's second currency, the Foreign Exchange Certificate (FEC), which was
introduced by the military regime at an equal value to the dollar to stem
the demand for foreign currencies, dropped to 800 kyat in recent days as
demand for it was generally low.

The Burmese junta's official dollar-kyat exchange rate is slightly more
than 6 kyat per dollar.

Although Burma's gold and dollar markets are active, other businesses are
said to be relatively stagnant this week.

“Burma's citizens are keenly interested in what will happen after the
formation of a new government,” said an investor who is a member of the
Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commence and Industry. “With
the exception of the gold and dollar markets, there is little spending in
other markets because investors are waiting to see what unfolds
politically.

“They all want to know what kind of new economic policy will be introduced
by the new government,” he said.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

January 21, New York Times
Documentary shows rare look at dissent in Myanmar military – Seth Mydans

Bangkok — It is the most vilified army in Southeast Asia, known for
crushing pro-democracy demonstrations in Myanmar and for its brutal
suppression of ethnic groups seeking self-rule in the region’s
longest-running civil war.

The 400,000-strong army in the former Burma is remarkable for its
cohesion, cemented by a system of rewards and punishments, and military
analysts have found little sign of dissent in its ranks.

But in its lower levels, at least, it is made up of men who come from a
society that widely fears and distrusts the military and who join for the
steady employment and status it offers, according to Myo Myint, 48, a
former soldier who joined the democratic opposition led by Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi.

Mr. Myo Myint is the central figure in a new documentary called “Burma
Soldier,” a film that traces his life from the battlefield, where he lost
a leg and an arm, to his 15 years in prison after joining the opposition
and then his departure through a Thai refugee camp to the United States in
2008.

“While the top ranks control and repress people, most soldiers are like
me. They join the military because they need to earn money for their daily
survival,” he said in a telephone interview from Fort Wayne, Indiana,
where he lives now.

In addition, he said, “There are so many soldiers serving in the military
who secretly support the opposition but cannot expose their feelings. They
will be sent to prison and a very heavy imprisonment.”

He added: “I hope that after watching the film, some soldiers will think
about their actions and their treatment of civilians, whether it is good
or bad, right or wrong, just or unjust.”

In quiet and measured tones in the film, broken at one point by tears, Mr.
Myo Myint describes his journey, with interviews in the refugee camp
interspersed with rare and sometimes horrifying footage of military
maneuvers and attacks on ethnic minority villages. The film’s director,
Nic Dunlop, an Irish writer and photographer, said the extraordinary
images were taken at great risk by dissident groups.

Mr. Dunlop said he was attempting to deliver this message through what he
called “reverse pirating.”

The film will be released next year on HBO, he said, but he and his
producers have already made a Burmese-language version of the film and
have begun smuggling it into Myanmar on DVDs and on the Internet.

“We are encouraging Burmese to make as many copies as they can and give
people inside a chance to hear an alternative history, and hear it from a
man who was part of the military,” Mr. Dunlop said.

“There’s an irony in this,” he said, referring to an earlier documentary,
“Burma VJ.” “They were struggling to get information and images out, with
a great deal of difficulty and an enormous amount of risk.”

That documentary, by Anders Ostergaard, told the story of the Buddhist
monk-led uprising in September 2007 and the military’s harsh response, in
part through the work of video journalists on the scene.

“What we are doing is the absolute reverse,” Mr. Dunlop said. “We are
trying to get the film into the country illegally by pirating our own film
in Burmese.”

Mr. Dunlop is sending a message, to audiences both inside and outside
Myanmar, that was also at the heart of his book “The Lost Executioner”
(Bloomsbury 2005), about the Khmer Rouge prison chief in Cambodia, Kaing
Guek Eav, better known as Duch.

Mr. Dunlop was working as a photographer in 1999, when he discovered Duch
in a remote area of Cambodia, a discovery that led to the first of the
Khmer Rouge trials and the conviction of Duch last year. Duch was
sentenced to 19 years in prison. Four other defendants are facing trial
this year.

“I wanted to know what it was that had turned a seemingly ordinary man
from one of the poorer parts of Cambodia into one of the worst mass
murderers of the twentieth century,” Mr. Dunlop wrote in the prologue to
his book.

Myanmar presents a similar challenge, he said.

“One of the problems of Burma is that it reads better as a story when you
have forces of evil pitted against the forces of good, symbolized by Aung
San Suu Kyi,” Mr. Dunlop said.
“I think it’s not enough to condemn people or regimes but we have to look
past that,” he said. “The world is not divided into good and evil, with us
or against us, black and white, but is much more nuanced. If we stop
looking at the world in this polarized way, we stand a greater chance of
trying to prevent these crimes.”

In the cases of both the Khmer Rouge, who ruled Cambodia in the late
1970s, and the army of Myanmar, he said, “It’s crucial to look at the
world of the perpetrators, to contextualize the evidence and the people
rather than seeing them as monsters, but see them as human beings, and
that we are all capable of doing these kinds of things in given
circumstances.”

For example, as Mr. Myo Myint said in the interview, the soldiers who shot
down civilians in pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988 and 2007 in Myanmar
were drawn from distant battlefields where they had been fighting
separatist ethnic armies.

“The soldiers are uneducated and don’t understand politics,” he said.
“They are told that everyone who supports the demonstrations and opposes
the government are enemies of the people and we have the right to kill
these people.”

For them, the killings are not only justified but necessary, he said. “It
is our duty.”

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

January 21, Asian Tribune
An up to date puppet show in Burma’s upcoming parliament opening – Zin Linn

Before the controversial polls in November 2010, Burma’s military junta
says the November 7 elections are essential to the achievement of
democracy and civilian ruling in the country. However, Burma-watchers and
critics, including the United States, believe the November 7 elections are
premeditated to ensure the military remains in power.

On the last October 5 in Brussels, European and Asian leaders at an
EU-Asia summit joined forces to urge the Burmese junta to release
political prisoners and ensure that the November 7 elections were free and
fair.

Subsequently, on October 6, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) called on
Burma to immediately release 12 lawmakers. The IPU is an association of
155 parliaments from around the world. But, the junta turned a deaf ear to
the international community.

Human rights groups say Burma has one of the world’s worst human rights
records, detaining 2,200 political prisoners, systematically destroying
ethnic minority villages and using rape as a weapon of war. The
military-run nation has been a source of dishonor for more democratic
members of ASEAN. However, Western governments and the United Nations
constantly urge the grouping to do more to thrust for change. After a long
wait, it was a vain attempt to change minds of the Burmese military
dictators.

Currently, Burma's military junta has appointed 388 members of parliaments
to fill the military share of the three chambers of parliament which will
first assemble on January 31, junta’s media said on 21 January.

The junta has appointed 110 military officers for the people’s parliament
(lower house), 56 for the national parliament (upper house), and 222 for
regional-and-state parliaments, The New Light of Myanmar newspaper
reported Friday.

All appointed MPs are military officers in commission, including one
brigadier general, 19 colonels; the other 368 officers are majors and
captains in ranks.

Under country's new constitution, the military can appoint 25 per cent of
all lawmakers in three chambers of parliament. It is enough for the
military to veto any legislation and to control the picking of a new
president and a cabinet of ministers.

Meanwhile, the controversial Conscription Law, dated November 4, 2010,
which is to be ratified in Burma, has been criticized by the National
League for Democracy (NLD) on 19 January. As said by the draft law, it
will come into force on the day that the military regime endorses the law
by an article in an official decree.

According to NLD, a draft law is related to the whole population in the
country and it should be approved through lower and upper houses of the
parliaments.

Releasing the draft law ahead of the approaching parliament assemblies
looks like a dishonest tactic. And it also shows the military is above the
parliament, considered a fake legislative institution. The military
authorities will be misused the rights of the grassroots level people
under this law in the name of ‘the State’, NLD pointed out in its
statement.

Although the 1959 Public Military Service Act said the state had the
authority to order any person who is qualified to serve in the armed
forces, the current junta’s draft law prescribes that all male and female
adults between selected ages should be subjects to serve in the military,
the NLD statement pointed out.

“If the law comes into force, the authorities will misuse the law as the
corruption is prevalent. The law will open the door of evildoings for the
authorities and it will put heavy burdens on the people who are under
poverty line due to junta’s bad-governance”’, said NLD’s statement dated
19 January.

Burma or Myanmar, under military absolute rule since 1962, held its first
general election in two decades on November 7 last year. Parliament is to
hold its first session on January 31 to commence the procedure of choosing
a new president. The parliament meetings would likely to take at least 14
days and people may only allow perceiving who will be the first president
around mid-February, as said by an observer.

Besides the 25-per-cent ratio of appointed military parliamentarians, the
pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) took 77 per cent
of the seats in three chambers of parliament by vote-rigging. Whoever won
the presidential throne, there may not be any surprises during the first
parliamentary session which will be held under junta’s tightly control.

The 2008 constitution says that the president and two vice-presidents
needn’t to be elected members of parliament, except acquaintance with
military affairs. Many observers deem that Senior General Than Shwe, 77,
boss of the junta since 1992 and commander-in-chief of the armed forces,
is an expected candidate for the position as President , while ex-Generals
Maung Aye and Shwe Mann are likely to be the deputies under Than Shwe.

If Than Shwe decided to take the presidential office, he has to resign
from his military position. The president will have the power to shape the
new government. Most of the new cabinet members seem to be chosen
primarily from the USDP MPs who also were once high-ranking military
officers with the junta.

The over 1,000 representatives-elect and 388 appointed military
representatives are preparing for the first parliament session on 31
January. All representatives have been cautiously instructed about dos and
don’ts in the parliamentary compound including which costume they have to
wear, and which kind of things they are allowed not allowed to bring.

The Members of Parliament will not be allowed to carry mobile phones,
recorders and laptop computers into the Parliament, as said by Dr. Myat
Nyar Na Soe, a representative-elect from the National Democratic Force
(NDF) party.

An invitation letter delivered to the representatives-elect calls on
Members of Parliament to inform to the security tight office of the
parliament in capital Naypyidaw by 27 January.

Although Burma seems to be under a parliamentary system, the prospect is
still gloomy. Still Burma lacks enough political power and determination
to free people from the yoke of military dictatorship, as all the recently
elected members of parliament are string-puppets of the military.

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

January 19, Burma Forum on the Universal Periodic Review (BF-UPR)
Burma’s grave human rights situation stands before the UN’s Review

Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Burma (AAPP-B), Arakan
Rivers Network (ARN), Burma Fund UN Office, Burma Lawyers’ Council (BLC),
Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO), Emergency Act Team vs Backpack
Health Worker Team, Federation of Trade Unions of Burma (FTUB), Foundation
for Education and Development (FED), Human Rights Education Institute of
Burma (HREIB), Human Rights Foundation of Mon Land (HURFOM), Kachin
Women’s Organization Thailand (KWAT), Kaladan Press Bangladesh, Shwe Gas
Movement, Women and Child Rights Project (WCRP)

Geneva/Chiang Mai – Representatives from the Burma Forum on the Universal
Periodic Review (BF-UPR), a coalition of fourteen human rights and civil
society organizations, are currently in Geneva to raise concerns over the
grave human rights situation in Burma ahead of the country’s first
Universal Periodic Review on 27 January. The Review comes at a time when
Burma is under the international spotlight, due to the recent release of
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the controversial November elections which were
neither free nor fair, and the forthcoming first session of the new
Parliament on 31 January.

The Universal Periodic Review - a process under the auspices of the UN
Human Rights Council which involves a review of the human rights records
of all 192 UN member States once every four years – shall provide a unique
opportunity for the international community to put pressure on the
military regime to take concrete and genuine steps to implement
legislative and institutional reforms and fully cooperate with the
international human rights mechanisms. The BF-UPR held a series of
consultations throughout 2010, and made a joint submission to the process
last July in order to highlight the widespread and systematic human rights
violations in the country, some of which constitute war crimes and crimes
against humanity. The joint submission covered thirteen priority areas,
and made practical recommendations for member and observer States of the
UN Human Rights Council to put to Burma at the UPR Working Group session
in Geneva.

The BF-UPR strongly advocates for an UN-led Commission of Inquiry into
international crimes, as recommended by the UN Special Rapporteur on the
human rights situation in Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, in his reports to
the UN Human Rights Council and the General Assembly. BF-UPR delegate Dr.
Thaung Htun said, “repeated UN calls for independent investigations into
alleged gross human rights violations have been met with absolute
incompliance by the ruling authorities in Burma. It is the responsibility
of the international community to establish an UN-led Commission of
Inquiry to expose the truth and ensure measures of accountability for war
crimes and crimes against humanity. We believe this is the most legitimate
and effective way to address the culture of impunity and deter serious
human rights violations from occurring in the country.”
The BF-UPR will hold a public event immediately after the UPR Working
Group session on Burma, from 1-3pm on 27 January in Room 22 at the Palais
des Nations, Geneva. Burmese human rights defenders in the country and
exile will observe the Review session on Burma over the UN live webcast
and will join the panel discussion through teleconference to provide their
reflections on the Review. The event is open to local and international
media, members of diplomatic communities and civil society.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For media interviews, please contact:
Geneva: Thaung Htun, Director, Burma Fund UN Office, +41 (0)76 2225692
Bo Kyi, Joint-Secretary, Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Burma, +41 (0)76 2199557
Za Uk Ling, Program Director, Chin Human Rights Organization, +41 (0)76
7153298
Thailand: Aung Myo Min, Director, Human Rights Education Institute of
Burma, +66 (0)81 9925293

For general inquries, please contact:
Geneva: Giyoun Kim, UN Advocacy Programme Manager, FORUM-ASIA, +41 (0)79
5957931
Thailand: Cheery Zahau, Programme Coordinator, Human Rights Education
Institute of Burma, +66 (0)84 9213423