Top Burmese diplomat seeks political asylum in US

(Mizzima) A high-level Burmese career diplomat in the United States, Kyaw Win, the deputy chief of mission, on Monday defected to seek political asylum in the United States, according to Radio Free Asia (RFA).

“Despite the general elections in Burma, the army still controls and influences the country, and there is no sign of democratic changes under the existing government,” Kyaw Win said in an interview conducted by RFA Burmese.

“I do not trust the Burmese government,” Kyaw Win, 59, who served has served in Foreign Department since 1980. He worked had worked at the Burmese Embassy in Washington since March 2008.

“I supported the US sanctions against Burmese military leaders and their cronies and the sanctions can be fruitful. The US should push to form an international commission of inquiry to investigate the human rights violations in Burma,” Kyaw Win told RFA. On the other hand, he also said he supported the new US policy of forging closer contacts with the Burmese government.

Kyaw Win has served at Burmese embassies in Spain, Switzerland, India and Brazil. In 2005, another Burmese diplomat, Aung Lin Htut, sought political asylum in the US.

Civil society groups protest Asean government appointments

Asean governments have apparently taken control of civil society group nominations and agenda-setting for the May 7 interface dialogue between civil society groups and Asean leaders in Jakarta, the Bangkok Post reports.

Debbie Stothard, the coordinator of the Alternative Asean Network for Burma, says Asean wants to control the selection of civil society representatives who attend the official conference in Jakarta. Photo: You Tube video shot

Under the Asean charter’s principle of ‘a people-centered Asean’, civil society groups and representatives are encouraged to participate in the process of Asean integration and community-building, but the governments of Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines and Burma have all hand-picked civil society delegates who they favor, according to the Post.

More than 1,000 members of regional Asean civil society met on Tuesday and Wednesday to exchange ideas on a variety of important issues at the Jakarta 2011 Asean Civil Society Conference (ACSC) and the Asean People’s Forum (APF) and will present collective recommendations to Asean leaders on May 7.

As a result of the Asean selection process, some NGO representatives have threatened to boycott the interface dialogue meeting.

 Full story: Welcome to the Mizzima News

Burma Internet Freedom Status Report By Freedomhouse

Burma Report by Freedom House

Burma Sanctions Debated After Change in Government (VOA)

Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (R) presents an Unknown Hero Award to a relative of Than Naing Oo, who is currently in prison, at National league for Democracy (NLD) head office in Yangon, April 17, 2011 (Photo: Reuters)

The European Union has announced it is suspending some sanctions against Burma, now that a nominally civilian government has replaced the military one. The move follows calls for western governments to remove the economic and political punishments, altogether, and reports that top military leader Than Shwe has retired. But Burma's main opposition, led by democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, says sanctions should remain until human rights improve. Analysts say a combination of targeted sanctions and diplomacy may be the best way to engage Burma.

Reversal of measures

The European Union's suspension of sanctions against Burma, although temporary, is the first reversal of punitive measures put in place by western governments for the military's abuses.

The EU has issued a one-year suspension of its visa and asset freeze for civilian leaders and the foreign minister. A ban on high-level EU visits to Burma has also been lifted.

The relaxing of sanctions follows the replacement of the military government, last month, by Burma’s first civilian government in decades, although it remains dominated by former military officers.

Need for suspension
David Lipman, EU ambassador to Burma, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, says the suspension of sanctions is needed to pave the way for possible ministerial-level talks with the new government and key opposition figures in Burma, also known as Myanmar.

"We want to engage," he said. "We want to engage at a high level with the government and with all other democratic stakeholders in Myanmar. And, that is why we’re suspending [sanctions]. It is our intention to have, to develop a high-level dialogue with, as I say, the new institutions and with opposition figures, across the spectrum."

Lipman says Burma’s former and current military leaders, including President Thein Sein, are still subject to the visa ban and asset freeze.

The November election was condemned, internationally, as a sham designed to mask the military's continued rule.  Allegations of cheating and intimidation were widespread.

Even before votes were counted, the military-drafted constitution guaranteed the military a quarter of all seats in parliament. And, the leader of Burma's main opposition National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, was banned from running for office.

Government change and military
The NLD boycotted the polls. It won Burma's previous election, in 1990, but the military refused to give up power and put Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for most of the past two decades. She was released just days after the latest election.

Former Burmese President Thein Sein, center, former Vice Presidents Thiha Thura Tin Aung Myint Oo, left, and Sai Mauk Khan Maung Ohn pose for photos at the presidential house in Naypyitaw, Burma (File Photo - March 31, 2011)

After the new government was sworn in, Burma’s senior general, Than Shwe, is reported to have given up his position and stepped down from power. But analysts say the military is still in control.

Carl Thayer, a professor of Southeast Asia politics at Australia's University of New South Wales, says Than Shwe is still pulling strings, behind the curtain.

"I see him playing a role like his predecessor, Ne Win," said Thayer. "That is, for the next several years, his role will be that of 'king maker' behind the scenes. It's clear, although he shed his senior general title, that he's continuing to meet with top military and civilian officials and has influenced promotions up until quite recently. So, he still has power, for the moment, but his age is a factor ticking against him."

Political prisoners
Burma still has more than 2,000 political prisoners and rights groups say military abuses include forced labor, torture, rape and extrajudicial killings.

In February, the NLD called for dialogue on the sanctions issue, but said it wants them to stay in place until human rights improve.

The United States appointed a Burma envoy, last week, to increase dialogue with the new government, but says it is premature to lift sanctions.

Supporters of sanctions say economic and political punishments are the only way to pressure Burma's military to allow democracy.

Maung Zarni, a Burma researcher at the London School of Economics, says some countries are focusing on strategic and commercial interests,  while brushing over why sanctions are there in the first place.

"Sanctions have been put in place for good reason, in terms of the regime's human rights behavior," said Maung Zarni. "And, that behavior has not changed at all."

History of Burma sanctions
Western governments first imposed sanctions against Burma after a bloody crackdown in 1988 against pro-democracy demonstrators.

Australia and the United States blocked weapon sales and visas for Burma’s leaders and the U.S. froze some of their assets.

Further sanctions followed widespread arrests of activists and the government's refusal to acknowledge results of the 1990 election.

In 2003, the United States banned all trade with Burma.

Another military crackdown against democracy protesters in 2007 led to more and tighter sanctions.
Canada and the EU stopped all trade, except humanitarian goods.

ReutersThai police escort a group of Burma refugees crossing to Myawaddi town at the Thai-Burma border town of Mae Sot (File Photo)

Despite its history of abuse, Burma’s neighbors in Southeast Asia have long argued for engagement and that economic sanctions are more harmful to ordinary people than the military.

Some think tanks, like the International Crisis Group, have for years been echoing those sentiments.

Jim Della-Giacoma, the Southeast Asia project director for the ICG, says the sanctions are too broad brush and restrict international aid and development organizations in Burma. He says, if blocks on trade, finance, and investment are removed, it would have a positive effect on Burma.

"Positive in both giving the citizens of Myanmar access to these programs and these developments and these benefits, but also I think it would lead to a change in the political tone that would allow western governments, who are imposing these sanctions, to have a more principled engagement with the new government in Myanmar," said Della-Giacoma.
However, Della-Giacoma says sanctions targeted at specific military leaders in Burma should be decided separately by individual governments.

A review ahead
At the end of the year, the EU is to review Burma's progress in democracy and human rights and decide if it will continue the limited suspension of sanctions.

Thayer says sanctions should continue to be used as an incentive for change in Burma, but they should also be targeted at the military leaders and constantly under review to ensure the impact on ordinary people is minimal.

"So, instead of closing the door, sanctions should remain in place, but always with the possibility of them being lifted or redirected in response to developments inside that country," he said.
Thayer and some other analysts argue the changes in government will allow younger and newer players to jockey for power, which could eventually bring about gradual democratic reforms.

He says elements of the military are challenging the old order and the object of diplomacy must be to listen for those differences and try to lend support to those who are pushing for change.

Rights Groups Caution About Repatriation of Burmese Refugees

...Rights Groups Caution About Repatriation of Burmese Refugees...

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees and human rights groups have raised concerns about reports that Thailand is planning to repatriate more than 100,000 Burmese refugees living in camps in Thailand. Rights groups say conflict and human rights abuses are still going on in Burma, in a region littered by land mines from decades of fighting.

Photo: Reuters

Thai police escort a group of Myanmar refugees crossing to Myawaddi town at the Thai-Myanmar border town of Mae Sot (File Photo)

The UNHCR has greeted with caution reports Thailand plans to repatriate Burmese refugees living in camps along its western border-with Burma.

Rumors of plans to repatriate the refugees follow a meeting between Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his national security chief. The issue was also raised during informal talks between Thai Foreign Kasit Piromya and Burmese counterpart Wunna Muang Lwin.

But Kitty McKinsey, a senior regional spokesperson for the UNHCR, says eventual repatriation of Burmese refugees should happen only when conditions of safety are met.

"This is a very long term process and I note that even the Thai government official did not put any date, any time line, any deadline," said McKinsey. "So closing refugee camps is an aim that we share. We’ve never said that these people should live in Thailand forever and ever. Nobody wants to be a refugee for their whole life."

McKinsey says the return of refugees should involve international monitoring and ensure that land mines are cleared and those returning do so voluntarily.

There are around 140,000 Burmese refugees, mostly ethnic Karen, in nine camps. They fled internal conflict after decades of fighting with the central government. Some people have lived in the camps for 20 years.

Thai government officials have held talks with Burma’s new government on closing the camps.

But rights groups say conditions inside Burma remain unsafe.

Jack Dunford, executive director of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, an aid organization which provides for refugees’ care, says fighting is on-going inside Burma and those returning face possible rights abuses.

"We all hope that the refugees can go home in the future," said Dunfold. "We all want to see the camps closed.  But the evidence suggests that actually the situation in eastern Burma has not improved;  that conflict and human rights abuses continue creating more refugees at the present time rather than the situation where the refugees can go home."

Debbie Stothardt, spokeswoman for human rights group the Alternative ASEAN Network, says the Association of South East Asian Nations - of which Burma is a member - has obligations under international law to avoid possible abuses of human rights.

"The reality is that these people are being pushed back into situations where they will be subjected to more war crimes and crimes against humanity," she said."And, the international community, Especially ASEAN countries, need to understand their international obligations under international law. They are using the elections in Burma as an excuse to push back people into harm’s way is simply unjustified."           

Rights groups say the Thai government is also coming under pressure from some international donors, who say Burma’s newly elected government marks a change in the political conditions inside Burma. But the rights groups say, despite Burma’s elected parliament, the country’s military remains the dominant power and is directing policy from behind the scenes.

Will the Internet help trigger the next uprising in Burma?

...Will the Internet help trigger the next uprising in Burma?...

As the Internet and social media spread news of civil unrest and demonstrations in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and Libya, the military junta in Burma is afraid that the young generation here will follow suit. All news is suppressed and–as the best indicator of the junta’s concerns–Internet speed is down to a trickle.

But can the Internet-driven revolution in the Middle East really be replicated in Burma? If we take a close look at the situation in Burma, and look at its rather unique characteristics and backwardness, we see that there is little chance of the Internet playing a significant role in stirring up anti-government protests. If there is to be radical change, other factors will have to come into play.

Let’s look at the Internet and communications in Burma. Internet access is largely confined to the two major cities, Rangoon and Mandalay. Most of the Internet usage takes place in Internet cafes, which under government regulation have had to install URL-tracking software and CCTV cameras to keep customers under close surveillance. It goes almost without saying that all Internet outlets prohibit access to banned and blocked sites.

The number of Internet users reflects Burma’s depressing reality. In 2010, only 110,000 users or 0.2 percent of a population of 55 million Burmese used the Internet, whereas in China 30 percent of the population uses the Internet regularly. Even taking the most optimistic claim that there are a total of 500,000 users in the country shows the dire picture. And using the Internet as an information source is very limited. All sites and pages critical of the regime are banned and blocked, including the seemingly innocent pages of the Financial Times and the Bangkok Post, and, most importantly, Twitter and YouTube. Facebook can be viewed but being able to send messages from one’s Facebook account is like winning the lottery–mostly the sent messages do not get sent.

Internet Usage and Population Statistics:

YEAR	Users	Population	% Pen.	GDP p.c.*	Usage Source
2000	1,000	54,021,571	0.002 %	US$ N/A	ITU.
2008	40,000	47,758,181	0.1 %	US$ 479	ITU.
2009	108,900	48,137,741	0.2 %	US$ 459	ITU.
2010	110,000	53,414,374	0.2 %	US$ 469	ITU.

Note: Per Capita GDP in US dollars, source: International Monetary Fund.

Source: Internet World Stats, June 2010

Although young Internet users know how to access banned sites, government surveillance is frightening, the painstakingly slow Internet speed discouraging, and the frequent power blackouts very frustrating. Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who recently had installed what is advertised as a ‘high-speed’ broadband Internet connection talked of the need ‘… to increase the Megabytes’.

Glass-fiber cables are being installed in Rangoon but the advertised capacity of 30 Mbps has never been experienced. The installation fee of US$ 990 and monthly charges of US$ 35-110 for one line are clearly outside the reach of ordinary citizens who live of an average income of about US$ 30 a month.

Other communication devices also illustrate the backwardness of Burma’s infrastructure. All around the world mobile phones are an essential part of daily life. Not so in Burma. The most favorable statistics estimate the mobile phone penetration at 3.7 percent of the total population, which equals 2 million phone users. This by any standard is ridiculously low. Mobile phones are prohibitively expensive and do not allow access to e-mail or the Internet. The few government controlled operators do not support international roaming and even the international SMS service is blocked. The market price of a GSM SIM card came down recently. A GSM SIM card without a handset is now US$ 1,400-1,600 on the black market. The official price for a SIM card is about US$ 170 but nobody is willing to sell at that price. A new scheme has been announced in which pre-paid CDMA SIM cards will sell for US$ 600. But let’s see what the market price will be.

Even fixed-line phones are an unaffordable luxury. Only a small number of households have a phone line. The monthly rent for an average apartment in Rangoon is about 50 percent higher if it comes with a phone line compared to an apartment without an installed phone. The latest official data talk of 1 percent penetration.

The government does everything it can to keep its population in the dark by restricting what is shown on TV and in the press. As more than 80 percent of Burma’s GNP is generated in the agricultural sector and most of the population lives in villages and agricultural areas, no sources of information are available other than the government approved TV and press. Of course, the national press and the government TV do not report anything about the protests and uprisings in the Middle East. Fortunately, in the major cities and hotels across the country satellite TV is available although it is not officially allowed. The subscription costs are about US$ 400 a year.

Given these depressing statistics, the Burmese government does not have to be afraid of an uprising triggered by the Internet and social media.

Given the unlikelihood of an Internet-sparked uprising, what will it take to bring Burmese onto the streets as seen in 1988 or the monk-led “Saffron Revolution” of 2007?

It is dangerous to make comparisons with the Middle East. The major differences between the Arab countries and Burma make it very hard to imagine another uprising in Burma in the near future. Although the share of young and unemployed is higher in Burma than in the Middle East, the culture and education could hardly be more different. Western and Islamic nations have grown up in the Christian or Islamic tradition of violent conflict solution over the last 1,000 to 2,000 years. In contrast, 90 percent of the Burmese population is Buddhist, a culture that at heart is more peace-loving and less violent.

Many of the leaders of the Middle East protests have been educated at schools and universities in Britain, France or the United States, whereas only a handful of Burmese students have studied abroad and even fewer are willing to return home after finishing their education. The formal school education in Burma has gone downhill since the private and missionary schools were nationalized in 1965. The quality of school and university education is catastrophic and has resulted in generations of poorly educated students without any political mindset.

Most importantly, the violent military crackdowns of the earlier uprisings in 1988 and 2007 have left the Burmese population in fear. Many Burmese were afraid to listen to Aung San Suu Kyi’s first speech after her recent release from house arrest. They were afraid of being filmed by secret police, identified and later arrested at home at night as happened in the weeks after the 2007 demonstrations. Many young people refrain from any open defiance of the regime as their arrests could be followed by the arrests of ‘complicit’ family members. And the 2,200 political activists who still linger in prison are a constant remainder of the brutality of the regime.

Many Burma experts claim that cracks, discontent and envy among the military ranks might topple the ruling junta. But as past experience in Burma shows, a new military dictator is more likely to follow a military coup than a democratic revolution. The military has established a parallel society and economy with its own schools, universities, hospitals and living quarters. The military officers feel they are an elite class who are the only ones who can prevent the Union of Myanmar from disintegrating. They feel superior and look down on the people as lower class citizens.

The Burmese have learned after the mass demonstrations in 1988 that it is very hard to get rid of an old dictator, Ne Win, without inviting in a new one, General Than Shwe. This still echoes in a common Burmese saying: ‘Be careful when you kick out the old ruler, the new one might be worse’. This is certainly true for Burma. Will this be true for Tunisia, Egypt or Libya?

There is hope that the people in the Middle East will ultimately replace their authoritarian regimes. But in Burma, it is hard to look to the ‘new world’ of Facebook and Twitter to inspire a new uprising. If there is a spark, it may be more grounded. After all, it was a dramatic rise in petrol and food prices that sparked the revolt in 2007.


Mandalar Maung is a pseudonym for a foreign resident in Rangoon.