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1.10.2008

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Myanmar should take ‘bold steps’ to address national crisis – UN envoy

UN News Centre
18 December 2007
The Secretary-General’s Special Adviser for Myanmar has urged authorities in the South-East Asian country to take bold action to press ahead with an all-inclusive national reconciliation process.

Speaking to reporters in New York after briefing the General Assembly, Ibrahim Gambari emphasized that it is very important for Myanmar not to go backwards or stay still but to move forward and take “very bold steps” to address the concerns of the international community.

Mr. Gambari, who has visited Myanmar twice since the Government used force to crack down on peaceful protesters just a few months ago, stressed that the goal is an all-inclusive reconciliation process, as well as “a stable, prosperous, democratic Myanmar with full respect for the human rights of its people.”

As for specific steps the authorities should take, he cited the need for a time-bound and substantive dialogue between the Government and detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Once again calling for Ms. Suu Kyi’s release, he added that she should be allowed to meet with members of her party’s executive committee.

It is also necessary for the constitutional drafting process to be opened up so that those who are excluded from, or decided not to participate in, the current process can do so before the constitution is finally drafted, Mr. Gambari stated.

In addition, he urged the authorities to address the underlying socio-economic grievances of the people of Myanmar, adding that that was why the UN had proposed the establishment of a broad-based poverty alleviation commission to look into the root causes of discontent and address them.

The Special Adviser once again stressed that all detainees should be released since “it would be counter-productive not to release them or to arrest new people because the process of national reconciliation in an all-inclusive manner will not be served.”

He said he had been informed that some detainees had been released, including some monks, as recently as yesterday.

While a date for Mr. Gambari’s return to Myanmar is still being decided, he said he expected to be back in the country by next month.

Just last week, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Myanmar’s authorities to step up their efforts towards democratization and the full respect of human rights, noting that the international community’s patience with the troubled nation is wearing thin.

UN envoy’s return to Myanmar could spur further progress, says Security Council

UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari

17 January 2008
Disappointed with the slow pace of change in Myanmar, the Security Council today said an early return to the country by United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari could help promote progress towards democratization and national reconciliation.

Mr. Gambari, who has a standing invitation to return to Myanmar, had requested to go there this month. However, the Government has said it prefers he visit in mid-April.

In a statement read out to the press by Ambassador Giadalla Ettalhi of Libya, which holds the rotating presidency for January, the 15-member body “regretted the slow rate of progress so far” towards meeting the objectives laid out in a presidential statement issued by the Council last October.

They include steps by the Government for a “genuine dialogue” with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and all concerned to achieve an inclusive national reconciliation process, and the release of all political prisoners and remaining detainees.

“Council members underscored the importance of further progress, noting that an early visit to Myanmar by Mr. Gambari could help facilitate this,” the statement added.

Speaking to reporters following the Council’s discussions, Mr. Gambari said that while the date of his return is still under discussion, “in view of [the] many issues left on the table, the earlier a visit occurs the better.”

He said the Myanmar authorities need to move toward tangible progress on the constitution, freedom for all political prisoners, and addressing the root causes of discontent among the population.

Mr. Gambari, who has visited Myanmar twice since the Government used force to crack down on peaceful protesters in the summer of 2007, intends to visit India and China later this month.

He noted that while countries in the region have placed on record their support for the good offices role of the Secretary-General on the issue of Myanmar, “there is still more that everybody can do.”

All those who have a role to play, both inside the country and outside, should be given the chance to do so in the interest of moving toward “a peaceful, prosperous but democratic Myanmar with full respect for the human rights of its people,” he stated.

News Tracker: past stories on this issue

Myanmar should take ‘bold steps’ to address national crisis – UN envoy

Video

Audio

Explosion on Myanmar Bus Kills 1

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — An explosion on a bus in Myanmar killed the driver on Wednesday, a government official said. Three bombings in different parts of Myanmar since Friday have killed two people and injured five.

The official said the explosion occurred about 65 miles north of Yangon in Pyinbonegyi. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information to the media.
Terrorism is rare but not unknown in Myanmar, which has been under military rule almost continuously since 1962.

The official said the device exploded when the bus was stopped to allow passengers to eat at a roadside shop, and the driver stayed on board. The bus was traveling to Yangon from Kyaukyi, a town about 105 miles to the north.

No one has claimed responsibility. But state media linked at least one of the bombings in the past week to ethnic Karen rebels, and the bus that was hit by an explosion Wednesday originated in an ethnic Karen area.

The ruling junta blamed the recent bombings on an unspecified foreign organization and called on the public to report any sightings of terrorists, a state-run newspaper said Monday.

“Information has been received that a foreign organization has sent terrorist saboteurs with explosives across the border to perpetrate destructive acts inside the country,” the Myanma Ahlin newspaper said.

Call for Burma holiday boycott

The Press Association, January 16, 2008

British union leaders have called for a tourism boycott of Burma because of the country’s record on human rights and employment of children.

The TUC said tourism was generating significant revenue which was helping to sustain the “brutal” military regime in Burma.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “Trade unions have been at the forefront of campaigns for longer holidays, but Burmese unions have asked us not to take those holidays in Burma.

နအဖ စြမ္းရည္ (13)ရပ္

TIME FOR SERIOUS DIALOGUE (Burmese Version)

In English Version : Time for serious Dialogue

SAFFRON DIARY MAP

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U AUNG SHWE SPEECH in INDEPENDENT DAY – JAN 4 08

Myanmar Cracks Down on Ethnic Minorities

In this April 28, 2006 photo released by Free Burma Ranger, a Karen villager sifts through the remains of a burned out village of Taw Ko Toe Baw of Muthraw district in Karen state, Myanmar. Myanmar’s army has moved reinforcements into ethnic minority areas for the probable renewal of an offensive whose past human rights violations were far greater than those against urban protesters, aid and rebel groups say. (AP Photo/Free Burma Ranger

By DENIS D. GRAY
Associated Press Writer

MAE SARIANG, Thailand Myanmar’s army has moved reinforcements into ethnic minority areas for the probable renewal of an offensive whose past human rights violations have been far greater than those against urban protesters that riveted world attention last fall, aid and rebel groups say.
The groups provide continuing reports of killings of civilians, rapes, forced labor, burning of crops and mass relocations as Myanmar troops attempt to wipe out die-hard guerrillas of the Karen National Union and other ethnic rebel forces.
While urban tensions may have eased since the crackdown on September’s pro-democracy demonstrations in Yangon, “nothing has changed” regarding the conflict in the east of the country also known as Burma, says Htoo Kli, who helps Karen refugees along the Thai-Myanmar border.
The Thailand Burma Border Consortium, the key aid agency along the frontier for more than two decades, says that in 2007 another 76,000 Karen were forced to flee their homes and at least 167 villages were destroyed.
Corroborated by high-resolution commercial satellite imagery, more the 3,000 villages have been laid waste to by the army in recent years while those displaced in eastern Myanmar number at least half a million, the agency says.
“People around the world were horrified when they saw soldiers beating some people in Yangon, but far worse happens in the countryside every day, hidden from the world,” said the consortium’s Executive Director, Jack Dunford.
The Karen say they are bracing for another onslaught early in the year, noting that supplies are now being sent to front-line government bases along roads being repaired after the monsoon rains.

The Free Burma Rangers, a private aid group, report from inside the country that at least 10 divisions, up to 15,000 troops, are positioned in northern Karen State and southern Karenni State – up from nine divisions at the height of operations over the past year. Large numbers of troops are deployed across other areas of eastern Myanmar.
Dry season offensives have taken place almost every year since 1984, when the Karen and other groups began to lose control over large swaths of territory.
Despite a remarkable tenacity – the Karen have been fighting for autonomy from the central government since 1949 – their forces have withered in recent years.
They are lacking weapons and are down to no more than 5,000 fighters, according to KNU spokesman David Thaw, and they face a Chinese-equipped military of some 400,000. “When you talk about the KNU and the Burmese army there is a big gap.
The Burma Army occupies more and more, and the KNU have less and less,” acknowledged Htoo Kli, head of Karen Office of Relief and Development, who fled Myanmar in 1984. Dunford said that the army starts off better positioned at the onset of each dry season, and that “endgame for the ethnics” is approaching. “After the next five years I can’t imagine anything will be left,” he said. The Free Burma Rangers, who include foreign and ethnic-minority staffers helping those who have fled their homes, say the coming push probably won’t yet attempt a knockout blow. It rather will focus on building more roads, improving military camps and keeping the guerrillas off-balance as the government attempts to better secure the area’s timber, minerals, potential hydropower and land for plantations. The military junta has repeatedly denied attacking civilians or committing atrocities, saying it is only hunting down terrorists trying to destabilize the country.
Although often called a “hidden war,” and indeed out of range of most international media, a sizable body of documentation by human rights groups, the United Nations and others has been compiled. But activists say it has elicited minimal international response.
Dunford said the conflict lacks the drama of thousands of protesters confronting the military on the streets of Yangon, and people on the outside identify with the urban protesters, not the ethnic groups in their remote jungle huts. “There is a total disconnect,” he said.