BurmaNet News, November 25, 2008

[Editor]

November 25, 2008, Issue #3606


INSIDE BURMA
DVB: Bilin monks boycott government officials
Mizzima: More 88 students face trial
Mizzima: Monks on the run
Kaladan: Forced labor for growing winter crops in Maungdaw

BUSINESS / TRADE
AP: Myanmar suffers steep drop in foreign tourists
Energy Bangla: Bangladesh plans dispatching team to talk with Myanmar

HEALTH / AIDS
DPA: Myanmar faces 24,000 AIDS deaths for lack of antiretroviral drugs

DRUGS
SHAN: Rebels welcome planned Thai-run drug free project

REGIONAL
Press Trust of India: India, Burma to cooperate in combating insurgency
New Kerala (India): India to repatriate 321 fishermen to Myanmar

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: Plight of abused Burmese women highlighted on International Day

OPINION / OTHER
Wall Street Journal: 45 years for a joke – Editorial
Guardian (UK): Aung San Suu Kyi's disengagement is not her choice - Thaung
Htun
Irrawaddy: Tibetan exiles’ meeting produces comparisons with Burma - Wai Moe

INTERVIEW
IMNA: Interview with Mi Sar Dar, sole woman member of the NMSP Central
Committee - Rai Maraoh

PRESS RELEASE
Karen Human Rights Group: Residents of eastern Burma actively engaged in
peaceful resistance



____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

November 25, Democratic Voice of Burma
Bilin monks boycott government officials - Naw Say Phaw

Monks in Bilin township, Mon state, decided during a recent meeting to
launch a boycott against government officials and supporters by refusing
alms from them and not performing religious rites in their homes.

The monks, who are led by the abbots of Kyauktalone-taung, Three Pagodas
and Kaylatha-taung monasteries, could not be reached for comment.

But Aye Myint, a lawyer from Bago and leader of the Guiding Star legal aid
group, recently visited the area and heard about the boycott.

Aye Myint said he had found out about the protest when his relatives had
asked the monks to perform a religious rite at their home.

"It was only when they told the abbots that they were from the authorities
that the monks agreed to come to the house," Aye Myint said.

"They also spoke to me because they found out that I was Aye Myint of
Guiding Star,” he said.

“They are boycotting the officials because they are still feeling
aggrieved by the arrests and imprisonment of monks."

U Thuriya, the abbot of Kinywa monastery, told Aye Myint that the monks
had decided not to perform religious rites at the homes of ward, village
or township chairs, civil servants or members of the Union Solidarity and
Development Association.

The abbot said the decision had been taken in protest at the public
humiliation of monks during last year’s Saffron Revolution and at the
recent sentencing of monks.
____________________________________

November 25, Mizzima
More 88 students face trial

A further thirteen members of the 88 Generation Students were today put on
trial in Insein prison in Rangoon.

This last batch of activists will again be produced in court tomorrow,
prison authorities told family members of the detainees.

Thus far, 23 of their colleagues and leaders of the 88 Generation Students
movement have been sentenced to 65 years imprisonment in previous closed
door trials.

____________________________________

November 25, Mizzima
Monks on the run

Due to intelligence units hunting for them, some activist monks who were
involved in last August's Metta Sutra reciting protest in Sittwe have gone
into hiding, according to opposition sources.

"More monks residing in Sittwe are feeling unsafe, with some already going
on the run, while others have disappeared with no clue as to their present
whereabouts," said an activist.

Sittwe, the capital of Arakan, or Rakhine, state in western Burma, is a
hot place for protests, with monks on several occasions having marched
through the streets demanding dialogue for national reconciliation.

A few monks have left the country altogether, fleeing to neighboring
Bangladesh.

____________________________________

November 25, Kaladan
Forced labor for growing winter crops in Maungdaw

The Township Peace and Development Council (TPDC) members are using forced
labor of villagers in Maungdaw Township for growing onion, garlic and sun
flower since last week.

The villagers of Maung Nama village, Ye Twin Pyin, Gyikan Pyin, Nwah Yon
Daung, Phur Wut Chaung,  Bagona Nah,  and  Ngan  Chaung  villages have to
provide labor to the TPDC members twice a week to till the land to grow
winter crops.

In every village, the villagers have to grow one acre of onion, one acre
of garlic and two acres of sun flower, on a total four acres. Twice a
week, a villager has to give a pair of draught cattle to plough the
vegetable fields along with the people.

The farm lands are along the Maungdaw-Bawli Bazar Road that were
confiscated from Rohingya farmers for Natala villagers earlier. Now, the
TPDC members are willing to grow winter crops for their own profit.

At present, the arable farm for growing winter crops of Rohingya villagers
are mostly confiscated by the authorities to grow pulse, onion, garlic,
sun flower, physic nut ,rubber  for the army camp and Natala (Model)
villagers. If any one of the villagers wishes to grow winter crop, she/ he
has to borrow farm lands from Natala villager by paying money.

To grow the TPDC's project crops, they will provide seeds, but villagers
must nurture the seeds and nourish the plants with fertilizer with their
(villagers') labor.

Besides, State Peace and Development Council's (SPDC) authority,
especially agriculture department is forcing villagers to grow sun
flowers, pulse and potato in Maungdaw and Buthidaung Townships since the
beginning of this month. So, Villagers have to grow crops for agriculture
department once and then for TPDC authorities. As a result, they will have
no time to work for their family members.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

November 25, Associated Press
Myanmar suffers steep drop in foreign tourists

A Myanmar news journal says foreign tourist numbers are down by half at
one of the country's most revered Buddhist sites after the country was hit
by a devastating cyclone in May that killed more than 84,000 people.

The Weekly Eleven news journal says foreign tourists visiting the famed
Shwedagon pagoda fell to 25,380 during May through November compared with
53,841 in the same period last year.

The tourism sector across the impoverished country has been hit hard
following Cyclone Nargis in May. The storm killed 84,537, left another
53,836 people missing, and caused a vast trail of destruction across the
Irrawaddy delta.

The military has held authoritarian power in the Southeast Asian nation
since 1962.

____________________________________

November 25, Energy Bangla
Bangladesh plans dispatching team to talk with Myanmar

The state-owned Petrobangla is working towards establishment of friendly
working relations with their Myanmar counterpart, Myanmar Oil and Gas, to
augment bilateral understanding, officials said.

It will soon seek the energy ministry's consent for sending a delegation
for talks with the Myanmar Oil and Gas as part of its initiative to
establish mutual understanding between the two state-run bodies of the two
countries.

This initiative from Petrobangla is a follow-up to the visit of a Myanmar
delegation last week, when both Dhaka and Yangon agreed to continue talks
until resolving the bilateral dispute over demarcation of the maritime
boundary in the Bay of Bengal.

"We will send a proposal to the energy ministry within a day or two
seeking approval for sending a delegation for discussion with the Myanmar
counterparts," Petrobangla Chairman Jalal Ahmed told.

He said the Petrobangla delegation is expected to visit Myanmar in
December next if the energy ministry permits.

Dhaka and Yangon were locked in a duel early this month to establish their
respective rights to exploration of oil and gas in the prospective Bay of
Bengal.

The tensions between the two neighbors began to rise at the beginning of
November when Myanmar started exploring oil and gas in one of its disputed
offshore blocks, AD-7, in the bay that overlaps Bangladesh’s offshore
block DS-08-13.

After a week of standoff, the tension eased following intervention of
China and South Korea.

Pointing to the Petrobangla delegation's visit to Myanmar, a senior
official said both the sides might sign a memorandum of understanding
(MoU) to ensure future cooperation in the energy sector, if mutually
agreed.

Petrobangla earlier signed MoUs with Thailand’s state-run PTT Exploration
and Production Company and a consortium of Korean energy companies to
enhance cooperation.

Myanmar and Bangladesh sharing around 320 kilometers of bordering areas
are among the many impoverished countries around the globe.

According to an independent survey, Myanmar has encroached on half a dozen
of Bangladesh’s offshore gas blocks in the Bay.

After intruding into Bangladesh’s offshore blocks, the Southeast Asian
country already leased out those to Chinese, Indian and South Korean
companies for exploration in last several years.

The companies that were awarded the disputed offshore blocks in the Bay
include the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Indian Oil and
Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC) and South Korean Daewoo International.

The Chinese CNPC was awarded by Myanmar the block AD-8 that overlaps
Bangladesh’s deep-sea offshore blocks - DS-08-18 and part of DS-08-17 and
DS-08-13.

The Indian ONGC was awarded Myanmar’s block AD-9 that overlaps the
Bangladeshi offshore gas blocks DS-08-22, DS-08-23, DS-08-27 and DS-08-28.

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

November 25, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Myanmar faces 24,000 AIDS deaths for lack of antiretroviral drugs

An estimated 24,000 people will die of HIV/AIDS in Myanmar next year
unless the international donor community is willing to provide funds for
antiretroviral drugs (ART), a medical group warned Tuesday. "Myanmar has
about 240,000 people with HIV/AIDS, and of them about one-third need
antiretroviral treatment without which they cannot survive," said Frank
Smithius, the head of Medecins Sans Frontier/Holland, which treats
patients with ART in Myanmar.

The groups is providing ART to 11,000 patients while the Myanmar
government, the United Nations and other non-governmental groups are
supplying another 4,000.

"It's not enough, when 75,000 people need ART," said Smithius. "It is
estimated by the UN and Myanmar government that 24,000 people will die if
nothing is done in the next year."

Myanmar, which is run by a military junta that is condemned in the West
for its atrocious human rights record and failure to introduce democratic
reforms, is the second-lowest recipient of overseas development aid
worldwide at 3 dollars per capita.

The Myanmar government spends a estimated 0.3 per cent of its gross
domestic product on health, one of the lowest rates worldwide.

In 2008, it allocated the equivalent of 0.7 cents person on healthcare, of
which about 200,000 dollars was allocated to treatment of HIV/AIDS
patients, an MSF report released Tuesday said.

The health care organization has been operating in Myanmar since 1993. It
said it spends about 300 dollars per patient for ART in Myanmar, or about
3.3 million dollars to treat 11,000 patients.

Smithius said it had no additional funds to treat the remaining 60,000
HIV/AIDS patients and called on the international donor community to
assist in dealing with the pandemic.

An estimated 18 million dollars will be needed to treat the HIV/AIDS
patients currently deprived of antiretroviral treatment.

International donors are often reluctant to send aid to Myanmar for fear
the funds will be diverted to the government, which faces strict economic
sanctions from both the US and Europe.

"If we can guarantee that we have been able to deliver medicines directly
to the patients, then there is no reason to not provide aid to Myanmar,
and at MSF we can make that claim," said Smithius.

He said the group runs 25 HIV/AIDS clinics inside Myanmar and has
government permission to import antiretroviral drugs tax free.

____________________________________
DRUGS

November 25, Shan Herald Agency for News
Rebels welcome planned Thai-run drug free project

A  drug free project led by Thailand  will  be welcomed by the PaO
National Liberation Organization (PNLO) that is active in the Shan State's
PaO-majority deep south, according to the group's spokesman Hkun Hsoi Hto.

"Our only request (to the Burmese Army) is that don't use the project as a
pretext to launch a military offensive in the area," he said.

The project was proposed to the Thai authorities during the April 29-May 1
visit to Bangkok by Burmese junta Prime Minister Thein Sein, according to
the Bangkok Post. In response, Thai drug officials led by Pitaya Jinawat
flew to Burma to inspect Banyen, also written Wanyin, 35 miles south the
state capital Taunggyi, on August 12.

On August 3, nine days before the Thai visit, the uneasy alliance between
the Burmese Army and the rebellious ceasefire group Shan State Peoples
Nationalities Liberation Organization (SNPLO) came to an abrupt end when
the group was surrounded and forcibly disarmed at their main base at
Nawnghtao, some 40 miles further south.

For any crop substitution project to succeed, there are at least two
pre-conditions, according to a Thai narcotics official: Peace and the
local people's dependency on opium for their livelihood.

The actual situation at the ground level is still volatile, according to
reports coming to the border. "We have already fought six times," claimed
Hkun Hsoi Hto, who is in charge of the political department.

The junta-drafted constitution, approved in May, has granted
self-administrative status to three townships in Shan State: Hopong,
Hsihseng and Panglawng, where the PaOs are the dominant ethnic group. "The
status is a sham, because we don't enjoy any real administrative powers,"
Hkun Okker, PaO leader and legal expert told SHAN. "We cannot even appoint
our own head of local government."

The PNLO, formed on November 18, 2007, following the breakaway by a
faction from the SNPLO on June 10, 2007, issued a statement on its first
anniversary, saying it is fighting for the following political objectives:
Anti-military dictatorship, Anti-big nation chauvinism, Democracy,
Federalism, Equality and Right of Self determination.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

November 25, Press Trust of India
India, Burma to cooperate in combating insurgency

Heeding to India's concerns over northeast insurgents taking shelter in
Myanmar [Burma], the military government of the neighbouring country has
promised to cooperate in combating the problem.

India also announced a waiver of the ban on wheat export to Myanmar for
950 tonnes and entered into a long-term arrangement for purchase of pulses
from it.

At the Foreign Office consultations, the two sides discussed ways to
enhance bilateral cooperation, particularly in security and border issues,
trade and economy, energy, power and IT.

At the two-day talks, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon headed the
Indian delegation while Myanmar's Deputy Foreign Minister U Kyaw Thu led
his country's side.

"Both countries stressed the need for greater vigilance at the border and
agreed to enhance security cooperation to combat insurgent groups and arms
smuggling," said a joint press release issued after the meeting in Yangon.

India has been concerned over the northeast insurgents taking shelter in
Myanmar and has been asking Yangon to cooperate in flushing them out.

At the meeting, the two sides agreed on a long-term arrangement under
which India will purchase pulses from Myanmar, the release said.

They also welcomed the decisions reached at the 3rd Joint Trade Committee
held last month, which included conversion of Indo-Myanmar border trade
into normal trade, opening of the border point at Avakhung in Nagaland
[northeast Indian state] and expanding the existing border trade items
from 22 to 40.

The two countries appreciated the strengthening of cooperation in the
areas of energy and oil and natural gas.

They expressed satisfaction at the recent signing of an MoU [Memorandum of
Understanding] on the development of Tamanthi and Swezay Hydropower
projects on the Chindwin river in Myanmar.

Other projects in the power sector include renovation of the Tahtaychaung
Hydropower project, construction of transmission lines, replacement of
transformers damaged during cyclone Nargis, supply of biomass gasifiers
and solar lamps.

____________________________________

November 25, New Kerala (India)
India to repatriate 321 fishermen to Myanmar

The Indian government will repatriate 321 Myanmarese fishermen from
Andaman Islands, who have completed their jail term in the remote islands.

Inspector General S P Sharma, Commander of Andaman and Nicobar Coast Guard
Region, told UNI today that these fishermen were apprehended by Coast
Guard and police in various anti-poaching operations.

''These fishermen will be repatriated to Yangoon in two different batches
in three Coast Guard ships - ICGS Vajra, ICGS Akka Devi and ICGS Ganga
Devi,'' Mr Sharma said.

The first batch of 160 Myanmarese poachers, now called fishermen after
completing their jail term, will reach Yangoon in these three Coast Guard
Ships tomorrow morning.

''The second batch of 161 Myanmarese fishermen will be sent from Port
Blair again in these three Coast Guard ships on December 3 to reach
Yangoon on December 5,'' the Inspector General added.

On their return, the ship will bring back six innocent fishermen of
Hutbay, whose boat, due to rough weather, had strayed into Myanmar waters.

''The repatriation has been planned consequent to the agreement between
the Union of Myanmar and Indian government,'' the Commander of Andaman and
Nicobar Coast Guard Region said, adding this is the third repatriation
process during his tenure.

Indian Coast Guard ships had repatriated 432 Myanmarese fishermen in 2007.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

November 25, Irrawaddy
Plight of abused Burmese women highlighted on International Day - Lawi Weng

The plight of women in Burma’s conflict areas and of Burmese women migrant
workers who suffer exploitation and abuse was highlighted in statements
marking Tuesday’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence
against Women.

The Thailand-based Women’s League of Burma (WLB), which held events
marking the occasion at several places along the Thai-Burmese border,
urged the UN to put pressure on the Burmese military government to act to
prevent sexual violence against women in conflict areas.  The WLB also
urged the UN to press the Burmese regime to investigate allegations of
human rights abuses against women in ethnic areas.

Than Zaw, secretary of the Bangkok-based Migrant Karen Labor Union (MKLU),
drew attention to the plight of many Burmese migrant women employed as
domestic workers who suffer physical and sexual violence and exploitation.

Than Zaw said the MKLU dealt with about four such cases a month. Many
abused women failed to report abuse because they feared deportation to
Burma, he said.

Human Rights Watch said millions of female domestic workers in Asia
suffered sexual
violence. Most of them were unable to seek legal redress because
governments failed to enact laws to protect them.

“There are countless cases of employers threatening, humiliating, beating,
raping, and sometimes killing workers,” said Nisha Varia, Deputy Director
of the women’s rights division of Human Rights Watch.

In a message marking International Women’s Day, UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon said more should be done to enforce existing laws.

 “We need to combat attitudes and behavior that condone, tolerate, excuse
or ignore violence committed against women,” he said. “And we need to
increase funding for services for victims and survivors.”

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

November 25, Wall Street Journal
45 years for a joke – Editorial

"If I did not laugh I should die," Abraham Lincoln once remarked. It's a
concept the people of Burma understand well. One of their most famous
celebrities is a comedian known for his antiregime jokes who goes by the
name Zarganar, or "Tweezers."

The junta that rules the country, however, doesn't appreciate Zarganar's
sense of humor. Last week, he was sentenced to 45 years in jail for using
the Internet to spread "disaffection" toward the government. Translation:
laughing at your leaders can be a crime. More than 2,000 political
prisoners are in jail in Burma, nearly double last year's number,
according to human-rights workers.

Zarganar is one of about 100 pro-democracy activists, monks, lawyers and
entertainers who have been sentenced this month. The harshest sentences
have gone to monks who helped organize the Saffron Rebellion last year,
but no one has gotten off light -- one antigovernment blogger got 20
years.

It may seem curious that the junta has waited until now to mete out these
sentences. But regime critics say this is part of Than Shwe's master plan.
He's making sure dissidents are out of the way for the country's
"elections" in 2010. These will be the first elections in Burma under a
new constitution, which is designed to guarantee that the military stay in
power, regardless of the popular vote. He needn't worry about the
opposition. Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy,
has been under house arrest for most of the past two decades.

Zarganar used to tell a joke set in heaven. Various world leaders meet God
and ask when their greatest ambitions will come true. Each cries when God
tells them they will not live to see it. When General Than Shwe meets God,
he asks when Burma will have enough water and electricity. In response,
God cries.
____________________________________

November 25, Guardian (UK)
Aung San Suu Kyi's disengagement is not her choice - Thaung Htun

There are several misinterpretations and failures to contextualise in the
article on Burma's democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (Not such a hero
after all, November 11). We will concentrate on the most glaring.

The writers have wrongly assumed that the Burmese pro-democracy movement's
willingness to be self-critical and/or to be critical of Suu Kyi is
evidence of its demise. They quote many figures. One, a "senior MP in
Rangoon", said: "We ... have to consider seriously ... whether our
sacrifices alone will actually bring victory." Another argued that "the
NLD, a party that was popular, got lost". But, rather than signal the
breakdown of the opposition movement, these voices prove its strength -
its ability to air disagreements and to debate differences without
recrimination.

Burma revels in its multifaceted culture and in its many voices, as would
any who were as faithful to democracy as we are. Burmese people have
proven that the clamour of multitudes does not equate to an implosion.
This critical tendency is a sign of rude health.

In assessing Suu Kyi's current silence, your article sought to blame her
for the ills of Burma's military regime. She is "internationally renowned
for her recalcitrance rather than her compliance"; has become "mute since
her arrest"; her "fight appears to have sublimated to a meditative
battle"; and she has been guilty of "political naivety and moral
high-handedness". The writers ask, "What new policies did the NLD
generate?", the implication being that Suu Kyi's seemingly truculent
disengagement is her choice, and that the "vacuum" she has created has
left the democracy movement weak and directionless.

But under Suu Kyi's incarceration she is denied even the most rudimentary
means of communicating with the wider world. Under the regime's iron rule,
it is effectively impossible to engage the population and even those who
represent them democratically. As such, lasting policy cannot be secured
as it would be policy on the run, created without due reference to our
constituents - by definition, undemocratic.

Our movement encourages an educated engagement with the issues we are
confronting. Suu Kyi herself has never shied from a good debate; informed
criticism is constructive and ultimately helpful. Yet firing ill-informed
grapeshot in the interests of deflating a national heroine is useful only
in terms of sensationalism, not solid debate.

Aung San Suu Kyi's case is quite unique in world politics. Never before
has a Nobel peace prize winner been imprisoned for such a long period
after receiving the award. Few, if any, democratically elected governments
have had to face such extraordinary obstacles over nearly five decades as
we have.

Despite this article, we can only keep going, knowing such hollow attacks
on the resolve and standing of a woman our people hold very dear will not
break her will, nor that of the Burmese people who are sacrificing all to
bring freedom to their country.

• Thaung Htun is the UN representative for the National Coalition
Government of the Union of Burma, the government in exile made up of MPs
elected in 1990, nominally led by Aung San Suu Kyi thaung.htun at gmail.com.

• If you wish to respond, at greater length than in a letter, to an
article in which you have featured either directly or indirectly, email
response at guardian.co.uk or write to Response, The Guardian, 119 Farringdon
Road, London EC1R 3ER. We cannot guarantee to publish all responses, and
we reserve the right to edit pieces for both length and content.

____________________________________

November 25, Irrawaddy
Tibetan exiles’ meeting produces comparisons with Burma - Wai Moe

The week-long meeting of Tibetan exiles in Dharmsala, India, has
inevitably drawn comparisons with the activities of Burma’s own exiled
opposition community.

Tibet and Burma each have a government in exile. But some Burmese exiles
and Burma scholars claim that while the Tibetan opposition in exile, led
by the Dalai Lama, shows cohesion, the same cannot be said for Burma’s.

Criticism of the Burmese opposition in exile has grown recently, with
complaints that it lacks unity and a united strategy, providing for
dialogue between all groups.

One leading Burma expert, Mikael Gravers, associate professor at Aarhus
University in Denmark, said there were naturally differences between
opposition groups who have to act internally under constraint and those
who can act more freely in the diaspora.

“They literally live in very different worlds,” he told The Irrawaddy in
an email interview.

“In Burma, the repression is now as massive as ever seen,” said Gravers,
author of National As Political Paranoia in Burma: An Essay on The
Historical Practice of Power.“Thus, I think critics should consider if it
is the failure of the opposition alone or the result of the repression
which has silenced and split those who struggle for a change.”

In the late 1990s, there was a significant change in the Burmese exile
movement with the formation of a Burmese government in exile, the National
Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB). Aung San Suu Kyi’s
cousin, Sein Win, has led the NCGUB from the start. Observers say the
NCGUB has yet to find a leadership role for the democracy movement in
exile.

Apart from the NCGUB, there are several umbrella organizations within
Burma’s exile movement, such as the National Council of the Union of Burma
(NCUB), the Forum for Democracy in Burma (FDB), the Members of
Parliamentary Union (MPU). They fall out from time to time—most recently
when the NCGUB failed to cooperate with the NCUB in its action against the
Burmese junta seat at the United Nations.

A NCUB secretary, Aung Moe Zaw, said the Burmese exile movement played a
supporting role in the pro-democracy struggle, while the Tibetan
opposition was centered in exile. “The nature of Burma’s democracy
movement and Tibet’s one are not the same,” he said.

Although different Burmese exile groups were working under a collective
leadership for democracy, the movement as a whole had failed to engage the
participation of all Burmese exiles, Aung Moe Zaw said.

Despite the impression of unity given by the Tibetan exile movement, the
Dalai Lama’s strategy for Tibet, calling for autonomy and not
independence, came in for criticism at the Dharmsala meeting.

Critics questioned this so-called “middle way.”  Tsewang Rigzin, president
of the Tibetan Youth Congress, told The Associated Press ahead of the
meeting: "We need to have a strategy. It's the middle way right now. But
that has been a failure.

"We have history on our side; we have truth on our side. We know the
Chinese—there's no way we can live under China.”

The Dalai Lama claimed at the end of the meeting that he had majority
support for his “middle way path to the Tibetan issue."

The meeting left open, however, the options of demanding independence or
self-determination if China fails to grant Tibet autonomy.

China has occupied Tibet since 1950 and brutally suppressed a Tibetan
uprising in 1959. The Dalai Lama fled to India and formed the Tibetan
exiled government in Dharmsala.

In March this year, five months before the Beijing Olympics, Tibetan
protestors, led by Buddhist monks, challenged Chinese rule. The uprising
was crushed by Chinese troops—with the kind of brutality employed by
Burmese security forces to suppress Burma’s own uprising in September
2007.

____________________________________
INTERVIEW

November 25, Independent Mon News Agency
Interview with Mi Sar Dar, sole woman member of the NMSP Central Committee
- Rai Maraoh

Question: What does it take to elect women as leaders in the New Mon State
Party (NMSP)?

Answer: Party leaders will not elect a woman because most representatives
are men. I am the only woman on the Central Committee [CC]. [Note: there
are nine members in the Central Executive Committee (CEC), elected from 35
CC members in the party]. Women could only be leaders if men choose us. In
the party, the members are majority men and a very few women. Electing
women depends on the representatives at the Party Congress [held every
three years, due to be held this December] and their opinions. We also
have a plan with the Mon Women Organization [MWO] to report to the party
leaders in the [CEC] about a potential women quorum in [CC] members in the
election as a quota system to promote women participation in a compulsory
ways. Will they [the representatives of Congress] follow a quota system?
We also consider about it in [MWO] meeting but didn’t propose it yet. Even
the [CEC] members have opinion to consider more women number in [CC], but
it never achieved after the majority men representatives oppose about it.
They did not like this quota system.

Question: Why are male party members opposed to women leaders?

Answer: They [male representatives] think women can’t be sustainable on
the long-term political career [because they will quit politics to have
families], and they think we have less commitment. They also discussed
their opinions like this in the [previous] party conference. But I don’t
know the details of the discussion in the previous conference and this
opinion is still brought up in subsequent years until this coming
Congress. The majority of [CC] members did not agree on a women quorum in
the [CC] and they will oppose the same idea in the Congress again. They
gave reason that women are not strong, less experience and cannot
facilitate duties given by the party well. How do I respond to them when
there is only a small number of women in the Congress?

Question: What is your opinion on the recent election of a woman as the
general secretary of the Karen National Union?

Answer: It is great. I like it because the [KNU] wants to promote women,
and women also can take responsibility like men. I think it is great
because women also have experience and skills. Our leader will consider
about it now because the KNU dared enough to offer high-level duties to
women. It will be good if the number of women increase in leading roles.
Our Mon women also will get a lot of moral encouragement even if many are
not party members. I think I am not the only woman who supports this
change in the KNU and it would be all Mon women.

Question: What qualities should women work on developing so they can be
leaders?

Answer: To have experience in the leading role and to serve any duties.
Accordingly to the complaints from the male representatives, sometimes
women have problems with their families. Many female party members could
not give full time to serve in the party and are busy with family life.
That’s why they say they can’t elect women as a leader. Women must
sacrifice full time if they would like to be a leader. They have to be
committed, share their ideas, brave at speaking and brave in competition.
Men also can get them to lead. If women give only a little time in their
duties, other party members will not accept them as leaders. It also
depends on work experience, but I don’t mean to they have to have about
20-30 years experience. It means to have some years work experience,
progressive ideas and knowledge. The KNU chose woman as a general
secretary because I think she has both work experience and progressive
ideas.

Question: What are the opinions of top level party leaders on the election
of women leaders?

Answer: Currently, there is only one woman member among 35 [CC] members.
Why they do not choose women leaders? We should ask to clarify. But in
this time, I think the [CEC, top level] members would like to have women
in the political leading role and will encourage representatives at the
Congress by pointing out the change in the KNU, because women are
appropriate in a leading role. But it is very difficult to set up women
quorum as a new law in the party because the current [CC] members can’t
decide this alone. Every change must be decided at the level of a Party
Congress and a majority vote by representatives. Women can participate at
election as the same level like other representatives at the Congress. But
it depends on the representatives and they will look the experience of
women serving in the party for many years and how we are sacrifice.

Question: What criteria are used to choose women leaders?

Answer: There is no detailed principle for this. But as I said, they
consider how many years they have served in the party. In MWO, the
organization has [CC] members and [CEC] members. Both [CEC] and [CC]
members can participate to be elected as NMSP [CC] members in the
Congress. For example, at the Mon Education Department, if a woman is a
Committee member in the Mon National Education Committee, she has a chance
to compete in elections to be elected as [CC] members. Similarly in
District Administration offices of the NMSP, if someone is in a District
Administration Committee, she can be elected a [CC] member, but if she is
in Township administration level, she may not have this opportunity.

Question: What kind of experience is necessary for women to be elected to
the Central Committee?

Answer: They have to serve in the party at least 5 to 7 years. Most
members in the District level administration, education committee, and
health committee already had over 5 years experience. Some had over 10
years service and experience. If they are in the level of these committee
members, they can be participated in elections to be [CC] members.

Question: What is your opinion on the minority status of women leaders in
ethnic political groups in general?

Answer: Women have been less involved in the resistance movement since the
beginning. Most women involved in the movement previously resigned from
organizations. Recently, the NMSP has special battalions for female
fighters, and women are serving several departments. But after they
married, busy with family affairs, they resigned from the party. Women
involved in less numbers since the beginning and later women resignation
from the movement affected the current opportunities for women to have
leadership roles. But it depends on the approach of each organization to
promote the role of women. Currently women leaders are very few chances in
all ethnic groups except the KNU. We can see some women leaders, but only
in KNU.

Quesiton: After the KNU elected woman as Central Committee member, the
NMSP followed suit and elected a woman to the Central Committee. Recently,
the KNU elected a woman as General Secretary. Do you think a similar
development will be possible in the NMSP?

Answer: It takes many steps to be General Secretary of a political party.
The party will choose only after women become [CC] members of the party.
For example, there are 9 [CEC] members in the party. First, the [CC]
members elected these 9 members and then the General Secretary. Currently
there is only me as a woman [CC] member. I couldn’t imagine being elected
to the [CEC] because [CC] members will not elect me accordingly to my work
experience. Therefore it is not easy to be elected as General Secretary.

Question: What problems have you faced during your time in charge of the
NMSP Education Department?

Answer: Before I become in charge of the Education Department, I was
involved in MWO as a chairwoman. But the party leaders had said they
didn’t want me to take responsibility in MWO after I took charge of the
Education Department because they would like me to do more at Mon
education activities. I feel unhappy for that. I would like to be along
with MWO as a woman even I took responsibility in Education Department.
But they promoted me as a patron in MWO. I have many problems because
Education Department have being spent too much expenses, and the
administrative costs increase every year because it needs to promote for
children and adults alike. The important thing is money. If you don’t have
money, you can’t do jobs. And we depend on donors for funding. We know
most of our people are not literate because they are missing education
from the schools. That’s why we would like to do more. The problems is we
don’t have money and we are not professional even if we serve in the
Education Department. We try ourselves. We need more educated person to
involve at education activities.

Question: What are the strengths of the Education Department?

Answer: Most children become literate, pass the high school standard and
graduate from University in Mon State. At the border, some students can
upgrade their education and some clever ones can attend universities with
support of scholarship in foreign countries. Even though there are much
problems with the operating of Mon National Schools, we can increase the
literacy level in the rural communities.

Question: What you would like to say to Mon women?

Answer: I would like Mon women to try hard like women in other ethnic
organizations. I would like them to get involved serving in every NMSP
department, including the political section because then the party leaders
can consider the role of women when they make decisions. For examples,
there are no women in the justice department of the NMSP, it is hard to
seek just and fair decisions for some criminal cases to women. That’s why
I would like more Mon women to participate in the political activities, so
one day they can become political leaders.

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

November 25, Karen Human Rights Group
Residents of eastern Burma actively engaged in peaceful resistance

Rural villagers in eastern Burma are actively resisting harsh military
rule, says a new report released by the Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) on
Tuesday. Highlighting local non-violent resistance, KHRG argues, is
crucial to ending international perceptions of rural residents as passive,
without agency and justifiably excluded from aid administration and
political processes.

The report, titled “Village agency: Rural rights and resistance in a
militarized Karen State,” documents a variety of tactics villagers employ
to undermine the exploitation and restriction that punctuates daily life
in the border areas. Though villagers often live under constant threat of
violent retribution, the KHRG report indicates that villagers regularly
undermine regime authorities through jokes and counter-narratives, as well
as find ways to discreetly or even overtly avoid compliance.

KHRG also argues that displacement should be understood as a preemptive,
overt form of resistance, rather than simply a reactive coping mechanism.
Rural residents “vote with their feet,” says KHRG, which both clearly
stamps the regime as illegitimate and reduces the population it can
control, and harness for exploitation and resource extraction.

This “village agency,” as KHRG calls it, includes establishing hiding
sites ahead of expected displacement, hiding food stores and covert
agricultural projects, trading with residents of regime controlled areas
in secret “jungle markets,” sharing resources and cooperating to provide
community services.

Though the tactics documented by KHRG are not rare, depictions of ethnic
Karen residents of eastern Burma tend to focus on villagers as passive
victims, caught in the inevitable cross fire between armed insurgents and
an abusive military regime. Such depictions, argues KHRG, have
“perpetuated the exclusion of [rural villagers] from the ongoing political
processes which effect them” and can “promote inappropriate external
responses to the situation in Karen areas.”

Based on its report, KHRG makes a series of concrete recommendations,
which can be separated into three essential categories: first, new efforts
should be undertaken to support local civil society groups engaged in
ongoing efforts to improve daily life, through assistance to both
organizations that operate in regime controlled areas and cross-border
organizations operating without government consent.

Second, non-governmental organizations, United Nations agencies and any
other actors implementing support projects should do so with careful
consideration of their effect on local resistance efforts. And third, the
voices of rural villagers should be incorporated into academic and policy
discussions, as well as journalism and advocacy efforts.

Nai Kasauh Mon, director of the Thailand-based Human Rights Foundation of
Monland, agrees with the push to recognize the agency of rural villagers.
“Residents of the border areas, internally displaced people, they have the
capacity. For example, in the Mon community, health workers, education
workers and other people in the community work to help each other,” says
Nai Kasauh Mon. “In reality, people use lot’s of strategies. But often the
media only learns a little. They don’t always do in depth reporting.
Something big happens, and they focus on that.”

The KHRG argument for support of local-level civil society also appears to
dovetail with the thinking of other Burma analysts and experts. According
to David I. Steinberg, distinguished professor at the Georgetown
University School of Foreign Service, developing local support networks
will help pave the way for a more democratic and responsive government in
Burma. A strong civil society network, Steinberg says, “widens the space
between the state and society, giving people greater freedom from
government control. Such pluralism is an important base on which more
responsive and responsible governments can be built.”

Ashley South, a Burma expert frequently tapped by the United Nations,
concurs and argues that development of such civil society networks are a
prerequisite to lasting change in Burma. “One consequence of Burma’s fifty
year civil war has been the erosion of pluralism and democratic
practices,” he argues, going on to say, “alternative forms of social and
political organization
will be essential if any elite-led political
transition in Burma is to be sustained, and positively effect the lives of
people.”