BurmaNet News, January 22, 2009

[Editor]

January 22, 2009, Issue #3636


INSIDE BURMA
DVB: U Gambira transferred to Khandee prison
Irrawaddy: AIDS patients forced to leave monastery
Mizzima News: Detained female activist suffers miscarriage in prison
Compass Direct News (Ireland): Burma clamps down on Christians

ON THE BORDER
AP: Thai PM pledges to work with UN refugee agency
Narinjara: Burmese monk suffering after UNHCR rejection

REGIONAL
Reuters: Indonesia considers fate of stranded Rohingyas
AFP: China police detain two over Myanmar kidnap scandal: state media

INTERNATIONAL
The Canadian Press: Myanmar cyclone and China quake drive up 2008 global
disaster toll

OPINION / OTHER
Economist: Cast adrift
DVB: Roundtable: A new government in exile? – Htet Aung Kyaw
Bangkok Post: Dealing with boat people


____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

January 22, Democratic Voice of Burma
U Gambira transferred to Khandee prison – Htet Yazar

Imprisoned monk leader U Gambira has been transferred to the remote
Khandee prison in Sagaing division, according to his sister Khin Thu Htay.

The All Burmese Monks’ Alliance leader was reported to have been staging a
hunger strike in Mandalay prison last week.

Mandalay prison officials told the monk’s mother Daw Yay, who was in
Mandalay for a prison visit, that he had been transferred to Khandee on 17
January.

Khin Thu Htay said their mother was closely watched by government
officials in civilian clothing throughout her time in Mandalay.

"[Prison authorities] told our mother that U Gambira was transferred to
Khandee prison on Saturday but they refused to say why," said Khin Thu
Htay.

"They also said they only did it after a medical checkup to make sure he
was fit for a transfer."

Khandee prison is located 1200 miles north of Rangoon.

Bo Kyi, joint secretary of the Assistance Association for Political
Prisoners, condemned the practice of transferring prisoners without
informing their families.

"If the government wants to transfer a prisoner from one place of
detention to another, they need to inform the prisoner concern and either
his or her family," Bo Kyi said.

"We have been witnessing worsening conditions in prisons in Burma and we
have seen that people can die at any time in these situations," he said.

"It would be best if the SPDC government was honest about its actions."

____________________________________

January 22, Irrawaddy
AIDS patients forced to leave monastery

Authorities have forced 35 people living with HIV/AIDS to leave a
monastery in Rangoon where they were receiving free treatment, according
to sources close to the monastery.

A caregiver at the monastery told The Irrawaddy that on Tuesday, local
authorities ordered the patients to move to the Wai Bar Gi Infectious
Diseases Hospital in Rangoon’s North Okkalapa Township. However, only 26
of the patients went to the hospital, the source said.

The patients, including two young children, were from various parts of
Burma and were too poor to go to a hospital, the source said. He added
that some were receiving antiretroviral (ARV) drugs at the monastery, but
were not in such serious condition that they needed to be hospitalized.

Another source said that authorities inspecting construction on an
extension of the monastery told the abbot that the unauthorized “guests”
were not permitted to stay. The abbot now fears that his monastery will be
shut down, the source added.

In October 2007, following the monk-led protests known as the Saffron
Revolution, the authorities raided Maggin Monastery in Rangoon’s
Thingangyun Township and expelled its resident monks. The monastery, which
also provided free healthcare to people with HIV/AIDS, was suspected of
harboring social activists.

The abbot of the monastery, U Indaka, was sentenced to more than 20 years
imprisonment for his involvement in the Saffron Revolution.

____________________________________

January 22, Mizzima News
Detained female activist suffers miscarriage in prison – The The

Detained pregnant woman activist, Kathy Aung, has reportedly suffered a
miscarriage in Mandalay's Oh Bo prison, and with negligible care from the
prison authorities, she is losing a lot of blood, family members said.

Bo Bo, brother of Kathy Aung, who on January 21 met his sister, told
Mizzima that Kathy Aung had a miscarriage in the Oh Bo prison. The prison
authorities have not taken her to hospital, but she is being visited by
doctors.

"She is still losing blood from the miscarriage and is also suffering from
skin diseases," Bo Bo, who along with his mother Thida Aung, visited his
sister, told Mizzima.

Tun Tun, husband of Kathy Aung and a member of the All Burma Federation of
Student Unions (ABFSU), who is on the run from authorities, told Mizzima
from his hiding place that his wife was in the sixth month of pregnancy.

"When she was arrested, she was already in the first month of pregnancy,"
Tun Tun said.

Kathy Aung, 23, was arrested in September and charged with two counts
each, under the Associating with Illegal Organizations and Emergency
Immigration Acts and sentenced to 26 years of imprisonment on November 24,
2008 by the Oh Bo prison court.

However, her husband said, she was innocent and that the authorities had
arrested her on his behalf.

"She is not involved in politics. All she does is tailoring at home but
they [authorities] arrested her on my behalf," Tun Tun told Mizzima from
his hiding place.

____________________________________

January 22, Compass Direct News (Ireland)
Burma clamps down on Christians – Sarah Page

Burmese authorities last week increased restrictions on Christian activity
in the capital city of Rangoon and surrounding areas, including the
closure of several churches, Compass sources confirmed yesterday.

Orders issued on Jan. 5 had already forced many Christians meeting in
residential homes or apartments to cease gathering for worship. Officials
last week ordered several major Rangoon churches, including Wather Hope
Church, Emmanuel Church and the Assemblies of God Church, to cease holding
services and continued enforcing the Jan. 5 ban on meetings held in
unauthorized facilities.

In the late 1990s authorities stopped issuing permits for land purchase or
the construction of new churches, leading many Burmese Christians to
conduct services in rented apartments or office buildings, according to
the Burmese news agency Mizzima.

The Kyauktada Township Peace and Development Council on Jan. 5 invited
pastors from more than 100 Rangoon churches to a meeting where they were
told to sign documents pledging to cease operation of their churches.
About 50 pastors attended, according to Mizzima.

The documents threatened punishment, including potential jail terms and
the sealing of church facilities, for pastors who refused to obey the
closure orders.

Another local online news source, the Democratic Voice of Burma, claimed
officials from the Ministry of Religious Affairs had summoned the owners
of buildings where churches met and ordered them not to rent their
properties to religious groups.

Mizzima quoted an unnamed Burmese Christian who claimed that 80 percent of
churches in Rangoon were affected by the order.

History of Religious Repression

Some local Christians and international observers say the crackdown is
related to Christian involvement in relief efforts for the victims of
Cyclone Nargis, which hit Burma in May 2008.

Despite widespread devastation and loss of life, Burma’s reclusive
government initially banned foreign aid but finally accepted it on
condition that Burmese officials would distribute it. Christians, however,
had responded immediately to the crisis, gathering relief supplies and
transporting them to the Irrawaddy Delta region. Police or army officials
stopped some groups, but many were allowed to proceed. At least one such
group told Compass that officials likely feared the conversion of
Buddhists who accepted aid from Christians.

The military junta ruling Burma promotes Buddhism at the expense of other
minority religions, according to Paul A. Marshall’s 2008 Religious Freedom
in the World. The country’s population is 82 percent Buddhist, 9 percent
Christian and 4 percent Muslim, with traditional ethnic, Chinese and Hindu
religions accounting for the rest.

The church closure orders may simply be an extension of Burma’s existing
religious policies, which elevate Buddhism in an effort to solidify
national identity. Burma ranks high on lists of religious and human rights
violators at several watch organizations, including the U.S. State
Department, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House and Open Doors.

Documents declaring the government’s intention to “stamp out” Christianity
have circulated for some time. Rights organization Christian Solidarity
Worldwide drew attention to one such document in a 2007 report entitled,
“Carrying the Cross: The military regime’s campaign of restriction,
discrimination and persecution against Christians in Burma.” The report
summarized a 17-point document allegedly produced by an organization
affiliated with the Ministry of Religious Affairs entitled, “Program to
Destroy the Christian Religion in Burma.”

The first point in this document declared that, “There shall be no home
where the Christian religion is practiced.”

A military dictatorship has ruled Burma since 1962. Following the
takeover, the government renamed Burma as the Union of Myanmar and the
capital city as Yangon, but many news agencies and government bodies
continue to use the original names. When elections were held in 1988, with
the opposing National League for Democracy clearly in the majority, the
generals rejected the popular vote and used brute military force to cement
their power throughout Burma. A similar show of force met hundreds of
Buddhist monks who initiated mass anti-government protest rallies on the
streets of Rangoon in September 2007.

While almost all Burmese citizens suffer under the regime, Christians are
often singled out for specific attack or repression because of their
perceived connections with the West.

Reports from various mission groups suggest Christianity is flourishing
under the regime, but believers must be creative with their worship –
particularly in rural areas. In reports confirmed by Compass, Christians
in one state began photocopying Bibles to overcome restrictions on
religious publications. Others baptized new Christians during the annual
water festival, where citizens douse each other with buckets of water,
ceremonially washing away the “sins” of the past year.

Heightened Security, Control

Rangoon residents say a much heavier security presence has been evident in
the city since early January, when political activists began distributing
anti-government leaflets, The Irrawaddy newspaper reported on Jan. 13. The
leaflet drops may have contributed to the current crackdown on church
gatherings, as generals suspect all organized groups of having a political
agenda.

At a graduation of military students in Rangoon on Jan. 9, Vice-Senior
Gen. Maung Aye, who is commander-in-chief of the army and deputy
commander-in-chief of Defense Services, warned students to steadfastly
uphold the country’s “Three Main National Causes” to prevent “recurrences
of past bitter experiences.” The causes were listed as non-disintegration
of the Union of Myanmar, non-disintegration of national solidarity and
perpetuation of sovereignty.

The New Light of Myanmar, a government newspaper, reported the general as
saying that, “You will have learned bitter lessons from a number of world
events, in which certain States have become weaker 
 owing to external
intervention in their conflicts.”

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

January 22, Associated Press
Thai PM pledges to work with UN refugee agency

Thailand's prime minister said international agencies looking into alleged
abuse of illegal migrants by Thai authorities can speak with officials,
but he stopped short of saying the groups could meet with the migrants
themselves.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's announcement Wednesday came a day after
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees asked for access to the
illegal migrants, several of whom the organization says are in Thai
custody.

A Bangkok-based advocacy group last week alleged that Thai security
officials forced as many as 1,000 migrants — mostly stateless Rohingyas
from Bangladesh — back out to sea in rickety boats since early December.
It accused the Thai navy of forcing several hundred of the migrants onto a
barge in the middle of the ocean, where as many as 300 later drowned.

The UNHCR said in a statement Tuesday that Thai authorities were holding
80 Rohingyas on Koh Sai Daeng, a Thai island in the Andaman Sea. The
whereabouts of 46 others, intercepted Friday on a boat and reportedly
handed over to the Thai military, were unknown, the statement said.

"We're still awaiting a response from the Thai government to a request
that we sent last week for further information on this issue," UNHCR
spokesman Ron Redmond told reporters Tuesday in Geneva.

The Thai government has not confirmed that it is holding the migrants.

Thousands of Bangladeshis and Rohingyas — members of a Muslim ethnic group
that fled persecution in Myanmar — leave Bangladesh aboard rickety boats
each year in hope of finding work in neighboring countries. In the last
three years, one of the most popular migration routes has been by boat to
Thailand and then overland to Malaysia.

Abhisit said Tuesday that Thai authorities would investigate the recent
incidents, though he insisted the government has no policy of mistreating
illegal migrants.

"They (the agencies) should talk with us and see how we can work
together," Abhisit told reporters. "But they also have to recognize the
fundamental problem was not caused by Thailand. It is a problem of
disparity of (economic) opportunities."

Separately Wednesday, the UNHCR asked Indonesia's Foreign Ministry for
permission to visit the Sabang island navy base. Nearly 200 Rohingya
migrants have been detained there since Jan. 7, when they were found
floating in a cramped wooden boat without food or water off Indonesia's
Aceh province.

The agency wants to evaluate their health and need for protection, U.N.
spokeswoman Anita Restu said.

The Indonesian government has refused media access to the migrants, saying
they are investigating.

Associated Press writer Anthony Deutsch in Jakarta contributed to this
report.

____________________________________

January 22, Narinjara
Burmese monk suffering after UNHCR rejection

A Burmese monk, U Thuriya, who was involved in the Saffron Revolution
protests in 2007, has been suffering mentally after the UNHCR Dhaka office
rejected his application for refugee status, said an abbot who accepted
him to stay at his monastery.

"I am really worried about his health because sometimes he refuses to take
his food and medicine. He has been staying along in the monastery without
talking after returning from Dhaka," the abbot said.

U Thuriya, who is 25 years old, was wanted to arrest by the Burmese
military authority for his involvement in the many protests during 2007's
Saffron Revolution in Sittwe. At the time, the monk was a student from
Pathein monastery located in Kon Dan Ward in Sittwe.

"I am all Burmese people here know about U Thuriya and why he came from
Burma. He escaped from Burma to Bangladesh out of fear of arrest by the
Burmese military authority. But we are unable to understand the decision
of the UNHCR on his case," the abbot said.

U Thuriya fled from Sittwe to Bangladesh through his native border town of
Buthidaung in northern Arakan soon after the Burmese military authority
began an armed crackdown on the monk movement in Burma in 2007.

U Thuriya once told Narinjara that he had crossed many dangerous places in
the border area on his way to Bangladesh, but he luckily escaped Burma
with the help of local tribes people in the border area.

After he arrived, he came to Dhaka to apply for refugee status with the
UNHCR, but the UNHCR rejected his claim for asylum after only one
interview. U Thuriya's register Number was 393-08C-00044, and he was given
notice of rejection on 22 October, 2008.

The abbot said, "U Thuriya is now a helpless monk and he has no future.
All monasteries in Bangladesh have refused him shelter because he is a
Burmese citizen. It is impossible for them to accept such a foreigner for
studying in a monastery in Bangladesh without permission of the
authorities."

U Thuriya is now staying at a small monastery in a remote village in
Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tract and is suffering from malaria, but is
not getting medical treatment.

According to Burmese refugees, the UNHCR Dhaka office not only denied U
Thuriya's claims for asylum, but also other monks such as U Rakha Wanta
and Wiraw Zana, who played leading roles in the Saffron Revolution in
Arakan State.

There is a joke among Burmese refugees in Bangladesh that if you want
recognition as a refugee by the UNHCR in Dhaka, you must be a mountain
cultivator. The joke emerged after some cultivators were recognized as
refugees while many other monks and citizens who were victims of the junta
had their claims rejected.

Many Burmese refugees believe that such decisions are mistakes that occur
in the UNHCR Dhaka office because of weak interpreters who are unable to
understand modern words or usages of spoken Burmese and Arakanese.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

January 22, Reuters
Indonesia considers fate of stranded Rohingyas – Olivia Rondonuwu

Indonesia will decide next week what to do with 193 Rohingya boat people
found on a small island this month claiming they had been beaten and
abandoned at sea by the Thai military, the foreign ministry said on
Thursday.

The all-male group of Rohingyas, a Muslim minority from the northwest of
army-ruled Myanmar, have been held at a naval base in Sabang in Aceh
province since their wooden boat was found on Jan. 7.

Some of them were suffering from dehydration and injuries requiring
hospital treatment.

"We have to consider the matter very carefully because it involves several
countries and should be handled well," foreign ministry spokesman Teuku
Faizasyahhe said, adding that they were being fed well but were not
allowed to talk to the media.

Shortly after their arrival on Sabang, one of the boat people, Imam Husen,
told Reuters from his hospital bed that he and about 580 other people had
set off from Mundu in Myanmar in four boats on Dec. 9 to flee the
predominantly Buddhist country.

He said some members of the group had been beaten after landing in
Thailand. They were then towed out to sea and set adrift.

His testimony corroborates reports from a Rohingya human rights group and
Indian police reports from other Rohingyas found adrift near the Andaman
Islands that Thai security forces towed 992 people out to sea and
abandoned them in engine-less boats.

The Arakan Project, a Rohingya non-governmental organisation, estimates
that 550 of the 992 are missing, feared drowned.

A Thai colonel at the heart of the allegations denied any abuse on
Wednesday, saying he gave the Rohingyas food and water and helped them on
their way.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has asked
Thailand for access to 80 Rohingyas it believes are still in custody on a
remote island called Koh Sai Daeng, where the 992 are believed to have
been held.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has promised to investigate the
allegations and cooperate with the UNHCR, although the refugee body said
that as of Thursday there had been no formal approach from Bangkok.

Abhisit, who has pledged to put human rights at the centre of his time in
office, also said any Rohingyas in Thailand would be treated as illegal
immigrants and repatriated.

"We have to send them back," he said after chairing a National Security
Council meeting. "We are discussing this, which will require briefing
ambassadors of various countries to find a solution."

Indonesia's foreign minister said later on Thursday that based on
interviews the Rohingyas in Aceh came from Bangladesh and Myanmar, and
were economic migrants seeking work in Malaysia.

"So, we are cooperating with the International Organisation of Migration
and also the countries where they are come from on their proper return,"
Hassan Wirajuda told reporters, adding that this would be done as quickly
as possible.

About 28,000 Rohingyas recognised as refugees are living in UNHCR camps in
Bangladesh. Many have been there since 1992 after fleeing persecution in
Myanmar. A further 200,000 are unregistered, giving them uncertain legal
status.

Frustration and desperation have prompted many to risk their lives in
small boats heading for Malaysia, where a sizable number already live,
according to the UNHCR.

(Additional reporting by Telly Nathalia and by Pracha Hariraksapitak in
Bangkok)

____________________________________

January 22, Agence France Presse
China police detain two over Myanmar kidnap scandal: state media

Police in north China have detained two people allegedly linked to the
Myanmar-based kidnapping of at least 50 teenagers whose parents were sent
ransom demands, state media reported Thursday.

Police in Yuncheng city in Shanxi province, where some of the boys came
from, said nine people were suspected of being involved in what was
believed to be a cross-border gang, the official Xinhua news agency said.

They said that of the 19 youngsters known to have disappeared from
Yuncheng, 17 had already returned home and they were searching for the
remaining two, according to Xinhua.

No details were given on the circumstances under which the 17 had been
able to return, with Xinhua saying it was unclear if ransoms had been
paid.

The boys were threatened with torture if their parents failed to meet the
kidnappers' ransom demands, according to official media reports on
Wednesday.

News of the kidnappings emerged in September last year when a 16-year-old
boy who had gone to work in the southwestern province of Yunnan -- which
neighbours Myanmar -- phoned home saying he had been arrested for drug
dealing.

The boy told his parents he would be executed if they did not pay a fine
of 80,000 yuan (11,700 dollars), according to media reports.

Other parents whose children had disappeared also started receiving
similar phone calls, and in December, the father of another victim wired
the money to the kidnappers' account and his son, Zhang Bo, was released.

Police in Shanxi said at least 50 teenage boys had been kidnapped.

Zhang said his ordeal began when he met a man who said he did business
with militants in Myanmar and could give him 10 days' work for 6,000 yuan
-- a large sum of money for such a short period.

The two crossed the border from Yunnan into Myitkyina in Myanmar on
October 16, but the teenager was immediately shoved into a cell where
several other young boys were already being held.

The middle-man was called Zhang Yingzhou, according to previous media
reports.

One of the suspects detained by police was a Shanxi native surnamed Zhang,
according to the Beijing News, although it was unclear if it was the same
person.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

January 22, The Canadian Press
Myanmar cyclone and China quake drive up 2008 global disaster toll

Myanmar's devastating cyclone and central China's earthquake drove up the
annual disaster death toll, causing most of the fatalities and making 2008
one of the deadliest years for natural disasters so far this decade, the
United Nations said Thursday.

At least 235,816 people lost their lives in 321 disasters around the world
last year, said the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.

"Almost the entire bulk of the deaths ... is explained by only two events:
Cyclone Nargis and the Sichuan (earthquake)," said Debarati Guha-Sapir of
the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, which compiled the figures
for the world body.

The death toll is more than three times the annual average from 2000 to
2007 - 66,812. Since 2000, only 2004 had a higher death toll - 241,647
pushed up by the Indian Ocean tsunami.

"The share of floods and storms are increasing substantially (and)
steadily," compared with the number of earthquakes, droughts and other
natural catastrophes, said Guha-Sapir.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that global
warming would increase the number of extreme weather events and cause more
natural disasters.

The world's disasters last year caused estimated damage of $181 billion,
some 60 per cent of it - or $108 billion - in China.

Salvano Briceno, director of the UN's disaster reduction agency, said the
high amount of economic loss was alarming.

"Sadly, these losses could have been substantially reduced if buildings in
China, particularly schools and hospitals, had been built to be more
earthquake-resilient," he said.

A good early warning system in Myanmar could have saved many lives,
Briceno added.

Hurricane Ike, which hit the Caribbean and the southern United States in
September, also substantially contributed to the cost with an estimated
$30 billion, the agency said.

The United States suffered 19 natural disasters over the last year;
most-hit China had 26; and the Philippines had 20.

Briceno said increasing numbers of people living in urban areas increase
the risk of deaths when a natural disaster occurs.

Environmental degradation and poverty, which exposes poor communities more
to natural hazards than better protected wealthier areas, also make it
difficult to protect people from disasters, he added.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

January 22, Economist
Cast adrift

OF ALL the myriad groups fleeing the misery of modern Myanmar, few have
suffered more than the Rohingyas, a shunned Muslim minority, concentrated
in Rakhine state. Denied full citizenship at home, many end up in
Bangladesh, where some 200,000 live in squalid border camps. Another
28,000 are housed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR). The lure of further migration is strong. Every winter thousands
pay to board rickety smugglers’ boats for Thailand, whence a bus can take
them to Malaysia, to seek work or asylum.

This season Thailand’s soldiers had a nasty surprise in store. After being
held for days on a remote island off Ranong, two groups of nearly 1,000
captured Rohingyas and Bangladeshis were forced, at gunpoint, out to sea
in the Indian Ocean on several boats. The vessels had little food and,
crucially, no engines. Some drifted west to India’s Andaman islands.
Others washed up in Indonesia’s Aceh province. Over 500 are believed
missing or dead, according to a tally of survivors’ accounts. One group of
over 400 refugees was set adrift on a barge with two sacks of rice and two
gallons of water. Most perished trying to swim ashore. On January 7th the
Indonesian navy rescued another group of 192. Others may have been lost at
sea.

For Thailand, the survivors’ accounts, provided to far-flung authorities
in India and Indonesia, as well as to human-rights groups and reporters,
are damning, to say the least. Sending refugees back to danger is bad
enough. Casting them adrift to die is much worse. In the past, Rohingya
refugees caught in Thailand were handed over to the immigration
authorities, says Chris Lewa, a longtime advocate for Rohingya rights.
Many were later quietly sold to traffickers, either to work as slave
labour in Thailand or, preferably, to continue their journey to Malaysia.

Nearly 5,000 have been detained in Thailand in the past two years. Many
more probably went undetected. But the military mindset has changed:
undocumented Muslim men travelling through southern Thailand, where a
Muslim-led separatist insurgency has raged for five years, are now a
no-no. Army officials claim, without any evidence, that Rohingyas are
joining the insurgency. This is cited as justification for a harsh
expulsion policy, as a deterrent. UNHCR officials have tried to alert
restless refugees in Bangladesh of the dangers. The agency is also
pressing the Thai authorities to grant it access to 126 Rohingya boat
people believed to be still in detention.

The prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, has said reports of abandonment at
sea are “exaggerated”, but has promised a full investigation. The army has
issued blanket denials of any ill treatment without fully explaining what
actually happened to the shipwrecked Rohingyas. The abuses date from
before Mr Abhisit took office last month. But they put him in a tough
spot. He has also promised to tackle abuses by the army in combating the
southern insurgency, including the alleged torture and murder of Muslim
suspects in custody. Last month a court in the region ruled that soldiers
had tortured and beaten to death a Muslim preacher. Justice is sorely
lacking in the south. Mr Abhisit, to his credit, has promised to put that
right. But going toe-to-toe with the army brass, who helped him into
office, will test his political courage.

____________________________________

January 22, Democratic Voice of Burma
Roundtable: A new government in exile? – Htet Aung Kyaw

The announcement by the National Council of the Union of Burma of its plan
to form a new exile government to rival the National Coalition Government
of the Union of Burma has met with a mixed response from political
activists.

Some political activists in Rangoon are said to be excited by the 1
January announcement and the potential to raise the profile of Burmese
affairs around the world, but many political groups in exile are concerned
about the implications for the unity of the movement.

Myint Thein, joint secretary of the NCUB, said the move was intended as a
way of opposing the State Peace and Development Council’s planned 2010
elections.

"The NCUB will not accept the SPDC’s unilateral plan to hold elections
unilaterally in 2010,” Myint Thein said. “In order to expressly oppose
this, the NCUB has been planning to form a national unity government
during 2009.”

“We held a meeting on 7-8 January and discussed the details on developing
a pragmatic strategy to form the government and we managed to issue the
necessary instructions.”

Although Myint Thein said the plan had been agreed by all opposition
groups, current prime minister of the National Coalition Government of the
Union of Burma Dr Sein Win said he was not consulted.

"That was what they declared. If they want make changes, [they should]
discuss it properly, look at the pros and cons. Can we do it properly? Is
this the right path?” Dr Sein Win said.

“As I have said before, we can't be separated from the people inside the
country. We need to discuss it properly, in particular with the [National
League for Democracy-Liberated Area], as it represents the NLD inside
Burma.”

“Our government was formed on the basis of the 1990 election result. The
winning party, the NLD, is still inside the country. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
and the majority of MPs are still there. We have to respect the desire of
the people inside the country. We cannot accept a unilateral declaration
without their support."

This raises the issue of the 1990 election result. The NCGUB is made up of
people’s parliament representatives elected in 1990. The new government is
also to be formed of elected MPs, but also of armed rebel leaders and
youth and women leaders, among others.

It seems that Dr Sein Win and other MPs-elect are worried that the
formation of a new exile government now would undermine the result of the
1990 election and the position of the NLD and the Committee Representing
the People’s Parliament.

Sydney-based Burma affairs director Dr Myint Cho highlighted the views
that came out of a meeting of three elected MPs and a group of Burmese
exiles in Sydney, Australia, on 10 January.

"The majority of activists want to expand the government based on the MPs
of 1990 election result,” he said.

“At the upcoming meeting in Dublin, Ireland, the government should be
formed with the majority of existing MPs and later, we would prefer to
include ethnic national leaders, democracy group representatives and
experts in decision making as necessary.”

“We believe that we need not only ministers in the government but also
specialists who are able to work effectively and skillfully throughout the
world."

Thirty-three exiled MPs are meeting in Ireland from 20 January to decide
whether to re-elect Dr Sein Win as prime minister and to discuss the
NCUB’s proposal to form a new government.

The question to ask here is why preliminary discussions on the proposal
were held in Australia, where only five MPs-elect are living, and not in
Thailand where there are nearly 20 MPs and 2 million Burmese?

Why has there been no prior discussion in US and European countries
either? Some people have questioned whether this shows the lack of
effective communication between MPs, exiled Burmese and the exile
governments.

Most ceasefire groups refused to comment on the plans for a new
government, but the colonel James Lum Dau of the Kachin Independence
Organisation expressed some skepticism.

"It would be very good if the new government can create opportunities,” he
said. “But there has been no discussion of that idea with peace groups
inside the country. It is one thing is they can say and do things abroad,
but can they use that freedom inside the country?"

NLD and CRPP leaders also refused to comment, stating that they could not
comment officially on organisations outlawed by the military government.
But unofficially, they said they were worried about the implications for
the unity of opposition groups.

Many exile groups kept their distance from the matter, and stranger still,
Burmese political analysts who are usually forthcoming with their opinions
also refused to comment.

In the end it was left to Josef Silverstein, professor emeritus at Rutgers
University and a frank commentator on Burmese affairs, to provide a firm
view on the subject.

“I don’t see any need to change the government if there is nothing that
that government could possibly do,” he said. “For one thing, amongst the
people living outside of the government of Burma, the military government,
they are not really well organised, they have no authority, and as a
result it seems to me to be a waste of time.”

Professor Silverstein called for a genuine shift in power to the people
instead of simply a new government carrying out the same activities.

“I favour the idea of the opposition coming together and forming a genuine
movement that speaks for the millions of Burmese people who reject the
military and have no voice in the government,” he continued.

“But unless you are talking about a genuine movement in which there will
be an effort to bring all the people who are outside of the control of the
military together, to organise and to begin to challenge the military’s
right to rule and what they say, I don’t see that it’s worth the effort at
this point.”

____________________________________

January 22, Bangkok Post
Dealing with boat people

While the memory of the hardship rendered by the siege of Suvarnabhumi and
Don Mueang airports is still fresh in the minds of tens of thousands of
visitors to Thailand, the country's bruised reputation appears to have
suffered a new blow over the alleged mistreatment of hundreds of Rohingya
and Bangladeshi boat people.

The allegedly brutal pushback of these boat people to face almost certain
death from starvation or shipwreck in the high seas by the Royal Thai Navy
last month, is being extensively covered by the foreign media, especially
the BBC and Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.

The incident has cast Thailand as a villain completely lacking in
compassion, in the eyes of the international community.

One of the pictures published by the media shows rows of the boat people
being forced to lie on an island beach, facing skyward and apparently with
their hands tied. There are also the damning accounts - which have yet to
be verified - given by the survivors who were rescued by Indian coast
guards days after their boat was allegedly cast adrift by the Thai Navy.

They claimed that about 400 of them were put into a boat without an engine
and with just two sacks of boiled rice and two gallons of water. It has
also been alleged that four of them were shot by the Thai authorities
during the process of loading.

The Thai military has categorically denied that the boat people were
brutally treated as alleged. From its point of view, boat people are not
welcome because they pose a security threat and have to be pushed back, in
a humane manner, however.

According to the Thai military, more than 4,000 Rohingya boat people have
tried to seek refuge in Thailand in recent months.

In the majority of cases, these risky voyages were organised by human
trafficking gangs.

But these denials from the military and government are unlikely to dispel
the suspicion of foul play in the minds of human rights groups.

An investigation by an independent panel, possibly with the participation
of human rights groups, would help clear the air and, more importantly,
identify the culprits in case the allegations of mistreatment are
substantiated.

In light of the global economic meltdown which has started to hit rich and
poor, developed and underdeveloped countries alike, it is speculated that
countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia will face more arrivals of
these illegal immigrants.

With hundreds of kilometres of coastline and a porous border, it is almost
an impossible task for Thailand, as a frontline state, to stem the
anticipated influx.

Given the fact that there are more than two million illegal migrants from
Burma and Cambodia already on Thai soil, and with the prospect that many
of these people will be losing their jobs in the economic downturn,
Thailand will be hard pressed to welcome any new arrivals, even
temporarily.

But this does not mean that the principle of human rights can be
discarded, no matter what the circumstance.

A more viable and long-term solution to the problem of cross-border
illegal immigration would be for countries in the region - Burma,
Bangladesh, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand - to sit together
and address the problem in earnest, possibly with the participation of the
United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

Short of that, disturbing reports of mistreatment of illegal immigrants
will continue to emerge.