BurmaNet News, March 19, 2010

[Editor]

March 19, 2010, Issue #3920


INSIDE BURMA
DVB: US activist was denied sleep ‘for 14 days
New Light of Myanmar: Naturalized US citizen Nyi Nyi Aung (a) Kyaw Zaw
Lwin pardoned and deported in giving special consideration to bilateral
friendship and at request of US State Department

ON THE BORDER
AP: Myanmar guerrilla chief warns of war ahead of vote
Irish Times: Rebels kill 20 Burma troops in ambush

REGIONAL
AP: Protesters smash, paint Myanmar Embassy in India

INTERNATIONAL
VOA: Burma's election preparations undemocratic, say rights, exile groups

OPINION / OTHER
Bangkok Post: A five-prong action plan to push for regime change – Maung
Zarni

PRESS RELEASE
Mekong Migrants Network: Deaths of migrants must be investigated




____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

March 19, Democratic Voice of Burma
US activist was denied sleep ‘for 14 days’ – Aye Nai

The US rights activist released yesterday from a Burmese prison has
described how he was tortured during interrogation by intelligence agents
last year.

Burmese-born Kyaw Zaw Lwin, also known as Nyi Nyi Aung, arrived in Bangkok
airport yesterday after being held in detention since September last year.

He told DVB that he had been taken to Rangoon’s Insein prison from another
prison on the evening of 17 March and informed by prison authorities that
he was going to be released the next morning.

“I began to realise I was going to be released. As my [mother and cousins]
are imprisoned I was met by my relatives in Insein prison’s guest room,”
he said.

A diplomat at the US embassy in Rangoon officially announced his release
yesterday. Kyaw Zaw Lwin was asked to sign an agreement “vowing that I
acknowledge that I will have to serve my remaining prison sentence if I
get charged again in Burma”.

The activist’s aunt, Khin Khin Swe, said that he was accompanied to the
plane by the US embassy counsellor.

Kyaw Zaw Lwin went on to describe how he was “mentally and physically
tortured” after being arrested at Rangoon airport on 3 September,
following which he was convicted on charges of fraud and forgery and
sentenced to three years with hard labour.

“I was punched and had my fingers bent and also threatened with a knee to
the face. I wasn’t allowed to lie down for 12 days in a row [during
interrogation] and then another 14 days before I was sent to the prison,”
he said.

Critics of the ruling junta in Burma said that he was being punished for
his high-profile activist work, which included delivering a petition with
600,000 signatures to UN chief Ban Ki-moon calling for the release of
political prisoners in Burma.

“I was arrested without a warrant as some as I came out of the plane. I
believe it was politically motivated; I was detained for a reason I don’t
know,” he said. “I didn’t break any law – I am a person working to bring
about a change for Burma and its people’s freedom.”

The reason for his early release remains unclear. His arrest and
sentencing drew international condemnation, and the US has repeatedly
called for his release, although there had been little inkling prior to
Wednesday that this would take place.

Both his mother and two cousins remain in prison in Burma following their
role in the September 2007 monk-led uprising. One cousin was given a
65-year sentence.

“In our country the administrative, the legal and the justice pillars have
no independence,” he told DVB. “These are merely surviving under the
rulers of the country.”

____________________________________

March 19, New Light of Myanmar
Naturalized US citizen Nyi Nyi Aung (a) Kyaw Zaw Lwin pardoned and
deported in giving special consideration to bilateral friendship and at
request of US State Department

Nay Pyi Taw – Originally, Nyi Nyi Aung (a) Kyaw Zaw Lwin was a Myanmar
citizen. But the 40-year-old man got naturalized himself in the US.
Holding US passport No 711851465, he arrived in Yangon airport from
Thailand by Thai Airways TG-305 flight on 3 September 2009.

Nyi Nyi Aung (a) Kyaw Zaw Lwin, son of U Aung Din, illegally left Myanmar
in the late 1988 and was naturalized in the US. Afterwards, he entered
Myanmar many times, supporting the activities of unlawful anti-government
organizations and making contacts with and giving encouragement to
internal anti-government groups to cause monks disturbances. A laptop and
related accessories, foreign currency and a forged national scrutinization
card bearing his photo with other name “San Naing” were seized from him.

As Nyi Nyi Aung (a) Kyaw Zaw Lwin was found guilty, he was sentenced to
three years imprisonment under Section 468 of Criminal Code, Section 24
(1) in connection with foreign currency exchange law and Section 6(2)/6(3)
of National Registration Act. However, in giving special consideration to
bilateral friendship in accordance with the request made by the US State
Department, the naturalized US citizen is pardoned and the deportation
order was issued on him.

Under the deportation order, Nyi Nyi Aung (a) Kyaw Zaw Lwin left Myanmar
by air this afternoon. – MNA

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

March 19, Associated Press
Myanmar guerrilla chief warns of war ahead of vote

Yangon – The head of Myanmar's largest guerrilla army warned Friday that
the risk of armed conflict between powerful ethnic minority groups and the
military regime is at its highest level in more than two decades as
contentious national elections loom on the horizon.

The junta has been in negotiations with semiautonomous minorities for
months as it attempts to bring them under its control before holding
elections later this year. But with talks deadlocked, most of the groups
have stepped up military preparations in the event of a renewed conflict,
which would likely envelop vast regions of the country and probably spark
a mass refugee exodus.

"(There is the) greatest possibility of renewed conflict between large,
cease-fire armed groups and (the military regime) in over two decades,"
said Zipporah Sein, general secretary of the Karen National Union, which
has been fighting the central government for more than 60 years.

The Karen joined more than 150 activist groups Friday in urging the
international community to denounce the elections and refuse to recognize
the results. They say the vote is a sham designed to perpetuate military
rule.

The junta has tenuous control of many parts of the country where minority
groups are strongest. It has reached cease-fire agreements with 17 ethnic
minority rebel groups since 1989 - though not the Karen - and most have
been allowed to keep their weapons and maintain some autonomy over their
regions.

But in the lead-up to the election, the date of which has yet to be
announced, the junta has asked the groups to turn their armed forces into
a border guard force under virtual Myanmar military leadership. Most have
refused.

There is concern the military could try to force the issue.

"The military is sending troops to the areas of the cease-fire groups and
they are ready to fight if attacked. So the tension is rising between
them," Zipporah Sein, the first woman leader of the KNU, told a news
conference in the Thai capital.

Military preparations have recently been reported among the largest of the
cease-fire groups, the Wa State Army, which fields some 20,000 troops, and
the Kachin Independence Army, said to have about 4,000 under arms.

"The Wa are ready," the KNU chief said.

The Irrawaddy Magazine, a Thailand-based journal run by Myanmar exiles,
said Thursday that the New Mon State Party, another cease-fire group, was
moving its weapons stockpiles and some of its departments to an
undisclosed location in case war breaks out.

The Karen leader said the military has been holding talks with more than
half a dozen groups - both cease-fire groups and those still fighting the
junta. However, all such earlier efforts at forging an alliance have
failed.

"These elections will only compound the suffering of our ethnic people,"
she said.

She said the country's new Constitution - which passed in 2008 and insures
the military will retain a controlling say in the future government -
"centralizes military control over ethnic areas and grants blanket
immunities for the regime's crimes against humanity."

International human rights group have long documented massive human rights
abuses by the Myanmar military against ethnic minorities, including
killings, rape, torture, the burning of villages and forced labor. The
junta has denied such charges.

The setup of the elections has been widely criticized, both by opposition
groups at home and activists abroad. Recently published election laws -
such as one that would bar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from
taking part in the vote - have received international condemnation.

____________________________________

March 19, Irish Times
Rebels kill 20 Burma troops in ambush

Ethnic rebels killed 20 Burmese (Myanmar) troops in an ambush aimed at
deterring the military government from launching an offensive against them
ahead of elections this year, a rebel spokesman claimed today.

The incident took place last weeken in Nam Zam township of Shan State, a
remote region bordering Thailand and China under control of armed ethnic
Chinese groups for decades.

Troops were ambushed by rebels from the southern wing of the Shan State
Army (SSA), spokesman Sao Lao Seng said. The firefight lasted about three
hours and no rebel troops were killed, he said, adding it was the third
such clash this year.

"The ambush was planned after the regime has been threatening to launch
offensives against us," he said. Eight soldiers were wounded.

The report could not be immediately verified. Burma's state newspapers,
mouthpieces for the media-shy junta, have made no mention of the incident.

Activists and ethnic groups say tens of thousands of troops have been
mobilised in the mountainous region ahead of an impending offensive to
flush out rebel armies resisting demands to disarm, transfer their
fighters to a state-run Border Guard Force and join the political process.

But most groups, which have a deep distrust of the Rangoon junta and have
enjoyed de facto independence for decades, have refused the junta's
"offer", saying they have nothing to gain from polls.

Analysts say Burma's government wants all groups to take part in
elections, the first in two decades, to show the country is fully behind
the political process.

The election, a date for which has not yet been set, has been widely
derided as a sham to entrench the army's rule over the resource-rich Asian
country.

The cooperation of ethnic groups would allow the junta to take control of
the rebellious region for the first time since it took power in 1962.

Generals from the regime have repeatedly held talks with leaders of the
ethnic groups, six of which have agreed to disarm. However, it is unlikely
the bigger armies will follow suit.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

March 19, Associated Press
Protesters smash, paint Myanmar Embassy in India

New Delhi – Dozens of protesters from Myanmar hurled rocks and insults at
their country's embassy in the Indian capital Friday in a show of disdain
for upcoming elections called by the nation's military rulers.

The New Delhi-based protesters sprayed anti-junta slogans on the embassy's
outer wall, smashed its nameplate, defaced posters of Myanmar's military
leader and padlocked the gate and doused it with red paint before being
taken away by police.

A spokesman for the Burmese Pro-Democracy Movement in India, which
organized the protest, said police had detained 68 people, though they
were likely to be released later Friday.

This year's elections in Myanmar, also known as Burma, are part of the
ruling junta's long-announced "roadmap to democracy," which critics deride
as a sham designed to cement the military's power. A military-backed
constitution was approved by a national referendum last May, but the
opposition charges that the vote was unfair.

Recently released election laws prevent democracy leader and Nobel Peace
Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from taking part in the vote because she
was convicted of violating her house arrest. Suu Kyi _ whose party won the
last election in 1990 but was stopped from taking power by the military _
has been jailed or under detention for 14 of the past 20 years.

India has established deep economic and military ties with Myanmar's
generals over the past decade and has said it believes talking quietly is
a better approach than sanctions.
India shifted its policy from supporting Suu Kyi to engaging the junta's
generals in the early 1990s, partly because of a desire for access to
Myanmar's large natural gas reserves.

A date for this year's election in Myanmar has yet to be set.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

March 19, Voice of America
Burma's election preparations undemocratic, say rights, exile groups –
Daniel Schearf

Bangkok – Members of Free Burma Coalition display posters of detained
democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi (R) during a protest in front of Burmese
embassy in Manila, 19 Mar 2010 to denounce Burma's recently announced
election law

Burma rights and exile groups want the international community to denounce
the government's preparations for elections this year, saying they are
undemocratic and are increasing ethnic tensions.

A coalition of rights groups and political exiles on Friday said election
laws released last week confirm that Burma's military government intends
to use the elections to legitimize its rule.

The coalition, called Burma's Movement for Democracy and Ethnic Rights,
wants foreign governments to reject the elections.

The election laws require parties to purge political prisoners from their
ranks, including detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The rules also require allegiance to the controversial 2008 constitution,
which reserves a quarter of all parliamentary seats for the military.

Khin Ohmar is with the Forum for Democracy in Burma, which is part of the
coalition. She says military rule would ensure continued ethnic oppression
and human rights abuses.

"And, it's not only us here on the border but also the people in the
country, whose voice cannot be raised and heard freely, are saying the
same thing - this is the constitution forced by the regime to adopt in
2008. And this is the constitution that has actually given a sole power,
overarching power, to the military regime in all three branches of the
government," she said.

The United States has called the laws a mockery that will ensure the
elections lack credibility. The U.S. and several other governments have
imposed sanctions on Burma because of its poor human rights record.

But Burma's closest neighbors have said little, preferring diplomatic
engagement.

The coalition Friday also expressed concern about increased hostilities
against ethnic militias, including those that have cease-fire agreements
with the government.

Ahead of the elections Burma's military has been trying to force the
militias to consolidate as a border security force.

Zipporah Sein is general secretary of the Karen National Union, which has
been fighting authorities in eastern Burma for decades.

"They [militias] do not accept the 2010 election, they do not accept to
become the border guard force," she said.  "So, the regime also sends
troops to their areas. And, for their part, it is possible when they were
forced and when they were attacked, so it surely that the fighting will be
broke [will break] out again," said Sein.

Burma has yet to announce a date for the elections, the first in two
decades, but says they will take place this year.

Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won Burma's last
elections but the military refused to hand over power and has kept her
under house arrest for most of the time since.

The coalition Friday stopped short of calling for an election boycott and
acknowledged that some opposition politicians, including within the NLD,
want to take part in the elections.

The NLD is to announce later this month if it will participate.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

March 19, Bangkok Post
A five-prong action plan to push for regime change – Maung Zarni

I grew up in military circles in Burma and lived 25 years of my life under
the first military rule of the late General Ne Win prior to going to the
United States for further studies. I myself would have been a military
officer by age 20, if it weren't for my father, who told me to keep my
admission letter to the Officers Training Corps as a souvenir.

For the past two decades, I have ended up studying the institution of my
childhood "career choice" professionally, while politically engaging with
its members.

When the junta's bizarre "election laws" hit recent news headlines, I
heard the Burma policy mantra which is in vogue: "Neither sanctions nor
engagement has worked."

As a Burmese dissident who has embraced sanctions and engagement
approaches, alternately, over the past two decades, I have grown rather
tired of the "neither-nor" policy mantra.

This discourse of "policy defeatism" fails to ask the crucial question:
"What type of sanctions, or engagement, under what circumstances, and for
what purpose, one is talking about?"

This "neither-nor" view is not so much a sign of the absence of policy or
political alternatives, as a symptom of the paralysis of strategic
imagination, a typically insufficient understanding among Burma - and even
Burmese - experts of the real conditions within Burma's armed forces, and
a lack of political resolve on the part of external players who purport to
want reconciliation or clamour for real change in my country.

The crucial policy question is what approaches - notice the plural here -
should be formulated in order to change the Burmese leadership and its
overstretched system. Upon closer look, the regime in Naypyidaw has
created a large-scale perpetual crisis situation whereby its orientation,
decisions and policies only amplify Burma's pre-existing problems such as
armed conflicts, ethnic inequality, the absence of civil liberties,
troubled foreign relations, ecological crises and ever-deepening poverty.

While most other experts on Burma see the staying power of the military
regime, I see emerging possibilities for formulating more effective and
strategic policies in order to induce change. Those wishing to see genuine
change in Burma should remind themselves of the spectacular failures of
most Sovietologists to anticipate the collapse of the "Evil Empire". Based
on my first-hand engagement with the military and my own communications
with the regime insiders, I offer a five-point strategy to facilitate and
accelerate genuine change:

- First, the Western governments that have stood by Aung San Suu Kyi and
her fellow dissidents need to close ranks and solidify their support for
the opposition. Despite talk of a "third force" - that is political
independents who claim they are neither regime proxies nor NLD supporters
- there is no organisation or individual leader that can match her mass
appeal, the NLD's dormant grassroots base, mobilising power, and
international support. Regardless of its legal standing, the NLD will
continue to exist as a political movement.

- Second, the type of engagement with Burma will need to be strategically
calibrated. Specifically, all those governments and organisations, both
Asian and Western, need to shift the focus of their engagement away from
the intransigent and backward leadership of the regime, towards its second
and third-line leaders.

In addition to this government-to-regime engagement at lower notches,
international efforts should be expanded to include various sectors of
Burmese economy, cultural organisations, educational institutions and
community organisations and informal networks.

- Third, pro-sanctions governments and political NGOs should intensify
their campaigns for targeted financial sanctions, asset-freeze, travel
bans, international legal actions, all singling out Senior General Than
Shwe, his top deputies and cronies. For starters, these pressure groups
should rally solidly behind UN Human Rights Special Envoy Tomas Ojea
Quintana's official call for setting up an international investigation of
Than Shwe's war crimes.

- Fourth, opposition-backing governments, such as Washington and London,
need to pay attention to the ever-declining morale, material conditions,
and anti-regime attitudinal changes within the rank-and-file of the armed
forces which compel an ever-increasing number of new generation officers
between the ages of 20-40 to desert the armed forces. Many officers are
deserting out of a sense of outrage against intra-military injustices.
Many of these officers as well as their comrades, who chose not to desert
the institution, wish to contribute to genuine change in the country and
leadership change within the armed forces. But they are finding there is
little support coming from foreign governments.

- Finally, all governments that may be concerned about Burma's
balkanisation and resultant regional instability should take note of
pent-up frustrations which could boil over in the near future. There is a
deepening sense of injustice due to decades of repression of non-Burman
ethnic communities. It would be short-sighted for regional powers to allow
the junta to maintain domestic stability at gunpoint, as opposed to firmly
pushing the regime for peace and reconciliation. Sixty years after a
series of ethnic-driven armed revolts, all minority groups are ready to
work together as ethnic equals within a union. Even the few that publicly
clamour for independence are doing so as a bargaining strategy, rather
than as a realisable goal. It is the junta, not the country's ethnic
diversity, that is creating regional volatility. The sooner Asian powers
come to terms with this empirical reality the better for peace, stability
and cross-border prosperity in the region.

The writer is Visiting Senior Fellow, Institute of Security and
International Studies at Chulalongkorn University, and Research Fellow on
Burma, London School of Economics and Political Science.

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

March 17, Mekong Migrants Network
Deaths of migrants must be investigated

On February 25th 2010, in Pak Nam sub-district, Ranong province, soldiers
from the 25th Infantry Division fired on a pickup truck carrying 13
undocumented migrant workers from Burma, resulting in the deaths of three
migrant children. Those killed were a three or four year old, six or seven
year old girl, and a 16-year-old boy. Five others were also injured during
the shooting .

On March 9th 2010, in Phuket, a 20-year-old woman and a young girl from
Burma drowned in a river while fleeing from the police who arrived at the
worker’s quarters at night. The woman had a work permit and was enrolled
in the new nationality verification program and the girl was holding the
temporary identification document (Tor Ror 38/1).  According to a witness,
workers nearby were too afraid to go and rescue the drowning pair, as the
police held them off at gun point.

The Mekong Migration Network (MMN), a sub-regional network of 38 member
organisations working together to protect migrants’ rights in the Greater
Mekong Subregion (GMS), is appalled by such tragic deaths of innocent
children and women. These deaths would have been avoided if proper
procedures had been followed and if the safety and well-being of migrants
was respected.

In 2006-2007, the MMN conducted collaborative research on the arrest,
detention and deportation (“ADD”) of migrant workers in the GMS and
highlighted serious human rights abuses, as well as a lack of transparency
and accountability during processes that involved ADD. While MMN’s core
recommendation is that policies be amended so that migrants are not
constantly at risk of arrest, detention and deportation, in the event that
migrants are arrested, detained or deported, we called for the procedures
to be carried out in a humane, safe and transparent manner and only by
authorized, trained authorities. .

In response to these latest tragedies, The Mekong Migration Network
urgently calls for the Royal Thai Government to:

1.	Conduct full and impartial investigations into these events to ensure
that the authorities involved are held liable for their actions.

2.	Facilitate access to justice for the victims and their families and
ensure that they receive adequate redress.

3.	Take immediate steps to ensure that the relevant authorities enforce
safe and humane procedures during the arrest and deportation of migrant
workers according to the Thai Criminal Procedure Code; the 1997 Measures
in Prevention and Suppression of Trafficking in Women and Children Act
(Section 9); and Article 22 of the International Convention on the
Protection of the Rights of Migrant workers and their Families (1999).

4.	Address the level of fear and insecurity that has been created in the
migrant community which leads to even fully documented migrants being
terrified of uniformed officers.


For further information please contact:

Ms Laddawan Tamafu		+66 8 1595 1364
Ms Jackie Pollock		+66 8 6090 4118
Mr. Htoo Chit 			+66 8 1797 7745