BurmaNet News, June 16, 2010

[Editor]

June 16, Issue #3983


INSIDE BURMA
DVB: New opposition’s election hopes ‘not high’
Reuters: Floods in Myanmar kill at least 12
AFP: 4 killed in Myanmar crash

ON THE BORDER
SHAN: Wa Democratic Party doesn’t represent Wa people: Wa elder

REGIONAL
AFP: UN development chief says Myanmar, Thailand face challenges
Irrawaddy: Amnesty calls for refugee Rights in Malaysia

INTERNATIONAL
The Dominion Post (New Zealand): Myanmar top brass at security seminar;
Military regime 'rewarded' by visit

OPINION / OTHER
Irrawaddy: Burmese whistle blowers need safe passage – Aung Zaw



____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

June 16, Democratic Voice of Burma
New opposition’s election hopes ‘not high’ – Ahunt Phone Myat

Expectations of Burma’s looming elections are low among the National
Democratic Force (NDF) party, which was granted permission to register for
the polls yesterday.

Following the announcement that the NDF, formed of senior members of the
defunct National League for Democracy (NLD) party, had been approved to
continue to the next stage of registration, leaders warned that gaining
any political leverage in Burma following the polls is unlikely.

“It’s not that we believe there will be democracy after the elections or
that the parliament will give birth to a democratic system,” said Than
Nyein, spokesperson for the NDF.

The 2008 constitution awards nearly a quarter of parliamentary seats to
the military even prior to voting, meaning that the likelihood of an
overarching civilian presence in the post-election government remains a
dim prospect.

“We are joining the elections because we believe we need to stand legally
as a political party in order to do proper work for democracy,” he said.
“Even if we cannot walk on the path we are building now, our new
generations will. We are not holding any high hopes”.

The formation of the NDF has angered many within the old opposition who
claim they have defied the principals behind the NLD’s boycott of the
elections, which led to the party’s dissolution. Pro-democracy activists
and Burma observers are now split between supporting the symbolic ideals
of the boycott, and acknowledging the need for a semblance of an
opposition in Burma’s first elections in 20 years.

But the 42 parties who have lodged their bid to run in the elections face
problems over funding. Election laws announced in March state that each
party pay 500,000 kyat ($US500) to register, and then a further 500,000
kyat per candidate.

“It will be hard for us to completely overcome this [financial] problem,”
says Than Nyein. “However, we have some party members who will support us
and civilians too to some level. So we plan to solve the problems locally;
our parliamentary candidates and party members will find the funding by
themselves in their regions.”

The NDF now needs to present its party leader and deputy leader to Burma’s
Election Commission (EC), which will act as the supreme authority during
the polls. The impartiality of the EC has been questioned by analysts:
it’s head,Thein Soe, was vice chief justice of Burma’s supreme court and
former military judge advocate general.

Once the commission has vetted the party’s leaders, which include former
NLD pokesperson Khin Maung Swe, and examined its manifesto, the NDF will
then propose the party flag and the insignia.

Date for the elections have not yet been set, although it is rumoured they
will be held in October this year.

____________________________________

June 16, Reuters
Floods in Myanmar kill at least 12

Yangon – Heavy rain in Myanmar has triggered floods and landslides,
washing away bridges, blocking roads and killing at least 12 people,
district officials said on Wednesday.

Myanmar is no stranger to harsh weather and at least 140,000 people were
killed in 2008 when a cyclone hit the south of the country.

Large areas of two townships, or districts, in Rakhine State in the west
of the country had been inundated after torrential rain this week, and at
least a dozen people had been killed, an official said by telephone from
the region.

"I think the death toll will go up when we get to hear from nearby
villages," said the official, who declined to be identified as he is not
authorized to speak to the media.

A road had been blocked by a landslide, he said.

The Meteorological Department said 13.47 inches of rain fell in the town
of Maungdaw, on the border with Bangladesh, on Monday.

Flooding had also hit the towns of Mrauk Oo and Kyauk Taw, about 350 miles
northwest of the city of Yangon, washing away three bridges, although no
casualties had been reported there, another official in the region said.

Deforestation had contributed to the problem, with rain pouring off bare
slopes and eroding soil, which blocked waterways, he said.

"The forests are gone and the creeks are choked. So flash floods are
common in the rainy season," said the second official, who also declined
to be identified.

(Reporting by Aung Hla Tun; Editing by Robert Birsel)

____________________________________

June 16, Agence France Presse
4 killed in Myanmar crash

Yangon – FOUR people were killed and another was seriously injured when a
military helicopter crashed in central Myanmar during bad weather on
Wednesday, officials said.

The Mi-1 helicopter came down in jungle near the town of Pindaya in the
west of Shan State, a Myanmar official said, declining to be named.

'Four people on board were killed and one was sent to a nearby hospital,'
he added. Another military official said bad weather was to blame for the
crash, without giving further detail such as the victims' identities.

Myanmar's secretive junta rarely reveals information about the operations
of its military, though state media reported an accident involving a
Chinese-made fighter jet with the death of the pilot in Mandalay in
December 2007.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

June 16, Shan Herald Agency for News
Wa Democratic Party doesn’t represent Wa people: Wa elder – Hseng Khio Fah

The Wa Democratic Party (WDP) that has been granted permission to float a
political party to contest the elections, ‘doesn’t represent the Wa
people,’ a Wa elder living on the Sino-Burma border recently told SHAN.

Besides the WDP, there is another Wa party that will contest the
forthcoming elections: the Wa National Unity Party (WNUP). Both have
reportedly been approved by the Union Elections Commission (UEC) last
month.

There is yet another Wa party: United Wa State Party (UWSP), the political
wing of the United Wa State Army (UWSA). The group has been silent about
contesting the elections.

According to sources, the WDP was led by former members of the defunct
Burma Socialist Program Party (BSPP) turned National Unity Party (NUP)
turned Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) led by Khun Tun
Lu (60), who won the only NUP seat in Shan State in Hopang township in
1990. The NUP won ten seats across the country.

Other WDP members include Hsai Pao Nap and Jingda, both former BSPP members.

“It is therefore not the party that works for the interest of the Wa
people and represents them. It will only be working for the interest of
the military,” he said. “The party that will be working for the interest
of the Wa people is the WNUP.”

The WNUP was formerly the Wa National Development Party (WNDP), one of the
10 parties that were recognized by the State Peace and Development Council
(SPDC) after the1990 elections.

The WNUP was founded by Ta Saulu, who was once imprisoned for exposing the
military junta’s involvement in drugs, according to sources from the
Sino-Burma border.

“He was later released with the help of UWSA,” he said.

The party’s leadership includes Philip Hsam and Yi Pleuk.

However, there has been no report in which townships the two parties will
be competing in. Apart from the Wa Self-Administered Region that has six
townships, there are other townships in Shan State, where there are
sizable Wa populations. They are: Tangyan in Shan State North and
Kengtung, Mongton and Monghsat townships in Shan State East.

The Wa come from Mon-Khmer stock, the same family that includes Mon,
Cambodians and Ta-ang (Palaung).It is one of the major groups of Shan
State and was granted a Self-Administered Region by the junta-sponsored
National Convention comprising six townships: Hopang, Mongmai, Pangwai,
Nahparn, Panghsang and Markmang. The Wa also controls Mongpawk and some
areas along the Thai-Burma border.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

June 16, Agence France Presse
UN development chief says Myanmar, Thailand face challenges

Hanoi – Myanmar faces a tough task to eradicate extreme poverty and meet
other global development goals, while political instability is holding
back Thailand's progress, the UN development chief says.

In an interview with AFP, Helen Clark also said Vietnam had "a pretty good
story to tell" about its efforts to achieve the so-called Millennium
Development Goals, but faces a major challenge from climate change and
rising sea levels.

Clark said military-ruled Myanmar, with "huge poverty", will find it
difficult to meet any of the eight development goals by the 2015 global
target.

"It would be tough," Clark, administrator of the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP), said Tuesday on the sidelines of a
conference.

The former New Zealand prime minister said Myanmar has the lowest foreign
aid per capita of any developing country, and "political factors" restrict
what the UNDP can do in Myanmar, "so it's not so easy to make progress
there at this time."

Myanmar, which has detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi for most of
the past two decades, is under European Union and United States sanctions.

Neighbouring Thailand has made reasonable progress in tackling poverty,
Clark said, but further development is being hindered by political
tensions.

Outbreaks of violence in Bangkok during two months of anti-government
protests from March until May killed 90 people, wounded nearly 1,900, and
left the country deeply divided.

"Clearly, instability holds back a country's development progress, and you
end up punching below your weight when you could be punching to, or above,
your weight," she said.

The unrest followed more than three years of political instability after
the army seized power from then-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a
2006 bloodless coup.

"Things haven't been stable since and I think what's really needed is a
national dialogue on how to move to elections which are seen as free and
fair and people will accept the result," said Clark, who assumed her post
in April last year.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called a September summit in New York
to accelerate efforts toward reaching the 2015 development goals deadline.

Clark said Vietnam will be able to report good progress towards the goals
of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary
education, and reducing child and maternal mortality.

The country has work to do to combat HIV/AIDS and add to the existing
progress on access to water and basic sanitation, she said, while the
environmental cost of old-style industrialisation also needs to be
addressed.

But fast-growing Vietnam, which this year is set to attain "middle-income"
status, faces a "huge challenge" from climate change, Clark said.

"And I believe that the government is acutely aware of this, aware now
that Vietnam is one of the most exposed countries in the world to rising
sea levels, intensity and frequency... of adverse weather events like
typhoons," she said.

Vietnam is planning for a one-metre (3.3 feet) rise in sea levels by 2100,
which would inundate about 31,000 square kilometres (12,400 square miles)
of land -- an area about the size of Belgium -- unless dykes and drainage
systems are strengthened, a UN discussion paper said in December.

It said the inundation threat is greatest in the Mekong Delta, the
country's main rice production area. Vietnam is the world's second-biggest
rice exporter.

If that land becomes unusable there are "serious implications" for the
region, Clark said.

She spoke on the sidelines of a conference to review a pilot programme
that aims to improve the coherence and effectiveness of UN assistance.
Vietnam and Pakistan are among eight countries worldwide participating in
the pilot which, the UN says, has hastened achievement of the Millennium
Development Goals.

____________________________________

June 16, Irrawaddy
Amnesty calls for refugee Rights in Malaysia – Saw Yan Naing

International human rights group Amnesty International (AI) on Tuesday
called on the Malaysian government to provide better rights to the
country's refugees—most of whom are Burmese.

In a report titled “Abused and Abandoned: Refugees Denied Rights in
Malaysia,” released ahead of World Refugee Day on June 20, the
London-based organization said that refugees and asylum seekers in
Malaysia are frequently subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention in
appalling conditions, caning, extortion, human trafficking and deportation
back to the persecution that they fled.

The report documents the plight of refugees and asylum seekers who have
reached Malaysia, where they are refused legal recognition, basic
protection and the right to work by the Malaysian authorities.

“Refugees should be able to live with dignity while they are in Malaysia,”
said Chris Nash, the head of refugee and migrant rights at AI. “The
government should move immediately to issue refugees official ID cards and
grant them the right to work.”

In February, Malaysian Home Secretary Hishammuddin Hussein proposed the
introduction of government ID cards for UN-recognized refugees, and stated
that refugees should be able to take on “odd jobs,”' though not be
entitled to full rights to work. However, no concrete steps have been
taken to introduce the ID cards since then, the rights group pointed out.

Malaysian government ID cards would give refugees and asylum seekers in
Malaysia some immediate protection from arbitrary detention, harassment
and extortion by police and the People's Volunteer Corps (RELA), who
routinely refuse to recognize cards issued by the UN's refugee agency, the
UNHCR.

“There is a long way to go for Malaysia on refugee rights, but
government-issued ID cards are a start,” said Nash. “This is the right
time for Malaysia to take this very simple, but concrete and positive step
that will make a huge difference to the lives of tens of thousands of
refugees and asylum seekers in the country.”

A media officer who works voluntarily with the China Refugee Center in
Malaysia said that arrests, detentions and extortion are daily problems
for refugees because they are not officially recognized by the Malaysian
government which is not a signatory to the UN's 1951 Refugee Convention.

“If the government signs the Refugee Convention, the refugees can fully
receive their rights,” he added.

Aung Naing Thu, a Burmese activist in Malaysia, said that Burmese
opposition members and activists who stay in Malaysia face difficulties in
organizing political activities.

“We have to ask the Malaysian government for permission if we want to hold
an event,” he said. “If we try to stage an event without their permission
we will be arrested.”

Kyaw Kyaw, the chairman of the National League for Democracy-Liberation
Area (NLD-LA) in Malaysia, said a special crackdown against illegal aliens
that was launched by the Malaysian immigration, police and RELA is the
most dangerous predicament for illegal Burmese refugees, migrant workers
and activists who say raids can be launched anywhere and at any time.

RELA continues to operate in a climate of impunity, despite recent
Malaysian government assurances that the organization will cease to be
involved in immigration enforcement, said AI.

While Malaysia accepts the presence of hundreds of thousands of Burmese
and other migrants within the workforce, persons identified as refugees
and asylum seekers on their way to a third country are viewed as threats
to national security, according to a report titled “Trafficking and
Extortion of Burmese Migrants in Malaysia and Southern Thailand” released
by the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

In addition, a report released this week by the US Department of State
titled “Trafficking in Persons” also confirmed that RELA arbitrarily
detains refugees and asylum-seekers, and is involved in trafficking.

Refugees were particularly vulnerable to trafficking and there was limited
progress in convicting traffickers despite government efforts, said the
report.
In an interview with The New York Times, RELA's Director-General Zaidon
Asmuni said, “We have no more Communists at the moment, but we are now
facing illegal immigrants. As you know, in Malaysia, illegal immigrants
are enemy No. 2.”

There are 84,200 refugees and asylum seekers registered with UNHCR in
Malaysia, while there are at least 500,000 unregistered migrants. More
than 90 percent of the registered refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia
are from Burma, according to AI.

Many of the approximately 40,000 Burmese refugees who have resettled in
the United States since 1995 have come via Malaysia, according to the
report by the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

AI also called on third countries to increase their resettlement of
refugees currently in Malaysia.

Resettlement provides a small number of refugees with the opportunity to
rebuild their lives in countries such as Australia, Canada, the United
States and in Europe. However, there has been a notable lack of
resettlement of the Muslim Rohingya people who are from Burma, said the
rights group.

Meanwhile, rights groups in Chiang Mai, Thailand, will hold an event to
mark World Refugee Day on June 20, which will include a World Refugee Day
film and a short discussion about refugees and migrant workers in
Thailand.

Burmese refugees in Thailand are mostly ethnic Karen who fled from their
hometown in Karen State due to human rights abuses suffered at the hands
of the Burmese army.

According to the most recent figures from Thailand-based Karen Human
Rights Group, more than 60,000 villagers remain displaced and in hiding in
the jungle in Karen State as combined troops from Burma's government
forces and the breakaway Karen rebels, Democratic Karen Buddhist Army,
become have become more active in southern Papun District and northern
Pa-an District since May 2009.

Related article: “Amnesty Tells Malaysia to Protect Migrant Workers”

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

June 16, The Dominion Post (New Zealand)
Myanmar top brass at security seminar; Military regime 'rewarded' by visit
– Tom Hunt

A NAVY captain from Myanmar's repressive military regime has attended an
Auckland security conference.

The visit has surprised two Opposition politicians who follow events in
Myanmar. They say they knew nothing of the visit until it was revealed in
papers from Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully, issued to The
Dominion Post under the Official Information Act.

However, Mr McCully said the conference was widely known about.

The papers show the "risk to New Zealand's international reputation" was
highlighted, though other details were blacked out.

The conference focused on "enhancing regional capabilities and cooperation".

Green Party Foreign Affairs spokesman Keith Locke said the Government,
which had the weakest sanctions against Myanmar in the Western world, was
effectively rewarding the regime, which has been accused of crimes against
humanity.

Myanmar, formerly Burma, is ruled by a military regime under which
opponents are persecuted.

The country's democratically elected leader, Aung Sung Suu Kyi, has been
under house arrest for most of the past 20 years.

Labour MP Maryan Street said she was "astonished" at how high ranking the
Myanmar visitor was.

This month Parliament voted unanimously to "call upon the military rulers
of Burma to reinstate the political and democratic rights of Aung San Suu
Kyi and allow her to contest the forthcoming general election".

Mr McCully's office confirmed that Captain Nay Win, from the Myanmar Navy,
attended the March ASEAN Regional Forum Intersessional Meeting on maritime
security from March 29 to 31.

Myanmar Foreign Affairs MInistry ASEAN Affairs Department director Wai
Lwin Than and Transport Department director-general Winn Pe were to attend
but dropped out for unexplained reasons.

Naing Ko Ko, a former political prisoner who escaped from Myanmar, said
the New Zealand Government should have blocked Myanmar's inclusion.

Allowing Myanmar's participation showed support for the regime's extensive
human rights violations, he said.

"The New Zealand Government should not be collaborating with a
dictatorship which the United Nations Rapporteur has recommended should be
charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity."

Significant parts of the OIA information were withheld by Mr McCully, who
said its release would prejudice the security, defence or international
relations of New Zealand, as well as another country sharing confidential
information with New Zealand.

"As a member of the [ASEAN Regional Forum], Burma has a right to attend
such meetings, and New Zealand, as hosts, has no right to pick and choose
which members we invite to what was an important ASEAN meeting," a
spokesman for Mr McCully said.

"We therefore decided to put New Zealand's significant regional interests
ahead of our ongoing concerns over human rights issues in Burma."

There were no particular immigration concerns with allowing Captain Win to
enter New Zealand.

Ruth Corlett, director of Partners Relief and Development New Zealand, a
group fighting for human rights in Myanmar, said New Zealand's lack of
sanctions against the regime "makes us complicit in their blatant
disregard of global human rights standards".

"The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the European Union all
have wide-ranging sanctions against the regime whilst New Zealand sits
idly by," she said.

In March, The Dominion Post revealed three Myanmar Government officials
were being funded by Kiwi taxpayers to study English in New Zealand.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

June 16, Irrawaddy
Burmese whistle blowers need safe passage – Aung Zaw

Burma's top military leaders are angry. Despite their best efforts to keep
the world's prying eyes out of their affairs, another member of the armed
forces has come forward, at great personal risk, to reveal all he knows
about the regime's dirty little secrets.

This time, however, the secret was not so little. Sometime earlier this
year, Sai Thein Win, a defense engineer and former major in the Burmese
military, fled the country with evidence strongly suggesting that the
junta is running a nascent nuclear weapons program.

According to Robert Kelley, a former director of the International Atomic
Energy Agency, the documents and photographs that Sai Thein Lwin smuggled
out of the country show that the junta is exploring nuclear technology
that is “useful only for weapons.”

It is impossible to overstate the risks that Sai Thein Lwin took to share
this information. Just weeks or months before his escape, two other
whistle blowers—a former military officer and a foreign affairs
official—were sentenced to death in January for leaking reports to the
exiled media of a clandestine visit to North Korea by Gen Shwe Mann, the
regime's No 3.

Without Sai Thein Win's evidence and the testimony of Aung Lynn Htut,
another former army officer featured in a recent documentary shown on the
Al Jazeera television network, the world would know little or nothing of
what is taking place behind the junta's closed doors.

The regime is, not surprisingly, determined to discredit these two
“deserters and fugitives” any way they can.

State-run newspapers called Sai Thein Win a deserter who was fleeing
criminal conviction. Maj Aung Lynn Htut, a former intelligence officer who
sought asylum in the US after his boss, Gen Khin Nyunt, was ousted in
October 2004, was likewise accused of misappropriating US $4,525 in state
funds and has been charged with high treason.

Both men would undoubtedly share the fate of their less fortunate
colleagues if they were ever to return to Burma. But even though they are
now safely outside the country, there are many more mid-ranking officers
like them still in Burma, waiting for an opportunity to present evidence
of the regime's military connection to North Korea and countless human
rights violations.

These would-be informers should be welcomed with open arms by the outside
world, but unfortunately,  most are still in a limbo, ready to put their
necks on the line, but only if they know that the chances they are
prepared to take will make a difference.

It remains to be seen whether Sai Thein Win's evidence will move the
international community to reassess the situation inside Burma. Meanwhile,
his safety is assured, as he is believed to be living in a third country
after spending a brief period in Thailand. But his family inside Burma is
reportedly facing harassment for his role in revealing the regime's
secrets.

In the case of Aung Lynn Htut, matters are somewhat more complicated.
Although he now lives in the US, his status there is not permanent. He is
required to periodically report to immigration authorities,  and there is
some concern that he might even be deported, although this seems unlikely.
More importantly, however, he must fend off attacks on his credibility by
the regime, which has attempted to  use diplomatic channels to raise
suspicions that he is actually a double agent.

Knowing that they, too, could face such tactics to undermine them even
once they are outside the country, most closet dissidents within the ranks
of the military are understandably reluctant to make that all-important
initial contact with outsiders. Some may even be worried by reports that
in the past, some officers who fled to the Thai-Burmese border were
executed as alleged spies or informers for the regime.

Defectors provide rare insights into the regime's inner workings, and
their courageous attempts to reach out should be recognized and fully
supported by those in a position to assist them in any way, including
exiles and foreign diplomats. Only by building trust between them and us
will we ever be able to challenge the regime's hold on power.