BurmaNet News, August 24, 2010

[Editor]

August 24, 2010 Issue #4026

INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Myanmar's Suu Kyi calls for close watch on election: lawyer
Irrawaddy: More senior officers reportedly resign to join USDP
Xinhua: Myanmar moves Yangon region administrative offices to parliament
house

BUSINESS / TRADE
Economic Times (India): Indian Oil, Oil India in talks to buy into Essar's
Myanmar gas block

INTERNATIONAL
FoxNews: EXCLUSIVE: Report slams $100M aid effort in Burma, but U.N. plans
to keep program alive

OPINION / OTHER
Washington Post: Commissioning justice for Burma – Kelley Currie
Asia Times: Behold, beware Myanmar's fourth empire – Bertil Lintner
ALRC: BURMA: The absence of normative and institutional frameworks to
protect human rights in Myanmar
Chin Human Rights Organization: CHRO condemns destruction of Christian
cross in Chin State




____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

August 24, Agence France Presse
Myanmar's Suu Kyi calls for close watch on election: lawyer

Yangon — Detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi wants the Myanmar
people to keep a close watch on upcoming elections and speak out if the
vote is not free and fair, her lawyer said Tuesday.

"Our face should not be turned away from the election although the NLD...
decided not to take part," Nyan Win, who is also the long-time spokesman
of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), quoted the Nobel Peace
laureate as saying during talks at her home.

"For it to become a fair election, people also have a duty, not just the
government.

"People have to speak out if the process is not in accordance with the
election law or if it is not balanced. People have to reveal it. The NLD
has to reveal it," Suu Kyi was quoted as saying.

"She's very glad that people are interested in the political process. But
she said the political process is not only the 2010 election. It's just a
part of it," Nyan Win said.

"She said everyone should take interest in the election. NLD members
should not turn their face from the election process just because they
will not take part."

Suu Kyi has spent most of the past 20 years in detention, and as a serving
prisoner is barred from standing in the November 7 election, which will be
the military-ruled country's first in 20 years.

The NLD won a landslide victory in 1990 but the junta never allowed it to
take office.

The party is boycotting the upcoming vote, saying the rules are unfair. As
a result, it was forcibly disbanded by the ruling generals.

So far 42 political parties have been given permission to stand in the
polls, which have been widely condemned by activists and the West as a
charade aimed at putting a civilian face on military rule.

Among them is the National Democracy Force (NDF), formed by former NLD
members whose decision to participate in the vote put them at odds with
Suu Kyi, who was in favour of a boycott.

"The NLD cannot support any party. If it supports one, it will become an
enemy to another," Nyan Win quoted Suu Kyi as saying. "So she said to let
them do their work."

Nyan Win said that Suu Kyi had told him more of her opinions on the
election and Myanmar's political situation, and he would give details on
Wednesday after discussing them with other senior NLD members.

____________________________________

August 24, Irrawaddy
More senior officers reportedly resign to join USDP – Yan Pai

In a major shake-up within the Burmese military leadership, several
high-ranking senior officers have reportedly resigned in order to join the
junta's proxy political party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party
(USDP).

According to army sources, the officers include Lt-Gen Thar Aye, Lt-Gen
Ohn Myint, Lt-Gen Myint Swe and Lt-Gen Khin Zaw—all of whom are  chiefs of
the regime's bureau of special operations, which oversee the regional
military commands.

Others included Lt-Gen Maung Shein, defense services inspection and
auditor general, Lt-Gen Tin Aye, chief of ordnance production for Burma's
armed forces, and Lt-Gen Myint Hlaing, chief of air defense.

If confirmed, this would be the second batch of high-ranking military
officials to leave their posts to work for the USDP led by the junta's
Prime Minister Thein Sein and other former military officials.

The latest unconfirmed reports say the regime's No.3 Gen Shwe Mann and Gen
Tin Aung Myint Oo, the regime's No.4 and Secretary (1), are also expected
to resign their army posts and stand as USDP candidates in the November
election.

Lt-Gen Min Aung Hlaing and Lt-Gen Ko Ko who are also heads of bureau of
special operations, Lt-Gen Hla Htay Win, armed forces training chief, and
Lt-Gen Thura Myint Aung, adjutant general, are reportedly not on the list
of resignations.

It is rumored that Min Aung Hlaing is expected to become the deputy
commander-in-chief of the army and  that Hla Htay Win will fill the
position vacated by Tin Aye.

There has not yet been any official announcement of the reported
resignations, which are said to have occurred last Wednesday. The
positions for bureau of special operations may no longer exist, said an
army source.

The retired military officials are expected to stand as USDP candidates in
the November election. The USDP, led by Prime Minister Thein Sein, claims
to have a membership of 20 million people and is Burma's largest political
party. USDP candidates have already began organizing campaigns in
constituencies which they will be contesting in the election.

In a related development, some other military officials were recently
transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A source said that
Brig-Gen Myint Naung in Karen State, Brig-Gen San Myint Oo in Shan State
and two other officers ranking as Brigadier Generals were assigned to the
ministry.

These four military officers are expected to be assigned to postings in
Burmese embassies abroad. The Burmese ambassador to the United Kingdom,
ex-Brig Gen Ne Win, ambassador to Vietnam Khin Maung Soe and four other
Burmese ambassadors in foreign countries have been recalled to Burma.

The diplomatic postings left vacant by the recall would be filled by
current military regional commanders in the army and other senior military
officials, sources said.

____________________________________

August 24, Xinhua
Myanmar moves Yangon region administrative offices to parliament house

The Myanmar government is planning to move some of the Yangon region
administrative offices from a combined building in the downtown area to
the former parliament house in the city built during the tenure of the
previous Ne Win government, local media reported Tuesday.

The combined administrative office comprises of that of Yangon Region
Peace and Development Council, Yangon Region General Administration,
Yangon Region Police Headquarters, Directorate of Yangon City Development
Committee, Yangon Region Immigration Office and Yangon Region Election
Commission Office.

After the move-out, the Yangon Region Law Office will be the only office
left there, some local journals said.

In June this year, a state-owned ministerial office building in Yangon was
privatized to a giant private company as part of the government's
privatization plan.

The well-known six-storey building office, lying on the Strand Road, was
bought by the Myanmar Economic Holding limited at a price of 12,777
million Kyats ( about 12 million U.S. dollars), earlier local report said,
adding that the company also won the bid for auction of the old National
Library in Yangon's Tanmway in February this year with the price of 9.7
billion million kyats ( about 9.7 million dollars).

Meanwhile, a new studio complex of the Myanmar Radio and Television
(MRTV-3), operating under the Information Ministry, has also been
auctioned.

The Shwe Taung Development Company, which is also one of the giant private
enterprises in Myanmar, has won the bid for auction of the land and
building of the TV station at a price of 13 billion Kyats (over 13 million
U.S. dollars).

Besides, a famous cinema -- Yadanapon on Pyay Road in Yangon was also sold
out to another private enterprise at a price of 920 million Kyats (over
920,000 dollars).

Myanmar announced privatization of over 20 state-owned buildings as the
latest series which include offices of the Ministry of Industry-1,
Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, Ministry of Health, Ministry of
Transport, Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Education and Ministry of
Cooperatives in Yangon.

Since December last year up to March this year, the government' s
Committee for Auctioning of State-Owned Building had set a total of 279
more state-owned buildings and land plots under its privatization plan.

The auction also includes textile, consumer goods, electronic and
electrical goods producing factories, warehouses and cinemas respectively
owned by 11 ministries and government departments.

Located across the country, these state enterprises are scattered mainly
in Yangon, Mandalay, Ayeyawaddy and Bago divisions and Rakhine state.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

August 24, Economic Times (India)
Indian Oil, Oil India in talks to buy into Essar's Myanmar gas block

New Delhi – State-owned oil companies Indian Oil and Oil India are in
talks with the Essar group to pick up 20% stake each in a gas block in
Myanmar that is estimated to have even bigger reserves than Reliance
Industries’ KG-D6 fields.

The shallow-water gas block (A2) that Essar group had acquired in 2005 is
an estimated 13 trillion cubic feet (tcf) gas reserve, larger than the
10.03 tcf KG-D6 fields.

“Both IOC and OIL are considering Essar’s farm-in proposals for A2-shallow
water gas block and an onshore block L in Myanmar,” a consultant, advising
the two companies said on condition of anonymity.

Another of Essar’s gas asset in Myanmar (Block L) has an estimated
recoverable hydrocarbon reserve of 330 mn barrels of oil equivalent
(MMBOE).

Confirming the development, an oil ministry official said, IOC and OIL
have already visited Essar’s data room for due diligence.

“They are considering to jointly pick up 40% stake in Essar’s gas block,
but not in the L block,” he said. The Essar group holds the two Myanmar
assets through an unlisted entity—Essar Exploration & Production, South
East Asia.

An ET query sent to IOC and OIL elicited no response. An Essar group
spokesman declined to comment on this issue.

The consultant advising the state-owned oil companies said that the seller
and the buyers had met recently to discuss commercial details including
discovery and assignment bonus.

But an OIL official said, “the deal is yet to be finalised.”

Essar had submitted a commercial proposal to OIL and IOC in December last
year. According to preliminary reports of the visiting technical team, the
two companies are positive about prospects of the gas asset.

Essar has drilled one well each in the two blocks after 2D and 3D seismic
surveys of the two field.

The two fields are still at the exploratory stage and recoverable reserve
estimates are yet to be certified, a technical person working in the
project said.

Essar was the first Indian company to bag two oil and gas blocks in
Myanmar in 2005. The company had signed a production sharing contract with
the government of Myanmar in May 2005.

EOL had bid for the two contiguous offshore blocks (Block A2) and an
adjoining block on land (Block L) in January 2005. The blocks are located
between proven gas blocks and aligned along the regional corridor of gas
discoveries south of Bangladesh, which includes the highly productive
Sangu gas field in the country.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

August 24, FoxNews
EXCLUSIVE: Report slams $100M aid effort in Burma, but U.N. plans to keep
program alive

Despite an independent assessment of a $100 million United Nations
Development Program aid effort in Burma that calls it “disappointing” and
suggests that major portions be discontinued, the director of UNDP intends
to keep it alive with as-yet unspecified fixes.
fox news

An independent assessment of a $100 million United Nations Development
Program aid effort in Burma calls it “disappointing,” and
“unsatisfactory,” and suggests that major portions of the program be
discontinued next year. Nonetheless, the director of UNDP intends to keep
it alive with as-yet unspecified fixes.

The assessment of the UNDP’s Human Development Initiative suggested there
were “modest or only limited differences” between the Burmese villages
that got UNDP support and those that didn’t.

Among the areas of negligible impact: health care, education and “food
security,” meaning the vital business of whether the poorest were
producing and saving enough food to eat in the military-controlled country
also known as Myanmar.

There will be no mention, however, of the wind-down suggestion in a
condensed version of the assessment report that will be presented to
UNDP’s 36-nation supervisory executive board when it holds a regularly
scheduled session in New York City starting Aug. 30. (The U.S. is a board
member.)

Instead, the head of UNDP, Helen Clark, suggests in her note to the board
that the most criticized parts of the aid effort require a “revision of
the program concept and design in order to enhance the impact on poverty.”
Clark also holds out the possibility that the “strategic framework” of the
programs might require only “modest changes” -- including closer
cooperation with local elements of the brutal Burmese regime.

Clark recommends that the board give her the widest latitude to implement
changes to the Human Development Initiative “as appropriate.”

The issue of aid assistance to Burma -- which has largely cut itself off
from the outside world -- is a hot-button issue, especially after the
Obama Administration last week announced that it would support an
international commission of inquiry to investigate alleged war crimes and
crimes against humanity committed by the Burmese regime. (Among other
things, the regime has kept its chief critic, opposition political leader
and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest since
2003.)

At the same time, international concern has been growing about whether the
regime has been developing a clandestine nuclear program along the lines
of its ally, North Korea, even as international aid agencies of all kinds
commit hundreds of millions of dollars worth of aid to the country.

Making sure that UNDP’s funds stay out of government hands in
military-dominated Burma was one of the strings attached from the virtual
outset to the Human Development Initiative by UNDP’s executive board.
Testifying to whether the arms-length distance has been kept is one of the
annual tasks assigned to the independent assessors, who also take the
opportunity to examine the effectiveness of UNDP efforts in the country.

For years, the assessors have given the program a clean bill of health on
the issue of government involvement -- but they have also grown
increasingly critical of the effectiveness of much of UNDP’s grass-roots
“community development” programming, now under way in some 60 of Burma’s
325 townships -- in part precisely because it lacks greater government
involvement.

Last year, the assessors told UNDP that it should be examining the
relationship between the length of time the organization had been handing
out aid and the impact of the assistance -- which led to this year’s
unsettling conclusions that in many cases the impact had been less than
significant.

The main focus of assessor skepticism is a double-barreled UNDP program
known as the Integrated Community Development Project (ICDP) and a sister
program, Community Development in Remote Townships (CDRT), which are
administratively joined at the hip.

Ostensibly self-help programs, the community development initiatives have
instead, the assessors say, become studies in mission-creep, in which
aid-givers have grown their focus of assistance into primary health care,
environmental concerns, HIV/AIDS relief, training and education and food
security. The assessors quote one senior UNDP official as admitting that
the Human Development Initiative is trying to do “everything under the
sun.”

UNDP made matters worse, the report says, by expanding the program
dramatically, adding to the resource stretch. Yet another complication was
2008’s Cyclone Nargis, which devastated coastal regions of Burma and
further diverted aid efforts (though the report notes that with 500 people
on the ground in its HDI programs, UNDP was in a good position to pitch in
and help with Nargis). Finally, voluntary funding for the HDI effort has
been tailing off, largely as a result of the increasingly hard-line
behavior of the Burmese regime.

Even while admitting that Burma is a “difficult and unpredictable”
environment for HDI, however, the assessors state firmly that UNDP’s own
problems with community development programs are the most significant.
Among them: lack of clear focus; inability to show that it has
accomplished much beyond the delivery of tangible goods, such as
fertilizer; lack of staff training; and perhaps most importantly of all,
lack of any clear strategy to wean the people they are helping off
continued outside assistance.

The U.N.’s fabled bureaucracy also takes a toll: the assessors note that
an “inexplicable number” of reports are prepared by UNDP aid-givers each
month at the local level, with some technical specialists estimating they
spent 20 percent to 30 percent of their time creating paperwork.

Not much of it apparently has to do with how the aid beneficiaries
themselves view things: as the assessors delicately put it, “There is
presently no adequate mechanism for feedback from beneficiaries within any
of the HDI structures.” UNDP, however, told the assessors it is currently
working on a pilot project to do that.

Not all of the UNDP efforts in Burma are viewed as critically by the
assessors as the organization’s community development work. Its
micro-finance projects in Burma get good marks, though the assessors note
that the country’s poorest residents are not benefiting.

The assessors also admitted that the UNDP “impact study” upon which its
conclusions were based might itself be flawed, through lack of baseline
data and other possible failings. But their report underlined that the
survey methodology was considered “robust” by a specialist brought in to
design the investigation.

In concluding, the independent experts acknowledge that UNDP itself is
unlikely to make any changes before its current authorization for the aid
program expires next year. But then it says, a “major revision” of the
program is called for “to enhance impact on poverty.”

The experts also note, perhaps in tacit acknowledgment of a previous
decade of unimpressive results, that UNDP itself “may come to a different
conclusion.”

George Russell is executive editor of Fox News.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

August 24, Washington Post
Commissioning justice for Burma – Kelley Currie

Last week, the U.S. indicated it would back a special United Nations
investigation into allegations that the Burmese junta has committed crimes
against humanity and war crimes. While it might seem obvious to most
observers that the junta has committed these crimes and more, an effective
Commission of Inquiry (COI) would be an important step toward justice for
the junta's victims and a potential game-changer for Burma's disastrous
internal politics.

There is little doubt about what the COI is likely to report if it is
created. The regime's abuses stretching back for more than two decades are
well-known: not only the brutalization of the country's democratic
movement but also a series of vicious campaigns against ethnic minorities
that include targeting civilians for systematic rape, indiscriminate use
of force, destruction of villages, forced labor and other atrocities. The
victims of these crimes, together with international rights groups, the
U.N. and individual governments have collected a mountain of evidence of
such offenses.

Rather, the COI would be significant for how it raises these abuses. In
particular, the commission would have the power to refer specific junta
members to the International Criminal Court for prosecution of their
crimes. U.S. officials have indicated that they believe the COI could sow
divisions within the ruling clique, and are therefore hoping to focus it
on Than Shwe, the junta's leader. They believe that by putting the senior
general in the international hot seat, the COI process could encourage
others the regime to view him as a liability worth dumping overboard.

Before it can have any hope of achieving such results, the commission
needs to get off the ground. Since it has not yet received a mandate from
U.N. member states, it doesn't even exist. The idea so far has struggled
to gain traction with a resistant U.N. bureaucracy and many member states
are reluctant to single out countries like Burma. The effort should get a
significant boost from U.S. support, but Washington will still need to
devote substantial diplomatic resources and political will to the effort
of establishing such a commission at a time when these resources are
already stretched to the breaking point.

Assuming that the U.S. intends to devote the necessary energy to the
commission, the first thing it must do is decide on a strategy for the
upcoming sessions of the U.N. General Assembly and the Human Rights
Council, both of which convene next month. While these are the two most
viable channels for securing the required formal mandate to create the
Burma commission, neither is a particularly friendly venue.

The Human Rights Council has been hijacked by rights-abusing countries,
and seems hard-pressed to take time out from its busy schedule of
Israel-bashing to move against Burma. But there are grounds for optimism.
The U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Burma, Tomas Quintana,
will submit a follow-up report to his scathing March study—which endorsed
convening a Commission of Inquiry for the first time—to the Human Rights
Council in September. His work in this area provides key evidentiary
support for the need to create a commission, and puts substantial pressure
on the Council to act.

A U.S.-led effort may fare better working through the General Assembly,
which for the past 19 years has passed annual resolutions condemning human
rights abuses in Burma. These resolutions pass because they are purely
hortatory, but a resolution with real teeth authorizing a commission will
be a much heavier lift. Given that both of these forums begin in a matter
of weeks, it is unlikely that the U.S. could develop a full-court press
for either. Nonetheless, both provide opportunities to begin showing
seriousness of purpose on a Burma commission.

One way to demonstrate American commitment would be to spend some of its
recently earned diplomatic capital to persuade democratic Asian partners
to come out publicly in support of a commission. Asian support is vital in
moving this forward, and it will take major work to get them on board.
South Korea and the Philippines in particular ought to be willing to
support such a measure, and it should be possible to convince Indonesia to
at least abstain from blocking it.

Because recent efforts at international justice have been neither swift
nor particularly satisfying, they are little feared by those who do evil
in the world. The cases referred by the International Commission of
Inquiry on Darfur to the International Criminal Court, for example, have
barely moved in the past six years, as the court is unable to execute
arrest warrants against senior Sudanese leaders due to a lack of
cooperation or political will on the part of other countries—including the
U.S.

Now that the U.S. has expressed support for a Commission of Inquiry on
Burma, it should move forward in a deliberate and serious way to build an
effective commission, avoiding excessive focus on short-term tactical
advantages. If the commission can be established with alacrity and a
strong mandate, the tactical aspects will take care of themselves.

Ms. Currie is a senior fellow with the Project 2049 Institute, a
Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

____________________________________

August 24, Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC)
BURMA: The absence of normative and institutional frameworks to protect
human rights in Myanmar

Human Rights Council – Fifteenth session, Agenda Item 4, General Debate

A written statement submitted by the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC), a
non-governmental organisation with general consultative status.

1. The Asian Legal Resource Centre has closely studied and documented the
situation of human rights in Myanmar for close to a decade, throughout
much of which it has also presented findings on a range of topics to the
UN Commission on Human Rights, and more recently, to the Human Rights
Council. The topics that it has addressed in recent submissions include
the absence of minimum conditions for elections, torture, the effects of
corruption on citizens' rights, the 2008 Constitution, the September 2007
uprising and aftermath, and what the ALRC has characterized as the
country’s "injustice system" of police, prosecutors and courts under
military guidance.

2. In previous years, it could be said that the amount of knowledge about
the true human rights situation in Myanmar was quite limited. For this
reason, the ALRC has concentrated its efforts on research that would
reveal systemic problems and obstacles for human rights arising from the
persistence of military dictatorship in the country. However, in recent
times it has become increasingly clear that despite a manifest increase in
detailed awareness about conditions there--due not only to the work of the
ALRC but also many other organizations, as well as the consistent efforts
of successive Special Rapporteurs on human rights in the country--the
international human rights movement has been unwilling and therefore
unable to address the true extent and nature of these problems.

3. One reason for this incapacity of the international community to come
to terms with the scope and nature of the human rights disaster in Myanmar
is that the international framework for protection of human rights is
premised upon there being domestic frameworks for the same. Although it is
accepted everywhere that no domestic framework to protect human rights is
perfect, the international system for protection of rights is premised
upon the existence of some kind of minimum domestic framework that it
functions to some extent to address those human rights problems with which
it is supposed to be concerned.

4. The problem in Myanmar's case, by contrast, is that no such framework
for the protection of human rights exists at all. Thus, when international
agencies and monitors call for things to be done in response to human
rights abuses that would be pertinent in other settings, they are in the
case of Myanmar meaningless. For those state parties and individuals who
are interested to do no more than mouth human rights rhetoric and do
nothing in fact to address the problems, this is a source of comfort:
since rhetoric is quite literally all that is possible in Myanmar's case,
they cannot be blamed when nothing is done. For the rest of us, it is a
source of immense frustration that should provoke exploration of new
avenues for effecting change in very serious human rights situations of
the sort found in Myanmar.

5. There are two frameworks with which we are here concerned: the
normative framework and the institutional framework. The absence of each
in the case of Myanmar can be explained as follows.

6. The Normative Framework

a. The State is not a party to most international human rights treaties,
including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It has
a domestic normative framework not for the protection of human rights but
for their denial. The State has retained and continues to use antiquated
and highly regressive colonial-era and postcolonial statutes. Since 1988,
all laws have been passed as executive decrees, not through any
legislative process, during which time it has issued many new laws that
also reflect its concern a preoccupation with the defence of the state
rather than defence of human rights.

b. As the ALRC has previously made clear to the Council, the 2008
Constitution is in terms of human rights a norm-less constitution. Under
its provisions, the armed forces are placed outside of judicial authority.
The military, not the judiciary, is the constitution’s guardian. The
judiciary is separated from other branches of government only “to the
extent possible”. All rights are qualified with ambiguous language that
permits exemptions under circumstances of the State’s choosing. For
instance, the right not to be held in custody for more than 24 hours
before being brought before a magistrate, which already exists in the
Criminal Procedure Code, is under the new constitution delimited by an
exception for “matters on precautionary measures taken for the security of
the Union or prevalence of law and order, peace and tranquillity in accord
with the law in the interest of the public, or the matters permitted
according to an existing law” (s ection 376). This provision effectively
legalizes arbitrary detention of the sort that is already rife in Myanmar.
Other provisions that purport to guarantee rights do so only to the extent
permitted by other laws, and in so far as they do not threaten the
security of the state or contravene undefined standards of public
morality. The constitution allows for rights to be revoked at any time and
for their suspension during a state of emergency. The cumulative effect of
these qualifications is to render all guarantees of rights meaningless.

7. The Institutional Framework

a. The main features of the institutional framework that deny human rights
are the militarized functions of the police force, resulting in routine
and systemic abuses, and the non-independence of the judiciary.

b. The police force in Myanmar is not a discrete professional civilian
force but a paramilitary and intelligence agency under command of the
armed forces. It shares policing functions with other parts of the state
apparatus, including with executive councils at all levels that supervise
and oversee other agencies, and with other local bodies, including the
fire brigade and civic groups. Specialized police agencies, in particular
the Special Branch, operate as proxies for military intelligence, rather
than as autonomous investigators of crime. Consequently, the
characteristics of policing and prosecutions in Myanmar include: routine
arbitrary arrest and detention; common use of torture and other forms of
cruel and inhuman treatment, and frequent deaths in custody; coerced
signing of documents that have no basis in law; baseless and duplicated
charges; and fabricated cases.

c. As the courts are subordinate to the executive, they can neither
function in accordance with the laws that they purport to uphold nor in a
manner that can defend, let alone implement human rights. In fact, the
notion of the courts in Myanmar operating to protect human rights would be
absurd, since it would profoundly contradict their function as defenders
of the state against the intrusions of citizens and their claims. Where
they do appear to be functioning to protect rights, such as in cases
concerning protection of women and children, the function they are in fact
performing is that of implementers of government policy.

8. This last aspect of the judiciary's operations as a non-norm enforcing
institution in Myanmar has not yet been properly understood and requires
much further discussion. The perception of successive governments in
Myanmar that the role of the judiciary is not to protect rights but to
enforce State policy is deeply entrenched. It goes back at least to the
beginning of permanent military rule in 1962, and has roots in the
authoritarianism of earlier periods. Under this construct, the rule of law
is shorthand for the State’s use of law and institutions of law to achieve
whatever ends suit its purposes. Where some of these intersect with
programmes for the defence of human rights they are liable to be
misunderstood as expressions of support for human rights norms when in
fact they are no such thing. The principle of the supremacy of law, which
is integral to the defence of human rights, is entirely absent. Therefore,
there is no normative basis for the building of a regim e of rights as
required in terms of international human rights standards.

9. Because this instrumental concept of the law as an administrative
technique overrides specific qualities of the normative or institutional
framework, it is impossible to attribute to specific laws or agencies the
authority to implement certain human rights, and therefore impossible for
international agencies to make specific demands for the defence of rights
in response to particular incidents or issues. The authority of a law or
institution is always delimited by a higher imperative, which means that
the State party while passing laws, applying laws and establishing
institutions to enforce laws does not actually feel beholden to those laws
or institutions. To the extent that human rights appear to receive some
form of official recognition and protection, it is entirely on a
situation-specific, non-normative basis, and therefore on a non-human
rights basis, since the latter is necessarily normative.

10. Consequently, there is no basis for the global human rights movement
to make a human rights claim on the government of Myanmar, because there
are neither the normative or institutional frameworks in which to place
it. In this setting, any call from a United Nations mechanism or attempt
at intervention is reduced, like those plaints of private citizens in the
country itself, to an appeal for some form of mercy, placed before the
powerful executive authorities for their discretion. This, of course, is
not the work of human rights defence but a king of impoverished,
contemporary feudalism: the very opposite of what the modern human rights
movement is supposed to represent.

11. For many years, human rights defenders in Myanmar and around the world
have scrupulously documented and categorized an astounding array of human
rights abuses, committed across all parts of the country and against
practically all types of persons. The Asian Legal Resource Centre too has
been engaged in that work, as it will continue to be. But the point has
clearly been reached at which it is necessary to use the knowledge accrued
through this work to dig much deeper into the systemic problems, and to
analyse these not just as a challenge to the government of Myanmar over
its atrocious record, but as a challenge to the international human rights
movement over its incapacity to respond when a state is bereft of the
frameworks upon which the protection of human rights are dependent. It is
clearly inadequate to continue to document abuses that spring forth daily,
monthly and annually because of the absence of normative and institutional
frameworks for human rights without st ating the fact of this absence
plainly. And it is not merely inadequate but ridiculous for the
international community to continue to make calls upon the Government of
Myanmar for the implementation of human rights standards in the absence of
these frameworks.

12. After a decade or more of intense work on Myanmar in international
human rights gatherings, and after the compilation and submission of vast
quantities of information about the factual situation in the country at
considerable effort and often great risk on the part of large numbers of
human rights defenders in the country and abroad, it is not only
disingenuous but insulting for the Council to continue to do no more than
make the same carefully worded calls that are disconnected from reality
and lacking in either intellectual or moral fibre. The absence of either
normative or institutional frameworks for the protections of human rights
in Myanmar precludes business as usual. It must be said plainly and
clearly that the Council has failed utterly to address the situation of
human rights in Myanmar; that the Council has been amply informed about
the real situation in the country and cannot pretend that the normative
and institutional frameworks for the protection of human r ights exist
when they do not. The question remains as to what, given these facts, the
Council can do about it.

# # #

About the ALRC: The Asian Legal Resource Centre is an independent regional
non-governmental organisation holding general consultative status with the
Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. It is the sister
organisation of the Asian Human Rights Commission. The Hong Kong-based
group seeks to strengthen and encourage positive action on legal and human
rights issues at the local and national levels throughout Asia.

____________________________________

August 24, Asia Times
Behold, beware Myanmar's fourth empire – Bertil Lintner

Bangkok – Myanmar's government has announced democratic elections will be
held on November 7 and Western pundits are busy speculating whether the
polls will lead to a new, more open era in the troubled country's modern
history. A far more important and potentially sinister plan is unfolding
as the country's military rulers seek to consolidate a vision of empire
that affords them a permanent grip on the country and its many
nationalities.

A new nation is being built, one that military leaders view as the coming
of the Fourth Myanmar Empire. In line with that vision, two decades ago
the military gave the country a new name, changing it from Burma to
Myanmar. Now, a grand new capital known as Naypyidaw, or "Abode of Kings",
has been erected in what used to be wasteland in the central part of the
country.

Myanmar's armed forces are among Southeast Asia's largest, and, if their
empire dream is ever realized, they will be equipped with missiles and
perhaps even nuclear devices. The creation of a new parliament, which will
be housed in a gigantic edifice built in traditional Myanmar style in the
new capital, is also part of the grand plan. Sharing power with
pro-democracy parties, even "moderate" ones, however, is not.

Significantly, the upcoming election has been used to pressure nearly a
dozen former rebel groups, which for the past two decades have had
ceasefire agreements with the government, to finally give up their
autonomous status and convert their respective armies into "Border Guard
Forces" under the command of the Myanmar army. Their political wings may
then be recognized as political parties, which will be allowed to
participate in the November election, but on the same terms as all other
parties that have registered for the polls.

Registration, a cumbersome process that involves paying a 50,000 kyat
registration fee for each candidate, must be completed by August 30. That
fee equals US$500 per head, a huge sum for most ordinary Myanmar citizens.
Only the junta's own political mass organization, the Union Solidarity and
Development Party and its affiliated National Unity Party, have had the
resources to field candidates for all seats nationwide.

Revisionist history

The way forward for Myanmar first became clear on Armed Forces Day 2006.
Traditionally held each year on March 27, the holiday was originally meant
to commemorate the day in 1945 when the country's nationalists, led by
Aung San, shifted sides to join the Allied powers and turned their weapons
against their former patron and benefactor, the Imperial Japanese Army.

The 2006 event represented the first time the parade was held at
Naypyidaw, to where the government was formally moved in 2005. Addressing
a crowd of 12,000 soldiers, junta leader Gen Than Shwe proclaimed: "Our
tatmadaw [armed forces] should be a worthy heir to the traditions of the
capable tatmadaws established by noble kings Anawratha, Bayinnaung and
Alaungpaya."

None of those kings had fought against the Imperial Japanese Army, but
Anawratha had in 1044 founded the First Myanmar, or Burmese, Empire and
established his capital at the temple city of Pagan on the banks of the
Irrawaddy river, southwest of today's Mandalay. He conquered Thaton, the
capital of the Mon - major rivals of the Burmans for control of the
central plains - and expanded his empire down to the Andaman Sea.

Bayinnaung was the country's most celebrated warrior king. He reigned from
1551 to 1581 and conquered territories north of Pagan, parts of the Shan
plateau in the east, and pushed as far east as Chiang Mai, in today's
northern Thailand, and Vientiane in Laos. He was the most prominent ruler
of the Second Myanmar Empire and ruled from Pegu in the central plains.

Alaungpaya reigned in the 18th century and was the first king of the
Konbaung Dynasty, or the third and last of the Myanmar empires.

Alaungpaya also fought the Mon, and his successor, Hsinbyushin, sacked the
Thai capital of Ayutthaya in 1767, a deed for which the Thais, judging by
their history books, have never forgiven the Burmese.

The Konbaung kings were defeated by the British in the three Anglo-Myanmar
wars of the 19th century and the country became a British colony. In 1885,
Mandalay, the last of several capitals of the Konbaung Dynasty fell and
its king, Thibaw, was led away by the British in front of the mourning and
wailing crowd who had come to take farewell of the last monarch of an
independent Myanmar state. He was sent, with his once-powerful wife,
Supayalat, and their children into exile in Ratanagiri in India, where he
died in 1916.

Fast forward to the present and standing at Naypyidaw's parade ground are
newly erected, larger-than-life statues of the three warrior kings, who
Than Shwe evidently sees as his empire-building role models. He has also
bid to form a unitary state that is fundamentally different in nature from
Aung San's concept of ''unity in diversity'', federalism and some kind of
parliamentary democracy. In Than Shwe's ''Myanmar'' everybody is a
''Myanmar'' and subjects of the present rulers.

Notably there are no portraits of independence hero Aung San in Naypyidaw.
But building a new capital has always been a major prerogative of the
rulers of all three previous Myanmar empires - and the founders of the
Fourth Empire are no exception. The size of the new capital's buildings
and width of its streets and avenues reflect their vision of grandeur.

The November election, assimilation of rebel groups and subjugation of
other opposition forces are together the final stage in a transformative
process that arguably began in 1989, when the junta changed the name of
the country. The generals insisted that Myanmar is the correct name for
the country because it includes both Burmans and minorities.

That argument, however, has caused confusion in academic circles. An
official history of the country's nationalist movement, published by the
government in 1976, stated that ''Myanmar'' meant only the old kingdom of
Mandalay, while ''Burma'' (bama in Burmese) is ''the country where
different nationalities such as the Kachin, Karen, Kayah, Chin, Pa-O,
Palaung, Mon, Myanma, Rakhine, Shan reside reside.'' Significantly, Aung
San and his comrades called their movement Dohbama Asiayone, ''Our Burma
Association'', and not Dohmyanmar Asiayone.

Now the ruling military junta claims that the opposite is true. The
official mouthpiece Working People's Daily, now known as the New Light of
Myanmar, stated on May 27, 1989, the day the name change was made
official: "Bama ... is one of the national groups of the Union only 

myanma means all the national racial groups who are resident of the union
such as Kachin, Kayah, Karen, Chin, Mon, Rakhine, Bama and Shan."

At the same time, place names, especially in Shan State, were changed to
sound more ''Myanmar'': Pang Tara, Kengtung, Lai-Hka, Hsenwi and Hsipaw -
place names that have a meaning in the Shan language - were renamed
Pindaya, Kyaington, Laycha, Theinli and Thibaw, which sound Burmese but
have no meaning in any language.

Cultural revolution

Dutch Burma scholar Gustaaf Houtman calls this development the
''Myanmafication of Burma'', which he describes as a move away from the
original idea of a multiethnic federation - agreed to by Aung San and the
leaders of the ethnic minorities before independence in 1948 - to the new
''Myanmar'' identity propagated by the military. The 1989 name changes
marked the beginning of this cultural revolution, which included a
military-appointed commission tasked with rewriting the country's history
to better suit the agenda of the present power-holders.

New museums have been built across the country to educate the public about
the central role the military purportedly has played throughout centuries
of Myanmar history. School textbooks are continuously rewritten to serve
the same purpose. Many TV soap operas have the same theme, where the
country's many ethnic groups unite under the leadership of a militaristic
19th century king to oppose the onslaught of Western colonialists.

Soon 330 elected members of parliament, along with 110 non-elected
representatives of the armed forces, will soon take their seats in the
enormous new building that has been erected in Naypyidaw to practice
''discipline-flourishing democracy'', as the generals have termed their
unique vision of the country's future political system.

If the May 2008 referendum for the new constitution, on which the
country's new political system is based, is anything to go by, the outcome
of the November election is preordained. The new constitution was approved
in a referendum by more than 90% of the electorate, the authorities
announced. No campaigning was allowed and the press was forbidden to
report on the barely 10% who voted against.

On August 19, Myanmar's tightly controlled media published an official
notification stating that candidates wishing to address the public must
apply for permission at least seven days in advance. Candidates are also
prohibited from ''causing any disturbances in public places and disrupting
traffic".

In case lawmakers cause trouble after they have been elected, Article 396
of the new constitution ensures that they can be dismissed for
''misbehavior''. And if the ''democratic'' situation really gets out of
hand, Article 413 gives the president the right to hand over executive as
well as judicial powers to the commander-in-chief of the Defense Services.

All is thus set for the rise of the Fourth Myanmar Empire. According to a
report released this month by the US-based non-governmental organization
the National Democratic Institute, Myanmar's new constitution has
established "a structure designed to perpetuate military rule", not to
change it. Than Shwe may retire, but that is no guarantee for a new
democratic or any less authoritarian order.

So far, no credible outside observer has been able to identify any ''young
Turks'' bent on enacting genuine democratic reforms lurking in the wings.
And despite much wishful thinking by foreign analysts and commentators,
Than Shwe biographer Benedict Rogers argues that all the structures that
have been put in place signal that the military is geared to remain in
power for the foreseeable future.

When Myanmar's old strongman, Gen Ne Win, was alive, several analysts and
experts predicted that the country would change for the better once he
passed from the scene. He retired from direct power in 1988 and indeed
Myanmar did change after Ne Win. But the next generation of military
leaders led by Than Shwe turned out to be even more repressive - and
obsessed with the role of historical kings. Not even Ne Win shifted the
site of the national capital and sought to acquire weapons of mass
destruction. Nor did he divine to revive and reinvent the glory and power
of bygone Myanmar empires.

Bertil Lintner is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic
Review and currently a writer with Asia Pacific Media Services.

____________________________________

August 24, Chin Human Rights Organization
CHRO condemns destruction of Christian cross in Chin State

Chiang Mai, Thailand: The Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) strongly
condemns the destruction of another Christian cross in Chin State on the
orders of Burma’s military regime.  CHRO has learned that the 23-foot high
concrete Christian cross in the Mindat Township area, southern Chin State,
was forcibly destroyed on 24 July by direct order of the authorities,
including the District and Township level Peace and Development Council,
the District Religious Affairs Department, and a Mindat abbot from the
Hill Region Buddhist Mission.

CHRO Executive Director Salai Bawi Lian Mang said, “This latest order for
the forcible destruction of an important Christian symbol is yet another
manifestation of the long-standing state policy of persecution and
discrimination directed against ethnic Chin Christians.”

Since 1994, at least nine crosses have been destroyed or dismantled on the
orders of the local authorities, in all of Chin State’s nine major
Townships.

“The SPDC claims to respect religious freedom for all faiths in Burma and
yet they are actively pursuing a policy to persecute religious minorities
in contravention of their own constitution and other international human
rights standards, which they claim to observe,” added Salai Bawi Lian
Mang.

Originally built with wood, the cross was replaced with a concrete
structure in 2008 with official permission from local authorities. The
cross had been built on a 20-acre “Prayer Garden” that has traditionally
carried spiritual significance for the local people.


Contact:

Salai Za Uk Ling, Program Director, zauk at chro.ca, Tel: +66.85.52.40.650
(Thailand Standard Time)
Rachel Fleming, Advocacy Director, rachel at chro.ca, Tel: +44.7970.671.758
(UK Standard Time)