News & Articles on Burma
Thursday, 10 November, 2011
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To prove irreversible reform, Burma must end war in Kachin State
Naypyidaw Sends More Troops to Tavoy Road Site
The Ethnic Issue: Following in the Footsteps of Kings
Myanmar women stalked, assaulted in Delhi
Perception shift on Myanmar media
Researchers Spot Blue Coat Web Control Gear In Another Repressive Regime: Burma
Burma's 88 students seek official stamp
Burma: Violation and Humanitarian Crisis Continues In Eastern Burma
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To prove irreversible reform, Burma must end war in Kachin State
By Zin Linn Nov 10, 2011 10:01PM UTC
Serious violations of human rights continue to be committed by the Burma Army in eastern Burma, while humanitarian conditions deteriorate due to a lack of international funding, according to a new report released yesterday (9 Nov.) by Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW).
Soldiers from the Burma Army's 88th Light Infantry Division attacked the Assemblies of God church in Muk Chyik village, Wai Maw Township on 6 November, injuring several people. The congregation was expelled from the church, and soldiers reportedly looted church donation boxes. The house of one church member, Mr Jumphpawk Hawng Lum, was burned down. At least fifty church members are taken to work as forced porters for the Burma Army.
During the army operation in Muk Chyik village, Burmese soldiers also looted money from the tithe and micro credit boxes of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Metta Development Foundation, two NGOs, villagers said.
The pastor and three other villagers were taken to the nearby military base located near Washawng Dam. However, Maung Maung, the owner of a rice-mill, was taken to Infantry Battalion No. 58 based in Waingmaw Town, eyewitnesses said.
Burmese soldiers also arrested four villagers suspected of aiding the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), local eyewitness told Kachin News Group.
"The detainees Lahawng Hkawng Hawng and Shayu Lum Hawng were severely tortured by Burmese soldiers after their hands, legs, and necks were tied with ropes," an eyewitness recounted.
The President Thein Sein's government is currently increasing troops more than 100 battalions for the offensive against the KIA in Kachin State and northern Shan State, even as it talks about introducing democratic reforms in the country.
CSW's East Asia Team Leader Benedict Rogers said, "President Thein Sein and the regime in Burma have made some welcome gestures in recent months, potentially creating the conditions for some changes to be made. However, as long as the gross violations of human rights in the ethnic states continue, and political prisoners remain in horrific conditions in jail, we cannot speak of real change in Burma. It is clear from our visit to the Thailand-Burma border that there is a real need to maintain international pressure on the regime to match its rhetoric with action, and undertake substantial, significant and long-lasting change."
During a military offensive against the KIA, Burmese armed forces shattered electricity power supply cables using artillery fire in Ga Ra Yang village on Nov. 1, referring KIO officials the Kachin News Group reported.
Since then on, residents of Myitkyina, the capital city of Kachin state, have been living without electricity at present. The Burmese Army knowingly destroyed the power supply lines to the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) controlled area, said KIO officials.
La Gun, an eyewitness and People's Army commander under the KIA in Ga Ra Yang battle zone told Kachin News Group that Burmese troops intentionally damaged power poles between Lung Zep Kawng and Ga Ra Yang with artillery fire. Burmese side pretended as though the power poles were smashed in the middle of the fighting the KIA.
In fact, the government soldiers inhumanly blew up the power posts without considering suffering that would cause various difficulties directly to the city-dwellers.
War in Kachin State is a puzzle for Burma observers. Although the government has been pronouncing about reform, its armed forces have set free committing crimes against racial inhabitants in the ethnic states.
The government's military-wing is behind war crimes and crimes against humanity. Those human rights violations of Burmese soldiers in Kachin State, involving rape, forced labour, torture, the killings of civilians, and religious persecution are grave breaches of international law.
Attacking churches congregation is a brutal violation of religious freedom. The government, which is talking on the subject of reform, must take immediate action on its soldiers publicly.
If President Thein Sein government has single-minded to act as a true civilian administration, it has to end the culture of impunity which has deeply rooted in Burmese society for more than five decades.
It is also an obligation of the current government to provide humanitarian assistance to those war refugees and internally displaced population in various ethnic states. The new Burmese civilian government ought to provide evidence by ending the ongoing civil war that it has complete self-sufficiency excluding the practices of past military dictatorship. http://asiancorrespondent.com/69304/to-prove-irreversible-reform-burma-must-end-war-in-kachin-state/
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Naypyidaw Sends More Troops to Tavoy Road Site
By SAW YAN NAING Thursday, November 10, 2011
Naypyidaw has sent two more army battalions to an area of southern Burma where Karen rebels have been blocking construction of a road linking the Thai town of Kanchanaburi with Tavoy, the site of a multi-billion dollar deep-sea port project being built by Thailand's biggest construction company.
According to sources close to rebels based in the area, the additional troops arrived yesterday, along with trucks carrying rations of rice and military supplies. The two new battalions will join six others recently sent as reinforcements for three battalions already stationed in the area.
Saw Kwe Htoo Win, the chairman of the Karen National Union's (KNU) Mergui-Tavoy District (Tenasserim Division), told The Irrawaddy that the increase in troops began last month, although the reason for the buildup wasn't clear. The total number of troops in the area is now believed to be around 800.
Eh Na, the editor of Kwekalu, a Karen-language news agency based in Thailand, said that he had received reports that the government troops were under orders from Naypyidaw to launch an offensive against the KNLA and secure the Kanchanaburi-Tavoy highway construction project.
They have been ordered to clean up the area and prevent anyone from disturbing construction of the super highway. They might launch an offensive next summer, said Eh Na.
The Italian-Thai Development Company (ITD), Thailands largest construction firm, is contracted to build the Kanchanaburi-Tavoy highway, which will provide access to the Dawei (Tavoy) deep-sea port and Special Economic Zone (SEZ), also being constructed by ITD.
On July 28, some 50 workers of the ITD fled from Burma to the Thai side of the border to escape fighting between Burmese government troops and Brigade 4 of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the KNU, that broke out near their work site.
Hostilities broke out close to the worker's accommodations and the construction site known as Base 1, as Burmese government forces came under surprise attack from KNLA Brigade 4. The Karen guerrillas also burned down a temporary Burmese outpost along the Kanchanaburi-Tavoy highway.
Earlier the same month, KNLA troops prevented ITD employees from working on the highway project.
The KNLA said they were blocking construction because of concerns that the mega-project would have a severely negative impact on the local population and environment. Displaced villagers also said that they have not been compensated for the loss of their land.
The Dawei SEZ project was approved last March by Burma's then military government. The US $60 billion project includes a deep-sea port, a giant industrial zone, roads, railways, transmission lines and oil and gas pipelines.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22428
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The Ethnic Issue: Following in the Footsteps of Kings
By WAI MOE Thursday, November 10, 2011
Thein Zaw, the second-ranked member of the Burmese governments Union Peace Committee tasked with pursuing peace with the countrys ethnic minority groups, recently told the leadership of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), an ethnic armed group, that ongoing military operations against the ethnic militia were limited and intended to apply pressure that would result in a peace agreement.
U Thein Zaw said in his recent letter to our leadership that [the governments] military operations are limited and the purpose was to open the path for peace, said Aung Jet, an official at the KIA War Office in Laiza, Kachin State.
However, the government army launched an offensive in June that ended the 17-year-old ceasefire agreement with the KIA. Recently, the army has increased operations northeast of Myitkyina, he said.
The KIA, based in northern Burma, has been engaged in almost continuous fighting with government troops since June following the governments failure to convince the KIA to join its Border Guard Force after two years of attempting to do so.
The words of Thein Zaw, one of the governments top negotiators with the ethnic groups, is illustrative of the attitude and approach of the Burmese government and military towards achieving peace with the ethnic groups. And the militaristic strategy of the current quasi-civilian government, like that of the previous military regime, is one followed by many leaders throughout Burmese history.
When the previous junta, led by Snr-Gen Than Shwe, constructed the new capital of Naypyidaw, it erected an enormous statue of three warrior kings who had established empires in the territory that is modern day Burma.
These three kingsAnawrahta (who reigned from 10441077), Bayinnaung (who reigned from 1551- 1581) and Alaungpaya (who reigned from 1752-1760)are described in state-controlled textbooks as the founders of the nation, but they are infamous for their brutality and ruthlessness towards the ethnic groups while building their respective empires.
In contrast, the Burmese king Kyansittha of the Pagan dynasty (who reigned from 10841113), has no statue in Naypydaw, although he was significant in Burmese history for his ability to negotiate with the ethnic groups and is well-known for crafting an agreement with the Mon people, then the regions major ethnic group. As a result, Kyansitthas reign was more peaceful than that of the three warrior kings.
In an article published in October in the Monitor News Journal, a private Rangoon weekly, the author Hla Tin Tun recalled pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi expressed her admiration for Kyansittha and compared him to her father Gen Aung San, Burmas independence hero and the founder of the current Burmese armed forces.
Suu Kyi said she was impressed by Kyansittha and Aung San because they were able to achieve national reconciliation without arms.
Apart from Kyansittha, Aung San is the most prominent political figure in Burmese history with respect to dealing peacefully with the diverse ethnic groups, particularly in the Kachin, Shan and Chin frontiers.
At the same time as he was leading Burmas struggle for independence from Great Britain, Aung San was able to bring the ethnic leaders together for a conference, known as the Panglong Conference, which resulted in an agreement stating that citizens of the Frontier Areas were to enjoy the rights and privileges regarded as fundamental in democratic countries and granting ethnic minorities rights such as full autonomy in internal administration for the Frontier Areas. At the time it was signed, the Panglong Agreement signaled a rare moment of national unity in Burma.
With Kyansittha and her father Aung San as her two guiding lights, Suu Kyi has consistently called for the path of peaceful negotiations with Burmas ethnic armed groups. Due to this approach, aided by her trips to ethnic areas in 1988, 1989 and 2003, she has developed a good working relationship with the ethnic leaders.
In recent months, the pro-democracy leader has often highlighted the tensions and conflicts between the government and the ethnic groups, most importantly during her meeting with President Thein Sein and her several meetings with Labor Minister Aung Kyi, the governments liaison to Suu Kyi.
Following her meeting with Thein Sein in Naypyidaw, Suu Kyi held meetings with ethnic leaders to discuss national reconciliation and the issues of importance to the ethnic groups.
Suu Kyi told the ethnic politicians that the ethnic people and the pro-democracy opposition are in the same boat, because if the ethnic groups did not achieve their fundamental rights, the opposition would not have reached its goal as well, said Aye Tha Aung, a leader of the Arakan League for Democracy.
Suu Kyi said that the opposition and ethnic groups are two sides of the same coin, said Aye Tha Aung.
Given the dichotomy between the governments approach of using the military to apply pressure in order to achieve an agreement, following the example of the warrior kings, and the favored approach of Suu Kyi and some of the ethnic leaders of calling a national ceasefire and then entering into a genuine tripartite dialogue, many observers wonder who or what will be able to bridge the differences.
Maung Wuntha, an editor of Pyithu Khit, a Rangoon news journal, believes that Thein Sein is the key to national reconciliation with pro-democracy and ethnic groups.
In the presidents inaugural speech on March 30, he referred to three types of national might: political might, economic might and military might.
Political might, he said, requires national unity, and therefore national solidarity is very crucial to the country, which is home to over 100 national races. If national unity disintegrates, the nation will split into pieces, and therefore the government will give top priority to national unity, Thein Sein was reported as saying by The New Light of Myanmar, a state-run-newspaper.
The current government has spoken about resolving conflicts in ethnic areas through talks and formed a committee for peaceit is a first good step, Maung Wuntha said.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22430
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Myanmar women stalked, assaulted in Delhi
Dwaipayan Ghosh, TNN | Nov 10, 2011, 02.03AM IST
NEW DELHI: Three women from Myanmar were assaulted by their neighbours in west Delhi in the continuing discriminatory attacks against people from the Northeast and southeast Asia in the capital of the world's largest democracy.
Even their male friends, who tried to intervene, were not spared. The victims allege they had been stalked and teased by the local goons for several weeks before being assaulted. But the women mustered enough courage to nab one of the accused even as the other three fled.
The incident happened in the weekend at Vikaspuri, where hundreds of refugees from Myanmar lead a ghetto-like existence after fleeing the crackdown by the junta back home at Yangon. The women were attacked when one of them was waiting outside her rented accommodation to receive two female friends with a male companion. Two of the accused have been arrested.
"We arrested two of them, including the kingpin Bhupendra. A case of eve-teasing and causing hurt has been lodged against the duo. We have identified the third accused and hope to arrest him soon,'' said V Renganathan, additional CP (west).
Sources in the Vikaspuri police station said the women had earlier complained about harassment by the local residents and the matter was resolved after police intervention. "The accused said they had only asked the women to vacate their house. But the victims allege they had been stalked for over a week,'' said a senior investigating officer.
Talking to TOI, Pyinmya Than, a Myanmarese refugee, said, "We are a target of harassment. We are still viewed as foreigners despite living in the city for decasdes. We have never broken the law or done anything to hurt sentiments of residents to deserve such treatment,'' he said.
The 7000-odd refugees who have fled Myanmar over the past 22 years and are now residing in small rented accommodations in Vikaspuri , Dwarka and Janakpuri.
They believe geo-political compulsions and the compelling need to checkmate China will not allow India to oppose the military junta in Myanmar.
The low point, refugees say, came when India welcomed Myanmar's reclusive military leader Than Shwe for a state visit in July this year.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Myanmar-women-stalked-assaulted-in-Delhi/articleshow/10672853.cms
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Asia Times:Southeast Asia
Nov 11, 2011
Perception shift on Myanmar media
By Dan Waites
CHIANG MAI - Just over four years ago, a video journalist with exile-media agency Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) filmed a Myanmar soldier pushing Japanese reporter Kenji Nagai to the ground before shooting him dead at point-blank range. The clip, among hours of footage captured by DVB during the anti-government uprising that became known as Myanmar's ''Saffron'' revolution, was broadcast around the world. It spoke powerfully of the brutality of the Myanmar regime, as well as the need for an independent media that could scrutinize it from beyond its reach.
Today, Myanmar's exile media agencies - from the best-known outfits like DVB, The Irrawaddy and Mizzima to the small agencies that serve Myanmar's ethnic minorities - face severe funding difficulties. A US$300,000 embezzlement scandal has tarnished DVB's reputation and resulted in the departure of most of its undercover video journalists, crucial to the organization's operations.
And a surprising and rapid expansion in press freedom conditions inside Myanmar itself has prompted questions over the future of the exile media in general. Will Myanmar's next revolution be televised - and if so, by whom?
When President Thein Sein made an unprecedented call in his March 30 inaugural address for the role of the media as the ''fourth estate'' to be respected, Myanmar watchers could have been forgiven for cynicism. The former general was speaking in a country, also known as Burma, renowned for having one of the most restricted and censored media environments in the world.
As Thein Sein spoke, around 25 journalists were locked up in Myanmar jails, a small proportion of the some 2,000 political prisoners whose presence in the country could not be acknowledged in print. The regime completely dominated the local broadcast media, filling the airwaves with pro-military propaganda.
And yet Thein Sein's words have not proved to be completely empty. Change has come, and at a pace that has surprised many analysts. The Burmese regime's risible mouthpiece, The New Light of Myanmar, has dropped slogans accusing the BBC, Voice of America and Radio Free Asia - which beam Burmese-language radio programs into the country - of constituting a ''sky full of liars attempting to destroy [the] nation". The websites of the DVB and The Irrawaddy have, following years of censorship, been unblocked - though less than 1% of Myanmar's citizens have access to the Internet.
In Naypyidaw, foreign and local reporters have been allowed - with restrictions - to cover parliamentary proceedings. And officials, previously answerable to no one but their superiors, have made themselves more available to the media in recent months. In mid-October, Deputy Labor Minister Myint Thein gave an interview to a DVB reporter on the subject of Myanmar migrants in Thailand. It was the first time a minister had given an interview to an organization that just months earlier the regime was denouncing as "killer media" bent on "generating public outrage."
Perhaps most significant have been changes at the government's infamous censor board, the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division (PSRD). In June, the government announced that publishers would be allowed to print stories on sports, entertainment, technology, health and children's literature without PSRD approval.
And the censors are now applying a lighter touch to scrutiny of the country's 350 weekly and monthly news journals, allowing a range of topics to see the light of day that would formerly have been chopped, including interviews with exile-media editors, opposition politicians, dissidents and human-rights activists. Images of pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, too, are now permitted.
"The relaxation of censorship has been significant and occurred faster than I think anyone in the industry expected," one Yangon-based editor, asking to remain anonymous, told Asia Times Online by e-mail. "Journalists now have more scope to criticize or quote people criticizing both the government and private sector. They are able to cover issues that were previously considered too sensitive, such as political prisoners. There is also a lot more advocacy - calling on the government to do this or that, which I think is also positive."
The social and economic conditions of the country, too, are increasingly fair game. "You can say how poor the Burmese people are now," said Toe Zaw Latt, Chiang Mai bureau chief for DVB. "They were never poor before."
While most analysts welcome the changes, some point out that decades of censorship have left many Myanmar-based journalists under skilled and unaccustomed to exercising press freedom. "The government has said that journalists need to take more responsibility for what they are writing if censorship is to be removed but the majority of those in the industry have no formal training," the editor pointed out.
"There is little understanding of issues such as contempt and defamation and in some cases adherence to accepted journalism conventions, such as attribution of sources, is poor."
Khin Maung Nyo, a Yangon-based freelancer with almost 20 years' journalism experience, said that in times past editors could rest easy knowing the censors were responsible for excising controversial material. Now, they are must take the tough decisions familiar to editors everywhere, knowing that officials will hold them responsible for what they print. "It's much more stressful now," he said. "We're talking about the relationships between tycoons and the government, about drugs and arms dealing. A year ago we couldn't do that."
The changing press environment, combined with developments in other spheres, has led some observers to conclude real change is afoot in Myanmar. In August, Thein Sein met Suu Kyi in Naypyidaw. That meeting led Suu Kyi to tell supporters there was an "opportunity for change", according to a report in this newspaper.
The following month, Thein Sein appeared to make a rare concession to public opinion in suspending the multi-billion dollar Myitsone Dam project following a campaign by environmental activists and local media. In October, a mass prisoner amnesty saw the release of around 200 political prisoners, with at least three journalists among them. Further releases are believed to be in the pipeline.
Mixed messages
But while many analysts, diplomats and international nongovernmental organizations have been seduced by the new president's reform program, other observers remain wary. They question the intentions of a man who rose to the highest echelons of a military that ruled Myanmar with an iron fist for almost half a century.
Others point to a still unresolved battle within the regime between supposedly reform-minded ministers such as the president and House Speaker Shwe Mann and more hard-line elements led by Vice President Tin Aung Myint Oo as grounds for caution.
Bracketed by many in that hardline stable is Minister of Information Kyaw Hsan, the man responsible for Myanmar's media environment. Press freedom would bring "more disadvantages than advantages," Kyaw Hsan recently told the Lower House in Naypyidaw in a speech in which he likened the media to dangerous "red ants" that could bite Myanmar if allowed to run riot.
At the same time, 14 DVB journalists remain in prison, including 27-year-old Hla Hla Win, sentenced to 27 years in jail in 2009 after being caught interviewing monks for a story. In September, 21-year-old Sithu Zeya had his eight-year jail sentence extended by a decade under the vague and often-abused Electronics Act. "That's why we are very cynical about the 'changes' for the media," said Toe Zaw Latt.
And many issues crucial to the debate over the new democratic Myanmar that is supposedly emerging remain off limits for media inside the country. In particular, the controversial 2008 constitution, pushed through in a referendum held in the devastating aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, is beyond criticism. Yet this is the charter that provided a blanket amnesty to all members of the previous, murderous ruling junta and that enshrines the military-dominated National Defense and Security Council with executive power above that of the president.
Conflict in the country's outlying ethnic minority states, a fight that has largely defined the previous 60 years of Myanmar's history, is still scarcely acknowledged in the local press. On June 9, the Myanmar Army launched an offensive against the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), breaking a ceasefire that had lasted 17 years.
Driving the conflict was the KIA's refusal to transform itself into a Border Guard Force, as demanded by the military's roadmap to democracy, as well as the KIA's control of strategic areas in Kachin State slated for Chinese funded hydropower projects.
The exile media, led by the Kachin News Group and the Shan Herald Agency for News, have reported horrific abuses perpetrated by the Myanmar Army in Kachin State and northern Shan State since the conflict began. In just one recent case, KNG reported the kidnap and gang rape by "dozens" of Myanmar soldiers of a 28-year-old Kachin woman near the Chinese border.
Kachin Women's Association Thailand, a rights group, documents many more such cases in its October report "Burma's Cover-Up War: Atrocities Against The Kachin People". For the Myanmar military, rape remains a weapon of war in the new democratic era.
Yet the conflict remains off-limits for media based inside the country. Naw Din, editor of Kachin News Group, said Yangon-based reporters have been forbidden by government authorities from travelling to the conflict zone. He argues that the international community has been duped into taking its eyes off what is happening in Kachin State by focusing on happenings in Yangon and Naypyidaw.
"The government is lying to Western governments when they say they are reforming the country. This is a trick," he said. "All this time, they've been attacking the Kachin people."
David Mathieson, senior researcher on Myanmar for Human Rights Watch, said the Myanmar Army enjoyed a "culture of recreational sadism" in ethnic areas of the country. "Until the majority of the media inside can freely and openly report on this stuff, I think there's always going to be a role for the exile media," he said.
Aung Zaw, editor and founder of the exile-run Irrawaddy, expressed similar sentiments. "Sometimes people say 'Aung San
Suu Kyi's photo can be published so we've got press freedom.' But this is a very tiny baby step," he said. "What about the victims of human rights violations, rape cases and prisoners inside the prisons - can they write about that? Nobody can write about these things...These stories can only be written by media outside."
The PSRD recently spiked an interview Aung Zaw gave to the Myanmar Times despite allowing an earlier interview to appear in a Burmese-language journal.
The exile media can claim credit for breaking many stories of real significance - news that could never make it by the state's censorship board within Myanmar. In June 2010, DVB broke news of the country's secretive nuclear program, a story that made the front pages of newspapers and was aired by al-Jazeera around the world. Mizzima's report in August on oil driller Transocean's ties to Myanmar drug lords made the front-page of The New York Times and led to a US government investigation into the firm.
Trouble in exile
But while Myanmar's continued need for exile media is evident, the organizations are under severe financial pressure as donors - mainly the governments of Sweden, Norway and Denmark and the US-based National Endowment for Democracy and Open Societies Initiative - cut their funding for their operations. Partly responsible is general budgetary belt-tightening that is putting pressure on all Western donor organizations. At the same time, some donors are diverting money from exile groups to organizations inside Myanmar.
Last year, the Irrawaddy was forced to axe its monthly print news magazine after the Danish government withdrew its funding. A very public spat with the Danish Embassy revealed diplomats' frustrations with the organization. A leaked e-mail written by a Danish diplomat claimed the Irrawaddy's staff had broken a contractual commitment to attempt to become more sustainable.
"They seemingly prefer the easier option to be totally dependent on donor contributions," the message claimed. The magazine responded with an open letter accusing the content and timing of the leak of being "both erroneous and inflammatory".
This year, DVB was forced to cancel much of its programming after having its funding slashed by $1 million. Since then, things have gotten worse for the agency. In September, it emerged that three Mae Sot-based staff members responsible for DVB's inside network may have embezzled $300,000 in funds meant to pay reporters inside the country. Most of the organization's video journalists have since left DVB and formed a new organization, "Burma VJ", aiming to sell footage to outside media organizations on a freelance basis.
In a bid to restore confidence, DVB executive director Aye Chan Naing and his deputy Khin Maung Win, though not involved in the alleged crime, have stepped down while an investigation is carried out. The scandal could not have come at a worse time for exile-run media as donors continue to tip the balance of funding in favor of organizations inside the country.
For some observers, the exile media's problems are not entirely undeserved. One Yangon-based analyst said the exile media, with its strong ties to the Suu Kyi-led pro-democracy movement, had failed to acknowledge the existence of a burgeoning number of people inside Myanmar who had lost faith in her ability to improve the lot of the people.
While the limitations on media inside the country meant the exile media still performed an essential role, they often functioned more as "radical pamphlets" than independent news organizations. "We need them to exist but we need them to get better," he said.
Indeed, while times are tough for exile groups, a burgeoning civil society movement inside the country is increasingly benefiting from donors' largesse. In February, Mikael Winther, the Danish ambassador to Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia, told Agence France-Presse that Denmark had not changed its policy on Myanmar. "But since we now have more access inside than we had before, we do support poverty-oriented projects for people suffering inside Burma," he said.
One organization making waves on the inside is civil society non-profit Myanmar Egress, run by Nay Win Maung, a policy analyst who spent time at Yale University and a former journalist who advocates engagement with the government in order to develop the country's economy.
His "Third Force" positions itself as an alternative to Myanmar's generals and Suu Kyi's democracy movement and has won the support of many diplomats and international humanitarian groups inside the country. Egress's activities include research and training in civil society activism and journalism. There is little love lost between Nay Win Maung and exile-media journalists, who note his close ties with the government and his family's military pedigree.
Some observers caution against donors abandoning the exile media altogether while the country's future remains uncertain. "Four years ago, DVB was the darling of the international community after the way that they covered the uprisings in 2007," said Mathieson. "Now with all the openings and the signs of change, people are thinking that Egress is the one. But you don't need to direct all your money in one direction. The debate needs to be had now to make sure all the eggs don't go into one basket."
If Myanmar continues on its current trajectory - and that is by no means certain - competition for donor money between organizations within and outside the country will increase. "There will continue to be a role for exile media in the foreseeable future but it's up to them to keep moving with the times and make themselves relevant," said the Yangon-based editor. "I think donors will demand higher standards if they are going to keep funding these organizations because there are now many more options inside the country."
Staff at an international media-development organization that supports the training of Myanmar journalists said that a level of "complacency" and "aid dependency" had developed in some exile media organizations. Many had overstretched and quality had suffered as "personalities" carved out increasingly large fiefdoms, the organization claims.
In order to survive, argues the organization's project director, these agencies will need to focus on doing what they do best. "They need to look to themselves to adjust to that situation by actually saying 'what is our niche here?' And what of our previous aspirations do we need to just let go?"
The long-term goal for the exile media is to return to a free Myanmar. There is some way to go before exile journalists will feel it is safe to go home. "The right time and the right moment will come. But we'll go home with dignity," said Aung Zaw. "We won't kowtow, bow our heads and go back to Burma and look like prisoners. I'm not going back like that. Nobody's going back like that... What I've been doing for the last 20 years, I could face a hundred years in prison. It's all illegal. If I could do what I've been doing here when I go back to Burma, I will."
Dan Waites is a freelance journalist based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. He can be contacted at jamesdanielwaites@gmail.com.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/MK11Ae01.html
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Researchers Spot Blue Coat Web Control Gear In Another Repressive Regime: Burma
Since Web filtering and network monitoring gear from Blue Coat Systems turned up in Syria last month, the company has been scrambling to avoid a reputation as an Internet arms provider to the world's most repressive dictatorships. A new report from Canadian researchers won't help: It shows that Blue Coat gear has been used in Burma, too.
A team at Citizen Lab, a research center at the University of Toronto focused on Internet security and human rights, released evidence Wednesday that shows Blue Coat devices were deployed in Burma as well as Syria to filter and surveil the Internet. Using remote scanning tools and field researchers in both countries, they say they've found 13 more Blue Coat devices in Syria, as well as strong evidence that the company's gear was used in Burma as well.
Citizen Lab found three clues that place Blue Coat gear used for surveillance and censorship in the military-controlled Southeast Asian country. First, they scanned IP addresses at Burma's primary internet service provider Yatanarpon Teleport, and found names of devices that match Blue Coat's names like "fw-webfilter" and "bc-director." Second, they queried Blue Coat devices known to be in Syria and matched their error messages with those in Burma. And third, they correlated their own survey of 500 blocked websites in Burma with preset categories of filtering on Blue Coat devices like "Intimate Apparel and Swimsuits" and "LGBT," and found a close-to-100% correlation.
"While not definitive, it is unlikely that this correlation would be as strong were Burma to use an alternative filtering system," reads the report. Ron Deibert, a University of Toronto political science professor and Citizen Lab's director, makes a stronger statement: "With these three pieces of evidence, it's practically impossible that these aren't Blue Coat devices."
A Blue Coat spokesperson I reached by phone declined to comment immediately and referred me to a statement on the company's website published yesterday."Blue Coat has become aware that certain Blue Coat ProxySG Web security appliances apparently were transferred illegally to Syria after being lawfully sold to a channel distribution partner for a seemingly appropriate designated end user. Blue Coat does not sell to countries embargoed by the US, and does not allow its partners to sell to embargoed countries," the statement reads in part. "We don't want our products to be used by the government of Syria or any other country embargoed by the United States. If our review of the facts about this diversion presents solutions that enable us to better protect against future illegal and unwanted diversion of our products, we intend to take steps to implement them."
Burma, sometimes known as Myanmar, remains on a list of companies with whom the U.S. government carefully restricts trade, though it's not clear whether sales of Blue Coat-type devices to the country would be illegal. Under the military junta that controls the country, opposition groups and minorities have been brutally repressed, and during a bloody crackdown on protests in 2007 the country became the first to temporarily shut down its Internet altogether.
The use of Blue Coat's technology in Syria was revealed last month when the hacker group Telecomix exfiltrated and analyzed 54 gigabytes of data from a device in Syria. Blue Coat later admitted to the Wall Street Journal that its devices were in Syria, but claimed they had found their way to the country through sales to Iraq via the United Arab Emirates, and that the company hadn't been aware of its gear's presence in Syria. "We don't want our products to be used by the government of Syria or any other country embargoed by the United States," Blue Coat executive Steve Daheb, told the Journal, adding that Blue Coat was "saddened by the human suffering and loss of human life" in Syria.
Some have expressed skepticism about Blue Coat's ignorance of Syria's use of its devices. "Bet you anything that the Syrian Blue Coat products are registered, and that they receive all the normal code and filter updates," wrote security guru and blogger Bruce Schneier.
Blue Coat is only the latest Internet firm to face criticism for--wittingly or unwittingly--supplying dictators with tools for controlling and exploiting the Internet. Narus, a cybersecurity and digital surveillance subsidiary of Boeing, was found to have sold technology to the Libyan government. Cisco sold network censorship and spying gear to China. And a trio of other firms, American NetApp, French Qosmos, and German Ultimaco all had their technology used by the Italian firm Are SpA to set up a vast surveillance system in Syria.
While only some of those cases potentially violate U.S. trade restrictions, those companies' ethical problems may be far more serious, says Jillian York, director of international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It's not about export controls," she says. "Even if Blue Coat didn't sell to Syria, they say they were selling to the UAE and Iraq, countries that also use these tools for unlawful surveillance and have no privacy controls."
Citizen Lab's Deibert says legal restrictions on trade can only go so far, particularly when non-U.S. companies offer competing products. "Legislation can only apply within jurisidations," he says. "This really requires the media and researchers to lift the lid on the Internet and find out what goes on beneath the surface."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/11/09/researchers-spot-blue-coat-web-control-gear-in-another-bad-regime-burma/
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Burma's 88 students seek official stamp
By NAY THWIN
Published: 10 November 2011
Jailed 88 leaders Ko Ko Gyi and Min Ko Naing speak to the press in January 2007 (Reuters)
Members of an activist group born out of the infamous 1988 uprising in Burma say they may look to seek official status as a political or philanthropic organisation.
Several members of the 88 Generation Students, as the group is known, were released from prison during an amnesty in October, some of whom had been in jail for more than two decades.
Ko Ko Gyi, not to be confused with the group's leader of the same name, told DVB that he and others included in the amnesty had met with the families of the 88 leaders who remained in detention and discussed the prospect of registering.
"We should work as a legitimate organisation -- not for ourselves but so that we are ready for our leaders are released from prison," he said. "We could be a political organisation or maybe just a philanthropic organisation.
"We have told the family members of our brothers to ask for their opinion when they visit them at the prison."
One of Burma's most famous political prisoners, Min Ko Naing, co-founded the 88 Generation Students's group and played a pivotal role in both the 1988 uprising and in fomenting the September 2007 protests. He is currently serving a 65-year sentence.
Ko Ko Gyi said the group would not register as a political party until all the leaders are released from prison. Nearly 30 members of the group remain behind bars, their presence there continuing to cause anger among family members and colleagues.
"My husband said he and his collages should be released at time like this since they were detained without committing any crime," said Cho Cho Win, wife of jailed leader Min Zeya.
Although operating on the sidelines of Burma's political arena, and still subject to threats from the government, the group remains an influential force in Burma, something that the continued detention of its leaders bears testament to.
Its members are seen as key players in the early stages of the September 2007 uprising when they organised various civil disobedience campaigns in a rare and direct challenge to the then ruling junta.
Such a history pits them as among the more hardline faction of Burma's pro-democracy movement, meaning their chances of becoming an official organisation may be resisted by the powers that be. http://www.dvb.no/news/burmas-88-students-seek-official-stamp/18636
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Burma: Violation and Humanitarian Crisis Continues In Eastern Burma - Christian Solidarity Worldwide
Thu, 2011-11-10 02:08 --- editor / News
London, 10 November, (Asiantribune.com):
Serious violations of human rights continue to be committed by the Burma Army in eastern Burma, while humanitarian conditions deteriorate due to a lack of international funding, according to a new report released today by Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW).
Last month CSW conducted another fact-finding visit to the Thailand-Burma border, visiting Karen refugees in camps on the Thai side of the border as well as internally displaced people (IDPs) across the border in Karen State. CSW also had meetings with former political prisoners, exiled activists, representatives of the democracy movement, Non-Governmental Organisations and diplomats.
CSW interviewed several recently arrived refugees, who had fled fighting between the Burma Army and ethnic armed groups. One Karen IDP told CSW, "Whenever the Burma Army comes, they burn villages or shoot people. So whenever the Burma Army comes we run away because we know what will happen if we don't." Reports of forced labour, looting, extortion and torture remain widespread. One IDP said, "We feel very tired in our hearts and minds. We cannot think about what we're going to do. We're very tired."
Conditions in the IDP camp are particularly severe, due to cuts in international support for humanitarian assistance along the border. The IDPs now receive only rice and salt, and the rations have been reduced significantly. They have received no new clothing, blankets or mosquito nets since 2008, and at least ten children under the age of five are suffering malnutrition. People are relying on foraging for bamboo shoots, raw leaves and roots in the forest.
CSW's East Asia Team Leader Benedict Rogers said, "President Thein Sein and the regime in Burma have made some welcome gestures in recent months, potentially creating the conditions for some changes to be made. However, as long as the gross violations of human rights in the ethnic states continue, and political prisoners remain in horrific conditions in jail, we cannot speak of real change in Burma. It is clear from our visit to the Thailand-Burma border that there is a real need to maintain international pressure on the regime to match its rhetoric with action, and undertake substantial, significant and long-lasting change."
Benedict Rogers further said, "This includes a nationwide ceasefire, an end to the attacks on ethnic civilians, the release of all political prisoners, and a more meaningful dialogue process between the regime, the democracy movement led by Aung San Suu Kyi and the ethnic nationalities. If the regime takes these steps, the international community should be ready to respond positively, but until the regime takes these steps, targeted pressure must be maintained. The international community must also respond to the dire humanitarian situation along Burma's borders, by increasing humanitarian assistance to the internally displaced peoples and refugees who have been forced to flee the Burma Army's brutal offensives. The international community has a responsibility to protect people from a dire humanitarian, as well as human rights, crisis."
- Asian Tribune - http://www.asiantribune.com/news/2011/11/09/burma-violation-and-humanitarian-crisis-continues-eastern-burma-christian-solidarity
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