What is Important Now: Free and Fair Elections

Credit: Irrawaddy News, March 5, 2010.

Tomas Ojea Quintana was appointed UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on Myanmar [Burma] in May 2008. His task is “to examine, monitor, advise and publicly report on human rights situations” in Burma, one of eight countries that the Council focuses on. He is the fourth person to hold this position, and since his appointment has conducted three visits to the country. He concluded his most recent trip, from Feb. 15 to 19, with the assessment that a free and fair election could not be held in the country under current conditions. Simon Roughneen spoke with him in the aftermath of the visit to find out more about the trip and what comes next.

Question: You expressed disappointment at not meeting Aung San Suu Kyi during your recent visit to Burma. Can you tell us why you felt it was so important to meet her at this time?

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Burmese Embassies to Suspend Passport Extension Services

By KYAW THEIN KHA, Irrawaddy News, March 5, 2010.

Burmese embassies around the world will suspend passport extension services for one month in April as the Ministry of Home Affairs has given them instructions to introduce passports using the international bar-code OCRB system.

“The Ministry of Home Affairs has instructed us to temporarily suspend passport extension services for the whole month of April. Passports that will expire in April are to be extended before then. The ministry hasn't explained the bar-code system passports to us,” an official at the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok told The Irrawaddy on Friday.

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No Progress in KIO-Junta Border Guard Force Meeting

Credit: SAW YAN NAING, The Irrawaddy News Magazine, February 1, 2010.

A meeting between Burmese Military Affairs Security Chief Lt-Gen Ye Myint and leaders of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) in Myitkyina, the Kachin capital, on Friday failed to achieve a breakthrough in border guard force negotiations, said a Kachin source on the Sino-Burma border.

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'We Will Fight,' Says Mon Leader

Credit: By LAWI WENG, The Irrawaddy News Magazine, January 30, 2010.

Addressing a crowd of about 1,000 ethnic Mon villagers at 63rd anniversary celebrations of Mon National Day in Palanjapan village near Three Pagodas Pass on Saturday, a Mon leader asked the crowd to clap if they were in support of the Mon army returning to war with Burma's ruling military junta.

Nai Tang Rong, 82, the head of the Thai-Mon community in Bangkok, was making a speech from the stage when he announced: “If we don’t get the freedom we want from the junta, do you think we need to fight them again?

“If you think we need to fight, please clap your hands!” he called to the crowd. The festival crowd immediately broke out in loud applause.

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"Burma Elections Must Be Credible": U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly.

Credit: VOA News, 08 January 2010.

The military regime in Burma has not taken any meaningful steps that would lend credibility to general elections proposed for later in 2010. U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said that "much of the opposition remains in prison, there is no space for political dissent or debate and no freedom of the press."

Mr. Kelly called for Burma to engage pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and ethnic leaders "in a comprehensive dialogue on democratic reform. This," he said, "would be a first step towards inclusive elections."

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Freedom But Not Free In Burma

Credit: VOA News, January 29, 2010.

As speculation mounts over the date for elections planned in Burma later this year, many continue to wonder if there is any chance the balloting can be at all credible.

The timing has not been announced officially. Under the current military rule, there is no legislative branch in Burma. Parliamentarians elected in the 1990 election, the majority of whom come from the opposition National League for Democracy, or NLD, have never been permitted to take their seats.

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Jailed 88 Generation Activist Calls for Blanket Amnesty

Credit: By WAI MOE, The Irrawaddy News Magazine, January 29, 2010.

An imprisoned leader of the dissident 88 Generation Students group has called for a blanket amnesty for Burma's political prisoners before this year's election and an inclusive political process as two of the cornerstones of the group's election policy.

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Burma jails reporter for 13 years

Credit: BBC News, 29 January 2010.

A military court in Burma has sentenced a journalist to 13 years in prison for working illegally for foreign media organisations, his lawyer has said.

Ngwe Soe Lin, who reported for the Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma, was convicted of violating immigration laws and the Electronics Act.

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Despite Discomfort, Suu Kyi Stays Busy

Credit: BA KAUNG, The Irrawaddy News Magazine, January 29, 2010.

Aung San Suu Kyi welcomed her lawyer Nyan Win with an ice-cream. “I made it myself,” she said. “Eat it up quickly before it melts.”

Making ice-cream and baking cakes is one of the ways Suu Kyi fills the long hours of her enforced detention in her dilapidated home on Rangoon's Inya Lake.

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Mother pleads for release of forcibly recruited son

Credit: Kyaw Kha, Mizzima News, 28 January 2010.

A mother of a 14-year old boy persuaded to join the Burmese army speaks of her family’s ordeal with Mizzima. Sandar Win, the mother, says her son, Maung Kyaw Min Tun (alias Kyar Min) was recruited on the 19th of this month and is being kept at the army’s Light Infantry Battalion 83 based in Michaungye in Taungdwingyi township of Magwe Division.

According to her, she journeyed to the barracks to try and bring her son home, but officials at the gate denied her request. The incident happened soon after Burma's military government renewed a one-year agreement with the International Labor Organization to stop the conscription of underage youth into the army.

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Than Shwe and the Waiting Game

Credit: AUNG ZAW, The Irrawaddy News Magazine, January 27, 2010.

It's often said that Burmese junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe is good at managing time. In 2008, he surprised everyone by calling for a referendum in May and announcing a general election would be held in 2010.

He then fell quiet, allowing people to speculate about an election date and the promulgation of an electoral law. Than Shwe is indeed a time-management genius.

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The face of Burma’s non-violent resistance

Credit: Brian McCartan, Mizzima News, 27 January 2010.

A new documentary by two Canadian filmmakers highlights the continuing, non-violent resistance to Burma’s dictatorial regime by political and humanitarian activists who do so at great risk.

The film, Breaking the Silence: Burma’s Resistance, was shown for the first time to an English-speaking audience at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT) in Bangkok on January 22nd. The 75-minute film had previously been screened in a French language version late last year in Canada.

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Haiti Aid Response Far Better than Nargis

By SIMON ROUGHNEEN, Mizzima News, Jan 25, 2010.

The slow delivery of humanitarian aid to Haitians has become something of an embarrassment, if not a scandal. All last week, I encountered earthquake survivors who either had not received any relief such as food, water, basic shelter, or had not seen any aid workers in their part of the city. Still others said I was the first foreigner they had met, which in some cases was a week or more after the disaster.

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Refugees Under Pressure to Return to Burma

By LAWI WENG, Irrawaddy.org, January 25, 2010.

About 3,000 Karen villagers who live in Tha Song Yang District in Tak Province in Thailand are under pressure from Thai authorities to return to Burma, according to human rights groups.

Thai authorities were scheduled to hold a meeting in Tha Song Yang district on Monday to determine the fate of the refugees, but rights group said it was postponed.

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Sanction-hit Air Bagan keen to launch new routes

Credit: Min Thet, Mizzima News, 07 January 2010.

Air Bagan, owned by Burma's business tycoon Tay Za, is keen to launch new air routes.

Tay Za, close to the junta leaders, is one of the business tycoons under US economic sanctions.

"Due to economic sanctions (imposed by the USA and European Union countries), we could not operate on certain routes. But in 2010-2011 during the tourist season, we want to try to operate on new routes, though it cannot succeed if sanctions continue," said an Air Bagan officer, who did not want to be named. The new routes that it is keen on are: Rangoon-Bangkok and Rangoon-Singapore.

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Burmese Media Denies Reports of Mutiny, Attacks BBC

By WAI MOE, Mizzima News, Jan 23, 2010.

Burma's state-run media slammed the BBC Burmese Service on Saturday for reporting alleged cases of mutiny in Pegu Division, saying that the ruling regime would “never accept any scheme to break up the Tatmadaw [Burmese armed forces].”

In commentaries run in both Burmese and English, state-run newspapers accused the BBC of fabricating a series of reports of unrest within the ranks of the military that have been broadcast by the BBC's shortwave radio service over the past month.

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Karen Villagers Forced to Hide in Jungle

By SAW YAN NAING, Irrwaddy News, January 23, 2010.

More than 1,000 Karen villagers from ten villages in Nyaunlebin District in Pegu Division fled their homes on Jan. 17 and are still hiding in the jungle due to Burmese government army attacks, according to a Karen relief group.

The villagers, including women and children, lack sufficient food, medical care and other basic necessities, according to the Committee for Internally Displaced Karen People (CIDKP), a Thailand-based nongovernmental organization.

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Junta stuck in a Burmese daze

Credit: Andrew Ryvern, guardian.co.uk, January 23, 2010.

With imagination and willpower, ordinary Burmese have managed to survive an oppressive military government that openly condemns them to poverty and isolation.

Yangon, Burma's commercial hub and until recently its capital, is a case in point. With its boulevards lined with fading colonial buildings and streets filled with vintage automobiles, the city once known as Rangoon looks like it belongs in the previous century. But these are not the only things out of date.

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Businesses accuse Htoo Trading of unfair monopolization

Credit: Myo Thein, Mizzima News, 22 January 2010.

Mobile phone dealers are accusing Htoo Trading of monopolizing the market for CDMA 800 MHz phones following a subsidiary of the parent company being recognized as the sole sales agent of essential SIM card recharge coupons.

Information Technology Central Services (ITCS), a subsidiary of Burmese tycoon Tay Za’s Htoo Trading, began selling the mandatory accessory yesterday, a day after Myanmar Telecom announced the availability of 800 MHz CDMA SIM cards, called 2000 IX, for use in Rangoon.

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Junta 'Worse' than Nargis

By ARKAR MOE, Mizzima News, Jan 22, 2010.

The president of the human rights committee of the Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) said on Thursday that human rights violations by the Burmese junta have caused more damaged than Cyclone Nargis and called for pro-democracy leader Aug San Suu Kyi and 13 opposition elected parliamentarians to be released from prison.

Aquilino Pimentel, a Philippines senator and president of the IPU human rights committee, made his remarks during a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.

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