Burma (aka Myanmar)

[Guest]

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[Sengbe Pieh]

An update on the situation in Burma from Sunday, July 6th Washington Post

'To Be Busy Helps Them Forget'
Burma's Storm Survivors Cobble Together a Meager Future

Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 6, 2008; A01

BOGALAY, Burma -- Two months after a cyclone savaged the fertile Irrawaddy Delta, in Burma's southwest, the bones of drowning victims still clutter the muddy banks of waterways.

One bamboo stick at a time, survivors in hundreds of flattened villages are struggling to rebuild their lives. For shelter, they squeeze several families into a single tent. For drinking water, they collect monsoon rains that trickle off tarpaulin roof coverings into buckets or salvaged ceramic vases. For food, they cook communal meals with rice, beans and oil from handouts. Sometimes it is spoiled.

On a recent visit, one village looked as if it had been carpet-bombed, a cratered landscape of muddy pools, debris and the remains of water buffaloes. A few hundred feet away, villagers sawed and hammered at planks salvaged from the wreckage. A teenage boy in an oversize shirt donated by a Buddhist monastery picked through piles of smashed wood.

"To work is to be busy, and to be busy helps them forget," said Soe, the village leader.

Nine hundred forty-three people used to live here, he said. In the storm that came ashore the night of May 2, 660 of them disappeared. Across the vast, mazelike delta, an estimated 130,000 people were killed and 2.4 million affected.

Persistent obstruction by the country's military rulers has kept aid at tragically meager levels. International efforts to quickly dispatch emergency assistance were delayed as the country's xenophobic military rulers rebuffed offers of help, denied visas to foreign aid workers and required permits for travel within the country.

Aid workers say that the majority of survivors of Tropical Cyclone Nargis have received at least some help but that few are even remotely equipped to make their way in coming months. Some communities have only recently been reached by aid teams, who had journeyed for hours on foot, by motorcycle and by boat.

Many of the restrictions have been eased, but relief workers say they still operate under erratic and constantly shifting constraints. The logistical challenges remain formidable as they scramble to dispatch seed, tractors and tillers to farmers before the rice-planting season ends this month.

"We have time to farm, but no tractors, no buffaloes and no seed," Soe said.

To reach his village required a seven-hour drive along a potholed, tire-shredding road from Rangoon to the rural hub of Bogalay, past four police checkpoints where documents were rigorously scanned. Against a backdrop of peaceful rice paddies, strange touches stood out: a patchwork of blue and red tarpaulins stretched across delicate palm-thatched huts; decapitated golden pagodas; and peaked iron roofs blown like dead leaves onto the roadside.

From Bogalay, where electricity has barely crackled back to life, the journey continued aboard a motorized boat loaded with supplies. The riverbanks form a cemetery for cyclone victims whose bodies floated for weeks along the waterways and whose remains, at low tide, now whiten in the mud.

A boatman pointed to an empty stretch of riverbank interspersed with bare-branched betel and coconut trees. "That used to be a village," he said. "There, too," he said minutes later, gesturing at the opposite bank.

In Soe's village, about four hours south of Bogalay, survivors gathered to greet a rare foreign visitor. About 30 crowded into a newly built hut to hear the headman tell their story.

During the storm, 26 entire families vanished, he said. None of their bodies has been recovered.

The rest of the villagers clutched floating wreckage or grasped at tree trunks or piled into a leaking boat and fled to a monastery in a distant village. Days later, local authorities told them to leave, handed them the equivalent of $10 per household and ferried them in military boats to another village hours upriver. Almost 300 have now made it back.

"We used to sing every day," Soe said. "We used to sing as we marched to work." They were songs filled with joy, songs to carry them to the fields and out into the yellow waters to catch shrimp and river fish.

No one was supposed to be living here. The village is located in an area marked as uninhabited, a forest reserve, on the government map used by aid agencies. But field workers have discovered about 12,000 survivors in 60 villages across the area, all of them almost entirely wiped out. An estimated 20,000 people died.

The region was among the worst-hit because it lay directly along the path of the cyclone. But environmental experts say a more significant reason for the high death toll, here and elsewhere in the delta, was the systematic destruction of mangrove forests. In the December 2004 tsunami that devastated South Asia, dense mangrove coverage in Sri Lanka was shown to have helped save lives.

According to a study published last month by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, decades of illegal encroachment and government-sanctioned neglect had seriously degraded the mangrove forests in the Irrawaddy Delta. "If there had been decent mangrove on the shorelines, the death toll would have been cut in half," said Lucas Riegger, a U.N. vulnerability analyst and mapping specialist.

One-third of survivors around Bogalay suffer from psychological stress, according to Doctors Without Borders. Field workers from other groups reported meeting survivors who refused food or wouldn't speak. One man, found on a roadside, repeatedly hugged the invisible coconut tree to which he had clung when the waters rose. Others told relief workers that they were unable to sleep or could still feel the hands of sons and daughters slipping from their grasp.

"It's like being born again every day. I am learning to live again like a child," said Hla Dwe, 36, a farmer and fisherman who lost his mother, wife and both children.

The village's five remaining water buffaloes lolled about together neck-deep in a pool of mud. Even if ownership of the animals could be sorted out, they were too sick and weak to work the fields for more than a few hours a day, villagers said. New buffaloes would take too long to train.

Local authorities in Bogalay offered to sell the people tractors under special terms, but buyers needed to prove they had owned more than 50 acres, with a photograph and a form signed by the village leader. Two farmers here were rich enough to qualify; the rest had worked plots of from five to 20 acres each.

"We are victims. So how can we buy this?" said Chau, 32, a stone-faced farmer who said his sister, mother and nephew had died in the storm.

Tents in the village and passing boats bore the logo of the Htoo trading company, which is owned by Tay Za, a businessman targeted by U.S. sanctions because of his closeness to the ruling junta.

At least 30 big Burmese companies that locals refer to as "cronies" of the junta were assigned to the reconstruction and relief efforts in the delta's townships. This has raised concerns in Rangoon, the largest city, that the companies will eventually collect payback in the form of land concessions in the delta or elsewhere in the country.

But Western diplomats and aid workers say that so far, the companies have often proved helpful. Some aid agencies, including Save the Children, have turned to businessmen such as Serge Pun, whose holdings include Yoma Bank, to obtain boats and warehouse space and to speed deliveries to the affected areas.

Working with the company has "absolutely helped cut through the red tape," said Andrew Kirkwood, Save the Children's Burma director. "I think all of us were frustrated with not being able to do more sooner."

His agency's deal with the company came at a time when U.N. officials were still locked in negotiations with military authorities to allow in 10 helicopters. Now those aircraft are flying. And visa applications for foreign staffers can be turned around in 24 hours, while before they took 10 days or more.

But access to the delta remains a concern. In past weeks, aid agencies have had to seek approval for their activities from an ever-changing combination of ministries and local authorities. Trips into the field are systematically monitored. A World Food Program helicopter shipment was canceled by an onboard military agent because flight coordinates submitted by U.N. workers weren't clear, according to a staffer.

Last week, one ministry canceled a program by the agency to give cash to survivors around Rangoon, even though another ministry had approved the plan days earlier. "It seems like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing," said Hakan Tongul, the World Food Program's deputy country director.

Workers with a Burmese aid agency in Bogalay said they were repeatedly prevented from reaching the devastated villages of the distant natural reserve by military boats that were patrolling the area. Troops told them they were taking care of the villagers. The area has at least three military bases, according to three agencies that have worked there.

"Everywhere we went, we were met by soldiers or navy," said an aid worker with the Noble Compassionate Volunteer Group, which has partnered with UNICEF in the area.

Aid workers and diplomats say the problem at the lower levels is sometimes less willful neglect than incompetence. According to several U.N. officials, there is only one fax machine in the Ministry of Social Welfare, which at times has been largely responsible for processing applications for visits to the delta. But in some places, local authorities have defied their superiors to help in the relief efforts. One Western diplomat said officials in the remote rural hub of Pathein had built a road for supplies, defying senior military officers.

Aid workers praise villagers' resilience, which they said had helped stave off further deaths and disease.

In one village, farmers who own five to 10 acres apiece said they joined together to buy a tractor from officials in Bogalay. They will have to pay in installments over three years, using rice seed and funds they don't yet have, they said.

Still, said village elder Tan as he leaned on a bamboo cane, going into debt to grow their own food seemed a better option to the villagers than sitting idle and eating the rotten yellow rice they received as aid.

They have to rely on themselves, he said. "Everyone else has their problems, too."

[moonfish]

Ouch - just read the report from Burma

And we here in regions which, while having some natural disasters, have none as devastating as the one there.

We should be so grateful that we were born or someway found ourselves in our speciific parts of the world. I cannot imagine what those people are going through.  I know, I for one, would not be able to mentally deal with such a situation.

Moonfish

[Sengbe Pieh]

Burma Democracy activists jailed for 65 years

Wednesday, November 12, 2008 at 5:55am

Dear friends,

Yesterday the Burmese regime sentenced more than 60 leading democracy activists to long prison sentences, ranging from 2 to 65 years in prison. The sentences were handed down at around 1pm, behind closed doors in Insein prison special court in Rangoon. Family members were not allowed to attend the hearing.

If forced to serve their full terms, many of these political prisoners will die in jail. Some of those sentenced yesterday remain on trial and face more charges and further sentences as their trials continue.

Those sentenced include prominent members of the 88 Generation Students group, which led the peaceful demonstrations last September. Also sentenced were NLD members, labour activists, a blogger, a poet and 6 monks. In a separate hearing held in Insein prison special court, labour activist Su Su Nwe was sentenced to 12 years and 6 months.

TAKE ACTION
Please send an email to the UN Security Council urging Ban Ki-moon to visit Burma and make the release of political prisoners his top priority:
http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/un_action.html

On Monday EU foreign ministers met and called for the release of all political prisoners. The EU promised to increase pressure on the regime if there was no progress to reform, but despite the situation getting worse they have taken no action.

The UN must act. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is due to visit Burma in December, but there are fears he may back out of the visit because of the difficulties in negotiating with the regime. These sentences make it all the more important that Ban Ki-moon goes ahead with his visit. We have had 37 visits to Burma by UN envoys, but things have only got worse. We need his personal engagement on Burma.

TAKE ACTION
Send an email to the UN Security Council urging Ban Ki-moon to visit Burma and make the release of political prisoners his top priority. Take action here: http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/un_action.html

Thank you for your support.

Best wishes
Anna Roberts
The Burma Campaign UK
---
This message was sent by The Burma Campaign UK. For more information on our work go to http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/

To find out more about Aung San Suu Kyi go to http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/aboutburma/aung_san_suu_kyi.htm
The Burma Campaign UK: Free Burma's Political Prisoners!

Ricky Gervais: The Real Disaster In Burma Is The Government

                                                                     

MIZZIMA

Specializing in Burma Related News & Multimedia

Comedian Zarganar handed 45-year prison term

by Nem Davies   
Friday, 21 November 2008 22:46

New Delhi – Famous comedian and film director Zarganar, held in Insein prison, was sentenced to 45 years in jail today by the prison court.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/eplive/expert/photo/20071019PHT11924/pict_20071019PHT11924.jpg
The court held the trial inside Insein prison and sentenced him on three counts under the Electronic Law to 45 years in prison today for 'disaffection towards state and government' by using the internet.

"I am proud of my elder brother-in-law. He was arrested because of his relief effort among Cyclone Nargis victims. The government's action is arbitrary. My brother cracked a joke when the judge pronounced his judgment. 'I was given 45 years prison term on an 'I' case. I was sent to Insein prison when I used Internet to study IT (Information Technology)', "Ma Nyein, his sister-in-law quoted him as saying.

His family members had to wait at the main entrance of the prison as they were not allowed to attend the court proceeding. Only his defence counsel Khin Htay Kywe was allowed to enter the courtroom. She served as defence lawyer in this case along with lawyers Aung Thein and Khin Maung Shein.

The court fixed November 27 to hear five remaining cases against him.

His family and defence lawyer have not yet decided to go for an appeal. They will discuss the need for an appeal against today's judgment with him when they visit him in prison on Sunday.

Similarly the same Insein prison court sentenced sport columnist Zaw Thet Htwe and his co-accused Thant Zin Aung today to 15 years in prison each and gave 29 years prison term to another accused Tin Maung Aye a.k.a. Gadone for their rescue and relief operation for cyclone Nargis victims.

The authorities arrested Zarganar at his residence while he was into Cyclone Nargis rescue and relief operations for the victims.

The comedian joined the pro-democracy movement actively and he was arrested time and again for cracking political jokes and also barred from performing in public and in films.

Canada based 'PEN' (Canada) awarded him 'One Humanity Award' for 2008 for his bravery and integrity in his struggle for freedom of the press and freedom of expression and imprisoned him for these activities.

[Sengbe Pieh]

                                                                     

'Pull Them Out With Tweezers'

By MIN LWIN      Tuesday, November 25, 2008

                                                                                                                 

Despite their crucial role in assisting survivors of Cyclone Nargis, local aid groups in Burma have become the target of an ongoing crackdown on activities deemed inimical to the interests of the country’s ruling regime. Twenty-two volunteer aid workers have been arrested in connection with their relief work in the Irrawaddy delta, where the cyclone struck on May 2-3.

Recently, six of the detained volunteers—Zarganar, Zaw Thet Htwe, Ein Khaing Oo, Tin Maung Aye, Thant Zin Aung and Kyaw Kyaw Thint—received lengthy prison sentences for their efforts on behalf of victims of the disaster.

Of this group, Zarganar is undoubtedly the best known in Burma. He is the country’s most popular satirist, noted for directing his acerbic wit at the generals who have ruled for the past two decades. Last Friday, he was sentenced to 45 years’ imprisonment for criticizing the regime’s response to the humanitarian disaster in the delta.

The comedian was arrested in June while contributing to the spontaneous private relief effort that stepped in to fill the vacuum left by the authorities, who were more interested in going ahead with a referendum on a constitution designed to legitimize military rule.

It would be an understatement to say that the regime did not appreciate the efforts of ordinary citizens who came to the rescue of those less fortunate than themselves. Fearing that dissident groups would take advantage of the situation to foment unrest, the junta soon moved to clamp down on unauthorized do-gooders.

“The military government doesn’t allow any opposition groups to operate [in the cyclone-affected area] or exert influence,” said Aung Thu Nyein, a researcher from the Thailand-based Vahu Development Institute. He added that the ruling generals would not tolerate anyone who reminded them of their failure to help their own suffering people.

It came as no surprise, then, that the authorities were quick to arrest Zaganar, who has been an agitator for change since the nationwide uprising against military rule in 1988.

Imprisoned in 1990 for four years, he has nonetheless continued to challenge the junta’s right to rule. Last year, when thousands of monks gathered to protest the regime’s policies, he was one of their most outspoken supporters.

In the wake of Cyclone Nargis, Zarganar was critical not only of the junta, but also of the United Nations. “I am not happy with the UN,” he said in an interview with The Irrawaddy. “Why are they so concerned with the government’s endorsement of their relief work? They should have taken more risks.”

Others agree that the international response to the regime’s abuses leaves a great deal to be desired.

Describing the jailing of Zarganar as “a cruel joke on the Burmese people,” Brad Adams, the Asia director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, added that it was “a bigger joke on those abroad who still think ignoring repression in Burma will bring positive change.”

Although the UN says that it hopes to “build trust” with the regime through cooperation in the relief effort, local and international NGO workers in Burma say that the ongoing crackdown on volunteers shows that the junta is more interested in maintaining control than in helping people.

“The government’s imprisonment of humanitarian aid workers sends the message that Burmese social organizations must follow the junta’s regulations whether they like it or not,” said a Rangoon-based social worker.

While private donors and humanitarian aid workers face arrest and imprisonment for acting on their own initiative, government-backed organizations like the Union Solidarity and Development Association are free to coordinate with international aid agencies, providing them with access to resources and opportunities to profit from the relief effort.

Despite his long history of persecution at the hands of the authorities (which included a three-week stint in jail last year for making public offerings to protesting monks), Zarganar has shown no signs of bowing to his oppressors.

Perhaps this is because his stage name is taken from a Burmese slogan that was popular during the struggle against British colonial rule: “If you have hairs that stand up when you are afraid, pull them out with tweezers.”

Zarganar (“tweezers” in Burmese) knows better than most that the only way to confront your fears is by plucking them out at their roots.

[Sengbe Pieh]

A Quieter Brutality

                                                                                                                         

Sneaking In Where Thugs Rule

February 5, 2009

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

MYAWADDY, Myanmar

                                                                                                                           

Before entering Myanmar from Thailand, you scrub your bags of any hint that you might be engaged in some pernicious evil, such as espionage, journalism or promotion of human rights.

Then you exit from the Thai town of Mae Sot and walk across the gleaming white “friendship bridge” to the Burmese immigration post on the other side. Entering Myanmar (which traditionally has been known as Burma), you adjust your watch: Myanmar is 30 minutes ahead — and 50 years behind.

Already Myanmar’s government is one of the most brutal in the world, and in recent months it has become even more repressive.

A blogger, Nay Phone Latt, was sentenced to 20 years in prison. A prominent comedian, Zarganar, was sentenced to 59 years. A former student leader, Min Ko Naing, a survivor of years of torture and solitary confinement, has received terms of 65 years so far and faces additional sentences that may reach a total of 150 years.

“Politically, things are definitely getting worse,” said David Mathieson, an expert on Myanmar for Human Rights Watch living on the Thai-Burmese border. “They’ve just sent hundreds of people who should be agents of change to long prison terms.”

A new American presidency is a useful moment to review policy toward Myanmar, and the truth is that the West’s approach has failed. The Burmese junta has ruled despotically since 1988, ignoring democratic elections. Since then, sanctions have had zero effect in moderating the regime.

I have vast respect for Aung San Suu Kyi, the extraordinary woman who won a Nobel Peace Prize for standing up to the country’s thugs. But the best use of her courage right now would be to accept that the trade sanctions she advocated have accomplished nothing more than further impoverishing her own people. As with Cuba and North Korea, isolating a venal regime usually just hurts the innocent and helps the thugs stay in power.

Instead, the best bet is financial sanctions that specifically target individuals close to the regime — and, even more, a clampdown on Myanmar’s imports of arms.

“It would be very difficult to get an arms embargo through the Security Council, but that’s something that really goes to the heart of any military regime,” Mr. Mathieson said. “You lock them out of the tools of their own self-aggrandizement and repression.”

President George W. Bush tried to help Burmese dissidents, but he had zero international capital. The Obama administration, in contrast, has a chance to lead an international initiative to curb Burmese arms imports and bring the regime to the negotiating table.

Myanmar’s weapons have come from or through China, Russia, Ukraine, Israel and Singapore, and Russia is even selling Myanmar’s dictators a nuclear reactor, Mr. Mathieson said.

In crossing from Thailand to Myanmar, you pass through a time warp. You leave the bustle and dynamism of Thailand and encounter a stagnating backwater of antique cars and shacks beside open sewers.

I found it difficult to interview people in Myanmar, because I was traveling as a tourist with two of my kids (and my wife is sick of me getting our kids arrested with me in dictatorships). But we dropped in on the Myawaddy hospital, which was so understaffed that no one stopped us as we marched through wards of neglected patients.

The most flourishing business we saw on the Burmese side belonged to a snake charmer who set up temporary shop outside a temple. The moment a crowd gathered, an armed soldier ran over in alarm — and then relaxed when he saw that the only threat to public order was a cobra.

In Mae Sot, Thailand, I visited with former Burmese political prisoners, like the courageous Bo Kyi. They are at risk of being killed by Burmese government assassins, yet they are campaigning aggressively for change.

Equally inspiring are the Free Burma Rangers, who risk their lives to sneak deep into the country for months at a time to provide medical care and document human rights abuses.

One gutsy American working with the group, who asked that his name not be used for security reasons, communicated with me by satellite phone from his hiding place deep inside Myanmar. He knows that the Burmese government will kill him if it catches him, yet he stays to gather photos and other evidence of how Burmese soldiers are drafting ethnic Karen villagers for forced labor and are raping women and girls. One recent case described by the Free Burma Rangers involved a 7-year-old girl who was raped, and then killed.

The courage of these people seeking a new Myanmar is infectious and inspiring. In this new administration, let’s help them — and see if with new approaches we can finally topple one of the most odious regimes in the world.

[Patricia SF]

Documentary regarding the September 2007 Saffron Revolution.

This documentary which will be playing at the San Francisco Film Festival has received U.S. distribution.  Perhaps it will be shown on PBS.

http://fest09.sffs.org/films/film_details.php?id=13

[Sengbe Pieh]

Burma's Suu Kyi 'to face trial'

  Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is to face trial for breaching the conditions of her detention under house arrest, her lawyer has said.

Ms Suu Kyi will stand trial on 18 May, the lawyer, Hla Myo Myint, said.

She was taken to a prison from her home in Rangoon, where she has spent most of the past 19 years, to hear the charges.

A US man whose apparently uninvited visit to her home led to the charges, will also be tried on immigration and security offences, the lawyer added.

The American man, John Yettaw, was arrested after swimming across a lake to her house and staying there secretly for two days.

The charges are yet to be confirmed by the government.

But it looks as though this is a pretext to keep her detained until elections due in 2010 which the generals think will give them some legitimacy, says BBC South-East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head.

Another of her lawyers said they would contest the charge.

"The charge is going to be violating the conditions of her house arrest and what her lawyer is going to argue is that of course that's ridiculous because, yes under the terms of her arrest she cannot invite people to visit her but she of course did not invite this person to visit her," Jared Genser told the BBC.

"If somebody shows up at her doorstep in violation of Burmese law she cannot be held responsible for it."

Meanwhile EU special envoy Piero Fassino said there was "no justification" for the detention, AFP news agency reported.

Security stepped up

A spokesman for her National League for Democracy (NLD), Nyan Win said he had been informed of the plan to try Ms Suu Kyi and two women who live with her by her lawyer, who visited Ms Suu Kyi in her off-limits house on Wednesday.

She was driven in a police convoy with the two aides from her house to the prison, eyewitnesses said.

Reports say she was charged under the country's Law Safeguarding the State from the Dangers of Subversive Elements, which carried a three-to-five-year jail term.

Ms Suu Kyi's main lawyer, Kyi Win, blamed Mr Yettaw for her detention, calling him a "fool".

The Burmese authorities have described the American as a 53-year-old Vietnam war veteran and resident of the state of Missouri.

• Jonathan Head, Reporting from Bangkok, Thailand The bizarre incident in which an American man was intercepted this month swimming across the lake from her home has given the military authorities a very convenient pretext for extending her detention, even though her lawyer insists the opposition leader did not invite him, and tried to send him away. The motives of the American man, who has been named as John Yettaw, remain unclear, although he may just be the latest in a succession of naïve, self-appointed campaigners whose actions have been criticised for doing more harm than good in Burma.

Reports say security has been stepped up at the Insein jail, already a top security prison where a number of leading dissidents are incarcerated.

The Nobel Peace laureate has been under house arrest for much of the past 19 years.

The latest detention began in May 2003, after clashes between opposition activists and supporters of Burma's (Myanmar) military government.

The house arrest was extended last year - a move which analysts say is illegal even under the junta's own legal limits.

It is now due to expire at the end of May.

Earlier this month, the government rejected an appeal for the 63-year-old to be freed, despite NLD claims that she was suffering from low blood pressure and dehydration.

Her condition is said to have improved following a doctor's visit this week and Kyi Win said she had told him her health was good and she was in good spirits.

Ms Suu Kyi was detained after the NLD's victory in a general election in 1990. Burma's junta refused to allow the party to assume power.

The military are planning to stage an election next year which they hope will give their rule a veneer of legitimacy, our correspondent says.

                                                                                                       

[Mona]

There are several places on the internet where you can try to help by adding your name to a petition list. The one that is recommended by her official facebook supporters site is:

http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/ASSK_action.html