Mizzima

Bern Smith

Mae Sot

A makeshift camp near the Thai-Burmese border in Tha Song Yang district last year. Karen refugees lived in this camp for months, through the worst of the wet season. Photo: Mizzima

An exodus of refugees in numbers never before seen along the Thai-Burma border could begin within days, the KNU/KNLA Peace Council has warned.

In a plea to the “international community”, the Peace Council this week said 6,000 to 10,000 people could initially be evacuated, but if the Burma Army made a clean sweep of its capital, as many as 100,000 people could be affected.

The KNU/KNLA Peace Council signed an agreement with Burma’s ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development Council, in 2006 when it broke away from the Karen National Union.

Since then it has developed a capital on the western side of the Dawna mountain range, at Hto Kaw Ko, and its leaders have entered into business arrangements with the Burma Army.

Peace Council leaders have been consistently accused of switching sides merely to enrich themselves.

Earlier this year the SPDC demanded ethnic groups transform themselves into Border Guard Forces, taking orders directly from the Burma Army.

The KNU/KNLA Peace Council has repeatedly refused to become an armed wing of the Burma Army and steadfastly refused to fight troops of the Karen National Liberation Army. But now the SPDC has demanded the Peace Council begin obeying orders or be declared an “unlawful or illegal organisation”.

KNLA Colonel Nerdah Mya

Burma Army Lt-Gen Ye Myint has met with Peace Council leaders and delivered an ultimatum: Join forces with us by Sunday or the population of Hto Kaw Ko will be displaced and your capital destroyed.

In a move that could be perceived as tactically unwise, Peace Council leaders say they dismissed the demand on the spot and began preparing to defend themselves.

The Peace Council is well armed – this correspondent has seen truckloads of brand new M-60s and M-16s and many thousands of rounds of ammunition in their possession.

A spokesman for the Peace Council said: “If the Burmese determine to breach and violate the peace agreement and initiate war, then the Karen will have no choice but to do everything in their power to defend [themselves].

“However [if the] safe area [Hto Kaw Ko] is no longer considered safe, the children and families may have to cross over the border into Thailand.

“Acceptance by the Thais is not certain,” the spokesman said.

Elements of the KNLA last night declared that they would flank KNU/KNLA Peace Council units if they were forced to evacuate to the Thai-Burma border.

KNLA Colonel Nerdah Mya, eldest son of the late KNLA General Bo Mya, said: “We are all Karen and the people must be defended.”

He said his men would certainly help the Peace Council forces if they were attacked by the Burma Army and found themselves in danger of being overwhelmed.

Colonel Nerdah’s primary concern was for the civilian population, he said.

By all accounts it is unlikely the Thais will accept thousands of Peace Council refugees pouring over the border. While contingency plans have been made for three sites around Mae Sot – at Tha Son Yang, Phop Phra and Umphang – there are strict conditions for people seeking refuge in Thailand.

Anyone who comes across the border must be directly fleeing fighting and no combatants of any side, or their families, will be given food or shelter.

The Thai Third Army, which controls an area from Kanchanaburi in the south to Mae Hong Son in the far north, maintains the dispute between the SPDC and the Peace Council is an “internal affair”, one for the Burmese to sort out amongst themselves.

While NGO workers along the border are treating the situation developing between the Peace Council and the Burma Army as a serious matter, they remain sceptical that 100,000 people might flee Burma.

Faced with reduced capacity because international donors are becoming fatigued by more than six decades of fighting in Karen State, the organisations providing for refugees are hoping they are not inundated with tens of thousands of new arrivals from Burma.

But, should the Burma Army make a clean sweep from Hto Kaw Ko to the Thai-Burma border, the number of people fleeing could well dwarf last year’s exodus to Tha Son Yang.

Last year, during June and July, about 6,500 people ended up on the Thai side in Tha Son Yang district when the KNLA lost its Seventh Brigade region to the Burma Army-aligned militia, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army.

What followed was a disaster, as people clustered in small groups along the border and NGOs scrambled to keep up with simple needs, such as sanitation, food and shelter.

ENDS

• What role for junta's top dog Than Shwe?
  http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/193265/burma-in-military-reshuffle-ahead-of-vote-official #
• The generals' musical chairs . . .
  http://www.mizzima.com/news/breaking-and-news-brief/4296-burma-reshuffles-top-military-brass.html #
• India weighs in on Burma nukes . . .
  http://www.mizzima.com/news/regional/4294-new-delhi-says-no-clandestine-burmese-nuclear-program.html #
• US now issues travel warning on Burma . . .
  http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=19308 #
• UN watchdog flags failures . . .
  http://www.dvb.no/news/un-aid-has-limited-impact-in-burma/11434 #
• Burmese junta's election stranglehold continues . . .
  http://www.unpo.org/article/11563 #
• Good heavens!
  http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/393646-thais-still-want-to-live-life-as-if-they-are-in-a-soap-opera/ #
• Brits warn on travel . . .
  http://www.mizzima.com/news/election-2010/4292-britain-issues-fresh-travel-alert-ahead-of-elections.html #
• Where's the middle class?
  http://www.dvb.no/news/asia%E2%80%99s-middle-class-swells-burma-left-behind/11389 #
• Asia’s middle class swells, Burma left behind
  http://www.dvb.no/news/asia%E2%80%99s-middle-class-swells-burma-left-behind/11389 #
• India mulls further investment in Burma
  http://www.mizzima.com/business/4277-india-mulls-futher-investment-into-burmese-energy-sector.html #
• Timor enters Burma fray . . .
  http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/192159/e-timor-seeks-trong-commercial-ties-with-burma #
• Burmese visas suspended . . .
  http://australianetworknews.com/stories/201008/2991324.htm?desktop #

On Burma’s constitution . . .
http://monnews.org/?p=1012

http://www.news.com.ag/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=312:burma-military-shake-up-reveals-juntas-plans-for-new-govt&catid=5:

Reality bites as junta officials horde cash, assets

Missing middle class leaves vaccum for rising ‘criminal class’

Mizzima

By Bern Smith

Sydney

Sean Turnell

Senior Burmese government officials are “salting down” assets of all sorts and stashing cash in offshore banks in a sure sign the insiders are beginning to hedge their bets on the ruling military junta’s future, an economics analyst has said.

Professor Sean Turnell, from Sydney’s Macquarie University, said the officials were looking to guarantee their families’ futures in Burma’s ruling class.

Prof Turnell is a principal of Burma Economic Watch and has addressed the United States’ Senate Sub-committee on Foreign Relations about the effectiveness of US sanctions.

He is a firm believer in sanctions.

Prof Turnell is also a former Reserve Bank of Australia senior analyst, and says little can be expected of ASEAN, India, nor China when it comes to pushing for reforms from the junta, but there is some hope from within the military clique.

“Some developments are quite dramatic at the moment,” he said.

“There are sizeable holes in the regime, but that’s really it on the upside.”

Prof Turnell, who will next month travel to Washington DC to meet with members of Congress, believes some senior figures within Burma’s military administration are “running scared”.

“With the election coming, it’s obvious that it will be the farce that everyone says it’s going to be, and the most senior [generals] will still have everything,” he said from his Sydney home.

He said some elements of the international community saw these key figures as rising “robber-barons” in Burmese society, comparable with the American phenomenon of the 1900s.

In America such businessmen, or “robber barons”, amassed great personal fortunes, but national institutions such as libraries and foundations and infrastructure such as railroads, were a positive byproduct of the era.

But in Burma, reality was far more bleak, said Prof Turnell.

“In the last six months what we’re really seeing is the rising of a criminal business class, with the privatisation push it’s really a rapid criminalisation of the economy,” he said.

“They’re protecting themselves more in the manner of the mafia,” he said.

“It’s morphing from this nationalistic, quasi-Stalinist state into a criminal economy”, where the individual plays a more prominent role than is healthy for a developing economy, he said.

And with the focus turned to the connected individual capable of securing a concession or privilege from the junta comes greater disparity.

“We’re not going to get a Hyundai or Daewoo out of this,” said Prof Turnell, dismissing the argument of economic liberalists that democracy and human rights evolve with economic development.

“These people [with privileges granted by the junta] are not innovators, nor manufacturers, this is simply rent seeking,” he said.

There was no new middle class coming to the fore and demanding their rights and exercising newfound power as consumers, he said.

A classic example of what Turnell describes as the “madness” of the generals is a recent decision to ban the export of onions to combat a domestic shortage.

“Farmers had entered into contracts, they had contractual obligations,” he said.

But those obligations will not be fulfilled now, because of the generals’ actions.

And so a promising industry has been cut off at the knees.

He compared the current onion ban with that of beans and pulses a few years ago.

Once the bean and pulse export industry had been ruined by export bans, the generals left it alone – in the past few years it has been making something of a comeback.

“There is no path to anything [for producers] other than mere survival,” he said.

Prof Turnell bemoans the argument that development will lead to greater rights for the people of Burma and a more equitable system will bloom with time.

“If it was genuinely developing then you would have to say ‘well, that’s better than nothing’, but it’s just not happening,” he said.

What role for junta’s top dog Than Shwe?
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/193265/burma-in-military-reshuffle-ahead-of-vote-official

The generals’ musical chairs . . .
http://www.mizzima.com/news/breaking-and-news-brief/4296-burma-reshuffles-top-military-brass.html

India weighs in on Burma nukes . . .
http://www.mizzima.com/news/regional/4294-new-delhi-says-no-clandestine-burmese-nuclear-program.html

US now issues travel warning on Burma . . .
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=19308

UN watchdog flags failures . . .
http://www.dvb.no/news/un-aid-has-limited-impact-in-burma/11434

Burmese junta’s election stranglehold continues . . .
http://www.unpo.org/article/11563

Good heavens!
http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/393646-thais-still-want-to-live-life-as-if-they-are-in-a-soap-opera/

Brits warn on travel . . .
http://www.mizzima.com/news/election-2010/4292-britain-issues-fresh-travel-alert-ahead-of-elections.html

Where’s the middle class?
http://www.dvb.no/news/asia%E2%80%99s-middle-class-swells-burma-left-behind/11389

Asia’s middle class swells, Burma left behind
http://www.dvb.no/news/asia%E2%80%99s-middle-class-swells-burma-left-behind/11389