On September 27, 2010 Waihnin Pwint Thon spoke about Burma at the Labour Party Conference. She is the daughter of Ko Mya Aye, one of the Generation 88 student leaders who is currently serving a 65-year jail sentence in Burma for his part in the 2007 anti-government protests. Waihnin Pwint Thon is a UK-based student, a refugee from Burma and campaigner for the Burma Campaign UK.

Since the military junta has announced its election plans there have been many different responses from the public. There are apparently two schools of thought. One sees it as a good opportunity for change within the parliament and even believes that it is a necessary step from a dictatorship to a democratic society. Others, however, see it as just changing the mask, not the content and argue that there is absolutely no chance for change within the kind of this constitution. It is as if some dumb giant is trying to hatch a bird from a stone, no matter how much time and effort he spends on it, a stone is a stone and it never becomes a bird.

If we talk to those leaders who are going to contest in the election, what we find is that no one sees it is as a democratic constitution. Almost every leader strongly criticises the draft constitution and sees it as a tool to legalise the ruling junta as the legitimate government. Most of the candidates have expressed scepticism about whether they can argue for change in the parliament. But amazingly against their better judgement these leaders have decided to contest and the justification for doing so are outlined below.

1.   It is necessary to have an authentic party to represent the public.

2.   Taking whatever you can is better than getting nothing.

3.   Through the parliamentary system you can seek a way for change.

4.   Step ahead of those in parliament who are only in it for themselves.

5.   If nobody contests, the military sympathizers would monopolise all of the seats.

6.   This is a window of opportunity to find a way to break through the political deadlock.

7.   You need to get involved in the election and do what you can for the public.

8.   An election is the necessary step in a transition towards to a democratic society.

To consider their thinking requires us to examine the draft constitution thoroughly, but I will skip all the boring details and simply state right out front that the Burmese government is deliberately misleading the public. If one carefully observes the way the military is going about its election proceedings, one will see that this is just what they (SPDC) want the public to believe. Let’s consider the four prime components in any democratic election.

(1) Free and Fair Election

(2) Multi-Parties Involvement

(3) Voluntarily Public Participation

(4) Voluntarily Public Recognition of the Election Result

The authorities are determined to ensure a successful vote and so I can say for sure that it will not be a free and fair election. The Burmese ruling junta learned a bitter lesson from the past in the 1990-election when the NLD won in a land slide victory. Today there are no freedoms of speech, assembly, and press for a multi-party participation, the ruling junta would not be fool enough to let it be otherwise. No one in Burma is allowed to express their political beliefs freely. What we can say for sure is that the junta will tactically out manoeuvre these components somehow for a successful election.

The junta is trying to persuade the world that there will be multi-party involvement and voluntary public participation. Among these three obligations, multiparty involvement is the most important of all. If the junta can organise the parties’ involvements successfully the rest would fall into place and go smoothly as planned.

Let us see how the junta is going to organise “Multi-Parties Involvement”. The ruling junta knows from the very beginning that the NLD and the other parties which had contested in the 1990 election would not participate this time around.  As a consequence the Burmese population as well as the leaders of democratic countries all over the world would reject their election, thus it would be a big failure for the SPDC.  Clearly, they do not want such thing to happen.

They have been determined to turn around world opinion and so desperately need the cooperation of the Burmese population. The main purpose of this election is to legitimate their power as a democratic government, but this is not what the Burmese people want at all. As a result it is absolutely impossible for the ruling junta to expect a voluntarily cooperation from the public without jeopardizing their position. So a direct approach for the public to get involved in the election is impossible.  Such a strategy – the straight approach – would also produce disastrous results. To get “Voluntarily Public Cooperation and Participation”, the ruling junta needs a clever tactic.

If the ruling junta gets more parties to contest, it can certainly turn around public opinion.  The more parties that contest, the more involved the public would be in supporting them and the better off its illusion will be. A 100 percent turnout in the polls for the junta would translate into a successful election.  If by contrast only a handful of parties took part in the election, only a few would turn up at the polls. As a consequence an unsuccessful election would be a result.

The Burmese military regime needs a diversion of public opinion in casting their votes. Having a diversity of parties, the more likely it would be that the people would vote for their proxy, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). We can estimate how important it is for the ruling junta to get multi-parties involvement.

First and foremost, psychological warfare is needed to obtain its objectives. The ruling junta, through its mouthpieces and agencies, spreads half-truths among the public.  Propaganda has been a successful tool as we have seen in the minds of those above who have decided to contest. As an example, let us study the political developments in the Mon community to see how the government has manoeuvred its tricks to turn them into supporters.

From the very beginning the Mon National Democratic Front (MNDF) has bluntly boycotted this election with the Mon population standing firmly behind them.  So to get Mon people’s involvement the ruling junta desperately needs the New Mon State Party (NMSP) rather than the MNDF. It knows that if it can convince the NMSP to take part it can also win the hearts of Mon people. All the Mon, including Mon monks and novices, would certainly follow behind this party. The SPDC has already laid down its strategy and tactics since 1995 when it reached a cease-fire agreement with them.

There are (3) main tactics that the SPDC uses:

1. Sharing Power Tactic

2. Coercion Tactic

3. Psychological Warfare Tactic

According to the first, the SPDC has lured the NMSP into a power sharing deal. For example, if the NMSP takes part in the election it would fully approve for the NMSP’s candidates to win the election.  However, it is the junta who selects the NMSP’s representatives in Mon State to manage Mon political affairs, not the people who have no say in choosing their own leaders. The NMSP leaders have roundly rejected these offers and refuse to contest in the election. Above all the NMSP has turned down the order to transform the Mon National Liberation Army (MNLA), its armed wing, into a Border Guard Force (BGF). The next tactic is what the SPDC has used to its fullest to intimidate the NMSP into going along with its plans. As everyone knows this coercion tactic has had its own shortcomings and I must bow my head to the NMSP’s leaders for their courageous stand against such enormous pressure. The psychological warfare tactic has been thus far been the most successful for a regime bent on holding onto power through all means as observed in those who have bought into the SPDC’s election promises.

Unexpectedly a new party was formed, the All Mon Regions Democratic Party (AMRDP), announced earlier this year to go ahead and contest the election to act as the representative for the Mon people. To my amazement when I learned about their decision amid such intense controversy over the SPDC’s constitution and its electoral process this decision threw me off and makes me wonder.

We all know who is leading the AMRDP. Nai Ngwe Thein was once an education official and as soon as AMRDP announced its decision, the opinions of the Mon people froze. No one has yet said anything against the AMRDP for its decision. This is exactly what is needed for the success of the junta’s election. All mouths who strongly oppose the election are now shut. No longer does anyone criticize the election, but see it as a necessary, unavoidable step towards a democratic society.

At last the SPDC has once again successfully turned its enemy into a willing supporter. All Mon will see that this is their national obligation to cast their votes on Election Day. The leaders of AMRDP will invest great effort in doing everything to get the Mon people involved in the process. In order to get their support, they approach Mon monks and novices who usually have so much influence upon Mon people. Every Mon now is gleefully preparing to take part in the election process. AMRDP is now at the head of the program to mobilize the whole Mon population to get involved in the election. Thus, I can say for sure that on Election Day our national dress will be worn by all and accompanied by the singing of the Mon national anthem at the booths. In the end since they themselves have voluntarily cast their votes in the election, they unavoidably will have to accept the election results and recognise those who have won the election as their representatives. But in the end it will take much more to guarantee ethnic harmony for the nation, we have a long way to go yet with or without coercion and tricks.

Another trick is the condition that every party must at least have 1000 members within 40 days of registration. Some parties have even claimed they have done so within a few days. This is a trap purposely laid by SPDC to have 1000 members at the core of party who will eventually turn out to be the junta’s organizers who can faithfully mobilize the public. These members most certainly will become an effective catalysis to mobilize the public to cast their vote.

Hopefully our readers see the point.  Otherwise, the SPDC itself has to find someone to do all their work and to organize the public to get them to go to the polls without absence.  Now the ruling junta has nothing to do but just wait and see whether all these things fall into place. The ruling junta has nothing to worry about when it comes to public participation, just sleeping in their mansions with their families or playing golf, while on their behalf their members will be busy as bees working to get the public’s involvement. The more they can mobilize the people, the more likely their candidate will win the ballot, and they don’t even need to spend a cent! Otherwise, as usual, the ruling junta has to use force or pay off someone with petty offerings of soap, sugar, and toothpaste.

Since they themselves voluntarily cast their votes, how public can deny the result of their votes. As consequence certainly public have to voluntarily accepting and recognising the result of the election. After all SPDC can easily turn its enemies to be its supporters. Eventually without any trouble the ruling junta can reap its objectives; Multi-Parties Involvement, Voluntarily Public Participation and Voluntarily Public Acceptance and Recognise the Result of Election. The ruling junta at last proudly can claim that it is a 100 percent “Successful Election”.

Nai Pe Thein Zar (Federal University)

Kaowao news group

National Democratic Front

Statement Nr. – 0/06/Head-10

1. The NDF has earnestly welcome and supported recommendation to the UN by its Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Situation in Burma (Myanmar), Mr. Tomás Ojea Quintana, to form a Commission of Inquiry (COI) for crimes against humanity and war crimes perpetrated by the SPDC military clique. The NDF is ready to cooperate fully with such a UN COI.

2. According to the policy of the SPDC, troops of the SPDC armed forces have been committing gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity daily in all places of Burma. They have been committing such crimes as extra-judicial executions, torture, destruction of the people’s homes, confiscation of their properties, rape of women, forced recruitment of children for the armed forces, forced labor etc. in violation of the domestic and the international laws.

3. The NDF, its fraternal organizations and human rights NGOs have been submitting reports on human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed by the SPDC and its troops, with supporting evidence, to the UN Human Rights Commission, yearly and the UNGA has yearly urged the SPDC for improvement of human rights conditions in the country. However, the SPDC military clique has totally ignored the UNGA resolutions and continues to commit gross human rights violations, especially in areas of the ethnic nationalities.

4. Accordingly, it is necessary for the UN to form a COI as a step for taking effective action to improve human rights conditions in Burma. The NDF and its fraternal organizations have fully cooperated with the international and human rights org

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By DVB

Remnants of a burned village in Karen state: Photo - Burma Matters Now.

Footage has been released that shows the shocking aftermath of a recent scorched earth campaign by the Burmese army in eastern Karen state.

More than 900 people escaped into the surrounding jungle after the village of Dutado (or Tha Dah Der) in Hpapun district came under artillery fire on 23 July. A member of the Thailand-based Back Pack Health Worker Team was shot dead by troops, and the village was razed to the ground. Eye-witness reports said that the artillery fire lasted for around four hours.

The Burmese army left the village the following afternoon as the ruins of some 70 houses, a school and a church were left smouldering. A report released today by the Free Burma Rangers medical group said that “the troops occupied the village through the next day, burning, looting and killing livestock.”

Landmines had reportedly been laid to prevent anyone from returning, a tactic often used to assume indirect control over an area. Karen state is littered with landmines laid by both the Burmese army and armed opposition groups.

Graphic images have also been released of a similar incident that happened on 22 March this year in Nyaunglebin district of Bago division, which borders Hpapun. Villagers from Hoh Lu had been returning from a nearby village, when they encountered a number of Burmese troops from an army base close to Hoh Lu.

The troops opened fire, killing a five-month-old boy and another five-year-old. The mother of one of the children managed to escape. Specific details of the incident and the reasons for the killings remain unclear, but Karen civilians are regularly accused of collaborating with armed rebel groups in the border region, much of which is a shoot-to-kill zone.

Karen state has hosted one of the world’s longest-running civil wars as the Karen National Union (KNU) and its armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), vie for autonomy from the ruling junta. More than six decades of low-intensity conflict has forced millions from their homes, while villages are regularly burnt to the ground by the Burmese army.

The 12,000-strong KNLA’s wide support base in Karen state means that the Burmese army often exploits a perceived blurred line between civilian and KNLA collaborator, leading to incidents such as these where innocent children are killed. Junta chief Than Shwe, who has presided over Burma’s estimated 500,000-strong army, is now facing calls to be investigated for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

DVB

We are not a world service

The BBC and the Foreign Office are locked in talks over the future of the World Service. Some savings should be simple

guardian.co.uk
Peter Preston

Long ago and far away, I found myself cast as Lord Haw-Haw. Ian Smith had staged his UDI in Rhodesia. The government of the day had given the BBC World Service a dollop of cash to start emergency broadcasting in the country. And there I was, week after week, paid a pittance to jeer at the Smith regime’s imbecilities. Ho-ho-ho-haw-haw! Which was (and still is) one of the things about Bush House that doesn’t quite make sense.

On the one hand, it’s an independent and enviably serious voice of Britain in 32 different languages, costing £272m a year – money straight from the Foreign Office as a grant in aid. On the other hand, it can only provide what HMG will pay for. Sly stuff to give Smith’s opponents added hope? Certainly, Mr Wilson. A television channel in Arabic to put the Middle East to rights? Certainly, Mr Blair. And now, as the crunch comes, the old game’s afoot again.

Of course the FCO wants to carve back its grant (by somewhere between 25% and 40% on the Osborne scale). In Whitehall terms, the Foreign Office has tiny resources. There isn’t, frankly, too much to cut: so the World Service and British Council have to take their lumps. That’s the price of depending on taxpayers for your daily bread. What the minister gives, the minister can take away.

How do you fight the axe? We’ve been here before. Some blameless little service – say Burma’s hour of sustenance a day – is said to be in danger after 70 glorious years of truth-telling. Instant reaction: totally predictable. Could there be a crasser candidate for cutting? Its audience (at 8.4 million) is rising, not falling, its role in bringing light to dark places manifest. Is this what coalition carnage means? The story breaks, the chairman of the BBC Trust says Bush House needs more money, not less. William Hague surfaces to reassure Rangoon in suitably vague fashion.

Well, you’d expect such cavortings, wouldn’t you? The BBC and FCO are locked in negotiations. Spin is the dish of the day, leaks on constant side order. But (in transparent Cameronclegg land) couldn’t there be a proper review, a consultation taxpayers could take part in?

Forget the trappings of tradition. It’s distressing to find a proud, ostensibly free corporation reaching for the begging bowl and black arts manual when the government wants to hack it down to size. It’s discommoding to realise that Burma (or Albania, or Macedonia) could be jettisoned while BBC Arabic TV and Persian TV (launched with clear purpose by HMG, an extra £35m lobbed into the pot) expand – and try to meet targets they’ve failed to reach thus far.

The corporation, to be sure, controls what it broadcasts. But it doesn’t truly control where it broadcasts, or in which languages. That’s the paymaster’s prerogative, and it fundamentally reflects the FCO’s own muddled brief: sometimes cementing special relationships, sometimes burnishing old ties, sometimes pushing trade, sometimes waving freedom’s torch. And who’s the competition? Sometimes the Germans, but most often, indeed monotonously, the Voice of America: two torches waving down the same long alley.

If you laid all the options out on a table and discussed them frankly, some decisions might take themselves. Goodbye to the States, to the Caribbean, to Indonesia, possibly to India. A digitalised democratic world has moved on. Goodbye to the hard, expensive slog of getting a word in edgeways between al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya. Let’s prioritise purpose and performance. High plains or low haw-haw. And while we’re at it, let’s acknowledge that one giant BBC newsroom means news gathering gets a great deal from a wonderful World Service correspondents’ network. Why not help Mr Hague’s budget by adding a few licence fees of our own?

It should be an open, informed debate over something worth saving. But I’m sorry … that’s all we’ve got time for.

Guerilla tactics for the pursestrings?

The BBC’s Burmese service serves an essential function and must be allowed to survive

The Guardian

Government departments often fight spending cuts by leaking plans to scrap something that no one can imagine losing. The threat of the cut is enough to prevent it ever taking place. That tactic may lie behind reports this week that the BBC World Service is considering axing its Burmese service, 70 years to the month since it began. If Foreign Office belt-tightening has to go this far, one wonders which other broadcasts will survive, for there can be nowhere more in need of a radio station that tells the truth than Burma. “People inside Burma cannot get free information. We are a lifeline service,” one of the station’s editors told the BBC last week as Burmese broadcasts entered their eighth decade. There is no free media in this oppressed country, only an established tradition of relying on the BBC, which has an estimated 8.3 million Burmese radio listeners a week on top of traffic to its Burmese-language website. Funded by the Foreign Office as part of its grant to the World Service, BBC Burmese is routinely accused by its Burmese state-run equivalent of “sowing hatred among the people”. By that, the Burmese government means reporting honestly on dissent and humanitarian disasters such as cyclone Nargis, which killed more than 100,000 people in 2008. Other countries, too, depend on World Service broadcasts, and cuts sometimes have to be made. There were protests when many European services were axed, for instance. But the Burmese service is particularly necessary and must survive.

The Mi-24 was the first helicopter to enter service with the Russian Air Force as an assault transport and gunship. Additional missions include direct air support, antitank, armed escort, and air to air combat.

The Irrawaddy
By Min Lwin

The Burmese Air Force (BAF) has bought 50 Mi-24 helicopters and 12 Mi-2 armored transport helicopters from Russia, according to a source from the BAF.

The purchase of the M-24s marks the first time the BAF, known in Burmese as Tatmadaw-Lay, has procured combat-equipped helicopters.

“50 Mi-24 fighter helicopters and a dozen Mi-2s were procured from Russia, and are now being assembled in Flying Training Base in Meikthila,” the source said. “After assembling the helicopters they will be divided among four squadrons at Magwe Air Base and Ela Air Base.”

Burma currently has 15 air bases. Ela Air Base, not far from Burma’s remote capital Naypyidaw, is the newest and is frequently used by Burma’s senior military generals and government officials for domestic and international flights.

The procurement of the Mi-24s comes a year after a request was made to Russia by BAF chief Lt-Gen Myat Hein in a bid to modernize Burma’s ailing air force and provide a weapon to conduct air strikes against infantry battalions, most likely in Burma’s ethnic areas where dozens of armed groups still exert control.

“The main reason for purchasing the Mi-24s is for counter-insurgency,” the source said.

In 1956, the BAF bought six Kawasaki Bell 47G helicopters from Japan, but did not upgrade its fleet until 1975 when the US provided 18 Bell 205A-1 helicopters as part of an anti-narcotics program.

Since then, Burma has acquired some 70 helicopters, few of which are still in service. The BAF has traditionally separated its helicopter fleet among air bases at Hmawbi in Rangoon Division, Namsang in Southern Shan State, Taungoo in Pegu Division and Ground Training Air Base in Meikthila, which is in Mandalay Division.

One Mi-17 helicopter crashed in 2001, taking the lives of several senior military officials, including Burmese army Chief-of-Staff Lt-Gen Tin Oo.

An Mi-2 helicopter from Taungoo Air Base crashed in June near Pindaya Township, resulting in four deaths.

The BAF was founded in 1947 before Burma gained independence. Its principal raison d’être for many years was a campaign against the the Burmese Communist Party in the jungles of Burma’s north and a decades-long war waged against several the country’s ethnic armies, most notably the Karen National Union.

The Irrawaddy

Digital Spy, UK

By Andrew Laughlin, Technology Reporter

BBC Burmese Service broadcast from Bush House studios in London - photo: BBC

BBC World Service could face major budget cuts that would force its withdrawal from Burma and several other countries, it has emerged.

The Foreign Office, which funds the World Service via an annual £272 million grant, has informed executives to prepare for budget cuts of 25% by April 2011, reports The Guardian.

According to a diplomatic source, the BBC’s broadcast service in Myanmar, Burma, is among several services under threat from the cutbacks.

“The Burma office is up for grabs. It is a question of costs. It is very expensive and has relatively few listeners,” said the source.

“The ‘human rights’ argument doesn’t hold much sway with the new Foreign Office.”

The World Service presence in Russia, which reaches about 700,000 listeners and a further 1m online, could also be vulnerable to the cuts.

The BBC has confirmed that it is in talks with the Foreign Office about the budget plans, which are part of wider cuts across public sector spending. However, the corporation stressed that no final decisions have yet been made.

A Foreign Office spokesman also confirmed that discussions were being held, but declined to offer any details on the proposed cutbacks.

The outcome of the consultation will be known on October 20, when chancellor George Osborne outlines the scale of the government’s spending cuts.

The BBC service in Myanmar, which started broadcasting 70 years ago, has covered a variety of major changes in Burma, including war, independence and military rule.

Around 23% of the country’s adult population listens to the service, which is broadcast for an hour a day from bases in London and Bangkok, Thailand.

David Miliband, Labour’s foreign affairs spokesman, said that ending the BBC broadcasts in Myanmar could play into the hands of the country’s military rulers.

“The World Service is a steady, credible voice in parts of the world where the only other messages blend threats and propaganda,” he said.

“Scrapping the World Service in Burma would be a gift to the military junta, and an insult to political prisoners locked in Burma’s jail for no crime.”

In a statement, a World Service spokesman said: “Like all publicly funded bodies, we have been asked to consider the likely impact of significant funding cuts and applying them to a wide range of scenarios.

“It is important to note that no decisions have been made; and we will discuss any confirmed impact on our services with staff first.

“We will continue to argue confidently that the BBC World Service is one of Britain’s most effective and vital assets in the global arena; particularly at a time when other governments are increasing, not reducing, their own investments in international broadcasting.”

Guardian goes into bat for BBC Burmese service

Digital Spy

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If the report fails to load, go here

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

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.

The Age

Hamish McDonald

  Rangoon, Burma

August 16, 2010

Burma’s army has evaded Australian government sanctions to obtain radio sets from a Perth manufacturer that allow it to scramble its communications, gaining a new advantage in its wars against domestic rebels and dissidents.Prestigious British defence journal Jane’s Intelligence Review reports that Perth-based Barrett Communications has been selling its radio sets directly in response to tenders by Burma’s Ministry of Defence, contradicting suggestions by the company it was selling the radios to civilian agencies of the Burmese government.

When the military’s use of the radios was first reported in January, Barrett managing director Phil Bradshaw insisted the radios were used for general communications and were not of a kind ”for military use”.

The company told Jane’s that any Barrett 2050 radios sold to Burma did not include the frequency-hopping option that makes monitoring all but impossible and which would contravene Australian export controls on sensitive military technology, including signals encryption, in place since 1991.

Mr Bradshaw is quoted as saying the frequency-hopping option could only be installed at the company’s factory by authorised staff.

The Defence Department in Canberra backed this up. ”This could not be done in-country [by the customer]”, the department told the journal.

But an industry source familiar with Barrett radios has said the processor and software that hops messages across 500 frequencies is built into every Barrett 2050. This and other extra functions could be enabled by input of a random nine or 10-digit code generated by a computer at Barrett’s office and matched to the serial number.

”It wouldn’t be impossible for an experienced department, especially in the military, to figure out a way to bypass it,” the source said. ”If frequency hopping required an extra part or key to unlock, then it would be far more secure to send overseas. However, since it’s already built in, it’s just a matter of cracking that code.”

Jane’s writers Samuel Blythe and Desmond Ball said the Barrett 2050, costing about $3300 a set, was coming into growing use by the Burmese army for communications between its headquarters and divisional commands.

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