Daniel Pedersen

Daniel Pedersen
Mae Sot
It is time for Aung San Suu Kyi to place herself above politics and become an overwhelming figure of unity for greater Burma, the Karen National Union vice president David Tharckabaw said yesterday.
By casting herself in the role of stateswoman she would become more powerful and a greater threat to the ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development Council, he said.
“She is a great leader and a very forceful figure, she can speak about democracy,” said Tharckabaw.
On November 7, the SPDC cemented its role in a supposed democracy with elections widely regarded as a sham, with large swathes of the country’s citizens banned from voting.
Aung San Suu Kyi, 65, walked free from house arrest on November 13 after the barricades from around her lakeside home were removed.
A large crowd gathered to welcome her release.
The KNU’s Tharckabaw said he personally felt the time was ripe for a reassessment of Aung San Suu Kyi’s tactics in pushing for reform in Burma.
“Personally, I think she can be more effective outside the country,” he said.
“She has sacrificed and suffered enough and this junta still has no respect for her, they could lock her up again tomorrow, it’s [Suu Kyi’s tactics] not working,” said Tharckabaw.
The75-year-old dismissed the prospect of a political vacuum developing in Rangoon if she were to leave the country and was upbeat about the future generation.
“In 20 years [since the 1990 elections] young people have become politically conscious and have built the capacity for a movement for democracy,” he said.
“Some people say they don’t understand democracy, but they want to get rid of the military junta and people must respect that,” said Tharckabaw.
The Karen National Union is an elected body representing at least seven million people and has been fighting for recognition of its people and a say in how its state is run since 1948.
ENDS

Daniel Pedersen
Mae Sot

The great danger the violence that threatens to spiral out of control in Burma’s post-election period is that it will be painted by the ruling military junta as ethnic groups fighting one another.
And public perception is a keystone in how modern wars are dealt with at an international level.
At the moment intense fighting in Karen State, north of the military and administrative capital Naypidaw, is pushing tens of thousands of people across the border into Thailand.
It seems likely to spread across the country.
Burma’s ethnic peoples are little understood by the West.
And the Western propensity to link the nation’s future with that of Aung San Suu Kyi is a failing.
The world’s press, it seems, has a problem explaining myriad ethnicities existing together in a nation state cobbled together by an occupying colonial force long gone.
Its reticence to delve into Burma’s diversity is baffling.
One of the higher-profile news pieces to attract recent headlines is the fact the newly-elected parliamentarians’ right to speak has been stifled before parliament has even convened.
On Saturday December 4, it was reported that Burma was undergoing political change according to United Nations envoy to Burma, Vijay Nambiar.
But in fact, what Nambiar said was gradual political change might begin as newly-elected politicians vacated the seats they have not yet formally occupied.
“Government formation is taking place. I think there will be new spaces, new slots in the parliament which will open up for by-elections,” he said.
Nambiar added that this might provide “small opportunities for increasing the political space for a broader, inclusive involvement”.
It is a fact that the ethnics control and inhabit most of Burma’s countryside.
They live together and work together, mostly in Burma with the common aim to grow enough food to sustain them and collectively survive as peoples.
In different regions they have substantially different cultures, languages, national songs, flags and beliefs.
But they are not at war with each other and they are not at war with the Burman ethnic majority.
Burma’s ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development Council, is at war with its own population.
Aung San Suu Kyi is undoubtedly important to Burma’s future, but there is a future no matter the role in which she finds herself cast.
The “ethnic minorities”, as they are so often referred to, have democratic processes to elect their leaders.
In some cases their elected leaders represent as many as seven million people.
While Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest, the ethnic leaders have been talking to each other.
In fact significant dialogue has been underway since 2001.
All are keen to speak with Suu Kyi, to let her know their intentions, but their decisions taken in unison representing the people who elected them to positions of such responsibility will not be swayed by a single person.
That is not how a democracy operates.
The Karen National Union vice president David Tharckabaw says the Western media’s preoccupation with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is “interesting”.
“There’s sort of a messianic complex developed about her,” he said.
“It’s as if, if she dies, democracy will come more quickly – and it won’t.
“Too much of a personality cult is not good for anyone,” said Tharckabaw.
“It is not good for her, not good for the movement,” he said.
“But I don’t want what I am saying to be misinterpreted, and I can see that it could,” he added.
“I believe she has sacrificed and suffered long enough and with the junta still having no respect for her, well, it’s not working,” said Tharckabaw.
“I personally believe (and he insisted he was not speaking on behalf of any of the organisations he represents) that she should ‘come out’.
“I think she would be more effective if she came outside,” he said.
The prospect of Aung San Suu Kyi leaving Burma would probably horrify many activists in the West.
But they do not have to weather years devoid of social contact and an inability to take action against what is perceived as a great injustice to a great many people.
“She should put herself above politics,” said Tharckabaw.
He said by doing so she could become far more powerful, making herself a figure of great unity for the peoples of Burma.
“She could travel and she could speak about democracy,” he said.
ENDS

A group of rebel soldiers has given Sky News rare access to Burma ahead of the country’s first parliamentary elections in 20 years.

Critics say the polls, which are due to be held on Sunday, are a facade as the country’s military junta tightens its grip on power.

A US internet security firm says Burma’s internet has been taken down in a cyber attack ahead of the poll, raising fears the regime is attempting to control information going into and out of the country.

Tens of thousands of Burmese live in squalid refugee camps in the town of Mae Sot in Thailand.

Surrounded by barbed wire fences, conditions are prison-like but residents say anything is better than returning home.

Zabuda fled across the border to Thailand three years ago with her four children after government troops destroyed their village.

“They told us we had to get out to make way for a new military camp,” she said.

“I was still thinking about how I would pack all our belongings when they set fire to our home. We lost everything.”

On a nearby rubbish tip several Burmese refugee families live among the filth collecting waste for 50 pence a day.

When they come to the Karen villages, they will rape, they will burn and then they will destroy all the crops and animals. Then they leave behind land mines.

It is a measure of their desperation that they consider it a better life than the one they left behind.

“The army came and kidnapped my husband,” said Thwe Aye, who has worked on the dump for two years.

“They took him away and forced him to carry their equipment for no pay.”

Other refugees complain of beatings and rapes carried out by government soldiers.

After years of international condemnation over human rights abuses, the group of generals who rule Burma have decided to go ahead with the country’s first parliamentary elections since 1990.

But pro-democracy activists, including Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, are not optimistic.

The last time Burma went to the polls the people voted overwhelmingly for Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD).

The military junta responded by ignoring the result and jailing party members.

This time around the NLD is boycotting the election, convinced it is a sham.

Under Burma’s new constitution a quarter of all seats are reserved for military officers while the two main parties are widely viewed as proxies for the current military rulers.

Foreign journalists have been denied entry to Burma to report on the polling but Sky News was given rare access to the country by a group of rebel soldiers.

From bases hidden in the jungles of eastern Burma, the Karen National Liberation Army is fighting for the survival of the Karen, one of several ethnic groups at war with the regime.

Their American-educated commander is Colonel Nerdah Mya.

With weapons dating back to the Second World War, his men are massively outgunned but they are determined to fight to the end against a government that Colonel Nerdah accuses of ethnic cleansing.

“When they come to the Karen villages, they will rape, they will burn and then they will destroy all the crops and animals,” he said.

“Then they leave behind land mines.”

The village of Oo Kray Kee was burned to the ground by government troops two years ago.

Karen soldiers helped rebuild it, and now guard it against fresh attacks.

Like millions of other Burmese the villagers will not be casting any votes in the election.

“They don’t believe it will bring any real change,” said Colonel Mya.

“Many of them don’t even know that they’re holding an election at all.”

Meanwhile, Burma’s internet has been hit by a major cyber attack.

The disruption started last month and has intensified in the last few days, US IT security firm Arbor Networks said.

The Burmese government cracked down on internet provision during the 2007 pro-democracy protests, preventing demonstrators blogging and posting pictures of the unrest and the response by the army.

It is not known who is behind the current outage.

But it is being caused by the country’s state-owned internet provider, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication, being flooded by data, known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.

Arbor Networks chief scientist Craig Labovitz wrote in a blog posting: “Yesterday, Myanmar once again fell off the Internet.

“While DDoS against e-commerce and commercial sites are common (hundreds per day), large-scale geo-politically motivated attacks – especially ones targeting an entire country – remain rare with a few.”

Mr Labovitz said the attack was “several hundred times” more than enough to overwhelm the country’s terrestrial and satellite links.

Sky News

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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

By NDF

April 28, 2010

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