ABC Gippsland
By Celine Foenander

Why risk your life to tell a story few want to hear? Former Gippsland journalist, Daniel Pedersen went from writing about Sale to exposing the atrocities levelled against the Karen people of Burma.

Pedersen has dedicated the past eight years trying to dissect the complex web of Burmese politics, its military and the ethnic minority groups who are fighting for a share of their homeland.

With virtually no access to the ruling military junta, he has had to win over key figures from the ethnic minority armies to uncover the extent of the war which has raged for more than 60 years.

In the prologue to his soon to be released book, Secret Genocide, Pedersen writes: “This is a book about longing. About people longing for their homes, longing for their friends, longing for a sense of possession. About people being deprived of their very basic right to life.

“And no-one seems to care.”

Interview with Daniel Pedersen

Pedersen admits getting the story out to give the Western world an opportunity to “care” is an exercise in obstacles and potentially fatal consequences.

Add to that the Australian press, which either doesn’t understand or doesn’t see the news value in a long running war, so far away.

Pedersen, who now lives near the Thai-Burmese border, has returned to the family home at Airly, near Sale for a short while.

The reason for his visit, to reacquaint himself with his family. Perhaps too, he is hoping that distance will put the conflict into perspective.

“You’re talking about say, 50 million people and there’s been a great injustice done to so many, by so very few,” he told ABC Gippsland’s Mornings program.

“It’s interesting to explore the human motivation as to why people take up arms against the government.

“In the case of the Karen, it’s not very difficult to see why they take up arms. You have government troops coming in and burning down their schools, burning down their churches and then they go off somewhere a little bit safer and build them again, only to be discovered hiding there and the government comes and burns down the community facilities that they’ve built.”

Pedersen, the man, finds it difficult to comprehend.

Pedersen, the journalist, finds it difficult to put some balance in the story.

It’s not like the junta has a well-oiled public relations department.

“I haven’t travelled with militia aligned with the government troops, probably because you’d be arrested, possibly taken hostage,” he said.

“There is right and there is wrong in Burma and at the moment, what’s happening is wrong and as a contributor to human society, how do you contribute to stopping that injustice?

“How do you create a more equitable world? That’s the first step towards us moving forward as a society.”

Secret Genocide by Daniel Pedersen is published by Maverick House and will be released at the end of the month.

Genocide is not so secret anymore

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.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
Post gets to the truth of the matter

The Bangkok Post
Bangkok

The aged Westerner’s corpse, peacefully dressed in a black suit and tie, emerged from the chiller. My colleague and I were shocked as we were at the morgue inquiring about Awa, a young Shan migrant mauled to death whilst feeding an elephant at a safari park in Chiang Mai.
Awa’s relatives had not come forth to claim his body as they were too scared of arrest as they were unregistered. The assistant explained to us that no death certificate could hence be provided to proceed with legal action; the body would not be cleaned as it would be “disposed of” after a religious ceremony; and Awa was just an illegal Burmese “alien” anyway.
I came to see Awa’s mauled corpse before we left the morgue that day also, and will never forget the bright red blood stains on a plain white hospital sheet.
Awa died for free back then in 2006, and as is usual with migrants in Thailand, he died in tragic silence. Such endings too frequently befall the most unfortunate of Thailand’s two million plus migrant workforce and will continue to do so unless something radically changes in the government’s poor management of migration.
After many years, I now more fully comprehend the symbolism of the contrast between those two corpses I saw that day also – the way in which migrants end up several rungs below everyone else on Thailand’s hierarchical social ladder.
For over 20 years now, the Thai economy has utilised low skilled labourers from neighbouring Cambodia, Laos and Burma to support its rapid economic growth. Migrants’ sweat, and too frequently their blood, assisted in building skyscrapers across the country.
Through inhaling poisonous chemicals and with an ever darkening of their skin, migrants contribute to intensive agricultural projects that litter the countryside. Cleaning homes and caring for sick and elderly relatives, migrant women provide an invaluable social service to Thai families, freeing up women to work in rewarding jobs, yet they are often abused in the confines of homes that they rarely can leave. Migrants’ contribution to the Thai economy has now been quantified beyond doubt, even by World Bank economists.
Thailand’s most senior policy makers insisted during most of these 20 years however that this “illegal” migrant labour force was temporary. Hence a piecemeal “regularisation” programme utilising yearly cabinet resolutions provided enough of a means to regulate their “illegal” stay to “legally” work in the country for one year, prior to deportation at a time of Thailand’s choosing. By failing to formally respond to workers visibly pouring across Thailand’s borders to meet low-skilled labour needs, officials allowed networks of smuggling, trafficking and labour brokers to be formed and finally become entrenched.
In reality, temporary migrant regularisation systems since 1988 ensured more than 2 million workers, over 80% from Burma, remained “illegal” and hence, so senior officials said, could “justly” be denied basic human rights. Rights denied to “registered” migrants include access to compensation, rehabilitation and even disability registration following work accidents, the right to marry, ride a motorbike, travel outside of a province of registration or even own property. Claims Thailand was systematically and unlawfully discriminating against these workers, who are legally allowed to work here, met with constant denials.
The victims of this piecemeal migration management are the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have now lived “temporarily” in Thailand for more than a century. Given most come to Thailand at a relatively young age, it was only natural many would find partners, have children and marry. The official response has been a public demonising of the harm caused to Thailand’s social fabric by pregnant migrant women and the burden on resources by stateless migrant children. Whilst frequent threats to begin deporting pregnant women have yet to bear fruit, and despite some limited positive developments, most migrant children remain unregistered and uneducated and a clear policy to deal with them remains absent.
Officials continue to insist irregular migration flows into Thailand are a severe national security threat also. Which begs the question of what “national security” means. Does it mean ensuring the continuance of corruption which remains pervasive in the way this informal labour force is managed, an undermining of the rule of law or the ability to ensure a work force of over 2 million contribute where needed to the country’s economic growth but continue to live in grossly exploitative situations? If so, then Thailand’s security remains strong.
But if “national security” encapsulates even a basic level of human security for migrants and requires a formalisation of migration systems which can benefit Thailand’s economy, its population, as well as employers and migrant’s equally, Thailand is seriously at risk.
Social tension between migrants and their Thai hosts in the villages across the country seems to be increasing as Thais understand little who migrants are, why they are here and why their communities have, in their view, literally been taken over. This was seen most clearly when Ranong’s residents recently came out to protest that migrants passing the nationality verification process should not be allowed to apply for motorbike licences. Most media wields its power with gross irresponsibility and deep prejudice to publicly demonise migrants in support of the official line that these workers are an unwanted burden on the country. Suggesting migrants are a burden rather than a benefit for Thailand doesn’t ring true, however, once deep prejudice is shifted aside. Services registered migrants pay for are under-used, social welfare is denied to this group and the government has few policies to improve migrant’s quality of life.
Arguing migrant salaries are higher here than in their home countries and that they are lucky to be allowed to stay in Thailand, given their illegal entry, should not be used to silence criticism of a disrespect of basic human rights principles so as to consolidate power over a cheap, competitive and easily exploitable low-skilled migrant workforce. Suggesting migrants are stealing Thai workers’ jobs is to place the blame in the wrong place too, as employers act as the pull factor for migration into the country. An ongoing failure to modernise work methods to increase productivity and instead a reliance on a cheap migrant labour force which the country itself cannot produce may well soon contribute to Thailand’s decreased global competitiveness. The next 20 years will not be the same as the last in terms of global economics, so the government’s migration policy should perhaps seek to adapt. Thailand will soon no longer be able to compete with other regional countries on low cost production. Global consumers are now more concerned about ethnical work practices and less likely to purchase products produced through exploitation. Some seek to give the government credit for its strategy, planned since 1999 but only recently begun to be implemented, to formalise the “irregular” migration landscape of the country in three stages. First, verify the nationality of all “illegal” migrants in Thailand and issue them with temporary passports so they can become “legal” through the nationality verification (NV) process. Second, bring in fresh “legal” labour to meet strictly quantifiable labour shortages through formal government to government agreements. And third, register “illegal” migrants currently in the country to “legally” work temporarily only until these latter two principle aims can be achieved. But it seems the embedded and negative forces from two decades of informal migration management continue to be too strong for this formalisation strategy to ever succeed.
Since 2002 when the formal labour import channels were first agreed on, only around 25,000 workers have legally been brought into Thailand (that averages out at around 3, 000 per year). The NV process continues to be a non-transparent and expensive mess. Around a million of the estimated 2 million plus migrants in Thailand formally entered the process by a Feb 28, 2010 deadline that was backed up with the coercive threat of mass deportations if they didn’t comply. This coercive style of working, particularly its effect on Burma’s ethnic minorities working here, was condemned by the UN.
With around a million workers having until Feb 28, 2012 to complete NV, if the “verification” of biographical information sent to migrants’ home countries is genuine, the government will soon realise a significant number of migrants, particularly those from Burma’s ethnic minorities, inserted false information into the process to get work permit extensions for another 2 years. This was out of fear and confusion because of neglect on behalf of the Ministry of Labour to raise public awareness on what NV was about amongst the workers and their employers before setting down unrealistic deadlines.
Clearly symbolic of Thailand’s treatment of migrants is broker exploitation. Both as part of NV and the new import system, the complexity of both processes mean a broker is a necessity. If Thailand was really genuine about solving its irregular migration challenges, the costs involved in using these brokers would be reduced to provide incentives for migrants and employers to comply. Instead, broker systems remain unregulated in practice, despite some informal caps announced by the Ministry of Labour, and costs remain extortionately high both for employers and workers. Rumours abound regarding who is behind these companies. Huge profits being reaped by brokers are usually passed on to migrants themselves, and for workers earning so little already, that creates a grossly unfair situation where debt bondage results.
On June 2, 2010 Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva entered into the migration debate by signing an order to set up a “special centre to suppress, arrest and prosecute alien workers who are working underground”. The crackdown that followed this was stated to be an essential part of the government’s strategy to formally manage migration by arresting and deporting migrants who refused to enter the NV process to allow them to be imported back to Thailand legally. What resulted however was a well documented “arrest and extort” policy of the police and related officials affecting both unregistered and registered workers. International media began to expose a lack of formal deportation practices with transfers of Burmese migrants into a revolving and vicious cycle of extortion and trafficking involving brokers, officials and ethnic militias in Mae Sot/Myawaddy and at Ranong/Kawthaung.
Amidst the deputy prime minister’s public announcement of an intensifying unregistered migrant crackdown, and despite the government’s insistence there would never be another opportunity for those unregistered migrants in the country to register without returning home and entering again legally, plans for a new registration process for unregistered migrants has just been announced in a policy U-turn due to low skilled labour shortages. Whilst welcome, the wheel of poor migration management spins full circle again.
Systematic discrimination continues against migrants, prejudice abounds and social tension rises. Corruption goes untackled and brokers become stronger. Migrants continue to suffer gross exploitation by employers, systematic extortion by government officials (particularly by police and others who are supposed to protect them), and now a heavy burden from the costs of formalisation processes that, when weighed up, rarely seem to benefit them. Such was the recent experience of thousandsof striking migrants in Khon Kaen who, after completing NV and still getting few rights, decided enough was enough.
Senior officials are saying more often these days that the time has arrived to solve this migration mess in more rational ways, considering human rights alongside national security and economic need. A parliamentary labour committee has drafted a new migrant law, and Mr Abhisit keeps saying this year’s census will reveal how many migrants are really in Thailand to provide data to support more considered migration policies in the future. Evidence suggests census teams are having a hard time finding the migrants, however, as employers continue to keep them well covered up.
More than 20 years of irregular migration have passed now. Considering how many migrants have faced the same fate as Awa, unequal even in death, is not a pleasant thought. Migrants remain silent and unorganised in the face of all this exploitation with just a handful of positive examples of their fighting for and accessing justice, despite hundreds of NGOs seeking to assist. The outlook for Thailand’s low skilled migrants remains bleak unless the government urgently moves to prioritise the improving of their lot.
Maybe then the time has come for morality to be discussed when considering Thailand’s management of migration. For most of these migrants come from Burma, the pariah of Asean and the symbol of all that is undemocratic in governance in the region. One can accept that the root cause of these irregular migration flows is not wholly Thailand’s responsibility, but the country is reaping huge benefits from a massive and easily exploitable Burmese workforce, so accepting this burden comes at a cost.
If Thailand continues to neglect these workers and reap the benefits without fulfilling the duty to treat them well, perhaps one can conclude that numerous administrations have been successful in manufacturing and then upholding a social zone of unlawfulness we see today in which migrants fall beyond basic protection mechanisms, the rule of law and are denied even the most basic human rights.
Thailand’s policies have for too long contributed to the immoral exploitation of these “temporary” workers. So perhaps the time has come for Thailand to receive a bit of the condemnation for gross human rights violations against the Burmese people which is usually reserved only for its dictatorial neighbour.

Andy Hall is currently a consultant to the Human Rights and Development Foundation and was director of HRDF’s Migrant Justice Programme from 2007 to 2010.

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

If the report fails to load, go here

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

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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