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Survey says most Shans accept genuine federal union
SSA denies killing civilians
1.5 million survivors in Myanmar without shelter
Myanmar: helicopters arrive, junta lashes foreign media over coverage

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Survey says most Shans accept genuine federal union
SHAN / 5 June 2008

An opinion poll conducted by the exiled Shan State Constitution Drafting Commission (SSCDC) in March and April say an overwhelming 86% of Shans are in favour of their state joining a “truly federal union.”

Chao Tzang Yawnghwe and Sao Seng Suk

616 people from all the three parts of Shan State had responded to the SSCDC’s questionnaire, out of which 530 had opted for a federal union. 48 (7.8%) were against it and 38 (6.2%) were undecided.

The survey was conducted in order to ascertain the public view over the constitutional guidelines laid down by the Second Shan State Constitutional Conference held on the Thai-Burma border on 9-11 November 2007.

The guidelines are:

* A federal structure for Shan State (65.9% in favour)
* A democratic decentralized administrative system (86.9% in favour)
* Sovereign power derives from the people of Shan State (68.2% in favour)
* To be a member state of a genuine federal union with other states (86% in favour)
* To guarantee equality among Shan State’s ethnic nationalities (80% in favour)
* To guarantee ethnic minority rights (93.3% in favour)
* To guarantee basic human rights and gender equality (95.6% in favour)
* To practise a multi-party democratic system (75.3% in favour of two parties upwards)
* To be a secular state (82% favours Buddhism as a state religion)

“The drafters will have to work hard to convince the people when it comes to secularism,” said one of the pollsters.

On the other hand, the poll appears to have dismissed the fears that Shans are diehard separatists and will settle for nothing but total independence.

Khuensai Jaiyen, the new chairman of the SSCDC, was not surprised by the results. “It proves the Shans are realistic, whatever else they are,” he said.

The Shans waged an armed struggle for independence in 1958 after their calls for redress of their grievances were ignored. The Shan State together with Karenni (Kayah) is allowed to secede from the Union, according to the 1947 constitution, which united Burma proper with Shan, Karenni and Kachin states.

The state constitution process was the brainchild of the late Shan leader and scholar Chao Tzang Yawnghwe (1939-2004). Through him, most states have been drafting constitutions by what is known as a “bottom-up” approach, which means drawing up the charter by talking to and seeking the views of the people.

“It is a slow process, chiefly because of security concerns,” the late SSCDC chairman Sao Seng Suk (1935-2007) said. “But it is worth the trouble. When democracy finally returns, our people will be ready for it.”
http://www.shanland.org/politics/2008/survey-says-most-shans-accept-genuine-federal-union

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SSA denies killing civilians
SHAN / 3 June 2008

Shan State Army (SSA) leader Col Yawdserk issued a statement yesterday in Shan with a firm rebuttal that the group had hacked to death 8 civilians in southern Shan State on 28 May.

Col Yawd Serk

“The SSA isn’t active in the said area,” he said. “There are only two armed groups there: The Burma Army and the (ceasefire) Shan State Nationalities People’s Liberation Organization (SNPLO).”

According to The New Light of Myanmar, 31 May issue, some 25 rebels attacked a sawmill in Mawkmai township, Langkher district, seized 9 workers and slashed to death 8 of them.

Yawdserk claims the group has no policy of executing people without trial. “This kind of policy is only adopted and carried out by the Burma Army,” he said. “Their favourite ploy is to kill people, sometimes even by wearing SSA insignias, and then putting the blame on us.”

He counter-charged the ruling military junta of trying to stir up racial tensions. “Our quarrels are with the SPDC (State Peace and Development Council) headed by Gen Than Shwe only. Not with the Burman people.”

Ex-junta diplomat Aung Lin Tut, who is taking asylum in the United States, told the Voice of America (VOA) Burmese program on 25 May that Senior General Than Shwe himself had issued the order in 1997 that to relocate the villagers in Shan State, “extreme measures” were in order. “No one, even a fetus, should remain alive in the villages in order to move them,” he was quoted as saying.

From early 1996 to the end of 1998, the Burma Army forcibly relocated some 1,500 villages with a population of over 300,000 in southern Shan State into strategic relocation sites, according to Shan Human Rights Foundation’s Dispossessed report. At least 665 people were confirmed killed and 625 girls and women raped. The report License to Rape which came out in 2002 had provoked an uproar among the international community circles.

Col Yawdserk however acknowledged that the SSA had been on a recruiting campaign in the neighbouring areas. “As citizens of Shan State, every able-bodied man, 18 upwards, are required to serve in the army for 5 years,” he said. “Some of the PaO young men are fleeing from the area in order to avoid being conscripted. Maybe we still need a lot of publicity to make the people understand their duties to the country.”

http://www.shanland.org/general/2008-1/ssa-denies-killing-civilians

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1.5 million survivors in Myanmar without shelter
AP
7 June 2008

A severe shortage of housing has left hundreds of thousands of cyclone survivors in Myanmar exposed to heavy rain as the monsoon season begins, aid agencies said Saturday.

The United Nations and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said there was an urgent need for tarpaulins to provide temporary shelter to an estimated 1.5 million homeless survivors. Otherwise, the threats of hunger and disease could intensify, they warned.

"Exposure to the elements five weeks after a disaster of this magnitude has to be a major concern," said John Sparrow, a spokesman for the IFRC. "People are in a weakened condition. They are sick; they are hungry. Without shelter, their whole situation is seriously exacerbated."

Sparrow estimated that only a quarter of those who need shelter materials have been reached.

The U.N. estimates 2.4 million people were affected when Cyclone Nargis hit May 2-3, and warns that more than 1 million still need help, mostly in the hard-to-reach Irrawaddy delta.

John Holmes, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said "relatively few" of those survivors who were badly affected by the storm have not received any sort of aid. But he said the U.N.'s effort needs to be stepped up because many survivors still need help and supplies.

"I think people are getting to all the main places, although it's not always as easy as it should be," he said. "There's no evidence of starvation at the moment, although as I say many people are still in significant need of aid."

U.N. officials and aid groups have criticized the regime for hindering access to the delta, saying it has prevented enough food, water and shelter from reaching desperate survivors.

The U.N. also said Saturday that a lack of funding was hindering the aid effort, with only $20 million of the required $50 million received to finance logistic efforts that allow it to extend aid operations into remote regions.

The U.N. has said that access could also be greatly improved if the country's military junta would accept American offers of support which include the use of 22 military helicopters to ferry aid to remote locations.

The U.S. military said it is keeping 22 helicopters on standby in case Myanmar's ruling junta reverses its rejection of such help for cyclone victims, saying the aircraft could reach survivors within three days.

With only seven Myanmar government helicopters reportedly flying, relief supplies are mostly being transported along dirt roads and then by boat. International aid agencies say boats able to navigate the delta's canals are scarce and efforts to import vehicles have been hampered by government red tape.

"Of the 1 million or 1.5 million people in need of relief support, we think that between 450,000 to 750,000 are in emergency need," said Lt. Gen. John Goodman, commander of Marine Forces Pacific and head of the U.S. relief operation for Myanmar.

They could be reached "over the course of a three-day period" by American helicopters and landing craft, he said in telephone interview from a temporary U.S. staging area at Utapao, Thailand.

Goodman said the junta was "still considering" the offer of the use of U.S. helicopters, which would include allowing Myanmar officials aboard all U.S. helicopters to monitor their routes and to unload relief supplies.

The country's military leaders are particularly sensitive to allowing U.S. helicopters into the delta, given the fact that Washington has been a leading critic of the junta for its poor human rights record and refusal to hand power to a democratically elected government.

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Myanmar: helicopters arrive, junta lashes foreign media over coverage
AFP
7 June 2008

Five UN-chartered helicopters arrived on Saturday in Myanmar's former capital Yangon, to boost efforts to deliver aid to victims of the cyclone that tore through the country five weeks ago, a spokesman said.

Two Puma helicopters and three Mi-8 choppers left early on Saturday from Bangkok, where they had been waiting for days to fly into Myanmar, said Paul Risley, spokesman for the UN's World Food Programme.

The helicopters will help aid workers reach some of the most devastated villages in the Irrawaddy Delta, which bore the brunt of the storm that left 133,00 dead or missing.

News of the helicopters' arrival comes a day after Myanmar accused foreign media of fabricating "despicable and inhuman" stories about the cyclone, as new delays hampered efforts to reach one million hungry and homeless survivors.

The latest tirade in the government mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar newspaper came as the junta tries to convince the world that it has the relief effort under control, without major international assistance.

The official newspaper denounced "self-seekers exploiting storm victims," who they said were "shooting video films featuring made-up stories in the storm-affected areas ... and sending the videotapes to foreign news agencies."

"Those foreign news agencies are issuing such groundless news stories with the intention of tarnishing the image of Myanmar and misleading the international community," it said.

Most of the video footage showing the destruction wrought by Cyclone Nargis has been filmed by amateurs and shown on VCDs sold on Yangon's streets. The images are difficult to watch, with corpses rotting in fields and families huddled under makeshift shelters in the daily monsoon rains.

The paper accused foreign media of exaggerating the cyclone damage, denouncing the reports as "despicable and inhuman acts."

Cyclone Nargis left 133,000 people dead or missing. The United Nations says 2.4 million people need emergency aid in the wake of the storm, but five weeks after the storm hit, one million of them have yet to receive any.

Junta leader Than Shwe agreed two weeks ago to allow a full-scale international relief effort, assuring UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon during a visit here that foreign experts would have access to the hardest-hit regions of the Irrawadday Delta.

While aid agencies as well as Southeast Asian and UN experts have been allowed into the region, they say access remains patchy -- especially for remote villages hidden in the maze of rivers that laces the delta.

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) won permission more than two weeks ago to bring 10 helicopters into Myanmar, but so far only one is actually flying between Yangon and the delta.

Seven others that had been due to leave Bangkok for Yangon, Myanmar's former capital, remain stranded in Thailand. The WFP blamed the latest delay on bad weather, but some of the choppers have been waiting for a week to enter Myanmar.

Save the Children, one of the few charities allowed to work in Myanmar before the cyclone, said a larger effort was still needed to reach remote villages.

"We urgently need to scale up our response to reach more of the surviving children and families and deliver what we know they need," said the charity's director in Yangon, Andrew Kirkwood.

"Lack of food and shelter, access to clean water, and education as well as being separated from parents are among those issues still faced by children in the remote delta areas."

A leading prison watchdog based in Thailand also raised alarms over disease among inmates at the notorious Insein prison outside Yangon, saying wardens were offering only rotten food that was causing dysentery and other ailments.

"The health situation of prisoners will worsen and become critical if they are fed that bad and inedible food any longer," said Tate Naing, secretary for the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

"Contagious diseases will spread very quickly in a crowded place like a prison, if authorities do not take appropriate actions promptly."

Despite the international concerns, the junta has flatly refused aid from American, British and French warships laden with emergency supplies.

The United States has offered military helicopters to help deliver food, but so far the regime has not responded.

Local volunteers have tried to fill the gap and deliver aid themselves, but they increasingly say that security forces are turning them away.

The nation's most famous comedian, Zaganar, who had been leading deliveries of aid to cyclone survivors, was arrested late Wednesday, according to his family.

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