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Blogger And Poet Brought Before Prison Court
New campaign - Burma Campaign UK
Playing us for fools
Recent Burma news (11-07-08)
Burma - RSF Annual report 2008 (February 2008)

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Blogger And Poet Brought Before Prison Court
Reporters Without Borders
http://www.rsf.org/
11.07 – Burma:

Nay Phone Latte, a young blogger who has been held since 29 January in Insein prison, is facing a possibly seven-year sentence after new charges were brought against him on 7 July under the article 5 (j) of the 1950 Emergency Provision Act, article 505 (b) of the criminal code (which punishes defaming the state) and article 33 (a) of the Electronic Act. He was originally charged under article 32 (b) of the Video Act, which would have limited his maximum detention to six months.

The new charges were approved by a special court in Insein prison, where his lawyer has never been allowed to see him since his arrest. Another court appearance was scheduled for 16 July, but Nay Phone Latte told his mother it has been postponed. Meanwhile, he has contracted an eye problem but the prison authorities are not letting him see a doctor.

Saw Wai, a poet who was arrested on 22 January for criticising junta chief Gen. Than Shwe in coded message in a poem published in the weekly Achit Journal, appeared before the Insein prison special court for the third time on 8 July. He is now also facing a possible seven-year jail sentence under article 505 (b) of the criminal code. The newspaper was banned for a week and its publisher was made to sign an undertaking that he would not allow such a mistake to recur.

Calling for the release of Nay Phone Latte and Saw Wai, Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association said: “These trials show that the country’s judges intend to prolong the detention of those who dare to express their views in Burma.”

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=27820

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New campaign - Burma Campaign UK
http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/index.php
10-Jul-08

Burma Campaign UK is launching a campaign that aims to use public awareness and media coverage of the natural disaster to highlight the political regime in Burma.

The campaign, created by Ogilvy Advertising, uses harrowing pictures of the damage caused by the cyclone, but aims to show that what has happened to the Burmese population for decades under military rule has been far worse. It has the strapline: "The real disaster in Burma is the government".

It is designed to drive traffic to the Burma Campaign UK website where people can donate to support the organisation's campaign for democracy in Burma. The group lobbies the UK Government and the European Union to increase political and economic pressure on the Burmese regime.

The agency has created a viral ad, as well as press ads and outdoor. The drive will continue throughout July. Media planning and buying is by MindShare.

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Playing us for fools
Burma's government is run by a group of ignorant xenophobes. So how come it keeps outsmarting us?
Joshua Kurlantzick, The New Republic Published: Friday, July 11, 2008

Maung Win/AFP/Getty ImagesBurmese troopers with their company flags parade at the Armed Forces Day in the new administrative capital Pyinmana, March 27, 2006.

Burma's ruling junta, holed up in a bunker capital built in the remote centre of the country and led by the thuggish, unworldly and slow-speaking Than Shwe, gets little respect from the outside world. In private conversations, Western diplomats have snidely remarked to me about Than Shwe's lack of education -- he reputedly never made it out of primary school -- while officials from Burma's powerful neighbours talk about the Burmese leaders as if they were unsophisticated, wayward children. "What can you do about them?" one Southeast Asian diplomat asked me. "Who has any idea what they think?" He then launched into a diatribe about how ignorant and insane the generals are.

But while they may not be intellectual dynamos, the generals have clearly mastered a survival strategy with regard to the outside world. It's no coincidence that despite Western and Asian pressure on them to change, the Burmese regime has remained in power since 1962 -- and it has only strengthened its hold on power in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. Indeed, as much as the junta has lasted partly by crushing and co-opting its own people, its longevity must also be attributed to its playing the international community for fools, over and over again.

The lesson the junta clings to most tightly today was learned in 1990. That year, it allowed a free election, thinking it would win. It didn't. And when it refused to cede power, it lost nearly all international support -- but only for a time. Turns out that Burma's resources, including some of the largest untapped gas fields in Southeast Asia, were too important to ignore. The international community stopped protesting the junta, and the generals learned that they never had to make a major concession again; their resources would provide them with immunity.

They've since used this insight to great effect. In the mid-1990s, countries like Thailand and India started putting pressure on the junta to reform. India's then-defence minister George Fernandes even hosted Burmese opposition activists in his private compound. So, in response, the Burmese generals began aggressively courting China -- an historical enemy due to China's past support for communist rebel groups inside Burma. Yet Beijing, oil-hungry as ever, slowly built closer economic and trade links with Burma, and completely stopped its support for the communist insurgents. The junta then used its Chinese support as leverage against India, Thailand and other neighbours. And it worked. India has since reversed its hard-nosed stance on Burma entirely.

Another favoured tactic of the regime is to promise potentially bothersome outsiders -- whether they be human rights organizations or concerned governments -- just enough reform to placate them. Problem is, the reform rarely takes place. In the mid-1990s, for example, the Burmese leaders seemed willing to engage in a political dialogue with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party won that 1990 election. By demonstrating its apparent willingness to deal, the junta gained enough international respectability to win admission into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the region's most important security and economic organization. When the Burmese generals put Suu Kyi back under house arrest several years later, it was already too late for ASEAN to throw the junta out of the organization, since doing so would prove that the group had made an enormous mistake.

At the same time as it misled ASEAN, by accommodating the United Nations' special rapporteur on human rights, as well as several special envoys (even providing them with visits to Suu Kyi), the generals sparked optimism among Burmese democracy advocates that the UN would be able to broker reform. This, too, of course, came to nothing.

Though India, China, the United States and the UN may have different views on the pace or scope of political reform in Asia -- the UN cares more about Burmese human rights than either China or India, and the U. S. takes the hardest line of all -- they all must realize that, as long as they keep haggling over details, no one entity will get what it really wants. For India's leadership, supporting the generals will never succeed, since, unlike the Chinese, the Indian government actually has to be responsive to voters and the media. For the United Nations, simply grasping at every straw from the Burmese regime, without assessing the reality of the offer, will only prove self-defeating. For the U.S. and other Western countries, trying to pressure the Burmese regime without taking into consideration Burma's relationship with China, which provides it much immunity from pressure, will also prove counterproductive. Even for China it's not a good play to back the regime: On many issues, from drug control to economic reform, the junta has refused to take China's advice, and, ultimately, the kind of instability the junta fosters, with its opaque, almost incomprehensive leadership, will not comfort Chinese firms seeking to make investments in Burma either.

The "unsophisticated" generals' diplomatic success has gone on for far too long -- and the Burmese people are in pain. The economy is in shambles, a political opposition movement hardly exists and the HIV/AIDS rate is among the worst in Southeast Asia. Until China, the United States, the UN, India -- everyone -- realize that collective action on Burma is necessary, the suffering will only continue. - Joshua Kurlantzick is a special correspondent for The New Republic and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's China Program.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=645966

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Recent Burma news (11-07-08)

UN Appeals For More Aid to Assist Burmese Cyclone Victims
Today, July 11, 2008, 3 hours ago
The U.N. says it needs more than $300 million to assist the hardest hit victims of Cyclone Nargis in Burma. This brings its total appeal to the international community to more than $480 million sinc...

Waiting for Aung San Suu Kyi
Today, July 11, 2008, 4 hours ago
A picture provided by Myanmar News Agency shows detained democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (left) shaking hands with Myanmar s labor minister prior to their meeting in Yangon in November. (Pho...

UN raises Myanmar cyclone plea
Today, July 11, 2008, 9 hours ago
The U.N. aid chief called on world governments Thursday to donate $300 million more to help Myanmar to recover from the effects of a cyclone that devastated parts of the Asian nation in May. “The relie...

UN seeks $312m more cyclone aid for Burma
Today, July 11, 2008, 10 hours ago
The United Nations has appealed for more than $312 million in additional aid for Burma to cope with the effects of a cyclone two months ago that left 138,000 people dead or missing. Although much aid...

NMSP considers election participation - Htet Aung Kyaw
Today, July 11, 2008, 13 hours ago
Nai Aung Ma Ngae of the NMSP said the party had not yet been approached by the military regime about participating in the 2010 election. “We still have not yet received any pressure from the go...

MNDF will not contest 2010 election
Today, July 11, 2008, 13 hours ago
The Mon National Democratic Front (MNDF) will not form a new party and will not contest the 2010 general election because the party did not accept the approved constitution, said MNDF Vice Chairman.

Rise of factions roils relations within Burmese junta - Min Lwin
Today, July 11, 2008, 13 hours ago
On the surface, the high-ranking generals in the Burmese military junta appear to be united. But since a reshuffle in early June, speculation has been rife that the regime is undergoing a major realig...

Round the clock security at USDA offices - Than Htike Oo
Today, July 11, 2008, 13 hours ago
In the wake of the bomb blast in the Shwepyitha office of the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), members have been deployed in rotation round the clock for security.

Myanmar to turn cyclone-downed tree stem roots into sculpture products for auction
Today, July 11, 2008, 13 hours ago
Myanmar is planning to turn stem roots and branches of cyclone-downed trees in Yangon municipal area into sculpture products for auction, the local weekly 7-Day News reported Thursday.

Reconstruction work of Maung Weik Co. falters
Today, July 11, 2008, 13 hours ago
The arrest of young business tycoon Maung Weik has thrown a spanner in the works in the reconstruction contract given to his company - Maung Weik and Family Co. Ltd - in Cyclone Nargis-hit Kyaiklat to...

At least 50,000 houses need rebuilding after cyclone
Today, July 11, 2008, 13 hours ago
LOCAL construction companies are setting to work to rebuild homes lost because of Cyclone Nargis. They plan to complete the new houses before the end of July.

UN to continue Bangkok briefings: Holmes - Lalit K Jha
Today, July 11, 2008, 13 hours ago
A top United Nations official said on Wednesday that the world body would continue to hold press briefings on the progress of relief efforts in cyclone-hit areas of Burma in Bangkok when needed, despi...

Red Cross issues multi-million dollar appeal for Cyclone Nargis victims - Lisa Schlein
Today, July 11, 2008, 13 hours ago
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is appealing for $72.5 million to support a three-year emergency and recovery program for victims of Cyclone Nargis in Burma. The R...

Monks are heroes in Burma - Tad Trueblood
Today, July 11, 2008, 13 hours ago
Boys as young as 7 can enter monkhood, and young men often join for a short time as a way to honor their families. Only about 15 percent of Burma’s monks decide to make it a lifelong calling. T...

When a disastrous regime continues - Nava Thakuria
Today, July 11, 2008, 13 hours ago
Since August 2007, Burma continued to receive massive international media headlines. After 1988, it was for the first time, when hundred thousands Buddhist monks and common people of Burma came to the...

Myanmar recovery must ensure women’s health and protection
Today, July 11, 2008, 13 hours ago
Life-saving care for women remains a critical need as Myanmar recovers from Cyclone Nargis, UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, stressed today as agencies jointly asked for donor support.

UN pushes for 482 million dollars in Myanmar relief aid
Today, July 11, 2008, 14 hours ago
New York - The United Nations appealed Thursday for a whopping 482 million dollars to help Myanmar’s military regime rebuild the nation devastated by Cyclone Nargis in May, which killed an estimated 1...

Thai Healthcare Proposal for Migrants, Stateless People
Today, July 11, 2008, 17 hours ago
The Thai cabinet will consider extending healthcare coverage to migrant worker children born in Thailand and stateless people, according to the National Health Security Office (NHSC).Dr Pratheep Thana...

Top UN Relief Official Plans to Visit Burma
Today, July 11, 2008, 17 hours ago
John Holmes, the UN Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, may soon visit Burma to review the humanitarian relief operation in the Irrawaddy delta, devastat...

Thai Foreign Minister Resigns as Battering of Govt Continues
Today, July 11, 2008, 17 hours ago
Thailand’s foreign minister resigned Thursday after being accused of jeopardizing the country’s claims to land near an ancient Cambodian temple, as a raft of court cases and street protests co...

Indonesia to Force Manufacturers to Use Biofuel
Today, July 11, 2008, 17 hours ago
Indonesia, the world’s largest producer of palm oil, plans to force manufacturers to use biofuels for some of their energy needs to reduce dependence on imported oil amid soaring global prices. Th...

Burmese Needs Divide the Aid Industry
Today, July 11, 2008, 17 hours ago
If the deadly Cylone Nargis helped create a greater humanitarian space inside Burma, it would be welcome news indeed. More aid and more relief workers should be able to enter Burma and assist the Burm...

Blogger Nay Phone Latt produced before court for first time
Yesterday, July 10, 2008, 10:33:07 PM
Chiang Mai - Blogger and author Nay Phone Latt was produced in court for the first time on July 8 in Insein prison precincts. The judge told him that he was charged with more cases. The Rangoon W...

Malaysian PM Said to be Planning Retirement in 2010
Yesterday, July 10, 2008, 6:17:38 PM
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will announce plans to retire in June 2010, a move aimed at ending months of political uncertainty that have unnerved investors, a news website said on T...

Singapore Economy Hit by Worst Contraction in 5 Years
Yesterday, July 10, 2008, 6:17:35 PM
Singapore’s economy suffered its biggest contraction in five years in the second quarter as exports to the United States and Europe tumbled, leaving less room for the central bank to battle inflat...

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Burma - RSF Annual report 2008 (February 2008)
Area: 676,580 sq. km.
Population: 51,000,000.
Language: Burmese.

Head of state: General Than Shwe.

The military junta was faced with a major protest movement for the first time since 1990 and responded by firing into the crowds. A Japanese reporter was killed, around 15 Burmese journalists were arrested for reporting on the crackdown and the Internet was cut for two weeks. Once order was restored censorship was stepped up.

Popular demonstrations, led by Buddhist monks in August and September 2007 shook the military government which has ruled the country for more than 40 years. Despite pressure from the international community, the junta’s reaction was brutal: at least 100 people were killed, thousands arrested and a climate of fear and denunciations took hold. After several weeks of hesitation during which the world enthusiastically watched the highly-mediatised “Saffron Revolution”, the military took drastic action. Japanese journalist, Kenji Nagai, who was at the centre of a crowd with his camera in his hand, was gunned down by a soldier on 27 September. The Internet was cut for two weeks, during which time around 15 Burmese journalists were arrested. Foreign correspondents who had entered the country on tourist visas found themselves very closely watched.

Many Burmese journalists covered the demonstrations, despite the fact that military censorship bans the publication of independent news. Some 15 were arrested, suspected of sending footage of the marches and the crackdown to other countries. This is what happened to Win Ko Ko Latt, reporter on Weekly Eleven Journal, Nay Linn Aung, of the 7-Days Journal, and cameraman Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi, who were imprisoned in Rangoon. Ko Thu Ya Soe, a photographer working for the European news agency EPA, had to go into hiding for several weeks after taking numbers of photos of the demonstrations. When security forces failed to find those they were looking for, they arrested members of their family instead. Khin Mar Lar, the wife of Nyein Thit, a documentary-maker and ex political prisoner who hid for several weeks, was taken into custody near Mandalay for more than ten days.

A score of publications showed their solidarity with the demonstrations by ceasing to appear rather than publishing government news. Other titles did not appear for fear of not selling a single copy. Military censorship prevented them all from covering the events independently. The Burmese people once again resorted to international radio, BBC, RFA, VOA, and the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma radio and television. Despite bans there was a huge boom in satellite dishes. More than a million homes are now equipped to follow Chinese soaps, European football but also international channels like Al-Jazeera International and the BBC, which are very popular in Burma.
Artists, intellectuals, comedians and singers suspected of supporting the rebel monks were arrested and threatened. For example, writer Maung Yan Paing, poet and singer Ye Lwin, comedian Zargana, nicknamed Burma’s “Charlie Chaplin” and the comedians, the Moustache Brothers, in Mandalay. The authorities in November banned distribution of a video recording of a performance by a comedy troupe “Say Young Sone". The same month police arrested a Burmese rapper for paying tribute to the monks during a concert.

The junta’s militia

The junta deployed its militia, the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), and gangs known as “Masters of Force”, who travelled in army trucks armed with shovels and iron bars terrorising demonstrators and journalists. From the start of the marches in mid-August, correspondents for foreign media were jostled and insulted. Authorities then cut telephone lines of numbers of activists and journalists, including that of the Agence France-Presse correspondent, and the freelance journalist May Thingyan Hein. “Men in plainclothes who sow fear among the demonstrators prevent us from working”, said one Burmese reporter for a foreign media. “It’s difficult when you run the risk of being arrested for a photo.”

From 20 August, Rangoon’s military commander banned all journalists from taking photos of demonstrations and ordered the destruction of cameras confiscated from offenders. Belgian journalist Thierry Falise who was in Rangoon at the time said that security forces then received the order to fire on people taking footage of the crackdown, which most likely led to the death of Kenji Nagai...

The security forces, which had been thrown off balance at the start, quickly threw themselves into the hunt for cameramen. Several accounts given by people arrested and then released had police questioning everyone about the names of the “cameramen”, understood to mean journalists working secretly for foreign media or the Democratic Voice of Burma. Many photographers and cameramen were so afraid of being identified that they stopped working altogether. Some even threw away their cameras and went into exile.

Internet cut off

Burmese Internet-users were restricted to just a few hours online a day during in October and November. The regime ordered access providers to limit exchanges between the Burmese people and the rest of the world. The junta aimed to prevent the spread of film on sharing sites such as YouTube, Dailymotion, and Flickr. Cutting off the Internet isolated the country, with rumour replacing news and reducing footage to that taken by foreign media.

The junta unsurprisingly also strictly controlled the sale of foreign publications within the country. Magazines Time and Newsweek and Thai newspapers disappeared from the newsstands in the first few weeks. At the end of December, Burmese authorities raised the price of a satellite licence by 167 times, from 6,000 to one million Kyats (from five to 800 dollars). This was aimed particularly at DVB TV whose deputy director told Reporters Without Borders “The military junta knows the power of an image. They are not going to let DVB TV and foreign televisions become the principal source of news in Burma. Even if 90% of satellite dish owners don’t have licences, this decision is perhaps the first step to imposing control”.

After the crackdown, the military junta did its utmost to give the impression of a return to normality. But behind the peaceful footage of crowds gathering to support the junta, the censorship bureau, headed by a military officer, acted with complete ruthlessness. The weekly News Watch was banned for one week after publishing photos in mid-November which angered the military. A score of journalists suspected of sympathy with the protest movement, were also banned from writing articles or being interviewed in the press. Chief among these were sports journalist Zaw Thet Htwe, cartoonist Au Pi Kyee and writer Pe Myint.

Government media poured our propaganda, featuring the actions of the junta heads on the front pages. Demonstrators, who were presented as agitators of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in the service of foreign powers, were accused of having stirred up the violence. Pro-junta media accused the foreign press of having created the disorder. Even though for years General Than Shwe cultivated a taste for the secretive, he appeared several times on national television to pronounce diatribes against the opposition. He made a speech to students at a military academy in December in which he exhorted them to be ready to “sacrifice your lives to defend the state”. And state-run television channels denigrated the work of foreign media, particularly the BBC, RFA and VOA, whom it accused of wanting to “destabilise the country”. The media were ordered to vaunt a return to normality and the country’s economic progress.

U Win Tin, imprisoned since 1989, calls for resistance

Burma’s most renowned journalist, U Win Tin, has never been granted the early release he has been entitled to since 2005. On his 77th birthday in March 2007, he launched an appeal for resistance against the military regime which has kept him in prison since July 1989. “All political prisoners should be released and the democratic parliament should be recalled. We must not abandon our demands”, he told one of his family members who was allowed to visit him. A few days earlier, the director general of prisons visited U Win Tin in his cell. The journalist pointed out his rights to him as a political prisoner. “I am not going to beg you to release me. I have the right to be freed because I have served 18 of my 20-year prison sentence. I should be allowed an early release”. But the director general told him he did not qualify because he had not worked while in custody. Win Tin told him that as a political prisoner he could not be forced to work in jail.

U Win Tin, laureate of the 2006 Reporters Without Borders press freedom prize, also promoted from his cell the “Suu Hlut Twe” platform which demands: the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners (Suu); recall of the parliament elected in 1990 (Hlut) and political dialogue (Twe). “My vision, my opinions and my principles have not changed”, said the journalist, calling on pro-democracy activists to resist repression.

During the year U Win Tin had to undergo treatment for blood pressure problems and inflammation of the prostate. Although a prison doctor checks him twice a month, U Win Tin is dependent on the help of family members who regularly bring him medication and food. His health has considerably deteriorated after 18 years in jail.

Nine journalists in prison

Eight other Burmese journalists were in prison as at 1st January 2008. Ko Aung Gyi, former editorial head of the sports magazine, 90 minutes, is suspected of having contributed to the Democratic Voice of Burma. Ko Win Maw and Ko Aung Aung, two other secret media contributors are also being held in prison.

The year began with prison releases. Than Win Hlaing, who had been in jail since 2000 and was suffering from diabetes and Thaung Tun, arrested in October 1999 and sentenced to eight years in prison for sending human rights violations footage abroad, were both freed in January.

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=25624

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