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Arrests of Burmese journalists on the rise

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Oct 30, 2009 (DVB), Around 20 journalists and entertainers have been arrested in the past month while many more have gone into hiding, a reporter at a Rangoon-based news journal said.

Burmese government authorities appear to have targeted relief workers and journalists involved with the Lin Latt Kyae ('Shining Star') relief programme for cyclone Nargis victims.

"About 20 people, including entertainers, writers and press workers, have been arrest so far," said the reporter, speaking under condition of anonymity.

He said that 12 people were arrested on Wednesday, including staff members from The Voice, Foreign News, Favourite, Pyi Myanmar and Kandarawaddy journals.

Fear of further arrests has shaken Burma's media community, which is often targeted during government crackdowns on dissent.

Now is a particular sensitive time in Burma as the ruling junta prepares for elections next year, despite pressure from the international community to release all political prisoners prior to polling.

"These people were not involved in any political activity," said the reporter.

"There are many more missing but it is not confirmed that they have been arrested. Three junior journalists from my publication are in hiding."

A wider investigation by the government into post-cyclone relief work appears to be underway, with people involved in unofficial financial brokering also being called in for interrogation.

The investigations being conducted may be linked to overseas donations and relief work in cyclone hit areas, the reporter said.

"They are trying to trace where and how the money came to the relief teams," he said. "They want to know if the money came from the opposition groups overseas."

The New York-based Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) today "strongly condemned" the arrest on Wednesday of freelance journalist and blogger Pai Soe Oo, reportedly a member of Lin Latt Kyae.

"Burma's military government claims to be moving toward democracy, yet it continues to routinely arrest and detain journalists," said Shawn W. Crispin, CPJ's senior Southeast Asia representative. "Reducing international pressure should require demonstrable improvements in press freedom."

San Moe Wei, secretary of the Burma Media Association, said that the numbers of journalists being arrested in the run-up to elections would likely increase.

"The government doesn't like its operations exposed to foreign media so I'm sure we'll see many more," he said.

Reporting by Than Win Htut and Francis Wade

Refugee swell sparks clinic funding crisis

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Oct 30, 2009 (DVB), Increasing numbers of refugees crossing from Burma into Thailand have placed extra strain on a border clinic that treats thousands of Burmese each year, the director of the clinic said.

The Mae Tao Clinic, in Thailand's border town of Mae Sot, is "struggling with a major funding crisis", said Dr Cynthia Maung.

"This year, attacks on ethnic areas in Burma added even more patients to our ever growing caseload and forced a stream of displaced people, including orphans and unaccompanied children, over the border in search of food, shelter and education," she said in an open letter.

Speaking to DVB today, she said that "around 99.9 percent" of patients were Burmese who are unable to find adequate healthcare in their own country.

According to medical aid group Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the Burmese government spends an estimated $US0.70 per person each year on healthcare.

A World Health Organisation (WHO) report in 2000 ranked Burma's healthcare system second worst in the world, one place above Sierra Leone.

"Each year the number of patients from Burma seeking treatment at the clinic increases by 20 to 30 percent," said Cynthia Maung.

She added that the clinic's child protection and education programme was also being put under strain as more young people crossed the border.

"Higher numbers are dropping out of school, and so have little chance to find employment and therefore come to Thailand," she said.

"Also, a lot of children near the border are afraid of being recruited into the army so they try to get resettled in Thailand."

A United Nations report released earlier this month found that education and health support in Thailand way surpassed that of Burma.

A person who is born in Thailand "can expect to live seven more years, to have almost three times as many years of education, and to spend and save eight times as much as someone born in neighbouring Myanmar [Burma]", it said.

Heavy fighting in June this year between government troops and the opposition Karen National Union (KNU) forced around 5,000 civilians across the border into Thailand, many of whom found only rudimentary medical assistance in refugee camps.

The Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) warned yesterday of further unrest in eastern Burma in the run-up to elections next year. The Thai government has voiced concern about another wave of refugees crossing the border.

Reporting by Francis Wade

Security threats in eastern Burma ‘increasing’

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Oct 30, 2009 (DVB), The fallout from conflict in eastern Burma is likely to deteriorate in the coming year as greater militarization causes further unrest in the region, an aid agency said.

The Thai government has expressed concern about an exodus of Burmese across the border in the run-up to elections next year, while a humanitarian organization warned last month that Thailand faces a "wave of refugees".

The prediction was reinforced yesterday with the release of a statement by the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) that said that conflict in eastern Burma was not being given due attention.

"After 25 years of responding to the consequences of conflict in eastern Burma, it is tragic to see the causes remain unaddressed and the situation is likely to further deteriorate during the next twelve months," said TBBC executive director, Jack Dunford.

"A recent influx of refugees into Thailand and monitoring reports from internally displaced communities indicate that violence and abuse in eastern Burma are increasing."

Government pressure on ceasefire groups to transform into border guards prior to the elections is a key reason for the unrest and further uprooting of internally displaced persons (IDPs), said Duncan McArthur, emergency relief coordinator at TBBC.

"Of the numbers of IDPs in eastern Burma, around half of them are in ceasefire areas," he said. "If the tension with the ceasefire groups escalates, it's going to make those IDPs in ceasefire areas a lot more vulnerable than they have been previously."

More than 3,500 villages and "hiding sites" have been forcibly relocated or destroyed since 1996, according to TBBC. Around 120 communities were affected between August 2008 and July 2009 alone.

It warns that the situation regarding village relocation is "comparable to the situation in Darfur and has been recognised as the strongest single indicator of crimes against humanity in eastern Burma".

A report released in July by a panel of leading international jurists also alleged that human rights atrocities in Burma that are comparable to both Darfur and the former Yugoslavia were being underreported.

"[The situation] hasn't had the same political support from the UN security council in regards to Burma, and eastern Burma in particular," said McArthur.

In June around 5000 Karen civilians fled into Thialand to escape fighting between the government and opposition Karen National Union (KNU), while an offensive against an ethnic Kokang army in northeastern Shan state forced some 37,000 into China.

"The breakdown of 20 year old ceasefire agreements reflects how the Burmese junta's 'road map to democracy' offers no political settlement for the ethnic minority groups," said the statement, adding that there is an "urgent need to address ethnic grievances".

Reporting by Francis Wade

Burmese satirists could face death sentence

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Oct 30, 2009 (DVB), Comedians and performers who poke fun at Burma's ruling junta could face the death sentence, an article written by Burmese police has warned.

Performances which could sow "public hatred against the government" are prohibited under Burmese law, said the article, published recently in the Crime News Journal. The journal is the mouthpiece of the state's Criminal Investigation Department.

"Equipment used in such an act will be seized while those who violate the law can face arrest and be sentenced from three years to lifetime imprisonment or execution," the article said.

According to Burmese central court lawyer Khin Maung Shein, the threat relates to Act 124(A) of the penal code, which deals with defamation of the government.

"Public performers have made remarks about the rulers since the times of monarchy in Burma, and none of them were punished under the Act," he said. [The government] is changing the law the way they want it."

The renowned Burmese comedian, Zarganar, is currently serving a 35-year sentence after being convicted in 2008 of 'public order offences'. The sentencing came after he had given interviews to foreign media critical of the government's slow reaction to cyclone Nargis last year.

Zarganar was recently awarded the prestigious PEN/Pinter award, which honours international 'imprisoned writers of courage'.

He is currently detained in Myintkyina prison in Burma's eastern Kachin state, and was earlier this year reported to have been denied adequate healthcare despite suffering from hypertension and jaundice.

Political satire is popular in Burma, where outright criticism of the government carries heavy penalties.

"We comedians only make jokes to bring certain issues to the attention of the senior government leaders so they can fix them for the sake of the people," said Lu Maw, from the Mandalay-based comedy group, Moustache Bros.

"That is neither national treason nor an armed-revolution. The only tool we have is our mouths."

The government is expected to crack down on dissent in the run-up to elections next year, with arrests of activists already said to be on the rise.

Reporting by Ahunt Phone Myat

Japan ‘should protect’ Burmese Rohingya

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Oct 29, 2009 (DVB), The Japanese government's lack of protection for Burmese Rohingya seeking asylum in Japan is sending the wrong message to the Burmese regime, human rights organisations have warned Tokyo.

The new Japanese administration "should urgently review its policies to protect the Rohingya both in Japan and in Burma", said Kanae Doi, Tokyo director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), one of the signatories of the letter.

The letter, signed by eight organizations, was sent to the Democratic Party of Japan's justice minister, Keiko Chiba, and foreign minister, Katsuya Okada.

The ripple of enthusiasm among Burmese pro-democracy campaigners that accompanied the party's inauguration in September appears to have dissipated somewhat, with many complaining of inaction on pressing the Burmese junta.

A letter sent by Human Rights Watch to the new government shortly after its inauguration urged the government to "make human rights a central pillar of Japanese foreign policy, and Burma is a good place to start."

Today however, the organization complained that many Rohingya seeking asylum in Japan "have been denied refugee status, detained, and issued deportation orders".

"Abuses against the Rohingya include extrajudicial killings, forced labor, religious persecution, and restrictions on movement, all exacerbated by a draconian citizenship law that leaves the Rohingya stateless," HRW said.

"Japan has long been reluctant to exert pressure on Burma’s senior leadership on human rights issues," it added.

The Muslim Rohingya are among the most persecuted groups in Burma, with the government refusing to grant them legal status in the country.

Around 1.5 million are estimated to be living in diaspora outside of Burma, with Bangladesh routinely on the opposite side of a dispute over which country they belong in.

Human Rights Watch in May criticized the international community for failing to pay adequate attention to their suffering.

"The Rohingyas have faced persecution in Burma and mistreatment in the countries where they seek refuge," Doi said. "The Japanese government should ensure their protection in Japan."

Reporting by Francis Wade

What lies beneath

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Francis Wade

Oct 29, 2009 (DVB), As the most senior level US delegation to visit Burma in decades is soon to touch down, it is worth reminding ourselves of the myriad problems in Burma that Washington needs to address.

Much of the rhetoric surrounding the recent US policy shift has focused on Aung San Suu Kyi and the 2,100 political prisoners in Burma; indeed, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon flagged this up in July as the most important obstacle to democracy in the country. Their plight, illuminated by the captivating 64-year-old, is what grabs headlines across the world, but they are merely a taster of Burma's wider ruin.

Many are skeptical as to the effect a shift towards greater dialogue between the generals and Washington will have. Will it be able to tackle entrenched corruption in Burmese society, or draw the junta away from a myopic focus on its military to the pitifully undernourished health and education sectors? Will it address what the US said this week were ongoing restrictions against religious freedom in the country?

The Obama administration has made comparatively little mention of ongoing crises in Burma's remote ethnic regions that lie well beyond the Rangoon-to-Naypyidaw diplomatic corridor, and that underlies the country's fragile state. Low-intensity conflict has steadily eaten away at these regions for decades, with groups sparring with the government for autonomy. A US health academic, Chris Beyrer, testifying in front of the House last week relegated this issue to "the second major cause for concern in Burma today".

The comment would have come as a blow to the millions of ethnic Burmese that for decades have been ousted, just like Suu Kyi, from any part of Burma's political decision-making process. Beyrer cited research that found that more than a quarter of families in Shan state, which borders China, had been forcibly relocated by government troops in the past year, while 24 percent had one family member taken by the army for forced labour.

Since independence in 1948, successive military governments dominated by the majority Burman population have enacted a kind of racial supremacy, and thus meted out a particularly violent brand of the minority treatment to all other ethnic groups. The Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), which ostensibly represents the estimated six million Burmese Shan, came one place behind Suu Kyi's party in the 1990 elections. Its leader, Khun Htun Oo, was sentenced in 1995 to 93 years imprisonment on defamation charges, but the subject of his release remains conspicuously absent from any of the stated US goals for the country.

Burma's fragile border regions are another cause for concern, nearly all of which have at one point or another in recent months been the site of major flare-ups. In June, 5,000 refugees poured across the border from Karen state into Thailand following fighting between government troops and the ethnic Karen National Union (KNU). In August and September, an exodus of some 37,000 ethnic Shan fled into China after troops launched an offensive against an ethnic Kokang army. The Muslim Rohingya community in eastern Burma continues to be pushed back and forth across the border between Bangladesh, with neither country wanting the impoverished and persecuted minority.

If the US had hoped to look for assistance from Burma's regional neighbours, it had better think again. While Thailand, as head of the regional bloc, has perhaps made the biggest strides in recent months towards pressuring the regime, its lip-service is less than convincing. Last week it oversaw the launch of the region's first human rights body which, with no punitive powers, appears to be little more than a flimsy platform for further soft condemnation.

Thailand's indifference to the crisis is all the more perplexing given that it criticised the fighting near the border in June for its regional ramifications. Beyrer last week pointed out that one medical clinic in the Thai border town of Mae Sot had treated some 20,000 Burmese nationals in the past year, many of whom had suffered as a result of the fighting. These were people unable to find adequate treatment their own country, which spends around $US0.70 per person each year on healthcare. It's a statistic that alone provides ample evidence of the mountain the US has to climb when faced with a government that channels some 40 percent of its budget into the military, and was accused recently of siphoning $US9 billion out of state funds into private Singaporean banks.

Powerful symbolic rhetoric is what won Obama office, but it is yet to be seen whether that can translate into rounded, pragmatic diplomacy. The mass of issues that don't make headlines need to be factored into the engagement process; this is what Burma needs, and Suu Kyi's place at the top of the priority list, elevated way beyond the multitude of Burma's other pressing crises, may well be a sign of the new US administration's shortcomings.

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