What if an ASEAN Human Right Commission had balls?(Animationvdo)

Karen News 27.July by thawthikho

Kaowao
ဇူလိုင္ ၂၇၊၂၀၀၉။
စံခလပူရီ(ဇူလုိင္-၂၇)။ ။ လြန္ခဲ့သည့္ ဇူလုိင္လဒုတိယအပတ္၌ ထုိင္းနယ္စပ္၊ ဘုရားသုံးဆူၿမဳိ႕ ေခတၲအေျခစုိက္ ခလရ ၃၂ တပ္ရင္းမွ ဗုိလ္ကုိကုိလြင္၊ ဒုအရာခံဗုိလ္ ေဌးလြင္ႏွင့္ အျခားအဆင့္ ရဲေဘာ္ ၁၀ ဦးတုိ႔ ထုိင္းႏုိင္ငံတြင္း တစ္ေနရာသုိ႔ ထြက္ေျပးေရာက္႐ွိခဲ့ရာ continue

http://thawthikho.blogspot.com/search/label/Kaowao%20သတင္းမ%E1%80%BD

Mon residents, fearful of terminating cease fire, don’t want Border Guard Force

Mon 27 Jul 2009, IMNA,
Amidst mounting political tension, Mon people explain that they don’t want the Mon National Liberation Army (MNLA) to be put under Burmese army control nor become a people’s militia force.

Nevertheless, they also express not wishing to end the ceasefire with the military government, a change that would open the door to increased fighting, as has been seen recently in Karen State.

As the State Peace and Development Council, or SPDC, continues to put pressure on the New Mon State Party (NMSP), to place their army (MNLA) under the reconstitution of a Border Guard Force (BGF) or change it into a government-aligned people’s militia force, party officials and residents remain unconvinced.

“What the SPDC offers the NMSP so far, we don’t agree with either. We Mon People can create our own development through education, health care, and community development. If we agree with SPDC policy, the NMSP will [no longer represent] the Mon people and the MNLA can’t protect us,” said a Mon resident on July 24th at a meeting in Ye Township.

The NMSP must give a response to the SPDC by the end of this month and thus held town hall-style meetings to gauge residents’ opinions.

“We can’t agree what the SPDC offers to the NMSP; their policy will finish [our army]. Not only are we worried about the cease fire ending, but also we have to know that NMSP power has decreased during the cease fire term with the SPDC,” said a leader of youth monks active in politics.

Ashin Sopaka on Border Action with “English Class”

http://picasaweb.google.com/mettamail/EnglishClass#

Joke of the day:The Ministry of Information in Burma has begun emailing government-generated newsletters to exiled Burmese activists and journalists in an attempt to counter news-sharing by exiled opposition groups.

Burma’s information ministry in new email campaign
July 27, 2009 (DVB)–The Ministry of Information in Burma has begun emailing government-generated newsletters to exiled Burmese activists and journalists in an attempt to counter news-sharing by exiled opposition groups.

The website responsible for the emails is the Kyaymon online newspaper, run by the government’s Ministry of Information, which carries headlines such as ‘Shame on you Clinton’ and ‘America’s ugly failure in the ASEAN summit’.
When approached by DVB, the assistant editor of Kyaymon, Aung Kyaw Thwin, said that the action was entirely orchestrated by the government.
“We have been sending you newsletters under direction from our information minister and there is no personal motive behind this,” he said.
Burma’s information minister, Brigadier General Kyaw Hasn, has reportedly sent out instructions to all media workers in Burma that include statements such as “strive for realization of the seven-step Road Map through media” and “train better qualified press workers who favour the profit of the nation”.
A UK-based Burmese journalist, Bo Bo Lan Sin, said that the newsletters were actually a refreshing alternative to other more generic government news.

He wanted to do something for his village and friends, and so he decided to join the Rahmonnya armed insurgent group: “no one can protect us, we have to protect ourselves,”

Frustrated by military abuses, young Mon men join Rehmonnya group
July 27, 2009
HURFOM: Pervasive human rights abuses are being suffered by Mon residents in Tenassarim Division at the hands of the Burmese army; in response, many young men have joined the Mon insurgent group Rahmonnya.
One young man, a Kyaukadin resident formerly involved with Rehmonnya, told a HURFOM field reporter that the army oppressed and abused his villagers, including forced portering and battalion support fees. He added that he could not go and work freely on the plantations, that soldiers ‘borrowed’ the motorbikes and made villagers pay for gas, and that when the soldiers were drunk they would attack residents with impunity.
He wanted to do something for his village and friends, and so he decided to join the Rahmonnya armed insurgent group: “no one can protect us, we have to protect ourselves,” he said.
Similarly, more than 15 young Mon men from Tenasserim have fled home and joined the Rahmonnya Mon insurgent group, hoping to protect their homes. Others joined the Chan Dein-led insurgent group.
After the young men fled home and joined the insurgent groups, their parents were questioned by the SPDC’s LIB No. 273 and the Burmese soldiers; a source told HURFOM that they ordered the parents to call their sons back home. It has not been confirmed how any of these parents responded to the orders thus far.
The Rahmonnya group was established by an ex-soldier from the New Mon State Party, Nai Khin Maung, and is advised by ex-NMSP major Nai Shoung.
Rahmonnya itself has also committed human rights abuses and extorted money from Mon villagers, according to a June article published by the Independent Mon News Agency (IMNA).

Burmese military demands food supplies using DKBA name

July 24, 2009
HURFOM: In a internal document issued on July 19th 2009, the Burmese military Southeast Command (SEC) instructed Tactical Command No.1 based in the Anankwin, Three Pagoda township to force household to give two baskets of rice and other vegetables (1basket equal to 32 Kg) to military forces. If a household does not have the rice to meet the demands, the military will take 10,000 kyat.
While it was not ordered in the document, as an additional threat military forces have been telling villagers if they cannot afford to pay they will be forced to work as porters instead. SPDC forces have been collecting food supplies from Anankwin, Taung Son, Ko Du Kwe, Khone Khen, Tanpayar, Laypoe and Lone Si villages. For many the loss of these supplies had produced many economic difficulties.
“I already gave them 2 baskets of rice. Now, I have nothing left in my house. If you can’t afford two baskets of rice you need to pay 10,000 Kyat,” according to a 45 year-old Anankwin villager. “But, if you can afford to pay with rice or money, they will force you to serve as a porter. Now, I need to work hard and replenish my rice for this rainy season.”
He added, “On that day, the SPDC soldiers collected rice and other food supplies from about 90 households in Taung Son village.”

Yoma3 “Childsoldiers Burma,s SONS OF SORROW” eng.

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Free Burma Rangers — Reports- Evidence of Burma Army extortion demands on villagers facing food-Chin State

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Myanmar’s democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on Monday was named the recipient of Amnesty International’s highest honor, the Ambassador of Conscience Award.

Myanmar democracy leader wins top Amnesty honor

Myanmar’s democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on Monday was named the recipient of Amnesty International’s highest honor, the Ambassador of Conscience Award. The human rights watchdog said it hoped this would help protect her as she faces a potential prison sentence.
Amnesty Secretary General Irene Khan said the award was timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Suu Kyi’s initial arrest on July 20, 1989, as she led a campaign to oust Myanmar’s military dictators.
Suu Kyi’s opposition party, the National League for Democracy, won national elections in 1990 but the military refused to relinquish power. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 but has been under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years.
“In those long and often dark years, Aung San Suu Kyi has remained a symbol of hope, courage and the undying defense of human rights,” Khan said.
Suu Kyi, 64, is on trial for allegedly harboring an American who swam out to her residence uninvited. The offense of violating house-arrest rules carries a potential five-year prison sentence, and foreign diplomats have been barred from key parts of her trial. Suu Kyi’s supporters accuse Myanmar’s junta of seeking to put her behind bars until after elections planned for 2010.
Former Czech President Vaclav Havel, a fellow Nobel recipient and the first winner of the Ambassador of Conscience Award in 2003, said foreign recognition probably has deterred Myanmar’s rulers from imposing even harsher punishments on Suu Kyi.