Day: August 13, 2009
FBF Jakarta Statement
Blood stained everywhere in Burma since 1988, how can we forget those people who sacrifice their lives??? How can we forget 1990 elections results which people shown their desire dearly. Never forget and never give up! Writing off 1990 election result is equivalent to betraying our people and our country!!!!
Burma’s military rulers allowed the lawyers to spend one hour with Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednesday at her lakeside Rangoon villa.
Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi Meets Lawyers to Discuss Appeal of Conviction
Detained Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has met with her lawyers to discuss an appeal of her conviction for violating the terms of her house arrest.
Burma’s military rulers allowed the lawyers to spend one hour with Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednesday at her lakeside Rangoon villa.
A Rangoon court convicted the opposition chief Tuesday of illegally permitting American John Yettaw to stay at her home in May after he swam there uninvited. The government then ordered her to spend another 18 months under house arrest.
One of the opposition chief’s lawyers, Nyan Win, says they will appeal the verdict after obtaining a certified copy of it. He says Aung San Suu Kyi also wants clarification of the terms of her house arrest, including her rights to receive visitors and medical personnel.
Her sentencing drew strong criticism from human rights groups, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and world leaders in North America, Europe and parts of Asia.
But China’s Foreign Ministry urged the world community Wednesday to respect what it calls Burma’s “judicial sovereignty.” China is one of the Burmese military’s few allies. Continue reading “Burma’s military rulers allowed the lawyers to spend one hour with Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednesday at her lakeside Rangoon villa.”
IF THERE was ever a role model for Than Shwe, Myanmar’s vicious, nutty, reclusive “senior general”, it was Suharto, Indonesia’s late kleptocrat.
The Burmese road to ruin economist
Suharto was the senior general who had everything. His fabulous wealth made the greedy Burmese generals look like paupers. His children parcelled out the economy as if it were the family vegetable plot. Feted rather than shunned, he was dubbed “father of development” by his fan club, and even many foreigners agreed: development banks needed him more than he needed them. And he held power for 32 years. No wonder the Burmese junta gazed admiringly at Indonesia.
The two countries do have much in common. Both are fabulously rich in resources—hydrocarbons, minerals, timber. Both reached postcolonial independence by way of Japanese occupation. Both are multiethnic states haunted by the twin spectres of racial tension and a separatist periphery. And both have armies with inflated views of their importance to national survival.
A fine recent book on Indonesia by Marcus Mietzner of the Australian National University* highlights five features of the Indonesian armed forces. Four are also shown by Myanmar’s. First is the army’s (debatable) view of itself as the main bringer of independence. Second is its disdain for periods of civilian rule in the 1950s, dismissed as chaotic, corrupt and, through the spread of regional rebellions, dangerous to the country’s integrity. Out of this disdain grew a third feature, a doctrine known in Indonesia as dwifungsi, or dual function, of running the country as well as defending it, and a fourth, the entrenchment of the armed forces in the infrastructure of the state. Last year Myanmar’s benighted people were forced to endorse a dwifungsi constitution in a referendum. Under it, ludicrously undemocratic elections are to be held in 2010, giving some veneer of legitimacy to the soldiers’ unbudgeable heft in parliament and government. Continue reading “IF THERE was ever a role model for Than Shwe, Myanmar’s vicious, nutty, reclusive “senior general”, it was Suharto, Indonesia’s late kleptocrat.”
Again, overseas Shan rights groups are on calling the Burmese military immediately stop its atrocities and also on the international and regional communities to end their silence and set up an investation team on the regime’s crimes against humanity.
Since 27 July, Burma Army units under the command of the Mongnawng based Military Operations Command (MOC) #2, Shan State South, have burned down over 500 houses, more than 200 granaries, and forcibly relocated an estimated 10,000 villagers from almost 40 villages in Mongkeung, Laikha and Kehsi townships, according to the rights groups.
“We are therefore demanding the regime immediately stop their atrocities against people the and allow all relocated villagers to return to their homes,” said Nang Charm Tong from Shan Women Action’s Network (SWAN) at a press conference held today on the Thai-Burma border.
Summary Villages Forcily Relocated
The so-called Movement for Democracy and Rights of Ethnic Nationalities launched its “Proposal for National Reconciliation” at the end of talks in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.
JAKARTA: Myanmar’s exiled leaders and other opposition groups formed a new movement for democracy on Thursday during a meeting in Indonesia.
The so-called Movement for Democracy and Rights of Ethnic Nationalities launched its “Proposal for National Reconciliation” at the end of talks in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.
The movement is made up of the exiled National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma plus six pro-democracy groups, but does not include the main National League for Democracy (NLD) opposition party.
The NLD is headed by Nobel laureate and democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi, who won a landslide election victory in 1990 which the junta has never recognised.
Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for 14 years since then, and was sentenced to another 18 months’ confinement on Wednesday in a major blow to her supporters ahead of fresh elections set for next year.
One of the exiled leaders Sein Win, the first cousin of the NLD leader, said reconciliation would fail unless Suu Kyi was released and allowed to resume her political activities.
“We have produced a detailed proposal for a democratic, federal union of Burma and we will continue to work in the interests of all the people of Burma. That is our job,” he said, using the old name for the country.
“Without her release and that of all other political prisoners, the process of national reconciliation cannot commence nor can the planned 2010 elections be credible.”
The movement’s declaration, backed by former and exiled NLD members, concedes the military an “important political role” as a “stakeholder” in the country’s transition to democracy.
It also refers to the “sharing of responsibility” among civil society, ethnic groups and the military for the rebuilding of the country, but makes no concrete proposals.
Organisers said the meeting had been curtailed due to restrictions by police after Yangon’s embassy complained to the Indonesian government.
Foreign ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said Indonesia could not allow exiled leaders to meet on its territory.
But several local parliamentarians held talks with the exiled opposition activists in a gesture of solidarity with the democracy movement, Sein Win said.
Indonesia is a founding member of the ten-state Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which is criticised for failing to speak out strongly enough against human rights abuses in member-state Myanmar.
Analysts have expressed scepticism about the effectiveness of the new movement and Myanmar’s fragmented exiled politics in general.
“The cardinal failure is its inability to connect with the people inside (Myanmar),” London School of Economics researcher Zarni, who goes by one name, told AFP last week.
democracy for burma 
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