Why the NLD needs to look beyond city lights | New Mandala

Why the NLD needs to look beyond city lights | New Mandala
Nicholas Farrelly, 24 FEBRUARY 2016

This column was published in The Myanmar Times on Monday, 22 February 2016. 

Over the years, I have been lucky enough to visit most of the country’s major provincial hubs. From Kengtung to Myitkyina, Dawei to Sittwe, I find they each have a unique appeal.

With variations in local food, language and culture, these towns are excellent examples of Myanmar’s diversity. Sadly, they also showcase shared experiences of mismanagement during the decades of choking military rule.

Regional garrisons take up prime real estate and, in some towns, people lament that only the roads used by the local commander get first-class upgrades.

They hope that the National League for Democracy can offer better government. A whole new generation of legislators is expected to rapidly master official responsibilities. Tempered expectations are prudent but, in the long term, prosperous and peaceful provincial towns should be the priority for the NLD.

Why does this matter?

First, these towns all service vast hinterland regions. For the majority of Myanmar’s people, many tens of millions, they offer a rare window into rapidly changing economic and political conditions.

Bustling with commerce and energy, far from the razzle-dazzle of Yangon, or the uber-elite preoccupations of Naypyitaw, each presents a glimpse of what the country could become.

Thriving towns will have improved healthcare, education, communication and transportation. Everyone benefits when opportunities in provincial areas grow to match what is on offer in the cities.

Second, all the big towns see people on the move. Many are migrants from the countryside, hoping to exchange their sweat and toil for a regular cash payment. Others have made some money and are looking to get up the first entrepreneurial rungs.

Then there are those who use their time in the provinces to save and plan for the next journey toward social and economic success: Mandalay, Yangon or beyond.

This connective role becomes apparent when you spend an afternoon at a bus station, down by a river port, at a railway terminus or waiting for the next flight out of town. While journeys are long and often bumpy, there is no shortage of people queuing to get on the move.

Third, the major provincial centres are already hotspots of political intrigue. The stories do not always make the national news, but there is no doubting the level of local interest in electoral competition.

Under the 2008 constitution, it is the 14 state and region capitals that host the most accessible sphere of legislative action. In many cases, the hluttaws have taken up space in old State Peace and Development Council facilities.

After the 2010 election, meeting rooms of the dictatorship were retrofitted as legislative chambers. These are the same chambers that are now welcoming the“red wave” of victorious NLD politicians. They carry the hopes of local voters, fed up with the entrenchment of Tatmadaw interests.

Finally, and most importantly, many of Myanmar’s provincial hubs are directly adjacent to areas defined by long-term conflict. The first time I went to Kengtung in the early 2000s, I remember a friendly Shan intellectual offering a potted history of the region’s wars.

By his count, there were elements from 34 different armies and militias in the surrounding mountains. I still don’t know if that was an exaggeration.

With such troubled histories, the peace process will rely on life getting better in the major towns. Hpa-an is another good example. The last time I drove the road out to Myawady on the Thai border a handful of armed groups, including the Tatmadaw, sought to control the traffic and collect their fees.

Such low-level extraction fades into insignificance when we consider the super profits funnelled through towns like Lashio and Myitkyina. So much of Myanmar’s wealth is in the hands of those who call the shots in the provinces.

None of this will get any easier to manage, at least until the central government can generate unanimous support for a muscled-up federal model.

For now, there are already indications of direct challenges to the NLD, especially inRakhine, Shan and Kachin states. It is not obvious that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s instinct for centralisation will offer the space for a new conversation with the provinces. Finding the right balance between local preferences and national politics will need goodwill on all sides.

As these stories develop, it is helpful that better information now tends to be available promptly.

When big news breaks in Sittwe or Dawei we usually hear about it before too long. Journalists can hunt around for local stories without much fear of official reprimand. Even foreign academics have succeeded in gaining long-term research access in important provincial towns.

This new knowledge of local politics and economies will benefit national decision-making and should also help to dilute the emphasis on Yangon, Mandalay and Naypyitaw.

Myanmar’s provincial towns will never get as much attention as their big-city peers. But their development should be watched carefully by anyone hoping to understand the next chapter of political and economic change.

Nicholas Farrelly is director of the Myanmar Research Centre at the Australian National University and co-founder of New Mandala. His column appears in The Myanmar Times each Monday.

Shutting women out no path to peace in Myanmar | New Mandala

Shutting women out no path to peace in Myanmar | New Mandala
Jenny Hedström, 18 FEBRUARY 2016

Photo by UN Photo on flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/un_photo/

Women’s experiences of conflict and violence critical to country’s democratic development, writes Jenny Hedström. 

Myanmar’s keystone Union Peace Conference (UPC), which concluded on 16 January, is one step towards ending decades of conflict and violence in the Southeast Asian nation.

With Myanmar’s women major stakeholders in peace, you could expect their voices to be an important part of this conversation. But where were they? Clearly not in Naypyitaw where 93 per cent of delegates attending the conference were men.

This, unfortunately, comes as no surprise. Women’s experience of and voice in transitions from conflict to peace are still systematically ignored, both in Myanmar and elsewhere.

Here, the ceasefire process underway since 2011, has been dominated by men in public office and in military uniforms, despite agreement urging the inclusion of women across negotiations teams and processes at a minimum 30 per cent. Worryingly, the military sent no female representatives at all to attend the UPC; the Government sent six women and 69 men. In other words, only eight per cent of the Government’s delegates were women. This also runs counter to Myanmar’s international obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

The women who did participate in the UPC report facing a variety of challenges. This included having their input removed from the meeting summaries to their presentations being cut short. These stark images paint a bleak picture for the prospects of an inclusive peace and widespread reconciliation in the country.

Without many more women in a diversity of roles, Myanmar’s peace process will be like so many others: exclusive and unsustainable. It will reinforce existing power inequalities rather than changing them for more inclusive and democratic arrangements. The voices and experiences of women will be missing from post-war initiatives and arrangements.

This is happening right now where the (partial) nation-wide ceasefire agreementdoes not adequately identify nor address the types of violence and insecurity women face. The exclusion of women is also problematic because it overlooks their role in violence. A recent study on women, peace and security undertaken by International IDEA shows that although men are the main perpetrators of violence, women also participate in violent conflict and uphold patterns of discrimination and violence. The same patterns also cause women to suffer from insecurity and violence in ways that are particular to women; in ways that are ‘gendered’.

Study after study affirms that women are important stakeholders in peace and conflict because they are impacted by and impact on violence in very specific and gendered ways. Peace negotiations must therefore include the experiences and the voices of women, or negotiations will be flawed. In short, women’s involvement in peace building is essential for sustainable peace.

Given that on average a country coming out of conflict has a 50 per cent chance of relapsing back into conflict within five years, more comprehensive peace-building strategies are essential. In Myanmar, women active in politics and civil society possess much-needed expertise that must be tapped in to for the peace process to be sustainable.

Through their work with the women, peace and security agenda on both a local and a global level, women from Myanmar have deep understanding of relevant international obligations, possess comparative knowledge from other countries going through similar transitions, and have skills essential to the flourishing of trust across political and ethnic divides. Women’s experiences can in this way enhance the viability and the legitimacy of the peace process, and decrease the risk of conflict breaking out again.

The proposals advanced by the women’s peace movement emphasise the importance of paying attention to human security and transitional justice, the rehabilitation and reintegration of both soldiers and refugees, and just land reforms and development initiatives that are inclusive of social-service needs. As Khon Ja from the Kachin Peace Network so recently and succinctly put it, without justice, there is no meaning of peace.

So how can women’s inclusion be increased?

A new policy paper from the Alliance for Gender Inclusion in the Peace Process (AGIPP) provides policy-relevant recommendations to enhance women’s participation, including quotas, gender audits, and the introduction of domestic legislation aimed at eradicating the violence and discrimination women face.

A new government was elected in November last year. This is an excellent opportunity for them to show that they are serious about the democratic transition. However, if the conversation continues to be as male-dominated and one-sided as it was during the UPC, opportunities to make the transition, and the peace process, both inclusive and democratic will be lost.

Jenny Hedström is a PhD student at Monash University and the editor of International IDEA’s report Women in Conflict and Peace, available in English and Myanmar (selected chapters). The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of International IDEA, its Board or its Council Members.

Democratic contraction in Southeast Asia | New Mandala

Democratic contraction in Southeast Asia | New Mandala
Bridget Welsh,  5 JANUARY 2016

2015 was the year authoritarian governments struck back against democratic pressures.

The story of 2015 in Southeast Asia was Myanmar’s November election. In giving the National League for Democracy and its leader Aung San Suu Kyi a landslide, Myanmar citizens signaled their strong support for democratic change and better governance.

These calls have been loud in recent years — in Malaysia’s 2008 and 2013 elections, in Thailand’s repeated electoral victories for a non-military aligned government, in Cambodia’s 2013 and Singapore’s 2011 polls as well as strong electoral support for democracy in the Philippines and Indonesia. Democratic pressures on Southeast Asian governments have been increasing, and are not likely to recede in the near future.

2015 was the year authoritarian governments in the region struck back. Behind the Myanmar headlines there is a worrying trend of a significant democratic contraction taking place. The use of the authoritarian arsenal by Southeast Asian governments are not new, but in the course of the year regional governments expanded their use of incumbency and control of institutions to shore up their positions.

The most obvious trend has been the increased use of repression, especially targeted toward opposition politicians and critics. In Malaysia, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was jailed in February. In Thailand, a trial began against ousted PM Yingluck Shinawarta as she was denied the right to travel. In Cambodia, opposition politicians were physically attacked. The leader of the opposition Sam Rainsy has delayed his return to Cambodia from November as a result of jail threat. Malaysia has the highest number of opposition politicians facing various charges from sedition to violations of banking finance regulations.

The threats opposition members across the region face in calling for change extend from being physically attacked on the campaign trial (as occurred for Myanmar’s Naing Ngan Lin NLD candidate who was slashed by a machete) to potential bankruptcy.

The use of the law for political ends moves beyond opposition members. Journalists and bloggers remain targeted. Radio reporter Jose Bernardo was shot dead at a restaurant in Manila in November. He joins the other 77 journalists who have been killed in the Philippines since 1992, making this country one of the most dangerous places for media professionals in the world.

Myanmar tops the region’s list with the most number of journalists jailed, pipping Vietnam this year who released some of its bloggers. Notably, blogger Ta Phong Tan was released after 10 years in jail. The situation for bloggers in Vietnam remains serious, with a number of incidents where bloggers and associates were beaten up in mysterious circumstances rather than jailed. In Singapore, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong won his defamation case against a blogger critic Roy Ngerng, who was asked to pay PM Lee S $150,000. Lee joins Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak as the second current leader in the region who filed charges for public criticism.

The crackdowns on freedom of expression extend to ordinary citizens, from artists and academics to taxi drivers.

Young Chaw Sandi Tun was sentenced to six months jail for insulting Myanmar’s army in her Facebook post noting the similarity in color between the Tatmadaw’s uniform and the opposition leader’s clothing. In Thailand, the cases involving lese majeste have extended the boundaries to include insults to the king’s dog. Thanakorn faces up to 15 years in jail for this reference, and joins a long list of cases that have involved jailing of university students for a play, taxi cab conversations, novelists and more.

A mother of two was sentenced to 28 years for her Facebook comments, while a hotel employee received 56 years for his posts in August as part of the lese majeste unending prosecutions. Cartoonist Zunar in Malaysia faces up to 43 years for his satirical art work. These developments have had chilling effects on public discourse. Even in more open Indonesia, discussion of the 1965 attacks on communists were shut down.

As power has been used to quiet alternative voices, the rule of law itself has faced erosion. In some cases the law is not being implemented. In July, the co-Investigating International judge Mark Harmon of the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Cambodia resigned his position after the tribunal declined to arrest two former Khmer Rouge leaders for whom the court had issued warrants.

Despite having the technology to find the daughter separated from her mother Indira Gandhi for seven years by a husband who is abusing religion in a personal vendetta against his ex-wife, the Malaysian police have proven to be unwilling to use its tools to follow the court order to return the daughter to the mother.

In other cases, constitutional frameworks protecting rights have been by-passed through the introduction of military courts – as has been the case in Thailand and called for in Malaysia – and new measures that empower leaders to declare ‘security areas’ without checks on their authority, as occurred with the hurried passage of the National Security Council law in Malaysia. This law is being seen as a measure that will allow unpopular Prime Minister Najib to stay in office if he loses an election. In Myanmar, there are potential laws being considered that may give military impunity for alleged past crimes.

The area where the laws are under real scrutiny continues to be corruption. 2015 showcased some shocking scandals.

In Malaysia the 1MDB $700 million ‘donation’ into Najib’s personal accounts remains inadequately explained, as the rule of law has not been properly applied to the premier and impunity appears to have allowed the premier to hold onto office even with his personal reputation in shatters. Efforts to undermine Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the recent demands for payments from Freeport to politicians to conduct business have showcased that persistent problem of bribery, lack of transparency and abuse of position.

From corruption concerns tied to the Aquino administration in the Philippines to persistent effects of corruption trails associated with Vietnam’s elite, there lacks effective leadership in tackling the region’s most serious governance problem. The end effect is that leaders at the top are seen to engage in graft, reinforcing a system where office is used for personal wealth rather than public service.

Control over resources and alliances with cronies remains a dominant feature of Southeast Asia’s political economy. Four countries in the region – Malaysia (3), Singapore (5), Philippines (6), Indonesia (10) – were in The Economist’s crony capitalist list, which measures the favoritism of wealth toward tycoons and politically-affiliated business interests.

Measures to enhance this favoritism expanded in 2015 through the introduction of consumption taxes in Malaysia and Myanmar, regulations that facilitated more burning rather than less in the haze-affected region in Indonesia and service fees in areas such as tolls to crony-companies. The region’s most vulnerable populations are feeling the economic pain, with depreciating currencies and a slowdown in growth in the region as a whole. These conditions have contributed to conditions where the use of state resources through populist policies have boosted incumbent governments, a factor that contributed to the People’s Action Party’s September 2015 electoral victory.

Those on the margins are being particularly impacted, with serious implications for rights. Southeast Asia was not immune from the global refugee crisis affecting over 60 million people worldwide. Conditions affecting the livelihoods of the Rohingyas in Myanmar remain severe, with conditions in camps across the region not much better. The shocking findings of death camps in Thailand and Malaysia involving torture, rape and human and organ trafficking in May have yet to be properly accounted for.

One reason for this lack of accountability lies with the upgrade the Obama administration gave Malaysia on its human trafficking assessment in the wake of the discovery of the gruesome murders. The Obama administration’s sell out of human rights principles was especially acute in 2015, where interests associated with the Trans-Pacific Partnership overrode other concerns.

From questions tied to the trial of Burmese migrant workers in killing British backpackers Thailand to the persistent practice of ‘sea slaves’ with citizens hauled onto fishing boats, those that are vulnerable remain so at the end of the year, which limited measures to point to strengthening protections.

Vulnerability in 2015 extended to religious and ethnic minorities as well. Bogor was labeled Indonesia’s most intolerant city when it declared a ban of the Shia faith in the city. Hate speech toward Muslims persists in Myanmar, in spite of the electoral victory signaling greater inclusiveness. Churches were burned in Aceh. Christmas celebrations were banned in Brunei. Rights of religious minorities were curbed in Malaysia in cases involving child custody and worship.

Measures to forge peace with minorities fell apart, as the Philippines’ Bansamoro Basic Law did not pass the legislatures. In other places such as Myanmar, Protection Race and Religion Bills denying rights to marriage and religious freedom were introduced, as protections for rights were in fact eroded.

There were nevertheless bright spots in greater freedom across the region – a gender rights bill in Thailand, the end of the persecution of a book seller and academic by religious authorities in Malaysia, the reinstatement of direct local elections in Indonesia and the subsequent peaceful elections in December, to name but a few.

Southeast Asians continue to fight for their freedoms valiantly, over cyberspace, in courtrooms and in communities. The climate however has not been conducive to greater freedoms as those in office continue to use their offices to hold on to power.

As we look ahead, with a slowing economy and persistent insecurities by incumbents, the prospects for expanding rights does not appear promising in 2016. Last year has shown us however that we can expect the unexpected, with the military’s acceptance of the Myanmar’s electoral results as an example.

As ASEAN formally announced its community on 31 December 2015, many hold only to potentially a different ‘imagined community,’ where the ideas of brilliant scholar Benedict Anderson of shared belonging, human dignity and decency live on.

Bridget Welsh is Professor of Political Science at Ipek University, Senior Research Associate at the Center for East Asian Democratic Studies of National Taiwan University, Senior Associate Fellow of The Habibie Center, and University Fellow of Charles Darwin University.

Myanma - The president and the proxy| New Mandala

Myanma - The president and the proxy| New Mandala
Chit Win,  11 NOVEMBER 2015

Barred from office, Aung San Suu Kyi claims she will act “above the president” if her party wins Myanmar’s elections and forms government. With victory imminent, Chit Win looks at how she just may pull it off.

Myanmar’s people have decided they want change.

The reds, the National League for Democracy (NLD) have repudiated the greens, the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in a historic election that was largely peaceful.

The USDP leadership, custodians of Myanmar’s political transformation since the introduction of a quasi-civilian government and new constitution in 2008, have publically conceded defeat. The government and the military have also declared their acceptance of the election results.

At a glance, it looks like a smooth transition for Myanmar and high hopes for democratic change under the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi.

The problem is, it is not that simple.

The main complication is that, despite leading her party to what looks like a resounding victory, Aung San Suu Kyi is not going to be the next president of Myanmar. She is constitutionally barred from the office because of her two sons, who are not Myanmar citizens.

Last week she publicly declared that the next president of Myanmar would be an NLD member and she would direct him or her, should her party win the election and be able to form government. Since then there has been some speculation about who she might pick as her ‘notional president’ and exactly what this arrangement may entail.

So who will be the new president of Myanmar? And in what way can Aung San Suu Kyi influence a role that is constitutionally prohibited from being influenced?  Most importantly, will the country’s military obey this new president?

These are puzzles for the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi to solve as Myanmar enters its post-election phase.

But with the above questions in mind, we can already sketch out some likely scenarios and key challenges.

For Aung San Suu Kyi to get her way, the optimal choice would be a NLD member in his late 50s or 60s with a legislative background.

Myanmar’s constitution says the president has to be over 45 and acquainted with politics, the administration, economics and the military. Though it is not necessarily expected, based on the fact that only 13 per cent of election candidates were women, the new president will also most likely be male.

And while Aung San Suu Kyi may be thinking of a younger president in order to exert maximum influence, she may opt for someone older, in order to appeal to the Myanmar people and their innate respect for their elders.

Clearly then, a man in his late 50s or 60s would be a strong possibility.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s vision of a presidential proxy can also be fulfilled if she appoints an NLD member who comes from a bureaucratic background or is a member of the current legislature (which maintains power until March 2016).

Such a person would be ideal, because the military would have worked with him for the past three years and he would know how the system operates. Her vast international experience may also persuade her to choose someone who is internationally competent.  This reduces the possible candidate to a just handful of people.

There are two key challenges to all of this; one internal and the other external.

The external challenge is the need to secure the support of the military, in particular the 11-member National Defence and Security Council (NDSC) that overseas day-to-day political and security affairs. Six panel members are linked to the military, given it a lot of muscle. These include the vice-president (elected by the military), the military’s Commander-in-Chief, the deputy Commander-in-Chief and three Union Ministers appointed by the Commander-in-Chief and who are active military personnel.

Stiff resistance from the military through the NDSC is expected should the NLD appoint the wrong person. However, this challenge can be overcome by co-opting the military and by forming an inclusive government – something Aung San Suu Kyi has already hinted at.

The greater challenge comes from within her own party, and in particular the question of how Aung San Suu Kyi is going to influence the new president over their whole five year term. Will she micro-manage the president or allow a certain degree of independence?

There are two recent examples of a similar situation: India and Indonesia. Some experts are predicting that Aung San Suu Kyi will take the role of Sonia Gandhi in India, who as a party chairperson effectively ran the government while also maintaining good relations with the prime minister.

On the other hand Aung San Suu Kyi would not want to sour her relationship with her president, as is the case between President Joko Widodo and his party chief Megawati Sukarnoputri in Indonesia. Can she do it? It could come down to the individual she chooses. When people obtain power, they change, and so does their loyalties.

Institutionally, the situation is more complex than it looks. Her presence in the legislature will enhance the legislative role in Myanmar’s democratic consolidation. But, her mentor role over the president will undermine constitutional checks and balances, particularly if Aung San Suu Kyi assumes the role of the speaker of the legislature, as some have predicted she will.

The Constitutional Tribunal may also interfere with her role, and the military may not like it full stop. If she takes an executive post, then she will have to relinquish the party leadership. And with Aung San Suu Kyi as a de facto leader of the country, the new president will be in an awkward position, especially in the international arena.

It’s complicated, to say the least.  With a major victory in her sights, it’s imperative that Aung San Suu Kyi finds an institutionally acceptable way to overcome these potential pitfalls.

Legislative oversight provides a possible solution to her predicament.

With an overwhelming majority in the legislature, it is likely that the NLD’s proposed laws will go through parliament unopposed. Therefore, one possible solution is to make the executive more accountable to the legislature and let the president freely take charge of government.

There are a number of legislative tools for executive oversight and they can effectively control the government. Myanmar’s current legislature is very much familiar with this arrangement; the new legislature will just need to fine tune it.

Rather than overseeing the president and their day-to-day business, Aung San Suu Kyi should control the executive through the legislature, setting an example of how the executive can be tamed by the people’s representatives.

As someone who has finally tamed Myanmar’s military masters, it should be a cinch.

Chit Win is a PhD student at the Australian National University’s Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, and currently a visiting scholar at Indiana University.

This article forms part of New Mandala’s ‘Myanmar and the vote‘ series.

Rakhine and Rohingya: hopes for a peaceful future? | New Mandala

Rakhine and Rohingya: hopes for a peaceful future? | New Mandala

 

JAMES GIGGACHER, 

18 JUNE 2015

A young Rohingya boy in a camp for the internally displaced. Photo by European Commission DG Echo on flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/69583224@N05/

Politician delivers powerful testimony on plight of Rohingya in Myanmar, calls for international assistance.

One of the many highlights from the 2015 Myanmar/Burma Update at The Australian National University earlier this month was hearing from long-time Rohingya politician U Kyaw Min.

First elected in 1990 to the seat of Buthidaung in Rakhine State, he was sentenced to 55 years jail with four members of his family for political activities in 2005. Fortunately the Democracy and Human Rights Party member and his family were released by presidential amnesty in 2012.

In light of May’s Asian migrant crisis, which saw thousands of Rohingya bounced back and forth between Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, U Kyaw Min’s talk during the conference’s session on communal violence provided powerful and timely testimony.

Highlighting a lack of citizenship and the 1.5 million internally displaced Rohingya living in camps “no better than concentration camps” in Rakhine State as critical challenges, U Kyaw Min said the Myanmar government was not interested in addressing the issue.

“Persecution, distortion, arrest. This is what the Rohingya face. Desperate and stripped of their rights, the Rohingya, who can’t enter Myanmar proper, flee,” he said. “Smugglers have taken advantage of this. What was a small-scale business is now large.

“The Myanmar government says the Rohingya are an internal issue. It is their right to solve it their way. But what is happening is real genocide.”

U Kyaw Min also called on foreign governments, including Australia, to do more to help the Rohingya.

“International governments must take action to combat this injustice. We want to live peacefully, we have lived peacefully.

“Up until recently the different groups in Rakhine State have been living peacefully side-by-side. Without one group the other group cannot survive. But since 2012 there has been no cooperation.

“There is no business, the economy is suffering. The people are suffering. And the Rohingya cannot leave.

“I hope we can dream together, Rakhine and Rohingya. I hope for a peaceful and proper future together.”

Have a listen to U Kyaw Min’s speech here or in the player below. And let us know what you think.

My take is that whatever you think of the Rohingya issue, U Kyaw Min’s testimony compels you to think some more.

Glimpses of Myanmar | New Mandala

Glimpses of Myanmar | New Mandala

JAMES GIGGACHER, 

4 JUNE 2015

Squatters on the edge of Yangon. Photo by Boothee Thaik Htun. All rights reserved.

Powerful images capture everyday reality of political and social change.

Burnt out villages in Rakhine state and political processions through Naypyitaw’s halls of power; these are some of the powerful images captured by award-winning Myanmar photographer Boothee Thaik Htun.

The 18 select images from Boothee (some of which are featured in the gallery below) serve as an eye-catching and evocative backdrop to the 2015 Myanmar/Burma Update, which sees scholars and experts from around the world look at the country’s ongoing conflicts and what it means for the future.

Boothee’s photos, which include shots of Kachin soldiers, squatters on the edge of Yangon, and handclasps over tables at the end of peace negotiations, provide visceral glimpses into the day-to-day realities of political and economic change in Myanmar.

Set against the background of his home country’s transition, Boothe’s journey is equally impressive. Starting out as an amateur astro-photographer, he soon went from capturing celestial objects to making a living from the stunning images he captured.

Greater press freedoms and years of training with the Myanmar Photographic Society, saw Boothe land a job at the Myanmar Times, where he won a number of awards for his shots, many of which were featured on the front page.

But Boothee wasn’t content in the world of photojournalism. He wanted to do his own thing, and was drawn to travel photography.

With camera in hand he decided to drift – moving between Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia, and eventually all the way to Nepal and Mt Everest. In 2013 he began Astro-Photo back in Yangon, and his career as a professional freelance photographer was born.

Since that time he has been working on a wide range of photographic assignments, some of them for commercial outfits, others, such as the photographs shown in the gallery here, on current news and affairs in Myanmar.

As part of the 2015 Myanmar/Burma Update Boothe’s photos will be on display in the atrium of the Hedley Bull Centre at the Australian National University, Canberra until the end of June.

Canvass prints of the photos are also on sale, with all proceeds funding Boothe’s ongoing work. Those interested in purchasing a print can emailluke.hambly@anu.edu.au

 

Islam and the state in Myanmar | New Mandala

Islam and the state in Myanmar | New Mandala

JAMES GIGGACHER, 

27 MAY 2015

Melissa Crouch discusses the politics of belonging in Myanmar and the need to reframe understanding of the nation’s Muslim populations.

Recent anti-Muslim violence like the 2012 Rakhine riots in Myanmar has highlighted the plight of an often persecuted but little understood minority.

The ongoing crisis involving thousands of Rohingya (and Bangladeshi) asylum seekers and migrants off the coast of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand has now garnered worldwide attention, throwing more light on a complex issue with a complicated history.

All of this has also exposed a serious gap in knowledge of Muslim communities and how they interact with the state in Myanmar.

In this talk, Melissa Crouch from the University of NSW examines the politics of belonging in Myanmar with a focus on how we can deepen our understanding of the diverse Muslim communities there.

Crouch argues that there is a need to move away from rigid ethnic-based assumptions of Muslims in Myanmar and reframe our understanding to include how Muslim identity is shaped by their relations with the state.

“The politics of belonging can help us to understand some the challenges that Muslims face, both in terms of their relation with the state, as well as with their own communities and other communities,” says Crouch.

“It’s an idea that may be both individual or collective that embodies notions of identity, ideas or acceptance and levels of participation, as well as the ways in which the state responds to these particular communities.”

In Myanmar, Muslim populations like the country’s 1.1 million Rohingya are not allowed to identify as such, but are often considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Many have been denied citizenship and are essentially stateless.

In order to reconceptualise the politics of belonging, and expand our understanding of the relation between Muslims and the state in Myanmar, Crouch suggests that we need to undertake two movements in scholarship.

“First, we need to move away from characterising Islam in Myanmar as violent, hostile and strange. To place Islam on an equal footing with other religions in Myanmar will inevitably require displacing Buddhism from its perceived position as a ‘non-violent’ religion,” says Crouch.

“Second, the study of Islam in Myanmar needs to be acknowledged and welcomed into wider academic discussions on Islam and the state. That is, rather than studying Muslims in Myanmar as an isolated anomaly, in this era of transnational Islam we need to reposition the study of Muslims in Myanmar as an important ‘Islamic crossroad’ between Central, South and Southeast Asia.”

Listen to the full talk in the player above and download from here.

Melissa Crouch is a Lecturer at the Law Faculty, the University of New South Wales. Her research covers Asian legal studies, Islamic law, law and society, public law and comparative law.

This seminar was delivered at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University. Photo of Rohingya woman in Myanmar by Austcare onflickr.

“Never Again”: time to end genocide in Burma | New Mandala

“Never Again”: time to end genocide in Burma | New Mandala

NANCY HUDSON-RODD, 

12 MAY 2015

Photo by UNHCR/ACNUR Américas on flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/acnurlasamericas/

The international community can no longer ignore the plight of Myanmar’s Rohingya, writes Nancy Hudson-Rodd.

In the last few days, hundreds of Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority from Myanmar, have washed up on the shores of Indonesia. According to some reports, many more thousands are still stranded at sea.

The mass exodus speaks volumes for a Myanmar apparently on the march towards political and social reform.

Myanmar’s regime is not ‘backsliding’ on commitments to democratic rule so often misleadingly reported. There was no commitment to democracy, instead two major goals: the maintenance of military rule; and the final eradication of 800,000 plus Rohingya.

What uncomfortable times to live in, times of general amnesia when the spin of Burma is applauded as the ‘truth’. Nations chose to believe a hypothetical future of democratic rule promised by Thein Sein, a former top general chosen in 2010 to be the front man for the old regime with a new façade. The 2010 election results were approved despite procedural irregularities, voter intimidation, ballot manipulation, thousands displaced in Eastern Burma unable to vote, international monitors and reporters denied access, and political prisoners held.

Aung San Suu Kyi, an international icon of human rights, when freed declared herself a politician, denied she was ever “a human rights defender”. She has supported the regime in their sham quest for democracy, the case of mistaking mirage for water.   The military has carefully planned continued rule in the 2015 elections.

Roadmap to ruleNewly appointed Prime Minister General Khin Nyunt pledged to hold elections at an unspecified future date in his inaugural 30 August 2004 speech. He announced elections, as the final step of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) “roadmap to democracy”. Khin Nyunt’s speech was broadcast on Burmese state televisions and the sole national radio program, with no reporters allowed to cover the event. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Situation in Myanmar and the Special Envoy to the UN Secretary-General were denied entry visas in 2004. They wanted to verify reports of increased arrests; “security detainees” given harsh prison sentences for writing, speaking, or peacefully protesting the Constitutional process which denied public comment and participation. This visa refusal, in retrospect, revealed the nature of democracy on offer in Burma.

On 10 May 2008, the regime declared the Constitution overwhelmingly approved in a fraudulent referendum process, held during devastating Cyclone Nargis. It kept troops on stand-by to crush popular unrest, rather than mobilise them for emergency and rescue missions while blocking offers of emergency aid missions from regime-friendly China and India or hostile Western powers such as USA, France and UK. To top it all off, 21 Burmese aid workers were imprisoned for helping survivors. Zargana, comedian and blogger, was sentenced to 59 years in prison, for criticising the regime’s cyclone response on BBC. He was released in 2011 as part of a general amnesty, after having his original 59-year sentence commuted to 35 years. For weeks post-cyclone, a State-run media campaign accused citizen journalists and international reporters of trying to destabilise the government, claiming on state-television that the impact of foreign media intrusion was worse than the cyclone.

From the outset, the regime’s roadmap was to install “discipline flourishing democracy”. Generals would play the role of whips, lest unruly masses, defiant dissidents, autonomy-minded minorities stray from the military’s path towards a warped neo-totalitarian dystopia. Lt-General Thein Sein, Secretary 2 of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), was in charge of drafting a Constitution (1993-2006) of their design.

As President, he explained in 2012 why it took so long to complete. “Actually, we could have wrapped all of it up in a day, but there’s a need to make it look good, isn’t there?” He rejected all proposals by ethnic and other groups, but included a clause to protect current and former military leaders, from prosecution for crimes committed. Perpetrators of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including the current Home Affairs Minister, sit in parliament, reported Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic in 2014.

Army chief senior General Min Aung Hlaing confirmed in January there would be no 2015 pre-election Constitution amendments concerning military representation in parliament while conflict continues. The military can dissolve parliament anytime to “maintain the peace”. War is constant. The military commits copious abuses, terrorising civilians. Yet, only three per cent of the 1.5 million people requiring urgent support are assisted by UNHCR (2015).

The UN General Assembly resolution to create a UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in Myanmar was based on, “continued seriousness of the situation of human rights including imposition of oppressive measures directed in particular at ethnic and religious minorities….and deep concern for Rohingya” (UN General Assembly Resolution 46/132 of December 1991).

No Rohingya in regime’s BurmaThe 2014 Myanmar Population and Housing Census, completed with international financial and technical support, was declared successful despite excluding over 1 million people, including 800,000 Rohingya – who were denied citizenship and right to their identity.

As Maung Wai, permanent representative of Myanmar to the UN Human Rights Council, said on 27 March 2015:

We strongly reject the use of terminology ‘Rohingya’. The people of Myanmar do not and will not recognise such terminology since it has never existed in our ethnic history. We further reject the call to allow self-identification…a false term.

These sentiments echo Thein Sein’s thinking on the issue, who told the Washington Post in 2013 that “There are no Rohingya among the races. We only have Bengalis who were brought for farming [during British rule].”

Burma as 2014 ASEAN chair forbade reference to Rohingya. The word does not appear in Burmese state or independent media. An estimated 800,000 Rohingyas were forced to surrender all temporary white ID cards by 31 March this year. These withdrawn cards, issued under the 1949 Burma Residents Registration Act, effectively strip Rohingya of legal documentation, their identity, and last right to live in Burma.

No opposition groups came to the defence of the Rohingya. Certainly not Aung San Suu Kyi in her role as chair of the Rule of Law and Tranquillity Committee. Since being released from house arrest in November 2010, she has travelled widely, meeting royalty and the powerful, collecting her ‘human rights’ awards. Alas, she has found no time to take an hour flight from her lakeside house to visit the semi-concentration camps in Rakhine state, where nearly 150,000 Rohingyas are locked up; for their own protection of course.

Since 2012, these Rohingya, illegalised and dehumanised, remain locked in squalid state-controlled internally displaced persons(IDP) camps, isolated behind barbwire, guarded by machine-gun wielding security troops. Seventy per cent of Rohingya have no access to enough food, safe water, sanitation, and health care. Malnourishment for children under five is double the national rate, individuals are dying. The regime severely restricts humanitarian help. UN premises and most international NGOs were attacked and ransacked in 2014. Three local INGO staff are still imprisoned for speaking to international media, during the 2012 violent attacks on Rohingya. The regime denies holding political prisoners. Police, navy, army, state security forces, profit by trafficking Rohingya who escape by sea, a lucrative business worth up to $7,000 for each boatload of desperate people.

The current destruction of the Rohingya as a distinct and self-identified ethnic group is not an isolated incident of religious or ethnic violence. Based on three years of research into the plight of Rohingya, Dr Maung Zarni and Alice Cowley conclude that Rohingya have been subject to a process of “slow-burning genocide” since 1978. Both the State in Burma and the local community have committed four out of five acts of genocide as spelled out by the 1948 Convention on the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide.

Amartya Sen has thrown his formidable intellectual weight, supporting the genocide characterisation at a conference on the worsening plight of Rohingya held at Harvard University in November 2014. The Sentinel Project to Prevent Genocide concludes that the risk of genocide or related mass atrocities in Burma is extremely high. Violence, discrimination, and extrajudicial killings mostly directed toward the Muslim Rohingya, conducted by both state and non-state groups are both widespread and systematic.

“Never Again”Bernard Kouchner, French politician, co-founder of Mèdecins Sans Frontiéres and Mèdecins du Monde filed an application of the responsibility to protect (R2P) in Burma on April 2015. His application has sparked considerable debate at the UN, within civil society, and among founders and proponents of the concept. All agree the regime denies adequate protection to civilian populations by obstructing aid, holding a referendum instead of providing aid, and stealing aid to help only the regime. They disagree on whether this situation is a case of R2P.

Debate focuses on how to conduct protection in Burma, or even if it is needed. Despite growing evidence of genocide, the international community so far avoids calling this large-scale human suffering genocide. Is this due to nations framing the genocide in different terms (ethnic/ religious conflict, furthering a peace process, restoring order), or is it the denial of political implications?

Government leaders agreed they had a responsibility to protect civilians from crimes against humanity, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and genocide at the World Summit in 2005. If diplomatic, economic, and political means, do not effect change, then force is required.

This month an international conference on the Rohingya will be held at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway. There, some of the world’s iconic figures including George Soros; Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu; former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad; Irish peace activist and 1976 Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Maguire; former Timor-Leste President, José Ramos-Horta; and former Prime Minister of Norway, Mr Bondevik will publicly call for the end of Burma’s policies of persecution and destruction of Rohingya.

The R2P community internationally should stop splitting theoretical and legal hairs and join this credible chorus calling for the immediate end to the slow genocide of the Rohingya. As excruciating as this genocidal process is because of its slow-motion, decades-long nature, it does give the moral citizens of our world a chance to push for its end by speaking with one voice on this most heinous crime: Burma’s verifiably intentional destruction of an entire ethnic group simply because of their ethnic identify.

It would be tragic if “Never Again” is allowed to remain an empty slogan by those who should know better — diplomats, world leaders, academics, journalists and informed global citizens.

Dr Nancy Hudson-Rodd is a senior honorary research fellow and human geographer based at Edith Cowan University.