Burma resumes peace talks with KIO in China, along with charter row | Asia News – Politics, Media, Education | Asian Correspondent

Burma resumes peace talks with KIO in China, along with charter row | Asia News – Politics, Media, Education | Asian Correspondent
Zin Linn Feb 04, 2013 

The Government of Myanmar (Burma) has welcomed peace gesture proposed in the statement issued by KIO’s Central Committee on February 1, 2013, as per Press Release (6/2013) of its Information Team via the state-run newspapers on 2 February.

GOM said that it has believed the legitimate peace desired by all people can be achieved only through political dialogue. The Government welcomes peace efforts assisted by ethnic ceasefire groups and other organizations in an attempt to support the Union Peace Working Committee and KIO/KIA to resume peace talks and put an end to armed conflicts, according to the press release.

According to the 7Days News Journal, government peacemaking team and ethnic KIO peace delegation will hold talks in the Chinese border town of Ruili in China on 4 February (Monday), after severe fighting in the Kachin State of Burma nearly 18 months.

Officials say the talks will begin Monday in the Chinese border town of Ruili. The meeting comes after the army seized several strategic guerrilla-held hilltops this month in the hills around Laiza, which serves as a headquarters for the rebel movement, AP News said Sunday.

On 11 January 2013, the Lower House of Burma (Myanmar) made a request to Union Peacemaking Central Committee and KIO/KIA at the second day sixth regular session of the First People’s Parliament. The call made by the Lower House to Union Peace-making Central Committee and KIO/KIA says the members of parliament have felt sadness for local people of Kachin state who have been suffering the consequences of the ongoing war. The fighting caused loss of both sides due to daily armed conflicts in Kachin state, it says.

The request keeps on saying that there have been difficulties to hold talks between the members of peace-making team of the government and representatives of KIO/KIA as military action swelling in the region continuously. The request letter says to ease the military tensions in favor of the people’s voices while building trust through the negotiation. Hence, it would pave the way for the lasting peace, says the request letter signed by the Lower House Speaker Thura Shwe Mann.

The key point of disagreement between the KIO and the military-backed government is the attitude with the 1947 Panglong Agreement. KIO has declared that it will talk through the ethnic alliance, the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), keeping on the spirit of the Panglong Agreement.

On the contrary, the military-backed government made its negative response of peace talks based on the principles of the 1947 Panglong Treaty advised by the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO). The government sticks to the 2008 controversial constitution as the guideline for the peace talks.

The landmark Panglong Agreement mainly guaranteed self-determination of the ethnic minorities and offered a large measure of autonomy, including independent legislature, judiciary and administrative powers. However, the dream of equality and a federal union is far from being realized some six decades after signing the Panglong Agreement.

The new constitution, approved in a May 2008 referendum, is inundated with misleading principles. It says the country must be united under one military command. To bring the ethnic groups in line with this proviso, the military regime has ordered all armed rebel groups to become part of Burma’s border guard force ahead of the 2010 election.

Ethnic minorities have been suffering through five decades of immoral military operations in the name of national unity. Attacks on these rural civilians continue on a daily basis. There is a constant demand from Burma’s ethnic groups to enjoy equal political, social and economic rights. The Constitution must guarantee the rights of self-determination and of equal representation for every ethnic group in the Parliament. It must also include provisions against racial discrimination.

During the June-2004 National Convention sponsored by the previous junta, 13 ceasefire groups put forward a political offer demanding equal access to the plenary session. But the convention’s convening committee dismissed the proposal as improper. When the 2008 Constitution came out, none of the political points proposed by the ethnic representatives were included.

On this political issue, there is a big gap between the military junta and the NLD led by Aung San Suu Kyi. To the military autocrats, allowing the ethnic minorities to enjoy equal political, social and economic rights is a risk towards a collapse of sovereignty.

To the NLD and ethnic alliance parties, granting equal rights to ethnic minorities will certainly guarantee peace, stability and prosperity of the country. Actually, the military-backed government leaders strongly support the unitary state instead of a federal union state. On the other hand, the NLD and ethnic leaders continuously demand in favor of a democratic federal union state.

At the first Union Parliament second regular session on 22 August 2011, President Thein Sein said, “We know what happen to people and what people want. And we are striving our best to fulfill their needs to the full extent. To conclude my speech, I promise that our government as a democratically-elected government will do our best for the interests of the people.”

If the president really knows what people want, he should think about amending of the controversial constitution in which none of the political aspirations suggested by the ethnic representatives was integrated.

If the existing government truthfully committed to start political reforms, the first thing it should bear in mind is providing access to debate on constitutional flaws in the parliament.

Without a debate on the 2008 Constitution by all stakeholders, Burma will not rise above its political fiasco including the Kachin conflict.

UK Labour Party's Shadow Minister raises questions about Thai political prisoner Somyot | Asia Provocateur

UK Labour Party's Shadow Minister raises questions about Thai political prisoner Somyot |  Asia Provocateur

The UK's Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister, Kerry McCarthy MP (Labour Party) has raised questions with the UK government regarding the recent imprisonment of Thai journalist and trade unionist, Somyot Pruksakasemsuk. 

Somyot, the editor of the "Voice of Taksin" magazine received a 10year prison sentence from a Bangkok court last week for the crime of "lese majeste" - or defaming the monarchy - in relation to two articles that appeared in his publication. The sentencing, while extremely draconian, was also controversial as the articles in question didn't actually contain direct references to the Thai monarchy but made allegorical and fictional representations which the court then determined were defamations. 

An international campaign, involving trade unions and other activists to free Somyot is now emerging. Before sentencing the UK's Trade Union Congress General Secretary, Frances O'Grady, also raised concerns regarding Somyot's prosecution.  

Kerry's first question was

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what reports he has received on the trial and conviction of Somyot Prueksakasemsuk in Thailand under that country's lèse majesté laws; and what recent representations he has made to the Thai government to support the promotion of human rights in that country. 

The response from the UK govt was

Our embassy in Bangkok has been following closely the case of Somyot Prueksakasemsuk. Three representatives of the embassy attended the trial on 23 January, and the embassy subsequently reported details of the outcome to me. Following the verdict, the European Union issued a statement expressing deep concern at the decision to sentence Somyot to 10 years imprisonment. The statement noted that the verdict seriously undermined the right to freedom of expression and press freedom. Our ambassador has also raised the issue with the Thai authorities.  The Government frequently raises human rights concerns with Thailand, both at ministerial and official level. For example, the then Minister of State, Mr Browne, raised human rights issues when he met Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubamrung during his visit to Thailand in July 2012. That discussion included an exchange of views on lèse majesté. 

Kerry's second question was 

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs pursuant to the answer of 21 May 2012, Official Report, column 454W, on Thailand, what recent representations he has made to the government of Thailand in support of freedom of expression and reform of the lèse-majesté laws. 

The UK govt's response was

The Government frequently raises the issues of freedom of expression and the lèse-majesté law with Thai interlocutors, both at ministerial and official level. The then Minister of State, Mr Browne, raised lèse-majesté among other human rights issues when he met Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubamrung during his visit to Thailand in July 2012.

Rohingya Find Welcome in Thailand’s Conflict-hit Deep South | The Irrawaddy Magazine

Rohingya Find Welcome in Thailand’s Conflict-hit Deep South | The Irrawaddy Magazine
JOE JACKSON / THE IRRAWADDY, January 26, 2013
 
PATTANI, Thailand — The three conflict-ridden provinces of Thailand’s Deep South are not a popular destination for many visitors. A renewed and intensifying insurgency, which has killed more than 5,300 people since 2004, provides a daily diet of military check-points, assassinations and bombings.

But for Sakir Husan, 18, and other ethnic Rohingya fleeing sectarian violence in Burma’s Arakan State, the region is proving a welcome escape from the nightmares of their lives back home. Husan is part of a 22-strong group—18 men and four women—currently being housed in the capital of Pattani Province since Jan. 16.

They are among hundreds of Rohingya who have landed on the shores of southern Thailand this month and then been dispersed across the country by the authorities. But in contrast to the frosty reception Rohingya have often received from the Thai state, which has been criticized by human rights groups for previously returning them to sea or overland to Burma, the group in Pattani has received the warmest of welcomes from the local—predominantly Malay-Muslim—population.

“I am happy to be here—and that everybody has been so kind,” a visibly drained Husan tells The Irrawaddy through a translator, surrounded by local well-wishers. The 18-year-old, wearing a small prayer cap and longyi, says he felt he had little choice but to leave his home—and parents—behind in the Arakan State capital Sittwe.

“Before we left our homeland, we felt like we would be killed. So we decided to take our chances at sea, and maybe we can survive,” he explains. Husan says the group spent 20 days at sea in a boat packed with 143 people, surviving by drinking rain and seawater and never giving up hope.

“Some people were in the depths of the boat, others had no energy, but we eventually made it,” he adds.

He was separated from his brother on arrival in Thailand, and has not heard from him since. Although he has a cousin in the group in Pattani, the trauma of being apart from his family is taking its toll: “Even though I’m here, my heart misses my parents—they are still in Burma, they could not leave.”

In an apparent show of Muslim solidarity, scores of locals have been flocking daily to the government building in Pattani where they are being housed to meet the Rohingyas and donate everyday essentials. Among the items piling up at the center are sacks of rice, noodles, biscuits, canned food, water, eggs, toiletries and mats to sleep on.

“I want to donate—we are all brothers so we have to help,” says Medina Adulyarat, 22, a Pattani local who came to donate items, comfort the refugees and talk to them through translators.

Although both the Rohingya in Burma and elements of the Malay-Muslim population in Thailand’s Deep South are involved in varying degrees of conflict with their respective neighboring Buddhist communities, locals in Pattani deny this is the basis for their sympathy and support.

“The situations are very different,” says Shakira Haji Marwan, a local education worker donating detergent, soap and toothbrushes. “The Burmese government doesn’t even recognize them as citizens, while here Malay-Muslims are at least recognized as part of the Thai nation state.”

For Marwan, the compassion being shown is simply human. “We pity them because from what we know they were treated badly in Burma—not as human beings but as animals. So as a Muslim, when I know Rohingyas are here, I try to help [with] what I can. Most Muslim people here, when they heard what had been happening to them in Burma, they prayed to God for their protection.”

The group in Pattani are being temporarily housed in an office of the Thai government’s Ministry of Social Development and Human Security. The space is so small some of the men are sleeping outdoors under tarpaulins. It is unclear how long they will be there.

The government is still deciding how to deal with the latest arrivals of Rohingya—numbering as many as 4,000 in the last three months. State agencies were meeting on Jan. 25 ahead of forthcoming discussions with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). NGOs have been pushing for unfettered access to the Rohingya, with some success. Staff from the UNHCR and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have been visiting them across the country, including in the Deep South, to check on living conditions, help establish contact with their relatives back in Arakan State and provide basic basic necessities.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, wants the government to formulate a consistent and more humane policy towards the Rohingya. He tells The Irrawaddy that Thai people across the country have shown remarkable and admirable support for the migrants—and that the authorities should follow their example.

“In the past the Rohingya have been classified as a security threat. Recent weeks shows nothing could be further from the truth—these people come with nothing. So the Thai government should do the right thing,” he says.

The Thai Supreme Commander, Gen Tanasak Patimaprogorn, has called on the international community to provide more assistance for the refugees. But Robertson says stemming the flood of Rohingya to the shores of southern Thailand requires like-minded Southeast Asian nations to put more pressure on the Burmese government to grant them full citizenship and end their stateless plight. “It just has to stop: that’s what the message needs to be,” he says.

Meanwhile, the recent mass arrivals of Rohingya in Thailand have focused the spotlight on the smuggling of refugees from Burma and the possible role of the Thai Army in the process. The country’s Anti-Human Trafficking Center, part of the Department of Special Investigations, said this week an investigation into the wave of Rohingya migrants arriving in southern Thailand found they were not victims of organized mass human trafficking. But The Bangkok Post reports that police are probing two military officers attached to the powerful Internal Security Operations Command who are suspected of involvement in the smuggling of Rohingya. The pair, holding the rank of sublieutenant and major, are being investigated by an Army panel, according to the newspaper.

Rohingya migrant Sakir Husan says he paid nobody to board the boat fleeing Arakan and was not aware of Army involvement in his journey. He told The Irrawaddy he has only one request of the Thai authorities: “I just don’t want to go back to Burma.”

Thailand sentences editor to 10 years in jail for royal insult | Asia News – Politics, Media, Education | Asian Correspondent

Thailand sentences editor to 10 years in jail for royal insult | Asia News – Politics, Media, Education | Asian Correspondent
AP News, Jan 23, 2013

BANGKOK (AP) — A prominent Thai activist and magazine editor was sentenced to a decade in prison Wednesday for defaming Thailand’s monarchy, a verdict rights groups condemned as the latest affront to freedom of expression in the Southeast Asian country.

Somyot Pruksakasemsuk was convicted of publishing two articles in an anti-establishment magazine that made negative references to the crown.

The verdict came despite repeated calls by rights groups to free Somyot, who has been jailed since 2011. It also underscored the harsh nature of Thailand’s lese majeste laws, which critics say have frequently been abused by politicians’ intent on silencing rivals.

The articles in question were published under a pseudonym in Somyot’s now-defunct Voice of Taksin magazine, which he launched in 2009 to compile political news and anti-establishment articles from writers and contributors.

Judges found both pieces contained content that defamed the royal family and argued that Somyot, as a veteran editor, knew that and chose to print them anyway. The court announced two five-year jail terms — one for each story.

“(Somyot) should have better judgment than ordinary journalists. He must have understood that the articles contained lese majeste content, but chose to publish them anyway,” one of judges said in the sentence.

Somyot said he would appeal the verdict but would not seek a royal pardon.

Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said the ruling “appears to be more about Somyot’s strong support for amending the lese majeste law than about any harm incurred by the monarchy.”

Although the articles were published in 2010, Somyot was only arrested the following year — five days after launching a petition drive to revoke Article 112 of the nation’s criminal code, which mandates three to 15 years in jail for “whoever defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir to the throne or the regent.”

Human Rights Watch said the author of the articles, who penned them under pseudonym, has never been charged with any crimes and is living in Cambodia.

The European Union also weighed in on the verdict, saying it “seriously undermines the right to freedom of expression and press freedom” and “affects Thailand’s image as a free and democratic society.”

More than 100 observers, including Thai and international scholars and journalists, diplomats and Somyot’s supporters, were in court to hear the verdict.

Somyot, who was brought in with his legs shackled, joked to a friend that he would no longer need books to read in prison because he thought he would be freed.

In addition to the 10-year punishment, Somyot was also sentenced to a one-year term in a separate criminal case in which he was charged for alleging a Thai general was behind the country’s 2006 army coup.

The coup ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and sparked years of sometimes violent political unrest from which the nation has yet to fully recover. Somyot was also a leader of the so-called Red Shirt movement, which supported Thaksin.

“His guilty verdict and sentence should be viewed as a sign that Thailand’s deep political schisms are far from healed,” Adams said.

PH takes China to UN arbitral tribunal | Inquirer, net

PH takes China to UN arbitral tribunal | Inquirer, net
Fat Reye, January 22nd, 2013 


MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Tuesday announced that the Philippines has taken the step of bringing its West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) territorial disputes to China before an Arbitral Tribunal under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to achieve a peaceful and durable solution to the disputes.
The announcement was made by Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert Del Rosario.

Del Rosario, in a press conference, said that a note verbale detailing the notification and statement of claim that “challenges before the Arbitral Tribunal the validity of China’s nine-dash claim to almost the entire South China Sea (SCS) including the West Philippine Sea and to desist from unlawful activities that violate the sovereign rights and jurisdiction of the Philippines under the 1982 UNCLOS” was handed to Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Ma Keqing at around 1 p.m. Tuesday.

“The Philippines has exhausted almost all political and diplomatic avenues for a peaceful negotiated settlement of its maritime dispute with China……To this day, a solution is still elusive. We hope that the Arbitral Proceedings shall bring this dispute to a durable solution,” Del Rosario said.

“We hope that China would join us in this aspiration,” Del Rosario said.

Del Rosario noted that Solicitor General Francis H. Jardeleza has been tasked as the legal representative for the Philippines in these Arbitral proceedings.

“The lead counsel of the Philippines is Paul Reichler of Foley and Hoag LLP,” he said.

Kachin Activists, Monks Begin 2-Month March | The Irrawaddy Magazine

Kachin Activists, Monks Begin 2-Month March | The Irrawaddy Magazine
LAWI WENG / THE IRRAWADDY, January 22, 2013

RANGOON—A group of activists and monks have embarked on a peace march from Rangoon to Kachin State, urging the government to stop the fighting between ethnic rebels and the national army in Burma’s northernmost state.

The march, which is expected to take two months, began on Monday morning from Rangoon’s city hall but was delayed after the 15 activists and five monks were stopped by local authorities.

“We plan to walk 30 miles every day, but we couldn’t do that today because the authorities blocked us for a while, so there has been a delay,” Aung Min Naing, one of the activists, told The Irrawaddy on Monday.

Authorities told the marchers they needed to apply for government permission, Aung Min Naing said, adding that the group had already shared their plans with the government’s peace center and ethnic affairs committee.

The activists are calling for an end to the conflict that has raged in Kachin State since a 17-year ceasefire between ethnic rebels and the government broke down in June 2011.

After weeks of heavy fighting this month, President Thein Sein said the government had ordered a ceasefire in the resource-rich northern state, but clashes continued on the ground.

The activists and monks are marching to Laiza, a town near the border with China where tens of thousands of civilians live and have taken shelter in camps for internally displaced persons (IDP). The town has been the target of recent air raids because it is where ethnic rebels from the Kachin Independence Army have established their headquarters.

The government has forbidden international aid groups from accessing the IDP camps in Laiza and other rebel-held areas.

In Rangoon, onlookers gave the marchers food and money for the displaced Kachin civilians.
“This is how they show us that they want to have peace,” Aung Min Naing said. “We’ll keep walking to reach Laiza unless the government puts us in prison.”

The activists reached Pegu Division, on the border with Rangoon Division, on Tuesday but were again restricted by local authorities.

“They told us not to hold up our flags,” said Yan Naing Tun, another activist on the march.
Like many ethnic groups in Burma, the KIA has long fought for basic rights and greater autonomy from the national government, and is calling for political dialogue to discuss a resolution.

Thai PM: Rohingya ‘might join southern insurgency’ | Asia News – Politics, Media, Education | Asian Correspondent

Thai PM: Rohingya ‘might join southern insurgency’ | Asia News – Politics, Media, Education | Asian Correspondent

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Sinawatra indulged in some loaded conjecturing yesterday when she warned that the 840-plus Rohingya in detention in Thailand “might join the southern insurgency rather than seek asylum in a third country”. The men, women and children in question were found in Songkla’s Sadao district over the course of several raids last week on smuggling dens run by human trafficking rackets.

Their future is now the subject of a tussle between Thai authorities and the UN refugee agency, although Yingluck made clear her feelings that they are a threat to Thailand and should be deported back to Burma (a veritable lions’ den for the stateless Muslims). That had anyway seemed likely until the UN intervened and stalled the deportation, and Thailand now appears to be feeling the pressure of several years of international condemnation following other grisly episodes involving the Rohingya.

The Prime Minister’s statement, apparently unsubstantiated, is a reckless one, based mainly on the hackneyed assumption that any disenfranchised Muslim is automatically a terrorist threat. It risks directing anti-Muslim sentiment at the Rohingya, who are in Thailand in part to escape that branding.

Many of these people have suffered similar treatment in Burma, where Arakanese politicians and a worrying cross-section of the Burmese population brand them ‘terrorists’ and have embarked on a witch-hunt to expose Rohingya ‘sympathisers’ among Arakanese.

Thai media’s labeling of the group as “illegal migrants”, while technically true, also distorts the picture somewhat. Given the reasons why they are in Thailand – to escape abject poverty, racial and religious persecution, vicious ethno-religious violence, bans on accessing state education and healthcare, and much more – the line between ‘migrant’ and ‘refugee’ is heavily blurred. Deporting these ‘migrants’ could in fact amount to refoulement (international law-speak for returning a victim of persecution to a place of danger), which is illegal.

Close scrutiny of Thailand’s actions is now of the utmost importance, with the Thai navy having been placed on alert for signs of more boatloads of Rohingya. In 2008 the navy towed a boatload of Rohingya back out to sea and left many to dehydrate to death – the subsequent media coverage sparked international condemnation that shone a spotlight on Thailand’s apathetic attitude towards refugees (it is not a signatory of the UN convention on refugees). This focus must continue.

Among the 840 Rohingya was a 10-year-old boy: “According to his story, Nu Rahasim’s parents and siblings all were brutally killed by authorities,” said the Bangkok Post. “The orphaned Nu, who showed scars he said came from beatings and slashes by Myanmar troops, then joined a group of 140 Rohingya who sought help from an affluent man in the violence-plagued [Arakan] state, in the hope of getting out of the country.”

The last thing he needs is for a world leader to suggest he may become a terrorist – it could happen, but no more so than any other disenfranchised youth, whether they be white, black, Muslim or Christian. People aren’t born with extremist tendencies. The 10-year-old probably thought he was one of the lucky ones when he made it to Thailand. Now he is in detention, slandered by a prime minister, and awaits possible return to the country he risked death to flee.