Myanmar Weekly News 4th January 2014 Vol.1 No.1

Myanmar Weekly News
4th October 2014
Vol.1 No.40
MYANMAR WEEKLY NEWS
Vol 1, No.40
4th October 2014
www.myanmar.com
Table of Contents
NEWSMAKERS
Myanmar men DNA matches to murdered tourists
Myanmar State Media Silent on HK Protests
Myanmar and Sri Lankan Hard-Liners Ink Agreement
Myanmar confirms controversial Rohingya plan at
United Nations
Rights groups condemn Myanmar’s Rohingya plan
Myanmar: UN officials cite citizenship issue, expansion
of aid as key concerns
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POLITICS
Myanmar men DNA matches to murdered tourists
Thai national police chief Somyot Poompanmoung (centre) stands next to the two suspected of killing the British tourists. Photo: Reuters
(Reuters) -Two Myanmar workers have confessed to killing two British tourists in Thailand
and a DNA match has been found, police said, adding that a case that damaged the
country's tourism industry had almost been resolved.
Thailand, which generates almost 10 percent of gross domestic product from tourism, is still
under martial law after a May 22 coup that scared off some tourists.
The bodies of David Miller, 24, and Hannah Witheridge, 23, were discovered on a beach on
Koh Tao, or Turtle Island, in the south of the country on September 15, close to the hotel
where they had been staying.
The two workers from Myanmar, wearing helmets and handcuffs, during a re-enactment of the crime. Photo: Reuters
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"The suspects admitted that they are the real culprits so we have brought both to do a
reconstruction," national police chief Somyot Poompanmoung said.
The men, identified by police as "Saw" and "Win", wore white motorcycle helmets and
handcuffs as they took part in the re-enactment, a common practice in Thai murder cases.
The pair raped Witheridge before killing her, Somyot told reporters in Koh Tao, adding that
the DNA of the two men matched DNA found on the deceased.
The news follows weeks of pressure on police to find the murderers and growing criticism of
authorities over the standard of the investigation, from not sealing off the crime scene
quickly enough to letting potential suspects leave the island.
With two suspects in custody, police were gathering evidence and would seek an arrest
warrant from a court, deputy national police chief Jaktip Chaijinda said. A third Myanmar
citizen had been held since Thursday on suspicion of involvement, he added.
"Today the case should be finished because we want to clear this case up as soon as
possible so that our tourism industry can bounce back," Jaktip said.
Miller died from drowning and blows to the head, while Witheridge died from severe head
wounds, post-mortem examinations by Thai forensic officials have shown.
Somyot attributed the crime to sexual jealousy.
"The suspects saw them kissing and were aroused, so they attacked and got rid of the man
and proceeded to rape the female victim."
Some rights groups have voiced concern over the lack of legal representation for the men.
"The suspects have been kept without legal representation. We still don't have lawyers
observing the process directly," said Pornpen Khongkachonkiet, a human rights activist.
"So we are suspicious about the judicial process in terms of these alleged confessions."
Police chief Somyot said the suspects had made no request for lawyers.
"They haven't asked for lawyers. If they had asked for lawyers we would have provided
lawyers for them as this is their basic right."
Migrant workers, particularly from neighbouring Myanmar, have been used as scapegoats
for crimes in Thailand before. The rape and murder of 23-year-old Welsh backpacker Kirsty
Jones in 2000 was blamed on an ethnic Karen guide from Myanmar who was beaten by
police in an attempt to coerce a confession.
Despite a number of arrests, no charges have ever been brought over her death.
Thailand hosts about 2.5 million migrants from its poorer neighbours. Many take jobs Thais
do not want in fishing, agriculture and construction. Many work as domestic helpers or
cleaners in hotels and restaurants.
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Police denied making the Myanmar suspects scapegoats.
"In this sort of case we usually do not take risks and have never thought of bringing in a
scapegoat because this is a case with interest worldwide," Jaktip said.
- Reuters
Source: http://www.smh.com.au/world/two-myanmar-men-have-dna-matches-tomurdered-british-tourists-thailand-police-say-20141004-10q6ip.html
Myanmar clashes: US embassy warns citizens
Yangon - The US embassy in Myanmar on Wednesday issued a warning to its citizens
travelling in eastern Myanmar after clashes between the military and ethnic minority rebels.
Various rebels groups have battled the central government in Myanmar since shortly after
its independence in 1948. While the government has in recent years struck ceasefires with
almost all factions, clashes occasionally flare up.
The US embassy said incidents over the past week included a rocket-propelled grenade
attack on a bus in Karen state and the discovery of two improvised explosive devices in the
Karen state town of Myawaddy on the border with Thailand.
“If you see something suspicious, leave the area immediately and report it to local
authorities,” the embassy posted on its Twitter account. “Do not touch, move, or tamper
with any suspicious package.”
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack on the bus and Myanmar officials have
not said if there were casualties.
Media has reported clashes during the past week between the military and the Democratic
Karen Benevolent Army and a faction of the Karen National Union (KNU), ethnic minority
guerrilla factions that have ceasefire agreements with the government.
Myanmar military and government officials were not available for comment.
Thailand put its troops on the border on high alert this week because of the clashes in Karen
state, said Paradorn Pattanathabutr, a security adviser in the office of Prime Minister
Prayuth Chan-ocha.
On Monday, Thailand closed the border crossing between the western Thai town of Mae Sot
and Myawaddy, one of the main crossing points between the two countries. A Thai official
told Reuters on Wednesday that the border was open again.
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The latest round of peace talks between the Myanmar government and an array of ethnic
minority guerrilla factions ended on Sept. 27 without agreement on a national ceasefire.
Most of the rebel factions have been battling for greater autonomy under a federal system.
Myanmar's semi-civilian government, which took over in 2011 after nearly 50 years of
military rule, and has made signing a national ceasefire a part of its reform programme.
“We are confident that we are now getting close to achieving a comprehensive and lasting
peace,” Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin told the United Nations general Assembly on
Monday.
But an officer in the KNU, Colonel Ner Dah Mya, said the government should be aware that
the latest clashes could undermine the effort to seal a national agreement.
“The fighting that has happened could destroy the peace talks,” he told reporters. - Reuters
Source: http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/myanmar-clashes-us-embassy-warns-citizens1.1758513#.VCyv31friXc
Myanmar State Media Silent on HK Protests
Tens of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators, some waving lights from mobile phones, fill the streets in the main financial district of
Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2014.
As pro-democracy protests continue in Hong Kong, the state-run media in Myanmar, also
known as Burma, have thus far been silent on the events in the former British colony.
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Information Minister Ye Htut Wednesday told VOA's Burmese service that it is the
government's editorial policy not to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries.
"According to our editorial policy, state-owned media didn't report on some affairs which
may intervene in the internal affairs of other countries," he said. "Even though we are going
to transform public service media, we are still a state-owned one. So if we report on this
news, it sometime means [the government] are assumed to agree with this."
But according to Kyaw Min Swe, Chief Editor of Rangoon's The Voice, anti-government riots
in Thailand were covered during the time of previous minister.
"I think it depends on the new minister himself," he said.
Under previous ministers, "[state-owned media] reported some international news like [in]
Thailand's case," he added. "They reported on unhealthy food and cosmetic of Chinese
imports and some other international news during the period of the minister Aung Kyi."
Even though Myanmar's state-run media have been silent on the Hong Kong protests, the
country's growing private media have featured extensive coverage of the events.
This report was produced in collaboration with the VOA Burmese service.
Source: http://www.voanews.com/content/myanmar-state-media-silent-on-hong-kongprotests/2469353.html
Myanmar government ban fails to stop maids heading here
SINGAPORE - Maids from Myanmar are still coming to work in Singapore, defying a ban
imposed by their government.
Myanmar has barred its citizens from working in the Republic for five months unless
agencies in Singapore sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU). It took the action last
Monday after reports about ill-treatment of Myanmar maids in Singapore.
Maid agencies feared numbers from Myanmar would drop, but they now say the ban is not
being enforced strictly. About 50 domestic helpers a day have been arriving here in the past
week - similar to numbers before the ban.
"It has been business as usual for us," said Ms Kerri Tan, a director at one of Singapore's
largest Myanmar maid agencies, United Channel.
Association of Employment Agencies Singapore president K. Jayaprema said the MOU is
being looked at. "We need to ensure that the interests of Singapore agents are protected
too," she added.
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Maids from Myanmar are typically paid $400 to $430 a month. They can go without wages
for up to eight months to cover the recruitment fees.
They make up the fastest-growing group of domestic workers here. Their number has grown
by 50 per cent over the past two years, from about 20,000 to more than 30,000.
Demand has gone up because they are cheaper to hire than Indonesians or Filipinos. The
Philippine and Indonesian governments have mandated minimum monthly wages of $500
and $450 respectively for maids from their countries.
While more Myanmar maids are coming to Singapore, a rising number are also running
away from their employers' homes. Migrant worker activists told The Straits Times
previously that the women were discouraged by having to pay off large loans.
Singapore agencies said that fees paid to agents in Myanmar could go up in the meantime,
with some asking for $300 more. Recruitment fees for Myanmar maids already come to
about $3,000, given the lack of enforcement of rules in Myanmar.
Mr Tay Khoon Beng, owner of Best Home Employment Agency, said: "Myanmar agencies
say it is hard to bring the maids here, but they are just using the opportunity to earn more."
Other agents said some airport officials in Myanmar are asking for bribes of US$50 (S$63) a
maid to let them board flights to Singapore.
"The extra fees will be passed on to the maids, and their loans will go up," said Mr Tay.
"They are on the losing end."
Ms Jayaprema agreed that the recruitment fees must be reduced.
"The Myanmar government has to limit the fees that their recruitment agents charge, and it
must enforce the rules. If not, the problem will just go on," she said.
Source: http://news.asiaone.com/news/singapore/myanmar-government-ban-fails-stopmaids-heading-here
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Myanmar and Sri Lankan Hard-Liners Ink Agreement
Myanmar’s radical Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu attends a media briefing in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014. Wirathu, known
for his anti-Muslim campaign, has formalized an agreement with a like-minded Sri Lankan Bodu Bala Sena or Buddhist
A Myanmar Buddhist monk and a Sri Lankan ultranationalist both known for campaigning
against Muslims formally signed on Tuesday an agreement to work together to protect
Buddhism, which they say is challenged worldwide.
Ashin Wirathu leads the fundamentalist 969 movement that has been accused of instigating
deadly violence against minority Muslims in Myanmar. He was a special invitee Sunday at a
rally of Bodu Bala Sena, or Buddhist Power Force, which also has been accused of
instigating violence and claims minority Muslims are trying to take over Sri Lanka by having
more children, marrying Buddhist women and taking over businesses.
The groups said their agreement involves networking and building the capacity to stabilize
Buddhism. They promised to release the contents of the agreement soon.
"I expect a lot of problems because I have decided to work with Bodu Bala Sena for the
upliftment of Buddhism. But we are ready to face anything," he told reporters.
"The problems will not be from within but from outside," Wirathu said without elaborating.
He however insisted that the partnership was not to harm any religious group.
Joining 969 could boost an already soaring support base for Bodu Bala Sena, which, in turn,
could exacerbate mistrust and tensions between Sri Lanka's majority Sinhalese-Buddhists
and its Muslims, who are 10 percent of the country's 20 million people.
Politically, President Mahinda Rajapaksa's credibility among Muslims stands to erode further
after his government allowed Wirathu to visit Sri Lanka despite opposition from Muslim
groups, including his own allies.
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Wirathu's 969 started on the fringes of society but now boasts supporters nationwide in
Myanmar.
Hundreds of people died in 2012 sectarian violence in Myanmar, with about 140,000, mostly
Muslims, forced from their homes. Buddhist monks were accused of instigating and
sometimes actively participating in the violence.
Bodu Bala Sena is also accused of instigating violence against Muslims in June killing two
and wounding dozens. Many shops and homes were also destroyed by fire.
Source:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/myanmar-sri-lankan-hard-linersink-agreement-25856479
Myanmar confirms controversial Rohingya plan at United Nations
By Jared Ferrie
Myanmar's Minister for Foreign Affairs Wunna Maung Lwin addresses the 69th United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters in
New York September 29, 2014.
YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar has confirmed to the United Nations it is finalizing a plan that
will offer minority Rohingya Muslims citizenship if they change their ethnicity to suggest
Bangladeshi origin, a move rights groups say could force thousands into detention camps.
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Most of Myanmar's 1.1 million Rohingya are stateless and live in apartheid-like conditions in
Rakhine state on the western coast of the predominantly Buddhist country. Almost 140,000
Rohingya remain displaced after deadly clashes with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists in 2012.
Reuters reported at the weekend that the national government had drafted a plan that will
give members of the persecuted Rohingya minority a bleak choice: accept ethnic
reclassification and the prospect of citizenship, or be detained.
"An action plan is being finalised and will soon be launched," Foreign Minister Wunna Maung
Lwin said in an address to the U.N. General Assembly on Monday, requesting the United
Nations to "provide much-needed development assistance there".
"We are working for peace, stability, harmony and development of all people in Rakhine
state," he said.
It was the first public reference to the controversial plan, which the government has been
drafting largely in secret, to the extent that humanitarian workers have until recently been
shown only hard copies.
The Rakhine State Action Plan outlines projects including rebuilding homes for displaced
people, improving health care and education, and promoting reconciliation, according to a
draft obtained by Reuters.
More controversially, the plan contains a section on a process to determine whether
Rohingya are citizens. Rohingya would be required to register their identities as Bengali, a
term most reject because it implies they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh despite
having lived in the area for generations.
The plan proposes that authorities "construct temporary camps in required numbers for
those who refuse to be registered and those without adequate documents".
It states that the government will ask the U.N. Refugee Agency, the UNHCR, for help to
resettle overseas those who fail to obtain citizenship.
But a UNHCR spokeswoman told Reuters it would be impossible for the agency to do so,
because they would not be "recognized refugees who have fled persecution and conflict
across international borders".
That raises the possibility that Rohingya could be forced from their villages and detained
indefinitely, warned Phil Robertson, deputy director for Asia at Human Rights Watch.
"This plan is profoundly troubling because it would strip the Rohingya of their rights,
systematically lock them down in closed camps in what amounts to arbitrary, indefinite
detention," he said.
(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/30/us-myanmar-rohingyaidUSKCN0HP15T20140930
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Dreams and dangers of Myanmar’s beauty pageants
A woman trains as a model at Star model agency in Yangon August 15, 2014.
YANGON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Sparkling in a red, sequined dress, Htet Htet Htun
spins around the stage rehearsing a traditional Burmese dance that she hopes will make her
stand out from 18 other young hopefuls competing in the first Miss Myanmar World pageant
this month.
Beauty pageants are thriving in Myanmar after being banned during nearly half a century of
military dictatorship that ended in 2011 when a semi-civilian government took power.
Hoping for a better life and dreaming of fame and fortune, young Myanmar women are
racing at every opportunity to enter the growing list of beauty contests that opened up to
them in 2012.
But the rapid rise of an industry that splits opinion in many countries - with opponents
accusing pageants of objectifying women - is exposing both the opportunities and pitfalls
faced by modern Myanmar with stories of scandal and exploitation.
By the end of this year, Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, will have competed in at least
10 international pageants, including Miss Universe Myanmar and Miss Asia Pacific World.
About 130 applicants signed up in four days for the inaugural Miss Myanmar World contest
that will be held on Sept. 27.
"If I win, I want to do charity work that would befit a beauty queen. I'd also like to become
an actress and continue working in the entertainment industry," Htet Htet Htun, 22, told the
Thomson Reuters Foundation outside a dimly-lit studio in the Myanmar's biggest city,
Yangon, after her rehearsal.
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The popularity of beauty contests underscores how Myanmar is racing to catch up with the
rest of the world after decades of near-isolation - and many contestants are finding
themselves on a crash course in how to cope in such a competitive field.
May Myat Noe became the country's first international beauty queen in May this year when
she won the Miss Asia Pacific World title in Seoul, South Korea - only to be dethroned three
months later in a vicious, public spat with contest organizers.
BEAUTY QUEEN ROW
The South Korean organizers called her "rude and dishonest" and accused her of running off
with the pageant crown when she left Seoul where she was to record songs with a K-pop
girl band.
At a packed press conference in September, May Myat Noe accused the pageant's
organizers in Myanmar of falsifying her age from 16 to 18 and the Korean organizers of
putting pressure on her to have plastic surgery to enlarge her breasts to boost her stardom.
"(The Korean organizers) also told me there is only one way to find money for my album
and to continue in the entertainment business ... to escort some business tycoons whenever
they require my company," she told the press conference.
The cut-throat nature of the pageant business may be new, but Chit Win, who is
researching Myanmar's political and societal transitions at the Australian National University,
said beauty contests have existed in Myanmar for centuries.
The concept of beautiful young women dubbed "kun taung kain" (holders of traditional betel
nut containers) predates British colonization in the 19th century, he said.
But beauty pageants were banned from 1962 after General Ne Win staged a coup and
launched a social crackdown.
Re-entering the world stage of beauty pageants has women across Myanmar seeking to
emulate Western ideals.
Sharr Htut Eaindra, the reigning Miss Universe Myanmar, who spent a year polishing her
skills for the contest, admitted the first thing she did to prepare was to lose weight.
The contests have also put the spotlight on continuing demographic divisions in Myanmar, a
country of about 51 million people with over 100 ethnic groups still plagued by nationalism
and ethnic conflicts.
They have also attracted a large social media following among Myanmar's fast-growing
Internet users.
Moe Set Wine, of mixed Burmese-Chinese heritage, became the first woman in 50 years to
represent Myanmar at the Miss Universe contest in 2013 - and found herself the victim of a
campaign on social media calling for her removal.
Burmese social media users questioned her ethnicity and used old photos of her at a
Burmese Chinese pageant held in former capital Yangon.
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FAST ROUTE TO FAME
Despite growing awareness that the beauty business can be cut-throat, the queue of women
seeking a short cut to fame through the industry grows daily.
A title can bring massive publicity, public adoration and offers to star in movies and
commercials. Pictures of current and former beauty queens adorn billboards, magazines and
movie posters in Yangon.
"After I was crowned, my followers on Facebook jumped to tens of thousands," said model
and TV presenter Gonyi Aye Kyaw, a bubbly, articulate 25-year-old who competed in about
half a dozen pageants before becoming Miss Myanmar International 2013.
Her account was hacked three days later - a confirmation of her new-found fame for her
fans.
Tin Moe Lwin, a pioneer of Myanmar's fast-growing modeling industry, credits the country's
changing attitudes and openness for the rising popularity of pageants.
Tin Moe Lwin, now in her 40s, is judging and training aspiring air hostesses for a pageantstyle television talent contest that is currently in filming.
"Compared to when I started, there's more interest in fashion, the girls are more confident
and the society is more open," she said while sipping tea at the lobby of the five-star
Sedona Hotel in Yangon.
Still, there are risks in an industry that is as-of-yet unregulated with frequent stories of
disputes and exploitation fueled by chatter on social media.
Industry observers say the public spats often stem from contractual disputes between the
pageants' Myanmar organizers and the winners. Most contracts stipulate that beauty queens
must make commission payment to the organizers, usually between 20 to 30 percent of all
earnings for up to three years.
John Lwin, a former model and founder of Star & Models International, calls the disputes "a
fight over the rice bowl".
"Both sides need to understand that business transactions have to be mutually beneficial,"
said Lwin, whose Yangon-based agency trained many of Myanmar's current top models.
Despite the horror stories, many are undeterred, such as 19-year-old K Zin Po who is
preparing for next year's Miss Myanmar World, starting with learning how to walk and pose
at Star & Models International.
"I backed out of competing this year because I wasn't confident in myself," said K Zin Po,
who won Kaya Ahla Mae - a contest for model physique - in high school.
"The main thing is to get my body in shape and improve my talent (singing, dancing or
acting)."
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Ei Phyu Aung, editor of Myanmar's weekly entertainment journal Sunday, sees the
opportunities and pitfalls from beauty pageants as part of the country's growing pains.
"It's a consequence of Myanmar opening up," she said. "It's like dust coming in when you
open the window. We can't keep the window closed forever so we have to find a way to
minimize the dust and maximize the sunlight."
(Reporting By Thin Lei Win, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/26/us-foundation-myanmarbeautycontests-idUSKCN0HL0Y520140926
Myanmar wants country off UN human rights agenda
Wunna Maung Lwin, Minister for Foreign Affairs for Myanmar, speaks during the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N.
headquarters, Monday, Sept. 29, 2014. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
UNITED NATIONS — Myanmar's foreign minister promised Monday his country is working to
end violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine state and urged the world against
"jumping to conclusions" about a situation that has drawn global condemnation.
Wunna Maung Lwin also insisted Myanmar has addressed "all major concerns related to
human rights" since it emerged from a half-century of dictatorship with a 2010 election, and
he said the Southeast Asian state should be removed from the U.N. Human Rights Council's
agenda. He spoke to the U.N. General Assembly of world leaders.
Buddhist mob attacks against Rohingya and other Muslims have sparked fears that religious
intolerance is undermining Myanmar's democratic reforms. More than 140,000 Rohingya
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have been trapped in crowded camps since extremist mobs began chasing them from their
homes two years ago, killing up to 280 people.
Myanmar authorities view the Rohingya, estimated to number 1.3 million, as illegal
immigrants from Bangladesh, not one of the country's officially recognized ethnic groups.
Discrimination against the Rohingya has intensified as Myanmar has emerged from military
rule, and some see in the communal violence the warning signs of genocide.
Wunna Maung Lwin, Minister for Foreign Affairs for Myanmar, speaks during the 69th
session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters, Monday, Sept. 29,
2014. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
The foreign minister said his government is working on an "action plan" to bring peace to
Rakhine state, where the violence has been especially severe.
"The history, the diversity and the complexity of the issue must be fully understood before
jumping to conclusions," the minister said. "In addressing the root cause, we are working
for peace, stability, harmony and development of all people in Rakhine state."
He also announced that Myanmar's parliament has approved the country's accession to the
Biological Weapons Convention, the 1972 treaty that banned the development, production
and stockpiling of such weapons.
The announcement came two months after four reporters and the chief executive of the
weekly Yangon-based Unity journal were sentenced to 10 years of hard prison labor for
violating Myanmar's national security for stories about a weapons factory. The magazine
published stories in January alleging the military had seized more than 3,000 acres (1,200
hectares) of farmland in central Magwe Region to construct a weapons factory. It reported
allegations that the factory would produce chemical weapons.
After the arrests, Deputy Information Minister Ye Htut acknowledged that the factory
belonged to the Defense Ministry, but told the Thailand-based online news site The
Irrawaddy that claims it had anything to do with chemical weapons were "totally baseless."
Human rights groups said the arrests were signs that reporters still face intimidation and
arrests, even as official censorship has been lifted.
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/myanmar-country-off-human-rights-agenda25844528
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Myanmar, Sri Lanka Buddhist hard-liners join hands
Myanmar's hard-line Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu greets the gathering at a convention organized by Sri Lanka's Bodu Bala Sena or Forces
of Buddhist Power in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2014.Wirathu, known for his anti-Muslim stance, says his movement will join
hands with a like-minded Sri Lankan group to protect Buddhists, whom he calls a "threatened" world minority.Eranga Jayawardena
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) -- A hard-line Buddhist monk from Myanmar known for his antiMuslim stance said his movement would join hands with a like-minded Sri Lankan group to
"protect" Buddhists, whom he called an endangered world minority.
Ashin Wirathu, leader of 969, a fundamentalist movement, was a special invitee Sunday at
a rally of Bodu Bala Sena, or Buddhist Power Force, a Sri Lankan group accused of
instigating deadly violence against the country's minority Muslims in June.
Joining 969 could further boost an already soaring support base for Bodu Bala Sena, an
ultranationalist group that has enlisted thousands of youth and Buddhist monks in just two
years of existence. This, in turn, could exacerbate mistrust and tensions between Sri
Lanka's majority Sinhalese-Buddhists and its Muslims.
Politically, President Mahinda Rajapaksa's credibility among Muslims stands to erode further
after his government allowed Wirathu to visit Sri Lanka despite opposition from Muslim
groups, including his own allies. Rajapaksa is already under criticism for not taking action
against Buddhist monks whose inflammatory speeches are blamed for anti-Muslim violence
in June that killed two people and wounded dozens, and saw many shops and homes set on
fire in three western towns.
Three local body guards accompanied Wirathu as he walked onstage for his speech Sunday
at a packed indoor stadium in Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital.
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"Buddhists are a world minority. If we don't protect this small group, remember, it will be
the end of the Buddhists," Wirathu said. "To achieve this ... my 969 organization will work
hand in hand with Sri Lanka's Bodu Bala Sena."
Sri Lankan Muslim groups urged the government not to allow Wirathu to visit the country,
warning it could lead to religious tensions. However, in his speech, Wirathu thanked
Rajapaksa for granting him a visa despite "attempts of sabotage by extremists."
Muslim leaders were not immediately reachable for comment.
Bodu Bala Sena accuses Sri Lanka's Muslims, who comprise about 10 percent of the
population, of trying to take over the country by having more children, marrying SinhaleseBuddhist women and taking over businesses. Buddhists account for more than 70 percent of
the country's 20 million people.
Wirathu's 969 started on the fringes of society, but now boasts supporters nationwide in
Myanmar.
Hundreds of people died in 2012 sectarian violence in Myanmar, with about 140,000, mostly
Muslims, forced from their homes. Buddhist monks were accused of instigating and
sometimes actively participating in the violence.
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/article2292314.html
China
reinforces
mountaineers
rescue
for
searching
missing
Myanmar
China's Blue Sky Rescue team has sent more rescuers to Myanmar to continue search for
two missing Myanmar mountaineers and one missing Thai helicopter at the request of the
Myanmar side.
Two experts of the Chinese rescue team arrived Yangon Sunday midnight, while more
members of the team, equipped with advanced technology such as remote-controlled
pilotless aircraft, are expected to arrive Monday night.
A statement of the China-Myanmar Friendship Association, said the decision to dispatch
more Chinese rescuers to Myanmar is made out of consideration of humanitarian ground,
China-Myanmar friendship and the experience of successful participation of the team in
rescue operations in the Philippines.
Two Myanmar mountaineers have gone missing on Mount Hkaka Borazi in Myanmar's
Kachin state along the China-Myanmar border since Aug. 31. Search and rescue operations
continued in Myanmar in full swing, involving local and international rescue teams including
those from China, Nepal and Thailand.
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A food supplying three-crew Thai helicopter, Advance Aviation B- 4, supporting the search
and rescue operation of the two missing Myanmar mountaineers went missing Saturday
afternoon on its way to the base camp, losing contact with the ground 20 minutes after it
took off from Putao airport.
Contact with the missing Thai helicopter is still lost until now.
Mount Hkaka Borazi, located in a point where Myanmar connects both India and China, is
5,881 meters high, the highest in Southeast Asia.
Source: http://www.ecns.cn/2014/09-29/136742.shtml
Hardline Myanmar monk to battle ‘jihad threat’
Controversial Myanmar Buddhist cleric Wirathu announced on Sunday he is linking up with hardline monks in Sri Lanka, alleging that their
religion is under threat from Islamic jihadists.
COLOMBO: A controversial Buddhist cleric from Myanmar announced yesterday he is linking
up with hardline monks in Sri Lanka, alleging that their religion is under threat from Islamic
jihadists.
The Mandalay-based monk Wirathu, addressing a convention in Colombo of the Bodu Bala
Sena (BBS) or Buddhist Force, said they would work together to protect their common
religion.
The BBS has been accused of instigating hate attacks against minority Muslims and
Christians in mainly Buddhist Sri Lanka.
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“To protect and defend the threatened Buddhist the world over, my 969 movement will join
hands with the BBS,” the Myanmar monk said at a 5,000-seat stadium packed with monks
and their lay supporters.
He said Muslim extremists had tried to scuttle his visit to Sri Lanka, which shares close
cultural and religious links with Myanmar.
“I am thankful to the President (Mahinda Rajapaksa) for granting me a visa in spite of
attempts by Muslim extremists to prevent my visit,” he said.
“Buddhists are facing a serious threat today from jihadist groups,” the monk said, without
giving details. “The patience of Buddhists is seen as a weakness.
“Buddhist temples have been destroyed. There is a jihad against Buddhist monks. Media
organisations along with world powers are using technology to carry out a campaign against
Buddhists,” he added.
BBS has been linked to stepped-up attacks against minority Muslims and Christians in the
past two years.
The group has denied involvement, but some of their members have been seen on videos
posted on social media websites while engaged in violence against minority religious places
as well as businesses.
The government has denied allegations that it provided tacit support to the BBS.
Sri Lanka suffered its worst religious violence in decades this June when riots broke out in
the resorts of Aluthgama and Beruwala, leaving four people dead.
AFP
Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/south-east-asia/story/hardline-myanmarbuddhist-monk-wirathu-battle-jihad-threat-sri-lanka
Thai rescue helicopter missing in Myanmar
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) A rescue helicopter from Thailand has lost contact with ground
control during a search for two climbers who scaled Southeast Asia's highest peak a month
ago, officials said Sunday.
The helicopter was carrying three people, including a Thai pilot.
According to Htoo Foundation, the chopper left Putao airport in Myanmar's northern Kachin
state on Saturday to drop food for a team searching for two Myanmar climbers missing
since Aug. 31. The foundation is leading the search effort for the climbers.
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An eight-member team set out to climb the 5,881-meter (19,300-foot) Hkakabo Razi
mountain last month, but only two went up the final stretch due to the narrow nature of the
summit, reaching the ice-capped mountaintop on Aug. 31.
The men reported before making their descent that their radio battery was weak. They were
supposed to reconnect with their colleagues at base camp on Sept. 9, but did not show up.
The search for the climbers involved helicopters from Thailand, the U.S. and China as well
as other mountaineers.
AP
Source: http://www.samachar.com/Thai-Rescue-Helicopter-Missing-in-Myanmaroj2lM6djedi.html
Myanmar radical Buddhist monk visits Sri Lanka: Muslims concerned:
So is US
By Daya Gamage - Asian Tribune News Analysis
Washington, D.C. 27 September (Asiantribune.com):
The radical Buddhist Monk Ashin Wirathu of Myanmar
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While the United States Department of State is deeply concerned about public discourse of a
section of Buddhist clergy in Sri Lanka of its radicalism toward the Muslim minorities, and
official pronouncement by the American Embassy in Colombo about the radical Buddhist
organization called the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS- Buddhist Power Force) accusing it of
instrumental in attacking Muslim places of worship and business institutions, it will be an
added concern for the US officials here in Washington when they learn the arrival of a
radical Buddhist monk from Myanmar to attend a BBS-organized even in Sri Lanka on
September 28.
It has been reported that the radical and outspoken Buddhist monk from Myanmar Ashin
Wirathu iis expected to attend the BBS Great Sangha Council meeting on 28.
Time magazine, with venerable Ashin Wirathu on their cover page, branded him as the face
of Buddhist terror in Burma, the popularly known name for Myanmar.
Sri Lanka is already been on US agenda since the defeat of Tamil Tigers in May 2009 on
issues of minority rights, majority Sinhalese domination, human rights and alleged war
crimes. In the past two or three US State Department annual Religious Report, Sri Lanka
was almost castigated for its religious intolerance.
The arrival of Myanmar's radical monk may deepen this US agenda.
How much of Sri Lanka's long history of Buddhist prelates taking the leadership of political
and social issues have affected Myanmar Buddhist clergy. Myanmar, also known as Burma,
is an isolated nation until about two years ago.
During its isolation this South East Asian nation's social organizations and the Buddhist
Order maintained a rapport and contacts only with Sri Lanka. The result was that the
Buddhist monks spearheading campaigns on pressing Sri Lankan issues have undoubtedly
affected the Myanmar Buddhists and their leadership, the monks.
It is in Sri Lanka that an organization called the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) spearheaded a
nationwide campaign to alert the nation of alleged Muslim expansionism with well attended
successful mass rallies. It was alleged that the BBS was instrumental in attacking business
ventures owned by Muslims in many parts of Sri Lanka.
Similar movement has taken momentum in Myanmar against the minority Muslim
population who are non-citizens popularly known as the Rohingya. The clashes between the
Buddhists and the Rohingya in 2012 and 2013 have been very brutal.
The Sri Lanka influence was highlighted by The New York Times in its June 21, 2013 edition
in this manner: “Myanmar monks are quite isolated and have a thin relationship with
Buddhists in other parts of the world,” Phra Paisal a Buddhist scholar and prominent monk
in neighboring Thailand said. It continued: One exception is Sri Lanka, another country
historically bedeviled by ethnic strife. Burmese monks have been inspired by the assertive
political role played by monks from Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese majority.
Of the 55 million population in Myanmar 85% is Buddhist unlike in Sri Lanka's 67%. Both
nations have equal number of Muslims 8%. The difference is that the vast Muslim
population in Myanmar are non citizens in contrast to Sri Lanka. In Myanmar the livelihood
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of the Rohingyas, the non citizens, are disrupted but in Sri Lanka the Muslim minority excel
in business and other social affairs.
Nevertheless, in the West, especially among the state department official,s there is a belief
that Buddhist radicalism aimed at the Muslims is purely on social and economic reasons.
The destruction of the World's tallest Buddhist statue in the Province of Bamiyan in
Afghanistan 13 years ago by the Taliban Islamists too has been used by radical Buddhist
prelates to mobilize the Buddhist population.
The NEWSWEEK in its September 24, 2012 edition highlighted the growing Buddhist
radicalism in Sri Lanka and how it has affected in Myanmar.
The New York Times wrote: After a ritual prayer atoning for past sins, Ashin Wirathu, a
Buddhist monk with a rock-star following in Myanmar, sat before an overflowing crowd of
thousands of devotees and launched into a rant against what he called “the enemy” — the
country’s Muslim minority.
“You can be full of kindness and love, but you cannot sleep next to a mad dog,” Ashin
Wirathu said, referring to Muslims.
“I call them troublemakers, because they are troublemakers,” Ashin Wirathu told a reporter
after his two-hour sermon. “I am proud to be called a radical Buddhist.”
But 2012 onwards, images of rampaging Burmese Buddhists carrying swords and the
vituperative sermons of monks like Ashin Wirathu have underlined the rise of extreme
Buddhism in Myanmar — and revealed a darker side of the country’s greater freedoms after
decades of military rule. Buddhist lynch mobs have killed more than 200 Muslims and forced
more than 150,000 people, mostly Muslims, from their homes.
Ashin Wirathu denies any role in the riots. But his critics say that at the very least his antiMuslim preaching is helping to inspire the violence, writes The New York Times.
What began in 2012 on the fringes of Burmese society has grown into a nationwide
movement whose agenda now includes boycotts of Muslim-made goods. Its message is
spreading through regular sermons across the country that draw thousands of people and
through widely distributed DVDs of those talks.
The Times opined: Ashin Wirathu, the spiritual leader of the radical movement, skates a thin
line between free speech and incitement, taking advantage of loosened restrictions on
expression during a fragile time of transition. He was himself jailed for eight years by the
now-defunct military junta for inciting hatred. In 2012, as part of a release of hundreds of
political prisoners, he was freed.
Ashin Wirathu's theme is: “If we are weak our land will become Muslim.”
But Ashin Wirathu, who describes himself as a nationalist, says Buddhism is under siege by
Muslims who are having more children than Buddhists and buying up Buddhist-owned land.
In part, he is tapping into historical grievances that date from British colonial days when
Indians, many of them Muslims, were brought into the country as civil servants and
soldiers.
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The muscular and nationalist messages he has spread have alarmed Buddhists in other
countries.
Definitely not in Sri Lankan, according to The New York Times, as this South Asian nation's
radical Buddhist prelates have different grievances but somewhat similar to what one sees
in Myanmar.
Ashin Wirathu has tapped into that anxiety, which some describe as the “demographic
pressures” coming from neighboring Bangladesh. There is wide disdain in Myanmar for a
group of about one million stateless Muslims, who call themselves Rohingya, some of whom
migrated from Bangladesh. Clashes between the Rohingya and Buddhists previously in
western Myanmar roiled the Buddhist community and appear to have played a role in later
outbreaks of violence throughout the country reports NYT.
Now this radical Buddhist monk from Myanmar has got an audience in Sri Lanka patronized
by the BBS.
The Muslim Council of Sri Lanka has expressed its concern over the Myanmar monks arrival
in Sri Lanka and In a letter to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, it says the presence of such a
person who has caused so much violence on the Burmese Muslims would be a real threat to
peace and peaceful co-existence in Sri Lanka.
- Asian Tribune Source: http://asiantribune.com/node/85502
Myanmar suspends Yangon city expansion plan
The Yangon region government has announced suspension of the planned new town project
in western part of Yangon city , according to parliament sources Saturday.
Yangon Mayor U Hla Myint made the announcement at a special session of Yangon region
parliament, saying that the project needs to be reviewed.
The suspension came at a time when issues relating to the assignment of the project arose
and tenders are changed to be invited transparently from private developers for the
expansion project of the Yangon city.
Meanwhile, land prices in the planned new Yangon town area have skyrocketed compared
with five years ago following the early announcement of the plan in August.
Observers here said that the project suspension would bring much impact on those who
have bought the land at high prices.
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The new Yangon town was originally planned on 12,150 hectares of land area between the
Pan Hlaing River and the Twantay Canal and between the Hlaing River and HlaingthayaTwantay Road.
A total of 8 billion US dollars plus 7 trillion Kyats (7.21 billion US dollars) was said to be
invested in the project, 70 percent of which is targeted to be completed within three years.
Source: http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/883698.shtml
Myanmar peace talks end without resolution: Official
YANGON - Myanmar's latest attempt at securing a historic ceasefire deal with ethnic armed
groups ended in frustration Friday, the government's chief negotiator said, as talks snagged
on military and political disagreements.
Peace in ethnically-diverse Myanmar is seen as crucial to the country's future as it looks to
reform under a quasi-civilian government that replaced outright military rule in 2011.
But while all sides have publicly stated their desire for peace, long-held mistrust and
continuing fighting in northern Kachin state have overshadowed the process.
"The moments when you have almost reached your goal are the most difficult times," said
Aung Min, a former general at the forefront of the peace efforts, as the talks ended without
the long-awaited ceasefire announcement.
A new round of talks is due to be held in October. Efforts to reach a settlement aimed at
ending decades of civil conflicts that have plagued the country's minority borderlands have
been a key priority of the government.
It has inked ceasefires with 14 of the 16 major armed ethnic groups, but deals with the
Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) in Shan state
have so far proved elusive.
The latest round of discussions were the sixth such talks, as representatives from the ethnic
groups, government and the still powerful army inch towards a mutually acceptable
agreement.
The talks have seen consensus on large parts of a draft nationwide ceasefire accord.
But important stumbling blocks remain - particularly the scope of future political dialogue
and the concept of a federal armed forces.
Naing Han Tha, who led the ethnic group negotiators, said the discussion was ultimately
"not successful" but the goal of peace was "getting closer".
Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/south-east-asia/story/myanmar-peacetalks-end-without-resolution-official-20140926
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Beauty or the beast? Pageants expose dreams, dangers in modern
Myanmar
Myanmar’s former beauty queen May Myat Noe (right), holding the box containing the 2014 Miss Asia Pacific World crown, stands next to
her mother before giving a news conference at a restaurant in Yangon
September 2, 2014. — Reuters picYANGON, Sept 26 — Sparkling in a red, sequined dress,
Htet Htet Htun spins around the stage rehearsing a traditional Burmese dance that she
hopes will make her stand out from 18 other young hopefuls competing in the first Miss
Myanmar World pageant this month.
Beauty pageants are thriving in Myanmar after being banned during nearly half a century of
military dictatorship that ended in 2011 when a semi-civilian government took power.
Hoping for a better life and dreaming of fame and fortune, young Myanmar women are
racing at every opportunity to enter the growing list of beauty contests that opened up to
them in 2012.
But the rapid rise of an industry that splits opinion in many countries — with opponents
accusing pageants of objectifying women — is exposing both the opportunities and pitfalls
faced by modern Myanmar with stories of scandal and exploitation.
By the end of this year, Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, will have competed in at least
10 international pageants, including Miss Universe Myanmar and Miss Asia Pacific World.
About 130 applicants signed up in four days for the inaugural Miss Myanmar World contest
that will be held on September 27.
“If I win, I want to do charity work that would befit a beauty queen. I’d also like to become
an actress and continue working in the entertainment industry,” Htet Htet Htun, 22, told the
Thomson Reuters Foundation outside a dimly-lit studio in the Myanmar’s biggest city,
Yangon, after her rehearsal.
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The popularity of beauty contests underscores how Myanmar is racing to catch up with the
rest of the world after decades of near-isolation — and many contestants are finding
themselves on a crash course in how to cope in such a competitive field.
May Myat Noe became the country’s first international beauty queen in May this year when
she won the Miss Asia Pacific World title in Seoul, South Korea — only to be dethroned three
months later in a vicious, public spat with contest organisers.
Beauty queen row
The South Korean organisers called her “rude and dishonest” and accused her of running off
with the pageant crown when she left Seoul where she was to record songs with a K-pop
girl band.
At a packed press conference in September, May Myat Noe accused the pageant’s
organisers in Myanmar of falsifying her age from 16 to 18 and the Korean organisers of
putting pressure on her to have plastic surgery to enlarge her breasts to boost her stardom.
“(The Korean organisers) also told me there is only one way to find money for my album
and to continue in the entertainment business... to escort some business tycoons whenever
they require my company,” she told the press conference.
The cut-throat nature of the pageant business may be new, but Chit Win, who is
researching Myanmar’s political and societal transitions at the Australian National University,
said beauty contests have existed in Myanmar for centuries.
The concept of beautiful young women dubbed “kun taung kain” (holders of traditional betel
nut containers) predates British colonisation in the 19th century, he said.
But beauty pageants were banned from 1962 after General Ne Win staged a coup and
launched a social crackdown.
Re-entering the world stage of beauty pageants has women across Myanmar seeking to
emulate Western ideals.
Sharr Htut Eaindra, the reigning Miss Universe Myanmar, who spent a year polishing her
skills for the contest, admitted the first thing she did to prepare was to lose weight.
The contests have also put the spotlight on continuing demographic divisions in Myanmar, a
country of about 51 million people with over 100 ethnic groups still plagued by nationalism
and ethnic conflicts.
They have also attracted a large social media following among Myanmar’s fast-growing
Internet users.
Moe Set Wine, of mixed Burmese-Chinese heritage, became the first woman in 50 years to
represent Myanmar at the Miss Universe contest in 2013 — and found herself the victim of a
campaign on social media calling for her removal.
Burmese social media users questioned her ethnicity and used old photos of her at a
Burmese Chinese pageant held in former capital Yangon.
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Fast route to fame
Despite growing awareness that the beauty business can be cut-throat, the queue of women
seeking a short cut to fame through the industry grows daily.
A title can bring massive publicity, public adoration and offers to star in movies and
commercials. Pictures of current and former beauty queens adorn billboards, magazines and
movie posters in Yangon.
“After I was crowned, my followers on Facebook jumped to tens of thousands,” said model
and TV presenter Gonyi Aye Kyaw, a bubbly, articulate 25-year-old who competed in about
half a dozen pageants before becoming Miss Myanmar International 2013.
Her account was hacked three days later — a confirmation of her new-found fame for her
fans.
Tin Moe Lwin, a pioneer of Myanmar’s fast-growing modelling industry, credits the country’s
changing attitudes and openness for the rising popularity of pageants.
Tin Moe Lwin, now in her 40s, is judging and training aspiring air hostesses for a pageantstyle television talent contest that is currently in filming.
“Compared to when I started, there’s more interest in fashion, the girls are more confident
and the society is more open,” she said while sipping tea at the lobby of the five-star
Sedona Hotel in Yangon.
Still, there are risks in an industry that is as-of-yet unregulated with frequent stories of
disputes and exploitation fuelled by chatter on social media.
Industry observers say the public spats often stem from contractual disputes between the
pageants’ Myanmar organisers and the winners. Most contracts stipulate that beauty queens
must make commission payment to the organisers, usually between 20 to 30 per cent of all
earnings for up to three years.
John Lwin, a former model and founder of Star & Models International, calls the disputes “a
fight over the rice bowl”.
“Both sides need to understand that business transactions have to be mutually beneficial,”
said Lwin, whose Yangon-based agency trained many of Myanmar’s current top models.
Despite the horror stories, many are undeterred, such as 19-year-old K Zin Po who is
preparing for next year’s Miss Myanmar World, starting with learning how to walk and pose
at Star & Models International.
“I backed out of competing this year because I wasn’t confident in myself,” said K Zin Po,
who won Kaya Ahla Mae — a contest for model physique — in high school.
“The main thing is to get my body in shape and improve my talent (singing, dancing or
acting).”
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Ei Phyu Aung, editor of Myanmar’s weekly entertainment journal Sunday, sees the
opportunities and pitfalls from beauty pageants as part of the country’s growing pains.
“It’s a consequence of Myanmar opening up,” she said. “It’s like dust coming in when you
open the window. We can’t keep the window closed forever so we have to find a way to
minimise the dust and maximise the sunlight.” — Reuters
Source: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/features/article/beauty-or-the-beastpageants-expose-dreams-dangers-in-modern-myanmar
BUSINESS
21 foreign companies sign contracts with Myanmar to develop SEZ
Updated: 2014-10-02 09:45
(Xinhua)
YANGON - A total of 21 foreign companies and one local's have signed contracts with
Myanmar to develop the country's first biggest Thilawa Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project
being implemented on the outskirts of Yangon by a Myanmar- Japan joint venture, sources
with the SEZ administration said Wednesday.
The 21 foreign companies include nine from Japan, four from China's Taiwan, three from
Thailand and one each from Chinese mainland, China's Hong Kong, Sweden, the United
States and Australia as well as one from Myanmar.
Under contracts with the Myanmar-Japan Thilawa Development ( MJTD) Co Ltd, these
foreign companies will respectively undertake works related to steel pipe, construction,
aluminium, finished wood product, textile, beverage can manufacturing and plastic at the
400-hectare Class A Area of Thilawa SEZ in Thanlyin, 20 kilometers southeast of Yangon.
The 21 foreign companies were shortlisted from 51 which submitted intention of interest in
the investment project.
MJTD was formed by two Myanmar companies and two Japanese companies sharing under
an ownership ratio of 51 to 49.
The two Myanmar companies comprise the government's Thilawa SEZ Management
Committee and the Myanmar Thilawa SEZ Holdings Public Co Ltd (MTSH), while the two
Japanese companies involve MMS Thilawa Development Co Ltd and Japan International
Cooperation Agency (JICA).
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MMS Thilawa is a consortium group of Mitsubishi, Marubeni and Sumitomo Corporations.
Myanmar has started the land lease procedure for Phase 1 of the Thilawa SEZ project Class
A Area which has about 400 hectares divided into two phases out of nearly 2,400 hectares
in total.
The project began implementation in November 2013 and the commercial run of the Thilawa
SEZ is expected to start in mid-2015.
Source: http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2014-10/02/content_18692443.htm
PTT plans distribution hub for LNG in Myanmar
WATCHARAPONG THONGRUNG
THE NATION October 2, 2014 1:00 am
PTT is conducting a feasibility study into the construction an LNG (liquefied
natural gas) distribution/receiving terminal with an annual capacity of 5 million
tonnes in Myanmar, in order to facilitate onshore LNG transportation to Thailand.
The facility would be built not far from the Dawei industrial-estate zone at a location where
the distribution pipelines for the Yadana, Yetakun and Zawtika gas fields converge.
PTT hopes to proceed with the project, even though it is still waiting for the government to
decide on the location for its 3rd-phase LNG terminal in Thailand, Nattachart Charuchinda,
chief executive officer for downstream petroleum business, said yesterday.
Currently, PTT has a 1st-phase LNG receiving terminal with an annual capacity of 5 million
tonnes at Map Ta Phut, in Rayong province, and is building a 2nd-phase LNG receiving
terminal in Map Ta Phut with a similar capacity - with completion scheduled for the second
quarter of 2017.
For the 3rd phase, the Energy Ministry wants PTT to look for a different location to build a
LNG terminal, which would reinforce LNG supply stability for the future.
The building of an LNG terminal in Myanmar near the gas distribution pipeline would also
reinforce the stability of power plants in the western part of Thailand, said the CEO.
The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand and Ratchaburi Electricity Generation
Holding both said previously that they would like to import LNG to generate power at their
plants.
If both entities were interested in joining with PTT in the LNG terminal project in Myanmar,
they would be welcome to discuss the matter with the company, he added.
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Coal-driven plants still needed
However, even with plans for a total of 15 million tonnes of domestic LNG receiving-terminal
capacity per year, Thailand still needs clean coal-driven power plants to diversify the risk of
being too dependent on LNG - and also to lessen the cost of electricity for consumers, as
power generated from an LNG-driven plant costs more than that from a coal-driven one.
The Energy Ministry is studying the new Power Development Plan (PDP), which proposes
reducing the proportion of gas-driven power plants from the previous PDP, in line with the
wishes of the new energy minister, Narongchai Akrasanee.
The 3rd-phase LNG terminal would be needed to receive 5 million tonnes of imported gas
each year, in order to support the 5,000 megawatts of power generated by the Gulf and
Mitsui independent-power-producer plants, as slated in the previous PDP for 2022.
Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/PTT-plans-distribution-hub-for-LNG-inMyanmar-30244560.html
Three Japan lenders, Bangkok Bank receive limited Myanmar bank
licences
Wednesday, 01 October 2014 10:40
Posted by Saad Jabri
TOKYO: Three major Japanese banks are among foreign banks that have been granted
limited operating licences in Myanmar, a move that Myanmar's government hopes will spur
foreign investment in an economy emerging from decades of military rule.
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Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ, the core banking unit of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group has
won one of the licences, a spokesman for the lender said on Wednesday.
Banking sources also said that the core banking units of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group
and Mizuho Financial Group had gained licences.
A Mizuho spokeswoman declined to comment. Representatives for Sumitomo Mitsui were
not immediately available for comment.
Bangkok Bank has also received preliminary approval for a banking licence, Executive Vice
President Chaiyarit Anuchitworawong told Reuters.
The bidding process was open to the approximately 40 international banks with
representative offices in the country and 25 applied.
Myanmar's central bank is expected to announced the results of the bidding later in the day,
with between five to 10 banks set to gain a licence.
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Source: http://www.myanmar.cm/component/easyblog/entry/three-japan-lendersbangkok-bank-receive-limited-myanmar-bank-licences.html?Itemid=101
China's
investment
in
Myanmar
development: vice president
contributes
to
economic
Myanmar Vice President U Nyan Tun said Monday that China's investment in Myanmar
contributes to the country's economic development.
U Nyan Tun made the remarks at a reception here given by the Chinese Embassy in
celebration of China's 65th Anniversary of its National Day.
Recalling that China scored success in its economy over the past decade, he said Chinese
companies have now made more investment in ASEAN countries ranking the first in
Myanmar's foreign investment line-up.
He expressed his expectation and belief that China would gain more than doubled
achievements in the future under the leadership of its state leaders and the efforts made by
its people.
Under the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, Myanmar and China are
maintaining a friendly relationship and close cooperation, he said, adding that through the
exchange of visits at all levels, the relations are being upgraded to comprehensive strategic
cooperative partnership .
At the reception, Chinese Ambassador Yang Houlan said China has become the world's
second largest economy with its foreign trade ranking the first in the world.
"China has not only achieved national prosperity and people's happiness, but also made
significant contribution to building a more peaceful and harmonious international
community," he said.
He said that the Chinese people are fighting for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation
which is also called the " Chinese Dream".
He expressed the belief that as long as China and Myanmar could work together, the two
countries can write a new and more splendid chapter in the history of Paukphaw friendship.
Source: http://www.china.org.cn/world/Off_the_Wire/2014-09/29/content_33651283.htm
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Tech sector sizzles as Internet revolution ignites in Myanmar
YANGON: From navigating gridlocked city roads to playing a favorite national sport, new
homegrown apps are blossoming in Myanmar as cheap mobile technology ignites an
Internet revolution in the once-isolated nation.
Myanmar web surfers were once paradigms of patience and ingenuity as they dodged and
weaved through the former military regime’s communications blocks in decrepit backstreet
Internet cafes.
But commuters in Myanmar’s biggest cities can now be seen tapping away on smartphones
as an online awakening sweeps the country, fuelled by the loosening of junta-era
restrictions and foreign telecoms firms unleashing a flood of affordable SIM cards.
Big brand names like Facebook, Google, Viber, and Instagram have rapidly expanded their
presence in the country, lured by the growing market — and web-savvy local entrepreneurs
are also seizing the chance to create Internet ventures in Myanmar style.
“There are so many things I want to do — I think about it not as business but as a way to
find solutions to problems I face,” said Ei Maung as he demonstrated his prototype traffic
app in a car inching through the congested streets of the commercial hub Yangon.
“Yangon commuting is worse than bad. It’s terrible. You waste countless hours queuing in
traffic every day,” he told AFP.
His Cyantra: Crazy Yangon Traffic app went live in June and allows smartphone users to
share traffic problems and view potential snarl-ups on their driving routes.
Internet access has already increased exponentially since the country began to throw off the
shackles of military rule.
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Just one percent of the population was thought to be online three years ago, as the
democratic transition began, but the loosening of web controls and greater access to
affordable phone cards has opened the Internet up to millions.
On Saturday Norway’s Telenor launched SIM cards costing just 1,500 kyat ($1.5) in
Mandalay — a far cry from the $3,000 a card could cost under military rule — ahead of a
wider roll-out in Yangon and Naypyidaw.
The move comes after Qatari firm Ooredoo began selling its SIM cards at the same price
last month, throwing open the mobile Internet floodgates.
An estimated 25 percent of people are already online and the Myanmar Computer
Federation expects around half of the population, over 25 million people, to be surfing the
net in the next three years.
David Madden, whose Yangon-based Code for Change group seeks to promote and support
budding techies, said that unlike in the West where web design began with a focus on
computers and laptops, Myanmar Internet consumers will be primarily using cheap
smartphones.
“People are going to be able to afford one thing and they are going to want it to do a lot,”
he told AFP. “It’s the thing you want in your pocket, it’s the thing you want when you are
sitting in a bus stuck in traffic.”
Social media giant Facebook has dominated the Myanmar web to such an extent that it is
the first — sometimes only — port of call for web users.
But Google’s Myanmar-language search engine has struggled to attract users because it
uses a standardized font — unicode — whereas many Myanmar websites are written in a
locally-produced zawgyi font, meaning they are unreadable on the international search
engine.
A local firm Bindez, led by former Google employee Rahul Batra, is taking on the web
Goliath as it tries to create a zawgyi-compatible search engine.
The booming tech scene has also given the country a chance to showcase local passions,
from checking personalized horoscopes, to a game that allows armchair sportsmen to play
virtual “Chinlone” — a beloved traditional cane ball game — with a quirky owl avatar.
And while connections often remain glacially slow, online entrepreneurs are now grappling
with the dilemma that has tormented web-based firms the world over — how to turn clicks
into cash.
Mobile money — using the credit bought to top-up mobile phones to make payments for
other goods and services — helped by the flood of affordable SIMs now entering circulation,
could help.
It is seen as a vital potential tool for the vast swathes of Myanmar’s largely unbanked and
rural population to access anything from loans to retail payments. -AFP
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Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/international/tech-sector-sizzlesas/1385882.html
Myanmar, S.Korea to promote bilateral relations in SME sector
Myanmar and South Korea will promote bilateral relations in the country's small and
medium enterprise sector, according to the Union of Myanmar Chambers of Commerce and
Industry (UMFCCI) on Saturday.
The 29-member trade delegation from nearly 33 firms from South Korea visited Myanmar
on a three-day trade mission to explore business opportunities in SME sector.
During the visit, the Trade Promotion Committee of the UMFCCI and the Kangnam-gu trade
delegation signed the memorandum of understanding (MoU) to boost trade and investment
and exchange market and business information between the two private sectors.
The trade mission followed a preliminary discussion between officials of Kangnam-gu
Chapter of Seoul Chambers of Commerce and Industry (SCCI)and the UMFCCI last May.
"We are interested in doing business activities with Myanmar counterparts in the sectors of
agriculture, energy, manufacturing, construction, transport and trading," according to Choi
Jae-Young, president of SCCI.
Economic cooperation with the Korea Chamber of Commerce is progressing, following the
establishment of Myanmar-Korea/Korea- Myanmar Business Council, according to the
UMFCCI.
So far, UMFCCI has signed MoUs with a number of South Korean business associations
including the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI).
According to official statistics, South Korean investment in Myanmar amounted to 3.072
billion USdollars in 96 projects as of June 2014, accounting for 6.58 percent of the total
foreign input and ranking the 6th in Myanmar's foreign investment line-up since Myanmar
opened its door in late 1988.
Bilateral trade between Myanmar and South Korea reached 1.569 billion US dollars in the
fiscal year 2013-14, of which Myanmar's export to South Korea accounted for 352.92 million
dollars while its import from the East Asian country stood at 1.217 billion dollars.
Source: http://en.chinagate.cn/2014-09/27/content_33631652.htm
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ETHNIC GROUPS
Rights groups condemn Myanmar’s Rohingya plan
People shop at a market in Maungdaw, northern Rakhine state June 6, 2014.
(Reuters) - Human rights groups condemned on Friday a Myanmar government plan that
could force thousands of minority Rohingya Muslims into detention camps indefinitely if they
do not qualify for citizenship.
The U.S. and some other embassies in Myanmar had raised their concern with the
government about some aspects of the plan, a U.S. official told Reuters.
Most of Myanmar's 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims live in apartheid-like conditions in Rakhine
state on the west coast of the predominantly Buddhist country, and almost 140,000 are
displaced after deadly clashes with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists in 2012
The government has refused to grant most Rohingya citizenship and refers to them as
Bengali, which implies they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh despite having lived in
Myanmar for generations.
The Rakhine State Action Plan will require Rohingya to identify themselves as Bengali – a
term most reject – in order to possibly receive citizenship.
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According to a draft of the plan obtained by Reuters, the government has proposed that
authorities "construct temporary camps in required numbers for those who refuse to be
registered and those without adequate documents".
Rights groups warn that the provisions could force thousands of Rohingya from their villages
into camps where they would be detained indefinitely.
"It is nothing less than a blueprint for permanent segregation and statelessness that
appears designed to strip the Rohingya of hope and force them to flee the country," Phil
Robertson, deputy director for Asia at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement on Friday.
Putting Rohingya in internment camps would constitute a "crime against humanity", New
York-based Physicians for Human Rights said in a separate statement.
"It certainly fits into the government's decades-long tradition of marginalising and
dehumanizing the Rohingya,” said Gregory Polling, of the Center for Strategic International
Studies, a Washington D.C.-based think-tank.
He said the citizenship verification programme was likely to leave hundreds of thousands of
Rohingya stateless, because the government "spent decades systematically denying
Rohingya the very documents they are now required to provide".
Even if Rohingya families had documents, many lost them during the 2012 violence, he
said.
"The programme cannot possibly succeed," said Polling.
The United States said its embassy and other embassies in Yangon had received a draft of
the plan and had provided feedback to the government.
"We jointly expressed concern over some components of the draft plan, such as the
provision stating that those who do not receive citizenship will be held in temporary camps,"
a U.S. official said.
The plan includes projects aimed at reconciliation, economic development, and providing
accommodation for those who remain displaced by the 2012 violence.
The government will start building infrastructure including roads, houses, schools and clinics
this month, and hopes to resettle displaced people before next March when the rainy season
begins, Deputy Minister for Border Affairs Major-General Tin Aung Chit told the state-run
Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper this week.
(Editing by Robert Birsel)
Source:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/10/03/uk-myanmar-rohingyaidUKKCN0HS0BT20141003
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Myanmar: UN officials cite citizenship issue, expansion of aid as key
concerns
Together with Rakhine State Chief Minister U Maung Maung Ohn, UNDP Assistant Administrator and Director for the Regional Bureau for
Asia and the Pacific Haoliang Xu, OCHA Director of Operations John Ging and team meet with Rakhine elders in Sittwe's Ohm Re Paw Village
in September 2014. Photo: UNDP Myanmar
3 October 2014 - Back from a recent trip to Myanmar, senior United Nations humanitarian
and development officials today called for continued lifesaving aid to the displaced,
assistance to address poverty and create better coexistence conditions, and a political
solution to a new citizenship plan.
These three priorities were outlined in a press briefing in New York by Haoliang Xu,
Assistant Administrator and Director for the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific at the
UN Development Programme (UNDP), and John Ging, Director of Operations at the UN
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
“My first impression was that there was progress made…but tremendous challenges
remain,” Mr. Ging told journalists following a two-day visit to Myanmar that began on 8
September.
Mr. Xu highlighted the need to scale up poverty eradication across Rakhine, with a particular
focus on development solutions which promote peaceful co-existence. “Stability and peace
can be achieved only when the needs of all communities are met,” he said.
The officials’ visit focused on the implementation of the UN’s development and humanitarian
assistance programmes in Rakhine state, which has witnessed a surge of violence between
Buddhists and Muslims that first spiked in June 2012. An estimated 140,000 people live in
68 internally displaced persons camps in the state.
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The majority of those displaced are minority Rohingya Muslims. The Government, this
summer, launched the Rakhine State Action Plan, which purports to grant citizenship to
some of these families if they register as “Bengalis.” Many strongly object to this
nomenclature since it implies they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh despite having
lived in Myanmar for generations.
“The issue of citizenship needs to be looked at in the context of history,” Mr. Xu said,
briefing on his first visit to the country since taking the UNDP post.
Also addressing the citizenship issue, Mr. Ging said that a peaceful resolution could be an
“international success story” and called on the international community to ensure that “this
crucial opportunity is not missed.”
In addition to the humanitarian needs, more than 1 million community members face
discrimination and severe restrictions on their freedom of movement, seriously
compromising their basic rights to food, health, education and livelihoods, while reinforcing
their reliance on international humanitarian assistance.
During their visit, Mr. Xu and Mr. Ging commended the Government and the support of the
UN and international partners for the work they are doing.
While in the region, they two officials saw the “positive and practical results of
intercommunal dialogue, in the construction of new roads and bridges to improve economic
activity between communities,” according to a statement from UNDP last month.
Following the visit, Mr. Ging continued to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)
where, between 12 and 15 September, he saw the “underreported” challenges faced by the
people.
Mr. Ging called for the “wider international community to reach beyond politics to the
people” and fund a $116 million humanitarian appeal which is supported by “high quality,
high level of accountability” from UN agencies.
Some 2.4 million people in the country are relying on regular food assistance, he said, with
chronic malnutrition “a way of life.”
Source: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=49000
Myanmar -Rohingya Muslims to be legally labeled as immigrants
2 October 2014
JTW News, Emre Tunç Sakaoglu
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The Myanmar government recently initiated the first phase of a program that awards
citizenship to the country’s Muslims, including the Rohingya minority.
The so-called citizenship verification process allows Rohingya Muslims in the country to
receive citizenship cards and gain the associated rightsfor the first time after decades of
being denied any legal status.
Within the framework of the government program, Rohingya people who seek naturalization
are offered to choose between ‘Bengali’ and ‘Kaman’ as their ethnic heritage. Their choice
will then be inscribed on their citizenship cards.
According to the Burma Times, 209 Muslims, 40 of which are of Rohingya ethnic origin,
registered for citizenship under the pilot project on September 22 in the Rakhine state. The
rest of the applicants were Kaman Muslims, the same report said.
Khin Soe, a state immigration officer in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State, is quoted by
the Burma Times explaining that an additional 1,094 people who live in displacement camps
in the Myebon township of the Rakhine state have already applied for the pilot project, and
that even more are expected to follow suit elsewhere in the forthcoming period.
Likewise, Rakhine Chief Minister U Maung Maung Ohn reflected that despite ongoing
protests by the local Buddhists, the state administration will stick with the program of
awarding citizenship certificates to Rakhine Muslims by way of a diligent process that is
under the scrutiny of the central government and the international community.
But media reports and local sources suggest the process is carried out neglectfully, with
local officials and the police checking residents’ and their extended families’ identity papers
and relevant documents in an arbitrary fashion in refugee camps and isolated communities
north of the Rakhine state.
Analysts point out that a majority of the residents in the camps are displaced and conflictaffected people, and are therefore usually unable to retain any relevant documents. And
through the latest scheme, these same people are left with a choice between accepting
verification forms suggesting they are naturalized citizens of Bengali background, hence
originally ‘legal aliens’ from Bangladesh and India, or being denied any form of official
recognition at all.
Source: http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/173044/myanmar-rohingya-muslims-to-belegally-labeled-as-immigrants.html
Sectarian violence challenges reforms in Myanmar: gov't
Wunna Maung Lwin told The Associated Press in an interview that the former pariah state's
shift from military rule remained on track. He said next year's pivotal elections would be
free and fair, but he wouldn't comment on whether opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi
would be able to run for president.
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The foreign minister also said his government has started a “verification process” in strifetorn Rakhine State to enable stateless Rohingya Muslims who have been in Myanmar for
three generations to become naturalized citizens. But he stressed that the government was
still not recognizing Rohingya as a group.
The government describes the estimated 1.3 million Rohingya as “Bengali,” a term which
many members of the minority group object to strongly, as it implies they are illegal
immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh. Tun Khin, president of the Burmese Rohingya
Organization UK, a London-based activist group, also said he was concerned that those who
do not accept that classification will be deemed refugees who should be sent to a third
country.
The foreign minister said his government was still considering what would happen to those
who don't meet the citizenship requirements of Myanmar's 1982 immigration law which
requires “conclusive evidence” a person's family has been in Myanmar since before
independence from Britain in 1948. Rights activists say the law is discriminatory.
A spokesman for the United Nations secretary-general said Tuesday that the U.N. hopes the
verification process will be done according to human rights principles. “It is hoped that a
significant number of the members of the Rohingya community currently in the camps, and
outside, will be eligible for citizenship,” Stephane Dujarric told reporters.
Tun Khin predicted few Rohingya would have the required documentation and that even
more would end up in camps.
Buddhist mob attacks against Muslims have sparked fears that religious intolerance is
undermining Myanmar's democratic reforms. More than 140,000 Rohingya have been
trapped in crowded camps since extremist mobs began chasing them from their homes two
years ago, killing up to 280 people. The sectarian violence has spread to other parts of the
country.
The foreign minister described the communal unrest as “an unfortunate and unexpected
challenge that we have been facing in our transition.”
Source: http://www.chinapost.com.tw/asia/other/2014/10/02/418494/Sectarianviolence.htm
Myanmar 'must remain' on UN rights council's agenda
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A displaced Kachin woman holds her child in a camp for internally displaced people in Shan State (Photo by John Zaw)
Activists in Myanmar say it is far too soon to drop the country from the agenda of the
United Nations’ human rights body, citing continuing military abuses in ethnic areas, a surge
in land grabs and the troubling rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric in the country.
Many advocacy groups say the human rights situation in Myanmar remains urgent —
contradicting claims made by Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin this week, who told
leaders at the UN General Assembly that the country has addressed “all major concerns
related to human rights” and should no longer remain on the UN Human Rights Council’s
agenda.
Khon Ja, a coordinator with the Kachin Peace Network in Yangon, said severe cases of
human rights abuses persist, despite the country’s much-heralded change from a militaryled government to quasi-civilian one.
“A new wave of systematic rights abuses is ongoing under the new government,” Khon Ja
told ucanews.com on Tuesday. “There has been no decrease in human rights cases
according to the research from rights groups.”
An August report by the Network for Human Rights Documentation-Burma (ND-Burma), for
example, cited 103 cases of rights abuses in the country in the first six months of 2014
alone. These included cases of torture, extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrests, rape and
forced labor. The government has touted its ongoing peace process with the country’s
disparate armed ethnic militias, yet the ND-Burma report says rights violations are
“rampant” in conflict areas and beyond.
Likewise, a report this year from the Women’s League of Burma claimed that more than 100
women in conflict areas in Kachin and Shan states had been victims of rape at the hands of
Myamnar's army since the 2010 elections that installed the current government.
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Aung Myo Min, executive director of the NGO Equality Myanmar, says the government has
yet to demonstrate its commitment to addressing human rights abuses.
“We have got the right to express our concerns and opinions in the new Myanmar, but no
action is implemented by the government,” he told ucanews.com.
Rather than abating, Aung Myo Min says the possibility of abuses such as already endemic
land confiscations could surge in the coming years as businesses rush in to invest in volatile
areas.
“The government has the responsibility to address human rights abuses [but] it depends on
how willing they are,” he said.
In a July statement following a visit to the country, the UN’s human rights rapporteur for
Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, warned of troubling patterns that could reverse many of the
reforms the government has touted.
“There are worrying signs of possible backtracking, which if unchecked could undermine
Myanmar’s efforts to become a responsible member of the international community that
respects and protects human rights,” Lee said.
Source: http://www.ucanews.com/news/myanmar-must-remain-on-un-rights-councilsagenda/72084
U.S. embassy issues warning after clashes in Myanmar
YANGON (Reuters) - The U.S. embassy in Myanmar on Wednesday issued a warning to its
citizens travel ling in eastern Myanmar after clashes between the military and ethnic
minority rebels.
Various rebels groups have battled the central government in Myanmar since shortly after
its independence in 1948. While the government has in recent years struck ceasefires with
almost all factions, clashes occasionally flare up.
The U.S. embassy said incidents over the past week included a rocket-propelled grenade
attack on a bus in Karen state and the discovery of two improvised explosive devices in the
Karen state town of Myawaddy on the border with Thailand.
"If you see something suspicious, leave the area immediately and report it to local
authorities," the embassy posted on its Twitter account. "Do not touch, move, or tamper
with any suspicious package."
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack on the bus and Myanmar officials have
not said if there were casualties.
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Media has reported clashes during the past week between the military and the Democratic
Karen Benevolent Army and a faction of the Karen National Union (KNU), ethnic minority
guerrilla factions that have ceasefire agreements with the government.
Myanmar military and government officials were not available for comment.
Thailand put its troops on the border on high alert this week because of the clashes in Karen
state, said Paradorn Pattanathabutr, a security adviser in the office of Prime Minister
Prayuth Chan-ocha.
On Monday, Thailand closed the border crossing between the western Thai town of Mae Sot
and Myawaddy, one of the main crossing points between the two countries. A Thai official
told Reuters on Wednesday that the border was open again.
The latest round of peace talks between the Myanmar government and an array of ethnic
minority guerrilla factions ended on Sept. 27 without agreement on a national ceasefire.
Most of the rebel factions have been battling for greater autonomy under a federal system.
Myanmar's semi-civilian government, which took over in 2011 after nearly 50 years of
military rule, and has made signing a national ceasefire a part of its reform program.
"We are confident that we are now getting close to achieving a comprehensive and lasting
peace," Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin told the United Nations general Assembly on
Monday.
But an officer in the KNU, Colonel Ner Dah Mya, said the government should be aware that
the latest clashes could undermine the effort to seal a national agreement.
"The fighting that has happened could destroy the peace talks," he told Reuters.
(Additional reporting by Somjit Rungjumratrusamee in Mae Sot; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/01/us-myanmar-rebelsidUSKCN0HQ39020141001
Myanmar confirms controversial Rohingya plan at UN
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Could be stripped of their rights: A family at a Rohingya internally displaced persons camp
outside of Sittwe last year. Photo: Reuters
YANGON: Myanmar has confirmed to the United Nations it is finalising a plan that will offer
minority Rohingya Muslims citizenship if they change their ethnicity to suggest Bangladeshi
origin, a move rights groups say could force thousands into detention camps.
Most of Myanmar’s 1.1 million Rohingya are stateless and live in apartheid-like conditions in
Rakhine state on the western coast of the predominantly Buddhist country. Almost 140,000
Rohingya remain displaced after deadly clashes with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists in 2012.
The national government had drafted a plan that will give members of the persecuted
Rohingya minority a bleak choice: accept ethnic reclassification and the prospect of
citizenship, or be detained.
“An action plan is being finalised and will soon be launched,” Foreign Minister Wunna Maung
Lwin said in an address to the UN General Assembly on Monday, requesting the United
Nations to “provide much-needed development assistance there.”
It was the first public reference to the controversial plan, which the government has been
drafting largely in secret, to the extent that humanitarian workers have until recently been
shown only hard copies.
The Rakhine State Action Plan outlines projects including rebuilding homes for displaced
people, improving health care and education, and promoting reconciliation, according to a
draft.
More controversially, the plan contains a section on a process to determine whether
Rohingya are citizens. Rohingya would be required to register their identities as Bengali, a
term most reject because it implies they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh despite
having lived in the area for generations.
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The plan proposes that authorities “construct temporary camps in required numbers for
those who refuse to be registered and those without adequate documents.”
It states that the government will ask the UN Refugee Agency, the UNHCR, for help to
resettle overseas those who fail to obtain citizenship.
But a UNHCR spokeswoman said it would be impossible for the agency to do so, because
they would not be “recognised refugees who have fled persecution and conflict across
international borders.”
That raises the possibility that Rohingya could be forced from their villages and detained
indefinitely, warned Phil Robertson, deputy director for Asia at Human Rights Watch.
Reuters
Source: http://www.smh.com.au/world/myanmar-confirms-controversial-rohingya-plan-atunited-nations-20140930-10oche.html
Sectarian Violence in Myanmar Threatens Livelihood of Muslims
MANDALAY, Myanmar — It has been more than a month since Mandalay, Myanmar’s
second-largest city, was rocked by deadly anti-Muslim riots. Broken windows and large
dents in the facades of a dozen small Muslim-run businesses are the only visible reminders
of when about 300 radical Buddhists rode into town wielding swords and bricks, killing two
people.
Less visible are the economic scars. But Myanmar’s Muslim community says politically
charged anti-Muslim speech and widespread sectarian violence are threatening their
livelihoods.
“We were closed for a whole week, so there was no income,” said Mama Gyi, a 56-year-old
Muslim who owns a bike rental and convenience store in Mandalay. “I usually make about
$300 per month, but now there are not many tourists, so I can only rent out a couple of
bikes per day. I am only making about 20 percent of what I was.”
Muslim traders and businessmen have been a major part of the country’s economy since
colonial times and the rule of the British East India Company. Today, they make up about 5
percent of the population, with many earning their income from small, family-run
businesses.
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A mosque in a predominantly Muslim area downtown. Credit Mathieu Willcocks for The New York Times
Aung, a Muslim who owns a medical supplies firm in Mandalay, said fears of more flare-ups
had chased away customers and businesses alike.
“Some of the bigger companies had their businesses transferred
Aung, who asked to be identified by his first name only, for fear
there is a risk, since we do not know who is out there, and we do
while outside of Mandalay. We have to be careful about maintaining
to other districts,” said
of retribution. “But still
not want to get spotted
our businesses.”
He said many shop owners moved with their families to Shan State, in the country’s
northeast, while others moved to the outskirts of Mandalay.
Residents in Mandalay also said the police had blocked off streets where many Muslim shops
were located after the rioting. The blockade is now gone, but a heavy police presence
remains. Muslim business owners said they had lost anywhere from 40 to 80 percent of
their income, which at $300 to $1,000 a month can be the difference between just getting
by and poverty.
Larger companies have faced resistance as well. The Qatar-based telecommunications
operator Ooredoo, which introduced services in Myanmar on Aug. 15, has been the subject
of anti-Muslim protests and a smear campaign in social media because of the company’s
roots in a Muslim country. In May, anti-Muslim nationalists led by Buddhist monks protested
in Mandalay, calling for a full boycott of Ooredoo in Myanmar.
Although several monasteries started their own boycotts, there has been no widespread
spurning of Ooredoo, which said it had signed up more than a million customers in its first
month.
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Sectarian violence, both against Muslims and the Rohingya minority, is growing worse in
other parts of Myanmar, particularly in the states of Rakhine, on the country’s west coast,
and Kachin, in the northeast.
“Sectarian violence is affecting the Muslim Rohingya business community on every scale
from small businesses to the bigger companies. There has been no resolving the problem,
and the situation is getting worse and worse as Muslims are suffering every day,” said Khin
Maung Myint, a Muslim Rohingya and an executive member of the National Democratic
Party for Development, a political party defending the rights of Muslims.
Since anti-Muslim violence started in 2012, he said, hundreds of thousands of the estimated
1.2 million to 1.5 million Rohingya have fled the country, with another 150,000 winding up
in camps. As many as 80 percent of Muslim businesses in Rakhine State were affected by
the violence, particularly in the state’s capital, Sittwe.
“Businesses owned by Muslims were looted by Rakhine extremists, and many are now
closed, especially in Sittwe,” he said, adding that more than 300 Muslim-owned shops at
Myo Ma market, the town’s largest, were quickly abandoned in 2012.
In Mandalay, where a curfew was imposed after the July riots, the locally owned Golden
Myanmar Airlines said evening flights, which often departed around the curfew time of 9
p.m., were only 30 percent full before the curfew was lifted in August. That has begun to
improve, but only slightly, airline officials said.
“Immediately after the riots, we had some full flights because people were all trying to leave
town,” said Hlene Zar, the Golden Myanmar Airlines branch manager. “Then came the
curfew, and we had a hard time getting customers for the evening flights, because people
were too scared to break the curfew.”
Over the last three years, Myanmar has undergone an economic transformation. The
government has awarded foreign companies landmark concessions of its untapped oil
reserves and telecommunications spectrum, estimated to be worth billions of dollars.
As a result, foreign direct investment has risen to $4.1 billion in the latest fiscal year, up
from $1.4 billion the year before, according to the Myanmar Directorate of Investment and
Company Administration. The International Monetary Fund has said Myanmar’s economy is
poised to grow 8.5 percent this year, a slight increase from 8.25 percent a year earlier.
Although there has been no noticeable drop in foreign investment so far, continued
sectarian violence throughout the country could change that, at a pivotal point in the
country’s development, experts say. Cyn-Young Park, an assistant chief economist at the
Asian Development Bank, said religious tension was a “grave concern” for parts of the
economy.
“In Myanmar, where there is large investment need, it affects foreign investor sentiment
and can limit F.D.I.,” Mr. Park said, referring to foreign direct investment. “Tourism can
generate substantial economic gains for Myanmar, but international visitors are largely
confined to the central parts of the country even now, due to security reasons.”
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Myanmar’s $926 million tourism sector is feeling the effects, but mainly in areas hit by
violence, said Oliver Esser Soe Thet, the president of the Myanmar Chefs’ Association and a
hotelier. He added that the problem was especially prominent in Rakhine State.
After as many as 6,000 tourists visited in 2011, the number traveling to the archaeologically
significant town of Mrauk U, known for its historic Buddhist shrines, or stupas, has dwindled
to hundreds, he said. When the riots started, the violence caused tourist numbers at
Ngapali beach, considered one of most beautiful in the country, to fall to 14,000 — a drop of
about 50 percent. The numbers have since rebounded and are on pace for about 20,000 this
year.
Underscoring the impact of the violence, Yangon, the country’s main city, which has been
largely unaffected by unrest, welcomed 817,000 tourists in 2013, a 46 percent increase
from the year before.
The government believes that continued violence could threaten the country as a whole,
said the deputy information minister and presidential spokesman U Ye Htut.
“Communal violence is a big challenge for Myanmar — not only for foreign investment —
but also for the stability of the country and Myanmar society,” he said by email.
Muslims said they were uncertain whether the situation would improve soon.
Standing behind the display case in her father’s glasses store in Mandalay, a 43-year-old
shopkeeper, who asked to be called by her nickname, Honey, for fear of retribution if the
rioters returned, said that eventually things would have to get better.
“One day, the people will understand each other and understand what it is to be Muslim,”
she said.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/29/business/sectarian-violence-in-myanmarthreatens-the-livelihoods-of-muslims.html?
Rohingya could face detention under Myanmar draft plan
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Rohingya Muslims pass time near their shelter at a refugee camp outside Sittwe June 4, 2014.
YANGON/BANGKOK - Myanmar's national government has drafted a plan that will give
around a million members of the persecuted Rohingya Muslim ethnic minority a bleak
choice: accept ethnic reclassification and the prospect of citizenship, or be detained.
Most of Myanmar's 1.1 million Rohingya already live in apartheid-like conditions in western
Rakhine, where deadly clashes with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists in 2012 displaced 140,000
people, mostly Rohingya.
The plan, shared with Reuters by sources who have received copies of the draft, proposes
Rakhine authorities "construct temporary camps in required numbers for those who refuse
to be registered and those without adequate documents".
Many Rohingya lost documents in the widespread violence, or have previously refused to
register as "Bengalis", as required by the government under the new plan, because they say
the term implies they are illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh.
Despite winning praise for political and economic reforms introduced since military rule
ended in March 2011, Myanmar has come under international pressure over its treatment of
the Rohingya.
The plan says one of its aims is to promote peaceful co-existence and prevent sectarian
tension and conflict.
It includes sections on resolving statelessness through a citizenship verification programme,
as well as promoting economic development.
But rights advocates say it could potentially put thousands of Rohingya, including those
living in long-settled villages, at risk of indefinite detention.
CITIZENSHIP OFFER
The government will offer citizenship for those that accept the classification and have
required documentation. That may encourage some to consent to identification as Bengali.
Citizenship would offer some legal protection and rights to those Rohingya who attain it.
But an official from Rakhine State who is part of the committee overseeing citizenship
verification said even that would not resolve the simmering tensions between Buddhists and
Muslims in the state, or prevent a recurrence of the inter-community violence that plagued
the country in 2012.
"Practically, even after being given citizenship and resettlement and all that, a Bengali with
a citizenship card still won't be able to walk into a Rakhine village," said Tha Pwint, who also
serves on the committee that oversees humanitarian affairs in the Rakhine.
The plan was drafted at the request of the national government, said Tha Pwint and three
other sources contacted by Reuters about the plan.
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Myanmar government spokesman Ye Htut could not be reached for comment on the plan,
despite repeated efforts by Reuters to contact him by telephone and email.
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/27/us-myanmar-rohingya-exclusiveidUSKCN0HM09520140927
Myanmar: Government, Ethnic Armed Groups Agree Draft Ceasefire
Accord
HANOI, Sept 27 (Bernama) -- Myanmar's government and ethnic armed groups on Friday
reached a consensus on the fourth draft accord on a nationwide ceasefire after five days of
talks at the Myanmar Peace Centre in Yangon, reports Vietnam News Agency (VNA)
Saturday.
An announcement released at a joint press conference said at the end of their sixth talks
and after discussing some remaining points out of 104 of the draft accord, the Union Peacemaking Work Committee (UPWC) of the government and the National Ceasefire
Coordination Team (NCCT) of ethnic armed groups adopted the document.
Myanmar's parliamentarians and the army's representatives attended the talks.
A new round of talks is due to be held in October in a bid to ink the historic long-awaited
nationwide ceasefire as soon as possible.
The UPWC and leaders of the ethnic armed groups launched their first negotiation on a
nationwide ceasefire in November 2013 in Myitgyina, Kachin state's capital, followed by a
series of meetings in an effort to sketch out a draft nationwide ceasefire agreement.
Since taking office in March 2011, President U Thein Sein's government has strongly pushed
ahead the process of national reconciliation though the signing of ceasefire deals with 14 of
the 16 ethnic armed groups.
Now the country is moving forward to a nationwide ceasefire and later political dialogues for
long-lasting peace.
-- BERNAMA
Source: http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v7/wn/newsworld.php?id=1072238
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Myanmar: UN chief urges country to move beyond ‘narrow agendas’
and towards cooperation
A mother and her children stand in their small hut in a camp for displaced people in Rakhine State. Photo: OCHA/Michelle Delaney
26 September 2014 – Myanmar has shown progress in areas of socio-economic
development, national reconciliation and democratization, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
confirmed today, while also warning that the Asian country still faced “critical hurdles” as it
approached its impending elections.
In remarks delivered to the Meeting of the Partnership Group on Myanmar, held on the
margins of the General Assembly in New York, Mr. Ban celebrated the move by the
Government to invite ethnic armed groups to join the country’s ongoing peace process,
stating that “open discussions on issues like power, resource sharing and a federal union
based on equality, democracy and self-determination are signs of a serious commitment to
a united Myanmar.”
“Now is the time to move beyond narrow agendas and towards cooperation,” said Mr. Ban,
who added that the UN would “continue to play a constructive role” in developing
Myanmar’s path towards peace.
Meanwhile, addressing the continuing ethnic hostilities in Rakhine state, the SecretaryGeneral said he remained “deeply troubled” by the situation and warned that the conditions
of vulnerable populations, including those in internally displaced persons camps, remained
“precarious and unsustainable.”
Myanmar has been plagued by simmering tensions between Buddhist and Muslim
communities since June 2012. The worst of the clashes affected hundreds of thousands of
families in Rakhine state, the country’s second poorest region, with a population of more
than three million.
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In addition, restrictions on the freedom of movement of hundreds of thousands of people in
Rakhine severely compromised their basic rights to food, health, education and livelihoods,
leaving them dependent on humanitarian assistance, according to the UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The Secretary-General also emphasized Myanmar’s impending elections as a watershed
moment for the country and noted that the Myanmar Parliament would have a “crucial” role
as the country takes decisive measures on national reconciliation, engages in political
dialogue with its diverse ethnic groups, and debates a range of matters including control of
hate speech as well as a host of other socio-economic and developmental issues.
“The Government has taken some positive steps,” Mr. Ban concluded.
“Translating recent commitments into visible action will help ease tensions and create the
foundation for a long-term equitable solution.”
Source: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=48902#.VCZhZlfriXc
CARTOON
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