Singapore mentors Burma in sham elections

By Seelan Palay

As preparations for the sham elections in Burma get into full swing, it is not difficult to notice similarities in electoral practices between the Burmese generals in uniform and Singapore’s leaders in civilian clothes.

The Burmese regime is bending over backwards to stage the fraudulent elections while refusing to respect the results of the country’s polls in 1990 that led to the landslide victory for the National League for Democracy (NLD).[…]

Thingyan Bombing Shows Instability Under SPDC Rule

On 15 April 2010, a string of bomb explosions in Rangoon brutally interrupted the city’s Thingyan festivities, leaving 170 civilians injured and killing 10. The three blasts rocked the city at 3pm in a lakeside park pavilion sponsored by Than Shwe’s grandson. While not entirely unprecedented in a country marked by civil unrest, the recent bombings were the deadliest since those on 7 May 2005, which resulted in 19 deaths and over 150 injured.[…]

ASEAN All Talk, No Action on Burma

ASEAN held their 16th Summit this past week in Hanoi, Vietnam, where they discussed enhancing economic cooperation and inaugurated the Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC). The ASEAN leaders were also forced to discuss the issues of Burma’s human rights situation under the military regime and it’s manipulation of the electoral process in the lead up to this year’s polls […]

164 Organizations Adopt an Urgent Resolution Condemning Human Rights Violations in Burma

Members of 164 organizations from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe, meeting in Yerevan, Armenia from 6 to 10 April for the37th Congress of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) adopted an urgent resolution condemning the systematic and widespread human rights abuses in Burma. The resolution rejected the elections and called for the investigation of allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Burmese military regime […]

Stateless and starving in Bangladesh

By Richard Sollom
Global Post

The Rohingya are a poor minority stuck between two countries that won’t help them. Who will come to their aid?

Government officials in Bangladesh are preventing charities from delivering food to tens of thousands of starving Burmese refugees living in its southeastern corner, across the river from Burma (*Myanmar). […]

Parliamentarians Issue Petition to ASEAN Leaders

To ASEAN Leaders attending 16th ASEAN Summit (Hanoi, Vietnam) to take action on the issue of Myanmar should further engagement fail to yield desirable concessions/ results.

On 8 March 2010, the military government of Myanmar published new laws governing the electoral process for the nation’s general elections planned for later this year. Numerous provisions in the laws guarantee that the elections will not be open and inclusive of Myanmar’s diverse population, notably excluding participation of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and Myanmar’s leading pro-democracy icon, Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners who form a substantial share of the leadership of non-military-aligned movements and political parties. […]

ASEAN Must Step Up on Human Rights and Burma

The ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission of Human Rights (AICHR) held its first meeting in Jakarta from 28 March to 1 April. Delegates discussed the Rules of Procedure (RoP), the guidelines according to which the body will operate, and the first 5-year work plan, both of which will be taken up at the 16th ASEAN Summit that begins today in Hanoi. Civil society from throughout ASEAN gathered to raise important human rights cases, including that of Burma, only to be ignored by the new body. As representative[s] of a human rights institution, the refusal to meet with civil society is in itself a contradiction of the spirit and principles of human rights,” said Yap Swee Seng, co-convener of Solidarity for Asian Peoples Advocacy Task Force on ASEAN Human Rights and the Executive Director of the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (Forum-Asia). […]

Support for the NLD’s Decision to not Register Under Unjust Laws

Yesterday, the National League for Democracy (NLD) decided that it would not register as a political party under the junta’s unjust laws and flawed constitution. One hundred and thirteen Central Committee members from across Burma took the decision unanimously […]

Decision time in Burma for democracy’s advocates

By U Win Tin
The Washington Post

Burma’s military regime has forced our party, the National League for Democracy, to make a tough decision on whether we will continue to operate legally.

The ruling generals, known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), issued a set of unjust electoral laws this month that threatened to abolish our party if we did not re-register at the election commission within 60 days. […]

Quintana’s Report Sparks Debate and Action; NLD Decides Not to Register

UN Special Rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana’s courageous report calling for a UN-sanctioned investigation into crimes against humanity and war crimes has already carried ripple effects from Geneva to New York to Jakarta, fueling discussions in both the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Security Council, and prompting civil society to demand action from the new ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights […]