Burma Border Clash Sends Thousands to Thailand After Election

Clashes between Burma’s army and a rebel ethnic group sent thousands fleeing across the border into Thailand a day after the country’s first elections in 20 years that excluded political prisoners and certain minorities.

Members of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, one of more than 30 ethnic armies based inside Burma, stormed the border crossing of Myawaddy yesterday during the election. As many as 5,000 people are staying in temporary camps set up by the Thai army after rebels threatened to set fire to the town, said Khin Ohmar, coordinator of the Burma Partnership, an umbrella organization of civil-society groups […]

Ethnic Strife Hits Burma Border

Clashes between ethnic Karen rebels and Burmese government troops roiled an important border town and spurred an estimated 15,000 to flee to Thailand Monday, a day after the country’s first elections in two decades […]

Khin Ohmar, a spokeswoman for the Burma Partnership, a pro-democracy advocacy group active in the area, said that the rebel faction seized key installations and that fighting resumed Monday. Government forces later retreated from the town and began shelling the area as they apparently awaited reinforcements. It is unclear how many casualties there have been.

“The residents say they were told to leave the town and that’s why there are so many of them coming into Thailand now,” Ms. Khin Ohmar said […]

Burma protesters confront UN leader in Bangkok

Several dozen refugees and migrant workers from Burma defied threats of arrest and deportation to confront UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon during his brief visit to the Thai capital yesterday […]

Khin Omar from the campaign group Burma Partnership told Mizzima that Ban’s performance on the Burma file was dreadful: “It is long past time for Ban Ki-moon to stop expressing concern and actually do something” […]

Still Time to Make Election Inclusive, Says Ban

In a further plea for a “transparent and credible” election in Burma, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in Bangkok on Tuesday: “It is not too late, even now, to make this election more inclusive” […]

Khin Ohmar of the Burma Partnership told The Irrawaddy that the secretary-general’s words came too late to have any impact on the election.

“These are just the same soft words that have been spoken many times before,” she said. “The regime sees that these words mean nothing, as no action is ever taken.”

Regional efforts needed to push for democracy

[…] Experts and Myanmarese activists agreed during a discussion here on Wednesday that Indonesia, which would chair ASEAN next year, should use its chairmanship to form an agenda on Myanmar, which was scheduled to conduct widely anticipated elections in November.

They also said that through ASEAN, Indonesia should ask for assistance from China and India to put more pressure on the military rulers in Myanmar.

Burma Partnership coordinator Khin Ohmar said there were some problems in expecting China and India to join pro-democracy efforts […]

Myanmar deprives ‘millions’ of vote in ethnic areas

Myanmar is scrapping voting in swathes of insurgency-plagued ethnic areas in its first election in two decades — a move criticised as excluding millions from a poll already seen as undemocratic.[…]

Call for War Crimes Inquiry Foils UN Envoy’s Trip

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

When a UN human rights investigator for Burma called for an international inquiry to look into possible war crimes by the country’s military regime, he added significant weight to similar calls that had been made in other quarters.

But that call in March by Tomas Ojea Quintana, as part of a scathing 30-page report delivered to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, has come back to haunt the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, as Burma is also known.[…]

Burmese leader plays his cards right

With stability in mind, India, China and Asean have to engage the junta

[…] “Asean foreign ministers criticise but fail to act on Burma” summed up the sentiment of the non-government, pro-democracy Burma Partnership, which like many other activist organisations wants to see more meaningful pressure brought to bear on the junta […]

Asean FMs urged to prod Burma to democratize

A REGIONAL rights group has called on the foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) currently meeting in Hanoi to step up moves to democratize Burma/Myanmar as part of concrete measures in establishing a single-market economy by 2015 […]

Filipino activists urge Aquino to take action on Burma

Activists from the Free Burma Coalition Philippines have called for stronger policies and more concrete action on democratisation in Burma from the new Aquino administration, which was sworn in yesterday […]