Cambodia Curtails Freedom of Expression at ASEAN Civil Society Conference

Four workshops organized by civil society organizations were forced late last night to move their workshops to La Palaranda hotel, away from the main venue of the ASEAN Civil Society Conference (ACSC)/ASEAN People’s Forum (APF), the Lucky Star Hotel (on Street 336, Phnom Penh). Three of the workshops dealt with land rights, eviction and environment issues and the fourth focused on Burma’s current political and human rights situation and the challenges this poses to the country’s chairmanship of ASEAN in 2014 […]

By-Elections: A Public Relations Game

With less than one week until the 1 April by-elections in Burma, it is abundantly clear that the process has been anything but free and fair. In an attempt to legitimize the upcoming elections, Thein Sein’s government on Wednesday confirmed that it had invited international monitors to visit Burma and observe the election. However, only one day earlier, it had expelled from the country a representative of the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL), a regional organization advocating for “free, honest and clean elections.” The decision to allow in international observers but deny access for independent civil society demonstrates that the by-elections are more about winning the approval of the international community than listening to the voices of local communities in Burma.

While international observation of the election is something that has been called for by many foreign governments and non-governmental organizations, the invitation comes too late for the observers to monitor critical portions of the electoral process. As ANFREL noted in a statement on March 22 “It is regrettable therefore that the invitations, which included the United States, the European Union, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), come less than two weeks before election day […]

By-Elections Must Not Be Seen as Benchmark of Reform

The international community, including many western governments, has indicated that it views the upcoming 1 April by-elections in Burma as a key benchmark in the country’s reform process and many have argued that a successful process should lead to the lifting of economic sanctions. However, free and fair balloting alone is insufficient to demonstrate that the by-elections have moved Burma into a period of true democracy because the process has been structured to maintain the military’s grip on power.

Only 48 seats in the Parliament, 7% of the total available parliamentary seats, are being contested in the by-elections. Those seats being contested are open predominantly because the individual originally elected to fill them, all of whom are members of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), was appointed to a position in the executive branch. Thus, only a small fraction of the country will be participating in this election and the vast majority of the people of Burma will continue to be represented by the individuals who supposedly won the 2010 elections, which were nothing more than a sham […]

Irregularities Tarnish the Credibility of Upcoming By-Elections

“The Special Rapporteur is concerned at continuing allegations of campaign irregularities and attemps to limit campaign activities,” stated Tomás Ojea Quintana in his report to the United Nations Human Rights Council released on Friday. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Burma further stressed that “the credibility of the elections will not be determined solely on the day of the vote, but on the basis of the entire process leading up and following election day.”

This report comes at the same time as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been alerting the Union Election Commission and the international community about the obstacles and restrictions that the NLD is facing on the campaign trail. Speaking after a meeting with Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird on Thursday, Daw Suu said that official voter lists for next month’s by-elections include dead people and open the possibility for fraud […]

Local Communities and Supporters Express Concerns About Development Projects in Burma

As Thein Sein’s government takes small steps towards democratic transition, the people of Burma are expressing concerns about problematic development projects already underway. These projects, many of which are in ethnic states, directly contribute to human rights violations and increased militarization in project areas, as well as having negative social, economic and environmental impacts.

On 1 March, activists from Burma and around the world participated in a Global Day of Action against the Shwe Gas Pipeline Project that cuts across the country from western Arakan State to China. One hundred and thirty organizations from more than 20 countries signed an open letter to President Thein Sein calling for the suspension of the Shwe Gas project. The letter condemned the confiscation of thousands of acres of farmlands and restriction of access to traditional fishing areas for the project, as well as increased militarization and displacement along the pipeline corridor. The project will generate the country’s largest source of foreign revenue at US$29 billion over 30 years. Furthermore, the gas will be exported to China, while around 75% of the people in Burma do not receive electricity from the national grid […]

ASEAN Leader’s Visit to Burma Unwittingly Shows Many Needed Steps

This past week, ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan traveled to Burma where he met with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, President Thein Sein and Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin. While ASEAN and its leaders tend to view developments in Burma through rose-tinted glasses, several of Surin’s comments during and after his visit illustrated just how many more steps are actually needed for there to be genuine reform in the country.

At a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand following his trip, Surin said, “If Myanmar is going to carry out its chairmanship successfully, many things need to happen within the next two years.” He elaborated that the country will need to invest in roads, telecommunications, hotels and internet systems for the thousands of national leaders, delegates and journalists that will attend […]

88 Generation Students Visit Myin Chan, Speak to the People

၈၈မ်ဳိးဆက္ေက်ာင္းသားေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ား ျဖစ္ေၾကာင့္ ကိုမင္းေဇယ်၊ ကိုမင္းကိုႏိုင္၊ ကိုေဌးၾကြယ္၊ ကိုေအာင္သူတို႕မွ ျမင္းျခံျမိဳ႕နယ္အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမိုကေရစီအဖြဲ႕ခ်ဳပ္ရံုးတြင္ ျပည္သူလူထုအား ေတြ႕ဆံုႏႈတ္ဆက္မိန္႕ခြန္းေျပာၾကားခဲ့ရာ […]

88 Generation Students including Min Ko Naing, Min Zaya, Htay Kywe, Aung Thu visited Myin Chan, Mandalay Division and gave speeches about freedom from fear to the public at the NLD’s Myin Chan office yesterday […]

The International Community Must Support the People of Burma in Their Efforts to Exercise Their Rights

“We’re still on strike. We are fighting for our rights, because we want to be treated fairly” said a female worker representative from the Tai Yi shoe factory in Rangoon, on Wednesday. It has now been more than a week since nearly 2,000 workers went on strike because of the factory’s refusal to pay them for the five days they were prevented from working during Chinese New Year.

“We are being forced to get off our own land and the company is threatening legal action against us. So we have authorized someone to act on our behalf in filing a lawsuit against Khin Shwe” said Kyaw Sein, a farmer who lost 50 acres of land, talking to the Irrawaddy this week.

Farmers from Rangoon’s Mingaladon Township said that they will sue Khin Shwe, the chairman of Zay Kabar Company and a member of the Lower House of Parliament, for allegedly confiscating their farmland […]

Union Day Highlights the Fundamental Need to Address the Political Aspirations of the Ethnic Nationalities

On 12 February 2012, Burma celebrated the 65th Union Day, a holiday that commemorates the signing of the Panglong agreement by Aung San, the leader of Burma’s independence movement, and representatives of the Chin, Shan and Kachin people. The agreement, which was never implemented, provided for the creation of a Federal Union, called for power sharing between the majority Burman and non-Burman ethnic nationalities, and granted the non-Burman ethnic nationalities autonomy in the administration of their territories.

On this historic occasion it is particularly important to ensure that political reforms in Burma live up to the aspirations of the non-Burman ethnic nationalities, including their desire to participate equally in public life. The Nationalities Brotherhood Forum, a five-party ethnic alliance which includes Chin, Karen, Mon, Rakhine and Shan representatives, noted in their Union Day statement that “[w]e are saddened by the continuing lack of equality and national democratic rights for the ethnic nationalities, despite the fact that Independence was collectively achieved for the Union of Burma through the spirit of Panglong.” […]

Democracy Will Remain Illusory Unless Burma’s Oppressive Laws Are Repealed

This past week United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Burma, Tomás Ojea Quintana, conducted a 6-day visit in the country to assess the human rights situation in light of recent developments. At the end of his visit, he delivered a statement in which, among other things, he underlines the necessity of further legislative reforms.

At the end of last year, the regime adopted the new Labor Organizations Law and the Peaceful Demonstration and Gathering Law. However, as noted by Quintana in the statement he delivered on Sunday, concerns remain about these laws […]