Tuesday, 9 February 2010
ဆႏၵျပအလုပ္သား ၁၄၀၀ ခန႔္သည္ ေန႔လည္ ထမင္းစားၿပီးခ်ိန္မွွ စ၍ လုပ္ခလစာ တိုးျမႇင့္ေပးရန္ ေတာင္းဆိုေနျခင္း ျဖစ္ၿပီး စက္႐ုံမွာ ကိုရီးယားႏိုင္ငံသားက ရင္းႏွီးျမဳပ္ႏွံထားျခင္း ျဖစ္သည္ဟု သူက ေျပာသည္။
အလုပ္သမားမ်ား၏ ေတာင္းဆိုခ်က္မ်ားကို စက္ရုံမွ တာဝန္ရွိသူမ်ားႏွင့္ ယခုခ်ိန္ထိ ညွိႏိႈင္း၍ မရေသးေၾကာင္း သိရသည္။
လိႈင္သာယာ စက္မႈဇုန္မ်ားတြင္ ဇန္နဝါရီလအတြင္း အလုပ္သမားမ်ား လုပ္ခလစာႏွင့္ ခံစားခြင့္ ဆုိင္ရာ ဆႏၵျပပြဲ ၂ ရပ္ ျဖစ္ပြားခဲ့သည္။
လႈိင္သာယာ စက္မႈဇုန္ ၂ ရွိ ပုစြန္ အေအးခန္း စက္႐ံုတခုတြင္ အလုပ္သမား ၁၀၀ ခန္႔က ဇန္နဝါရီလ ၇ ရက္ေန႔တြင္ ဆႏၵျပခဲ့သလို၊ စက္မႈဇုန္ ၃ ရွိ Weng Hong Hung အထည္ခ်ဳပ္ စက္႐ုံတြင္ ဇန္နဝါရီလ ၁၇ ရက္ေန႔တြင္ အလုပ္သမားမ်ား လုပ္အားခ တိုးျမႇင့္ေတာင္းဆိုမႈ ျဖစ္ပြားခဲ့သည္။
http://www.mizzimaburmese.com/news/breaking-newsbrief/4755-2010-02-08-12-59-38.html
Monday, 8 February 2010
Source: Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID); Government of Australia
Date: 08 Feb 2010
MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS
STEPHEN SMITH
Mr Deputy Speaker.
I wish to update the House on developments in Burma.
On 4 January, Burma's Independence Day, Burmese Senior General Than Shwe announced that plans were under way to conduct elections in Burma this year.
Elections have long been foreshadowed under the Burmese military's so-called 'Roadmap to Democracy'.
If elections do take place, they will be the first in Burma in 20 years.
This year will, therefore, be an important one for Burma, and an important one for the international community's engagement with Burma.
Australia has long been appalled both by the Burmese military's suppression of the democratic aspirations of the Burmese people and by its disrespect for their human rights.
It is worthwhile recalling some important events in this longstanding suppression.
A military regime, in some form, has ruled Burma since 1962, nearly 50 years.
We recall the bloody put down of pro-democracy protests in 1988, just over 20 years ago.
Since 1988 Australia has had in place visa restrictions against senior members of the Burmese regime and their associates and supporters.
Following the failure to implement the outcome of the 1990 elections, in 1991 Australia introduced a ban on defence exports to Burma.
This is a ban on the export to Burma of controlled goods as listed on the Defence and Strategic Goods List.
In October 2007, financial sanctions were introduced in response to the violent crackdown on democracy protesters.
These various sanctions - travel sanctions, defence sanctions and financial sanctions - have the common purpose of exerting pressure on Burma's military regime.
At the same time, Australia has recognised that engaging the Burmese authorities serves important national, regional and international interests.
We live in the same region. Through regional forums like the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference, the ASEAN Regional Forum and the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Human Trafficking and Transnational Crime, Australia has had the opportunity to engage Burma on challenges like counter-narcotics, trafficking in people, disaster relief and pandemic disease.
As well, Australia has for many years sought to help the Burmese people through a program of humanitarian assistance targeting the most vulnerable.
This program, now worth nearly $30 million in 2009-10, assists with fighting infectious diseases such as avian influenza, HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis; provides food aid and agricultural expertise to alleviate rural poverty; protects displaced people; and supports children to attend and remain in primary school.
ASEAN, through its humanitarian work in Burma after Cyclone Nargis, has been vital in facilitating assistance from Australia and members of the international community to the Burmese people.
Common membership of regional organisations also allows us at Ministerial level to directly advocate democratic reform and national reconciliation - as I did when I met my counterpart Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win during the ASEAN-related meetings in Thailand in July 2009.
Mr Deputy Speaker.
On 12 August 2009 I addressed the House on Burma after Aung San Suu Kyi's conviction on spurious charges, leading to her ongoing house arrest.
I set out then that Aung San Suu Kyi's sentence effectively removed the prospect of her participation in any proposed 2010 elections and would detract from the credibility of those elections.
Since that time, there have been a number of important developments both within Burma and in the international community's approach to Burma.
On 17 September 2009 the Burmese authorities released 128 political prisoners in an amnesty. This was a welcome, tentative step in the right direction.
Repression however continues.
On 31 December, 15 activists were sentenced to up to 71 years imprisonment each. There regrettably remain close to 2000 political prisoners in Burma, including Aung San Suu Kyi.
Australia again calls on Burma's authorities to release them and allow them to participate fully and freely in the upcoming elections.
In September 2009, in the margins of the United Nations General Assembly, I joined ten other Foreign Ministers and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a Ministerial-level meeting of the Secretary-General's Group of Friends of Myanmar.
The participation in this meeting was evidence both of the international community's desire to see progress in Burma and of its willingness to both work together and with the Secretary General towards this end.
At the meeting, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon identified three areas for future unity of purpose and action:
First, to urge Burma to work with the United Nations to ensure an inclusive process of dialogue and create the conditions for credible elections.
Second, to uphold the role of the United Nations in Burma.
And third, to signal the international community's willingness to help the people of Burma, but noting that Burma's military regime needed to respond to international concerns in order for this to occur.
My visit to New York for the General Assembly coincided with the announcement of the United States policy review on Burma.
The United States Administration concluded that a sanctions-only policy to isolate Burma's military has not worked and that future US policy would combine engagement, appropriate sanctions and humanitarian assistance.
US Secretary of State Clinton said that any debate that pits sanctions against engagement created a false choice, and that the international community would need to employ both of these tools.
Australia has welcomed this approach, as has the international community generally.
As to developments within Burma, on 25 September 2009 Aung San Suu Kyi wrote to Senior General Than Shwe offering to work with the Burmese authorities on the withdrawal of international sanctions, and asking to meet representatives of the European Union, the United States and Australia.
The fact that Australia was one of these three was significant and reflects the longstanding interest Australians have in Burma.
The authorities agreed to this request.
On 9 October 2009 Australia's Chargé d'Affaires, together with the UK Ambassador and the US Chargé d'Affaires, met Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon.
The meeting was the first opportunity for a substantive discussion between an Australian representative and Aung San Suu Kyi since February 2003.
Australia's Chargé conveyed a message from the Prime Minister which expressed the support of the Australian Government and the people of Australia for Aung San Suu Kyi and her struggle for democracy in Burma.
This was warmly welcomed by Aung San Suu Kyi.
Australia welcomed the subsequent visit to Burma in early November by United States Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and the meetings he held with the Burmese authorities, with Aung San Suu Kyi and with representatives of a number of ethnic minorities.
Aung San Suu Kyi wrote further to Senior General Than Shwe on 11 November 2009 requesting contact with her party's Central Executive Committee.
In response to her request, she was permitted to meet three of the Central Executive Committee's elders, including Chairman U Aung Shwe, on 16 December 2009.
Australia hopes that a meeting with the full Executive will take place soon.
This is the first substantial contact which Aung San Suu Kyi has had with the leadership of the National League for Democracy since 2007, and is warmly welcomed by the Australian Government as essential to democratic and political progress in Burma.
Australia hopes these initial engagements between Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese authorities and the international community are the beginning of a process of genuine dialogue.
Elections
Mr Deputy Speaker.
The Burmese authorities have embarked on the so-called 'Roadmap to Democracy', a strictly controlled process of potential political change.
It was a matter of great regret that they pushed ahead with a constitutional referendum, the fourth step in their Roadmap, in the midst of the disaster of Cyclone Nargis in May 2008.
That referendum was a regrettable sham.
Not surprisingly, political parties in Burma, including the National League for Democracy, and parties representing ethnic groups, are carefully considering whether to participate in the 2010 elections.
Burma's authorities have an opportunity to engage the people, to ensure the full and free participation in the elections of the Burmese opposition, nascent political parties, and ethnic groups.
For Burma's longer-term stability and security, the coming political process needs to address the concerns of the country's diverse ethnic minority groups.
While, of course, given the history of these matters, there are long standing reservations, Australia will not pre-judge the process and the outcome of these elections.
Australia urges Burma's authorities to seize this opportunity to genuinely move their country forward.
Development Assistance
Mr Deputy Speaker.
Australia has long provided humanitarian assistance to Burma.
In the 2009-10 Budget, the Government allocated nearly $30 million in humanitarian assistance, a significant increase in base funding over the previous year.
This will help address the pressing needs of the Burmese people.
Half of Burma's almost 50 million people live in extreme poverty.
Child mortality rates are among the highest in the world.
Decades of military rule have eroded civil society and civilian institutions.
Skills have been lost and infrastructure has deteriorated.
At some stage into the future, Burma will have a civilian Government, which will face great challenges.
At some stage into the future, the regional and international community will be asked to help in the rebuilding of Burma's economic and social structures.
Australia's view therefore is that the international community help prepare Burma for the future.
Burma's capacity cannot be allowed to completely atrophy to the ultimate disadvantage and cost of its people.
The international community needs to start the rebuilding now.
This is not a reward for Burma's military, but a recognition of the immense task faced by current and future generations of Burmese.
At around $4 per head per annum, international aid to Burma is less than a tenth of that received by Cambodia and a sixteenth of that received by Laos.
Australia will accordingly increase its assistance to Burma over the next three years to around $50 million annually, a 40 per cent increase.
Alleviating humanitarian needs will remain an important goal and focus of this expenditure.
But the Government has decided that Australia's program will also include capacity building elements, addressing the long-term challenges facing the Burmese people.
This will involve carefully targeted interaction in areas of great need like health, education and agriculture.
Our assistance will continue to be delivered in partnership with international organisations, such as UN agencies, ASEAN, other donor nations and non-government organisations.
We will expand existing initiatives in basic health care, including child and maternal health. We will work to improve the delivery of basic health services by equipping health clinics, training nurses, health care staff and administrators and providing better community health education and information.
At the village level, we will assist primary health care workers, including midwives, with critical training and medical supplies to help arrest the decline in health outcomes for vulnerable and isolated people.
We will continue to support the delivery of vital treatment, prevention and screening services for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, including through the Three Diseases Fund supported by Australia, the European Commission, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The Fund aims to reduce these three diseases in Burma.
We will also address critical water, sanitation and hygiene needs through:
the construction and rehabilitation of ponds and wells;
building latrines for community schools and rural health centres; and
working to provide equitable access to clean water.
In 2008-09 Australia's assistance contributed to the basic education of over 400,000 children in Burma. We will increase our support to enable more poor and disadvantaged children to go to primary school.
Australian assistance will improve teaching and mentoring skills, both in the classroom and at home. Working closely with United Nations agencies, Non Government Organisations (NGOs) and other donors, we will support training programs for early childhood development workers, primary teachers and township education officials.
We will also continue to support vulnerable communities in the Irrawaddy Delta to restore their crop and fishing businesses, and in other areas of protracted need such as northern Rakhine State where the situation of the Rohingyas is very dire.
Australia will provide $20 million over the next four years to assist poor communities in Burma to:
improve access to credit, seeds, and tools;
provide training in small enterprise;
help farmers diversify their production and gain access to markets.
I have also asked the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and AusAID to explore a scholarship scheme for Burma.
Australia will liaise with partners such as the European Union, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States, all of whom have scholarship schemes for Burma, to learn from their experience.
It is proposed that a new scholarship scheme will target Burmese with the potential to build civil society and improve service delivery, including in health, education and agriculture.
As a start, 10 postgraduate scholarships and short term professional development placements will be made available, beginning in 2010-11.
We will work with the UN to carefully identify suitable candidates.
This assistance will be in addition to Australia's significant contribution for relief and recovery efforts following Cyclone Nargis in May 2008.
Australia's post-Nargis assistance continues to be delivered through effective and trusted aid partners such as the United Nations and Australian NGOs and includes:
agricultural inputs to help farmers restore their crops and livestock;
helping fishermen by providing nets and repairing boats;
repairing over 1,200 damaged schools and providing books and materials for over 360,000 children;
reducing disease risk by constructing 50,000 latrines and providing one million mosquito nets; and
supplies and shelter for vulnerable communities.
Burma is a difficult operating environment, but the collective experience in Burma over many years shows we can deliver assistance effectively to improve the lives of ordinary Burmese without benefiting the military authorities.
Sanctions
Mr Deputy Speaker.
Australia urges Burma's military to respond positively to Aung San Suu Kyi's recent offer to work towards the lifting of international sanctions.
Such a positive response would help make meaningful progress towards democratic reform, respect for human rights, and national dialogue and reconciliation.
Until we see significant change from Burma's authorities, the Australian Government will maintain a policy of targeted financial sanctions.
We agree with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's observation that to lift sanctions now would send the wrong signal.
However, an expansion of sanctions at this time would send a confusing signal.
In view of the nascent discussions between the authorities and Aung San Suu Kyi, I have decided that sanctions should not be expanded at this time.
As a result, the sanctions list I announced in October 2008 will remain in operation for the present.
Diplomacy
Mr Speaker.
I earlier referred to my discussions on Burma in New York in September 2009.
These discussions again revealed the region's and the international community's great frustration with the Burmese authorities' treatment of the political opposition, their self-imposed isolation, and the circumstances of the Burmese people.
My discussions also revealed that the international community is increasingly prepared to draw on a wide range of diplomatic tools, including both sanctions and engagement, to press for change in Burma.
Neither Australia nor the international community should however have any illusions that progress in Burma will be quick or easy.
Australia will continue to work closely with ASEAN and its member countries, including by continuing to support ASEAN's much-needed humanitarian efforts in Burma.
We will cooperate closely with the United States as it pursues greater engagement with Burma, and with other major donors like the United Kingdom, to ensure our combined assistance does the greatest amount of good for the Burmese people.
We will also continue to support the work of the United Nations and the Secretary General.
We endorse UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's call for the international community to support UN efforts to promote respect for human rights, inclusive political dialogue and development in Burma.
Australia strongly supported the role of Ibrahim Gambari as the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative on Burma. His term concluded at the beginning of this year, and we look forward to working closely with his successor.
Conclusion
Mr Deputy Speaker.
Australia and the international community stand ready to assist Burma.
But it is not a one way street.
Australia urges the Burmese authorities to respond in good faith both to international engagement and to Aung San Suu Kyi's recent approach to it on sanctions and on dialogue.
In moving towards dialogue and genuine national reconciliation, Burma's authorities can end their isolation.
Australia has always considered the Burmese people our friends.
When Cyclone Nargis struck, Australia responded generously, despite our political differences with the Burmese authorities.
That was the right decision then, and it is the right decision now, together with the international community, to do more for the long-term future of Burma's people.
Date: 08 Feb 2010
MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS
STEPHEN SMITH
Mr Deputy Speaker.
I wish to update the House on developments in Burma.
On 4 January, Burma's Independence Day, Burmese Senior General Than Shwe announced that plans were under way to conduct elections in Burma this year.
Elections have long been foreshadowed under the Burmese military's so-called 'Roadmap to Democracy'.
If elections do take place, they will be the first in Burma in 20 years.
This year will, therefore, be an important one for Burma, and an important one for the international community's engagement with Burma.
Australia has long been appalled both by the Burmese military's suppression of the democratic aspirations of the Burmese people and by its disrespect for their human rights.
It is worthwhile recalling some important events in this longstanding suppression.
A military regime, in some form, has ruled Burma since 1962, nearly 50 years.
We recall the bloody put down of pro-democracy protests in 1988, just over 20 years ago.
Since 1988 Australia has had in place visa restrictions against senior members of the Burmese regime and their associates and supporters.
Following the failure to implement the outcome of the 1990 elections, in 1991 Australia introduced a ban on defence exports to Burma.
This is a ban on the export to Burma of controlled goods as listed on the Defence and Strategic Goods List.
In October 2007, financial sanctions were introduced in response to the violent crackdown on democracy protesters.
These various sanctions - travel sanctions, defence sanctions and financial sanctions - have the common purpose of exerting pressure on Burma's military regime.
At the same time, Australia has recognised that engaging the Burmese authorities serves important national, regional and international interests.
We live in the same region. Through regional forums like the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference, the ASEAN Regional Forum and the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Human Trafficking and Transnational Crime, Australia has had the opportunity to engage Burma on challenges like counter-narcotics, trafficking in people, disaster relief and pandemic disease.
As well, Australia has for many years sought to help the Burmese people through a program of humanitarian assistance targeting the most vulnerable.
This program, now worth nearly $30 million in 2009-10, assists with fighting infectious diseases such as avian influenza, HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis; provides food aid and agricultural expertise to alleviate rural poverty; protects displaced people; and supports children to attend and remain in primary school.
ASEAN, through its humanitarian work in Burma after Cyclone Nargis, has been vital in facilitating assistance from Australia and members of the international community to the Burmese people.
Common membership of regional organisations also allows us at Ministerial level to directly advocate democratic reform and national reconciliation - as I did when I met my counterpart Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win during the ASEAN-related meetings in Thailand in July 2009.
Mr Deputy Speaker.
On 12 August 2009 I addressed the House on Burma after Aung San Suu Kyi's conviction on spurious charges, leading to her ongoing house arrest.
I set out then that Aung San Suu Kyi's sentence effectively removed the prospect of her participation in any proposed 2010 elections and would detract from the credibility of those elections.
Since that time, there have been a number of important developments both within Burma and in the international community's approach to Burma.
On 17 September 2009 the Burmese authorities released 128 political prisoners in an amnesty. This was a welcome, tentative step in the right direction.
Repression however continues.
On 31 December, 15 activists were sentenced to up to 71 years imprisonment each. There regrettably remain close to 2000 political prisoners in Burma, including Aung San Suu Kyi.
Australia again calls on Burma's authorities to release them and allow them to participate fully and freely in the upcoming elections.
In September 2009, in the margins of the United Nations General Assembly, I joined ten other Foreign Ministers and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a Ministerial-level meeting of the Secretary-General's Group of Friends of Myanmar.
The participation in this meeting was evidence both of the international community's desire to see progress in Burma and of its willingness to both work together and with the Secretary General towards this end.
At the meeting, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon identified three areas for future unity of purpose and action:
First, to urge Burma to work with the United Nations to ensure an inclusive process of dialogue and create the conditions for credible elections.
Second, to uphold the role of the United Nations in Burma.
And third, to signal the international community's willingness to help the people of Burma, but noting that Burma's military regime needed to respond to international concerns in order for this to occur.
My visit to New York for the General Assembly coincided with the announcement of the United States policy review on Burma.
The United States Administration concluded that a sanctions-only policy to isolate Burma's military has not worked and that future US policy would combine engagement, appropriate sanctions and humanitarian assistance.
US Secretary of State Clinton said that any debate that pits sanctions against engagement created a false choice, and that the international community would need to employ both of these tools.
Australia has welcomed this approach, as has the international community generally.
As to developments within Burma, on 25 September 2009 Aung San Suu Kyi wrote to Senior General Than Shwe offering to work with the Burmese authorities on the withdrawal of international sanctions, and asking to meet representatives of the European Union, the United States and Australia.
The fact that Australia was one of these three was significant and reflects the longstanding interest Australians have in Burma.
The authorities agreed to this request.
On 9 October 2009 Australia's Chargé d'Affaires, together with the UK Ambassador and the US Chargé d'Affaires, met Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon.
The meeting was the first opportunity for a substantive discussion between an Australian representative and Aung San Suu Kyi since February 2003.
Australia's Chargé conveyed a message from the Prime Minister which expressed the support of the Australian Government and the people of Australia for Aung San Suu Kyi and her struggle for democracy in Burma.
This was warmly welcomed by Aung San Suu Kyi.
Australia welcomed the subsequent visit to Burma in early November by United States Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and the meetings he held with the Burmese authorities, with Aung San Suu Kyi and with representatives of a number of ethnic minorities.
Aung San Suu Kyi wrote further to Senior General Than Shwe on 11 November 2009 requesting contact with her party's Central Executive Committee.
In response to her request, she was permitted to meet three of the Central Executive Committee's elders, including Chairman U Aung Shwe, on 16 December 2009.
Australia hopes that a meeting with the full Executive will take place soon.
This is the first substantial contact which Aung San Suu Kyi has had with the leadership of the National League for Democracy since 2007, and is warmly welcomed by the Australian Government as essential to democratic and political progress in Burma.
Australia hopes these initial engagements between Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese authorities and the international community are the beginning of a process of genuine dialogue.
Elections
Mr Deputy Speaker.
The Burmese authorities have embarked on the so-called 'Roadmap to Democracy', a strictly controlled process of potential political change.
It was a matter of great regret that they pushed ahead with a constitutional referendum, the fourth step in their Roadmap, in the midst of the disaster of Cyclone Nargis in May 2008.
That referendum was a regrettable sham.
Not surprisingly, political parties in Burma, including the National League for Democracy, and parties representing ethnic groups, are carefully considering whether to participate in the 2010 elections.
Burma's authorities have an opportunity to engage the people, to ensure the full and free participation in the elections of the Burmese opposition, nascent political parties, and ethnic groups.
For Burma's longer-term stability and security, the coming political process needs to address the concerns of the country's diverse ethnic minority groups.
While, of course, given the history of these matters, there are long standing reservations, Australia will not pre-judge the process and the outcome of these elections.
Australia urges Burma's authorities to seize this opportunity to genuinely move their country forward.
Development Assistance
Mr Deputy Speaker.
Australia has long provided humanitarian assistance to Burma.
In the 2009-10 Budget, the Government allocated nearly $30 million in humanitarian assistance, a significant increase in base funding over the previous year.
This will help address the pressing needs of the Burmese people.
Half of Burma's almost 50 million people live in extreme poverty.
Child mortality rates are among the highest in the world.
Decades of military rule have eroded civil society and civilian institutions.
Skills have been lost and infrastructure has deteriorated.
At some stage into the future, Burma will have a civilian Government, which will face great challenges.
At some stage into the future, the regional and international community will be asked to help in the rebuilding of Burma's economic and social structures.
Australia's view therefore is that the international community help prepare Burma for the future.
Burma's capacity cannot be allowed to completely atrophy to the ultimate disadvantage and cost of its people.
The international community needs to start the rebuilding now.
This is not a reward for Burma's military, but a recognition of the immense task faced by current and future generations of Burmese.
At around $4 per head per annum, international aid to Burma is less than a tenth of that received by Cambodia and a sixteenth of that received by Laos.
Australia will accordingly increase its assistance to Burma over the next three years to around $50 million annually, a 40 per cent increase.
Alleviating humanitarian needs will remain an important goal and focus of this expenditure.
But the Government has decided that Australia's program will also include capacity building elements, addressing the long-term challenges facing the Burmese people.
This will involve carefully targeted interaction in areas of great need like health, education and agriculture.
Our assistance will continue to be delivered in partnership with international organisations, such as UN agencies, ASEAN, other donor nations and non-government organisations.
We will expand existing initiatives in basic health care, including child and maternal health. We will work to improve the delivery of basic health services by equipping health clinics, training nurses, health care staff and administrators and providing better community health education and information.
At the village level, we will assist primary health care workers, including midwives, with critical training and medical supplies to help arrest the decline in health outcomes for vulnerable and isolated people.
We will continue to support the delivery of vital treatment, prevention and screening services for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, including through the Three Diseases Fund supported by Australia, the European Commission, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The Fund aims to reduce these three diseases in Burma.
We will also address critical water, sanitation and hygiene needs through:
the construction and rehabilitation of ponds and wells;
building latrines for community schools and rural health centres; and
working to provide equitable access to clean water.
In 2008-09 Australia's assistance contributed to the basic education of over 400,000 children in Burma. We will increase our support to enable more poor and disadvantaged children to go to primary school.
Australian assistance will improve teaching and mentoring skills, both in the classroom and at home. Working closely with United Nations agencies, Non Government Organisations (NGOs) and other donors, we will support training programs for early childhood development workers, primary teachers and township education officials.
We will also continue to support vulnerable communities in the Irrawaddy Delta to restore their crop and fishing businesses, and in other areas of protracted need such as northern Rakhine State where the situation of the Rohingyas is very dire.
Australia will provide $20 million over the next four years to assist poor communities in Burma to:
improve access to credit, seeds, and tools;
provide training in small enterprise;
help farmers diversify their production and gain access to markets.
I have also asked the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and AusAID to explore a scholarship scheme for Burma.
Australia will liaise with partners such as the European Union, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States, all of whom have scholarship schemes for Burma, to learn from their experience.
It is proposed that a new scholarship scheme will target Burmese with the potential to build civil society and improve service delivery, including in health, education and agriculture.
As a start, 10 postgraduate scholarships and short term professional development placements will be made available, beginning in 2010-11.
We will work with the UN to carefully identify suitable candidates.
This assistance will be in addition to Australia's significant contribution for relief and recovery efforts following Cyclone Nargis in May 2008.
Australia's post-Nargis assistance continues to be delivered through effective and trusted aid partners such as the United Nations and Australian NGOs and includes:
agricultural inputs to help farmers restore their crops and livestock;
helping fishermen by providing nets and repairing boats;
repairing over 1,200 damaged schools and providing books and materials for over 360,000 children;
reducing disease risk by constructing 50,000 latrines and providing one million mosquito nets; and
supplies and shelter for vulnerable communities.
Burma is a difficult operating environment, but the collective experience in Burma over many years shows we can deliver assistance effectively to improve the lives of ordinary Burmese without benefiting the military authorities.
Sanctions
Mr Deputy Speaker.
Australia urges Burma's military to respond positively to Aung San Suu Kyi's recent offer to work towards the lifting of international sanctions.
Such a positive response would help make meaningful progress towards democratic reform, respect for human rights, and national dialogue and reconciliation.
Until we see significant change from Burma's authorities, the Australian Government will maintain a policy of targeted financial sanctions.
We agree with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's observation that to lift sanctions now would send the wrong signal.
However, an expansion of sanctions at this time would send a confusing signal.
In view of the nascent discussions between the authorities and Aung San Suu Kyi, I have decided that sanctions should not be expanded at this time.
As a result, the sanctions list I announced in October 2008 will remain in operation for the present.
Diplomacy
Mr Speaker.
I earlier referred to my discussions on Burma in New York in September 2009.
These discussions again revealed the region's and the international community's great frustration with the Burmese authorities' treatment of the political opposition, their self-imposed isolation, and the circumstances of the Burmese people.
My discussions also revealed that the international community is increasingly prepared to draw on a wide range of diplomatic tools, including both sanctions and engagement, to press for change in Burma.
Neither Australia nor the international community should however have any illusions that progress in Burma will be quick or easy.
Australia will continue to work closely with ASEAN and its member countries, including by continuing to support ASEAN's much-needed humanitarian efforts in Burma.
We will cooperate closely with the United States as it pursues greater engagement with Burma, and with other major donors like the United Kingdom, to ensure our combined assistance does the greatest amount of good for the Burmese people.
We will also continue to support the work of the United Nations and the Secretary General.
We endorse UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's call for the international community to support UN efforts to promote respect for human rights, inclusive political dialogue and development in Burma.
Australia strongly supported the role of Ibrahim Gambari as the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative on Burma. His term concluded at the beginning of this year, and we look forward to working closely with his successor.
Conclusion
Mr Deputy Speaker.
Australia and the international community stand ready to assist Burma.
But it is not a one way street.
Australia urges the Burmese authorities to respond in good faith both to international engagement and to Aung San Suu Kyi's recent approach to it on sanctions and on dialogue.
In moving towards dialogue and genuine national reconciliation, Burma's authorities can end their isolation.
Australia has always considered the Burmese people our friends.
When Cyclone Nargis struck, Australia responded generously, despite our political differences with the Burmese authorities.
That was the right decision then, and it is the right decision now, together with the international community, to do more for the long-term future of Burma's people.
Mock Tribunal to Highlight Crimes against Women in Burma
8 February 2010: An event planned for March 2nd in New York will be highlighting state-organized crimes against women in Burma. Deliberately planned to coincide with the meeting of United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York, the event is aimed at raising international awareness of the plight of women, as well as, the ongoing crises in Burma.
Spearheaded by the Nobel Women’s Initiative in conjunction with the Women League of Burma (WLB), the event will showcase a mock trial in which members of Burma’s ruling military regime will be made to answer for their crimes against women in Burma.
A mock trial, the “International Tribunal on Crimes against Women of Burma” will be performed by eminent judges, including the Nobel laureates, and women representatives from Burma who will provide testimonies from personal experiences of having lived through a range of human rights abuses under the military regime.
Designed to support existing calls for an indictment of Burma’s ruling military regime for War Crimes and Crime against Humanity under the auspices of the UN Security Council, the mock trial will feature expert testimonies, as well as, real time accounts of women victims on how Burma’s ruling military regime and its security apparatus systematically committed crimes against women.
The mock Tribunal will also hear witness testimonies via video from Burmese women currently sheltering in neighboring countries on a range of state-orchestrated violations, including rape, trafficking, arbitrary arrest and detention, forced labor, portering and forced relocation.
The Nobel Women’s Initiative is an organization founded by five Nobel Peace laureates in 2006 to advance the cause of women around the world. Detained Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace laureate, is an honorary member of the group.
The planned event adds momentum to existing international efforts to have the United Nations Security Council establish a special Commission of Inquiry to investigate serious breach of human rights in Burma.
An independent investigation by the Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic concluded in May last year that based on the UN own documents, there might be enough evidence to prosecute Burma’s military regime for War Crimes and Crime against Humanity under international law.
Parliamentarians from several countries have since signed petitions calling for an international investigation into state-sanctioned crimes in Burma.
Chinland Guardian
Spearheaded by the Nobel Women’s Initiative in conjunction with the Women League of Burma (WLB), the event will showcase a mock trial in which members of Burma’s ruling military regime will be made to answer for their crimes against women in Burma.
A mock trial, the “International Tribunal on Crimes against Women of Burma” will be performed by eminent judges, including the Nobel laureates, and women representatives from Burma who will provide testimonies from personal experiences of having lived through a range of human rights abuses under the military regime.
Designed to support existing calls for an indictment of Burma’s ruling military regime for War Crimes and Crime against Humanity under the auspices of the UN Security Council, the mock trial will feature expert testimonies, as well as, real time accounts of women victims on how Burma’s ruling military regime and its security apparatus systematically committed crimes against women.
The mock Tribunal will also hear witness testimonies via video from Burmese women currently sheltering in neighboring countries on a range of state-orchestrated violations, including rape, trafficking, arbitrary arrest and detention, forced labor, portering and forced relocation.
The Nobel Women’s Initiative is an organization founded by five Nobel Peace laureates in 2006 to advance the cause of women around the world. Detained Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace laureate, is an honorary member of the group.
The planned event adds momentum to existing international efforts to have the United Nations Security Council establish a special Commission of Inquiry to investigate serious breach of human rights in Burma.
An independent investigation by the Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic concluded in May last year that based on the UN own documents, there might be enough evidence to prosecute Burma’s military regime for War Crimes and Crime against Humanity under international law.
Parliamentarians from several countries have since signed petitions calling for an international investigation into state-sanctioned crimes in Burma.
Chinland Guardian
Democracy decline: Crying for democracy*
Democracy decline: Crying for democracy*
February 8, 2010
Given that democracy is unlikely to advance, these days, through the
military of economic preponderance of the West, its best hope lies in
winning a genuinely open debate. In other words, wavering countries, and
sceptical societies, must be convinced that political freedom works best.
So how does the case in defence of democracy stand up these days? As many a
philosopher has noted, the strongest points to be made in favor of a free
political contest are negative. Democracy may not yield perfect policies,
but it ought to guard against all manner of ills, ranging from outright
tyranny (towards which a “mild” authoritarian can always slide) to larceny
at the public expense.
Transparency International, a corruption watchdog, says that all but two of
the 30 least corrupt countries in the world are democracies (the exceptions
are Singapore and Hong Kong, and the are considered semi-democratic).
Autocracies tend to occupy higher rankings on the corruption scale and it is
easy to see why. Entrenched political elites, untroubled by free and fair
elections, can get away more easily with stuffing their pockets. And
strongmen often try to maintain their hold on power by relying on public
funds to reward their supporters and to buy off their enemies, leading to a
huge misallocation of resources.
Yet it is easy to find corrupt democracies – indeed, in a ramshackle place
like Afghanistan elections sometimes seem to make things worse. Or take the
biggest of the ex-Soviet republics. Russia is authoritarian and has a
massive problem with corruption; Ukraine is more democratic – the
forthcoming elections are a genuine contest for power, with uncertain
results – but it too has quite a big corruption problem.
What about the argument that economic development, at least in its early
stages, is best pursued under a benign despot? Lee Kuan Yew, an ex-prime
minister of Singapore, once asserted that democracy leads to “disorderly
conduct”, disrupting material progress. But there is no evidence that
autocracies, on average, grow faster than democracies.
For every economicall successful East Asian (former) autocracy like Taiwan
or South Koera, there is an Egypt or a Cameroon (or indeed a North Korea or
a Myanmar) which is both harsh and sluggish.
The link between political systems and growth is hard to establish. Yet
there is some evidence that, on average, democracies do better. A study by
Morton Halperin, Joseph Siegle and Michael Weinstein for the Council of
Foreign Relations (CFR), using World Bank data between 1960 and 2001, found
that the average annual economic growth rate was 2.3% for democracies and
1.6% for autocracies.
Believers in democracy as an engine of progress often make the point that a
climate of freedom is most needed in a knowledge-based economy, where
independent thinking and innovation are vital. It is surely no accident that
every economy in the top 25 of the Global Innovation Index is a democracy,
except semi-democratic Singapore and Hong Kong.
What about the argument that autocracy creates a modicum of stability
without which growth is impossible? In fact, it is not evident that
authoritarian countries are more stable than democracies. Quite the
contrary. Although democratic politicians spend a lot of time vacillating,
arguing and being loud and disagreeable, this can reinforce stability in the
medium term; it allows the interests and viewpoints of more people to be
heard before action is taken.
On the State Fragility Index, which is produced annually by George Mason
University and studies variables such as “political effectiveness” and
security, democracies tend to do much better than autocracies. Tito’s
Yugoslavia was stable, as was Saddam Hussein’s Iraq – but once the
straitjacket that held their systems together came off, the result of a
release of pent-up pressure, and a golden opportunity for demagogues bent on
mayhem.
At the very least, a culture of compromise – coupled with greater
accountability and limits on state power – means that democracies are better
able to avoid castastrophic mistakes, or criminal cruelty. Bloody nightmares
that cost tens of millions of lives, like China’s Great Leap Forward or the
Soviet Union’s forced collectivisation programme, were made possible by the
concentration of power in a small group of people who faced no restraint.
Liberal democratic governments can make all manner of blunders, but they are
less likely to commit mass murder. Amartya Sen, a Nobel prize-winning
economist, has famously argued that no country with a free press and fair
elections has ever had a large famine. And research done by CFR scholars
found that poor autocracies were at least twice as likely as democracies to
suffer an economic disaster (defined as a decline of 10% or more in GDP in a
year).
With no noisy legislatures or robust courts to hold things up, autocracies
may be faster and bolder. The are also more accident-prone.
For all its frustrations, open and accountable government tends in the long
run to produce better policies. This is because no group of mandarins, no
matter how enlightened or well-meaning, can claim to be sure of what is best
for a complex society.
Autocracies tend to be too heavy at the top; although decisions may be more
easily taken, the ethos of autocracies – their secrecy and paranoia – makes
it harder for alternative views to emerge. Above all, elections make
transfer of power legitimate and smooth.
Tyrannies may look stable under one strongman; but they can slide into
instability, even bloody chaos, if a transitioni goes awry. Free elections
also mean that policy mistakes, even bad ones, are more quickly corrected.
Fresh ideas can be brought in and politicians thrown out before they grow
arrogant.
Source: The Economist
http://www.temasekreview.com/2010/02/08/democracy-decline-crying-for-democracy/
February 8, 2010
Given that democracy is unlikely to advance, these days, through the
military of economic preponderance of the West, its best hope lies in
winning a genuinely open debate. In other words, wavering countries, and
sceptical societies, must be convinced that political freedom works best.
So how does the case in defence of democracy stand up these days? As many a
philosopher has noted, the strongest points to be made in favor of a free
political contest are negative. Democracy may not yield perfect policies,
but it ought to guard against all manner of ills, ranging from outright
tyranny (towards which a “mild” authoritarian can always slide) to larceny
at the public expense.
Transparency International, a corruption watchdog, says that all but two of
the 30 least corrupt countries in the world are democracies (the exceptions
are Singapore and Hong Kong, and the are considered semi-democratic).
Autocracies tend to occupy higher rankings on the corruption scale and it is
easy to see why. Entrenched political elites, untroubled by free and fair
elections, can get away more easily with stuffing their pockets. And
strongmen often try to maintain their hold on power by relying on public
funds to reward their supporters and to buy off their enemies, leading to a
huge misallocation of resources.
Yet it is easy to find corrupt democracies – indeed, in a ramshackle place
like Afghanistan elections sometimes seem to make things worse. Or take the
biggest of the ex-Soviet republics. Russia is authoritarian and has a
massive problem with corruption; Ukraine is more democratic – the
forthcoming elections are a genuine contest for power, with uncertain
results – but it too has quite a big corruption problem.
What about the argument that economic development, at least in its early
stages, is best pursued under a benign despot? Lee Kuan Yew, an ex-prime
minister of Singapore, once asserted that democracy leads to “disorderly
conduct”, disrupting material progress. But there is no evidence that
autocracies, on average, grow faster than democracies.
For every economicall successful East Asian (former) autocracy like Taiwan
or South Koera, there is an Egypt or a Cameroon (or indeed a North Korea or
a Myanmar) which is both harsh and sluggish.
The link between political systems and growth is hard to establish. Yet
there is some evidence that, on average, democracies do better. A study by
Morton Halperin, Joseph Siegle and Michael Weinstein for the Council of
Foreign Relations (CFR), using World Bank data between 1960 and 2001, found
that the average annual economic growth rate was 2.3% for democracies and
1.6% for autocracies.
Believers in democracy as an engine of progress often make the point that a
climate of freedom is most needed in a knowledge-based economy, where
independent thinking and innovation are vital. It is surely no accident that
every economy in the top 25 of the Global Innovation Index is a democracy,
except semi-democratic Singapore and Hong Kong.
What about the argument that autocracy creates a modicum of stability
without which growth is impossible? In fact, it is not evident that
authoritarian countries are more stable than democracies. Quite the
contrary. Although democratic politicians spend a lot of time vacillating,
arguing and being loud and disagreeable, this can reinforce stability in the
medium term; it allows the interests and viewpoints of more people to be
heard before action is taken.
On the State Fragility Index, which is produced annually by George Mason
University and studies variables such as “political effectiveness” and
security, democracies tend to do much better than autocracies. Tito’s
Yugoslavia was stable, as was Saddam Hussein’s Iraq – but once the
straitjacket that held their systems together came off, the result of a
release of pent-up pressure, and a golden opportunity for demagogues bent on
mayhem.
At the very least, a culture of compromise – coupled with greater
accountability and limits on state power – means that democracies are better
able to avoid castastrophic mistakes, or criminal cruelty. Bloody nightmares
that cost tens of millions of lives, like China’s Great Leap Forward or the
Soviet Union’s forced collectivisation programme, were made possible by the
concentration of power in a small group of people who faced no restraint.
Liberal democratic governments can make all manner of blunders, but they are
less likely to commit mass murder. Amartya Sen, a Nobel prize-winning
economist, has famously argued that no country with a free press and fair
elections has ever had a large famine. And research done by CFR scholars
found that poor autocracies were at least twice as likely as democracies to
suffer an economic disaster (defined as a decline of 10% or more in GDP in a
year).
With no noisy legislatures or robust courts to hold things up, autocracies
may be faster and bolder. The are also more accident-prone.
For all its frustrations, open and accountable government tends in the long
run to produce better policies. This is because no group of mandarins, no
matter how enlightened or well-meaning, can claim to be sure of what is best
for a complex society.
Autocracies tend to be too heavy at the top; although decisions may be more
easily taken, the ethos of autocracies – their secrecy and paranoia – makes
it harder for alternative views to emerge. Above all, elections make
transfer of power legitimate and smooth.
Tyrannies may look stable under one strongman; but they can slide into
instability, even bloody chaos, if a transitioni goes awry. Free elections
also mean that policy mistakes, even bad ones, are more quickly corrected.
Fresh ideas can be brought in and politicians thrown out before they grow
arrogant.
Source: The Economist
http://www.temasekreview.com/2010/02/08/democracy-decline-crying-for-democracy/
Nuke body baffled by junta move
BURMA'S secretive military rulers - suspected of pursuing a nuclear weapons program - want to join an Australian-led nuclear safety body.
The move comes amid calls for greater scrutiny of Burma's nuclear activities and its links with equally secretive and nuclear-armed North Korea.
Analysts say Burma's interest in joining the Asia/Pacific Safeguards Network, an international group chaired by Australia, could be a hint of tentative openness by the notoriously paranoid regime - or another smokescreen.
And while Australia may be sympathetic to Burma joining the network, other members of the 14-nation body remain deeply suspicious of its motives.
Burma is under international surveillance following widespread reports last year that it was secretly building a nuclear reactor as part of a North Korean-backed effort to build a nuclear bomb.
While Australia and other nations insist the reports are unconfirmed, the federal government has expressed concern that a nuclear-armed Burma would seriously threaten regional and international security.
Burma's interest in joining the safeguards network is revealed in a new report by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a respected non-government group.
The network, initiated by Australia and launched last October, has yet to consider if Burma should be allowed in, the institute's report said.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade declined to say what Australia's attitude would be to the Burmese move, as it had not formally applied to join and decisions on membership were made by consensus.
''Australia will consider the question of Burma joining APSN, in consultation with other APSN members, if the matter arises,'' the spokeswoman said.
The Sunday Age understands at least one key member of the safeguards network - Japan, the target for North Korea's periodic nuclear sabre-rattling - is sceptical of Burma's intentions and could resist its entry to the group, due to hold its first formal meeting in Jakarta in April.
Members are Australia, Canada, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and the US.
The network does not carry out inspections, but aims to promote nuclear safety by sharing information and co-operating in training and other areas.
An Australia-based Burma analyst, who asked not to be identified, said Burma's interest in joining the network added another puzzle to the mystery surrounding the regime's nuclear plans.
''It would seem curious that they're taking up this initiative to join up with a group like that, if they were in fact pursuing weapons of mass destruction,'' he said.
''It could be a smokescreen, there's always that. These guys are not beyond doing things of that nature, but it would seem a bit odd.''
David Albright, director of the Washington institute that revealed Burma's interest in joining the network, said he hoped Burma would be allowed to join.
''I would allow Burma in, so you can start meeting these people. They're not going to learn how to cheat in a group like this,'' Mr Albright told The Sunday Age.
''It makes sense to meet them, start to engage them, and start to educate them about what's needed. We need transparency, and one way is to get them to participate.''
The new ISIS report calls for greater international focus on Burma's nuclear activities.
While it says there is no concrete proof the regime is building secret reactors, there were ''sound reasons'' to suspect Burma of pursuing a strategy to make nuclear weapons.
http://ping.fm/FiooF
The move comes amid calls for greater scrutiny of Burma's nuclear activities and its links with equally secretive and nuclear-armed North Korea.
Analysts say Burma's interest in joining the Asia/Pacific Safeguards Network, an international group chaired by Australia, could be a hint of tentative openness by the notoriously paranoid regime - or another smokescreen.
And while Australia may be sympathetic to Burma joining the network, other members of the 14-nation body remain deeply suspicious of its motives.
Burma is under international surveillance following widespread reports last year that it was secretly building a nuclear reactor as part of a North Korean-backed effort to build a nuclear bomb.
While Australia and other nations insist the reports are unconfirmed, the federal government has expressed concern that a nuclear-armed Burma would seriously threaten regional and international security.
Burma's interest in joining the safeguards network is revealed in a new report by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a respected non-government group.
The network, initiated by Australia and launched last October, has yet to consider if Burma should be allowed in, the institute's report said.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade declined to say what Australia's attitude would be to the Burmese move, as it had not formally applied to join and decisions on membership were made by consensus.
''Australia will consider the question of Burma joining APSN, in consultation with other APSN members, if the matter arises,'' the spokeswoman said.
The Sunday Age understands at least one key member of the safeguards network - Japan, the target for North Korea's periodic nuclear sabre-rattling - is sceptical of Burma's intentions and could resist its entry to the group, due to hold its first formal meeting in Jakarta in April.
Members are Australia, Canada, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and the US.
The network does not carry out inspections, but aims to promote nuclear safety by sharing information and co-operating in training and other areas.
An Australia-based Burma analyst, who asked not to be identified, said Burma's interest in joining the network added another puzzle to the mystery surrounding the regime's nuclear plans.
''It would seem curious that they're taking up this initiative to join up with a group like that, if they were in fact pursuing weapons of mass destruction,'' he said.
''It could be a smokescreen, there's always that. These guys are not beyond doing things of that nature, but it would seem a bit odd.''
David Albright, director of the Washington institute that revealed Burma's interest in joining the network, said he hoped Burma would be allowed to join.
''I would allow Burma in, so you can start meeting these people. They're not going to learn how to cheat in a group like this,'' Mr Albright told The Sunday Age.
''It makes sense to meet them, start to engage them, and start to educate them about what's needed. We need transparency, and one way is to get them to participate.''
The new ISIS report calls for greater international focus on Burma's nuclear activities.
While it says there is no concrete proof the regime is building secret reactors, there were ''sound reasons'' to suspect Burma of pursuing a strategy to make nuclear weapons.
http://ping.fm/FiooF
British Government: As long as the elections are contested on the current constitution, whatever the outcome they cannot be recognised by the international community
British Government: As long as the elections are contested on the current constitution, whatever the outcome they cannot be recognised by the international community
01 February 2010
Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) today welcomes the British Government stands on Burmese junta’s 2008 constitution and planned 2010 election.
Written in the Hansard, Mr. Ivan Lewis, the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that “The constitution that underpins the election is deeply flawed. It is designed to perpetuate military rule in Burma. As long as the elections are contested on the current constitution, whatever the outcome they cannot be recognised by the international community.” And he went on saying that “It must be clear that without the release of political prisoners and a commitment to an inclusive process in respect of opposition and ethnic groups, the forthcoming elections in Burma will not be recognised by the international community-indeed, they will be entirely illegitimate.”
Mr. Lewis said that “We continue to call for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. We have made it clear that the elections cannot be credible if political prisoners are not free and able to engage in an inclusive process. We have lobbied China, India and Association of South East Nations members to recognise that only free and fair elections will lead to a stable and secure Burma. We support the UN Secretary-General's continued engagement. Tough EU sanctions will remain in place in the absence of any progress. It is equally important that the entire international community gives a united response to any election outcome. If there were any suggestion that some members of the international community attempted in any way to legitimise that outcome, that would be very dangerous in terms of strengthening the regime. What we seek to achieve is maximum unity of response on the basis that the election will be fought on a flawed constitution.”
Myo Thein, the Director at the Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) said, “We are very glad to learn British Government’s clear stand on democratisation of Burma and significantly they do not playing into the junta’s illegal 2010 election. We hope that other democratic countries around the world would follow the lead of British Government listening to the genuine voices of people of Burma.”
Junta plotted the ploy and imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi which is tantamount to turning back on dialogue and ultimately national reconciliation.
With reference to United Nations’ responsibility on democratisation of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi said that “United Nations should demand the military regime to do national reconciliation first before holding the 2010 election. Otherwise the elections will be illegal, unjust and lack of credibility if it is held before facilitating to take place the national reconciliation”.
A tremendous responsibility rests upon the United Nations Organization to a far better end, and we are looking for a more positive and bolder lead of the United Nations as military regime is trying to nullify the results of the 1990 elections by planning to hold sham election in 2010 even though National League for Democracy (NLD) clearly stated their position in the “Shwe-Gone-Dine” declaration that need to place in order to have genuine national reconciliation in Burma.
Khin Maung Win, the Director at the Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) said, “The vital issue here is that 1990 election results are still yet to be honoured and the planned elections will be held in accord with 2008 constitution. The essence of the 2008 Constitution is to guarantee impunity indefinitely and the 2010 election will implement it. Moreover, it is systematically designed to entrench military rule in Burma.”
U Tint Swe Thi Ha, the Patron at the Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) said, “As long as military regime is in power in one form or another, Burma will not be a peaceful state and moreover it will threaten regional stability leading to destabilizing of peace in the world at large since junta has the ambition of possessing nuclear weapons.”
Daw Khin Aye Aye Mar, the Patron at the Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) said, “In addition, the suffering of people of Burma will be never-ending since junta will always extinguish democratic principles and ethnics’ rights with brutal force in order to hold on power. The free and democratic world has a moral responsibility to intervene on behalf of humanity. We want to build democratic Burma prevailing peace, prosperity and progress in the country where everyone can enjoy the freedom of speech, press, beliefs, assembly and rule of law that emphasizes the protection of individual rights.”
For more information please contact Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) at;
Myo Thein 00-44-787-788-2386
Khin Maung Win 00-1-941-961-2622
U Tint Swe Thi Ha 00-1-509-582-3261
Daw Khin Aye Aye Mar 00-1-509-586-8309
Notes to Editor:
1. Burma Constitutional Conference was held in UK, London on 19/20 December 2009 organised by Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) and FBE-UK attended by delegates based in UK
Watch Video Here
2. Burma Constitutional Conference unanimously adopted the working strategy resolution
Burma-Constitutional-Conference-Working-Strategy-Resolution
3. Burmese delegation from NLD-LA-UK, Burma Lawyers’ Council, Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) and Women of Burma (UK) met with FCO officials on 21 December 2009 in order to explain current situation of Burma, the importance of 1990 election results, junta’s 2008 constitution, and planned 2010 election after the Burma Constitutional Conference
4. Gordon Brown has sent a letter to Aung San Suu Kyi on 30 Dec 2009 by saying that “If the scheduled elections proceed under a rigged constitution, with opposition leaders excluded and with no international oversight, the military rulers will be condemning Burma to more years of diplomatic isolation and economic stagnation”
Gordon Brown Letter to Aung San Suu Kyi
5. Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) launched “Yes We Can” Campaign on 4th January 2010 in order to speed up to implement 1990 election result in Burma, to change junta’s sham 2008 constitution and to Boycott junta’s planned sham 2010 election
Click here for Statement
6. Hansard (the Official Report) is the edited verbatim report of proceedings in both Houses. It is an edited record of what was said in the British Parliament
Hansard (the Official Report)
7. Global Action for Burma (GAB), the coalition of 141 Burmese democratic and ethnics organisations around the world based inside and outside Burma working collectively together to bring about genuine democracy, human rights and rule of law in Burma, on 26 January 2010 call for United Nations Security Council to declare junta’s 2008 constitution as NULL & VOID
Global Action For Burma Statement
8. 14th Forum of Burmese in Europe was held in Germany, Frankfurt on 16/17 January 2010 attended by Burmese delegates from around the Europe. The FBE conference adopted the Burma Constitutional Conference working strategy resolution unanimously
9. Foreign office minister Bill Rammel said on 01 May 2009 that “The regime has pressed ahead with its flawed roadmap process, which looks set to bring about elections in 2010 that entrench military rule”
Foreign office minister Bill Rammel
10. Aung San Suu Kyi said on 24 July 2009 that “United Nations should demand the military regime to do national reconciliation first before holding the 2010 election. Otherwise it will be illegal, unjust and lack of credibility if it is held before facilitating to take place the national reconciliation”
Click here for Aung San Suu Kyi's Speech on Video
01 February 2010
Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) today welcomes the British Government stands on Burmese junta’s 2008 constitution and planned 2010 election.
Written in the Hansard, Mr. Ivan Lewis, the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that “The constitution that underpins the election is deeply flawed. It is designed to perpetuate military rule in Burma. As long as the elections are contested on the current constitution, whatever the outcome they cannot be recognised by the international community.” And he went on saying that “It must be clear that without the release of political prisoners and a commitment to an inclusive process in respect of opposition and ethnic groups, the forthcoming elections in Burma will not be recognised by the international community-indeed, they will be entirely illegitimate.”
Mr. Lewis said that “We continue to call for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. We have made it clear that the elections cannot be credible if political prisoners are not free and able to engage in an inclusive process. We have lobbied China, India and Association of South East Nations members to recognise that only free and fair elections will lead to a stable and secure Burma. We support the UN Secretary-General's continued engagement. Tough EU sanctions will remain in place in the absence of any progress. It is equally important that the entire international community gives a united response to any election outcome. If there were any suggestion that some members of the international community attempted in any way to legitimise that outcome, that would be very dangerous in terms of strengthening the regime. What we seek to achieve is maximum unity of response on the basis that the election will be fought on a flawed constitution.”
Myo Thein, the Director at the Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) said, “We are very glad to learn British Government’s clear stand on democratisation of Burma and significantly they do not playing into the junta’s illegal 2010 election. We hope that other democratic countries around the world would follow the lead of British Government listening to the genuine voices of people of Burma.”
Junta plotted the ploy and imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi which is tantamount to turning back on dialogue and ultimately national reconciliation.
With reference to United Nations’ responsibility on democratisation of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi said that “United Nations should demand the military regime to do national reconciliation first before holding the 2010 election. Otherwise the elections will be illegal, unjust and lack of credibility if it is held before facilitating to take place the national reconciliation”.
A tremendous responsibility rests upon the United Nations Organization to a far better end, and we are looking for a more positive and bolder lead of the United Nations as military regime is trying to nullify the results of the 1990 elections by planning to hold sham election in 2010 even though National League for Democracy (NLD) clearly stated their position in the “Shwe-Gone-Dine” declaration that need to place in order to have genuine national reconciliation in Burma.
Khin Maung Win, the Director at the Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) said, “The vital issue here is that 1990 election results are still yet to be honoured and the planned elections will be held in accord with 2008 constitution. The essence of the 2008 Constitution is to guarantee impunity indefinitely and the 2010 election will implement it. Moreover, it is systematically designed to entrench military rule in Burma.”
U Tint Swe Thi Ha, the Patron at the Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) said, “As long as military regime is in power in one form or another, Burma will not be a peaceful state and moreover it will threaten regional stability leading to destabilizing of peace in the world at large since junta has the ambition of possessing nuclear weapons.”
Daw Khin Aye Aye Mar, the Patron at the Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) said, “In addition, the suffering of people of Burma will be never-ending since junta will always extinguish democratic principles and ethnics’ rights with brutal force in order to hold on power. The free and democratic world has a moral responsibility to intervene on behalf of humanity. We want to build democratic Burma prevailing peace, prosperity and progress in the country where everyone can enjoy the freedom of speech, press, beliefs, assembly and rule of law that emphasizes the protection of individual rights.”
For more information please contact Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) at;
Myo Thein 00-44-787-788-2386
Khin Maung Win 00-1-941-961-2622
U Tint Swe Thi Ha 00-1-509-582-3261
Daw Khin Aye Aye Mar 00-1-509-586-8309
Notes to Editor:
1. Burma Constitutional Conference was held in UK, London on 19/20 December 2009 organised by Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) and FBE-UK attended by delegates based in UK
Watch Video Here
2. Burma Constitutional Conference unanimously adopted the working strategy resolution
Burma-Constitutional-Conference-Working-Strategy-Resolution
3. Burmese delegation from NLD-LA-UK, Burma Lawyers’ Council, Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) and Women of Burma (UK) met with FCO officials on 21 December 2009 in order to explain current situation of Burma, the importance of 1990 election results, junta’s 2008 constitution, and planned 2010 election after the Burma Constitutional Conference
4. Gordon Brown has sent a letter to Aung San Suu Kyi on 30 Dec 2009 by saying that “If the scheduled elections proceed under a rigged constitution, with opposition leaders excluded and with no international oversight, the military rulers will be condemning Burma to more years of diplomatic isolation and economic stagnation”
Gordon Brown Letter to Aung San Suu Kyi
5. Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) launched “Yes We Can” Campaign on 4th January 2010 in order to speed up to implement 1990 election result in Burma, to change junta’s sham 2008 constitution and to Boycott junta’s planned sham 2010 election
Click here for Statement
6. Hansard (the Official Report) is the edited verbatim report of proceedings in both Houses. It is an edited record of what was said in the British Parliament
Hansard (the Official Report)
7. Global Action for Burma (GAB), the coalition of 141 Burmese democratic and ethnics organisations around the world based inside and outside Burma working collectively together to bring about genuine democracy, human rights and rule of law in Burma, on 26 January 2010 call for United Nations Security Council to declare junta’s 2008 constitution as NULL & VOID
Global Action For Burma Statement
8. 14th Forum of Burmese in Europe was held in Germany, Frankfurt on 16/17 January 2010 attended by Burmese delegates from around the Europe. The FBE conference adopted the Burma Constitutional Conference working strategy resolution unanimously
9. Foreign office minister Bill Rammel said on 01 May 2009 that “The regime has pressed ahead with its flawed roadmap process, which looks set to bring about elections in 2010 that entrench military rule”
Foreign office minister Bill Rammel
10. Aung San Suu Kyi said on 24 July 2009 that “United Nations should demand the military regime to do national reconciliation first before holding the 2010 election. Otherwise it will be illegal, unjust and lack of credibility if it is held before facilitating to take place the national reconciliation”
Click here for Aung San Suu Kyi's Speech on Video
United Nations must enforce military Junta to honour the 1990 election result now, not another 2010 election in Burma
Burma Democratic Concern today called for United Nations to change their stand on Burma. They must have the clear vision. Military Regime declared to hold the referendum in May 2008. The regime manipulated the international community and misled by declaring the new election which will be taken place in 2010. United Nations seem to deem its vision on Burma by asking for inclusive 2010 election and transparent 2008 referendum.
http://ping.fm/5odgX
Burma Democratic Concern today called for United Nations to change their stand on Burma. They must have the clear vision. Military Regime declared to hold the referendum in May 2008. The regime manipulated the international community and misled by declaring the new election which will be taken place in 2010. United Nations seem to deem its vision on Burma by asking for inclusive 2010 election and transparent 2008 referendum.
http://ping.fm/5odgX
Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) is the global campaigning and lobbying organisation to restore democracy, human rights and rule of law in Burma where everyone can enjoy the freedom of speech, press, beliefs, assembly and rule of law that emphasizes the protection of individual rights. Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) have the firm determination, dedication and devotion to keep on working until the democracy restore in Burma.
Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) believes that the solution for the crisis of Burma is restoring democracy, human rights and rule of law. Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) is equipped with participants who had political background and in depth knowledge of Burma issues. They had experiences in the past and engaging in current activities. http://www.bdcburma.org
Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) believes that the solution for the crisis of Burma is restoring democracy, human rights and rule of law. Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) is equipped with participants who had political background and in depth knowledge of Burma issues. They had experiences in the past and engaging in current activities. http://www.bdcburma.org
Life of U Thiha Tint Swe (Patron of BDC)
" MEMO-NON-VIOLENT DISCORDING"
On 6th,Feb,2010,I had to view back the portrait of Taw Phu Yar Galay,was the patron of our National Politic Front(N.P.F,Reg.No:120) together with U Win Tin &Daw Myint Myint Khin at 4th,Taw Phu Yar Galay's literacy ceremony on Moemakha Web.site from U.S.A.
When my reviewing of his portrait with his wife-Daw Khin Mae(Mae),I with my family had to depart from Burma to U.S.A for 7.years and when Taw Taw's departing period from his comrades & friends,had to hear his funeral news from Thailand and so had no rights on worship to his funeral ceremony but worshiped his noble historical dignity from far away.
In here,I recognized the quotation of the writter-BaMoa Tin Aung that's " the man's value will have to measure with the ruler how many had been responsibilitied the duties of his crossed historical era" and so we could talk about our patron-Taw Phu Yar Galay who could responsibilitied fully the duties of Peace,Democracy & National solidarity struggling of long time military detector ship system because he participated in the internal peaceful committee of Thakhin Ko Taw Mhile with Bojoke-Kyaw Zaw in1963 and then was sentenced with Political act-5/J on organization of Peoples' party to get Burma's Peace,Democracy & National solidarity in Bo Ne Win era and then participated back in our National Political Party(N.P.F,Reg.No;120) had been born by the greatest 8888-democratic movement.
On 16th,June,1989,I with Taw Taw,U Tin Oo & Daw Aung Sann Su Kyi had non-violent disordered anti-unjust command-orders of S.L.O.R.C(Burma Junta Regime) at our office of National Politic Front(N.P.F),Thatipahtan street,Kyakmyaung,Tamawae Tsp,Rangoon,Burma.In it,we hanged the bright red slogan" Let us non-violent disorder gradually all unjust commands & orders of S.L.O.R.C" in front of our N.P.F among over 60000 peoples and then I announced the program of ceremony as the chief of it and then Taw Taw spoke bravely long time with non-violent disorder ed tactic of Mahatama Ghandi and then U Tin Oo continued to explain systematically the soldiers' discipline of Bojoke Aung Sann on the peoples and then Daw Aung Sann Su Kyi continued to speak bravelyto non-violent disorder gradually all unjust commands &orders of S.L.O.R.C and so the soldiers of 6 military cars frighted & commanded us to stop suddenly our ceremony with their guns and also A.B.S.D.F's students prepared to defense the peoples and our ceremony became hardly more & more tension and so Daw Aung Sann Su Kyi told anxiety me to save the peoples' ceremony but promised back her to save the peoples' ceremony and then she came in front of N.P.F to save & speak the peoples nearest uprising and then we had to stop successfully our ceremony with the leaders' speech of Peoples' Progressive Party(P.P.P),Democratic Party for New society (D.P.N.S) & The Party of New blood (P.N.B) and then saw Taw Phu Yar Galay with the clothes package for prison and so I brought back him with U Tun Tin to Taw Phu Yar Galay's house,near Mon's Damayone building,Shwedagone pagoda road.At that moment, Taw Taw's wife-Daw Khin Mae receipted warmly kindly us and then I with Taw Taw arrested & sentenced by Bojoke Myo Nyunt,the chief commander of Rangoon division on 15th,July,1989 and his hand was broken at No.4 cell(10"x10") Insein prison and then Taw Taw released early more than me and then wrote the historical researched books( Ruby with carnal Salaydin).
Best regard;
(U ThiHa Tint Swe)
On 6th,Feb,2010,I had to view back the portrait of Taw Phu Yar Galay,was the patron of our National Politic Front(N.P.F,Reg.No:120) together with U Win Tin &Daw Myint Myint Khin at 4th,Taw Phu Yar Galay's literacy ceremony on Moemakha Web.site from U.S.A.
When my reviewing of his portrait with his wife-Daw Khin Mae(Mae),I with my family had to depart from Burma to U.S.A for 7.years and when Taw Taw's departing period from his comrades & friends,had to hear his funeral news from Thailand and so had no rights on worship to his funeral ceremony but worshiped his noble historical dignity from far away.
In here,I recognized the quotation of the writter-BaMoa Tin Aung that's " the man's value will have to measure with the ruler how many had been responsibilitied the duties of his crossed historical era" and so we could talk about our patron-Taw Phu Yar Galay who could responsibilitied fully the duties of Peace,Democracy & National solidarity struggling of long time military detector ship system because he participated in the internal peaceful committee of Thakhin Ko Taw Mhile with Bojoke-Kyaw Zaw in1963 and then was sentenced with Political act-5/J on organization of Peoples' party to get Burma's Peace,Democracy & National solidarity in Bo Ne Win era and then participated back in our National Political Party(N.P.F,Reg.No;120) had been born by the greatest 8888-democratic movement.
On 16th,June,1989,I with Taw Taw,U Tin Oo & Daw Aung Sann Su Kyi had non-violent disordered anti-unjust command-orders of S.L.O.R.C(Burma Junta Regime) at our office of National Politic Front(N.P.F),Thatipahtan street,Kyakmyaung,Tamawae Tsp,Rangoon,Burma.In it,we hanged the bright red slogan" Let us non-violent disorder gradually all unjust commands & orders of S.L.O.R.C" in front of our N.P.F among over 60000 peoples and then I announced the program of ceremony as the chief of it and then Taw Taw spoke bravely long time with non-violent disorder ed tactic of Mahatama Ghandi and then U Tin Oo continued to explain systematically the soldiers' discipline of Bojoke Aung Sann on the peoples and then Daw Aung Sann Su Kyi continued to speak bravelyto non-violent disorder gradually all unjust commands &orders of S.L.O.R.C and so the soldiers of 6 military cars frighted & commanded us to stop suddenly our ceremony with their guns and also A.B.S.D.F's students prepared to defense the peoples and our ceremony became hardly more & more tension and so Daw Aung Sann Su Kyi told anxiety me to save the peoples' ceremony but promised back her to save the peoples' ceremony and then she came in front of N.P.F to save & speak the peoples nearest uprising and then we had to stop successfully our ceremony with the leaders' speech of Peoples' Progressive Party(P.P.P),Democratic Party for New society (D.P.N.S) & The Party of New blood (P.N.B) and then saw Taw Phu Yar Galay with the clothes package for prison and so I brought back him with U Tun Tin to Taw Phu Yar Galay's house,near Mon's Damayone building,Shwedagone pagoda road.At that moment, Taw Taw's wife-Daw Khin Mae receipted warmly kindly us and then I with Taw Taw arrested & sentenced by Bojoke Myo Nyunt,the chief commander of Rangoon division on 15th,July,1989 and his hand was broken at No.4 cell(10"x10") Insein prison and then Taw Taw released early more than me and then wrote the historical researched books( Ruby with carnal Salaydin).
Best regard;
(U ThiHa Tint Swe)
Sunday, 7 February 2010
Myanmar's Elections Won't Be Free and Fair
Myanmar's Elections Won't Be Free and Fair
Walking through the streets of Yangon this January, I saw the futility of U.S. sanctions on every corner. Commerce thrives on steamy streets and markets, and billboards advertising Japanese, South Korean, and European brands are everywhere. Meanwhile, junta leaders targeted by sanctions that prevent their families' travel have contented themselves with retirement in splendid homes, while their grandchildren, denied visas to visit the United States, simply go to college in Europe and Australia. Sanctions have only served to isolate the United States. This is especially unfortunate at a time when the United States should be carefully watching, and even influencing, what might be the most important political year in Myanmar's recent history.
The date is not set, but the tiny handful of generals who have a monopoly on political power have declared elections will take place in 2010, and no one doubts they will happen before the year's end. Most Burmese citizens are nonplussed, and no one can blame them for assuming that the military junta that runs the country from the isolated capital of Naypyidaw has rigged the process.
But the truth is that the elections will bring change: perhaps not a sudden end to the military junta, but important and underappreciated change nonetheless. And the United States should be fully engaged.
This year's elections will be hotly contested by opposition politicians eager to gain a parliamentary seat. Although far from being a free and fair process, they might represent the start of a long and possibly tortuous road toward a relatively more democratic system. A new government is certain to emerge in Myanmar once the voting is over, one that is expected to include directly elected politicians representing a
broader cross section of society than ever before. Rather than dismissing these elections out of hand and calling them a sham, the United States should carefully consider its options and assess this potentially historic opportunity to shape Myanmar's future.
The reason elections are expected soon is the ill health of the detested general known as "Number One," Than Shwe. A leader of the 1988 coup, Than Shwe became the chairman of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) in 1992 (in 1997, the SLORC changed its name to the State Peace and Development Council) and has maintained a firm
grip on power to this day. He and his family have amassed a fortune, and at nearly age 77 his health is failing and he is ready to retire. Like many dictators before him, however, he realizes that retiring in safety can be more complicated than maintaining an iron grip on power. As the saying goes, "Riding a tiger is easy; getting off is more difficult."
To ensure that he and his family do not face trial or a firing squad once he relinquishes power, Than Shwe has crafted an elaborate retirement plan that replaces his junta with a new government, made up of military personnel and civilians, that will not be powerful enough to exact retribution from him, his family, or his cronies. The only outcome that preserves his wealth and freedom is a relatively weak, inclusive
civil-military government that self-balances and checks the power of any one faction or branch. Establishing a durable civil-military government requires elections that confer enough legitimacy to sustain it and bolster the authority of civilians vis-à-vis the more powerful military. Learning from the experiences of many other military dictators, Than Shwe fears an authoritarian successor might bend to populist sentiment and obliterate him.
This plan was expedited following the 1990 elections, in which Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) won in a landslide victory, prompting the army to ignore the elections' results and throw her in jail. Than Shwe has since then clawed his way back to the top, eliminating rivals and successors alike, all the while plotting to enact a "road map" to democracy that has been broadly dismissed by all but his closest followers.
At the center of Than Shwe's plan is the 2008 Constitution. Superficially, Myanmar's Constitution is broadly based on the U.S. Constitution, with three branches of government forming a system of checks and balances. But the Constitution is flawed, just as the parliamentary elections and selection of the next head of state will be.
The military is guaranteed 25 percent of seats in the legislature, and the president will be selected from three candidates picked by the government, with the two other candidates becoming vice presidents.
Although this might sound bleak, the optimist would recognize that 75 percent of the parliamentary seats will be chosen by popular vote, and it is quite likely that many of those seats will be won by opposition candidates. The government is already working hard to recruit candidates who are well regarded in their communities and not antagonistic to the military — such as teachers and successful farmers — ensuring that parliament includes independent MPs who are respected by the population.
With the military guaranteed 25 percent of seats and the rest shared between pro-government, independent, and opposition parliamentarians, it is unlikely that an outright majority will control the legislature, necessitating the need for compromise and coalition-forming.
However, there are two things that might stand in the way of this grand plan — the next generation of military leaders and "the lady." There is no guarantee that the next generation of officers will be willing to share power with civilians, especially elected ones. They might not respect the limits on power as they have been set out on flimsy paper.
Aung San Suu Kyi presents the other potential problem for the generals. Should she be released from detention and allowed to campaign freely for her NLD candidates, they would easily win a majority of seats, just as they did in the 1990 elections when they won 392 of 485 seats, even with Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. An overwhelming NLD victory in 2010 will be almost certainly unacceptable to the retiring generals who do not want to find themselves at the mercy of the long-persecuted and exiled NLD. Another coup would likely result, ending any hope for representational government in Myanmar emerging for decades to come.
To prevent this, the generals will likely seek to prevent Aung San Suu Kyi from campaigning, keeping her under house arrest until the elections are concluded. Although the election law and polling dates have not been announced yet, some analysts are guessing that the election law will be issued in early spring and the elections possibly held on the numerologically auspicious October 10 (10-10-10). However, Aung San Suu Kyi has indicated that she is pragmatic, expressing to the government that she is willing to compromise and discuss anything, though up to now
she has not committed the NLD to either participate or boycott the process. There is a pervasive air of uncertainty. But should an accommodation be reached between the generals and Aung San Suu Kyi and elections held, it potentially represents the first step in Myanmar's evolution from a military dictatorship to a form of representational government familiar to many of Myanmar's Asian neighbors.
Consider one historical precedent. South Korea's presidential and National Assembly elections in the 1970s and particularly in 1987 and 1988, though hardly considered free and fair, gave opposition parties and candidates, including Nobel laureate and future president Kim Dae-jung (who ran for president three times before being elected in 1997), a legitimate platform from which to develop their voices, attract supporters, learn the political process, and oppose the ruling party.
Few might have predicted it at the time of South Korea's first elections, but today the country has an entrenched and mature democratic process, with conservative and liberal parties exchanging power peacefully.
Despite the stacked deck, some political candidates in Myanmar are optimistic about the prospects for this year's elections. One opposition leader who has spent years in jail said the government had encouraged him to field candidates to contest the elections. Admitting that they were a small step, he said, "One thing I like about the Constitution is that we can get elected to parliament; I can speak freely in parliament and not on the side of the road on a soapbox. Why don't we as a people take this opportunity to help [Than Shwe] make a graceful exit and gain democracy in the process?"
In addition to enthusiastic political candidates, civil society is growing and provides a tenuous base to support democracy. Grassroots organizations pepper the countryside, and Yangon-based NGOs look increasingly like their counterparts in Bangkok and Seoul implementing social and environmental programs supported by international funding, particularly in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. The official media is still a ham-fisted propaganda arm of the government, but small publications are emerging and the Internet is an increasingly important source of balanced information. The Voice of America's Burmese service's three hours of daily shortwave broadcasts will be particularly important during election campaigning as one of the few nongovernment-controlled sources of information available nationwide.
Of course, the government still has many tools at its disposal to fight the opposition, such as the election law and outright intimidation. For instance, officials and their families will be told who to vote for, while watchful cadres will likely maintain a highly visible presence at polling stations. The election law will also possibly exclude particular candidates — such as former political prisoners or members of ethnic groups that remain in armed opposition to the government — in addition to giving very little time for opposition candidates to raise support, publish materials, and campaign. In addition to ballot box-stuffing, the government is also reportedly planning elaborate dirty tricks, such as creating new political parties that sound like the opposition parties in an effort to confuse voters.
Nonetheless, opposition leaders are optimistic that this year's elections will give them a foot in the political door, a few seats in parliament, and a platform from which to gain valuable experience and contest the next elections in 2015. That year, the president will likely start a second term, setting the stage for a really experienced cadre of politicians to campaign their hearts out in 2020.
As part of its new engagement formula, the United States should consider supporting a peaceful political process in Myanmar that provides an opportunity for the opposition to participate in government.
Continued support for human rights is essential, as is relentless pressure on the Burmese government to release political prisoners and reach a peaceful détente with the opposition and ethnic groups. Although it might seem like a choice of pragmatism over human rights policy, engaging in the Burmese elections is actually a decision that benefits both.
Dr. Drew Thompson serves as director of China Studies and Starr Senior Fellow, The Nixon Center in Washington DC. He can be reached at dthompson@nixoncenter.org
Friday, 5 February 2010
Release U Tin Oo Now !!!!
The National League for Democracy (NLD), Burma’s major opposition party, is hoping its Vice-Chairman U Tin Oo will be released ...
New Delhi (Mizzima) – The National League for Democracy (NLD), Burma’s major opposition party, is hoping its Vice-Chairman U Tin Oo will be released soon.
Former Gen. Tin Oo was arrested after the Depayin massacre. His six-year house arrest term will be over on February 13.
“We are hopeful of his release since Home Minister Maj. Gen. Maung Oo hinted that he would be freed in February, while speaking during his visit to middle Burma. His house arrest term will expire on February 13,” party spokesman and Central Executive Committee (CEC) member Khin Maung Swe told Mizzima.
During his visit to Kyaukpadaung, Maj. Gen. Maung Oo said on January 21 that the NLD Vice-Chairman U Tin Oo would be released in the coming month and General Secretary Daw Aung San Suu Kyi would be released in November.
On a tour of Upper Burma, the motorcade carrying 84-year old retired Defence Commander-in-Chief Gen. Tin Oo, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, party members and party sympathizers were ambushed on 30 May 2003 in Kyi village near Depeyin town, Sagaing Division by a mob backed by the junta. They were assaulted and arrested.
U Tin Oo was sent to Kale town prison in Sagaing Division and then put under house arrest from February 2004.
The Thai based Burma Lawyers Council (BLC) Chairman U Thein Oo said, “The detention of U Tin Oo is illegal. It is a violation of the law and human rights. He must be released. We hope he will be released soon”.
The junta recently declared BLC, an unlawful organization.
“We will be encouraged if the Vice-Chairman comes back and works when our Chairman is not able to. Even though he cannot work hard due to his advancing age, he can boost our morale,” party CEC member Khin Maung Swe said.
(Edited by Ye Yint Aung) - Mizzima News
dammingtheirrawaddy burmese
(ျမန္မာႏွင့္အဂၤလိပ္လို ေရးသားထားမွဳအားလည္း ေဒါင္းလုပ္လုပ္၍ ဖတ္ရွဴႏိုင္ျပီး ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံရဲ ့ သဘာ၀ပတ္၀န္းက်င္ထိန္းသိမ္းႏိုင္ေရးအတြက္ သက္ဆိုင္ရာ ကမၻာ့အဖြဲ ့အစည္းအသီးသီးသို ့ ေပးပို ့ တင္ျပေပးပါရန္ အထူးေမတၱာရပ္ခံလိုပါတယ္။ ျမန္မာဘာသာျဖင့္ - http://www.mediafire.com/?y2gitwiici5 အဂၤလိပ္ဘာသာျဖင့္ - http://www.mediafire.com/?wmt1d4ijyng)။
Thanks to Nicknayman- http://niknayman-niknayman.co.cc/
(ျမန္မာႏွင့္အဂၤလိပ္လို ေရးသားထားမွဳအားလည္း ေဒါင္းလုပ္လုပ္၍ ဖတ္ရွဴႏိုင္ျပီး ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံရဲ ့ သဘာ၀ပတ္၀န္းက်င္ထိန္းသိမ္းႏိုင္ေရးအတြက္ သက္ဆိုင္ရာ ကမၻာ့အဖြဲ ့အစည္းအသီးသီးသို ့ ေပးပို ့ တင္ျပေပးပါရန္ အထူးေမတၱာရပ္ခံလိုပါတယ္။ ျမန္မာဘာသာျဖင့္ - http://www.mediafire.com/?y2gitwiici5 အဂၤလိပ္ဘာသာျဖင့္ - http://www.mediafire.com/?wmt1d4ijyng)။
Thanks to Nicknayman- http://niknayman-niknayman.co.cc/
For Burmese students who seeks scholarships
For Burmese students who seeks scholarships
Since becoming an eager, but unpaid, educational consultant for friends, families, and acquaintances picked up via the Burma Digest, the author has communicated with many Burmese students who seek information about scholarships and admissions. This article intends to wrap up earlier articles and earlier queries with some suggestions this author would like to add for fellow Burmese citizens especially youths from Burma.
One of the frequently asked questions is how one can win scholarships for undergraduate (college) or graduate degrees (MA, MSc, PhD, MBA etc.) studies?
For those inquirers, I would like to recommend reading the article “Scholarships for Burmese students“. I think that scholarships for studies in overseas colleges are not impossible but very competitive and demanding. They mostly fall into the Category 1 scholarships in that article. It is relatively easy to get financial assistance for the graduate school and business schools. Here the author would like to suggest students to think of financial assistance rather than scholarships. People should have kept in mind that education is an individual and a family’s own responsibility and only when the academically distinguished and deserving student (please interpret as already got admission to a good university) cannot bear the financial burdens, the scholarships bodies and the institution (college, university) step in and assist. Scholarships are only for hardworking students with determination to learn, ability to cope with meat grinding alike academic workload of college and graduate schools.
Financially, it will be pragmatic to expect to chip in own money for own education. It will help the student appreciates and works harder for his or her education. People should remind themselves that the world does not owe them for their education. They should work hard and be tough to survive and thrive in the real world out of Burma.
But they should be equally aware of nasty and cunning scholarship schemes. There are agents in Yangon where students are being lured with scholarships that covers 20% of tuition fees in good for nothing private Universities. The author would suggest student to check the ranking of the college or university that agent is pitching. Do some homework whether its graduates got employed after graduation, how many of the graduates can continue in good graduate schools after graduation from that college. If chances are slim then it is recommended to concentrate on college studies in Burma and sit for TOEFL and GRE and prepare for overseas graduate school only afterwards. Do homework before wiring your parents’ savings to some deceiving agent’s account.
While there are students who are currently studying in no name colleges in universities in the ASEAN region and elsewhere, there are also Burmese students, who earned Category 1 (competition among Burmese students) scholarships and are currently studying at good universities in US, UK, Australlia and Singapore. In addition to those there are some Burmese who are pursuing college or graduate schools with Category 2 scholarships (competition among candidates from all over the world). What the author wants to see is an increase in number of Burmese students who earn Category 2 scholarships after fair shoulder to shoulder competition with able students and graduates from all parts of globe. We need more people with brains and balls to compete for those scholarships. It is time to aim higher and better, it is time to study harder, it is time to stop sitting and talking in tea or beer shops, it is time to prepare for sterling scores in GMAT and GRE and good scores in TOEFL or IELTS. It is time for everyone to step forward and work for themselves.
I have said what I really want to say and now I want to recommend the students to opt for overseas graduate studies as it is cheaper, shorter, faster return on investment; and abundance of scholarships as one goes higher up the academic pyramid.
Students could spend every hour of their college days in Burma preparing for overseas graduate studies. They must work for best grades, develop leadership, team work and thinking skills, improves on self reliance and maturity. They can equip themselves with real world skills like Software Engineering (not only Programming), Languages and more involvement in Open Source projects that will give them better credentials for overseas graduate school application. They should prepare for aptitude tests like GRE (Graduate Record Exam) and GMAT (Graduate Managment Aptitude Test) and etc..
They are recommended to read the “Graduate Schools Application 101 for Burmese students“.
Further on there are some side issues author would like to discuss. Regarding those who will earn a right to study in top tier universities like MIT, Harvard, UCLA or Cambridge with the scholarships from good philanthropic organizations like the Gates Foundations or Ford Foundation or Full Bright scholarships, DAAD, ADB or Mobushio scholarships or scholarship from Burmese government (if there are any in future), or ParPar MarMar scholarships or In-Law (Youkahti-Youkama) bursaries (strictly for graduate students), it is good for them who earn rights to be identified with those great universities.
The author is equally glad for those who will pursue professional studies like medicine, law, business, nursing and teaching or academic studies like natural science, computer science, IT and engineering in foreign institutions. It is especially true if they can get better education or they are seeking their only chances to study in those fields there.
But author will not recommend students to leave Burma for foreign institutions of dubious quality or studying unemployable degrees in overseas.
Students should aware of those degree mills and nature of the discipline they want to pursue before commit. There are many fields where a graduate needs an advance degree to secure a decent job and graduates in some fields and disciplines have better chances of career prospects than some other disciplines.
The rule of thumb is that good academic programs in good universities are hard to get in but easier to get loans and financial assistance. But on other hand, substandard universities are easier to get in but no one will eager to help you as nothing good may come out of that education. For example, any wanna be MBA admitted to an MBA program in Insead, a French Business school are eligible for loans from ABN AMRO (a Dutch bank) and HSBC bank offers loans for those who secures a seat in a full time MBA program in top tier business schools in UK.
But no bank will loan a student admitted to NoName B School elsewhere. Check with banks as banks lend money to those who has potential to make money. If one has a choice, it is not unwise to go and study more prestigious MBA program on loans and some scholarships rather than at a NoName Business school that offers full scholarship as job opportunity after graduation has to be considered as well. Getting into a good MBA or advanced degree program is as difficult as completing the program.
The question the author would like to be asked, but none asked so far, is that how can a student get financial assistance to pay the tuition and how can he gets the job after graduation. One of the goals of modern education is not education for the education’s sake itself. Diplomas and papers are sought not for paper’s sake alone but earned qualifications must contribute to the graduate’s employability, career mobility and prestige.
The student who makes himself employable is in fact doing favor for Burma indirectly. While it is important for a country to have intellectuals but it is equally important to train competent professionals: academics, researchers, engineers, managers, doctors, nurses, teachers, technologists and technicians.
A nation with citizens who had learnt only to recite Plato Republic, Shakespeare and History will lose competition with other nations full of trained professionals. A nation with competent professionals and agile technocrats are sexier and more irresistible for foreign investors than countries those are top heavy and bottom empty, i.e. full of policy thinkers but no worker bees, all intellectuals but no professional technocrats.
Therefore the author would like to suggest young Burmese students to pursue more employable disciplines such as engineering, science and business rather than pure theoretical/ideological studies such as political science, etc. It will be the ideal if young Burmese students could become generalized specialists (professionals with intellectual capacity). If they could make their marks in every field they have engaged in then it will be good for Burma. If they become middle to senior managers in corporations they could bring management expertise back to Burma. Had they become professors in good overseas universities, they could help Burma build its higher education. If they become finance and business professionals, they will be able to help Burma control inflation. Had some chosen to stay as distinguished engineers then Burma may become a technology powerhouse. Should students be afraid of being labeled as traitors for not returning back home; they should not be as long as they try to help Burma as much as they can while working overseas.
And, if a fraction of those overseas educated sons and daughters of Burma may choose to go back to Burma, it will be net gain for our country. If they choose to settle roots in host countries as law abiding, tax paying citizens they may still serve their native country as strong and overseas lobby for Burma in favor of the causes of Burma in global affairs. Had they earned their first degrees in Burma, then they can be said implicitly serving as education ambassadors of Burma in the same way as the proud sons of India and China are doing.
So, the author sincerely wish all Burmese students and youth to survive and thrive well through the acid tests in class rooms and cubicles, i.e. challenging academic environments of colleges and universities and challenging professional lives in international corporations.
http://burmadigest.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/for-burmese-students-who-seeks-scholarships/
Since becoming an eager, but unpaid, educational consultant for friends, families, and acquaintances picked up via the Burma Digest, the author has communicated with many Burmese students who seek information about scholarships and admissions. This article intends to wrap up earlier articles and earlier queries with some suggestions this author would like to add for fellow Burmese citizens especially youths from Burma.
One of the frequently asked questions is how one can win scholarships for undergraduate (college) or graduate degrees (MA, MSc, PhD, MBA etc.) studies?
For those inquirers, I would like to recommend reading the article “Scholarships for Burmese students“. I think that scholarships for studies in overseas colleges are not impossible but very competitive and demanding. They mostly fall into the Category 1 scholarships in that article. It is relatively easy to get financial assistance for the graduate school and business schools. Here the author would like to suggest students to think of financial assistance rather than scholarships. People should have kept in mind that education is an individual and a family’s own responsibility and only when the academically distinguished and deserving student (please interpret as already got admission to a good university) cannot bear the financial burdens, the scholarships bodies and the institution (college, university) step in and assist. Scholarships are only for hardworking students with determination to learn, ability to cope with meat grinding alike academic workload of college and graduate schools.
Financially, it will be pragmatic to expect to chip in own money for own education. It will help the student appreciates and works harder for his or her education. People should remind themselves that the world does not owe them for their education. They should work hard and be tough to survive and thrive in the real world out of Burma.
But they should be equally aware of nasty and cunning scholarship schemes. There are agents in Yangon where students are being lured with scholarships that covers 20% of tuition fees in good for nothing private Universities. The author would suggest student to check the ranking of the college or university that agent is pitching. Do some homework whether its graduates got employed after graduation, how many of the graduates can continue in good graduate schools after graduation from that college. If chances are slim then it is recommended to concentrate on college studies in Burma and sit for TOEFL and GRE and prepare for overseas graduate school only afterwards. Do homework before wiring your parents’ savings to some deceiving agent’s account.
While there are students who are currently studying in no name colleges in universities in the ASEAN region and elsewhere, there are also Burmese students, who earned Category 1 (competition among Burmese students) scholarships and are currently studying at good universities in US, UK, Australlia and Singapore. In addition to those there are some Burmese who are pursuing college or graduate schools with Category 2 scholarships (competition among candidates from all over the world). What the author wants to see is an increase in number of Burmese students who earn Category 2 scholarships after fair shoulder to shoulder competition with able students and graduates from all parts of globe. We need more people with brains and balls to compete for those scholarships. It is time to aim higher and better, it is time to study harder, it is time to stop sitting and talking in tea or beer shops, it is time to prepare for sterling scores in GMAT and GRE and good scores in TOEFL or IELTS. It is time for everyone to step forward and work for themselves.
I have said what I really want to say and now I want to recommend the students to opt for overseas graduate studies as it is cheaper, shorter, faster return on investment; and abundance of scholarships as one goes higher up the academic pyramid.
Students could spend every hour of their college days in Burma preparing for overseas graduate studies. They must work for best grades, develop leadership, team work and thinking skills, improves on self reliance and maturity. They can equip themselves with real world skills like Software Engineering (not only Programming), Languages and more involvement in Open Source projects that will give them better credentials for overseas graduate school application. They should prepare for aptitude tests like GRE (Graduate Record Exam) and GMAT (Graduate Managment Aptitude Test) and etc..
They are recommended to read the “Graduate Schools Application 101 for Burmese students“.
Further on there are some side issues author would like to discuss. Regarding those who will earn a right to study in top tier universities like MIT, Harvard, UCLA or Cambridge with the scholarships from good philanthropic organizations like the Gates Foundations or Ford Foundation or Full Bright scholarships, DAAD, ADB or Mobushio scholarships or scholarship from Burmese government (if there are any in future), or ParPar MarMar scholarships or In-Law (Youkahti-Youkama) bursaries (strictly for graduate students), it is good for them who earn rights to be identified with those great universities.
The author is equally glad for those who will pursue professional studies like medicine, law, business, nursing and teaching or academic studies like natural science, computer science, IT and engineering in foreign institutions. It is especially true if they can get better education or they are seeking their only chances to study in those fields there.
But author will not recommend students to leave Burma for foreign institutions of dubious quality or studying unemployable degrees in overseas.
Students should aware of those degree mills and nature of the discipline they want to pursue before commit. There are many fields where a graduate needs an advance degree to secure a decent job and graduates in some fields and disciplines have better chances of career prospects than some other disciplines.
The rule of thumb is that good academic programs in good universities are hard to get in but easier to get loans and financial assistance. But on other hand, substandard universities are easier to get in but no one will eager to help you as nothing good may come out of that education. For example, any wanna be MBA admitted to an MBA program in Insead, a French Business school are eligible for loans from ABN AMRO (a Dutch bank) and HSBC bank offers loans for those who secures a seat in a full time MBA program in top tier business schools in UK.
But no bank will loan a student admitted to NoName B School elsewhere. Check with banks as banks lend money to those who has potential to make money. If one has a choice, it is not unwise to go and study more prestigious MBA program on loans and some scholarships rather than at a NoName Business school that offers full scholarship as job opportunity after graduation has to be considered as well. Getting into a good MBA or advanced degree program is as difficult as completing the program.
The question the author would like to be asked, but none asked so far, is that how can a student get financial assistance to pay the tuition and how can he gets the job after graduation. One of the goals of modern education is not education for the education’s sake itself. Diplomas and papers are sought not for paper’s sake alone but earned qualifications must contribute to the graduate’s employability, career mobility and prestige.
The student who makes himself employable is in fact doing favor for Burma indirectly. While it is important for a country to have intellectuals but it is equally important to train competent professionals: academics, researchers, engineers, managers, doctors, nurses, teachers, technologists and technicians.
A nation with citizens who had learnt only to recite Plato Republic, Shakespeare and History will lose competition with other nations full of trained professionals. A nation with competent professionals and agile technocrats are sexier and more irresistible for foreign investors than countries those are top heavy and bottom empty, i.e. full of policy thinkers but no worker bees, all intellectuals but no professional technocrats.
Therefore the author would like to suggest young Burmese students to pursue more employable disciplines such as engineering, science and business rather than pure theoretical/ideological studies such as political science, etc. It will be the ideal if young Burmese students could become generalized specialists (professionals with intellectual capacity). If they could make their marks in every field they have engaged in then it will be good for Burma. If they become middle to senior managers in corporations they could bring management expertise back to Burma. Had they become professors in good overseas universities, they could help Burma build its higher education. If they become finance and business professionals, they will be able to help Burma control inflation. Had some chosen to stay as distinguished engineers then Burma may become a technology powerhouse. Should students be afraid of being labeled as traitors for not returning back home; they should not be as long as they try to help Burma as much as they can while working overseas.
And, if a fraction of those overseas educated sons and daughters of Burma may choose to go back to Burma, it will be net gain for our country. If they choose to settle roots in host countries as law abiding, tax paying citizens they may still serve their native country as strong and overseas lobby for Burma in favor of the causes of Burma in global affairs. Had they earned their first degrees in Burma, then they can be said implicitly serving as education ambassadors of Burma in the same way as the proud sons of India and China are doing.
So, the author sincerely wish all Burmese students and youth to survive and thrive well through the acid tests in class rooms and cubicles, i.e. challenging academic environments of colleges and universities and challenging professional lives in international corporations.
http://burmadigest.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/for-burmese-students-who-seeks-scholarships/
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
‘Burma VJ’ gets Best Documentary Oscar nod
The nominations for the 2010 Oscars were announced in Hollywood last night, with South East Asian documentary “Burma VJ” receiving a nomination in the Best Documentary Feature category.
Directed by Anders Østergaard, "Burma VJ" chronicles the work of dissident video-journalists during the September 2007 'Saffron Revolution' uprisings led by Buddhist monks in Myanmar.
As Bangkok blogger Wise Kwai notes in a piece posted today, parts of the documentary were filmed in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where the main dissident in the film was forced to set up shop to monitor satellite transmissions and e-mails from his colleagues in Yangon after things got too heated in Myanmar.
Read more: ‘Burma VJ’ nominated for "Best Documentary" Oscar | CNNGo.com http://www.cnngo.com/bangkok/play/burma-vj-gets-oscar-nod-705870#ixzz0eUsOrjCk
TEXTAREA_ID
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Burma Democratic Concern(BDC)talk on Radio Free Asia (RFA)regarding 2008 Constitution:
Burma Democratic Concern(BDC)talk on Radio Free Asia (RFA)regarding 2008 Constitution:
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Monday, 1 February 2010
ISIS REPORT ON BURMA’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM
DICTATOR WATCH
(www.dictatorwatch.org)
Contact: Roland Watson, roland@dictatorwatch.org
ISIS REPORT ON BURMA’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM
January 31, 2010
Please forward.
http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/burma-a-nuclear-wanabee-suspicious-links-to-north-korea-high-tech-procureme/
This is a new report from ISIS - the Institute for Science and
International Security, on the putative involvement of Burma's military
junta, the SPDC, in nuclear proliferation. The report's breadth and
precision are greatly appreciated. The information on the
computer-controlled machine tools, Namchongang, and New East, is very
valuable.
(We would like to know, though, which companies from Germany, Switzerland
and Japan exported the machine tools to Burma, and what specific machines
were involved.)
As the report mentions me and Dictator Watch, I have a few other
comments/clarifications:
Not all "evidence" about the SPDC's nuclear program has been made public.
It is a bit strong to say that we "claimed" that the Myit Nge River site
was a uranium mine and mill. If you look at the Dictator Watch photo
essay, I used the verb "suspected." I noted that the mine could be a
quarry for construction materials, and was aware of the cement facility
possibility for the nearby mill. But, I also secured the opinion of an
academic who is a uranium expert, who said that from the images one
couldn't be sure what the facility was for, and that uranium milling
couldn't be ruled out.
We put the images out in the hopes that someone would conclusively
identify the facility's purpose.
It is also important to note that it was under construction at the time.
Further, information about this site came from a different channel than
our other intelligence.
I would say, however, that the photo ISIS located of the Chinese team at
the site is definitive. This is likely the facility that is producing the
cement for Naypyidaw, including its tunnels.
About the defectors, the ISIS report is unclear.
"Dictator Watch head Roland Watson claims that much of Ball and Thorton’s
information was published earlier by Dictator Watch, relying on the same
defectors."
Regarding the closing clause of this statement, there have been three
defectors that we are aware of, at least as of last summer. Ball and
Thornton published the source they called Moe Jo, whom we previously had
published, but without identification. They also had Tayza's accountant,
who they called Tin Min.
Our reports are based on Moe Jo, the other, third defector, and other
sources as well.
Points about the SPDC's program that we believe are important but that are
not being given sufficient attention:
- The extent of the nuclear facilities in the Thabeikkyin area. (We
haven't been able to locate satellite imagery for these facilities,
although we are confident that they are there.)
- The bartering of yellowcake by the SPDC. (The ISIS article, quoting a
European intelligence official, denies the milling of yellowcake - our
sources disagree.)
- The acquisition by the SPDC of North Korean SRBMs.
- What really happened with the NK cargo flight that recently landed in
Bangkok, and what was the full manifest for the 35 tons of cargo. (We
received a report - we stress that it is unconfirmed - that the flight was
bound for Burma but that U.S. jets forced it to enter Thai airspace after
which Thai jets forced it to land. If this is true, the shipment could
have been a second attempt to deliver the cargo carried by the Kang Nam 1
freighter last summer.)
- The acquisition by the SPDC of nuclear weapon components, along the
lines described in the recent revelation by the Washington Post that China
supplied enough enriched uranium for two atomic bombs to Pakistan in 1982.
- Why the U.S. won't publish the JADE Act Section 10 Report on Military
and Intelligence Aid to Burma. The first edition of this annual report was
never made public, contrary to the terms of the law. We are now entering
the second year for which it is due. (The ISIS report should have
mentioned this.)
The U.S. knows a lot more than it is saying. There is a cover-up. The ISIS
policy recommendations are based on only part of the information that the
U.S. has available.
The Institute for Science and International Security report on Burma
(www.dictatorwatch.org)
Contact: Roland Watson, roland@dictatorwatch.org
ISIS REPORT ON BURMA’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM
January 31, 2010
Please forward.
http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/burma-a-nuclear-wanabee-suspicious-links-to-north-korea-high-tech-procureme/
This is a new report from ISIS - the Institute for Science and
International Security, on the putative involvement of Burma's military
junta, the SPDC, in nuclear proliferation. The report's breadth and
precision are greatly appreciated. The information on the
computer-controlled machine tools, Namchongang, and New East, is very
valuable.
(We would like to know, though, which companies from Germany, Switzerland
and Japan exported the machine tools to Burma, and what specific machines
were involved.)
As the report mentions me and Dictator Watch, I have a few other
comments/clarifications:
Not all "evidence" about the SPDC's nuclear program has been made public.
It is a bit strong to say that we "claimed" that the Myit Nge River site
was a uranium mine and mill. If you look at the Dictator Watch photo
essay, I used the verb "suspected." I noted that the mine could be a
quarry for construction materials, and was aware of the cement facility
possibility for the nearby mill. But, I also secured the opinion of an
academic who is a uranium expert, who said that from the images one
couldn't be sure what the facility was for, and that uranium milling
couldn't be ruled out.
We put the images out in the hopes that someone would conclusively
identify the facility's purpose.
It is also important to note that it was under construction at the time.
Further, information about this site came from a different channel than
our other intelligence.
I would say, however, that the photo ISIS located of the Chinese team at
the site is definitive. This is likely the facility that is producing the
cement for Naypyidaw, including its tunnels.
About the defectors, the ISIS report is unclear.
"Dictator Watch head Roland Watson claims that much of Ball and Thorton’s
information was published earlier by Dictator Watch, relying on the same
defectors."
Regarding the closing clause of this statement, there have been three
defectors that we are aware of, at least as of last summer. Ball and
Thornton published the source they called Moe Jo, whom we previously had
published, but without identification. They also had Tayza's accountant,
who they called Tin Min.
Our reports are based on Moe Jo, the other, third defector, and other
sources as well.
Points about the SPDC's program that we believe are important but that are
not being given sufficient attention:
- The extent of the nuclear facilities in the Thabeikkyin area. (We
haven't been able to locate satellite imagery for these facilities,
although we are confident that they are there.)
- The bartering of yellowcake by the SPDC. (The ISIS article, quoting a
European intelligence official, denies the milling of yellowcake - our
sources disagree.)
- The acquisition by the SPDC of North Korean SRBMs.
- What really happened with the NK cargo flight that recently landed in
Bangkok, and what was the full manifest for the 35 tons of cargo. (We
received a report - we stress that it is unconfirmed - that the flight was
bound for Burma but that U.S. jets forced it to enter Thai airspace after
which Thai jets forced it to land. If this is true, the shipment could
have been a second attempt to deliver the cargo carried by the Kang Nam 1
freighter last summer.)
- The acquisition by the SPDC of nuclear weapon components, along the
lines described in the recent revelation by the Washington Post that China
supplied enough enriched uranium for two atomic bombs to Pakistan in 1982.
- Why the U.S. won't publish the JADE Act Section 10 Report on Military
and Intelligence Aid to Burma. The first edition of this annual report was
never made public, contrary to the terms of the law. We are now entering
the second year for which it is due. (The ISIS report should have
mentioned this.)
The U.S. knows a lot more than it is saying. There is a cover-up. The ISIS
policy recommendations are based on only part of the information that the
U.S. has available.
The Institute for Science and International Security report on Burma
Burma Lawyers' Council's Statement
နအဖ စစ္အစိုးရ က်င္းပေပးမည္ဆိုသည့္ ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲသည္ မက်င္းပမီ ကပင္ လြတ္လပ္မႈ၊ တရားမွ်တမႈ မရွိေၾကာင္း သုံးသပ္ထုတ္ျပန္ခ်က္
၁။ အမ်ဳိးသားညီလာခံ ၊ ဖြဲ႔စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပုံအေျခခံဥပေဒ (မူၾကမ္း) ႏွင့္ လူထုဆႏၵခံယူပြဲတို႔ အေပၚျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေရွ႕ေနမ်ား ေကာင္စီ ၏ အျမင္သေဘာထား
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေရွ႕ေနမ်ားေကာင္စီသည္ န.အ.ဖ စစ္အစိုးရမွဦးစီးက်င္းပခဲ့သည့္ အမ်ဳိးသားညီလာခံႏွင့္ ယင္းညီလာခံမွ ထြက္ေပၚ လာေသာ ဖြဲ႕စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပုံအေျခခံဥပေဒေရးဆြဲရာတြင္ အေျခခံရမည့္မူမ်ား၌ ပါ၀င္ သည့္ ဒီမိုကေရစီ စံႏႈန္းမ်ားႏွင့္ ကိုက္ညီ ျခင္းမရွိသည့္ အခ်က္မ်ားကိုလည္းေကာင္း၊ န.အ.ဖ စစ္အစိုးရမွ ဖြဲ႕စည္း ေပးသည့္ ျပည္ေထာင္စုသမၼတ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ ဖြဲ႔ စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပုံအေျခခံ ဥပေဒ (မူၾကမ္း) ေရးဆြဲေရးေကာ္မရွင္ သည္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္ ခုိင္မာေတာင့္တင္း၍ အမ်ဳိးသားျပန္လည္ သင့္ျမတ္ေရးကိုျဖစ္ေပၚေစႏုိင္မည့္ ဖြဲ႔စည္းအုပ္ ခ်ဳပ္ပုံ အေျခခံဥပေဒတရပ္ကို ေရးဆြဲေပးႏိုင္မည့္ ေကာ္မရွင္မဟုတ္ေၾကာင္း ကို လည္းေကာင္း၊ ယင္းေကာ္မရွင္ မွ ေရးဆြဲလုိက္သည့္ ျပည္ေထာင္စု သမၼတ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ ဖြဲ႔စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပုံအေျခခံ ဥပေဒ (မူၾကမ္း) တြင္ပါ၀င္ သည့္ ဒီမိုကေရစီ စံႏႈန္းမ်ားႏွင့္ ကိုက္ညီျခင္းမရွိသည့္ ပုဒ္မ မ်ား ကိုလည္းေကာင္း၊ န.အ.ဖ စစ္အစိုးရမွ ဖြဲ႔စည္း ေပးသည့္ ဖြဲ႔စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပုံအေျခခံဥပေဒ (မူၾကမ္း) လူထုဆႏၵခံယူပြဲက်င္းပေရးေကာ္မရွင္ သည္ ႏိုင္ငံတကာ ဥပေဒ စံခ်ိန္စံညႊန္းမ်ားႏွင့္ ကိုက္ညီျခင္းမရွိေသာေၾကာင့္ လူထုဆႏၵခံယူပြဲကို လြတ္လပ္မွ်တစြာ က်င္းပေပးႏုိင္ မည္ မဟုတ္ေၾကာင္းကို လည္းေကာင္း၊ ၂၀၀၈ ခုႏွစ္ ေမလ တြင္က်င္းပျပဳလုပ္ခဲ့သည့္ လူထုဆႏၵခံယူပြဲသည္ လြတ္လပ္ျခင္း၊ တရားမွ်တျခင္း မရွိသျဖင့္ ျပည္သူလူထု၏ ဆႏၵအစစ္အမွန္ကို ကိုယ္စားျပဳႏိုင္မည္မဟုတ္ ေၾကာင္းကိုလည္းေကာင္း၊ အစဥ္တစိုက္ေလ့လာဆန္းစစ္လ်က္ ဆန္႔က်င္ကန္႔ကြက္ခဲ့ပါသည္။
၂။ ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲႏွင့္ စပ္လ်ဥ္း၍ နအဖ စစ္အစိုးရ၏ သေဘာထား
န.အ.ဖစစ္အစိုးရသည္၂၀၀၈ခုႏွစ္ ေမလတြင္ လူထုဆႏၵခံယူပြဲ မက်င္းပမီကပင္ ၂၀၀၈ခုႏွစ္၊ ေဖေဖၚ၀ါရီ လ (၉) ရက္ေန႔၌ ေၾက ျငာခ်က္အမွတ္ ၂/၂၀၀၈ ကိုထုတ္ျပန္၍ “ ၂၀၁၀ တြင္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ က်င္းပျပဳလုပ္မည္ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ” အတိအလင္း ထုတ္ျပန္ ေၾကျငာခဲ့သည္။
ထုိ႔ျပင္ န.အ.ဖ. ဥကၠဌ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္မွဴးႀကီးသန္းေရႊသည္ “၂၀၁၀ တြင္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲက်င္းပေပးမည္” ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္းကို ၂၀၀၉ ခုႏွစ္၊
ေအာက္တုိဘာလ (၉) ရက္ေန႔တြင္ က်င္းပသည့္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံစစ္မႈထမ္းေဟာင္းအဖြဲ႔ ညီလာခံ တြင္လည္းေကာင္း၊ ၂၀၀၉ ခုႏွစ္ ၊ ႏို၀င္ဘာလတြင္က်င္းပသည့္ ျပည္ေထာင္စုႀကံ့ခိုင္ေရးႏွင့္ ဖြံ႔ ၿဖိဳးေရးအသင္း၏ႏွစ္ပတ္လည္ အစည္းအေ၀းတြင္လည္းေကာင္း၊ (၆၂) ႏွစ္ေျမာက္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ လြတ္လပ္ေရးေန႔ သ၀ဏ္လႊာ တြင္ လည္းေကာင္း အႀကိမ္ႀကိမ္ ေျပာဆိုထားခဲ့ၿပီးျဖစ္သည္။
၃။ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ဥပေဒႏွင့္ စပ္လ်ဥ္း၍ နအဖ ၀န္ႀကီးခ်ဳပ္၏ ေျပာၾကားခ်က္
၂၀၀၉ ခုႏွစ္ ေအာက္တိုဘာလတြင္ ထိုင္းႏိုင္ငံ ေတာင္ပိုင္း ခ်ာ့အမ္းၿမိဳ႕ တြင္က်င္းပသည့္ (၁၅)ႀကိမ္ ေျမာက္ အာဆီယံထိပ္သီးညီ လာခံတြင္ န.အ.ဖ ၀န္ႀကီးခ်ဳပ္ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီး သိန္းစိန္က “ ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ဥပေဒကို မၾကာမီ ထုတ္ျပန္မည္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ” ႏိုင္ငံတကာေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ားအလယ္ တြင္ အတည္ျပဳေျပာဆုိခဲ့ သည္။ သို႔ေသာ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတရပ္ က်င္းပမည္ဆုိပါက မျဖစ္ မေနလိုအပ္သည့္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲက်င္းပေရး ေကာ္ မရွင္ဥပေဒ၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ား မွတ္ပုံတင္ျခင္း ဥပေဒ၊ ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ဥပေဒ စသည့္ ဥပေဒ မ်ားကို ယေန႔ထက္တုိင္ေအာင္ျပဌာန္း ႏိုင္ျခင္းမရွိေသးေပ။
၄။ လြတ္လပ္၍ တရားမွ်တေသာ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ တရပ္ က်င္းပႏုိင္ရန္ လုိအပ္သည့္ ဥပေဒအေျခခံ လုပ္ထုံးလုပ္နည္းမ်ား
လြတ္လပ္၍ တရားမွ်တေသာေရြးေကာက္ပြဲသည္ ဒီမုိကေရစီ၏ ေရေသာက္ျမစ္တခုျဖစ္သကဲ့သို႔ပင္ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးအေျခခံအ ခ်က္တရပ္လည္းျဖစ္ေၾကာင္းကို အျပည္ျပည္ဆုိင္ရာ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးေၾကျငာစာတမ္း အပိုဒ္ (၂၁) အပိုဒ္ခြဲ (၁) တြင္ တရားမွ်တ ေသာေရြးေကာက္ပြဲမ်ားမွတဆင့္ လူတုိင္းသည္ မိမိႏိုင္ငံ၏ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရး ၌ကိုယ္တုိင္ျဖစ္ေစ၊ လြတ္လပ္စြာေရြးခ်ယ္တင္ေျမွာက္ လုိက္သည့္ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္မ်ားမွတဆင့္ျဖစ္ေစ၊ ပါ၀င္ ေဆာင္ရြက္ႏုိင္ခြင့္ရွိသည္ဟူ၍ လည္းေကာင္း၊ အပိုဒ္ (၂၁) အပိုဒ္ခြဲ (၃) တြင္ ျပည္သူလူထု၏ ဆႏၵသည္ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ မႈအာဏာ၏ အေျခခံျဖစ္ရမည္။ အဆိုပါဆႏၵကို အခ်ိန္ကာလပိုင္းျခား၍ တရားမွ်တစြာ က်င္းပေသာ ေရြးေကာက္ ပြဲမ်ားျဖင့္ထင္ရွားေစရမည္။
ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲမ်ားတြင္လည္း လူတိုင္းအညီအမွ် မဲဆႏၵေပးပိုင္ခြင့္ရွိရမည့္အျပင္ ထုိေရြးေကာက္ပြဲမ်ားကို လွ်ဳိ႕၀ွက္မဲေပးစနစ္ ျဖင့္ျဖစ္ ေစ၊ အလားတူလြတ္လပ္ေသာမဲေပးစနစ္ျဖင့္ ျဖစ္ေစ က်င္းပရ မည္ ဟုေဖၚျပထားသည္။
လြတ္လပ္၍ တရားမွ်တေသာ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတရပ္ က်င္းပႏုိင္ရန္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲက်င္းပေရး ေကာ္မရွင္ ဥပေဒကိုပထမဦးစြာ ထုတ္ျပန္ေပးရမည္ျဖစ္သည္။သို႔ေသာ္န.အ.ဖစစ္အစိုးရအေနျဖင့္၁၉၈၈ခုႏွစ္၊ စက္တင္ဘာလ (၂၁)ရက္ေန႔တြင္ ထုတ္ျပန္ခဲ့သည့္ ပါတီစုံ ဒီမုိကေရစီ အေထြေထြေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ က်င္းပေရးေကာ္မရွင္ဥပေဒအရ ဖြဲ႔စည္းထားသည့္ ပါတီစုံအေထြေထြေရြး ေကာက္ ပြဲ က်င္းပေရး ေကာ္မရွင္ကိုလည္း ယေန႔ထက္တုိင္ေအာင္ ဖ်က္သိမ္းျခင္းမရွိေသးပါ။
ထို႔ေနာက္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ား မွတ္ပုံတင္ျခင္းဥပေဒ၊ နည္းဥပေဒမ်ားကို ျပဌာန္းေပးရမည္ျဖစ္သည္။
ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲဥပေဒ သည္ လြတ္လပ္၍ တရားမွ်တေသာ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတရပ္ က်င္း ပႏုိင္ေရးအတြက္ အေရး ႀကီးေသာအခန္းက႑မွ ပါ၀င္သည့္အားေလွ်ာ္စြာ ယင္းဥပေဒကိုေရးဆြဲရာတြင္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲက်င္းပေရး ေကာ္မရွင္အေနျဖင့္ ပထမဦးစြာ ဥပေဒမူၾကမ္းေရးဆြဲျခင္း၊ ယင္းဥပေဒမူၾကမ္းကို ႏိုင္ငံ ေတာ္သို႔ထုတ္ျပန္ေၾကျငာ၍ ျပည္သူလူထုႏွင့္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီ မ်ား ၏ သေဘာဆႏၵ အႀကံျပဳခ်က္မ်ားကို ေတာင္းခံ ရယူျခင္း၊ ထိုသေဘာဆႏၵ အႀကံျပဳခ်က္မ်ားကို အတတ္ႏုိင္ဆုံးညွိႏႈိင္းလ်က္ ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ဥပေဒ ကိုေရးဆြဲထုတ္ျပန္ျခင္း စသည့္အဆင့္မ်ားကို ျပဳလုပ္ၾကရမည္ျဖစ္သည္။
၅။ နအဖ စစ္အစိုးရ ႏွင့္ လက္ေအာက္ခံ အဖြဲ႕အစည္းမ်ား၏ လႈပ္ရွားေဆာင္ရြက္ေနမႈမ်ား
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေရွ႕ေနမ်ားေကာင္စီမွ ၂၀၀၉ ခုႏွစ္၊ ဧၿပီလ (၁၀) ရက္ေန႔တြင္ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ေအးခ်မ္းသာယာ ေရးႏွင့္ ဖြံ႔ၿဖိဳးေရးေကာင္စီ
၀န္ႀကီးမ်ား ကိုယ္တိုင္ အဂတိ္လုိက္စားမဲဆြယ္ စည္းရုံးေနမႈမ်ားကို ေၾကျငာခ်က္ ထုတ္ ျပန္ခဲ့ၿပီးျဖစ္သည္။ ထုိ႔ျပင္ န.အ.ဖ အုပ္ ခ်ဳပ္ေရး အဖြဲ႔အစည္းအဆင့္ဆင့္အေနျဖင့္ အစိုးရ (အၿငိမ္းစား) ၀န္ထမ္း မ်ားစာရင္း ကို ႀကိဳတင္ေကာက္ခံလ်က္ရွိျခင္း၊[1] မဲဆႏၵ ရွင္မ်ားစာရင္းကို ႀကိဳတင္ေကာက္ခံလ်က္ရွိျခင္း၊[2] ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ ကာကြယ္ေရးတကၠသိုလ္ ေက်ာင္းဆင္းတခ်ဳိ႕ ကို ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ တြင္ ၀င္ေရာက္အေရြးခ်ယ္ခံႏိုင္ရန္ႀကိဳတင္ျပင္ ဆင္မႈမ်ားျပဳလုပ္ေနျခင္း၊[3] ျပည္ေထာင္စုႀကံ့ခုိင္ေရးႏွင့္ ဖြံ႔ၿဖိဳးေရး အသင္းသည္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီတရပ္ သဖြယ္ မဲဆြယ္စည္းရုံးေနမႈမ်ား[4] တုိင္းရင္းသားစည္းလုံးညီညြတ္ေရးပါတီ၏ မဲဆြယ္စည္းရုံးေနမႈမ်ား၊[5] စသည္ တို႔အျပင္ န.အ.ဖ ၏ လုပ္ရပ္မ်ားကို ဆန္႔က်င္ျခင္းမရွိသည့္ တျခားေသာ ႏိုင္ငံေရးအင္အားစုမ်ား၏ မဲဆြယ္ စည္း ရုံးေန မႈမ်ား၊ စသည္တုိ႔ကို စစ္အစိုးရအေနျဖင့္ မသိက်ဳိးကၽြံျပဳ ခြင့္ျပဳလ်က္ရွိသည္။
၆။ ၁၉၉၀ ျပည့္ႏွစ္ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ အႏုိင္ရ ႏုိင္ငံေရးႏုိင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ား ၏ အေျခအေန
၁၉၉၀ ျပည့္ႏွစ္ ပါတီစုံဒီမိုကေရစီ အေထြေထြေရြးေကာက္ပြဲအႏိုင္ရ အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမုိကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္၏ တိုင္း/ျပည္နယ္ ရုံးခန္းမ်ား ႏွင့္ ၿမိဳ႕နယ္ရုံးခန္း မ်ားကို အေၾကာင္းျပခ်က္မရွိ ခ်ိတ္ပိတ္ထားျခင္းမွ ယေန႔ထက္တုိင္ ေအာင္ျပန္လည္ဖြင့္လွစ္ခြင့္မေပးေသး ျခင္း၊[6] ပါတီ၀င္အသီးသီးအေပၚ အာဏာပိုင္တို႔မွ ေႏွာင့္ယွက္ ဟန္႔တား ဖမ္း ဆီးႏွိပ္စက္ အက်ဥ္းခ်ထားျခင္းမ်ားကို ယေန႔ ထက္တုိင္ေအာင္ျပဳလုပ္က်ဴးလြန္လ်က္ရွိျခင္း၊ ၁၉၉၀ ျပည့္ ႏွစ္ ေရြး ေကာက္ပြဲအႏုိင္ရ တုိင္းရင္းသားႏုိင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ားကို ဖ်က္ သိမ္းထားသျဖင့္ ယေန႔ထက္တုိင္ေအာင္စည္းရုံး လႈပ္ ရွားခြင့္ မရရွိျခင္း၊ စသည္တို႔ ျဖစ္ေပၚလ်က္ရွိသည္။
၇။ လြတ္လပ္၍ တရားမွ်တေသာေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတရပ္က်င္းပႏိုင္ရန္အတြက္ ရွိရမည့္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးအေျခအေန
လြတ္လပ္၍ တရားမွ်တေသာေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတရပ္က်င္းပႏုိင္ရန္အတြက္ ႏုိင္ငံေရးတည္ၿငိမ္မႈ ရွိရန္ မျဖစ္ မေနလိုအပ္ပါသည္။ န.၀.တႏွင့္ န.အ.ဖ စစ္အစိုးရလက္ထက္တြင္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ၌ ႏုိင္ငံေရးတည္ၿငိမ္မႈမရွိေၾကာင္း ကိုေအာက္ပါ အေၾကာင္းအခ်င္းရာ မ်ားက ျပဆုိလ်က္ရွိသည္။
(က)ယေန႔ထက္တုိင္ေအာင္၊ဦးတင္ဦး၊ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္တို႔အားအိမ္အက်ယ္ခ်ဳပ္က်ျဖင့္ထိန္းသိမ္းထားျခင္းႏွင့္တုိင္းရင္း သားေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ား၊(၈၈)မ်ဳိးဆက္ေက်ာင္းသားေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ား၊ရဟန္းသံဃာ မ်ားအပါအ၀င္ႏုိင္ငံေရးအက်ဥ္းသား ေပါင္း (၂၀၀၀)ေက်ာ္၊ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံရွိအက်ဥ္းေထာင္အသီးသီးတြင္ႏွစ္ရွည္ေထာင္ဒဏ္ မ်ား ခ်မွတ္ခံထားရျခင္း၊[7]
(ခ) ျပည္သူလူထု၏ စား၀တ္ေနေရး အေထြေထြအၾကပ္အတည္းကုိ အေၾကာင္းျပဳ၍ ၂၀၀၇ စက္တင္ ဘာလတြင္ ရဟန္းရွင္လူ၊ လုပ္သားျပည္သူ သိန္းႏွင့္ခ်ီ၍ ခ်ီတက္လမ္းေလွ်ာက္ဆႏၵျပခဲ့ျခင္းႏွင့္ န.အ.ဖ စစ္ အစိုးရမွ အၾကမ္းဖက္ ပစ္ခတ္ ႏွိမ္နင္းခဲ့ျခင္း၊
(ဂ) ေအာက္ေျခတပ္မေတာ္သားမ်ားအတြင္း စား၀တ္ေနေရးျပည့္စုံျခင္းမရွိသျဖင့္ ဆႏၵျပေတာင္းဆုိမႈ မ်ား[8]၊ ေနာက္ဆက္တြဲ
ခမရ (၈၀) ႏွင့္ ေထာက္လွမ္းေရးတပ္ ခမရ (၅) တို႔၏ ပစ္ခတ္မႈမ်ား[9]
(ဃ) ဒုတိ္ယဗုိလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီးတင္ဦးလုပ္ႀကံခံရမႈႏွင့္ ဗုိလ္မွဴးေဟာင္း၀င္းႏုိင္ေက်ာ္ႏွင့္ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရး၀န္ႀကီး ဌာန ၀န္ထမ္းဦးသူရေက်ာ္
တို႔သည္ သတင္းလြတ္လပ္ခြင့္မရွိျခင္းေၾကာင့္ ႏုိင္ငံေတာ္လွ်ဳိ႕၀ွက္ခ်က္ေပါက္ၾကား သည္ဟူေသာအေၾကာင္းျပခ်က္ျဖင့္ ေသဒဏ္ ခ်မွတ္ခံရမႈမ်ား[10]
(င) တိုင္းရင္းသားလက္နက္ကိုင္တပ္ဖြဲ႔မ်ားႏွင့္ ယေန႔ထက္တိုင္ေအာင္ျမင္သာထင္ရွားေသာ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္း ေရး ရယူႏုိင္မႈ မရွိေသး သည့္အေျခအေနမ်ား
(စ) တေန႔တျခား ဆိုးရြားလ်က္ရွိေသာ ျပည္သူ႔ဘ၀ စား၀တ္ေနေရးအေျခအေနမ်ား
(ဆ) ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္ တရားဥပေဒစိုးမိုးမႈမရွိသည့္အေျခအေနမ်ား[11]
၈။ ဖ်က္သိမ္းရမည့္ ဥပေဒမ်ား
ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတရပ္မက်င္းပခင္ ႏိုင္ငံတကာ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးဥပေဒ၊ နိုင္ငံတကာဥပေဒႏွင့္ ဒီမိုကေရစီ စံခ်ိန္စံညႊန္းမ်ားႏွင့္ကိုက္ ညီျခင္းမရွိသည့္ ေအာက္ပါဥပေဒမ်ားကို ဖ်က္သိမ္းရမည္ျဖစ္သည္။
(က) ၁၉၅၀ ျပည့္ႏွစ္ အေရးေပၚစီမံမႈ အက္ဥပေဒ
(ခ) ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ၿငိမ္၀ပ္ပိျပားမႈတည္ေဆာက္ေရးအဖြဲ႔ ဥပေဒအမွတ္ ၆/၈၈
“ အသင္းအဖြဲ႔မ်ားဖြဲ႔စည္းျခင္းဆုိင္ရာဥပေဒ ”
(ဂ) ၁၉၇၅ ခုႏွစ္ “ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္အားေႏွာင့္ယွက္ဖ်က္ဆီးလိုသူမ်ား၏ ေဘးအႏၱရာယ္မွ ကာကြယ္ေစာင့္ ေရွာက္သည့္ဥပေဒ ”
(ဃ) ႏုိင္ငံေတာ္ၿငိမ္၀ပ္ပိျပားမႈတည္ေဆာက္ေရးအဖြဲ႔ ဥပေဒအမွတ္ - ၅/၉၆
“ ႏုိင္ငံေတာ္တာ၀န္ကို တည္ၿငိမ္ေအးခ်မ္းစြာ စနစ္တက်လႊဲေျပာင္းေပးေရးႏွင့္ အမ်ဳိးသားညီ လာခံ လုပ္ငန္းမ်ား ေအာင္ျမင္
စြာေဆာင္ရြက္ေရးတုိ႔ကို ေႏွာင့္ယွက္ဆန္႔က်င္ျခင္းမွ ကာကြယ္သည့္ဥပေဒ”
(င)န.၀.တဥပေဒအမွတ္-၉/၈၉“ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ပိုင္စီးပြားေရးလုပ္ငန္းမ်ားဥပေဒ”
(စ)၁၉၀၈ ခုႏွစ္ မတရားသင္း ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံဥပေဒမ်ားအတြဲ - ၂ မတရားသင္းႏွင့္ သက္ဆုိင္သည့္ ဥပေဒ ျပဌာန္းခ်က္မ်ား
(ဆ)၂၀၀၄ ခုႏွစ္၊ အီလက္ထေရာနစ္ဆက္သြယ္ေဆာင္ရြက္ေရးဥပေဒ
(ဇ) ၁၉၆၂ ခုႏွစ္၊ ပုံႏွိပ္သူမ်ားႏွင့္ ထုတ္ေ၀သူမ်ား မွတ္ပုံတင္ ဥပေဒႏွင့္ ယင္းဥပေဒကို ျပင္ဆင္သည့္ ဥပေဒ
(စ်) ၁၉၉၀ ျပည့္ႏွစ္ န.၀.တ ဥပေဒအမွတ္ ၂၀၊ သံဃာ့အဖြဲ႔အစည္းဆုိင္ရာဥပေဒ၊
(ည) ၁၉၉၆ ခုႏွစ္၊ န.၀.တ ဥပေဒအမွတ္ ၈ ၊ ရုပ္ျမင္သံၾကားႏွင့္ ဗီဒီယုိ ဥပေဒ
(ဋ) ၁၉၉၆ ခုႏွစ္၊ န.၀.တ ဥပေဒအမွတ္ ၉၊ ရုပ္ရွင္ဥပေဒ
(ဌ) ၁၉၉၆ ခုႏွစ္၊ န.၀.တ ဥပေဒအမွတ္ ၁၀ ၊ ကြန္ပ်ဴတာပညာဖြံ႕ၿဖိဳးေရး ဥပေဒ
(ဍ) ၂၀၀၈ ခုႏွစ္၊ ျပည္ေထာင္စု သမၼတ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ ဖြဲ႔စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပုံ အေျခခံဥပေဒ (မူၾကမ္း)
စသည့္ ဥပေဒမ်ားသည္ ဖ်က္သိမ္းရမည့္ဥပေဒမ်ားျဖစ္သည္။
၉။ ျမန္မာႏိုင္တြင္က်င့္သုံးလ်က္ရွိသည့္ မဲေပးစနစ္
ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတြင္မဲေပးသည္ဆိုျခင္းမွာ ျပည္သူလူထုအေနျဖင့္ သက္ဆုိင္ရာမဲဆႏၵနယ္ေျမအတြင္းတြင္ အမည္စာရင္းတင္သြင္းထားၾက
သည့္ကိုယ္စားလွယ္မ်ား၏ အရည္အခ်င္းကိုေသေသခ်ာခ်ာေလ့လာစိစစ္လ်က္ တိုင္းျပည္၏ အက်ဳိးစီးပြားတစုံတရာကို ထမ္းေဆာင္ႏိုင္မည့္
ကိုယ္စားလွယ္ေလာင္းမ်ားကို မဲေပးေရြးခ်ယ္ျခင္းပင္ ျဖစ္သည္။
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္ မဲမေပးလွ်င္မေနရ၊ မျဖစ္မေန မဲေပးရမည္ဆိုသည့္ ဥပေဒျပဌာန္းခ်က္မ်ဳိးမရွိပါ။ မဲဆႏၵ ရွင္မ်ားအေနျဖင့္ မိမိသေဘာ
ဆႏၵအရသာ မဲေပးလုိကေပးႏုိင္ခြင့္ရွိသည့္ စနစ္ကို က်င့္သုံးလ်က္ရွိသည္။
၁၀။ သုုံးသပ္ခ်က္
ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတစ္ရပ္၏ အဓိက ေက်ာရိုးမွာ “ လြတ္လပ္မႈ ႏွင့္ တရားမွ်တမႈ ” ပင္ျဖစ္သည္။ သို႔ေသာ္ န.အ.ဖ စစ္အစိုးရ၏ အထက္
ေဖၚျပပါလုပ္ရပ္မ်ားကို ႏႈိင္းယွဥ္ သုံးသပ္ပါက -
၂၀၁၀ ခုႏွစ္ အတြင္းတြင္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲက်င္းပျခင္းသည္ ပါ၀င္ယွဥ္ၿပိဳင္ၾကမည့္ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ားအတြက္ မဲဆြယ္စည္းရုံးရန္လုံ
ေလာက္ေသာ အခ်ိန္ကာလ ရရွိႏိုင္မည္မဟုတ္ပါ။ အဘယ့္ေၾကာင့္ဆိုေသာ္ ယေန႔ထိ တိုင္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲက်င္းပေရးေကာ္မရွင္ ဥပေဒ၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ားမွတ္ပုံတင္ျခင္းဥပေဒႏွင့္ ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲဥပေဒ ဥပေဒတုိ႔ကို ထုတ္ျပန္ေၾကျငာျခင္း မရွိပါ။
-အထက္ေဖၚျပပါ ဥပေဒမ်ားကို နည္းလမ္းမွန္ကန္စြာျဖင့္ ထုတ္ျပန္ေပးျခင္းမရွိေသးမီ အခ်ိန္ကတည္းက ပင္ န.အ.ဖ စစ္အစိုးရ ႏွင့္ လက္ေ၀ခံမ်ားက ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲအတြက္ လက္ဦးမႈရယူကာ ႀကိဳတင္ျပင္ဆင္မႈ မ်ားျပဳလုပ္လ်က္ မဲဆြယ္စည္းရုံးမႈမ်ား ျပဳလုပ္ေနၾကျခင္း၊
- စစ္မွန္ေသာ ဒီမိုကေရစီႏုိင္ငံတရပ္ ထူေထာင္ႏုိင္ေရးကို ဦးတည္လုပ္ေဆာင္ေနၾကသည့္ ၁၉၉၀ ျပည့္ ႏွစ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတြင္ အျပတ္အသတ္အႏုိင္ရရွိခဲ့ၾကေသာ အႏုိင္ရ အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမိုကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ႏွင့္ တုိင္းရင္း သားႏုိင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ားကိုမူ ယေန႔ထက္ တိုင္ေအာင္ အမ်ဳိးမ်ဳိးဖိႏွိပ္လ်က္ရွိျခင္း၊ထုိ႔ျပင္ န.အ.ဖ စစ္အစိုးရက က်င္းပမည့္၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတြင္ပါ၀င္ယွဥ္ၿပိဳင္ၾကမည့္ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္ မ်ားသည္ ေရြးခ်ယ္ခံရၿပီးေနာက္ပိုင္းတြင္ ၂၀၀၈ ဖြဲ႔စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပုံအေျခခံဥပေဒအရ သက္၀င္လႈပ္ရွားရမည့္ လႊတ္ေတာ္မ်ားသို႔ တက္ေရာက္ၾကရမည္ျဖစ္သည္။
တိုင္းျပည္ႏွင့္ျပည္သူ႔အက်ဳိးကို ထမ္းေဆာင္ၾကရမည္ဆိုျခင္း ထက္ စစ္အာဏာရွင္စနစ္ သက္ဆုိးရွည္တည္တံ့ေရးကိုသာ လုပ္ေဆာင္ၾကရမည္ျဖစ္သည္။
အထက္ေဖၚျပပါ အေၾကာင္းအခ်က္မ်ားအရ န.အ.ဖ စစ္အစိုးရ က်င္းပေပးမည္ဆုိသည့္ ၂၀၁၀ ေရြး ေကာက္ပြဲသည္ မက်င္းပမီ ကပင္“ လြတ္လပ္မႈ၊တရားမွ်တမႈ” မရွိေၾကာင္းႏွင့္ အားလုံးလႊမ္းၿခံဳပါ၀င္ႏုိင္မည့္ေရြး ေကာက္ပြဲမ်ဳိးမဟုတ္ပါ။
ထုိ႔ေၾကာင့္ ျမန္မာ့ျပည္သူလူထုအေနျဖင့္ ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတြင္ ပါ၀င္ယွဥ္ၿပိဳင္ၾကမည့္ န.အ.ဖ ၏ မည္သည့္ကိုယ္စား လွယ္ ကိုမွ မဲမေပးျခင္း၊ မဲရုံမ်ားသို႔သြားေရာက္မဲမထည့္ျခင္းအားျဖင့္ လူထုပါ၀င္ပတ္သတ္မႈ မရွိေသာမတရားသည့္ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲအျဖစ္ ထင္ရွားေစျခင္းအားျဖင့္ ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲကို ဆန္႔က်င္ၾကပါရန္ ႏွင့္ ကမၻာ့ကုလသမဂၢ အပါအ၀င္ ကမၻာ့ႏိုင္ငံအသီးသီးမွ လည္း အဆိုပါေရြးေကာက္ပြဲကို လုံး၀ အသိ အမွတ္မျပဳသင့္ပါေၾကာင္း တို႔ကို အေလးအနက္ပန္ၾကားလ်က္ သုံးသပ္ခ်က္ ထုတ္ ျပန္ အပ္ပါသည္။
၁၅.၁.၂၀၁၀
အေသးစိတ္သိရွိလိုပါလွ်င္ - ဥပေဒေရးရာသုံးသပ္ေရးဌာန
ဦးမ်ဳိး ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေရွ႕ေနမ်ားေကာင္စီ
တာ၀န္ခံ၊ ဥပေဒေရးရာသုံးသပ္ေရးဌာန၊ ဖုန္း - ၀၈၆၂၁၆၀၁၀၈
[1] ေခတ္ၿပိဳင္၊ ၅ ဇန္န၀ါရီ ၂၀၁၀
[2] 15.12.2009 RFA
[3] 16.10.2009 RFA
[4] 31.3.2009 BLC Statement
[5] 19.1.2009 RFA , 25.9.2009 ဧရာ၀တီ
[6] NLD ၏ထုတ္ျပန္ေၾကျငာခ်က္မ်ား
[7] AAPPB MONTHLY CHRONOLOGY DECEMBER 2009
[8] 24.12.2009 BLC Statement
[9] January 12, 2010 BBC Burmese News
[10] ၂၀၁၀ခုႏွစ္၊ ဇန္န၀ါရီလ (၁၁) ရက္ေန႔ ၊ ဦးစိန္လြင္ ႏွင့္ မဇၥ်ိမသတင္းဌာန အင္တာဗ်ဴး
[11] ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေရွ႕ေနမ်ားေကာင္စီ၏ တရားဥပေဒစိုးမိုးေရးဆုိင္ရာထုတ္ျပန္ေၾကျငာခ်က္မ်ား
http://www.hittai.org/main.htm
Thanks to Ko yeyintnge for reposting on http://www.yeyintnge.com/2010/01/blog-post_8429.html
၁။ အမ်ဳိးသားညီလာခံ ၊ ဖြဲ႔စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပုံအေျခခံဥပေဒ (မူၾကမ္း) ႏွင့္ လူထုဆႏၵခံယူပြဲတို႔ အေပၚျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေရွ႕ေနမ်ား ေကာင္စီ ၏ အျမင္သေဘာထား
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေရွ႕ေနမ်ားေကာင္စီသည္ န.အ.ဖ စစ္အစိုးရမွဦးစီးက်င္းပခဲ့သည့္ အမ်ဳိးသားညီလာခံႏွင့္ ယင္းညီလာခံမွ ထြက္ေပၚ လာေသာ ဖြဲ႕စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပုံအေျခခံဥပေဒေရးဆြဲရာတြင္ အေျခခံရမည့္မူမ်ား၌ ပါ၀င္ သည့္ ဒီမိုကေရစီ စံႏႈန္းမ်ားႏွင့္ ကိုက္ညီ ျခင္းမရွိသည့္ အခ်က္မ်ားကိုလည္းေကာင္း၊ န.အ.ဖ စစ္အစိုးရမွ ဖြဲ႕စည္း ေပးသည့္ ျပည္ေထာင္စုသမၼတ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ ဖြဲ႔ စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပုံအေျခခံ ဥပေဒ (မူၾကမ္း) ေရးဆြဲေရးေကာ္မရွင္ သည္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္ ခုိင္မာေတာင့္တင္း၍ အမ်ဳိးသားျပန္လည္ သင့္ျမတ္ေရးကိုျဖစ္ေပၚေစႏုိင္မည့္ ဖြဲ႔စည္းအုပ္ ခ်ဳပ္ပုံ အေျခခံဥပေဒတရပ္ကို ေရးဆြဲေပးႏိုင္မည့္ ေကာ္မရွင္မဟုတ္ေၾကာင္း ကို လည္းေကာင္း၊ ယင္းေကာ္မရွင္ မွ ေရးဆြဲလုိက္သည့္ ျပည္ေထာင္စု သမၼတ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ ဖြဲ႔စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပုံအေျခခံ ဥပေဒ (မူၾကမ္း) တြင္ပါ၀င္ သည့္ ဒီမိုကေရစီ စံႏႈန္းမ်ားႏွင့္ ကိုက္ညီျခင္းမရွိသည့္ ပုဒ္မ မ်ား ကိုလည္းေကာင္း၊ န.အ.ဖ စစ္အစိုးရမွ ဖြဲ႔စည္း ေပးသည့္ ဖြဲ႔စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပုံအေျခခံဥပေဒ (မူၾကမ္း) လူထုဆႏၵခံယူပြဲက်င္းပေရးေကာ္မရွင္ သည္ ႏိုင္ငံတကာ ဥပေဒ စံခ်ိန္စံညႊန္းမ်ားႏွင့္ ကိုက္ညီျခင္းမရွိေသာေၾကာင့္ လူထုဆႏၵခံယူပြဲကို လြတ္လပ္မွ်တစြာ က်င္းပေပးႏုိင္ မည္ မဟုတ္ေၾကာင္းကို လည္းေကာင္း၊ ၂၀၀၈ ခုႏွစ္ ေမလ တြင္က်င္းပျပဳလုပ္ခဲ့သည့္ လူထုဆႏၵခံယူပြဲသည္ လြတ္လပ္ျခင္း၊ တရားမွ်တျခင္း မရွိသျဖင့္ ျပည္သူလူထု၏ ဆႏၵအစစ္အမွန္ကို ကိုယ္စားျပဳႏိုင္မည္မဟုတ္ ေၾကာင္းကိုလည္းေကာင္း၊ အစဥ္တစိုက္ေလ့လာဆန္းစစ္လ်က္ ဆန္႔က်င္ကန္႔ကြက္ခဲ့ပါသည္။
၂။ ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲႏွင့္ စပ္လ်ဥ္း၍ နအဖ စစ္အစိုးရ၏ သေဘာထား
န.အ.ဖစစ္အစိုးရသည္၂၀၀၈ခုႏွစ္ ေမလတြင္ လူထုဆႏၵခံယူပြဲ မက်င္းပမီကပင္ ၂၀၀၈ခုႏွစ္၊ ေဖေဖၚ၀ါရီ လ (၉) ရက္ေန႔၌ ေၾက ျငာခ်က္အမွတ္ ၂/၂၀၀၈ ကိုထုတ္ျပန္၍ “ ၂၀၁၀ တြင္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ က်င္းပျပဳလုပ္မည္ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ” အတိအလင္း ထုတ္ျပန္ ေၾကျငာခဲ့သည္။
ထုိ႔ျပင္ န.အ.ဖ. ဥကၠဌ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္မွဴးႀကီးသန္းေရႊသည္ “၂၀၁၀ တြင္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲက်င္းပေပးမည္” ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္းကို ၂၀၀၉ ခုႏွစ္၊
ေအာက္တုိဘာလ (၉) ရက္ေန႔တြင္ က်င္းပသည့္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံစစ္မႈထမ္းေဟာင္းအဖြဲ႔ ညီလာခံ တြင္လည္းေကာင္း၊ ၂၀၀၉ ခုႏွစ္ ၊ ႏို၀င္ဘာလတြင္က်င္းပသည့္ ျပည္ေထာင္စုႀကံ့ခိုင္ေရးႏွင့္ ဖြံ႔ ၿဖိဳးေရးအသင္း၏ႏွစ္ပတ္လည္ အစည္းအေ၀းတြင္လည္းေကာင္း၊ (၆၂) ႏွစ္ေျမာက္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ လြတ္လပ္ေရးေန႔ သ၀ဏ္လႊာ တြင္ လည္းေကာင္း အႀကိမ္ႀကိမ္ ေျပာဆိုထားခဲ့ၿပီးျဖစ္သည္။
၃။ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ဥပေဒႏွင့္ စပ္လ်ဥ္း၍ နအဖ ၀န္ႀကီးခ်ဳပ္၏ ေျပာၾကားခ်က္
၂၀၀၉ ခုႏွစ္ ေအာက္တိုဘာလတြင္ ထိုင္းႏိုင္ငံ ေတာင္ပိုင္း ခ်ာ့အမ္းၿမိဳ႕ တြင္က်င္းပသည့္ (၁၅)ႀကိမ္ ေျမာက္ အာဆီယံထိပ္သီးညီ လာခံတြင္ န.အ.ဖ ၀န္ႀကီးခ်ဳပ္ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီး သိန္းစိန္က “ ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ဥပေဒကို မၾကာမီ ထုတ္ျပန္မည္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ” ႏိုင္ငံတကာေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ားအလယ္ တြင္ အတည္ျပဳေျပာဆုိခဲ့ သည္။ သို႔ေသာ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတရပ္ က်င္းပမည္ဆုိပါက မျဖစ္ မေနလိုအပ္သည့္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲက်င္းပေရး ေကာ္ မရွင္ဥပေဒ၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ား မွတ္ပုံတင္ျခင္း ဥပေဒ၊ ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ဥပေဒ စသည့္ ဥပေဒ မ်ားကို ယေန႔ထက္တုိင္ေအာင္ျပဌာန္း ႏိုင္ျခင္းမရွိေသးေပ။
၄။ လြတ္လပ္၍ တရားမွ်တေသာ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ တရပ္ က်င္းပႏုိင္ရန္ လုိအပ္သည့္ ဥပေဒအေျခခံ လုပ္ထုံးလုပ္နည္းမ်ား
လြတ္လပ္၍ တရားမွ်တေသာေရြးေကာက္ပြဲသည္ ဒီမုိကေရစီ၏ ေရေသာက္ျမစ္တခုျဖစ္သကဲ့သို႔ပင္ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးအေျခခံအ ခ်က္တရပ္လည္းျဖစ္ေၾကာင္းကို အျပည္ျပည္ဆုိင္ရာ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးေၾကျငာစာတမ္း အပိုဒ္ (၂၁) အပိုဒ္ခြဲ (၁) တြင္ တရားမွ်တ ေသာေရြးေကာက္ပြဲမ်ားမွတဆင့္ လူတုိင္းသည္ မိမိႏိုင္ငံ၏ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရး ၌ကိုယ္တုိင္ျဖစ္ေစ၊ လြတ္လပ္စြာေရြးခ်ယ္တင္ေျမွာက္ လုိက္သည့္ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္မ်ားမွတဆင့္ျဖစ္ေစ၊ ပါ၀င္ ေဆာင္ရြက္ႏုိင္ခြင့္ရွိသည္ဟူ၍ လည္းေကာင္း၊ အပိုဒ္ (၂၁) အပိုဒ္ခြဲ (၃) တြင္ ျပည္သူလူထု၏ ဆႏၵသည္ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ မႈအာဏာ၏ အေျခခံျဖစ္ရမည္။ အဆိုပါဆႏၵကို အခ်ိန္ကာလပိုင္းျခား၍ တရားမွ်တစြာ က်င္းပေသာ ေရြးေကာက္ ပြဲမ်ားျဖင့္ထင္ရွားေစရမည္။
ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲမ်ားတြင္လည္း လူတိုင္းအညီအမွ် မဲဆႏၵေပးပိုင္ခြင့္ရွိရမည့္အျပင္ ထုိေရြးေကာက္ပြဲမ်ားကို လွ်ဳိ႕၀ွက္မဲေပးစနစ္ ျဖင့္ျဖစ္ ေစ၊ အလားတူလြတ္လပ္ေသာမဲေပးစနစ္ျဖင့္ ျဖစ္ေစ က်င္းပရ မည္ ဟုေဖၚျပထားသည္။
လြတ္လပ္၍ တရားမွ်တေသာ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတရပ္ က်င္းပႏုိင္ရန္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲက်င္းပေရး ေကာ္မရွင္ ဥပေဒကိုပထမဦးစြာ ထုတ္ျပန္ေပးရမည္ျဖစ္သည္။သို႔ေသာ္န.အ.ဖစစ္အစိုးရအေနျဖင့္၁၉၈၈ခုႏွစ္၊ စက္တင္ဘာလ (၂၁)ရက္ေန႔တြင္ ထုတ္ျပန္ခဲ့သည့္ ပါတီစုံ ဒီမုိကေရစီ အေထြေထြေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ က်င္းပေရးေကာ္မရွင္ဥပေဒအရ ဖြဲ႔စည္းထားသည့္ ပါတီစုံအေထြေထြေရြး ေကာက္ ပြဲ က်င္းပေရး ေကာ္မရွင္ကိုလည္း ယေန႔ထက္တုိင္ေအာင္ ဖ်က္သိမ္းျခင္းမရွိေသးပါ။
ထို႔ေနာက္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ား မွတ္ပုံတင္ျခင္းဥပေဒ၊ နည္းဥပေဒမ်ားကို ျပဌာန္းေပးရမည္ျဖစ္သည္။
ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲဥပေဒ သည္ လြတ္လပ္၍ တရားမွ်တေသာ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတရပ္ က်င္း ပႏုိင္ေရးအတြက္ အေရး ႀကီးေသာအခန္းက႑မွ ပါ၀င္သည့္အားေလွ်ာ္စြာ ယင္းဥပေဒကိုေရးဆြဲရာတြင္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲက်င္းပေရး ေကာ္မရွင္အေနျဖင့္ ပထမဦးစြာ ဥပေဒမူၾကမ္းေရးဆြဲျခင္း၊ ယင္းဥပေဒမူၾကမ္းကို ႏိုင္ငံ ေတာ္သို႔ထုတ္ျပန္ေၾကျငာ၍ ျပည္သူလူထုႏွင့္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီ မ်ား ၏ သေဘာဆႏၵ အႀကံျပဳခ်က္မ်ားကို ေတာင္းခံ ရယူျခင္း၊ ထိုသေဘာဆႏၵ အႀကံျပဳခ်က္မ်ားကို အတတ္ႏုိင္ဆုံးညွိႏႈိင္းလ်က္ ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ဥပေဒ ကိုေရးဆြဲထုတ္ျပန္ျခင္း စသည့္အဆင့္မ်ားကို ျပဳလုပ္ၾကရမည္ျဖစ္သည္။
၅။ နအဖ စစ္အစိုးရ ႏွင့္ လက္ေအာက္ခံ အဖြဲ႕အစည္းမ်ား၏ လႈပ္ရွားေဆာင္ရြက္ေနမႈမ်ား
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေရွ႕ေနမ်ားေကာင္စီမွ ၂၀၀၉ ခုႏွစ္၊ ဧၿပီလ (၁၀) ရက္ေန႔တြင္ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ေအးခ်မ္းသာယာ ေရးႏွင့္ ဖြံ႔ၿဖိဳးေရးေကာင္စီ
၀န္ႀကီးမ်ား ကိုယ္တိုင္ အဂတိ္လုိက္စားမဲဆြယ္ စည္းရုံးေနမႈမ်ားကို ေၾကျငာခ်က္ ထုတ္ ျပန္ခဲ့ၿပီးျဖစ္သည္။ ထုိ႔ျပင္ န.အ.ဖ အုပ္ ခ်ဳပ္ေရး အဖြဲ႔အစည္းအဆင့္ဆင့္အေနျဖင့္ အစိုးရ (အၿငိမ္းစား) ၀န္ထမ္း မ်ားစာရင္း ကို ႀကိဳတင္ေကာက္ခံလ်က္ရွိျခင္း၊[1] မဲဆႏၵ ရွင္မ်ားစာရင္းကို ႀကိဳတင္ေကာက္ခံလ်က္ရွိျခင္း၊[2] ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ ကာကြယ္ေရးတကၠသိုလ္ ေက်ာင္းဆင္းတခ်ဳိ႕ ကို ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ တြင္ ၀င္ေရာက္အေရြးခ်ယ္ခံႏိုင္ရန္ႀကိဳတင္ျပင္ ဆင္မႈမ်ားျပဳလုပ္ေနျခင္း၊[3] ျပည္ေထာင္စုႀကံ့ခုိင္ေရးႏွင့္ ဖြံ႔ၿဖိဳးေရး အသင္းသည္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီတရပ္ သဖြယ္ မဲဆြယ္စည္းရုံးေနမႈမ်ား[4] တုိင္းရင္းသားစည္းလုံးညီညြတ္ေရးပါတီ၏ မဲဆြယ္စည္းရုံးေနမႈမ်ား၊[5] စသည္ တို႔အျပင္ န.အ.ဖ ၏ လုပ္ရပ္မ်ားကို ဆန္႔က်င္ျခင္းမရွိသည့္ တျခားေသာ ႏိုင္ငံေရးအင္အားစုမ်ား၏ မဲဆြယ္ စည္း ရုံးေန မႈမ်ား၊ စသည္တုိ႔ကို စစ္အစိုးရအေနျဖင့္ မသိက်ဳိးကၽြံျပဳ ခြင့္ျပဳလ်က္ရွိသည္။
၆။ ၁၉၉၀ ျပည့္ႏွစ္ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ အႏုိင္ရ ႏုိင္ငံေရးႏုိင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ား ၏ အေျခအေန
၁၉၉၀ ျပည့္ႏွစ္ ပါတီစုံဒီမိုကေရစီ အေထြေထြေရြးေကာက္ပြဲအႏိုင္ရ အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမုိကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္၏ တိုင္း/ျပည္နယ္ ရုံးခန္းမ်ား ႏွင့္ ၿမိဳ႕နယ္ရုံးခန္း မ်ားကို အေၾကာင္းျပခ်က္မရွိ ခ်ိတ္ပိတ္ထားျခင္းမွ ယေန႔ထက္တုိင္ ေအာင္ျပန္လည္ဖြင့္လွစ္ခြင့္မေပးေသး ျခင္း၊[6] ပါတီ၀င္အသီးသီးအေပၚ အာဏာပိုင္တို႔မွ ေႏွာင့္ယွက္ ဟန္႔တား ဖမ္း ဆီးႏွိပ္စက္ အက်ဥ္းခ်ထားျခင္းမ်ားကို ယေန႔ ထက္တုိင္ေအာင္ျပဳလုပ္က်ဴးလြန္လ်က္ရွိျခင္း၊ ၁၉၉၀ ျပည့္ ႏွစ္ ေရြး ေကာက္ပြဲအႏုိင္ရ တုိင္းရင္းသားႏုိင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ားကို ဖ်က္ သိမ္းထားသျဖင့္ ယေန႔ထက္တုိင္ေအာင္စည္းရုံး လႈပ္ ရွားခြင့္ မရရွိျခင္း၊ စသည္တို႔ ျဖစ္ေပၚလ်က္ရွိသည္။
၇။ လြတ္လပ္၍ တရားမွ်တေသာေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတရပ္က်င္းပႏိုင္ရန္အတြက္ ရွိရမည့္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးအေျခအေန
လြတ္လပ္၍ တရားမွ်တေသာေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတရပ္က်င္းပႏုိင္ရန္အတြက္ ႏုိင္ငံေရးတည္ၿငိမ္မႈ ရွိရန္ မျဖစ္ မေနလိုအပ္ပါသည္။ န.၀.တႏွင့္ န.အ.ဖ စစ္အစိုးရလက္ထက္တြင္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ၌ ႏုိင္ငံေရးတည္ၿငိမ္မႈမရွိေၾကာင္း ကိုေအာက္ပါ အေၾကာင္းအခ်င္းရာ မ်ားက ျပဆုိလ်က္ရွိသည္။
(က)ယေန႔ထက္တုိင္ေအာင္၊ဦးတင္ဦး၊ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္တို႔အားအိမ္အက်ယ္ခ်ဳပ္က်ျဖင့္ထိန္းသိမ္းထားျခင္းႏွင့္တုိင္းရင္း သားေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ား၊(၈၈)မ်ဳိးဆက္ေက်ာင္းသားေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ား၊ရဟန္းသံဃာ မ်ားအပါအ၀င္ႏုိင္ငံေရးအက်ဥ္းသား ေပါင္း (၂၀၀၀)ေက်ာ္၊ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံရွိအက်ဥ္းေထာင္အသီးသီးတြင္ႏွစ္ရွည္ေထာင္ဒဏ္ မ်ား ခ်မွတ္ခံထားရျခင္း၊[7]
(ခ) ျပည္သူလူထု၏ စား၀တ္ေနေရး အေထြေထြအၾကပ္အတည္းကုိ အေၾကာင္းျပဳ၍ ၂၀၀၇ စက္တင္ ဘာလတြင္ ရဟန္းရွင္လူ၊ လုပ္သားျပည္သူ သိန္းႏွင့္ခ်ီ၍ ခ်ီတက္လမ္းေလွ်ာက္ဆႏၵျပခဲ့ျခင္းႏွင့္ န.အ.ဖ စစ္ အစိုးရမွ အၾကမ္းဖက္ ပစ္ခတ္ ႏွိမ္နင္းခဲ့ျခင္း၊
(ဂ) ေအာက္ေျခတပ္မေတာ္သားမ်ားအတြင္း စား၀တ္ေနေရးျပည့္စုံျခင္းမရွိသျဖင့္ ဆႏၵျပေတာင္းဆုိမႈ မ်ား[8]၊ ေနာက္ဆက္တြဲ
ခမရ (၈၀) ႏွင့္ ေထာက္လွမ္းေရးတပ္ ခမရ (၅) တို႔၏ ပစ္ခတ္မႈမ်ား[9]
(ဃ) ဒုတိ္ယဗုိလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီးတင္ဦးလုပ္ႀကံခံရမႈႏွင့္ ဗုိလ္မွဴးေဟာင္း၀င္းႏုိင္ေက်ာ္ႏွင့္ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရး၀န္ႀကီး ဌာန ၀န္ထမ္းဦးသူရေက်ာ္
တို႔သည္ သတင္းလြတ္လပ္ခြင့္မရွိျခင္းေၾကာင့္ ႏုိင္ငံေတာ္လွ်ဳိ႕၀ွက္ခ်က္ေပါက္ၾကား သည္ဟူေသာအေၾကာင္းျပခ်က္ျဖင့္ ေသဒဏ္ ခ်မွတ္ခံရမႈမ်ား[10]
(င) တိုင္းရင္းသားလက္နက္ကိုင္တပ္ဖြဲ႔မ်ားႏွင့္ ယေန႔ထက္တိုင္ေအာင္ျမင္သာထင္ရွားေသာ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္း ေရး ရယူႏုိင္မႈ မရွိေသး သည့္အေျခအေနမ်ား
(စ) တေန႔တျခား ဆိုးရြားလ်က္ရွိေသာ ျပည္သူ႔ဘ၀ စား၀တ္ေနေရးအေျခအေနမ်ား
(ဆ) ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္ တရားဥပေဒစိုးမိုးမႈမရွိသည့္အေျခအေနမ်ား[11]
၈။ ဖ်က္သိမ္းရမည့္ ဥပေဒမ်ား
ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတရပ္မက်င္းပခင္ ႏိုင္ငံတကာ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးဥပေဒ၊ နိုင္ငံတကာဥပေဒႏွင့္ ဒီမိုကေရစီ စံခ်ိန္စံညႊန္းမ်ားႏွင့္ကိုက္ ညီျခင္းမရွိသည့္ ေအာက္ပါဥပေဒမ်ားကို ဖ်က္သိမ္းရမည္ျဖစ္သည္။
(က) ၁၉၅၀ ျပည့္ႏွစ္ အေရးေပၚစီမံမႈ အက္ဥပေဒ
(ခ) ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ၿငိမ္၀ပ္ပိျပားမႈတည္ေဆာက္ေရးအဖြဲ႔ ဥပေဒအမွတ္ ၆/၈၈
“ အသင္းအဖြဲ႔မ်ားဖြဲ႔စည္းျခင္းဆုိင္ရာဥပေဒ ”
(ဂ) ၁၉၇၅ ခုႏွစ္ “ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္အားေႏွာင့္ယွက္ဖ်က္ဆီးလိုသူမ်ား၏ ေဘးအႏၱရာယ္မွ ကာကြယ္ေစာင့္ ေရွာက္သည့္ဥပေဒ ”
(ဃ) ႏုိင္ငံေတာ္ၿငိမ္၀ပ္ပိျပားမႈတည္ေဆာက္ေရးအဖြဲ႔ ဥပေဒအမွတ္ - ၅/၉၆
“ ႏုိင္ငံေတာ္တာ၀န္ကို တည္ၿငိမ္ေအးခ်မ္းစြာ စနစ္တက်လႊဲေျပာင္းေပးေရးႏွင့္ အမ်ဳိးသားညီ လာခံ လုပ္ငန္းမ်ား ေအာင္ျမင္
စြာေဆာင္ရြက္ေရးတုိ႔ကို ေႏွာင့္ယွက္ဆန္႔က်င္ျခင္းမွ ကာကြယ္သည့္ဥပေဒ”
(င)န.၀.တဥပေဒအမွတ္-၉/၈၉“ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ပိုင္စီးပြားေရးလုပ္ငန္းမ်ားဥပေဒ”
(စ)၁၉၀၈ ခုႏွစ္ မတရားသင္း ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံဥပေဒမ်ားအတြဲ - ၂ မတရားသင္းႏွင့္ သက္ဆုိင္သည့္ ဥပေဒ ျပဌာန္းခ်က္မ်ား
(ဆ)၂၀၀၄ ခုႏွစ္၊ အီလက္ထေရာနစ္ဆက္သြယ္ေဆာင္ရြက္ေရးဥပေဒ
(ဇ) ၁၉၆၂ ခုႏွစ္၊ ပုံႏွိပ္သူမ်ားႏွင့္ ထုတ္ေ၀သူမ်ား မွတ္ပုံတင္ ဥပေဒႏွင့္ ယင္းဥပေဒကို ျပင္ဆင္သည့္ ဥပေဒ
(စ်) ၁၉၉၀ ျပည့္ႏွစ္ န.၀.တ ဥပေဒအမွတ္ ၂၀၊ သံဃာ့အဖြဲ႔အစည္းဆုိင္ရာဥပေဒ၊
(ည) ၁၉၉၆ ခုႏွစ္၊ န.၀.တ ဥပေဒအမွတ္ ၈ ၊ ရုပ္ျမင္သံၾကားႏွင့္ ဗီဒီယုိ ဥပေဒ
(ဋ) ၁၉၉၆ ခုႏွစ္၊ န.၀.တ ဥပေဒအမွတ္ ၉၊ ရုပ္ရွင္ဥပေဒ
(ဌ) ၁၉၉၆ ခုႏွစ္၊ န.၀.တ ဥပေဒအမွတ္ ၁၀ ၊ ကြန္ပ်ဴတာပညာဖြံ႕ၿဖိဳးေရး ဥပေဒ
(ဍ) ၂၀၀၈ ခုႏွစ္၊ ျပည္ေထာင္စု သမၼတ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ ဖြဲ႔စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပုံ အေျခခံဥပေဒ (မူၾကမ္း)
စသည့္ ဥပေဒမ်ားသည္ ဖ်က္သိမ္းရမည့္ဥပေဒမ်ားျဖစ္သည္။
၉။ ျမန္မာႏိုင္တြင္က်င့္သုံးလ်က္ရွိသည့္ မဲေပးစနစ္
ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတြင္မဲေပးသည္ဆိုျခင္းမွာ ျပည္သူလူထုအေနျဖင့္ သက္ဆုိင္ရာမဲဆႏၵနယ္ေျမအတြင္းတြင္ အမည္စာရင္းတင္သြင္းထားၾက
သည့္ကိုယ္စားလွယ္မ်ား၏ အရည္အခ်င္းကိုေသေသခ်ာခ်ာေလ့လာစိစစ္လ်က္ တိုင္းျပည္၏ အက်ဳိးစီးပြားတစုံတရာကို ထမ္းေဆာင္ႏိုင္မည့္
ကိုယ္စားလွယ္ေလာင္းမ်ားကို မဲေပးေရြးခ်ယ္ျခင္းပင္ ျဖစ္သည္။
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္ မဲမေပးလွ်င္မေနရ၊ မျဖစ္မေန မဲေပးရမည္ဆိုသည့္ ဥပေဒျပဌာန္းခ်က္မ်ဳိးမရွိပါ။ မဲဆႏၵ ရွင္မ်ားအေနျဖင့္ မိမိသေဘာ
ဆႏၵအရသာ မဲေပးလုိကေပးႏုိင္ခြင့္ရွိသည့္ စနစ္ကို က်င့္သုံးလ်က္ရွိသည္။
၁၀။ သုုံးသပ္ခ်က္
ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတစ္ရပ္၏ အဓိက ေက်ာရိုးမွာ “ လြတ္လပ္မႈ ႏွင့္ တရားမွ်တမႈ ” ပင္ျဖစ္သည္။ သို႔ေသာ္ န.အ.ဖ စစ္အစိုးရ၏ အထက္
ေဖၚျပပါလုပ္ရပ္မ်ားကို ႏႈိင္းယွဥ္ သုံးသပ္ပါက -
၂၀၁၀ ခုႏွစ္ အတြင္းတြင္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲက်င္းပျခင္းသည္ ပါ၀င္ယွဥ္ၿပိဳင္ၾကမည့္ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ားအတြက္ မဲဆြယ္စည္းရုံးရန္လုံ
ေလာက္ေသာ အခ်ိန္ကာလ ရရွိႏိုင္မည္မဟုတ္ပါ။ အဘယ့္ေၾကာင့္ဆိုေသာ္ ယေန႔ထိ တိုင္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲက်င္းပေရးေကာ္မရွင္ ဥပေဒ၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ားမွတ္ပုံတင္ျခင္းဥပေဒႏွင့္ ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲဥပေဒ ဥပေဒတုိ႔ကို ထုတ္ျပန္ေၾကျငာျခင္း မရွိပါ။
-အထက္ေဖၚျပပါ ဥပေဒမ်ားကို နည္းလမ္းမွန္ကန္စြာျဖင့္ ထုတ္ျပန္ေပးျခင္းမရွိေသးမီ အခ်ိန္ကတည္းက ပင္ န.အ.ဖ စစ္အစိုးရ ႏွင့္ လက္ေ၀ခံမ်ားက ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲအတြက္ လက္ဦးမႈရယူကာ ႀကိဳတင္ျပင္ဆင္မႈ မ်ားျပဳလုပ္လ်က္ မဲဆြယ္စည္းရုံးမႈမ်ား ျပဳလုပ္ေနၾကျခင္း၊
- စစ္မွန္ေသာ ဒီမိုကေရစီႏုိင္ငံတရပ္ ထူေထာင္ႏုိင္ေရးကို ဦးတည္လုပ္ေဆာင္ေနၾကသည့္ ၁၉၉၀ ျပည့္ ႏွစ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတြင္ အျပတ္အသတ္အႏုိင္ရရွိခဲ့ၾကေသာ အႏုိင္ရ အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမိုကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ႏွင့္ တုိင္းရင္း သားႏုိင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ားကိုမူ ယေန႔ထက္ တိုင္ေအာင္ အမ်ဳိးမ်ဳိးဖိႏွိပ္လ်က္ရွိျခင္း၊ထုိ႔ျပင္ န.အ.ဖ စစ္အစိုးရက က်င္းပမည့္၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတြင္ပါ၀င္ယွဥ္ၿပိဳင္ၾကမည့္ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္ မ်ားသည္ ေရြးခ်ယ္ခံရၿပီးေနာက္ပိုင္းတြင္ ၂၀၀၈ ဖြဲ႔စည္းအုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ပုံအေျခခံဥပေဒအရ သက္၀င္လႈပ္ရွားရမည့္ လႊတ္ေတာ္မ်ားသို႔ တက္ေရာက္ၾကရမည္ျဖစ္သည္။
တိုင္းျပည္ႏွင့္ျပည္သူ႔အက်ဳိးကို ထမ္းေဆာင္ၾကရမည္ဆိုျခင္း ထက္ စစ္အာဏာရွင္စနစ္ သက္ဆုိးရွည္တည္တံ့ေရးကိုသာ လုပ္ေဆာင္ၾကရမည္ျဖစ္သည္။
အထက္ေဖၚျပပါ အေၾကာင္းအခ်က္မ်ားအရ န.အ.ဖ စစ္အစိုးရ က်င္းပေပးမည္ဆုိသည့္ ၂၀၁၀ ေရြး ေကာက္ပြဲသည္ မက်င္းပမီ ကပင္“ လြတ္လပ္မႈ၊တရားမွ်တမႈ” မရွိေၾကာင္းႏွင့္ အားလုံးလႊမ္းၿခံဳပါ၀င္ႏုိင္မည့္ေရြး ေကာက္ပြဲမ်ဳိးမဟုတ္ပါ။
ထုိ႔ေၾကာင့္ ျမန္မာ့ျပည္သူလူထုအေနျဖင့္ ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတြင္ ပါ၀င္ယွဥ္ၿပိဳင္ၾကမည့္ န.အ.ဖ ၏ မည္သည့္ကိုယ္စား လွယ္ ကိုမွ မဲမေပးျခင္း၊ မဲရုံမ်ားသို႔သြားေရာက္မဲမထည့္ျခင္းအားျဖင့္ လူထုပါ၀င္ပတ္သတ္မႈ မရွိေသာမတရားသည့္ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲအျဖစ္ ထင္ရွားေစျခင္းအားျဖင့္ ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲကို ဆန္႔က်င္ၾကပါရန္ ႏွင့္ ကမၻာ့ကုလသမဂၢ အပါအ၀င္ ကမၻာ့ႏိုင္ငံအသီးသီးမွ လည္း အဆိုပါေရြးေကာက္ပြဲကို လုံး၀ အသိ အမွတ္မျပဳသင့္ပါေၾကာင္း တို႔ကို အေလးအနက္ပန္ၾကားလ်က္ သုံးသပ္ခ်က္ ထုတ္ ျပန္ အပ္ပါသည္။
၁၅.၁.၂၀၁၀
အေသးစိတ္သိရွိလိုပါလွ်င္ - ဥပေဒေရးရာသုံးသပ္ေရးဌာန
ဦးမ်ဳိး ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေရွ႕ေနမ်ားေကာင္စီ
တာ၀န္ခံ၊ ဥပေဒေရးရာသုံးသပ္ေရးဌာန၊ ဖုန္း - ၀၈၆၂၁၆၀၁၀၈
[1] ေခတ္ၿပိဳင္၊ ၅ ဇန္န၀ါရီ ၂၀၁၀
[2] 15.12.2009 RFA
[3] 16.10.2009 RFA
[4] 31.3.2009 BLC Statement
[5] 19.1.2009 RFA , 25.9.2009 ဧရာ၀တီ
[6] NLD ၏ထုတ္ျပန္ေၾကျငာခ်က္မ်ား
[7] AAPPB MONTHLY CHRONOLOGY DECEMBER 2009
[8] 24.12.2009 BLC Statement
[9] January 12, 2010 BBC Burmese News
[10] ၂၀၁၀ခုႏွစ္၊ ဇန္န၀ါရီလ (၁၁) ရက္ေန႔ ၊ ဦးစိန္လြင္ ႏွင့္ မဇၥ်ိမသတင္းဌာန အင္တာဗ်ဴး
[11] ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံေရွ႕ေနမ်ားေကာင္စီ၏ တရားဥပေဒစိုးမိုးေရးဆုိင္ရာထုတ္ျပန္ေၾကျငာခ်က္မ်ား
http://www.hittai.org/main.htm
Thanks to Ko yeyintnge for reposting on http://www.yeyintnge.com/2010/01/blog-post_8429.html
Dhamma Speech by Sayadaw U Nyanissara in 1988
Thanks to Ko nick nay man-http://www.niknayman-niknayman.co.cc/
Thanks to Ko nick nay man-http://www.niknayman-niknayman.co.cc/
British Government: As long as the elections are contested on the current constitution, whatever the outcome they cannot be recognised by the internat
British Government: As long as the elections are contested on the current constitution, whatever the outcome they cannot be recognised by the international community
01 February 2010
Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) today welcomes the British Government stands on Burmese junta’s 2008 constitution and planned 2010 election.
Written in the Hansard, Mr. Ivan Lewis, the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that “The constitution that underpins the election is deeply flawed. It is designed to perpetuate military rule in Burma. As long as the elections are contested on the current constitution, whatever the outcome they cannot be recognised by the international community.” And he went on saying that “It must be clear that without the release of political prisoners and a commitment to an inclusive process in respect of opposition and ethnic groups, the forthcoming elections in Burma will not be recognised by the international community-indeed, they will be entirely illegitimate.”
Mr. Lewis said that “We continue to call for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. We have made it clear that the elections cannot be credible if political prisoners are not free and able to engage in an inclusive process. We have lobbied China, India and Association of South East Nations members to recognise that only free and fair elections will lead to a stable and secure Burma. We support the UN Secretary-General's continued engagement. Tough EU sanctions will remain in place in the absence of any progress. It is equally important that the entire international community gives a united response to any election outcome. If there were any suggestion that some members of the international community attempted in any way to legitimise that outcome, that would be very dangerous in terms of strengthening the regime. What we seek to achieve is maximum unity of response on the basis that the election will be fought on a flawed constitution.”
Myo Thein, the Director at the Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) said, “We are very glad to learn British Government’s clear stand on democratisation of Burma and significantly they do not playing into the junta’s illegal 2010 election. We hope that other democratic countries around the world would follow the lead of British Government listening to the genuine voices of people of Burma.”
Junta plotted the ploy and imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi which is tantamount to turning back on dialogue and ultimately national reconciliation.
With reference to United Nations’ responsibility on democratisation of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi said that “United Nations should demand the military regime to do national reconciliation first before holding the 2010 election. Otherwise the elections will be illegal, unjust and lack of credibility if it is held before facilitating to take place the national reconciliation”.
A tremendous responsibility rests upon the United Nations Organization to a far better end, and we are looking for a more positive and bolder lead of the United Nations as military regime is trying to nullify the results of the 1990 elections by planning to hold sham election in 2010 even though National League for Democracy (NLD) clearly stated their position in the “Shwe-Gone-Dine” declaration that need to place in order to have genuine national reconciliation in Burma.
Khin Maung Win, the Director at the Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) said, “The vital issue here is that 1990 election results are still yet to be honoured and the planned elections will be held in accord with 2008 constitution. The essence of the 2008 Constitution is to guarantee impunity indefinitely and the 2010 election will implement it. Moreover, it is systematically designed to entrench military rule in Burma.”
U Tint Swe Thi Ha, the Patron at the Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) said, “As long as military regime is in power in one form or another, Burma will not be a peaceful state and moreover it will threaten regional stability leading to destabilizing of peace in the world at large since junta has the ambition of possessing nuclear weapons.”
Daw Khin Aye Aye Mar, the Patron at the Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) said, “In addition, the suffering of people of Burma will be never-ending since junta will always extinguish democratic principles and ethnics’ rights with brutal force in order to hold on power. The free and democratic world has a moral responsibility to intervene on behalf of humanity. We want to build democratic Burma prevailing peace, prosperity and progress in the country where everyone can enjoy the freedom of speech, press, beliefs, assembly and rule of law that emphasizes the protection of individual rights.”
For more information please contact Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) at;
Myo Thein 00-44-787-788-2386
Khin Maung Win 00-1-941-961-2622
U Tint Swe Thi Ha 00-1-509-582-3261
Daw Khin Aye Aye Mar 00-1-509-586-8309
Notes to Editor:
1. Burma Constitutional Conference was held in UK, London on 19/20 December 2009 organised by Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) and FBE-UK attended by delegates based in UK
http://www.youtube.com/user/bdcburma#p/u/6/8uuqPLAkKGU
2. Burma Constitutional Conference unanimously adopted the working strategy resolution
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25605089/Burma-Constitutional-Conference-Working-Strategy-Resolution
3. Burmese delegation from NLD-LA-UK, Burma Lawyers’ Council, Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) and Women of Burma (UK) met with FCO officials on 21 December 2009 in order to explain current situation of Burma, the importance of 1990 election results, junta’s 2008 constitution, and planned 2010 election after the Burma Constitutional Conference
4. Gordon Brown has sent a letter to Aung San Suu Kyi on 30 Dec 2009 by saying that “If the scheduled elections proceed under a rigged constitution, with opposition leaders excluded and with no international oversight, the military rulers will be condemning Burma to more years of diplomatic isolation and economic stagnation”
http://www.bdcburma.org/NewsDetails.asp?id=550
5. Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) launched “Yes We Can” Campaign on 4th January 2010 in order to speed up to implement 1990 election result in Burma, to change junta’s sham 2008 constitution and to Boycott junta’s planned sham 2010 election
http://www.bdcburma.org/Statements.asp?Id=71
6. Hansard (the Official Report) is the edited verbatim report of proceedings in both Houses. It is an edited record of what was said in the British Parliament
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmhansrd/cm100119/debtext/100119-0002.htm#10011957001031
7. Global Action for Burma (GAB), the coalition of 141 Burmese democratic and ethnics organisations around the world based inside and outside Burma working collectively together to bring about genuine democracy, human rights and rule of law in Burma, on 26 January 2010 call for United Nations Security Council to declare junta’s 2008 constitution as NULL & VOID
http://www.bdcburma.org/Statements.asp?Id=72
8. 14th Forum of Burmese in Europe was held in Germany, Frankfurt on 16/17 January 2010 attended by Burmese delegates from around the Europe. The FBE conference adopted the Burma Constitutional Conference working strategy resolution unanimously
9. Foreign office minister Bill Rammel said on 01 May 2009 that “The regime has pressed ahead with its flawed roadmap process, which looks set to bring about elections in 2010 that entrench military rule”
http://www.bdcburma.org/Statements.asp?Id=44
10. Aung San Suu Kyi said on 24 July 2009 that “United Nations should demand the military regime to do national reconciliation first before holding the 2010 election. Otherwise it will be illegal, unjust and lack of credibility if it is held before facilitating to take place the national reconciliation”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIcwVs7XJwc
01 February 2010
Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) today welcomes the British Government stands on Burmese junta’s 2008 constitution and planned 2010 election.
Written in the Hansard, Mr. Ivan Lewis, the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that “The constitution that underpins the election is deeply flawed. It is designed to perpetuate military rule in Burma. As long as the elections are contested on the current constitution, whatever the outcome they cannot be recognised by the international community.” And he went on saying that “It must be clear that without the release of political prisoners and a commitment to an inclusive process in respect of opposition and ethnic groups, the forthcoming elections in Burma will not be recognised by the international community-indeed, they will be entirely illegitimate.”
Mr. Lewis said that “We continue to call for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. We have made it clear that the elections cannot be credible if political prisoners are not free and able to engage in an inclusive process. We have lobbied China, India and Association of South East Nations members to recognise that only free and fair elections will lead to a stable and secure Burma. We support the UN Secretary-General's continued engagement. Tough EU sanctions will remain in place in the absence of any progress. It is equally important that the entire international community gives a united response to any election outcome. If there were any suggestion that some members of the international community attempted in any way to legitimise that outcome, that would be very dangerous in terms of strengthening the regime. What we seek to achieve is maximum unity of response on the basis that the election will be fought on a flawed constitution.”
Myo Thein, the Director at the Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) said, “We are very glad to learn British Government’s clear stand on democratisation of Burma and significantly they do not playing into the junta’s illegal 2010 election. We hope that other democratic countries around the world would follow the lead of British Government listening to the genuine voices of people of Burma.”
Junta plotted the ploy and imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi which is tantamount to turning back on dialogue and ultimately national reconciliation.
With reference to United Nations’ responsibility on democratisation of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi said that “United Nations should demand the military regime to do national reconciliation first before holding the 2010 election. Otherwise the elections will be illegal, unjust and lack of credibility if it is held before facilitating to take place the national reconciliation”.
A tremendous responsibility rests upon the United Nations Organization to a far better end, and we are looking for a more positive and bolder lead of the United Nations as military regime is trying to nullify the results of the 1990 elections by planning to hold sham election in 2010 even though National League for Democracy (NLD) clearly stated their position in the “Shwe-Gone-Dine” declaration that need to place in order to have genuine national reconciliation in Burma.
Khin Maung Win, the Director at the Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) said, “The vital issue here is that 1990 election results are still yet to be honoured and the planned elections will be held in accord with 2008 constitution. The essence of the 2008 Constitution is to guarantee impunity indefinitely and the 2010 election will implement it. Moreover, it is systematically designed to entrench military rule in Burma.”
U Tint Swe Thi Ha, the Patron at the Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) said, “As long as military regime is in power in one form or another, Burma will not be a peaceful state and moreover it will threaten regional stability leading to destabilizing of peace in the world at large since junta has the ambition of possessing nuclear weapons.”
Daw Khin Aye Aye Mar, the Patron at the Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) said, “In addition, the suffering of people of Burma will be never-ending since junta will always extinguish democratic principles and ethnics’ rights with brutal force in order to hold on power. The free and democratic world has a moral responsibility to intervene on behalf of humanity. We want to build democratic Burma prevailing peace, prosperity and progress in the country where everyone can enjoy the freedom of speech, press, beliefs, assembly and rule of law that emphasizes the protection of individual rights.”
For more information please contact Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) at;
Myo Thein 00-44-787-788-2386
Khin Maung Win 00-1-941-961-2622
U Tint Swe Thi Ha 00-1-509-582-3261
Daw Khin Aye Aye Mar 00-1-509-586-8309
Notes to Editor:
1. Burma Constitutional Conference was held in UK, London on 19/20 December 2009 organised by Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) and FBE-UK attended by delegates based in UK
http://www.youtube.com/user/bdcburma#p/u/6/8uuqPLAkKGU
2. Burma Constitutional Conference unanimously adopted the working strategy resolution
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25605089/Burma-Constitutional-Conference-Working-Strategy-Resolution
3. Burmese delegation from NLD-LA-UK, Burma Lawyers’ Council, Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) and Women of Burma (UK) met with FCO officials on 21 December 2009 in order to explain current situation of Burma, the importance of 1990 election results, junta’s 2008 constitution, and planned 2010 election after the Burma Constitutional Conference
4. Gordon Brown has sent a letter to Aung San Suu Kyi on 30 Dec 2009 by saying that “If the scheduled elections proceed under a rigged constitution, with opposition leaders excluded and with no international oversight, the military rulers will be condemning Burma to more years of diplomatic isolation and economic stagnation”
http://www.bdcburma.org/NewsDetails.asp?id=550
5. Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) launched “Yes We Can” Campaign on 4th January 2010 in order to speed up to implement 1990 election result in Burma, to change junta’s sham 2008 constitution and to Boycott junta’s planned sham 2010 election
http://www.bdcburma.org/Statements.asp?Id=71
6. Hansard (the Official Report) is the edited verbatim report of proceedings in both Houses. It is an edited record of what was said in the British Parliament
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmhansrd/cm100119/debtext/100119-0002.htm#10011957001031
7. Global Action for Burma (GAB), the coalition of 141 Burmese democratic and ethnics organisations around the world based inside and outside Burma working collectively together to bring about genuine democracy, human rights and rule of law in Burma, on 26 January 2010 call for United Nations Security Council to declare junta’s 2008 constitution as NULL & VOID
http://www.bdcburma.org/Statements.asp?Id=72
8. 14th Forum of Burmese in Europe was held in Germany, Frankfurt on 16/17 January 2010 attended by Burmese delegates from around the Europe. The FBE conference adopted the Burma Constitutional Conference working strategy resolution unanimously
9. Foreign office minister Bill Rammel said on 01 May 2009 that “The regime has pressed ahead with its flawed roadmap process, which looks set to bring about elections in 2010 that entrench military rule”
http://www.bdcburma.org/Statements.asp?Id=44
10. Aung San Suu Kyi said on 24 July 2009 that “United Nations should demand the military regime to do national reconciliation first before holding the 2010 election. Otherwise it will be illegal, unjust and lack of credibility if it is held before facilitating to take place the national reconciliation”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIcwVs7XJwc
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